W^e; TXn^/^^
 
 CORNISH DIAMONDS.
 
 CORNISH 
 
 DIAMONDS 
 
 BY 
 
 Elizabeth Godfrey, 
 
 Author of 
 '''Twixt Wood and Sea? 
 
 In Two Volumes. 
 Vol. I. 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 RICHARD BENTLEY & SON, 
 
 PUBLISHERS IN ORDINARY 
 TO HER MAJESTY the QUEEN. 
 
 1895. 
 
 (All rights reserved.)
 
 
 ^ BOOK I 
 
 " There is sweet music here that softer falls 
 • Than petals from blown roses on the grass, 
 
 Or night-dews on still waters between walls 
 
 Of shadowy granite, in a gleaming pass ; 
 
 Music that gentlier on the spirit lies, 
 ' Than tired eyelids upon tired eyes ; 
 
 Music that brings sweet sleep down from the blissful skies. 
 
 Here are cool mosses deep, 
 
 And through the moss the ivies creep, 
 ■ And in the stream the long-leaved flowers weep. 
 
 And from the craggy ledge the poppy hangs in sleep. 
 ***** ♦ 
 
 Only to hear and see the far-off sparkling brine, 
 
 Only to hear were sweet, stretched out beneath the pine." 
 
 T/ie Loios Eaters. 
 
 ~3 
 
 ,/ VOL. I.
 
 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 
 
 CHAPTER L 
 
 ELL, I call Westcreek simply a fraud. May 
 I ask whether you propose to paint the 
 two dissenting chapels, or Marine Terrace, or per- 
 haps a study of smart young women going to 
 bathe ? I suppose there is not a coach out of the 
 blessed hole till to-morrow morning ? " 
 
 The speaker was lounging against the window- 
 frame of the little seaside lodging, his hands thrust 
 deep into the pockets of his loose Norfolk suit, his 
 discontented eyes following the row of common- 
 place, bran-new houses that adorned the inner slope 
 of the headland facing him, with their nauseating 
 repetition of mean lines spoiling the fair outline of 
 the hill. He was a small man, so slightly built and 
 beardless that at a first glance he might be taken 
 for a lad of eighteen ; only a second look at the 
 keen, clever face, and the curve of the thin, sar- 
 castic mouth, revealed that he was probably nearer
 
 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 
 
 thirty than twenty. Not by any means good- 
 looking, rather the reverse, though the long upper 
 lip, which usually gives such a wooden look to the 
 countenance, was in him curiously mobile and 
 expressive. 
 
 The girl who sat near him, busy with needle- 
 work, lifted a pair of pretty, troubled blue eyes as 
 she answered — 
 
 " Oh, Mr. Kay, I am so sorry we persuaded you 
 to come. The poor little place is certainly wofully 
 spoilt since we were here. Did we rave about it 
 very much ? " 
 
 He half smiled. " No, I don't know that you 
 did ; only I have been feeling that it was time 
 somebody broke new ground. And I don't know 
 why, but I had pictured this as a sort of St. Ives 
 without the beastly railway." 
 
 " It is a pity there is no ' beastly railway ' here," 
 she said, with a twinkle that supplied quotation 
 marks, " for then you might have made your 
 escape ; but we must see what we can do to make 
 life endurable till to-morrow." 
 
 There was a third occupant in the room ; a pale 
 man with a reddish pointed beard, stooping over a 
 study in black and white in the other window. It 
 was to the back of his head that Kay's first ques- 
 tion had been addressed. He spoke now without 
 turning, or pausing in the movements of his fine pen — 
 
 " Never mind him, Muriel ; he is in a bad temper. 
 If he is cross we won't take him over to Kerranstow 
 to the harvest festival this evening."
 
 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 5 
 
 " Harvest festival ! Good Lord ! I hope not. I 
 don't appreciate parochial festivities, and I should 
 not have thought you did either." 
 
 " All right ; don't go if you would rather not. 
 But you won't mind our leaving you ? I ordered 
 the trap at half-past two. Muriel, go and put on 
 your prettiest gown, and be sure you don't forget 
 to take a fur cloak, for we will stay to supper ; and 
 it is certain to be cold driving back." 
 
 The artist's wife stood up and began to roll up 
 her embroidery, not without a deprecating look at 
 her surly friend. She was a pretty creature, whose 
 fair face, with its auriole of red-gold hair, smiled 
 down from the walls of the Academy and New 
 Gallery in different guise according to the inter- 
 pretation of her husband and her husband's friends, 
 for she was a most generous sitter. 
 
 " Poor Mr. Kay ! " she said, as she left the room. 
 ^' I hope you have got a plentiful supply of French 
 novels, and then you will manage to survive till we 
 get back ; or, at the worst, you can go to bed." 
 
 Nevertheless, when the dogcart came round, 
 Kay presented himself, with the remark that he 
 supposed he might as well go as not, and see what 
 was to be seen. 
 
 "What does the entertainment consist of.?" he 
 inquired of Muriel, presently, twisting himself round 
 on the back seat. 
 
 " First there is a big tea in the tithe-barn," she 
 answered ; " that is the best fun of all. Then the 
 band plays in the field in front, and next there is
 
 6 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 
 
 a procession up to the church and evening service. 
 Afterwards we shall go in to the Vicarage to supper^ 
 Mr. Jaques is my godfather, and a very old friend ; 
 he will be delighted to see you. And the affair 
 finishes with a dance in the barn." 
 
 " Thanks ! You won't mind if I cut the tea > 
 Parish tea-drinkings are not much in my line. I 
 think I should like to explore the coast a little, 
 and join you later." 
 
 In pursuance of which plan he slipped off just 
 as a deep cleft in the hills disclosed the tower of 
 Kerranstow Church, standing out gaunt and grey 
 against the sea. There was apparently no village ; 
 a few clustered cottages, hardly to be called a 
 hamlet, were gathered together at the head of the 
 lane which ran down to the church. Subsequently 
 Kay learnt that these rejoiced in the name of 
 Churchtown. Just below, some twisted chimneys 
 betrayed the Vicarage, otherwise the church stood 
 stark and lone against the cliff-side. Some few 
 tokens of festivity were to be seen. Little parties 
 of children, carrying sheaves and bunches of scarlet 
 berries, hurried past ; and occasional groups of elder 
 folk, in their Sunday best, their skirts kilted high 
 out of the mud, passed down the lane. Now and 
 again from the lofty tower the bells rang out, 
 swinging with mournful cadence on the autumn 
 wind, suggesting regret for the fading glories of 
 summer rather than any merrymaking, to Denis 
 Kay's fancy. 
 
 In this part of Cornwall the coast-line rises to
 
 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 
 
 an unusual height, broken at short intervals by 
 deep combes, with almost precipitous sides, densely 
 wooded, and clothed with bracken, at the bottom 
 of which a brawling stream finds its way down to 
 the sea. Wildly picturesque as it is, it is almost 
 inaccessible to the all-pervading tourist, for the 
 coach road has to keep to the more level country 
 at the head of the combes, and there are no 
 beaches to tempt the ordinary seaside visitor, who 
 must be content with the ten-mile-distant West- 
 creek to indulge in the pastimes of bathing or 
 boating. Neither is there any fishing population ; 
 north or south there is no harbourage for boats, 
 and the Westcreek fishing smacks avoid this cruel, 
 iron-bound coast as an accursed place. The in- 
 habitants are entirely farmers, wringing what hard 
 subsistence they may from the barren-looking moor- 
 land country ; and in days gone by, it is said, 
 eking it out by preying on the doomed vessels 
 that went to pieces on their inhospitable shores. 
 
 Kay avoided the church path, and scrambling 
 down the steep side of the combe, found himself 
 presently almost in the stony bed of a little stream 
 that went gurgling and prattling over the pebbles 
 and swirling round the boulders, now gleaming into 
 full daylight, now hidden by dense, overhanging 
 bracken and long brambles, which threw their 
 thorny arms across from side to side. Far below, 
 he could hear the loud, overmastering thunders of 
 the Atlantic almost drowning the insistent chatter 
 of the waters at his feet. He decided to take the
 
 8 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 
 
 brooklet for his guide, and make his way down to 
 the sea by its road, if he could ; but the road was 
 not an easy one to follow. Here and there ap- 
 peared a semblance of path, where the cattle, 
 coming down to drink, had trampled through the 
 fern and rushes ; anon he must take to the 
 stepping-stones in the bed of the stream, the 
 undergrowth came down so dense and close ; but 
 at last the wood dwindled, and he emerged upon 
 the bare cliff side with a great chasm fronting him, 
 across which the grey breakers came rolling in in 
 endless succession. 
 
 If he thought to get down to the sea that way, 
 he must needs have been able to leap as the brook 
 leapt. Over a sheer edge went the water, dwind- 
 ling to a mere thread, and gathering in volume 
 again in a rocky channel near a hundred feet 
 below. He gave it up, and sitting down on a tuft 
 of half-withered sea-pink, yielded himself to the 
 influence of the weird solitude. On each side the 
 headlands rose gaunt and shaggy, their dark 
 masses piled into all sorts of fantastic shapes. 
 Against the grey sea the colours showed intense, 
 purple and red, stained here and there with the 
 rust of iron and mottled with lichen. The dull 
 roar of the surge beating on the reef below was 
 broken every now and then with a boom like a 
 great gun, when the heaving wave came bursting 
 out of some narrow inlet to a cave. Kay listened, 
 and watched the white horses riding in one after 
 another, till he was almost stupefied, and yet the
 
 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 
 
 monotony soothed him. He sat on, with his hands 
 loosely clasped round his knees, thinking, thinking. 
 
 He was a successful man, and yet, as he sat 
 there musing, his thoughts were not cheerful ones. 
 Among the coterie to which he immediately be- 
 longed he was regarded as the successful one of 
 them all ; and he had not wanted for generous 
 appreciation and encouragement from his fellows. 
 Though he was yet young — only eight and twenty 
 — he had known many ups and downs, and made 
 acquaintance with the seamy side of a painter's 
 life ; and it seemed strange that while he had 
 brought an undaunted courage and unfailing flow 
 of spirits to meet the adverse strokes of fate, now 
 that the apple of fortune had fallen into his lap, 
 he felt out of heart, listless, discouraged. 
 
 He was not a thorough Englishman ; his mother 
 came from Upper Austria, and her mother was 
 French, so he inherited the quickened artistic tem- 
 perament that frequently goes with mixed blood. 
 His English relations were people of good position, 
 and might have helped him on if he would have 
 accommodated his career to their views ; but the 
 desire to paint was too strong in him to be rele- 
 gated to the amateur side of life, and he devoted 
 himself to Art with an ardour he was not to be 
 talked out of. He had lost both father and mother 
 early, and the uncles and aunts said if he chose to 
 take his own way, he must do as he pleased ; only, 
 of course, he must not look for the help he might 
 have had at the Bar, or in diplomacy. There was
 
 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 
 
 no quarrel ; he was welcome as a visitor at the 
 houses of any of them, only henceforth he must 
 look to himself. So he drifted abroad ; to Paris 
 first, then to Austria, to his mother's people — out- 
 at-elbow barons, with a castle to keep up on 
 nothing a year ; then back to England. And then 
 he painted in Brittany for a while, coming more 
 and more under the influence of the Impressionists, 
 as they began to be called ; now making a lucky 
 hit that enabled him to appear in his aunts' draw- 
 ing-rooms and taste the sweets of London life ; 
 anon vanishing and starving for a few months in 
 a garret in Paris, or living like a peasant in some 
 Breton hovel. 
 
 " You are too proud, Denis," said a friend to him 
 once, during one of these experiences ; " why don't 
 you paint pot-boilers } " 
 
 "My good fellow, it is not pride," was the re- 
 joinder ; " the difficulty is that my pot-boilers won't 
 boil the pot. If I put less than the whole of myself 
 into what I do, the blessed things won't sell, and I 
 feel the time is more utterly wasted than if I spent 
 it smoking." 
 
 "You misunderstand me," said the adviser; "I 
 don't mean that you should paint badly, or even 
 carelessly ; that never pays. What I mean is that 
 you should choose the subjects the public likes, 
 though you mayn't care for them yourself — scenes 
 of domestic interest, don't you know." 
 
 For answer Kay rose and turned round a canvas 
 that was standing in a corner with its face to the
 
 CORXISH DIAMOXDS. il 
 
 wall, and the shouts of laughter with which his 
 critic greeted this production were quite enough to 
 dispose of the subject for good. 
 
 It was clear he had not the plodding tempera- 
 ment which can work on whatever the will decides 
 upon without question of personal preferences or 
 enthusiasm. He saw all things in his own way, 
 and he must see with the inward vision before he 
 could paint. 
 
 So he endured hardness and lived sparingly, and 
 worked with the dogged perseverance which was 
 one of his most valuable qualities, at the technique 
 that suited his idiosyncrasy, till at length fate 
 landed him among the colony of artists who were 
 beginning to make the name of Newlyn famous, 
 and doing for it much what the French and Ameri- 
 can Impressionists have done for Douarnenez and 
 Pont Aven. Here he found a congenial atmo- 
 sphere, with the encouragement and rivalry which 
 he needed to stimulate and develop all that was 
 in him, and the friendship of men whose work he 
 thoroughly admired, and strove to emulate. 
 
 The outcome of this was "Sea-drift," the picture 
 of its year, which brought him fame and money, 
 and set him, once for all, on the secure eminence 
 of positive achievement. On his next visit to town,, 
 he found himself quite a personage — made almost 
 a lion of in the drawing-rooms of his aunts, where 
 once he had been accorded a bare toleration. If 
 he had cared to paint " pot-boilers " now, his name 
 would have been quite sufficient to ensure their
 
 '12 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 
 
 iDoiling ; but there was no longer any need — the 
 public had ceased to demand babies and dogs 
 from him ; the merest studies in his own manner, 
 painted as he chose, commanded their price from 
 the dealers — for by some mysterious decree he 
 had become the fashion. And this year the crown 
 had been put to his good fortune ; his great pic- 
 ture, " Leander," had won the gold medal at the 
 Paris Salon. Truly a fortunate man, or, as his 
 friends at Newlyn phrased it, " a lucky beggar." 
 
 And yet he sat there on the cliff side pitying 
 himself, as he had never pitied himself in the days 
 when the dealers turned their backs upon him, and 
 the public ignored his name. He was fretting over 
 a jaded imagination, a loss of power, real or fancied, 
 that oppressed him like a nightmare. The truth 
 was, success had come too quick ; the tension of 
 Jiis nerves, braced to a long, uphill struggle, had 
 been too suddenly relaxed, and a reaction had set 
 in. He was morbidly alive to the danger of rest- 
 ing on a made name, and painting below himself; 
 and the dread of it, joined to the consciousness 
 that he was not quite at his best, arrested his 
 hand, and robbed it of the swift sureness of touch 
 that was his great charm. And then Newlyn had 
 become too strait for him ; he felt crowded. Just 
 now he needed to be by himself for a little. Even 
 the sympathetic appreciation of his friends jarred 
 on him in his present mood ; and the work of his 
 imitators, who were already springing up in a 
 goodly crop, sickened him with his own.
 
 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 13 
 
 It was at this point that the Wynnstays, who 
 were among the warmest of his friends, had pro- 
 posed his joining them in a little expedition to 
 Westcreek, in the hope of rousing him out of his 
 languor and depression. It was a thoroughly un- 
 selfish piece of good-nature on their part, for they 
 were far too much wrapped up in each other to 
 care for a third for their own sakes ; but Muriel 
 had sat to him, and helped him in domestic diffi- 
 culties, till she felt like a mother to him ; and 
 Hugh, the older and more experienced painter, if 
 the less gifted, had been one of his earliest advisers 
 and staunchest friends. 
 
 "Denis is thoroughly out of sorts," Muriel had 
 said ; " he is overworked, and ought to rest." And 
 her husband, who perhaps understood Kay's strange- 
 mood better than she did, willingly agreed to invite 
 him to share their holiday. 
 
 So far it had not proved much of a success ; and 
 he owned to himself, with a little rueful laugh, that 
 he had been most ungracious to them and to West- 
 creek, but he promised himself to make amends 
 presently by going to the church, and therein con- 
 ducting himself in the most exemplary manner. 
 
 Having arrived at this conclusion, he turned from 
 the sea ; but before he began to move away, another 
 aspect of the place arrested him and held him still. 
 He was no landscape painter, like his friend Hugh 
 Wynnstay, but his artist soul drank in the glory of 
 colour that met his eye, like a draught of red wine. 
 It was one of those strange October days when it
 
 14 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 
 
 •seems as if the light came from the earth instead 
 of the sky. All above was one uniform tint of 
 grey, but the bracken blazed in the hollows like 
 flames, and here and there a mass of scarlet berries 
 — mountain ash, dogwood, or deeper-toned haw- 
 thorn — glowed like the depths of a furnace. At 
 length the creeping dusk began to dim the spec- 
 tacle, and the coldness of his hands and feet 
 reminded him that the sense of warmth the dazzling 
 show gave him was imaginary only ; so he rose and 
 made his way up the steep cliff side by a shorter 
 route than he had come, realizing as he went that 
 he was not only cold but hungry. 
 
 The prospect of tea and cake in the tithe-barn 
 not appealing to his tastes, he hunted out the 
 apology for an inn boasted by Churchtown, and 
 partook of country bread and cheese, with a glass 
 of home-brewed, before rejoining his friends, as he 
 had promised, in the church. It was nearly service- 
 time, but he could see nothing of the Wynnstays, 
 though the worshippers were already beginning to 
 •flock in. He entered with the rest, and declining 
 a seat in a pew, stood in the shadow of a pillar, 
 looking on the scene with an interest he had hardly 
 expected to feel. 
 
 Inside it was already dark, and the lights from 
 the few dim and tremulous candles fell flickeringly 
 on piled-up masses of ruddy apples, on giant 
 mangolds and carrots, and sheaves of wheat and 
 barley, arranged with little art, but with a certain 
 iiarmonious symmetry and picturesqueness. The
 
 CORXISH DIAMONDS. 15 
 
 great rood-screen was undecorated, except for a few 
 straggling blackberry vines, touched with crimson 
 and gold, that had been wreathed about the open- 
 ing ; but it was in itself such a miracle of ancient 
 gothic carving that it would have been a barbarism 
 to conceal it. The lower panels were covered with 
 grotesque designs, which Kay promised himself to 
 examine at leisure by daylight on some future 
 occasion, while above was a network of delicate 
 tracery. The whole was surmounted by an im- 
 mense crucifix, the details of which were lost 
 among the shadows of the black oaken rafters. 
 Beyond the light was better ; the candles had 
 been massed above the altar, among the scarlet 
 and white flowers, and made a centre of soft light 
 and colour in the midst of the gloom. It was a 
 large church, and looked larger from the dimness 
 through which the heavy Norman arches and 
 massive pillars loomed vaguely. The seat-ends 
 were rich with carving, and at another time he 
 would have found delight in deciphering the 
 quaint designs — all different — with which they were 
 decorated ; but just now he was more intent on 
 scrutinizing the occupants. 
 
 Here were none of the fisher class, whose pictu- 
 resqueness the Newlyn school has made its own ; 
 but the stalwart, bronzed farmers and ruddy 
 ploughboys, the comely, haughty-looking women, 
 drew his artist eye no less, and he perceived that 
 here, in the wilds, was a purer British type than 
 in the south part of "the duchy," where the race
 
 i6 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 
 
 has suffered from admixture with Jewish settlers. 
 Here were the blue-grey eyes, the tawny hair and 
 beard to be found in many parts of Brittany ; and 
 Kay, as he mentally chose a model here and there, 
 began to congratulate himself that he had not 
 missed the chance. The parson himself, who was 
 gliding about — a shadowy black figure in a cassock 
 — was in keeping with the scene. A tall, lean 
 man with a slight stoop, clean-shaven, with strongly 
 marked features and grizzled hair, he suggested a 
 foreign priest rather than an English rector ; and 
 the painter found himself feeling in his pocket for 
 his sketch-book before he recollected that it would 
 be rather out of order to be drawing in church, 
 and might justly scandalize his neighbours. 
 
 Presently there was a rustle and a turning of 
 heads, and the great west doors rolled back. First 
 came two cornet players, rugged-looking, bearded 
 men, with cheeks distended, valiantly trumpeting 
 forth the strains of a familiar hymn, followed by 
 the choir. Next, a huge cross, made of scarlet 
 berries, edged with a fringe of oats, was borne 
 aloft by the slender arms of a girl about seventeen, 
 and behind her came the school children, two and 
 two, carrying each their little sheaf of wheat or 
 barley, or branch of ruddy apples. Some of the 
 little ones had only a bramble spray with its 
 crown of blackberries, or a branch of wild plum, 
 but each one carried something. 
 
 It was an odd, characteristic little pageant, and 
 suddenly Kay realized that here was the subject
 
 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 
 
 he wanted ready to his hand. The dim, mysteri- 
 ous shadows under the tower from which the pro- 
 cession emerged, the Hght catching the white 
 surphces and uphfted scarlet cross as they drew 
 on up the aisle, the unconventional grouping, the 
 points of vivid colour, struck him with a quick per- 
 ception of possibilities. The central figure, the 
 girl who carried the cross, appealed to his imagina- 
 tion in a way many a fairer woman might have 
 failed to do: slim, unformed creature as she was, 
 with her little brown hands nervously grasping her 
 burden, with her intent, uplifted face and earnest 
 eyes, she inspired him with an urgent, imperious 
 desire to paint which he had not felt for many 
 months, and had sometimes feared he should never 
 feel again. There was nothing to mar the harmony 
 in the details of her dress ; she wore a corn- 
 coloured tussore silk gown with a frill at the throat 
 and a broad sash round her waist, and a wide- 
 brimmed brown hat, which she had adorned with 
 a few poppies and ox-eye daisies. 
 
 The service proceeded, and our painter, though 
 outwardly very devout, was inwardly absorbed in 
 sketching in his mind's eye the first outline of his 
 picture. But another surprise was in store for 
 him. There was no voluntary, for the processional 
 hymn had taken the place of it, so at first he did 
 not notice the absence of organ or harmonium ; 
 the psalms were chanted to the same accompani- 
 ment of cornets as had led the opening hymn, and 
 it was not till the Magnificat was reached that the 
 
 VOL. I. 2
 
 1 8 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 
 
 sound of stringed instruments, by no means ill- 
 played, roused his inattentive ear, and, looking up, 
 he perceived five or six players of violins, 'cello, 
 and bass ensconced in a regular musicians' gallery, 
 old and rich with carving, which projected from the 
 corner just west of the rood-screen. Often as he 
 had heard of the bands that used in olden time to 
 lead the singing in country places, he had as little 
 expected as wished ever to hear one ; certainly the 
 last thing he would have looked for would have 
 been to be delighted at such a performance, but 
 criticism was disarmed. There may have been but 
 little execution among the players ; probably none 
 of them would have cut much of a figure in a 
 concert hall ; but Kay, who prided himself upon 
 the fineness of his ear, could find nothing to con- 
 demn in either time or tune. The fiddles, to be 
 sure, were not of the finest quality, and perfection 
 of tone was not to be looked for, but there was 
 no scraping and squeaking. There was feeling 
 and energy in the rendering ; it was genuine music, 
 and such as could never be got out of a wheezy 
 harmonium. 
 
 The sermon was over ; the procession formed 
 again and marched out ; the band played the people 
 out with an inspiriting bit of Haydn, and Kay 
 looked about for his friends. At last he came upon 
 them, waiting for him in the porch. 
 
 " What a wonderful old church ! " was his greet- 
 ing ; " and what remarkable music ! " 
 
 "Isn't it?" said Muriel, delighted with the
 
 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 19 
 
 success of her experiment, as she read the genuine 
 interest in his face. "And now you must make 
 acquaintance with Mr. Jaques, who is not the least 
 original feature of Kerranstow. I told him we 
 would bring you in to supper." 
 
 At this moment the vicar joined them, still in 
 his cassock, and looking rather like a conspirator, 
 in a soft felt hat, and carrying a lantern. 
 
 " Is this your friend } " he asked, holding out his 
 hand. "So you have been roaming on the cliffs 
 and lost your tea, Mrs. Wynnstay tells me. Come 
 in and make up for it now." 
 
 Kay accepted, nothing loth. He would not be 
 sorry to see something more of this odd parish 
 and this odd parson. Besides, he wanted to learn 
 a little more about the girl who had played the 
 leading part in the procession. Was she a lady .? 
 Was she a pupil-teacher.? Was she a girl whom 
 it would be possible to engage as model at so 
 much an hour.? These were not questions which 
 •could be asked point-blank, on the spot, so he 
 bided his time, and fell in with the little company 
 who were following the vicar and his lantern down 
 the churchyard path through the pitch darkness to 
 ihe Vicarage.
 
 CHAPTER 11. 
 
 T was a small but somewhat oddly assorted 
 party that presently assembled round the 
 dining- table in a long, low, wainscoted room, 
 lined with books, and lighted by candles in 
 old-fashioned brass sconces let into the wall. 
 There was an old, white-bearded clergyman, with 
 a handsome daughter ; a large, heavy- looking 
 man, who bore farmer and churchwarden legibly 
 inscribed on every inch of his bulky person ; a 
 young couple who looked as if they had been 
 newly transported from Belgravia or South Ken- 
 sington ; a tall, bronzed, silent man, whom, by 
 the cut of his brown, pointed beard, as well as by 
 the curious, long-sighted look that comes from a 
 seafaring life, Kay set down as a naval officer ; a 
 lame man, who might be the village schoolmaster ; 
 and the girl who had led the procession. These, 
 with the artist trio, made up the party. 
 
 Kay found himself placed beside the London 
 lady, and directly opposite the bearer of the scarlet 
 cross, a position that pleased him little, as he could
 
 CORNISH DIAMONDS, 21 
 
 talk neither of her nor to her, so he must wait a 
 better opportunity of satisfying his curiosity, or 
 learn as much as he could by his own observation. 
 
 It did not take him long to decide that she was 
 a lady, though a pupil-teacher might easily have 
 worn a string of coral beads round her throat, and 
 sported a much smarter gown than the corn-coloured 
 silk. She looked prettier without the brown hat ; 
 her hair was not cut in the fashionable way, but it 
 grew low in five points round a white, level fore- 
 head, and was brushed sleekly back, and coiled 
 tightly about a remarkably well-shaped head. The 
 hands that were at the moment busy with knife 
 and fork were brown, and though small, looked 
 meant for use rather than ornament. Her eyes 
 were bent on her plate in the shy manner of a 
 schoolgirl to whom dining out was a rarity, but 
 after a time she did raise them, and then her 
 opposite neighbour could perceive that instead of 
 being brown, as the colour of her hair had led him 
 to expect, they were dark grey, as though some of 
 the sea colour had got into them. 
 
 He could only make his observations by snatches, 
 for his next neighbour absorbed a good deal of his 
 attention, and was evidently accustomed to claim 
 the exclusive devotion of whoever might be for- 
 tunate enough to find himself at her elbow. She 
 was by no means a person easy to ignore, nor one 
 whom any man would feel tempted to neglect. 
 Without possessing actual beauty — in that respect 
 she could not be compared to Muriel Wynnstay —
 
 2-2 CORNISH DIAMONDS, 
 
 she drew every masculine eye In the room hke a: 
 magnet. She was a specimen of that most finished 
 product of civilization — a woman of the world. 
 From every curl of her artistically arranged fluffy 
 hair to the hem of her well-cut gown, she was 
 effective ; every touch told, with that highest art 
 which conceals art, and gives the impression of the 
 simplest naturalness. 
 
 Of the four women present she was perhaps the 
 least handsome, and the most attractive. Muriel's 
 absolute and Incontestible loveliness even did not 
 throw her Into the shade ; beside the brilliant 
 West-country colouring and onyx eyes of Rachel 
 Treby, who sat on the same side of the table, she 
 looked colourless, yet she eclipsed her ; and If the 
 child opposite — she was scarcely more than a child 
 — had the bloom and softness of early youth, she 
 had the crudeness of youth as well, and among 
 English women twenty-seven is apt to be a more 
 attractive age than seventeen. 
 
 She had all the advantage, too, of understanding 
 how to talk, and her neighbour soon found that 
 they had plenty of subjects In common. His 
 world was her world ; at least, if their circles were 
 not absolutely concentric, they intersected each 
 other for a sufficiently large space. She was quite 
 at home in the talk of the studios and the exhibi- 
 tions ; Paris was familiar to her, and she had soon 
 conveyed delicately to the painter her pleasure at 
 meeting the winner of the gold medal at the last 
 Salon, and betrayed, without broad compliment.
 
 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 23 
 
 her admiring recollection of " Sea-drift." It was 
 no wonder if she succeeded in keeping his thoughts 
 from straying much in the direction of the little 
 girl on the other side of the table, and even 
 diverted the attention of the aforesaid little girl's 
 legitimate companion, the naval officer. 
 
 The meal partook rather of the nature of supper 
 than dinner, and was quickly disposed of, for some 
 of the guests had a long drive before them, and 
 all were anxious to look in on the festivities in the 
 barn. So the ladies were speedily wrapped up in 
 fur cloaks, and the party picked their way through 
 the yard, lighted by a few stable-lanterns hung 
 against the w^all, and across a dark orchard, under 
 the ghostly apple-trees, to a huge tithe-barn, empty 
 since the tithe had been paid in money instead of 
 in kind, and now devoted to such purposes as the 
 present. 
 
 From afar the sound of scraping fiddles and 
 pounding feet could be heard, and as the big door 
 swung back to admit the vicar and his friends, a 
 rollicking country dance could be seen in progress 
 — up the middle and down again — accompanied 
 with vigorous stamping to mark the time, and 
 much mopping of melting foreheads with red 
 pocket-handkerchiefs. 
 
 Seats were found for the ladies at the upper end, 
 but evidently they had no intention of being mere 
 lookers-on ; as soon as the dance in progress ended, 
 and " Sir Roger de Coverley " was started, Mrs. 
 Wynnstay was seen being led to the top by one
 
 24 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 
 
 of the cornet-players, while Mrs. Dendron bestowed 
 her hand upon the other. The vicar did not dance ; 
 he leant against the wall, watching the exertions of 
 his parishioners under his eyelids, a smile half indul- 
 gent, half satirical, curving the corners of his mouth. 
 Kay took up his position beside him, and praised 
 the band, which was certainly giving forth the most 
 inspiriting strains. 
 
 "Ay, pretty fair," was the response; "but you 
 must not suppose this is the best we can do. Our 
 first fiddle is too important among the dancers to 
 take his place. That is he footing it at the other 
 end with Miss Treby. He is my factotum — groom, 
 gardener, cowman, house-painter, crowder, bell- 
 ringer, and a few more trades as well. He has 
 all the genius of the Cornishman, with an energy 
 all his own. I often wonder where we should be 
 without John Yeo. He and his wife did the most 
 part of the decorations. My parish is fortunate in 
 not possessing hordes of young ladies to run riot 
 among my oak carving with tin tacks. Little Miss 
 Lyon makes up a few wreaths and so on, but 
 getting in the harvest means plenty of heavy 
 work at Roscorla." 
 
 "She is a farmer's daughter, then," said Kay to 
 himself Aloud — "Is that the young lady who 
 carried the cross in the procession } I want to 
 make interest with her to give me a sitting or 
 two. Will you introduce me when this dance is 
 over ? " 
 
 The vicar gave him a quick glance that was like
 
 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 25 
 
 the sudden unsheathing of a rapier. It was a trick 
 he had, which Muriel, his god-daughter, used to 
 call "snapping his eyes at you." Then he said — 
 
 " I will introduce you, if you like. I dare say 
 she will give you a dance, but I doubt if she will 
 give you a sitting. She has not much time to 
 waste ; besides, she is very shy." 
 
 The painter was used to rebuffs when he tried 
 to obtain sittings from people who, on the one 
 hand, could not be hired, and on the other were 
 not sufficiently of the world to care for the prestige 
 of the thing. He felt, however, that it would be 
 necessary for his purpose to enlist Mr. Jaques on 
 his side, so he went on — 
 
 " I was very much struck with your procession 
 to-day ; it had just that element of picturesqueness 
 that is, as a rule, so wholly lacking to English 
 life. I could have fancied myself in Brittany but 
 for the costumes." 
 
 "Picturesque, you call it, eh.?" Mr. Jaques 
 stroked his chin meditatively. "At any rate it is 
 genuine. People whose life and welfare depend 
 actually, not indirectly, upon safely getting in their 
 crops, put more heart into their thanksgivings, I 
 dare say, than town-dwellers, to whom a good 
 harvest only means that vague thing — national 
 prosperity." 
 
 " Perhaps that is the very reason that it strikes 
 one as so artistic. The usual harvest festival is 
 more a matter of fashion than anything else ; and 
 when fashion steps in, good-bye to art. Anyway,
 
 26 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 
 
 it is a fine subject, and I want to paint it. Won't 
 you give me your sanction and co-operation ? " 
 
 "Go to Miss Treby at Hennacombe, and ask 
 her to let you paint theirs. They have everything 
 in the most correct style, I can assure you. The 
 public will much prefer it ; they will be able ta 
 recognize what they are accustomed to. If you 
 paint us, they will say they never saw such a thing 
 in their lives. It will be like one of Turner's 
 sunsets." 
 
 " Thank you ; that is just what I should like.. 
 I am not a popular painter." 
 
 Mr. Jaques gave him another of those odd, swift 
 glances. 
 
 "Do you suppose that we are such outer bar- 
 barians here that we have never heard of * Sea- 
 drift ' and ' Leander ' 1 I will trust you with the 
 procession. Only, for Heaven's sake, don't make 
 us the fashion." 
 
 Kay laughed. " No fear. I am no greater 
 lover of fashion than you are. Then I may con- 
 sider myself armed with your permission .'* " 
 
 " Certainly. I will grant you leave to paint in 
 the church when necessary, and the use of the 
 choir-boys when you can catch them ; but I cannot 
 promise to make Abel and Jeremiah Polsue sit — 
 or rather stand — with distended cheeks, and that, 
 I take it, is rather a leading feature of the affair." 
 
 " And yourself, sir } You will not refuse me a 
 few sittings t " 
 
 The vicar shrugged his shoulders. " Can't you
 
 CORXISH DIAMONDS. ij 
 
 evolve a parson, as the man did the camel, 'out 
 of your own inner consciousness ' ? " 
 
 Meanwhile " Sir Roger " had come to an end ; 
 not that there is any end naturally either to the 
 reiterated rum-te-um-te-iddity of the music, or to 
 the succession of couples who vanish into obscurity 
 at the bottom only to reappear in renewed glory at 
 the top, and take the lead once more. But the 
 players by this time had become dry, and at a 
 sign from the leader, ended with a prolonged wail, 
 and, setting down their fiddles, buried their noses^ 
 in deep tankards of cider that stood handy for the 
 purpose. Miss Lyon was seen being handed back 
 to her seat by a blushing ploughboy, and the two- 
 men moved a few steps to meet her. 
 
 " Here is a fresh partner for you, Jenifer. Mr. 
 Kay, Miss Lyon." 
 
 " Will you give me the next dance 1 " the painter 
 asked, trying to look into the shy, downcast face, 
 and feeling that ceremonious phrases about the 
 honour or the pleasure would sound out of place in 
 this primitive scene. Wondering, too, whether he 
 should ever be able to talk to her, and what 
 about. 
 
 She acceded silently, and put her little hand on 
 his arm. A few remarks about the procession and 
 the decorations met with monosyllabic replies, and, 
 since the exigencies of an old English country 
 dance required that they should separate and stand 
 on opposite sides of the room, his acquaintance 
 with her did not make much progress. She looked.
 
 28 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 
 
 up occasionally after a bit, but was more occupied 
 in guiding him with her eye through the mazes of 
 the unfamihar figure than with responding to his 
 attempts at friendh'ness, and when they did coalesce 
 for a minute, and ran hand-in-hand under the out- 
 stretched arms of the rest of the dancers, her few 
 words were devoted to giving him instructions as 
 to what was expected of him next. He felt when 
 he restored her to Mr. Jaques's care that, as regarded 
 enlisting her interest for his picture, he had made 
 no way at all. 
 
 It was no wonder that the social standing of 
 Jenifer Lyon should puzzle a stranger not a little, 
 for she belonged to a class which, except in the 
 duchy of Cornwall, is as extinct as the dodo. The 
 parish registers, as well as many hoary old tombs 
 in the churchyard, established the fact that there 
 had been Lyons of Roscorla for several centuries 
 back ; but there was no trace of their ever having 
 owned more land than the farm they now held, 
 Tior had any member of the family ever written 
 his name in the pages of history. In the course of 
 many generations, while some families had gone 
 up and others had come down, they had remained 
 ■stationary. If position is held to rest on long 
 descent, the Lyons could outvie the best, but in 
 cultivation and manner of life old Mr. Lyon was 
 hardly, if at all, removed from the ordinary tenant 
 farmer ; his wife kept a couple of maids to do the 
 rough work, but she and her niece took their full 
 share ; attended to the dairy and poultry yard,
 
 CORXISH DIAMONDS. 
 
 made butter for the market with their own hands, 
 and, indeed, did far more than most farmer's wives 
 of a much lower class ; nor ever thought they were 
 descending from their proper sphere in so doing. 
 
 In natural refinement Jenifer was a distinct 
 advance upon her uncle and aunt, but in the matter 
 of education her chances in Kerranstow were 
 narrow enough ; and but for Miss Treby, whose 
 father's parish was on the other side of Roscorla, 
 and who had always taken a warm interest in her, 
 she would have fared even worse than the labourers' 
 children, who had the national school to go to 
 whether they would or no. She had been brought 
 up by her uncle and aunt, her mother having died 
 when she was a baby, and her father, glad to be 
 relieved of the care of so young a child, had emi- 
 grated, and died abroad some years later. 
 
 Kay's next attempt at recommending himself to 
 the good graces of a partner was decidedly more 
 successful, insomuch that when John Yeo brought 
 the Westcreek trap up the back lane to the orchard- 
 gate, and Wynnstay had to hunt him up, he was 
 found footing it with great energy with a fine, 
 picturesque - looking farmeress, with whom he 
 seemed to be getting on far better than he had 
 with Miss Lyon. It was late and full time to 
 depart, so he had to twirl his good lady to the 
 bottom of the row, and take leave of her with 
 many apologies, and a promise to call the following 
 day, much to his friend's great amusement. 
 
 " Well," said the latter presently, when they had
 
 30 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 
 
 climbed up out of the obscurity of the lanes, and 
 ■were trotting along the level high-road at the top 
 of the hill, so that the driver felt himself at leisure 
 for conversation, " I must say that, for a quiet man, 
 you have been going the pace to-night. Fancy, 
 Muriel, I overheard him promising to come over 
 again to-morrow to call on — who do you think ? " 
 
 " Why, Mrs. Dendron, I should suppose ; there 
 is nobody else." 
 
 Wynnstay laughed aloud, " Not a bit of it. He 
 lias been caught by a much more mature siren. 
 What do you say to Peninah. Sutton } " 
 
 "What! the woman who has that little lonely 
 farm 'up to Crosstown,' as they phrase it here, 
 ■where we used to get the cream t " 
 
 " The same. I assure you it is quite a case ; 
 we shall have to look after him." 
 
 "Nonsense! Mr. Kay, what rubbish is Hugh 
 talking ? Explain." 
 
 "Simply, my dear Mrs. Wynnstay, that I have 
 found work and a place to work in ; at least I hope 
 so, and I am coming over to-morrow to see about 
 it." 
 
 " Found work } Over here ? Are you going to 
 paint somebody's portrait } " 
 
 "Forgive me, and don't think me churlish if I 
 .say I cannot answer too many questions. I hate 
 talking about my work until it takes shape. But 
 I think I have got hold of a subject, and my 
 excellent partner, it seems, has not only lodg- 
 ings to let, but a large disused dairy with a north
 
 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 31 
 
 light which, by her account, would make a capital 
 studio." 
 
 "And you think that will suit you for whom 
 a glass house, with all the newest improvements, 
 was not good enough ? " 
 
 "Perhaps it may suit me better. I think I am 
 a little sick of all the newest improvements. I 
 sometimes find myself yearning for my rat-haunted 
 cottage at Pouldieu. There was something very 
 inspiring about those smoky rafters and dim, 
 shadowy corners." 
 
 " I dare say you are right," put in Wynnstay. 
 "Don't interfere with him, Muriel. Give him his 
 head, and if it results in another ' Sea-drift,' the 
 world will be the gainer." 
 
 "Very well," said Muriel, the practical; "only 
 you must remember that winter is coming on, and 
 a dairy with a brick floor and a north aspect is 
 apt to be an exceedingly cold place. Don't go 
 and get laid up with rheumatic fever." 
 
 "Oh, with rugs and a stove, I shall be as right 
 as ninepence. I am never cold when I am at 
 work. However, nothing is settled yet ; it may 
 not turn out feasible, after all." 
 
 And no more could be got out of him on the 
 subject. 
 
 "What an odd, capricious creature Denis Kay 
 is," said Muriel to her husband, when they were 
 alone. "For weeks he has been bored, languid, 
 and lazy, refusing to do a stroke of work, and talk- 
 ing as if his day was over, and he never meant to
 
 32 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 
 
 paint any more ; and now, all of a sudden, some 
 notion seems to have seized him, and he is wild 
 to dash into something. I am sure it would be 
 much wiser for him to take a longer rest. Don't 
 you think so } " 
 
 " I am not so sure of that, wifie. The chief 
 trouble with him lately has been a morbid distaste 
 for his work, and while that lasted, it was better 
 for him not to force himself against the grain ; but 
 if once anything takes his fancy — why, so much 
 the better, I should say." 
 
 Muriel nodded a wise little head in a knowing 
 manner. 
 
 " I'll tell you what I think is at the bottom of 
 this sudden eagerness to settle here. I rather fancy 
 he is smitten with Mrs. Dendron. He took her in 
 to dinner, and I saw she was making up to him 
 no end, with her soft, pretty voice and those 
 curious wine-coloured eyes you admire so much. 
 I heard her saying all manner of nice things about 
 " Leander " ; and though Denis isn't vain compared 
 with other men, and considering all things, it would 
 take a steady head not to be a little turned ; and 
 she certainly is very pretty. I do hope he will be 
 careful." 
 
 " Well, dear, and if that is the attraction, I don't 
 see why we need object ; it won't do him any 
 harm." 
 
 " My dear Hugh, I am shocked at you ! " cried 
 Muriel. " You who are generally so proper and 
 particular."
 
 CORXISH DIAMONDS. 33 
 
 " Well, but she is a widow, isn't she ? I thought 
 a pretty widow, well off, as she apparently is, 
 would be just the thing for him. I have often 
 thought he would be better married." 
 
 " A widow ! Oh, dear, no, you stupid boy. 
 Don't you remember she was Letty Brabazon, and 
 it was thought such a good match for her when 
 she married Mr. Dendron } He was said to be 
 enormously wealthy, but I fancy that was a good 
 deal exaggerated. At any rate, they have had 
 losses. His property is all in mines, I think ; and 
 they have come down here to economize, and have 
 taken Mr. Jaques's old house at Pencoet. Didn't 
 you notice him } a pale man, with formal brown 
 whiskers. The Whites were telling me all about 
 them the other day ; they say he is rather a queer 
 tempered man, and quite a recluse." 
 
 " I see. And you think the pretty wife is 
 spreading her nets, seeking whom she may devour, 
 to beguile her tedium. Well, I think Denis is 
 tolerably well able to take care of himself. Any- 
 how, we must let him go his own way. We have 
 petted and cosseted him as if he had been a sick 
 child for the last six weeks, but we can't dictate to 
 him. If he fancies he sees anything here to rouse 
 him and make him paint, let him try. For my 
 part, I am only too glad to see him take up a 
 craze for anything again." 
 
 Meanwhile, Septimus Jaques had listened to the 
 retreating footsteps of his last guests, had locked 
 the hall-door behind them, and turned back to his 
 
 VOL. I. 3
 
 34 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 
 
 solitude. A wood fire was still smouldering on 
 the hearth in his study ; he threw on a fresh log, 
 wheeled round an armchair, and took down Theo- 
 critus from the shelves ; but for once he was not 
 in the mood to read. Books were the chosen 
 companions of most of his long, solitary hours ; 
 but to-night the intrusion of flesh and blood com- 
 pany had thrust them aside for once, and made 
 them appear tame and cold. He threw down the 
 volume, and rising, stood leaning his elbows on 
 the mantelpiece, with his head dropped between 
 his hands. In a still pool a little pebble dropped 
 in makes endless circles ; in a monotonous life a 
 very small excitement will disturb the current of 
 habitual thought. 
 
