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The next morning was damp, and grey, and mild, no autumn wind stirringthe long sweeping branches of the cedars on the lawn, the dead leavesfalling silently, the world all sad and solemn, clad in universalgreyness. Christabel was up early, with her boy, in thenursery—watching him as he splashed about his bath, and emerged rosyand joyous, like an infant river-god sporting among the rushes; early atfamily prayers in the dining room, a ceremony at which Mr. Tregonellrarely assisted, and to which Dopsy and Mopsy came flushed andbreathless with hurry, anxious to pay all due respect to a hostess whomthey hoped to visit again, but inwardly revolting against theunreasonableness of eight-o'clock prayers.

Angus, who was generally about the gardens before eight, did not appearat all this morning. The other men were habitually late—breakfastingtogether in a free-and-easy manner when the ladies had left thedining-room—so Christabel, Miss Bridgeman, and the Miss Vandeleurs satdown to breakfast alone, Dopsy giving little furtive glances at the doorevery now and then, expectant of Mr. Hamleigh's entrance.

That expectancy became too painful for the damsel's patience, by-and-by,as the meal advanced.

"I wonder what has become of Mr. Hamleigh," she said. "This is the firsttime he has been late at breakfast."

"Perhaps he is seeing to the packing of his portmanteau," said MissBridgeman. "Some valets are bad packers, and want superintendence."

Dopsy grew pale as ashes. The shock was evidently terrible, and evenJessie pitied her.

"Poor silly Dop," she thought. "Could she actually suppose that shestood the faintest chance of bringing down her bird?"

"Going away? For good?" murmured Miss Vandeleur faintly—all the flavourgone out of the dried salmon, the Cornish butter, the sweet home-bakedbread.

"I hope so. He is going to the South of France for the winter. Ofcourse, you know that he is consumptive, and has not many years tolive," answered Miss Bridgeman.

She had begun the chase moved chiefly by sordid instincts; her tenderestemotions had been hacked and vulgarized by long experience inflirtation—but at this moment she believed that never in her life hadshe loved before, and that never in her life could she love again.

"And if he dies unmarried what will become of his property?" inquiredMopsy, whose feelings were not engaged.

"I haven't the faintest idea," answered Miss Bridgeman. "He has no nearrelations. I hope he will leave his money to some charitableinstitution."

"Mr. Hamleigh left an hour ago, Madam," said the butler, who had beencarving at the side-board during this conversation. "He has goneshooting. The dog-cart is to pick him up at the gate leading to St.Nectan's Kieve at eleven o'clock."

"Gone shooting on his last morning at Mount Royal!" exclaimed Jessie."That's a new development of Mr. Hamleigh's character. I never knew hehad a passion for sport."

He went out into the hall, and returned in a minute or two carrying aletter upon his official salver, and handing it with official solemnityto Mrs. Tregonell.

"Then this was what Leonard and he were settling last night," thoughtChristabel. "Your master went out with Mr. Hamleigh, I suppose," shesaid to the servant.

"No, ma'am, my master is in his study. I took him his breakfast an hourago. He is writing letters, I believe."

"They are going to see that unhappy man hanged," said Miss Bridgeman."Congenial occupation. Mr. Montagu told me all about it at dinneryesterday, and asked me if I wasn't sorry that my sex prevented myjoining the party. 'It would be a new sensation,' he said, 'and to awoman of your intelligence that must be an immense attraction.' I toldhim I had no hankering after new sensations of that kind."

"And he is really gone—without saying good-by to any of us," saidDopsy, still harping on the departed guest.

Christabel had been silent and absent-minded throughout the meal. Hermind was troubled—she scarcely knew why; disturbed by the memory of herhusband's manner as he parted with Angus in the corridor; disturbed bythe strangeness of this lonely expedition after woodcock, in a man whohad always shown himself indifferent to sport. As usual with her whenshe was out of spirits, she went straight to the nursery for comfort,and tried to forget everything in life except that Heaven had given hera son whom she adored.

Her boy upon this particular morning was a little more fascinating and ashade more exacting than usual; the rain, soft and gentle as itwas—rather an all-pervading moisture than a positive rainfall—forbadeany open-air exercise for this tenderly reared young person—so he hadto be amused indoors. He was just of an age to be played with, and tounderstand certain games which called upon the exercise of a dawningimagination; so it was his mother's delight to ramble with him in animaginary wood, and to fly from imaginary wolves, lurking in darkcaverns, represented by the obscure regions underneath a table-cover—orto repose with him on imaginary mountain-tops on the sofa—or beengulfed with him in sofa pillows, which stood for whelming waves. Thenthere were pictures to be looked at, and little Leo had to be lovinglyinstructed in the art of turning over a leaf without tearing it from endto end—and the necessity for restraining an inclination to thrust allhis fingers into his mouth between whiles, and sprawl them admiringly onthe page afterwards.

Time so beguiled, even on the dullest morning, and with a lurking,indefinite sense of trouble in her mind all the while, went rapidly withChristabel. She looked up with surprise when the stable clock struckeleven.

"Yes, ma'am, I heard it drive out of the yard half an hour ago,"answered the nurse, looking up from her needlework.

"Well, I must go. Good-by, Baby. I think, if you are very good, youmight have your dinner with mamma. Din-din—with—mum—mum—mum"—a kissbetween every nonsense syllable. "You can bring him down, nurse. I shallhave only the ladies with me at luncheon." There were still furtherleave-takings, and then Christabel went downstairs. On her way past herhusband's study she saw the door standing ajar.

She went in. He was sitting at his desk—his cheque-book open,tradesmen's accounts spread out before him—all the signs and tokens ofbusiness-like occupation. It was not often that Mr. Tregonell spent amorning in his study. When he did, it meant a general settlement ofaccounts, and usually resulted in a surly frame of mind, which lasted,more or less, for the rest of the day.

"Naturally, since it was I who suggested that he should have a shy atthe birds before he left," answered Leonard, without looking up.

"How strange for him to go alone, in his weak health, and with afatiguing journey before him."

"What's the fatigue of lolling in a railway carriage? Confound it,you've made me spoil the cheque!" muttered Leonard, tearing the oblongslip of coloured paper across and across, impatiently.

"Yes, I meant to have an hour or so at the birds. I got as far asWillapark, and then remembered that Clayton wanted the money for thetradesmen to-day. One must stick to one's pay-day, don't you know, whenone has made a rule."

"Of course. Oh, there are the new Quarterlies!" said Christabel, seeinga package on the table. "Do you mind my opening them here?"

This was not a very gracious permission to remain, but Christabel seatedherself quietly by the fire, and began to explore the two treasuries ofwisdom which the day's post had brought. Leonard's study looked into thestable-yard, a spacious quadrangle, with long ranges of doors andwindows, saddle rooms, harness rooms, loose boxes, coachmen's andgroom's quarters—a little colony complete in itself. From his openwindow the Squire could give his orders, interrogate his coachman as tohis consumption of forage, have an ailing horse paraded before him,bully an underling, and bestow praise or blame all round, as it suitedhis humour. Here, too, were the kennels of the dogs, whose company Mr.Tregonell liked a little better than that of his fellow-men.

Leonard sat with his head bent over the table, writing, Christabel inher chair by the fire turning the leaves of her book in the rapture of afirst skimming. They sat thus for about an hour, and then both looked upwith a startled air, at the sound of wheels.

It was the dog-cart that was being driven into the yard, Mr. Hamleigh'sservant sitting behind, walled in by a portmanteau and a Gladstone bag.Leonard opened the window, and looked out.

"We haven't seen Mr. Hamleigh, Sir. There must have been some mistake, Ithink. We waited at the gate for nearly an hour, and then Baker saidwe'd better come back, as we must have missed Mr. Hamleigh, somehow, andhe might be here waiting for us to take him to Launceston."

"Baker's a fool. How could you miss him if he went to the Kieve? There'sonly one way out of that place—or only one way that Mr. Hamleigh couldfind. Did you inquire if he went to the Kieve?"

"Yes, Sir. Baker went into the farmhouse, and they told him that agentleman had come with his gun and a dog, and had asked for the key,and had gone to the Kieve alone. They were not certain as to whetherhe'd come back or not, but he hadn't taken the key back to the house. Hemight have put it into his pocket, and forgotten all about it, don't yousee, Sir, after he'd let himself out of the gate. That's what Bakersaid; and he might have come back here."

"Perhaps he has come back," answered Leonard, carelessly. "You'd betterinquire."

"I don't think he can have returned," said Christabel, standing near thewindow, very pale.

"How do you know?" asked Leonard, savagely. "You've been sitting herefor the last hour poring over that book."

"I think I should have heard—I think I should have known," falteredChristabel, with her heart beating strangely.

There was a mystery in the return of the carriage which seemed like thebeginning of woe and horror—like the ripening of that strange vaguesense of trouble which had oppressed her for the last few hours.

"You would have heard—you would have known," echoed her husband, withbrutal mockery—"by instinct, by second sight, by animal magnetism, Isuppose. You are just the sort of woman to believe in that kind of rot."

The valet had gone across the yard on his way round to the offices ofthe house. Christabel made no reply to her husband's sneering speech,but went straight to the hall, and rang for the butler.

"Inquire, if you please, of every one. Make quite sure that he has notreturned, and then let three or four men, with Nicholls at their head,go down to St. Nectan's Kieve and look for him. I'm afraid there hasbeen an accident."

"I hope not, ma'am," answered the butler, who had known Christabel fromher babyhood, who had looked on, a pleased spectator, at Mr. Hamleigh'swooing, and whose heart was melted with tenderest compassion to-day atthe sight of her pallid face, and eyes made large with terror. "It's adangerous kind of place for a stranger to go clambering about with agun, but not for one that knows every stone of it, as Mr. Hamleigh do."

"Send, and at once, please. I do not think Mr. Hamleigh, having arrangedfor the dog-cart to meet him, would forget his appointment."

Christabel sat down in the hall, and waited while Daniel, the butler,made his inquiries. No one had seen Mr. Hamleigh come in, and everybodywas ready to aver on oath if necessary that he had not returned. SoNicholls, the chief coachman, a man of gumption and of much renown inthe household, as a person whose natural sharpness had been improved bythe large responsibilities involved in a well-filled stable, was broughtto receive his orders from Mrs. Tregonell. Daniel admired the calmgravity with which she gave the man his instructions, despite hercolourless cheek and the look of pain in every feature of her face.

"You will take two or three of the stablemen with you, and go as fast asyou can to the Kieve. You had better go in the light cart, and it wouldbe as well to take a mattress, and some pillows. If—if there shouldhave been an accident those might be useful. Mr. Hamleigh left the houseearly this morning with his gun to go to the Kieve, and he was to havemet the dog-cart at eleven. Baker waited at the gate till twelve—butperhaps you have heard."

"Yes, ma'am, Baker told me. It's strange—but Mr. Hamleigh may haveoverlooked the time if he had good sport. Do you know which of the dogshe took with him?"

"Because I rather thought it was Sambo. Sambo was always a favourite ofMr. Hamleigh's, though he's getting rather too old for his work now. Ifit was Sambo the dog must have run away and left him, for he was backabout the yard before ten o'clock. He'd been hurt somehow, for there wasblood upon one of his feet. Master had the red setter with him thismorning, when he went for his stroll, but I believe it must have beenSambo that Mr. Hamleigh took. There was only one of the lads about theyard when he left, for it was breakfast time, and the little guffindidn't notice."

"They aren't, ma'am, don't you see. The two gentlemen took a couple of'em to Bodmin in the break—and I don't know which. Sambo may have beenwith them—and may have got tired of it and come home. He's not a dog toappreciate that kind of thing."

Nicholls went his way, and the gong began to sound for luncheon. Mr.Tregonell, who rarely honoured the family with his presence at themid-day meal, came out of his den to-day in answer to the summons, andfound his wife in the hall.

"I suppose you are coming in to luncheon," he said to her, in an angryaside. "You need not look so scared. Your old lover is safe enough, Idaresay."

"I am not coming to luncheon," she answered, looking at him with palecontempt. "If you are not a little more careful of your words I maynever break bread with you again."

The gong went on with its discordant clamour, and Jessie Bridgeman cameout of the drawing-room with the younger Miss Vandeleur. Poor Dopsy wasshut in her own room, with a headache. She had been indulging herselfwith the feminine luxury of a good cry. Disappointment, wounded vanity,humiliation, and a very realpenchant for the man who had despised herattractions were the mingled elements in her cup of woe.

The nurse came down the broad oak staircase, baby Leonard toddling byher side, and making two laborious jumps at each shallow step—oneon—one off. Christabel met him, picked him up in her arms, and carriedhim back to the nursery, where she ordered his dinner to be brought. Hewas a little inclined to resist this change of plan at the first, butwas soon kissed into pleasantness, and then the nurse was despatched tothe servants' hall, and Christabel had her boy to herself, andministered to him and amused him for the space of an hour despite anaching heart. Then, when the nurse came back, Mrs. Tregonell went to herown room, and sat at the window watching the avenue by which the menmust drive back to the house.

They did not come back till just when the gloom of the sunless day wasdeepening into starless night. Christabel ran down to the lobby thatopened into the stable yard, and stood in the doorway waiting forNicholls to come to her; but if he saw her, he pretended not to see her,and went straight to the house by another way, and asked to speak to Mr.Tregonell.

Christabel saw him hurry across the yard to that other door, and knewthat her fears were realized. Evil of some kind had befallen. She wentstraight to her husband's study, certain that she would meet Nichollsthere.

Leonard was standing by the fireplace, listening, while Nicholls stooda little way from the door, relating the result of his search, in a lowagitated voice.

"Was he quite dead when you found him?" asked Leonard, when the manpaused in his narration.

Christabel stood just within the doorway, half hidden in the obscurityof the room, where there was no light but that of the low fire. The doorhad been left ajar by Nicholls, and neither he nor his master was awareof her presence.

"No, Sir. It must have gone off somehow. Perhaps the trigger caught inthe hand-rail when he was crossing the wooden bridge—and yet thatseemed hardly possible—for he was lying on the big stone at the otherside of the bridge, with his face downwards close to the water."

"A horrible accident," said Leonard. "There'll be an inquest, of course.Will Blake give the coroner notice—or must I?"

"Yes, Sir. We thought it was best to take the body there—rather than tobring it home. It would have been such a shock for my mistress—and theother ladies. Dr. Blake said the inquest would be held at the inn atTrevena."

"Well," said Leonard, with a shrug and a sigh, "it's an awful business,that's all that can be said about it. Lucky he has no wife orchildren—no near relations to feel the blow. All we can do is to showour respect for him, now he is gone. The body had better be brought homehere, after the inquest. It will look more respectful for him to beburied from this house. Mrs. Tregonell's mind can be prepared by thattime."

"It is prepared already," said a low voice out of the shadow. "I haveheard all."

"Very sad, isn't it?" replied Leonard; "one of those unlucky accidentswhich occur every shooting season. He was always a little awkward with agun—never handled one like a thoroughbred sportsman."

"Why did he go out shooting on the last morning of his visit?" askedChristabel. "It was you who urged him to do it—you who planned thewhole thing."

"I! What nonsense you are talking. I told him there were plenty of birdsabout the Kieve—just as I told the other fellows. That will do,Nicholls. You did all that could be done. Go and get your dinner, butfirst send a mounted groom to Trevena to ask Blake to come over here."

"He is dead, then," said Christabel, coming over to the hearth where herhusband was standing. "He has been killed."

"He has had the bad luck to kill himself, as many a better sportsmanthan he has done before now," answered Leonard, roughly.

"If I could be sure of that, Leonard, if I could be sure that his deathwas the work of accident—I should hardly grieve for him—knowing thathe was reconciled to the idea of death—and that if God had spared himthis sudden end, the close of his life must have been full of pain andweariness."

Tears were streaming down her cheeks—tears which she made no effort torestrain—such tears as friendship and affection give to the dead—tearsthat had no taint of guilt. But Leonard's jealous soul was stung to furyby those innocent tears.

"Why do you stand there snivelling about him," he exclaimed; "do youwant to remind me how fond you were of him—and how little you evercared for me. Do you suppose I am stone blind—do you suppose I don'tknow you to the core of your heart?"

"If you know my heart you must know that it is as guiltless of sinagainst you, and as true to my duty as a wife, as you, my husband, candesire. But you must know that, or you would not have brought AngusHamleigh to this house."

"Perhaps I wanted to try you—to watch you and him together—to see ifthe old fire was quite burnt out."

"There is no knowing what a man may be when he is used as I have beenby you—looked down upon from the height of a superior intellect, aloftier nature—told to keep his distance, as a piece of vulgarclay—hardly fit to exist beside that fine porcelain vase, his wife. Doyou think it was a pleasant spectacle for me to see you and AngusHamleigh sympathizing and twaddling about Browning's last poem—orsighing over a sonata of Beethoven's—I who was outside all that kind ofthing?—a boor—a dolt—to whom your fine sentiments and your flummerywere an unknown language. But I was only putting a case, just now. Iliked Hamleigh well enough—in his way—and I asked him here because Ithought it was giving a chance to the Vandeleur girls. That was mymotive—and my only motive."

"And he came—and he is dead," answered Christabel, in icy tones. "Hewent to that lonely place this morning—at your instigation—and he methis death there—no one knows how—no one ever will know."

"At my instigation?—confound it, Christabel—you have no right to saysuch things. I told him it was a good place for woodcock—and itpleased his fancy to try his luck there before he left. Lonely place, behanged. It is a place to which every tourist goes—it is as well knownas the road to this house."

"Yet he was lying there for hours and no one knew. If Nicholls had notgone he might be lying there still. He may have lain there wounded—hislife-blood ebbing away—dying by inches—without help—without acreature to succour or comfort him. It was a cruel place—a place whereno help could come."

"Fortune of war," answered Leonard, with a careless shrug. "A sportsmanmust die where his shot finds him. There's many a day I might havefallen in the Rockies, and lain there for the lynxes and the polecats topick my bones; and I have walked shoulder to shoulder with death onmountain passes, when every step on the crumbling track might send mesliding down to the bottomless pit below. As for poor Hamleigh; well, asyou say yourself, he was a doomed man—a little sooner or later couldnot make much difference."

"Perhaps not," said Christabel, gloomily, going slowly to the door;"but I want to know how he died."

"Let us hope the coroner's inquest will make your mind easy on thatpoint," retorted her husband as she left the room.

CHAPTER II.

"YOURS ON MONDAY, GOD'S TO-DAY."

The warning gong sounded at half-past seven as usual, and at eight thebutler announced dinner. Captain Vandeleur and Mr. Montagu had returnedfrom Bodmin, and they were grouped in front of the fire talking inundertones with Mr. Tregonell, while Christabel and the younger MissVandeleur sat on a sofa, silent, after a few murmured expressions ofgrief on the part of the latter lady.

"It is like a dream," sighed Mopsy, this being the one remark which ayoung person of her calibre inevitably makes upon such an occasion. "Itis like a dreadful dream—playing billiards last night, and now—dead!It is too awful."

She had told herself that it was her duty to appear at thedinner-table—to fulfil all her responsibilities as wife andhostess—not to give any one the right to say that she was bemoaning himwho had once been her lover; and she was here to do her duty. She wantedall the inhabitants of her little world to see that she mourned for himonly as a friend grieves for the loss of a friend—soberly, with pioussubmission to the Divine Will that had taken him away. For two hours shehad remained on her knees beside her bed, drowned in tears, numbed bydespair, feeling as if life could not go on without him, as if thisheavily-beating heart of hers must be slowly throbbing to extinction:and then the light of reason had begun to glimmer through the thickgloom of grief, and her lips had moved in prayer, and, as if in answerto her prayers, came the image of her child, to comfort and sustain her.

"Let me not dishonour my darling," she prayed. "Let me remember that Iam a mother as well as a wife. If I owe my husband very little, I owe myson everything."

Inspired by that sweet thought of her boy, unwilling, for his sake, togive occasion for even the feeblest scandal, she had washed the tearsfrom her pale cheeks, and put on a dinner gown, and had gone down to thedrawing-room just ten minutes before the announcement of dinner.

She remembered how David, when his beloved was dead, had risen andwashed and gone back to the business of life. "What use are my tears tohim, now he is gone?" she said to herself, as she went downstairs.

Miss Bridgeman was not in the drawing-room; but Mopsy was there, dressedin black, and looking very miserable.

"I could not get poor Dop to come down," she said, apologetically. "Shehas been lying on her bed crying ever since she heard the dreadful news.She is so sensitive, poor girl; and she liked him so much; and he hadbeen so attentive to her. I hope you'll excuse her?"

"Please don't apologize. I can quite imagine that this shock has beendreadful for her—for every one in the house. Perhaps you would ratherdine upstairs, so as to be with your sister?"

"No!" answered Mopsy, taking Christabel's hand, with a touch of realfeeling. "I had rather be with you. You must feel his loss more than wecan—you had known him so much longer."

"Yes, it is just five years since he came to Mount Royal. Five years isnot much in the lives of some people; but it seems the greater part ofmy life."

"We will go away to-morrow," said Mopsy. "I am sure you will be glad toget rid of us: it will be a relief, I mean. Perhaps at some future timeyou will let us come again for a little while. We have been so intenselyhappy here."

"Then I shall be happy for you to come again—next summer, if we arehere," answered Christabel, kindly, moved by Mopsy'snaïveté: "one cannever tell. Next year seems so far off in the hour of trouble."

Dinner was announced, and they all went in, and made believe to dine, ina gloomy silence, broken now and then by dismal attempts at generalconversation on the part of the men. Once Mopsy took heart of grace andaddressed her brother:

"No, it was hideous, detestable. I will never put myself in the way ofbeing so tortured again. The guillotine is swifter and more merciful. Isaw a man blown from a gun in India—there were bits of him on my bootswhen I got home—but it was not so bad as the hanging to-day: the limp,helpless, figure, swaying and trembling in the hangman's grip while theyput the noose on, the cap dragged roughly over the ghastly face, themonotonous croak of the parson reading on like a machine, while the poorwretch was being made ready for his doom. It was all horrible to thelast degree. Why can't we poison our criminals: let them diecomfortably, as Socrates died, of a dose of some strong narcotic. Theparson might have some chance—sitting by the dying man's bed, in thequiet of his cell."

"Where's Miss Bridgeman?" Leonard asked suddenly, looking round thetable, as if only that moment perceiving her absence.

"She is not in her room, Sir. Mary thinks she has gone out," answeredthe butler.

"Gone out—after dark. What can have been her motive for going out atsuch an hour?" asked Leonard of his wife, angrily.

"I have no idea. She may have been sent for by some sick person. Youknow how good she is."

"I know what a humbug she is," retorted Leonard. "Daniel, go and findout if any messenger came for Miss Bridgeman—or if she left any messagefor your mistress."

Daniel went out, and came back again in five minutes. No one had seenany messenger—no one had seen Miss Bridgeman go out.

"That's always the case here when I want to ascertain a fact," growledLeonard: "no one sees or knows anything. There are twice too manyservants for one to be decently served. Well, it doesn't matter much.Miss Bridgeman is old enough to take care of herself—and if she walksoff a cliff—it will be her loss and nobody else's."

"I don't think you ought to speak like that of a person whom your motherloved—and who is my most intimate friend," said Christabel, with gravereproach.

Leonard had drunk a good deal at dinner; and indeed there had been aninclination on the part of all three men to drown their gloomy ideas inwine, while even Mopsy, who generally took her fair share of champagne,allowed the butler to fill her glass rather oftener than usual—sighingas she sipped the sparkling bright-coloured wine, and remembering, evenin the midst of her regret for the newly dead, that she would very soonhave returned to a domicile where Moët was not the daily beverage, nay,where, at times, the very beer-barrel ran dry.

After dinner Christabel went to the nursery. It flashed upon her withacutest pain as she entered the room, that when last she had been thereshe had not known of Angus Hamleigh's death. He had been lying yonder bythe waterfall, dead, and she had not known. And now the fact of hisdeath was an old thing—part of the history of her life.

The time when he was alive and with her, full of bright thoughts andpoetic fancies, seemed ever so long ago. Yet it was onlyyesterday—yesterday, and gone from her life as utterly as if it were anepisode in the records of dead and gone ages—as old as the story ofTristan and Iseult. She sat with her boy till he fell asleep, and satbeside him as he slept, in the dim light of the night-lamp, thinking ofhim who lay dead in the lonely farmhouse among those green hills theytwo had loved so well—hushed by the voice of the distant sea, soundingfar inland in the silence of night.

She remembered how he had talked last night of the undiscovered country,and how, as he talked, with flushed cheeks, and too brilliant eyes, shehad seen the stamp of death on his face. They had talked of "The GatesAjar," a book which they had read together in the days gone by, andwhich Christabel had often returned to since that time—a book in whichthe secrets of the future are touched lightly by a daring but a delicatehand—a book which accepts every promise of the Gospel in its mostliteral sense, and overflows with an exultant belief in just such aHeaven as poor humanity wants. In this author's creed transition fromdeath to life is instant—death is the Lucina of life. There is no longlethargy of the grave, there is no time of darkness. Straight from thebed of death the spirit rushes to the arms of the beloved ones who havegone before. Death, so glorified, becomes only the reunion of love.

He had talked of Socrates, and the faithful few who waited at the prisondoors in the early morning, when the sacred ship had returned, and theend was near; and of that farewell discourse in the upper chamber of thehouse at Jerusalem which seems dimly foreshadowed by the philosopher'sconverse with his disciples—at Athens, the struggle towards light—atJerusalem the light itself in fullest glory.

Christabel felt herself bound by no social duty to return to thedrawing-room, more especially as Miss Vandeleur had gone upstairs to sitwith the afflicted Dopsy—who was bewailing the dead very sincerely inher own fashion, with little bursts of hysterical tears and fragmentaryremarks.

"I know he didn't care a straw for me"—she gasped, dabbing her templeswith a handkerchief soaked in eau-de-Cologne—"yet it seemed sometimesalmost as if he did: he was so attentive—but then he had such lovelymanners—no doubt he was just as attentive to all girls. Oh, Mop, if hehad cared for me, and if I had married him—what a paradise this earthwould have been. Mr. Tregonell told me that he had quite four thousand ayear."

And thus—and thus, with numerous variations on the same theme—poorDopsy mourned for the dead man; while the low murmur of the distant sea,beating for ever and for ever against the horned cliffs, and dashingsilvery white about the base of that Mechard Rock which looks like acouchant lion keeping guard over the shore, sounded like a funeralchorus in the pauses of her talk.

It was half-past ten when Christabel left her boy's bedside, and, on herway to her own room, suddenly remembered Jessie's unexplained absence.

She knocked at Miss Bridgeman's door twice, but there was no answer, andthen she opened the door and looked in, expecting to find the roomempty.

Jessie was sitting in front of the fire in her hat and jacket, staringat the burning coals. There was no light in the room, except the glowand flame of the fire, but even in that cheerful light Jessie lookeddeadly pale. "Jessie," exclaimed Christabel, going up to her and puttinga gentle hand upon her shoulder, for she took no notice of the openingof the door, "where in heaven's name have you been?"

"Alone—at night—yes! I would have walked through storm and fire—Iwould have walked through——" she set her lips like iron, and mutteredthrough her clenched teeth, "Hell."

"None to him, I know, but perhaps a little to me. I think if I hadstayed here I should have gone stark, staring mad. I felt my brainreeling as I sat and thought of him in the twilight, and then it seemedto me as if the only comfort possible was in looking at his deadface—holding his dead hand—and I have done it, and am comforted—alittle," she said, with a laugh, which ended in a convulsive sob.

"My good warm-hearted Jessie!" murmured Christabel, bending over herlovingly, tears raining down her cheeks; "I know you always liked him."

"Always liked him!" echoed the other, staring at the fire, in blanktearless grief; "liked him? yes, always."

"But you must not take his death so despairingly, dear. You know that,under the fairest circumstances, he had not very long to live. We bothknew that."

"Yes! we knew it. I knew—thought that I had realized the fact—toldmyself every day that in a few months he would be hidden from us underground—gone to a life where we cannot follow him even with ourthoughts, though we pretend to be so sure about it, as those women do in'The Gates Ajar.' I told myself this every day. And yet, now that he issnatched away suddenly—cruelly—mysteriously—it is as hard to bear asif I had believed that he would live a hundred years. I am not likeyou, a piece of statuesque perfection. I cannot say 'Thy will be done,'when my dearest—the only man I ever loved upon this wide earth issnatched from me. Does that shock your chilly propriety, you who onlyhalf loved him, and who broke his heart at another woman's bidding? Yes!I loved him from the first—loved him all the while he was your lover,and found it enough for happiness to be in his company—to see and hearhim, and answer every thought of his with sympathetic thoughts ofmine—understanding him quicker and better than you could, bright as youare—happy to go about with you two—to be the shadow in the sunshine ofyour glad young lives, just as a dog who loved him would have been happyfollowing at his heels. Yes, Belle, I loved him—I think almost from thehour he came here, in the sweet autumn twilight, when I saw that poeticface, half in fire-glow and half in darkness—loved him always, always,always, and admired him as the most perfect among men!"

"Jessie, my dearest, my bravest! And you were so true and loyal. Younever by word or look betrayed——"

"What do you think of me?" cried Jessie, indignantly. "Do you supposethat I would not rather have cut out my tongue—thrown myself off thenearest cliff—than give him one lightest occasion to suspect what apaltry-souled creature I was—so weak that I could not cure myself ofloving another woman's lover. While he lived I hated myself for myfolly; now he is dead, I glory in the thought of how I loved him—how Igave him the most precious treasures of my soul—my reverence—myregard—my tears and hopes and prayers. Those are the only gold andfrankincense and myrrh which the poor of this earth can offer, and Igave them freely to my divinity!"

Christabel laid her hand upon the passionate lips; and, kneeling by herfriend's side, comforted her with gentle caresses.

"Do you suppose I am not sorry for him, Jessie?" she said reproachfully,after a long pause.

"Would you have me go raving about the house—I, Leonard's wife, Leo'smother? I try to resign myself to God's will: but I shall remember himtill the end of my days, with unspeakable sorrow. He was like sunshinein my life; so that life without him seemed all one dull gray, till thebaby came, and brought me back to the sunlight, and gave me new duties,new cares!"

"Yes! you can find comfort in a baby's arms—that is a blessing. Mycomfort was to see my beloved in his bloody shroud—shot through theheart—shot through the heart! Well, the inquest will find out somethingto-morrow, I hope; but I want you to go with me to-morrow morning, assoon as it is light, to the Kieve."

"What will be the good, Jessie? I know the place too well; it has beenin my mind all this evening."

"There will be some good, perhaps. At any rate, I want you to go withme; and if there ever was any reality in your love, if you are notmerely a beautiful piece of mechanism, with a heart that beats byclockwork, you will go."

"I will not go till after breakfast. I want the business of the house togo on just as calmly as if this calamity had never happened. I don'twant any one to be able to say, 'Mrs. Tregonell is in despair at theloss of her old lover.'"

"They cannot suppose that, when I was once so proud of my love. All Iwant is that no one should think I loved him too well after I was a wifeand mother. I will give no occasion for scandal."

"I do not want any one to say hard things of me when I am dead—hardthings that my son may hear."

"When you are dead! You talk as if you thought you were to die soon. Youare of the stuff that wears to threescore-and-ten, and even beyond thePsalmist's limit. There is no friction for natures of your calibre. WhenWerther had shot himself, Charlotte went on cutting bread and butter,don't you know? It was her nature to be proper, and good, and useful,and never to give offence—her nature to cut bread and butter,"concluded Jessie, laughing bitterly.

Christabel stayed with her for an hour, talking to her, consoling her,speaking hopefully of that unknown world, so fondly longed for, sopiously believed in by the woman who had learnt her creed at Mrs.Tregonell's knees. Many tears were shed by Christabel during that hourof mournful talk; but not one by Jessie Bridgeman. Hers was a dry-eyedgrief.

"After breakfast then we will walk to the Kieve," said Jessie, asChristabel left her. "Would it be too much to ask you to make it asearly as you can?"

CHAPTER III.

DUEL OR MURDER?

All the household appeared at breakfast next morning; even poor Dopsy,who felt that she could not nurse her grief in solitude any longer."It's behaving too much as if you were his widow," Mopsy had told her,somewhat harshly; and then there was the task of packing, since theywere to leave Mount Royal at eleven, in order to be at Launceston intime for the one o'clock train. This morning's breakfast was less silentthan the dinner of yesterday. Everybody felt as if Mr. Hamleigh had beendead at least a week.

