The Ladies Lindores

By Margaret Oliphant.

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“Two of the sweet’st companions in the world.”

Cymbeline

The Ladies Lindores

I

The mansion-house of Dalrulzian stands on the lower slope of a hill, which is crowned with a plantation of Scotch firs. The rugged outline of this wood, and the close-tufted mass of the treetops, stand out against the pale East, and protect the house below and the “policy,” as the surrounding grounds are called in Scotland; so that though all the winds are sharp in that northern county, the sharpest of all is tempered. The house itself is backed by lighter foliage⁠—a feathery grove of birches, a great old ash or two, and some tolerably well-grown, but less poetical, elms. It is a house of distinctively local character, with the curious, peaked, and graduated gables peculiar to Scotch rural architecture, and thick walls of the roughest stone, washed with a weather-stained coat of yellow-white. Two wings, each presenting a gabled end to the avenue, and a sturdy block of building retired between them⁠—all strong, securely built, as if hewn out of the rock, formed the homely house. It had little of the beauty which a building of no greater pretensions would probably have had in England. Below the wings, and in front of the hall-door, with its two broad flat stone steps, there was nothing better than a gravelled square, somewhat mossy in the corners, and marked by the trace of wheels; but round the south wing there swept a sort of terrace, known by no more dignified name than that of “The Walk,” from which the ground sloped downwards, broken at a lower level by the formal little parterres of an old-fashioned flower-garden. The view from the Walk was of no very striking beauty, but it had the charm of breadth and distance⁠—a soft sweep of undulating country, with an occasional glimpse of a lively trout-stream gleaming here and there out of its covert of crags and trees, and a great, varied, and ever-changing world of sky⁠—not a prospect which captivated a stranger, but one which, growing familiar day by day and year by year, was henceforth missed like something out of their lives by the people who, being used to it, had learned to love that silent companionship of nature. It was the sort of view which a man pauses, not to look at but to see, even when he is pacing up and down his library thinking of John Thomson’s demand for farm improvements, or, heavier thought, about his balance at his bankers: and which solaces the eyes of a tired woman, giving them rest and refreshment through all the vicissitudes of life. People sought it instinctively in moods of reflection, in moments of watching, at morning and at twilight, whenever any change was going on in that great exhaustless atmosphere, bounded by nothing but the pale distance of the round horizon⁠—and when was it that there was no change in that atmosphere?⁠—clouds drifting, shadows flying, gleams of light like sudden revelations affording new knowledge of earth and heaven.

On the day on which the reader is asked first to visit this house of Dalrulzian, great things were happening in it. It was the end of one regime and the beginning of another. The master of the house, a young man who had been brought up at a distance, was coming home, and the family which had lived in it for years was taking its leave of the place.

The last spot which they visited and on which they lingered was the Walk. When the packing was over, the final remnants gathered up, the rooms left in that melancholy bareness into which rooms relapse when the prettinesses and familiarities of habitation have been swept away, the remaining members of the family came out with pensive faces, and stood together gazing somewhat wistfully upon the familiar scene. They had looked on many that were more fair. They were going to a landscape of greater beauty further south⁠—brighter, richer, warmer in foliage and natural wealth; but all this did not keep a certain melancholy out of their eyes. The younger of the party, Nora Barrington, cried a little, her lip quivering, a big tear or two running over. “It is foolish to feel it so much,” her mother said. “How is it one feels it so much? I did not admire Dalrulzian at all when we came.”

“Out of perversity,” said her husband; but he did not smile even at the cleverness of his own remark.

Nora regarded her father with a sort of tender rage. “It is all very well for you,” she said; “one place is the same as another to you. But I was such a little thing when we came here. To you it is one place among many; to me it is home.”

“If you take it so seriously, Nora, we shall have you making up to young Erskine for the love of his house.”

“Edward,” cried Mrs. Barrington in a tone of reproof, “I feel disposed to cry too. We have had a great many happy days in it. But don’t let old Rolls see you crying, Nora. Here he is coming to say goodbye. When do you expect Mr. Erskine, Rolls? You must tell him we were sorry not to see him; but he will prefer to find his house free when he returns. I hope he will be as happy at Dalrulzian as we have been since we came here.”

“Wherefore would he no’ be happy, mem? He is young and weel off: and you’ll no’ forget it’s his own house.”

Rolls had stepped out from one of the windows to take farewell of the family, whom he was sorry to lose, yet anxious to get rid of. There was in him the satisfied air of the man who remains in possession, and whose habits are unaffected by the coming and going of ephemeral beings such as tenants. The Barringtons had been at Dalrulzian for more than a dozen years; but what was that to the old servant who had seen them arrive and saw them go away with the same imperturbable aspect? He stood relieved against the wall in his well-brushed black coat, concealing a little emotion under a watchful air of expectancy just touched with impatience. Rolls had condescended more or less to the English family all the time they had been there, and he was keeping up his role to the last, anxious that they should perceive how much he wanted to see them off the premises. Mrs. Barrington, who liked everybody to like her, was vexed by this little demonstration of indifference; but the Colonel laughed. “I hope Mr. Erskine will give you satisfaction,” he said. “Come, Nora, you must not take root in the Walk. Don’t you see that Rolls wishes us away?”

“Dear old Walk!” cried Nora; “dear Dalrulzian!” She rolled the r in the name, and turned the z into a y (which is the right way of pronouncing it), as if she had been to the manner born; and though an English young lady, had as pretty a fragrance of northern Scotland in her voice as could be desired. Rolls did not trust himself to look at this pretty figure lingering, drying wet eyes, until she turned round upon him suddenly, holding out her hands: “The moment we are off, before we are down the avenue, you will be wishing us back,” she cried with vehemence; “you can’t deceive me. You would like to cry too, if you were not ashamed,” said the girl, with a smile and a sob, shaking the two half-unwilling hands she had seized.

“Me cry! I’ve never done that since I came to man’s estate,” cried Rolls indignantly, but after a suspicious pause. “As for wishing you back, Miss Nora, wishing you were never to go⁠—wishing you would grow to the Walk, as the Cornel says⁠—” This was so much from such a speaker, that he turned, and added in a changed tone, “You’ll have grand weather for your journey, Cornel. But you must mind the twa ferries, and no’ be late starting,”⁠—a sudden reminder which broke up the little group, and made an end of the scene of leave-taking. It was the farewell volley of friendly animosity with which Rolls put a stop to his own perverse inclination to be softhearted over the departure of the English tenants. “He could not let us go without that parting shot,” the “Cornel” said, as he put his wife into the jingling “coach” from the station, which, every better vehicle having been sent off beforehand, was all that remained to carry them away.

The Barringtons during their residence at Dalrulzian had been received into the very heart of the rural society, in which at first there had sprung up a half-grudge against the almost unknown master of the place, whose coming was to deprive them of a family group so pleasant and so bright. The tenants themselves, though their turn was over, felt instinctively as if they were expelled for the benefit of our intruder, and entertained this grudge warmly. “Mr. Erskine might just as well have stayed away,” Nora said. “He can’t care about it as we do.” Her mother laughed and chid, and shared the sentiment. “But then it’s ‘his ain place,’ as old Rolls says.” “And I daresay he thinks there is twice as much shooting,” said the Colonel, complacently: “I did, when we came. He’ll be disappointed, you’ll see.” This gave him a faint sort of satisfaction. In Nora’s mind there was a different consolation, which yet was not a consolation, but a mixture of expectancy and curiosity, and that attraction which surrounds an unconscious enemy. She was going to make acquaintance with this supplanter, this innocent foe, who was turning them out of their home because it was his home⁠—the most legitimate reason. She was about to pay a series of visits in the country, to the various neighbours, who were all fond of her and reluctant to part with her. Perhaps her mother had some idea of the vague scheme of matchmaking which had sprung up in some minds, a plan to bring the young people together; for what could be more suitable than a match between John Erskine, the young master of Dalrulzian, who knew nothing about his native county, and Nora Barrington, who was its adopted child, and loved the old house as much as if she had been born in it? Mrs. Barrington, perhaps, was not quite unconscious of this plan, though not a word had been said by any of these innocent plotters. For indeed what manner of man young Erskine was, and whether he was worthy of Nora, or in the least likely to please her, were things altogether unknown to the county, where he had not been seen for the last dozen years.

Anyhow he was coming as fast as the railway could carry him, while Nora took leave of her parents at the station. The young man then on his way was not even aware of her existence, though she knew all about him⁠—or rather about his antecedents; for about John Erskine himself no one in the neighbourhood had much information. He had not set foot in the county since he was a boy of tender years and unformed character, whose life had been swallowed up in that of an alien family, of pursuits and ideas far separated from those of his native place. It almost seemed, indeed, as if it were far from a happy arrangement of Providence which made young John Erskine the master of this small estate in the North; or rather, perhaps, to mount a little higher, we might venture to say that it was a very embarrassing circumstance, and the cause of a great deal of confusion in this life that Henry Erskine, his father, should have died when he did. Whatever might be the consequences of that step to himself, to others it could scarcely be characterised but as a mistake. That young man had begun to live an honest, wholesome life, as a Scotch country gentleman should; and if he had continued to exist, his wife would have been like other country gentlemen’s wives, and his child, brought up at home, would have grown like the heather in adaptation to the soil. But when he was so ill advised as to die, confusion of every kind ensued. The widow was young, and Dalrulzian was solitary. She lived there, devoutly and conscientiously doing her duty, for some years. Then she went abroad, as everybody does, for that change of air and scene which is so necessary to our lives. And in Switzerland she met a clergyman, to whom change had also been necessary, and who was “taking the duty” in a mountain caravansary of tourists. What opportunities there are in such a position! She was pensive and he was sympathetic. He had a sister, whom she invited to Dalrulzian, “if she did not mind winter in the North;” and Miss Kingsford did not mind winter anywhere, so long as it was for her brother’s advantage. The end was that Mrs. Erskine became Mrs. Kingsford, to the great though silent astonishment of little John, now eleven years old, who could not make it out. They remained at Dalrulzian for a year or two, for Mr. Kingsford rather liked the shooting, and the power of asking a friend or two to share it. But at the end of that time he got a living⁠—a good living; for events, whether good or evil, never come singly; and, taking John’s interests into full consideration, it was decided that the best thing to be done was to let the house. Everybody thought this advisable, even John’s old grandaunt in Dunearn, of whom his mother was more afraid than of all her trustees put together. It was with fear and trembling that she had ventured to unfold this hesitating intention to the old lady. “Mr. Kingsford thinks”⁠—and then it occurred to the timid little woman that Mr. Kingsford’s opinion as to the disposal of Henry Erskine’s house might not commend itself to Aunt Barbara. “Mr. Monypenny says,” she added, faltering; then stopped and looked with alarm in Miss Erskine’s face.

“What are you frightened for, my dear? Mr. Kingsford has a right to his opinion, and Mr. Monypenny is a very discreet person, and a capital man of business.”

“They think⁠—it would be a good thing for⁠—John;⁠—for, Aunt Barbara, he is growing a big boy⁠—we must be thinking of his education⁠—”

“That’s true,” said the old lady, with the smile that was the grimmest thing about her. It was very uphill work continuing a laboured explanation under the light of this smile.

“And he cannot⁠—be educated⁠—here.”

“Wherefore no? I cannot see that, my dear. His father was educated in Edinburgh, which is what I suppose you mean by here. Many a fine fellow’s been bred up at Edinburgh College, I can tell you; more than you’ll find in any other place I ever heard of. Eh! what ails you at Edinburgh? It’s well known to be an excellent place for schools⁠—schools of all kinds.”

“Yes, Aunt Barbara. But then you know, John:⁠—they say he will have such a fine position⁠—a long minority and a good estate⁠—they say he should have the best education that⁠—England can give.”

“You’ll be for sending him to that idol of the English,” said the old lady, “a public school, as they call it. As if all our Scotch schools from time immemorial hadn’t been public schools! Well, and after that⁠—”

“It is only an idea,” said little Mrs. Kingsford, humbly⁠—“not settled, nor anything like settled; but they say if I were to let the house⁠—”

Aunt Barbara’s grey eyes flashed; perhaps they were slightly green, as ill-natured people said. But she fired her guns in the air, so to speak, and once more grimly smiled. “I saw something very like all this in your wedding-cards, Mary,” she said. “No, no, no apologies. I will not like to see a stranger in my father’s house; but that’s nothing, that’s nothing. I will not say but it’s very judicious; only you’ll mind the boy’s an Erskine, and here he’ll have to lead his life. Mind and not make too much of an Englishman out of a Scotch lad, for he’ll have to live his life here.”

“Too much of an Englishman!” Mr. Kingsford cried, when this conversation was reported to him. “I am afraid your old lady is an old fool, Mary. How could he be too much of an Englishman? Am I out of place here? Does not the greater breeding include the less?” he said, with his grand air. His wife did not always quite follow his meaning, but she always believed in it as something that merited understanding; and she was quite as deeply convinced as if she had understood. And accordingly the house was let to Colonel Barrington, who had not a “place” of his own, though his elder brother had, and the Kingsfords “went South” to their rectory, with which John’s mother in particular was mightily pleased. It was in a far richer country than that which surrounded Dalrulzian⁠—a land flowing with milk and cheese, if not honey⁠—full of foliage and flowers. Mrs. Kingsford, having been accustomed only to Scotland, was very much elated with the luxuriant beauty of the place. She spoke of “England” as the travelled speak of Italy⁠—as if this climate of ours, which we abuse so much, was paradise. She thought “the English” so frank, so open, so demonstrative. To live in “the South” seemed the height of happiness to her. Innocent primitive Scotch gentlewomen are prone to talk in this way. Mr. Kingsford, who knew better, and who himself liked to compare notes with people who winter in Italy, did what he could to check her exuberance, but she was too simple to understand why.

John, her son, did not share her feelings at first. John was generally confused and disturbed in his mind by all that had happened. He had not got over his wonder at the marriage, when he was carried off to this new and alien home. He did not say much. There was little opening by which he could communicate his feelings. He could not disapprove, being too young; and now that Mr. Kingsford was always there, the boy had no longer the opportunity to influence his mother as, young as he was, he had hitherto done⁠—“tyrannise over his mother,” some people called it. All that was over. Much puzzled, the boy was dropped back into a properly subordinate position, which no doubt was much better for him; but it was a great change. To do him justice, he was never insubordinate; but he looked at his mother’s husband with eyes out of which the perplexity never died. There was a permanent confusion ever after in his sense of domestic relationships, and the duty he owed to his seniors and superiors; for he never quite knew how it was that Mr. Kingsford had become the master of his fate, though a certain innate pride, as well as his love of his mother, taught him to accept the yoke which he could not throw off. Mr. Kingsford was determined to do his duty by John. He vowed when he gave the somewhat reluctant, proud little Scotsman⁠—feeling himself at eleven too old to be kissed⁠—a solemn embrace, that he would do the boy “every justice.” He should have the best education, the most careful guardianship; and Mr. Kingsford kept his word. He gave the boy an ideal education from his own point of view. He sent him to Eton, and, when the due time came, to Oxford, and considered his advantage in every way; and it is needless to say, that as John grew up, the sensation of incongruity, the wonder that was in his mind as to this sudden interference with all the natural arrangements of his life, died away. It came to be a natural thing to him that Mr. Kingsford should have charge of his affairs. And he went home to the rectory for the holidays to find now and then a new baby, but all in the quiet natural way of use and wont, with no longer anything that struck him as strange in his relationships. And yet he was put out of the natural current of his life. Boy as he was, he thought sometimes, not only of special corners in the woods, and turns of the stream, where he nibbled as a boy at the big sports, which are the life of men in the country⁠—but above all, of the house, the landscape, the great sweep of land and sky, of which, when he shut his eyes, he could always conjure up a vague vision. He thought of it with a sort of grudge that it was not within his reach⁠—keen at first, but afterwards very faint and slight, as the boy’s sentiments died away in those of the man.

Meanwhile it was an excellent arrangement, who could doubt, for John’s interest⁠—instead of keeping up the place, to have a rent for it; and he had the most excellent man of business, who nursed his estate like a favourite child; so that when his minority was over, and Colonel Barrington’s lease out, John Erskine was in a more favourable position than anyone of his name had been for some generations. The estate was small. When his father died, exclusive of Mrs. Erskine’s jointure, there was not much more than a thousand a-year to come out of it; and on fifteen hundred a-year his father had thought himself very well off, and a happy man. In the meantime, there had been accumulations which added considerably to this income, almost making up the sum which Mrs. Kingsford enjoyed for her life. And John had always been treated at the rectory as a golden youth, happily exempted from all the uncertainty and the need of making his own way, which his stepfather announced, shaking his head, to be the fate of his own boys. Her eldest son, who was in “such a different position,” was a great pride to Mrs. Kingsford, even when it seemed to her half an injury that her other children should have no share in his happiness. But indeed she consoled herself by reflecting, an eldest son is always in a very different position; and no elder brother could have been kinder⁠—voluntarily undertaking to send Reginald to Eton, “which was a thing we never could have thought of with no money,” as soon as he came of age; and in every way comporting himself as a good son and brother.

There were, however, points in this early training which were bad for John. He acquired an exaggerated idea of the importance of this position of his. He was known both at school and college as a youth of property, the representative of a county family. These words mean more at Eton and Oxford than they require to do at Edinburgh or St. Andrews. And in these less expensive precincts, Erskine of Dalrulzian would have been known for what he was. Whereas in “the South” nobody knew anything about the dimensions of his estate, or the limits of his income, and everybody supposed him a young north-country potentate, with perhaps a castle or two and unlimited “moors,”⁠—who would be an excellent fellow to know as soon as he came into his own. This was John’s own opinion in all these earlier days of youth. He did not know what his income was; and had he known, the figures would not have meant anything particular to him. A thousand a-year seems to imply a great deal of spending to a youth on an allowance of three hundred; and he accepted everybody’s estimate of his importance with pleased satisfaction. After all the explanations which followed his coming of age, he had indeed a touch of disenchantment and momentary alarm, feeling the details to be less splendid than he had expected. But Mr. Monypenny evidently considered them anything but insignificant⁠—and a man of his experience, the youth felt, was bound to know. He had gone abroad in the interval between leaving Oxford and coming “home” to take possession of his kingdom. He was not dissipated or extravagant, though he had spent freely. He was a good specimen of a young man of his time⁠—determined that everything about him should be in “good form,” and very willing to do his duty and be bon prince to his dependants. And he anticipated with pleasure the life of a country gentleman, such as he had seen it in his mother’s neighbourhood, and in several houses of his college friends to which he had been invited. Sometimes, indeed, it would occur to him that his recollections of Dalrulzian were on a less extensive scale; but a boy’s memory is always flattering to a home which he has not seen since his earliest years. Thus it was with a good deal of pleasant excitement that he set out from Milton Magna, his stepfather’s rectory, where he had gone to see his mother and the children for a week or two on his return from the Continent. The season was just beginning; but John, full of virtue and hope, decided that he would not attempt to indulge in the pleasures of the season. Far better to begin his real life, to make acquaintance with his home and his “people,” than to snatch a few balls and edge his way through a few crowded receptions, and feel himself nobody. This was not a thing which John much liked. He had been somebody all his life. Easter had been early that year, and everything was early. He stayed in town a week or two, saw all that was going on at the theatres, got all the last information that was to be had at the club on parliamentary matters, waited a day more “to see the pictures,” and then set off on his homeward way. He had everything a young man of fortune requires, except a servant, for his habits were independent. He had been “knocking about,” and there was no room at the rectory for such an appendage. So he took his own ticket, and himself saw his multifarious portmanteaus placed in the van which was to go “through.” There were a great many mingled elements in his pleasure⁠—the satisfaction of “coming to his kingdom;” the pleasure of renewing old associations, and taking his natural place; the excitement of novelty⁠—for it would all be as new to him, this home which he had not seen for a dozen years, as if he had never been there before. From thirteen to five-and-twenty, what a difference! He began to look about him with a new sensation as the morning rose after that long night-journey, and he felt himself approaching home.

II

Old Rolls had been butler at Dalrulzian since John Erskine was a child. He had “stayed on” after Mrs. Erskine’s second marriage with reluctance, objecting seriously to a step-master at all, and still more to one that was an “English minister”; but the house had many attractions for him. He liked the place; his sister was the cook, a very stationary sort of woman, who had the greatest disinclination to move. She was a sort of human cat, large and smooth and good-natured, almost always purring, satisfied with herself and all who were moderately good to her; and, as was natural, she made the butler very comfortable, and was extremely attentive to all his little ways. When Colonel Barrington took the house, Rolls once more expressed his determination to leave. “What for?” said the placid Bauby; “the gentleman was keen to have a’ the servants⁠—a’ the servants that would bide.” “A’ the servants! there’s so many of us,” said Rolls, derisively. There was indeed only himself, the cook, and one housemaid; the other, who had charge of John in his earlier days, and still was attached to him more or less, had gone with the family⁠—and so, of course, had Mrs. Kingsford’s maid. “We’ll mak’ a grand show in the servants’ hall⁠—we’re just a garrison,” Rolls said. “We’re plenty for a’ the work there is the now,” said the mild woman, “and they’ll bring some with them. What ails ye to bide? You’re real well aff⁠—and me that kens exactly how you like your meat. Where would you be studied as I study you? You may just be thankful it’s in your power.” “It was with the Erskines I took service,” said Rolls. “I’m no sure that I could put up with strangers, and them just travelling English. Besides, I’ve never been clear that service is my vocation. A kent family is one thing, a foreign master another. Him and me would very likely no get on⁠—or them and me would no get on. All went very well in the last reign. Harry Erskine was a gentleman, like all his forebears before him; but how am I to tell who is this Cornel, or whatever they ca’ him⁠—a man I never heard tell of before? I’ll give them over the keys, and maybe I’ll wait till they’re suited, but nobody can ask me to do more.”

“Hoot, Tammas!” said his sister: which was the highest height of remonstrance she ever reached. Notwithstanding this, however, year after year Rolls had “stayed on.” He was very distinct in pointing out to “the Cornel” the superiority of his native masters, and the disadvantage to Scotland of having so many of the travelling English taking up the houses of the gentry; but he was an excellent servant, and his qualities in this way made up for his defects in the other⁠—if, indeed, those defects did not tell in his favour; for a Scotch servant who is a character is, like a ghost, a credit to any old and respectable house. The Barringtons were proud of old Rolls. They laid temptations in his way and made him talk whenever they had visitors; and his criticisms on the English, and the opinions which he freely enunciated on all subjects, had often kept the party in amusement. Rolls, however, had not been able to defend himself against a certain weakness for the children, specially for Nora, who was very small when the family came to Dalrulzian, and whom he had brought up, as he flattered himself, regretting much all the time that she was not an Erskine and natural-born daughter of the house. Rolls did not by any means see the departure of the Barringtons unmoved, notwithstanding that he hurried them away. He stood for a long time looking after the “coach,” which was a sort of rude omnibus, as it jolted down the avenue. The old servant stood in the clear morning air, through which every creak of the jingling harness and every jolt of the wheels sounded so distinctly, and the voice of Jock Beaton apostrophising his worn-out horse, and watched the lingering departure with feelings of a very mingled description. “There’s feenis put to that chapter,” he said to himself aloud. “We’re well rid of them.” But he lingered as long as the yellow panels could be seen gleaming through the trees at the turn of the road, without any of the jubilation in his face which he expressed in his words. At that last turn, just when the “coach” reached the highroad, something white was waved from the window, which very nearly made an end of Rolls. He uttered something which at first sounded like a sob, but was turned into a laugh, so to speak, before it fell into that telltale air which preserved every gradation of sound. “It’s that bit thing!” Rolls said, more sentimental than perhaps he had ever been in his life. His fine feeling was, however, checked abruptly. “You’re greetin’ yourself, Tammas,” said a soft round voice, interrupted by sobs, over his shoulder. “Me greetin’!”⁠—he turned round upon her with a violence that, if Bauby had been less substantial and less calm, would have driven her to the other end of the house; “I’m just laughin’ to see the nonsense you womenfolk indulge in: but it’s paardonable in the case of a bit creature like Miss Nora. And I allow they have a right to feel it. Where will they find a bonnie place like Dalrulzian, and next to nothing in the way of rent or keeping up? But I’m thankful mysel’ to see the nest cleared out, and the real man in it. What are you whimpering about? It’s little you’ve seen of them, aye in your kitchen.” “Me seen little of them!” cried Bauby, roused to a kind of soft indignation; “the best part of an hour with the mistress every day of my life, and as kind a sympathising woman! There’ll be nae leddy now to order the dinners⁠—and that’s a great responsibility, let alone anything else.” “Go away with your responsibility. I’ll order your dinners,” said Rolls. “Well,” said Bauby, not without resignation, “to be a servant, and no born a gentleman, you’ve aye been awfu’ particular about your meat.” And she withdrew consoled, though drying her eyes, to wonder if Mr. John would be “awfu’ particular about his meat,” or take whatever was offered to him, after the fashion of some young men. Meat, it must be explained, to Bauby Rolls meant food of all descriptions⁠—not only that which she would herself have correctly and distinctly distinguished as “butcher’s meat.”

The house was very empty and desolate after all the din and bustle. The furniture had faded in the quarter of a century and more which had elapsed since Harry Erskine furnished his drawing-room for his bride. That had not been a good period for furniture, according to our present lights, and everything looked dingy and faded. The few cosy articles with which the late tenants had changed its character had been removed; the ornaments and prettinesses were all gone. The gay limp old chintzes, the faded carpet, the walls in sad want of renewal, obtruded themselves even upon the accustomed eye of Rolls. The nest might be cleared, but it looked a somewhat forlorn and empty nest. He stood upon the threshold of the drawing-room, contemplating it mournfully. A little of that “cheeney and nonsense” which he had been highly indignant with Mrs. Barrington for bringing, would have been of the greatest consequence now to brighten the walls; and a shawl or a hat thrown on a chair, which had called forth from old Rolls many a grumble in the past, would have appeared to him now something like a sign of humanity in the desert. But all that was over, and the old servant, painfully sensible of the difference in the aspect of the place, began to grow afraid of its effect upon the young master. If, after all, John should not be “struck with” his home! if, terrible to think of, he might prefer some house “in the South” to Dalrulzian! “But it’s no possible,” said Rolls to himself. He made a survey of all the rooms in the new anxiety that dawned upon him. The library was better; there were a good many books on the shelves, and it had not to Rolls the air of desertion the other rooms had. He lighted a fire in it, though it was the first week in May, and took great pains to restore by it an air of comfort and habitation. Then he took a walk down the avenue in order to make a critical examination of the house from a little distance, to see how it would look to the newcomer. And Rolls could not but think it a most creditable-looking house. The fir-trees on the top of the hill threw up their sombre fan of foliage against the sky; the birches were breathing forth a spring sweetness⁠—the thin young foliage softly washed in with that tenderest of greens against the darker background, seemed to appeal to the spectator, forbidding any hasty judgment, with the promise of something beautiful to come. The ash-trees were backward, no doubt, but they are always backward. In the wood the primroses were appearing in great clusters, and the parterres under the terrace were gay with the same. Rolls took comfort as he gazed. The avenue was all green, the leaves in some sunny corners quite shaken out of their husks, in all bursting hopefully. “It’s a bonnie place,” Rolls said to himself, with a sigh of excitement and anxiety. Bauby, who shared his feelings in a softened, fat, comfortable way of her own, was standing in the doorway, with her little shawl pinned over her broad chest, and a great white apron blazing in the light of the morning sun. She had a round face, like a full moon, and a quantity of yellow hair smoothed under the white cap, which was decorously tied under her chin. She did not take any of the dignity of a housekeeper-cook upon her, but she was a comfortable creature to behold, folding her round arms, with the sleeves rolled up a little, and looking out with a slight curve, like a shadow of the pucker on her brother’s brows, in her freckled forehead. She was ready to cry for joy when Mr. John appeared, just as she had cried for sorrow when the Barringtons went away. Neither of these effusions of sentiment would disturb her greatly, but they were quite genuine all the same. Rolls felt that the whiteness of her apron and the good-humour of her face lit up the seriousness of the house. He began to give her her instructions as he advanced across the open space at the top of the avenue. “Bauby,” he said, “when ye hear the wheels ye’ll come, and the lasses with you; and Andrew, he can stand behind; and me, naturally I’ll be in the front: and we’ll have no whingeing, if you please, but the best curtsey you can make, and ‘We’re glad to see you home, sir,’ or something cheery like that. He’s been long away, and he was but a boy when he went. We’ll have to take care that he gets a good impression of his ain house.”

“That’s true,” said Bauby. “Tammas, I’ve heard of them that after a long absence have just taken a kind o’ scunner⁠—”

“Hold your tongue with your nonsense. A scunner at Dalrulzian!” cried Rolls; but the word sank into the depths of his heart. A scunner⁠—for we scorn a footnote⁠—is a sudden sickening and disgust with an object not necessarily disagreeable⁠—a sort of fantastic prejudice, which there is no struggling against. But Rolls repeated his directions, and would not allow himself to entertain such a fear.

It was not, however, with any sound of wheels, triumphal or otherwise, that young Erskine approached his father’s house. It was all new and strange to him; the hills⁠—the broad and wealthy carses through which he had passed⁠—the noble Firth, half sea half river, which he had crossed over in his way⁠—all appeared to him like landscapes in a dream, places he had seen before, though he could not tell how or when. It was afternoon when he reached Dunearn, which was the nearest place of any importance. He had chosen to stop there instead of at the little country station a few miles farther on, which was proper for Dalrulzian. This caprice had moved him, much in the same way as a prince had sometimes been moved to wander about incognito, and glean the opinions of his public as to his own character and proceedings. Princes in fiction are fond of this diversion; why not a young Scotch laird just coming into his kingdom, whose person was quite unknown to his future vassals? It amused and gently excited him to think of thus arriving unknown, and finding out with what eyes he was looked upon: for he had very little doubt that he was important enough to be discussed and talked of, and that the opinions of the people would throw a great deal of light to him upon the circumstances and peculiarities of the place. He was curious about everything⁠—the little grey Scotch town, clinging to its hillside⁠—the freshness of the spring colour⁠—the width of the wistful blue sky, banked and flecked with white clouds, and never free, with all its brightness, from a suspicion of possible rain. He thought he recollected them all like things he had seen in a dream; and that sense of travelling incognito and arriving without any warning in the midst of a little world, all eagerly looking for his arrival, but which should be innocently deceived by his unpretending appearance, tickled his fancy greatly. He was five-and-twenty, and ought to have known better; but there was something in the circumstances which justified his excitement. He skimmed lightly along the quiet country road, saying to himself that he thought he remembered the few clusters of houses that were visible here and there, one of them only big enough to be called a village, where there was “a merchant’s” shop, repository of every kind of ware, and a blacksmith’s smithy. Two or three times he stopped to ask the way to Dalrulzian out of pure pleasure in the question! for he never lost sight of that line of fir-trees against the horizon, which indicated his native hill; but after he had put this question once or twice, it must be added that young Erskine’s satisfaction in it failed a little. He ceased to feel the excitement of his incognito, the pleasure of entering his dominions like a young prince in disguise. The imagination of the women at the village doors, the chance passengers on the way, were not occupied with the return of John Erskine; they were much more disposed to think and talk of the others who had no right, it seemed to him, to occupy their thoughts.

“Dalrulzian! you’ll find nobody there the day,” said a countryman whom he overtook and accosted on the road. “The family’s away this morning, and a great loss they will be to the countryside.”

“The family!” said John, and he felt that his tone was querulous in spite of himself. “I did not understand that there was a family.”

“Ay was there, and one that will be missed sore; both gentle and simple will miss them. Not the real family, but as good, or maybe better,” the man said, with a little emphasis, as if he meant offence, and knew who his questioner was.

The young man reddened in spite of himself. This was not the kind of popular report which in his incognito he had hoped to hear.

“The laird is what they call in Ireland an absentee,” said his companion. “We’re no minding muckle in Scotland if they’re absentees or no; they can please themsels. But there’s nae family of the Erskines⁠—nothing but a young lad; and the Cornel that’s had the house was a fine, hearty, weel-spoken man, with a good word for everybody; and the ladies very kind, and pleasant, and neighbour-like. Young Erskine must be a young laird past the ordinar if he can fill their place.”

“But, so far as I understand, the estate belongs to him, does it not?” Erskine asked, with an involuntary sharpness in his voice.

“Oh ay, it belongs to him; that makes but sma’ difference. Ye’re no bound to be a fine fellow,” said the roadside philosopher, with great calmness, “because ye’re the laird of a bit sma’ country place⁠—”

“Is it such a small place?” cried the poor young prince incognito, appalled by this revelation. He felt almost childishly annoyed and mortified. His companion eyed him with a cool half-satirical gaze.

“You’re maybe a friend of the young man? Na, I’m saying nae ill of the place nor of him. Dalrulzian’s a fine little property, and a’ in good order, thanks to auld Monypenny in Dunearn. Maybe you’re from Dunearn? It’s a place that thinks muckle of itself; but nae doubt it would seem but a poor bit town to you coming from the South?”

“How do you know I come from the South?” said John.

“Oh, I ken the cut of ye fine,” said the man. “I’m no easy deceived. And I daur to say you could tell us something about this new laird. There’s different opinions about him. Some thinks him a lad with brains, that could be put up for the county and spite the Earl. I’ve no great objection mysel to the Earl or his opinions, but to tak’ another man’s nominee, if he was an angel out of heaven, is little credit to an enlightened constituency. So there’s been twa-three words. You’ll no know if he has ony turn for politics, or if he’s a clever lad, or⁠—”

“You don’t seem to mind what his politics are,” said the unwary young man.

His new friend gave him another keen glance. “The Erskines,” he answered quietly, “are a’ on the right side.”

Now John Erskine was aware that he did not himself possess political opinions sufficiently strenuous to be acknowledged by either side. He agreed sometimes with one party, sometimes with another, which, politically speaking, is the most untenable of all positions. And so ignorant was he of the immediate traditions of his family, that he could not divine which was “the right side” on which the Erskines were sure to be. It was not a question upon which his mother could have informed him. As Mr. Kingsford’s wife, an orthodox Church of England clergywoman, she was, of course, soundly Conservative, and thought she hated everything that called itself Liberal⁠—which word she devoutly believed to include all kinds of Radical, revolutionary, and atheistical sentiments. John himself had been a good Tory too when he was at Eton, but at Oxford had veered considerably, running at one time into extreme opinions on the other side, then veering back, and finally settling into a hopeless eclectic, who by turns sympathised with everybody, but agreed wholly with nobody. Still it was whimsical not even to know the side on which the Erskines were declared with so much certainty to be. It pleased him at least to find that they had character enough to have traditionary politics at all.

“You must excuse me as a stranger,” he said, “if I don’t quite know what side you regard as the⁠—right side.”

His friend looked at him with a sarcastic gaze⁠—a look John felt which set him down not only as devoid of ordinary intelligence, but of common feeling. “It’s clear to see you are not of that way of thinking,” he said.

As he uttered this contemptuous verdict they came opposite to a gate, guarded by a pretty thatched cottage which did duty for a lodge. John felt his heart give a jump, notwithstanding the abashed yet amused sensation with which he felt himself put down. It was the gate of Dalrulzian: he remembered it as if he had left it yesterday. A woman came to the gate and looked out, shielding her eyes with her hand from the level afternoon sun that shone into them. “Have you seen anything of our young master, John Tamson?” she said. “I’m aye thinking it’s him every sound I hear.”

“There’s the road,” said the rural politician, briefly addressing John; then he turned to the woman at the gate. “If it’s no him, I reckon it’s a friend. Ye had better pit your questions here,” he said.

“John Thomson,” said John, with some vague gleam of recollection. “Are you one of the farmers?” The man looked at him with angry, the woman with astonished, eyes.

“My freend,” said John Thomson, indignantly, “I wouldna wonder but you have plenty of book-learning; but you’re an ignorant young fop for a’ that, if you were twenty times the laird’s freend.”

John for his part was too much startled and amused to be angry. “Am I an ignorant young fop?” he said. “Well, it is possible⁠—but why in this particular case⁠—”

“Noo, noo,” said the woman, who left the lodge, coming forward with her hands spread out, and a tone of anxious conciliation. “Dear bless me! what are you bickering about? He’s no a farmer, but he’s just as decent a man⁠—nobody better thought of for miles about. And, John Tamson, I’m astonished at you! Can you no let the young gentleman have his joke without taking offence like this, that was never meent?”

“I like nae such jokes,” said John Tamson, angrily; and he went off swinging down the road at a great pace. John stood looking after him for a moment greatly perplexed. The man did not touch his hat nor the woman curtsey as they certainly would have done at Milton Magna. He passed her mechanically without thinking of her, and went in at his own gate⁠—not thinking of that either, though it was an event in his life. This little occurrence had given an impulse in another direction to his thoughts.

But the woman of the lodge called after him. She had made a slightly surprised objection to his entrance, which he did not notice in his preoccupation. “Sir, sir!” she cried⁠—“you’re welcome to walk up the avenue, which is a bonnie walk; but you’ll find nobody in the house. The young laird, if it was him you was wanting to see, is expected every minute; but there’s no signs of him as yet⁠—and he canna come now till the four o’clock train.”

“Thank you. I’ll walk up the avenue,” said John, and then he turned back. “Why did you think I was making a joke? and why was your friend offended when I asked if he was one of the farmers?⁠—it was no insult, I hope.”

“He’s a very decent man, sir,” said the woman; “but I wouldna just take it upon me to say that he was my freend.”

“That’s not the question!” cried John, exasperated⁠—and he felt some gibe about Scotch caution trembling on the tip of his tongue; but he remembered in time that he was himself a Scot and among his own people, and he held that unruly member still.

“Weel, sir,” said the woman, “if ye will ken⁠—but, bless me! it’s easy to see for yourself. The farmers about here are just as well put on and mounted and a’ that as you are. John Tamson! he’s a very decent man, as good as any of them⁠—but he’s just the joiner after a’, and a cotter’s son. He thought you were making a fool of him, and he’s not a man to be made a fool o’. We’re no so civil-like⁠—nor may be so humble-minded, for anything I can tell⁠—as the English, sir. Baith the Cornel and his lady used to tell me that.”

It was with a mixture of irritation and amusement that John pursued his way after this little encounter. And an uncomfortable sensation, a chill, seemed to creep over his mind, and arrest his pleasurable expectations as he went on. The avenue was not so fine a thing as its name implied. It was not lined with noble trees, nor did it sweep across a green universe of parks and lawns like many he had known. It led instead up the slope of the hill, through shrubberies which were not more than copsewood in some places, and under lightly arching trees not grand enough or thick enough to afford continuous shade. And yet it was sweet in the brightness of the spring tints, the half-clothed branches relieved against that variable yet smiling sky, the birds in full-throated chorus, singing welcome with a hundred voices⁠—no nightingales there, but whole tribes of the “mavis and the merle,” north-country birds and kindly. His heart and mind were touched alike with that half-pathetic pleasure, that mixture of vague recollections and forgetfulness, with which we meet the half-remembered faces, and put out our hands to meet the grasp of old friends still faithful though scarcely known. A shadow of the childish delight with which he had once explored these scanty yet fresh and friendly woods came breathing about him: “The winds came to me from the fields of sleep.” He felt himself like two people: one, a happy boy at home, familiar with every corner; the other a man, a spectator, sympathetically excited, faltering upon the forgotten way, wondering what lay round the next curve of the road. It was the strangest blending of the known and the unknown.

But when John Erskine came suddenly, as he turned the corner of that great group of ash-trees, in sight of his house, these vague sensations, which were full of sweetness, came to an end with a sharp jar and shock of the real. Dalrulzian was a fact of the most solid dimensions, and dispersed in a moment all his dreams. He felt himself come down suddenly through the magical air, with a sensation of falling, with his feet upon the common soil. So that was his home! He felt in a moment that he remembered it perfectly⁠—that there had never been any illusions about it in his mind⁠—that he had known all along every line of it, every step of the gables, the number of the little windows, the slopes of the grey roof. But it is impossible to describe the keen sense of disenchantment which went through his mind as he said this to himself. It was not only that the solid reality dispersed his vision, but that it afforded a measure by which to judge himself and his fortunes, till now vaguely and pleasantly exaggerated in his eyes. It is seldom indeed that the dim image of what was great and splendid to us in our childhood does not seem ludicrously exaggerated when we compare it with the reality. He who had felt himself a young prince in disguise, approaching his domains incognito, in order to enjoy at his leisure the incense of universal interest, curiosity, and expectation! John Erskine blushed crimson though nobody saw him, as he stood alone at the corner of his own avenue and recognised the mistake he had made, and his own unimportance, and all the folly of his simple overestimate. Fortunately, indeed, he had brought nobody with him to share in the glories of his entry upon his kingdom. He thanked heaven for that, with a gasp of horror at the thought of the crowning ridicule he had escaped. It was quite hard enough to get over the first startling sensation of reality alone.

And yet it was the same house upon which the Barringtons had looked back so affectionately a few hours before⁠—which the county regarded with approval, and which was visited by the best families. It would be hard to say what its young master had expected⁠—a dream-castle, a habitation graceful and stately, a something built out of clouds, not out of old Scotch rubble-work and grey stone. It was not looking its best, it must be added. The corps du logis lay in gloom, thrown into shade by the projecting rustic gable, upon the other side of which the setting sun still played; the yellowish walls, discoloured here and there by damp, had no light upon them to throw a fictitious glow over their imperfections. The door stood open, showing the hall with its faded fittings, gloomy and unattractive, and, what was more, deserted, as if the house had been abandoned to dreariness and decay⁠—not so much as a dog to give some sign of life. When the young man, rousing himself with an effort, shook off the stupor of his disappointment and vexation, and went on to the open door, his foot on the gravel seemed to wake a hundred unaccustomed echoes: and nobody appeared. He walked in unchallenged, unwelcomed, going from room to room, finding all equally desolate. Was there ever a more dismal coming home? When he reached the library, where a little fire was burning, this token of human life quite went to the young fellow’s heart. He was standing on the hearth very gloomy, gazing wistfully at the portrait of a gentleman in a periwig over the mantelpiece, when the door was pushed open and old Rolls appeared with his coat off, carrying a basket of wood. Rolls was as much startled as his master was disappointed, and he was vexed to be seen by a stranger in so unworthy an occupation. He put down his basket and glanced at his shirtsleeves with confusion. “I was expecting nobody,” he said in his own defence. “And wha may ye be,” he added, “that comes into the mansion-house of Dalrulzian without speering permission, or ringing a bell, or chapping at a door?” John smiled at the old man’s perplexity, but said nothing. “You’ll be a friend of our young master’s?” he said, tentatively; then after an interval, in a voice with a quiver in it, “Your no meaning, sir, that you’re the laird himself?”

“For want of a better,” said John, amused in spite of himself. “And you’re old Rolls. I should have known you anywhere. Shake hands, man, and say you’re glad to see me. It’s like a house of the dead.”

“Na, sir, no such things; there’s no death here. Lord bless us! wha was to think you would come in stealing like a thief in the night, as the Bible says?” said Rolls, aggrieved. He felt that it was he who was the injured person. “It was all settled how you were to be received as soon as the wheels were heard in the avenue⁠—me on the steps, and the women behind, and Andrew⁠—the haill household, to wit. If there’s any want of respect, it’s your ain fault. And if you’ll just go back to the avenue now and give us warning, I’ll cry up the women in a moment,” the old servant said.

III

That night dispersed illusions from the mind of John Erskine which it had taken all his life to set up. He discovered in some degree what his real position was, and that it was not a great one. He got rid of many of his high notions as he walked about the pleasant, comfortable, but somewhat dingy old house, which no effort of the imagination could make into a great house. He made acquaintance with the household. Mrs. Rolls the cook, who curtseyed and cried for pleasure at the sight of him, and two smiling, fair-haired young women, and old Andrew the gardener⁠—a quite sufficient household for the place, he felt, but very different from the army of servants, all so noiseless, punctilious, carefully drilled, whom he had seen at country-houses, with which he had fondly hoped his own might bear comparison. What a fool he had been! These good honest folk have little air of being servants at all. Their respect was far less than their interest in him; and their questions were more like those of poor relatives than hired attendants. “I hope your mammaw is well, Mr. John,” Bauby the cook had said. “Let the master alone with your Mr. Johns,” Rolls had interrupted; “he’s come to man’s estate, and you must learn to be more respectful. The women, sir, are all alike; you can never look for much sense from them.” “Maybe you’re right, Tammas,” said Bauby; “but for all that I cannot help saying that its an awfu’ pleasure to see Mr. John, that was but that height when I saw him last, come home a braw gentleman like what I mind his father.” John could do nothing but stand smiling between them, hearing himself thus discussed. They made it very clear that he had come home where he would be taken ample care of⁠—but how different it was from his thoughts! He thought of the manor-house at Milton Magna, and laughed and blushed at the ridiculous comparisons he had once made. It was a keen sort of self-ridicule, sharp and painful. He did not like to think what a fool he had been. Now he came to think of it, he had quite well remembered Dalrulzian. It was not his youthful imagination that was to blame, but a hundred little self-deceits, and all the things that he had been in the habit of hearing about his own importance and his Scotch property. His mother had done more than anyone else to deceive him, he thought; and then he said to himself, “Poor mother!” wondering if, perhaps, her little romance was all involved in Dalrulzian, and if it was a sacred place to her. To think that the Kingsford household was prose, but the early life in which she had been Harry Erskine’s wife and little John’s mother, the poetry of her existence, was pleasant to her son, who was fond of his mother, though she was not clever, nor even very sensible. John thought, with a blush, of the people whom he had invited to Dalrulzian under that extraordinary mistake⁠—some of his friends at college, young fellows who were accustomed to houses full of company and stables full of horses. There was nothing in the stables at Dalrulzian but the hired horse which had been provided by Rolls in a hired dogcart to bring him up from the station; and as he looked round upon the room in which he sat after dinner, and which was quite comfortable and highly respectable, though neither dignified nor handsome, poor John burst into a laugh, in which there was more pain than amusement. He seemed to himself to be stranded on a desert shore. What should he do with himself, especially during the long summer, when there could be no hunting, no shooting⁠—the summer which he had determined to occupy, with a fine sense of duty, in making acquaintance with his house and his surroundings, and in learning all his duties as a country gentleman and person of importance? This thought was so poignant, that it actually touched his eyelids with a sense of moisture. He laughed⁠—but he could have cried. There would turn out, he supposed, to be about three farms on this estate of his; and Scotch farmers were very different people from the small farmers of the South. To talk about his tenants would be absurd. Three pragmatical Scotchmen, much better informed in all practical matters at least than himself, and looking down upon him as an inexperienced young man. What a fool he had been! If he had come down in August for the shooting⁠—if there was any shooting⁠—and let his friends understand that it was a mere shooting-box⁠—a “little place in Scotland,” such as they hired when they came to the moors⁠—all would have been well. But he had used no disparaging adjectives in speaking of Dalrulzian. He had called it “my place” boldly, and had believed it to be a kind of old castle⁠—something that probably had been capable of defence in its day. Good heavens! what a fool he had been!

He had thought he would be glad to get to bed, and felt pleased that he was somewhat tired with his journey; but he found that, on the contrary, the night flew by amidst these thoughts⁠—fathomless night, slow and dark and noiseless. Rolls had made repeated attempts to draw him into conversation in what that worthy called the fore-night; but by ten o’clock or so, the house was as still as death, not a sound anywhere, and the hours passed over him while he sat and thought. A little fire crackled and burned in the grate, with little pétillements and bursts of flame. There were a good many books on the shelves; that was always something: and Mrs. Rolls had given him an excellent dinner, which he ought to have considered also as a very great alleviation of the situation. John scarcely knew what hour it was when, starting suddenly up in the multitude of his thoughts, he threw open the window which looked upon the Walk, and gazed out moodily upon the night. The night was soft and clear, and the great stretch of the landscape lay dimly defined under a half-veiled poetic sky, over which light floating vapours were moving with a kind of gentle solemnity. There was not light enough to distinguish the individual features of the scene, save here and there a pale gleam of water, a darkness of wood, and the horizon marked by that faint silvery edge which even by night denotes the limit of human vision. The width, the freshness, the stillness, the dewy purity of the air, soothed the young man as he stood and looked out. What was he, a human unit in the great round of space, to be so disconcerted by the little standing-ground he had? He felt abased as he gazed, and a strange sense of looking out upon his life came over him. His future was like that⁠—all vague, breathing towards him a still world full of anticipations, full of things hidden and mysterious⁠—his, and yet not his, as was the soil and the fields. He could mortgage it as he could his estate, but he could not sell it away from him, or get rid of what was in it, whether it carried out his foolish expectations or not. Certainly the sight of this wide scenery, in which he was to perform his part, did him good, though he could not see it. He closed the window, which was heavy, almost with violence, as he came back to the ascertained⁠—to the limited walls with their books, the old-fashioned original lamp, and crackling fire.

But this sound was very unusual in the house in the middle of the night. Bauby, whose room was next her brother’s, knocked upon the wall to rouse him. “D’ye hear that, Tammas? There’s somebody trying to get into the house.” Her voice came to Rolls faintly muffled by the partition between. He had heard the noise as well as she, but he did not think fit to answer save by a grunt. Then Bauby knocked again more loudly. “Tammas! Man, will ye no put on your breeks and go down and see what it is?” Rolls, for his part, was already in the midst of a calculation. So much plate as there was in the house he had brought up with him to his room. “They cannot steal tables and chairs,” he said to himself; “and as for the young laird, if he’s not able to take care of himself, he’ll be none the better of me for a defender.” Audibly he answered, “Hold your tongue, woman. If the master likes to take the air in the sma’ hours, what’s that to you or me?” There was a pause of dismay on Bauby’s part, and then a faint ejaculation of “Lord bless us! take the air!” But she was less easily satisfied than her brother. When John went upstairs with his candle, he saw a light glimmering in the gallery above, and a figure in white, far too substantial to be a ghost, leaning over the banisters. “Eh, sir! is it you, Mr. John?” Bauby said. “I was feared it was robbers;” and then she added in her round, soft, caressing voice, “but you mustna take the air in the middle of the night: you’ll get your death of cold, and then, what will your mammaw say to me, Mr. John?” John shut himself up in his room, half laughing, half affronted. It was many years since he had been under the sway of his “mamma” in respect to his hours and habits; and nothing could be more droll than to go back to the kind annoyance of domestic surveillance just at the moment when his manhood and independence were most evident. He laughed, but the encounter brought him back, after he had been partly freed from it, to a consciousness of all his limitations once more.

But things were better in the morning. Unless you have something bitter to reproach yourself with, or some calamity impending over you, things are generally better in the morning. John looked about him with more hopeful eyes. He had an excellent, a truly Scotch, breakfast, which, at five-and-twenty, puts a man in good-humour with himself; and there were one or two features about Dalrulzian which, in the morning sunshine, looked more encouraging. The stables were tolerably good, made habitable, and furnished with some of the latest improvements by Colonel Barrington; and “the policy” was in admirable order⁠—the turf faultless, the shrubberies flourishing, the trees⁠—well, not like the trees at Milton Magna, but creditable performances for the North. John’s countenance cleared as he inspected everything. Rolls led or followed him about with great importance, introducing and explaining. Had he been an English butler, John would have dismissed him very summarily to his pantry; but it was part of the natural mise-en-scène to have a Caleb Balderstone attached to an old Scotch house. He was half proud of this retainer of the family, though he threatened to be something of a bore; even Bauby, and her care for his health, and her sense of responsibility to his “mammaw,” was tolerable in this light. When one is born a Scotch laird, one must accept the natural accompaniments of the position; and if they were sometimes annoying, they were at least picturesque. So John put up with Rolls, and “saw the fun” of him with a kind of feeling that Dalrulzian was a Waverley novel, and he himself the hero. He had been seeing things so much through the eyes of his problematical visitors, that he was glad to see this also through their eyes. To them, these servants of his would be altogether “characteristic,” and full of “local colour.” And then the subtle influence of property began to affect the young man and modify his disappointment. “A poor thing, sir, but mine own,” he said to himself. These were “my plantations” that crested the hill; the fishing on the river was said to be excellent, and belonged to Dalrulzian; the moorland on the eastern side of the hill was “my moor.” Things began to mend. When he went back again after his examination to the room from which he had started, John found a luncheon spread for him, which was not inferior to the breakfast, and Rolls, in his black coat, having resumed the butler, and thrown off the factotum, but not less disposed to be instructive than before.

“You may as well,” young Erskine said, eating an admirable cutlet, “tell me something about my neighbours, Rolls.”

“I’ll do that, sir,” said Rolls, with cordiality; and then he made a pause. “The first to be named is no to call a neighbour; but I hope, sir, you’ll think far mair of her than of any neighbour. She’s your ain best blood, and a leddy with a great regard for Dalrulzian, and not another friend so near to her as you. It came from Dalrulzian, and it’ll come back to Dalrulzian with careful guiding,” said Rolls, oracularly; “not to say that blood’s thicker than water, as the auld Scots byword goes.”

This address gave John some sense of perplexity; but after an interval he discovered what it meant. “It is my old Aunt Barbara of whom you are speaking,” he said. “Certainly, I shall see her first of all.”

“She is an excellent lady, sir; careful of her money. It will be real good for the estate when⁠—But, bless me! I wadna have you to be looking forward to what may never come⁠—that is to say, that auld Miss Barbara, being real comfortable, sir, in this life, will not go out of it a moment sooner than she can help: and for a’ that we ken o’ heaven, I wouldna blame her; for, grand as it may be, it will aye be a strange place. There’s nobody more thought upon in the county than Miss Barbara Erskine at Dunearn. Weel, sir, and the neighbours. There’s the Earl of Lindores first of a’. We maun give him the paw, as the French say. Maybe you’ve met with some of the family in London? You’ll see plenty and hear plenty of them here. The Earl he is a very pushing man. He would like to take the lead in a’ the county business; but there’s many of the gentry that are not exactly of that opinion. And my lady Countess, she’s of the booky kind, with authors, and painters, and that kind of cattle aye about the place. I’m not that fond of thae instructed leddies. Weemen are best no to be ower clever, in my poor opinion. Young Rintoul, that’s the son, is away with his regiment; I ken nothing of him: and there’s two young leddies⁠—”

“Now I remember,” said John. “You are the most concise of chroniclers, Rolls. I like your style. I once knew some of the Lindores family⁠—cousins, I suppose. There were young ladies in that family too. I knew them very well.” Here he paused, a smile stealing about the corners of his mouth.

“I ken nothing about their relations,” said Rolls. “It was an awfu’ melancholy story; but it’s an ill wind that blaws nobody good. The late Earl was liked by everybody. But I’m saying nothing against this family. One of the young daughters is married, poor thing! The other one at hame, my Lady Edith, is a bonnie bit creature. She was great friends with oor young lady. But if you were to ask my opinion, sir⁠—which is neither here nor there,” said Rolls, in insinuating tones⁠—“I would say there was not one that was fit to hold the candle to Miss Nora. We had our bits of tiffs, the Cornel and me. There were some things he would never see in a proper light; but they were much thought o’, and saw a’ the best company. When you let a place, it’s a grand thing to have tenants that never let down the character of the house.”

“You mean the Barringtons,” said John. He was not much interested in this subject. They had been unexceptionable tenants; but he could scarcely help regarding them with a little jealousy, almost dislike, as if they had been invaders of his rights.

“And they were awfu’ fond of it,” said Rolls, watching his young master’s countenance. “Miss Nora above a’. You see she’s grown up at Dalrulzian. It was all they could do to get her away from the Walk this last morning. I thought she would have grown till’t. If you and Miss Nora was ever to meet,” the old servant added, in his most engaging tones, “I cannot but believe you would be real good⁠—freends⁠—”

“I see you have provided for every contingency,” said the young laird, with a laugh. His Caleb Balderstone, he said to himself, was almost better, if that was possible, than Scott’s. But John’s mind had been set afloat on a still more pleasant channel, and he let the old man maunder on.

“It’s true she’s English,” said Rolls; “but that matters nothing in my opinion, on what they call the side of the distaff. I’ll no say but it’s offensive in a man: putting up so long with the Cornel and his ways of thinking, I’m no a bad authority on that. But weemen are a different kind of creatures. A bit discrepancy, if ye may so call it⁠—a kind of a different awkcent, so to speak, baith in the soul and the tongue, is just a pleasant variety. It gives new life to a family sometimes, and mends the breed, if you’ll no think me coarse. A little of everything is good in a race. And besides being so good and so bonnie, Miss Nora will have a little siller of her ain, which spoils nothing. Not one of your great fortunes, but just a little siller⁠—enough for their preens and rubbitch⁠—of her ain.”

Here, however, the pleasant delusion with which Nora’s humble champion was delighting himself was suddenly dispersed by a question which proved his young master to be thinking nothing about Nora. “I used to know some of the Lindores family,” John repeated, “a brother of the Earl. I wonder if they ever come here?”

“I ken nothing about their relations, sir,” said Rolls, promptly. “It’s thought the Earl’s awfu’ ambitious. They’re no that rich, and he has an eye to everything that will push the family on. There’s one of them marriet, poor thing!”

“I am afraid you are a fierce old bachelor,” said John, rising from the table; “this is the second time you have said ‘poor thing.’ ”

“That’s my Lady Caroline, sir,” said Rolls, with a grave face, “that’s married upon Torrance of Tinto, far the richest of all our neighbour gentlemen. You’ll no remember him? He was a big mischievous callant when you were but a little thing, begging your pardon, sir, for the freedom,” said the old servant, with a little bow of apology; but the gravity of his countenance did not relax. “It’s not thought in the countryside that the leddy was very fain of the marriage⁠—poor thing!”

“You are severe critics in the countryside. One must take care what one does, Rolls.”

“Maybe, sir, that’s true; they say public opinion’s a grand thing: whiles it will keep a person from going wrong. But big folk think themselves above that,” Rolls said. And then, having filled out a glass of wine, which his master did not want; he withdrew. Rolls was not quite satisfied with the young laird. He betook himself to the kitchen with his tray and a sigh, unburdening himself to Bauby as he set down the remains of the meal on the table. “I wouldna wonder,” he said, shaking his head, “if he turned out mair English than the Cornel himsel’.”

“Hoot, Tammas!” said Bauby, always willing to take the best view, “that’s no possible. When ye refleck that he was born at Dalrulzian, and brought up till his thirteenth year⁠—”

“Sic bringing up!” cried old Rolls; “and a step-faither that never could learn so much as to say the name right o’ the house that took him in!”

Meanwhile John, left alone with his own thoughts, found a curious vein of new anticipations opened to him by the old man’s talk. The smile that had lighted on the corners of his mouth came back and settled there, betraying something of the maze of pleased recollections, the amused yet tender sentiment, which these familiar yet half-forgotten names had roused again. Caroline and Edith Lindores! No doubt they were family names, and the great young ladies who were his neighbours were the cousins of those happy girls whom he remembered so well. The Lindores had been at a Swiss mountain inn where he and some of his friends had lived for six weeks under pretence of reading. They had made friends on the score of old family acquaintance “at home”; and he never remembered so pleasant a holiday. What had become of the girls by this time? Carry, the eldest, was sentimental and poetical, and all the young men were of opinion that Beaufort the young University Don, who was at the head of the party, had talked more poetry than was good for him with that gentle enthusiast. Beaufort had gone to the Bar since then, and was said to be getting on. Had they kept up their intercourse, or had it dropped, John wondered, as his own acquaintance with the family had dropped? They were poor people, living abroad for economy and education, notwithstanding that Mr. Lindores was brother to an earl. Surely sometimes the Earl must invite his relations, or at least he would be sure to hear of them, to come within the circle of their existence again. Young Erskine had almost forgotten, to tell the truth, the existence of the Lindores; yet when they were thus recalled to him, and the possibility of a second meeting dawned on his mind, his heart gave a jump of pleasure in his bosom. On the instant there appeared before him the prettiest figure in short frocks, with an aureola of hair about the young head⁠—a child, yet something more than a child. Edith had been only sixteen, he remembered; indeed he found that he remembered everything about her as soon as her image was thus lightly called back. What might she be now, in her grown-up condition? Perhaps not so sweet, perhaps married⁠—a contingency which did not please him to think of. And what if he should be on the eve of seeing her again!

The smile of pleasure, of amusement, even of innocent vanity with which in this airy stage a young man contemplates such a possibility, threw a pleasant light over his face. He went out with that smile half hidden under his fair moustache, which gave it a kind of confidential character between him and himself so to speak. As he had nothing else to do, it occurred to him to take a walk on the road to Dunearn, where he had seen the French-Scotch tourelles of Lindores Castle through the trees the day before, and “take a look at” the place⁠—why, he did not know⁠—for no particular reason, merely to amuse himself. And as he went down the avenue, that old episode came back to him more and more fully. He remembered all the little expeditions, the little misadventures, the jokes, though perhaps they were not brilliant. Carry lingering behind with Beaufort, talking Shelley, with a flush of enthusiasm about her: Edith always foremost, chidden and petted, and made much of by everybody, with her long hair waving, and those fine little shoes which he had tied once⁠—thick mountain shoes⁠—but such wonderful Cinderella articles! All these recollections amused him like a story as he went down the avenue, taking away his attention from external things; and it was not till he was close upon the gate that he was aware of the presence of two ladies, who seemed to have paused on their walk to speak to Peggy Burnet, the gardener’s wife, who inhabited the lodge. His ear was caught by his own name, always an infallible means of rousing the most careless attention. He could not help hearing what Peggy was saying, for her voice was somewhat high-pitched, and full of rural freedom. “Oh ay, my leddy; the young maister, that’s Mr. John, that’s the laird, came hame yestreen,” Peggy was saying, “before he was expectit. The carriage⁠—that’s the bit dogcart, if you can ca’ it a carriage, for there’s nothing better left, nor so much as a beast to draw it that we can ca’ oor ain⁠—was sent to the station to meet him. When, lo! he comes linking along the road on his ain twa legs, and no so much as a bag or a portmanty behind him, and asks at the gate, Is this Dalrulzian? kenning nothing of his ain house! And me, I hadna the sense to think, This is him; but just let him in as if he had been a stranger. And no a creature to take the least notice! Mr. Rolls was just out o’ himsel, with vexation, to let the young maister come hame as if he had been ony gangrel body; but it couldna be called my fault.”

“Surely it could not be your fault; if he wanted a reception, he should have come when he was expected,” said a softer voice, with a little sound of laughter. Surely, John thought, he had heard that voice before. He hurried forward wondering, taking off his hat instinctively. Who were they? Two ladies, one elder, one younger, mother and daughter. They looked up at him as he approached. The faces were familiar, and yet not familiar. Was it possible? He felt himself redden with excitement as he stood breathless, his hat off, the blood flushing to the very roots of his hair, not able to get out a word in his surprise and pleasure. They on their side looked at him smilingly, not at all surprised, and the elder lady held out her hand. “After so long a time you will scarcely know us, Mr. Erskine,” she said; “but we knew you were expected, and all about you, you see.”

“Know you?” cried John, almost speechless with the wonder and delight. “Mrs. Lindores! The thing is, can I venture to believe my eyes? There never was such luck in the world! I think I must be dreaming. Who would have expected to meet you here, and the very first day?”

Peggy Burnet was much disturbed by this greeting. She pushed forward, making an anxious face at him. “Sir! sir! you maun say my leddy,” she breathed, in a shrill whisper, which he was too much excited to take any notice of, but which amused the ladies. They cast a laughing look at each other. “Didn’t you know we were here?” the mother said. “Then we had the advantage of you. We have been speculating about you for weeks past⁠—whether you would be much changed, whether you would come at once to Lindores to renew old acquaintance⁠—”

“That you may be sure I should have done,” said John, “as soon as I knew you were there. And are you really at Lindores? living there? for good? It seems too delightful to be true.”

They were both changed. And he did not know why they should look at each other with such a laughing interchange of glances. It made him somewhat uncomfortable, though his mind was too full of the pleasure of seeing them to be fully conscious of it. It was Edith, as was natural, who was most altered in appearance. She had been a tall girl, looking more than her age; and now she was a small, very young woman. At that period of life such changes happen sometimes; but the difference was delightful, though embarrassing. Yes, smaller, she was actually smaller, he said to himself⁠—“as high as my heart,” as Orlando says: yet no longer little Edith, but an imposing stately personage at whom he scarcely ventured to look boldly, but only snatched shy glances at, abashed by her soft regard. He went on stammering out his pleasure, his delight, his surprise, hardly knowing what he said. “I had just begun to hope that you might come sometimes, that I might have a chance of seeing you,” he was saying; whereupon Edith smiled gravely, and her mother gave a little laugh aloud.

“I don’t believe he knows anything about it, Edith,” she said.

“I was sure of it, mamma,” Edith replied; while between them John stood dumb, not knowing what to think.

IV

The explanation which was given to John Erskine on the highroad between Dalrulzian and Lindores, as it is still more important to us than to him, must be here set forth at more length. There are some happy writers whose mission it is to expound the manners and customs of the great. To them it is given to know how duchesses and countesses demean themselves in their moments perdus, and they even catch as it flies that airy grace with which the chitchat of society makes itself look like something of consequence. Gilded salons in Belgravia, dainty boudoirs in Mayfair, not to speak of everything that is gorgeous in the rural palaces, which are as so many centres of light throughout England⁠—are the scenery in which they are accustomed to enshrine the subjects of their fancy. And yet, alas! to these writers when they have done all, yet must we add that they fail to satisfy their models. When the elegant foreigner, or what is perhaps more consonant with the tastes of the day, the refined American, ventures to form his opinion of the habits of society from its novels, he is always met with an amused or indignant protestation. As if these sort of people knew anything about society! Lady Adeliza says. It is perhaps as well, under these circumstances, to assume a humility, even if we have it not; and indeed the present writer has always been shy of venturing into exalted regions, or laying profane hands upon persons of quality. But when a family of rank comes in our way by necessity, it would be cowardice to recoil from the difficulties of the portraiture. Should we fail to represent in black and white the native grace, the air noble, the exalted sentiments which belong by right to members of the aristocracy, the reader will charitably impute the blame rather to the impression made upon our nerves by a superiority so dazzling than to any defect of goodwill. Besides, in the present case, which is a great aid to modesty, the family had been suddenly elevated, and were not born in the purple. Lady Lindores was a commoner by birth, and not of any very exalted lineage⁠—a woman quite within the range of ordinary rules and instincts; and even Lady Edith had been Miss Edith till within a few years. Their honours were still new upon them: they were not themselves much used to these honours any more than their humble chronicler; with which preface we enter with diffidence upon the recent history of the noble house of Lindores.

The late earl had been a man unfortunate in his children. His sons by his first marriage had died one after another, inheriting their mother’s delicate health. His second wife had brought him but one son, a likely and healthy boy; but an accident, one of those simplest risks which hundreds are subject to, and escape daily, carried this precious boy off in a moment. His father, who had been entirely devoted to him, died afterwards of a broken heart, people said. The next brother, who was in India with his regiment, died there almost at the same time, and never knew that he had succeeded to the family honours. And thus it was that the Honourable Robert Lindores, a poor gentleman, living on a very straitened income, in a cheap French town, with his wife and daughters, and as little expecting any such elevation as a poor curate expects to be made Archbishop of Canterbury, became Earl of Lindores and the head of the family, without warning or preparation. It does not perhaps require very much preparation to come to such advancement; and the new earl was to the manner born. But Mrs. Lindores, who was a woman full of imagination, with nerves and ideas of her own, received a considerable shock. She had no objection to being a countess; the coronet, indeed, was pleasant to her as it is to most people. She liked to look at it on her handkerchiefs: there is no such pretty ornament. But it startled her mind and shook her nerves just at first. And it made a great, a very great, change in the family life. Instead of strolling about as they had done for years, with one maid for the mother and daughters, and a shabby cheap French servant, who was valet and factotum; going to all kinds of places; living as they liked; and though, with many a complaint, getting a great deal of pleasure out of their lives: there was an immediate shaking of themselves together⁠—a calling in of stray habits and fancies⁠—a jump into their new place, as of an inexperienced and half-alarmed rider, not at all sure how he was to get on with his unaccustomed steed. This at least was the mood of Lady Lindores. The Earl knew all about it better than she did. Even to be merely the “honourable” had fluttered her senses a little; and it had never occurred to her that anything further was possible. The family was poor⁠—still poor, even when thus elevated as it were to the throne; but the poverty of the Honourable Robert was very different from that of the right honourable Earl. In the one case it was actual poverty, in the other only comparative. To be sure it was, when one had time to think, distressing and troubling not to have money enough to refurnish the Castle (the taste of the late lord had been execrable) and make many improvements which were quite necessary. But that was very different from not having money enough to possess a settled home of your own anywhere, which had been their previous condition. The Earl took his measures without a moment’s delay. He dismissed the servants who had followed them in their poverty, and engaged others in London, who were more proper to the service of a noble family. They travelled quite humbly, indeed, in their old half-Bohemian way, until they reached London, and then all at once cast their slough. The ladies put on their clothes, which they had stopped to procure in Paris, and suddenly blossomed out (though in deep mourning) into the likeness of their rank. It was a thing to make the steadiest heart beat. Young Robin was at Chatham, a lieutenant in a marching regiment⁠—a young nobody, pleased to be noticed even by the townsfolk; and lo! in a moment, this insignificant lieutenant became Lord Rintoul. It was like a transformation scene; he came to meet his people when they passed through London, and they could scarcely speak to each other when they met in their mutual wonder. “Poor little Rintoul, all the same, poor little beggar!” Robin Lindores said. To think of the poor boy, cut off in a moment, whose death had purchased them all these honours, affected the young people with a strange awe, and almost remorseful pain. They felt as if somehow, without knowing it, they had been the cause of that terrible sudden removal of all the hopes that had rested on their little cousin’s head. Lady Lindores herself declared that she dared not think of her predecessor, the mother of that poor boy, “the dowager,” alas! poor lady. The dowager was younger than her successor in the family honours, having been a second wife. They were all silent with respectful awe when her name was mentioned; but the Earl said pshaw! and thought this superfluous. He was more used to it; he had been born in the purple, and now that he had come, though unexpectedly, to his kingdom, he knew how to fill that exalted place.

The Earl was a man of a character which never, up to this time, had been estimated as it deserved. He had been quite an easygoing sort of person in his former estate. In his youth he was said to have been extravagant. Since his marriage⁠—which had been an imprudent marriage, in so far that he might perhaps have got a richer wife had he tried, but which was wise so far that the income upon which they lived chiefly came from that wife⁠—he had let himself go quietly enough upon the current, there being no motive to struggle against it. The very best that they could make of it was simply to “get along”; and get along they did without putting any force upon their inclinations. He was always able to secure his comforts, such as were indispensable; and as he liked the easier routine of a wandering life, he did not object, as he said, to make a sacrifice for the education of his children and their amusement, by living in places where the pleasures were cheap and there was no dignity to keep up. He had in this sense been very complying, both as a husband and a father, and had allowed himself to be guided, as his family thought, by their wishes quite as much, at least, as by his own. He had not in these days been in the least a severe father, or shown marks of a worldly mind. What was the use? The girls were too young as yet to have become valuable instruments of ambition, and he had not learnt to think of them as anything but children. But when this extraordinary change came in their existence, the easy dilettante⁠—whose wants were limited to a few graceful knickknacks, an elegant little meal, good music, when procurable, and a life undisturbed by vulgar cares⁠—altered his very nature, as his family thought. Hitherto his wife and his girls had done everything for him, aided by the ubiquitous, the handy, the all-accomplished Jean or François, who was half-a-dozen men in one⁠—cook, valet, footman, pattern man-of-all-work. They arranged the rooms in every new place they went to, so that the fact that these rooms were those of a hotel or lodging-house should be masked by familiar prettinesses, carried about with them. They gave a careful supervision to his meals, and arranged everything, so that papa should get the best out of his limited existence, and none of its troubles. And as there was nothing against Mr. Lindores⁠—no bad repute, but with an honourable at his name⁠—every English club, every cercle, was open to him. He always dressed carefully; now and then he helped a wealthier friend to a bargain in the way of art. He saw a great deal of society. On the whole, perhaps, for a man without ambition, and upon whom neither the fate of his children nor the use of his own life pressed very heavily, he got as much satisfaction out of his existence as most men; and so might have lived and died, no man knowing what was really in him, had not poor young Rintoul broken his neck over that fence, and drawn his father with him into the grave. From the moment when the letter, placed calmly by Mr. Lindores’s plate at breakfast, as though it meant nothing particular, had its black seals broken, he was another man. How distinctly they all recollected that scene!⁠—a lofty French room, with bare white walls and long large windows, the green Persians closed to keep out the sunshine, one long line of light falling across the polished floor, where one of these shutters had got unfastened; the spacious coolness in the midst of heat, which is characteristic of such houses, like the atmosphere in M. Alma Tadema’s pictures; the white-covered table with its flowers and pretty arrangements; the girls in their white cool dresses; and François lifting the small silver cover from his master’s favourite dish. All the composure and quiet of this interior had been broken in a moment. There had been a sudden stifled cry, and Mr. Lindores, pushing the table from him, disordering the dishes, over-setting his heavy chair as he sprang to his feet, had finished reading his letter standing upright, trembling with excitement, his face flushed and crimson. “What is it?” they had all cried. “Robin?” Naturally, the son who was away was the first thought of the women. For a minute the father had made no reply, and their anxiety was beyond words. Then he put down the letter solemnly, and went to his wife and took her hand. “There is nothing wrong with Robin,” he said; “but it comes by trouble to others, if not to us. My dear, you are the Countess of Lindores.” It was some minutes before the real meaning of this communication penetrated their astonished minds; and the first proof of understanding which the new Lady Lindores gave was to cover her face and cry out, “Oh, poor boy! oh, poor Jane, poor Jane!” with a pang at her heart. It was not all grief for the other⁠—could anyone expect that?⁠—but the poignant state of emotion which this strange terrible good fortune caused her, had a sharpness of anguish in it for the moment. The girls went away hushed and silenced, unable to eat their breakfasts, to find some black ribbons instead of the bright ones they wore. They wept a few tears as they went to their rooms over poor young Rintoul; but they had known very little of the boy, and the strange excitement of the change soon crept into their veins. Lady Caroline and Lady Edith! instead of the humble Miss Lindores. No wonder that it went to their heads.

And from that moment the new Earl was a different man. He threw off all his languor, took everything into his own hands. Those little economies which it had been so necessary to insist upon yesterday were now absurd, notwithstanding that the Earls of Lindores were far from rich⁠—comparatively. The family came home rapidly, as has been said; pausing in Paris to get their dresses, to dismiss the faithful servants of their poverty, who would be of no use, the Earl decided, in the change of circumstances. He behaved very well, everybody said, to poor Lady Lindores, his brother’s young widow, who had thus been left at once widowed and childless. He showed “every consideration”; would not allow her to be hurried; waited her convenience and her pleasure in every way. But, naturally, that poor lady was glad to take refuge with her own family in her desolation; and within a few months, the wandering exile-family, familiar with all the cheap watering-places and centres of genteel emigration on the Continent, were settled in the greatness of their new position, as if they had never known any less elevated circumstances. There was a great deal of excitement in the change; and though it was sad at first, no doubt there was a pleasure in hearing Robin addressed by the name of Rintoul, and accustoming themselves to their ladyships. But yet, when all was over, it was not perhaps to the girls so great an improvement as it appeared on the old life. They were not dull⁠—oh no⁠—but still there was a great deal less to do and to see than there used to be; and though they felt, as their mother said, that girls with so many resources ought to be occupied and happy wherever they went, still the calm of the Castle was very different from the stir and movement to which they had been used.

Up to this time, however, nothing had happened to them except that which was determined by another will than theirs, the inevitable result of other events. But they had not been long settled in their new and elevated life when it became apparent that other changes had happened which were not evoked by any external fate, and which were yet more profoundly to affect their life. That Swiss holiday had been more important to Carry than anyone out of the family knew. It had ended in a kind of vague engagement, only half sanctioned, yet only half opposed by her family, and which it was possible, had Mr. Beaufort been rich enough to marry, would not have been opposed at all. Had he possessed income enough or courage enough to make the venture, the result in all likelihood would, years before, have been out of the reach of evil fate; but while it remained only an engagement, Mr. Lindores had refused his official sanction to it. And it had seemed to Carry, in whose mind the first conscious thought after the news of this extraordinary change was to communicate it to Edward, that from that very day her father’s aspect had changed towards her. He had met her running out to the post with her letter in the afternoon, and had given a suspicious glance at it, and stopped her, telling her it was not fit she should go out on a day so serious. Not a word had been said for weeks and even months after, but she knew very well that things were not as before. All reference to Beaufort was somehow stopped; even her mother managed to arrest upon her lips all mention of her lover. She was herself too timid to open the subject, and gradually a chill certainty that he was to be ignored and pushed aside out of her life, came upon the poor girl. How it was that further dangers dawned upon her, it would be hard to tell; but it is certain that she had divined a something⁠—a tightening coil about her helpless feet, a design upon her freedom and happiness⁠—before the family had been long at Lindores. One of the consequences of their great honour and increased stateliness of living was, that the two sisters were partially separated, as they felt, from each other. They no longer occupied the same room as they had done all their lives. They had now what with their foreign habits they called an appartement⁠—a suite of rooms set apart for them; and as Edith was full of curiosity and excitement about the new life, and Carry was discouraged and depressed, and felt it odious to her, they fell a little apart without any mutual intention or consciousness. It was in the beginning of their first winter, when the dark days were closing in, that this semi-estrangement first became apparent to the younger sister. She awoke all at once to the consciousness that Carry was pale; that she shut herself up very much, and more than ever devoted herself to her writing; that she composed a great many little poems (for she was the genius of the family), and often had a suspicion of redness about her eyes. This discovery was instantaneous. Edith had never been awakened to any but the most simple troubles of life, and it had not occurred to her to imagine that there was anything beneath the headache which her sister so often took refuge in. But her mind, when it began to act, was rapid and keen. It became apparent to her that she had been losing sight of Carry, and that Carry was not happy. The progress from one step to another of her solicitude for her sister was rapid as lightning. She remembered everything in a moment, though these causes of sorrow had been altogether out of her thoughts before. She remembered that not a word had been said of Mr. Beaufort for months; that Carry had ceased altogether to speculate as to anything that might happen in the future; that all this was as a closed book between them nowadays. As soon as she arrived at this conviction, Edith found herself ready to interfere for good or evil. She went into the room where Carry was writing her little poetries, with something of the effect of a fresh light wind, carrying refreshment, but also a little disturbance, with her. She stooped over her sister with a caressing arm round her neck, and plunged at once into the heart of the subject. It was a still, dull afternoon of early winter, and nobody was by. “Carry,” she said, all at once⁠—“Carry, it is so long since we have said anything to each other! I wanted to ask you about⁠—Edward!” Upon this, for all answer, Carry fell a-crying, but after a while sobbed forth, “I will never give him up!”

“Give him up!” cried Edith, surprised. She had what her mother called a positive nature, much less romantic, much less sensitive, than her sister. The idea of giving up had never entered her mind. “Give him up!⁠—no, of course not. I never thought of such a thing; but I am afraid it will be harder than ever with papa.”

“Oh, Edith, it will be impossible,” Caroline said. And then the two sisters looked at each other⁠—the one astonished, indignant, full of resistance; the other pale, drooping, without vigour or hope.

“What does impossible mean?” said the younger, not with any affectation or grandiloquence; for probably she had never heard of any heroic utterance on the subject. “You mean very, very hard. So it will be. I have wanted to speak to you since ever we came here. I want to know what he says himself, and if papa has said anything, and what mamma thinks. We don’t seem to live together now,” she added, with a clouded countenance. “It’s always, ‘Oh, Lady Caroline has gone out,’ or, ‘Her ladyship is in the library with my lord.’ It seemed very nice at first, but I begin to hate ladyships and lordships with all my heart.”

“So do I,” said Caroline, with a sigh.

“If you marry a man without a title, couldn’t you give it up? Perhaps one wouldn’t like that either, now,” said the girl, candidly. “It was far, far nicer, far more natural, in the old days; but perhaps one wouldn’t like to go back.”

“I suppose not,” said Carry, drearily. She was not a beautiful girl, as in her romantic position she ought to have been. Her nose was too large; her complexion deficient; her eyes were grey, sweet, and thoughtful, but not brilliant or shining. Her figure had the willowy grace of youth, but nothing more imposing. She had a very sweet radiant smile when she was happy; this was the chief attraction of her face: but at present she was not happy, and her pale gentle countenance was not one to catch the general eye.

“But I hope you are going to make a stand, Carry,” said the energetic little Edith. “You won’t, surely⁠—you can’t be so lâche as to give in? I would not!⁠—not if it cost me my life!”

“Ah, if it was a question of one’s life! but no one wants your life,” said Carry, shaking her head. “No one will touch us, or lock us up, or any of these old-fashioned things. If they only would! The poets say ‘I could die for you,’ as if that was difficult! Oh no, it is far harder, far harder to live.”

“Carry! you have been thinking a great deal about it, then?”

“What else could I think about? Since the first moment papa looked at me that day⁠—you remember that day?⁠—I knew in a moment what he meant. He gave me just one glance. You know he never said that he would consent.”

Edith’s youthful countenance gathered a sympathetic cloud. “Papa has been so changed ever since,” she said.

“He never would allow that he had consented even before⁠—and while we were all poor, what did it matter? So long as he does not ask me to⁠—”

“To what?” Edith asked, with a wondering perception of the shudder which ran over her sister’s slight figure. “Are you cold, Car?”

“To⁠—marry someone else,” cried poor Caroline, with a heavy sigh⁠—so heavy that it was almost a groan.

Edith sprang to her feet with indignant vehemence. “That is not possible; nobody could be so cowardly, so cruel, as that,” she said, clasping her hands together. “Carry, you speak as if papa was a bad man; you slander him; it is not true, it is not true!”

“He would not think it cruel,” said Caroline, shaking her head sadly. “He would not mean any harm; he would say to himself that it was for my good.”

Her despondency quenched the passion and energy of the younger girl. Carry’s drooping head and heavy eyes were enough to damp even the liveliest courage. “Are you thinking of⁠—anyone in particular?” Edith said in hushed and tremulous tones.

Carry put out her hands as if to push some spectre away. “Oh, don’t ask me, don’t ask me; I don’t know; I can’t tell you,” she cried.

What could Edith say? she was appalled. The fresh inexperienced heart received a first lesson in the mysterious evils of life. She who had fretted and chafed so at the partial separation that had arisen between them, she was glad of a pretext to leave her sister. She could scarcely believe this to be possible, and yet so it was. Nor did she wish to run to her mother with her discovery, to appeal to her against Carry’s misconception, against the monstrous character of the suggestion altogether, as would have been her first impulse in any other case. No; she was convinced of the reality of it, little as she desired to be convinced. A gleam of painful light seemed to fall across the new tenor of their life. She thought for a moment that she saw the very earth, solid and unyielding, break into dangerous pits and chasms before her feet. The pain of this discovery was twofold⁠—both poignant, yet one worse than the other. To think that her father, whom she had hitherto loved and trusted, not with any excess of devotion, but yet with an honest confidence that he would ask nothing wrong, nothing unreasonable from his children, should thus threaten to become a domestic tyrant, an enemy of truth, was terrible; but still more terrible was the conviction which overwhelmed the girl that Carry, with all her imagination and feeling⁠—Carry, the poet of the family, the first one to have a romance and a lover⁠—would not have strength to resist any attempted coercion. Oh, if it had only been me! Edith said to herself, clenching her hands tight. But then she had no Edward, no romance⁠—she was fancy free: even were it possible to force her into any connection she disliked (which Edith did not think it would be), at all events she could not be made false to another. But Carry⁠—Carry, who was all heart⁠—to force her to deny that heart would be doubly cruel. Little Edith woke out of her careless youth to see this wonderful and great danger at her very side, with all that bewilderment of feeling which attends the first disclosure of the evils in life. She could not believe it, and yet she knew it was true. She remembered tones in her father’s voice, lights in his eyes, which she never seemed to have understood before. Was this what they meant? that when his time and opportunity came, he would be a tyrant, a remorseless and unfaltering ruler, suffering no rebellion? Edith trembled a little. Perhaps she, too, might fall under that despotism one day. But she did not feel afraid for herself. Oh, if it had only been me! she said, ungrammatical, as excitement generally is. It would be hard to say what ground she had for her self-confidence. Carry was the genius of the family, and little Edith only the youngest, the household pet, whom nobody regarded as in a position to make decisions or form opinions for herself. Why was it to her eyes that this sudden insight had been given? It is not usually a happy gift. Blessed are they, we may rather say, who can deceive themselves⁠—whose eyes are made blind, and not more fatally clear, by love. Edith hastened out of doors, out of sight or speech of anyone, to try if she could escape from this revelation which had opened upon her, so much against her will. It was a misty dull day, with a great deal of moisture in the air⁠—moisture which seemed to communicate itself to Edith’s eyes, and get into her throat. She hastened down the path which wound through the birches, the poetical “birks of Lindores,” to the river lying far below, and already sending a soft sound of running water to soothe her. About halfway down was a great beech-tree, round which a seat had been placed. Here there was a view, not of the wide champaign, like that at Dalrulzian, but of a portion of the highroad, just where it began to mount the hill towards the Castle. On the other side lay the river, visible at the foot of the bank, and running somewhat strong and wild under the cliffs on the opposite side, which threw it into deep shadow. But it was not the river, though so much the more beautiful of the two, it was the highroad which attracted Edith’s attention. As she stood looking out upon it, someone passed, riding slowly along, but turning his head to catch the first glimpse of the Castle. His appearance seemed to throw a sudden light upon her thoughts. He was a heavy, large man, upon a powerful black horse⁠—an apparition big enough to be identified, even at that distance. The ladies had all been very free in their remarks upon this representative of their county neighbours. They had not given him a very encouraging reception, yet he had repeated his visits, too stolid, they had thought, to perceive that he was not wanted. As Edith stood and gazed at him, with the blood curdling about her heart, it flashed upon her that her father had given no countenance to their criticisms. He had told them that Mr. Torrance was one of the richest commoners in Scotland, and Tinto such a house as anyone might be proud to possess. She had paid little attention to these words at the time, but they seemed to repeat themselves in the very air now. It was a day of revelation to Edith. She saw all that it meant, and foresaw all it was coming to, with a gleam of terrible insight. Oh no, no! she moaned to herself in a kind of helpless protest against fate.

V

Mr. Torrance of Tinto was the representative of an old county family, but he would not have been the richest commoner in Scotland if he had been no more than this. A variety of other circumstances, however, had combined to bring about this effect, and elevate a man who was no better, at the best that could be said for him, than a rude yeoman-sportsman at soul, into a person of the greatest local importance and almost national notability. The previous Torrance of Tinto, a man of some rough practical power, had allied himself to some degree in business, and to a much greater degree in life, with a great railway contractor⁠—one of the men who, coming from nothing, have made colossal fortunes, and found admittance for their children, if not for themselves, into the foremost ranks of society. Mr. Torrance married this man’s daughter, and all the money which the original navvy had quarried out of the bowels of the earth, or gathered from its surface, went to increase the lands and the power of Tinto, where this daughter, his only child, a woman with the magnificent ideas of expenditure which enormous wealth so naturally brings along with it, disposed herself to reign like a princess, making her husband’s old house the centre of a new palace, fit for a duke at least. The old man, her father, always thrifty and sparing in his own person, would have her stinted in nothing; and perhaps, had she lived long, her husband would have had little enough left him of the huge fortune which she had brought into the family. But fortunately (for the family), after she had alarmed him beyond measure by unbounded expenditure for a few years, and had completed the new house and filled it with costly furniture, in all of which her father encouraged her, the death of both within a year of each other relieved the owner of Tinto of his fears, and left him free to complete the training of his son as he pleased. He made him much such a man as he had himself been, but without the brains, which are not transmitted so easily as money. Patrick Torrance had indeed been sent to Oxford to have the regulation mark stamped upon him as an educated man: but those were days in which so much as this meant was easier than now; and it is not very hard even now, as may be seen. He came back more horsey, more doggy than he had been before, if possible⁠—a man without an intellectual taste or higher instinct, bored to death, as he himself avowed, with the grand house, full of pictures, and statues, and marble, and porcelain, which the taste of his mother had accumulated. Never was such a magnificent place in the quietude of such a homely country. The daughter of the railway man was as extreme in her taste for art as the daughter of one of her father’s navvies might have been in dress. There was not a wall, not a passage or staircase, that was not laden with decoration. Great artists had designed the chimneypieces and cornices. The velvet, the satin, the embroidery, were all the most costly, and, according to the lights of that period, the most correct that money could buy. The old man, whose money had bought all this, went about the gorgeous rooms rubbing his hands with a continual chuckle of satisfaction so long as he lived; and the poor woman who had created the luxurious house swept through in dresses to correspond, with satisfaction not less than if she had been a daughter of the Medici⁠—who, to be sure, made their money in business too. But when that fine Renaissance lady died, and all her friends were scattered, and the place fell back into the possession of the commonplace country laird and his boy, coming in ruddy from the fields or damp from the hill, afraid to tread in their shooting boots on the luxurious carpets or throw themselves down in the satin chairs, the incongruity of the establishment was manifest to every eye. Mr. Torrance, the father, had been deeply impressed by the cost of everything his wife had bought and planned. He had been horrified and indignant in the first instance; but when it had been proved that he had no power to resist, and that the money must be expended for all these luxuries, he had taken what satisfaction he could from the price. “Do you know what she gave for that?” he would say; “it’s all dash’d extravagance. I cannot away with it; but it was her doing, and as she had plenty, she had to please herself.” It was in this way that he spoke of his wife. And when she died, the splendid house she had built was shut up⁠—not from sentiment, but because the set of rooms still remaining, which belonged to the old house of Tinto, was much more in harmony with the habits of the master of the house.

Now that he too was dead, his son followed his example in preferring the old den of the race. But he had more appreciation of the dignity of owning a house such as no one in the country could “hold a candle” to. The fine decorations had not all stood the neglect of twenty years, but still there was enough of magnificence to overawe the district; and Patrick Torrance had enough of his mother’s blood in him to enjoy the consciousness of so much luxury and costliness. He lived in the old library, which was low and dingy, and looked out upon the dark bit of shrubbery behind the house and the road that led to the stables; but periodically he threw the grand empty rooms open, and had a great dinner-party or a ball, which excited all the gentry for miles round. It would be vain to say that there was not on these occasions more excitement than was natural solely in view of a great entertainment. While society is constituted as it is, it will not be possible that a great matrimonial prize, such as Mr. Patrick Torrance unquestionably was, should thus be shown, as open to public competition, without a certain excitement. If a great post worth thousands a-year could be won by the most attractive and brilliant appearance in a ballroom, what a flutter there would be among the golden youth of society! and the master of Tinto was more valuable than most of the very finest appointments. He was as good as a Viceroyship of India without the necessity of expatriation. Consequently it is not to be supposed that the young ladies of the neighbourhood could prepare for their appearance in these gilded if somewhat tarnished halls of his without a good deal of agitation, or that the mothers, or even the fathers of possible competitors, could escape some share of the same excitement. Some of the girls, let us do them the justice to say, were as much alarmed lest Pat Torrance, as he was called, should cast his big projecting eyes upon them, as others were anxious for that notice. He was not in himself much adapted to please a maiden’s eye. He was very dark, strongly bearded, with large eyes à fleur de tête and somewhat bloodshot. His friends maintained that he had “a good figure,” and it certainly was tall and strong. His voice was as large as his person, and somewhat hoarse⁠—a deep bass, which made a vibration in the air. He was an excellent shot, and hunted indefatigably, though it was beginning to be said, notwithstanding his youth, that Pat was too heavy for distinction in the hunting-field. With all these qualities he had an eye to his interest, rich though he was; and, though not clever, was said to be very fortunate in his investments, and to keep a careful hand over his money. Now and then he would be lavish, outdoing all that was known in these parts in the way of extravagance; but for the most part he lived as his father had done before him, in the old rooms of the old mansion-house of Tinto, where not a carpet or a curtain had been removed since the time of his grandfather. There was perhaps a touch of humour, somehow struck out by the contact of the two races, which made the contrast of these two manners of living pleasant to his fancy and to his rude and elementary pride; or perhaps it was mere instinct, and had no meaning in it at all⁠—the habits of the limited and uncultured countryman, diversified by that delight in an occasional “blow out,” which is the compensation of the navvy for his rude toils. There was no doubt that from the time of his father’s death, which occurred when he was about twenty-eight, Pat Torrance had made up his mind to marry. And he had inspected all the marriageable girls in the country with a serious intention which disgusted some and amused others, and filled a few with breathless hope. In the latter class were ladies of very different pretensions indeed, from Miss Webster of Thrums, who was the greatest rider in the country, and never wanting when anything was going on, down to the bold, handsome, black-eyed daughter of the landlord of the Bear at Dunearn, which was the inn Mr. Torrance used when he went into the county town. He was just as likely, people thought, to make such a match as any other; his style of courtship was more in harmony with a barroom than a drawing-room. This conviction made the balls at Tinto less exciting to the feminine community generally as time went on; but still there is never any telling what caprice may sway a sultan’s choice.

And alas! it is a fact that, whether by their own will or by that of their parents, Pat Torrance might have married almost any lady in the county. He was not himself to them, but such a cluster of worldly advantages as scarcely any mortal woman could resist. He was, as we have said, far beyond in value the best of the appointments for which they could not, and their brothers could try. He meant a fine position, a magnificent house, a great fortune. To be sure there was a drawback to this, which only a few acknowledged. When Mrs. Sempill pointed out to her daughter Agnes, whom he had honoured with some passing notice, that in case she married him she would have “everything that heart could desire⁠—at least everything that money could buy,”⁠—Agnes, who was a clever girl, put forth a condition. “I should have just as much as Pat Torrance thought proper of the things that money can buy,” the young woman said, with sudden insight. I am afraid, however, that Agnes Sempill would have married him all the same, her family being so poor, if he had put himself at her disposal. But he did not, and she was glad. Indeed he made himself of all the greater importance in the county that he came to no decision, but went on giving his balls three or four times a-year, and examining with a critical eye every girl who appeared on the horizon, every new débutante. And he was asked everywhere in those days. His importance was fully recognised.

This was the condition in which things were when the new family came to the Castle. Mr. Torrance was one of the first callers, partly because his pride as at once the head of an old family and the richest man in the county made him eager to assert his position with the new Earl as a leader of the local society⁠—a position which not even the chances their daughters might have of sharing it would have prevailed on the other county magnates to permit him⁠—and partly because of the new candidates for his favour who were to be found in the family of Lindores. Notwithstanding the prevalent idea that Bessie Runciman at the Black Bear in Dunearn had just as good a chance for the prize as any competitor, nothing could be further from the fact or the intentions of the hero. His determination all along had been to procure himself a wife who should be in harmony, not so much with himself as with the grandeur of his house and what he believed to be his position; and the hunting lady and the publican’s daughter had been equally out of the question. For himself, he might have liked either of them well enough; but as a matter of fact, it was not too much refinement, but not refinement enough, which this rude squire found among his country neighbours. None of them was fine enough for Tinto. He wanted somebody who would be at home in the grand rooms overloaded with decoration⁠—who would be, if possible, superior to the killing splendour which made himself feel so small. And no woman yet had impressed Pat as sufficiently magnificent for this purpose. He wanted someone more imposing⁠—a lady of Tinto who might, as he desired in his heart, receive the Prince of Wales on occasion, or even the Queen herself. When he paid his first visit to Lindores, the Earl alone received him, and he had no chance of inspecting the daughters of the house; but he had met them as he rode home again, coming back from their drive in the little pony-carriage, of which they had just become possessed. Edith, new to all these delights, was driving her sister; and her bright little face, full of life and smiles, turned curiously upon him as he stood aside on his big black horse to let them pass. But that was not what caught his eye. Beside her was a pale and gentle countenance, unlike anything which had hitherto been presented to his notice. Pat’s heart, if he had a heart, or the big pulse that did service for it, gave a bound as he looked. It seemed to him at the first glance that this new face was more aristocratic, more distinguished, for not being pretty. The lilies and roses of the other were familiar to him. Bright eyes and fine complexions were by no means rare in the county. They were to be found everywhere, in the cottages as well as in the castles. He was not impressed by them. The smiles and animation were common things; but Lady Caroline with her gentle paleness, her slim form pliant and bending⁠—even her nose, which was a little too long, was the impersonation of refinement and rank, and fine superiority. His imagination, if he had an imagination, took fire. He thought he could see her moving about with languid grace through his fine salons, far more fine than they, lending them an air of delicacy and importance which they had never possessed before. He felt himself to be “struck” by Lady Caroline as he never had been “struck” till now. That was rank, he said to himself admiringly. To be sure, rank was what he had wanted; he had never realised it before, but now he perceived it as plain as daylight. He had been wiser than he was aware of in his fastidiousness; and now he saw suddenly presented before him the very object of which he had been in search. Lady Caroline Torrance!⁠—that was what it was.

This chance meeting, and the instant conviction that followed, had taken place some time before the interview between the sisters which we have described. How it was that the suitor communicated his wishes to the Earl, or the Earl to poor Carry, it is impossible to tell⁠—or if, indeed, up to this time, any communication had been made on the subject. Most likely there had been no communication; but the proposal, which turned the light into darkness for Carry, was in the air, overshadowing everything. Her father saw it in the dark face of Pat Torrance, and she surmised it in her father’s eyes. Before a word had been said she knew her fate, struggling dumbly against it like a creature fascinated and magnetised in the grip of a monster, but without any possibility or hope of escape. There was something more terrible in this silent certainty than there would have been in any conflict. She felt herself sucked in as to a whirlpool, overpowered⁠—all her forces taken from her in the giddy rush with which the days and hours were carrying her on, irresistible, to that climax. It was this fatal consciousness which made her cry out, “I will never give him up;” which was the cry, not of resolution, but of despair. All that she could do in her sick and failing soul was to grasp at and cling to the weeds on the bank, while the current carried her wildly on, plucking them out of her hands. Edith, who was of so different a nature, stood by appalled, astonished, not knowing how to account for her sister’s helplessness. She was positive, as her mother said, not visionary, incapable either of divining what was going to happen or of yielding to it. Why Carry could not simply make up her mind to refuse, to stand fast, to resist whatever powers might be brought to bear upon her, was a thing which Edith could not understand.

And stranger still, Lady Lindores had not even found it out. She disliked Mr. Torrance, and made no secret of her dislike. “If that is your type of a Scotch laird, I cannot say I like the species,” she said, eliciting a soft, “Oh, mamma!” from Edith, who remembered very well a statement of an entirely contrary character which her mother had once made. “If young Erskine is a type of a young Scotch laird, I am disposed to fall in love with the class,” was what Lady Lindores had then said. Edith remembered it distinctly, but gave her tongue a little malicious bite, and would not recall it to her mother’s mind; for was not young Erskine coming back? But Lady Lindores’s feeling about Torrance was more than passive. She took care to let him see that he was not a favourite in the house. She wondered audibly, even after the eyes of Edith had been opened, what that odious man wanted here; and indeed did all but refuse to ask him to a dîner intime, at which her husband desired his presence. “Torrance of Tinto,” she cried, with a cloud on her face; “why Torrance of Tinto? He has already dined here. Why should we have him again?”

“Why not?” said the Earl, with a still deeper shadow on his face. Lady Lindores saw very clearly when her attention was aroused; but she was a high-minded woman, slow to be awakened to suspicion, and scorning to think evil. It seemed to her an evidence of a poor nature to suppose anyone else capable of an act you would not have done yourself.

“Why not? I think that jumps at the eyes,” she said. It was Lady Lindores’s weakness to employ idioms which, being translated idioms, sounded very strange to ordinary ears. This was so far comprehensible because she had lived abroad the greater part of her life, and she thought the polyglot chatter which is so common, especially among the English abroad, vulgar; so she translated her French, and thought it less objectionable. “That jumps at the eyes,” she said; “he is not a friend of the house⁠—only a recent acquaintance⁠—and he has dined here already. Why have him again? He is not an attractive person. You cannot care for him, Robert; and he is no favourite with the girls.”

“The girls must learn to receive the people I approve of,” said the Earl, “or we shall quarrel. You must make them aware of that.”

“Quarrel! for the sake of Mr. Torrance! That is carrying clanship a great way.”

“There is no clanship in it. You ought to know better, my dear. Your English fallacies are quite out of place here. If I had a clan (which I have not⁠—we are purely Norman, not Celtic at all), Pat Torrance could have had as little to do with it as John Smith.”

“My dear Robert,” said Lady Lindores, for she had not learned to address her husband by his title, “you take it very seriously. I meant your kindness for your own people. But for a kind prejudice, which I admire and respect, for your old neighbours, you never would put up with a being like this Tinto, as they call him⁠—a rich foxhunter, with the mind of a ploughman.”

“You will oblige me, Mary,” said her husband, coldly, “by restraining your opinion⁠—at all events until you have a better right to express it. What do you know of Pat Torrance? I should very much prefer that you did not commit yourself on the subject. You might regret it after.”

“Commit myself!⁠—regret it!” Lady Lindores gazed at her husband with consternation. She had absolutely no guide to what he could mean; but as he stood to his point and would not yield, and as one must certainly yield when such a question arises, she found herself unwillingly obliged to give in. She was behind her children in comprehension, strange as it seems to say so. Lady Lindores had not been unfavourable to Beaufort’s claims when first he made his suit to Carry; but she had been perhaps a little disappointed in him as the years passed on. He had not shown the energy, the determination, which a man in such circumstances ought to show. He had made no passionate effort to obtain his bride, such as Carry’s mother felt her child was worth. And it was a long time now since Lady Lindores had taken any notice of the lingering engagement which her husband had never positively sanctioned, but which had lingered on for a year or two, coming to nothing. She had thought it best not to interfere. Perhaps Mr. Beaufort might think it his duty to release Carry, now that her position was so much changed. The mother did not feel that she could ask him to do so; but if anything had happened to the tardy lover⁠—had he been ill, or died, or proved fickle, she would have felt that Providence was interfering on their behalf. In the meantime, she thought it the best policy to say nothing about it. And it was this reticence which she intended for wisdom, which prevented any explanation between them, and kept her ignorant of what even Edith knew. It did not occur to her to connect her child, so delicate and refined, with the rough and coarse squire, whom she could not tolerate. How her husband could put up with him Lady Lindores could not conceive. He certainly meant something by it, she thought; but what did he mean? Was it some scheme of tactics in respect to the next election? which already, she knew, gave Lord Lindores great concern. Perhaps the Earl, who had a devouring ambition, now that he found an opening for it, thought it well to have the richest man in the county under his influence. This was all that she had yet divined. “Your father insists upon having that Mr. Torrance,” she said to the girls. “What he can see in him, I cannot imagine. But that does not look at us. We are not called upon to make martyrs of ourselves for papa’s political friends.”

Carry looked up eagerly as her mother spoke. “Political!” she said, with a quiver of hopeful eagerness in her voice. “Is that the reason?” This eager tone and broken question would have made Lady Lindores wonder had she not been full of the subject from her own point of view.

“What else?” she said. “You cannot suppose a man like your father can find anything else in Mr. Torrance to attract him. Politics are very entrancing, but, like necessity, they bring you acquainted with strange bedfellows. Papa thinks, no doubt, that he ought to turn his influence to account.”

“Oh, if that is the reason!” said Carry, clasping her hands together, with something like an ecstasy of prayer and thankfulness in her face. Lady Lindores, though she thought the emotion excessive⁠—but then Carry was always visionary⁠—understood that her daughter’s delicate soul had been wounded by her father’s regard for so unattractive a person. She patted her child upon the cheek tenderly.

“You must not consider yourself responsible for all the things we do in the prosecution of our several parts,” she said. “I feel, for my own part, that I take a great deal too much notice of old Gardener. I am getting much too fond of him. This is more innocent, I allow, than your father’s fancy for Mr. Torrance; for I don’t insist on asking old Gardener to dinner.”

“That I never should object to!” cried Carry, kissing her mother with sudden enthusiasm. She was cheered beyond measure by the comparison, and by Lady Lindores’s absolute ignorance of any other pretension on the part of Torrance. Perhaps she had been deceiving herself, and attributing to her father intentions that had never entered his mind. Carry was too thankful to think that this might be how it was. But Edith, the clear-sighted, avoided her sister’s eye. She made no comment on what her mother said. Edith felt that, however others might be deceived, she knew.

VI

Alas! it was not very long before everybody knew. The demeanour of Pat Torrance at the dinner, to which Lady Lindores had been so reluctant to ask him, gave much occasion for thought to the other guests who knew the man and his ways. These said to each other that Pat had put his foot in it at last⁠—that he had made his choice, and thrown his handkerchief at almost the only woman in the county, who was not sure to respond to it. Nothing could have been colder or more repellent than Lady Caroline was to this great matrimonial prize⁠—the idol whom they all bowed down to, though some with minds which rebelled against the rude and ungodlike divinity. Among these interested lookers-on were some who rejoiced to see that he was likely to be made “to see his place” and submit to the humiliation of refusal; and some who, conscious that in their own families there were worshippers who would not have refused to bow down, were angry with poor Carry for “setting up” to be so much better than her neighbours. The most sagacious of these, however, reserved their judgment. There was something in the demonstration with which the Earl brought Pat forward and patted him on the back⁠—something, too, of pain in poor Lady Carry’s mild eyes, which made these more profound observers pause. The Lindores were poor. There were two daughters to provide for; and it was not a matter to be settled so easily, or which the parents would allow to turn entirely on a young girl’s fancy. And then she was not even pretty, and she had got into the twenties⁠—not a mere girl, with all the world before her. The wise would not give any opinion on the subject. They shook their heads and refused to commit themselves. But this was exactly what Pat Torrance did. He was so satisfied that here at last he had got everything he wanted, that he displayed his decision in Carry’s favour from the first day. He made a spectacle of himself to the whole county, looking on with the keenest attention; and oh, how pleased society would have been in the district had he been once for all made an example of, made a fool of, as they said⁠—held up to public scorn and ridicule as a rejected suitor! As the wooing went on, the desire for such a consummation⁠—the anticipation of it⁠—grew daily in intensity; and it was not very long doubtful. One of the usual great balls was given at Tinto, which was specially in honour of the newcomers, and took place as soon as they were out of their mourning. It was evidently a crisis in the life of the master of the house, and to the greater part of the guests all the interest of a highly exciting drama was mingled with the milder impulses of amusement. Lady Caroline, everybody said, had never looked less well. She was very pale;⁠—it was even said that freckles, caused by her sinful exposure of her face to all the elements during the summer, diminished the sheen of her ordinarily white forehead⁠—her nose was longer than ever. But all this only increased, to her admirer, the charm of her presence. She was independent of beauty. Though she was very simply dressed⁠—too simply for a lady of rank⁠—yet the air with which she moved about these fine rooms was (Pat thought) such as no one else who had ever been there had possessed. She was superior to them, as she was superior to the lilies and the roses, the wreathed smiles and shining eyes of the other girls. He followed her about with demonstrations of devotion which no one could mistake. He would have danced with nobody but her, in the most marked abandonment of all his duties as host, would she have permitted him. Even when he danced with others his eyes followed her, and the only talk he vouchsafed to his partners was about Lady Car, as he called her, with offensive familiarity and a sort of intoxication. As for poor Lady Caroline herself, it was apparent to everyone that she retreated continually into out-of-the-way corners⁠—hiding herself behind the old maids and dowagers, who were never left out of such gatherings, and liked to come and look on and criticise the girls, and tell how things had been done in their day. Several of these old ladies, distressed to see a girl not dancing, had betrayed poor Carry’s hiding-place by their kind efforts to get her a partner; and the result had been two or three times that she was thus delivered over into the very clutches of the wolf.

“Mr. Patrick,” one of those kind ladies said, rising from her seat and taking hold of his arm as he prowled about, wondering where Carry could have disappeared to, “do you no think it’s discreditable to the county that a young leddy newly come among us, and a person of rank⁠—and, what is better, a sweet young creature⁠—should be left sitting down the whole night and get no dancing?”

It was on this occasion that Miss Barbara Erskine won the heart of the persecuted girl. She said to her in a strong whisper which went through Carry’s ear like a⁠—skewer (the simile is undignified, but suits the fact)⁠—“My dear, there’s that eediot, Jean Sempill, drawing attention to you. If you want to get out of the way, slip away behind me; there’s a door there that leads into the corridor, and so you can get back to your mother. Stay by your mother⁠—that’s your safest way.” Thus Carry was delivered for the moment. But, alas! her mother could not protect her effectually. When Pat Torrance came boldly up with his dark face glowing, and his projecting eyes ready, as a spectator remarked, to jump out of his head, and said, “This is our dance,” what could anyone do for her? Lady Lindores had become alarmed, not knowing what to make of Carry’s agitation; but even a mother in these circumstances can do so little. “I am afraid she is tired, Mr. Torrance,” Lady Lindores said; but Carry’s arm was already in his. She had not presence of mind even to take the advantage of such an excuse.

When he brought her back, however, to her mother’s side, nobody could have helped seeing that something had happened. Poor Carry was as white as her dress: she seemed scarcely able to hold herself upright, and sank down by her mother’s side as if she neither saw nor heard anything that was going on round her. On the other hand, Pat Torrance was crimson, his eyes were rolling in his head. He said almost roughly⁠—“You were right, Lady Lindores. Lady Car is tired; but I make no doubt she will be herself again tomorrow.” It was a curious speech to make, and there was a tone of threatening and anger in his somewhat elevated voice which roused the liveliest displeasure in the mind of Lady Lindores; but he was gone before she could say anything. “What is the matter?” she said, taking her daughter’s hand. “Rouse yourself, Carry; everybody is staring. What has happened?” “Oh, nothing, nothing! Oh, mamma, let us go home,” the poor girl cried. Her lips, her very eyelids, trembled. She looked as if she were about to faint. Lady Lindores was glad to see her husband approaching; but he too had a threatening and stern look. She called him to her, and begged him to ask for the carriage. “Carry is quite ill,” she said. “If you will stay with Edith, I can send it back for you;⁠—but poor Car has looked like a ghost all night.” “She has looked much more like a fool⁠—as she is,” said her father, between his set teeth; but at last he consented that she should be taken home, seeing the state of collapse in which she was. He took her downstairs, supporting her on his arm, which was necessary, as she could scarcely walk; but when they skirted the dance, in which the master of the house was performing, talking loudly and laughing with forced merriment all the time the Earl, though he was a well-bred man, could not help giving his daughter’s arm a sharp pressure, which hurt her. “I might have known you would behave like a fool,” he said in a low undertone, which nobody but Carry could hear. She wavered for a moment, like a young tree in the wind, but clung to him and hurried past replying nothing. Lady Lindores following, formed her own conclusions, though she did not hear what her husband said. She took her child into her arms when they were safe in the carriage, rolling along the dark roads in the dimness of the summer night, and Carry cried and sobbed on her mother’s breast. “I understand that you have refused him,” Lady Lindores said. “But what then? Why should you be so wretched about it, Carry? It is a kind of vanity to be so sorry for the man. You may be sure Mr. Torrance will get over it, my love.”

Then Carry managed to stammer forth the real source of her terror. She was not thinking of Mr. Torrance, but of papa. What would he say to her? would he ever forgive her? And then it was Lady Lindores’s turn to be amazed. “My darling, you must compose yourself,” she said; “this is greater nonsense than the other. Papa! What can it matter to your father? He will never force your inclinations; and how can this coarse bumpkin interest such a man as he is?” She became almost angry at the sight of Carry’s tears. “Allow me to know your father a little better than you do,” she cried. “Mr. Torrance! who is Mr. Torrance? I can’t believe that he would favour such a suitor for a moment. But supposing that he did so⁠—supposing he thought, as people are apt to do, that money covers a multitude of sins⁠—your father is not a worldly-minded man, Carry; he is ambitious, but not for money⁠—supposing just for the sake of argument⁠—Anyhow, my dear, that could only be if the man happened to please you in his own person. We might like the match better because the pretender was rich, nothing more. Can you really think that papa would be a tyrant to you⁠—that he would compel you to marry anyone? Carry, my love, you have got an attack of the nerves; it is your good sense that has given way.”

Carry wept abundantly while her mother thus talked to her, and the agitation which she had so long shut up in her heart calmed down. Every word Lady Lindores said was perfectly reasonable, and to have represented her kind father to herself as a domestic tyrant was monstrous, she felt; but yet⁠—she could not tell her mother all the trifling circumstances, the tones, the looks which had forced that conviction upon her. But she was willing, very willing, to allow herself to be persuaded that it was all a mistake, and to accept the gentle reproof and banter with which Lady Lindores soothed her excitement. “To refuse a man is always disagreeable,” she said, philosophically, “especially as one must always feel one is to blame in letting him come the length of a proposal, and self-esteem whispers that he will find it hard to console himself. No, my Carry, no; don’t distress yourself too much. I don’t want to be cynical; but men of Mr. Torrance’s type soon console themselves. Men have died and worms have eaten them, but not for love.”

“It is not that, it is not that,” Carry protested among her tears.

But her mother would hear of nothing more alarming. “It is a wrong to your father to think he would take up the cause of such a man,” she said, indignantly; “and I should have been horribly disappointed in you, Carry, if you had thought of him for a moment.” Carry was so soothed, so comforted, so almost happy in her trouble, that the inmost doors of her heart opened to her mother. “Whatever he had been, oh, mother, do you think I could forget Edward?” she said. His name had not been mentioned between them for months before.

“Edward,” said Lady Lindores, shaking her head; and then she kissed the pleading expectant face, which she could only feel, not see. “He should have showed more energy, Carry. Had he been worthy of you, he would not have left this question unsettled till now.”

“What could he do?” cried Carry, roused out of her prostration; “he could not invent business for himself.” Again Lady Lindores shook her head; but by this time they had reached their own door, and in the fervour of her defence and championship of her lover, Carry got out of the carriage a very different creature from the prostrate and fainting girl who had been put into it at Tinto. She went with her mother to her room, feverish and anxious to plead the cause of Edward. Lady Lindores was a romantic woman, who believed in love, and had taught her children to do the same. But she was disappointed that her daughter’s lover had not been inspired by his love; that he had not found success, and secured his own cause beyond the power of evil fortune. Arguing against this adverse opinion, and defending Edward on every question, Carry recovered her courage and her composure. She felt able to fight for him to her last gasp when she left her mother, shaking her head still, but always well disposed to every generous plea; for the moment she had forgotten all the nearer dangers which had seemed so terrible to her an hour before.

Lady Lindores sat up in her dressing-gown till her husband and Edith came back. He was very gloomy, she excited and breathless, with a feverish sparkle in her eyes, which her mother noticed for the first time. She wondered if little Edith was in the secret too⁠—that secret which she had herself scarcely thought of till tonight; and her husband’s aspect filled her with strange anxieties. Was it possible that she, who had known them so long, her husband for all the most important time of his life, her child since her first breath, should have discoveries to make in them now? The thought was painful to her, and she tried to dismiss it from her mind. “Carry is better,” she said, with an attempt to treat the subject lightly. “It was the glare of these rooms, I suppose. They are very handsome, but there was too much heat and too much light.”

“I hope it is the last time we shall have any such scenes from Carry,” said the Earl. “You ought to speak to her very seriously. She has been behaving like a fool.”

“Dear Robert,” said Lady Lindores, “it is trying to a girl of any feeling to have a proposal made to her in a ballroom, and I daresay Mr. Torrance was rude and pressing. It is exactly what I should have expected of him.”

“Since when,” said the Earl, sternly, “have you studied Mr. Torrance so closely as to divine what may be expected of him?”

“Robert! I have not studied him at all, nor do I attempt to divine. Carry’s agitation, her fright, her panic, if I may call it so⁠—”

“Were simply ridiculous, ridiculous!” cried Lord Lindores. “I always thought her sentimental, but I never suspected her to be a fool.”

“Carry is no fool,” cried her mother, indignantly; “you know very well she has both spirit and sense, and more than sense. She is not a common girl. She ought not to be treated as one. And this man, this foxhunter, this vulgar laird⁠—”

“As he will probably be your son-in-law, you will do well to avoid epithets,” Lord Lindores said.

“My son-in-law!” said his wife, in a suppressed shriek. “But Carry has refused him,” she added, with relief.

“Tonight⁠—being flurried, and not knowing her own mind; but she will know better tomorrow.”

“Robert! for heaven’s sake, when she has been so distressed by this most hateful proposal, you surely will not suffer it to be repeated!”

“Why should it be a hateful proposal?” he said.

“Why?” Lady Lindores did not know how to answer; if he did not see it, if it did not jump at his eyes, as she said to herself, what explanation would make it clearer? She tried to smile and approach him on another side. “Dear Robert,” she said, tremulously⁠—“to think of you taking the part of such a man! He must have some fine qualities, I am sure, or you never could have endured the outside of him, or his manners, or his talk. He is so unlike you, so unlike anything the girls have ever been taught to care for.” If this was flattery, surely it may be forgiven to the anxious mother. She was anxious too, as a wife, that her husband should not come down from the pedestal on which it had been her pride to keep him for so many years.

“That is all very well,” he said, impatiently; “but I never set myself up as a model of what my children were to like. Yes; he has fine qualities, golden qualities. Do you know that he is the richest commoner in Scotland, Lady Lindores?”

“I know,” she said, with quick offence, the tears starting suddenly to her eyes, “that my name is Mary, and that I hate this wretched title, which I shall never get used to, and never tolerate if my husband calls me by it. We are all, all, put asunder, all changed, and finding each other out since we came here.”

This little outburst was partly real and partly a half-conscious art to find an outlet for her excitement. Her husband was more touched by it than if it had been more serious. The complaint was fantastic, yet it was one which love might be excused for making. “My love,” he said, “of course I meant nothing unkind. There have been times when I called you Mrs. Lindores in jest, as I did just now. But, seriously, you must see what I am thinking of⁠—you must give me your support. We are poor. If Rintoul is to take the position to which he is entitled after me⁠—”

“You mean Robin? I tell you I hate those new names!” she cried.

“This is foolish, Mary. If he is to enter upon life when his time comes weighted with a heavy provision for his sisters⁠—consider; there is poor Jane. She is quite young; she may outlive us all: and if I were to die, there would be two jointures besides Car and Edith.”

“Let me be struck off the list,” cried Lady Lindores. “I will never be a burden on my son. Robert, God forgive you; for a distant evil like this, would you bring that man into our family, and force an unwilling marriage on your child? But no, no; I am doing you wrong; your thoughts have never gone so far.”

The Earl made no reply. His face was like a thundercloud, lowering and heavy⁠—a darkness from which, at any moment, fire and flame might burst forth.

“No, no,” said the mother. “I understand what you have thought. I did so once myself when⁠—you remember⁠—young Ashestiel came in our way. I thought if they would but take to each other; if they would only see what a natural harmony they would make! Yes, yes, I remember, I was provoked beyond measure that they would not see it; and when he went away, I did not know how to contain myself. I was angry with my innocent Carry for not caring. I understand you, Robert. If by any chance her fancy had been taken by this young millionaire; but dear, how could it? You would yourself have thought less of Carry had she liked such a man. Acknowledge: he is not much better than a boor⁠—with, perhaps, a boor’s virtues.”

She looked up when she had got so far, and stopped in sheer amazement at the sight of her husband’s face. She had never seen any indication before of what she now found in it. Rage with difficulty smothered; a determined intention to follow his own way; an uneasy shame turning to bitterness and passion. His voice was quite hoarse with the effort to contain himself. “I thought,” he said, “that at least you were not one of the silly women who speak of things they don’t understand. But I was mistaken. You will rather encourage a foolish girl in a piece of unworthy romance, than show her her duty⁠—her duty! But neither you nor she, by ⸻ shall hold me up to ridicule! She shall take this husband I choose for her, or by ⸻” Here he became aware how much he was committing himself. He stopped, gazed at her defiantly for a moment, then began to pace up and down the room in great confusion. “The short and the long of it is,” he said, “that I can’t suffer Carry, for a girlish prejudice, to throw away such a position. He might be the first man in the county,” Lord Lindores said. “He has twice as much as we have, and no title to keep up; no encumbrance of any kind. She might be a sort of princess. I cannot allow all this to be thrown away for a mere fancy. If she does not like him, she must learn to like him. What would she have? He is not a petit-maître, certainly; but he is a man, every inch of him⁠—his family good, his health good, a magnificent house; what could any woman want more? She will have everything that heart can desire.”