 The harvest festival, indeed, was a matter of 
 yearly recurrence, and not in itself exciting, but 
 one guest had been there who had unconsciously 
 opened the door into a long dead past. It so 
 happened that for five and twenty years there had 
 been no lady at Pencoet, and Letty Dendron, with 
 her grace and brilliance, with her indefinable air 
 of belonging to the great world, was just such a 
 woman as he remembered there through one brief 
 summer. 
 
 For Septimus had been young five and twenty 
 years ago — though he was the sort of man of whom 
 it is hard to realize that he ever was young, or 
 ever will be old, with a lean, brown face, old in 
 youth and young in age, changing hardly at all as 
 the years go on. It was the old story. A pretty
 
 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 35 
 
 and fast young widow, with her mother, had taken 
 the house for six months one summer. What 
 reason they may have had for wishing to bury 
 themselves in the country, no one knew. Pencoet 
 was dull enough for two fashionable women, and 
 they naturally welcomed the society of the only 
 educated man in the place — oddity though he was 
 even in those days. What happened exactly no 
 one ever understood, he himself, perhaps, least of 
 all ; but it left him with his faith in womankind 
 shattered, and his love of solitude confirmed. 
 
 Mrs. Dendron had reminded him that she had 
 been his tenant for some weeks, and he had not 
 called upon her, and he knew he must repair the 
 omission ; but he winced yet at the thought of 
 seeing a woman again in that drawing-room, with 
 all her little, womanish fribbles about, and the 
 thought of it brought up many a little scene which 
 had taken place there, with a poignancy which was 
 strange after so many years. For a minute the 
 steady current of memory was broken, while all 
 the long pain and patience of five and twenty 
 years gathered themselves together and rolled over 
 him in a great wave of recollection, and he could 
 not think, but only endure. Then the thread of 
 his musings cleared again, and he realized the 
 gulf that the passage of time had put between 
 then and now. 
 
 Presently he was roused by a soft touch on his 
 hand. A great yellow tom cat, who had got tired 
 of lying curled up in a tight ball on the broad
 
 36 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 
 
 leather sofa, now got up, and with a mighty stretch 
 and yawn, jumped upon the mantelpiece and tried 
 to attract his master's attention by rubbing his 
 nose along the back of the hand with which he 
 was shading his eyes from the fire. 
 
 " Bedtime, pussy ? Why, so it is ; we will 
 go up." 
 
 He stroked the broad head with a tender ges- 
 ture, as the cat, purring, walked from the mantel- 
 shelf on to his shoulder. Then, extinguishing the 
 lights, he went upstairs, puss still clinging round 
 his neck, his feathery tail hanging down his 
 master's back like a scarf. 
 
 He was a very lonely man ; he had not a near 
 relation in the world, and was too shy and reserved 
 to make many friends if his life had afforded him 
 the opportunity ; so the tenderness which found no 
 natural outlet expended itself upon his animals. His 
 two horses, his cat, and his tame jackdaw, were his 
 friends, and divided his heart between them. People 
 wondered he should not keep a dog, and those 
 who recollected a fine old mastiff, who used to be 
 his constant companion, expressed much surprise 
 that when poor Ralph came to a sad end his place 
 was not supplied. But no ; he had loved Ralph as 
 a man loves his child or his friend ; no other dog 
 could be the same to him, so he went lonely. 
 
 This little trait was eminently characteristic of 
 the man. If he could not have the one thing he 
 desired, no lower satisfaction should take its place. 
 He could do without happiness, if needs be ; he
 
 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 37 
 
 could not content himself with the attainable. 
 Septimus Jaques belonged to that order, rarer 
 amongst men than amongst women, who venture 
 their whole freight in one ship, and when it goes 
 down, are left bankrupt. A love manqiic, so 
 common, in most cases so easily got over, had 
 struck to the root with him, and killed that side 
 of his nature entirely. Though he was only fifty- 
 three, a cloistered monk could not have been more 
 utterly set aside from any personal interest in 
 women than he. So far as that went, he never 
 would forget ; but, in a sense, he had practically 
 forgotten for a long time past. His life was 
 cheerful, fully occupied. He read voraciously, 
 rode a great deal, and was for ever grubbing 
 among the dusty records of his old and interesting 
 parish. Not once in the course of years did he 
 suffer his mind to slip back to the memories of 
 the " old, far-off, unhappy things " of his youth ; 
 only to-night, for some reason, the chords of feel- 
 ing had been stirred, the buried sorrow had come 
 out to make him look at it once more ; but before 
 morning it would creep back and go to sleep again, 
 and he would be his old dry, sarcastic self. 
 
 For few of his acquaintance would have given 
 him credit for sentiment of any kind. He was 
 regarded generally as rather a hard man ; perhaps 
 because, in his functions as parish priest, the dis- 
 tribution of loaves and fishes, the serving of tables, 
 was so distasteful to him. Not that he was un- 
 generous — far from it ; where he realized the need
 
 38 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 
 
 he gave liberally, lavishly ; the port wine and soup 
 for the sick, which were customary in his mother s 
 day, were always forthcoming. But the tickets for 
 meat and coals, the provident blankets and boots, 
 of the modern well-organized parish were beyond 
 him ; and when Hennacombe and Kerranstow 
 compared notes, Kerranstow was apt to grumble. 
 Nor was he good at visiting. He was shy with 
 the poor, fearful of being intrusive, and shrank 
 from seeming to take liberties in inquiring into 
 the truth of their stories ; but once let him think 
 himself deceived, few could be more severe. He 
 was not altogether popular ; poor folks, like chil- 
 dren, do not like satire, and he was very satirical. 
 But he would do kindnesses in his own way that 
 others, perhaps, would not have done ; he would 
 take a feeble old woman or a crippled lad for a 
 "ride" in his phaeton, and he had been seen toil- 
 ing over Corbie Crag with a load of sticks beside 
 an ancient dame whose cottage was on the other 
 side of the hill. 
 
 In theory he was democratic, almost socialist ; 
 by instinct and tradition aristocrat to the back- 
 bone. It was perhaps lucky for him that, standing 
 aside from public life, he did not need to make 
 his idealist convictions square with the practices of 
 modern radicalism. 
 
 Altogether he was rather a trying neighbour to 
 his clerical brethren. With old Mr. Treby, indeed, 
 the incumbent of Hennacombe, he got on well 
 enough ; but he, good easy man, having buried
 
 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 39 
 
 three wives, and kept the peace excellently with 
 them all, might be expected to present but few 
 sharp corners to his neighbours. But Mr. Treby's 
 daughter, who was worth more to him than forty 
 curates, was another matter ; and between her and 
 Mr. Jaques there was war to the knife. 
 
 Rachel was the daughter of the first wife, and 
 since her vigorous and independent nature made 
 it difficult for her to get on with her stepmother, 
 most of her youth had been spent with her mother's 
 sister at Cheltenham, where she attended the col- 
 lege, passed examinations with honours, and 
 enjoyed the full tide of feminine activity as it 
 flows in such educational centres. Her views of 
 life, while equally contradictory in themselves, were 
 in total opposition to those of Mr. Jaques. With 
 the religious leanings of modern ritualism and the 
 politics of the Primrose League, she combined a 
 contempt for the ancient and traditional, a belief in 
 progress, and almost emancipated ideas as to the 
 rights and duties of women. 
 
 Girton and a profession would have been her 
 choice for herself, and it was a very bitter neces- 
 sity to her when her father lost his third wife, and 
 her half-sister having married and gone to India, 
 she found herself obliged to come home and take 
 charge of the house and parish. She felt there 
 was an injustice in the thing. Why, because it 
 was marriage that claimed Ellen, was she to be 
 free to forsake her parents and depart, while the 
 one who wanted an independent career must
 
 40 CORNISH DIAMONDS, 
 
 relinquish it ? But though she might grumble, she 
 was too conscientious to refuse. So she came 
 home and flung herself into the organization of 
 her father's parish on modern lines. She did not 
 love parish work, but work of some sort she must 
 have or die. She hated the country, and chafed 
 against her lot ; she wanted intellectual society, 
 and missed the perception that her nearest neigh- 
 bour was a man of wide and deep reading, and of 
 very uncommon scholarship. All she knew was 
 that he was obstructive to her schemes. 
 
 She would have welcomed a fourth Mrs. Treby 
 with effusion ; but the old gentleman by this time 
 had had enough of matrimony, and the years went 
 slipping by, and left her still in chains. It was a 
 pity there was no very great sympathy between 
 her and her step-brother, Alick Studland. He was 
 the son of the second wife by a former marriage, 
 and had been sent to sea at an early age to follow 
 the footsteps of his own father. Rachel considered 
 that their relationship had all the drawbacks of the 
 fraternal tie without its compensations, and they 
 had not been together constantly enough to make 
 the nominal bond into a real one. 
 
 Her first task on coming home had been to 
 restore the ancient church, and on this subject she 
 and Mr. Jaques had had their first disagreements. 
 Repairs it stood sorely in need of; but Rachel 
 was nothing if not thorough. She sent begging 
 letters in all directions, and collected an amazing 
 sum in shillings and sixpences, and even pence, by
 
 CORXISH DIAMONDS. 41 
 
 some mysterious system connected with the letters 
 of the alphabet ; and soon her energies were re- 
 warded by seeing the old grey roof replaced by 
 shining blue slates, with red ridge tiles ; the moul- 
 dering flags inside, with their half-effaced inscrip- 
 tions, by gay and glossy Minton tiling ; the band 
 by no rubbishy harmonium, but by an excellent 
 little organ, which was the pride of her heart. 
 That Mr. Jaques would give neither help nor 
 sympathy was an injury not to be forgiven. If 
 only he would have let her extend the benefits of 
 her guilds and clubs to his parish, he might have 
 been pardoned, for it would have made them sa 
 much more worth while — Hennacombe, with its 
 two score cottages and few scattered farms, was a 
 contracted sphere for her energies — but he would 
 not be interfered with, and hated to be reformed.
 
 ■^ T^^^t^^ 
 
 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 HERE is a story at Kerranstow that the 
 site of the Vicarage was determined by 
 an observation of the exact spot where the 
 lambs sought shelter in wild weather : it clings 
 to the hillside about halfway down, below the 
 sweep of the Atlantic gales across the clifftop, 
 and above the draught of the gully; and just 
 there the combe twists a little, so as not to catch 
 the full force of the south-westerly wind. The 
 church rears itself proudly on the very crest of 
 the hill, that its tall tower may serve as a land- 
 mark to distant seafarers, and the Vicarage lies 
 beneath it by so steep a descent that the footpath 
 which connects the two is a mere flight of steps, 
 and the drive by which it is approached has to 
 make a lengthy detour, and wind round the grassy 
 cliff for a considerable distance. This position 
 precludes the possibility of a garden, properly 
 speaking, so the vicar, accommodating himself to 
 circumstances, had caused the slope below to be 
 cut into terraces of which the higher commanded
 
 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 43 
 
 a magnificent prospect of the western sea and sky, 
 while the lower afforded a safe and sheltered walk 
 for stormy days. Between the lowest and the 
 brook lay the nearest approach to a garden that 
 the situation allowed ; hardy shrubs, tamarisk, 
 eschalonia, fuschias reaching almost the height 
 and girth of trees, clung to their narrow foothold 
 among a tangle of ferns and greenery. Flower- 
 beds it would have been folly to attempt ; the 
 soil as well as the flowers would have found its 
 way down to the bed of the stream with the first 
 of the autumn rains. 
 
 The day after the harvest festival was Friday, 
 and the vicar according to his invariable custom 
 was enjoying his quarter-deck walk on the upper 
 terrace, thinking out his sermon. It was a still 
 October day, and the westering sun was turning 
 the sea into a sheet of burnished copper. Samuel, 
 the yellow cat, liked a little gentle exercise, and 
 was pacing slowly up and down in his master's 
 footsteps, and the jackdaw was standing on one 
 leg on the stone ball that ornamented the end of 
 the parapet, apparently practising strange oaths 
 and breaking off to scold the cat violently when- 
 ever he came too near. 
 
 The three comrades were interrupted presently 
 by the appearance of a visitor, conducted across 
 the lawn by Grace, John Yeo's wife, the vicar's 
 factotum within the house as he was out-of-doors. 
 Jacquot put his head on one side and scratched 
 it in a reflective manner, as though weighing the
 
 44 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 
 
 merits of the approaching guest, and Samuel, who 
 in spite of his dignified deportment was very shy 
 with strange men, took refuge on his master's 
 shoulder. The new-comer was Wynnstay. 
 
 "You will be surprised to see me over here 
 again so soon," said he as they shook hands ; 
 "but the fact is I walked over with my friend 
 Kay to inspect a studio he flatters himself he has 
 discovered in the house of one of your parishioners." 
 
 "A studio in my parish! I never heard of it 
 Did you find it?" 
 
 " We did," answered Wynnstay, laughing at his 
 astonishment, " in the house of one Mrs. Peninah 
 Sutton. And a very good one it is too ; north 
 light and all complete." 
 
 The vicar shrugged his shoulders. 
 
 " Well," he said, " I had no idea that the excel- 
 lent Peninah had gone in for the cultivation of the 
 arts. Is she laying herself out for the entertain- 
 ment of painters with the idea of making Kerran- 
 stow a second Newlyn ? I should not have given 
 her credit for being sufficiently abreast of the age 
 to grasp the possibility. But with women we live 
 and learn ; they are capable of rising to all sorts 
 of emergencies, and when we count upon them 
 they collapse." 
 
 Wynnstay laughed again at this scrap of the 
 philosophy of womankind grafted on to the lodging- 
 letting attempts of his friend's landlady, and was 
 about to explain when the other took him by 
 the arm.
 
 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 45 
 
 " If you have tramped from Westcreek you have 
 had walking enough. Come in and have a glass 
 of cider, or if you prefer it some tea. I always 
 take tea myself at this hour." 
 
 And he led the way to his study where Grace 
 had already set out the tea-things. Mr. Jaques, 
 unlike most men on whom no feminine influence 
 has been brought to bear, had a great weakness 
 for this innocent beverage, and always drank four 
 large cups of an afternoon out of a dark-brown 
 Rockingham teapot that stood on one of the 
 broad hobs of the study fire. Hugh Wynnstay 
 declined to have any more stimulating refreshments 
 brought up on his behalf, preferring to share his 
 host's mild repast. As they sat one on each side of 
 the fire, with a plate of hot toast between them, he 
 reverted to the topic of Peninah Sutton's " studio." 
 
 "After all," he said, ''it is nothing more remark- 
 able than a large and convenient dairy, which the 
 good woman it appears has no use for, and is 
 willing to let. It has a good deal more window 
 than they commonly do, looking of course to the 
 north, and if he isn't frozen out, Kay may very 
 well work there for a bit." 
 
 "Ay, ay, I remember, when old Sutton died, 
 Peninah gave up the cows. A dairy farm is too 
 much for a solitary woman to manage. A fine 
 butter-maker she was, too, and a most industrious 
 woman. She will make your friend comfortable ; 
 but I should think the first north-easterly gales 
 will blow him away."
 
 46 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 
 
 " I am not so sure of that : he has plenty of 
 determination once he takes a craze, and his head 
 is full of his idea of this picture." 
 
 " A bit capricious, isn't he ? " 
 
 " Well, he is rather a crank. Last year he had 
 a glass studio built for outdoor effects, and spent 
 a lot of money on it ; but he has hardly used it 
 since he finished the picture it was designed for. 
 He is full of fads ; but he always sucks his orange 
 before he throws it away." 
 
 ''Then I suppose he is coming on purpose to 
 paint last night's procession. Will he make any- 
 thing of it, do you suppose ? " 
 
 *' Certainly he will if he attempts it. Kay and 
 failure are not acquainted." 
 
 "You have a high opinion of him. But look 
 here ; he asked my leave to paint in the church, 
 and I gave it him ; but I am not sure I did well. 
 He will be putting nonsense into the school 
 children's heads, creating jealousies amongst them 
 and their mothers. They'll be all agog to be put in 
 the picture, you may depend." 
 
 Wynnstay was amused. At Newlyn they did 
 not trouble their heads much about the moral 
 effects of their art upon the minds of their sitters. 
 
 "Oh, I don't think that will signify much," he 
 said ; " it will soon wear off. If it does set one 
 little maid up above her comrades she will soon 
 find her level again." 
 
 "Then," pursued the vicar, still reluctant, "I doubt 
 very much whether old Lyon would let his niece
 
 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 47 
 
 pose to Mr. Kay. He was rather averse to letting 
 her carry her cross in the procession this year ; he 
 said she was * getting too big a girl ' ; but the child 
 was so loth to give it up, she coaxed his consent. 
 She has done it ever since she was quite a little 
 trot. However, I suppose that would not be 
 necessary : it would be quite easy to find a girl 
 tall enough to play that part in the picture." 
 
 " H'm, tall enough, perhaps ; but I doubt if that 
 would be the same thing to Kay. No, we must 
 talk over the formidable uncle." 
 
 "Ah, well, I am by no means sure that if he 
 did consent, I should be altogether disposed to 
 encourage it. You see, she is just growing up ; 
 she has seen nobody, and " — he paused, refilling 
 his cup slowly, then added suddenly — "what kind 
 of man is your friend } " 
 
 " I see what you are thinking of," returned the 
 other; "but I don't think you need be the least 
 afraid of Denis Kay. Though he looks so young, 
 he has knocked about the world a good bit and 
 seen plenty of all sorts of women, and without 
 meaning the least disparagement to your pretty 
 little parishioner, I should say he was not in the 
 least likely to play the fool about a little country 
 miss. He is not by any means a Bohemian in the 
 sort of way the world is apt to fancy of us poor 
 painters, but a very quiet, hardworking sort of 
 fellow. My wife would give him an excellent 
 character as ' thoroughly domesticated.' I assure 
 you he is by no means a dangerous fellow."
 
 48 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 
 
 " Well, he is certainly not alarmingly handsome," 
 returned Mr. Jaques with a laugh. " He will not 
 turn the little girls' heads with his beauty, at any 
 rate." 
 
 " No, he is an ugly little beggar ; but it is a 
 winning kind of ugliness, too. Ah, here he is." 
 
 Meanwhile the subject of these remarks had 
 been making acquaintance with his proposed 
 quarters at Crosstown, and had fairly fallen in love 
 with Peninah's quaint old farmhouse ; with the 
 whitewashed, latticed bedroom, looking right into 
 the boughs of the apple trees, and the snow-white 
 sheets, smelling of lavender ; with the snug 
 parlour, the eight-day clock and corner cupboard, 
 the deep window-seats cushioned in patchwork, 
 the old chintz sofa and the oak table. He saw 
 everything cotileiir de rose^ albeit the mantelpiece 
 was adorned with some truly terrible blue glass 
 vases and bunches of dyed grass and everlastings, 
 which he promised himself to abolish so soon as it 
 could be done without hurting his hostess's feelings. 
 He and Peninah soon came to terms ; she seemed 
 disposed to take him in and do for him in the 
 most motherly spirit, and the old dairy even 
 promised a wonderful adaptability to his purpose. 
 When once he had taken a notion in his head, he 
 was all eagerness to carry it through, and it was 
 agreed that his tenancy should begin on the 
 following Monday. 
 
 When all was settled, he took his way slowly 
 and meanderingly down the gorge to the Vicarage,
 
 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 49 
 
 whither he had promised to follow his friend, 
 pausing now and again to enjoy the broad shining 
 on the western sea, as it deepened in tint and 
 began to draw in to a straiter pathway as the 
 sun got nearer to the verge. 
 
 Crossing the field in which stood the tithe-barn, 
 the scene of last night's festivities, his ear caught a 
 sound that made him pause. Were the revellers 
 still footing it after nearly four and twenty hours ? 
 Or were the ghosts of bygone gavottes and 
 sarabands making themselves heard in spite of 
 the garish daylight } It sounded more like that. 
 He drew a little nearer and stopped again to 
 listen. Yes, certainly, there was one fiddle if not 
 two distinctly audible. After a minute, he came to 
 the conclusion it must be two ; one would imply 
 too wonderful a mastery of double notes for any 
 of last night's performers, and besides he thought 
 he could detect a slight difference in tone and 
 handling. 
 
 Very gently, so as not to disturb the players, he 
 •entered the wide doorway and peeped in. It was 
 the sort of entrance one usually sees in old barns, 
 built out in the middle of one side, broad and high 
 enough to admit a loaded waggon, and with a 
 gabled roof of its own. It was possible to stand 
 in the shadow quite unobserved by any one 
 inside. 
 
 For a minute, fresh from the afternoon sunshine, 
 his dazzled eyes refused to make out anything 
 •clearly, but his ears recognized a Pavane by 
 
 VOL. I. 4
 
 50 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 
 
 Scarlatti, arranged for two violins, and played 
 with perfect precision and grace. Then in the 
 brown shadow beyond the slanting bars of sun- 
 light which fell across the uneven floor, he saw 
 two figures ; on the shaft of a small cart wheeled 
 up into one corner sat a man with a wiry figure 
 and slightly grizzled head, whom he thought he 
 recognized as the vicar's man-of-all-work, beating 
 time with his foot, and against the woodwork of 
 the empty corn-bin at the end of the barn leant the 
 girl who had led the procession, her hat on the 
 floor beside her, her head a little on one side, her 
 rounded chin resting lovingly on the violin she 
 held, the warm ruddy tone of which gave the 
 key-note to the scheme of brown and gold that 
 made up the picture. 
 
 Kay almost held his breath lest they should see 
 him and break off, and the Pavane pursued its 
 tuneful way to the close. He could scarcely 
 restrain himself from applauding then, only he 
 wanted to hear some more, and was very anxious 
 to find out which was master and which was pupil 
 of this oddly assorted pair ; so he kept very still. 
 
 " Very good. Miss Jenifer," said the man sitting 
 on the shaft. " Now, suppose we was to try the 
 C minor fugue ? " 
 
 *' Let me take the tenor then, and you do the 
 two upper parts. I have not caught the go of it." 
 
 Away they went again, but this time not with 
 such good success. John Yeo stamped furiously 
 to mark the measure, but in vain ; the young lady
 
 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 51 
 
 was left far behind. Her companion never lost 
 the time himself, but occasionally he made his 
 fiddle squeal in his efforts to drag her after him. 
 Soon they came to utter grief and stopped, the girl 
 laughing and breathless. 
 
 " Oh, John, don't go so fast," she cried. 
 
 " Tisn't the pace. Miss Jenifer ; 'tis that you 
 haven't got a grip of him. Try again. Now. 
 One hn, two who, three hee, fo — No, there you 
 are, out again. You must come in upon three hee'' 
 
 He laid his fiddle for a moment upon his knee, 
 and exhorted his pupil solemnly. 
 
 " There's no man, missie, easier to keep time wi' 
 than Batch, once you have got hold of him ; but 
 I'll allow he puzzles ye a bit at the first go off. 
 Now, are you ready ? " 
 
 But Miss Lyon straightened herself up from her 
 leaning posture, and laid her fiddle down, pushing 
 back her hair. 
 
 " No, really I am so hot, I must go outside and 
 get a breath of fresh air. I'll go on again pre- 
 sently." 
 
 The eavesdropper had no time to make his 
 escape, she came upon him so quickly ; so he was 
 forced to stand his ground and make his apologies 
 as best he could. 
 
 He raised his hat. " I begin to think this old 
 barn must be subject to some curious enchantment," 
 he said ; "first a ballroom and then a concert-hall. 
 How many of the fine arts do you cultivate here. 
 Miss Lyon ? " 
 
 \mm — ^ 
 
 UNIYERSmrOFfLUNOtS
 
 52 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 
 
 Driven into a corner, Jenifer's shyness abated. 
 " I don't know," she answered ; " but we are all 
 very fond of music, and I do think John Yeo is a 
 genius." 
 
 " So it seems ; but you don't mean to say that 
 he has been your only instructor } " 
 
 " Not entirely ; but I learnt from him since I 
 was almost a baby. When I was six, I was always 
 running off down here to play on John's fiddle, 
 and then my uncle gave me one of my own, and 
 John taught me to handle it. It always was my 
 greatest delight, and I wanted so much to learn 
 more, and a few years ago I went to stay with 
 some relations at Plymouth, and Mr. Jaques, who 
 is always doing kind things, gave me a course of 
 lessons from the best master there. Do you know 
 he said I had been admirably grounded ; wasn't 
 that fine for John ? " 
 
 "Very. And now I suppose the positions are 
 reversed ; he is pupil and you are teacher } " 
 
 "By no means. Didn't you hear him scolding 
 me just now ? " she said with a laugh. '* I am so 
 stupid ; I cannot manage those fugues." 
 
 " Well," cried Kay, " though I do not play, I am 
 musician enough to know that to play Bach's four- 
 part fugues, written for clavichord, on the violin is 
 about as difficult an exercise as you can have." 
 
 Jenifer looked up with a quaint smile. "As 
 John says, it Is like riding on a donkey ; there is 
 no honour and glory in it ; but if you can do that, 
 you can do anything. I have been meaning to
 
 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 53 
 
 get Bach's violin music and study him properly, 
 but I can't afford much new music ; so in the 
 meantime John and I have arranged the pianoforte 
 score ourselves for our two violins." 
 
 '* Are you going to have another try at him ? 
 You won't send me away, will you ? I should so 
 like to hear a little more." 
 
 Jenifer's shyness never took the form of nervous- 
 ness about playing before strangers, and she com- 
 plied at once ; only substituting for the imperfectly 
 learned fugue, the prelude in C, taking the melody 
 while John took the flowing accompaniment. Kay 
 was entranced and could have listened for an hour, 
 but recollected that Wynnstay was awaiting him 
 at the Vicarage, and probably marvelling already 
 at his long absence. 
 
 For the present he deferred unfolding his scheme 
 for his picture ; he should get plenty of oppor- 
 tunities now he had once broken the ice, and he 
 thought he had better let her get a little used to 
 the idea of him and his work before broaching his 
 request. He felt yet as if he had caught a half- 
 tamed bird, whom a sudden movement might 
 frighten away, out of his reach.
 
 K^r^^J^.^^M 
 
 %MkM 
 
 ;.:^:;;^?^ ^/^^^ 
 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 ITHOUT being in any sense a show place, 
 for, happily for its inhabitants, it was not 
 even mentioned in the guide-books, Pencoet was 
 one of the most interesting old houses in existence. 
 If the Archaeological Society had ever routed it 
 out, they would have described it as an almost 
 perfectly preserved example of the domestic archi- 
 tecture of the thirteenth or fourteenth century. 
 It was not, had never been, a castle ; no frowning 
 keep nor battlemented rampart distinguished it 
 from the neighbouring farmhouses ; but the old- 
 world air which hung about its granite walls and 
 rough slate, gabled roofs, and pervaded the grey 
 courtyard and the panelled parlour, was like an 
 atmosphere, and seemed to bring the visitor into 
 closer contact with the life of old days than a more 
 ambitious dwelling could have done. 
 
 Nothing had been changed ; the old hall still 
 boasted its raised dais for musicians above the 
 buttery hatch ; within the wide chimney the old 
 oak settles still afforded a snu? seat for winter
 
 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 55 
 
 nights, and the wide, five-lighted, heavily mullioned 
 vi^indows were still adorned with curtains of tambour 
 work in deep blue on a buff ground — perhaps once 
 white — that were worked by a Mistress Jaques in 
 the days when poor Queen Mary beguiled the 
 tedium of Fotheringhay by similar large pieces of 
 embroidery. 
 
 The house belonged to the Vicar of Kerranstow, 
 and people wondered, as people always will wonder 
 about other folks' business, why he did not live in 
 it himself, since it stood just within his own parish. 
 However, since the death of his parents, he had let 
 it, and now probably would always continue to do 
 so, though the home of his forefathers was dear 
 to him. 
 
 Septimus Jaques was not, as his name would 
 seem to imply, the last of seven, but was an only 
 son ; but for two hundred years the head of the 
 family had always borne the name of Septimus. 
 In the days of the great rebellion, six brothers had 
 gone out from the old home to play a manful part 
 on the king's side, like true Cornishmen, and had 
 never returned ; and the seventh joined the young 
 king's standard at Worcester while a mere stripling. 
 More fortunate than the rest, he had escaped and 
 lived in exile, coming home after the Restoration 
 to keep up the old name and erect monuments to 
 his brothers in Kerranstow Church. 
 
 The house itself had a very narrow escape in 
 those perilous times ; for the widowed mother of 
 the gallant seven, hearing that the Parliamentary
 
 56 ' CORNISH DIAMONDS. 
 
 army meditated a descent upon it, meaning to 
 fortify it and hold it as a strong position, conscious 
 of her inability to defend it with her few servants, 
 had a match in her hand, ready to set fire to her 
 well-loved home sooner than suffer it to become a 
 tool in the hands of the king's enemies, when the 
 news of Sir Bevil Grenvil's success came in time 
 to make the sacrifice needless. 
 
 When first Mr. Jaques's mother died, and Pencoet 
 eame to him, the parish settled for him that he 
 should take up his abode there, and let the Vicarage 
 to a tenant farmer who had his eye on the glebe, 
 but he asked no one's advice ; he had taken root 
 in the Vicarage, and there he preferred to remain, 
 close under the shadow of the church, and before 
 long a tenant was found for Pencoet. That was 
 five and twenty years ago, and few people remem- 
 bered the brief tenancy of pretty Mrs. Mayfield 
 and her mother, and fewer still were aware of the 
 havoc it had wrought with the owner's peace of 
 mind. Since then it had been occupied by twa 
 elderly brothers, one of w^hom was stone deaf and 
 the other a little lame, so they had not done much 
 for the society of the place. Last year had seen 
 them both laid in the churchyard, and now strangers 
 had appeared once more in the old house. 
 
 If Mr. Jaques's dislike to seeing his home once 
 more in a woman's hands arose from any fear of 
 finding the panelled parlour profaned by the 
 intrusion of modern trumpery, it was perfectly 
 groundless; Letty Dendron harmonized with her
 
 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 57 
 
 surroundings in a way that was simply marvellous. 
 She was the last woman in the world to drive nails 
 into the panels to hang plates to, or to tie Liberty 
 handkerchiefs round all her flower-pots. She ful- 
 filled Mallock's happy definition of a person of 
 culture — one on whom none of the finer flavours 
 of life are lost — she was as capable of tasting the 
 fine flavour of the old Manorhouse w^ith its moss- 
 grown traditions ; of the wild, unspoilt surroundings 
 of sea and cliff, as of enjoying the full tide of 
 fashionable life in town. Many women would 
 have chafed at being suddenly uprooted from a 
 house in Queen's Gate and a villa on the ThameSj 
 and planted down in a lonely parish, twenty miles 
 from a railway and five from a coach-road, and 
 having to exchange the society she was used to — 
 wealthy people and smart people with a mingling 
 of the literary and artistic element — for the few 
 scattered families of visitable position in the thinly 
 populated neighbourhood, the country clergy, and 
 the handful of residents in the ten-mile-distant 
 market town of Widcombe, with its seaside suburb 
 of Westcreek. Not so Letty; she looked round 
 her with the eye of a connoisseur, and proceeded 
 to gather about her materials for living her life so 
 as to extract the most pleasure from it. 
 
 Such innovations as she had made in her parlour 
 were rather in the direction of snugness than 
 decoration. She had hunted out from a lumber- 
 room an ancient and somewhat faded Japanese 
 leather screen, and made a cosy corner by the
 
 58 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 
 
 fire-side with it, where it gave back faintly the glow 
 of the wood fire from its dimmed and tarnished gild- 
 ing. She had furnished the big, old-fashioned sofa 
 with some huge silk pillows, but had foreborne to 
 drape anything except the windows, where she had 
 excluded the draught by short curtains of chestnut 
 velvet lined with pale yellow. 
 
 Her eye rested on the ensemble with considerable 
 satisfaction one afternoon when she had announced 
 to her few neighbours that she should be At Home. 
 There was nothing out of harmony, nothing new 
 even, except a pile of magazines and a novel on the 
 table, and these were balanced, if not wholly out- 
 weighed, by a folio Clarendon that lay open on the 
 sofa — not for show ; for she had really been get- 
 ting up the course of the civil war in the west, that 
 she might dilate on the history of her new home 
 intelligently to a friend to whom she was describ- 
 ine it in a loner and enthusiastic letter. At this 
 moment she had forsaken her studies, and was 
 standing by the table arranging a great bough of 
 copper beech and some tall spikes of golden rod in 
 a jar of gris de Flandres. When she had made 
 them stand up to her liking, she lifted the heavy 
 pot on to the broad window-sill — not in the middle, 
 but a little to one side — where the golden spires were 
 relieved against the deep brown of the oak shutter. 
 
 "Will anybody come, I wonder?" she said to 
 herself, sitting down on the edge of the window-seat, 
 and contemplating the dense white mist in which 
 the outdoor world was swathed.
 
 CORNISH DIAMONDS, 59 
 
 The window afforded at no time a wide pros- 
 pect ; it overlooked a narrow garden, turfed from 
 end to end and shut in with high granite walls. 
 The turf had the exquisite fineness and greenness 
 •of centuries of mowing and rolling, so that the 
 absence of flower-beds was not a matter of regret. 
 Against the greyness of the opposite wall rose blue 
 hydrangeas in full bloom and tall fuschias, hanging 
 their crimson fringes over into the road. In the 
 middle of the grass-plat stood a sundial, nearly 
 black with moisture, looking pitifully wan and use- 
 less in the grey gloom. 
 
 *'I wonder if I shall be dull here, after all," 
 reflected Letty, with a slight misgiving. " If no 
 one ever comes " 
 
 But at that moment the gate bell clanged out, 
 and after a brief delay, Rachel Treby, blooming 
 and fresh as a plant that has been standing out in 
 the rain, entered, followed by her step-brother. 
 
 " How good of you to come ! " was Letty's warm 
 greeting, as she drew her visitors to the fireside ; 
 •*' in such nasty weather, too." 
 
 " Not at all ; we don't think anything of the sea 
 fog here, do we, Alick .? And, besides, you can't 
 imagine how grateful we are for a neighbour in 
 this wilderness," said Rachel, as her hostess relieved 
 her of her cloak. 
 
 " Oh, you call it a wilderness, do you ? Well, I 
 am surprised, and rather disappointed. I thought 
 you were one of those busy and enthusiastic people 
 who never have time to be discontented, and I was
 
 6o CORNISH DIAMONDS. 
 
 going to get you to initiate me into the best way 
 of thoroughly enjoying a country life." 
 
 " Enjoying ! I call it simply hateful." 
 
 "Come, Rachel," said the sailor, "you really 
 shouldn't say those sort of things. You will give 
 Mrs. Dendron quite a false idea of the place or of 
 yourself." 
 
 " You like it } But, then, you are a man, and can 
 shoot. Men are always happy, I believe, so long 
 as they can kill something. Shall I like it, do you 
 suppose ? " And Letty gave him a long inquiring 
 glance. 
 
 " I don't see why not. Of course, if you hate the 
 country — " 
 
 " But I don't," said Letty ; " I love it ; but, then, 
 it is one thing to enjoy such heavenly autumn 
 weather as we have been having, and quite 
 another to be thrown upon one's own resources 
 when everything is wet and clammy, as it is 
 to-day." 
 
 "I don't believe," put in Rachel, "that you 
 really care for the country a bit more than I do. 
 Many people fancy they do when they have always 
 lived in a town ; but I am certain no one with 
 brains and cultivation can be content to vegetate 
 — to rust — seeing no one year in year out." 
 
 Letty shivered a little, and Alick took up the 
 defence. 
 
 " I know one person who can, and he is the 
 cleverest man I know. I mean your landlord ;. 
 he appreciates it."
 
 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 6i 
 
 "As a limpet appreciates the rock," returned 
 Rachel. " He is a fossil." 
 
 " Well, I'll give you another instance. Miss 
 Lyon ; she is so devoted to Kerranstow that 
 nothing will get her away." 
 
 " Pooh ! A child who has never known anything 
 else, and is too ignorant to know what she throws 
 away ! I am disappointed in Jenifer. Mrs. 
 Dendron, only fancy, I had an opportunity a year 
 ago of doing her a real service. You know I have 
 always taken an interest in her, and she has come 
 to me for French and German lessons, and so on ; 
 and last year I could have got her a post in Chel- 
 tenham which would have been such a splendid 
 opening for her. A friend of mine has a boarding 
 house in connection with the College, and she 
 wanted a young girl to help in looking after the 
 junior pupils and be useful in the house, and she 
 would have taken Jenifer at my recommendation. 
 She would have been able to attend the classes 
 and improve herself, and, would you believe it? 
 she deliberately threw away the chance ; said 
 they could not spare her at home, and she should 
 be miserable away from her dear Kerranstow, and 
 Mr. Jaques abetted her." 
 
 " Little Jenifer as a high - school mistress ! 
 Heaven forbid," ejaculated Mr. Studland ; and it 
 was perhaps fortunate for the maintenance of 
 amicable relations that at this moment Mr. Jaques 
 joined the party. 
 
 No one would have suspected from his
 
 62 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 
 
 demeanour that he had any sentimental memories 
 connected with the panelled padour, as he glanced 
 round with an approving smile, and rallied Mrs. 
 Dendron on her fondness for " old lumber," as he 
 designated the leather screen, which he declared 
 his mother had relegated to the garret before he 
 could walk. He was in a somewhat bellicose 
 mood this afternoon, and fighting was the 
 established order between him and Miss Treby 
 whenever they encountered each other ; so while 
 Letty and the sailor dropped into a low-toned 
 conversation on one side of the fire, the two 
 combatants were soon engaged in a lively duel on 
 the subject of a "Young Women's Guild" she 
 was just establishing at Hennacombe, the sphere 
 of which she was very anxious to extend to 
 Kerranstovv. 
 
 The party was soon increased by the arrival of 
 the Wynnstays and Kay, and it was quite a 
 roomful into which poor little Miss Lyon had to 
 make her solitary entrance a few minutes later. 
 In the wake of the tea-tray the master of the 
 house came straying in, in the furtive manner of 
 a man whose wife habitually entertains her own 
 guests without any reference to him, and was 
 treated by her much like a guest in whom she felt 
 less interest than in the others. He tried to get 
 up a little conversation with Jenifer, to whom 
 no one was talking, but she was difficult to get 
 on with, so he gravitated to the hearthrug and 
 the vicar, and left her to the entertainment of
 
 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 63 
 
 watching and listening, which she infinitely pre- 
 ferred. 
 
 " Now," said Letty, rising and coming forward 
 when tea and muffins had had their turn ; " I have 
 a proposal to make. Certain inhabitants of this 
 locality bring against it the shocking charge that 
 it is dull. Now, I don't intend to be dull, not even 
 in the winter, and I propose that we band ourselves 
 together into a company, and get up an enter- 
 tainment." 
 
 " It sounds attractive," said Rachel ; " but the 
 question is, whom do we propose to entertain "i " 
 
 "Why, ourselves, of course. We will try and 
 get up an audience of some sort as part of the 
 necessary paraphernalia, but undoubtedly the 
 people to be amused are our noble selves." 
 
 " If you don't mean to be exclusive," said Mr. 
 Jaques, " I believe the country-folk round would 
 tramp any distance for a ' ploy.' You should see 
 them when a travelling circus pitches its tent at 
 Widcombe." 
 
 " Exclusive ! oh no ; the thing will be to get 
 everybody to come we can lay hold of Well, will 
 you all join .?" 
 
 " I am afraid you must not count upon us," said 
 Mrs. Wynnstay. "We go back to Newlyn to- 
 morrow." 
 
 " Nor on me," said Studland. " I am sorry to 
 say I have to rejoin my ship." 
 
 "But he is coming back at Christmas, for a 
 proper leave," put in his sister.
 
 •64 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 
 
 "Very well, then, let us postpone till Christmas ; 
 it would be a much better time. Only, we may 
 just as well settle what we are to have, and then 
 we can be making preparations. And," she added, 
 turning to Muriel, "you and your husband must 
 come and stay with me for it. But now, what is 
 it to be? — acting? music? waxworks? Christy 
 minstrels ? — what ? " 
 
 Nobody liked to take the decision upon them 
 till Kay said — 
 
 "If I might be allowed to make a suggestion, I 
 would give my vote in favour of acting, as fulfilling 
 best the main object of being most entertaining to 
 the performers." 
 
 "True," said Letty ; "waxworks are certainly 
 boring, as well as being an infinite deal of trouble 
 for nothing, and tableaux are open to the same 
 objection ; and I doubt" — looking critically round 
 upon the company — "whether we are any of us 
 quite funny enough for a nigger troupe." 
 
 "And," put in Wynnstay, "since Kay is going 
 to stay in these parts, you will have the advantage 
 of a scene-painter all ready to hand." 
 
 "So we shall," said Letty, calmly; "how very 
 nice ; and it is a part that can be doubled with 
 any other, too. Then that is settled. Have we 
 your sanction, Mr. Jaques, to turning your parish 
 upside down ? I wonder if we may ask for the 
 loan of the schoolroom or the tithe-barn ? I was 
 thinking we might offer " 
 
 But he broke in somewhat abruptly —
 
 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 6; 
 
 "On one condition. Do what you like so long 
 as you don't do it for a charity. Amuse yourselves, 
 if you like, and other people too ; but if the pro- 
 ceeds are for anything, I wash my hands of it." 
 
 " I am not so proud, Mrs. Dendron," said Rachel, 
 from the other side of the room. " If you will 
 offer me the profits for my lending-library, I shall 
 accept them most gratefully. I can understand 
 people not caring to make money for the church 
 in that sort of way, but I must say I see no 
 occasion to be so squeamish for other things." 
 
 Letty hastily interposed. 
 
 " Oh, I don't suppose there will be any profits," 
 she said. " You know we can't charge much, and 
 there are always lots of little incidental expenses." 
 
 The house then went into committee to decide 
 on play and players ; rather a difficult task, since 
 no one knew anything of the capacities of any one 
 else ; but Letty seemed to divine with unerring 
 tact what would suit her suddenly gathered corps 
 dramatiqiLe. Presently Kay interposed with 
 another suggestion. 
 
 " If we are going to have two short plays, would 
 it not be well to have an interlude of music ? With 
 so much local talent, it would be a waste not to 
 make use of it." 
 
 " Local talent ? Oh, you mean the band. But 
 don't they hear themselves and each other often 
 enough? I don't suppose they would care for 
 my playing ; and, besides, I should have to be 
 changing my clothes." 
 
 VOL. I. 5
 
 66 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 
 
 " No, I wasn't thinking of the band. I thought 
 perhaps Miss Lyon would give us a solo." 
 
 Letty looked up surprised, and Jenifer, not at 
 all taken aback, said — 
 
 " Oh, wouldn't it be nicer to have a quartette ? 
 Mr. Jaques, couldn't we do Haydn in G? You 
 and I and John and Abel Polsue ? " 
 
 "Well," cried Letty, sinking down upon a sofa 
 — she had been standing till now on the hearth- 
 rug, "I am a fine person to come down and 
 take upon me to organize entertainments, and find, 
 after all, that I am in a nest of geniuses. Do you 
 all play ? and what on ? " 
 
 They all laughed heartily at this outburst, and 
 Alick said — 
 
 "Why, Miss Lyon has played the fiddle ever 
 since she was a baby ? And do you mean to say 
 you have never heard your landlord's 'cello ? " 
 
 " Then clearly we must have a concert ; we 
 cannot waste all this on a mere interlude. We 
 will have the play on Boxing Night, and the 
 concert on Twelfth Night. Mrs. Wynnstay, you 
 sing, I am sure ; you look as if you did." 
 
 Muriel promised her aid, and Kay volunteered 
 some plantation songs which he said would keep 
 them from getting too classical ; while Mr. Jaques, 
 who threw himself into the project with unexpected 
 zest, undertook to get up three concerted pieces. 
 
