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 f DALTON, ^ 
 I Bookaellar, 
 •e, NzwMBOV&a, 
 
ABOVE SUSPICION. 
 
 J^ ioM. 
 
 BY 
 
 MRS. J. H. RIDDELL, 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 
 'GEORGE GEITH,' 'TOO MUCH ALONE,' 'HOME, SWEET HOME,' 
 
 'THE EARL'S PROMISE,' ETC. 
 
 LONDON : 
 HUTCHINSON & CO., 
 
 34, PATERNOSTER ROW. 
 
 [All rights reserved.'] 
 
23]) iljc same ^utfior. 
 
 AUSTIN FRIARS. 
 
 TOO MUCH ALONE. 
 
 THE RICH HUSBAND. 
 
 MAXWELL DREWITT. 
 
 FAR ABOVE RUBIES. 
 
 A LIFE'S ASSIZE. 
 
 THE WORLD IN THE CHURCH. 
 
 HOME, SWEET HOME. 
 
 PHEMIE KELLER. 
 
 RACE FOR WEALTH. 
 
 THE EARL S PROMISE. 
 
 MORTOMLEY'S ESTATE. 
 
 FRANK SINCLAIRS WIFE. 
 
 THE RULING PASSION. 
 
 MY FIRST AND MY LAST LOVE. 
 
 CITY AND SUBURB. 
 
 ABOVE SUSPICION. 
 
 JOY AFTER SORROW. 
 

 CONTENTS. 
 
 — ♦ — 
 
 CHAPTER I. Pogt 
 
 ABOUT WEST GREEN AND TOTTENHAM, AND THE SHOEING 
 
 OF A HORSE , . I 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 MR. DORMAN MAKES TWO DISCOVERIES • « • • 6 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 MILES BARTHORNE'S PARENTAGE 1 6 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 MILES BARTHORNE MARRIES IN HASTE . • • .25 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 EXPLAINS A LITTLE DIFFICULTY . . , , . • 3I 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 A NOBLE IS BROUGHT TO NINEPENCE . . « . , 39 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 IN WHICH MAB COMES TO THE RESCUE . • • . 49 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 SENTENCED ....•..••• 63 
 
 b 
 
VI Contents. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. Page 
 
 THE REV. DIONYSIUS AND MRS. WRIGHT . • . . 68 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 "just like AN INSPIRATION" 74 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 CONCERNING AN UNEXPECTED PROPOSITION , « , 88 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 MR. IRWIN WAXES COMMUNICATIVE 98 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 MR. WRIGHT WONDERS WHAT SELINA WILL SAY • • 102 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 THE FIRST EVENING II4 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 A SPECIMEN DAY AT FISHERTON . . • • • .125 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 INTRODUCES COLONEL LESCHELLES I3I 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 COLONEL LESCHELLES IS ASTONISHED 1 43 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 WHAT MR. IRWIN CAME TO TELL 1 56 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 UNCLE AND NIECE 164 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 ROSIE'S DEBUT I71 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 FISHING FOR INFORMATION 178 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 THE COLONEL MAKES A DISCOVERY , • • • • 18$ 
 
Contents, vH 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. pn^e 
 
 slightly in advance 191 
 
 chapter xxiv. 
 "nothing could be better" 199 
 
 chapter xxv. 
 
 A CONJUGAL T£TE-1-t£tE 213 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 MR. WRIGHT IS ASTONISHED 222 
 
 CHAPTER XXVIL 
 MRS. WRIGHT'S EYES ARE OPENED 230 
 
 CHAPTER XXVIIL 
 MR. IRWIN REVIEWS THE POSITION 24 1 
 
 CHAPTER XXIX. 
 FORTUNE AGAIN FAVOURS MR. WRIGHT . , , ,252 
 
 CHAPTER XXX. 
 ON THE WAY FROM CHURCH 266 
 
 CHAPTER XXXI. 
 THE FAMILY MOTTO , , 275 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIL 
 GOING WITH THE CURRENT 280 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIIL 
 AT HIGHGATE ... 291 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIV. 
 AN OLD STORY RETOLD 299 
 
 CHAPTER XXXV. 
 MR. WRIGHT AGAIN IN TROUBLE ...,,. 306 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVI. 
 MR. WRIGHT'S DIFFICULTIES ....»,, 316 
 
viii Contents. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVII. Pagi 
 
 A FRESH INTERPOSITION ....••• 325 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVIII. 
 LADY MEDBURN SPEAKS PLAINLY ...... 332 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIX. 
 
 NEAR THE END • • . 34° 
 
 CHAPTER XL. 
 WHA.T BARTHORNE SAW • • . 350 
 
 CHAPTER XLI. 
 CONCLUSION . • • e • . . • • • 360 
 
ABOVE SUSPICION. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 ABOUT WEST GREEN AND TOTTENHAM, AND THE SHOEING 
 
 OF A HORSE. 
 
 Sixteen years ago no more rural village could have been found 
 within five miles of the General Post Office than West Green. 
 It was as utterly in the country as though situated a hundred 
 miles from London, and by a natural consequence it was country 
 in its ways, habits, and manners. 
 
 The various lanes leading to it from Stamford Hill, Totten- 
 ham, Hornsey, and Southgate were rural, which they certainly 
 are not now. In those days Philip Lane was not a street, with 
 houses all along one side, as is the case at present. Neither 
 had any building societies invaded the sacred quiet of the road, 
 bordered by wheat-fields and meadows, which led off to the 
 Queen's Head, then as pretty a roadside public as the heart of 
 a traveller need have desired to see — now refronted, redecorated, 
 provided with tea gardens and other modern innovations of a 
 like description. 
 
 As for Hanger Lane, no one had yet dreamed of the evil days 
 to come, when mushroom villas should be built upon ground 
 
2 Above Suspicion, 
 
 that not long before was regarded as an irreclaimable morass — 
 when first a tavern and then a church (the two invariable 
 pioneers of that which, for some unknown reason, we call civili- 
 zation) appeared on the scene, and brought London following 
 at their heels — when the common lands were enclosed and laid 
 out in plots on which more houses were erected — when little 
 by-roads were made leading to meadows then innocent of brick 
 and mortar, but soon destined to be covered with small two- 
 story tenements — when, in a word, Hanger Lane should be im- 
 proved off the face of the earth, and in the interests of speculative 
 builders (who had come entirely of their own accord to spoil 
 it), called, as it is at present, St. Anne's Road. 
 
 Everything is done very quickly nowadays, and it has only 
 taken sixteen years to change West Green from an extremely 
 pretty village to an eminently undesirable suburb. 
 
 The familiar omnibus still passes through it twice a day, once 
 going to London, once returning from it ; but it does so empty 
 of passengers ; and if the proprietor could only find a loophole 
 in a certain will which might enable him to cease running it 
 altogether, he would esteem himself a very happy man. 
 
 A new station has been opened quite close to the village. 
 New streets — hideous streets — debouch on the once pleasant 
 green ; the old horse-pond, which used periodically to overflow 
 and spread half across the highway, is now fenced in with un- 
 picturesque railing ; and there is little left to tell of the pretty 
 little hamlet which used, in the early spring, to look so sweet 
 <ind countrified, with the hawthorn-bushes and the lilacs and 
 laburnums all blossoming for flower. 
 
 Gone is the primitive post-oflice kept at a cottage, where a 
 customer could purchase hot rolls on one side of the passage, 
 and postage stamps in the parlour on the other — gone like the 
 postmaster, who worked hard at his trade as a baker all the 
 while he held that ill-paid appointment under Government; and 
 the pretty young girls his daughters, who were, oh ! so very 
 pretty, but who, like their father, died one after another of con- 
 sumption. Gone too are the old residents who lived in the it^ 
 eligible houses dotted round and about the green. 
 
 The old village is still there, but it is huddled up amongst 
 Streets, and Villas, and Places, and Groves, and all the other 
 devices of modern investors; and those who can remember 
 West Green in the olden time, and to whom the memory of it 
 
About West Green and Tottenham, 3 
 
 returns softly and gratefully like the recollection of some sunny 
 picture, may well wish never to look upon it again. 
 
 So far I have spoken of the place as it was within my own 
 recollection, when, after traversing part of Hanger Lane, any one 
 coming from London turned oil along a road exactly opposite 
 to an old picturesque wooden house, shaded from the road by 
 chestnut-trees and evergreens, and, wending his way under 
 branching elms, emerged finally upon the green, and in front of 
 the Black Boy public house. But at the period this story opens, 
 West Green was a much more retired spot than at the date in- 
 dicated — Eighteen hundred and fifty-nine. 
 
 Tottenham High Cross, as it is styled in the ancient histories, 
 was itself a very quiet and secluded country town. The north- 
 ern coaches had ceased running through it, and in lieu thereof 
 the Great Eastern Railway had cut a line parallel with the old 
 highway straight through the valley of the Lea, In accordance, 
 however, with those principles to which for so many years the 
 Great Eastern Railway Company have remained faithful — the 
 latest development of which principles can be inspected at the 
 new Eishopsgate Station, where no provision has been made for 
 an up-platform — they carefully placed the Tottenham Station so 
 far from the town as to be practically useless to all the inhabi- 
 tants save those who lived round and about the Hale; and 
 therefore, to all intents and purposes, Tottenham was a more 
 out-of-the-world place after trains began to run to it than it was 
 before. For which reason, any person, whether labourer, skilled 
 workman, or trader, who could form a connection amiong the 
 independent gentry, the City magnates, and the Quaker famiHes 
 who then tenanted the great brick mansions which are still to 
 be met with in that neighbourhood, had a very fair chance in- 
 deed of making a comfortable living, and in many cases of put- 
 ting by sums of money which seemed large in the primeval days 
 of which I am writing. It was a much easier thing, in fact, for 
 a man to drop on his feet in remote ages dating a generation 
 back than is the case at present. There was more space for 
 people then. If a person had special knowledge on any sub- 
 ject, he could find some one who wanted to use him ; and if he 
 were clever as an artificer, if he were ready and active, and 
 civil and reasonable, why, he might compass a good deal in the 
 way of success, as success counted then. 
 
 In the opinion of West Green, where he lived; and its neigh- 
 
 1 — 3 
 
4 Above Suspicion, 
 
 bour Tottenhajn, where he had lived, Miles Barthorne had 
 compassed a success quite unprecedented in the memory of the 
 oldest inhabitant. 
 
 There were, as is usual, various versions of his antecedents. 
 According to some, he had appeared traversing the mail road 
 to London without a shoe to his foot or a coat to his back. 
 According to others, he was attired like a gentleman when he 
 made his first great coup, and had so drawn greater attention to 
 himself than would have proved the case had he appeared in 
 the conventional rags and been possessed of the regulation two- 
 pence-halfpenny which mean future civic honours and the 
 applause of kings and aldermen. 
 
 Miles Barthorne, however, made his first step along a road 
 which conducted him ultimately neither to the Mansion House 
 nor St. James's, in the garb of a well-to-do traveller. He was 
 not clad in purple and fine linen, but there was no evidence of 
 poverty in the man's dress or appearance. 
 
 Having elected to wall: to London — which even now might, 
 on occasion, be a wise procedure for those coming to seek their 
 fortune in the metropolis — he was trudging through Tottenham, 
 when his attention was attracted by a concourse of idlers sur- 
 rounding a man and horse and smithy. 
 
 The horse had cast a shoe and could go no farther ; the 
 smith was ill, and his men were out ; the traveller was angry, 
 and the farrier's wife tearful. All this Miles Barthorne grasped 
 as he stood and listened to the expostulations and the lamenta- 
 tions ; and when he had grasped it, he made his way through 
 the gaping, staring throng, and doffing his cap to the traveller, 
 said : 
 
 " With your leave, sir, and that of the sick man's wife, I can 
 put your horse's shoe on if she lends me the use of the forge 
 and her husband's tools." 
 
 " You ! " remarked the rider, in amazement. 
 
 "You, good gentleman !" supplemented the farrier's wife. 
 
 In answer to the first remark, Miles Barthorne pulled off his 
 coat and turned up his shirt-sleeves, thereby exhibiting a breadth 
 of chest and development of muscle calculated to inspire confi- 
 dence in the breast of the owner of the horse which had cast a 
 shoe ; and at the same time, in reply to Mrs. Dorman, the 
 smith's wife, he said : 
 
 " I am not a gentleman, though if every one had his rights I 
 
About West G:'cc7i mid Tottenham. 5 
 
 suppose I should be ; 1 was brought up like one. Neverthe- 
 less, I can shoe a horse as well as your husband, let him shoe 
 as well as he may." 
 
 And with that he picked up hoof after hoof of the steed, 
 which all this time stood quiet enough, perhaps liking the ex- 
 citement as well as the rest, which is the nature of some 
 animals. When he had set down the last, which happened to 
 be the near hind foot, he said with a smile : 
 
 " Have you the shoe, sir ? " 
 
 " No, that I have not," was the reply. " He cast it some- 
 where on the road — where, I have no idea." 
 
 "Then you had better have a new set all round. Look 
 here;" and with a " Woa ! " which conciliated the horse, he 
 held up the animal's feet one after the other, for inspection. 
 " Come, sir, they won't cost you more than a shilling apiece, 
 and you and your beast will travel all the happier. I am a 
 stranger hereabouts, and know not the name of any good inn ; 
 but if there be such, I will bring the horse to you in an hour's 
 time — no less — no more." 
 
 " Agreed," was the answer. " I will go back to the Rose and 
 Cro^\^l, and you can bring the horse there as you propose." 
 
 Now, the shoeing of that horse proved an immense sensation 
 to the population. 
 
 The news spread that in Dorman's smithy a strange man was 
 shoeing a horse for a traveller, and straightway every idler 
 flocked to see, and criticised the work freely. 
 
 " Hey, lad, where wert thou apprenticed ? " asked an old 
 carter. " Who ever heard of shoeing a horse ^vith cold iron?" 
 
 " Wiser folks than thou wilt ever be," answered Miles Bar- 
 thorne, with a quick mimicry, which set the spectators in a roar. 
 " When thou goest to the cobbler, does he make thy foot to fit 
 his shoe, or his shoe to fit thy foot ? I deal with my horses as 
 he does with thy feet ; though had I such feet as thine to shoe, 
 they would drive me distraught." And so he went on talking, 
 blowing, hammering, cooling, nailing, till the town was in an 
 uproar between delight and dismay. 
 
 When he had finished he sought out Mrs. Dorman, and would 
 have placed four shillings in her hand, but the woman refused 
 it, saying : 
 
 " My husband would like to speak with you, sir, if you can 
 spare a minute," 
 
6 Above StLspicion, 
 
 To which he replied, " I will be back when I have taken the 
 horse to its owner and got the money he agreed to pay." 
 
 Saying which, he clapped the saddle on the animal, drew up 
 the girths, slipped on the bridle, and then, having previously 
 inquired his way to the Rose and Crown, jumped on the horse's 
 back and set off, not at a gallop, but at a quiet trot, to the Rose 
 and Crown, where he received four shillings for Mrs. Dorman's 
 benefit, and half-a-crown for the benefit of himself. 
 
 " You are a likely fellow," said the traveller, looking Barthome 
 over from head to foot, " and should do some good for yourself 
 in life." 
 
 " I shall try to do so," was the reply. Already Miles Barthorne 
 understood fortune had done him a friendly turn, and that he 
 had travelled a considerable number of miles that day along the 
 road to success. 
 
 CHAPTER 11. 
 
 MR. DORMAN MAKES TWO DISCOVERIES. 
 
 Miles Barthorne retraced his way to the smith's shop, followed 
 thither by curious glances from the older inhabitants and a train 
 of boys and children of both sexes. He had been accustomed, 
 however, to that peculiarity of country life which causes persons 
 to take more interest in the most trivial affairs of their neigh- 
 bours than in the serious affairs of their own, and he was not 
 therefore disconcerted by the attention paid him, as might have 
 been the case had he chanced to have been born in London. 
 
 When he arrived at the smith's house, he found Mrs. Dorman 
 waiting his return. 
 
 _ " Will you please step this way, sir ? " she said. , " My husband 
 bid me tell you his sickness was nothing catching." 
 
Mr. Dorman makes Two Discoveries. J 
 
 " If it had been, I should not be afraid of catching it," Bar- 
 thorne answered, a little contemptuously. " But what does ail 
 him, mistress?" 
 
 " A weakness of the chest," was the reply. " He caught a 
 cold last winter, and has never been the same man since. Some- 
 times he can scarcely draw his breath for pain." 
 
 " A bad complaint for a man who has to stand much over the 
 fire," commented the stranger, as he felt his way up the dark 
 staircase, and followed Mrs. Dorman along a narrow passage, at 
 the end of which she opened the door of a room where the sick 
 man lay. 
 
 Though the apartment was small, the furniture it contained 
 indicated that the smith had been well to do, and was still in 
 fairly comfortable circumstances. 
 
 Barthorne cast a rapid glance around, and guessed this fact ; 
 while the woman, stepping up to the four-post bedstead with its 
 heavy moreen curtains, announced his presence by saying : 
 
 •' This is the gentleman who shod the traveller's horse." 
 
 " Ay," said the other feebly ; " would you mind coming a bf 
 nearer, sir ? Polly, had not you better be minding the shop ? 
 Women," he added, as the door closed behind her, speaking 
 apologetically to the stranger, "are like children — they aye want 
 to stay where they are least wanted." 
 
 " If every one were of my mind they would be wanted no- 
 where," answered Barthorne, with an abrupt decision of manner 
 remarkable in so young a man. 
 
 "You have been crossed in love, most like," conjectured the 
 smith. 
 
 " If I have not been crossed in that, I have in something 
 else," was the answer. " But you wanted to speak to me. What 
 have you to say ? " 
 
 " I want to thank you for your kindness," began Dorman, 
 with a certain hesitation. 
 
 " I do not see why you should," replied the stranger. " I was 
 on my way to look for work, and work offered ; and I have been 
 well paid for it. See ! " And he took four shillings from his 
 pocket, and laid them on the coverlet. " That is your share," 
 he said ; and then he took out the half-crown, and spun it in 
 the air, dexterously catching it as it came down. " And this is 
 mine," he finished. 
 
 The sick man looked at him thoughtfully. 
 
8 Above Suspicion, 
 
 " I should not have taken you for a smith," he said. 
 
 " I am one, though, by trade," answered Barthorne. " I served 
 a regular apprenticeship. See, here is my character from my 
 master;" and he pulled out a pocket-book, and from it drew 
 out a letter, which Dorman read slowly and with difficulty twice 
 over. 
 
 "Seven years as apprentice, three as foreman," he spelled 
 out. 
 
 "That is right," agreed the other, "and ready now to take 
 any berth that offers at the forge, or bench, or vice. I can work 
 at them all." 
 
 Once again Dorman looked curiously, almost suspiciously, at 
 the dark gipsy face, the thick black hair, the stalwart frame of 
 the man who sat beside liis bed. 
 
 " Would you take service with me?" he asked, when he had 
 quite finished his scrutiny. 
 
 " I have no objection to try your service," returned the other 
 carelessly. " I can leave if I do not find it or you to my taste. 
 I had, indeed, purposed going on to London ; but I dare say 
 this country will be more to my mind than the close city streets, 
 at this time of the year especially." 
 
 And he walked, as he concluded, to the window, which com- 
 manded a view over market gardens, and the valley of the Lea, 
 and the wide expanse of land lying under the summer sunshine 
 between Tottenham and the blue hills of Essex. 
 
 " You have not spoken about wages," suggested the smith. 
 
 "And neither need you till I have been with you a week. 
 At the end of that time you will know what I can do, and I 
 shall know whether we are likely to suit each other. For that 
 week you can pay me what you like." 
 
 " You are a queer customer, I think," remarked Dorman. 
 
 " That will not signify to you if you find me a good work- 
 man," retorted the stranger. 
 
 When, in the course of further conversation, Barthorne asked 
 his new employer if he could recommend him a decent lodging 
 — inns, the stranger explained, were not much to his taste — 
 Dorman said hospitably that his wife could no doubt manage to 
 Viouse him, for a time at all events ; but the other shook his 
 nead. 
 
 " Had I never lived under the same roof with Hal Glendy," 
 ae remarked, "I might, had it so pleased me, have gone on 
 
Mr. Dorman makes Two Discoveries. 9 
 
 working for him till the crack of doom. No, master, thank you 
 all the same ; but, in my humble opinion, master, and man, and 
 mistress, are best separate out of working hours." 
 
 "You are too far-sighted for me," replied the sick man, wearily, 
 "and I cannot say I just understand your notions or your talk 
 clearly ; but, as you observe, if you work, that is all I need care 
 about ; and if you are, as I suppose, too high in your way to be 
 altogether neighbourly, why, no offence on either side. If none 
 has been given, none has been taken." 
 
 " None has been given to me, at any rate," returned the 
 younger man, with more heartiness of manner than he had yet 
 exhibited ; " and so long as I work for you at all, I will work 
 well and honestly. There is my hand on it ; " and he stretched 
 out a hand hard and brown, and yet, for that of a man who had 
 followed such a calling, singularly small. 
 
 As the blacksmith took it in his, he said, "Why, it is no 
 bigger than a woman's. It is lost like in mine." 
 
 " It can do some work, though," answered Barthorne, smiling, 
 "as you shall see." 
 
 And Mr. Dorman did see. Before the end of three month 
 his trade had doubled ; and though he could not do much him 
 self, money had never been so plentiful. 
 
 When he made up his books each week, which he did, I 
 regret to say, for the sake of greater quietness, every Sunday 
 morning, his heart sank within him lest his new man should give 
 warning. He had paid him liberally and treated him well, and 
 allowed him to discharge idle hands and take on others at his 
 pleasure, but still Dorman felt such a treasure was not likely to 
 remain with him for ever on unequal terms ; and he would have 
 proposed "going shares" with hmi, or even suggested that they 
 should become " pardners," but for that vague uneasy feeling of 
 *'not understanding so queer a fellow" which had oppressed 
 him at their first interview. 
 
 And indeed it was not for want of conjugal spurring that the 
 blacksmith held back. Mrs. Dorman was always urging upon 
 him the expediency of securing Barthorne. 
 
 ** You will find he will be snapped up by somebody who 
 understands his value," she was in tlie habit of remarking; and 
 Mr. Dorman, who recognized the likelihood of her prophecy 
 being fulfilled, always promised to "think the matter over." 
 
 " These sort of things ain't to be done in a hurry, Polly," he 
 
10 Above Suspicion, 
 
 would say, refilling his pipe ; and she would say, with a snort 
 and a flounce : 
 
 " Well, you will find his going can be done in a hurry some 
 fine morning, and then perhaps you will be sorry you did not 
 turn yourself round quicker." 
 
 "That may all be, Polly," he agreed philosophically; "but, 
 upon the other hand, it may not." 
 
 Which proposition being unanswerable, drove Mrs. Dorman 
 to the verge of despair. 
 
 How long Mr. Dorman might have dallied with the question, 
 had his man not broached it himself, it is impossible to con- 
 jecture. 
 
 One dreary Saturday in December, said Barthorne, heating 
 his horse-shoes in the fire, to his master idly blowing the 
 bellows — which, though an undignified, was a congenial occu- 
 pation : 
 
 " I wish you would go to church to-morrow morning; I want 
 to speak to you." 
 
 " All right ! " agreed the other; "but do you really mean to 
 church ? " 
 
 " Yes," was the answer ; " and I can walk part of the way 
 home with you ; only remember to say nothing about this in- 
 doors, or else Mrs. Dorman will be wanting to make one of the 
 party, and three are no company, so far as I ever heard." 
 
 " I will say nothing about the matter to her," Dorman replied, 
 and he kept his word ; for he had an intuitive feeling that 
 Barthorne wanted to speak to him concerning business which 
 might be best transacted without assistance from the lady, who 
 certainly ruled Dorman's domestic roast. 
 
 *■ Let us walk towards White Hart Lane," suggested the man, 
 and the master assenting, they left the old churchyard be- 
 hind, and paced slowly, having stood aside to permit those 
 of the congregation whose way home led them along the same 
 path to take precedence of them, over the damp fields in the 
 direction Barthorne had indicated. 
 
 • When they were left quite alone, when the meadow path 
 held no more sign of life than the walk leading round the ivy- 
 covered tower, Barthorne opened his mouth. 
 
 " Have you ever thought of selling your business ? " he 
 asked. 
 
 *' No, I hain't," replied Mr. Dorman. 
 
Mr. Dorman makes Two Discoveries, 1 1 
 
 **Will you think of selling it now?" 
 
 " I see no call to do so," was the answer. 
 
 For half a dozen yards they paced on together in silence, 
 then Barthorne inquired : 
 
 " Am I to take that as final ? " 
 
 " I dunno what you mean by final," said Mr. Dorman, sul- 
 lenly. 
 
 "What I mean by final is, that you have not thought of 
 selling your business, and that you will not think of doing so," 
 explained Barthorne. 
 
 " I see no call why I should," repeated Mr. Dorman. 
 
 "Well, there is no particular reason, certainly," was the 
 reply, "except that if you will not sell your business, I can take it 
 from you without purchase. I have but to open another place, 
 and all your customers will come flocking to me. I need not 
 pay you a penny for goodwill, for I have the good-will of the 
 neighbourhood already ; but you treated me fairly, and I don't 
 want to treat you unfairly. Your health is not good, and it is 
 not likely to be much better so long as you remain near London. 
 Shouldn't you like a change ? Come, I will make you a bid ; 
 1 will give you fifty pounds for your business, and take the 
 lease and tools and fixtures at a sum to be agreed on between 
 us — ^your furniture I do not want. Will you strike a bargain ? " 
 
 " I had liefer have you for a pardner," exclaimed Mr. Dor- 
 man, breaking out into a profuse perspiration caused by the 
 agony he experienced in making the proposition, and the fear 
 he felt that his man might accept his offer. 
 
 But on the latter score he need have suffered no uneasiness ; 
 nothing on earth save heaven was farther from Barthorne's mind 
 than any compromise of the sort, and he said so frankly. 
 
 " I will either be your successor or your opponent," he re- 
 plied. " Think the matter over for four and twenty hours, and 
 then let me know whether we are to be friends or foes — at peace 
 or at war." 
 
 " I have treated you fairly," expostulated the smith. 
 
 " And I have worked for you honestly," retorted his man. 
 
 " And I think we might do a good stroke together as pard- 
 ners," suggested Mr. Dorman. 
 
 " Perhaps we might ; but I won't be your partner," repHed 
 Barthorne. 
 
 " Will you tell me why ? " 
 
12 Above Suspicion, 
 
 " For one reason, I would rather be working for myself than 
 for myself and another." 
 
 " And what is the next reason ? " 
 
 " None that I need tell to you," was the curt reply. 
 
 And with matters remaining in this unsatisfactory state, they 
 parted — Barthorne professing an intention of walking back by 
 Wood Green, and Mr. Dorman, only too glad to be rid of his 
 company, declaring he would take the shortest way home, 
 which for once chanced to be by following the high-road. 
 
 He was not a strong man, and he knew he had not the 
 faintest chance of success if his new man started an opposition 
 smithy. Nevertheless, his heart clung to Tottenham and his 
 smith's shop, and even for fifty pounds he was loth to leave 
 either. 
 
 Nor was Mrs. Dorman one whit behind her husband in 
 lamentations and resfrets. 
 
 So earnestly she besought him to make any sacrifice rather 
 
 than leave the neighbourhood, that Dorman went that night to 
 
 bed determined to offer Barthorne even two-thirds of the profits, 
 
 V; rather than separate his fortunes from those of the new-comer. 
 
 Whether it was owing to the fact of his having partaken of a 
 hot supper late, or of his having retired to rest early, Mr. Dor- 
 man never could tell ; but hours before daylight the next morn- 
 ing, he woke with a sense of horrible oppression about his chest 
 — with a feeling of some dreadful misery having come upon 
 him about his heart. 
 
 For a few seconds he lay battling with his waking mind 
 against his sleeping, as people often do in such extremity, then 
 he turned and felt for something human and tangible to reassure 
 him ; but he felt vacancy — his wife's place was empty. 
 
 "Polly," he said, "Polly dear;" but Polly never answered. 
 
 Then — he never could tell afterwards what made him do it, 
 though he understood an impulse beyond his own power of self- 
 control was urging him on — he got up, and partly dressed, and 
 stole like a thief along the passage, and down the staircase, and 
 across the parlour, and so into a little office beyond adjoining 
 the shop. 
 
 Yes, his intuition had been right — the door of communication 
 was ajar, and the forge fire alight. He could hear his wife's 
 voice, and the whoo-of of the bellows. Oh! that thrice-accursed 
 Barthorne. He would have his life. Standing there in the dark- 
 
Mr. Dorman makes Two Discoveries. 13 
 
 ness, Dorman swore to himself, nothing save the spilling of that 
 strange man's blood could cool the fever raging in his own. But 
 he would not be in a hurry; he had never been in a hurry yet 
 — not even in proposing to the woman who was false to him ; 
 so he waited for a minute, first to recover his breath, and then 
 to decide on his future conduct, and while he waited he heard 
 his wife say : 
 
 " I don't know why you are so cruel to me." 
 
 " I am not a bit cruel to you," was the sharp reply, uttered 
 in a pause of the bellows-blowing. " I 'd be cruel to you if I 
 took you at your word, and let you leave a better man than I 
 ever was or shall be for the sake of a stranger you have taken 
 a fancy to. But it is of no use your plaguing my Hfe out in this 
 way. If I loved you as much as I do not love you — if I hated 
 your husband as much as I like and respect the man, I would 
 not ask you to leave him for anything you could offer. I have 
 my work cut out, and I do not intend that any woman shall 
 come between me and its execution. Now, will you stand back? 
 if you do not the sparks may burn you." 
 
 " I wish they might," she answered, " and then you would be 
 sorry for your hard-heartedness." 
 
 *' I should not be sony if they burnt you to death, mistress," 
 he said angrily. " If there had never been women like you to 
 tempt men, I should not have been hammering on a smith's 
 
 anvil now. By ," and he swore an oath which sounded 
 
 fearful to the weak and shuddering listener, "if I was your hus- 
 band I 'd thrash this nonsense out of you, if I killed you in the 
 process." 
 
 " I would rather be killed by you than kissed by him," she 
 answered with an unconscious alliteration. 
 
 Barthorne flung his irons back into the fire, and, advancing 
 straight to where she stood crying and sobbing, took her by the 
 shoulder. 
 
 " Now, look here," he said, " I have had more than enough 
 of this love-making ; and if you went on with it for ever you 
 would never win a love-look from me. I don't like you — I didn't 
 like you from the first day we met. I am a trifle too dark my- 
 self to care for brown eyes and black hair. When I fall in love, 
 which at present I never intend to do, it shall be with a woman 
 whose eyes are blue as heaven, and whose cheeks are as white 
 as snow. So now good morning and good bye. I shall take 
 
14 Above Suspicion, 
 
 the liberty of screwing a bolt on the inside of this door while I 
 remain here, and if you give me any further trouble I shall tell 
 your husband why I found it necessary to do so. 
 
 *' Great heavens ! " he added, as she went along the passage, 
 her progress facilitated by a push from him, " that men should 
 peril their interests for such cattle — for such cattle ! " and he 
 was so overwhelmed with the absurdity of the idea, that he sat 
 down on the anvil and let his fire out while he thought the 
 matter over. 
 
 "I don't believe one bit about the serpent tempting Eve," he 
 considered. " I believe she must have been one of those stealing, 
 artfid sort of women, who, finding her husband a fool, as he un- 
 doubtedly was, and the serpent clever, as he certainly must have 
 been, played up to him, and manceuvred about till she got his 
 secret, when, woman-like, she pitched him over. Well, I sup- 
 pose they are necessary evils, but they are evils. Till I am laid 
 in my coffin it will always baffle me to comprehend why God 
 made women. There, now, that woman has made me neglect 
 my work." 
 
 And he rose and re-kindled his fire, and did what his hand 
 found to do, unconscious of the misery which that morning had 
 brought to one heart he would willingly have kept from trouble. 
 For he really did like his master. And when, my reader, you 
 come to know what the man's nature had been and was, you 
 may be inclined to score a few points in his favour on that 
 account. The same day, when he went to his dinner, Dorman 
 followed him to his lodging. 
 
 " I have been thinking," he began, "about that there ofter o' 
 yourn, and p'rhaps, as 1 ain't so handy as I were, I might do 
 worse nor close on it." 
 
 " I think you might," Avas the calm reply. 
 " Well, then, I will, and so no more need be said. Fifty 
 pounds for the goodwill; and lease and plant we can agree upon, 
 and I will go away and interfere with ye never more." 
 " That is it," said Barthorne in confirmation. 
 "And, neighbour, so long as we are talking, I want to tell 
 you I heard what passed between you and my wife this morn- 
 mg." 
 
 " More is the pity," was the comment. 
 
 "And I bear you no ill-will, mate, for the evil you have 
 wrought — though, God knows, I understand you as little now 
 
Mr. Dorman makes Two Discoveries. 15" 
 
 as I did the first day you crossed my threshold. I canno' tell 
 how it has all come to pass — I canno'. I married my wife for 
 love, and she miarried me for the same — or I thought she did. 
 Since we came together she has never lacked bite nor sup ; she 
 has lived on the best; she has two silk gowns now, and her 
 watch and chain like a lady, and — and " 
 
 At this point he buried his face in his hands and sobbed aloud, 
 Barthorne never interposing; but when he had indulged his 
 grief for more than a sufficient period, his successor slapped 
 him on the shoulder, and said : 
 
 " Take her away from here — take her among her own people, 
 if she has any ; she will outlive this folly, and be to you a better 
 wife in the future than she ever was before she understood all 
 men might not be of your mind. And as for the bother and 
 the shame, friend, I would have kept both from you if I could ; 
 and I am not likely, unless your mistress trouble me hereafter, 
 to make either public/' 
 
 " Heaven bless you for that ! " 
 
 " Amen. Have you anything more to say ? " seeing his visitor 
 hesitate. 
 
 " Nothing, except this. This forenoon I met a man from your 
 parts, and asked him if he had known a smith called Barthorne 
 at Spindlethorpe. In answer he said, ' No. A man of the name 
 of Glendy was the only smith at Spindlethorpe, but I might 
 have made a mistake. Four miles off, at Abbotsleigh, there was 
 a place owned by a Squire Barthorne ' " 
 
 " Yes ? " interrogated his man. 
 
 "Was that Squire kith or kin to you?" asked Dorman. 
 
 " I do not know which Squire you are talking about," was the 
 reply; " but a Squire of Abbotsleigh was my father. You have 
 the mystery and its solution at last," he observed with bitterness. 
 
 Whereupon Mr. Dorman, suddenly oppressed by the atmo- 
 sphere of gentility by which he had unconsciously been surrounded 
 for so many months, beat an unceremonious retreat 
 
i6 Above Suspicion, 
 
 CHAPTER HI. 
 
 MILES BARTHORNE's PARENTAGE. 
 
 There were persons residing in and around Abbotsleigh who 
 would have said Miles Barthorne had no right to so call him- 
 self; but in this they were wrong. He had as much right to 
 that name as to any other. Conversely, however, he had as 
 much right to any other as to that, which, after all, is not a nice 
 Kind of inheritance for any man. 
 
 Had Lucy Sanson been as prudent as she was pretty, no 
 scandal would have attached itself to the memory of Squire 
 Miles Barthorne, who slept as quietly in the family vault as 
 Lucy did in her grave in a foreign land. 
 
 There could be no question but that the Squire would have 
 married her had she played her cards properly; but she did not 
 play them with the slightest wisdom, and the result proved 
 Miles, junior, who, except by the Squire's favour, could not be 
 regarded as his eldest son, or, in fact, as any son at all. 
 
 How this came to pass was as follows. The Squire's mother, 
 a Scotch lady, had brought with her to the Hall a maid called 
 Glendy, Presbyterian, prim, precise, honest beyond beUef, dis- 
 agreeable beyond the power of expression. 
 
 She arrived at Abbotsleigh when she was very young, and 
 she stayed there, first as lady's-maid and then as housekeeper, 
 till her hair was grey ; stayed there till her mistress died, and 
 her son first married, and then died also. When that event 
 occurred, Miss Glendy gave and received notice to quit— the 
 letters of dismissal and resignation crossing each other — and 
 retired with her savings to spend the remainder of her days with 
 a niece, the sad widow of a dissenting minister. 
 
 Before her mistress died, however, Miss Glendy urged many 
 of her own relations to come south and taste of the rich sweet- 
 ness of Pvnglish pastures. And they came — some to do well, 
 and some to do ill ; some to tire of the pleasant land, and seek 
 turther change in distant countries; some to die; some to marry. 
 Amongst the latter were two girls — one, Bessie, who married a 
 small farmer named Sanson, and another, Jean, who, being of a 
 
Miles Barthornis Parentage. 17 
 
 serious, not to say discontented, turn of mind, attracted the at- 
 tention of a Methodist preacher, who ultimately asked her to 
 become his wife. 
 
 Of the men we need concern ourselves only with Hal Glendy, 
 son of Miss Glendy's favourite brother, who, having settled in 
 the north of Ireland, refused to leave his adopted home, but 
 eventually sent his firstborn to Abbotsleigh as deputy, and bade 
 him look after his aunt's savings, which the youth failed to do, 
 though he came of Irish folk on the one side, and of Scotch on 
 the other. 
 
 Nevertheless, he prospered. He had the best work in all 
 that part of the country. The gentry liked him, and he did re- 
 markably well both for himself and those belonging to him. 
 He it was who first made any stir about his pretty Cousin Lucy 
 living at the Hall. Perhaps he knew that of the new Squire 
 recently come into his estate which made him think the young 
 woman might find a better service elsewhere. Perhaps jealousy 
 quickened his perceptions. Be all this as it may, he did not 
 approve of Lucy remaining at the Hall after Mrs. Barthorne's 
 death; and he told his aunt this, and his aunt bade him show 
 his face again in any house where she lived at his peril. 
 
 For Miss Glendy had as high a notion of the pride of station 
 in men as she had of the power of virtue in women. For no 
 earthly consideration would Miss Glendy, even in her most 
 youthful days, have permitted herself to be chucked under the 
 chin, or kissed, or even complimented, and if she did not credit 
 the whole of her sex with a like circumspectness, at all events 
 she considered no child of a Glendy would ever suffer any undue 
 familiarity. And supposing — even supposing any Glendy capable 
 of so far forgetting her genealogy and her training, she felt quite 
 certain the son of her dead lady was too true a gentleman ever 
 to speak familiarly to a servant. 
 
 At her approach Squire Miles had always shrunk awayappalled. 
 He called her, in his juvenile days, "Old Whalebones ;" but 
 then, who dare have repeated this utterance to Miss Glendy ? 
 And when he grew older, weak and foolish as the man was, he 
 had sense enough to understand it would be well to retain so 
 discreet a housekeeper in his service ; and, accordingly, no 
 duchess ever received higher honour than did Miss Glendy from 
 the young heir. She would as soon have thought — this is un- 
 
1 8 Above Suspicion. 
 
 questionably true — of Mr. Miles making love to her as of his 
 making love to her niece. 
 
 But he did make love to pretty Lucy Sanson, nevertheless ; 
 and, as has been said before, there is not the slightest doubt he 
 would have gone further, and made her mistress of the Hall, 
 had she been wise as she was fair. 
 
 When it all came to the knowledge of her friends — as it had 
 to do before the birth of Miles — the dissenting minister took 
 her home, and Miss Glendy wished to resign her situation, but 
 Mr. Barthorne was penitent, and declared his intention of marry- 
 ing their niece. 
 
 Perhaps he might have done so even then, had Lucy proved 
 true to herself and her relatives ; but she failed in her part ; and 
 one day — sick to death, probably, of the monotony of her 
 uncle's house, weary of his homilies, and unable longer to endure 
 the uncertainty of her position — she yielded to her lover's per- 
 suasions, and slipped quietly away with him to France, leaving 
 uncle, aunt, and child to brave popular opinion as they might. 
 Mr. Mason, being a thorough Christian and truly moral man, 
 took her defection seriously to heart — indeed, people said he 
 never recovered the shock of finding upon what empty air he 
 had spent his exhortations. Miss Glendy, equally moral, bore 
 herself with more equanimity. 
 
 '' Something must be done for the child," she said ; so she 
 had him brought to the Hall, hired a nurse for him, and treated 
 Miles in all respects as though he had been born in lawful wed- 
 lock, and was next rightful heir to Abbotsleigh Hall. 
 
 There Lucy never returned. She an^ the Squire passed two 
 years travelling about from city to city, at the end of which time 
 she died at a little roadside inn, after giving birth to a dead 
 child — her second — a girl. 
 
 The Squire did not immediately retrace his steps to England. 
 He visited the Holy Land ; he spent some time in Norway ; he 
 travelled through Spain, and when he finally recrossed the 
 threshold of the paternal mansion, Miles — little Miles — was a 
 sturdy handsome lad of six, able to read very well indeed, and 
 still better able to ride. 
 
 He was introduced cautiously to the Squire, who first tolerated 
 his presence, and then took notice of him. 
 
 " He will make the child his heir," Miss Glendy decided, and 
 iier heart beat high at the thought. 
 
Miles Barthornis Parentage. 19 
 
 But the Squire made no sign of such adoption ; with the boy 
 as with the mother, he drifted. He did not send the child away, 
 neither did he arrange for his proper training. 
 
 Almost out of pity — and perhaps with an eye to possible 
 benefits in the future — the rector of Abbotsleigh saw to his 
 education. The boy was clever. Any father might have been 
 proud of such a son ; and it is quite possible the Squire would 
 in time have taken to the lad, and left him the lands of Abbots- 
 leigh, which were quite free and unentailed, had it not so fell 
 out that at the house of a relative — of his nearest male relative, 
 indeed — he met with one of those women whom the younger 
 Miles abhorred afterwards with all his soul — soft, stealing, plausi- 
 ble, cunning — a mere nursery governess in the eyes of Mrs. John 
 Barthorne ; the loveliest, and the sweetest, and the gentlest 
 creature God had ever made, in the opinion of Squire Miles. 
 
 This creature, lovely, sweet, and gentle, understood her ad- 
 mirer's nature much better than poor Lucy had done. She fell 
 no victim. This time the Squire was lotted oft" and bought in 
 at a very low price indeed. Miles Barthorne, Esquire, of 
 Abbotsleigh Hall, married the governess in his cousin's family, 
 and took her abroad as he had taken Lucy. 
 
 History repeats itself There is a wonderful sameness in the 
 record of most human lives. There was a wonderful sameness 
 in the life of Miles Barthorne, only this time it was he who died 
 abroad. He died very suddenly at Florence — so suddenly that 
 he could not make his will, long deferred, or do anything, save, 
 when almost in the death struggle, entreat his wife to " see to 
 the boy." 
 
 Squire Miles was thought worthy of Christian burial in Pro- 
 testant England : so his remains, not having been wrecked by 
 the way, were brought to Abbotsleigh, where his dust was laid 
 with the dust of his fathers, and where Mr. John Barthorne 
 followed as chief mourner. 
 
 Miles, junior, aged fourteen, was nowhere. He had been 
 brought up — Mrs. Barthorne number two being childless — as 
 the heir ; unacknowledged, perhaps, but still certainly ; and 
 now he could not even attend the funeral. The man who had 
 wrought the sin was dead, and none might repair his error. 
 
 When Miss Glendy knew there was no will, she tendered her 
 resignation, which Mrs. Barthorne had anticipated by a letter of 
 her own. 
 
20 Above Suspicion, 
 
 No more education for Miles — no more ponies — no more* 
 Latin and Greek. 
 
 " Cast out the son of the bondwoman," was Mrs. Barthorne's 
 dictum ; and, coincident with her return, Miles was cast out 
 neck and crop from the pleasant lands of Abbotsleigh. 
 
 For her life Mrs. Barthorne had the house of Abbotsleigh 
 and five hundred a year — everything else went to Mr. John 
 Barthorne. To him, not unsuccessfully, an appeal w^as made 
 for the illegitimate child. The applicant, Hal Glendy, who 
 went over to state the case, received a cheque for fifty pounds, 
 and some useful advice anent bringing up the boy to an honest 
 calling. 
 
 Next day he had a long talk with his nephew, told him in 
 plain English his position, and asked would he learn a trade — 
 would he learn all he could teach him ? The boy slept upon 
 the proposition, and said — yes ; he liked his uncle, and he did 
 not like his Aunt Glendy. So his uncle bound him apprentice, 
 but not under the name of Barthorne. 
 
 To Hal Glendy the cognomen was odious. *' You are my 
 nephew, Mick Sanson, now," he said, and Miles assented, for 
 he was yet young, and the bile in his nature had not begun to 
 stir. 
 
 For which reason, far and near, the boy, as he grew older 
 and the story of his birth became more remote, was known as 
 " Black Mick." 
 
 So far as anybody could tell, he had no name of his own — 
 neither Barthorne nor Sanson. He was simply Glendy's nephew, 
 or Black Mick. 
 
 Curiously enough, whenever any pity chanced to be expressed 
 for the youth, it ^vas certain to be by some of the gentry in the 
 neighbourhood, who thought Miles' a hard case, and considered 
 the widow and Mr. John Barthorne might between them have 
 devised some scheme for bringing up the son of the dead man 
 to a profession. 
 
 They had seen the child riding about on his rough pony, 
 when the sturdy, handsome boy stood a very fair chance of 
 being left all his father's possessions, and they did not consider 
 that merely because Squire Miles died without a will. Miles, 
 junior, should have been put to work at the forge. 
 
 For this reason, when business took these gentlemen to 
 Glendy's yard, they had always a kindly word and pleasant 
 
Miles Barthorne's Parentage. 21 
 
 look for the smith's nephew ; and when he went to work at any 
 of the large houses in the neighbourhood of his old home, the 
 ladies went a little out of their way to speak civilly to the youth 
 who had been treated, as they considered, so harshly by Mr. 
 Barthorne. 
 
 Indeed, to speak truly, the memory of that very frail young 
 woman, Lucy Sanson, was much less displeasing to them than 
 the presence of Mrs. Barthorne, Lucy, at all events, had not 
 been sufficiently artful to induce the Squire to marry her, and 
 this woman, not a bit better born, probably, and certainly not 
 possessed of a tenth part of Lucy's beauty, had insisted on 
 church, and clergy, and ring, and proper settlements like any 
 countess. 
 
 Of course the ladies of Spindlethorpe and Abbotsleigh, and 
 the other neighbourhoods adjacent thereto, never reduced their 
 real feelings into such exceedingly plain language as the above, 
 and consequently they found Miles a convenient peg on which 
 to hang their dislike of the Squire's widow. 
 
 " She might have had some pity for the boy," they declared, 
 which she certainly might, thougli it by no means follows that 
 those who were wannest in expressing their opinions would 
 have acted a more Christian part themselves. 
 
 " We find it so easy to tell other people how they ought to 
 act," as the rector who had educated Miles, and who had pri- 
 vately remonstrated with Mrs. Barthorne concerning her treat- 
 ment of the boy, slily remarked when public opinion set, as it 
 did at frequent intervals, very strongly against the widow. 
 
 As Miles grew to manhood, the gentry were more than ever 
 decided that it was a scandal to see the young man shoeing 
 horses, and going about the country carrying a basket of tools; 
 and they felt quite satisfied in their own minds that Mrs. Bar- 
 thorne must feel thoroughly ashamed of herself when she met 
 her stepson. 
 
 It is extremely improbable she did anything of the sort j but 
 the sight of Miles became in course of time a source of serious 
 annoyance to her. 
 
 When she cast out the boy, she forgot that, in the ordinary 
 course of things, he would grow to be a man, and it was not 
 pleasant for her to be stared at and elbowed by a stalwart young 
 fellow who was the very image of her late husband, and who 
 lost no opportunity of thrusting himself in her way. 
 
22 Above Suspicion. 
 
 Spite of the remonstrances of his friend the rector, he made 
 a point of attending Abbotsleigh Church, and he attended it to 
 such purpose that Mrs. Barthorne's pew became finally tenant- 
 less. She tried speaking to the young man, and said to him in 
 the church porch: 
 
 " How do you do, Miles ? " 
 
 For answer he folded his arms and stared her out of counte- 
 nance. 
 
 About Abbotsleigh the people ceased touching their hats to 
 her, and she had to send fifteen miles if she wanted a lock re- . 
 paired or a horse shod ; for Hal Glendy would permit no man 
 in his employ to work at the Hall. 
 
 Each month which added to Miles' age made the neighbour- 
 hood less tolerable to Mrs. Barthorne. 
 
 Out of pure insolence the young fellow had commenced his 
 system of persecution, but eventually he pursued it with an 
 object. 
 
 " I will drive her out of the neighbourhood," he said to his 
 uncle. 
 
 " Better let her alone and stick to your work," was the 
 answer. 
 
 " I do stick to my work," repHed Miles, " but I will not let 
 her alone." 
 
 And the upshot of it all was that Mrs. Barthorne eventually, 
 finding that the state of her health necessitated change of air, 
 let the Hall, and departed bag and baggage, to revisit Abbots- 
 leigh no more. 
 
 From the time of her departure public interest in the late 
 Squire's son began to abate. There was not the slightest chance 
 of his ever being anything better than a blacksmith now. The 
 Squire could not rise from his grave. John Barthorne had a 
 large family of his own ; and really fifty pounds was not an 
 illiberal gift, when the circumstances were reconsidered. The 
 Hall was let to strangers, who had never heard of the Barthorne 
 scandal ; and Glendy was willing enough to allow the horses 
 belonging to the new-comers to be shod in his yard, and to 
 send over and execute any work in his line which the incoming 
 tenants wished to entrust to him. 
 
 Glendy had a very good business indeed, the gentry said. 
 He was making money fast and investing it prudently. No 
 doubt young Sanson would be his heir. He was unmarried, 
 
Miles BartJiornes Parentage, 23 
 
 and had no nearer relative. Further, Miss Glendy had amassed 
 no contemptible amount of savings during her residence at the 
 Hall. 
 
 Miles therefore stood a very fair chance of becoming here- 
 after a well-to-do master smith. It had been a good thing his 
 learning a trade — better, perhaps, than if Mr. John Barthorne 
 had educated and sent him to college. 
 
 Hal Glendy was a far more prosperous man than many who 
 considered themselves his social superiors. Altogether, the 
 thorn of Mrs. Barthorne's presence being removed from the 
 flesh of the good people round and about Abbotsleigh, society 
 began to make itself comfortable about the young man Miles. 
 
 After all, the story was a very old one, and the boy had fared 
 much better than might have been expected ; and it was time 
 the whole affair was forgotten — in which opinion Hal Glendy 
 most heartily coincided. 
 
 As for Miles, no one asked what he thought of his position. 
 No one dreamed of the wild aspirations that had grown with 
 his growth and strengthened with his strength. 
 
 He meant to make money, and buy the Hall and land im- 
 mediately adjoining, if he could do no more. For him the face 
 of woman had no charm. There was only one thing on earth 
 he desired, and that thing was sufficient wealth to enable him 
 to take back his name and become Squire Barthorne of the 
 Hall. 
 
 His uncle's business was increasing steadily and rapidly. It 
 would not be hard to make a fortune out of their trade. Miles 
 decided. 
 
 Visions of a foundry had often crossed his mind. Mentally 
 he had built ranges and ranges of workshops, and heard the 
 chink of a hundred hammers. He with his education, which 
 he had never forgotten, his uncle with his keen shrewdness — ■ 
 an integral part of his nature — between them could they not 
 rear a trade ? Could they not make their hundreds thousands, 
 and their thousands tens of thousands, as other men, no cleverer, 
 no wiser, no more industrious, had done before ? 
 
 And thus, while working at his trade, he built his air castle. 
 
 When he had got it perfect — ay, even to the cloud-capped 
 pinnacles — it was swept in a moment away. The work of all 
 his young life had to be begun over again. 
 
 He had mistaken the foundation on which he built ; and it 
 
24 Above Suspicion, 
 
 was necessary to reconstruct the whole edifice, and go on la- 
 bouring, labouring through the years till the turrets of his fresh 
 palace should touch cloudland again. 
 
 For five and twenty years Hal Glendy had remained faithful 
 to the memory of his first love, Lucy Sanson. At the end of that 
 quarter of a century he met a very young woman who had no 
 objection to become an old man's darling, and married her. 
 
 Miles thought this hard upon him ; and perhaps it was : but 
 a harder trial was in store. 
 
 With an intuition by no means rare in her sex, Mrs. Glendy 
 took it into her pretty head that she did not like her husband's 
 nephew, which was all the more singular, since women generally 
 admired his handsome face. 
 
 But Mrs. Glendy's instinct told her this man would prove an 
 enemy ; and she gave her husband no rest till he intimated to 
 Miles it was best they should part company. 
 
 He did not do this ungenerously, however. He gave Miles 
 the fifty pounds handed to him by Mr. John Barthorne, with the 
 interest at five per cent, for ten years added. Further, he gave 
 him twenty-five pounds and a watch and chain as a present 
 from himself, together with the written recommendation already 
 mentioned — and not without tears, for the lad had been very 
 dear to him, and the mother dearer — and a dead love, like a 
 dead sorrow, can never be quite forgotten — he bade Miles Bar- 
 thorne goodbye and God speed. 
 
