Spring Days — Chapter 11

London: Vizetelly & Co.,1 August 1888, pages 202-276, 22,331 words

CHAPTER XI

For Frank this pleasant English village was now a happy fête of summer joys and occupations. Oh! the hill prospects and the shady gardens around the coasts. And when he went inland he would return by choice across the Downs, and in the patriarchal valleys where nothing is heard but the bell-wether he would stand in the great, lonely darkness, and see the lights of Brighton brighten the sky above the ridges, and climbing up the ridges he gazed on the vague sea, and the long string of coast towns were like a golden necklace.

His days went like dreams. The morning hours — bachelor hours — were full of intimacy and joy. The joy of waking alone with a strange and secret self that, like a shy bird, is all the day chased out of sight and hearing, but is with you when you awake in sweet health in the morning; that of waking alone with the sunlight in the curtains, that of being alone with your body as well as your mind, and no presence to jar the communion. There is a dear privacy in morning hours of single life.

But although the desire to exchange these for the joys of wedlock was germinating in Frank, although it was inherent in him to understand the husband’s happiness when he puts his arm round a dear wife’s neck and draws her to him with marital kisses and affectionate words, he was certainly conscious that each hour seemed to bring its special pleasure. His room was airy and pleasant, — the window full of the colour of the green and its aspects; the little watercourse with its brick bridge, the trees along the embankment, the rigging of the ships in the harbour, the linen drying in the yard. Of these views Frank seemed never to grow tired, he noted them as he brushed his brown curls over his forehead, and when he sat at breakfast eating fresh eggs and marmalade. After breakfast he lay on the sofa, and read society papers and smoked cigarettes. He could not drag himself to the studio. “A man should live at his studio, impossible to settle down to work, if he doesn’t," he thought, and he watched Mrs Horlock coming up the green accompanied by the chemist’s wife and the pugs.

"Dear old lady, how nice she looks in her black dress and poke bonnet; and there goes the general — he is giving all his coppers to the children.”

Frank took up a volume of Browning, turned over the leaves, and laid the book down to watch a drove of horses that had suddenly been turned out on the green to feed; and he laughed to see the children throwing stones, making them gallop frantically. Very often the thunder of the hoofs alarmed Triss, and he stood on his hind legs and barked. "What is it, old dog? What is it? Like to have a go at the horses? Shall we go out and play with the pugs?" At the mention of going out Triss cocked his ears and barked. "I suppose I must make a move. I wonder what the time is — half-past eleven. Good Heavens! The post will be here at twelve. I had better wait for it." On waking his first thoughts were for his letters, and almost before he had finished reading them he had begun to think of what the mid-day delivery would bring him. To see the boy pass and so have occular proof that there was nothing for him seemed to lighten his disappointment. He saw him waste his time with the doctor’s horse and then with the maid servant, and if the old ladies were not about he would stand talking many minutes with their servants. Then he visited the short line of cottages, passed sometimes round the yard or open space at the back of the wheelwright’s, where the linen hung on poles between the elms, and once Frank saw the provoking boy hide behind the cricketers’ tent and remain watching the match. For half an hour the question — letters or no letters — hung in suspense, and when the loiterer came, stopping every minute to see where the ball was hit to, the joy, heightened by anticipation, was great in receiving a packet of newspapers and various correspondence. Frank often went to meet him. True, he might have nothing for him, he might be going to deliver at the grocer’s shop, or at the Cricketer’s Arms.

"Any letters for me, to-day?”

“Yes, sir, two postcards and a newspaper.”

It was disappointing not to get a letter — postcards meant nothing. He only exchanged a few words with Mrs Horlock, and passed on to the general, who, at the corner of the Southdown Road where the gossipers met, was discussing a local candidature.

"So you are off to paint. You must come and see the model my wife has done of a horse I once had. I mustn’t say much about him, though — it is a sore subject. After winning over a thousand with him I lost it all, and five hundred with it. She never would paint his picture for me; but yesterday was my birthday — I suppose she thought she would give me a treat, she began to model him from memory — wonderful likeness — she knows every bone and sinew in a horse — clever woman, never seen any one like her. Come in to-night; dinner always at eight; old Indians. She’ll show it to you.”

"Thanks, not to-night, general; to-morrow night if you like.”

"Very well, to-morrow night at eight. What a terrible dog that is of yours. You need fear nobody while you have him with you. You must ask my wife to paint him for you, but I forgot, I beg your pardon — you are a painter; you should paint him yourself.”

“I don’t paint animals — I shall be very glad if Mrs Horlock will paint him, there is some beautiful drawing about him, those fore legs.”

Probably attracted by the dog, Mrs Horlock came walking towards them. Triss went sidling after Rose, and when Mrs Horlock called him, he growled.

"I beg of you, Mrs Horlock, do not touch him; he isn’t safe, I assure you. He once bit a man’s nose off, who was trying to train him to do something or other. I will not be answerable.”

"All nonsense. No dog ever bit me; they know I love them. ‘Come to me, sir.’ No dog ever bit me but once, and he was a poor mongrel that had been hunted by a lot of horrid men. I was dressing to go to a ball at the Government House, and I heard him under my bed. He had taken refuge under my bed, poor thing. He was frightened to death; he could not see me, and he bit me through the wrist. I went to the ball all the same. A dog died of hydrophobia in my arms. He died like a child,

licking my hands and face. ‘Come here, sir. Come to me.’”

"I wish you wouldn’t do it, Mrs Horlock. I am afraid to call him, for fear he should think I intended to set him at you.”

Triss showed a terrible set of teeth, and his nose seemed to curl back almost into his eyes; but stooping down Mrs Horlock extended her hands to him. She looked so like herself in the poke bonnet and the black dress, and the kind, intelligent eyes softened the dog’s humour, and he came to her.

"You see, what did I tell you? dogs know so well those that love them. No animal ever did bite me except that poor frightened creature, and he didn’t mean it. We kept him for ten years after that, and how he did love me!”

"Wonderful woman, my wife, she can do what she likes with animals. I was telling Mr Escott that he must come in and see the model you are making of Snap-dragon.”

"Only an amateur, I never had a lesson in my life. Mr Escott would think nothing of it, I am sure. But I wish he would come in and dine with us.”

"He promised to come to-morrow, Lucy; but stay, isn’t that the day we are going to have the Bath people in to dine? ”

“Never mind, Mr Escott won’t mind, I’m sure. They are very nice, good people, indeed. I’m sure you’ll think so. They are all snobs about this place — I never heard of such snobbery in my life. Mrs So and So — over there — once said to me, ‘I believe you know all the people who live in those little houses.’ She said she wouldn’t allow her children even to walk across the green. Did you ever hear of such snobbery?”

“Well, Mrs Horlock, as I have always said, your position is made; you have your friends who will like you and value you just the same no matter whom you may walk about the green with. Every Viceroy that ever went to India called on you; your position is made.”

"There are a lot of snobs about here; but I mustn’t keep Angel waiting, he is never well unless he gets a little exercise. We shall see you then at eight.”

"Wonderful woman, my wife, never knew any one like her. Her power over animals is something marvellous. We have got a few too many though; I wish I could get rid of the brutes," and the general laughed as he stumped along. “Five horses when two would be sufficient — five horses eating their heads off; then the Circassian goats that the neighbours complain of, and the parrots and the squirrels. There are a few too many, there’s no doubt. But once an animal comes into the place she will cherish it for ever. I try to keep Prince out of the drawing-room as much as possible, she says she can’t smell him. If that little beast Angel would only die!”

"Why don’t you poison him?”

"I would if I dared; but just think, if my wife heard of it she would go out of her mind. I don’t think she’d have me in the house." The general laughed.

“We all have our troubles, general. Good-bye, I’m off to work.”

"Lucky man to have something to do. If I had a little something — just a little something to bring me out, I should be perfectly happy. Then at eight! Good-bye.”

"Half-past twelve! Half the day gone. I really must make an effort to get to the studio earlier. It is, as I said, useless to hope to get through work unless you wake up where your work is. A man doesn’t get a chance. I wonder if I could build a bed-room out at the back? I have let Mount Rorke in for three hundred extra this year; he would turn rusty if I spent any more. I must give him a rest, besides, I don’t want to have the workmen in again. I wish I could get ivy to grow over those walls, they do look precious shabby.”

He looked at the tall dilapidated walls showing above the dark green of the elder bushes. He lingered, for it was a soft blue summer’s day with just a breeze stirring, and the corn waved, and the dim expanses of the Downs extended faint in lines and dim tints.

He entered. The appearance of the room pleased him, and looking at the rafters he thought that the stained wood was handsome and appropriate. The grey carpet was soft and harmonious, and the lustre and form of a grand piano suggested Chopin and Schubert. And seeing the room as a symbol of his own refinement, and being moved, perhaps, by the silence and the quiet of the north light, he took his violin, and turning from time to time to look on himself in the glass or his picture on the easel, he played Stradella’s "Chanson d’Eglise.”

Then seeing, or rather thinking he saw, how he could improve his landscape, he took up his palette, and in a desultory and uncertain fashion he worked till five o’clock. “It is no use," he thought, “I can do nothing with it until I get a model, but the devil of it is, there are no models in Brighton, at least, I don’t know where to go and look for one, and it is no use asking Sally or Maggie to sit. They’ll sit for five minutes, and then say they have some work to do at home, and must be off; you must have a professional model, a girl you pay a shilling an hour — I might sling the hammock from there to here — I wonder where I could get a girl who would do. I can’t have a girl off the street, she must be more or less respectable — I wonder whom I can get. That girl in the bar-room at the station would do."Putting his palette away with a lazy gesture, he thought for a few minutes of Lizzie Baker. What had become of her? How mysteriously she had disappeared. It was nearly a year and a half ago now. Ah, what a jolly day up the river. All the beauty of the flowing water, the crowning woods and whispering rushes filled his mind, and yielding to the moment’s emotion he took some verses out of an escritoire and altered some of the lines. Abandoning the search for a suitable rhyme he turned to a portrait of Maggie which he had begun a few days before. She stood in a pose that was habitual to her — the head leaned on one side, the little black eyes — but not ugly eyes — fixed in a sweet subtle and inquiring look. The thinness, and, indeed, the angularity of her figure was almost powerfully indicated with broad lines of paint and charcoal. She stood with her hands linked behind her. It was Frank’s most successful effort. He knew this, and he said to himself, "Not half bad, very like her, quite the character, the drawing is right, if I could only go on with it; if I could only model the face; I see very well where I shall get into trouble — that shadow about the neck, the jawbone, the cheekbone, and then all that rich colour about the eyes." Then he thought he would walk over to the Manor House, and he must hasten, for it was half-past five, and tea was always ready in the verandah.

He stayed for dinner; he talked to Mr Brookes about painters in the billiard room; he strayed through the shadows and the perfumes of leaves and flowers, through the gentle moonlight with his arms about the girls. And love was always talked: he seemed so entirely theirs that he did not think to separate his thoughts and ask for one. The dust gathered, the sky grew a voluptuous decoration of blue and gold, and the scent of the sea came over the embankment filling the garden. There was sorrow and wistfulness in the good nights they said. Day followed day, and nothing came to stay or check joy in the summer time and innocent affection. For the girls’ desires were set on others, and Frank’s good looks and dreaming were but an ideal, a repose, a pious aspiration, which joined their hands and hearts, and left them free of fear of any stress of passion; and so about Frank, the sisters were delicate in thought and attitude, and even wistful.

It is only natures that are never gross — calm and tepid livers — that are really incapable of ideality, of real and adequate aspiration; nature works by flux and reflux; and if we waive the rough temper and the coarse edge of passion due to youth, it will not be impossible to conceive another picture of these girls. Sally, good-hearted and true, full of sturdy homely sense, willing to take care of a man’s money, and make him a straightforward wife; Maggie, gentle and sinuating — always a little false, but always attractive, the enchantment of a man’s home. But Frank, notwithstanding his genuine admiration of all that was young and sweet and pure, was of poor and separating fibre, and it is clear that it will take all the strength of society to support him and save him from sinking of his own weight.