 Letty was enchanted with her discovery, and 
 eagerly persuaded Jenifer to promise to come and 
 practise with her. She indulged in a multitude
 
 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 67 
 
 of tastes and talents, but her passion for music 
 was supreme, and one of her chief regrets in 
 coming to a spot so out of the world had been the 
 fear of starvation in this respect. She did not 
 much fear mediocrity ; whatever Mr. Jaques did 
 was certain to be done well, and she had seen 
 enough of Kay to be sure that he was nothing 
 if not critical. If he had heard Miss Lyon, and 
 was satisfied, she was safe. 
 
 Meanwhile the painter's own special scheme 
 seemed in danger of being shelved in the 
 multitude of undertakings sprung upon them ; but 
 presently he found an opportunity to slip behind 
 the sofa on which Jenifer was sitting, and enter 
 on his negotiations. She seemed much shyer on 
 that subject than about playing in public ; the 
 notion was so entirely new to her, and she was 
 not quite sure that she liked the idea of mas- 
 querading in her part of cross-bearer, which was 
 part of a real religious office to her. She looked 
 across at the vicar, to see if he would not come to 
 her aid ; but his attention was at the moment 
 occupied by his hostess, and she could only 
 murmur something shyly about asking her aunt. 
 And then the party began to break up. 
 
 Mr. Dendron, who had disappeared during the 
 discussion of the theatricals, was in the hall to see 
 them off with all due politeness, and after he had 
 closed the door behind the guests, he re-entered 
 the drawing-room, rather to his wife's surprise. 
 
 " You seemed to have a very cheerful party here
 
 68 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 
 
 this afternoon, Letty," he said. *' I am very glad 
 to find you have some pleasant neighbours. I was 
 a little afraid you might find the country dull." 
 
 " No, I don't think I am ever dull ; I can always 
 find plenty of amusing things to do. I was more 
 afraid you would be the one to suffer, for you 
 don't care for the country." 
 
 *' Thank you. Oh, I shall get on very well ; 
 I have my books." He sighed. " It would have 
 been more difficult, and I think more trying for 
 you, to have economized and altered our style of 
 living in our own neighbourhood. I regret the 
 necessity extremely on your account." 
 
 They were always scrupulously courteous to each 
 other, these two ; but the five years which they 
 had spent side by side never seemed to bring them 
 any nearer together. They had seldom or never a 
 difference ; neither were self-willed or hasty 
 tempered, so if any divergence of opinion arose, 
 one or other was sure to yield on due cause shown ; 
 but they did not amalgamate. They never used 
 the first person plural ; they did not think of 
 themselves as "we," but "I and Oliver." "Mrs. 
 Dendron and myself" was the form under which 
 their partnership clothed itself. It had been on 
 one if not on both sides a mariage de raison ; per- 
 haps not wholly on his. His fancy, possibly his 
 heart, had been attracted by the charms of a girl 
 different from anything he had been accustomed 
 to ; he had probably idealized her, plain and matter- 
 of-fact as he seemed, and though he could not
 
 CORXISH DIAMONDS. 
 
 have put it in any such fanciful form, his feeling 
 was as if he had married an Elle-woman. 
 
 And Letty was under the impression that she 
 had done her duty. She had given up, not without 
 a struggle, the man on whom her heart was set, 
 had conformed to the dictates of prudence and 
 her mother's wishes, and had really behaved very 
 well ever since. Mrs. Brabazon was wont to aver 
 to her intimates that her daughter's marriage had 
 turned out excellently — beyond even her expect- 
 ations. At any rate until this unlucky disaster 
 with the Peruvian mines, and that was not so bad 
 but it might have been worse. Letty had still 
 plenty of money for her frocks and such little 
 amusements as were to be had in the wilds, and 
 it showed her excellent sense that she had agreed 
 to bury herself for awhile rather than struggle to 
 keep up appearances on a diminished income, or 
 retrench in the face of all her old associates. 
 
 Mr. Dendron had proved a very indulgent 
 husband ; he had full faith in Letty's discretion, 
 and had always allowed her to go her own way 
 and amuse herself as she pleased, so long as a 
 similar liberty was accorded to him. She had 
 never abused her freedom. Fortunately "the 
 other man " was out of the way — at Stamboul or 
 St. Petersburg, or somewhere ; he was in the 
 diplomatic service, and had not been heard of in 
 Town for ages. Mrs. Brabazon took credit to 
 herself for having managed that affair with great 
 discretion. It had been going on for two years,
 
 70 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 
 
 and Letty had been out for three seasons ; there 
 were several pretty younger sisters waiting to step 
 into her shoes, and her mother was beginning to 
 get impatient. " I will never consent to drag 
 about a string of daughters," she said ; " if Sybil 
 has to stay in the schoolroom till she is forty." 
 Then something — a breach, a misunderstanding — 
 happened between Letty and Philip Latimer, and 
 the judicious mother was careful to fan Letty's 
 resentment. At the same moment Mr. Dendron 
 appeared ; rich, independent, and if not much of 
 a social star, at any rate quite presentable. Mrs. 
 Brabazon was quick to divine and to foster the 
 attraction he evidently found in her daughter's 
 society; she gave them every opportunity of 
 meeting — and waited. She was far too wise a 
 woman to attempt to force Letty's inclinations ; 
 she let things take their course, and as she had 
 foreseen, Letty decided for herself. Philip Latimer 
 had disappeared, and moreover there was the 
 sting of fancying that he had slighted her, and 
 she preferred the secure position of wife to a 
 wealthy man to sinking gradually into an ac- 
 knowledged failure, a mere elder sister to the 
 brilliant Sybil and Violet, who were clamouring 
 to be presented next season. So she chose her 
 part — chose, as her mother and all her friends said, 
 wisely, and so far all things had answered very 
 well to her desires. She had money and prestige 
 and the power to draw about her the cultivated 
 society she preferred, and if Oliver were rather
 
 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 71 
 
 dull, he was at least always considerate and 
 courteous, and allowed her in all things to take her 
 own way unopposed. It seemed a little hard that 
 after so few years she should find herself curtailed 
 of most of those things for the sake of which she 
 had married an uncongenial husband, but Letty 
 was not disheartened ; it was not that kind of 
 trouble that could depress her ; she rather found a 
 pleasure in extracting all the sweetness possible 
 from her new life, and adjusting herself to altered 
 conditions as she had a marvellous power of 
 doing.
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 HE Wynnstays had a bed at Peninah Sutton's 
 the night after Mrs. Dendron's afternoon 
 tea ; for the October days were drawing in, 
 and the dense fog rendered the drive back to 
 Westcreek unpleasant if not absolutely unsafe. 
 Besides, they wanted to see Kay's new quarters, 
 and help him to settle in with his goods and 
 chattels, some of which they had brought over for 
 him. He accompanied them halfway on their 
 homeward drive next day, proposing to find his 
 way back on foot. 
 
 From Gooseburn Mill, where he left the carriage, 
 there were three ways of reaching Kerranstow ; 
 either along the road by which they had driven, 
 long, monotonous, hilly ; or across the cliffs — a 
 more attractive route certainly, but owing to the 
 deep chasm and gorges with which it was 
 diversified, steep exceedingly and fatiguing ; or 
 there was yet another way, along the shore for 
 some distance, turning up at a cove about two 
 miles off and working gradually up the combe to
 
 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 73 
 
 Pencoet. At low tide it was not bad walking 
 over the expanse of brown, weed-covered rock, and 
 an occasional patch of firm sand relieved the 
 monotony. The miller, of whom Kay made 
 inquiry, assured him that the tide would continue 
 to ebb for some time yet, so that with a little 
 scrambling he might get round or over the 
 rocks that fringed the successive headlands, and 
 he need be under no apprehension of being caught 
 by the sea ; but he strongly recommended his 
 turning up at the mouth ; there was a sort of a 
 path up the cliff at Kerranstow, to be sure ; the 
 lads could go up that way, but a stranger would 
 never find it ; besides, it was rough walking before 
 you came to it ; there were large boulders to scale, 
 and the rock, instead of being laid fiat like a floor, 
 as it was towards Westcreek, ran out in a series 
 of knife-like ridges. 
 
 It was an exquisite afternoon ; there was just 
 breeze enough to sweep away the mist of yesterday, 
 but it still lay along the horizon in silvery grey 
 streaks, making sea and sky melt into one another 
 imperceptibly. What Kay took for a clear space 
 of blue sky between the cloulds was presently 
 crossed by a distant fishing-smack. Still as it was, 
 he could watch the long heaving swell of the 
 Atlantic rollers coming in from far out, filling up 
 the rock-pools at his feet with sudden rush and 
 overflow. 
 
 All too soon he arrived at Pencoet Mouth, where 
 a brook came down through a thicket of tall
 
 74 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 
 
 Osmunda, and where, by slanting up the combe side, 
 he might gain the high-road that led to Church- 
 town. But Kay was one of those whom the sea 
 draws like a magnet ; he could never be within 
 sight or sound of it without longing to be either 
 in it or on it, or at the least to walk by the 
 very brim. He was by no means ready yet to 
 turn his back upon it, and, crossing the narrow bay, 
 he began to investigate the possibility of following 
 the foot of the cliff still further. The miller had 
 admitted the existence of a possible ascent at 
 Kerranstovv ; it would surely be worth while to try 
 for it. The tide had not yet begun to turn ; there 
 was no danger to be feared from that quarter, and 
 as to the difficulties the miller had made so much 
 of, why, he was probably accustomed to the cheap- 
 tripper order of visitor from Westcreek whom a 
 little climbing would terrify. 
 
 Progress soon became more difficult but by no 
 means impossible to a man of Kay's light and 
 active build, though by degrees walking was 
 exchanged for clambering over a succession of 
 fortresses. After nearly an hour spent in this 
 manner, our pedestrian began to admit that the 
 miller was perhaps right, and that he should not 
 be sorry to resume a normal mode of progression. 
 The day was warm, and at last he threw himself 
 full length on a flat-topped boulder, wiped his 
 forehead, lighted a cigarette, and proceeded to 
 review the situation. 
 
 It was difficult to tell exactly how far he had
 
 CORNISH DIAxMONDS. 75 
 
 come ; the outlines of the cliffs that rose frowningly 
 above him looked so different from this new point 
 of view from their aspect from the top that he 
 could not feel sure of his whereabouts. Still it 
 was impossible he could be far from Kerranstow 
 now, unless, indeed, as he more than half suspected, 
 he had overshot the mark ; but if so, where was 
 the path? He was quite positive he had not 
 passed one. He fancied the point that ran up 
 into the blue sky directly over his head must be 
 the one known as the Shag's Head, and that was 
 almost in a line with the Vicarage. Anyhow, going 
 back by the way he had come was not to be 
 thought of, so when he had rested awhile he 
 pursued his way, looking out sharply for any 
 indications of a possible track up the cliff. 
 
 Just round the next corner there was certainly 
 a sign of something of the kind, though it could 
 hardly be described as a path. Here and there 
 a narrow ledge could be traced running along the 
 face of the rock, but from below it was impossible 
 for the eye to follow it the whole way ; much of it 
 must be taken on trust. On this side the head- 
 land seemed to be a good deal crumbled away ; 
 masses of loose shale alternated with blocks of 
 granite. Probably there was more foothold than 
 appeared at the distance. " Anyway," said Denis 
 to himself, "what man has done, man may do. 
 There must be a way up." 
 
 The difficulty was in beginning ; coming down, 
 it might be easy enough to drop the sheer eight
 
 76 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 
 
 or ten feet that finished the pathway, but to scale 
 it was another matter. By the aid of a few 
 crevices, however, this initial task was overcome, 
 and after that for a little progress was less toil- 
 some than it had been over the boulders below. 
 Steep it was assuredly, and unsuited for any but a 
 steady head, for it was never more than a few 
 inches wide, and a false step would have entailed 
 unpleasant consequences ; still, as he gained 
 summit after summit, Kay began to congratulate 
 himself that he had decided to risk the attempt. 
 He must be very near the top now. Almost as 
 he was thinking this, he found himself involved in 
 a new and unlooked-for difficulty. The places 
 where the path had been invisible from below 
 were, he found, spots where in truth it ceased to 
 exist, the loose shale, layers of which diversified 
 the granite precipices, having slipped away, path 
 and all. He had already encountered two such 
 passages, and come safely over them, finding that 
 the stuff though shifting gave a certain amount of 
 foothold. Here the danger was increased tenfold, 
 for this third bed of shale covered a sharp incline. 
 Now was the time for caution ; each step must be 
 well looked to. He quite ceased to plume himself 
 on his enterprise as he crept along, working a little 
 hollow with his toe before trusting his weight. If 
 there had been a ledge of rock above him against 
 which he might steady himself with his hand, it 
 would not Jiave been so bad, but it was all alike, 
 and the attempt to catch hold of anything only
 
 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 77 
 
 brought the crumbling flakes down on him in a 
 bewildering shower. 
 
 Presently it was borne in upon him that further 
 progress in this direction was impossible ; it was 
 getting worse and worse ; the only thing was to 
 try back and hope for some more practicable track 
 from the path where he had left it. A little higher 
 it looked as if the shale bank were not quite so 
 steep. To turn was out of the question ; the only 
 way was to crawl backwards as nearly as possible 
 in his former footprints. Even to remain motion- 
 less was perilous, for the ground kept shifting, 
 shifting under him in a way that was sickening. 
 
 Two or three steps he accomplished, then he 
 stepped on a softer bit, and it gave way ; he 
 slipped, recovered himself, slipped again, and was 
 sliding down faster, faster. He dug his hands in 
 among the splinters, but all to no purpose, they 
 came down with him. In a moment he would be 
 over the sheer edge. Then something green 
 brushed past his face, and he clutched at it. It 
 was only a large, strong tuft of samphire, but it 
 gave him an instant's stay, and as he clung 
 grappling into the tough roots, his dangling left 
 foot found the support of a bit of rock wedged 
 firmly among all the sliding debris. Bearing upon 
 that, he was able to work his other foot into a 
 hollow that gave him a modicum of support, 
 though he dared not rest upon it, and so clinging, 
 he looked down to see if perchance there might be 
 any platform of solid rock within reach below him ;
 
 72> CORNISH DIAMONDS. 
 
 for to recover the ground over which he had fallen 
 was a manifest impossibility. The broken and 
 winding tract by which he had made his ascent 
 lay far to his right, for he had come up in an 
 oblique direction. Beneath his feet the slope 
 rounded away steeper and steeper, then came a 
 sheer wall of granite, and below lay the jagged 
 edges of the reef like a chevmtx de fidse. The 
 sight had almost loosed his hold. He drew his 
 eyes away from the horrid fascination, and fixed 
 them on the fleshy green spikes of the samphire. 
 
 So this was to be the end of it all, of all his 
 work and all his ambition ; he should never paint 
 any more. A few minutes at farthest must see 
 the close of his life's story. Already his muscles 
 were agonized with the tension ; it was hopeless to 
 think he could long maintain his position. With- 
 out help he was lost, and no one was likely to 
 come to this wild spot. No one would miss him. 
 Whatever speculative doubts he may have enter- 
 tained — and who in these days wholly escapes 
 their contagion? — in this desperate moment his 
 whole soul flung itself into an entreaty for strength 
 to hold on or courage to meet what must come. 
 ****** 
 
 It was Jenifer Lyon's delight, whenever she 
 could escape from her home duties, which were 
 many and various, to come out for a solitary ramble 
 on the cliff. With some seaside dwellers familiarity 
 breeds contempt; the sea is to them among the 
 uninteresting things of every day, a matter of course
 
 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 79 
 
 which no sensible person would waste time looking 
 at. Not so was it with Jenifer ; to her it was a 
 personality to be loved like a friend, even while 
 feared as a mystery ; it was the frame and setting 
 of her life, and to it at every spare moment she 
 habitually betook herself. Miss Treby, who was 
 far too busy ever to go merely to look at the sea, 
 unless she had friends staying with her to whom 
 it was a treat, was wont to deplore the idleness 
 and childishness which made her protegee waste so 
 much time scrambling down to the beach or sitting 
 to watch the waves with her hands before her. 
 Jenifer had a secret feeling that the time was not 
 so wholly v/asted — that, in fact, she played the 
 violin the better for it ; but even if she had 
 ventured to put such a sentiment into words, 
 it is doubtful if Rachel would have admitted the 
 plea. 
 
 On this particular October day, Jenifer had been 
 very diligent, and she felt she deserved her play. 
 She had been up at six, and made the butter ; since 
 then she had manufactured an apple-tart and a 
 pile of cut-rounds, and helped her aunt turn a pair 
 of sheets ; she had squeezed in an hour of Bach 
 and Corelli, and done a German exercise for Rachel, 
 so now she held herself entitled to go her own way 
 till teatime. She had rambled some distance along 
 the cliffs, sometimes keeping to the summit, some- 
 times with sure-footed ease scrambling down the 
 rabbit tracks which intersected the furze at the 
 top, and now and then wound down, only to end
 
 8o CORNISH DIAMONDS. 
 
 in a sheer precipice. A very favourite nook of 
 hers was out on the ridge of the Shag's Head ; it 
 was tolerably easy to reach for any one with a 
 steady head and nimble feet such as hers, though 
 it looked dangerous. It ran out into the sea, with 
 a deep cove on each side, and commanded a 
 magnificent view of towering crags and pinnacles. 
 As she sat securely on the knife-like ridge, she 
 could look on one side down a precipice into an 
 inaccessible little bay floored with sand of a curious 
 purplish blue tint, and on the other a more gradual 
 descent, broken with clumps of gorse and tufts of 
 sea-pink, half hid the jagged spires where the sea- 
 gulls perched screaming. 
 
 For awhile she sat motionless, watching the 
 little rabbits as they bustled in and out of their 
 holes in perfect heedlessness of her presence ; then 
 half-unconsciously she began to sing, as she often 
 did in these lonely places where there was no one 
 to hear her and be astonished. Probably the spot 
 where she was made the words run in her head — 
 
 " In the grass of the chff, at the edge of the steep, 
 God planted a garden, a garden of sleep " 
 
 Hark! What could that sound be? Oh, only 
 a sea-gull crying. She went on — 
 
 " 'Neath the blue of the sky, in the green of the corn. 
 It is there that the regal red poppies " 
 
 Surely it was a human voice ; it was " Help ! 
 help!" repeated twice more faintly. She sprang 
 to her feet. The call came again, and now she
 
 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 8r 
 
 could make out that it was from the cHff to her 
 left. She climbed out a little further along the 
 Shag's back to a point from which she could see 
 better, and in a moment she caught sight of a man 
 clinging with hands and feet against what looked 
 like an almost precipitous wall of cliff. The sight 
 was one to terrify a stout heart, but Jenifer was 
 one of those who act first and consider their feel- 
 ings afterwards. She called to him in a voice she 
 would not let falter — 
 
 " I can't get at you ; but if you will hold on 
 tight just a minute, I'll get help." 
 
 " Ah," he said to himself, " she will be too late ; 
 she doesn't know what holding on means." 
 
 Nevertheless the knowledge that some one was 
 running for help — that at least he should not 
 drop there, and no one know — sent fresh strength 
 into his exhausted muscles. 
 
 Up the rabbit tracks went Jenifer, hand over 
 hand like a monkey, caring nothing how she tore 
 her gown if only she could keep it from entangling 
 her feet, nor heeding the sharp spines of the furze 
 that she clutched to help her. Once on level 
 ground she sped like the wind. Luckily the days 
 were not long past when she used to run and race 
 for pleasure, and she could run now like a tomboy. 
 Over the churchyard wall at a bound, to cut off a 
 piece of the way, and into the Vicarage stableyard, 
 where John Yeo was leisurely emptying pails of 
 water over the wheels of the phaeton. Breathless 
 she seized him by the arm, while she panted out — 
 
 VOL. I. 6
 
 82 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 
 
 "A rope, John, a long one. Mr. Kay has fallen 
 over the cliff; he is hanging nearly halfway down. 
 He'll drop in a minute ! " 
 
 John stayed not for question or explanation, but 
 flung down the pail he held. 
 
 "All right, miss. Thank God, there's a spare 
 rope in the belfry. You run so fast as ever you 
 can up to Churchtown and find Abel ; he's to 
 work up to Farmer Brimacombe's, and tell him to 
 bring a crowbar and the strongest cart-rope they've 
 got. Stay," as she was scudding off. "Where- 
 abouts is the young gentleman ? " 
 
 "Just to the left of the Shag's Head," she cried 
 over her shoulder. 
 
 On she went, catching sight, as she turned the 
 corner, of the vicar's long legs speeding after John. 
 At the top of the hill she had nearly run into Mr. 
 Studland. Him she despatched with such brief 
 explanation that he could only gather that some 
 one was in danger on the Shag's Head. The 
 blacksmith, as Yeo had luckily remembered, was 
 at work at the farm at Churchtown, so she had 
 not to run on to the forge ; but she had more 
 trouble with him than with all the rest put together. 
 His brawny arms would be of inestimable value 
 on such an emergency, but his wits were slow, and 
 he could not be got to move till the whole matter 
 had been explained to him, and he could be made 
 to grasp that the danger was sufficiently imminent 
 to justify him in leaving his job unfinished. 
 Jenifer was nearly crying before she could induce
 
 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 
 
 him to start in search of the cart-rope ; but at 
 length she saw him set forth on his errand, and 
 she ran back to see that all had not been too 
 late. 
 
 It was downhill now, and she could get on more 
 easily. It had taken a little time to get out the 
 bell-rope and carry it across the intervening fields, 
 and as she reached the spot, the three men were 
 just consulting how best to secure one end of it to 
 a bit of paling that ran down close to the edge 
 almost in a line with the place where Denis Kay 
 hung. 
 
 " We'd ought to have that crowbar," said John. 
 '* But 'tis useless us waiting for Abel, and mean- 
 while the poor chap may drop. If you two gentle- 
 men will brace yourselves again' that post, we'll 
 make do." 
 
 " Nonsense, John," said the vicar ; " I am going 
 down. You are a married man, and I am not ; if 
 there is risk, I am the person to run it. Think of 
 your v/ife." 
 
 " Wife, indeed ! Do you think Grace would ever 
 speak to me again, if I was to let my master go 
 over the cliff, and I bide at the top ? " 
 
 " I think this is my place," said the sailor, step- 
 ping forward and laying hold of the rope-end that 
 Yeo was beginning to knot round his waist. 
 
 "Let go, if you please, sir. You'm a couple of 
 stone heavier than what I be. Now I'm ready 
 When I sing out, you pay out the rope steady." 
 
 For a few yards Yeo was clambering down like
 
 84 CORNISH DIAMONDS, 
 
 a cat, then the top of his head disappeared from 
 the sight of those above. It was easy enough for 
 the first few minutes, so long as he had a kind of 
 foothold, but when the weight of his body depended 
 wholly on the rope it was a hard matter to keep 
 it from being jerked too swiftly through their 
 hands, and Jenifer could see the veins on the fore- 
 heads of both swelling with the exertion. She 
 drew near. 
 
 " Can't I do anything to help ? Wouldn't it be 
 any use if I held on too ? " 
 
 " Not the least," said Studland, in the tone of a 
 man who can't waste breath in talking. 
 
 Mr. Jaques glanced round. 
 
 " Yes, you can be of great use," he said. " Climb 
 out as far as you can on the Shag's Head, where 
 you can see both him and us, and shout 
 directions." 
 
 " She'll break her neck," Studland muttered. 
 
 " Not a bit of it ; she is as sure-footed as a 
 rabbit." 
 
 She crept out to her former vantage ground from 
 which she could see the face of the cliff ; but for a 
 moment she hardly dared to look, so great was her 
 fear lest Kay should have dropped before help 
 could reach him. There he hung, however, motion- 
 less, almost as if petrified, and a few yards above 
 him dangled Yeo, now hanging in mid air, and 
 keeping himself from dangerous contact with the 
 rock by occasional touches of foot or hand with 
 the practised skill of the samphire gatherer, now
 
 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 85 
 
 reaching a jutting shelf and relieving the strain on 
 the rope by a few cautious steps. She could only 
 just see the heads of the two above, and it sickened 
 her to watch how the rope chafed against the rough 
 ground at the summit, though both they and Yeo 
 did all they could to keep it away from sharp 
 edges. It was difficult to tell whether Kay was 
 aware of the approach of rescue ; so still he was, 
 he might have been in a trance. 
 
 John made rapid progress. She watched 
 intently. Then she called out — 
 
 " You must keep him more to the left. If you 
 let him down right over Mr. Kay's head, it may 
 loosen his hold." 
 
 The caution was needed ; already some small 
 fragments, touched by Yeo's foot trickled down 
 close beside Kay's face, and made him look up. 
 
 "All right," John called down to him; "I am 
 coming directly. Hold on another minute." 
 
 It was necessary to pull up again for a short 
 distance, so that John might get a foothold and 
 slacken the rope in order to change its direction 
 slightly. It seemed to the watcher that every 
 second of delay must be fatal. In a moment they 
 let him down again. He was very near now when 
 there was a pause. 
 
 " Go on ! Pay out ! " shouted John, and Jenifer 
 signalled wildly to the same effect, but the two 
 above shook their heads. 
 
 " There is no more rope," called Studland. 
 
 " I can't reach him," Yeo shouted back.
 
 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 
 
 "Wherever can Polsue and that there cart-rope 
 be teu ? " 
 
 The vicar and Studland scanned the horizon in 
 vain ; no Polsue was in sight. What was to be 
 done? To leave John danghng midway was 
 impossible ; to draw the rescuer up again, out of 
 sight of Kay in his extremity while more rope was 
 fetched were brutal ; something must be attempted. 
 There was a rapid consultation up above, then 
 Jenifer could make out that they were doing 
 something, but what she could not understand. 
 The vicar's head alone was visible; his chin just 
 appearing over the ledge, as though he were lying 
 flat, his arms interlaced in the rope, and for a 
 minute she lost sight of Studland altogether. 
 John evidently divined that something was being 
 done, for he kept himself motionless, only steadying 
 himself by getting his toe into a crevice to ease 
 the strain. 
 
 Presently the watcher could catch sight of 
 Studland again, creeping cautiously down with the 
 end of the rope which had been made fast to the 
 paling, secured about him in some way. He was 
 coming over the edge with it and down to the 
 next ledge, while his companion kept it firm above 
 that Yeo might not be suddenly jerked down. On 
 the ledge grew an immense, ancient furze bush, its 
 roots imbedded under a huge rock, and round the 
 tough stem, which was as thick as a man's arm, 
 Studland passed the rope with a double twist, 
 securing the loop at the end round his own wrist,
 
 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 87 
 
 and catching hold of it again below, so as to use the 
 bush as an aid rather than count on it to sustain a 
 direct weight. Now was the dangerous moment, 
 while the vicar, without letting go his hold, crawled 
 down to join him, and for a minute John swung 
 about alarmingl}^ They had now an advantage 
 of several yards, and began paying out as before. 
 In a minute Jenifer sent up a joyful cry, " He has 
 reached him." 
 
 But the work was not over ; in truth, the worst 
 risk was yet to be run. Now was the time when 
 the second rope seemed absolutely essential, and 
 still it did not come. Could the one rope, so 
 slightly secured above, be strong enough to sustain 
 a double v/cight .? and if not, would not the two 
 above be dragged down, so that four brave men, 
 instead of one, would be dashed to pieces ? Clearly 
 John did not mean to try. Cautiously working 
 his way to a ledge where he could stand, he loos- 
 ened the noose round his waist, and taking it in 
 both hands, let himself down within reach of 
 Denis once more. The latter was past helping 
 himself; his fingers, cramped with their long des- 
 perate clutch, were incapable of letting go even 
 when he felt Yeo's wiry arm gripping him, and it 
 required some skill as well as a peremptory com- 
 mand to get first one arm then the other safely 
 through the noose. 
 
 " Now taut ! " cried John to the men above, and 
 leaving Kay still in the same position, but sup- 
 ported by the rope, he began to ascend, hand over
 
 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 
 
 hand, his feet braced against the face of the cHff. 
 Once at the top, he lent his aid in hauling up — no 
 easy task, giddy and helpless as their burden was. 
 Jenifer's breath almost stopped as she watched 
 him swinging up from point to point. The awful 
 moments seemed to stretch into an eternity ; and 
 then when she had got to feel that this horror had 
 lasted — would last — for ever, a great shout went 
 up, and she knew that it was over. 
 
 Dazed, Kay felt his feet on firm ground again, 
 as they loosened the rope from his waist, and 
 Studland, putting an arm round him, helped him 
 up the few steep steps to the level ground at the 
 top. Then the mists began to clear away, and he 
 looked round for John Yeo. 
 
 " How can I ever thank you ? " he began ; " I — 
 
 I " his voice broke with a gasp. A great sob 
 
 came instead of the words he was trying to say. 
 He sat down on the bank, and covered his face 
 with his hands. 
 
 " Don't name it, sir ; it was nothing," said Yeo, 
 wiping his forehead. " Ah've been down that way 
 many a time after eggs and samphire, and that. 
 Why, the master and Mr. Studland are a great 
 deal more blown than what I be." 
 
 Kay did not look up ; he was still struggling 
 for breath and composure. 
 
 " But however come you there } That's what 
 beats me," pursued John. 
 
 "Don't talk to him," said Mr. Jaques, almost 
 sharply. " Let him have a minute to recover
 
 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 89 
 
 himself. Poor fellow, what an awful strain it 
 must have been. I wonder how long he had been 
 there. Ah, Jenifer — " as the girl came up from 
 her look-out station — "I am sure you would be 
 so good as just to run on to the Vicarage, and 
 bring a little cut-glass bottle you will see at the 
 back of the sideboard." 
 
 He drew a key from his waiscoat pocket, and 
 willing Jenifer started off once more, though her 
 feet almost failed under her. 
 
 In a minute, however, Kay pulled himself to- 
 gether, rose, and declared he was all right, and 
 quite able to walk back. As they set off towards 
 the house, a small crowd, headed by Abel Polsue, 
 and carrying all manner of tackle, came in sight. 
 He had brought all the carters from the farm 
 where he had been working, and they had been 
 further reinforced by the shoemaker, the postman, 
 and such children and idlers as had become aware 
 that something was agate. 
 
 "Why, Abel, my dear," was Yeo's greeting, 
 " you'm a day too late for the fair. Us have clean 
 finished this job without ye." 
 
 " What, have ye got un up without we to help 
 ye, then ? " asked Abel, with reproachful surprise. 
 
 " Ah b'lieve so. You was that la-ate, the per- 
 formance was bound to begin. Why, wherever 
 was ye teu ? " 
 
 " Couldn' find t'roap ; her had gone up to 
 Cornicky. Why, what a hurry you was in ! " 
 
 " If us had'n been in a bit of hurry, yon " —
 
 90 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 
 
 indicating Kay over his shoulder — "would have 
 been lying at the bottom of the cliff by now — 
 what was left of him," significantly. 
 
 "Why," cried a small boy at the tail of the 
 procession, who had just worked his way to the 
 front, "ain't there nobody killed, then?" in an 
 accent of keen disappointment. 
 
 Yeo ran on ahead to reassure Grace, in case by 
 this time she might have got wind of the disaster 
 and be frightened about him, and the other three 
 who were all considerably more exhausted than he 
 was, followed slowly, meeting their cup-bearer 
 halfway. They were none of them sorry for a 
 pull at the flask. 
 
 "I don't know how you feel, Alick," said the 
 vicar, " but my arms are nearly out of their sockets. 
 I never would have believed that two such light- 
 built men, without an ounce of spare flesh on their 
 bones, could weigh so heavy." 
 
 They all went straight to the Vicarage to wash 
 the traces from their hands, which were all in a 
 more or less sanguinary condition, Kay's from his 
 fall and desperate clutching at the sharp splinters 
 of shale, the others' chafed raw with the rope. 
 Indeed, Mr. Jaques insisted that Denis should 
 spend the night there ; he was not fit to go home, 
 and they would send up word to Peninah Sutton. 
 It was not till they were crossing the hall that any 
 one missed Jenifer, then Kay exclaimed in 
 dismay — 
 
 "Why, where is Miss Lyon .? I have never said
 
 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 91 
 
 one word of thanks to her, and I owe everything 
 to her promptitude. What an ungrateful brute 
 she will think me ! " 
 
 " I expect missie's run home-along," said John, 
 who with Grace placidly beaming on him, was 
 still at the hall door, talking things over with the 
 Polsues. " I see her go scudding off so soon as 
 she had give you the bottle." 
 
 "Dear, dear," said Grace; "she should ha* come 
 in, and I'd ha' made her a cup o' tea." 
 
 Kay would have rushed off after her in his 
 remorse, but he was forcibly borne into the study 
 and laid on the sofa, being indeed in no condition 
 for further exertion ; but Alick only paused to 
 wash the blood from his hands before hastening 
 in pursuit.
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 HOUGH Jenifer had had a considerable 
 start, it did not take Studland long to 
 overtake her ; for though she knew she should be 
 dreadfully late for her aunt's inexorable six-o'clock 
 tea, she found herself more tired than she was 
 aware, once the excitement was over ; and when 
 Alick's long stride brought him in sight of her 
 she had paused to rest, leaning over a gate at the 
 top of the first hill. He sent his voice on before 
 him. 
 
 " Why, Jenifer, what did you mean by scooting 
 off like that, when no one was looking ? There is 
 Kay beside himself because he hasn't thanked you, 
 and the vicar distracted at the slight on his 
 hospitality. Why didn't you go in and let Grace 
 get you some tea ? Why, you must be ready to 
 drop." 
 
 She waited till he came up with her, leaning 
 back against the gate. The colour that came 
 into her cheeks made her look many degrees less 
 tired.
 
 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 93 
 
 "Oh, I am only a little out of breath with 
 running so much," she said ; " and as to being 
 thanked, why, I did nothing but just fetch those 
 that could help. At such times one cannot help 
 regretting that one is a woman. Just to look on 
 and do nothing, except perhaps get in the way, 
 seems a poor calling." 
 
 He looked at her silently for a minute ; he was 
 not a man who expressed himself very readily. 
 Then he said — 
 
 " Well, he owes his life to you, and I think he 
 knows it. If you had wasted time in fears and 
 lamentations, as nine women out of ten would have 
 done, all we could do would have come too late. 
 I don't believe he could have hung on another 
 five minutes. I don't know what he may feel 
 about it ; I know what I think." 
 
 She looked down, for her eyes brimmed. 
 " Don't," was all she said, and she began to walk 
 up the lane. Presently she turned to him again. 
 "You mustn't come any farther with me," she 
 said. " It is all out of your way, and you must be 
 so tired." 
 
 " Tired ! Not a bit of it. I am going to see 
 you home. You don't want to get rid of me, do 
 you ? " 
 
 A smile was answer enough to that, and they 
 walked on side by side, not saying much, for 
 Studland was habitually rather inclined to silence, 
 and Jenifer, unlike the majority of people who are 
 made unusually talkative by any great excitement,
 
 94 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 
 
 felt that the experiences of the afternoon were too 
 fresh and painful to bear discussing, and other 
 subjects by contrast were hardly worth speaking of. 
 
 These two were old friends, but they were 
 beginning their intercourse again after a complete 
 break of nearly four years, and the constraint of 
 such new beginning had hardly yet had time to 
 wear off. The four years between thirteen and 
 seventeen are a tremendous leap in a girl's life ; 
 they change her more or less suddenly from child 
 to woman. Alick could hardly recognize his little 
 playfellow when he first came home. The mere 
 outward alteration from short petticoats and float- 
 ing hair to long gowns and close-coiled plaits was 
 enough to confuse identity, and the difference in 
 manner between the hoyden who ran races with 
 him and climbed trees to pelt him with fir cones, 
 and the young lady who sat demure in her aunt's 
 drawing-room when he called, and blushed when 
 he spoke to her, baflled him completely, and made 
 him feel that it was a stranger with whom he had 
 to do. He had been puzzled what to call her ; 
 the Jenifer of old days had seemed too familiar, 
 and he had feared it might be taken amiss, but 
 Miss Lyon would be absurdly ceremonious to a 
 child who had sat on his knee not so very long 
 ago. He compromised on Miss Jenifer, which, 
 after all, sounded stiffer than either. 
 
 She on her side felt the change in his manner 
 keenly, and thought him altered, not realizing the 
 difference that was in herself, nor understanding
 
 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 95 
 
 how the point of view in which he stood in her 
 mind's eye had shifted through the years of his 
 absence. Most very young girls have a tendency 
 to ideahze somebody, and to make him the subject 
 of their secret thoughts and dreams. If they go 
 to school, they probably compare notes with other 
 little girls, and talk a great deal of nonsense, with 
 the result that they get sickened with their own 
 follies, and forget them the sooner; but with a 
 very imaginative child, left a great deal alone, such 
 fancies take deep root. They are not love ; but 
 they are love's earliest simulacra. 
 
 A sailor has an enormous advantage over any 
 present, concrete lover in the mind of a girl. He 
 vanishes from time to time into the unknown, and 
 her fancy follows him through all sorts of mysteri- 
 ous' adventures and deadly perils. When she lies 
 awake at night and listens to the wind, she thinks 
 of him and wonders where he is, and the thought 
 of his possible danger gives him a hold on her 
 tender-heartedness. Then the absolute uncertainty 
 of his comings and goings is not without its effect. 
 When she watches the horizon, and sees the far- 
 away ships go by, she thinks perhaps he is there ; 
 perhaps he is coming home. And when he is at 
 home, his manner does not discourage these feelings 
 of interest. His opportunities of enjoying women's 
 society are limited, so he makes the most of it ; 
 he flatters them, makes much of them ; his way 
 with them is more tenderly appreciative than that 
 of other men.
 
 96 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 
 
 It was not wonderful, then, that the child should 
 involuntarily, almost unconsciously have exalted 
 Alick Studland to the position of hero in her 
 dream-world. The feeling was ideal — one may 
 almost say impersonal, yet it was strong enough to 
 make the contact with reality a shock and a dis- 
 tress to her. The few brief meetings of the last 
 day or two had, after all that she had looked 
 forward to, been productive of more pain than 
 pleasure. He had never before come home without 
 bringing her some keepsake from abroad, and 
 though she cared nothing for the omission itself, 
 she cared a great deal for what she thought it 
 implied. She did not realize that it was she who 
 was changed, that what was well enough for the 
 child-pet would be out of place for the grown 
 woman ; and, moreover, she was quite unaware how 
 she had chilled him with her stiffness. 
 
 But to-day the excitement and danger shared 
 between them had broken down the wall of con- 
 straint, and drawn them into something like the 
 old familiarity. Fatigue was forgotten ; she walked 
 on beside him, caring nothing how little he said, 
 not anxious to talk or attract his attention ; happy 
 in his silent companionship, happy especially in 
 his praise, and in the look of cordial admiration he 
 had bent on her. 
 
 It seemed to her they had been walking but a 
 very little while when the old grey walls and gables 
 of Roscorla came in sight. In a few moments it 
 would all be over.
 
 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 97 
 
 "Do you remember?" he began suddenly — 
 there Is a strange magic in " do you remember ? " — 
 *'do you remember the last time I went away, 
 nearly four years ago ? You ran down the avenue 
 with me, though it was snowing, and your aunt 
 was very indignant with you. It might have been 
 considered a kind attention, only I believe you 
 pelted me with snowballs till I was out of sight." 
 
 " Did I ? What a nasty little rude child I must 
 have been." 
 
 " I didn't think so. I accepted them as evidence 
 of friendship. I liked them much better than the 
 snowballs you have treated me to since I came 
 back." 
 
 She stopped short. "Snowballs? What do 
 you mean ? " 
 
 " I think you know. When I looked to find my 
 old friend — my little playfellow — to welcome me 
 back, I found instead a young lady who was so 
 very dignified she froze me." 
 
 " Oh," cried Jenifer, with an impulsive simplicity, 
 " I didn't mean it. Only — only it is so stupid 
 being grown up." 
 
 He laughed comfortably. " Oh, was that all ">. " 
 he said. " I don't suppose I should have mentioned 
 it, only this afternoon somehow I fancied that 
 Miss Lyon had taken a holiday, and Jenifer had 
 come back. By the way, how is Timothy } " 
 
 " Oh, he is well, and as tame as possible ; he 
 perches on my head and takes hemp-seed from 
 between my lips. Have you got Titus still ? " 
 
 VOL. I. 7
 
 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 
 
 " No, I grieve to say the cage door was left open 
 one day, and poor Titus departed. You can't 
 think how I missed the poor little beggar. We 
 were out at sea, too, so he must have flown till he 
 dropped and found a watery grave." 
 
 Alick had all a sailor's love of pets ; he had 
 brought these two canaries back with him from a 
 former voyage, and had given one to his little 
 friend to take care of for him. 
 
 " Oh," cried Jenifer, with compunction, " then 
 you must have Timothy back. You must, 
 indeed." 
 
 " Not till I go another long voyage, at any rate. 
 You must keep him for me till Christmas, if you 
 will." 
 
 " You are coming again at Christmas, then ? " 
 
 " To be sure I am, for a regular long leave ; this 
 was only a paltry five days I got by chance when 
 we put in at Plymouth. We don't expect to go out 
 of commission till December. When I come back^ 
 we must have some of our good old times over 
 again. — No, thanks, I can't come in now. Mr. 
 Treby is a martinet about punctuality. Tell Mr. 
 Lyon I shall come to him for some rabbit-shooting 
 Foon." 
 
 They had reached the gateway. Two huge 
 square granite pillars, surmounted with round stone 
 balls stood on each side of a short avenue of 
 gnarled beeches, whose tops were so shorn by 
 the sea-winds that they looked as if they had been 
 artificially clipped on the seaward side. Jenifer
 
 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 99 
 
 waved her hand in answer to his '* Till Christmas, 
 then," and the shadow swallowed her up. 
 
 " I am glad I have found my little girl again," he 
 said to himself as he stepped out homewards. " I 
 was afraid my good Rachel had been trying to im- 
 prove her too much, but there is a spice of the dear 
 little tomboy left in her still. And how pretty she 
 looked when I met her tearing across the green. 
 She has grown into just the sort of girl one 
 
 might Ah well, I suppose I must not indulge 
 
 those notions yet." 
 
 Jenifer had intended to slip across the hall un- 
 noticed, and gain her own room, that she might rid 
 herself of her ragged skirts before making her 
 appearance at the tea-table, but the dining-room 
 door stood half open, and the light and sound of 
 voices streamed out. She tried to steal past on 
 tiptoe, but the noise of the heavy hall door shutting 
 behind her betrayed her, and she heard her uncle's 
 loud voice calling her. She pushed the door open, 
 and stood just within it, dazzled by the bright 
 lamplight after the dusk of the lane. 
 
 Afternoon tea was not unknown in Kerranstow ; 
 the vicar indulged in it habitually, and so did Miss 
 Treby, but such a modern innovation had never 
 penetrated to Roscorla. Great would have been 
 old Mr. Lyon's dismay if his wife and niece had 
 requested him to appear in the drawing-room at 
 five o'clock, take a cup of tea in his hand, and feed 
 delicately on wafer bread and butter and minute 
 triangles of muffin — he expected to sit down to a
 
 loo CORNISH DIAMONDS. 
 
 square meal ; so at six every evening the table was 
 spread with a red-and-white linen cloth, and loaded 
 with white bread and brown in the loaf, to cut and 
 come again, with piles of cut-rounds and a mighty- 
 cake, and in the midst rose a cut-glass dish, bearing 
 a mountain of clotted cream, flanked with honey- 
 comb and preserves. In front of Mrs. Lyon was 
 an old-fashioned bronze urn and a large tray 
 furnished with a big silver teapot and cups of a size 
 calculated to quench the thirst of a man accus- 
 tomed to be out and about his farm all day. 
 
 Old Mr. Lyon was a large, heavy man, not tall, 
 but of amazing bulk and girth. His face was 
 tanned of a warm red from brow to chin, but it 
 was a kindly pleasant countenance. He turned 
 half round at his niece's entrance, a large slice of 
 bread and cream arrested on its way to his mouth. 
 
 " Why, little maid, where have you been ? We 
 were just thinking we must send the crier out after 
 you." 
 
 And her aunt broke in in more remonstrant 
 tones. 
 
 " Well, Jenifer, I do think you might have told 
 me where you were going. You only asked if I 
 minded your running out to the cliff for half an 
 hour." 
 
 " I am very sorry ; I really could not help it. 
 I will tell you all about what delayed me presently, 
 if I might go and change my dress first. I am 
 rather in a mess." 
 