 Miles had insisted on being styled Barthorne in his uncle's 
 letter of advice to all whom the character of his nephew might 
 concern. 
 
 " For a woman my father left me a beggar," observed Mr. 
 Miles Barthorne bitterly, and quite truly. " And for a woman 
 you send me adrift to make for whatever land I can. I will 
 enter that land in my own name. I have been known by one 
 of your choosing long enough." 
 
 "See that you bring disgrace on neither," said his uncle sadly. 
 
 "Even in that case I am not likely to trouble you again," the 
 young man answered; and so left Spindlethorpe. 
 
Miles Barthonie Marries in Haste, 25 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 MILES BARTHORNE MARRIES IN HASTE. 
 
 For three years Miles Barthorne continued shoeing horses — 
 increasing his staff of men and extending his business. At the 
 end of that time he sold his plant, premises, and connection, 
 and retired from the smithing trade and Tottenham to a small 
 cottage situate at West Green, which he had bought for an old 
 song. 
 
 The public mind at Tottenham was much exercised to ac- 
 count for this proceeding. Fortunes were in those day made 
 at Tottenham. The resident gentry in the neighbourhood 
 patronized the local tradespeople, and did not rush to London 
 for their supplies, as is in all neighbourhoods too much the case 
 at present ; and the butcher and the grocer, the baker and the 
 candlestick-maker, were by consequence w^ll-to-do and sub 
 stantial householders and house proprietors. Further, the resi 
 dent gentry were wealthy. No stable but held its pair of car- 
 riage horses, whilst there were many stables that held many 
 more ; and as the new smith invented a new system of doing 
 business which found great favour in the eyes of those who had 
 been perpetually harassed by the ever-recurring remark, "If you 
 please, sir, the bay horse must be shod," or "John has just taken 
 the chestnut mare to the forge," uttered at the precise instant 
 when the bay horse or the chestnut mare was most urgently 
 wanted, he had at the time when he sold his "going concern" 
 the pick and choice of the best work in the neighbourhood. 
 
 Mr. Barthorne it was who originated the contract system of 
 shoeing horses. He roughed and shod for so much a head per 
 annum, sent his own men for the animals, and sent his own 
 men back with them. For an additional annual sum he saw to 
 their general health, and would have engaged to feed them like 
 wise, had he for a moment supposed the oats supplied would 
 ever have found the way to their mangers. 
 
 There are things a man cannot effect ; and one is command- 
 ing the honesty of any human being who has to do with horses. 
 
26 Above Suspicion. 
 
 At that point Barthorne drew the line. He shod and he phy- 
 sicked, there he stopped. Being, after his fashion, a represent- 
 ative man, it is not a matter for wonder that amongst all ranks 
 and by all classes his relinquishment of a paying business was 
 freely canvassed. Fat Quakers remarked to their demure wives 
 "that it was very strange, but doubtless friend Miles knew his 
 own affairs best." Irritable gentlemen, not of the Quaker per- 
 suasion, wondered "what the Barthorne could be thinking 
 
 of;" whilst in bar-parlours wiseacres said "there was no depen- 
 dence to be placed on strangers ; " and their wives running in 
 next door to gossip, declared " Master Barthorne had never 
 been the same since he married." 
 
 For he had married, six months previous to the time when he 
 sold his business, a quiet-looking, pale-faced, grey-eyed young 
 woman, possessed of a pretty graceful figure, light brown hair, 
 two dimples, and a mouth exactly like a cat's. She managed 
 this feature remarkably well, but still it conferred upon her a 
 peculiarity of appearance for which most persons were puzzled 
 to account. With all she was not a bad-looking person. She 
 was pre-eminently that which in a certain rank is known as 
 "genteel-looking," the accent being laid strongly on the "gen." 
 She dressed well, walked well, spoke well, and was by the neigh- 
 bourhood generally considered "above her station." 
 
 Miles chanced to see her at the house of one of his patrons, 
 where, being a poor though publicly acknowleged relation of the 
 mistress of the establishment, she filled the position of nursery 
 governess. And a wretched life she led while in that position ; 
 so wretched that, although Barthorne was, in her estimation, 
 *' only a blacksmith," and after a fashion she considered herself 
 a " lady," she accepted his advances without disdain and thank- 
 fully agreed to become his wife, which he made her despite his 
 former resolve of remaining single till he could marry to advance 
 his interests. 
 
 To resolve, however, is one thing — to perform, another. 
 Practically Miles Barthorne found his single estate a drawback 
 to his worldly prosperity ; not merely, being young and good- 
 looking, did it compel him to have his domestic affairs managed 
 by hags who were neither pleasing to look at nor desirable in 
 their habits, but he found that ladies discovered he proved a 
 bone of contention and a fertile source of idleness amongst their 
 female servants. 
 
Miles Barthorne Mar7'ies in Haste. 27 
 
 He was not the man to encourage smiles and covert glances 
 from cooks or housemaids, but his studied reserve inflamed the 
 hearts of all the fair creatures who came in contact with him, 
 and it is not too much to say he might have had his choice of at 
 least a hundred personable women, some of them possessed of 
 a not contemptible amount of money in the savings bank. 
 
 Now, Barthorne did not like being made love to. Had his 
 lot been cast in a higher circle, he would have fallen a prey to 
 no match-making mother, to no young beauty eager for a settle- 
 ment. 
 
 In all ranks there are a few men to be found utterly insensible 
 to flattery, who read a woman through and through as they 
 might a book, and who can tell as accurately what she is worth 
 as a judicious buyer can the probable value of a held of standing 
 wheat. 
 
 This man Barthorne, who plays a prominent part in the story 
 I have to tell, was probably as great a scoundrel as any one 
 could, in the length of a midsummer day, meet in the streets of 
 London, but his wickedness did not take the form of an undue 
 love of women. Rather, as has been indicated, his nature was 
 unredeemed by any love for any woman. He had his ideal, 
 possibly, but so far his and her paths had not crossed. Given 
 him his ideal, it is quite possible he might have developed 
 higher qualities, for not unfrequently the worse a man the greater 
 his veneration for a woman, pure, gentle, gracious, beautiful. 
 
 As from the bottom of a well one can see the stars in daylight, 
 so from the depth of a man's wickedness he can discern the 
 beauty of virtue when possessed by a woman. 
 
 It was, therefore, from no particular love of Miss Lucy Chappell 
 that he asked her to marry him. He wanted a wife, and just 
 then she was the only person likely to suit in that capacity who 
 presented herself. On the other hand, it is fair to say that, so 
 far as she was capable of caring for anything, Miss Lucy did 
 care for the handsome and audacious smith. Of course, being 
 a properly constituted young woman, had any person of a like 
 appearance in a higher rank appeared and proposed. Miss Lucy 
 would have accepted him ; but no more eligible suitor crossing 
 the stage, she conceived a very sufficient affection for him, which, 
 as years went on, developed into jealousy of every woman he 
 looked at. 
 ' It is quite possible, however, that Miles, placed as he then 
 
28 Above Suspicioiu 
 
 was, might have hesitated before asking her to marry him, had 
 he not chanced, while waiting for the master of the house in 
 order to explain a disputed item in the quarterly account, to 
 hear Lucy's mistress engaged in giving that young person a 
 " tongue-thrashing," as the lower orders graphically style that 
 merciless lecture some women are so well able to inflict. In 
 the course of this verbal chastisement his own name was men- 
 tioned more than once, the mistress declaring she would not 
 have her house disgraced by the governess of her children speak- 
 ing familiarly to a tradesman, to a person who she believed shod 
 horses himself. 
 
 To this Lucy answered deprecatingly, she had never spoken 
 to Mr. Barthorne at all except to say ''Good morning;" or 
 " Good afternoon ;" which remark only added fuel to the flame, 
 and started the indignant lady off on another furious canter, 
 beginning with the words : 
 
 *'y]/r. Barthorne, indeed ! What next, I wonder !" 
 
 "I will marry that girl," said Barthorne to himself; and he 
 did. 
 
 For the time being he gave up shoeing horses, and walked 
 about every day in the glory of his Sunday garments, in which 
 he did not look uncomfortable, as is the manner of his class, 
 but as Miss Chappell mentally observed, " quite like a gentle- 
 man/' 
 
 First he threw himself across her path when she was walking 
 out with the children ; but ere long he persuaded her to meet 
 him in the pleasant, quiet lanes round and about Edmonton, 
 or in the still more lonely field-paths which are so numerous in 
 the country lying to the north of London. 
 
 It ought to have been a happy wooing, according to the old 
 proverb, for it was a very speedy one. Within three months 
 of the tmie when Barthorne heard his patron's wife finding fault 
 with her governess for having spoken civilly to him, he was 
 married to her in Tottenham Old Church, Lucy's only brother 
 acting the part of father. 
 
 After the ceremony Mrs. Barthorne, who was not deficient 
 in courage, returned to the house of her employer, broke the 
 news of her change of state, said she hoped the step she had 
 taken would cause no " ill-will," remarked that she should send 
 for her boxes, which were already packed, stated that " Mr. 
 Barthorne and she intended to spend their honeymoon at the 
 
Miles Barthorne Marries in Haste, 29 
 
 Isle of Wight," and finally, having stricken her relative almost 
 dumb with indignation, left the place with all colours flying. 
 
 Within ten minutes after her departure a messenger was 
 dispatched to Barthorne, requesting that his bill might be at 
 once sent in — his bill up to that date. Barthorne laughed, and 
 returned it by the man ; but nothing further came of the matter. 
 On his leturn home, the owner of the establishment did not 
 find it convenient to send a cheque for the amount ; and ac- 
 cordingly things drifted on as usual, and Barthorne's men still 
 continued to shoe and dose the horses of Mrs. Barthorne's 
 kinswoman's husband until Barthorne sold his business, and 
 gave rise to those remarks and conjectures to which reference 
 has already been made. 
 
 The mind of Tottenham, then, was exercised concerning 
 Miles Barthorne. Tottenham could not understand why he 
 should sell his business. Tottenham failed entirely to compre- 
 hend why he or any one found the air of West Green better 
 suited to his taste than the air of Tottenham. Finally, Totten- 
 ham, which considered it had made the stranger, felt disgusted 
 at his desertion of it. 
 
 And yet the secret was really a very simple one. For three 
 years. Miles Barthorne had tried whether it was possible to make 
 a fortune out of a farrier's business ; at the end of that time he 
 decided his fortune could never be made out of it in Totten- 
 ham. 
 
 He was young, and when men are young they think they have 
 not a moment to lose : when men are old they think, conversely, 
 and fortunately, that time will wait for their lagging feet. Fur- 
 ther, the dead, certain level of his existence seemed killing him; 
 and beyond all, he had, one winter's day, in crossing the field- 
 path leading from West Green to White Hart Lane, slipped in 
 getting over one of the stiles, which were made purposely quite 
 as inconvenient then as they are made inconvenient now, and 
 strained himself severely — so severely, indeed, that he finally 
 understood a long time must elapse before he could do a heavy 
 day's work at " the fire," or be in any respect the strong man 
 who had halted at Tottenham en route to London. 
 
 Further, he made the discovery all persons who have to do 
 with labour make sooner or later, viz., that while it is possible 
 to make a large amount, comparatively, of profit out of a couple 
 of workmen, and a very fair per-centage out of a large amount 
 
30 Above Suspicion, 
 
 of capital when a vast number of hands are employed, a medium 
 trade — a lower middle-class sort of factory — always must prove 
 eminently unsatisfactory to an ambitious employer. 
 
 His connection had spread, and was spreading; but when 
 Barthorne came to count his gains, he found the result utterly 
 disproportionate to the risk and the anxiety. Bad debts he had 
 not many ; but of bad workmen he had a surfeit — men who, 
 the moment his back was turned, lit their pipes and sent out 
 for beer, and shod the horses badly, and confided their return 
 to some boy, who galloped them along the highway as if run- 
 ning a race with John Gilpin. And, lastly, he hated being a 
 master smith ; he loathed the sort of position it conferred. As 
 a workman, people had regarded him as an anomaly; as a 
 farrier employing labour, they were disposed to consider he 
 occupied his proper sphere. 
 
 " I would rather work hard at contracts, with one or two men 
 under me, than go on with this sort of thing," he remarked to 
 his wife ; and she, though secretly mortified, dared ofter no 
 opposition to his whim. 
 
 She had indeed looked forward to a phaeton, in which he 
 should drive round and take his orders and collect his accounts, 
 she, dressed in all her best, sitting by his side ; she had dreamt 
 of her husband abandoning work altogether, leaving that to his 
 men, to the end that his hand might become nearly as white 
 and soft as her own ; she had seen visions of annual visits to 
 the seaside, where, in a black satin gown, and gold chain well 
 spread out over a silk velvet mantle, she should ruffle it with 
 her betters, as she had done on that memorable journey to the 
 Isle of Wight. And now, as she once observed to her husband, 
 " It turned out she had married a man determined to be no 
 more than a common labourer." 
 
 " But still who will give you more luxuries than any clerk at 
 his thirty shillings in the City," replied Barthorne ; *' and if you 
 behave yourself, and be a good girl, and do as you are told, you 
 shall be a lady some day, you shall, by ! " 
 
 For Mr. Barthorne, unconventional though he might be, had 
 already imbibed the London idea that a lady is a person who 
 dresses every day in purple and fine linen, who employs her 
 elegant leisure in doing nothing, who drives out in a handsome 
 carriage, drawn by a pair of high-stepping horses, and whom it 
 is competent for the fluctuations of the Stock Exchange to 
 
Explains a Little Difficulty. 31 
 
 unmake, as, generally speaking, the fluctuations of the Stock 
 Exchange have made her. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 EXPLAINS A LITTLE DIFFICULTY. 
 
 About thirteen years after Miles Barthome's entry into Totten- 
 ham, and ten after he disposed of his business and retired to . 
 his small cottage at West Green, the ruling minds which held 
 watch and ward over the well-being of the Mint were much ex- 
 ercised to discover that a new species of illicit coining was, and 
 had been for a considerable period, going on. The peculiarity 
 of the spurious money was that it all appeared to be made of 
 perfectly good metal; and it so admirably counterfeited the 
 productions of the Mint that no one except an expert could 
 have detected the fraud. 
 
 That this coinage did not emanate from any ordinary gang 
 of forgers, was well known to the authorities; but the autho- 
 rities would have been much better pleased could they for a 
 moment have supposed such a thing possible, as the chances of 
 detecting the criminals might then have been much greater. 
 
 Over and over again the powers that then were discussed the 
 question as to who the person could be that found such a course 
 of crime remunerative. First, the Jews were suspected : a the- 
 ory was put forward that some " fence," belonging to one either 
 of the known or lost tribes, had discovered it would be more 
 remunerative to deal with stolen goods in the form of crown 
 pieces and sovereigns than in the shape of melted tankards and 
 irrecognizabie teapots ; and till this theory had been thoroughly 
 
32 Above Suspicion^ 
 
 discussed and exhausted it seemed plausible enough. There 
 could be no doubt but that tankards would find a more ready 
 circulation in the guise of lawful coin of the realm than of stolen 
 goods ; there could equally be no question that whatever wick- 
 edness it was in the power of man to do in order to make 
 money, some unscrupulous Jew might safely be trusted to think 
 of. Besides, what Christian could know so well as a Jew where 
 to lay his hand on the men and the machinery necessary to 
 carry out such a purpose? "A person would require, in the 
 first instance," so argued those who believed in a larger amount 
 of original sin having come out of the Garden of Eden for the 
 benefit of the Jews than that entailed upon the Christians, " a 
 cheap stock of gold and silver, and a knowledge where to re- 
 place such stock is needed. Now, all that is A B C to those 
 descendants of the tribes who receive stolen metals ; in the next 
 place, it would be necessary to give these metals into the hands 
 of a chemist able to make them pure, as we find these crowns 
 and sovereigns to be. Now, who so likely to find such a che- 
 mist amongst his brethren as a Jew? When all that is effected, 
 he must provide a secret place for transmuting the precious 
 metals into coin. Who would have better facilities for finding 
 such room or building than a Jew? And last, but not least, 
 who could more readily find some poor wretch, probably in his 
 power, able to supply the requisite moulds, which Ave all see 
 must have been made by an expert at his trade ? The manipu- 
 lation is a mere bagatelle. If men are, for the sake of a very 
 poor living, willing to run the risk of manufacturing and issuing 
 base coin, men could easily be found to make genuine coin, 
 with the distribution of which it is evident, as we know the bulk 
 of this money comes from abroad, the makers are not en- 
 trusted." 
 
 Now, there was a certain plausibility about this theory, and 
 the way in which its parent presented it to his friends in coun- 
 cil ; and as one theory is good till another is told, this was held 
 to be the true explanation of the case until another gentleman 
 adopted the wise course of undertaking to refute his friend's 
 notion without attempting to advance one of his own. 
 
 *' It is neat," he said, " but it won't hold water. Bring experi- 
 ence to bear on the subject, and what do we find? Why, that 
 a Jew never cares to bring a number of capable instruments to- 
 gether to do his work. He may have a hundred people doing 
 
Explains a Little Difficulty. 33 
 
 his bidding, but he never engages them in any undertaking 
 where they could combine together and pitch him over. Here 
 you have at least half a dozen interests cognizant of each other, 
 and yet employed to benefit one man, and that man a ' fence/ 
 Besides, it is agreed on all hands that this money is pure. Be- 
 lieve me, the Jew doesn't exist who in such a case could refrain 
 from putting base metal with the pure. It is a simple impossi- 
 bility. Clever as your friends are, my dear sir, believe me, that 
 sovereign" — and the speaker rang one on the table — " emanated 
 from the brain of no Hebrew. A German might claim the credit 
 of it — if we can suppose a German possessed of sufficient capital 
 willing to run the risk. I cannot suppose it, however, and I am 
 therefore at sea." 
 
 After that, official opinion ran up and down the gamut, now 
 inclined to attribute the coinage to some gigantic conspiracy, and 
 again willing to suppose it originated with some clever tenant, 
 who, having unearthed a mass of buried treasure, wished to 
 conceal his discovery from the lord of the manor. 
 
 Though an annoying, it was a simple matter, after all. For 
 obvious reasons it never could be extended indefinitely. A 
 man who could sell gold in bulk honestly would never think of 
 troubling himself to convert the metal into sovereigns. It was 
 an extremely easy matter for the Mint to re-melt the coins, and 
 send them out again with the stamp of authority on them. A 
 few thousand sovereigns per annum increased the yearly loss by 
 a sum too triffing to mention. Nevertheless, the authorities 
 governing the Mint did not like the circumstance, and, lest the 
 practice should spread, made little stir about the matter. 
 
 A few confidential detectives were instructed that such coinage 
 was in circulation, and the detectives really tried their best to 
 discover what villain it might be who was sending into the 
 market genuine silver and gold. Smashers had good terms 
 offered to them if they would turn informers, which, in good 
 truth, they would have been only too glad to do had the secret 
 lain with them. But, one and all, they were in the same story. 
 They had no story to tell. They knew of no one who possessed 
 hidden stores of the precious metals. They were only acquainted 
 with men who cut their dies pretty well, but not so well as those 
 exhibited to them. They could not say whether there was in 
 London a "master smasher" able to employ skilled labour and 
 supply men like themselves with moulds and materials. They 
 
 Z 
 
34 Above Suspicion. 
 
 had never heard of him, at all events. With a shmg, and a 
 wink, and a significant thumb over the left shoulder, they thought 
 if there was such a one he " would not find it pay — no, not at 
 all." 
 
 Nevertheless, the detectives persevered. They kept their 
 eyes on Whitechapel, and bestowed fond glances on Clerkenwell 
 and the environs of Gray's Inn Lane. They travelled down East 
 as far as Bromley, and they went West to Marylebone. They 
 did not omit to investigate suspicious localities round Lambeth, 
 and they extended their search far down the Old Kent Road. 
 For a long period one most respectable but eccentric house- 
 holder, residing near Ball's Pond Gate, unconsciously received' 
 an extraordinary amount of attention from one of the force ; 
 whilst a widow at Homerton and a bachelor at Hackney were 
 about the same period subjected to a strict system of espionage, 
 under the impression that one made the bullets while the other 
 fired them. 
 
 And all the time the real culprits were upon the most friendly 
 terms with the police of their respective districts ; for no human 
 being could have imagined that Walter Chappell, head manager 
 to Nelson Brothers, of Soho, on the one part, and jNIiles Bar- 
 thorne, plumber, gasfitter, locksmith, and contractor for general 
 repairs, on the other hand, between them devised and agreed to 
 carry on this precious scheme. 
 
 And yet such was the fact. In a modest little cottage at 
 West Green, all overgrown with creepers, in the garden of which 
 during the summer months Miles Barthorne might, evening after 
 evening, have been seen watering his roses, and tying up his 
 carnations, and hoeing amongst flower-beds, these deeds of 
 coining were done. The man who had for so long a time per- 
 sistently wooed fortune now seemed, on the point of winning 
 her. Honestly he had tried at first to gain her smiles ; dis- 
 honestly he finally decided she was alone to be possessed. 
 
 Still young, he might hope to compass all his fancy had 
 pictured as desirable. If not Squire Barthorne of Abbotsleigh, 
 he might yet be Squire Barthorne of a fairer domain. Other 
 men as unscrupulous — more unscrupulous than he — made for- 
 tunes, bought properties, retired from trade, married their daugh' 
 ters, sent their sons to the universities, and became magistrates, 
 members of Parliament, and deputy heutenants. 
 
 All this he intended to do, with the exception of sending out 
 
Explams a Little Difficulty. 35 
 
 his sons, for he had none. His family consisted of only one 
 daughter, a large-eyed, sallow-skinned, dark-haired, precocious 
 girl, in whose features her mother failed to trace the promise of 
 future beauty; while her father — abetter judge of such matters 
 — declared she would be the image of that naughty Molly Bar- 
 thorne, so celebrated in Court annals, who, in the palmy days of 
 Abbotsleigh, caused nobles to sigh, and write inane verses in 
 praise of madam's dmiples ; whilst great ladies wept — not with- 
 out reason, perhaps — over her graces of person and her lack of 
 virtue. 
 
 Following the family traditions, this child had, much against 
 Mrs. Barthorne's wish, been called Mabella — not a bad name, 
 perhaps, for a child in any rank, since so easy to speak in full, 
 and so much more easy to shorten into Mab. 
 
 Since, however, neither father nor mother elected to shorten 
 it at all, the child's name gave great offence to those who had 
 the privilege of being neighbours to the Barthornes ; though 
 whether the Barthornes could have called their daughter by any 
 name capable of satisfying the West Greenians may well be 
 doubted. 
 
 "Drat them Barthornes, says I," remarked a voluble matron 
 about the period indicated at the beginning of this chapter, 
 "making such a goddess of that yellow-faced thing, all eyes and 
 hair, with her double rat-tats at the door, and her ' pa ' and her 
 ' ma,' as if they were all gentlefolks together. And, then, missis 
 in her grey silk gownd on Sundays, and grey bonnet trimmed 
 with pink and a white feather, if you please ; and her poor man 
 going off every morning to his work just as regular as my Bill. 
 But, if you think of it, he 's every bit as bad as she, giving his 
 five shillings to this and his half a crown to that, just, as my Bill 
 says, to get the blind side of the clergy and suchlike. And no 
 doubt he finds it all to his account ; for they don't owe a farden 
 to nobody — not a farden, if you beUeve me. But, for my part, 
 I hate such ways. And Bill says, for all Miles Barthorne was 
 a master smith, and sold his business — no one knows why — and 
 does live in his own house, and holds his head so high, it will 
 all come home to him some day ; for such lofty and mighty airs 
 ain't suitable to the likes of us." From which it will be seen 
 that Miles Barthorne was not popular; and, indeed, had he 
 been endowed with all the qualities which, in the thirteenth 
 chapter of First Corinthians, St. Paul so eloquently enumerates, 
 
 3 — a 
 
36 Above Suspicion. 
 
 with charity at the back of them, he could not have pleased 
 West Green. 
 
 West Green did not like strangers, and he was a stranger. 
 "West Green liked people it could understand, and it could not 
 understand Miles Barthorne. West Green liked people who 
 were not above taking a friendly glass at the bar of the Black 
 Boy, and Barthorne never drank with any one at any bar, and 
 had his beer in by the cask, " like a gentleman." 
 
 Further, in a vain endeavour to curry favour with people who 
 detested him because he was prosperous, he had been weak 
 enough to lend here half a sovereign, and there a couple of 
 pounds, to keep the wolf hunger, or that worse wolf the bailiff, 
 out of his neighbours' houses ; and the result proved precisely 
 what might have been expected. When he demurred about 
 the second half-sovereign, and refused the next two pounds, 
 the would-be borrowers, who had never repaid the original 
 loans, mentally stigmatized him as a close-fisted curmudgeon, 
 or as a time-serving hypocrite, as the mood was on them. 
 
 There w^re many who, like Bill's w'ife, said " it would come 
 home to him." Nevertheless, when the vague "it" did come 
 home, these were the first to remember his good works. At 
 that period, however, Barthorne w^as not in a position to know 
 much about their compassion or to extract any comfort from it 
 had he been aware the human being existed who pitied him. 
 
 When the good people of West Green came to speak with 
 bated breath of his known virtues and his supposed vices, the 
 object of so much animadversion was lying in gaol upon a 
 somewhat serious charge. Not that of coining, be it remarked. 
 No one in authority ever, except vaguely, imagined Barthorne 
 had anything to do with that little business. If other secrets 
 leaked out, the secret of the good money was preserved almost 
 intact. Into that which eventually proved his stumbling-block 
 Miles Barthorne drifted quite by accident. Great crimes, I 
 apprehend, usually originate in very small beginnings, and the 
 beginning of Barthorne's wickedness was as small as can well 
 be imagined. 
 
 When Miss Mabel was about four years of age, her Uncle 
 Walter, who always made much of the child, promised to give 
 her a medal, and to let her see him make it. 
 
 Barthorne had about that time taken in exchange from one 
 pf his customers a considerable amount of copper, and out of 
 
Explaiits a L title Difficulty, 37 
 
 this copper Walter Chappell moulded missy's ornament. He 
 bored a hole in it, and hung it, suspended by a ribbon, about 
 the child's neck. 
 
 After slie had gone to bed and fallen asleep, the medal still 
 clasped in her little hands, Miles asked his brolher-in-law how 
 he made that thing he gave Mabel. 
 
 *' Out of your copper," answered the other. " I hope you 
 are not angry. The value of the thing is not more than two- 
 pence." 
 
 " Oh, I am not angry, of course. Use as much of it as you 
 like, only I felt curious, that was all." 
 
 That was not all, as subsequent events proved. Barthorne 
 turned the matter over in his active mind. He thought about 
 it while walking to and from his work. He thought about it 
 when directing the two men he employed. He lay awake a^. 
 night, and considered the question in all its bearings, and finally, 
 when missy had so long outlived her fourth birthday as to be 
 nearer her fifth, when the medal had long been lost and re- 
 placed by one of those superb watches which in those days 
 were sold for a shilling, and in these can be bought, with the 
 addition of a guard chain, for a penny, Miles opened his mind 
 to his brother-in-law. 
 
 The young man had about this period managed to get into 
 two scrapes — one concerning a horse which did not win as he 
 had expected, and another about a girl upon whose character, 
 like that of tliie horse, he chanced to place too much depen- 
 dence. In each case money was needful to extricate him from his 
 difficulty, and in the extremity he made use of funds belonging 
 to his employers. When another horse happened to be " no- 
 where," and it became absolutely necessary to replace the sum 
 abstracted, Chappell was forced to confide in his sister's hus- 
 band, and ask his assistance to save him from disgrace and ruin; 
 and this assistance Barthorne gave willingly enough, tagging 
 on to his favour, however, the stipulation that the younger man 
 should lend his skill as a die-sinker to enable Barthorne to make 
 both their fortunes. 
 
 The downward path is one easy enough to travel at the 
 outset ; and so Chappell discovered. Ere long he not merely 
 gave his skill, but gave it eagerly. He liked the money Bar- 
 thorne freely handed to him ; he liked the excitement this 
 illegitimate trade produced in his life. He did not pause to 
 
58" Above Siispicio7i. 
 
 ask where Barthorne procured his materials He did not 
 inquire how the money ^vas coined or who disposed of it. And, 
 in truth, in the earlier stages of the business, any questions of 
 this sort would have elicited little information, for Barthorne 
 then was merely experimenting, considering his plans, and de- 
 Teloping his resources, placing his men for the battle, and 
 considering the possible cost of defeat, the probable gains of 
 victory. 
 
 When the fight against law began in earnest, Chappell was 
 too deeply in debt, and too completely involved in the plot, 
 ever to dream of drawing back if he had wished to do so. But 
 as has been said, he did not wish anything of the kind. Hi. 
 believed two men never engaged in a safer speculation, or one 
 more certain of carrying them ultimately to the pinnacle of pro- 
 sperity. 
 
 "We shall be able to do better yet, my boy," said Barthorne, 
 slapping him on the back. ''When I can perfect the milling 
 machine, and find out how to separate the alloy by some 
 quicker and simpler method, we may consider ourselves made 
 men." 
 
 Nevertheless, the shortest road to success generally takes 
 years to travel. The milling machine never was made quite 
 perfect, and the separation of the alloy proved a matter of time, 
 during the course of which many ditliculties had to be encoun- 
 tered and overcome ; and accordingly it came to pass that missy, 
 for whose special benefit the original copper medal had been 
 struck, was eight years of age before her Uncle Walter and her 
 Papa Miles had got their machinery well at w^ork. 
 
 By the time, however, that the company was in full swing, 
 that little cottage at West Green was turning out illicit coin at 
 the rate of some thousands a year; but Barthorne never ceased 
 working at his trade, while Chappell, promoted to a salary of 
 three pounds a week, acted as manager to the firm with whom 
 he had been apprenticed, and the employers of both would, if 
 put upon oath, have sworn to the pair being most respectable 
 men, which no doubt they would have been had temptation not 
 chanced to cross their path. As matters stood, they were very 
 far indeed from being respectable ; but this only proves how 
 very cautious people ought to be about vouching for the good 
 character of any one. Which perhaps is the reason why people 
 like to speak so ill of their neighbours, since there are those 
 
A Noble is brought to Ninepence. 39 
 
 who hold the semblance of sincerity to be a more Christian 
 virtue than the I'eality of charity. 
 
 This is beside the story I have undertaken to tell. Miles 
 Barthorne, whatever his other faults, was held by those who 
 came in contact with him to be a respectable, well-to-do, clever- 
 honest man. He had played and was playing his double gamo 
 with admirable coolness, courage, and address ; and it is per, 
 bable that he might have gone on playing it successfully for 
 years, or till he chose to retire from business with an ample for- 
 tune, but for one of those unfortunate accidents which occasion- 
 ally upset the worldly vehicle in which the wisest and best of 
 our celebrated criminals are travelling post to success. 
 
 The accident which happened to Miles Barthorne was, though 
 a remote, a very awkward one. A man took it into his head 
 to die — what was worse, he elected to be murdered. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 A NOBLE IS BROUGHT TO NINEPENCE. 
 
 Any one who, even so recently as ten years back, had a visiting 
 acquaintance with the suburbs of London, must be aware that 
 nowhere round the outskirts of the metropolis were such fine, 
 roomy old mansions to be met with as to the north, north-west, 
 and north-east of the City. 
 
 The reason may not be hard to find. As a rule, house- 
 holders, like witches, did not in the old days voluntarily cross 
 water, and the Thames was a line of demarcation which the 
 merchant princes of former times avoided when practicable. 
 Far out west, noblemen and rich commoners built themselves 
 
40 Above Suspicion, 
 
 residences ; but the City men of long ago looked themselves 
 out convenient sites on which to build their country palaces. 
 Hackney at one time was a salubrious village which the citizens 
 much affected when in search of pure air ; and the old red brick 
 houses with stone facings, which are fast being pulled down or 
 converted into asylums, bear testimony that the citizens who 
 there congregated possessed incomes by no means contempt- 
 ible. 
 
 Round and about the now Victoria Park there used to be 
 mansions in which one might have lodged any illustrious foreign 
 visitor. Stoke Newington, and particularly that portion of Stoke 
 Nevvington called Church Street, was abundantly provided with 
 spacious and comfortable houses, whilst Hornsey, Highgate, 
 Finchley, and Hampstead were rich in fine old residences, sur- 
 rounded by great forest trees and well-grown shrubs, and gardens 
 secluded within goodly walls, on which grew nectarines, and 
 peaches, and juicy pears, and Hawthornden apples, and other 
 desirable fruits too many to enumerate. 
 
 Perhaps, however, Highgate could boast a larger number of 
 such pleasant homes than any of the other districts mentioned ; 
 and it was to one of these that a certain Sir Alexander Kelvey, 
 who had made a fortune in India, retired to spend the remainder 
 of his days. Sir Alexander had left Scotland a very poor lad, 
 and returned to England a very rich elderly man. 
 
 He had achieved great success in life. He had risen to be 
 a chief justice, and to have the honour of knighthood conferred 
 upon him, at a time when Misters were not transformed into 
 Sirs so indiscriminately as is the case at present. He came 
 back laden with testimonials. He had great vases of silver and 
 gold. He might have ate off the precious metals at every meal 
 had he been so disposed ; but in his age he retained the simple 
 habits of his country and his youth, and his hoards of plate were 
 never exhibited save as a curiosity to some intimate friend, or 
 on the occasion of one of those rare banquets at which Sir 
 Alexander — who was a widower — and an elderly maiden sister 
 dispensed stately hospitality to old Indian friends and esteemed 
 London acquaintances. 
 
 The care of his treasures was entrusted to his butler — a man 
 grown grey in his service. For years he had kept the key of 
 the strong room, which contained articles of almost incalculable 
 value ; but the responsibility seemed to have sat lightly upon 
 
A Noble is brought to Ni7iepence, 4 1 
 
 him,, for although a Scotchman and a Presbyterian, no more 
 jovial person could have been met within a circuit of half a dozen 
 miles than the butler of Hill view, as Sir Alexanders place was 
 called. 
 
 The butler's brother was head gardener at Hillview. He had 
 a small cottage in the kitchen garden, and "did for himself" as 
 regards matters domestic; but there was very little to do. for 
 he took most of his meals in the house, and, when not reading 
 some quaint work of an old divine, or a well-thumbed book about 
 gardening, spent his evenings either in the servants' hall, or else 
 in talking alone with his brother concerning former times, and 
 dead friends, and the days of their far-away youth. 
 
 This was the man who had been murdered — brutally murdered. 
 Hillview, during the absence of its owner, chanced to be under- 
 going extensive alterations and repairs, and a labourer who hap- 
 pened to be the first at work on that especial morning found the 
 unfortunate gardener lying on the grass in the flower-garden, his 
 right hand clenched as if to defend himself, and his skull cleft 
 open, evidently with a blow from a spade, which latter was found 
 amongst a clump of rhododendrons close at hand. The body 
 was quite warm, though the doctor, who quickly arrived on the 
 spot, declared life must have been extinct for about three hours. 
 Most probably, therefore, he had met with his death in the early 
 dawn. 
 
 It was a summer's morning, and the sun shone brightly over 
 the scared group collected round the body. As for IVPCallum, 
 the butler, he was like a man distraught. The affection each 
 of the brothers bore for the other was of no ordinary nature. 
 Natives of a country where family ties are stronger, perhaps, 
 than in any other land, they had the further bond between them 
 of standing utterly alone in the world. All other relations, near 
 and remote, were dead. As they often said, " If they went back 
 to the old place they would have to seek their welcome in the 
 kirkyard ; living creature there was none to greet them." 
 
 " He was all I had," sobbed M'Callum, who had been roused 
 from his sleep to hear of the murder; and the man knelt upon 
 the grass — the sun slanting upon his grey hairs — and wept like 
 a child. 
 
 There was not much work done that day at Hillview ; but a 
 large amount of beer was consumed. The painters and the 
 paperhangers hung about in knots, discussing the question, and 
 
42 Above Suspicion. 
 
 considering it from every possible and impossible point of view. 
 At intervals the carpenters and masons joined them, while Bar- 
 thorne, who had contracted to heat the house and lay gas into 
 all the principal rooms, found it so difficult to keep his own 
 men together, that he directed them to leave off work at twelve 
 o'clock, and himself retraced his way home about the same time. 
 
 He had, at an earlier period, spoken a few words of earnest 
 sympathy to M'Callum, still distraught with grief, still unable to 
 grasp the reality of his loss. 
 
 *' We little thought of this last night," he remarked to Bar- 
 thorne. " When he was ready with his joke about your '• brew,' 
 we had small notion we would never hear his voice again. Who 
 could have done so black a deed ? He never harmed even a 
 worm — I have seen him throw them away, that his spade might 
 not cut them — and there is not the value of a sixpence missmg 
 out of his bit house.'' 
 
 *' Did not I hear somebody say a pane of glass in one of the 
 library windows had been cut out?" asked Barthorne. 
 
 "Ay, there was some talk of that, I mind," answered the 
 other ; " but I had forgot. I can remember nothing but him. 
 Well, well ! we are all in the hands of the Lord, and He won't 
 suffer my poor brother's blood to call out for vengeance in vain." 
 
 The next day came, and with it the coroner's inquest. No- 
 thing fresh had been elicited, no trace, not the slightest, of the 
 murderer had been discovered. 
 
 The weather being exceptionally fine and dry, no mark of 
 footsteps was to be found; and though the grass showed evidence 
 of a struggle, the police were able to make little out of that fact. 
 As nothing in the interior of the house appeared to have been 
 disturbed, the theory advanced at the inquest, and accepted by 
 the jury and society, was, that the deceased had interrupted an 
 intending burglar in his felonious attempt, and that he had lost 
 his life in trying to intercept the thief in his flight. 
 
 Then came the question, who was the thief? 
 
 The police racked their brains to think of any suspicious cha- 
 racters who had of late been seen loitering about the neighbour- 
 hood, and one or two people were taken up who had never even 
 known that such a place as Hillview was in existence. Out of 
 his savings M'Callum offered a reward of one hundred pounds 
 for such information as should lead to the detection of the 
 criminal. But no information came ; and meanwhile, the poor 
 
A Noble is brought to Ninepence. 43 
 
 fellow who had been "wilfully murdered," according to the ver- 
 dict of the coroner's jury, "by some person or persons un- 
 known," lay in his decent, comfortable cottage — quiet enough 
 — sleeping that sleep which knows no waking — here. 
 
 Mr. M'Callum had not been able quite to make up his mind 
 as to the precise spot of earth his brother might have selected 
 to occupy till the Day of Judgment, had five minutes' speech 
 been permitted him before he died; and Mr. M'Callum was 
 much exercised in spirit accordingly. 
 
 Sudden death was not an idea which had ever suggested it- 
 self to either of them. They came of a hardy stock — of a race 
 that died of old age, of fever, of inflammation, of severe colds 
 — but not of apoplexy, heart disease, or any other of those short 
 sharp maladies, rapid in their action as a cannon-ball, and as 
 unexpected, which summon the members composing some 
 families to appear in eternity without a moment's grace being 
 allowed for preparation. 
 
 Highgate Cemetery was adjacent; but then his brother did 
 not "just care" for cemeteries. Despite his taste for trim lawns, 
 and smooth walks, and well-kept shrubberies. M'Callum knew 
 his heart had always kept a loving memory of a certain kirk- 
 yard, where, amidst waving grass and rank weeds, a grey stone 
 solemnly set forth that underneath, in the full hope of a glorious 
 resurrection, one Mary Maxwell, aged eighteen years, lay at 
 rest. 
 
 For her sake he had remained single all the years of his life, 
 and consequently his brother leaned to the opinion that David 
 might like his body to be laid in some snug spot of ground ad- 
 jacent to that sunny corner, close beside the grey stone wall 
 separating God's Acre from the lonely acres beyond, where his 
 betrothed was buried. 
 
 This was the sentimental view of the question. The other 
 view was, that David had never cared to give needless trouble, 
 and that doubtless, " poor lad " (so the grey-haired man spoke 
 in his deep trouble of one but two years his junior — thereby 
 proving that death is the only elixir capable of restoring our 
 youth), " he knew now full well he was as near Mary in one 
 burying-place as another." 
 
 " He always spoke of Hornsey churchyard as a fair, quiet sort 
 of spot," thought M'Callum at last, "and I '11 e'en see if a bit 
 of ground can be spared for him there." 
 
44 Above Suspicion, 
 
 It would puzzle any present Mr. M'Callum to find a bit of 
 ground to spare for a stranger in that dear old churchyard now ; 
 l)ut the matter was cajjable of arrangement then, and the mur- 
 dered man was finally interred where the earliest sunbeams fell 
 athwart his grave. 
 
 Once there was a headstone above his resting-place, setting 
 forth that David M'Callum, who died by the hand of some un- 
 known assassin, on the i6Lh day of June, i8 — , lay beneath. 
 
 "Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord," was the 
 text following the above inscription ; but M'Callum did not live 
 to see the verification of the statement. 
 
 The mills of time grind so slowl}^, though they do grind so 
 exceeding small, that if we cannot pin our faith upon the ex- 
 perience of others, we are extremely likely to find ourselves 
 eventually destitute of faith altogether. 
 
 Before David M'Callum, however, was laid in his grave, a 
 curious thing occurred. The night before the coffin was screwed 
 down, his brother James dreamed a singular dream, or said he 
 dreamt it, which came to the same thing. 
 
 He thought he was lying in bed fast asleep, when he was 
 awakened by some one shaking him, and found his brother 
 standing at his side. 
 
 " You needn't be looking among strangers for my murderer, 
 James," this unlooked-for visitor remarked. " He is in this 
 house every day, and " 
 
 At this point James M'Callum averred he started up "in a 
 white sweat, with every hair on his head standing straight on 
 end ; " and the dream, he further stated, produced such an efl!"ect 
 upon him, that, " in the darkness of night," he resolved to ask 
 every man employed about the place to lay a hand on his 
 brother's body, and solenmly declare he was not the murderer. 
 
 Now, upon the face of it this did not appear a pleasant request 
 to comply with, and the men looked doubtfully one at another, 
 till at last a young carpenter, laying aside his plane, offered to 
 lead the way. 
 
 " Poor old chap," he said, " I wish our touching him could 
 bring him back among us. I am sure nobody who ever knew 
 what a good fellow he was would have hurt a hair of his head.'* 
 
 " Brayvo, Tom," cried his mates. "If it is any satisfaction to 
 you, Mr. M'Callum, we will all go and pass our word over his 
 body — though it did seem a bit queer at first," they added. 
 
A Nohle is brought to Ninepence, 45 
 
 And so, solemnly, man after man stretched out his hand and 
 touched the corpse, making at the same time asseveration that 
 he had no act or part in the murder. 
 
 When all assembled had performed this ceremony, which, 
 before it was ended, had assumed an importance impossible to 
 have been predicted, a whisper went round that one person had 
 not laid hand on the body of David M'Callum, and that person 
 was Miles Bar thorn e. 
 
 "There is no call to trouble him," remarked the bereaved 
 brother, looking with dull, lack-lustre eyes — eyes in which the 
 hope of revenge seemed to be quenched — at the assemblage. 
 
 Bat still the whisper continued. 
 
 " We will have Barthorne," decided the young carpenter 
 already mentioned. "Just for the form of the thing — just to 
 prove your dream false, Mr. M'Callum, we must have the word 
 of every man who was about the premises." 
 
 And with his young active step he w^nt in search of Barthorne, 
 whom he found in the basement measuring up some quantities. 
 
 " Will you step down to the cottage for a minute ? " said the 
 self-elected messenger. 
 
 "Why should 1 ?'' asked Barthorne. 
 
 " You know old M'Callum has had a dream about his brother, 
 and " 
 
 " Has had the devil ! " remarked Barthorne, folding up his 
 rule, and preparing to obey the summons. 
 
 "Well, it is natural he should take on," observed the young 
 fellow, " for David was one in a hundred. Once at home, when 
 we were awfully down on our luck — all out of work — and mother 
 lying d}ing,^the dear old boy brought us one night a bottle of 
 wine and a couple of good mutton chops, and left them and 
 half a sovereign behind hmi ; and if 1 knew " 
 
 But already Barthorne was out of hearing, 
 
 " WHiat a surly, stand-aloof gentleman it is ! " soliloquized the 
 carpenter, as he slowly retraced his steps to the cottage. 
 
 There he found every one in a state of excitement. No man 
 about the place had, after the first amazement wore off, attached 
 the slightest importance to the ordeal suggested by M'Callum. 
 
 They had touched the body to humour the o'd man, who, 
 when he beheld hand after hand laid unhesitatingly upon the 
 dead man's heart, began to think he had been " but foolish ^ 
 after all. 
 
4^ Above Stispicion. 
 
 lie liad felt it was a useless piece of formality sending for 
 Barthorne ; but when Barthorne, striding into the place, declared 
 he would countenance no such superstitious absurdity, that no- 
 thing on earth should persuade him to lend himself to so gross 
 a piece of fooling, the butler began to think his brother s " warn- 
 ing" had not been given in vain. 
 
 " It take it very hard,'' he said, " that any one who knew and 
 respected my murdered brother should call my natural desire to 
 bring justice home, fooling. This is not a meet word to use in 
 the presence of the dead." 
 
 '' Don't talk nonsense, M'Callum," interposed Barthorne ruth- 
 lessly. "The dead cannot hear you, and the living can. There 
 is not a man present upon whom you have failed to fasten an 
 insult by your ridiculous request. You have branded a lot of 
 innocent people as possible murderers. And for what purpose .^ 
 You cannot be such a simpleton, I take it, as to imagine, if the 
 murderer were present and laid his hand on your brother's 
 wounds, blood would gush out." 
 
 "I believe his blood cries aloud, and that the Almighty will 
 hear that cry," was the reply. " I believe that the crime will be 
 brought home yet— that it is being brought home even now." 
 
 " The sooner the better," replied Miles Barthorne. " But, 
 meantime, you ought to discontinue this indecent mummery. 
 As I said before, I will have nothing to do with it. I pity your 
 sorrow, but when sorrow degenerates into drivelling, it is need- 
 ful to draw a line." 
 
 A murmur of approval greeted this speech. Those who at 
 first had thought very badly of jNIiles Barthorne because he 
 refused to touch the dead man, now found that his utterances 
 exactly embodied their own opinions. In truth, the sort of 
 suspicion cast upon those employed at Hillview was eminently 
 unpleasant, when each individual came to think the matter over 
 in cool blood. 
 
 *' There is a great deal of sense in what Barthorne says," one 
 remarked to another. But the younej carpenter merely observed : 
 " He might have humoured poor old M'Callum. I don't think 
 he'd have slept the worse for getting off his high horse for 
 
 once." 
 
 Which was indeed very true. People seldom lose much by 
 being courteous and considerate. 
 
 All Miles Barthorne gained by his move was that his fellows 
 
A Noble is brought to Nincpence. 47 
 
 remembered in after time he alone refused to touch the bod}^ 
 while James M'Callum went about the house and grounds mut- 
 tering to himself : 
 
 " He said it was one about the house, and Barthorne would 
 not lay a hand on him : Barthorne is the man." 
 
 Really a most unpleasant conclusion for one human being to 
 arrive at concerning another. 
 
 After David j\['Callum's funeral, after Barthorne had com- 
 pleted his work and withdrawn his men, the butler made a 
 sickening discovery. The gold plate and the silver plate were 
 gone. The lock of the strong room was intact— there was not 
 a sign of violence to be observed— but the gold and the silver 
 had vanished : how, M'Callum could not imagine ; when, he 
 decided must have been the night of his brother's death. 
 
 He had informed Sir Alexander of the murder, and Sir 
 Alexander was on his way back to England in consequence. 
 Knowing this, knowing also how litde good the police had 
 etfected, and feeling sensibly the truth of nis own country pro- 
 verb that the " silent sow sups the most brose," M'Callum waited 
 his master's return. That Sir Alexander should suspect him of 
 having made away with the plate Avas an idea which, to the 
 credit both of master and servant, never entered his mind. 
 
 He had sense enough to know the plate was gone past recall, 
 but he understood the criminal might remain within reach, and 
 that the quieter affairs were kept the more likelihood there was 
 of their being able to lay hands on him. 
 
 Except he alone, no human being beside the thief knew of 
 those treasures being abstracted, and his object was to persuade 
 the thief that he, M'Callum, still remained' in ignorance of the 
 fact. 
 
 Accordingly he kept his own counsel, and carried a load of 
 care about with him until Sir Alexander's arrival. 
 
 The morning after his master's return he told him everything 
 which had occurred ; and said boldly, for reasons hereafter to 
 be given, that he believed Barthorne had stolen the plate and 
 murdered his brother. 
 
 Nbw, the ex-judge, in virtue of his position, was a cautious 
 man ; and mere beHefs are occasionally difficult things to prove. 
 
 There was a vagueness about M'Callum's statements — an 
 utter absence of succinctness about his narrative j " but yet," 
 thought the judge, "such apparently disjointed pieces of evi- 
 
48 Above StLspicion. 
 
 dence are precisely those which, well fitted, make up a very fair 
 map of criminal proceeding." 
 
 Now, Sir Alexander had peculiar means of obtaining authentic 
 information about any man whose antecedents he wished to 
 study, and ere long he knew much which was important about 
 Miles Barthorne. He traced him back from Tottenham to 
 Spindlethorpe, and forward from Tottenham to West Green. 
 He found that wherever Miles Barthorne had been permitted 
 the run of the house, there was, sooner or later, a burglary 
 committed. 
 
 "I will have his house searched," decided Sir Alexander; 
 and he applied for a warrant accordingly. 
 
 When the officers entered. Miles Barthorne was sitting at tea 
 with his wife, his brother-in-law, and his little girl, now arrived 
 at the discreet age of eleven. Certainly guilt was not stamped 
 on the faces of any one of the party, and when the men, awkwardly 
 enough, explained their errand and apologized for troubling him, 
 he cheerily told them to search away, " they would not find any- 
 thing contraband in his house." 
 
 There were two men, and one stayed downstairs while the 
 other proceeded to examine the upper rooms, Mrs. Barthorne 
 fidgeting in her chair the v/hile, and at length she would have 
 left the parlour, but that Barthorne stopped her. 
 
 " Sit still," he muttered. " What the — — are you afraid of? 
 Do you suppose, if my house was searched for ever, any one 
 could find in it an article not honestly paid for and come by?" 
 
 As if in answer to this speech, the man who had gone upstairs 
 came down again, and, looking very white and excited, held out 
 a card-case and a pair of fiJigree earrings, asking Barthorne if he 
 could account for their possession. 
 
 There ensued a dead silence, during which Barthorne surveyed 
 the articles; then he said, "I know nothing about them," and 
 cast a look at his wife which a demon might have tried in vain 
 to surpass in devilishness of expression. 
 
 " I am afraid we shall have to trouble you to come with us," 
 remarked one of the policemen. 
 
 *' All right," replied Barthorne, rising and putting on his hat. 
 
 *'And you too, ma'am," said the other, turning to Mrs. Bar- 
 thorne. 
 
 S-e went upstairs to put on her bonnet, the officer accompany- 
 ing her. 
 
Mab comes to the Rescue. 49 
 
 While she was engaged in *' dressing " Miles took off his hat 
 again, and brushing it round and round, said to Walter Chappell: 
 
 " If I am not back in time to finish the work for Phillips' job, 
 will you see to it ? Everything ought to be ready for the morn- 
 ing/' and he looked meaningly at his brolher-in-law. 
 
 ''Yes; I will see to it," was the reply, uttered almost care- 
 lessly. 
 
 " Good bye for the present, then," said Barthorne, stretching 
 out his hand, which Chappell grasped in silence. 
 
 At this juncture Mrs. Barthorne reappeared, and her husband 
 intimated his readiness to depart. 
 
 "All is up with me. Remember!" whispered Miles to his 
 brother-in-law, turning his head as he passed through the door- 
 way. And with that utterance he left his home — never again 
 to recross its threshold. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 IN WHICH MAB COMES TO THE RESCUE. 
 
 Walter. Chappell remained standing at the door of the cot- 
 tage long after his sister and her husband had passed out of 
 sight. 
 
 He was stunned by the suddenness and completeness of the 
 calamity. He could scarcely realize what had occurred. It 
 seemed incredible to him that Barthorne, a free man half an 
 hour previously, was now a prisoner almost as good as convicted. 
 This was not a case of mere suspicion j there was a certainty 
 
 4 
 
50 Above Suspicion, 
 
 about the whole business which left not the merest loophole 
 for hope to creep through. 
 
 That card-case, those filigree earrings must, he knew, prove 
 damning evidence against his brother-in-law. 
 
 " And all through Lucy's folly," he thought. 
 
 For the third time in Miles Barthorne's experience a woman 
 had upset the coach in which he meant to reach the goal of 
 his life. 
 
 Feminine acquisitiveness — feminine vanity — feminine disre- 
 gard of warning — feminine disbelief in the possibility of any 
 danger not immediately apparent and immediate, had induced 
 Mrs. Barthorne to rescue those articles which her husband laid 
 out for destruction. She had purloined them from a (to him) 
 useless heap, destined to be consumed in the smithy fire. 
 