Captain Vandeleur and Mr. Montagu discussed the sad event openly, as ifthe time for reticence were past; speculated and argued as to how theaccident could have happened; talked learnedly about guns; wonderedwhether the country surgeon was equal to the difficulties of the case.

"I can't understand," said Mr. Montagu, "if he was found lying in thehollow by the waterfall, how his gun came to go off. If he had beengoing through a hedge, or among the brushwood on the slope of the hill,it would be easy enough to see how the thing might have happened; but asit is, I'm all in the dark."

"You had better go and watch the inquest, and make yourself useful tothe coroner," sneered Leonard, who had been drinking his coffee in moodysilence until now. "You seem to think yourself so uncommonly clever andfar seeing."

"Well, I flatter myself I know as much about sport as most men; and I'vehandled a gun before to-day, and know that the worst gun that was evermade won't go off and shoot a fellow through the heart withoutprovocation of some kind."

Mrs. Tregonell sat at the other end of the table, half hidden by thelarge old-fashioned silver urn, and next her sat Jessie Bridgeman, aspare small figure in a close-fitting black gown, a pale drawn facewith a look of burnt-out fires—pale as the crater when the volcanicforces have exhausted themselves. At a look from Christabel she rose,and they two left the room together. Five minutes later they had leftthe house, and were walking towards the cliff, by following which theycould reach the Kieve without going down into Boscastle. It was a wildwalk for a windy autumn day; but these two loved its wildness—hadwalked here in many a happy hour, with souls full of careless glee. Nowthey walked silently, swiftly, looking neither to the sea nor the land,though both were at their loveliest in the shifting lights and shadowsof an exquisite October morning—sunshine enough to make one believe itwas summer—breezes enough to blow about the fleecy clouds in the blueclear sky, to ripple the soft dun-coloured heather on the hillockycommon, and to give life and variety to the sea.

It was a long walk; but the length of the way seemed of little accountto these two. Christabel had only the sense of a dreary monotony ofgrief. Time and space had lost their meaning. This dull aching sorrowwas to last for ever—till the grave—broken only by brief intervals ofgladness and forgetfulness with her boy.

To-day she could hardly keep this one source of consolation in her mind.All her thoughts were centred upon him who lay yonder dead.

"Jessie," she said, suddenly laying her hand on her companion's wrist,as they crossed the common above the slate-quarry, seaward of Trevalgavillage, with its little old church and low square tower. "Jessie, I amnot going to see him."

"What weak stuff you are made of," muttered Jessie, contemptuously,turning to look into the white frightened face. "No, you are not goingto look upon the dead. You would be afraid, and it might cause scandal.No, you are only going to see the place where he died; and then perhapsyou, or I, will see a little further into the darkness that hides hisfate. You heard how those men were puzzling their dull brains about itat breakfast. Even they can see that there is a mystery."

"Yes. My mind is full of suspicion; but it is all guess-work—no shredof evidence to go upon."

They came out of a meadow into the high road presently—the pleasantrustic road which so many happy holiday-making people tread in the sweetsummer time—the way to that wild spot where England's first hero wasborn; the Englishman's Troy, cradle of that fair tradition out of whichgrew the Englishman's Iliad.

Beside the gate through which they came lay that mighty slab of sparwhich has been christened King Arthur's Quoit, but which the Rector ofTrevalga declared to be the covering stone of a Cromlech. Christabelremembered how facetious they had all been about Arthur and his game ofquoits, five years ago, in the bright autumn weather, when the leaveswere blown about so lightly in the warm west wind. And now the leavesfell with a mournful heaviness, and every falling leaf seemed an emblemof death.

They went to the door of the farmhouse to get the key of the gate whichleads to the Kieve. Christabel stood in the little quadrangular garden,looking up at the house, while Jessie rang and asked for what shewanted.

"Did no one except Mr. Hamleigh go to the Kieve yesterday until the menwent to look for him?" she asked of the young woman who brought her thekey.

"No one else, Miss. No one but him had the key. They found it in thepocket of his shooting jacket when he was brought here."

Involuntarily, Jessie put the key to her lips. His hand was almost thelast that had touched it.

Just as they were leaving the garden, where the last of the yellowdahlias were fading, Christabel took Jessie by the arm, and stopped her.

Jessie pointed to a low, latticed window in the old gray house—acasement round which myrtle and honeysuckle clung lovingly. The latticestood open. The soft sweet air was blowing into the room, just faintlystirring the white dimity curtain. Andhe was lying there in that lastineffable repose.

They went up the steep lane, between tall tangled hedges, where theragged robin still showed his pinky blossoms, and many a pale yellowhawksweed enlivened the faded foliage, while the ferns upon the banks,wet from yesterday's rain, still grew rankly green.

On the crest of the hill the breeze grew keener, and the dead leaveswere being ripped from the hedgerows, and whirled down into the hollow,where the autumn wind seemed to follow Christabel and Jessie as theydescended, with a long plaintive minor cry, like the lament at an Irishfuneral. All was dark and desolate in the green valley, as Jessieunlocked the gate, and they went slowly down the steep slippery path,among moss-grown rock and drooping fern—down and down, by sharplywinding ways, so narrow that they could only go one by one, till theycame within the sound of the rushing water, and then down into thenarrow cleft, where the waterfall tumbles into a broad shallow bed, anddribbles away among green slimy rocks.

Here there is a tiny bridge—a mere plank—that spans the water, with ahand-rail on one side. They crossed this, and stood on the broad flatstone on the other side. This is the very heart of St. Nectan's mystery.Here, high in air, the water pierces the rock, and falls, a slendersilvery column, into the rocky bed below.

There were marks of blood upon it—the traces of stains which had beenroughly wiped away by the men who found the body.

"This is where he stood," said Jessie, looking round, and then she ransuddenly across to the narrow path on the other side. "And some one elsestood here—here—just at the end of the bridge. There are marks ofother feet here."

"Yes; that makes it difficult to tell. There are the traces of manyfeet. Yet I know," she muttered, with clenched teeth, "that some onestood here—just here—and shot him. They were standing face to face.See!"—she stepped the bridge with light swift feet—"so! at ten paces.Don't you see?"

Christabel looked at her with a white scared face, remembering herhusband's strange manner the night before last, and those parting wordsat Mr. Hamleigh's bedroom door. "You understand my plan?" "Perfectly.""It saves all trouble, don't you see." Those few words had impressedthemselves upon her memory—insignificant as they were—because ofsomething in the tone in which they were spoken—something in the mannerof the two men.

"You mean," she said slowly, with her hand clenching the rail of thebridge, seeking unconsciously for support; "you mean that Angus and myhusband met here by appointment, and fought a duel?"

"They would not count it murder. Fate might have been the other way.Your husband might have been killed."

"No!" cried Christabel, passionately; "Angus would not have killed him.That would have been too deep a dishonour!"

She stood silent for a few moments, white as death, looking round herwith wide, despairing eyes.

"He has been murdered!" she said, in hoarse, faint tones. "Thatsuspicion has been in my mind—dark—shapeless—horrible—from thefirst. He has been murdered! And I am to spend the rest of my life withhis murderer!" Then, with a sudden hysterical cry, she turned angrilyupon Jessie.

"How dare you tell lies about my husband?" she exclaimed. "Don't youknow that nobody came here yesterday except Angus; no one else had thekey. The girl at the farm told us so."

"The key!" echoed Jessie, contemptuously. "Do you think a gate, breasthigh, would keep out an athlete like your husband? Besides, there isanother way of getting here, without going near the gate, where he mightbe seen, perhaps, by some farm labourer in the field. The men wereploughing there yesterday, and heard a shot. They told me that lastnight at the farm. Wait! wait!" cried Jessie, excitedly.

She rushed away, light as a lapwing, flying across the narrowbridge—bounding from stone to stone—vanishing amidst dark autumnfoliage. Christabel heard her steps dying away in the distance. Thenthere was an interval, of some minutes, during which Christabel, hardlycaring to wonder what had become of her companion, stood clinging to thehand-rail, and staring down at stones and shingle, feathery ferns,soddened logs, the water rippling and lapping round all things, crystalclear.

Then, startled by a voice above her head, she looked up, and sawJessie's light figure just as she dropped herself over the sharp arch ofrock, and scrambled through the cleft, hanging on by her hands, findinga foothold in the most perilous places—in danger of instant death.

"My God!" murmured Christabel, with clasped hands, not daring to cryaloud lest she should increase Jessie's peril. "She will be killed."

With a nervous grip, and a muscular strength which no one could havesupposed possible in so slender a frame, Jessie Bridgeman made good herdescent, and stood on the shelf of slippery rock, below the waterfall,unhurt save for a good many scratches and cuts upon the hands that hadclung so fiercely to root and bramble, crag and boulder.

"What I could do your husband could do," she said. "He did it often whenhe was a boy—you must remember his boasting of it. He did it yesterday.Look at this."

"This" was a ragged narrow shred of heather cloth, with a brick-dust redtinge in its dark warp, which Leonard had much affected this year—"Mr.Tregonell's colour, is it not?" asked Jessie.

"Like? It is a part of his coat. I found it hanging on a bramble, at thetop of the cleft. Try if you can find the coat when you get home, andsee if it is not torn. But most likely he will have hidden the clotheshe wore yesterday. Murderers generally do."

"How dare you call him a murderer?" said Christabel, trembling, and coldto the heart. It seemed to her as if the mild autumnal air—here inthis sheltered nook which was always warmer than the rest of theworld—had suddenly become an icy blast that blew straight from far awayarctic seas. "How dare you call my husband a murderer?"

"Oh, I forgot. It was a duel, I suppose: a fair fight, planned soskilfully that the result should seem like an accident, and the survivorshould run no risk. Still, to my mind, it was murder all the same—for Iknow who provoked the quarrel—yes—and you know—you, who are hiswife—and who, for respectability's sake, will try to shield him—youknow—for you must have seen hatred and murder in his face that nightwhen he came into the drawing-room—and asked Mr. Hamleigh for a fewwords in private. It was then he planned this work," pointing to thebroad level stone against which the clear water was rippling with such apretty playful sound, while those two women stood looking at each otherwith pale intent faces, fixed eyes, and tremulous lips; "and AngusHamleigh, who valued his brief remnant of earthly life so lightly,consented—reluctantly perhaps—but too proud to refuse. And he fired inthe air—yes, I know he would not have injured your husband by so muchas a hair of his head—I know him well enough to be sure of that. Hecame here like the victim to the altar. Leonard Tregonell must haveknown that. And I say that though he, with his Mexican freebooter'smorality, may have called it a fair fight, it was murder, deliberate,diabolical murder."

"If this is true," said Christabel in a low voice, "I will have no mercyupon him."

"Oh, yes, you will. You will sacrifice feeling to propriety, you willput a good face upon things, for the sake of your son. You were born andswaddled in the purple of respectability. You will not stir a finger toavenge the dead."

"I will have no mercy upon him," repeated Christabel, with a strangelook in her eyes.

CHAPTER IV.

"DUST TO DUST."

The inquest at the Wharncliffe Arms was conducted in a thoroughlyrespectable, unsuspicious manner. No searching questions were asked, noinferences drawn. To the farmers and tradespeople who constituted thatrustic jury, the case seemed too simple to need any severeinterrogation. A gentleman staying in a country house goes out shooting,and is so unlucky as to shoot himself instead of the birds whereof hewent in search. He is found with an empty bag, and a charge of swan-shotthrough his heart.

"Hard lines," as Jack Vandeleur observed,sotto voce, to aneighbouring squire, while the inquest was pursuing its sleepy course,"and about the queerest fluke I ever saw on any table."

"Was it a fluke?" muttered little Montagu, lifting himself on tiptoe towatch the proceedings. He and his companions were standing among alittle crowd at the door of the justice-room. "It looks to meuncommonly as if Mr. Hamleigh had shot himself. We all know he wasdeadly sweet on Mrs. T., although both of them behaved beautifully."

"Men have died—and worms have eaten them—but not for love," quotedCaptain Vandeleur, who had a hearsay knowledge of Shakspeare, though hehad never read a Shakspearian play in his life. "If Hamleigh was so deadtired of life that he wanted to kill himself he could have done itcomfortably in his own room."

"Pshaw, how can any man care what comes afterwards? Bury me where fourroads meet, with a stake through my body, or in Westminster Abbey undera marble monument, and the result is just the same to me."

"That's because you are an out-and-out Bohemian. But Hamleigh was adandy in all things. He would be nice about the details of his death."

Mr. Hamleigh's valet was now being questioned as to his master's conductand manner on the morning he left Mount Royal. The man replied that hismaster's manner had been exactly the same as usual. He was always veryquiet—said no more than was necessary to be said. He was a kind masterbut never familiar. "He never made a companion of me," said the man,"though I'd been with him at home and abroad twelve years; but a bettermaster never lived. He was always an early riser—there was nothing outof the way in his getting up at six, and going out at seven. There wasonly one thing at all out of the common, and that was his attending tohis gun himself, instead of telling me to get it ready for him."

"No—unless he made a mistake in the charge. He took the cartridges outof the case himself, and put them into his pocket. He was an experiencedsportsman, though he was never as fond of sport as the generality ofgentlemen."

"No; I don't think he had any trouble on his mind. He was in very badhealth, and knew that he had not long to live; but he seemed quite happyand contented. Indeed, judging by what I saw of him, I should say thathe was in a more easy, contented frame of mind during the last fewmonths than he had ever been for the last four years."

This closed the examination. There had been very few witnessescalled—only the medical man, the men who had found the body, the girlat the farm, who declared that she had given the key to Mr. Hamleigh alittle before eight that morning, that no one else had asked for the keytill the men came from Mount Royal—that, to her knowledge, no one butthe men at work on the farm had gone up the lane that morning. A coupleof farm labourers gave the same testimony—they had been at work in thetopmost field all the morning, and no one had gone to the Kieve that wayexcept the gentleman that was killed. They had heard a shot—or twoshots—they were not certain which, fired between eight and nine. Theywere not very clear as to the hour, and they could not say for certainwhether they heard one or two shots; but they knew that the report was avery loud one—unusually loud for a sportsman's shot.

Mr. Tregonell, although he was in the room ready to answer anyquestions, was not interrogated. The jury went in a wagonette to see thebody, which was still lying at the farm, and returned after a briefinspection of that peaceful clay—the countenance wearing that beautifulcalm which is said to be characteristic of death from a gun-shotwound—to give their verdict.

The body was carried to Mount Royal after dark, and three days laterthere was a stately funeral, to which first cousins and second cousinsof the dead came as from the four corners of the earth; for AngusHamleigh, dying a bachelor, and leaving a handsome estate behind him,was a person to be treated with all those last honours whichaffectionate kindred can offer to poor humanity.

He was buried in the little churchyard in the hollow, where Christabeland he had heard the robin singing and the dull thud of the earth thrownout of an open grave in the calm autumn sunlight. Now in the autumn hisown grave was dug in the same peaceful spot—in accordance with a notewhich his valet, who knew his habits, found in a diary.

"Oct. 11.—If I should die in Cornwall—and there are times when I feelas if death were nearer than my doctor told me at our last interview—Ishould like to be buried in Minster Churchyard. I have outlived allfamily associations, and I should like to lie in a spot which is dear tome for its own sake."

A will had been found in Mr. Hamleigh's despatch box, which receptaclewas opened by his lawyer, who came from London on purpose to take chargeof any papers which his client might have in his possession at the timeof his death. The bulk of his papers were no doubt in his chambers inthe Albany; chambers which he had taken on coming of age; and which hehad occupied at intervals ever since.

Mr. Tregonell showed himself keenly anxious that everything should bedone in a strictly legal manner, and it was by his own hand that thelawyer was informed of his client's death, and invited to Mount Royal.Mr. Bryanstone, the solicitor, a thorough man of the world, and analtogether agreeable person, appeared at the Manor House two days beforethe funeral, and, being empowered by Mr. Tregonell to act as he pleased,sent telegrams far and wide to the dead man's kindred, who came troopinglike carrion crows to the funeral feast.

Angus Hamleigh was buried in the afternoon; a mild, peaceful afternoonat the end of October, with a yellow light in the western sky, whichdeepened and brightened as the funeral train wound across the valley,climbed the steep street of Boscastle, and then wound slowly downwardsinto the green heart of the hill, to the little rustic burial place.That orb of molten gold was sinking behind the edge of the moor justwhen the Vicar read the last words of the funeral service. Golden andcrimson gleams touched the landscape here and there, golden lights stilllingered on the sea, as the mourners, so thoroughly formal andconventional for the most part—Jack Vandeleur and little Monty amidstthe train with carefully-composed features—went back to theircarriages. And then the shades of evening came slowly down, and spread adark pall over hill-side, and hedgerow, and churchyard, where there wasno sound but the monotonous fall of the earth, which the gravedigger wasshovelling into that new grave.

There had been no women at the funeral. Those two who, each after herown peculiar fashion, had loved the dead man, were shut in their ownrooms, thinking of him, picturing, with too vivid imagery, the loweringof the coffin in the new-made grave—hearing the solemn monotony of theclergyman's voice, sounding clear in the clear air—the first shovelfulof earth falling on the coffin-lid—dust to dust; dust to dust.

Lamps were lighted in the drawing-room, where the will was to be read. Alarge wood fire burned brightly—pleasant after the lowered atmosphereof evening. Wines and other refreshments stood on a table near thehearth; another table stood ready for the lawyer. So far as there couldbe, or ought to be, comfort and cheeriness on so sad an occasion,comfort and cheeriness were here. The cousins—first and second—warmedthemselves before the fire, and discoursed in low murmurs of the timeand the trouble it had cost them to reach this out of the way hole, anddiscussed the means of getting away from it. Mr. Tregonell stood on oneside of the hearth, leaning his broad back heavily against thesculptured chimney piece, and listening moodily to Captain Vandeleur'smuttered discourse. He had insisted upon keeping his henchman with himduring this gloomy period; sending an old servant as far as Plymouth tosee the Miss Vandeleurs into the London train, rather than part with hisfamiliar friend. Even Mr. Montagu, who had delicately hinted atdeparture, was roughly bidden to remain.

"I shall be going away myself in a week or so," said Mr. Tregonell. "Idon't mean to spend the winter at this fag-end of creation. It will betime enough for you to go when I go."

The friends, enjoying free quarters which were excellent in their way,and having no better berths in view, freely forgave the bluntness of theinvitation, and stayed. But they commented between themselves in theseclusion of the smoking room upon the Squire's disinclination to beleft without cheerful company.

"He's infernally nervous, that's what it all means," said little Monty,who had all that cock-sparrowish pluck which small men are wont topossess—the calm security of insignificance. "You wouldn't suppose agreat burly fellow like Tregonell, who has travelled all over the world,would be scared by a death in his house, would you?"

"Death is awful, let it come when it will," answered Jack Vandeleur,dubiously. "I've seen plenty of hard-hitting in the hill-country, butI'd go a long way to avoid seeing a strange dog die, let alone a dog Iwas fond of."

"Tregonell couldn't have been very fond of Hamleigh, that's certain,"said Monty.

"Seemed; yes. But do you suppose Tregonell ever forgot that Mr. Hamleighand his wife had once been engaged to be married? It isn't in humannature to forget that kind of thing. And he made believe that he askedHamleigh here to give one of your sisters a chance of getting a richhusband," said Monty, rolling up a cigarette, as he sat adroitlybalanced on the arm of a large chair, and shaking his head gently, withlowered eyelids, and a cynical smile curling his thin lips. "That was alittletoo thin. He asked Hamleigh here because he was savagelyjealous, and suspected his motive for turning up in this part of thecountry, and wanted to see how he and Mrs. Tregonell would carry on."

"Whatever he wanted, I'm sure he saw no harm in either of them," saidCaptain Vandeleur. "I'm as quick as any man at twigging that kind ofthing, and I'll swear that it was all fair and above board with thosetwo; they behaved beautifully."

"So they did, poor things," answered Monty, in his little purring way."And yet Tregonell wasn't happy."

"He'd have been better pleased if Hamleigh had proposed to my sister, ashe ought to have done," said Vandeleur, trying to look indignant at thememory of Dopsy's wrongs.

"Now drop that, old Van," said Monty, laughing softly and pleasantly, ashe lit his cigarette, and began to smoke, dreamily, daintily, like a manfor whom smoking is a fine art. "Sink your sister. As I said before,that's too thin. Dopsy is a dear little girl—one of the five or six andtwenty nice girls whom I passionately adore; but she was never anywherewithin range of Hamleigh. First and foremost she isn't his style, andsecondly he has never got over the loss of Mrs. Tregonell. He behavedbeautifully while he was here; but he was just as much in love with heras he was four years ago, when I used to meet them at dances—a regularpair of Arcadian lovers; Daphne and Chloe, and that kind of thing. Sheonly wanted a crook to make the picture perfect."

And now Mr. Bryanstone had hummed and hawed a little, and had put on apair of gold-rimmed spectacles, and cousins near and distant ceasedtheir conversational undertones, and seated themselves conveniently tolisten.

The will was brief. "To Percy Ritherdon, Commander in Her Majesty'sNavy, my first cousin and old schoolfellow, in memory of his dearmother's kindness to one who had no mother, I bequeath ten thousandpounds, and my sapphire ring, which has been an heirloom, and which Ihope he will leave to any son of his whom he may call after me.

"To James Bryanstone, my very kind friend and solicitor of Lincoln'sInn, my collection of gold and silver snuff-boxes, and Roman intaglios.

"All the rest of my estate, real and personal, to be vested in trustees,of whom the above-mentioned James Bryanstone shall be one, and the Rev.John Carlyon, of Trevena, Cornwall, the other, for the sole use andbenefit of Leonard George Tregonell, now an infant, who shall, with hisfather and mother's consent, assume the name of Hamleigh after that ofTregonell upon coming of age, and I hope that his father and motherwill accept this legacy for their son in the spirit of pure friendshipfor them, and attachment to the boy by which it is dictated, and thatthey will suffer their son so to perpetuate the name of one who will diechildless."

There was an awful silence—perfect collapse on the part of the cousins,the one kinsman selected for benefaction being now with his ship in theMediterranean.

And then Leonard Tregonell rose from his seat by the fire, and cameclose up to the table at which Mr. Bryanstone was sitting.

"Certainly not. The money is left in trust. Your son can do what helikes when he comes of age. But why should you wish to decline such alegacy—left in such friendly terms? Mr. Hamleigh was your friend."

"He was my mother's friend—for me only a recent acquaintance. It seemsto me that there is a sort of indirect insult in such a bequest, as if Iwere unable to provide for my boy—as if I were likely to run througheverything, and make him a pauper before he comes of age."

"Believe me there is no such implication," said the lawyer, smilingblandly at the look of trouble and anger in the other man's face. "Didyou never hear before of money being left to a man who already hasplenty? That is the general bent of all legacies. In this world it isthe poor who are sent empty away," murmured Mr. Bryanstone, with a slyglance under his spectacles at the seven blank faces of the sevencousins. "I consider that Mr. Hamleigh—who was my very dear friend—haspaid you the highest compliment in his power, and that you have everyreason to honour his memory."

"Certainly not. The estate is not left to you—you have no power totouch a sixpence of it."

"Within the first week of this visit here. He must have taken aninordinate fancy to my boy."

Mr. Bryanstone smiled to himself softly with lowered eyelids, as hefolded up the will—a holograph will upon a single sheet of Bathpost—witnessed by two of the Mount Royal servants. The family solicitorknew all about Angus Hamleigh's engagement to Miss Courtenay—had evenreceived instructions for drawing the marriage settlement—but he wastoo much a man of the world to refer to that fact.

"Then don't you think that respect for your mother may have had someinfluence with Mr. Hamleigh when he made your son his heir?"

"I am not going to speculate about his motives. I only wish he had lefthis money to an asylum for idiots—or to his cousins"—with a glance atthe somewhat vacuous countenances of the dead man's kindred, "or that Iwere at liberty to decline his gift—which I should do, flatly."

"This sounds as if you were prejudiced against my lamented friend. Ithought you liked him."

"So I did," stammered Leonard, "but not well enough to give him theright to patronise me with his d—d legacy."

"Mr. Tregonell," said the lawyer, frowning, "I have to remind you thatmy late client has left you, individually, nothing—and I must add, thatyour language and manner are most unbefitting this melancholy occasion."

Leonard grumbled an inaudible reply, and walked back to the fireplace.The whole of this conversation had been carried on in undertones—sothat the cousins who had gathered in a group upon the hearthrug, and whowere for the most part absorbed in pensive reflections upon the futilityof earthly hopes, heard very little of it. They belonged to that speciesof well-dressed nonentities, more or less impecunious, which sometimesconstitute the outer fringe upon a good old family. To each of them itseemed a hard thing that Angus Hamleigh had not remembered himindividually, choosing him out of the ruck of cousinship as a meetobject for bounty.

"He ought to have left me an odd thousand," murmured a beardlesssubaltern; "he knew how badly I wanted it, for I borrowed a pony of himthe last time he asked me to breakfast; and a man of good family must bevery hard up when he comes to borrowing ponies."

"I dare say you would have not demurred to making it a monkey, if Mr.Hamleigh had proposed it," said his interlocutor.

"Of course not: and if he had been generous he would have given mesomething handsome, instead of being so confoundedly literal as to writehis cheque for exactly the amount I asked for. A man of his means andage ought to have had more feeling for a young fellow in his firstseason. And now I am out of pocket for my expenses to this infernalhole."

Thus, and with other wailings of an approximate character, did AngusHamleigh's kindred make their lamentation: and then they all began toarrange among themselves for getting away as early as possible nextmorning—and for travelling together, with a distant idea of a little"Nap" to beguile the weariness of the way between Plymouth andPaddington. There was room enough for them all at Mount Royal, and Mr.Tregonell was not a man to permit any guests, howsoever assembled, toleave his house for the shelter of an inn; so the cousins stayed, dinedheavily, smoked as furiously as those furnace chimneys which aresupposed not to smoke, all the evening, and thought they were passingvirtuous for refraining from the relaxation of pool, orshell-out—opining that the click of the balls might have an unholysound so soon after a funeral. Debarred from this amusement, theydiscussed the career and character of the dead man, and were all agreed,in the friendliest spirit, that there had been very little in him, andthat he had made a poor thing of his life, and obtained a mostinadequate amount of pleasure out of his money.

Mount Royal was clear of them all by eleven o'clock next morning. Mr.Montagu went away with them, and only Captain Vandeleur remained to bearLeonard company in a house which now seemed given over to gloom.Christabel kept her room, with Jessie Bridgeman in constant attendanceupon her. She had not seen her husband since her return from the Kieve,and Jessie had told him in a few resolute words that it would not bewell for them to meet.

"She is very ill," said Jessie, standing on the threshold of the room,while Leonard remained in the corridor outside. "Dr. Hayle has seen her,and he says she must have perfect quiet—no one is to worry her—no oneis to talk to her—the shock she has suffered in this dreadful businesshas shattered her nerves."

"Why can't you say in plain words that she is grieving for the only manshe ever loved," asked Leonard.

"I am not going to say that which is not true; and which you, betterthan any one else, know is not true. It is not Angus Hamleigh's death,but the manner of his death, which she feels. Take that to your heart,Mr. Tregonell."

"You are a viper!" said Leonard, "and you always were a viper. Tell mywife—when she is well enough to hear reason—that I am not going to besat upon by her, or her toady; and that as she is going to spend herwinter dissolved in tears for Mr. Hamleigh's death, I shall spend minein South America, with Jack Vandeleur."

Three days later his arrangements were all made for leaving Cornwall.Captain Vandeleur was very glad to go with him, upon what he, Jack,pleasantly called "reciprocal terms," Mr. Tregonell paying all expensesas a set-off against his friend's cheerful society. There was no falsepride about Poker Vandeleur; no narrow-minded dislike to being paid for.He was so thoroughly assured as to the perfect equitableness of thetransaction.

On the morning he left Mount Royal, Mr. Tregonell went into the nurseryto bid his son good-bye. He contrived, by some mild artifice, to sendthe nurse on an errand; and while she was away, strained the child tohis breast, and hugged and kissed him with a rough fervour which he hadnever before shown. The boy quavered a little, and his lip drooped underthat rough caress—and then the clear blue eyes looked up and saw thatthis vehemence meant love, and the chubby arms clung closely round thefather's neck.

"Poor little beggar!" muttered Leonard, his eyes clouded with tears. "Iwonder whether I shall ever see him again. He might die—or I—there isno telling. Hard lines to leave him for six months on end—but"—with asuppressed shudder—"I should go mad if I stayed here."

The nurse came back, and Leonard put the child on his rocking-horse,which he had left reluctantly at the father's entrance, and left thenursery without another word. In the corridor he lingered for someminutes—now staring absently at the family portraits—now looking atthe door of his wife's room. He had been occupying a bachelor room atthe other end of the house since her illness.

Should he force an entrance to that closed chamber—defy JessieBridgeman, and take leave of his wife?—the wife whom, after the bent ofhis own nature, he had passionately loved. What could he say to her?Very little, in his present mood. What would she say to him? There wasthe rub. From that pale face—from those uplifted eyes—almost asinnocent as the eyes that had looked at him just now—he shrank inabsolute fear.

At the last moment, after he had put on his overcoat, and when thedog-cart stood waiting for him at the door, he sat down and scribbled afew hasty lines of farewell.

"I am told you are too ill to see me, but cannot go without one word ofgood-bye. If I thought you cared a rap for me, I should stay; but Ibelieve you have set yourself against me because of this man's death,and that you will get well all the sooner for my being far away. Perhapssix months hence, when I come back again—if I don't get killed outyonder, which is always on the cards—you may have learnt to feel morekindly towards me. God knows I have loved you as well as ever man lovedwoman—too well for my own happiness. Good-bye. Take care of the boy;and don't let that little viper, Jessie Bridgeman, poison your mindagainst me."

"Leonard! are you coming to-day or to-morrow?" cried Jack Vandeleur'sstentorian voice from the hall. "We shall lose the train at Launceston,if you don't look sharp."

Thus summoned, Leonard thrust his letter into an envelope, directed itto his wife, and gave it to Daniel, who was hovering about to do duehonour to his master's departure—the master for whose infantine sportshe had made his middle-aged back as the back of a horse, andperambulated the passages on all-fours, twenty years ago—the master whoseemed but too likely to bring his grey hairs with sorrow to the grave,judging by the pace at which he now appeared to be travelling along theroad to ruin.

CHAPTER V.

"PAIN FOR THY GIRDLE, AND SORROW UPON THY HEAD."

Now came a period of gloom and solitude at Mount Royal. Mrs. Tregonelllived secluded in her own rooms, rarely leaving them save to visit herboy in his nursery, or to go for long lonely rambles with MissBridgeman. The lower part of the house was given over to silence andemptiness. It was winter, and the roads were not inviting for visitors;so, after a few calls had been made by neighbours who lived within tenmiles or so, and those callers had been politely informed by Daniel thathis mistress was confined to her room by a severe cough, and was notwell enough to see any one, no more carriages drove up the long avenue,and the lodge-keeper's place became a sinecure, save for opening thegate in the morning, and shutting it at dusk.

Mrs. Tregonell neither rode nor drove, and the horses were only takenout of their stables to be exercised by grooms and underlings. Theservants fell into the way of living their own lives, almost as if theyhad been on board wages in the absence of the family. The good olddoctor, who had attended Christabel in all her childish illnesses, cametwice a week, and stayed an hour or so in the morning-room upstairs,closeted with his patient and her companion, and then looked at littleLeo in his nursery, that young creature growing and thriving exceedinglyamidst the gloom and silence of the house, and awakening the echoesoccasionally with bursts of baby mirth.

None of the servants knew exactly what was amiss with Mrs. Tregonell.Jessie guarded and fenced her in with such jealous care, hardly lettingany other member of the household spend five minutes in her company.They only knew that she was very white, very sad-looking; that it waswith the utmost difficulty she was persuaded to take sufficientnourishment to sustain life; and that her only recreation consisted inthose long walks with Jessie—walks which they took in all weathers,and sometimes at the strangest hours. The people about Boscastle grewaccustomed to the sight of those two solitary women, clad in dark clothulsters, with close-fitting felt hats, that defied wind and weather,armed with sturdy umbrellas, tramping over fields and commons, by hillypaths, through the winding valley where the stream ran loud and deepafter the autumn rains, on the cliffs above the wild grey sea—alwaysavoiding as much as possible all beaten tracks, and the haunts ofmankind. Those who did meet the two reported that there was somethingstrange in the looks and ways of both. They did not talk to each otheras most ladies talked, to beguile the way: they marched on insilence—the younger, fairer face pale as death and inexpressibly sad,and with a look as of one who walks in her sleep, with wide-open,unseeing eyes.