One day as he was coming through the station from the post-office he met Maggie with a young man. He was introduced, and they returned to the Manor House to play tennis. Instead of playing they talked, and the set fell through, and after tea they disappeared, and Sally proposed not to disturb them, for they had gone, she said, to sit in the shade at the end of the garden. The marked mystery of the new flirtation piqued Frank’s curiosity, and, striving to veil his question, he asked Sally who the young man was, and if her father knew he was coming to the Manor House.

"He! Don’t you know? That’s the fellow we often speak of — the only fellow Maggie ever really cared for. He has just come back from America. He is going to begin business in London.”

A sickening pain rose from his heart to his eyes, and he longed to place his hand on his heart.

"So that is the man she is engaged to," he said, after a pause. "I remember, now, you have spoken to me of him.”

“She is not exactly engaged to him. Father would never hear of it; he hasn’t a cent., and I believe he lost the little he had in America — now mind you must take care not to let out to father that he has been here, there would be the deuce of a row, and I promised Maggie not to tell any one; she has been nicer to me lately, and I want to play fair with her if she will play fair -with me.”

"Oh, I won’t tell any one; I won’t even let Maggie know that I know it was he.”

"It doesn’t matter about Maggie, she will tell you herself, no doubt, she doesn’t mind your knowing. What do you think of him? Isn’t he nice-looking?”

"I confess I should never have thought of calling him handsome, would you? And do you think he is quite a gentleman?”

"He seems to me to be all right.”

"All right, yes, but isn’t there a something? You can see he is in trade — all the trading people look alike, at least so I think.”

"But we are in trade, and I think he is quite as good as we are. But you seem quite put out; would you like to take his place? I did not know you were in love with Maggie.”

"I don’t know that I am in love with her. I like her very much; but, love or no love, I do not think it is right for her to walk round the garden alone with that fellow the whole afternoon. I don’t think it is very polite to me, and she knows her father does not like — ”

"But you must not say anything to father; mind you have promised me.”

"Oh, I sha’n’t say anything about it.”

The conversation dropped, and Sally’s efforts to revive it were in vain. Frank longed to get up from the tea-table and rush after Maggie. His heart ached to see her. He trembled lest she loved the man she was with, and rejoiced and took courage from the knowledge that she had not formally pledged herself to him. Frank was the romantic husband, not the lover; he found neither charm nor excitement in change; his heart demanded one single, avowed, and binding faith. He could take a woman who had sinned to his heart, and admit her to all his trust, for stolen kisses and illicit love were unfelt and imperfectly understood by him, and were considered as shadows and thin fancies, and not as facts full of mental consequences. He answered Sally in monosyllables, and on the first opportunity he pleaded letters to write, and withdrew. The gladness he felt that Maggie was truly not engaged to this fellow quickened and dominated his regret that the girls were inclined to behave so indiscreetly. The moment Mr Brookes turned his back it began — that perpetual going and coming of men — it really wasn’t right. Sally was a coarser nature, but Maggie! He might speak to Mr Brookes; no, that wouldn’t do. He might speak to Willy; but Willy didn’t care — he was absorbed in his wife and his speculations.

His little dinner at Mrs Heald’s passed in irritation and discomfort. He stands at the window, his brain full of Maggie — her graces, her fascinating cunning, and all her picturesqueness; and his mind changed as the sunset that engirdled the village. He knew nothing yet of his passion, nor did he think he could not bear to lose her until he went from the stuffy cottage towards his studio. He thought of his portrait of her. He wanted to muse on the little eyes as he had rendered them, and the strained grace that recalled the manner of the early Florentines. In this picture at least she was his, and his soul drank its fill of enchantment. Now he saw hardly at all the faults in the drawing, and his pain softened and almost ceased in the rhythm and romance of Schubert. But when he put down the violin, the flow of subjective emotion ceased, and he stared on the concrete and realistic image of his thought — Maggie passing through the shade with the young stranger.

Who was he? By whose authority was he there? Was he one of those men whose only pleasure is to tempt girls, to corrupt them? Had he thought of this before his duty would have been to interpose; and he saw himself striding down the garden and telling Maggie that he insisted on her coming back to the verandah to her sister. It did not matter if he had no right, he was prepared to answer for his conduct to her father and brother. Did that man look like one of those men who are always sitting with girls in far corners out of sight? Ah, if he were sure that he was one of those dastardly ruffians he would seek him out, force him to speak his intentions. If a girl’s father and brother will not look after her, a friend must say "I will." Yes, he would have to thrash him, kill him, if it were necessary. She might hate him for it at first, but in the end she would recognise him as her saviour.

It was too late now, the man was in Brighton. To-morrow? Elated with what he deemed “duty," with what he deemed "for the sake of the girl," he strode about, thinking of “the ruffian;" no thought came to him of how much of the sin, if sin there was, had originated in Maggie; he saw her merely as a poor little thing, led like a lamb. Following the idea of saving came the idea of possession. When she clung to the husband she would tremble at the danger she had escaped. Their home, their table, their fireside; protection from evil, now all wild winds might rage — they would be safe. The vision was constitutional and characteristic of his soul. He was out of thought of all but himself, his dream evolved in pure idea, removed from and independent of all limitations — out of concern of the world’s favour — Mount Rorke, Mr Brookes, or even the girl’s grace. As this temper passed, as reality again interposed, and as he saw the garden with Maggie leaving him for another, he viewed her conduct suddenly in relation to himself. What did she mean by treating him so, and for whom? One day he would be Lord Mount Rorke! The Brookes knew nobody. He had only met a lot of cads at their house; they did not know any one but cads. The Brookes were cads! The father was a vulgar old City man, who talked about money and bought ridiculous pictures. The girls, too, were vulgar and coarse. God only knew how many lovers they had not had. Willy was the best, but he was a fool, too. His miserliness and his vegetable shop — hateful! The whole place was hateful; he wished he had never come there; since he had been there he had never been treated even as a gentleman. The Brookes had treated him shamefully.

The skeleton of Frank’s soul is easy to trace in this mental crisis — his quixotism, his wish to sally forth and save women, his yearning for a pretty little wife, who would sit on his knee and kiss him, saying, “Poor old boy, you are tired now;" therefore an emotional and distorted apprehension of things, a tendency to think himself a wronged and persecuted person, and under much bravado and swagger the cringe that is so inveterate in the Celt.

Next morning he thought of her lightly, without bitterness and almost without desire; but after breakfast his heart began to ache. He strove to read, he went to his studio, he went to Brighton; but he saw Maggie in all things, she was with him — a sort of vague pain that kept him strangely conscious of life.

Once convinced he was a lover, he became the man with a mission; his heart swelled with mysterious promptings, and felt the spur of duty. No longer was delay admissible. A day, an hour might involve the loss of all. Should he go round to the Manor House, and tell Maggie of the message he had received to love her and save her? She would now be watering her flowers in the green-houses; but that other fellow might be there — he had heard something about an appointment. No, he had better write. If he wrote at once, absolutely at once, he would be in time for the six o’clock delivery. Snatching a sheet of paper he wrote: "Dearest Maggie, I have loved you a long while, I remember many things that make me think that I have always loved you; but to-day I have learnt that you are the one great and absorbing influence — that without you my life would be stupid and meaningless, whereas with you it shall be a joy, an achievement.

“I have frittered away much time; my efforts in painting and poetry have been lacking in strength and persistency. I have vacillated and wandered, and I did not know why; but now I know why — because you were not by me to encourage me, to help me by your presence and beauty. I will not speak of the position I offer you — I know it is unworthy of you. I would like to give you a throne; but, alas, I can but promise you a coronet." His hand stopped and he raised his eyes from the paper. He recollected the day he saw her a child, the day they went blackberrying over the hills. He saw her again, she was older and prettier, and she wore a tailor-cut cloth dress. How pretty she looked that day, and also when she wore that summer dress, those blue ribbons. All the colour, innocence, and mirth of his childhood came upon him sweetly, like an odour that passes and recalls. He sighed, and he murmured, "She is mine by right, all this could not have been if she were not for me." Ah, how he longed to sit with her, even at her feet, and tell her how his life would be but worship of her. He regretted that he was not poor, for to unite himself more closely to her he would have liked to win her clothes and food by his labour; and hearing himself speaking of love and seeing her as a maiden with the May time about her, his dreams drifted until the ticking of the clock forced him to remember that he could tell her nothing now of all his romance, so with pain and despair at heart he wrote, "Never before did I so ardently feel the necessity of seeing you, of sharing my soul with you, and yet now is the moment when I say, I must end. But let this end be the beginning of our life of love, devotion, and trust. I will come to-night to see you; I will not go into the billiard room, but will walk straight to the drawing-room. Do be there. Dearest Maggie, I am yours and yours only." He seized his hat and rushed to the post. He was in time, and now that the step had been taken, he walked back looking more than usually handsome and tall, pleased to see the children run out of school and roll on the grass, pleased to linger with the general.

"Where are you going to, sir?" said the old man.

"I’m going to my studio to play the fiddle. Will you come? I’ll give you a glass of sherry, and — ”

“Never touch anything, except at meals. I used to when I was as young as you, but not now. But I will go and hear a little music.”

Glad to have a companion, Frank took out the violin, and he played all the beautiful melodies he knew; and his mind ran chiefly on Schubert and Gounod. The beautiful "Soir," the still more beautiful "Printemps," and "La Chanson du Printemps" carried his soul away, nor could he forbear to sing when he came to the phrase, “La Neige des Pommiers." When musical emotion ran dry, he tried painting, but with poor result. During dinner he grew fevered and eager to see Maggie, and mad to tell her that he loved her, and could love none but her. At half-past eight the torture of suspense was more than he could endure, and he decided that he would go to the Manor House. He passed round the block of cottages, and got into the path that between the palings led through the meadows. It was a soft summer evening — moonlight and sunset played in gentle antagonism, and in a garden hat, he saw Maggie coming towards him. He noticed the pink shawl about her shoulders, and the thought struck him, “had she come to ask him to elope." She stopped, and she hesitated as if she were going to turn back again. He ran forward, and said —

“Maggie.”

"Oh, I am so sorry," she said, speaking with difficulty, "but I wanted you to get this before nine.”

“Never mind, darling,” he said smiling, “you can tell me all about it — it will be sweeter to hear you talk. Which way shall we go?”

"I really don’t think I can now; father doesn’t know I am out. This letter will — ”

"No, no; I cannot bear to part with you. How pretty you look in that hat. Come.”

“No, Frank, I cannot now, and you had better leave me. I cannot walk with you to-night. Read this letter.”

"Then am I — is it really so?" said Frank, growing suddenly pale. "You will not have me?”

"You must read this letter, it will tell you all. I am truly sorry, but I did not know you cared for me, at least not like that. I don’t think I could, I really don’t. But I don’t know what I am saying. How unfortunate it was meeting you. I but thought to run round and leave the letter, it would have explained all better than I could. We have known you so long. You will forgive me?”

She stood with the letter in her hand. He snatched it a little theatrically and tore it open. She watched, striving to read the effect of her words in his face. They dealt in regrets. There was an exasperating allusion to engaged affections. There was a long and neatly-worded conclusion suggesting friendship. She had taken a great deal of trouble with the composition, and was very fearful as to the result. She felt she could not marry him, at least, not just at present, she didn’t know why. Altogether Frank’s proposal had puzzled and distressed her. She felt she must see her flirtation out with Charlie, but at the same time she did not want to utterly lose Frank, or worse still, perhaps, to hand him over to Sally. She was determined that Sally should not be Lady Mount Rorke, and she thrilled a little when she saw he would not give her up easily, and her heart sank when she thought of the difficulty of continuing her intrigue without prejudicing her future. If Frank would only leave Southwick for a little while.

"Is this all? The meaning is clear enough; it means that you love the man I saw yesterday at the Manor House. But he shall not have you; I will save you from him. Listen to me — I swear he shall not have you; I will strive to outwit him by every means in my power. If I don’t get you, none shall. I will shoot the man rather than he should get you.”