 With all his foresight and calculation, Barthorne never 
 imagined the possibility of such a casualty as this. He could 
 have made affidavit that all the London detectives m.ight search 
 his house and find nothing compromising in it. He had been 
 careful and cautious to an extent that Chappell often ridiculed, 
 and to no purpose. From a totally unexpected quarter the 
 blow had come. Those accursed knick-knacks, the like of 
 which he would cheerfully have bought for his wife could he 
 have imagined her soul longed for them, had compassed his 
 ruin as effectually as chests full of plate, as cupboards filled 
 with valuables belonging to other people. 
 
 " It was all up with him," as he said, and in a dim, confused 
 kind of way Walter Chappell began to wonder if it would soon 
 be all up with him also — if he might not be dragged into the 
 affair as an accomplice, and haled off to jail, there to await his 
 trial for all the sins he had committed. 
 
 If ever a man was suddenly converted, that man was Walter 
 Chappell. If ever a man's eyes were opened to a perception 
 of the deformity of wickedness, Walter ChappelFs were in that 
 hour. 
 
 Fear came upon him, and produced instant conviction that, 
 after all, honesty was the best policy. He turned sick with 
 dread ; and though he promised no votive offerings to his patron 
 saint, no stained windov/ or communion service to Tottenham 
 Old Church — no gifts to the poor of the parish, or almshouse 
 for necessitous widows — he did make a vow that, if he only 
 escaped from the peril which menaced him, he would turn ovei 
 
Mab comes to the Rescue. 5 1 
 
 a new leaf, forswear his evil ways, lead a better life, and never 
 make another sovereign or crown-piece save in the way of 
 legitimate trade. 
 
 " It is a bad job," remarked the policeman who still stayed 
 in the house. " That is true enough ; but fretting about things 
 makes them no better." 
 
 " I am certain he had no notion anything of the sort was in 
 his house," answered Chappell, more because he desired to 
 make some reply than for any other reason. 
 
 The policeman shook his head and smiled. " Likely not," 
 he said. " People don't generally keep such things lying about 
 loose, if they know where they came from. I should say, now, 
 he had no notion anything of the sort was in his house." 
 
 " Are you going to stay here long ? " asked the other despe- 
 rately. 
 
 " Well, yes. I suspect my mate can't be back yet awhile, 
 and it will take a tidyish time to search the premises thoroughly. 
 We haven't found much so far, you see." 
 
 " I do not believe there is anything more to find," answered 
 Chappell ; " and I have no doubt my sister will be able to ac- 
 count satisfactorily for. having those articles in her possession. 
 She is fond of jewellery and bargains, and " 
 
 " Perhaps you don't happen to know where that there card- 
 case and those slight-looking earrings came from ? " 
 
 " No, that I don't," returned Chappell. " She never showed 
 them to me; and I do not know how or where she got them." 
 
 "Where she got them is a different matter ; though, perhaps, 
 I could give a guess as to that also," was the reply. " But I 
 do know where they came from. They were among a lot of 
 things stolen last winter from Lane House, Enfield Chase. We 
 have been looking out for some trace of them ever since. Tor- 
 toise-shell card-case, inlaid with mother-of-pearl — design, rose, 
 thistle, and shamrock, lined with pink velvet — silver hinge and 
 snap, and initials engraved on a silver plate at the top." 
 
 " But that proves nothing. She might have bought it from 
 any one." 
 
 **She might ; but then, you see, she will have to prove that.** 
 
 "I thought," said Chappell, a little scornfully, "there was 
 some saying about every man being considered innocent till 
 he was proved guilty." 
 
 " I have heard a saying to that purpose myself," was the calm 
 
 4 — 2 
 
52 Above Suspicion. 
 
 reply ; " but I fancy it a great deal simpler to consider every 
 man guilty till he is proved innocent. That is what we all do, 
 at any rate." 
 
 "Well, talking about it won't mend the matter," remarked 
 Chappell, -'and standing idle won't clear either of them. I'll 
 just finish the work he spoke of, and then go and see some 
 lawyer." 
 
 And so saying, he flung off his coat and waistcoat, turned up 
 his shirt-sleeves, lit the forge fire, and commenced his labours. 
 
 " I didn't know you were a smith," remarked the policeman, 
 leaning against the door-lintel, and idly looking on. 
 
 " Neither am I ; but I have helped Barthorne now and then, 
 and can do any simple work like this ; " and Chappell, as he 
 spoke, chucked about a dozen bits of steel into the fire. 
 
 " What are you making ? " asked the other. 
 
 " Only a bar for a fender just now. I shall have to finish some 
 chimney-rods before I go home." 
 
 " Well, that is queer, too," observed the policeman. 
 
 If he had only known how queer it was, this story would never 
 have been written. Had he known that Chappell's laboured 
 breathing arose not from the severity of his toil, but from the 
 agony of apprehension he was experiencing, Policeman Blank's 
 promotion had proved a very rapid aftair; but, as matters stood, 
 he had really not the faintest idea that before his very eyes the 
 whole plant of a coiner was being destroyed. 
 
 He had been sent to Barthorne's to search for silver and gold 
 and other valuables, and it never occurred to him that the bits 
 of metal Chappell picked so carelessly from amongst the coal- 
 dust on the forge, were moulds that had been employed to con- 
 vert stolen goods into sterling coin. Even to the milling machine, 
 which Chappell picked carelessly off the lathe, everything was 
 destroyed before the policeman's eyes. 
 
 Then, when the whole mass was red hot, Chappell said : 
 
 " I must look after the child before I do any more." 
 
 ''The child!" repeated PoHceman Blank, with a sudden sense 
 of having neglected his duty. " Where is she ? " 
 
 " We had better go and see," answered her uncle. " Poor 
 little thing ! I forgot all about her." 
 
 They passed together through the kitchen, which was empty. 
 Then ihey entered the parlour, furnished with some preten- 
 sions to taste as well as comfort The front door was still 
 
Mab comes to the Rescue. 53 
 
 bolted, as the policeman had fastened it when he went into the 
 forge with Chappell. 
 
 " Mab ! " cried her uncle ; but there came no answer, till they 
 entered the bed-room where the discovery had been made which 
 resulted in such a loss to Barthorne. 
 
 There, with the evening sun shining in upon her, lighting up 
 everything in the room, and bathing the trees at Harringhay in 
 a flood of golden colour, lay the child huddled up on the coun- 
 terpane, her face hidden amongst the pillows, her right arm 
 under her head, her left flung hstlessly down, in an attitude of 
 utter and hopeless grief 
 
 As the two men entered she started up, and, pushing her hair 
 back from her face, stained and swollen with weeping, asked : 
 
 " Did you want me, uncle ? I — I " And then she broke 
 
 down, and began to cry bitterly. 
 
 "Don't do that, Mab," entreated Chappell. "Be a good 
 girl, and dry your eyes, and I will take you to your mamma to- 
 night." 
 
 But Mab only shook her head in reply ; and then it suddenly 
 dawned upon Walter Chappell that by some means she under- 
 stood all that had been going on ; that this child, for whose 
 pleasure he made the copper medal — the suggester of such sin 
 and misery — knew enough to convict her father and himself — 
 to hang them, even, he thought, for Chappell's knowledge of 
 the laws of his country was as limited as that possessed by nine 
 hundred and ninety-nine persons out of every thousand. 
 
 He had been hot enough coming out of the forge ; but now 
 he turned as cold as ice. In a moment it was given to him to 
 behold Nemesis in the shape of a thin, sallow-faced, dark-eyed 
 child. First his sister, then his sister's daughter. Like Miles 
 Barthorne, Walter Chappell felt it was too much, and so an- 
 swered irritably : 
 
 " Well, at any rate, stop crying, for heaven's sake, and I will 
 take you home with me till your mother comes back." 
 
 It was noticeable that Chappell did not say father and mother; 
 but Policeman Blank, who had children of his own, and whose 
 heart was stirred with a great compassion for the small creature 
 who was in such great trouble, was not a clever individual, and 
 had no eyes or thought for anything save Mab, for whom he felt 
 the profoundest pity. 
 
 " Why, that is the best thing you can do mth the poor dear," 
 
54 Above Suspicion. 
 
 he remarked approvingly. "Take her away with you. She 
 could not stay here all alone ; and the neighbours might only 
 torment her, even if they did take her in." 
 
 " I shan't trouble anybody to take in my sister's child, you 
 may be sure of that," said Chappell a little indignantly. 
 
 He was more contident now. If once he could get Mab away, 
 and ascertain exactly how much she knew, he might make some 
 effort for his own preservation. 
 
 " Don't cry any more than you can help, Mab. I shall have 
 finished some work I am doing for your father in half an hour 
 at the outside, and then we will go away to London together. 
 You will like to go with Uncle Walter, won't you, dear ? " he 
 asked, with more tenderness in his tone than he had yet evinced 
 when addressing her. She was a person to conciliate now. She 
 had ceased, in his eyes, to be a mere child ; she was a possible 
 witness ; and already Mab unconsciously reaped a certain benetit 
 from her change of position. 
 
 "Yes," she answered, "I shall like to go with you, if I 
 may." 
 
 " Then have your bonnet on in half an hour," said Walter 
 Chappell, " and then we will start for London together." 
 
 Often afterwards he wondered how he did it — wondered how 
 he had been able to speak so quietly, to act so naturally, to think 
 so rapidly. He wondered how he was calm enough to talk as 
 he did, to finish his work, even to the chimney-stays he had 
 talked about, to ask the policeman to give him a helping hand 
 by holding the iron he was fashioning, to suggest the desirability 
 of beer to that functionary, and request him to draw from one of 
 the casks which had given offence to Barthorne's neighbours 
 sufficient to quench the thirst of both. 
 
 Shortly afterwards Chappell and his niece left the house — 
 not much too soon, as it turned out subsequently, for they had 
 not bade the policeman " Good evening," and been gone fifteen 
 minutes, before the more diligent officer who found the card-case 
 returned, and hearing of their departure, said breathlessly : 
 
 "You never let Chappell go without following him ! " 
 
 "What should I follow Chappell for?" was the answer. 
 "There is nothing against the man." 
 
 " That is as it may be," was the reply. " At any rate, I must 
 go back and hear what is to be done now. Don't let anybody 
 in till I come back again, on any pretence whalsccver." 
 
Mab comes to the Rescue. 55 
 
 " All right," answered the other, and closed and bolted the 
 door. 
 
 Meanwhile Walter Chappell and his companion were walk- 
 ing to London. He had asked which she should like best, to 
 take the omnibus at the High Cross, or walk to the Cock at 
 Highbury. Without a mmute's hesitation, she answered : 
 
 " Oh ! walk, please, uncle ; and do let us go across the fields." 
 
 So, hand in hand, they walked down the Black Boy Lane 
 and along that path which is a short cut over the triangular bit 
 of common which abuts on Hanger Lane; and then they climbed 
 the stile which gives access to a path leading away to the Green 
 Lanes, and at the end of the path, crossing the main road at the 
 Tile Kilns, they wended their way over the New River, and so 
 to Hornsey Wood House, since pulled down, in order that the 
 new Finsbury Park might not retain a vestige of anything old, 
 picturesque, or romantic about it. 
 
 When they had passed the old tavern — a drawing of which 
 may be seen by the curious in Hone's " Everyday Book " — and 
 turned sharp off to their left and entered the path which formerly 
 led straight down to the Seven Sisters Road, the girl, after first 
 looking cautiously round, to make sure no one was near at 
 hand, said : 
 
 "I have got something, uncle; what must I do widi it?" 
 and she drew out of her small pocket a curious foreign-looking 
 dagger, the handle of which was rich in ornament, the design 
 being marked here and there by precious stones, not, perhaps, 
 of intrinsically great value, but which conferred an imposing 
 appearance of brilliancy on the pattern. 
 
 Chappell had never seen this before. He turned the weapon 
 over in his hand, looking at it curiously, then asked : 
 
 " Where did you get this, Mab ? " 
 
 " I knew mamma had it hidden away," answered the child. 
 " I saw her take it ; I saw her hide it. She told me I must 
 never tell any one. She and papa had a quarrel that morning. 
 She wanted to keep it, and said no one v/ould ever be the wiser; 
 and he asked her if she was mad, to think of such a thing ; and 
 he took it away and put it — you know where ; and then some 
 one came to speak to him about work, and while he was out- 
 side she took it out again and hid it. After the men came this 
 evening I remembered, and when they were gone" — there was 
 a break in the narrative for a moment — " when the one man 
 
56 Above Suspicion, 
 
 and papa and mamma were gone, I crept upstairs and looked 
 for it, and when everything was quiet, I thought I would go out 
 and throw it into some ditch ; but when I came down I found 
 the door bolted, and I dared not unfasten it. So I went upstairs 
 again, and lay down on the bed, and said my prayers, and all 
 the hymns and good verses that would stay in my head, over 
 and over again. I said them till I was nearly silly, and then you 
 came, uncle." 
 
 Prayers, hymns, verses, with any good in them ! Could such 
 utterances really have been in a house where sin had taken up 
 a permanent habitation? Prayers, hymns, verses. Vaguely 
 Walter Chappell found himself mentally repeating, in a sort of 
 amazed wonder, those three words, whilst all the time his mind 
 was busy conjecturing where the dagger had come from, mar- 
 velling how he should dispose of it, and puzzling himself as to 
 wha,t he ought to do with his niece. 
 
 When once again, after crossing the Seven Sisters Road, they 
 came upon the course of the New River, he paused, uncertain 
 whether to drop the weapon into the water or not. Again, how- 
 ever, his good genius, which had come to his rescue more than 
 once that evening, stood his friend. 
 
 He was well known to many persons by sight along that route. 
 He had traversed the road, indeed, far too often to suppose it 
 possible for even a small action of the kind to escape notice 
 from some chance acquaintance who might be near enough to 
 recognize him. No ; he must run no risks. He must carry the 
 accursed thing on with him still farther into the heart of the 
 great metropolis, and there, where even temporary possession 
 could never be brought home to him, lose this fresh evidence 
 of his sister's folly and cupidity. 
 
 " Shall I take it, uncle ? " asked the girl, as they continued 
 their course after that lingering look at the waters of Sir Hugh 
 Myddelton. " I am not afraid now." 
 
 He stopped, and pulling her a litde forward, so that he could 
 see her face distinctly, said : 
 
 " Mab, you frighten me. In heaven's name, when and where 
 have you learnt all your wisdom ? " 
 
 *• I could not help learning," she answered simply, tears fill- 
 ing her great dark eyes as she spoke. " I could not help hear- 
 ing and knowing. Many and many a night, when you all thought 
 I was asleep, and you were busy, I have cried till I could cry 
 
Mah conies to the Rescue. 57 
 
 no longer, with my head under the bed-clothes, for fear mamma 
 would hear me and be angry." 
 
 "Did you know what we were doing, Mab?" he inquired, 
 with an irrepressible shudder. 
 
 " Yes ; you were making money," she replied ; " and mamma 
 was always saying to me, when you had made enough we should 
 go away and have carriages, and horses, and servants, and live 
 like ladies and gentlemen ; and used to be angry with me for being 
 frightened when papa was out late at night. I always was afraid 
 something dreadful had happened to him. I did not know what; 
 but now something dreadful has happened," and the child, who 
 had forgotten her sorrow for a minute, began to cry again quietly, 
 but, nevertheless, bitterly. 
 
 Chappell did not make an effort to console her. It was grow- 
 ing dark as they emerged from Highbury Terrace and entered 
 the Holloway Road, through those iron gates which stood 
 opposite to the old station of the North London Railway. He 
 knew she would attract little if any notice from the passers-by. 
 Nevertheless, perhaps with that certain instinct of self-preserva- 
 tion which acts as an additional sense to so many persons whose 
 ordinary complement of senses would, in extremity, serve them 
 but little, he selected the least frequented side of the road lead- 
 ing to London, and walked far away from the shops under the 
 shade of the trees which make that part of Islington seem so 
 rural to persons accustomed to the more modern suburbs, where 
 groves of brick and mortar have taken the place of forest trees, 
 and porticoes of a more or less pretentious design, with flights 
 of stone steps leading to nowhere in particular, and great bay 
 windows, affording opportunities for a fine view of over the way 
 and up and down the crescent, have elbowed creepers, and 
 climbing roses, and clustering vines out of fashion. 
 
 When they had walked some distance along Islington High 
 Street, always keeping, as I have said, on the darkest side of 
 that wide thoroughfare, Chappell suddenly changed his course, 
 and struck right across into Barnsbury. In one of the loneliest 
 and quietest roads which still abound in that locality, he dropped 
 the dagger, then doubling and twisting, the pair retraced their 
 steps and made straight for the Angel. 
 
 Arrived there, he crossed the then Pentonville Road, and, 
 almost following the crow's flight, walked on towards Clerken- 
 well. 
 
58 Above Suspicion, 
 
 Where he had lodged in the days of his apprenticeship he 
 still remained, and the mere lapse of time, to say nothing of his 
 own uniformly good behaviour in that familiar home, had given 
 him a pleasant sort of proprietorship in the house, where he 
 came and went with a sense of greater freedom than if it had 
 been his own. 
 
 For a man is never quite free to come or to go when he 
 has a mother, or wife, or sister, or housekeeper, or servants, to 
 scrutinize his proceedings, whereas the old lady with whom 
 Chappell lodged had her own affairs to attend to, and never 
 attempted to obtain a vested interest in the young man's busi- 
 ness. 
 
 He paid his way, and gave her very little trouble, and she, 
 honest soul, never troubled her head as to what time he reached 
 home at night, or whether, indeed, he ever reached it at all. 
 
 It was in one of those large houses in Red Lion Street which 
 are now let out in suites at five and six shillings a week for 
 work-rooms and tenth-rate offices, that Walter Chappell had 
 resided ever since he first went to Nelson Brothers. 
 
 He had began with one small room on the third floor, and 
 he now occupied three rooms on the first. 
 
 Mab Barthorne knew her uncle's house well. She had spent 
 many a pleasant hour there. She and her father and mother 
 had often taken tea in the cheerful drawing-room before going 
 to the theatre, or Astley's, or any one of the other places of 
 amusement, visiting which was the only relaxation Barthorne 
 permitted himself. 
 
 She was familiar with every print on the walls, with every 
 book in the room ; no drawer had been safe from her investi- 
 gation, no cupboard in her uncle's small domain held anything 
 capable of concealment from her inquiring spirit. But now as 
 Mab crawled wearily up the staircase, her little shawl awry, her 
 bonnet only kept on the back of her neck by the strength of 
 the strings which tied it, her handkerchief wet as if it had come 
 out of a washtub, and her gloves damp with holding her hand- 
 kerchief, she felt as if life even in Red Lion Street was not 
 worth having. 
 
 One of the things the world, so wise in many matters, will 
 never know for certain, is the age at which a precocious child 
 begins to have a keen knowledge of good and evil, so far as 
 good and evil affect itself and those belonging to it. 
 
Mah comes to the Rescue. 59 
 
 Now, essentially Mab Barthorne was a precocious child — 
 precocious in her sensibility, precocious in her sense. 
 
 For many a long day she had carried about a woman's heart 
 in a child's bodv. No need to tell her to be cautious and reti- 
 cent — no need to put her on guard about babbling home affairs 
 to the multitude. As Walter Chappell recalled the nature of 
 the deed she had performed that evening, the words she had 
 used in speaking of her own fears and trouble, he felt he might 
 safely leave IMab to choose her own course for herself; that any 
 warnings he could give would only bewilder her, and tend to 
 disturb that subtle instinct which already had stood her father 
 — still unconscious of the benefit — in such stead. 
 
 All he insisted upon was that she should eat a biscuit and 
 drink a little hot neguj before going to bed. 
 
 *' You must swallow it," he said, holding the glass, which she 
 had already rejected, again towards her. " 1 cannot have you 
 laid up on my hands now. They are too full as it is." 
 
 " Can they do anything to you, uncle ? " she whispered, clasp- 
 ing her hands round his neck as she bade him good night, 
 putting her lips close to his ear to ask the question. 
 
 " I think not. I hope not," he answered. " I knew nothing 
 of the card-case or the earrings. I did not know till to-night 
 where they came from." 
 
 " Did you know nothing of all the silver and gold we used to 
 have at our house ? " 
 
 " I knew it was there, my dear, that was all." 
 
 "Then how did you help papa to make money, if " 
 
 He checked the inevitable question he felt coming, and 
 said : 
 
 '' Do not let us speak of it any more, Mab, now. Some day, 
 when you are older, when you can understand everything more 
 fully, I will tell you the whole truth ; but I will tell you one 
 thing, my dear, now — that if it pleases God that no harm comes 
 to me through this matter, I will try to be a better man in the 
 future than I have been in the past ; yes, whether harm comes 
 or not, I will try hard." 
 
 And thus Walter Chappell published the vow he had made 
 standing beside the cottage door at West Green. 
 
 After his niece was in bed and asleep, he started off in search 
 of a lawyer to undertake Barthorne's defence. He knew of one 
 residi])g in Guildford Street, willing to attend business at any 
 
6o A hove Suspicion, 
 
 hour of the day or night : to him — avoiding the House of 
 Correction on his way — Chappell accordingly went By the 
 time he had told the solicitor all he wished to tell him — or ever, 
 in fact, meant to tell any one concerning the business — and had 
 again reached Red Lion Street, it was growing late, or rather 
 early, for eleven o'clock had struck by St. James', Clerkenwell, 
 before he left his lodgings for Mr. Westroe's house, and as he 
 turned out of Snow Hill, which route he had selected on his 
 way home, he heard St. Sepulchre's chime out first the four 
 quarters making a perfect hour, and then solemly one. 
 
 Entering Red Lion Street, not from Clerkenwell Green or 
 St. John's Gate side, but from an obscure little lane running 
 almost parallel with Cow Cross Street, Chappell noticed a man 
 standing on the opposite side of the way, looking up at the 
 windows of the house he occupied. 
 
 With a steady tread, Chappell paced on towards Clerkenwell 
 Green, and then made his way down the alley leading to St. 
 John's Square, and thence to Red Lion Street. 
 
 The man was still on the opposite side of the way, engaged 
 at the moment in an apparent attempt to light a pipe. 
 
 Then the young man knew he was suspected and watched. 
 
 " Let them watch," he thought, " they can prove nothing 
 against me now." 
 
 About the same hour when Chappell made that mental 
 observation the policeman left in charge of Barthorne's cottage 
 at West Green, feeling, after a long sleep in an arm-chair, some- 
 what stiff and chilly, rose in order to stretch himself, and walked 
 towards the door, with the intention of looking out and seeing 
 what sort of night it was. 
 
 As he stood, only half awake, fumbling first for the latch and 
 then for the bolt, there was a report as if a cannon had been 
 fired off at his ear, there was a flash of light in the smithy, 
 followed by a crashing of bricks as if fifty Irish labourers had 
 let their hods fall from the top of a three-story house. 
 
 It seemed as if a whole pane of glass could not be left in the 
 cottage, and, in a paaic of fear, the man somehow opened the 
 door and rushed out into the night. 
 
 When morning dawned it was found that the whole of Bar- 
 thorne's forge had been blown out. There was a huge rent in 
 the side of the smithy, the bellows were in ribbons, of the forge 
 not one brick remained on another. The tools were scattered 
 
Mab comes to the Rescue, ' 6 1 
 
 about in all directions, and the glass in the skylight lay shivered 
 round the garden and the adjacent fields. 
 
 How it was blown up the authorities never could discover; 
 why it was blown up, those most interested in Barthorne's secrets 
 were utterly unable to imagine : not a trace of anything sus- 
 picious was found amongst the debris, save some particles of 
 copper adhering to fragments of fire-clay. The police had a 
 theory that Barthorne must nave possessed a hidden furnace, 
 where all the plate he was supposed to have stolen was at once 
 melted down ; and this idea received confirmation from the 
 fact that, beyond the card-case and the filigree earrings, no 
 article of value, save what the accused had legitimately pur- 
 chased, could be found on his premises, and that the most 
 diligent inquiry, and enormous offers of reward, failed to dis- 
 cover where any of the stolen goods had been disposed of — 
 save in one instance, and that exception only proved the rule. 
 
 Four days after Miles Barthorne's arrest, a poor old woman 
 was given in charge for attempting to pawn a certain foreign 
 dagger, she being unable to account satisfactorily for its pos- 
 session. 
 
 Before the magistrate she repeated the statement she had 
 made when a police officer was sent for by the pawnbroker. 
 
 "I found it, your honour," she sobbed. " I picked it up in 
 a street leading out of the Liverpool Road ; I don't remember 
 the name of the street, but I was coming back from doing a 
 hard day's washing, your worship, and the lady would speak 
 to my character." 
 
 *' Now, will you be silent?" interrupted the magistrate; then 
 turning to the constable, he said, "Some special importance 
 attaches to this dagger, I think?" 
 
 "Yes, your worship," answered the constable. "It is one 
 of the articles stolen from Hillview House, Sir Alexander 
 Kelvey's place at Highgate, the time David M' Galium was 
 murdered." 
 
 Walter Chappell, reading the Times at the chop-house where 
 he usually dined, came suddenly upon this paragraph. 
 
 He laid down his knife and fork, left the paper on the table, 
 paid his reckoning in silence, and walked out into the open air. 
 
 The fact of the murder and the fact of the robbery had not 
 been made known previously in connection one with the other. 
 
 But now in a moment the dagger he himself had dropped 
 
^2 Above Suspicion. 
 
 supplied a hitherto missing link, which, truth to tell, he in some 
 vague sort of way had always dreaded to find. 
 
 Mab's premature wisdom had saved her father's life— that 
 life so nearly risked by his wife's folly. 
 
 But Miles Barthorne was a murderer. Through all the busi- 
 ness of the day — through the hours of the night, when he lay 
 awake and restless, in the snatches of troubled sleep that came 
 to him at intervals, that refrain rung through his brain, till his 
 mind grew sick and tired with its persistence as much as with its 
 horror. 
 
 Miles Barthorne was a murderer. The man who was lying 
 in jail upon a comparatively trivial charge had blood on his 
 hands— the blood of a fellow-creature who had never wronged 
 him or his. 
 
 Though a thousand witnesses came forward to prove an 
 alibi, Walter Chappell felt he never could be persuaded of his 
 innocence. 
 
 "He murdered the man," thought Chappell; "and if that 
 dagger had been found in his house, they would have hung him 
 to a certainty." 
 
 As matters turned out afterwards, however, Barthorne's accom- 
 plice in outwitting the authorities at the Mint felt that if Mab 
 had left the weapon where her mother hid it away, the lives 
 of many people would subsequently have proved much more 
 endurable than they did. 
 
Sentenced, 63 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 SENTENCED. 
 
 To ]\liles Barthorne the agonies of years were concentrated in 
 the short time which elapsed before he knew that his forge 
 was destroyed, and that nothing to inculpate him in the High- 
 gate murder had been, after diligent search, discovered by the 
 police in his house. If his wife, notwithstanding her knowledge 
 of the peril incurred, could have been such a simpleton — he 
 put the last word differently, and prefaced his version with a 
 couple of strong adjectives — as to hide away two such trumpery 
 articles as those on the strength of which he had been taken 
 in charge, Barthorne's common sense told him there was nothing 
 else— nothing which she might have refrained from secreting. 
 
 Once again a woman's hand had dashed the cup of success 
 from his lips. Through the act of a woman, and that woman 
 his wife, every hope of his existence was destroyed; and it 
 might be also — well, this was not a contingency on which he 
 cared to dwell, though at intervals it would force its presence 
 upon him, and compel him to think of that morning's work at 
 Highgate — of the dead man's living brother — of a charge diffe- 
 rent from theft — of an attentive jury and a stern judge — the 
 verdict, " guilty," and the sentence, " to be hanged by the neck 
 till you are dead." 
 
 Not a nice sort of possibility, this, for a man to have to try 
 to shun, with nothing to distract his attention, nothing to divert 
 his thoughts, nothing to lean against save uncertamty, nothmg 
 to be quite sure of except that he stood in a position of fearful 
 peril. ^ There have been men, it is said, whose hair has turned 
 grey in a single night containing less misery than Miles Bar- 
 thorne endured for nights and days, which seemed to lengthen 
 them.selves out into an eternity of torture. 
 
 If M'Callum had but known all his brother's murderer passed 
 through after his arrest, he must have felt satisfied. David, 
 sleeping in Hornsey Churchyard, was amply revenged. The 
 mills of Time already had Barthorne between their stones, and 
 
64 Above Suspicion. 
 
 imperceptibly, it is true, but still certainly, were grinding his 
 heart. He could not have suffered as he did had the human 
 fiat gone forth. No condemned cell ever contained a wretch 
 who suffered such fear as Barthorne had to bear and show no 
 sign. But relief came at last. After two remands he was com- 
 mitted for trial with no fresh evidence against him. 
 
 Walter Chappell had been taken into custody, and, after one 
 remand, discharged, with a remark from the magistrate, that 
 although he thought the police had not, under the circumstances, 
 exceeded their duty in arresting him, he felt bound to say he 
 left the court without a stain on his character — which was cer- 
 tainly very gratifying to Mr. Walter Chappell. 
 
 Mr. Westroe, acting for him, remarked to his client that he 
 might deem himself extremely lucky ; for it was the fact that 
 the lawyer never for one moment thought of believing Chappell 
 innocent. He considered it not only possible, but probable, that 
 the older and cleverer criminal had drawn the younger into the 
 commission of sins he would never have eliminated out of the 
 shallows of his own imagination; but although Chappell 
 declared with many an asseveration that he had neither head 
 nor hand in any of the robberies of which Barthorne was sus- 
 pected, Mr. Westroe's opinion did not waver in the least. 
 
 The day of the trial came, and every available seat in the 
 poking court was filled with people who had known Barthorne 
 either privately or in the way of business. Tottenham sent its 
 representatives, and West Green also. M'Callum headed a 
 select party from Highgate; and gentlemen who had availed 
 themselves of Barthorne's skill as a v/orkman, appeared as in- 
 terested listeners, anxious to hear whether, in the course of the 
 trial, any light would be thrown on the manner in which their 
 own plate-chests had been emptied. 
 
 Barthorne's first London friend, the Tottenham smith, had 
 come up from his country home to give evidence as to the 
 prisoner's good character whilst in his employment, and pro- 
 bably his wife would have accompanied him, had he given her 
 the faintest inkling of the nature of the business which took 
 him to town. 
 
 Taking public opinion round, those whose goods had not 
 been stolen, or who possessed no goods to steal, felt some 
 sympathy for the man ; but no one felt any sympathy for the 
 woman. She had never been popular — never tried to make 
 
Sentenced. 65 
 
 i^erself popular. Wives spoke of her as a ** stuck-up piece of 
 goods," and husbands considered it a " main hard thing that a 
 fellow who worked as Barthorne had worked should be sent to 
 jail because a woman fancied a card-case she could never use, 
 and a pair of earrings she could never wear." 
 
 Indeed, had it not been for that ugly doubt as to whether 
 Barthorne were not a murderer as well as a thief, popular feel- 
 ing would have been entirely in his favour. 
 
 Certainly since he first came to Tottenham people never 
 spoke so well of him as when he stood in the dock at the Old 
 Bailey. 
 
 Nothing had been found in his house except the card-case 
 and the earrings, and who knew how Mrs. Barthorne had come 
 to be possessed of them ? Bets were laid as to whether he 
 would get otf or not ; and there was much speculation as to 
 what the nature of the sentence might be, in the event of a 
 conviction. 
 
 In any case, let the result of the trial be what it would, the 
 Barthornes could never again hold up their heads about West 
 Green — which idea so pleased those whom their prosperity had 
 irritated, that the bulk of the interested court hoped Barthorne 
 would be able to make a good defence. 
 
 But in this hope they were doomed to disappointment. 
 
 Barthorne pleaded *^ Guiltv," Mrs. Barthorne pleaded " Not 
 Guilty." 
 
 For very sufficient reasons Mr. Westroe had advised both 
 husband and wife to answer "Guilty;" but Mrs. Barthorne 
 declined following his counsel, and engaged separate profes- 
 sional assistance for herself. 
 
 The result proved her superior wisdom ; for an intelligent 
 jury found that there was no evidence to convict her, and re- 
 turned a verdict of acquittal. 
 
 There was a stir and murmur in the court after the foreman 
 announced the decision to which himself and his eleven breth- 
 ren had arrived — a stir and murmur, not of approval ; but the 
 crier, in a rich beery voice, shouted out " Silence ! " and the 
 sounds died away. 
 
 Indeed, there was almost a dead silence while Miles Bar- 
 thorne, now alone in the dock, stood awaiting his sentence. 
 
 After a long preamble from the judge it came at last : To bf 
 transported for seven years. 
 
 5 
 
66 Above Suspicion, 
 
 Seven years ! The words fell like a blow on Barthome. He 
 turned white to his lips, and the court, judge, jury, and specta- 
 tors, swam round before his eyes. 
 
 One of the turnkeys, thinking him about to faint, put out a 
 hand to catch him, and the action, slight though it was, steadied 
 the man's nerves. 
 
 '* Let me alone, will you ? " he said in a savage whisper. " I 
 don't deserve it, but I can bear it;" and then, without once 
 glancing round the audience, without taking one last look at 
 freedom ere going into servitude, he turned and went away from 
 the gaze of those who had known and envied him at the time 
 when he lived at West Green — a time that seemed now farther 
 distant than the days of his childhood. 
 
 The game had almost brought him fortune — the play had 
 nearly been successful. If David M'Callum had not met him 
 that morning, or if he could so far have shaken off the super- 
 stitious repugnance he felt to touching the corpse as to bring 
 himself to lay even a finger on the dead man's body, suspicion 
 had never fallen upon him. 
 
 Or if^and this was even a bitterer thought — he had either 
 not married, or married a different woman, suspicion might have 
 fallen, and still done him no great harm. 
 
 " Yes," he thought, " from childhood until now women have 
 cursed my life. If ever a woman works evil for me again, it will 
 be my own fault — that I swear." 
 
 Whilst he lay in prison, the woman whose act had brought 
 this last calamity upon him was searching London for some 
 trace of her brother and her child. 
 
 Both had disappeared. They were vanished as utterly as 
 though the waters of oblivion had closed over their heads. 
 
 Through his solicitor, Barthome sent her a message, charging 
 her not to come near him. 
 
 "Voluntarily," he remarked to Chappell before the trial, "I 
 will never see your sister again." 
 
 " And certainly you will not see much of my sister's brother,'' 
 added Chappell mentally. 
 
 Mrs. Barthome, however, was determined to see her husband 
 again, and, armed with an order, repaired to the prison where 
 he waited till the time should come for him to leave England. 
 
 She threw herself on her knees before him, and in an agony 
 of grief besought his forgiveness. 
 
Sentenced, 6j 
 
 " I will go to Australia also," she sobbed ; " I would go to 
 the world's end with you. I will do anything you tell me, if you 
 will only forgive me." 
 
 Miles Barthorne listened to her with a set, hard face. When 
 she had quite finished her petition, when she had exhausted her 
 lamentations and tired herself with weeping, he said : 
 
 "Will no one take this woman away before I kill her?" and 
 then with a shiver, as his own sentence recalled something he 
 was always trying to forget, he retreated to the farthest comer 
 of his cell, and stood there, with his eyes averted, while the 
 turnkeys carried his wife into the passage, and, locking the door, 
 parted them. 
 
 For months she haunted Mr. Westroe's offices, in hopes of 
 hearing something of her child and brother, but Mr. Westroe 
 was as ignorant of their whereabouts as she. At the end of a 
 year, however, she obtained a clue which induced her to think 
 Walter Chappell and the child had gone to America ; and thither, 
 not being destitute of money, she started in quest of them. 
 
 And thus the family dropped out from amongst the acquaint- 
 ances who had known them in their days of apparent prosperity. 
 Their very name became an almost forgotten word. Strangers 
 came and strangers went about West Green and Tottenham, and 
 the story of the handsome smith was remembered but by a very 
 few old inhabitants of those neighbourhoods. 
 
 In or near London, it is not difficult to compass being for- 
 gotten. The tide of human life flows so fast through the great 
 metropolis, that a man's memory scarcely lasts so long in the 
 recollection of his fellows as a name written on the sand remains 
 legible on the sea-shore. 
 
 And indeed, even at Abbotsleigh and around Spindlethorpe, 
 Miles, the illegitimate son of the old Squire, had dropped out 
 of mind. 
 
 Glendy was dead ; his widow had sold his business, and left 
 that part of the country. 
 
 Mrs. Barthorne was dead likewise, and another Squire than 
 John — who gave fifty pounds to enable the discarded heir to 
 learn an honest trade — reigned at the Hall. 
 
 The years which, to contemplate in prospective, seemed so 
 long and so capable of bringing wealth and position to the son 
 of the bond-woman, had flitted by silently and swiftly, and the 
 result was that, with oceans stretching between himself and 
 
 6—2 
 
6S Above Suspicion, 
 
 England, Barthorne was working out the days and the months 
 of his heavy sentence, whilst the very fact of his ever having 
 existed was an almost forgotten memory. 
 
 Not by one man, however. James M'Calkim remembered : 
 the blood of his dead brother still, to his morbid fancy, seemed 
 crying aloud for vengeance on his murderer. 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE REV. DIONYSIUS AND MRS. WRIGHT. 
 
 About six years after the day when Miles Barthorne received 
 his sentence of expatriation, when the story of his sin and his 
 punishment, and the other story of his suspected sin and punish- 
 ment still deferred, remained only in those short and significant 
 records which can be inspected free at the Old Bailey, and in 
 the memories of a few people connected with the criminal, the 
 Reverend Dionysius Wright, Rector of Fisherton-on-Thames, 
 found himself in a difficulty. 
 
 Inclusively at the same time Selina, wife of the above, found 
 herself in a difficulty also. 
 
 To the Reverend Dionysius and Mrs. Wright this experience 
 was no novelty. From the first year of their marriage they had 
 found themselves at intervals in precisely the same position. 
 
 Difficulty, pecuniary difficulty, had for years ate with them, 
 drank with them, slept and walked with them, boarded and 
 
The Rev. Dio'ftysius and Mrs. Wright. 69 
 
 lodged with them ; it pervaded the air they breathed, and was 
 part and parcel of their being. Had a legacy been bequeatlied 
 to them, and the possibility of paying their way for a time with- 
 out anxiety been presented, they would have felt out of their 
 natural element, got rid of their money, and plunged into the 
 old slough of debt, as soon as might be. Therefore, it was not 
 the fact of impecuniosity which troubled the reverend gentleman 
 so grievously. It was merely that, for once in his varied ex-- 
 perience, he really could perceive no way of relieving, even 
 temporarily, his embarrassments. 
 
 It is not at all likely that when the Rev. Dionysius started 
 in life he voluntarily chose the path he had for years and years 
 been traversing, yet he drifted into it very early in his career, 
 and it was now too late, as he himself sometimes said with a 
 sigh, to retrace his steps. 
 
 Despondency, however, was not the failing of Mrs. Wright. 
 She had a fixed belief, that if her husband could only induce 
 his creditors to wait a little longer, and still a little, help would 
 come. 
 
 Help had come so often, and from such unlooked-for quarters, 
 that Mrs. Wright was sometimes wont to declare it would be 
 downright rebellion against Providence to imagine it would not 
 arrive once more, all in Heaven's good time. 
 
 " You may depend upon it, Dion," she said, in a tone of 
 solemn conviction, " that although we cannot hear its footsteps, 
 assistance is on its way to us even now." 
 
 In the same manner as we are told orphanages and other 
 charitable institutions are occasionally supported entirely by 
 the power of faith, so hitherto Mr. and Mrs. Wright had, by 
 means of faith in their fellow-creatures and the goodness of 
 Providence, managed somehow to pay baker and butcher, and 
 other tradespeople, when the day came on which those in- 
 dividuals declared, severally and collectively, they would not 
 wait another hour for their money. 
 
 But a crisis had at length occurred. It commenced about 
 eighteen months after Mr. Wright's induction to the living of 
 Fisherton. A bill which had been renewed and held over, and 
 renewed and held over again, for a series of periods of which 
 the Reverend Dion's memory could retain no accurate recollec- 
 tion, was now — in consequence of the original possessor's death 
 — in the hands of a very different man, of a man who " con- 
 
70 Above Sitspicion. 
 
 sidered business was business," who did not Intend to let him- 
 self be cheated '' by Jew or Gentile, parson or layman," who 
 " meant to have his money by fair means or foul," and who 
 gave the Rector of Fisherton to understand that some definite 
 understanding on the subject must be arrived at. 
 
 As a definite understanding on the subject of money, unless 
 he were to be the recipient, was the last thing on earth poor 
 Mr. Wright ever desired, he tried to stave the matter off, and 
 actually did succeed in doing this for a period of nearly ten 
 weeks. 
 
 At the end of that time came a lawyer's letter. Mr. Wright 
 called to see the lawyer, and obtained a fortnight's longer grace. 
 No remittance, however, arriving, even when a week longer 
 than the fortnight had passed, a writ was served upon the Rector, 
 and in twelve days more judgment was obtained against him. 
 Then of course all the household goods — all the well-worn 
 furniture, all the patternless carpets, all the faded curtains, the 
 old out-of-tune six-octave square pianoforte, and other miscel- 
 laneous effects — including a half-length portrait of Mr. Wright, 
 in gown and bands, holding a prayer-book in his hand, having 
 to his right an oriel window, and to his left an old-fashioned 
 cabinet, decorated with sundry vases and pieces of old china ; 
 and another half-length portrait, this time of Mrs. Wright, in 
 curls and a low dress, holding a lace handkerchief and a rose in 
 her left hand, whilst with the right she was gathering jessamine 
 from the outside of the oriel window above referred to, — all 
 these things, representing to the clergyman and his wife the 
 comforts and elegances of a refined home, as well as the luxuries 
 of departed days, were at the mercy of the destroyer. 
 
 But the destroyer was merciful ; though Mrs. Wright, in the 
 privacy of her husband's study, called him a brute, and declared 
 the wretch had so unnerved her she could scarcely say her 
 prayers, he really did act so very badly. 
 
 In consideration of Mr. Wright handing his solicitor ten 
 pounds down, and signing promissory notes payable at intervals 
 extending over a year, he agreed to give further time. The ten 
 pounds, however, only covered the costs ; so the debt remained 
 as much as ever, plus the interest. 
 
 " Dear dear dear ! dear dear!" said Mr. AVright, with a little 
 click of the tongue which sufficiently bespoke his nationality 
 without the help of the soft pleasantaccent and cheerful brogue 
 
The Rev. Dionysms and Mrs. Wright'. 71 
 
 that, added to his good-tempered face and genial manner, had 
 carried the Rector through so many difficulties and enabled 
 him to clear triumphantly many an awkward fence. " Now, to 
 think of that money having gone all for nothing — positively for 
 nothing, Selina — and the poor dears wanting new dresses so 
 badly, and you looking like a ghost for need of a glass of decent 
 wine." 
 
 *' Don't trouble yourself about me or the children, Dion," 
 said Mrs. Wright, in a tone meant to be valiant, but which 
 broke towards the end of the sentence into a hysterical whim- 
 per; "you have enough to bear without us — though I must say 
 it seems strange and hard to think we find it so much more 
 difficult to make the two ends meet since you have been a rector 
 than ever we did in the days when you were only a curate." 
 
 This was one of the pleasant fictions with which Mrs. Wright 
 entertained her family and friends. 
 
 Since they came together she and her husband had never 
 fitted their expenditure to their income, but in lieu thereof they 
 had fitted the incomes of very many other people to their ex- 
 penditure, and the children's dresses and the decent glass of 
 wine so pathetically referred to by Mr. Wright had, as natural 
 consequences, generally been obtainable. 
 
 To do Mr. and Mrs. Wright strict justice, during their whole 
 married life it did not once occur to either of them that the 
 words "for worse" and "for poorer" could have any meaning 
 applicable to themselves. In every single respect, save that 
 they were always in debt, they lived better and fared more 
 sumptuously than their parents had done before them. They 
 had really never been in what could be called absolute poverty, 
 save such as was caused by their own bad management ; but 
 the reason, beyond bad management, of the chronic difficulties 
 in which they were involved, was that neither understood the 
 meaning of the sentence "doing without." 
 
 They could do without, of course, when they were compelled 
 to do so ; but given that Mrs. Wright had five pounds — a not 
 unusual occurrence, by the way — and she was quite certain to 
 spend the greater part of the amount on a fancy, not a neces- 
 sary. 
 
 In a word, she worked herself up over their debts and their 
 duns to a state of nervous excitement which even the typical 
 glass of wine failed to subdue, and all the while the beer went 
 
72 Above Suspicion. 
 
 unpaid for; and in like manner, when the doctor's tonics proved 
 unavaihng, j\Ir. Wright was wont, in the happy days when people 
 spoke of him as a struggling curate, to bring her home mock 
 turtle from Scarlett's and grapes from Moses' — the time a noisy 
 butcher was clamouring for payment for the family sirloin, and 
 tlie greengrocer thought people ought not to eat a peck of po- 
 tatoes a day if they never intended settling for them. 
 
 Upon what principle it was that the Rev. Dionysius and ]\lrs. 
 Wright had made up their minds society was bound to maintain 
 them no one ever could tell, unless, indeed, it was because they 
 had a quiver full of children. 
 
 So exclusively personal an affair might not in the hands of 
 less skilful manipulators have proved a peg strong enough where- 
 on to hang claims for money, clothes, food, house-rent, taxes, 
 and any other trifles which they found necessary to their com- 
 fort and well-being; but the Wrights were very skilful. 
 
 Had the mandate to replenish the earth been just issued, had 
 the Deluge only just subsided, had there been no surplus popu- 
 lation, had babies not been appearing at extremely short inter- 
 vals upon the face of the earth for nearly six thousand years, 
 had there seemed any immediate danger of the human race 
 coming to an untimely end, the Wrights could not possibly have 
 comported themselves more like benefactors to the world than 
 was the case. 
 
 " God has been very good to them," said an old nurse, who, 
 after living with jNIrs. Wright's mother for a score of years, came 
 over to see that ]\Iiss Selena's children were properly cared for. 
 " He took seven to Himself." 
 
 Which was quite true. Nevertheless, after deducting the de- 
 funct seven, nine remamed. " Of as fine boys and girls as you 
 would wish to see," the Rev. Dion was wont to remark. 
 
 Whether they were fine or not might, despite the reverend 
 gentleman's dictum, be a matter of opinion ; but there can be 
 no doubt that scarcely any one ever did wish to see them. 
 
 Of their mother's saiwir-faire — of their father's joviality — of 
 the combined light-heartedness of both parents, they had not 
 inherited a trace. 
 
 Excepting during the Sunday services, the life of an ordinary 
 clergyman is essentially one of small things. The doings, and 
 sayings, and affairs of persons whose doings, sayings, and affairs 
 are usually and discreetly ignored, form, as many of us are un- 
 
The Rev. Dionysiiis and Mrs. Wright. 73 
 
 happily aware, the staple of conversation in most parsonages — 
 and the gossip of daily life is not always edifying for children to 
 hear. Further, the young Wrights were priggish and self-con- 
 scious, as the sons and daughters of clergymen often are in their 
 innocent teens — a little proud also, and very much disposed to 
 give themselves airs on the strength of their pedigree. 
 
 Wherever they went — and in the way of his profession Mr. 
 Wright had to make many homes for his family — the young 
 ladies and gentlemen were rather apt to hold their heads very 
 high, and to turn unequivocal cold shoulders to persons whom 
 they were pleased to consider as not quite on a level with them- 
 selves. 
 
 '' Comes from the mother's family," Mr. Wright was wont to 
 explain apologetically when any of these pleasant ways gave 
 offence in quarters where it was desirable offence should not be 
 given. " Poor dear old Mr. Curran was the proudest man I 
 ever met — most ridiculously proud— Irish pride, you under- 
 stand. Though Irish myself, and come of decent enoiigh people 
 — Admiral Wright, who did such good service at Trafalgar, was 
 my father's cousin, and my mother's aunt married a nephew of 
 the fourth Lord Castlebar — I am thankful to say I know no- 
 thing of the feeling ; self-respect is enough for me. But, as I 
 was saying, my children inherit the failmg from their mother's 
 family : poor dears ! the world will soon teach them better. 
 They will understand, ere many years pass, how much happier 
 it would have been for them if their father had been a cheese- 
 monger, or something of that sort, than a clergyman possessed 
 of a few poor talents which he has tried not to hide in a 
 napkin." 
 
 Whatever claim Mr. Wright's progenitors may have had to 
 social consideration in the days of the Admiral and Lord Castle- 
 bar's nephew, it is quite certain there was not much in his own 
 youthful reminiscences calculated to justify so slighting an ob- 
 servation, even concerning a man who wore an apron and stood 
 behind a counter. 
 
 But many a mile stretched between Ireland and England, 
 and many a year between Mr. Wright's boyhood and the time 
 when he was presented to the living of Fisherton. 
 
 "A poor thing," he said confidentially. "His Lordship 
 might just as well have given me one nearer town and worth a 
 couple of hundred a year more." 
 
74 Above Suspicion. 
 
 But this really was scarcely grateful on the part of Mr. 
 Wright, considering he had written to " His Lordship " — in 
 whose gift the living was — with tears in his eyes, a letter of 
 thanks, part of which ran as follows : — 
 
 *'Your Lordship's note, received this morning, and read with 
 feelings of mingled thankfulness and astonishment, marks the 
 beginning of a new epoch in the life of myself and family. 
 
 " The cruel bugbear which has hitherto haunted my life, 
 prostrating my energies and nullifying my efforts for the benefit 
 of my fellow-creatures, has been banished by your Lordship for 
 ever. I see a future of as utter peace and contentment as this 
 poor world can afford stretching out before me, like sunshine 
 lighting up a fair valley. The prayers of myself and my family 
 will ascend night and morning for the prosperity and happiness, 
 temporal and eternal, of my noble and generous patron, to 
 whom I beg to subscribe myself, 
 
 " His Lordship's devoted and grateful servant, 
 
 " DiONYSius Wright." 
 
 And, after all, poor Mr. Wright did not find himself in a 
 Innd of peace ; he was met in the fair valley with that serious 
 difficulty of which I shall have more to say in the next chapter. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 "just like an inspiration." 
 
 The Rev. Mr. Wright had some curious ideas on the subject 
 of time. When he was expecting money, weeks lengthened 
 themselves out into months. When any one else was expecting 
 money from him, months shrank into weeks. 
 
^^Jitst like an Inspiraiiony 75 
 
 " I give you my honour," he was wont to remark, *^ it does 
 not seem ten days since I signed that note which you tell me 
 is now due. Oh ! of course you are right. I do not dispute 
 the accuracy of your statement for a moment, but I really am 
 taken quite by surprise." And then Mr. Wright would gently 
 move aside the obnoxious document his creditor wished him to 
 examine, and say, "Dear, dear, dear! what am I to do? Cannot 
 you suggest any way out of the difficulty, my good, kind 
 friend?" 
 
 Sometimes the good, kind friend would offer to renew the 
 bill, but sometimes he resolutely refused to suggest any way out 
 of the difficulty, except that Mr. Wright should hand him over 
 the amount due, in which latter case Mr. Wright had to appeal 
 to one of his many other good, kind friends, and repeat his 
 statement concerning the extraordinary way in which the three 
 or four months had fled by, supplementing that lamentation 
 with an emphatic statement that he ought to have received his 
 own salary or the interest on his wife's fortune four weeks pre- 
 vious to the moment when he wa^ speaking, and that neither 
 had yet been remitted to him. 
 
 It would have been a most extraordinary thing if the interest 
 on Airs. Wright's modest portion had reached him, seeing that 
 within six months of their marriage they had transferred it for 
 a period of five years — a process which at the end of that 
 period bore repetition, and had gone on bearing repetition dur- 
 ing the nineteen summers and winters of what they both were in 
 the habit of calling their "happy wedded life." 
 
 And indeed they had been very happy till they came to 
 Fisherton. When they first came to Fisherton they were very 
 happy also. They laid out all sorts of plans for the future. 
 
 " First and foremost," said the genial Dionysius, " we must 
 repay every farthing the generous Samaritans have lent or given 
 for our use." 
 
 " I don't think I should, dear," remarked Mrs. Wright. " I 
 am sure none of them ever gave with any idea of return. They 
 knew perfectly well how we were situated. I am certain we 
 never made any false pretences. Whatever they spared to us 
 was lent to the Lord; and we know He won't forget it to them." 
 
 ^' And He has not forgotten us, Selina," Mr. Wright replied, 
 a little severely, pointing at the same time to the rectory garden, 
 which sloped down to the Thames. " And we must not forget 
 
76 Above Suspicion, 
 
 that some of our benefactors gave out of their little instead of 
 their abundance." 
 
 " Very well, Dion ; I suppose you know best," said ]\Irs. 
 Wright, in a tone which implied she supposed nothing of the 
 sort. She was a more practical person in some respects than 
 he, and knew perfectly well a moonlight view of the river would 
 not provide butcher's meat for a growing-up family. 
 
 In the first excitement of his new position, with sovereigns in 
 his pocket, she thought it possible her husband might be so 
 Quixotic as to send back money to people " who did not expect 
 it, and w^ho did not need it ; " but her doubt of Mr. Wright's 
 personal prudence was not well founded. 
 