"She looks just like a person who might walk over the cliff, if therewas no one by to take care of her," said Mrs. Penny, the butcher's wife,who had met them one day on her way home from Camelford Market; "butMiss Bridgeman, she do take such care, and she do watch every step ofyoung Mrs. Tregonell's"—Christabel was always spoken of as young Mrs.Tregonell by those people who had known her aunt. "I'm afraid the poordear lady has gone a little wrong in her head since Mr. Hamleigh shothimself; and there are some as do think he shot himself for her sake,never having got over her marrying our Squire."

On many a winter evening, when the sea ran high and wild at the foot ofthe rocky promontory, and overhead a wilder sky seemed like anothertempestuous sea inverted, those two women paced the grass-grown hill atTintagel, above the nameless graves, among the ruins of prehistoricalsplendour.

They were not always silent, as they walked slowly to and fro among therank grass, or stood looking at those wild waves which came rolling inlike solid walls of shining black water, to burst into ruin with athunderous roar against the everlasting rocks. They talked long andearnestly in this solitude, and in other solitary spots along that wildand varied coast; but none but themselves ever knew what they talkedabout, or what was the delight and relief which they found in the darkgrandeur of that winter sky and sea. And so the months crept by, in adreary monotony, and it was spring once more; all the orchards full ofbloom—those lovely little orchards of Alpine Boscastle, here nestlingin the deep gorge, there hanging on the edge of the hill. The gardenswere golden with daffodils, tulips, narcissus, jonquil—that richvariety of yellow blossoms which come in early spring, like a floralsunrise—and the waves ran gently into the narrow inlet between the tallcliffs. But those two lonely women were no longer seen roaming over thehills, or sitting down to rest in some sheltered corner of PentargonBay. They had gone to Switzerland, taking the nurse and baby with them,and were not expected to return to Mount Royal till the autumn.

Mr. Tregonell's South American wanderings had lasted longer than he hadoriginally contemplated. His latest letters—brief scrawls, written atrough resting-places—announced a considerable extension of his travels.He and his friend were following in the footsteps of Mr. Whymper, on theEquatorial Andes, the backbone of South America. Dopsy and Mopsy weremoping in the dusty South Belgravian lodging-house, nursing theirinvalid father, squabbling with their landlady, cutting, contriving,straining every nerve to make sixpences go as far as shillings, and onlygetting outside glimpses of the world of pleasure and gaiety, art andfashion, in their weary trampings up and down the dusty pathways of HydePark and Kensington Gardens.

They had written three or four times to Mrs. Tregonell, letters runningover with affection, fondly hoping for an invitation to Mount Royal; butthe answers had been in Jessie Bridgeman's hand, and the last had comefrom Zurich, which seemed altogether hopeless. They had sent Christmascards and New Year's cards, and had made every effort, compatible withtheir limited means, to maintain the links of friendship.

"I wish we could afford to send her a New Year's gift, or a toy for thatbaby," said Mopsy, who was not fond of infants. "But what could we sendher that she would care for, when she has everything in this world thatis worth having. And we could not get a toy, which that pampered childwould think worth looking at, under a sovereign," concluded Mop, with aprofound sigh.

And so the year wore on, dry, and dreary, and dusty for the two girls,whose only friends were the chosen few whom their brother made known tothem—friends who naturally dropped out of their horizon in CaptainVandeleur's absence.

"What a miserable summer it has been," said Dopsy, yawning andstretching in her tawdry morning gown—one of last year's high-art teagowns—and surveying with despondent eye the barren breakfast-table,where two London eggs, and the remains of yesterday's loaf, flanked by anearly empty marmalade pot, comprised all the temptations of the flesh."What a wretched summer—hot, and sultry, and thundery, and dusty—thecholera raging in Chelsea, and measles only divided from us by LambethBridge! And we have not been to a single theatre."

"Hark!" cried Mopsy, "it's the postman," and she rushed into thepassage, too eager to await the maid-of-all-work's slipshod foot.

"What's the good of exciting oneself?" murmured Dopsy, with anotherstretch of long thin arms above a towzled head. "Of course it's only abill, or a lawyer's letter for pa."

Happily it was neither of these unpleasantnesses which the morningmessenger had brought, but a large vellum envelope, with the address,Mount Royal, in old English letters above the small neat seal: and thehand which had directed the envelope was Christabel Tregonell's.

"At last she has condescended to write to me with her own hand," saidDopsy, to whom, as Miss Vandeleur, the letter was addressed. "But I daresay it's only a humbugging note. I know she didn't really like us: weare not her style."

"How should we be?" exclaimed Mopsy, whom the languid influences of asultry August had made ill-humoured and cynical. "She was not broughtup in the gutter."

"Mopsy," cried her sister, with a gasp of surprise and delight, "it's aninvitation!"

"This is too delicious," exclaimed Dopsy. "But however are we to findthe money for the journey? And our clothes—what a lot we shall have todo to our clothes. If we only had credit at a good draper's."

"Suppose we were to try our landlady's plan, for once in a way,"suggested Mopsy, faintly, "and get a few things from that man near DruryLane who takes weekly instalments."

"What, the Tallyman?" screamed Dopsy. "No, I would rather be dressedlike a South Sea Islander. It's not only the utter lowness of thething; but the man's goods are never like anybody else's. The coloursand materials seem invented on purpose for him."

"Well, they're ugly enough even for that; but it's not the right kind ofugliness."

"After all," answered Mopsy, "we have no more chance of paying weeklythan we have of paying monthly or quarterly. Nothing under three years'credit would be any use tous. Something might happen—Fortune's wheelmight turn in three years."

"Whenever it does turn it will be the wrong way, and we shall be underit," said Dopsy, still given over to gloom.

It was very delightful to be invited to a fine old country house; but itwas bitter to know that one must go there but half provided with thosethings which civilization have made a necessity.

"How happy those South Sea Islanders must be," sighed Mopsy, pensivelymeditating upon the difference between wearing nothing, and havingnothing to wear.

CHAPTER VI.

"I WILL HAVE NO MERCY ON HIM."

The Buenos Ayres steamer was within sight of land—English land. Thoseshining lights yonder were the twin lanterns of the Lizard. Leonard andhis friend paced the bridge smoking their cigars, and looking towardsthat double star which shone out as one light in the distance; andthinking that they were going back to civilization—conventionalhabits—a world which must seem cramped and narrow—not much better thanthe squirrel's cage seems to the squirrel—after the vast width andmargin of that wilder, freer world they had just left—where men andwomen were not much more civilized than the unbroken horses that werebrought out struggling, and roped in among a team of older stagers, tobe dragged along anyhow for the first mile or so, rebellious, andwondering, and to fall in with the necessities of the case somehowbefore the stage was done.

There was no thrill of patriotic rapture in the breast of eithertraveller as he watched yonder well-known light brightening on the darkhorizon. Leonard had left his country too often to feel any deep emotionat returning to it. He had none of those strong feelings which mark aman as the son of the soil, and make it seem to him that he belongs toone spot of earth, and can neither live nor die happily anywhere else.The entire globe was his country, a world created for him to roam aboutin, climbing all its hills, shooting in all its forests, fishing in allits rivers, exhausting all the sport and amusement that was to be hadout of it—and with no anchor to chain him down to any given spot. Yet,though he had none of the deep feeling of the exile returning to thecountry of his birth, he was not without emotion as he saw the Lizardlight broadening and yellowing under the pale beams of a young moon. Hewas thinking of his wife—the wife whose face he had not seen since thatgloomy morning at Mount Royal, when she sat pale and calm in her placeat the head of his table—maintaining her dignity as the mistress of hishouse, albeit he knew her heart was breaking. From the hour of herreturn from the Kieve, they had been parted. She had kept her room,guarded by Jessie; and he had been told, significantly, that it was notwell they should meet.

How would she receive him now? What were her thoughts and feelings aboutthat dead man? The man whom she had loved and he had hated: not onlybecause his wife loved him—though that reason was strong enough forhatred—but because the man was in every attribute so much his ownsuperior. Never had Leonard Tregonell felt such keen anxiety as he feltnow, when he speculated upon his wife's greeting—when he tried toimagine how they two would feel and act standing face to face afternearly a year of severance.

The correspondence between them had been of the slightest. For the firstsix months his only home-letters had been from Miss Bridgeman—curt,business-like communications—telling him of his boy's health andgeneral progress, and of any details about the estate which it was hisplace to be told. Of Christabel she wrote as briefly as possible. "Mrs.Tregonell is a little better." "Mrs. Tregonell is gradually regainingstrength." "The doctor considers Mrs. Tregonell much improved," and soon.

Later there had been letters from Christabel—letters written inSwitzerland—in which the writer confined herself almost entirely tonews of the boy's growth and improvement, and to the particulars oftheir movements from one place to another—letters which gave not thefaintest indication of the writer's frame of mind: as devoid ofsentiment as an official communication from one legation to another.

He was going back to Mount Royal therefore in profound ignorance of hiswife's feelings—whether he would be received with smiles or frowns,with tears or sullen gloom. Albeit not of a sensitive nature, thisuncertainty made him uncomfortable, and he looked at yonder faint greyshore—the peaks and pinnacles of that wild western coast—without anyof those blissful emotions which the returning wanderer alwaysexperiences—in poetry.

Plymouth, however, where they went ashore next morning, seemed a veryenjoyable place after the cities of South America. It was not sopicturesque a town, nor had it that rowdy air and dissipated flavourwhich Mr. Tregonell appreciated in the cities of the South; but it had ateeming life and perpetual movement, which were unknown on the shores ofthe Pacific; the press and hurry of many industries—the steady fervourof a town where wealth is made by honest labour—the intensity of aplace which is in somewise the cradle of naval warfare. Mr. Tregonellbreakfasted and lunched at the Duke of Cornwall, strolled on the Hoe,played two or three games on the first English billiard-table he hadseen for a year, and found a novel delight in winners and losers.

An afternoon train took the travellers on to Launceston, where the MountRoyal wagonette, and a cart for the luggage, were waiting for them atthe station.

He asked for no details, but took the reins from Nicholls withoutanother word. Captain Vandeleur jumped up by his side, Nicholls got inat the back, with a lot of the smaller luggage—gun-cases,dressing-bags, despatch-boxes—and away they went up the castle hill,and then sharp round to the right, and off at a dashing pace along theroad to the moor. It was a two hours' drive even for the best goers; butMr. Tregonell spoke hardly a dozen times during the journey, smoking allthe way, and with his eyes always on his horses.

At last they wound up the hill to Mount Royal, and passed the lodge, andsaw all the lights of the old wide-spreading Tudor front shining uponthem through the thickening grey of early evening.

"A good old place, isn't it?" said Leonard, just a little moved at sightof the house in which he had been born. "A man might come home to aworse shelter."

"This man might come home to lodgings in Chelsea," said Jack Vandeleur,touching himself lightly on the breast, with a grim laugh. "It's aglorious old place, and you needn't apologize for being proud of it.And now we've come back, I hope you are going to be jolly, for you'vebeen uncommonly glum while we've been away. The house looks cheerful,doesn't it? I should think it must be full of company."

"Not likely," answered Leonard. "Christabel never cared about havingpeople. We should have lived like hermits if she had had her way."

"Then if the house isn't full of people, all I can say is there's a gooddeal of candlelight going to waste," said Captain Vandeleur.

They were driving up to the porch by this time; the door stood wideopen; servants were on the watch for them. The hall was all aglow withlight and fire; people were moving about near the hearth. It was arelief to Leonard to see this life and brightness. He had feared to finda dark and silent house—a melancholy welcome—all things still inmourning for the untimely dead.

A ripple of laughter floated from the hall as Leonard drew up hishorses, and two tall slim figures with fluffy heads, short-waistedgowns, and big sashes, came skipping down the broad shallow steps.

"My sisters, by Jove," cried Jack, delighted. "How awfully jolly of Mrs.Tregonell to invite them."

Leonard's only salutation to the damsels was a friendly nod. He brushedby them as they grouped themselves about their brother—like a newedition of Laocoon without the snakes, or the three Graces without thegrace—and hurried into the hall, eager to be face to face with hiswife. She came forward to meet him, looking her loveliest, dressed as hehad never seen her dressed before, with a style, achic, and a daringmore appropriate to the Théâtre Français than to a Cornish squire'shouse. She who, even in the height of the London season, had beensimplicity itself, recalling to those who most admired her, the pictureof that chaste and unworldly maiden who dwelt beside the Dove, now worean elaborate costume of brown velvet and satin, in which a Louis Quinzevelvet coat, with large cut-steel buttons and Mechlinjabot, was themost striking feature. Her fair, soft hair was now fluffy, and stood upin an infinity of frizzy curls from the broad white forehead. Diamondsolitaires flashed in her ears, her hands glittered with the rainbowlight of old family rings, which in days gone by she had been wont toleave in the repose of an iron safe. The whole woman was changed. Shecame to meet her husband with a Society smile; shook hands with him asif he had been a commonplace visitor—he was too startled to note thedeath-like coldness of that slender hand—and welcomed him with aconventional inquiry about his passage from Buenos Ayres.

He stood transfixed—overwhelmed by surprise. The room was full ofpeople. There was Mrs. Fairfax Torrington, liveliest and mostessentially modern of well-preserved widows, alwaysdans le mouvement,as she said of herself; and there, lolling against the high oakchimney-piece, with an air of fatuous delight in his own attractiveness,was that Baron de Cazalet—pseudo artist, poet, andlittérateur, who,five seasons ago, had been an object of undisguised detestation withChristabel. He, too, was essentially in the movement—æsthetic, cynical,agnostic, thought-reading, spiritualistic—always blowing the lastfashionable bubble, and making his bubbles bigger and brighter thanother people's—a man who prided himself upon his "intensity" in everypursuit—from love-making to gourmandize. There, again, marked out fromthe rest by a thoroughly prosaic air, which, in these days of artisticsensationalism is in itself a distinction—pale, placid, taking his easein a low basket chair, with his languid hand on Randie's blackmuzzle—sat Mr. FitzJesse, the journalist, proprietor and editor ofTheSling, a fashionable weekly—the man who was always smiting the Goliahsof pretence and dishonesty with a pen that was sharper than any stonethat ever David slung against the foe. He was such an amiable-lookingman—had such a power of obliterating every token of intellectual forceand fire from the calm surface of his countenance, that people, seeinghim for the first time, were apt to stare at him in blank wonder at hisinnocent aspect. Was this the wielder of that scathing pen—was this theman who wrote not with ink but with aqua fortis? Even his placidmatter-of-fact speech was, at first, a little disappointing. It was onlyby gentlest degrees that the iron hand of satire made itself felt underthe velvet glove of conventional good manners. Leonard had met Mr.FitzJesse in London, at the clubs and elsewhere, and had felt that vagueawe which the provincial feels for the embodied spirit of metropolitanintellect in the shape of a famous journalist. It was needful to becivil to such men, in order to be let down gently in their papers. Onenever knew when some rash unpremeditated act might furnish matter for aparagraph which would mean social annihilation.

There were other guests grouped about the fireplace—little Monty, theuseful and good-humoured country-house hack; Colonel Blathwayt, of theKildare Cavalry, a noted amateur actor, reciter, waltzer, spirit-rapper,invaluable in a house full of people—a tall, slim-waisted man, who rodenine stone, and at forty contrived to look seven-and-twenty; the Rev.St. Bernard Faddie, an Anglican curate, who carried Ritualism to theextremest limit consistent with the retention of his stipend as aminister of the Church of England, and who was always at loggerheadswith some of his parishioners. There were Mr. and Mrs. St. Aubyn andtheir two daughters—county people, with loud voices, horsey, anddoggy, and horticultural—always talking garden, when they were nottalking stable or kennel. These were neighbours for whom Christabel hadcared very little in the past. Leonard was considerably astonished atfinding them domiciled at Mount Royal.

"And you had a nice passage," said his wife, smiling at her lord. "Willyou have some tea?"

It seemed a curious kind of welcome to a husband after a year's absence;but Leonard answered feebly that he would take a cup of tea. One of thenumerous tea-tables had been established in a corner near the fire, andMiss Bridgeman, in neat grey silk and linen collar, as of old, wasofficiating, with Mr. Faddie in attendance, to distribute the cups.

"No tea, thanks," said Jack Vandeleur, coming in with his sisters stillentwined about him, still faintly suggestive of that poor man and thesea-serpents. "Would it be too dreadful if I were to suggest S. & B.?"

Jessie Bridgeman touched a spring bell on the tea-table, and gave therequired order. There was a joviality, alaissez-aller in the air ofthe place, with which soda and brandy seemed quite in harmony.Everything in the house seemed changed to Leonard's eye; and yet thefurniture, the armour, the family portraits, brown and indistinguishablein this doubtful light, were all the same. There were no flowers aboutin tubs or on tables. That subtle grace—as of a thoughtful woman's handruling and arranging everything, artistic even where seeming mostcareless—was missing. Papers, books were thrown anyhow upon the tables;whips, carriage-rugs, wraps, hats, encumbered the chairs near the door.Half-a-dozen dogs—pointers, setters, collie—sprawled or prowled aboutthe room. In nowise did his house now resemble the orderly mansion whichhis mother had ruled so long, and which his wife had maintained uponexactly the same lines after her aunt's death. He had grumbled at whathe called a silly observance of his mother's fads. The air of the housewas now much more in accordance with his own view of life, and yet thechange angered as much as it perplexed him.

"Where's the boy?" he asked, exploring the hall and its occupants, witha blank stare.

"I thought he would have been with you. I thought he might have beenhere to bid me welcome home."

He had made a picture in his mind, almost involuntarily, of the motherand child—she, calm and lovely as one of Murillo's Madonnas, with thelittle one on her knee. There was no vein of poetry in his nature, yetunconsciously the memory of such pictures had associated itself with hiswife's image. And instead of that holy embodiment of maternal love,there flashed and sparkled before him this brilliant woman, with fairfluffy hair, and Louis Quinze coat, all a glitter with cut-steel.

"Home!" echoed Christabel, mockingly; "how sentimental you have grown.I've no doubt the boy will be charmed to see you, especially if you havebrought him some South American toys; but I thought it would bore you tosee him before you had dined. He shall be on view in the drawing-roombefore dinner, if you would really like to see him so soon."

He went upstairs without another word, leaving his friend Jack seated inthe midst of the cheerful circle, drinking soda water and brandy, andtalking of their adventures upon the backbone of South America.

"Delicious country!" said de Cazalet, who talked remarkably goodEnglish, with just the faintest Hibernian accent. "I have ridden overevery inch of it. Ah, Mrs. Tregonell, that is the soil for poetry andadventure; a land of extinct volcanoes. If Byron had known the shores ofthe Amazon, he would have struck a deeper note of passion than any thatwas ever inspired by the Dardanelles or the Bosphorus. Sad that so granda spirit should have pined in the prison-house of a worn-out world."

"I have always understood that Byron got some rather strong poetry outof Switzerland and Italy," murmured Mr. FitzJesse, meekly.

"Weak and thin to what he might have written had he known the Pampas,"said the Baron.

"I have lived amongst wild horses, and wilder humanity, for months at astretch."

"Another of my youthful follies. But I do not place myself upon a levelwith Byron."

"I should if I were you," said Mr. FitzJesse. "It would be an originalidea—and in an age marked by a total exhaustion of brain-power, anoriginal idea is a pearl of price."

"What kind of dogs did you see in your travels?" asked Emily St. Aubyn,a well-grown upstanding young woman, in a severe tailor-gown of undyedhomespun.

"I adore mongrels!" exclaimed Mopsy. "I think that kind of dog whichbelongs to no particular breed, which has been ill-used by London boys,and which follows one to one's doorstep, is the most faithful andintelligent of the whole canine race. Huxley may exalt Blenheim spanielsas the nearest thing to human nature; but my dog Tim, which issomething between a lurcher, a collie, and a bull, is ever so muchbetter than human nature."

"The Blenheim is greedy, luxurious, and lazy, and generally dies inmiddle life from the consequences of over-feeding," drawled Mr.FitzJesse. "I don't think Huxley is very far out."

"I would back a Cornish sheep-dog against any animal in creation," saidChristabel, patting Randie, who was standing amiably on end, with hisfore-paws on the cushioned elbow of her chair. "Do you know that thesedogs smile when they are pleased, and cry when they are grieved—andthey will mourn for a master with a fidelity unknown in humanity."

And so the talk went on, always running upon trivialities—glancing fromtheme to theme—a mere battledore and shuttlecock conversation—making amock of most things and most people. Christabel joined in it all; andsome of the bitterest speech that was spoken in that hour before thesounding of the seven o'clock gong, fell from her perfect lips.

"Did you ever see such a change in any one as in Mrs. Tregonell?" askedDopsy of Mopsy, as they elbowed each other before the looking-glass, thefirst armed with a powder puff, the second with a little box containingthe implements required for the production of piquant eyebrows.

"A wonderful improvement," answered Mopsy. "She's ever so much easier toget on with. I didn't think it was in her to be so thoroughlychic."

"Do you know, I really liked her better last year, when she was frumpyand dowdy," faltered Dopsy. "I wasn't able to get on with her, but Icouldn't help looking up to her, and feeling that, after all, she wasthe right kind of woman. And now——"

"And now she condescends to be human—to be one of us—and theconsequence is that her house is three times as nice as it was lastyear," said Mopsy, turning the corner of an eyebrow with a bold butcareful hand, and sending a sharp elbow into Dopsy's face during theoperation.

"How do you like the French Baron?" asked Dopsy, when a brief silencehad restored her equanimity.

"French, indeed! He is no more French than I am. Mr. FitzJesse told methat he was born and brought up in Jersey—that his father was an IrishMajor on half-pay, and his mother a circus rider."

"FitzJesse says the title is right enough. One of his father's ancestorscame to the South of Ireland after the revocation of something—a treatyat Nancy—I think he said. He belonged to an old Huguenot family—thosepeople who were massacred in the opera, don't you know—and the titlehad been allowed to go dead—till this man married a tremendously richSheffield cutler's daughter, and bought the old estate in Provence, andgot himself enrolled in the French peerage. Romantic, isn't it?"

"She drank herself to death two years after her marriage. FitzJesse saysthey both lived upon brandy, but she hadn't been educated up to it, andit killed her."

Leonard spent half an hour with his son. The child had escaped frombabyhood in the year that had gone. He was now a bright sentientcreature, eager to express his thoughts—to gather knowledge—an active,vivacious being, full of health and energy. Whatever duties Christabelhad neglected during her husband's absence, the boy had, at least,suffered no neglect. Never had childhood developed under happierconditions. The father could find no fault in the nursery, though therewas a vague feeling in his mind that everything was wrong at MountRoyal.

"Why the deuce did she fill the house with people while I was away," hemuttered to himself, in the solitude of his dressing-room, where hisclothes had been put ready for him, and candles lighted by his Swissvalet. The dressing-room was at that end of the corridor most remotefrom Christabel's apartments. It communicated with the room Leonard hadslept in during his boyhood—and that opened again into his gun-room.

The fact that these rooms had been prepared for him told him plainlyenough that he and his wife were henceforth to lead divided lives. Theevent of last October, his year of absence, had built up a wall betweenthem which he, for the time being at least, felt himself powerless toknock down.

"Can she suspect—can she know"—he asked himself, pausing in hisdressing to stand staring at the fire, with moody brow and troubledeyes. "No, that's hardly possible. And yet her whole manner is changed.She holds me at a distance. Every look, every tone just now was adefiance. Of course I know that she loved that man—loved himfirst—last—always; never caring a straw for me. She was too careful ofherself—had been brought up too well to go wrong, like otherwomen—but she loved him. I would never have brought him inside thesedoors if I had not known that she could take care of herself. I testedand tried her to the uttermost—and—well—I took my change out of him."

Mr. Tregonell dressed himself a little more carefully than he was wontto dress—thinking for the most part that anything which suited him wasgood enough for his friends—and went down to the drawing-room, feelinglike a visitor in a strange house, half inclined to wonder how he wouldbe received by his wife and his wife's guests. He who had always ruledsupreme in that house, choosing his visitors for his ownpleasure—subjugating all tastes and habits of other people to his ownconvenience, now felt as if he were only there on sufferance.

It was early when he entered the drawing-room, and the Baron de Cazaletwas the only occupant of that apartment. He was standing in a loungingattitude, with his back against the mantelpiece, and his handsome personset off by evening dress. That regulation costume does not afford muchscope to the latent love of finery which still lurks in the civilizedman, as if to prove his near relationship to the bead andfeather-wearing savage—but de Cazalet had made himself as gorgeous ashe could with jewelled studs, embroidered shirt, satin under-waistcoat,amber silk stockings, and Queen Ann shoes. He was assuredlyhandsome—but he had just that style of beauty which to the fastidiousmind is more revolting than positive ugliness. Dark-brown eyes, stronglyarched eyebrows, an aquiline nose, a sensual mouth, a heavy jaw, afaultless complexion of the French plum-box order, large regular teethof glittering whiteness, a small delicately trained moustache with waxedends, and hair of oily sheen, odorous ofpommade divine, made up thecatalogue of his charms. Leonard stood looking at him doubtfully, as ifhe were a hitherto unknown animal.

"Where did my wife pick him up, and why?" he asked himself. "I shouldhave thought he was just the kind of man she would detest."

"How glad you must be to get back to your Lares and Penates," said theBaron, smiling blandly.

"I'm uncommonly glad to get back to my horses and dogs," answeredLeonard, flinging himself into a large armchair by the fire, and takingup a newspaper. "Have you been long in the West?"

"About a fortnight, but I have been only three days at Mount Royal. Ihad the honour to renew my acquaintance with Mrs. Tregonell last Augustat Zermatt, and she was good enough to say that if I ever found myselfin this part of the country she would be pleased to receive me in herhouse. I needn't tell you that with such a temptation in view I was veryglad to bend my steps westward. I spent ten days on board a friend'syacht, between Dartmouth and the Lizard, landed at Penzance lastTuesday, and posted here, where I received a more than hospitablewelcome."

"I doubt if I have done as much as you have in that way. I have seldomtravelled for the sake of travelling. I have lived in the tents of theArabs. I have bivouacked on the Pampas—and enjoyed life in all thecities of the South, from Valparaiso to Carthagena; but I can boast nomountaineering exploits or scientific discoveries—and I never read apaper at the Geographical."

"You look a little too fond of yourself for mountaineering," saidLeonard, smiling grimly at the Baron's portly figure, and all-pervadingsleekness.

"Well—yes—I like a wild life—but I have no relish for absolutehardship—the thermometer below zero, a doubtful supply of provisions,pemmican, roasted skunk for supper, without any currant jelly—no, Ilove mine ease at mine Inn."

He threw out his fine expanse of padded chest and shoulders, andsurveyed the spacious lamp-lit room with an approving smile. This nodoubt was the kind of Inn at which he loved to take his ease—a housefull of silly women, ready to be subjugated by his florid good looks andshallow accomplishments.

The ladies now came straggling in—first Emily St. Aubyn, and thenDopsy, whose attempts at conversation were coldly received by the countymaiden. Dopsy's and Mopsy's home-made gowns, cheap laces and frillings,and easy flippancy were not agreeable to the St. Aubyn sisters. It wasnot that the St. Aubyn manners, which always savoured of the stable andfarmyard, were more refined or elegant; but the St. Aubyns arrogated tothemselves the right to be vulgar, and resented free-and-easy manners intwo young persons who were obviously poor and obviously obscure as totheir surroundings. If their gowns had been made by a West End tailor,and they had been able to boast of intimate acquaintance with a duchessand two or three countesses, their flippancy might have been tolerable,nay, even amusing, to the two Miss St. Aubyns; but girls who wentnowhere and knew nobody, had no right to attempt smartness of speech,and deserved to be sat upon.

To Dopsy succeeded Mopsy, then some men, then Mrs. St. Aubyn and heryounger daughter Clara, then Mrs. Tregonell, in a red gown draped withold Spanish lace, and with diamond stars in her hair, a style curiouslydifferent from those quiet dinner dresses she had been wont to wear ayear ago. Leonard looked at her in blank amazement—just as he hadlooked at their first meeting. She, who had been like the violetsheltering itself among its leaves, now obviously dressed for effect,and as obviously courted admiration.

The dinner was cheerful to riotousness. Everybody had something to say;anecdotes were told, and laughter was frequent and loud. The St. Aubyngirls, who had deliberately snubbed the sisters Vandeleur, were notabove conversing with the brother, and, finding him a kindred spirit inhorseyness and doggyness, took him at once into their confidence, andwere on the friendliest terms before dinner was finished. De Cazalet satnext his hostess, and talked exclusively to her. Mr. FitzJesse had MissBridgeman on his left hand, and conversed with her in gentle murmurs,save when in his quiet voice, and with his seeming-innocent smile, hetold some irresistibly funny story—some touch of character seen with aphilosophic eye—for the general joy of the whole table. Very differentwas the banquet of to-day from that quiet dinner on the first night ofMr. Hamleigh's visit to Mount Royal, that dinner at which Leonardwatched his wife so intensely, eager to discover to what degree she wasaffected by the presence of her first lover. He watched her to-night, atthe head of her brilliantly lighted dinner-table—no longer the oldsubdued light of low shaded lamps, but the radiance of innumerablecandles in lofty silver candelabra, shining over a striking decorationof vivid crimson asters and spreading palm-leaves—he watched herhelplessly, hopelessly, knowing that he and she were ever so muchfarther apart than they had been in the days before he brought AngusHamleigh to Mount Royal, those miserable discontented days when he hadfretted himself into a fever of jealousy and vague suspicion, and hadthought to find a cure by bringing the man he feared and hated into hishome, so that he might know for certain how deep the wrong was whichthis man's very existence seemed to inflict upon him. To bring those twowho had loved and parted face to face, to watch and listen, to fathomthe thoughts of each—that had been the process natural and congenial tohis jealous temper; but the result had been an uncomfortable one. Andnow he saw his wife, whose heart he had tried to break—hating herbecause he had failed to make her love him—just as remote andunapproachable as of old.

"What a fool I was to marry her," he thought, after replying somewhat atrandom to Mrs. St. Aubyn's last remark upon the superiority of Dorkingsto Spaniards from a culinary point of view. "It was my determination tohave my own way that wrecked me. I couldn't submit to be conquered by agirl—to have the wife I had set my heart upon when I was a boy, stolenfrom me by the first effeminate fopling my silly mother invited to MountRoyal. I had never imagined myself with any other woman for mywife—never really cared for any other woman."

This was the bent of Mr. Tregonell's reflections as he sat in his placeat that animated assembly, adding nothing to its mirth, or even to itsnoise; albeit in the past his voice had ever been loudest, his laughmost resonant. He felt more at his ease after dinner, when the women hadleft—the brilliant de Cazalet slipping away soon after them, althoughnot until he had finished his host's La Rose—and when Mr. St. Aubynexpanded himself in county talk, enlightening the wanderer as to theprogress of events during his absence—while Mr. FitzJesse sat blandlypuffing his cigarette, a silent observer of the speech and gestures ofthe county magnate, speculating, from a scientific point of view, as tohow much of this talk were purely automatic—an inane drivel which wouldgo on just the same if half the Squire's brain had been scooped out.Jack Vandeleur smoked and drank brandy and water, while little Montydiscoursed to him, in confidential tones, upon the racing year which wasnow expiring at Newmarket—the men who had made pots of money, and themen who had been beggared for life. There seemed to be no medium betweenthose extremes.

When the host rose, Captain Vandeleur was for an immediate adjournmentto billiards, but to his surprise, Leonard walked off to thedrawing-room.

"Not to-night. I have been too long away from feminine society not toappreciate the novelty of an evening with ladies. You and Monty can havethe table to yourselves, unless Mr. FitzJesse——"

"I never play," replied the gentle journalist; "but I rather likesitting in a billiard-room and listening to the conversation of theplayers. It is always so full of ideas."

Captain Vandeleur and Mr. Montagu went their way, and the other menrepaired to the drawing-room, whence came the sound of the piano, andthe music of a rich baritone, trolling out a popular air from the mostfashionable opera-bouffe—that one piece which all Paris was bent uponhearing at the same moment, whereby seats in the little boulevardtheatre were selling at a ridiculous premium.

De Cazalet was singing to Mrs. Tregonell's accompaniment—apatoissong, with a refrain which would have been distinctly indecent, if thetails of all the words had not been clipped off, so as to reduce thelanguage to mild idiocy.