"Oh, Frank! you would not commit murder?”

“I would, for you; but it will not be necessary. I can challenge him to fight a duel, and if he is cowardly enough to refuse, I will horsewhip him before your face, and I don’t suppose you will marry him after that.”

Maggie struggled with feelings of laughter, fear, and delight; delight overpowered laughter, for Frank was young and handsome, and full of what he said. It was quite romantic to be talked to like that. She would like to see the men threaten each other. But then — the scandal; father might never get over it; and if he married again. Speaking slowly and in an undertone so as not to betray herself, she said, "Oh, Frank, I’m sure you would not do anything that would injure me.”

"My darling, I love you better than the whole world; my whole life, if you will, shall be spent in striving to make you happy.”

“You are very good."She took his hand and squeezed it; he returned the pressure with rapturous look and motion. She drew from him a little, for there were some people coming towards them, and she said, "Take care." When the fishing folk had passed, she looked at him stealthily. She had always liked him in that necktie, and those cloth shoes were perfect. Had she never known Charlie, or if she had not gone so far with him! — There was something in Frank that was very nice — she could like the two; what a pity the two were not one. "If he were always as nice as he is now, and not lecture me!”

Then she remembered she must return home.

"I must really go home; I cannot go any farther — ”

“No, no, I cannot leave you. I must see and hear you now; if you knew what I have endured waiting for you, you would not be so cruel. Come, and let us sit on the beach.”

“I couldn’t, I must go back, father will miss me; besides what have we to say? If I were only free and could tell you that I loved you, it would be different.”

“Free! then you regret; if a woman wills it she can always free herself.”

"No, it is harder than you think for a girl to get out of an engagement she has entered into, even if no absolute promise has been given.”

"What do you mean? If you have entered into no formal engagement you are surely free.”

“I don’t know. Do you think so? I am afraid men think that a promise may be broken after marriage as well as before.”

“You are wrong. Women who are jealous, who are old, tell girls that men are always unfaithful, but I am sure that if I loved a girl I could never think of another. Do you really think I could think of any girl but you?”

"I don’t know. I wonder if all you say is true.”

"Do you think me different from other men?”

“Yes, but I cannot go on the beach; some other evening I will walk there with you.”

“No, now, now — I want to tell you how, and when I began to love. Do you remember when I used to spend part of my holidays at the Manor House when I was only so high, and you were all in short frocks? Come, there is much I want to say to you; I cannot part with you yet. See what a beautiful evening it is, and is not the coast beyond Brighton beautiful — those white cliffs just indicated on dissolving grey and rose tints.”

“I wonder you don’t come down here and paint.”

"I daresay I might find one or two pretty bits. Singular little place Southwick always appears to me to be. This long row of slatternly houses overlooking this strange canal running for so many miles parallel with the sea.”

"It goes right up to Littlehampton. I think you could walk from Southwick to Littlehampton along the shingle. It is lucky we have the shingle; if the sea once got over the shingle it would take the town away, and, flowing through the railway, it would fill up the green.”

Some boys plunged from a boat and swam about a ship’s side, and a man sat fishing from the locks. The monotony grew upon them, and to stroll through the heavy shifting shingle was impossible. Nor did they even find the murmur of the water inspiriting, or the bare coast pleasant to look upon. She could love him a little when she looked at him, but when he talked she lost interest in him, he bored her. So looking and listening but little, she sat by him. She had allowed him to take her hand, he had bent towards her and she had let him kiss her; and then they talked of love — she of its bitterness and disappointments; he of its aspirations, and gradually their souls approached like shadows in the twilight, paused for a few vague moments, seemed as if lost in dreams.

"I shall never forget this night! Oh, my love, tell me one day you will be mine.”

"I cannot promise, you must not ask me.”

"We were meant for each other. It was not blind fate that cast us together. Does no voice tell you this? I hear it in my heart.”

The abandonment, the mystery of the gathering dusk, touched Maggie’s fancy. They were alone in the twilight, and it was full of the romance of a rising tide.

“Never did I know such happiness; I am supremely happy, alone with you beneath this sky, listening to the vague wild voice of the sea. It would be bitter sweet to die in such a triumphant hour. Supposing we were to lie here and allow the sea to take us away.”

"No, I don’t want to die. I want to live and enjoy my life.”

The answer fell a little chillingly on Frank’s rapture. Then after a pause, Maggie said, "I think I have read of that somewhere — in a novel — lovers caught by the tide.”

"Yes, I daresay you have. I was thinking of two lovers, who were so overcome with happiness that they decided that they would not trust themselves again to the waves and storms of life, but would let the calm, slow tide of death take them away with all their happiness unassailed." Maggie did not answer. The double fear had come upon her — first, that the tide might rise higher than usual and cut off their retreat. Secondly, that Frank — he was a poet — might insist on remaining there and being drowned. Getting up, she said —

"I do not know what father will say when I get home, really it is quite dark. Come, Frank.”

"Death is better than a life of abomination — loss of innocence and of delight in simple things. I ask you," he said, stopping her suddenly.

“Yes, no doubt it is so; but I want to get home. Do go on, Frank.”

"I will save you from a life of abomination — in other words I will save you from him; he shall not get you. I have sworn it; you did not know that when you were lying down on the beach — you had ceased speaking, and in the silence my life seemed stirred to its very essence; and I knew that I must struggle against him, and conquer. I want to know this: have you ever thought of what your life would be with him, have you ever thought what he is?”

“But you don’t know him, Frank; you have never spoken to him; I am sure you misjudge him.”

"Do you think I cannot see what he is? He is one of those men whose one ambition is to make themselves friendly in a house where there are women to wheedle. If the wife is young he will strive to wheedle her, and though he may not succeed he must degrade her. Or, if she have daughters, he will never cease to appeal to, to work upon, to excite latent feelings which, had it not been for him, would never have been developed into base and abnormal desire. I know what the foul-minded beast is. Such men as he ought to be killed; we don’t want them in our society. I want to save you, I want to give you a noble, a pure life, full of the charms of a husband’s influence, a home where there would be love of natural things. You are capable of all this, Maggie, your nature is a pure one, but your life is unwholesome and devoid of purity.”

"Frank, how can you speak so, you have no right to say such things about us. I am sure you have always been well treated — ”

“You do not understand me, I will explain what I mean. Your life is rich and luxurious, but you arc not happy, no one is happy in idleness; above all no woman is happy without love. A woman’s mission in life is to love, she must have her home, her husband, and her children. These are the things that make a woman happy; and these are the things I want to give you — that I will give you; for listen to me, I swear you shall not have that adventurer. He would degrade you with pleasure at first, and afterwards with neglect. You are too good for this, Maggie — it must not be, it shall not be. As I said before, death would be better." They stood in front of the canal locks, and Maggio looked with a beating heart on the deep water that a ray from a crescent moon faintly indicated. “A woman is helpless until she finds her lord, he who shall save, the saviour who shall bring her home safe to the fold. He exists! and all are in danger till they find him. Some miss him — they wander into misery and ruin; those that find him are led to happiness and content. I am yours. I would tell you how I became convinced that I am the one appointed by God to lead you to Him.”

“I thought you didn’t believe in God.”

“Not as we have been taught to understand Him, but I believe in a presiding power — call it luck, fate, oi’ destiny that — that exists and -wills; that is to say, watches over — rules out that this man is for that woman, and ordains that he shall protect her from danger, shall save her from those that seek her destruction. Much has happened to prove that I was intended for you. We have known each other since we were children; do you not remember when I kissed you in the verandah as I was going to school — I was the first man who kissed you; you were the first woman who kissed me; have you never felt that we were for each other? Nor can I forget that when I thought we had drifted for ever apart, that I was brought back. Do you think that it was accident — blind chance? I don’t. Now I see this man striving to win you, and whether it be for your money, whether it be for yourself, or for both, it is not my duty to say. No, this must not be.”

"I think you are mistaken about Charlie. I admit that a man is often a better judge than a girl; and as for you, Frank, I am sure I am very fond of you. It is very good of you to take such interest in me — but we must get home. I don’t know what father will think.”

"No, before you go a step further you must promise me not to see that man again. I cannot tell you how, but I know no good can come of it. He is one of those creatures who cannot love, and only care for women for the excitement they afford; I know what sort of brute he is. It is more depraving to walk alone with him, than to be the mistress of a man who loved you.”

"He is leaving Brighton in a few days.”

“So much the better for all of us. But you must promise me. I would sooner see you lying drowned in that lock than his wife.”

Maggie trembled. It was ridiculous to think of such a thing. Surely he did not mean to drown her if she refused to promise. Charlie was going to London in a few days; he would be away for three or four months. Heaven only knows what would happen in that time. She didn’t see what right Frank had to bully her — to extort promises from her by night on the edge of a dangerous lock. But a promise wasn’t much, and a promise given in such circumstances was not a promise at all.

"If you are really in earnest, if you think it is for my good, I’ll promise you not to see him again.”

"Oh, Maggie, if you only knew what a load of trouble you have taken off my mind! Thank you — give me your hand, and let me thank you. I know I am right. And now, tell me, can you love me? Will you marry me?”

“I will promise nothing more to-night; we shall see how you behave yourself," the girl replied, winningly. “And now, go on, sir, we have been here quite long enough.”

He crossed the gate mechanically, she followed eagerly, and when she reached the other side, her heart beat with pride at her pretty triumph. Now I’ll twit him, she thought, as they ascended the shore and entered the town.

"I wonder why you think Charlie so wicked; I think if you knew him you would change your opinion.”

"I am very thankful indeed that I do not know him.”

The conversation dropped, but a moment after he gave her the chance she wanted.

"Mind you have promised me not to see him again. I trust you.”

"But suppose he calls and if I should be in the drawing-room, I cannot walk out of the room without speaking to him.”

"I think you had better write and say you do not wish to see him.”

“I couldn’t do that; we have known him a long time, and father has always said that we must be rude to no one. Besides, what reason could I give?”

“You need not give a reason. But let that pass, I can’t see why you should meet; you can surely tell your servant to say ‘Not at home,’ when he calls.”

"I might be in the garden — Sally would not allow it. If John said ‘Not at home,’ she would run down and let him in.”

"I see you are raising difficulties; I see you do not intend to keep your promise.”

“You have been quite rude enough for one evening; you have kept me out on the beach by force till nearly ten o’clock at night, and you said that my life at the Manor House was not a pure one; I don’t know what you mean. No man ever spoke to me like that before.”

"You misunderstood me. If you knew how I loved you, you would not twit me with my own words. Heaven knows I would sooner go back and drown myself in the lock than do anything or say anything that would offend you. Remember also that I asked you to be my wife.”

"You are not the first. I daresay it may appear strange to you, but others have asked me the same question before.”

"It does not seem strange to me, it only seems strange to me that every one doesn’t love you, but I daresay they do. Oh, Maggie, remember that you gave me hope, you said that you might — ”

"DidI? Well, it’s too late to talk any more. Good night. I suppose you’re not coming in?”

She left him in a cruel dispersal of hope. He avoided, and then he tenderly solicited a regret that he had not thrown her into the lock. To end on that hour by the sea would have been better than the trivial and wretched conclusion of a broken promise, and everything, even murder, were better than that a brute should have her woman’s innocence to sully and destroy. His desire of the woman was lost in the desire to save her, or rather the idea of which to him she was now the symbol.

The white sickle of the moon hung over the old-fashioned village. He stood staring at the pollard trees that curtained the embankment. The leaves whitened when the breeze shot them up to the light, and now they were quite distinct in the glare and the steam of an approaching engine. He might go and tell Willy all about it; he would ask him to interfere — could he catch that train? If he ran for it, yes. He ran full tilt across the green under the archway up the high stone steps. He just did it.