 " Mess ! " cried Mrs. Lyon, shrilly, craning
 
 CORNISH DIAMONDS. loi 
 
 round the urn to get a better view of her. "I 
 should think so. Just look at your frock. Why, 
 the hem is completely gone in front. I wonder 
 you were not ashamed to walk home so. Really, 
 at your age, you ought to have more thought. 
 Climbing and tearing about the way you do, like 
 a perfect hoyden." 
 
 Jenifer laughed. *' I couldn't help it, really, 
 auntie. I'll be back directly." 
 
 " Hullo, Jenifer, haven't you got a word for 
 me?" said a young man getting up from the 
 other side of the table, and coming towards her. 
 
 " Oh, Fred, I didn't see you ; the lamp was in 
 my eyes." 
 
 She held out her hand, but kept herself very 
 upright, and drew away towards the door. One of 
 the privileges of being " grown up " on which she 
 took her stand was the right to refuse to be kissed 
 by her cousins. 
 
 He understood her movement, and there was a 
 twinkle in his eye, as he took the hand she 
 yielded ; but before he let it go, he held it up to 
 the light. 
 
 "Why, you have been in the wars, and no 
 mistake ; you are all over wounds and scratches." 
 
 " Oh, so I am. Never mind ; it does not hurt 
 now. Let me go, Fred, there's a good boy." 
 
 When she got back, having repaired damages, 
 her uncle had moved into the great leathern chair 
 beside the fire, and lighted his long " church- 
 warden," and Mrs. Lyon had turned half round
 
 I02 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 
 
 from the tray and taken her knitting, having stood 
 the teapot on the hob to keep warm for the truant. 
 While Jenifer drank her tea, she tried to give a 
 coherent account of the events of the afternoon ; 
 but she found it by no means easy with her cousin 
 Fred leaning over the back of her chair, or fidget- 
 ing about to get her the cream or the cake, and 
 putting in satirical comments or disconcerting 
 questions at every pause. She almost lost her 
 temper. 
 
 " I think it agrees with her to run about risking 
 her neck after young fellows who fall over the 
 cliff; don't you, aunt.^" he said, presently, in a 
 teasing way. " I declare she has got quite a 
 colour. Was he a handsome fellow, Jenny .'* " 
 
 " Not at all," said Jenifer, tartly ; '' and I don't 
 see what that has to do with it. If you saw 
 anybody in danger of being killed, you would not 
 wait to see how good-looking they were before 
 you tried to help them." 
 
 " Ah, but perhaps he could have helped himself 
 a bit if it had not been for the pleasure of being 
 rescued by a pretty girl. It is a most romantic 
 story altogether." 
 
 Jenifer took no notice of this taunt, but began 
 packing up the tea-things on the tray preparatory 
 to carrying them out, an unusual task which her 
 lateness had entailed upon her. Her aunt never 
 would allow Bethiah's work to be put out. Her 
 cousin felt he had gone a little too far, and walked 
 about the room whistling. When she came back.
 
 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 103 
 
 her uncle and aunt had settled down to their 
 nightly game of cribbage ; she took her work, and 
 settled herself in the corner of the sofa, under the 
 lamp. 
 
 Presently a soft voice came in her ear. 
 
 ''Jenny." 
 
 She took no notice. His head came closer ; he 
 was leaning over the back of the sofa ; his lips 
 almost touched her plaits. She drew away. 
 
 "Jenny, I haven't vexed you really, have I? 
 Forgive me ; I am awfully sorry. You know I 
 never can help teasing you ; I never could, and 
 now you give yourself such dear little grown-up 
 airs, it is more irresistible than ever." 
 
 " I think you were rather rude," she said with 
 dignity. " I did not want to make out I saved Mr. 
 Kay myself, as you pretended to think. I had 
 nothing to do with it except that I happened to 
 be the person to see him, and then, of course, I ran 
 to fetch John Yeo, and up to Churchtown for 
 another rope ; but, of course, when one is in such a 
 hurry, one gets scratched and torn, and I had to 
 explain. I don't suppose John and Mr. Jaques 
 and Mr. Studland would all have risked their 
 lives if Mr. Kay could have got up just as well 
 without them." 
 
 " Pax, pax ! " he cried, " I didn't really mean 
 anything of the sort. The fact is, I am an ill- 
 tempered brute to-night; I wanted to have had a 
 talk with you before tea." 
 
 " Is anything the matter ? "
 
 I04 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 
 
 ''Everything is the matter. I am the most 
 unlucky beggar on the face of the earth." 
 
 "Well, come round and tell me about it, then. 
 I can't talk to you properly while you are at the 
 back of my head. Uncle and aunt are much too 
 busy with their game to hear a word." 
 
 He came and seated himself upon the sofa 
 beside her, and began pulling all the things out of 
 her work-basket, unwinding the reels of cotton and 
 making hay with all her orderly little arrangements. 
 It worried her, but she saw that he was troubled, 
 and hardly knew what he was doing, and she 
 forbore to interfere ; but presently, as she looked 
 at him expectantly, and nothing came, she said 
 gently— "Well?" 
 
 "Well," he repeated ; "it is not well at all, but 
 very ill. I have lost my berth again — got the 
 sack." 
 
 " Oh, Fred, how ? " 
 
 " Don't ask how ; the same old tale. My own 
 fault, of course. I was a fool. That and my 
 cursed ill-luck. It is no good going into details. 
 You would not understand, and it would only vex 
 you." 
 
 " But what are you going to do ? " 
 
 "Ay, what indeed.^ It is no good thinking of 
 anything of the same sort again ; even if I could 
 stand it, which I really don't think I could, after 
 this, old Trevithick's recommendation won't be 
 precisely glowing. After all, what is the use of 
 trying to jam a round man into a square hole ?
 
 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 105 
 
 It is absurd to bring a fellow up, as I was brought 
 up, to know and care for nothing but horses, and 
 then tie him to a stool in a lawyer's office. No, 
 I tell you what it is ; I am going to cut the whole 
 concern, and try for something that I can do. 
 What would you say to see me driving the Brides- 
 worth and VVestcreek coach ? " 
 
 " Not really ? " 
 
 "Really and seriously. Old Nanty Tressillan? 
 is going to give up ; he is past his work. I should 
 not need any lawyer's good word for that. So far 
 as position goes, I should not care a hang.. 
 Besides, heaps of swells do it ; you hear of plenty 
 of gentlemen drivers nowadays. What should you 
 say ? " 
 
 She let her work sink on her knee while she 
 considered it. Then she said slowly — 
 
 " I don't see why not. I think you would do- 
 better with something you can do well and care 
 for. Only there is one thing to be considered. 
 What would Katharine say ? " 
 
 He shrugged his shoulders without answering. 
 
 " Have you said anything to her about it yet ? " 
 
 He nodded. "She made me a scene ; but she'll 
 come round." 
 
 " Does she hate the idea so much ? What did 
 she say ? " 
 
 *' What did she not say ! The sense, so far as I 
 could gather, was that if I chose to drive the 
 coach, I might drive to hell for her." 
 
 "Fred!"
 
 io6 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 
 
 " I beg your pardon ; I ought not to use such 
 words to you, my dear, and of course she did not ; 
 but I could not have put her drift more tersely." 
 
 "If she feels as strongly against it as that," said 
 Jenifer, " I don't see the use of your thinking any 
 more about it." 
 
 " My dear little cousin, when I offered to marry 
 Katharine, I did not propose to make her the 
 arbiter of all my actions. She knew quite well 
 what a precarious income mine was, and what an 
 extremely poor bargain she was making, and she 
 knows that she has only to say she repents, and 
 I would let her off." 
 
 "But, Fred, Katharine loves you." 
 
 He looked into the fire for a minute without 
 speaking. 
 
 "Ay, there's the rub. I suppose she does, 
 though I must say she takes an uncommon queer 
 way of showing it sometimes. Jenny, I believe I 
 was a fool to run my neck into that noose. Still, 
 I don't want to behave badly to her ; and, when all 
 is said and done, she is a deuced handsome girl." 
 
 Jenifer was perplexed. In such strait as this 
 she hardly knew how to advise, though from her 
 childhood she had been adviser and conscience 
 keeper to this wayward cousin of hers. She had 
 hoped great things from his engagement, but now 
 it seemed he was as unstable in that as in most 
 other things. It was evident that Katharine had 
 no influence — less than she herself. It was ex- 
 cusable, perhaps, to scold and storm at any one so
 
 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 107 
 
 tiresome as Fred ; but even Jenifer's inexperience 
 could have pointed out that a faithless man is not 
 to be scolded back into docility. She almost 
 wondered at the persistence of Katharine Pol- 
 withen's affection for him as she looked at the 
 countenance opposite her, so full of ill temper and 
 impatience, so devoid of all promise of stability. 
 There was a charm of some kind about him, cer- 
 tainly ; she herself had never been able to resist 
 his demands on her friendship ; and he was hand- 
 some in a sort of debonair way, with his red 
 moustache and commanding features, in spite of 
 being- short and rather thickset. 
 
 After a few minutes of troubled musing, she 
 spoke again — 
 
 " Have you told Uncle Frank ? " 
 
 " No ; where would be the use ? He would not 
 help me any more, and I don't want to ask him. 
 He is so old-fashioned, the chances are he would 
 not like my scheme, and I am sure Aunt Martha 
 would not. No, I shall wait till all is settled, and 
 then I will write to you, and you must break it 
 to them." 
 
 "You have made up your mind, then?" 
 
 "Practically I have not any choice. I cannot 
 live upon air. Of course, like the immortal Mr. 
 Micawber, I might wait for something to turn up ; 
 but I think I prefer to take my fate in my own 
 hands. If your only objection is on the score of 
 Katharine, that is one I cannot consider." 
 
 " Perhaps you are right ; at any rate, I cannot
 
 io8 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 
 
 see that you would gain anything by loafing, and, 
 after all, perhaps she may come round." 
 
 " Come round ? Of course she will come round. 
 These vehement people always do. Besides, 
 directly I hinted I was willing to set her free if 
 she chose, she drew in. No, my dear, firmness is- 
 the only plan with Katharine." 
 
 "I wonder whether uncle will be vexed with 
 you. I wish you would tell him beforehand." 
 
 "Where would be the use? It would only 
 make a lot of talk, and I hate worry. No ; I 
 believe in confronting people with accomplished 
 facts." 
 
 "And it would be sure to come all right," said 
 Jenifer, with an earnest look at him. " If only you 
 would keep straight." 
 
 " Keep straight ! What do you know about 
 keeping straight, I wonder t " 
 
 " I do know," she returned, " that it is what you 
 haven't done for long together, and that it is at 
 the bottom of all your misfortunes, and what you 
 call your ill-luck." 
 
 He got up. " Look here, Jenny, you are not to 
 go talking me over with Aunt Martha. I tell you 
 a good deal of my affairs ; but, after all, you are 
 only a little girl, and don't understand anything 
 about a man's life. I suppose she has been abusing 
 me to you." 
 
 " I never talk you over with anybody, and I 
 never repeat a single word of anything you teli 
 me. It is true I am only a girl, and I don't
 
 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 109 
 
 pretend to know much, but I do know you wouldn't 
 have got into this scrape if you had been behaving 
 as you ought. You admitted as much yourself." 
 
 " Did I ? Well, I suppose I did. It is no good 
 trying to browbeat you, Jenny. Hullo, uncle, 
 have you given Aunt Martha her nightly beating ? 
 I wonder you don't get sick of it." 
 
 He left his cousin's side and sauntered over to 
 the backgammon-board, his hands in his pockets, 
 and there were no more confidences that evening. 
 
 Fred Lyon had been wild from his boyhood, 
 and Jenifer could hardly remember the time when 
 she had not taken his scrapes and escapades upon 
 her conscience, offered him sage advice, and tried 
 to screen him from her uncle's displeasure. He 
 drew out all that was most womanly in her. 
 Motherless herself, she seemed to feel the more 
 for his need of all the tender home influences that 
 had been denied him. She had had a horror of 
 her Uncle Joe, Fred's father, and only marvelled 
 that with such an example before him he should 
 have so much good in him. She had hoped there 
 might be a fresh beginning for him when his father 
 died, and again when, a year later, he engaged 
 himself to a handsome girl whose acquaintance he 
 had made in Bodmin, where he had been working 
 in a lawyer's office. But the new leaf, if it was 
 turned over, would not stay turned, and sometimes 
 Jenifer almost despaired of him. His engagement, 
 far from freeing her from being the repository of 
 his confidence, entailed upon her the additional
 
 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 
 
 responsibility of acting as peace-maker, and trying' 
 to patch up the continual quarrels between him 
 and his fiaiicee, whom, however, she had never seen. 
 She wondered within herself that Katharine was 
 not jealous, though she invariably took her part 
 and upheld her claims to the best of her power ; 
 she herself would not at all have liked a strange 
 girl to interfere in matters so delicate, and she 
 often wondered how long such strained relations 
 could endure. 
 
 It had been an exciting day, and for long after 
 she had betaken herself to bed she tossed and 
 tumbled, now worrying herself as to whether she 
 had said all she might or all she ought to her 
 cousin, and then just as she was getting drowsy 
 over that perplexity, rousing up with a start, fancy- 
 ing she saw the figure of Denis Kay hanging over 
 the precipice; but when at last fatigue got the 
 mastery, both these agitating recollections dropped 
 away from her, and she was walking in dreams 
 along an avenue of limes, and Alick Studland was 
 beside her.
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 l^plXCEPT for some nasty gashes on his hands> 
 U^M where he had clutched at the sharp-edged 
 shale, Kay was quite uninjured ; but he was con- 
 siderably shaken, and very thankful to be taken, 
 into a harbour of refuge at the Vicarage instead 
 of having to return to his solitary lodging. 
 
 Courage to venture and to do he was nowise 
 deficient in, but the phlegmatic, stoical courage 
 which could pass unscathed through an ordeal so 
 severe could hardly be expected of such a highly 
 strung, nervous organization. His vivid imagina- 
 tion had spared him no detail of the terror and 
 agony which lay in wait for him below, while he 
 hung by his frail support through that interminable 
 hour. He felt as if, left alone, he would become 
 completely unhinged with going over it. 
 
 Grace came and bathed the wounded hands, and 
 bound them up, and his host went down to the 
 cellar for a bottle of his oldest port. A guest 
 might be a rarity at Kerranstow, but when one 
 did appear, master and servants alike understood
 
 IT2 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 
 
 the rites of a hospitality that was quite of the old 
 school. The patient was not allowed to talk of 
 his horrid experience. 
 
 " It is too fresh to bear handling," said Septimus ; 
 " you must put a night's rest between yourself and 
 it before you attempt to tell the story." 
 
 But after lying quietly on the sofa for a while, 
 Kay suddenly broke out — 
 
 " I certainly am the most abject idiot in 
 creation ! " 
 
 Mr. Jaques had taken up a book, hoping his 
 visitor would drop asleep. The room was very 
 still ; the only sound to be heard was John Yeo's 
 tuneful whistle from the stable-yard, where, since 
 tea, he had resumed his interrupted task of wash- 
 ing the phaeton. The vicar laid his book on his 
 knee, with his finger on the place, and turned 
 round. 
 
 "What is the matter.?" he asked. "Why are 
 you an abject idiot } " 
 
 "I don't know why, I am sure, except that it 
 pleased Heaven to fit me out with a set of nerves 
 that would disgrace a woman. Here am I lying 
 quaking and sick, feeling as if I could never go 
 near a verge again, while that fellow who has just 
 risked his neck to save mine is whistling like a 
 blackbird, as if nothing unusual had happened." 
 
 "My dear fellow, I feel tempted to agree with 
 you that you are an idiot, though not on the same 
 grounds. If Yeo or one of us had hung where you 
 did, wouldn't you have done all that lay in your
 
 C ORNISH DIAMONDS, 113 
 
 power to save us ? Of course you would, though 
 you might not have had his resource ; and don't 
 you suppose it is infinitely easier to do even a des- 
 perately dangerous thing than to endure the utter 
 helplessness of such a situation as yours ? Besides, 
 John has run those risks often enough for seagulls' 
 eggs, or even for samphire gathering ; he would not 
 scruple when a fellow-creature's life was at stake." 
 
 " I cannot think less of his heroism," said Kay. 
 
 " I don't want you to ; he is a brave fellow. Only 
 don't be morbid on your own account." 
 
 Though Kay said no more, there was an unplea- 
 sant thought that could not be expressed — he did 
 not relish playing so poor and passive a part in 
 the eyes of "that little girl," as he called her in 
 his own mind. For after all, though the days of 
 chivalry are long gone by, it is still the verdict of 
 the woman looking on that makes the major part 
 of public opinion — even when she is personified in 
 such an unsophisticated little creature as Jenifer 
 Lyon. 
 
 " I suppose he has lived with you a long time ? " 
 he presently said. 
 
 "Who? John Yeo.? Nearly all his life— and 
 mine. He stands to me in the old-fashioned, 
 almost obsolete, relation of foster-brother. As soon 
 as he left the village school he came to Pencoet in 
 some capacity or other — I forget what ; but his 
 chief duty seemed to be to feed my pets when I 
 was at Winchester. When I took the living, he 
 came here as my factotum, and here he has been 
 
 VOL. I. 8
 
 114 CORXISH DIAMONDS. 
 
 ever since, and I hope always will be. At Kerran- 
 stow we are not given to change." 
 
 After dinner, Mr. Jaques prescribed tobacco as 
 soothing to the nerves, and the two men sat late 
 over the study fire, enjoying such talk as seldom 
 came in the vicar's way. Recluse as he habitually 
 was, he could appreciate the pleasures of conversa- 
 tion more keenly, perhaps, than those to whom it 
 was a commonplace. Now and then an old college 
 friend would find his way down to the wilds, and 
 refresh the exile with stories of the common room 
 and the schools, or make him roar over the latest 
 Spoonerisms. But this young fellow was altogether 
 different ; his cultivation was all on the aesthetic 
 side, and he had travelled immensely. His talk 
 of Paris and the Brittany studios, of life in Upper 
 Austria — not from the tourist point of view — his 
 wide reading on lines that lay apart from Oxford 
 and the classics, his picturesque notions of men 
 and things, all had the charm of novelty for the 
 scholar ; and on his side he had much to relate, 
 many old-world stories of Cornwall in wilder times 
 than the present, for his memory could stretch back 
 over nearly fifty years, and embraced some queer 
 survivals of the old wrecking days. It was late 
 when they parted, and the friendship between them 
 had made a growth not often compassed in as many 
 months as they had spent hours together. 
 
 Next morning the old white horse was harnessed 
 early, for Kay said he must be back at work ; and 
 Septimus proposed to drive him round to Roscorla
 
 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 115 
 
 first, that he might make all due inquiries and 
 acknowledgments there. 
 
 " Now, isn't that like a man ? " cried Mrs. Lyon, 
 when word was brought her by Bethiah the maid, 
 that the visitors had just been shown into the 
 drawing-room. " Not a bit of consideration about 
 them. Wouldn't any one have thought that Mr. 
 Jaques was old enough to know that one must be 
 busy in the morning. If he had a wife, she would 
 have taught him different by this time. Bread- 
 making morning, of all others, too ! However, I 
 suppose it is you they want, Jenifer, so you had 
 better run on and make my excuses. I can't pos- 
 sibly come yet ; my hands are in the flour." 
 
 They were both at work, one each side of the 
 great white deal kitchen-table, Mrs. Lyon kneading 
 bread in a huge red earthen pan, Jenifer rolling out 
 pie-crust, doubling and turning, and deftly wielding 
 her rolling-pin with a light, skimming touch. At 
 her elbow stood a wide pie-dish, piled up with 
 fresh-cut quarters of pinky apple, and on the other 
 side of the board was a flour dredger, from which 
 she shook a white shower from time to time. She 
 had just finished the most important part of her 
 task, however, so desiring Bethiah to lay the crust 
 over the apple and put it in the oven, she pulled 
 down her sleeves, took ofl" her apron, and smooth- 
 ing her hair with her hands, went off", unaware 
 that by this last manoeuvre she had powdered one 
 side of her head with flour. 
 
 The two gentlemen were awaiting her in the
 
 ii6 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 
 
 drawing-room, Kay still looking wan and shaken 
 from his unpleasant adventure, sitting on the sofa, 
 and gazing about him with considerable distaste. 
 The inside of Roscorla was certainly a disenchant- 
 ment after the outside, or, at any rate, the drawing- 
 room was. The painter would have been pleased 
 enough could he have seen the kitchen, with its 
 sanded stone floor, its rafters black with age, and 
 the huge chimney, in which the hams and sides 
 of bacon were still smoked according to imme- 
 morial usage ; but the drawing-room had been 
 "improved" at the time of Mrs. Lyon's marriage 
 in accordance with her taste, and she could hardly 
 be blamed for not having foreseen that the very 
 things which in the darkness of the sixties she 
 was so anxious to do away with would in '^these 
 latter days become the height of fashion, and 
 eagerly sought after by all people of taste. In- 
 deed, she had not yet grasped the fact, and still 
 considered her Brussels carpet, her green rep and 
 walnut suite, her ormolu clock and mirror, as quite 
 the thing, and believed in them devoutly. She 
 greatly wondered that Mrs. Dendron, when she 
 and her husband took Pencoet, should not have 
 insisted on its being thoroughly done up, but sup- 
 posed the poor things could not afford it. Especially 
 she disliked the gloom of the old oak panelling, and 
 had had her own concealed by a grey-and-white 
 paper, plentifully besprinkled with gilt Jletcr de lis. 
 The visitor was quite lost in the melancholy 
 contemplation of the innumerable glass shades
 
 CORNISH DIAMONDS, 117 
 
 under which Mrs. Lyon's choicest treasures were 
 preserved when Jenifer entered, so it was Mr. 
 Jaques who first greeted her. 
 
 " Well, Jenifer, have you quite recovered from 
 all your runs yesterday } Grace was so indignant 
 with me that I had not brought you in to rest 
 and have some tea. It was very remiss of me, 
 but I had no idea you would have vanished so 
 quickly. I am afraid we were all rather flustered, 
 and lost our heads." 
 
 " I wanted to have come after you, Miss Lyon," 
 put in Kay ; " but they laid violent hands upon 
 me. What an ungrateful brute you must have 
 thought me ! " 
 
 "Indeed, there was not anything to thank me 
 for," said Jenifer. " I wished I could have been 
 of real use. That is the worst of being a girl ; 
 one can only call somebody." 
 
 " Well, one thing is very certain ; if it had not 
 been for your good sense and promptness in calling 
 the right somebody, I should have been lying at 
 the bottom of the cliff. All your modesty won't 
 convince me that I do not owe my life to you." 
 
 "You owe it to John," cried Jenifer, almost 
 indignantly. " He risked his for you ; and so, I 
 believe, did Mr. Studland — and you too," looking 
 at the vicar. 
 
 The latter smiled quietly. "That was rather a 
 rash move of Alick's," he said ; " but I don't know 
 what else could have been done, and it was justi- 
 fied by the event."
 
 Ii8 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 
 
 " But I don't understand ! " cried Kay. " I did 
 indeed realize Yeo's heroism — I never meant to 
 make light of that, Miss Lyon— but I did not 
 know the others were in danger. I could scarcely 
 understand what was going on above me. Please 
 tell me." 
 
 "Why," said Mr. Jaques, in his quiet way, 
 "Studland was obliged to loosen the rope from 
 the top where we had fixed it, and creep down 
 some yards with it. There was not enough, and 
 no time to wait for more. Of course it quadrupled 
 the risk, for if he had not been able to hold it, we 
 should not only have let you both go, but we should 
 probably have gone too. However, it answered all 
 right, and there was nothing else to be done." 
 
 He was sorry he had made the explanation when 
 he saw how overwhelmed Kay was. In the bewil- 
 derment of his own mortal peril, he had scarcely 
 grasped that three lives had been thrown into the 
 balance for his. He felt the futility of ordinary 
 expressions of gratitude, and remained silent ; and 
 meanwhile Mr. Jaques turned to Jenifer. 
 
 " We ought not to have come over so early, only 
 this fellow was in such a state of impatience till 
 he could thank you. I am afraid we interrupted 
 some delicate culinary operations. I hope the dinner 
 won't suffer." 
 
 " Oh no ; I had finished. But how did you 
 know?" 
 
 Then catching sight of a twinkle in his eyes, 
 which were apparently fixed on the top of her
 
 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 119 
 
 head, she jumped up and gave a hasty glance at 
 herself in the chimney-glass. " Oh dear ! " she 
 cried. " I beg your pardon. How untidy ! What 
 would Aunt Martha say 1 " And she began to 
 flick the flour ofl" with her handkerchief. 
 
 " You look a little as if you had been preparing 
 for a fancy ball ; but never mind, it is very be- 
 coming." 
 
 The little laugh dispersed the atmosphere of 
 embarrassed distress that threatened to engulf 
 poor Kay, and he turned from the window to 
 receive Jenifer's apologies for her aunt's non- 
 appearance, and they were soon talking at ease 
 of other matters. Here was an opportunity too 
 good to be lost for the furtherance of the painter's 
 pet project, so long deferred ; so sitting down 
 beside her, he began tentatively — 
 
 ''Miss Lyon, you have not yet given me the 
 definite answer you promised the other day about 
 my picture. You know they say gratitude is a 
 sense of favours to come, so you see directly I 
 have thanked you for one I begin asking for 
 more. Is it too much to beg for a few sittings? 
 Would it bore you ? " 
 
 " Bore me ! Oh no ; it was not that at all ; only 
 I feel as if I had no business in a church proces- 
 sion. It ought to be a choir-boy." 
 
 "Now, Jenifer," cried Mr. Jaques, facing round 
 suddenly ; " Miss Treby put that in your head." 
 
 Jenifer looked a little confused. "She did say 
 something about it," she murmured.
 
 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 
 
 " H'm ! For my part, I would as soon have a 
 girl-chorister as a lady-curate." 
 
 And Kay felt his cause was won. Opposition 
 to Miss Treby had cut all ground of objection, or 
 wish to object, from under the vicar's feet, and he 
 could not well bring forward his undefined fear 
 lest the painter might flirt with the model. 
 
 " If you approve of it, then," said Jenifer. 
 
 " Oh, I don't disapprove," he said ; " in fact, I 
 have set you the example myself already. I sat 
 this morning for a study of my rugged old phiz. 
 We shall all see ourselves immortalized." 
 
 "Then, if my sitting would be a help, I shall be 
 very glad to come — that is, if my aunt can spare 
 me. But my cross is all withered and taken to 
 pieces ; I must make a new one. Are you going 
 to paint in the church ? " 
 
 " Not entirely. I shall do some part of it there, 
 of course ; but I should prefer to make a study of 
 you first at my own studio. You know I have 
 just set up one at Peninah Sutton's, at Crosstown. 
 When could you most conveniently come } " 
 
 " Not in the morning — I am always busy ; but I 
 could come any afternoon. Will that do as well ? " 
 
 " Quite as well, or better, for I shall have to 
 paint it by artificial light." 
 
 At this moment Mrs. Lyon made her appear- 
 ance, in a torrent of apologies, having squeezed 
 herself hastily into her afternoon gown. After a 
 minute, Jenifer contrived to cut short her voluble 
 explanations by the request —
 
 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 121 
 
 "Auntie, Mr. Kay is going to paint a picture of 
 the harvest procession in church, and he wants me 
 to be in it with my cross. Would you mind my 
 going to sit to him 1 " 
 
 "Well, I never! You ought to feel flattered, I 
 am sure." 
 
 "On the contrary," said Kay, "Miss Lyon will 
 do me a very great favour by posing. I only hope 
 she will not find it tiresome. Then I may count 
 upon her } " 
 
 "You don't think Mr. Lyon will have any objec- 
 tion } " put in the vicar, recalling his own previous 
 misgivings. 
 
 " Oh dear no ! her uncle will be proud to see 
 her in a picture. And what is she to wear .? " 
 
 So the sittings were agreed to without any 
 demur, and the two visitors took their leave, Mrs. 
 Lyon being almost as indignant with them for 
 going just as she had got ready for them, as for 
 coming so early. Jenifer walked down the avenue 
 to the gate with them. 
 
 "We did not fix the day. Miss Lyon," said Kay, 
 shaking hands. "Would Wednesday suit your 
 aunt, do you think } I expect my canvases and 
 things will all have arrived by that time." 
 
 " Oh, I don't think auntie could come any day. 
 She cannot walk so far, and we can so seldom 
 have the cob ; but any day would do for me." 
 
 The painter wondered whether, after all the fuss 
 about allowing Miss Lyon to sit to him, her friends 
 seriously proposed to send her to his rooms without
 
 122 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 
 
 escort, but it certainly was not for him to object, 
 .and the vicar was taking a stone out of the mare's 
 shoe, and had apparently heard nothing. He 
 turned the matter over in his mind, however, with 
 the result that on the next afternoon he betook 
 himself to Pencoet about teatime, with the object 
 of calling on Mrs. Dendron. The drawing-room 
 was empty, but the tea-table, laid ready, bespoke 
 that the mistress was not far off, and in a minute 
 she appeared, her arms full of maple and briony 
 and old man's beard. 
 
 "I am so glad I did not miss you," she said, 
 hospitably holding out her hand. " I am dying to 
 hear your adventure. Come, sit down and unfold 
 your tale." 
 
 " I am afraid your anxiety to hear it betokens 
 a need of amusement. Are you already beginning 
 to be dull } " 
 
 " Never ! " she cried, stuffing her nosegay into 
 temporary quarters in a large jar, and throwing off 
 her cloak. " Don't you know that I am one of 
 those fortunate mortals who don't know how to 
 be bored } No ; if my welcome exceeded your 
 modest estimate of your deserts, you must set it 
 down to my eagerness to hear the true account 
 of your rescue. Why, oh why, was I not the 
 fortunate person to discover you ! I never get 
 adventures." 
 
 Kay could not echo her aspiration. She might 
 be an admirable ally in delicate social difficulties, 
 but he much doubted whether either her nerves or
 
 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 123 
 
 her muscles were to be relied on in a practical 
 emergency ; and he would certainly rather trust 
 the jeopardy of his neck in Jenifer's hands than 
 in those of the dainty little town lady. 
 
 " Come," she said, pouring out a cup of tea and 
 adding cream with a liberal hand ; " begin at the 
 beginning, and tell me the whole story. I am 
 burning to hear it all from the fountain-head." 
 
 "You don't know how difficult it is to talk 
 about," he answered gravely. "I have not yet 
 got far enough off to be able to look on it as a 
 mere adventure. It seems too real and too awful 
 to make a drawing-room story of." 
 
 " I understand," she responded in the same tone, 
 dropping her bantering manner in a moment. " I 
 will not ask another word, if it distresses you ; but 
 you know one can not help feeling a deep interest, 
 especially in hearing a thing at first hand. I am 
 afraid I have got into the foolish habit of talking 
 as if nothing was serious. I am reproved." 
 
 *' I did not mean to reprove you," he said. " I 
 am grateful for your interest, and I don't want, 
 either, to exaggerate my own peril ; but it makes 
 one feel rather queer to have been so near a 
 horrible death, and not in a moment of excite- 
 ment, but through a long, lonely hour. And I 
 can hardly speak quietly of what Yeo and Stud- 
 land and the vicar did for me." 
 
 She asked no more, but what her light queries 
 had failed to elicit was drawn from him when he 
 saw the true feeling that underlay her offhand
 
 124 CORNISH DIAMONDS, 
 
 manner. Almost unawares, he began to tell her 
 all about it, while she listened silently, expressing 
 more sympathy with her eyes than any other 
 woman would have done with her tongue. 
 
 " What heroes those three men are ! " she 
 exclaimed, when he had finished his story. " It 
 does one good, in these easy-going, selfish days, 
 to hear of people who are willing to risk their lives 
 without a question. And dear little Jenifer, too. 
 I was silly to wish I had been there. I could 
 never have done what she did." 
 
 " Very few women could," he rejoined. " In a 
 case where the loss of a minute might have made 
 all the difference, it was a great thing to have 
 some one so prompt, who saw in an instant the 
 best thing to do and the quickest way of doing 
 it ; and was, besides, such a nimble climber. The 
 eyrie from which she saw me would have been 
 inaccessible to most people." 
 
 " But I don't yet understand how you came 
 there," said Letty. "Is there really a path, or 
 did the miller mislead you 1 " 
 
 "No, it seems the path he meant is some yards 
 further on, where the brook comes down. The 
 one I attempted was practicable years ago, Yeo 
 tells me, but the last few winters have destroyed 
 it ; there have been falls of rock in two or three 
 places. It just shows it does not do to trust to 
 one's own wit in strange places." 
 
 "Do you know," said Letty, taking his cup and 
 refilling it, "the people here seem to me rather
 
 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 125 
 
 like their own cliffs, very alluring, but dangerously 
 inaccessible. The one thing that makes it impos- 
 sible to be dull here is the fresh, unused-up 
 atmosphere ; the neighbours are few, but the types 
 are unique." 
 
 " Ay ; they have not been exploited by us 
 wretched cultivated folk as they have been in 
 South Cornwall, and even in Brittany, except in 
 some favoured nooks among the mountains. Why 
 is civilization so terribly destructive .'' " 
 
 " Ah, why, indeed .^ There is something terribly 
 wrong with it, I am afraid, or with us. But I did 
 not mean merely the poorer sort, though they are 
 delightful — John Yeo, for instance, and the Polsue 
 brothers, or your good landlady — I was thinking 
 more of our own friends, who are as well educated 
 as we are, or far more so, and yet are not of our 
 world. If being buried alive here keeps one out 
 of the swim — out of the current of what is doing 
 in the big world — it sequesters one from a great 
 deal of littleness and vulgarity and pretentious 
 mediocrity." 
 
 Kay laughed. "I am not so sure," he said. 
 *^ Before you congratulate yourself on having 
 escaped from pretentious mediocrity, may I ask 
 whether you have seen Mrs. Lyon's drawing- 
 room } " 
 
 " No ; she was out when I called. Do tell me ; 
 is it very awful ? " 
 
 He nodded. "Green rep and ormolu can go no 
 further."
 
 126 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 
 
 "And yet Jenifer, shy and gauche as she some- 
 times is, is so absolutely refined. Where does she 
 get it, do you suppose ? " 
 
 "From the sea and the wide cliff, and her little 
 friends the rabbits and the seagulls, I should say.. 
 She looks as if she had run wild all her life. I 
 came upon her once standing on the cliff above 
 the gorge, listening so intently to the tinkle of 
 the brook and the thunder of the surf on the reef 
 that she did not see me. Her look brought 
 Wordsworth's lines into my mind — 
 
 * And beauty born of murmuring sound shall pass into her face.' 
 
 What puzzles me far more is where she gets her 
 music ; neither the Plymouth lessons nor the 
 amazing cleverness of John Yeo quite account for it. 
 Her playing is something quite out of the common." 
 " It is indeed. I was astonished the day she 
 came to try over music with me. She really 
 ought to be a professional, but she doesn't seem 
 to be aware of possessing any extraordinary gift. 
 It seems they have been celebrated for their 
 music in this parish for generations ; for years 
 they have had a band that has been the envy of 
 the country round. The odd thing is that it is 
 almost confined to one family — the Polsues — and 
 all their connections have a monopoly. John, 
 though not a Polsue by name, is a cousin, besides 
 having married their sister ; and he has the most 
 genius of any of them. Jenifer was giving me 
 the whole history the other day."
 
 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 
 
 "Well, it is an odd comer of the world. But I 
 am being diverted from what I specially wanted 
 to ask you. You know I fancy I have found a 
 motive for a big picture in that quaint and most 
 suggestive procession, and I am here for the pur- 
 pose of trying it. Miss Lyon has kindly promised 
 to pose for the principal figure, and she is to come 
 to my studio on Wednesday ; and I wondered if 
 you would care to come in for a bit and have tea, 
 and look at some rather curious old Italian draw- 
 ings I picked up." 
 
 " And play propriety } To be sure I will, with 
 the greatest pleasure. Are you afraid of little 
 Jenifer, or of the scandalmongers of Kerranstow ? " 
 
 "You are too bad, Mrs. Dendron ! Of course, 
 there is no reason on earth why she should not 
 come by herself, but my experience is that a 
 country village is the last place in the world 
 where one can afford to affront Mrs. Grundy." 
 
 " It is very nice of you to think of it. I fancy 
 the child is accustomed to run in and out of the 
 Vicarage like a tame cat ; and she would not see 
 the difference. But won't her aunt come with* 
 her .? " 
 
 "They don't seem to be alive to the necessity 
 — which, after all, I dare say, doesn't exist. Only 
 I know just what would happen. Just as I got 
 well to work, Miss Treby would protest, and there 
 would be a fuss, and good-bye to my poor 
 picture." 
 
 " I'll come with the greatest pleasure. I will
 
 1 28 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 
 
 just tell her you have invited me to see you paint ; 
 and I will call for her." 
 
 " Thanks ! That is exactly what I wanted. I 
 hope you won't be bored. By the way, do you 
 know I have won over the vicar to sit to me. I 
 •call that a triumph." 
 
 " I should say his was a face well worth drawing. 
 He is a bundle of oddities, isn't he "> " 
 
 "Yes, he is a queer mixture. You know he 
 made me stay the night with him after my accident, 
 and he opened out wonderfully. There is a great 
 charm when you get within the thorny husk. He 
 has a brusque, snapping-up sort of manner at first, 
 but that is only outside. I was a good deal shaken, 
 and he was as tender as a woman. What a well- 
 read man he is, too. What can have induced him 
 to bury himself alive here for five and twenty years .? 
 I can well understand the charm for six months — a 
 year — but for life ! " 
 
 " I don't know. I suppose there is a story ; there 
 generally is." 
 
 " Probably ; he is too human to have fossilized 
 into an elderly scholar from mere force of nature. 
 It is more like a temperament that has been 
 dammed up. And you can have no idea how well 
 he talks. There are streaks of expansiveness and 
 streaks of reserve that make him more than usually 
 interesting ; he will pour himself out as if one were 
 an old and intimate friend, and then quite suddenly 
 shut up as if with a steel spring, and one can get 
 no more out of him until one can manage to strike
 
 CORXISH DIAMONDS. 129 
 
 on some other subject that rouses his enthusiasm. 
 I hope I shall see more of him." 
 
 " Is your sketch of him for the picture or a por- 
 trait study ? " asked Letty. " I suppose you don't 
 want to put all the performers in .'' You won't 
 make a literal transcript of the thing .^ " 
 
 " Not entirely, of course ; but the chief ones — the 
 parson, the cornet-players, and Miss Lyon — I must 
 have. They are too characteristic to be missed." 
 
 "Dear me!" cried Letty; "I had no idea the 
 composition of a picture was such a simple affair. 
 I thought you got a notion here, and borrowed a 
 background there ; took the head of this model, 
 and the leg of that, and so forth." 
 
 He laughed. " It is true," he said. " One does 
 not often happen upon a subject ready made to 
 one's hand. The process Is occasionally something 
 as you have described. I don't think I ever before 
 chanced to hit upon a scene that combined all the 
 elements I wanted ; but when I do, I accept it 
 humbly, and am thankful." 
 
 " Of course, it is very impertinent of me to 
 make a suggestion, but, do you know, I should 
 have thought you might have chosen a better 
 model than Jenifer Lyon. Does your realism 
 insist upon her } " 
 
 " No, certainly not ; but in this case Miss Lyon 
 is exactly what I want. What is your objection } " 
 
 Well, I should have been more inclined to 
 choose some one more effective. Jenifer is hardly 
 even pretty yet, though I grant she has the 
 
 VOL. I. 9
 
 I30 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 
 
 capacity to become so by-and-by. She is in that 
 undeveloped stage that she may be pretty when 
 she is a year or two older, or she mayn't ; but 
 she seems to me to want force and colouring. 
 Now, I should have thought Rachel Treby would 
 have been the very model you would want." 
 
 He shook his head. "I grant that she is hand- 
 somer, and, as you say, more effective. In Miss 
 Lyon there are more the hints and suggestions of 
 a possible beauty than a complete fulfilment ; but, 
 after all, one doesn't want to paint ideals. We 
 don't care for beauty ready made to our hand — 
 the sort of thing that, as the French say, saute 
 atix yeiix — we want to interpret ; and a thing 
 writ large in a language understanded of the 
 people needs no interpreter." 
 
 "I see. I suppose, then, you call yourself an 
 Impressionist } " 
 
 " I never call myself names, Mrs. Dendron." 
 
 "Ah, well! you have made me more curious 
 than ever to watch your methods. I shall look 
 forward eagerly to Wednesday."
 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 ENINAH SUTTON'S dairy was hardly 
 recognizable, transformed into an artist's 
 studio. The skylight Kay promised himself had 
 not yet been inserted ; West-country workmen are 
 proverbially dilatory ; but for the work he was 
 engaged upon it was not necessary. On the after- 
 noon when Jenifer came for her first sitting, the 
 blending of the late October twilight, with groups 
 of candles arranged at the far end, where she was 
 to stand, was precisely the combination he desired. 
 Comfort was secured by the presence of a hideous 
 black stove, partly hidden from view by an Indian 
 screen, and beside it an easy-chair, transported 
 from the sitting-room, was put ready for Mrs. 
 Dendron's accommodation. Neither Bridesworth 
 nor Westcreek, it may well be supposed, could 
 furnish the quaint affair in German faieiice which 
 the painter had set his mind upon, and he had 
 wild ideas of getting a friend to send him one from 
 Ratisbon, but in the meantime he must content 
 himself with the best the local ironmonger could do,
 
 132 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 
 
 or perish with the cold. The thick Turkey carpet, 
 the hangings and draperies that were part of his 
 stock-in-trade, gave a sort of rich, luxurious air to 
 the homely room, and the broad shelves, erst laden 
 with a seemly row of milk-pans, were now covered 
 with all manner of bric-d-hrac — Venetian glass, 
 Indian pottery, interspersed with studies and 
 sketches in various stages of completion leaning 
 against the wall. 
 
 To Jenifer's unaccustomed senses it seemed as 
 if she had stepped out of the dull autumn after- 
 noon straight into a fairy-tale, and she gazed 
 round her with eyes of childlike admiration. The 
 painter himself, in the grey linen blouse in which 
 he always worked, looked odd, and surprised her 
 almost as much as the lay figure, clad in the un- 
 usual garb of surplice and cassock, at the moment 
 representing Mr. Jaques. Kay had contented 
 himself with a few studies of the vicar's head, and, 
 whilst he waited for his new sitter, had been work- 
 ing in the figure and drapery without the living 
 model. This dignified-looking personage he now 
 unceremoniously laid hold of by a loop at the back 
 of its neck, and removed into an obscure corner. 
 
 He had provided Mrs. Dendron with a goodly 
 pile of literature — to " keep her quiet," as she said — 
 and the sitting proceeded silently, for Kay was too 
 much absorbed in his work to utter more than a 
 stray remark from time to time. The room was 
 so still that the gurgling of the brook down below 
 was distinctly audible. Presently he said —
 
 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 133 
 
 "Miss Lyon, would you please look as you did 
 when you were in the procession ; a little more up, 
 and as if you were alive to what was going 
 forward." 
 
 For in the dreamy stillness her face had settled 
 into an absent, musing expression, and her head 
 had unconsciously bent downwards. As far as the 
 posture of head and eyes was concerned, she com- 
 plied at once ; but her mouth kept the grave lines 
 that were characteristic of her face in repose, and, 
 with a frown, he seized another brush and began 
 to go on with the shading of the figure. Letty 
 looked up. 
 
 " Is the patient allowed to talk ? " she asked. 
 
 " Yes, certainly, if she can talk and keep still ; 
 and I think," turning to her, " you are one of the 
 people that can." 
 
 Jenifer smiled. "Thank you," she said, "but I 
 don't know that I have anything particular to 
 say." 
 
 " Oh, I'll find you something to talk about," cried 
 Letty. " You know, Mr. Kay, John Yeo's achieve- 
 ment in your rescue has brought up all the old 
 stories of his heroism ; it seems he has had a medal 
 more than once, and I think it would be so inte- 
 resting if Miss Lyon would tell us a nice shipwreck 
 story, don't you 1 " 
 
 " I should like it of all things," said Kay. " Do 
 please indulge us." 
 