"The kind of song one could fancy being fashionable in the decline ofthe Roman Empire," said FitzJesse, "when Apuleius was writing his'Golden Ass,' don't you know."

After the song came a duet from "Traviata," in which Christabel sangwith a dramatic power which Leonard never remembered to have heard fromher before. The two voices harmonized admirably, and there were warmexpressions of delight from the listeners.

"Very accomplished man, de Cazalet," said Colonel Blathwayt; "uncommonlyuseful in a country house—sings, and plays, and recites, andacts—rather puffy and short-winded in his elocution—if he were a horseone would call him a roarer—but always ready to amuse. Quite anacquisition."

"Who is he?" asked Leonard, looking glum. "My wife picked him up inSwitzerland, I hear—that is to say, he seems to have made himselfagreeable—or useful—to Mrs. Tregonell and Miss Bridgeman; and, in amoment of ill-advised hospitality, my wife asked him here. Is hereceived anywhere? Does anybody know anything about him?"

"He is received in a few houses—rich houses where the hostess goes infor amateur acting andtableaux vivants, don't you know; and peopleknow a good deal about him—nothing actually to his detriment. The manwas a full-blown adventurer when he had the good luck to get hold of arich wife. He pays his way now, I believe; but the air of the adventurerhangs round him still. A man of Irish parentage—brought up in Jersey.What can you expect of him?"

"Like a fish—but his capacity to drink is only to be estimated by cubicspace—the amount he can hold. His brain and constitution have beeneducated up to alcohol. Nothing can touch him further."

"Colonel Blathwayt, we want you to give us the 'Wonderful One-HorseShay,' and after that, the Baron is going to recite 'James Lee's Wife,'said Mrs. Tregonell, while her guests ranged themselves into anirregular semicircle, and the useful Miss Bridgeman placed aprie-dieuchair in a commanding position for the reciter to lean upon gracefully,or hug convulsively in the more energetic passages of his recitation.

"Everybody seems to have gone mad," thought Mr. Tregonell, as he seatedhimself and surveyed the assembly, all intent and expectant.

His wife sat near the piano with de Cazalet bending over her, talking injust that slightly lowered voice which gives an idea of confidentialrelations, yet may mean no more than a vain man's desire to appear theaccepted worshipper of a beautiful woman. Never had Leonard seen AngusHamleigh's manner so distinctively attentive as was the air of thisHibernian adventurer.

"Just the last man whose attentions I should have supposed she wouldtolerate," thought Leonard; "but any garbage is food for a woman'svanity."

The "Wonderful One-Horse Shay" was received with laughter and delight.Dopsy and Mopsy were in raptures. "How could a horrid American havewritten anything so clever? But then it was Colonel Blathwayt'sinimitable elocution which gave a charm to the whole thing. The poem waspoor enough, no doubt, if one read it to oneself. Colonel Blathwayt wasadorably funny."

"It's a tremendous joke, as you do it," said Mopsy, twirling hersunflower fan—a great yellow flower, like the sign of the Sun Inn, on ablack satin ground. "How delightful to be so gifted."

"Now for 'James Lee's Wife,'" said the Colonel, who accepted thedamsel's compliments for what they were worth. "You'll have to be veryattentive if you want to find out what the poem means; for the Baron'sdelivery is a trifle spasmodic."

And now de Cazalet stepped forward with a vellum-bound volume in hishand, dashed back his long sleek hair with a large white hand, glancedat the page, coughed faintly, and then began in thick, hurried accents,which kept getting thicker and more hurried as the poem advanced. It wasgiven, not in lines, but in spasms, panted out, till at the close theBaron sank exhausted, breathless, like the hunted deer when the houndsclose round him.

"I only wish the Browning Society could hear that: they would bedelighted," said Mr. Faddie, who piqued himself upon being in theliterary world.

"It makes Browning so much easier to understand," remarked Mr.FitzJesse, with his habitual placidity.

"Brings the whole thing home to you—makes it ever so much more real,don't you know," said Mrs. Torrington.

"Did she run away from him?" inquired her sister, the railroad pace atwhich the Baron fired off the verses having left all those among hishearers who did not know the text in a state of agreeable uncertainty.

So the night wore on, with more songs and duets from opera andopera-bouffe. No more of Beethoven's grand bursts of melody—now touchedwith the solemnity of religious feeling—now melting in humanpathos—now light and airy, changeful and capricious as the skylark'ssong—a very fountain of joyous fancies. Mr. Tregonell had neverappreciated Beethoven, being, indeed, as unmusical a soul as God evercreated; but he thought it a more respectable thing that his wife shouldsit at her piano playing an order of music which only the privileged fewcould understand, than that she should delight the common herd bysinging which savoured of music-hall and burlesque.

"Is she not absolutely delicious?" said Mrs. Torrington, beating timewith her fan. "How proud I should be of myself if I could sing likethat. How proud you must be of your wife—such verve—suchélan—sothoroughly in the spirit of the thing. That is the only kind of singinganybody really cares for now. One goes to the opera to hear them screamthrough 'Lohengrin'—or 'Tannhäuser'—and then one goes into society andtalks about Wagner—but it is music like this one enjoys."

"Yes, it's rather jolly," said Leonard, staring moodily at his wife, inthe act of singing a refrain, of Bé-bé-bé, which was supposed torepresent the bleating of an innocent lamb.

"Weren't you charmed to find us all so gay and bright here—nothing tosuggest the sad break-up you had last year. I felt so intensely sorryfor you all—yet I was selfish enough to be glad I had left before ithappened. Did they—don't think me morbid for asking—did they bring himhome here?"

"And in which room did they put him? One always wants to know thesethings, though it can do one no good."

"The second from the end of the corridor, next but one to mine; that'srather awfully near. Do you believe in spiritual influences? Have youever had a revelation? Good gracious! is it really so late? Everybodyseems to be going."

"Let me get your candle," said Leonard, eagerly, making a dash for thehall. And so ended his first evening at home with that imbecilerefrain—Bé-bé-bé, repeating itself in his ears.

CHAPTER VII.

"GAI DONC; LA VOYAGEUSE, AU COUP DU PÈLERIN!"

When Mr. Tregonell came to the breakfast room next morning he foundeverybody alert with the stir and expectation of an agreeable day. TheTrevena harriers were to meet for the first time this season, andeverybody was full of that event. Christabel, Mrs. Torrington, and theSt. Aubyn girls were breakfasting in their habits and hats: whips andgloves were lying about on chairs and side-tables—everybody wastalking, and everybody seemed in a hurry. De Cazalet looked gorgeous inolive corduroy and Newmarket boots. Mr. St. Aubyn looked business-likein a well-worn red coat and mahogany tops, while the other men inclinedto dark shooting jackets, buckskins, and Napoleons. Mr. FitzJesse, in amorning suit that savoured of the study rather than the hunting field,contemplated these Nimrods with an amused smile; but the Reverend St.Bernard beheld them not without pangs of envy. He, too, had been inArcadia; he, too, had followed the hounds in his green Oxford days,before he joined that band of young Anglicans who he doubted not wouldby-and-by be as widely renowned as the heroes of the Tractarianmovement.

"You are going to the meet?" inquired Leonard, as his wife handed himhis coffee.

"Do you think I would take the trouble to put on my habit in order toride from here to Trevena?" exclaimed Christabel. "I am going with therest of them, of course. Emily St. Aubyn will show me the way."

"Because your dear mother was too nervous to allow me. But I have riddenover every inch of the ground. I know my horse, and my horse knows me.You needn't be afraid."

"Mrs. Tregonell is one of the finest horsewomen I ever saw," said deCazalet. "It is a delight to ride by her side. Are not you coming withus?" he asked.

"Yes, I'll ride after you," said Leonard. "I forgot all about theharriers. Nobody told me they were to begin work this morning."

The horses were brought round to the porch, the ladies put on theirgloves, and adjusted themselves in those skimpy lop-sided petticoatswhich have replaced the flowing drapery of the dark ages when ahorsewoman's legs and boots were in somewise a mystery to the outsideworld.

Leonard went out to look at the horses. A strange horse would haveinterested him even on his death bed, while one ray of consciousness yetremained to recognize the degrees of equine strength and quality. Heoverhauled the mare which Major Bree had chosen for Christabel a monthago—a magnificent three-quarter bred hunter, full of power.

"She could carry a house. Yes; you ought to be safe upon her. Is thatbig black brute the Baron's horse?"

"I thought so—a coarse clumsy beast, all show," muttered Leonard;"like master, like man."

He turned away to examine Colonel Blathwayt's hunter, a good lookingchestnut, and in that moment the Baron had taken up his ground byChristabel's mare, and was ready to lift her into the saddle. She wentup as lightly as a shuttlecock from a battledore, scarcely touching thecorduroy shoulder—but Leonard felt angry with the Baron for usurping afunction which should have been left for the husband.

"Is Betsy Baker in condition?" he asked the head groom, as the partyrode away, de Cazalet on Mrs. Tregonell's right hand.

Mr. Tregonell kept his word. Wherever de Cazalet and Christabel rodethat day, Christabel's husband went with them. The Baron was a bold, badrider—reckless of himself, brutal to his horse. Christabel rodesuperbly, and was superbly mounted. Those hills which seemed murderousto the stranger, were as nothing to her, who had galloped up and downthem on her Shetland pony, and had seldom ridden over better ground fromthe time when Major Bree first took her out with a leading rein. The daywas long, and there was plenty of fast going—but these three werealways in the front. Yet even the husband's immediate neighbourhood inno wise lessened the Baron's marked attention to the wife, and Leonardrode homeward at dusk sorely troubled in spirit. What did it mean? Couldit be that she, whose conduct last year had seemed without reproach; whohad borne herself with matronly dignity; with virginal purity towardsthe lover of her girlhood—the refined and accomplished AngusHamleigh—could it be that she had allowed herself to be involved in aflirtation with such a tinsel dandy as this de Cazalet?

"It would be sheer lunacy," he said to himself. "Perhaps she is carryingon like this to annoy me—punishing me for——"

He rode home a little way behind those other two, full of vexation andbewilderment. Nothing had happened of which he could reasonablycomplain. He could scarcely kick this man out of his house because heinclined his head at a certain angle—because he dropped his voice to alower key when he spoke to Christabel. Yet his very attitude in thesaddle as he rode on ahead—his hand on his horse's flank, his figureturned towards Christabel—was a provocation.

Opera bouffe duets—recitations—acted charades—bouts rimés—all thecatalogue of grown-up playfulness—began again after dinner; but thisevening Leonard did not stay in the drawing-room. He felt that he couldnot trust himself. His disgust must needs explode into some rudeness ofspeech, if he remained to witness these vagaries.

"I like the society of barmaids, and I can tolerate the company ofladies," he said to his bosom friend, Jack; "but a mixture of the two isunendurable: so we'll have a good smoke and half-crown pool, shillinglives."

This was as much as to say, that Leonard and his other friends wereabout to render their half-crowns and shillings as tribute to CaptainVandeleur's superior play; that gentleman having made pool hisprofession since he left the army.

They played till midnight, in an atmosphere which grew thick withtobacco smoke before the night was done. They played till JackVandeleur's pockets were full of loose silver, and till the other menhad come to the conclusion that pool was a slow game, with an element ofchildishness in it, at the best—no real skill, only a mere mechanicalknack, acquired by incessant practice in fusty public rooms, reekingwith alcohol.

"Show me a man who plays like that, and I'll show you a scamp," mutteredlittle Monty in a friendly aside to Leonard, as Jack Vandeleur swept upthe last pool.

"I know he's a scamp," answered Leonard, "but he's a pleasant scamp, anda capital fellow to travel with—never ill—never out of temper—alwaysready for the day's work, whatever it is, and always able to make thebest of things. Why don't you marry one of his sisters?—they're bothjolly good fellows."

"No coin," said Monty, shaking his neat little flaxen head. "I can justcontrive to keep myself—'still to be neat, still to be drest.' What inmercy's name should I do with a wife who would want food and gowns, andstalls at the theatres? I have been thinking that if those St. Aubyngirls have money—on the nail, you know, not in the form of expectationsfrom that painfully healthy father—I might think seriously of one ofthem. They are horridly rustic—smell of clover and beans, and would belikely to disgrace one in London society—but they are not hideous."

"I don't think there's much ready money in that quarter, Monty,"answered Leonard. "St. Aubyn has a good deal of land."

"Land," screamed Monty. "I wouldn't touch it with a pair of tongs! Theworkhouses of the next century will be peopled by the offspring of thelanded gentry. I shudder when I think of the country squire and hisprospects."

"Hard lines," said Jack, who had made that remark two or three timesbefore in the course of the evening.

They were sitting round the fire by this time—smoking and drinkingmulled Burgundy, and the conversation had become general.

This night was as many other nights. Sometimes Mr. Tregonell tried tolive through the evening in the drawing-room—enduring the societygames—the Boulevard music—the recitations and tableaux and generalfrivolity—but he found these amusements hang upon his spirits like anightmare. He watched his wife, but could discover nothing actuallyreprehensible in her conduct—nothing upon which he could take his standas an outraged husband, and say "This shall not be." If the Baron'sdevotion to her was marked enough for every one to see, and if heracceptance of his attentions was gracious in the extreme, his devotionand her graciousness were no more than he had seen everywhere acceptedas the small change of society, meaning nothing, tending towards nothingbut gradual satiety; except in those few exceptional cases which endedin open scandal and took society by surprise. That which impressedLeonard was the utter change in his wife's character. It seemed as ifher very nature were altered. Womanly tenderness, a gentle and subduedmanner, had given place to a hard brilliancy. It was as if he had lost apearl, and found a diamond in its place—one all softness and purity,the other all sparkle and light.

He was too proud to sue to her for any renewal of old confidences—toclaim from her any of the duties of a wife. If she could live and behappy without him—and he knew but too surely that his presence, hisaffection, had never contributed to her happiness—he would let her seethat he could live without her—that he was content to accept theposition she had chosen—union which was no union—marriage that hadceased to be marriage—a chain drawn out to its furthest length, yetheld so lightly that neither need feel the bondage.

Everybody at Mount Royal was loud in praise of Christabel. She was sobrilliant, so versatile, she made her house so utterly charming. Thiswas the verdict of her new friends—but her old friends were lessenthusiastic. Major Bree came to the Manor House very seldom now, andfrankly owned himself a fish out of water in Mrs. Tregonell's newcircle.

"Everybody is so laboriously lively," he said; "there is an air offorced hilarity. I sigh for the house as it was in your mother's time,Leonard. 'A haunt of ancient peace.'"

"There's not much peace about it now, by Jove," said Leonard. "Why didyou put it into my wife's head to ride to hounds?"

"I had nothing to do with it. She asked me to choose her a hunter, and Ichose her something good and safe, that's all. But I don't think youought to object to her hunting, Leonard, or to her doing anything elsethat may help to keep her in good spirits. She was in a very bad way allthe winter."

"Do you mean that she was seriously ill? Their letters to me were sod——d short. I hardly know anything that went on while I was away."

"Yes. She was very ill—given over to melancholy. It was only naturalthat she should be affected by Angus Hamleigh's death, when you rememberwhat they had been to each other before you came home. A woman may breakan engagement of that kind, and may be very happy in her union withanother man, but she can't forget her first lover, if it were onlybecause heis the first. It was an unlucky thing your bringing him toMount Royal. One of your impulsive follies."

"Yes, one of my follies. So you say that Christabel was out of healthand spirits all the winter."

"Yes, she would see no one—not even me—or the Rector. No one but thedoctor ever crossed the threshold. But surely Miss Bridgeman has toldyou all about it. Miss Bridgeman was devoted to her."

"Miss Bridgeman is as close as the grave; and I am not going to demeanmyself by questioning her."

"Well, there is no need to be unhappy about the past. Christabel isherself again, thank God—brighter, prettier than ever. That Swiss tourwith Miss Bridgeman and the boy did her worlds of good. I thought youmade a mistake in leaving her at Mount Royal after that melancholyevent. You should have taken her with you."

"Perhaps I ought to have done so," assented Leonard, thinking bitterlyhow very improbable it was that she would have consented to go withhim.

He tried to make the best of his position, painful as it was. Heblustered and hectored as of old—gave his days to field sports—hisevenings for the most part to billiards and tobacco. He drank more thanhe had been accustomed to drink, sat up late of nights. His nerves werenot benefited by these latter habits.

"Your hand is as shaky as an old woman's," exclaimed Jack, upon hisopponent missing an easy cannon. "Why, you might have done that with aboot-jack. If you're not careful you'll be in for an attack of del.trem., and that will chaw you up in a very short time. A man of yourstamina is the worst kind of subject for nervous diseases. We shall haveyou catching flies, and seeing imaginary snow-storms before long."

"Ah, but look at his advantages—brought up in Jersey, where cognac isduty-free. None of us have had his fine training. Wonderful constitutionhe must have—hand as steady as a rock. You saw him this morning knockoff a particular acorn from the oak in the stable yard with a bullet."

"Wonderful eye and hand. He must have spent years of his life in ashooting gallery. You're a dooced good shot, Tregonell; but, comparedwith him, you're not in it."

"That's very likely, though I have had to live by my gun in the Rockies.FitzJesse told me that in South America de Cazalet was known as aprofessed duellist."

"And you have only shot four-footed beasts—never gone for a fellowcreature," answered Jack lightly.

CHAPTER VIII.

"TIME TURNS THE OLD DAYS TO DERISION."

If Leonard Tregonell was troubled and perplexed by the change in hiswife's character, there was one other person at Mount Royal,Christabel's nearest and dearest friend, to whom that change was even agreater mystification. Jessie Bridgeman, who had been with her in thedark hours of her grief—who had seen her sunk in the apathy ofdespair—who had comforted and watched her, and sympathized and weptwith her, looked on now in blank wonderment at a phase of characterwhich was altogether enigmatical. She had been with Mrs. Tregonell atZermatt, when de Cazalet had obtruded himself on their notice by hisofficious attentions during a pilgrimage to the Riffel, and she had beenbewildered at Christabel's civility to a man of such obvious bad style.He had stayed at the same hotel with them for three or four days, andhad given them as much of his society as he could without beingabsolutely intrusive, taking advantage of having met Christabel fiveseasons ago, at two or threequasi literary assemblies; and at partingChristabel had invited him to Mount Royal. "Mr. Tregonell will be athome in the autumn," she said, "and if you should find yourself inCornwall"—he had talked of exploring the West of England—"I know hewould be glad to see you at Mount Royal."

When Jessie hinted at the unwisdom of an invitation to a man of whomthey knew so little, Christabel answered carelessly that "Leonard likedto have his house full of lively people, and would no doubt be pleasedwith the Baron de Cazalet."

"I know; but I mean to take a more active part in the arrangement ofthings in future. I am tired of being a cipher."

"Then perhaps you did not hear that he is a thorough Bohemian—that heled a very wild life in South America, and was a notorious duellist."

It seemed to Jessie that Christabel's whole nature underwent a change,and that the transformation dated from her acquaintance with this man.They were at the end of their tour at the time of this meeting, and theycame straight through to Paris, where Mrs. Tregonell abandoned herselfto frivolity—going to all the theatres—buying all the newest andlightest music, spending long mornings with milliners anddressmakers—squandering money upon fine clothes, which a year ago shewould have scorned to wear. Hitherto her taste had tended to simplicityof attire—not without richness—for she was too much of an artist notto value the artistic effects of costly fabrics, the beauty of warmcolouring. But she now pursued that Will o' the Wisp fashion from Worthto Pingat, and bought any number of gowns, some of which, to MissBridgeman's severe taste, seemed simply odious.

"Do you intend spending next season in May Fair, and do you expect to beasked to a good many fancy balls?" asked Jessie, as Mrs. Tregonell'smaid exhibited the gowns in the spacious bedroom at the Bristol.

"Nonsense, Jessie. These are all dinner gowns. The infinite variety ofmodern fashion is its chief merit. The style of to-day embraces threecenturies of the past, from Catherine de Médicis to Madame Récamier."

At one of the Boulevard theatres Mrs. Tregonell and Miss Bridgeman metMr. FitzJesse, who was also returning from a summer holiday. He wasAngus Hamleigh's friend, and had known Christabel during the happy daysof her first London season. It seemed hardly strange that she should beglad to meet him, and that she should ask him to Mount Royal.

"And now I must have some women to meet these men," she said, when sheand Jessie were at home again, and the travelled infant had gone back tohis nursery, and had inquired why the hills he saw from his windows wereno longer white, and why the sea was so much bigger than the lakes hehad seen lately. "I mean to make the house as pleasant as possible forLeonard when he comes home."

She and Jessie were alone in the oak panelled parlour—the room with thealcove overlooking the hills and the sea. They were seated at a littletable in this recess—Christabel's desk open before her—Jessieknitting.

She was going to say, "Have you forgiven him for what was done at St.Nectan's Kieve?" but she checked herself when the words were on herlips. What if Leonard's crime was not forgiven, but forgotten? In thatlong dreary winter they had never spoken of the manner of AngusHamleigh's death. Christabel's despair had been silent. Jessie hadcomforted her with vague words which never touched upon the crueldetails of her grief. How if the mind had been affected by that longinterval of sorrow, and the memory of Leonard's deed blotted out?Christabel's new delight in frivolous things—her sudden fancy forfilling her house with lively people—might be the awakening of newlife and vigour in a mind that had trembled on the confines of madness.Was it for her to recall bitter facts—to reopen the fountain of tears?She gave one little sigh for the untimely dead—and then addressedherself to the duty of pleasing Christabel, just as in days gone by herevery effort had been devoted to making the elder Mrs. Tregonell happy.

"Yes, Leonard and she are great chums. We must have Mrs. Torrington. Andthere are the St. Aubyns, nice lively girls and an inoffensive fatherand mother. I believe Leonard rather likes them. And then it will be acharity to have Dopsy and Mopsy."

"No, poor foolish things—I was once sorry for Dopsy." The tears rushedto her eyes. She rose suddenly from her chair, and went to the window.

So it was that the autumn party was planned. Mr. Faddie was doing dutyat the little church in the glen, and thus happened to be in the way ofan invitation. Mr. Montagu was asked as a person of general usefulness.The St. Aubyn party brought horses, and men and maids, and contributedmuch to the liveliness of the establishment, so far as noise meansgaiety. They were all assembled when Baron de Cazalet telegraphed from ayacht off the Lizard to ask if he might come, and, receiving afavourable reply, landed at Penzance, and posted over with his valet;his horse and gun cases were brought from London by another servant.

Leonard had been home nearly a fortnight, and had begun to accept thisnew mode of life without further wonder, and to fall into his old ways,and find some degree of pleasure in his old occupations—hunting,shooting.

The Vandeleur girls were draining the cup of pleasure to the dregs.Dopsy forgot her failure and grief of last year. One cannot waste allone's life in mourning for a lover who was never in love with one.

"I wore bugles for him all last winter, and if I had been able to buy anew black gown I would have kept in mourning for six mouths," she toldher sister apologetically, as if ashamed of her good spirits, "but Ican't help enjoying myself in such a house as this. Is not Mrs.Tregonell changed for the better?"

"Everything's changed for the better," assented Mopsy. "If we had onlyhorses and could hunt, like those stuck up St. Aubyn girls, life wouldbe perfect."

"They ride well, I suppose," said Dopsy, "but they are dreadfullyarriérées. They haven't an æsthetic idea. When I told them we hadthoughts of belonging to the Browning Society, that eldest one asked meif it was like the Birkbeck, and if we should be able to buy a houserent-free by monthly instalments. And the youngest said that sunflowerswere only fit for cottage gardens."

"And the narrow-minded mother declared she could see no beauty in singledahlias," added Dopsy, with ineffable disgust.

The day was hopelessly wet, and the visitors at Mount Royal werespending the morning in that somewhat straggling manner common to peoplewho are in somebody else's house—impressed with a feeling that it isuseless to settle oneself even to the interesting labour of artneedlework when one is not by one's own fireside. The sportsmen were allout; but de Cazalet, the Rev. St. Bernard, and Mr. FitzJesse preferredthe shelter of a well-warmed Jacobean mansion to the wild sweep of thewind across the moor, or the dash of the billows.

"I have had plenty of wild life on the shores of the Pacific," said deCazalet, luxuriating in a large sage green plush arm chair, one of theanachronisms of the grave old library. "At home I revel incivilization—I cannot have too much of warmth and comfort—velvettynests like this to lounge in, downy cushions to lean against, hot-houseflowers, and French cookery. Delicious to hear the rain beating againstthe glass, and the wind howling in the chimney. Put another log on,Faddie, like the best of fellows."

The Reverend St. Bernard, not much appreciating this familiarity,daintily picked a log from the big brazen basket and dropped it in agingerly manner upon the hearth, carefully dusting his fingersafterwards with a cambric handkerchief which sent forth odours ofMaréchale.

Mr. FitzJesse was sitting at a distant table, with a large despatch boxand a pile of open letters before him, writing at railway speed, inorder to be in time for the one o'clock post.

"He is making up his paper," said de Cazalet, lazily contemplating theworker's bowed shoulders. "I wonder if he is saying anything about us."

"I am happy to say that he does not often discuss church matters," saidMr. Faddie. "He shows his good sense by a careful avoidance of opinionupon our difficulties and our differences."

"Perhaps he doesn't think them worth discussing—of no more consequencethan the shades of difference between tweedledum and tweedledee," yawnedde Cazalet, whereupon Mr. Faddie gave him a look of contemptuous anger,and left the room.

Mr. FitzJesse went away soon afterwards with his batch of letters forthe post-bag in the hall, and the Baron was left alone, in listlesscontemplation of the fire. He had been in the drawing-room, but hadfound that apartment uninteresting by reason of Mrs. Tregonell'sabsence. He did not care to sit and watch the two Miss St. Aubynsplaying chess—nor to hear Mrs. Fairfax Torrington dribbling out strayparagraphs from the "society journals" for the benefit of nobody inparticular—nor to listen to Mrs. St. Aubyn's disquisitions upon themerits of Alderney cows, with which Jessie Bridgeman made believe to beinterested, while deep in the intricacies of a crewel-work daffodil. Forhim the spacious pink and white panelled room without one particularperson was more desolate than the wild expanse of the Pampas, with itslow undulations, growing rougher towards the base of the mountains. Hehad come to the library—an apartment chiefly used by the men—to baskin the light of the fire, and to brood upon agreeable thoughts. Themeditations of a man who has a very high opinion of his own merits aregenerally pleasant, and just now Oliver de Cazalet's ideas about himselfwere unusually exalted, for had he not obviously made the conquest ofone of the most charming women he had ever met.

"A pity she has a husband," he thought. "It would have suited meremarkably well to drop into such a luxurious nest as this. The boy isnot three years old—by the time he came of age—well—I should havelived my life, I suppose, and could afford to subside into comfortableobscurity," sighed de Cazalet, conscious of his forty years. "Thehusband looks uncommonly tough; but even Hercules was mortal. One neverknows how or when a man of that stamp may go off the hooks."

These pleasing reflections were disturbed by the entrance of Mopsy, who,after prowling all over the house in quest of masculine society, cameyawning into the library in search of anything readable in the way of anewspaper—a readable paper with Mopsy meaning theatres, fashions, orscandal.

She gave a little start at sight of de Cazalet, whose stalwart form andflorid good looks were by no means obnoxious to her taste. If he had notbeen so evidently devoted to Mrs. Tregonell, Mopsy would have perchanceessayed his subjugation; but, remembering Dopsy's bitter experience oflast year, the sadder and wiser Miss Vandeleur had made up her mind notto "go for" any marriageable man in too distinct a manner. She wouldplay that fluking game which she most affected at billiards—sending herball spinning all over the table with the hope that some successfulresult must come of a vigorous stroke.

She fluttered about the room, then stopped in a Fra Angelico pose over atable strewed with papers.

"Often. I had the honour of making my bow to her last April. She is oneof the dearest women I know, and she was good enough to feel interestedin my somewhat romantic career."

"How nice! But I mean theQueen newspaper. I am dying to know if itreallyis coming in. Now it has been seen in Paris, I'm afraid it'sinevitable."

"Perhaps I oughtn't to mention it—crinoline. There is a talk aboutsomething called a crinolette."

"I'm afraid so—don't you hate them? I do; I love the early Italianstyle—clinging cashmeres, soft flowing draperies."

"And accentuated angles—well, yes. If one has to ride in a hansom or asingle brougham with a woman the hoop and powder style is rather aburthen. But women are such lovely beings—they are adorable in anycostume. Madame Tallien with bare feet, and no petticoats to speakof—Pompadour in patches and wide-spreading brocade—Margaret of Orleansin a peaked head dress and puffed sleeves—Mary Stuart in a black velvetcoif, and a ruff—each and all adorable—on a pretty woman."

"On a pretty woman—yes. The pretty women set the fashions and the uglywomen have to wear them—that's the difficulty."

"Ah, me," sighed the Baron, "did any one ever see an ugly woman? Thereare so many degrees of beauty that it takes a long time to get fromVenus to her opposite. A smile—a sparkle—a kindly look—a freshcomplexion—a neat bonnet—vivacious conversation—such trifles willpass for beauty with a man who worships the sex. For him every flowerin the garden of womanhood, from the imperial rose to the lowlybuttercup, has its own peculiar charm."

"And yet I should have thought you were awfully fastidious," said Mopsy,trifling with the newspapers, "and that nothing short of absoluteperfection would please you."

"Absolute perfection is generally a bore. I have met famous beauties whohad no more attraction than if they had been famous statues."

"Yes; I know there is a cold kind of beauty—but there are women who areas fascinating as they are lovely. Our hostess, for instance—don't youthink her utterly sweet?"

"She is very lovely. Do come and sit by the fire. It is such a creepymorning. I'll hunt for any newspapers you like presently; but in themeanwhile let us chat. I was getting horribly tired of my own thoughtswhen you came in."

Mopsy simpered, and sat down in the easy chair opposite the Baron's. Shebegan to think that this delightful person admired her more than she hadhitherto supposed. His desire for her company looked promising. Whatif, after all, she, who had striven so much less eagerly than poor Dopsystrove last year, should be on the high road to a conquest. Here was thehandsomest man she had ever met, a man with title and money, courtingher society in a house full of people.

"Yes, she is altogether charming," said the Baron lazily, as if he weretalking merely for the sake of conversation. "Very sweet, as you say,but not quite my style—there is a something—an intangible somethingwanting. She haschic—she hassavoir-faire; but she has not—no,she has not that electrical wit which—which I have admired in othersless conventionally beautiful."

The Baron's half-veiled smile, a smile glancing from under loweredeyelids, hinted that this vital spark which was wanting in Christabelmight be found in Mopsy.

The damsel blushed, and looked down, conscious of eyelashes artisticallytreated.

"I don't think Mrs. Tregonell has been quite happy in her married life,"said Mopsy. "My brother and Mr. Tregonell are very old friends, don'tyou know; like brothers, in fact; and Mr. Tregonell tells Jackeverything. I know his cousin didn't want to marry him—she was engagedto somebody else, don't you know, and that engagement was broken off,but he had set his heart upon marrying her—and his mother had set herheart upon the match—and between them they talked her into it. Shenever really wanted to marry him—Leonard has owned that to Jack in hissavage moods. But I ought not to run on so—I am doing very wrong"—saidMopsy, hastily.

"You may say anything you please to me. I am like the grave. I nevergive up a secret," said the Baron, who had settled himself comfortablyin his chair, assured that Mopsy, once set going, would tell him all shecould tell.

"No, I don't believe—from what Jack says he says in his tempers—Idon't believe she ever liked him," pursued Mopsy. "And she wasdesperately in love with the other one. But she gave him up at heraunt's instigation, because of some early intrigue of his—which wasabsurd, as she would have known, poor thing, if she had not been broughtup in this out-of-the-way corner of the world."

"The man who was shot at St. Nectan's Kieve last year. You must haveheard the story."

"Yes; Mr. St. Aubyn told me about it. And this Mr. Hamleigh had beenengaged to Mrs. Tregonell? Odd that he should be staying in this house!"

"Wasn't it? One of those odd things that Leonard Tregonell is fond ofdoing. He was always eccentric."

"And during this visit was there anything—the best of women aremortal—was there anything in the way of a flirtation going on betweenMrs. Tregonell and her former sweetheart?"

"Not a shadow of impropriety," answered Mopsy heartily. "She behavedperfectly. I knew the story from my brother, and couldn't help watchingthem—there was nothing underhand—not the faintest indication of asecret understanding between them."