 It is quite true that he did actually procure a post-ofhce order 
 for five shillings, and send that order to a very dear friend who 
 had lent it to hun the day he received his Lordship's letter; but 
 there Mr. Wright's voluntary honesty began and ended. And 
 perhaps it was quite as well for the good Samaritans that he 
 stopped at that point, as he certainly would eventually have 
 made his repayments then the basis for future operations on a 
 much more extensive scale. 
 
 Never, probably, before in their lives had Mr. and Mrs. Wright 
 been so flush of money as when they took up their residence at 
 Fisherton. A grateful congregation had presented the Reverend 
 Dionysius with a purse containing one hundred and eighty so- 
 vereigns, as a token of their affection and esteem, and to the 
 husband and wife it seemed that such a sum was practically 
 inexhaustible. They acted as if it were so, at all events. Mr. 
 Wright thought that his poor dear Selina required a thorough 
 change of air, and poor dear Selina was quite certain he wanted 
 change more than she did. As for the children, it went without 
 saying that they needed change more than anybody; and so the 
 whole family travelled to the seaside ; and it was the joint 
 opinion of Mr. and Mrs. Wright that the man who could see 
 the innocent enjoyment of the young people and grudge it to 
 them must possess a heart hard as the nether millstone. They 
 arrived at this decision in consequence of a tailor, who happened 
 unfortunately to have selected the same watering-place for his 
 holiday, remarking to Mr. Wright that he — the tailor — thought 
 that if a man could afford to hire flys and boats, he might manage 
 to pay his debts. 
 
 *' There must be a bitter drop in every cup," said Mrs. Wright ; 
 
** Jtcst like an Inspiration!* 'J'J 
 
 and there can be no doubt that the democratic and disgusting 
 practice of tradespeople going out of town, just as if they were 
 their own customers instead of mere shopkeepers, was a very 
 bitter drop in hers. 
 
 " It is really very hard," she often observed, " that, go where 
 one will, one can never get away from London." 
 
 At Fisherton, at all events, Mr. Wright found he could not 
 get away from London. There his debts followed him, and as 
 he dared not commence his new life in a strange place amongst 
 fresh people, in the capacity of spiritual shepherd-in-chief, wiih 
 writs hovering about his door and bailiffs waylaying him along 
 the footpaths, he had to make a virtue of necessity — pay as 
 much as he could in cash, and give promissory notes for the 
 balance. 
 
 What was left of the hundred and eighty pounds, after Mr. 
 and Mrs. Wright returned from their holiday, did not go far in 
 the way of setting their worldly affairs in order. 
 
 ''They could just as easily have made it another hundred," 
 sighed Mr. Wright, whose gratitude never survived the spending 
 of the last given, begged, or borrowed sovereign. '• What would 
 another hundred have been to them ? — nothing. And I am sure 
 I worked in that parish like a galley-slave." 
 
 And this was quite true. \n whatever parish Mr. Wright 
 chanced to be placed, he did not stint his labour ; but then other 
 clergymen worked hard also, while for them was not even the 
 purse — to say nothing of the hundred and eighty sovereigns. 
 At all events, nothing now remained of that testimonial for 
 which Mr. Wright had with tears thanked his beloved friends. 
 The old debts had only been reduced about one-fifth, and it was 
 clear, even to the mind of Mr. Wright himself, that he never 
 could manage to feed and clothe his family, to get rid of his old 
 creditors — who, he said to Mrs. Wright, were " mere leeches, 
 sucking his heart's blood " — to maintain a respectable appear- 
 ance before the world, and to provide a few little luxuries for 
 Selina, his wife, on three hundred and fifty pounds a year and a 
 free house. 
 
 " Other people do it, though," he remarked to his better half. 
 
 " But how ? " asked Mrs. Wnght significantly. " By pinching, 
 and saving, and practising all sorts of meannesses, calculated 
 to bring the Church into disrepute. I am sure, Dion, you would 
 not have done half so much good amongst the poor as has been 
 
78 Above Suspicion, 
 
 the case, had you gone about in shabby old clothes and cotton 
 gloves like poor Mr. Seymour ; or if I had allowed the children 
 to wear checked pinafores, and helped with the housework, as 
 little Mrs. Manners boasts that hers do. I say a clergyman is 
 worse than useless unless he is a gentleman also; and to be 
 thought a gentleman in England a man must, at any inconveni- 
 ence, maintain a respectable appearance. We have been wonder- 
 fully supported, and I can see no reason why we should fail now. 
 There are other livings in England beside Fisherton, and, if we 
 can only manage to preserve our position here as we have done 
 everywhere else so far, I am positive you won't be forgotten. 
 Wherever we may be placed, a man of your talents cannot hide 
 his light under a bushel." 
 
 Which sounded pleasant in Mr. Wright's ears. When he was 
 busy making up his charitable accounts, or writing begging letters 
 for the support of the schools, the lying-in charity, the Dorcas 
 club, the mothers' improvement society, or any other one of the 
 admirable institutions he, in conjunction with his wife, always 
 established wherever they went, it was Mrs. Wright's practice to 
 sit in his study, and indulge in long statements, such as that 
 just recorded. 
 
 As she could not preach, and did not write books, and was 
 sufiiciently domestic to have no inclination to lecture in public, 
 she contented herself with instructing her husband on various 
 subjects wherein she considered his views wavering or unsound. 
 
 There were times, for instance, when poor Mr. Wright, who 
 had personally to endure the insolence of creditors, the threats 
 of lav/yers, the dread of arrest, and the horror of impending 
 bankruptcy, could have found it in his heart to wear cotton 
 gloves, and permit his children to appear in checked pinafores, 
 had such sacrifices been necessary in order to compass deliver- 
 ance from debt. 
 
 There had been moments in his life when he doubted the 
 expediency of having friends to stay in the house ; and when he 
 marvelled whether, with her superior mind and wonderful store 
 of accomplishments, his wife might not have instructed her 
 girls, and so saved the expense of that visiting governess, whose 
 quarter days appeared to Mr. Wright to come round every three 
 weeks. 
 
 But at such moments Mrs. Wright was at hand to point out 
 the error of his ways, and to prove to him that if he ever wished 
 
** Just like an Inspiration^,* 79 
 
 to be rich, prosperous, and respected — if he desired his girls to 
 marry well and his sons to succeed in life, he must be prepared 
 to face even worse difficulties in order to maintain that place 
 in society which Mrs. Wright piqued herself, and justly, upon 
 having maintained intact, for nineteen years, through storm and 
 sunshine, good report of the poor, and bad report of malicious 
 grocers and bakers, and other people of the same rank in life, 
 who " seemed," so Mrs. Wright was wont to declare, with a sigh, 
 " to have no gratitude in them." 
 
 And no doubt Mrs. Wright was quite right in what she said. 
 If social consideration could make up to a man for the loss of 
 all self-respect, of all honest pride, of every scrap of independent 
 feeling — for the misery of being dunned, for the disgrace of 
 debt, for the discomfort of having to regard every rich acquaint- 
 ance he made as a mere sponge, which he must eventually 
 squeeze — Mr. Wright had his reward. 
 
 He was bidden to great houses, and received there a"? a wel- 
 come guest. He had game sent him till the very children grew 
 sick of the taste of it. Choice wines were often left at his house, 
 with a polite note hoping Mrs. Wright would find the particular 
 vintage aid in restoring her to health. Interest was made to 
 get his children into the Charterhouse, or the Navy, or anywhere 
 else " off his hands." Whilst all the time Jones, in the next 
 parish, or it might sometimes be even in the same, honestly 
 paying his way, and finding it a grievous struggle to do so, was 
 left out in the cold with never an invitation to dinner to bless 
 himself withal ; whilst his wife had to struggle through her ill- 
 nesses as best she could, and nurse the children, and pay their 
 school bills, and clothe them respectably, without help from 
 anybody — unless, indeed, Mr. Wright sent round a pheasant, 
 or a few grapes, or a bottle of old port, with his very kind 
 regards. 
 
 For they were not mean, these people — nay, they were 
 generous with everything except their own money. With the 
 goods of others they were very generous indeed ; the sick and 
 needy never left the door of any house they inhabited, empty- 
 handed. Moreover, they carried from parish to parish a length- 
 ening string of dependants with them ; having, for instance, at 
 Fisherton a series of humble visitors who stayed at the rectory 
 a few days or a few weeks, as the case might be : the consump- 
 tive dressmaker from St. Giles' j that poor rheumatic laundress 
 
8o Above Suspicion. 
 
 from Blackfiiars ; " that honest old creature Dobbs," whose 
 acquaintance they had made in the north of London ; and 
 *' that most unfortunate of schoolmasters, Brooks," for whom 
 Mr. Wright had conceived a compassionate sort of attachment 
 whilst both men were temporarily enjoying the questionable 
 comforts of the Cripplegate Hotel ; all of which produced a 
 great effect in fresh neighbourhoods in favour of the new- 
 comers. 
 
 " That is what I call Christianity," Mr. Cleaver would at such 
 seasons declare, when some pauper delivered an order from 
 Mr. or Mrs. Wright for so many pounds of gravy-beef to be sup- 
 plied to the bearer and charged to their account ; but at the 
 end of a twelvemonth the butcher generally expressed himself 
 differently. 
 
 " Don't talk about your Christianity to me," he frequently 
 entreated. *' Christianity is acting right between man and man, 
 ain't it ? Christianity is paying its way honest. Christianity 
 ain't sending children out with lies in their mouths, that 'mamma 
 is ill in bed,' or 'papa is busy with his sermon, and can't be 
 disturbed,' when a man calls and asks civilly for his own. Give 
 to the poor, indeed ! Who gives, I 'd like to know? You and 
 me. And we get none of the thanks. It is easy enough to 
 give if you put your hand in another man's pocket and take his 
 money or his goods to give with." 
 
 And really there was a considerable amount of justice in this, 
 which Mr. and Mrs. Wright called " the tradesman's view of the 
 case." 
 
 "Just as if we were swindlers, and never intended to pay our 
 lawful debts," remarked the lady ; and the gentleman followed 
 suit, though perhaps with less indignation. It may have struck 
 him that a long-deferred " some time " means occasionally to a 
 shopkeeper, who cannot carry his day-books and ledgers into 
 Eternity with him, very much the same thing as "never." 
 
 There was or\(^. creditor of Mr. Wright's, however, who did 
 not intend to wait for his money till Eternity, nor even for a 
 very long period of time — that same creditor to whom reference 
 was made in the last chapter, as holding various promissory 
 notes signed by the Rector of Fisherton. 
 
 With their accustomed rapidity, when anything disagreeable 
 was borne on their wings, the weeks and the months flew round; 
 and Mr. Wright assured the clerk who presented his first " pro- 
 
" Just like an Inspiration!* 8 1 
 
 mise to pay," under the new arrangement, that he had never 
 been so much surprised in his hfe. 
 
 " I am sure I thought the bill was due next month," he said. 
 "I cannot imagine how I could have made such a mistake. 
 Dear me ! I am very sorry. I would not have disappointed 
 your worthy employer upon any consideration." 
 
 And he was so very sorry; so grieved for the vain journey 
 the young man had undertaken ; so remorseful about his own 
 lack of method ; so hospitably insistent upon his unwelcome 
 guest having something to eat, if only a mouthful of bread and 
 cheese and a glass of porter — that the clerk returned to London 
 perfectly charmed with the Rector, and willing to take a hundred 
 affidavits, if necessary, as to his utter good faith and honesty. 
 
 The solicitor, who had some experience of Mr. Wright, only 
 laughed, and said : 
 
 " Well, write to say he shall have the month, but that the 
 money must be then forthcoming." 
 
 At the end of the month, Mrs. W^right wrote to say, her hus- 
 band was not at home ; that doubtless the matter had escaped 
 his memory. The moment he returned, it should be attended 
 to. 
 
 " We shall have to go through the previous ceremonies once 
 again, I see that plainly,'' remarked the lawyer. And, without 
 communicating again with Mr, Wright, he "most unhandsomely," 
 as the poor clergyman phrased his conduct, served him with 
 another writ. 
 
 The man who put it into Mr. Wright's hands, finding him in 
 the first instance " not at home," had left a message that he 
 wanted to see him about the possibility of having a relative in- 
 terred at Fisherton ; and when the Rector discovered the 7'use, 
 he rose equal to the occasion, and read the fellow such a lecture 
 concerning the enormity of his sin as he had never listened to 
 since he left school. 
 
 *' I am sorry to have done wrong, sir," he said penitentl^^ and 
 respectfully; ''but I was bound to see you, and I didn't want 
 to be wasting my time hanging about the village," 
 
 " My poor fellow," answered j\Ir. Wright, with infinite com- 
 passion, ''if you had only mentioned that you came from such 
 and such an office in London — if you had hinted in the remotest 
 manner at your real business, I trust I need not say I am too 
 much of a gentleman to have given you needless trouble. There 
 
 a 
 
o2 Above Suspicion, 
 
 — there — I don^t want to add to the distress I am sure you now 
 experience. Only, remember my words — nothing pays so well, 
 even in this world, as perfect straightforwardness and childlike 
 sincerity. My compliments to your employer, and I will see 
 him about this unpleasant affair." 
 
 Which Mr. Wright did. He saw the solicitor, and the soli- 
 citor saw his client. The solicitor said his client was inexorable. 
 Mr. Wright then saw the client, who said he had placed the 
 matter in his solicitor's hands, and did not intend to interfere. 
 Mr. Wright then posted back to the solicitor, who had, 
 following the clergj'-man's example, gone out of town and was 
 not expected back for a fortnight. 
 
 Mr. Wright at once demanded to see the managing clerk, 
 who assured him his instructions were to " go on," and that he 
 had no alternative. 
 
 Hearing this, the Rector asked for pen, ink, and paper, and 
 straightway wrote a letter which might have melted the heart 
 even of that tailor who viewed with distaste the spectacle of the 
 Masters and Misses Wright disporting themselves by the sad 
 sea waves. 
 
 It did not move this inhuman lawyer, however, who, holding 
 on the even tenor of his legal way, at the end of the orthodox 
 period took out judgment against the Rector, and then, with- 
 out "with your leave," or "by your leave," sent down a very 
 humble and yet very powerful visitor to the rectory. 
 
 Now, if he could not get rid of this visitor without having 
 those effects already honourably mentioned sold by auction, Mr. 
 Wright knew that his hour was come ; and it may safely be said 
 the Rector moved heaven and earth to raise the required amount. 
 But he could not do it. For the first time since he and SeHna, 
 daughter of Theophilus Curran, became man and wife, her letters 
 and his letters, her entreaties and his entreaties, proved unavail- 
 ing. Five pounds was the total result of all their appeals ; and 
 as that amount — to quote Mr. Wright's own statement — was 
 *' worse than useless," Mrs. Wright spent it in purchasing some 
 extremely pretty summer dresses for herself and her two eldest 
 girls, which dresses she sent to the Fisherton milliner, stating 
 they must be finished in time for General Grace's picnic party 
 on the First. 
 
 "That will restore confidence, dear," she said to the Rev. 
 Dion, " if the people in the village suspect anything." 
 
" Just like an Inspiration^ 83 
 
 The Rev. Dion groaned. He knew well enough the village 
 suspected nothing. Accustomed as Fisherton was to the sight 
 of Lazarus and all his sores at the rectory, they simply regarded 
 the new-comer in the light of another London pauper, to whom 
 it pleased Mr. Wright to extend hospitality. 
 
 The village did not require to have its confidence restored, 
 but its clergyman did. Mr. Wright could not see his way. Mr. 
 Wright had found that out of sight meant out of mind. Mr. 
 Wright believed people thought three hundred and fifty pounds 
 per annum — a paltry seven pounds a w^eek (and two weeks with 
 nothing) — must be a ducal revenue. 
 
 '' I can't understand it at all," sighed Mr. Wright. " There 
 was a time when, if distress came, I had but to ask and have ; 
 and now — now, when one's whole future trembles in the scale, 
 there is not a friend to come forward — not a friend who will 
 come forward when he is asked." 
 
 But Mr. Wright did understand perfectly. Perpetually ad- 
 vancing, he and his wife had taken no thought for retreat, but 
 pillaged the whole country through which their route lay; and 
 now, when they wanted to try back, no greenness of verdure 
 greeted their return. 
 
 If Mrs. Wright wilfully shut her eyes to facts, Mr. Wright 
 was unable to do so. He recognized now the truth that the 
 testimonial over which he had shed tears, not merely of grati- 
 tude, but of pride, was as much an oftering of gratitude to Pro- 
 vidence as of love to himself; that while the parishioners felt 
 bound to acknowledge his services, they v/ere heartily glad to 
 get rid of an active and impecunious curate. The rich men, 
 delighted to pay their last black-mail, hasted to pay it volun- 
 tarily ; whilst the poor followed the lead of their betters, never 
 questioning. 
 
 He could not disguise from himself the fact that he had 
 worked the mine of friendship down almost to the last piece of 
 gold it contained. 
 
 People had liked — people had been kind to him ; but he 
 had tired them out ; and if they failed to say in so many plain 
 words that he was a very lucky fellow to have dropped into 
 Fisherton, their manner implied the same thing, and Mr. Wright 
 felt the implication bitterly. For he did not consider Fisherton 
 equal to his deserts. Fisherton, with a certain income from his 
 living, and an uncertain income from friends, old or new, might 
 
 6 — 2. 
 
84 Above Suspicion. 
 
 have been toleiable; but Fisherton sufficiently remote from 
 London to have no rich merchant residents, but only a popula- 
 tion living on their settled incomes or small settled earnings — 
 a population " without a spare ten pounds among them " — filled 
 the Rector with dismay. 
 
 No more of the leeks and cucumbers of the goodly city for 
 husband and wife — no more share of great men's plenty. Only 
 three hundred and fifty pounds a year — less income-tax ; old 
 debts to pay off; fresh credit to any large extent not easily 
 procurable; and ''a man in possession." 
 
 It was the last evening but one before his creditor meant to 
 turn the final screw on the Rector. Properly speaking, every 
 chair and table could legally have been sold some days before ; 
 but Mr. Wright had pleaded so hard for another week's grace, 
 and paid so liberally for having it granted, tliat Reuben, the 
 sheriff's officer, who happened to have the matter in hand, had, 
 on his own responsibility, granted him longer indulgence than 
 was the wont of that merciless Jew. 
 
 Now, however, Reuben had told him he could not give him 
 a minute after ten o'clock on the day but one following. 
 
 " They are sendin' in to me about it," explained Mr. Reuben 
 to Mr. Wright, " and I must either have the money, or " 
 
 " Dear, dear, dear ! " said the unfortunate Rector, mentally 
 ending the sentence ; "it will ruin me." 
 
 " Come, sir, don't take on so," entreated Mr. Reuben, who 
 had been acquainted (professionally) with the Rector for many 
 years, and found him " quite the gentleman." " You will get 
 through it all right, never fear. Why, you have got through far 
 worse trouble, to my knowledge." 
 
 Mr. Wright was aware of that, but still he did not see how 
 he was to get through this trouble. For the first time in his 
 memory he was placed in a parish where there was not a crea- 
 ture to whom he dare proclaim his need. He might just as 
 well, he felt, be sold up at once as take any one of the Christian 
 friends he addressed each Sunday into his confidence. 
 
 " If there had only been a Jew in my district," he thought, 
 "or even a rich dissenter, I might have received assistance." 
 As matters stood Mr. Wright saw no sign of assistance anywhere, 
 and returned to Fisherton almost broken-hearted. 
 
 The rectory looked very pretty in the light of the summer's 
 evening; the Rector thought he had never seen it look so pretty. 
 
**Just like an Inspiration!'* 85 
 
 The church, too, appeared as he passed it more picturesque 
 than usual ; and the graveyard, with its billows of green grass, 
 and its few headstones, seemed inviting in its quiet and repose. 
 
 '' If it was not for Selina and the children, I should not mind 
 if Reuben were ' taking my body ' there this moment," the un' 
 fortunate man muttered as he stood contemplating the resting^ 
 place of those whose last bed had there been prepared for them. 
 '•'And, indeed, perhaps Selina and the children would do far 
 better without me : my day seems over." 
 
 And then, suddenly remembering his profession, he struck 
 himself lightly on the chest with his closed hand — a trick that 
 had now become habitual with him — "Wright's roll-call to duty," 
 as an acquaintance styled it — and saying, '' God forgive me ! 
 After all His mercies too !" he strode on, head erect, umbrella 
 shouldered, to face Selina and tell her the bad result of his day 
 in town. 
 
 He found his wife wrapped up in a thin shawl, which once 
 upon a time had been elegant as well as light. That shawl was 
 a sign of misery with poor Mrs. Wright. When she felt " very 
 poorly," or when she was "very wretched," she adjusted that 
 shawl about her long neck and falling shoulders, and bemoaned 
 herself as the Israelites did in sackcloth and ashes. 
 
 But, wretched or not, she never reproached Dionysius. She 
 blamed others, but never herself or him ; and if he ever dreaded 
 telling her of his want of success, it was only because he could 
 not endure the sight of her disappointment. Curtain lectures 
 were things for which the perpetual excitement of their lives left 
 no margin. Perhaps that was the balance of happiness for Mr. 
 Wright. Heaven knows, if he had been cursed with a shrew at 
 home, as he was cursed with duns abroad, he might have wished 
 himself underground. As it was, Mrs. Wright, wrapped up as 
 has been stated, met him at the rectory gate. 
 
 " Well, my dear, any good news ? " she asked. 
 
 "None," he answered; "worse than none. Reuben either 
 won't or can't give longer than till ten on Friday morning. He 
 says I have got through worse troubles ; and that is true ; but 
 we had friends then : we have no friends now." 
 
 His voice faltered a little. Perhaps he thought at the mo- 
 ment of that Eastern story concerning the beggar who received 
 a daily alms for so long a time from his wealthy neighbour, that 
 at last he came to consider it in the light of an annuity. 
 
86 Above Stispicion, 
 
 " Don't give up yet, Dion," said his wife. " Help may come 
 to-morrow. We have all to-morrow, remember, and who can 
 tell what a day may bring forth ? Think what a day has often 
 brought forth for us ! " 
 
 At that moment Mr. Wright was inclined to look so gloomily 
 on life, that the only events his memory could recall as having 
 been brought forth by a day were unexpected demands for 
 money ; but he could not bear to add to his wife's distress — 
 outwardly represented by the shawl — and so refrained from 
 answer. 
 
 " Have you dined?" she inquired. It was an unusual thing 
 for Mr. Wright to return from London luncheonless or dinner- 
 less, but something in his manner caused her to imagine he had 
 assisted at neither meal. 
 
 " I have had all the dinner I want," he replied : "a roll and 
 a glass of ale." 
 
 " But you must eat, or you will be knocked up," she persisted. 
 *' There is some nice cold roast beef — or shall I send for a chop, 
 or would you like tea and a rasher of bacon? I think the tea 
 
 might perhaps do you the most good ; but " 
 
 *' I am neither hungry nor thirsty, dear," he answered ; " but 
 still I should like a cup of strong coffee with a tea-spoonful of 
 brandy in it — only one spoonful, mind ! " he called after his 
 wife, who was inclined sometimes to put a liberal interpretation 
 on Mr. Wright's wishes in such matters. 
 
 Left alone, the Rector sat down beside the window of his 
 study, and looked out over the garden towards the Thames ; 
 then, with a groan, he closed his eyes, and leaning back in his 
 chair, fell into a reverie. 
 
 From the next room came the maddening sound of " prac- 
 tising." One of his daughters was essaying " II mio Tesoro," 
 playing about one correct note in seven, and trying back per- 
 petually, in order to see if her next venture would be more 
 successful than the last. 
 
 Mr. Wright endured the noise as long as he could ; but at last 
 the irritation it caused hmi became so great, that he was just 
 rising to ask Miss Maria to postpone her performance, when 
 Mrs. Wright reappeared with the coffee. 
 
 "What an in ahem! — comparable instrument the piano 
 
 is, when it does not chance to be in the same house with one," 
 remarked Mr. Wright sarcastically. 
 
^^Jiist like an Inspiration^ 8/ 
 
 " I will tell her to stop," said Mrs. Wright, " But you know, 
 dear, the children must practise." 
 
 '' I don't see why they must do so when I am at home," hs 
 answered. 
 
 Which was rather unreasonable on ]\Ir. Wright's part, con- 
 sidering he was at home the greater part of each day, and m 
 and out of the house perpetually during those hours he devoted 
 to his parish. 
 
 " You have put a great deal too much brandy in this coffee," 
 he said, when his wife returned after silencing JNIaria's musical 
 efforts. 
 
 " Only a spoonful, dear ! " she answered, Jesuitically. 
 
 *' It must have been a gravy-spoon," he persisted ; which, in- 
 deed, was short of the truth ; but still he finished the cup, and 
 when he had finished, said he felt better for it, and went straight 
 up to his dressing-room. 
 
 " You are not going out again, Dion, are you ? " asked i\Irs. 
 Wright five minutes after, meeting him in the hall, fresh cravated, 
 brushed, with no speck of London dust visible about his person. 
 
 " Yes, indeed I am," he replied. " I am going to Riversdale, 
 to ask Mr. Irwin to help us. I don't know why the idea should 
 have occurred to me, or why it never did before, but I assure 
 you it came just like an inspiration." 
 
 "Do you think he will lend you the money?" said Mrs. 
 Wright, doubtfully. 
 
 " I don't know. I mean to try, at any rate," answered the 
 Rector. '•' He can but refuse." 
 
 Which last was a phrase very often on the lips of Mr. and 
 Mrs. Wright 
 
88 Above SuspicioTU 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 CONCERNING AN UNEXPECTED PROPOSITION. .:^ 
 
 There were good reasons why Mrs. Wright should feel dubious 
 about the success of her husband^s application to Mr. Irwin. 
 In the first place, he was not a resident in Fisherton or any of 
 the adjoining parishes, having only taken Riversdale for a couple 
 of months during the temporary absence of Sir John and Lady 
 Giles, who were in the habit of making as much money out of 
 their residence as they possibly could. Mr. Irwin had therefore 
 nothing whatever to do with the neighbourhood ; and the wildest 
 imagination could not conceive that he was likely to take much 
 interest in Mr. Wright, considering he had never seen him ex- 
 cept twice, once while fishing in the vicinity of Fisherton rectory, 
 and once when they met accidentally at a dinner-party given by 
 a gentleman resident at Richmond. 
 
 Mrs. Wright had called upon Mrs. Irwin, who had not seen 
 fit to return the visit. Mr. Wright had called upon Mr. Irwin, 
 but failed to find him at home, and a like result ensued when 
 Mr. Irwin called upon the Rector. The acquaintance, therefore, 
 was not of a character to raise undue expectations on the subject 
 of assistance. Nevertheless. Mrs. Wris;ht could not but re- 
 member how frequently total strangers had come to their rescue, 
 when friends seemed inclined to hold aloof; and it was quite 
 possible, she considered, Mr. Irwin might be the something 
 brought forth that day. 
 
 She was very low, however. For weeks she had eaten little 
 and slept less ; and accordingly, after her husband's departure, 
 she took his chair by the open window, and cried for a time, 
 and then felt better. 
 
 Meanwhile Mr. Wright, tired as he was, walked rapidly on 
 towards Riversdale. He had two miles of flat, uninteresting 
 country in which to reconsidei his intention, but he never faltered 
 about the matter. He did not know anything concerning Mr. 
 Irwin's position. Whether he was rich or whether he was com- 
 paratively poor, the Rector had not an idea. He had one fixed 
 
An Uiisxpccted Pi'oposition. 8g 
 
 determination, however — if money was to be had out of the 
 gentleman, he, Mr. Wright, would have it. 
 
 It was growing quite dusk by the time he reached Riversdale ; 
 but Mr. Irwin still sat over his wine, not drinking much, but 
 thinking deeply. Mr. AVright, who was asked into the dining- 
 room, rejoiced at sight of the decanters, first, because he felt he 
 needed a glass or so of sound dry sherry, such as he prophe- 
 tically believed to be on the table, and secondly, because he 
 knew by experience how much easier and pleasanter it is to 
 talk to a man who has just dined, than to one who has not. 
 
 Mr. Irwin — a tall, melancholy-looking man, with a large beard 
 and moustache — greeted the Rector courteously, and remarked, 
 in reply to Mr. Wright's apologies for intruding upon him at so 
 unusual an hour, that a pleasure late was better than a pleasure 
 never. " And, indeed," he went on, " I am so little here during 
 visiting hours, that, excepting in the evenings, it is difficult to 
 find me at home." 
 
 " I am very glad I came to-night, then, instead of to-morrow," 
 said Mr. Wright ; " for I am here to ask a favour." 
 
 It was one of Mr. Wright's principles to plunge into business 
 at once. He had studied the art of requesting assistance and 
 mastered it more completely than he had ever done divinity. 
 
 '• You may depend upon one thing," he confided to a friend, 
 "that it is an entire mistake to defer the evil moment. No 
 amount of preparation can reconcile a man to the fact that you 
 want money; and the only consequence of preparation is, that 
 it gives him time to make up his mind to say ' No.' Further, it 
 has a bad effect in this way : if you tag on a request to the end 
 of an interview, it makes your friends suspicious about all your 
 visits, for they never can tell what may be at the bottom of your 
 pleasant chat. No ; take my advice — ask for what you want, 
 and get ' Yes ' if you can, and take ' No ' if you can't. It is 
 only fair to let a man know the worst at once, and have the 
 matter done with. I always do this when I am begging for a 
 church, or a school, or a charity, or — or anything," added Mr, 
 Wright ; " and T believe I may say I have not generally come 
 away empty-handed." 
 
 Carrying this theory into practice, the Rector, in two minutes 
 ifter he entered Mr. Irwin's dining-room, had broken the ice. 
 
 Mr. Irwin knew he wanted something, and said that he should 
 be most happy to assist Mr. Wright if in his power. 
 
^^' 
 
 90 Above Suspicion. 
 
 Of course this might mean much, or it might mean little ; and 
 Mr. Wright was too old a campaigner to suffer his hopes to be 
 excited by such a conventional expression. Nevertheless, it 
 answered his purpose to appear to read the words literally, and 
 accordingly, with a deprecating motion of the hand, he entreated 
 Mr. Irwin not to be so hasty in committing himself. 
 
 " Because," went on the Rector, " the request I have to make 
 is so extraordinary — on the face of it so almost audacious, that 
 I can hardly be surprised if you utterly refuse to assist me." 
 
 " I have already expressed my willingness to further your 
 wishes if in my power," answered Mr. Irwin. " Until I know 
 what it is you want, I can scarcely say more or less." 
 
 This was not so encouraging, and it confused Mr. Wright a 
 little. 
 
 " Perhaps I ought to explain " he was beginning, when 
 
 Mr. Irwin interrupted him : 
 
 " If you will excuse my saying so, I think not. If I cannot 
 advance your views, you may regret having entered into useless 
 explanation ; if I can, there may be no necessity for explanation 
 at all." 
 
 " You are quite right," agreed the Rector, taking his cue from 
 the other in a moment. " I want you to lend me fifty pounds 
 — if you can do so without inconvenience." 
 
 " Yes " said Mr. Irwin, thoughtfully. 
 
 That " Yes " did not mean acquiescence, or refusal, or any- 
 thing except that he understood the nature of the request. 
 
 "An abominable 'Yes,'" as Mr. Wright explained afterwards 
 to his wife, " calculated to take all the courage out of a man, 
 and entirely to stop any remarks of an entreating nature he 
 might otherwise have felt disposed to utter." 
 
 I\Ir. Irwin did not say another word for a couple of minutes, 
 which seemed to JNIr. Wright like two years. He did not even 
 look at his visitor, but kept his eyes bent on the table, studying 
 — so thought the Rector — how to word his refusal civilly. At 
 last he raised his head and spoke : 
 
 "I think I can manage to do what you want — indeed, I will 
 do it. But still, if not unpleasant to you, I should like to know 
 why you require a loan of the kind, and ask it from a compara- 
 tive stranger ? " 
 
 Was the room reeling round? Had his ears played him 
 false? Was the peril really averted? With one hand Mr. 
 
An Unexpected Proposition. 91 
 
 Wright grasped the arm of the chair in which he sat, with the 
 other he tried to unfasten his neckcloth, and failed. 
 
 Mr. Irwin rose, and undid it for him, then opened one of the 
 windows, and pouring out a glass of water, held it to the clergy- 
 man's lips. 
 
 " You are better now," he said, when Mr. "\Vright raised his 
 head from the back of the easy chair and looked, with a wistful, 
 bewildered expression, in the face of the man who at that mo- 
 ment represented to him temporal salvation. "Take some 
 wine. I will just leave you while I get my cheque-book. I 
 will return immediately." 
 
 Left alone, Mr. Wright, indifferent for once to the fascinations 
 of dry sherry, leaned his head upon both his hands, and tried to 
 realize the fact that deliverance had come at last. Never before, 
 never, could he remember having been so totally prostrated by 
 good fortune. 
 
 The agony, so long protracted — the relief, so long delayed, 
 had proved too much even for Mr. Wright ; but no stoicism or 
 fluency could have served his turn one-half so well as the phy- 
 sical effect Mr. Irwin beheld produced upon a strong man by 
 mental reaction. About words there might be much doubt, 
 but about that semi-fa:int there could not lie the suspicion of 
 doubt. 
 
 When Mr. Irwin returned he brought back in his hand an 
 open cheque for fifty pounds, which he gave to ]\Ir. Wright. 
 
 " Now," he said, reseating himself, "if you like to tell me all 
 about your anxiety, well ; if not, we will not speak of it any 
 more." 
 
 There was nothing in the world Mr. Wright liked better than 
 talking about his own troubles to a new listener ; so, beginning 
 at the beginning, he presented Mr. Irwin with a comprehensive 
 view of his life as a husband, a curate, and a rector. He gave 
 his host a succinct account of the origin and progress of the 
 especial trouble which induced him to come to Riversdale. 
 And ]Mr. Irwin paid undivided attention to the narrative, and 
 drew his own conclusions from it — some of which were right, 
 and some of which were wrong. 
 
 With the fifty-pound cheque safely lodged in his purse, with 
 a good glass of wine beside him, and a sympathizing listener, 
 rich enough to help and willing to do so, as he had already 
 proved, the haunting figure of the unwelcome guest located at 
 
92 Above Suspicion. 
 
 the rectory was already growing dim in Mr. Wright's memory, 
 and Dionysius was himself again. 
 
 Mr. Irwin felt irresistibly attracted towards his visitor. The 
 apparent frankness and the real buoyancy of his nature were 
 very pleasant to the man who hearkened to the Rector's ex- 
 position ; and it was quite half an hour before he effectually 
 stopped the flow of Mr. Wright's eloquence by inquiring: 
 
 " Will you forgive my askmg what you mean to do when the 
 next instalment of this debt is due ? " 
 
 Now, if Mr. Wright had spoken out his mind, he would have 
 answered he thought it extremely probable the dear, kind friend, 
 who sat facing him, might be induced to come to the rescue 
 once again; but judging that Mr. Irwin would probably consider 
 such an amount of candour premature, he merely said that he 
 intended to put aside sufficient to pay this importunate creditor 
 and get rid of him, no matter who else went to the wall. 
 
 " If we have all to live on bread and water," finished Mr. 
 Wright, buttoning up his coat, preparatory to facing the night 
 air, " we will be prepared for him next time, please God ! " 
 
 Mr. Irwin smiled — he could not help doing so. There was 
 such a discrepancy between Mr. Wright's appearance and the 
 fare indicated, that he Could not but admire the final saving 
 appeal by which the Rector left a way out of the difiiculty ; 
 since, if Providence did not approve, even a diet of bread and 
 water would naturally be insufficient to enable the family to 
 meet their engagements. 
 
 Mr. Wright saw the smile, and involuntarily his own face 
 reflected it. 
 
 " But, upon my honour, I am quite in earnest," he said, 
 answering Mr. Irwin's unspoken thought. " I would not endure 
 what I have endured latterly if any personal privation could 
 secure me from such a trial." 
 
 " That I can well believe," agreed the other, who, indeed, 
 could not conceive of any human being in his senses running 
 such a risk a second time. 
 
 " I suppose you will be in town to-morrow?" suggested Mr. 
 Irwin, as he walked slowly beside his visitor to the outer 
 gates. 
 
 Mr. Wright replied that such was his intention. 
 
 " I wish, then," said Mr. Irwin, " that if you happen to be 
 passing my office, you would give me the opportunity of a little 
 
An Unexpected Proposition. 93 
 
 conversation. I think I might be able to put something in your 
 way that may prove an acceptable addition to your incom.e." 
 
 And with that they parted, Mr. Irwin to smoke a solitary 
 cigar whilst he paced up and down beside the river, Mr. Wriglit 
 to traverse the two miles home as unweariedly as though he had 
 been treading on air. 
 
 " II mio Tesoro " was in full progress when he re-entered the 
 rectory^ another daughter having taken possession of the music- 
 stool ; but if the first performer in Europe had been playing the 
 air, Mr. Wright could not have hummed a vague second to the 
 air with greater approval and enjoymeut. 
 
 " Very good — very good indeed, my child," he said, patting 
 his sixth-born on the shoulder, which, perhaps, w^as a little hard 
 on Maria, seeing her sister played even worse than she. " Selina, 
 my love, one moment '"' 
 
 And husband and wife passed together into the study. 
 
 " Oh ! Dion, you have got it ! " she said, and then began to 
 sob hysterically, while ]\Ir. Wright stood silent, so great and 
 overpowering was the sense of merciful deliverance which again 
 came over hun. 
 
 It was JNIrs. ^^>ight who first spoke. 
 
 "' We ought never to be faithless again. It seems to me we 
 are worse than heathens ever to doubt, even in our greatest ex- 
 tremity." And she paused, expecting her husband to agree m 
 the sentiment expressed. 
 
 But Mr. Wright held his peace. He must have been much 
 less astute than was actually the case if, in spite of all his eftbrts 
 at self-deception, it had not occasionally occurred to him that a 
 creed which contained no sentence concerning personal works 
 might be as dangerous, though apparently less presumptuous, 
 than one composed entirely of faith in them. 
 
 Next morning the Rector was early astir. 
 
 " Let me have a cup of cofiee, Mary," he said to the cook ; 
 " and don't disturb your mistress. I want to catch the eight 
 o'clock train. Tell her I shall be back as soon as possible." 
 
 So, Mr. Wright. If there were anything beautiful in that 
 house, it was the consideration of wife for husband — of husband 
 for wife — of both for children. Short-sighted they may have 
 been in many respects, but selfish personally as regarded each 
 other most undoubtedly they were not. 
 
 Against the outside world they warred with genial manners 
 
94 Above SusHcion. 
 
 and pleasant faces ; but at home they were at peace, which was 
 perhaps the reason why the outside world, seeing so little do- 
 mestic union elsewhere, was inclined to forget to be merciful to 
 their offences. 
 
 That was a very different journey from the one he had under- 
 taken the previous morning, and Mr. Wright's spirits rose ac- 
 cordingly. It was quite a sight to behold the way in which he 
 returned the greetings of those of his parishioners he happened 
 to meet on his way to the station ; and when he handed Mr. 
 Irwin's cheque over the counter, the tone in which he said 
 *' Short, if you please," was that of a man accustomed to deal 
 with thousands. 
 
 After he had settled with Reuben, who laughed knowingly 
 when he saw the note, and remarked, "It was fortunate when 
 a man had good friends," Mr. Wright betook himself to East- 
 cheap, where Mr. Irv/in's offices were situated. 
 
 Asking for his new friend, he was ushered into a small office, 
 where an old man sat, with his hat on, writmg at a shabby baize- 
 covered table. At sight of Mr. Wright's portly figure he re- 
 moved his hat, and greeted the visitor with : 
 
 " Servant, sir. What can I have the pleasure of doing for 
 you?" 
 
 "I beg your pardon," answered Mr. Wright, in his most 
 (ourtly manner, "but I expected to find another Mr. Irwin." 
 
 " My son-in-law, perhaps," suggested the other. " Here, Ham- 
 mond ! " he shouted to a clerk in the warehouse, " take this 
 gentleman up to Mr. Walter's room. Good morning, sir ; " and 
 he put on his hat again and resumed his correspondence. 
 
 The premises occupied by Messrs. Irwin were old, dilapidated, 
 and quaint. The house, or rather houses, in which they carried 
 on their business had evidently been at some time not remote 
 inhabited as private dwellings, and the apartments now used as 
 workrooms and offices were wainscoted, whilst over the ancient 
 mantelpieces were panels curiously festooned with carved flowers 
 and leaves, from amongst which peeped forth the faces of fat 
 Cupids, black with smoke, grimed with the dirt of years. 
 
 " I have been thinking over our conversation last night,* 
 said Mr. Irwin, after hearing Mr. Wright's account of his inter- 
 view with Reuben, "and wondering whether you would enter- 
 tain an idea which suggested itself to me at the time. I want 
 to find a suitable residence for a young lady — my niece, in fact. 
 
An Unexpected Proposition^ 05 
 
 She is now, and has for some years past, been at a school in 
 France ; but I am desirious to make some different arrangement 
 for her future. When you were speaking of the difficulty you 
 experienced in making both ends meet, it crossed my mind 
 that perhaps Mrs. Wright would not object to receive her. I 
 would pay a hundred a year for her board, and so forth, exclu- 
 sive of any sum which might be necessary for lessons. She is 
 a nice, quiet girl, and, except myself, utterly alone in the world." 
 He looked at Mr. Wright as he concluded, and, despite the 
 clergyman's usual command of countenance, read in his face 
 utter, blank disappointment. 
 
 The truth was, Mr. Wright had gone to Eastcheap expecting 
 some great piece of preferment. A lectureship was the most 
 modest idea he conceived of Mr. Irwin's intentions, while a 
 possible bishopric had gleamed with the morning sun upon him. 
 And to have all of these visions reduced to the proposal of 
 taking a vague girl into his house for the sum of a paltry hun- 
 dredayear tried the Rector's powers of dissimulation too severely. 
 "You do not hke the idea, I see," remarked Mr. Irwin. "I 
 can well understand your objection. Let us say no more about 
 my proposal." 
 
 " My dear sir — my kind friend — pray do me justice. Even 
 if your proposition were disagreeable, which it is not, I should 
 not be so ungrateful, so stupid as to decline it without full con- 
 sideration. You took me by surprise, that was all ; and to be 
 quite candid, it appeared to me that there might be difficulties 
 in the way of such an arrangement. I should, however, like to 
 talk the matter over with Mrs. Wright. After all, it is an affair 
 which belongs more to her department than to mine." 
 
 " Of course," answered Mr. Irwin ; '"but pray remember one 
 thing — don't take the girl because you imagine I have any claim 
 upon you. I want the affair to be conducted upon a strictly 
 business footing ; and if Mrs. Wright can manage, in the event 
 of her consenting to take charge of my niece, to give a little 
 motherly love to a most desolate child, I shall be very grateful 
 to her. That is all. Let roe have your decision in a week." 
 
 " Do I understand that the young lady is an orphan ? " in- 
 quired Mr. Wright. 
 
 "She is utterly alone in the world, excepting myself," was 
 the answer. " She has neither sister nor brother, nor any one/' 
 finished Mr. Irwin. 
 
95 Above Suspicion, 
 
 ^'Slie is his own child," thought Mr. Wright^ but he only 
 said, " Poor dear ! how sad ! How my wife would love her if 
 we are only able to get over those little difficulties which, as 
 you can well understand, our peculiar position could not fail to 
 cause— domestic details and so forth — but I won't trouble you 
 about such matters. This day week, then — Oh ! by-the-bye, 
 I have brought you an acknowledgment of that money" — and 
 he placed a sealed letter in j\lr. Irwin's hands. " I never can 
 thank you sufficiently. Good bye — good bye — don't come 
 downstairs with me on any account. Good bye ! " and the 
 Rector was gone. 
 
 iVlr. Irwin stood for a minute after his departure, looking with 
 bent brows at the letter Mr. Wright had given hirn ; then he 
 broke the seal and read the epistle. After he had done so his 
 face cleared ; and saying, " They will take her," he put the letter 
 and acknowledgment in a priv^ate drawer and locked it. 
 
 ]\Ir. Wriglit's epistle was commendably short, but it was un- 
 deniably judicious. 
 
 " My very dear Sir " (so the note began), 
 
 "It is my duty to send you a formal acknowledgment of 
 the generous loan which has rescued myself and my family from 
 disgrace and ruin ; for I may at some time be in a position to 
 refund the amount ; although if I am you shall have no occasion 
 to put it in force. God bless and preserve you, my kind bene- 
 factor. 
 
 " Ever your grateful and obliged, 
 
 " DioNYSius Wright." 
 
 The Rector returned home not quite satisfied with his own 
 conduct about Mr. Irwin's offer. 
 
 "Selina will put me right," he considered. "We will talk it 
 over to-night when the children are out of the way. I won't go 
 into the subject till we can discuss it fully." 
 
 The first thing to do was to get rid of Mr. Reuben's man ; 
 and the Rector accordingly sent for him to the study, where he 
 delivered his employer's note, which ran as follows : 
 
 " Davis, 
 
 **Quit possession. 
 
 «*G. Reuben." 
 
An Unexpected Proposition, 97 
 
 " I am sure I am very glad indeed, sir, to see this," said the 
 man. 
 
 " Thank you, I know you are," answered the Rector, loftily. 
 " Here is a trifle for yourself; " and he put half a crown into his 
 hand. 
 
 The man looked at it and then at Mr. Wright. 
 
 " Well } " said the Rector. 
 
 " If you remember, sir, I have come in for family prayers — 
 and gone twice to church to save appearances, although I had 
 no right to leave the house — and I thought, sir, perhaps you 
 would take all that into consideration. Prayers is things I have 
 not been accustomed to ; and I can safely say that go to church 
 before I never did to oblige any gentleman living." 
 
 "Shocking — shocking — shocking !" commented the Rector; 
 " I really did hope better things of you, Davis ; " then, seeing 
 an expression in the man's face which intimated he had thought 
 better things of the Rector, he gave him another half-crown, 
 and said he hoped he would not get chattering with any one on 
 his way to the station. 
 
 That night Mr. and Mrs. Wright thoroughly enjoyed their 
 evening meal. 
 
 The children, old and young, were in bed, and the house was 
 perfectly quiet before Mr. Wright repeated to his wife the con- 
 versation which had taken place between himself and Mr. Irwm. 
 
 *' You don't mean to say you hesitated, Dion ! " exclaimed the 
 wiser half, in astonishment. 
 
 " Well, you see, my dear " 
 
 " I don't see at all, and I won't see anything, except that you 
 ought to have closed with the offer at once. I wish you could 
 make some excuse, and go to him to-morrow and say we shall 
 be only too glad to have her." 
 
 "I can make an excuse," said Mr. ^Vright, *'and save our 
 own dignity as well. Trust me for that, Selina," 
 
9^ Above Stispicioth 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 MR. IRWIN WAXES COMMUNICATIVE. 
 
 About noon on the following day Mr. Irwin was somewhat 
 surprised to see the Rector of Fisherton enter his office once 
 again. 
 
 " Now, pray, pray do not rise," began the reverend gentleman, 
 hat in one hand, umbrella under his arm, enforcing his entreaty 
 with a persuasive pastoral grasp of his nev/ friend's nearest 
 shoulder. 
 
 " I have not come to disturb you, or to take up the time of 
 a man to whom time is money. I just wa.nt to ask one question, 
 and then I will be off." 
 
 He stood on the hearthrug, looking the embodiment of clerical 
 respectability. A novice in the deceptive nature of such appear-, 
 ances might have taken his note of hand as good for a thousand 
 pounds; and even Mr. Irwin, who had seen something of the 
 world and the people in it, found no little difficulty in realizing 
 the fact that, but for his interposition, the rectory goods would 
 have been advertised for sale in that morning's papers. 
 
 As if adversity were a cold bath, and a plunge in its wateib 
 refreshing, the Rector had come up out of its depths cheerful, 
 rubicund, smiling. The whiteness of his shirt was immaculate, 
 the tie of his cravat a marvel of accuracy of design and neatness 
 of execution, the fit of his coat precisely what the fit of the Rector 
 of Fisherton's coat should have been, whilst his hat was new 
 undeniably. Mr. Wright had, indeed, bought it by the way. 
 
 Yes, here was the man Mr. Irwin needed — a man it seemed 
 impossible wholly to dislike, and equally impossible wholly to 
 respect — a man whom fate could not buffet out of countenance, 
 and who would do anything he honestly could in a decent, even 
 if doubtful, sort of way, to add to his income — a man who would 
 not ask too many questions if it were necessary for him to hold 
 his peace— who could talk, if talk were required, from his mouth, 
 and keep silence if he understood silence meant profit. 
 
Mr. Irwin waxes Comnmnicative. 99 
 
 So thought Mr. Irwin ; and yet the Rector's first move seemed 
 to indicate some error in his premisses or his conclusions. 
 
 " 1 mentioned that little matter to Mrs. Wright last night," 
 said the reverend gentleman, who had four different ways of 
 designating his better half, according as circumstances required. 
 
 "Yes," answered Mr. Irwin, taking refuge behind that de- 
 testable monosyllable, as Mr. Wright considered it. 
 
 "And of course we feel we should be only too delighted to 
 meet your views, even if such a course did not promise pecu- 
 niary advantage to ourselves; but there is one thing — one 
 question " 
 
 " Yes," repeated Mr. Irwin. 
 
 " Really, now I am here, it seems such a ridiculous inquiry 
 that I think I shall just go home again, leaving it unmade," said 
 Mr. Wright, who had never in the whole of his varied life be- 
 lieved that one word, and that word "yes," could have proved 
 such a barrier to conversation. 
 
 " If I were in your place I should not do anything of the 
 kind," replied Mr. Irwin. "You came here, as I understand, 
 to ask some question, which now appears to you superfluous. 
 Under any circumstances I should put it." 
 
 " You are very good, I am sure. As you advise perfect can- 
 dour, I will put it. Is there — was there anything peculiar about 
 the birth of the young lady in whose welfare you are so deeply 
 interested ? " 
 
 The question was so different from anything Mr. Irwin had 
 anticipated, that he stared at his visitor in blank amazement. 
 
 "I am not her mother," he answered; "but I have no rea- 
 son to doubt she came into the world much as other children 
 do, however that may be." 
 
 " That is not what I mean," said the Rector, thinking, with 
 a coid shudder, that he had perhaps taken a wrong tack, and 
 that Mr. Irwin was aware of it. 
 
 " What do you mean, then?" 
 
 " Well, I feel an awkwardness in putting the query into plain 
 words. Cannot you assist me a little ? " 
 
 " I confess I cannot, unless you help me to understand what 
 you want to know. Have you got an idea that the girl is queer 
 in any way ? Because, if you have, I can answer you. She is 
 as sane as either of us, and a dear, good little creature beside." 
 
 "I give you my word such a notion never crossed my mind," 
 
 7—2 
 
.00 Above Suspicion. 
 
 said Mr. Wright, heartily. " The fact is, I imagined — that is, 1 
 did not imagine, but I thought I should like to know whether 
 the young lady's parents were — married.'" 
 
 " Certainly they were. I was present at the marriage." 
 
 *•' You have taken a load off my mind," exclaimed the Rector, 
 holding out his hand, and shaking Mr. Irwin's till that gentle- 
 man's fingers tingled. " I am so thankful, though of course I 
 never really felt any apprehension. I am so glad. My dear 
 wife will be so relieved. We shall be delighted to try to fill the 
 place of parents to your orphan niece." 
 
 Mr. Irwin took his hand, which the Rector had at length re- 
 leased, into his own custody, and folding its fellow over it, said : 
 
 "As a matter of curiosity, I wish you would tell me how my 
 niece's legitimacy can prove any relief to Mrs. Wright." 
 
 "With the greatest pleasure," answered the Rector. "Like 
 myself, my wife is an Irishwoman — that is, I would say " 
 
 " IN ever mind the bull, Mr. Wright. You will only correct it, 
 I foresee, by saying an Irishman. Mrs. Wright being, like you, 
 an Irishwoman, what follows?" 
 
 "Well, you know what Irishwomen are.'* 
 
 " I do in the States. I cannot compliment you on your com- 
 patriots there." 
 
 " I do not know anything about them in the States," said Mr. 
 Wright a little impatiently. 
 
 " What you wish to say, I suppose," suggested Mr. Irwin, "is 
 that Irishwomen are usually supposed to have a higher standard 
 of morals, and are more capable of acting up to it, than the 
 women of otiier countries." 
 
 " That is it," agreed the Rector ; "' only you should not have 
 interpolated 'supposed' into your sentence. They have, sir; 
 they are." 
 
 " I am quite willing to take your word on both points, Mr. 
 Wright," said Mr. Irwin. "Except as 'helps,' I have no ac- 
 quaintance with their virtues or vices. Still I ask, what then ? " 
 
 " Why, only this. My poor dear has passed through sufficient 
 trouble and experienced sufficient sorrow to make her tolerant 
 and pitiful to any sinner. And I think I may safely say, no 
 outcast from societ)^, no deserted creature, no poor wretch 
 plunged in sin and misery, would appeal to her won a ily heart 
 in vain. Nevertheless, she has her crotchets. Her father, though 
 one of the kindest men who ever lived, was full of them ; and 
 
Mr. Irwin waxes Connmtnicative. loi 
 
 further, all ladies — Mrs. Irwin, whom I have net the honour of 
 knowing, of course excepted — have their whims and fancies/' 
 
 " You need not except Mrs. Irwin. She has her whims and 
 fancies, which, like a good husband, I respect," Avas the reply. 
 