 " I will try, if you like," said Jenifer. " I remember 
 a lot of stories, but I don't know if I can tell them
 
 134 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 
 
 properly. Have you heard of the wreck of the 
 Goelland?''' Her auditors shook their heads, and 
 she went on — "That was one of the times John 
 got a medal. I did not see anything of it, for I 
 was quite a little girl then, but of course every one 
 was talking of it. It was a winter night, not 
 stormy, but very thick and foggy, and there was 
 still a heavy sea on, though the wind had gone 
 down. Old Noah, John's father, who used to be 
 gardener at the Vicarage, woke in the middle of 
 the night, fancying he heard a gun fired. It is 
 always very difficult to be certain, because, if it is 
 in the least rough, the ground-swell makes a noise 
 in the caves like the booming of cannon ; but this 
 was a short, sharp sound, more like a fowling- 
 piece, so he got up and roused his master and 
 John, and the three took a lantern and went down 
 to the cliff. It was so thick they had to grope 
 their way along by the paling, the lantern was 
 hardly any use, and when they came to the edge 
 they must crawl, for one step might have taken 
 them over. The gun fired again, and they shouted, 
 and their shout was answered, and by the sound 
 they made out that there was a vessel on the reef 
 just below the Shag's Head. They crept out as 
 far as they could, beyond where I was the other 
 day, and you may suppose in the fog and dark it 
 was not easy, and then at last the fog lifted a 
 little, and they were able to make out a lugger, 
 wedged in that long reef, and breaking up fast. 
 It seemed hardly possible that the crew could come
 
 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 135 
 
 safe ashore without being dashed to pieces. You 
 remember the jagged reef just under the Shag ? " 
 
 " I do, indeed," and Kay shuddered. 
 
 "Well, that was between them and the vessel, 
 and they feared there would be no time to summon 
 the coastguard with the rocket apparatus, for the 
 nearest station where one was kept was halfway to 
 Westcreek. So John said he would swim out to 
 them with a rope, for he knew the channel round 
 the reef It was no great distance ; the fear was 
 that some stronger wave would dash him against 
 the rocks. How they got down I can hardly 
 tell you ; I believe they let John down the last 
 thirty or forty feet with the rope, as they did the 
 other day, and he actually managed to reach the 
 lugger in safety. He made fast the rope to the 
 mast, and sent them all on in front of him with 
 the rope to cling to, and came last himself It was 
 a very small crew, only three men and a boy, the 
 motisse, as they call him, and they were all saved. 
 They were from Roscofif, in Brittany, bound for 
 Padstow, but they had missed it somehow, and 
 drifted away in the fog, and they thought they 
 were making for Westcreek Harbour when they 
 found themselves on the rocks. They were half 
 frozen, poor fellows, and so exhausted that they 
 could hardly stand, so Mr. Jaques took one on his 
 back, and John another, and one could just manage 
 to crawl, and old Noah carried the boy. They all 
 stayed at the Vicarage till they were all right again, 
 and Mr. Jaques gave them money to get home, but
 
 136 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 
 
 the boy stayed a long time ; I remember him quite 
 well." 
 
 " It must have been an awful business to climb 
 up those rocks with a man on your back," said 
 Kay. 
 
 "Yes, indeed, but not so terrible with a living 
 burden. Have you noticed that great white figure- 
 head in the churchyard, standing back against the 
 yew tree } " 
 
 "Yes," said Kay, "I have, and wondered what 
 of it } " 
 
 " That is the gravestone to eleven drowned sailors 
 who lie there with their captain. His name, Eric 
 Magnus, is written at the base of it. Their ship 
 went all to pieces, and no one could help. For 
 weeks afterwards they sought the bodies, and 
 carried them all up, the vicar and John and the 
 Polsue brothers, and then they laid them there 
 side by side, and set their own figure-head over 
 them." 
 
 While he listened, Kay had not for an instant 
 stopped painting ; but he had thrown down the 
 brush with which he had been laying on broad 
 shadows, and seizing some finer ones, began to 
 work again upon the face. When she ceased, he 
 turned to Mrs. Dendron. 
 
 "You are a magician," he said. 
 
 She laughed, and Jenifer wondered what he 
 could possibly mean. By that time she was tired 
 enough with holding her arms up in so unusual a 
 posture, so the painter called a halt, and made her
 
 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 137 
 
 descend from the elevated platform on which she 
 had been standing, and rest in a low chair, while 
 he entertained her with a portfolio of Brittany 
 sketches, pointing out the curious likeness in type 
 between the subjects of them and her own people ; 
 a likeness that Mrs. Dendron was perhaps more 
 alive to, bringing the outsider's eye to bear equally 
 on both. 
 
 During the next pause he invited them into the 
 sitting-room to have some tea, which Peninah had 
 laid in hospitable fashion, with table-cloth and tray 
 all complete on the table in the middle of the 
 room, being quite unable to grasp the idea of cups 
 of tea handed in the studio, which had been his 
 first idea. He was a charming host, used to enter- 
 taining ladies, and his two guests thoroughly 
 enjoyed his clotted cream and his amusing stories 
 of his wandering life. 
 
 When they went back to the studio for the one 
 more sitting which he begged, Letty walked 
 straight up to the big easel, and stood contem- 
 plating the picture for a few moments. 
 
 "So that is what you call interpreting," she 
 said. 
 
 " What do you mean } " he asked, rather shortly. 
 "Don't you like it.?" 
 
 " Like it } Of course I do ; but that is not the 
 question. I thought you aimed at a strict realism, 
 and abjured the ideal." 
 
 " Ah, but then, which is real, what I see, or what 
 you see .'' "
 
 138 CORAUSH DIAMONDS. 
 
 She looked puzzled for a moment, then she 
 laughed. 
 
 "You remind me of a story told of Watts. 
 Some lady was criticizing his picture of Covent 
 Garden Market, and said to him, ' Well, Mr. Watts, 
 it is very beautiful, and all that, but I have been 
 to Covent Garden Market often, and I never saw 
 anything like that.' His answer was, 'Don't you 
 wish you could .^ ' " 
 
 "Well," said Kay, "all I undertake to do is to 
 convey my own impression of my subject, what- 
 ever it may be. If it does not coincide with other 
 people's impressions, I can't help that." 
 
 " Don't be cross," she said ; " I did not mean to 
 be critical. I think it is lovely." 
 
 When they were gone, and he came back from 
 seeing them to the gate, he stood for some time in 
 contemplation of his work. Was Mrs. Dendron's 
 hinted criticism just, and had he departed from his 
 own traditions in painting mere prettiness instead 
 of the characteristic aspect ? 
 
 He took up his sheaf of brushes, and began to 
 lay on a shadowy tint in the background, indicat- 
 ing here and there a figure scarcely seen in the 
 gloom. While he worked on almost mechanically, 
 he considered the half-finished face and form which 
 had been his afternoon's work. Was it flattered t 
 If so, he should not hesitate to dash a brushful of 
 colour across it, and begin next sitting all over 
 again. If there was one thing he despised, it was 
 chocolate-box prettiness ; if he thought he had
 
 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 139 
 
 been guilty of that, the work must go. He stepped 
 back a few paces ; the shadow behind the head 
 brought it out better. 
 
 No ; he acquitted himself of idealizing ; the face 
 on the canvas was not beautiful any more than 
 that of the model. He had not given fictitious 
 roses to the cheeks that, though healthily sunburnt, 
 were yet singularly devoid of red, nor had he 
 rounded too much the childishly thin little throat. 
 There was a charm ; he felt it himself, but it was 
 not of his bestowing. He found himself regarding 
 it not at all as if it were his own handiwork, but 
 more as if it had come into being on his easel 
 spontaneously. Mrs. Dendron showed a want of 
 discrimination if she said he flattered his model. 
 
 The eyes looked shadowy and darker than usual, 
 it was true ; but then the light of the flickering 
 tapers the boys were carrying in front of her fell 
 only on cheeks and chin ; her hat cast a deep shade 
 over the upper part of her face. The expression 
 of her mouth was absorbed, intent on her task, but 
 not wholly free from a suspicion of nervousness 
 and a consciousness of strain in holding her heavy 
 burden steadily. She had worn the corn-coloured 
 gown, and though supposed to be high-necked, the 
 collar had been cut — perhaps from the inexperience 
 of home dressmaking — low enough to show the 
 little hollows where the collar-bones start, and 
 instead of being finished with customary upright 
 band, there was a wide falling frill. 
 
 There was something in that little neck that
 
 I40 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 
 
 pleased him. He laid down his brushes, and going 
 over to an old bureau, took out a shabby leather 
 case, and brought it to the lamp. He pressed the 
 spring ; inside lay a necklace of small pearls with 
 a ruby clasp. He had picked it up during his 
 wanderings in Austria from an old Jew whose 
 daughter's portrait he had painted. It was valu- 
 able, he knew, though he could not tell exactly 
 what it would fetch in the English market. The 
 stones were genuine and of excellent colour, though 
 not quite uniform in size or roundness. As he 
 turned it over in his hand, and let the beads slip 
 softly through his fingers, he was fancying how it 
 would look on that slim little throat. He felt he 
 should like to give the necklace to Jenifer Lyon. 
 
 After all, why should he not, when the sittings 
 were at an end t It was a great benefit to him, 
 and a great kindness on her part that she should 
 give him her aid in this manner ; a paid model 
 would not have been half the use. What more 
 fitting than to ask her acceptance of this little 
 trinket as an acknowledgment 1 True, it was 
 worth the wages of many models for an unlimited 
 time ; still, one does not measure one's gratitude 
 in that sort of way. Probably her aunt would let 
 her accept it if he wxnt about it judiciously ; at 
 Christmas-time, say, when presents are the order 
 of the day. For the present he restored it to its 
 bed of blue velvet, and locked it up again.
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 S the winter drew on, the panelled parlour at 
 Pencoet became more and more a social 
 centre to Kerranstow and its immediate surround- 
 ings. Rachel Treby found it gave a new zest to 
 life to come and argue out her plans for the 
 civilization of her parish with Mrs. Dendron, who 
 brought the breath of the live outer world to blow 
 on them ; even though she frequently encountered 
 her old antagonist, Mr. Jaques, there, and Letty 
 invariably took his part and gave her vote against 
 interference with old customs or the introduction 
 of new nostrums. For even Septimus, recluse as 
 he was, came under the spell of Letty's intelligent 
 interest in all his hobbies, and fell to some extent 
 into the habit of forsaking his old brown tea-pot 
 and finishing an afternoon at her tea-table. 
 
 Letty's point of view perplexed Rachel ; she 
 could not understand it. She was prepared for 
 Mr. Jaques's inconsistencies, his radical theories and 
 stubborn adherence to old customs ; but that such 
 an incarnation of fashion and modernism as Letty
 
 142 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 
 
 should be so reactionary puzzled her. Yet, after 
 all, what was it in Letty but the love of novelty ? 
 These old things were new to the stranger ; it was 
 the new ways that she was sick of. 
 
 As to Jenifer Lyon, Mrs. Dendron's friendship 
 was no less than the opening of a new world to 
 her. Letty lent her books — novels and poetry 
 and such literary pabulum as she herself enjoyed — 
 instructed her in the fashions, gave her patterns 
 for her clothes, and talked to her of her own life 
 and interests with the easy abandon of an equal. 
 This was what Rachel had never done ; her inter- 
 course with her had always been rather too con- 
 sciously didactic ; she had never treated her on 
 this footing of intimacy, but had looked on her as 
 a child, and considered what would be good for 
 her. Moreover, Letty entered into her music with 
 vivid appreciation ; she got down new things for 
 her to try, played her accompaniments, and urged 
 her on to fresh ambitions. Music was a ground 
 on which the vicar, the painter, Mrs. Dendron, and 
 Jenifer could all meet, and many were the November 
 afternoons that slipped away unheeded in the 
 practice of trios and duets. 
 
 The sittings, too, went on spasmodically accord- 
 ing to the exigencies of the picture. Letty was 
 invariably the chaperone ; Kay was a man who 
 hated to have strange eyes resting on his work till 
 it was in a state of forwardness, so he resisted any 
 suggestion of any one else taking her place, though 
 both Rachel and Mrs. Lyon expressed curiosity
 
 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 143 
 
 to see it, and hinted that Mrs. Dendron must be 
 tired of going so often. It was not all good nature 
 on her part to give up so many afternoons ; she 
 liked to watch him at work, or talk to him when 
 he was not too absorbed to speak ; she appreciated 
 the artistic atmosphere of the studio in the wilds, 
 and she took an amused interest in watching a 
 little drama, as she imagined, unfold itself 
 
 The painter himself was growing to have a good 
 deal of interest in his sitter ; hers was a face you 
 did not see to the end of at once. At first he had 
 thought it not a very expressive one ; but either 
 the spirit behind was expanding and it had more 
 to express, or else he was learning in his long 
 study and contemplation of it to know it better. 
 A new look was coming into it as Christmas drew 
 on ; a wistful look of expectancy. What did it 
 mean ? What was she expecting } 
 
 What? She hardly knew herself. When 
 Studland had wished her good-bye in the avenue 
 at Roscorla he had said, " Till Christmas, then," 
 and for Christmas she was waiting. That was 
 all ; Christmas would bring him ; she should see 
 him again ; beyond that she formed neither hopes 
 nor wishes. 
 
 Meantime she was very happy; — happier per- 
 haps than she was herself aware of. Life seemed 
 to be opening out before her in a hundred new 
 directions. She had never been conscious of any 
 lack of interests ; she who had never known a 
 wider outlook had been quite untouched by the
 
 144 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 
 
 discontents and restless longings which embittered 
 Rachel Treby's days ; but now that so many fresh 
 paths offered themselves to her feet, she pursued 
 them all with eagerness, only perplexed which to 
 follow first. Even her music, which commanded 
 as always her first and most loyal allegiance, 
 broadened and deepened under Letty's fostering, 
 and she began to discover in herself with pleased 
 surprise various unsuspected tastes and talents. 
 
 The sittings were a great pleasure to her ; she 
 took a deep interest in the progress of the picture, 
 and used to look at her own presentment on the 
 canvas in an impersonal way that was oddly devoid 
 of vanity. It was no gene to her to keep still ; she 
 was one of those people who combine great activity 
 and quickness in whatever they are about with 
 the power of being quite motionless when at rest ; 
 she was not given to fidgety movements of any 
 kind, and when once she had got used to the 
 embarrassing newness of the situation, it was no 
 effort to her to stand without moving for half an 
 hour at a time, with her eyes fixed on some of the 
 lovely and artistic things Kay had gathered about 
 him, and which were a joy even to her ignorant 
 eyes. 
 
 It was not in human nature — not in girl nature, 
 at any rate — not to be flattered by the observance 
 which the artist paid her ; by his desire to please 
 and amuse her. It was a kind of treatment entirely 
 new to her, and though in her modesty she set it 
 down to his courtesy rather than to her own claims.
 
 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 145 
 
 yet it gave her an agreeable sense of consideration 
 and consequence. 
 
 It was quite as new to Letty Dendron to be 
 called upon to play second fiddle, and it was a 
 surprise to herself to find how well and sweetly 
 she could perform on that unpopular instrument, 
 and how much she liked it. Perhaps the very 
 novelty of the situation had its charm. She had 
 been far too easily first all her life to be troubled 
 with the sensitive jealousy of women who have 
 had to struggle for social success and precedence. 
 She liked the painter, but he and she belonged to 
 the same world ; she was tired of him beforehand, 
 and probably he of her ; she was quite willing to 
 see Jenifer the centre of interest, and it entertained 
 her to watch the growth of a very evident admira- 
 tion, and to wonder whether it would ever ripen 
 into anything serious. 
 
 Busy as Kay was, Mrs. Dendron insisted on his 
 wasting a good deal of time over the scenery for 
 her play, and in this occupation every one was 
 called in to assist, from Miss Treby to John Yeo, 
 the latter in his capacity as carpenter, and the rest 
 because Kay said that if he designed the scenes, 
 the ladies of the company, whether they could 
 paint or no, must all work at them. Even the 
 vicar himself was beguiled into taking a brush 
 occasionally. In this sociable labour intimacy 
 made great strides. 
 
 One afternoon they were all deep in their oc- 
 cupation ; Jenifer was sitting on her heels working 
 
 VOL. I. 10
 
 146 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 
 
 at a huge dock leaf that was supposed to have a 
 very fine effect when viewed from a little way off, 
 when she heard a soft voice behind her — 
 
 "Are you all helping Mr. Kay to paint his 
 celebrated picture, may I ask ? And is this it ? '* 
 
 She sprang to her feet in a sudden glow, and 
 there was Studland, watching with an amused 
 look in his brown eyes. He had come in un- 
 noticed in the midst of John's hammering. 
 
 " Of course it is," said Kay, coming forward in 
 his grey blouse, palette on thumb. "You will, I 
 trust, recognize this on the walls of next year's 
 Academy. Don't you know this is the way, they 
 tell us, the great painters always went to work ; 
 they merely indicated the outline and general 
 scope, and the details were filled in by their 
 assistants. Won't you take a hand ? " 
 
 So Alick was furnished with tools, and set down 
 beside Jenifer to paint a grassy hillock in streaks 
 of green and brown. They had a good deal to 
 say to one another, and as they talked in a low 
 tone it is to be feared that neither grass nor 
 burdocks grew very fast under their hands. 
 
 Letty who was never too busy to be aware of 
 everything that was going on in every corner 
 within her ken, perceived that Denis was showing 
 signs of restlessness, and determined generously to 
 come to the rescue. 
 
 " Mr. Studland," she cried, " I am sure you are 
 not doing that grass right ; is he, Mr. Kay ? It 
 looks like a billiard-table from here. Besides, it is
 
 CORNISH DIAMONDS. I47 
 
 a waste of advantages to put a tall man where 
 any one could reach. I wish you would come 
 and finish this window ; I have done all I can get 
 up to, and I cannot paint standing on the steps." 
 
 He went at once, and Kay took his place beside 
 Jenifer, and began to show her how to lay shadows 
 effectively so as to tell at the greatest distance ; 
 but he did not gain much by the exchange ; he 
 thought she was a little cross. 
 
 It had been found impossible to achieve the 
 theatricals by Boxing Day ; neither scenery nor 
 players were in a sufficient state of forwardness ; 
 but as Letty remarked, the longer they were about 
 their preparations, the more fun they would get 
 out of them. The Wynnstays, after all, could not 
 come, so the play had to be changed for one 
 needing fewer characters. Letty set her face 
 determinately against anything of the " Box and 
 Cox" order, and gave her vote unhesitatingly 
 for something of a slightly sentimental cast. 
 "You may depend upon it," she said, "the 
 audience will not find our jokes in the least 
 funny ; but they will weep copiously over our 
 pathos, if only we can manage to be high-flown 
 enough." 
 
 Mr. Jaques endorsed this view. 
 
 " I remember," he said, " when I was a young 
 man, making the mistake of reading the inimitable 
 scene at the ' Red Cow ' in the beginning of ' Silas 
 Marner,' at a Penny Reading ; the one or two 
 friends who went with me were convulsed, but the
 
 148 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 
 
 bulk of the audience gazed at me in stolid surprise 
 that I could see anything amusing in such very 
 ordinary conversation ; it was evidently part of 
 their everyday experience. Mrs. Dendron is right. 
 Be tragic." 
 
 So a heartrending piece — which however ended 
 well, with a reconciliation scene — was chosen, and 
 as a lever de rideau, Letty selected " Her Bitterest 
 Foe," which she intended to perform herself with 
 the support of the two young men of the party, 
 and rehearsals went on merrily. 
 
 On Christmas Eve all these frivolities had to be 
 laid aside in favour of church decorations. Rachel 
 did things on an elaborate scale at Hennacombe, 
 but at Kerranstow they were less ambitious. 
 Jenifer spent all the morning helping John and 
 Grace to wreath the pillars with 'wy^ and stick 
 brave boughs of holly in every available point, and 
 just as they had nearly done, Mrs. Dendron drove 
 down, with the jingle loaded with azaleas, crimson 
 and white and pink, wherewith she proceeded to 
 make summer in the chancel. It was soon all 
 done, however, and leaving Grace to clear up the 
 mess, Jenifer took her way down to the sea to 
 get a little rest and refreshment before going 
 home. 
 
 It hardly seemed like Christmas, it was so mild 
 and still. A slight frost just crisped the grass, 
 and the sun was so veiled with mist he had not 
 had power to thaw it. The sea seemed half- 
 asleep, as if it were taking a good rest after the
 
 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 149 
 
 excitement of the autumnal gales. The long 
 heave of the ocean swell came slowly over from 
 the horizon like deep breathings in a dream, and 
 scarcely broke, only washed up with a low murmur 
 against the rocks. 
 
 Jenifer thought she would cross the brook by 
 the stepping-stones, and get down by a way she 
 knew of just beyond — a less risky descent than 
 the one which Denis Kay had essayed. Just as 
 she was beginning to poise herself on the round, 
 slippery boulders, she heard a voice on the other 
 side. 
 
 " Stay a moment. I will come down and give 
 you a hand." 
 
 She looked up. There was Studland in his 
 brown shooting-coat, carrying his gun. A few 
 steps brought him down the combe side, and he 
 extended a firm hand to steady her as she skipped 
 across. 
 
 "Are you playing truant from the decora- 
 tions.?" she asked. "I should have thought Miss 
 Treby could never have spared you this after- 
 noon." 
 
 "Well, I like that. If I am miching, pray what 
 are you doing? leaving poor Kerranstow to the 
 ministrations of John and Grace, I suppose." 
 
 " Oh, I have done ; we finished half an hour 
 ago ; but at Hennacombe you are so much more 
 ambitious. I know Miss Treby often goes on 
 working till quite late at night." 
 
 " Well, I will interfere to rescue her before it
 
 ISO CORNISH DIAMONDS. 
 
 comes to that. And now, may I ask, whither are 
 you bound ? " 
 
 " Oh, I am going home." 
 
 " Are you } I shouldn't have thought that this 
 was precisely the most direct way," he said, laugh- 
 ing ; "but I suppose you know best." 
 
 "Well, not exactly," she admitted ; "but it is so 
 nice and warm, I was going down to the sea to 
 rest a little first." 
 
 "Ah, I see. May I come too?" 
 
 He turned and walked beside her till the path 
 was exchanged for a clamber, and he went in front 
 to help her down. The difficulties were nothing 
 to her, and she accepted his aid rather for the 
 pleasure than the need of it. She liked to feel the 
 warm strong clasp of his hand on hers. 
 
 "Do you want to go any further?" he asked 
 presently. " Isn't this about right ? " 
 
 The spot they had reached was a narrow plat- 
 form of solid rock, perfectly sheltered from the 
 wind, with a few fallen boulders, scattered about as if 
 on purpose for seats. At one side the brook leapt 
 down with a tinkle, and some hundred feet below 
 them the sea rose and fell in the dark green hollows 
 with a deep-toned gurgle. It made a good resting- 
 place. There was something soothing and drowsy 
 about both sight and sound. Presently Jenifer 
 spoke. 
 
 " How perfectly restful and delicious the sea is. 
 I wonder how it is one never gets tired of it. You 
 never do, though you are always on it, do you ? "
 
 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 151 
 
 He shook his head. " Never. I suppose I 
 inherit the sea-passion ; all my father's folk were 
 sailors, you know." 
 
 "And Miss Treby is so different ; she hates the 
 sound of it, and often says she would give any- 
 thing to get away, and exchange it for the roar 
 and rattle of the streets." 
 
 *'Ah, poor Rachel; she wants a different kind 
 of life, and she is not the sort that can accommo- 
 date herself easily." 
 
 " I used to be afraid it was childish and stupid 
 of me to care so much for it ; but the other 
 day, at Mrs. Dendron's, Mr. Kay read us such a 
 lovely poem of Swinburne's, all about the sea — 
 just what one has always felt, and could not put 
 into words. I wish I could remember it." 
 
 That was a jarring note, and a cloud came over 
 the sun. Alick might be full of the dumb sea- 
 passion, but of written verse he knew little and 
 cared less. When he spoke again, it was, as it 
 were, from further off. 
 
 " Don't you begin to want to try your wings in 
 a wider life ? " 
 
 She shook her head silently, and looked out to 
 sea again with an expression of measureless con- 
 tent. Then, after a pause — 
 " No ; why should 1 ? " 
 
 " Why, indeed ! Only I don't know — what have 
 they been doing to you ? " 
 
 "Doing to me? Who? I don't understand 
 a bit what you mean."
 
 152 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 
 
 "Why, these smart new people. I thought we 
 made a compact in October that when I came 
 back I was to find my old friend — the little Jenifer 
 I used to know. That is not so very long ago, 
 and behold ! a still more finished young lady ! " 
 
 Jenifer looked up, half amused, yet a little 
 troubled too. The wistful eyes asked plainly— 
 But don't youlike thechange? — while her lips said — 
 
 " I don't know how it is ; I am not different in 
 anything I can help ; only one must grow up, you 
 know." 
 
 "Must one.^ I don't see the necessity, as the 
 French princess said, when they told her the poor 
 must have bread. But" — more seriously — "don't 
 let Mrs. Dendron spoil you. There are plenty of 
 London girls and Southsea girls and smart girls 
 of all sorts in the world, but in all my wanderings 
 I have not met any little Cornish girls." 
 
 She blushed a little ; then with a ;2^i/ simplicity 
 she said — 
 
 "Aunt Martha is always saying that sitting for 
 the picture and going so much to Pencoet will 
 turn my head ; but I hope not ; I don't see why 
 it should ; indeed, being with Mrs. Dendron makes 
 one feel one's own deficiencies. It is quite a 
 mistake to fancy because she dresses well and is 
 amusing, and always knows the right thing to say, 
 that she is frivolous. She is very clever — cleverer 
 even than Miss Treby, if it isn't rude to say so to 
 you ; she reads everything and knows all that is 
 Of course I don't pretend to be a
 
 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 153 
 
 judge, but I know Mr. Jaques thinks a great deal 
 of her." 
 
 " Yes, yes ; I did not mean to depreciate her ; 
 you misunderstand me. It may be my un- 
 cultivated taste, but I like Cornish diamonds 
 better than Parisian ones." 
 
 She glanced up. There was that in his look 
 that brought a little colour again to her cheek ; 
 but she bristled up loyally in defence of her friend. 
 
 " If that means that you don't think she is genuine, 
 you are perfectly wrong. Is it fair, because a 
 woman has absorbed all the graces and refine- 
 ments that we down here have never had a chance 
 of, to conclude that she is less true underneath ? 
 I know her a great deal better than you do, and 
 I know how generous she is, how full of unselfish 
 kindness, and how content she makes herself here 
 in the country, where you would think that any one 
 used to London and a great deal of society, must 
 be dull. You don't do her justice." 
 
 "Perhaps I don't. At any rate, when I am 
 aspersed, may Heaven send me so good a friend ! " 
 
 She smiled. " You ought to like her ; you will, 
 when you give up being prejudiced." 
 
 " I never said I did not like her," he replied ; " in 
 fact, I do, only I feel as if I did not quite under- 
 stand her. It is sufficient proof that she has fasci- 
 nated me in a way that I have let her talk me into 
 making a fool of myself in that play of hers. She 
 insists there is nobody else who can do the Prussian 
 officer, and in a weak moment I said I would try
 
 154 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 
 
 and learn it. I suppose the painter is to do the 
 Frenchman ? " 
 
 " Yes, I believe so. He acts splendidly. He is 
 in the other play as well." 
 
 Alick was leaning his head back against the wall 
 of rock. He turned a little so as to face her. 
 
 *' Do you like him .? " he asked abruptly. 
 
 She nodded. " Yes," she said, " he has been very 
 nice to me. He is so courteous ; he has just those 
 finished ways that are so pleasant in Mrs. Dendron." 
 
 He turned away again, and began throwing little 
 chips of rock down into the water. His tone was 
 rather discontented as he asked — 
 
 "Are the sittings still going on?" 
 
 " No, they are finished for the present. He said 
 he might have to ask me for one more later on, 
 when he has nearly done ; but he is going on with 
 the others now — Abel Polsue and the boys. Have 
 you seen the picture ? " 
 
 " Not yet. He asked me to come up to his 
 studio one day. I should like to see what he has 
 made of it ; but art is not much in my line." 
 
 She perceived that this subject, too, was rather a 
 thorny one, and did not pursue it. He was in a 
 somewhat carping mood this afternoon, but far 
 from feeling annoyed at his catechisings and 
 implied criticisms, she liked them. She was 
 woman enough to understand quite well what 
 underlay his fault-finding and comments on her 
 new friends, and they were sweeter to her than any 
 compliments could have been. However, she must
 
 CORNISH DIAMONDS. i55 
 
 smooth him down a little before they parted, and 
 she would not talk any more about the invaders of 
 Kerranstow. 
 
 She soon won him to a softer mood, and he 
 began to tell her about his last vo^^age, dropping 
 into one of those interminable yarns about nothing 
 particular that are so interesting when the listener 
 cares for whatever helps her to realize the life of 
 the man who is telling it, so boring to people with- 
 out imagination. The time slid by, and it was 
 with quite a start of dismay that Jenifer perceived 
 that the red wintry sun she had been watching half 
 unconsciously while she listened had sunk 
 altogether beneath the waves, and they must have 
 been sitting there not much less than an hour. 
 
 She would not let him see her home this time. 
 The wisdom of the serpent that comes to a woman 
 without lessons, warned her that it is well for her 
 to leave a man still hungering for more of her com- 
 pany ; so at the top of the cliff she wished him a 
 hasty good-bye. 
 
 He watched her swiftly vanishing over the brow 
 of the hill with different eyes to any with which 
 he had looked at her before. Yes, the child, the 
 hoyden, the clinging little playfellow was gone for 
 ever ; but here was a woman whose regard was 
 well worth winning. But he sighed to himself and 
 said, " Not yet." 
 
 The hall-table at Roscorla was not apt to be 
 adorned with much pasteboard of an afternoon, 
 but to-day, when Jenifer got in, she saw in the
 
 156 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 
 
 dusk three white patches, which on investigation 
 resolved themselves into a card, a note and a 
 small parcel, the two latter directed to herself. 
 She saw that the card was Mr. Kay's ; the note 
 and the packet she took upstairs with her. 
 
 While she lighted her candles — for it was getting 
 too dark to read — she wondered what he could 
 have to write to her about, for she had seen him 
 that morning, and whether the parcel came from 
 him too. The note was quite a short one, and 
 asked her in terms which in his anxiety not to 
 frighten her he had made almost formal, to accept 
 the accompanying little trinket with best Christmas 
 wishes, as a memento of her great kindness in 
 helping on his picture by so many sittings. 
 
 " How kind of him," she said to herself, as she 
 folded the note again. " I wonder what it can be." 
 
 She broke the seals hastily. The look of a 
 leather jewel case rather startled her, but when 
 she pressed the snap and saw the string of pearls 
 and the ruby clasp lying in their bed of blue 
 velvet, she remained gazing into it with a look of 
 something very like dismay. 
 
 Surely he ought not to offer, nor she to accept, 
 anything so valuable as this. This was no Palais 
 Royale jewellery; of that she was very sure, though 
 she was too inexperienced to have the slightest 
 idea what the value of the necklace might really 
 be. It was certainly not such a trifle as might 
 take the place of a Christmas card, or be offered in 
 acknowledgment of a slight obligation.
 
 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 157 
 
 But what ought she to do? Would he be 
 very much hurt if she returned It ? He had been 
 so kind, she would not for the world do anything 
 vexatious or rude. Besides, if she refused it, would 
 it not look as if she fancied he implied more by 
 the gift than he really meant ? At that notion 
 her cheeks flamed. What a dreadful idea ! How 
 silly and vain he would think her ! She wished 
 she knew what would be the proper thing to do ; 
 there must surely be rules for such cases made and 
 provided, if only she knew them. As to asking 
 her aunt's advice, that course never once occurred 
 to her. Her aunt's judgment in any case of 
 difficulty was, she instinctively felt, less to be 
 relied upon than her own. Then a bright idea 
 struck her ; she would go directly after church to- 
 morrow, and consult Mrs. Dendron. She was 
 obviously the proper person ; she had the requisite 
 knowledge of the world and its customs, and 
 besides she knew better than any one else the 
 precise terms that Jenifer and the painter were on, 
 and the amount of obligation that existed between 
 them. 
 
 She was so much relieved by this resolve that 
 she took the necklace from its resting - place, 
 touching it delicately as if she were half afraid of 
 it, and put it round her little throat, where it lay 
 as if it had been fitted to her and made for no one 
 else. She would have been less than woman if 
 she had not fallen in love with it then and there, 
 and longed to keep it.
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 T is to be feared that Jenifer's thoughts 
 played truant a good deal from the 
 Christmas sermon next morning. She was aware, 
 from a little furtive glance, that Denis Kay was 
 behind her, and she wondered nervously whether 
 he had expected an acknowledgment of his 
 present that morning, and thought her rude and 
 ungrateful. From time to time her eyes strayed in 
 the direction of Letty's decorous little green velvet 
 bonnet, while she speculated on the advice she was 
 likely to receive. It was with a sigh of relief that 
 she at last stood up, and while the band burst 
 triumphantly into the Hallelujah Chorus she, who 
 had always waited to hear it through to the very 
 last note, hurried out after her friend, catching her 
 up just as she reached the lych-gate. 
 
 " Oh, I wanted to speak to you so much. May 
 I walk a bit of the way home with you ? " 
 
 " Come home and have lunch. I have got the 
 jingle ; it is at the top of the hill." 
 
 " I am afraid I must not do that, thanks ; uncle
 
 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 159 
 
 would not like me to be away from the Christmas 
 dinner; but I'll come a little way — that is — is Mr. 
 Dendron with you ? " 
 
 " No ; he has got a cold. Why, what is the 
 matter ? " 
 
 A boy was holding the pony at the upper gate 
 that led from the common to the road. As they 
 were getting in, Jenifer caught sight of Kay coming 
 in their direction. A meeting with him before she 
 had been able to make up her mind what to say to 
 him must be avoided at all hazards. 
 
 " Oh, do be quick ! " she cried. " There is Mr. 
 Kay coming, and I particularly don't want to see 
 him till I have spoken to you." 
 
 Letty sprang in and shook the reins. 
 
 "That will do," she said to the boy. "You can 
 go home by the short cut ; I shall not want you. 
 Now, Jenifer, open your griefs. But I suppose I 
 can guess. Has he proposed to you ? and, if so, 
 where is the hitch ? " 
 
 Jenifer's face flamed. 
 
 " Oh no, no," she cried, " it is nothing of that 
 sort at all. How stupid of me to make you think 
 of anything like that ! It is only that he sent me a 
 present last night, and it is such a splendid one I 
 did not know what to do. I don't think I oueht 
 to keep it ; but it would be so dreadful to meet 
 him till I had made up my mind. I should not 
 know what to say. Do help me." 
 
 "Oh, is that all?" said Letty, a little dis- 
 appointed. " My dear, you are too scrupulous. It
 
 i6o CORNISH DIAMONDS. 
 
 is very natural he should want to give you some- 
 thing nice after the way you have posed for him 
 with the patience of Job. I am sure if it had been 
 me I should have expected something quite 
 gorgeous. What is it ? " 
 
 Jenifer got the case out of her pocket with some 
 difficulty, for it was a tight fit, and held it out. For 
 a minute Letty gazed at it in silence, and the 
 expression of her face changed. This looks like 
 business, she said to herself; but it won't do to 
 frighten her. Aloud — 
 
 " Well, this is certainly something quite out of 
 the common way ; I don't wonder you were 
 startled. Still, it is evidently an antique ; painters 
 often pick up curios. I don't suppose he bought it 
 on purpose, and that makes all the difference, don't 
 you see. It is lovely. I should be wild to have it 
 myself Don't you really want to keep it .? Why 
 should you be afraid to } " 
 
 " Because " she came to a dead stop. It was 
 
 so impossible to put into words her fear that he 
 meant more than appeared by his present, or than 
 she was prepared to accept. She began again. 
 " But I should like to have it in itself; of course I 
 should. It is only that — people don't generally 
 give such presents as that to — to strangers ; I 
 should not like to be so much indebted to him." 
 
 Jenifer shut the case again, and Letty clicked up 
 the pony and mused. She liked Kay, and trusted 
 him. If he were really in earnest, what an excel- 
 lent thing it would be for her little friend ; but she
 
 CORNISH DIAMONDS. i6r 
 
 perceived that It was too soon to put this possible 
 issue before Jenifer. 
 
 '* Did he write with it ? " she asked after a pause. 
 " Do you mind telling me what he said ? That 
 might make all the difference." 
 
 Jenifer handed her his note, and she read it 
 slowly. 
 
 " Foolish little girl ! " she cried, as she tossed it 
 back into Jenifer's lap; "there isn't a word here 
 that need frighten you or commit you to anything. 
 He couldn't have written more composedly to his 
 grandmother. Keep your necklace and be happy 
 with it. It will look perfectly sweet with that 
 white gown we were talking of for the Westcreek 
 Infirmary Ball. Write him a pretty little grateful 
 note, and don't worry yourself." 
 
 " I hope," said Jenifer, looking down, her face 
 crimson, " that you don't think I was so silly as to 
 be fancying things, and putting constructions " 
 
 "I don't think anything of the sort," Letty 
 interrupted. " It was most natural, and you were 
 discretion itself; but don't you see, to return his 
 present would be just the way to make him fancy 
 you did suppose he meant more by it than his 
 letter implies. Why, we are just at Pencoet ; you 
 must come in." 
 
 But this Jenifer would not do, and she sped off 
 homewards, occupying her thoughts as she went, 
 by composing a letter of thanks that should be at 
 once grateful and dignified ; that should imply her 
 sense that his gift was far beyond the requirements 
 
 VOL. I. II
 
 1 62 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 
 
 of the occasion, and yet prove that in accepting it 
 she accepted no more than his letter offered of 
 kindHness and gratitude. It was really a pity such 
 a model composition should never have been written 
 and sent ; but just as she reached a fork in the 
 road where a lane led up to Crosstown, she met 
 him face to face, and, after all, her acknowledg- 
 ments had to be made by word of mouth — made, 
 too, in considerable confusion from the unexpected- 
 ness of the encounter, and from the embarrassing 
 recollection of the point of view from which he and 
 his intentions had just been discussed. 
 
 She floundered, blushed, stammered ; said it was 
 far too good — she was afraid she ought not to keep 
 it — became aware that she was conveying with 
 every word the impression that she saw a deeper 
 motive in the gift, and was thrown into agitation by 
 it — blushed deeper, and at last got away, ready to 
 cry with vexation at her own utter childishness and 
 stupidity. 
 
 It perhaps did not argue any unusual amount of 
 vanity in Denis that he should have smiled to 
 himself as he walked on, and thought— She knows 
 what I mean, and if she had not liked it she would 
 not have kept the necklace. 
 
 For he did mean it ; he had come in these long 
 weeks to mean it very much. What had begun in 
 the merest casual admiration and interest had 
 grown, he hardly knew how, into the settled pur- 
 pose to have Jenifer Lyon for his wife. He had 
 never cared about any one in just that way before,
 
 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 163 
 
 and he was rather astonished at himself. He had 
 gone through the usual amount of flirtations of a 
 more or less brief and transitory description, 
 especially in those young days when it was im- 
 practicable for him to think seriously of a wife at 
 all ; but since his success had been so assured as 
 to allow him to contemplate marrying, he had felt 
 no desire to do so. When he thought of it, he 
 looked forward to choosing in the distant future a 
 woman of position and culture who would help him 
 on in the world ; but not till he had had his fill of 
 independence and solitude. 
 
 He had never made the least attempt to flirt 
 with Jenifer. He had a curious sense of being on 
 parole as regarded her ; besides, she was so un- 
 versed in the ways of the world, so likely to take 
 anything seriously with those grave looks of hers, 
 he would have felt it was taking an unfair advan- 
 tage. His manner to her while she had been posing 
 to him had been guarded and almost formal. And 
 now behold ! it was not her peace of mind, but his 
 own which was endangered. 
 
 While her image had been growing under his 
 hands, he had been painting it on his heart. Often 
 through those long winter evenings, after she had 
 left, he had sat looking at the picture till he had 
 almost fancied she was really there, keeping him 
 silent company, and by degrees, the thought of 
 her had grown into his life. He had hardly 
 realized it himself till the sittings were over, and 
 he knew how he missed her ; but Letty Dendron's
 
 1 64 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 
 
 quick, sympathetic eyes had seen it a long while 
 ago, and she was eagerly ready to help him on. 
 It would be a splendid thing for Jenifer, she 
 thought, and to foster it became one of her prime 
 interests. 
 
 "One thing, there is no rival to fear here," she 
 said to herself "I don't suppose Jenifer has ever 
 seen another decent man in her life." 
 
 The possible existence of another man was 
 however brought home to her one afternoon when 
 Kay and Studland had come to Pencoet to re- 
 hearse " Her Bitterest Foe," with her. On these 
 occasions Mr. Dendron always lent the sanction 
 of his presence for at least part of the time. Letty 
 always insisted on that ; she never did doubtful 
 things, or put herself into risqu^ situations, and 
 had far too much good taste and savoir faire ever 
 to permit for an instant the awkwardness that is 
 sometimes allowed to intrude into theatrical love- 
 making. Her own part was always done with an 
 easy grace and unreality that made a gatcche 
 realism on the other side quite impossible, and in 
 this case Kay, with whom her principal love-scenes 
 occurred, played in quite her own vein, and Stud- 
 land, who had been a trifle nervous about making a 
 fool of himself, soon caught the same tone. 
 
 So far as the play was concerned, matters went 
 smoothly enough ; but Letty had a wonderful 
 sensitiveness to the atmospheric conditions of the 
 minds of those with whom she came in contact, 
 and she soon became aware that these two were
 
 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 165 
 
 not pulling well together. They had appeared to 
 be on the road to be good friends, especially after 
 the rescue, but this afternoon there seemed to be a 
 covert inclination to snarl which she could not 
 quite understand, for though certainly of all human 
 occupations, amateur theatricals are the most 
 conducive to jealousy, the present situation did 
 not seem to offer sufficient grounds. 
 
 Presently there was a ring at the door-bell. 
 
 "A caller!" cried Letty, "and the room in such 
 a mess ! Heaven forbid that it should be the Miss 
 Primworthys' from Westcreek ! Why didn't I say 
 engaged ? " 
 
 They had just finished acting, and the tea was 
 beginning to arrive in instalments. Mr. Dendron 
 had disappeared some time ago ; he was tired of 
 his wife's acting ; and had perfect confidence in her 
 discretion. However, nobody more alarming made 
 their appearance than Jenifer, who looked a little 
 taken aback when she saw the two men. 
 
 " Oh, I did not know you were rehearsing,'* 
 she began. " I thought you were alone." 
 
 "We have done, and are enchanted to see you. 
 You have come just in time to prevent our all 
 squabbling among ourselves. I don't know why, 
 but we all seem cross this afternoon," 
 
 " What a libel ! " cried Kay. " I am sure I am 
 not cross. You will frighten Miss Lyon away." 
 
 " Well, if you are the best tempered of the party, 
 you shall give her her tea," said Letty, beginning 
 to pour out. "You have come about your frock.
 
 1 66 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 
 
 Jenifer, haven't you ? I got the patterns yesterday, 
 and they are lovely. I will find them in a 
 moment." 
 
 " Is that the costume for the missing heiress in 
 our celebrated three-act play ? " asked Studland. 
 
 " Oh no, it is something a great deal more 
 interesting," answered Letty. " It is her first ball- 
 dress. Don't you know there is to be an Infirmary 
 Ball at Westcreek the first week in February, and 
 Miss Lyon is to make her debut under my 
 chaperonage. Of course you are both going } " 
 
 " Well, I hardly know," said Studland. " I was 
 going to spend the last week of my leave in town, 
 but I know Rachel wants to go, so perhaps " 
 
 Letty broke in — " Oh, you must go ; you could 
 not possibly be dispensed with. Dancing men are 
 not so plentiful here that we can afford to let any 
 off, can we, Jenifer? " 
 
 He smiled. " How do you know that I can 
 dance ? " 
 
 " I never yet knew a sailor that couldn't. Oh, 
 you must put off London." 
 