"I hardly know. She seemed wonderfully calm; but as we left almostimmediately after the accident I had not much opportunity of judging."

"A sad business. A lovely woman married to a man she does not carefor—and really if I were not a visitor under his roof I should betempted to say that in my opinion no woman in her senses could care forMr. Tregonell. But I suppose after all practical considerations hadsomething to do with the match. Tregonell is lord of half-a-dozenmanors—and the lady hadn't a sixpence. Was that it?"

"Not at all. Mrs. Tregonell has money in her own right. She was the onlychild of an Indian judge, and her mother was co-heiress with the lateMrs. Tregonell, who was a Miss Champernowne—I believe she has at leastfifteen hundred a year, upon which a single woman might live verycomfortably, don't you know," concluded Miss Vandeleur with a grand air.

"No doubt," said the Baron. "And the fortune was settled on herself, Iconclude?"

"Every shilling. Mr. Tregonell's mother insisted upon that. No doubt shefelt it her duty to protect her niece's interest. Mr. Tregonell hascomplained to Jack of his wife being so independent. It lessens his holdupon her, don't you see."

"No. And her bills must be awfully heavy this year. I never saw such achange in any one. Last autumn she dressed so simply. A tailor-gown inthe morning—black velvet or satin in the evening. And now there is noend to the variety of her gowns. It makes one feel awfully shabby."

"Such artistic toilets as yours can never be shabby," said the Baron."In looking at a picture by Greuze one does not think how much a yardthe pale indefinite drapery cost, one only sees the grace and beauty ofthe draping."

"True; taste will go a long way," assented Mopsy, who had been tryingfor the last ten years to make taste—that is to say a careful study ofthe west-end shop-windows—do duty for cash.

"Then you find Mrs. Tregonell changed since your last visit?" inquiredde Cazalet, bent upon learning all he could.

"Remarkably. She is so much livelier—she seems so much more anxious toplease. It is a change altogether for the better. She seemsgayer—brighter—happier."

"Yes," thought the Baron, "she is in love. Only one magician works suchwonders, and he is the oldest of the gods—the motive power of theuniverse."

The gong sounded, and they went off to lunch. At the foot of the stairsthey met Christabel bringing down her boy. She was not so devoted to himas she had been last year, but there were occasions—like this wetmorning, for instance—when she gave herself up to his society.

"Leo is going to eat his dinner with us," she said, smiling at theBaron, "if you will not think him a nuisance."

"On the contrary, I shall be charmed to improve his acquaintance. I hopehe will let me sit next him."

"Don't reprove him," said the Baron. "It is a comfort to be remindedthat for the first three or four years of our lives we all tell thetruth. But I mean you to like me, Leo, all the same."

"I hate 'oo," said Leo, frankly—he always expressed himself in strongSaxon English—"but 'oo love my mamma."

This, in a shrill childish treble, was awkward for the rest of theparty. Mrs. Fairfax Torrington gave an arch glance at Mr. FitzJesse.Dopsy reddened, and exploded in a little spluttering laugh behind hernapkin. Christabel looked divinely unconscious, smiling down at her boy,whose chair had been placed at the corner of the table close to hismother.

"It is a poet's privilege to worship the beautiful, Leo," said theBaron, with a self-satisfied smirk. "The old troubadour's right ofallegiance to the loveliest—as old as chivalry."

"And as disreputable," said FitzJesse. "If I had been one of the knightsof old, and had found a troubadour sneaking about my premises, thattroubadour's head should have been through his guitar before he knewwhere he was—or he should have discovered that my idea of a commonchord was a halter. But in our present age of ultra-refinement thesocial troubadour is a gentleman, and the worship of beauty one of thehigher forms of culture."

The Baron looked at the journalist suspiciously. Bold as he was ofspeech and bearing, he never ventured to cross swords with Mr.FitzJesse. He was too much afraid of seeing an article upon his Jerseyantecedents or his married life in leaded type in theSling.

Happily, Mr. Tregonell was not at luncheon upon this particularoccasion. He had gone out shooting with Jack Vandeleur and little Monty.It was supposed to be a great year for woodcock, and the Squire and hisfriends had been after the birds in every direction, except St. Nectan'sKieve. He had refused to go there, although it was a tradition that theplace was a favourite resort of the birds.

"Why don't you shoot, Mrs. Tregonell?" asked Mrs. Torrington; "it isjust the one thing that makes life worth living in a country like this,where there is no great scope for hunting."

"I should like roaming about the hills, but I could never bring myselfto hit a bird," answered Christabel. "I am too fond of the featheredrace. I don't know why or what it is, but there is something in a birdwhich appeals intensely to one's pity. I have been more sorry than I cansay for a dying sparrow; and I can never teach myself to remember thatbirds are such wretchedly cruel and unprincipled creatures in theirdealings with one another that they really deserve very littlecompassion from man."

"Except that man has the responsibility of knowing better," said Mr.FitzJesse. "That infernal cruelty of the animal creation is one of theproblems that must perplex the gentle optimist who sums up his religionin a phrase of Pope's, and avows that whatever is, is right. Who,looking at the meek meditative countenance of a Jersey cow, those largestag-like eyes—Juno's eyes—would believe that Mrs. Cow is capable oftrampling a sick sister to death—nay, would look upon the operation asa matter of course—a thing to be done for the good of society."

"Is there not a little moral trampling done by stag-eyed creatures of ahigher grade?" asked Mrs. Torrington. "Let a woman once fall down in themud, and there are plenty of her own sex ready to grind her into themire. Cows have a coarser, more practical way of treating their fallensisters, but the principle is the same, don't you know."

"I have always found man the more malignant animal," said FitzJesse. "Ather worst a woman generally has a motive for the evil she does—somewrong to avenge—some petty slight to retaliate. A man stabs for themere pleasure of stabbing. With him slander is one of the fine arts.Depend upon it your Crabtree is a more malevolent creature than Mrs.Candour—and the Candours would not kill reputations if the Crabtreesdid not admire and applaud the slaughter. For my own part I believe thatif there were no men in the world, women would be almost kind to eachother."

The Baron did not enter into this discussion. He had no taste for anysubject out of his own line, which was art and beauty. With characteror morals he had nothing to do. He did not even pretend to listen to thediscourse of the others, but amused himself with petting Leo, whosturdily repulsed his endearments. When he spoke it was to reply toChristabel's last remark.

"If you are fonder of roaming on the hills than of shooting, Mrs.Tregonell, why should we not organize a rambling party? It is not toolate for a picnic. Let us hold ourselves ready for the first brightday—perhaps, after this deluge, we shall have fine weatherto-morrow—and organize a pilgrimage to Tintagel, with all the freedomof pedestrians, who can choose their own company, and are not obliged tosit opposite the person they least care about in the imprisonment of abarouche or a wagonette. Walking picnics are the only picnics worthhaving. You are a good walker, I know, Mrs. Tregonell; and you, Mrs.Torrington, you can walk I have no doubt."

The widow smiled and nodded. "Oh, yes, I am good for half-a-dozen miles,or so," she said, wondering whether she possessed a pair of boots inwhich she could walk, most of her boots being made rather with a view toexhibition on a fender-stool or on the step of a carriage than tolocomotion. "But I think as I am not quite so young as I was twentyyears ago, I had better follow you in the pony-carriage."

"Pony-carriage, me no pony-carriages," exclaimed de Cazalet. "Ours is tobe a walking picnic and nothing else. If you like to meet us as we comehome you can do so—but none but pedestrians shall drink our champagneor eat our salad—that salad which I shall have the honour to make foryou with my own hands, Mrs. Tregonell."

Jessie Bridgeman looked at Christabel to see if any painful memory—anythought of that other picnic at Tintagel when Angus Hamleigh was still astranger, and the world seemed made for gladness and laughter, woulddisturb her smiling serenity. But there was no trace of mournfulrecollection in that bright beaming face which was turned in allgraciousness towards the Baron, who sat caressing Leo's curls, while theboy wriggled his plump shoulders half out of his black velvet frock inpalpable disgust at the caress.

"Oh! it will be too lovely—too utterly ouftish," exclaimed Dopsy, whohad lately acquired this last flower of speech—a word which might bemade to mean almost anything, from the motive power which impels abilliard cue to the money that pays the player's losses at pool—a wordwhich is a substantive or adjective according to the speaker's pleasure.

"I suppose we shall be allowed to join you," said Mopsy, "we aresplendid walkers."

"Of course—entry open to all weights and ages, with Mrs. Tregonell'spermission."

"Let it be your picnic, Baron, since it is your idea," said Christabel;"my housekeeper shall take your orders about the luncheon, and we willall consider ourselves your guests."

"I shall expire if I am left out in the cold," said Mrs. Torrington."You really must allow age the privilege of a pony-carriage. Thatdelightful cob of Mrs. Tregonell's understands me perfectly."

"Well, on second thoughts, you shall have the carriage," said deCazalet, graciously. "The provisions can't walk. It shall be yourprivilege to bring them. We will have no servants. Mr. Faddie, Mr.FitzJesse, and I will do all the fetching and carrying, cork-drawing andsalad-making."

CHAPTER IX.

"THOU SHOULDST COME LIKE A FURY CROWNED WITH SNAKES."

When the shooting party came home to afternoon tea, Dopsy and Mopsy wereboth full of the picnic. The sun was sinking in lurid splendour; therewas every chance of a fine day to-morrow. De Cazalet had interviewed thehousekeeper, and ordered luncheon. Mopsy went about among the men like arecruiting sergeant, telling them of the picnic, and begging them tojoin in that festivity.

"It will be wretched for Dopsy and I"—her grammar was weak, and she hada fixed idea that "I" was a genteeler pronoun than "me,"—"if you don'tall come," she said to Colonel Blathwayt. "Of course the Baron willdevote himself exclusively to Mrs. Tregonell. FitzJesse will go in thepony-trap with Mrs. Torrington, and they'll have vivisected everybodythey know before they get there. And I can't get on a little bit withMr. Faddie, though he is awfully nice. I feel that if I were to let himtalk to me an hour at a stretch I should be obliged to go and join someProtestant sisterhood and wear thick boots and too fearful bonnets forthe rest of my days."

"And what would society do without Mopsy Vandeleur?" asked the Colonel,smiling at her. "I should enjoy a ramble with you above all things, buta picnic is such a confoundedly infantine business. I always feel ahundred years old when I attempt to be gay and frisky before dusk—feelas if I had been dead and come back to life again, as some of the savagetribes believe. However, if it will really please you, I'll give up thebirds to-morrow, and join your sports."

"How sweet of you," exclaimed Mopsy, with a thrilling look from underher painted lashes. "The whole thing would be ghastly without you."

"What's the row?" asked Leonard, turning his head upon the cushion ofthe easy chair in which he lolled at full length, to look up at thespeakers as they stood a little way behind him.

The master of Mount Royal was sitting by one fireplace, with a table andtea-tray all to himself; while Mrs. Tregonell and her circle weregrouped about the hearth at the opposite end of the hall. Jack Vandeleurand little Monty stood in front of the fire near their host, faithfuladherents to the friend who fed them; but all the rest of the partyclustered round Christabel.

"It is to be the Baron's affair," she said, gaily. "He organized it, andhe is to play the host. There are to be no carriages—except thepony-trap for Mrs. Torrington, who pinches her feet and her waist to adegree that makes locomotion impossible. We are all to walk except her.And I believe we are to have tea at the farm by St. Piran's well—asimple farmhouse tea in some dear old whitewashed room with a hugefireplace, hams and onions and things hanging from the rafters. Isn't ita lovely idea?"

"Very," grumbled Leonard; "but I should say you could have your tea agreat deal more comfortably here, without being under an obligation tothe farm people."

"Oh, but we have our tea here every afternoon," said Mopsy. "Think ofthe novelty of the thing."

"His and Mrs. Tregonell's, they planned it all between them. And theyare going to get up private theatricals for your birthday."

"Isn't it sweet of them? They are going to play 'Delicate Ground.' He isto be Citizen Sangfroid and she Pauline—the husband and wife whoquarrel and pretend to separate and are desperately fond of each otherall the time, don't you know? It's a powder piece."

"A play in which the people wear powdered wigs and patches, and all thatkind of thing. How dense you are."

"I was born so, I believe. And in this powder piece Mrs. Tregonell andBaron de Cazalet are to be husband and wife, and quarrel and makefriends again—eh?"

"Because the woodcock season is a short one, and I want to make the bestuse of my time."

"What a barbarian, to prefer any sport to our society," exclaimed Mopsycoquettishly. "For my part, I hate the very name of woodcock."

"Why?" asked Leonard, looking at her keenly, with his dark, bright eyes;eyes which had that hard, glassy brightness that has always a cruellook.

"Because it reminds me of that dreadful day last year when poor Mr.Hamleigh was killed. If he had not gone out woodcock shooting he wouldnot have been killed."

"No; a man's death generally hinges upon something," answered Leonard,with a chilling sneer; "no effect without a cause. But I don't thinkyou need waste your lamentations upon Mr. Hamleigh; he did not treatyour sister particularly well."

Mopsy sighed, and was thoughtful for a moment or two. Captain Vandeleurand Mr. Montagu had strolled off to change their clothes. The master ofthe house and Miss Vandeleur were alone at their end of the old hall.Ripples of silvery laughter, and the sound of mirthful voices came fromthe group about the other fireplace, where the blaze of piled-up logswent roaring up the wide windy chimney, making the most magicalchangeful light in which beauty or its opposite can be seen.

"No, he hardly acted fairly to poor Dopsy: he led her on, don't youknow, and we both thought he meant to propose. It would have been such asplendid match for her—and I could have stayed with them sometimes."

"Of course you could. Sometimes in your case would have meant all theyear round."

"And he was so fascinating, so handsome, ill as he looked, poordarling," sighed Mopsy. "I know Dop hadn't one mercenary feeling abouthim. It was a genuine case of spoons—she would have died for him."

"If he had wished it; but men have not yet gone in for collectingcorpses," sneered Leonard. "However poor the specimen of your sex maybe, they prefer the living subject—even the surgeons are all cominground to that."

"Don't be nasty," protested Mopsy. "I only meant to say that Dopsyreally adored Angus Hamleigh for his own sake. I know how kindly youfelt upon the subject—and that you wanted it to be a match."

"Yes, I did my best," answered Leonard. "I brought him here, and gaveyou both your chance."

"Yes, I gave him a piece of my mind. I told him that he had no right tocome into my house and play fast and loose with my friend's sister."

"No, it could hardly be called a quarrel. We were both tooreasonable—understood each other too thoroughly," answered Leonard, ashe got up and went off to his dressing-room, leaving Mopsy sorelyperplexed by an indescribable something in his tone and manner. Surelythere must be some fatal meaning in that dark evil smile, which changedto so black a frown, and that deep sigh which seemed wrung from the veryheart of the man: a man whom Mopsy had hitherto believed to be somewhatpoorly furnished with that organ, taken in its poetical significance asa thing that throbs with love and pity.

Alone in his dressing-room the lord of the Manor sat down in front ofthe fire with his boots on the hob, to muse upon the incongruity of hispresent position in his own house. A year ago he had ruled supreme,sovereign master of the domestic circle, obeyed and ministered to in allhumility by a lovely and pure-minded wife. Now he was a cipher in hisown house, the husband of a woman who was almost as strange to him as ifhe had seen her face for the first time on his return from SouthAmerica. This beautiful brilliant creature, who held him at arm'slength, defied him openly with looks and tones in which his guilty soulrecognized a terrible meaning—looks and tones which he dare notchallenge—this woman who lived only for pleasure, fine dress,frivolity, who had given his house the free-and-easy air of a mess-room,or a club—could this be indeed the woman he had loved in her girlhood,the fair and simple-minded wife whom his mother had trained for him,teaching her all good things, withholding all knowledge of evil.

"I'm not going to stand it much longer," he said to himself, with anoath, as he kicked the logs about upon his fire, and then got up todress for the feast at which he always felt himself just the one guestwho was not wanted.

He had been at home three weeks—it seemed an age—an age of disillusionand discontent—and he had not yet sought any explanation withChristabel. Not yet had he dared to claim his right to be obeyed as ahusband, to be treated as a friend and adviser. With a strangereluctance he put off the explanation from day to day, and in themeanwhile the aspect of life at Mount Royal was growing daily lessagreeable to him. Could it be that this wife of his, whose purity andfaith he had tried by the hardest test—the test of daily companionshipwith her first and only lover—was inclined to waver now—to play himfalse for so shallow a coxcomb, so tawdry a fine gentleman as Oliver deCazalet. Not once, but many times within the past week he had askedhimself that question. Could it be? He had heard strange stories—hadknown of queer cases of the falling away of good women from the path ofvirtue. He had heard of sober matrons—mothers of fair children, wivesof many years—the Cornelias of their circle, staking home, husband,children, honour, good name, and troops of friends against the wilddelirium of some new-born fancy, sudden, demoniac as the dance of death.The women who go wrong are not always the most likely women. It is notthe trampled slave, the neglected and forlorn wife of a bad husband—butthe pearl and treasure of a happy circle who takes the fatal plunge intothe mire. The forlorn slave-wife stays in the dreary home and nursesher children, battles with her husband's creditors, consoles herselfwith church going and many prayers, fondly hoping for a future day inwhich Tom will find out that she is fairer and dearer than any of hisfalse goddesses, and come home repentant to the domestic hearth: whilethe good husband's idol, sated with legitimate worship, gives herself upall at once to the intoxication of unholy incense, and topples off hershrine. Leonard Tregonell knew that the world was full of suchpsychological mysteries; and yet he could hardly bring himself tobelieve that Christabel was of the stuff that makes false wives, or thatshe could be won by such a third-rate Don Juan as the Baron de Cazalet.

The dinner was a little noisier and gayer than usual to-night. Every onetalked, laughed, told anecdotes, let off puns, more or lessatrocious—except the host, who sat in his place an image of gloom.Happily Mrs. St. Aubyn was one of those stout, healthy, contented peoplewho enjoy their dinner, and only talk about as much as is required forthe assistance of digestion. She told prosy stories about her pigs andpoultry—which were altogether superior, intellectually and physically,to other people's pigs and poultry—and only paused once or twice toexclaim, "You are looking awfully tired, Mr. Tregonell. You must haveoverdone it to-day. Don't you take curaçoa? I always do after icepudding. It's so comforting. Do you know at the last dinner I was atbefore I came here the curaçoa was ginger brandy. Wasn't that horrid?People ought not to do such things."

Leonard suggested in a bored voice that this might have been thebutler's mistake.

"I don't think so. I believe it was actual meanness—but I shall nevertake liqueur atthat house again," said Mrs. St. Aubyn, in an injuredtone.

"I think not. I'm afraid the walk would be too much for me—and I am notfond enough of Mrs. Torrington to enjoy two hours'tête-à-tête in apony-carriage. My girls will go, of course. And I suppose you will bethere," added Mrs. St. Aubyn, with intention.

"Well, if I were in your shoes and had such a pretty wife I should notleave her to go picnicking about the world with such an attractive manas the Baron."

Leonard gave an uneasy little laugh, meant to convey the idea of supremesecurity.

"I'm not jealous of de Cazalet," he said. "Surely you don't call him anattractive man."

"Dangerously attractive," replied Mrs. St. Aubyn, gazing at the distantBaron, whose florid good looks were asserting themselves at the furtherend of the table, on Christabel's left hand—she had Mr. St. Aubyn'sgrey, contented face, glistening with dinner, on her right. "He is justthe kind of man I should have fallen in love with when I was your wife'sage."

"Really," exclaimed Leonard, incredulously. "But I suppose after youmarried St. Aubyn, you left off falling in love."

"Of course. I did not put myself in the way of temptation. I shouldnever have encouraged such a man—handsome, accomplished,unscrupulous—as Baron de Cazalet."

"I don't think his good looks or his unscrupulousness will make anydifference to my wife," said Leonard. "She knows how to take care ofherself."

"No doubt. But that does not release you from the duty of taking care.You had better go to the picnic."

"My dear Mrs. St. Aubyn, if I were to go now, after what you have justsaid to me, you might suppose I was jealous of de Cazalet; and that isjust the one supposition I could not stand," answered Leonard. "It wouldtake a dozen such fascinating men to shake my confidence in my wife: sheis not an acquaintance of yesterday, remember: I have known her all mylife."

Mrs. St. Aubyn sighed and shook her head. She was one of those stupidwell-meaning women whose mission in life is to make other peopleuncomfortable—with the best intentions. She kept a steady look-out forthe approaching misfortunes of her friends. She was the first to tell ananxious mother that her youngest boy was sickening for scarlet fever,or that her eldest girl looked consumptive. She prophesied rheumaticsand bronchitis to incautious people who went out in wet weather—sheheld it as a fixed belief that all her friends' houses were damp. It wasin vain that vexed householders protested against such a suspicion, andheld forth upon the superiority of their drainage, the felt under theirtiles, their air bricks, and ventilators. "My dear, your house is damp,"she would reply conclusively. "What it would be if you hadnot takenthose precautions I shudder to imagine—but I only know that I get theshivers every time I sit in your drawing-room."

To-night she was somewhat offended with Mr. Tregonell that he refused totake alarm at her friendly warning. She had made up her mind that it washer duty to speak. She had told the girls so in the course of theirafternoon constitutional, a private family walk.

"If things get any worse I shall take you away," she said, as theytrudged along the lane in their waterproofs, caring very little for asoft drizzling rain, which was supposed to be good for theircomplexions.

"Don't, mother," said Emily. "Clara and I are having such a jolly time.Mrs. Tregonell is straight enough, I'm sure. She does flirt outrageouslywith the Baron, I admit; but an open flirtation of that kind seldommeans mischief; and Mr. Tregonell is such a heavy clod-hopping fellow:his wife may be forgiven for flirting a little."

"Mrs. Tregonell flirts more than a little," replied Mrs. St. Aubyn. "AllI can say is, I don't like it, and I don't think it's a proper spectaclefor girls."

"Then you'd better send us back to the nursery, mother, or shut us up ina convent," retorted the younger of the damsels. "If you don't want usto see young married women flirt, you must keep us very close indeed."

"If you feel uneasy about your Cochin Chinas, mother, you can go home,and leave us to follow with the pater," said Emily. "I've set my heartupon stopping till after Mr. Tregonell's birthday, the 14th of November,for the theatricals will be fine fun. They talk of "High Life belowStairs" for us girls, after "Delicate Ground;" and I think we shall beable to persuade Mrs. Tregonell to wind up with a dance. What is the useof people having fine rooms if they don't know how to use them?"

"Mrs. Tregonell seems ready for anything," sighed the matron. "I neversaw such a change in any one. Do you remember how quiet she was thesummer before last, when we were here for a few days?"

CHAPTER X.

"HIS LADY SMILES; DELIGHT IS IN HER FACE."

That benevolent advice of Mrs. St. Aubyn's was not without its influenceupon Leonard, lightly as he seemed to put aside the insinuation of evil.The matron's speech helped to strengthen his own doubts and fears. Othereyes than his had noted Christabel's manner of receiving the Baron'sattentions—other people had been impressed by the change in her. Thething was not an evil of his own imagining. She was making herself thetalk of his friends and acquaintance. There was scandal—foul suspicionin the very atmosphere she breathed. That mutual understanding, thatface to face arraignment, which he felt must come sooner or later, couldnot be staved off much longer. The wife who defied him thus openly,making light of him under his own roof, must be brought to book.

No one had much leisure for thought that evening. The drawing-room was ascene of babble and laughter, music, flirtation, frivolity, everybodyseeming to be blest with that happy-go-lucky temperament which canextract mirth from the merest trifles. Jessie Bridgeman and Mr.Tregonell were the only lookers-on—the only two people who in JackVandeleur's favourite phrase were not "in it." Every one else was fullof the private theatricals. The idea had only been mooted afterluncheon, and now it seemed as if life could hardly have been bearableyesterday without this thrilling prospect. Colonel Blathwayt, who hadbeen out shooting all the afternoon, entered vigorously into thediscussion. He was an experienced amateur actor, had helped to swell thefunds of half the charitable institutions of London and the provinces;so he at once assumed the function of stage manager.

"De Cazalet can act," he said. "I have seen him at South Kensington; butI don't think he knows the ropes as well as I do. You must let memanage the whole business for you; write to the London people for stageand scenery, lamps, costumes, wigs. And of course you will want me forAlphonse."

Little Monty had been suggested for Alphonse. He was fair-haired andeffeminate, and had just that small namby-pamby air which would suitPauline's faint-hearted lover; but nobody dared to say anything abouthim when Colonel Blathwayt made this generous offer.

"Will you really play Alphonse?" exclaimed Christabel, looking up from avolume of engravings, illustrating the costumes of the Directory andEmpire, over which the young ladies of the party, notably Dopsy andMopsy, had been giggling and ejaculating. "We should not have venturedto offer you a secondary part."

"You'll find it won't be a secondary character as I shall play it,"answered the Colonel, calmly. "Alphonse will go better than any part inthe piece. And now as to the costumes. Do you want to be picturesque, ordo you want to be correct?"

"Picturesque by all means," cried Mopsy. "Dear Mrs. Tregonell wouldlook too lovely in powder and patches."

"Like Boucher's Pompadour," said the Colonel. "Do you know I think, nowfancy balls are the rage, the Louis Quinze costume is rather played out.Every ponderous matron fancies herself in powder and brocade. The powderis hired for the evening, and the brocade is easily convertible into adinner gown," added the Colonel, who spent the greater part of his lifeamong women, and prided himself upon knowing their ways. "For my part, Ishould like to see Mrs. Tregonell dressed like Madame Tallien."

"Undressed like Madame Tallien, you mean," said Captain Vandeleur: andthereupon followed a lively discussion as to the costume of the close ofthe last century as compared with the costume of to-day, which ended insomebody's assertion that the last years of a century are apt to expirein social and political convulsions, and that there was every promise ofrevolution as a wind-up for the present age.

"My idea of the close of the nineteenth century is that it will be aperiod of dire poverty," said the proprietor of theSling; "an age ofpauperism already heralded by the sale of noble old mansions, thebreaking-up of great estates, the destruction of famous collections,galleries, libraries, the pious hoards of generations of connoisseursand bookworms, scattered to the four winds by a stroke of theauctioneer's hammer. The landed interest and the commercial classes aregoing down the hill together. Suez has ruined our shipping interests; anunreciprocated free trade is ruining our commerce. Coffee, tea,cotton—our markets are narrowing for all. After a period of lavishexpenditure, reckless extravagance, or at any rate the affectation ofreckless extravagance, there will come an era of dearth. Those arewisest who will foresee and anticipate the change, simplify theirhabits, reduce their luxuries, put on a Quakerish sobriety in dress andentertainments, which, if carried out nicely, may pass for highart—train themselves to a kind of holy poverty outside thecloister—and thus break their fall. Depend upon it, there will be afall, for every one of those men and women who at this present day areliving up to their incomes."

"The voice is the voice of FitzJesse, but the words are the words ofCassandra," said Colonel Blathwayt. "For my part, I am like the Greeks,and never listen to such gloomy vaticinations. I daresay the delugewill come—a deluge now and again is inevitable; but I think the dryland will last our time. And in the meanwhile was there ever apleasanter world than that we live in—an entirely rebuilt andrevivified London—clubs, theatres, restaurants, without number—gaietyand brightness everywhere? If our amusements are frivolous, at leastthey are hearty. If our friendships are transient, they are verypleasant while they last. We know people to-day, and cut them to-morrow;that is one of the first conditions of good society. The people who arecut understand the force of circumstances, and are just as ready to takeup the running a year or two hence, when we can afford to know them."

"Our women are getting every day more like the women of the Directory,and the Consulate," continued the Colonel. "We have come to shortpetticoats and gold anklets. All in good time we shall come to barefeet. We have abolished sleeves, and we have brought bodices to areductio ad absurdum; but, although prudes and puritans may disapproveour present form, I must say that women were never so intelligent or sodelightful. We have come back to the days of thesalon and thepetitsouper. Our daughters are sirens and our wives are wits."

"Charming for Colonel Blathwayt, whose only experience is of otherpeople's wives and daughters," said little Monty. "But I don't feel surethat the owners are quite so happy."

"When a man marries a pretty woman, he puts himself beyond the pale,"said Mr. FitzJesse; "nobody sympathizes with him. I daresay there wasnot a member of the Grecian League who did not long to kick Menelaus."

"There should be stringent laws for the repression of nice girls'fathers," said little Monty. "Could there not be some kind ofinstitution like the Irish Land Court, to force parents to cash up, andhand over daughter and dowry to any spirited young man who made a bid?Here am I, a conspicuous martyr to parental despotism. I might havemarried half a dozen heiresses, but for the intervention ofstony-hearted fathers. I have gone for them at all ages, from pinaforesto false fronts; but I have never been so lucky as to rise an orphan."

"Ah, I should have been very kind to her, even if her youth and beautydated before the Reform Bill," said Mr. Montagu. "I should not have goneinto society with her—one must draw the line somewhere. But I shouldhave been forbearing."

"Dear Mrs. Tregonell," said Mopsy, gushingly, "have you made up yourmind what to wear?"

Christabel had been turning the leaves of a folio abstractedly for thelast ten minutes.

"To wear? Oh, for the play! Well, I suppose I must be as true to theperiod as I can, without imitating Madame Tallien. Baron, you drawbeautifully. Will you make a sketch for my costume? I know a littlewoman in George Street, Hanover Square, who will carry out your ideacharmingly."

"I should have thought that you could have imagined a short-waisted gownand a pair of long mittens without the help of an artist," said Jessie,with some acidity. She had been sitting close to the lamp, poring over apiece of point-lace work, a quiet and observant listener. It was a fixedidea among the servants at Mount Royal that Miss Bridgeman's eyes wereconstructed on the same principle as those of a horse, and that shecould see behind her. "There is nothing so very elaborate in the dressof that period, is there?"

"Oh, but the poetry means the bare feet and ankles, doesn't it?" askedMiss Bridgeman. "When you talk about poetry in costume, you generallymean something that sets a whole roomful of people staring andtittering."

"My Pauline will look a sylph!" said the Baron, with a languishingglance at his hostess.

And thus, in the pursuit of the infinitely little, the evening woreaway. Songs and laughter, music of the lightest and most evanescentcharacter, games which touched the confines of idiocy, and set Leonardwondering whether the evening amusements of Colney Hatch and Hanwellcould possibly savour of wilder lunacy than these sports which his wifeand her circle cultivated in the grave old reception-room, where acouncil of Cavaliers, with George Trevelyan of Nettlecombe, RoyalistColonel, at their head, had met and sworn fealty to Charles Stuart'scause, at hazard of fortune and life.

Leonard stood with his back to the wide old fireplace, watching theserevellers, and speculating, in a troubled spirit, as to how much of thisjuvenile friskiness was real; contemplating, with a cynical spirit, thatnice sense of class distinction which enabled the two St. Aubyn girls tokeep Mopsy and Dopsy at an impassable distance, even while engaged withthem in these familiar sports. Vain that in the Post Office game, Dopsyas Montreal exchanged places with Emily St. Aubyn as Newmarket. Montrealand Newmarket themselves are not farther apart geographically than thetwo damsels were morally as they skipped into each other's chairs. Vainthat in the Spelling game, the South Belgravians caught up thelandowner's daughters with a surpassing sharpness and sometimes turnedthe laugh against those tender scions of the landed aristocracy. Thevery attitude of Clara St. Aubyn's chin—the way she talked apart withMrs. Tregonell, seemingly unconscious of the Vandeleur presence, markedher inward sense of the gulf between them.

It was midnight before any one thought of going to bed, yet there wasunwonted animation at nine o'clock next morning in the dining-room,where every one was talking of the day's expedition: always exceptingthe master of the house, who sat at one end of the table, withTermagant, his favourite Irish setter, crouched at his feet, and hisgame-bag lying on a chair near at hand.

"I am not going to desert you, for I never had the faintest intention ofjoining you," answered Leonard bluntly; "whether my wife and her friendsmade idiots of themselves by playing nursery games in her drawing-room,or by skipping about a windy height on the edge of the sea, is their ownaffair. I can take my pleasure elsewhere."

"Yes; but you take your pleasure very sadly, as somebody said of Englishpeople generally," urged Mopsy, whose only knowledge of politeliterature was derived from the classical quotations and allusions intheDaily Telegraph; "you will be all alone, for Jack and little Montyhave promised to come with us."

"I gave them perfect freedom of choice. They may like that kind ofthing. I don't."