It was the last train; he would sleep in Brighton. His plan, so far as he had a definite plan, was to ask Willy to come with him and tell "that brute" that his visits to the Manor House must end, and request him to pay his sister no further attentions. His other plans were — Willy must speak to Maggie and tell her all he knew of the man; Willy must speak to his father; Mr Brookes must not be kept in ignorance. But of course the right thing to do would be for Willy and him to call at the brute’s hotel, tell him what they thought, and give him a licking. The train jogged on, and Frank made plan after plan. It was now past eleven, and he would not be at East Street before twelve o’clock. As he hurried along the streets he doubted more than ever how Willy would receive him. He might just as well have waited till morning. However, it was too late now to think of going back, there was no train, and he rapped at first timidly and then noisily at the shop door. He had to wait some time, and then he heard a voice asking from the top windows who was there.

"’Tis I, Frank; awfully sorry, but must see you — particular business.”

There was no answer; he heard the voice grumbling, and more than ever doubtful of the cordiality of his reception, he listened. The door opened.

"Who is it?" he said.

“’Tis I, Cissy; but I am in my night-dress.”

"I won’t look at you, Cissy, if that’s what you mean. But won’t you give me a kiss?”

"Stoop down, then.”

"I am sorry for waking you up, Cissy.”

“Never mind, I would get up at any hour to see you.”

"There, run upstairs, and take care you don’t catch cold, or I shall never hear the end of it.”

“Father is in bed with mother. He says you are to go up, for if he were to get out of bed it might give him cold. You know his room?”

“Yes, here it is, now run along.”

"Come in.”

Frank was a little shocked, and he waited stupidly on the threshold. He could see a fragment of Mrs Brookes’s profile, and beneath the clothes the outline of Willy’s fat body.

"Come in, come in," he said, "don’t stand there filling the room with cold air. Now, what is it? Why the deuce do you come here waking us up at this ungodly hour? What has happened?”

"I have proposed to your sister Maggie.”

“I am sure I am delighted to hear it, old chap; but I can’t help thinking that I could have congratulated you equally as well, if not better, in the morning." Then, noticing the distressed look in Frank’s face, he said, “I hope she has not refused you.”

“No, she asked me to wait, she said it would depend — ”

"Then you may depend it is all right; now go away and let me go to sleep, we’ll talk about it in the morning. You can’t get back to-night. You are sleeping in Brighton, I suppose. You’ll come and breakfast here?”

"Yes, with pleasure, but it was not exactly to tell that I had proposed to Maggie that I came here to-night; there is something more than that. You know that fellow she calls Charlie — I don’t know his other name.”

"Stracey?”

"I dare say. I mean the man you said you hated more than any man alive; I hate him, too.”

"You don’t mean to say she is still thinking of that fellow. Has he come back?”

"He was at the Manor House all day yesterday.”

"If she marries that fellow I'll never speak to her again, it will be dead cuts.”

"It is only natural that I should love Maggie. You remember the first day I came down to the Manor House. How young I was then — how young we all were; there are no days like the old days. There is a beautiful poem by Wordsworth; I only remember one line now —

‘When every day was long

As twenty days are now ’ —

Do you remember the poem?" Willy did not answer, and noticing that his eyes were blinking, Frank hastily returned to more recent events. "I wrote to her this afternoon telling her how much I loved her, and I said that I would call about nine in the evening at the Manor House, and that I hoped to find her in the drawing-room where we could talk without being disturbed. However I was too excited, and could not hold out till nine; I thought I had better hear my fate at once, and as I was walking across the field — you know, at the back of Mrs Heald’s — I met her half way. She had a letter in her hand, which she said she was going to leave at Mrs Heald’s for me. She admitted that the letter was in point of fact a refusal, and when I questioned her she admitted that she was obliged to refuse me because she had half promised Charlie. We went for a walk on the beach; we sat on the beach and watched the sunset, and I told her all. I spoke to her about the past, how we had grown up together — how we had been, as it were, from the first fated for each other; for you must admit, Willy, that it is very curious, — I don’t know if you ever think of it, but I do — how we have met again even when the chances of life seemed to have put us for ever apart.” Here a slight sound warned Frank that the present moment was one as equally unfitted for psychological analysis as for poetry, and he hurried to his story, hoping that the incident of the lock would secure him attention. “Willy, I think I convinced her that I liked her better than that other fellow. We were standing by the lock — Willy, I really do think you might listen."

"Aly dear fellow, I am listening. You were both looking at the sunset.”

"It really is too bad. Of course, if you don’t want to hear, and would prefer to go to sleep, you have only to say so.”

"My dear fellow, I assure you I wasn’t asleep. I only closed my eyes because I can’t bear the glare of that candle. I know where you were — you were looking at the sunset.”

"No, we weren’t.”

"Weren’t they, Jessie? Are you asleep?”

"No, I am not asleep. Do hold your tongue, Willy, I want to hear the story. You were standing by the lock, Mr Escott.”

"Ah, yes, so they were.”

"I felt it was my duty, so I told her that I felt it was my mission to save — to save her from that man, and I made her promise me not to see him again.”

"Then it is all right. Nobody can be more glad than I am. I hate the fellow.”

"She will not keep her promise. Of course she may only have done it to tease me; but as we were going home she said she could not walk out of the room if she happened to be there when he called, nor could she leave word with the servants to say that they were not at home — She made a lot of excuses. What are you laughing at, Mrs Brookes?”

"I am really very sorry, Mr Escott, but I could not help wondering if she would change her mind again if you were to go back to the lock."

Frank took up the candle and turned to go.

"Don’t go," Willy murmured faintly.

“I am very sorry, Mr Escott — if circumstances permitted, I would do all I could to help you.”

This was delicate ground, and Willy woke up.

"What do you want me to do? Have you anything to suggest?”

“Yes, it struck me that we might both go round to the fellow’s hotel — Stracey, you call him, I think, and you might tell him that his visits must cease at the Manor House, and that he must not speak to your sister if he should happen to meet her. That should bring the matter to an end. He is in Brighton — he is staying at the Grand. We might go round there to-morrow morning.”

"He might lack us out.”

“I only hope he may try. I would give him such a hammering. But you need not be afraid of that. It would not do to have Maggie’s name mentioned in connection with a vulgar brawl — people are not too charitable. My idea is that this business should be conducted in the quietest and most gentlemanly manner possible.”

"I think I had better speak to father first.”

“No necessity; he will be only too glad to get rid of the penniless brute. Don’t you think so, Mrs Brookes?”

“I do.”

They then spoke of other things — of the shop, the profit they had made on tomatoes, and the losses that had resulted from over-stocking themselves with flour. At last a loud snore brought the conversation to a full stop, and Frank hurriedly bade them good-night.

"Cissy will let you out," said Willy, with a sigh of relief.

The little girl had pulled on her stockings and tied a petticoat round her waist. “So you are going to be married.”

"Oh, Cissy, you have been listening.”

"Is she very nice? She must be very nice for you to marry her. I should like to marry you.”

“Would you, Cissy, and why?”

"Oh, because you are so very handsome. But you will come and see us all the same, and let me sit on your knee?”

"Of course I will, Cissy, and now good night.”

Next morning Willy declared himself ready to go and see Mr Charles Stracey, and to tell him that he was not to call any more at the Manor House, or speak to Miss Brookes if he should happen to meet her. Frank wondered if this decision was owing to Mrs Brookes’ influence.

"I slept last night at the ‘Grand.’ It seemed odd sleeping in the same house — perhaps within a few doors of him. If you only knew how I love her, if I could only tell you, you would pity me. You ought to know what I feel — the anxiety, the heart-ache. I know you have gone through it all.”

“Yes, I think I know what it is," Willy replied, thoughtfully.

"Mr Stracey is staying here?”

"Will you inquire at the office, sir?”

While the books were being searched the young men consulted together. Frank said,

"Send up your card, and say you will be glad to speak to him on a matter of importance. Of course he will see you, but before you speak about Maggie you must apologise for my presence; you must say that I am a very particular friend, and that you thought it better that the interview should take place in the presence of a witness.”

"I wish it were all over. I would not do what I am doing for any one else, I can tell you, Frank.”

"Mr Stracey is in the hotel, sir.”

"Will you give him my card, and say I should be glad to speak to him on a matter of importance?”

“Very good, sir.”

(In an undertone to Frank), "Was that right?”

"Quite right.”

"Oh, one thing I had forgotten to ask you. Am I to shake hands with him?”

"You mean if he offers you his hand?”

“Yes.”

"It is impossible to settle everything beforehand. One must act according as the occasion requires.”

"That’s all very well for you, but I am a slow man, and am lost if I don’t arrange beforehand.”

“Pretend not to see his hand, and apologise for my presence; he will then see that we mean business.”

"The waiting is the worst part.”

"Will you walk this way, sir," said the page boy. "Mr Stracey is not out of bed yet, but he said if you wouldn’t mind, sir.”

They shrank from their enterprise instinctively, but the door was thrown open, and they saw a bath, and a sponge, and a towel, and Mr Stracey lying on his back reading The Sparling Times. He extended a long brawny arm. The strength of the arm fixed itself on Willy’s mind, and he doubted if he had not better take the proffered hand.

“I brought my friend Mr Escott with me, for I thought a witness — I mean, that this interview should be conducted in the presence of a third party.”

At this speech Charlie opened his eyes and dropped his paper. Willy leaned over the rail of the bed; Frank looked into the bath, but remembering himself suddenly, he examined the chest of drawers.

"I have come to speak to you about my sister.”

Charlie changed countenance, and both men noticed the change.

“I mean to say I have come to tell you that you must discontinue your visits to the Manor House, and I must beg of you not to address my sisters should you meet them.”

“May I ask if you are your father’s representative, if you speak with his authority?”

"I do not. I — ”

“Then I should like to know on what authority you forbid me a house that doesn’t belong to you, and I should like to know if your father doesn’t disapprove of my knowing your sisters, why you should? I shall speak to Miss Brookes so long as she cares to speak to me. The very idea of a little fat man like you coming here to bully me! You have got my answer.”

“If, after this warning," said Frank, who, seeing that things were going against them, thought he had better interfere, "you speak to Miss Brookes, you will do so at your peril.”

"Peril! What do you mean?”

"I mean that you must be prepared to take the consequences.”

"Who are you? I should like to know what you have to do in this matter? ”

"I speak as Miss Brookes’ future husband.”

"Future husband be damned! She’ll never marry you," said Charlie, springing out of bed. Frank threw himself on his guard, and they would have struck each other if Willy had not cried out.

"Frank, remember you promised me. There must be no scandal.”

“I had almost forgotten. For Miss Brookes’s sake, I refrain. Do you also, for her sake, cease to provoke me.”

Charlie hesitated for a moment, then rushing to the door, he said, "I, too, for Miss Brookes’s sake, refrain, and I give you three seconds to clear out.”

In attempting to carry out the injunction Willy nearly fell in the bath. Frank had to bite his lip to avoid a smile, and he stalked out of the room assuming his most arrogant air.

"I think on the whole we got the best of it," he said as they went down stairs.

"Do you? He turned us out of his room!”

"That’s the worst of tackling a man in his own room — if he tells you to go, and you don’t go, he can ring for the servants.”

“I was as nearly as possible going into the bath.”

“Yes, a touch more and down you’d have gone." Frank laughed, and Willy laughed, "and that fellow in his nightshirt fishing you out.”

"Oh, don’t, don’t — ”

Frank asked Willy to lunch with him at Mutton’s, and he ordered a bottle of champagne in honour of the day.

“I say, just fancy pulling you out of the bath, and wiping you with a towel. I can see you dripping!”

“Don’t set me off again. Let me enjoy my cutlets.”

"By Jove, there’s something I hadn’t thought of.”

"What’s that?”

“We must be off. We must tell Maggie what has happened before he has time to communicate with her. What is the next train to Southwick?”

"There’s one at half-past one.”

"It was after twelve when we saw him, he won’t have time to catch that. We must be off. Waiter, the bill, and be quick. Look sharp, Willy, finish the bottle, pity to waste it.”