Lady Lindores made no immediate reply. All this was so new to her⁠—a revelation of things unthought of. It took away her breath; it took away her courage. Is there any shock, any pang that life can give, equal to that of suddenly perceiving a touch of baseness, a failure of honour, a lower level of moral feeling, in those who are most dear to us? This is what shatters heaven and earth, and shakes the pillars of existence to the beholder. It filled this woman with a sudden despair impossible to describe. She tried to speak, and her very voice failed her. What was the use of saying anything? If he thought thus, could anything that was said affect him? Despair made her incapable of effort. She was like Hamlet, paralysed. At the end she managed to falter forth a word of protestation. “There are some,” she said, faintly, “who are content with so much less, Robert⁠—and yet how much more!⁠—you and I among the rest.”

“A woman always answers with a personal example,” he said.

And Lady Lindores was dumb. She did not know what to say to the new man who stood beside her, in the familiar aspect of her husband, expressing sentiments which never before had come from the lips of Robert Lindores. He had been self-indulgent in the old days⁠—perhaps a little selfish⁠—accepting sacrifices which it was not right for him to accept. But there had been a hundred excuses for him; and she and the girls had always been so ready, so eager, to make those sacrifices. It had been the pleasure of their lives to make his as smooth, as graceful, as pleasant as possible. There was no question of anything of this kind now. He who had been dependent on their ministrations for half the comfort of his life, was now quite independent of them, the master of everybody’s fate⁠—judging for them, deciding for them, crushing their private wishes. Lady Lindores was confused beyond measure by this discovery. She put her hand to her head unconsciously, as if it must be that which was wrong. A vague hope that things might not look so terrible in the morning came into her mind. It was very late, and they were all tired and worn with the agitation of the evening. “I think I am not in a condition to understand tonight,” she said, drearily. “It will be better, perhaps, to put off till tomorrow.”

“It is a pity you sat up,” he said coldly; and thus the strange conference ended. It was already morning, the blue light stealing in through the closed shutters. Things, as well as faces, look ghastly in this unaccustomed light. Lady Lindores drew the curtains closer to shut it out, and lay down with her head aching, turning her face to the wall. There are circumstances in which the light of heaven is terrible; and darkness, darkness, oblivion of itself, the only things the soul cares for. But though you can shut out the light, you cannot shut out thought. There was not much rest that night in Lindores. The Earl himself had a consciousness of the strange discovery of him which his wife had made; and though he was defiant and determined to subdue all opposition, yet he was hurt and angry all the same that his Mary should think less well of him. He seemed to himself of late to have done a great deal for her and her children. No idea of the elevation she had now reached had been in her mind when they married. There were three brothers then between him and the title, besides the children of the elder. And now that things had so come about, as that Mary was actually Countess of Lindores, he could not but feel that he had done a great deal for her. Yet she was not grateful. She looked at him with those scrutinising, alarmed eyes. She turned away from him with painful wonder; with⁠—there was no doubt of it⁠—disapproval. And yet all he wanted was the advancement of the family⁠—the real good of his daughter. Who could doubt what his motive was? or that it was for Carry’s good to have a noble establishment, a fortune that a princess might envy? Could there be any comparison between that and the marriage with a poor barrister, upon which, in her first folly, she had set her heart? It was unreasonable beyond measure, ungrateful, that his quite legitimate determination, judging for the real advantage of his daughter, should be thus looked upon by Lady Lindores.

But it would be vain to attempt to describe the struggle that followed: that domestic tragedy would have to be told at length if told at all, and it included various tragedies; not only the subjugation of poor Carry, the profanation of her life, and cruel rending of her heart, but such a gradual enlightening and clearing away of all the lovely prejudices and prepossessions of affection from the eyes of Lady Lindores, as was almost as cruel. The end of it was, that one of these poor women, broken in heart and spirit, forced into a marriage she hated, and feeling herself outraged and degraded, began her life in bitterness and misery with a pretence of splendour and success and good fortune which made the real state of affairs still more deplorable; and the other, feeling all the beauty of her life gone from her, her eyes disenchanted, a pitiless cold daylight revealing every angle once hid by the glamour of love and tender fancy, began a sort of second existence alone. If Torrance had been determined before to have Lady Caroline for his wife, he was far more determined after she had put his pride to the humiliation of a refusal, and roused all the savage in him. From the night of the ball until the moment of the wedding, he never slackened in his pursuit of the shrinking unhappy girl, who, on her side, had betrayed her weakness to her sister on the first mention of the hateful suitor. Edith was disenchanted too, as well as her mother. She comprehended none of them. “I would not do it,” she said simply, when the struggle was at its bitterest; “why do you do it?” Rintoul, for his part, when he appeared upon the scene, repeated Edith’s positivism in a different way. “I think my father is quite right,” he said. “What could Carry look for? She is not pretty; she is twenty-four. You ought to take these things into consideration, mother. She has lost her chance of any of the prizes; and when you have here the very thing, a man rolling in money⁠—and not a tradesman either, which many girls have to put up with⁠—it is such a chance as not one in a thousand ever gets. I think Car ought to be very grateful to papa.” Lady Lindores listened with a gasp⁠—Robin too! But she did not call him Robin for a long time after that day. He was Rintoul to her as to the rest of the world, his father’s heir, very clearly alive to the advantage of having, when his time came, no provision for his sister hanging like a millstone round his neck. His sympathy and approval were delightful to his father. “Women are such queer cattle, you never know how to take them,” the experienced young man said. A man is not in a crack regiment for nothing. He had more knowledge of the world than his father had. “I should have thought my mother would have been delighted to settle Carry so near home.”

Thus it was a very strange divided house upon the eve of this marriage. To add to the confusion, there was great squabbling over the settlements, which Pat Torrance, eager though he was to secure the bride, whom his pride and self-will, as well as what he believed to be his love, had determined to have at all costs, was by no means so liberal about as the Earl thought necessary. He fought this out step by step, even venturing to hint, like the brute he was, that it was no beauty or belle whom he was marrying, and cutting down the requirements of her side in the most businesslike way. Lady Lindores had been entirely silenced, and looked after the indispensable matters of her daughter’s trousseau without a trace of the usual cheerful bustle attending wedding preparations; while Carry seemed to live in a dream, sometimes rousing up to make an appeal to her father’s pity, but mostly in a sort of passive state, too heartbroken to be excited about anything. Edith, young and curious, moved about in the midst of it all in the activity of her independence, as yet touched by none of these things. She was a sort of rebellion impersonated, scarcely comprehending the submission of the others. While Carry wept she stood looking on, her face flushed, her eyes brilliant. “I would not do it,” she said. These words were constantly on her lips.

“How could you help doing it?” poor Carry cried, turning upon her in the extremity of her despair. “Oh, have a little pity upon me, Edie! What can I do? I would sooner die. If there is anything you can think of⁠—anything! But it is all past hope now. Papa will not even listen to me. Rintoul tells me I am a fool. He⁠—” but here Carry’s voice was broken with a shudder. She could not speak of her bridegroom but with a contraction of her heart.

“I don’t know what I should do, but I should not do this,” said Edith, surveying her sister from the height of untried resolution. “Nobody can force you to say Yes instead of No; nobody can make you do a thing you are determined not to do. Why do you do it? you can’t want not to do it at the very bottom of your heart.”

Carry gave her a look of anguish which brought the girl to her knees in compunction and remorse. “Oh, forgive me, Car! but why, why do you do it?” she cried. Lady Lindores had come softly in to give her child her good night kiss. It was within a few days of the wedding. She stood and looked at the group with tears in her eyes⁠—one girl lying back white, worn, and helpless in her chair; the other, at her feet, glowing with courage and life.

“Speak to her, mamma,” cried Edith, “as long as there is any hope.”

“What can I say?” said the mother; “everything has gone too far now. It would be a public scandal. I have said all that I could. Do not make my poor child more unhappy. Carry, my darling, you will do your duty whatever happens: and everything becomes easier when it is duty⁠—”

“But how is it duty?” said rebellious Edith. “I would not do it!” she cried, stamping her foot on the floor.

“Edith, Edith! do not torture your sister. It is easy to say such things, but how are you to do them? God knows, I would not mind what I did if it was only me. I would fly away with her somewhere⁠—escape from them all. But what would happen? Our family would be rent asunder. Your father and I”⁠—Lady Lindores’s voice quivered a little⁠—“who have been always so united, would part forever. Our family quarrels would be discussed in public. You, Edith⁠—what would become of you? Your prospects would all be ruined. Carry herself would be torn to pieces by the gossips. They would say there must be some reason. God knows, I would not hesitate at any sacrifice.”

“Mamma, do not say anything more; it is all over. I know there is nothing to be done,” said Carry, faintly. As for Edith, she could not keep still; her whole frame was tingling. She clenched her small fists, and dashed them into the air.

“I would not do it! I would just refuse, refuse! I would not do it! Why should you do it?” she cried.

But between these two there was no talking. The younger sister flew to her own room, impelled by her sense of the intolerable, unable to keep still. She met her brother by the way, and clutched him by the arm, and drew him with her within her own door. “I would not do it, if I were Carry,” she said, breathless. “You might drag me to church, if you liked, but even there I would not consent. Why, why does she do it?” Edith cried.

“Because,” said Rintoul the experienced, “she is not such a fool as she looks. She knows that after the first is over, with plenty of money and all that, she will get on first-rate, you little goose. Girls like something to make a fuss about.”

“Oh, it is a great deal you know about girls!” cried Edith, giving him a shake in the violence of her emotion. But he only laughed, disengaging himself.

“We’ll see what you’ll do when it comes to your turn,” he said, and he went off along the passage whistling. It did not matter to him that his sister was breaking her heart. But why, why, oh why does she do it? Edith dozed and woke again half-a-dozen times in the night, crying this out into the silence. To refuse, surely one could do that. Papa might scold, there might be scenes and unhappiness, but nothing could be so unhappy as this. She was incapable of understanding how there could be any difficulty in the case.

The marriage took place, however, in spite of these convulsions, and several years had elapsed since that event. It was an old affair when John Erskine, newly arrived, and full of curiosity and interest, had that encounter with Lady Lindores and her daughter at his own gate, where something of the outline of this story was communicated to him⁠—the facts of it at least. The ladies did not linger upon Carry’s marriage in their narrative. He was told of it briefly as an event long over, and to which everybody had got accustomed. And so it was. The most miserable of events settle down into the routine of life when a few years have elapsed. Carry herself long ago had accepted her fate, trying to persuade herself that an unhappy marriage was nothing out of the common, and taking such comfort as was possible in poetry and intellectual musings. Her husband, who neither knew nor cared for anything above his own rude external world, yet felt her poetry to enhance the delicacy of her being, and to raise Lady Car more and more to that height of superiority which was what he had sought in her⁠—was all the better satisfied with his bargain, though all the more separated from any possible point of junction with her. The neighbourhood was very well aware of all the circumstances; and though Lady Lindores entered into no explanations, yet there was a sigh, and a tone in her voice, as she spoke of her daughter, which suggested sorrow. But to tell the truth, young John Erskine, suddenly finding such friends at his very door, suddenly readmitted into the old intimacy, and finding the dull country life to which he had been looking forward flash into sunshine and pleasure, made few inquiries into this darker chapter of the family history; and in reality cared for nothing much but to convince himself that the Lindores family were really his next neighbours; that they were quite willing to receive him on the old footing; and that, demurely walking along the same road on the other side of her mother, saying little but touching the entire atmosphere with a sense of her presence, was Edith Lindores. Perhaps, had he actually been by her side, the sensation being more definite would have been less entrancing. But her mother was between them, animated and pleased by the meeting, ready to tell him all that had happened, and to hear his account of himself, with friendly interest; while beyond her ample figure and draperies, the line of a grey dress, the occasional flutter of a ribbon, the putting forth of a small foot, made the young man aware of the other creature wrapped in soft silence and maidenly reserve, whom he could image to himself all the more completely that he saw no more of her. He scarcely heard her voice as they walked along thus near yet separated; but a great many things that Lady Lindores said were confused by the sound upon the road of her daughter’s step⁠—by the appearance of that bit of ribbon, with which the sunny wind did not hesitate to play, floating out in advance of her, catching the young man’s eye. Thus all at once, on the very first day after his return, another new existence began for John Erskine on the road between Dalrulzian and Lindores.

VII

There are few things in human affairs more curious than the structure of what is called society, wherever it is met with, whether in the most primitive of its developments or on the higher levels. The perpetual recurrence of a circle within which the sayings and doings of certain individuals are more important than anything else in earth or heaven, and where the conversation persistently rolls back, whatever may be its starting-point, to what this or that little knot of people are doing, to the eccentricities of one and the banalities of another, to some favourite individual scene of tragedy or comedy which forms the centre of the moral landscape⁠—is always apparent to the observer, whether his observations are made in Kamtchatka or in London, among washerwomen or princesses. But under no circumstances is this so evident as to a newcomer in a region where all the people know each other. The novelty and freshness of his impressions perhaps make him congratulate himself for a moment that now at last he has got into a society fresh and original, with features of its own; but half-a-dozen meetings are enough to prove to him that he has only got into another round, a circle as little extended, as much shut up in its own ring, as all the rest. This was what John Erskine found, with a little amusement and a little disgust, almost as soon as he got settled in his unknown home. Any addition to their society was interesting to the country folks, especially in May, when there is not much doing⁠—when those who can indulge themselves in the pleasures of the season have gone to London, and those who cannot are bound to bring forth their philosophy and prove that they enjoy the country in the early summer, even though there is nothing to do. But a young man unencumbered and alone, with all his life before him, and all his connections to form, is perhaps of all others the most interesting human creature who can come into a new sphere. All the world is curious about him⁠—both those whose lives he may influence, and those to whom he can contribute nothing but the interest, perhaps of a new drama, perhaps only of a new face. He who will enact his own story publicly before the eyes of his neighbours, falling in love, wooing, marrying, or, still better, carrying on these processes with interruptions of non-success and threatenings of postponement, what a godsend he is! and perhaps scarcely less he who brings in darker elements into the placid tenor of the general history, and ruins himself for our instruction, while we all look on with bated breath. To the countryside in general, John Erskine, while as yet unknown, was a new hero. He was the beginning of a romance with all the more fascination in it that the most interested spectator for a long time could form but little idea how it was to turn. As soon as he was known to be at home, his neighbours came down upon him from all quarters with friendly greetings, invitations, offers of kindness on all sides. The first to appear was Sir James Montgomery, a sunburnt and cheerful old soldier, whose small estate of Chiefswood “marched” on one side with Dalrulzian, and who was disposed to be very friendly. He came in beaming with smiles over all his brown jovial countenance, and holding out a large cordial hand.

“Well, young man, so this is you at last. You’re heartily welcome home. I’ve been long away myself, and you’ve never been here, but we’re old neighbours for all that, and I take it upon me to call myself an old friend.”

“You are very kind,” John said, suffering his hand to be engulfed in that kind, warm, capacious grasp. The old soldier held him at arm’s length for a moment, looking at him with friendly eyes.

“I remember your grandfather well,” he said; “not so much of your father, for he came to man’s estate, and died, poor lad, when I was away; but I see some features of the old man in you, my young friend, and I’m glad to see them. You’ll seldom meet with a better man than your grandfather. He was very kind to me as a young lad at the time I got my commission. They were ill able to afford my outfit at home, and I’m much mistaken if old Dalrulzian did not lend a helping hand; so mind you, my lad, if young Dalrulzian should ever want one⁠—a day in harvest, as the proverb goes⁠—”

“You are very kind, sir,” said John Erskine again: he was touched, but half amused as well. It seemed so unlikely that he should require the old general’s helping hand. And then they talked of the country, and of their previous lives and diverse experiences. Sir James was one of those primitive men, much more usual a generation ago than now, whose knowledge of life, which to his own thinking was profound and extensive, left out the greater part of what in our days is known as life at all. He knew Scotland and India, and nothing more. He was great in expedients for dealing with the natives on one hand, and full of a hundred stories of village humour, fun, and pawkiness on the other. To hear him laugh over one of these anecdotes till the tears stood in his clear, warm blue eyes, which were untouched by any dimness of time, was worth all the witticisms ever printed; and to see him bend his fine old brows over the characteristics of his old subjects in India, and the ameliorations of character produced by British rule, firmness, and justice, was better than philosophy. But with that which young John Erskine knew as life he had no acquaintance. Save his own country and the distant East, the globe was wrapped in dimness to him. He had passed through London often, and had even transacted business at the Horse Guards, though an Indian officer in those days had little to do with that centre of military authority; but he had a mingled awe and horror of “town,” and thought of the Continent as of a region of temptation where the devil was far more apparent than in other places, and sought whom he might devour with much more openness and less hindrance than at home. And when our young man, who flattered himself a little on his knowledge of society and the world, as he understood the phrase, unfolded himself before the innocent patriarch, their amazement at each other was mutual. Old Sir James contemplated John in his knowledge with something of the same amused respect which John on his side felt for him in his ignorance. To each there was in the other a mixture of a boy and a sage, which made them each to each half absurd and half wonderful. An old fellow, who must have seen so much to have seen so little! and a mere bit of a lad, Sir James said to himself, who knew nothing about India or anything serious, yet had seen a vast deal, and had very just notions, and spoke like a man of the world when you came to talk to him! It was thus the senior who did most justice to the junior, as is usually the case.

“I am afraid,” Sir James said, “that you’ll find our countryside but dull after all you’ve seen. We’re pleased with ourselves, as most ignorant people are; we think we’re good enough company on the whole, but music, or the play, or art, or that kind of thing, you’ll find us wanting in. I’m afraid they find us very wanting at Lindores; but as for a kind welcome, whenever you like and however you like, and a good Scotch dinner, and sometimes a dance, if that will content you in the way of company⁠—”

“I should be hard to please if that would not content me,” said John. “I hope you will give me the chance.”

“That we will⁠—that we will,” said Sir James, heartily; and then he added, “we have no young people about us⁠—Lady Montgomery and me. Our two children are as far from children now as their father and mother. They are both in India, and their families grown up and gone out to them. So we have nothing young of our own about the house; but don’t go too fast, we’re not without attraction. In a week, I think, we’re expecting a visitor that will make the place bright⁠—Miss Barrington⁠—Nora Barrington; you’ll have heard of her by this time. She’s a great favourite in the country. We are all keen to have her and to keep her. I’m not afraid that a young man will find us dull when we’ve Nora in the house.”

Here John, who had become suspicious of the name of this girl whom everybody insisted on recommending to him, eagerly protested that he should want no foreign attraction to the house in which the kind old general was.

“Foreign! No, she’s not foreign,” said Sir James; “far from that. A bonnie English girl, which, after a bonnie Scotch lassie, is by far the best thing going. We must stand up for our own first,” said the old soldier, laughing; “but nothing foreign⁠—nothing foreign: if you want that, you’ll have to go to Lindores.”

John felt⁠—he could scarcely tell why⁠—slightly irritated by these references to Lindores. He said, somewhat elaborately, “They are the only people I really know in the county. I met them long ago⁠—on the Continent.”

“Ah!⁠—ay; that’s just what I say⁠—for anything foreign, you’ll have to go to the Castle,” said Sir James, a little doubtfully. “But,” he added, after a moment’s pause, “I hope you’ll take to us and your own country, and need no ‘foreign aid of ornament,’ eh? You must forgive me. I’m an old fellow, and old-fashioned. In my time it used to be thought that your French and Italians were⁠—well, no better than they should be. Germans, they tell me, are a more solid race; but I know little difference⁠—I know little difference. You’ll say that’s my ignorance,” said this man of prejudice, beaming upon his companion with a smile in which there was a little deprecation, but a great deal of simple confidence. It was impossible not to condone the errors of a censor so innocent.

“If you knew them, you would not only see a great deal of difference, but I think you would like them a great deal better than you suppose,” John said.

“Very likely⁠—very likely,” cried Sir James. It occurred to him suddenly that if his young friend had indeed, poor lad, been brought up among those “foreign cattle,” an unfavourable opinion of them might hurt his feelings; and this was the last thing the old man would have done⁠—even to a foreigner in person, much less to a son of the soil temporarily seduced by the wiles of strangers. And then he repeated his formula about being an old fellow and old-fashioned. “And you’ll mind to expect nothing but broad Scotch at Chiefswood,” he cried, laughing and waving his hand as he rode away, after the hearty invitation with which every visitor ended. “You’ll get the other at Lindores.”

And the door had scarcely closed upon this new acquaintance when the Earl made his appearance, with the smile of an old friend, quite willing to acknowledge old relationships, but not too familiar or enthusiastic in his claim. He was no longer the languid gentleman he had been in the old wandering days, but had the fresh colour and active step of a man who lived much out of doors. “The scene is very different,” he said, with kindness but dignity. “We are all changed more or less; but the sentiments are the same.” He said this with something of the air of a prince graciously renewing acquaintance with a friend of his exile. “I hope we shall see you often at the Castle. We are your nearest neighbours; and when you have been as long here as we have, you will have learned to shudder at the words. But it is a relief to think it is you who will now fill that role.” Could a benevolent nobleman say more? And it was only after a good deal of friendly talk that Lord Lindores began to speak of the county business, and the advantage it would be to him to have support in his attempts to put things on a better footing.

“Nothing can be more arrièré,” he said. “We are behind in everything; and the prejudices I have to struggle with are inconceivable. I shall have you now, I hope, on my side: we are, I believe, of the same politics.”

“I scarcely know what my politics are,” said John. “Someone told me the other day that the Erskines are always on the right side; and, if you will not be disgusted, I am obliged to confess that I don’t know what was meant. I know what it would be at Milton Magna. I imagine dimly just the opposite here.”

The Earl smiled benignly on the young inquirer. “The Erskines have always been Liberal,” he said. “I know there is no counting upon you young men. You generally go too far on one side or the other: if you are not Tories, you are Radicals. My Liberalism, bien entendu, does not go that length⁠—no Radicalism, no revolutionary sentiments. In short, at present my politics mean county hospitals and drainage more than anything else.” Then he paused, and added somewhat abruptly, “I don’t know if you ever thought of Parliament⁠—as a career for yourself?”

At this John’s pulses gave a sudden jump, and the blood rushed to his cheeks. Had he thought of it? He could scarcely tell. As something he might come to, when he had learned the claims of life upon him, and the circumstances of the country, which as yet he barely knew⁠—as an object to look forward to, something that might ennoble his future and afford him the finest occupation that a man can have, a share in the government of his country⁠—yes; no doubt he had thought of it⁠—at a time when he thought more highly of Dalrulzian and of his own pretensions. But the demand was very sudden, and he had all the modesty of youth. “Parliament!” he faltered forth. “I⁠—don’t know that I have thought of it. I fear I know too little of politics⁠—I have too little experience⁠—” And here he paused, expecting nothing less than that he should be kindly urged to think better of it, and persuaded that it was his duty to serve his generation so.

“Ah,” said the Earl, “you give me just the assurance I wanted. I need not hesitate to tell you, in that case, that my great desire is to push Rintoul for the county. If you had thought of it yourself, it would have been a different matter; but otherwise everything points to him⁠—his position, our circumstances as the natural leaders, and the excellent chance he would have with all parties⁠—better than anyone else, I believe. You could be of the utmost use to us, Erskine, if it does not interfere with any plans of your own.”

Now John had no plans; but this sudden check, after the sudden suggestion which roused all his ambition, was too much like a dash of cold water in his face to be pleasant to him. But he had time to collect himself while Lord Lindores was speaking, and to call up a sort of smile of assent, though it gave him a twinge of ludicrous pain. It was poetic justice. He had faltered and said No, in order to be encouraged and made to say Yes, and his vanity and false modesty, he thought, had got their reward. And all this for Rintoul! He remembered Rintoul well enough when he was not Rintoul at all, but Robin Lindores⁠—a poor little lieutenant in a marching regiment. And now he was in the Guards, and the heir of an earldom. The change of position was so great, that it took away John’s breath. In the days of their former acquaintance, there could not have been the smallest doubt which was the more important personage⁠—young Lindores, who had nothing at all, or John Erskine, with a good estate which everybody accepted as much better than it was. But now he had gone down, and the other up. All this went through his mind ruefully, yet not without a sense of amusement in his own discomfiture. He had not much confidence in his own abilities or enlightenment, but it was not much to brag of that he had more of both than young Lindores. However, he had nothing to do in this sudden concatenation but to listen respectfully yet ruefully as the Earl went on, who seemed to have grasped him, present and future, in his hands.

“It is a wonderful comfort to be able to calculate upon you,” he said. “My son-in-law⁠—for of course you have heard of Carry’s marriage⁠—would have a great deal of influence if he chose to exert it; but he has his own notions⁠—his own notions. You will understand, when you make his acquaintance, that though a sterling character, he has not had all the advantages that might have been wished, of acquaintance with men and knowledge of the world. But you, my dear Erskine, you know something of life. By the by,” he said, as he rose to go away, “Lady Lindores charged me to engage you to come to us tomorrow. We are going away to town, but not for more than a month. The ladies insist that they must see you before they go. We all look forward to seeing a great deal of you,” the Earl added, with that manner which was always so fascinating. “Between you and me, our dear neighbours are a set of prejudiced old rustics,” he said, with a confidential smile, as he went out; “but it will be strange if you and I together cannot make them hear reason.” Could anything be more flattering to a young man? And it was the father of Edith who grasped his hand thus warmly⁠—who associated him with himself in a conjunction so flattering. John forgot the little wrench of theoretical disappointment⁠—the ludicrous ease with which he had been made to give place to Rintoul. After all, something must be sacrificed, he allowed, to the heir of an important family⁠—and the brother of Edith Lindores!

But this was not his last visitor on this eventful afternoon. The Earl had scarcely disappeared when Rolls once more threw open the door of the library, in which John usually sat, and announced with much solemnity Mr. Torrance of Tinto. The man whom the Earl, though vouching for him as “a sterling character,” had allowed to be wanting in knowledge of the world, came striding in with that air of taking up all the space in the room and finding it too small for him, which wealth and a vulgar mind are so apt to give. That John should dislike him instinctively from the moment he set eyes upon him, was nothing remarkable; for was not he the owner of the most obnoxious house in the neighbourhood? the man to whom Carry Lindores had been sacrificed? John Erskine felt, as he rose to meet the newcomer, a sense of the shabbiness and smallness of his own house, such as, even in the first evening of disenchantment, had scarcely affected him so strongly before. When his visitor cast round him that bold glance of his big, projecting, light-blue eyes, John saw through them the insignificance of the place altogether, and the humility of his own position, with a mortification which he could scarcely subdue. Torrance was tall and strong⁠—an immense frame of a man, with very black hair and dark complexion, and something insufferably insolent, audacious, cynical, in those large, light eyes, à fleur de tête. His insolence of nature was sufficiently evident; but what John did not see was the underlying sense of inferiority which his new visitor could not shake off, and which made him doubly and angrily arrogant, as it were, in his own defence. It galled him to recognise better manners and breeding than his own⁠—breeding and manners which perhaps he had found out, as John did the inferiority of his surroundings, through another’s eyes. But Torrance’s greeting was made with great show of civility. He had heard much of John as a friend of the family at Lindores, he said.

“Not but what I should have called, anyhow,” he explained, “though Tinto really belongs to the other side of the county, and Dalrulzian is rather out of the way for me; but still civility is civility, and in the country we’re a kind of neighbours. I hope you like it, now you are here?”

“Pretty well,” was all that John said.

“It’s a nice little place. Of course you knew what it was⁠—not one of the great country places; but it stands well, and it looks fine at a distance. Few places of its size look better when you’re a good bit away.”

This tried the young man’s patience, but he did his best to smile. “It is well enough,” he said; “I expected no better. It is not imposing like Tinto. Wherever one goes, it seems to me impossible to get out of sight of your big house.”

“Yes, it’s an eyesore to half the county; I’m well aware of that,” said Torrance, with complacency. “There’s far more of it than is any good to me. Lady Car⁠—I hear you knew Lady Car before we were married,” he said, fixing John almost threateningly with those light eyes⁠—“fills it now and then; and when I was a bachelor, I’ve seen it pretty full in September; but in a general way it’s too big, and a great trouble to keep up.”

“I hope Lady Caroline is quite well?” John said, with formal gravity.

“She is well enough. She is never what you call quite well. Women get into a way of ailing, I think, just as men get into a way of drinking. You were surprised to hear she was married, I suppose?” he asked abruptly, with again the same threatening, offensive look, which made John’s blood boil.

“I was surprised⁠—as one is surprised by changes that have taken place years before one hears of them; otherwise it is no surprise to hear that a young lady has married. Of course,” John added, with serious malice, “I had not the advantage of knowing you.”

Torrance stared at him for a moment, as if doubtful whether to take offence or not. Then he uttered, opening capacious jaws, a fierce laugh.

“I am very easy to get on with, for those that know me,” he said, “if that’s what you mean. We’re a model couple, Lady Car and I: everybody will tell you that. And I don’t object to old friends, as some men do. Let them come, I always say. If the difference is not in favour of the present, it’s a pity⁠—that’s all I say.”

To this John, not knowing what answer to make, replied only with a little bow of forced politeness, and nothing more.

“I suppose they were in a very different position when you used to know them?” said Torrance; “in a poor way enough⁠—ready to make friends with whoever turned up?”

“It would be very bad policy on my part to say so,” said John, “seeing that I was one of the nobodies to whom Lady Lindores, when she was Mrs. Lindores, was extremely kind⁠—as it seems to me she always is.”

“Ah, kind! that’s all very well: you weren’t nobody⁠—you were very eligible⁠—in those days,” said Torrance, with a laugh, for which John would have liked to knock him down; but there were various hindrances to this laudable wish. First, that it was John’s own house, and civility forbade any aggression; and second, that Tinto was much bigger and stronger than the person whom, perhaps, he did not intend to insult⁠—indeed there was no appearance that he meant to insult him at all. He was only a coarse and vulgar-minded man, speaking after his kind.

“The fact is, if you don’t mind my saying so, I’m not very fond of my mamma-in-law,” said Torrance. “Few men are, so far as I know: they put your wife up to all sorts of things. For my part, I think there’s a sort of conspiracy among women, and mothers hand it down to their daughters. A man should always part his wife from her belongings when he can. She’s a great deal better when she has nothing but him to look to. She sees then what’s her interest⁠—to please him and never mind the rest. Don’t you think I’m complaining⁠—Lady Car’s an exception. You never catch her forgetting that she’s Lady Caroline Torrance and has her place to fill. Doesn’t she do it, too! She’s the sort of woman, in one way, that’s frightened at a fly⁠—and on the other the queen wouldn’t daunt her; that’s the sort of woman I like. She’s what you call a grand damm⁠—and no mistake. Perhaps she was too young for that when you knew her; and had nothing then to stand on her dignity about.”

Here John, able to endure no longer, rose hastily and threw open the window. “The weather gets warm,” he said, “though it is so early, and vegetation is not so far behind in Scotland as we suppose.”

“Behind! I should like to know in what we’re behind!” cried his guest: and then his dark countenance reddened, and he burst into another laugh. “Perhaps you think I’m desperately Scotch,” he said; “but that’s a mistake. I’m as little prejudiced as anybody can be. I was at Oxford myself. I’m not one of your local men. The Earl would like me to take his way and follow his lead, as if I were a country bumpkin, you know. That’s his opinion of every man that has stuck to his own country and not wandered abroad; and now he finds I have my own way of thinking, he doesn’t half like it. We can think for ourselves down in the country just as well as the rest of you.” After he had given vent to these sentiments, however, Torrance got up with a half-abashed laugh. “If you come over to Tinto, Lady Car and I will be glad to see you. We’ll show you some things you can’t see every day⁠—though we are in an out-of-the-way corner, you’re thinking,” he said.

“I have already heard of the treasures of Tinto,” said John, glad that there was something civil to say.

Pat Torrance nodded his head with much self-satisfaction. “Yes, we’ve got a thing or two,” he said. “I’m not a connoisseur myself. I know they’ve cost a fortune⁠—that’s about all I’m qualified to judge of. But Lady Car knows all about them. You would think it was she and not I they belonged to by nature. But come and judge for yourself. I’m not a man to be suspicious of old friends.”

And here he laughed once more, with obvious offensive meaning; but it took John some time to make out what that meaning could be. His visitor had been for some time gone, fortunately for all parties, before it burst upon him. He divined then, that it was he who was supposed to have been poor Carry’s lover, and that her husband’s object was the diabolical one of increasing her misery by the sight of the man whom she had loved and forsaken. Why had she forsaken Beaufort for this rude barnyard hero? Was it for the sake of his great house, which happily was not visible from Dalrulzian, but which dominated half the county with gingerbread battlements, and the flag that floated presumptuous as if the house were a prince’s? Had Carry preferred mere wealth, weighed by such a master, to the congenial spirit of her former lover? It fretted the young man even to think of such a possibility. And the visitors had fretted him each in some special point. They neutralised the breadth of the external landscape with their narrow individuality and busy bustling little schemes. He went out to breathe an air more wholesome, to find refuge from that close pressure of things personal, and circumscribed local scenery, in the genial quietness and freshness of the air outside. How busy they all were in their own way, how intent upon their own plans, how full of suspicion and criticism of each other! Outside all was quiet⁠—the evening wind breathing low, the birds in full chorus. John refreshed himself with a long walk, shaking off his discouragement and partial disgust. Peggy Burnet was at her door, eager to open the gate for him as he passed. She had just tied a blue handkerchief about the pot containing her “man’s” tea, which her eldest child was about to carry. As he sauntered up the avenue, this child, a girl about ten, tied up so far as her shoulders were concerned in a small red-tartan shawl, but with uncovered head and bare legs and feet, overtook him, skimming along the road with her bundle. She admitted, holding down her head shyly, that she was little Peggy, and was carrying her father his tea. “He’s up in the fir-wood on the top of the hill. He’ll no’ be back as long as it’s light.”

“But that is a long walk for you,” said John.

“It’s no’ twa miles, and I’m fond, fond to get into the woods,” said Peggy. She said “wudds,” and there was a curious singsong in the speech to John’s unaccustomed ears. When she went on she did not curtsey to him as a well-conditioned English child would have done, but gave him a merry nod of her flaxen head, which was rough with curls, and sped away noiseless and swift, the red shawl over her shoulders, which was carefully knotted round her waist and made a bunch of her small person, showing far off through the early greenness of the brushwood. When she had gone on a little, she began to sing like a bird, her sweet young voice rising on the air as if it had wings. It was an endless song that Peggy sang, like that of Wordsworth’s reaper⁠—

“Whate’er the theme, the maiden sang
As if her song could have no ending.”

It went winding along, a viewless voice, beyond the house, along the slopes, away into the paleness of the hilltop, where the tall pine-trunks stood up like columns against the light. It was like the fresh scent of those same pines⁠—like the aromatic peat-smoke in the air⁠—a something native to the place, which put the troubles and the passions he had stumbled against out of the mind of the young laird. He was reconciled somehow to Scotland and to nature by little Peggy’s love for the “wudds,” and the clear ringing melody of her endless song.

VIII

In the midst of all the attentions paid him by his neighbours and the visitors who followed each other day by day, there was one duty which John Erskine had to fulfil, and which made a break in the tide of circumstances which seemed to be drifting him towards the family at Lindores, and engaging him more and more to follow their fortunes. When a life is as yet undecided and capable of turning in a new direction, it is common enough, in fact as well as in allegory, that a second path should be visible, branching off from the first, into which the unconscious feet of the wayfarer might still turn, were the dangers of the more attractive way divined. There is always one unobtrusive turning which leads to the safe track; but how is the traveller to know that, whose soul is all unconscious of special importance in the immediate step it takes? John Erskine contemplated his rapprochement to the Lindores with the greatest complacency and calm. That it could contain any dangers, he neither knew nor would have believed: he wanted nothing better than to be identified with them, to take up their cause and be known as their partisan. Nevertheless Providence silently, without giving him any warning, opened up the other path to him, and allowed him in ignorance to choose. If he had known, probably it would not have made the least difference. Young heroes have never in any known history obeyed the dictates of any monitor, either audible or inaudible, who warned them against one connection and in favour of another. Nevertheless he had his chance, as shall be seen. The morning after his first dinner at the Castle, which had been the reopening of a delightful world to him, he decided that he had put off too long his visit to his only relative, and set off through the soft May sunshine, for it was beautiful weather, to pay his respects to his old aunt at Dunearn.

The house of Miss Barbara Erskine at Dunearn opened direct from the street. It was one of the same class of homely Scotch houses to which Dalrulzian itself belonged; but whereas Dalrulzian, being a mansion-house, had two gables, Miss Barbara’s Lodging, as she liked it to be called, had but one, stepping out into the broad pathway, not paved, but composed of sand and gravel, which ran along one side of the South Street. This gable was broad enough to give considerable size to the drawing-room which filled the upper story, and which had windows every way, commanding the street and all that went on in it, which was not much. The house was entered by an outside stair, which gave admission to the first floor, on which all the rooms of “the family” were, the floor below being devoted to the uses of the servants, with the single exception of the dining-parlour, which was situated near the kitchen for the convenience of the household. Behind there was a large fragrant old-fashioned garden full of sweet-smelling flowers, interspersed with fruit-trees, and going off into vegetables at the lower end. Notwithstanding that it was so far north, there were few things that would not grow in this garden, and it was a wilderness of roses in their season. Except one or two of the pale China kind⁠—the monthly rose, as Miss Barbara called it, which is so faithful and blows almost all the year round⁠—there were no roses in May; but there was a wealth of spring flowers filling all the borders, and the air was faintly sweet as the old lady walked about in the morning sunshine enjoying the freshness and stir of budding life. She was a portly old lady herself, fresh and fair, with a bright complexion, notwithstanding seventy years of wear and tear, and lively hazel eyes full of vivacity and inquisitiveness. She was one of the fortunate people who take an interest in everything, and to whom life continues full of excitement and variety to the end. She walked as briskly as though she had been twenty years younger, perhaps more so; for care does not press upon seventy as upon fifty, and the only burden upon her ample shoulders was that of years. She had a soft white Indian shawl wrapped round her, and a hood with very soft blue ribbons tied over her cap. She liked a pretty ribbon as well as ever, and was always well dressed. From the garden, which sloped downwards towards the river, there was an extensive view⁠—a prospect of fields and scattered farmhouses spreading into blue distance, into the outline of the hills, towards the north; at the right hand the tower of Dunearn Church, which was not more handsome than church towers generally are in Scotland; and to the left, towards the setting sun, a glimpse of Tinto arrogantly seated on its plateau. Miss Barbara, as she said, “could not bide” the sight of Tinto House. She had planted it out as well as she could; but her trees were perverse, and would separate their branches or die away at the top, as if on purpose to reveal the upstart. On this particular morning of early May, Miss Barbara was not alone: she had a young lady by her side, of whose name and presence at this particular moment the country was full. There was not a house in the neighbourhood of any pretensions which she was not engaged to visit; and there was scarcely a family, if truth must be told, which was not involved more or less in an innocent conspiracy on her behalf, of which John Erskine, all unconscious, was the object. His old aunt, as was befitting, had the first chance.

“You need not ask me any more questions,” Miss Barbara was saying, “for I think you know just as much about the family, and all the families in the countryside, as anybody. You have a fine curiosity, Nora; and take my word for it, that’s a grand gift, though never properly appreciated in this world. It gives you a great deal of interest in your youth, and it keeps you from wearying in your old age⁠—though that’s a far prospect for you.”

“My mother says I am a gossip born,” said Nora, with her pretty smile.

“Never you trouble your head about that⁠—take you always an interest in your fellow-creatures. Better that than the folk in a novelle. Not but what I like a good novelle myself as well as most things in this life. It’s just extending your field. It’s like going into a new neighbourhood. The box is come from the library this morning,” said Miss Barbara in a parenthesis.

“Oh yes, I opened it to have a peep. There is Middlemarch and one of Mr. Trollope’s, and several names I don’t know.”

“No Middlemarch for me,” said Miss Barbara, with a wave of her hand. “I am too old for that. That means I’ve read it, my dear⁠—the way an experienced reader like me can read a thing⁠—in the air, in the newspapers, in the way everybody talks. No, that’s not like going into a new neighbourhood⁠—that is getting to the secrets of the machinery, and seeing how everything, come the time, will run down, some to ill and harm, but all to downfall, commonplace, and prosiness. I have but little pleasure in that. And it’s pleasure I want at my time of life. I’m too old to be instructed. If I have not learned my lesson by this time, the more shame to me, my dear.”

“But, Miss Barbara, you don’t want only to be amused. Oh no: to have your heart touched, sometimes wrung even⁠—to be so sorry, so anxious that you would like to interfere⁠—to follow on and on to the last moment through all their troubles, still hoping that things will take a good turn.”

“And what is that but amusement?” said the old lady. “I am not fond of shedding tears; but even that is a luxury in its way⁠—when all the time you are sure that it will hurt nobody, and come all right at the end.”

“Lydgate does not turn out all right at the end,” said Nora, “nor Rosamond either; they go down and down till you would be glad of some dreadful place at last that they might fall into it and be made an end of. I suppose it is true to nature,” said the girl, with a solemnity coming over her innocent face, “that if you don’t get better you should go on getting worse and worse⁠—but it is dreadful. It is like what one hears of the place⁠—below.”

“Ay, ay, we’re not fond nowadays of the place⁠—below; but I’m afraid there must be some truth in it. That woman has found out the secret, you see.” Miss Barbara meant no disrespect to the great novelist when she called her “that woman.” There was even a certain gratification in the use of the term, as who should say, “Your men, that brag so much of themselves, never found this out”⁠—which was a favourite sentiment with the old lady. “That’s just where she’s grand,” Miss Barbara continued. “There’s that young lad in the Italian book⁠—Teeto⁠—what d’ye call him? To see him get meaner and meaner, and falser and falser, is an awful picture, Nora. It’s just terrible. It’s more than I can stand at my age. I want diversion. Do ye think I have not seen enough of that in my life?”

“People are not bad like that in life,” said Nora; “they have such small sins⁠—they tell fibs⁠—not big lies that mean anything, but small miserable little fibs; and they are ill-tempered, and sometimes cheat a little. That is all. Nothing that is terrible or tragical⁠—”

Here the girl stopped short with a little gasp, as if realising something she had not thought of before.

“What is it, my dear?” said Miss Barbara.

“Oh⁠—only Tinto showing through the trees: is that tragedy? No, no. Don’t you see what I mean? don’t you see the difference? He is only a rough, ill-tempered, tyrannical man. He does not really mean to hurt or be cruel: and poor Lady Car, dear Lady Car, is always so wretched; perhaps she aggravates him a little. She will not take pleasure in anything. It is all miserable, but it is all so little, Miss Barbara; not tragedy⁠—not like Lear or Hamlet⁠—rather a sort of scolding, peevish comedy. You might make fun of it all, though it is so dreadful; and that is how life seems to me⁠—very different from poetry,” said Nora, shaking her head.

“Wait,” said Miss Barbara, patting her on the shoulder, “till the play is played out and you are farther off. The Lord preserve us! I hope I’m not a prophet of evil; but maybe if you had known poor Lear fighting about the number of his knights with that hard-faced woman Regan, for instance (who had a kind of reason, you’ll mind, on her side: for I make no doubt they were very unruly⁠—that daft old man would never keep them in order), you would have thought it but a poor kind of a squabble. Who is this coming in upon us, Nora? I see Janet at the glass door looking out.”

“It is a gentleman, Miss Barbara. He is standing talking. I think he means to come out here.”

“It will be the minister,” said the old lady, calmly. “He had far better sit down in the warm room, and send us word, for he’s a delicate creature⁠—no constitution in him⁠—aye cold and coughs, and⁠—”

“Indeed it is not Mr. Stirling. He is quite young and⁠—and good-looking, I think. He won’t listen to Janet. He is coming here. Miss Barbara, shall I run away?”

“Why should you run away? If it’s business, we’ll go in; if it’s pleasure⁠—Ah! I’ve seen your face before, sir, or one like it, but I cannot put a name to it. You have maybe brought me a letter? Preserve us all! will it be John Erskine come home to Dalrulzian?”

“Yes, aunt Barbara, it is John Erskine,” said the young man. He had his hat in one hand, and the sun shone pleasantly on his chestnut locks and healthful countenance. He did not perhaps look like a hero of romance, but he looked like a clean and virtuous young Englishman. He took the hand which Miss Barbara held out to him, eagerly, and, with a little embarrassment, not knowing what else to do, bent over it and kissed it⁠—a salutation which took the old lady by surprise, and, being so unusual, brought a delicate colour to her old cheek.

“Ah, my man! and so you’re John Erskine? I would have known you anywhere, at the second glance if not at the first. You’re like your father, poor fellow. He was always a great favourite with me. And so you’ve come back to your ain at last? Well, I’m very glad to see you, John. It’s natural to have a young Erskine in the countryside. You’ll not know yet how you like it after all this long absence. And how is your mother, poor body? She would think my pity out of place, I don’t doubt; but I’m always sorry for a young woman, sore hadden down with a sma’ family, as we say here in the North.”

“I don’t think she is at all sorry for herself,” said John, with a laugh, “but it must be allowed there is a lot of them. There are always heaps of children, you know, in a parson’s house.”

“And that is true; it’s a wonderful dispensation,” said Miss Barbara, piously, “to keep us down and keep us humble-minded in our position in life. But I’m real glad to see you, and you must tell me where you’ve come from, and all you’ve been doing. We’ll take a turn round the garden and see my flowers, and then we’ll take you in and give you your luncheon. You’ll be ready for your luncheon after your walk; or did you ride? This is Miss Nora Barrington, that knows Dalrulzian better than you do, John. Tell Janet, my dear, we’ll be ready in an hour, and she must do her best for Mr. John.”

While this greeting went on, Nora had been standing very demurely with her hands crossed looking on. She was a girl full of romance and imagination, as a girl ought to be, and John Erskine had long been something of a hero to her. Nora was in that condition of springtime and anticipation when every new encounter looks as if it might produce untold consequences in the future, still so vague, so sweet, so unknown. She stood with her eyes full of subdued light, full of soft excitement, and observation, and fun; for where all was so airy and uncertain, there was room for fun too, it being always possible that the event, which might be serious or even tragic, might at the same time be only a pleasantry in life. Nora seemed to herself to be a spectator of what was perhaps happening to herself. Might this be hereafter a scene in her existence, like “the first meeting between”⁠—say Antony and Cleopatra, say Romeo and Juliet? Several pictures occurred to her of such scenes. At one time there were quite a number of them in all the picture-galleries. “First meeting of Edward IV with Elizabeth Woodville:” where all unconscious, the fair widow kneels, the gallant monarch sees in his suppliant his future queen. All this was fun to Nora, but very romantic earnest all the same. The time might come when this stranger would say to her⁠—“Do you remember that May morning in old aunt Barbara’s garden?” and she might reply⁠—“How little we imagined then!” Thus Nora, with a shy delight, forestalled in the secret recesses of her soul the happiness that might never come, and yet made fun of her own thoughts all in the same breath. John’s bow to her was not half so graceful or captivating as his salutation to Miss Barbara, but that was nothing; and she went away with a pleasant sense of excitement to instruct Janet about the luncheon and the newcomer. Miss Barbara’s household was much moved by the arrival. Janet, who was the housekeeper, lingered in the little hall into which the garden-door opened, looking out with a curiosity which she did not think it necessary to disguise; and Agnes, Miss Barbara’s own woman, stood at the staircase-window, halfway up. When Nora came in, those two personages were conversing freely on the event.

“He’s awfu’ like the Erskines; just the cut of them about the shouthers, and that lang neck⁠—”

“Do you ca’ that a lang neck? nae langer than is very becoming. I like the head carried high. He has his father’s walk,” said Agnes, pensively; “many’s the time I’ve watched him alang the street. He was the best-looking of all the Erskines; if he hadna marriet a bit handless creature⁠—”

“Handless or no’ handless,” said Janet, “matters little in that condition o’ life.”

“Eh, but it mattered muckle to him. He might have been a living man this day if there had been a little mair sense in her head. She might have made him change his wet feet and all his dreeping things when he came in from the hillside. It was the planting of yon trees that cost bonnie Johnny Erskine his life. The mistress was aye of that opinion. Eh, to think when ye have a man, that ye shouldna be able to take care of him!” said Agnes, with a sort of admiring wonder. She had never attained that dignity herself. Janet, who was a widow, gave a glance upward at the pensive old maiden of mingled condescension and contempt.

“And if ye had a man, ye would be muckle made up wi’ him,” she said. “It’s grand to be an auld maid, for that⁠—that ye aye keep your faith in the men. This ane’ll be for a wife, too, like a’ the rest. I could gie him a word in his ear⁠—”

“It will be something for our young misses to think about. A fine young lad, and a bonnie house. He’ll have a’ our siller, besides his ain⁠—and that will be a grand addition⁠—”

“If he behaves himsel’!” said Janet, “The mistress is a real sensible woman. You’ll no’ see her throw away her siller upon a prodigal, if he were an Erskine ten times over.”

“And wha said he was a prodigal?” cried Agnes, turning round from the landing upon her fellow-servant, who was at once her natural opponent and bosom friend. Nora was of opinion by this time that she had listened long enough.

“Miss Barbara says that her nephew will stay to luncheon, Janet. You are to do your best for him. It is Mr. Erskine, from Dalrulzian,” Nora said, with most unnecessary explanation. Janet turned round upon her quietly, yet with superior dignity.

“By this time of day, Miss Nora,” said Janet, “I think I ken an Erskine when I see him; and also, when a visitor enters this door at twelve o’clock at noon, that he’ll stay to his lunch, and that I maun do my best.”

“It is not my fault,” cried the girl, half amused, half apologetic. “I tell you only, Janet, what Miss Barbara said. Perhaps it was to get rid of me, to send me indoors out of the way.”

“Naething more likely,” said the housekeeper. “She canna be fashed with strangers when her ain are at her hand.”

“Woman!” cried Agnes, from the landing, “how dare you say sae of my mistress? You’ll never mind, Miss Nora. Come up here, my bonnie young leddy, and you’ll have a grand sight of him among the trees.”

“Ay, glower at him,” said Janet, as she went away. “You wouldna be so muckle ta’en up with them if ye kent as much about men as me.”

“Na, you’ll pay no attention,” said Agnes anxiously; “it’s no’ real malice⁠—just she thinks she has mair experience. And so she has mair experience⁠—the only marriet woman in the house. There’s your mamma, with a bonnie family, takes nothing upon her, no more than if she was a single person; but Janet has it a’ her ain way. Stand you here, Miss Nora, at this corner, and you’ll have a grand sight of him. He’s behind the big bourtree-bush; but in a moment⁠—in a moment⁠—”

“I don’t want to see Mr. Erskine,” said Nora, laughing. “I have seen him; most likely I shall see him at lunch. He is just like other people⁠—like dozens of gentlemen⁠—”

“Eh, but when you think that you never ken what may happen⁠—that yon may be the man, for all we ken!”

When Agnes thus put into words the idea which had (she would not deny it to herself) glanced through Nora’s own mind, she was so hypocritical as to laugh, as at a great piece of absurdity⁠—but at the same time so honest as to blush.

“I believe you are always thinking of⁠—that sort of thing,” she said.

“Awfu’ often, Miss Nora,” said Agnes, unabashed⁠—“especially when there’s young folk about; and after a’, is there onything that’s sae important? There’s me and the mistress, we’ve stood aloof from a’ that; but I canna think it’s been for oor happiness. Her⁠—it was her ain doing; but me⁠—it’s a very strange thing to say: I’ve kent many that were far from my superiors⁠—as far as a person can judge⁠—that have had twa-three offers; but me, I never had it in my power. You’ll think it a very strange thing, Miss Nora?”

“I know,” said Nora; “and you so pretty. It is quite extraordinary.” This was the reply that Agnes expected to her favourite confession. She was pretty still at fifty⁠—slim and straight, with delicate features, and that ivory complexion which we associate with refinement and good blood; and the old waiting-woman knew how to faire valoir her fine person and features. She was dressed delicately in a black gown, with a white kerchief of spotless net⁠—like a lady, everybody said. She shook her head with a smile of melancholy consciousness.

“It’s no’ looks that does it,” she said; “it’s⁠—Well, I canna tell. It’s when you ken how to humour them and flatter them. But bless me, there’s Janet, a woman that never flattered man nor woman either! I canna understand it⁠—it’s beyond me. But you mustna follow the mistress, Miss Nora. She’s a happy woman enough, and a bonnie woman for her age, coming up there under her ain trees⁠—just look at her. But if that young lad had been her son, instead of just a distant cousin⁠—”

“Oh, but boys give a great deal of trouble,” said Nora, seriously. “Dear Miss Barbara, I like her best as she is.”

“But you manna follow her example, my bonnie leddy⁠—you manna follow her example. Take a pattern by your ain mammaw. I ca’ her a happy woman, young yet, and a good man, and a bonnie posie of bairns. Eh! I ca’ her a happy woman. And takes nothing upon her!” said Agnes⁠—“nothing upon her. You’ll come up the stair, Miss Nora, and look at yoursel’ in the glass. Oh no, there’s nothing wrang with your bonnie hair. I like it just so⁠—a wee blown about in the mornin’ air. Untidy! bless me, no’ the least untidy! but just⁠—give a look in the glass, and if you think another colour would be more becoming, I have plenty ribbons. Some folk thinks yellow’s very artistic; but the mistress canna bide yellow. She’s owre fair for it, and so are you.”

“Why should I change my ribbon? It is quite tidy,” said Nora, almost with indignation, standing before Miss Barbara’s long cheval-glass. Agnes came and stood behind her, arranging her little collar and the draperies of her dress with caressing hands. And to tell the truth, Nora herself could not shut out from her mind an agreeable consciousness that she was looking “rather nice;⁠—for me,” she added, in her own mind. The morning breeze had ruffled an incipient curl out of the hair which she had brushed, demure and smooth, over her forehead in the morning. It was a thing that nobody suspected when she was fresh from her toilet, but the wind always found out that small eccentricity, and Nora was not angry with the wind. Her ribbon was blue, and suited her far better than the most artistic yellow. All was fresh and fair about her, like the spring morning. “Na; I wouldna change a thing,” Agnes said, looking at her anxiously in the glass, where they made the prettiest picture, the handsome old maid looking like a lady-in-waiting, her fine head appearing over the girl’s shoulder⁠—a lady-in-waiting anxiously surveying her princess, about to meet for the first time with King Charming, who has come to marry her. This was the real meaning of the group.

Nora did not change her ribbon or her own appearance in any way, but she gave a glance to the table set out for luncheon, and renewed the flowers on it, watching all the while the other group which passed and repassed the large round window of the dining-room, their voices audible as they talked. Miss Barbara had taken John’s arm, which was a proof that he had found the way to her favour; and she was evidently asking him a hundred questions. Snatches of their talk about his travels, about his plans, something which she could not make out about the Lindores, caught the ear of Nora. They saw her seated near the window, so there could be no reason why she should stop her ears. And Nora thought him “very nice”⁠—that all-useful adjective. She could scarcely help letting her imagination stray to the familiar place which she had known all her life⁠—her “dear Dalrulzian,” which she had lamented so openly, which now she felt it would no longer be decorous to lament. He looked very like it, she thought. She could see him in imagination standing in the kindly open door, on the Walk, looking the very master the place wanted. Papa had been too old for it. It wanted a young man, a young⁠—Well⁠—she laughed and coloured involuntarily⁠—of course a young wife too. In all likelihood that was all settled, the young wife ready, so that there was no reason to feel any embarrassment about it. And so he knew the Lindores! She would ask Edith all about him. There was no doubt he was a very interesting figure in the countryside, “something for the misses to think about,” as Agnes said, though it was somewhat humiliating to think that “that dreadful man at Tinto” had roused a similar excitement. But the oftener John Erskine passed the window, the more he pleased Nora Barrington. He was “very nice,” she was sure. How kind and careful he was of Miss Barbara! How frank and open his countenance! his voice and his laugh so natural and cheerful! Up to this time, though Nora’s imagination had not been utterly untouched, she was still free of any serious inclination, almost if not entirely fancy-free. It could not be denied that when the new Rintoul became known in the countryside, he, too, had been the object of many prognostications. And he had been, she felt, “very nice” to Nora. Though he had pretensions far above hers, and was not in the least likely to ally himself to a family without fortune, his advances had been such as a girl cannot easily overlook. He was the first who had paid Nora “attention,” and awakened her to a consciousness of power. And she had been flattered and pleased, being very young. But Nora now felt herself at that junction of the two roads, which, as has been said, is inevitable in the experience of every young soul. She was standing in suspense, saying to herself, with a partial sense of treachery and guilt, that Mr. Erskine was still more nice than Lord Rintoul. John Erskine of Dalrulzian; there was something delightful in the very name. All this, it is true, was entirely visionary, without solid foundation of any kind; for they had exchanged nothing but two shy bows, not a word as yet⁠—and whether he would be as “nice” when he talked, Nora did not know.

Her decision afterwards, made with some mortification, was, that he was not nearly so nice when he talked. He showed no wish to talk to her at all, which was an experience quite out of Nora’s way. She sat and listened, for the most part, at this simple banquet, growing angry in spite of herself, and altogether changing her opinion about Lord Rintoul. If she had been a little girl out of the nursery, John Erskine could scarcely have taken less notice of her. Miss Barbara and he continued their talk as if Nora had no existence at all.

“I always thought it a great pity that you were brought up so far from home,” the old lady said. “You know nothing about your own place, or the ways of the countryside. It will take you a long time to make that up. But the neighbours are all very kind, and Lindores, no doubt, will be a great resource, now there’s a young family in it. Fortunately for you, John, you’re not grand enough nor rich enough to come into my lord’s plans.”

“Has my lord plans? For county hospitals and lunatic asylums. So he told me; and he wants my help. To hear even so much as that astonished me. When I knew him he was an elegant hypochondriac, doing nothing at all⁠—”

“He does plenty now, and cares much, for the world and the things of the world,” said Miss Barbara. “I think I have divined his meaning; but we’ll wait and see. You need not sit and make those faces at me, Nora. I know well enough they are not to blame. A woman should know how to stand up for her own child better than that; but she was just struck helpless with surprise, I say nothing different. Speak of manoeuvring mothers! manoeuvring fathers are a great deal worse. I cannot away with a man that will sacrifice his own flesh and blood. Fiegh! I would not do it for a kingdom. And the son, you’ll see, will do the same. Hold you your tongue, Nora. I know better⁠—the son will do the very same. He will be sold to some grocer’s daughter for her hogsheads. Perhaps they’re wanted; two jointures to pay is hard upon any estate, and a title will always bring in money when it’s put up for sale in a judicious way. But you must have your wits about you now, if you have any dealings with your elegant hypochondriac, John, my man. You’re too small⁠—too small for him; but if you had fifty thousand a-year, you would soon⁠—soon be helpless in his hands⁠—”

“Oh, Miss Barbara,” cried Nora, “you are unjust to Lord Lindores. Remember how kind he has been to us, and we have not fifty thousand, nor fifty hundred a-year.”

“You’re not a young man,” said Miss Barbara; “but John, take you care of dangling about Lindores. I am not naming any names; but there may be heartaches gotten there⁠—nothing more for a man of your small means. Oh ay! perhaps I ought to hold my tongue before Nora; but she will be well advised if she takes care too; and besides, she knows all about it as well as I do myself.”

“I hope,” said John, courteously⁠—for he saw that Nora’s composure was disturbed by these last warnings, and he was glad of a chance to change the subject⁠—“I hope I may be so fortunate as to see Colonel Barrington before he leaves the country. He has done so well by Dalrulzian, I should like to thank him for his care.”

This made Nora more red than before. She could not get over that foolish idea that Dalrulzian was far more to her than to this stranger, who could not care for it as she did. She felt that his thanks were an offence. “Papa has gone, Mr. Erskine,” she said, with unusual stateliness. “I am left behind to pay some visits. Everybody here has been so good to us.”

“That means we are all fond of her bit bright face,” said Miss Barbara; “but we’ll say no more on that subject, Nora. Human nature’s selfish in grain. The like of me will take no trouble for lad or lass that is not sweet to see, and a comfort to the heart.”

“I never heard such a pretty apology for selfishness before,” said John. And Miss Barbara took his compliment in good part. But he and Nora made no further approach to each other. Those praises of her made him draw back visibly, she thought, and embarrassed herself beyond bearing. To be praised before an unsympathetic, silently protesting audience⁠—can anything be more humiliating? Nora was conscious of something like dislike of John Erskine before he went away.

And yet his state of feeling was natural enough. He believed that the young lady, so dangerously suitable for him, the very wife he wanted, was being thrust upon him on every side, and the thought revolted him. No doubt he thought, if she were conscious of it, it must be revolting to her too; and in such a case the highest politeness was to be all but rude to her, to show at once and conclusively that schemes of the kind were hopeless. This sentiment was strengthened in the present case by the irritation caused by Miss Barbara’s warning about Lindores, and the heartache which was all that a man of his means was likely to get there. He laughed at it, yet it made him angry. He who had been always used to feel himself a person of importance⁠—he for whom, even now, the whole country was taking the trouble to scheme⁠—to have himself suddenly classified with other small deer as quite beneath the consideration of the Lindores family, too small for my lord’s plans! It was scarcely possible to imagine anything more irritating. After all, a Scotch lord was no such grand affair; and John could not be ignorant that, five years ago, neither father nor mother would have repulsed him. Now! but the doubt, the risk, did not induce the young man to be wise⁠—to put Lady Edith out of his imagination, and turn his thoughts to the other, just as pretty, if that were all, who was manifestly within his reach. What a pity that young people are so slow to see reason in such matters, that they will never take the wiser way! Thus John had his opportunity offered to him to escape from a world of troubles and embarrassments before he had committed himself to that dangerous path; and distinctly refused, and turned his back upon it, not knowing⁠—as indeed at the real turning-point of our fortunes we none of us know.

But as he set out on his homeward walk, his eyes caught that great house of Tinto, which from Dunearn was the central object in the landscape⁠—an immense house, seated on a high platform of rock, dominating the river and the whole country, with scarcely wood enough about it to afford any shadow; an ostentatious pile of building, with that spot of audacious red against the grey sky⁠—the flag always flying (set him up! Miss Barbara said) when the master was at home, which was, so to speak, the straw which broke the camel’s back, the supreme piece of vanity which the county could not tolerate. Pat Torrance to mount a flag upon his house to mark his presence! What more could Sacred Majesty itself do? John Erskine felt as if some malicious spirit had thrown a stone at him out of the clouds as his eye was caught by that flaunting speck of red. He felt all the local intolerance of the man, without a claim but his money to crow thus over his neighbours. And then he thought of Carry Lindores and her poetry and enthusiasm. That was how the Earl disposed of his daughters. A thrill ran through John’s frame, but it was a thrill of defiance. He raised his stick unawares and waved it, as if at the big bully who thus scorned him from afar.

IX

Lady Caroline Torrance was in her morning-room with her children when her husband came to tell her of his visit to Dalrulzian. He had kept it for twenty-four hours, in order to have an opportunity of telling it at his leisure, and making it as disagreeable to her as possible; for indeed he was fully convinced in his own mind that John had been the man about whom his brokenhearted bride had made a confession to him. The confession had not disarmed or moved him to generosity: not that his delicacy was wounded by the thought of his wife’s engagement to someone else before she saw him⁠—no such fantastical reason moved him; but that he was furious at the thought that this unseen personage still remained agreeable to her, and that in secret she could retire upon the recollection of someone whom she had once preferred, or perhaps did now prefer, to himself. This was insupportable to him. He did not care very much for filling her heart himself; but he meant that she should belong to him utterly, and not at all, even in imagination or by a passing thought, to anybody else. Lady Car’s morning-room was the last of a gorgeous but faded suite of rooms opening off the drawing-room, from which it was separated by heavy velvet curtains. Everything was heavy and grand even in this sanctuary, where it was supposed the lady of the house was to find her refuge when no longer on duty, so to speak⁠—no longer bound to sit in state and receive her visitors. It was furnished like the rest, with gilded chairs, a table of Florentine mosaic, and curtains of ruby velvet, looped and puckered into what the upholsterer of the late Mrs. Torrance’s time thought the most elegant and sumptuous fashion. The gilding was a little tarnished, the velvet faded; but still it was too fine for anything less than a royal habitation. It is supposed that princesses, being used to it, like to knock their elbows against ormolu ornaments, and to put down their thimbles and scissors (if they ever use such vulgar implements) upon marble; but poor Lady Car did not. She was chilly by nature, and she never had got over her horror of these additional chillinesses. The Florentine marble made her shiver. It was far too fine to have a cover over it, which she had ventured once to suggest, to her husband’s horror. “What! cover it up, as if it were plain mahogany⁠—a thing that was worth no one could tell how much!” So she gave it up, and shivered all the more. It was a chilly day of May, which the fresh foliage outside, and a deceitful sun not strong enough to neutralise the east wind, made only a little less genial, and Lady Car sat very close to the fire, in a chair as little gilt as could be found, and with a little table beside her covered with a warm and heavy cover, as if to make up for the naked coldness of the rest. The room had three large windows, looking, from the platform upon which the house stood, over the wide country⁠—a great landscape full of greening fields and foliage, and an infinite blue and white sky, the blue somewhat pale but very clear, the clouds mounting in Alpine peaks into the far distance and lying along the horizon in long lines. The windows, it need not be said, were plate-glass, so that an impression of being out of doors and exposed to the full keenness of the breeze was conveyed to the mind. How often had poor Lady Car sat and shivered, looking over that wistful sweep of distance in her loneliness, and knowing that no one could ever come out of it who would bring joy to her or content! She had never been beautiful, the reader is aware. She was plain now, in the absence of all that sunshine and happiness which beautifies and brightens homely faces. And yet her face was not a homely face. The master of Tinto had got what he wanted⁠—a woman whose appearance could never be overlooked, or whom, anyone could undervalue. Her air was full of natural distinction though she had no beauty. Her slight, pliant figure, like a long sapling bending before every breeze, had a grace of gentle yielding which did not look like weakness; and her smile, if perhaps a little timid, was winning and gracious. But her nose and her upper lip were both too long, and the pretty wavering colour she had possessed in her youth was gone altogether. Ill-natured people called her sallow; and indeed, though it is not a pretty word, it was not, at this stage of her existence, far from the truth.

Her two children were playing beside her on the carpet. Poor lady! here was perhaps the worst circumstance in her hard lot. As if it were not enough to be compelled to take Pat Torrance for her husband, it had been her melancholy fate to bring other Torrances, all his in temper and feature, into the world. This is an aggravation of which nobody would have thought. In imagination we are all glad to find a refuge for an unhappy wife in her children, whom instinctively we allot to her as the natural compensation⁠—creatures like herself and belonging to her, although the part in them of the obnoxious father cannot be ignored. But here the obnoxious father was all in all; even the baby of two years old on the rug at her feet, the little girl who by all laws ought to have been like her mother, showed in her little dark countenance as small relationship to Lady Caroline as to any stranger. They were their father’s children: they had his black hair, a peculiarity which sometimes is extremely piquant and attractive in childhood, giving an idea of unusual development; but, on the other hand, sometimes is⁠—not. Little Tom and Edie were of those to whom it is not attractive, for they had heavy fat cheeks, and the same light, large, projecting eyes which were so marked a feature in their father’s face. Poor Lady Car thought they fixed their eyes upon her with a cynical gaze when she tried to sing to them⁠—to tell them baby-stories. She tried her best, but that was perhaps too fine for these children of a coarser race. They scrambled down from her lap, and liked better to roll upon the floor or break with noisy delight the toys which were showered upon them, leaving the poor young mother to gaze and wonder, and feel as much rebuffed as if these two infants of two and three had been twenty years older. They screamed with delight when their father tossed them up in his arms, but they escaped from their mother’s knee when she would have coaxed them to quiet. Poor Lady Car! they were a wonder and perplexity to her. She was half afraid of them though they were her own.

Torrance had come in from the woods, which he had been inspecting with his forester, and perhaps something had crossed him in this inspection, for he was a tyrant by nature, and could not tolerate a contrary opinion; whereas the officials, so to speak, of a great estate in Scotland, are much given to opinions, and by no means to be persuaded to relinquish them. The forester had objected to something the master suggested, and the agent had taken the forester’s part. The master of Tinto came in fuming. To give in was a thing intolerable to him, and to give in to his own servant! But here was another servant whom he need not fear bullying, who could not throw up her situation and put him to inconvenience, who was forced to put up with as much indignity as he chose to put upon her. This thought gave his mind a welcome relief; he strode along through all the gilded rooms with a footstep which meant mischief. Lady Caroline heard it afar off, and recognised the sound. What could it be now? Her mind ran hurriedly over the recent occurrences of the day, to think what possible offence she could have given him. Nothing⁠—or at least she could think of nothing. It did not require a very solid reason for the transference to her shoulders of the rage which he did not think it expedient to bestow upon someone else. He came in kicking out of the way the toys with which the children were playing.

“These monkeys,” he said, “would ruin a Jew if they grow up the way you are breeding them, my lady. That cost a pound or two yesterday, and now it’s all in bits. If your family could stand such extravagance, mine can’t. Tom, my lad, if you break your fine toys like this, I’ll break your head. But it’s not the children’s fault,” he added, “it’s the way they’re bred.”

“It is very wrong of Tommy,” said poor Lady Car, “but you laughed and clapped your hands yesterday when I found fault.”

“I won’t have the boy’s spirit broken⁠—that’s another thing. Breeding’s an affair of day by day; but it can’t be expected that you should take such trouble, with your head full of other things.”

“What other things?” cried Lady Car. “Oh, Pat, have a little pity! What else have I to think of? I may not understand the children, but they are my only thought.”

Here he gave a mocking, triumphant laugh. “No, I daresay you don’t understand them. They’re of my side of the house,” he said. It was a pleasure to him, but not an unalloyed pleasure, for he would have liked to secure in his daughter at least some reflection of her mother’s high-bred air, which had always been her attraction in his eyes. “As for other things,” he added, “there’s plenty: for instance, I have just been visiting your old friend.”

“My old friend?” Lady Caroline looked at him with wondering eyes.

“Oh, that is the way, is it? pretend you don’t understand! I went expressly for your sake. You see what a husband I am: not half appreciated⁠—ready to please his wife in every sort of way. I don’t think much of your taste though: under size,” said Torrance, with a laugh⁠—“decidedly under size.”

Lady Car looked at him with a momentary elevation of her slender, drooping throat. The action was one that had a certain pride in it, and this was what her husband specially admired in her. But she did not understand him, nor was there any secret in her gentle soul to be found out by innuendoes. She shook her head gently, and drooped it again with her habitual bend.

“I do not know what you mean. It must be some mistake,” she said.

“It is no mistake, Lady Car. That’s not my way to make mistakes. It suits you not to know. That makes me all the more certain. Oh, I’m not afraid of you. We’re not in Italy or any of these places. And you’re a great deal too proud to go wrong: you’re too cold, you have not got it in you.”

Lady Caroline raised her head again, but this time in sheer surprise. “Pat,” she said, faltering, “all I know is, that you mean to insult me. I know nothing but that. What is it? Do not insult me before the children.”

“Pshaw! how should the children understand?”

“Not what you mean; but neither do I understand that. The children know as well as I do that you mean to hurt me. What is it?⁠—what have I done?”

“By Jove!” he said, looking at her, “to see you there with your white face, one would think you never had done anything but good all your life. You look as if butter would not melt in your mouth. Not the sort of woman to look down upon her husband and count him a savage, and keep thinking of a nice, smooth, soft-spoken⁠—You would never tell me his name, and I was a fool, and didn’t insist upon it; but now he has come back to be your ladyship’s neighbour, and see you every day.”

She did not answer immediately. She looked at him with a curious light stealing into her soft grey eyes, raising her head again. Then she said slowly, “I think you must mean Mr. Erskine of Dalrulzian. If so, you have made a great mistake. I think he is younger than I am. He was not much more than a boy when I knew him. He never was anything⁠—but an acquaintance.”

“It’s likely you’ll get me to believe that,” cried Torrance, scornfully. He jumped up from his seat, and came and stood in front of the fire, with his back to it, brushing against her dress, so close to her that she had to draw back out of his way. “An acquaintance! There are different meanings to that word. I’ve been to see him on your account, my lady. I’ve asked him to come here. Oh, I’m not afraid of you, as I tell you. You’re too cold and too proud to go wrong. You shall see him as much as you like⁠—I have every confidence in you⁠—see him, and talk to him, and tell him what you think of your husband. It will be a nice sentimental amusement for you; and as for me, I’ll always be by to look on.”

He laughed as he spoke, angrily, fiercely, and glared down upon her from under his eyelids with a mixture of fury and satisfaction. She pushed her chair back a little with a shiver, drawing away her dress, upon which he had placed his foot.

“If it was as you suppose,” she said, trembling, “what misery you would be planning for me! It makes me cold indeed to think of such cruelty. What! you would put me in such a strait! You would force me into the society of one⁠—Oh, Pat, surely you are doing yourself wrong! You could not be so cruel as that!”

He laughed again, striding across the fireplace, ever encroaching more upon her corner. His face had grown red with wrath. He was not without feeling, such as it was, and this which he supposed his wife’s acknowledgment that his cruel device could indeed wound her, gave himself a start of self-reproach and alarm, though there was pleasure in the power he felt he had acquired of causing pain.

“Ah, I’ve caught you, have I? I’ve caught you at last!” he cried, with a tone of triumph.

“You could not do it!” cried Lady Caroline, her pale face flushed. “No! do not say you made such a cruel plan⁠—no, no!⁠—to entrap the poor woman who is your wife⁠—alas! who never did you harm⁠—to rend her heart in two, and make her life more miserable. No, no! do not tell me you have this cunning as well as⁠—all the rest; do not tell me! You would not do it, you could not do it. There is no such cruelty in man.”

“It’s a satisfaction,” he cried, his face burning and glowing, “to think I have you in my grip, Lady Car.”

She breathed quick and hard, pushed back in her corner, gazing up at him with a look from which a stronger tremor had taken all the timidity. It was some time before she could speak. “Do not think,” she said, “that I am afraid of you. I am only horrified to think⁠—but I might have known. Mr. Erskine, by whom you think you can make me more unhappy, is nothing to me⁠—nothing, nothing at all, nothing at all! He is not the gentleman I thought it right to tell you about⁠—no, no! a very different person. I do not want to see him, because I should not like⁠—old friends to know; but Mr. Erskine is nothing to me⁠—nothing!”

Whether he would have been convinced by the vehemence with which she said this alone, cannot be known⁠—for at that moment the carefully festooned velvet curtains were disturbed in the regulated folds which nobody at Tinto had ever ventured to alter, and Edith suddenly appeared with an anxious and pale countenance. She had heard the raised voices as she approached, and her sister’s “nothing to me, nothing!” had been quite distinct to her as she came in. She could not imagine what it was that could have excited poor Carry so much, and Edith had a nervous dislike of any scene. She could not draw back, having with difficulty sent away the servant who was conducting her punctiliously to her sister’s presence, and she felt herself compelled to face the quarrel, which was evidently a serious one. Edith was fastidious and sensitive, with all the horror of a girl who had never seen anything like domestic contention or the jars of family life. Lord Lindores and his wife had not always agreed since his recent elevation⁠—indeed they had disagreed bitterly and painfully on the most serious questions; but such a thing as a quarrel had been unknown in their household. To Edith it seemed such an offence against good taste and all the courtesies of life, as nothing could excuse⁠—petty and miserable, as well as unhappy and wrong. She was annoyed as well as indignant to be drawn into it thus against her will. Carry had hitherto concealed with all her might from her young sister the state of conflict in which she lived. Her unhappiness she did not hide; but she had managed to keep silent in Edith’s presence, so that the girl had never been an actual witness of the wranglings of the ill-matched pair. But poor Lady Car for once was moved out of her usual precautions. She was too much excited even to remember them. She appealed to her sister at once, hailing her appearance with eagerness, and without pausing to think.

“Edith,” she cried, “you have come in time. Tell Mr. Torrance that Mr. Erskine, who has just come home, was not a⁠—special friend of mine. You can speak, for you know. Mr. Torrance says⁠—he thinks⁠—” here Lady Car came to herself, perceiving the disturbed looks of her sister, and remembering her own past reserve. She paused, and forced herself into a miserable smile. “It is not worth while entering into the story,” she said; “it does not⁠—matter much. It is only a mistake, a⁠—a difference of opinion. You can tell Mr. Torrance⁠—”

“I don’t want any information,” said Torrance, sulkily. He, too, felt embarrassed by the sudden introduction of Edith into the discussion. He moved away from the fire with a rude attempt at civility. Edith, in her youthful absolutism, and want of toleration or even understanding of himself, overawed him a little. She was not, he thought, nearly so aristocratic in appearance as his wife; but he was slightly afraid of her, and had never been at his ease in her presence. What was the opinion of this little chit to him? He asked himself the question often, but it did not divest him of that vague perception of his own appearance in her eyes, which is the most mortifying of all reflections. No caricature made of us can be so disconcerting. Just so Haman must have seen himself, a wretched pretender, through the eyes of that poor Jew in the gate. Torrance saw himself an exaggerated boor, a loud-speaking, underbred clown, in the clear regard, a little contemptuous, never for a moment overawed by him, of Edith Lindores. He had perhaps believed his wife’s denial in respect to John Erskine while they were alone, but he believed her entirely when she called Edith to witness. He was subdued at once⁠—he drew away from before the fire with sulky politeness, and pushed forward a chair. “It’s a cold day,” he said. The quarrel died in a moment a natural death. He hung about the room for a few minutes, while Edith, to lessen the embarrassment of the situation, occupied herself with the children. As for Lady Car, she had been too much disturbed to return at once to the pensive calm which was her usual aspect. She leant back in her chair, pushed up into the corner as she had been by her husband’s approach, and with her thin hands clasped together. Her breath still came fast, her poor breast heaved with the storm⁠—she said nothing to aid in the gradual restoration of quiet. The spell being once broken, perhaps she was not sorry of the opportunity of securing Edith’s sympathy. There is a consolation in disclosing such pangs, especially when the creator of them is unbeloved. To tell the cruelties to which she was subject, to pour out her wrongs, seemed the only relief which poor Carry could look forward to. It had not been her will to betray it to her sister; but now that the betrayal had taken place, it was almost a pleasure to her to anticipate the unburdening of her heart. All that she desired for the moment was that he would go away, that she might be free to speak. The words seemed bursting from her lips even while he was still there. Perhaps Torrance himself had a perception of this; but then he did not believe that his wife had not a hundred times made her complaint to Edith before. And thus there ensued a pause which was not a pleasant one. Neither the husband nor the wife spoke, and Edith’s agitated discourses with the children were the only sounds audible. They were not prattling, happy children, capable of making a diversion in such circumstances; and Edith was not so fond of the nephew and niece, who so distinctly belonged to their father, as she ought to have been. The situation was relieved by a summons to Torrance to see someone below. He went away reluctantly, jealously, darting a threatening look at his wife as he looked back. Edith was as much alarmed for what was coming as Torrance was. She redoubled her attentions to the children, hoping to avert the disclosure which she, too, saw was so near.

“It is their time to⁠—go back to the nursery,” said Carry, with a voice full of passion, ringing the bell; and the children were scarcely out of hearing when the storm burst forth: “I have borne a great deal, oh, a great deal⁠—more, far more, than you can ever know; but think, think! what he intended for me. To invite John Erskine here, thinking he was⁠—someone else; to bring us into each other’s company day after day; to tempt me to the old conversations, the old walks. Don’t contradict me⁠—he said so: that I might feel my misery, and drink my cup to the last dregs.”

“Carry, Carry! you must be mistaking him; he could not wish that; it would be an insult⁠—it would be impossible.”

“That is why it pleases him,” cried the poor wife; “he likes to watch and make sure that I suffer. If I did not suffer, it would do him no good. He says I am too proud and too cold to⁠—go wrong, Edith! That is how he speaks to your sister; and he wishes to show me⁠—to show me, as if I did not know⁠—what I have and what I have lost!”

“Carry, you must not. Oh, don’t let us even think of what is past now!”

“It is easy for you to say so. I have tried⁠—oh, how I have tried!⁠—never to think of the past⁠—even now, even today. Think, only think! Because he supposed that, he went expressly to see John Erskine, to ask him to come here, planning to torture me⁠—no matter to him, because he was sure I was too proud to go wrong. He wanted to watch the meeting⁠—to see how we would look at each other, what we would say, how we would behave ourselves at such a moment. Can you believe it, Edith? Was there ever anything in a book, in the theatre, so cruel, so terrible? Do you suppose one can help, after that, thinking of the past, thinking of the future too?⁠—for suppose it had been⁠—Edward⁠—Oh no, no! I don’t want to name his name; but suppose it had been⁠—he. Another time it may be he. He may come to visit John Erskine. We may meet in the world; and then I know⁠—I know what is before me. This man⁠—oh, I cannot call him by any name!⁠—this man, whom I belong to, who can do what he pleases with my life⁠—I know now what his pleasure will be⁠—to torture me, Edie!⁠—for no purpose but just to see me suffer⁠—in a new way. He has seen me suffer already⁠—oh, how much!⁠—and he is blasé! he wants something more piquant, a newer torture, a finer invention to get more satisfaction out of me. And you tell me I must not think of the past!”

“Carry, Carry!” cried Edith, trembling; “what can I say? You ought not to bear it. Come home; come back to us. Don’t stay with him, if this is how you feel about him, another day.”

Carry shook her head. “There is no going back,” she said; “alas! I know that now, if never before. To go back is impossible: my father would not allow it; my mother would not approve it. I dare not myself. No, no, that cannot be. However dreadful the path may be, all rocks or thorns, and however your feet may be torn and bleeding⁠—forward, forward one must go. There is no escape. I have learned that.”

There was a difference of about six years between them⁠—not a very great period; and yet what a difference it made! Edith had in her youthful mind the certainty that there was a remedy for every evil, and that what was wrong should not be permitted to exist. Carry knew no remedy at all for her own condition, or indeed, in the reflection of her own despair, for any other. Nothing was to be done that she knew of; nothing could do any good. To go back was impossible. She sat leaning back in her chair, clasping her white thin hands, looking into the vacant air⁠—knowing of no aid, but only a little comfort in the mere act of telling her miseries⁠—nothing more; while Edith sat by her, trembling, glowing, impatient, eager for something to be done.

“Does mamma know?” the girl asked, after a pause.

Carry did not move from her position of quiet despair. “Do you think,” she said, “it is possible that mamma, who has seen so much, should not know?”

To this Edith could make no reply, knowing how often the subject had been discussed between her mother and herself, with the certainty that Carry was unhappy, though without any special explanation to each other of the manner of her unhappiness.

“But if my father were to speak to him, Carry? My father ought to do it; it was he who made you⁠—it was he who⁠—”

“No one can say anything; no one can do anything. I am sorry I told you, Edie; but how could I help it? And it does me a little good to speak. I must complain, or I should die.”

“Oh, my poor Car, my poor Car!” Edith cried, throwing herself upon her knees beside her sister. Die! she said, within herself; would it not be better⁠—far better⁠—to die? It was living that seemed to her impossible. But this was another of the sad pieces of knowledge which Carry had acquired: that you cannot die when you please, as the young and untried are apt to suppose⁠—that mortal anguish does not always kill. It was Edith who was agitated and excited, seeking eagerly for a remedy⁠—any remedy⁠—even that heroic and tragical one; but Carry did not feel that even in that there was any refuge for her now.

This was by no means John Erskine’s fault. He was as innocent of it, as unconscious of it, as any man could be; but Edith, an impatient girl, felt a sort of visionary rage against him, in which there was a certain attraction too. It seemed to her as if she must go and tell him of this sad family secret, though he had so little to do with it. For was not he involved, and his coming the occasion of it? If she could but have accused him, confided in him, it would have given her mind a certain relief, though she could not well tell why.

X

After the strange scene in which she had been made a party to her sister’s wretchedness, it was inevitable that Edith should return to Lindores so completely occupied with this subject that she could think of nothing else. It was some time before she could get her mother’s ear undisturbed; but as soon as they were alone, after various interruptions which the girl could scarcely bear, she poured forth her lamentable story with all the eloquence of passion and tears. Edith’s whole soul was bent upon some remedy.

“How can there be any doubt on the subject? She must come home⁠—she must go away from him. Mother! it is sacrilege, it is profanation. It is⁠—I don’t know any word bad enough. She must come away⁠—”

Lady Lindores shook her head. “It is one of the most terrible things in the world; but now that it is done, she must stand to it. We can do nothing, Edith⁠—”

“I cannot believe that,” cried the girl. “What! live with a man like that⁠—live with him like that⁠—always together, sharing everything⁠—and hate him? Mother! it is worse wickedness than⁠—than the wicked. It is a shame to one’s very nature. And to think it should be Carry who has to do it! But no one ought to be compelled to do it. It ought not to be. I will speak to papa myself if no one else will⁠—it ought not to be⁠—”

Again Lady Lindores shook her head. “In this world, in this dreadful world,” she said, “we cannot think only of what is right and wrong⁠—alas! there are other things to be taken into consideration. I think till I came home I was almost as innocent as you, Edith. Your father and I were very much blamed when we married. My people said to me, and still more his people said to him, that we should repent it all our lives; but that once having done it, we should have to put up with it. Well, you know what it used to be. I suppose I should be ashamed to say that I found it very easy to put up with. It was a strange sort of wandering life⁠—”

“Oh, how much happier than now!” cried Edith. “Oh, poor little Rintoul! poor uncle! if they had but lived and flourished, how much better for us all!”

“I would not say that,” said Lady Lindores. “I think now that when we were all so happy your father felt it. He did not say anything, but I am sure he felt it. See how different he is now! Now he feels himself in his right place. He has room for all his talents. Edith, do not put on that look, my dear child.”

Edith’s face was soft and young; but as her mother spoke, it hardened into an expression which changed its character entirely. Her upper lip closed down tight upon the other; her eyes widened and grew stern. Not her father himself, not the old ancestors on the panels, looked more stern than this girl of twenty. She did not say anything, but the change in her face was answer enough.

“Edith! you must not form such strong opinions; you must not make yourself the judge⁠—”

“Then I must not be a human creature, mamma; and that I am, grown up, and obliged to think for myself. Sometimes I wish I did not. If I could only believe that all that was done was well, as some people do. Here all is wrong⁠—all is wrong! It ought not to have been at all, this marriage⁠—and now⁠—it ought not to continue to be⁠—”

“My darling!” said Lady Lindores, appealing to her child with piteous eyes, “I am to blame too. I ought to have resisted more strongly; but it is hard, hard⁠—to set one’s self against one’s husband, whom one has respected, always respected, and who has seemed to know best.”

Edith’s face did not relax. “Let us not talk of that,” she said. “It makes one’s heart sick. I think everyone was wrong. Neither should you have done it, mamma⁠—forgive me! nor should Carry have done it. She ought never, never, to have consented. I could not believe till the last moment that it was possible. Someone should have stopped it. I hoped so till the last moment; but when once it was done, as you say, one thought at least that he loved her. Why did he want to marry her if he did not love her? But he can’t love her, since he behaves so. No love at all, either on one side or the other; and yet the two bound together for their lives. Was there ever anything so horrible? It ought not to be! It ought not to be!”

Lady Lindores took her daughter in her arms to soothe her; but Edith, drying the hot tears from her eyes, was almost impatient of her mother’s caresses. What were caresses? Well enough, sweet in their way, but setting nothing right that was wrong. Yes, it was true the mother should not have permitted it, any more than the daughter should have done it. Two human creatures, grown up (as Edith repeated to herself), able to judge⁠—they ought not to have allowed themselves to be swept away by the will of another. This was how the resolute girl put it. Her father she gave up⁠—she would not judge him, therefore she preferred not to think of him at all. He had done it determinedly, and of distinct purpose; but the others who submitted, who allowed themselves to be forced into ill-doing, were they less to blame? All this she had gone over at the time of Carry’s marriage, and had suppressed and forced it away from her. But now the current turned again. She withdrew herself from her mother’s arms. Here was the most hideous thing in the world existing in their sight, her sister at once the victim and the chief actor in it, and all that could be given her in her eager attempt to set things right was a kiss! It seemed to Edith that the shame on her cheeks, the fire in her eyes, dried up her tears. She turned away from Lady Lindores. If she should be doomed too, by her father’s will, would her mother have no better help to give her than a kiss? But when this idea passed through the girl’s mind, she tossed back her head with an involuntary defiance. Never should such a doom come upon her. Heaven and earth could not move her so far. Obedience! This was such obedience as no one of God’s creatures had any right to render to another⁠—neither wife to husband, nor to her parents any child!

After this there was a long pause in the conversation between the mother and daughter. Lady Lindores divined Edith’s thoughts. She understood every shade of the repugnance, disgust, disapproval, that the young upright spirit, untouched as yet by the bonds and complications of life, was passing through. And she shrank a little from Edith’s verdict, which she acknowledged to be true. But what could she have done, she asked herself? Who would have approved her had she opposed her husband’s wishes, encouraged her daughter to keep to a foolish engagement made under circumstances so totally different, and to refuse a match so advantageous? She had done everything she could; she had remonstrated, she had protested: but when Carry herself gave in, what could her mother, in the face of the universal disapproval of the world, at the risk of an absolute breach with her husband, do? But none of these things did Edith take into account⁠—Edith, young and absolute, scorning compromises, determined only that what was right should be done, and nothing else. Lady Lindores withdrew too, feeling her caress rejected, understanding even what Edith was saying in her heart. What was a kiss when things so much more important were in question? It was perfectly true. She felt the justice of it to the bottom of her heart, and yet was chilled and wounded by the tacit condemnation of her child. She went to her work, which was always a resource at such a moment, and there was a silence during which each had time to regain a little composure. By-and-by, when the crisis seemed to have passed, Lady Lindores spoke.

“We must have young Erskine here,” she said, almost timidly. “Your father has asked him; and in the circumstances, as we saw so much of him before, it is quite necessary. I think, as this unpleasant suggestion has been made⁠—now, Edith, do not be unreasonable, we must do what we can in this world, not what we would⁠—as this has taken place, I will ask Carry and her husband to meet him. It will show Mr. Torrance at least⁠—”

“Mother!” Edith burst out⁠—“mother! I tell you of a thing which is wickedness, which is a horror to think of, and you speak of asking people to dinner! Do you mean to turn it all into ridicule?⁠—oh, not me, that would not matter⁠—but all purity, all fitness? To ask them to⁠—meet him⁠—”

“My dear, my dear!” cried Lady Lindores, half weeping, half angry, appealing and impatient at once. She did not know what to say to this impracticable young judge. “We cannot resort to heroic measures,” she cried. “It is impossible. We cannot take her away from him, any more than we can make of him a reasonable man. Carry herself would be the first to say no⁠—for the children’s sake, for the sake of her own credit. All we can do is to make the best of what exists. Mr. Torrance must be shown quietly how mistaken he is⁠—how much he is in the wrong.”

“Mr. Torrance! I would show him nothing, except how much I scorn him,” Edith cried. “A man who dares to torture my sister⁠—a man⁠—who is not worthy to take her name into his lips, with his insolent doubts and his ‘Lady Car,’ which I cannot endure to hear!”

“But who is her husband, alas! I cannot bear to hear it either; but what can we do? We can take no notice of his insolent doubts; but we must prove, all the same, to all the world⁠—”

“Mother! But if it did so happen⁠—who can tell?⁠—that it had been⁠—poor Edward?”

“Hush!” cried her mother, almost fiercely; and then she added, “God forbid, Edith⁠—God forbid!”

But who could have divined that such preliminaries were necessary to procure the assembling of the little party which met a few evenings later at Lindores, just on the eve of the departure of the family to London for their short enjoyment of the season? John Erskine had been told that it would be merely a family party⁠—his old friends, as Lady Lindores, with kind familiarity and a smile so genial and so charming that the young man must have been a wizard had he seen anything beneath it, assured him. It never occurred to him to think of anything beneath. The Earl had been as cordial, as friendly, as could be desired; and though it gave him a disagreeable sensation to meet, when he entered the room, the stare of Torrance, whose big light eyes seemed to project out of his face to watch the entrance of the stranger, yet he speedily forgot this in the pleasure with which he found himself greeted by the others. Carry walked across the room with a gentle dignity, which yet was very unlike the shy brightness of her old girlish aspect, and held out to him a thin hand. “I think you scarcely remember me,” she said, with a soft pathetic smile. She was not, as many women would have been, confused by the recollection that her husband was there jealously watching her looks and her tones: this consciousness, instead of agitating her, gave her a kind of inspiration. In other circumstances, the very sight of one who had been a witness of her brief romance might have disturbed her, but she was steeled against all tremors now.

John could scarcely make her any reply. The change in her was so great that he was struck dumb. Her girlish freshness was gone, her animation subdued, the intellectual eagerness quenched in her eyes. A veil of suffering and patience seemed to fall about her, through which she appeared as at a distance, in another sphere. “Indeed,” he said, hesitating, “I should scarcely have known you,” and murmured something about his pleasure in seeing her⁠—at which she smiled again sadly, saying nothing more. This was all their greeting. Edith stood by with an unusually high colour, and a tremor of agitation in her frame, which he perceived vaguely with surprise, not knowing what it could mean; and then the little incident was over, half of the company seeing nothing whatever in it but a mere casual encounter of old acquaintances. Besides the family, there were present the girl whom John Erskine began within himself to call “that everlasting Miss Barrington,” and the minister of the parish, a man carefully dressed in the costume adopted during the last generation by the Anglican priesthood, who was one of the “new school,” and had the distinction of having made himself very alarming to his presbytery as, if not a heretic, yet at least “a thinker,” given to preaching about honest doubt, and trifling with German philosophy. These two strangers scarcely afforded enough of variety to change the character of the family party. Torrance devoted himself to his dinner, and for some time spoke but little. Lady Caroline occupied herself with Dr. Meldrum with something of her old eagerness. It was evident that he was her resource, and that vague views upon the most serious subjects, which everybody else thought high-flown, found some sympathy in this professional thinker, who was nothing if not heretical. As for John, he was wholly occupied by Lady Lindores, who talked to him with a fluency which was almost feverish.

“We shall find you here when we come back,” she said, “with all your arrangements made? And I hope Rintoul will return with us. Certainly he will be here in August, and very thankful to find a neighbour like you, Mr. Erskine, with whom he will have so much in common.”

“That’s a compliment to the rest of us,” said Torrance, who sat on the other side. “Rintoul, I suppose, doesn’t find much in common with us ignorant clowns in the county,”⁠—this he said without looking at anyone, with his head bent over his plate.

“I did not say so. Rintoul is not so much with us as I could wish⁠—he has his duty to attend to. To be sure, they get a great deal of leave; but you young men have so many places to go to nowadays. You spend so very little time at home. I wonder if it is a good thing or the reverse,” said Lady Lindores, with a little sigh. “A mother may be pardoned for not admiring the new way, when our sons come home, not for us, but for the shooting.”

“I think I am scarcely able to judge,” said John: “home⁠—perhaps was a little different to me: my mother has so many claiming a share in her. And now my home is here in Dalrulzian, which is merely a house, not a home at all,” he said with something between a laugh and a sigh.

“You must marry,” Lady Lindores said; “that is what the county expects of you. You will disappoint all your neighbours if you do not accomplish this duty within a year. The question is, whether the lady is already found, or whether we are to have the gratification of seeing you go through all the preliminaries, which is a great amusement, Mr. Erskine; so I hope you have your choice still to make.”

It was accident, of course, which directed her eyes to Nora, who sat by Torrance⁠—accident only; for a kind woman, who was herself a mother, would not have willingly done anything to light up the sudden colour which flamed over the girl’s face. Nora felt as if she could have sunk into the earth. As for John, it seemed almost an insult to her that he should look at her coldly across the table with studious unconsciousness.

“I am afraid I cannot undertake to furnish amusement for the county,” he said, “in that way⁠—and Dalrulzian is not big enough for two people. I had no idea it was so small. It is a bachelor’s box, a lodge, a sort of chambers in the country, where one can put up a friend, but nothing more.”

Here Nora found a way out of her embarrassment. “Indeed,” she cried, “you wrong Dalrulzian, Mr. Erskine. We found it sufficient for our whole family, and the most delightful place to live in. You are not worthy of Dalrulzian if you talk of it so.”

“I think Erskine is quite right,” said Torrance, between two mouthfuls; “it’s a small little bit of a place.”

“So is Lindores,” the Countess said, eagerly; “there are quantities of small rooms, but no sort of grandeur of space. We must go to Tinto for that. You have not yet seen Tinto, Mr. Erskine? We must not be jealous, for our old nests are more natural. If we were all rich enough to build sets of new rooms like a little Louvre, there would be none of the old architecture left.”

“You are speaking about architecture, Lady Lindores,” said Dr. Meldrum. He had just returned from his first expedition “abroad,” and he was very willing to enlighten the company with his new experiences: besides, just then Lady Caroline was pressing him very hard upon a point which he did not wish as yet to commit himself upon. “Stone and lime are safer questions than evolution and development,” he said, turning to her, in an undertone.

“Safer perhaps, but not so interesting. They are ended and settled⁠—arrange them in what form you please, and they stand there forever,” said Lady Caroline, with brightening eyes; “but not so the mind: not so a single thought, however slight it may be. There is all the difference between life and death.”

“My dear Lady Caroline! you will not call the Stones of Venice dead⁠—or St. Peter’s, soaring away into the skies? Though they are but collections of stones, they are as living as we are.”

“I begin to recognise her again,” said John, innocent of all reason why he should not fix his attention upon poor Carry, as her pale face lighted up. He felt too pitiful, too tender of her, to speak of her formally by her new title. “She used to look like that in the old days.”

“Yes,” said Lady Lindores, with a sigh. “Poor Carry! visionary subjects always pleased her best.”

Torrance had raised his head from his plate, and was lending an eager ear. “It’s confoundedly out of place all that for a woman,” he said. “What has she to do with politics, and philosophy, and nonsense? She has plenty to think of in her children and her house.”

Lady Lindores made him a little bow, but took no further notice. She was exasperated, and scarcely under her own control; but Nora, on the other side, was glad to have the chance of breaking her lance on someone. If Pat Torrance was not worth her steel, there was at least another opposite whose opinions she had no clue to, whom she would have liked to transfix if that had been possible. “It does us poor girls good to have the benefit of a gentleman’s real opinion,” she said. “Would you like Lady Caroline to make your puddings? It is so good to know what is expected of us⁠—in all ranks.”

“Why not?” said Torrance, over his plate. “A woman’s business is to look after her house⁠—that was always considered the right thing. I hope you are not one of the strong-minded ones, Miss Barrington. You had much better not. No man ever looks at them.”

“And what a penalty that would be!” cried Nora, with solemnity.

“You wouldn’t like it, that I’ll promise you. I tell you, they are all the ugly ones. I once saw a lot of them, one uglier than the other⁠—women that knew no man would ever look at them. They were friends of Lady Car’s, you may be sure, all chattering twenty to the dozen. They want to get into Parliament⁠—that is at the bottom of it all; and then they would make a pretty mess⁠—for us to set right.”

“But, Mr. Torrance, you could not set it right, for you are not in Parliament any more than I am,” said Nora, pointedly. He gave her a look out of his big eyes which might have killed her had looks such power. The Earl had complained that his son-in-law was not amenable in this matter. But nobody knew that it was a very sore point with the wealthy squire, whom no one had so much as thought of for such a dignity. Much poorer, less important persons than himself, had been suggested, had even sat for the county. But Torrance of Tinto, conscious that he was the only man among them who could afford to throw away a few thousands without wincing⁠—of him nobody had thought. He had declaimed loudly on many occasions that nothing would induce him to take the trouble; but this slight had rankled at his heart.

“Mr. Torrance would not like London life,” Lady Lindores said, coming to his aid; “turning night into day is hard upon those who are accustomed to a more natural existence.”

“You speak as if I had never been out of the country,” said her ungracious son-in-law. “I know that’s the idea entertained of me in this house: but it’s a mistake. I’ve seen life just as much as those who make more fuss about it.”

“And you, Mr. Erskine, have you seen life?” said Lady Lindores, turning to him with, a smile.

“Very little,” said John⁠—“in London at least.”

“It’s a wonderful idea to me, though most people seem to hold it,” said Dr. Meldrum, coming in, in a pause of that conversation with Lady Caroline, which sometimes alarmed him by its abstractness and elevation, “that life is only to be seen in London, or in Paris, or some of those big centres. Under correction, Lady Lindores, and not to put my small experience above the more instructed⁠—”

“That is an alarming beginning,” cried Edith. “Dr. Meldrum means to show us how ignorant we all are.”

“That’s what I never can show anyone in this house,” said the minister, with old-fashioned politeness; “but my opinion is, that life in a great metropolis is the most conventional⁠—ay, you’ll acknowledge that⁠—the most contracted, the most narrow, the most⁠—Well, well, if you’ll not let a man speak⁠—”

The hubbub of contradiction and amusement made the party more genial, more at ease, than it had yet been.

“If you make that out, Doctor, you will give us something new to think of,” the Earl said.

And poor Lady Caroline, who found in the good minister her chief intellectual resource, prepared to listen to his argument with all the attention of a hearer who believes fully in the abilities of her guide. “I think I can see what Dr. Meldrum means,” she said.

“I am sure you will see what I mean,” the Doctor said, gratefully. “In the first place, it’s far too big to make society general⁠—you’ll allow that? Well, then, the result is, that society, being so vast, breaks itself up into little coteries. It’s liker a number of bits of villages just touching each other, like a long thread of them, every one with its own little atmosphere. That’s just London to me. You meet the same people as if you were in a village; then go out of that clique to another, and you meet the same people again, but another set. There was one day,” said the minister, with a certain pride, “that I was very dissipated. I went out to my lunch, and then to a party in the afternoon, and then to my dinner, and to two places at night. It was a great experience. Well, if you’ll believe me, I was wearied with seeing the same faces, in a great society like London, the chief place in the world. There was scarcely one I did not meet three times in the course of that day. In the country here, you could not do more. There’s as much variety as that in Dunearn itself.”

“I see what Dr. Meldrum means,” said Carry. “No doubt it was a special society into which he had been introduced, and people were asked to meet him because they were distinguished⁠—because they were people whom it was a pleasure to meet.”

“That’s a great compliment to me, but I cannot take it to myself. They were, many of them, persons that it was no pleasure to meet. Some with titles, and, so far as I could see, little more. Some that were perhaps rich⁠—I hope so, at least, for they were nothing else.”

“This is cynicism,” said Lord Lindores; “and I, who have lived in the opinion that Dr. Meldrum was the most benignant, the most tolerant of men⁠—”

“One can understand entirely,” repeated Lady Caroline, standing by her friend, “what he means. I have thought so myself. The same faces, the same ideas, even the same words that mean so little⁠—”

“I didn’t know you were so well up in London society, Lady Car,” said her husband, who had been trying for some time to strike into the melee, and whose lance was specially aimed at her of all the talkers. And then there was a general flutter of talk, instinctive, all round the table; for when a man stretches across to say something disagreeable to his wife, everybody present is upon their honour to quench the nascent quarrel. The ladies left the table soon after; and the conversation of the men did not afford the same risks, for after one or two contradictions, which the Earl put aside with well-bred ease and a slight but unanswerable contempt, Torrance sank into sulky silence, taking a great deal of wine. At such moments a little poetic justice and punishment of his sins towards his daughter was inflicted even upon Lord Lindores.

XI

“Do you like him, Nora?”

This is a question that means nothing in most cases, nor would it have meant anything now save for Nora’s special sense of having been presented to John Erskine in something like the light of a candidate for his favour.

“I don’t think I like him at all,” she said, with some petulance. “He looks at us all as if we were natives of an undiscovered country. He is very cautious, not intending to make us proud by too much notice. Oh, it is different with you. You knew him before⁠—you are not one of the barbarous people. As for me, I am jaundiced, I am not a fair judge; because he is determined, whatever happens, that not a single glass bead, not a cowrie or a bangle, or whatever you call them, will he give to me.”

“That is not what he means, Nora. He is a little bewildered. Fancy coming into an entirely new place, which you know nothing about, and realising all at once that you belong to it, and that here is your place in the world. That happened to us too. I sympathise with him. We felt just the same when we came to Lindores.”

“But you were not afraid of the natives, Edith. Young men, however,” said Nora, with an air of grave impartiality, “are to be pitied in that way; they think themselves so dreadfully important. If they speak to a girl, they suppose immediately that they may be putting false hopes into her head and making her think⁠—and then that frightens them. Well, it is natural it should frighten them. Suppose that Mr. Erskine, by merely speaking civilly to me, should run the risk of breaking my heart⁠—is not that something to be afraid of? for he is quite nice, I am sure, and would not, if he could help it, break any girl’s heart.”

“You are talking nonsense, Nora. How did you get so much acquaintance with the conceits of young men?”

“I see them through the boys. Jamie and Ned are like a pair of opera-glasses; you can see through them what that kind of creature thinks.”

“I am sure,” said Edith, with some heat, “Rintoul is not like that.”

“Oh, I was not thinking of Lord Rintoul,” cried Nora, precipitately. She blushed, and Edith observed it, making her own conclusions. And thereupon she on her side had something to say.

“Rintoul, when he was only Robin, was a delightful brother. He never was clever⁠—even I was cleverer than he was; and Carry, of course, was always ever so far above us both. But now that he is Rintoul, he is a little changed. One is fond of him, of course, all the same. But it is different; he has ideas⁠—of money, of getting on in the world, of people making good marriages, and that sort of thing. I think we have had enough of that in our family,” Edith added, with a sigh; “but Rintoul has got corrupted. To be heir to anything seems to corrupt people somehow. It is not so very much: but he has got ideas⁠—of what his rank demands⁠—that sort of thing. Because there is a title, he must marry for money. Well, perhaps not quite so broad as that: but he must not marry where there is no money. I cannot put up with it,” Edith cried.

And it was true that she could not put up with it. Yet there was a certain intention, too, even in this little outburst. One girl cannot chatter with another without meanings, without secret intimations of dangers in the way. Nora’s countenance clouded over, the blush on her cheek grew deeper; but she laughed, putting a little force on herself.

“Is not that quite right? I have always been taught so. Not to marry for money. That is putting it a great deal too broadly, as you say⁠—but only when you are going to marry, that it should not be a penniless person. It is so much better for both parties, mamma always says.”

“I wonder if you mean to conform to the rule?” her friend asked, with an impulse half of mockery, half of curiosity.

“I don’t mean to conform to any rule,” said Nora. “One has to wait, you know, when one is a girl, till somebody is kind enough to fall in love with one; and then you are allowed to say whether you will have him or no. Don’t you remember what Beatrice says?⁠—‘It is my cousin’s duty to make courtesy and say, “Father, as it please you,” ’ only with that little reservation, ‘Let him be a handsome fellow, or else make another courtesy⁠—’ ”

“It is worse than that,” said Edith, very gravely. “You say some things are hard upon young men; but oh, how much, much harder upon girls! It is in town that one feels that. There was something, after all, to be said for Carry marrying in the country, without going through the inspection of all these men. If I speak to anyone or dance with anyone who would be a good match, they will say immediately that mamma has got her eye upon him⁠—that she is trying to catch him for me⁠—that she means to make up a marriage. My mother,” cried Edith, with an inference in the very emphasis with which she uttered the word; “as if she were not more romantic than I am a hundred times, and more intolerant of scheming! The fatal thing is,” added the girl, with her serious face, “that, if a crisis should come, mamma would give in. Against her conscience she will try to find reasons for doing what my father wishes, whether it is right or wrong.”

“But isn’t it a woman’s duty to do what her husband wishes?” said Nora. “I have always heard that, too, at home.”

These two young women belonged to their period. They considered the subject gravely, willing to be quite impartial; but neither she who suggested that conjugal obedience was a duty, nor she who objected to it in her mother’s case, felt the question to be in the least beyond discussion.

“It is in the Bible,” said Edith⁠—“one cannot deny that; still there must be distinctions. A woman who is grown up, and a reasonable creature, cannot obey like a slave. It is still more distinct that a child should obey its parents; but at my age, it is not possible I could just do everything I am told, like a little girl. If papa were to order me to do as poor Carry did, I should not think twice; I should refuse, plainly. If it is wrong, I cannot help it; it could not be so wrong as to obey. I would not do it⁠—nothing in the world,” cried the girl, in her ardour striking her hands together, “would make me do it; and with far more reason a mother should⁠—judge for herself. You will never convince me otherwise,” Edith said, holding her head high.

Nora pondered, but made no reply. She had never arrived at any great domestic question on which the rules of her life had been out of accord with her happiness. She had never thought of orders from one or the other of her parents, insisted upon against her will. They had never compelled her to do anything, so far as she could remember. And indeed, cruel parents are little known to the children of the present day. She would not have believed in them but for this great and evident instance of Carry Lindores. The Earl was no tyrant either. He had never been known in the character until that temptation came in his way. Had he forced his daughter to compliance? Nobody could say so. He had not locked her in her room, or kept her on bread and water, or dragged her to the altar, according to old formulas. He had insisted, and she had not been strong enough to stand out. Was it not her fault rather than his? Open as a nineteenth-century mind is bound to be to all sides of the question, Nora was not sure that there was not something to be said for the father too⁠—which was a great instance of candour in a representative of youth.

“I do not understand being forced to do anything,” she said, contemplatively. “How is it when you are forced? One might yield of one’s own will. If I was asked to do anything⁠—I think anything⁠—for the sake of my father and mother, I should do it, whatever it was.”

“Almost anything,” Edith said, correcting her friend; “but not that, for instance⁠—certainly not that.”

“I don’t know what you mean by that” said Nora, petulantly; though indeed this was not exactly true. Both speaker and listener knew that it was not exactly true, and no explanation followed. The girls had been wandering in the woods which covered the sloping bank on the summit of which the castle stood. Its turrets were visible far above them, among the green of the early foliage. The trees were still thinly but brightly clad, the leaves not wholly unclosed, the beeches just loosening their spring finery out of its brown sheath. The river was still some way below. They were seated full in the afternoon sunshine, which was not warm enough to incommode them, upon a knoll covered half with grass, half with moss, through which penetrated here and there the brownness of the twisted roots, and of bits of rock and boulder. All about in the hollows, under every projection, at the root of every tree, nestling in the crevices of the brown banks, and on the edges of the rocks, were clumps of primroses, like scatterings of palest gold. The river made a continuous murmur in the air; the birds were busy overhead in all their sweet afternoon chatter, flitting about from branch to branch, paying their visits, trying over their notes. It was only through a checkered screen of leaves that the sky was visible at all, save in this little opening, where all was light and brightness, the centre of the picture, with these two young figures lending it interest. They were not either of them beauties to make a sensation in a London season, but they were both fair enough to please any simple eye⁠—two fair and perfect human creatures in their bloom, the very quintessence of the race, well-bred, well-mannered, well-educated, well-looking, knowing a little and thinking a little, and perhaps, according to the fashion of the time, believing that they knew less and thought more than was at all the case. Both Edith and Nora despised themselves somewhat for knowing no Latin, much less any Greek. They thought the little accomplishments they possessed entirely trivial, and believed that their education had been shamefully neglected⁠—which was an unnecessary reproach to their parents, who had done the best they could for the girls, and had transmitted to them at least an open and bright intelligence, which is more pleasant than learning. On the other hand, these young things believed that they had inspirations unknown to their seniors, and had worked out unaided many problems unsolved by their fathers and mothers⁠—which perhaps was also a mistaken view. They liked to raise little questions of delicate morality, and to feel that there were more things in heaven and earth than had been thought of in any previous philosophy. They were a little alike even in appearance; the one a little fairer than the other⁠—not any piquant contrast of blue eyes with brown, after the usual fashion of artistic grouping. They might even have been mistaken for sisters, as they sometimes were⁠—a mistake which pleased them in their enthusiasm for each other.

Both these girls had been affected more or less by the intellectual tastes of poor Lady Caroline, whom they devoutly believed to be a genius, though wanting (as persons of genius are supposed generally to be) in some ordinary qualities which would have been good for her. Their speculations, their loves and likings, especially in the matter of books, were more or less moulded by her; and they copied out her verses, and thought them poetry. Perhaps in this respect Nora, who was the more intellectual, was at the same time the less independent of the two. Edith was in all things the representative of the positive, as they were all fond of saying⁠—the realist, the practical person. Such was the pretty argot of this thoughtful circle. But on the whole, as they sat there together musing and talking as became their visionary age, the eye could not have lighted upon, nor the heart been satisfied with, any spectacle more pleasant than that of these two slim and simple girls exchanging their thoughts in the temperate spring sunshine, among the spring buds and flowers. A little silence had fallen upon them: they were sitting idly together, each one following out her own thoughts⁠—thoughts which bore somehow, who could doubt, upon the opening life before them, and were more than mere thinkings, dreams, and anticipations all in one⁠—when suddenly there drifted across their path a very simple, very ordinary embodiment of fate, yet distinctly such, a young man in fishing costume, with his basket over his shoulder, coming towards them by the winding path from the river. The sound of his step in the silence of the woods⁠—which were not silent at all, yet thrilled to the first human sound as if all the rest of creation were not worth reckoning⁠—caught their attention at once. They saw him before he was aware of their presence, and recognised him with a slight sensation. It is to be doubted whether the sudden apparition of a pretty girl flitting across the vision of two young men would not have produced a greater emotion for the moment, but it would have been of a different kind. Both Nora and Edith recognised in the approach of the newcomer the coming in of a new influence⁠—a something which, for aught they knew, might be of far more importance in their lives than all the echoes of the woods or influences of the fresh spring skies. The character of the scene changed at once with his appearance. Its tranquillity lessened; it became dramatic, opening up an opportunity for all the complications of life. Nora was the one whom these romantic possibilities affected the most, for she was the most imaginative, seeing a story in everything. Since that morning at Miss Barbara’s house in Dunearn, she had withdrawn from the contemplation of John Erskine as in any way capable of affecting herself. For a moment she had been offended and vexed with fate; but that feeling had passed away, and Nora now looked upon him with a philosophical eye with a reference to Edith, not to herself. From all she had ever seen or heard, it did not appear likely to Nora that two girls and a young man could go on meeting familiarly, constantly, as it was inevitable they should do, without something more coming of it than is written in the trivial records of every day. Perhaps young men, being more immediately active agents of their own fate, are less likely to think of the dramatic importance of any chance meeting. John did not think about the future at all, nor had he made any calculation as to what was likely to result from continual meetings. He was pleased, yet half annoyed at the same time, his heart giving a jump when he recognised Edith, but falling again when he saw “that eternal Miss Barrington” beside her. “Am I never to see her by herself?” he muttered, half angrily. But next moment he came forward, quickening his pace; and after a little hesitation, to see whether it were permissible, he threw himself at their feet, making the pretty picture perfect.

“Have you caught any fish, Mr. Erskine? But isn’t it too bright?”

“I have not been trying to catch any fish. These things,” said John, laying down his rod and loosening his basket from his shoulder, “are tributes paid to the genius of the place. I don’t want to kill the trout. I daresay they are of more use, and I am sure they have more right to be where they are, than I.”

“Who can have a better right than you?” said Nora, always moved by the idea of the home from which she had felt herself ousted to make room for this languid proprietor. “You are the real owner of the place.”

“I am a fish out of water⁠—as yet,” said the young man: he added the last words in deference to the eager remonstrances and reproaches which were evidently rushing to their lips.

“You had better come with us to town. Would you be in your element there? Men seem to like that do-nothing life. It is only we girls that are rising up against it. We want something to do.”

“And so do I,” said John, ruefully. “Tell me something. Nobody that I can see wants me here. Old Rolls, perhaps; but his approval is not enough to live for⁠—is it? He would make out a code for me with very little trouble. But imagine a poor fellow stranded in a fresh country⁠—altogether new to me, Miss Barrington, notwithstanding my forefathers⁠—no shooting, no hunting, nothing to do. You may laugh, but what is to become of me⁠—especially when you go away?” he said, turning to Edith, with a little heightening colour. This acted sympathetically, and brought a still brighter flush to Edith’s face. Nora looked on in a gentle, pensive, grandmotherly sort of way, observing the young people with benignity, and saying to herself that she knew this was how it would be⁠—because it is not so suitable, and Lord Lindores will never consent, she added, with a private reflection aside upon the extreme perversity of human affairs.

“No shooting, no hunting, no⁠—Then you will be happy, Mr. Erskine, in September.”

“Happier. But I don’t want to wait so long. I should prefer to be happy now.”

“In the way of amusement, Mr. Erskine means, Edith. That is all boys⁠—I beg your pardon⁠—I was thinking of my brothers. That is all gentlemen mean when they speak of something to do.”

“Well⁠—unless I had a trade, and could make shoes or chairs, or something. The people are all too well off, too well educated, to want me. They condescend to me as a foolish individual without information or experience. They tell me my family has always been on the right side in politics, with a scornful consciousness that I don’t know very well what they mean by the right side. My humble possessions are all in admirable order. There are not even any trees to cut down. What am I to do? Visit the poor? There are no poor⁠—”

“Oh, Mr. Erskine!” cried both the girls in a breath.

“I poveri vergognosi, who require to be known and delicately dealt with, perhaps⁠—fit subjects for your delicate hands, not for mine.”

“If you begin talking of delicate hands, you defeat us altogether: the age of compliments is over,” said Edith, with some heat; while Nora cast a furtive glance at the hands both of herself and her friend. They were both sufficiently worthy of the name⁠—ladies’ hands which had known no labour, neither in themselves nor their progenitors. Edith’s were the better shaped⁠—if the tapering Northern fingers are to be considered better than the blunter Greek⁠—but Nora’s the whiter of the two. This reflection was quite irrelevant; yet how much of our thinkings would be silenced if all that was irrelevant was put out of account?

“I mean no compliment. Suppose that I were to go into the nearest village and offer charity⁠—that would be my brutal way of proceeding. What would they do to me, do you think? Pitch me into the river! tar and feather me! No; if there is anything to be done in that way, it must be done with knowledge. It is in vain you mock me with reproaches for doing nothing⁠—I am a man out of work.”

“So long as they do not ask for money,” said Nora, demurely, “mamma says every man should be helped to get work. And then we ask, what is his trade?”

“Ah! that is the question⁠—if the wretch hasn’t got one?”

“It is very difficult in that case. Then he must take to helping in the garden, or harvest-work, or⁠—I don’t know⁠—hanging on (but that is so very bad for them) about the house.”

“Clearly that is what I am most fit for. Do you remember how you used to engage me reading aloud? They all made sketches except myself, Miss Barrington. Beaufort⁠—do you recollect what capital drawings he made? And I read⁠—there’s no telling how many Tauchnitz volumes I got through: and then the discussions upon them. I wonder if you recollect as well as I do?” said John to Edith, with a great deal of eager light in his eyes.

Nora had a great mind to get up and walk away. She was not at all offended, nor did she feel left out, as might have happened. But she said to herself calmly, that it was a pity to spoil sport, and that she was not wanted the least in the world.

“I remember very well; but there are reasons,” said Edith, dropping her voice, and bending a little towards him, “why we don’t talk of that much. Oh, it does not matter to me! but mamma and Car⁠—have a⁠—feeling. Don’t say anything to them of these old times.”

“So long as I may talk of them now and then⁠—to you,” said John, in the same undertone. He was delighted to have this little link of private recollections between them; and the pleasure of it made his eyes and his countenance glow. At this Nora felt actually impelled to do what she had only thought of before. She rose and wandered off from them on pretence of gathering some primroses. “How lovely they are! and nobody sees them. Will you lend me your basket, Mr. Erskine, to carry some home?” She took it up with a smile, bidding them wait for her. She felt gently benignant, protecting, patronising, like a quite old person. Why should not they have their day? Edith, too, rose hastily, following her friend’s example, as if their easy repose was no longer practicable. She had a sense, half delightful, half alarming, of having suddenly got upon very confidential terms with John Erskine. She rose up, and so did he. But it would have been foolish to copy Nora’s whim and gather primroses, or even to follow her, as if they were afraid of each other. So Edith stood still, and John by her side.