Against so firm a resolve argument would have been vain. Mopsy gave alittle sigh, and went on with her breakfast. She was really sorry forLeonard, who had been a kind and useful friend to Jack for the last sixyears—who had been indeed the backbone of Jack's resources, withoutwhich that gentleman's pecuniary position would have collapsed intohopeless limpness. She was quite sharp-sighted enough to see that thepresent aspect of affairs was obnoxious to Mr. Tregonell—that he wassavagely jealous, yet dared not remonstrate with his wife.

"I should have thought he was just the last man to put up with anythingof that kind," she said to Dopsy, in their bedchamber confidences; "Imean her carrying on with the Baron."

"You needn't explain yourself," retorted Dopsy, "it's visible to thenaked eye. If you or I were to carry on like that in another woman'shouse we should get turned out; but Mrs. Tregonell is in her own house,and so long as her husband doesn't see fit to complain—"

"But when will he see fit? He stands by and watches his wife's openflirtation with the Baron, and lets her go on from bad to worse. He mustsee that her very nature is changed since last year, and yet he makes noattempt to alter her conduct. He is an absolute worm."

"Even the worm will turn at last. You may depend he will," said Dopsysententiously.

This was last night's conversation, and now in the bright fresh Octobermorning, with a delicious coolness in the clear air, a balmy warmth inthe sunshine, Dopsy and Mopsy were smiling at their hostess, for whosekindness they could not help feeling deeply grateful, "whatever theymight think of her conduct. They recognized a divided duty—loyalty toLeonard as their brother's patron, and the friend who had firstintroduced them to this land of Beulah—gratitude to Mrs. Tregonell,without whose good graces they could not long have made their abodehere.

"You are not going with us?" asked Christabel, carelessly scanningLeonard's shooting gear, as she rose from the table and drew on her longmousquetaire gloves.

"Shall you go to the Kieve? That's a good place for woodcock, don't youknow?" Jessie Bridgeman stared aghast at the speaker. "If you go thatway in the afternoon you may fall in with us: we are to drink tea at thefarm."

"And now, if every one is ready, we had better start," said Christabel,looking round at her party.

She wore a tight-fitting jacket, dark olive velvet, and a cloth skirt,both heavily trimmed with sable, a beaver hat, with an ostrich feather,which made a sweeping curve round the brim, and caressed the coil ofgolden-brown hair at the back of the small head. The costume, which wasfaintly suggestive of a hunting party at Fontainebleau or St. Germains,became the tall finely moulded figure to admiration. Nobody could doubtfor an instant that Mrs. Tregonell was dressed for effect, and wasdetermined to get full value out of her beauty. The neat tailor gown andsimple little cloth toque of the past, had given way to a costly andelaborate costume, in which every detail marked the careful study of thecoquette who lives only to be admired. Dopsy and Mopsy felt a naturalpang of envy as they scrutinized the quality of the cloth and calculatedthe cost of the fur; but they consoled themselves with the convictionthat there was a bewitching Kate Greenaway quaintness in their ownflimsy garments which made up for the poverty of the stuff, and thedoubtful finish of home dressmaking. A bunch of crimson poppies onMopsy's shoulder, a cornflower in Dopsy's hat, made vivid gleams ofcolour upon their brown merino frocks, while the freshness of theirsaffron-tinted Toby frills was undeniable. Sleeves short and tight, andten-buttoned Swedish gloves, made up a toilet which Dopsy and Mopsy hadbelieved to be æsthetically perfect, until they compared it withChristabel's rich and picturesque attire. The St. Aubyn girls were notless conscious of the superiority of Mrs. Tregonell's appearance, butthey were resigned to the inevitable. How could a meagre quarterlyallowance, doled out by an unwilling father, stand against a wife'sunlimited power of running up bills. And here was a woman who had afortune of her own to squander as she pleased, without anybody's leaveor license. Secure in the severity of slate-coloured serges made by aWest-End tailor, with hats to match, and the best boots and gloves thatmoney could buy, the St. Aubyn girls affected to despise Christabel'solive velvet and sable tails.

"It's the worst possible form to dress like that for a country ramble,"murmured Emily to Clara.

"Of course. But the country's about the only place where she couldventure to wear such clothes," replied Clara: "she'd be laughed at inLondon."

"Well, I don't know: there were some rather loud get-ups in the Parklast season," said Emily. "It's really absurd the way married womenout-dress girls."

Once clear of the avenue Mrs. Tregonell and her guests arrangedthemselves upon the Darwinian principle of natural selection.

That brilliant bird the Baron, whose velvet coat and knickerbockers werethe astonishment of Boscastle, instinctively drew near to Christabel,whose velvet and sable, plumed hat, and point-lace necktie pointed herout as his proper mate—Little Monty, Bohemian anddécousu, attachedhimself as naturally to one of the Vandeleur birds, shunning theiron-grey respectability of the St. Aubyn breed.

Mrs. St. Aubyn, who had made up her mind at the last to join the party,fastened herself upon St. Bernard Faddie, in the fond hope that he wouldbe able to talk of parish matters, and advise her about her duties asLady Bountiful; while he, on his part, only cared for rubric and ritual,and looked upon parish visitation as an inferior branch of duty, to beperformed by newly-fledged curates. Mr. FitzJesse took up with Dopsy,who amused him as a marked specimen of nineteenth-century girlhood—arare and wonderful bird of its kind, like a heavily wattled barbpigeonn, not beautiful, but infinitely curious. The two St. Aubyn girls,in a paucity of the male sex, had to put up with the escort of CaptainVandeleur, to whom they were extremely civil, although they studiouslyignored his sisters. And so, by lane and field-path, by hill and vale,they went up to the broad, open heights above the sea—a sea that wasvery fair to look upon on this sunshiny autumn day, luminous with thosetranslucent hues of amethyst and emerald, sapphire and garnet, whichmake the ever changeful glory of that Cornish strand.

Miss Bridgeman walked half the way with the St. Aubyn girls and CaptainVandeleur. The St. Aubyns had always been civil to her, not without acertain tone of patronage which would have wounded a more self-consciousperson, but which Jessie endured with perfect good temper.

"What does it matter if they have the air of bending down from a highersocial level every time they talk to me," she said to Major Bree,lightly, when he made some rude remark about these young ladies. "If itpleases them to fancy themselves on a pinnacle, the fancy is a harmlessone, and can't hurt me. I shouldn't care to occupy that kind ofimaginary height myself. There must be a disagreeable sense ofchilliness and remoteness; and then there is always the fear of a suddendrop; like that fall through infinite space which startles one sometimeson the edge of sleep."

Armed with that calm philosophy which takes all small things lightly,Jessie was quite content that the Miss St. Aubyns should converse withher as if she were a creature of an inferior race—born with lesserhopes and narrower needs than theirs, and with no rights worth mention.She was content that they should be sometimes familiar and sometimesdistant—that they should talk to her freely when there was no one elsewith whom they could talk—and that they should ignore her presence whenthe room was full.

To-day, Emily St. Aubyn was complaisant even to friendliness. Her sisterhad completely appropriated Captain Vandeleur, so Emily gave herself upto feminine gossip. There were some subjects which she really wanted todiscuss with Miss Bridgeman, and this seemed a golden opportunity.

"Are we really going to have tea at the farmhouse near St. Nectan'sKieve?" she asked.

"I did; but I could not help wondering a little. Was it not at the Kievethat poor Mr. Hamleigh was killed?"

"Don't you think it just a little heartless of Mrs. Tregonell to choosethat spot for a pleasure party?"

"That's a mere quibble, Miss Bridgeman: the association is just thesame, and she ought to feel it."

"Mrs. Tregonell is my very dear friend," answered Jessie. "She and heraunt are the only friends I have made in this world. You can't supposethat I shall find fault with her conduct?"

"I should consider gratitude and friendship the governing principles ofmy life where she is concerned."

"Stand by her, and cleave to her—walk by her side till death, whereverthe path might lead. I should not encourage her in wrong-doing. I shouldlift up my voice when there was need: but I should never forsake her."

"Unquestionably. To my mind, friendship which implies anything less thanthat is meaningless. However, there is no need for heroics: Mrs.Tregonell is not going to put me to the test."

"I hope not. She is very sweet. I should be deeply pained if she were togo wrong. But do you know that my mother does not at all like her mannerwith the Baron. My sister and I are much more liberal-minded, don't youknow; and we can understand that all she says and does is merefrivolity—high spirits which must find some outlet. But what surprisesme is that she should be so gay and light-hearted after the dreadfulevents of her life. If such things had happened to me, I shouldinevitably have gone over to Rome, and buried myself in the severestconventual order that I could find."

"Yes, there have been sad events in her life: but I think she chose thewiser course in doing her duty by the aunt who brought her up, than inself-immolation of that kind," answered Jessie, with her thin lips drawnto the firmest line they were capable of assuming.

"But think what she must have suffered last year when that poor man waskilled. I remember meeting him at dinner when they were first engaged.Such an interesting face—the countenance of a poet. I could fancyShelley or Keats exactly like him."

"We have their portraits," said Jessie, intolerant of gush. "There is noscope for fancy."

"But I think he really was a little like Keats—consumptive looking,too, which carried out the idea. How utterly dreadful it must have beenfor Mrs. Tregonell when he met his death, so suddenly, so awfully, whilehe was a guest under her roof. How did she bear it?"

"Very quietly. She had borne the pain of breaking her engagement for aprinciple, a mistaken one, as I think. His death could hardly have givenher worse pain."

"Awful in its suddenness, that is all—not more awful than the death ofany one of our English soldiers who fell in Zululand the other day.After all, the mode and manner of death is only a detail, and, so longas the physical pain is not severe, an insignificant detail. The onestupendous fact for the survivor remains always the same. We had afriend and he is gone—for ever, for all we know."

"Well, all I can say is that if I were Mrs. Tregonell, I could neverhave been happy again," persisted Miss St. Aubyn.

They came to Trevena soon after this, and went down the hill to the baseof that lofty crag on which King Arthur's Castle stood. They found Mrs.Fairfax and the pony-carriage in the Valley. The provisions had all beencarried up the ascent. Everything was ready for luncheon.

A quarter of a hour later they were all seated on the long grass and thecrumbling stones, on which Christabel and her lover had sat so often inthat happy season of her life when love was a new thought, and faith inthe beloved one as boundless as that far-reaching ocean, on which theygazed in dreamy content. Now, instead of low talk about Arthur andGuinevere, Tristan and Iseult, and all the legends of the dim poeticpast, there were loud voices and laughter, execrable puns, muchconversation of the order generally known as chaff, a great deal of mildpersonality of that kind which, in the age of Miss Burney and MissAustin, was described as quizzing and roasting, and an all-pervadingflavour of lunacy. The Baron de Cazalet tried to take advantage of theposition, and to rise to poetry; but he was laughed down by themajority, especially by Mr. FitzJesse, who hadn't a good word for Arthurand his Court.

"Marc was a coward, and Tristan was a traitor and a knave," he said."While as for Iseult, the less said of her the better. The legends ofArthur's birth are cleverly contrived to rehabilitate his mother'scharacter, but the lady's reputation still is open to doubt. Jack theGiant Killer and Tom Thumb are quite the most respectable heroesconnected with this western world. You have no occasion to be proud ofthe associations of the soil, Mrs. Tregonell."

"And you believe in Tristan and Iseult, and the constancy which waspersonified by a bramble, as in the famous ballad of Lord Lovel."

"The constancy which proved itself by marrying somebody else, andremaining true to the old love all the same," said Mrs. FairfaxTorrington, in her society voice, trained to detonate sharp sentencesacross the subdued buzz of a dinner-table.

"Nothing in the life of either became them so well as the leaving it,"said Mr. FitzJesse. "The crowning touch of poetry in Iseult's deathredeems her errors. You remember how she was led half senseless toTristan's death-chamber—lors l'embrasse de ses bras, tant comme ellepeut, et gette ung souspir, et se pasme sur le corps, et le cueur luipart, et l'âme s'en va."

"If every woman who loses her lover could die like that," said Jessie,with a curious glance at Christabel, who sat listening smilingly to theconversation, with the Baron prostrate at her feet.

"Instead of making good her loss at the earliest opportunity, what adreary place this world would be," murmured little Monty. "I thinksomebody in the poetic line has observed that nothing in Nature isconstant, so it would be hard lines upon women if they were to befettered for life by some early attachment that came to a bad end."

"Juliet was never put to the test," answered FitzJesse. "The wholecourse of her love affair was something less than a week. If that potionof hers had failed, and she had awakened safe and sound in her ownbedchamber next morning, who knows that she would not have submitted tothe force of circumstances, married County Paris, and lived happily withhim ever after. There is only one perfect example of constancy in thewhole realm of poetry, and that is the love of Paolo and Francesca, thelove which even the pains of hell could not dissever."

"They weren't married, don't you know," lisped Monty. "They hadn't hadthe opportunity of getting tired of each other. And then, in theunderworld, a lady would be glad to take up with somebody she had knownon earth: just as in Australia one is delighted to fall in with a fellowone wouldn't care twopence for in Bond Street."

"I believe you are right," said Mr. FitzJesse, "and that constancy isonly another name for convenience. Married people are constant to eachother, as a rule, because there is such an infernal row when they fallout."

Lightly flew the moments in the balmy air, freshened by the salt sea,warmed by the glory of a meridian sun—lightly and happily for that wisemajority of the revellers, whose philosophy is to get the most out ofto-day's fair summer-time, and to leave future winters and possiblecalamities to Jove's discretion. Jessie watched the girl who had grownup by her side, whose every thought she had once known, and wondered ifthis beautiful artificial impersonation of society tones and societygraces could be verily the same flesh and blood. What had made thiswondrous transformation? Had Christabel's very soul undergone a changeduring that dismal period of apathy last winter? She had awakened fromthat catalepsy of despair a new woman—eager for frivolouspleasures—courting admiration—studious of effect: the very opposite ofthat high-souled and pure-minded girl whom Jessie had known and loved.

"It is the most awful moral wreck that was ever seen," thought Jessie;"but if my love can save her from deeper degradation she shall besaved."

Could she care for that showy impostor posed at her feet, gazing up ather with passionate eyes—hanging on her accents—openly worshippingher? She seemed to accept his idolatry, to sanction his insolence; andall her friends looked on, half scornful, half amused.

"What can Tregonell be thinking about not to be here to-day?" said JackVandeleur, close to Jessie's elbow.

"It is only his way," answered Jessie, scornfully. "Last year he invitedMr. Hamleigh to Mount Royal, who had been engaged to his wife a fewyears before. He is not given to jealousy."

"Evidently not," said Captain Vandeleur, waxing thoughtful, as helighted a cigarette, and strolled slowly off to stare at the sea, therocky pinnacles, and yonder cormorant skimming away from a sharp point,to dip and vanish in the green water.

The pilgrimage from Trevena to Trevithy farm was somewhat lessstraggling than the long walk by the cliffs. The way was along a highroad, which necessitated less meandering, but the party still divideditself into twos and threes, and Christabel still allowed de Cazalet theprivilege of atête-à-tête. She was a better walker than any of herfriends, and the Baron was a practised pedestrian; so those two keptwell ahead, leaving the rest of the party to follow as they pleased.

"I wonder they are not tired of each other by this time," said Mopsy,whose Wurtemburg heels were beginning to tell upon her temper. "It hasbeen such a long day—and such a long walk. What can the Baron find totalk about all this time?"

"Himself," answered FitzJesse, "an inexhaustible subject. Men can alwaystalk. Listening is the art in which they fail. Are you a good listener,Miss Vandeleur?"

"Very bad. As a young woman, with the conquest of society before you, Imost earnestly recommend you to cultivate the listener's art. Talk justenough to develop your companion's powers. If he has a hobby, let himride it. Be interested, be sympathetic. Do not always agree, but differonly to be convinced, argue only to be converted. Never answer atrandom, or stifle a yawn. Be a perfect listener, and society is open toyou. People will talk of you as the most intelligent girl they know."

Mopsy smiled a sickly smile. The agony of those ready-made boots, just aquarter of a size too small, though they had seemed so comfortable inthe shoemaker's shop, was increasing momentarily. Here was a hill likethe side of a house to be descended. Poor Mopsy felt as if she werebalancing herself on the points of her toes. She leant feebly on herumbrella, while the editor of theSling trudged sturdily by her sideadmiring the landscape—stopping half-way down the hill to point out thegrander features of the scene with his bamboo. Stopping was ever so muchworse than going on. It was as if the fires consuming the martyr at thestake had suddenly gone out, and left him with an acuter consciousnessof his pain.

"Too, too lovely," murmured Mopsy, heartily wishing herself in theKing's Road, Chelsea, within hail of an omnibus.

She hobbled on somehow, pretending to listen to Mr. FitzJesse'sconversation, but feeling that she was momentarily demonstrating herincompetence as a listener, till they came to the farm, where she wasjust able to totter into the sitting-room, and sink into the nearestchair.

"I'm afraid you're tired," said the journalist, a sturdy block of a man,who hardly knew the meaning of fatigue.

"I am just a little tired," she faltered hypocritically, "but it hasbeen a lovely walk."

They were the last to arrive. The tea things were ready upon a tablecovered with snowy damask—a substantial tea, including home-madeloaves, saffron-coloured cakes, jam, marmalade, and cream. But there wasno one in the room except Mrs. Fairfax Torrington, who had enthronedherself in the most comfortable chair, by the side of the cheerfulfire.

"All the rest of our people have gone straggling off to look at things,"she said, "some to the Kieve—and as that is a mile off we shall haveever so long to wait for our tea."

"Do you think we need wait very long?" asked Mopsy, whose head wasaching from the effects of mid-day champagne; "would it be so very badif we were to ask for a cup of tea."

"I am positively longing for tea," said Mrs. Torrington to FitzJesse,ignoring Mopsy.

"Then I'll ask the farm people to brew a special pot for you two,"answered the journalist, ringing the bell. "Here comes Mr. Tregonell,game-bag, dogs, and all. This is more friendly than I expected."

Leonard strolled across the little quadrangular garden, and came in atthe low door, as Mr. FitzJesse spoke.

"Gone to the Kieve, most of them," answered Mrs. Torrington briskly. Herfreshness contrasted cruelly with Mopsy's limp and exhausted condition."At least I know your wife and de Cazalet were bent on going there. Shehad promised to show the waterfall. We were just debating whether weought to wait tea for them."

He flung down his game-bag, took up his hat, whistled to his dogs, andwent towards the door.

"Won't you stop and have some tea—just to keep us in countenance?"asked Mrs. Torrington.

"If he ever intended to look after her it was certainly time he shouldbegin," said the widow, when the door was shut upon her host. "Pleasering again, Mr. FitzJesse. How slow these farm people are! Do theysuppose we have come here to stare at cups and saucers?"

CHAPTER XI.

"LOVE BORE SUCH BITTER AND SUCH DEADLY FRUIT."

Leonard Tregonell went slowly up the steep narrow lane with his dogs athis heels. It was a year since he had been this way. Good as the coverround about the waterfall was said to be for woodcock, he had carefullyavoided the spot this season, and his friends had been constrained todefer to his superior wisdom as a son of the soil. He had gone fartherafield for his sport, and, as there had been no lack of birds, hisguests had no reason for complaint. Yet Jack Vandeleur had said morethan once, "I wonder you don't try the Kieve. We shot a lot of birdsthere last year."

Now for the first time since that departed autumn he went up the hill toone of the happy hunting-grounds of his boyhood. The place where he hadfished, and shot, and trapped birds, and hunted water-rats, and climbedand torn his clothes in the careless schoolboy days, when hisconception of a perfectly blissful existence came as near as possible tothe life of a North American Indian. He had always detested politesociety and book-learning; but he had been shrewd enough and quickenough at learning the arts he loved:—gunnery—angling—veterinarysurgery.

He met a group of people near the top of the hill—all the party exceptChristabel and the Baron. One glance showed him that these two weremissing from the cluster of men and women crowding through the gate thatopened into the lane.

"The waterfall is quite a shabby affair," said Miss St. Aubyn; "therehas been so little rain lately, I felt ashamed to show Mr. Faddie such apoor little dribble."

"We are all going back to tea," explained her mother. "I don't know whathas become of Mrs. Tregonell and the Baron, but I suppose they areloitering about somewhere. Perhaps you'll tell them we have all gone onto the farm."

"Yes, I'll send them after you. I told my wife I'd meet her at theKieve, if I could."

He passed them and ran across the ploughed field, while the others wentdown the hill, talking and laughing. He heard the sound of their voicesand that light laughter dying away on the still air as the distancewidened between him and them; and he wondered if they were talking ofhis wife, and of his seeming indifference to her folly. The crisis hadcome. He had watched her in blank amazement, hardly able to believe hisown senses, to realize the possibility of guilt on the part of one whosevery perfection had galled him; and now he told himself there was nodoubt of her folly, no doubt that this tinselly pretender had fascinatedher, and that she was on the verge of destruction. No woman couldoutrage propriety as she had been doing of late, and yet escape danger.The business must be stopped somehow, even if he were forced to kick theBaron out of doors, in order to make an end of the entanglement. Andthen, what if she were to lift up her voice, and accuse him—if she wereto turn that knowledge which he suspected her of possessing, againsthim? What then? He must face the situation, and pay the penalty of whathe had done. That was all.

"It can't much matter what becomes of me," he said to himself. "I havenever had an hour's real happiness since I married her. She warned methat it would be so—warned me against my own jealous temper—but Iwouldn't listen to her. I had my own way."

Could she care for that man? Could she? In spite of the coarseness ofhis own nature, there was in Leonard's mind a deep-rooted conviction ofhis wife's purity, which was stronger even than the evidence of actualfacts. Even now, although the time had come when he must act, he had astrange confused feeling, like a man whose brain is under the influenceof some narcotic, which makes him see things that are not. He felt as insome hideous dream—long-involved—a maze of delusion and bedevilment,from which there was no escape.

He went down into the hollow. The high wooden gate stood wideopen—evidence that there was some one lingering below. The leaves werestill on the trees, the broad feathery ferns were still green. There wasa low yellow light gleaming behind the ridge of rock and the steepearthy slope above. The rush of the water sounded loud and clear in thesilence.

Leonard crept cautiously down the winding moss-grown track, holding hisdogs behind him in a leash, and constraining those well-mannered brutesto perfect quiet. He looked down into the deep hollow, through which thewater runs, and over which there is that narrow foot bridge, whence thewaterfall is seen in all its beauty—an arc of silvery light cleavingthe dark rock above, and flashing down to the dark rock below.

Christabel was standing on the bridge, with de Cazalet at her side. Theywere not looking up at the waterfall. Their faces were turned the otherway, to the rocky river bed, fringed with fern and wild rank growth ofbriar and weed. The Baron was talking earnestly, his head bent overChristabel, till it seemed to those furious eyes staring between theleafage, as if his lips must be touching her face. His hand claspedhers. That was plain enough.

Just then the spaniel stirred, and rustled the dank deadleaves—Christabel started, and looked up towards the trees thatscreened her husband's figure. A guilty start, a guilty look, Leonardthought. But those eyes of hers could not pierce the leafy screen, andthey drooped again, looking downward at the water beneath her feet. Shestood in a listening attitude, as if her whole being hung upon deCazalet's words.

What was he pleading so intensely? What was that honeyed speech, towhich the false wife listened, unresistingly, motionless as the birdspell-bound by the snake. So might Eve have listened to the firsttempter. In just such an attitude, with just such an expression, everymuscle relaxed, the head gently drooping, the eyelids lowered, a tendersmile curving the lips—the first tempted wife might have hearkened tothe silver-sweet tones of her seducer.

Even in the agony of his rage—rage at finding that this open folly,which he had pretended not to see, had been but the light and airyprelude to the dark theme of secret guilt—that wrong which he felt mostdeeply was his wife's falsehood to herself—her wilful debasement ofher own noble character. He had known her, and believed in her asperfect and pure among women, and now he saw her deliberately renouncingall claim to man's respect, lowering herself to the level of the womenwho can be tempted. He had believed her invulnerable. It was as if Dianaherself had gone astray—as if the very ideal and archetype of purityamong women had become perverted.

He stood, breathless almost, holding back his dogs, gazing, listeningwith as much intensity as if only the senses of hearing and sight livedin him—and all the rest were extinct. He saw the Baron draw nearer andnearer as he urged his prayer—who could doubt the nature of thatprayer—until the two figures were posed in one perfect harmoniouswhole, and then his arm stole gently round the slender waist.

"Not now," she said, in a clear voice, so distinct as to reach thatlistener's ears. "I can answer nothing now. To-morrow."

"To-morrow," she repeated; and then she cried suddenly, "hark! there issome one close by. Did you not hear?"

There had been no sound but the waterfall—not even the faintest rustleof a leaf. The two dogs crouched submissively at their master's feet,while that master himself stood motionless as a stone figure.

"I must go," cried Christabel. "Think how long we have stayed behind theothers. We shall set people wondering."

She sprang lightly from the bridge to the bank, and came quickly up therocky path, a narrow winding track, which closely skirted the spot whereLeonard stood concealed by the broad leaves of a chestnut. She mightalmost have heard his hurried breathing, she might almost have seen thelurid eyes of his dogs, gleaming athwart the rank undergrowth; but shestepped lightly past, and vanished from the watcher's sight.

"Christabel, stop," he exclaimed; "I must have your answer now. My fatehangs upon your words. You cannot mean to throw me over. I have plannedeverything. In three days we shall be at Pesth—secure from allpursuit."

He was following in Christabel's track, but he was not swift enough toovertake her, being at some disadvantage upon that slippery way, wherethe moss-grown slabs of rock offered a very insecure footing. As hespoke the last words, Christabel's figure disappeared among the treesupon the higher ground above him, and a broad herculean hand shot out ofthe leafy background, and pinioned him.

"Scoundrel—profligate—impostor!" hissed a voice in his ear, andLeonard Tregonell stood before him—white, panting, with flecks of foamupon his livid lips. "Devil! you have corrupted and seduced the purestwoman that ever lived. You shall answer to me—her husband—for yourinfamy."

"Oh! is that your tune?" exclaimed the Baron, wrenching his arm fromthat iron grip. They were both powerful men—fairly matched in physicalforce, cool, hardened by rough living. "Is that your game? I thought youdidn't mind."

"A common product of nineteenth-century civilization," answered theother, coolly. "One of those liberal-minded husbands who allow theirwives as wide a license as they claim for themselves."

"Take care," he said. "Two can play at that game. If it comes toknocking a man's front teeth down his throat I may as well tell you thatI have given the 'Frisco dentists a good bit of work in my time. Youforget that there's no experience of a rough-and-ready life that youhave had which I have not gone through twice over. If I had you inColorado we'd soon wipe off this little score with a brace ofrevolvers."

"Let Cornwall be Colorado for the nonce. We could meet here as easily aswe could meet in any quiet nook across the Channel, or in the wilds ofAmerica. No time like the present—no spot better than this."

"I'll meet you here to-morrow at daybreak—say, sharp seven. We canarrange about the pistols to-night. Vandeleur will come with me—he'drun any risk to serve me—and I daresay you could get little Monty to doas much for you. He's a good plucked one."

"Very well. Tell Vaudeleur what you mean, and let him settle thedetails. In the meantime we can take things quietly before the ladies.There is no need to scare any of them."

"I am not going to scare them. Down, Termagant," said Leonard to theIrish setter, as the low light branches of a neighbouring tree weresuddenly stirred, and a few withered leaves drifted down from the ruggedbank above the spot where the two men were standing.

"Well, I suppose you're a pretty good shot," said the Baron coolly,taking out his cigar-case, "so there'll be no disparity. By-the-by therewas a man killed here last year, I heard—a former rival of yours."

"I did," answered Leonard, turning upon him suddenly. "I killed him: asI hope to kill you: as I would kill any man who tried to come between meand the woman I loved. He was a gentleman, and I am sorry for him. Hefired in the air, and made me feel like a murderer. He knew how to makethat last score. I have never had a peaceful moment since I saw himfall, face downward, on that broad slab of rock on the other side of thebridge. You see I am not afraid of you, or I shouldn't tell you this."

"I suspected as much from the time I heard the story," said de Cazalet."I rarely believe in those convenient accidents which so often disposeof inconvenient people. But don't you think it might be better for youif we were to choose a different spot for to-morrow's meeting? Two ofyour rivals settled in the same gully might look suspicious—for I daresay you intend to kill me."

"Then suppose we were to meet on those sands—Trebarwith Sands, I thinkyou call the place. Not much fear of interruption there, I should think,at seven o'clock in the morning."

"You can settle that and everything else with Vandeleur," said Leonard,striding off with his dogs, and leaving the Baron to follow at hisleisure.

"It's devilish unlucky that this should have happened," he said tohimself. "An hour ago everything was going on velvet. We might have gotquietly away to-morrow—for I know she meant to go, cleverly as shefenced with me just now—and left my gentleman to his legal remedy,which would have secured the lady and her fortune to me, as soon as theDivorce Court business was over. He would have followed us with the ideaof fighting, no doubt, but I should have known how to give him the slip.And then we should have started in life with a clean slate. Now theremust be no end of a row. If I kill him it will be difficult to getaway—and if I bolt, how am I to be sure of the lady? Will she come tomy lure when I call her? Will she go away with me, to-morrow? Yes, thatwill be my only chance. I must get her to promise to meet me at BodminRoad Station in time for the Plymouth train—there's one starts ateleven. I can drive from Trebarwith to Bodmin with a good horse, takeher straight through to London, and from London by the first availableexpress to Edinburgh. She shall know nothing of what has happened tillwe are in Scotland, and then I can tell her that she is a free woman,and my wife by the Scottish law,—a bond which she can make as secure asshe likes by legal and religious ceremonies."

The Baron had enough insight into the feminine character to know that awoman who has leisure for deliberation upon the verge of ruin is notvery likely to make the fatal plunge. The boldly, deliberately bad arethe rare exceptions among womankind. The women who err are for the mostpart hustled and hurried into wrong-doing—hemmed round and beset byconflicting interests—bewildered and confused by falsereasoning—whirled in the Maelstrom of passion, helpless as the huntedhare.

The Baron had pleaded his cause eloquently, as he thought—had wonChristabel almost to consent to elope with him—but not quite. She hadseemed so near yielding, yet had not yielded. She had asked fortime—time to reflect upon the fatal step—and reflection was just thatone privilege which must not be allowed to her. Strange, he thought,that not once had she spoken of her son, the wrong she must inflict uponhim, her agony at having to part with him. Beautiful, fascinatingalthough he deemed her—proud as he felt at having subjugated so lovelya victim, it seemed to de Cazalet that there was something hard anddesperate about her—as of a woman who went wrong deliberately and ofset purpose. Yet on the brink of ruin she drew back, and was not to bemoved by any special pleading of his to consent to an immediateelopement. Vainly had he argued that the time had come—that people werebeginning to look askance—that her husband's suspicions might bearoused at any moment. She had been rock in her resistance of thesearguments. But her consent to an early flight must now be extorted fromher. Delay or hesitation now might be fatal. If he killed his man—andhe had little doubt in his own mind that he should kill him—it wasessential that his flight should be instant. The days were past whenjuries were disposed to look leniently upon gentlemanly homicide. If hewere caught red-handed, the penalty of his crime would be no light one.

"I was a fool to consent to such a wild plan," he told himself. "I oughtto have insisted upon meeting him on the other side of the Channel. Butto draw back now might look bad, and would lessen my chance with her.No; there is no alternative course. I must dispose of him, and get heraway, without the loss of an hour."

The whole business had to be thought out carefully. His intent wasdeadly, and he planned this duel with as much wicked deliberation as ifhe had been planning a murder. He had lived among men who held all humanlife, except their own, lightly, and to whom duelling and assassinationwere among the possibilities of every-day existence. He thought how ifhe and the three other men could reach that lonely bend of the coastunobserved, they might leave the man who should fall lying on the sand,with never an indication to point how he fell.

De Cazalet felt that in Vandeleur there was a man to be trusted. Hewould not betray, even though his friend were left there, dead upon thelow level sand-waste, for the tide to roll over him and hide him, andwrap the secret of his doom in eternal silence. There was something ofthe freebooter in Jack Vandeleur—an honour-among-thieves kind ofspirit—which the soul of that other freebooter recognized andunderstood.

"We don't want little Montagu," thought de Cazalet. "One man will besecond enough to see fair-play. The fuss and formality of the thing canbe dispensed with. That little beggar's ideas are too insular—he mightround upon me."

So meditating upon the details of to-morrow, the Baron went down thehill to the farm, where he found the Mount Royal party just setting outon their homeward journey under the shades of evening, stars shiningfaintly in the blue infinite above them. Leonard was not among hiswife's guests—nor had he been seen by any of them since they met him atthe field-gate, an hour ago.