 *' Dear, dear ! I am sorry to hear you say that," remarked 
 Mr. Wright, with more earnest sympathy than Selina might alto- 
 gether have approved. " Well, then, talking to a family man — 
 a mail blessed, no doubt, with a wife in every respect as admi- 
 rable as mme, but still aware, from experience, of the peculi- 
 arities of the better sex — I may say Mrs. Wright has very strong 
 opinions on the subject we have been discussing;. And though 
 I do not mean to say she would decline the responsibiHty of 
 taking charge of a — hem !— child born out of wedlock, still, she 
 would accept the trust in fear and trembling, lest the sin of the 
 mother might be entailed on the child." 
 
 '• Do I understand you to say that Mrs. Wright believes, if a 
 woman goes wrong, her child, differently placed, differently 
 educated, differently guarded, kept from temptation, is likely, 
 out of sheer depravity, to go wrong too ? " 
 
 '• You put die matter strongly," suggested the Rector. 
 
 "Do I put it too strongly?" asked j\Ir. Irwin. 
 
 "I do not know that you do," was the reply. **I told you 
 my wife had her prejudices." 
 
 "Well, it is a very strange notion," said Mr. Irwin thought 
 fully. 
 
 "I do not believe," began the Rector, clearing his throat, 
 "that the idea of mental as well as bodily maladies being here- 
 ditary is so singular a one as you seem to imagine. You are a 
 good churchman, as I know, and therefore I need scarcely do 
 more than remind you " 
 
 " Does Mrs Wright think other sins, besides that of bringing 
 an unfortunate infant into the world which has no place and no 
 name ready for it, are transmitted from parents to children ? " 
 asked Mr. Irwin, cutting ruthlessly across the Rector's medi- 
 tated discourse. "Take murder, for instance. There was a 
 man hung at Newgate last Monday. Suppose him to have left 
 a child : do you imagine it likely that child will commit murder 
 also ? " 
 
 "I trust not, but I should consider the probability of his 
 taking away life greater than in the case of one of my own boys, 
 for instance." 
 
102 Above Suspicion. 
 
 "Given, that one of your boys and he were so situated as to 
 
 start with the same advantages or disadvantages " 
 
 " They could not start the same, he being his father's son, 
 and my boy being my son," and Mr. Wright stood virtuously 
 upright, internally thanking God and glorifying himself that his 
 children were not as other children, inasmuch as they called 
 him father, and his wife Selina mother. 
 
 " It is a curious speculation," said Mr. Irwin, at length, lifting 
 his head and looking thoughtfully in the Rector's self-satisfied 
 face. " I will not say you are wrong, but I hope you are not 
 right, or else it would be a dreary prospect for philanthropists 
 and social reformers." 
 
 " We are all bound to do what lies in our power to make this 
 sinful world better," remarked Mr. Wright ; " and by the bles- 
 sing of Providence, philanthropists, and we poor clergymen, 
 and true Christians like yourself, are able to effect some good 
 even amongst the most depraved classes of society; but it would 
 be worse than folly to shut our eyes to the fact that vice is 
 hereditary — or, if you prefer a milder expression, that most 
 weaknesses are constitutional and capable of transmission. As 
 we say in Ireland, ' The dirty drop will come out,' and it will, 
 too. I could give you fifty instances in which money, and 
 education, and association have been employed to counteract 
 its influence in vain." 
 
 "We have digressed considerably from the subject of my 
 niece," remarked Mr. Irwin. "Am I to understand all obstacles 
 are now removed, or is there any other question you wish to 
 put to me?" 
 
 " None, not one," answered the Rector, inflating his chest 
 and rising a little on his toes to give greater empliasis to the 
 utter confidence he reposed in the respectability of Mr. Irwin 
 and Mr. Irwin's relations. 
 
 "So far, so good," said that gentleman; "but now there is 
 an explanation I wish to give to you. It is a necessary ex- 
 planation, or I should not make it; it is not altogether pleasant, 
 and therefore I must beg that you will regard it as confidential." 
 
 "You may say anything to me," replied Mr. Wright. "In 
 the interests of a friend, I can be secret as the grave — silent as 
 the dead " 
 
 " I wish you would sit down," suggested Mr. Irwin. 
 
 *'My dear friend, why did you not mention that wish sooner?" 
 
Mr. Irwin waxes ConnmLuicaiive, 103 
 
 replied the Rector, seating himself with alacrity. " I know how 
 disagreeable it is to talk up to a man. And now tell me your 
 difficulty — but stop. First, am I, or am I not, to mention the 
 matter to my wife ? " 
 
 " I think that from so admirable a wife and discreet a lady 
 you ought to have no secrets," was the answer. 
 
 " Of my own I have none/' said the Rector, which was indeed 
 very true, for j\Irs. Wright would never have permitted him to 
 indulge in such a luxury; "unless it may be when I occasionally 
 attempt a pious fraud and try to make worldly matters look 
 brighter than they really are, so as not to worry the poor soul 
 unnecessarily ; but, bless you, she always finds out that I have 
 been deceiving her. A friend's secret, however, I would, if he 
 desired it, keep safe in my own bosom." x\nd Mr. Wright 
 thereupon tapped his chest, which was certainly capacious 
 enough for the purpose indicated. 
 
 " We will not exclude J\lrs. Wright in this instance," said Mr. 
 Irwin. " What I wish to tell you is that my wife is not aware 
 of my niece's existence." 
 
 " She is his daughter," thought the Rector, feeling now quite 
 confident upon that point. " Probably the offspring of some 
 youthful, wretched mesallianar 
 
 "You don't mean it?" he remarked aloud. 
 
 " I do mean it," persisted the other. " I have never men- 
 tioned her name to my wife, and if I can avoid doing so, I never 
 shall name it. Some years ago — it does not matter how many 
 — I found myself in the possession of a considerable sum of 
 money, part of which I held in trust for other people, and a 
 portion of which I might have fairly appropriated to my own 
 use. But I had reason for supposing — indeed, for knowing — 
 the money had been acquired by questionable means ; and I 
 resolved to employ none of it beyond what might be absolutely 
 needful for the necessities of my position, for my personal 
 pleasure or advancement in life." 
 
 *' A resolution which did you honour," observed the Rector ; 
 and a glow of conscious rectitude flushed his face as he mentally 
 considered how much he should like to be placed in a position 
 where he could not only make such a resolve, but keep it. 
 
 " In furtherance of this design," continued Mr. Irwin, " I 
 went to America, where I obtained employment in the house 
 of Irwin and Son, die-sinkers. Mr. Irwin was an Englishman, 
 
104 Above Suspicion. 
 
 originally engaged in business with his brother in the very 
 premises where I am now speaking to you." 
 
 " I follow your words," said Mr. Wright, as the speaker 
 paused. " I shall understand their meaning presently." 
 
 " In the particular class of work to which he had devoted his 
 life I was not inexperienced — indeed, I may say without vanity, 
 there are few men who knew more of its mysteries than I ; and 
 Mr. Irwin, whose heart was in his trade, took a fancy to me, 
 and eventually placed me in a lucrative and responsible position. 
 All this time, however, I was his clerk — his servant — what you 
 will that signifies dependence and inequality of rank; and I did 
 not encroach on his kindness — I did not intrude myself on his 
 notice — because he was good enough to think me of service in 
 his business. After I had been with him for soirie time, a 
 terrible affliction befell him. His son — his only son — died. 
 He had loved that son well as his child; but I do think he 
 loved him more as the future representative of Irwin and Son. 
 He moped about, and hugged his grief, and neglected his busi- 
 ness, and during that period I managed everything for him — 
 managed so well, that his connection, instead of falling off, 
 extended — the reputation of his house grew. He had one 
 other child, a daughter. Now you begin to comprehend my 
 story. I should not, situated as I was, have dreamed of aspir- 
 ing to her hand ; but she honoured me with her regard, her 
 father more than approved of the arrangement, and by marriage 
 I stepped into the name and the place of the dead son. 
 
 " Absent from England, and likely to remain absent for ever, 
 I made no mention to father or daughter of the few relations I 
 possessed. Within a couple of years of my marriage, however, 
 the brother with whom Air. Irwin had originally been in part- 
 nership here died childless, and his fortune and his business 
 passed to the man with whom he had quarrelled forty years 
 previously. Immediately upon this event he was seized with 
 that maladie du pays which, sooner or later, afflicts every true- 
 born Briton, and nothing would content him but to dispose of 
 the American business, and return to London and Eastcheap. 
 How earnestly I entreated he would let me have the American 
 business, I could not tell you ; but he refused. His whim was 
 to make his name world-known in connection with this establish- 
 ment, and it was not for me, who owe ever}'thing almost I 
 possess to his generosity, to cross such a fancy." 
 
Mr. Irivin waxes Communicative. 105 
 
 '' Certainly not," agreed Mr. Wright promptly, remembering, 
 no doubt, tliat if old Mr. Irwin's whim had not chanced to brmg 
 him across the Atlantic, the rectory would most probably have 
 been stripped of some of its choicest treasures. "The gentle- 
 man I had the pleasure of seeing yesterday, then, no doubt is 
 your respected father-in-law ? " 
 
 "Yes ; eccentric, but admirable — a just man, a staunch friend, 
 an affectionate father. Happy in his business, in the home he 
 makes in London with us, and happy, above all, in his grand- 
 children—in one especially, a boy, who is hereafter to compass 
 wonders in the way of commercial achievement. A cheerful 
 interior, you will think. Yet there is a slight shadow lying ov^r 
 it. My wife's health is wretched. I do not know what is the 
 matter with her, neither do the doctors, neither does she herself^ 
 If she had been a poor woman, and compelled to exert herself, 
 it is possible her health might have been better. As matters 
 stand, she has sunk into a state of physical helplessness and 
 .mental irritabiUty, which compels us to avoid subjecting her to 
 the slightest annoyance. Were I differently situated— were I 
 a free man, even if a much less wealthy— were my wife strong, 
 and able to share any trouble with me, our house, of course, 
 would be the most fitting home for my niece to come to." 
 
 '^ understand your position — I recognize the difficulty. You 
 could not take her to your own home," remarked Mr. Wright, 
 thinking of his wife Selina, and the hundred a year she had 
 already in the dead of night verbally appropriated to many 
 domestic needs. 
 
 "You do not understand all my difficulty yet," continued 
 Mr. Irwin. " I never could have mentioned the existence of 
 this girl, to whom I am, in fact, sole guardian, without entering 
 into a number of details which, for various reasons, are to me 
 fraught with very great pain; and it would be utterly impossible 
 for me to open the subject now without introducing an apple 
 of discord into my home." 
 
 " Utterly," agreed Mr. Wright. Sorry indeed would he have 
 been, if similarly situated, to take such an apple and present it 
 for Selina's acceptance. 
 
 "Therefore I judged it better to look out for some family 
 with whom I could place my fittle niece," finished Mr. Irwin. 
 " I advertised my requirements, and have had many interviews 
 with various persons in consequence ; but all proved more or 
 
lo6 Above Suspicion, 
 
 less unsatisfactory, and I had almost made up my mind to allow 
 her to remain at school for another year, when you came to 
 Riversdale." 
 
 "A most providential visit for me," murmured the Rector, 
 with a lively memory of the fifty pounds, and a still livelier faith 
 in other fifties he trusted were yet to follow. 
 
 " I trust it may prove providential for my niece," said Mr. 
 Irwin, *'for she is a very lonely little woman." 
 
 "Poor dear!" ejaculated Mr. Wright. "It shall not be our 
 fault, Mr. Irwin, if she is not happy in our humble home— that 
 I promise you." 
 
 "Thank you," said Mr. Irwin. "I am sure you will fulfil 
 your promise; " and the pair shook hands once more. 
 
 " By-the-bye," remarked the Rector, returning after he reached 
 the first landing, and putting his head inside the door again, 
 " you have not yet told me the young lady's name." 
 
 " Miles," was the reply. 
 
 " Not her Christian name, surely ! " exclaimed Mr. Wright, to- 
 whom the cognomen was familiar enough in his own dear land. 
 
 "That is Bella." 
 
 "Bella Miles," repeated the Rector. "I shall not forget. 
 Much obliged. Good morning." 
 
 CHAPTER XIIi. 
 
 MR. WRIGHT WONDERS WHAT SELINA WILL SAY. 
 
 It seemed as if, after all. Miss Bella Miles, kept so studiously 
 from disturbing the domestic peace — if peace such an armed 
 neutrality could be called — of Mr. and Mrs. Irwin, was to 
 
Mr. Wright Wonders what Selina ivill Say, 107 
 
 prove, even before she appeared at Fisherton, an apple of dis- 
 cord between the Rector and his wife. 
 
 There were many things Mrs. Wright wanted to do on the 
 strength of her coming, which even Mr. Wright's slight know- 
 ledge of Mr. Irwin's character and position taught him could 
 not be done; and when he ventured to suggest difficulties, Selina 
 waxed fractious. 
 
 '' Of course we must refurnish a bed-room for her," said Mrs. 
 Wright. "She can sleep in it when no one is staying here; 
 and it will do for best bed-chamber when Colonel Leschelles, 
 or any one else very particular, comes for a few days. And we 
 had better have good articles when we are buying — they always 
 prove the cheapest in the long run." 
 
 "You cannot get them without ready money," ventured Mr. 
 Wright ; " and where that is to come from perhaps you know. 
 I confess I do not." 
 
 " It shall come from Mr. Irwin," she replied, standing well to 
 her guns. 
 
 "I don't think it will," said the Rector; "at any rate, I should 
 not select the things till you have his cheque in your purse to 
 pay for them. But of course you know best." 
 
 Which remark putting the lady on her mettle, she at once 
 went to her desk, and in an extremely clear, pretty, and femi- 
 nine hand, wrote a clever little note to Mr. Irwin, assuring him 
 of the pleasure she should feel in welcoming his niece to the 
 rectory, and adding a hope that in time the young girl " may 
 become as much attached to me as I am sure 1 shall be to 
 her." After this statement, which had no insincerity about it, 
 since Mrs. Wright's power of attaching herself to unlikely ob- 
 jects was indeed as boundless, and oftentimes as foolish, as her 
 charity, the Rector's wife went on to say: 
 
 " So as to be certain to have everything ready for her recep- 
 tion by the time you mentioned to Mr. Wright, I am just order- 
 ing furniture for her room — ours being too heavy and old-fash- 
 ioned, not to say shabby, to please a young lady whose tastes 
 have been formed abroad. I hope to have all bright and pretty 
 to greet her on her arrival here. Again assuring you that nothing 
 love and care can do to promote her happiness shall be wanting 
 on my part, " Believe me, 
 
 " Yours very sincerely, 
 
 "Selina Wright." 
 
lo8 Above Suspicion, 
 
 *' Good heavens ! they will refurnish the rectory on the 
 strength of that hundred a year/' was Mr. Irwin's first thought ; 
 while once again the reality of the unwelcome visitor whose 
 presence had driven Mr. Wright to Riversdale seemed an utter 
 impossibility. ''Could the Rector and his wife be sane?'' h-* 
 wondered. "Was it credible that, within ten days of havinj; 
 his goods rescued from the sheriff, Mr. and Mrs. Wright were 
 actually talking of purchasing more goods, which in their turn 
 would, no doubt, if this was the way the family at Fisherton 
 meant to live on bread and water, be watched and guarded, 
 when the next instalment of the old debt became overdue, by 
 another emissary from Mr. Gath Reuben, sherilT's officer? 
 
 "Instead of benefiting, I shall be ruining them," considered 
 Mr. Irwin. "Wliat ought I to do in the matter?" and he was 
 perplexing himself on this point, when it suddenly crossed his 
 mind that the Wrights were sane enough ; that Mrs. W^right 
 had apprised him of her hospitable intentions, with a view of 
 getdng the money to pay for them oat of his purse ; and that 
 the sooner he made her understand he had no intention of 
 letting her do anything of the sort, the better it would prove for 
 all parlies interested. 
 
 Having so decided, he took pen in hand, and, in writing 
 which exactly resembled copperplate, replied to Mrs. Wright's 
 note as follows : — 
 
 "512 Eastcheap, London, 
 
 "29th July, 18—. 
 
 " My dear Madam, 
 
 " I hasten to express my thanks for your very kind note, 
 just received. Bella will, I trust, do her utmost to merit your 
 good opinion, and to deserve the affection you are so generous 
 as to offer. But pray do not make any alteration in the arrange- 
 ments of your house on her account. Believe me, she will be 
 more than satisfied with the present appointments of any room 
 it may be most convenient for you to assign her. A girl who 
 has been for years the inmate of a French school can have had 
 no opportunity of acquiring a taste for luxuries ; and, situated 
 as she is, it would be most undesirable for her ever to do so. 
 With assurances of my respect, and gratitude for all your kind 
 intentions with regard to my niece's comfort and happiness, 
 
 " I have the honour to remain 
 
 " Yours faithfully, 
 
 " W. C. Irwin." 
 
Mr. Wright Wonders what Selina will Say. I09 
 
 At the period of the world's history of which I write, the 
 morning's post at Fisherton came heralded by the sound of a 
 bugle. On the especial morning when Mr. Irwin's missive 
 arrived at the rectory — breakfast happening to be rather later 
 than usual — Mrs. Wright was dispensing weak tea to the family 
 generally, when the letters were brought in. 
 
 Copperplate penmanship being apt, as all the world knows, 
 to occupy a considerable amount of space, Mr. Irwin's epistle 
 felt bulky enough to have contained half a dozen cheques, for 
 which reason Mrs. Wright laid it down beside her cup, with a 
 satisfied little pat, and looked across at her husband with a 
 look which said, " The grey mare has again proved the better 
 horse." 
 
 Before he had finished his breakfast, Mr. Wright was called 
 away to speak to one of his churchwardens ; and by the time 
 that individual had said his say and departed, the children were 
 fed and out in the garden. 
 
 Cheerfully the Rector stepped back into the parlour, exclaim- 
 ing, as he entered : 
 
 ''Well, my dear, how much has our good friend sent you?" 
 
 " Read for yourself," said I\Irs. Wright, handing him the note, 
 with an air of resi2:nation. "You need not talk to me about 
 the man being a gentleman — and writing such a hand, too, like 
 a clerk's ! " 
 
 " I can tell you I thought I had never seen a nicer hand than 
 his when he signed that cheque," observed her husband. 
 
 " Oh ! that is all past and done with," retorted Mrs. Wright, 
 whose gratitude for past favours was even more evanescent than 
 that of the Reverend Dion. " It is quite clear to me we have 
 a Jew to deal with — yes, a Jew Christian — and we shall not be 
 at all the better for j\Iiss or her hundred a year — having to keep 
 an extra servant, too." 
 
 Now, this was one of the points over which she and her hus- 
 band had argued not a little, and, consequently, the reverend 
 gentleman at once replied that he could see no reason, or rhyme 
 either, in keeping another servant. 
 
 " We have a pair already," he remarked, not without reason 
 on his side, "and between them they get through less work than 
 when we had only one. Given that we take on a third, we shall 
 have to keep them, and do all the work ourselves." 
 
 " I wish you had to do my work for a day — only one," said 
 
no Above Suspicion. 
 
 Mrs. Wright; "and you would not talk so glibly about three 
 servants being unnecessary." 
 
 Having delivered herself of which sentiment, Mrs. Wright 
 took her parasol, strolled out into the garden, found a comfort- 
 able seat, and was soon absorbed in a new novel. Never, in 
 their poorest days, had the Rector's wife failed to pay her sub- 
 scription to a well-stocked library. 
 
 " It was essential to their position to keep an coiirant with 
 what was going on in the literary world," slie said. And to do 
 Mrs. W^right justice, she read a greater number and variety of 
 books than any reviewer. 
 
 Curiously enougli, all the things Mrs. Wright considered it 
 incumbent upon her to perform, in order to maintain that posi- 
 tion necessary to their well-being and success in life, were those 
 for which she had a natural taste. Ill-conditioned people said 
 she never believed in a duty unless it chanced to be a pleasure 
 likewise ; to which the lady herself, on one occasion, retorted, 
 that it was only right to feel duty a pleasure. 
 
 *' I am sure I try to do so," finished the Rector's wife ; and 
 on this principle she found that duty demanded a third servant 
 in addition to the two, whose wages, though paid in a scrambling, 
 irregular sort of fashion, they were scarcely able to manage. 
 
 " She must assist with the needlework, and get up your shirts, 
 dear," explained Mrs. Wright, when demonstrating that a third 
 servant would prove a saving instead of an expense. '' We must 
 not employ a laundress then at all, even for your shirts."" 
 
 The meekest of men domestically, Mr. Wright nevertheless 
 rebelled at this. " Help with the needlework she may," he said, 
 "but get up my linen she never shall. I do not object to a 
 shabby coat occasionally ; but wear shirts looking as if they 
 were mangled, and cravats like wisps, I will not ; remember that, 
 Selina." 
 
 Whereupon Selina observed that he always thwarted her in 
 any scheme she proposed for reducing the domestic expenditure. 
 " I am not sure," thought Mr. Wright, as he walked through 
 his parish, head well up, chest protruded, umbrella shouldered 
 — " I am not sure " (he pronounced t?ie latter word shu-ah) 
 "whether Providence did not intend the shortness of money, 
 at which I have so often repined, as a blessing. There is an 
 under-current of mercy in many of those misfortunes poor 
 
Mr. Wright Wonders what Selina will Say, 1 1 1 
 
 humanity finds it so hard to endure ; and it may be that I have 
 purchased domestic happiness at the cheap price of chronic 
 insolvency. It may be, God forgive me the ungracious thought ! 
 that Sehna, if easy in her mind about pecuniary matters, might 
 develop some faults of another kind, fatal to that peace which 
 has hitherto brooded over our home." 
 
 Before the next Sunday Mr. Wright had eliminated a sermon 
 from this idea. Having, for a wonder, received no dunning or 
 threatening letters during the whole week, he was able to give 
 more thought than usual to the subject he proposed treating; 
 and he wrote what he wanted to say carefully, and blotted out 
 freely, the result being a very good discourse, to which Mrs. 
 Wright listened with pleased though critical ears. 
 
 " I am certain, Dion," she said, as they walked home together 
 in the summer twilight — it was at evening service the Rector 
 preached the sermon in question — " that no one in the church 
 could have failed to take some good for him or herself out of 
 your words to-night. It was all so true and yet so plain. I have 
 not your facility of expression, Dion, nor, of course, your grasp 
 of mind, but I declare that often, in a vague sort of way, I have 
 thought the evils we consider most unendurable are really bless- 
 ings in disguise. For instance (I know you will not misunder- 
 stand what I say), it has sometimes occurred to me, if we had 
 not been obliged to struggle for a large family and contend with 
 poverty, you might not have been one-half so amiable as you 
 are ; you might have been unreasonable, inclined to be captious 
 and irritable about trifles. Now, Dion, what are you laughing 
 at? I am not jesting. I really do not think you could bear 
 the sun of prosperity as well as you have done the winds of 
 adversity." 
 
 " I should like to be tried, my dear," answered the Rector, 
 forgetting to practise the virtue himself had inculcated, and then 
 he laughed again ; but he did not dare tell his wife that the same 
 idea about her had given birth to his sermon. 
 
 '' It is really very funny," he said to himself, as he put his 
 manuscript away with a goodly company of other documents of 
 the same nature. " I shall never be able to preach that sermon 
 again with gravity — never ! " 
 
 For Mr. Wright had brought a certain sense of humour into 
 the world mth him ; and not all the years spent in borrowing 
 and begging money, to keep wolves away from the domestic 
 
112 Above Suspicion. 
 
 hearth, had been able to destroy his appreciation of any circum- 
 stance which struck him as ludicrous. 
 
 The furniture was not bought, but the new maid was hired; 
 and then arose another little misunderstanding between the 
 Rector and his wife. 
 
 Mr. and Mrs. Irwin w^ere going to Paris, and it \vas Mr. Irwin's 
 wish that his new friend should repair to the same place, at the 
 same time, in order that Miss Miles might be committed to his 
 charge by her uncle, and brought back to Fisherton by the 
 Rector of that " favourite summer resort " — see local guide-book, 
 
 Mr. Irwin, of course, was to hand Mr. Wright a sufficient sum 
 to cover his travelling and hotel expenses. And Mr. Wright, 
 happy at the prospect of such a holiday as a schoolboy, delight- 
 edly closed with the proposal, and returned home, never doubt- 
 ing but tha": Selina w^ould be delighted also to hear of the plea- 
 sure in store for her husband. To his astonishment, Mrs. Wright 
 at once objected to the whole scheme. 
 
 " I do not th'nk it would be at all proper, Dion, for you to 
 be wandermg about the Continent alone with a young lady," 
 she began. 
 
 "But, my dear," he interrupted, "I have no idea of wander- 
 ing about the Continent with a young lady. I shall bring her 
 straight home." 
 
 " If it be necessary for any one to go, I am the proper person," 
 persisted Mrs. Wright. 
 
 " Come, Selina, that is good ! " cried the Rector. " If it is 
 not the correct thing for me to travel from Paris to London 
 with a chit no older than one of my own girls, I am quite posi- 
 tive it would be most improper for you to be running over Paris 
 with Mr. Irwin." 
 
 " Don't be immoral, Dion," entreated his wife. 
 
 *' My dear, if any immorality has been suggested, most cer- 
 tainly I am not the one to blame. So far as I am concerned, 
 you are welcome to go on this trip instead of me ; but I do not 
 think Mrs. Grundy would be satisfied w^th such a proceeding, 
 and I am quite certain Mr. Irwin would not." 
 
 "I must beg of you not to mention Mr. Irwin to me," said 
 ]Mrs. Wright. " He is not a gentleman, I am convinced. No 
 gentleman would have so completely ignored me throughout 
 this whole arrangement as he has done. But I am deternjined 
 to assert my position. I shall go to Paris to fetcli that girl" 
 
Mr. Wright Wonders what Sclina zvill Say. 113 
 
 " If such is your resolve," remarked Mr. Wright, " we shall 
 have to travel together, for, most decidedly, I mean to fetch 
 that girl." 
 
 Which was a very strong position for the Rector, who usually 
 deferred to his wife, to take up. 
 
 " Very well ; let us arrange to do so," she said, after a minute's 
 pause. " I dare say we can manage to get the money somehow." 
 
 Cash was short enough at the rectory just then. But the 
 state of the funds did not stop Mrs. Wright's contemplated 
 journey. She packed her trunk, she m^de some shiftless arrange- 
 ments for the well-being of her children, and then she caught 
 a severe cold — so severe that the doctor forbade her leaving her 
 room, and Mr. Wright consequently set out for Paris alone, en- 
 joyed himself there for four days thoroughly, and on the fifth 
 was introduced by Mr. Irwin to his niece. 
 
 " I tell Bella she has grown quite a woman since I saw her," 
 said Mr. Irwin, with a grave smile. *' I must not call her my 
 little niece any longer, must I, Mr. Wright ? " 
 
 But Mr. Wright did not answer. For the moment he was 
 struck literally dumb. He had expected to see an unformed, 
 shy, retiring school miss ; and suddenly there was presented to 
 his astonished gaze a most beautiful girl-woman, the most beauti- 
 ful girl, the Rector decided, he had ever seen ; a young girl pos- 
 sessed of a charming voice, and still more charming manners — 
 who seemed to pervade the room with her beauty, and who filled 
 Mr. Wright's heart with a terrible apprehension. 
 
 " What will Selina say ? " he thought. " What are we to do 
 in our house with a creature like this ? '* 
 
 9 
 
114 Above Suspicion, 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 THE FIRST EVENING, 
 
 Had Mr. Wright known as much about women as he did about 
 many things — say writs, for example — he would not have spoiled 
 the pleasure of his homeward journey by speculating on what 
 Selina might say. 
 
 Men are very catholic in their ideas of beauty. If a face is 
 pretty and a figure good, it matters little to the masculine mind 
 whether the owner be tall or short, plump or slight, fair or dark, 
 pensive ox piquant. A woman, on the contrary, has, as a rule, 
 only one standard, and that is herself. The world — the usages 
 of society — the little commonplace experiences of every-day life 
 — the natural and charming deceitfulness of her sex, teach her 
 to try to disguise this peculiarity even from other women ; and 
 therefore it is that we so often hear the phrases " sweet," " charm- 
 ing,^'' " pretty, fragile creature," " such a grand face," and other 
 expressions of a similar character, which might well deceive any 
 one unaccustomed to look behind the curtain. 
 
 Sitting behind that curtain, however, in the abando7i of dress- 
 ing-gown and whatever may be the present substitute for curl- 
 papers — or tete-a-teie at five-o'clock tea — or dreamily chatting by 
 the sea-side while the waves ripple in and out upon the sand — 
 or drawn into the still closer confidence engendered by a wet 
 afternoon in a country house, — woman, talked to by woman, 
 knows " all about it." She learns how Mrs. Juno " is distrustful 
 of small snake-like women ; " how interesting Miss Hysteria 
 wonders what people can lik^ Vi Diana ; how Light-hair thinks 
 there is always something starmg about black eyes ; while Black- 
 eyes says, " for her part," she believes " there never yet was a 
 straightforward woman to be found under the outward guise of 
 a pretty doll." 
 
 We hear a great deal about the attraction of physical an- 
 tagonism ; but the reader may be certain this attraction never 
 
The First Evening, 115 
 
 exists in the same sex. A woman's ideal of a hero may be as 
 opposite to herself as night is to day ; but her true ideal of a 
 heroine will be the creature she has seen reflected back from 
 her mirror every day since, perclied on tiptoe, she first beheld 
 her own face in the looking-glass. 
 
 Precisely the same remark would hold good with regard to 
 men, were it not that men are not interested in men in the same 
 way as women are in women. 
 
 To most men, every man he meets is a possible source of 
 profit ; to all women, every woman assumes the form of a past, 
 present, or future rival. If she cannot talk better she can dress 
 better ; if she cannot do either she can " look sweet," and so 
 deceive humanity. If she takes a different line altogether, and 
 expresses depreciatory opinions of mankind — not including its 
 feminine portion — then male vanity is tickled and male curiosity 
 aroused, and, like David, her victims are tens, whilst those of 
 her non-admiring lady friends are units. 
 
 All of which facts poor Mr. AVright, through that masculine 
 love of generalization which is the snare of his sex, overlooked 
 altogether. 
 
 Simply he saw that Bella Miles was beautiful exceedingly ; and 
 he therefore worried himself all the way from Paris to London 
 over the consideration that Selina would not like it. Why he 
 thought this, he must have failed to inform an inquirer. All he 
 could have said, if examined on oath, amounted to no more 
 than : *^ Though my dear Selina has more than the virtues of 
 her sex, she has also a few of its failings, and sometimes she 
 does not care for pretty women." 
 
 Which was quite true. But then he left out of calculation 
 the fact that Mrs. Wright might not consider Miss Miles pretty. 
 If that idea had only occurred to him, how happy he might have 
 felt vis-a-vis to a girl with great dark eyes, clear olive complexion, 
 wonderful black hair, a rare beautiful smile, and an almost 
 foreign accent. 
 
 " We shall be good friends, 1 hope," he said, in his pompous, 
 priestly, genially patronizing manner. 
 
 " Dear sir, no doubt," she answered ; " it must be so easy to 
 feel good friends towards you." 
 
 "You must not flatter me, my child," he replied, pleased, 
 nevertheless, with her words ; and then he laid his hand softly 
 on the girl's head, and stroked her dark hair thoughtfully, the 
 
 8—2 
 
ii6 Above Suspicion, 
 
 while he saw her expression alter, and the sunlight that had 
 glanced across her face change to shadow. 
 
 How many times in the after days he beheld the same change 
 turn the dark eyes, from sunlit waters to pools of darkness, it 
 sickens him now to remember. 
 
 For, liking him, she proved so good and so true : not one of 
 his own children, charming as the Rector thought they were, 
 served him with so sweet an alacrity as she. 
 
 From the hour they met first in Paris, till the end, he found 
 no change — no shadow of turning in his new protegee — whilst 
 she ? 
 
 If you asked Mr. Wright how she found him, he would answer 
 impatiently : 
 
 " I was a man beset. What is the use of looking back ? If 
 I did wrong, I am sorry for it." 
 
 And he is, without any '• if" about the matter. Between Mr. 
 AVright's self, and God, there lies knowledge of a story the 
 Rector w^ould give all he now possesses to be able to remember 
 as untrue. To him, in the watches of the night, there come 
 dark eyes, and low-toned voice laden with reproaches — eyes, the 
 language of which he ought to have been able to understand ; 
 voice, musical with the burden of an unspoken sorrow. A life 
 laid in his hand, as it were, to answer for — laid there by chance, 
 as it seemed, but really, as he afterwards understood, by no 
 chance at all ; which he used for his own purposes ; which he 
 marred because he, a servant of the Almighty, had found him- 
 self the slave to debt, and could furnish nor eyes, nor ears, nor 
 understanding, save how best to keep creditors at bay, and con- 
 tinue the shiftless, harassed life he had led every day since the 
 first hour of his marriage. 
 
 It is of no use his mentioning these visitations to Selina, his 
 wife. 
 
 An admirable woman still, no doubt : good to the poor, fond 
 of her children, attached to her husband, lenient to the pec- 
 cadilloes of her servants, — nevertheless quite persuaded that 
 Mr. Irwin was very little better than a swindler ; and Bella Miles 
 a bad, unprincipled, deceitful girl, who ought never to have been 
 permitted to sit, clothed in wickedness and duplicity, by any 
 Christian hearth. 
 
 At the particular Christian hearth mentally referred to by 
 
The First Evening. 117 
 
 Mrs. Wright, Mr. Wright and Miss Miles arrived in time for 
 that composite meal, a '*' meat dmner." 
 
 Thinking, probably, that Miss Miles might consider there 
 was safety in a multitude, Mrs. Wright had elected for the whole 
 of her fam.ily to greet the new arrival ; and accordingl}', from 
 Miss Maria down to the "puling infant," represented by Rosa, 
 the latest arrow in the rectorial quiver, all the children sat round 
 the table, staring at the new-comer with that delicate considera- 
 tion which obtains amongst young animals of the human species. 
 
 Under such circumstances Miss Miles naturally became 
 nervous. She spoke French when she shouhi have spoken 
 English; and then when she apologized, the middle-sized chil- 
 dren giggled, and the elder smiled with that air of superiority 
 natural in the offspring of clergymen of any denomination in 
 England ; whilst the small fry set her with their round eyes, and 
 mouths like the letter O, and wondered to themselves why she 
 did not eat cake when it was pressed upon her — or, as an Irish- 
 woman, then priestess of the culinary department at Fisherton 
 Rectory, remarked subsequently, " IMake a baste of herself like 
 the rest o' them." 
 
 " Curran, dear," said Mrs. Wright, addressing one of her 
 numerous offspring, '• run away to the kitchen and tell Nurse 
 Mary to send us some more butter; don't drop it by the way, 
 that is a good boy." 
 
 The good boy so addressed involuntarily let one leg slip from 
 the front to the side of his seat, but made no further sign of 
 hearing, every sense being apparently absorbed in staring at the 
 stranger. 
 
 " Curran, did you hear me?" asked his mother, languidly. 
 
 "What do you mean, sir, by not doing what your mamma 
 tells you?" inquired Mr. Wright, who always supported the 
 maternal authority. "Sit still, my dear," added the Rector to 
 his guest, who had involuntarily risen to do Mrs. AVright's bid- 
 ding — the only creature at the table who seemed wilHng to 
 perform an errand ; " we do not expect you to fetch butter from 
 the pantry — which, indeed, our servants ought to do, as they 
 are paid for it," added poor Mr. Wright, with a reflective sigh. 
 
 "Ah ! Dion," said Mrs. Wright, plaintively, "Miss Miles can 
 understand, I am sure, what servants have to do in a house like 
 ours. Run, Curran, and perhaps I may find something nice 
 for you about twelve to-morrow." 
 
1 1 8 A bove Suspicion. 
 
 Thus entreated, Curran, who had no fear before his eyes of 
 anything which might have made him move much more rapidly, 
 sUd down from his chair and repaired to the kitchen, having 
 first fortified himself for going into the wilderness by seizing a 
 great hunch of bread. 
 
 Armed with this, he made his way to the servants' quarter, 
 where he gave a full account of his impressions of Miss Miles 
 to an appreciative audience. 
 
 " Jus' like sloes," said one who had first seen the young lady, 
 referring to her eyes. 
 
 " A skin like a wild Indian," added another, who had heard 
 Mrs. Wright express an opinion adverse to Miss Miles' com- 
 plexion ; and so the kitchen criticism proceeded, while the 
 parlour waited for its butter. 
 
 " Maria, ring the bell," said Mr. Wright at length ; whereupon 
 Miss Maria rose and rang a sharp summons, which fetched the 
 new servant from the conversational abysses in which she had 
 been plunged. 
 
 " Did not Master Curran tell yoii we wanted some more 
 butter ? " asked Mrs. Wright. 
 
 " No, ma'am ; and there isn't any more in the house," was 
 the concise answer ; at which Miss Miles blushed crimson, just 
 as though she had consumed the reserve fund herself. 
 
 " Hey ! ho hum ! " sang Mr. Wright to himself, gently tapping 
 his chest. 
 
 Spite of the debt and the humiliation, and the work and the 
 worry, and the mental wear and tear, these little contretemps 
 were not of infrequent occurrence, and the Rector might have 
 become accustomed to them. But the Rector could not become 
 accustomed to them, so cut short Mrs. Wright's indignant re- 
 monstrance with the servant upon the iniquity of allowing 
 *' things to run out without informing her, Mrs. W., of the fact," 
 by saying : 
 
 " You can go, Mary." Then turning to Miss Miles, he added, 
 " Such accidents will happen." 
 
 Which was quite true, as Miss Miles found before she had 
 been two days in the house. 
 
 Tea finished, and all the children fed, Mrs. Wright proposed 
 an adjournment to the drawing-room, where, after having looked 
 out over the garden, on which a drizzling rain was falling, and 
 advanced various topics for conversation and exliausted them 
 
The First Evening, 119 
 
 all, and talked at great length of Paris — ^^ which INIr. Wright 
 called, in honour of his recent visit, Pa-ree — the Rector, who 
 sometimes declared "he knew nothing of music, and wished 
 every one else in the world was in like case," merely as a new 
 device for passing time, and as a polite attention to their new 
 inmate, asked Miss Miles to play. 
 
 Miss Miles immediately rose to comply with this request — 
 rose blushing, as w^as her wont. 
 
 " Shall Maria fetch your music down for you, dear ? " sug- 
 gested Mrs. Wright ; " or will you look over the girls' pieces 
 and see if there are any you know ? " 
 
 "Thank you," answered Miss Miles, "but I can manage 
 without the notes, I think." 
 
 "The true way — the true way," commented Mr. Wright, 
 watching her as she took up her position before the Broadwood 
 square, which was always open on every working day, and y^ry 
 frequently not closed at night. 
 
 " You will find it a little out of tune, I am afraid," remarked 
 Mrs. Wright. 
 
 " It is, rather," agreed Miss Miles, as she ran her fingers over 
 the keys ; and indeed, even had the instrument been young as 
 it was old, it could scarcely have proved otherwise. The practice 
 of Kalkbrenner's Exercises for a few hours per diem, to say 
 nothing of agonized attempts to hammer out operatic airs 
 " simply arranged for young beginners," and national melodies 
 arranged for no one in particular, had naturally exercised a 
 somewhat detrimental influence upon the hammers. 
 
 " Now, Curran," said Mrs. Wright, " if you do not keep quiet, 
 I shall send you out of the room ; " whereupon Curran made a 
 hideous face at Rosie, who immediately burst into shrill shrieks 
 of laughter. 
 
 *' You naughty boy!" Mrs. Wright was beginning, when the 
 opening bars of the piece Miss Miles had selected literally 
 stopped her utterance. 
 
 No " trying back " now — no fumbling amongst the intricacies 
 of unfamiliar notes — no mistakes between sharps and flats — no 
 slurring over difficult passages. 
 
 A thorough musician had her hands on the keys, and the old 
 )iano knew this, and gave out under her touch such tone and 
 po«ver as time and ill-usage had still left in its frame. 
 
 Ordinarily, it was a cracked, vibrating-stringcd, feeble-voiced 
 
120 Above Suspicion. 
 
 instrument, the notes of which rattled, while suffering at the 
 hands of the Misses Wright, like loose teeth ; but that evening 
 it seemed to have renewed its youth once more, and answered 
 to the clamour of martial music — to the hurrying of many feet 
 — to the steady, stately march of an advancing army — to the 
 melody of exultation and the lament of sorrow. 
 
 For suddenly the key changed into a minor, and then the 
 piano told a story of such woe and such tenderness — of such sweet 
 sadness, such subtle longing regret — that its own weakness and 
 age were forgotten in the pathetic beauty of the recited tale. 
 
 " Exquisite ! exquisite ! — char — ming ! " exclaimed Mr. 
 Wright, who did indeed consider he had listened to a perform- 
 ance as wonderful as unexpected. 
 
 " Thank you," said Mrs. Wright ; and the Rector, looking at 
 her, knew sometliing was wrong. 
 
 " What is the name of that ? " asked Miss Maria, who had 
 hung about the piano, trying, perhaps, to "catch the knack," as 
 fond mothers sometimes counsel their darlings to do. 
 
 As for Rosie and Curran, they both sat with their eyes and 
 mouths wide open, precisely as they might have sat had the 
 house been coming down about their ears. They were fright- 
 ened into good behaviour. When that old piano, which they 
 had thumped with no gentle hands themselves, took to making 
 such a noise, what might not happen next? 
 
 "And all without any turning over, too," secretly thought 
 Curran, who had hitherto regarded that part of the performance 
 as essential to success. 
 
 " You sing, I am sure," said Mr. Wright, as Miss Miles, after 
 dreamily touching a few chords, was about to leave the instru- 
 ment. " If you are not too tired, pray favour us with one little 
 song." 
 
 Miss Miles laughed, and resumed her seat. For a few seconds 
 her fingers wandered over the notes, as if uncertain of the air 
 they should select ; then she began the accompaniment to that 
 which, if not the sweetest of all Irish melodies, is, at all events, 
 sweet exceedingly — " Luggelaw," mated by Moore to words 
 flowing and graceful. 
 
 The drawing-room at Fisherton was one well adapted for 
 hearing music to advantage, and in the silence of that summer's 
 evening the singer's voice throbbed through the apartment, filling 
 each remote corner with melody and pathos. 
 
The First Even ing. 1 2 1 
 
 For the moment after the last note died away there ensued a 
 dead silence, which Mrs. Wright broke by saying : 
 
 " You have an exquisite voice, and sing beautifully. Dion, 
 will you ring for candles ? I think it must be nearly time for 
 prayers. Maria, close the piano ; " which was a blow to Maria, 
 as she had been hovering about the instrument, in hopes of being 
 requested to play " II mio Tesoro." 
 
 Mrs. Wright, however, was a clever woman, and thought it 
 better to defer the revelation of her daughter's accomplishments 
 to some future occasion. 
 
 She had expected a Miss Miles, but not the Miss Miles who 
 appeared at Fisherton. 
 
 She had expected a vague " miss," with little vanities, little 
 affectations, little knowledge, a smattering of learning ; but for 
 this girl-woman she was not prepared ; and Mrs. Wright felt she 
 must reconsider the position. 
 
 And for this reason Mrs. Wright, when discomfited over Miss 
 Miles' instrumental performances, and astonished at her singing, 
 fell back upon her own lines, and suggested that safest of all 
 manoeuvres, prayers. 
 
 Which stopped further hostilities and surprises for the time, 
 and gave her the night to organize and reflect. 
 
 *' Well, my dear," said the Reverend Dion, when, the family 
 all in bed, he and his wife sat tete-a-tete in the study — Mr. Wright 
 imbibing that tumbler of punch, made out of the best Irish 
 whisky — whisky the friend who sent it knew had never paid the 
 Queen a halfpenny — which often wooed sleep to visit the rec- 
 torial pillow,, when otherwise she might have been requested 
 long enough and vainly enough to do so — " W^ell, my dear, and 
 what do you think of Miss Bella Miles ? " 
 
 " I do not know what to think," answered Mrs. Wright. 
 
 " Of course, of course," agreed the Rector. " It is indeed 
 early to form an opinion as to her heart and disposition." Here 
 Mr. Wright handed his wife a wineglassful of the subtle beverage 
 contained in his own tumbler. " What do you think of her 
 looks? " he ventured. 
 
 " Well, I don't think she is quite my style, Dion," answered 
 the lady, with an engaging rounding of one shoulder, and the 
 old trick of lifting her chin in the air, and casting her eyes over 
 it, or trying to do so, which had rendered Miss Curran so irre- 
 sistible at hunt and yacht balls in the days when she had lovers 
 
122 Above Suspicion, 
 
 galore, and proposers were as few as primroses at Christmas. 
 "Some people — some men" — this last statement with a shake 
 of the worn curls, and a smile that long and severe service had 
 not deprived of all its coquettish charm — " admire that sort of 
 face, I am aware ; but still, Dion dear, confess that, beside our 
 Maria, for instance, Miss Miles lacks that sweet, guileless look 
 which seems to me — but perhaps I am foolish — to be the ex- 
 clusive possession of a girl who has been carefully brought up 
 at home, under the eye of a loving mother " 
 
 " Ah, my dear ! there are few mothers like you," said Mr. 
 Wright, which was perhaps fortunate, if England were to support 
 her population. " And I knew you would feel attached to this 
 poor orphan girl. She has nice manners, I think." 
 
 " Unformed," remarked Mrs. Wright. 
 
 *' Well, she has not been accustomed to society," observed the 
 Rector. " You will form her, Selina." 
 
 " I will do my best for her in every way," said Mrs. Wright. 
 " But, do you know, she strikes me as being very reserved — and 
 — and — odd." 
 
 " Perhaps so," was the reply. " She is in a strange place, and 
 no doubt things do seem odd to her at first." 
 
 " That may be ; and yet I think no Irish girl would have 
 risen from table as she did to-night when I spoke about that 
 butter.'' 
 
 " I think I once knew an Irish girl who would have run on 
 any one's errand when I used to sit at her father's table," said 
 Mr. Wright, throwing a dash of sentiment into his voice as he 
 looked at his wife and mixed himself another tumbler. 
 
 " You foolish Dion ! Are you so fond of your old wife still 
 that you care to remember those times?" 
 
 " If I had not you and the children to be fond of, how could 
 I bear my life ? " he answered gallantly, forgetful of the fact that 
 without either he might at least have been free from debt ; and 
 for reply she laid her hand on his, and Mr. Wright knew an 
 impending storm had been averted, and that Miss Miles' advent 
 would pass over without boisterous weather ensuing. 
 
 " She will be of use to the girls in their music," remarked Mr. 
 Wright, after a pause. " They can play duets, and that sort of 
 thing together, eh ? " 
 
 "I am not quite sure," said the lady, doubtfully, "whether 
 her style of playing is quite correct in a private person. Pro- 
 
The First Evening, 123 
 
 fessionals, and those kind of people," added Mrs. Wright, with 
 a wave of her hand towards the window, signifying that " those 
 kind " dwelt somewhere outside Fisherton Rectory, " have to 
 deal in effects ; but I doubt whether I should care to have a 
 child of ours exhibiting herself as Miss Miles did this evening. 
 It is all very fine and Frenchified, no doubt ; but I am afraid it 
 is not feminine. And beyond all things, Dion, I should like 
 our girls to be feminine." 
 
 If Mr. Wright had expressed his secret feelings at that 
 moment, he would have said that he thought their girls were too 
 femmine already, in the way of fine-ladyism and uselessness ; 
 but it was a rule of husband and wife, and not a bad one, to 
 praise their offspring and each other, for which reason he mur- 
 mured, " Bless them all," including mentally in that blessing the 
 lonely girl, to whom his heart, or at least as much of it as debt 
 had left under his own control, had gone out in sympathy. 
 
 "Do you think her French will be any good?" he inquired 
 after a pause, the " her " referring, as Mrs. Wright understood, 
 to Miss Miles. 
 
 " I must first see what books she has brought with her," ex- 
 plained Mrs. Wright, as though a young lady leaving school 
 were likely to have a library of immoral novels hidden in her 
 trunks. The Rector's wife had been reading up Racine and 
 Moliere, *' La Henriade " and " Charles the Twelfth," as a good 
 preliminary to conversing with Miss Miles in the language of 
 Voltaire ; but, after five minutes of the young lady's society, she 
 decided to eschew every tongue save English. 
 
 More especially as she had her doubts about Miss Mile 
 English. Mrs. Wright was a very shrewd and observant woman, 
 and after she had lain down in bed and Mr. Wright was more 
 than half asleep, she woke him up by saying : 
 
 "I wonder, Dion, if that girl is quite right about her Fs?" 
 
 ''About her what?" askei r>ccr Mr. Wright, divided in his 
 mind between burglary and the breaking of the Seventh Com- 
 mandment. 
 
 "About the letter H," explained Mrs. Wright. "It seemed 
 to me she made a mess of it once or twice this evening, more 
 especially when she was singing. I am quite certain she said : 
 
 •Then came that voice when all forsaken 
 This 'eart long 'ad sleeping lain.' " 
 
124 Above Suspicion, 
 
 " Tush ! that is French," retorted Mr. Wright, fresh from 
 Paris. " I do wish you would let me go to sleep." 
 
 And thus exhorted, Mrs. Wright said no more — then. 
 
 Within three days, however, she was able to assure the 
 Reverend Dion her instincts had, as usual, been true. In this 
 wise knowledge came to her. Fine weather and sunshine once 
 again prevailed, and whilst Mrs. Wright sat on her garden-chair 
 reading the latest novel of that year, Miss Miles at a little dis- 
 tance squatted on the grass, her lingers employed on some 
 delicate embroidery, her thoughts probably far enough away. 
 
 After they had remained thus silent for about half an hour, 
 Master Curran, stealing softly across the lawn, came with a 
 bound behind Miss Miles, and, with a sudden " Bo-o ! " clasped 
 both hands round her neck. Then came the revelation. 
 
 " Don't you — don't you, Curran ! " cried the girl, in an access 
 of nervous irritation. " You know I can't a-bear to be frightened." 
 
 Mrs. Wright dropped her book and took up her eye-glass. 
 
 ^' My dear child," she asked, "where did you learn English?" 
 
 Miss Miles made no reply : but her head drooped over her 
 work, her fingers flew more rapidly in and out of the fine cambric, 
 and a glow spread from throat to forehead. 
 
 That night Mrs. Wright, not without a certain sense of triumph, 
 informed her husband she considered it would be only her duty 
 to cease conversing in French entirely, to the end that Miss 
 Miles might be taught "how EngHsh is spoken in a certain 
 rank of EngUsh society." 
 
 «i^>>« 
 
A Specimen Day at Fisher ton. 125 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 A SPECIMEN DAY AT FISHERTON. 
 
 Time passed on, and Miss Miles had settled down into her 
 place at Fisherton Rectory. She was already one of the family. 
 The boys called her Bella, and the girls " dear," and Mr. and 
 Mrs. Wright called her both. IMrs. Wright had borrowed all 
 her money, and the young ladies had tried on each separate 
 article of dress she possessed, and admired some of her few 
 ornaments so much that she requested their acceptance of those 
 which took their fancy. 
 
 Mr, Irwin had sent down a new piano for her benefit ; and 
 though a rule was made that the instrument should be locked 
 and the key kept either in the pocket of Mrs. Weight or Miss Miles, 
 still the key was so generally not in Miss Miles' custody and 
 out of that of Mrs. Wright, that the rule became nugatory, and 
 the children worked their sweet will upon this full-compass 
 Collard, as they had done upon the old six-and-a-half-octave 
 Broadwood. 
 
 Occasionally Mr. Wright w^ould remonstrate when he found 
 Curran playing a tune with one sticky finger which left black 
 marks on the note, or Rosie thumping the new keys with all the 
 might of her little fat fists ; but remonstrating in that house 
 produced much the same effect as addressing the wind, and 
 Miss Miles knew this, and wished Mr. Wright would not speak 
 about the matter. 
 
 On the new instrument Maria and her sisters practised, and 
 Miss Miles helped them with their music, and " put them in the 
 way" — so Mrs. Wright defined the matter — of learning fresh 
 pieces ; and some duets were procured, of which Maria played 
 the bass and Miss Miles the treble, and when Mr. Wright was 
 easy in his mind, which was not often, he beat time approvingly, 
 and said " the performance was char-ming." 
 
 As for French, Miss Miles would have talked it willingly 
 enough, had any one wished to hear her discourse in that 
 language, which she soon found no one did, 
 
126 Above Suspicion, 
 
 " Had it been Latin, now, or Greek," said Mr. Wright, with 
 a merry twinkle in his eye, which showed that the humour of 
 the position was not lost upon him, " I could have met you 
 upon equal ground ; but French is too modern a language, and 
 parley-vousing would be more of a toil than a jDleasure to me." 
 