“I cannot forget that summer,” he said, in the same low tone, which was now totally unnecessary, there being nobody at hand to overhear.

“I remember it too,” said Edith, softly, “almost better than any other. It was just before⁠—anything happened: when we were so poor. I have my little grey frock still that I used to wear⁠—that I went everywhere in. What expeditions we had⁠—Car and I! I daresay you thought us very wild, very untamed. That was what mamma always used to say.”

“I thought you,” John began hurriedly⁠—then stopped, with a little unsteady laugh. “You might object if I put it into words. It was my first awakening,” he added a moment after, in a still lower tone.

Edith gave him a curious, half-startled glance. She thought the word a strange one. Awakening! What was the meaning of it? But he said no more; and they stood together in the sweet silence, in that confusion of delightful sound which we call silence, because our human voices and noises have nothing to do with its harmony. There were birds singing, one would have said, on every twig, pouring forth their experiences with a hundred repetitions, flitting from one branch to another telling their several tales. On every side were mysterious depths of shadow, cool hollows, and long withdrawing vistas⁠—a soft background, where nature tenderly looked on and watched, around that centre of life and brightness and reawakening. It was a scene for any painter: the brown banks and spring foliage, all breathing new life; the sunny opening all full of the warmth of the present sunshine; Nora a pretty attendant figure on the grass among the trees, all flushed with light and shadow, stooping to gather handfuls of primroses, while the others stood diffident, charmed, shy of each other, lingering together. It seemed to John the new world in which all life begins again; but to Edith it was only a confusing, bewildering, alarming sort of fairy land, which all her instincts taught her it was right to flee from. “Look at Nora with her basket full,” she cried, hurriedly, “and we doing nothing! Let us go and help her.”

XII

It was a rainy morning when the Lindores went away. They were not rich enough to command all the delights of the London season, and had no house in town, nor any position to keep up which demanded their presence. The Earls of Lindores were merely Scotch lords. They had no place in Parliament, no importance in the realm. Hitherto a succession of unobtrusive but proud country gentlemen, not fond of appearing where their claims were not fully recognised, had borne the name, and contented themselves with their dignity at home, which no one questioned, if perhaps it was never very reverentially regarded. It was enough to them to make a visit to London now and then, to comment upon the noise and bigness of town, to attend a levee and a drawing-room, and to come home well pleased that they had no need to bind themselves to the chariot-wheels of fashion. The late Earl had been entirely of this mind; and the consequence was, that nobody in these busy circles which call themselves Society knew anything about the Lindores. But the present bearer of these honours was of a very different intention. It galled him to be so little though he was so much⁠—the representative of a great race (in his own thinking), and yet nobody, made of no account among his own class. Perhaps Lord Lindores thought all the more of his position that it had not come to him in easy natural succession, but by right of a great family catastrophe, and after his life had been long settled on a different and much humbler basis. It is certain that he had no mind to accept it as his predecessors had done. He meant to vindicate a position for himself, to assert his claim among the best. What he intended in his heart was to turn his old Scotch earldom into a British peerage by hook or crook, and in the meantime to get himself elected a representative peer of Scotland, and attain the paradise of hereditary legislatorship by one means or another. This was his determination, and had been so from the moment when the family honours came to him. In the very afternoon of the solemn day when he heard of the death of his brother, and his own entirely unlooked-for elevation, this is what he resolved upon. He had withdrawn to his own room to be alone⁠—to consider the wonderful revolution which had taken place, and, if he could, to expend a tear upon the three ended lives which had opened up that position to him⁠—when this intention first rose in his mind. As a matter of fact, he had been sad enough. The extinction of these lives, the transference to himself of the honours which, for aught he knew, might be taken from him tomorrow, was too startling to be otherwise than sad. He had retired within himself, he had compelled himself to think of the poor boy Rintoul dead in his bloom, of the heartbroken father who had followed him to the grave, and to represent to himself, with all the details most likely to move the heart, that terrible scene. And he had been satisfied to feel that he was sad⁠—that the natural woefulness of this spectacle had moved him enough even to counterbalance the tremor and elation of this extraordinary turn of fortune. But his very sadness and overwhelming sense of a visible fate working in the history of his family, gave him an impulse which was not ungenerous. On the instant, even while he solicited the moisture in his eyes to come the length of a tear, the thought leapt into his mind that if he was spared, if he had time to do anything, it should not be merely a Scotch earldom that he would transmit to his son. At last Lindores had come into the possession of one who knew what he wanted, and meant to obtain it. His family, which had suffered so much, should no longer be pushed aside among the titled nobodies. It should have its weight in the councils of the sovereign and in the history of the kingdom. “The house shall not suffer because I have come to the head of it,” he cried. He felt that he could compensate it for the series of misfortunes it had endured, by adding importance and dignity to the name. He made up his mind, then, that when his son succeeded him it should be as a peer of the realm. And it was to this end and with this inspiration that so great a change had come upon him. For this he had set his heart upon making his county a model for every shire in England. To this end he had determined to wrest the seat from the Tory representative, and put in his son in the Liberal interest. A seat so important gained, an influence so great established, what Ministry could refuse to the representative of one of the oldest families in the North the distinction which ought to have been his long before?

Nobody suspected the Earl’s meaning in its fullest extent. Old Miss Barbara Erskine was the only one who had partly divined him; but of all the people who did not understand his intention, the wife of his bosom was the first. To her high mind, finely unsuspicious because so contemptuous of mean motives, this little ambition would perhaps have seemed pettier than it really was; for if nobility is worth having at all, surely it is best to possess all its privileges. And perhaps, had Lady Lindores been less lofty in her ideal, her husband would have been more disposed to open his inmost thoughts to her, and thus correct any smaller tendency. It was this that had made him insist upon Carry’s marriage. He wanted to ally himself with the richest and most powerful people within his reach, to strengthen himself in every way, extending the family connection so that he should have every security for success when the moment came for his great coup. And he was anxiously alive to every happy chance that might occur for the two of his children who were still to marry⁠—anxious yet critical. He would not have had Rintoul marry a grocer’s daughter for her hogsheads, as Miss Barbara said. He would have him, if possible, to marry the daughter of a Minister of State, or some other personage of importance. He intended Rintoul to be a popular Member of Parliament, a rising man altogether, thinking he could infuse enough of his own energy as well as ambition into the young man to secure these ends. And this great aim of his was the reason why he underwent the expense of a season, though a short one, in town. He was of opinion that it was important to keep himself and his family in the knowledge of the world, to make it impossible for any fastidious fashionable to say, “Who is Lord Lindores?” The Earl, by dint of nursing this plan in his mind, and revealing it to nobody, had come to think it was a great aim.

It was, as we have said, a rainy morning when the family left Lindores. They made the journey from Edinburgh to London by night, as most people do. But before they reached Edinburgh, there was a considerable journey, and those two ferries, of which Rolls had reminded Colonel Barrington. Two great firths to cross, with no small amount of sea when the wind is in the east, was no such small matter. Lady Caroline had driven over in the morning to bid her mother goodbye, and it was she who was to deposit Nora Barrington at Chiefswood, where her next visit was to be paid. There had been but little conversation between the mother and daughter on the subject of that scene which Edith had witnessed, but Lady Lindores could not forbear a word of sympathy in the last half-hour they were to spend together. They were seated in her dressing-room, which was safe from interruption. “I do not like to leave you, my darling,” Lady Lindores said, looking wistfully into her daughter’s pale face.

“It does not matter, mother. Oh, you must not think of me, and spoil your pleasure. I think perhaps things go better sometimes when I have no one to fall back upon,” said poor Lady Caroline.

“Oh, Carry, my love, what a thing that is to say!”

Carry did not make any reply at first. She was calm, not excited at all. “Yes; I think perhaps I am more patient, more resigned, when I have no one to fall back upon. There is no such help in keeping silence as when you have no one to talk to,” she added, with a faint smile.

Her mother was much more disturbed in appearance than she. She was full of remorse as well as sympathy. “I did not think⁠—I never knew it was so bad as this,” she said, faltering, holding in her own her child’s thin hands.

“What could it be but as bad as this?” said Carry. “We both must have known it from the beginning, mother. It is of no use saying anything. I spoke to Edith the other day because she came in the midst of it, and I could not help myself. It never does any good to talk. When there is no one to speak to, I shall get on better, you will see.”

“In that case, it is best for us to be away from you⁠—Carry, my darling!” Lady Lindores was frightened by the wild energy with which her daughter suddenly clutched her arm.

“Oh no, no! don’t think that. If I could not look across to Lindores and think there was someone there who loved me, I should go out of my senses. Don’t let us talk of it. How curious to think you are going away where I used always to wish to go⁠—to London! No, don’t look so. I don’t think I have the least wish to go now. There must be ghosts there⁠—ghosts everywhere,” she said, with a sigh, “except at home. There are no ghosts at Tinto; that is one thing I may be thankful for.”

“I don’t think,” said her mother, with an attempt to take a lighter tone, “that London is a likely place for ghosts.”

“Ah, don’t you think so? Mother,” said Carry suddenly, “I am afraid of John Erskine. He never knew of what happened⁠—after. What so likely as that he might have people to stay with him⁠—people from town?”

“Nobody⁠—whose coming would make any difference to us⁠—would accept such an invitation, Carry. Of that you may be sure.”

“Do you think so, mother?” she said; then added, with some wistfulness, “But perhaps it might be thought that no one would mind. That must be the idea among people who know. And there might be, you know, a little curiosity to see for one’s self how it was. I think I could understand that without any blame.”

“No, I do not think so⁠—not where there was any delicacy of mind. It would not happen. A chance meeting might take place anywhere else; but here, in our own country, oh no, no!”

“You think so?” said Lady Caroline: perhaps there was a faint disappointment as well as relief in her tone. “I do not know how or why, but I am afraid of John Erskine,” she said again, after a pause.

“My dearest! he brings back old associations.”

“It is not that. I feel as if there was something new, some other trouble, coming in his train.”

“You were always fanciful,” her mother said; “and you are feverish, Carry, and nervous. I don’t like to leave you. I wish there could be someone with you while we are away. You would not ask Nora?”

“I am better without company,” she said, shaking her head. “In some houses guests are always inconvenient. One never knows⁠—and indeed, things go better when we are alone. Don’t vex yourself about me. There is the carriage. And one thing more⁠—take care of Edith, mother dear.”

“Of Edith? But surely! she will be my constant companion. Why do you say take care of Edith, Carry?”

“I think I have a kind of second-sight⁠—or else it is my nerves, as you say. I feel as if there were schemes about Edith. My father will want her⁠—to marry⁠—that is quite right, I suppose; and in town she will see so many people. I am like an old raven, boding harm. But you will stand by her, mother, whatever happens?”

“Oh, Carry, my darling, don’t reproach me!” cried her mother; “it breaks my heart!”

“Reproach you! Oh, not for the world! How could I reproach my dearest friend⁠—always my best support and comfort? No, no, mamma⁠—no, no. It is only that I am silly with sorrow to see you all go away. And yet I want you to go away, to get all the pleasure possible. But only, if anything should happen⁠—if Edith should⁠—meet anyone⁠—you will be sure to stand by her, mamma?”

“Are you ready? Are you coming? The carriage is waiting,” said Lord Lindores at the door.

Carry gave a little start at the sound of his voice, and her mother rose hastily, catching up a shawl from the sofa on which she had been sitting⁠—a sort of excuse for a moment’s delay. “Let me see that we have got everything,” she said, hurriedly; and coming back, took her daughter once more into her arms. “Take care of yourself⁠—oh, take care of yourself, my darling! and if you should want me⁠—if it should prove too much⁠—if you find it more than you can bear⁠—”

“I can bear anything for a month,” said Lady Caroline, with a smile; “and I tell you, things go better⁠—and you will be all the better of forgetting me for a while, mother dear.”

“As if that were possible, Carry!”

“No, no; thank God, it is not possible! But I shall do very well, and you will not have my white face forever before your eyes. There is my father calling again. Goodbye, mother dear⁠—goodbye!” and as they kissed, Carry breathed once more that prayer, “Take care of Edith!”⁠—in which Lady Lindores read the most tender and heartrending of all reproaches⁠—in her mother’s ear.

They drove to the little station, a large party. Lady Caroline, who was the element of care and sadness in it, made an effort to cast her troubles behind her for the sake of the travellers. As they all walked about on the little platform waiting the arrival of the slow-paced local train, it was she who looked the most cheerful⁠—so cheerful, that her mother and sister, not unwilling to be deceived, could scarcely believe that this was the same being who had been “silly with sorrow” to part from them. Between Lord Lindores and his daughter there had always been a certain shadow and coldness since her marriage; but today, even he seemed to miss the tacit reproach in her look, and to feel at his ease with Carry. Before the train arrived, John Erskine, too, appeared on the platform to say goodbye to his friends. John was by far the most downcast of the party. “I shall vegetate till you come back,” he said to Lady Lindores, not venturing to look at Edith, who listened to him with a smile all the same, mocking his sentiment. She was not afraid of anything he could say at that moment.

“Come and meet us this day month,” she said, “and let us see if you are in leaf or blossom, Mr. Erskine.”

John gave her a reproachful glance. He did not feel in the humour even to answer with a compliment⁠—with a hint that the sunshine which encourages blossom would be veiled over till she came back, though some loverlike conceit of the kind had floated vaguely through his thoughts. When the travellers disappeared at last, the three who remained were left standing forlorn on the platform, flanked by the entire strength of the station (one man and a boy, besides the stationmaster), which had turned out to see his lordship and her ladyship off. They looked blankly at each other, as those who are left behind can scarcely fail to do. Nora was the only one who kept up a cheerful aspect. “It is only for a month, after all,” she said, consoling her companions. But Carry dropped back in a moment out of her false courage, and John looked black as a thundercloud at the well-meant utterance. He was so rude as to turn his back upon the comforter, giving Lady Caroline his arm to take her to her carriage. With her he was in perfect sympathy⁠—he even gave her hand a little pressure in brotherly kindness and fellow-feeling: there was nothing to be said in words. Neither did she say anything to him; but she gave him a grateful glance, acknowledging that mute demonstration. At this moment the stillness which had fallen round the little place, after the painful puffing off of the train, was interrupted by the sound of horse’s hoofs, and Torrance came thundering along on his black horse. Lady Caroline made a hurried spring into the carriage, recognising the sound, and hid herself in its depths before her husband came up.

“Holloa!” he cried. “Gone, are they! I thought I should have been in time to say goodbye. But there are plenty of you without me. Why, Car, you look as if you had buried them all, both you and Erskine. What’s the matter? is she going to faint?”

“I never faint,” said Lady Caroline, softly, from the carriage window. “I am tired a little. Nora, we need not wait now.”

“And you look like a dead cat, Erskine,” said the civil squire. “It must have been a tremendous parting, to leave you all like this. Hey! wait a moment; don’t be in such a hurry. When will you come over and dine, and help Lady Car to cheer up a bit? After this she’ll want somebody to talk to, and she don’t appreciate me in that line. Have we anything on for Tuesday, Car, or will that suit?”

“Any day that is convenient for Mr. Erskine,” said Carry, faltering, looking out with pitiful deprecation and a sort of entreaty at John standing by. Her wistful eyes seemed to implore him not to think her husband a brute, yet to acknowledge that he was so all the same.

“Then we’ll say Tuesday,” said Torrance. “Come over early and see the place. I don’t suppose you have so many invitations that you need to be asked weeks in advance. But don’t think I am going to cheat you of your state dinner. Oh, you shall have that in good time, and all the old fogeys in the county. In the meantime, as you’re such old friends, it’s for Lady Car I’m asking you now.” This was said with a laugh which struck John’s strained nerves as the most insolent he had ever heard.

“I need not say that I am at Lady Caroline’s disposition⁠—when she pleases,” he replied, very gravely.

“Oh, not for me⁠—not for me,” she cried, under her breath. Then recovering herself⁠—“I mean⁠—forgive me; I was thinking of something else. On Tuesday, if you will come, Mr. Erskine⁠—it will be most kind to come. And, Nora, you will come too. To Chiefswood,” she said, as the servant shut the door, falling back with a look of relief into the shelter of the carriage. The two men stood for a moment looking after it as it whirled away. Why they should thus stand in a kind of forced antagonism, John Erskine, at least, did not know. The railway forces looked on vaguely behind; and Torrance, curbing his impatient horse, made a great din and commotion on the country road.

“Be quiet, you brute! We didn’t bargain for Nora⁠—eh, Erskine? she’s thrown in,” said Torrance, with that familiarity which was so offensive to John. “To be sure, three’s no company, they say. It’s a pity they play their cards so openly⁠—or rather, it’s a great thing for you, my fine fellow. You were put on your guard directly, I should say. I could have told them, no man was ever caught like that⁠—and few men know better than I do all the ways of it,” he said, with a laugh.

“You have the advantage of me,” said Erskine, coldly. “I don’t know who is playing cards, or what I have to do with them. Till Tuesday⁠—since I have Lady Caroline’s commands,” he said, lifting his hat.

“Confound⁠—” the other said, under his breath; but John had already turned away. Torrance stared after him, with a doubt in his eyes whether he should not pursue and pick a quarrel on the spot; but a moment’s reflection changed his plans. “I’ll get more fun out of him yet before I’m done with him,” he said, half to himself. Then he became aware of the observation of Sandy Struthers the porter and the boy who had formed the background, and were listening calmly to all that was said. He turned round upon them quickly. “Hey, Sandy! what’s wrong, my man? Were you waiting to spy upon Mr. Erskine and me?”

“Me⁠—spying! No’ me; what would I spy for?” was the porter’s reply. He was too cool to be taken by surprise. “What’s that to me if twa gentlemen spit and scratch at ilk ither, like cats or women folk,” he said, slowly. He had known Tinto “a’ his days,” and was not afraid of him. A porter at a little roadside station may be pardoned if he is misanthropical. He did not even change his position, as a man less accustomed to waiting about with his hands hanging by his side might have done.

“You scoundrel! how dare you talk of spitting and scratching to me?”

“ ’Deed, I daur mair than that,” said Sandy, calmly. “You’ll no’ take the trouble to complain to the Directors, Tinto, and I’m feared for naebody else. But you shouldna quarrel⁠—gentlemen shouldna quarrel. It sets a bad example to the countryside.”

“Quarrel! nothing of the sort. That’s your imagination. I was asking Mr. Erskine to dinner,” said Tinto, with his big laugh.

“Weel, it looked real like it. I wouldna gang to your dinner, Tinto, if you asked me like that.”

“Perhaps you wouldn’t take a shilling if I tossed it to you like that.”

“It’s a’thegither different,” said Sandy, catching the coin adroitly enough. “I see nae analogy atween the twa. But jist take you my advice and quarrel nane, sir, especially with that young lad: thae Erskines are a dour race.”

“You idiot! I was asking him to dinner,” Torrance said. He was on friendly terms with all the common people, with a certain jocular roughness which did not displease them. Sandy stood imperturbable, with all the calm of a man accustomed to stand most of his time looking on at the vague and quiet doings of the world about him. Very little ever happened about the station. To have had a crack with Tinto was a great entertainment after the morning excitement, enough to maintain life upon for a long time, of having helped the luggage into the van, and assisted my lord and my lady to get away.

“I wish,” cried Nora, as they rolled along the quiet road, “that you would not drag me in wherever John Erskine is going, Car!”

They all called him John Erskine. It was the habit of the neighbourhood, from which even strangers could scarcely get free.

“I drag you in! Ah, see how selfish we are without knowing!” said Carry. “I thought only that between Mr. Torrance and myself⁠—there would be little amusement.”

“Amusement!” cried Nora⁠—“always amusement! Is that all that is ever to be thought of even at a dinner-party?”

Carry was too serious to take up this challenge. “Dear Nora,” she said, “I am afraid of John Erskine, though I cannot tell you why. I think Mr. Torrance tries to irritate him: he does not mean it⁠—but they are so different. I know by my own experience that sometimes a tone, a look⁠—which is nothing, which means nothing⁠—will drive one beside one’s self. That is why I would rather he did not come; and when he comes, I want someone⁠—someone indifferent⁠—to help me to make it seem like a common little dinner⁠—like every day.”

“Is it not like every day? Is there⁠—anything? If you want me, Carry, of course there is not a word to be said.” Nora looked at her with anxious, somewhat astonished eyes. She, too, was aware that before Carry’s marriage⁠—before the family came to Lindores⁠—there had been someone else. But if that had been John, how then did it happen that Edith⁠—Nora stopped short, confounded. To her young imagination the idea, not so very dreadful a one, that a man who had loved one sister might afterwards console himself with another, was a sort of sacrilege. But friendship went above all.

“I do not think I can explain it to you, Nora,” said Lady Caroline. “There are so many things one cannot explain. Scarcely anything in this world concerns one’s very self alone and nobody else. That always seems to make confidences so impossible.”

“Never mind confidences,” cried Nora, wounded. “I did not ask why. I said if you really wanted me, Carry⁠—”

“I know you would not ask why. And there is nothing to tell. Mr. Torrance has had a mistaken idea. But it is not that altogether. I am frightened without any reason. I suppose it is as my mother says, because of all the old associations he brings back. Marriage is so strange a thing. It cuts your life in two. What was before seems to belong to someone else⁠—to another world.”

“Is it always so, I wonder?” said Nora, wistfully.

“So far as I know,” Carry said.

“Then I think St. Paul is right,” cried the girl, decisively, “and that it is not good in that case to marry; but never mind, if you want me. There is nothing to be frightened about in John Erskine. He is nice enough. He would not do anything to make you uncomfortable. He is not ill-tempered nor ready to take offence.”

“I did not know that you knew him so well, Nora.”

“Oh yes⁠—when you have a man thrust upon you as he has been⁠—when you have always heard of him all your life; when people have said for years⁠—in fun, you know, of course, but still they have said it⁠—‘Wait till you see John Erskine!’ ”

Nora’s tone was slightly aggrieved. She could not help feeling herself a little injured that, after so much preparation and so many indications of fate, John Erskine should turn out to be nothing to her after all.

Lady Caroline listened with an eager countenance. Before Nora had done speaking, she turned upon her, taking both her hands. Her soft grey eyes widened out with anxious questions. The corners of her mouth drooped. “Nora, dear child, dear child!” she said, “you cannot mean⁠—you do not say⁠—”

“Oh, I don’t say anything at all,” cried Nora, half angry, half amused, with a laugh at herself which was about a quarter part inclined to crying. “No, of course not, Car. How could I care for him⁠—a man I had never seen? But just⁠—it seems so ludicrous, after this going on all one’s life, that it should come to nothing in a moment. I never can help laughing when I think of it. ‘Oh, wait till you see John Erskine!’ Since I was fifteen everybody has said that. And then when he did appear at last, oh⁠—I thought him very nice⁠—I had no objection to him⁠—I was not a bit unwilling⁠—to see him calmly turn his back upon me, as he did today at the station!”

Nora laughed till the tears came into her eyes; but Lady Caroline, whose seriousness precluded any admixture of humour in the situation, took the younger girl in her arms and kissed her, with a pitying tenderness and enthusiasm of consolation. “My little Nora! my little Nora!” she said. She was too much moved with the most genuine emotion and sympathy to say more; at which Nora, half accepting the crisis, half struggling against it, laughed again and again till the tears rolled over her cheeks.

“Lady Car! Lady Car! it is not for sorrow; it is the fun of it⁠—the fun of it!” she cried.

But Carry did not see the fun. She wanted to soothe the sorrow away.

“Dearest Nora, this sort of disappointment is only visionary,” she said. “It is your imagination that is concerned, not your heart. Oh, believe me, dear, you will laugh at it afterwards; you will think it nothing at all. How little he knows! I shall think less of his good sense, less of his discrimination, than I was disposed to do. To think of a man so left to himself as to throw my Nora away!”

“He has not thrown me away,” cried Nora, with a little pride; “because, thank heaven, he never knew that he had me in his power! But you must think more, not less, of his discrimination, Carry; for if he never had any eyes for me, it was for the excellent good reason that he had seen Edith before. So my pride is saved⁠—quite saved,” the girl cried.

“Edith!” Carry repeated after her. And then her voice rose almost to a shriek⁠—“Edith! You cannot mean that?”

“But I do mean it. Oh, I know there will be a thousand difficulties. Lord Lindores will never consent: that is why they go and do it, I suppose. Because she was the last person he ought to have fallen in love with, as they say in the Critic⁠—”

“Edith!” repeated Carry again. Nora was half satisfied, half disappointed, to find that her own part of the story faded altogether from her friend’s mind when this astonishing peace of intelligence came in. Then she whispered in an awestricken voice, “Does my mother know?”

“Nobody knows⁠—not even Edith herself. I saw it because, you know⁠—And of course,” cried Nora, in delightful self-contradiction, “it does not matter at all when I meet him now; for he is not thinking of me any longer, but of her. Oh, he never did think of me, except to say to himself, ‘There is that horrid girl again!’ ”

This time Nora’s laugh passed without any notice from Carry, whose thoughts were absorbed in her sister’s concerns. “Was not I right,” she said, clasping her hands, “when I said I was frightened for John Erskine? I said so to my mother today. What I was thinking of was very different: that he might quarrel with Mr. Torrance⁠—that harm might come in that way. But oh, this is worse, far worse! Edith! I thought she at least would be safe. How shortsighted we are even in our instincts! Oh, my little sister! What can I do, Nora, what can I do to save her?”

Nora received this appeal with a countenance trembling between mirth and vexation. She did not think Edith at all to be pitied. If there was any victim⁠—and the whole matter was so absurd that she felt it ought not to be looked at in so serious a light⁠—but if there was a victim, it was not Edith, but herself. She could only reply to Carry’s anxiety with a renewed outbreak of not very comfortable laughter. “Save her! You forget,” she said, with sudden gravity, “that Edith is not one to be saved unless she pleases. And if she should like Mr. Erskine⁠—”

“My father will kill her!” Lady Caroline cried.

XIII

Lord Rintoul made his appearance in the house which his parents had hired in Eaton Place on the day before their arrival, with a mixture of satisfaction and anxiety. He was pleased, for he was a good young fellow on the whole, and fond of his mother and sister; but he was anxious, for he was a Guardsman⁠—a young man about town, “up,” as he modestly hoped, to most things⁠—and they were people from the country, who in all probability were not quite dressed as they ought to be, or prepared for the duties of their position. These mingled sentiments were apparent in the young man’s face as he walked into the room in which Lady Lindores and Edith were sitting together, working out on their side a programme of the things they were going to do. Notwithstanding Carry, they were both tolerably cheerful, looking forward to the excitement of this unaccustomed life with a little stir of anticipation; for neither mother nor daughter was blasée, and the thrill of quickened existence, in a place where human pulses beat more rapidly and the tide runs fuller than elsewhere, moved them in spite of themselves. Lady Lindores would have said, and did say, that her heart was not in it⁠—and this in perfect good faith; yet when she was actually in London, though her daughter’s pale face and lonely life were often present with her, the impression was less strong than when that white face, as poor Carry said, was constantly before her eyes. She was a handsome woman of forty-five, with a liking for all that was beautiful, a love of conversation and movement, much repressed by the circumstances of her life, but always existing; and when thus free for a moment from habitual cares, her heart rose almost in spite of herself, and she was able to believe that things would set themselves right somehow, even though she did not see from whence the alleviation was to come. She was discussing with Edith many things that they had planned and thought of, when Rintoul arrived. Their plans embraced various matters which were not within the range of that golden youth’s ideas. When they had been in London before, they had vexed his soul by the list of things they had wanted to see. The sights of London! such as country people of the lower orders went staring about: Westminster Abbey, the Houses of Parliament, even St. Paul’s and the Tower!⁠—things which he had never seen nor thought of seeing himself, though he often passed the former, not taking any notice, thinking it was “bad form” to show any rustic curiosity. His mother and the girls had scoffed at all he said about “bad form”; but now they were accustomed to their change of circumstances, and everything was different. Would they be reasonable, and acknowledge that there were certain matters in which he was an authority now?

Rintoul himself had made, he was conscious, immense progress since he first stepped upon that platform of rank to which he was now accustomed. At first the elevation had made him a little giddy. Young Robin Lindores, of the 120th, had been on the whole a very simple young fellow, pleased to feel that he had the benefit of “good connections,” and an uncle who was an Earl, though they had never been of any use to him. Even in that innocent stage he was, as is natural to a young man, vaguely critical of the proceedings of his “people.” He thought it was a pity they should live abroad. Were they at home, it appeared certain to him that he would now and then have been invited to Lindores for the shooting, and been taken some notice of. But on the other hand, he acknowledged that to live abroad was cheap, and that it was better for him on the whole to say “My people are abroad,” than to be obliged to acknowledge that they were living in a little country cottage somewhere, or in Brighton or Cheltenham, or some shabby-genteel place. And he did his duty very cheerfully, and kept tolerably well within his allowance, and took such pleasures as came in his way, without any very clear outlook towards the future, but always with some hope of active service and promotion. So long as he had “something to do”⁠—a little cricket or boating, a tolerable amount of parties⁠—he neither looked too closely into the pedigree of his entertainers, nor gave himself any airs on the subject of his own birth and connections. For what was he, after all?⁠—not even an Honourable himself, but the son of an Honourable⁠—plain Mr. Lindores, no more than Mr. Smith or Mr. Jones. It never occurred to him that his position demanded anything of him in those days; for what position had he but that of a lieutenant in the 120th? In society, though he would pretend now and then, like the rest, to talk of this and that girl as having money⁠—or “tin,” as it was more usually called⁠—such a prudential consideration never went beyond the mere light flutter of talk; and he liked to dance, not with the heiresses, but with the prettiest girls and the best dancers, as was natural and befitting⁠—to marry anybody being entirely out of his role. He knew himself to be wiser than his mother, and to know more of life than even the governor himself, who (no fault of his) was growing an old fogy in the course of nature; but on the whole, he was respectful enough to these old persons when he was with them, and in his way fond of them all, and even proud of little Edith’s prettiness, and the distinguished looks of Carry, who was always like a princess though she was not pretty. When, however, that sudden and unlooked-for advancement came, and Robin Lindores at one bound became Lord Rintoul, the change that passed over him was something wonderful. It was as great a revolution as that which had converted the gentle and fastidious dilettante of former years into the energetic, ambitious Scotch Earl, who kept his family in awe and wonder. Robin changed as much, or almost as much, as his father had changed. He left his simple regiment, and all its little garrison gaieties, and became a Guardsman, and was introduced into society. He learned the chatter of the drawing-rooms and clubs, and to talk familiarly about everybody, and to think he understood all the motives (almost always supposed to be bad ones) which swayed their conduct. Perhaps it was his familiarity with these tales which drove the young man into such an alarmed state of susceptibility as to the risk of encountering in his own person, or in his family, a similar freedom of comment. He said to himself that he knew “how fellows talked,” and he could not bear that his sister should be pulled to pieces among them, and known as a rustic or an exaltée⁠—one of the strong-minded sisterhood on the one hand, or a foolish bread-and-butter girl on the other. And Rintoul had become fully possessed by the idea that to get Edith “off” was the first duty of the family. He felt that his pride would be touched if she did not secure a good marriage before the end of the season. “Fellows would talk:” they would say that she had been a failure; that it was no good Lady Lindores hawking her daughter about; that she had tried very hard for this man, or flung herself at the other’s head, but it was no use. He knew that he had heard such things said a hundred times⁠—perhaps been moved to echo them himself on the very slightest warrant; but the blood rushed to his face when it occurred to him that his sister in her turn might be subjected to such comments. And the only way for her to escape them was to succeed. Therefore it was with a conviction of the importance of the crisis, which affected every nerve in his body, as well as all the powers of his mind, that Rintoul appeared in the little morning-room at Eaton Place. Every girl was said to throw herself at somebody’s head⁠—to make a dead set at one man or another. Without that purpose no one was supposed to go into society. When she succeeded, and the man was secured, her triumph, it is true, was always discussed in the same way; but that was once for all, and the matter was done with. Therefore it was evident to Rintoul that Edith must succeed. She must secure somebody before the season was out. He could not bear to have it said of her that she was hawked about. At the same time, this anxious young man saw the difficulties. His “people” had not a very large acquaintance. His mother was not half up to her duties as a mother. Edith herself, though a very pretty girl, was not a beauty of the undeniable and all-conquering sort. So much the more grave were all the difficulties of the situation, and so much the more important all the expedients that could be adopted, all the precautions that Rintoul⁠—perhaps, he felt, the only one of the family who fully perceived them⁠—must take. Their appearance, their gowns and bonnets, the places they intended to appear in⁠—all these were of the utmost consequence⁠—a consequence, he was afraid, which the real head of the party, she who ought to be the chief mover in the matter, could scarcely be got to understand, much less to take into earnest consideration as she ought.

This was why his pleasure in seeing his people was shadowed by so much anxiety. His smile was only on the lower part of his face⁠—all the rest was clouded with an almost fretful disquietude. He did not even know whether he could make them understand the importance of the crisis. They would receive him, he felt sure, with levity, with minds directed to things of no consequence whatever; and it was natural that this sense, that he was the only person who understood the gravity of the situation, should make Rintoul’s countenance serious. As he kissed his mother and sister, he looked them all over, taking in every detail of their appearance, and uttered a mental thanksgiving, and felt an enormous relief to find that there was little to remark upon. “They would not look amiss anywhere,” he said to himself. But this gleam of contentment was soon dimmed by the reflection that you never can know how a woman will look till you have seen her in her outdoor costume. The bonnet is such a test! Most likely they wore impossible bonnets. So the contraction returned to his forehead once more.

“So here you are,” he said. “I am mighty glad to see you. I thought everything worth while would be over before you came.”

“And what is there that is worth while that is not over?” said his mother. “We defer to your superior knowledge. We in our ignorance were thinking of the concerts, and the pictures, and the new play.”

“Ah, that’s all very well. They’re not over, of course, nor will be so long as the season lasts,” said Rintoul, carelessly. “I was thinking of more important things. I think I’ve got you cards for the next Chiswick fête. It wanted diplomacy. I got Lady Reston, who is au mieux with Archy Chaunter, to get them for you; but you must have very nice toilets for that. The new Irish beauty went to the last a perfect fright in poplin and Limerick lace, all native product, and was the talk of the town. Thank heaven there’s nothing but tartan indigenous to Scotland!”

“Let us go in tartan, mamma,” said Edith. “It would be a graceful way of showing our nationality, and please the people who are going to elect Robin for the county.”

“If you think it would please the county,” said the Countess, with much gravity, which almost paralysed Rintoul; but she added, shaking her head, “Alas! the county is not Highland at all, and scoffs at the tartan. We must try some other way.”

“I wish you wouldn’t speak nonsense to aggravate me,” cried the young man. “How am I to know when you’re in earnest, and when you are laughing? But one thing I can tell you: unless you are well dressed, you need never think of going at all. Old-fashioned gowns that do well enough for the country⁠—though even in the country I don’t think you ought ever to be careless of your dress⁠—”

“You seem to be an authority,” said Edith, laughing. “You will have to tell us if our gowns are old-fashioned.”

“Well, I don’t suppose I am an authority: I don’t understand details; but I can tell on the whole, as well as another, whether a woman looks as she ought when she’s got up.”

“Comme il faut. I thought the phrase was untranslatable, but Robin has mastered it,” said Lady Lindores.

“You need not laugh at me, mother; and I wish you wouldn’t, all of you, call me by that absurd name. I feel like a shepherd boy in a pastoral⁠—the hero, you know⁠—like Fidelio or Cherubino. Oh, I don’t say you are to call me Rintoul⁠—that if you like; but I don’t mind Bob⁠—”

“Bob!” the mother and sister cried in one breath. They had all been secretly proud of that pet name of Robin, which he had borne from a child.

“It’s not worth talking of,” he said carelessly, feeling something of ridicule involved; for though he was not clever, he was sufficiently sympathetic to be conscious of the sentiment in the minds of the others. “The real question is, what you are going to do while you are in town. I have told everybody you were coming; but, mamma, I hope you won’t balk everything by going on about theatres and pictures, and so forth. Society is a hundred times more important. It is not only amusing ourselves we have got to think of. It is all very well to laugh,” he said, with the most solemn air of offended dignity, “but anybody who knew the world would tell you the same thing.”

“My dear boy, I thought I knew a little about the world; but I daresay I am mistaken. I hope, however, you will permit us to amuse ourselves a little now and then. Edith wants to see something and hear something while she is in London. She has not had your advantages⁠—”

“My advantages don’t count for very much,” said Rintoul, half irritated, half flattered, “and it’s just Edith I’m thinking of. There is more to be taken into consideration for her than either amusement or what you call improving her mind. Edith is the entire question. It is to do her justice that is my whole thought.”

Edith, on hearing this, laughed out, yet flamed crimson, with mingled ridicule and suspicion. “In what respect am I to have justice?” she said.

“You needn’t fire up. All that I want is your good. You ought to be seen: you ought to have your chance like the rest. How are you ever to have that if my mother and you fly about skylarking in all sorts of unlikely places, and keep out of the way of⁠—every opportunity?”

Rintoul, though carried away by his feelings to the point of making this plain statement, was rather alarmed when he had said it, and stopped somewhat breathless. It was alarming to be confronted by his sister’s indignant countenance and the angry sparkle in her eyes.

“Do you know what he means, mother?” she cried. “Did you bring me to London to market? That’s what he means. Did you come to set up a booth in Vanity Fair? If you did, you must find other wares. Rintoul would make such a good salesman, it is a pity to balk him. But I am not going to be put up to auction,” cried the girl, springing to her feet. Then she laughed, though she was so angry. “I am going to get ready for a walk,” she said. “I think that delightful bonnet that Miss Macalister in Dunearn made for me will be the very thing for the Park⁠—”

“Heaven above! do you let her have bonnets from Miss Macalister in Dunearn?” cried Rintoul, dismayed, as his sister disappeared. “Even in the country I would never consent to that.”

“You must not pour too much wisdom upon us all at once,” said his mother, “especially upon Edith, who is not used to it.” Lady Lindores could not take it all seriously. She was vexed at the bottom of her heart, yet could not but smile at the oracle who had so short a time before been simple Robin⁠—her nice, kind, silly, lovable boy. He had not ceased to be lovable even in his new development as Mentor and man of the world.

“That is all very well, mother; but if you make a joke of it, what is the good of coming to town at all?” cried Rintoul, with his serious face⁠—too serious to be angry. “Edith may flare up if she pleases⁠—she doesn’t know any better; but surely you must understand she has never had her chance. Who is to see her down in the country? There was Torrance of course, but Carry snapped him up.”

“Robin,” said his mother, her countenance changing, “I desire you will not speak in that heartless, vulgar way. Yes, my boy, it is vulgar, though you think it so wise. Poor Carry, to her sorrow, has snapped up, as you say, a most unsuitable husband and a miserable life. I wish I was free of blame in that matter. We must make the best of it now, since there’s no remedy; but to speak as if Carry’s marriage was something to be envied⁠—”

“Well, Torrance is rather a brute,” Rintoul acknowledged, somewhat subdued; “but what a place and what a position! Carry’s boy, with our connection and all that money, may be⁠—anything she chooses to make him⁠—”

“Carry’s boy is not half so much to me as Carry herself,” said Lady Lindores, gravely; “but that is done, and we must make the best of it,” she added, with a sigh.

“A girl may pick up a bad husband anywhere,” said Rintoul, regaining his confidence. “It just as often happens in a hot love-match as in anything else. There’s Lily Trevor, old Lord Warhawk’s daughter, would never rest till they had let her marry Smithers of the Blues⁠—and they say he beats her. Charley Floyd says there never was such a wretched ménage; and she might have married half-a-dozen fellows, every one a better match than Smithers. There’s no accounting for these sort of things. But, mamma, unless we’re all mad together, we must give Edith her chance. By Jove, when you think of it, she’s past her first bloom!” (“and that’s mostly the thing that fetches,” he added parenthetically, under his breath)⁠—“she’s twenty-one, mother! The moment she’s seen anywhere, people will begin to calculate when she came out: and it’s three seasons back! That does a girl more harm than anything. There’s always a little added on to everyone’s age, and I shouldn’t wonder in the least if they made her out to be thirty! She doesn’t look it, fortunately; but what are looks, when half the women one sees are made up like pictures? But mind my words, mother⁠—you will repent it all your life if you don’t make up your mind now to give Edith one real good chance.”

Lady Lindores made no reply. She began to lose her sense of amusement, and to feel vexed and humiliated, sore and wroth, as parents do when their children parade before them sentiments which are unworthy. Perhaps a woman cannot be quite just in such a predicament. It may be all an unconscious fiction, this atrocious precocious cynicism and worldliness of youth. Nothing is ever so cruelly conventional, so shamelessly egoistical, as the young disciple of social philosophy, who is possibly hiding a quivering and terrified youthful heart beneath that show of abominable wisdom. But it is hard for a mother whose whole heart is bent on finding excellence and nobleness in her child, to be tolerant of what appears to be such apparent and unmistakable unworthiness. Lady Lindores felt, while her son was speaking, as if some barbarous giant had got her heart in his hand and crushed it, clinching his cruel grasp. She did not look at him while he pleaded that Edith might have her chance, nor answer him when he had spoken. What could she say to the boy who could thus discourse to her like an old man learned in all wickedness? There was a poignant sting of injured pride, too, in the sensation with which she listened to him. This from the boy she had trained, to whom she must have given his first conception of life, of women and their ways! Had it been her example, against her will, unconscious of any such possibility, that had taught him to despise them? She looked at the young face so dear to her, and which was now full of all the gravity of conviction, endeavouring to enforce its doctrines upon her mind, with a mixture of hot impatience and hopeless toleration. Poor boy! this was what he really thought, honestly believed, though he was her son! His eyes were quite impressive in their sincerity. “She ought to see people,” Rintoul said; “she ought to be seen. She has never been hawked about like other girls, so it does not matter so much that this isn’t her first season. People may forget it if we take no notice. But in another year, mother, if she does not have her chance now⁠—in another year,” cried the anxious brother, with threatening solemnity, “it will be quite another matter. She has kept her bloom pretty well, but it will be gone by that time; and when it’s gone, she’ll not have half the chance. A girl must make hay while the sun shines,” he added, more and more dogmatically: “we all of us ought to remember that, but for a girl it’s imperative⁠—there is nothing that tells like the first bloom.”

Still Lady Lindores did not make any reply.

“I wonder at you, mother,” he cried, exasperated. “I should have thought it would be your first object to see Edith happily settled. And when you think how difficult it is⁠—how many there are always ready, waiting to snap up any fellow with money! I believe,” he said, with a sort of prophetic wrath, a visionary anger at what might have been⁠—“I believe if my father had not interfered, Carry was as likely as not to have married that Professor fellow. By the way, isn’t Erskine at Dalrulzian? and I daresay you have had him up at Lindores?”

“Certainly, we have had him up at Lindores. What is your objection to that?” said Lady Lindores, quietly.

And now it was Rintoul’s turn to sigh and shake his head with hopeless impatience. Was it impossible to get her to understand? “I don’t know what you people are thinking of,” he said, with a kind of quiet despair. “Though you know what mischief happened before, you will have that fellow to the house, you will let him be with Edith as much as he pleases.”

“Edith!” cried Lady Lindores: and then she stopped short, and added with a laugh, “I assure you, Robin, there’s no danger in that quarter. The entire county has made up its mind that John Erskine is to marry Nora Barrington, and nobody else, whatever other people may say.”

Now it was Rintoul’s turn to be red and indignant. He was so much startled, that he sprang to his feet with an excitement altogether without justification. “Nora Barrington!” he cried; “I would like to know what right anyone has to mix up the name of an innocent girl⁠—who never, I am certain, had either part or lot in such wretched schemings⁠—”

“The same kind of schemings⁠—but far more innocent⁠—as those you would involve your sister in,” cried Lady Lindores, rising too, with a deep flush upon her face.

“Nothing of the kind, mother⁠—besides, the circumstances are entirely different,” he cried, hotly. “Edith must marry well. She must marry to advantage, for the sake of the family. But Nora⁠—a girl that would never lead herself to⁠—to⁠—that never had a thought of interest in her head⁠—that doesn’t know what money means⁠—”

“I am glad there is somebody you believe in, Robin,” his mother said.

The young man saw his inconsistency, but that mattered little. It is only in other people that we find consistency to be necessary. The consciousness made him hotter and less coherent perhaps, but no more. “The cases are entirely different. I see no resemblance between them,” he said, with resentment and indignation in every tone. Lady Lindores would have been more than human if she had not followed up her advantage.

“Yes,” she said, “in Nora’s case even I myself, though I am no matchmaker, feel disposed to aid in the scheme. For nothing could be more entirely suitable. The same position, the same class, the same tastes; and the Barringtons are poor, so that it would be a great comfort to them to see their girl in a nice house of her own; and she is very fond of Dalrulzian, and much liked in the neighbourhood. I can see everything in favour of the plan⁠—nothing against it.”

“Except that it will never come to anything,” cried young Rintoul. “Good heavens! Nora⁠—a girl that one never could think of in any such way⁠—that never in her life⁠—I’ll answer for it⁠—made any plans about whom she was to marry. Mother, I think you might have so much respect for one of your own sex as to acknowledge that.”

“It is time to appeal to my respect for my own sex,” cried Lady Lindores, with an angry laugh. If this was how the tables were to be turned upon her! When she left the room, angry, yet indignantly amused at the same time, Rintoul reflected with hot indignation upon the want of sympathy and fellow-feeling among women. “When they do see a girl that’s above all that sort of thing, that it’s desecration to think of in that way, they either don’t understand her, or they’re jealous of her,” he said to himself, with profound conviction. “Women don’t know what justice means.”

XIV

The present writer has already confessed to a certain disinclination to venture upon any exposition of the manners and customs of the great; and should an attempt be made to thread the mazes of the season, and to represent in sober black and white the brilliant assemblies, the crowded receptions, the drawing-rooms and ballrooms and banqueting-rooms, all full of that sheen of satin and shimmer of pearls which only the most delicate manipulation, the lightest exquisite touch, can secure? Could the writer’s pen be dipped in tints as ethereal as those which fill the brush (if that is not too crude a word) of the accomplished President, then perhaps the task might be attempted; but common ink is not equal to it. Though Lady Lindores was negligent of her duties, and did not give herself up as she ought to have done to the task of getting invitations and doing her daughter justice, yet her shortcomings were made up by the superior energy and knowledge of her husband and son. And as a matter of fact, they went everywhere, and saw a great deal of society. So far were they from being under the standard at that Chiswick fête, as Rintoul nervously anticipated, that the graceful mother and pretty daughter were noticed by eyes whose notice is the highest distinction, and inquired into with that delightful royal curiosity which is so complimentary to mankind, and which must be one of the things which make the painful trade of sovereignty tolerable. Both the ladies, indeed, had so much succès, that the anxious young Guardsman, who stalked about after them, too much disturbed to get any satisfaction in his own person, and watching their demeanour as with a hundred eyes, gradually allowed the puckers in his forehead to relax, and went off guard with a sigh of relief. Rintoul was more than relieved⁠—he was delighted with the impression produced by Edith’s fresh beauty. “Oh, come! she’s a pretty little thing, if you please; but not all that,” he said, confused by the excess of approbation accorded to her by some complimentary friend. There was one drawback, however, to this satisfaction, and that was, that neither did Edith “mind a bit” who was introduced to her, who danced with her, or took her down to dinner⁠—whether a magnificent young peer or a penniless younger son; nor, still more culpable, did her mother pay the attention she ought to this, or take care as she ought that her daughter’s smiles were not thrown away. She was known once, indeed, to have⁠—inconceivable folly!⁠—actually gone the length of introducing to Edith, in a ballroom bristling with eligible partners, a brilliant young artist, a “painter-fellow,” the very last person who ought to have been put in the girl’s way. “If a girl goes wrong of herself, and is an idiot, why, you say, it’s because she knows no better,” Rintoul said; “but when it’s her mother!” The young painter danced very well, and was bright and interesting beyond, it is to be supposed, the general level; and he hung about the ladies the whole evening, never long away from one or the other. Rintoul felt that if it happened only one other evening, all the world would say that there was something going on, and possibly some society paper would inform its anxious readers that “a marriage is arranged.” On the other hand, that evening was marked with a white stone on which the young Marquis of Millefleurs, son of the Duke of Lavender, made himself conspicuous as one of Edith’s admirers, pursuing her wherever she went, till the foolish girl was disposed to be angry; though Lady Lindores this time had the sense to excuse him as being so young, and to add that he seemed “a nice sort of boy,”⁠—not a way, certainly, to recommend so desirable an adorer to a fanciful girl, but still perhaps, in the circumstances, as much as could be expected. Lady Lindores received with great composure a few days after, an announcement from her husband that he had asked the youth to dinner. She repeated her praise with a perfectly calm countenance⁠—

“I shall be glad to see him, Robert. I thought him a mere boy, very young, but frank and pleasant as a boy should be.”

“I don’t know what you call a boy. I believe he is four-and-twenty,” said Lord Lindores, with some indignation; and then he added in a subdued tone, as knowing that he had something less easy to suggest, “I have asked someone else whom you will probably not look on in the same light. I should much rather have left him out, but there was no getting Millefleurs without him. He has been travelling with him as a sort of tutor-companion, I suppose.” Here he seemed to pause to get up his courage, which was so remarkable that his wife’s suspicions were instantly aroused. She turned towards him with a look of roused attention.

“I don’t hesitate to say that I am sorry to bring him again in contact with the family. Of course the whole affair was folly from beginning to end. But the young fellow himself behaved well enough. There is nothing against him personally, and I am rather willing to let him see that it has entirely passed from our minds.”

“Of whom are you speaking?” cried Lady Lindores.

The Earl actually hesitated, stammered, almost blushed, so far as a man of fifty is capable of blushing. “You remember young Beaufort, whom we saw so much of in⁠—”

“Beaufort!” cried Lady Lindores⁠—“Edward!” her voice rose into a sort of shriek.

“He certainly was never Edward to me. I thought it best, when Millefleurs presented him to me, to receive him at once as an old acquaintance. And I hope you will do so also, without any fuss. It is very important that it should be made quite clear we have no fear of him, or feeling in the matter.”

“Edward!” Lady Lindores said again. “How can I receive him as if I had no feeling in the matter? He has called me mother. I have kissed him as Carry’s future husband. Good heavens! and Carry poor Carry!”

“I did not know you had been such a fool,” he cried, reddening; then after a pause, “I see no reason why Carry should be called poor. Her position at home is in some points better than our own. And it is not necessary to tell Carry of everyone who enters this house, which is so much out of her way.”

“My poor child, my poor child!” the mother said, wringing her hands. “She divined this. She had a fear of something. She thought John Erskine might invite him. Oh, you need not suppose this was ever a subject of conversation between us!⁠—but it seems that Mr. Torrance suspected John Erskine himself to be the man. Edith surprised them in the midst of a painful scene on this subject, and then Carry told me of her terror lest John should invite⁠—she did not say whom. It was not necessary between us to name any names.”

“What did Torrance know about ‘the man’? as you say; what had he to do with it? You women are past bearing. This was some of your confidences, I suppose.”

“It was Carry’s own communication to the man who is her husband. She thought it her duty, poor, poor child!⁠—and now, is it I that am to be made the instrument of further torture?” Lady Lindores cried.

“The instrument of⁠—fiddlesticks! This is really not a subject for heroics,” said her husband, fretfully. “I ask you to receive as an acquaintance merely⁠—no intimacy required of you⁠—a man against whom I know nothing. These absurd passages you refer to, I had no knowledge of. It was idiotic; but fortunately it is all over, and no harm done. For Carry’s sake even, that nobody may be able to say that there was any embarrassment on her account, it seems to me your duty to receive him⁠—especially as his coming involves Millefleurs.”

“What do I care for that boy? What do you want with that boy?” Lady Lindores cried. She did not show her usual desire to please and soothe him, but spoke sharply, with an impatience which she could not control.

“Whatever my reason may be, I hope I have a right to invite Millefleurs if I please,” said the Earl, with a cloudy smile, “and his companion with him, whoever he may be.”

Lady Lindores made no reply, nor was there anything further said between them on the subject. The intimation, however, almost overwhelmed the woman, who in these last years had learned to contemplate her husband in so different a light. Enough has been said about the tragical unworthiness which tears asunder those who are most closely bound together, and kills love, as people say, by killing respect. To kill love is terrible, but yet it is an emancipation in its way; and no man or woman can suffer for the unworthiness of one whom he or she has ceased to love, with anything approaching the pain which we feel when those who never can cease to be dear to us fall into evil. And love is so fatally robust, and can bear so many attacks! Lady Lindores, who divined her husband’s motives, and the unscrupulous adherence to them through thick and thin which would recoil from nothing, suffered from that and every other discovery that he was not what she had thought him, with bitter pangs, from which she would have been free had he ceased to be the first object of her affections. But that he could never cease to be; and his faults tore her as with red-hot pincers. She could not bear to think of it, and yet was obliged to think of it, unable to forget it. That he should not shrink from the embarrassment and pain of renewing an acquaintance so broken up, when it happened to appear to him useful for his own ends, was more to her than even the pain she would feel in herself receiving the man who might have been Carry’s husband⁠—whom Carry had, as people say, jilted in order to marry a richer rival. How could she look him in the face, knowing this? How could she talk to him without allusion to the past? But even bad as this was, it was more heartrending still to think why it was that he was invited. She had to explain it to Edith too, who was thunderstruck. “Edward! you don’t mean Edward, mamma?” “Yes, my darling, I mean Edward, no one else. He must not be Edward now, but Mr. Beaufort, to you and me. Your father was obliged to ask him, for he was with Lord Millefleurs.” “But what does he want with Lord Millefleurs? I would rather have had nobody in the house till we go home than ask Edward. And what, oh what will you say to Carry, mamma?” “We must say nothing,” the mother cried, with a quivering lip. “It must not be breathed to her. Thank heaven, we have no old servants! At all costs Carry must not know.” “I thought you said, mamma, that there never was such a thing as a secret⁠—that everything was known?” “And so I did,” cried Lady Lindores, distracted. “Why do you remind me of what I have said? It is not as if I could help it. We must stand firm, and get through it as well as we can, and think as little as we can of what may follow. There is no other way.” This was how Lady Lindores bore the brunt of her child’s inquiries. As for Lord Rintoul, he declared that he understood his father perfectly. “If Beaufort were left out, he’d fill Millefleurs’s mind with all sorts of prejudices. I’d rather not meet the fellow myself; but as it can’t be helped, it must be done, I suppose,” he said. “He will never say anything, that is certain. And what can that boy’s opinion be to us?” said Lady Lindores. Her son stared at her for a moment open-eyed. “Mamma, you are the most wonderful woman I ever knew,” he said. “If you don’t mean it, it’s awfully clever; and if you do mean it, you are such an innocent as never was seen. Why, don’t you know that everybody is after Millefleurs? He is the great match of the season. I wish I thought Edith had a chance.” Lady Lindores covered her face with her hands, hating the very light. Her boy, too! They pursued their ignoble way side by side with her, scarcely believing that it was possible she did not see and share their meaning, and in her heart approve of all their efforts.

“What is wrong now?” said Rintoul. “I declare I never know what to say. Sometimes you take things quite easily. Sometimes you will flare up at nothing at all.”

“Do you think it is nothing at all that your sister and I should be brought into what you yourselves call a husband-hunt?” cried Lady Lindores. “Have you not told me of a dozen women who are trying to catch this man and that? Don’t you think it is ignominious to expose us to the same reproach? Perhaps they are just as innocent of it as I.”

“Oh, trust them for that,” said Rintoul, with a laugh. “Of course it is said of everybody. It will be said of you just the same; we can’t help that. But surely you can see yourself⁠—even you can see⁠—that when a fellow like Millefleurs actually puts himself out of the way to come after a girl like Edith⁠—”

“Robin!” cried his mother (a little accès of passion seized her). “Do you think Edith⁠—Edith, your sister⁠—is not worth a hundred boys like this Millefleurs? What do you mean by coming out of his way? Is it the fashion now that girls like Edith should put themselves at the disposal of a little jackanapes⁠—a bit of a boy⁠—a⁠—”

“Don’t lose your temper, mamma,” said the young man, with a laugh. “But now you’ve had it out,” said this wise son, “only just be reasonable, and think a moment. Millefleurs is a great catch. There’s not such a big fish to be landed anywhere; and Edith is no better than a hundred others. Do hear a fellow out. She’s very pretty and nice, and all that; but there’s heaps of pretty, nice girls⁠—and the prettier they are, and the nicer they are, the less they have a penny to bless themselves with,” he added, in a regretful parenthesis. “There’s a hundred of them, and there’s only one of him. Of course he knows that well enough. Of course he knows it’s a great thing when he lets a girl see that he admires her; and if her people are such fools as to let him slip through their fingers for want of a little trouble⁠—why, then, they deserve to lose their chance⁠—and that’s all I can say,” Rintoul said.

Once more Lady Lindores was silenced. What was the use of saying anything? Indignation was out of place, or anything that she could say of love profaned and marriage desecrated. To speak of the only foundation of a true union to this world-instructed boy⁠—what would be the use of it? She swallowed down as best she could the bitterness, the pain, the disappointment and contempt, which it is anguish to feel in such a case. After a while she said with a smile, commanding herself, “And you, Robin, who are so clever as to know all this, are you too a catch, my poor boy? are you pursued by mothers, and competed for by girls?⁠—not, of course, to the same extent as Lord Millefleurs⁠—I recognise the difference; but something, I suppose, in the same way?”

“Well,” said Rintoul, caressing his moustache, “not to the same extent, as you say, and not in the same way perhaps. I’m nobody, of course, when Millefleurs is there; but still, you know, when there’s no Millefleurs on the horizon⁠—why, one has one’s value, mother. It’s an old title, for one thing, and Scotch estates, which people think better than they are, perhaps. They don’t throw heiresses at my head; but still, you know, in a general way⁠—”

As he sat stroking that moustache which was not very mature yet, but rather young and scanty for its age, with a little smile of subdued vanity about his mouth, and a careless air of making light of his advantages, what woman could have helped laughing? But when a mother laughs at her boy, the ridicule hurts more than it amuses her. “I see,” she said. “Then don’t you think, Robin, you who are so clear-sighted, that this young man will see through our attentions, if we pay him attention, and laugh at our efforts to⁠—catch him (that’s the word, is it?), as much as you do yourself?”

“All right,” said Rintoul; “so he will, of course; but what does that matter when a fellow takes a fancy into his head? Of course he knows you will want to catch him if you can⁠—that stands to reason⁠—everybody wants to catch him; but if he likes Edith, he will never mind that⁠—if he likes Edith⁠—”

“Robin, hold your tongue,” cried his mother, almost violently. She felt that she could have boxed his ears in the heat of her displeasure. “I will not hear your sister’s name bandied about so. You disgust me⁠—you horrify me⁠—you make me ill to hear you! My son! and you venture to speak of your sister so!”

Rintoul, arrested in his speech, stared for a moment open-mouthed; and then he shook his head with a look of impatient toleration, and uttered a weary sigh. “If you will not hear reason, of course it’s in vain my arguing with you,” he said.

These several encounters, and the heavy thought of what might be to come soon, took away all the gloss of pleasure that had been upon Lady Lindores’s first entrance into society. She thought, indeed, there had never been any pleasure at all in it; but this was an unintentional self-deception. She thought that Carry’s pale image had come between her and every lighter emotion. She did not herself know how natural she was⁠—her mood changing, her heart rising in spite of herself, a bright day, a pleasant company, the consciousness of being approved, and even admired, giving her some moments of gratification in spite of all; but after these discussions, she was so twisted and turned the wrong way, so irritated and disenchanted by her husband and son, that she felt herself sick and disgusted with London and all the world. If she could but get home! but yet at home there was poor Carry, who would ask after everything, and from whom it would be so difficult to conceal the reappearance of her old lover: if she had but wings like a dove!⁠—but oh, whither to go to be at rest! One must be alone, and free of all loves and relationships, to hope for that anywhere by flight. And what was before her was appalling to her: to meet the man whom she had thought of as her son, to keep a calm countenance, and talk to him as if no different kind of intercourse had ever been between them⁠—to avoid all confidence, all épanchements, and to keep him at the safe distance of acquaintanceship: how was she to do it? She said to herself that she did not know how to look him in the face, he who had been so deeply wronged. And then she began to hope that he, full of delicacy and fine feeling as he used to be, would see how impossible it was that they should meet, and would refuse to come. This hope kept her up till the last moment. When the evening came, it was with a quivering emotion which she could scarcely restrain, that she waited to receive her guests, hoping more strenuously every moment, and trying to persuade herself, that Beaufort would not come. He had accepted the invitation; but what was that? He would accept, no doubt, in order to show them that he had got over it⁠—that he bore no malice⁠—and then he would send his excuses. Her eyes were feverish with eagerness and suspense when the door opened. She could not hear the names announced for the beating of her heart in her ears; but it was only when she saw against the light the shadow of a figure not to be forgotten, and heard the doors open and shut, that she realised the fact that he had really presented himself. Then it seemed to Lady Lindores that all her pulses stood still, and that an appalling stillness instead of their loud flutter of beating was in her ears and in the world. He had really come! She became conscious of her husband’s voice speaking to her, and the sound of his name, and the touch of his hand, and then she regained her composure desperately, by such an effort as it seemed to her she had never made before. For to faint, or to call attention to herself in any way, was what must not be done. And by-and-by the moment was over, and the party were all seated at table, eating and drinking, and talking commonplaces. When Lady Lindores looked round the table and saw Beaufort’s face among the other faces, she seemed to herself to be in a dream. The only other face of which she was conscious was that of Edith, perfectly colourless, and full of inquiry and emotion; and at the other end of the table her husband, throwing a threatening, terrified look across the flowers and the lights, and all the prettinesses of the table. These three she seemed to see, and no more.

But Lord Millefleurs by her side was full of pleasant chatter and cheerful boyish confidence, and demanded her attention. He was aware how important he was; and it never occurred to him that Beaufort, who was an excellent fellow, but nobody in particular, could distract the attention of those who surrounded him from himself. Millefleurs sat between Lady Lindores and Edith. It was a position that was his due.

“I am so sorry you are not well,” he said. “The fact is, it is London, Lady Lindores. I know your complaint, for it is mine too. Was there ever anything so irrational as to carry on this treadmill as we all do⁠—you out of a wholesome country life, no doubt, and I out of a wandering existence, always in the open air, always in motion? What do we do it for? Lady Edith, tell me, what do we do it for?⁠—I am asking everybody. Half of it would be very well, you know, but the whole of it is purgatory. I am sure that is your opinion. Is it merely fashion, or is it something in our nature which requires extravagance in all we do⁠—”

“There is not much extravagance in what we do habitually,” said Lady Lindores, “which perhaps makes this outbreak of activity less alarming to us. It is a change; and as for Edith, this is virtually her first season⁠—”

“I thought it was your first season,” cried the little Marquis. “I knew it must be so.” This he said with decision, as if in triumph over some adversary. “There is a look which one is never deceived in. I have seen all my sisters come out, so I am quite an authority. They get to look at things quite in another way; they get so knowing, as bad⁠—as I am myself,” the youth added in perfect good faith, with a serious look upon his infantile countenance, and a lisping utterance which gave point to the speech. Lord Millefleurs, though he did not need to study appearances, was yet aware of the piquancy of the contrast between his round childlike countenance and the experience of his talk.

“I should not have thought you were so bad,” said Edith, beguiled into smiling. “I think you look as if you were in your first season too⁠—”

“Oh, bad⁠—Bohemian, a waif and a stray,” said Millefleurs; “you cannot think what an abandoned little person I was, till Beaufort took me in hand. You knew Beaufort, abroad somewhere? So he tells me. How lucky for him to be able to renew such an acquaintance! I need not tell you what a fine fellow he is⁠—he has made me quite a reformed character. Do not laugh, Lady Edith; you hurt my feelings. You would not laugh if I were a coal-heaver addressing a meeting and telling how wicked I had been.”

“And have you really been so wicked? You do not look so,” said Edith, who, amused in spite of herself, began to get used to the grave countenance of Beaufort, seated on the other side of the table. Both the ladies were grateful to Millefleurs, who chattered on, and gave them time to recover themselves.

“No,” he said, “that is what makes it so funny, they all tell me. I am a wolf in sheep’s clothing; at least I was⁠—I was, until Beaufort took me in hand. At present I am good, as good as gold. I get up early, and go to bed⁠—when I can. I go out to three parties every night, and stand about at everybody’s receptions. I even pay calls in the morning. I shall go to a levee soon⁠—I know I shall,” he said, in an accent of deep conviction. “Can you think of anything more virtuous than that?”

“And what has your Bohemianism consisted in, Lord Millefleurs?”

“Good heavens!” said the self-accused, “do you venture to ask me, Lady Edith?⁠—everything that is dreadful. For months I never wrote a letter, for months I never had a penny. It was the best fun in the world. The sting of being poor is when you can’t help it. I believe, for my part, that the most luxurious condition in this world is when you know you can be well off at any moment, and yet are half starving. No, I never was half starving. I worked with these hands;” and he held out a pair of plump, delicate, pink-tinged hands, not without a little vanity. “To feel that it’s quite a chance whether you have ever any dinner again, to be altogether uncertain how you’re to get shelter for the night⁠—and yet to be quite sure that nothing dreadful can happen to you, that at the worst you can always ‘draw a bugle from your side,’ and be surrounded by ‘five-and-thirty belted knights,’⁠—I assure you it is the most delightful excitement in the world.”

It was impossible to resist this baby-faced and lisping adventurer. The mother and daughter both yielded to his fascinations. The conversation became more and more animated and amusing. At the other end of the table they were not by any means so cheerful; but Lord Lindores beheld with a satisfaction far more solid than any sort of amusement, the result of his experiment. Edith, who had been pale and distraite, doing herself no sort of justice, when they sat down at table, had roused up, and was now bright and responsive, interested in all that was being said to her. And Millefleurs, it was evident, was enjoying himself thoroughly. Two such women giving their full attention to him, listening to all his adventures⁠—which were neither few nor small⁠—was enough to raise him to the height of satisfaction. Lord Lindores talked very rationally and agreeably to the lady next him, but it was with an effort that he caught her not very brilliant remarks, so much interested was he in what was going on at the other end of the room. As for Rintoul, he gave himself up to his dinner. Things were going as well as possible, he thought; and though Millefleurs was a little Bohemian, he was the heir of a Duke, and could do no wrong.

It was thus that Lady Lindores was beguiled almost to forget the other guest at the table, whose coming had affected her so deeply. Her interest was easily excited, and the little Marquis was delightful. And it was not till she had returned to the comparative quiet of the drawing-room that the recollection of Beaufort came back to her. Much of the danger seemed over. It would be over altogether in another hour, and the tremor in her mind was not so all-pervading as when she first saw his familiar face approaching. But she was not to get over her ordeal so easily. When the gentlemen came upstairs, Beaufort came at once towards her. He stood in front of her for a moment, as if claiming his right to be heard, shutting everybody else out. She felt a sort of fascination in his gaze, and could make no attempt to begin any conversation. Her tremor returned: she looked up wistfully at him without anything to say, clasping and unclasping in unspoken appeal her unsteady hands.

“It is a long time since we have met,” he said at length.

“Yes⁠—it is a long time, Mr. Beaufort.”

“And many things have happened since that time.”

She raised her clasped hands a little from her lap in mute entreaty, and made no other reply; but it did not occur to her⁠—what was the case⁠—that he was quite as much excited as she was, and did not notice her agitation, being so fully occupied with his own.

“I hope⁠—that all of your family are⁠—well: and happy, Lady Lindores.”

“Very well. Mr. Beaufort, I know that there is much that must have seemed strange and cruel to you. How can I speak of it now? It is impossible to explain.”

He paused a little, replying nothing. Then he said suddenly, “If you would let me come and talk to you⁠—talk of everything⁠—I should feel it a great kindness⁠—when I could see you alone.”

She put out her hands now in sudden alarm and deprecation. “Mr. Beaufort, it could do no good, it would be very painful. Do not ask me to do it. For me it would be a terrible ordeal⁠—and no advantage to you.”

“I think it would be an advantage,” he said gently.

Again she clasped her hands, imploring forbearance. “I do not wish to try to justify⁠—but after so long a time⁠—is it right, is it kind, do you think, to press me so?”

“Let me come and talk to you,” he said; “you need not fear my reproaches. May not I know how it was, how it came about? I will not complain. How can I cease to be interested, if that were all? Let me come and talk to you⁠—let me know how it was.”

Lady Lindores did not know what to answer or how to hide her emotion. She was trying to form an evasive answer with lips that faltered, when suddenly her husband came to her relief.

“I should not have expected you to have had part in adventures such as I hear Millefleurs relating. Where was he really when you picked him up?” said Lord Lindores.

XV

Lord Millefleurs had given his family a great deal of trouble⁠—not in the old-fashioned way of youthful folly or dissipation, which is too well known in every age, the beaten road upon which young men tread down the hearts of their progenitors, and their own best hopes, in all the wantonness of shortsighted self-indulgence. The heir of the house of Lavender had gone wrong in an entirely new-fashioned and nineteenth-century way. He was devoured by curiosity, not of the modes of pleasure, but about those other ways of living which the sons of dukes in general have no knowledge of. He got tired of being a duke’s son, and it seemed to him that life lay outside the range of those happy valleys in which he was born. He had gone to America, that home of all kinds of freedom, and there had disappeared from the ken of ducal circles. He had not even written home, which was the inexcusable part of it, but had sunk out of sight, coming to the surface, as it were, only once or twice in a couple of years, when a sudden draft upon his banker revealed him to his anxious family, whose efforts to trace him during this time were manifold, but always unsuccessful. It was Beaufort who had been the means at last of restoring the virtuous prodigal, who in the meantime had been occupied, not by any vicious tastes or dangerous liaisons, but by the most entirely innocent, if eccentric, experiments in living. Beaufort found him, but not before the young man was willing to be found⁠—a fact which, however, the anxious relations did not take into account, as detracting from the merit of the man whom they described as Millefleurs’s deliverer, his better genius, and by many other flattering descriptions. In reality, Millefleurs had set out on his way home, moved thereto by the energetic representations of a strong-minded, middle-aged maiden in Connecticut or California (how can a historian without data particularise?), who told him that a man was no gentleman who kept the women of his family in ignorance of his movements, and exposed them to all the tortures of anxiety. This puzzled the scientific adventurer. He had found out that daily work (which amused him very much) was not at all incompatible with the character of a gentleman; but he felt himself pulled up in his career when this new view of the subject was presented to him. After a little thought, he decided that Miss Sallie F⁠⸺ was right. And he took off his working clothes, and put on the livery of civilisation, and found Beaufort, who had attacked the continent bravely but vaguely in search of him, on his way. Millefleurs was not proud. He let himself be brought home as if it was all Beaufort’s doing, and made his peace with everybody. The consequence was, that the illustrious house of Lavender was ready to do anything in the world for that excellent Mr. Beaufort, who had fished their heir out of troubles unknown; and, in respect to that heir himself, were bending all their faculties to the task of getting him married, and so put out of harm’s way. It was a new sphere for the mental vivacity and curiosity of Millefleurs. He devoted himself to a study of the young ladies of the highest civilisation, just as he had devoted himself to the life of the dockyards and the backwoods. (Probably I should say to the mines and the cattle-ranches; but the reader who knows the fashion will here supply the appropriate phrase.) He found the study curious, and not at all unpleasant, and so went about scattering wild hopes about him wherever he moved. Was anything else possible? If the young ladies in our northern county had been (inevitably) fluttered and excited when Pat Torrance fixed his big light eyes upon them, knowing the value of him as, so to speak, an appointment, a post for life which would remove all anxiety about their future comfort from their own minds and those of their parents, how much more when the Marquis of Millefleurs went hopping about the drawing-rooms, carrying on his researches in a far more genial and agreeable manner than Pat Torrance was capable of doing? And it was quite certain that nobody would ever be unhappy with Millefleurs. He was always cheerful, always considerate, ready to do anything for anybody. He was more like a daughter than a son, the Duchess declared, with tears in her eyes⁠—foreseeing what she wanted, watching over her as nobody had ever done before: although it was no doubt very wrong⁠—oh, very wrong!⁠—to almost break her heart, leaving her two years without a letter; but he would not do so to his wife. Thus the⁠—we will not say candidates, rather nominees⁠—possible occupants of the delightful and every way desirable post of Marchioness of Millefleurs had every sort of inducement to “go in” for it, and scarcely any drawback at all.

The drawback was not worth speaking of⁠—it was the most superficial of objections. This enterprising, amusing, good-tempered, quick-witted, accomplished, and lovable hero, was, as the girls said, the funniest little man that had ever been seen. He was shorter than most of the young ladies to whom he made himself so agreeable. He was plump and round, a succession of curves and gently billowing outlines; his eyes were like little black beads, though they were sparkling with life and animation; he had a round face like a boy of ten, with nice little puffy rosy cheeks, and a lisp which completed the infantile effect of his appearance generally. A little air of the most agreeable self-satisfaction hung about him⁠—what the vulgar and detractors generally call vanity and self-conceit, but which indeed was nothing of the kind, being only that confidence of pleasing which his natural temper gave him in the first place, and his position confirmed. For how could he be ignorant that to be Marquis of Millefleurs was enough to make any man charming? It was to escape this that he had fled from society and been called Tommy by the American labourers, with whom he was just as popular as in Mayfair. It had been intended to keep this little gentleman in the background of this narrative as really a very secondary person in it; but, with his usual determination to be in the front of everything, he has pushed himself forward against the historian’s will.

Having thus yielded to his natural tendency to show himself, we may proceed to say what we had intended without this preamble, that the peculiarity of Millefleurs’s appearance took all seriousness from the fact of his rapidly increasing intimacy with them, in the foolish and inexperienced eyes not only of Edith but of her mother. Lady Lindores, though she had been alarmed and startled by the importance attached to his first visit, and the penalty paid for it, could not bring herself to regard him seriously. He seemed to her a boy, notwithstanding that the peerage was produced to her and dates set before her eyes⁠—and she shut her eyes altogether to any danger that might be involved in the frequency of his visits. She was very glad to see him whenever he came. Never was there a more delightful household retainer; his friendliness and affectionateness and half-feminine interest in all their concerns great and small, made him delightful to the women, who wanted no more of him. He was like a boy at home from school in this friendly house, where no incense was burned before him, and ran on their commissions, and took an interest in their work, and gave his opinion about their dress, with all the freedom of long acquaintance; and it naturally added in no small degree to the brilliancy of their appearance out of doors, and to the effect they produced, that such an attendant should be constantly in their train. Lady Lindores was not insensible to this gratification; and had Millefleurs looked more grown up and less like a friend’s son confided to her for the holidays, it is very likely that the chance of seeing her child elevated to the highest level of the social ladder would have been too much for her also, and turned her head a little. But whenever the idea glanced across her mind, as it was bound to do sometimes, if from nothing more than the discourses of Rintoul, she had but to look at the rounded outlines of her little hero, and all these visions dispersed in a laugh. To imagine him a bridegroom, not to say Edith’s bridegroom, affected her with a sense of the ludicrous which it was beyond her power to restrain.

But this was extremely foolish, as everybody will perceive; and it was with a very different eye that Lord Lindores contemplated the frequent presence of this above-all-competitors-desirable young man. It was not only that he was a duke’s son, though that in itself was much, but he was the son of a duke who was a Cabinet Minister, and eminently qualified to help on the scheme of ambition which inspired the Scotch Earl. His Grace knew the gain it would be to replace the Tory who had sat for Dee-and-Donshire for years with an out-and-out partisan of the existing Government; and there could be little doubt that he would appreciate the expediency of increasing the importance of any family to which his own should become allied. And then the prospects which would open before Edith were such as to dazzle any beholder. If her father had ever felt that he was to blame in respect to his elder daughter, here was something which surely would make amends for all. Millefleurs was no rustic bully, no compound of a navvy and a squire, but the quintessence of English gentlemanhood, good-hearted, clever in his way, universally popular, the sort of man whom, irrespective of all worldly advantages, a father would be glad to trust his child’s happiness to. The idea that any reasonable objection could be grounded upon his appearance would have irritated Lord Lindores beyond all self-control. His appearance! he was not a hunchback, nor deaf, nor dumb, nor blind. Short of that, what on earth did it matter how a man looked? And no doubt Lord Lindores was in the right. But in reality, that which put all idea of him as a lover out of the mind of Lady Lindores and Edith was not any objection to his appearance, but the mere fact of his appearance, his boyish looks, his contour, his aspect of almost childhood. As has been said, when the suggestion was presented to her mind that Millefleurs might have “intentions” in respect to Edith, Lady Lindores the next time she saw him laughed. “What is the joke?” he had said to her half-a-dozen times; and she had answered, “There is no joke, only a ludicrous suggestion.” “About me, perhaps,” he said once, reducing her to great embarrassment. But she managed to elude his observation; and to Edith, fortunately, the idea never occurred at all. She declared herself to be very fond of him; she said there was no one so nice; she brightened when he came in, and listened to his chatter with unfailing pleasure. She said there was nobody she would miss so much when she went home. When he complained that he had never been in Scotland, she said, “You must come to Lindores.” It was she, indeed, who gave the invitation. The Earl, who had not quite ventured upon this strong step, was present and heard her say it, and opened his eyes wide in admiration. What did it mean? Was it that these two had engaged themselves secretly without saying anything to father or mother? or did it mean nothing at all⁠—the mere foolishness of a girl who did not care for, nay, did not even think for a moment, what people would say?

For the brief little weeks of the season flitted quickly away, and the date fixed for their departure drew near rapidly. By this time Millefleurs had got to be exceedingly intimate with the family. He went and came almost as he pleased, sometimes offering himself, sometimes coming in to luncheon without that ceremony⁠—always with something to do for them, or something to say to them, which linked one day to another. This was much, but it was not all that was wanted. Rintoul, looking on with eyes enlightened by that knowledge he had acquired of what “the fellows would say,” did not feel half satisfied. He was the anxious member of the party. Even Lord Lindores, whose friends at the clubs discussed such matters less perhaps than the young men, and whose interests were more political, was not so alive to all the risks and all the changes of opinion as was Rintoul. He was nervous above measure about this business of Edith’s. He even took his mother to task about it during the last week of their stay in town. “Isn’t that fellow coming to the point?” he said.

“What fellow, and what point?” said Lady Lindores. It must be acknowledged that if ever a young man anxious for the true interests of his family was tried by the ignorance and stupidity⁠—not to say callousness⁠—of his relations, Rintoul was that man.

“Look here, mother,” he said, exasperated; “just think for a moment what people will say, and ask yourself how you will like it. They will say Millefleurs has been amusing himself all this time, and never meant anything. I make no doubt that they say it already. He has been amusing himself⁠—exposing her to all sorts of remarks; and then the end will come, and he will leave her planté là.”

“Rintoul,” said his mother, reddening with anger, “this one idea of yours makes you absurd. Who is it that has it in his power to leave Edith planté là? To think that I should be forced to use such words! If you mean to make me uncomfortable about that boy⁠—”

“He is no more a boy than I am, mother. I warned you of that. He knows very well what he is about. He has had the pleasure of your society, and he has enjoyed it all and amused himself very much. But he doesn’t mean to commit himself. Do you think I don’t know what people say? I don’t mean that it is Edith’s fault, or even your fault, mother; only, some women know how to manage. It is a thing that never could happen with some people. You will see, unless you exert yourself, that the last day will come, and you will be just where you were. I don’t know whether staying a week or two longer would do any good,” he added, ruefully. “If there is the chance that it might bring him to the point, there is also the chance that people would divine your motive, and say that was why you were staying on. Don’t you think you could put a little steam on, when the result is so important, and bring him to the point?”

“Steam on! Do you mean to insult me, Rintoul?” his mother cried.

But this was too much for the young man, who felt himself to be the only one of the family to whom the true position of affairs was apparent. “If you cannot understand me, mother, I can’t say anything more,” he said, feeling as if he could almost have cried over her callousness. Why was it that nobody but he would see how serious the situation was?

All this time, however, while Millefleurs was frequenting the house almost daily, Lady Lindores’s perception had been partly confused by the effort it cost her to avoid being drawn into what she felt must be an unnecessary confidential disclosure to Beaufort of the history of the family since they last met. Beaufort did not insist upon accompanying his charge⁠—for such, more or less, Millefleurs was, his family being too much alarmed lest he should disappear again, to leave him without this species of surveillance, which the good-natured young fellow allowed to be perfectly natural, and neither resisted nor resented; but he came sometimes, and he never relinquished his appeal to Lady Lindores. He was not posing in any attitude of a heartbroken lover. Even to her he expressed no despair. He took his life gravely, but not without cheerfulness, and had, she felt almost with a little pique, got over it, and been able to put Carry out of his life. But he wanted to know: that seemed all that was left of the old romance. He wanted to be told how it had happened⁠—how his love had been lost to him. It did not seem to be resentment or indignation that moved him, but a serious kind of interest. And strangely enough, it seemed to Lady Lindores that he did not want to avoid her, or keep out of hearing of the name of the girl who had forsaken him. He seemed to like herself, Carry’s mother, as well as ever, and to regard Edith with the same elder-brotherly air which had pleased her so much in the old days. Between the inquiring countenance which seemed without ceasing to ask an explanation from her, and the prattle of Millefleurs, which ran on in a pleasant stream, and to which it seemed so ridiculous to attach any serious meaning, Lady Lindores was kept in a perplexity and harassment of mind which took away altogether her pleasure in society at the end of their stay in London. After her impatient rejection of Rintoul’s counsels, she began to consider them, as was natural; and much as all the particulars of the chasse-aux-maris disgusted her, she came at length, against her will, to recognise that there was something in what he said. “I have been imprudent, as usual,” she said to herself. Alas that all the natural proceedings of life should be hampered by these rules of prudence!⁠—these perpetual previsions of what might happen, to which she felt it was impossible she could ever bow her spirit. But the idea that it would be said that a boy like Millefleurs had “amused himself” with her daughter⁠—that he had loved and ridden away⁠—that Edith, her high-spirited, pure-minded girl, had been left planté là⁠—broke over Lady Lindores like a wave of passionate feeling: the suggestion was intolerable and odious. This happened when Millefleurs was in the room with her, in full tide of talk, and entirely at his ease. The sudden sensation disclosed itself in a flush of colour mounting in a moment to her very hair. Intolerable! The thought was so odious that she started to her feet and walked to the open window, as if the change of position would throw it off⁠—and also, suffocated as she felt by that sudden fiery breath, to get fresh air, lest she should, as she said, make an exhibition of herself.

“You are ill, Lady Lindores,” cried Millefleurs. Those little beady eyes of his saw everything. He ran forward to support her (he was just up to her shoulder), putting forward a reclining-chair with one hand, picking up a bottle of eau de cologne with the other. He had all his wits about him. “I am used to it. Sometimes my mother se trouve mal in the same way. It will pass over,” he said encouragingly to Edith, who, unused to anything of the kind, started up in alarm. “Dear Lady Lindores, put yourself here.”

“I am not ill,” she said, almost angrily. “Pray do not make any⁠—fuss. How rude I am! but there is nothing the matter with me, I assure you. The room is warm, that is all.”

Millefleurs looked at her curiously. He put down the eau de cologne, and took his hand from the chair. For a moment he seemed about to speak, but then stood aside more serious than his wont. In terror lest he should have divined her thoughts, Lady Lindores returned to her seat, calming herself down with an effort, and made the best attempt she could to resume their easy conversation of the moment before. She was vexed beyond measure when Edith, a short time after, left the room to go and look for something which Millefleurs was anxious to see. He took instant advantage of the opportunity thus afforded him. “Lady Lindores,” he said, with that serious air as of a candid child, going up to her, “you are not ill, but you are vexed and angry, and it is something about me.”

“About you, Lord Millefleurs! how could that be?⁠—you have never given me the least occasion to be angry.”

“That is why,” he said, gravely. “I see it all. You have nothing to find fault with. I am quite innocent and harmless, yet I am in the way, and you do not know how to tell me so. For my part, I have been so happy here that I have forgotten all sorts of precautions. One does not think of precautions when one is happy. Dear Lady Lindores, you shall tell me exactly what I ought to do, and I will do it. I have all my life been guided by women. I have such faith in a lady’s instinct. I might be confused, perhaps, in my own case, but you will hit upon the right thing. Speak to me freely, I shall understand you at a word,” the droll little hero said. Now Lady Lindores was in a strait as serious as she had ever experienced in her life; but when she glanced up at him, and saw the gravity upon his baby face, his attitude of chubby attention, such a desire to laugh seized her, that it was all she could do by main force to keep her gravity. This insensibly relaxed the tension, and restored her to her usual self-command. Still there was no denying that the situation was a very peculiar one, and his request for guidance the strangest possible. She answered hurriedly, in the confusion of her mingled feelings⁠—

“I don’t know what there is to do, Lord Millefleurs, or how I can advise you. A sudden want of breath⁠—a consciousness all at once that it is a very warm morning⁠—what can that have to do with you?”

“You will not tell me, then?” he said, with an air half disappointed, half imploring.

“There is nothing to tell. Here is Edith. For heaven’s sake, not another word!” said Lady Lindores, in alarm. She did not perceive that she betrayed herself in this very anxiety that her daughter should suspect nothing. He looked at her very curiously once more, studying her face, her expression, even the nervousness of the hand with which she swept her dress out of her way. He was a young man full of experiences, knowing all the ways of women. How far she was sincere⁠—how far this might be a little scheme, a device for his instruction, so that he might see what was expected of him without any self-betrayal on the lady’s part⁠—was what he wanted to know. Had it been so, he would at once have understood his role. It is usual to say that simplicity and sincerity are to the worldly-bred much more difficult to understand than art; but there is something still more difficult than these. “Pure no-meaning puzzles more than wit.” Though Lady Lindores had far more meaning in her than nine-tenths of her contemporaries, she was in this one case absolutely incomprehensible from want of meaning. She had no more notion than a child what to do, or even what she wished to be done. If this little chubby fellow asked Edith to marry him, her mother believed that the girl would laugh in his face. There could be no question of Edith marrying him. But what then? Was Edith to be held up before the whole world (according to Rintoul’s version) as the plaything of this little Marquis, as having failed to catch him, as being planté là. She was in the most painful dilemma, not knowing any more than a child how to get out of it. She gave him a look which was almost pathetic in its incompetency. Lady Lindores was full of intellect⁠—she was what is called a very superior woman; but nobody would have been more stupid, more absolutely without any power of invention in this crisis, which had never come within the range of her calculations, which she had not been able to foresee.

And that same afternoon Beaufort came by himself and was admitted, no one else being in the drawing-room⁠—no one to shield the poor lady, who could not help remembering that this stranger was the man to whom she had once given a mother’s kiss, receiving him as a son. He did not forget it either. He held her hand when she gave it him, and sat down by her with an expression of satisfaction which she was very far from sharing. “At last I find you alone,” he said, with a sigh of content. Poor Lady Lindores had already been so greatly tried this morning, that she felt unable to keep up the strain. Why should she be forced to put on so many semblances?

“Mr. Beaufort,” she cried, “I cannot pretend to be glad to see you alone. Cannot you understand? You have been wronged⁠—we have treated you badly⁠—they say it is the injured person who is always most ready to forgive; but do not ask me to go into a matter which I have tried all these years to forget.”

“And yet,” he said, gently, “I do not mean to reproach you, Lady Lindores.”

“That may be; I do not know that you have much occasion to reproach me. You were not yourself, perhaps, so much in earnest. No⁠—I mean no reproach either; but you are a man of your century too, according to the usual slang. You don’t force events, or do what is impossible. Men used to do so in the old days.”

He listened to her in silence, bowing his head two or three times. “I accept your reproof,” he said, a faint colour coming over his face. “I am glad you have made it⁠—it helps me to understand. Lady Lindores, there is something else I want to speak to you about. Lord Lindores has invited me, with Millefleurs, in August⁠—”

“With Millefleurs, in August? Has he asked Lord Millefleurs in August?” Lady Lindores cried.

This was a great blow to Beaufort’s self-opinion. He had thought, naturally, that the embarrassment of his appearance as a visitor would have overweighed everything else. He grew more red this time, with the irritated shame which follows a slight.

“Certainly he has asked him. It is ridiculous that a young man so entirely able to take care of himself should have anyone in charge of him; but as the Duke has implored me to keep his son company⁠—Here is my situation, Lady Lindores. God knows I would not thrust myself where I might⁠—where I should be⁠—I mean, to cause the faintest embarrassment to⁠—anyone.”

“Mr. Beaufort,” cried Lady Lindores, “do not come, either of you!⁠—oh, never mind what I mean. What is the use of going over that old ground? It would cause embarrassment⁠—to me if to no one else. And Lord Millefleurs⁠—what does he want at Lindores? Let him stay away; persuade him to stay away.”

“But that is settled without any power of interference on my part. Of course he thought you were aware. For myself, I am ready to give up my own prospects, to sacrifice anything⁠—rather than give you a moment’s anxiety.”

Lady Lindores gazed at him for a moment with wide-open eyes, like a creature at bay. Then she let her hands fall on her lap. “It is I that need to be guided what to do,” she said, with a sigh; “they are too many for me. Oh, Edward! had we but remained poor and obscure, as we were when you knew us⁠—” She put out her hand instinctively, with a kind of involuntary appeal. He took it, going upon his knees with that movement, equally involuntary, which deep emotion suggests, and put it to his lips. They were both overcome by a sudden flood of old sympathy, old communion. “Has Carry forgotten me altogether⁠—altogether? Is she happy? God bless her!” he said.

It was in this attitude that Edith, coming in suddenly, surprised these two imprudent people. She gave a cry of amazement, and, Lady Lindores thought, reproach. “Mother! Edward!” The old name came to her lips, too, in the shock.

“Edith,” Lady Lindores cried, “your father has invited him with Lord Millefleurs to Lindores.”

“But I will do nothing save as you advise,” said Beaufort, rising to his feet.

Then the mother and the daughter consulted each other with their eyes. “Of course he will⁠—not⁠—” Edith stopped and faltered. She had begun almost with passion; but she was made to break off by the warning in her mother’s eyes. Lady Lindores, too, had gone through a shock and panic; but now all the secondary elements came in⁠—all those complications which take truth out of life.

XVI

The party at Tinto was increased by Dr. Stirling and his wife, which made six, instead of four as the master of the house had intended. His meaning, so far as it was a meaning at all and not a mere impulse, was to get John Erskine by himself, and with skilful art to worm himself into the confidence of that openhearted young man. Torrance had a great opinion of his own skill in this way. He thought he could find out from any man the inmost thoughts of his mind; and John seemed an easy victim, a young fellow without suspicion, who might without difficulty be led into betraying himself. Torrance had been overawed by the presence of Edith, and forced into conviction when his wife appealed to her sister on the subject of John; but he was without any confidence in the truth of others, and after a time he began to persuade himself that Lady Car’s denial was not final, and that probably he should find out from John himself something that would modify her tale. When he heard that his wife had added to the party, he was furious. “I never said I wanted more people asked,” he said. “If I had wanted people asked, I should have let you know. What do I want with a country parson, or minister, or whatever you call him? When I’m ill you can send for the minister. I’ve got nothing to say to him at present. It is for yourself, of course, you want him. When there’s nobody better, he does to try your arts on, Lady Car.”

“Yes,” said Lady Car, with a faint smile, “I allow that I like to talk to him⁠—for lack of a better, as you say.” Sometimes she had spirit enough to be what he called aggravating, and Torrance grew red with a sense of scorn implied. He was not stupid enough, seeing that he was so little clever. He knew so much as to be constantly conscious that he was below the mark.

“Confound it!” he said, “if you were to talk to your husband, it would show more sense; but of course that would not answer your purpose.” Why it would not answer her purpose he had not any idea; but it is not always necessary, especially in controversy, to know what you yourself mean, and Carry did not inquire. Sometimes she was aggravating, but sometimes she showed the better part of valour, and held her peace. That was always the wise way. And accordingly there were six people who sat down to the banquet at Tinto. It was truly a banquet though the party was so small. The table was covered with plate, huge silver epergnes, and loads of old-fashioned metal⁠—not old-fashioned, it must be recollected, in the right way, but in the wrong way⁠—monstrosities of the age of William IV or of the last George. Lady Caroline’s taste had been quite inoperative so far as these ornaments were concerned. Her husband knew that she made light of them, and this usually influenced him in the long-run. But he knew also what they had cost, and would not yield a hair’s-breadth. The table groaned under them as on the greatest feast-days; and Mrs. Stirling, if nobody else, was always deeply impressed. “I tell the Doctor it’s as good as reading a book upon the East to see that grand camel and the silver palm-trees,” this excellent lady said. She thought it became a minster’s wife to show a special interest in the East.

“Well, it’s not often they’re seen in the east⁠—of Scotland, Mrs. Stirling,” said Tinto, with his large laugh. He had made the joke before.

“Oh fie, Mr. Torrance! ye must not be profane,” Mrs. Stirling said: and they both laughed with a certain zest. Very few of Lady Car’s guests admired the palm-trees; but Mrs. Stirling, by a blessed dispensation of Providence, was always capable of this effort. “I hear they are not much in the way of art,” Torrance said⁠—“people are ill to please nowadays; but they’re pure metal, and if they were only valued at so much an ounce⁠—”

“You may well say they’re ill to please. Bless me, Mr. Torrance! one of them would be a fortune⁠—just a fortune at that rate. When my little Jeanie is of an age to be married you must lock up these fine things, or there’s no saying what I might be tempted to; but you never would miss one when there’s so many,” Mrs. Stirling said. It was a dispensation of Providence. The Doctor himself devoutly wished he had his wife’s faculty of admiration, when, after keeping her host in good humour all the evening, she withdrew with Lady Car, giving him a warning glance. All three of the ladies addressed warning glances to the gentlemen left behind. Even Nora, who had not spoken three words to John, and had, as she said almost spitefully to herself, nothing whatever to do with him, could not help warning him with her eyes to keep the peace.

Now this was the time which Torrance had looked forward to, when he should cross-examine the newcomer, and get to the rights of the story respecting John’s previous acquaintance with his wife. He was balked and he was angry, and all at once it became apparent to him that this was Lady Car’s design, and that she had done it to screen herself. “Doctor, you like a good glass of wine,” he said; “all parsons do, whatever be the cut of the cloth. Here’s some stuff that will soon lay you under the table⁠—unless you’re seasoned like Erskine here, and me.”

“I must take care, then, to give that stuff a wide berth,” the Doctor said gravely, yet with a smile.

“Ay, ay, but you must drink fair. We’ll be having you take shelter with the ladies. I don’t mean to let Erskine off so easy. This is his first dinner in my house. It ought to have been a state dinner, you know⁠—all the bigwigs in the county; but Erskine and Lady Car are old friends. I think you knew the family intimately at⁠—where was the place?”

“I met Miss Lindores, as she was then, in Switzerland,” said John, curtly. “It was to you that I was to apply, Dr. Stirling, for particulars about the asylum Lord Lindores is so much interested in.”

“And a most important work,” said Dr. Stirling. “It is a strange thing to think of in a country so well gifted as this by Providence, and with so much intelligence, what a balance we have on the other side! You’ll have noticed almost every village has a ‘natural’ as the people call them⁠—a half-witted innocent creature like Davie Gellatley in Waverley.”

“What did you say was the name of the place?” said Torrance. “I’m bent on making notes of all the places Lady Car’s been in. She’s a poet, you know. Some time or other they will be wanted for her biography, don’t you see?”

“I have observed,” said John, answering Torrance only with a little bow⁠—“I have noticed already one or two. Could nothing be done for them?”

“But you don’t answer me,” said Torrance, “and when I tell you my motive! That’s my father-in-law’s last fad. What is he so anxious about the daft folk for, Dr. Stirling? Is it a fellow-feeling?” He stopped to laugh, making the table ring. “He was at me for my support, and to write to the convener. Not I! I told him they had done well enough up to my time, and they would do well enough after my time. What are we to put ourselves about for? can you tell me that?”

“It is a disgrace to the county,” said Dr. Stirling. “No wonder the Earl was horrified, that has seen things managed so differently. Mr. Erskine, if you will come and see me, I will tell you all about it. Sir John stands out, just because the idea is new to him, not from any real objection⁠—for he’s a good man and a charitable man at heart.”

“You don’t wonder at me, Doctor,” said Torrance. “Do you think I’m not a good man or a charitable? I’m standing out too. I’m saying, what should we put ourselves about for? It’s not us that makes them daft. And what’s done for the county up to our time may do now. Little Tam, he can see to that: let him have the paying of it; it is not an amusement I’m fond of⁠—”

“And yet, Mr. Torrance,” said the Doctor⁠—“and yet⁠—you’ll excuse me⁠—here’s what would almost build the place⁠—”

This was an exaggeration. It was founded upon his wife’s naive admiration of the Tinto plate; but it did not displease the proud owner of all those pounds of silver. He laughed.

“You may take your word, it will never build the place, nor any such place,” he said. “No, Doctor, that’s not my line⁠—nor the Earl’s either, trust me. If you think he would strip his table or empty his purse for all the idiots in Scotland, you’re mistaken. You think it’s all benevolence and public spirit. Not a bit! He means to run Rintoul for the county, and it’s popularity he’s wanting. There’s always wheels within wheels. My father-in-law thinks he’s a very clever man⁠—and so he is, I suppose. They’re a clever family; but I can see through them, though they don’t think much of me.”

Torrance had already consumed a good deal of wine. He had been crossed in his purpose, and his temper roused. His dark face was flushed, and his light eyes staring. Both his companions were men entirely out of sympathy with him, who were there because they could not help it, and who listened rather with angry shame that they should be parties to such discourse, than with any amiable desire to cover his shortcomings. They did not look at each other, but a slight uneasy movement on the part of both was as good as a mutual confidence, and both began to speak at once, with an anxious attempt to put an end to these unseemly revelations.

“What fine weather we’ve been having for the crops!” said Dr. Stirling. And, “I wish you’d tell me what flies you use about here. I have had no luck at all on the river,” cried John.

But their host was on his mettle, and felt himself a match for them both. “As for the weather, I’ve no land in my own hands⁠—not such a fool! and I don’t care a ⸻ that for the crops! Flies! you may have the finest in the world, but without sense you’ll make nothing of them. Come with me, and I’ll let you see how to make them bite. But as I was saying,” Torrance went on, elevating his voice, “if you think his lordship is bent on the good of the county, you’re mistaken, I can tell you. He means to get the seat for Rintoul. And who’s Rintoul, to represent a county like this? A boy, in the first place⁠—not fledged yet; what I call fledgling. And knows nothing about what we want. How should he? He never was in the county in his life till four or five years ago. You would have thought a man like old Lindores, that has been about the world, would have had more sense. That’s just it; a man knocks about these little foreign places, and he thinks he knows the world. Now there’s me. I would not take the trouble of Parliament, not for any inducement. It’s no object to me. I prefer quiet and my own way. There’s nothing that any Ministry could give me, neither office nor rise in life. I’m content to be Torrance of Tinto, as my father was before me: but at all events, I am one that knows the county and its ways. I could tell them what’s wanted for Scotland. But no! a boy like Rintoul that knows nothing⁠—without sense or experience⁠—he’s the man. My father-in-law, for so clever as he is, has awful little sense.”

“There is no seat vacant as yet,” said Dr. Stirling; “we might leave that question, Tinto, till the time comes.”

“That’s your old-fashioned way,” said Torrance; “but his lordship is a man of his century, as they call it. He’ll not wait till the last moment. He’ll get himself known as the friend of Liberal measures, and all that. All his tools are in the fire now; and when the time comes to use them, they’ll be hot and handy.” Then he laughed, turning his eyes from one to another. “You’re his tools,” he said.

It was not possible for either of the listeners to conceal the irritation with which they received this sudden shot. They looked at each other this time with a sudden angry consultation. Dr. Stirling touched his empty glass significantly with the forefinger of one hand, and held up the other as a warning. “It seems to me,” he said, “that it would be an excellent thing about this time of the night to join the ladies. It will very soon be time for my wife and me to go.”

“He is afraid of his wife, you see, Erskine,” said Torrance, with his laugh. “We’re all that. Keep out of the noose as long as you can, my lad. You may be very thankful for what you’ve missed, as well as what you’ve got.”

“I suppose you mean something by what you are saying, Mr. Torrance,” said John, “but I do not understand what it is.”

Upon this Torrance laughed louder than before. “He’s confounded sly⁠—confounded sly. He’ll not let on he knows⁠—that’s because you’re here, Doctor. Join the ladies, as you say⁠—that is far the best thing you can do⁠—and Erskine and I will have a glass more.”

“A great deal better not, Tinto,” said the Doctor; “you know it’s not the fashion now: and Lady Caroline will wonder what’s become of us. It’s a little dark down the avenue, and my wife is nervous. You must come and shake hands with her before she goes.”

Both the guests rose, but the master of the house kept his seat. “Come, Erskine, stay a bit, and tell me about⁠—about⁠—what was the name of the place? Let the Doctor go. He has his sermon to write, no doubt, and his wife to please. Go away, Doctor, we’ll join you presently,” Torrance said, giving him a jocular push towards the door. “Come, Erskine, here’s a new bottle I want your opinion of. If you ever drank a glass of claret like it, it will be a wonder to me.”

John stood hesitating for a moment. Then he took his seat again. If he was to quarrel with this fellow, better, he thought, to have it out.

“You want to question me,” he said; “then do so simply, and you shall have my answer. I am unaware what the point is; but whatever it is, speak out⁠—I do not understand hints. I am quite at your service if I can furnish you with any information.

“Go away, Doctor,” said Torrance, with another push. “Tell them we’re coming. I’ll be in time to shake hands with Mrs. Stirling: join the ladies⁠—that’s the right thing to do.”

The minister was in a great strait. He stood looking from one to another. Then he went out slowly, closing the door softly behind him, but lingering in the anteroom, that if any conflict of voices arose, he might be at hand to interfere. Torrance himself was sobered by the gravity of the proceeding. He did not speak immediately, but sat and stared at the companion with whom he was thus left tête-à-tête. He had not expected that John would have courage to meet this interrogation; and notwithstanding his pertinacity, he was disconcerted. Erskine met his gaze calmly, and said, “You wanted to ask me some questions. I am quite at your disposal now.”

“Question?⁠—no, not so much a question,” faltered the other, coming to himself. “I’m sure⁠—I beg your pardon⁠—no offence was meant. I asked⁠—for information.”

“And I shall be glad to give you any I possess.”

Torrance made a pause again; then he burst out suddenly⁠—“Hang it, man, I didn’t mean to give you any offence! I asked you⁠—there couldn’t be a simpler question⁠—what was the name of the place where⁠—you met my⁠—you met the Lindores⁠—”

“The place was a mountain inn on the way to Zermatt⁠—a very secluded place. We were there only about six weeks. Mr. Lindores (then) and his family were very friendly to us because of my name, which he knew. I suppose you have some ulterior meaning in these questions. What is it? I will answer you in all respects, but I ought to know what it means first.”

Torrance was entirely cowed. “It means nothing at all,” he said. “I daresay I am an idiot. I wanted to know⁠—”

“We were there six weeks,” repeated John⁠—“an idle set of young men, far better pleased with mountain expeditions than with our books. We did little or nothing; but we were always delighted to meet a family-party so pleasant and friendly. There we parted, not knowing if we should meet again. I did not even know that Mr. Lindores had come to the title. When I found them here it was the greatest surprise to me. I had never even heard⁠—”

“Erskine,” cried Torrance⁠—by this time he had drank several more glasses of wine, and was inclined to emotion⁠—“Erskine, you’re an honest fellow! Whoever likes may take my word for it. You’re an honest fellow! Now my mind’s at rest. I might have gone on suspecting and doubting, and⁠—well, you know a man never can be sure: but when another fellow stands up to him honest and straightforward⁠—” he said, getting up to his feet with a slight lurch towards John, as if he would have thrown himself upon his shoulder; and then he laughed with a gurgle in his breath, and thrust his arm through that of his reluctant guest. “We’re friends for life,” said Torrance; “you’re an honest fellow! I always had a fancy for you, John Erskine. Letsh join the ladies, as that old fogy of a Doctor said.”

The old fogy of a Doctor, who had been hanging about in alarm lest he might be called upon to stop a quarrel, had no more than time to hurry on before them and get inside the drawing-room door, before the master of the house pushed in, still holding John by the arm. “Here,” Torrance cried, depositing his unwilling companion suddenly with some force in a chair by Lady Caroline’s side⁠—“here, talk to her! You can talk to her as much as you please. An honest fellow⁠—an honest fellow, Lady Car!”

Then he made a somewhat doubtful step to Mrs. Stirling, and stood over her diffusing an atmosphere of wine around him. Poor ladies! in the drawing-room, even in this temperate age, how often will a man approach them, and sicken the air in their clean presence with fumes of wine! The minister’s wife was tolerant of the sins of the squires; but she coughed, poor soul, as she was enveloped in these powerful odours.

“Well, Mrs. Stirling,” Torrance said, with cumbrous liveliness, “your husband here, we could not get him away from his wine. We’ve been doing nothing but talk of coming upstairs this quarter of an hour; but get the Doctor to budge from his wine⁠—no! that was more than we could do,” and he ended with a loud guffaw. The Doctor’s wife coughed, and smiled a sickly smile upon the great man, and shook her head with a “Fie, William!” at her husband. “Dear me, dear me!” Mrs. Stirling said after, as she walked down the avenue with her Shetland shawl over her head, holding close by her husband’s arm, “when I think of poor Lady Caroline, my heart’s sore. That muckle man! and oh, the smell of him, William! You’re not so particular as you should be in that respect, the best of ye⁠—but I thought I would have fainted with him hanging over me. And that fragile, delicate bit woman!” “She should not have married him,” the Doctor said, curtly. But his wife was a merciful woman; and she did not feel sure how far a girl would have been justified in refusing such a marriage. She shook her head, and said, “Poor thing!” from the bottom of her heart.

“I am glad I have met with Mr. Torrance’s approval,” John said; but Carry gave him so wistful a deprecating look, that he was silent. And he had not yet escaped from his uncomfortable host. When Mrs. Stirling went away with her husband, Torrance, whose sole idea of making himself agreeable to a woman was by rough banter, transferred himself with another lurch to Nora. “And how’s the old soldier?” he said. “I suppose he’s going over all the men within fifty miles to see who will make the best husband, eh? It was all I could do to keep out of their hands when I was a bachelor. If they had had their will, Lady Car would never have had the chance of me: no great harm in that perhaps, you will say. But you must not be saucy, Miss Nora. Men are not so easy to get when all’s said.”

“No, indeed,” said Nora⁠—“men like you, Mr. Torrance. I could not hope, you know, to be so lucky as Lady Car.”

Upon this, though his head was not very clear, the uneasy Laird grew red, fearing satire. It was perfectly true, to his own thinking; but he was enlightened enough to know that Nora had another meaning. He would have liked to punish the little saucy chit, who held up (he thought) her little face to his so disdainfully in his own house. As lucky as Lady Car, indeed! She should have no luck at all, with that impudence of hers. It would serve her right if she never got the offer of any man. But he dared not say exactly what he thought. Conventional restraints, in such a case, were too much for the freeborn wit even of Pat Torrance of Tinto.

“That’s a great compliment to me, no doubt,” he said; “but never be downhearted. There is as good fish in the sea as ever came out of the net. There’s our neighbour here, for instance,” he said, stooping to speak confidentially, and jerking his thumb over his shoulder at John, with one of his usual bursts of laughter. “Now, what do you think of him, Miss Nora? A real honest fellow, I can testify, and a nice little property. What do you think of him?”

The tone was meant to be confidential, but it was loud enough to have reached any ear in the room; and it was Nora’s turn to redden with anger intolerable. She jumped up, while he stood and laughed, shaking his sides. “I’ve given her a poser there,” he said. “I’ve given her her answer there.” He could not help returning to it, as, much against Nora’s will, he accompanied her to the door and put her into the little pony-carriage which had come for her. “You must think of what I say, Miss Nora. You would be very comfortable. You’ll see that’s what the old soldier is driving at. And I don’t think you could do better, if you’ll take my advice.”

John, who had followed downstairs, not wishing to have any more than he could avoid of his host’s society, saw the indignant countenance of Nora looking out wrathfully upon himself as the carriage turned from the door. What had he done to deserve the angry look? But the other, standing somewhat unsteadily on the steps, greeted the departure with a laugh that was loud and long.

“One good turn deserves another,” he said. “I’ve put her against you, Erskine, and that’s the best thing I could do. Mind what you’re about, my fine fellow, or you’ll fall into some snare or other. I would not marry, if I were you. You have enough for one, but it wouldn’t be enough for two. If you manage Dalrulzian well, you may be very comfortable as an unmarried man. Take my advice. Of course they will all be setting their caps at you. There’s Aggie Sempill⁠—she thought she had got me: but no, I knew better. Truly in vain is the snare set in the sight of any bird. There! you’ve Scripture for it. And now here’s Nora Barrington⁠—”

John grasped his arm violently. “Be silent!” he cried in his ear. The butler stood on the steps behind laughing decorously under his breath, as in duty bound, at his master’s joke. John’s new groom at his horse’s head grinned respondent. What he would have given to take the big clown by the collar and fling him into the midst of the bushes! But this was not to be thought of. Such violent impulses have to be repressed nowadays.

“Well, well, we’ll name no names,” said Tinto. “They’ll all be after you; no need to name names. And I’ll tell them all you’re an honest fellow. Don’t you be led away by his lordship, no more than the women. Keep your vote to yourself, and your heart to yourself, that’s my advice. Good night to you, John⁠—you’re a very decent fellow,” cried the big voice in the darkness. Torrance had found out that this epithet annoyed young Erskine, and he liked it all the better in consequence. He shouted it after him into the night, as with another great laugh he went back into his house to Lady Car. Alas, poor Carry! The others went away, shook off the disagreeable presence, got out of the atmosphere of his wine and the roar of his laugh; but Carry, than whom there was no more fastidious, delicately nurtured woman⁠—Carry sat helpless, scared, awaiting him. Whatever happened, she could not run away.

As for John, he flew down the avenue in the dark, taking that turn on the top of the scaur, which was allowed by everybody to be so dangerous, without knowing anything about it, guided by instinct and rage; for he had never been there before. When they had passed the danger, Peter, the groom, drew a long breath. “That’s past, the Lord be thankit!” he said. It was natural that Peter should suspect his master of sitting long after dinner, and sharing the excitement of his host.

“What’s past?” said John, angrily: he had nearly taken an inner gate, dogcart and all, as if it had been a fence. His horse was fresh, and his mind ablaze with irritation and impatience. “What’s past?” he repeated, angrily, when the man clambered up again to his side.

“That corner, sir, they call the Scaur. There used to be a paling, but it fell to pieces, and this Laird⁠—I beg your pardon, sir⁠—young Tinto, that is a perfect deevil when he’s on a horse, would never let it be mended. It’s a’ cleared away, and there’s a grand view when there’s daylicht to see it, and doun-bye the sound o’ the river roaring. If it werena for the horse’s feet and the rate we’re going, you would hear it now.”

“You think we’re going too fast⁠—”

“Na⁠—no me,” said the groom, cautiously, “now that I see, sir, you ken what’s what. But it’s a fickle corner in the dark. Not to know is maybe the best way. When you ken, you’re apt to be ower cautious or ower bold⁠—one’s as bad as the ither. A wrang step, a bit swing out on the open, and there would be no help for ye. Neither you nor me, sir, would have seen a freend belonging to us again.”

“It is unpardonable,” said John, “if this is so, to leave it without protection or notice.”

“Well, sir, you see it’s no just the richt road. It’s a shortcut. You take the left hand at thae lily-oaks. I thought you bid to ken, as you took it so bold, without a moment’s thought. I wouldna advise you to do it again. Tinto, he’s a perfect deevil on horseback, as I was saying. He’s aye riding that way. They say he’ll break his neck sometime or other, he’s so wild and reckless⁠—ower that scaur⁠—”

“And no such great loss either,” cried John, in his indignation. He hoped the words were not audible, in the rush of his horse’s hoofs and jingle of the harness, the moment they had left his lips; and he was annoyed by the confidential tone of Peter’s reply.

“Maybe no, sir. There’s plenty is of that opinion. There was mair tint at Shirramuir.”

John felt as if he had condescended to gossip with his servant about his neighbour, and was ashamed of himself. But as he reviewed the events of the evening his pulses beat higher and higher. That he should have pleased this big bully, and received the offer of his friendship, was something half humiliating, half ridiculous. But what could he do? The bonds of neighbourhood are stringent: that you must not, if possible, quarrel with, or markedly avoid, or put any slight upon, the man whose lands march with your own, is a self-evident proposition. And the husband of Carry Lindores! When John thought of this part of it, there escaped from him an almost groan of horror and pity. The rest of the party had dispersed, and were free of the big laugh, the rude jests, the fierce staring eyes; but Carry remained behind.

Peter the groom did not feel so sure that his new master had partaken too freely of the wine at Tinto, which everybody knew to be better and stronger than wine anywhere else, by the time they got to Dalrulzian. But he announced that he was “just one of Tinto’s kind, a deevil when he’s behind a horse,” as he took his supper. This, however, was a suggestion which brought down upon his head the indignant displeasure of Bauby, who regretted audibly that she had kept the potatoes hot for such an ill-speaking loon⁠—and of Rolls, who, accepting the praise implied, put down the superficial judgment of this newcomer as it deserved. “There will no man beat an Erskine for clear head and steady hands,” he said, “if that’s what you ca’ being of Tinto’s kind; but you’ll observe, my lad, that we’re a’ of a reasonable age, and I’ll have nane o’ your rash opinions here.”

XVII

“Oh yes, that’s true⁠—I’m an old Tory. I’m proud of the name,” said Sir James, with his genial countenance. “If you’ll believe me, my young friend, most changes are for the worse. When I remember, before I went to India, what a cheery world it was⁠—none of those newfangled notions were so much as thought of⁠—we were all kindly one with another, as country neighbours should be. The parish school⁠—that was good enough for me. I got the most of my schooling there. We had a grand dominie⁠—there was not a more learned man out of St. Andrews or Aberdeen. Old Robert Beatoun the blacksmith was at the school with me. We’ve been great friends ever since, but I cannot say that he ever took anything upon him in consequence. That’s one of your newfangled notions too⁠—to part all the world into classes, and then, when their habits are formed and their ways of living settled, to proclaim they’re all equal. No, no⁠—they’re not all equal; you may take my word for it, though I’m no Solomon.”

“I don’t think so, either, Sir James; but pardon me, if you found no evil in going to the same school as the old blacksmith⁠—”

“Not a pin, sir⁠—not a pin!” cried the old general. “We respected each other. We were great friends, but not associates. I had my own cronies, and he had his: but we always respected each other. And do you think to sit on the same bench with a wholesome country lad in corduroy breeks was worse for me than being packed up with a set of little dandies, taking care of their books and keeping their hands clean, and sent out of their own country till they’re made strangers to it, as comes to pass with your Eton, and the rest of them⁠—I ask your pardon, Erskine. I forgot you were there yourself⁠—”

“There is no offence,” said John. “I think I agree with you so far; but, Sir James, your theory is far more democratic, far more levelling⁠—”

“Me democratic and levelling!” said Sir James. “That will be news. No, no; that was all in the course of nature. When a lad was to be pushed in the world, his friends pushed him. You cannot do that now. When you saw your friend with a houseful of children, you would say to him, ‘What are you going to do with those fine lads of yours?’ and if you knew a director, or had influence to hear of a writer-ship, or a set of colours.⁠—Now, ye cannot help on your friend’s boys, and ye cease to think of them. What little ye might do, ye forget to do it. Robert Beatoun’s grandson, you’ll tell me, got in high on the list for those competition-wallahs, as they call them. Well, I say nothing against it. The lad is a good lad, though he was never brought up in the way of having men under him, and he’ll feel the want of that when he gets to India. The like of me⁠—we were poor enough, but we had always been used to be of the officer kind. That makes a great difference; and if you think we did our work worse for having no bother about examinations⁠—”

“That has proved itself, Sir James. Nobody pretends to say it did not work well.”

“Then why change it?” said the old man. “And about your hospitals and things. When there was a poor natural, as they call it, in a village, everybody was good to the creature; and do you think the honest folk that had known it all its life would not put up with it, and feel for it, more than servants in an hospital? When we had a burden to bear, we bore it in those days, and did the best we could for our own. We didn’t shuffle them off on the first person’s shoulders that would take them up.”

All this John had brought upon himself by his reference to Lord Lindores’s scheme. Whatever might be well with respect to the election, he had felt that there could be but one voice in respect to a hospital; but John had soon been convinced that in that respect also there certainly was more than one voice.

“But I suppose,” he said, feeling somewhat confused by this style of reasoning, for it was not a subject upon which the young man had thought for himself⁠—“I suppose, for the suffering and miserable⁠—for those out of the common line of humanity, more badly off, less capable than their neighbours⁠—hospitals are necessary.”

“Let those that belong to them care for them, sir,” cried Sir James. “I’m saying it in no hard-hearted way. Do you not think that when a trouble is sent upon a family, it’s far better for the family to make a sacrifice⁠—to draw close together, to bear it, and take care of their own? That’s always been my opinion⁠—that was the practice long syne. If ye had a thorn in the flesh, ye supported it. When one was ill, the rest took care of him. There were no hired sick-nurses in those days. When ye had a fever, your mother nursed you. If you were blind or lame, everyone would give you a little, and nobody grudged your meat or your drink. And that was how Scotland was kept so independent, and the poor folk hated debt and beggary. Once you give your own duty over to other folks, you sacrifice that,” the old soldier said, with conviction. Sir James was of the class of men who are never more entirely at home than when they are exercising the duties of beneficence⁠—the sort of men who manage hospitals and establish charities by nature. Had the county hospital been existing, he it was, and not Lord Lindores, who would have given time and trouble to it; but Sir James was as full of prejudices as a hearty, healthy old gentleman has a right to be. He would not give in to the new thing; and his arguments were shrewd, although he himself would have been the last to be bound by them. He would have taken the burden off a poor man’s shoulders and carried it himself without a compunction. Saying is one thing and doing another, all the world over; only it is usual that people profess not less, but more, benevolent sentiments than are natural to them. Sir James took the other way.

“You must excuse me saying,” the old general went on, “that you must not trust too much to Lord Lindores. Part of it is political, there is no doubt about that. He’s wanting to get a character for being public-spirited and a useful member of his party. They tell me he’s thinking of bringing in his son in the case of an election, but that would never do⁠—that is to say, from my point of view,” said Sir James, laughing; “you’re on the other side?⁠—ah, to be sure, I had forgotten that. Well, I suppose we’re all meaning the same thing⁠—the good of the country; but depend upon it, that’s not to be procured in this way. The Lindores family are very excellent people⁠—very worthy people; but they’re newfangled⁠—they have lived abroad, and they have got foreign notions into their heads.”

“Benevolent institutions are, above all others, English notions⁠—or so, at least, I have always heard,” John said.

This brought a slight flush on the old man’s cheek. “Well, I believe you are right⁠—I think you are right. I will not go against that. Still it is a great pity to bring foreign notions into a quiet country place.”