 He looked at Jenifer, but she said never a word. 
 If she had cared as little as Letty did, she, too, could 
 have overflowed with eager assurances that they 
 could not do without him, but she was afraid to 
 trust herself ; afraid to betray that it would make 
 all the difference to her whether he went or stayed. 
 A shade of vexation crossed his face. 
 
 "Well," he said. "I can't say for certain. I 
 won't promise."
 
 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 167 
 
 Letty arched her eyebrows a Httle at his un- 
 Sfraciousness, but said nothincr. 
 
 " I hope you will keep a few waltzes for me, Mrs. 
 Dendron," said Kay. " I shall be staying in 
 Westcreek for it ; some friends of the Wynnstays 
 have offered to put me up." 
 
 " Lucky for you. These cold nights a long drive 
 is hardly to be desired, but I am selfish enough to 
 be a little sorry ; Mr. Dendron hates dancing, and 
 nothing will induce him to go, and I thought we 
 might have made up a little party, and had 
 Dearlove's fly from Craye ; but I suppose we 
 might still do that. Miss Treby, Miss Lyon, and 
 I could take care of each other without an 
 escort." 
 
 Kay was beginning to say he would decline his 
 Westcreek friend's hospitality, but Studland inter- 
 posed — 
 
 " Oh, if you want an escort, Mrs. Dendron, I will 
 postpone my London plan for a few days. I shall 
 be proud to take care of you all." 
 
 Letty smiled a gracious acknowledgment ; she 
 was used to making other people give way to her. 
 
 "And now we must settle Jenifer's gown," she 
 said, going over to the writing-table to hunt up 
 Whiteley's patterns. " You artists are learned in 
 textures and draperies ; you shall help us to 
 decide." And she tossed the packet to Denis. 
 
 Studland rose with an involuntary gesture of 
 impatience, as the other fingered the scraps of 
 soft silk with the air of a connoisseur, looking
 
 i68 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 
 
 critically from the patterns to Jenifer and from 
 Jenifer back to the patterns the while. 
 
 " White," he said ; " it must certainly be white. 
 This sort of ivory tone is what I should recom- 
 mend ; it harmonizes ; this thinner one is too 
 crude. Wouldn't that be your own choice.?" — 
 going up to her, and holding the piece near her 
 face. 
 
 '' It would certainly be mine," said Letty. " But, 
 Jenifer, you must have the casting vote yourself ; 
 we must not drape you like a lay figure without 
 giving you a voice." 
 
 Jenifer felt rather uneasy. In her idea, questions 
 of clothes were to be settled by women by them- 
 selves ; men had nothing to do with it except to 
 admire the results. She was acutely conscious of 
 Studland's displeasure, and at a loss what line 
 to take. 
 
 " Oh yes, I like that one best," she said hurriedly ; 
 ** that is if I can afford it ; but we can settle it all 
 another time just as well. I really ought to be 
 going back ; it is getting so late." 
 
 And she stood up and began to put on her 
 furs again. 
 
 "■ But, my dear child, you are not going to drive 
 back alone ? Why, it is nearly dark. Did you 
 come by yourself? " 
 
 *' Yes, I came by myself because they could not 
 very well spare any one this afternoon. But uncle 
 did say that if it was dark I was to ask whether 
 you could let your boy come back with me ; but
 
 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 169 
 
 really there is not the least occasion ; I am not 
 a bit afraid ; it is quite starlight." 
 
 "As if I should think of letting you go alone. 
 Of course you shall have Jem." 
 
 And Letty was moving to the bell ; but again 
 there was a clash of offers of escort. The two 
 men spoke at once. 
 
 " I can take you home, Jenifer." 
 
 "Miss Lyon, you will let me go back with 
 you ? " 
 
 She looked from one to the other in momentary 
 perplexity. It was not the most graceful offer 
 that appealed to her most ; yet she must not be 
 ungracious to Kay ; the remembrance of the neck- 
 lace rose up and forbade it. And then, too, it was 
 less out of his way than out of Studland's, as she 
 would fain have forgotten. While she hesitated, 
 Letty came to the rescue. 
 
 " Obviously," she said, " Mr. Kay is the person 
 to go with you. You will take him but a very little 
 way beyond his own turning, and I dare say he 
 will be glad of a lift. It is a tremendous way to 
 Hennacombe round by Roscorla. I will tell them 
 to bring your trap round." 
 
 When the two had departed, Studland lingered 
 yet a few minutes, standing by the fire. He 
 did not seem inclined either to talk or to go, 
 and Letty noticed that he looked a little dis- 
 turbed. 
 
 " I hope you did not mind my interfering just 
 now," she said; "but Jenifer seemed perplexed,
 
 lyo CORNISH DIAMONDS. 
 
 and it was so much less out of his way than out of 
 yours." 
 
 "I don't know that. When one knows all the 
 
 short cuts about " He stopped, becoming 
 
 aware that he was speaking in a very ill-tempered 
 tone. 
 
 "Did ever any two people agree, I wonder," 
 laughed Letty, "about distances and short cuts. 
 I dare say I was wrong ; but when one knows 
 what people want, it always seems kind to help 
 them to it without considering the geometrical 
 precision of a quarter of a mile or so." 
 
 " I see ; and you knew that was what she 
 wanted." He straightened himself up as if to go. 
 " So that is it, is it } Well, I suppose one might 
 have known that was how these sittings were 
 bound to end." 
 
 " It was very natural, wasn't it ? I suppose he 
 is the first nice man she has ever seen very much 
 of. I assure you it has been very pretty to 
 watch." 
 
 He made no answer, and she went on, " There 
 is nothing definite yet, you know ; you must not 
 run away with the idea that there is an engage- 
 ment ; it is only that I see it coming." 
 
 He spoke with a slight efibrt. " It is quite a new 
 idea to me. It shows how much more a woman 
 sees into those things than a man does. From all I 
 have noticed these few weeks that I have been at 
 home, though we have all been meeting so con- 
 stantly, I was much more inclined to fancy that
 
 CORNISH DIAMONDS, 171 
 
 she did not respond very warmly to his attentions, 
 though, of course, it was pretty obvious what he 
 meant." 
 
 "Exactly; that is just where a man is always 
 at fault. You always think unless a girl throws 
 herself at a man's head, she doesn't care for him ; 
 now, Jenifer is just the kind of girl that the more 
 she cares, the less she shows." 
 
 " Well," he said briskly, " I must not stay 
 gossiping any longer. I have trespassed far too 
 long already. I hope our play will go all right. 
 Good night." 
 
 " It is better as it is, no doubt," he said to him- 
 self resolutely, as he stepped out along the dusky 
 lanes. " It would have been folly for me to think 
 of marrying yet for years to come, and it would 
 not have been fair to bind her. She was very 
 sweet to me on Christmas Eve — but there — I have 
 no right to blame her." 
 
 But he was more sore about it than he would 
 admit to himself For a long while he had been 
 cherishing the fancy of this little innocent girl — so 
 unlike the smart girls he met at balls at all the 
 seaport towns — a girl who belonged to him alone, 
 had never cared for — hardly ever seen any other 
 man — waiting for him safe in this secluded corner. 
 And now, in just the three months that he had 
 been away, a clever, cultivated, half-foreign painter 
 from afar had stepped in and robbed him before 
 he had thought to secure his treasure for himself. 
 Well, lamentations were not in his line, and for
 
 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 
 
 anything else, it seemed it was too late. Other 
 people indulged in foolish youthful dreams, and 
 had to forget them, and so must he. 
 
 "So," said Letty, when she was left alone, as 
 she was putting the displaced chairs and sofas in 
 order, "so he is in love with her too. How very 
 odd, to be sure, and what a pity. He is so nice. 
 A little rough, perhaps, sometimes, but how tender 
 he would be to the woman he cared for. I like 
 those strong men. He took it very well. I am 
 glad I mentioned it ; it would not have been fair 
 not to warn him. However, Denis Kay will suit 
 her far the best ; they both have the artistic tem- 
 perament. He will be an education to her ; in 
 some ways he has been already. I am sorry for 
 the other; I like him best myself; there is a 
 touch of womanishness about Denis ; I think there 
 is in nearly all artists." 
 
 The dressing-bell rang, and she heard her 
 husband come out of his study, and cross the hall 
 to go upstairs ; he was always as punctual as 
 clockwork. She called to him, and he came and 
 stood just within the door. 
 
 '* Oliver, do come inside; I want to speak to 
 you, and I cannot while you stand there on the 
 going foot. There is no hurry." 
 
 He shut the door and approached the fire, but 
 did not sit down. 
 
 " It is about the Infirmary Ball," she said. " I 
 wish — I do so particularly wish you would go." 
 
 " My dear Letty ! You know I so dislike those
 
 CORNISH DIAMONDS, 173 
 
 kind of amusements. I don't dance ; what possible 
 object could there be in my going ?" 
 
 " I did not suppose you would care for it ; only 
 I thought, perhaps, once in a way, to oblige me — I 
 don't want to go without you." 
 
 He made a little uneasy movement ; took up 
 one of the chimney ornaments, and set it down 
 again ; then he said — 
 
 "Is there any absolute necessity for your going? 
 On a winter night, and by such a road, I consider 
 it a foolhardy expedition. Besides, I do not 
 imagine that you, who have been accustomed to 
 London dances, could find anything very entertain- 
 ing in a country ball. I am sure you would be 
 bored." 
 
 " I shouldn't ; I never am. I am sick of London 
 squashes, but I should find this awfully amusing, 
 I know, and I haven't danced for seven — eight 
 months ! But, anyhow, I am bound to go. I have 
 promised to chaperon little Miss Lyon, who is 
 to come out, and Miss Treby too, so you see 
 it isn't entirely selfish. Mr. Studland, when he 
 heard we should be minus an escort, offered to put 
 off going to London, but I would rather not be 
 beholden." 
 
 She was silent for a minute or two, and so was 
 he. Then he said — 
 
 " I never interfere with your amusements, and I 
 do not ask you to give this up, though I must say 
 I think it very foolish ; but I must beg you to 
 excuse me."
 
 174 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 
 
 ''Well, I suppose you will do what you like — 
 and so shall I." 
 
 He walked to the door. " Shall I light your 
 candle?" 
 
 " If you please." 
 
 But she turned back to the fire, and took out 
 her pocket-handkerchief. 
 
 " It was such a Httle thing," she said.
 
 i^ 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 T was rather a silent quartette that jogged 
 over the ten miles of country lane to the 
 Westcreek ball in the somewhat close and musty- 
 enclosure of Dearlove's fly. It was a wretched 
 night, with wild gusts of rain and sleet beating 
 against the windows every few minutes, and even 
 Letty was chilly and a trifle dispirited, in spite of 
 hot tins and a mountain of fur rugs. She was 
 vexed with Oliver for not coming, and rather pro- 
 voked not to have Kay's company on the long dull 
 drive ; she liked Studland personally much the 
 best of the two, but he was apt lately to be moody 
 and not so successful in entertaining her. Rachel 
 had outlived the age when the prospect of a ball 
 contains possibilities of untold felicity ; she danced 
 well, and knew she should enjoy it, but she was not 
 at all excited about it, and was, moreover, very tired 
 with a long day's parish work ; for she was most 
 rigid in never suflering duty to bend to pleasure, 
 and would have refused to allow herself to go at 
 the cost of a day's rest either before or after.
 
 176 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 
 
 As to the little debutante, who might be supposed 
 to be looking- forward to her first taste of gaiety 
 with all her illusions unimpaired, her mind was 
 filled with mixed feelings which made her even 
 graver than her wont. The usual hopes and fears 
 of a first ball had already taken on for her a more 
 serious complexion ; the question was no longer — 
 Would she have plenty of partners? and nice 
 partners ? but would she have the one ? True, he 
 was sitting beside her, but he did not seem to be 
 aware of it. The last fortnight had perplexed her. 
 There had been no more scrambles on the cliff, no 
 more confidential talks ; both the weather and the 
 exigencies of the theatricals had forbidden it ; but 
 the daily meetings at rehearsal, far from being a 
 substitute, had only seemed to put them farther 
 apart. His manner to her had entirely changed, 
 but she would have been puzzled to say wherein 
 the change lay, or to find any fault. There had 
 been no lack of courtesy ; he had been very kind 
 — she could almost have said laboriously kind to 
 her ; but that was just it ; why should he try to be 
 kind to her? Perhaps to-night might make a 
 difference, and set all right again. He could hardly 
 do less than ask her for a dance, and that dance, 
 were it but one, would, she knew, comprise all that 
 the evening held for her. 
 
 Kay was waiting for them in the vestibule, his 
 hands full of flowers. There was a bouquet for 
 each of the three ladies ; but there was a subtle 
 difference between the scarlet geraniums and
 
 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 177 
 
 orchids of civility, and the roses, eucharis lilies 
 and maidenhair fern, of which Jenifer found herself 
 presently in possession, which was not lost on two 
 at least of the party. 
 
 " I see you have not brought any," he said eagerly 
 to Jenifer, bending over her. " I am so glad. I 
 should have sent these over this afternoon, only 
 I was afraid you would not get them so fresh. One 
 or two of my friends are waiting to be introduced 
 to you. I will fetch them as soon as you have 
 bestowed some dances on me." 
 
 He brought her a programme, and while he was 
 writing his name in it, she heard Studland's soft 
 slow voice just behind her. 
 
 "Mrs. Dendron, you have not forgotten you 
 promised me the first waltz ? " 
 
 Jenifer was almost ungrateful enough to wish 
 that Kay had not been so bent on ensuring her 
 plenty of partners ; for Studland had not taken the 
 trouble to secure a dance with her before going off 
 with Letty, and she found her programme rapidly 
 filling up. She did not like to refuse any she was 
 not engaged for ; and, besides, feared that whatever 
 she might succeed in keeping back would be just 
 what he had given away. If he had only said — 
 keep one for me. He could not mean not to dance 
 with her. She knew so few people that, but for 
 Kay's exertions on her behalf she would probably 
 have sat down a good deal, in spite of the success 
 of the white silk frock, the pearls, and the flowers ; 
 but she danced so well, thanks to Letty's tuition 
 
 TOL. I. 12
 
 178 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 
 
 and her own natural grace and vigour, that her 
 partners invariably pleaded for another waltz, so, 
 once launched, she was in no danger of being 
 neglected. 
 
 As is usually the case at country-town balls, the 
 company was rather mixed, hardly shading off by 
 such fine gradations as would be the case in 
 districts of a more advanced civilization. In 
 summer, when the inhabitants were swamped by 
 visitors from all grades of society, this peculiarity 
 was hardly observable, but in winter, when the 
 birds of passage were all flown, any social gathering 
 was bound to fall into three well-marked groups, 
 distinguishable by the most unaccustomed eye. 
 First came the local magnates, people who still 
 held their ancestral acres ; for in North Cornwall 
 the old country houses have not yet all passed into 
 the hands of the wealthy soap-boilers and button- 
 makers who have swallowed up so much of other 
 counties. Between them and the dwellers in West- 
 creek and Widcombe, professional people of good 
 standing, the families of the country clergy, and so 
 forth, there were links of acquaintance and civility, 
 but scarcely equality, while between these and the 
 third group, comprising any such townsfolk or 
 neighbouring farmers as could muster the needful 
 half-guinea, there was a great gulf fixed. 
 
 It was therefore by no means a pleasant surprise 
 to Jenifer to perceive her cousin near the end of 
 the room, very obviously in the wrong set. He 
 was dancing with a tall, handsome girl, in a very
 
 CORXISH DIAMONDS. 179 
 
 bright pink gown, and seemed to her apprehensions 
 to be already in a mood somewhat noisy and 
 boisterous. She hoped he would not see her. This, 
 however, was scarcely to be looked for ; the Kerran- 
 stow party were too conspicuous to be hid under 
 a bushel, and, during a pause in a waltz, he came 
 across the room, cutting ruthlessly into the con- 
 versation her partner was addressing to her. 
 
 " So, little Jenny, you have chipped your shell 
 at last ! Who would have expected to see you 
 here? You don't mean to say aunt brought 
 you ? " 
 
 " No ; I came with Mrs. Dendron from Pen- 
 coet." 
 
 And she looked at her partner to intimate her 
 willingness to proceed ; but he was leaning back 
 against the wall, rather disgusted. 
 
 Fred went on — "Give us your programme. 
 Well, I say ! you have done well. Look here, I 
 must have No. 9. I promised it to Katharine, but 
 as it is the only waltz you have left, she must 
 change." 
 
 Jenifer stretched out her hand to take her 
 programme back. 
 
 " Oh no, I can't give you that one. You can 
 have a square later on, if you like. There is a 
 lancers — 20 ; will you have that ? " 
 
 He looked in her face, and held his pencil 
 poised a minute before he put down his name. 
 
 " I don't know that I will," he said. Then he 
 drew a step nearer, and spoke low, that her partner
 
 i8o CORNISH DIAMONDS. 
 
 should not overhear. "You said the change in 
 my occupation would make no difference to any one 
 whose regard was worth having ; but I see it does 
 to you. Katharine has come round, and stuck to 
 me, while you have thrown me over. I was going 
 to ask you to come and speak to her ; but I see you 
 are too proud to be mixed up with your relations 
 in public, whatever you may say in private. You 
 need not throw me a square dance like a bone to a 
 dog." 
 
 There was just enough truth in the accusation 
 to make it sting ; Jenifer knew she did shrink 
 from being mixed up in the set her cousin chose 
 to consort with, but she could not bear to turn the 
 cold shoulder to him. As he turned away, she 
 laid an eager hand on his arm. 
 
 "' Oh, Fred, you know I did not mean that. It 
 was only that I have a special reason for wanting 
 to keep that waltz ; do please have the other. I 
 could not help getting engaged for all these before 
 you came. I did not even know you were coming. 
 And I should like to talk to Katharine ; will you 
 take me to her when this dance is over." 
 
 The sweet, honest eyes could not be resisted. 
 Mollified, Lyon went back to his partner, and 
 suffered Jenifer to return to hers. 
 
 "Stupid little girl ! " was the mental comment of 
 the latter ; " why couldn't she have let well alone ? 
 Since she had been so lucky as to offend her cub 
 of a cousin, she might have kept clear of the crew. 
 But women can never afford to lose a slave ; they
 
 CORNISH DIAMONDS. i8i 
 
 must keep every one in good humour with them 
 from peer to ploughboy." 
 
 For he knew Fred Lyon very well by reputation, 
 as every one there did, and though no man need 
 lose caste by handling the ribbons — and there are 
 plenty of gentlemen drivers to countenance such 
 an occupation — it is one thing to drive a coach for 
 pleasure, and quite another to take to it as a last 
 resource, after being driven out of three or four 
 offices successively for misconduct. Of Jenifer's 
 mixture of motives — of her sense of responsibility 
 as regarded her ne'er-do-weel cousin — he naturally 
 could take no cognizance ; so it was with a haughty 
 bow, and no expression of any desire for another 
 dance that he handed her over at the end of the 
 waltz to the obnoxious cousin's custody, to be con- 
 veyed to the lower or plebeian end of the room in 
 search of the unknown Katharine. 
 
 Her surmise had been correct ; it was the girl in 
 pink, and in the few minutes that they stood talk- 
 ing together Jenifer gathered a clearer notion of 
 Fred's position and its drawbacks than she had had 
 before. She no longer wondered at his frequent 
 quarrels with his fiancee, nor at her lack of power 
 over him. She saw how it was that his engage- 
 ment had drawn him down socially. Miss Polwithen 
 might be one of the smartest girls in Bodmin ; she 
 might be, as Fred elegantly phrased it, " a ripper," 
 but she was not a lady ; and, moreover, she was 
 utterly lacking in those qualities which would 
 have given her ascendancy over the wayward and
 
 i82 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 
 
 unstable soul whom she vainly attempted to guide. 
 Fred's attempts at description — a thing a man is 
 always weak at — had given the idea of a character 
 vigorous and decided, rather than gentle ; but it 
 needed little more than a look into the handsome, 
 bright face to see that weakness lay behind the 
 self-assertion. The owner of that high-pitched, 
 shrill voice might scold and upbraid ; she would 
 never govern. 
 
 It was rather a brief study of the restless eyes, 
 laughing mouth, and undecided chin that conveyed 
 so much information to Jenifer's quick intuitions, 
 than anything that was said, for there was time for 
 very little talk. Katharine was very affectionate, 
 called her Jenny at once, and looked almost inclined 
 to kiss her, and would hardly let her go when the 
 music struck up again, and she asked her cousin to 
 take her back to Miss Treby. Miss Polwithen's 
 last words were — 
 
 " Don't you think I am a pattern not to be jealous 
 of you "i especially now I know that you are grown 
 up and out. Fred always talked of you as quite a 
 little girl." 
 
 At any rate, there could be no doubt of her 
 affection for her handsome scapegrace, and Jenifer 
 could not help thinking he might have valued her 
 devotion more if it had not been quite so freely 
 bestowed. She sighed as she went back, and 
 wished he had chosen elsewhere. 
 
 Mrs. Dendron's chaperonage was merelynominal ; 
 she would have taken care to see that Jenifer was
 
 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 183 
 
 well supplied with partners ; but once satisfied on 
 that head, she ceased to trouble herself about her, 
 and was rarely to be found in the corner which 
 was the head-quarters of the Kerranstow party. 
 Rachel, who did occasionally find a resting-place 
 there, did far more to matronize her, and took her 
 to task when she returned from her expedition to 
 the inferior circles. 
 
 "I think, Jenifer," she said, "you should be more 
 careful in a public place like this. You owe it to 
 Mrs. Dendron not to get mixed up in a set she 
 knows nothing of I don't want to say anything 
 uncivil about your cousin, but, really, that Miss 
 Polwithen is hardly the kind of person for you to 
 know ; and, do you know, I believe she came with 
 the Carsons." 
 
 Poor Jenifer felt herself between a cross-fire. 
 She would not for the world annoy Miss Treby, 
 who was one of her kindest friends, though she 
 did not believe Mrs. Dendron would care ; she 
 always seemed airily unconscious of local distinc- 
 tions. She did not try to justify herself ; she could 
 hardly put into words the feeling that she had for 
 Fred ; she knew instinctively that Rachel would 
 not comprehend it. On the whole, the evening 
 promised to turn out rather a trying one, and she 
 began to grow weary as dance after dance slipped 
 away, and No. 9 still remained unappropriated. 
 
 Other people were meanwhile amusing them- 
 selves more successfully. The first dance convinced 
 Letty that it had been worth while coming ; a fact
 
 1 84 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 
 
 which the long, tedious drive had almost made her 
 doubt. 
 
 " I am chilly and cross," she said, as she put her 
 hand on Studland's arm. " It is no use talking to 
 me till I am better. Perhaps a turn or two may 
 put me in a good humour again." 
 
 To Letty dancing was a fine art ; it was one of 
 her chief modes of expression. What painting and 
 music are to their votaries, so, in its measure, was 
 rhythmical motion to her, and she had suffered 
 from a long famine. She had not placed her 
 expectations very high, but as Studland's firm arm 
 bore her down the long room without check or 
 faintest hint of possible collisions, she realized that 
 even a country ball may have its advantages. 
 
 " What a blessing to be able to move as freely 
 as one will," she said. "After London squashes, 
 this is freedom. And the band too ; it isn't quite 
 Dan Godfrey, but these West-country musicians 
 have a truly delightful sense of rhythm. No, don't 
 stop. I can talk dancing, and I like it." 
 
 *' I feel quite good now," she said later, when the 
 dance was ended, and they were going in search of 
 a cup of tea. " It seems a funny thing to compare 
 a Westcreek dance with Vienna, but that waltz 
 reminded me of some I used to have at the Embassy 
 balls one unforgettable winter that I spent there — 
 my halcyon time." 
 
 Studland would have been more than mortal if 
 the subtle flattery of this had not gone to his head. 
 He, too, prided himself on his dancing, and seldom
 
 CORXISH DIAMONDS. 185 
 
 found a partner whose step matched itself so per- 
 fectly with his own. 
 
 "You will bestow some more on me, I hope," he 
 said. 
 
 " As many as you please," she responded reck- 
 lessly. " I took good care not to give any waltzes 
 away till I could judge of the performances of the 
 natives, and so far I have not seen any one worthy 
 of them. I suppose I must keep one or two 
 for Mr, Kay, but you can have all the rest." 
 
 He was not slow to avail himself of her generous 
 permission, and her programme, when he returned 
 it to her, was adorned with A. S. in pretty con- 
 tinuous sequence. If one cannot have precisely 
 the enjoyment one had planned out for one's self, 
 there is no use in being insensible to the charm of 
 keeping almost exclusive possession of the most 
 attractive woman and incomparably the best 
 dancer in the room. He was still a little sore at the 
 breaking of the foolish dream he had cherished ; 
 though, as he told himself, it had been built on 
 cobwebs, and it had not gone so deep but that he 
 could take the goods the gods provided and make 
 the best of them. His chief feeling to-night was a 
 reluctance to dance with Jenifer, or to see more 
 than he could help of her and Kay together. This, 
 however, could not well be avoided, and presently 
 he and Letty, during one of their infrequent rests, 
 saw Jenifer and the painter side by side in the 
 embrasure of the opposite window. It needed not 
 AHck's sudden silence for Letty to divine something
 
 i86 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 
 
 of what was in his mind. She was sorry for him ; 
 she sympathized ; all the same, she could not resist 
 probing a little. 
 
 " I feel proud of my debutante to-night. Doesn't 
 she do me credit ? " 
 
 He glanced across almost unwillingly. 
 
 "She looks very nice. She is wonderfully — 
 grown, or something, lately. She seems to be 
 having a highly successful evening ; but what 
 makes her look so grave ? " 
 
 " Grave, does she ? I think, under the circum- 
 stances, that is^' hardly wonderful in a girl of her 
 temperament. She takes things seriously ; and I 
 fancy this something more than the ordinary first 
 ball to her." 
 
 '* I suppose so. I can see that your prediction 
 is coming true." 
 
 "Evidently. Kay seems very much in earnest, 
 and I should think that to-night would probably 
 settle it. You know he gave her that pearl neck- 
 lace she is wearing ? " 
 
 Studland gave a little movement too slight to be 
 called a start, but Letty felt his sleeve brush her 
 arm. Until she said that, he had not known that 
 he had still been hoping. Till then his attitude 
 had been to stand aside and see how events would 
 turn. He had not chosen to put himself into 
 competition with a rival who had already enjoyed 
 so considerable an advantage ; he thought he had 
 given it all up ; in reality, he had been waiting. 
 Now, to his mind, the matter was as much decided
 
 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 187 
 
 as an announced engagement could have made it. 
 The conviction was followed by the quick resolve 
 not to betray himself to his neighbour, and to that 
 end it was needful that he should not in any way 
 evade the subject. 
 
 " Ah, it has gone as far as that, has it ? " he said. 
 " We must soon be ready with our congratulations, 
 then." 
 
 "I think it will be a charming match," said 
 Letty, feeling that she was inflicting pain, and 
 sympathizing acutely, but at the same time 
 convinced that since he must face the thing, the 
 sooner he got used to hearing it discussed, the 
 less he would suffer. " She is so full of artistic 
 aptitudes and appreciations, they will suit each 
 other to perfection." 
 
 He was bearing the surgical operation very well. 
 
 ** Yes," he said quietly; "one wonders where she 
 gets that sort of thing ; not from old Lyon or her 
 aunt, I should say. I was surprised to see how 
 wonderfully well she acted the other night. Now, 
 how do you account for it that she who is so shy 
 in ordinary life showed so much less nervousness 
 than my sister Rachel, who has certainly far more 
 aplomb ? Is it the absence of self-consciousness, or 
 what.?" 
 
 " Less that, I should say, than the artistic tem- 
 perament. Jenifer is artist to her finger-tips, and in 
 the play she completely lost her own identity in 
 the presentment of her part. By the way, how 
 does she dance ? "
 
 CORNISH DIAMONDS, 
 
 "I am ashamed to say I have not yet discovered. 
 She seemed so surrounded I have hardly had the 
 opportunity of asking for a dance." 
 
 " Oh, but that will never do," cried Letty. 
 "You must ask her for one directly, or you will 
 lose your chance. Go over to her now ; they have 
 not moved yet. I will wait here for you." 
 
 He felt she was right. There would be some- 
 thing strange and unaccountable in his neglecting 
 to dance with an old friend, a member of his 
 own party, however reluctant he might feel to 
 interfering with Kay. He crossed the room 
 obediently. 
 
 " Miss Lyon, you have been so much in demand 
 I have not been able to get near you. May I 
 hope that you have saved something for me ? " 
 
 She knew well enough which dance she had 
 been clinging to so desperately, but she affected to 
 consult her programme. 
 
 " I see I have one left," she said in a tone the 
 stiffness of which matched his own. " No. 9 ; will 
 that suit you ? " 
 
 " I am sorry ; I am unluckily engaged for that 
 one. How would 19 do .? " 
 
 By some subtle sympathy, the man at her side 
 seemed to divine the disappointment she was 
 hiding under such a well-acted air of indifference, 
 and came to her aid. Perhaps, if he had guessed 
 how much it meant to her, he would not have had 
 sufficient generosity, but he thought she was vexed 
 to disappoint her old friend, and he had had the
 
 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 
 
 lion's share of her favours to-night ; he could 
 afford to be liberal. 
 
 "19 is mine," he said; "but I am willing to 
 change it, if you would rather. Give me that 
 quadrille instead, and we will sit it out." 
 
 A grateful look rewarded him, and the exchange 
 was effected. 
 
 To Jenifer, who had hardly ever been up later 
 than eleven in her life, the evening seemed endless ; 
 her feet ached with dancing, her eyes with the 
 dazzle of light and movement, and her heart 
 with weariness and disappointment ; she looked 
 with admiring envy at Letty, who seemed as 
 fresh and bright at two o'clock as she had done 
 at ten. 
 
 " Why, my dear child, how tired you look," Mrs. 
 Dendron exclaimed, as they passed each other in 
 the passage. " I suppose it is being unused to it ; 
 dancing always rests me." 
 
 However, the longest night will wear away at 
 last; No. 18 was accomplished, and Jenifer made 
 her partner bring her back at once to the corner 
 of the red bench where Rachel was sitting, and 
 already beginning to talk of its being time to leave. 
 She was determined to be where she could easily 
 be found. She strove not to look as eager as she 
 felt as the dispersed couples began to reappear 
 and pair themselves afresh. Miss Treby left her 
 presently, persuaded to dance just once again. 
 The music struck up, and still she waited. The 
 room was beginning to thin, and she found herself
 
 igo CORNISH DIAMONDS. 
 
 alone upon her bench. A former partner approached 
 and asked her to dance, but she responded curtly 
 that she was engaged. It was becoming difhcult 
 to look cheerful and serene, and she determined to 
 cease watching the door, when, turning towards the 
 dancers, she perceived her recusant partner with 
 the serpentine folds of Mrs. Dendron's sea-green 
 poplin swirling round him as they swept smoothly 
 past. At the same moment Kay's voice was in 
 her ear. 
 
 " Miss Lyon, partnerless ! Why, how's this .^ " 
 
 Jenifer was quite surprised by the quiet indiffer- 
 ent sound of her own voice. 
 
 "Oh, I think there must have been a muddle. 
 I see Mr. Studland is dancing. But it doesn't 
 signify ; I am very tired." 
 
 "Too tired to dance again? I was hoping his 
 loss would be my opportunity. Won't you give it 
 to me? Or, better still, let me take you to get 
 some more supper, which I am sure you must 
 need." 
 
 She acceded, and tried not to be ungracious ; in 
 truth, she felt it was better to be taken to the 
 supper-room and cared for, rather than to be seen 
 by Studland and Letty, as she must have been soon, 
 sitting neglected on a bench. 
 
 Coming back, they encountered the pair. Jenifer 
 would have passed by, but Kay exclaimed laugh- 
 ingly— 
 
 "Well, what have you to say for yourself? I 
 found Miss Lyon, who had robbed me of a dance
 
 CORNISH DIAMONDS. T91 
 
 to accommodate you, forsaken, while you had gone 
 off to dance with somebody else." 
 
 " Why, this is an extra," cried Studland, stopping 
 short. " Surely you told me it was an extra .? '" 
 
 " Well, I thought it was, " said Letty, looking a 
 little guilty. " Somebody told me it w^as. I am 
 awfully sorry if it was my fault. Jenifer dear, 
 please forgive me." 
 
 " Oh, it did not matter a straw," said Jenifer, 
 with her little head held rather high. *' I was very 
 tired, so Mr. Kay and I went and had a second 
 supper." 
 
 And she began to move on, but Studland 
 stopped her. 
 
 " But you will give me the next instead, won't 
 you ? Just to show there is no offence." 
 
 She gave a little stiff smile. " Oh, I can't do 
 that; I have promised it to my cousin. I am 
 afraid I have no more for you." 
 
 At the moment the sight of Fred's red camellia, 
 drawing near like the signal-light on a train, was 
 distinctly welcome, and in her eagerness to escape 
 she hardly noticed the flushed and excited counte- 
 nance that surmounted it, which made Kay uneasy, 
 and caused him to resolve not to lose sight of 
 her. 
 
 Her selection of the lancers for her cousin had 
 not been a very judicious one, since she had to 
 deal not only with him whom she could always 
 control, but was brought in contact with his set 
 whose vagaries were beyond her. Moreover, the
 
 192 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 
 
 style of dancing It in vogue at the popular end of 
 the room was rather of the nature of a romp, and 
 showed a tendency to develop Into a sort of pro- 
 miscuous round dance. She would have disliked 
 the style of thing at any time ; but as It became 
 apparent to her that much of the hilarity was due 
 to champagne, she would have given anything to 
 make her escape. She was obliged to defend her- 
 self with bouquet and fan against the affectionate 
 squeezes of the hand which her vis-a-vis endeavoured 
 to bestow whenever she passed him in the chain, 
 giving only the tip of a reluctant little finger ; but 
 when It came to being seized round the waist by 
 her partner and violently galopaded round the 
 room, she drew back. 
 
 " Really this Is not necessary, Fred," she remon- 
 strated. " I did not bargain for a romp." 
 
 But Fred caught hold of her. " Don't be such 
 a fool, Jenny ; It Is the best fun of the evening. 
 Come on." 
 
 The momentary delay caused a hitch, the next 
 couple, either by accident or design, cannonaded 
 Into them, she narrowly escaped being overthrown, 
 while her partner, already somewhat unsteady, 
 rolled at her feet In an undignified manner. He 
 quickly scrambled to his legs again, and a loud 
 altercation ensued. In the midst of which she felt a 
 touch on her arm. 
 
 " Miss Lyon, would you come directly, please ? 
 Mrs. Dendron is waiting." 
 
 And before Fred could look round to
 
 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 193 
 
 remonstrate, she was halfway up the room on Mr. 
 Kay's arm. 
 
 " Is the carriage waiting ? I am so sorry," she 
 said breathlessly. 
 
 '* I am afraid it is not there yet. It was a pious 
 fiction on my part. I thought it was time to get 
 you away. Who could have introduced that fellow 
 to you ? " 
 
 ** It was my cousin," murmured Jenifer, almost 
 inaudibly, her face crimson. 
 
 He bent his head, and just caught the confession. 
 
 " I beg your pardon," he said. " I am afraid I 
 have been officious." 
 
 " Oh no, no ; I was only too thankful. I did 
 not know how to get away. I saw after we had 
 begun to dance that he was — was not in a fit state 
 to be there." 
 
 There was a piteous quiver in her voice, and 
 though her face was half averted so that he could 
 not see it, he feared tears were imminent. 
 
 " Run up and get your wraps," he said, with that 
 kind of tenderness in his tone that one uses to a 
 child. " I will hunt up the rest of the party, and 
 find the carriage." 
 
 For poor Jenifer it was the culminating point of 
 a distressful evening ; her nerves were shaken by 
 the scrimmage, and she felt humiliated that such a 
 thing should have happened to her in a public 
 place. What would Rachel say now .-* The very 
 kindness of Kay's behaviour to her seemed to add 
 poignancy to her griefs ; that it should have been 
 
 VOL. I. 13
 
 194 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 
 
 his and not Studland's tact and mindfulness that 
 had watched over her all the evening first ensuring; 
 her success, and then being at hand to rescue her 
 from her dilemma, was the thought that even more 
 than her distress at Fred's conduct made the sobs 
 climb chokingly in her throat as she hunted for 
 her woollen carriage boots, and dragged out her 
 fur cloak from the bottom of a heavy pile of wraps. 
 But it would never do to break down before the 
 attendants ; besides, people were beginning to come 
 in and out for their things ; with an effort she kept 
 herself still till she was dressed, and then found a 
 seat on an ottoman at the head of the stairs, where 
 she could be in comparative privacy, and yet easily 
 found when the others should be ready to go. 
 
 She tried not to give way even then, but her 
 tears had almost mastered her when Kay found 
 her. He saw that she was crying ; it was im- 
 possible to be blind to it, but at first he tried not 
 to notice it, hoping she would be able to recover. 
 
 " Mrs. Dendron and Miss Treby are coming 
 directly. They were dancing again when I got 
 down. The carriage is round ; they will come as 
 soon as this waltz is over." Then suddenly breaking 
 off, stooping over her, and speaking very softly, 
 " Oh, I wish you would not cry ; it makes me feel 
 so horribly miserable. Isn't there anything I can 
 do for you } " 
 
 She shook her head ; she could not trust her 
 voice, but after a few moments she said, with a 
 catch in her breath —
 
 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 
 
 " No, nothing. You have done everything that 
 is good and kind. I am so ashamed of behaving 
 so childishly. I will stop directly." 
 
 She leaned back and locked her hands in each 
 other, and he saw that he could only help her by 
 keeping perfect silence. He put one knee up upon 
 the edge of the ottoman and rested his arm on the 
 bannisters behind her, so as to screen her from the 
 observation of any one passing up the stairs. He 
 was terribly distressed ; it always disturbs a man 
 to see a woman cry, unless it is his wife or his 
 sister, or somebody he is quite used to. He would 
 have given anything to take her in his arms and 
 comfort her ; a feeling of passionate pity almost 
 swept him away ; but besides the impossibility of 
 indulging in any such demonstrations in a public 
 place, a sense came over him that a barrier had 
 sprung up between him and his desires. He knew 
 that it was something deeper than nerves or vexa- 
 tion that had broken down Jenifer's self-control, 
 and he did not doubt he had come upon the real 
 reason why he never seemed able to get beyond a 
 certain point with her ; it had not been mere shy- 
 ness ; she had given her heart to this unworthy 
 cousin, only that he might break it. He himself 
 had given her of his best — he had done all he 
 could think of to please her ; and she accepted his 
 kindness gratefully — coldly — while she gave her 
 tears to this other man — this vulgar brute. To 
 press his own love on her now would only be to 
 insult and estrange her. A few hours ago it had
 
 196 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 
 
 seemed such an easy, pleasant thing to be in love, 
 
 and now Well, there are some sorts of love 
 
 that grow stronger by defeat than victory. 
 
 It seemed to both an eternity before Letty and 
 Rachel appeared ; it was in reality but a few 
 minutes. Jenifer had quite recovered her com- 
 posure, and he looked the most agitated of the 
 two, a fact which perplexed Letty, on whom 
 nothing was lost. He helped to put them into the 
 carriage, and as he tucked a rug under Jenifer's 
 feet, he said in a low voice, which only Studland 
 could overhear — 
 
 " I wish I were coming with you." 
 
 " Well," said Letty, nestling down in her white 
 furs, as they drove off, " I consider it has been a 
 most successful ball. I congratulate you, Jenifer, 
 on your debitt. What, too sleepy even to be 
 triumphant .^ Well, so am I." 
 
 And turning a little, so as to prop her head 
 against the corner of the carriage, she closed her 
 eyes, and was soon waltzing in the land of dreams.
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 ON'T open the window. What are you 
 about ? " murmured Letty, half asleep ; 
 and then, as the cutting blast roused her, she 
 perceived that she was not in her own bed, with 
 her maid and a cup of tea to wake her, and, 
 rubbing her eyes like a sleepy child, saw the 
 carriage door open on the black night, the aperture 
 half filled with Studland's figure leaning out, and 
 beyond him an indistinct vision of men in sou'- 
 westers with a lantern. She leaned forward, and 
 grabbed at his arm. 
 
 " What is the matter .? " she cried. " Do tell me 
 what is happening ; is it highwaymen } " 
 
 There was a little laugh from outside. 
 
 "Just the opposite, ma'am ; preventive men." 
 
 Studland drew his head in again. 
 
 " There is a ship on the Gannet Rocks," he said. 
 " They cannot get the lifeboat over this last hill ; 
 the roads are heavy, and they must have our horses. 
 The officer tells me there is a cottage a (ew yards 
 further on where you ladies could take shelter for 
 half an hour."
 
 198 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 
 
 " Never mind us," cried Letty. " We could sit 
 in the carriage, if that was all." 
 
 Then Rachel sat up and shook the sleep out of 
 her eyes. 
 
 "To be sure we could. Don't let us be any 
 hindrance." 
 
 They were all three ready to jump out then and 
 there in the snow, but both Studland and the chief 
 of the coastguard insisted on their being driven as 
 close as possible to the gate of the cottage where 
 they were to alight. There was no need to rouse 
 the occupant ; people on the spot had been on the 
 alert for hours, and the woman was standing at the 
 door, looking out, her husband and son having 
 already joined the rescue party. She was ready to 
 receive any number of shipwrecked mariners, but 
 was somewhat astonished to have a party of ladies 
 in ball dresses thrust upon her hospitality. 
 
 It was a small vessel, they were told, a barque 
 probably from Wales. The coastguardsmen from 
 Gooseburn had been trying for a long while to 
 reach her with the rocket apparatus, and finding it 
 in vain, had sent in haste for the Westcreek life- 
 boat ; but somehow they had not realized the 
 exceeding steepness of the last hill, and it had 
 been insufficiently horsed. They had been just 
 about to send to a farm at the head of the valley 
 for extra horses when the party from the ball came 
 in sight ; the loan of their horses would save much 
 time. 
 
 These particulars they gathered as they stood
 
 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 199 
 
 for a moment huddled together upon the wet flags 
 of the pathway, while half a dozen eager volunteers 
 proceeded to undo the traces, and Studland hastily 
 bade them go in and keep warm and wait for him ; 
 he would rejoin them as soon as he could. 
 
 " Oh, Mr. Studland, must you forsake us ? " asked 
 Letty. There was rather a piteous tone in her 
 voice, and she looked up at him appealingly. 
 " There are surely plenty of people without you." 
 
 Rachel laid her hand on his arm. 
 
 " Alick, dear, I suppose you must go ; but you 
 need not do more than help launch her, need you ? 
 Is it any good to ask you not to run needless 
 risks ? " 
 
 " The crew are a man short I have promised to 
 take an oar." 
 
 He gave one look towards Jenifer, but she had 
 never a word for him. She went into the house 
 like one dazed. 
 
 The woman bustled them into the kitchen, where 
 she had already kindled a fire to be ready for all 
 emergencies. It would soon be warm, she said, 
 and she proceeded to draw a curtain all round the 
 inglenook, which, with the high-backed oak settle, 
 would keep off all draught ; but they were far too 
 much excited to consent to be shut into this seclu- 
 sion, and crowded round the narrow window where 
 the little diamond panes made a vi&w almost 
 impossible. The three heads got terribly into each 
 other's way. Still it was just possible to make out 
 the long white body of the lifeboat with the
 
 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 
 
 surging crowd of men round it, and to hear the 
 short, sharp orders ring out as they ran hither and 
 thither with ropes and traces ; but presently, when 
 the two additional horses had been put on in 
 front, and with a gallant pull, the lengthy freight 
 began to move, they could no longer watch it, the 
 shoulder of the hill hid it all from view in a minute. 
 
 " What an adventure it is," said Letty, drawing 
 her head back from the window. " I am g^lad we 
 were all valiant enough to give up the horses. I 
 was only afraid Dearlove would object." 
 
 " It was a piece of involuntary generosity on all 
 our parts," responded Rachel. " The horses were 
 requisitioned for the Queen's service; we had no 
 choice in the matter." 
 
 " You don't say so ! I had no idea they had the 
 power of taking any one's horses, willy-nilly. It is 
 like being in the middle of a war. Well, we can't 
 sec any more ; let us go and sit by the fire, and 
 make ourselves as comfortable as circumstances 
 will allow." 
 