 Nevertheless Mr. Wright picked up a {t\s French phrases from 
 their visitor, and produced themi upon occasion, not without 
 effect. As for Mrs. Wright, she directed herself to the improve- 
 ment of Miss Miles' English. 
 
 "You had better, my love," she said to that young lady, 
 " write me each day a letter recording the events of the previous 
 day, and then I will mark any errors I may find, and leave you 
 to correct them." 
 
 ^Vhich was very good policy on the part of Mrs. Wright, as 
 in many cases she would scarcely have known hoM to correct 
 them herself. 
 
 Each morning, directly after breakfast, or at lea ;t as soon 
 after breakfast as the Rector started on his round of parochial 
 visiting. Miss Miles took possession of his study andl wrote her 
 letter to Mrs. Wright. When, as happened not unfrequently, 
 Mr. Wright came back to indite some forgotten epistle, or to 
 search for some paper, or to look for some book, he always 
 said : 
 
 " Scribbling still, my dear ! why, what a wealth of incident 
 you must find at Fisherton," or made other remarks of a simi- 
 larly innocent description. 
 
 There were some events, however, which Miss Miles did not 
 chronicle. She did not state the number of buttons she sewed 
 on the Rector's shirts ; the state of order in which she kept his 
 gloves, the rents she repaired in his surplices, the strings she 
 stitched on his bands. It was not much she had it in her power 
 to do for the Rector; but what she did perform seemed very 
 pleasant to a man who had always before been compelled to 
 pause in his dressing, to shout for Selina or one of the servants 
 to come to his assistance. No shouting now was required. 
 Even to the loop on his umbrella, to the stitch needed where 
 the silk had given from the wire, Miss Miles saw to his little 
 wants. 
 
 And the Rector, who liked to go out looking trim and neat, 
 faultless as regarded his linen, and sound in gloves as in 
 orthodoxy, felt grateful to the girl who, paying them money for 
 
A Specimen Day at Fisherton, 1 27 
 
 her keep, still did work which no servant had ever thought it 
 worth her while to perform. 
 
 Naturally Mr. Irwin felt anxious to know how his niece liked 
 her new home, how she got on with her studies, how she amused 
 herself, what acquaintances she made, and so forth. And by 
 way of answering all his questions, which were neither few nor 
 far between, the young lady hit upon the device of sending him 
 each week her letters to Mrs. Wright, which letters answered all 
 the purposes of an objective diary. 
 
 Mrs. Wright had at a very early period of the exercises no- 
 ticed that nothing of a subjective character occurred even in 
 a single passage. Miss Miles might have been the reporter of 
 a daily paper, so much did she say about others, and so little 
 about herself For the gusliing sentimentalism of sweet seven- 
 teen Mrs. Wright looked in vain ; for any evidence of thought 
 she scanned the written pages without success. An observant 
 girl, able to remember the events of each day and chronicle 
 them faithfully, but able at the same time to keep her opinion 
 of those events well in the background. 
 
 *' She is deep," decided Mrs. Wright, " and I fancy has a vein 
 of sarcasm about her. Now, what does she mean by some 
 passages in this letter?" — which the lady knew was meant as 
 much for Mr. Irwin's information as for her own perusal. 
 
 *' Tuesday. 
 
 " My dear Mrs. Wright, 
 
 "I woke up early yesterday morning, and having got 
 out of bed to look at the first snow of the season, decided on 
 dressing and going downstairs. There, to my amazement, I 
 found Nurse Mary, who explained the extraordinary //^/?;/^;;/<5';/(?;^ 
 by stating ' she had not slept a wink all night with the tooth- 
 ache.' 
 
 "I asked her why she did not have the tooth out, and she 
 replied that * she did not want 10 lose her mark of mouth before 
 her time.' 
 
 " When I offered to make some creosote out of a Times 
 newspaper and cure her toothache, she received the suggestion 
 with incredulity, and asked if I thought myself cleverer than 
 Doctor Ryan, who said there was no cure for toothache except 
 having the tooth out, unless it might be ' filling the mouth with 
 cold water and sitting on the fire till it boiled.' 
 
128 Above Siispicioju 
 
 "We had a cup of tea together beside the kitchen fire, and 
 the consequence of our nuitaal early rising proved to be that 
 Mr. Wright was not called till half an hour later than usual. 
 
 "Wrote my letter to you before breakfast. After breakfast 
 we were all very busy perfecting Colonel Leschelles' room. We 
 made it quite smart with chintz and muslin, almost too beautiful, 
 Nurse thinks, for sleeping purposes. 
 
 " Contradictory accounts are given of this Colonel Leschelles. 
 Maria, she says he is at least a hundred, that he dyes his hair 
 and wears stays, that he cannot endure the sight of a young 
 person, and that the boys always light a bonfire when he leaves 
 the house. Rosie, on the contrary, declares he is a ' sweet 
 sweet man ; ' and Clara informed me as a strict secret that she 
 is engaged to marry him when she is sixteen, that he has 
 promised not to grow a day older until she has attained that 
 age, and that it is agreed she is to have as much Everton toftee 
 and as many peaches as she can eat. Curran declines to express 
 any opinion till he knows what sort of a present the Colonel 
 means to make him this Christmas. Llr. AV'right speaks warmly 
 of the coming visitor as *a fine old English gentleman,' but 
 Julia declares he OT'c;ht to be sent to Madame Tussaud's in the 
 character of an anc.^nt beau. He is expected to arrive laden 
 with gifts on Christmas Eve. 
 
 " After we had done up his room (the looking-glass is dressed 
 with new book muslin tied back with blue ribbon to match the 
 blue convolvulus on the chintz) it was time for dinner. 
 
 " Mr. Wright being in London, Curran offered to say grace 
 in his stead, and though j\Irs. Wright declined to allow this, he 
 insisted at a later period upon telling us what he meant to have 
 said. He had heard Roderick repeating it to Frank. 
 
 * One word 's as good as ten, 
 Go ahead — Amen.' 
 
 ** For this misdemeanour he was deprived of his pudding, 
 when he at once made matters worse by saying he was very 
 glad not to have to eat it. If we knew what Cook had put in 
 it, we would not eat it either. 
 
 " When dinner was finished we went to the vestr)' to finish 
 our wreaths, etc., for decorating the church. Many ladies where 
 there, young and old. Miss Faint has arrived at the conclusion, 
 that holly pricks her fingers, and Miss Bolton is of opinion Mr, 
 
specimen Day at Fisherton, 129 
 
 Wright ought to have a curate ; she says a parish is dull without 
 one, and that coming and going they make a pleasant change. 
 
 " We returned home tired and thirsty to tea, and found Mr. 
 Wright at home with Curran beside him eating bread and jam. 
 The child had waited for his papa at the gate, and stolen a 
 march by telling him about his delinquencies, which Mr. Wright, 
 upon promise of better behaviour, forgave ; Curran then de- 
 manded bread and jam. 
 
 *' Nurse waylaid me on the stairs to say if I really thought 
 that ' concrete ' would do her any good, she ' did not mind ' 
 letting me try it. 
 
 " Five minutes afterwards Mr. Wright rang the bell to know 
 if the house was on fire. 
 
 " Two minutes later and Nurse was screaming out that I had 
 poisoned and destroyed her, and entreating in a breath that her 
 master would save her soul and preserve her life. 
 
 "As Roderick remarked — it was Satan casting out Beelzebub. 
 This morning she declares the pain has moved out of her tooth 
 on to her tongue. 
 
 " I think I have now exhausted all the news you would think 
 it desirable for me to chronicle, and trusting your headache is 
 much better, " Believe me, dear Mrs. Wright, 
 
 " Yours afiectionately, 
 
 " B. Miles." 
 
 Pencil in hand, Mrs. Wright sat pondering this letter rather 
 than correcting it. 
 
 In addition to the news reported by hers affectionately B. 
 Miles, there had been two annoying affairs with the servants 
 and three persistent and most offensive duns. Mr. Wright had 
 returned from London out of sorts, and Mrs. Wright had, as 
 implied, gone to bed with a headache. All these things, except 
 only the headache. Miss Miles had omitted, but quite enough 
 remained in her letter to decide Mrs. Wright on selecting some 
 other form of education than that of correspondence. 
 
 " It was my own fault," the Rector's wife argued. " I ought 
 never to have suggested the reproduction of domestic and 
 family gossip. Had I done my duty properly, I should have 
 insisted on her writing an essay every day, and so educated her 
 powers of thought instead of her powers of observation, which 
 are far too keen already." 
 
 9 
 
130 Above Suspicion. 
 
 " My dear," she said, bringing forward once again the graces 
 of her youth that had, according to Mr. Wright, turned the heads 
 of all the marriageable and eligible men of Dublin in the days 
 when she too was in her teens, "I think you have now so much 
 improved your colloquial English that these letters may be dis- 
 continued. You had better take a fortnight's holiday, and then 
 after the new year has fairly set in, we can consider the subjects 
 upon which it will be most to your mental advantage to write." 
 
 In reply, Miss Miles simply bowed, and, taking her manu- 
 script, corrected those [)assages which Mrs. Wright had pencilled 
 as being capable of improvement. 
 
 " You have amended your errors very quickly and well," said 
 Mrs. Wright, glancing over the sheet and handing it back 
 again. 
 
 Miss Miles, with a pleasant "Thank you," received the letter, 
 and at once tore it into slips, and placed the morsels under the 
 grate. 
 
 " My dear," cried Mrs, Wright, " what are you doing ? " 
 
 "Only burning some useless paper," answered Miss Miles 
 quietly. 
 
 Mrs. Wright paused for a minute, then she remarked, "I hope, 
 Bella — I do hope — you have not a bad temper." 
 
 " I hope not," was the reply. " I do not think I have. I 
 only burnt this letter because I fancied — forgive me if I am 
 wrong — you did not want my uncle to read it." 
 
 " My child, you are very foolish," said Mrs. Wright in her 
 most matronly manner. " I trust nothing ever occurs at Fish- 
 erton Rectory which I should care for the whole world know- 
 ing." 
 
 "And if there were," retorted Miss Miles, her cheeks aflame 
 and her head erect, " I trust you know such things would never 
 be repeated by me. I have never mentioned even the merest 
 trifle to my uncle I thought you and Mr. Wright might like me 
 to keep secret. If I know little else, I know, at least, when to 
 remain silent." And then and there she burst into a passion 
 of tears. 
 
 " Bella — Belln, what is the matter?" exclaimed Mrs. Wright. 
 "What have 1 i>aid or done to cause you such grief?" 
 
 " Nothing— nothing," replied the girl for answer. "Only 
 sometimes I cannot forget. I cannot." 
 
 " Forget what ? " asked Mrs. Wright. 
 
Introduces Colonel LescJielles. 131 
 
 " Do not ask me. Nothing I can tell you or any one," was 
 the answer. And Miss Miles left the room, leaving Mrs. Wright 
 in a state of bewilderment impossible to describe. 
 
 "I have it," at length decided that astute lady. "Her mother 
 or her father was mad, and she knows it. She has all the 
 cleverness and secrecy of insanity, and the malady will break 
 out some day in her. I must speak to Dion about this." 
 
 But when she did speak to Dion, he only said, " Pshaw ! 
 Selina, the girl has all her wits, believe me. There is a mys- 
 tery, doubtless, but we were not sent into the world to solve it. 
 Let us make what we can out of Mr. Irwin, and thank Heaven 
 for the windfall, without troubling ourselves too much concern- 
 ing the ins and outs of affairs that are no business of ours." 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 INTRODUCES COLONEL LESCHELLES. 
 
 Colonel Leschelles, for whose benefit the spare bed-room 01 
 Fisherton Rectory — Miss Miles' bed-room, in short — had been 
 duly prepared, as narrated by that young lady, was an old friend 
 of the Wrights — so old a friend, indeed, that the Rector declared 
 the date of his first acquaintance with the Colonel was en- 
 shrouded in the mists of memory. 
 
 This is a good way some people have of forgetting the number 
 
 9 — 2 
 
132 Above Suspicion. 
 
 of years which could be counted since they first made the ac- 
 quaintance of this distinguished statesman or that admirable 
 millionaire. They could tell to a day, I will warrant, when 
 they first met poor Tom Styles, or Jack Oakes forced his com- 
 pany upon them ; but it is really so long since they first knew 
 Rothschild, and Baring, and the rest of the plutocracy, that the 
 exact date has been rubbed, by the mere action of time, off 
 Recollection's tablets. 
 
 It would not have required, however, any extraordinary 
 amount of thought to enable Mr. Wright to state precisely the 
 Christmas Eve on which he made Colonel Leschelles' acquaint- 
 ance. 
 
 Had he chosen to do so, he could have told any inquirer the 
 date, year, and hour when he set eyes for the first time on that 
 gallant officer. He was at that period curate in a parish situated 
 well away to the east of London, in the middle of the marshes, 
 with no resident vicar, one resident Squire, a scattered popula- 
 tion of about a couple of hundred souls, an old church, a full 
 graveyard — ague to the south, fever to the north, bronchitis to 
 the east, and rheumatism and consumption pervading the west 
 almost exclusively, and spreading to the other three quarters 
 when inclination or business called one or both diseases thither. 
 
 " For eleven weary months," to quote Mr. Wright's own words, 
 " I vegetated in that slough of despond, most part of the time 
 wifeless and childless. Except in the summer, I preached to 
 about half a dozen of a congregation ; there was not an educated 
 man in the parish but one, and he was an atheist. As for the 
 Squire, he had not an idea beyond horses, dogs, fat cattle, and 
 good investments. He had plenty of money ; but he spent as 
 little as he could. He never entertained. During the whole 
 time I had charge he never asked me to his house, or oftered 
 me a glass of wine when I called. The stipend, however, was 
 good, as well it might be, and the duty light — if it had been 
 heavy, I could not have performed it. I kept my health won- 
 derfully, and Selina and the children kept theirs, at a distance. 
 I lived at the vicarage, and the woman who was left in care of 
 the furniture attended to my wants. Besides this woman, who 
 was deaf, I never exchanged a word with any human being after 
 my rounds were finished for the day, and the curtains were drawn 
 and the shutters closed. Sometimes, when the flat marsh lands 
 were covered deep in snow, or lay under water, and the wind 
 
Introduces Colonel LescJidlcs. 133 
 
 came howling up from the German Ocean across those dreary 
 wilds, I have sat by the fire in the old vicar's study, and imagined 
 how a man might hang himself, or take to drink, or go mad, 
 living alone in such a spot." 
 
 Even to such a spot, however, Christmas Eve came — such a 
 Christmas Eve ! The wind, after having blown for about three 
 months from the east, as is the habit of the wind in these forlorn 
 regions, suddenly changed to the south, and brought with it, on 
 the Twenty-fourth of December, in that especial year of grace, 
 such a fall of snow as was unparalleled in the memory of the 
 oldest inhabitant, a certain Job Groom, who had, as man and 
 boy, worked upon the farm and lands owned by Squire Olier 
 and Squire Olier's forefathers for sixty-five years. 
 
 " There had been a very heavy fall of snow," so said Job, 
 " the night Master Samuel was born ; " and now there came a 
 heavier fall, and Master Samuel, the Squire, was — quite in his 
 prime, as it seemed to Job — dying ; and, unless the weather 
 changed greatly. Job did not see how he was ever to be buried. 
 Job could remember that at the time of the heavy snow, when 
 Master Samuel was born, graves could not be dug at all ; and 
 Job, sorry for his master's impending death, was still more sorry 
 he should have selected such weather for flitting from this world 
 to the next. 
 
 So Squire Olier lay dying. His house stood low, even for 
 that low-lying district ; and he had drunk heavily for many years 
 past, in order to banish ague, and perhaps also because he liked 
 strong liquors. The doctor, who came from the nearest town 
 to attend him, said that he had drunk too much, and that brandy 
 and hollands had between them signed his death-warrant. 
 
 Upon the other hand, the doctor said if he had not drunk so 
 much he would probably not have lived so long. He made 
 this remark to Mr. Wright while he and that gentleman were 
 having something hot in the dining-room upon the especial 
 Christmas Eve of which I am speaking, when Squire Olier was 
 speeding to eternity with greater haste than he had ever ridden 
 on his good norse Rochester back from hounds or market, with 
 the sharp east mnd cutting his head off, or the driving sleet 
 beating in his eyes and blinding him. 
 
 " I shall not go just yet," said the doctor; " though I can be 
 of no more use, I am afraid, still I may just as well wait for half 
 an hour. Who succeeds, do vou ku'^w?" 
 
1 34 ^ ^ove SiLspicion, 
 
 " It depends on his will," answered the Curate. " The place 
 is his own, to bequeath to you or me, if he were so inclined, 
 The heir he fixed on, however, offended him, and he has sent. 
 I know, for I wrote the letter at his request, to some man — an 
 officer not long returned from India — that I fancy he had half a 
 notion of willing most of his property to. But the Colonel 
 tarries ; and if he had not tarried, I suppose our poor friend has 
 been in no fit state to execute a will for days past." 
 
 They sat silent for a time over the fire in that dark wainscoted 
 room. Without, the snow continued to fall softly ; upstairs the 
 Squire lay insensible. In the kitchen, servants, house and farm, 
 huddled together round the hearth, reading warnings in the 
 blaze of the wood fire, and seeing winding-sheets in the guttering 
 candles. At every sound they started ; and when occasionally 
 one of the two women attending on the dying Squire crept 
 downstairs, they looked at her as if she had come from another 
 world. 
 
 There was no mistress at the farm, there had never been in 
 Squire Samuel's time, and the servants spoke in hushed tones of 
 some cruel disappointment in early life, which had kept the once 
 young master single, and changed the whole course and meaning 
 of his life. 
 
 In the parlour, the doctor and clergyman touched on the same 
 subject ; and Mr. Wright said he understood the lady— dead and 
 dust long before — had been a sister of this very Colonel Les- 
 chelles, and a cousin of Mr. Olier's. 
 
 " Though he has lived the life of a boor, he comes of a good 
 family, I believe," added the Curate; and he was about to enlarge 
 upon the theme when the doctor said " Hush ! " and rising, 
 walked towards the door, which was opened at that moment by 
 one of the watchers. 
 
 "Will you come upstairs, please, sir?" she asked. "He is 
 very bad." 
 
 Thereupon doctor and clergyman proceeded to the sick- 
 chamber, where they found Squire Olier so bad that he never 
 could be worse. 
 
 The doctor did what lay in his powjer to soothe him ; but his 
 power was literally nil. 
 
 " It is almost the last struggle," he whispered to Mr. Wright. 
 " All will soon be over."' 
 
 And St '.11 the snow fell softly, and the graves in the distant 
 
Introduces Colonel Leschelles. 135 
 
 churchyard were covered, like the dead, from sight; and Mr. 
 Wright, with a great sense of pity for the human IdneUness ot 
 the dymg man, knelt by the bedside and prayed, till the doctor, 
 touching his shoulder, said : 
 
 *' Pie has gone, poor fellow ! He is past any help of ours." 
 
 At the same instant there was a peal at the front-door bell, 
 immediately followed by a rush of cold air into the house and a 
 sound of talking in the hall. Then, as Mr. Wright descended 
 the staircase, a servant met him and announced that Colonel 
 Leschelles had come. 
 
 Mr. Wright, re-entering the parlour, found standing before 
 the fire a tall, thin man — military, unquestionably — elderly, 
 presumably — a man who came to the point at once by asking : 
 
 " Am I in time ? " 
 
 " He is dead ! " answered the Curate ; and for a minute not 
 a word was uttered. Then the Colonel spoke : 
 
 " I received a letter written by a Mr. ^^Tight " 
 
 " I am Mr. Wright," explained the Curate. 
 
 " But only late last night, as it has been following me from 
 place to place," continued the Colonel, acknowledging the in- 
 formation with a bov/. " I have been traveUing ever since. 
 I should like to have seen him alive once more. Poor Samuel ! 
 we were good friends many a long year ago." 
 
 And there ensued another pause, broken this time by Mr. 
 Wright, who told the officer his cousin had been virtually dead 
 for some days previously, and that no speed he could have made, 
 even had the letter reached him in regular course, would have 
 enabled him to arrive in time. 
 
 " I am glad to know that," replied the other ; " for I should 
 have liked to comply with his last request, if possible." 
 
 At this juncture the doctor came in to tell Mr. AVright he was 
 going, and to say he would inform Mr. Olier's solicitor of his 
 client's death. Then the doctor inquired if it was Colonel Les- 
 chelles' intention to remain in the house. 
 
 "I suppose I must," said the Colonel ruefully. "If I were 
 ever so much tempted to desert my post, I do not think, con- 
 sidering the road we have travelled, I should feel inclined to 
 retrace it. I hired a conveyance to bring me here, and I sup- 
 pose the driver can put up for the night. It is not weather in 
 which to turn a dog out, or " 
 
 *' Anybody except a doctor," finished the other. "Doctors 
 
136 Above Suspicion. 
 
 are supposed to be weatherproof; but if I mean to get home tX 
 all, I must be off now." 
 
 " Better stay at the vicarage," suggested Mr. Wright. 
 
 " Only wish I could," was the reply : " if I did my wife would 
 be fancying all manner of evil ; and, besides, some patient will 
 be sure to want me. Patients always do fall ill on Church holi- 
 days and snowy nights. But take the Colonel home with you, 
 Mr. Wright. He will be far better and more comfortable away 
 from here. Take him with you." 
 
 " Ay, that I will, if he is only willing to come," said Mr. 
 Wright, laying a persuasive hand on the officer's sleeve as the 
 doctor left the room. " Listen to me. Colonel : you will be 
 miserable here, I know. The servants are upset ; and if they 
 were not, they would not be of much use to you. You can be 
 of no service to our poor friend upstairs. Come with me to the 
 vicarage, where I am, in the absence of my wife and children, 
 leading a bachelor life. You can be as much alone as you like. 
 The house is warm, if it is nothing else. I can give yoii a snug 
 bit of supper to-night, and cut you a slice out of as fine a turkey 
 as ever came to table to-morrow. Say you will come. Upon 
 my honour I shall be as glad of your company as I should of 
 that of my own brother." 
 
 Which, if the Colonel had known everything, would not have 
 ■seemed a strong way of putting the matter. Nevertheless Mr. 
 ^Vright was quite in earnest over his invitation. He would have 
 killed a fatted calf for his guest's benefit, had such an animal 
 been running loose about the vicarage straw-yard, rather than 
 let his captive go. 
 
 Colonel Leschelles looked round the dark parlour ; he sur- 
 veyed the gloomy wainscot of the room, the heavy, old-fashioned 
 haircloth-covered chairs, the worn sofa, the unsnuffed candles, 
 the hearth strewn with wood-ashes, and thought of what an even- 
 ing, companionless, in that house was likely to prove, with no 
 living soul he could ask to relieve his loneliness downstairs, 
 with the memory of the dead lying stiff and silent upstairs ; 
 and he decided in favour of the vicarage. 
 
 " You are very kind," he said, speaking to Mr. Wright ; " and 
 I will avail myself of your proffered hospitality ; but first I should 
 like to see it." 
 
 " You would like to be alone, probably," suggested Mr. Wright, 
 as he led the way upstairs. 
 
Introduces Colonel Leschelles. 137 
 
 " Yes, if you please," was the answer. And so the two men 
 who had parted in youth met again in age. 
 
 With the memories which thronged through Colonel Les- 
 chelles' mind, as he stood looking at the face no iorxn^ti distorted 
 with pain, over which the peace of death was rapidl;/ stealing, 
 we have no concern. There was no remorse, at any rate, in the 
 officer's heart. The quarrel, in whatever cause it may have 
 originated, was not of his seeking, and at any time he would 
 have-made it up. Further, he had obeyed his cousin's request 
 the moment he received his message, and he had been ready, 
 ' knowing nothing of the dead man's pecuniary intentions towards 
 himself, to hold out the right hand of fellowship, and tell his 
 kinsman that in his heart there rankled no bitterness, no feeling 
 save good-will and charity. 
 
 All too late, however, thought the Colonel, as he stood re- 
 garding the changed face of the cousin who had loved his sister ; 
 and it was consequently a grave man and a depressed who, half 
 an hour later, apologized to Mr. Wright for having detained him 
 for so long a time, and signified his readiness to accompany the 
 Curate home. 
 
 That night Mr. Wright, depressed and out of sorts himself, 
 let his visitor alone. He gave him good cheer, it is true ; but 
 he did not enter into much conversation. What talk they had 
 was about the late Squire and his relatives, and the life he had 
 led, and the life he might have led ; and as neither found any 
 one of those topics entertaining, they bade each other good 
 night, and went to bed early. 
 
 Next morning both arose in better spirits, and looked out 
 over a white world glittering and sparkling under the beams of 
 a winter sun. 
 
 " The finest Christmas Day I can ever remember," said Mr. 
 Wright, rubbing his hands, and looking at the ruddy glow of the 
 fire, and hstening contentedly to the bubbling of the urn. " The 
 labourers from the farm were at work by daybreak, and have cut 
 a road to the church, so we may get something of a congregation, 
 after all. Will you come with me, or keep at home beside the 
 fire?" 
 
 The Colonel elected to go with Mr. Wright, who picked out 
 a very good sermon from a pile already yellow with age, and 
 dehvered it admirably. He touched very feelingly upon the 
 death that had taken place so recently; and though he said 
 
T38 Above Suspicion. 
 
 little concerning the late Squire, still he said as much as it was 
 possible for any one to say in his praise. 
 
 After service was over, Mr. Wright and his visitor returned to 
 the vicarage, where, in due time, that turkey spoken of in com- 
 mendatory terras was placed smoking on the board. 
 
 "You see your dinner?" remarked ]Mr. Wright; and the 
 Colonel was fain to remark he saw a very good dinner indeed, 
 which was rendered none the worse by the addition of some 
 capital punch, in the brewing of which Mr. Wright was a pro- 
 ficient. The punch-bowl was not produced till the old cook 
 had removed the remains of the turkey, and disappeared with 
 the almost untasted pudding. Then Mr. Wright produced " his 
 materials," and compounded a beverage which the Colonel 
 declared to be " perfect," and which he sipped, looking at the 
 upheaped fire and listening to Mr. W^right's talk. 
 
 In those days the Curate could talk. Debt had not then been 
 sitting upon him for so long a time as was the case at Fisherton. 
 Children had come and gone ; but his mental elasticity was 
 ahnost as great as ever. Duns had been pressing, and Selina's 
 health was often delicate ; but the buoyancy of his youth still 
 remained, and the evil days which came upon him at last, of 
 regarding all men as mere possible chances from which to borrow 
 money, had not yet arrived. 
 
 So Mr. Wright, who w^as perhaps always a little more loqua- 
 cious to any chance guest, or at any hospitable table, when Selina 
 and the dear children were absent, and he living en garcon^ un- 
 folded his experience budget for Colonel Leschelles' benefit. 
 
 He wanted to rouse the officer from his depression, and he 
 did it. He wished to see him laugh, or, if that were impossible, 
 smile; and he made him both laugh and smile. 
 
 He told him of Dublin life, and of his own life at Trinity — 
 then so merry and witty a college — recited profane anecdotes 
 concerning bishops and archbishops; told how the Church in 
 Ireland had been neglected, and expressed his own conviction 
 that it was hard to feel energetic in a country where nineteen- 
 twentieths of the population were either Presbyterians or Roman 
 Catholics ; had his fling at the absentee clergy, who he said 
 were even worse than the absentee landlords ; citing, as an 
 example, the case of a rector who, starting in the morning with 
 the bishop of the diocese on a visit to his parish, drove about 
 till evening without findmg it, gravely assuring his lordship, when 
 
Introduces Colonel Leschelles. 139 
 
 compelled to give up the search, he had been "once there, and 
 was quite astonished he could not remember the way to it again." 
 
 "And yet there was a considerable amount of Cliristian feel- 
 ing at that time among the various denominations,'^ continued 
 Mr. Wright, " which I doubt does not prevail now. 
 
 "No dinner-party then was complete without the priest, and 
 good stories they gave, never fear, in return for their entertain- 
 ment. No men were such story-tellers as they. Why, every 
 gendeman's house was open to the priests, who were right jolly 
 fellows, until after Catholic Emancipation ; well educated and 
 gentlemanly too, many of them, which is more than could be 
 said nowadays. If the dissenting ministers were not asked to 
 mix freely with the landed gentry, it was only because in country 
 districts many of them had come from the plough, and because 
 the better educated and those born in town were just like 
 Samson's foxes, running amuck against Churchmen and Roman- 
 ists alike. 
 
 " Still, even between the Presbyterians and the Church people 
 — the Regium Donum and the Tithes, as we used to dub them 
 — a kindly feeling sometimes prevailed. I remember once, when 
 I was a boy, staying with some relatives of mine in the north. 
 They were Presbyterians, stiff-necked as the perverse generation, 
 and bigoted as Mussulmans, so, of course, I had to go to ' meet- 
 ing ' with them, and stand oiit those interminable prayers, and 
 sit while psalms fifty verses long were sung in unison through 
 their noses, and listen to sermons which they said were full of 
 pith, but which seemed to me full only of repetitions. 
 
 " We used to muster a goodly company, for there was only 
 one Roman Catholic family in the parish, and not more than 
 fifty Church people. All the women went to meeting with their 
 Bibles wrapped round in unfolded pocket-handkerchiefs, and all 
 the men wore black clothes about three sizes too large for them. 
 
 " The men and the women walked in separate detachments. 
 Four or so of one sex walked together, taking up the entire side- 
 walk, and sometimes the whole road, and then came four or less 
 of the other sex walking by themselves. 
 
 " They were very strict in all the relations of life, and part 
 of their religion was to keep the footpath against all comers. 
 
 "The clergyman of the parish was of course non-resident. 
 He lived many miles distant, near a pleasant town, where he 
 had a nice house, good society, and a fine library. 
 
140 Above Suspicion. 
 
 " It is said that a matter-of-fact bishop once wrote to him to 
 know whether he considered his books or the souls of his flock 
 of the most importance, to which he slyly replied : 
 
 " ' I apprehend, my lord, there can be no doubt about the 
 matter. My books, of course.' 
 
 " He and his clerk rode over the hills to perform one service 
 on Sundays, that is, unless the day happened to be very wet 
 indeed, in which case, after waiting for half an hour, the con- 
 gregation quietly dispersed, some going to 'meeting,' others 
 home, and those who had friends pretty well to do near at hand 
 accepting invitations to ' take an air of the fire ' and a drop of 
 something to keep the cold out. 
 
 " By all ranks the Rector was greatly liked. When he did 
 come among his people, he was pleasant to them, and to the 
 dissenters and the one Roman Catholic family. Pie had a royal 
 memory, and never made mistakes about names. He was ready 
 with a joke for the mothers, with a kind word with the men, with 
 a sly compliment for the girls, and pats on the head, and some- 
 times halfpence, for the curly-pated, barefooted, straight-limbed 
 children disporting themselves in the village horse-pond and the 
 familiar gutters. True, the minister often had a rap at the 
 clergyman of the Established Church for taking money and 
 doing no work, but his people did not attach much importance 
 to these remarks. Paying for their sittings, being asked to 
 contribute to collections, being called upon for money when 
 their children had to be baptized or themselves married, seemed 
 much harder to them than the payment of tithes, which usually 
 came out of their landlords' pockets. 
 
 *' At all times the Rector was willing to christen for nothing, 
 marry for nothing, ay, and often as not to give the newly-wedded 
 a trifle with which to begin housekeeing ; and so, as I have said, 
 he was popular, more especially as it was well known he ' could 
 take his glass just like one of themselves.' 
 
 " To a parish some few miles distant had come a clergyman 
 of quite another stamp. An Englishman with an English wife, 
 both of whom were cordially hated : he, for wanting to make 
 converts ; she, for wishing the people to keep themselves and 
 their houses clean. He gave blankets and tracts to the Roman 
 Catholics, and their priest told them to burn the tracts and keep 
 the blankets, adding, ' God knows, poor souls ! this weather 
 you have need of them.' 
 
Introduces Colonel Lesckelles, 141 
 
 " He gave straw bonnets and cotton frocks to the Presbyterian 
 children, and was astonished to find they donned those ariicles 
 of attire only in order to attend the Sunday-schools attached to 
 their own meeting-house. 
 
 "He preached alternate Sundays against the Roman Catholics 
 and the dissenters, and was not sparing upon those of his own 
 cloth who folded their hands in idleness, and said * peace when 
 there was no peace.' 
 
 "This was the man who stood waiting for the Rector of our 
 parish one stormy winter's morning, and who, as the old clerical 
 cob came in sight, advanced to meet his friend. 
 
 "'How do, Agnew?' he began. 'My steeple was blown 
 down last night, and as we could not possibly have any service, 
 I thought I would come over and preach for you.' 
 
 "*I am sure I am greatly obliged to you,' answered our Rector. 
 In telling the story afterwards, which he did at many a dinner- 
 table, he said he would as soon have seen the gentleman with 
 a cloven hoof as the man who greeted him. Nay, I am wrong, 
 he said he would rather have seen // Diavolo ; but, however, 
 he felt he must put a good face on the matter, and so he got 
 otf his cob, and the clerk dismounted from his pony, and they 
 all went into the vestry together, where the Englishman pro- 
 ceeded to robe himself decorously, while our Rector flung on his 
 surplice, as was his fashion, anyhow. 
 
 " ' You don't get much of a congregation here, I suppose ? ' 
 remarked the stranger. 
 
 " * Oh ! pretty well ; all things considered, I cannot com- 
 plain.' 
 
 " ' There don't seem many here yet,' said the Englishman, 
 peeping through the chinks of the vestry door. 
 • *' ' We always give them a few minutes' grace,' observed the 
 Rector; 'and I dare say they will be late such a boisterous 
 morning as this.' 
 
 " Having made which excuse, he passed out into the church- 
 yard, and accosted a member of the constabulary force who 
 chanced at that moment to be passing the vestry window. 
 
 " ' Mr. Jeckey,' says he, ' I am in an awful fix. Here 's the 
 Rev. Mr. Maude come to spy out the nakedness of the land. 
 If Mr. Gathers won't help me, I am disgraced for ever. Just 
 run round to the meeting-house and tell Mr. Gathers if fieUl 
 lend jfie his congregation I '11 be eternally obliged to him.' 
 
142 Above Suspicion. 
 
 •' Like an arrow from the bow sped Mr. Jeckey on his errand. 
 The Presbyterian service had been begun before he reached the 
 meeting-house; indeed, it had proceeded so far that Mr. Gathers 
 had finished his extempore prayer and given out the psalm, 
 which we were all sinking: as well as we knew how. 
 
 "But never recked Mr. Jeckey of that. Down the aisle he 
 tramped unheeding, not a man stirring to stop his progress. 
 Up the pulpit steps he strode, and whispered the position in 
 Mr. Gathers' ear. 
 
 " We were all dying of curiosity, but still we sang on — sang 
 our fiercest, till Mr. Gathers, having taken the sense of Mr. 
 Jeckey's communication into his brain, raised one hand, in order 
 to silence our voices and obtain attention for himself. 
 
 " ' My friends/ he said, ' our worthy Rector is in a serious 
 strait. You all know, or have heard, of the English clergyman 
 who is disturbing the peace of Ballinascraw. Without message 
 or notice of any kind he has come this morning to take the 
 church duty here, and, as a personal favour, our Rector asks 
 you all to go and listen to his sermon. If you will do so, I shall 
 feel obliged. In any case, there will be no service here, as I 
 mean to go and sit under him for this once myself 
 
 "So," proceeded Mr. Wright, "we all rose in a body and 
 repaired to church, the minister heading us; and Mr. Maude 
 looked upon such a congregation as had never gladdened his 
 eyes in his own parish. The pews were packed, the aisles were 
 full, the clerk could not beg, borrow, or steal prayer-books sufii- 
 cietit for one in six ; but the dissenters did their best. They 
 watched what the others did, and knelt at the right places, and 
 got up not often at the wrong. If they sat during the singing 
 when they should have stood, that was nothing unusual even 
 among Ghurch people; and I am bound to say they listened to 
 Mr. Maude consignmg the Roman Gatholics to the lowest depths 
 and describing the iniquities of the Scarlet Lady with an appre- 
 ciative ear. 
 
 " V/hen IVIr. IMaude took ofi" his gown, he did it with the air of 
 a man who feels he looks like a dog with his tail between his legs. 
 
 ' I had no idea you had such a congregation,' he said to our 
 Rector. 
 
 " ' It was larger than usual to-day,' said the Rector modestly, 
 * I suppose the news of your coming had got wind.' 
 
 "And something else got wind too," finished Mr. Wright. 
 
Colonel L esclfieltes is Aston ishcd. 143 
 
 " It was too good a story to be kept quiet, telling as it did as 
 much against the Englishman as our Rector. 
 
 " Besides, our Rector felt it ought not to be lost. He gave 
 a supper on the strength of it to all the parish, and was better 
 liked than ever afterwards. 
 
 " Moreover, he told the story at various dinner-parties, and 
 the laugh was so loud and so long against Maude that he ex- 
 changed his living with a man who has since gone over bodily 
 to Rome, and been succeeded by a vicar of moderate views, 
 who is the happy father of nine daughters. 
 
 "No straw bonnets or cotton frocks are given away in the 
 parish now, I believe, and the pigs live in the cottagers' houses, 
 and the children in the gutters outside the houses without let 
 or hindrance from the wife of any one, lay or clerical." 
 
 CHAPTER XVn. 
 
 COLONEL LESCHELLES IS ASTONISHED. 
 
 With stories, quotations, and oftentimes more serious conver- 
 sation on subjects of which even worldly men must occasion- 
 ally take thought, Mr. Wright beguiled his visitor until the 
 morning came round when all that remained of the Squire was 
 to be laid in the ground. 
 
 To the brilliant sunshine which had m.ade such brightness 
 on Christmas Day, even in the Essex marshes, there succeeded 
 
144 Above Suspicion. 
 
 a dull leaden sky, giving promise of more snow, and more after 
 that. 
 
 In due time the promise was fulfilled. The heavens were 
 opened, and snow fell for two days and nights without cessation. 
 
 "God bless me!" said the Curate, looking out at the un- 
 trodden road and the churchyard, where the graves were buried 
 under a mysterious pall of white, soft flakes, " I don't know — 
 I don't, indeed, know how we are going to bury that poor fellow 
 at all." 
 
 And, indeed, had his relations not been hungering and thirst- 
 ing to know the contents of his will, in all probability the body 
 of Squire Olier might have lain quietly enough in his own room 
 at the Grange till the weather moderated ; but as matters stood 
 each man and each woman interested in the testamentary dis- 
 position of his property felt it was unseemly for him to keep 
 the rightful owner out of possession beyond eight days. Accord- 
 ingly, at the end of that time, the late Squire's remains were 
 carried to the churchyard, where, by dint of bribes, and by 
 liberal allowances of strong liquors, a grave had been prepared; 
 and, while the mourners stood ankle-deep in snow, which had 
 already drifted again over the ground cleared for them to occupy 
 — while the sleet soaked through Mr. Wright's surplice, and 
 wetted the leaves of the open prayer-book — while the wind 
 moaned over the mournful expanse of lands stretching away to 
 the river and the German Ocean, and the hair of those gathered 
 round the place where their dear brother departed was to be 
 wrapped up till eternity, was dripping as if they had one and all 
 just emerged from a bath, the Curate read the funeral service 
 over all that was left of Squire Olier. 
 
 A few minutes, and the words, few and solemn, had been 
 spoken, dust was gone down again into the dust, ashes were re- 
 turned to ashes. Ere long, one dark mound could be distin- 
 guished in the churchyard, looking like a rent in a white mantle 
 over a black dress ; but soon the falling snow covered that away 
 from sight also. From a window in the vicarage Mr. Wright 
 noticed the flakes falling thick and soft on the Squire's grave. 
 
 " Poor fellow ! " he thought, " his was a lonely life, and he is 
 even more lonely in death than men are usually. By this time 
 those harpies know how the property is left." 
 
 Which was correct. By that time the harpies, who had 
 stopped for a few minutes at the vicarage, on their return from 
 
Colonel Leschelles is Astonished. 145 
 
 the funeral, to swallow some brandy, were in the wainscoted 
 parlour, where Mr. Wright had received Colonel Leschelles, lis- 
 tening to the last codicil in the late Squire's will. In it was left, 
 in token of kindness and good-will, a hundred guineas to Louis 
 Leschelles, his cousin. As for the bulk of the estate, it was 
 willed to a certain Charles Olier, hateful, for many reasons, to 
 most of his kinsfolk. Being in Norway at the time of Squire 
 Oiler's death, he did not chance to be present. So those to 
 whom no legacies were left — and their number seemed legion 
 — were forced to vent their anger on the only person within 
 their reach. Colonel Leschelles. 
 
 " What right had he to a hundred guineas, or to a hundred 
 pence ? " they asked each other, and eventually asked him. 
 
 " I must decline to answer that question," said the Colonel, 
 stiffly, who, having heard from Mr. Wright that Squire Olier's 
 estate might have been his almost for the picking up, felt, per- 
 haps, a little natural disappointment at having been, if remem- 
 bered at all, remembered to so little purpose ; and then, after 
 bowing to the assembled company, he left the room, and made 
 his way back to the vicarage, where he had consented to remain 
 for another night. 
 
 '•W^ell?" said the Curate interrogatively, as he opened the 
 door to welcome his visitor. 
 
 " Charles Olier has the property. There are the usual lega- 
 cies. Several worthy people seem mightily disappointed, and 
 I am a richer man by a hundred guineas than I was a fortnight 
 ago." 
 
 *' Charles Olier ! " exclaimed Mr. Wright. " Why, he has the 
 
 name of being a second Ehves. They say he would skin a 
 
 Ahem ! " finished the Curate, who had for the moment allowed 
 excitement to triumph over rigid decorum. 
 
 " And sell the hide," finished the Colonel. " Yes, what is 
 said is quite true, I am afraid." 
 
 "You might have had the place," went on the Curate, "if—" 
 
 " If ' ifs and ands ' you remember," quoted Colonel Leschelles 
 with a smile. " Yes, I suppose I might if an 'if and an ' and ' 
 had both been different. As matters stand, however, it is a 
 matter of no consequence ta me. That which we have never 
 expected it can be no disappointment not to receive, and, I am 
 thankful to say, I have enough, and more than enough, to satisfy 
 all my wants." 
 
 10 
 
146 Above Suspicion. 
 
 That night the Curate — feeling, probably, the fact of Squire 
 Olier being buried, and his will read, had removed a weight from 
 his mind — proved himself a more agreeable companion than 
 ever ; in fact, so agreeable did he continue to make Colonel 
 Leschelles think him that the gallant officer voluntarily promised 
 to spend Christmas with Mr. Wright, in whatever part of the 
 three kingdoms that gentleman might be, so long as the Colonel 
 remained in England. 
 
 " And I only wish I had a fat rectory in my gift," added the 
 officer : " you should have it without the asking." 
 
 Whereupon Mr. Wright, with a sly twinkle in his eyes, quoted 
 the last line of the epigram which commences — 
 
 "A vicar long ill who treasured up wealth, 
 Bade his curate each Sunday to pray for his health," 
 
 and ends with the curate's reply to a somewhat impertinent in- 
 .^uirer into the state of his own feelings — 
 
 (( 
 
 I 've ne'er prayed for Death, though I have for his Living." 
 
 Within a few weeks after Colonel Leschelles' departure there 
 arrived at the vicarage a note from Mr. Wright's late visitor, ac- 
 companied by a gold watch and chain, of which the Curate's 
 acceptance was requested in a few kindly and weil-chosen 
 words. 
 
 It is needless to say the Curate accepted the gift in a note 
 containing many words. 
 
 "A most appropriate present," thought Mr. Wright, laying 
 aside the turnip-shaped, white-faced silver repeater, inherited 
 from his father, he had hitherto been fain to wear ; and indeed 
 so it proved. 
 
 " The watch and chain were always," so the Curate often re- 
 marked to Mrs. Wright, " as good as twenty pounds to them ;'* 
 and before many years had elapsed twenty pounds had been so 
 often raised upon the articles that one facetious jeweller re- 
 marked to his foreman, " he thought they nii^ht be trusted to 
 come to his shop alone." 
 
 If Mr. Wright had ever calculated the price he paid for that 
 money, he would have found it considerably exceeded the pro- 
 bable first cost of the trinkets. 
 
 In whatever straits the family found themselves about Christ- 
 tnas-time — and their straits then were occasionally very grievous 
 
Colonel Leschelles is Astonished. 147 
 
 — money was generally procured to rescue Mr. Wright's watch 
 from the accommodating Israelite who held it in charge for so 
 large a portion of each year ; or if that were impossible, he at 
 least liberated his chain from the enemy's hands, and attached 
 to it the old-fashioned repeater, which, not being worth a six- 
 pence, was always at home and available when its more valuable 
 relative was detained abroad on particular business. 
 
 Of course, on such occasions. Colonel Leschelles knew well 
 enough the second calling of the watchmaker who was " regu- . 
 lating" his present ; but, being a man of the world, he took the 
 Wrights as he found them, and acknowledged to his own heart 
 that many persons with whom he was acquainted, and who took 
 care of their jewellery for themselves, were not one-half so plea- 
 sant, or so hospitable, or so lively as the impecunious clergyman 
 and his wife. 
 
 Long before Mr. Wright became Rector of Fisherton, Colonel 
 Leschelles had been made free of the state of his affairs. At 
 a very early period of their acquaintance, Mr. Wright had re- 
 quested his good friend — "whom I hope eventually to call my 
 old friend," added that accomplished letter-writer in a paren- 
 thesis — "to lend him an amount which, though it would seem, 
 no doubt, ridiculously small to one blessed with such abun- 
 dance," meant temporal salvation to the Curate, his dear Selina, 
 his children, including a recently arrived baby, and every crea- 
 ture connected with the establishment. " In a sentence," said 
 Mr. Wright, after having devoted many sentences to the expla- 
 nation, " I am goaded almost to madness by the want — remem- 
 ber little things are great to little people — of twenty-five pounds. 
 I know, my dear Colonel, you are just the man to help a friend 
 at such a pinch, and will not despise him for this frank confes- 
 sion. I enclose my I O U for the amount, which I shall repay, 
 D.V., in three months, with thanks and interest at five per cent, 
 per annum, and shall feel eternally obliged if you will send me 
 your cheque, open if possiV.le, by return of post." 
 
 To which the Colonel diplomatically replied, that as he had 
 few good friends, and could not afford to lose the regar ! of any 
 one of those few, on principle he always refused to lend money. 
 " If a man," he explained, " lent money, it could only be in 
 the expectation of having it repaid at some not remote period, 
 when it might be most unpleasant to the borrower to have the 
 subject mentioned. At the same time," he added, ** I am always 
 
 10—2 
 
148 Above Suspicion, 
 
 anxious to help a friend if it lies in my power to do so, and 
 therefore, with much regret that I am unable to send the whole 
 amount you name, I enclose my cheque for ten pounds, which 
 I beg you will consider as in every respect your own, and deal 
 with accordingly." 
 
 " He is no fool, SeUna," was Mr. Wright's comment on this 
 epistle. " He knows no gentleman can ask another to give him 
 money, and that after such a letter I can never trouble him 
 again." 
 
 " But you are surely not going to return the cheque ? " cried 
 out Mrs. Wright in alarm. 
 
 **No, my dear; I am going to keep it as 2i personal favour 
 to him. From afty other man I could not, of course, accept 
 ten pounds as a gift. Why, he is a comparative stranger ! " 
 
 "Almost a total stranger," agreed Mrs. Wright ; and then the 
 humour of the thing struck her, and, being slightly hysterical, 
 she laughed long and heartily at Dion's way of "putting 
 things." 
 
 When Mr. Wright took possession of the living of Fisherton, 
 Colonel Leschelles was older than had been the case when he 
 first met the clergyman in Es^ex marshes. If he did not note 
 the fact, the Reverend Dionysius and his better half were more 
 astute. 
 
 Already they were thinking about his will and the legacy he 
 might leave to them or one of the dear children; and once 
 when Mr. Wright was carving the Christmas turkey, he caught 
 himself considering how much the Colonel had aged, and 
 wondering how he would cut up, and who were likely to get the 
 best slices. 
 
 " God forgive me ! " thought poor Mr. Wright, thumping 
 himself on the chest ; " I am no better than those Olier vultures 
 who, smelling the carcase afar off, gathered hoping to have share 
 of the spoil." 
 
 From which it will be seen that the Rector had moments of 
 self-accusation and repentance, and that, although he generally 
 went about the world thanking the Lord he and Selina were 
 not as other men and women, it sometimes did occur to him 
 that they were not a whit better than the publicans and sinners 
 who contributed to their need. 
 
 On the Christmas Eve following Miss Miles' arrival at Fisher- 
 ton, the Rector was, however, for once able to meet his visitor 
 
Colonel Leschelles is Astonished, 149 
 
 with a cheerful face which masked no ugly thoughts of legacies 
 or creditors. 
 
 Everything in this life is comparative, and for the Rector to 
 have no writs or summonses pressing immediately for attention 
 meant probably as much ease of mind as it does to a milUonaire 
 to have secured a picture at his own price, or to have outbidden 
 a rival in the matter of some precious edition. 
 
 Colonel Leschelles arrived about five o'clock, and it was as 
 good as a puppet-show to see the Rector's greeting. 
 
 He did not say a word in the first fulness of rejoicing. 
 With his head turned a little on one side, he clasped the Colonel's 
 hand with a pressure which implied, " I am too glad to see you 
 to be able to tell you how happy I feel to have you here once 
 more ; " and, indeed, his manner did convey all this, and more. 
 
 " God bless you ! " he murmured at length. " Welcome again 
 to Fisherton. Come in, come in ! Don't stay out in the cold. 
 Let me settle with the man. There, now we have got you to 
 ourselves again. Selina ! Where's Selina ? My dear, the Co- 
 lonel has come." 
 
 Considering that Selina had been expecting his arrival for 
 half an hour previously, the visitor's appearance could scarcely 
 have proved a surprise to Mrs. Wright ; but, coming out of the 
 drawing-room, arrayed, in honour of the Colonel, in a silk dress, 
 made with a low bodice and short sleeves, a scarf over her 
 shoulders, bracelets of no particular material, or beauty, or worth, 
 on her arms, her back hair wreathed round a comb in a variety 
 of singular and charming devices, and the eternal curls falling 
 in a graceful, not to say pathetic, manner on each side of her 
 face, Mrs. Wright really acted a pleasant little by-play of surprise 
 admirably. 
 
 With a heightened colour, and a smile which was sweet as 
 well as plaintive, and a light of greeting in her eyes, which no 
 affectation could have kindled, she took his hand in both of 
 hers, and, saying in her pretty Irish accent — that accent which 
 sounds so sweet falling from the lips of a gentlewoman when she 
 does not give one too much of it — " I am very glad to see you 
 indeed," lifted her eyes for a moment to the Colonel's face, then 
 modestly withdrew them from a contemplation of his features; 
 but that moment told her a tale. 
 
 " My dear," she said to the Rev. Dion, while Colonel Les- 
 chelles, making his toilet in the apartment vacated by Miss 
 
150 Above Suspicion. 
 
 Miles, was thinking that, with his figure, by Jove, he might pass 
 for not more than forty or forty-five when the weather was mild 
 and he was not pulled up with that confounded rheumatism, 
 "My dear, he gets awfully old. I think he must have added at 
 least twenty years to his age since I saw him last." 
 
 " Pooh ! " was the Rector's answer. " You only think so 
 because you have been latterly looking continually upon young 
 faces. The Colonel can't put back the clock, even with the 
 help of tight frock-coats and leaden combs ; but it is not run- 
 ning on wiih him, and so much the better. Good people are 
 scarce, and we cannot aftbrd to part with one of them — before 
 his appointed time," added the Rector, with that sudden recol- 
 lection of his vocation which was sometimes so absurd, and yet 
 always so genuine. 
 
 Excepting upon Christmas and New Year Days, which were, 
 of course, regarded by the young people at Fisherton as occa- 
 sions when they had an immemorial right to make the lives of 
 visitors a weariness to them, Mr. and Mrs. Wright did not cluster 
 their olive-branches round the family mahogany at the same 
 hour when Colonel Leschelles solemnly partook of dinner. 
 
 In truth, he would not have come to them if they had to his 
 dulled senses introduced the prattle of children, and expected 
 him to listen to it. 
 
 The Colonel did not love any children. Elderly gentlemen, 
 fond of their own personal comfort, mental or physical, rarely 
 are ; and he certainly had in his creed no saving clause which 
 exempted the juvenile Wrights from a place in his bad books. 
 
 As has before been hinted, these young people were not 
 charming, save in the estimation of their parents ; and Colonel 
 Leschelles was not their parent of either sex, for which deliver- 
 ance the misguided man thanked God. 
 
 If the truth must be told, as it ought always to be in fiction, 
 Mr. Wright was secretly pleased by the consequences of his 
 friend's idiosyncrasy. 
 
 Mr. Wright loved his children, but he also loved his dinner; 
 and after a man has carved for a dozen, his own share of the 
 repast is not usually eaten with much relish. 
 