They were walking up and down the lawn at Chiefswood, where a party of country neighbours were about to assemble. It was a kind of gathering which had scarcely been acclimatised in the North; and the pleasure of sitting out, though the seats were comfortably arranged in the most sheltered spot, was at the best an equivocal one; but fortunately the drawing-room, with its large bright windows overlooking the scene of the gentle gaieties provided for, was behind, and there already some groups had collected. John Erskine, without being aware of it, was the hero of the feast. He was the newcomer, and everybody was willing to do him honour. It was expected that he was to be the chief performer in those outdoor games which were not yet very well known to the young people. And it was somewhat disconcerting that he should have chosen this moment to discourse with old Sir James upon the county hospital, and the poor lunatics and imbeciles of the district, for whose benefit Lord Lindores was so anxious to legislate. Had it been any other subject, the old general would have dismissed the young man to his peers, for Sir James had a great notion that the young people should be left to entertain each other. But as it happened, the theme was one which had disturbed his genial mind. He was vexed at once in his prejudices, and in his honest conviction that the county, to which he was so glad to get back after his long exile, was the best managed and most happy of districts. He had found nothing amiss in it when he came home. It had been welcome to him in every detail of the old life which he remembered so well. There were too many changes, he thought, already. He would have liked to preserve everything. And to have it suggested by a new gingerbread, half-English, half-foreign intruder, with all the light-minded ways that belonged to the unknown races on the Continent, that the beloved county wanted reorganisation, almost betrayed the old man into ill-humour. The guests kept arriving while he talked, but he talked on, giving forth his views loosely upon general questions. “We’re going the wrong road,” he said, “aye seeking after something that’s new. The old way was the best. Communistic plans are bad things, whatever ye may say for them; and shuffling off your sick and your poor on other folk’s hands, and leaving them to the public to provide for, what’s that but communism? You’ll never get me to consent to it,” Sir James said.

“Where is the general?” Lady Montgomery was saying in the drawing-room. “Bless me! has nobody seen Sir James? He cannot expect me to go out without my bonnet, and get my death of cold setting all the young people agoing. No, no, I told him that. I said to him, you may put out the chairs, but if you think Barbara Erskine and me, and other sensible women, are going to sit there in a May day and get back all our winter rheumatism, you are mistaken, Sir James. But now, where is the general? Nora, you must just go and look for him, and say I’m surprised that he should neglect his duty. When I yielded to this kind of party, which is not my notion of pleasure, I told him plainly he must take the lawn part of it upon his own hands.”

“And where’s my nephew John?” said Miss Barbara Erskine, who sat in one of the seats of honour, within pleasant reach of a bright fire. “Nora, when you look for Sir James, you’ll look for him too. I’m affronted, tell him, that he was not the first to find me out.”

“I hear Mr. Erskine is a great friend of the Lindores,” said Mrs. Sempill. “Having no son at home, I have not had it in my power, Miss Barbara, to show him any attention, but I hoped to make his acquaintance today. They tell me he knew the Lindores well in their former circumstances. That is, no doubt, a fine introduction for him to the county.”

“If an Erskine of Dalrulzian wanted any introduction,” said Miss Barbara, “it would be a very ill one, in my opinion. For there are as many that think ill of them as there are that think well of them, and they’re not our kind of people. But John Erskine wants nobody to introduce him, I hope. His father’s son, and my father’s great-grandson, should have well-wishers enough.”

“And a well-looking, well-spoken young man. He minds me of your uncle Walter, the one that went abroad,” said old Mrs. Methven of the Broomlees. She was older than Miss Barbara, older than the imagination could conceive. Her memory slipped all the recent generation, and went back to heights of antiquity unknown. Miss Barbara Erskine was still a young person to this old lady, and Sir James a frisky young soldier. “Walter Erskine was the first person I ever saw that wore his own hair without so much as a ribbon. It had a terrible naked look, but you soon got used to it. This one is like him. But you’ll scarcely mind him. He was young when he left the county. I cannot remember if you were born.”

“He’s like his father, which is not so far back,” Miss Barbara said.

“Bless me, bless me! where is the general?” cried Lady Montgomery. She was standing in front of the great bow-window which looked upon the lawn, with her beautiful Indian shawl on her shoulders. Grouped upon the grass were several parties of the younger people, not quite knowing what to do with themselves. Some of the ladies, wrapped in warm cloaks and shawls, were seated round, waiting for some novelty of amusement with which they were unacquainted, and wondering when it was going to begin. It seemed to Lady Montgomery the most dreadful neglect of duty that there was no one to set the young people agoing. “Will anything have happened to Sir James?” she said, in anxious Scotch, and cast a glance back at the pleasant fire, and wrapped her shawl more closely round, with a sense that Providence might require of her the heroic effort of stepping outside. But just then she perceived in the distance that her general had been captured, and was being led back in triumph to the lawn by Nora and Agnes Sempill, two of his chief favourites. John followed after them, looking by no means triumphant. When Lady Montgomery saw this, she gave a nod of satisfaction, and returned to the fire. “Whatever they’re going to do, it’ll begin now,” she said. “If it’s worth looking at, we can see it from the window; but for my part, I’m very anxious about putting folk to sit on the grass at this time of the year. I would not wonder to hear of bronchitis or inflammation after it⁠—but it’s none of my doing. Sir James is just daft about all the new-fashioned ways of amusing young people. For my part, I say there’s nothing like the old way. Just to clear out the rooms, and get the fiddlers, and let them dance. But that would be a daftish thing too, in daylight,” the old lady said; for she was not at all up to the current of events.

It was, I believe, the venerable game of croquet which was the “new-fashioned thing” in question, and which all the people outside crowded round to see, while a few highly-instructed young persons, who had brought the knowledge from “the South,” proceeded, with much modest importance, to exhibit for the benefit of their neighbours. “It’s quite easy,” they said, each feeling a sort of benevolent missionary. John Erskine was one of these illuminati, and he was the partner of Agnes Sempill, the girl who had trembled for a moment lest Mr. Torrance of Tinto might be going to select her from the many that smiled upon him. She would have married him had this been; but it must be said for her that she was unfeignedly glad to have escaped. This having been the case, it will be apparent that poor Agnes was no longer in her first youth. She was five or six and twenty⁠—young enough, yet not altogether a girl; and she knew, poor young woman, that she must marry the next man who offered himself⁠—they were so poor! and her mother did not fail to impress upon her that she was losing all her chances. She looked upon John Erskine, accordingly, with more critical interest than is ordinarily felt. He was about her own age, but she decided that he was too young; and she hoped, whatever he was going to do in the matrimonial way, that he would show his intentions at once, and not force her mother into unnecessary efforts. “Too young⁠—but he might do very well for Mary,” she said to herself; and then she turned to him to talk about croquet, as if there was no such important subject.

“It is such a thing to have something that can be played out of doors!” she said. “Well, not so much in Scotland, that is true, but still we want a little variety. Do you play golf, Mr. Erskine? The ladies’ golf is very nice; it is only putting⁠—but you won’t understand what that means. At St. Andrews there is the Ladies’ Links⁠—”

“Which sound romantic and picturesque, at least.”

“Oh, it is not at all romantic⁠—picturesque after a sort. Seaside slopes⁠—what you call downs in England; but I can’t describe it. Is it my turn? You should be able to get me nicely through that hoop next stroke you make. Sir James is always the first to get us any novelty that is going. He is always on the outlook for something. This is the very first in the county. They have not got croquet yet even at Lindores.”

“Does Lindores generally set the fashion?” said John indiscreetly, not knowing what to say.

“The fashion! oh no, certainly not,” cried Miss Sempill. “Of course they are the highest rank, and walk in and out before us all; but for anything else⁠—You used to know them, I hear, Mr. Erskine. Tell me something about them. Oh, we are neighbours, but not great friends. We do not move about very much; we are humble people, without carriages and horses. I suppose they lived very quietly before⁠—”

“I only knew them,” said John, learning to employ the universal formula, “abroad; and as the way of living is so different⁠—”

“Ah! is it really so?” said Agnes, with quick interest; “do people really live so much cheaper abroad? I suppose you are not expected to keep up appearances in the same way; and then you get all your amusements so cheaply, and you can do a great deal, and go about a great deal, on very little. I have always heard that. But when you’ve a large family, the mere travelling must be a large item. I should think it would swallow up all the savings for the first year.”

The question was one which interested her so much that she scarcely left time for a reply.

“I have often thought of it,” she said. “The girls, poor things, get so little to amuse them here. Abroad, so far as one hears, there is nothing but amusement. Concerts and operas for next to nothing, and always a band playing somewhere⁠—isn’t it so? And you get houses quite cheap, and servants that will turn their hand to anything. I suppose the Lindores lived in quite a humble way out there?”

“They moved about a great deal, I believe,” said John. “In summer, in the mountains, whether you are rich or poor, it does not make much difference.”

This was all the young man knew. Miss Sempill interrupted him with an eager light in her eyes, “Doesn’t it, really? Then that is the ideal place I have been looking for all my life⁠—a place where, to be rich or poor, makes no difference⁠—Oh, is it my turn again? what a nuisance! Mr. Erskine is telling me of a place I have dreamt of all my life.”

“But you must bestir yourself⁠—you must bestir yourself,” cried the old general. “Reflect, my dear; you’re one of many⁠—you must not mind your own enjoyment for the moment. Ay, my young friend, so you’ve been telling a lady of a place she’s dreamed of all her life?⁠—that’s better than bothering your head about hospitals or my lord’s schemes. Come, come, John Erskine, put your heart into it: here are some of the bonniest faces in the North waiting to see you play.”

John was not dull to this inducement. It was a pretty group which gathered round as spectators, watching every stroke. All the Sempill girls, an eager group of pretty portionless creatures, eager for every kind of pleasure, and getting very little, envious in a sisterly way of Agnes, who knew the new game, and who had secured the new gallant. They were envious yet proud of her. “Our Agnes knows all about it,” they said; “she has tried to teach us; but one person can never teach a game: when you see it played, you learn in a moment.” They looked over each other’s shoulders to see John play, which he did very badly, as was natural; and then they dropped him and followed the next player, Willie Montgomery, Sir James’s grandnephew, who, they all agreed, did a great deal better. Our young man, in spite of himself, felt a little discomfited. He came back to his partner to be consoled⁠—though, as he had failed to do her the service with her ball which she expected, she was a little dissatisfied too. She was disposed to be cross because her play in the new game had failed of its triumphant effect through her partner’s fault. “You have not played much, Mr. Erskine, I suppose? Oh, it does not matter⁠—when nobody knows, one style of play is just as good as another; but I thought no one could have missed that ball. Never mind, it is not of the least importance. Tell me more about⁠—abroad.”

“If you will tell me,” said John, much mortified by these remarks, “what you understand by abroad.”

“Oh, it is all a little the same thing, isn’t it? The first place you can think of⁠—where the Lindores lived. I daresay it was just as important to them then as it is to us now to be economical, and spend as little as they could.”

“The interest that people take in the place where I met the Lindores is astonishing,” said John. “I had to go through a catechism at Tinto the other night.”

“Ah! then you have been at Tinto. Do you think, Mr. Erskine, they are so very unhappy as people say?”

“I do not know what people say,” was all the answer John could make.

“There is nothing they don’t say,” cried Miss Sempill; “that he beats her⁠—I have heard as much as that. I wonder if it can be at all her fault? I never cared for Pat Torrance myself, but nobody thought that of him before he was married. Do you think, perhaps, if she had taken a little more interest at first⁠—One can never tell; he was always rough, but not such a savage as that.”

“I have no opinion on the subject. I am only a stranger, you know,” John said.

“Ah! but I can see your opinion in your face. You think it is he that is to blame. Well, so he is, no doubt; but there are generally faults, don’t you think, on both sides? And then, you see, she was brought up abroad⁠—one always feels that is a little risky for a girl. To be sure, you may turn upon me and say, why ask so many questions about it if you hold such an opinion of it? But there is a difference: we are all grown up but Lucy; and if mamma and five of us cannot take care of Lucy⁠—Both of the Lindores have that disadvantage. Don’t you think Lady Edith is a little high and mighty? She thinks none of us are good enough for her. They are not very friendly, neither the one nor the other. They don’t feel at home among us, I suppose. No doubt it is our fault as much as theirs,” this candid critic said.

Thus John heard nothing but the same sentiment over and over again repeated. His friends were not popular, and he himself stood in some danger of being reckoned as of their faction. There was no one so bold as to undertake the defence of Torrance; and yet there was a certain toleration accorded to him, as if his case had extenuating circumstances. John did not distinguish himself that afternoon as his friends expected him to do. His play was feeble, and did no credit to his training in “the South”; and as he continued to be interrogated by every newcomer about his own antecedents and his former acquaintance with the Lindores, it was difficult for him to repress all signs of impatience. There was not very much variety in the talk of the county, to judge by these specimens. They all asked how he liked the North, what he thought of the society, and something or other about the absent family. The monotony was broken when he was taken into the drawing-room to be surveyed by the old ladies. Old Mrs. Methven, in her old yellow lace and shabby feathers, who looked to him like a superannuated cockatoo, pronounced once more that he was the image of Walter Erskine, who was killed in the French war, and who was the first man she ever saw in his own hair, without even a ribbon. “It looked very naked like,” the old lady repeated; “no just decent, but you soon got used to it.” When these greetings and introductions were over, Miss Barbara took his arm, and declared her intention of taking a turn on the green and inspecting the new game. But it was not the game which interested the old lady. She had a word of warning to say.

“John, my man! at your age you think little of good advice⁠—above all, from an old woman; but just one word. You must not bind yourself hand and foot to the Lindores. You have your own place to uphold, and the credit of your family. We’ve all formed our opinion of them; and if you’re to be considered as one of them, a kind of retainer of theirs⁠—”

“Retainer!” cried John, deeply piqued. Then he made an effort to recover his temper. “You must see how unreasonable this is,” he said, with a forced smile. “They are the only people I know. I have the greatest respect for them all, but I have done nothing to⁠—identify myself with the family.”

He spoke with some heat, and reddened, much to his annoyance. What way but one was there of identifying himself with them? and what hope was there that he would ever be permitted to do that? The mere suggestion in his own bosom made him red, and then pale.

“You take up their opinions⁠—you support their plans; you’re a partisan, or so they tell me. All that is bad for you, John, my man! You’ll excuse me speaking; but who should take an interest in you if it’s not me?”

“All this is absurd,” he cried. “Take up their opinions! I think the Earl is right about a county hospital. I will support him in that with all my heart. Your favourite minister, Aunt Barbara⁠—”

“I have no favourite minister,” said Miss Barbara, somewhat sharply. “I never let myself be influenced by one of them. You mean the Doctor, I suppose?⁠—he’s far too advanced for me. Ay, that’s just the man I’m meaning. He tells me you’re taking up all the Lindores’s plans⁠—a great satisfaction to him, for he’s a partisan too. Mind, I say nothing against the hospital. What other places have, we ought to have too. We have the same needs as our neighbours. If Perth has one, I would have one⁠—that’s my principle. But I would not take it up because it’s a plan of Lord Lindores’s. And I hear you and that muckle lout Pat Torrance were nearly coming to blows⁠—”

“Is that the minister too?” John cried, angrily.

“No, it’s not the minister; the minister had nothing to say to it. Don’t you take up a prejudice against the minister. That’s just as silly as the other way. It was another person. Pat Torrance is just a brute; but you’ll make little by taking up the defence of the weaker side there. A woman should hold her tongue, whatever happens. You must not set up, at your age, as the champion of ill-used wives.”

“So far from that,” said John, with fierce scorn, “the tipsy brute swore eternal friendship. It was all I could do to shake him off.”

But Miss Barbara still shook her head. “Let them redd their quarrels their own way,” she said. “Stand you on your own feet, John. You should lay hands suddenly on no man, the Apostle says. Mr. Monypenny, is that you? I am reading our young man a lecture. I am telling him the old vulgar proverb, that every herring should hang by its ain head.”

“And there’s no’ a truer proverb out of the Scriptures, Miss Barbara,” said Mr. Monypenny, a man of middle age, and grizzled, reddish aspect. It irritated John beyond description to perceive that the newcomer understood perfectly what was meant. It had evidently been a subject of discussion among all, from Sir James to the agent, who stood before him now, swaying from one leg to another, and meditating his own contribution to the arguments already set forth.

“Miss Erskine is very right, as she always is. Whatever her advice may be, it will carry the sympathy of all your well-wishers, Mr. John, and they are just the whole county, man and woman. I cannot say more than that, and less would be an untruth.”

“I am much obliged to my well-wishers, I am sure. I could dispense with so much solicitude on their part,” cried John, with subdued fury. Old aunts and old friends may have privileges; but to be schooled by your man of business⁠—that was more than flesh and blood could bear.

XVIII

It happened after this that John Erskine, by no will of his own, was drawn repeatedly into the society of the somewhat lonely pair at Tinto. Torrance had never been popular, though the county extended to him that toleration which a rich man, especially when young, is apt to receive. There were always benevolent hopes that he might mend as long as he remained unmarried; and after his marriage, his wife bore the blame of more than half his misdeeds. To tell the truth, poor Carry, being so unhappy, did not take pains to conciliate her neighbours. Some she took up with almost feverish eagerness, and she had two or three impassioned friends; but she had none of that sustaining force of personal happiness which makes it possible to bear the weariness of dull country company, and she had not taken any particular pains to please the county: so that, except on the periodical occasions when the great rooms were thrown open to a large party, she and her husband, so little adapted as they were to indemnify each other for the loss of society, lived much alone in their great house, with none of that coming and going which enlivens life. And since what he called the satisfaction which John had given him, Torrance had experienced a sort of rough enthusiasm for his new neighbour. He was never weary of proclaiming him to be an honest fellow. “That’s the way to meet a man,” he would say⁠—“straightforward; if there’s any mistake, say it out.” And Erskine was overwhelmed with invitations to “look in as often as he pleased,” to “take potluck,”⁠—to come over to Tinto as often as he wearied. Sometimes he yielded to those solicitations out of pity for poor Carry, who seemed, he thought, pleased to see him; and sometimes because, in face of this oppressive cordiality, it was difficult to say no. He did not enjoy these evenings; but the soft look of pleasure in poor Carry’s eyes, the evident relief with which she saw him come in, went to John’s heart. Not a word had passed between them on the subject which all their neighbours discussed so fully. No hint of domestic unhappiness crossed Carry’s lips: and yet it seemed to John that she had a kind of sisterly confidence in him. Her face brightened when he appeared. She did not engage him in long intellectual conversations as she did Dr. Stirling. She said, indeed, little at all to him, but she was grateful to him for coming, and relieved from that which she would not complain of or object to⁠—the sole society of her husband. This consciousness touched John more than if he had been entirely in her confidence. A kind of unspoken alliance seemed to exist between them.

One evening when June was nearly over in the long never-ending Northern daylight, this tacit understanding was at once disturbed and intensified. John had been captured by his too cordial neighbour in the languid afternoon when he had nothing to do, and had been feeling somewhat drearily the absence of occupation and society. Torrance could not supply him with either, but his vacant condition left him without excuse or power to avoid the urgent hospitality. He had walked to Tinto in all the familiarity of county neighbourhood, without evening dress or ceremony of any kind. They had dined without the epergnes and mountains of silver which Torrance loved, in the low dining-room of the old house of Tinto, which still existed at one end of the great modern mansion. This room opened on the terrace which surrounded the house, with an ease not possible in the lofty Grecian erection, well elevated from the ground, which formed the newer part. Lady Caroline, who had left the gentlemen some time before, became visible to them as they sat at their wine, walking up and down the terrace with her baby in her arms. The child had been suffering from some baby ailment, and had been dozing a great part of the day, which made it unwilling to yield to sleep when evening came. The mother had brought it out wrapped in a shawl, and was singing softly to lull it to rest. The scene was very tranquil and sweet. Sunset reflections were hanging still about the sky, and a pearly brightness was diffused over the horizon⁠—light that looked as if it never meant to fade. The trees of the park lay in clustered masses at their feet, the landscape spread out like a map beyond, the hills rose blue against the ethereal paleness of the distance. Close at hand, Lady Caroline’s tall, pliant figure, so light and full of languid grace, yet with a suggestion of weakness which was always pathetic, went and came⁠—the child’s head upon her shoulder, her own bent over it⁠—moving softly, singing under her breath. The two men, sitting together with little conversation or mutual interest between them, were roused by the sight of this passing figure. Even Tinto’s rude gaze was softened by it. He looked out at his wife and child with something more like human tenderness than was usual to him. Himself for a moment gave place in the foreground to this embodiment of the nearest and closest ties of life. He stopped in the talk which he was giving forth at large in his usual loud monologue, unaffected by any reply, and something softened the big balls of his light projecting eyes. “Let’s step outside and finish our cigars,” he said, abruptly. Lady Caroline herself looked different from her wont. The child against her heart soothed the pain in it: there is no such healing application. It was not a delightful child, but it was her own. One of its arms was thrown round her neck; its head, heavy with sleep, to which it would not yield, now nestled into her shoulder, now rose from it with a sleepy half-peevish cry. She was wholly occupied with the little perverse creature, patting it with one thin soft hand, murmuring to it. The little song she was crooning was contemptible so far as music went, but it was soft as a dove’s cooing. She had forgotten herself, and her woes, and her shipwrecked life. Even when that harsher step came out on the gravel, she did not recognise it with her usual nervous start. All was soothed and softened in the magical evening calm, in the warm softness of the baby, lying against the ache in its mother’s heart.

And Torrance, for a wonder, did not disturb this calm. He stopped to touch the child’s cheek with his finger as his wife passed him, but as this broke once more the partial slumber, he subsided into quiet with a sense of guiltiness, puffing his cigar at intervals, but stepping as lightly as he could with his heavy feet, and saying nothing. A touch of milder emotion had come to his rude bosom. Not only was that great park, those woods, and a large share of the surrounding country, his own, but this woman with her baby was his, his property, though so much more delicate, and finer than he. This moved him with a kind of wondering sense of the want of something which amid so much it might yet be possible to attain⁠—happiness, perhaps, in addition to possession. His breast swelled with pride in the thought that even while thus engrossed in the humblest feminine occupation, like any cottager, nobody could mistake Lady Car Torrance for anything less than she was. They might think her a princess, perhaps. He did not know any princess that had that carriage, he said to himself; but less or meaner, nobody could suppose her to be. And he was touched to see her with his child, her whole soul⁠—that soul which had always eluded him, and retained its chill superiority to him⁠—wrapped up in the baby, who was his as much as hers. There was in the air a kind of flutter of far-off wings, as if peace might be coming, as if happiness might be possible even between this ill-matched pair.

John Erskine was the spectator in this curious domestic scene. He looked on with wondering, half-pleased, half-indignant observation. He was almost angry that Carry should be lowered to the level of this husband of hers, even if it gave her for a time a semblance of happiness; and yet his heart was touched by this possibility of better things. When the child went to sleep, she looked up at the two men with a smile. She was grateful to her husband for his silence, for bringing no disturbance of the quiet with him; and grateful to John for having, as she thought, subdued Torrance by his influence. She made to them both that little offering of a grateful smile as she sat down on the garden-seat, letting the child rest upon her knee. The baby’s head had slid down to her arm, and it lay there in the complete and perfect repose which a mother’s arms, protecting, sustaining, warm, seem to give more than any bed. The air was so sweet, the quiet so profound, that Carry was pleased to linger out of doors. Not often had she shown any desire to linger in her husband’s society when not bound by duty to do so. This evening she did it willingly. For the moment, a faux air of well-being, of happiness and domestic peace, seemed to pervade the earth and the air. “It is so sweet, it cannot do her any harm to stay out a little,” she said, smiling at them over the baby’s sleeping face, which was half hidden in the soft, fleecy white shawl that enveloped it. John Erskine sat down at a little distance, and Torrance stood with a half humility about him, half ashamed, willing to do or say something which would be tender and conciliatory, but not knowing how. They began to talk in low tones, Erskine and Carry bearing the frais of the conversation. Sometimes Torrance put in a word, but generally the large puffs of his cigar were his chief contribution. He was willing to let them talk. Nay, he was not without a certain pleasure, in this softened mood of his, in hearing them talk. He would have allowed freely that conversation was not in his way.

“They are coming now in about ten days,” Carry said. “Of course they have stayed longer than they meant to stay. People never leave town on the appointed day.”

“There are so many people to see.”

“And so many things are put off till the last. I remember how hurried we were⁠—how rapidly the days flew at the end.”

“You do not go to town now?”

“No,” she said, hurriedly; “it is no deprivation. We⁠—neither of us⁠—care for London.”

Torrance felt a certain gratitude to his wife for thus identifying her inclinations with his. “If truth were told, maybe that might be modified,” he said. “I daresay you would like it, Car. You would get people to talk to. That’s what amuses her,” he added, with an explanatory glance at John. It was a novel sort of pleasure to him to give this amiable explanation of Lady Caroline’s peculiarities, without any of the rough satire in it with which he was accustomed to treat the things he did not understand; and his constant pride in her found a new outlet. “It’s not gaieties she wants, it’s conversation,” he said, with a softened laugh. “Next year we must see if we can’t manage it, Car.”

She turned to him with a startled glance, not knowing whether to deprecate all change so far as herself was concerned, or to thank him for this unusual thoughtfulness. Fortunately, her instinct chose the latter course. “It is kind of you to think of me,” she said, in her soft voice. In all their wretched married life, they had never been so near before. He replied by his usual laugh, in which there was always a consciousness of that power of wealth which he could never forget he possessed. Oh yes, he would do it⁠—he could do it whenever he pleased⁠—buy pleasures for her, just as he might buy dresses or jewels for her, if she would take a little pains to make herself agreeable. But even the laugh was much softer than usual. She gave him a little nod over the sleeping child, in which there was kindness as well as an astonished gratitude. Perhaps she had never been so much at her ease with him before.

“They are going to fill the house in the autumn,” she said, returning to the previous subject. “I hear of several people coming. A certain Lord Millefleurs⁠—”

“That reminds me,” said John, “that I had a letter the other day⁠—from one of our old Swiss party. You will remember him, Lady Caroline⁠—”

Here he paused, with a sudden recollection and putting together of various things which, in the curious inadvertence of an indifferent mind, he had not thought of before. This made him break off somewhat suddenly, and raise his eyes to Carry, at whom he had not been looking, with an alarmed glance.

He saw her take a large grasp, in the hand which had been laid softly upon it, at ease, with extended fingers, of the baby’s shawl. Her face, which had been so smiling and soft, grew haggard and wild in a moment. Her eyes seemed to look out from caverns. There was a momentary pause, which seemed to arouse heaven and earth to listen. Then her voice came into this suddenly altered, vigilant, suspicious atmosphere. “Who was it, Mr. Erskine?” Poor Carry tried to smile, and to keep her voice in its usual tone. But the arrow flying so suddenly at a venture had gone straight into her heart. She had no need to ask⁠—had she not divined it all along?

“Probably you have forgotten⁠—his very name. It was⁠—one of those fellows,” stammered John. “I forget how little a party like ours was likely to interest you. Beaufort⁠—you may remember the name.”

He felt that every word he uttered⁠—his artificial levity, his forced attempt to make that unimportant which only his consciousness that it was deeply important could have suggested such a treatment of, was a new folly. He was doing it for the best⁠—most futile of all excuses. When he looked at her again at the end of this speech, not daring to meet her eyes while he gave it forth, he saw, to his astonishment, a rising colour, a flutter of indignation, in Carry’s pale face.

“Surely,” she said, with a strange thrill in her voice, “you do your friend injustice, Mr. Erskine. So far as I remember, he was very distinguished⁠—far the most remarkable of the party. I do not think I can be mistaken.”

“No, no, you are quite right,” John cried; “I only meant that⁠—these things were much to us; but I did not know whether you would recollect⁠—whether to a lady⁠—”

“You are all so contemptuous of women,” Lady Caroline said, with a faint smile, “even the kindest of you. You think a lady would only notice frivolous excellences, and would not care for real distinction. That is a great mistake. It is all the other way. It is we who think of these things most.”

“I beg a thousand pardons⁠—I had no such meaning,” John said; and she made him a little tremulous bow. She was so deadly pale, that he expected every moment to see her faint. But she did not. She continued, naturally calling him back to what he had been about to tell her.

“You had a letter from Mr. Beaufort? about⁠—you were going to tell me⁠—”

“About coming here,” said John, feeling that to say it out bluntly was now the best. “It appears he has a sort of charge of this Lord Millefleurs.”

“Charge of Lord⁠—? That is not a dignified position⁠—for⁠—your friend, Mr. Erskine.”

“No. I don’t know what it means; he has not made the progress he ought to have made; but there is something special about this,” said John, hesitating, not knowing how far to go.

Again Lady Caroline made him a little bow. She rose, with some stiffness and slowness, as if in pain. “It grows late, though it is so light. Baby will be better indoors,” she said. She went quickly away, but wavering a little in her gait, as if she were unconscious of obstacles in the way, and disappeared through the window of the old library, which was on the same level as the dining-room. John stood looking after her, with a bewildering sense of guilt, and alarm for he knew not what. All this time Torrance had not said a word; but he had taken in every word that was said, and his jealous eyes had noted the changes in his wife’s face. He watched her go away, as John did. When she had disappeared, both of them listened for a moment in silence. Neither would have been surprised to hear a fall and cry; but there was nothing. Torrance threw himself down heavily in the seat from which she had risen.

“That was a pity, Erskine,” he said; “you saw that well enough. You can tell me the rest about this Beaumont⁠—Beaufort⁠—what do you call him?⁠—that you thought it best not to tell Lady Car.”

“There is nothing to tell about Beaufort,” said John, “which Lady Caroline, or any lady, might not hear.”

“Now just look you here, John Erskine,” said Tinto, projecting his big eyes, “I thought you were he⁠—that is the truth. She told me there was somebody. I thought it was you, and I was determined to be at the bottom of it. Now here’s the man, beyond a doubt, and you know it as well as I do.”

“I don’t know it at all,” cried John, “which probably is as much as you do. Can you suppose I should have spoken to Lady Caroline as I did if I had supposed⁠—believed⁠—known anything at all?”

“I will say,” said Torrance, “that you’re an honest fellow. That stands to reason: you wouldn’t have opened your mouth if you had thought⁠—but then you never thought till after you had spoken. Then you saw it as well as me.”

“Torrance!” cried John, “for heaven’s sake, don’t imagine things that were never thought of! I know nothing about it⁠—absolutely nothing. Even had there been anything in it, it is six years ago⁠—it is all over; it never can have had anything to say to you⁠—”

“Oh, as for that,” said Torrance, “if you think I’ve any fear of Lady Car going wrong, set your mind at rest on that point. No fear of Lady Car. If you suppose I’m jealous, or that sort of thing”⁠—and here he laughed, insolent and dauntless. “I thought it was you,” he said⁠—“I don’t see why I should conceal that⁠—I thought it was you. And if you think I would have shut her ladyship up, or challenged you!⁠—not a bit of it, my fine fellow! I meant to have asked you here⁠—to have seen you meet⁠—to have taken my fun out of it. I’m no more afraid of Lady Car than I am of myself. Afraid!⁠—not one bit. She shall see just as much of him as possible, if he comes here. I mean to ask him to the house. I mean to have him to dinner daily. You can tell him so, with my compliments. You needn’t say any more to Lady Car; but as for me, there’s nothing I’d enjoy more. Tutoring, is he?” Torrance said, with a sort of chuckle of wrathful enjoyment: and he cast an eye over his demesne, with a glow of proud satisfaction upon his face.

The sentiment of the evening calm had altogether disappeared. The peace of nature was broken up; a sense of human torture, human cruelty, was in the air. It was as if a curtain had been lifted in some presence-chamber, and the rack disclosed beneath. Torrance lounged back⁠—with his hands in his pockets, his cheeks inflamed, his great eyes rolling⁠—in the seat from which poor Carry with her baby had risen. His mind, which had been softened, touched to better things, and which had even begun to think of means and ways of making her happier, turned in a moment to more familiar preoccupations. To have him here⁠—he who was merely “tutoring,” a genteel attendant upon a foolish young lord⁠—to exhibit him, probably penniless, probably snubbed by everybody around, a dependant, a man without position or wealth⁠—was an idea altogether delightful to him. It was indeed a fierce delight, a cruel pleasure; but it was more congenial to his mind than the unnatural softness of the hour before.

And was it all John Erskine’s doing?⁠—his foolishness, his want of thought? When he left Torrance in disgust, and hurried away along the now familiar avenue, where he no longer took any wrong turns, his foolishness and thoughtlessness overwhelmed him. To be sure!⁠—a thousand recollections rushed upon his mind. He had known it all along, and how was it that he had not known it? The moment he had committed himself and begun to speak of Beaufort’s letter, that moment he had foreseen everything that followed⁠—just as poor Carry had read what was coming in his first sentence. It was he who had disturbed the evening calm⁠—the rapprochement of the two who, doomed as they were to live their lives together, ought by all about them to be helped to draw near each other. Full of these disquieting thoughts, he was skirting a clump of thick shrubbery at some distance from the house, when something glided out from among the bushes and laid a sudden light touch upon his arm. He was already in so much excitement that he could not suppress a cry of alarm, almost terror. There was no light to distinguish anything, and the dark figure was confused with the dark foliage. Almost before the cry had left his lips, John entreated pardon. “You are⁠—breathing the evening air,” he said, confused, “now that the little one is asleep.”

But she had no leisure for any vain pretences. “Mr. Erskine,” she said, breathless, “do not let him come⁠—ask him not to come! I have come out to tell you. I could not say it⁠—there.”

“I will do whatever you tell me, Lady Caroline.”

“I know you will be kind. This makes me very miserable. Oh, it is not that I could not meet him! It is because I know my husband has an idea⁠—not that he is jealous⁠—and he does not mean to be cruel⁠—but he has an idea⁠—He would like to look on, to watch. That is what I could not bear. Tell him, Mr. Erskine⁠—beg him⁠—of all places in the world, not to come here.”

“He will not come, I am sure, to give you a moment’s uneasiness.”

“Mr. Erskine, I must say more to you,” she said, drawing closer, putting once more her hand on his arm. “It must not be on that ground⁠—nothing must be said of me. Cannot you understand? He must not come; but not because of me⁠—nothing must be said of me. If it was your sister, oh would you not understand?”

He took her hand into his in the profound feeling of the moment. “I will try to do⁠—what I should do if it were my own sister,” he said, resting it in his. “It was my fault; I ought to have known.”

“There was no fault,” she said, faintly; “an accident. I knew it must happen some time. I was⁠—prepared. But, Mr. Erskine, it is not because I could not meet⁠—anyone. Do not think that for me only⁠—It is because⁠—because⁠—But if you understand, that is all.”

“Let me walk back with you to the house,” John said.

“No, no; it is almost wrong to speak to you in this clandestine way. But what can I do? And you who know⁠—all parties⁠—If I said anything to my brother, it might make a breach. There is no one I could speak to but you. I should have had to suffer helplessly, to hold my peace.”

“Believe me⁠—believe me,” cried John, “all that a brother can do, I will do.”

In the midst of this misery, which he felt to the bottom of his heart, there ran through him a secret stir of pleasure. Her brother!⁠—the suggestion went through all his veins. Strange encounter of the dream with the fact! The cold trembling hand he held in his gave him a thrill of warmth and happiness, and yet his sympathy was as strong, his pity as profound, as one human creature ever felt for another. He stood still and watched her as she flitted back to the house, like a shadow in the gathering darkness. His heart ached, yet beat high. If it should ever be so, how different would be the fate of the other daughter of Lindores’s!⁠—how he would guard her from every vexation, smooth every step of her way, strew it with flowers and sweetnesses! He resumed his way more quickly than ever, hastening along in the soft darkness which yet was not dark, by the Scaur⁠—the shortcut which had alarmed his groom. To the pedestrian the way by the Scaur was the best way. He paused a moment when he reached it, to look out through the opening in the trees over the broad country, lying like a dream in that mystical paleness which was neither night nor day. Underneath, the river rushed joyously, noisily, through the night⁠—not still, like a Southern stream, but dashing over the stones, and whirling its white eddies in foam against the bank. The sound of the water accompanied the quick current of his thoughts. He had a long walk before him, having come without preparation and left in haste and displeasure. But seven or eight miles of country road in a night of June is no such punishment. And the thoughts that had been roused in him, made the way short. How different⁠—how different would be the fate of that other daughter of Lindores’s! It was only when he reached his own gate that he woke up with a start to remember indeed how different it would be. The bare little white house, with its little plantation, its clump of firs on the hilltop, its scanty avenue⁠—the little estate, which could almost be said, with scornful exaggeration, to lie within the park of Tinto⁠—the position of a small squire’s wife⁠—was it likely that Lord Lindores would smile upon that for his daughter? John’s heart, which had been so buoyant, sank down into the depths. He began to see that his dream was ridiculous, his elation absurd. He to be the brother, in that sweetest way, of Carry Lindores! But nevertheless he vowed, as he went home somewhat crestfallen, that he would be a brother to her. She had given him her confidence, and he had given her his promise, and with this bond no worldly prudence nor rule of probabilities should be allowed to interfere.

XIX

John Erskine woke with the singing of the birds on the morning of Midsummer-day. It was early⁠—far before any civilised hour of waking. When he suddenly opened his eyes in the sweet strangeness of that unearthly moment, the sensation came back to his mind of childish wakings in summer mornings long departed; of getting up in the unutterable stillness with the sense of being the first adventurer into an unknown world; of stealing downstairs through the silent visionary house all full of unseen sleepers, like ghosts behind the closed doors; of finding, with heart beating and little hands trembling, half with alarm, half with delight, the bolt low down on some easily opened door; and of stepping out into the sweet dews, into the ineffable glory of sunshine in which there was no shadow but that little one which was his own. Nobody alive, nobody awake, except that riot of the birds in every tree which wounded the ideal sense of unearthly calm, yet gave a consolatory consciousness of life and motion in the strange quiet, though a life incomprehensible, a language unknown. Strange that this was the first recollection brought to him in his waking⁠—for the next was very different. The next was a confused sweet tumult in the air, a sound in his ears, an echo in his heart: “They are coming, they are coming!” He could not feel sure that somewhere or other in the words there were not joy-bells ringing⁠—a tinkle of chimes, now rising, now falling, “as if a door were shut between us and the sound.” “They are coming,” everything seemed to say. The air of the morning blowing in by the open window puffed it at him with playful sweetness. The birds sang it, the trees shaped their rustlings to the words, “They are coming.”

Well, it was perfectly true. The Earl and Countess of Lindores, and their daughter, Lady Edith Lindores, and perhaps their son Lord Rintoul, and it might be other noble persons in their train, were certainly expected to arrive that day; but what was that to John Erskine of Dalrulzian, a country gentleman of the most moderate pretensions, with nothing about him above mediocrity, and no claim to any part or share in the life led by these great people? For the moment John did not ask himself that question. He only felt after this long interval of solitude and abandonment that they were coming back. He had been as it were shipwrecked in this country with which he was so little acquainted, though it was his own country: and the time of their absence had appeared very long to him. He said to himself their absence⁠—but it will be understood that the absence of Lord Lindores, for example, had very little importance to the young man. He would not have been deeply concerned if that nobleman had been induced to serve his country and his party in any other sphere. But it was safer, easier to say their, and to make to himself a little picture of the reopening of the house, the feeling of population and warmth that would breathe about it, the chance even of meeting any day or hour smiles and pleasant looks on the very road, and a sense of society in the atmosphere. He tried to persuade himself that this was what he was thinking of, or rather he refused to enter into any analysis of his feelings at all, and allowed his mind to float upon a vague and delightful current of anticipations, which he preferred not to examine too closely, or put into any certain and definite form.

John had not seen either Lady Caroline or her husband since that unlucky evening. When he returned home and took out once more Beaufort’s letter, it seemed to him that he could now read between the lines enough to have enlightened him as to the real state of affairs. Why should Beaufort hesitate to accept Lord Lindores’s invitation, and ask to be received into a much humbler house, if there had been no stringent reason for such a preference? Beaufort had been very cautious in the wording of his letter. He said that it was entirely uncertain whether he could make up his mind to come at all; whether, indeed, in the circumstances he ought to come. He explained the position in which he stood to Lord Millefleurs⁠—not his tutor, which would have been ridiculous, but his friend, to whom, to please his father, the young man paid a certain deference. The control which he thus exercised was merely nominal, Beaufort added, and quite unnecessary, since nobody could be more capable of taking care of himself than Millefleurs; but it was a satisfaction to the Duke⁠—and as his future prospects depended upon the Duke’s favour, Beaufort did not need to point out to his friend the expediency on his part of doing what that potentate required. He was unwilling to relinquish all these prospects, and the permanent appointment which he could confidently expect from the Duke’s favour: but still, at the same time, there were reasons which might make him do so, and he was not at all sure that it would not be better to make this sacrifice than to intrude himself where he was not wanted in the capacity of attendant on Lord Millefleurs. Thus, he explained elaborately twice over, his coming at all was quite uncertain; but if he did decide to come, it would be an advantage and ease to him in every way, to be sure of a pied-à-terre in his friend’s house, instead of being forced to thrust himself into a party where his presence was only invited as an appendage to his charge. It had occurred to John to wonder why there was so much hesitation in Beaufort’s mind as to an ordinary visit; but he had accepted it, as a susceptibility natural enough to such a mind⁠—with perhaps a little inconvenient recollection of those far-past days in which he had been admitted so entirely into the intimacy of the family, which it was possible enough he might dislike to visit on another standing. But now he saw what was the true meaning of the anxious, cautious letter. Beaufort’s object had been to ascertain from him how the circumstances stood; whether he ought or ought not to show himself among people who once held to him such very different relations. The light of poor Carry’s haggard face threw illumination upon the whole matter. And what was he to reply?

It might give the reader but a poor idea of John’s intellect if I were to tell how long it took him to concoct his reply. Never had a task so difficult fallen into his hands. It was not his part to betray Carry’s alarm and distress, or her husband’s fierce and vindictive gratification in this new way of humbling her. He assured Beaufort diplomatically that Dalrulzian was at his entire command then and always, but owned that he saw all the difficulties of the position, and felt that his friend had a delicate part to play. To appear as bear-leader to Millefleurs among people who had known him in different circumstances would of itself be disagreeable, and all the more that the position was nominal, and he had in reality nothing to do. John had known Millefleurs at Eton, where he was always the drollest little beggar, but quite able to take care of himself. It was too funny to find him cropping up again. “But to waste such talents as yours,” he cried, with the greatest sincerity, “looking after Millefleurs!” The Duke ought indeed to show his gratitude for such self-abnegation. Thus John went on for a page or two, allowing it to be seen that he thought the position undesirable, and that he did not encourage Beaufort’s appearance in it. “Of course you know beforehand that my house is yours in all circumstances,” he repeated⁠—“that goes without saying;” but even this was so put that it seemed to say, not “come,” but “stay away.” It was not a pleasant office to John. To be inhospitable, to shut his doors upon a friend, was unspeakably painful to him. It was something of which he had thought that he never could be guilty. He longed to modify this coldness by some explanation of what he meant, but he dared not. He had promised to be a brother to Carry, and was it possible that he should betray her? It seemed to him that he was betraying Beaufort instead, who was more to him than Carry had ever been⁠—pretending to open his doors to him with one hand while he closed them with another. In such circumstances a letter is very hard to write. Two or three copies of it were written before one was produced good enough to be sent. At last he put together the best version of his plea which he could accomplish, and sent it off, very doubtfully. He might be losing his friend. Beaufort could not fail to see the want of welcome in it, and he could not be sure that it would save Carry after all.

All this had passed some time before the day of the return, and John was convinced at heart that the purpose of his letter had been accomplished; that Beaufort had understood him, and intended rather to sacrifice his prospects than to make his appearance in a false position. John was satisfied, and yet he was wounded to think that he had been the means of wounding his friend. This, however, and all connected with it⁠—all the painful part of his life and of theirs, so far as he was acquainted with it⁠—passed out of his mind in the excitement and elation of the consciousness that this day he should see “them” again. John spent the morning in a kind of suppressed ecstasy, altogether out of reason. He did not even ask himself what their return was to him. What it was to him! a change of heaven and earth, a filling up of the veins of life and quickening of every faculty. He did all he had to do in the morning, with the consciousness of this coming event running through everything, filling up every moment with that altogether foolish elation and rapture. For this it was: a kind of subtle penetration of every thought by something which was nothing⁠—by an air, a breath, as from the celestial fields. They were to arrive about three o’clock, and John’s foolish ecstasy lasted till about the moment when, if he were going to meet them, it was time to set off for the station. He had taken his hat in his hand, with a vague smile about the corners of his mouth, a light in his eyes, and was just about to step forth for this happy purpose, when there suddenly struck him, like a blow, this question⁠—“What right have you to go to meet them?” He was so entirely taken aback by it, that he retreated a step as if someone in actual bodily presence had put the question to him, and opposed his exit. He gazed round him once, appalled, to see where it came from; but, alas! it came from nowhere⁠—from a monitor more intimate than any intruder could be⁠—from his own judgment, which seemed to have been lying dormant while his imagination and heart were at work. What right had he to go to meet them? Was he a relative, a retainer, a member of the family in any way? What was he to the Lindores, or they to him? Everything, but nothing: a neighbour in the county, a friend that they were so good as to be very kind to; but this gave him nothing as a right⁠—only the position of gratitude⁠—no more.

He stood in a confusion of doubt and pain for ten minutes in his own hall. There seemed an invisible barrier before his feet, something which prevented him from moving. His smile turned to a sort of deprecating, appealing gaze⁠—to whom? to nobody⁠—to himself; for was it not indeed he, and only he, that stopped his own steps? At last he stepped out boldly, flinging scruples to the winds. Why should he say to anyone, even himself, that he was going to meet them? Nobody could prevent him walking along the highroad where everybody walked; and if they came that way, and he by chance encountered them?⁠—The smile returned to John’s mouth, lurking behind his soft, young, silky moustache. In that case it would be ludicrous to think that there could be anything wrong. Saying which to himself he hurried down the avenue, feeling that the ten minutes’ delay was enough to have made him late. He walked on quickly, like a man with a serious object, his heart beating, his pulse going at full speed. For a long way off he watched a white plume of steam floating across the landscape. He could see it creeping along for miles, stopping now and then, taking little runs as if to amuse itself. No, that was not the train, but only one of those stray locomotives which torment expectant spectators by wandering wildly up and down like spirits of mischief. Before he reached the station, Lady Caroline’s carriage drove past, and she bent forward to smile and wave her hand to John. But this encouraging gesture brought back all his personal doubts: she was going by right of nature. And even Torrance had a right to come, though he had no affection for any of them, nor they for him. Once more John lingered and delayed. He knew very well they would be pleased to see him, and if an extreme desire to see them and welcome them justified his going, then surely he had that right. But the Earl would look politely surprised; and Rintoul, if Rintoul was there, would look broadly at him with that stony British stare which petrifies an intruder. John did not at all like the idea of Rintoul. If there is a natural sense of opposition (as people say) between women who may be considered rival beauties, the sentiment is so natural a one that it is shared by that sex which is so much the nobler; and as a woman sees through a woman’s wiles, so does a man see through the instincts of another man. John felt that Rintoul would see through him⁠—that he would set up an instant opposition and hostility⁠—that he would let him perceive that where Edith was, a small country squire, a little Scotch laird, had no business to push himself in. Rintoul, when John knew him, had been an innocent little lieutenant⁠—as innocent as a lieutenant could be expected to be; yet he knew very well by instinct that this was what was to be expected from him. And what if he were there to change the character of the group?

John’s pace slackened at the thought. From the moment when Lady Caroline’s carriage passed him he went slower and slower⁠—still, indeed, turning his face towards the station, but almost hoping that the train would arrive before he did. However, country trains are not of that expeditious character. They do not anticipate the hour, nor the appearance of those who are coming to meet them. When he reached the entrance of the station it was not yet in sight, and he had no further excuse for dallying. But he did not go in. He walked up behind to a spot where he could see without being seen, and there waited, with a sense of humiliation, yet eagerness. It was a very undignified position. If he meant to meet them, he should have done it openly: if he did not intend to do so, he ought to have gone away. But John did neither: he watched them coming with his heart in his mouth; but he did not go forward to greet them when they came. He saw them get out of the carriage one by one. He saw the hurried embrace and greeting of Lady Car to her mother and sister. Then there could not be any doubt about it. Edith gave a searching glance all about, sweeping the highway with her glance both up and down. She was looking for someone. Who was it? Something of the elation of the morning came back into his mind. For whom was she looking? She even stood for a moment shading her eyes with her hand before she followed her mother to the carriage, to cast another glance round her. Could it be that she was looking for⁠—oh, never mind who she was looking for, John cried to himself, springing over a wall or two, and speeding along by all the turns he could think of, till he reached a point of the road where he turned and came quickly back. He had resolution enough to forego the greeting at that first moment of arrival; but the chance of still seeing them, and thus saving both his pride and his pleasure, seduced him from all higher thoughts of self-abnegation. He walked on slowly, but with his heart beating, and at length heard the roll of the wheels coming towards him, the sound of voices in the air. The family were all together in one carriage, all joyful and beaming in the reunion. Even Lady Car’s pale face was lighted with smiles; and Lord Lindores, if he did not take much part in the family talk, did not frown upon it. The coachman drew up of himself as John appeared, and Lady Lindores called to him almost before the carriage stopped. “Late, Mr. Erskine, late!” she cried. “Carry told us you were coming to meet us.” John was half wounded, half consoled by the accusation; he could not hear himself blamed without an impulse of self-defence. “Indeed I was not late; I saw you arrive; but I thought⁠—you might think⁠—it seemed presumptuous to thrust myself in.” “Why, here is chivalry!” said Lady Lindores with a smile, giving him her hand. And then the flutter of conversation was resumed, one voice interrupting another, putting questions to which there was no answer, and making statements to which nobody paid any attention. John stood and nodded and smiled by the side of the carriage for a minute or two. And then that moving little world of expressive faces, of hasty words, understood à demi-mot, of hearts so closely united, yet so different, swept past him again with ringing of the horses’ hoofs and jingle of the harness, and lively murmur of the voices. It swept past, and John was left⁠—why, just as he had been before⁠—just as he knew he would be left⁠—out of it⁠—altogether out of it! as he knew very well he should be. He walked along the way he had been going, away from his own house, away from anywhere that he could possibly want to go, plodding very silently and solemnly along, as if he had some serious purpose, but meaning nothing⁠—thinking of nothing. What a fool he was! Had he even for a moment expected to be taken away with them, to follow them up to Lindores, to be admitted into all their first talk and confidence? Not he: he had known well enough that his place was outside⁠—that a roadside greeting, a genial smile, a kindly hand held out, was all the share he could have in the pleasure of the homecoming. Nothing more⁠—what could there be more? He knew all that as well as he knew anything. Why then was he such an idiot as to walk on mile after mile he did not know where, with his head down, and the most deadly seriousness depicted on his countenance? At length he burst into a sudden short laugh, and turning back went home slowly. Never had his house looked so dreary, so secluded, so shut in before. He went in and ate his dinner humbly, without a word (so people say) to throw at a dog. He had been quite aware that he was to dine alone; he knew exactly the dimensions of the room, the shabby air of the old furniture, the lowness of the roof⁠—why then should he have been so depressed by all these familiar objects? There was nothing at all to account for it, except that event which had filled him with such delightful anticipations, and brightened earth and heaven to him this morning. They were coming home. They had come home. This, which was enough to change the very temperature, and turn earth into heaven, was now the cause of a depth of moral depression which seemed to cloud the very skies; and this without any unkindness, any offence, anything that he had not fully expected, and been certain would happen. But human nature is very fantastic, and so it was.

“You would hear, sir,” said old Rolls, “that my lord and her ladyship, they’ve come home.”

“Oh yes; I have just met them; all very well and very bright,” said John, trying to assume an air of satisfaction. What he did succeed in putting on was a look of jaunty and defiant discontent.

“They would naturally be bright coming out of that weary London to their own place,” said Rolls, with grave approbation. And then he added, after a pause, “You’ll be thinking now, sir, of making some return of a’ the ceevilities that’s been shown you.”

“Making a return!” this was a new idea to John. He looked up at the Mentor who condescended to wait upon him, with alarm and almost awe. “To be sure⁠—you are quite right, Rolls,” he said, with humility; “I wonder I did not think of it before. But can we?” John looked round ruefully at his old walls.

“Can we?” cried Rolls in high disdain. “You neither ken me, nor Bauby, nor yet yourself, to ask such a question. If we can! That can we! If you’ll take my advice, ye’ll include a’ classes, sir. Ye’ll have the elders to their denner; and the youngsters, ye’ll give a ball to them.”

“A ball!” cried John, opening his eyes. The boldness of the suggestion, the determined air with which Rolls faced his master, setting down his foot as one who was ready to face all dangers for the carrying out of a great design, touched the humorous sense in the young man’s mind. He laughed, forgetting the previous burden of his desolation. “But how to give a ball, Rolls,” he said, “in this small house?”

“I ask your pardon, sir,” said Rolls, gravely. “In the light o’ Tinto, maybe it’s a small house; but Tinto never was a popular place. Oh ay, there were balls there, when he was a Seeker himsel’⁠—I’m meaning when he was looking out for a wife, before he married her ladyship, poor thing! But this is not a small house if ye consider the other houses, where everything that’s lightsome goes on. And it’s you that’s the Seeker now. You’re wanting a leddy yoursel’⁠—that stands to reason.”

Here John felt that he ought to be angry, and shut the mouth of so inappropriate a counsellor. But Rolls had no sense of his own inappropriateness. He went on calmly, notwithstanding the laugh and exclamation with which his master interrupted him.

“That’s aye an attraction,” said the old servant. “I’m not saying, sir, though I think far more of you in a moral point of view⁠—that ye’re the equal of Tinto as a worldly question. Na, we must keep a hold of reason. Ye’re no’ a grand catch like the like o’ him. But ye’re far better; ye’re a son-in-law any gentleman in the countryside might be proud o’; and any lady, which is far mair important⁠—”

“Come, Rolls, no more of this,” cried John. “A joke is a joke; but you know you are going too far.”

“Me joking! I’m most serious in earnest, sir, if you’ll believe me. I served the house before you were born. I was here when your father brought his wife home. Na, I’m not joking. I’m thinking what’s best for my maister and the credit of the house. The haill county will come; and if ye think we’re not enough to wait upon them, there’s Andrew will put on his blacks; and that sma’ groom of yours⁠—I would have likit him bigger⁠—is a smart lad, though he’s little. The three of us will do fine. I would recommend a denner, say the Wednesday. I’m fond of the middle of the week, no’ too near the Sabbath-day, neither one side nor the other. The denner on Wednesday; and syne on Thursday night the ball. There would be cauld things left that would eke out the supper, and it would all be like one expense. The fiddlers you could have from Dundee, or even Edinburgh. And the eatables⁠—there would be no difficulty about that. We mostly have them within ourselves. Chickens is aye the staple at a supper. And I make bold to say, sir, though she is my sister, that there’s no person can tell what Bauby Rolls is capable of till they’ve seen her try.”

“Rolls,” cried John, “you’re ideas are too magnificent; you take away my breath.”

“No’ a bit, sir; no’ a bit,” said Rolls, encouragingly; “if ye’ll leave it to me, I’ll take all the trouble. We have always said⁠—Bauby and me⁠—that if we were just left to ourselves⁠—You will make out the list, sir, and settle the day, and send the invitations; and if I might advise, I would say to consult with Miss Barbara, who naturally would come over for the occasion, as being your next friend, and take the place of the mistress; and to send for some of your friends (I would recommend officers for choice) would not be a bad thing; for young men are aye scarce in the country, mair especially at this time of the year. We could put up half-a-dozen,” Rolls proceeded, “and trouble nobody; and that would be a great help if they were good dancers, and fine lads⁠—which I make no doubt, sir,” he added, with a little inclination of his head, “friends o’ yours would be.”

This unexpected new idea was of great service to John in the dreariness of the long summer evening. He laughed loud and long, and was infinitely tickled by the gravity of the project in which Rolls saw no laughing matter; but when he strolled listlessly along the Walk in the long, long, endless light, with no better companion than a cigar, with wistful eyes which sought the clear wistful horizon far away, and thoughts that seemed to fill the whole wide atmosphere with an unreal yet unconquerable sadness, the idea of making this silence gay, and seeing her here who had come home, who had changed the world, but not for him; but who yet for him⁠—who could tell?⁠—might still turn earth into heaven⁠—seized upon him with a curious charm. A ball at Dalrulzian would not be a very magnificent entertainment, nor was there anything very elevated or poetical in the idea. But there are certain conditions of mind and moments of life in which that vague terrestrial paradise which belongs to youth is always very close at hand, and ready to descend by the humblest means, by almost any machinery, out of the skies, making of the commonest territory enchanted ground.

XX

They were very glad to see him⁠—very kind to him⁠—impossible to be kinder; ready to enter into all their experiences of town, and to find out who were the people he knew among their friends, and to discuss all their amusements and occupations. Perhaps the fact that there were few people with whom they could discuss these proceedings had something to do with it; for the county in general went little to town, and was jealous and easily offended by the superior privileges of others. But this was a cynical view to take of the friendly effusion of the ladies when John paid them the visit which he thought he had timed religiously, so as neither to be too early, as presuming on the intimacy they had accorded him, nor too late, as showing any indifference to it. No such calculation was in the cordial greeting he received from Lady Lindores. “You are a great deal too timid, Mr. Erskine,” she said. “No, it is not a fault for a young man⁠—but you know what I mean. You would not come to meet us though you were there, and you have let two days pass without coming to see us. Fie! As your aunt Barbara says, you should have more confidence in your friends.”

Was it possible to be more encouraging, more delightful than this? and then they plunged into the inevitable personalities which are so offensive to outsiders, but which people with any mutual knowledge of a certain restricted society are scarcely able to refrain from. “You know the Setons. There have been great changes among them. Two of the girls are married. To whom? Well, I scarcely remember. Yes, to be sure. Sir Percy Faraway married the eldest, and they went off to California on their wedding-trip. And Charley is with his regiment at Cabul. Old Lady Seton, the grandmother⁠—you know that delightful old lady⁠—is⁠—” and so on, and so on. The county people thought, with strong disapproval, that for intelligent people like the Lindores, who gave themselves airs on this score, it was both frivolous and derogatory to talk so much about individuals; but John, who knew the individuals, was not so critical.

“Rintoul has come with us,” said Lady Lindores. “He has paused on the way to pay a little visit; but we expect him this evening. He will stay only a very short time; but he is coming back again in August, when the house will be full.”

John made a little bow, and no reply. He did not care for the intelligence. Rintoul, he felt instinctively, would be no friend to him. And in the little contrariety produced by this, he, too, brought forth his piece of news. “I heard of one of your visitors⁠—Lord Millefleurs. He was my fag at Eton, and the drollest little fellow. How has he grown up? I have not seen him since the Eton days.”

“He is droll still⁠—like a little fat robin-redbreast,” said Edith, with a laugh.

Lady Lindores checked her daughter with a look. “He is⁠—odd,” she said, “but very original and⁠—entertaining.” She had begun in her heart to feel that something was worth sacrificing to the chance of seeing Edith a duchess. “They say he has been a kind of prodigal⁠—but a very virtuous one⁠—wandering over the world to see life, as he calls it⁠—a very different thing from what many of you young men call life, Mr. Erskine.”

John felt nettled, he did not quite know why. “I am glad to know Millefleurs has become so interesting,” he said. “The only thing that now gives him interest to me is that I hear Beaufort⁠—you will perhaps recollect Beaufort, Lady Lindores⁠—”

The two ladies started a little, then gave each other a mutually warning look. “Indeed I remember Mr. Beaufort very well,” said Lady Lindores, shaking her head⁠—“very well. We have seen him⁠—seen a good deal of him lately. He is perhaps coming here.”

“But we hope not,” said Edith, under her breath.

“Edith, you must not say anything so unkind.”

“Oh, mamma, what is the use of pretending to Mr. Erskine? either he knows already, or he will be sure to find it out.”

“There is nothing to find out,” said Lady Lindores, hastily; and then her countenance melted, and she turned to John, holding out her hand. “You are an old friend⁠—and I am sure you are a true friend, Mr. Erskine.”

“I am sure I am true,” he said.

“Yes, I know it⁠—I know it! Mr. Erskine, there was⁠—something between Carry and Mr. Beaufort. You guessed it even if you did not know? But afterwards it became impossible. Her father objected⁠—as he had a good right to object. And now you know everything is changed. We women, who take all these things so much to heart⁠—we don’t want Mr. Beaufort to come here. We think it might be painful. Lord Lindores, who probably has never given the subject another thought, has invited him to come with Lord Millefleurs. You know he is acting as a sort of⁠—best friend to Lord Millefleurs.”

“I must tell you now on my side that I have heard from Beaufort,” said John. “He wrote to me asking to come to Dalrulzian, if it was decided that he should come North at all. I answered him that I did not think he had better come. Pardon me, there was no betrayal. He did not explain⁠—nor did I explain. I could not; it was a mere⁠—intuition with me. I can scarcely tell even what induced me to do it. I thought he would find everything so different, and get no pleasure out of it. I told him he might come to Dalrulzian whenever he liked; but I think I showed him that it would be better not to do so. So that is all I know of it, Lady Lindores.”

She looked somewhat anxiously in his face. Was that all he knew? Edith, who had been a keen spectator of the latter part of this conversation, shook her head slightly, with a faint incredulous smile; but Lady Lindores saw no reason to doubt him. She answered with a little excitement and agitation. “You were quite right, Mr. Erskine⁠—no pleasure, especially to him. He could not but feel the difference, indeed. Thanks for your kind and sensible advice to him. I hope he will take it. Naturally we had a delicacy⁠—” And here she looked again at her daughter, who made no reply. Edith had in some points more insight than her mother, and she had been reading John’s meaning in his looks, while his other listener considered his words only. Edith thought enough had been made of Beaufort. She changed the immediate subject with a laugh, which provoked Lady Lindores.

“Will Lord Millefleurs,” she said, “be permitted, do you think, mother, to come by himself? Is it safe to allow him to run about by himself? He is a dangerous little person, and one never knows what is the next wild thing he may do.”

“You are speaking very disrespectfully of Lord Millefleurs,” said Lady Lindores, provoked.

“I never intended to be respectful.” Edith said. But her mother was really annoyed, and put a summary conclusion to the talk. She was angry because her daughter’s opinions had not changed, as her own, all imperceptibly and within herself, had done. Lady Lindores had gone through a great deal on account of the little Marquis, whom she had persisted so long in thinking a nice boy. Rintoul’s sermons had become almost beyond endurance before they left London, and even her husband had intimated to her that she was treating a very important suitor far too lightly. It is hard for a sympathetic woman to remain uninfluenced, even when she disapproves of them, by the sentiments expressed around her. Millefleurs had become of additional importance in her eyes unconsciously, unwillingly almost, with every word that was said. And when she had no longer his plump little figure before her eyes⁠—when he was left behind, and his amusing personal peculiarities were veiled over by distance⁠—she ceased to have the relief of that laugh which had always hitherto delivered her from too grave a consideration of this subject. The idea of paying court to any man (much less a fat boy!), in order to secure him as a husband for Edith, was revolting to her mind; but worried and troubled as she was on the subject, Lady Lindores fell, first, into the snare of feeling, with relief, that to escape from further persecution of the same kind was an advantage worth a sacrifice; and second, that Millefleurs, if he was fat, was good and true, and that to be a duchess was something when all that could be said was said against it. For, to be sure, the season in town had its influences, and she was more susceptible to the attractions of greatness, wealth, and high title before it than after. Indeed he was not the husband she would have desired for her child; and she wanted⁠—imprudent woman!⁠—no husband at all for her child, who was the chief consolation left to her in the world. Still, if Edith must marry, as Rintoul said⁠—if she must marry to increase the family importance and influence, which was what Lord Lindores had insisted upon in respect to that pitiful sacrifice at Tinto⁠—why then, influence, wealth, greatness, everything, were united in the little person of Millefleurs, who was, besides, a very nice boy, and amused Edith, and would never harm any woman. This was the conclusion to which a thousand harassing lectures and remonstrances had brought her. She had not said a word of the change, which had worked imperceptibly, and chiefly in the long sleepless night of the railway journey, to Edith; and yet, with natural inconsistency, she was vexed and annoyed that Edith should still laugh, as they had so often laughed together, at little Millefleurs. And both Edith and John, though his suspicions were not yet aroused on this subject, felt the keenness of irritation and vexed dissatisfaction in her tone. He withdrew soon after⁠—for even the merest insinuation of a family jar is painful to an outsider⁠—but not before Lord Lindores had come in, with much friendliness, to beg him to come back to dinner, and engage his immediate aid in the scheme which had already brought our young man some trouble. “I want you to meet Rintoul,” said the Earl. “I want you both to make your appearance at Dunearn next week at the county meeting. I am going to produce those plans I spoke to you about, and I hope to move them to some definite step. We shall have a strong opposition, and the more support I can calculate on the better. Rintoul has no gift of speech; he’ll say his say in his solid, straightforward, positive sort of manner. But the Scotch are proud of good speaking. I don’t know what your gifts may be in that way.”

“Oh, nil,” said John.

“If you were a Frenchman, I should take you at your word; but in England there’s no telling. A young man has but one formula. If he is a natural orator, he gives just the same answer as if he can’t put two words together. That is what we call our national modesty. I wish for the moment you were as vain as a Frenchman, Erskine⁠—then I should know the facts of the case. I daresay you speak very well⁠—you have the looks of it; and it will be a great thing for me if you will second and stand by Rintoul. If he muddles his statement⁠—which is quite likely, for the boy is as ignorant as a pig⁠—you must set him right, and laugh a little at the defects of English education: that pleases a Scotch audience.”

“I think,” said Lady Lindores, “that you are putting a great deal upon Mr. Erskine.”

“Am I?” said her husband; “but it is in a good cause.”

Perhaps this was too lightly said. John took his leave with a half-mortified, half-humorous consciousness that he was to have about the person of this young nobleman something like the same post enjoyed by Beaufort in respect to Millefleurs, but with neither present emolument nor prospect of promotion. And he felt sure that he should not like the fellow, John said to himself. Nevertheless seven o’clock (they kept early hours in the country) saw him walking lightly, as no man ever walked to a disagreeable appointment, towards the Castle. Impossible to thread those shrubberies, to cross those lawns, without a rising of the heart. “Doors where my heart was wont to beat.” Nowhere else in the world did he hasten with the same step, did he feel the very neighbourhood of the place affect his pulses in the same way. It was the home to which his thoughts went before him, imagining many happinesses which perhaps did not come, but which always might come⁠—which lived there, to be tasted one time or another. This occupation with the affairs of Lindores, with the newcomer, and the Earl’s schemes, and so many secondary subjects, prevented him from entering into the questions which had so deeply discouraged him on the night of their return. He did not ask himself what he had to expect, what he had to do with them. He had a great deal to do with them in the meantime, and that by their own desire.

But John’s instinct had not been at fault in respect to Rintoul. They met as a gamekeeper and poacher might meet, if persons of these classes had an indifferent meeting-ground in polite society, like their masters. A mutual scrutiny and suspicion were in their eyes. John, the more generous of the two, made up his mind to nothing save an instinctive hostility to the heir of the house, and a conviction that Rintoul would stand in his way, though he scarcely knew how. But Rintoul, on his side, being what his mother called positive and practical in the highest degree, had no hesitation whatever in deciding upon John’s meaning and motives. They were each so much preoccupied in this hostile sense with each other, that Lord Lindores’s exhortations after dinner, as to the part he expected both to play, were received with small appreciation. Rintoul yawned visibly, and asked his father whether it was in reason to expect a fellow to plunge into business the moment he got home. John’s natural desire to say something conciliatory to the father thus contradicted by his son, which is the instinct of every spectator, was strengthened by his opposition to the special son in question; but even he could not cast off his personality enough to embrace an abstract subject at such a moment: and the two young men escaped, by the only mutual impulse they seemed likely to feel, to the ladies, leaving Lord Lindores to take his share of the vexation and disappointment which visit most mortals impartially in their time. The ladies were out upon the lawn, which lay under the windows of the drawing-room, and from which, as from most places in the neighbourhood, a wide expanse of landscape, culminating in the house of Tinto with its red flag, was visible. The house of Tinto was to the Lindores family that culminating-point of human care, the one evil that heightens all others, which is almost invariable in family experiences. Here their one prevailing pain, the one trouble that would not allow itself to be forgotten; and sometimes they felt the very sight of the scene to be intolerable. But quiet was in the air of the lingering endless night, so sweet, so unearthly, so long continued, making the hours like days.

“Ah, to be sure, that’s Tinto,” said Rintoul; “what a fine place it is, to be sure! Carry ought to be proud of such a place. And how do all the squires and squireens⁠—or the lairds, I suppose I should say, for local colour⁠—how do they like his red flag? There ought to be plenty of hatred and malice on that score.”

“Nobody hates or bears malice to our Carry, that I can hear of,” said his mother, with a reproving glance. Her eye caught that of John, and she blushed almost violently⁠—for was not he the representative of the squires and squireens?

“But Torrance and Carry are one flesh,” said Rintoul.

“I ought to speak on the subject, as I am the only representative of the accused,” said John, with an attempt at a lighter tone; but it was not very successful, and there was a sense of possible commotion in the air, like the approach of a thunderstorm, which the women were far too sensitive not to feel⁠—and they threw themselves into the breach, as was natural. When John took his leave, as the lingering daylight still lasted, they strolled with him through the shrubberies, accompanying him towards the gate. It was Lady Lindores herself who took the initiative in this, as her son thought, extraordinary condescension. Rintoul followed, keeping his sister walking by his side, with indignant surprise painted all over him. “Do you mean to say you do this every time that fellow is here?” he asked, wrathfully. “We have never been out of doors before when Mr. Erskine has gone away,” cried Edith, equally angry, in self-defence. Meanwhile the voices of the others, who were in advance, went on peacefully: they talked, unconscious of criticism, while the brother and sister listened. John had begun to tell Lady Lindores of the entertainments he meant to give. He avowed that they had been planned by Rolls, though his first intention had been to keep this fact to himself; but the humour of it overcame him. He could not refrain from communicating so amusing a circumstance to the kind woman, who never misunderstood, and who received all his confidences with maternal pleasure. He was pleased to hear her laugh, and not displeased to lay open the condition of his household to her, and the humours of the old servants, in whose hands he was still a boy. “It is, don’t you think, a judicious despotism on the whole?” he said. The sound of her laugh was delightful in his ears, even though a more sensitive narrator might have thought the laugh to be directed against himself.

“It is a delightful despotism,” said Lady Lindores; “and as we shall benefit by it in the present case, I entirely approve of Rolls. But I think, perhaps, if I were you, I would not unfold the whole matter to Miss Barbara. Your aunt is born a great lady, Mr. Erskine. She might take it as quite right and within the duty of an old retainer; but again, she might take a different view. For my part, I entirely approve. It is exactly the right thing to do.”

“You are always so kind,” said John, gratefully; “and perhaps you will advise me in matters that are beyond my prime minister’s sphere.”

“Rolls and I!” she said, laughing; “it is not often a young man has such a pair of counsellors.” Her laugh was so fresh and genuine that it sounded like the laugh of youth. Her children behind her had their curiosity greatly excited: Edith with a little wonder, to think what John could be saying to amuse her mother so much; Rintoul with high indignation, to see in what favour this country neighbour was held.

“What does my mother mean?” he said, grumbling in Edith’s ear. “She will turn that fellow’s head. I never knew anything so out of place. One would think, to see you with him, that he was⁠—why, your dearest friend, your⁠—I don’t know what to say.”

“Perhaps you had better not say anything, in case it should be something disagreeable,” said Edith, with a sudden flush of colour. “Mr. Erskine is our nearest neighbour⁠—and I hope my mother, at least, does not want any guidance from you.”

“Oh, doesn’t she, though!” murmured Rintoul in his moustache. To his own consciousness his mother was the member of his family who stood the most in need of his guidance. He thought her the most imprudent woman he had ever come across, paying no attention to her children’s prospects. They went on thus till they came to the gate, where the Countess of Lindores was actually to be seen by the woman at the lodge, or by any passing wayfarer, in her dinner-dress, with nothing but a lace cap on her head⁠—and Edith, in her white robes and shining hair⁠—saying goodbye to this rustic neighbour, this insidious squire! Rintoul could not for some time relieve his soul as he wished. He was compelled to shake hands too, in a surly way; and it was not till Edith had left them that he permitted himself to make, as he said, a few remarks to his mother. She was lingering outside, for it was still daylight though it was night.

“Mother,” said Rintoul, solemnly, “I see it’s all exactly as I feared. You have let that fellow Erskine get to be a sort of tame cat about the house.”

“After?” said his mother, with a smile.

“After! well, that’s as you choose. But of this you may be sure, mother, my father won’t stand it. It will only make trouble in the house. He won’t let Edith throw herself away. You had better put a stop to it while you are able. I suspected it from the first moment I knew that Erskine was here.”

“You are very wise, Rintoul,” said his mother, with grieved displeasure, all the pain and disenchantment which she had managed to put aside and forget coming back into her troubled eyes.

“I don’t know if I’m very wise; but I know something of the world,” said the son, who was so much better instructed than she was; “and I know, when one has charge of a girl, one oughtn’t to allow her to throw herself away.”

“Carry is supposed not to have thrown herself away,” said the indignant mother, with a glance towards that centre of her saddest thoughts, the arrogant front and false battlements of Tinto, faintly gleaming like royal Windsor itself in the mists of distance. This was all in contradiction to the changed state of her mind towards Millefleurs and the gradual leaning towards a great marriage for Edith which had come over her. But we are never more hot in defence of our own side than when we have begun to veer towards the other; and Rintoul’s lectures had been for a long time more than his mother could endure.

“No, Carry cannot be said to have thrown herself away,” he said thoughtfully, stroking that moustache which looked so young, while its owner was so wise and politic. “Carry should remember,” he said, after a pause, “that she’s an individual, but the family comprises many people⁠—heaps of her descendants will be grateful to her, you know. And if the fellow is unbearable, why, a woman has always got it in her own hands to make his life a burden to him. Why is she so absurdly domestic? They have quantities of money, and there are plenty of brutes in society to keep him in countenance. She ought to come to town and see people, and enjoy herself. What is the good of living like a cabbage here?”

“If you will persuade Carry to emancipate herself a little⁠—to think of herself a little⁠—I will forgive you all your worldly-mindedness,” said his mother, with a smile.

“I will try,” he said; “and as for my worldly-mindedness, as you call it, how is a fellow to get on in the world, I should like to know? It isn’t by money I’ll ever push my way. I must look out for other ways and means.”

“Does that mean an heiress, Rintoul?”

His mother was half laughing, half serious. But there was no laughter in Rintoul’s countenance. The corners of his mouth were drawn down. His eyes were as solemn as if the matter in question had been life or death.

“You may be sure I’ll do my duty to the family, whether I like it or not,” he said, with heroic gravity. “I don’t mean to recommend other people to do what I’ll not do myself.”

But Rintoul sighed. He was heroic, indeed, but he was human. A breath of soft recollections came over him. He, too, had entertained other thoughts⁠—he had allowed himself to be beguiled to gentler visions. But when the voice of duty bade, he felt that he had it in him to be superior to all weaknesses. Come an heiress of sufficient pretensions to be worthy of the son of Lindores, and he would buckle his manhood to him, and marry her without wincing. His duty he was at all times ready to do; but yet to the softer part of life, to the dreams of a youth unawakened to such stern purposes of heroism, he might yet be permitted to give a sigh.

John Erskine was the very opposite of this predestined martyr. He felt no weight of family responsibility upon him. All that he wished was⁠—a good wish enough, if it had not been altogether beyond possibility of fulfilment⁠—that the last lord of Lindores had lived to be a patriarch, and had been succeeded by his son in the course of nature. What a difference that would have made to everybody concerned! But our young man did all he could to keep definite plans and hopes out of his mind. He preferred to get the good of each day as it came. If he thought too much of them, he felt a dismal certainty that disappointments would follow. He preferred that his present existence should flow au jour le jour.

XXI

When the news of the approaching festivities at Dalrulzian were known in Dunearn, Miss Barbara Erskine and her household were flung into a whirlpool of excitement such as had not disturbed their calm for more years than could be reckoned. There was, of course, no question as to the immediate acceptance by the old lady of her nephew’s invitation to her to do the honours of his house. She was very much touched and pleased⁠—with that satisfaction, above all, which is so sweet to a woman⁠—of feeling that John was doing absolutely “the right thing” in placing her, his old aunt, at the head of affairs. It was a compliment to the family, to the old neighbours, as well as to herself. But it is not too much to say that from the scullery to the drawing-room her house was turned upside-down by this great event. Miss Barbara’s first thought was, as was natural, that a great many things would be wanted. She went instantly to her “napery” closet⁠—Agnes, her old maid, attending her with the key⁠—and brought out stores of shining damask, milk-white and fragrant, every tablecloth with its pile of napkins, like a hen with chickens. “I never inquired into the napery at Dalrulzian,” the old lady said; “but it would be a great temptation to a woman with a sma’ family to take the use of it; and for anything I know, he may be in want of table-linen. Ye’ll pack a boxful, Agnes, whether or no. There’s the great tablecloths with the crown pattern, they are the biggest I have. Ye’ll take them, and table-napkins. You may take ten or twelve dozen. They are always useful.”

“And you’ll take the best silver, mem,” said Janet, for this was in her department. If it had been suggested to them that their best Paisley shawls, on which both Janet and Agnes set great store, would have been useful to cover the faded places on the carpet, these devoted women would have sacrificed their most cherished possessions. Miss Barbara’s old epergnes and table ornaments, which, happily, were older and less solid than the camel and palm-trees at Tinto, were packed into a huge box, with all her available forks and spoons, and sent off in a cart before her to the scene of the entertainment. Then a still more important question arose as to the help that would be required to produce a dinner and a ball-supper worthy of the Erskine name. Miss Barbara put her trust in Janet, who had managed all her own household affairs for a great number of years. “I’ll take ye both with me,” she said to the two women, who made her comfort and credit the occupation of their lives, “and when ye consider what’s at stake, you’ll just put your hand to anything; and ye like a ploy, both of ye, and plenty of young faces about the house.”

“Eh, but I do that,” said Agnes; “and I would not wonder but Mr. John’s meaning to take a survey of all the misses, and him a wanter and a bonnie lad into the bargain. We’ll maybe hear who it is to be.”

But Janet demurred. “It’s not to be denied but I would like to go,” she said; “and blithe, blithe would I be to put to my hand, if it was only to boil a pitawtie, and proud to think the auld family, so lang away, was holding up its head again. But then there’s Bauby Rolls, that’s been housekeeper so long, and a good cook and a good woman. She would think we meant to interfere.”

“It would ill become either Bauby or any other person to think me interfering in my nephew’s house,” said Miss Barbara. “Ye’ll just come, Janet. I am saying nothing against Bauby; but she’ll be out of the way of managing for a pairty.”

“There are plenty of pairties in the wintertime,” said Janet. “I wouldna stand in other folk’s gait. Na, naebody would say you were interfering, Miss Barbara. Wha has a better right in your ain nephew’s house?⁠—but me, it’s another question. I couldna gang ben to her kitchen, or look at a single article, but it would be thought I was meddling. What would I think if Bauby Rolls came here on a veesit to help me? I would say I maun be getting doited, though I cannot see it: I maun be losing the use o’ my faculties. I judge of her by mysel’. She would think the same of me. But Agnes, you can take her,” said the housekeeper, with a fine and delicate contempt. “She has aye her head full of whigmaleeries; but she’ll stand in nobody’s way.”

“I’ll not ask your leave, Janet, to take my own woman with me,” said Miss Barbara, with some annoyance.

“Na, mem, I never thought that,” retorted her factotum. “I’m seldom consulted, though maybe it would be none the worse for the family if I were letten say my say. For a ball-supper there’s naething better than a fine boned turkey well stuffed and larded,” she added, reflectively; “and I’m no’ against soup. It’s new-fashioned; but there’s new-fashioned things that’s just as good as the old. One thing I set my face against is thae new drinks⁠—Cup as they call them. They take an awfu’ quantity of wine; and in the heat o’ the dancing thae young things will just spoil their stomachs, never thinking what they’re swallowing. That’s my opinion. I’m no’ saying I’m ony authority, and Mr. Rolls will have a’ that in his hands, and will not lippen to a woman; but that’s my opinion. It’s an awfu’ waste of wine. I would rather give them good honest champagne out of the bottle, that they might see what they are taking, far sooner than that wasteful Cup.”

“That’s very true, Janet,” said Miss Barbara; “I’m of that opinion myself. But in most houses it’s the gentleman himself (when there is a gentleman) that manages the cellar; and it would never do for a lady to say anything. But I will mind to tell him (for it’s my own opinion), if he consults me.”

“And for sweet things, there’s nothing like ice-creams, if she can make them,” said Janet. “If she were to say, mem, of her own accord, that she has little experience, you might send me a line by the postman, and I would do my best; but no’ unless it’s of her own accord. Na, na; I ken by mysel’. If a strange woman were to come into my kitchen and meddle with my denner! But tak’ you Agnes, Miss Barbara. She might make up a match yet, for a’ that’s come and gane, with Tammas Rolls.”

Miss Barbara appeared accordingly at Dalrulzian the day before the great dinner, in her old coach, with her two best gowns in the imperial, and all her old ornaments, and with Agnes her maid seated primly by her, inside. The chariot was almost as old as Miss Barbara herself, and was kept for great occasions. It was drawn by two somewhat funereal black horses from the Red Lion at Dunearn⁠—altogether a solemn turnout, and quite unlike the handy little phaeton in which usually the old lady drove about. The postboy took away those noble steeds when he had housed the chariot in the Dalrulzian stables, to which he was to return in four days to take it back with its mistress. And Miss Barbara bore a grave though cheerful countenance as she walked into the drawing-room, and took her place there on the great tapestry sofa. The box of plate and linen had arrived before her, and she felt that it was necessary at once to look into the details of the proposed entertainment. “Will you send the housekeeper to me,” she said to Rolls, with dignity, thinking it beneath the solemnity of the occasion to call Bauby by any less weighty title. Bauby came in with good-natured alacrity; but she was somewhat abashed by the air of gravity on Miss Barbara’s face, whom she was not accustomed to see in such state. “Come in, my woman,” said the old lady. “It’s a great responsibility for you to have the charge of all this. You will like a little assistance with your dinner. I’m well aware that both that and the supper for the ball are in very good hands so far as the provisions go. But your master being young, and without experience, and as there’s no lady in the house, I think it my duty to be of service,” Miss Barbara said. Bauby stood before her greatly flushed, and laid a number of hems, one over the other, on her apron. “Hoot, mem, we’ll just manage fine,” she said, growing red. But this did not satisfy the august old lady.

“If you’re in want of any help,” she said, “there’s a woman of mine⁠—”

Rolls, who had been waiting outside the door, came to the rescue. He appeared behind the flushed Bauby. “She’s a confused creature,” he said, “but she knows her business. We’ve put it all down, Miss Barbara, in the new-fashioned way. I’m aware that at the Castle and other grand places it’s written in French, but good Scots is good enough for us.”

It was no small effort to find and produce from Bauby’s pocket the bill of fare of the approaching dinner. But this document took away Miss Barbara’s breath. It was some time before she got over it. Instead of the chaos which she half feared, yet half hoped for, as a means of exercising her own gifts on her nephew’s behalf, it was an elaborate menu, drawn out in full form, that was placed before her eyes. The old lady was struck dumb for a moment, and when she spoke there was a certain awe in her tone. “If you can set a dinner like that on the table,” she said, “I have not a word to say.”

“Oh, mem, we’ll manage fine,” said Bauby, in her soft, round, good-humoured voice.

“Miss Barbara,” said Rolls, “I’m no braggart; but I’ve seen a thing or two in my life. And Bauby, she has far more in her than appears. She’s just a confused creature in speech; but pit her to her goblets and her sauces, and she kens well what she’s about. She has the real spirit of it in her; and when her blood’s up for the credit of the family⁠—”

“Eh, mem!” cried Bauby herself, putting her apron to her eyes, for her tears came readily; “do you think I would let them say that Mr. John couldna give a denner as good as the best? and he such a fine lad, and wanting a wife, and his mammaw so far away!”

“Never you mind his mammaw,” cried Miss Barbara, with natural family feeling; “she was never a great manager. But if you set that dinner on the table, Bauby Rolls, you’re a woman worthy of all respect, and I hope my nephew will know when he’s well off.”

She withdrew to the room prepared for her after this, a little crestfallen, yet doing due honour to the native powers. “We’ll say nothing to Janet,” she said to her faithful old maid, as she sat at her toilet. “Janet is an excellent woman, and just the right person for a house like mine. But she has not that invention. Four made dishes, besides all the solids! We’ll not say a word to Janet. It would be more than she could bear.”

“You see, Miss Barbara, there’s two of them to settle it,” said Agnes, as she brushed out the old lady’s abundant white hair; “and a man is awfu’ discriminating about eating and drinking. He may not have sense like a woman, but he has more taste of his mouth.”

“There is something in that,” said her mistress; “if it’s Rolls, John has got a treasure in that man. The Cornel’s dinners were always very English, to my way of thinking⁠—but that would be their own fault; or if it’s my nephew himself⁠—” she added, doubtfully. What was a great quality in Rolls catering for other people, would have been almost a vice, in the eyes of this prejudiced old lady, in the young master of the house.

“Mr. John!” said Agnes, still more moved⁠—“a bonnie lad like him! Na, na; it would never be that. It’ll be the young misses, and not the dishes, he will be thinking about. And who knows but we may see the one that’s his choice? And I wish she may be a lovely young lady for his sake.”

“She would need to be something more than that,” said Miss Barbara, shaking her head. “A little money would be a great advantage to the estate.”

“Eh, but mem, he maun marry for love,” said Agnes; “what’s siller in comparison? And I think I know Somebody for my pairt⁠—”

“Whisht, Agnes,” said her mistress peremptorily; “whatever thought may be in your head, to name it spoils all.”

For these two simple women were still of opinion that Providence had created John Erskine’s wife for him, and that he could not mistake the guidance of that unerring hand.

XXII

The ball was in full career; everybody had come to it from all the houses within reach, and the radius was wide⁠—extending over the whole county. It was universally acknowledged that nobody could have imagined the drawing-room at Dalrulzian to be so large⁠—and though the mothers and the old ladies were in a great state of alarm as to the facilities for stepping forth through the long windows after a dance, yet the young people, indifferent to the northern chill which they had been used to all their lives, considered the Walk, which seemed almost a portion of the room, to be the most delightful of all. Rintoul, though with many protestations and much scorn of the little rustic assembly, had been persuaded to wait for it, and was an object of attraction as great as⁠—nay, in some respects greater than⁠—John himself. There were no great young ladies in the company for whom it was worth his while to exert himself, and consequently the young man yielded to the soft flattery of all the pleased and grateful faces around him, and made himself agreeable in general, ending, however, almost invariably at the side of Nora, to whom it was a pleasing compensation for the indifference of the young master of Dalrulzian, who had been so distinctly destined for her by the country. John was very civil to Nora. He went out of his way, indeed, to be civil. He took her about the house, into the library, and the hall, to show her the alterations he was making, and appealed to her about their propriety in a way which Nora felt might have taken in some girls. But she was not taken in. She knew it was merely politeness, and that John would go away as soon as he had done his duty with a certain sense of relief. But Rintoul’s attentions were paid in a very different spirit. He asked her to dance as many times as he could without attracting too much notice. Nora felt that he discriminated this line finely, and was half provoked and half flattered by it, feeling acutely that whereas John Erskine did his best to show her all the civility which his position required, Rintoul went against all the duties of his position to get near her, to talk to her in a corner, to devote to her every moment which he could devote to her without remark. He was very careful, very desirous not to commit himself with society; but to Nora, every tone of his voice, every look committed him. She felt⁠—she was a great deal cleverer than Rintoul, and saw through and through him⁠—that to her he was a totally different person from the young man of fashion, who, with a touch of condescension, did his duty to the other young ladies. She saw him in a different light. He toned his words for her. He changed his very sentiments. She was pleased and amused, and at the same time touched, when (for she was too clever) she noted this change coming over him in the middle of a sentence, in the figure of a dance, when he suddenly found himself near her. There could not have been a more complete proof of these sentiments which he was as yet afraid to indulge in, which vanquished him against his will. A girl’s pride may be roused by the idea that a man struggles against her power over him, and is unwilling to love her; but at the same time there is a wonderful flattery in the consciousness that his unwillingness avails him nothing, and that reason is powerless in comparison with love. Nora with her keen eyes marked how, when the young man left her to dance or to talk with someone else, he kept, as it were, one eye upon her, watching her partners and her behaviour⁠—and how, the moment he was free, he would gyrate round her, with something which (within herself, always laughing, yet not displeased) she compared to the flutterings of a bird beating its wings against the air, resisting yet compelled to approach some centre of fascination. He would have kept away if he could, but he was not able. She was so much occupied in watching these proceedings of his⁠—seeing the humour of them so completely that she was fain to put her head out at the window, or retire into a corner of the hall, to laugh privately to herself⁠—that she lost the thread of much that was said to her, and sadly wounded the feelings of several of the young officers from Dundee. What they said was as a murmur in her ears, while her mind was engaged in the more amusing study⁠—watching the movements of Rintoul.

The Lindores family had come out in force to grace John’s entertainment. Even the Earl himself had come, which was so unusual. He had made up his mind so strenuously as to the support which John was to give to Rintoul’s candidateship and his own plans, that he thought it necessary to “countenance,” as he said, our young man’s proceedings in everything personal to himself. And Lord Lindores, like so many people, did not perceive, in his inspection of the horizon, and desire that this thing and that should be done in the distance, the danger which lay under his very eye. No doubt it was natural that his little daughter Edith should be, as it were, the queen of the entertainment. Not only was she one of the prettiest girls in the county, but she was the first in rank, and therefore the most to be thought of; the first to be honoured, if any honours were going. That was simple enough, and cost him no consideration at all. He made another effort to overcome old Sir James Montgomery’s prejudiced opposition, and talked on political matters in the doorways with a great deal of liberality and good-humour, taking with perfect serenity the clumsy gibes which his neighbours would launch at innovators, at people with foreign tastes, at would-be philanthropists. He smiled and “never let on,” though sometimes the gibes were galling enough. Lady Lindores sat at the head of the room with Lady Car by her, very gracious too, though sometimes yawning a little privately behind her fan. They spoke to the people who came to speak to them, and acknowledged the newcomers who were introduced to them with benignant smiles. But both mother and daughter were somewhat out of their element. Now and then a lively passage of conversation would break out around them, and anon die off, and they would be left again smiling but silent, giving each other sympathetic glances, and swallowing delicate yawns. “No, I do not dance. You must excuse me,” Lady Car said quietly, with that pretty smile which lighted up her pale face like sunshine. She was not pretty⁠—but there could not be a face more full of meaning. Her eyes had some anxiety always in them, but her smile gave to her face something of the character of one whose life was over, to whom it mattered very little what was going to happen, to whom, in short, nothing could happen⁠—to whom Fate had done its worst.

There was a brief pause in the gaiety, and of a sudden, as will sometimes happen, the murmur of talk in all the different groups, the hum of the multitude at its pleasantest and lightest, was suspended. When such a pause occurs it will frequently be filled and taken possession of for the moment by some louder or more persistent scrap of conversation from an individual group, which suddenly seems to become the chief thing in the crowd, listened to by all. Ordinarily it is the most trivial chitchat, but now and then the ranks will open, as it were, to let something of vital importance, some revelation, some germ of quarrel, some fatal hint or suggestion, be heard. This time it was Torrance, always loud-voiced, whose words suddenly came out in the hearing of the entire company. He happened at the moment to be standing with John Erskine contemplating the assembly in general. Rintoul was close by, lingering for a moment to address a passing civility to the matron whose daughter he had just brought back to her side. Torrance had been in the supper-room, and was charged with champagne. He was not a drunkard, but he habitually took a great deal of wine, the result of which was only to make him a little more himself than usual, touching all his qualities into exaggeration⁠—a little louder, a little more rude, cynical, and domineering. He was surveying the company with his big staring eyes.

“This makes me think,” he said, “of the time when I was a wanter, as they say. Take the good of your opportunities, John Erskine. Take your chance, man, while ye have it. When a man’s married, he’s done for; nobody cares a fig for him more. But before he’s fixed his choice, the whole world is at his call. Then’s the time to be petted and made of⁠—everybody smiling upon you⁠—instead of sitting with one peevish face on the other side of the fire at home.”

He ended this speech with one of his huge rude laughs; and there are a great many such speeches permitted in society, laughed at even by those who are themselves the point of the moral. But Rintoul was in an excited condition of mind; contradictory to all his own tenets; going in his heart against his own code; kicking against the pricks. He turned round sharply with a certain pleasure in finding somebody upon whom to let forth an ill-humour which had been growing in him. “You forget, Torrance, who I am, when you speak of this peevish face before me.”

“You!⁠—troth I forgot your existence altogether,” said Torrance, after a pause of astonishment, and a prolonged stare ending in another laugh.

Rintoul flushed a furious red. He was excited by the rising of a love which he meant to get the better of, but which for the moment had got the better of him; and by all the restraints he had put upon himself, and which public opinion required should be put upon him. He flashed upon his brother-in-law an angry glance, which in its way was like the drawing of a sword.

“You had better,” he said, “recall my existence as quickly as you can, Torrance⁠—for it may be necessary to remind you of it very sharply one of these days, from all I hear.”

Torrance replied by another loud insulting laugh. “I mind you well enough when I hear you crow, my little cock-o’-the-walk,” he said.

The conversation had got thus far during the pause which has been described. But now the whole assembly rushed into talk with a general tremor, the band struck up, the dancers flew off with an energy which was heightened by a little panic. Everybody dislikes a family quarrel: the first beginnings of it may excite curiosity, but at a certain point it alarms the most dauntless gossip. To get out of the way of it, the world in general will take any trouble. Accordingly the ranks closed with the eagerness of fear, to continue the metaphor, and the two belligerents were hidden at once from sight and hearing. Men began to talk in their deepest basses, women in their shrillest trebles, and how it ended nobody knew. There were a great many whispered questions and remarks made afterwards when the crisis was over. “Young Erskine had all the trouble in the world to smooth it over.” “One doesn’t know what would have happened if old Sir James had not got hold of Lord Rintoul.” “Half-a-dozen men got round Pat Torrance. They made believe to question him about some racing⁠—and that quieted him,” cried one and another, each into the nearest ear; and the whole assembly with a thrill watched the family of Lindores in all its movements, and saw significance in every one of these. This was the only contretemps that occurred in the whole programme of the festivities at Dalrulzian. It passed out of hearing of Lady Car, who sat the evening out with that soft patience as of one whose day was over⁠—the little smile, the little concealed yawn, the catch of conversation when anyone who could talk drifted by her. Dr. Stirling and she discussed Wordsworth for a whole half-hour, which was the only part of the entertainment that withdrew her at all from herself. “And his noble philosophy of sorrow,” she said, “which is the finest of all. The part which he gives it in the world⁠—” “I am not clear in my own mind,” said the Doctor, “that sorrow by itself does good to anybody.” “Stretch a hand through time to catch the far-off interest of tears,” cried Lady Car with an unfathomable distance in her mild eyes, shaking her head at him and smiling. This was her point of enjoyment. When she thought the hour at which she might withdraw was coming, she sent to her husband to know if he was ready, still quite unaware of his utterance about the peevish face. Poor Lady Car! her face was not peevish. It was somewhat paler than usual, so much as that was possible, as she watched him coming towards her. The more wine he took the less supportable he was. Alarm came into her gentle eyes. “Oh yes, I’m ready,” he said; “I’ve been here long enough,” in a tone which she understood well. She thought it was possibly John who had given him offence, and took leave of her host quickly, holding out her hand to him in passing with a word. “I must not stop to congratulate you now. I will tell how well it has gone off next time I see you,” she said hastily. But her brother would not be shaken off so easily. He insisted on keeping by her side, and took a tender leave of her only at the carriage-door, walking along with her as though determined to make a demonstration of his brotherly regard. “I shall see you again, Rintoul, before you go?” “No,” he cried; “goodbye, Car. I am not coming to Tinto again.” What did it mean? But as they drove home through the dark, shut up together in that strict enclosure, her husband did not fail to make her acquainted with what had happened. “What’s his business, I should like to know?” Torrance cried. “Of course it’s your complaints, Lady Car. You set yourselves up as martyrs, you white-faced women. You think it gives you a charm the more; but I’ll charm them that venture to find fault with me,” he cried, with his hot breath, like a strong gale of wine and fury, on her cheek. What disgust was in her breast along with the pain! “There’s no duels now, more’s the pity,” said Torrance: “maybe you think it’s as well for me, and that your brother might have set you free, my lady.” “I have never given you any cause to say so,” she cried from her corner, shrinking from him as far as possible. What a home-going that was! and the atmosphere of wine, and heat, and rude fury, and ruder affection, from which she could not escape, was never to escape all her wretched life. Poor Lady Car! with nothing but a little discussion about Wordsworth or Shelley to stand in place of happiness to her heart.

“I have been quarrelling with that brother-in-law of mine,” Rintoul said to Nora in the next dance, which he ought not to have had, he knew, and she knew, though she had been persuaded to throw off, for him, a lagging partner. He had not said a word about the quarrel to his mother or sister, but to Nora he could not help telling it. He broke even the strained decorum which he had been painfully keeping up for this cause. Already he had danced more than was usual with one partner, but this was too strong for him. He could not resist the temptation.

“Oh, Lord Rintoul!”

“Yes, I have quarrelled with him. To hear how he spoke of Carry was more than I could bear. Now you will never betray me; tell me, I daren’t ask anyone else. Is he supposed to be⁠—Jove! I can’t say the word⁠—unkind to poor Car?”

“He is very proud of her⁠—he thinks there is no one like her. I don’t think he means it, Lord Rintoul.”

“Means it!⁠—but he is so, because he is a brute, and doesn’t know what he is doing.”

“They are not⁠—very like each other,” said Nora, hesitating; “but everybody must have seen that before.”

“Yes, I own it,” said Rintoul. “I take shame to myself. Oh that money, that money!” he cried with real passion, giving her hand a cruel unnecessary grip, as he led her back to the dance; “the things that one is obliged to look over, and to wink at, on account of that.”

“But no one is forced to consider it at all⁠—to that extent,” Nora said.

“To what extent?” Rintoul asked, and then he gave her hand another squeeze, always under cover of the dance. “You are above it⁠—but who is like you?” he said, as he whirled her away into the crowd. This was far indeed for so prudent a young man to go.

XXIII

The summer went over without any special incident. August and the grouse approached, or rather the Twelfth approached, August having already come. Every bit of country not arable or clothed with pasture, was purple and brilliant with heather; and to stand under the columns of the fir-trees on a hillside, was to be within such a world of “murmurous sound” as you could scarcely attain even under the southern limes, or by the edge of the sea. The hum of the bees among the heather⁠—the warm luxurious sunshine streaming over that earth-glow of heather-bells⁠—what is there more musical, more complete? These hot days are rare, and the sportsman does not esteem them much; but when they come, the sun that floods the warm soil, the heather that glows back again in endless warmth and bloom, the bees that never intermit their hum “numerous” as the lips of any poet, the wilder mystic note that answers from the boughs of the scattered firs, make up a harmony of sight and sound to which there are few parallels. So Lord Millefleurs thought when he climbed up the hill above Dalrulzian, and looking down on the other side, saw the sea of brilliant moorland, red and purple and golden, with gleams here and there of the liveliest green⁠—fine knolls of moss upon the grey-green of the moorland grass. He declared it was “a new experience,” with a little lisp, but a great deal of feeling. Lady Lindores and Edith were of the party with John Erskine. They had lunched at Dalrulzian, and John was showing his poor little place with a somewhat rueful civility to the Duke of Lavender’s son. Millefleurs was all praise and admiration, as a visitor ought to be; but what could he think of the handful of a place, the small house, the little wood, the limited establishment? They had been recalling the Eton days, when John was, the little Marquis declared, far too kind a fag-master. “For I must have been a little wretch,” said the little fat man, folding his hands with angelical seriousness and simplicity. Lady Lindores, who had once smiled at his absurdities with such genial liking, could not bear them now, since she had taken up the idea that Edith might be a duchess. She glanced at her daughter to see how she was taking it, and was equally indignant with Millefleurs for making himself ridiculous, and with Edith for laughing. “I have no doubt you were the best fag that ever was,” she said.

“Dear Lady Lindores! always so good and so kind,” said Millefleurs, clasping his little fat hands. “No, dearest lady, I was a little brute; I know it. To be kicked every day would have been the right thing for me⁠—and Erskine, if I recollect right, had an energetic toe upon occasions, but not often enough. Boys are brutes in general:⁠—with the exception of Rintoul, who, I have no doubt, was a little angel. How could he be anything else, born in such a house?”

“If you think Lindores has so good an effect, Rintoul was not born there,” she said, laughing, but half vexed: for she had not indeed any idea of being laughed at in her turn, and she was aware that she had never thought Rintoul an angel. But Lord Millefleurs went on seriously⁠—

“Rintoul will despise me very much, and so, probably, will Erskine; but I do not mean to go out tomorrow. I take the opportunity here of breaking the news. If it is as fine as this, I shall come out here (if you will let me) and lie on this delicious heather, watch you strolling forth, and listen to the crack of the guns. No; I don’t object to it on principle. I like grouse, and I suppose that’s the best way to kill them, if you will take so much trouble; but for me, it is not my way of enjoyment. I was not made to be a son of civilisation. Do not laugh, Lady Edith, please; you hurt my feelings. If you take luncheon to the sportsmen anywhere, I will go with you: unless you, as I suppose you will, despise me too.”

“I don’t think it is such a noble thing to shoot birds, Lord Millefleurs.”

“But yet you don’t dislike grouse⁠—and it must be killed somehow,” said John, somewhat irritated, as was natural.

“My dear fellow, I don’t find fault with you. I see your position perfectly. It is a thing you have always done. It is an occupation, and at the same time an excitement, a pleasure. I have felt the same thing in California with the cattle. But it doesn’t amuse me, and I am not a great shot. I will help to carry your luncheon, if Lady Lindores will let me, and enjoy the spectacle of so many healthy happy persons who feel that they have earned their dinner. All that I sympathise in perfectly. You will excuse me saying dinner,” said Millefleurs, with pathos. “When we got our food after a morning’s work we always called it dinner. In many things I have quite returned to civilisation; but there are some particulars still in which I slip⁠—forgive me. May we sit down here upon the heather and tell stories? I had a reputation once in that way. You would not care for my stories, Lady Edith; you know them all by heart. Now this is what I call delightful,” said little Millefleurs, arranging himself carefully upon the heather, and taking off his hat. “You would say it is lovely, if you were an American.”

“Do you mean the moor? I think it is very lovely, with all the heather and the gorse, and the burns and the bees. Out of Scotland, is there anything like it?” Edith said.

“Oh yes, in several places; but it is not the moor, it is the moment. It is lovely to sit here. It is lovely to enjoy one’s self, and have a good time. Society is becoming very American,” said Millefleurs. “There are so many about. They are more piquant than any other foreigners. French has become absurd, and Italian pedantic; but it is amusing to talk a foreign language which is in English words, don’t you know.”

“You are to come back with them to dinner, Mr. Erskine,” Lady Lindores said. She thought it better, notwithstanding her prevailing fear that Millefleurs would be absurd, to leave him at liberty to discourse to Edith, as he loved to discourse. “I hope you are going to have a fine day. The worst is, you will all be so tired at night you will not have a word to bestow upon anyone.”

“I have not too many at any time,” said John, with a glance, which he could not make quite friendly, at the visitor⁠—who was flowing blandly on with his lisp, with much gentle demonstration, like a chemical operator or a prestidigitateur, with his plump hands. Our young man was not jealous as yet, but a little moved with envy⁠—being not much of a talker, as he confessed⁠—of Millefleurs’s fluency. But he had thrown himself at Edith’s feet, and in this position felt no bitterness, nor would have changed places with anyone, especially as now and then she would give him a glance in which there was a secret communication and mirthful comment upon the other who occupied the foreground. Lady Lindores preferred, however, that he should talk to her and withdraw his observation from her daughter. Reluctantly, against the grain, she was beginning in her turn to plot and to scheme. She was ashamed of herself, yet, having once taken up the plan, it touched her pride that it should be carried out.

“I have always found you had words enough whenever you wished to say them,” she said. “Perhaps you will tell me everybody has that. And Lord Lindores tells me you don’t do yourself justice, Mr. Erskine. He says you speak very well, and have such a clear head. I think,” she added with a sigh, “it is you who ought to be in Parliament, and not Rintoul.”

“That is past thinking of,” John said, with a little heightened colour. He thought so himself; but neither could the party bear a divided interest, nor had he himself any influence to match that of Lord Lindores.

“You are going to Tinto on Tuesday,” said Lady Lindores, “with the rest? Do you know, Mr. Erskine, my boy has never met his brother-in-law since that evening here, when some words passed. I never could make out what they were. Not enough to make a quarrel of? not enough to disturb Carry⁠—”

“I do not think so. It was only a⁠—momentary impatience,” John said.

“Mr. Erskine, I am going to ask you a great favour. It is if you would keep in Rintoul’s company, keep by him; think, in a family how dreadful it would be if any quarrel sprang up. The visit will not last long. If you will keep your eye upon him, keep between him and temptation⁠—”

John could not help smiling. The position into which he was being urged, as a sort of governor to Rintoul, was entirely absurd to his own consciousness. “You smile,” cried Lady Lindores, eagerly; “you think what right has this woman to ask so much? I am not even a very old friend.”

“I am laughing at the idea that Rintoul should be under my control; he is more a man of the world than I am.”

“Yes,” said his mother, doubtfully, “that is true. He is dreadfully worldly in some ways; but, Mr. Erskine, I wonder if you will disapprove of me when I say it has been a comfort to me to find him quite boyish and impulsive in others? He is prudent⁠—about Edith for example.”

“About⁠—Lady Edith?” John said, faltering, with a look of intense surprise and anxiety on his face.

There is no doubt that Lady Lindores was herself a most imprudent woman. She gave him a quick sudden glance, reddened, and then looked as suddenly at the other group: Millefleurs, flowing forth in placid talk, with much eloquent movement of his plump hands, and Edith listening, with a smile on her face which now and then seemed ready to overflow into laughter. She betrayed herself and all the family scheme by this glance⁠—so sudden, so unintentional⁠—the action of one entirely unskilled in the difficult art of deception. John’s glance followed hers with a sudden shock and pang of dismay. He had not thought of it before; now in a moment he seemed to see it all. It was an unfortunate moment too; for Edith was slightly leaning forward, looking at her companion with a most amiable and friendly aspect, almost concealing, with the forward stoop of her pretty figure, the rotund absurdity of his. She smiled, yet she was listening to him with all the absorbed attention of a Desdemona; and the little brute had so much to say for himself! The blood all ran away from John’s healthful countenance to replenish his heart, which had need of it in this sudden and most unlooked-for shock. Lady Lindores saw the whole, and shared the shock of the discovery, which to her was double, for she perceived in the same moment that she had betrayed herself, and saw what John’s sentiments were. Some women divine such feelings from their earliest rise⁠—foresee them, indeed, before they come into existence, and are prepared for the emergencies that must follow; but there are some who are always taken by surprise. She, too, became pale with horror and dismay. She ought to have foreseen it⁠—she ought to have guarded against it; but before she had so much as anticipated such a danger, here it was!

“I mean,” she faltered, “that she should⁠—meet only the best people, go to the best houses⁠—and that sort of thing; even that she should be perfectly dressed; he goes so far as that,” she said, with an uneasy laugh.

John did not make any reply. He bowed his head slightly, that was all. He found himself, indeed, caught in such a whirlpool of strange emotion, that he could not trust his voice, nor even his thoughts, which were rushing headlong on each other’s heels like horses broken loose, and were altogether beyond his control.

“But he is himself as impulsive as a boy,” cried the unlucky mother, rushing into the original subject with no longer any very clear perception what it was; “and Mr. Torrance’s manner, you know, is sometimes⁠—offensive to a sensitive person. He does not mean it,” she added hurriedly; “people have such different degrees of perception.”

“Yes⁠—people have very different degrees of perception,” said John, dreamily; he did not mean it as a reproach. It was the only observation that occurred to him; his mind was in too great a turmoil to be able to form any idea. To think he had never budged from his place at her feet, and that all in a moment this should have happened! He felt as if, like a man in a fairy tale, he had been suddenly carried off from the place in which he was, and was hearing voices and seeing visions from some dull distance, scarcely knowing what they meant.

Meanwhile Millefleurs purled on like the softest little stream, smooth English brooklet, without breaks or boulders. He was never tired of talking, and himself was his genial theme. “I am aware that I am considered egoistical,” he said. “I talk of things I am acquainted with. Now, you know most things better than I do⁠—oh yeth! women are much better educated nowadays than men; but my limited experiences are, in their way, original. I love to talk of what I know. Then my life over yonder was such fun. If I were to tell you what my mates called me, you would adopt the name ever after by way of laughing at me: but there was no ridicule in their minds.”

“I hope you don’t think I would take any such liberty, Lord Millefleurs.”

“It would be no liberty; it would be an honour. I wish you would do it. They called me Tommy over there. Now, my respectable name is Julian. Imagine what a downfall. I knew you would laugh: but they meant no harm. I acknowledge myself that it was very appropriate. When a man has the misfortune to be plump and not very tall⁠—I am aware that is a pretty way of putting it; but then, you don’t expect me to describe my personal appearance in the coarsest terms⁠—it is so natural to call him Tommy. I was the nurse when any of them were ill. You have no notion how grateful they were, these rough fellows. They used to curse me, you know⁠—that was their way of being civil⁠—and ask where I had got such soft hands.” Here Millefleurs produced those articles, and looked at them with a certain tenderness. “I was always rather vain of my hands,” he said, with the most childlike naivete, “but never so much as when Jack and Tim d⁠⸺⁠d them, in terms which I couldn’t repeat in a lady’s presence, and asked me where the something I had learned to touch a fellow like that? It occurred to me after that I might have studied surgery, and been of some use that way; but I was too old,” he said, a soft little sigh agitating his plump bosom⁠—“and then I have other duties. Fortune has been hard upon me,” he added, raising pathetically the eyes, which were like beads, yet which languished and became sentimental as they turned upwards. It was when he spoke of Jack and Tim that Edith had looked at him so prettily, bending forward, touched by his tale; but now she laughed without concealment, with a frank outburst of mirth in which the little hero joined with great good-humour, notwithstanding the pathos in his eyes.

This pair were on the happiest terms, fully understanding each other; but it was very different with the others, between whom conversation had wholly ceased. Lady Lindores now drew her shawl round her, and complained that it was getting chilly. “That is the worst of Scotland,” she said⁠—“you can never trust the finest day. A sharp wind will come round a corner all in a moment and spoil your pleasure.” This was most unprovoked slander of the northern skies, which were beaming down upon her at the moment with the utmost brightness, and promising hours of sunshine; but after such a speech there was nothing to be done but to go down hill again to the house, where the carriage was waiting. John, who lingered behind to pull himself together after his downfall, found, to his great surprise, that Edith lingered too. But it seemed to him that he was incapable of saying anything to her. To point the contrast between himself and Millefleurs by a distracted silence, that, of course, was the very thing to do to take away any shadow of a chance he might still have! But he had no chance. What possibility was there that an obscure country gentleman, who had never done anything to distinguish himself, should be able to stand for a moment against the son of a rich duke, a marquis, a millionaire, and a kind of little hero to boot, who had been very independent and original, and made himself a certain reputation, though it was one of which some people might be afraid? There was only one thing in which he was Millefleurs’s superior, but that was the meanest and poorest of all. John felt inclined to burst out into savage and brutal laughter at those soft curves and flowing outlines, as the little man, talking continuously, as he had talked to Edith, walked on in front with her mother. The impulse made him more and more ashamed of himself, and yet he was so mean as to indulge it, feeling himself a cad, and nothing else. Edith laughed too, softly, under her breath. But she said quickly⁠—“We should not laugh at him, Mr. Erskine. He is a very good little man. He has done more than all of us put together. They called him Tommy in America,” said the traitress, with another suppressed laugh. John was for a moment softened by the “we” with which she began, and the gibe with which she ended. But his ill-humour and jealous rage were too much for him.

“He is Marquis of Millefleurs, and he will be Duke of Lavender,” he said, with an energy which was savage, trampling down the tough heather under his feet.

Edith turned and looked at him with astonished eyes. It was a revelation to her also, though for the first moment she scarcely knew of what. “Do you think it is for that reason we like him, Mr. Erskine? How strange!” she said, and turned her eyes away with a proud movement of her head, full of indignation and scorn. John felt himself the pettiness and petulance of which he had been guilty; but he was very unhappy, and it seemed to him impossible to say or do anything by which he might get himself pardoned. So he walked along moodily by her side, saying nothing, while Lord Millefleurs held forth just a few steps in advance. Edith bent forward to hear what he was saying, in the continued silence of her companion, and this was a renewed draught of wormwood and gall to John, though it was his own fault. It was with relief that he put the ladies into their carriage, and saw them drive away, though this relief was changed into angry impatience when he found that Millefleurs lingered with the intention of walking, and evidently calculated upon his company. The little Marquis, indeed, took his arm with friendly ease, and turned him with gentle compulsion towards the avenue. “You are going to walk with me,” he said. “An excellent thing in Scotland is that it is never too warm to walk, even for me. Come and talk a little. I have been telling tales about myself. I have not heard anything of you. The first is such an easy subject. One has one’s little experiences, which are different from anyone else’s; and wherever there are kind women you find your audience, don’t you know?”

“No, I don’t know,” said John, abruptly. “It never occurs to me to talk about myself. I can’t see what interest anybody can have in things that happen to me. Besides, few things do happen for that matter,” he added, in an undertone.

“My dear fellow,” said Millefleurs, “I don’t want to appear to teach you, who are a man of much more intelligence than I. But that ith a mithtake, I must say it. You can always talk best on the subject you know best. Don’t you find it a great difference coming here after knocking about the world? Yes, I feel it; but society is quite fresh to me, as fresh as California while it lasts. Then I have had my eyes opened as to my duties. My father and mother are as kind as possible. A friend of mine tells me, and I am partly convinced, that to keep them comfortable is my chief business. You are of that opinion too? there is much to be said for it. It belongs to civilisation; but so long as civilisation lasts, perhaps⁠—And so I am going to marry and range myself,” Millefleurs said, with his air of ineffable self-satisfaction, turning up the palms of his fat pink-tinged hands.

“Really!” John cried, with faint derision, feeling as if this innocent exclamation were an oath. “And the lady?” he added, with a still more fierce laugh.

Millefleurs gave his arm a little squeeze. “Not settled yet,” he said⁠—“not settled yet. I have seen a great many. There are so many pretty persons in society. If anyone of them would ask me, I have no doubt I should be perfectly happy; but choice is always disagreeable. In America also,” he added, with some pathos, “there are many very pretty persons: and they like a title. The field is very wide. Let us take an easier subject. Is Beaufort coming to you?”

“His answer is very enigmatical,” said John. “I do not know whether he means to come or not.”

“He is enigmatical,” said Millefleurs. “He is the queerest fellow. What is the connection between him and the family here?”

This question took John entirely by surprise. It was so sudden, both in form and meaning. He had expected his companion, before he paused, to go on for at least five minutes more. He hesitated in spite of himself.

“There is no connection that I know of between him and the family here.”

“Oh yes, yes, there is,” said Millefleurs, with gentle pertinacity; “think a minute. Erskine, my dear fellow, forgive me, but you must have Beaufort here. If he is not near me, he will lose the confidence of my papa⁠—who will think Beaufort is neglecting his precious son. I speak to you with perfect freedom. Beaufort and I understand each other. I am in no need of a governor, but he is in want of a protégé. Don’t you see? By this arrangement everything is made comfortable. Beaufort understands me. He knows that control is a mistake in my case. He found me and brought me home, because I was already on my way: he keeps me from harm⁠—for what you call harm has no attraction for me, don’t you know. It is only my curiosity that has to be kept in check, and at present I have plenty to occupy that; but my father does not understand all this. Minds of that generation are a little limited, don’t you know. They don’t see so clearly as one would wish them to see. If Beaufort is long away from me, he will think I am in danger⁠—that I may bolt again. Also, it will interfere with Beaufort’s prospects, which the Duke is to take charge of⁠—”

“But this seems to me rather⁠—not quite straightforward on Beaufort’s part,” said John.

At this little Millefleurs shrugged his plump shoulders. “It is permitted to humour our elders,” he said. “It pleases them and it does no one any harm. Beaufort, don’t you know, is not a fellow to walk alone. He is clever and all that; but he will never do anything by himself. Between him and me it suits very well. So, to save the Duke’s feelings and to help Beaufort on, you must stretch a point and have him here. It will be thought he is watching over me at a little distance like the sweet little cherub, don’t you know, in the song. What objection have they got to seeing him here?”

“None that I know of,” said John steadily, turning his face to the other side to escape the scrutiny of those small black bead-like eyes.

“Oh come, come, come!” said little Millefleurs, remonstrating yet coaxing, patting him lightly on the arm, “one sees it must have been one of the daughters. It will do no harm to tell me. Am I such an ignorant? These things are happening every day. Is it this one here?⁠—”

“What are you thinking of?” cried John, angrily. “Lady Edith was only a child.”

“Ah! then it was the other one,” Millefleurs said, seriously; “that suits me better. It would have been a trifle ridiculous⁠—Beaufort might keep in the background if there is any reason for it: but we must really think of the Duke. He will be in a state of mind, don’t you know, and so will my mother. They will think I have bolted again.”

“And when is it,” said John satirically, for he was sick at heart and irritable in the discovery which he had made, “that Beaufort’s mission is to be accomplished, and the Duke to fulfil his hopes?”

Millefleurs laughed a soft rich laugh, not loud. “My dear fellow,” he said, “that is when I marry, don’t you know. That is my occupation now in the world. When I have a wife, the other will be off duty. I am much interested in my occupation at present. It brings so many specimens of humanity under one’s eyes. So different⁠—for women are just as different as men, though you don’t think so perhaps. It might make a man vain,” he said, turning out his pink-tinged palm, “to see how many fair creatures will take notice of him; but then one remembers that it was not always so, and that takes one down again. In California I was liked, I am proud to say, but not admired. It was, perhaps, more amusing. But I must not be ungrateful: for life everywhere is very entertaining. And here are fresh fields and pastures new,” said the little man. “When you have a pursuit, every new place is doubly interesting. It does not matter whether you are hunting or botanising or⁠—, a pursuit gives interest to all things. Now is the time for the country and rural character. I sometimes think it is that which will suit me best.”

“Then I suppose you are on a tour of inspection, and one of our country young ladies may have the honour of pleasing you,” said John, somewhat fiercely. His companion, looking up in his face with deprecating looks, patted his arm as a kind of protest.

“Don’t be brutal, Erskine,” he said with his little lisp; “such things are never said.” John would have liked to take him in his teeth and shake him as a dog does, so angry was he, and furious. But little Millefleurs meant no harm. He drew his old schoolfellow along with him, as long as John’s civility held out. Then, to see him strolling along with his little hat pushed on the top of his little round head, and all the curves of his person repeating the lines of that circle! John stopped to look after him with a laugh which he could scarcely restrain so long as Millefleurs was within hearing. It was an angry laugh, though there was nothing in the young man to give occasion for it. There was nothing really in him that was contemptible, for to be plump is not an offence by any code. But John watched him with the fiercest derision going along the country road with his cane held in two fingers, his hat curling in the brim, his locks curling the other way. And this was the man whom even Lady Lindores⁠—even she, a woman so superior to worldly motives⁠—condescended to scheme about. And Edith? was it possible that she, too⁠—even she? Everything seemed to have turned to bitterness in John’s soul. Tinto before him in the distance, with its flaunting flag, gave emphasis to the discovery he had made. For mere money, nothing else, one had been sacrificed. The other, was she to be sacrificed, too? Was there nothing but wealth to be thought of all the world over, even by the best people, by women with every tender grace and gift? When he thought of the part in the drama allotted to himself⁠—to entertain Beaufort, who was the keeper of Millefleurs, in order that Millefleurs might be at liberty to follow his present pursuit, John burst into a laugh not much more melodious than that of Torrance. Beaufort and he could condole with each other. They could communicate, each to each, their several disappointments. But to bring to the neighbourhood this man whom Carry dared not see, whom with such tragic misery in her face she had implored John to keep at a distance⁠—and that it should be her parents who were bringing him in cold blood in order to advance their schemes for her sister⁠—was it possible that anything so base or cruel could be?