"What a nuisance women are, to be sure. Just as I was enjoying my cutlet. I can’t walk fast in this weather, I should make myself ill.”

“We must take a cab.”

"What a fellow you are, you never think of the expense, I don’t know where I should be if I were as reckless as you are.”

"Supposing he were at the station. It would be rather a sell if we went down by the same train! What should we do? He would surely never attempt to force his way in!”

"I don’t think he would attempt that. If he did, we should have to send for the police.”

The young men strove to decide how the news should be broken to Maggie. But they had arranged nothing before they arrived at Southwick, and Frank stopped Willy time after time by the footpath, until at last in despair the latter said:

"We must make haste; there’s another train in twenty minutes.”

"By Jove, I had not thought of that; we must get on. Well, then, it is all arranged. You must tell her that you thought it your duty. Put it all down to duty, and it was your duty to do what you did — putting entirely out of the question the service you did me.”

“I can tell you what, Frank, I am very sorry I ever meddled in the matter. Had I known the vexation and annoyance it would have caused — and mark my words, and see if they don’t come true, we are only commencing the annoyances that the affair will cause us; — Ah, had I only foreseen; — what a fool I was; I ought to have known better; I have had nothing but bad luck all my life, nothing. It is perfectly wonderful the bad luck I have had; no matter what I did, nothing seemed to go right. I daresay if you had gone to see that fellow without me it would have turned out differently. But I don’t see how I am to tell my sister point blank that I have forbidden him the house. What will she say; she may fly at me. Women have queer tempers, particularly when you interfere with their young men. My sisters have the very worst of tempers; you don’t know them as I do. Fortunately it is not Sally. I assure you I wouldn’t face Sally with such news for all the money you could give me.”

"I am very sorry, old chap, but we must now go through it. You must forbid her to communicate with him.”

"She won’t heed what I say. It will only excite her. She will fly at me and call me names, and burst into tears. I should not be surprised if she went off her head, she has been very strange once before. I don’t mean to say she was ever wrong in her head, but she is a nervous, excitable girl — most excitable; my sisters are the most excitable girls I have ever known.”

It was surprisingly soon over. Willy had not spoken a dozen words, when he was interrupted.

"You mean to say you have been to call on him?”

“Yes; and we told him he was never to speak to you again.”

Frank expected her eyes to flash fire, but he only noticed a slight change in her face, a movement of the muscles of the lower jaw.

"Then I will speak to neither of you again!" and she walked out of the room, and in dismay they listened to her going upstairs.

"She didn’t fly at me," said Willy; and, looking a little terrified, he stroked his moustache softly. “I told you she would give no heed to what we said; nor do I see how we can prevent her seeing that fellow if she chooses. He cannot come into the house, it is true, but she can go out when she pleases.”

"We must follow her.”

Conscious of defeat, Willy desired compromise. He could not be induced to take a share of watching and following which Frank declared essential; and seriously dreading an encounter with Stracey, whose brawny arm was impossible to forget, he shut himself up in the shop, and devoted himself to drawing up a most elaborate balance-sheet, showing how he would stand if he were obliged to close the business to-morrow. Frank loitered about the roads, — but Mrs Horlock came along with her dogs, and engaged him in conversation, and no matter at what corner he stationed himself, he found he was not free from observation. And next morning he could not bring himself to return to his post, and contented himself with looking out of his window, and taking an occasional stroll by the embankment, when he saw a train signalled.

Daily his condition grew more and more ridiculous. True it is that he had heard that his rival’s holiday had come to an end, and that he had been forced to return to his counting-house in London. True it is that Mr Brookes had in a certain measure approved of Willy’s action in forbidding young Stracey the Manor House, and therefore of his, Frank Escott’s, suit, but neither of these gains compensated him for the crowning loss of not being able to see his beloved, for although the Manor House was still theoretically open to him, practically it was closed. The sisters, although at variance on all subjects, had united in condemning him and Willy, and during one dinner, the misery of which he declared he could never forget, they had sat whispering together, refusing to address him either by look or word. Willy took all this calmly. It is an ill wind that blows no good, and the silence enabled him to thoroughly masticate his food. Mr Brookes wept a little and laughed a little, and reminded them of the oblivion that awaited all their little quarrels.

All this, like much else in life, was ridiculous enough; but because we are ridiculous, it does not follow that we do not suffer, and Frank suffered very genuinely indeed. He was five-and-twenty, and light love had him fairly by the shoulder; he winced, and he cried out, but very soon his dignity gave way and he craved forgiveness. But Maggie passed without heeding him. For more than a week she resisted all his appeals, and it was not until she saw that she was taking the neighbourhood into her confidence, and to feel that if she did not relent a little he might leave Southwick, and not return, she answered him with a monosyllable. With what bliss did he hear that first “no," and how passionately he pleaded for a few words; it did not seem to matter what they were, so long as he heard her speak one whole sentence to him. Feeling her power, she was shy of yielding, and with every concession she drew him further into the meshes of love. He dined now nearly every day at the Manor House, and he spent an hour, sometimes two, with her in the morning or afternoon; he followed her from greenhouse to greenhouse, but all his efforts were abortive, and he failed not only to obtain her promise to marry him, but even a renewal of the feeble and partial hopes which she had accorded him that night on the beach. He prayed, he wept, he implored pity, he openly spoke of suicide, and he hinted at murder. But Maggie passed him, pushing him out of the way with the watering pot, threatening to water him too, until one day he drew a revolver. She screamed, and the revolver was put away, but on the next occasion a stiletto that he had brought from Italy was produced, and with a great deal of earnestness life was declared to be a miserable thing. It was absurd, no doubt, but at the same time it was not a little pathetic; he was so good-looking, and so sincere. Maggie put down the watering pot, and she would probably have allowed him to take her hand and kiss her, if he had not spoken roughly about Charlie, and called her conduct into question. So she told him she would not speak to him again, and she continued watering the flowers in silence. Amid vague remembrances of murders she had read of, Frank’s words and behaviour remained present in her mind, and that evening when Willy, who rarely took the trouble to speak, much less to advise his sisters, told her that she might never get such a chance again, she said:

"I am not going to marry a madman to please your vanity.”

"Marry a madman! What do you mean?”

"Well, I call a man that who comes regularly to see a girl with a revolver in one pocket and a stiletto in the other, and threatens to leave himself wallowing in a pool of blood at her feet — ”

“You mean to say he does that? You are clearly determined to drive the poor fellow out of his mind with your infernal coquetry. Well, women are the most troublesome, and I believe in many cases the wickedest creatures on the face of God’s earth.”

“You shut up. Men who don’t get on with women always abuse them; you are soured since Miss — , the actress, jilted you.”

“If you ever dare mention that subject, I will never speak to you again. You know I don’t break my word.”

“Why do you interfere in my affairs? You don’t think of me when you go down to browbeat Charlie Stracey; you don’t think of what would have been said of me had Frank hit him, and it had all come out in the papers." Maggie said no more; she saw she had gone too far. Willy sat puffing at his pipe; but when her father spoke of a certain investment that had not turned out as well as he had anticipated, he joined in the conversation, and she hoped her cruelty was forgotten.

✱ ✱ ✱

Frank uttered a cry of surprise when he opened the studio door to his friend. It was his favourite complaint that Willy never came to see him.

“At last, at last; this is the second time you have been in the place since it was finished, faithless friend.”

"My dear fellow, you know it is not my fault; I have been very busy lately trying to get on with my accounts. There’s not a room in the Manor House where I can work in; my sisters’ things are everywhere, and they must not be interfered with — their ball-dresses, their birds, their work. My sisters think of nothing but pleasure.”

"Tris, go back, go to your chair, sir; I’ll get the whip.”

Showing his fangs, the bull-dog retired; then with a hideous growl sprang upon his chair, and sat eyeing Willy’s calves.

"I cannot think what pleasure it can give you to keep such a brute. Even if I had my accounts finished, I don’t think I should care to come here much. It isn’t safe.”

“You are quite mistaken. There’s not a better-tempered dog alive than Tris; he wouldn’t bite any one unless they attacked me. Give me a slap, and you’ll see — I won’t let him come near you.”

"Thank you, I’d rather not. But he sometimes growls even at you, and shows his teeth, too.”

"That’s only a way of his, and when he does it I kick him. Come here, Tris — come here, sir!" The dog approached slowly; he sat down and gave his paw to his master, but he did not cease to growl. "There! We have had enough of you, go back to your chair. What will you take — a glass of Chartreuse — a cigarette?”

"Thanks, both if you will let me. I see you like pretty things,"he said, admiring the tall legs of the table — early English — and the quaint glasses into which Frank poured the liqueur. "You have got the place to look very nice.”

"Very different to what it was when the smith and his boisterous brood were here," and as if he intended an apt illustration of his words, he stretched his leg out on the white fur rug and surveyed his calf and red silk stocking. "Just look at that dog, isn’t he a beauty? I always think he looks well in that attitude, leaning his head over the rail. Gad, he’s like a piece of Renaissance sculpture. I began a picture of him the other day in a pose somewhat like that. I’ll show it you." Frank propped his sketch against the leg of the sofa, and returned to his place on the sofa. "What do you think of it? Your father said it was very like.”

"It is like him, but I can see no merit in it. I’m afraid of the brute. I can’t help hating him, for he always looks as if he were going for my legs. What else have you been painting? Any pretty women about? I should admire them more.”

"I haven’t been painting lately," he said, sighing a little melodramatically, as was his wont, "I think I have been playing the piano more than anything else. I have composed something too, I don’t think it bad, I’ll play it to you: a dialogue between a gentleman and a lady. He speaks first, then she answers, then I blend the two motives, and that is what they both say.”

Willy sat enwrapped in his own thoughts, not having heard a note. Though he knew that Willy was incapable of judging of music, it disappointed him that his dialogue had passed unperceived. Then smiling, he struck a few notes, and Willy awoke. "You have not been listening," he said, reproachfully. “You don’t care for any music, except that little tune.”

"Yes, I do; I heard what you played, and I think it very pretty.”

“Willy, I am the most miserable man in the world. Every hour, every minute of my life is a pain to me. I never knew before what you must have suffered, but I know now; it is a sickening feeling, it takes you by the throat, it rises in the throat, and you are almost suffocated. Last night I lay awake hour after hour thinking. I could see Maggie as plainly as I can see you — she looked down upon me out of space with strange steadfast eyes, and my whole soul went out to her, and I cried to her that I loved her beyond all things; and we seemed to be so near each other; it seemed such an intimate and perfect communion of spirit and sense that I seemed, as it were, lifted out of actual life; I seemed to myself holier, purer, better than I had ever been before; I seemed to lose all that is gross and material in me, and to gain in all that is best and worthiest in man. Did you feel like that when you were in love?’’

"I don’t know that I felt exactly like that. But never mind how I felt; you are too fond of alluding to that subject, it is a very painful one to me; you will make me regret that I ever told you anything about it.”

"I am sorry I mentioned it. It is strange, but when one suffers one likes to speak of and to compare with one’s own the suffering that another has endured. Your sister treats me most cruelly. She has forgiven me that miserable business, but she refuses to hold out any hope that she will ever be my wife. I do not understand — I am utterly at sea. I don’t believe for a moment that she cares for that horrid brute; he is gone away. She tells me she never cared for him. If so, I should like to learn your explanation of her conduct.”

Willy stroked his moustache, apparently declining the responsibility of apologist; but his manner showed he had something on his mind, and Frank sought more eagerly than ever to enlist his sympathy and support.

"I have done everything I could to win her; I don’t know why she should be so difficult to please. I am not bad looking, I am at least as good looking as that damned brute " (here he paused to glance at himself in the glass and smooth the curls above his forehead). "I am certainly quite as clever " (here he thought of his painting, and his eye sought one of his pictures), "and my position — I will not speak of that, it would be snobbish. Women have cared for me. I have told Maggie hundreds of times that I never could care for any but her. Fate seems to have specially marked us for each other. You must admit that there is something very remarkable in the way we have been brought together over and over again. I have told her that my life is worthless -without her. The day before yesterday, when I was speaking to her, I burst into tears. That a man should cry, no doubt, seems to you very ridiculous; but if you knew how I suffer you would pity me. I often think I shall commit suicide." Frank took the stiletto from his pocket. "I don’t mind telling you, when you knocked at the door I was lying on the sofa thinking it over. One stab just here, and I should be at peace for ever. I told her so yesterday.”