 He was too wise a husband, however, to hint anything of this 
 feeling to Selina, but it is a fact that the triangular meal eaten 
 in company with Colonel Leschelles and Mrs. Wright was very 
 grateful to the Rector. More especially as the Colonel, under 
 
Colonel Leschelles is Astonished, 151 
 
 pretence of having been ordered to drink the produce of some 
 especial vineyards, provided his own wine— and more of it than 
 he could have consumed himself had he stayed at Fisherton for 
 three months. 
 
 Mr. Wright candidly confessed that he did like a glass of 
 sound port, or a sip of thoroughly good dry sherry, but beyond 
 these things he far preferred the Colonel's Madeira, which was 
 stated, Heaven knows with what truth, to have been twice round 
 the Cape. 
 
 The Madeira itself never spoke of its travels— on the principle, 
 perhaps, that "good wine needs no bush." 
 
 Further, in the pop of a champagne cork there was something 
 which brought out all the hidden virtues of Mr. Wright's 
 nature. 
 
 The way in which he spoke of his dear friend, when the first 
 glass had been swallowed and approved, might have converted 
 a misanthrope ; whilst the way in which he seconded the 
 Colonel's hint that Mrs. Wright had no wine, and pressed a 
 second bumper on Selina, with a little nod of the head, and a 
 cunning, " Now, now, my love ! drink it up ; it will do yp^ 
 good," was simply indescribable. 
 
 "What ! " he would exclaim, "get into your head ? Nonsense-: 
 I '11 be bound your head is far too wise a one to let it do any- 
 thing of the kind. You are tired out ; that is what you are, and 
 you want something to put new life into you. Come, don't put 
 a slight upon our good friend's magnificent wine. You won't 
 get anything like this in a hurry again — take my word for that, 
 and I taste a good deal of what is called first-quality champagne 
 when I am asked to dine at great men's tables." 
 
 Apparently shocked by this barefaced flattery, Mrs. Wright 
 would say, " Hush, Dion! Colonel Leschelles is not accustomed 
 to your Irish frankness." To v/hich Mr. Wright would reply : 
 
 " Ah, my dear, you 11 never make an Englishman of me. I 
 must say out my mind ; and I don't think it much matters what 
 I say before our kind friend here. He has known me too long 
 not to understand me thoroughly." 
 
 And indeed this was quite true. The Colonel did understand 
 Mr. Wright thoroughly, and could have said pretty accurately 
 what the Rector's pretty speeches were worth. 
 
 Nevertheless, he liked to stay with the Wrights. He liked 
 being looked up to, and he liked being flattered. There are 
 
152 Above Siispicioft. 
 
 many people who, without being aware of the fact, are of one 
 mind with Colonel Leschelles on these matters. 
 
 " Don't you think, Dion," said Mrs. Wright to her husband, 
 a few days before that Christmas Eve of which this story is now 
 treating, " that Maria might as well dine with us while the 
 Colonel is here ? She is getting old enough to appear in com- 
 pany, and she would balance the table nicely." 
 
 " I am afraid we mustn't risk it," answered the Rector. " In 
 the first place, Colonel Leschelles might not like the change ; 
 in the next, we should be sowing seeds of disunion between 
 Maria and her sister; and, in the third place, you can't have 
 Maria -v^dthout having Bella Miles, and five would be no number 
 at all. 
 
 " I could explain the matter to Bella," remarked Mrs. Wright. 
 
 " I don't think you could," was the reply. " If we are to 
 have a fourth person at dinner, that fourth should be Mr. Irwin's 
 niece." 
 
 Whereupon Mrs. Wright took refuge in her usual remark — 
 " I suppose you know best, dear ! " 
 
 " I am sure I do in this instance," said the Rev. Dion valiantly. 
 
 There were times when he openly took precedence of his 
 wife's intellect, and shook hands with himself without disguise 
 in her presence. But he did not thus thwart Mrs. Wright very 
 frequently. As a rule he deferred to Selina's superior judgment, 
 and then took his own way, privately if possible, apologetically 
 if necessary. 
 
 So it was settled that Maria should not dine with her elders; 
 and the Colonel had therefore his repast in peace and quietness. 
 
 After dinner — that is to say, after the soup and the fish and 
 all the other courses had come and gone — after dessert had 
 been trifled with, and all the wines tried with judicial slowness 
 and calmness — after coffee had been served, and the Colonel 
 had declared he never tasted such coffee out of France as that 
 to be met with at Fisherton — Mr. Wright said : 
 
 " Should you like to step up and see the decorations in our 
 church? The ladies are just putting the finishing touches to 
 them. We shall show something out of the common to-morrow, 
 I can assure you." 
 
 " My dear Wright," answered the Colonel, " I have no doubt 
 the decorations will be everything they ought to be in your 
 church ; but I would not leave your hospitable fireside to-night 
 
Colonel LescJ telle s is Astonished. 1 5 
 
 '» 
 
 for all the wreaths, and crosses, and mottoes, and holly and 
 laurel in Christendom." 
 
 " Just as you like," cheerfully agreed the Rector. '* But I 
 must go my rounds. I must inspect my fair regiment. Each 
 profession has its toils as well as its pleasures." 
 
 "I know who would have commanded, had my regiment 
 been composed of ladies," remarked Colonel Leschelles. " But 
 don't delay duty on my account. I will have a chat with Mrs. 
 Wright in your absence. I always like talking to Mrs. Wright." 
 
 "And Mrs. Wright always likes talking to you," said the 
 Rector, with his accustomed heartiness. " She is out of the 
 way of congenial society here. As she says, from one month's 
 end to another, not a soul calls with whom she can exchange 
 an idea." 
 
 With which compliment to the grasp of the Colonel's intellect, 
 implied and understood, Mr. Weight went off to church, leaving 
 his wife tete-a-tete with their visitor. 
 
 " Dion ! " called IMrs. Wright after him, " mind you bring the 
 girls back with you. Itfaria has got a cold already, and we must 
 not have any invalids in the house at Christmas-time." 
 
 " Well, my dear, that can only be as Heaven pleases," 
 answered the Rector; "but I will bring them back with me, 
 never fear." 
 
 That, however, was precisely the thing he failed to do. Ac- 
 comipanied by his daughters, he returned in about an hour to 
 the rectory, when he informed INIrs. Wright that Bella's uncle 
 had called at the church and gone with her for a stroll by 
 moonlight. 
 
 " I wonder if he will come here for supper," said Selina, care 
 on her brow and housewifely anxiety in her heart. 
 
 " I should not think so," replied the Rector. " He will want 
 to catch the nine o'clock train if he means to get back to town 
 to-night ; but, in any case, we can but give him the best we have 
 in our larder. You may be quite sure Irwin is not the man to 
 suspect us of want of hospitality." 
 
 " He must be a very extraordinary man if he could do anything 
 of the sort," remarked Colonel Leschelles. 
 
 In return for which observation, Mrs. Wright cast upon him 
 a grateful glance, and said softly, " Thank you." 
 
 Time passed on, but Miss Bella did not return. Nine o'clock 
 came — a quarter-past — half-past — and still no Bella. 
 
154 Above Suspicion. 
 
 "I wonder where the girl can be!" marvelled Mr. Wright. 
 *' Her uncle would never take her to London without letting us 
 know." 
 
 "Perhaps he is staying somewhere in the neighbourhood," 
 suggested Mrs. Wright. 
 
 " I think I will go up as far as the station," said the Rector. 
 "The Colonel won't miss me while he is showing you the 
 presents he has brought for the children." 
 
 " Really, it is too bad of Mr. Irwin," said Mrs. Wright, who 
 had never forgiven that gentleman for not rising to the bait of 
 refurnishing Bella's bed-room. " He ought to know better than 
 keep the girl out until this time of night." 
 
 "We are all of us old enough to know better, Selina," answered 
 the Rector, taking his arm which he had just put into the sleeve 
 of his top-coat out of it again ; " and, after all, I don't see that 
 there can be any use in my going to the station. He must, as 
 you say, be staying in the neighbourhood somewhere. He 
 would never leave her to walk home alone." 
 
 " I should be very sorry to answer for what Mr. Irwin might 
 or might not do," commented Mrs. Wright, seated before the 
 drawing-room fire, and screening her face from the blaze with a 
 great feather fan brought by an admiring protege from foreign 
 parts. 
 
 " I think I will go, too," remarked the Rector in the hall, 
 putting on his top-coat again. 
 
 " Ha 1 here they are at last," he added delightedly, as a pat- 
 tering on the gravel announced that some one was coming up 
 the drive. 
 
 "Why, Bella, my dear," he went on, flinging open the door 
 and looking out incredulously into the night, " where is your 
 uncle ? Is he not with you ? Have you come home alone ? " 
 
 " Oh, Mr. Wright, I hope you will not be displeased," she be- 
 gan ; " but we walked farther than we intended, and he had 
 only just time to catch the last train. He wanted to come home 
 with me, but I did not know where he could stay for the night, 
 and besides, he wished to go to London ; so I told him I would 
 run all the way home ; but I did not : I came back slowly, and 
 that is the reason why I am so late." 
 
 " Gracious heavens, child ? what is the matter ? — what has 
 happened ? " asked Mr. Wright, noticing that she could scarcely 
 restrain her tears, and that her face looked white and troubled. 
 
Colonel Leschelles is Astonished. 155 
 
 Dreadful visions of Mr. Irwin's bankruptcy, insolvency, and ruin 
 were vouchsafed to the Rector as he led her into the drawing- 
 rooin and closed the door. In imagination he read : "A large 
 failure is announced to-day in the City, that of Irwin and Son, 
 die-sinkers, Eastcheap," and dire fears assailed him of the stop- 
 page of that bank, so lately discovered, from which he had 
 hojjed cheques would continue to flow as naturally as manna 
 once fell from heaven. 
 
 For a minute Miss Miles, coming out of the faint moonlight 
 into the drawing-room, which the dancing fire and many wax 
 candles made brilliant, seemed too much blinded and frightened 
 to speak. Then, recovering composure, and seeing two pairs 
 of anxious eyes fixed on her, she said : 
 
 "There is nothing the matter — at least there is, for old Mr. 
 Irwin died yesterday. But it is not that," she added, " it was 
 not that which made me foolish. Uncle and I were talking 
 about long ago, and I could not help crying as I cam.e home. 
 And oh! may I go to bed, please?" she went on, addressing 
 Mrs. Wright ; *' I have a dreadfiil headache, and I do not want 
 to see anybody." 
 
 " Certainly, dear, go at once," replied Mrs. Wright, kissing 
 the girl with a sudden impulse of affection and pity, which caress 
 Bella returned with interest. 
 
 " Good night," she said, turning to Mr. Wright, who stood by, 
 relieved but astonished. 
 
 He opened the door for her to pass out, and laying his hand 
 on her shoulder, answered her words by saying : 
 
 *' Bless you, my child ! '"' 
 
 Then he went back to Selina, and exclaimed twice with great 
 solemnity : 
 
 " Poor old Mr. Irwin ! dear — dear — dear ! " 
 
 Meantime Miss Miles, stealing off" to Mr. Wright's dressing- 
 room, which had for the nonce been appropriated to her use, 
 was encountered suddenly by Colonel Leschelles, coming, laden 
 with gifts, out of the blue-and-white apartment her skilful fingers 
 had helped to embellish. 
 
 For a moment the light of the candle he carried fell full on 
 her face, while he, standing still, made way for her to pass. 
 
 With a little timid half-curtsey and a "Good night, sir," spoken, 
 in the confusion of the moment, in French, she tripped nervously 
 away along the passage, leaving the Colonel still standing look- 
 
I $6 Above Suspicion. 
 
 ing after her in amazement, his candle held aloft, and his 
 astonishment finding vent in a muttered exclamation : 
 
 " I have seen that girl before," he thought ; " but where ? '* 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 WHAT MR. IRWIN CAME TO TELL. 
 
 When, earlier on that same Christmas Eve, Mr. Irwin looked 
 into Fisherton Church to ascertain if his niece were there, a very 
 pretty sight met his eyes. 
 
 Gas had not then penetrated farther into Fisherton than the 
 railway station, distant some mile and a half, and it was by the 
 light of many candles that the ladies, young and old, who had 
 undertaken the care of the decorations, were fastening up mottes, 
 twining wreaths round pillars, affixing lettered banners to the 
 walls — were, in a word, engaged in putting the old building 
 into gala attire. 
 
 There is a certain picturesqueness about candlelight, which 
 gas emulates in vain. The long, deep shadows — the small spaces 
 cleared out of utter darkness — the corners filled with blackness 
 — the changing of figures from flesh and blood to unreal phan- 
 toms as they pass into the shade — the roof seen indistinctly, 
 and looking consequently twice as lofty as it is in reality — the 
 uncertainty as to what is hidden behind the pillars, and a sense 
 of wonderment concerning the chancel, looking so dim and far 
 away in the gathering gloom — all these things go to make up 
 
What Mr. Irwin Came to TelL 157 
 
 an interior, the secrets and fancies composing which gas sweeps 
 ruthlessly away. 
 
 I marvel now what has become of the imaginings which child- 
 hood — in the days when Fisherton Church had to trust to the 
 candle-maker for evening illumination — was wont to conjure up 
 out of the old tomb to the right of the chancel, on which, under 
 a stone canopy, lay the figure of a knight clad in complete 
 armour, or of that other monument surrounded by praying 
 children, and surmounted by a score of fat-cheeked cherubs 
 bearing the body of Dame Ursula Berton, resting on rocky 
 clouds, straight away to heaven. 
 
 When, last Christmastide, the present generation of young 
 ladies assembled to put the finishing strokes to their labours, I 
 am afraid the old church, though doing much credit to their 
 taste and skill, lost, by reason of flaring gaslights, most of its 
 romance. 
 
 Youth, beauty, and grace are eternal, and yet, as the fashion 
 of the settings in which we behold them vary, so may those who 
 have had their taste moulded in days gone down many and many 
 a year ago into the grave of time, be pardoned if the conceits 
 of a former age seem to them more lovely than the bald framing 
 of this. 
 
 To the end of his life Mr. Irwin, at all events, will never forget 
 Fisherton Church as he looked into it for the first and the last 
 time by night ; never forget the sweet scent of the flowers, and 
 the faint, unfamihar, almost sickening odour of the evergreens, 
 the flitting figures of the young girls, now tripping away into 
 darkness, now posing themselves unconsciously into some 
 picturesque attitude, whilst all the time the gloom of the pointed 
 arches refused to receive even a gleam of light, and the ancient 
 pillars seemed to submit themselves unwillingly to the hands 
 of the beautifiers. 
 
 Around the font, admiring the work of her deft white fingers, 
 stood a group of matrons and elderly ladies, who were express- 
 ing in no measured terms their admiration of Miss Miles' taste 
 and skill. » 
 
 ** Not a flower or leaf but Christmas roses in the whole thing, 
 I declare ! " one voluble mother remarked, as she reluctantly 
 moved towards the door; "and look at it ! If you had showered 
 down stars from the firmament on a green meadow, it could 
 not be more like life itself." 
 
158 Above Suspicion. 
 
 "Do you know whether Miss Miles is engaged?" asked a 
 gentleman standing in the shadow at this juncture, addressing 
 the speaker, who had been uttering her admiration to no one 
 in particular. 
 
 " Lawks, sir, how you did frighten me !" remarked the worthy 
 woman. " I made sure it was a ghost a-speaking. Miss Miles, 
 sir, she have just a-finished that there font, and though I say it, 
 as perhaps shouldn't, being Fisherton bred and born, I don't 
 think to-morrow will see such another font in all England. Did 
 you want Miss Miles, sir ? " 
 
 " Yes ; if you could say to her, without putting yourself to 
 inconvenience, that her uncle is here, I should feel very much 
 obliged." 
 
 A moment after his niece sprang forward to where he stood. 
 
 "I am so glad — so glad to see you, uncle ! I did not think 
 you would be down before the end of the week. Come and 
 look at my work. I did it all, every bit, myself" 
 
 " I have seen it," he answered. " I have been looking at it 
 and you for the last quarter of an hour." 
 
 "And never spoke a word to me," she pouted. 
 
 " There were plenty to speak and say pleasant things besides 
 me, my dear," he said gravely and fondly ; " and I liked to 
 listen to your praises. It makes me so happy to think I acted 
 wisely in bringing you here." 
 
 " I am sure you did," she agreed. " I have learnt a great 
 deal at Fisherton — more, in some ways, than I could have done 
 in twenty years at school. You are going to the rectory, of 
 course ? " 
 
 " No," was the reply. " I want to have a chat with you. It 
 is a moonlight night, if not a very bright one — not like the moon- 
 lights we remember elsewhere. Let us have a walk." 
 
 " I will just tell the girls where I am gone, in case Mr. Wright 
 wants me, and be with you in a moment." 
 
 And through the light and shade he watched her figure flitting 
 up the aisle, and away to the reading-desk, where the Misses 
 Wright received her communication with the most polite in- 
 difference. 
 
 Red Indians and our upper ten thousand have, it is said, one 
 charming trait in common — that of possessing the faculty of 
 seeming to be surprised at and interested in nothing. If this 
 be, as we are credibly assured it is, the perfection of good breed- 
 
What Mr. Irwin Came to Tell. 159 
 
 ing, clergymen's children must have close affinity to the creme 
 de la creme of society and barbarism. 
 
 Personally, I have no more acquaintance with braves and 
 their squaws than I have with dulses and duchesses ; but it has 
 been my privilege to mix pretty freely with the sons and 
 daughters of men holding rank of some sort in the Church, and 
 I can safely say I have seldom met one who could be prevailed 
 upon to evince a human interest in the affairs of any living being 
 who was not directly or indirectly connected with themselves, 
 or their papa's parish, or their papa's prospects. 
 
 This is, of course, while they remain in the parental nest. 
 The world, fortunately, possesses a potent recipe for eliminating 
 spiritual and social conceit out of the first-born even of a bishop; 
 and there comes a time when the greatest prig nurtured in a 
 rural parish becomes not merely tolerable, but agreeable in his 
 manners. 
 
 But there is a middle passage to be encountered before this 
 delectable land, where children born in rectories and vicarages 
 become amenable to the laws of ordinary society, is reached, 
 and clerical children may be met on equal terms by those desti- 
 tute of ecclesiastical position. 
 
 The young Wrights were embarked on that passage, and woe 
 to the unfortunate traveller who chanced to be in the vessel 
 with them. 
 
 To all mtents and purposes, they were ensconced in the cabin, 
 while all the rest of their world had been only able to pay steer- 
 age fares. It is nice, this, for the clerical offspring, while it 
 lasts ; but it is nice also for the laity to remember it cannot 
 last for ever. At first Miss Miles had writhed under the con- 
 temptuous indifference of Mr. Wright's dear children to anything 
 except themselves and their own belongings; but time reconciles 
 us to most things, and Maria's coolly-uttered " very well," in 
 answer to her delighted communication, did not damp her spirits 
 in the least. 
 
 *' This is lovely ! " she said to her uncle, clasping both hands 
 round his arm as they left the church. " Only thmk of our 
 having such a good time all to ourselves ! " 
 
 " I am afraid you will not think it so good a time, after all," 
 he answered; "fori have something unpleasant to tell you." 
 
 Instantly the smile left her lips, and the light faded out of 
 her eyes. 
 
l6o Above Suspicion. 
 
 "About — about — my father?" she faltered. 
 . "No, not about him — at least, I have news of him. He is 
 going to the diggings." 
 
 " Does he speak of coming home ? " 
 
 " No. He says he will never come home unless he can re- 
 turn a rich man, which is not very likely." 
 
 " I do not know that," said the girl faintly. 
 
 Then ensued a silence for a few minutes, which Mr. Irwin 
 broke by saying : 
 
 " My father-in-law is dead." 
 
 " Dead ! " she repeated. " When ? What did he die of? " 
 
 " A fit of passion," was the answer, spoken coldly and almost 
 sullenly. " We had a quarrel about ten days ago, and when he 
 was in the middle of a bitter and unjust sentence he fell back 
 insensible ; and though he lived for over a week, he never fully 
 recovered consciousness." 
 
 " How horrible ! What a dreadful thing for you ! " 
 
 " It would have been a dreadful thing for me if he had re- 
 covered consciousness," replied Mr. Irwin. " He would have 
 left me, comparatively speaking, a beggar. I wish, Bella — I 
 wish with all my heart — I could say I felt sorry when I saw him 
 lying dead. Had he lived, I must have left the firm, separated 
 from my wife — that misfortune I could have survived, however 
 — parted, for the time at least, from my children, and begun the 
 world all over again.** 
 
 "Why, what happened? — what could have happened?" she 
 inquired, shivering, though she was warmly clad, and the night 
 not particularly cold. 
 
 " I will tell you," he answered ; " in fact, I must tell you, for 
 our interests are identical, and besides, it is a relief to speak 
 out to some one. Always I have been to a certain extent in 
 my father-in-law's power, and occasionally he made me feel the 
 fact. Still, on the whole, we got on pretty well together. He 
 liked keeping the reins in his own hands, but he was liberal 
 enough in pecuniary matters ; and though he never let me forget 
 that the money was his, still he did not grudge me an ample 
 share of it." 
 
 He paused for a moment, and then continued : 
 
 " Some short time since we had a dispute with one of our 
 customers about an account. He wanted, as I considered to 
 evade a just claim, and I was, therefore, firm about the matter 
 
What Mr. Irwin Came to Tell. l6i 
 
 —firmer than I should otherwise have been about a larger 
 amount." 
 
 " Yes, uncle ? " said his niece, inquiringly. 
 
 ** At last we threatened legal proceedings, and he then sent 
 his attorney to our office to endeavour to effect some compro- 
 mise. 
 
 " My partner left the management of the affair to me, and I 
 rejected all offers of arrangement. After the lawyer had called 
 two or three times his manner suddenly changed. He dared 
 me to bring any case into court; he threatened me; he said, 
 with a cunning insolence, for which I could have struck him, 
 * Those who live in glass houses should not throw stones ; ' and 
 when I asked him what he meant, he said, ' I thought there was 
 something familiar to me about you, spite of your beard and 
 your Yankee twang ; but I was not sure of the matter until the 
 other day, when I happened to meet a lady coming up the stairs, 
 whom I remembered perfectly. Come, you had better give up 
 your point. You won't like going into court, I know, and being 
 asked if you ever stood in the dock yourself Put pride in your 
 pocket, Mr. Irwin, and prove yourself as discreet as you have 
 been fortunate.' " 
 
 " And what did you do, uncle ? " she asked. 
 
 " I behaved like a simpleton. I told him to do his best or 
 his worst. I said I was more resolved than ever to insist on 
 our rights ; and then I opened the door, and remarked that if 
 he did not leave the office at once I would kick him out of it." 
 
 "And he?" inquired the girl. 
 
 " He laughed in my face. He said I should perhaps sing to 
 a different tune before many days were over; and then he ran 
 downstairs, stopping at the first landing to make a mocking 
 bow." 
 
 " Uncle, who was the lady ? " asked Miss Miles. 
 
 " Can't you guess, my child ? " he said, pityingly, and then 
 went on speaking more rapidly : " Yes ; she found me out — ■ 
 traced me by some means. I warned her not to come to the 
 office. I entreated her not to ruin me as she ruined her husband. 
 I told her I w^ould do anything — anything that lay in my power 
 for her welfare — if she would only keep quiet, and let me have 
 the chance of keeping that horrid past out of sight. She pro- 
 mised me faithfully to keep our relationship a secret, and then, 
 because I could not go to see her the very day she wished, came 
 
 11 
 
1 62 Above Stispiciojt. 
 
 tliree times to the office — three times, I assure you, in as 
 many hours." 
 
 " She ought not to have done it ; she ought to have considered 
 you," murmured his niece. 
 
 " She ought. I have done all I could for her, but she is just 
 the same as ever. If ^she wants a thing, she thinks the world 
 ought to stand still while she gets it. When I remonstrated 
 with her on her imprudence, she laughed and said : * Nobody 
 will nodce me. No one could recognize me;' and she would 
 not even draw down her veil." 
 
 "Why did she want to see you so particularly?" asked the 
 girl. 
 
 " She wanted me to find her m.oney to go to Australia." 
 
 "But you will not do so! Oh! don't let her go there!" 
 entreated his companion. 
 
 " I shall come to that part of my story presently," said Mr. 
 Irwin. " Let me tell you what that precious lawyer did. He 
 went to my father-in-law, and raked up all the old tale ; told 
 how I had been connected with your father; told how he was 
 transported, and how I had been taken into custody ; explained 
 how my sister had been acquitted, though no living being could 
 doubt her complicity; said I had been obliged to leave the 
 country, that I was no better than a thief, and that I was still 
 the companion of thieves, with much more to the same effect. 
 He, a clerk at that time, had, it appears, been engaged in the 
 case, and knew all about it. 
 
 " That same evening, when all the clerks but one had gone — 
 thank God he did not go — Mr. Irwin came up to my private 
 office and opened fire. 
 
 " First of all, he asked me if what he heard was true. Had 
 my brother-in-law been a common workman — had he been taken 
 up for theft — had he been convicted — had my sister been charged 
 with him — had I myself been suspected of being an accomplice? 
 To these questions I had to answer 'Yes.' I tried to explain, 
 to soften, to make the best of a bad business — all in vain. I 
 could not alter facts, and he broke out. 
 
 " He said I had come to him in a false character — under 
 false pretences — that I had basely betrayed the confidence he 
 reposed in me, and repaid his kindness by inveigling his daughter 
 into forming an attachment for a mere adventurer — a common 
 swindler. I thought he would exhaust his vehemence at last, 
 
What Mr. Irwin Came to Tell. 163 
 
 so I finally sat silent. This he mistook for defiance, *You 
 think, I suppose/ he said, ' that I cannot sever my connection 
 with you. If there is justice in England, I will have it. You 
 shall not say I sent you off penniless, but you shall not have a 
 halfpenny more than I choose to give. You may smile ' (I had 
 done nothing of the sort), 'but I shall prove as good as my 
 word. I shall make my will to-nisht, and tie up every farthing, 
 so that you can never riot on my hard-earned money. I shall 
 take steps for a separation between you and my daughter. I 
 shall ' 
 
 " '■ You need not trouble yourself to explain your intentions 
 further,' I broke in at this juncture. 'I shall never make any 
 demand upon you in the future. I shall never see you or your 
 daughter again.' And with that I was about to leave the office, 
 when he broke into the most frightful paroxysm of rage imagin- 
 able. 
 
 " ' Don't go ! ' he shouted. * Don't dare to go ! I have not 
 half done with you. I have not said a quarter I mean to say. 
 I will send the police after you if you ' 
 
 '' I shall never know what he imagined I was going to do," 
 finished Mr. Irwin in a broken and agitated voice, " for at that 
 nioment he made a movement, as if trying to clutch the air, 
 and fell back in a fit. 
 
 "I ran to him, and unfastened his cravat. I shouted for 
 Tucker to come and stay with him while I went for a doctor. 
 I raced through the streets like a madman, and at last procured 
 medical assistance in the person of a young surgeon. 
 
 " When he looked at him he shook his head. ' You had 
 better not try to move him, sir,' he said. ' Make up a bed here 
 and give him a chance. I should like to meet a doctor upon 
 the case. There may be some hope, but my own impression is 
 he will never speak again.' 
 
 " We did all we could for him. The doctor came — many 
 doctors came, but all confirmed the surgeon's opinion. Every- 
 thing money could buy was bought. Everything skill could sug- 
 gest was tried. His daughter came, but fainted directly, and 
 had to be sent away again. We had two nurses, and I myself 
 seldom left him. On the eighth day he died. 
 
 " He never spoke another conscious word. He never made 
 the threatened will. He died intestate, as I understand from 
 his solicitors; and if that be the case, nothing can now affect 
 
 11—2 
 
164 Above Suspicion. 
 
 my pecuniary position ; but I am afraid I shall not be able to 
 hold up my head in the City again. 
 
 " I met that horrid lawyer again to-day, and he said, with a 
 grin, * It is better to be born lucky than rich ; is it not, Mr. 
 Walter Chappell Irwin ? It is fortunate when refractory rela- 
 tions die just in the nick of time.'" 
 
 " Oh ! uncle, uncle ! " cried out Bella Miles, " don't offend 
 that man any more. Make terms with him. Do anything to 
 make him keep quiet I " 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 UNCLE AND NIECE. 
 
 " I AM afraid it is impossible to make terms with the fellow 
 without buying him," said Mr. Irwin, in answer to his niece's 
 entreaty; "and there is nothing of which I have such a dread 
 as putting myself into the power of any human being." 
 
 "But if you are in his power already?" she suggested. 
 
 " I should be putting myself more in his power if I began 
 paying him for silence." 
 
 " In what way ? " 
 
 " Why, his demands would go on increasing till the burden 
 became unendurable — besides, there may be fifty other people 
 who recollect me perfectly." 
 
 " I thought you said he would not have recognized you, had 
 it not been for the unfortunate meeting with — my mother." 
 
Uncle and Niece. 165 
 
 "He had some remembrance of me before that. Oh, Bella! 
 what would I not give to be able to begin my life over again 
 with my present experience! I think the happiest man upon 
 earth must be he who, having no past he is auaid to remember, 
 can walk in the present, and on to face the future, without 
 dread." 
 
 She did not answer. She was thinking how frequently the 
 same idea had occurred to her : how enviable, spite of its cares, 
 its shifts, its debts, and its humiliations, Mr. Wright's lot had 
 often seemed when contrasted with her own. 
 
 A life which held nothing in it to be concealed was her 
 notion of an existence to be envied. 
 
 We have each and all our ideal of perfect happiness. Mr. 
 Wright's was to have always five pounds in his pocket, and no 
 duns at his gates. Miss Miles', to be able to speak freely with- 
 out fear, and to feel she could answer any question concerning 
 her parents and her childhood without falsehood. 
 
 To some of the old Barthornes — to some of the loyal gentle- 
 men, and fair, faithful daughters of Abbotsleigh — this girl had 
 gone back for the qualities which made her shrink when she was 
 forced to back up the fiction of her orphan condition with one 
 untruth after another. 
 
 There had been a time when she thought her uncle would 
 have done wisely to tell the Rev. Mr. Wright and Selina his wife 
 the story of her life as it really was ; but she thought so no 
 longer. Life at Fisherton, which had taught her much, had 
 proved to her that there are some things concerning which si- 
 lence is wisdom — silence is a necessity. Even as a servant, she 
 now understood the terrible past would, if revealed, have power 
 to destroy every blossom of happiness existence held. 
 
 She had no choice except to be careful and secret ; but every 
 vein in her heart loathed the deception she was forced to prac- 
 tise. Never till the end came, when deception was no longer 
 needful, did her lips utter glibly the falsehoods her position 
 compelled them to frame. Neither did she seek to justify her 
 own lack of verity by dwelling on the shortcomings of others. 
 
 Not a day passed at Fisherton without some polite fiction 
 being uttered by gracious, plausible Mrs. Wright, who was wont 
 to say there was only one sin she humanly considered unpar- 
 donable, and that was lying ; whilst as for poor Mr. Wright, the 
 fibs he told, the "false glosses" he put on, the mendacious 
 
1 66 Above Suspicion. 
 
 statements he backed almost with tears, would ha%c been ab- 
 surd, had they not been pitiable also. ; 
 And yet, in this atmosphere, Bella kept her faith intact in all 
 things good, true, and lovely. Perhaps, by reason of her own 
 fault, she dared not judge the faults of others. This virtue is 
 not a common one. It is so much easier to see the mote than 
 to feel the beam, that we may well excuse poor Mrs. Wright for 
 frequently expressing her sorrow at finding people " so false." 
 
 But as for Bella, never once in Fisherton Church, when Mr. 
 Wright was declaring the weightier matters of the law, did this 
 girl — in whom I hope some of my readers feel an interest — 
 mentally thrust his words back to his condemnation. Nay, 
 rather, when she fell on her knees and shut out the congrega- 
 tion, and thought of all the sermon had taught her, her cry to 
 God was " Have mercy on me, a sinner," rather than " I thank 
 Thee that I am not as these." 
 
 ''Uncle," she began at last, "do you remember promising 
 long ago that you would some day tell me about the work you 
 used to do at West Green ? " 
 
 " I hoped you had forgotten all that," he said. 
 " I never forget. I wish — I wish I could," she answered. " I 
 should be so happy if it were possible to fancy those times only 
 a bad dream." 
 
 " We will not recall them," he replied. 
 
 " But there are some things I want to understand," she per- 
 sisted. "I lie awake at night, and try to patch and put together 
 all I can recollect of what happened when I was a child. I 
 have often had the question on my lips before, but did not like 
 to put it; now, however, that we have got upon the subject, I 
 must ask you just one thing, uncle : what was the work, so still 
 and quiet, that kept you up hours after all our neighbours were 
 in bed ? " 
 
 " It was coining," he said doggedly. " Don't look so fright- 
 ened — we did not send out bad money, but good ; and had 
 your father contented himself with doing what he told me he 
 intended to do — buy old silver and gold cheap — I don't know 
 that much harm could have come of the matter; but he did not 
 contcr^t himself with that, as you are aware. Your mother's 
 folly and his own obstinacy ruined him. 
 
 " Often and often I told him what the end must be ; but he 
 always laughed at my cautions, and said he would give any one 
 
Uncle, ctnd Niece. 167 
 
 leave to find him out who could. I do not see, however, that 
 any good purpose can be served by our discussing that terrible 
 past. Ever since the night you and I walked together into 
 London, I have tried, God knows, to lead an honest life. I 
 have striven to make atonement where atonement was possible. 
 Every penny of the money which fell to my share, and that was 
 in my possession when the crash came, I have divided amongst 
 those I had any reason to suppose suffered through our mal- 
 practices. First or last, I have never used any of your father's 
 share in order to pay for your education, and latterly I have not 
 touched it even to provide for your mother. As for your father, 
 Bella, he has paid a heavy penalty for his sins, and I think we 
 may let them rest. What I hope and trust and pray now is 
 that he may not return to England — that neither of us may ever 
 set eyes on him again. The best news I could hear would be 
 that he was dead, and the story of his crime and its punishment 
 buried with him." 
 
 She was crying, silently and secretly, but in the moonlight he 
 could see the tears streaming down her cheeks. 
 
 *' Come, dear," he said, "let us turn back and have no more 
 of this melancholy talk. You are not responsible for his faults, 
 and we must prevent his sins being ever visited on you. The 
 day may come when you will have to decide for yourself, whe- 
 ther you will cast in your lot with either of your parents — which 
 would be certain destruction to your happiness — or whether 
 you will strike out in life independent of both. It is possible, 
 now Mr. Irwin is dead, that I may eventually be able to adopt 
 you as my own daughter, and take you to my own home. That 
 is what I should like to do; but for the present you must re- 
 main here. You are happy at the rectory, I hope and believe?" 
 
 " Quite — oh, yes ! — quite," she said, her voice a little un- 
 steady and broken with tears. 
 
 "And you are learning the usages of society, and all that sort 
 of thing, which may be useful to you hereafter ? " 
 
 "Yes — I think so." 
 
 "As for your mother, Bella," he went on, "she is just what 
 she always was. She was a foolish young woman, and now she 
 is a foolish middle-aged woman. Her latest idea is to go out 
 to Australia and join your father. She says she is certain he 
 would not refuse to be reconciled after all these years. But I 
 think her real reason for undertaking the journey is that she be- 
 
1 68 Above Suspicion, 
 
 lieves he is married to some one else. She was always jealous 
 when she had him under her eye, and she is naturally more 
 jealous now he is beyond her supervision. She did not say 
 much about you. She asked if she could see you, and offered 
 to go to France for the purpose ; but when I reminded her of 
 the promise your father exacted from me that I should not per- 
 mit any communication, she seemed quite satisfied. At the 
 same time, it would not surprise me if she went to every school 
 in and about Paris to try and find you." 
 
 "But, uncle, you are surely not going to let her sail for 
 Australia!" exclaimed the girl. 
 
 " My dear Bella, how can I prevent her going to Australia, or 
 any other place she takes a fancy to visit? She has money from 
 me, of course, and she can spend it in paying rent or paying for 
 her passage, just as she pleases. The only thing I could do 
 would be to say : * As you are determined to have your own 
 way, I will make that way as unpleasant to you as possible ; ' 
 and this is precisely what I should not care to do. For a few 
 pounds more she can travel comfortably instead of uncomfort- 
 ably ; and as it is not in the least degree likely she will find her 
 husband when she gets to Australia, why, no harm will be done, 
 and she will be out of my way for some time, at all events." 
 
 " Why should she not find him ? " asked his niece. 
 
 " Because Australia is a big country, and she does not happen 
 to know where he is in it. You may be very sure I did not give 
 her the address to which he told me to write. She has an idea 
 that Australia is something like New York, where, if you re- 
 member, she followed me and found me." 
 
 " But if they do meet, something dreadful will happen," said 
 the girl. " He will never forgive her — I feel quite certain of 
 that." 
 
 " And if I were in his place, I do not think I could forgive 
 
 her either. Knowing what she must have known " He 
 
 stopped abruptly. 
 
 " Go on, please," entreated his niece. " What was it she did 
 know ? Was it what I so often fancied — what I have been afraid 
 even to th.uk about?" 
 
 ''Why, she knew, of course — she must have known — that 
 most of the things which came into the house were stolen," said 
 Mr. Irwin, a little confusedly. 
 
 ** And what else ? " persisted his companion. 
 
Uncle and Niece, 169 
 
 "What else should there be ? Was not that enough ? " 
 " It is a long time ago," she said ; " and, what with the voyage 
 to America and the fever I had, I often get confused when 
 trying to recall things that happened when I was young. But 
 there comes back to me occasionally a terrible notion — I cannot 
 remember when it first took firm hold of me — that I heard 
 people talk about a dreadful murder ; and with that murder I 
 associate the dagger we dropped that night we walked across 
 the quiet fields I have never seen since, and then through the 
 London streets. Am I right? Was not some man killed at 
 Highgate ? " 
 
 He did not immediately answer — when he did, it was in a 
 constrained tone. 
 
 " Yes — I think there was a man found dead about that time." 
 " Was it ever known who killed him ? " 
 " Never, I believe." 
 ** Uncle, do you know ? " 
 " I do not," he answered. 
 
 "Do you suspect? Was it my father? Did we drop the 
 clue in that silent street ofl:' the Liverpool Road ? " 
 
 There ensued a dead silence. For the first time Walter 
 Chappell felt a sickening desire to defend his brother-in-law s 
 character — for the first time he searched about for excuses — for 
 the first time he felt inclined to act as his advocate. 
 " Uncle, you do not speak," she said at last softly. 
 " My dear," he answered, " you press me hard and sore. I 
 cannot tell you a lie ; and yet, if I must speak, I am only able 
 to say — what must pierce you to the heart. I believe that night 
 you saved your father's life. I think, had that dagger been 
 found in his house he would not have been transported — he 
 would have died in front of Newgate. But, Bella, remember 
 this: he did not do the deed, if it was done by him, in cold 
 blood. I never mentioned the subject to him — I never will, 
 except in case of the direst necessity. But my reading of the 
 matter is this : He had constant access to the house. For days, 
 as I take it — perhaps for weeks — he had been removing gold 
 and silver plate and ornaments from the strong room. On the 
 morning when M'Callum died he had probably just removed 
 some valuable articles, and being met with the spoil, in a moment 
 of desperation he killed the man who had the misfortune to 
 encounter him. I have thought the matter over and over, and 
 
I/O Above Suspicion. 
 
 can come to no other conclusion than that he did kill M'Callum 
 in order to escape the precise doom which afterwards overtook 
 him. He was in too great a hurry to be rich, Bella. I trace 
 every ill which has befallen him to one master passion — am- 
 bition." 
 
 And then, taking the girl's cold hand in his, he told her the 
 story of her father's birth, education, expectations, disappoint- 
 ment. 
 
 With more tenderness than he had ever thought to employ 
 when speaking of a man he feared and almost hated, he who 
 had turned from the error of his ways recited the wrongs of this 
 Ishmael who considered himself to have been so harshly treated. 
 
 He spoke of him as, had circumstances happened otherwise, 
 he might have been — a wealthy country squire, clever, well 
 informed, highly considered; and then he presented her with 
 the reverse of the picture. He showed her the. youth, brought 
 up to consider himself the heir, cast out from his father's house, 
 working as a common smith — with all the blood in his veins 
 turning to gall — with all his boyish hopes dispelled — with all the 
 idols he had worshipped shattered. 
 
 And so he talked on till he was almost too late for his train ; 
 and she, after running a few yards on her way to the rectory, 
 slackened her pace to weep almost frantically, for pity, over the 
 father she trusted she misht never see more — for sorrow, that 
 she herself had not died when she lay sick of that terrible fever 
 in New YorL 
 
Rosie s Debut, 171 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 ROSIE'S DEBUT. 
 
 If Mr. Wright had gone to bed on Christmas Eve with even a 
 vague fear as to the solvency of Mr. Irwin, junior, and any doubt 
 concerning the profitable ''cutting up" of old Mr. Irwin's estates, 
 his direst forebodings must on Christmas morning have been 
 entirely dissipated. 
 
 Beside the hotwater lay two packets, small, sealed, suggestive 
 — one directed to Mrs. Wright, the other to the Rev. D. Wright, 
 both in Bella Miles' handwriting. 
 
 The first contained a plain but handsome bracelet, with Mr. 
 Irwin's kind regards and best wishes ; the second a ring, with 
 Bella Miles' earnest hope that the Rev. Dion might spend a 
 happy Christmas, and enjoy many happy New Years. 
 
 " Really most graceful," said the Rector, turning the ring 
 over and over, referring, it is scarcely necessary to say, to the 
 thoughtfulness of the donor. 
 
 " I am sure I never expected Mr. Irwin to think of me," re^ 
 marked Mrs. Wright, sitting up in bed, and clasping the bracelet 
 round her arm, which, though fair and soft, had lost much of 
 the shapely plumpness of youth. " I call this a very handsome 
 gift indeed." 
 
 " That it is," agreed the Rector heartily; " and the very thing 
 you were in want of. You have needed a decent bracelet badly 
 enough this many a year past, Selina." 
 
 Which was indeed quite true, jewellery happening not to be 
 one of the sins of extravagance that Mrs. Wright aftected. 
 
 At the first stir of wakened life in their parents' apartment 
 came the children, eager to display their gifts, with which they 
 were laden — gifts from aunts in Ireland, who had stinted them- 
 selves to send toys, and presents of all sorts, to boys and girls 
 already overstocked with books, and boxes, and dolls, and 
 trumpets, and so forth. 
 
 Some indiscreet friend had forwarded Curran a drum, in 
 which Roderick, with a wise foresight, had already punctured a 
 
1/2 Above Suspicion. 
 
 few holea to facilitate the speedy demise of its powers of giving 
 annoyanci:; and Rosie was making morning liideous by pro- 
 ducing appalling sounds from the interior of a barkipg dog. 
 
 But Miss Miles' presents exceeded those of all other donors 
 in value and appropriateness. 
 
 Roderick, it is true, was slow to disclose the wonders of his 
 dressing-case, because amongst them were a pair of razors ; but 
 the other sons and daughters of the house ot Wright eagerly 
 displayed writing-desks, and silver pencils, and small brooches, 
 and necklaces, and knives, and boxes full of boiibotiSy which 
 Bella had purchased. 
 
 " Now, now, now ! " exclaimed Mr. Wright at last. If he was 
 a lond parent, he was also a fidgety man, and liked to have 
 ample leisure for making his toilet, eating his breakfast, looking 
 out his sermon, and walking at a moderate pace to church. 
 " Take these things away, and be off, every one of you. Do you 
 think I can brush my hair with all you young plagues swarming 
 about me ? " 
 
 " Yes, run away, dears," echoed the plagues' mamma. " Cur- 
 ran, I hope you gave Bella a pretty kiss for her kindness to 
 you ? " 
 
 " We have all kissed her, ma," said Miss Maria, who was 
 judging of the effect of the new bracelet on her own wrist. 
 
 ** I didn't," contradicted Roderick, who perhaps felt he was 
 too far advanced in years for such exercises to be considered 
 becoming ; " but I told her she was a jolly girl, and that I was 
 awfully obliged to her." 
 
 " Roderick," remonstrated Mr. Wright, " where do you learn 
 that incomprehensible style of language? Not from your mother 
 or me, of that I am quite sure." 
 
 Now, if Mr. Wright had left out that statement, his utterance 
 might have inspired his son with reverence. As matters were, 
 the idea of either of his parents indulging in slang tickled 
 Roderick's fancy to such a degree that he could only spluttei 
 out, " I don't suppose, sir, my language would be proper uttered 
 in the pulpit ; but it is quite comprehensible. All fellows 
 understand 'jolly' and 'awfully.' I am sure you yourself know 
 clearly what I mean." 
 
 " A new generation is about to reign," remarked Mr. Wrignt 
 resignedly; "and you, I suppose, are one of the intended 
 rulers." 
 
Rosie's Debut 173 
 
 He would have quoted Shakespeare at that moment anent 
 young folks pushing elders from their stools ; but he could not 
 remember the text quite accurately; and, moreover, he was 
 tying his white cravat, an operation which with him was one of 
 exceeding care and nicety. Breakfast on Sunday morning at 
 Fisherton Rectory was quite an imposing ceremony, and it is 
 needless to say that on Christmas mornings all the resources 
 of the establishment were brought into play. 
 
 Mr. Wright himself, in a snowy shirt and unexceptionable 
 broadcloth, was indeed a spectacle to rejoice the heart of all 
 good Protestants ; and then there was Mrs. Wright, arrayed in 
 her best bib and tucker ; and the children, the eldest dressed 
 out in their choicest apparel, the youngest soaped and towelled 
 up to a state of the highest perfection, with well-oiled sleek 
 heads, with wonderful chubby mottled-looking arms, with pina- 
 fores which rivalled the whiteness of their male parent's shirt, 
 with little rosettes of bright-coloured ribbon tying up their 
 sleeves, and a fillet of the same confining their hair. 
 
 It was not in Mr. Wright's human nature to refrain from 
 casting a triumphant look at Colonel Leschelles when the troop 
 ranged themselves round the table, and folded their hands pre- 
 paratory to the grace, which their father, having a dislike to 
 lukewarm tea, made commendably short. 
 
 As for Mrs. Wright, she held a fixed opinion that every one 
 must be miserable, if not clearly wicked, who had not several 
 children, and she made no secret even to the Colonel himself 
 that she believed he was wretched because no fruitful vine and 
 no young olive-branches graced his solitary board. 
 
 On occasions such as the present she was, therefore, wont to 
 look at her children with a fond smile, which she suffered to 
 fade away into sadness as her eyes rested on the unhappy bache- 
 lor. This little pantomime amused the Colonel immensely; and 
 it was perhaps because she was the only one of the party likely 
 to sympathize with his enjoyment of the position, that his glance 
 involuntarily sought out Bella Miles, in whose face he saw some- 
 thing of mirth lurking. 
 
 Spite of her trouble — spite of the fact that she had cried her- 
 self to sleep overnight, and that her head was still aching, by 
 reason of the conversation with her uncle on the previous even- 
 ing, Bella could not help being diverted with both parents and 
 children. 
 
174 Above Suspicion. 
 
 The latter were so satisfied with themselves, and the former 
 were so satisfied with themselves and their offspring too, that 
 the sight of the family trooping downstairs, followed by the 
 admiring looks and approving words of the Rev. Dion and Mrs. 
 Wright, was enough to have tried the gravity of any disinte- 
 rested spectator. 
 
 " Ah," said Nurse Mary, in a discreet " aside " to IMiss Miles, 
 "they say stock is as good as money ; but if I was in master's 
 shoes, I think I could do with less of it than he has in hand." 
 
 On that particular Christmas Day Rosie was to make her 
 debiit in church, and on the strength of this circumstance Bella 
 Miles had presented the child with a prayer-book almost as bi^, 
 and quite as bright and new-looking, as herself 
 
 Already, with the assistance of Roderick, Rosie and Curran 
 had looked up several services of the Church, publicly baptized 
 her latest doll, married her to a man who was suspended on 
 wires, and turned somersaults in a way calculated to make 
 the beholder dizzy ; and finally, having stretched her in an eau- 
 de-Cologne case, buried her under the blankets of Rosie's cot. 
 These rites and ceremonies satisfactorily performed, Curran and 
 Rosie had a stand-up fight as to who should carry the prayer- 
 book to church; and Nurse Mary finally conveyed the coveted 
 article to Miss Miles' room, assuring her it had " stood a near 
 chance of being torn to bits among them quarrelsome young 
 divils. God forgive me for speaking such a word — though He 
 knows I am not calling them out of their right names." 
 
 To describe the house when the young people were prepar- 
 ing and being prepared to go to church, it would, to quote 
 Nurse Mary's lucid remark, " take the pen of a Job." 
 
 Maria had split her new gloves, and Roderick could not 
 find the hat-brush, upon which Curran had seated himself in a 
 sulk because his mamma would not let him have a mince pie 
 before starting. One child was crying and another laughing. 
 Colonel Leschelles was walking up and down the drawing- 
 room, uttering a special thanksgiving all by himself Mr. 
 Wright, umbrella shouldered, chest well out like a pouter pigeon, 
 sermon-case in his pocket, and peace and charity even towards 
 his creditors in his heart — had wisely left the scene of action a 
 quarter of an hour previously, and was walking with ""he gait 
 and air of a bishop, sedately to church. Mrs. Wright had house- 
 maid and cook, and a young woman from a former parish who 
 
Rosie's Debtlt. 175 
 
 \vas in delicate health, all looking through her drawers for un- 
 findable articles of apparel. She did not do much herself, 
 except stand before the glass arranging her curls, varying the 
 proceedings by running to the door at intervals and exclaiming: 
 
 "Now, Bella, dear — now, Nurse Mary, you good soul — are 
 those children nearly ready? You know their papa cannot 
 bear their going into church late. And, Bella, will you lend 
 me a pair of your cuffs ? and if you have a spare fall — don't 
 take yours off — any old thing will do for me. What a girl it is! 
 I believe, as Mr. Wright says, you would take the gown off your 
 back if you thought any one else wanted it." 
 
 At last, something like order being produced out of chaos, 
 the children trooped downstairs, and broke out into the drive. 
 Looking, though faded, pretty and ladylike, Mrs. Wright passed 
 into the drawing-room, and, seeing Colonel Leschelles, said : 
 
 " I am so sorry to have kept you waiting, but there are such 
 a number of us to get ready. No, don't walk with me, please ; 
 I must see to the little ones — and children bore you, 1 know. 
 I am sure they would me, if they were not my own. Bella — 
 Bella, love — Colonel Leschelles will take care of you. Rosie, 
 darling, come here, and mamma will hold your hand — there 's a 
 dear." 
 
 " No," retorted the dear, clinging to Bella, who carried the 
 gorgeous prayer-book. 
 
 "/'w going to walk with mamma," said Curran, with a mental 
 eye to future mince pie and plum pudding. 
 
 " Me too ! " instantly shouted the latest arrow in the rectorial 
 quiver, rushing off with infantile perversity to secure her mother's 
 disengaged hand ; and thus, youngest son on one side, youngest 
 daughter on the other, with seven other pledges of affection in 
 front, and Colonel Leschelles and Bella in rear, Mrs. Wright 
 walked through Fisherton, to the admiration of all beholders. 
 
 " I think, Miss Miles," said Colonel Leschelles to his com- 
 panion, " that I have had the pleasure of seeing you somewhere 
 before. Your face seems quite familiar to me." 
 
 Bella shook her head. 
 
 " You must be mistaken," she answered, looking up at him 
 with clear, honest, yet timid eyes as she spoke. " I should have 
 remembered you had I ever seen you since I was quite a little 
 child. I never did forget any one, I think, — unless it might be 
 the strangers who were about me when I had fever in New 
 
176 Above Suspicion. 
 
 York," she added, as if imagining he had possibly been one of 
 them. 
 
 " I did not know you had been in New York," he remarked. 
 "Are you American by birth, then?" 
 
 " Oh, no," she rephed, and a swift, hot flush came up into her 
 face as she said so. " I went there when I was quite young, 
 with my uncle ; but the climate did not suit my health, and so 
 lie sent me to a school near Paris, where I stayed till I came 
 here." 
 
 " Then of course we have never met before," he said ; " and 
 yet I have seen your double somewhere at some time." 
 
 " It must have been a person like me ; it could not have been 
 me," she answered simply. 
 
 Upon that subject, at all events, Miss Miles had no reserves. 
 As she owned, so far as she knew, no female relative save her 
 mother, and as her mother was as unlike her as it is ever possible 
 for a mother to be, she felt no anxiety on the subject of her 
 accidental resemblance to any human being. 
 
 " Do you like Fisherton?" he asked, by way of turning the 
 conversation. 
 
 "Very much," she said. "This is such a pleasant change 
 after school life." 
 
 " I should have thought it very much like school," he re- 
 marked, with a significant glance ahead. 
 