XXIV

“The thing is, that he must be brought to the point. I said so in town. He dangled after her all the season, and he’s dangled after her down here. The little beggar knows better than that. He knows that sharp people would never stand it. He is trusting to your country simplicity. When a man does not come to the point of his own accord, he must be led to it⁠—or driven to it, for that matter,” said Rintoul. He was out of humour, poor fellow. He had gone astray in his own person. His disapproval of his mother and of everybody belonging to him was nothing in comparison with his disapproval of himself. This put him out in every way: instead of making him tolerant of the others who were no worse than himself, it made him rampant in his wisdom. If it was so that he could not persuade or force himself into the right way, then was it more and more necessary to persuade or force other people. He took a high tone with Lady Lindores, all the more because he had discovered with astonishment, and a comical sort of indignation, that his mother had come over to his way of thinking. He could not believe it to be possible at first, and afterwards this inconsistent young man had felt disgusted with the new accomplice whom he had in his heart believed incapable of any such conversion. But such being the case, there was no need to ménager her susceptibilities. “Or driven to it,” he repeated with emphasis. “I shall not stand by, I promise you, and see my sister planté là⁠—”

“You have used these words before, Rintoul. They disgust me, and they offend me,” said his mother. “I will not be a party to anything of the kind. Those who do such things dishonour the girl⁠—oh, far more than anything else can do. She does not care at all for him. Most likely she would refuse him summarily.”

“And you would let her⁠—refuse a dukedom?” cried Rintoul.

“Refuse a⁠—man whom she does not care for. What could I do? I should even like now, after all that has happened, that it should come to something; but if she found that she could not marry him, how could I interfere?”

“Jove! but I should interfere,” cried Rintoul, pacing up and down the room. “How could you help interfering? Would you suffer me to throw away all my prospects?” Here he paused, with a curious, half-threatening, half-deprecating look. Perhaps his mother would be one who would suffer him to sacrifice his prospects. Perhaps she would sympathise with him even in that wrongdoing. She was capable of it. He looked at her with mingled disdain and admiration. She was a woman who was capable of applauding him for throwing himself away. What folly! and yet perhaps it was good to have a mother like that. But not for Edith, whose case was of an altogether different complexion from his own. He made a pause, and then he added in a slightly louder tone, being excited: “But he must not be allowed to dangle on forever. When a fellow follows a girl into the country he must mean something. You may take my word for that.”

At this moment the handle of the door gave a slight clink; a soft step was audible. “Pardon me for disturbing you, dearest lady,” said the mellifluous voice of Millefleurs. The little Marquis had a foot which made no sound on the carpet. He was daintily attired, and all his movements were noiseless. He came upon the sestartled conspirators like a ghost. “Send me away if I am de trop,” he said, clasping his plump hands. “It is my hour of audience, but Rintoul has the first claim.”

“Oh, I don’t want any audience,” said Rintoul. He had exchanged an anxious glance with his mother, and both had reddened in spite of themselves. Not to betray that you have been discussing someone who appears, while the words of criticism are still on your lips, is difficult at all times; and Rintoul, feeling confused and guilty, was anxious to give the interrupted conversation an air of insignificance. “My mother and I have no secrets. She is not so easy as the mothers in society,” he said, with a laugh.

“No!” said Millefleurs, folding his hands with an air of devotion. “I would not discuss the chronique scandaleuse, if that is what you mean, in Lady Lindores’s hearing. The air is pure here; it is like living out of doors. There is no dessous des cartes⁠—no behind the scenes.”

“What does the little beggar mean?” Rintoul said to himself, feeling red and uncomfortable. Lady Lindores took up her work, which was her flag of distress. She felt herself humiliated beyond description. To think that she should be afraid of anyone overhearing what she said or what her son had said to her! She felt her cheeks burn and tingle; her needle trembled in her fingers; and then there ensued a most uncomfortable pause. Had he heard what they were saying? Rintoul did not go away, which would have been the best policy, but stood about, taking up books and throwing them down again, and wearing, which was the last thing he wished to do, the air of a man disturbed in an important consultation. As a matter of fact, his mind was occupied with two troublesome questions: the first, whether Millefleurs had overheard anything; the second, how he could himself get away. Millefleurs very soon perceived and shared in this embarrassment. The phrase which had been uttered as he opened the door had reached his ear without affecting his mind for the first moment. Perhaps if he had not perceived the embarrassment of the speaker he would not have given any weight to the words⁠—“When a fellow follows⁠—” Funny alliteration! he said to himself. And then he saw that the mother and son were greatly disturbed by his entrance. He was as much occupied by wondering what they could mean, as they were by wondering if he had heard. But he was the first to cut the difficulty. He said, “Pardon me, dear lady, I have forgotten something. I’ll come back directly if you’ll let me”⁠—and went out. Certainly there had been some discussion going on between mother and son. Perhaps Rintoul had got into debt, perhaps into love; both were things which occurred daily, and it was always best when such a subject had been started between parent and child that they should have it out. So he withdrew, but with that phrase still buzzing in his ears, “When a fellow follows⁠—” It was a comical combination of words; he could not get rid of it, and presently it began to disturb his mind. Instead of going to the library or any of the other rooms in the house, he went outside with the sensation of having something to reflect upon, though he could not be sure what it was. By-and-by the entire sentence came to his recollection. “When a fellow follows a girl into the country⁠—but then, who is it that has followed the girl into the country?⁠—Rintoul?⁠—” This cost him about five minutes’ thought. Then little Millefleurs stopped short in the midst of the path, and clasped his hands against his plump bosom, and turned up his eyes to heaven. “Why! it is I!⁠—” he said to himself, being more grammatical than most men in a state of agitation. He stood for a whole minute in this attitude, among the big blue-green araucarias which stood around. What a subject for a painter if there had been one at hand! It was honour confronting fate. He had not intended anything so serious. He liked, he would have said loved, the ladies of the house. He would not have hesitated anywhere to give full utterance to this sentiment: and to please his father, and to amuse himself, he was consciously on the search for someone who might be suitable for the vacant post of Marchioness of Millefleurs. And he had thought of Edith in that capacity⁠—certainly he had thought of her. So had he thought of various other young ladies in society, turning over their various claims. But it had not occurred to him to come to any sudden decision, or to think that necessary. As he stood there, however, with his eyes upraised, invoking aid from that paternal Providence which watches over marquises, a flood of light spread over the subject and all its accessories. Though he had not thought of them, he knew the prejudices of society; and all that Rintoul had said about leaving a girl planté là was familiar to him. “When a fellow follows” (absurd alliteration! said Millefleurs, with his lisp, to himself) “a girl into the country, he muth mean thomething⁠—” and once more he clasped his hands and pressed them to his breast. His eyes, raised to heaven, took a languishing look; a smile of consciousness played about his mouth; but this was only for a moment, and was replaced at once by a look of firm resolution. No maiden owed her scath to Millefleurs: though he was so plump, he was the soul of honour. Not for a moment could he permit it to be supposed that he was trifling with Edith Lindores, amusing himself⁠—any of those pretty phrases in use in society. He thought with horror of the possibility of having compromised her, even though, so far as he was himself concerned, the idea was not disagreeable. In five minutes⁠—for he had a quick little brain and the finest faculty of observation, a quality cultivated in his race by several centuries of social eminence⁠—Millefleurs had mastered the situation. All the instructions that Rintoul had so zealously endeavoured to convey to his mother’s mind became apparent to Millefleurs in the twinkling of an eye. It would be said that he had left her planté là; he allowed himself no illusion on the subject. So it might be said⁠—but so it never must be said of Edith Lindores. He was perfectly chivalrous in his instant decision. He was not to say in love⁠—though did Providence bestow any one of five or six young ladies, among whom Edith stood high, upon him, Millefleurs felt positively convinced that he would be the happiest man in the world. And he was not sure that he might not be running the risk of a refusal, a thing which is very appalling to a young man’s imagination. But notwithstanding this danger, Millefleurs, without hesitation, braced himself up to do his duty. He buttoned his coat, took off his hat and put it on again, and then pulling himself together, went off without a moment’s hesitation in search of Lord Lindores.

An hour later the Earl entered his lady’s chamber with a countenance in which gratification, and proud content in an achieved success, were only kept in check by the other kind of pride which would not permit it to be perceived that this success was anything out of the ordinary. He told her his news in a few brief words, which Lady Lindores received with so much agitation, turning from red to white, and with such an appearance of vexation and pain, that the Earl put on his sternest aspect. “What is the meaning of all this flurry and disturbance?” he said. “I hope we are not going to have it all over again, as we had before Carry’s wedding.”

“Oh, don’t speak of poor Carry’s wedding in comparison with this. This, God grant it, if it comes to pass, will be no degradation⁠—no misery⁠—”

“Not much degradation, certainly⁠—only somewhere about the best position in England,” with angry scorn Lord Lindores said.

But the lines were not smoothed away from his wife’s forehead, nor did the flush of shame and pain leave her face. She looked at him for a moment, to see whether she should tell him. But why poison his pleasure? “It is not his fault,” she said to herself; and all that she gave utterance to was an anxious exclamation: “Provided that Edith sees as we do!”

“She must see as we do,” Lord Lindores said.

But when Rintoul came in, his mother went to him and seized his arm with both her hands. “He heard what you said!” she cried, with anguish in her voice. “Now I shall never be able to hold up my head in his presence⁠—he heard what you said!”

Rintoul too, notwithstanding his more enlightened views, was somewhat red. Though it was in accordance with his principles, yet the fact of having helped to force, in any way, a proposal for his sister, caused him an unpleasant sensation. He tried to carry it off with a laugh. “Anyhow, since it has brought him to the point,” he said.

This was the day on which Millefleurs was to be taken to Tinto to see the house and all its curiosities and wealth. In view of this he had begged that nothing might be said to Edith, with a chivalrous desire to save her pain should her answer be unfavourable. But how could Lady Lindores keep such a secret from her daughter? While she was still full of the excitement, the painful triumph, the terror and shame with which she had received the news, Edith came in to the morning room, which today had been the scene of so many important discussions. They had been perhaps half an hour together, going gaily on with the flood of lighthearted conversation about anything and nothing which is natural between a girl and her mother, when she suddenly caught a glimpse in a mirror of Lady Lindores’s troubled face. The girl rushed to her instantly, took this disturbed countenance between her hands, and turned it with gentle force towards her. Her own face grew grave at once. “Something is the matter,” she said; “something has happened. Oh, mother, darling, what is it? Something about Carry?”

“No, no; nothing, nothing! Certainly nothing that is unhappy⁠—Don’t question me now, Edith. Afterwards, you shall know it all.”

“Let me know it now,” the girl said; and she insisted with that filial tyranny against which mothers are helpless. At last Lady Lindores, being pressed into a corner, murmured something about Lord Millefleurs. “If he speaks to you tonight, oh, my darling⁠—if he asks you⁠—do not be hasty; say nothing, say nothing, without thought.”

“Speaks to me⁠—asks me!”⁠—Edith stood wonder-stricken, her eyes wide open, her lips apart. “What should he ask me?” She grew a little pale in spite of herself.

“My dearest! what should he ask you? What is it that a young man asks⁠—in such circumstances? He will ask you⁠—perhaps⁠—to marry him.”

Edith gave a kind of shriek⁠—and then burst into a peal of agitated laughter. “Mother, dear, what a fright you have given me! I thought⁠—I didn’t know what to think. Poor little man! Don’t let him do it⁠—don’t let him do it, mamma! It would make us both ridiculous, and if it made him at all⁠—unhappy; but that is nonsense⁠—you are only making fun of me,” said the girl, kissing her, with a hurried eagerness as if to silence her. Lady Lindores drew herself away from her daughter’s embrace.

“Edith, it is you who are making yourself ridiculous⁠—consider how he has sought you all this time⁠—and he came after you to the country. I have felt what⁠—was coming all along. My dearest, did not you suspect it too?”

Edith stood within her mother’s arm, but she was angry and held herself apart, not leaning upon the bosom where she had rested so often. “I suspect it! how could I suspect it?” she cried. It went to Lady Lindores’s heart to feel her child straighten herself up, and keep apart from her and all her caresses.

“Edith, for God’s sake, do not set yourself against it! Think, only think⁠—”

“What has God got to do with it, mother?” the young creature cried sternly. “I will set myself against it⁠—nay, more than that, I am not like Carry; nothing in the world will make me do it⁠—not any reason, not any argument.” She was still encircled by her mother’s arm, but she stood straight, upright, erect as a willow-wand, unyielding, drawing her garments, as it were, about her, insensible to the quivering lines of her mother’s upturned face, and the softer strain of her embrace. No, not indifferent⁠—but resisting⁠—shutting her eyes to them, holding herself apart.

“For heaven’s sake, Edith! Oh, my darling, think how different this is from the other! Your father has set his heart on it, and I wish it too. And Millefleurs is⁠—Millefleurs will be⁠—”

“Is this how you persuaded Carry?” cried Edith, with sad indignation; “but mother, mother, listen! not me. It is better that never another word should be said between us on this subject, for I will never do it, whatever may be said. If my father chooses to speak to me, I will give him my answer. Let us say no more⁠—not another word;” and with this the girl unbent and threw herself upon her mother, and stopped her mouth with kisses, indignant, impassioned⁠—her cheeks hot and flushed, her eyes full of angry tears.

It may be thought that the drive to Tinto of this strange party, all palpitating with the secret which each thought unknown to the other, was a curious episode enough. Millefleurs, satisfied with himself, and feeling the importance of his position with so much to bestow, found, he thought, a sympathetic response in the look of Lady Lindores, to whom, no doubt, as was quite right, her husband had disclosed the great news; but he thought that Edith was entirely ignorant of it. And Edith and her mother had their secret on their side, the possession of which was more momentous still. But they all talked and smiled with the little pleasantries and criticisms that are inevitable in the conversation of persons of the highest and most cultivated classes, and did not betray what was in their hearts.

XXV

John Erskine was on the steps leading to the great central entrance when the carriage from Lindores drove up at the door. It was not by chance that he found himself there, for he was aware of the intended visit; and with the sombre attraction which the sight of a rival and an adversary has for a man, felt himself drawn towards the scene in which an act of this drama in which his happiness was involved, was going on. He hurried down before the footman to get to the carriage-door, and hand the ladies out. He had seen them several times since that day when Lady Lindores, unused to deception, had allowed the secret to slip from her. And he had accustomed himself to the fact that Millefleurs, who was in person and aspect so little alarming, but in other ways the most irresistible of rivals, was in full possession of the field before him. But John, with quickened insight, had also perceived that no decisive step had as yet been taken, and with infinite relief was able to persuade himself that Edith as yet was no party to the plot, and was unaware what was coming. He saw in a moment now that some important change had come over the state of affairs. Lady Lindores avoided his eye, but Edith looked at him, he thought, with a sort of appeal in her face⁠—a question⁠—a wondering demand, full of mingled defiance and deprecation. So much in one look!⁠—and yet there seemed to him even more than all this. What had happened? Millefleurs was conscious too. There was a self-satisfaction about him more evident, more marked than usual. He put out his chest a little more. He held his head higher, though he refrained from any special demonstration in respect to Edith. There was an air about him as of a man who had taken some remarkable initiative. His very step touched the ground with more weight: his round eyes contemplated all things with a more bland and genial certainty of being able to solve every difficulty. And Rintoul had a watchful look as of a man on his guard⁠—a keen spectator vigilantly attentive to everything; uncertain whether even yet he might not be called upon to interfere. All this John Erskine saw at one glance⁠—not clearly as it is set down here, but vaguely, with confused perceptions which he could not disentangle, which conveyed no distinct information to his mind, but only a warning, an intimation which set every vein of him tingling. Lady Lindores would not meet his eye; but Edith looked at him with that strange look of question⁠—How much do you know? it seemed to say. What do you suspect? and with a flash of indignation⁠—Do you suspect me? Do you doubt me? He thought there was all this, or something like it, in her eyes; and yet he could not tell what they meant, nor, so far as she was concerned, what length her knowledge went. He met her look with one in which another question bore the chief part. But it was much less clear to Edith what that question meant. They were all as conscious as it was possible for human creatures each shut up within the curious envelope of his own identity, imperfectly comprehending any other, to be. The air tingled with meaning round them. They were all aware, strangely, yet naturally, of standing on the edge of fate.

Lady Caroline and her husband received this party in the great drawing-room which was used on state occasions: everything had been thrown open professedly that Lord Millefleurs should see, but really that Lord Millefleurs should be dazzled by, the splendour which Torrance devoutly believed to be unrivalled. It was in order that he might see the effect of all the velvet and brocade, all the gilding and carving, upon the stranger, that he had waited to receive the party from Lindores with his wife, a thing quite unusual to him; and he was in high expectation and good-humour, fully expecting to be flattered and gratified. There was a short pause of mutual civilities to begin with, during which Torrance was somewhat chilled and affronted to see that the little Marquis remained composed, and displayed no awe, though he looked about him with his quick little round eyes.

“You will have heard, Lady Caroline, how I have lost any little scrap of reputation I ever had,” Millefleurs said, clasping his plump hands. “I am no shot: it is true, though I ought to be ashamed to acknowledge it. And I don’t care to follow flying things on foot. If there was a balloon indeed! I am an impostor at this season. I am occupying the place of some happy person who might make a large bag every day.”

“But there is room for all those happy persons without disturbing you⁠—who have other qualities,” said Carry, with her soft pathetic smile. There was a little tremor about her, and catching of her breath, for she did not know at what moment might occur that name which always agitated her, however she might fortify herself against it.

“If not at Lindores, there’s always plenty of room at Tinto,” said Torrance, with ostentatious openness. “There’s room for a regiment here. I have a few fellows coming for the partridges, but not half enough to fill the house. Whenever you like, you and your belongings, as many as you please, whether it’s servants⁠—or guardians,” Torrance said, with his usual rude laugh.

Something like an electric shock ran round the company. Millefleurs was the only one who received it without the smallest evidence of understanding what it was. He looked up in Torrance’s face with an unmoved aspect. “I don’t travel with a suite,” he said, “though I am much obliged to you all the same. It is my father who carries all sorts of people about with him. And I love my present quarters,” said the little Marquis, directing a look towards Lady Lindores of absolute devotion. “I will not go away unless I am sent away. A man who has knocked about the world knows when he is well off. I will go to Erskine, and be out of the way during the hours when I am de trop.”

“Erskine is filling his house too, I suppose,” Torrance said. And then having got all that was practicable in the shape of offence out of this subject, he proposed that they should make the tour of what had been always called the state apartments at Tinto. “There’s a few things to show,” he said, affecting humility; “not much to you who have been about the world as you say, but still a few things that we think something of in this out-of-the-way place.” Then he added, “Lady Car had better be the showman, for she knows more about them than I do⁠—though I was born among them.” This was the highest possible pleasure to Pat Torrance. To show off his possessions, to which he professed to be indifferent, with an intended superiority in his rude manliness to anything so finicking, by means of his wife⁠—his proudest and finest possession of all⁠—was delightful to him. He lounged after them, keeping close to the party, ready with all his being to enjoy Lady Car’s description of the things that merited admiration. He was in high good-humour, elated with the sense of his position as her husband and the owner of all this grandeur. He felt that the little English lord would now see what a Scotch country gentleman could be, what a noble distinguished wife he could get for himself, and what a house he could bring her to. Unfortunately, Lord Millefleurs, whose delight was to talk about Californian miners and their habitudes, was familiar with greater houses than Tinto, and had been born in the purple, and slept on rose-leaves all his life. He admired politely what he was evidently expected to admire, but he gave vent to no enthusiasm. When they came to the great dining-room, with its huge vases and marble pillars, he looked round upon it with a countenance of complete seriousness, not lightened by any gratification. “Yes⁠—I see: everything is admirably in keeping,” he said; “an excellent example of the period. It is so seldom one sees this sort of thing nowadays. Everybody has begun to try to improve, don’t you know; and the mieux is always the ennemi du bien. This is all of a piece, don’t you know. It is quite perfect of its kind.”

“What does the little beggar mean?” it was now Torrance’s turn to say to himself. It sounded, no doubt, like praise, but his watchful suspicion and jealousy were roused. He tried his usual expedient of announcing how much it had cost; but Millefleurs⁠—confound the little beggar!⁠—received the intimation with perfect equanimity. He was not impressed. He made Torrance a little bow, and said with his lisp, “Yeth, very cothtly alwayth⁠—the materials are all so expensive, don’t you know.” But he could not be brought to say anything more. Even Lady Caroline felt depressed by his gravity; for insensibly, though she ought to have known better, she had got to feel that all the wealth of Tinto⁠—its marbles, its gilding, its masses of ornate plate, and heavy decorations⁠—must merit consideration. They had been reckoned among the things for which she had been sacrificed⁠—they were part of her price, so to speak: and if they were not splendid and awe-inspiring, then her sacrifice had indeed been made in vain. Poor Lady Caroline was not in a condition to meet with any further discouragement; and to feel that her husband was beginning to lose his air of elated good-humour, gave an additional tremor to the nervousness which possessed her. She knew what he would say about “your fine friends,” and how he would swear that no such visitors should ever be asked to his house again. She went on mechanically saying her little lesson by heart, pointing out all the great pieces of modern Sèvres and Dresden. Her mind was full of miserable thoughts. She wanted to catch John Erskine’s eye, to put an imploring question to him with eyes or mouth. “Is he coming?” This was what she wanted to say. But she could not catch John Erskine’s eye, who was gloomily walking behind her by the side of Edith saying nothing. Lady Caroline could not help remarking that neither of these two said a word. Lady Lindores and Rintoul kept up a kind of skirmishing action around them, trying now to draw one, now the other, into conversation, and get them apart. But the two kept by each other like a pair in a procession⁠—yet never spoke.

“The period, dear lady?” said Millefleurs⁠—“I am not up to the last novelties of classification, nor scientific, don’t you know; but I should say Georgian, late Georgian, or verging upon the times of the Royal William”⁠—he gave a slight shiver as he spoke, perhaps from cold, for the windows were all open, and there was a draught. “But perfect of its kind,” he added with a little bow, and a seriousness which was more disparaging than abuse. Even Lady Carry smiled constrainedly, and Torrance, with a start, awoke to his sense of wrong, and felt that he could bear no more.

“George or Jack,” he cried, “I don’t know anything about periods; this I do know, that it ran away with a great deal of money⁠—money none of us would mind having in our pockets now.” He stared at Rintoul as he spoke, but even Rintoul looked as if he were indifferent, which galled the rich man more and more. “My Lady Countess and my Lord Marquis,” he said, with an elaborate mocking bow, “I’ll have to ask you to excuse me. I’ve got⁠—something to do that I thought I could get off⁠—but I can’t, don’t you know;” and here he laughed again, imitating as well as he was able the seraphic appeal to the candour of his hearers, which Millefleurs was so fond of making. The tone, the words, the aspect of the man, taught Millefleurs sufficiently (who was the only stranger) that he had given offence; and the others drew closer, eager to make peace for Carry’s sake, who was smiling with the ordinary effort of an unhappy wife to make the best of it and represent to the others that it was only her husband’s “way.”

But Torrance’s ill-humour was not as usual directed towards his wife. When he looked at her, his face, to her great astonishment, softened. It was a small matter that did it; the chief reason was that he saw a look of displeasure⁠—of almost offence⁠—upon his wife’s countenance too. She was annoyed with the contemptible little English lord as much as he was. This did not take away his rage, but it immediately gave him that sense that his wife was on his side, for which the rough fellow had always longed⁠—and altered his aspect at once. As he stood looking at them, with his large light eyes projecting from their sockets, a flush of offence on his cheeks, a forced laugh on his mouth, his face softened all in a moment. This time she was no longer the chief antagonist to be subdued, but his natural supporter and champion. He laid his heavy hand upon her shoulder, with a pride of proprietorship which for once she did not seem to contest. “Lady Car,” he said, “she’s my deputy: she’ll take care of you better than I.”

Lady Caroline, with an involuntary, almost affectionate response, put her hand on his arm. “Don’t go,” she said, lifting her face to him with an eloquence of suppressed and tremulous emotion all about her, which indeed had little reference to this ill-humour of his, but helped to dignify it, and take away the air of trivial rage and mortification which had been too evident at first. Lady Lindores, too, made a step forward with the same intention. He stood and looked at them with a curious medley of feeling, touched at once by the pleasure of a closer approach to his wife, and by a momentary tragic sense of being entirely outside of this group of people to whom he was so closely related. They were his nearest connections, and yet he did not belong to them, never could belong to them! They were of a different species⁠—another world altogether. Lady Car could take care of them. She could understand them, and know their ways; but not he. They were all too fine for him, out of his range, thinking different thoughts, pretending even (for it must surely have been mere pretence) to despise his house, which everybody knew was the great house of the district, infinitely grander than the castle or any other place in the county. He was deeply wounded by this unlooked-for cutting away of the ground from under his feet: but Lady Car was on his side. She could manage them though he could not. Not one of them was equal to her, and it was to him that she belonged. He laughed again, but the sound of his laugh was not harsh as it had been before. “No, no; Lady Car will take care of you,” he said.

“I hope,” said Millefleurs in his mellifluous tones, “that it is not this intrusion of ours that is sending Mr. Torrance away. I know what a nuisance people are coming to luncheon in the middle of an occupied day. Send us away, Lady Caroline, or rather send me away, who am the stranger. Erskine will take me with him to Dalrulzian, and another day I shall return and see the rest of your splendours.”

“Mr. Torrance has really business,” said Carry; “mamma will show you the other rooms, while I speak to my husband.” She went swiftly, softly, after him, as his big figure disappeared in the long vista of the great dining-room. After a moment’s pause of embarrassment, the rest went on. Carry hurried trembling after her tyrant. When they were out of hearing she called him anxiously. “Oh, don’t go, Pat. How do you think I can entertain such a party when they know that you are offended, and will not stay?”

“You will get on better without me,” he said. “I can’t stand these fellows and their airs. It isn’t any fault of yours, Lady Car. Come, I’m pleased with you. You’ve stood by your own this time, I will say that for you. But they’re your kind, they’re not mine. Dash the little beggar, what a cheek he has! I’m not used to hear the house run down. But never mind, I don’t care a pin⁠—and it’s not your fault this time, Car,” he said, with a laugh, touching her cheek with his finger with a touch which was half a blow and half a caress. This was about as much tenderness as he was capable of showing. Carry followed him to the door, and saw him plunge down the great steps, and turn in the direction of the stables. Perhaps she was not sorry to avoid all further occasion of offence. She returned slowly through the long, vulgar, costly rooms⁠—a sigh of relief came from her overladen heart; but relief in one point made her but more painfully conscious of another. In the distance Millefleurs was examining closely all the ormolu and finery. As she came in sight of the party, walking slowly like the worn creature she was, feeling as if all the chances of life were over for her, and she herself incomparably older, more weary and exhausted than any of them, and her existence a worn-out thing apart from the brighter current of every day, there remained in her but one flicker of personal anxiety, one terror which yet could make everything more bitter. The group was much the same as when she left them⁠—Lady Lindores with Millefleurs, Edith and John silent behind them, Rintoul in a sort of general spectatorship, keeping watch upon the party. Carry touched John Erskine’s arm furtively and gave him an entreating look. He turned round to her alarmed.

“Lady Caroline! can I do anything? What is it?” he said.

She drew him back into a corner of the great room with its marble pillars. She was so breathless that she could hardly speak. “It is nothing⁠—it is only⁠—a question. Are you expecting⁠—people⁠—at Dalrulzian?”

Carry’s soft eyes had expanded to twice their size, and looked at him out of two caves of anxiety and hollow paleness. She gave him her hand unawares, as if asking him by that touch more than words could say. John was moved to the heart.

“I think not⁠—I hope not⁠—I have no answer. No, no, there will be no one,” he said.

She sank down into a chair with a faint smile. “You will think me foolish⁠—so very foolish⁠—it is nothing to me. But⁠—I am always so frightened,” said poor Carry, with the first pretence that occurred to her, “when there is any dispeace.”

“There will be no dispeace,” said John, “in any case. But I am sure⁠—I can be certain⁠—there will be no one there.”

She smiled upon him again, and waved her hand to him to leave her. “I will follow you directly,” she said.

What emotions there were in this little group! Carry sat with her hand upon her heart, which fluttered still, getting back her breath. Every remission of active pain seems a positive good. She sat still, feeling the relief and ease flow over her like a stream of healing to her very feet. She would be saved the one encounter which she could not bear; and then for the moment he was absent, and there would be no struggle to keep him in good-humour, or to conceal from others his readiness to offend and take offence. Was this all the semblance of happiness that remained for Carry? For the moment she was satisfied with it, and took breath, and recovered a little courage, and was thankful in that deprivation of all things⁠—thankful that no positive pain was to be added to make everything worse; and that a brief breathing-time was hers for the moment, an hour of rest.

Edith looked at John as he came back. She had lingered, half waiting for him, just as if he had been her partner in a procession. In that moment of separation Rintoul allowed himself to go off guard. She looked at John, and almost for the first time spoke. “Carry has been talking to you,” she said hastily, in an undertone.

“Yes⁠—about visitors⁠—people who might be coming to stay with me.”

“Is anyone coming to stay with you?” she asked, quickly.

“Nobody,” John replied with fervour; “nor shall at any risk.”

This all passed in a moment while Rintoul was off guard. She looked at him again, wistfully, gratefully, and he being excited by his own feelings, and by sympathy with all this excitement which breathed around him in so many currents, was carried beyond all prudence, beyond all intention. “I will do anything,” he said, “to please you, and serve her, you know. It is nothing to offer. I am nobody in comparison with others; but what I have is all yours, and at your service⁠—the little that it is⁠—”

“Oh,” said Edith, in a mere breath of rapid, almost inaudible, response, “it is too much; it is too much.” She did not know what she said.

“Nothing is too much. I am not asking any return. I am not presumptuous; but I am free to give. Nobody can stop me from doing that,” said John, not much more clearly. It was all over in a moment. The people within a few yards of them scarcely knew they had exchanged a word; even Rintoul did not suspect any communication that was worth preventing. And next moment they separated. John, panting and breathless, as if he had been running a race, went up to where Millefleurs was discoursing upon some bit of upholstery, and stood by in the shelter of this discussion to let himself cool down. Edith kept behind in the shelter of her mother. And just then Carry came softly out of the door of the great dining-room from behind the marble pillars, having recovered herself, and called back the smile to her face. In the midst of all these emotions, Millefleurs talked smoothly on.

“My people,” he said, “have a place down in Flintshire that is a little like this, but not so perfect. My grandfather, or whoever it was, lost confidence before it was done, and mixed it up. But here, don’t you know, the confidence has been sublime; no doubt has been allowed to intrude. They say that in Scotland you are so absolute⁠—all or nothing, don’t you know. Whether in furniture or anything else, how fine that is!” said the little Marquis, turning up his palms. He looked quite absorbed in his subject, and as calm as a man in gingerbread. Nevertheless, he was the only person to notice that slight passage of conversation sotto voce, and the breathless condition in which John reached him. What had he been doing to put him out of breath?

When the house had been inspected, the party went to luncheon⁠—a very sumptuous meal, which was prepared in the great dining-room, and was far too splendid for an ordinary family party such as this was. John, whose excitement had rather increased than diminished, and who felt that he had altogether committed himself, without chance or hope of any improved relations, was not able to subdue himself to the point of sitting down at table. He took his leave in spite of the protests of the party. His heart was beating loudly, his pulses all clanging in his ears like a steam-engine. He did not get the chance even of a glance from Edith, who said goodbye to him in a tremulous voice, and did not look up. He saw her placed by the side of Millefleurs at table, as he turned away. He had all the modesty of genuine feeling⁠—a modesty which is sometimes another name for despair. Why should she take any notice of him? He had no right to aspire so high. Nothing to give, as he said, except as a mere offering⁠—a flower laid at her feet⁠—not a gift which was capable of a return. He said to himself that, so far as this went, there should be no deception in his mind. He would give his gift⁠—it was his pleasure to give it⁠—lavishly, with prodigal abundance; as a prince should give, expecting no return. In this he would have the better of all of them, he said to himself, as he went through the great house, where, except in the centre of present entertainment, all was silent like a deserted place. He would give more liberally, more magnificently, than any duke or duke’s son, for he would give all, and look for nothing in return. The feeling which accompanied this élan of entire self-devotion and abandonment of selfish hope gave him something of the same calm of exhaustion which was in Carry’s soul. He seemed to have come to something final, something from which there was no recovery. He could not sit down at table with them; but he could not go away any more than he could stay. He went out through the vacant hall, where nobody took any notice of his going or coming, and emerged upon the wide opening of the plateau, sheltered by fir-trees, upon which the house stood dominating the landscape. His was the only shadow that crossed the sunshine in front of the huge mass of building which was so noiseless outside, so full of life and emotion within. He could not go away any more than he could stay. He wandered to the fringe of trees which clothed the edge of the steep cliff above the river, and sat there on the bank gazing down on the depths below, till the sound of voices warned him that the party was moving from the dining-room. Then he hastened away to avoid them, taking the less frequented road which led by the Scaur. He had passed that dangerous spot, but the way was still narrow between the bushes, when he heard the hoofs of Torrance’s great black horse resounding upon the path. Pat was returning home after what had evidently been a wild gallop, for the powerful animal had his black coat flecked with foam, and was chewing the bit in his mouth. Torrance had almost passed without perceiving John, but catching a glimpse of him as he pushed along, suddenly drew up, making his horse rear and start. He had an air of heat and suppressed passion which corresponded with the foam and dishevelled looks of the horse. “Hollo!” he cried, “you, Erskine, have they broken up?” and sat swaying his great bulk with the impatient movements of the fagged yet fiery beast. John answered briefly, and was about to pass on, when Torrance gave him what was intended to be a playful poke with the end of his whip. “When’s your visitor coming?” he said, with his harsh laugh.

“My visitor! I expect no visitor,” said John, stepping back with anger which he could scarcely restrain. It was all he could do not to seize the whip, and snatch it out of the other’s hand. But neither the narrow path, nor the excited state in which both men were, was safe for any scuffle. John restrained himself with an effort.

“Oh yes, you are!” cried Torrance; “you let it out once, you know⁠—you can’t take in me. But I’m the last man in the world to find fault. Let him come! We’ll have him up to Tinto, and make much of him. I told you so before.”

“You seem to know my arrangements better than I know them myself,” John said, white with suppressed fury. “I have no visitor coming. Permit me to know my own affairs.”

“Ah! so you’ve forbidden him to come! Let me tell you, Mr. Erskine, that that’s the greatest insult of all. Why shouldn’t he come? he, or any fellow? Do you think I’m afraid of Lady Car?” and here his laugh rang into all the echoes. “Not a bit; I think more of her than that. You’re putting a slight on her when you ask any man not to come. Do you hear?”

“I hear perfectly, and would hear if you spoke lower. There’s enough of this, Torrance. I suppose it’s your way, and you don’t intend to be specially objectionable⁠—but I am not going to be questioned so, nor will I take the lie from any man,” cried John, with rising passion. There was scarcely room for him to stand in safety from the horse’s hoofs, and he was compelled to draw back among the bushes as the great brute pranced and capered.

“What! will you fight?” cried Torrance, with another laugh; “that’s all exploded nowadays⁠—that’s a business for Punch. Not that I mind: any way you please. Look here! here’s a fist that would soon master you. But it’s a joke, you know, nowadays; a joke, for Punch.”

“So much the worse,” cried John, hotly. “It was the only way of keeping in order a big bully like you.”

“Oh, that’s what you call me! If there was anyone to see fair play⁠—to you (for I’m twice your size)⁠—I’d let Blackie go, and give you your fill of that.”

John grasped instinctively at the bridle of the big black horse, which seemed charging down upon him; and for a moment the two men gazed at each other, over the tossing foam-flecked head, big eyeballs, and churning mouth. Then John let go the bridle at which he had caught, with an exclamation of scorn.

“Another time for that, if that is what you want,” he said.

“No,” cried the other, looking back, as the horse darted past⁠—“no, that’s not what I want; you’re an honest fellow⁠—you shall say what you please. We’ll shake hands⁠—” The horse carrying him off lost the rest of the words in the clang of jingling reins and half-maddened hoofs.

John went on very rapidly, excited beyond measure by the encounter. His face was flushed and hot; his hat, which had been knocked off his head, was stained with the damp red soil. He had torn his sleeve in the clutch he had made at the bridle. He dashed along the narrow road at a wild pace to calm himself down by rapid movement. A little way down he encountered a keeper crossing the road, who disappeared into the woods after a curious glance at his excited looks and torn coat. Further on, as he came out of the gate, he met, to his great astonishment, old Rolls, plodding along towards Tinto in company with another man, who met him at the gate. “Bless me, sir! what’s the maitter? Ye cannot walk the highroad like that!” was the first exclamation of old Rolls.

“Like what? Oh, my sleeve! I tore it just now on a⁠—on a⁠—catching a runaway horse. The brute was wild, I thought he would have had me down.” There was nothing in this that was absolutely untrue, at least nothing that it was not permissible to say in the circumstances, but the explanation was elaborate, as John felt. “And what are you doing here?” he said, peremptorily. “What do you want at Tinto?” It seemed almost a personal offence to him to find Rolls there.

“I have something to say to Tinto, sir, with all respect. My father was a tenant of his father⁠—a small tenant, not to call a farmer, something between that and a cotter⁠—and I’m wanting to speak a good word for my brother-in-law, John Tamson, that you will maybe mind.”

Upon this the man by Rolls’s side, who had been inspecting John curiously, at last persuaded himself to touch, not to take off, his hat, and to say: “Ay, sir, I’m John Tamson. I was the first to see ye the day ye cam’ first to Dalrulzian. I hae my wife ower by that’s good at her needle. Maybe ye’ll step in and she’ll shue your coat-sleeve for you. You canna gang like that all the gate to Dalrulzian. There’s no saying who ye may meet.”

John Erskine had not been awakened before to the strangeness of his appearance. He looked down upon his torn coat with a vague alarm. It was a start of the black horse while he held its bridle which had torn the sleeve out of its socket. While he was looking at this, with a disturbed air, the lodge-gates were thrown open and the Lindores’s carriage came through. Lady Lindores waved her hand to him, then bent forward to look at him with sudden surprise and alarm; but the horses were fresh, and swept along, carrying the party out of sight. Millefleurs was alone with the ladies in the carriage⁠—that John noticed without knowing why.

A minute after, accepting John Tamson’s offer of service, he went over with him to his cottage, where the wife immediately got her needle and thread, with much lamentation over the gentleman’s “gude black coat.” “Bless me, sir! it must have been an ill-willy beast that made ye give your arm a skreed like that,” she said: and John felt that his hand was unsteady and his nerves quivering. After all, it was no such great matter. He could not understand how it was that he had been agitated to such an extent by an encounter so slight.

XXVI

Old Rolls went up the road which led by the Scaur. It was shorter than the formal avenue, and less in the way of more important visitors. He was much distressed and “exercised in his mind” about the agitated appearance of his master⁠—his torn sleeve, and clothes stained with the soil. He pondered much on the sight as he walked up the road. John was not a man given to quarrelling, but he would seem to have been engaged in some conflict or other. “A runaway horse! where would he get a runaway horse at Tinto?” Rolls said to himself; “and Tinto was a man very likely to provoke a quarrel.” He hurried on, feeling that he was sure to hear all about it, and much concerned at the thought that anyone belonging to himself should bring discredit on the house in this way. But whether it was an excited fancy, or if there was some echo in the air of what had passed before, it seemed to Rolls that he heard, as he proceeded onwards, the sound of voices and conflict. “Will he have been but one among many?” he said within himself. “Will they be quarrelling on?⁠—and me an unprotected man?” he added, with a prudent thought of his own welfare. Then Rolls heard a wonderful concussion in the air⁠—he could not tell what, and then a solemn stillness. What was the meaning of this? It could have nothing to do with John. He turned up the narrow road down which John Erskine had once driven his dogcart, and which Torrance continually rode up and down. When he came to the opening of the Scaur, and saw the daylight breaking clear from the shadow of the overreaching boughs, Rolls stood still for a moment with consternation. Broken branches, leaves strewn about, the print of the horse’s hoofs all round the open space as if he had been rearing wildly, showed marks of a recent struggle⁠—he thought of his master, and his heart sank. But it was some time before his fears went any further. Where had the other party to the struggle gone? Just then he thought he heard a sound, something like a moan in the depths below. A terrible fear seized the old man. He rushed to the edge of the cliff, and gazed over with distracted looks. And then he gave utterance to a cry that rang through the woods: “Wha’s that lying doun there?” he cried. Something lay in a mass at the bottom of the high bank, red and rough, which descended to the water’s edge⁠—something, he could scarcely tell what, all heaped together and motionless. Rolls had opened his mouth to shout for help with the natural impulse of his horror and alarm, but another thought struck him at the moment, and kept him silent. Was it his master’s doing? With a gasp of misery, he felt that it must be so; and kneeling down distracted on the edge of the Scaur, catching at the roots of the trees to support himself, he craned over to see what it was, who it was, and whether he could do anything for the sufferer, short of calling all the world to witness this terrible sight. But the one explanation Rolls gave seemed to thrill the woods. He felt a hand touch him as he bent over the edge, and nearly lost his precarious footing in his terror. “Is’t you, sir, come to look at your handiwork?” he said, solemnly turning upon the person whom he supposed to be his master. But it was not his master. It was Lord Rintoul, as pale as death, and trembling. “What⁠—what is it?” he asked, scarcely able to articulate, pointing vaguely below, but averting his eyes as from a sight he dared not look at. Divided between the desire of getting help and of sparing his master, Rolls drew back from the Scaur and returned to his habitual caution. “I canna tell you what it is, my lord,” he said; “it’s somebody that has fallen over the Scaur, for all that I can see. But how that came about is mair than I can tell. We maun rouse the place,” said the old man, “and get help⁠—if help will do any good.”

“Help will do no good now,” cried Rintoul in his excitement. “Nobody could fall from that height and live. Does he move?⁠—look⁠—or the horse?” His tongue, too, was parched, and clung to the roof of his mouth.

“The horse! then your lordship kens wha it is? Lord in heaven preserve us! no’ Tinto himsel’?”

Rintoul’s dry lips formed words two or three times before they were audible. “No one⁠—no one but he⁠—ever rides here.”

And then the two stood for a horrible moment and looked at each other. Rintoul was entirely unmanned. He seemed to quiver from head to foot; his hat was off, his countenance without a tinge of colour. “I have never,” he said, “seen⁠—such an accident before⁠—”

“Did ye see it?” Rolls cried anxiously; and then the young man faltered and hesitated.

“Heard it. I⁠—meant to say⁠—I heard the horse rearing⁠—and then the fall⁠—”

He looked intently at the old man with his haggard eyes as if to ask⁠—what? Poor old Rolls was trembling too. He thought only of his young master⁠—so kind, so blameless⁠—was his life to be thus associated with crime?

“We must go and get help, my lord,” said Rolls, with a heavy sigh. “However it happened, that must be our duty. No doubt ye’ll have to give a true account of all ye’ve seen and all ye’ve heard. But in the meantime we must cry for help, let them suffer that may.”

While this scene was proceeding so near her, Carry, upon the other side of the great house, had retired to her room in the weariness that followed her effort to look cheerful and do the honours of her table. She had made that effort very bravely, and though it did not even conceal from Millefleurs the position of affairs, still less deceive her own family, yet at least it kept up the appearance of decorum necessary, and made it easier for the guests to go through their part. The meal, indeed, was cheerful enough; it was far too magnificent, Torrance having insisted, in spite of his wife’s better taste, on heaping “all the luxuries of the season” upon the table at which a duke’s son was to sit. The absence of the host was a relief to all parties; but still it required an effort on the side of Carry to overcome the effect of the empty chair in front of her, which gave a sense of incongruity to all the grandeur. And this effort cost her a great deal. She had gone into her room to rest, and lay on a sofa very quiet in the stillness of exhaustion, not doing anything, not saying anything, looking wistfully at the blue sky that was visible through the window, with the soft foliage of some birch-trees waving lightly over it⁠—and trying not to think. Indeed, she was so weary that it was scarcely necessary to try. And what was there to think about? Nothing could be done to deliver her⁠—nothing that she was aware of even to mend her position. She was grateful to God that she was to be spared the still greater misery of seeing Beaufort, but that was all. Even heaven itself seemed to have no help for Carry. If she could have been made by some force of unknown agency to love her husband, she would still have been an unhappy wife; but it is to be feared, poor soul, that things had come to this pass with her, that she did not even wish to love her husband, and felt it less degrading to live with him under compulsion, than to be brought down to the level of his coarser nature, and take pleasure in the chains she wore. Her heart revolted at him more and more. In such a terrible case, what help was there for her in earth or heaven? Even had he been reformed⁠—had he been made a better man⁠—Carry would not have loved him: she shrank from the very suggestion that she might some time do so. There was no help for her; her position could not be bettered anyhow. She knew this so well, that all struggle, except the involuntary struggle in her mind, which never could intermit, against many of the odious details of the life she had to lead, had died out of her. She had given in to the utter hopelessness of her situation. Despair is sometimes an opiate, as it is sometimes a frantic and maddening poison. There was nothing to be done for her⁠—no use in wearying Heaven with prayers, as some of us do. Nothing could make her better. She had given in utterly, body and soul, and this was all that was to be said. She lay there in this stillness of despair, feeling more crushed and helpless than usual after the emotions of the morning, but not otherwise disturbed⁠—lying like a man who has been shattered by an accident, but lulled by some anodyne draught⁠—still, and almost motionless, letting every sensation be hushed so long as nature would permit, her hands folded, her very soul hushed and still. She took no note of time in the exhaustion of her being. She knew that when her husband returned she would be sent for, and would have to reenter the other world of eternal strife and pain; but here she was retired, as in her chapel, in herself⁠—the sole effectual refuge which she had left.

The house was very well organised, very silent and orderly in general, so that it surprised Lady Caroline a little, in the depth of her quiet, to hear a distant noise as of many voices, distinct, though not loud⁠—a confusion and faraway Babel of outcries and exclamations. Nothing could be more unusual; but she felt no immediate alarm, thinking that the absence of her husband and her own withdrawal had probably permitted a little outbreak of gaiety or gossip downstairs, with which she did not wish to interfere. She lay still accordingly, listening vaguely, without taking much interest in the matter. Certainly something out of the way must have happened. The sounds had sprung up all at once⁠—a hum of many excited voices, with sharp cries as of dismay and wailing breaking in. At last her attention was attracted. “There has been some accident,” she said to herself, sitting upright upon her sofa. As she did this she heard steps approaching her door. They came with a rush, hurrying along, the feet of at least two women, with a heavier step behind them: then paused suddenly, and there ensued a whispering and consultation close to her door. Carry was a mother, and her first thought was of her children. “They are afraid to tell me,” was the thought that passed through her mind. She rose and rushed to the door, throwing it open. “What is it? Something has happened,” she said⁠—“something you are afraid to tell me. Oh, speak, speak!⁠—the children⁠—”

“My leddy, it’s none of the children. The children are as well as could be wished, poor dears,” said her own maid, who had been suddenly revealed, standing very close to the door. The woman, her cheeks blazing with some sudden shock, eager to speak, yet terrified, stopped short there with a gasp. The housekeeper, who was behind her, pushed her a little forward, supporting her with a hand on her waist, whispering confused but audible exhortations. “Oh, take heart⁠—oh, take heart. She must be told. The Lord will give you strength,” this woman said. The butler stood solemnly behind, with a very anxious, serious countenance. To Carry all this scene became confused by wild anxiety and terror. “What is it?” she said; “my mother? someone at home?” She stretched out her hands vaguely towards the messengers of evil, feeling like a victim at the block, upon whose neck the executioner’s knife is about to fall.

“Oh, my leddy! far worse! far worse!” the woman cried.

Carry, in the dreadful whirl of her feelings, still paused bewildered, to ask herself what could be worse? And then there came upon her a moment of blindness, when she saw nothing, and the walls and the roof seemed to burst asunder, and whirl and whirl. She dropped upon her knees in this awful blank and blackness unawares, and then the haze dispelled, and she saw, coming out of the mist, a circle of horror-stricken pale faces, forming a sort of ring round her. She could do nothing but gasp out her husband’s name⁠—“Mr. Torrance?” with quivering lips.

“Oh, my lady! my lady! To see her on her knees, and us bringin’ her such awfu’ news! But the Lord will comfort ye,” cried the housekeeper, forgetting the veneration due to her mistress, and raising her in her arms. The two women supported her into her room, and she sat down again upon the sofa where she had been sitting⁠—sitting, was it a year ago?⁠—in the quiet, thinking that no change would ever come to her⁠—that nothing, nothing could alter her condition⁠—that all was over and finished for her life.

And it is to be supposed that they told poor Carry exactly the truth. She never knew. When she begged them to leave her alone till her mother came, whom they had sent for, she had no distinct knowledge of how it was, or what had happened; but she knew that had happened. She fell upon her knees before her bed, and buried her head in her hands, shutting out the light. Then she seized hold of herself with both her hands to keep herself (as she felt) from floating away upon that flood of new life which came swelling up all in a moment, swelling into every vein⁠—filling high the fountain of existence which had been so feeble and so low. Oh, shut out⁠—shut out the light, that nobody might see! close the doors and the shutters in the house of death, and every cranny, that no human eye might descry it! After a while she dropped lower, from the bed which supported her to the floor, prostrating herself with more than oriental humbleness. Her heart beat wildly, and in her brain there seemed to wake a hundred questions clanging like bells in her ears, filling the silence with sound. Her whole being, that had been crushed, sprang up like a flower from under a passing foot. Was it possible?⁠—was it possible? She pulled herself down, tried by throwing herself upon her face on the carpet, prostrating herself, body and soul, to struggle against that secret voiceless mad exultation that came upon her against her will. Was he dead?⁠—was he dead? struck down in the middle of his days, that man of iron? Oh, the pity of it!⁠—oh, the horror of it! She tried to force herself to feel this⁠—to keep down, down, that climbing joy in her. God in heaven, was it possible? she who thought nothing could happen to her more.

XXVII

The drive home would have been very embarrassing to the ladies had not Millefleurs been the perfect little gentleman he was. Rintoul, though he ought to have been aware that his presence was specially desirable, had abandoned his mother and sister; and the consciousness of the secret, which was no secret, weighed upon Lady Lindores so much, that it was scarcely possible for her to keep up any appearance of the easy indifference which was her proper role in the circumstances: while it silenced Edith altogether. They could scarcely look him in the face, knowing both the state of suspense in which he must be, and the false impression of Edith’s feelings which he was probably entertaining. Lady Lindores felt certain that he was aware she had been informed by her husband of what had passed, and feared to look at him lest he might, by some glance of intelligence, some look of appeal, call upon her sympathy; while on the other hand, it was all-essential to keep him, if possible, from noticing the pale consciousness of Edith, her silence and shrinking discomfort, so unlike her usual frank and friendly aspect. Millefleurs was far too quick-sighted not to observe this unusual embarrassment; but there was no more amiable young man in England, and it was his part for the moment to set them at their ease, and soothe the agitation which he could not but perceive. He talked of everything but the matter most near his heart with that self-sacrifice of true politeness which is perhaps the truest as it is one of the most difficult manifestations of social heroism. He took pains to be amusing, to show himself unconcerned and unexcited; and, as was natural, he got his reward. Lady Lindores was almost piqued (though it was so great a relief) that Edith’s suitor should be capable of such perfect calm; and Edith herself, though with a dim perception of the heroism in it, could not but console herself with the thought that one so completely self-controlled would “get over” his disappointment easily. Their conversation at last came to be almost a monologue on his part. He discoursed on Tinto and its treasures as an easy subject. “It has one great quality⁠—it is homogeneous,” he said, “which is too big a word for a small fellow like me. It is all of a piece, don’t you know. To think what lots of money those good people must have spent on those great vases, and candelabra, and things! We don’t do that sort of thing nowadays. We roam over all the world, and pick up our bric-a-brac cheap. But, don’t you know, there’s something fine in the other principle⁠—there’s a grand sort of spare-no-expense sentiment. I’d like to do it all over again for them⁠—to clear away all that finery, which is mere Empire, and get something really good, don’t you know. But at the same time, I respect this sort of thing. There is a thoroughness in it. It is going the ‘whole animal,’ as we say in America. Mr. Torrance, who is a fine big man, just like his house, should, if you’ll allow me to say so, have carried out the principle a little further; he should not have gone so entirely into a different genre in his wife.”

“You mean that Carry is⁠—that Carry looks⁠—She is not very strong,” said Lady Lindores, with involuntary quickening of attention, taking up instantly an attitude of defence.

“Dear Lady Lindores,” cried little Millefleurs, “entirely out of keeping! A different genre altogether; a different date⁠—the finest ethical nineteenth century against a background Empire! preposterous altogether. We have no style to speak of in china, or that sort of thing⁠—which is odd, considering how much we think of it. We can’t do anything better than go back to Queen Anne for our furniture. But in respect to women, it’s quite different. We’ve got a Victorian type in that, don’t you know. I am aware that it is the height of impertinence to make remarks. But considering the family friendship to which you have been so good as to admit me, and my high appreciation⁠—Lady Caroline, if you will allow me to say so, is a different genre. She is out of keeping with the decoration of her house.”

“Poor Carry!” Lady Lindores said with a sigh; and they were thankful to Millefleurs when he ran on about the china and the gilding. It was he, with those keen little beady eyes of his, who saw John Erskine disappearing among the trees. He had possession of the stage, as it were, during all that long way home, which to the ladies seemed about twice as long as it had ever been before.

Lord Lindores had not accompanied the party. He did not come in contact with his son-in-law, indeed, any more than he could help. Though he had taken up Tinto so warmly at first, it was not to be supposed that a man of his refinement could have any pleasure in such society; and though he made a point of keeping on scrupulously good terms with Torrance, even when the latter set himself in opposition to the Earl’s plans, yet he kept away from the spectacle afforded by his daughter and her husband in their own house. If Lord Lindores’s private sentiments could have been divined, it would probably have been apparent that in his soul he thought it hard upon poor Caroline to have married such a man. There were reasons which made it very desirable, even necessary; but it was a pity, he felt. In the present case, however, there was nothing but congratulations to be thought of. Edith was, there could be no doubt, a thoroughly fortunate young woman. Nobody could say a word against Millefleurs. He had shown himself eccentric, but only in a way quite approved by his generation; and there was no doubt that a wife, at once pretty and charming, and sufficiently clever, was all that he wanted to settle him. Not Carry⁠—Carry was too intellectual, too superior altogether, for the democratic little Marquis; but Edith had just the combination of simplicity and mental competence that would suit his position. It was the most admirable arrangement that could have been devised. Lord Lindores sat in his library with much satisfaction of mind, and thought over all the new combinations. He had no doubt of the Duke’s content with the alliance⁠—and through the Duke, the whole Ministry would be affected. It would be felt that to keep a man of Lord Lindores’s abilities in the hopeless position of a mere Scotch lord, would be a waste prejudicial to the country. With Millefleurs for his son-in-law, a mere representative seat in the House of Lords no longer seemed worth his while⁠—an English peerage would be his as a matter of course. He had said a few words to Rintoul on the subject before the party left the house. There could be no harm in drawing the bonds tighter which were to produce so admirable an effect. “There is Lady Reseda, a very charming girl,” he said. “It is time you were thinking of marrying, Rintoul. I don’t know any girl that has been more admired.”

“One doesn’t care for one’s wife having been admired,” said Rintoul, somewhat sulkily. “One would rather admire her one’s self.”

His father looked at him with some severity, and Rintoul coloured in spite of himself. Perhaps this was one reason why his temper was so unpleasant at Tinto, and moved him to fling off from the party in the midst of their inspection of the place, and declare that he would walk home. In his present temper, perhaps he would not have been much help to them, whereas Millefleurs managed it all capitally, being left to himself.

They got home only in time to dress for dinner, at which meal Rintoul did not appear. It was unlike him to stay behind and dine at Tinto; but still there was nothing impossible in it, and the minds of the four people who sat down together at table were all too much absorbed by the immediate question before them to have much time to consider Rintoul. Lady Lindores’s entire attention was given to Edith, who, very pale and with a thrill of nervous trembling in her, which her mother noted without quite understanding, neither ate nor talked, but pretended, at least, to do the first, veiling herself from the eyes of her lover behind the flowers which ornamented the centre of the table. These flowers, it must be allowed, are often a nuisance and serious hindering of conversation. On this occasion they performed a charitable office. There was one plume of ferns in particular which did Edith the most excellent service. She had been commanded to repair to the library when she left the table, to await her father there. And if she trembled, it was with the tension of high-strung nerves, not the hesitation of weakness, as her mother thought. Lord Lindores, for his part, watched her too, with an uneasy instinct. He would not allow himself to imagine that she could have the folly to hesitate even; and yet there was a sensation in him, an unwilling conviction that, if Edith resisted, she would be, though she was not so clever, a different kind of antagonist from poor Carry. There arose in him, as he glanced at her now and then, an impulse of war. He had no idea that she would really attempt to resist him: but if she did! He, too, had little to say during dinner. He uttered a formal sentence now and then in discharge of his duty as host, but that was all; and by intervals, when he had leisure to think of it, he was angry with his son. Rintoul ought to have been there to take the weight of the conversation upon him: Rintoul ought to have had more discrimination than to choose this day of all others for absenting himself. His mother was of the same opinion. She, too, was almost wroth with Rintoul⁠—to leave her unsupported without any aid at such a crisis was unpardonable. But Millefleurs was quite equal to the emergency. He took everything upon himself. The servants, closest of all critics, did not even guess that anything was going on in which “the wee English lord” was involved. They made their own remarks upon Lady Edith’s pallor and silence, and the preoccupation of Lady Lindores. But Millefleurs was the life of the company; and not even the butler, who had seen a great deal in his day, and divined most things, associated him with the present evident crisis. It was amazing how much he found to say, and how naturally he said it, as if nothing particular was going on, and no issues of any importance to him, at least, were involved.

When the ladies left the table, Lady Lindores would have detained her daughter with her. “Come into the drawing-room with me first, Edith. Your father cannot be ready for you for some minutes at least.”

“No, mamma. I must keep all my wits about me,” Edith said, with a faint smile. They were in the corridor, where it was always cold, and she shivered a little in spite of herself.

“You are chilly, Edith⁠—you are not well, dear. I will go myself and tell your father you are not able to talk to him tonight.”

Edith shook her head without saying anything. She waved her hand to her mother as she turned away in the direction of the library. Lady Lindores stood looking after her with that strange struggle in her mind which only parents know⁠—the impulse to take their children in their arms as of old, and bear their burdens for them, contradicted by the consciousness that this cannot be done⁠—that the time has come when these beloved children can no longer be carried over their difficulties, but must stand for themselves, with not another to interfere between them and fate. Oh the surprise of this penetrating the heart! Lady Lindores went back to the drawing-room with the wonder and pain of it piercing her like an arrow, to sit down and wait while Edith⁠—little Edith⁠—bore her trial alone. It was intolerable, yet it had to be endured. She stood aside and let her child do what had to be done; any trial in the world would have been easier. The pang was complicated in every way. There seemed even an ingratitude in it, as if her child preferred to stand alone; and yet it was all inevitable⁠—a thing that must be. She waited, the air all rustling round her, with expectation and suspense. What would the girl find to say? Caroline had wept and struggled, but she had yielded. Edith would not weep, she would stand fast like a little rock; but, after all, what was there to object to? Millefleurs was very different from Torrance of Tinto. Why should he not please the girl’s fancy as well as another? He had so much in him to please any girl’s fancy; he was clever and amusing, and romantic even in his way. If Edith would but content herself with him! True, he was little; but what did that matter after all? He would no doubt make the best of husbands⁠—unquestionably he would make the best of sons-in-law. And then, your mind must be impartial indeed if you are impervious to the attractions of an English dukedom. Who could be indifferent to that? With a little laugh of nervous pleasure, Lady Lindores permitted herself to think how amusing it would be to see her little girl take precedence of her. Alas! things were far from being so advanced as that; but yet she could not help more or less being on the side of ambition this time. The ambition that fixed upon Torrance of Tinto was poor enough, and shamed her to think of it; but the Marquis Millefleurs, the Duke of Lavender, that was an ambition which had some justification. Not love him! Why should not she love him? Lady Lindores even went so far as to ask herself with some heat. He was delightful; everything but his stature was in his favour. He was excellent; his very failings leant to virtue’s side.

While, however, her mother was thus discussing the question with so strong a bias in favour of Millefleurs, Edith was standing in her father’s library waiting for him, not entering into any argument with herself at all. She would not sit down, which would have seemed somehow like yielding, but stood with her hand upon the mantelpiece, her heart beating loudly. She had not summoned herself to the bar of her own judgment, or asked with any authority how it was that she neither could nor would for a moment take the qualities of Millefleurs into consideration. The question had been given against him before even it was put; but Edith would not allow herself to consider why. No doubt she knew why; but there are occasions in which we do not wish to see what is going on in our spirits, just as there are occasions when we turn out all the corners and summon everything to the light. She heard the door of the dining-room open, then the voices of the gentlemen as they came out, with a sudden tightening of her breath. What if little Millefleurs himself were coming instead of her father? This idea brought a gleam of a smile over her face; but that was driven away as she heard the heavy familiar step approaching. Lord Lindores, as he came along the corridor, had time enough to say to himself that perhaps he had been foolish. Why had he determined upon speaking to Edith before he allowed her lover to speak to her? Perhaps it was a mistake. He had his reasons, but it might be that they were not so powerful as he had supposed, and that he would have done better not to have interfered. However, it was now too late to think of this. He went into the library, shutting the door deliberately, asking himself why he should have any trouble about the matter, and what Edith could feel but happiness in having such a proposal made to her; but when he turned round and met Edith’s eye his delusions fled. Surely there was nobody so unfortunate as he was in his children. Instead of their perceiving what was for their own interest, he was met by a perpetual struggle and attempt to put him in the wrong. It was inconceivable. Was it not their interest solely which moved him? and yet they would resist as if he were plotting nothing but wrong. But though these thoughts passed through his mind with a sweep of bitterness, he would not indulge them. He went up to Edith with great urbanity, putting down all feelings less pleasant. “I am glad to find you here,” he said.

“Yes, papa; you wanted me, my mother told me.”

“I wanted you. As I came along the corridor, I began to ask myself whether I was doing right in wanting you. Perhaps I ought to have let you hear what I am going to say from⁠—someone who might have made it more agreeable, Edith.”

“Oh, let me hear what you want, please, from yourself, papa.”

He took her hand, which trembled in his hold, and looked down on her with fatherly eyes⁠—eyes which were tender, and admiring, and kind. Could anyone doubt that he wished her well? He wished her everything that was best in the world⁠—wealth and title, and rank and importance⁠—everything we desire for our children. He was not a bad man, desiring the sacrifice of his child’s happiness. If he had, perhaps, made something of a mistake about Carry, there was no mistake here.

“Edith, I want to speak to you about Lord Millefleurs. He came here, I believe, on your own invitation⁠—”

At this Edith started with sudden alarm, and her hand trembled still more in her father’s easy clasp. She had an indefinite pang of fear, she could not tell why.

“He has been here now for some time. I was glad to ratify your invitation by mine⁠—nothing could have pleased me better. I like his family. His father and I have always thought alike, and the Duchess is a most excellent woman. That your mother and you should have taken him up so much, was very good for him, and quite a pleasure to me.”

“I don’t know why you should say we took him up very much,” said Edith, with some confusion. “He took us up⁠—he came to us wherever we were. And then he was Robin’s friend. It was quite natural⁠—there was nothing⁠—” She paused, with a painful eagerness to excuse herself: and yet there was nothing to excuse. This changed the position for the moment, and made everything much more easy for the indulgent father, who was so ready to approve what his child herself had done.

“It is perfectly natural, my dear⁠—everything about it is natural. Lord Millefleurs has been quite consistent since he first saw you. He has explained himself to me in the most honourable way. He wishes⁠—to marry you, Edith. I don’t suppose this is any surprise to you?”

Edith was crimson; her temples throbbed with the rush of the blood, which seemed to rise like an angry sea. “If it is so, he has had opportunity enough to tell me so. Why has he taken so unfair an advantage? Why⁠—why has he gone to you?”

“He has behaved like an honourable man. I see no unfair advantage. He has done what was right⁠—what was respectful at once to you and to me.”

“Oh, papa⁠—honourable! respectful!” cried the girl. “What does that mean in our position? Could he have been anything but honourable⁠—to me? You forget what kind of expressions you are using. If he had that to say, it is to me he ought to have come. He has taken an unkind⁠—a cruel advantage!” Edith cried.

“This is ridiculous,” said her father. “He has done what it is seemly and right to do⁠—in his position and yours. If he had gone to you, as you say, like a village lad to his lass, what advantage could there have been in that? As it is, you have your father’s full sanction, which, I hope, you reckon for something, Edith.”

“Father,” she said, somewhat breathless, collecting herself with a little effort. The wave of hot colour died off from her face. She grew paler and paler as she stood firmly opposite to him, holding fast with her hand the cool marble of the mantelpiece, which felt like a support. “Father, if he had come to me, as he ought to have done, this is what would have happened⁠—I should have told him at once that it was a mistake, and he would have left us quietly without giving you any trouble. How much better that would have been in every way!”

“I don’t understand you, Edith. A mistake? I don’t see that there is any mistake.”

“That is very likely, papa,” she said, with returning spirit, “since it is not you that are concerned. But I see it. I should have told him quietly, and there would have been an end of the matter, if he had not been so formal, so absurd⁠—so old-fashioned⁠—as to appeal to you.”

This counterblast took away Lord Lindores’s breath. He made a pause for a moment, and stared at her; he had never been so treated before. “Old-fashioned,” he repeated, almost with bewilderment. “There is enough of this, Edith. If you wish to take up the role of the advanced young lady, I must tell you it is not either suitable or becoming. Millefleurs will, no doubt, find an early opportunity of making his own explanations to you, and of course, if you choose to keep him in hot water, it is, I suppose, your right. But don’t carry it too far. The connection is one that is perfectly desirable⁠—excellent in every point of view.”

“It is a pity, since you think so, that it is impossible,” she said in a low tone.

Lord Lindores looked at her, fixing her with his eye. He felt now that he had known it all along⁠—that he had felt sure there was a struggle before him, and that his only policy was to convince her that he was determined from the very first. “There is nothing impossible,” he said, “except disobedience and folly. I don’t expect these from you. Indeed I can’t imagine what motive you can have, except a momentary perverseness, to answer me so. No more of it, Edith. By tomorrow, at least, everything will be settled between you and your lover⁠—”

“Oh, papa, listen! don’t mistake me,” she cried. “He is not my lover. How can you⁠—how can you use such a word? He can never be anything to me. If he had spoken to me, I could have settled it all in a moment. As it is you he has spoken to, why give him a double mortification? It will be so easy for you to tell him: to tell him⁠—he can never be anything to me.”

“Edith, take care what you are saying! He is to be your husband. I am not a man easily balked in my own family.”

“We all know that,” she cried, with bitterness; “but I am not Carry, papa.”

He made a step nearer to her, with a threatening aspect. “What do you mean by that? Carry! What has Carry to do with it? You have a chance poor Carry never had⁠—high rank, wealth⁠—everything that is desirable: and a man whom the most fantastic could not object in any way to.”

There is scarcely any situation in the world into which a gleam of ridicule will not fall. It takes us with the tear in our eye⁠—it took Edith in the nervous excitement of this struggle, the most trying moment which personally she had ever gone through. Millefleurs, with his little plump person, his round eyes, his soft lisp of a voice, seemed to come suddenly before her, and at the height of this half-tragical contention she laughed. It was excitement and high pressure as well as that sudden flash of perverse imagination. She could have cried next moment⁠—but laugh she did, in spite of herself. The sound drove Lord Lindores to fury. “This is beyond bearing,” he cried. “It seems that I have been deceived in you altogether. If you cannot feel the honour that has been done you⁠—the compliment that has been paid you⁠—you are unworthy of it, and of the trouble I have taken.”

“I suppose,” said Edith, irritated too, “these are the right words for a girl to use to any man who is so good as to think she would suit him. I was wrong to laugh, but are not you going too far, papa? I am likely to get more annoyance by it than honour. Please, please let me take my own way.”

She had broken down a little when she said this, in natural reaction, and gave him a pitiful look, with a little quiver of her lip. After such a laugh it is so likely that a girl will cry, as after a sudden self-assertion it is to be expected that she will be subdued and humbled. She looked at him with a childlike appeal for pity. And he thought that now he had her securely in his hands.

“My love,” he said, “you will regret it all your life if I yield to you now. It is your happiness I am thinking of. I cannot let a girl’s folly spoil your career. Besides, it is of the highest importance to everybody⁠—to Rintoul, even to myself⁠—that you should marry Millefleurs⁠—”

“I am very sorry, papa; but I shall never⁠—marry Lord Millefleurs⁠—”

“Folly! I shall not allow you to trifle with him, Edith⁠—or with me. You have given him the most evident encouragement⁠—led him on in every way, invited him here⁠—”

Edith grew pale to her very lips. “Papa, have pity on me! I never did so; it was all nothing⁠—the way one talks without meaning it⁠—without thinking⁠—”

“That is all very well on our side, but on the other⁠—I tell you, I will permit no trifling, Edith. He has a right to a favourable answer, and he must have it⁠—”

“Never, never! if I have been wrong, I will ask his pardon⁠—”

“You will accept him in the first place,” said Lord Lindores, sternly.

“I will never accept him,” Edith said.

Her father, wound up to that pitch of excitement at which a man is no longer master of what he says, took a few steps about the room. “Your sister said the same,” he cried, with a short laugh, “and you know what came of that.”

It was an admission he had never intended to make⁠—for he did not always feel proud of his handiwork⁠—but it was done now, and could not be recalled. Edith withdrew even from the mantelpiece on which she had leant. She clasped her hands together, supporting herself. “I am not Carry,” she said, in a low tone, facing him resolutely as he turned back in some alarm at what he had been betrayed into saying. He had become excited, and she calm. He almost threatened her with his hand in the heat of the moment.

“You will obey your parents,” he cried.

“No, papa,” she said.

He remembered so well, too well, what Carry had done in the same circumstances⁠—she had wept and pleaded. When he demanded obedience from her she had not dared to stand against him. He recollected (too well for his own comfort sometimes) every one of those scenes which brought her to submission. But Edith did not weep, and was not shaken by that final appeal. She was very pale, and looked unusually slight and young and childlike standing there with her hands clasped, her steadfast eyes raised, her little mouth close⁠—so slight a thing, not stately like Carry. He was confounded by a resistance which he had not foreseen, which he could not have believed in, and stood staring at her, not knowing what next to say and do. Matters were at this point when all at once there arose a something outside the room, which not even the solid closed doors and heavy curtains could keep out⁠—not positive noise or tumult, but something indescribable⁠—a sensation as of some unknown dread event. Ordinarily all was still in the well-ordered house, and my lord’s tranquillity as completely assured as if he had been Prime Minister. But this was something that was beyond decorum. Then the door was hastily opened, and Rintoul ghastly, his face grey rather than pale, his hair hanging wildly on his forehead, came into the room.

XXVIII

This extraordinary interruption put a stop at once to the struggle between the father and daughter. They both came to a sudden pause, not only in their conversation, but in their thoughts, which were suspended instantly by the breaking in of something more urgent. “What is it? What has happened?” they both cried in a breath; and Edith, after a moment, added, “Carry⁠—there is something wrong with Carry,” scarcely aware what she said.

Rintoul came to the table on which stood a crystal jug of water. He filled himself out a large glass and drank it. He was in a tremor which he attempted to conceal from them, though with no success. Then he said, “There is nothing the matter with Carry; but a dreadful accident has happened,”⁠—and stopped, his mouth being parched, his very articulation difficult.

“What is it? what is it? The children?⁠—”

Rintoul turned his face away from Edith and directed himself towards his father. He made a great effort over himself, as if what he had to say was almost beyond his powers. Then he said with a strange hoarseness of voice, “Torrance⁠—has been killed.”

“Torrance!⁠—killed! Good God! Rintoul.”

“It is so. Instantaneous, they say. He cannot have suffered much, thank God.”

Rintoul was not emotional or used to show very much feeling, but the lines of his face were drawn and his lips quivered as he spoke.

“Killed! But how did it happen? where? Was it accident, or⁠—For heaven’s sake tell us all!” cried his father. Edith stood by struck dumb, yet with a host of sudden rising thoughts, or rather images, in her breast. It was to her sister that her mind suddenly reverted, with a perception of everything involved so clear and vivid that her very spirit was confused by the distinctness of her sight.

“Accident,” said Rintoul almost with a stammer, stumbling on the word. “He must have been riding home by the Greenlaws road, which was his favourite way. He and his horse were found at the foot of the Scaur. The brute must have reared and lost its footing. The ground was soft with the rain. That’s all that anyone knows.”

“And he is dead? Good God!”

A shiver came over Rintoul. Who would have thought he had so much feeling? and concerning Torrance, whom he had never been able to endure. “It’s dreadful,” he said in a low tone; “but it’s true. One moment never to be recalled, and that big fellow with all his strength⁠—O Lord, it’s terrible to think of it. It has taken all the strength out of me.”

Edith hurried to him, trembling herself, to clasp his arm in hers and soothe her brother. She was almost too much excited and agitated to be aware that he repulsed her, though unconsciously, but this increased the general impression of pain and horror on her mind. There was so strong a thrill of agitation in him that he could not bear to be touched or even looked at. He put her away, and threw himself down into the nearest chair. A hundred questions were on the lips of both; but he looked as if he had said all that was possible⁠—as if he had no power to add anything. Lord Lindores, after the first pause of horror, of course pursued his inquiries, and they gathered certain details as to the way of finding “the body,” and the manner in which horse and man seemed to have fallen. But Rintoul evidently had been too much impressed by the sight to be able to dwell on the subject. He wiped the perspiration from his forehead, and took again large draughts of water as he brought forth sentence after sentence. “Get me some wine, or brandy, or something⁠—I am done,” he cried; but when his father rang the bell, Rintoul recoiled. “Let Edith fetch it; don’t let us have any prying servants about here.” “There is no reason why we should be afraid of prying servants,” said Lord Lindores, with surprise and disapproval. “It is not a matter to be concealed. I suppose there is nothing to conceal?” “Oh no, no,” said Rintoul, with a groan⁠—“nothing to be concealed; you can’t conceal a dead man,” and he shuddered, but added directly, raising himself to meet his father’s eye, “it was accident⁠—nothing but accident⁠—everybody has warned him. I said myself something was sure to happen sooner or later at the Scaur.” Edith, who had flown to bring him the wine he asked for, here came back with it, having sent away the officious butler, anxious to hear all about it, who hovered near the door. Her brother took the decanter from her hand without a word of thanks, and poured out the wine lavishly, but with a shaking hand, into the glass from which he had been drinking water. It brought a little colour back into his cheeks. To Edith the emotion he showed was a new revelation. She had never expected from Rintoul so much tenderness of feeling. But Lord Lindores went on with his questions.

“Something sure to happen? Yes⁠—to children or people incapable of taking care of themselves; but Torrance, who knew it all like his own hand! had he⁠—been drinking, poor fellow?”

“Not that I know of; but how can I tell? Nobody knows.”

“Someone must have seen him before the accident happened. There must be someone who can tell. Of course everything must be investigated. Where had he been? Why was he not with you, when you went by appointment to see the place? It was surely very extraordinary⁠—”

“He was with us at first,” said Rintoul, “but he took offence at some of Millefleurs’s criticisms; and then John Erskine⁠—”

“What had John Erskine to do with it?”

“They had some words. I can’t remember; something passed. Erskine left early too. Now that I think of it,” said Rintoul, suddenly, “Erskine must have gone that way, and perhaps⁠—But no, no; I mistake⁠—they did not meet.”

“They had no words,” said Edith, eagerly; “there was no quarrel, if that is what you mean. Mr. Torrance was annoyed because Lord Millefleurs⁠—But Mr. Erskine had nothing to do with it,” she added, her colour rising. Lord Lindores paced up and down the room, stopping at every turn to ask another question. Rintoul sat leaning his head upon his hand, his face concealed by it; while Edith, to whom this reference had given animation, stood between them, her senses quickened, her mind alert. But they were both too deeply occupied to notice the change in her which was made by the mention of this name.

“Of course there must be a thorough investigation into all the circumstances,” Lord Lindores said.

“Who can do that? I thought there were no coroners in Scotland?” said Rintoul, rousing himself. “I was thinking, indeed, what a good thing for poor Carry to be spared this. Besides, what can investigation do? He went off from among us excited. Very likely, poor fellow, he had been drinking. He rode off in haste, thundering down that dangerous road, as was his custom. Everybody knows it was his custom. It was his way of blowing off steam. Coming back, the road was soft with the rain, and he still excited and in a nervous state. He pushed Black Jess a step too close. She reared, and⁠—I don’t know what you can find out more by any investigation.” Rintoul wiped his forehead again and poured himself out more wine.

“That may be, but there must be an investigation all the same,” said Lord Lindores. “A man of importance like poor Torrance does not disappear like this in a moment without any notice being taken of it. If he had been a ploughman, perhaps⁠—”

Here the door was opened hastily, and Lady Lindores hurried in. “What is this?” she cried; “what is this I hear?⁠—the servants are full of it. Something about Torrance and a bad accident. What does it mean?”

Edith ran to her mother, taking her by the arm, with the instinct of supporting her against the shock; and Lord Lindores gave her the information, not without that almost pleasure in recounting even the most terrible news, which is the instinctive sentiment of those whose hearts are not deeply concerned. Lady Lindores heard it with horror⁠—with the instant and keen self-question as to whether she had done justice to this man, of whom no one now could ask pardon⁠—whose wrongs, if he had any, could never be remedied⁠—which, in a generous mind, is the first result of such a tragedy. Out of keen excitement and horror she shed a few tears, the first that in this house at least had been expended on the dead man. A pang of wondering pity was in her heart. The sight of this softer feeling stilled the others. She arrested every other sentiment in a natural pause of terrified compassion. She who had never called him by it in his life, suddenly found his Christian name come to her lips: “Oh, poor Pat! poor Pat! like that⁠—in a moment⁠—with his home close by that he was so proud of, and all his good things⁠—summoned in a moment. O God, have mercy upon him!” she cried.

“It is too late for that,” said Lord Lindores, gravely, for the moment ashamed of all other questions. “Short as the time is, and dreadful as it is to think of it, his account must be made by this time. It is a terrible lesson to us all⁠—”

“O God, have mercy upon him! I cannot think it is ever too late for that,” cried Lady Lindores through her tears. And there was a pause. She did not, so far as we know, entertain any heterodox ideas about the after state; but nature spoke in her, which is stronger than creeds. And they were all silent, ashamed to have thought of anything else than this. Rintoul still sat with his head hid in his hands. He had not looked at his mother. He did not say anything to help out the narrative which his father, of course, had given minutely. He had made a great effort to get over his personal agitation and the tremor of his nerves, but he was not used to such violent emotions, and it was hard to get them under control.

Then Lady Lindores rose from the chair upon which she had sunk in the first shock. “I must go to Carry at once,” she said. “Poor Carry! how must she be feeling? In a moment⁠—without time for a word⁠—”

Now at this there was a slight movement on the part of the two men⁠—even in Rintoul, though he was so much overcome. They thought it was the usual feminine hypocrisy. Carry had never pretended to be a fond or loving wife. The shock was great, but it brought her deliverance. A touch of indignation and of wonder at what they considered that incomprehensible female nature, which one moment brought them back by sheer natural tenderness to a loftier state of feeling, and the next disgusted them with mere conventionalism and make-believe, stirred in their minds. They durst not say anything, for of course it was needful to the world to keep up this fiction, and take it for granted that Carry was heartbroken; but in their hearts they despised the false sentiment, as they thought it. Nobody understood that divine compunction in Lady Lindores’s heart⁠—that terrible and aching pity for the unworthy on her own part⁠—that sense of awful severance from a human creature with whom there had been nothing in common, with whom there could be no hope of reunion, which, she felt, must be in her daughter’s mind. God help poor Carry! What could she be but glad to be free? Her mother’s heart bled for her in this awful satisfaction and misery. Meanwhile her husband rang the bell and ordered the carriage for her, with a sensation not quite unlike contempt, though he was pleased, too, that she should be able to keep up the natural superstitions, and go through all traditional formalities so well. He made a pause, however, when he found Edith hastily preparing to go too.

“There is Lord Millefleurs to be thought of? What am I to do,” he said, “with Millefleurs?”

“At such a moment surely everything of the kind must be suspended,” said Lady Lindores. “You cannot think that Edith could⁠—go on with this⁠—while her sister⁠—”

Millefleurs himself made his appearance on the stairs while she was speaking. It was a curious scene. The great hall-door was open, the night wind blowing in, making the light waver, and penetrating all the excited group with cold. Lady Lindores, wrapped in a great cloak which covered her from head to foot, stood below looking up, while Edith paused on the lower steps in the act of tying a white shawl about her head. The servants, still more excited, stood about, all anxious to help, by way of seeing everything that was going on. Rintoul stood in the doorway of the library, entirely in shadow⁠—a dark figure contrasting with the others in the light. To these actors in the drama came forth Millefleurs in his exact evening costume, like a hero of genteel comedy coming in at the height of the imbroglio. “I need not say how shocked and distressed I am,” he said, from his platform on the landing. “I would go away at once, but that would not help you. Never think of me; but I feel sure you would not do me the injustice to think of me in presence of such a catastrophe.”

Lady Lindores waved her hand to him as she hurried out, but he overtook Edith on the stairs. It was impossible that he should not feel that she knew all about it by this time; and after all, though he was so humble-minded, Millefleurs was aware that the heir of a great Duke is not usually kept in suspense. “Lady Edith,” he said in an undertone, “should I go away? I will do what you think best.”

He had faded entirely out of her mind in the excitement of this new event. “Lord Millefleurs⁠—Oh, I cannot tell,” she said; “it will be painful for you in the midst of this horror and mourning⁠—”

“You cannot think that is what I mean,” he said anxiously. “If I could be of any use; a cooler person is sometimes of use, don’t you know⁠—one that can sympathise and⁠—without being overwhelmed with⁠—feeling.”

“We shall not be overwhelmed. Oh, you have seen, you know, that it is not so much grief as⁠—It is Carry we all must think of⁠—not⁠—poor Mr. Torrance. I am sorry⁠—I am sorry with all my heart⁠—but he did not belong to us, except by⁠—”

“Marriage⁠—that is not much of a tie, is it?” said little Millefleurs, looking at her with a mixture of half-comic ruefulness and serious anxiety. “But this is not a moment to trouble you. Lady Edith, do you think I may stay?”

At this moment her mother called her from the door, and Edith ran hastily down the steps. She scarcely knew whether she had said anything, or what she had said. It was only “Oh,” the English ejaculation which fits into every crisis; but it was not “No,” Lord Millefleurs said to himself, and he hastened after her to close the carriage-door, and bid Lady Lindores good night. As the carriage drove off he turned and found himself in face of Lord Lindores, who had a somewhat anxious look. “I have been asking if I should go or stay,” he said; “I know your hospitality, even when you are in trouble⁠—”

“There is no trouble in having you in the house, even in the midst of this calamity; but what did they say to you?” asked Lord Lindores.

“Nothing, I think; but I will stay if you will let me, Lord Lindores, till we can see. And may I hear the details of the accident⁠—if it was an accident.”

“You think there is something more in it?” cried Lord Lindores, quickly.

“No; how can I tell? I should like to hear everything. Sometimes a looker-on, who is not so much interested, sees more of the game, don’t you know.”

“It is a tragic game,” said Lord Lindores, shaking his head; “but there is no agrarian crime here, no landlord-killing, no revenge. Poor Torrance had not an enemy, so far as I know.”

All this time Rintoul stood motionless in the doorway, concealed by the shadow; but here he seemed piqued to speak. “He had plenty of enemies,” he said hastily. “A man of such a temper and manners, how could he help having enemies?”

“De mortuis nil nisi bonum,” said his father⁠—“say no harm of the dead⁠—”

“That is all very well; but it is of more importance to do no injustice to the living,” said Rintoul, with a sort of sullen solemnity; and he suddenly gave place to the others and went off in the direction of his own den, a little room in which he smoked and kept his treasures. Lord Lindores took his guest into the library, gravely apologetic. “I have never seen Rintoul so upset; his nerves seem to have received a shock. I don’t think he cares to go over the melancholy story again.”

“It is very natural,” said little Millefleurs. “A man who has been always at home, who has never roughed it in the world, naturally loses his head when he first comes in contact with tragedy, don’t you know. I did myself in California the first time I touched actual blood. But that was murder, which is a different sort of thing.”

“Very different,” said Lord Lindores; and he proceeded to satisfy his guest with an account of all the particulars, to which Millefleurs listened very seriously. He had the Scaur described to him with much minuteness, and how it might be possible that such an accident could happen. Instinctively Lord Lindores made it appear that the wonder was it had not happened before. “I warned poor Torrance repeatedly,” he said; although he had in equal good faith expressed his amazement that such a thing could happen to a man who knew the place so well, only a short time before. Millefleurs listened to everything very gravely, giving the profoundest attention to every detail.

The house was full of agitation and excitement, and Lord Lindores sent repeatedly for his son to consult with him over what ought to be done; but Rintoul was not to be found. He had gone out, the servants said; and the general impression was that he had returned to Tinto, though he could only have done that by a long walk through the gloomy night. Millefleurs went out into the grounds while this question was proceeding. He had a great many things to think about. He lit his cigar and wandered about, thoughtfully discussing with himself various questions. Did Edith mean that he should stay? Had he any right to stay in the circumstances of the family? He had a strong desire to do so that was not entirely connected with Edith. To be sure, the suspense in which he was kept, the impossibility of addressing her at such a moment, would have made a passionate lover very restless; but Millefleurs was not the sort of stuff out of which passionate lovers are made. He thought Edith would make him a delightful wife, and that with such a wife he would be a very happy man; but he did not feel that heaven and earth would be changed to him without Edith, and therefore other motives were free to come in. He had something in his mind which for the moment almost obliterated all thoughts of her. He walked up and down in the darkness, turning it over and over in his mind. Vaguely, one way or another, this thought was associated with Edith too. After some time he perceived another red spark in the darkness, and became aware of someone else smoking like himself a thoughtful cigar. He called out to Rintoul and came upon him at the end of an alley. Millefleurs had an internal conviction that Rintoul wished to avoid him, so he went up to him quickly and caught him by the arm.

“It was thought that you had gone back to Tinto,” he said, putting his arm familiarly through his. He had to reach up on tiptoe to do it, but this was what pleased Millefleurs.

“What! walking at this time of night? I am not so eager about it,” said Rintoul. “Besides, what should I do there? Everything is settled so far as it can be for tonight, and my mother and Edith have gone to Carry: there is no need for me.”

“I wish you would tell me all about it, my dear Rintoul.”

“Didn’t my father tell you?”

“Yes, in his way; but that is different. You want the details from an eyewitness, don’t you know. You want to see it through the eyes that have seen it. I have a great curiosity about that kind of thing ever since I have been in California, where it is an incident of everyday life.”

“It is not an incident of everyday life here, and I’m sick of it,” cried Rintoul. “Don’t question me any more⁠—it’s too terrible. It must have been instantaneous they say; that is the only comfort about the business⁠—everything else is hideous from beginning to end.”

“Ah, from the beginning⁠—that is just what I want to talk to you about,” said Millefleurs.

He felt a thrill in the arm he held, and an inclination as if to throw him off, but he was not to be thrown off; he was small but very tenacious, and clung to his hold.

“That is what I want to know. The beginning. Did he meet anyone? had he any dispute or altercation in the wood?”

“None that I know of,” said Rintoul. He spoke sulkily, almost in an undertone, so that Millefleurs had to concentrate his attention upon the voice, which was interrupted by all the sounds in the air, the rustling of the trees, the sough of the river far away.

“Did you see anyone about?” said Millefleurs.

The two men were in the dark⁠—they could not see each other’s faces, yet they stopped and looked at each other, anxiously, suspiciously, each at the red end of the other’s cigar, which disclosed a moustache, a shadow above.

“Anyone about? I don’t think there was anyone about,” said Rintoul, still more sullenly. “What should put that into your mind? You were not there?”

This was a curious question, but Millefleurs made no note of it, his mind being possessed by an entirely different idea. He said, “No, I was not there. I drove home with your mother, don’t you know. To think we should have passed without the least knowing it, the place which so soon was to be the scene of such a tragedy.”

“Don’t romance about it. It’s bad enough as it is. You did not pass the scene. It was on the other road, a long way from yours.”

“At which side?”

“The left side,” said Rintoul, carelessly. “I wish, if you don’t mind, that you would change the subject. My nerves are all wrong. I didn’t know I was such a feeble beggar. I’d rather not dwell upon it, if you don’t mind.”

“The left side?” said Millefleurs, with a sigh⁠—and then there was a pause. “You are quite sure,” he added anxiously, “that you did not see anyone in the wood?”

Rintoul almost thrust this question away. “I tell you I won’t be questioned,” he said. Then, composing himself with an effort, “I beg your pardon, Millefleurs⁠—I never liked the man, though he was my brother-in-law; and to see all at once a fellow whom perhaps you had been thinking badly of two minutes before, wishing no good to⁠—to see him lying there stiff and stark⁠—”

“I beg you a thousand pardons, Rintoul,” Millefleurs said gravely. And they went in together, saying no more.

XXIX

Lady Lindores and Edith were carried along through the darkness of the night with that curious sense of rapid unseen movement which has in it a kind of soothing influence upon suspense and mental distress. They spoke to each other in the darkness of Carry⁠—poor Carry! how would she take it? but yet never ventured, even to each other, to express the innermost feeling in their minds on this subject. As they drove along, the gleam of other lamps went rapidly past them close to the gate of Dalrulzian, leading back their thoughts for a moment to other interests. “It is John Erskine’s dogcart. Is he going away? is it someone arriving? has he been dining somewhere?” Lady Lindores said, with the unconscious curiosity of the country. Then she said with a little shudder, “I wonder if he can have heard?”⁠—that first question which always suggests itself in the face of a great event. “How strange to think that someone has been peacefully dining out while that has been happening⁠—so near!” Edith answered only by pressing her mother’s arm in which her own was entwined, as they sat close together for mutual consolation. She had other troubled wandering thoughts aching in her own heart; but of these she said nothing, but watched the lamps turning up the Dalrulzian avenue with a thrill of mingled feeling, half angry that he should not have divined she was in trouble, half glad that he thus proved his ignorance of all that had occurred. Thus unknowing, Carry’s mother and sister crossed in the dark another new actor in Carry’s history, of whom no one as yet had thought.

Carry was seated in her own room alone. It was her natural refuge at such a moment. A fire had been lighted by the anxious servants⁠—who saw her shiver in the nervous excitement of this great and terrible event⁠—and blazed brightly, throwing ruddy gleams of light through the room, and wavering ghostly shadows upon the wall. The great bed, with its tall canopies and heavy ornaments, shrouded round with satin curtains, looped and festooned with tarnished gold lace and every kind of clumsy grandeur, stood like a sort of catafalque, the object of a thousand airy assaults and attacks from the fantastic light, but always dark⁠—a funereal object in the midst; while the tall polished wardrobes all round the room gave back reflections like dim mirrors, showing nothing but the light. Two groups of candles on the high mantelpiece, twinkling against the dark wall, were the only other illuminations. Carry sat sunk in a big chair close to the fire. If she could have cried⁠—if she could have talked and lamented⁠—if she could have gone to bed⁠—or, failing this, if she had read her Bible⁠—the maids in the house, who hung about the doors in anxiety and curiosity, would have felt consoled for her. But she did none of these. She only sat there, her slight figure lost in the depths of the chair, still in the white dress which she had worn to receive her guests in the morning. She had not stirred⁠—the women said, gathering round Lady Lindores in whispering eagerness⁠—for hours, and had not even touched the cup of tea they had carried to her. “Oh, my lady, do something to make her cry,” the women said. “If she doesn’t get it out it’ll break her heart.” They had forgotten, with the facile emotion which death, and especially a death so sudden, calls forth, that the master had been anything but the most devoted of husbands, or his wife other than the lovingest of wives. This pious superstition is always ready to smooth away the horror of deaths which are a grief to no one. “Your man’s your man when a’s done, even if he’s but an ill ane,” was the sentiment of the awestricken household. “Ye never ken what he’s been to ye till ye lose him.” It gave them all a sense of elevation that Lady Caroline should, as they thought, be wrapped in hopeless grief⁠—it made them think better of her and of themselves. The two ladies went into the ghostly room with something of the same feeling. Lady Lindores felt that she understood it⁠—that she had expected it. Had not her own mind been filled by sudden compunction⁠—the thought that perhaps she had been less tolerant of the dead man than she ought; and how much more must Carry, poor Carry, have felt the awe and pang of an almost remorse to think that he was gone without a word against whom her heart had risen in such rebellion, yet who was of all men the most closely involved in her very being? Lady Lindores comprehended it all; and yet it was a relief to her mind that Carry felt it so, and could thus wear the garb of mourning with reality and truth. She went in with her heart full, with tears in her eyes, the profoundest tender pity for the dead, the deepest sympathy with her child in sorrow. The room was very large, very still, very dark, save for that ruddy twilight, the two little groups of pale lights glimmering high up upon the wall, and no sign of any human presence. “Carry, my darling!” her mother said, wondering and dismayed. Then there was a faint sound, and Carry rose, tall, slim, and white, like a ghost out of the gloom. She had been sitting there for hours, lost in thoughts, in dreams, and visions. She seemed to herself to have so exhausted this event by thinking of it, that it was now years away. She stepped forward and met her mother, tenderly indeed, but with no effusion. “Have you come all the way so late to be with me, mother? How kind, how kind you are! And Edith too⁠—”

“Kind!” cried Lady Lindores, with an almost angry bewilderment. “Did you not know I would come, Carry, my poor child. But you are stunned with this blow⁠—”

“I suppose I was at first. Yes, I knew you would come⁠—at first; but it seems so long since. Sit down, mother; you are cold. You have had such a miserable drive. Come near to the fire⁠—”

“Carry, Carry dear, never mind us; it is you we are all thinking of. You must not sit there and drive yourself distracted thinking.”

“Let me take off this shawl from your cap, mamma. Now you look more comfortable. Have you brought your things to stay? I am ringing to have fires lit in your rooms. Oh yes, I want you to stay. I have never been able to endure this house, you know, and those large rooms, and the desert feeling in it. And you will have some tea or something. I must give orders⁠—”

“Carry,” cried her mother, arresting her hand on the bell, “Edith and I will see to all that. Don’t pay any attention to us. I have come to take care of you, my dearest. Carry, dear, your nerves are all shattered. How could it be otherwise? You must let me get you something⁠—they say you have taken nothing⁠—and you must go to bed.”

“I don’t think my nerves are shattered. I am quite well. There is nothing the matter with me. You forget,” she said, with something like a faint laugh, “how often we have said, mamma, how absurd to send and ask after a woman’s health when there is nothing the matter with her, when only she has lost⁠—” Here she paused a little, and then said gravely, “Even grief does not affect the health.”

“Very often it does not, dear; but, Carry, you must not forget that you have had a terrible shock. Even I, who am not so nearly involved⁠—even I⁠—” Here Lady Lindores, in her excitement and agitation, lost her voice altogether, and sobbed, unable to command herself. “Oh, poor fellow! poor fellow!” she said, with broken tones. “In a moment, Carry, without warning!”

Carry went to her mother’s side, and drew her head upon her breast. She was perfectly composed, without a tear. “I have thought of all that,” she said; “I cannot think it matters. If God is the Father of us all, we are the same to Him, dead or living. What can it matter to Him that we should make preparations to appear before Him? Oh, all that must be folly, mother. However bad I had been, should I have to prepare to go to you?”

“Carry, Carry, my darling! It is I that should be saying this to you. You are putting too much force upon yourself⁠—it is unnatural; it will be all the more terrible for you after.”

Carry stood stooping over her mother, holding Lady Lindores’s head against her bosom. She smiled faintly, and shook her head. “Has it not been unnatural altogether?” she said.

To Edith standing behind, this strange scene appeared like a picture⁠—part of the phantasmagoria of which her sister had for years been the centre: her mind leapt back to the discussions which preceded Carry’s marriage, the hopeless yielding of the victim, the perplexity and misery of the mother. Now they had changed positions, but the same strange haze of terror and pity, yet almost indignation, was in her own breast. She had been the judge then⁠—in a smaller degree she was the judge now. But this plea stopped her confused and painful thoughts. Has it not been unnatural altogether? Edith’s impulse was to escape from a problem which she could not deal with. “I will go and see the children,” she said.

“The children⁠—poor children! have you seen them, Carry? do they know?” said Lady Lindores, drying the tears⁠—the only tears that had been shed for Torrance⁠—from her cheeks.

Carry did not make any reply. She went away to the other end of the room and took up a white shawl in which she wrapped herself. “The only thing I feel is cold,” she said.

“Ah, my love, that is the commonest feeling. I have felt sometimes as if I could just drag myself to the fire like a wounded animal and care for nothing more.”

“But, mother, you were never in any such terrible trouble.”

“Not like this⁠—but I have lost children,” said Lady Lindores. She had to pause again, her lip quivering. “To be only sorrow, there is no sorrow like that.”

She had risen, and they stood together, the fantastic firelight throwing long shadows of them all over the dim and ghastly room. Suddenly Carry flung herself into her mother’s arms. “Oh my innocent mother!” she cried. “Oh, mother! you only know such troubles as angels may have. Look at me! look at me! I am like a mad woman. I am keeping myself in, as you say, that I may not go mad⁠—with joy!”

Lady Lindores gave a low terrible cry, and held her daughter in her arm, pressing her desperately to her heart as if to silence her. “No, Carry⁠—no, no,” she cried.

“It is true. To think I shall never be subject to all that any more⁠—that he can never come in here again⁠—that I am free⁠—that I can be alone. Oh, mother, how can you tell what it is? Never to be alone: never to have a corner in the world where⁠—someone else has not a right to come, a better right than yourself. I don’t know how I have borne it. I don’t know how I can have lived, disgusted, loathing myself. No, no; sometime else I shall be sorry when I have time to think, when I can forget what it is that has happened to me⁠—but in the meantime I am too happy⁠—too⁠—”

Lady Lindores put her hand upon her daughter’s mouth. “No, no, Carry⁠—no, no; I cannot bear it⁠—you must not say it,” she cried.

Carry took her mother’s hands and kissed them, and then began to sob⁠—the tears pouring from her eyes like rain. “I will not say anything,” she cried; “no, no⁠—nothing, mother. I had to tell you to relieve my heart. I have been able to think of nothing else all these hours. I have never had so many hours to myself for years. It is so sweet to sit still and know that no one will burst the door open and come in. Here I can be sacred to myself, and sit and think: and all quiet⁠—all quiet about me.” Carry looked up, clasping her hands, with the tears dropping now and then, but a smile quivering upon her mouth and in her eyes. She seemed to have reached that height of passionate emotion⁠—the edge where expression at its highest almost loses itself, and a blank of all meaning seems the next possibility. In her white dress, with her upturned face and the wild gleam of rapture in her eyes, she was like an unearthly creature. But to describe Lady Lindores’s anguish and terror and pain would be impossible. She thought her daughter was distraught. Never in her life had she come in contact with feeling so absolute, subdued by no sense of natural fitness, or even by right and wrong. Her only comfort was that Edith had not been present to hear and see this revelation. And the truth was that her own heart, though so panic-stricken and penetrated with so much pity for the dead, understood, too, with a guilty throb, the overwhelming sense of emancipation which drove everything else from Carry’s mind. She had feared it would be so. She would not allow herself to think so; but all through the darkness of the night as she drove along, she had been trembling lest she should find Carry not heartbroken but happy, yet had trusted that pity somehow would keep her in the atmosphere of gloom which ought to surround a new-made widow. It hurt Lady Lindores’s tender heart that a woman should be glad when her husband died, however unworthy that husband might have been. She did her best now to soothe the excited creature, who took her excitement for happiness.

“We will talk of this no more tonight, Carry; by-and-by you will see how pitiful it all is. You will feel⁠—as I feel. But in the meantime you are worn out. This terrible shock, even though you may think you do not feel it, has thrown you into a fever. You must let me put you to bed.”

“Not here,” she said with a shudder, looking round the room; “not here⁠—I could not rest here.”

“That is natural,” Lady Lindores said with a sigh. “You must come with me, Carry.”

“Home, mother⁠—home! Oh, if I could!⁠—not even to Lindores⁠—to one of the old poor places where we were so happy⁠—”

“When we had no home,” the mother said, shaking her head. But she, too, got a wistful look in her eyes at the recollection. Those days when they were poor, wandering, of no account; when it mattered little to anyone but themselves where they went, what the children might do, what alliances they made⁠—what halcyon days these were to look back on! In those days this miserable union, which had ended so miserably, could never have been made. Was it worth while to have had so many additional possessions added to them⁠—rank and apparent elevation⁠—for such a result? But she could not permit herself to think, with Carry sitting by, too ready to relapse into those feverish musings which were so terrible. She put her arm round her child and drew her tenderly away. They left the room with the lights against the wall, and the firelight giving it a faux air of warmth and inhabitation. Its emptiness was scarcely less tragic, scarcely less significant, than the chill of the other great room⁠—the state chamber⁠—in the other wing, where, with lights burning solemnly about him all night, the master of the house lay dead, unwatched by either love or sorrow. There were gloom and panic, and the shock of a great catastrophe, in the house. There were even honest regrets; for he had not been a bad master, though often a rough one: but nothing more tender. And Carry lay down with her mother’s arms round her and slept, and woke in the night, and asked herself what it was; then lay still in a solemn happiness⁠—exhausted, peaceful⁠—feeling as if she desired nothing more. She was delivered: as she lay silent, hidden in the darkness and peace of the night, she went over and over this one certainty, so terrible yet so sweet. “God forgive me! God forgive me!” she said softly to herself, her very breathing hushed with the sense of relief. She had come out of death into life. Was it wrong to be glad? That it was a shame and outrage upon nature was no fault of poor Carry. Sweet tears rolled into her eyes, her jarred and thwarted being came back into harmony. She lay and counted the dark silent hours striking one by one, feeling herself all wrapped in peace and ease, as if she lay in some sacred shrine. Tomorrow would bring back the veils and shrouds of outside life⁠—the need of concealment, of self-restraint, almost of hypocrisy⁠—the strain and pain of a new existence to be begun; but tonight⁠—this one blessed night of deliverance⁠—was her own.

XXX

It was late when John Erskine got home on the afternoon of this eventful day. John Tamson’s wife mended his coat for him, and he got himself brushed and put in order; then his excitement calming down, he walked slowly home. He argued with himself as he walked, that to take any further notice of Torrance’s violence would be unworthy of himself. The fellow had been drinking, no doubt. He had been stung in his tenderest point⁠—his pride in his fine house and tawdry grandeur⁠—he had felt himself altogether out of place in the little company, which included his nearest connections. Not much wonder, poor wretch, if he were twisted the wrong way. John forgave him as he grew calmer, and arriving at home, tired out, and somewhat depressed in mind, began at last to feel sorry for Pat Torrance, who never had been framed for the position he held. The first thing he found when he arrived, to his alarm and dismay, was a telegram from Beaufort announcing his arrival that very night. “Obliged to come; cannot help myself,” his friend said, apologetic even by telegraph. Nothing could well have been more unfortunate. John felt as if this arrival must put a gulf between him and Carry’s family altogether⁠—but it was too late now for any alteration, even if he could have, in the circumstances, deserted his friend. Perhaps, too, in the crisis at which he had arrived, it would be well for him to have someone upon whom he could fall back, someone who had been more unfortunate than himself, to whom he could talk, who would understand without explanation, the extraordinary crisis to which his history had come. It was not his doing, nor Edith’s doing⁠—they had not sought each other: no intention had been in her mind of making a victim of her rural neighbour; no ambitious project in his, of wooing the Earl’s daughter. Everything had been innocent, unwitting. A few meetings, the most innocent, simple intercourse⁠—and lo! the woe or weal of two lives was concerned. It seemed hard that so simply, with so little foresight, a man might mar his happiness. John was not a sentimentalist, determining that his whole existence was to be shattered by such a disappointment. He repeated to himself, with a little scorn⁠—

“Man’s love is of man’s life a thing apart.”

But the scorn was of the sentiment, and not any protest against the application of it to his own case. The broken tie between Beaufort and Carry was not an example of that superficial poetic deliverance. He himself was not like Beaufort, nor Edith like her sister. She would never marry a man whom she could not love; nor would he allow himself to dally with all the objects of life, and let everything slip past him. But he knew what would happen, he said to himself in the quietness of the silent hours. Life would lose its crown altogether. He would “get on” as if nothing remarkable had befallen him⁠—but the glory and the joy would be over without ever having been his. And if she shared his feelings, there would be the same result on her side⁠—her life would be lonely like his, the flower of existence would be stolen from her. Only⁠—if it were possible that Edith did share his feelings, then there was still something to be done⁠—there was a fight for it still before them. He would not give in like Beaufort, nor she take any irremediable step of desperation like Carry. This stirred him a little and restored him to himself; but on the whole, despondency was his prevailing feeling⁠—a sense of impossibility, the sensation as of a blank wall before him, which it was impossible to surmount.

He had a lonely dreary evening. His dinner was served to him by one of the maids, who was frightened and lost her head, Rolls still being absent, to the great alarm of the household. Bauby, who did not remember the time when her brother had thus forsaken his duties, had been so disturbed in her preparations by anxiety, that it had almost happened to John as to King Louis, that he had to wait for his meal. “I canna gie my mind to my denner. Whaur’s Tammas?⁠—and who’s to take ben the dishes?” Bauby cried. When the housemaid, arrayed in her best cap and apron, and with what she herself called “a red face,” blushing like a peony in the unusual responsibility and honour, had managed to fulfil the service of the table, Bauby went out to the kitchen-door and then to the avenue to watch. “Something’ll have happened to him,” she said, drying her eyes. “Na, na, he’s no’ the man to forget himself. It’s been something he couldna avide. The Lord grant it’s no deadly⁠—that’s a’ I say. We’ve never had an accident in oor family, no’ since my grandfather that tummeled down the Broken Brig and broke himself a’ to bits, and walkit wi’ a crutch ever aifter.” Bauby had got the length of despair by the time the dogcart came up the avenue bringing “the gentleman” from the station, whom Marget the housemaid, once more tying on her best apron, and looking in the glass to see if she had not yet got rid of that “awfu’ red face,” prepared to attend upon. It was at this moment, when Bauby found it required her whole attention to keep her tears from dropping upon the bird, which was cooked to a turn for Beaufort’s supper, that a sudden welcome voice made her jump and almost drop the savoury morsel. “Eh, Tammas! what I’ve gaen through this nicht!” she cried. “I thought you were drowned in the water, or a’ your banes broken.” “Hold your peace,” said Rolls, with a gloomy countenance; “nothing has happened to me.” And he took the tray out of Marget’s hands without a word. The women stood aghast to see him so scowling, dark, and uncommunicative, proceeding thus into the presence of his master, without any attention to his dress. “Without your claes!” Bauby said. “Hold your peace,” repeated her brother. And he paused as he went out of the kitchen and turned round solemnly, “We have all a hantle mair to think of this night than my claes.” The solemnity of this address, it is needless to say, made an enormous impression upon the maids, who were wont to consider Rolls, next to the minister, as one of the greatest lights of the parish. Andrew the gardener came in soon after on some domestic errand, and from him they heard something of what had happened at Tinto. “I’m no’ sure what but the maister here is in it,” Andrew said. “You gomeril! how can Mr. John be in it, and him biding quiet at hame, and no’ looking the gait Pat Torrance was on?” “Aweel, I’m saying, I ken naething about it, but that something’s happened to Tinto and his muckle mear⁠—and the maister’s into it,” Andrew replied.

Meanwhile Rolls had carried in the supper. The library where John always sat was cheerful with light and fire. The farther north the traveller goes, the more sure he is, with or without occasion, to find a fire. It scarcely enters into the Italian’s idea of comfort at all, though he shivers with cold⁠—but it is indispensable to a Scotsman’s, though it may be warm. The night was soft and mild, the windows wide open, but the ruddy glow made everything cheerful, and John Erskine had brightened to meet his visitor: he was sitting cheerfully in the light, asking Beaufort the hundred questions with which a man a little withdrawn from society assails one who has kept within it. Beaufort himself was older and graver: a man with a fine picturesque head, somewhat long; a forehead exceptionally white, from which the hair had begun to wear off a little round the temples; a slightly feeble querulous drop of the lip under his moustache. He was very tall, very slim, with long white hands, which clasped each other in a nervous habitual motion. Neither the one nor the other took any notice of Rolls. They were in full flood of talk about old associations, for they had not met for years. Rolls made his preparations very deliberately, almost rubbing against his master on repeated occasions as he went and came. Three or four times over John drew his chair out of the way, a little surprised, but paying no particular attention. When this happened, however, for the fifth or sixth time, he looked up impatiently. “What are you after?” he cried. Rolls looked at him with a steady meaning gaze, his eyes staring, his mouth rigid⁠—he shook his head slightly, very slowly. “What’s the matter?” cried John. Beaufort had seated himself at the table, and had begun his meal. The others were in the shade behind him, between the fireplace and the door.

“There’s much the maitter, sir⁠—much the maitter,” said Rolls; “more than will be made up for this many a day.”

“What do you mean? What is it? You look as if something had happened with which I had to do,” John said, half alarmed, half amused. The only answer Rolls gave was to shake his head once more very gravely as he turned away. His look spoke all that he did not say. Tragedy was in it, and horror, and pity, and reproach. John grew excited in spite of himself. “Hey, here Rolls! Rolls, I say! What is the meaning of this?” he cried. Rolls opened the door slowly, solemnly, and disappeared. “Confound the fellow!” cried John, and rose hastily and followed, with a hurried word to Beaufort. “I suppose the mare has fallen lame, or there is a tile off the roof,” he said, half laughing. Rolls was standing in the partial gloom outside the door. The hall door was open, and the whole darkness of the night showing beyond. Over their heads hung the lamp, flickering in the night air, throwing its light upon the impenetrable blackness opposite to it in the open doorway, but leaving the two figures in shadow below. Rolls stood as if he expected his master. He left him no time to ask any question, but said at once, “Yon was death, sir,” in a low and solemn tone.

“Yon! What was death? I don’t understand you,” John cried, in wonder and alarm. “Quick, quick! tell me what you mean.”

“It’s but ower easy to tell;⁠—yon was death. He’s never stirred. Horse and man one heap, and no’ a breath or a tremble in it. It’s easy⁠—easy to tell.”

“Good God! Rolls, what do you mean? Not⁠—not the Scaur⁠—not⁠—”

“That’s what I mean,” Rolls replied almost sternly. “A bonnie morning’s work. Just Tinto, poor fellow, with all his faults, and, maybe, the drink in him that made it easy. Dead⁠—dead.”

There was a sort of guttural sob in the old man’s voice. His heart was wrung, not for Tinto, but with a deeper and closer horror. But John neither thought nor understood this. He fell back a step and leaned against the wall in horror and bewilderment. “Good God!” he repeated with pale lips, with that instinctive appeal which we make without knowing it in the face of every mystery. Under any circumstances, the suddenness and terribleness of the event would have appalled him; but now, at this moment, with Beaufort under his roof!⁠—he could only gasp for breath⁠—he could not speak. And he was not aware how eagerly Rolls was noticing every look and gesture, and how his agitation struck the old servant to the heart. He asked a few further questions in profound horror and dismay, then went back to his friend with a ghastly countenance, shaken to the bottom of his heart. The very consciousness that behind this sudden and terrible death stood life, added to the effect. He went back to tell Beaufort of it. That was indeed his first intention, but second thoughts presented to him the embarrassing nature of such a communication at the very moment of his friend’s arrival. Beaufort did not notice⁠—being occupied with his supper⁠—the pallor and agitation which had produced so great an effect upon old Rolls. But after a while, as John said nothing, he turned half round and said, “I hope nothing serious has happened to the mare⁠—”

“The mare⁠—Oh yes, it was something very serious⁠—not to be made a jest of. A fatal accident has happened⁠—to one of my neighbours. It is appalling in any case to hear of anything so sudden; but what makes it worse is, that I spent some part of today in his company. It is not above four or five hours since I parted with him. We had even a little altercation,” said John, with a slight shudder. “There’s a bitter lesson for you! To quarrel with a man without a thought of any harm, and a little while after to hear that he is dead, with an unkind thought of you in his heart, and you with hard thoughts of him!”

Beaufort answered gravely and sympathetically as became such an announcement. “Was he a man you liked? Was he a friend?”

“No: neither a friend nor a man I liked, but young and strong; such a frame of a man!⁠—worth you and me put together; and to think that in a moment⁠—”

“How did it happen?” Beaufort asked.

“I scarcely asked. He must have fallen, he and his horse, down a precipice⁠—the Scaur⁠—a place he had often been cautioned against, I believe. Good heavens! to think of it! I thought he must have gone over as we spoke.”

And John got up and walked about the room in his excitement. This interrupted altogether the lively flow of conversation with which they had begun the evening. There were one or two attempts made to resume it. But Erskine relapsed in a few moments either into exclamations of dismay, or into restless and uncomfortable silence of thought. The fact was, not only that Torrance’s sudden death had startled his imagination and awoke some compunctions in his mind, as in that of Lady Lindores, but that it opened to him a whole confusing sea of speculations and possibilities. It was extraordinary that on the very day which should see this happen, Beaufort had arrived. And what would Lady Caroline now say⁠—she who, with such self-betraying emotion, had entreated John to keep his friend away? What might happen now were they to meet? John shrank from the suggestion as from an impiety, and yet it would come back. It was evident to Beaufort that his friend was out of sorts and profoundly agitated. He withdrew early to his room, pleading that he was tired, to leave John to himself. It did not concern him (Beaufort) to be sure, but it must, he felt, touch Erskine more than he was willing to show. And it was a relief to John to be alone. His mind, left to itself, pursued the question, not so much of the dead as of the living. He did not call back Rolls to question him on the accident as he had intended to do; for it was Carry he thought of, not poor Torrance, after the first moment. What would Carry do? What would she think when she found, in the first moment of her freedom, Beaufort so near? The idea overwhelmed him. There seemed a certain indelicacy and precipitancy in the thought. He had risen in his restlessness and opened the window, as he had been in the habit of doing, to breathe the freshness of the night air, when Rolls came in, pale, and with a harassed stealthy look. He came up to his master, and seeing that he was not observed, touched him on the arm. “If you are going out, sir, to take a walk⁠—or that,” he said, with quivering lips, “I’ve brought you a coat and some haps⁠—”

John looked at him with surprise. The old man was grey and ghastly; his lip quivered. He had a dark coat carefully folded over his arm, several comforters and a plaid. There was a tremor in his whole figure, and his eyes had a wild look of inquiry and fear.

“Take a walk! Why should I take a walk at this time of night?”

“Oh, I’m no’ saying: gentlemen has strange fancies. I’m not one to pry. I’ll put the haps here, in case you should want them. You’ll find a drop brandy in your flask, and a few sandwiches in the pocket,” he added in an undertone.

“Sandwiches! You must be taking leave of your senses. Where do you suppose I should want to go?”

“I would rather not know, sir,” said Rolls, solemnly turning away. “What good would it do me to know? I’ll not listen nor look. I have nothing ado with it; but oh, if you’ll take my advice, go⁠—go out of harm’s way.”

“I believe you are mad, Rolls.”

“I have plenty to make me sae, at the least of it,” Rolls said, and putting down the coat ostentatiously on a chair, he hobbled out of the room, closing the door carefully behind him. John could hear his steps going stealthily upstairs to the window in the gallery above, where they seemed to pause, and the window was carefully opened. A wild bewilderment seized upon his mind. Of what was it that the old servant was afraid?

XXXI

Next day the countryside far and near thought and talked of nothing but the fatal accident at Tinto, which was such a public event as moved everybody. There was no figure in the district more widely known than that of Pat Torrance on his black mare, a powerful horse and powerful man, looking as if they could defy every power of nature; and it thrilled every village far and near, every lone farm-steading and cluster of cottages for miles round, to be told that Black Jess and her master had both been ended by one false step, and that Pat Torrance, strong and rich and potent as he was, had died the death of a dog, unaided, unseen. The news ran from village to village like the fiery cross⁠—everywhere expanding into new details and a deeper and deeper horror of description. First the bare fact, then all these additional circumstances, making it more and more visibly evident to every excited listener, filled the air. Each new passerby was like a new edition of a newspaper, and had heard something more. How the two bodies had been found, horse and man; how Tinto had been warned over and over again of the danger of the Scaur, and would listen to no advice on the subject, but insisted on leaving it as it was, either for the sake of the view (though it was little he was heeding about views), or for the brag, which was more likely; and how he was got up with much trouble, and carried in dead to his own house, which he had left in all his pride an hour or two before. What ground for reflection upon the vicissitudes of life was here! There was not a group of two or three people anywhere but one at least would shake the head and lift up the voice of wisdom, bidding the others note how in the midst of life we were in death. And when this first horror was exhausted, there ensued the brief summing up of character and life, the rapid history in which our neighbours epitomise us as soon as we are ended. There were no illusions on the subject of wild Pat Torrance; but on the whole he fared well in the hands of the rude country-folk, whose taste was not fine enough to be offended by his roughnesses. In spite of all his vices and extravagances, he had a certain good-fellowship with his inferiors in position, a rough familiarity of address which passed for kindness, and conciliated the common mind. On every side the wild incidents of his youth were recalled, not unkindly. “Eh, poor Tinto, poor fallow! I mind when he was a young lad⁠—” the commentators began on every side. And the women concluded that perhaps if he had gotten a wife more like himself, things might have been different. The rural imagination accepted him as he was, with many a sage reflection, but little censure on the whole⁠—winding up the story of his feats and frolics, his stormy, wild career, with a big rustic sigh for the ploughboy-gentleman, the rude Laird who was so near to them. The tragedy was as complete and typical as the primitive historian could desire. And the man who would take no warning, but kept the dangerous spot unguarded that he might get his death on it, was as broad an example of human rashness and blindness as could have been selected. Wild Pat Torrance, poor fallow! It was just the end which everybody might have expected, it was allowed on all hands.

But presently there arose a chill whisper, like the first creeping upward of an east wind, bringing greyness and blight over earth and sky. Who can say how this atmospheric influence rises, which one moment is not, and the next has covered the country with an ungenial chill? It was the same with this moral cloud, which came, nobody knew from whence, nor how, rising in a moment. The origin of it could not be brought home to any individual, but there it was. After all, how could it be that Black Jess, used to every step of the way, went over the Scaur? In a moment the tide of popular comment changed, and those who had pointed out the awful justice of fate by which Pat Torrance had been made to bring about his own fate by his obstinacy, began to say that so bold a rider never could have lost his life on so well-known a road⁠—without foul play. Accident! how could it be accident, without some human hand to help? It was not till the second morning that this development of the tragedy came; and it took the whole of that day to establish the connection⁠—which flashed upon the general mind like lightning at last⁠—between John Erskine’s torn sleeve and dishevelled appearance and the fate of Torrance. John Tamson swore with angry oaths afterwards that it was not from him the tale came; but others had seen young Dalrulzian, flushed and muddy, coming from the gate of Tinto on that eventful afternoon; and when the community began to think it over and compare notes, nothing could be more natural than the conclusion to which they came. If the original news had flown over the country like the war-signal of the old clans, this was like the spreading of a sheet of flame⁠—it burst out at point after point after the merest touch of contact. Young Dalrulzian was little known. The country knew no stories of his youth to endear him. He had been brought up far away. He was an Englishman, almost an alien. And Tinto, it was well known, was rough of speech, and “couldna bide” the dainty and delicate. What if they met in the wood; what if there had been a struggle⁠—if the weaker man who had no chance against the stronger had seized Black Jess by the bridle, and driven the high-spirited animal frantic? The groups who had been recalling all the old stories of Tinto, now changed like magic into little committees of accusation, with their heads close together, framing their indictment. The question was given against John Erskine all over the country before the ending of the second day.