"I am not fond of giving advice as you know — I have quite enough to do to think about my own affairs — but as you have often spoken to me on this matter, and as you have asked me for my opinion and my help, I had better tell you that I differ entirely from you concerning the wisdom of the course you are pursuing.”

"How’s that?" said Frank, at first surprised and then delighted at Willy’s breaking from his reserve.

“What I mean is, that I think you would be more successful if you would lay aside daggers and revolvers, and try to win her affection by patience and gentleness. Maggie was talking to me about it no later than last night, and I could see clearly that you frighten her with bluster; I am sure there are times when she dreads you; it must be a positive terror to her to sit with you alone — so it would be to any girl.”

"What do you mean?”

"Maggie is a very delicate and nervous girl, and it would not surprise me if your threats to commit suicide seriously affected her health; you almost forcibly seek her out, you come with a revolver and a stiletto, and you ask her to marry you, and if she doesn’t at once say yes, you abuse her, declaring all the time that you will stab yourself with the revolver and shoot yourself with the stiletto — I beg your pardon, I mean — ”

“Of course, if you have come here only to turn me into ridicule — ”

"I assure you I didn’t mean it — a slip of the tongue;" and as their eyes met at that moment, neither could refrain from laughter.

"Admit that there is something in what I say. If you will behave a little more quietly — if you will talk to her nicely; leave off assuring her of your love, she knows all that already; have some patience and forbearance; be gentle and kind; you will see if before long she doesn’t change towards you.”

His interest in the matter was a desire that his sister should not miss this chance of marrying the future Lord Mount Rorke. But Maggie felt too sure of Frank to resist the temptation to tantalize him; besides her moods were naturally various, and the first relapse into her former coldness was answered by a sudden reversion to threats of murder and suicide, and one summer evening about six o’clock, when Mrs Horlock took her dogs out and stood at the corner waiting for Angel, a rumour was abroad that Mr Escott had stabbed himself to the heart, and had fallen weltering in his blood at Miss Brookes’s feet.

Dr Dickinson walked across the green, watched with palpitating anxiety from the corner of the Southdown Road. The general spoke to the farmer, and the farmer’s pupil nudged the general dealer. Mrs Horlock spoke to the grocers, and the owners of the baths declared they had just heard from their servant that the young man was not dead, but mortally wounded.

There was therefore no doubt that Dr Dickinson was going to Mrs Heald’s, and would not turn to the right and walk to the station for the quarter-to-seven train; and expectation on this point ceasing, the group expressed its sympathy for the young man. Poor young man — and so good-looking too — what will she do if he should die? — and he must die — there was no doubt of it. Maria had met Mary — that was the housemaid at the Manor House — it was Mary who had mopped up the blood. She said there was a great pool right in the middle of the new carpet under the window — they were sitting there on the ottoman when he said suddenly, "I have come to ask you to marry me, if you won’t I must die." Notwithstanding this she continued to play with him — the cruel little minx — he could stand it no longer, and he pulled out a dagger he had brought from the East, and stabbed himself twice close to the heart. What will she do? — she is his murderer — to all intents and purposes she is his murderer — she will have to go into a convent — she won’t go into a convent — she’ll brazen it out. No one thinks much of those girls — the way Sally carried on with young Meason — it was disgraceful — they say she used to steal her father’s money and give it to him — Dr Dickinson could tell fine tales.

Then gossip ceased, and they were in doubt if they might intercept the doctor and obtain news of his patient when he left Mrs Heald’s. Some strolled about the green, pretending to be taking the air. Mrs Horlock, however, had no scruples, and picking up Angel and calling to Rose and Flora, she walked straight to Mrs Heald’s, and was seen to go in. Some five minutes after she came out with the doctor. Frank was not dead, nor mortally wounded, nor even dangerously wounded, but he had had a very narrow escape.

"I said to him, ‘You have had a very narrow escape.’ The fact is — (I, of course, examined the weapon) — a small part of the point had been broken away; it was this that saved him. The first blow scarcely pierced his clothes; the second was more effective, it entered the flesh just above the heart, and I have no doubt if the steel had penetrated a quarter of an inch deeper that he would have killed himself. But so far as I can see at present, he will get over it without much difficulty.”

"When did it occur?”

"About an hour ago, at the Manor House. It appears that he has gone there every day for the last three weeks to ask Miss Brookes to marry him; she however would not give him any definite answer — ”

"Horrid girl!”

“I never liked her; most deceitful; no doubt she flirted with him outrageously.”

"I can’t say. I hear that he often threatened to kill himself, and to-day, to conclude, he pulled out his stiletto.”

"I thought it was a dagger he had brought from the East?”

“No, the weapon they showed me was an Italian stiletto.”

The grocer’s daughter shuddered, her mother murmured, "And for that girl.”

"We did not know him. The Brookes never allow their friends to know any one in Southwick, but I have heard that he is an exceedingly nice — ”

“He will be Lord Mount Rorke, if his uncle doesn’t marry again."

"He must have been desperately in love; no one ever heard of such a thing before. It sounds like the middle ages — a stiletto!”

"But what could he see in her, that’s what I can’t make out; can you?”

"Ah! there I can’t assist you. I hope to be able to cure him of the stiletto wound, but Cupid’s arrows are beyond me. They did not fly so thickly or strike so hard in my time." And, laughing, the doctor withdrew.

"I suppose that after this she will marry him; she never intended to let him slip through her fingers; I can see her face when she heard that another quarter of an inch and her chance of being Lady Mount Rorke was gone for ever.”

"I daresay he won’t marry her now; it would serve her right; I should be so glad.”

And so pouring their gall out upon the unfortunate Maggie, the tradespeople returned to their homes. The stiletto was so utterly unprecedented, and so complete a reversal of all conception of the chances of life at Southwick, that every one felt puzzled and dissatisfied, even when gossip had brought to light every circumstantial detail of the romantic story. Had the deed been done with a knife, with anything but a stiletto; had he hanged himself, or cut his throat with a razor, or shot himself with his revolver, the wonder of the Southwickians would not have been so excited. But a stiletto! And for a week an Italy of brigands and bravos, and stealthy surprises in the shadows of picturesque archways, an Italy of chromo-lithographed skies and draperies bided in the Southdown Road. Maggie was spoken of with alternate fear and hate; her wickedness seemed more than natural, and had the Southdown Road known anything of Italian opera, there is little doubt that Miss Brookes would have been compared to Lucrezia Borgia. The young women looked out of their windows at night, and wondered how they’d feel if a troubadour were suddenly to sing to them from behind the privet hedges. The young men were even more impressed than their womenfolk; they cursed their place of birth and habitation, knowing that it incapacitated them from knowing her; they wasted their mothers’ candles sitting up till two in the morning writing odes to cruel women with raven hair; and all gazed sadly on the old ship in the harboiu’, and the Spanish main seemed nearer, and those gallant days more realisable than they had ever been before.

The direct cause of this revival of romance lived, however, unconscious of it. She was genuinely frightened. She said her prayers with great fervour, begging God that He might save Frank, and that she might not be a murderess. She made him soups, she sent him wine, she brought him books, and she sat with him for hours. She thought he had never looked so nice as now — so pale, so aristocratic, so elegantly weak, his head laid upon a cushion, which she had brought him, and when he took her hand and said, “Will you, darling," and she murmured “Yes," then it seemed that the happiness of his life was upon his face.

Three days after Frank was sitting at his table writing to Mount Rorke, and on the following Sunday he walked to the Manor House to tell Mr Brookes that he was engaged to his daughter, and to ask his consent. He did not think of his folly, he was too happy; he seemed like one in a quiet dulcet dream; he walked slowly, leaning from time to time against the wooden paling, for he wished to prolong this meditative moment; he saw everything vaguely, and loved all with a quiet fulness of heart; he took in the sense of this village and its life as he had never done before. He compared it with Ireland; Mount Rorke, with its towers, and lakes, and woods arose, and he was grateful that Maggie was going there, yet he was sure that he could not live without sometimes seeing this village where he had found so much happiness.

His wound had sucked away his. strength, the sunlight dazzled him, and feeling a little overcome, and not equal, without pause, to the long interview that awaited him, he stayed awhile in a shady laurel corner, and leaning against a piece of iron railing, watched Mr Brookes and Mr Berkins as they paced the tennis lawn to and fro. The old gentleman frequently stopped in his walk to point at the glass houses.

"My dear Berkins, I wish you would try to get Willy some appointment, he would, I am sure, take anything over two hundred and fifty a year. He would do marvellously well in an office — he loves it. I assure you his eyes twinkle when one speaks of how books are kept, or alludes in any way to the routine of office work. You should see his accounts and his letter books, they would make the best clerk you ever had feel ashamed of himself; but left to himself I am afraid he will do no good; he has all the method, but nothing else. He lost money in Bond Street; I am afraid to tell you how much he dropped on the Stock Exchange, but that was not entirely his fault — the firm went bankrupt; nobody could have foreseen it, it was quite unheard of.”

"I have always noticed that successful men do not buy partnerships in firms that go bankrupt.”

"Very true, Berkins; I wish I had asked your advice on the subject.”

"I wish you had, Mr Brookes. You are no doubt a very clever man, but on one or two points you are liable to make mistakes: you are, if I may so speak, a little weak. You should come and live with me for a few months, I would put you right.”

"This is really too much," thought Mr Brookes; and had it not been for the certain knowledge that Berkins had lately increased his income by a couple of thousands a year, he would have answered him tartly enough: but as this fact admitted of no doubt he bridled his anger and said:

"If you could put my boy right it would be more to the point. He has all the method of the best clerk in London; he loves the work, he would do honour to any office, but on his own hook I am afraid he will never do anything but lose his money.”

"Your money, you mean.”

“Well, my money if you like. You are very provoking, Berkins, I do not know if you do it with the express purpose of annoying me.

"I was saying, when you interrupted me, that Nature had evidently intended my son for a clerk rather than for a speculator. I fear he is doing very badly with his shop in Brighton; the rents are very high in East Street, and I don’t think he sells anything. He takes enough away from here, though. I don’t remember if I ever told you that I was foolish enough to agree to his taking away, buying from me at the market price he calls it, the surplus produce of my garden and greenhouses. I daresay I shall get the money one of these days, but at present I see no sign of it. He is always making up the accounts, and, so far as we have gone, the result of this arrangement is that, when I complain that there is neither fruit nor vegetables on my table, I am told that everything went to Brighton. I am forced, I assure you, to send my carriage, and my horses that I paid two hundred guineas for, to fetch potatoes, and he, too, uses my carriage to take his vegetables to the shop. He gets his sisters to bring them when they go out driving, nor can I even buy my fruit and vegetables off him at cost price; — he says that would interfere •with his bookkeeping, and so I am obliged to buy everything from Hutton, and you know what his prices are. I assure you, it is most annoying.”

"Mr Brookes, your fortune will not bear this constant drain; — you must remember that we are living in very bad times — times that are not what they were. I have heard that your distillery — ”

"Yes, times are very bad. I have never known them worse, and no doubt you find them so too. They ought to affect you even more than they do me. My income is, as you know, all invested money, whereas yours is all in your business.”

"Of course, I am affected by the times; had they remained what they were, even, what they were towards the end of the seventies, I should be making now something over £10,000 a year. But, thank God! I have not to complain. Next year I hope to invest another £5,000. The worst of it is, that there is no price for money in legitimate securities.”

“Everything is very bad; you never will invest your money as I did mine ten years ago. — My business is not of course what it used to be, but I don’t complain, if it were not for troubles nearer home I should get on very well.”