 But Jenifer stayed by the window, though 
 now nothing was to be seen, staring out into the 
 blank darkness of the night till the suspense grew 
 intolerable, and she crept out of the door, and 
 drawing it softly behind her, ran down the flagged 
 path to see if she could gain any outlook from 
 there. The snow still lingered in streaks and 
 patches against the hedges and in the corner by 
 the gate, but there was neither sleet nor rain falling 
 now, and the wind had dropped. She passed on.
 
 CORXISH DIAMONDS. 201 
 
 through the wicket, and out into the wet road, 
 heedless that her feet were only protected by the 
 worsted carriage-boots drawn on over her dancing 
 shoes. Just in front of her she saw somethings 
 white gleaming through the dark with the strange 
 insistence that white things always have, and 
 stooping she picked it up. It was only an old 
 white kid glove, rent all across by the haste with 
 which it had been torn off; not worth any one's 
 keeping, but Jenifer did not throw it away. 
 
 She knew the place well, and was aware that 
 though the way the lifeboat had to travel was over 
 a steep hill and round to the head of the combe, 
 and so down, there was a little footpath by the 
 cliff side that led by a short cut to the beach. 
 There could be no harm, she told herself, in just 
 running to the end to see if she could make out 
 anything of the wreck ; she would not go right 
 down to the beach, where she would be seen, and 
 might be in the way, but would stay above, where 
 she could command the whole of the cove. It was- 
 too intolerable to remain in the cottage, which lay 
 behind the hill with its back to the sea, and not 
 know what was happening down below. How 
 much of her desire was due to interest and curiosity 
 about the wreck and how much to anxiety for one 
 man's safety she did not explain to herself. 
 
 It is one thing to scramble about the cliff tracks 
 in a short scanty serge skirt and thick boots, and 
 quite another to get along encumbered with a ball 
 dress gathered up over one arm, a fur cloak and
 
 202 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 
 
 woollen wraps irxnumerable, shod daintily, moreover, 
 with white satin slippers. The worsted overalls, 
 however, were a help— at any rate, they did not 
 slip on the rock. The path seemed three times as 
 long as Jenifer had ever known it before, and she 
 began to be afraid whether she had missed it in 
 the dark, and would presently be blundering 
 among unknown boulders ; but she kept her hand 
 nearly all the time against the wall of rock on her 
 left, so a mistake seemed hardly possible, and at 
 last she found herself in the spot she was making 
 for. Just here, a wide shelf jutted out above the 
 bay, sheltered by a big boulder like a rampart. 
 Beyond, the path went down very steeply to the 
 beach, but Jenifer would not attempt the descent 
 in the dark ; besides, she could see all she wanted 
 here. 
 
 That, at least, had been her impression, but at 
 first she could make out nothing. She looked in 
 vain for the wreck ; all she was aware of was a 
 confused mass of dark figures round the lifeboat ; 
 that she could see, because, being white, it stood 
 out against the dark water behind it. They were 
 just launching her ; Jenifer could hear the crushing 
 and grinding of the pebbles, and could see the 
 strained attitude of the men as they ran her down. 
 The bo'sun's whistle rang out, and now they were 
 dashing through the surf, and one after another 
 ■caught the festoons of rope and swung themselves 
 -over the sides, but to distinguish the faces of any 
 was hopeless.
 
 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 203 
 
 There was a heavy sea running, but not more 
 than a boat of that class could easily ride over ; 
 she was shooting triumphantly through the surf 
 like a living thing ; then, as she rose high, breasting 
 a wave, the moon gleamed out for an instant, and 
 showed the watcher the faces of the crew — showed 
 her the one face she was looking for, grave and 
 resolute, bending to his oar. The rest were 
 wearing sou' westers ; he alone had a scarlet 
 fisherman's cap — a practising cap that some one 
 had lent him. Now she could see the ship far out 
 beyond the cove, heeling half over, jammed fast on 
 a reef of rocks that ran out for nearly half a mile, 
 sometimes submerged, sometimes showing its 
 savage fangs above the surge that always swirled 
 white above it. It was only visible for a minute, 
 just long enough to get a notion of its where- 
 abouts ; then the darkness swallowed all up again, 
 but by the dim reflected light that showed up from 
 the sea, Jenifer could see the little knot of people 
 gathered watching on the beach. They were very 
 few ; there was but the mill and the one cottage 
 near the cove, and except the men whose duty it 
 was to man the lifeboat, not many had cared to 
 tramp from Westcreek on such a nasty night. 
 The woman whose cottage they had invaded was 
 there with a shawl over her head, watching for her 
 husband and son, and there were one or two 
 labourers from a farm on the road who had been 
 roused by the passing of the lifeboat, and had 
 followed to see what was doing ; but there was none
 
 2ot CORNISH DIAMONDS. 
 
 of the excitement that usually attends such a scene, 
 and the quietness of it all gave Jenifer the strange 
 feeling that it was not real — that she should wake 
 presently in her own bed at home and try to recall 
 the events of this most strange night as one strives 
 to remember some queer dream. 
 
 The place itself seemed unreal in this new 
 aspect ; her acquaintance with it had always been 
 on sunny summer afternoons, for it was a favourite 
 resort for picnics, lying as it did halfway between 
 Westcreek and Kerranstow. How well she remem- 
 bered one such occasion long ago, just before 
 Alick Studland went on his last voyage, when he 
 and she had scrambled from this very spot far 
 out towards the point, and had been well scolded 
 by Rachel when they got back for their temerity. 
 How gay the slopes had been with Valerian and 
 corn marigolds ; the very boulder on which she 
 was leaning had been fringed with sea-pinks. 
 And now form, colour, light were all gone ; she 
 could only know the presence of the sea by the 
 roar beneath her when the waves dashed up along 
 the rocks. Now and again she found her face 
 moist with something that drove against it, but 
 she could not tell whether it were spray or sleet. 
 
 It was intensely lonely ; far below her the few 
 watchers still lingered ; the men to lend a hand in 
 hauling up the boat when she should get back ; 
 the one woman because she alone had a personal 
 interest in the freight, and for this Jenifer re- 
 garded her with a fellow-feeling. They appeared
 
 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 205 
 
 to exchange remarks together from time to time, 
 but Jenifer was too far above to hear anything less 
 than a shout, and during this waiting time there 
 was nothing to shout about. Now and then a 
 ghostly gleam from a rift in the clouds showed the 
 distressed vessel with her mast miserably tilted 
 over, looking as if she could hardly hold out much 
 longer, as the heavy seas struck her and made her 
 shiver and heel over still more. The same light 
 gave a glimpse of the labouring lifeboat, getting 
 smaller and smaller, and painfully climbing wave 
 after wave. 
 
 Jenifer's weariness had passed from the stage of 
 conscious fatigue into a condition of misty semi- 
 consciousness ; she really hardly knew whether 
 she were actually there in the body or in the 
 clutches of some strange, strong dream. It seemed 
 a long while after — perhaps, in spite of her tense 
 watching, she had actually dropped asleep — when 
 she was startled by a sudden cry from the beach, 
 and then, though she could see nothing, to her ear 
 there came the welcome sound of oars in rowlocks. 
 It was yet a good while before the moving mass 
 hove in sight between the rocks, and even when 
 the boat was being drawn up the beach she could 
 not distinguish the occupants. She saw one dark 
 figure after another spring ashore, while the others 
 crowded down to help. Several were assisted out, 
 and seemed hardly able to stand ; the shipwrecked 
 crew, of course, stiff with the long night's exposure. 
 Then three or four men who had remained in the
 
 2o6 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 
 
 boat were stooping, lifting some one up from the 
 bottom, while the others held out their arms ready- 
 to receive the burthen. She strained her eyes 
 through the dimness till they felt as if they would 
 start out of their sockets. The voices sounded 
 low and awestruck ; surely the man was dead. 
 Now six men were carrying him up the beach, 
 and some one brought a lantern. By the nerveless 
 way the arm hung down Jenifer was certain it 
 was death. If only she could see his face ! Then 
 they turned a little as they passed below her on 
 their way up to the mill, and the yellow light 
 showed her for an instant a brown pointed beard 
 and a glimpse of something red. Where, oh 
 where was that scarlet cap she had been looking 
 for ? Oh, why would they all crowd round so that 
 she could not see ? A great dread clutched her 
 heart, and she sank down behind the boulder and 
 hid her eyes. 
 
 She knew her terrors were wildly unreasonable, 
 but she was in that mood when the most intoler- 
 able seems the most likely. Something seemed 
 to force her against her will to face the possibility 
 that it was Alick who had been snatched away out 
 of the world of living men — the world where all 
 thing are possible and hope never dies — into the 
 silence and blankness out of which no voice can 
 come. Could he indeed have gone without a word 
 in the midst of that misunderstanding and estrange- 
 ment which had so perplexed her? Could God 
 have been so cruel to her ?
 
 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 207 
 
 It was but a very few moments before she 
 heard a quick footstep coming up the path, the 
 sound of which made her heart stand still. Stud- 
 land, who was as familiar with the spot as she was 
 herself, recollected that he could regain the cottage 
 much more quickly this way, and was anxious to 
 rejoin his charge without loss of time, as they 
 must be weary enough. Had it not been for the 
 accident that Jenifer in the haste and flurry in 
 which she had dressed had put her cloak on with 
 the white fur lining outside, he would probably 
 have passed her without seeing that any one was 
 there, but the mass of white against the dark 
 boulder caught his eye, and he paused to investi- 
 gate. She kept perfectly still, crouching down to 
 escape notice, hoping he would pass on, and she- 
 should be able to creep back unobserved ; but she 
 heard him stop, then he was bending down over 
 her. 
 
 "What, Jenifer? My dear little girl, how came 
 you here ? " 
 
 " I just ran down the path," she said in a husky, 
 trembling voice, " to see if I could see anything ; 
 it was so horrid to stay shut up in the cottage 
 and not know what was happening. It was stupid 
 of me to stay so long ; I have got quite stiff." 
 
 It was with some difficulty that she managed to 
 rise to her feet. He looked at her, concerned and 
 distressed. 
 
 "Give me your hands, and let me help you* 
 Why, how cold you are, and how you shake ! "
 
 2o8 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 
 
 " Are they all safe ? " she managed to ask ; for 
 with Alick's warm hands holding hers it did not 
 seem as if any one could be dead. That horrid 
 vision must have been a nightmare. 
 
 " All but one poor fellow. He was dead before 
 we got to them, struck down by a falling mast. 
 Did you see them carrying him up } " 
 
 " I fancied I did ; but it was all so dim and 
 •confused, I could not distinguish." 
 
 " I am glad you could not ; it was no sight for 
 you. They have taken them all up to the mill 
 now, and they will be well looked after by the 
 coastguard, so I thought I would take the short 
 cut back to you." 
 
 " Why, where is your red cap ? " she suddenly 
 .asked, looking up at him, and seeing that he was 
 bareheaded. 
 
 He put his hand up to his head. 
 
 " It must have got washed off. We had a rough 
 bit of work beating round to leeward of her, and 
 then getting the crew aboard ; they were so 
 cramped, they could hardly move, poor beggars. 
 Why, what is it? Did you slip? Hold up." 
 
 " Not exactly, but my feet are so cold and 
 strange ; I feel as if I hadn't any." 
 
 " I think you must let me carry you. It won't 
 be the first time, eh } " 
 
 And before she could make any demur, his firm 
 arm was round her waist, and she was lifted off her 
 feet, and borne swiftly along. She wanted to be 
 put down when they reached the gate, but he
 
 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 209 
 
 carried her right into the cottage, and set her in 
 the big patchwork armchair from which Letty had 
 just risen. 
 
 " Why," cried Rachel, " it is Jenifer ! " 
 
 " Of course it is Jenifer," her brother answered, 
 rather irritably. " What were you about, to let her 
 go out in the cold and wet ? If I had not chanced 
 to take the short cut back, she might have been 
 ■dead from exposure ; she could hardly move when 
 I found her." 
 
 "I am afraid I am to blame," put in Letty. 
 "Do you know, I am ashamed to say we both fell 
 fast asleep when we could see no more, and I 
 hadn't an idea she had left the window, had 
 you ? " 
 
 " No," said Rachel ; " but really you know Jenifer 
 is quite old enough to be aware of the folly of 
 ■doing such a mad thing. I had just begun to 
 wonder what had become of her when Alick brought 
 her in ; but I thought nothing less than that it was 
 a drowned person from the wreck." 
 
 Poor Jenifer felt dimly ashamed of not being 
 drowned, but too dazed and worn out to be able to 
 express it. She leaned her head wearily against 
 the back of the chair, and attempted no defence, 
 
 " It is impossible she should drive home in that 
 state," said Alick ; " she would catch her death of 
 cold. Just look at her feet ! " 
 
 They were certainly a deplorable spectacle ; the 
 worsted boots had gone utterly to grief, and dis- 
 played festoons of ravelled ends and frayed tangle, 
 
 VOL. I. 14
 
 2IO CORNISH DIAMONDS. 
 
 affording through the rents glimpses of shockingly 
 dingy and dilapidated white satin shoes. Letty 
 was down upon her knees in a moment, pulling off 
 the sopped foot-gear. 
 
 "I will just run up to the mill," said Alick, 
 buttoning up his coat again, " and tell Dearlove to 
 give the horses a feed, and not to put them in for 
 another half-hour, and by that time you will have 
 got her dry and warm." 
 
 " And you too," said Rachel, laying her hand 
 upon his wet coat-sleeve. " I hope there is a place 
 where you can dry yourself. Why, my dear boy, 
 you are wet through." 
 
 " Of course I am. We shipped a good bit of 
 water, and dress-clothes are not precisely what one 
 would go out boating in for choice ; but I am not 
 sugar or salt." 
 
 " Poor Alick is rather cross," said Rachel, coming 
 back to the fireside, and helping Letty chafe 
 Jenifer's chilled feet ; '' but really I don't wonder." 
 
 He was cross — angry with himself for not being 
 able to carry her unmoved, as he might have carried 
 any other woman whom he had found unable to 
 walk — angry with her for coming out. 
 
 "What did it signify to her," he said to himself 
 grimly, " whether I came to grief or not ? Women 
 are so curious." 
 
 By the time he got back they were all ready 
 for him. Jenifer's feet had been wrapped in hot 
 flannel, and were now arrayed in coarse worsted 
 stockings and a pair of slippers so large that they
 
 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 211 
 
 had to be tied on with bits of string, the property 
 of the woman of the house, who had returned 
 meanwhile. He insisted sternly on her swallowing 
 half a tumbler of hot whisky and water, and 
 bustled them all into the carriage almost without 
 a word. 
 
 The late winter dawn was breaking when they 
 got back to Kerranstow, and the long, strange night 
 was over at last. 
 
 Healthy and strong as Jenifer was, and used to 
 being out in all weathers, it was not in human 
 nature to escape all ill consequences after such an 
 experience ; a severe feverish chill kept her in bed 
 for days. Anybody else would have had rheumatic 
 fever, as her aunt remarked, and she might consider 
 herself lucky to get off so cheaply ; but the short 
 illness, trifling though it seemed to others, cost her 
 dear. One afternoon, while she was still in bed, 
 tossing restlessly, and going over the scenes of the 
 ball with every exaggeration fever could suggest, 
 her aunt came back to the room after an unusually 
 long absence. 
 
 " I am afraid you have been waiting for your tea, 
 my dear," she said. " I am so sorry ; but Mn 
 Studland has been here ; he came over to say 
 good-bye to your uncle, and, of course, I could not 
 hurry away, especially as he will be gone so long. 
 He says he does not expect to be back for another 
 four years ; the Impregnable\s> ordered to the China 
 station. He inquired particularly for you, and left 
 his kind regards."
 
 212 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 
 
 Gone. And she should not see him any more 
 for four long years. Surely fate was very cruel to 
 her. Presently her aunt's voice broke in upon her 
 again. 
 
 " My dear Jenifer, I have asked you three times 
 if you thought you could eat a cut-round if I was 
 to spread it with cream."
 
 BOOK II. 
 
 " A garden fair, wherein to court mine ease, 
 To wander, heedless if the shadows pass 
 O'er the grey sundial peeping from the grass — 
 A haunted garden, 'mid the age-bent trees 
 Fair Julia's lover may have wooed the shade, 
 And with his amorous lute in idleness played." 
 
 Frank Miller. 
 
 " O purblind race of miserable men. 
 How many among us at this very hour 
 Do forge a life-long trouble for ourselves, 
 By taking true for false, or false for true ; 
 Here, thro' the feeble twilight of this world groping?" . . 
 
 Tennyson.
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 UNE, with its blue, cloudless skies and little 
 wandering breezes. How infinitely refresh- 
 ing the long wash of the Atlantic against the Ker- 
 ranstow rocks must be this afternoon. So thought 
 a returning traveller as he paused at the corner of 
 the Avenue Marigny, doubtful which way to bend 
 his aimless steps. Paris, with its dazzle and glitter, 
 its throng of carriages, its never-ending stream of 
 people on the hot pavements — above all, its unceas- 
 ing babel of shrill voices — might be entertaining 
 enough to any one who wanted amusement, but 
 was unspeakably wearisome to a sick man near 
 the end of a tedious, hot journey and longing for 
 rest. Rest, however, was unattainable in the parti- 
 cularly noisy hotel he had unluckily pitched upon ; 
 so he had come out to try and kill time until the 
 evening train to Calais. 
 
 Very gaunt and brown and hollow-eyed looked 
 Alick Studland ; very unlike the alert, vigorous 
 young sailor who had danced all night with Mrs. 
 Dcndron at the Westcreek Infirmary Ball a year
 
 2i6 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 
 
 and a half ago. He was coming back to England 
 invalided. The bursting of a cannon during 
 gunnery practice had very nearly cut short his 
 chance of ever seeing Kerranstow again. He was 
 terribly knocked about, and there was a wound in 
 his side, where a splinter of metal had struck him^ 
 which would not heal. He had been on a hospital 
 ship for months, but it kept obstinately breaking 
 out, with recurrence of low fever, so at last they 
 shipped him home, to try if his native air would 
 make him seaworthy again. So weak was he when 
 he started that he hardly thought to see England 
 alive ; but, by the time he reached Brindisi, he was 
 to some extent recovered, and now, though shaken 
 and wearied with the long night journey, he was 
 able to get about. He was beginning to feel, how- 
 ever, that he had rather overtaxed his strength, 
 and should not be sorry to sit down. 
 
 He had very little notion where he was ; he was 
 unfamiliar with Paris, having only occasionally 
 passed through ; but, following up a glimpse of 
 green trees at the bottom of the street in hope of 
 shade, he presently found himself in the Champs 
 Elysees ; thronged at this hour with carriages, for 
 the fashionable world was beginning to take its 
 daily drive. Facing him was a gigantic building 
 which he recognized as the Palais de I'lndustrie. 
 
 "Now," said he to himself, "shall I go in and 
 have a look at the Salon ? Rachel is sure to ask 
 me about the pictures, or shall I take di fiacre, and 
 drive with the rest of the world to the Bois de
 
 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 217 
 
 Boulogne ? The pictures, I think ; I don't 'know 
 that I can stand more shaking than I shall get 
 between this and Calais." 
 
 So he turned into the wide hall, filled with sculp- 
 ture and tall palms, and sat down to rest, grateful 
 for the shade and coolness, till he got weary of 
 contemplating a Rape of Europa on the one hand 
 and a couple of wrestlers in hideously contorted 
 attitudes on the other, and strolled slowly on 
 through the galleries, with inartistic eye passing 
 with a half-glance the pictures that every one was 
 talking about, round which there was a crowd, and 
 picking out any little, unpretending Breton hay- 
 field or Normandy orchard, restful in its greenness 
 and peace, after the bloodthirsty realism of some 
 of the largest and most conspicuous canvasses. 
 Just as he entered the third gallery, the little knot 
 of heads before a picture at the opposite end parted 
 for an instant, and with a sudden throb of amaze- 
 ment, he found himself gazing at Jenifer Lyon ; at 
 least so for a moment it seemed, then he knew that 
 it was only her vivid presentment whose grey eyes 
 were looking right into his. 
 
 He remembered, of course, all about the picture,, 
 and who had painted it, only he had not known 
 that it was here, and it quite startled him. As he 
 elbowed his way betv/een the people who were 
 crowding round it, he felt an absurd resentment 
 that they should come and stare at her in this way. 
 Perseverance at last brought him close before it, 
 and he could stand in imagination in the dim old
 
 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 
 
 church — he could almost smell the cold, vaulty 
 £)dour it always had in hot weather — and could 
 hear the joyful strains of " For all the saints " peal- 
 ing out from Abel and Jeremiah's cornets. Behind 
 the banner, almost lost in the shadow of the porch, 
 could be discerned the lean figure and hook nose 
 of Septimus Jaques, but Studland's eye hardly 
 wandered from the central figure. 
 
 He stood so long in absorbed contemplation that 
 people began to wonder what business he had to 
 take up so much more than his share of time before 
 any one picture. In an English crowd he would 
 probably have received some practical hints that it 
 was time to move on, but a Parisian crowd never 
 shoves, and he remained rooted to the spot. Mean- 
 while he had attracted the attention of a tall, pretty 
 woman who had drawn back a little from the crowd, 
 and was observing him with a glance of half-doubtful 
 recognition. She looked like an artist's wife, to 
 judge by the size of her Gainsborough hat, with its 
 drooping black feathers against her bright hair, 
 and the flow of her gown, graceful, but somewhat 
 regardless of fashion, in contrast to the Paris cos- 
 tumes around her. Her eye went from the picture 
 to the motionless figure before it, and she touched 
 her husband's arm. 
 
 " Hugh, I am almost certain that is the naval 
 officer — what was his name? — we met at my god- 
 father's, and afterwards at Pencoet. Don't you 
 remember ? It was the very day Kay took up the 
 idea of painting this ? "
 
 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 219 
 
 He looked, and shook his head. " Association, 
 my dear, and a naval beard. That was a much 
 younger man." 
 
 " But it is him," said Muriel, with sudden con- 
 viction, as the subject of her remarks turned round. 
 " If you won't go and speak to him, I will." 
 
 Thus urged, Wynnstay went forward. " Excuse 
 me if I am making a mistake, but did we not meet 
 there " — pointing to the picture — " the year before 
 last?" 
 
 He recognized them directly ; the red-bearded 
 painter from Newlyn and his pretty golden-haired 
 wife were hardly altered since he had seen them 
 last, and he greeted them cordially. 
 
 " At the first moment it hardly surprised me to 
 see you," he said, as by common consent they 
 made for an unoccupied seat ; " but now I come to 
 think of it it is an odd coincidence that we should 
 meet just there by the picture that formed our 
 first introduction." 
 
 "Well, after all," said Muriel, "I don't know 
 that it is so odd ; we are all drawn to that especial 
 picture, you know." 
 
 " Strangely enough, I was drawn to it quite by 
 accident, he responded. " I am on my way back 
 from the East, and I little thought to encounter a 
 foretaste of Kerranstow in Paris." 
 
 " How funny ! And you did not know it was 
 here 1 And now do tell me what you think of it." 
 
 " Oh, don't ask me that. I am not learned 
 enough to discourse of values and harmonies and
 
 220 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 
 
 so forth ; I shall disgrace myself if I attempt to 
 go into detail. I only know that to me it seems 
 the one thing worth looking at in the whole 
 show." 
 
 Muriel laughed. " I like that. A good honest 
 expression of opinion based solely on subject is 
 refreshing. I see to you it means home ; but to 
 people who never saw Cornwall in their lives it is 
 beautiful as a work of art. Hugh, tell him how 
 much people think of it." 
 
 "As far as material rewards go," said Wynnstay, 
 " Kay has done well. You know he has another 
 medal for it, and he has sold it for a rattling big 
 price. He is an odd fellow. When I congratu- 
 lated him, he said it was such a wrench to part with 
 it that ten times the money would not repay him. 
 However, he was not quite such a fool as X.^ 
 refuse." 
 
 " Oh, by the way, he isn't married, is he ? " 
 asked Studland, irrelevantly. 
 
 " No," said Muriel, taking the answer from her 
 husband's lips ; " but, from one or two little things, 
 I fancy he means to be before long. Did you 
 know anything about it .^ " And she looked in 
 the direction of the picture with a meaning smile. 
 
 Studland made no answer, and Wynnstay, ignor- 
 ing the interruption, resumed — 
 
 "He has gained plenty of Kudos for it too. 
 The best judges say that his technique has 
 improved marvellously. I don't know whether 
 you would notice the masterly way in which he has
 
 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 221 
 
 dealt with the conflicting light ; and then the 
 delicate gradating of the priest's white surplice, 
 relieved against the dark background, though it is 
 itself in shade, is quite a toicr de force. There are 
 very few painters who can successfully preserve the 
 whiteness of white in shadow." 
 
 "Ah ; I don't think I noticed the surplice ; I was 
 looking at old Septimus's face. That is a wonder- 
 ful likeness." 
 
 " Yes, and so are nearly all the others. It isn't 
 often Dame Nature chooses to provide us with a 
 ready-made subject exactly to our mind. Usually 
 the most realistic of us have to do a good bit of 
 composing. The original is seldom more than a 
 mere suggestion out of which the picture grows ; 
 but in this case Kay has chosen to transcribe the 
 scene just as he saw it ; and I must say the result 
 has justified him." 
 
 " I don't think I could have forgiven him if he 
 had taken any liberties with it," said Studland, 
 laughing ; " an improved version of Kerranstow 
 would not have been at all to my taste." 
 
 " Dear old Kerranstow ! " cried Muriel. " It is 
 like a bit of the olden time left as a kind of eddy 
 or backwater in the pitiless stream of modern 
 improvement. One might be away from it a dozen 
 years, and feel sure of finding it still unchanged 
 when one got back." 
 
 " Ay. However long my voyages have been, I 
 can always count on finding the Shag's Head 
 and old Septimus just where I left them. My
 
 222 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 
 
 active-minded step-sister has nearly succeeded in 
 bringing Hennacombe up to the modern standard, 
 but happily the disease does not spread. This time 
 I have not been away long enough to expect any 
 ruthless improvements." 
 
 " Prepare yourself for one, though. The roof of 
 the church has had to be mended ; part of one 
 transept blew off in the gale last year." 
 
 " No ! Don't tell me they have done it with 
 blue slates ! " 
 
 " Heaven forbid ! No ; could you suppose Mr. 
 Jaques was such a Philistine ? He and Yeo set to 
 work at once to try and re-discover the secret of 
 oak shingle, and for months the Vicarage was 
 deeply imbedded with shavings ; but when at last 
 they were convinced that it was a lost art, they 
 compromised on rough slate, and the effect is 
 admirable. If we had not told you, I don't believe 
 you would have found out it is a new roof 
 at all." 
 
 " But how is it you are back so soon, Mr. Stud- 
 land.'*" asked Muriel, presently; "I fancied you 
 were fast in China for another two or three years 
 yet." 
 
 " So I should have been, but you see I have 
 turned up again like a bad halfpenny. It is just a 
 bit of my ill luck : they tried to blow me up with 
 a gun made of flawed metal, and did not quite 
 succeed. If it had been an enemy who had done 
 it, it might have been to my advantage in the long 
 run ; but since I have to thank a niggardly
 
 CORXISH DIAMONDS. 223 
 
 government for the disaster, it will simply throw 
 me back a bit, and I have a hole in my side all to 
 no purpose." 
 
 " Oh ! " cried Muriel, " What a shame ! I thought 
 you were looking very ill. I am so sorry. Ker- 
 ranstow will be sure to set you up again ; and 
 surely, when you are strong again, the authorities 
 will make it up to you in some way '^ " 
 
 He shook his head. He was not in a very 
 sanguine mood, and Muriel, seeing that he was- 
 rather sore on the subject of his prospects, turned 
 the conversation by asking if he had seen the 
 other Kerranstow picture. 
 
 " What other ? " he asked. " Another of Kay's ? 
 I had noticed nothing interesting before I met with 
 this." 
 
 " What ! not ' Chrysanthemums ' } Hugh thinks 
 it the finest of the two, and so do a good many 
 connoisseurs. It is much smaller than this — ^just 
 a portrait study ; perhaps that was how you missed 
 it. Come and let us show it to you." 
 
 They moved on into another room, and came to 
 a halt before a half-length of a woman, with her 
 head turned a little over one shoulder, standing in 
 a window — the window of the panelled parlour at 
 Pencoet. It was all in yellow browns ; her blonde 
 head was relieved against a dark brown velvet 
 curtain, the dress was bronze, and her hands were 
 busy with a mass of chrysanthemums of every 
 shade of golden brown in a great brass pot in the 
 window-sill. The key-note was given in the peculiar
 
 224 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 
 
 tint of her eyes, which were like a bit of Turkish 
 amber. 
 
 " Mrs. Dendron ! How like ! " 
 
 " Wonderfully good, isn't it ? " said Wynnstay. 
 " Strickly speaking, it is not pretty, and yet it has 
 all the haunting charm of the original." 
 
 '' Well, I am afraid I must tear myself away. I 
 have to catch the boat train this evening. I am 
 so pleased to have met you. Any messages for 
 Kerranstow ? " 
 
 *' My love to Mr. Jaques, please," said Muriel, 
 " and kind remembrances sown broadcast. How I 
 ■envy you Cornwall in June ! " 
 
 He moved away, and, as she watched him going 
 ■down the long corridor, she said to her husband, 
 ^' Poor fellow ; what a wreck he looks ! "
 
 CHAPTER IL 
 
 HAT same June afternoon Jenifer had taken 
 her work, as she often did, to the orchard, 
 which stretched along the southern slope of the 
 combe beyond Roscorla. It was a pleasant place 
 with the flecked shade of the gnarled old apple 
 trees falling on the grass, yet open to the soft 
 westerly breezes off the sea, and the bank on which 
 she sat was royally cushioned with moss and em- 
 broidered with harebells. 
 
 It was a day to spend in luxurious idleness or 
 else in the practice of one's best beloved art, and 
 she would fain have betaken herself with her fiddle 
 to the barn which was still her music room, but 
 there were pillow-cases to hem, so, arming herself 
 with a volume of poetry to dip into at intervals, 
 she established herself under the trees. However, 
 she did not trouble Rossetti much ; she left it to 
 the breezes to flutter over the leaves while her busy 
 needle went in and out, for her mind was full. She 
 had been intent all this past year and a half 
 studying the lesson which many people find so 
 
 VOL. I. 15
 
 226 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 
 
 easy, and which to some is so hard — namely how- 
 to forget ; and just as she flattered herself that it 
 was thoroughly mastered, had come the news of 
 Studland's accident, and it was all to do again. 
 
 She certainly had not pined ; no one watching 
 her bright activity could have suspected her of 
 nursing a trouble. Nor indeed did she ; she was 
 not the girl to give way to a morbid or sentimental 
 feeling. The thing was over and done with, she 
 quite realized that ; but the tenacity of her nature 
 made it hard to put by and forget old dreams. 
 She flung herself into her music with a double 
 energy ; it was at once a distraction from thought 
 and an outlet for the smothered passion which 
 else had grown beyond her control. 
 
 Outwardly her life had flowed on very evenly; 
 they had had a quiet winter, dull compared with 
 the preceding one ; but Letty Dendron had taken 
 her to London in February, a great event in such 
 a quiet existence, and had given her a taste of 
 society, and, better still, a feast of concerts and 
 operas. It had done her good, for hers was a 
 nature to feed on pleasure after it was over rather 
 than to make a bitterness for itself by comparison 
 with present things, and it had yielded her a harvest 
 of satisfaction. 
 
 To-day, however, she was not chewing the cud 
 of pleasant recollections. That morning Rachel 
 had told her of Alick's probable return — that he 
 might arrive any day now, and as she fitted and 
 sewed her seam, she was endeavouring to persuade
 
 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 227 
 
 herself of her own entire indifference to the news. 
 Of course she was very sorry for his accident, and 
 should be glad to see him back for Miss Treby's 
 sake ; beyond that his coming could not interest 
 her. 
 
 It was very solitary in the orchard ; from early 
 dinner till teatime she was rarely disturbed ; for 
 a visitor to find his way to Roscorla was an event 
 so rare as to be almost outside her experience. 
 Nevertheless, she presently heard a footstep ap- 
 proaching with a soft rustle through the long grass, 
 and between the interlacing boughs she could 
 see a man's legs getting over the stile. Her 
 heart gave one wild throb, half expectancy, half 
 apprehension, and all her resolves of pride and 
 indifference went shivering to atoms. Then the 
 mists cleared away, and she saw nothing more 
 alarming than Kay's slight figure coming across 
 the grass. Of course. She might have known ; 
 the other could hardly be in England yet, far less 
 here. 
 
 She gathered up her work and rose, extending a 
 welcoming hand with a rather unwelcoming face 
 and voice. 
 
 " So you are back again, Mr. Kay. I thought 
 you were in London." 
 
 It was not encouraging, especially to one who 
 had come on the errand which had brought him. 
 He felt rather like a man who having climbed with 
 difficulty to the top of a steep hill,'finds himself 
 sent with a slight push almost to|]the bottom. For
 
 228 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 
 
 a moment he was utterly discouraged ; then he 
 plucked up heart once more and told himself that 
 this was just the treatment which, according to the 
 theory he had elaborated, he ought to expect. He 
 had been foolish to leave before with his word 
 unsaid ; she must have thought him half-hearted 
 and not in earnest, and now he must try and 
 recover lost ground. 
 
 For that which he had had in his heart to say to 
 her nearly a year and a half ago had remained to 
 this day unspoken. The Infirmary Ball had con- 
 vinced him that for the present, at any rate, he 
 had no chance ; her heart was preoccupied ; he 
 must either give up hope or bide his time. He 
 chose the latter alternative ; he was not a man 
 who gave up easily whatever he had set his mind 
 upon, but he could always v/ait. So he had come 
 and gone between Newlyn, London, and Kerran- 
 stow, keeping on his studio at Peninah Sutton's, 
 and working a good deal there at times ; taking 
 care, too, that those times should be just when 
 Miss Lyon and Mrs. Dendron should most wel- 
 come his company — in the dull autumn weather, 
 when country amusements were at a discount — 
 finding a charm, too, for himself in learning to 
 know the wild coast under its most characteristic 
 and least familiar aspect. 
 
 He and Jenifer, meanwhile, had grown friendly, 
 and even intimate. His long persistency deserved 
 success, and he thought he had almost attained it. 
 He had but seldom encountered the rival whom he
 
 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 229 
 
 dreaded, and he fancied Jenifer might be out- 
 growing a childish preference for her cousin — of 
 the real barrier he had not the remotest suspicion. 
 He had been down at Kerranstow a good deal 
 through the early spring, finishing that portrait of 
 Mrs. Dendron which had attracted so much notice 
 at the Salon. He had almost spoken then; had he 
 known it, he had missed the best chance he was 
 ever likely to have ; but courage, or opportunity, 
 or something had been wanting, and he had gone 
 to London for the opening of the exhibitions, 
 leaving the matter till his return. 
 
 He had thought to remain in town till almost 
 the end of the season, but since he had been away 
 he had been haunted by the idea that Jenifer 
 might misunderstand his silence — might fancy 
 him trifling with her, and he could not rest till he 
 had hurried back to do suddenly and hastily what 
 he might have done at any time these eighteen 
 months. 
 
 She was surprised to see him, and her surprise 
 was hardly flattering ; but he was determined that 
 this time he would not suffer himself to be so 
 easily baulked as he had been again and again. 
 He sat down on the grass at her feet, and putting 
 by her congratulations on his success with hardly 
 an answer, he plunged into the midst of his 
 tale. 
 
 She had taken up her work again, but as he 
 spoke the quick movements of her needle stopped, 
 and the linen fell on her knee. She did not
 
 230 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 
 
 attempt to stop him ; she was too entirely unpre- 
 pared for what he was saying. Last year, perhaps, 
 it would not have surprised her so much, but she 
 had long since ceased to think of the possibility 
 of any such development of the friendship to which 
 she had become accustomed. 
 
 He paused, and she nerved herself to speak. 
 
 " I am so sorry. I hadn't any idea " she 
 
 began. 
 
 " Hadn't you ? I thought you must have known 
 I cared for you. I have been very stupid if I have 
 not made it plain before now." 
 
 " You have always been very kind," she said in 
 a deprecating way ; " but I never thought — ^at 
 least not lately " 
 
 " Kind ! Oh, for Heaven's sake, don't put it 
 like that. I have loved you from the very first. 
 A year ago last Christmas I had nearly told you 
 so, only something made me fancy it was no use 
 then. But now I hoped — I thought I had waited 
 long enough. And you have been fancying I 
 meant nothing, and thinking me a mere trifler." 
 
 " Indeed, indeed I have not I don't know what 
 you mean. I wish you had not said nor felt 
 anything of this sort at all. I am so very sorry." 
 
 "Don't say that. Miss Lyon. Don't tell me 
 that you are sorry that I love you. Have you no 
 love to give me in return } Of course, I can't 
 expect that you should love me at the first word ; 
 but don't you think you could learn to care for 
 me if I have patience."
 
 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 231 
 
 She shook her head. " No," she said, almost 
 under her breath. She hated saying it — she liked 
 him so well ; only, for her, liking and loving were 
 not the same thing. 
 
 He turned a little away, and sat motionless, with 
 his eyes fixed on the distant sea, while she watched 
 him remorsefully. In his sensitive, mobile face it 
 was easy to read the signs of the intense pain she 
 had inflicted, and which he was trying to master. 
 She looked away again, and began nervously 
 darning her needle in and out of a fold of her 
 dress, while arguments more cogent than any he 
 had brought forward why she should yield, coursed 
 swiftly through her brain. 
 
 Was there in all the world a man she thought 
 better of, trusted more entirely than Denis Kay ? 
 Had she any better reason to urge than a senti- 
 mental idea that she was not in love with him ? 
 And yet the instinct of nineteen acknowledges 
 the potency of that plea, whatever worldly wisdom 
 may have to say against it. She hardly knew 
 whether she were wise or silly in yielding to it — 
 whether it was a true instinct or a foolish fancy. 
 Her knowledge of the world was small ; yet her 
 little circle, narrow though it was, had furnished 
 her with instances both of a one-sided love like 
 Katharine's for her cousin, and a marriage with no 
 love at all, as at Pencoet. Certainly marriage on 
 such terms as obtained between Letty and Oliver 
 would be a poor exchange for her freedom. Then 
 she had no longer the feeling of being needed at
 
 232 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 
 
 home. Her uncle's only daughter had just come 
 home, a widow, from AustraHa, and taken up her 
 abode at Roscorla, and it was beginning to dawn 
 on Jenifer that her place there was being filled up. 
 It was little likely, she knew that any lot would 
 ever be offered to her so completely in accord with 
 all her tastes and preferences as this. A year ago 
 she would hardly have been able to estimate the 
 value of what she was refusing ; but London and 
 books, and, most of all, intercourse with Letty 
 Dendron, had opened her mind to a fair conception 
 of the choice that lay before her. Marriage with 
 a distinguished painter would lift her to a position 
 far above any of her imaginings. She would lead 
 a roving life, seeing all that was most beautiful in 
 art and nature, and with him she would skim the 
 cream of two worlds ; London and the country 
 alike would yield their best delights, and she 
 would have music to her heart's desire. How she 
 would enjoy life at Newlyn among that pleasant, 
 cultivated society of which the Wynnstays were 
 such charming specimens, and Kay's position in 
 the art world was a good deal higher and more 
 assured than theirs. If worldly ambition could 
 win her, she had been already won. Of all that 
 Kay had said, what moved her most was his 
 assurance of her influence over him — of the in- 
 spiration he had already found in her, and would 
 find in still larger measure when she was wholly 
 his. That appealed alike to the woman's love of 
 power and to the artist side of her nature — a side
 
 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 2^3 
 
 strongly developed in her in spite of all draw- 
 backs. 
 
 And there was a traitor in the camp. That 
 tenderness of heart which has betrayed so many a 
 woman into choosing against her choice, was 
 urging her to comfort Denis at any cost ; was 
 representing that though she might never know a 
 perfect happiness herself, she might yet bestow it. 
 And over against all these battalions stood only 
 a shadowy loyalty to a past that would never be 
 renewed. 
 
 It was only a minute that she had to review it 
 all ; then Denis drew a long breath, and raising 
 his head, faced her again. 
 
 "You mean that .^ You will not tell me to 
 wait?" 
 
 " No," she said. " It would not be right. I don't 
 think I shall ever feel differently." 
 
 " You have been very plain with me, Miss Lyon, 
 and I have nothing to urge why sentence should 
 not be passed upon me." 
 
 He seemed quite unconscious that all the 
 advantages were on his side, and never once urged 
 her consideration of them. He was so much in 
 love that, before the girl he had chosen, he, 
 ambitious successful man as he was, was as humble 
 as a schoolboy. 
 
 " Oh, forgive me," she said. I have been very 
 stupid. I ought to have understood ; I ought not 
 to have let you go on." 
 
 " You have nothing to reproach yourself with ;
 
 234 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 
 
 you gave me no cause to be confident. I know I 
 am not an attractive fellow." 
 
 It would have been wiser if Jenifer had let that 
 pass ; but it hurt her too much. 
 
 " Oh, don't, don't ! " she cried. " I can't bear to 
 hear you say that, and it isn't true. And if it 
 were, do you suppose I am such a fool as to care 
 for any one for their looks ? My reasons are quite 
 different." 
 
 And then she coloured crimson, fearful lest he 
 should ask what they were. 
 
 " Well, well ; perhaps I understand better than 
 you think. It is hard just yet to say I hope you 
 may be happy, if it must needs mean happy with 
 some one else." 
 
 She looked up in dismay. Was it possible he 
 suspected ? Her mind flew back to that unlucky 
 ball and her foolish tears. Could she have 
 betrayed herself to those keen, sympathizing eyes ? 
 If so, how he must despise her ; evidently he 
 thought her chances of happiness in that quarter 
 were small. And she could not justify herself; 
 certainly in such a matter as this qid s' excuse s accuse. 
 She could only say rather breathlessly — 
 
 "You are quite mistaken if you fancy there is 
 any one else." 
 
 " I am very thankful to hear it ; for at the risk 
 of being considered an impertinent meddler, I 
 have so longed to warn you. It is just the 
 sweetest, most unselfish women, such as you, who 
 are most prone to fancy they can save a man who
 
 CORNISH DIAMONDS, 235 
 
 has set off downhill by the sacrifice of themselves ; 
 but in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred it is a 
 hopeless failure. I think it would break my heart 
 if I saw you flinging yourself into any such gulf. 
 Oh, my dear, do not be led into making such a 
 shipwreck of your life as that. Forgive me — " as 
 he met her amazed eyes — " I have offended you." 
 
 Offended she was not, but utterly perplexed. 
 Clearly her secret was safe, and to preserve that 
 she would suffer him to remain in whatever blunder 
 he had stumbled into. Explanations would only 
 complicate matters. She rose and began to fold up 
 her work, and he, taking it as a hint to be gone, 
 rose also. 
 
 " Good-bye," he said. " It will be good-bye for 
 some time, I think. I shall not come back just yet. 
 Perhaps I may go abroad. You will think kindly 
 of me 1 " 
 
 "Indeed I will." Her eyes filled. "Wait for 
 me one moment at the orchard gate ; I want to 
 fetch something from the house." 
 
 And she ran on, leaving him to follow more 
 slowly. 
 
 He leaned on the gate musing while he waited. 
 With characteristic elasticity he was already be- 
 ginning to rally from the first shock of disappoint- 
 ment, and comfort himself with the assurance that 
 all was not lost ; she might be his yet. Needless 
 to say, the difficulty enhanced her value. As the 
 wise old adage says, " The fruit that will fall 
 without shaking, is not worth the taking." Truly
 
 236 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 
 
 she seemed sweeter and more desirable in his eyes 
 than ever. 
 
 Quickfooted always on an errand, it 'was but a 
 minute before Jenifer reappeared, holding out to 
 him the little rubbed morocco case he knew so 
 well. 
 
 "I want to give this back to you, please. I 
 ought never to have taken it. I did not under- 
 stand ; I hardly knew what I ought to do ; but 
 now I would rather not keep it." 
 
 Instead of taking it, he clasped the little wrists, 
 and held it away from him. 
 