There is no coroner’s inquest in Scotland. When a death is attended by doubtful circumstances, the procedure is slower and more elaborate, and private individuals are reluctant to move in a matter so painful. But yet the atmosphere of suspicion and popular condemnation stole into Dalrulzian as it had crept over the whole country. It conveyed itself to the supposed criminal himself in a subtle sense of something wrong. He had not a notion what it was⁠—neither did he know at first that it was he who was the object disapproved of; but it was impossible not to feel that something was wrong. The aspect of Rolls himself, conjoined with his extraordinary behaviour on the night of Torrance’s death, was remarkable enough to excite alarm. The old servant seemed to have grown ten years older in a single night. His face was furrowed with deep lines, his shoulders bowed, his step tottering. The pathos and earnestness of the looks which he bent upon his young master were indescribable. The air, half critical, half paternal, with which he had been wont to regard him, was gone. He no longer interfered in every arrangement with that sense of superior wisdom which had amused John from the moment of his arrival. All the humour of the situation was over. Intense gravity, almost solemnity, was in the countenance of Rolls; he was constantly on the watch, as if he expected unwelcome visitors. Beaufort, who was not given to mirth, was roused out of his gravity by the melancholy aspect of Methusaleh, as he called him. “One would think your servants expected you to be carried off to prison for high treason,” he said, laughing⁠—for Rolls was not the only one in the house who regarded John with these alarmed and solemn eyes. Bauby, who on ordinary occasions had nothing but a broad smile and look of maternal admiration for her young master, was continually visible, gazing at him from unexpected corners with her apron at her eyes. When he asked her if she wanted anything with him, she would murmur, “Oh, Mr. John!” and cry. The other maids supporting her behind, fled from his presence. The gardener regarded him with a sort of stern inquiry when he passed carrying his basket of vegetables to the house. John was disturbed, as a man of sympathetic nature cannot help being disturbed, by this curious atmosphere of discomfort. He could not tell what it was.

Beaufort was not an inspiriting companion for a man thus perplexed and confounded. To find himself in the district where Carry lived, to be in her neighbourhood, yet separated from her as by walls of iron, impressed his languid mind with a deeper shade of that sentimental consciousness which was habitual to him. Her name had not yet been mentioned between the friends; but Beaufort walked about the country roads in a constant state of expectation, feeling that every carriage he heard approaching might reveal to him the face which he longed yet feared to see. And for the first three or four days this was all the entertainment which John provided for his friend. He was full of embarrassment as to the situation altogether. Lady Lindores and Edith were, he had heard, at Tinto, where he could not disturb them; and he felt no inclination to make his appearance at Lindores in their absence. Torrance’s death and Beaufort’s presence seemed, indeed, to place impossible barriers between him and them. It would have been sufficiently uncomfortable, he had felt, to produce his friend there in the lifetime of Carry’s husband; but to present him now, when so unexpectedly, so tragically, Carry was once more free, became an impossibility. In every way John felt himself paralysed. The air affected him, he could not tell how. He took his companion out walking all over the country, and drove him to long distances in his dogcart, but introduced him to no one, nor ever went to any other house. And nobody called during this curious interval. The two men lived like hermits, and talked of their old comrades and associations, but never of the new. John even answered Beaufort’s question about Tinto, which was one of the first points in the landscape which attracted his curiosity, without telling him of the tragedy which had happened there. “It belongs to the Torrances,” he had said abruptly, and no more. It did not seem possible to tell Beaufort that her husband was dead. Troublesome as his coming was at any time, it seemed almost an immodest intrusion now; and John was disturbed and harassed by it. His mind was sufficiently troubled and uneasy on his own account; and this seemed like an odious repetition, intensification of his own circumstances. Two unfortunate lovers together, with the two ladies of their choice so separated from them, though so near; and now this utterly bewildering and distracting new element brought into the dilemma, throwing a wild and feverish gleam of impious possibility on what had been so impossible before. He could not speak of it: he could not breathe Edith’s name or Carry’s into the too sympathetic, anxious ear of his friend. He held him at arm’s-length, and talked of Dick and Tom and Harry, the comrades of the past, but never of what was so much more deeply interesting and important to both of them now.

“Look here, Erskine,” said Beaufort; “I thought you were seeing a great deal of⁠—your neighbours: and that Millefleurs would have come to me before now. I shall have to send him word I am here.”

“To be sure. I had forgotten Millefleurs,” said John. “You forget I only knew of your coming a few hours before you arrived.”

“But I thought⁠—people in the country see so much of each other generally.”

“They have been⁠—engaged⁠—with family matters,” said John.

“Do you mean to say it is all settled?⁠—and that Millefleurs is to marry⁠—”

“I know nothing about marrying,” cried John, harshly; and then, recollecting himself, he added, in a subdued tone, “There can be nothing of that sort going on at present. It is death, not marriage, that occupies them now.”

Beaufort opened his languid eyes and looked with curiosity in his friend’s face. “Is it so? Yet Millefleurs stays on. That looks as if very intimate relations had been established, Erskine.”

“Does it? I don’t know what relations have been established,” John said, with visible impatience. And he got up and went out of the room abruptly, breaking off all further discussion. Beaufort sent a note to his pupil that evening. It was the fourth or fifth day after his arrival. “I made sure I should have seen you, or I would have let you know my whereabouts sooner,” he wrote. He was himself oppressed by the atmosphere round him, without knowing why. He had expected a genial Scotch house, full of company and life, with something of that exaggeration of fancy which had made Dalrulzian so wonderfully disappointing to John himself⁠—a house where, amid the movement of lively society, his own embarrassing position would have been softened, and he might even have met his former love in the crowd without special notice or more pain than was inevitable. But he seemed to have dropped instead into a hermitage, almost into a tomb.

Millefleurs made his appearance next morning, very grave too, as everybody seemed in this serious country, and with none of his usual chirruping confidence. “I never guessed you were here,” he said; “everything of course, at Lindores, is wrapped in gloom.”

“There has been a death⁠—” said Beaufort.

“A death!⁠—yes. Has not Erskine told you? A tragedy: nothing so terrible has happened here for ages. You’ve heard, Erskine,” he said, turning round suddenly upon John, who was in the background, “that there are suspicions of foul play.”

John came forward into the light; there was embarrassment and annoyance in his face. “I have said nothing to Beaufort about it⁠—he did not know the man⁠—why should I? What did you say there were suspicions of?”

Millefleurs looked him full in the face, with a curious direct look, and answered, with a certain sternness, oddly inappropriate to his cast of countenance, “Foul play.”

John was startled. He looked up with a movement of surprise, then returned Millefleurs’s gaze with a mingled expression of astonishment and displeasure. “Foul play!” he said; “impossible!”⁠—then added, “Why do you look at me so?”

Millefleurs did not make any reply. He turned to Beaufort, who stood by puzzled, looking on. “I ought not to stay,” he said; “but Lord Lindores seems to wish it, and there are some things to be settled; and I am very much interested besides. There is no coroner in Scotland, I hear. How will the investigation be managed?” he said, turning to John again.

“Lord Millefleurs,” said John, who was not unwilling, in his general sense of antagonism and annoyance, to pick a quarrel, “your look at me requires some explanation. What does it mean?”

There was a moment’s silence, and they stood opposite to each other, little Millefleurs’s plump person, with all its curves, drawn up into an attitude of dignity, his chubby countenance set, while John looked down upon him with an angry contempt, merging towards ridicule. The group was like that of an indignant master and schoolboy; but it was evident that the schoolboy meant defiance.

“It means⁠—just such an interpretation as you choose to give it,” said Millefleurs.

“For heaven’s sake,” said Beaufort, “no more of this! Millefleurs, are you out of your senses? Erskine, you must see this is folly. Don’t make up a quarrel out of nothing.”

John made a distinct effort to control himself. “To me it appears nothing,” he said; “I cannot even guess at any meaning that may be in it; but Millefleurs means something, Beaufort, as you can very easily see.”

At this moment Rolls put his head in at the door. “It’s Sir James Montgomery come to see you. I have showed him into the drawing-room, for it’s on business,” the old man said. He was standing behind the door when John came out, and his master could not help remarking that he was trembling in every limb. “The Lord help us a’! you’ll be cautious, sir,” Rolls said.

John, in his perplexity and gathering wonder, seized him by the arm. “In God’s name, Rolls, what do you mean?”

“Swear none, sir,” said the old servant⁠—“swear none; but oh, be cautious, for the love of God!”

John Erskine walked into the room in which Sir James awaited him, with a sense of wonder and dismay which almost reached the length of stupefaction. What did they all mean? He had not a clue, not the faintest thread of guidance. Nothing had in his own thoughts connected him even with the tragedy at Tinto. He had been doubly touched and impressed by it in consequence of the fact that he had seen the unfortunate Torrance so short a time before; but that he could, by the wildest imagination, be associated with the circumstances of his death, did not occur to him for a moment. The idea did not penetrate his mind even now, but he felt that there was some shadow which he could not penetrate lying upon him. A blinding veil seemed thrown over his faculties. There was a meaning in it, but what the meaning was he could not tell. He went in to his new visitor with a confusion which he could not shake off, hoping, perhaps, that some sort of enlightenment might be got through him. Sir James was standing against one of the windows, against the light, with his hat in his hands. His whole attitude told of embarrassment and distress. He made no movement as if intending to sit down⁠—did not step forward heartily, as his custom was, to enfold John’s hand in his own with cheerful cordiality, but stood there against the light, smoothing his hat round and round in his hand. It petrified John to see his old friend so. He went up as usual with outstretched hand, but Sir James only touched the tip of his fingers with an embarrassed bow. Instead of his usual genial aspect, he half-averted his face, and kept his eyes on his hat, even when he spoke.

“Mr. Erskine,” he said, with hesitation, “I came to see you. I mean, I wanted to have some little conversation with you, if you have no objections⁠—about⁠—about this sad affair.”

“What sad affair?” John was bewildered, but still more angry than bewildered. What was the meaning of it all? Was the entire world in a conspiracy against him?

“Sir,” said the old general, giving him one look of reproof, “such events are not so common in our quiet countryside that there should be any doubt as to what I mean.”

“Unless what you mean is to drive me distracted”⁠—cried John. “What is it? First Millefleurs, then you! In heaven’s name, what do you mean? What have I done, that your aspect is changed⁠—that you speak to me like a stranger, like a culprit, like⁠—Speak out, by all means! What is this sad affair? In what way have I wronged any man? Why should my friends turn upon me, and call me Sir, and Mr. Erskine? What have I done?”

“I wish to judge no man,” said Sir James; “I wish to act in the spirit of charity. It was the opinion, not only of myself⁠—for I have not that much confidence in my own judgment⁠—but the opinion of two or three gentlemen, well-judging men, that if I were to make an appeal to you in the matter, to implore you in confidence⁠—that is, if there is any explanation that can be given. We are all inclined to that view. I may seem harsh, because my heart is just sick to think of it; but we are all inclined to believe that an explanation would be possible. Of course, it is needless to say that if there is no explanation, neither the law permits, nor would we wish to lead, anyone to criminate himself.”

“Sir James,” said John, “you have made me a strange speech. There is a great deal of offence in it; but I do not wish to notice the offence. Speak out! I know no dreadful event that has happened in the country but poor Torrance’s death. Do you mean to tell me that you suspect me of having any hand in that?”

Sir James looked up at him from the hat which he was pressing unconsciously in his hands. His countenance was full of distress, every line moving, his eyes moist and agitated. “My poor lad!” he said, “God knows, we’re all ready to make allowances for a moment’s passion! A man that has been hurried by impulse into a sudden step⁠—that has consequences he never dreamt of⁠—he will sometimes try to hide it, and make it look far worse⁠—far worse! Openness is the only salvation in such a case. It was thought that you might confide in me, an old man that has ever been friendly to you. For God’s sake, John Erskine, speak out!”

“What do you suppose I can have to say?” said John, impressed, in spite of himself and all his instinctive resistance, by the anxious countenance and pleading tones of the kind old man who had been charged with such an office. He was so much startled and awed by the apparent consent of so many to attribute something to him⁠—something which he began dimly to divine without even guessing how far public opinion had gone⁠—that the colour went out of his cheeks, and his breath came quick with agitation. Such signs of excitement may be read in many ways. To Sir James they looked like remorseful consciousness and alarm.

“We are all very willing to believe,” he said, slowly, “that you took the beast by the bridle, perhaps in self-defence. He was an incarnate devil when he was roused⁠—poor fellow! He would have ridden a man down in his temper. You did that, meaning nothing but to hold him off⁠—and the brute reared. If you had raised an alarm then and there, and told the circumstances, little blame, if any, could have been laid on you. Silence was your worst plan⁠—your worst plan! That’s the reason why I have come to you. You took fright instead, and hurried away without a word, but not without tokens on you of your scuffle. If you would open your heart now, and disclose all the circumstances, it might not be too late.”

John stood gazing speechless, receiving into his mind this extraordinary revelation with an almost stupefying sense of how far the imagination had gone. What was it his countrymen thought him guilty of? Was it murder⁠—murder? The light seemed to fail from his eyes for a moment; his very heart grew sick. He had time to run through all the situation while the old man laboured slowly through this speech, hesitating often, pausing for the most lenient words, anxiously endeavouring to work upon the feelings of the supposed culprit. With horror and a sudden panic, he perceived how all the circumstances fitted into this delusion, and that it was no mere piece of folly, but a supposition which might well seem justified. He remembered everything in the overpowering light thus poured upon the scene: his torn coat, his excitement⁠—nay, more, the strong possibility that everything might have happened just as his neighbours had imagined it to have happened. And yet it had not been so; but how was he to prove his innocence? For a moment darkness seemed to close around him. Sir James’s voice became confused with a ringing in his ears; his very senses seemed to grow confused, and failed him. He heard the gasp in his own throat to get breath when silence ensued⁠—a silence which fell blank around him, and which he maintained unconsciously, with a blind stare at his accuser’s most gentle, most pitying countenance. How like it was to the scare and terror of blood-guiltiness suddenly brought to discovery!

But gradually this sickness and blankness cleared off around him like a cloud, and he began to realise his position. “Sit down,” he said, hoarsely, “and I will tell you every particular I know.”

XXXII

Left to themselves, Millefleurs and Beaufort stood opposite to each other for a moment with some embarrassment. To have anything to do with a quarrel is always painful for the third person; and it was so entirely unexpected, out of the way of all his habits, that Beaufort felt himself exceptionally incapable of dealing with it. “Millefleurs,” he said with hesitation, “I don’t understand all this. That was a very strange tone to take in speaking to⁠—a friend.”

He felt for the first time like a tutor discharging an uncomfortable office, knowing that it must be done, yet that he was not the man to do it, and that of all the youthful individuals in the world, the last person to be so lectured was Millefleurs.

“Naturally you think so. The circumstances make all the difference, don’t you know,” said Millefleurs, with his ordinary composure. “And the situation. In ’Frisco it might not have been of any great consequence. Helping a bully out of the world is not much of a crime there. But then it’s never hushed up. No one makes a secret of it: that is the thing that sets one’s blood up, don’t you know. Not for Torrance’s sake⁠—who, so far as I can make out, was a cad⁠—or poor Lady Car’s, to whom it’s something like a deliverance⁠—”

“Torrance!” cried Beaufort, with a gasp. “Lady⁠—Car! Do you mean to say⁠—”

“Then⁠—” said Millefleurs, “he never told you? That is a curious piece of evidence. They do things straightforward in Denver City⁠—not like that. He never spoke of an event which had made the country ring⁠—”

“Torrance!” repeated Beaufort, bewildered. The world seemed all to reel about him. He gazed at his companion with eyes wide opened but scarcely capable of vision. By-and-by he sat down abruptly on the nearest chair. He did not hear what Millefleurs was saying. Presently he turned to him, interrupting him unconsciously. “Torrance!” he repeated; “let there be no mistake. You mean the man⁠—to whom Carry⁠—Lady Caroline⁠—was married?”

Millefleurs fixed upon him his little keen black eyes. He recalled to himself tones and looks which had struck him at the moment, on which he had not been able to put any interpretation. He nodded his head without saying anything. He was as keen after any piece of human history as a hound on a scent. And now he was too much interested, too eager for new information, to speak.

“And it happened,” said Beaufort, “on Thursday⁠—on the day I arrived?” He drew a long breath to relieve his breast, then waved his hand. “Yes; if that is all, Erskine told me of it,” he said.

“You have something to do with them also, old fellow,” said Millefleurs, patting him on the shoulder. “I knew there was something. Come along and walk with me. I must see it out; but perhaps we had better not meet again just now⁠—Erskine and I, don’t you know. Perhaps I was rude. Come along; it is your duty to get me out of harm’s way. Was there anything remarkable, by the way, in the fact that this happened just when you arrived?”

Beaufort made no reply; he scarcely heard, so violently were his pulses beating in his ears, so high was the tide of new life rising in his veins. Who can think of the perplexities, even the dangers, of another, when something unparalleled, something that stirs up his very being, has happened to himself? But he allowed himself to be led out into the open air, which was a relief⁠—to the road leading to Lindores, from which they soon came in sight of Tinto dominating the country round from its platform. Millefleurs stopped at the point where this first came in view, to point out how high it rose above the river, and how the path ascended through the overhanging woods. The Scaur itself was visible like a red streak on the face of the height. “You can see for yourself that horse or man who plunged over that would have little hope,” Millefleurs said. But Beaufort did not hear him. He stood and gazed, with a sense of freedom and possibility which went to his head like wine. Even the ordinary bonds of nature did not seem to hold him. His mind seemed to expand and float away over the wide country. Of all people in the world he was the last who could cross that distance actually, who could present himself to the lady there⁠—the widow⁠—the woman who had married Torrance. He could not offer his services or his sympathy to Carry; he alone of all the world was absolutely shut out from her, more than a stranger: and yet he stood gazing at the place where she was, feeling himself go out upon the air, upon the empty space, towards her. The sensation dizzied his brain and bewildered all his faculties. Millefleurs flowed on, making a hundred remarks and guesses, but Beaufort did not hear him. He would have said afterwards, that as he never spoke, it was impossible he could have betrayed himself. But he betrayed himself completely, and something more than himself, to the keen little eyes of Millefleurs.

The day passed as days full of agitation pass⁠—looking long, protracted, endless⁠—blank hours of suspense following the moment of excitement. Sir James Montgomery had gone away shaking his good grey head. He had not believed John Erskine’s story⁠—that is, he believed that there was something suppressed. He had listened with the profoundest interest up to a certain point, but after that he had shaken his head. “You would have done better to tell me everything,” he said, as he went away. “It would have been more wise⁠—more wise.” He shook his head; the very truth of the story went against it. There was so much that fitted into the hypothesis of the countryside. But then there came that suppressio veri which took all the value from the statement. Sir James went away fully determined to repeat the story in the most favourable way⁠—to give the best representation of it possible; but he was not satisfied. It was with a most serious face that he mounted his horse and rode away, shaking his head from time to time. “No, no,” he said to himself, “that will never hold water⁠—that will never hold water!” When this interview was over, John went back to his library and sat down in his usual chair with a sense of exhaustion and hopelessness which it would be difficult to describe. He had told his story as best he could, searching his memory for every detail; but he had not been believed. He had gone on, growing impassioned in his self-defence⁠—growing indignant, feeling himself powerless in face of that blank wall of incredulity, that steady incapacity to believe. “Why should I tell you a lie?” he cried, at last. “Do not you see? Have you not said that it was for my interest to tell you the truth?” “I am not saying you have told a lie,” Sir James said, always shaking his head. “No, no⁠—no lie. You will never be accused of that.” When he went away, he had laid his heavy old hand on John’s shoulder. “My poor lad, if you had only had the courage to open your heart all the way!” he said. John felt like a victim in the hands of the Inquisition. What did they want him to confess? Half maddened, he felt as if a little more pressure, a few more twists of the screw, would make him accuse himself of anything, and confess all that they might require.

He did not know how long he sat there, silent, doing nothing, not even thinking anything, alone with himself and the cloud that hung over his life, with a consciousness that all his movements were watched, that even this would be something against him, a proof of that remorse which belongs to guilt. And thus the slow moments, every one slower than the other, more full of oppression, rolled over him. Beaufort had disappeared, and did not return till late in the afternoon, when the twilight was falling. A few words only passed between them, and these related solely to Beaufort’s thoughts, not to Erskine’s.

“It is her husband who has been killed,” Beaufort said; “you never told me.”

“I could not tell you. It was too extraordinary; it was an impiety,” John said.

But neither did he ask himself what he meant, nor did Beaufort ask him. They said nothing more to each other, except such civilities as are indispensable when men eat together⁠—for they dined all the same, notwithstanding the circumstances. In every crisis men must still dine; it is the only thing that is inevitable, in trouble or in joy.

And then the night followed. Night is horrible, yet it is consolatory to those who are in suspense. John could not suppose that his trials were over, that nothing was to follow; but by ten o’clock or so he said to himself, with relief, that nothing could happen tonight. Rolls, too, had evidently arrived at the same conclusion. He was heard to close and bolt the door ostentatiously while it was still early, and there was something in the very noise he made which proclaimed the satisfaction with which he did it. But after this there was a long black evening still, and hours of darkness, to follow, which John did not know how to get through. Almost he had made up his mind to step out of the window at midnight, as Rolls had suggested, and withdraw from all this alarm and unjust suspicion. He did go out, and felt the cool freshness of the night caress him, hot and weary as he was, and thought with a sigh of distant places far away, where he might be safe from all these frets and passions. But he knew, if he did so, that his cause would be lost forever⁠—that nothing could save him or his reputation. Perhaps in no case could anything save him: but if he fled, his ruin was certain. “What did it matter,” he thought, with bitterness, “that he had no witnesses to produce, that nobody would believe him? And if he were condemned, what would anyone care? His mother, indeed, would feel the shame, but more the shame than anything else; and her name was not Erskine, nor that of any of her family. There was no one who actually belonged to him in the wide world, to whom his living or dying could be of any consequence.” As he stood alone with these bitter thoughts, on the terrace, looking out upon the night, feeling the wind blow upon him from the fields of sleep, but no other trace in the darkness of the great wide landscape which he knew lay stretched out like a map under cover of the clouds, something breathed another name in his ear. Ah! how did he know if she would care? Sometimes he had thought so, hoped so, vaguely, with a tremor of alarmed delight. But if this shadow of crime came over him, would Edith stoop under it to say a word of consolation?⁠—would she? could she? He stood still for a long time on the terrace, with the lighted window and common life behind him, and all the secrets of the hidden night before, and asked himself what she would do. What would she do? That question, and not the other, was, after all, the great one in life.

Next morning John awoke with the sense of a coming trial, which made his heart jump in his breast the moment he opened his eyes, though it was some time before he recollected what it was. But he did so at last, and accepted the certainty with outward calm. He came downstairs with a steady conviction of what was about to happen. To make up his mind to it was something. He sat down at the breakfast-table opposite to Beaufort⁠—who was restless and uncomfortable⁠—with a calm which he felt to be fictitious, but which nevertheless was calm.

“You must remember,” he said, “Beaufort, whatever happens, that Dalrulzian is altogether at your command.”

“What can happen?” Beaufort asked.

“I scarcely know. I can be taken away, I suppose, and examined somewhere. You had better come with me. You are a barrister, and might help; and besides, it will always be for your advantage to get a little insight into Scotch law.”

“I might be of use, perhaps; but in that case, you must tell me everything,” Beaufort said.

“I ask no better,” said the young man; and he repeated the narrative which he had told to Sir James Montgomery. “Don’t you disbelieve me. What I say to you is the whole truth,” he said⁠—“everything that there is to say.”

“To disbelieve you would be impossible,” said Beaufort, which was the first gleam of consolation he had. They had a long consultation, some of which was surprised by Rolls, who went and came, busy about the door, with sombre and undisguised anxiety.

Beaufort scouted the idea that there could be any question of murder. “Had you done as they suppose⁠—seized the bridle in self-defence, and forced the horse a step too far⁠—it would still only be accident,” he said⁠—“at the very worst and bitterest, manslaughter; though I don’t see how it could bear even such a verdict as that. There is no occasion for unnecessary alarm. Anything more is impossible.”

At this moment Rolls came in; his countenance was lightened, yet excited. “There is one⁠—that would like to speak to you, sir,” he said.

There could be no doubt as to what the summons was. Rolls lingered behind when his master, with changing colour, but self-possession, left the room. He came up to Beaufort stealthily. “Sir,” he said⁠—“sir, will yon be all true?”

“What? Neither Mr. Erskine nor myself is in the habit of saying what is not true.”

“That’s no doubt the case. I’m saying nothing of him; but you might have smoothed it off a bit, just to soothe him. Will it be all exact yon you said about manslaughter? Manslaughter is just culpable homicide, so far as I can see. And what’s the punishment for manslaughter (as you call it), if you’ll be so kind as say?”

“That depends on the gravity of the case, on the character of the judge, on many things. A year’s, two years’ imprisonment⁠—perhaps only a month or two. I have known it but a day.”

“And previous character would be taken into account?” said Rolls; “and aggravation, and⁠—many a thing more?”

“No doubt; it is a thing upon which no certain rule can be observed. It may be next to no harm at all, or it may be close upon murder. In such a case as this, severity is very unlikely.”

“But it will make a pairting,” said Rolls, solemnly, “atween him and all he maist cares for. I’m no’ of the young maister’s mind myself. There are some would have set him far better, and in every way more suitable; but what a man likes himself, it’s that will please him, and no’ what another man likes. It takes us a’ a lang time,” said Rolls, shaking his head, “to learn that. Many’s the one in my place would think here’s just a grand opportunity to pairt him and⁠—them; but you see I take his ain wishes into consideration.”

The old servant spoke less to Beaufort than to himself; but the visitor was not accustomed to hold such colloquies with a family butler. He stared, then grew impatient, and disposed to resent the old fellow’s familiarity. The next moment the bell rang, and Rolls hurried away. Beaufort followed him out into the hall, where a man was standing evidently on guard. John was at the door of the drawing-room, pale, but perfectly composed. “The dogcart immediately,” he said to Rolls, and beckoned to Beaufort to come in. “I am going before the sheriff-substitute about this matter,” he said. “Beaufort, you will come with me. Mr. Granger, this is my friend Mr. Beaufort, an English barrister. He may go with me, I suppose, to watch over my interests? You see that what we were threatened with yesterday has come to pass.”

“I see, indeed,” said Beaufort, “with sorrow and surprise. What is it that has to be done now?”

“The sheriff will make no objection,” said the head of the county police, a plain, grave man, with regret in his face. “It’s my duty to take Mr. Erskine before the sheriff. The result of the examination will be, let us hope, that he’ll come cannily home again, when all has been inquired into in due form. There is no reason to take a gloomy view. The sheriff will maybe find there’s no case: and I’m sure I wish so with all my heart.”

They all sat round with the utmost gravity to listen to this little speech. It was not a moment for lightheartedness. John sat between the table and the door, in perfect self-command, yet very pale. Notwithstanding all the respect shown to him, and the good feeling from which he had everything to hope, the most innocent of men may be excused a feeling of dismay when he is, to all intents and purposes, arrested on a criminal charge, with issues to his good fame and social estimation, even if nothing more, which it is impossible to calculate. They sat in silence while the dogcart was getting ready, a strange little company. After a while, the officer, to lessen the embarrassment of the moment, and make everything pleasant, began to address various little remarks about the weather and other commonplace topics to the two gentlemen, such as, “This is a very agreeable change from all the wet we’ve been having;” or, “The news this morning is more satisfactory about that Afghan business.” The responses made, as may be supposed, were not very effusive. It was a relief when the dogcart came to the door. Old Rolls stood and watched it go down the avenue, with his countenance firmly set, and a stern resolution gathering about his mouth. Bauby stole out and stood by his side in the morning light, with her apron to her eyes, and her capacious bosom convulsed with sobs. “Eh, that I should have lived to see this day, and shame come to oor dwallin’!” cried Bauby; “and as bonny a young lad as ever steppit, and as good!”

“Hold your peace, woman!” said her brother; “ye may see shame come nearer hame or a’s done.”

“Eh, Tammas, man! what do you ca’ nearer hame? My heart’s just broken; and what will his mammaw say?” the faithful creature cried.

Meanwhile it might have been a party of pleasure that threaded its way among the trees, somewhat closely packed in the dogcart, but no more than they might have been, starting for the moors. John Erskine drove himself to the examination which was to decide his fate one way or another, with all the appearance of a perfectly free agent. The horse was fresh, the morning bright; and though the four men were a heavy load, they skimmed along the country road as gaily as if all had been well. Tinto was visible for the greater part of the way. They passed by the very gates of Lindores. John had shaken himself together as he took the reins in his hand, and with perhaps a little unconscious bravado, paused now and then to indicate a favourite point of view to his friend. But he had harder work in store. Just before they reached Dunearn, he perceived drawn up by the roadside Lady Lindores’s carriage, in which Edith was seated alone. Impossible to describe the feelings with which, as across a gulf of pain and trouble, the unfortunate young man, at this crisis of his fate, looked at the girl with whom, when he last saw her, he had been so near the edge of a mutual understanding. It was impossible for him now to do other than draw up by the side of the carriage to speak to her; and there, in the hearing of the two men who formed his escort, and whose presence was heavy on his heart, the following conversation took place. Edith looked up at him with a smile and an expression of pleasure which brightened her whole aspect. She was in mourning, and somewhat pale.

“I am waiting for mamma,” she said. “One of her pensioners is ill in that cottage. I was glad of the chance of bringing her out for a little air. We are with poor Carry, you know.”

“How is Lady Caroline?” John asked.

“Oh, well enough, when one considers all things,” said Edith, hastily; and to escape that subject, which was not to be entered on before strangers, she said, “You are going to Dunearn?”

“On painful business,” he said. “I wonder if I may ask you one thing?” She looked up at him with a smile which said much⁠—a smile of trust and belief, which might have encouraged any man to speak. Edith had no fear of what he might ask her. For John it was more difficult to command himself and his voice at that moment than at any previous one since his trial began. He cleared his throat with an effort, and his voice was husky. “You will hear things said of me⁠—that may make you turn from⁠—an old friend altogether. I want you not to believe them. And tell Lady Lindores. Do not believe them. It is not true.”

“Mr. Erskine, what is it⁠—what is it? You may be sure I shall believe nothing against you⁠—nor mamma either! Is it⁠—is it⁠—” her eyes fixed upon him anxiously and upon the stranger beside him, whose face was unknown to her, and who sat blank and passive like a servant, yet who was not a servant. Edith rose in the carriage in her great anxiety, and gazed as if she would have read a volume in John’s face. What it cost him to look at her and to keep a kind of smile on his, it would be hard to tell.

“I cannot enter into explanations now. I may not be able to do so soon. Only⁠—tell Lady Lindores.”

She held out her hand to him, which he stooped to touch⁠—it was all he could do⁠—and once more gave him an anxious, tender smile. “You may trust both mamma and me,” she said.

And in another moment, so it seemed, the dogcart stopped again. John went over the streets of Dunearn like a man in a dream⁠—in a sort of exquisite anguish, a mingled sweetness and bitterness such as never went into words. Their looks seemed to cling together, as, with a start, the horse went on; and now they stopped again and got down⁠—for a very different encounter. Even now, however, John’s progress was to be interrupted. Someone called to him as he was about to go into the sheriff’s court in the little Town-house of Dunearn. “Is that you, John Erskine? and what has brought you here?” in peremptory tones. He turned round quickly. It was Miss Barbara in her pony-carriage, which Nora was driving. The old lady leaned across the young one and beckoned to him with some impatience. “Come here. What are you doing in Dunearn without coming to me? It’s true I’m out, and you would not have found me; but Janet would have understood to be prepared for your luncheon. And what’s your business in the Town-house this fine morning, and with strange company?” Miss Barbara said. She cast a keen glance at the man, who stood aside respectfully enough, and yet, backed by his assistant, kept a watchful eye on John.

“I am afraid I cannot wait to tell you now. It is not pleasant business,” John said.

“Come round here,” said the old lady, imperiously; “can I keep on skreighing to you before all the town? Come round here.” Her keen eyes took in the whole scene: John’s glance at his grave companion, the most imperceptible gesture with which that person made way for him. Miss Barbara’s perceptions were keen. She gripped her nephew by the arm. “John Erskine, have ye done anything to bring ye within the power of the law?”

“Nothing,” he said firmly, meeting her eye.

“Then what does that man mean glowering at you? Lord guide us! what is it, boy? It cannot be money, for money has none of these penalties now.”

“It is not money⁠—nor anything worth a thought.”

“Mr. Erskine,” said the officer, civilly, “the sheriff is waiting.” And after that, there was no more to be said.

XXXIII

Rolls went upstairs and dressed himself in his best⁠—his “blacks,” which he kept for going to funerals and other solemnities⁠—not the dress in which he waited at table and did his ordinary business. The coat, with its broad, square tails, gave him an appearance something between that of a respectable farmer and a parish minister⁠—a little too solemn for the one, too secular for the other; and to show that he was “his own man,” and for today at least no man’s servant, he enveloped his throat in a large black silk neckerchief, square in shape, and folded like a substantial bandage with a little bow in the front. His forehead was lined with thought. When he had finished his toilet, he opened the large wooden “kist” which stood in a corner of his room, and was the final receptacle of all his worldly goods. Out of that he took a blue-spotted handkerchief, in which a pocketbook was carefully wrapped up, and took from it a few somewhat dirty pound-notes. Then restoring the pocketbook, he locked the kist carefully, and went downstairs with the key⁠—a very large one⁠—in his hand. This he gave to Bauby, who still hung about the door with her apron to her eyes. “You should go ben to your work, my woman,” said Rolls, “and no make the worst of what’s happened: in a’ likelihood the master will be back afore the dinner’s ready.” “Do you think that, Tammas? do you really think that?” cried Bauby, brightening up and showing symptoms of an inclination to cry for joy as she had done for sorrow. “I’m no’ saying what I think. I’m thinking mony things beyond the power o’ a woman person to faddom,” said Rolls, solemnly. “And if the maister should be back, it’s real possible I mayna be back. You’ll just behave conformably, and put forrit Marget. If she wasna so frightened, she’s no’ a bad notion at a’ of waiting at table. And if there’s ony question where I am, or what’s become of me⁠—”

“Oh, Tammas, what will I say? It will be the second time in a week. He’ll no’ like it,” cried Bauby, diverted from one trouble to another. The absence of her brother when the dinner was ready was almost as extraordinary as her master’s conveyance away to unknown dangers by the functionaries of the law.

“If he’s here to be angry, a’ will be well,” said Rolls, grimly; and then he handed her the key. “If there should be any question about me, when I’m no’ here to answer for myself, you’ll inform whoever it concerns that the kist is yours and everything in it, in proof of which you’ll produce the key. That’s no’ to say but what you’ll respect the bits of things in it, and hand me back possession when I come, soon or late,” said Rolls. “You’ll mind what I say to you, Bauby. It’s yours in the one case, but no’ in the other. You’ll take possession if there is ony other claimant; but me being back, you’ll respect my rights.”

“I wuss I would ken what you meant first,” said Bauby, gazing at him wistfully. Rolls had an air of satisfaction on his face for the first time: he was pleased to have puzzled her. His face relaxed almost into a smile as he said, “According to a’ probabilities, you’ll soon understand that.”

With these words he set out from the hall-door, walking very deliberately, and crushing the pebbles under his feet at every step. He had taken his best silk umbrella, which, loosened from its habitual folds, and used as a stick, made a sort of flapping accompaniment to his progress, like a large bird walking by him. As he turned from the door the solemnity of his aspect returned. He walked slowly, thinking as he went⁠—thinking so profoundly that he scarcely saw Peggy at the lodge, and passed her, taking no notice of her in the gravity of his preoccupation. She said afterwards that it was awfu’ evident he had something on his mind. She told Jean Tamson, who was in the lodge at the moment⁠—come for a crack, and talking of nothing else but this very subject⁠—“I wouldna wonder,” she said, “but Mr. Rolls kens more about it than any of us.” This at least was what she informed the world she had said to her gossip when all was known.

It was four miles to Dunearn; but old Rolls was a steady, good walker, with no irregularity about him. Every step he took was just of the same length as the step before. Yard for yard he did his four miles in the regulated time, neither shorter nor longer. When he arrived at the Town-house, there was a little flutter about the door as of people dispersing; but there had not been any number of people, and though the rumour of what had transpired had begun to blow about the place, there were not as yet many gazers. By-and-by, as he stood outside, his master came out, with one of the emissaries of the morning close by him, and Beaufort behind. John Erskine was pale; but there was a sort of smile on his face⁠—a smile which had no pleasure in it, but some contempt, and that sort of outward looking to heaven and earth, with the head held high, and the nostrils somewhat dilated, which is so often the aspect of a man unjustly accused. He was making light of it to himself⁠—persuading himself that it was nothing and meant nothing. He saw Rolls standing by, and waved his hand to him. “What! have you walked all this way,” he said, “old Truepenny,”⁠—with something of the same levity of despair which dictated the same words to Hamlet⁠—“to see the last of me?”

“It’s not come to that, sir, I hope,” said Rolls, with a seriousness which was as solemn as if what John had said was real. The young man laughed.

“You will pack my portmanteau and send it after me: I suppose I may be allowed that?” he said. The officer who was in attendance bowed his head. The people about gathered round, staring at John with too much surprise to express any other emotion; and by-and-by the party drove off again, nobody apparently divining exactly what it all meant. There were a number of petty cases to be tried by the sheriff, who was in the Town-house, as it was called, and as many different interests as there were loungers about. Rolls went in with hesitating steps after his master had disappeared. The old man had come, in full expectation of the event which had happened; but fact is always different from anticipation. When he saw what he had only looked for, the effect upon him was something overwhelming. He stood staring and gaping in the little crowd which gradually drew together, realising only after it was over what had taken place before their eyes. “What’s wrang with the young maister, Mr. Rolls?” said one of the bystanders. “Let me be!” cried the old man, shaking himself free; and he went into the Town-house with tottering steps. He had intended taking certain bold and immediate steps, carrying out the project he had been framing in his mind; but his nerves were shaken when the moment came. The law terrified him. If his master, in all the strength and confidence of his youth, was thus peremptorily dealt with, what aggravations might not he, an old and humble individual⁠—nothing but a servant⁠—look for? He was cowed. He stole up to an attendant and made faltering inquiries. “What will they have settled about yon case?” he said. “About what case?⁠—the sheep-lifting, or the unlawfu’ wounding, or the robbery at Willyam Tamson’s⁠—” “Nane o’ thae things⁠—nane o’ thae things,” said old Rolls. “It’s about young Mr. Erskine of Dalrulzian.” “Oh, ay, ay,” said the attendant, shaking his head; “that’s very serious. The circumstances a’ point to some agent mair than accident⁠—that’s what the sherra says, and he canna see his way to discharging the panel.” “The panel!1⁠—he’s nae panel!⁠—mind what you’re saying,” cried Rolls. “Well, maybe that’s going owre fast. I would say the gentleman under suspicion. He maun just bide the result of a mair formal examination⁠—that’s a’ I can tell ye; I have nae time to enter into particulars,” the official said.

Rolls, who had meant such heroic things, turned away tremulously. He went out again, scarcely knowing where he was going, into the streets of Dunearn. There everybody looked at him with curious eyes. The town had at last become conscious of what had happened: from a public-house in the environs a stone had been thrown at John Erskine as he went past, and hootings had risen on his path. This roused the population fully, and now the streets were full of groups discussing the matter. Torrance, as has been said, was popular in his way, especially now in that warmth of pity and charity which follows a sudden and unexpected death; and John Erskine was comparatively unknown. The tide was strongly against him, as a semi-foreigner⁠—a man who had come from “abroad.” “He’ll find here that gentle and simple must keep the laws alike,” said one. “A man daurna ride roughshod over his fellows here.”

Old Rolls heard the growl of popular excitement, and it alarmed him still more. “If it was me they would tear me in bits,” he said to himself. His alarm on this point, as much as his original intention, drove him in at Mr. Monypenny’s door, which was in his way. He was afraid of being recognised as the butler at Dalrulzian (“for everybody kens me,” he said to himself, with mingled pride and panic), and he was anxious to consult the “man of business” who had Dalrulzian estate in his hands.

Mr. Monypenny was out; and Rolls requested permission to sit down and wait. He had a long time of quiet to think over his plan again, and he did think it over, and recovered his courage. After a time Mrs. Monypenny, hearing who it was, sent to request him to have some cold beef in the kitchen, an offer of which Rolls availed himself at once. “For what is the use of punishing yourself?” he said. “A man’s more qualified for everything when he has eaten his dinner.” He was very serious, and unlike his usual cheerfully communicative mood, in Mr. Monypenny’s kitchen. The maids did not know what had come over him. To have such a grand subject of discourse as his master’s arrest, and yet to be so silent, struck them with astonishment; but they, too, remarked his perturbed countenance afterwards, and said to one another, “I told you there was mair in him than met the eye.”

Meanwhile Miss Barbara and her young companion had been driving up and down in the pony-carriage in a state of great excitement. They had passed the Town-house half-a-dozen times, always looking for the reappearance of John; but he, as was to be expected, had come out and gone away in the interval between. Miss Barbara had maintained during the whole time a lively monologue, scarcely interrupted by her young companion. “I’ve heard what they daured to say,” Miss Barbara cried; “as if one of my family would stoop to soil his fingers with any Tinto of them all! What were the Torrances but bonnet-lairds till old Torrance married the railway man’s daughter? But I never thought they would have dared to do anything against an Erskine. Times are changed. (Go round by the Stone Bridge, Nora; it’s an easier road for the pony.) What would my father have said if he had heard a descendant of his evened with one of that race? That’s what your Radicalism comes to.”

“But death is the same, whether it comes to a saint or⁠—a bully; and life has to be protected,” said Nora, fired with political ardour.

“Life⁠—and death. They’re grand words to use: a drunk man falling over a steep bank that it was the wonder of the whole countryside he had not gone over years and years before.”

Nora did not say any more. She was not so warm a partisan as Miss Barbara’s companion ought to have been. She drove along quietly, taking no further part in the talk, which the old lady maintained alone. “How can I go in to my peaceful house and eat my comfortable dinner, not knowing but my own flesh and blood may be shut up in a jail?” she said. Then she added quickly, “There’s that lad, young Rintoul. I’m not fond of any of his family; but I suppose he’s a gentleman. He’ll go in and ask what has happened. Fast⁠—to your right hand, Nora. Now draw up. He sees what I mean. Lord Rintoul,” added Miss Barbara, “I have a favour to ask of you. You may have heard my nephew John Erskine’s name bandied about these late days. He’s been in the Town-house before the sheriff and the procurator-fiscal this hour and a half or more. It’s not for me to ask the town-bodies about what has happened. Will you go and bring me word?”

Rintoul stood silent for a moment before he made any reply. Her voice seemed to have called him from painful reflections of his own, the chain of which he could not in a moment break. He gave her a half-bewildered look, then turned to Nora, who looked at him more gently, with sympathetic eyes. How haggard he looked, and worn!⁠—he who had been so ruddy and manly, only too much flesh and blood, almost too little inclination to be moved by emotion or sentiment⁠—was all this because of the sudden death of his brother-in-law, a man for whom he cared nothing? Nora was extraordinarily impressed by Rintoul’s changed appearance. Miss Barbara, preoccupied by her own anxieties, scarcely noticed him at all.

“In the Town-house with the sheriff? What does that mean?”

“I forgot you were English,” said Miss Barbara with a touch of contempt. “It means some examination of witnesses anent the death of Pat Torrance, your brother-in-law. What my nephew should have to do with it, I cannot tell you. It’s just that I would have you inquire.”

“He can have nothing to do with it,” said Rintoul; and then he stopped short, and the momentary animation died out of his face. He shivered as he stood in the sunshine, which was as warm as September ever is in Scotland. “It must be a mistake; we have heard nothing of this,” he said. “I am sure Carry⁠—would be averse to any fuss. It was such a thing for her that there was no coroner’s inquest. I made sure we were all safe. You must be mistaken,” he said.

“Lord Rintoul,” said Nora, who was given to opposition, “though there is no coroner’s inquest, there must be justice; and if they think Mr. Erskine has anything to do with it⁠—”

“He has nothing to do with it,” said Rintoul, with petulant impatience. Miss Barbara stretched her hand over Nora to grasp his, but this gesture seemed to drive him back into himself. He withdrew a little from the side of the pony-carriage, and made a pretence of not seeing the old lady’s outstretched hand. Miss Barbara was shocked, and gave him a curious look; but she was not prepared for disrespect, and did not expect it. She went on more eagerly than before⁠—

“And here I am helpless,” she said. “I cannot go in myself. I will not send Nora. Will you do my errand, Lord Rintoul? Bring me word, not here, but to my house. I am going home.”

He gave a little bow of assent, and stood on the pavement looking after them as they drove away. He stood longer than was necessary for that, till they had disappeared round the corner of the High Street, till the children about⁠—of whom there was always a large supply in Dunearn⁠—began to gape at him with expectations of amusement. “Look at the man glowering frae him,” these spectators cried, and a small pebble tumbled along the flags where he stood⁠—a harmless experiment to see if there was any fun in him. He did not notice this, nor any other outside occurrence, but after a while got slowly under way again, as if the operation was difficult, and went on to the Town-house. When he got there, he went in reluctantly, with evident disinclination. The attendant who had talked to Rolls made way for him respectfully. The other people about opened the doors and took off their hats to the young potentate. A small case which was going on at the time was even suspended while the sheriff, not nearly so great a man, answered his lordship’s questions in his own person. “Yes, there has been an examination,” the sheriff said. “The circumstances are very suspicious. I have thought it best to order that young Erskine should be detained till there can be a more complete investigation. That, it is to be hoped, will clear the matter up; but if not⁠—”

Lord Rintoul’s fair and ruddy countenance was dark with anxiety and pain. “You cannot mean,” he said, “that you believe Erskine⁠—”

“I believe nothing but what there is evidence for,” the sheriff said. “We are not men of theories, Lord Rintoul. Experience shows every day that men do the most unlikely things. I hear he’s shown an animus⁠—and there are two or three points very strange. I saw it my duty to give orders that he should be detained⁠—”

“You have sent him to prison, do you mean?” There was a sharp tone as of personal anguish in Rintoul’s voice. “But you’ll admit him to bail? My father, I, Millefleurs, any gentleman in the country⁠—”

“Will be his bail? I doubt if it’s a bailable offence: but if Lord Lindores were willing to do that, no doubt it would have a good effect. However, nothing can be done before the investigation,” said the sheriff; “a day or two will do the young man no harm.”

This was all he could elicit. The sheriff was a man who had a great idea of his office, and it was not often that he had a case so interesting and important. The attendants thought Lord Rintoul had been drinking, as he stumbled out. He went along the quiet street with an uncertain step, now and then taking off his hat that the air might refresh him. He, too, stopped at Mr. Monypenny’s door, as Rolls had done a very short time before. It was afternoon now, and the shadows were lengthening as he reached Miss Barbara’s house. What a sunny glimpse there was from door to door, across the little hall to the garden, where the brightness of the autumn flowers made a flush of colour! Rintoul saw a figure against the light which was not Miss Barbara’s. There was in him a forlorn desire for consolation. “Don’t tell Miss Barbara I am here just yet,” he said hastily to the maid, and opened the glass-door, beyond which Nora stood among all the geraniums and mignonette. There was no agitation about her. She was not sufficiently interested in John Erskine to be deeply troubled by the idea of annoyance to him as his old aunt was, or alarmed by a passing shadow upon his name. She was serene and calm in this quiet world of flowers and greenness where no trouble was. She welcomed him with a smile. “Miss Barbara is very anxious,” she said. “She has gone upstairs to rest, but I am to let her know when you come.”

“Wait a little,” he said, glad of the interval; “you are not anxious.”

“Not so much. Of course I am interested in my friends’ friends⁠—but I don’t know very much of Mr. Erskine,” said Nora, unable to divest herself altogether of the imaginative offence that lay between John and her. “And it cannot do him much harm, can it? It will only be disagreeable⁠—till the facts are known. Young men,” she said, with a smile, “have a right to have something unpleasant happen to them now and then; they have so much the best of it in other ways.”

“Do you think so,” he said, with a seriousness which put her levity to shame. “To be sent to prison⁠—to have a stigma put upon you⁠—perhaps to be tried for your life!⁠—that is rather worse than mere unpleasantness.”

Nora was greatly impressed, not only by the gravity of what he said, but the air with which he said it. “It surely cannot be so bad as that: and he⁠—is innocent, Lord Rintoul?”

“I have no doubt of it,” cried Rintoul, eagerly⁠—“no doubt of it! If there is anyone to blame, it is someone⁠—whom most likely nobody suspects. What would you think of the man who had done it, and yet said nothing, but let John Erskine suffer for his fault?”

“I do not believe,” said Nora, like Desdemona, “that there could be any such man. It is impossible. You think too badly of human nature. How can you suppose another would do what you know you would not do yourself? Oh no, no, never! Lord Rintoul⁠—” She paused after this little outburst, and drawing a step nearer to him, asked in a low and horror-stricken tone⁠—“Do you really think that poor Mr. Torrance was⁠—murdered?”

“No, no!” he cried almost violently⁠—“no, no!” He stopped short, with a dryness in his throat, as if he could not speak; then resumed, in a quieter tone⁠—“But I think in all likelihood there was, as people imagine, a quarrel, a scuffle⁠—and that somebody⁠—took hold of the mare’s bridle⁠—”

“Some tramp, no doubt,” said Nora, sympathetically, much affected by his emotion, “who perhaps doesn’t even know⁠—”

“That is it,” said Rintoul, eagerly⁠—“who perhaps never dreamt at the moment. And even if he knows now, such a man might think, as you did, that it would come to nothing with Erskine. I believe it will come to nothing⁠—a day, or two days, in prison.”

“But if it should turn out more serious,” said Nora, “even a tramp⁠—would give himself up, surely⁠—would never let an innocent man suffer?”

“We must hope so, at least,” said Lord Rintoul. His countenance had never relaxed all this time. It was almost solemn, set, and rigid⁠—the muscles about his mouth unmoving. “There should not be any question about right and wrong, I know,” he said, “but such a man might say to himself⁠—he might think⁠—Young Erskine is a gentleman, and I’m only a common fellow⁠—they will treat him better than they would treat me. He might say to himself⁠—”

“I cannot believe it,” cried Nora. “In such a case there could be no question of what anyone would do. It is like A.B.C. What! let another man suffer for something you have done! Oh no, no⁠—even in the nursery one knows better than that!”

“I don’t think,” said Rintoul, “that you ever can understand all the excuses a man will make for himself till you’ve been in the same position. Things look so different when you’ve done it⁠—from what they do when someone else has done it. There are so many things to be taken into consideration. Punishment is not the same to all; it might ruin one, and not do much harm to another. A man might feel justified, or at least there would be excuses for him, if he let another bear the punishment which would not hurt him much, but would be destructive to himself. Of course it would be his business to make it up somehow.”

“Lord Rintoul, this is dreadful doctrine!” said Nora; “if it were carried out, then you might do any wickedness you wished, and hire somebody to be punished instead of you.” She laughed half nervously, shaking off the graver turn the conversation had taken. “But this is absurd,” she said; “of course you don’t mean that. I think I know what you mean;⁠—but I must not delay longer, I must tell Miss Barbara.”

“Don’t disturb her now,” said Rintoul, eagerly. “Besides, I really have not time. If you would say that it is unfortunately true⁠—that Erskine is⁠—detained till there can be a full investigation. I am hurrying off to get bail for him, for of course they must accept bail⁠—and it will only be for a few days. The investigation⁠—at which we shall all be examined,” he said, with a nervous tremor⁠—“will clear up everything, I hope.”

“I hope so, with all my heart,” said Nora, waving her hand to him as he hurried away. Rintoul had reached the garden door on his way out, when he suddenly paused, and came back to her, and took that hand, holding it for a moment between his own.

“All this is very hard upon me,” he said, incoherently; “it gives me a great deal of misery. Feel for me⁠—stand by me. Will you, Nora? I don’t care for the rest, if you⁠—”

And he wrung her hand almost violently, dropped it, and hurried away. The girl stood looking after him with wonder and dismay, and yet with a gush of a different kind of feeling, which filled her heart with a confusing warmth. “A great deal of misery!” Was it the tenderness of his heart for his sister, for the unfortunate man who had been summoned out of the world so abruptly⁠—though he did not love him⁠—and for his friend who was unjustly accused, which made Rintoul say this? But anyhow, Nora was not capable of resisting such an appeal. Poor Rintoul: though he did not show it to anyone, how tender he was, how full of sympathy! John Erskine (against whom she could not help entertaining a little grudge) died out of her mind altogether. She was so much more sorry for the other, who felt it so deeply though it was not his concern.

XXXIV

Beaufort drove home on that eventful afternoon by himself. He had left his friend in the county jail, in a state in which surprise was still perhaps the predominant feeling. John had said little on the way, except to point out, with something which perhaps bore the character of bravado, the new features of the landscape beyond Dunearn. “It is an opportunity for you to see a little more of the country,” he said, with a smile. Something of the same indignant amusement which had been his first apparent sensation on hearing the sheriff’s decision was still in his manner now. He held his head high and a little thrown back, his nostrils were dilated, his eyes more widely open and alert than usual, and a smile in which there was a little scorn was upon his face. Those who did not know John or human nature might have thought him unusually triumphant, excited by some occurrence which enhanced instead of humiliating his pride. “I cannot tell you how surprised I am to see you here, Mr. Erskine,” said the governor of the jail with consternation. “You cannot be more surprised than I am,” said John. He gave his orders about the things he wanted in the same tone, taking no notice of the anxious suggestion that it would only be for a few days. He was too deeply offended with fate to show it. He only smiled and said, “The first step is so extraordinary that I prefer not to anticipate the next.” “But they must allow you bail,” said Beaufort; “that must be my first care.” John laughed. He would not condescend to be anxious. “Or hang me,” he said; “the one just as sensible as the other.” Beaufort drove away with the strangest feelings, guiding his friend’s horse along the road with which he was so little acquainted, but from which presently he saw the great house of Tinto on one side, and on the other the towers of Lindores appearing from among the trees. How hard it was to keep his thoughts to John, with these exciting objects on either side of him! This country road, which all its length kept him in sight of the big castellated front of Tinto, with its flag half-mast high⁠—the house in which she was who had been his love and promised bride⁠—seemed to Beaufort to have become the very thread of his fate. That Carry should be there within his reach, that she should be free and mistress of herself, that there should be even a certain link of connection which brought him naturally once more within the circle of her immediate surroundings, was so wonderful that everything else seemed of less importance. He could not disengage his thoughts from this. He was not a man in whose mind generosity was the first or even a primary quality, and it is so difficult to think first of another when our own affairs are at an exciting stage. The only step which he could think of for John’s advantage confused him still more, for it was the first direct step possible to put him once more in contact with Carry. He turned up the avenue of Lindores with a thrill of sensation which penetrated his whole being. He was relieved indeed to know that the ladies were not there⁠—that he would not at least be exposed to their scrutiny, and to the self-betrayal that could scarcely fail to follow; but the very sight and name of the house was enough to move him almost beyond his errand. The last rays of the sunset had gone out, and the autumn evening began to darken by the time he got there. He went on like a man in a dream, feeling the very air about him tremulous with his fate, although he made an attempt to think of John first. How could he think of anything but of Carry, who was free? or recollect anything except that the mistress of this house had allowed him to call her mother; and that even its lord, before he was its lord, had not refused to permit the suggestion of a filial relationship? There was a carriage already standing before the door when he drove up, but his mind was by this time too much excited to be moved by any outside circumstance. But when he stepped into the hall upon his mission, and, following the servant to the presence of Lord Lindores, suddenly found himself face to face with the two ladies going out, Beaufort’s agitation was extreme. They were returning to Tinto, after a day’s expedition in search of those “things” which seem always necessary in every domestic crisis. Lady Lindores recognised him with a start and cry of amazement. “Mr. Beaufort! you here!” she cried, unable to contain herself. She added, “at such a time!” in a lower tone, with the self-betrayal to which impulsive persons are always liable, and with so much indignation mingled with her astonishment, that a man in full possession of his faculties might have drawn from it the most favourable auguries. But Beaufort, to do him justice, was not cool enough for this. He said hurriedly, “I came on Thursday⁠—I knew nothing. I came⁠—because it was impossible to help it.” Edith had come close up behind her mother, and grasped her arm, half in support, half in reproof. “You knew Mr. Beaufort was coming, mamma; why should you be surprised?” she said, with a certain disdain in the tone with which she named him. Edith was unreasonable, like all the rest. She would have had him throw away everything rather than come here to interfere with Carry’s comfort, notwithstanding that her own father had invited him to come, and though it had been explained to her that all his prospects depended upon the favour of the Duke, Lord Millefleurs’s gracious papa. Her idea was, that a man should have thrown away all that, rather than put himself in a false position, or expose a woman whom he had once loved to embarrassment and pain. They were all unreasonable together, but each in his or her characteristic way. After these first utterances of agitation, however, they all stopped short and looked at each other in the waning light, and awoke to a recollection of the ordinary conventionalities which in such circumstances are so great a relief to everybody concerned.

“We must not detain you, Mr. Beaufort,” Lady Lindores said; “you were going to my husband⁠—or Lord Millefleurs⁠—who is still here.”

The last four words were said with a certain significance, as if intended for a hint⁠—persuade him, they seemed to say, that this is not a time to remain here. “It is getting late, mother,” said Edith, with a touch of impatience.

“One moment, Lady Lindores. I must tell you why I have come: not for myself⁠—to ask help for Erskine, whom I have just left in custody, charged with having occasioned somehow⁠—I can’t tell you how⁠—the death of⁠—the late accident⁠—your son-in-law,” Beaufort stammered out.

The next moment he seemed to be surrounded by them, by their cries of dismay, by their anxious questions. A sharp keen pang of offence was the first feeling in Beaufort’s mind⁠—that John should be so much more interesting to them than he was! It gave him a shock even in the excitement of the moment.

“This was what he meant”⁠—he could at last hear Edith distinctly after the momentary babel of mutual exclamations⁠—“this was what he meant: that we might hear something, which he might not be able to explain, but that we were to believe in him⁠—you and I, mamma.”

“Of course we believe in him,” cried Lady Lindores; “but something else must be done, something more. Come this way, Mr. Beaufort; Lord Lindores is here.”

She called him Mr. Beaufort without any hesitation now⁠—not pausing, as she had done before, with the more familiar name on her lips. It was John who was in the foreground now⁠—John who, perhaps, for anything they knew, had caused the event which had put them in mourning. With a whimsical mortification and envy, Beaufort exaggerated in his own mind the distress caused by this event. For the moment he looked upon it as a matter of real loss and pain to this unthinking family who showed such interest in the person who perhaps⁠—But the sentiment did not go so far as to be put into words; it resolved itself into a half-indignant wonder at the interest taken in John, and sense of injured superiority on his own account⁠—he, of whom no man could say that he had been instrumental in causing the death even of a dog.

Lady Lindores led the way hastily into the library, where three figures were visible against the dim light in the window as the others came in. Lord Lindores, seated in his chair; little Millefleurs, leaning against the window, half turned towards the landscape; and in front of the light, with his back to it, Rintoul, who was speaking. “With you as bail,” he was saying, “he may be set free tonight. Don’t let him be a night in that place.”

“Are you speaking of John Erskine, Robin, my dear boy? Oh, not a night, not an hour! Don’t lose any time. It is too dreadful, too preposterous. Your father will go directly. Take the carriage, which is at the door. If we are a little late, what does it matter?” said Lady Lindores, coming forward, another shadow in the dim light. Millefleurs turned half round, but did not come away from the window on which he was leaning. He was somewhat surprised too, very curious, perhaps a trifle indignant, to see all this fuss made about Erskine. He drew up his plump little person, altogether indifferent to the pronounced manifestation of all its curves against the light, and looked beyond Lady Lindores to Edith⁠—Edith, who hurried after her mother, swift and silent, as if they were one being, moved by the same unnecessary excitement. Millefleurs had not been in a comfortable state of mind during these last days. The delay irritated him; though Lord Lindores assured him that all was well, he could not feel that all was well. Why should not Edith see him, and give him his answer? She was not so overwhelmed with grief for that brute. What did it mean? And now, though she could not see him on such urgent cause, she was able to interest herself in this eager way on behalf of John Erskine! Millefleurs was very tolerant, and when the circumstances demanded it, could be magnanimous, but he thought he had reason of offence here.

There was a momentary pause⁠—enough to show that Lord Lindores did not share the feeling so warmly expressed. “I am surprised that you should all be so inconsiderate,” he said; “you, at least, Rintoul, who generally show more understanding. I have understood that Erskine had laid himself under suspicion. Can you imagine that I, so near a connection of poor Torrance, am the right person to interfere on behalf perhaps of his⁠—murd⁠—that is to say, of the cause⁠—of the instrument⁠—”

“It is impossible,” cried Edith, with such decision that her soft voice seemed hard⁠—“impossible! Can anyone suppose for a moment⁠—”

“Be silent, Edith,” cried her father.

“Why should she be silent?” said Lady Lindores. “Robert, think what you are saying. We have all known John Erskine for years. He is as incapable as I am⁠—as unlikely as any one of us here. Because you are so near a connection, is not that the very reason why you should interfere? For God’s sake, think of that poor boy in prison⁠—in prison! and lose no time.”

“I will do it, mother,” said Rintoul.

“Oh, God bless you, my boy! I knew you were always right at heart.”

“Rintoul,” said his father, “enthusiasm of this sort is new in you. Let us take a little common sense into the question. In the first place, nothing can be done tonight⁠—that is evident. Then consider a moment: what does ‘in prison’ mean? In the governor’s comfortable rooms, where he will be as well off as at home; and probably⁠—for he is not without sense⁠—will be taking the most reasonable view of the matter. He will know perfectly well that if he deserves it he will find friends; in short, that we are all his friends, and that everybody will be too glad to assist him⁠—as soon as he has cleared himself⁠—”

“As soon as he wants it no longer,” cried Lady Lindores.

“My dear, you are always violent; you are always a partisan,” said her husband, drawing back his chair a little, with the air of having ended the discussion; and there was a pause⁠—one of those breathless pauses of helplessness, yet rebellion, which make sick the hearts of women. Lady Lindores clasped her hands together with a despairing movement. “This is the curse of our life,” she cried. “I can do nothing; I cannot go against your father, Edith, and yet I am neither a fool nor a child. God help us women! we have to stand by, whatever wrong is done, and submit⁠—submit. That is all that is left for us to do⁠—”

“Submit!” Edith said. She was young and strong, and had not learned her lesson. It galled her beyond endurance. She stood and looked round her, seeing the whiteness of the faces, but little else in the evening gloom. Was it true that there was nothing⁠—nothing in her power? In poetry, a girl can throw herself on her knees, can weep and plead⁠—but only weep and plead; and she, who had not been trained to that, who was conscious of her individuality, her independent mind and judgment in every nerve⁠—heaven above! was she as helpless still? She stood breathless for a moment, with wondering eyes fixed on the darkness, with a gasp of proud resistance to fate. Submit to injustice, to cruel heartlessness of those who could aid, to still more cruel helplessness⁠—impotence, on her own part? She stood for a moment gazing at the blank wall that seemed to rise before her, as the poor, the helpless have to do⁠—as women have to do in all circumstances. It was her first experience in this kind. She had been proud to know that she was not as Carry, that no tyranny could crush her spirit: but this was different. She had not anticipated such a trial as this. There came from her bosom one sob of supreme pain which she could not keep in. Not for John only, whom she could not help in his moment of need, but for herself also⁠—to feel herself impotent, helpless, powerless as a child.

Millefleurs came forward from the window hurriedly. Perhaps being so much a man of his time it was he who understood that gasp of suffering best. He said, “Lady Edith, if I can help⁠—” quickly, on the impulse of the moment; then, thorough little gentleman as he was, checked himself. “Lady Lindores, though I am a stranger, yet my name is good enough. Tell me what to do and I will do it. Perhaps it is better that Lord Lindores should not commit himself. But I am free, don’t you know,” he said, with something of the easy little chirrup of more ordinary times. Why was it that, at such a moment, Edith, of all others, in her personal despair, should burst out into that strange little laugh? She grasped her mother’s arm with both hands in her excitement. Here was a tragic irony and ridicule penetrating the misery of the crisis like a sharp arrow which pricked the girl to the very heart.

This sympathiser immediately changed the face of affairs. Lord Lindores, indeed, continued to hold himself apart, pushing back his chair once more; but even to Lord Lindores, Millefleurs made a difference. He said no more about enthusiasm or common sense, but listened, not without an occasional word of direction. They clustered together like a band of shadows against the great window, which was full of the paleness of the night. Beaufort, who was the person most acquainted with all the circumstances, recovered his sense of personal importance as he told his story. But after all, it was not as the narrator of John Erskine’s story that he cared to gain importance in the eyes of Carry’s family, any more than it was as bail for John Erskine that Lord Millefleurs desired to make himself agreeable to the ladies at Lindores. Both of the strangers, thus caught in the net of difficulties and dangers which surrounded their old comrade, resented it more or less; but what could they do? Edith took no further part in the consultation. She retired behind her mother, whose arm she continued to hold firm and fast in both her hands. When she was moved by the talk going on at her side she grasped that arm tightly, which was her only sign of emotion, but for the rest retired into the darkness where no one could see, and into herself, a still more effectual retirement. Lady Lindores felt that her daughter’s two hands clasping her were like a sort of anchor which Edith had thrown out in her shipwreck to grasp at some certainty. She bore the pressure with a half smile and sigh. She too had felt the shipwreck with keen passion, still more serious than that of Edith: but she had no one to anchor to. She felt this, half with a grateful sense of what she herself was still good for; but still more, perhaps, with that other personal sense which comes to most⁠—that with all the relationships of life still round her, mother and wife, she, for all solace and support, was like most of us virtually alone.

XXXV

“Your master is just a young fool. Why, in the name of a’ that’s reasonable,” cried Mr. Monypenny, “did he not send for me?”

“Sir,” said Rolls, “you’re too sensible a man not to know that the last thing a lad is likely to do is what’s reasonable, especially when he’s in that flurry, and just furious at being blamed.”

Mr. Monypenny was walking up and down his business room with much haste and excitement. His house was built on the side of a slope, so that the room, which was level with the road on one side, was elevated on the upper floor at the other, and consequently had the advantage of a view bounded, as was general, by “that eternal Tinto,” as he was in the habit of calling it. The good man, greatly disturbed by what he heard, walked to his window and stared out as Rolls spoke. And he shook his fist at the distant object of so many troubles. “Him and his big house and his ill ways⁠—they’ve been the trouble of the countryside those fifteen years and more,” cried the excited “man of business”; “and now we’re not done with him, even when he’s dead.”

“Far from done with him,” said Rolls, shaking his head. He was seated on the edge of a chair with his hat in his lap and a countenance of dismay. “If I might make so bold as to ask,” he said, “what would ye say, sir, would be done if the worst came to the worst? I’m no’ saying to Mr. Erskine indiveedually,” added Rolls⁠—“for it’s my belief he’s had nothing ado with it⁠—but granting that it’s some person and no mere accident⁠—”

“How can I tell⁠—or any man?” said Mr. Monypenny. “It depends entirely on the nature of the act. It’s all supposition, so far as I can see. To pitch Pat Torrance over the Scaur, him and his big horse, with murderous intent, is more than John Erskine could have done, or any man I know. And there was no quarrel or motive. Culpable homicide⁠—”

“That’ll be what the English gentleman called manslaughter.”

“Manslaughter is a wide word. It would all depend on the circumstances. A year; maybe six months only⁠—If it were to turn out so⁠—which I do not for a moment believe⁠—” said Mr. Monypenny, fixing his eyes upon Rolls with a determination which betrayed internal feebleness of belief.

“Nor me, sir⁠—nor me!” cried Rolls, with the same look. They were like two conspirators regarding each other with the consciousness of the plot, which, even between themselves, each eyeing the other, they were determined to deny.

“But if by any evil chance it were to turn out so⁠—I would advise a plain statement,” said Mr. Monypenny⁠—“just a plain statement, concealing nothing. That should have been done at the moment: help should have been sought at the moment; there’s the error. A misadventure like that might happen to any man. We might any of us be the means of such an accident: but panic is just the worst policy. Panic looks like guilt. If he’s been so far left to himself as to take fright⁠—to see that big man on his big horse thunderin’ over the Scaur would be enough to make any man lose his head,” the agent added, with a sort of apology in his tone.

“If you could think of the young master as in that poseetion,” said Rolls.

“Which is just impossible,” Mr. Monypenny said, and then there was a little pause. “The wisest thing,” he went on, “would be, just as I say, a plain statement. Such and such a thing happened. I lost my head. I thought there was nothing to be done. I was foolish enough to shrink from the name of it, or from the coolness it would make between me and my friends. Ay, very likely that might be the cause⁠—the coolness it would make between him and the family at Lindores⁠—”

“You’re meaning always if there was onything in it at a’?”

“That is what I’m meaning. I will go and see him at once,” Mr. Monypenny said, “and that is the advice I will give. A plain story whatever it may be⁠—just the facts; neither extenuate nor set down aught in malice. And as for you, Rolls, that seem to be mixed up in it yourself⁠—”

“Ay, sir; I’m mixed up in it,” said Rolls, turning upon him an inquiring yet half-defiant glance.

“It was you that found the body first. It was you that met your master at the gate. You’re the most important witness, so far as I can see. Lord bless us, man!” said Mr. Monypenny, forgetting precaution, “had you not the judgment, when you saw the lad had been in a tuilzie, to get him out of other folk’s sight, and keep it to yourself?”

“There was John Tamson as well as me,” said Rolls, very gravely; and then he added, “but ye canna see yet, Mr. Monypenny, how it may a’ turn.”

“I see plenty,” said the man of business, impatiently; and then he added, “the best thing you can do is to find out all you can about the ground, and other details. It was always unsafe; and there had been a great deal of rain. Very likely it was worse than ordinary that day. And call to mind any circumstances that might tell on our side. Ye had better come to me and make me acquainted with all your observations. Neglect nothing. The very way the beast was lying, if ye can rightly remember, might be a help. You’re not without sense, Rolls. I’ve always had a high opinion of your sense. Now here’s a chance for you to prove it⁠—And come back to me, and we’ll judge how the evidence tends. There’s no need,” he said, standing at the window once more with his back to his pupil, “to bring out any points that might turn⁠—the other way.”

“I’m not just such a fool as⁠—some folk think,” said Rolls; “and yet,” he added, in an undertone, “for a’ that, you canna see, Mr. Monypenny, how it may all turn⁠—”

“Don’t haver, Rolls,” said the agent, turning upon him angrily; “or speak out what you mean. There is no man can say how a thing will turn but he that has perfect knowledge of all the circumstances⁠—which is not my case.”

“That’s what I was saying, sir,” said Rolls, with a tranquil assumption which roused Mr. Monypenny’s temper; but the old man was so solemn in his air of superior knowledge, so full of sorrowful decision and despondency, that anger seemed out of place. The other grew alarmed as he looked at him.

“For God’s sake, man,” he cried, “if there’s anything behind that I don’t know, tell it! let me hear the worst. We must know the worst, if it’s to make the best of it. Hide nothing from me.”

“I give ye my word, sir, I’ll hide nothing⁠—when the time comes,” said Rolls, with a sigh; “but I canna just unburden my bozume at this moment. There’s mair thought needful and mair planning. And there’s one thing I would like to make sure of, Mr. Monypenny. If I’m put to expenses, or otherwise laid open to risk and ootlay⁠—there’s no doubt but it would be made up to me? And if, as might happen, anything serious was to befall⁠—without doubt the young maister would think himself bound to take good care o’ Bauby? She’s my sister, maybe you’ll mind: an aixcellent housekeeper and a good woman, though maybe I should leave her praises to ither folk. You see he hasna been brought up in the midst o’ his ain folk, so to speak, or I would have little doubt.”

“I cannot conceive what you mean, Rolls. Of course I know Bauby and her cookery both; but what risk you should run, or what she can have to do with it! Your expenses of course,” said the agent, with a contemptuous wave of his hand, “you may be sure enough of. But you must have done pretty well in the service of the Dalrulzian family, Rolls. I’m surprised that you should think of this at such a moment⁠—”

“That’s just what I expectit, sir,” said Rolls; “but maybe I ken my ain affairs best, having no man of business. And about Bauby, she’s just what I care for most. I wouldna have her vexed or distresst for siller, or put out of her ordinar. The maister he’s but a young man, and no’ attached to us as he would have been had he been brought up at hame. It’s a great drawback to a young lad, Mr. Monypenny”⁠—Rolls broke off his personal argument to say sententiously⁠—“not to be brought up at hame.”

“Because he does not get the chance of becoming attached to his servants?” said Mr. Monypenny, with an impatient laugh. “Perhaps it may be so, but this is a curious moment to moralise on the subject.”

“No’ so curious as you think, sir; but I will not weary you,” said Rolls, with some dignity. “When I was saying ootlay, I meant mair than just a sixpence here or there. But Bauby’s the grand question. I’m in a strange kind of a poseetion, and the one thing I’m clear in is my duty to her. She’s been a rael guid sister to me; aye made me comfortable, studiet my ways, took an interest in all my bits o’ fykes. I would ill like either scorn or trouble to come to Bauby. She’s awfu’ softhearted,” said the old butler, solemnly gazing into vacancy with a reddening of his eyes. Something of that most moving of all sentiments, self-pity, was in his tone. He foresaw Bauby’s apron at her eyes for him, and in her grief over her brother, his own heart was profoundly moved. “There will be some things that nobody can save her from: but for all that concerns this world, if I could be sure that nothing would happen to Bauby⁠—”

“Well, Rolls, you’re past my comprehension,” said Mr. Monypenny; “but so far as taking care of Bauby in case anything happens to you⁠—though what should happen to you I have yet to learn.”

“That is just so,” said Rolls, getting up slowly. There was about him altogether a great solemnity, like a man at a funeral, Mr. Monypenny said afterwards. “I cannot expect you to know, sir⁠—that’s atween me and my Maker. I’m no’ going back to Dalrulzian. I cannot have my mind disturbed at this awfu’ moment, as ye say, with weemen and their ways. If ye see the English gentleman, ye’ll maybe explain. Marget has a very guid notion o’ waitin’; she can do all that’s necessary; and for me, I’ve ither work in hand.”

“You must not look at everything in so gloomy a spirit, Rolls,” said Mr. Monypenny, holding out his hand. He was not in the habit of shaking hands with the butler, but there are occasions when rules are involuntarily broken through.

“No’ a gloomy spirit, sir, but awfu’ serious,” said Rolls. “You’ll tell the young maister no’ to be downhearted, but at the same time no’ to be that prood. Help may come when it’s little looked for. I’m no’ a man of mony words, but I’ve been, as you say, sir, attached to the family all my days, and I have just a feeling for them more than common. The present gentleman’s mother⁠—her that married the English minister⁠—was no’ just what suited the house. Dalrulzian was nothing to her; and that’s what I compleen o’, that the young man was never brought up at hame, to have confidence in his ain folk. It would have been greatly for his advantage, sir,” continued Rolls, “if he had but had the discernment to see that our bonnie Miss Nora was just the person;⁠—but I mustna think now of making conditions,” he said, hurriedly⁠—“we’ll leave that to his good sense. Mony thanks to you, sir, for hearing me out, and shaking my hand as ye’ve done; though there’s maybe things I have said that are a wee hard to understand.”

“Ay, Rolls,” said Mr. Monypenny, laughing, “you’re just like the other prophets; a great deal of what you’ve said is Greek and Hebrew to me.”

“No doubt, no doubt,” said Rolls, shaking his head; there was no smile in him, not a line in his countenance that marked even incipient humour. Whatever he meant it was deadly earnest to Rolls. Mr. Monypenny stood and watched him go out, with a laugh gurgling low down in his throat. “He was always a conceited body,” he said to himself. But his inclination to laughter subsided as his visitor disappeared. It was no moment for laughing. And when Rolls was gone, the temptation to speculate on his words, and put meaning into them, subsided also, and Mr. Monypenny gave himself up with great seriousness to consider the position. He ordered his little country carriage⁠—something of the phaeton order, but not elegant enough for classification⁠—and drove away as quickly as his comfortable cob would consent to go, to where John was. Such a thing had not happened to any person of importance in the county since he could remember. Debt, indeed⁠—debt was common enough, and plenty of trouble always, about money, Mr. Monypenny said to himself, shaking his head, as he went along. There had been borrowings and hypothecations of all sorts enough to make a financier’s hair stand on end; but crime never! Not that men were better here than in other quarters; but among the gentry that had never happened. The good man ran on, in a rambling inaudible soliloquy, or rather colloquy with himself, as he drove on, asking how it was, after all, that incidents of the kind were so rare among the gentry. Was the breed better? He shook his head, remembering himself of various details which interfered with so easy a solution. Or was it that things were more easily hushed up? or that superior education enforced a greater respect for the world’s opinion, and made offences of this sort almost impossible? It was a strange thing (he thought) when you came to think of it. A fellow, now, like the late Tinto would have been in every kind of scrape had he been a poor man; but somehow, being a rich one, he had kept out of the hands of the law. Such a thing never happened from year’s end to year’s end. And to think now that it was not one of our ordinary Scots lairds, but the pink of education and good breeding, from England and abroad! This gave a momentary theoretical satisfaction to his musings by the way. But immediately after, he thought with self-reproach that it was young Erskine of whom he was permitting himself such criticism: young Dalrulzian, poor lad! all the more to be pitied that he had been brought up, as Rolls said, away from home, and with no father to look after him. The cob was used to take his own way along those roads which he knew so well, but at this point Mr. Monypenny touched him with the indignity of a whip, and hurried along. He met Beaufort returning, driving, with a little hesitation at the corner of the road, John’s dogcart homeward; and Mr. Monypenny thought he recognised the dogcart, but he did not stop to say anything to the stranger, who naturally knew nothing of him. Nor was his interview with John at all satisfactory when he came to his journey’s end. The young man received his man of business with that air of levity which, mixed with indignation, had been his prevailing mood since his arrest. He laughed when he said, “This is a curious place to receive you in,” and for some time he would scarcely give any heed to the anxious questions and suggestions of Mr. Monypenny. At length, however, this veil was thrown off, and John permitted the family friend, of whose faithfulness he could have no doubt, to see the depth of wounded feeling that lay below. “Of course it can be nothing to me,” he said, still holding his head high. “They cannot prove a falsehood, however they may wish it; but to think that of all these men with whom I have eaten and drunk, who have professed to welcome me for my father’s sake⁠—to think that not one of them would step in to stand by a fellow, or give him the least support⁠—”

“When you reflect that even I knew nothing about it,” said Mr. Monypenny⁠—“not a word⁠—till old Rolls came⁠—”

“Did you hear none of the talk?” said John. “I did not hear it, indeed, but I have felt it in the air. I knew there was something. Everybody looked at me suspiciously; the very tone of their voice was changed⁠—my own servants⁠—”

“Your servants are very anxious about you, Mr. Erskine, if I may judge from old Rolls. I have seldom seen a man so overcome; and if you will reflect that your other friends throughout the county can have heard nothing, any more than myself⁠—”

“Then you did not hear the talk?” said John, somewhat eagerly. Mr. Monypenny’s countenance fell.

“I paid no attention to it. There’s some story forever going on in the countryside. Wise men just shut their ears,” he said.

“Wise men are one thing and friends another,” said John. “Had I no one who could have told me, at least, on how small a thread my reputation hung? I might have gone away,” he said, with some vehemence, “at the height of it. If business, or even pleasure, had called me, no doubt I should, without a notion of any consequences. When I think of that I shiver. Supposing I had gone away?”

“In that case,” said Mr. Monypenny, clearing his throat; but he never got any further. This alarm affected him greatly. He began to believe that his client might be innocent altogether⁠—an idea which, notwithstanding all the disclaimers which he and Rolls had exchanged, had not crossed his mind before; but when he heard John’s story, his faith was shaken. He listened to it with the deepest interest, waiting for the moment when the confession would be made. But when it ended, without any end, so to speak, and John finally described Torrance as riding up towards the house, while he himself went down, Mr. Monypenny’s countenance fell. He was disappointed. The tale was such as he expected, with this important difference⁠—it wanted a conclusion. The listener gave a gasp of interest when the crisis arrived, but his interest flagged at once when it was over, and nothing had happened. “And then?” he said, breathlessly. And then?⁠—but there was no then. John gazed at him wondering, not perceiving the failure of the story. “That is all,” he said. Mr. Monypenny grew almost angry as he sat gazing at him across the table.

“I have just been telling Rolls,” he said, “that the best policy in such a case is just downright honest truth. To get into a panic and keep back anything is the greatest mistake. There is no need for any panic. You will be in the hands of those that take a great interest in you, Mr. John⁠—begging your pardon for using that name.”

“You do not seem satisfied with what I have told you,” John said.

“Oh, me! it’s little consequence what I think; there’s plenty to be thought upon before me. I would make no bones about it. In most things the real truth is the best, but most especially when you’re under an accusation. I’m for no half measures, if you will let me say so.”

“I will let you say whatever you please⁠—so long as you understand what I am saying. I have told you everything. Do I look like a man in a panic?” said John.

“Panic has many meanings. I make no doubt you are a brave man, and ready to face fire and sword if there was any need. But this is different. If you please, we’ll not fail to understand each other for want of plain speaking. Mr. Erskine, I make no doubt that’s all as true as gospel; but there’s more to come. That’s just a part of the story, not the whole.”

“I don’t mean to be offended by anything you say,” said John, cheerfully. “I feel that it means kindness. There is nothing more to come. It is not a part, but the whole. It is the truth, and everything I know.”

Mr. Monypenny did not look up; he was drumming his foot softly against the table, and hanging his head with a despondent air as he listened. He did not stop the one nor raise the other, but went on working his under lip, which projected slightly. There is no such tacit evidence of dissatisfaction or unbelief. Some little sign invariably breaks the stillness of attention when the teller of a tale comes to its end, if his story has been believed. There is, if no words, some stir, however slight⁠—movement of one kind or another, if only the change of an attitude. But Mr. Monypenny did not pay this usual tribute when John’s voice stopped. It was a stronger protest than if he had said, “I don’t believe you,” in ordinary words.

“I understand,” said John, after a pause of a full minute, which seemed to him an hour. He laughed with something between despair and defiance. “Your mode of communication is very unmistakable, Mr. Monypenny. It is Scotch, I suppose. One has always heard of Scotch caution and cannyness.” If he had not been very bitter and sore at heart he would not have snatched at this aimless weapon of offence.

“Mr. Erskine,” said the agent, “a sneer is always easy. Gibes break no bones, but neither have they any healing in them. You may say what you like to me, but an argument like that will do you terrible little good with them that will have to judge at the end. I am giving no opinion myself. On my own account I will speak frankly. I would rather not have heard this story⁠—unless I was to hear⁠—”

“What?” cried John, in the heat of personal offence.

“More,” said Mr. Monypenny, regretfully⁠—“more; just another dozen words would have been enough; but if there is no more to say⁠—”

“I am not a man to make protestations of truth. There is no more to say, Mr. Monypenny.”

“Well-a-well,” said the agent gloomily, shaking his head; “we must take just what is given⁠—we must try to make the best of it. And you think there’s nothing can be proved against you?” he said, with a slight emphasis. It required all John’s self-command to keep his temper. He had to remind himself forcibly of the true and steady and long-tried kindness with which this doubter had stood by him, and cared for his interests all his life⁠—a wise steward, a just guardian. These thoughts kept unseemly expressions from his lips, but he was not the less sore at heart. Even after the first blow of the criminal examination and his detention in prison, it had all seemed to him so simple. What could be necessary but to tell his story with sufficient distinctness (in which he thought he had failed before the sheriff)? Surely truth and falsehood were distinguishable at a glance, especially by those who are accustomed to discriminate between them. But the blank of unbelief and disappointment with which Mr. Monypenny heard his story chilled him to the heart. If he did not believe him, who would? He was angry, but anger is but a temporary sentiment when the mind is fairly at bay and finds itself hemmed in by difficulties and danger. He began to realise his position, the place in which he was, the circumstances surrounding him, as he had not yet done. The sheriff himself had been very civil, and deeply concerned to be the means of inflicting such an affront upon a county family; and he had added encouragingly that, on his return to Dunearn, in less than a week, when all the witnesses were got together, there was little doubt that a different light might be thrown on the affair; but Mr. Monypenny’s question was not so consolatory. “You think there’s nothing can be proved against you?” John had been gazing at his agent across the table while all these painful reflections went through his mind.

“I must be careful what I say. I am not speaking as a lawyer,” he said, with an uncomfortable smile. “What I meant was, that nothing could be proved which was untrue.”

The agent shook his head. “When it’s circumstantial evidence, you can never build upon that,” he said. “No man saw it, you may say; but if all the facts point that way, it goes far with a jury. There are some other things you will perhaps tell me. Had you any quarrel ever with poor Tinto? Was there ill blood between you? Can any man give evidence, for example, ‘I heard the panel say that he would have it out with Pat Torrance’? or⁠—”

“For heaven’s sake, what is the panel? and what connection is there between poor Torrance and⁠—”

“Sir,” said Mr. Monypenny, sternly, “this is no time for jests; the panel is a Scotch law term, meaning the defender; or what you call the defendant in England. It’s a terrible loss to a young man to be unacquainted even with the phraseology of his own country.”

“That is very true,” John said, with a laugh; “but at least it is no fault of mine. Well, suppose I am the panel, as you say⁠—that does not make me a vulgar brawler, does it, likely to display hostile intentions in that way? You may be sure no man can say of me that I threatened to have it out with Pat Torrance⁠—”

“It was inadvertent⁠—it was inadvertent,” said Mr. Monypenny, waving his hand, with a slight flush of confusion; “I daresay you never said Pat⁠—but what has that to do with it?⁠—you know my meaning. Is there anyone that can be produced to say⁠—”

“I have quarrelled with Torrance almost as often as I have met him,” said John, with obstinate decision. “I thought him a bully and a cad. If I did not tell him so, it was out of regard for his wife, and he was at liberty to find out my sentiments from my looks if it pleased him. I have never made the least pretence of liking the man.”

Mr. Monypenny went on shaking his head. “All this is bad,” he said, “bad!⁠—but it does not make a quarrel in the eye of the law,” he added, more cheerfully; and he went on putting a variety of questions, of which John grew very weary. Some of these questions seemed to have very little bearing upon the subject; some irritated him as betraying beyond all a persistent doubt of his own story. Altogether, the first dreary afternoon in confinement was not made much more endurable by this visit. The room in which John had been placed was like the parlour of a somewhat shabby lodging-house⁠—not worse than he had inhabited many a time while travelling. But the idea that he could not step outside, but was bound to this enclosure, was first ludicrous, and then intolerable. The window was rather higher than usual, and there were bars across it. When it became dark, a paraffin-lamp, such as is now universal in the country⁠—smelling horribly, as is, alas! too universal also⁠—was brought in, giving abundance of light, but making everything more squalid than before. And as Mr. Monypenny made his notes, John’s heart sank, and his impatience rose. He got up and began to pace about like a wild beast in a cage, as he said to himself. The sensation was more extraordinary than can be imagined. Not to be able, whatever might happen, to leave this shabby room. Whosoever might call to you, whatsoever might appeal to you, to be fixed there, all your impulses checked, impotent, unable for the first time in your life to do what you had done every day of your life, to move out and in, to and fro as you pleased! John felt that if he had been a theatrical felon in a play, manacled and fettered, it would have been easier, more comprehensible. But to know that these four walls were his absolute boundaries, and that he could not go beyond them, was more astounding than any other sensation that had ever happened to him in his life. And when Mr. Monypenny, with his careful brow, weighted with doubts and fears, unable to clear his countenance from the disapprobation that clouded it, got up to take his leave, and stood holding his client’s hands, overwhelmed with sympathy, vexation, dissatisfaction, and pity, the impatience and bitter sense of the intolerable in John’s mind could scarcely be restrained. “Whatever there may be more to say, whatever may come to your mind, you have but to send me a word, and I’ll be at your call night or day,” Mr. Monypenny said.

“It is very unlikely that I should have anything more to say,” said John; “but must I stay here?” It seemed incredible to him that he should be left even by his own “man of business.” He had seen Beaufort go away with a sort of contemptuous certainty of speedy liberation; but Mr. Monypenny had said nothing about liberation. “Surely there is nothing to prevent bail being accepted?” he said, with an eagerness he could not disguise.

“I will see about it,” Mr. Monypenny said. But the good agent went away with a dissatisfied countenance; and with a feeling that he must break through the walls or the barred window, must make his escape somehow⁠—could not, would not, endure this extraordinary intolerable new thing⁠—John Erskine heard the key turn in his door, and was left shut up with the paraffin-lamp, flaming and smelling more than ever, a prisoner and alone. Whether it was more ludicrous or more terrible, this annoying impossible farce-tragedy, it was hard to say.

XXXVI

The day after John’s incarceration was the funeral day at Tinto. The whole country was moved by this great ceremonial. The funeral was to be more magnificent than ever funeral had been before for hundreds of miles around; and the number of the procession which followed the remains was greater than that of any assembly known in the country since the ’45, when the whole district on one side or the other was “out.” That everybody concerned should have found it impossible to think of John in the county jail, in face of the necessity of “showing respect” on this great occasion to the memory of Torrance, was natural. It was, indeed, out of the question to make any comparison between the two necessities. After all, what did it matter for one day? Those who were out of prison, and had never been in prison, and whose imagination was not affected like John’s by that atmosphere of restraint, did not see any great harm that could happen. And the ceremony was one which could not be neglected. A Scotch funeral is somewhat terrible to those who have been accustomed to the pathetic and solemn ritual of the English Church; but there was something, too, impressive to the imagination, in that silent putting away of the old garment of humanity⁠—a stern submission, an acceptance of absolute doom, which, if it suggested little consolation, at least shed a wonderful awe on that conclusion no longer to be disturbed by mortal prayers or hopes. But Dr. Stirling, the parish minister, was of the new school of the Scotch Church, and poor Torrance’s body became, as it were, the flag of a religious party as it was laid in the grave. The great dining-room at Tinto, the largest room in the county, was crowded with a silent assembly gathered round the coffin while the first portion of the ceremony was carried out. It was such a scene as would have filled the heart of the dead man with exultation. Not one of the potentates of the county was absent; and behind them, in close ranks, with scarcely standing-room, came the smaller notabilities⁠—bonnet lairds, village doctors, clergymen, schoolmasters, lost in the sea of the tenantry behind. At the upper end of the room, a very unusual group, stood the ladies. Lady Caroline in her widow’s weeds, covered with crape from head to foot, her tall willowy figure drooping under the weight of those long clinging funeral robes, her face perfectly pale and more abstract and high-bred than ever, encircled by the whiteness of the cap⁠—with her two little children standing by, and her mother and sister behind to support her⁠—thrilled many an honest heart in the assembly. Women so seldom take part in funeral ceremonies in Scotland, that the farmers and country-folk were touched beyond measure by this apparition. It was described in scores of sympathetic houses for long after: “A snowdrift could not be whiter than the face of her; and the twa little bairns, puir things, glowering frae them, the image of poor Tinto himsel’.” If there was any sceptic ready to suggest “that my leddy was never so happy a wife to be sic a mournin’ widow,” the spectators had a ready answer: “Eh, but she would be thinking to herself if I had maybe been a wee better to him⁠—” Thus the popular verdict summed up the troubled story. Lady Caroline was pale enough for the role of the most impassioned mourner. She might have been chilled to stone by grief and pain for anything that was apparent. She did not speak or take notice of anyone, as was natural. Even for her father she had not a word; and when her little boy was led away to follow his father to the grave, she sank into a chair, having, no doubt, the sympathetic bystanders thought, done all that her strength was capable of. This roused a very warm sympathetic feeling for Lady Car throughout all the countryside. If it had not been just perhaps a love-match, she had done her duty by Tinto, poor fellow! She had kept him in the right way as far as a woman could; and what was scarcely to be expected, but pleased the lookers-on most of all, she had presented an aspect of utter desolation at his funeral. All that a widow could feel was in her face⁠—or so at least the bystanders thought.

The solemn procession filed out of the room: little Tom Torrance clinging to his grandfather’s hand, looking out with big projecting eyes like his father’s upon all the wonderful scene, stumping along at the head of the black procession. Poor little Tommy! he had a feeling of his own importance more than anything else. His little brain was confused and buzzing. He had no real association in his mind between the black thing in front of him and papa; but he knew that he had a right to walk first, to hold fast hold of grandpapa’s finger, and keep with his little fat legs in advance of everybody. It is difficult to say how soon this sense of importance makes up for other wants and troubles. Tommy was only four, but he felt it; and his grandfather, who was nearly fifteen times as old, felt it too. He felt that to have this child in his hands and the management of a great estate for so long a minority, was worth something in the list of his ambitions; and thus they all went forth, trooping into the long line of carriages that shone in the veiled autumnal sunlight, up and down the avenue among the trees in endless succession. Even to get them under way was no small matter; and at the lodge gates and down the road there was almost as great a crowd of women and poor people waiting to see them go by. John Tamson’s wife, by whose very cottage the mournful line passed, was full of tragic consciousness. “Eh!” she said, with bated breath, “to think that yon day when our John brought ben young Dalrulzian a’ torn and disjasket to hae the dirt brushed off o’ him⁠—that yon day was the beginning of a’⁠—” “Hold your tongue, woman,” said John Tamson; “what has the ane to do with the ither? Ye’re pitting things thegither that hae nae natural sequence; but ye ken naething of logic.” “No’ me,” said the woman; “and I wuss that poor young lad just kent as little. If he hadna been so book-learned he would have been mair friendly-like with them that were of his ain kind and degree.” And as the black line went past, which after a while became tedious, she recounted to her gossips once more the story which by this time everybody knew, but all were willing to hear over again under the excitement of this practical commentary. “Losh! would he leave him lying there and never cry for help?” some of the spectators said. “It was never our master that did that,” said Peggy Blair from the Dalrulzian lodge, who had declared boldly from the beginning that she “took nae interest” even in this grand funeral. “And if it wasna your maister, wha was it that came ben to me with the red moul on his claes and his coat a’ torn?” said Janet Tamson. “I wasna here and I canna tell,” Peggy said, hot and furious. “I would never say what might happen in a moment if a gentleman was angry⁠—and Pat Torrance had an awfu’ tongue, as the haill county kens⁠—but leave a man groanin’ at the fit o’ a rock, that’s what our maister never did, if I were to die for’t,” the woman cried. This made a little sensation among the beholders; but when it was remarked that Dalrulzian was the only gentleman of the county who was absent from the funeral, and half-a-dozen voices together proclaimed the reason⁠—“He couldna be twa places at once; he’s in the jyel for murder,” Peggy was quenched altogether. Grief and shame were too much for her. She continued to sob, “No’ our master!” till her voice ceased to be articulate in the midst of her tears.

Dr. Stirling was seated in full canonicals⁠—black silk gown and cambric bands⁠—in one of the first carriages. It was he that his wife looked for when the procession passed the manse; and she put on her black bonnet, and covered herself with a veil, and went out very solemnly to the churchyard to see the burial. But it was not the burial she thought of, nor poor Tinto, nor even Lady Car, for whom all day she had been uttering notes of compassion: it was the innovation of the funeral service which occupied the mind of the minister’s wife. With mingled pride and trembling she heard her husband in the silence begin his prayer by the side of the vault. It was a beautiful prayer⁠—partly, no doubt, taken from the English liturgy, for which, she said, “the Doctor always had a high admiration;” but partly⁠—“and that was far the best”⁠—his own. It was the first time anything of the kind had been done in the county; and if ever there could be a funeral important enough for the introduction of a new ceremonial to mark it, it was this one: but what if the Presbytery were to take notice of the innovation? Perhaps the thrill of excitement in her enhanced the sense of the greatness of the step which the Doctor was taking, and his nobility in doing it. And in her eyes no ritual could have been more imposing. There were a great many of the attendants who thought it was “just Poppery,” and a most dangerous beginning; but they were all hushed and reverential while the minister’s voice went on.

When everyone had left, and the house was perfectly silent after the hum and sound of so many feet, Lady Car herself went forward to the window and drew up the blind which covered it. The gloom disappeared, and the noonday sunshine streamed in in a moment. It was premature, and Lady Lindores was grieved that she had not been quick enough to forestall her daughter; for it would have been better, she thought, if her hand had been the first to let in the light, and not that of the new-made widow. Carry went further, and opened the window. She stepped out upon the heavy stone balcony outside, and received the light full upon her, raising her head to it, and basking in the sunshine. She opened her pale lips to draw in great draughts of the sweet autumn air, and threw up her arms to the sunshine and to the sky. Lady Lindores stepped out after her, laying her hand upon her arm, with some alarm. “Carry⁠—my darling, wait a little⁠—” Carry did not make any reply. She said, “How long is it, mother?” still looking up into the clear depths of the sky. “How long is what, my love?” They were a strange group. A spectator might have thought that the pale creature in the midst, so ethereal, so wan, wrapped in mourning so profound, had gone distraught with care; while her child at her feet sat on the carpet in front of the window, the emblem of childish indifference, playing with her new shoes, which glittered and pleased her; and the two attendant figures, the anxious mother and sister, kept watch behind. In Carry the mystery all centred; and even those two who were nearest to her were bewildered, and could not make her out. Was she an Ophelia, moved out of her sweet wits by an anguish beyond bearing? Was she a woman repentant, appealing to heaven for forgiveness? Carry was none of these things. She who had been so dutiful all her life, resisting nobody, fulfilling all requirements to the letter, bearing the burden of all her responsibilities without rebellion or murmur, had ceased in a moment to consider outside necessities, even the decorum of her sorrowful condition. She gave a long sigh, dismissing, as it were, a weight from her breast. “It is five years and a half,” she said. “I ought to remember, I that have counted every day⁠—and now is it possible, is it possible?”

“What, my dearest? Carry, come in; you are excited⁠—”

“Not yet, mother. How soft the air is! and the sunshine flooding everything. I have been shut up so long. I think the colours never were so lovely before.”

“Yes, my darling; you have been shut up for a whole week. I don’t wonder you are glad of the fresh air.”

“A week!” Carry said. “Five years: I have got no good of the sunshine, and never tasted the sweetness of the air, for five years. Let me feel it now. Oh, how have I lived all this time! What a beautiful country it is! what a glorious sky! and I have been in prison, and have never seen them! Is it true? is it all over?⁠—all, all?” She turned round and gazed into the room where the coffin had been with a gaze full of meaning which no one could mistake. It was gone⁠—all was gone. “You must not be horrified, mother,” she said. “Why should I be false now? I think if it had lasted any longer I must have died or run away.”

“Dear Carry, you would have done neither; you would have done your duty to the end,” her mother said, drawing Carry into her arms. “It is excitement that makes you speak so.”

“Not excitement, but deliverance,” said Lady Car with solemnity. “Yes, mother, you are right; I should have stood to the end; but do you think that would have been a credit to me? Oh, you don’t know how hard falsehood is! Falsehood and slavery⁠—they are the same thing; they make your heart like iron: you have no feeling even when you ought perhaps to have feeling. I am cruel now; I know you think I am cruel: but how can one help it? slaves are cruel. I can afford to have a heart now.”

“Come to your room, Carry. It is too dismal for you here.”

“No, I don’t think it is dismal. It is a fine handsome room⁠—better than a bedroom to sit in. It is not so much like a prison, and the view is lovely. There is poor Edith looking at me with her pitiful face. Do you think I ought to cry? Oh, I could cry well enough, if that were all⁠—it would be quite easy; but there is so much to smile about,” said poor Lady Car; then suddenly, leaning upon her mother’s shoulder, she burst into a flood of tears.

It was at this moment that the housekeeper came in, solemn in her new mourning, which was almost as “deep” as Carry’s, with a housemaid in attendance, to draw up the blinds and see that the great room was restored to order. The gentlemen were to return for the reading of the will, and it was meet that all should be prepared and made ready. And nothing could so much have touched the hearts of the women as to see their mistress thus weeping, encircled in her mother’s arms. “Poor thing! he was not over good a man to her; but there’s nae rule for judging marriet folk. It’s ill to hae and waur to want with them. There’s naebody,” said the housekeeper, “but must respect my lady for her feeling heart.” Lady Caroline, however, would not take the credit of this when she had retired to a more private room. She would not allow her mother and sister to suppose that her tears were tears of sorrow, such as a widow ought to shed. “You were right, mother⁠—it is the excitement,” she avowed; “every nerve is tingling. I could cry and I could laugh. If it had not been for your good training, mamma, I should have had hysterics; but that would be impossible to your daughter. When shall I be able to go away? I know: I will not go sooner than is right. I will do nothing I ought not to do;⁠—but you could say my nerves are shattered, and that I want rest.”

“And very truly, Carry,” said Lady Lindores; “but we must know first what the will is. To be sure, your fortune is secured. You will be well off⁠—better than any of us; but there may be regulations about the children⁠—there may be conditions.”

“Could the children be taken from me?” Carry said, but not with any active feeling; her powers of emotion were all concentrated on one thought. Lady Lindores, who was watching her with all a mother’s anxious criticism, fearing to see any failure of right sentiment in her child, listened with a sensation of alarm. She had never been contented with herself in this particular. Carry’s children had been too much the children of Pat Torrance to awaken the grandmother’s worship, which she thought befitting, in her own heart. She felt a certain repulsion when she looked at these black-browed, light-eyed creatures, who were their father’s in every feature⁠—not Carry’s at all. Was it possible that Carry, too, felt the same? But by-and-by Carry took up that little stolid girl on whom Lady Lindores could not place her tenderest affections, do what she would, and pressed her pale cheek against that undisturbed and solid little countenance. The child’s face looked bigger than her mother’s, Lady Lindores thought⁠—the one all mind and feeling, the other all clay. She went and gave little Edith a kiss in her compunction and penitence for this involuntary dislike; but fortunately Carry herself was unconscious of it, and caressed her babies as if they were the most delicate and beautiful in the world.

Carry was not present at the reading of the will. She shrank from it, and no one insisted. There were father and brother to look after her interests. Rintoul was greatly shaken by the events of the day. He was ghastly pale, and very much excited and agitated. Whatever his sister might do, Rintoul certainly exhibited the truest sentiment. Nobody had given him credit for half so much feeling. He carried back his little nephew asleep after the long drive home, and thrust him into Carry’s arms. “I am not much of a fellow,” he said, stooping over her, with a voice full of emotion, “but I’ll do a father’s part to him, if I’m good enough for it, Carry.” Carry by this time was quite calm, and wondered at this exhibition of feeling, at which Lady Lindores shed tears, though in her heart she wondered too, rejoicing that her inward rebellion against Torrance’s children was not shared by her son. “Robin’s heart was always in the right place,” she said, with a warmth of motherly approval, which was not diminished by the fact that Rintoul’s emotion made her still more conscious of the absence of “right feeling” in herself. There was not much conversation between the ladies in the small morning room to which they had withdrawn⁠—a room which had never been used and had no associations. Carry, indeed, was very willing to talk; but her mother and sister did their best, with a natural prejudice and almost horror of the manner in which she regarded her own circumstances, to keep her silent. Even Edith, who would have dissolved the marriage arbitrarily, did not like to hear her sister’s cry of satisfaction over the freedom which death had brought her. There was something impious and cruel in getting free that way. If it had been by a divorce or separation, Edith would have been as glad as any; but she was a girl full of prejudices and superstitions, and this candour of Carry’s was a thing she shrank from as an offence to human nature. She kept behind-backs, often with her little niece on her knee, but sometimes by herself, keeping very quiet, revolving many thoughts in her heart; while Lady Lindores kept close to Carry, like a sick-nurse, keeping watch over all her movements. It was dusk when the reading of the will was over, and the sound in the house of footsteps going and coming began to cease. Then Lord Lindores came in with much subdued dignity of demeanour, like an ambassador approaching a crowned head. He went up to Carry, who lay back in a great easy-chair beside the fire with her hands clasped, pursuing the thoughts which she was not permitted to express, and gave her a formal kiss on the forehead: not that he was cold or unsympathetic as a father, but he had been a little afraid of her since her marriage, and she had not welcomed the condolences he had addressed to her when he saw her first after Tinto’s death.

“My dear,” he said, “this is not a moment for congratulations: and yet there is something to a woman in having earned the entire confidence of her husband, which must be a subject of satisfaction⁠—”

Carry scarcely moved in her stillness. She looked at him without understanding what he meant. “It would be better, perhaps,” she said, “father, not to speak of the circumstances.”

“I hope I am not likely to speak in a way that could wound your feelings, Carry. Poor Patrick⁠—has done you noble justice in his will.”

A hysterical desire to laugh seized poor Lady Car. Lord Lindores himself was a little confused by the name he had coined on the spot for his dead son-in-law. He had felt that to call him Torrance would be cold, as his wish was to express the highest approval; and Pat was too familiar. But his “Poor Patrick” was not successful. And Carry knew that, even in the midst of her family, she must not laugh that day, whatever might happen. She stopped herself convulsively, but cried, “Papa, for heaven’s sake, don’t talk to me any more!”

“Do you not see, Robert, that she is exhausted?” said Lady Lindores. “She thinks nothing of the will. She is worn out with⁠—all she has had to go through. Let her alone till she has had time to recover a little.”

His wife’s interposition always irritated Lord Lindores. “I may surely be permitted to speak to Carry without an interpreter,” he said, testily. “It is no doubt a very⁠—painful moment for her. But if anything could make up⁠—Torrance has behaved nobly, poor fellow! It must be gratifying to us all to see the confidence he had in her. You have the control of everything during your boy’s minority, Carry. Everything is in your hands. Of course it was understood that you would have the support of your family. But you are hampered by no conditions: he has behaved in the most princely manner; nothing could be more gratifying,” Lord Lindores said.

Carry sat motionless in her chair, and took no notice⁠—her white hands clasped on her lap; her white face, passive and still, showed as little emotion as the black folds of her dress, which were like a tragic framework round her. Lady Lindores, with her hand upon the back of her daughter’s chair, came anxiously between, and replied for her. She had to do her best to say the right thing in these strange circumstances⁠—to be warmly gratified, yet subdued by the conventional gloom necessary to the occasion. “I am very glad,” she said⁠—“that is, it is very satisfactory. I do not see what else he could have done. Carry must have had the charge of her own children⁠—who else had any right?⁠—but, as you say, it is very gratifying to find that he had so much confidence⁠—”

Lord Lindores turned angrily away. “Nerves and vapours are out of place here,” he said. “Carry ought to understand⁠—but, fortunately, so long as I know what I am about⁠—the only one among you⁠—”

At this Carry raised herself hastily in her chair. She said “Papa,” quickly, with a half gasp of alarm. Then she added, without stopping, almost running her words into each other in her eagerness, “They are my children; no one else has anything to do with them; I must do everything⁠—everything! for them myself; nobody must interfere.”

“Who do you expect to interfere?” said her father, sternly. He found himself confronting his entire family as he turned upon Carry, who was so strangely roused and excited, sitting up erect in her seat, clasping her pale hands. Rintoul had gone round behind her chair, beside his mother; and Edith, rising up behind, stood there also, looking at him with a pale face and wide-open eyes. It was as if he had made an attack upon her⁠—he who had come here to inform her of her freedom and her rights. This sudden siding together of all against one is bitter, even when the solitary person may know himself to be wrong. But Lord Lindores felt himself in the right at this moment. Supposing that perhaps he had made a mistake in this marriage of Carry’s, fate had stepped in and made everything right. She was nobly provided for, with the command of a splendid fortune⁠—and she was free. Now at least his wisdom ought to be acknowledged, and that he had done well for his daughter. But notwithstanding his resentment, he was a little cowed “in the circumstances” by this gathering of pale faces against him. Nothing could be said that was not peaceful and friendly on the day that the dead had gone out of the house.

“Do you think I am likely to wish to dictate to her,” he said, with a short laugh, “that you stand round to defend her from me? Carry, you are very much mistaken if you think I will interfere. Children are out of my way. Your mother will be your best adviser. I yield to her better information now. You are tired, you are unhappy⁠—you are⁠—left desolate⁠—”

“Oh, how do you dare to say such words to me?” cried Carry, rising, coming forward to him with feverish energy, laying her hands upon his shoulders, as if to compel him to face her, and hear what she had to say. “Don’t you know⁠—don’t you know? I was left desolate when you brought me here, five years⁠—five dreadful years ago. Whose fault is that? I am glad he is dead⁠—glad he is dead! Could a woman be more injured than that? But now I have neither father nor mother,” she cried. “I am in my own right; my life is my own, and, my children; I will be directed no more.”

All this time she stood with her hands on his shoulders, grasping him unconsciously to give emphasis to her words. Lord Lindores was startled beyond measure by this personal contact⁠—by the way in which poor Carry, always so submissive, flung herself upon him. “Do you mean to use violence to me? do you mean to turn me out of your house?” he said.

“Oh, father!⁠—oh, father! how can I forgive you?” Carry cried, in her excitement and passion; and then she dropped her hands suddenly and wept, and begged his pardon like a child. Lord Lindores was very glad to take advantage of this sudden softening which he had so little expected. He kissed her and put her back in her chair. “I would recommend you to put her to bed,” he said to his wife; “she has been overdone.” And he thought he had got the victory, and that poor Carry, after her little explosion, was safe in his hands once more. He meant no harm to Carry. It was solely of her good and that of her children that he thought. It could do no harm either to the one or the other if they served his aims too. He drove home with his son soon after, leaving his wife behind him: it was proper that Carry should have her mother and sister with her at so sad a time. And the house of Tinto, which had been so dark all these nights, shone demurely out again this evening, at a window here and there⁠—death, which is always an oppression, being gone from it, and life resuming its usual sway. The flag still hung half-mast high, drooping against the flagstaff, for there was no wind. “But I’m thinking, my lord, we’ll put it back tomorrow,” said the butler as he stood solemnly at the carriage-door. He stood watching it roll down the avenue in that mood of genial exhaustion which makes men communicative. “It’s a satisfaction to think all’s gane well and everybody satisfied,” he said to his subordinate; “for a death in a family is worse to manage than ony other event. You’re no’ just found fault with at the moment, but it’s minded against you if things go wrong, and your ‘want o’ feelin’.’ My lady will maybe think it want o’ feelin’ if I put up the flag. But why should I no’? For if big Tinto’s gane, there’s wee Tinto, still mair important, with all the world before him. And if I let it be, they’ll say it’s neglect.”

“My lady will never fash her head about it,” said the second in command.

“How do you ken? Ah, my lad, you’ll find a change. The master might give you a damn at a moment, but he wasna hard to manage. We’ll have all the other family, her family, to give us our orders now.”

XXXVII

It is a strange experience for a man whose personal freedom has never been restrained to find himself in prison. The excitement and amazement of the first day made it something so exceptional and extraordinary, that out of very strangeness it was supportable: and Erskine felt it possible to wind himself up to the necessity of endurance for one night. But the dead stillness of the long, long morning that followed, was at once insupportable and incomprehensible to him. What did it mean? He saw the light brighten in his barred window, and persuaded himself, as long as he could, that it was as yet too early for anything to be done; but when he heard all the sounds of life outside, and felt the long moments roll on, and listened in vain for any deliverance, a cold mist of amazement and horror began to wrap John’s soul. Was he to be left there? to lie in jail like any felon, nobody believing him, abandoned by all? He could not do anything violent to relieve his feelings; but it was within him to have dashed everything wildly about the room⁠—to have flown at the window and broken it to pieces⁠—to have torn linen and everything else to shreds. He stood aghast at himself as this wild fury of impatience and misery swept over him. He could have beaten his head against the wall. To sit still, as a man, a gentleman, is compelled to do, restraining himself, was more hard than any struggles of Hercules. And those slow sunny moments stole by, each one of them as long as an hour. The sun seemed to be stationary in the sky: the forenoon was a century. When he heard someone at last approaching, he drew a long breath of satisfaction, saying to himself that now at last the suspense would be over. But when it proved to be Miss Barbara with her arms full of provisions for his comfort, her maid coming after, bearing a large basket, it is impossible to describe the disappointment, the rage that filled him. The effort to meet her with a smile was almost more than he was capable of. He did it, of course, and concealed his real feelings, and accepted the butter and eggs with such thanks as he could give utterance to; but the effort seemed almost greater than any he had ever made before. Miss Barbara, for her part, considered it her duty to her nephew to maintain an easy aspect and ignore the misery of the situation. She exerted herself to amuse him, to talk as if nothing was amiss. She told him of Tinto’s grand funeral, with which the whole countryside was taken up. “Everybody is there,” Miss Barbara said, with some indignation⁠—“great and small, gentle and simple, as if auld Torrance’s son was one of the nobles of the land.”

“They care more for the dead than the living,” John said, with a laugh. It was well to laugh, for his lip quivered. No doubt this was the reason why no one had leisure to think of him. And his heart was too full of his own miseries to be capable of even a momentary compassion for the fate of Torrance⁠—a man not very much older than himself, prosperous and rich and important⁠—snatched in a moment from all his enjoyments. He had been deeply awed and impressed when he heard of it first; but by this time the honours paid to the dead man seemed to John an insult to his own superior claims⁠—he who was living and suffering unjustly. To think that those who called themselves his friends should have deserted him to show a respect which they could not feel for the memory of a man whom they had none of them respected while he lived! He was no cynic, nor fond of attributing every evil to the baseness of humanity, but he could not help saying now, between his closed teeth, that it was the way of the world.

He had another visitor in the afternoon, some time after Miss Barbara took her departure, but not one of those he expected. To his great surprise, it was the white erect head of old Sir James which was the next he saw. The veteran came in with a grave and troubled countenance. He gave a shudder when he heard the key turn in the door. “I have come to see if there was⁠—anything I could do for you?” Sir James said.

John laughed again. To laugh seemed the only possible way of expressing himself. It is permissible for a man to laugh when a woman would cry, and the meaning is much the same. This expressed indignation, incredulity, some contempt, yet was softened by a gentler sentiment, at sight of the old soldier’s kind and benign but puzzled and troubled face. “I don’t know what anyone can do for me but take me out of this,” he said, “and no one seems disposed to do that.”

“John Erskine,” said the old General solemnly, “the circumstances are very serious. If you had seen, as I have seen, a young, strong man laid in his grave this day, with a little toddling bairn, chief mourner.” His voice broke a little, as he spoke. He waved his hand as if to put this recollection away. “And your story was not satisfactory. It did not commend itself to my mind. Have patience and hear me out. I came away from you in displeasure, and I’ve done nothing but turn it over and over in my thoughts ever since. It’s very far from satisfactory; but I cannot find it in my heart to disbelieve you,” the old man cried, with a quiver of emotion in his face. He held out his large, soft, old hand suddenly as he spoke. John, who had been winding himself up to indignant resistance, was taken entirely by surprise. He grasped that kind hand, and his composure altogether failed him.

“I am a fool,” he cried, dashing the tears from his eyes, “to think that one day’s confinement should break me down. God bless you, Sir James! I can’t speak. If that’s so, I’ll make shift to bear the rest.”

“Ay, my lad, that’s just so. I cannot disbelieve you. You’re a gentleman, John Erskine. You might do an act of violence⁠—any man might be left to himself; but you would not be base, and lie. I have tried to think so, but I cannot. You would never deceive an old friend.”

“If I had murdered poor Torrance in cold blood, and meaning it,” said John, “there is no telling, I might have lied too.”

“No, no, no,” said Sir James, putting out his hand⁠—“at the worst it was never thought to be that; but you have no look of falsehood in you. Though it’s a strange story, and little like the truth, I cannot disbelieve you. So now you will tell me, my poor lad, what I can do for you. We’re friends again, thank God! I could not bide to be unfriends⁠—and my old wife was at me night and day.”

“If Lady Montgomery believes in me too⁠—”

“Believes in you! she would give me no rest, I tell you⁠—her and my own spirit. She would not hear a word. All she said was, ‘Hoots, nonsense, Sir James!’ I declare to you that was all. She’s not what you call a clever woman, but she would not listen to a word. ‘Hoots, nonsense!’ that was all. We could not find it in our hearts.”

He was a little disposed, now that he had made his avowal, to dwell upon it, to the exclusion of more important matters; but when at last he permitted John to tell him what his expectations had been, and what his disappointment, as the long, slow morning stole over unbroken, Sir James was deeply moved. “Why did not Monypenny come to me?” he said. “He was taken up, no doubt, with what was going on today. But I would have been your bail in a moment. An old friend like me⁠—the friend not only of your father, but of your grandfather before him!” But when he had said so much he paused, and employed a little simple sophistry to veil the position. “The sheriff will be round in the end of the week. I would not trouble him, if I were you, before that. What’s three or four days? You will then come out with every gentleman in the county at your back. It’s not that I think it would be refused. People say so, but I will not believe it, for one; only I would not stir if I were you. A day or two, what does that matter? My pride would be to bide the law, and stand and answer to my country. That is what I would do. Of course I’ll be your caution, and any other half dozen men in the county; but I’ll tell you what I would do myself⁠—I would stand it out if I were you.”

“You never were shut up in a jail, Sir James?”

“Not exactly in a jail,” said the old soldier; “but I’ve been in prison, and far worse quarters than this. To be sure, there’s an excitement about it when you’re in the hands of an enemy⁠—”

“In the hands of an enemy,” cried John⁠—“a thing to be proud of; but laid by the heels in a wretched hole, like a poacher or a thief!”

“I would put up with it if I were you. There is nothing disgraceful in it. It is just a mistake that will be put right. I will come and see you, man, every day, and Lady Montgomery will send you books. I hope they will not be too good books, John. That’s her foible, honest woman. You seem to be victualled for a siege,” Sir James added, looking round the room. “That is Miss Barbara Erskine, I will be bound.”

“I felt disposed to pitch them all out of the window,” said John.

“Nothing of the sort; though they’re too good to fall into the hands of the turnkeys. Keep up your heart, my fine lad. I’ll see Monypenny tonight before I dine, and if we cannot bring you out with flying colours, between us, it will be a strange thing to me. Just you keep up your heart,” said Sir James, patting John kindly on the back as he went away. “The sheriff will be round here again on the 25th, and we’ll be prepared for the examination, and bring you clear off. It’s not so very long to wait.”

With this John was forced to be content. The 25th was four days off, and to remain in confinement for four days more was an appalling anticipation; but Sir James’s visit gave him real cheer. Perhaps Mr. Monypenny, too, on thinking it over, might turn to a conviction of his client’s truth.

While Sir James rode home, pleased with himself that he had obeyed his own generous impulse, and pleased with John, who had been so unfeignedly consoled by it, Lord Lindores and his son were driving back from Tinto together in the early twilight. There was not a word exchanged between them as they drove down the long avenue in the shadow of the woods; but as they turned into the lighter road, Lord Lindores returned to the subjects which occupied his mind habitually. “That is a business well over,” he said, with a sigh of satisfaction. “It is always a relief when the last ceremonies are accomplished; and though Carry chose to meet me with heroics, it is very satisfactory to know that her position is so good. One could never be sure with a man of Torrance’s temper. He was as likely as not to have surrounded his widow with annoyances and restraints. He has erred just a little on the other side now, poor fellow! Still he meant it, no doubt, for the best.” Lord Lindores spoke to his son with an ease and confidence which he could not feel with the other members of his family. Rintoul himself, indeed, had been somewhat incomprehensible for a little time past; but indigestion, or any other trifling reason, might account for that. “And now that all is over, we must think of other matters,” he continued. “This business about Edith must be settled. Millefleurs must have his answer. He has been very patient; but a young fellow like that knows his own importance, and Edith must hear reason. She will never have another such chance.”