"I hope that Sally has commenced no new flirtation in the Southdown Road. I thought she had promised you — since she gave up Meason — that she would for the future know no one that lived there.”

"I was thinking for the moment of Willy, not of Sally; she has not been so troublesome lately. But no sooner are we out of one trouble than we are in another. It is of course very regrettable that young Escott should have stabbed himself, and in my garden too. I, who hate scandals, seem always plunged in one. I hear they are talking of it in the clubs in Brighton. I hope Lord Mount Rorke will not hear of it; if he did, do you think it would prejudice him against the match?”

"Then you are prepared to give your consent?”

“Why not? Surely! I really don’t see — Lord Mount Rorke is a very rich man.”

"Possibly, but Irish peers are not always as rich as they would like us to believe they are. The connection is of course desirable, but I hope your anxiety to secure it will not lead you into making foolish, I will say reprehensible, monetary concessions. What I mean is this. I am a straightforward man, Mr Brookes, brought up in a hard school, and I always come straight to the point. You are a rich man, Mr Brookes — you have the reputation of being a richer man than you are — and it is possible, I don’t say it is probable, that Lord Mount Rorke will expect you to make a large settlement. He will possibly — mind you, I do not say probably — taking the coronet into consideration — those people think as much of their titles as we do of our money — ask you to settle a thousand a year, maybe fifteen hundred a year, upon your daughter.”

"Settle a thousand — maybe fifteen hundred — a year on my daughter!" cried the horror-stricken Brookes.

"He may even ask for two thousand a year, Remember, you are a distiller — he is a peer of the realm. And now I say," continued Berkins, growing more emphatic as he reached the close of his declamation, “that in my wife’s interest I will oppose any and all attempts to purchase a coronet for Maggie at her sister’s expense.”

Mr Brookes stood for a moment stupified — as if some great calamity had befallen him. The housekeeping bills, the loss of his fruit and vegetables — even the Southdown Road seemed as nothing in the face of this new misfortune. Troublesome as his daughters were, he preferred an occasional recrudescence of flirtation in his garden to settling the money that he had made himself and letting them go; no pen can describe the anguish that the surrendering of the ten thousand pounds which he had settled on Grace had caused him; but to be told now that the alliance with a lord which he so greedily coveted, and which had been so agreeably tickling him for the last few days, would cost him perhaps two thousand a year, was more than he could bear. He had avoided as much as possible even thinking of the money question. One hundred — two hundred, — the shadow of three hundred had fallen for a moment on his mind, but he had successfully chastened these unpleasantnesses by thoughts of the liberality, the generosity of the aristocracy, and he had encouraged a hope that Mount Rorke would let him off with a statement of how much Maggie would have at his death. And now to hear these terrible prognostications, and from his own son-in-law too. It was too bad, it was too cruel.

"You don’t know what you are talking about, Berkins. If it were business I would listen to you, but really when it comes to discussing the aristocracy it is more than I can stand. What do you know about the aristocracy — not that," cried Mr Brookes, snapping his fingers; "you were brought up in an office, what should you know? You were a clerk once at thirty shillings a week — what should you know? Lord Mount Rorke would never think of making such ridiculous proposals to me. You judge him by yourself, Berkins, that’s it, that’s it! I dare say he has heard of me in the City, many of your great lords do business in the City. I dare say he has heard of me, and if he has he’ll not try any nonsense with me. Twist him round my finger, twist him round my finger.”

Berkins liked a lord (we all like lords), but Berkins liked lords without thinking himself one jot their inferior, and he was sure that his horse and his dog and his house and everything belonging to him were better than theirs; and secure in the fact that his grandfather had been a field officer, he did not think it amiss to brag that he had begun life with thirty shillings a week, so he only smiled at his father-in-law’s wrath, feeling now easy in his mind that Grace’s future fortune would not be prejudiced for Maggie’s glorification.

The discussion had fallen, and Mr Brookes went to meet the young man whom he caught sight of coming across the sward.

“Most imprudent of you to come out to-day," he said scanning the white face.

"Oh, I am very well now, thanks. The sun is a little overpowering, that is all. I want to speak to you, Mr Brookes.”

"Speak to me? Yes. Will you go into the billiard-room, my boy? I can see the heat has upset you. Take my arm."

Frank took the offered arm; he was feeling very faint; — but the cool and dim colour of the billiard-room revived him, and when he had had some claret and water he said that he felt quite strong, and listened patiently to Mr Brookes.

"Well, I never! No, I never heard of such a thing. A stiletto, too. You brought it from Italy? It makes me feel quite young again. Ah! ’tis hard to say what we won’t do for a girl when Miss Right comes along. I was just the same — pretty keen on it, I can tell you, when I was your age; and I don’t know, even now, — but a man with grown-up daughters must be careful. Still when I see a little waist, high heels, plump — you know, that’s the way I used to like them when I used to go to the oyster shops; there was one at the top of the Haymarket. Ah! I was young then, young as you are; I was keen on it; Aunt Mary will tell you that; there was nothing I wouldn’t do; I never went as far as stabbing — walking about at night, tears, torments as much as you like, but I never went so far as stabbing. Wonderful, what love will make a man do! Supposing you had killed yourself; in my garden, too — awful! What would people say? I hear they are talking of it in the clubs — hope it won’t go any further. Should Mount Rorke hear of it! Eh? Might set him against us; might not give his consent — eh? We should be up a tree, then.”

"I don’t think there is much danger of that. I came to-day, Mr Brookes, to ask for your consent; am I to understand that you give it?”

"Well, my dear Frank, I don’t see why I should refuse it; I have known you since you were quite a small boy. I don’t want to flatter you. I don’t know that I care much about young men as a rule, but you, I have always found you — well, just what you should be. Of course the connection is very flattering. You will be one day Lord Mount Rorke, and to see my darling Maggie sharing your honours will be — that is to say if I live to see it — a great, a very gre-great hon-our." Feeling much embarrassed Frank begged of him not to mention it.

"I shall be writing to-morrow or next day to my uncle; shall I say that you have given your consent to my marriage with your daughter? I may say that I have already written to him on the subject.”

“By all means, my dear boy. I think I can say you have my consent — that is to say, you have my consent if the money is all right. All is, of course, subject to that. Now you are for love in a cottage, bread and cheese romance; a man who will use a stiletto cannot be expected to know much about money, but I am a father, my stiletto days are over, and I could not give my daughter without a settlement. You will, no doubt, be — of course you will be — Lord Mount Rorke one of these days; but in the meantime there must be a proper settlement. My daughter must be properly provided for; it is my duty to look after her interests, so you may as well tell your uncle that I shall be pleased to meet him and talk the matter over with him. I will meet him in London, when it suits his convenience; — I need hardly say that if he should choose to come down here that I shall be pleased to see him. And now tell me — of course, he will be prepared to act handsomely; I have no doubt he will, the aristocracy always do act handsomely, no one is so liberal as your aristocrat. I hope he will settle a good round sum on my daughter — money invested in first-class securities, not what Berkins would call first-class, but what I should call first-class securities; and should your uncle prove the liberal man that I have no doubt he is, I don’t say that I won’t behave handsomely. Of course you know that my dear children will have all my money at my death. I shall never marry again, that is a settled thing; but in the meantime I will do something. When Grace was married I behaved very generously — too generously — a lot of money — mustn’t do it again, times are not what they were. But at my death I shall make no difference, all three will share and share alike.”

Frank hoped when Brookes and Mount Rorke met, that the former would modify his demands, and what was still more important, his mode of expressing them. But why should Mr Brookes appear to him in such a sudden glow of vulgarity? He had never thought of him as a refined and cultivated gentleman, but was unprepared for this latest manifestation.

"Lord Mount Borke allows me a certain annual income, he will no doubt double this income upon my marriage; I daresay he would — since he has recognised me as his heir — make this income legally mine by deed, I could then settle a certain sum on Maggie, in case of my death; but then further settlements would be required when I succeed to the title and the property. I had thought — and indeed I think still — that if my uncle makes me a sufficient allowance, that we might avoid touching on this matter at all. Lord Mount Rorke is an irritable man, and I am sure that if you were to speak to him as you — ”

“Pooh! pooh! Nonsense! nonsense! You don’t suppose I am going to give my daughter to a man unless he can settle a sufficient sum of money upon her? Berkins wouldn't hear of it. He was only telling me just now — ”

“But I don’t think you understand me, Mr Brookes. I do not propose that you should give me any money with your daughter. Let what you give her be settled upon her, and let it be tied up as strictly as the law can tie it.”

"Pooh! pooh! the man that marries my daughter must settle a sum of money at least equal to what I settle upon her; and it must be money invested in first-class security, otherwise I could not think of giving her one penny.”

"I am sorry, Mr Brookes, that you are so determined on this point. These matters generally arrange themselves if people incline to meet each other half way, and I am sure that my uncle will resent it if you insist on pounds, shillings and pence as you propose doing; he is not accustomed to strict business; marriages in our family were never made on such principles; — my happiness is bound up in Maggie. I hope you will consider what you are risking.”

"I would do more for you than any one else, Frank, but business is business, and the man who has my daughter must settle a sum of money equivalent to what I settle.”

“I am afraid I have talked too much, I am not very strong, yet with your permission we will adjourn this discussion to another day — in the meantime I will write to my uncle.”

Mr Brookes did not offer the assistance of his arm, and had he, Frank would certainly not have accepted it. Holding the door, the old man waited for his visitor to pass out. "Southdown Road or the heir to a peerage: it is all the same, my money is what is wanted; the money I had made myself," thought Mr Brookes. "Dreadful old man, he would sell his daughter for a settlement of a few hundred pounds a year. I never knew he was so bad, my eyes are opened," thought Frank. Both were equally angry, and without secrecy or subterfuge they sought consolation in different parts of the garden. Mr Brookes resumed his walk on the tennis ground with Berkins, and stopping frequently to point to his glass houses, he described his misfortunes with profuse waves of his stick. Frank had found Maggie, and they now walked together in the shade and silence of the sycamores, he vehement and despairing of the future, she subtle and strangely confident that things would happen as she wished them.

Having once yielded and felt the pang of possession she was wholly his, in all ramifications of spirit and flesh, both in her brain and blood, and the utmost ends of her sense mingled with him. But to him, she was the symbol of the desire of which he was enamoured, the desire which held together his nature and gave it individuality — love of the young girl.

"Oh! my darling, if he should speak so to Mount Rorke, we should be parted for ever — no, that could never be — nothing in heaven or earth would induce me to give you up, be true to me and I will be true to you; but our happiness — no, not our happiness, that is in ourselves — but all our prospects in life will be wrecked if he will not give way. Should he and Mount Rorke meet — ”

"But they won’t meet; have patience — I know how to manage father. He doesn’t like to part with his money, and I can understand it, he made it all himself; but he will get used to the idea in time, leave him to me; put your trust in me.”

With languid eyes she extended her hand, he took it, pressed it to her lips; he took her in his arms and kissed her, and the leaves of the sycamores were filled with the sunset.

“DEAR SIR, — I received a letter this morning from my nephew, apprising me of his engagement to your daughter. He has apparently obtained your consent, and he asks for mine, and he also asks from me not only an increase of income to meet the requirements of altered circumstances, but he tells me that you will expect me to settle some seven, eight, or ten thousand pounds upon your daughter.

"I do not propose to discuss the reasonableness of his or your demands, but it seems that a statement of his prospects is owing to you.

"Having never married when I was a young man, many have assumed — I among the number — that I never would marry; and I admit that I have allowed my nephew to grow up in the belief that he is my heir and the successor to the title of Mount Rorke; but beyond a general assumption existing in my mind, his mind, and the minds of those who know us, there is no reason to suppose that I shall not marry, or that I shall leave him a single sixpence, and I willingly make use of this opportunity to say that I have no faintest intention of entering into any engagement either verbal or written with him upon this matter. — Yours very truly,

“MOUNT RORKE.”