 "You have been very gentle and kind to me," 
 he said ; " and I think you want not to hurt me 
 more than you can help. It would hurt me 
 horribly to have to take that necklace back. Will 
 you do me the one kindness I ask you ? — keep it 
 simply as a memento of my picture — of the 
 piece of work on which we have been engaged 
 together." 
 
 " If you really wish it, I will ; only — perhaps 
 some day you may wish to give it to somebody 
 else." 
 
 " That is the cruellest thing I ever heard you 
 say. I am very sure I never shall. I think I 
 may safely promise to ask you for it back if that 
 day should ever come." 
 
 " I did not mean to wound you ; only I cannot 
 bear to think you should have set all your happi- 
 ness on me. Please, please try to forget me — or 
 rather forget all this, and let the old friendship
 
 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 237 
 
 come back. I shall think of you as the kindest of 
 my friends always." 
 
 He said no more, but went his way, nor once 
 paused to look back. 
 
 As she returned more slowly to the house, regret 
 weighed heavy in the scale ; not that she repented 
 her decision or would have recalled it ; only she 
 could not but realize as he disappeared down the 
 hill, how much she had lost out of her life. Her 
 regret was for her own inability to feel differently, 
 not that she had acted according to her feeling. 
 The more she appreciated the strength and 
 genuineness of Kay's attachment, the more she 
 felt the unfairness of answering it with a mere 
 regard. Perhaps if he had cared less she would 
 not have felt the impossibility so strongly. 
 
 She could hardly have told herself how much 
 her former feeling for Alick Studland had had to 
 do with her decision. If it were indeed dead and 
 buried, as she would fain have thought, it had at 
 least shown her what she was capable of feeling. 
 Two months ago she could have honestly declared 
 that she had quite forgotten him ; that that episode 
 was put away and done with, like the old dolls of 
 her childhood ; but the news of his being hurt 
 almost to death had rather shaken her convictions 
 on that head. She had accepted the absolute 
 finality of the breach between them before he 
 went away ; she did not even wish to see him 
 again. She shrank from the idea, and would 
 gladly enough have engaged herself to another
 
 238 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 
 
 man before his return, could she have done so 
 whole-heartedly. Unhappily for herself, she did 
 not belong to the order of women who accept 
 passively whatever destiny offers. Involuntarily 
 she had chosen for herself long ago, and to that 
 choice her heart clung with tenacity in spite of her 
 will. She was strong enough to live alone, to 
 devote herself to her violin, and find her happiness 
 in her work, but she would not mock Denis Kay 
 with the promise of a love she could not give.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 " I'^O you feel inclined to do a charitable 
 
 action ? " said Rachel Treby, putting her 
 head in at the garden door at Pencoet one hot 
 afternoon. 
 
 Letty, who was sitting, Turkish fashion, on a 
 pile of cushions under a yew tree, uncurled herself 
 lazily. 
 
 " In this heavenly weather my charity will stretch 
 to anything that does not involve going indoors — 
 short of directing a few thousand begging letters. 
 What is it .? " 
 
 Rachel came inside. " Are you sure you are 
 not busy? If you are not, would it bore you to 
 entertain my brother for an hour or so, and keep 
 him to tea ? " 
 
 '' Do I look busy .? No, I assure you I shall be 
 enchanted to have a playfellow." 
 
 " You see," said Rachel, confidentially, " it seems 
 a shame to say so, poor fellow, but you cannot 
 imagine what a nuisance it is to have a man on 
 your hands who has never known what it is to
 
 240 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 
 
 have a day's illness in his life before. He will 
 keep doing the most imprudent things. Yesterday 
 he over-exerted himself, and was so knocked up, 
 I was quite frightened about him. I really am too 
 busy to be looking after him always, and I am 
 perfectly sick of trying to amuse him. I did hope 
 he might have helped me a little with the appeals 
 for the debt on the organ, or with the shoe-club 
 accounts. I am sure it would be less boring than 
 sitting with his hands before him ; but he won't 
 do a single thing, and he doesn't care a straw for 
 reading. Words can't describe how cross he is. 
 I suppose it is not to be wondered at ; it is dread- 
 fully hard upon him ; he is a man who cares for 
 nothing but an outdoor life. The only thing he 
 seemed to have the least fancy for was coming to 
 call on you ; so I drove him down on my way to 
 Widcombe, but I have a hundred things to do, 
 and I am afraid of his walking home in the 
 heat, so I thought you would be so good natured 
 as to keep him till I got back — if you can, 
 that is." 
 
 Letty laughed. "Oh, I'll undertake to keep 
 him," she said. " Where is he > " 
 
 " I left him outside with the pony. " I'll go and 
 send him in. Mind, he can't bear to have his 
 illness noticed or any fuss made. He won't own 
 to being tired or suffering. He will insist on 
 sitting bolt upright in the hardest chair he can 
 find." 
 
 " Will he ? " said Letty, while Rachel was gone,
 
 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 241 
 
 as she disposed a cushion or two in a tempting 
 way in the hammock. 
 
 " Shall we stay out here, or would you like the 
 house better ? " she asked, when she had greeted 
 her visitor, as he crossed the lawn beside her with 
 languid, dragging step. " It is cool enough in the 
 panelled parlour ; but in this weather one almost 
 resents a roof over one's head." 
 
 "Oh, out here, by all means," and he sank 
 gratefully into the place she had prepared for 
 him. 
 
 " One advantage of staying out is that you can 
 smoke as many cigarettes as you feel inclined for," 
 she said, settling herself on the grass with her back 
 against a beech trunk. She was one of those 
 women who can sit upon the ground as gracefully 
 as a child. 
 
 "Thanks. You are very indulgent. Are you 
 sure you don't mind ? " 
 
 " Mind ! I love it. Let me make you one." 
 
 "Don't you ever smoke yourself.?" he asked 
 suddenly, watching her practised fingers. 
 
 She looked up with a twinkle in her eye. 
 
 " What an unfair question ! If I said yes, what 
 do you suppose Kerranstow would say to me .? I 
 don't say I never do absolutely, but habitually 
 certainly not. I think it is rather delicious, and 
 theoretically I see no reason why a woman should 
 not smoke, but practically I don't like the type of 
 woman who does." 
 
 " Neither do I. I am glad you don't." 
 VOL. I. 16
 
 242 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 
 
 She took up a bit of embroidery which lay on 
 the ground near her, and he watched her lazily 
 through a delicate film of smoke. Presently he 
 said — 
 
 "Do you know, I saw your portrait the other 
 day in the Salon. They never told me it was 
 there. It was an odd chance ; I turned in there 
 on my way home, to kill time between two trains, 
 and the first thing I knew I was looking into 
 Kerranstow Church, and a minute after I met the 
 Wynnstays, and they showed me ' Chrysanthe- 
 mums." 
 
 " Did you think it good } " 
 
 " Wonderfully. It had a quality you seldom see 
 in portraits — I hardly know how to put it — not 
 likeness exactly ; a photograph might have that ; 
 but something a good deal more." 
 
 " I think I know just what you mean. I noticed 
 the same thing in Jenifer and Mr. Jaques in 
 'Thanksgiving.' I suppose it is insight of some 
 kind. By the way, you have not told me yet what 
 you thought of that." 
 
 " I don't know that I can. The fact is, when I 
 encountered it I was desperately home-sick, and 
 the sight of it was like a draught of water in the 
 desert. I wasn't disposed to regard in critically." 
 
 " Home-sick, were you } " 
 
 " Horribly. Ah, you don't know the hold these 
 granite rocks have on a Cornishman born and bred. 
 I suppose it seems rather foolish to you." 
 
 " Indeed no. I was wishing — ah, how I wish ! —
 
 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 243 
 
 that I could feel like that for any spot on God's 
 earth." 
 
 His eyes rested on her for a moment with a 
 puzzled look ; then he went on — 
 
 "Well, you would understand it well enough 
 if you were to lie for a couple of months between 
 life and death on a beastly hospital ship off the 
 coast of China. I can tell you I felt as home-sick 
 as a schoolboy in his first half, and the voyage 
 home was almost worse. They had nearly left my 
 bones in the Red Sea, but I managed to pull 
 round somehow, and then that awful railway 
 journey nearly finished me off." 
 
 " You poor thing ! You could not have been 
 very fit to be dragging about Paris." 
 
 "I don't suppose I was, but the heat and the 
 noise and the clatter drove me out, and I felt as 
 if the only thing was to keep moving till I got 
 home." 
 
 *'You must have been a great deal worse than 
 you let Rachel have any idea of," said Letty, as 
 her pitying glance rested on his gaunt frame, 
 naturally so stalwart and well-knit, and on the 
 blue hollows under his eyes that told of weary 
 nights of pain. 
 
 And he did not fulfil Rachel's prophecy by 
 resenting her sympathy, but found it very sweet 
 and comforting. 
 
 "The worst is," he said, "the feeling of the 
 futility of it all. I could have stood it better if it 
 had happened in action ; but to be maimed by a
 
 244 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 
 
 stupid, preventable accident, set back perhaps for 
 years — for while I am eating my head off in 
 idleness other fellows are going past me — that is 
 what worries me." 
 
 "It is hard luck. But don't you suppose it 
 will be made up to you } The Admiralty will 
 surely " 
 
 " Not they ; and why should they ? I hadn't 
 even the opportunity to show courage, or the 
 reverse ; the whole thing happened in a moment. 
 I expect Rachel confided to you that I have been 
 like a bear with a sore head, and it is true ; I have 
 worried her life out, poor girl ! but you see, I can't 
 get about with my gun and shake it off." 
 
 " It would be a relief to kill something, wouldn't 
 it ? I can exactly understand the feeling, though 
 I never wanted to kill anything myself — except 
 time. You must come sometimes and help me to 
 do that. We are very quiet now Mr. Kay is gone ; 
 • we want somebody to wake us up terribly." 
 
 " So Kay is gone, is he ? For good } " 
 
 " Oh no ; only up to London to be made a lion 
 of. He is rapidly getting to the top of the tree." 
 
 Alick paused a moment, and then said — 
 
 " After what you told me before I went away, I 
 was surprised to find Miss Lyon here still. How 
 was that ? Did it come to nothing, after all .'' " 
 
 " It puzzles me rather, too. Do you know, I am 
 a little disappointed in Denis Kay. I don't think 
 he has behaved quite well to her. I thought he 
 was so thoroughly in earnest ; but he is an
 
 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 245 
 
 ambitious man, and of course he must know he 
 might do far better in a worldly point of view. I 
 made sure he was on the point of declaring himself 
 at the time of that ball, but nothing came of it. I 
 suppose a sudden spasm of prudence sent him off." 
 
 "Did she — did she take it to heart, do you 
 suppose ? " 
 
 " I think she did. Jenifer isn't a girl who ever 
 makes confidences, and, of course, if she had I 
 should be mute, but I could not help noticing how 
 much out of spirits she seemed for some time ; she 
 made a brave show, but one draws one's own 
 conclusions." 
 
 " Then it is all at an end now, I suppose ? " 
 
 " Far from it. It seems to me to be coming on 
 again. Where I blame him is that he keeps both 
 on and off, so poor little Jenifer has no chance to 
 put him out of her head. But it has been going 
 on so long now, I think it is sure to end in an 
 engagement ; evidently he cannot keep away for 
 long." 
 
 Alick smoked for a few moments in silence, and 
 then changed the conversation abruptly. 
 
 "You seem to have plenty of literature about 
 you," he said with a smile, glancing at the books 
 scattered round her on the grass, ranging from a 
 yellow-backed French novel to a little shabby calf- 
 skin duodecimo that looked like study. 
 
 " It does look rather a mixture, I own, but variety 
 is the soul of enjoyment to me. I never know 
 beforehand what I am going to want to read;
 
 246 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 
 
 sometimes I am in the vein for a good old English 
 classic, sometimes Bourget has something to say 
 to me that just suits my mood, and another time 
 I want poetry. Don't you care for reading?" 
 
 " Moderately. Don't despise me if I confess that 
 beyond the papers, or a good novel, if I have 
 nothing to do or am seedy, I don't much care for 
 books." 
 
 ''Ah, I can understand that in a man who is 
 living a real life, and doing some of the work of 
 the world ; but here — * where it is always after- 
 noon ' — if one had not books, I don't know what 
 one would do. Do you know, I have sometimes 
 thought I shall really have to take to writing one 
 .myself." 
 
 " A novel, I suppose } " 
 
 " No, indeed. I am not equipped for such an 
 undertaking, nor, I am afraid, am I sufficiently 
 'earnest' Don't you know that in these days, to 
 make a novel successful, you ought to propound 
 a new religion — or, better still, a new morality? 
 ■and I am not prepared to do either. In these 
 latter days we have got beyond being amused ; 
 that has quite gone out of fashion. A monograph 
 on some delightfully obscure character, or a study 
 of seventeenth-century love-letters would be much 
 more in my way. That would be a fascinating 
 subject, don't you think ? " 
 
 "Would it? Then they must be uncommonly 
 different to nineteenth-century ones. I should say 
 a collection of the latter would be most awful rot."
 
 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 247 
 
 She laughed. " What a barbarous sentiment I I 
 am afraid you have not been very fortunate ; or, at 
 any rate, you have not appreciated those that have 
 fallen to your share." 
 
 It was foolish, but there came across him at that 
 moment a recollection of a certain little ill-spelt, 
 childish letter, containing some violets and many 
 particulars of the health and behaviour of Timothy, 
 which had come to him years ago when he was in 
 the West Indies, and which he had carried in his 
 waistcoat pocket for many a long day. That was 
 not a love-letter, nor anything in the least like 
 one, and he should never have any more of those ; 
 it had no connection with the present subject. 
 He wondered what sort of letters the woman 
 beside him would write ; he thought he could fancy 
 what they would be — dainty and interesting, and 
 full of an aroma more subtle than violets. They 
 would be worth having. He looked a little con- 
 scious, and she, observing it, went on — 
 
 " Ah ! I expect you sailors have a pretty large 
 experience in the matter. No, don't look frightened ; 
 I am not going to ask any indiscreet questions. To 
 go back to what I was saying ; seriously, I wonder 
 whether undertaking a bit of literary work of that 
 kind would make life seem more real, or if, like 
 everything else, it would only be another piece of 
 make-believe ? " 
 
 " I am not sure I quite understand you," he said 
 slowly, knocking the ash off the end of his cigarette 
 and regarding it meditatively. " More real ? What
 
 248 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 
 
 is the matter with things ? Why aren't they 
 real ? " 
 
 "Why? Ah ! that is just what I can't tell. La 
 maladie du siecle, I suppose. I was reading a bit 
 of Alfred de Musset the other day that came home 
 to me. He is describing the spirit of the age as 
 one that has no form, no style of its own ; it borrows 
 and appropriates from every preceding century, and 
 the end of it is, it is living on the debris of all that 
 went before. It is just like that in my house. I 
 seemed at first so to enter into the charm of 
 having such an old place, and I filled it with old 
 things, and tried to have everything in harmony ; 
 but it is all a sham, and my life seems just 
 like it." 
 
 She spoke more earnestly than her wont, and he 
 looked at her with sympathetic interest and concern 
 dawning in his eyes. 
 
 "Isn't that a bit morbid?" he said. "I can 
 fancy feeling something of that sort in an artificial, 
 society life ; but here, in the free, wholesome 
 country, surely things are simple and real enough." 
 
 " Ah no ! it is a great deal worse. In London 
 life is strenuous ; and if it is in a sense unreal, 
 nobody has time to stop and look ; at any rate, 
 one knows that one is really alive ; but here I have 
 come to feel as if I were in a backwater, and watched 
 the world go by without me." 
 
 " I see. It is lonely for you. I own I was sur- 
 prised to find you here still ; I fancied you were 
 only a bird of passage."
 
 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 249 
 
 "We took the house for three years, of which 
 half is still to run, and I see no prospect of our 
 leaving at the end. My husband's affairs are not 
 much improved ; he says there is nothing for it 
 but patience, and those mines of his may work 
 round in time. I don't believe he cares a straw 
 whether they do or not; he has taken up a 
 craze for chemistry, or some such dry thing, and 
 is perfectly happy shut up with his experiments 
 all day." 
 
 "And don't you ever go to London, to your own 
 people?" he asked. 
 
 " Oh yes, of course I do sometimes ; but it is a 
 failure. I have dropped out of the ranks, don't you 
 see. In London, if one disappears, it is astonishing 
 how soon the water closes over one's head. I 
 realized last time that I was a mere temporary 
 appendage to my sisters. I feel sometimes as if 
 life was slipping by, slipping by, and I shall not 
 have lived." 
 
 " Poor little woman ! it seems an awful shame," 
 he said impulsively, and then was half afraid she 
 would be offended at the familiarity ; but she was 
 not. She looked up with rather an April face, for 
 she smiled while her eyes were full of tears of self- 
 
 "I don't know what you must think of me," 
 she said, "for making such a moan. My only 
 excuse is I so seldom see a fellow-creature ; and 
 then, you know, it is not every one that one can 
 talk to."
 
 250 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 
 
 A rather imprudent answer was on his tongue ; 
 but at this moment the maid appeared, crossing the 
 grass with a tray of iced coffee, and the interruption 
 turned the conversation into a shallower channel. 
 When he presently turned to set down his cup, his 
 eye fell on a banjo leaning against a tree. 
 
 "Why, you don't mean to say you play the 
 banjo, Mrs. Dendron? Why, I am always dis- 
 covering some fresh accomplishment of yours." 
 
 ''You do, I suppose? It is emphatically the 
 sailor's instrument. It was a sailor who taught 
 me. It is a capital accompaniment to sea songs, 
 and I have not forgotten the jolly ones you used 
 to sing at our Penny Readings. Do sing me one 
 now." 
 
 He took it up and fumbled a little with the 
 strings, striking a chord here and there at 
 random. 
 
 " I don't know that I can remember anything," 
 he said, "and I have not voice enough for anything 
 very rollicking, but I will try, if you like." 
 
 He drew himself up from his lounging posture 
 in the hammock, and, in obedience to her behest, 
 crooned through a quaint, old-fashioned little ditty 
 with a rhythmical refrain about seeing " the white 
 cliffs of old England nevermore." His voice was 
 weak yet from illness, but it had the peculiarly sweet, 
 tender notes that used to charm Letty of old, and 
 she let her work sink on her knee as she listened. 
 He could not sing much, however, it brought back 
 the pain in his side ; so he soon handed the banjo
 
 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 251 
 
 back to her with the remark that it was her turn 
 now. 
 
 She was so versatile it would hardly have sur- 
 prised him to hear from her lips some music-hall 
 song, in vogue nowadays in London drawing-rooms 
 — "Dysy, Dysy," for instance, or some other *'coster" 
 favourite ; but Lctty was pre-eminently gifted with 
 a sense of the fitness of things ; in her hands the 
 despised and vulgarized instrument became the 
 fitting accompaniment to such dainty morsels as the 
 *' Chanson de Florian," Brahm's " Cradle Song," or 
 some simple and plaintive little German Volkslied. 
 Instead of the monotonous thrumming one expects 
 from the banjo, her fingers drew out a rippling 
 undercurrent of arpeggios like strings of pearl. 
 Soothed and fascinated, Alick lay back on the 
 cushions and sank into a delicious, dreamy repose, 
 heedless how long the shadows were growing, con- 
 tent to stay, reluctant to break the spell. 
 
 Letty was too wise a woman to think that 
 entertaining a guest consists in keeping up an 
 unbroken conversation ; she well knew the weari- 
 ness to an invalid of sustaining the strain of 
 question and answer for a whole afternoon. By- 
 and-by she laid down her instrument and strolled 
 off down the long kitchen garden that lay behind 
 the yew trees, returning after a while with a leaf 
 of early strawberries. 
 
 " Hullo, Rachel ! Back already ? " was Stud- 
 land's remark when his step-sister at length re- 
 appeared. " Were none of your friends at home ? "
 
 252 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 
 
 "Already! you call it? I am glad to hear it, 
 I am sure. I thought you would have lost 
 patience, and gone prancing off home an hour ago, 
 or at least that Letty would have got tired of you, 
 and turned you out. Can my watch have gained ? 
 No," as she paused beside the sundial, "this can't 
 go wrong." 
 
 He glanced at it and looked guilty. 
 
 " I am indeed ashamed," he said. " How I have 
 trespassed upon your hospitality ! I had no idea 
 — I can only plead that here the time stands 
 still." 
 
 ''Thank you for a very pretty compliment," 
 said Letty. " And I assure you I am most grate- 
 ful to any one who will come in and help me to 
 waste a little of the precious commodity Rachel 
 finds all too short. I am an incorrigible idler, 
 you know, and I think one feels less guilty in 
 company than alone. Now, Rachel, come and 
 sit down peaceably and have your tea ; I kept 
 it back for you. We have been keeping our- 
 selves up with iced coffee and strawberries all the 
 afternoon. 
 
 Driving home, Alick was very silent and ab- 
 stracted, but Rachel hardly noticed it ; she was 
 busy calculating whether she could afford to 
 increase the premium on her people's shoe-club 
 savings ; boots were so dear, and the children wore 
 out many pairs in the long tramps to school. She 
 was glad he did not seem cross, and evidently had 
 not minded her keeping him so long waiting. He
 
 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 253 
 
 did not offer to take the reins, but leant back, 
 going over his visit in his own mind. Letty was 
 rather a new variety of womanhood in his ex- 
 perience, and she interested him. 
 
 " Poor little woman ! " he said to himself — " poor 
 dear little woman ! How sweet she is ! Dendron 
 must be a selfish brute."
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 OUISA had come home in all the Import- 
 ance of her widowhood, with her weeds, 
 her endless tin boxes, and her colonial ideas, 
 She was very kind and patronizing to Jenifer, but 
 evidently felt that to be not only a wife but a 
 widow, and newly returned from foreign parts set 
 her quite on a pinnacle. She was good enough to 
 remark that her cousin was amazingly grown, and 
 would not be a bad looking girl when she was 
 smartened up a bit — " For really you are quite 
 behind the world down here, you know," she 
 exclaimed ; " I assure you we are twice as fashion- 
 able in Omatonga. You must see some of the 
 things I had before I went into black. I should 
 not mind letting you copy them ; only you must 
 not let any of your friends here have the patterns, 
 you know." 
 
 Jenifer thanked her, but adhered to her blue 
 serge and little fresh-looking print blouses, and 
 smiled to herself at the idea of Mrs. Dendron or
 
 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 255 
 
 Miss Treby condescending to Mrs. Twisselton's 
 patterns. Her violin playing, too, was commended 
 as " really wonderful for her age ; " only Louisa 
 thought it a pity she should play such dull, old- 
 fashioned tunes. She ought to hear the things the 
 Omatonga nigger troupe played ; she would write 
 and get some of the music for her. 
 
 With the best will in the world, Jenifer could 
 not take to her cousin. The thing that tried her 
 most was to find all her little duties about the 
 house taken from her one after another without a 
 word. Louisa was by no means lazy, and had no 
 idea of seeing her place as daughter of the house 
 usurped by the cousin whom she had left a little 
 chit of nine years old. It was quite natural and 
 right, and Jenifer yielded without remonstrance ; 
 but it made her feel as if she were a stranger in 
 her home. She chided herself for inconsistency ; 
 when she had had all these things to do, she had 
 pitied herself for having only odds and ends of 
 time to devote to her music, and now that she 
 might practise all day if she pleased, and nobody 
 minded, she felt out in the cold. Just now she 
 could not go down to the Vicarage to play chamber 
 music, for Mr. Jaques had an old college friend 
 staying with him who was devoted to archaeology, 
 and was roaming all about the country with him. 
 The summer weather was too beautiful to spend 
 shut up in the house, even with Bach and Corelli, 
 so she used to carry her fiddle down to a solitary 
 cleft in the rocks overhanging the sea, and enact
 
 255 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 
 
 Syren, with the part of Ulysses left out, to her 
 great solace. 
 
 The dreaded meeting with Alick Studland had 
 come and gone, and though she told herself it had 
 gone off very well, it had left her feeling chilly 
 and heart-sick. He had driven Rachel over to 
 Roscorla to call on Mrs. Twisselton, feeling that a 
 visit to the Lyons, who were such old friends, was 
 due on his own part. The widow and her mother 
 were established in the green-rep drawing-room 
 with their fancy work, and the former was obviously 
 much gratified at his calling, and took the visit 
 entirely to her own credit. Rachel asked for 
 Jenifer, and she was unearthed with some difficulty 
 from some one of her haunts, and came in after a 
 short delay. She had had a minute or two to 
 prepare herself, but when she saw Alick, between 
 distress at the change in him, which she feared to 
 betray, and the overwhelming recollection of the 
 last time she had been in his company when he 
 had carried her through the snow, she was almost 
 dumb. She hoped that under cover of Louisa's 
 voluminous histories of her voyage home, and Mrs. 
 Lyon's comments on his looks and questions 
 about his accident, her own silence would pass 
 unobserved. She had, however, to listen to some 
 raillery on the subject from her cousin, after the 
 departure of the visitors. 
 
 " La, Jenifer, you'll never get a young man if 
 you are as shy as that in company. I am sure it 
 is lucky I was here to do the talking. It really
 
 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 257 
 
 is a pity, isn't it, ma, to keep her so shut up down 
 here where she never sees a soul, and has no chance 
 to rub the rust off? I don't believe I ever was 
 shy ; but if I hadn't gone to school, and made 
 friends with the girls so as to get asked to their 
 houses, I should never have met poor Twisselton. 
 But don't look so grave, Jenny ; now I am come 
 home, we must see what we can do for you." 
 
 And Jenifer could not help thinking of Denis 
 Kay and the life she might have had, had she 
 chosen to put out her hand and take it. 
 
 She was furious with herself as she realized how 
 utterly in vain her eighteen months' struggle had 
 been. She had thought she had banished Alick 
 so completely from her thoughts, and now that 
 he was here again the touch of his hand and 
 certain soft tones of his voice had power to thrill 
 her as no other man's hand or voice had ever done 
 — could ever do. Why, oh why couldn't she feel 
 like that for Denis Kay? She poured out her 
 complaint to her fiddle in some of the most pas- 
 sionate music she knew ; Bach was too sane and 
 sensible for her just then. 
 
 But Alick was not quite so insensible as she 
 thought him. He had not expected much, but he 
 was intensely hurt at her indifference. He might 
 be nothing to her now, but they were very old 
 friends, and her want of feeling contrasted painfully 
 with Letty's tender interest and abundant sym- 
 pathy. He was usually very reserved, especially 
 about anything that vexed him, but he could not 
 
 VOL. I. 17
 
 258 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 
 
 help saying to Rachel, as he flicked up the 
 pony — 
 
 " How altered Miss Lyon is ! " 
 
 " Do you think so? How do you mean ? She 
 is prettier than she was." 
 
 " Is she ? I did not mean that. No woman is 
 pretty to me who isn't pleasant too. She sat as stiff 
 as a statue, and just answered when one tried to 
 talk to her. I used to think her shy, but it isn't 
 that." 
 
 "No, I think she has quite outgrown her shy- 
 ness, but I know what you mean. Do you know, 
 I think she has got rather spoilt. I am very fond 
 of her, I always was, but I fancy her head has 
 been a little turned by that painter who has been 
 here so much. You remember him ? He was 
 here that last winter before you went away, and 
 at one time he paid her a great deal of attention. 
 I don't know, I am sure, whether there was any- 
 thing in it ; probably not, but sitting to him and 
 being made so much of has rather set her up. She 
 is not the same dear little simple creature she used 
 to be." 
 
 He sighed, and his companion asked whether 
 the jolting of the jingle brought on the pain in his 
 wound, and whether she should not take the reins. 
 But he was thinking of poor Timothy, after whom 
 he had not had the heart to ask. 
 
 One afternoon Jenifer found herself obliged to 
 go with Louisa to return Mrs. Dendron's visit. 
 She had not been at Pencoet quite so much as
 
 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 259 
 
 usual lately, and did not feel particularly anxious 
 to produce her cousin there ; but Mrs. Lyon was 
 by no means fond of the satirical little lady, and 
 entirely declined to accompany her daughter. Mrs. 
 Twisselton, however, felt herself quite equal to the 
 occasion, and started off in great form in a very 
 long train and with black crape unlimited floating 
 from the back of her bonnet. Jenifer, who found 
 herself relegated to the post of humble companion, 
 watched her apprehensively as she sat in a studied 
 attitude, as if expecting to be photographed, and 
 expatiated serenely on her trials, and the great change 
 it was for her to have to come back to Kerranstow. 
 She evidently considered herself quite in a position 
 to patronize a person who lived all the year round 
 in the country, and whose husband had had losses ; 
 and Letty's plain little hoUand frock and lavender 
 blouse did not impress her with any idea of smart- 
 ness. But if the visitor was too obtuse to notice 
 the sparkle of mischief in her hostess's eye, it was 
 not lost upon Jenifer, who tried to cut the visit as 
 short as she decently could. But Louisa was 
 enjoying herself, and by no means disposed to 
 curtail the pleasure of enlarging upon the glories 
 of the Omatonga balls, and the doings of the 
 fashionable world in New South Wales. 
 
 " Of course at present," she said, glancing down 
 at her crape, ** I do not care how retired I live ; 
 but after what I have been accustomed to, I am 
 afraid the seclusion will prey upon my spirits. 
 Poor dear Twisselton often and often said to me,
 
 26o CORNISH DIAMONDS. 
 
 * You require keeping up, Louisa ; you need 
 constant distraction. Let us go to the play.' He 
 was a most considerate husband." 
 
 And here a pocket-handkerchief that was nearly 
 all black border, came into requisition. 
 
 *' Well," said Letty, swallowing a smile, " I 
 always find there is plenty to amuse one in the 
 country in summer-time, and in the winter we 
 get up various entertainments. Are you fond of 
 music ? " 
 
 Louisa shook her head mournfully. 
 
 " Oh yes, I am very fond of music," she said ; 
 " and Jenifer was telling me that you try to get up 
 little concerts in the winter. I am sure it is very 
 nice for those who are used to this quiet life — 
 quite a little bit of gaiety for you all — but any one 
 accustomed to hearing a really good band is not 
 easily contented." 
 
 It was something quite new to Mrs. Dendron to 
 be looked down upon as a country bumpkin, and 
 it tickled her immensely. Undeterred by Jenifer's 
 attempts to put an extinguisher on her cousin's 
 eloquence, Letty continued to draw her out by 
 innocent questions and a display of great interest, 
 till at length she took her leave, fully persuaded 
 that she had created a most favourable impression. 
 
 Letty hospitably pressed them to stay to tea, 
 but Mrs. Twisselton had promised to meet her 
 mother at the post-office, and must be getting on ; 
 Jenifer could stay if she pleased. 
 
 " I wish you would, dear," said Letty, laying an
 
 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 261 
 
 affectionate, detaining- hand on Jenifer's arm. " I 
 don't seem to have seen anything of you for an age." 
 
 "What an entertaining person your cousin is," 
 she said presently, as they returned from seeing 
 Mrs. Twisselton into the pony-carriage, Jenifer 
 having consented to remain. " I don't know when 
 I have been more amused." 
 
 Jenifer laughed unwillingly, looking a little 
 vexed too. 
 
 " I wish she would not make such a fool of 
 herself," she said. " I was on thorns. I really was 
 afraid you would be offended ; some of the things 
 she said were so rude." 
 
 " Offended ! Oh dear no. She is quite a new 
 variety in these parts. You don't mind my laughing, 
 do you ? " 
 
 " Oh no ; I am often inclined to laugh myself. 
 One isn't bound to admire one's cousins, is one, 
 simply on the ground that they are one's 
 cousins ? " 
 
 "My dear, how came you to have a cousin of 
 that type ? I should not have thought you capable 
 of it." 
 
 " I don't know, I am sure," said poor Jenifer, 
 with a pucker on her forehead, as if she really 
 thought she must be in some way responsible. 
 " Well, you know, auntie's people are not quite — 
 quite, and I suppose Louisa is more of a Perks 
 than a Lyon ; and then she went to a third-rate 
 school at Truro, and I don't fancy her husband was 
 much."
 
 262 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 
 
 " No. Poor dear Twisselton ! Wouldn't it be 
 funny if I talked of Oliver as Dendron ? She must 
 be rather a trial to you, isn't she ? " 
 
 " I ought not to find her so, for she is full of 
 kindness and good nature. It is stupid of one to 
 think so much more of manners and style than 
 one does of goodness of heart ; but it seems almost 
 impossible to help it." 
 
 ''Well, I am rather glad she did not stay to tea," 
 said Letty ; '' though it sounds horribly inhospitable 
 to say so ; but it is not unlikely that Mr. Studland 
 may drop in presently, and — well, you know he 
 hasn't much sense of humour, and I don't fancy 
 they would get on." 
 
 Jenifer began to button her glove again. 
 
 " Do you know, I don't think I will stay after 
 all, if you don't mind. I thought you were going 
 to be all alone ; but I have several things I was 
 wanting to do this afternoon, so I will come in 
 another day." 
 
 Letty sprang up from the low chair into which 
 she had sunk, and caught her by both hands. 
 
 " Nonsense ! Why, what has poor Mr. Studland 
 done that you won't meet him ? " 
 
 " Nothing, nothing. It isn't that at all," cried 
 Jenifer, wishing she had not been so rash. " It 
 was only that I thought it would be nicer to come 
 when I could have you all to myself" 
 
 " Then sit down again peaceably, for most 
 probably I shall be all alone ; it is as likely as 
 not he may have found something else to do this
 
 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 263 
 
 afternoon. He is rather dull, poor fellow, and he 
 has got into the way of dropping in here when he 
 wants to be amused. Of course it is a bit stupid 
 in the country for a man who has no resources and 
 can't get about. Old Mr. Treby grows very pottery, 
 and Rachel has too many irons in the fire to have 
 time to frivol." 
 
 Jenifer obeyed her, and, sitting down, slowly 
 pulled off her gloves once more. It had been a 
 foolish impulse for flight ; it was absurd to suppose 
 that while he and she inhabited adjoining parishes 
 she could consistently avoid him — at any rate 
 without exciting remark ; so the sooner she got 
 used to seeing him in an ordinary everyday way 
 the better. 
 
 " I don't think you quite appreciate him," Letty 
 went on, " and I am not sure that Rachel does, 
 either. Of course he isn't a clever man, like Denis 
 Kay, for instance ; that is, not a bookish man, but 
 there is a great deal of practical cleverness and 
 capacity about him, and he has a good deal more 
 in him than you would think till you get below 
 the surface. Those quiet men always interest 
 me." 
 
 She paused, expecting a reply. Jenifer was en- 
 grossed straightening out the fingers of her glove 
 one after another ; but she said something about 
 supposing that Rachel was really very fond of him ; 
 they were a sort of brother and sister, 
 
 " Oh yes, I don't doubt she is genuinely attached 
 to him, and all that sort of thing, but I don't
 
 264 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 
 
 think she makes enough of him now he is ill and 
 down on his luck. She is a little wanting in tender- 
 ness : those clever, capable women often are ; don't 
 you think so ? " 
 
 "You know I don't think he is the sort of man 
 who cares much about little attentions ; he rather 
 resents being made a fuss with. I never thought 
 him at all what I call a woman's man." 
 
 Letty shrugged her shoulders. 
 
 " Maybe. But it isn't always those who have 
 known a man longest who know him best. I grant 
 you he isn't the least bit of a flirt, and he hasn't 
 any of Denis Kay's pretty foreign ways ; but I 
 have seen a good deal of him lately, and I have 
 got quite fond of him. I think if you saw more of 
 him, you would like him better." 
 
 It was not quite easy for Jenifer to answer this. 
 It was certainly consolatory to be accused of not 
 thinking enough of Alick ; it proved that at any 
 rate, even to her most intimate friend, she had not 
 given herself away ; still, to hear Letty talk of him 
 as if she knew and understood him better than any 
 one else, riled her almost more than she could 
 stand. Something, however, she must say, or 
 Letty would think it odd. 
 
 " I have really seen very little of him since I 
 was a child. A sailor disappears for such years 
 together, one quite forgets what he is like." 
 
 "Well, I am getting to know him quite well," 
 pursued Letty, tranquilly. " He comes in very 
 often of an afternoon, and loafs about, and gets
 
 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 265 
 
 very confidential. If he should appear by-and-by 
 you will be nice to him, won't you ? " 
 
 Nice to him ! Jenifer felt as if she could throw 
 the cream-jug at her friend's head with pleasure. 
 It had never struck her before how odiously vain 
 Letty was of her power of drawing people out. 
 
 After all, he did not make his appearance, and 
 soon after tea Jenifer, still somewhat ruffled, took 
 her departure. It was fated to be an afternoon of 
 worries. As she reached home, the cook came 
 out into the hall to waylay her, with a face a yard 
 long. 
 
 " Oh, my dear Miss Jenifer, such a misfortune ! 
 I don't know how to tell you, I am sure. Come 
 this way, and you'll see." 
 
 She led the way along a stone passage to the 
 kitchen quarter of the house, where was a little 
 room that had been Jenifer's nursery, and after- 
 wards schoolroom, and where she still kept her 
 treasures. Jenifer followed her, begging to be 
 told the nature of the catastrophe, and portending 
 disaster of every kind and degree, from an accident 
 to her uncle to the breaking of her aunt's best 
 dinner set, from the woman's countenance. 
 
 With some aggravating idea of "breaking the 
 news," the bearer of ill tidings continued to circle 
 round and round it without revealing its nature 
 save by hint. 
 
 " But there, he was a good age, and we must all 
 on us goo when our time comes." It was not 
 china, then. " And to think he should have gone
 
 266 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 
 
 off all alone, poor dumb critter ! — though dumb he 
 certainly was not, but a sweet singer. As you was 
 out, I thought I'd fetch him into the kitchen at 
 teatime and let him out to peck a bit, same as he 
 always do. And, law ! when I see him lay there 
 on the floor of his cage, it give me quite a turn ; 
 it did indeed." 
 
 By this time they had reached the schoolroom, 
 and the open cage, standing down on the table, 
 and the little rumpled bunch of feathers at the 
 bottom of it, that was all that was left of poor 
 Timothy, told their own tale. 
 
 Jenifer had not been left long to mourn over her 
 lost pet when she heard her cousin's voice in the 
 yard, shouting first for a boy to take his horse, and 
 then to know where Miss Jenifer was. He did not 
 often come over during the summer, except for an 
 occasional Sunday ; the coach ran daily from May 
 to October, and he was seldom off duty. She 
 hoped he would go through to the other part of 
 the house without finding her ; but she heard 
 cook's officious voice from the kitchen door. 
 
 " She's in the schoolroom. Master Fred ; least- 
 ways, she was a minute ago." 
 
 She stood at the window with her back to him 
 when he opened the door. 
 
 " If you will go into the drawing-room, Fred, 
 you will find the others there. I'll come directly." 
 
 " But I don't want the others ; I want you." 
 He came in and approached her. " Hullo, old 
 girl ! Red eyes ? Why, what is the matter ? "
 
 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 267 
 
 ''Nothing. At least — Timothy is dead." 
 
 " Timothy ? What, the dickybird ? Why, 
 Jenny, one would think you were nine instead of 
 nineteen. I'm awfully sorry. Still he was getting 
 very old and shabby, poor little chap ; he wouldn't 
 have sung much longer." 
 
 " Perhaps not ; but I had had him so long, and 
 we were so fond of each other." 
 ■ She took the little body up in her hand and laid 
 it softly against her cheek. 
 
 *' Go on into the other room, and I will bathe 
 my eyes and come presently." 
 
 " Well, you certainly have made yourself a 
 sight," he said with cousinly frankness. " But, look 
 here, I am not going in to do the civil to Louisa 
 yet, if I do at all. I want to talk to you first. 
 Let us stop here a bit. Your eyes will cool down 
 of themselves, if you leave off dabbing them." 
 
 She knew well enough what his wanting to talk 
 to her usually meant. 
 
 " Are you in trouble ? " she asked, sitting down 
 in the window-sill with the little dead bird in her 
 lap. 
 
 He flung his hat down, and seated himself on 
 the corner of the table with his arms crossed. 
 
 " Upon my word, I don't know," he said. " On 
 the whole, I think I am in luck. Katharine has 
 thrown me over." 
 
 " Oh, my dear boy, why 1 " 
 
 "You had better ask her. She has got out of 
 patience, I suppose. The thing has been hanging
 
 268 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 
 
 by a thread for months, and she has suddenly- 
 snapped it." 
 
 " Do you mean she really broke it off of her 
 own accord — so fond as she is of you? I am 
 afraid you must have given her cause." 
 
 " Not more than I have any time these two 
 years. I'm a bad lot, as you and she both know 
 full well, but this time it was the merest trifle." 
 
 " Then, surely, when she has had time to think 
 it over, she will give you another chance. Think 
 how many times you have quarrelled and made 
 it up." 
 
 " I don't doubt it, my dear ; only, you see, this 
 time I don't mean that she shall. No, no ; I 
 believe I am well out of it. I should be a fool if 
 I ran my neck into that noose again. It doesn't 
 do a fellow a bit of good to be nagged at and 
 reproached from morning till night. If we fought 
 like this while we were engaged, what do you 
 suppose we should have done if we had been 
 married ? No, don't you try to patch it up again, 
 there's a dear." 
 
 " Of course I won't, if you don't want me to. 
 I have never interfered unless you asked me, 
 have I ? " 
 
 " No, no ; you have always been a little brick ; 
 that is why I felt I must come and tell you the 
 first thing. By the way, I expect you will get a 
 letter from her ; she is sure to want to make her 
 own story good." 
 
 ** I don't understand it," said Jenifer, looking at
 
 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 269 
 
 him wistfully. "Don't you really care one little 
 bit?" 
 
 He got up and walked restlessly across the 
 room to examine a print on the opposite wall 
 which he must have been as familiar with as he 
 was with every detail of the little shabby room. 
 
 "Oh, I don't know; I suppose I do in a way. 
 It has been a hateful business ; the mistake was in 
 ever fancying she and I cared about each other in 
 the sort of fashion that would make us stick by 
 one another through everything." 
 
 He came back to his former seat on the table. 
 
 " I'll tell you what it is ; it is uncommonly like 
 having a bad tooth out. There is no peace till it 
 is out ; still it is a wrench, and there is an awful 
 hole." 
 
 Jenifer smiled. The simile was apt and graphic. 
 Yet she sighed too. It might well be that the 
 promise between Fred and Katharine was better 
 in the breach than in the observance ; but to her 
 it seemed a doleful thing that love should ever 
 come to such disaster. Had it been no true love 
 at all ? or was there a kind which burnt itself out 
 in a year or two's waiting ? She looked so grave 
 that Fred got off the table and came close to her. 
 
 "Jenny, do you blame me?" he asked. "Am I 
 such a hopeless case ? " 
 
 "Oh, my dear, I don't know. I am not sure 
 that I understand ; only I am afraid this does not 
 look as if that new leaf we talked of last Christmas 
 had really gone over."
 
 270 CORNISH DIAMONDS. 
 
 "It did, Jenny. Upon my soul it did; only 
 somehow or other it blew back again. There, 
 there, I am not going to make any more rash 
 promises. Perhaps, who knows, I may do better 
 now I am no longer accountable to Katharine and 
 her catechisms. I never did go well in leading- 
 strings — unless it were in your silken leash, little 
 cousin. Hark ! there is my uncle shouting to Aunt 
 Martha to come and make the tea. Mind, not a 
 word of this till after I am gone ; then you can 
 tell them as much as you please, and Louisa can 
 pull long faces over me as she always used to do. 
 Come along. Your eyes are pretty decent, now, 
 and after tea I will help you with the obsequies of 
 the dear departed." 
 
 He was very kind and gentle to her all teatime, 
 and averted comment from her flushed cheeks and 
 swollen eyelids ; and she was grateful to him, and 
 when the lengthy meal was over, let him come 
 with her and dig a hole behind her bed of lilies 
 where the earth was not likely to be disturbed, 
 wherein to lay her little friend. 
 
 It was strange, she thought, that it apparently 
 cost her more of a pang to put her little yellow 
 bird under the mould than it did Fred to bury all 
 the love and hopes of two years. 
 
 END OF VOL. I. 
 
 PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, 
 
 LONDON AND BECCLES. G.,C. &= Co.
 
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