Rintoul made a little movement in his corner, which was all that stood for a reply on his part; and his father could not even see the expression of his face.

“I can only hope that she will be more amenable to his influence than to mine,” said Lord Lindores, with a sigh. “It is strange that she, the youngest of my children, should be the one to give me the most trouble. Rintoul, it is also time that I should speak to you about yourself. It would give your mother and me great satisfaction to see you settled. I married early myself, and I have never had any reason to repent it. Provided that you make a wise choice. The two families will no doubt see a great deal of each other when things are settled between Edith and Millefleurs; and I hear on all hands that his sister, Lady Reseda⁠—you met her several times in town⁠—”

“Yes⁠—I met her,” said Rintoul, reluctantly. He turned once more in his corner, as if he would fain have worked his way through and escaped; but he was secured for the moment, and in his father’s power.

“And you admired her, I suppose, as everybody does? She is something like her brother; but what may perhaps be thought a little⁠—well, comical⁠—in Millefleurs, is delightful in a girl. She is a merry little thing, the very person I should have chosen for you, Rintoul: she would keep us all cheerful. We want a little lightheartedness in the family. And though your father is only a Scotch peer, your position is unimpeachable; and I will say this for you, that you have behaved very well; few young men would have conducted themselves so irreproachably in such a sudden change of circumstances. I feel almost certain that though a daughter of the Duke’s might do better, you would not be looked upon with unfavourable eyes.”

“I⁠—don’t know them. I have only met them⁠—two or three times⁠—”

“What more is necessary? You will be Millefleurs’s brother-in-law⁠—”

“Are you so sure of that?” asked Rintoul. There was something in his tone which sounded like nascent rebellion. Lord Lindores pricked up his ears.

“I do not willingly entertain the idea that Edith would disobey me,” he said with dignity. “She has high-flown notions. They are in the air nowadays, and will ruin the tempers of girls if they are not checked. She makes a fight to have her own way, but I cannot believe that she would go the length of downright disobedience. I have met with nothing of the kind yet⁠—”

“I think you are likely to meet with it now,” said Rintoul; and then he added, hastily, “Carry has not been an encouraging example.”

“Carry!” said Lord Lindores, opening his eyes. “I confess that I do not understand. Carry! why, what woman could have a nobler position? Perfect control over a very large fortune, a situation of entire independence⁠—too much for any woman. That Carry’s unexampled good fortune should be quoted against me is extraordinary indeed.”

“But,” cried Rintoul, taken by surprise, “you could not hold up to Edith the hope of what might happen if⁠—Millefleurs were to⁠—”

“Break his neck over a scaur,” said Lord Lindores, almost with a sneer. He felt his son shrink from him with an inarticulate cry, and with instant perception remedied his error in taste, as he thought it. “I ought not to speak so after such a tragedy; you are right, Rintoul. No: Millefleurs is a very different person; but of course it is always a consolation to know that whatever happens, one’s child will be abundantly and honourably provided for. My boy, let us look at the other matter. It is time you thought of marrying, as I say.”

Rintoul flung himself against the side of the carriage with a muttered curse. “Marrying!⁠—hanging is more what I feel like!” he cried.

“Rintoul!”

“Don’t torture me, father. There is not a more wretched fellow on the face of the earth. Link an innocent woman’s name with mine? Ask a girl to⁠—? For heaven’s sake let me alone⁠—let me be!”

“What is the meaning of this?” Lord Lindores cried. “Are you mad, Rintoul? I am altogether unprepared for heroics in you.”

The young man made no reply. He put his head out to the rushing of the night air and the soft darkness, through which the trees and distant hills and rare passengers were all like shadows. He had looked stolidly enough upon all the shows of the external world all his life, and thought no more of them than as he saw them.

“A primrose by the river’s brim,
A yellow primrose was to him.”

There had been no images or similitudes in light or darkness; but now another world had opened around him. He had a secret with the silence⁠—the speechless, inanimate things about knew something of him which nobody else knew: and who could tell when they might find a voice and proclaim it to the world? He uncovered his head to the air which blew upon him and cooled his fever. The touch of that cool fresh wind seemed the only thing in earth or heaven in which there was any consolation. As for Lord Lindores, he sat back in his corner, more angry than concerned, and more contemptuous than either. A woman has perhaps some excuse for nerves; but that his son, upon whose plain understanding he could always rely, and whose common sense was always alive to the importance of substantial arguments, should thus relapse into tragedy like his sisters, was more than he could tolerate. He would not even contemplate the idea that there was any cause for it. Rintoul had always been well behaved. He was in no fear of any secrets that his son might have to reveal.

“Rintoul,” he said, after a pause, “if you have got into any scrape, you should know well enough that I am not the sort of man to take it tragically. I have no faith in making molehills into mountains. I don’t suppose you have done anything disgraceful. You must be off your head, I think. What is it? You have been out of sorts for some time past.”

These words came like beatings of a drum to Rintoul’s ears, as he leant out into the rushing and sweep of the night air. There was a composure in them which brought him to himself. Anything disgraceful meant cheating at cards, or shirking debts of honour, or cowardice. Practically, these were about the only things disgraceful that a young man could do. An “entanglement,” a heavy loss at cards or on the turf, any other minor vice, could be compounded for. Lord Lindores was not alarmed by the prospect of an explanation with his son. But that Rintoul should become melodramatic, and appeal to earth and heaven, was contemptible to his father. This cool and commonsense tone had its natural effect, Lord Lindores thought. Rintoul drew in his head, sat back in his corner, and was restored to himself.

“I have been out of sorts,” he said⁠—“I suppose that’s what it is. I see everything en noir. All this business⁠—seeing to things⁠—the black, the house shut up⁠—”

“Let me warn you, Rintoul; don’t cultivate your susceptibilities,” said his father. “What is black more than blue or any other colour? This sort of thing is all very well for a woman; but I know what it is. It’s stomach⁠—that is really at the bottom of all tragedy. You had better speak to the doctor. And now, thank heaven, this Tinto business is over; we can get back to the affairs of life.”

The rest of the drive passed in complete silence. And all the time they were together, Rintoul said not a word to his father about John Erskine. His situation was altogether ignored between them. It was not that it was forgotten. If these two men could have opened Dunnottar jail⁠—nay, could they have swept John Erskine away into some happy island where he would have been too blessed to think anything more about them⁠—they would have done it⁠—the one with joyous alacrity, the other with satisfaction at least. This gloomy incident was over, and Lord Lindores had no desire to hear any more of it. It was just the end that anybody might have expected Torrance to come to. Why could not the officious blockheads of the countryside let the matter alone? But he did not feel that desire to help and right John Erskine which his warm adoption of the young man to his friendship would have warranted. For why? such an incident, however it ended, would certainly spoil young Erskine’s influence in the county. He would be of no more advantage to anyone. A quarrel was nothing; but to escape from the consequences of that quarrel, to let a man die at the foot of a precipice without sending help to him, that was a thing which all the countryside turned against. It was this that had roused so strong a feeling against John, and Lord Lindores made up his mind philosophically, that though Erskine would probably be cleared of all imputation of blood-guiltiness, yet, innocent or guilty, he would never get over it, and, consequently, would be of no further use in any public projects. At the same time, his own views had changed in respect to the means of carrying these projects out. Lord Millefleurs was a better instrument than country eminence. A seat gained was of course always an appreciable advantage. But it was not certain even that the seat could have been gained; and a son-in-law in hand is better than many boroughs in the bush. The Duke could not ignore Lord Lindores’s claims if Edith was a member of the family. This was far more important than anything that could concern John Erskine, though Lord Lindores would have been heartily thankful⁠—now that he was good for nothing but to excite foolish sympathies⁠—if he could have got John Erskine happily out of the way.

Millefleurs had reached Lindores some time before: he had returned direct from the funeral along with Beaufort, who, much marvelling at himself, had stood among the crowd, and seen Carry’s husband laid in his grave. The sensation was too extraordinary to be communicated to anyone. It had seemed to him that the whole was a dream, himself a spectre of the past, watching bewildered, while the other, whom he had never seen, who was nothing but a coffin, was removed away and deposited among the unseen. He had not been bold enough to go into the house to see Carry, even from the midst of the crowd. Whether she was sorrowing for her husband, or feeling some such thrills of excitement as were in his own bosom at the thought that she was free, Beaufort could not tell; but when he found himself seated at table that evening with her father and brother, he could not but feel that his dream was going on, and that there was no telling in what new scene it might unfold fresh wonders. The four gentlemen dined alone, and they were not a lively party. After dinner they gathered about the fireplace, not making any move towards the forsaken drawing-room. “This is a sad sort of amusement to provide for you,” Lord Lindores said. “We hoped to have shown you the more cheerful side of Scotch life.”

“I have had a very good time: what you might call a lovely time,” said Millefleurs. Then he made a pause, and drawing closer, laid his plump finger on Lord Lindores’s arm. “I don’t want to make myself a nuisance now; but⁠—not to be troublesome⁠—if I am not likely soon to have an opportunity of addressing myself to Lady Edith, don’t you think I had better go away?”

“You may well be tired of us; a house of mourning,” said Lord Lindores, with a smile of benevolent meaning. “It was not for this you came into those wilds.”

“They are far from being wilds: I have enjoyed myself very much,” said little Millefleurs. “All has been new; and to see a new country, don’t you know, is always the height of my ambition. But such a thing might happen as that I wasn’t wanted. When a lady means to have anything to say to a fellow, I have always heard she lets him know. To say nothing is, perhaps, as good a way of saying no as any. It may be supposed to save a man’s feelings⁠—”

“Am I to understand that you have spoken to my daughter, Millefleurs?”

“I have never had the chance, Lord Lindores. On the very evening, you will remember, when I hoped to have an explanation, this unfortunate accident happened. I am very sorry for the gentleman whom, in the best of circumstances, I can never now hope to call my brother-in-law; but the position is perhaps a little awkward. Lady Edith is acquainted with my aspirations, but I⁠—know nothing; don’t you know?” said the little Marquis. He had his hand upon his plump bosom, and raised himself a little on one foot as he spoke. “It makes a fellow feel rather small⁠—and, in my case, that isn’t wanted,” he added, cheerfully. Nothing less like a despairing lover could be imagined; but though he resembled a robin-redbreast, he was a man quite conscious of the dignities of his position, and not to be played with. A cold chill of alarm came over Lord Lindores.

“Edith will return tomorrow, or next day,” he said; “or if you choose to go to Tinto, her mother regards you so much as a friend and favourite, that she will receive you gladly, I am sure. Go, then⁠—”

“No,” said Millefleurs, shaking his head, “no, that would be too strong. I never saw the poor fellow but once or twice, and the last time I had the misfortune to disagree with him; no⁠—I can’t convey myself to his house to learn if I’m to be taken or not. It is a droll sort of experience. I feel rather like a bale of goods, don’t you know, on approval,” he said with a laugh. He took it with great good-humour; but it was possible that even Millefleurs’s good-humour might be exhausted.

“I undertake for it that you shall not have to wait much longer,” said Lord Lindores.

XXXVIII

Rintoul had bad nights, and could not sleep. He had been in such constant movement that day that he was fatigued, and had hoped for rest; but after tossing on his uneasy bed, he got up again, as for several nights past he had been in the habit of doing, and began to pace up and down his room. The house was all buried in repose and silence⁠—the woods rustling round, the river flowing, the silence outside tingling with the never altogether hushed movements of nature; but indoors nothing stirring⁠—all dark; nothing but the heavy breath of sleep within the thick old walls. The fire was dying out on the hearth; the candles, which he lighted hastily, did not half light the room, but rather cleared a little spot in the darkness, and left all else in gloom. A nervous tremor was upon the young man⁠—he to whom nerves had been all folly, who had scoffed at them as affectation or weakness; but he had no longer that command of himself of which he had once been proud. His mind strayed involuntarily into thoughts which he would fain have shut out. They dwelt upon one subject and one scene, which he had shut his mind to a hundred times, only to feel it the next moment once more absorbing every faculty. His shadow upon the window paced up and down, up and down. He could not keep quiet. He did not care to have the door of his room behind him, but kept it in sight as if he feared being taken at a disadvantage. What did he fear? he could not tell. Imagination had seized hold upon him⁠—he who had never known what imagination was. He could not rest for it. The quiet was full of noises. He heard the furniture creaking, as it does at night, the walls giving out strange echoes; and never having kept any vigil before, thought that these strange voices of the night had to do with himself, and in his soul trembled as if he had been surrounded by enemies or spies searching his inmost thoughts.

Thus he walked up and down the room, keeping his face to the door. Did he expect anyone, anything to come in? No, no; nothing of the kind. But it is certain that sometimes along the long passage he heard sounds as of a horse’s hoofs. He knew it was nonsense. It was the sound of the river, to which he was perfectly accustomed; but yet it sounded somehow like a horse’s hoofs. He never would have been surprised at any moment to see the door pushed open and something come in. He knew it was ridiculous, but still he could not help the feeling. And the silence of the house was a pain to him beyond telling. One of these nights one of the servants had been ill, and Rintoul was glad. The sense that someone was waking, moving about, was a relief. It seemed somehow to give him a sort of security⁠—to deliver him from himself. But while he thus felt the advantage of waking humanity near him, he was thankful beyond description that the society of the house was diminished⁠—that his mother and Edith were away. He knew that they must have found him out⁠—if not what was in his mind, at least that there was something on his mind. During the last twenty-four hours particularly they would have been worse spies than the trees and the winds. How could he have kept himself to himself in their presence, especially as they would have besieged him with questions, with incitements to do something. They would have assumed that they knew all about it in their ignorance. They! They were always assuming that they knew. There was a fierce momentary satisfaction in Rintoul’s mind to think how completely out they would be, how incapable of understanding the real state of the case. They thought they knew everything! But he felt that there was a possibility that he might have betrayed himself in the very pleasure he would have had in showing them that they knew nothing. And it was better, far better, that they should be out of the way.

He did not, however, yield to this fever of the mind without doing what he could manfully to subdue it. He made a great effort now to fix his mind upon what his father had said to him⁠—but the names of Millefleurs and Lady Reseda only swept confusedly through his brain like straws upon the surface of the stream. Sometimes he found himself repeating one of them vaguely, like a sort of idiotical chorus, while the real current of his thoughts ran on. Lady Reseda, Lady Reseda: what had she to do with it?⁠—or Millefleurs, Millefleurs!⁠—they were straws upon the surface, showing how rapidly the torrent ran, not anything he could catch hold of. There was one name, however, round which that dark current of his thoughts eddied and swirled as in a whirlpool⁠—the name of John Erskine. There could not be any doubt that he had something to do with it. He had thrust himself into a matter that did not concern him, and he was paid for his folly. It was not his place to stand up for Carry, to resent her husband’s rudeness⁠—what had he to do with it? He was an intrusive, officious fool, thrusting himself into other people’s business. If he brought himself into trouble by it, was that Rintoul’s fault? Was he bound to lay himself open to a great deal of annoyance and embarrassment in order to save John Erskine from the consequences of his own folly? This was the question that would not let him rest. Nothing Rintoul had been a party to had compromised John Erskine. It was all his own doing. Why did he, for his pleasure, take the Scaur road at all? Why did he stop and quarrel, seeing the other was excited? Why rush down in that silly way with his coat torn to make an exhibition of himself? All these things were folly⁠—folly beyond extenuation. He ought to have known better; and whatever followed, was it not his own fault?

Along with this, however, there were other thoughts that flashed at Rintoul, and would not let him carry on steadily to the conclusion he desired. There are some things that are permissible and some that are not permissible. A gentleman need not betray himself: it is not indispensable that he should take the world into his confidence, if any accident happens to him, and he gets himself into trouble; but he must not let another get into trouble for him⁠—that comes into the category of the “anything disgraceful” which Lord Lindores was assured his son had never been guilty of. No! he had never done anything disgraceful. How was he to escape it now? And then, looking back upon all the circumstances, Rintoul sadly perceived what a fool he had been not to put everything on a straightforward footing at once. He reflected that he could have given almost any account of the occurrence he pleased. There was nobody to contradict him: and all would have been over without complication, without any addition from the popular fancy. It seemed to him now, reflecting upon everything, all the details that had filled him with an unreflecting panic then, that nothing could have been easier than to explain the whole matter. But he had lost that good moment, and if he made the confession now, every false conception which he had feared would be realised. People would say, If this was all, why make any mystery about it? Why expose another to disgrace and suffering? Rintoul had not intelligence enough, though he had always plumed himself on his common sense, to thread his way among those conflicting reasonings. He grew sick as the harpies of recollection and thought rushed upon him from all quarters. He had no power to stand against them⁠—to silence her who cried, “Why did you not do this?”⁠—while he held at bay the other who swooped down upon him, screaming, “How could you do that?” When it grew more than he could bear he retreated to his bed, and flung himself exhausted upon it, throwing out his arms with the unconscious histrionic instinct of excitement, appealing to he knew not what. How could he do this thing? How could he leave it undone? Rintoul in his despair got up again and found an opiate which had been given him when he had toothache, long ago, in days when toothache was the worst torture he knew. He swallowed it, scarcely taking the trouble to mark how much he was taking, though the moment after he took a panic, and got up and examined the bottle to assure himself that all was right. It was nearly daybreak by the time that this dose sent him to sleep⁠—and he scarcely knew he had been asleep, so harassing were his dreams, till he came to himself at last, to find that it was eleven o’clock in a dull forenoon, his shutters all open, and the dim light pouring in. The horrors of waking when the mind is possessed by great misery is a well-worn subject⁠—everybody knows what it is to have Care seated by his bedside, ready to pounce upon him when he opens his eyes; but Rintoul had scarcely escaped from that dark companion. She had been with him in his dreams: he felt her grip him now, with no surprise, if with a redoublement of pain.

It was nearly midday when he got downstairs, and he found nobody. His father was out. Millefleurs was out. His breakfast was arranged upon a little table near the fire, his letters laid ready, the county newspaper⁠—a little innocent broadsheet⁠—by his plate. But he could not take advantage of any of these luxuries; he swept his letters into his pocket, flung the paper from him, then reflected that there might be something in it, and picked it up again with trembling hands. There was something in it. There was an account of the private examination before the sheriff of Mr. John Erskine of Dalrulzian on suspicion of being concerned in the death of the late lamented Mr. Torrance of Tinto. “From circumstances which transpired,” the sheriff, the newspaper regretted to say, had thought it right to relegate Mr. Erskine to Dunnottar jail, there to await the result of a more formal inquiry, to be held on the 25th at Dunearn. “We have little fear that a gentleman so respected will easily be able to clear himself,” it was added; and “a tribute of respect to the late Patrick Torrance⁠—a name which, for genial bonhomie and sterling qualities, will long be remembered in this county,” wound up the paragraph. The greater portion of its readers, already acquainted with the news by report, read it with exclamations of concern, or cynical rustic doubt whether John Erskine was so much respected, or Pat Torrance as sure of a place in the county’s memory, as the Dunearn Sentinel said; but all Rintoul’s blood seemed to rush to his head and roar like a torrent in his ears as he read the paragraph. He could hear nothing but that rushing of excitement and the bewildered half-maddened thoughts which seemed to accompany it. What was he to do? What was he to do?

There was a little interval, during which Rintoul literally did not know what he was doing. His mind was not prepared for such an emergency. He tossed about like a cork upon the boiling stream of his own thoughts⁠—helpless, bewildered, driven hither and thither. He only came to himself when he felt the damp air in his face, and found himself setting out on foot on the road to Dunearn: the irregular lines of the housetops in front of him, the tall tower of the Town House pointing up to the dull skies, standing out from the rest of the buildings like a landmark to indicate what route he was to take. When he caught sight of that he came violently to himself, and began at once to recover some conscious control over his actions. The operations of his mind became clear to him; his panic subsided. After all, who could harm John Erskine? He had been very foolish; he had exposed himself to suspicion; but no doubt a gentleman so respected would be able to clear himself⁠—a gentleman so respected. Rintoul repeated the words to himself, as he had repeated the names of Millefleurs and Lady Reseda the night before. And what would it matter to John Erskine to put off till the 25th his emancipation and the full recognition of his innocence? If he had a bad cold, it would have the same result⁠—confinement to the house, perhaps to his room. What was that? Nothing: a trifling inconvenience, that any man might be subject to. And there could be no doubt that a gentleman so respected⁠—There would be evidence that would clear him: it was not possible that any proof could be produced of a thing that never happened; and the whole county, if need be, would bear witness to John Erskine’s character⁠—that he was not quarrelsome or a brawler; that there was no motive for any quarrel between him and⁠—

Rintoul’s feet, which had been going rapidly towards Dunearn, went on slower and slower. He came to a pause altogether about a mile from the town. Was it necessary to go any farther? What could he do today? Certainly there would be no advantage to Erskine in anything he did today. He turned round slowly, and went back towards Lindores. Walking that way, there was nothing but the long sweep of the landscape between him and Tinto, to which his eyes could not but turn as he walked slowly on. The flag was up again⁠—a spot of red against the dull sky⁠—and the house stood out upon its platform with that air of ostentation which fretted the souls of the surrounding gentry. Rintoul could not bear the sight of it: it smote him with a fierce impatience. Scarcely conscious that his movement of hot and hasty temper was absurd, he turned round again to escape it, and set his face towards the emblem of severe justice and the law, the tower of the Town House of Dunearn. When this second monitor made itself visible, a kind of dull despair took possession of him. His steps were hemmed in on every side, and there was no escape.

It was while he was moving on thus reluctantly, by a sort of vague compulsion, that he recognised, with amazement, Nora Barrington coming towards him. It was a piece of good fortune to which he had no right. She was the only creature in the world whose society could have been welcome to him. They met as they might have met in a fairy tale: fairy tales are not over, so long as people do meet in this way on the commonplace road. They had neither of them thought of any such encounter⁠—he, because his mind was too dolorous and preoccupied for any such relief; she, because Rintoul seldom came into Dunearn, and never walked, so that no idea of his presence occurred to her. She was going to fulfil a commission of Miss Barbara’s, and anxious if possible to see Edith, which was far more likely than Edith’s brother. They were both surprised, almost beyond speech; they scarcely uttered any greeting. It did not seem strange, somehow, that Rintoul should turn and walk with her the way she was going, though it was not his way. And now a wonderful thing happened to Rintoul. His ferment of thought subsided all at once⁠—he seemed to have sailed into quiet seas after the excitement of the headlong current which had almost dashed him to pieces. He did not know what it meant. The storm ended, and there stole over him “a sound as of a hidden brook, in the leafy month of June.” And Nora felt a softening of sympathetic feeling, she did not know why. She was sorry for him. Why should she have been sorry for Lord Rintoul? He was infinitely better off than she was. She could not account for the feeling, but she felt it all the same. She asked him first how Lady Caroline was⁠—poor Lady Caroline!⁠—and then faltered a little, turning to her own affairs.

“I hope I shall see Edith before I go away. Do you know when they are coming back? I am going home⁠—very soon now,” Nora said. She felt almost apologetic⁠—reluctant to say it⁠—and yet it seemed necessary to say it. There were many people whom she might have met on the road to whom she would not have mentioned the fact, but it seemed incumbent upon her now.

“Going away! No, that you must not do⁠—you must not do it! Why should you go away?” he cried.

“There are many reasons.” Nora felt that she ought to laugh at his vehemence, or that, perhaps, she should be angry; but she was neither the one nor the other⁠—only apologetic, and so sorry for him. “Of course I always knew I should have to go: though I shall always think it home here, yet it is not home any longer. It is a great pity, don’t you think, to live so long in a place which, after all, is not your home?”

“I cannot think it a great pity that you should have lived here,” he said. “The thing is, that you must not go. For God’s sake, Nora, do not go! I never thought of that; it is the last drop. If you knew how near I am to the end of my strength, you would not speak of such a thing to me.”

“Lord Rintoul! I⁠—don’t understand. What can it matter?” cried Nora, in her confusion. She felt that she should have taken a different tone. He had no right to call her Nora, or to speak as if he had anything to do with her coming or going. But the hurried tone of passion and terror in his voice overwhelmed her. It was as if he had heard of the last misfortune that could overwhelm a man.

“Matter! Do you mean to me? It may not matter to anyone else; to me it is everything,” he said, wildly. “I shall give in altogether. I shall not care what I do if you go away.”

“Now, Lord Rintoul,” said Nora, her heart beating, but trying to laugh as she best could, “this, you must know, is nonsense. You cannot mean to make fun of me, I am sure; but⁠—I don’t know what you mean. We had better say no more about it.” Then she melted again. She remembered their last interview, which had gone to her heart. “I know,” she said, “that you have been in a great deal of trouble.”

“You know,” said Rintoul, “because you feel for me. Nobody else knows. Then think what it will be for me if you go away⁠—the only creature whom I dare to speak to. Nora, you know very well I was always fond of you⁠—from the first⁠—as soon as we met⁠—”

“Don’t, don’t, Lord Rintoul! I cannot get away from you on this public road. Have some respect for me. You ought not to say such things, nor I to hear.”

He looked at her, wondering. “Is it any want of respect to tell you that you are the girl I have always wanted to marry? You may not feel the same; it may be only your kindness: you may refuse me, Nora; but I have always meant it. I have thought it was our duty to do the best we could for the girls, but I never gave in to that for myself. My father has spoken of this one and that one, but I have always been faithful to you. That is no want of respect, though it is a public road. From the time I first knew you, I have only thought of you.”

What an ease it gave him to say this! All the other points that had so occupied him before seemed to have melted away in her presence. If he had but someone to stand by him⁠—if he had but Nora, who felt for him always. It seemed that everything else would arrange itself, and become less difficult to bear.

As for Nora, she had known very well that Rintoul was, as he said, fond of her. It is so difficult to conceal that. But she thought he would “get over it.” She had said to herself, with some little scorn, that he never would have the courage to woo a poor girl like herself⁠—a girl without anything. He had a worldly mind though he was young, and Nora had never allowed herself to be deluded, she thought.

“Don’t you believe me?” he said, after a moment’s pause, looking at her wistfully, holding out his hand.

“Yes, I believe you, Lord Rintoul,” said Nora; but she took no notice of his outstretched hand, though it cost her something to be, as she said to herself, “so unkind.” “I do believe you; but it would never be permitted, you know. You yourself would not approve of it when you had time to think; for you are worldly-minded, Lord Rintoul: and you know you ought to marry⁠—an heiress⁠—someone with money.”

“You have a very good right to say so,” he replied. “I have always maintained that for the girls: but if you had ever taken any notice of me, you would have found out that I never allowed it for myself. Yes, it is quite true I am worldly-minded; but I never meant to marry money. I never thought of marrying anyone but you.”

And now there was a pause again. He did not seem to have asked her any question that Nora could answer. He had only made a statement to her that she was the only girl he had ever wished to marry. It roused a great commotion in her breast. She had always liked Rintoul, even when his sisters called him a Philistine; and now when he was in trouble, under some mysterious shadow, she knew not why, appealing to her sympathy as to his salvation, it was not possible that the girl should shut her heart against him. They walked on together for a few yards in silence, and then she said, faltering, “I had better go back now⁠—I⁠—did not expect to⁠—meet anyone.”

“Don’t go back without saying something to me. Promise me, Nora, that you will not go away. I want you! I want you! Without you I should go all wrong. If you saw me sinking in the water, wouldn’t you put out your hand to help me?⁠—and that is nothing to what may happen. Nora, have you the heart to go back without saying anything to me?” cried Rintoul, once more holding out his hand.

There was nobody visible on the road, up or down. The turrets of Lindores peeped over the trees in the distance, like spectators deeply interested, holding their breath; at the other end the long thin tower of the Town House seemed to pale away into the distance. He looked anxiously into her face, as if life and death hung on the decision. They had come to a standstill in the emotion of the moment, and stood facing each other, trembling with the same sentiment. Nora held back still, but there was an instinctive drawing closer of the two figures⁠—irresistible, involuntary.

“Your father will never consent,” she said, with an unsteady voice; “and my father will never allow it against his will. But, Lord Rintoul⁠—”

“Not lord, nor Rintoul,” he said.

“You never liked to be called Robin,” Nora said, with a half malicious glance into his face. But poor Rintoul was not in the humour for jest. He took her hand, her arm, and drew it through his.

“I cannot wait to think about our fathers. I have such need of you, Nora. I have something to tell you that I can tell to no one in the world but you. I want my other self to help me. I want my wife, to whom I can speak⁠—”

His arm was quivering with anxiety and emotion. Though Nora was bewildered, she did not hesitate⁠—what girl would?⁠—from the responsibility thus thrust upon her. To be so urgently wanted is the strongest claim that can be put forth upon any human creature. Instinctively she gave his arm a little pressure, supporting rather than supported, and said “Tell me,” turning upon him freely, without blush or faltering, the grave sweet face of sustaining love.

XXXIX

Rolls disappeared on the evening of the day on which he had that long consultation with Mr. Monypenny. He did not return to Dalrulzian that night. Marget, with many blushes and no small excitement, served the dinner, which Bauby might be said to have cooked with tears. If these salt drops were kept out of her sauces, she bedewed the white apron which she lifted constantly to her eyes. “Maister John in jyal! and oor Tammas gone after him; and what will I say to his mammaw?” Bauby cried. She seemed to fear that it might be supposed some want of care on her part which had led to this dreadful result. But even the sorrow of her soul did not interfere with her sense of what was due to her master’s guest. Beaufort’s dinner did not suffer, whatever else might. It was scrupulously cooked, and served with all the care of which Marget was capable; and when it was all over, and everything carefully put aside, the women sat down together in the kitchen, and had a good cry over the desolation of the house. The younger maids, perhaps, were not so deeply concerned on this point as Bauby, who was an old servant, and considered Dalrulzian as her home: but they were all more or less affected by the disgrace, as well as sorry for the young master, who had “nae pride,” and always a pleasant word for his attendants in whatever capacity. Their minds were greatly affected, too, by the absence of Rolls. Not a man in the house but the stranger gentleman! It was a state of affairs which alarmed and depressed them, and proved, above all other signs, that a great catastrophe had happened. Beaufort sent for the housekeeper after dinner to give her such information as he thought necessary; and Bauby was supported to the door by her subordinates, imploring her all the way to keep up her heart. “You’ll no’ let on to the strange gentleman.” “Ye’ll keep up a good face, and no’ let him see how sair cast down ye are,” they said, one at either hand. There was a great deal of struggling outside the door, and some stifled sounds of weeping, before it was opened, and Bauby appeared, pushed in by some invisible agency behind her, which closed the door promptly as soon as she was within. She was not the important person Beaufort had expected to see; but as she stood there, with her large white apron thrown over her arm, and her comely countenance, like a sky after rain, lighted up with a very wan and uncertain smile, putting the best face she could upon it, Beaufort’s sympathy overcame the inclination to laugh which he might have felt in other circumstances, at the sight of her sudden entrance and troubled clinging to the doorway. “Good evening,” he said, “Mrs.⁠—” “They call me Bauby Rolls, at your service,” said Bauby, with a curtsey, and a suppressed sob. “Mrs. Rolls,” said Beaufort, “your master may not come home for a few days; he asked me to tell you not to be anxious; that he hoped to be back soon; that there was nothing to be alarmed about.” “Eh! and was he so kind as think upon me, and him in such trouble,” cried Bauby, giving way to her emotions. “But I’m no alarmt; no, no, why should I be?” she added, in a trembling voice. “He will be hame, no doubt, in a day or twa, as ye say, sir, and glad, glad we’ll a’ be. It’s not that we have any doubt⁠—but oh! what will his mammaw say to me?” cried Bauby. After the tremulous momentary stand she had made, her tears flowed faster than ever. “There has no such thing happened among the Erskines since ever the name was kent in the countryside, and that’s maist from the beginning, as it’s written in Scripture.” “It’s all a mistake,” cried Beaufort. “That it is⁠—that it is,” cried Bauby, drying her eyes. And then she added with another curtsey, “I hope you’ll find everything to your satisfaction, sir, till the maister comes hame. Tammas⁠—that’s the butler, Tammas Rolls, my brother, sir, if ye please⁠—is no’ at hame tonight, and you wouldna like a lass aboot to valet ye; they’re all young but me. But if you would put out your cloes to brush, or anything that wants doing, outside your door, it shall a’ be weel attended to. I’m real sorry there’s no’ another man aboot the house: but a’ that women can do we’ll do, and with goodwill.” “You are very kind, Mrs. Rolls,” said Beaufort. “I was not thinking of myself⁠—you must not mind me. I shall get on very well. I am sorry to be a trouble to you at such a melancholy moment.” “Na, na, sir, not melancholy,” cried Bauby, with her eyes streaming; “sin’ ye say, and a’body must allow, that it’s just a mistake: we manna be put aboot by suchlike trifles. But nae doubt it will be livelier and mair pleesant for yoursel’, sir, when Mr. John and Tammas, they baith come hame. Would you be wanting anything more tonight?” “Na, I never let on,” Bauby said, when she retired to the ready support of her handmaidens outside the door⁠—“no’ me; I keepit a stout heart, and I said to him, ‘It’s of nae consequence, sir,’ I said⁠—‘I’m nane cast down; it’s just a mistake⁠—everybody kens that; and that he was to put his things outside his door,’ He got nothing that would go against the credit of the house out of me.”

But in spite of this forlorn confidence in her powers of baffling suspicion, it was a wretched night that poor Bauby spent. John was satisfactorily accounted for, and it was known where he was; but who could say where Rolls might be? Bauby sat up half through the night alone in the great empty kitchen with the solemn-sounding clock and the cat purring loudly by the fire. She was as little used to the noises of the night as Lord Rintoul was, and in her agony of watching felt the perpetual shock and thrill of the unknown going through and through her. She heard steps coming up to the house a hundred times through the night, and stealing stealthily about the doors. “Is that you, Tammas?” she said again and again, peering out into the night: but nobody appeared. Nor did he appear next day, or the next. After her first panic, Bauby gave out that he was with his master⁠—that she had never expected him⁠—in order to secure him from remark. But in her own mind horrible doubts arose. He had always been the most irreproachable of men; but what if, in the shock of this catastrophe, even Tammas should have taken to ill ways? Drink⁠—that was the natural suggestion. Who can fathom the inscrutable attractions it has, so that men yield to it who never could have been suspected of such a weakness? Most women of the lower classes have the conviction that no man can resist it. Heart-wrung for his master, shamed to his soul for the credit of the house, had Rolls, too, after successfully combating temptation for all his respectable life, yielded to the demon? Bauby trembled, but kept her terrors to herself. She said he might come back at any moment⁠—he was with his maister. Where else was it likely at such a time that he should be?

But Rolls was not with his master. He was on the eve of a great and momentous act. There were no superstitious alarms about him, as about Rintoul, and no question in his mind what to do. Before he left Dalrulzian that sad morning, he had shaped all the possibilities in his thoughts, and knew what he intended; and his conversation with Mr. Monypenny gave substance and a certain reasonableness to his resolution. But it was not in his nature by one impetuous movement to precipitate affairs. He had never in his life acted hastily, and he had occasional tremors of the flesh which chilled his impulse and made him pause. But the interval, which was so bitter to his master, although all the lookers-on congratulated themselves it could do him no harm, was exactly what Rolls wanted in the extraordinary crisis to which he had come. A humble person, quite unheroic in his habits as in his antecedents, it was scarcely to be expected that the extraordinary project which had entered his mind should have been carried out with the enthusiastic impulse of romantic youth. But few youths, however romantic, would have entertained such a purpose as that which now occupied Rolls. There are many who would risk a great deal to smuggle an illustrious prisoner out of his prison. But this was an enterprise of a very different kind. He left Mr. Monypenny with his head full of thoughts which were not all heroic. None of his inquiries had been made without meaning. The self-devotion which was in him was of a sober kind, not the devotion of a Highland clansman, an Evan Dhu; and though the extraordinary expedient he had planned appeared to him more and not less alarming than the reality, his own self-sacrifice was not without a certain calculation and caution too.

All these things had been seriously weighed and balanced in his mind. He had considered his sister’s interest, and even his own eventual advantage. He had never neglected these primary objects of life, and he did not do so now. But though all was taken into account and carefully considered, Rolls’s first magnanimous purpose was never shaken; and the use he made of the important breathing-time of these intervening days was characteristic. He had, like most men, floating in his mind several things which he intended “some time” to do⁠—a vague intention which, in the common course of affairs, is never carried out. One of these things was to pay a visit to Edinburgh. Edinburgh to Rolls was as much as London and Paris and Rome made into one. All his patriotic feelings, all that respect for antiquity which is natural to the mind of a Scot, and the pride of advancing progress and civilisation which becomes a man of this century, were involved in his desire to visit the capital of his own country. Notwithstanding all the facilities of travel, he had been there but once before, and that in his youth. With a curious solemnity he determined to make this expedition now. It seemed the most suitable way of spending these all-important days, before he took the step beyond which he did not know what might happen to him. A more serious visitor, yet one more determined to see everything and to take the full advantage of all he saw, never entered that romantic town. He looked like a rural elder of the gravest Calvinistic type as he walked, in his black coat and loosely tied white neckcloth, about the lofty streets. He went to Holyrood, and gazed with reverence and profound belief at the stains of Rizzio’s blood. He mounted up to the Castle and examined Mons Meg with all the care of a historical observer. He even inspected the pictures in the National Collection with unbounded respect, if little knowledge, and climbed the Observatory on the Calton Hill. There were many spectators about the streets who remarked him as he walked about, looking conscientiously at everything, with mingled amazement and respect; for his respectability, his sober curiosity, his unvarying seriousness, were remarkable enough to catch an intelligent eye. But nobody suspected that Rolls’s visit to Edinburgh was the solemn visit of a martyr, permitting himself the indulgence of a last look at the scenes that interested him most, ere giving himself up to an unknown and mysterious doom.

On the morning of the 24th, having satisfied himself fully, he returned home. He was quite satisfied. Whatever might now happen, he had fulfilled his intention, and realised his dreams: nothing could take away from him the gratification thus secured. He had seen the best that earth contained, and now was ready for the worst, whatever that might be. Great and strange sights, prodigies unknown to his fathers, were befitting and natural objects to occupy him at this moment of fate. It was still early when he got back: he stopped at the Tinto Station, not at that which was nearest to Dalrulzian, and slowly making his way up by the fatal road, visited the scene of Torrance’s death. The lodge-keeper called out to him, as he turned that way, that the road was shut up; but Rolls paid no heed. He clambered over the hurdles that were placed across, and soon reached the scene of the tragedy. The marks of the horse’s hoofs were scarcely yet obliterated, and the one fatal point at which the terrified brute had dinted deeply into the tough clay, its last desperate attempt to hold its footing, was almost as distinct as ever.

The terrible incident with which he had so much to do came before him with a confused perception of things he had not thought of at the time, reviving, as in a dream, before his very eyes. He remembered that Torrance lay with his head down the stream⁠—a point which had not struck him as important; and he remembered that Lord Rintoul had appeared out of the wood at his cry for help so quickly, that he could not have been far away when the accident took place. What special signification there might be in these facts Rolls was not sufficiently clearheaded to see. But he noted them with great gravity in a little notebook, which he had bought for the purpose. Then, having concluded everything, he set out solemnly on his way to Dunearn.

It was a long walk. The autumnal afternoon closed in mists; the moon rose up out of the haze⁠—the harvest moon, with a little redness in her light. The landscape was dim in this mellowed vapour, and everything subdued. The trees, with all their fading glories, hung still in the haze; the river tinkled with a far-off sound; the lights in the cottages were blurred, and looked like huge vague lamps in the milky air, as Rolls trudged on slowly, surely, to the place of fate. It took him a long time to walk there, and he did not hurry. Why should he hurry? He was sure, went he ever so slowly, to arrive in time. As he went along, all things that ever he had done came up into his mind. His youthful extravagances⁠—for Rolls, too, had once been young and silly; his gradual settling into manhood; his aspirations, which he once had, like the best; his final anchorage, which, if not in a very exalted post, nor perhaps what he had once hoped for, was yet so respectable. Instead of the long lines of trees, the hedgerows, and cottages which marked the road, it was his own life that Rolls walked through as he went on. He thought of the old folk, his father and mother; he seemed to see Bauby and himself and the others coming home in just such a misty autumn night from school. Jock, poor fellow! who had gone to sea, and had not been heard of for years; Willie, who ’listed, and nearly broke the old mother’s heart. How many shipwrecks there had been among the lads he once knew! Rolls felt, with a warmth of satisfaction about his heart, how well it was to have walked uprightly, to have “won through” the storms of life, and to have been a credit and a comfort to all belonging to him. If anything was worth living for, that was. Willie and Jock had both been cleverer than he, poor fellows! but they had both dropped, and he had held on. Rolls did not want to be proud; he was quite willing to say, “If it had not been for the grace of God!⁠—” but yet it gave him an elevating sense of the far superior pleasure it was to conquer your inclinations in the days of your youth, and to do well whatever might oppose. When the name of Rolls was mentioned by anyone about Dunearn, it would always be said that two of them had done very well⁠—Tammas and Bauby: these were the two. They had always held by one another; they had always been respectable. But here Rolls stopped in his thoughts, taking a long breath. After this, after what was going to happen, what would the folk say then? Would a veil drop after today upon the unblemished record of his life? He had never stood before a magistrate in all his days⁠—never seen how the world looked from the inside of a prison, even as a visitor⁠—had nothing to do, nothing to do with that side of the world. He waved his hand, as if separating by a mystic line between all that was doubtful or disreputable, and his own career. But now⁠—Thus through the misty darkening road, with now a red gleam from a smithy, and now a softer glimmer from a cottage door, and anon the trees standing out of the mists, and the landscape widening about him, Rolls came on slowly, very seriously, to Dunearn. The long tower of the Town House, which had seemed to threaten and call upon Lord Rintoul, was the first thing that caught the eye of Rolls. The moon shone upon it, making a white line of it against the cloudy sky.

Mr. Monypenny was at dinner with his family. They dined at six o’clock, which was thought a rather fashionable hour, and the comfortable meal was just over. Instead of wine, the good man permitted himself one glass of toddy when the weather grew cold. He was sitting between the table and the fire, and his wife sat on the other side giving him her company and consolation⁠—for Mr. Monypenny was somewhat low and despondent. He had been moved by Sir James Montgomery’s warm and sudden partisanship and belief of John Erskine’s story; but he was a practical man himself, and he could not, he owned, shaking his head, take a sensational view. To tell him that there should have been just such an encounter as seemed probable⁠—high words between two gentlemen⁠—but that they should part with no harm done, and less than an hour after one of them be found lying dead at the bottom of the Scaur⁠—that was more than he could swallow in the way of a story. To gain credence, there should have been less or more. Let him hold his tongue altogether⁠—a man is never called upon to criminate himself⁠—or let him say all. “Then you must just give him a word, my dear, to say nothing about it,” said Mrs. Monypenny, who was anxious too. “But that’s just impossible, my dear, for he blurted it all out to the sheriff just as he told it to me.” “Do you not think it’s a sign of innocence that he should keep to one story, and when it’s evidently against himself, so far as it goes?” “A sign of innocence!” Mr. Monypenny said, with a snort of impatience. He took his toddy very sadly, finding no exhilaration in it. “Pride will prevent him departing from his story,” he said. “If he had spoken out like a man, and called for help like a Christian, it would have been nothing. All this fuss is his own doing⁠—a panic at the moment, and pride⁠—pride now, and nothing more.”

“If ye please,” said the trim maid who was Mr. Monypenny’s butler and footman all in one⁠—the “table-maid,” as she was called⁠—“there’s one wanting to speak to ye, sir. I’ve put him into the office, and he says he can wait.”

“One! and who may the one be?” said Mr. Monypenny.

“Weel, sir, he’s got his hat doon on his brows and a comforter aboot his throat, and he looks sore for-foughten, as if he had travelled all the day, and no’ a word to throw at a dog; but I think it’s Mr. Rolls, the butler at Dalrulzian.”

“Rolls!” said Mr. Monypenny. “I’ll go to him directly, Jeanie. That’s one thing off my mind. I thought that old body had disappeared rather than bear witness against his master,” he said, when the girl had closed the door.

“But oh, if he’s going to bear witness against his master, it would have been better for him to disappear,” said the sympathetic wife. “Nasty body! to eat folk’s bread, and then to get them into trouble.”

“Whesht with your foolish remarks, my dear: that is clean against the law, and it would have had a very bad appearance, and prejudiced the Court against us,” Mr. Monypenny said as he went away. But to tell the truth, he was not glad; for Rolls was one of the most dangerous witnesses against his master. The agent went to his office with a darkened brow. It was not well lighted, for the lamp had been turned down, and the fire was low. Rolls rose up from where he had been sitting on the edge of a chair as Mr. Monypenny came in. He had unwound his comforter from his neck, and taken off his hat. His journey, and his troubled thoughts, and the night air, had limped and damped him; the starch was out of his tie, and the air of conscious rectitude out of his aspect. He made a solemn but tremulous bow, and stood waiting till the door was closed, and the man of business had thrown himself into a chair. “Well, Rolls⁠—so you have come back!” Mr. Monypenny said.

“Ay, sir, I’ve come back. I’ve brought you the man, Mr. Monypenny, that did yon.”

“Good Lord, Rolls! that did what? You take away my breath.”

“I’ll do it more or I’m done. The man that coupit yon poor lad Tinto and his muckle horse ower the brae.”

Mr. Monypenny started to his feet. “Do you mean to tell me⁠—Lord bless us, man, speak out, can’t ye! The man that⁠—Are ye in your senses, Rolls? And who may this man be?”

“You see before you, sir, one that’s nae better than a coward. I thought it would blow by. I thought the young master would be cleared in a moment. There was nae ill meaning in my breast. I did the best I could for him as soon as it was done, and lostna a moment. But my courage failed me to say it was me⁠—”

“You!” cried Monypenny, with a shout that rang through the house.

“Just me, and no other; and what for no’ me? Am I steel and airn, to take ill words from a man that was no master of mine? Ye can shut me up in your prison⁠—I meant him no hairm⁠—and hang me if you like. I’ll no’ let an innocent man suffer instead of me. I’ve come to give myself up.”

XL

“Dear Mr. Erskine⁠—I do not know what words to use to tell you how pained and distressed we are⁠—I speak for my mother as well as myself⁠—to find that nothing has been done to relieve you from the consequence of such a ridiculous as well as unhappy mistake. We found my brother Robin as anxious as we were, or more so, if that were possible, to set matters right at once; but unfortunately on the day after, the funeral took up all thoughts: and what other obstacles intervened next day I cannot rightly tell, but something or other⁠—I am too impatient and pained to inquire what⁠—came in the way; and they tell me now that tomorrow is the day of the examination, and that it is of no use now to forestall justice, which will certainly set you free tomorrow. Oh, dear Mr. Erskine, I cannot tell you how sick and sore my heart is to think that you have been in confinement (it seems too dreadful, too ludicrous, to be true), in confinement all these long days. I feel too angry, too miserable, to think of it. I have been crying, as if that would do you any good, and rushing up and down abusing everybody. I think that in his heart Robin feels it more than any of us: he feels the injustice, the foolishness; but still he has been to blame, and I don’t know how to excuse him. We have not dared to tell poor Carry⁠—though, indeed, I need not attempt to conceal from you, who have seen so much, that poor Carry, though she is dreadfully excited and upset, is not miserable, as you would expect a woman to be in her circumstances. Could it be expected? But I don’t know what she might do if she heard what has happened to you. She might take some step of her own accord, and that would be not prudent, I suppose; so we don’t tell her. Oh, Mr. Erskine, did you ever think how miserable women are? I never realised it till now. Here am I, and, still more, here is my mother. She is not a child, or an incapable person, I hope! yet she can do nothing⁠—nothing to free you. She is as helpless as if she were a baby. It seems to me ridiculous that Robin’s opinion should be worth taking, and mine not; but that is quite a different matter. My mother can do nothing but persuade and plead with a boy like Robin, to do that which she herself, at her age, wise as she is, good as she is, cannot do. As you are a man, you may think this of no importance; and mamma says it is nature, and cannot be resisted, and smiles. But if you suppose she does not feel it!⁠—if she could have been your bail, or whatever it is, you may be sure you would not have been a single night in that place! but all that we can do is to go down on our knees to the men who have it in their power, and I, unfortunately, have not been brought up to go down on my knees. Forgive me for this outburst. I am so miserable to think where you are, and why, and that I⁠—I mean we⁠—can do nothing. What can I say to you? Dear Mr. Erskine, our thoughts are with you constantly. My mother sends you her love.

Edith felt perhaps that this was not a very prudent letter. She was not thinking of prudence, but of relieving her own mind and comforting John Erskine, oppressed and suffering. And besides, she was herself in a condition of great excitement and agitation. She had been brought back from Tinto, she and her mother, with a purpose. Perhaps it was not said to her in so many words; but it was certainly conveyed to the minds of the female members of the family generally that Millefleurs was at the end of his patience, and his suit must have an answer once for all. Carry had been told of the proposal by her mother, and had pledged herself to say nothing against it. And she had kept her promise, though with difficulty, reserving to herself the power to act afterwards if Edith should be driven to consent against her will. “Another of us shall not do it,” Carry said; “oh, not if I can help it!” “I do not believe that Edith will do it,” said Lady Lindores; “but let us not interfere⁠—let us not interfere!” Carry, therefore, closed her mouth resolutely; but as she kissed her sister, she could not help whispering in her ear, “Remember that I will always stand by you⁠—always, whatever happens!” This was at Lindores, where Carry, pining to see once more the face of the outer world since it had so changed to her, drove her mother and sister in the afternoon, returning home alone with results which were not without importance in her life. But in the meantime it is Edith with whom we have to do. She reached home with the sense of having a certain ordeal before her⁠—something which she had to pass through, not without pain⁠—which would bring her into direct antagonism with her father, and convulse the household altogether. Even the idea that she must more or less vex Millefleurs distressed and excited her; for indeed she was quite willing to admit that she was “very fond of” Millefleurs, though it was ridiculous to think of him in any other capacity than that of a brotherly friend. And it was at this moment she made the discovery that, notwithstanding the promises of Rintoul and Millefleurs, nothing had been done for John. The consequence was, that the letter which we have just quoted was at once an expression of sympathy, very warm, and indeed impassioned⁠—more than sympathy, indignation, wrath, sentiments which were nothing less than violent⁠—and a way of easing her own excited mind which nothing else could have furnished. “I am going to write to John Erskine,” she said, with the boldness produced by so great a crisis; and Lady Lindores had not interfered. She said, “Give him my love,” and that was all. No claim of superior prudence, or even wisdom, has been made for Lady Lindores. She had to do the best she could among all these imperfections. Perhaps she thought that, having expressed all her angry glowing heart to John, in the outflowing of impassioned sympathy, the girl would be more likely, in the reaction and fear lest she had gone too far, to be kind to Millefleurs; for who can gauge the ebbings and flowings of these young fantastic souls? And as for Lady Lindores’s private sentiments, she would not have forced her daughter a hairbreadth; and she had a good deal of pain to reconcile herself to Millefleurs’s somewhat absurd figure as the husband of Edith. But yet, when all is said, to give your child the chance of being a duchess, who would not sacrifice a little? If only Edith could make up her mind to it! Lady Lindores went no further. Nevertheless, when the important moment approached, she could not help, like Carry, breathing a word in her child’s ear, “Remember, there is no better heart in existence,” she said. “A woman could not have a better man.” Edith, in her excitement, grasped her mother’s arms with her two hands; but all the answer she gave was a little nervous laugh. She had no voice to reply.

“You will remember, Millefleurs, that my daughter is very young⁠—and⁠—and shy,” said Lord Lindores, on the other side. He was devoured by a desire to say, “If she refuses you, never mind⁠—I will make her give in;” which indeed was what he had said in a kind of paraphrase to Torrance. But Millefleurs was not the sort of person to whom this could be said. He drew himself up a little, and puffed out his fine chest, when his future father-in-law (as they hoped) made this remark. If Edith was not as willing to have him as he was to have her, she was not for Millefleurs. He almost resented the interference. “I have no doubt that Lady Edith and I will quite understand each other⁠—whichever way it may be,” Millefleurs added with a sigh, which suited the situation. As a matter of fact, he thought there could not be very much doubt as to the reply. It was not possible that they could have made him stay only to get a refusal at the end⁠—and Millefleurs was well aware that the girls were very few who could find it in their hearts to refuse a future dukedom: besides, had it not been a friendship at first sight⁠—an immediate liking, if not love? To refuse him now would be strange indeed. It was not until after dinner that the fated moment came. Neither Lord Lindores nor Rintoul came into the drawing-room; and Lady Lindores, having her previous orders, left the field clear almost immediately after the entrance of the little hero. There was nothing accidental about it, as there generally is, or appears to be, about the scene of such events. The great drawing-room, all softly lighted and warm, was never abandoned in this way in the evening. Edith stood before the fire, clasping her hands together nervously, the light falling warm upon her black dress and the gleams of reflection from its jet trimmings. They had begun to talk before Lady Lindores retreated to the background to look for something, as she said; and Millefleurs allowed the subject they were discussing to come to an end before he entered upon anything more important. He concluded his little argument with the greatest propriety, and then he paused and cleared his throat.

“Lady Edith,” he said, “you may not have noticed that we are alone.” He folded his little hands together, and put out his chest, and made all his curves more remarkable, involuntarily, as he said this. It was his way of opening a new subject, and he was not carried out of his way by excitement as Edith was.

She looked round breathlessly, and said, “Has mamma gone?” with a little gasp⁠—a mixture of agitation and shame. The sense even that she was false in her pretence at surprise⁠—for did she not know what was coming?⁠—agitated her still more.

“Yeth,” said Millefleurs, drawing out his lisp into a sort of sigh. “I have asked that I might see you by yourself. You will have thought, perhaps, that for me to stay here when the family was in⁠—affliction, was, to say the least, bad taste, don’t you know?”

“No,” said Edith, faltering, “I did not think so; I thought⁠—”

“That is exactly so,” said Millefleurs, seriously. “It is a great bore, to be sure; but you and I are not like two nobodies. The truth is, I had to speak to your father first: it seemed to be the best thing to do⁠—and now I have been waiting to have this chance. Lady Edith, I hope you are very well aware that I am⁠—very fond of you, don’t you know? I always thought we were fond of one another⁠—”

“You were quite right, Lord Millefleurs,” cried Edith, nervously; “you have been so nice⁠—you have been like another brother⁠—”

“Thanks; but it was not quite in that way.” Here Millefleurs put out his plump hand and took hers in a soft, loose clasp⁠—a clasp which was affectionate but totally unimpassioned. He patted the hand with his fingers as he held it in an encouraging, friendly way. “That’s very pleasant; but it doesn’t do, don’t you know? People would have said we were, one of us, trifling with the other. I told Lord Lindores that there was not one other girl in the world⁠—that is, in this country⁠—whom I ever could wish to marry but you. He was not displeased, and I have been waiting ever since to ask; don’t you think we might marry, Lady Edith? I should like it if you would. I hope I have not been abrupt, or anything of that sort.”

“Oh no!⁠—you are always considerate, always kind,” cried Edith; “but, dear Lord Millefleurs, listen to me⁠—I don’t think it would do⁠—”

“No?” he said, with rather a blank air, suddenly pausing in the soft pat of encouragement he was giving her upon the hand; but he did not drop the hand, nor did Edith take it from him. She had recovered her breath and her composure; her heart fluttered no more. The usual half laugh with which she was in the habit of talking to him came into her voice.

“No?” said Millefleurs. “But, indeed, I think it would do very nicely. We understand each other very well; we belong to the same milieu” (how pleased Lord Lindores would have been to hear this, and how amazed the Duke!), “and we are fond of each other. We are both young, and you are extremely pretty. Dear Edith⁠—mayn’t I call you so?⁠—I think it would do admirably, delightfully!”

“Certainly you may call me so,” she said, with a smile; “but on the old footing, not any new one. There is a difference between being fond of anyone, and being⁠—in love.” Edith said this with a hot, sudden blush; then shaking her head as if to shake that other sentiment off, added, by way of reassuring herself, “don’t you know?” with a tremulous laugh. Little Millefleurs’s countenance grew more grave. He was not in love with any passion; still he did not like to be refused.

“Excuse me, but I can’t laugh,” he said, putting down her hand; “it is too serious. I do not see the difference, for my part. I have always thought that falling in love was a rather vulgar way of describing the matter. I think we have all that is wanted for a happy marriage. If you do not love me so much as I love you, there is no great harm in that; it will come in time. I feel sure that I should be a very good husband, and you⁠—”

“Would not be a good wife⁠—oh no, no!” cried Edith, with a little shudder, shrinking from him; then she turned towards him again with sudden compunction. “You must not suppose it is unkindness; but think⁠—two people who have been like brother⁠—and sister.”

“The only time,” said Millefleurs, still more seriously, “that I ever stood in this position before, it was the relationship of mother and son that was suggested to me⁠—with equal futility, if you will permit me to say so;⁠—brother and sister means little. So many people think they feel so, till some moment undeceives them. I think I may safely say that my feelings have never⁠—except, perhaps, at the very first⁠—been those of a brother⁠—any more,” he added in a parenthesis, “than they were ever those of a son.”

What Edith said in reply was the most curious request ever made perhaps by a girl to the man who had just asked her to marry him. She laid her hand upon his arm, and said softly, “Tell me about her!” in a voice of mild coaxing, just tempered with laughter. Millefleurs shook his head, and relieved his plump bosom with a little sigh.

“Not at this moment, dear Edith. This affair must first be arranged between us. You do not mean to refuse me? Reflect a moment. I spoke to your father more than a week ago. It was the day before the death of poor Mr. Torrance. Since then I have waited, hung up, don’t you know, like Muhammad’s coffin. When such a delay does occur, it is generally understood in one way. When a lady means to say No, it is only just to say it at once⁠—not to permit a man to commit himself, and leave him, don’t you know, hanging on.”

“Dear Lord Millefleurs⁠—”

“My name is Wilfrid,” he said, with a little pathos; “no one ever calls me by it: in this country not even my mother⁠—calls me by my name.”

“In America,” said Edith, boldly, “you were called so by⁠—the other lady⁠—”

He waved his hand. “By many people,” he said; “but never mind. Never by anyone here. Call me Wilfrid, and I shall feel happier⁠—”

“I was going to say that if you had spoken to me, I should have told you at once,” Edith said. “When you understand me quite, then we shall call each other anything you please. But that cannot be, Lord Millefleurs. Indeed you must understand me. I like you very much. I should be dreadfully sorry if I thought what I am saying would really hurt you⁠—but it will not after the first minute. I think you ought to marry her⁠—”

“Oh, there would be no hindrance there,” said Millefleurs; “that was quite unsuitable. I don’t suppose it could ever have been. But with you,” he said, turning to take her hand again, “dear Edith! everything is as it should be⁠—it pleases your people, and it will delight mine. They will all love you; and for my part, I am almost as fond of dear Lady Lindores as I am of you. Nothing could be more jolly (to use a vulgar word⁠—for I hate slang) than the life we should lead. I should take you over there, don’t you know, and show you everything, as far as San Francisco if you like. I know it all. And you would form my opinions, and make me good for something when we came back. Come! let it be settled so,” said Millefleurs, laying his other hand on Edith’s, and patting it softly. It was the gentlest fraternal affectionate clasp. The hands lay within each other without a thrill in them⁠—the young man kind as any brother, the girl in nowise afraid.

“Do you think,” said Edith, with a little solemnity, from which it cost her some trouble to keep out a laugh, “that if I could consent (which I cannot: it is impossible), do you think it would not be a surprise, and perhaps a painful one, to⁠—the other lady⁠—if she heard you were coming to America so?”

Lord Millefleurs raised his eyes for a moment to the ceiling, and he sighed. It was a tribute due to other days and other hopes. “I think not,” he said. “She was very disinterested. Indeed she would not hear of it. She said she regarded me as a mother, don’t you know? There is something very strange in these things,” he added, quickly forgetting (as appeared) his position as lover, and putting Edith’s hand unconsciously out of his. “There was not, you would have supposed, any chance of such feelings arising. And in point of fact it was not suitable at all. Still, had she not seen so very clearly what was my duty⁠—”

“I know now,” said Edith; “it was the lady who⁠—advised you to come home.”

He did not reply directly. “There never was anybody with such a keen eye for duty,” he said; “when she found out I hadn’t written to my mother, don’t you know, that was when she pulled me up. ‘Don’t speak to me,’ she said. She would not hear a word. I was just obliged to pack up. But it was perfectly unsuitable. I never could help acknowledging that.”

“Wilfrid,” said Edith, half in real, half in fictitious enthusiasm⁠—for it served her purpose so admirably that it was difficult not to assume a little more than she felt⁠—“how can you stand there and tell me that there was anything unsuitable in a girl who could behave so finely as that. Is it because she had no stupid little title in her family, for example? You have titles enough for half-a-dozen, I hope. Are you not ashamed to speak to one girl of another like that⁠—”

“Thank you,” said Millefleurs, softly⁠—“thank you; you are a darling. All you say is quite true. But she is not⁠—exactly a girl. The fact is⁠—she is older than⁠—my people would have liked. Of course that was a matter of complete indifference to me.”

“O‑oh! of course,” said Edith, faintly: this is a point on which girls are not sympathetic. She was very much taken aback by the intimation. But she recovered her courage, and said with a great deal of interest, “Tell me all about her now.”

“Are you quite decided?” he said solemnly. “Edith⁠—let us pause a little; don’t condemn me, don’t you know, to disappointment and heartbreak, and all that, without sufficient cause. I feel sure we should be happy together. I for one would be the happiest man⁠—”

“I could not, I could not,” she cried, with a sudden little effusion of feeling, quite unintentional. A flush of hot colour ran over her, her eyes filled with tears. She looked at him involuntarily, almost unconscious, with a certain appeal, which she herself only half understood, in her eyes. But Millefleurs understood, not at the half word, as the French say, but at the half thought which he discovered in the delicate transparent soul looking at him through those two involuntary tears. He gazed at her for a moment with a sudden startled enlargement of his own keen little eyes. “To be sure!” he cried. “How was it I never thought of that before?”

Edith felt as if she had made some great confession, some cruel admission, she did not know what. She turned away from him trembling. This half comic interview suddenly turned in a moment to one of intense and overwhelming, almost guilty emotion. What had she owned to? What was it he made so sure of? She could not tell. But now it was that Millefleurs showed the perfect little gentleman he was. The discovery was not entirely agreeable to his amour propre, and wounded his pride a little; but in the meantime the necessary thing was to set Edith at her ease so far as was possible, and make her forget that she had in any way committed herself. What he did was to set a chair for her, with her back to the lamp, so that her countenance need not be revealed for the moment, and to sit down by her side with confidential calmness. “Since you wish it,” he said, “and are so kind as to take an interest in her, there is nothing I should like so much as to tell you about my dear Miss Nelly Field. I should like you to be friends.”

Would it were possible to describe the silent hush of the house while these two talked in this preposterous manner in the solitude so carefully prepared for them! Lord Lindores sat breathless in his library, listening for every sound, fixing his eyes upon his door, feeling it inconceivable that such a simple matter should take so long a time to accomplish. Lady Lindores in her chamber, still more anxious, foreseeing endless struggles with her husband if Millefleurs persevered, and almost worse, his tragical wrath and displeasure if Millefleurs (as was almost certain) accepted at once Edith’s refusal, sat by her fire in the dark, and cried a little, and prayed, almost without knowing what it was that she asked of God. Not, surely, that Edith should sacrifice herself? Oh no; but that all might go well⁠—that there might be peace and content. She did not dictate how that was to be. After a while both father and mother began to raise their heads, to say to themselves that unless he had been well received, Millefleurs would not have remained so long oblivious of the passage of time. This brought a smile upon Lord Lindores’s face. It dried his wife’s eyes, and made her cease praying. Was it possible? Could Edith, after all, have yielded to the seductions of the dukedom? Her mother felt herself struck to the heart by the thought, as if an arrow had gone into her. Was not she pleased? It would delight her husband, it would secure family peace, it would give Edith such a position, such prospects, as far exceeded the utmost hopes that could have been formed for her. Somehow, however, the first sensation of which Lady Lindores was conscious was a humiliation deep and bitter. Edith too! she said to herself, with a quivering smile upon her lips, a sense of heartsickness and downfall within her. She had wished it surely⁠—she had felt that to see her child a duchess would be a fine thing, a thing worth making a certain sacrifice for; and Millefleurs had nothing in him to make a woman fear for her daughter’s happiness. But women, everybody knows, are inaccessible to reason. It is to be doubted whether Lady Lindores had ever in her life received a blow more keen than when she made up her mind that Edith was going to do the right thing, the prudent wise thing, which would secure family peace to her mother, and the most dazzling future to herself.

When a still longer interval had elapsed, and no one came to tell her of the great decision, which evidently must have been made, Lady Lindores thought it best to go back to the drawing-room, in which she had left Edith and her lover. To think that Edith should have found the love-talk of Millefleurs so delightful after all, as to have forgotten how time passed, and everything but him and his conversation, made her mother smile once more, but not very happily. When she entered the drawing-room she saw the pair at the other end of it, by the fire, seated close together, he bending forward talking eagerly, she leaning towards him, her face full of smiles and interest. They did not draw back, or change their position, as lovers do, till Lady Lindores, much marvelling, came close up to them, when Millefleurs, still talking, jumped up to find a chair for her. “And that was the last time we met,” Millefleurs was saying, too much absorbed in his narrative to give it up. “An idea of duty like that, don’t you know, leaves nothing to be said.”

Lady Lindores sat down, and Millefleurs stood in front of the two ladies, with his back to the fire, as Englishmen love to stand. There was a pause⁠—of extreme bewilderment on the part of the newcomer. Then Millefleurs said, in his round little mellifluous voice, folding his hands⁠—“I have been telling dear Edith of a very great crisis in my life. She understands me perfectly, dear Lady Lindores. I am very sorry to tell you that she will not marry me; but we are friends for life.”

XLI

Carry drove away from Lindores in the afternoon sunshine, leaning back in her corner languidly watching the slanting light upon the autumnal trees, and the haze in which the distance was hid, soft, blue, and ethereal, full of the poetry of nature. She had about her that soft languor and delicious sense of freedom from pain which makes convalescence so sweet. She felt as if she had got over a long and painful illness, and, much shattered and exhausted, was yet getting better, in a heavenly exemption from suffering, and perfect rest. This sense of recovery, indeed, is very different from the languor and exhaustion of sorrow; and yet without any intention of hers, it veiled with a sort of innocent hypocrisy those feelings which were not in consonance with her supposed desolation and the mourning of her widowhood. Her behaviour was exemplary, and her aspect all that it ought to be, everybody felt; and though the countryside was well aware that she had no great reason to be inconsolable, it yet admired and respected her for appearing to mourn. Her fragility, her paleness, her smile of gentle exhaustion and worn-out looks, did her unspeakable credit with all the good people about. They were aware that she had little enough to mourn for, but there are occasions on which nature demands hypocrisy. Any display of satisfaction at another’s death is abhorrent to mankind. Carry in her convalescence was no hypocrite, but she got the credit of it, and was all the better thought of. People were almost grateful to her for showing her husband this mark of respect. After all, it is hard, indeed, when a man goes out of this world without even the credit of a woman’s tears. But Carry had no sorrow in her heart as she drove away from the door of her former home. It had not been thought right that she should go in. A widow of not yet a fortnight’s standing may, indeed, drive out to get a little air, which is necessary for her health, but she cannot be supposed to be able to go into a house, even if it is her father’s. She was kissed tenderly and comforted, as they took leave of her. “My darling Carry, Edith and I will drive over to see you tomorrow; and then you have the children,” her mother said, herself half taken in by Carry’s patient smile, and more than half desirous of being taken in. “Oh yes, I have the children,” Carry said. But in her heart she acknowledged, as she drove away, that she did not even want the children. When one has suffered very much, the mere absence of pain becomes a delicious fact, a something actual, which breathes delight into the soul. Even when your back aches or your head aches habitually, to be free of that for half an hour is heaven; and Carry had the bewildering happiness before her of being free of it forever. The world bore a different aspect for her; the air blew differently, the clouds floated with another motion. To look out over the plain, and away to the blue hills in the distance, with all their variety of slopes, and the infinite sweet depths of colour and atmosphere about them, was beyond all example delightful, quite enough to fill life and make it happy. In the heavenly silence she began to put her thoughts into words, as in her youth she had done always when she was deeply moved. Oh, who are they that seek pleasure in the world, in society, in feasts and merrymakings, when it is here, at their hand, ready for their enjoyment? This was her theme. The sunset upon the hills was enough for anyone; he who could not find his happiness in that, where would he find it? Carry lay back in her corner, and felt that she would like to kiss the soft air that blew upon her, and send salutations to the trees and the sun. What could anyone want more? The world was so beautiful, pain had gone out of it, and all the venom and the misery. To rest from everything, to lie still and get better, was of itself too exquisite. Carry had not for a long time written any of those little poems which Edith and Nora and some other choice readers had thought so lovely. Her tears had grown too bitter for such expression⁠—and to feel herself flow forth once again into the sweet difficulties of verse was another delight the more. She was all alone, in deep weeds of widowhood, and almost every voice within twenty miles had within the last fortnight more than once uttered the words “Poor Lady Car!” but oh, how far from poor she felt herself! In what exquisite repose and peace was she mending of all her troubles!

Sometimes she would ask herself, with a wonder which enhanced the sweetness, Was it really all over⁠—all over⁠—come to an end, this nightmare which had blotted out heaven and earth? Was it possible? never to come back to her again round any corner, never to have any more power over her. Henceforward to be alone, alone⁠—what word of joy! It is a word which has different meanings to different people. To many in Carry’s position it is the very knell of their lives⁠—to her there was a music in it beyond the power of words to say. Her weakness had brought that misery on herself: and now, was it possible that she was to fare so much better than she deserved, to get rid of it forever? She drew a long breath, and imagined how different things might have been: she might have lived to be an old woman under that yoke; she might never have got free⁠—her mind, nor her imagination, nor her life. She shuddered to think what might have been. But it was over, ended, finished, and she was free⁠—done with it forever. She had not deserved this; it was a happiness which it was scarcely possible to realise. Poor Carry, futile even in her anticipations of relief! It never occurred to her that the two little children to whom she was returning⁠—now all her own, she was so foolish as to think⁠—were pieces of Torrance, not done with, never to be done with as long as her life lasted; but she was as unconscious of that, as incapable of thinking of any harm to come from those round-faced, stolid babies, as⁠—any other mother could be.

Thus she was driving along, very happy, very still, exhausted and languid and convalescent, with all the beautiful world before her, full of consolation and peace, when Trouble set out to meet her upon her way. Poor Lady Car! she had suffered so much⁠—did not life owe her a little quiet, a breathing moment⁠—long enough to get better in⁠—quite better, as we say in Scotland⁠—and get the good of her deliverance? Indeed it seemed so: but to different souls different experiences. Some would have escaped, would have gone on softly, never quite getting over the dismal preface of their life to the sight of spectators, but in reality tasting the sweetness of repose⁠—till the inevitable moment came, as it does to all, when the warfare has to be taken up again. But to Carry there was left no interval at all. She so delicate, so sensitive, all her nerves so highly strung, quiet would have been everything for her. But quiet she was not to have. Trouble set out from the gate of Dalrulzian while she rolled softly along to meet it, unconscious, thinking of nothing which could justify that sudden apparition⁠—not a feeling in her going out towards it, or provoking the sight. The trouble which thus approached Lady Car was in the shape of Edward Beaufort, his tall figure slightly stooping, yet in the full vigour of manhood, his countenance gently despondent, a habitual sigh hanging, as it were, about him; the ends of his luxuriant beard lightly moved by the breeze. He walked somewhat slowly, musing, with nothing particular to do, and Carry caught sight of him for some time before they met. She gave a low cry and sat upright. Her convalescent heart lying so still, so sweetly silent and even in its gentle beatings, like a creature that had been hurt, and was coming softly to itself, leaped up with a bound and spring, and began to go again like a wild thing, leaping, palpitating, pulling at its leash. The first movement was terror⁠—for though her tyrant was gone, the tradition of him was still upon her, and she could not get rid of the instinct all at once. “My God!” she said to herself in the silence, clasping her hands, “Edward!” with something of the wild passion of alarm which John Erskine had once seen. But then all in a moment again this terror subsided. Her sense of convalescence and repose flew away like the wind. A wild flood of joy and happiness rushed into her heart. “Edward!”⁠—for the first time, feeling herself carried away by a drowning and dazzling tide of life, which blinded and almost suffocated her, Carry realised in one moment what it meant to be free. The effect was too tremendous for any thought of prudence, any hesitation as to what his sentiments might be, or what was suitable to her own position. She called to the coachman to stop, not knowing what she did, and with her head and her hands stretched out from the window, met him as he came up.

For the first moment there was not a word said between them, in the excess of emotion, he standing below, she looking out from above, her white face surrounded by the widow’s livery of woe, but suddenly flushed and glowing with life and love, and a kind of triumphant ecstasy. She had forgotten what it meant⁠—she had not realised all that was in it; and now it burst upon her. She could not think, scarcely breathe⁠—but held out her hands to him, with that look beyond words to describe. And he took them in the same way, and bent down his face over them, silent, not saying a word. The coachman and footman on the box thought it was excess of feeling that made this meeting so silent. They were sorry for their mistress, who was not yet able to meet anyone with composure; and the low brief conversation that followed, sounded to them like condolence and sympathy. How astounded the men would have been, and the still landscape around them, with its houses hidden in the trees, and all its silent observers about, had they known what this colloquy actually was.

“Edward!” was the first word that was said⁠—and then “Carry! Carry! but I ought not to call you so.”

“Oh, never call me anything else,” she cried; “I could not endure another name from you. Oh, can you forgive me, have you forgiven me? I have paid for it⁠—bitterly, bitterly! And it was not my fault.”

“I never blamed you. I have forgiven you always. My suffering is not older than my forgiveness.”

“You were always better than I;” and then she added eagerly, not pausing to think, carried on by that new tide that had caught her, “it is over; it is all over now.”

It was on his lips to say Thank God⁠—but he reflected, and did not say it. He had held her hands all the time. There was nobody to see them, and the servants on the box were sympathetic and silent. Then he asked, “Will they let me go to you now?”

“You will not ask any leave,” she said hastily⁠—“no leave! There are so many things I have to say to you⁠—to ask your pardon. It has been on my heart to ask your pardon every day of my life. I used to think if I had only done that, I could die.”

“No dying now,” he said, with her hands in his.

“Ah,” she cried, with a little shudder, “but it is by dying I am here.”

He looked at her pitifully with a gaze of sympathy. He was prepared to be sorry if she was sorry. Even over his rival’s death Edward Beaufort felt himself capable of dropping a tear. He could go so far as that. Self-abnegation is very good in a woman, but in a man it is uncalled for to this degree. He could put himself out of the question altogether, and looked at her with the deepest sympathy, ready to condole if she thought proper. He was not prepared for the honesty of Carry’s profound sense of reopening life.

“You have had a great deal to bear,” he said, with a vague intention of consoling her. He was thinking of the interval that had elapsed since her husband’s death; but she was thinking of the dismal abyss before, and of all that was brought to a conclusion by that event.

“More than you can imagine⁠—more than you could believe,” she said; then paused, with a hot blush of shame, not daring to look him in the face. All that she had suffered, was not that a mountain between them? She drew her hands out of his, and shrinking away from him, said, “When you think of that, you must have a horror of me.”

“I have a horror of you!” he said, with a faint smile. He put his head closer as she drew back. He was changed from the young man she had known. His beard, his mature air, the lines in his face, the gentle melancholy air which he had acquired, were all new to her. Carry thought that no face so compassionate, so tender, had ever been turned upon her before. A great pity seemed to beam in the eyes that were fixed with such tenderness upon her. Perhaps there was not in him any such flood of rosy gladness as had illuminated her. The rapture of freedom was not in his veins. But what a look that was! A face to pour out all your troubles to⁠—to be sure always of sympathy from. This was what she thought.

Then in the tremor of blessedness and overwhelming emotion, she awoke to remember that she was by the roadside⁠—no place for talk like this. Carry had no thought of what anyone would say. She would have bidden him come into the carriage and carried him away with her⁠—her natural support, her consoler. There was no reason in her suddenly roused and passionate sense that never again must it be in anyone’s power to part them. Nor did she think that there could be any doubt of his sentiments, or whether he might still retain his love for her, notwithstanding all she had done to cure him of it. For the moment she was out of herself. They had been parted for so long⁠—for so many miserable years⁠—and now they were together. That was all⁠—restored to each other. But still, the first moment of overwhelming agitation over, she had to remember. “I have so much to tell you!” she cried; “but it cannot be here.”

“When shall I come?” he said.

Carry’s impulse was to say “Now, now!” It seemed to her as if parting with him again would be tempting fate. For the first time since she had got her freedom, she put forth all her powers consciously, and controlled herself. It seemed to her the utmost stretch of self-denial when she said, “Tomorrow,” with a long-drawn breath, in which her whole being seemed to go out to him. The next moment the carriage was rolling along as it had done before, and Carry had dropped back into her corner, but not as she was before. Her entire world was changed. The glow of life which had come back to her was something which she had not known for years. It belonged to her early bloom, when she had no thought of ever being Lady Car or a great personage. It belonged to the time when Edward Beaufort was the lord of the ascendant, and nobody thought him beneath the pretensions of Carry Lindores. The intervening time had rolled away and was no more. She put her hands over her eyes to shut out everything but this that had been, and was, in spite of all obstacles. Her heart filled all the silence with tumultuous joyful beating. It was all over, the prison-time of her life⁠—the evil time⁠—gone like a bad enchantment⁠—past and over, leaving no sign. It seemed to her that she could take up her life where she laid it down six years ago, and that all would be as though this interruption had never been.

XLII

No morning ever broke which brought more exciting expectations than the morning of the 25th September in the various houses in which our history lies. Of the dozen people whose interests were concerned, not one but awoke early to the touch of the warm autumnal sunshine, and took up with a start of troubled energy, painful or otherwise, the burden of existence, of which for a few hours they had been partially oblivious. The women had the best of it, which is not usual; although in the mingled feelings of Lady Lindores, glad that her child had carried out her expectations, yet half sorry, now it was over, that Edith had not accepted the great matrimonial prize put into her hands⁠—and in those of Edith herself, happy in having so successfully surmounted the incident Millefleurs, yet greatly disturbed and excited about the coming events as concerned John Erskine, and doubtful whether she ought to have written to him so very frank and undisguised a letter⁠—there was as much pain as pleasure. As for Carry, when she woke in the gloomy magnificence of Tinto, and all the warmth and glowing hopes of yesterday came back to her mind with a bound, there was nothing in her thoughts which prevented her lying still upon her pillows and letting the flood of light sweep into her heart, in a luxury of happiness and peace which was past describing. She did not for the moment even need to think of the meeting to come. Blessedness seemed suddenly to have become habitual to her once more. She woke to the delight of life. “Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive.” The past had flown away like a dream: was it a dream altogether, a nightmare, some dark shadow of fear and pain, from which the oppressed soul, having at last awoke, was free? Beaufort at Dalrulzian got up a similar feeling. He had been obliged to find himself something of a failure⁠—but he, too, seemed to be restored to the hopes and the standing-ground of youth. He would now have no excuse to himself for his absence of energy and ambition. His youthful strength was still unimpaired, though he had made so much less of it than he ought. And now here were all the occasions for a fresh beginning⁠—sympathy to support him and to inspire him. Not only would he be happy, but at last he would do something⁠—he would carry out all hopes and prophecies of him now.

This was the brighter side⁠—but in Lindores the sentiments of the chief personages in the house were not so pleasant. Lord Lindores was angry and humiliated, furious with his daughter and still more with his wife, who, he had no doubt, with her ridiculous romance, had filled the girl’s head with follies⁠—and not much less with Millefleurs, who had thus suffered himself to be foiled. But his disturbed cogitations were as nothing to the tumult of pain and alarm which rose up in Rintoul’s mind when he opened his eyes to the morning light. When the young man awoke he had first a moment of bewildered consideration, what was the meaning of the confused sense of disaster of which he became instantly conscious⁠—and then he sprang from his bed unable to rest, eager for movement or anything which would counterbalance the fever of the crisis. This was the day. He could delay no longer; he could not trifle with the situation, or leave things to chance after today. It would be a new beginning in his life. Hitherto all had gone on serenely enough. He had gone with the stream, he had never set himself in opposition to the world or its ways, never done anything to draw men’s eyes upon him. But after today all would be changed. Tomorrow his name would be telegraphed over all the world in newspaper paragraphs; tomorrow every fellow he had ever known would be saying: “Rintoul! what Rintoul? You never can mean?⁠—” No, they would all feel it to be impossible. Rintoul who was so safe, who never got into scrapes, whom they even laughed at as a canny Scot, though he did not feel a Scot at all. It would be incredible to all who had ever known him. And what a scandal, what an outcry it would make! In his own family even! Rintoul knew that Carry was not a brokenhearted widow, and yet it seemed to him that, after she knew, she would never speak to him again. It made his heart sink to think of all the changes that in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, would become inevitable. His father, with what rage, and misery, and confusion of all his plans and hopes, would he hear it! with what consternation his mother and sister! As for himself, everything would be interrupted and set aside, his life in every way turned upside-down, his ambition checked, his hopes destroyed. And all this to save John Erskine from a certain amount of inconvenience! That was how at least it appeared to him⁠—really from inconvenience, nothing more. John was not a man of rank like himself, full in the eyes of the world⁠—he was not responsible to a proud and ambitious father. A short term of imprisonment to him would be like a disagreeable visit, nothing more. Many people had to spend a certain part of every year, for instance, with an old uncle or aunt, somebody from whom they had expectations. It really would be little or nothing more than this. And it was not as if it had been anything disgraceful. The county would not think the worse of him; it was an accident, a thing that might have happened to anyone. But to Rintoul how much more terrible! he the brother-in-law of the man, with a sort of interest in his death. He would have to leave his regiment. All his projects for life would be interrupted. By the time he was free again, he would be forgotten in society, and his name would be flétri forever. These thoughts sent him pacing about his room with hasty steps, the perspiration standing on his forehead. All to save John Erskine, who was just as much to blame as he was⁠—for the first quarrel was the one which had excited that unfortunate fellow; all to save from a little inconvenience another man!

Perhaps if he had been placed simply in front of the question whether he would let another man be punished for what he had done, Rintoul would have had spirit enough to say No; certainly if it had been put to him quickly for an instant decision, without time to think, he would have said No, and held by his honour. But something else more determined than himself stood before him. Nora! He might use sophistries for the confusing of his own intellect⁠—but not hers. She would look at him, he knew how. She would turn away from him, he knew how. The anticipation of that glance of high scorn and unspoken condemnation made Rintoul tremble to the depths of his being. When he thought of it he braced himself up with a rapidity and certainty much unlike the previous hesitating strain of his thoughts. “It must be done,” he said to himself. He might beguile himself with argument, but he could not beguile her. The thought might intrude upon him whether he had been wise to let her know⁠—whether it might not have been better to keep it to himself; but, having done it, the question was now not only whether he was content to lose Nora⁠—but if he was content to put up with her scorn and immeasurable contempt.

They all remarked how pale he was when he came to breakfast⁠—ghastly pale, lines under his eyes, the corners of his mouth drooping; his hair, which he had tried hard to brush as usual, hung limp, and would not take its accustomed curl. Lady Lindores tortured him by useless inquiries about his health. “You are ill⁠—I am sure you are ill. You must let me send for the doctor.” “For goodness’ sake, mother, let a fellow alone. I am as well as you are,” had been his amiable answer. He all but swore at the servants, all but kicked the dog, who thrust with confiding importunity his head under his master’s arm. The situation was intolerable to him⁠—his thoughts were buzzing in his ears and all about him, so that he did not hear what the other people said; and they talked⁠—with what frivolous pertinacity they talked!⁠—about nothing at all, about the most trivial things; while he was balancing something that, in his excitement, he felt inclined to call life or death.

But, indeed, Rintoul’s impressions as to the gaiety and lively conversation going on were as far as possible from the truth. There was scarcely any conversation, but a general embarrassment. Millefleurs was the only one who said much. He bore his disappointment so sweetly, and was so entirely master of the situation, that Lord Lindores grew more and more angry. He made various sharp replies, but the little Marquis took no heed. He gushed forth, like a flowing stream, a great many pleasant details about his going home. He was going home in a day or two. His visit to Lindores was one which he could never forget; it had gained him, he hoped, friends for life. Wherever he went he would carry with him the recollection of the kindness he had received. Thus he flowed forth, doing his best, as usual, to smooth down the embarrassment of the others. But the hour of the repast was somewhat terrible to everybody. Decorum required that they should all sit a certain time at the table, and make a fashion of eating. People have to eat will they nill they, that they may not betray themselves. They all came to the surface, so to speak, with a gasp, as Millefleurs said in his round and velvety voice, “I suppose you are going to Dunearn to this examination, Lord Lindores?”

“It is a private affair, not an open court; but to show an interest, I suppose I ought to be somewhere near⁠—” was the answer; and there arose at that moment a howl of fright and pain from the dog, upon whom Rintoul had spilt a cup of tea. He got up white and haggard, shaking off the deluge from his clothes. “These brutes get insufferable,” he cried; “why can we never have a meal without a swarm of them about?”

The proceedings had begun at Dunearn before any of the party from Lindores arrived there. Rintoul, who was the first to set out, walked, with a sort of miserable desire of postponing the crisis; and Lord Lindores, with a kind of sullen friendliness towards John, followed in his phaeton. They were both late, and were glad to be late; which was very different from Miss Barbara, who, wound up by anxiety to an exertion which she could not have believed herself capable of, had walked from her house, leaning on Nora’s arm, and was waiting on the spot when John was driven up in a shabby old fly from Dunnottar. The old lady was at the door of the fly before it could be opened, putting out her hand to him. “My bonnie lad, you’ll come to your luncheon with me at half-past one; and mind that you’re not late,” she said, in a loud, cheerful, and confident voice, so that everyone could hear. She took no notice of the lookers-on, but gave her invitation and her greeting with a fine disdain of all circumstances. Nora, upon whom she was leaning, was white as marble. Her eyes were strained with gazing along the Lindores road. “Who are you looking for, Nora?” Miss Barbara had already asked half-a-dozen times. It was not much support she got from the tremulous little figure, but the old lady was inspired. She stood till John had passed into the Town House, talking to him all the time in a voice which sounded over all the stir of the little crowd which had gathered about to see him. “Janet cannot bide her dishes to be spoilt. You will be sure and come in time. I’ll not wait for you, for I’m not a great walker; but everything will be ready at half-past one.”

When she had thus delivered her cheerful message, Miss Barbara turned homeward, not without another remark upon Nora’s anxious gaze along the road. “You are looking for your fine friends from Lindores; we’ll see none of them today,” said the old lady resolutely, turning her companion away. She went on talking, altogether unaware how the girl was suffering, yet touched by a perception of some anxiety in her. “You are not to be unhappy about John Erskine,” she said at last. These words came to Nora’s ears vaguely, through mists of misery, anger, bitter disappointment, and that wrath with those we love which works like madness in the brain. What did she care for John Erskine? She had almost said so, blurting out the words in the intolerance of her trouble, but did not, restrained as much by incapacity to speak as by any other hindrance. To think that he for whom she was watching had proved himself incapable of an act of simple justice! to think that the man whom she had begun by thinking lightly of, but had been beguiled into loving she did not know how, sure at all events of his honour and manliness⁠—to think that he should turn out base, a coward, sheltering himself at the cost of another! Oh, what did it matter about John Erskine? John Erskine was a true man⁠—nothing could happen to him. Then there arose all at once in poor Nora’s inexperienced brain that bitterest struggle on earth, the rally of all her powers to defend and account for, while yet she scorned and loathed, the conduct of the man she loved. It is easy to stand through evil report and good by those who are unjustly accused, who are wronged, for whom and on whose behalf you can hold your head high. But when, alas! God help them, they are base, and the accusation against them just! Nora, young, unused to trouble, not knowing the very alphabet of pain, fell into this horrible pit in a moment, without warning, without escape. It confused all her faculties, so that she could do nothing save stumble blindly on, and let Miss Barbara talk of John Erskine⁠—as if John Erskine and the worst that could happen to him were anything, anything! in comparison with this passion of misery which Nora had to bear.

And she was so little used to suffering. She did not know how to bear. Spartans and Indians and all those traditionary Stoics are bred to it⁠—trained to bear torture and make no sign; but Nora had never had any training, and she was not a Spartan or a Red Indian. She was a woman, which is perhaps next best. She had to crush herself down; to turn away from the road by which Rintoul might still appear; to go in to the quiet rooms, to the ordinary morning occupations, to the needlework which Miss Barbara liked to see her do. Anything in the world would have been easier; but this and not anything else in the world was Nora’s business. And the sunny silence of the gentle feminine house, only disturbed by Miss Barbara’s ceaseless talk about John, closed round her. Janet came “ben” and had her orders. Agnes entered softly with her mistress’s cap and indoor shawl. All went on as it had done for years.

This calm, however, was soon interrupted. The Lindores’ carriage drew up at the door, with all the dash and splendour which distinguishes the carriage of a countess when it stops at a humble house. Miss Barbara had a standing prejudice against these fine half-foreign (as she supposed) people. She rose up with the dignity of an archduchess to receive her visitors. Lady Lindores was full of anxiety and sympathy. “We are as anxious as you can be,” she said, kissing Miss Barbara warmly before the old lady could draw back.

“ ’Deed I cannot say that I am anxious at all,” said Miss Barbara, with her head high. “A thing that never happened cannot be proved against any man. I am expecting my nephew to his luncheon at half-past one. As there’s nothing against him, he can come to no harm. I will be glad to see your ladyship and Lady Edith to meet him⁠—at half-past one,” the old lady said, with marked emphasis. She had no inclination to allow herself to be intruded upon. But Edith attained what her mother failed to achieve. She could not conceal her agitation and excitement. She grew red and pale a dozen times in a minute. “Oh yes, Miss Barbara, I feel with you. I am not anxious at all!” she cried.

Why should she be anxious? what had she to do with John? Her flutter of changing colour touched Miss Barbara’s heart in spite of herself. No, she would not be a suitable wife for John Erskine; an earl’s daughter was too grand for the house of Dalrulzian. But yet⁠—Miss Barbara could not help being mollified. She pushed an easy-chair towards the mother of this bonnie creature. “It will be a pleasure to him to hear that there are kind hearts caring for what happens to him. If your ladyship will do me the honour to sit down,” she said, with punctilious yet suspicious respect.

“Papa is there now,” said Edith, whispering to Nora; “and Lord Millefleurs came with us, and will bring us word how things are going. Rintoul started before any of us⁠—”

“Rintoul!” said Nora⁠—at least she thought she said it. Her lips moved, a warm suffusion of colour came over her, and she looked wistfully in Edith’s face.

“He thought he would get to Dunearn before us⁠—but, after all, horses go faster than men. What is the matter? Are you ill, Nora?”

Nora was past making any reply. The cessation of pain, that is more, a great deal more, than a negative good. For the first moment, at least, it is bliss, active bliss⁠—more than anything else known to men. Of course Nora, when she came to herself, explained that it was a sudden little spasm, a feeling of faintness⁠—something she was used to. She was quite well, she declared; and so it proved by the colour that came back to her face. “She has not been herself all the morning,” said Miss Barbara; “she will be the better of young company⁠—of somebody like herself.”

After this the ladies tried to talk on indifferent subjects. There were inquiries to be made for Lady Caroline, “poor thing!” and she was described as being “better than we should have dared to hope,” with as near an approach to the truth as possible; and then a scattered fire of remarks, now one, now another, coming to the front with sudden energy; while the others relapsed into the listening and strain of curiosity. Miss Barbara held her head high. It was she who was the most steady in the conversation. She would not suffer it to be seen that she had any tremor as to what was going on. But the girls were unequal to this fortitude. They fluctuated from red to white, and from white to red. They would stop in the middle of a sentence, their voices ending in a quaver, as if the wind had blown them out. Why should they be so moved? Miss Barbara noted it keenly, and felt with a thrill of pleasure that John was getting justice. Two of them!⁠—the bonniest creatures in the county! How their rival claims were to be settled afterwards she did not inquire; but in the meantime, at the moment when he was under so dark a cloud, it warmed her heart to see him so much thought of: the Erskines always were so; they were a race that women loved and men liked, and the last representative was worthy of his sires.

Hours seemed to pass while the ladies thus held each other in a wonderful tension and restraint, waiting for the news: until a little commotion in the stair, a hurried step, brought them all to their feet with one impulse. It was little Millefleurs who rushed in with his hat pressed to his breast. “Forgive the intrusion,” he cried, with pants of utterance; “I’m out of breath; I have run all the way. Erskine is coming after me with Lord Lindores.” He shook hands with everybody vehemently in his satisfaction. “They let me in because I was the Duke’s son, don’t you know; it’s convenient now and then; and I bolted with the news. But nobody presents me to Miss Erskine,” he said, aggrieved. “Madam, I am Millefleurs. I was Erskine’s fag at Eton. I have run miles for him to buy his buns and jam; but I was slimmer in those days.”

Miss Barbara had sunk upon a chair. She said, with a panting of her ample bosom as if she had been running too, “You are too kind, my Lord Millefleurs. I told John Erskine to be here at half-past one to his luncheon. You will all wait and meet him. You will wait and meet him⁠—” She repeated the words with a little sob of age, half laughter half tears. “The Lord be praised!⁠—though I never had any doubt of it,” the proud old lady said.

“It has all come perfectly clear,” said Millefleurs, pleased with his position as the centre of this eager group. “The right man, the person to whom it really happened, has come forward most honourably and given himself up. I don’t clearly understand all the rights of the story. But there it is; the man couldn’t stand it, don’t you know. I suppose he thought nothing would ever be found out; and when he heard that Erskine was suspected and taken, he was stunned at first. Of course he should have produced himself at once; but all’s well that ends well. He has done it now.”

“The man⁠—that did it?” It was Nora that said this, gazing at him with perfectly colourless cheeks, standing out in the middle of the room, apart from the others, who were for the moment too completely satisfied with the news to ask more.

“Don’t think it is crime,” said Millefleurs, soothingly. “There is every reason to conclude that accident will be the verdict. In the meantime, I suppose he will be committed for trial; but all these are details, don’t you know,” he said, in his smooth voice. “The chief thing is, that our friend is clear and at liberty; and in a few minutes he’ll be here.”

They scarcely noticed that Nora disappeared out of the room in the joyful commotion that followed. She went away, almost suffocating with the effort to keep her emotion down. Did he know of whom it was that he was speaking? Was it possible that he knew? the son of one, the brother of another⁠—to Nora more than either. What did it mean? Nora could not get breath. She could not stay in the room, and see all their relieved, delighted faces, the undisturbed satisfaction with which they listened and asked their questions. Was the man a fool? Was he a creature devoid of heart or perception? An hour ago Nora had thought that Rintoul’s absence from his post would kill her, that to see him do his duty was all she wanted on earth. But now the indifference of everybody around to what he had done, the ease with which the story was told, the unconsciousness of the listeners, was more intolerable to her than even that despair. She could not bear it. She hurried away, not capable of a word, panting for breath, choked by her heart, which beat in her throat, in her very ears⁠—and by the anguish of helplessness and suspense, which was more than she could bear.

XLIII

John Erskine had received Edith’s letter that morning in his prison. His spirits were at a very low ebb when it was put into his hand. Four days’ confinement had taken the courage out of him more effectually than any other discipline could have done; and though the prospect of his examination had brought in a counterbalancing excitement, he was by no means so sure that everything would come right as he had been at first. Having once gone wrong, why should it come right? If the public and the sheriff (or whatever the man was) could entertain such an idea for four days, why not for four years or a lifetime? When Edith’s letter was put into his hand he was but beginning to awake, to brace himself up for an encounter with the hostile world. He had begun to say to himself that he must get his wits about him, and not permit himself to be sacrificed without an effort. And then, in a moment, up his heart went like a shuttlecock. She had no doubt about him, thank heaven! Her “dear Mr. Erskine,” repeated when it was not exactly necessary, and which she had drawn her pen through, but so lightly that the cancelling of the words only made them emphatic, seemed to John to say everything that words could say. It said more, in fact, than Edith would ever have said had he not been in trouble and in prison; and then that outbreak about feminine impotence at the end! This was to John the sweetest pleasantry, the most delightful jest. He did not think of her indignation or bitterness as real. The idea that Lady Lindores and she would have been his bail if they could, amused him so that he almost shed tears over it; as well as the complaint that they could do nothing. Do nothing! who could do so much? If all went well, John said to himself, with a leap of his heart⁠—if all went well! It was under the elation of this stimulant that he got ready to proceed to Dunearn; and though to drive there in the dingy fly with a guardian of the law beside him was not cheerful, his heart swelled high with the thought that other hearts were beating with anxiety for him. He thought more of that than of his defence; for to tell the truth, he had not the least idea how to manage his defence. Mr. Monypenny had visited him again, and made him feel that truth was the last thing that was likely to serve him, and that by far his wisest plan would be to tell a lie and own himself guilty, and invent a new set of circumstances altogether. But he did not feel his imagination equal to this. He would have to hold by his original story, keep to the facts, and nothing more. But surely some happy fortune would befriend him. He was more excited, but perhaps less hopeful, when Miss Barbara met him at the door of the Town House. Her words did not give him the encouragement she intended. Her luncheon and her house and her confidence were for the moment intolerable to John, as are so often the well-meant consolations of his elders to a young man driven half frantic by warmer hopes and fears. He came to himself altogether when he stepped within the place in which he felt that his fate was to be decided. Though it was contrary to custom, several of his friends, gentlemen of the county, had been admitted by favour of the sheriff to be present at the examination, foremost among them old Sir James, who towered over the rest with his fine white head and erect soldierly bearing. Lord Lindores was admitted under protest when the proceedings were beginning; and after him, white with dust, and haggard with excitement, Rintoul, who kept behind backs, standing⁠—so that his extremely agitated countenance, his lips, with a slight nervous quiver, as though he were about to speak, and eyes drawn together with a hundred anxious lines about them, were clearly apparent. John remarked this face over all the others with the utmost surprise. Rintoul had never been very cordial with him. What could be the reason for this extraordinary manifestation of interest now? John, from his too prominent place as the accused, had this agitated face confronting him, opposed to him as it seemed, half defying him, half appealing to him. Only the officials concerned⁠—the sheriff, who was a little slow and formal, making unnecessary delays in the proceedings, and the other functionaries⁠—could see as John could the face and marked position of Rintoul; and none of these personages took any notice. John only felt his eyes drawn to it instinctively. If all this passionate sympathy was for him, how could he ever repay Rintoul for friendship so unexpected? No doubt this was her doing too.

Just as the witnesses were about to be called who had been summoned⁠—and of whom, though John was not aware of it, Rintoul, who had (as was supposed) helped to find the body, was one⁠—an extraordinary interruption occurred. Mr. Monypenny, who to John’s surprise had not approached him or shown himself in his vicinity, suddenly rose, and addressing the sheriff, claimed an immediate stoppage of the proceedings, so far as Mr. Erskine was concerned. He was a very clearheaded and sensible man; but he was a country “man of business”⁠—a Scotch solicitor⁠—and he had his own formal way of making a statement. It was so formal, and had so many phrases in it only half comprehensible to unaccustomed ears, that it was some time before the little group of friends were fully aware what the interruption meant.

Mr. Monypenny announced, however, to the perfect understanding of the authorities present, that the person who had really encountered the unfortunate Mr. Torrance last, and been concerned in the scuffle which no doubt unfortunately was the cause of the accident, had come to his house on the previous night and given himself up. The man’s statement was perfectly clear and satisfactory, and would be supported by all the circumstantial evidence. He had kept back nothing, but displayed the most honourable anxiety to clear the gentleman who had been so unjustly accused and put to so much personal inconvenience.

“Is the man in court?” the sheriff asked.

“The man is here,” said Mr. Monypenny. The good man was conscious of the great effect he was producing. He looked round upon the group of gentlemen with thorough enjoyment of the situation; but he, too, was startled by the extraordinary aspect of Lord Rintoul. The young man was livid; great drops of perspiration stood on his forehead; the lines about his eyes were drawn tight, and the eyes themselves, two unquiet watchers, full of horror and astonishment, looked out wildly, watching everything that was done. His lips had dropped apart; he stood like a man who did not know what the next word might bring upon him.

“This is the man,” Mr. Monypenny said. Rintoul made a sudden step forward, striking his foot violently against the bench in front of him. The sheriff looked up angrily at the noise. There is something in a great mental struggle of any kind which moves the atmosphere around it. The sheriff looked up and saw three men standing at unequal distances before him: Mr. Monypenny in front of his chair with somebody tranquil and insignificant beside him, and in the distance a face full of extraordinary emotion. “Will you have the goodness to step forward?” the sheriff said: and then stopping himself peevishly, “This is all out of order. Produce the man.”

Rolls had risen quietly by Mr. Monypenny’s side. He was not like a brawler, much less an assassin. He was somewhat pale, but in his professional black coat and white tie, who could have looked more respectable? He had “cleaned himself,” as he said, with great care that morning. Haggard and unshaven as he had been on the previous night after his wanderings, he would scarcely have made so great a sensation as he did now, trim as a new pin, carefully shaved, carefully brushed. There was a half shout, half cry, from the little band of spectators, now thoroughly demoralised and incapable of keeping order. “Rolls, old Rolls!” John Erskine cried with consternation. Could this be the explanation of it? As for Rolls himself, the outcry acted upon him in the most remarkable way. He grew red and lost his temper. “It’s just me, gentlemen,” he said; “and can an accident not happen to a man in a humble condition of life as well as to one of you?” He was silenced at once, and the stir of amazement repressed; but nothing could prevent the rustle and whisper among the gentlemen, which would have become tumultuous had their presence there been more than tolerated. They all knew Rolls, and to connect him with such an event was impossible. The tragedy seemed over, and at the utmost a tragicomedy, a solemn farce, had taken its place.

Rolls’s statement, however, was serious enough. It was to the effect that he had met his master coming down from Tinto in the condition of which so much had been made, when he himself was going up to make a request to Mr. Torrance about a lease⁠—that he met Torrance close to the Scaur “coming thundering down the brae” in a state of excitement and temper such as it was well enough known Tinto was subject to. Rolls acknowledged that in such circumstances he ought not to have stopped him and introduced his suit⁠—but this was merely an error of judgment. Tinto, he said, received his request very ill, and called his nephew⁠—for whom he was going to plead⁠—a ne’er-do-weel⁠—which was not the case, let him say it that would. And here again Rolls was wrong, he allowed⁠—it was another error of judgment⁠—but he was not going to have his own flesh and blood abused. He stood up for it to Tinto’s face that Willie Rolls was as respectable a lad as ever ploughed land. It was well known what Tinto was, a man that had no thought but a word and a blow. He rode at Rolls furiously. “I took hold of the beast’s bridle to push her back⁠—what I could do. She would have had her hoofs on me in a moment.” Then he saw with horror the rear, the bound back, the false step; and then horse and man went thundering over the Scaur. Rolls declared that he lost no time in calling for help⁠—in trying all he could to save the victim. Lord Rintoul would bear him witness, for his lordship met him in the wood, routing like a wild beast. Nothing could be more consistent, more simple, than the whole story⁠—it bore the stamp of truth on every line⁠—or such at least was the conclusion of the sheriff, and the procurator, and the crier, and the town officer, and every official about the Town House of Dunearn.

The formidable examination which had excited so much interest terminated by the return of John’s fly to Dunnotter, with the butler in it, very grave and impressive in the solemn circumstances. Rolls himself did not choose to consider his position lightly. He acknowledged with great respect the salutations of the gentlemen, who could not be prevented from crowding to the door of the fly after him. Sir James, who was the first, thrust something secretly into Rolls’s hand. “They’ll not treat you so well as they treated your master. You must fee them⁠—fee them, Rolls,” said the old general. “It’ll be better than I deserve, Sir James,” Rolls said. “Hoot! nothing will happen to you, man!” said Sir James. “He was well inspired to make a clean breast of it,” Mr. Monypenny said. “The truth before all⁠—it’s the best policy.” “You’re very kind to say sae, sir,” said Rolls, solemnly. As he spoke he met the eye of Lord Rintoul, who stood behind fixing his regard upon the face of John’s substitute. It was a trouble to Rolls to understand what the young lord could mean, “glowering” as he did, but saying nothing. Was he better aware of the facts of the case than anyone suspected? might he come in with his story and shatter that of Rolls? This gave the old servant a little anxiety as he sat back solemnly in his corner, and was driven away.

It would be impossible to enumerate all the visitors who thronged into Miss Barbara Erskine’s house that day. She had three more leaves put into her dining-table, and Janet added dish to dish with the wildest prodigality. Sir James Montgomery was one of those who “convoyed” John to his old relative’s house. He walked upon one side of the hero, and Lord Lindores upon the other. “I will not conceal my fault from you, Miss Barbara,” he said. “I thought when I heard his story first it was just the greatest nonsense. But it worked upon me⁠—it worked upon me; and then Lady Montgomery, she would not hear a word.”

“Women understand the truth when they hear it; it’s none so often,” Miss Barbara said, flushed with triumph and happiness. Rintoul had come in with the rest⁠—or rather after the rest. He and John were the two who were somewhat out of all this tumult and rejoicing. They had not spoken to each other, keeping apart with an instinctive repugnance, silent in the midst of the rejoicing. But the rest of the company made up the deficiency. Such a luncheon! a duke’s son from England, an earl, all the best men in the county: and Janet’s dishes praised and consumed to the last morsel, and the best wine brought up from the cellar, and the house not big enough to contain the guests. Miss Barbara sat at the head of the table, with a little flush of triumph on her cheek. “It’s like a marriage feast,” she said to Sir James when they rose from the table.

“And I cannot see what should hinder it to be the forerunner⁠—but the breakfast shall be at my house, Miss Barbara, since her parents have no house of their own here.”

“Oh, who are you calling her?” said Miss Barbara, shaking her head; and as she spoke she turned towards a group in a corner⁠—two young figures close together. Sir James’s countenance grew long, but Miss Barbara’s bloomed out in genial triumph. “It’s not the first time,” she said, “that we have had a lady o’ title in Dalrulzian⁠—and it will not be the last.” The magic of rank had triumphed even over prejudice. There could be no denying that Lady Edith Erskine would be a bonnie name⁠—and a bonnie creature too.

“I got your letter,” John said. “I suppose an angel must have brought it. There is no telling how wretched I was before, or how happy after.”

“No angel, but my mother’s footman. I am afraid you thought it very bold, Mr. Erskine. I was afraid after, that I had said too much.”

“I think so too⁠—unless you mean it to kill me like a sweet poison; which it will do, unless there is more⁠—”

“Mr. Erskine, you have not quite come to yourself⁠—all this excitement has gone to your head.”

“I want more,” said John⁠—“more!” And Edith’s eyes sank before his. It was not like the affectionate proposals of Millefleurs, whose voice was audible now even through those low syllables so different in their tone. And Lady Lindores at that moment took her daughter by the arm. “Edith,” she said, in a tone of fright, “Edith!” Oh foolish, foolish mother! had she never thought of this till now?

The window of the dining-room looked out into the garden. Nevertheless, it was possible to find a covert where two could talk and not be seen. And while the gentlemen rose from the table, and Lady Lindores came to her daughter’s rescue, a very different group, two very agitated pale young people, stood together there, without a single demonstration of tenderness or even friendship, looking at each other with eager eyes. Or rather the girl looked at the man, whose courage had failed him, who stood before her like a culprit, not venturing to raise his eyes to her face. “What is the meaning of it?” she cried. “Oh, what is the meaning of it?” She stamped her foot upon the ground in her excitement and the intolerable trouble of her thoughts. “You told me⁠—one thing; and now another has happened. What does it mean?”

“Nora,” he said, clasping his hands, “don’t be so hard upon me!”

“What does it mean?” she cried, her soft face growing stern, her nostrils dilating. “Either what you said is false, or this is false; and anyhow, you, you are false, Lord Rintoul! Oh, cannot you tell me what it means? Is it that you are not brave enough to stand up by yourself⁠—to say, It was I⁠—”

“For God’s sake, Nora! I was ready, quite ready to do it, though it would have been ruin to me. I had made up my mind. But what could I do when this man stood up before me and said⁠—He told the whole story almost exactly as⁠—as it happened. I was stupefied; but what could I do? I declare to you, Nora, when old Monypenny got up and said ‘The man is here,’ I jumped up, I stood forward. And then I was confounded, I could not say a word.” Here he approached a little nearer and put out his hand to take hers. “Why should I, Nora⁠—now tell me why should I? when this other man says it was he. He ought to know,” Rintoul added, with a groan of faint tentative humour in his voice. He did not know how far he might venture to go.

Once more Nora stamped her foot on the ground. “Oh, I cannot away with you!” she cried. It was one of Miss Barbara’s old-fashioned phrases. She was at the end of her own. She would have liked, she thought, to strike him as he stood before her deprecating, yet every moment recovering himself.

“If another man chooses to take it upon him, why should I contradict him?” Rintoul said, with good sense unanswerable. “I was stunned with astonishment; but when you reflect, how could I contradict him? If he did it for John Erskine’s sake, it would have spoiled the arrangement.”

“John Erskine would never make any arrangement. If he had been to blame he would have borne it. He would not have shirked or drawn back!”

“You think better of John Erskine than of me, Nora. I do not know what it is, but I have no right to interfere. I’ll give the old fellow something when it’s all over. It is not for me he is doing it, whatever is his reason. I should spoil it all if I said a word. Will you forgive me now?” said Rintoul, with a mixture of calm reason and anxiety. He had quite recovered himself. And Nora, still in a flutter of slowly dissipating excitement, could find no argument against that sturdy good sense of his. For he was strong in sense, however worldly it might be.

“I cannot understand it at all. Do you know who the man was?” she said.

And then he laughed⁠—actually laughed⁠—though he was on the borders of desperation an hour ago. The echo of it seemed to run round the garden among the listening trees and horrified Nora. But at his next word she threw up her hands in consternation, with a cry of bewilderment, confusion, almost amusement too, though she would have thought that impossible⁠—“Old Rolls!”

XLIV

John Erskine returned to Dalrulzian alone after this wonderful morning’s work. He could scarcely believe that he was free to walk where he pleased⁠—to do what he liked. Four days is not a long period of time. But prison has an extraordinary effect, and his very limbs had seemed to tingle when he got the uncontrolled use of them again. Lord Lindores had driven him back as far as the gates of Lindores, and from thence he walked on, glad of the air, the sense of freedom and movement⁠—the silence in which to realise all that had passed. Enough had passed, indeed, to give full occasion for thought; and it was only now that the extraordinary character of the event struck him. Rolls! to associate Rolls with a tragedy. In his excitement John burst into a wild fit of laughter, which echoed along the quiet road; then, horrified by the sound, drew himself quickly together, and went on with the gravest countenance in the world. But it must be added that this thought of Rolls was only momentary⁠—it came and went, and was dropped into the surrounding darkness, in which all accidents of common life were heaped together as insignificant and secondary, in comparison with one central consciousness with which his whole firmament was ablaze. He had demanded “More! more!” but had not received another word. No explanation had ensued. The mother had come in with soft authority, with a steadfast blank of all understanding. Lady Lindores would not see that they wanted to talk to each other. She had not ceased to hold her daughter by the arm, affectionately leaning upon her, until they went away: and Edith had not spoken another word⁠—had not even met his anxious looks with more than the most momentary fugitive glance. Thus John had withdrawn in that state of half certainty which, perhaps, is more absorbing to the faculties and more transporting to the heart than any definite and indisputable fact ever can be. His whole being was in movement, agitated by a delicious doubt, by an eager breathless longing to know, which was sweeter than knowledge. All the romance and witchcraft of passion was in it, its most ethereal part

“Hopes, and fears that kindle hopes⁠—
An indistinguishable throng;
And gentle wishes long subdued,
Subdued and cherished long.”

Such was the potency of this charm, that, after he had thrown one thought at Rolls, and perceived the absurdity of the event, and given vent to the excited commentary of that laugh, John abandoned himself altogether to the sea of fancies, the questions, the answers, the profound trains of reasoning which belonged to that other unresolved and all-entrancing problem. He discussed with himself every word of Edith’s letter, turning it over and over. Did it mean this? or peradventure, after all, did it only mean that? But if it meant that and not this, would she have so replied to his looks? would not she have said something more definitely discouraging when he appealed to her for More! more? She had not given him a word more; but she had replied with no stony look, no air of angry surprise or disdain, such as surely⁠—Yet, on the other hand, might it not be possible that compassion and sympathy for his extraordinary circumstances, and the wrong he had undergone, might keep her, so sweet and good as she was, from any discouraging word? Only, in that case, would she have cast down her eyes like that? would they have melted into that unspeakable sweetness? So he ran on, as so many have done before him. He thought no more of the matter which had affected him so deeply for the last week, or of Torrance, who was dead, or of Rolls, who was in jail, than he did of last year’s snow. Every interest in heaven and earth concentrated to him in these endless delightful questions. When a man, or, for that matter, a woman, is in this beatific agitation of mind, the landscape generally becomes a sort of blurr of light around them, and, save to the inward eye, which more than ever at such a moment is “the bliss of solitude,” there is nothing that is very clearly visible. John saw this much, but no more, in Miss Barbara’s old-fashioned dining-room⁠—the genial gentlemen still at table, and Miss Barbara herself, in her white shawl, forming only a background to the real interest; and he perceived no more of the country round him as he walked, or the glow of the autumn foliage, the distance rolling away in soft blueness of autumnal mists to Tinto. He managed to walk along the road without seeing it, though it was so familiar, and arrived at his own gate with great surprise, unable to comprehend how he could have come so far. When he opened the gate, Peggy Fleming came out with her apron folded over her hands; but when she saw who it was, Peggy, forgetting the soapsuds, which showed it was washing day, flung up her red moist arms to the sky, and gave utterance to a wild “skreigh” of welcome and joy. For a moment John thought nothing less than that he was to be seized in those wildly waving and soapy arms.

“Eh, it’s the master!” Peggy cried. “Eh, it’s himsel’! Eh, it’s lies, every word; and I never believed it, no’ a moment!” And with that she threw her apron over her head and began to sob⁠—a sound which brought out all her children, one after another, to hang upon her skirts and eagerly investigate the reason why.

The warmth of this emotional welcome amused him, and he paused to say a word or two of kindness before he passed on. But he had not anticipated the excitement with which he was to be received. When he came in sight of his own house, the first sound of his step was responded to by the watchers within with an anxious alacrity. A head popped out at a window; a white-aproned figure appeared from the back of the house, and ran back at the sight of him. And then there arose a “skreigh” of rapture that threw Peggy’s altogether into the shade, and Bauby rushed out upon him, with open arms, and all her subordinates behind her, moist and flowing with tears of joy. “Eh, Mr. John! Eh, my bonny man! Eh, laddie, laddie⁠—that I should call you sae! my heart’s just broken. And have you come hame? and have you come hame?”

“As you see,” said John. He began to be rather tired of this primitive rejoicing, which presupposed that his detention had been a very serious matter, although by this time, in the crowd of other thoughts, it had come to look of no importance at all. But he remembered that he had a communication to make which, no doubt, would much lessen this delight; and he did not now feel at all disposed to laugh when he thought of Rolls. He took Bauby by the arm, and led her with him, astonished, into the library. The other maids remained collected in the hall. To them, as to Peggy at the lodge, it seemed the most natural thing to imagine that he had escaped, and might be pursued. The excitement rose very high among them: they thought instantly of all the hiding-places that were practicable, each one of them being ready to defend him to the death.

And it was very difficult to convey to the mind of Bauby the information which John had to communicate. “Oh ay, sir,” she said, with a curtsey; “just that. I was sure Tammas was at Dunnotter to be near his maister. He has a terrible opinion of his maister; but now you’re back yoursel’, there will be nothing to keep him.”

“You must understand,” said John, gently, “that Rolls⁠—it was, I have no doubt, the merest accident; I wonder it did not happen to myself: Rolls⁠—caught his bridle, you know⁠—”

“Oh ay⁠—just that, sir,” said Bauby; “but there will be nothing to keep him, now you’re back yoursel’.”

“I’m afraid I don’t make myself plain,” said John. “Try to understand what I am saying. Rolls⁠—your brother, you know⁠—”

“Oh ay,” said Bauby, smiling broadly over all her beaming face, “he’s just my brother⁠—a’body kens that⁠—and a real good brother Tammas has aye been to me.”

John was at his wits’ end. He began the story a dozen times over, and softened and broke it up into easy words, as if he had been speaking to a child. At last it gradually dawned upon Bauby, not as a fact, but as something he wanted to persuade her of. It was a shock, but she bore it nobly. “You are meaning to tell me, sir, that it was Tammas⁠—our Tammas⁠—that killed Pat Torrance, yon muckle man? Na⁠—it’s just your joke, sir. Gentlemen will have their jokes.”

“My joke!” cried John in horror; “do you think it is anything to joke about? I cannot understand it any more than you can. But it is fact;⁠—it is himself that says so. He got hold of the bridle⁠—”

“Na, Mr. John; na, na, sir. What is the good of frightening a poor lone woman? The like of that could never happen. Na, na.”

“But it is he himself who has said it; no one else could have imagined it for a moment. It is his own story⁠—”

“And if it is,” said Bauby⁠—“mind ye, Mr. John, I ken nothing about it; but I ken our Tammas⁠—if it is, he’s just said it to save⁠—ithers: that’s the way of it. I ken him and his ways⁠—”

“To save⁠—others?” The suggestion bewildered John.

“Oh ay⁠—it’s just that,” said Bauby again. She dried her eyes carefully with her apron, pressing a tear into each corner. “Him pit forth his hand upon a gentleman, and a muckle man like Pat Torrance, and a muckle beast! Na, na, Mr. John! But he might think, maybe, that a person like him, no’ of consequence⁠—though he’s of awfu’ consequence to me,” said Bauby, almost falling back into tears. She made an effort, however, and recovered her smile. “It’s just a thing I can very weel understand.”

“I think you must be out of your mind,” cried her master. “Such things are not done in our day. What! play with the law, and take upon him another man’s burden? Besides,” said John, impatiently, “for whom? In whom could he be so much interested as to play such a daring game?”

“Oh ay, sir, that’s just the question,” Bauby said composedly. From time to time she put up her apron. The shock she had received was comprehensible, but not the consolation. To follow her in this was beyond her master’s power.

“That is the question indeed,” John said gravely. “I think you must be mistaken. It is very much simpler to suppose what was the case⁠—that he gripped at the brute’s bridle to save himself from being ridden down. It is the most wonderful thing in the world that I did not do it myself.”

“I’m thinking sae, sir,” said Bauby, drily; and then she relapsed for a moment to the darker view of the situation, and rubbed her eyes with her apron. “What will they do with him?⁠—is there much they can do with him?” she said.

She listened to John’s explanations with composure, broken by sudden relapses into emotion; but, on the whole, she was a great deal more calm than John had expected. Her aspect confounded her master: and when at last she made him another curtsey, and folding her plump arms, with her apron over them, announced that “I maun go and see after my denner,” his bewilderment reached its climax. She came back, however, after she had reached the door, and stood before him for a moment with, if that was possible to Bauby, a certain defiance. “You’ll no’ be taking on another man,” she said, with a half-threatening smile but a slight quiver of her lip, “the time that yon poor lad’s away?”

This encounter was scarcely over when he had another claim made upon him by Beaufort, who suddenly rushed in, breathless and effusive, catching him by both hands and pouring forth congratulations. It was only then that it occurred to John as strange that Beaufort had not appeared at Dunearn, or taken any apparent interest in his fate; but the profuse explanations and excuses of his friend had the usual effect in directing his mind towards this dereliction from evident duty. Beaufort overflowed in confused apologies. “I did go to Dunearn, but I was too late; and I did not like to follow you to your aunt’s, whom I don’t know; and then⁠—and then⁠—The fact is, I had an engagement,” was the end of the whole; and as he said this, a curious change and movement came over Beaufort’s face.