"MY DEAR FRANK, — The enclosed is a copy of the letter which I send by this post to Mr Brookes. And I make no disguise of the fact that it was written with the full intention of rendering your marriage an impossibility. It will no doubt appear to you a harsh and cruel letter; it will no doubt grieve you, madden you — in your rage you may call me a brute. The epithet will be unjust; but knowing very well indeed what love is at twenty-five, I will forgive it. And now to the point. I know something about old Brookes, and I remember the fat boy you used to bring here, and judging from some slight traces that Eton had not succeeded in effacing, I think I can guess what the rest of the family is like; indeed, the old gentleman’s preposterous demand that I should settle ten thousand pounds on his daughter throws a sufficient light on his character, and in some measure reveals what sort of manner of man he is. But let all this be waived. I admit that with some show of reason, you may say it is unjust, nay more, it is ridiculous, to pronounce judgment on people I have never seen, and it is cruelty worthy of a Roman Emperor to wreck the lifelong happiness of two young people for the sake of a prejudice that the trouble of a journey to Brighton will most certainly extinguish. I will not irritate you by assuring you that the world is full of desirable women — women that will appeal to you two years hence precisely as Miss Brookes appeals to you now. Were I to whisper that it is unwise to give up all women for one woman, you could not fail, in your present mood, to see in my philosophy only the nasty wisdom of a cynical old reprobate. Therefore I will not weary you with advice — what I have said must be considered not as advice, but rather as an expression of personal experience in the love passion, serving as illustration of the attitude of my mind towards you. I will limit myself to merely asking you — no, not to think again of Miss Brookes — that would be impossible, but to leave Southwick for London or Paris, the latter for preference. I will give you a letter of introduction to a charming lady (ah! were I thirty years younger). Put yourself in her hands, and I have no doubt in the world but that she will send you back cured in six months, as my bank-book will abundantly prove.

"If you cannot do this — if so drastic a remedy should be too repugnant to your present feelings, I would remember, were I in your place, that my uncle had never refused me anything; that I could draw upon him for what money I liked — that is to say, for all pleasures and satisfactions save one. I would remember that at his death I was to inherit ten thousand a year and a title; and I would weigh (first examining each weight carefully, to see if it were true weight) all these present and future advantages against the gratification of possessing a woman I loved when I was twenty-five for a period of time extending perhaps over half a century; I would think — at least I think and hope I should hesitate — before I refused to obey one of whose affection I was sure, and I feel certain it would go hard with me before I refused to gratify the whim — call it a whim if you like — of one who had often given but never asked before.

"Somehow I think you owe me this sacrifice; I have done much for you and am prepared to do more, and to speak quite candidly, I want something in return; I do not mean that I am desirous of striking a bargain with you, but we all expect to receive — of course not directly, but in some remote way — something for what we give, and I confess that I look forward to your companionship to assist me through the last course of life. I do not want you now, — for the next few years I want you to see the world, to educate yourself; I want you to improve your taste in art and letters, and later on, if possible, to turn yourself to some public account. Besides other work, I am now working at my memoirs; they are to be published after my death, as I have arranged, under your supervision. I regard these memoirs as being of the first importance, and it is advisable that you should be in full possession of all my intentions respecting them. Hitherto I have always looked after everything myself, but the time will come when I shall not be able to do this, and shall require you to relieve me of the burden of business. Then I wish you to live here, so that you may learn to love Mount Rorke. I am very busy now with improvements, and I would wish you to be with me so that you might adequately enter into my views and ideas. To conclude, I do not marry for your sake; do you not marry for mine, at least do not marry for the present. I do not say that if I knew and liked the girl of your choice — if she were in our own set — that I could not be won over, but on the whole I would sooner you didn’t marry. But I could not really endure a lot of new acquaintances — people who had never dined in a lord’s house, and would all want to be asked — no, I could not endure it. I am an old man, and now I want to enjoy myself in my own way, and my desire is to get through the last years of my life with you. You can do what you please, ask here whomever you please, give me a few hours of your time when I am particularly busy with my memoirs, and, above all, let us be alone sometimes after dinner, so that we can turn our chairs round to the fire and talk at our ease. — Your affectionate uncle,

“MOUNT RORKE.”

"So he won’t pay for a secretary, and wants me to do the work; that’s about the meaning of that letter."Frank re-read the letter sentence for sentence, and as he read new sneers and new expressions of scorn rose in his brain in tremulous ebullition. There was scarcely a plan for the chastisement of his uncle that he did not for some fleeting moment entertain, and one most ironical letter he com- mitted to paper; but Maggie would not hear of its being sent, and he was surprised and glad to see that she was not depressed or disheartened at the turn affairs had taken.

"I can do what I like with father; Sally can’t, but I can. You leave it to me.”

"What’s the good of that? You can’t get round Mount Rorke.”

"Never mind; we don’t want to get married yet awhile. We’ll be engaged, it is nearly the same thing. We shall be able to go anywhere together — up to town, if we only come back the same day. Write a nice letter to your uncle, saying you’ll do nothing without his consent; that it is true your affections are very much engaged, but that your first thought is of him — ”

"Oh! but my darling, I want to make you mine.”

"So you shall — we shall be engaged; father won’t consent to our being married, but he can’t prevent us being engaged. You’ll see, I’ll get round father sooner or later; he’ll give in.”

"But you won’t get round Mount Rorke; if he would only come here and see you."

"He won’t do that; but one of these days he’ll be in London. I suppose he goes to the Park sometimes; we’ll go too, you’ll introduce me — a little impromptu, and I’ll see if I cannot get him to like me.”

"How clever you are.”

"I understand father.”

Still it required all Maggie’s adroitness to even partially reconcile Mr Brookes to Lord Mount Rorke’s letter. She accepted without argument that marriage in the present circumstances was out of the question. She even went so far as to cordially assent that a man would be a fool to give his daughter to a man who could not settle a substantial sum of money upon her, and she only ventured to suggest that it would be foolish not to give Lord Mount Rorke the opportunity of changing his mind. She spoke of his immense fortune, and exaggerated it until she made even Berkins seem a paltry creature in the old man’s eyes. Surely he would not by any imprudent act ruin her chances, and, throwing her arms about him, she wept, and, telling him a set of falsehoods, she involved Sally in serious entanglement, and averted attention from herself.

So the life of engagement began. Walking alone in Brighton, oblivious of all but each other. Rapid looks and gestures, abundant laughter....

The dogcart passes beneath the foliage — the young man tall and fair, his driving coat, his gloves, the elegance of the whip, and the charming sense of intimacy with which he draws up the apron.

In the ball room — the colour of the flowers, the beauty of the women’s necks, Maggie, dark and bright, her winsome thinness; Frank, tall and insolent, waiting for her by a doorway.

In London — Victoria Station, the flux of passengers coming through the gates, Frank so impatient, and at last catching sight of the dark eyes in the crowd, — luncheons in public places, shopping in Regent Street, hansoms, morning performances. —

The six o’clock express! the rush and beauty of the train through fields and splendid light, the woods of the south lands; and in the long tunnels delicate touchings and exquisite pressure of hands. —

Now the green seemed to be theirs. The girls coming with slanting sunshades to see Frank, Frank going to them swinging his racquet. Sally’s sympathy had been secured. Frank was anxious to propitiate her. He returned from London with presents for her, and he always spoke to her, looking at her admiringly.

He showed much anxiety, and he was worried that she must find it dull at his studio when they came to tea or else to an oyster lunch. He was assailed by regrets. If she would only say yes, he would ask him to meet her. When would Meason return? Sally tossed her head; — she had had enough of Meason.

Her manner left no doubt as to her sincerity, but unconvinced and happening to meet Meason a few days after in the train, Frank slipped easily into asking him to come and see him; and in the gracious atmosphere of the studio the acquaintanceship soon ripened into intimacy, and after a preliminary ruffling of plumage, Sally restored her old sweetheart to all the rights and wrongs of modern flirtation. Henceforth life went well amid incessant secrets, letter-writing, and tea parties. Grace had lunched with them, and had promised not to say a word about Meason, nor was it ever ascertained whether, in the indiscretion of the marital night, she had betrayed this trust, or whether some jealous enemy had spoken or written to Mr Brookes on the subject; but certain it is that one joyful day when Meason, Sally, and Maggie were eating oysters and Frank was twisting the corkscrew into a bottle of Chablis, there came an ominous ringing at the door.

"I wonder who that can be. Shut up, Tris.”

"Perhaps it is father.”

“He is in London.”

"I’m not so sure about that.”

“No matter — we don’t want to see them.”

"Rather not! They wouldn’t have known we were here had it not been for that dog.”

"I must go and see who it is. Come here, sir; come here, you brute.”

"Supposing it is father?”

"Get behind that piece of tapestry. I’ll say that Meason and I were having some oysters.”

"Come here, sir. I’d better tie up that dog — I wonder who it is?”

"Open the door.”

"Oh! Mr Brookes, quite an unexpected pleasure.”

"I have come, sir, for my daughters.”

"Your daughters? Your daughters are not here, Mr Brookes.”

"I have reason to know they are here, and I will not leave without them.”

"You will do well to let us in, Mr Escott; we are determined — ”

"Who are you? What business is it of yours?”

"Should you refuse us admission we are resolved to wait here till evening, till midnight if necessary!" exclaimed Berkins; "I say again you will do well to admit us, and so avoid a scandal on the green.”

"You can come in if you like.”

"Will you kindly chain up that dog of yours?”

“Well, this is coming it too strong; this is a little too ‘steep.’ If Mr Brookes refuses to believe my word that his daughters are not here he may come in and look for them, and to facilitate his search I will tie up the dog — (the dog is tied up). But you, what brings you here? What the devil, I should like to know, brings you here, poking your nose into other people’s business?”

"Mr Brookes, will you answer him?”

"I must decline your offer to admit me unaccompanied by my son-in-law. We shall not stay long.”

"All this seems to me very extraordinary, but since you wish it, Mr Brookes, pray enter.”

"Is that dog tied up quite securely?”

"Quite. I think you know Mr Meason?”

"Mr Meason knows very well that I do not wish to know him.”

"If you only come here to insult my guest, the sooner you go out the better. Had I known that you intended to behave in this fashion I should have left you standing outside till morning. I’ll not have — ”

“Never mind, Escott; I’m off. Mr Brookes and I are no longer on speaking terms, that’s all! I’ll see you later on.”

"Don’t go, pray.”

“I think I must."

"I am surprised, Frank," said Mr Brookes, when Meason was gone, "that you should seek your friends among the enemies of my family.”

"We will not discuss that question now. I never heard of such conduct — you force your way into my studio, and apparently for no purpose but to insult my guest. You see your daughters are not here.”

“I am by no means satisfied of that," said Berkins, opening a door. “I must see behind that piece of tapestry.”

"No, you shall not. I have had just about enough of this. How dare you? God’s truth — " and as Berkins seemed determined to continue his search, Frank caught him by the collar.

But Berkins was tall and strong, and showed no intention of allowing himself to be thrown out. His long legs were soon extended here and there; his body was sometimes bent back by Frank’s weight, once he had succeeded in nearly throwing Frank over on the sofa. Mr Brookes had fled to the door, which, in his excitement, he failed to open, and the struggle was continued until at last, maddened by a most tight and tempting aspect of Berkins’s thigh, Tris broke his collar, and, in a couple of bounds, reached and fixed his teeth deep in the flesh.

The howls and shrieks the villagers heard that day are now legendary in Southwick, they are not and never will be forgotten. The episode seemed to awake the dormant imagination of the villas. Young men have been threatened with dismissal for wasting the office paper to make dramatic use of Berkins shouting to have the dog called off his thigh, of the young ladies shrieking behind the tapestry, and at length precipitating themselves on their father, who, impregnated with real terror, was still struggling with the door. The subject has been treated also by elderly gentlemen on their retirement from business, and they have assembled their neighbours to listen to their versions of it. To the womankind it seemed, however, to appeal less; but sometimes, in the shape of a valentine and set of comic verses, it received from them artistic treatment.