They went across the fields, and by the common beyond Trevalga—walkingbriskly, talking merrily, in the cool evening air; all except Mopsy,from whose high-heeled boots there was no surcease of pain. Alas! thoseWurtemburg heels, and the boots just half a size too small for thewearer, for how many a bitter hour of woman's life have they to answer!

De Cazalet tried in vain during that homeward walk to get confidentialspeech with Christabel—he was eager to urge his new plan—the departurefrom Bodmin Road Station—but she was always surrounded. He fancied eventhat she made it her business to avoid him.

"Coquette," he muttered to himself savagely. "They are all alike. Ithought she was a little better than the rest; but they are all groundin the same mill."

He could scarcely get a glimpse of her face in the twilight. She wasalways a little way ahead, or a little way behind him—now with JessieBridgeman, now with Emily St. Aubyn—skimming over the rough heathyground, flitting from group to group. When they entered the house shedisappeared almost instantly, leaving her guests lingering in the hall,too tired to repair at once to their own rooms, content to loiter in theglow and warmth of the wood fires. It was seven o'clock. They had beenout nearly nine hours.

"What a dreadfully long day it has been!" exclaimed Emily St. Aubyn,with a stifled yawn.

"Isn't that the usual remark after a pleasure party?" demanded Mr.FitzJesse. "I have found the unfailing result of any elaboratearrangement for human felicity to be an abnormal lengthening of thehours; just as every strenuous endeavour to accomplish some good workfor one's fellow-men infallibly provokes the enmity of the class to bebenefited."

"Oh, it has all been awfully enjoyable, don't you know," said Miss St.Aubyn; "and it was very sweet of Mrs. Tregonell to give us such adelightful day; but I can't help feeling as if we had been out a week.And now we have to dress for dinner, which is rather a trial."

"Why not sit down as you are? Let us have a tailor-gown andshooting-jacket dinner, as a variety upon a calico ball," suggestedlittle Monty.

"Impossible! We should feel dirty and horrid," said Miss St. Aubyn. "Thefreshness and purity of the dinner-table would make us ashamed of ourgrubbiness. Besides, however could we face the servants? No, the effortmust be made. Come, mother, you really look as if you wanted to becarried upstairs."

"By voluntary contributions," murmured FitzJesse, aside to MissBridgeman. "Briareus himself could not do it single-handed, as one ofour vivacious Home Rulers might say."

The Baron de Cazalet did not appear in the drawing-room an hour laterwhen the house-party assembled for dinner. He sent his hostess a littlenote apologizing for his absence, on the ground of important businessletters, which must be answered that night; though why a man should sitdown at eight o'clock in the evening to write letters for a post whichwould not leave Boscastle till the following afternoon, was ratherdifficult for any one to understand.

"All humbug about those letters, you may depend," said little Monty, wholooked as fresh as a daisy in his smooth expanse of shirt-front, with asingle diamond stud in the middle of it, like a lighthouse in a calmsea. "The Baron was fairly done—athlete as he pretends to be—hadn't aleg to stand upon—came in limping. I wouldn't mind giving long oddsthat he won't show till to-morrow afternoon. It's a case of gruel andbandages for the next twenty-four hours."

Leonard came into the drawing-room just in time to give his arm to Mrs.St. Aubyn. He made himself more agreeable than usual at dinner, as itseemed to that worthy matron—talked more—laughed louder—and certainlydrank more than his wont. The dinner was remarkably lively, in spite ofthe Baron's absence; indeed, the conversation took a new and livelierturn upon that account, for everybody had something more or less amusingto say about the absent one, stimulated and egged on with quiet maliceby Mr. FitzJesse. Anecdotes were told of his self-assurance, his vanity,his pretentiousness. His pedigree was discussed, and settled for—hisantecedents—his married life, were all submitted to the process ofconversational vivisection.

"Rather rough on Mrs. Tregonell, isn't it?" murmured little Monty to thefair Dopsy.

"Not a straw. She could not care for such a man as that, after beingengaged to Mr. Hamleigh."

"Hamleigh was better form, I admit—and I used to think Mrs. T. asstraight as an arrow. But I confess I've been staggered lately."

"Did you see what a calm queenly look she had all the time people werelaughing at de Cazalet?" asked Dopsy. "A woman who cared one little bitfor a man could not have taken it so quietly."

"You think she must have flamed out—said something in defence of heradmirer. You forget your Tennyson, and how Guinevere 'marred herfriend's point with pale tranquillity.' Women are so deuced deep."

"Dear Tennyson," murmured Dopsy, whose knowledge of the Laureate's workshad not gone very far beyond "The May Queen," and "The Charge of the SixHundred."

It was growing late in the evening when de Cazalet showed himself. Thedrawing-room party had been in very fair spirits without him, but it wasa smaller and a quieter party than usual; for Leonard had taken CaptainVandeleur off to his own den after dinner, and Mr. Montagu had offeredto play a fifty game, left-handed, against the combined strength ofDopsy and Mopsy. Christabel had been at the piano almost all theevening, playing with a breadth and grandeur which seemed to rise aboveher usual style. The ladies made a circle in front of the fire, with Mr.Faddie and Mr. FitzJesse, talking and laughing in a subdued tone, whilethose grand harmonies of Beethoven's rose and fell upon their halfindifferent, half admiring ears.

Christabel played the closing chords of the Funeral March of a Hero asde Cazalet entered the room. He went straight to the piano, and seatedhimself in the empty chair by her side. She glided into the melancholyarpeggios of the Moonlight Sonata, without looking up from the keys.They were a long way from the group at the fire—all the length of theroom lay in deep shadow between the lamps on the mantelpiece andneighbouring tables, and the candles upon the piano. Pianissimo musicseemed to invite conversation.

"My letters were a fiction—I did not want to sit face to face with yourhusband at dinner, after our conversation this afternoon at thewaterfall; you can understand that, can't you Christabel. Don't—don'tdo that."

"Don't shudder when I call you by your Christian name—as you did justnow. Christabel, I want your answer to my question of to-day. I told youthen that the crisis of our fate had come. I tell you so againto-night—more earnestly, if it is possible to be more in earnest than Iwas to-day. I am obliged to speak to you here—almost within earshot ofthose people—because time is short, and I must take the first chancethat offers. It has been my accursed luck never to be with you alone—Ithink this afternoon was the first time that you and I have beentogether alone since I came here. You don't know how hard it has beenfor me to keep every word and look within check—always to remember thatwe were before an audience."

"But there must be no more acting—no more falsehood. We have both madeup our minds, have we not, my beloved? I think you love me—yes,Christabel, I feel secure of your love. You did not deny it to-day, whenI asked that thrilling question—those hidden eyes, the conscious droopof that proud head, were more eloquent than words. And for my love,Christabel—no words can speak that. It shall be told by-and-by inlanguage that all the world can understand—told by my deeds. The timehas come for decision; I have had news to-day that renders instantaction necessary. If you and I do not leave Cornwall together to-morrow,we may be parted for ever. Have you made up your mind?"

"Hardly," she answered, her fingers still slowly moving over the keys inthose plaintive arpeggios.

"Give me a little more time for thought," she said, still playing thesamesotto voce accompaniment to their speech.

"I dare not; everything must be planned to-night. I must leave thishouse early to-morrow morning. There are imperative reasons whichoblige me to do so. You must meet me at Bodmin Road Station ateleven—you must, Christabel, if our lives are to be free and happy andspent together. Vacillation on your part will ruin all my plans. Trustyourself to me, dearest—trust my power to secure a bright and happyfuture. If you do not want to be parted from your boy, take him withyou. He shall be my son. I will hold him for you against all the world."

"You must leave this house early to-morrow morning," she said, lookingup at him for the first time. "Why?"

"For a reason which I cannot tell you. It is a business in which someone else is involved, and I am not free to disclose it yet. You shallknow all later."

"Yes. Ah, then you have made up your mind—you will be there. My bestand dearest, Heaven bless you for that sweet consent."

"Had we not better leave Heaven out of the question?" she said with amocking smile; and then slowly, gravely, deliberately, she said, "Yes,I will meet you at eleven o'clock to-morrow, at Bodmin Road Station—andyou will tell me all that has happened."

"What secret can I withhold from you, love—my second self—the fairerhalf of my soul?"

Urgently as he had pleaded his cause, certain as he had been of ultimatesuccess, he was almost overcome by her yielding. It seemed as if afortress which a moment before had stood up between him and thesky—massive—invincible—the very type of the impregnable andeverlasting, had suddenly crumbled into ruin at his feet. His belief inwoman's pride and purity had never been very strong: yet he had believedthat here and there, in this sinful world, invincible purity was to befound. But now he could never believe in any woman again. He hadbelieved in this one to the last, although he had set himself to winher. Even when he had been breathing the poison of his florid eloquenceinto her ear—even when she had smiled at him, a willing listener—therehad been something in her look, some sublime inexpressible air ofstainless womanhood which had made an impassable distance between them.And now she had consented to run away with him: she had sunk in onemoment to the level of all disloyal wives. His breast thrilled withpride and triumph at the thought of his conquest: and yet there was atouch of shame, shame that she could so fall.

Emily St. Aubyn came over to the piano, and made an end of allconfidential talk.

"Now you are both here, do give us that delicious little duet ofLecocq's," she said: "we want something cheerful before we disperse.Good gracious Mrs. Tregonell, how bad you look," cried the young lady,suddenly, "as white as a ghost."

"I am tired to death," answered Christabel, "I could not sing a note forthe world."

"Really, then we mustn't worry you. Thanks so much for that lovelyBeethoven music—the 'Andante'—or the 'Pastorale'—or the 'Pathétique,'was it not? So sweet."

"Good-night," said Christabel. "You won't think me rude if I am thefirst to go?"

"Not at all. We are all going. Pack up your wools, mother. I know youhave only been pretending to knit. We are all half asleep. I believe wehave hardly strength to crawl upstairs."

Candles were lighted, and Mrs. Tregonell and her guests dispersed, theparty from the billiard-room meeting them in the hall.

These lighter-minded people, the drama of whose existence was just nowin the comedy stage, went noisily up to their rooms; but the Baron, whowas usually among the most loquacious, retired almost in silence. Nordid Christabel do more than bid her guests a brief good-night. NeitherLeonard nor his friend Jack Vandeleur had shown themselves since dinner.Whether they were still in the Squire's den, or whether they had retiredto their own rooms no one knew.

The Baron's servant was waiting to attend his master. He was a man whohad been with de Cazalet in California, Mexico, and South America—whohad lived with him in his bachelorhood and in his married life—knew allthe details of his domestic career, had been faithful to him in wealthand in poverty, knew all that there was to be known about him—the bestand the worst—and had made up his mind to hold by an employment whichhad been adventurous, profitable, and tolerably easy, not entirely freefrom danger, or from the prospect of adversity—yet always hopeful. Sothorough a scamp as the Baron must always find some chance open tohim—thus, at least, argued Henri le Mescam, his unscrupulous ally. Theman was quick, clever—able to turn his hand to anything—valet, groom,cook, courier—as necessity demanded.

"That's lucky. He will be able to go the pace to-morrow morning. Havehim harnessed to that American buggy of Mr. Tregonell's at six o'clock."

"There will be quite enough light for me. Pack my smallest portmanteauwith linen for a week, and a second suit—no dress-clothes—and have thetrap ready in the stable-yard when the clock strikes six. I have tocatch a train at Launceston at 7.45. You will follow in the afternoonwith the luggage."

"Yes. If you don't find me there you will wait for further instructions.You may have to join me on the other side of the channel."

"Never cared much for it, Sir. I began to think I should die of thedulness of this place."

"Rather more luxurious than our old quarters at St. Heliers ten yearsago, when you were marker at Jewson's, while I was teaching drawing andFrench at the fashionable academies of the island."

"That was bad, Sir; but luxury isn't everything in life. A man's mindgoes to rust in a place of this kind."

"Well, there will not be much rust for you in future, I believe. Howwould you like it if I were to take you back to the shores of thePacific?"

"That's just what I should like, Sir. You were a king there, and I wasyour prime minister."

"And I may be a king again—perhaps this time with a queen—a proud andbeautiful queen."

"Pshaw, Henri, the ephemeral fancy of the hour. Such chanceentanglements as those do not rule a man's life."

"Perhaps not, Sir; but I know one of those chance entanglements madeLima unpleasantly warm for us; and if, after you winged Don Silvio,there hadn't been a pair of good horses waiting for us, you might neverhave seen the outside of Peru."

"And if a duel was dangerous in Lima, it would be ten times moredangerous in Cornwall, would it not, Henri?"

"Of course it would, Sir. But you are not thinking of anything like aduel here—you can't be so mad as to think of it."

"Certainly not. And now you can pack that small portmanteau, while Itake a stretch. I sha'n't take off my clothes: a man who has to be upbefore six should never trifle with his feelings by making believe to goto bed."

CHAPTER XII.

"SHE STOOD UP IN BITTER CASE, WITH A PALE YET STEADY FACE."

The silence of night and slumber came down upon the world, shadow anddarkness were folded round and about it. The ticking of the oldeight-day clock in the hall, of the bracket clock in the corridor, andof half a dozen other time-pieces, conscientiously performing in emptyrooms, took that solemn and sepulchral sound which all clocks, down tothe humblest Dutchman, assume after midnight. Sleep, peace, and silenceseemed to brood over all human and brute life at Mount Royal. Yet therewere some who had no thought of sleep that night.

In Mr. Tregonell's dressing-room there was the light of lamp and fire,deep into the small hours. The master of the house lolled, half-dressed,in an armchair by the hearth; while his friend, Captain Vandeleur, insmoking-jacket and slippers, lounged with his back to the chimney-piece,and a cigarette between his lips. A whisky bottle and a couple ofsiphons stood on a tray on the Squire's writing-table, an openpistol-case near at hand.

"You'd better lie down for a few hours," said Captain Vandeleur. "I'llcall you at half-past five."

"I'd rather sit here. I may get a nap by-and-by perhaps. You can go tobed if you are tired: I sha'n't oversleep myself."

"I wish you'd give up this business, Tregonell," said his friend, withunaccustomed seriousness. "This man is a dead shot. We heard of him inBolivia, don't you remember? A man who has spent half his life inshooting-galleries, and who has lived where life counts for very little.Why should you stake your life against his? It isn't even betting:you're good enough at big game, but you've had very little pistolpractice. Even if you were to kill him, which isn't on the cards, you'dbe tried for murder; and where's the advantage of that?"

"I'll risk it," answered Leonard, doggedly, "I saw him with my wife'shand clasped in his—saw him with his lips close to her face—closeenough for kisses—heard her promise him an answer—to-morrow. By Heaventhere shall be no such to-morrow for him and for me. For one of us thereshall be an end of all things."

"I don't believe Mrs. Tregonell is capable"—began Jack, thoughtfullymumbling his cigarette.

"You've said that once before, and you needn't say it again. Capable!Why, man alive, Isaw them together. Nothing less than the evidence ofmy own eyes would have convinced me. I have been slow enough to believe.There is not a man or woman in this house, yourself included, who hasnot, in his secret soul, despised me for my slowness. And yet, now,because there is a question of a pistol-shot or two you fence round, andtry to persuade me that my wife's good name is immaculate, that allwhich you have seen and wondered at for the last three weeks meansnothing."

A man may belong to the hawk tribe and yet not be without certain latentinstincts of compassion and good feeling.

"Perhaps not—but secret meetings do: what I saw at the Kieve to-day wasconclusive. Besides, the affair is all settled—you and de Cazalet havearranged it between you. He is willing that there should be no witnessbut you. The whole business will rest a secret between us three; and ifwe get quietly down to the sands before any one is astir to see us noone else need ever know what happened there."

"True," answered Vandeleur, looking at him searchingly; "like thataccident last year at the Kieve—poor Hamleigh's death. Isn't to-morrowthe anniversary, by-the-by?"

"Dates have an awkward knack of doing that. There is a cursed mechanicalregularity in life which makes a man wish himself in some savage islandwhere there is no such thing as an almanack," said Vandeleur, takingout another cigarette. "If I had been Crusoe, I should never have stuckup that post. I should have been too glad to get rid of quarter-day."

In Christabel's room at the other end of the long corridor there wasonly the dim light of the night-lamp, nor was there any sound, save theticking of the clock and the crackling of the cinders in the dying fire.Yet here there was no more sleep nor peace than in the chamber of theman who was to wager his life against the life of his fellow-man in thepure light of the dawning day. Christabel stood at her window, dressedjust as she had left the drawing-room, looking out at the sky and thesea, and thinking of him who, at this hour last year, was still a partof her life—perchance a watcher then as she was watching now, gazingwith vaguely questioning eyes into the illimitable panorama of theheavens, worlds beyond worlds, suns and planetary systems, scatteredlike grains of sand over the awful desert of infinite space,innumerable, immeasurable, the infinitesimals of the astronomer, thedespair of faith. Yes, a year ago and he was beneath that roof, herfriend, her counsellor, if need were; for she had never trusted him socompletely, never so understood and realized all the nobler qualities ofhis nature, as in those last days, after she had set an eternal barrierbetween herself and him.

She stood at the open lattice, the cold night air blowing upon herfever-heated face; her whole being absorbed not in deliberate thought,but in a kind of waking trance. Strange pictures came out of thedarkness, and spread themselves before her eyes. She saw her first loverlying on the broad flat rock at St. Nectan's Kieve, face downward, shotthrough the heart, the water stained with the life-blood slowly oozingfrom his breast. And then, when that picture faded into the blackness ofnight, she saw her husband and Oliver de Cazalet standing opposite toeach other on the broad level sands at Trebarwith, the long waves risingup behind them like a low wall of translucent green, crested withsilvery whiteness. So they would stand face to face a few hours hence.From her lurking-place behind the trees and brushwood at the entrance tothe Kieve she had heard the appointment made—and she knew that atseven o'clock those two were to meet, with deadliest intent. She had soplanned it—a life for a life.

She had no shadow of doubt as to which of those two would fall. Threemonths ago on the Riffel she had seen the Baron's skill as a marksmantested—she had seen him the wonder of the crowd at those rusticsports—seen him perform feats which only a man who has reducedpistol-shooting to a science would attempt. Against this man LeonardTregonell—good all-round sportsman as he was—could have very littlechance. Leonard had always been satisfied with that moderate skilfulnesswhich comes easily and unconsciously. He had never given time and labourto any of the arts he pursued—content to be able to hold his own amongparasites and flatterers.

"A life for a life," repeated Christabel, her lips moving dumbly, herheart throbbing heavily, as if it were beating out those awful words. "Alife for a life—the old law—the law of justice—God's own sentenceagainst murder. The law could not touch this murderer—but there wasone way by which that cruel deed might be punished, and I found it."

The slow silent hours wore on. Christabel left the window, shiveringwith cold, though cheeks, brow, and lips were burning. She walked up anddown the room for a long while, till the very atmosphere of the room,nay, of the house itself, seemed unendurable. She felt as if she werebeing suffocated, and this sense of oppression became so strong that shewas sorely tempted to shriek aloud, to call upon some one for rescuefrom that stifling vault. The feeling grew to such intensity that sheflung on her hat and cloak, and went quickly downstairs to a lobby-doorthat opened into the garden, a little door which she had unbolted many anight after the servants had locked up the house, in order to steal outin the moonlight and among the dewy flowers, and across the dewy turf tothose shrubbery walks which had such a mysterious look—half in lightand half in shadow.

She closed the door behind her, and stood with the night wind blowinground her, looking up at the sky; clouds were drifting across thestarry dome, and the moon, like a storm-beaten boat, seemed to behurrying through them. The cold wind revived her, and she began tobreathe more freely.

And then she thought she would go out upon the hills, and down to thechurchyard in the valley. On this night, of all nights, she would visitAngus Hamleigh's grave. It was long since she had seen the spot where helay—since her return from Switzerland she had not once entered achurch. Jessie had remonstrated with her gravely and urgently—butwithout eliciting any explanation of this falling off in one who hadbeen hitherto so steadfastly devout.

"I don't feel inclined to go to church, Jessie," she said, coolly;"there is no use in discussing my feelings. I don't feel fit for church;and I am not going in order to gratify your idea of what is conventionaland correct."

"I am not thinking of this in its conventional aspect—I have alwaysmade light of conventionalities—but things must be in a bad way withyou, Christabel, when you do not feel fit for church."

"Things are in a bad way with me," answered Christabel, with a doggedmoodiness which was insurmountable. "I never said they were good."

This surrender of old pious habits had given Jessie more uneasiness thanany other fact in Christabel's life. Her flirtation with the Baron mustneeds be meaningless frivolity, Jessie had thought; since it seemedhardly within the limits of possibility that a refined and pure-mindedwoman could have any realpenchant for that showy adventurer; but thispersistent avoidance of church meant mischief.

And now, in the deep dead-of-night silence, Christabel went on herlonely pilgrimage to her first lover's grave. Oh, happy summer day when,sitting by her side outside the Maidenhead coach, all her own throughlife, as it seemed, he told her how, if she had the ordering of hisgrave, she was to bury him in that romantic churchyard, hidden in acleft of the hill. She had not forgotten this even amidst the horror ofhis fate, and had told the vicar that Mr. Hamleigh's grave must be atMinster and no otherwhere. Then had come his relations, suggestingburial-places with family associations—vaults, mausoleums, the pomp andcircumstance of sepulture. But Christabel had been firm; and while theothers hesitated a paper was found in the dead man's desk requestingthat he might be buried at Minster.

How lonely the world seemed in this solemn pause between night andmorning. Never before had Christabel been out alone at such an hour. Shehad travelled in the dead of the night, and had seen the vague dimnight-world from the window of a railway carriage—but never until nowhad she walked across these solitary hills after midnight. It seemed asif for the first time in her life she were alone with the stars.

How difficult it was in her present state of mind to realize that thoselights, tremulous in the deep blue vault, were worlds, and combinationsof worlds—almost all of them immeasurably greater than this earth onwhich she trod. To her they seemed living watchers of thenight—solemn, mysterious beings, looking down at her withall-understanding eyes. She had an awful feeling of their companionshipas she looked up at them—a mystic sense that all her thoughts—theworst and best of them—were being read by that galaxy of eyes.

Strangely beautiful did the hills and the sky—the indefinite shapes ofthe trees against the edge of the horizon, the mysterious expanse of thedark sea—seem to her in the night silence. She had no fear of any humanpresence, but there was an awful feeling in being, as it were, for thefirst time in her life alone with the immensities. Those hills andgorges, so familiar in all phases of daylight, from sunrise to after setof sun, assumed Titanic proportions in this depth of night, and were asstrange to her as if she had never trodden this path before. What wasthe wind saying, as it came moaning and sobbing along the deep gorgethrough which the river ran?—what did the wind say as she crossed thenarrow bridge which trembled under her light footfall? Surely there wassome human meaning in that long minor wail, which burst suddenly into awild unearthly shriek, and then died away in a low sobbing tone, as ofsorrow and pain that grew dumb from sheer exhaustion, and not becausethere was any remission of pain or sorrow.

With that unearthly sound still following her, she went up the windinghill-side path, and then slowly descended to the darkness of thechurchyard—so sunk and sheltered that it seemed like going down into avault.

Just then the moon leapt from behind an inky cloud, and, in that ghostlylight, Christabel saw the pale grey granite cross which had been erectedin memory of Angus Hamleigh. It stood up in the midst of namelessmounds, and humble slate tablets, pale and glittering—an unmistakablesign of the spot where her first lover lay. Once only before to-nighthad she seen that monument. Absorbed in the pursuit of a Pagan scheme ofvengeance she had not dared to come within the precincts of the church,where she had knelt and prayed through all the sinless years of hergirlhood. To-night some wild impulse had brought her here—to-night,when that crime which she called retribution was on the point ofachievement.

She went with stumbling footsteps through the long grass, across the lowmounds, till she came to that beneath which Angus Hamleigh lay. She felllike a lifeless thing at the foot of the cross. Some loving hand hadcovered the mound of earth with primroses and violets, and there werelow clambering roses all round the grave. The scent of sweetbriar wasmixed with the smell of earth and grass. Some one had cared for thatgrave, although she, who so loved the dead, had never tended it.

"Oh, my love! my love!" she sobbed, with her face upon the grass and theprimrose leaves, and her arms clasping the granite; "my murderedlove—my first, last, only lover—before to-morrow's sun is down yourdeath will be revenged, and my life will be over! I have lived only forthat—only for that, Angus, my love, my love!" She kissed the cold wetgrass more passionately than she had ever kissed the dead facemouldering underneath it. Only to the dead—to the utterly lost andgone—is given this supreme passion—love sublimated to despair. Fromthe living there is always something kept back—something saved andgarnered for an after-gift—some reserve in the mind or the heart of thegiver; but to the dead love gives all—with a wild self-abandonmentwhich knows not restraint or measure. The wife who, while this man yetlived, had been so rigorously true to honour and duty, now poured intothe deaf dead ears a reckless avowal of love—love that had neverfaltered, never changed—love that had renounced the lover, and had yetgone on loving to the end.

The wind came moaning out of the valley again with that sharp human cry,as of lamentation for the dead.

"Angus!" murmured Christabel, piteously, "Angus, can you hear me?—doyou know? Oh, my God! is there memory or understanding in the worldwhere he has gone, or is it all a dead blank? Help me, my God! I havelost all the old sweet illusions of faith—I have left off praying,hoping, believing—I have only thought of my dead—thought of death andof him till all the living world grew unreal to me—and God and Heavenwere only like old half-forgotten dreams. Angus!"

For a long time she lay motionless, her cold hands clasping the coldstone, her lips pressed upon the soft dewy turf, her face buried inprimrose leaves—then slowly, and with an effort, she raised herselfupon her knees, and knelt with her arms encircling the cross—thatsacred emblem which had once meant so much for her: but which, sincethat long blank interval last winter, seemed to have lost all meaning.One great overwhelming grief had made her a Pagan—thirsting forrevenge—vindictive—crafty—stealthy as an American Indian on the trailof his deadly foe—subtle as Greek or Oriental to plan and to achieve ahorrible retribution.

She looked at the inscription on the cross, legible in the moonlight,deeply cut in large Gothic letters upon the grey stone, filled in withdark crimson.

Who had put that inscription upon the cross? It was not there when themonument was first put up. Christabel remembered going with Jessie tosee the grave in that dim half-blank time before she went toSwitzerland. Then there was nothing but a name and a date. And now, inawful distinctness, there appeared those terrible words—God's ownpromise of retribution—the claim of the Almighty to be the sole avengerof human wrongs.

And she, reared by a religious woman, brought up in the love and fear ofGod, had ignored that sublime and awful attribute of the Supreme. Shehad not been content to leave her lover's death to the Great Avenger.She had brooded on his dark fate, until out of the gloom of despairthere had arisen the image of a crafty and bloody retribution. "Whososheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed." So runs thedreadful sentence of an older law. The newer, lovelier law, which beganin the after-glow of Philosophy, the dawn of Christianity, bids manleave revenge to God. And she, who had once called herself a Christian,had planned and plotted, making herself the secret avenger of a criminalwho had escaped the grip of the law.

"Must he lie in his grave, unavenged, until the Day of Judgment?" sheasked herself. "God's vengeance is slow."

An hour later, and Christabel, pale and exhausted, her garments heavywith dew, was kneeling by her boy's bed in the faint light of thenight-lamp; kneeling by him as she had knelt a year ago, but never sinceher return from Switzerland—praying as she had not prayed since AngusHamleigh's death. After those long, passionate prayers, she rose andlooked at the slumberer's face—her husband's face in little—but oh!how pure and fresh and radiant. God keep him from boyhood's sins ofself-love and self-indulgence—from manhood's evil passions, hatred andjealousy. All her life to come seemed too little to be devoted towatching and guarding this beloved from the encircling snares anddangers of life. Pure and innocent now, in this fair dawn of infancy, henestled in her arms—he clung to her and believed in her. What businesshad she with any other fears, desires, or hopes—God having given herthe sacred duties of maternity—the master-passion of motherly love?

"I have been mad!" she said to herself; "I have been living in a ghastlydream: but God has awakened me—God's word has cured me."

God's word had come to her at the crisis of her life. A month ago, whileher scheme of vengeance seemed still far from fulfilment, that awfulsentence would hardly have struck so deeply. It was on the very verge ofthe abyss that those familiar words caught her; just when the naturalfaltering of her womanhood, upon the eve of a terrible crime, made hermost sensitive to a sublime impression.

The first faint streak of day glimmered in the east, a pale cold light,livid and ghostly upon the edge of the sea yonder, white and wan uponthe eastward points of rock and headland, when Jessie Bridgeman wasstartled from her light slumbers by a voice at her bedside. She wasalways an early riser, and it cost her no effect to sit up in bed, withher eyes wide open, and all her senses on the alert.

"No, Leo is well enough. Get up and dress yourself quickly, Jessie. Iwant you to come with me—on a strange errand; but it is something thatmust be done, and at once."

"No. I have been mad. I think you must know it—this is the awakening.Come, Jessie."

Jessie had sprung out of bed, and put on slippers and dressing-gown,without taking her eyes off Christabel. Presently she felt her cloak andgown.

"I did. Nobody seemed to care about his grave—no one attended to it. Igot to think the grave my own property, and that I might do as I likedwith it."

"Wash your face and put on your clothes as fast as you can. Everymoment is of consequence," said Christabel.

She would explain nothing. Jessie urged her to take off her wet cloak,to go and change her gown and shoes; but she refused with angryimpatience.

"There will be time enough for that afterwards," she said; "what I haveto do will not take long, but it must be done at once. Pray be quick."

Jessie struggled through her hurried toilet, and followed Christabelalong the corridor, without question or exclamation. They went to thedoor of Baron de Cazalet's room. A light shone under the bottom of thedoor, and there was the sound of some one stirring within. Christabelknocked, and the door was opened almost instantly by the Baron himself.

"No, it is I, Monsieur de Cazalet. May I come in for a few minutes? Ihave something to tell you."

"Christabel—my——" He stopped in the midst of that eager exclamation,at sight of the other figure in the background.

He was dressed for the day—carefully dressed, like a man who in acrisis of his life wishes to appear at no disadvantage. His pistol-casestood ready on the table. A pair of candles, burnt low in the sockets ofthe old silver candlesticks, and a heap of charred and torn paper in thefender showed that the Baron had been getting rid of superfluousdocuments. Christabel went into the room, followed by Jessie, the Baronstaring at them both, in blank amazement. He drew an armchair near theexpiring fire, and Christabel sank into it, exhausted and half fainting.

"What does it all mean?" asked de Cazalet, looking at Jessie, "and whyare you here with her?"

"No, I am not mad, now," she said, "I believe I have been mad, but thatis all over. Monsieur de Cazalet, you and my husband are to fight a duelthis morning, on Trebarwith sands."

"Don't take the trouble to deny anything. I overheard your conversationyesterday afternoon. I know everything."

"Would it not have been better to keep the knowledge to yourself, and toremember your promise to me, last night?"

"Yes, I remember that promise. I said I would meet you at Bodmin Road,after you had shot my husband."

"No; but the fact was in our minds, all the same—in yours as well as inmine. Only there was one difference between us. You thought that whenyou had killed Leonard I would run away with you. That was to be yourrecompense for murder. I meant that you should kill him, but that youshould never see my face again. You would have served my purpose—youwould have been the instrument of my revenge!"

"Do not call me by that name—I am nothing to you—I never could, underany possible phase of circumstances, be any nearer to you than I am atthis moment. From first to last I have been acting a part. When I sawyou at that shooting match, on the Riffel, I said to myself 'Here is aman, who in any encounter with my husband, must be fatal.' My husbandkilled the only man I ever loved, in a duel, without witnesses—a duelforced upon him by insane and causeless jealousy. Whether that meetingwas fair or unfair in its actual details, I cannot tell; but at the bestit was more like a murder than a duel. When, through Miss Bridgeman'sacuteness, I came to understand what that meeting had been, I made up mymind to avenge Mr. Hamleigh's death. For a long time my brain was undera cloud—I could think of nothing, plan nothing. Then came clearerthoughts, and then I met you; and the scheme of my revenge flashed uponme like a suggestion direct from Satan. I knew my husband's jealoustemper, and how easy it would be to fire a trainthere, and I made myplans with that view. You lent yourself very easily to my scheme."

"Lent myself!" cried the Baron, indignantly; and then with a savage oathhe said: "I loved you, Mrs. Tregonell, and you made me believe that youloved me."