“An engagement! I did not think you knew anybody.”

“No⁠—nor do I, except those I have known for years.”

“The Lindores?” John said hastily⁠—“they were all at Dunearn.”

“The fact is⁠—” Here Beaufort paused and walked to the fire, which was low, and poked it vigorously. He had nearly succeeded in making an end of it altogether before he resumed. “The fact is,”⁠—with his back to John⁠—“I thought it only proper⁠—to call⁠—and make inquiries.” He cleared his throat, then said hurriedly, “In short, Erskine, I have been to Tinto.” There was a tremulous sound in his voice which went to John’s heart. Who was he that he should blame his brother? A fellow-feeling makes us wondrous kind.

“Déjà!” was all that John said.

“Déjà⁠—yes; perhaps I ought to have waited. But when you reflect how long⁠—how long it is: and all that has happened, and what we both have suffered⁠—”

“Do you mean that you have gone over all that already?” John asked, amazed. But Beaufort made him no reply. The fumes of that meeting were still in his head, and all that he had said and all that had been said to him. The master of the house was scarcely out of it, so to speak; his shadow was still upon the great room, the staircases, and passages; but Carry had lived, it seemed to her years, since the decree of freedom was pronounced for her. If there was indecorum in his visit, she was unaware of it. To feel themselves together, to be able each to pour out to the other the changes in their minds, the difference of age and experience, the unchangeableness of the heart, was to them both a mystery⁠—a wonder inscrutable. Beaufort did not care a brass farthing for John’s escape; he had heard all about it, but he had not even taken it into his mind. He tried to put on a little interest now, and asked some confused questions without paying any attention to the answers he received. When they met at dinner they talked upon indifferent subjects, ignoring on both sides the things that were of the deepest interest. “Has not Rolls come back with you? Oh, I beg your pardon⁠—I forgot,” said Beaufort. And John did not think very much more of Rolls, to tell the truth.

Lord Millefleurs went away a few days after; but Beaufort considered that, on the whole, it would suit him better to remain in Scotland a little longer. “What can I do for you?” he said; “the Duke is deceiving himself. You are quite as well able to look after yourself as I am. Why should I pretend to exercise functions which we all know are quite unnecessary? I have only just come, and Erskine is willing to keep me. I think I shall stay.”

“My dear fellow,” said little Millefleurs, “your sentiments are mine to a T; but we agreed, don’t you know, that the Duke has a great many things in his power, and that it might be as well to humour him. You have eased his mind, don’t you know⁠—and why shouldn’t you get the good of it? You are too viewy and disinterested, and that sort of thing. But I am a practical man. Come along!” said Millefleurs. When Beaufort continued to shake his head, as he puffed out solemn mouthfuls of smoke, planting himself ever more deeply, as if to take root there, in his easy-chair, Millefleurs turned to John and appealed to him. “Make that fellow come along, Erskine; it will be for his good,” the little Marquis said. There was a slight pucker in his smooth forehead. “Life is not plain sailing,” he went on; “les convenances are not such humbug as men suppose. Look here, Beaufort, come along; it will be better for you, don’t you know⁠—”

“I am sick of thinking what is better for me,” said Beaufort. “I shall please myself for once in my life. What have the convenances to do with me?” He did not meet the look of his junior and supposed pupil, but got up and threw away his cigar and stalked to the window, where his long figure shut out almost all the light. Little Millefleurs folded his plump hands, and shook his round boyish head. The other was a much more dignified figure, but his outline against the light had a limp irresolution in it. He knew that he ought to go away; but how could he do it? To find your treasure that was lost after so many years, and then go straight away and leave it⁠—was that possible? And then, perhaps, it had flashed across Beaufort’s mind, who had been hanging on waiting for fortune so long, and never had bestirred himself⁠—perhaps it flashed upon him that now⁠—now⁠—the Duke’s patronage, and the places and promotions in his power, might be of less importance. But this was only a shadow flying like the shadows of the hills upon which he was gazing, involuntary, so that he was not to blame for it. Millefleurs went away alone next day. He took a very tender farewell of the ladies at Lindores, asking permission to write to them. “And if I hear anything of her, don’t you know? I shall tell you,” he said to Edith, holding her hand affectionately in both of his. “You must hear something of her⁠—you must go and find her,” said Edith. Millefleurs put his head on one side like a sentimental robin. “But it is quite unsuitable, don’t you know?” he said, and drove away, kissing his hand with many a tender token of friendship. Lord Lindores could scarcely endure to see these evidences of an affectionate parting. He had come out, as in duty bound, to speed the parting guest with the proper smile of hospitable regret; but as soon as Millefleurs was out of sight, turned upon his heel with an expression of disgust. “He is a little fool, if he is not a little humbug. I wonder if he ever was in earnest at all?” This was addressed to Rintoul, who of late had avoided all such subjects, and now made no reply.

“I say, I wonder whether he ever meant anything serious at all?” said Lord Lindores, in a tone of irritation, having called his son into the library after him; “and you don’t even take the trouble to answer me. But one thing he has done, he has invited you to Ess Castle; and as I suggested to you before, there is Lady Reseda, a very nice girl, in every way desirable⁠—”

“I have had my leave already,” said Rintoul, hastily. “It was kind of Millefleurs; but I don’t see how I can go⁠—”

“I never knew before that there was any such serious difficulty about leave,” said his father. “You can cut off your last fortnight here.”

“I don’t think that would do,” said Rintoul, with a troubled look. “I have made engagements⁠—for nearly every day.”

“You had better speak out at once. Tell me, what I know you are thinking, that the Duke’s daughter, because your father suggests her, is not to be thought of. You are all alike. I once thought you had some sense, Rintoul.”

“I⁠—I hope I have so still. I don’t think it is good taste to bring in a lady’s name⁠—”

“Oh, d⁠⸺⁠n your good taste,” cried the exasperated father; “a connection of this kind would be everything for me. What I am trying to obtain will, remember this, be for you and your children as well. You have no right to reap the benefit if you don’t do what you can to bring it about.”

“I should like to speak to you on⁠—on the whole subject⁠—some time or other,” said the young man. He was like a man eager to give a blow, yet so frightened that he ran away in the very act of delivering it. Lord Lindores looked at him with suspicious eyes.

“I don’t know any reason why you shouldn’t speak now. It would be well that we should understand each other,” he said.

But this took away all power from Rintoul. He almost trembled as he stood before his father’s too keen⁠—too penetrating eyes.

“Oh, don’t let me trouble you now,” he said, nervously; “and besides, I have something to do. Dear me, it is three o’clock!” he cried, looking at his watch and hurrying away. But he had really no engagement for three o’clock. It was the time when Nora, escaping from her old lady, came out for a walk; and they had met on several occasions, though never by appointment. Nora, for her part, would not have consented to make any appointment. Already she began to feel herself in a false position. She was willing to accept and keep inviolable the secret with which he had trusted her; but that she herself, a girl full of high-mindedness and honour, should be his secret too, and carry on a clandestine intercourse which nobody knew anything of, was to Nora the last humiliation. She had not written home since it happened; for to write home and not to tell her mother of what had happened, would have seemed to the girl falsehood. She felt false with Miss Barbara; she had an intolerable sense at once of being wronged, and wrong, in the presence of Lady Lindores and Edith. She would no more have made an appointment to meet him than she would have told a lie. But poor Nora, who was only a girl after all, notwithstanding these high principles of hers, took her walk daily along the Lindores road. It was the quietest, the prettiest. She had always liked it better than any other⁠—so she said to herself; and naturally Rintoul, who could not go to Dunearn save by that way, met her there. She received him, not with any rosy flush of pleasure, but with a blush that was hot and angry, resolving that tomorrow she would turn her steps in a different direction, and that this should not occur again; and she did not even give him her hand when they met, as she would have done to the doctor or the minister, or anyone of the ordinary passersby.

“You are angry with me, Nora,” he said.

“I don’t know that I have any right to be angry. We have very little to do with each other, Lord Rintoul.”

“Nora!” he cried; “Nora! do you want to break my heart. What is this? It is not so very long since!⁠—”

“It is long enough,” she said, “to let me see⁠—It is better that we should not say anything more about that. One is a fool⁠—one is taken by surprise⁠—one does not think what it means⁠—”

“Do you imagine I will let myself be thrown off like this?” he cried, with great agitation. “Nora, why should you despise me so⁠—all for the sake of old Rolls?”

“It is not all for the sake of old Rolls.”

“I will go and see him, if you like, today. I will find out from him what he means. It is his own doing, it is not my doing. You know I was more surprised than anyone. Nora, think! If you only think, you will see that you are unreasonable. How could I stand up and contradict a man who had accused himself?”

“I was not thinking of Rolls,” cried Nora, who had tried to break in on this flood of eloquence in vain. “I was thinking of⁠—Lord Rintoul, I am not a person of rank like you⁠—I don’t know what lords and ladies think it right to do⁠—but I will not have clandestine meetings with anyone. If a man wants me, if he were a prince, he must ask my father⁠—he must do it in the eye of day, not as if he were ashamed. Goodbye! do not expect me to see you any more.” She turned as she spoke, waved her hand, and walked quickly away. He was too much astonished to say a word. He made a step or two after her, but she called to him that she would not suffer it, and walked on at full speed. Rintoul looked after her aghast. He tried to laugh to himself, and to say, “Oh, it is that, is it?” but he could not. There was nothing gratifying to his pride to be got out of the incident at all. He turned after she was out of sight, and went home crestfallen. She never turned round, nor looked back⁠—made no sign of knowing that he stood there watching her. Poor Rintoul crept along homeward in the early gloaming with a heavy heart. He would have to beard the lions, then⁠—no help for it; indeed he had always intended to do it, but not now, when there was so much excitement in the air.

XLV

Rolls in the county jail, sent hither on his own confession, was in a very different position from John Erskine, waiting examination there. He was locked up without ceremony in a cell, his respectability and his well known antecedents all ignored. Dunnotter was at some distance from the district in which he was known, and Thomas Rolls, domestic servant, charged with manslaughter, did not impress the official imagination as Mr. Rolls the factotum of Dalrulzian had long impressed the mind of his own neighbourhood and surroundings. And Rolls, to tell the truth, was deeply depressed when he found himself shut up within that blank interior, with nothing to do, and nothing to support the amour propre which was his strength, except the inborn conviction of his own righteousness and exemplary position⁠—a sight for all men. But there is nothing that takes down the sense of native merit so much as solitude and absence of appreciation. Opposition and hostility are stimulants, and keep warm in us the sense of our own superiority, but not the contemptuous indifference of a surly turnkey to whom one is No. 25, and who cared not a straw for Rolls’s position and career. He felt himself getting limp as the long featureless days went on, and doubts of every kind assailed him. Had he been right to do it? Since he had made this sacrifice for his master, there had come into his mind a chill of doubt which he had never been touched by before. Was it certain that it was John who had done it? Might not he, Rolls, be making a victim of himself for some nameless tramp, who would never even know of it, nor care, and whose punishment would be doubly deserved and worthy of no man’s interference? Rolls felt that this was a suggestion of the devil for his discomfiture. He tried to chase it out of his mind by thinking of the pleasures he had secured for himself in that last week of his life⁠—of Edinburgh Castle and the Calton Jail and the Earthen Mound, and the wonders of the Observatory. To inspect these had been the dream of his life, and he had attained that felicity. He had believed that this would give him “plenty to think about” for the rest of his life⁠—and that, especially for the time of his confinement, it would afford an excellent provision; but he did not find the solace that he had expected in musing upon Mons Meg and the Scottish Regalia. How dreadful four walls become when you are shut up within them; how the air begins to hum and buzz after a while with your thoughts that have escaped you, and swarm about like bees, all murmurous and unresting⁠—these were the discoveries he made. Rolls grew nervous, almost hysterical, in the unusual quiet. What would he not have given for his plate to polish, or his lamps to trim! He had been allowed to have what are called writing materials⁠—a few dingy sheets of notepaper, a penny bottle of ink, a rusty steel pen⁠—but Rolls was not accustomed to literary composition; and a few books⁠—but Rolls was scornful of what he called “novelles,” and considered even more serious reading, as an occupation which required thought and a mind free of care. And nobody came to see him. He had no effusion of gratitude and sweet praise from his master. Mr. Monypenny was Rolls’s only visitor, who came to take all his explanations, and get a perfect understanding of how his case ought to be conducted. The butler had become rather limp and feeble before even Mr. Monypenny appeared.

“I’m maybe not worthy of much,” Rolls said, with a wave of his hand, “but I think there’s one or two might have come to see me⁠—one or two.”

“I think so too, Rolls; but it is not want of feeling. I have instructions from Mr. Erskine to spare no expense; to have the very best man that can be had. And I make no doubt we’ll carry you through. I’m thinking of trying Jardine, who is at the very top of the tree.”

“And what will that cost, if I may make so bold, Mr. Monypenny?”

When he heard the sum that was needed for the advocate’s fee, Rolls’s countenance fell, but his spirit rose. “Lord bless us!” he said⁠—“a’ that for standing up and discoursing before the Court! And most of them are real well pleased to hear themselves speak, if it were without fee or reward. I think shame to have a’ that siller spent upon me; but it’s a grand thing of the young master, and a great compliment: it will please Bauby too.”

“He ought to have come to see you⁠—so old a servant, and a most faithful one,” said Mr. Monypenny.

“Well-a-well, sir, there’s many things to be said: a gentleman has things to do; there’s a number of calls upon his time. He would mean well, I make no doubt, and then he would forget; but to put his hand in his pocket like that! Bauby will be very well pleased. I am glad, poor woman, that she has the like of that to keep up her heart.”

“Well, Rolls, I am glad to see that you are so grateful. Thinking over all the circumstances, and that you lost no time in giving the alarm, and did your best to have succour carried to him, I think I may say that you will be let off very easy. I would not be astonished if you were discharged at once. In any case it will be a light sentence. You may keep your mind easy about that.”

“It’s all in the hands of Providence,” said Rolls. He was scarcely willing to allow that his position was one to be considered so cheerfully. “It will be a grand exhibition o’ eloquence,” he said; “and will there be as much siller spent, and as great an advocate on the other side, Mr. Monypenny? It’s a wonderful elevating thought to think that the best intellects in the land will be warstlin’ ower a simple body like me.”

“And that is true, Rolls; they will just warstle over ye⁠—it will be a treat to hear it. And if I get Jardine, he will do it con amore, for he’s a sworn enemy to the Procurator, and cannot bide the Lord Advocate. He’s a tremendous speaker when he’s got a good subject; and he’ll do it con amore.”

“Well-a-well, sir; if it’s con amoray or con onything else, sae long as he can convince the jury,” said Rolls. He was pleased with the importance of this point of view; but when Mr. Monypenny left him, it required all his strength of mind to apply this consolation. “If they would but do it quick, I wouldna stand upon the honour of the thing,” he said to himself.

Next day, however, he had a visitor who broke the tedium very effectually. Rolls could not believe his eyes when his door suddenly opened, and Lord Rintoul came in. The young man was very much embarrassed, and divided, apparently, between a somewhat fretful shame and a desire to show great cordiality. He went so far as to shake hands with Rolls, and then sat down on the only chair, not seeming to know what to do next. At length he burst forth, colouring up to his hair, “I want to know what made you say that?⁠—for you know it’s not true.”

Rolls, surprised greatly by his appearance at all, was thunderstruck by this sudden demand. “I don’t just catch your meaning, my lord,” he said.

“Oh, my meaning⁠—my meaning is not very difficult. What are you here for? Is it on Erskine’s account? Did he make any arrangement? What is he to do for you?” said Rintoul hurriedly. “It is all such a mystery to me, I don’t know what to make of it. When I heard you say it, I could not believe my ears.”

Rolls looked at him with a very steady gaze⁠—a gaze which gradually became unbearable to the young man. “Don’t stare at me,” he cried roughly, “but answer me. What is the meaning of it?⁠—that’s what I want to know.”

“Your lordship,” said Rolls, slowly, “is beginning at the hinder end of the subjik, so far as I can see. Maybe ye will tell me first, my lord, what right ye have to come into a jyel that belangs to the Queen’s maist sacred Majesty, as the minister says, and question me, a person awaiting my trial? Are ye a commissioner, or are ye an advocate, or maybe with authority from the Procurator himsel’? I never heard that you had anything to do with the law.”

“I’m sure I beg your pardon,” said Rintoul, subduing himself. “No; I’ve nothing to do with the law. I daresay I’m very abrupt. I don’t know how to put it, you know; but you remember I was there⁠—at least I wasn’t far off: I was⁠—the first person that came. They’ll call me for a witness at the trial, I suppose. Can’t you see what a confusing sort of thing it is for me. I know, you know. Don’t you know I know? Why, how could you have done it when it was⁠—Look here, it would be a great relief to me, and to another⁠—to⁠—a lady⁠—who takes a great interest in you⁠—if you would speak out plain.”

The eyes of Rolls were small and grey⁠—they were not distinguished by any brightness or penetrating quality; but any kind of eyes, when fixed immovably upon a man’s face, especially a man who has anything to hide, become insupportable, and burn holes into his very soul. Rintoul pushed away his chair, and tried to avoid this look. Then he perceived, suddenly, that he had appropriated the only chair, and that Rolls, whom he had no desire to irritate, but quite the reverse, was standing. He rose up hastily and thrust the chair towards him. “Look here,” he said, “hadn’t you better sit down? I didn’t observe it was the only seat in the⁠—room.”

“They call this a cell, my lord, and we’re in a jyel, not a private mansion. I’m a man biding the course of the law.”

“Oh yes, yes, yes! I know all that: why should you worry me?” cried Rintoul. He wanted to be civil and friendly, but he did not know how. “We are all in a muddle,” he said, “and don’t see a step before us. Why have you done it? What object had he in asking you, or you in doing it? Can’t you tell me? I’ll make it all square with Erskine if you’ll tell me: and I should know better what to do.”

“You take a great interest in me⁠—that was never any connection, nor even a servant in your lordship’s family. It’s awfu’ sudden,” said Rolls; “but I’ll tell you what, my lord⁠—I’ll make a bargain with you. If you’ll tell me what reason you have for wanting to ken, I will tell you whatfor I’m here.”

Rintoul looked at Rolls with a confused and anxious gaze, knowing that the latter on his side was reading him far more effectually. “You see,” he said, “I was⁠—somewhere about the wood. I⁠—I don’t pretend to mean that I could⁠—see what you were about exactly⁠—but⁠—but I know, you know!” cried Rintoul confusedly; “that’s just my reason⁠—and I want you to tell me what’s the meaning? I don’t suppose you can like being here,” he said, glancing round; “it must be dreadful slow work⁠—nothing to do. You remember Miss Barrington, who always took so great an interest in you? Well, it was she⁠—She⁠—would like to know.”

“Oh ay, Miss Nora,” said Rolls. “Miss Nora was a young lady I likit weel. It was a great wish of mine, if we ever got our wishes in this world, that Dalrulzian and her might have drawn together. She was awfu’ fond of the place.”

“Dalrulzian and⁠—! I suppose you think there’s nobody like Dalrulzian, as you call him,” cried Rintoul, red with anger, but forcing a laugh. “Well, I don’t know if it was for his sake or for your sake, Rolls; but Miss Nora⁠—wanted to know⁠—”

“And your lordship cam’ a’ this gait for that young lady’s sake? She is set up with a lord to do her errands,” said Rolls. “And there’s few things I would refuse to Miss Nora; but my ain private affairs are⁠—well, my lord, they’re just my ain private affairs. I’m no’ bound to unburden my bosom, except at my ain will and pleasure, if it was to the Queen hersel’.”

“That is quite true⁠—quite true, Rolls. Jove! what is the use of making mysteries?⁠—if I was ignorant, don’t you see! but we’re both in the same box. I was⁠—his brother-in-law, you know; that made it so much worse for me. Look here! you let me run on, and let out all sort of things.”

“Do you mean to tell me, Lord Rintoul, that it was you that pushed Pat Torrance over the brae?”

The two men stood gazing at each other. The old butler, flushed with excitement, his shaky old figure erecting itself, expanding, taking a commanding aspect; the young lord, pale, with anxious puckers about his eyes, shrinking backward into himself, deprecating, as if in old Rolls he saw a judge ready to condemn him. “We are all⁠—in the same box,” he faltered. “He was mad; he would have it: first, Erskine; if it didn’t happen with Erskine, it was his good luck. Then there’s you, and me⁠—” Rintoul never took his eyes from those of Rolls, on whose decision his fate seemed to hang. He was too much confused to know very well what he was saying. The very event itself, which he had scarcely been able to forget since it happened, began to be jumbled up in his mind. Rolls⁠—somehow Rolls must have had to do with it too. It was not he only that had seized the bridle⁠—that had heard the horrible scramble of the hoofs, and the dull crash and moan. He seemed to hear all that again as he stood drawing back before John Erskine’s servant. Erskine had been in it. It might just as well have happened to Erskine; and it seemed to him, in his giddy bewilderment, that it had happened again also to Rolls. But Rolls had kept his counsel, while he had betrayed himself. All the alarms which he had gone through on the morning of the examination came over him again. Well! perhaps she would be satisfied now.

“Then it was none of my business,” said Rolls. The old man felt as if he had fallen from a great height. He was stunned and silenced for the moment. He sat down upon his bed vacantly, forgetting all the punctilios in which his life had been formed. “Then the young master thinks it’s me,” he added slowly, “and divines nothing, nothing! and instead of the truth, will say till himself, ‘That auld brute, Rolls, to save his auld bones, keepit me in prison four days.’ ” The consternation with which he dropped forth sentence after sentence from his mouth, supporting his head in his hands, and looking out from the curve of his palms with horror-stricken eyes into the air, not so much as noticing his alarmed and anxious companion, was wonderful. Then after a long pause, Rolls, looking up briskly, with a light of indignation in his face, exclaimed, “And a’ the time it was you, my lad, that did it?⁠—I’m meaning,” Rolls added with fine emphasis, “my lord! and never steppit in like a gentleman to say, ‘It’s me⁠—set free that innocent man’⁠—”

“Rolls, look here!” cried Rintoul, with passion⁠—“look here! don’t think so badly till you know. I meant to do it. I went there that morning fully prepared. You can ask her, and she will tell you. When somebody said, ‘The man’s here’⁠—Jove! I stepped out; I was quite ready. And then⁠—you might have doubled me up with a touch;⁠—you might have knocked me down with a feather⁠—when I saw it was you. What could I do? The words were taken out of my mouth. Which of us would they have believed? Most likely they would have thought we were both in a conspiracy to save Erskine, and that he was the guilty one after all.”

It was not a very close attention which Rolls gave to this impassioned statement. He was more occupied, as was natural, with its effect upon his own position. “I was just an auld eediot,” he said to himself⁠—“just a fool, as I’ve been all my born days. And what will Bauby say? And Dalrulzian, he’ll think I was in earnest, and that it was just me! Lord be about us, to think a man should come to my age, and be just as great a fool! Him do it! No; if I had just ever thought upon the subjik; if I hadna been an eediot, and an ill-thinking, suspicious, bad-minded⁠—Lord! me to have been in the Dalrulzian family this thirty years, and kenned them to the backbone, and made such a mistake at the end⁠—” He paused for a long time upon this, and then added, in a shrill tone of emotion, shame, and distress, “And now he will think a’ the time that it was really me!”

Rintoul felt himself sink into the background with the strangest feelings. When a man has wound himself up to make an acknowledgment of wrong, whatever it is, even of much less importance than this, he expects to gain a certain credit for his performance. Had it been done in the Town House at Dunearn, the news would have run through the country and thrilled every bosom. When he considered the passionate anxiety with which Nora had awaited his explanation on that wonderful day, and the ferment caused by Rolls’s substitution of himself for his master, it seemed strange indeed that this old fellow should receive the confession of a person so much his superior, and one which might deliver him from all the consequences of his rashness, with such curious unconcern. He stood before the old butler like a boy before his schoolmaster, as much irritated by the carelessness with which he was treated as frightened for the certain punishment. And yet it was his only policy to ignore all that was disrespectful, and to conciliate Rolls. He waited, therefore, though with his blood boiling, through the sort of colloquy which Rolls thus held with himself, not interrupting, wondering, and yet saying to himself there could be no doubt what the next step must be.

“I am no’ showing ye proper respect, my lord,” said Rolls at last; “but when things is a’ out of the ordinar like this, it canna be wondered at if a man forgets his mainners. It’s terrible strange all that’s happened. I canna well give an account o’t to myself. That I should been such an eediot, and you⁠—maybe no’ so keen about your honour as your lordship’s friends might desire.” Here he made a pause, as sometimes a schoolmaster will do, to see his victim writhe and tempt him to rebellion. But Rintoul was cowed, and made no reply.

“And ye have much to answer for, my lord,” Rolls continued, “on my account, though ye maybe never thought me worth a thought. Ye’ve led me to take a step that it will be hard to win over⁠—that has now no justification and little excuse. For my part, I canna see my way out of it, one way or another,” he added, with a sigh; “for you’ll allow that it’s but little claim you, or the like of you, for all your lordship, have upon me.”

“I have no claim,” said Rintoul, hastily; and then he added, in a whisper of intense anxiety, “What are you going to do?”

Rolls rose up from his bed to answer this question. He went to the high window with its iron railings across the light, from which he could just see the few houses that surrounded the gates, and the sky, above them. He gave a sigh, in which there was great pathos and self-commiseration, and then he said, with a tone of bewilderment and despair, though his phraseology was not, perhaps, dignified⁠—“I’m in a hobble that I cannot see how to get out of. A man cannot, for his ain credit, say one thing one afternoon and another the next day.”

“Rolls,” said Rintoul, with new hope, coming a little closer, “we are not rich: but if I could offer you anything⁠—make it up to you, anyhow⁠—”

“Hold your peace, my lord,” said the old man testily⁠—“hold your peace. Speak o’ the vulgar!” he added to himself, in an undertone of angry scorn. “Maybe you think I did it for siller⁠—for something I was to get!” Then he returned to his bed and sat down again, passing Rintoul as if he did not see him. “But the lad is young,” he said to himself, “and it would be shairp, shairp upon the family, being the son-in-law and a’. And to say I did it, and then to say I didna do it, wha would put ony faith in me? I’m just committed to it one way or another. It’s not what I thought, but I’ll have to see it through. My Lord Rintoul,” said Rolls, raising his head, “you’ve gotten me into a pretty pickle, and I canna see my way out of it. I’m just that way situate that I canna contradict mysel’⁠—at least I will not contradict mysel’!” he added, with an angry little stamp of his foot. “They may say I’m a homicide, but no man shall say I’m a leear. It would make more scandal if I were to turn round upon you and convict ye out of your ain mouth, than if I were just to hold my tongue, and see what the High Court of Justeeciary will say.”

“Rolls!” Rintoul could not believe his ears in the relief and joy. He wanted to burst forth into a thousand thanks, but dared not speak lest he should offend rather than please. “Rolls! if you will do me such a kindness, I shall never forget it. No words can tell what I feel. If I can do anything⁠—no, no, that is not what I mean⁠—to please you⁠—to show my gratitude⁠—”

“I am not one to flatter,” said Rolls. “It would be for none of your sake⁠—it would be just for myself, and my ain credit. But there are twa-three things. You will sign me a paper in your ain hand of write, proving that it was you, and no’ me. I will make no use o’t till a’s blown over; but I wouldna like the master to go to his grave, nor to follow me to mine⁠—as he would be sure to do⁠—thinking it was me. I’ll have that for a satisfaction. And then there’s another bit maitter. Ye’ll go against our young master in nothing he’s set his heart upon. He is a lad that is sore left to himself. Good and evil were set before him, and he⁠—did not choose the good. And the third thing is just this. Him that brings either skaith or scorn upon Miss Nora, I’ll no’ put a fit to the ground for him, if he was the king. Thir’s my conditions, my Lord Rintoul. If ye like them, ye can give your promise⁠—if no’, no’; and all that is to follow will be according. For I’m no’ a Lindores man, nor have naething to do with the parish, let alane the family: ye needna imagine one way or another that it’s for your sake⁠—”

“If you want to set up as overseer over my conduct,” cried Rintoul hastily, “and interfere with my private concerns⁠—”

“What am I heedin’ aboot your lordship’s private concerns? No me! They’re above me as far as the castle’s above the kitchen. Na, na. Just what regards young Dalrulzian, and anything that has to do with Miss Nora⁠—”

“Don’t bring in a lady’s name, at least,” cried Rintoul, divided between rage and fear.

“And who was it that brought in the lady’s name? You can do it for your purpose, my lord, and I’ll do’t for mine. If I hear of a thing that lady’s father would not approve of, or that brings a tear to her bonnie eyes, poor thing! poor thing!⁠—”

“For heaven’s sake, Rolls, hold that tongue of yours! Do you think I want an old fellow like you to teach me my duty to⁠—to⁠—the girl I’m going to marry! Don’t drive a man mad by way of doing him a favour. I’m not ungrateful. I’ll not forget it. Whatever I can do!⁠—but for God’s sake don’t hit a fellow when he’s down⁠—don’t dig at me as if I hadn’t a feeling in me,” cried Rintoul. He felt more and more like a whipped schoolboy, half crying, half foaming at the mouth, with despite and humiliation. It is impossible to describe the grim pleasure with which Rolls looked on. He liked to see the effect of his words. He liked to bring this young lord to his knees, and enjoy his triumph over him. But there are limits to mortal enjoyment, and the time during which his visitor was permitted to remain with him was near an end. Rolls employed the few minutes that remained in impressing upon Rintoul the need for great caution in his evidence. “Ye maun take awfu’ care to keep to the truth. Ye’ll mind that a’ ye have to do with is after you and me met. An oath is no’ a thing to play with⁠—an oath,” said Rolls, shaking his grey head, “is a terrible thing.”

Rintoul, in his excitement, laughed loud. “You set me an excellent example,” he said.

“I hope so,” said Rolls gravely. “Ye’ll mind this, my lord, that the accused is no’ on his oath; he canna be called upon to criminate himself⁠—that’s one of the first grand safeguards of our laws. Whatever ill posterity may hear of me, there’s no’ one in the country can say that Thomas Rolls was mansworn!”

Rintoul left Dunnotter with feelings for which it would be difficult to find any description in words. There was a ringing in his ears as he drove across the bare moorland country about Dunnotter, a dizzying rush of all his thoughts. He had the feeling of a man who had just escaped a great personal danger, and scarcely realises, yet is tremblingly conscious in every limb, of his escape. He threw the reins to his groom when he approached Dunearn, and walked through the little town in the hope of seeing Nora, notwithstanding her disavowal of him, to pour out into her ears⁠—the only ones into which he could breathe it⁠—an account of this extraordinary interview. But it was in vain that he traced with eager feet every path she was likely to take, and walked past Miss Barbara’s house again and yet again, till the lamps began to be lighted in the tranquil streets and to show at the windows. The evening was chilly, and Rintoul was cold with agitation and anxiety. He felt more disconsolate than any Peri as he stood outside, and looking up saw the windows all closed so carefully, the shutters barred, the curtains drawn. There was no chance for him through these manifold mufflings, and he did not venture to go and ask for her, though she was so necessary to him⁠—not only his love and his affianced wife, as he said to himself, but his only confidant⁠—the sole creature in the world to whom he dared to speak of that which filled his mind and heart. It was with the most forlorn sense of abandonment and desolation that he turned his face towards the house in which he was so important, and so much love awaited him, but where nobody knew even the A.B.C. of his history. His only confidant was offended Nora, who had vowed to see him no more.

XLVI

After this there ensued a brief pause in the history of the family in all its branches: it was a pause ominous, significant⁠—like the momentary hush before a storm, or the torrent’s smoothness ere it dashes below. The house of Lindores was like a besieged stronghold, mined, and on the eve of explosion. Trains were laid in all directions under its doomed bastions, and the merest breath, a flash of lightning, a touch of electricity anywhere, would be enough to bring down its defences in thunders of ruin. It seemed to stand in a silence that could be felt, throwing up its turrets against the dull sky⁠—a foreboding about it which could not be shaken off. From every side assaults were preparing. The one sole defender of the stronghold felt all round him the storm which was brewing, but could not tell when or how it was to burst forth. Lord Lindores could scarcely have told whence it was that this vague apprehension came. Not from any doubt of Rintoul, surely, who had always shown himself full of sense, and stood by him. Not from Edith⁠—who had, indeed, been very rebellious, but had done her worst. And as for Carry: Carry, it was true, was left unfettered and her own mistress, so to speak; but he had never found any difficulty with her, and why should he fear it now? An uneasiness in respect to her future had, however, arisen in his mind. She had made that violent protest against interference on the night of the funeral, which had given him a little tremor of alarm; but why should he anticipate danger, he said to himself? It might be needful, perhaps, to proceed with a little delicacy, not to frighten her⁠—to go very softly; but Carry would be amenable, as she had always been. And thus he endeavoured to quiet the apprehensions within him.

There was one thing, however, which the whole family agreed upon, which was, in an uneasy sense, that the presence of Beaufort in their neighbourhood was undesirable. If they agreed in nothing else they agreed in this. It was a shock to all of them to find that he had not departed with Millefleurs. Nothing could be more decided than Rintoul was in this respect. So far as that went, he was evidently disposed to take to the full the same view as his father. And Edith, though she had been so rebellious, was perfectly orthodox here. It was not for some time after the departure of Millefleurs, indeed, that the ladies made the discovery, not only that Beaufort was still at Dalrulzian, but that he had been at Tinto. The latter fact had been concealed from Lord Lindores, but it added sadly to the embarrassment and trouble of the others. They were all heavy with their secrets⁠—all holding back something⁠—afraid to divulge the separate course which each planned to take for themselves. A family will sometimes go on like this for a long time with the semblance of natural union and household completeness, while it has in reality dropped to pieces, and holds together only out of timidity or reluctance on the part of its members to burst the bonds of tradition, of use and wont. But on one point they were still united. Carry was the one subject upon which all were on the alert, and all agreed. Rintoul had no eyes for Edith’s danger, and Edith⁠—notwithstanding many an indication which would have been plain enough to her in other circumstances⁠—never even suspected him; but about Carry the uneasiness was general. “What is that fellow doing hanging about the place?⁠—he’s up to no good,” Rintoul said, even in the midst of his own overwhelming embarrassments. “I wonder,” was Lady Lindores’s way of putting it⁠—not without a desire to make it apparent that she disapproved of someone else⁠—“I wonder how John Erskine, knowing so much as he does, can encourage Mr. Beaufort to stay.” “Mamma! how can you suppose he encourages him⁠—can he turn him out of his house?” cried Edith, flaming up in instant defence of her lover, and feeling her own guilt and hidden consciousness in every vein. There was no tender lingering now upon Beaufort’s name, no hesitation or slip into the familiar “Edward.” As for Rintoul, he had been providentially, as he felt, delivered from the necessity of speaking to his father of his own concerns, by being called away suddenly to the aid of a fellow officer in trouble. It tore his heart, indeed, to be out of reach of Nora; but as Nora would not see him, the loss was less than it might have been, and the delay a gain. Edith’s story was in abeyance altogether; and their mourning, though it was merely of the exterior, brought a pause in the ordinary intercourse of social life. They did not go out, nor receive their neighbours⁠—it was decorous to refrain even from the very mild current of society in the country. And this, indeed, it was which made the pause possible. Lord Lindores was the only member of the family who carried on his usual activities unbroken, or even stimulated by the various catastrophes that had occurred. He was more anxious than ever about the county hospitals and the election that must take place next year; and he began to employ and turn to his own advantage the important influence of the Tinto estate, which he, as the little heir’s grandfather, was certainly entitled, he thought, to consider as his own. Little Tommy was but four; and though, by a curious oversight, Lord Lindores had not been named as a guardian, he was, of course, in the circumstances, his daughter’s natural guardian, who was Tommy’s. This accession of power almost consoled him for the destruction of his hopes in respect to Millefleurs. He reflected that, after all, it was a more legitimate way of making himself indispensable to his country, to wield the influence of a great landed proprietor, than by any merely domestic means; and with Tinto in his hands, as well as Lindores, no man in the county could stand against him. The advantage was all the greater, since Pat Torrance had been on the opposite side of politics, so that this might reasonably be concluded a county gained to the Government. To be sure, Lord Lindores was far too high-minded, and also too safe a man, to intimidate, much less bribe. But a landlord’s legitimate influence is never to be undervalued; and he felt sure that many men who had been kept under, in a state of neutrality, at least, by Torrance’s rough and brutal partisanship⁠—would now be free to take the popular side, as they had always wished to do. The influence of Tinto, which he thus appropriated, more than doubled his own in a moment. There could not have been a more perfect godsend to him than Torrance’s death.

But the more he perceived and felt the importance of this, the more did the presence of Beaufort disturb and alarm him. It became daily a more urgent subject in the family. When Lord Lindores got vague information that Carry had met somewhere her old lover on the roadside⁠—which somebody, of course, saw and reported, though it did not reach his ears till long after⁠—his dim apprehensions blazed into active alarm. He went to his wife in mingled anger and terror. To him, as to so many husbands, it always appeared that adverse circumstances were more or less his wife’s fault. He told her what he had heard in a tempest of indignation. “You must tell her it won’t do. You must let her know that it’s indecent, that it’s shameful. Good heavens, just think what you are doing!⁠—letting your daughter, your own daughter, disgrace herself in the sight of the whole county. Talk about the perceptions of women! They have no perceptions⁠—they have no moral sense, I believe. Tell Carry I will not have it. If you don’t, I must interfere.” Lady Lindores received this fulmination with comparative silence. She scarcely said anything in her own defence. She was afraid to speak lest she should betray that she had known more than her husband knew, and was still more deeply alarmed than he was. She said, “You are very unjust,” but she said no more. That evening she wrote an anxious note to John Erskine; the next day she drove to Tinto with more anxiety than hope. Already a great change had come over that ostentatious place. The great rooms were shut up; the less magnificent ones had already begun to undergo a transformation. The large meaningless ornaments were being carried away. An air of home and familiar habitation had come about the house. Carry, in her widow’s cap, had begun to move lightly up and down with a step quite unlike the languor of her convalescence. She was not convalescent any longer, but had begun to bloom with a soft colour and subdued air of happiness out of the cloud that had enveloped her so long. To see her so young (for her youth seemed to have come back), so fresh and almost gay, gave a wonderful pang of mingled pain and delight to her mother’s heart: it showed what a hideous cloud that had been in which her life had been swallowed up, and to check her in her late and dearly bought renewal of existence was hard, and took away all Lady Lindores’s courage. But she addressed herself to her task with all the strength she could muster. “My darling, I am come to⁠—talk to you,” she said.

“I hope so, mother dear; don’t you always talk to me? and no one so sweetly,” Carry said, with her lips upon her mother’s cheek, in that soft forestalling of all rebuke which girls know the secret of. Perhaps she suspected something of what was coming, and would have stopped it if she could.

“Ah, Carry! but it is serious⁠—very serious, dear: how am I to do it?” cried Lady Lindores. “The first time I see light in my child’s eye and colour on her cheek, how am I to scold and threaten? You know I would not if I could help it, my Carry, my darling.”

“Threaten, mamma! Indeed, that is not in your way.”

“No, no; it is not. But you are mother enough yourself to know that when anything is wrong, we must give our darlings pain even for their own dear sakes. Isn’t it so, Carry? There are things that a mother cannot keep still and see her dear child do.”

Carry withdrew from behind her mother’s chair, where she had been standing with one arm round her, and the other tenderly smoothing down the fur round Lady Lindores’s throats. She came and sat down opposite to her mother, facing her, clasping her hands together, and looking at her with an eager look as if to anticipate the censure in her eyes. To meet that gaze which she had not seen for so long, which came from Carry’s youth and happier days, was more and more difficult every moment to Lady Lindores.

“Carry, I don’t know how to begin. You know, my darling, that⁠—your father is unhappy about you. He thinks, you know⁠—perhaps more than you or I might do⁠—of what people will say.”

“Yes, mother.”

Carry gave her no assistance, but sat looking at her with lips apart, and that eager look in her eyes⁠—the look that in old times had given such a charm to her face, as if she would have read your thought before it came to words.

“Carry, dear, I am sure you know what I mean. You know⁠—Mr. Beaufort is at Dalrulzian.”

“Edward? Yes, mother,” said Carry, a blush springing up over her face; but for all that she did not shrink from her mother’s eyes. And then her tone sunk into infinite softness⁠—“Poor Edward! Is there any reason why he shouldn’t be there?”

“Oh, Carry!” cried Lady Lindores, wringing her hands, “you know well enough⁠—there can only be one reason why, in the circumstances, he should wish to continue there.”

“I think I heard that my father had invited him, mamma.”

“Yes. I was very much against it. That was when he was supposed to be with Lord Millefleurs⁠—when it was supposed, you know, that Edith⁠—and your father could not ask the one without asking the other.”

“In short,” said Carry, in her old eager way, “it was when his coming here was misery to me⁠—when it might have been made the cause of outrage and insult to me⁠—when there were plans to wring my heart, to expose me to⁠—Oh, mother, what are you making me say? It is all over, and I want to think only charitably, only kindly. My father would have done it for his own plans. And now he objects when he has nothing to do with it.”

“Carry, take care, take care. There can never be a time in which your father has nothing to do with you: if he thinks you are forgetting⁠—what is best in your position⁠—or giving people occasion to talk.”

“I have been told here,” said Carry, with a shiver, looking round her, “that no one was afraid I would go wrong; oh no⁠—that no one was afraid of that. I was too proud for that.” The colour all ebbed away from her face; she raised her head higher and higher. “I was told⁠—that it was very well known there was no fear of that: but that it would be delightful to watch us together, to see how we would manage to get out of it⁠—and that we should be thrown together every day. That⁠—oh no⁠—there was no fear I should go wrong! This was all said to your daughter, mother: and it was my father’s pleasure that it should be so.”

“Oh Carry, my poor darling! No, dear⁠—no, no. Your father never suspected⁠—”

“My father did not care. He thought, too, that there was no fear I should go wrong. Wrong!” Carry cried, starting from her seat in her sudden passion. “Do you know, mother, that the worst wrong I could have done with Edward would have been whiteness, innocence itself, to what you have made me do⁠—oh, what you have made me do, all those hideous, horrible years!”

Lady Lindores rose too, her face working piteously, the tears standing in her eyes. She held out her hands in appeal, but said nothing, while Carry, pale, with her eyes shining, poured forth her wrong and her passion. She stopped herself, however, with a violent effort. “I do not want even to think an unkind thought,” she said⁠—“now: oh no, not an unkind thought. It is over now⁠—no blame, no reproach; only peace⁠—peace. That is what I wish. I only admire,” she cried, with a smile, “that my father should have exposed me to all that in the lightness of his heart and without a compunction; and then, when God has interfered⁠—when death itself has sheltered and protected me⁠—that he should step in, par example, in his fatherly anxiety, now!⁠—”

“You must not speak so of your father, Carry,” said Lady Lindores; “his ways of thinking may not be yours⁠—or even mine: but if you are going to scorn and defy him, it must not be to me.”

Carry put her mother down in her chair again with soft caressing hands, kissing her in an accès of mournful tenderness. “You have it all to bear, mother dear⁠—both my indignation and his⁠—what shall I call it?⁠—his over-anxiety for me; but listen, mother, it is all different now. Everything changes. I don’t know how to say it to you, for I am always your child, whatever happens; but, mamma, don’t you think there is a time when obedience⁠—is reasonable no more?”

“It appears that Edith thinks so too,” Lady Lindores said gravely. “But, Carry, surely your father may advise⁠—and I may advise. There will be remarks made⁠—there will be gossip, and even scandal. It is so soon, not more than a month. Carry, dear, I think I am not hard; but you must not⁠—indeed you must not⁠—”

“What, mother?” said Carry, standing before her proudly with her head aloft. Lady Lindores gazed at her, all inspired and glowing, trembling with nervous energy and life. She could not put her fears, her suspicions, into words. She did not know what to say. What was it she wanted to say? to warn her against⁠—what? There are times in which it is essential for us to be taken, as the French say, at the half word, not to be compelled to put our terrors or our hopes into speech. Lady Lindores could not name the ultimate object of her alarm. It would have been brutal. Her lips would not have framed the words.

“You know what I mean, Carry; you know what I mean,” was all that she could say.

“It is hard,” Carry said, “that I should have to divine the reproach and then reply to it. I think that is too much, mother. I am doing nothing which I have any reason to blush for;” but as she said this, she did blush, and put her hands up to her cheeks to cover the flame. Perhaps this sign of consciousness convinced the mind which Lady Lindores only excited, for she said suddenly, with a tremulous tone: “I will not pretend to misunderstand you, mamma. You think Edward should go away. From your point of view it is a danger to me. But we do not see it in that light. We have suffered a great deal, both he and I. Why should he forsake me when he can be a comfort to me now?”

“Carry, Carry!” cried her mother in horror⁠—“a comfort to you! when it is only a month, scarcely a month, since⁠—”

“Don’t speak of that,” Carry cried, putting up her hands. “What if it had only been a day? What is it to me what people think? Their thinking never did me any good while I had to suffer⁠—why should I pay any attention to it now?”

“But we must, so long as we live in the world at all, pay attention to it,” cried Lady Lindores, more and more distressed; “for your own sake, my dearest, for your children’s sake.”

“My children!⁠—what do they know? they are babies; for my own sake? Whether is it better, do you think, to be happy or to be miserable, mother? I have tried the other so long. I want to be happy now. I mean,” said Carry, clasping her hands, “to be happy now. Is it good to be miserable? Why should I? Even self-sacrifice must have an object. Why should I, why should I? Give me a reason for it, and I will think; but you give me no reason!” she cried, and broke off abruptly, her agitated countenance shining in a sort of rosy cloud.

There was a pause, and they sat and gazed at each other, or, at least, the mother gazed at Carry with all the dismay of a woman who had never offended against the proprieties in her life, and yet could not but feel the most painful sympathy with the offender. And not only was she anxious about the indecorum of the moment, but full of disturbed curiosity to know if any determination about the future had been already come to. On this subject, however, she did not venture to put any question, or even suggest anything that might precipitate matters. Oh, if John Erskine would but obey her⁠—if he would close his doors upon the intruder; oh, if he himself (poor Edward! her heart bled for him too, though she tried to thwart him) would but see what was right, and go away!

“Dear,” said Lady Lindores, faltering, “I did not say you might not meet⁠—whoever you pleased⁠—in a little while. Of course, nobody expects you at your age to bury yourself. But in the circumstances⁠—at such a moment⁠—indeed, indeed, Carry, I think he would act better, more like what we had a right to expect of him, if he were to consider you before himself, and go away.”

“What we had a right to expect! What had you a right to expect? What have you ever done for him but betray him?” cried Carry, in her agitation. She stopped to get breath, to subdue herself, but it was not easy. “Mother, I am afraid of you,” she said. “I might have stood against my father if you had backed me up. I am afraid of you. I feel as if I ought to fly away from you, to hide myself somewhere. You might make me throw away my life again⁠—buy it from me with a kiss and a smile. Oh no, no!” she cried, almost violently; “no, no, I will not let my happiness go again!”

“Carry, what is it? what is it? What are you going to do?”

Carry did not reply; her countenance was flushed and feverish. She rose up and stood with her arm on the mantelpiece, looking vaguely into her own face in the mirror. “I will not let my happiness go again,” she said, over and over to herself.

John Erskine carried his own reply to Lady Lindores’s letter before she returned from this expedition to Tinto. He, too, was one of those who felt for Lady Car an alarm which neither she nor Beaufort shared; and he had already been so officious as to urge strongly on his guest the expediency of going away⁠—advice which Beaufort had not received in, as people say, the spirit in which it was given. He had not been impressed by his friend’s disinterested motives and anxiety to serve his true interests, and had roundly declared that he would leave Dalrulzian if Erskine pleased, but no one should make him leave the neighbourhood while he could be of the slightest comfort to her. John was not wholly disinterested, perhaps, any more than Beaufort. He seized upon Lady Lindores’s letter as the pretext for a visit. He had not been admitted lately when he had gone to Lindores⁠—the ladies had been out, or they had been engaged, or Lord Lindores had seized hold upon him about county business; and since the day when they parted at Miss Barbara’s door, he had never seen Edith save for a moment. He set off eagerly, without, it is to be feared, doing anything to carry out Lady Lindores’s injunctions. Had he not exhausted every argument? He hurried off to tell her so, to consult with her as to what he could do. Anything that brought him into contact and confidential intercourse with either mother or daughter was a happiness to him. And he made so much haste that he arrived at Lindores before she had returned from Tinto. The servant who opened the door to him was young and indiscreet. Had the butler been at hand, as it was his duty to be, it is possible that what was about to happen might never have happened. But it was a young footman, a native, one who was interested in the family, and liked to show his interest. “Her ladyship’s no’ at home, sir,” he said to John; “but,” he added, with a glow of pleasure, “Lady Edith is in the drawing-room.” It may be supposed that John was not slow to take advantage of this intimation. He walked quite decorously after the man, but he felt as if he were tumbling head over heels in his eagerness to get there. When the door was closed upon them, and Edith, rising against the light at the end of the room, in front of a great window, turned to him with a little tremulous cry of wonder and confusion, is it necessary to describe their feelings? John took her hands into both of his without any further preliminaries, saying, “At last!” with an emotion and delight so profound that it brought the tears to his eyes. And Edith, for her part, said nothing at all⁠—did not even look at him in her agitation. There had been no direct declaration, proposal, acceptance between them. There was nothing of the kind now. Amid all the excitements and anxieties of the past weeks, these prefaces of sentiment seemed to have been jumped over⁠—to have become unnecessary. They had been long parted, and they had come together “at last!”

It may probably be thought that this was abrupt⁠—too little anxious and doubtful on his part, too ready and yielding on hers. But no law can be laid down in such cases, and they had a right; like other people, to their own way. And then the meeting was so unexpected, he had not time to think how a lover should look, nor she to remember what punctilios a lady should require. That a man should go down on his knees to prefer his suit had got to be old-fashioned in the time of their fathers and mothers. In Edith’s days, the straightforwardness of a love in which the boy and girl had first met in frank equality, and afterwards the man and woman in what they considered to be honest friendship and liking, was the best understood phase. They were to each other the only possible mates, the most perfect companions in the world.

“I have so wanted to speak to you,” he cried; “in all that has happened this is what I have wanted; everything would have been bearable if I could have talked it over⁠—if I could have explained everything to you.”

“But I understood all the time,” Edith said.

There is something to be said perhaps for this kind of lovemaking too.

And the time flew as never time flew before⁠—as time has always flown under such circumstances; and it began to grow dark before they knew: for the days were creeping in, growing short, and the evenings long. It need not be said that they liked the darkness⁠—it was more delightful than the finest daylight; but it warned them that they might be interrupted at any moment, and ought to have put them on their guard. Lady Lindores might come in, or even Lord Lindores, which was worse: or, short of those redoubtable personages, the servants might make a sudden invasion to close the windows, which would be worst of all: even this fear, however, did not break the spell which enveloped them. They were at the end of the room, up against the great window, which was full of the grey evening sky, and formed the most dangerous background in the world to a group of two figures very close together, forming but one outline against the light. They might, one would think, have had sense enough to recollect that they were thus at once made evident to whosoever should come in. But they had no sense, nor even caution enough to intermit their endless talking, whispering, now and then, and listen for a moment to anything which might be going on behind them. When it occurred to Edith to point out how dark it was getting, John had just then entered upon a new chapter, and found another branch of the subject upon which there were volumes to say.

“For look here,” he said, “what will your father say to me, Edith? I am neither rich nor great. I am not good enough for you in any way. No⁠—no man is good enough for a girl like you⁠—but I don’t mean that. When I came first to Dalrulzian and saw what a little place it was, I was sick with disgust and disappointment. I know why now⁠—it was because it was not good enough for you. I roam all over it every day thinking and thinking⁠—it is not half good enough for her. How can I ask her to go there? How can I ask her father?”

“Oh how can you speak such nonsense, John. If it is good enough for you it is good enough for me. If a room is big or little, what does that matter? And as for my father⁠—”

“It is your father I am afraid of,” John said. “I think Lady Lindores would not mind; but your father will think it is throwing you away; he will think I am not good enough to tie your shoe⁠—and he will be quite right⁠—quite right,” cried the young man, with fervour⁠—

“In that case,” said a voice behind them in the terrible twilight⁠—a voice, at the sound of which their arms unclasped, their hands leapt asunder as by an electric shock; never was anything more sharp, more acrid, more incisive, than the sound⁠—“in that case, Mr. Erskine, your duty as a gentleman is very clear before you. There is only one thing to do⁠—Go! the way is clear.”

“Lord Lindores!” John had made a step back in his dismay, but he still stood against the light, his face turned, astonished, towards the shadows close by him, which had approached without warning. Edith had melted and disappeared away into the gloom, where there was another shadow apart from the one which confronted John, catching on the whiteness of its countenance all the light in the indistinct picture. A sob, a quickened breathing in the background, gave some consciousness of support to the unfortunate young hero so rudely awakened out of his dream, but that was all.

“Her father, at your service⁠—entertaining exactly the sentiments that you have attributed to him, and only surprised that with such just views, a man who calls himself a gentleman⁠—”

“Robert!” came from behind in a voice of keen remonstrance; and “Father!” with a cry of indignation.

“That a man who calls himself a gentleman,” said Lord Lindores deliberately, “should play the domestic traitor, and steal into the affections⁠—what she calls her heart, I suppose⁠—of a silly girl.”

Before John could reply, his outline against the window had again become double. Edith stood beside him, erect, with her arm within his. The touch filled the young man with a rapture of strength and courage. He stopped her as she began to speak. “Not you, dearest, not you; I,” he said: “Lord Lindores, I am guilty. It is true what you say, I ought to have gone away. Had I known in time, I should have gone away⁠—(‘Yes, it would have been right:’ this in an undertone to Edith, who at these words had grasped his arm tighter); but such things are not done by rule. What can I do now? We love each other. If she is not rich she would be happy with me⁠—not great, but happy; that’s something! and near home, Lord Lindores! I don’t stand upon any right I had to speak to her⁠—perhaps I hadn’t any right⁠—I beg your pardon heartily, and I don’t blame you for being angry.”

Perhaps it was not wonderful that the father thus addressed, with his wife murmuring remonstrance behind him, and his daughter before him standing up in defiance at her lover’s side, should have been exasperated beyond endurance. “Upon my soul!” he cried. He was not given to exclamations, but what can a man do? Then after a pause⁠—“that is kind,” in his usual sharp tone, “very kind; you don’t blame me! Perhaps with so much sense at your command you will approve of me before all’s done. Edith, come away from that man’s side⁠—this instant!” he cried, losing his temper, and stamping his foot on the ground.

“Papa! no, oh no⁠—I cannot. I have chosen him, and he has chosen⁠—”

“Leave that man’s side. Do you hear me? leave him, or⁠—”

“Robert! Robert! and for God’s sake, Edith, do what your father tells you. Mr. Erskine, you must not defy us.”

“I will not leave John, mother; you would not have left my father if you had been told⁠—”

“I will have no altercation,” said Lord Lindores. “I have nothing to say to you, Edith. Mr. Erskine, I hope, will leave my house when I tell him to do so.”

“Certainly I will⁠—certainly! No, Edith darling, I cannot stay⁠—it is not possible. We don’t give each other up for that; but your father has the best right in his own house⁠—”

“Oh, this is insupportable. Your sentiments are too fine, Mr. Erskine of Dalrulzian; for a little bonnet laird, your magnanimity is princely. I have a right, have I, in my own⁠—”

Here there suddenly came a lull upon the stormy scene, far more complete than when the wind falls at sea. The angry Earl calmed down as never angry billows calmed. The pair of desperate lovers stole apart in a moment; the anxious, all-beseeching mother seated herself upon the nearest chair, and said something about the shortening of the days. This complete cessation of all disturbance was caused by the entrance of a portly figure carrying one lamp, followed by another slimmer one carrying a second. The butler’s fine countenance was mildly illuminated by the light he carried. He gave a slight glance round him, with a serenity which made all these excited people shrink, in his indifferent and calmly superior vision. Imperturbable as a god, he proceeded to close the shutters and draw the curtains. John Erskine in the quiet took his leave like any ordinary guest.

The mine had exploded;⁠—the mines were exploding under all the ramparts. This was the night when Rintoul came home from his visit; and Lady Lindores looked forward to her son’s composure of mind and manner, and that good sense which was his characteristic, and kept him in agreement with his father upon so many points on which she herself was apt to take different views. It was the only comfort she could think of. Edith would not appear at dinner at all; and her mother was doubly afraid now of the explanation of Carry’s sentiments which she would have to give to her husband. But Rintoul, she felt with relief, would calm everything down. He would bring in a modifying influence of outdoor life and unexaggerated sentiment. The commonplace, though it was one of the bitternesses of her life to recognise her son as its impersonification, is dearly welcome sometimes; and she looked forward to Rintoul’s presence with the intensest relief. She gave him a hint when he arrived of her wishes: “Occupy your father as much as you can,” she said. “He has had several things to think of; try and put them out of his head tonight.”

“I think I can promise I will do that, mother,” said Rintoul. The tone of his voice was changed somehow. She looked at him with a certain consternation. Was Saul also among the prophets? Had Rintoul something on his mind? But he bore his part at dinner like a man, and talked and told his stories of the world⁠—those club anecdotes which please the men. It was only after she had left the dining-room that Rintoul fell silent for a little. But before his father could so much as begin to confide to him what had happened in the afternoon, Rintoul drew his chair close to the table, planted his elbow upon it to support himself, and looked steadily into his father’s face. “I should like to talk to you, if you don’t mind⁠—about myself,” he said.

XLVII

The profoundest of the many wounds inflicted upon Lord Lindores, at this terrible period of his life, was that which he thus received at the hands of Rintoul: it was so altogether unexpected, so unlike anything that he had imagined of his son, so sudden, that it took away his breath. For the first moment he could not speak in the bitterness of his disappointment and outraged expectations. Rintoul had always been the strictly reasonable member of his family⁠—he had never given in to any sentimental nonsense. His reasoning had all been upon substantial data, and led to distinct conclusions. He had not looked at things in any visionary way, but as they were contemplated by the world in general. From the point of view of personal advantage and family progress, nothing could have been more judicious or sound than his opinions in respect to Carry and Edith. He had supported the Tinto marriage (which had on the whole turned out so well, better than could have been hoped⁠—the man, the only objectionable feature in it, being now dead and out of the way, and all the substantial advantages secured) quietly but firmly. He had been very earnest about Millefleurs. It was no fault of his if that arrangement had proved unsuccessful. In all these concerns, Lord Lindores had found his son his right hand, supporting him steadily. He could not help reminding him of this now, after the first outburst of his wrath and mortification. “You,” he said at length, “Rintoul! I have been prepared for folly on the part of your sisters, but I have always felt I had a tower of strength in you.”

“There is no difference in me,” said Rintoul⁠—“I should be just as ready to back you up about the girls as ever I was; but if you will recollect, I never said a word about myself. I consider it as our duty to look after the girls. For one thing, they are not so well qualified to judge for themselves. They see things all from one side. They don’t know the world. I wouldn’t let them sacrifice their prospects to a bit of silly sentiment; but I never said a word about myself. That’s different. A man has a right to please himself as to who he’s going to marry, if he marries at all. Most fellows don’t marry at all⁠—at least it’s usual to say so; I don’t know that it’s true. If you’ll remember, when you spoke to me of Lady Reseda, I never said anything one way or another. I have never committed myself. It has always been my determination in this respect to take my own way.”

Lord Lindores was subdued by this calm speech. He was almost cowed by it. It was very different from Carry’s tears, and even from Edith’s impassioned defiance. Rintoul knew perfectly well what he was about. There was no excitement to speak of in his steady confidence in his own power. And his father knew very well that there was nothing to be done. A family scandal might indeed be made: a breach in their relations⁠—a quarrel which would amuse the world. He might withdraw Rintoul’s allowance, or refuse to increase it, but this, though vexatious, was not in any way final; for the estates were all strictly entailed, and his heir would have little difficulty in procuring what money he needed. It was like fighting against a rock to struggle with Rintoul. When their father worked himself up into a rage, and launched sharp phrases at the girls, bitter cuts and slashes of satire and fierce denunciations, these weapons cut into their tender flesh like knives, and they writhed upon the point of the paternal spear. But Rintoul did not care. A certain amount of vituperation was inevitable, he knew, and he did not mind it. His father might “slang” him as much as he pleased; fierce words break no bones, and he knew exactly how far it could go. Lord Lindores also knew this, and it had the most curious composing and subduing effect upon him. What is the use of being angry, when the object of your anger does not care for it? There is no such conqueror of passion. If nobody cared, the hastiest temper would learn to amend itself. Lord Lindores was aware that Rintoul would hear him out to the end⁠—that he would never, so to speak, turn a hair⁠—that he would reply with perfect coolness, and remain entirely unmoved. It would be like kicking against a blank wall⁠—a child’s foolish instinctive paroxysm of passion. Therefore he was not violent with Rintoul, nor sharply satirical, except by moments. He did not appeal to his feelings, nor stand upon his own authority. If indeed he could not keep his exasperation out of his voice, nor conceal his annoyance, he did this only because he could not help it, not with any idea of influencing Rintoul. But it was indeed a very serious blow which he had received⁠—the most telling of all.

“After this,” he said, “why should I go on struggling? What advantage will it be to me to change Lindores into a British peerage? I could not enjoy it long in the course of nature, nor could I afford to enjoy it. And as for my son, he will have enough to do to get bread and butter for his numerous family. A season in town, and a seat in the House of Lords, will after this be perfectly out of the question.”

“I suppose it’s just as likely as not that the House of Lords will be abolished before my time,” said Rintoul calmly⁠—“at least they say so.”

“They say d⁠⸺⁠d nonsense, sir,” cried the earl, touched at his tenderest point. “The House of Lords will outlive you and half a hundred like you. They don’t know Englishmen who say so. I had hoped to see my family advancing in power and influence. Here was poor Torrance’s death, for instance, coming in providentially to make up for Edith’s folly about Millefleurs.” Here Lord Lindores made a little pause and looked at his son. He had, beyond expectation, made, he thought, an impression upon him. “Ah,” he said, “I see, you forgot the Tinto influence. You thought it was all up with my claims when Millefleurs slipped through our fingers. On the contrary, I never felt so like attaining my point as now.”

“That is not what I was thinking, father,” said Rintoul in a slightly broken voice. He had risen from his chair and walked to the window, and stood there, keeping his face averted as he spoke. “I cannot tell you,” he said more earnestly, “the effect it has upon me when you speak of getting an advantage from⁠—what has happened. Somehow it makes my blood run cold. I’d rather lose everything I have than profit by that⁠—accident. I can’t bear the idea. Besides,” he added, recovering himself, “I wouldn’t build so upon it if I were you. It’s all in Carry’s hand, and Carry will like to have things her own way.”

“This exhibition of sentiment in respect to Pat Torrance takes me altogether by surprise,” said Lord Lindores. “I was not aware you had any such friendship for him. And as to Carry. Pooh! Carry has not got a way of her own.”

This subject, though it was so painful to Rintoul, brought the conversation to an easier level. But when the young man had left him, Lord Lindores remained for a long time silent, with his head in his hands, and a bitterness of disappointment pervading his mind, which, if it had not a very exalted cause, was still as keen as any tragedy could require. He had let things go much as they would before he came to his kingdom; but when Providence, with that strange sweep of all that stood before him, had cleared his way to greatness, he had sworn to himself that his children should all be made instrumental in bringing the old house out of its humble estate⁠—that they should every one add a new honour to Lindores. Now he said to himself bitterly that it would have been as well if his brothers had lived⁠—if he had never known the thorns that stud a coronet. What had the family gained? His son would have been quite good enough for Nora Barrington if he had never been more than Robin Lindores; and John Erskine would have been no great match for his daughter, even in the old times. It would have been as well for them if no change had come upon the fortunes of the family⁠—if all had remained as when they were born. When he thought of it, there was a moment when he could have gnashed his teeth with rage and mortification. To have sworn like a trooper or wept like a woman, would have been some relief to his feelings; or even to clench his hands and his teeth, and stamp about the floor like a baffled villain on the stage. But he did not dare to relieve himself by any of these safety-valves of nature. He was too much afraid of himself to be melodramatic or hysterical. He sat and gnawed his nails, and devoured his own heart. His house seemed to be tumbling about his ears like a house of cards. Why should he take any further trouble about it? Neither money nor importance, nothing but love, save the mark! idiocy⁠—the passing fancy of boys and girls. Probably they would all hate each other in a year or two, and then they would understand what their folly had done for them. He thought of this with a vindictive pleasure; but even of that indifferent satisfaction he could not be sure.

Meanwhile there was, as may easily be supposed, the greatest excitement in the house. Rintoul told his mother and sister, and was half angered by their sympathy. Edith, who was herself in great agitation, received the intimation with delight; but this delight was quite distasteful to her brother, who stopped her by a wrathful request to her not to think this was a nonsensical affair like her own. “I know what I’m about; but as for you, it is just a piece of idiocy,” he said: at which poor Edith, aghast, retired into herself, wounded beyond description by this rejection of her sympathy. Having thus snubbed his sister, he defied the alarmed surprise and tempered disapprobation with which his mother heard his story. “I know that you were never a very great friend to Nora,” he said. “I suppose when another girl cuts out your own, you can’t be expected to be quite just. But my father and I understand each other,” said Rintoul. He went out after having thus mowed down the ranks on either side of him, in a not uncomfortable frame of mind, carrying with him, in order to post it with his own hand, the letter to Colonel Barrington, which he had informed his father had been written on the previous day. And this was quite true; but having written it, Rintoul had carefully reserved it till after his interview with his father. Had Lord Lindores been very violent, probably Colonel Barrington would not have had his letter; not that Rintoul would have given Nora up, but that he had, like most wise men, a strong faith in postponement. Wait a little and things will come right, was one of the chief articles of his creed; but as Lord Lindores⁠—kept down by the certainty that there was very little to be made of Rintoul except by giving him his own way⁠—had not been violent, the letter went without delay.

Thus, as it sometimes happens, the worst of the family misfortunes was the one that was condoned most easily; for certainly, in the matrimonial way, Rintoul’s failure was the worst. Daughters come and daughters go⁠—sometimes they add to the family prestige, sometimes they do the reverse; but at all events, they go, and add themselves to other families, and cease to be of primary importance as concerns their own. But the eldest son, the heir, is in a very different position. If he does nothing to enrich the race, or add honour to it, the family stock itself must suffer. Nora Barrington would bring some beauty with her to Lindores; but not even beauty of an out-of-the-way kind⁠—honest, innocent, straightforward, simple beauty, but no more⁠—and no connections to speak of; her uncle, the head of her family, being no more than a Devonshire M.P. This was very sad to think of. Rintoul, in his matter of fact way, felt it as much as anyone. There were moments even when he seemed to himself to have been unfairly dealt with by Providence. He had not gone out of his way to seek this girl⁠—she had been put down before him; and it was hard that it should have so happened that one so little eligible should have been the one to catch his heart. But to do him justice, his heart being caught, he made no material resistance. He was entirely steadfast and faithful to his own happiness, which was involved. But it did not occur to him as it might have done to a feebler mind, that he was in any way disabled from opposing the unambitious match of his sister in consequence of the similar character of his own. He held to his formula with all the solidity of judgment which he had always shown. When his mother pointed out to him his inconsistency, he refused to see any inconsistency in it. “I never would, and never did, say anything as to myself. I never meant to give up my own freedom. The girls⁠—that’s quite different. It was your duty and my duty to do the best we could for the girls. I say now, a stop should be put to Edith. Erskine’s a gentleman, but that’s all you can say. She will never be anybody if she marries him; whereas, if she had not been a fool, what a far better thing for her to have had Millefleurs. I should put a stop to it without thinking twice; and I can’t imagine what my father means not to do it.” This was Rintoul’s opinion upon his sister’s affairs.

“And supposing Colonel Barrington had been of the same opinion in respect to Nora?” Lady Lindores said.

“In respect to Nora? I consider,” said Rintoul, “that Nora is doing very well for herself. We are not rich, but the title always counts. A fellow can’t shut his eyes. I know very well that there are a good many places where I⁠—shouldn’t have been turned away: though you don’t think very much of me, mother. Colonel Barrington is not a fool; he knows Nora couldn’t have been expected to do better. You see cleverness is not everything, mamma.”

“I think you are very clever, Robin,” his mother said, with a smile and a sigh⁠—a sigh of wonder that her son (always such a mystery to a woman) should feel and talk and think so unlike herself; a smile that he should be so much justified in doing so, so successful in it. Both the smile and the sigh were full of wonder and of pain. But she was comforted to think that Rintoul at least was capable of something heavenly⁠—of true love and disinterested affection. That was something, that was much, in the dearth of fame.

Thus Rintoul’s marriage was consented to, while Edith’s was first peremptorily denied, then grudgingly entertained, and made the subject of delays and procrastinations enough to have wearied out any pair of lovers. But they had various consolations and helps to support them, the chief of which was that they lived so near each other, and were able to meet often, and talk over in infinite detail every step that was taken, and all the objections seen by others, and all the exquisite reasons in favour of their love which were known to themselves. And Lady Lindores was from the first upon their side, though she respected her husband’s unwillingness to bestow his daughter so humbly. Carry was to her mother a standing admonition against any further weakness on this point. In every word and step by which the young widow showed her thankfulness for her deliverance, she struck with horror the fine sense of fitness and reverence which was in her mother’s mind. Lady Lindores had not been false in the sentiments of pity and remorseful regret with which she had heard of the death of Torrance. There are some souls which are so finely poised that they cannot but answer to every natural claim, even when against themselves. Had she been Torrance’s wife, all the privileges of freedom would not have emancipated her from that compassion for the man struck down in the midst of his life, which took almost the shape of tenderness and sorrow. And when Carry exulted, it gave her mother a pang with which her whole being shivered. God forbid that she should ever be instrumental in placing another creature in such a position as Carry’s! She stood very gently but very firmly against her husband on Edith’s behalf. She would not consent to interfere with the love and choice of her child.

Carry adopted her sister’s cause with a still warmer devotion. She promised her support, her help in every possible manner, would have sanctioned an instant rebellious marriage, and settled half of her own large jointure upon Edith to justify the step, if she could have had her own way, and would scarcely listen to the suggestions of prudence. This nervous partisanship was not of any great advantage to the lovers, but still it gave them the consolation of sympathy. And by-and-by the whole county became aware of the struggle, and took sides with the warmest feeling. Old Sir James Montgomery, as everybody knows, had entertained other views; but when he heard of Nora’s promotion, and of the position of affairs in general, his kind old heart was greatly moved. He went off instantly to talk over the matter with Miss Barbara Erskine at Dunearn, from whose house Nora had just departed. “To think that this should have been going on all the time, and you and me never the wiser,” the old General said⁠—“the little cutty! But no doubt they were left in great tribulation as to what my lord the Earl’s majesty would say.”

“Young persons have a great notion of themselves nowadays,” said Miss Barbara; “they will not hear of advice from the like of you or me. Yet I think Nora might have said a word to an old friend. I am getting blind and doited. I never suspected anything. What my heart was set on was to get her for my nephew John.”

“Just that,” said Sir James, nodding his head; “that was my own idea. But you see John, he has chosen for himself⁠—and a bonnie creature too, if she is as good as she is bonny.”

“I am not very fond of the family. What are they but strangers? My heart is most warm to them that I know,” said Miss Barbara. But this was a very mild statement, and uttered with little vehemence, for Miss Barbara was not insensible to the pleasure of having an earl’s daughter in the family. “There is no doubt about the beauty,” she added, “and there’s a great deal of good in her, from all I hear.”

“With those eyes ye may be sure there’s no harm,” said Sir James, growing enthusiastic. “And I like the lad that had the sense to see what was in my little Nora. She’ll make a bonny countess, and I wish she was here that I might give her a kiss and tell her so. But this Lady Edith is a bonny creature too; and as for Lord Lindores himself, he’s no stranger, you know⁠—he’s just little Robby Lindores that both you and me mind. The one that has raised a prejudice, I make no doubt, is just that foreign wife of his⁠—”

“She is not foreign that ever I heard⁠—”

“Well, well⁠—maybe not according to the letter; but she has foreign ways, and without doubt it is her influence that has kept the family from settling down as we had a right to expect. My Lady Rintoul will set that right again. Bless me, who would have thought that little Nora⁠—But we must let bygones be bygones, Miss Barbara. We must just stand up for the young couple, and defeat the machinations of the foreign wife.”

Sir James laughed at this fine sentence of his; but yet he meant it. And even Miss Barbara agreed that this stranger woman was no doubt at the bottom of the mischief. When Sir James departed, the old lady felt herself nerved to a great exertion. By this time it was winter, and she went out but seldom, the pony-chaise being a cold conveyance. But that night she electrified her household by ordering the “carriage”⁠—the old carriage, never produced but on occasions of great solemnity⁠—for the next day. “Where will ye be going?” Janet asked, open-mouthed, after she had got over the shock of the announcement. But her mistress did not condescend to give her any answer. It was through Agnes, at a later hour, that information descended upon the household. “Sae far as I can make out, she is just going to Lindores to settle a’ about thae two marriages,” Agnes said in great excitement. “What two marriages? Ye think of nothing but marriages,” said Janet. But nevertheless that excellent person was as much excited as anyone when the huge vehicle drew up at the door next morning, and stood out in the rain to hear the orders which were given to the coachman. Agnes, seated within in attendance on her mistress, gave her a little nod with her eyelids, as much as to say, Who’s in the right now? “To Lindores.” “Bless me!” said Janet, “single women are aye so keen on that subject. They would ken better if they had ever had a man o’ their ain.”

And indeed Miss Barbara’s magnificent intention was to make a proposal to Lord Lindores, which must, she could not doubt, make everything smooth. Lord Lindores was a gentleman, and took pains not to show the old lady, to whom the credit of the house of Dalrulzian was so dear, that he did not think the Erskines good enough to mate with his family: which was also a laudable exercise of discretion; for Miss Barbara was very strong in dates, and knew when the earldom of Lindores was founded, and who was the first of the family, as well as the exact period when the Erskines were settled at Dalrulzian. Lord Lindores forbore, partly out of good feeling, partly from alarm, and partly because Miss Barbara’s offer was not one to be refused. If it should so happen that he might be compelled to give in, then the settlement upon Edith of Miss Barbara’s fortune would make a very distinct difference in the case. He did not intend to give in, but still⁠—The proposal was received with great politeness at least. “There are many things to be taken into consideration,” he said. “I had other plans⁠—You will excuse me if I cannot give up my intentions in a moment, because two young people have chosen to fall in love with each other⁠—” “It is what we all have to do, my lord,” said Miss Barbara, who was old-fashioned, and gave every man his title. “It is the only thing, in my experience, that it is useless to fight against.” Then Lord Lindores made her a fine bow, and declared that this was a most appropriate sentiment from a lady’s lips; but a man must be excused if he took a graver view. There was a sharp accent in his voice which not all his politeness could quite disguise. “For my part,” Miss Barbara said, “I have just had to swallow my own disappointment, and think nothing of it; for what I had set my heart upon was to wed my nephew John to Nora Barrington, that now it appears, in the arrangements of Providence, is to be your lordship’s daughter-in-law, my Lady Rintoul.” Lord Lindores jumped up at this as if a knife had been put into him. He could scarcely trust himself to speak. “I can’t allow it to be an arrangement of Providence,” he cried bitterly, but recovered himself, and forced a smile upon his angry countenance, and assured Miss Barbara that her proposal was most generous. He gave her his arm to the drawing-room, in which Lady Lindores and Edith were sitting, and withdrew, with his face drawn into a certain wolfish expression which his wife was aware meant mischief, but without betraying himself in speech. When he got back to his library, he launched a private anathema at the “old witch” who had taken it upon herself to interfere. But nevertheless, in Lord Lindores’ mind there arose the conviction that though he never would consent, yet if he did⁠—why, that Miss Barbara and her proposal were worth making a note of: and he did so accordingly. Miss Barbara, on her part, left the Castle half affronted, half mollified. She was angry that her proposal did not settle everything in a moment; but she was touched by the sweetness of Edith, and a little moved out of her prejudices in respect to Lady Lindores. “She has no foreign accent,” she said suddenly, in the midst of the drive, to the astonishment of Agnes⁠—“no more than any of us. And she has none of that sneering way⁠—my lord yonder, he just cannot contain himself for spite and illwill⁠—but I cannot see it in her. No doubt she’s one of them that is everybody’s body, and puts on a fine show⁠—but nothing from the heart.”

Some time after this another incident, which had no small bearing upon the story of one of these young pairs, occurred at Dalrulzian. Rintoul had never concealed his opposition, but neither had it ever become a subject of personal conflict between John Erskine and himself. He had gone away after his own explanation, for time did not stand still while these events were going on, and even a Guardsman has periods of duty. Shortly after he returned to Lindores, some question about the boundaries of the estates made it expedient that there should be formal communications between the two houses. Rintoul undertook to be the messenger. He had been with his regiment for the last two months, and he had not inquired into local events. He was, therefore, not in the least prepared for the sight that encountered him when he knocked at John Erskine’s door. It was opened to him by Rolls, in all the glory of shining “blacks” and snowy neckcloth, as composed, as authoritative, as fully in command of himself and everything about him, as he had ever been. Rintoul, though he was a lord and a soldier and a fine fellow, gave a jump backwards, which scattered the gravel on the path. “Good lord, Rolls!” he cried. It was not an agreeable surprise. He had done his best to forget Rolls, and he had succeeded. To have so many painful associations thus recalled was unpleasant; and the sight of him, so suddenly, without warning, an undeniable shock.

“Ay, my lord, it’s just Rolls,” said the butler, barring, as it were, his entrance. Rolls regarded the young man with a stern air; and even when Rintoul, recovering himself, began to express pleasure at his return, and great interest in hearing how it was, the face of Rolls remained unmoved. He changed his mind, however, about barring the entrance, and slowly showed Rintoul into the vacant dining-room, which he entered after him, shutting the door.

“I’ll easy tell your lordship how I got out,” he said; “but there’s mair pressing matter in hand. They tell me, my lord, that ye will not yield to have my maister, John Erskine of Dalrulzian, for Lady Edith’s man. I would like to hear if that’s true.”

“It’s a curious sort of question to ask,” said Rintoul. “I might ask what’s that to you, Rolls?”

“Ay, so ye might⁠—it would be just like you, my lord; but I do not think it would be politic in all the circumstances. What for are you opposing it? Ye’re to marry Miss Nora, and get your ain will and pleasure. I wish her much joy, poor thing, and strength of mind to bear a’ that’s before her. What is your lordship’s objection to my maister, if I may make so bold as to ask?”

“You are not very complimentary,” said Rintoul, growing red.

“No, I’m no’ complimentary, my lord; it’s no’ my line. Will you tell me what’s set you against this marriage? for that is what I would like to ken.”

Rintoul tried to laugh, though it would have pleased him better to knock his monitor down. “You must see, Rolls, that a thing like this is my own concern,” he said.

“It’s my concern as well,” said Rolls. “There’s mair between you and me, my lord, than I’m wanting to tell; but if I was in your lordship’s place, I would not rin counter to them that has proved themselves your best friend⁠—”

“Rolls! what are you doing here?” cried John Erskine, with amazement, suddenly opening the door.

The countenance of Rolls was quite impassive. “I was giving my Lord Rintoul an account of my marvellous deliverance out o’ my prison, sir,” he said, “and how it was thought I had suffered enough in my long wait for the trial. And that was true. Much have I suffered, and many a thought has gone through my head. I’m real ripened in my judgment, and awfu’ well acquaint with points o’ law. But I hope I may never have anything more ado with such subjects⁠—if it be not upon very urgent occasion,” Rolls said. And he withdrew with a solemn bow to Rintoul, in his usual methodical and important way.

Rintoul had come to see John Erskine upon a matter of business; but they had never ceased to be friends⁠—as good friends, that is, as they ever had been. And the similarity of their situation no doubt awakened new sympathies in their minds. At least, whatever was the cause, this meeting did much to draw them together. It was now that Rintoul showed to John the real good feeling that was in him. “I have not been on your side, I confess,” he said. “I have thought Edith might do better. I don’t hide it from you. But you need not fear that I will stand in your way. I’m in the same box myself. My lord likes my affair just as little as he likes yours. But of course if she sticks fast to you, as she’ll certainly do, what can he make of it? Everything must come right in the end.”

XLVIII

Thus between threats and promises, and patience and obstinacy, it came gradually to pass that Lord Lindores had to yield. He made that winter a very unhappy one to his family⁠—and it was not more agreeable to himself; for it was not long before he arrived at the conviction that he could make nothing by his opposition. In Rintoul’s case, this had been evident to him from the very first, but he had tried for some time to delude himself with the idea that Edith would and must yield to his will. The successive stages of wrath, bewildered surprise, impatient certainty, and then of a still more disagreeable conviction that whatever he might say or do he would not overcome this girl, went over him one after another, irritating and humiliating his arbitrary spirit. A father may consent to the fact that beyond a certain point he cannot coerce his full-grown son; but to be opposed and vanquished by a chit of a girl, is hard upon him. To see a soft, small creature, whom he could almost blow away, whom he could crush in his hand like a butterfly, standing up in all the force of a distinct and independent being before him, and asserting her own will and judgment against his⁠—this was almost more than he could bear. He came, however, gradually to a perception of what can and what cannot be done in the way of moral compulsion. It had succeeded with Carry, and he had not been able at first to imagine that it would not succeed equally with Edith; but gradually his mind was undeceived. He had in reality given up the contest long before he would confess to himself, and still longer before he would allow to the world that it was so. If he could do nothing else, he would at least keep his household in suspense, and make the cup as bitter as possible to them before they should be allowed to touch the sweet.

Lord Lindores, with all these vexations upon his head, experienced for a moment an absolute pause in his individual career and prospects. He was assailed with that disgust which is one of the curses of age and experience. Cui bono? it is the oldest of reflections and the most persistent. To what good is all the work and labour under the sun? What did it matter to him to gain an empty distinction, if his children were to melt away on all sides of him, and merge into the lower classes⁠—which was how, in a moment of natural exasperation, he represented the matter to himself. But afterwards there was a reaction, as was equally natural. He reflected that he was only fifty-five, and that what a man enjoys himself is more to him than anything his grandchildren are likely to enjoy. If he was sure of never having any grandchildren, it would still be worth his while to be Lord Dunearn in the peerage of Great Britain, and take his seat and wear his robes in Westminster. Till these glories were attained, what was he?⁠—a mere Scots lord, good for nothing. A man’s children are not the only interests he has in life; especially when they are married he can shake them off⁠—he can reenter the world without encumbrance. And Lord Lindores remembered that life and the pleasures of his rank could be enjoyed soberly with his wife at a moderate expense if the young people were all off his hand. He had been but an uncomfortable husband of late years, and yet he loved his wife as she loved him, in frequent disagreements, in occasional angers and impatiences, and much disappointment. What would become of the world if love did not manage to hold its footing through all these? The boys and girls of the high-flown kind are of opinion that love is too feeble to bear the destruction of the ideal. But that is all these young persons know. Love has the most robust vitality in the world⁠—it outlives everything. Lord Lindores was often irritated beyond description by his wife, who would not understand his ways, and was continually diverging into ridiculous bypaths of her own. And she was more disappointed in him⁠—more hurt and mortified by his shortcomings than words can say. But yet they loved each other. So much, that it gradually began to dawn upon him with a sense of solace, that when the House of Lords called him, as he hoped, he and she together, without any young people to trouble them, would yet take their pleasure together, and enjoy it and their elevated position, and be able to afford it, which was the best of all. She, at fifty, was still a handsome woman; and he had a presence which many younger men might have envied. It is doubtful whether the imagination of Lady Lindores would have been equally delighted with this dream: but it would have pleased her to know that he looked forward to it, which is next best. Animated by this thought, Lord Lindores gathered himself together and returned to public business with all his heart and soul. He took possession unhesitatingly, as has been said, of the Tinto power and influence. Torrance had opposed him in politics, and thus neutralised the advantage of a family union against which nothing in the county could stand. But now, with a sigh of satisfaction, Lord Lindores drew into his hand the influence of Tinto too.

This went on for some time with little warning of the insecurity of tenure by which he held his power. Beaufort had at last withdrawn from Dalrulzian, though it was not absolutely certain that he had left the neighbourhood. The minds of the family were, however, eased by his abandonment of the ground so far. And Lady Car lived very quietly, seldom making her appearance out of her own grounds, and never once appearing at Lindores. She would not, indeed, on any argument, return to her old home. Though she was urged by her mother and sister with many soft entreaties, Carry would never yield on this point. Her countenance seemed to blanch when it was suggested, though, she would give no reason but a tremulous oft-repeated “No, no; oh, no, no.” When she drove out, she would sometimes call at the door to fetch them, sometimes to convey them home, but they could not induce her to cross the familiar threshold. She was uneasy even in the very neighbourhood of the house, and breathed more freely when it was out of sight. This extraordinary objection to her father’s house kept her almost a prisoner in her own; for where could a widow of but a few months go, except to her parents? No other visiting was possible. She was not even, they thought, very desirous of Edith’s society, but liked to be alone, interesting herself in the alterations of furniture and new arrangements she was making; a great many of the faded grandeurs upon which Pat Torrance prided himself had already been put away. For the moment this was the only sign of feeling herself her own mistress which Lady Car displayed.

Other revolutions, however, were at hand. There came a moment when it happened that one of the orders Lord Lindores had given was disobeyed, and when an explanation was asked, the answer given was that Lady Car herself had given other orders. This irritated her father greatly, and he made up his mind that the uncertainty in which things were could exist no longer⁠—that he must have an explanation with his daughter. He set out for this purpose with a little impatient determination to bring Carry to her senses. He had been tolerating much which it was ridiculous to go on tolerating. All the family had humoured her, he felt, as if she had been an inconsolable widow, brokenhearted and incapable of any exertion. At this, he could not but smile within himself as he thought of it. It was a pity, perhaps, for Torrance, poor fellow, but it could not be doubted that it was a most fortunate accident for Car. To be his wife, perhaps, had its disagreeables, but there could be no more desirable position than that of his widow; and to indulge Carry’s whims as they had all been doing, and keep every annoyance out of her way as if she had been heartbroken, was too absurd. He decided that it would be well to have a clear understanding once for all. She was left by the will in uncontrolled authority, and it was full time to show her that this did not, of course, interfere with the authority of her father, who was her natural guide and protector. “Your husband, of course, took this into consideration,” he intended to say. But it cannot be denied that he had to brace himself up for the interview with a clear sense that it might be a painful one; and that as he went along Lord Lindores did, what was a great tribute to the altered position of Carry⁠—arranged the subjects of their interview in his mind, and settled with himself what he was to say.

A great deal can happen in a neighbourhood even when it is full of gossiping society, without reaching the ears of the persons most intimately concerned, and Lord Lindores had been kept in ignorance of much which had alarmed and disquieted his wife. She was aware, but he was not, that Beaufort still lingered in the vicinity, not living indeed in one place, but making frequent expeditions from Edinburgh, or from the further north, sometimes to the little hotel at Dunearn, sometimes to other little towns in the neighbourhood, from which he could come for the day, or even for a few hours, to see Carry in her solitude. Lady Lindores had discovered this with all the pain of anxiety and wounded disapproval⁠—wounded that Carry could think it right to do what seemed to herself so little suited to the dignity and delicacy of her position: and though scarcely a word had been said between them on the subject, it had brought pain and embarrassment into their intercourse; for Carry was irritated and wounded beyond measure by the consciousness of her mother’s disapproval. She, of whom Torrance had declared in his brutal way that she was too proud to go wrong, was incapable indeed even of conceiving the possibility that “going wrong” should be in anyone’s thought of her. In her own mind, the fervour with which she had turned back to the love of her life, the eagerness with which, at the very earliest moment, she had sought his pardon, were the only compensations she could give him for the falsehood into which she had been forced and the sufferings that had been inflicted upon him. How could she pretend to build a wall of false delicacy around herself and keep him at a distance, while her heart was solely bent upon making up to him for what he had suffered, and conscious of no sentiment but an overwhelming desire for his presence and society? That she should be obliged to enjoy this society almost by stealth, and that her mother, even her mother, should object and remonstrate, gave Carry the keen and sharp offence with which a delicate mind always resents a false interpretation of its honest meaning. It seemed to her that her first duty now was to be true⁠—always true. She had been false with horrible consequences: to conceal now the eager bound of her heart towards her true lover would be a lie⁠—especially to him who had suffered, as she also had suffered, from the lies of her life. But Lord Lindores, when he made up his mind that Carry must be brought to her senses, was in no way aware how difficult the position was, and how far those senses had gone astray.

He had taken a considerable round to think over the subject, so that it was getting towards evening when he rode up the long avenue to Tinto⁠—so late that the workmen whom Carry employed in the changes she was making were leaving their work, when Lord Lindores went into the house and made his way towards Carry’s sitting-room. He sent away the butler, who, with an air of alarm and surprise, started out of the partial twilight to conduct him to his daughter. It was, he felt, something of a reproach to him that the man looked so much startled, as if his mistress’s father could be an unwelcome visitor. The room was not lighted, save by the glow of a large fire, when Lord Lindores opened the door, after a knock to which no answer was returned. There was a sound of several voices, and he was surprised to see the tall figure of a man standing against the firelight. Who was the man who was visiting Carry? It was not Rintoul, nor anyone else he knew in the neighbourhood. Nobody about was so tall, so slight, though there was something in the outline of the figure that was familiar to him. But there was an agitated conversation going on, which made the speakers scarcely distinguishable in the twilight, unconscious of the knock of the newcomer or his entrance. To his surprise it was his wife’s voice which he heard first, saying tremulously: “Mr. Beaufort, I can do nothing but return to what I said before. Qui s’excuse s’accuse. You may have the very best of reasons, but it is an injury to Carry that you should stay here.”

“An injury to me! How can it be an injury to me? It is my only consolation, it is the only help I have. I have told you from the first, mamma. Edward has been wronged, only not so cruelly wronged as I was myself; oh, nobody could be that! And now that we can make it up to each other⁠—and learn to forget it⁠—you would chase him away a second time⁠—for what?⁠—because of what people⁠—the world⁠—those who know nothing about us⁠—may say!”

Carry was standing by the mantelpiece, her tall figure in its black clinging dress scarcely distinguishable at first, but the animation with which she spoke, and the natural eloquence of her gestures, brought it out against the white marble. Then there came Beaufort’s deeper voice: “You know, Lady Lindores, I am ready to do whatever is best for her. If I can comfort her after all that has happened to her, how can I go away? I wish to do only what is best for her.”

“I beg to remark,” said Lord Lindores, coming forward, “that I knocked before coming in. This, I suppose, is why your servant looked alarmed when he admitted me. Is this gentleman, may I ask, living here?”

Carry drew back at the sound of his voice as if she had received a blow. She clung to the edge of the tall white mantelpiece, shrinking, her figure drawn together, an impersonation of terror and trouble. Beaufort started too, but slightly, and stood instinctively out of the way to make room for the newcomer. Lord Lindores went straight forward to the fire and took up his position with his back to it, with a certain straightforward ease and authority, like a man in his own house, who has no doubt of his right to do his pleasure there. But as a matter of fact, he was by no means so certain as he looked.

“We did not hear you,” said Carry, with a breathless gasp in her voice. “We were talking⁠—over points on which my mother does not agree with me.”

“I can easily imagine that,” he replied.

And then there was a dreadful pause. Lady Lindores, on the other side of the fire, did not move or speak. It was the crisis of Carry’s fate, and except in defence or help of her child, the mother vowed to herself that she would take no part. It was hard, but it was best for Carry. Whatever was going to happen to her, she must decide for herself now.

“I asked,” said Lord Lindores in that calm, clear, collected voice, which was so strange a contrast to the agitation of the others, “whether this gentleman is living here? If so, it is very inappropriate and unsuitable. Your mother would prefer, I am sure, if Mr. Beaufort is here about any business, to offer him a bed at Lindores.”

There was a universal holding of the breath at this extraordinary proposition. Had he burst into all the violence of passion, they would have been prepared, but not for this politeness and calm.

“I am not living here, Lord Lindores,” said Beaufort, with some confusion. “I am on my way from the North. I could not resist the temptation of staying for an hour or two on my way to inquire⁠—”

“That was very kind,” he said; “and kindness which interferes with personal comfort is very rare. If you are going to Edinburgh, you must remember you have two ferries to cross.”

“Probably,” Beaufort cried, faltering a little, “I shall stay all night in Dunearn. Lady Caroline⁠—had some commissions for me.”

“You had much better come to Lindores. Commissions, Carry! I suppose Mr. Beaufort is acting as a sort of agent for you in your new arrangements. Is it bric-a-brac? You young men are all learned in that.”

Nobody made any reply, but the very air seemed to tingle with the extraordinary tumult of feeling. To accept Beaufort as an ordinary caller, and to invite him to Lindores, was a masterstroke. But the two people between whom he stood were so surcharged with passionate feeling, that any touch must produce an explosion of one sort or another. This touch was given inadvertently by Lady Lindores, who⁠—terribly bewildered by the course that things were taking, but feeling that if Beaufort could be induced to go to Lindores, it would cut the thread better than any other expedient⁠—rose softly out of the twilight, and coming forward to him, laid her hand upon his arm: “Yes, yes, that is much the best. Come to Lindores,” she said.

At which Carry lost the control of herself which people in their ordinary senses have. Between panic and passion she was beside herself. Fear has a wild temerity which goes far beyond courage;⁠—her tall straight figure seemed to fling suddenly out of the shade, and launch itself upon this milder group. She put Lady Lindores away with a vehement gesture.

“Mother,” she cried, “do not you meddle. Edward! do not go, do not go; it is a trap, it is a snare. If you go it will all be over, all over!” Her voice rose almost to a scream. She had reached the point at which reason has no longer any hold, and all the reticence and modesty of nature yields to the wild excitement of terror. She was trembling all over, yet capable of any supreme effort of desperation⁠—ready to defend to the last, against the same powers that had crushed her before, her last hope.

“Carry,” said Lord Lindores⁠—he kept up, at incalculable cost to himself, his tone of conciliation⁠—“I do not understand what you fear. Is it I that am to lay traps or snares? I forgive you, my poor child; but this is a strange way to talk to Mr. Beaufort⁠—he cannot stay here⁠—”

“I have no intention of staying here, Lord Lindores,” said Beaufort hastily. “You may be sure I will not expose her to any comment.”

“I am very sure, nevertheless, that you are doing so,” said Lord Lindores.

The contrast of this brief dialogue with Carry’s impassioned tones was extraordinary. She felt it through the haze of excitement that surrounded her, though her intelligence of all outside matters was blurred by the wild strain of her own feelings, which would have utterance. “Father,” she said hoarsely, putting her hand on his arm, “go away from us⁠—do not interfere. You know what you made of me when I was in your hands. Oh, let us alone now! I am not a girl⁠—I am a woman. I am the same as you, knowing good and evil. Oh,” she said suddenly, “if you want to keep any respect for me, go away, go away, for I don’t know what I am saying. My head is turning round. Mother⁠—Edward; don’t you see that I am losing my reason? Oh, don’t let him interfere⁠—let him go away.” Lady Lindores caught her daughter in her arms, in a trembling effort to control and calm her. “Carry, my dearest! you will be sorry afterwards⁠—”

“Oh yes, I shall be sorry,” cried poor Lady Car, drawing herself out of her mother’s hold⁠—“sorry to have been unkind, sorry to have betrayed myself; but I must, I must. I cannot hold my peace. Oh, father, let me alone! What good will that do you to make me wretched? What good has it done you? Nothing, nothing! I might have been poor and happy, instead of all I have come through; and what difference would it have made to you? You have killed me once; but oh, think how cruel, how tyrannous, if you tried to kill me again! And you see nobody speaks for me; I am alone to defend myself. Father, you shall not interfere again.”

She had resumed her hold on his arm, grasping it half to support herself, half to enforce what she was saying. He now put his hand upon hers and detached it gently, still keeping down his anger, retaining his tone of calm. “My poor child, you are overdone; let your mother take care of you,” he said compassionately. “Mr. Beaufort, we are both out of place here at this moment. Lady Caroline has had a great deal to try her; we had better leave her with her mother.” Nobody could be more reasonable, more temperate. His compassionate voice and gentle action, and the way in which he seemed about to sweep away with him the somewhat irresolute figure of the man who had no right to be there, filled Carry with a wild pang. It seemed to her that, notwithstanding all her protest and passion, he was about to be victorious once more, and to rob her of all life and hope again. She stretched out her arms wildly, with a cry of anguish: “Edward, are you going to forsake me too?”

Edward Beaufort was very pertinacious in his love, very faithful, poetically tender and true, but he was not strong in an emergency, and the calmness and friendliness of Lord Lindores’ address deceived him. He cried “Never!” with the warmest devotion: but then he changed his tone a little: “Lord Lindores is perhaps right⁠—for the moment. I must not⁠—bring ill-natured remark⁠—”

Lady Car burst into a little wild laugh. “You have no courage⁠—you either,” she said, “even you. It is only I, a poor coward, that am not afraid. It is not natural to me, everybody knows; but when a soul is in despair⁠—Then just see how bold I am,” she cried suddenly, “father and mother! If there is any holding back, it is his, not mine. I have been ready⁠—ready from the first, as I am now. I care nothing about remark, or what anybody says. I will hear no reason; I will have no interference. Do you hear me, all? Do you hear what I say?”

“I hear⁠—what I am very sorry to hear, Carry⁠—what you cannot mean. Mr. Beaufort is too much a gentleman to take advantage of this wild talk, which is mere excitement and overstrained feeling.”

She laughed again, that laugh, which is no laugh, but an expression of all that is inarticulate in the highest excitement. “I am ready⁠—to fulfil our old engagement, our old, old, broken engagement, that we made before God and heaven. I have been like Dante,” she said; “I have lost my way, and made that dreadful round before I could find it, through hell and purgatory; yes, that is it⁠—through hell⁠—And now, whenever Edward pleases. It is not I that am holding back. Yes, go, go!” she said; “oh, though I love you, you are not like me, you have not suffered like me! go⁠—but don’t go with my father. He will find some way of putting everything wrong again.”

The two gentlemen walked solemnly, one behind the other, to the door: on the threshold Lord Lindores paused. “I don’t suppose you will suspect me of any designs upon your life,” he said, with a bitter smile, “if I repeat that you will be welcome at Lindores.”

“I had made all my arrangements,” said Beaufort, with some confusion, “to stay at Dunearn.”

Lord Lindores paused for a moment before mounting his horse. “All that she has been saying is folly,” he said; “you may be certain that it will not be permitted⁠—”

“Who is to stop it? I don’t think, if we are agreed, anyone has the power.”

“It will not be permitted. It would be disgraceful to you. It would be a step that no gentleman could take. A foolish young woman, hysterical with excitement and exhaustion and grief⁠—”

“Lord Lindores, you forget what that young woman has been to me⁠—ever since I have known her. I have never wavered⁠—”

“Then you have committed a sin,” the Earl said. He stood there discomfited, in the darkness of the night, scarcely remembering the servants, who were within hearing⁠—not knowing what further step to take. He raised his foot to put it in the stirrup, then turned back again. “If you will not come with me⁠—where we could talk this out at our leisure⁠—at least you will go away from here,” he said. Beaufort did not reply in words, but hastened away, disappearing in the gloom of the avenue. Lord Lindores mounted his horse, and followed slowly, in a tumult of thought. He had not been prepared for it⁠—he was unable now to realise the power of wild and impassioned resistance which was in Carry. He was giddy with astonishment, as if his horse or his dog had turned round upon him and defied him. But he tried to shake off the impression as he got further from Tinto. It was impossible; it was a mere bravado. She would no more hold to it than⁠—And since there was delicacy, decorum, propriety⁠—every reason that could be thought of, on the other side⁠—no, no! He would forgive poor Carry’s passion, for she could no more hold to it⁠—Even her mother, who had been so difficult to manage before, her mother would fully support him now. He tried to console himself with these thoughts; but yet Lord Lindores rode home a broken man.

Lady Lindores sat and cried by the fire, while Carry swept about the room in her passion, crossing and recrossing the firelight. The servants at Tinto were more judicious than those at Lindores. They were accustomed to scenes in the drawing-room, and to know that it was indiscreet to carry lights thither until they were called for. In the late Tinto’s time the lamps, when they were carried in abruptly, had lit up many an episode of trouble⁠—the fierce redness of the master’s countenance, the redness so different of his wife’s eyes. So that no one interrupted the lingering hour of twilight. Lady Lindores sat like any of the poor women in the cottages, unable to stand against the passion of her child. How familiar is the scene⁠—the mother crying by the fireside, descended from her dignity and power to sway (if she ever possessed any), to sheer helplessness and pathetic spectatorship, unable, with all the experience and gathered wisdom of her years, to suggest anything or do anything for the headstrong life and passion of the other woman, who could learn only by experience as her mother did before her. Carry paced up and down the room from end to end; even the shadowy lines of her figure, even her step, revealed the commotion of her soul: when she came full into the firelight she stood still for a moment, her hands clasped, her head thrown back, confronting the dim image of herself in the great mirror against a ruddy background of gloom. And Carry in her passion was not without enlightenment too.

“No,” she said passionately, “no, no. Do you know why I am so determined? It is because I am frightened to death. Oh, don’t take an advantage of what I am saying to you. How do I know what my father might do this time? No, no. I must keep out of his hands. I will rather die.”

“Carry, I will not interfere. What can I do between you? But these are not all conventionalities, as you think⁠—there is more in them.”

“There is this in them,” she said, with a strange pathetic smile, “that Edward thinks so too. He is not ready like me to throw away everything. He might be persuaded, perhaps, if my father put forth all his powers, to abandon me, to think it was for my interest⁠—”

“Carry, I do not wish to support you in your wild projects: but I think you are doing Edward injustice.”

“Thank you, mother dear; your voice is so sweet,” she said, with a sudden softening, “why should you cry? It is all a black sea round about me on every side. I have only one thing to cling to, only one thing, and how can I tell? perhaps that may fail me too. But you have nothing to cry for. Your way is all clear and straight before you till it ends in heaven. Let them talk as they like, there must be heaven for you. You will sit there and wait and watch to see all the broken boats come home⁠—some bottom upwards, and every one drowned; some lashed to one miserable bit of a mast⁠—like me.”

“Carry,” said Lady Lindores, “if that is the case⁠—if you do not feel sure⁠—why, in spite of everything, father and mother, and modesty and reverence, and all that is most necessary to life, your own good name, and perhaps the future welfare of your children⁠—why will you cling to Edward Beaufort? You wronged him perhaps, but he did nothing to stop it. There were things he might have done⁠—he ought to have been ready to claim you before⁠—to oppose your⁠—”

Carry threw herself at her mother’s feet, and laid her trembling hand upon her lips. “Not a word, not a word,” she cried. “Do you think he would wrong my children? Oh no, no! that is impossible. His fault, it is to be too good. And if he did nothing, what could he do? He has never had the ground to stand on, nor opportunity, nor time. Thank God! they will be his now; he will prove what is in him now.”

Which was it that in her heart she believed? But Lady Lindores could not tell. Carry, when she calmed down, sat at her mother’s feet in the firelight, and clasped her close, and poured out her heart, no longer in fiery opposition and passion, but with a sudden change and softening, in all the pathos of trouble past and hope returned. They cried together, and talked and kissed each other, once more mother and child, admitting no other thought. This sudden change went to the heart of Lady Lindores. Her daughter’s head upon her bosom, her arm holding her close, what could she do but kiss her and console her, and forget everything in sympathy. But as she drove home in the dark other fears came in. Only one thing to cling to⁠—and perhaps that might fail her⁠—“one miserable bit of a mast.” What did she mean? What did Carry believe? that her old love would renew for her all the happiness of life, as she had been saying, whispering with her cheek close to her mother’s⁠—that the one dream of humanity, the romance which is never worn out and never departs, was now to be fulfilled for her?⁠—or that, even into this dream, the canker had entered, the sense that happiness was not and never could be?

XLIX

When a pair of lovers are finally delivered from all those terrible obstacles that fret the current of true love, and are at last married and settled, what more is there to be said about them? One phase of life is happily terminated⁠—the chapter which human instinct has chosen as the subject of romance, the one in which all classes are interested⁠—those to whom it is still in the future, with all the happy interest of happiness to come⁠—those to whom it is in the past, with perhaps a sigh, perhaps a smile of compassion, a softening recollection, even when their hopes have not been fulfilled, of what was and what might have been. The happinesses and the miseries of that early struggle, how they dwindle in importance as we get older⁠—how little we think now of the crisis which seemed final then⁠—things for which heaven and earth stood still; yet there will never come a time in which human interest will fall away from the perennial story, continually going on, ever changing, yet ever the same.

Before proceeding to the knotting up of other threads, we must first recount here what happened to Lord Millefleurs. He did not take any immediate steps in respect to Miss Sallie Field. They corresponded largely and fully at all times, and he told her of the little incident respecting Edith Lindores in full confidence of her sympathy and approval. Perhaps he gave the episode a turn of a slightly modified kind, representing that his proposal was rather a matter of politeness than of passion, and that it was a relief to both parties when it was discovered that Edith, as well as himself, considered fraternal much better than matrimonial relations. Miss Sallie’s reply to this was very uncompromising. She said: “I think you have behaved like a couple of fools. You ought to have married. You can tell her from me that she would have found you very nice, though your height may leave something to be desired. I don’t myself care for girls⁠—they are generally stupid; but it would have been exceedingly suitable, and pleased your parents⁠—a duty which I wish I saw you more concerned about.” Lord Millefleurs, in his reply, acknowledged the weight and sense “as always” of his correspondent’s opinion. “I told dear Edith at once what you said; but it did not perhaps make so much impression on her as it would otherwise have done, since she has got engaged to John Erskine, a country gentleman in the neighbourhood, which does not please her parents half so well as a certain other union would have done. Pleasing one’s parents after all, though it is a duty, is not paramount to all other considerations. Besides, I have never thought it was a commandment to which great attention was paid chez nous.” Miss Field’s reply was still more succinct and decided: “I don’t know what you mean by chez nous. I hate French phrases when simple American will do as well. If you think we don’t love our fathers and mothers, it just shows how far popular fallacy can go, and how easily you bigoted Englishmen are taken in. Who was it that first opened your eyes to the necessity of considering your mother’s feelings?” Peace was established after this, but on the whole Lord Millefleurs decided to await the progress of circumstances, and not startle and horrify those parents whom Miss Sallie was so urgent he should please. Some time after she informed him that she was coming to Europe in charge of a beautiful young niece, who would have a large fortune. “Money makes a great deal of difference in the way in which dukes and duchesses consider matters,” she wrote, enigmatically, “and so far as I can make out from your papers and novels (if there is any faith to be put in them), American girls are the fashion.” Lord Millefleurs informed his mother of this approaching arrival, and with some difficulty procured from her an invitation to Ess Castle for his Transatlantic friends. “I wish there was not that girl though,” her Grace said; but Lady Reseda, for her part, was delighted. “She will go to Paris first and bring the very newest fashions,” that young lady cried. The ducal mansion was a little excited by the anticipation. They looked for a lovely creature dressed to just a little more than perfection, who would come to breakfast in a diamond necklace, and amuse them more than anybody had amused them in the memory of man. And they were not disappointed in this hope. Miss Nellie F. Field was a charming little creature, and her “things” were divine. Lady Reseda thought her very like Daisy Miller; and the Duchess allowed, with a sigh, that American girls were the fashion, and that if Millefleurs would have something out of the way⁠—.

But in the meanwhile Millefleurs left this lovely little impersonation of Freedom to his mother and sister, and walked about with her aunt. Miss Sallie was about eight or nine and thirty, an age at which women have not ceased to be pleasant⁠—when they choose⁠—to the eye as well as to the heart. But the uncompromising character of her advice was nothing to that of her toilette and appearance. She wore short skirts in which she could move about freely when everybody else had them long. She wore a bonnet when everybody else had a hat. Her hair was thin, but she was scrupulous never to add a tress, or even a cushion. She was not exactly plain, for her features were good, and her eyes full of intelligence; but as for complexion, she had none, and no figure to speak of. She assumed the entire spiritual charge of Millefleurs from the moment they met, and he was never absent from her side a moment longer than he could help. It amused the family beyond measure, at first almost more than Nellie. But by and by the smile began to be forced, and confusion to take the part of hilarity. It was Miss Sallie Field herself at last who took the bull by the horns, if that is not too profane a simile. She took the Duke apart one fine evening, when the whole party had strolled out upon the lawn after dinner⁠—“Your son,” she said, “is tormenting me to marry him,” and she fixed upon the Duke her intelligent eyes. His Grace was confounded, as may be supposed. He stood aghast at this middle-aged woman with her Transatlantic accent and air. He did not want to be uncivil. “You!” he said, in consternation, then blushed for his bad manners, and added, suavely, “I beg you a thousand pardons⁠—you mean⁠—your niece.” That of itself would be bad enough. “No,” said Miss Sallie, with an air of regret, “it does not concern Nellie. I have told him that would be more reasonable. Nellie is very pretty, and has a quantity of money; but he doesn’t seem to see it. Perhaps you don’t know that this was what he wanted when I sent him home to his mother? I thought he would have got over it when he came home. I consider him quite unsuitable for me, but I am a little uneasy about the moral consequences. I am thirty-eight, and I have a moderate competency, not a fortune, like Nellie. I thought it better to talk it over with you before it went any further,” Miss Sallie said.

And when he took this middle-aged and plainspoken bride to Dalrulzian to visit the young people there, Millefleurs did not attempt to conceal his consciousness of the objections which his friends would no doubt make. “I told you it was quite unsuitable,” he said, turning up his little eyes and clasping his plump hands. “We were both perfectly aware of that; but it is chic, don’t you know, if you will allow me to use a vulgar word.” Edith clasped the arm of John when the Marquis and Marchioness of Millefleurs had retired, and these two young people indulged in subdued bursts of laughter. They stepped out upon the terrace walk to laugh, that they might not be heard, feeling the delightful contrast of their own well-assorted youth and illimitable happiness. The most delightful vanity mingled with their mirth⁠—that vanity in each other which feels like a virtue. It was summer, and the air was soft, the moon shining full over the far sweep of the undulating country, blending with a silvery remnant of daylight which lingered far into the night. The hills in the far distance shone against the lightness of the horizon, and the crest of fir-trees on Dalrulzian hill stood out against the sky, every twig distinct. It was such a night as the lovers babbled of on that bank on which the moonbeams lay at Belmont, but more spiritual than any Italian night because of that soft heavenly lingering of the day which belongs to the north. This young pair had not been married very long, and had not ceased to think their happiness the chief and most reasonable subject of interest to all around them. They were still comparing themselves with everything in earth, and almost in heaven, to the advantage of their own blessedness. They were amused beyond description by the noble couple who had come to visit them. “Confess, now, that you feel a pang of regret,” John said⁠—and they stood closer and closer together, and laughed under their breath as at the most delightful joke in the world. Upstairs the Marchioness shut the window, remarking that the air was very cold. “What a fool that little thing was not to have you,” she said; “you would have done very well together.” “Dear Edith!” said Millefleurs, folding his hands, “it is very pretty, don’t you know, to see her so happy.”

The observations made downstairs, upon the actors in this little drama, were very free, as was natural. Rolls himself, who had held a more important role than anyone knew, was perhaps apt to exaggerate the greatness of his own part, but with an amiable and benevolent effect. His master, indeed, he looked upon with benevolent indulgence, as knowing no more than a child of the chief incident. If Rolls had not been already bound to the house of Dalrulzian by lifelong fidelity and by that identification of himself and all his interests, his pride and self-regard, with his “family,” which is something even more tenacious and real than faithfulness, he would have been made so by the fact that John, without in the slightest degree realising that Rolls was suffering for him, had given orders to Mr. Monypenny to secure the most expensive assistance for his trial. The pride, contempt, satire, and keen suppressed emotion with which this act filled the old servant’s bosom, were beyond description. “It was just downright extravagance,” he said to Bauby; “they’re a’ fuils, thae Erskines, frae father to son. Laying out all that siller upon me; and no’ a glimmer o’ insight a’ the time. An’ he had had the sense to see, it would have been natural; but how could he divine my meaning when there was no conscience in himsel’? and giving out his money all the same as if notes were things ye could gather on the roadside?” “He mightna understand ye, Tammas, but he ken’t your meaning was good,” said Bauby. Their position was changed by all the changes that had happened, to the increase of their grandeur if not of their happiness. Rolls had now a tall and respectful youth under his orders, and Bauby was relieved, in so far as she would allow herself to be relieved, of the duties of the kitchen. It was gratifying to their pride, but there is little doubt that they sighed occasionally for the freedom of the time when Rolls was alone in his glory, dictator of the feminine household, and Bauby’s highest effort of toilette was to tie a clean apron round her ample waist. She had to wear a silk gown now, and endeavour to be happy in it. Rolls’s importance, however, was now publicly acknowledged both out of doors and in. He was looked upon with a kind of admiring awe by the population generally, as a man who had been, as it were, like Dante, in hell, and came out unsinged⁠—or in prison, which was nearly as bad, issuing forth in a sort of halo of innocence and suffering. It might have been possible that John Erskine or any of the gentlemen of the countryside had quarrelled with Tinto and meant mischief; but Rolls could not have meant anything. The very moment that the eyes of the rural world were directed to him, it was established that accident only could be the cause of death, and everybody felt it necessary to testify their sympathy to the unwilling instrument of such an event. The greatest people in the county would stop to speak to him when occasion offered, to show him that they thought no worse of him. Even Lord Lindores would do this; but there was one exception. Rintoul was the one man who had never offered any sympathy. He turned his head the other way when Rolls approached him⁠—would not look at him when they were, perforce, brought into contact. While Rolls, for his part, regarded Lord Rintoul with a cool and cynical air of observation that was infinitely galling to the object of it. “Yon lord!” he said, when he spoke of him, contemptuous, with a scoff always in his tone. And Rolls had grown to be a great authority in legal matters, the only person in the neighbourhood, as was supposed, that knew the mysteries of judicial procedure. But his elevation, as we have said, was modified by domestic drawbacks. Instead of giving forth his sentiments in native freedom as he went and came with the dishes, direct from one table to another, it was necessary to wait until the other servants of the household were disposed of before the butler and the housekeeper could express confidentially their feelings to each other. And Bauby, seated in her silk gown, doing the honours to the Marquis’s man, of whom she stood in great awe, and the Marchioness’s woman, whom she thought a “cutty,” was not half so happy as Bauby, glowing and proud in the praises of a successful dinner, with her clean white apron folded over her arms.

“This is the lord that my leddy would have been married upon, had all gone as was intended,” Rolls said. “He’s my Lord Marquis at present, and will be my Lord Duke in time.”

“Such a bit creature for a’ thae grand titles,” said Bauby, yawning freely over the stocking which she was supposed to be knitting. “Eh, Tammas, my man, do ye hear that clatter? We’ll no’ have an ashet left in the house.”

“It’s a peety she didna take him⁠—it would have pleased a’ pairties,” said Rolls. “I had other views mysel’, as is well known, for our maister here, poor lad. Woman, cannot ye bide still when a person is speaking to ye? The ashets are no’ your concern.”

“Eh, and wha’s concern should they be?” cried Bauby; “would I let the family suffer and me sit still? My lady’s just a sweet young thing, and I’m more fond of her every day. She may not just be very clever about ordering the dinner, but what does that maitter as lang as I’m to the fore? And she’s an awfu’ comfort to my mind in respect to Mr. John. It takes off the responsibility. Me that was always thinking what would I say to his mammaw!”

“I have nothing to say against my lady,” said Rolls, “but just that I had ither views. It’s a credit to the house that she should have refused a grand match for our sake. But it will be a fine ploy for an observer like me that kens human nature to see them a’ about my table at their dinner the morn. There will be the Earl himsel’, just girning with spite and politeness⁠—and her that would have been my ain choice, maybe beginning to see, poor thing, the mistake she’s made. Poor thing! Marriages, in my opinion, is what most shakes your faith in Providence. It’s just the devil that’s at the bottom o’ them, so far as I can see.”

“Hoot, Tammas⁠—it’s true love that’s at the bottom o’ them,” Bauby said.

“Love!” Rolls cried with contempt: and then he added with a grin of malice⁠—“I’m awfu’ entertained to see yon lord at our table-end. He will not look the side I’m on. It’s like poison to him to hear my voice. And I take great pains to serve him mysel’,” he said with a chuckle. “I’m just extraordinar attentive to him. There’s no person that I take half as much charge of. I’m thinking his dinner will choke him some day, for he canna bide the sight o’ me.”

“Him that should go upon his knees to ye every day of his life!” cried Bauby indignant.

“We’ll say nothing about that; but I get my diversion out o’ him,” said Rolls grimly, “though he’s a lord, and I’m but a common man!”

The marriage of Lady Car took place a little more than a year after Torrance’s death. It was accomplished in London, whither she had gone some time before, with scarcely anyone to witness the ceremony but her mother. She preferred it so. She was happy and she was miserable, with the strangest mingling of emotions. Lady Lindores made vain efforts to penetrate into the mind which was no longer open to her as her own. Carry had gone far away from her mother, who knew none of the passions which had swept her soul, yet could divine that the love in which she was so absorbed, the postponed and interrupted happiness which seemed at last to be within her grasp, was not like the love and happiness that might have been. When Beaufort was not with her, her pale countenance, that thoughtful face with its air of distinction, and sensitive delicacy, which had never been beautiful, would fall into a wan shadow and fixedness which were wonderful to see. When he was with her, it lighted up with gleams of ineffable feeling, yet would waver and change like a stormy sky, sometimes with a lightning-flash of impatience, sometimes with a wistful questioning glance, which gave it to Lady Lindores all the interest of a poem united to the far deeper, trembling interest of observation with which a mother watches her child on the brink of new possibilities. Were they for good or evil?⁠—was it a life of hope fulfilled, or of ever increasing and deepening disappointment, which lay before Carry’s tremulous feet? They were not the assured feet of a believing and confident bride. What is love without faith and confidence and trust? It is the strangest, the saddest, the most terrible, the most divine of human passions. It is seldom that a woman begins with such enlightenment in her eyes. Usually it is the growth of slow and much-resisted experience, the growing revelation of years. How sweet, how heavenly, how delightful, when love is blind! How wise the ancients were to make him a child⁠—a thing of caprice and sweet confusion, taking everything for granted! But this to Carry was impossible. When her mother took her into her arms on her wedding morning, dressed in the soft grey gown which was the substitute for bridal white, they kissed each other with a certain solemnity. At such a moment so much is divined between kindred hearts which words can never say. “I want you to remember,” said Carry, “mother dear⁠—that whatever comes of it, this is what is best.” “I hope all that is most happy will come of it, my darling,” said Lady Lindores. “And I too⁠—and I too⁠—” She paused, raising a little her slender throat, her face, that was like a wistful pale sky, clear-shining after the rain⁠—“But let it be what it may, it is the only good⁠—the only way for me.” These were the sole words explanatory that passed between them. Lady Lindores parted with the bridal pair afterwards with an anxious heart. She went home that night, travelling far in the dark through the unseen country, feeling the unknown all about her. Life had not been perfect to her any more than to others. She had known many disappointments, and seen through many illusions: but she had preserved through all the sweetness of a heart that can be deceived, that can forget today’s griefs and hope again in tomorrow as if today had never been. As she drew near her home, her heart lightened without any reason at all. Her husband was not a perfect mate for her⁠—her son had failed to her hopes. But she did not dwell on these disenchantments. After all, how dear they were! after all, there was tomorrow to come, which perhaps, most likely, would yet be the perfect day.

Endnotes

1. Scotticè, accused. ↩

Colophon

The Ladies Lindores
was published in 1883 by
Margaret Oliphant.

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