"I let you make fine speeches, and I pretended to be pleased at them,"answered Christabel, with supreme scorn. "I think that was all."

"No, madam, it was not all. You fooled me to the top of my bent. What,those lovely looks, those lowered accents—all meant nothing? It was alla delusion—an acted lie? You never cared for me?"

"No," answered Christabel. "My heart was buried with the dead. I neverloved but one man, and he was murdered, as I believed—and I made up mymind to avenge his murder. 'Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall hisblood be shed.' That sentence was in my mind always, when I thought ofLeonard Tregonell. I meant you to be the executioner. And now—now—Godknows how the light has come—but the God I worshipped when I was ahappy sinless girl, has called me out of the deep pit of sin—called meto remorse and atonement. You must not fight this duel. You must saveme from this horrible crime that I planned—save me and yourself fromblood-guiltiness. You must not meet Leonard at Trebarwith."

"And stamp myself as a cur, to oblige you: after having lent myself sosimply to your scheme of vengeance, lend myself as complacently to yourrepentance. No, Mrs. Tregonell, that is too much to ask. I will be yourbravo, if you like, since I took the part unconsciously—but I will notbrand myself with the charge of cowardice—even for you."

"You fought a duel in South America, and killed your adversary. Mr.FitzJesse told me so. Everybody knows that you are a dead shot. Who cancall you a coward for refusing to shoot the man whose roof has shelteredyou—who never injured you—against whom you can have no ill-will."

"Don't be too sure of that. He is your husband. When I came to MountRoyal, I came resolved to win you."

"Only because I had deceived you. The woman you admired was a livinglie. Oh, if you could have looked into my heart only yesterday, youmust have shrunk from me with loathing. When I led you on to play theseducer's part, I was plotting murder—murder which I called justice. Iknew that Leonard was listening—I had so planned that he should followus to the Kieve. I heard his stealthy footsteps, and the rustle of theboughs—you were too much engrossed to listen; but all my senses werestrained, and I knew the very moment of his coming."

"It was a pity you did not let your drama come to its naturaldénouement," sneered de Cazalet, furious with the first woman who hadever completely fooled him. "When your husband was dead—for there isnot much doubt as to my killing him—you and I could have come to anunderstanding. You must have had some gratitude. However, I am notbloodthirsty, and since Mrs. Tregonell has cheated me out of mydevotion, fooled me with day-dreams of an impossible future, I don't seethat I should gain much by shooting Mr. Tregonell."

"No, there would be no good to you in that profitless bloodshed. It is Iwho have wronged you—I who wilfully deceived you—degrading myself inorder to lure my husband into a fatal quarrel—tempting you to kill him.Forgive me, if you can—and forget this wild wicked dream. Conscienceand reason came back to me beside that quiet grave to-night. What goodcould it do him who lies there that blood should be spilt for his sake?Monsieur de Cazalet, if you will give up all idea of this duel I will begrateful to you for the rest of my life."

"You have treated me very cruelly," said the Baron, taking both herhands, and looking into her eyes, half in despairing love, half inbitterest anger; "you have fooled me as never man was fooled before, Ithink—tricked me—and trifled with me—and I owe you very littleallegiance. If you and I were in South America I would show you verylittle mercy. No, my sweet one, I would make you play out the game—youshould finish the drama you began—finish it in my fashion. But in thisworld of yours, hemmed round with conventionalities, I am obliged to letyou off easily. As for your husband—well, I have exposed my life toooften to the aim of a six-shooter to be called coward if I let this oneopportunity slip. He is nothing to me—or I to him—since you arenothing to me. He may go—and I may go. I will leave a line to tell himthat we have both been the dupes of a pretty little acted charade,devised by his wife and her friends—and instead of going to meet him atTrebarwith, I'll drive straight to Launceston, and catch the earlytrain. Will that satisfy you, Mrs. Tregonell?"

"You are a much better man than I thought you, Baron," said Jessie,speaking for the first time.

She had stood by, a quiet spectator of the scene, listening intently,ready at any moment to come to Christabel's rescue, if needwere—understanding, for the first time, the moving springs of conductwhich had been so long a mystery to her.

"Thank you, Miss Bridgeman. I suppose you were in the plot—looked onand laughed in your sleeve, as you saw how a man of the world may befooled by sweet words and lovely looks."

"I knew nothing. I thought Mrs. Tregonell was possessed by the devil.If she had let you go on—if you had shot her husband—I should not havebeen sorry for him—for I know he killed a much better man than himself,and I am hard enough to hug the stern old law—a life for a life. But Ishould have been sorry for her. She is not made for such revenges."

"And now you will be reconciled with your husband, I suppose, Mrs.Tregonell. You two will agree to forget the past, and to live happilyever afterwards?" sneered de Cazalet, looking up from the letter whichhe was writing.

"No! there can be no forgetfulness for either of us. I have to do myduty to my son. I have to win God's pardon for the guilty thoughts andplans which have filled my mind so long. But I owe no duty to Mr.Tregonell. He has forfeited every claim. May I see your letter when itis finished?"

De Cazalet handed it to her without a word—a brief epistle, written inthe airiest tone, ascribing all that had happened at the Kieve to asportive plot of Mrs. Tregonell's, and taking a polite leave of themaster of the house.

"When he reads that, I shall be half-way to Launceston," he said, asChristabel gave him back the letter.

"I am deeply grateful to you, and now good-bye," she said, gravely,offering him her hand. He pressed the cold slim hand in his, and gentlyraised it to his lips.

"You have used me very badly, but I shall love and honour you to the endof my days," he said, as Christabel left him.

Jessie was following, but de Cazalet stopped her on the threshold."Come," he said, "you must give me the clue to this mystery. Surely youwere in it—you, who know her so well, must have known something ofthis?"

"I knew knowing. I watched her with fear and wonder. After—after Mr.Hamleigh's death—she was very ill—mentally ill; she sank into a kindof apathy—not madness—but terribly near the confines of madness. Then,suddenly, her spirits seemed to revive—she became eager for movement,amusement—an utterly different creature from her former self. She andI, who had been like sisters, seemed ever so far apart. I could notunderstand this new phase of her character. For a whole year she hasbeen unlike herself—a terrible year. Thank God this morning I have seenthe old Christabel again."

Half an hour afterwards the Baron's dog-cart drove out of the yard, andhalf an hour after his departure the Baron's letter was delivered toLeonard Tregonell, who muttered an oath as he finished reading it, andthen handed it to his faithful Jack.

"By Jove, I knew Mrs. T—— was straight," answered the Captain, in hisunsophisticated phraseology. "But it was a shabby trick to play you allthe same. I daresay Mop and Dop were in it. Those girls are always readyfor larks."

Leonard muttered something the reverse of polite about Dop and Mop, andwent straight to the stable-yard, where he cancelled his order for thetrap which was to have conveyed him to Trebarwith sands, and where heheard of the Baron's departure for Launceston.

Mystified and angry, he went straight upstairs to his wife's room. Allbarriers were broken down now. All reticence was at an end. Plainestwords, straightest measures, befitted the present state of things.

Christabel was on her knees in a recess near her bed—a recess whichheld a little table, with her devotional books and a prie-dieu chair. Abeautiful head of the Salvator Mundi, painted on china at Munich, gavebeauty and sanctity to this little oratory. She was kneeling on theprie-dieu, her arms folded on the purple velvet cushion, her headleaning forward on the folded arms, in an attitude of prostration andself-abandonment, her hair falling loosely over her white dressing gown.She rose at Leonard's entrance, and confronted him, a ghostlike figure,deadly pale.

"Your lover has given me the slip," he said, roughly; "why didn't you gowith him? You mean to go, I have no doubt. You have both made your plansto that end—but you want to sneak away—to get clear of this country,perhaps, before people have found out what you are. Women of your stampdon't mind what scandal they create, but they like to be out of therow."

"You are mistaken," his wife answered, coldly, unmoved by his anger, asshe had ever been untouched by his love. "The man who left here thismorning was never my lover—never could have been, had he and I livedunder the same roof for years. But I intended him for the avenger ofthat one man whom I did love, with all my heart and soul—the man youkilled."

"What do you mean?" faltered Leonard, with a dull grey shade creepingover his face.

It had been in his mind for a long time that his secret was suspected byhis wife—but this straight, sudden avowal of the fact was not the lessa shock to him.

"You know what I mean. Did you not know when you came back to this housethat I had fathomed your mystery—that I knew whose hand killed AngusHamleigh. You did know it, Leonard: you must have known: for you knewthat I was not a woman to fling a wife's duty to the winds, without someall-sufficient reason. You knew what kind of wife I had been for fourdull, peaceful years—how honestly I had endeavoured to perform the dutywhich I took upon myself in loving gratitude to your dear mother. Didyou believe that I could change all at once—become a heartless,empty-headed lover of pleasure—hold you, my husband, at arm'slength—outrage propriety—defy opinion—without a motive so powerful, apurpose so deadly and so dear, that self-abasement, loss of good name,counted for nothing with me."

"You are a fool," said Leonard, doggedly. "No one at the inquest so muchas hinted at foul play. Why shouldyou suspect any one?"

"For more than one good reason. First, your manner on the night beforeAngus Hamleigh's death—the words you and he spoke to each other at thedoor of his room. I asked you then if there were any quarrel betweenyou, and you said no: but even then I did not believe you."

"There was not much love between us. You did not expect that, did you?"asked her husband savagely.

"You invited him to your house; you treated him as your friend. You hadno cause to distrust him or me. You must have known that."

"Faithful and obedient; yes—a man might buy faith and obedience in anymarket. I knew that other man was master of your heart. Great Heaven,can I forget how I saw you that night, hanging upon his words, all yoursoul in your eyes."

"We were talking of life and death. It was not his words that thrilledme; but the deep thoughts they stirred within me—thoughts of the greatmystery—the life beyond the veil. Do you know what it is to speculateupon the life beyond this life, when you are talking to a man who bearsthe stamp of death upon his brow, who is as surely devoted to the graveas Socrates was when he talked to his friends in the prison. But why doI talk to you of these things? You cannot understand——"

"No! I am outside the pale, am I not?" sneered Leonard; "made of adifferent clay from that sickly sentimental worshipper of yours, whoturned to you when he had worn himself out in the worship ofballet-girls. I was not half fine enough for you, could not talk ofShakespeare and the musical glasses. Was it a pleasant sensation for me,do you think, to see you two sentimentalizing and poetizing, day afterday—Beethoven here and Byron there, and all the train of maudlin modernversifiers who have made it their chief business to sap the foundationsof domestic life."

"Why? Can't you guess? Because I wanted to know the utmost and theworst; to watch you two together; to see what venom was left in the oldpoison; to make sure, if I could, that you were staunch; to put you tothe test."

"God knows I never faltered, throughout that ordeal," said Christabel,solemnly. "And yet you murdered him. You ask me how I know of thatmurder. Shall I tell you? You were at the Kieve that day; you did not goby the beaten track where the ploughmen must have seen you. No! youcrept in by stealth the other way—clambered over the rocks—ah! youstart. You wonder how I know that. You tore your coat in the scrambleacross the arch, and a fragment of the cloth was caught upon a bramble.I have that scrap of cloth, and I have the shooting-jacket from which itwas torn, under lock and key in yonder wardrobe. Now, will you deny thatyou were at the Kieve that day?"

"No. I was there. Hamleigh met me there by appointment. You were rightin your suspicion that night. We did quarrel—not about you—but abouthis treatment of that Vandeleur girl. I thought he had led heron—flirted with her—fooled her——"

"Well, I told him so, at any rate; told him that he would not have daredto treat any woman so scurvily, with her brother and her brother'sfriend standing by, if the good old wholesome code of honour had notgone out of fashion. I told him that forty years ago, in the duellingage, men had been shot for a smaller offence against good feeling; andthen he rounded on me, and asked me if I wanted to shoot him; if I wastrying to provoke a quarrel; and then—I hardly know how the thing cameabout—it was agreed that we should meet at the Kieve at nine o'clocknext morning, both equipped as if for woodcock shooting—game-bag, dogs,and all, our guns loaded with swan-shot, and that we should settle ourdifferences face to face, in that quiet hollow, without witnesses. Ifeither of us dropped, the thing would seem an accident, and would entailno evil consequences upon the survivor. If one of us were only wounded,why——"

"But you did not mean that," interrupted Christabel, with flashing eyes,"you meant your shot to be fatal."

"It was fatal," muttered Leonard. "Never mind what I meant. God knowshow I felt when it was over, and that man was lying dead on the otherside of the bridge. I had seen many a noble beast, with something almosthuman in the look of him, go down before my gun; but I had never shot aman before. Who could have thought there would have been so muchdifference?"

Christabel clasped her hands over her face, and drew back with aninvoluntary recoil, as if all the horror of that dreadful scene werebeing at this moment enacted before her eyes. Never had the thought ofAngus Hamleigh's fate been out of her mind in all the year that wasended to-day—this day—the anniversary of his death. The image of thatdeed had been ever before her mental vision, beckoning her and guidingher along the pathway of revenge—a lurid light.

"You murdered him," she said, in low, steadfast tones. "You brought himto this house with evil intent—yes, with your mind full of hatred andmalice towards him. You acted the traitor's base, hypocritical part,smiling at him and pretending friendship, while in your soul you meantmurder. And then, under this pitiful mockery of a duel—a duel with aman who had never injured you, who had no resentment against you—a duelupon the shallowest, most preposterous pretence—you kill your friendand your guest—you kill him in a lonely place, with none of thesafeguards of ordinary duelling; and you have not the manhood to standup before your fellow-men, and say, 'I did it.'"

"Shall I go and tell them now?" asked Leonard, his white lips tremulouswith impotent rage. "They would hang me, most likely. Perhaps that iswhat you want."

"No, I never wanted that," answered Christabel. "For our boy's sake, forthe honour of your dead mother's name, I would have saved you from ashameful death. But I wanted your life—a life for a life. That is why Itried to provoke your jealousy—why I planned that scene with the Baronyesterday. I knew that in a duel between you and him the chances wereall in his favour. I had seen and heard of his skill. You fell easilyinto the trap I laid for you. I was behind the bushes when youchallenged de Cazalet."

"It was a plot then. You had been plotting my death all that time. Yoursongs and dances, and games and folly, all meant the same thing."

"Yes, I plotted your death as you did Angus Hamleigh's," answeredChristabel, slowly, deliberately, with steady eyes fixed on herhusband's face; "only I relented at the eleventh hour. You did not."

Leonard stared at her in dumb amazement. This new aspect of his wife'scharacter paralyzed his thinking powers, which had never been vigorous.He felt as if, in the midst of a smooth summer sea, he had found himselfsuddenly face to face with that huge wave known on this wild northerncoast, which, generated by some mysterious power in the wide Atlantic,rolls on its deadly course in overwhelming might; engulfing many a craftwhich but a minute before was riding gaily on a summer sea.

"Yes, you have cause to look at me with horror in your eyes," saidChristabel. "I have steeped my soul in sin; I have plotted your death.In the purpose and pursuit of my life I have been a murderer. It isGod's mercy that held me back from that black gulf. What gain would yourdeath have been to your victim? Would he have slept more peacefully inhis grave, or have awakened happier on the Judgment Day? If he hadconsciousness and knowledge in that dim mysterious world, he would havebeen sorry for the ruin of my soul—sorry for Satan's power over thewoman he once loved. Last night, kneeling on his grave, these thoughtscame into my mind for the first time. I think it was the fact of beingnear him—almost as if there was some sympathy between the living andthe dead. Leonard, I know how wicked I have been. God pity and pardonme, and make me a worthy mother for my boy. For you and me there can benothing but lifelong parting."

"Well, yes, I suppose there would not be much chance of comfort or unionfor us, after what has happened," said Leonard, moodily; "ours is hardlya case in which to kiss again with tears, as your song says. I must becontent to go my way, and let you go yours. It is a pity we evermarried; but that was my fault, I suppose. Have you any particular viewsas to your future? I shall not molest you; but I should be glad to knowthat the lady who bears my name is leading a reputable life."

"I shall live with my son—for my son. You need have no fear that Ishall make myself a conspicuous person in the world. I have done withlife, except for him. I care very little where I live: if you want MountRoyal for yourself, I can have the old house at Penlee made comfortablefor Jessie Bridgeman and me. I daresay I can be as happy at Penlee ashere."

"I don't want this house. I detest it. Do you suppose I am going towaste my life in England—or in Europe? Jack and I can start on ourtravels again. The world is wide enough; there are two continents onwhich I have never set foot. I shall start for Calcutta to-morrow, if Ican, and explore the whole of India before I turn my face westwardsagain. I think we understand each other fully, now. Stay, there is onething: I am to see my son when, and as often as I please, I suppose."

"I am glad of that. And now I suppose there is no more to be said. Ileave your life, my honour, in your own keeping. Good-bye."

"God be with you," she answered solemnly, giving that parting salutationits fullest meaning.

CHAPTER XIII.

WE HAVE DONE WITH TEARS AND TREASONS.

"I wonder if there is any ancient crime in the Tregonell family thatmakes the twenty-fifth of October a fatal date," Mopsy speculated, witha lachrymose air, on the afternoon which followed the Baron's hastydeparture. "This very day last year Mr. Hamleigh shot himself, andspoiled all our pleasure; and to-day, the Baron de Cazalet rushes awayas if the house was infected, Mrs. Tregonell keeps her own room with anervous headache, and Mr. Tregonell is going to carry off Jack to bebroiled alive in some sandy waste among prowling tigers, or to catch hisdeath of cold upon more of those horrid mountains. One might just aswell have no brother."

"If he ever sent us anything from abroad we shouldn't feel his loss sokeenly," said Dopsy, in a plaintive voice, "but he doesn't. If he wereto traverse the whole of Africa we shouldn't be the richer by a singleostrich feather—and those undyed natural ostriches are such good style.South America teems with gold and jewels; Peru is a proverb; but whatarewe the better off?"

"It is rather bad form for the master of a house to start on his travelsbefore his guests have cleared out," remarked Mopsy.

"And an uncommonly broad hint for the guests to hasten the clearing-outprocess," retorted Dopsy. "I thought we were good here for anothermonth—till Christmas perhaps. Christmas at an old Cornish manor-housewould have been too lovely—like one of the shilling annuals."

"A great deal nicer," said Mopsy, "for you never met with acountry-house in a Christmas book that was not peopled with ghosts andall kind of ghastliness."

Luncheon was lively enough, albeit de Cazalet was gone, and Mrs.Tregonell was absent, and Mr. Tregonell painfully silent. The chorus ofthe passionless, the people for whom life means only dressing andsleeping and four meals a day, found plenty to talk about.

Jack Vandeleur was in high spirits. He rejoiced heartily at the turnwhich affairs had taken that morning, having from the first momentlooked upon the projected meeting on Trebarwith sands as likely to befatal to his friend, and full of peril for all concerned in thebusiness.

He was too thorough a free-lance, prided himself too much on hispersonal courage and his recklessness of consequences, to offerstrenuous opposition to any scheme of the kind; but he had not faced thesituation without being fully aware of its danger, and he was very gladthe thing had blown over without bloodshed or law-breaking. He was gladalso on Mrs. Tregonell's account, very glad to know that this one womanin whose purity and honesty of purpose he had believed, had not provedherself a simulacrum, a mere phantasmagoric image of goodness andvirtue. Still more did he exult at the idea of re-visiting the happyhunting-grounds of his youth, that ancient romantic world in which theyoungest and most blameless years of his life had been spent. Pleasantto go back under such easy circumstances, with Leonard's purse to drawupon, to be the rich man's guide, philosopher, and friend, in a countrywhich he knew thoroughly.

"Pray what is the cause of this abrupt departure of de Cazalet, and thissudden freak of our host's?" inquired Mrs. Torrington of her nextneighbour, Mr. FitzJesse, who was calmly discussing a cutletà laMaintenon, unmoved by the shrill chatter of the adjacent Dopsy. "I hopeit is nothing wrong with the drains."

"People always declare as much, till typhoid fever breaks out; and thenit is discovered that there is an abandoned cesspool in directcommunication with one of the spare bedrooms, or a forgotten drainpipeunder the drawing-room floor. I never believe people when they tell metheir houses are wholesome. If I smell an unpleasant smell I go," saidMrs. Torrington.

"There is often wisdom in flight," replied the journalist; "but I do notthink this is a case of bad drainage."

"No more do I," returned Mrs. Torrington, dropping her voice andbecoming confidential; "of course we both perfectly understand what itall means. There has been a row between Mr. and Mrs. Tregonell, and deCazalet has got hiscongé from the husband."

"I should have introduced him to the outside of my house three weeksago, had I been the Squire," said FitzJesse. "But I believe theflirtation was harmless enough, and I have a shrewd idea it was what thethieves call a 'put up' thing—done on purpose to provoke the husband."

"Ah, why? That is the mystery. You know her better than I do, and mustbe better able to understand her motives."

"But I don't understand her in the least," protested Mrs. Torrington."She is quite a different person this year from the woman I knew lastyear. I thought her the most devoted wife and mother. The house was nothalf so nice to stay at; but it was ever so much more respectable. I hadarranged with my next people—Lodway Court, near Bristol—to be withthem at the end of the week; but I suppose the best thing we can all dois to go at once. There is an air of general break-up in Mr. Tregonell'shasty arrangements for an Indian tour."

"Rather like the supper-party in Macbeth, is it not?" said FitzJesse,"except that her ladyship is not to the fore."

"I call it altogether uncomfortable," exclaimed Mrs. Torrington,pettishly. "How do I know that the Lodway Court people will be able toreceive me. I may be obliged to go to an hotel."

"It would be very inconvenient—with a maid, and no end of luggage. Oneis not prepared for that kind of thing when one starts on a round ofvisits."

For Dopsy and Mopsy there was no such agreeable prospect as a change ofscene from one "well-found" country-house to another. To be tumbled outof this lap of luxury meant a fall into the dreariness of SouthBelgravia and the King's Road—long, monotonous, arid streets, with allthe dust that had been ground under the feet of happy people in theLondon season blown about in dense clouds, for the discomfiture of theoutcasts who must stay in town when the season is over; sparse dinners,coals measured by the scuttle, smoky fires, worn carpets, flat beer, andthe whole gamut of existence equally flat, stale, and unprofitable.

Dopsy and Mopsy listened with doleful countenances to Jack's talk aboutthe big things he and his friend were going to do in Bengal, the tigers,the wild pigs, and wild peacocks they were going to slay. Why had notDestiny made them young men, that they too might prey upon theirspecies, and enjoy life at somebody else's expense?

"I'll tell you what," said their brother, in the most cheerful manner."Of course you won't be staying here after I leave. Mrs. Tregonell willwant to be alone when her husband goes. You had better go with theSquire and me as far as Southampton. He'll frank you. We can all stop atthe 'Duke of Cornwall' to-morrow night, and start for Southampton by anearly train next morning. You can lunch with us at the 'Dolphin,' see usoff by steamer, and go on to London afterwards."

"That will be a ray of jollity to gild the last hour of our happiness,"said Mopsy. "Oh, how I loathe the idea of going back to thoselodgings—and pa!"

"The governor is a trial, I must admit," said Jack. "But you see theEuropean idea is that an ancient parent can't hang on hand too long.There's no wheeling him down to the Ganges, and leaving him to settlehis account with the birds and the fishes; and even in India that kindof thing is getting out of date."

"I wouldn't so much mind him," said Dopsy, plaintively, "ifhis habits were more human; but there are so many traits in hischaracter—especially his winter cough—which remind one of the loweranimals."

"Poor old Pater," sighed Jack, with a touch of feeling.He was notoften at home. "Would you believe it, that he was once almost agentleman? Yes, I remember, an early period in my life when I was notashamed to own him. But when a fellow has been travelling steadily downhill for fifteen years, his ultimate level must be uncommonly low."

"True," sighed Mopsy, "we have always tried to rise superior to oursurroundings; but it has been a terrible struggle."

"There have been summer evenings, when that wretched slavey has been outwith her young man, that I have been sorely tempted to fetch the beerwith my own hands—there is a jug and bottle entrance at the place wherewe deal—but I have suffered agonies of thirst rather than so lowermyself," said Dopsy, with the complacence of conscious heroism.

"Right you are," said Jack, who would sooner have fetched beer in thevery eye of society than gone without it; "one must draw the linesomewhere."

"And to go from a paradise like this to such a den as that," exclaimedDopsy, still harping on the unloveliness of the Pimlico lodging.

"Cheer up, old girl. I daresay Mrs. T. will ask you again. She's verygood-natured."

"She has behaved like an angel to us," answered Dopsy, "but I can't makeher out. There's a mystery somewhere."

"There's always a skeleton in the cupboard. Don't you try to haul oldBony out," said the philosophical Captain.

This was after luncheon, when Jack and his sisters had the billiard-roomto themselves. Mr. Tregonell was in his study, making things straightwith his bailiff, coachman, butler, in his usual business-like anddecisive manner. Mr. FitzJesse was packing his portmanteau, meaning tosleep that night at Penzance. He was quite shrewd enough to be consciousof the tempest in the air, and was not disposed to inflict himself uponhis friends in the hour of trouble, or to be bored by having tosympathize with them in their affliction.

He had studied Mrs. Tregonell closely, and he had made up his mind thatconduct which was out of harmony with her character must needs beinspired by some powerful motive. He had heard the account of her firstengagement—knew all about little Fishky—and he had been told theparticulars of her first lover's death. It was not difficult for soastute an observer of human nature to make out the rest of the story.

Little Monty had been invited to go as far as Southampton with thetravellers. The St. Aubyns declared that home-duties had long beendemanding their attention, and that they must positively leave next day.

Mr. Faddie accepted an invitation to accompany them, and spend a week attheir fine old place on the other side of the county—thus, without anytrouble on Christabel's part, her house was cleared for her. When shecame down to luncheon next day, two or three hours after the departureof Leonard and his party, who were to spend that night at Plymouth, withsome idea of an evening at the theatre on the part of Mop and Dop, shehad only the St. Aubyns and Mr. Faddie to entertain. Even they were onthe wing, as the carriage which was to convey them to Bodmin RoadStation was ordered for three o'clock in the afternoon.

Christabel's pale calm face showed no sign of the mental strain of thelast twenty-four hours. There was such a relief in having done with thefalse life which she had been leading in the past month; such aninfinite comfort in being able to fall back into her old self; such anunspeakable relief, too, in the sense of having saved herself on thevery brink of the black gulf of sin, that it was almost as if peace andgladness had returned to her soul. Once again she had sought for comfortat the one Divine source of consolation; once more she had dared topray; and this tardy resumption of the old sweet habit of girlhoodseemed like a return to some dear home from which she had been longbanished. Even those who knew so little of her real character were ableto see the change in her countenance.

"What a lovely expression Mrs. Tregonell has to-day!" murmured Mr.Faddie to his neighbour, Mrs. St. Aubyn, tenderly replenishing her hockglass, as a polite preliminary to filling his own. "So soft; soMadonna-like!"

"I suppose she is rather sorry for having driven away her husband," saidMrs. St. Aubyn, severely. "That has sobered her."

"There are depths in the human soul which only the confessor can sound,"answered Mr. Faddie, who would not be betrayed into saying anythinguncivil about his hostess. "Would that she might be led to pour hergriefs into an ear attuned to every note in the diapason of sorrow."

"I don't approve of confession, and I never shall bring myself to likeit," said Mrs. St. Aubyn, sturdily. "It is un-English!"

"If you mean the small print paragraphs in my prayer book, I never read'em," answered the Squire's wife, bluntly. "I hope I know my way throughthe Church Service without any help of that kind."

Mr. Faddie sighed at this Bœotian ignorance, and went on with hisluncheon. It might be long before he partook of so gracious a meal. Awoman whose Church views were so barbarous as those of Mrs. St. Aubyn,might keep a table of primitive coarseness. A Squire Westernish kind offare might await him in the St. Aubyn mansion.

An hour later, he pressed Christabel's hand tenderly as he bade hergood-bye. "A thousand thanks for your sweet hospitality," he murmured,gently. "This visit has been most precious to me. It has been aprivilege to be brought nearer the lives of those blessed martyrs, SaintSergius and Saint Bacchus; to renew my acquaintance with dear SaintMertheriana, whose life I only dimly remembered; to kneel at the rusticshrines of Saint Ulette and Saint Piran. It has been a period of mentalgrowth, the memory of which I shall ever value."

And then, with a grave uplifting of two fingers, and a blessing on thehouse, Mr. Faddie went off to his place beside Clara St. Aubyn, on theback seat of the landau which was to convey the departing guests to theBodmin Road Station, a two-hours' drive through the brisk autumn air.

And thus, like the shadowy figures in a dissolving view, Christabel'sguests melted away, and she and Jessie Bridgeman stood alone in thegrand old hall which had been of late so perverted from its old soberair and quiet domestic uses. Her first act as the carriage drove awaywas to fling one of the casements wide open.

"I know that it is pure and sweet, the breath of Heaven blowing overhill and sea, and that it is sweeping away the tainted atmosphere of thelast month, the poison of scandal, and slang, and cigarettes, andbilliard-marker talk, and all that is most unlovely in life. Oh, Jessie,thank God you and I are alone together, and the play is played out."

"Then he left his home without a word from you," said Jessie, with ashade of wonder.

"His home," repeated Christabel; "the home in which his poor motherthought it would be my lot to make his life good and happy. If she couldknow—but no—thank God the dead are at peace. No, Jessie, he did not gowithout one word from me. I wrote a few lines of farewell. I told him Ihad prayed to my God for power to pity and forgive him, and that pityand pardon had come to me. I implored him to make his future life onelong atonement for that fatal act last year. I who had sinned so deeplyhad no right to take a high tone. I spoke to him as a sinner to asinner."

"I hope he does repent—that he will atone," said Miss Bridgeman,gloomily. "His life is in his own keeping. Thank God that you and I arerid of him, and can live the rest of our days in peace."

Very quietly flows the stream of life at Mount Royal now that thesefeverish scenes have passed into the shadow of the days that are nomore. Christabel devotes herself to the rearing of her boy, lives forhim, thinks for him, finds joy in his boyish pleasures, grieves for hisboyish griefs, teaches him, walks with him, rides with him, watches andnurses him in every childish illness, and wonders that her life is sofull of peace and sunshine. The memory of a sorrowful past can nevercease to be a part of her life. All those scenes she loves best in thisworld, the familiar places amidst which her quiet days are spent, arehaunted by one mournful shadow; but she loves the hills and thesea-shore only the dearer for that spiritual presence, which follows herin the noontide and the gloaming, for ever reminding her, amidst thesimple joys of the life she knows, of that unknown life where the veilshall be lifted, and the lost shall be found.

Major Bree is her devoted friend and adviser, idolizes the boy, and justmanages to prevent his manliness deteriorating under the pressure ofwomanly indulgence and womanly fears. Jessie has refused that faithfuladmirer a second time, but Christabel has an idea that he means to tempthis fate again, and in the end must prevail, by sheer force of goodnessand fidelity.

Kneeling by Angus Hamleigh's grave, little Leo hears from his mother'slips how the dead man loved him, and bequeathed his fortune to him. Themother endeavours to explain in simplest, clearest words how the wealthso entrusted to him should be a sacred charge, never to be turned toevil uses or squandered in self-indulgence.

"You will try to do good when you are a man, won't you, Leo?" she asks,smiling down at the bright young face, which shines like a sunbeam inits childish gladness.

THE END.

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CHAP.		PAGE
I.	"WITH SUCH REMORSELESS SPEED STILL COME NEW WOES"	1
II.	"YOURS ON MONDAY, GOD'S TO-DAY"	26
III.	DUEL OR MURDER?	43
IV.	"DUST TO DUST"	57
V.	"PAIN FOR THY GIRDLE, AND SORROW UPON THY HEAD"	81
VI.	"I WILL HAVE NO MERCY ON HIM"	91
VII.	"GAI DONC, LA VOYAGEUSE, AU COUP DU PÈLERIN!"	129
VIII.	"TIME TURNS THE OLD DAYS TO DERISION"	143
IX.	"THOU SHOULDST COME LIKE A FURY CROWNED WITH SNAKES"	172
X.	"HIS LADY SMILES; DELIGHT IS IN HER FACE"	189
XI.	"LOVE BORE SUCH BITTER AND DEADLY FRUIT"	223
XII.	"SHE STOOD UP IN BITTER CASE, WITH A PALE YET STEADY FACE"	257
XIII.	WE HAVE DONE WITH TEARS AND TREASONS	301