 " You mean the children. Well, perhaps in that way it is. 
 But then there are not so many of them, and they have not been 
 drilled to one pattern. Even when they are naughty they are 
 amusing — perhaps more amusing than at any other time. And 
 for me this existence means freedom. One can run about and 
 do as one likes — and one gets better things to eat — and one 
 goes out to nice parties sometimes — and Mr. Wright is so kind 
 — and Mrs. Wright has taiiglit me so much — and indeed I shall 
 always love Fisherton, to the last day of my life ! " 
 
 " See how the old and the young sometimes agree," he said, 
 with a little grimness in his voice. " I like Fisherton now very 
 much better than I imagined it possible I should ever like any 
 place again. But here we are at the church." 
 
 There they were indeed, and the bell had done tolling, and 
 Mr. Wright was already in the reading-desk when the family 
 proceeded i:p the aisle. 
 
 Still holding Rosie by the hand, Mrs. Wright entered the 
 
Rosie's Debut 177 
 
 square pew, which with some difficulty contained the twelve 
 persons who now entered into possession of that well-cushioned, 
 well-carpeted, well-hassocked domain. 
 
 Down on her knees beside her mother plopped the child, 
 wondering exceedingly ; and on her knees she remained until 
 the exhortation had begun, when Mrs. Wright, resuming an erect 
 position, placed Rosie, whose eyes were round as peas with as- 
 tonishment, on a footstool beside her. 
 
 Round and about went Miss Rosie's glances. She surveyed 
 the roof, the organ-loft, the congregation, and with the intensest 
 curiosity followed the movements of the sexton, as he ushered 
 late arrivals into their pews. 
 
 Then suddenly her eye fell on the clergyman, who was at the 
 moment saying : 
 
 " With a pure heart and humble voice, unto the throne of 
 the heavenly grace." 
 
 Miss Rosie, recognizing him, cried out in a shrill voice which 
 reached the farthest corner of the church : 
 
 " Why, mamma, there 's papa in his night-shirt ! " 
 
 I am bound to say the congregation behaved nobly at this 
 crisis. First they tittered, and then they coughed ; but, upon 
 the whole, they confined their feelings to their handkerchiefs, 
 which they stuffed into their mouths. 
 
 By the time every one was almost in convulsions it occurred 
 to Rosie that she had misbehaved herself, and looking at Curran, 
 who knelt beside her, she put up her finger inside her lips, and 
 the pair laughed audibly, like the rest. 
 
 As for Bella Miles, she rose when the Ve?t7te commenced, 
 but, unlike the others, she asked Roderick to open the pew 
 door, and walked out of the church, looking like a very ghost. 
 
 When she reached home, according to Nurse Mary's account 
 of the proceedings, she fell to laughing and crying on the sofa, 
 — laughing till she cried, and crying till she laughed. 
 
 " Till indeed, ma'am, I thought I would have to put on my 
 bonnet and fetch the doctor from the sermon." 
 
 IS 
 
178 • Above Suspicion. 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 FISHING FOR INFORMATION. 
 
 RosiE*s misbehaviour cast a gloom, so far as ]\Ir. Wright was 
 concerned, over the chastened festivities of Christmas Day. He 
 did not Hke being the occasion for laughter to others. Many- 
 persons are similarly constituted ; and though the prattle of 
 children is doubtless a delightful music, still the Rector opined 
 that when it played such a tune as his youngest-born had elected 
 to raise in church, it was quite possible for there to be too much 
 of a good thing. But the next day he recovered his good spirits. 
 He saw some of his parishioners, and they spoke of the "dear 
 little creature's " speech in a way calculated to soothe his ruffled 
 feathers. Further, by the morning's post came a letter from Mr. 
 Irwin, in answer to one Mr. Wright had posted to him a few 
 days before, enclosing a whole half-year's payment for Bella, 
 which amount, indeed, made up the payment for a whole year, 
 plus the fifty pounds originally lent to the Rev. Dion. 
 
 Now, as heretofore, Mr. Wright was eating his corn before it 
 was ripe ; but, so long as evil could be staved off and present 
 necessities provided for, little recked the Rector and his wife of 
 the future. With fifty pounds in his pocket, no sickness in the 
 house, and a clear conscience, as he himself would have said, 
 who more happy than the Rector of Fisherton? who more ready 
 to laugh at the misadventure of Christmas Day, and remark : 
 
 "You, my dear Colonel, know nothing from experience of 
 these sorts of thing ; but I assure you parents find them of daily 
 occurrence " ? 
 
 ^ And then he went on to tell a case which had happened, to 
 his own knowledge, of a child who, seated on a small stool in 
 the drawing-room, heard her mamma remark, concerning some 
 visitors who were driving up the avenue, '' How provoking ! 
 
 here are those tiresome H s again ! " and so forth. Changing 
 
 her tone, however, as the ladies entered, she said, ''• Dear Mrs! 
 
 H ! this is an unexpected pleasure ! I am so delighted to see 
 
 you ! " Whereupon the enfant terrible interposed : " Mamma, 
 
Fishing for Information, 179 
 
 she observed solemnly, "how can you tell such untruths? It is 
 not three minutes since you said she was a prosy, gossiping, ill- 
 natured old woman, and that she was always calling upon people 
 who did not wish to see her." " Thank you, my dear," said 
 
 Mrs. H ; *'I have heard truth spoken for once in this 
 
 house;" and so, exit, with a stately curtsey. Exit also the 
 child, a moment after, not of her own free will. 
 
 Also he spoke of another sweet darling, who, at luncheon, 
 asked an old lady, from whom the family had great expectations, 
 ^yhen she was going to die, as Aunt Helen wanted her diamond 
 ring ; and brought forward, in fact, many statements to prove 
 that children have a pernicious habit of saying the right thing 
 at the wrong time, which, if he had only been aware of the fact, 
 was a truth concerning which Colonel Leschelles entertained no 
 manner of doubt. 
 
 Passing from the subject of children to that of unseemly 
 interruptions of public worship, Mr. Wright quoted some curious 
 though not particularly amusing instances in point. As most of 
 these occurred in dissenting places of worship, and in remote 
 districts, he was naturally led to speak of the extraordinary 
 remarks sometimes made from the pulpit in cases where the 
 clergyman was noted for eccentricity; instancing, for example, 
 the text Dean Swift selected when asked to preach a sermon to 
 the tailors of Dublin, the first of which set the then gay city 
 laughing, and the next sent his audience indignant from their 
 seats ; also the observation of a well-known minister in the north 
 of Ireland, who, not wishing to be personal, went on to say that 
 in a pew, sixth from the door, on the left-hand side of the aisle, 
 there was a woman seated — a woman in a red shawl — who was 
 laughing, and otherwise misbehaving herself. All he had to say 
 to that woman, to whom he should feel loth to direct attention, 
 was, that if for the future she did not conduct herself properly, 
 he would have her turned out. He was sure that slight hint 
 would be enough, he added, and then went on with his 
 sermon. 
 
 But when he got to the religious utterances of some of his 
 friends, the dissenters — good men, but imperfectly educated — 
 Mr. Wright, who really could, when his mmd was at ease, still 
 tell a story well, made Colonel Leschelles laugh. Not with bad 
 effect, he repeated part of a sermon he once heard delivered on 
 the Prodigal Son. " He came, no shoes to his feet, no coat to 
 
 12 — 2 
 
l8o Above Suspicion, 
 
 his back, in his shirt-sleeves, and them grimed with dirt ! his 
 beard grown and matted, his hair uncombed and wild-like, his 
 trousers just hanging together, all in rags and tatters, dirty with 
 hving among swine. You know what pigs are, my brethren, and 
 they were no cleaner at that time in the Holy Land than they 
 are in Ulster now. Well, in this plight he came back to his 
 father's house ; and his father fell on his neck and kissed him. 
 Ugh ! I wonder how he could ! " 
 
 More marvellous still, however, was the prayer Mr. Wright 
 stated to have been offered up by a staunch Presbyterian for 
 Queen Adelaide : 
 
 " O Lord ! save Thy servant, our Sovereign Lady the Queen. 
 Grant that, as she grows an old woman, she may become a new 
 man. Strengthen her with Thy blessing, that she may live a 
 pure virgin before Thee, bringing forth sons and daughters to 
 the glory of God ; and vouchsafe her Thy blessing, that she may 
 go forth before her people like a he-goat on the mountains ! " 
 
 To these and other anecdotes of a similar description — 
 notably to that of the old lady parishioner, who, bemg told by 
 her minister that the " Lord had called him to labour in another 
 part of the vineyard," answered, "And ye '11 be getting better 
 pay, no doubt ; for sure am I, if you had not, the Lord might 
 have called long enough and loud enough before ye'd have 
 heard Him." — Colonel Leschelles would doubtless have lent a 
 more appreciative ear, had he not been hungering and thirsting 
 to ask some questions about Bella Miles. 
 
 At length, despairing of introducing her name naturally, he 
 inquired : " Is that young lady who is now staying at the rectory 
 a countrywoman of yours ? " 
 
 " Of mine ? " repeated the Rev. Dion. " Certainly not. I 
 should be very glad to claim her, for she is a charming girl ; but 
 that is impossible. Her coming to us was the most extraordinary 
 thing in the world — for us, I may say, providential. Though at 
 first I dreaded having a stranger in the house, she has been a 
 blessing to it in every respect. It was all brought about in an 
 extraordinary manner. Her uncle was almost unknown to us, 
 when, one night last summer, I found myself in a serious diffi- 
 culty. I won't distress your kind heart by explaining what the 
 nature of the difficulty was. I need only say that I did not 
 know from hour to hour whether Selina and the children might 
 not find themselves houseless and homeless," 
 
Fishing for Information, i8i 
 
 "Dear me!" ejaculated the Colonel, as Mr. Wright, after 
 this reticent statement, paused to regain composure. 
 
 " I was at my wits' end," resumed the Rector. " I felt I had 
 better give up the useless struggle of trying to keep a roof over 
 our heads. I felt beaten — and I think you know I have some 
 fight in me still — when Providence put it into my head to ask 
 this stranger — who had taken Sir John Giles' house while they 
 were abroad — for help. He gave it, sir, instantly. I never before 
 met with such delicate generosity from one on whom I had not 
 even the claim of acquaintanceship. He wrote me out a cheque 
 then and there; and I was so overjoyed, that when I found 
 myself out in the night, and all alone, I could have sobbed like 
 a child. As for Selina, poor dear ! — but I need not tell you all 
 that creature had suffered." 
 
 " No, indeed,'" remarked the Colonel. 
 
 "So that is how I came to know Bella's uncle intimately,** 
 said Mr. Wright, finishing his narrative. 
 
 As Colonel Leschelles was aware it was the way ia which 
 the Rev. Dion had come to know a great many people inti- 
 mately, he only remarked, " And how you came to know Miss 
 Miles too, I presume." 
 
 " Well, yes. At the time, Mr. Irwin happened to be looking 
 out for a suitable family in which to find a home for his niece, 
 then at school in France ; and it occurred to him that the money 
 he meant to pay would be of use to us, and that we could be of 
 use to his niece — and I trust we have been of use to the dear 
 girl. Selina has taken immense pains — wonderful — in forming 
 her ; and she has improved to an extraordinary degree since she 
 came amongst us. Her uncle is quite delighted with the change. 
 I had a char-ming letter from him this morning — char-ming ! I 
 have it in my pocket. No, I must have left it at home," added 
 Mr. Wright, colouring a little ; for he remembered it might not 
 be prudent to exhibit Mr. Irwin's statement of accounts to his 
 companion. 
 
 " Her uncle is wealthy, then ? " said Colonel Leschelles in- 
 terrogatively. 
 
 " One of the merchant princes, my dear friend," answered 
 Mr. Wright unctuously, which statement would considerably 
 have astonished Mr. Irwin, had he chanced to hear it. 
 
 " Did you say he was married ? " asked the Colonel. 
 
1 82 Above SiLspicion, 
 
 Mr. Wright had not said so, but probably imagining he had, 
 rephed, "Yes." 
 
 "Is not it strange that he did not take Miss Miles to his own 
 home ? " 
 
 " Evidently," thought Mr. Wright, " his suspicions have taken 
 the same turn as mine. He imagines Bella to be Mr. Irwin's 
 daughter." But he knew better than to let his companion see 
 he comprehended what was passing through his mind, and 
 answered : 
 
 " So far as I apprehend the matter, Mr. Irwin has at home a 
 wife with a temper." 
 
 "Poor devil!" said the Colonel compassionately. 
 
 " And I think it is very possible she might not care to have 
 a handsome, accomplished girl distracting attention from her. 
 Remember, this is only my idea. All I know for certain is, 
 that she is a very rude sort of person. Why, when Selina called 
 upon her at Riversdale she was 'not at home,' and never — 
 positively never — returned the visit." 
 
 " How singular ! Then, I presume, all arrangements respect- 
 ing Miss Miles are made solely with Mr. Irwin ? " 
 
 " Solely with Mr. Irwin. I have never spoken to his wife, 
 and I have only seen her . iving past in her carriage." 
 
 "Does Mr. Irwin resemble his niece? She is very peculiar- 
 looking, you know, and must inherit her face from some one." 
 
 " He is not like her in the least. He is fair, with blue or 
 light grey eyes, I cannot be quite certain which — a long face, 
 light brown hair, a high forehead, a man of an ordinary type — 
 a man who impresses me, I am sure I cannot tell why, with the 
 idea of having risen from the ranks, and been somehow worsted 
 on the road — a man inclined to be melancholy, and weak — yes, 
 decidedly weak, I should say. He has nothing of the high-bred 
 look which, no doubt, you have noticed in Bella. He does 
 not alternate as she does, poor child ! 
 
 * From grave to gay, from lively to severe.' 
 
 He is never very cheerful, and never very dull. Perhaps he 
 * does not digest,' as Sydney Smith used to suggest. The state 
 of a man's spirits is generally governed by the state of his liver; 
 and I attribute Bella's customary vivacity to her superb con- 
 stitution. I never saw a girl enjoy such perfect health. I 
 
Fishing for Information. 183 
 
 thought my dear children were pretty well blessed in that respect; 
 but certainly Bella excels them there." 
 
 '' Yet she had a bad headache on Christmas Eve, and was 
 hysterical yesterday," objected Colonel Leschelles. 
 
 " True ; but her uncle came down, if you remember, on 
 Christmas Eve, and evidently entertained the girl with all sorts 
 of dismal subjects. He talked, I have no doubt, about her 
 dead parents and his unhappy home, and other matters of the 
 same kind." 
 
 " Do you happen to know who her mother was ? " asked the 
 Colonel. " Forgive me for putting so many questions ; but the 
 girl's face seems perfectly familiar to me." 
 
 " Her mother, she says, was Mr. Irwin's sister ; and, in answer 
 to an inquiry of Mrs. Wright's, she stated that she believed she 
 resembles her father in appearance." 
 
 " And who was he ? — what was he ? — where did he live ? — 
 and where did he die ? " 
 
 '' I do not know. He died abroad somewhere, but where I 
 am sure I have no idea. As to where he lived, Bella gives 
 little information. 1 suspect, however, from her knowledge of 
 localities about that part of London, that they resided in 
 Clerkenwell." 
 
 "Where on earth is that?" asked the Colonel. 
 
 "Well, it lies between the Goswell Road and Farringdon 
 Road — between Snow Hill and Pentonville. I do not think I 
 can give you any nearer clue to its whereabouts." 
 
 " Oh, indeed ! " commented the other. " Perhaps he carried 
 on some trade or business there. Do you know what he was?" 
 
 " Ah ! now you puzzle me altogether. ' That is your own 
 question, and you must answer it yourself,' as my countryman 
 remarked." 
 
 "And may I inquire upon what occasion it was that your 
 countryman made the polite observation you have quoted?" 
 asked Colonel Leschelles, a litde irritably. 
 
 " Well," answered Mr. Wright, laughing at his friend's touchi- 
 ness, " he proposed a game, one of the conditions of which 
 was, that if any one of the players could not answer his own 
 question he must pay a forfeit — Pat himself leading off with the 
 inquiry how it happened that a rabbit made her hole without 
 casting out any earth. None of the company being able to 
 account for the plienomenon, the Irishman explained that ' she 
 
184 Above Suspicion. 
 
 began at the other end.' Whereupon some one, utterly amazed, 
 cried out, * But how does she do that ? ' ' Ah ! ' said Pat, ' that 
 is your own question ; answer it yourself ! * And that is pre- 
 cisely what I am obliged to say to you. If you can obtain from 
 either Mr. Irwin or Miss Miles the slightest clue to the nature 
 of Mr. Miles' occupation while on earth, where he came from, 
 and who his father was, you will be much cleverer than your 
 humble servant." 
 
 Colonel Leschelles, knowing that, as regarded recondite re- 
 searches concerning the antecedents of any human being whose 
 histories they wished to investigate, many talents had been 
 given to the Rev. Dionysius Wright and Selina his wife— talents 
 which they had not kept hidden in a napkin— made no reply 
 to his friend's exhaustive statement. He felt, where they had 
 failed, he was not likely to succeed j and for some reason, un- 
 intelligible then even to himself, he was very anxious to know 
 more of Miss Miles' past and Miss Miles' progenitors than he 
 seemed at all likely to ascertain. 
 
 " It must be a little unpleasant for you," he said at length, 
 referring to the fact of having such a mystery boarding, washing, 
 and lodging at the rectory. 
 
 " I do not feel any unpleasantness now, I assure you," said 
 Mr. Wright, cheerfully beating a tattoo on the front of his top- 
 coat, inside of which lay, crisp and snug, Mr. Irwin's letter and 
 his welcome cheque. "You see, she is such a dear, good 
 creature; and one hundred a year is one hundred a year, to a 
 man with twelve children, an appearance to keep up, and a 
 position to maintain." 
 
 " The uncle pays you a hundred per annum, then ? " interro- 
 gated Colonel Leschelles. 
 
 ^ " That was his own offer, and I need not say I did not urge 
 him to reduce it," said the Rector. 
 
 " No, I suppose not," said his companion, looking with his 
 outward eyes up and down the flat, marshy, uninteresting valley 
 of the Thames, as it presents itself to the beholder at Fisherton 
 — vainly searching mentally for some small fish to attach itself 
 to his hook — and finally commg to the conclusion that no fish, 
 whether great or little, was to be landed by means of any bait 
 he could present. 
 
TJie Colonel makes a Discovery^ 185 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 THE COLONEL MAKES A DISCOVERY. 
 
 There is an uncertainty about fishing. It is curious to consider 
 how one's experience varies according to the locaHty in which 
 one resides. 
 
 At a remote period of my life I should have said positively 
 that, given any decent sort of weather, a fisher need never have 
 returned from a fishing expedition empty ; but in that case he 
 had to seek his prey in the sea. 
 
 Recently, I know it is very possible for a man to spend hours 
 — days — weeks — months in this enticing occupation, and catch 
 nothing. Not far from where these lines are being written, there 
 is a bridge, described in the local guide-book as being of stone, 
 and very handsome ; and indeed it is a graceful and substantial 
 structure. It spans a river, part of which is dear to anglers, 
 and from it a near view is obtained of a pretty village and a 
 church. 
 
 On that bridge there stands perpetually a man fishing. No 
 one has ever known him to bring anything from the lower 
 depths up to his own level, though it has been rumoured that 
 he was once heard informing a friend of some special good for- 
 tune, in which a jack of five pounds weight played a conspicu- 
 ous part. 
 
 Which brings me back to my own sheep. Not a stone's 
 throw — a child's stone-throw, I mean — from our accustomed 
 sitting-room there is another bridge over a stream. 
 
 The stream is neither very wide nor very deep, and the bridge 
 is consequently not handsome or built of stone. 
 
 Nevertheless, it is very pretty. It is covered and festooned 
 with ivy ; and on a favourable day, when one stands upon it 
 looking down into the wider water lying riverwards, one can see 
 plenty of fine fish making circles and ripples, and then disap- 
 pearing, to re-appear, a few minutes after, a little farther off. 
 
 In this water, which would seem to present a fair prospect to 
 
1 86 Above Suspicion, 
 
 an angler, a certain youth undertook to lure, with cunning hand, 
 perch, dace, jack, and roach to land. 
 
 He fished and he fished. He began early in the morning. 
 He was still hopeful at midday. He stood calmly expectant on 
 the bank in the afternoon, and evening found him unwearied 
 with his ill success. 
 
 For indeed he never caught any creature worth calling a fish 
 — since it is not easy to cook a piscine baby about a day old, 
 and consisting of a head and tail and no body. Of these use- 
 less innocents he would have made a collection in a large water- 
 butt, had they not been summarily turned back into the stream; 
 but the wiser and older fish refused to listen to his wooing. 
 
 Nevertheless, he persevered. He tried all baits and all hooks, 
 and had perfect faith, if he failed to-day, he must have a full 
 basket to-morrow. 
 
 In especial he pinned his hopes on a certain jack, which he 
 represented as residmg amongst the weeds and eating its smaller 
 neighbours. According to his statement, this jack was a crea- 
 ture of enormous size — a sort of Daniel Lambert amongst pike; 
 and he never lost his bait, nor had his hook carried off, but he 
 declared the jack had been at his line again. 
 
 Had his statement been correct, that pike would have been 
 as full of hooks as a Christmas pudding is of plums. 
 
 Once a girl, curious to know what really was at the end of 
 his line, picked up the rod he had laid on the bank, and found 
 an unfortunate perch, about two inches long, well hooked. Re- 
 leasing it, she threw the foolish creature back into the water ; 
 and when the angler returned, he solemnly declared, ''That 
 jack has been at his old tricks again ! " 
 
 On another occasion, the whole household was solemnly 
 asked to assemble and see the landing of the big pike. *' I 've 
 got him at last ! " said the angler, hauling away with eager hands. 
 „ There ! — there ! — don't you see him now?" 
 
 Some of the spectators were polite enough to say they saw 
 the prey, and others were truthful enough to say they saw no- 
 tqing of the kind. Nevertheless, every one believed the pike's 
 hour had come, as the line was drawn slowly in — slowly and 
 carefully —with a great bunch of weeds ! 
 
 After this it was necessary to speak plainly, and say, as it was 
 impossible to live upon the faith of a supposititious jack, some 
 fish must be caught — caught, too, by a particular day. 
 
The Colonel makes a Discovery. 1 87 
 
 The day came, and though three animals, which might have 
 looked well through a microscope, were brought in, no human 
 being out of a lunatic asylum could have thought of cooking 
 them ; and the domestic atmosphere was clouded when there 
 came — from a non-preserved part of the stream, observe, where 
 Dick, Tom, and Harry are free to spend their Sunday mornings 
 and all the many other idle hours Satan allows them for recrea- 
 tion — a basket full of the finest fresh-water fish eye could desire 
 to see. 
 
 It is a melancholy fact that successful angling, like kissing, 
 goes by favour. 
 
 You may woo the stream patiently, skilfully, perseveringly ; 
 you may be constant in season and out of season ; and not get 
 enough in return to pay for your tackle ; and then there comes 
 along some careless stranger who casts his Hue at random, or 
 some impudent, ragged young varlet, armed only with a crooked 
 pin and a piece of twine, and you shall see him carry off the 
 prize your soul has longed for — the ewe lamb out of the water 
 you had almost come to consider your own. 
 
 Which brings me to the moral I desire to draw. People who 
 go fishing on land often find themselves much in the same con- 
 dition as those who go angling in streams and rivers. They 
 bait with likely questions^-they choose their time, place, and 
 opportunity, and the result is generally nil; and then suddenly, 
 when they had no thought of getting what they want, their fish 
 is hauled to land, and lies on the bank beside them, waiting 
 for the fatal blow. 
 
 Colonel Leschelles proved the truthfulness of this theory. 
 He angled with a light line and delicate flies in the uncertain 
 waters of Mrs. Wright's nature, and the only treasure he pro- 
 duced from those depths and shallows was, that Mrs. Wright did 
 not like Bella Miles. 
 
 " I am very sorry for her, of course, poor child, and I would 
 do her any service in my power; but for me to love, it is neces- 
 sary I should understand, and I confess I do not understand 
 Bella-T wish I did." 
 
 "The uncle might have saved Jiis money," thought Colonel 
 Leschelles. "The niece's investment will, I think, turn out 
 better." 
 
 Then he tried Miss Miles, by asking her leading questions 
 and endeavouring to surprise her, and came out of the encounter 
 
1 88 Above Suspicion, 
 
 a defeated man. Miss Miles was prepared at all points. There 
 was nothing to be got out of her. 
 
 Ere long also he had an opportunity of making Mr. Irwin's 
 acquaintance ; but Mr. Irwin proved a greater mystery than his 
 niece. He traced back his career to the earliest period, only 
 to find nothing in it beyond the common, unless, indeed, it 
 might be that the man's cleverness had somehow compassed 
 success. 
 
 Of his antecedents Mr. Irwin made no secret. He and his 
 sister, being early left orphans, were obliged to shift for them- 
 selves, and did so, she as nursery governess in the house of a 
 relative, he as apprentice, clerk, manager to a firm of die-sinkers 
 in Soho, where he remained till he went to America. 
 
 His sister met her husband at the house where she was gover- 
 ness. He took a fancy to her, and she to him, and they were 
 married. That was the true and straightforward story, my dear 
 friends, you will perceive, such as is told us every day by some 
 one. Not a word in it which could not have been verified on 
 oath, and yet conveying a series of false impressions to the 
 mind of the hearer. 
 
 Only one more piece of information did Colonel Leschelles 
 essay to obtain, and he obtained it in this wise : 
 
 " Mr. Miles was a doctor, was he not ? " 
 
 " Oh, dear, no ! " answered Mr. Irwin. " He was a jack-of- 
 all-trades." 
 
 "And " suggested the Colonel. 
 
 " Master of all," was the reply ; " or at least, pretty nearly so. 
 A clever man — so clever a man that I think he mio;ht have done 
 anything he chose, had he only made up his mind to a certain 
 course and followed it. Veering and changing about were his 
 ruin." 
 
 " Ah ! " said the Colonel, and, fairly beaten, dropped the sub- 
 ject. 
 
 "What a stupid creature the world makes a fellow!" he 
 thought. " Here am I, who ought to know better, suspecting 
 a mystery where evidently none exists. The father was a 'ne'er- 
 do-weel,' doubtless, and perhaps came from some poor, wicked, 
 half-mad old stock, which accounts for Miss Bella's beauty, 
 talent, and eccentricity. Besides, why should I try to unravel 
 the antecedents of this uncle and niece ? What are they to me?" 
 
 Which would have been a prudent question once, but was now 
 
The Colonel makes a Discovery, 1 89 
 
 incapable of receiving a suitable answer ; for the Colonel was 
 in love with this girl, and pulses which for years had throbbed 
 slowly and regularly, beat rapid ily when she entered the room 
 where he sat, or walked beside him along those dull, endless, 
 muddy Fisherton roads. For which reason — seeing she was in 
 her teens, and he, Heaven only knew how near threescore and 
 ten — he would thankfully have received the news that she was 
 illegitimate, or that her father had been hung, or her mother 
 divorced. 
 
 All he wanted was Bella; and he dimly grasped the truth that, 
 unless there was something very questionable about Bella's an- 
 tecedents, about the life-story of her father and mother, he 
 might want that young lady for a very long time. 
 
 Not twenty, exceedingly beautiful, amiable, accomplished, 
 own-ng one rich relation at all events, it was not in the slightest 
 degree likely she would cast a favourable eye on a man capable 
 of being her great-grandfather; and yet — and yet the Colonel 
 had his ideas and his hopes, and so went fishing from day to 
 day. And still he landed nothing ; and it was in a moment ot 
 utter despair that chance gave him the clue after which he had 
 so long been searching. 
 
 "His dears," as Mr. Wright complaisantly called his children, 
 had all been bidden to a Twelfth Night party. They were all 
 well goloshed and warmly wrapped up to walk to the entertain- 
 ment, attended by Mr. Wright, and that gentleman had rushed 
 out of the dining-room to see that his general attire was as 
 scrupulously perfect and utterly clerical as usual, when Bella 
 Miles entered the apartment, and walked up to the table with- 
 out perceiving that the Colonel sat in shadow beside the fire, 
 which was burning low. 
 
 " Oh !" she said, when she did see him ; *' I beg your pardon. 
 I did not know you were here." 
 
 Whereupon he laughed, and asked if he were such an ogre 
 that his presence should prevent her entering any room in which 
 he happened to be. 
 
 He had never before seen her look so handsome or so re- 
 markable. Her white dress, knotted up with black ribbons, 
 for she wore slight mourning out of respect to Mr. Irwin's 
 memory ; her round arms clasped by jet bracelets, lent for the 
 occasion by Mrs. Wright ; her shoulders covered by a red opera 
 cloak, trimmed with white fur, the hood of which, drawn close 
 
190 Above Suspicion. 
 
 about her face, enriched it with a setting of soft, snow-like down. 
 As she stooped a Httle forward, the hood fell back from her 
 head ; and with a sudden exclamation, Colonel Leschelles rose 
 astonished, and said : 
 
 " Why, it is Molly Barthome you so much resemble ! Stand- 
 ing as you do now, I could fancy she herself had stepped down 
 from her fratne." 
 
 And then he stopped, for the flowers had dropped from Bella's 
 fingers, and she was looking at him with dilated, frightened 
 eyes. 
 
 "What is the matter?" he asked anxiously. "Are you ill?" 
 And he hurriedly poured out first some water, and then some 
 wine. 
 
 "No," she said, rejecting both; "I am not ill, thank you. 
 Who is Molly Bartliorne? Where does she live?" 
 
 " She does not live anywhere now," he answered. " She was 
 a celebrated Court beauty once upon a time, however; and you 
 might be her sister, so great is the likeness between you." 
 
 " Oh ! don't," entreated Bella, " don't say so to anybody but 
 me ! Colonel Leschelles, don't be vexed*with me, please ; but 
 may I trust you never to mention this to any one else ? I cannot 
 tell you why I ask ; but will you do me this kindness ? " 
 
 She held her hands out to him appealingly, and he took them, 
 as he answered : 
 
 " My dear, you might trust me with your life. I would do 
 anything on earth for you. A word of this shall never pass my 
 lips. Now, gather up your flowers and go : Mr. Wright is calling 
 you." 
 
 Which, indeed, was true. At the top of his voice Mr. Wright 
 was saying, "Bella! Bella! Bella! Where are you? We are 
 all ready ; don't keep us waiting the whole evening." 
 
 " Here I am," said Bella, coming out of the dining-room, and 
 interrupting the pastoral, Mr. Wright, imagining her to be up- 
 stairs, was delivering from the bottom of the flight. " I did not 
 know you were ready. I was only getting a few flowers." 
 
 And drawing her hood over her head, she stepped out into 
 the darkness, that Mr. Wright might not see her face. 
 
Slightly in Advance, 191 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 SLIGHTLY IN ADVANCE. 
 
 " Selina," said Mr. Wright next day, " I have bad news for 
 you." 
 
 Mr. Wright imparted this intelligence at luncheon, whilst 
 engaged in carving the dilapidated remains of a fowl which had 
 done duty on the previous night. Mrs. Wright looked inquiringly 
 at her husband over the cruet-stand, and Colonel Leschelles, 
 knowing what was coming, fixed his eyes on the tablecloth. 
 
 "Yes, very bad news," repeated the Rector, finding his better 
 half remained mute. "Our dear friend is obliged to leave us 
 to-morrow.^' 
 
 " No, surely not ! " exclaimed Mrs. Wright, with a start, and 
 an expression of decorous tenderness directed towards the 
 veteran Colonel. " I thought — that is, I hoped " 
 
 " I know you are goodness itself," remarked the Colonel, as she 
 did not finish her sentence; "and I would impose upon your 
 kindness a little longer were it not absolutely necessary for me 
 to leave Fisherton. When a man of ray age," added the Colonel 
 bravely, "finds any business to attend to, he is foolish not to 
 do so at once." 
 
 " Of your age indeed !" exclaimed Mr. Wright, with a jolly 
 assurance, calculated to make an elderly gentleman lancy his 
 memory must have been playing him tricks. 
 
 " I think you grow younger every year. Colonel," added Mrs. 
 Wright mendaciously. " I am sure you will never seem old, 
 you have such a bouyant nature and such boyish spirits." 
 
 "You have a genius for saying pleasant things," remarked 
 the Colonel in answer to Mrs. Wright's implied compliment. 
 
 "Truthful things, I trust," she answered, with a plaintive 
 smile. " It seems to me that truth should always walk first, and 
 pleasantness follow after." 
 
 "Admirable ! " said the Reverend Dion, who never failed to 
 applaud his wife's artistic utterances. 
 
 But I cannot deceive myself any longer," went on the 
 
 i( 
 
192 Above Suspicion, 
 
 Colonel, as though neither host nor hostess had interrupted his 
 sentence. " Like many another, I have gone on through life, 
 forgetting time was running on too ; and now, when I suddenly 
 awaken, I find, what my friends have doubtless known for many 
 a day, that notwithstanding my bouyant nature and boyish spirits, 
 as you, Mrs. Wright, are good enough to call them, I am an old 
 man — * terribly old,' so Curran informed me this morning." 
 
 " The naughty boy," exclaimed Mrs. Wright ; " I will punish 
 him for his rudeness." 
 
 " I hope you will not punish the child for speaking the truth," 
 said Colonel Leschelles a little sarcastically. *' Moreover," he 
 added, watching Mrs. Wright furtively while he spoke, " Miss 
 Miles read Master Curran a very pretty lecture on politeness ia 
 general, and respect to his elders in particular." 
 
 " Oh, indeed ! I was not aware that Miss Miles considered 
 herself competent to instruct any one." 
 
 *' Tush, my dear I " said Mr. Wright, who, though not above 
 being affected by small matters himself, did honestly despise 
 what he called the babbling and bubbling of women's trumpery 
 jealousies. " Bella Miles is as true a lady as I should ever 
 desire to meet, though I grant you she may be a little ignorant 
 of some of les convenajices. She is a good girl too, kindly, un- 
 selfish, generous ; and if she did scold the young rogue, I W. be 
 bound he deserved every word of it." 
 
 " Master Curran is young, and time will doubtless temper the 
 present extreme frankness of his manners," remarked Colonel 
 Leschelles ; " but I cannot help saying that when out ot the 
 softening influence of his mother's society, the child is somewhat 
 apt to be uncivil." 
 
 **I am very sorry," answered Mrs. Wright, "that any son of 
 mine should ever appear rude to such a valued friend as you 
 
 are." 
 
 Whereupon the Colonel rejoined, "Dear Mrs. Wright, do 
 you imagine that truth could ever offend me? Few, indeed, 
 have the art of presenting literal and unpleasant facts in a coat- 
 ing of sugar. Yourself and Mr. Wright have the happy knack 
 of making deformity itself look beautiful ; but then in that, as 
 in most other things, you are thorough artists. " 
 
 "I trust not — I hope not," cried Mrs. Wright. "We are 
 sincere. Whatever our faults may be, we are utterly sincere, I 
 can assure you." 
 
slightly in Advajice. 193 
 
 ** There is no necessity for you to do so, dear," interposed 
 Mr. Wright. "The Colonel knows all that." 
 
 " Indeed," said the Colonel, " there is no one knows better 
 than I how sincere Mrs. Wright is." 
 
 In reply to which ambiguous speech Selina impulsively pre- 
 sented her thin ladylike hand to the Colonel, who pressed it, 
 and bowed, and then returned it to the whilom Dublin beauty, 
 with all the decorous gallantry of a race now well-nigh extinct. 
 
 " Now, Leschelles," said the Rector, who, after trying in vain 
 to satisfy the cravings of a healthy appetite with the drumstick 
 of a patriarchal cock, had fallen back upon bread, washed down 
 by a i^w glasses of the Colonel's admirable sherry, " I will only 
 let you away on one condition, namely, that you come back for 
 our confirmation. It will be a very pretty sight, and I should 
 like you to meet the Bishop." 
 
 " And our two girls are to be confirmed," added Mrs. Wright. 
 
 "And Bella Miles," supplemented the Rector. "You must 
 promise to come to us. You have never been at Fisherton yet 
 in decent weather." 
 
 " Fisherton in any weather," Colonel Leschelles was begin- 
 ning, when Mr. Wright cut across his speech. 
 
 " Come, come, that is no answer. Say we may count on 
 your company. You will not regret honouring us with it. The 
 confirmation will, I assure you, be a very pretty sight — very 
 pretty indeed." 
 
 The Rector had been at great pains to pronounce the word 
 pretty — usually a snare to his countrymen — correctly, and 
 having eschewed the pitfalls represented by "pratty" and 
 *' prutty," into whicli Irish people generally tumble, he had finally 
 arrived at the conclusion that there was only one correct way 
 of uttering pretty, viz., to make the e the same as in pet. 
 
 Quite convinced he had at length conquered the diflicultv", 
 Mr. Wright aired the word on all possible occasions, and with 
 an emphasis which of course drew attention to it. 
 
 " My sister is going to present Maria with her dress for the 
 occasion," went on the Rector, " and very pret-ty she will look 
 in it, though, perhaps, I ought not to say so." 
 
 " She gives great promise of beauty," said the Colonel, who 
 was considered, and who considered himself, a judge in such 
 matters. " She grows very like her mother." 
 
 ** Oh ! Colonel," exclaimed Mrs. Wright, with a little modest 
 
 13 
 
194 Above Suspicion. 
 
 bridling and graceful deprecation of the implied compliment 
 that reminded Mr. Wright of the days when he could not eat, 
 or drink, or sleep for thinking of her countless charms. 
 
 "She is not so pretty yet," continued the Colonel, calmly; 
 "but I think she will be. She is certainly a nice-looking girl." 
 Then, without allowing Mrs. Wright time/or further protest, he 
 proceeded to ask if the Bishop were a judge of wine. 
 
 " I don't think any man deserves to be a bishop who is not," 
 said Mr. Wright jocosely. 
 
 " Then in that case, if I bring myself, I should like to be 
 allowed to bring the wine also," explained Colonel Leschelles. 
 
 " Bring yourself — tliat is all we want," answered Mr. Wright. 
 
 " I shall certainly do that," answered the Colonel ; " but I 
 should Uke to hear the Bishop's opinion of some port I had sent 
 to me just as I was starting for Fisherton." 
 
 "Do as you like," agreed Mr. Wright. "We understand 
 what you mean — don't we, Selina? The Colonel would not 
 object to see his old friend's lot cast in even more pleasant 
 pastures than Fisherton.'^ 
 
 "I should like to see you a bishop," rejoined the Colonel, 
 who certainly thought the sight of Mr. Wright as a " my Lord," 
 and Mrs. Wright as " my Lord's Lady," would have been cheap 
 at fifty pounds a head. 
 
 " You are a friend in need to us," said Mrs. Wright, who had 
 been exercising her mind, as had also the Rev. Dion his mind, 
 on the subject of wine for the successor of the Galilean Fisher- 
 men. 
 
 In the privacy of the conjugal chamber they had decided to 
 invite the Colonel to the episcopal feast, hoping he " might offer 
 to send a little wine." It had been quite beyond their calcula- 
 tion that he would honour the feast himself, and provide all the 
 wine. 
 
 "We may as well make a luncheon party," suggested Mrs. 
 Wright, when talking the matter over the same evening with her 
 husband. " Luncheon need not cost us a great deal. People 
 do not much care what they have to eat, so long as they have 
 plenty of good wine." 
 
 Which observation argued a considerable amount of worldly 
 knowledge on the part of Mrs. Wright. 
 
 " And his wine is A i," said Mr. Wright, nothing loth to give 
 honour where it was due. 
 
Slightly m Advance. I95 
 
 "Some of it is almost as old as himself," remarked Mrs. 
 Wright, who could not forgive Colonel Leschelles' strictures on 
 Curran. " My dear Dion, how touchy the poor man is about 
 his age." 
 
 " To a thoughtful man, even if he be sufficiently religious, age 
 is a very serious thing," answered the Rev. Dion, who never had 
 a finger ache without wondering how Selina and the little ones 
 would get on if he were taken from them. 
 
 "He is certainly looking, to quote Curran, 'terribly old.' 
 When I see his poor lean body buttoned up so tightly in that 
 close-fitting top-coat, I feel as if some day when he unfastens it 
 he will drop to pieces. How absurd he is still to affect all the 
 airs of juvenility." 
 
 Which remark of Mrs. Wright's was indeed quite true ; but 
 how hard a matter it is to grow old gracefully ! After all, it is 
 not easy to greet sorrow, or poverty, or reverses, or dishonour 
 with a smiling face. And there are many people to whom age 
 seems less endurable than grief, or shortness of money, or the 
 cold looks of friends and acquaintances. For grief may be 
 subdued, and in lieu of lost fortune another may be found; 
 while if old friends have no cordial greetings, old acquaintances 
 no longer wear bright faces, the wise man understands precisely 
 how to value their former professions and kindnesses, and turns 
 his attention to new people, who may be pleasanter and more 
 faithful. 
 
 But for old age — ah ! my friends, we must have grown very 
 weary of the road, very tired of the inns by the way — very, very 
 sure that all earthly good is vanity, before we can feel quite 
 thankful and satisfied to know youth, sweet, bright youth is gone, 
 and may return never more — that manhood's prime is past like- 
 wise — that the morning sun and the midday have shone their 
 last for us, and that we shall never behold more any radiance 
 save the solemn glory which prefaces — night. 
 
 Colonel Leschelles did not feel all this then, and Mrs. Wright 
 found fault with him for refusing to look at the clock. 
 
 She did not know he had a dream that the pleasantest part of 
 life might still be in store for him. She had not the faintest 
 idea that the while his thoughts should have been on wills, they 
 were dwelUng on wives. 
 
 If she had, having that beautiful maternal eye, of which we 
 hear so much, directed to the interests of her children, it is 
 
 13 — 2 
 
196 Above Suspicion. 
 
 scarcely likely she would have parted with the Colonel with all 
 the touching interest she did. 
 
 " God bless you ! " said the Rev. Dion, as his visitor stepped 
 into the fly which was to convey him to Fisherton Station. 
 
 " Good bye, good bye," echoed Mrs. Wright from the steps, 
 while the children clustering about, shouted, " Good bye. 
 Colonel ! " and waved their mites of handkerchiefs, as did their 
 mother her French cambric adorned with lace. 
 
 In truth, Mrs. Wright was delighted to see the last of their 
 visitor. She had been on drill for so long a time, that she longed 
 for the matutinal cup of tea in bed, the easy lounge before the 
 drawing-room fire, the scrambling meals, the cosy tUe-a-tete with 
 Dion after the children were all in bed. 
 
 Not a strong woman naturaiiy, and less strong in arithmetical 
 proportion to every young Wright who, in the midst of harass 
 and distress, had made his or her way into this wicked world, 
 the strain of a martinet visitor in the house tried her more year 
 by year. 
 
 " I have never been so tired of the Colonel before," she said, 
 breaking into an hysterical whimper in her husband's study after 
 the visitor's departure. 
 
 " My dear, he is a prince," answered Mr. Wright ; and he 
 handed her a cheque for five and twenty pounds. 
 
 Selina took it. 
 
 " To which of the children do you think he will leave his 
 money, Dion?" she asked. 
 
 If you consider, my reader, women are proverbially ungrate- 
 ful. I am afraid Mrs. Wright was. 
 
 " To none," answered the Rev. Dion. 
 
 It so chances, my reader, that occasionally men are gifted 
 with a wonderful foreknowledge. 
 
 Intuitively Mr. Wright felt the relations between hirnself and 
 Colonel Leschelles had changed. 
 
 He could not have given any reason for the faith which was 
 in him, but he was sure. 
 
 He comprehended, vaguely perhaps, but still certainly, that 
 the Colonel had passed beyond him, and would spend no more 
 Christmas Days in his house. 
 
 He did not know the disturbing influence was Bella Miles \ 
 but as one vaguely feels the presence of thunder, he felt there 
 was a fresh element at work. And, indeed, how should he 
 
Slightly in Advance, 197 
 
 know ? There was Miss Bella, as kind, as ready, as inscrutable 
 as ever. There was the Colonel absent. 
 
 How on earth was the Rector, whose thoughts never wan- 
 dered very far afield, to comprehend the Colonel was going to 
 Abbotsleigh to hunt up the Barthorne lineage ? 
 
 In the course of the next three months the Colonel did not 
 find all he had set out to discover, but he discovered enough to 
 induce him to take a furnished house at Daceford, and write 
 thence to his friends at Fisherton : — 
 
 " I am located here by my doctor's orders for a few months, 
 and shall hope to run over to the rectory, and have the pleasure 
 of seeing you and Mrs. Wright at my little cottage whenever 
 you have a spare afternoon to waste upon an invalid." 
 
 In reply Mr. Wright shook hands on paper cordially with the 
 gallant Colonel. 
 
 He was delighted to have him for so near a neighbour ; but 
 why did he not come and take up his abode at the rectory — 
 or, if not at the rectory, why not at Simpson's Retreat ? Simp- 
 son's Retreat was the perfection of a country snuggery, and he 
 might have had it for a pound a week. 
 
 However, both regrets and reproaches being in vain, Mr. 
 Wright would take an early opportunity of calling on his friend. 
 
 Selina, he regretted to say, was ill — very ill. The doctors 
 had ordered her to the seaside ; but how she was to get to the 
 seaside Mr. Wright professed himself unable to imagine. 
 
 Things had, however, turned up miraculously for them (him- 
 self and Selina) so often, that it seemed a mere doubting of Pro- 
 vidence to doubt now. 
 
 To this very palpable hint the Colonel did not respond im- 
 mediately. 
 
 *' There is an obtuseness about the man I do not quite under- 
 stand," observed Mr. Wright to his better half. 
 
 " My dear Dion, he is getting very old," said the lady, with a 
 little sob. She had set her heart on going to the seaside, and 
 she was not well — far from it, indeed. 
 
 When Easter had passed, however, and Lent, as a matter of 
 course, also (it may not be quite amiss to remark that every day 
 during Lent Mr. Wright thanked Heaven there were no lean- 
 ings to Popery about him), the Colonel began to think Mrs. 
 
198 Above Suspicion, 
 
 Wright would really be better away from Fisherton, and, having 
 arrived at this conclusion, he one day took Mr. Wright aside, 
 and " hoped he would not feel offended if he asked him whether 
 pecuniary matters had any share in preventing Mrs. Wright 
 having the change she so greatly needed." 
 
 In answer Mr. Wright wrung Colonel Leschelles' hand, and 
 saying with effusion, "he could have no secrets from such a 
 friend," told him precisely how they were situated, the result of 
 which touching confidence was that twenty pounds changed 
 hands, and Mrs. Wright and her very latest baby, accompanied 
 by a servant, and Rosie, and Curran, started for the nearest 
 seaport on an early day. 
 
 As a natural consequence Mr. Wright was much at Daceford, 
 and Colonel Leschelles very much indeed at Fisherton Rectory, 
 where, the young ladies of the Wright family eschewing the task 
 of entertaining their papa's friend. Miss Bella Miles was usually 
 charged with the burden of receiving and amusing him. 
 
 Did she object to undertaking it? By no means. In those 
 days of unrestricted intercourse she formed a very sincere liking 
 for the officer — no longer young. Had she been a different sort 
 of girl, she might even have gone the length of imagining she 
 loved him. 
 
 And in truth she did love him, though not in the way that he 
 desired. 
 
 When, in the time to come, she summed up her opinion of 
 him, it amounted to this : 
 
 " He is the truest gentleman I ever knew, and the staunchest 
 friend woman could desire in her extremest need." 
 
 And that was all ? Yes, all there could ever be. 
 
 The girl beheld the years stretching between them the man 
 had forgotten, and never for one moment did it enter into her 
 mind that he could regard her save as grandchild or daughter, 
 till he asked her to be his wife. 
 
 When — but I anticipate. 
 
 With Mrs. Wright at the seaside, and the household moralities 
 uninfluenced by Selina's gentle presence, events occurred at the 
 rectory which never could have happened had she been at the 
 helm. 
 
 When she returned and discovered the chaos her absence had 
 wrought, she said plaintively, " I must never leave you again, 
 Dion." 
 
''Noihing could he Better r 199 
 
 "No, my dear," answered the Reverend Dion, "you had 
 better take the whole responsibility the next time. No matter 
 how things turn out, be sure I will not blame you." Which was 
 a slight rap over the knuckles administered by the Reverend 
 Dion; for Mrs. Wright had blamed him most severely for his 
 management of matters during her absence. 
 
 " If you had only given me a hint, I would have come back, 
 even had the journey killed me," she said. 
 
 " How could I give you a hint when I had not a suspicion 
 myself?" he answered. 
 
 " She is a bad, designing girl," said Mrs. Wright, " and I 
 always thought so." 
 
 At which juncture the Reverend Dion remained judiciously 
 silent 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 "nothing could be better." 
 
 FiSHERTON was looking its best — its very best, indeed — though 
 Mr. Wright, with that tendency to differ from other people, which 
 was a way he had of asserting originality of opinion, declared 
 Fisherton was only perfect in August, when every garden pre- 
 sented ablaze of colour — when the orchards were full of ripened 
 fruit — when the creamy flowers of the magnolia showed them- 
 
20O Above Suspicioi2. 
 
 selves from amidst the green polished leaves — when the myrtle 
 buds were opening, and the gum-cistus unfolding its beauties 
 one hour and scattering them on the earth the next. 
 
 ''At that season," pronounced Mr. Wright, "I first beheM 
 Fisherton. At that season the place is perfect." 
 
 And the Fisherton aborigines hearkened to the voice of this 
 Solomon who had come to sit in judgment upon the beauties of 
 their native village, and were well pleased with the Rector's 
 dictum. 
 
 "Though I will still uphold," said one ancient pensioner, 
 sturdily, *' that Fisherton be main pretty when the May is all 
 a-bloom, and smelling so purely sweet, and the throstle a-singing 
 his throat out, and the lads and the lassies wandering through 
 the lanes shaded with green limes — sweethearting, as I used to 
 do myself once ; but that is an old story now." 
 
 His love-making might be an old story, but the man's notion 
 that Fisherton was " main pretty" in May and the early summer 
 chanced to be still quite true. No pooh-poohing of the Reverend 
 Dion could rob the hawthorns of the white glory which covered 
 them, or take the scent of the May from the clear air, or retard 
 the opening of the dog-roses, or remove the buttercups out of 
 the meadows, or the bright green, the pure, bright spring green 
 %ff the foliage. 
 
 After the winter floods — after the snow and frost, and rain and 
 hail — after grey skies and lowering fogs, Fisherton always came 
 forth beautiful in the spring, as if newly created. Verdure every- 
 where — the fresh smell which comes with the rising sap, the 
 songs of birds, the hum of bees. A sweet valley when the 
 waters had subsided — when the Thames flowed quietly within 
 due bounds on his way to the sea. Yes, then, before the summer 
 droughts had parched the earth — before the reaper had cut the 
 corn — while there was still bud, and promise of fruit, Fisherton, 
 set around with May, and lilac, and laburnum, with chestnut- 
 trees bursting into flower, with the red hawthorn and the redder 
 japonica all ablaze in the cottagers' gardens, looked its beautiful 
 best. 
 
 It was afternoon, and two young men who had been fishing 
 sauntered idly up from the Thames, and turned their steps to- 
 wards the village. 
 
 One was the son of a rich man, who had a few months pre- 
 viously bought Fisherton Lodge, the great place of that small 
 
** Nothing could be Better'^ 201 
 
 neighbourhood; the other a Baronet, whose acquaintance Mr. 
 Morrison's heir had made at Oxford, where parvenus go to make 
 friends. 
 
 The first young fellow was clever, and short-sighted; for per- 
 haps both of which reasons he disfigured himself by constantly 
 wearing a glass screwed up into his eye. The second was not 
 clever in the ordinary sense of the word, and not short-sighted ; 
 but he had an advantage over his fellow — it was only needful to 
 look at and to like him. 
 
 A man fleeing for his life, and coming unexpectedly upon the 
 pair, would at once have said to himself, ^' I can trust you," 
 meaning Sir Harry; "I will not trust you,'"' meanmg Bob Mor- 
 rison ; and yet there can be no doubt that Bob Morrison would 
 have helped him loyally, had he seen his way to rendering 
 assistance ; only he would first have wanted to know so much, 
 that any poor wretch in a difficulty might scarcely have relished 
 his cross-examination. 
 
 With Sir Harry, on the contrary, he would have helped the 
 man on the instant, and possibly never asked a question. 
 
 Foolish, no doubt ; and yet, as we know, Providence takes 
 care of drunken people and fools. Providence had taken re- 
 markably good care of the young Barunet. 
 
 So far, though he had been cheated more than once, and dis- 
 appointed as regarded the antecedents of his proteges over and 
 over again, Sir Harry's memory held no shameful secret, recalled 
 no enormous iniquity. 
 
 Left very young fatherless, brought up by a mother who 
 idolized him, adored by his pretty cousin Edith, flattered by his 
 private tutor, surrounded at Oxford by those who would gladly 
 have let him walk over them had he expressed a desire to that 
 effect, Sir Harry had fallen no prey to sharks or flatterers. When 
 men talked about his faults and follies, no scandalous flutter of 
 petticoats disturbed the air. He had not run into debt to such 
 an extent as seriously to embarrass his estate. His transactions 
 with those good Jews who kindly look after the pecuniary welfare 
 of young Christians were confined to two little bill affairs, in 
 both of which he had lent his name to a friend, and lost his 
 money. He had made no great success at college, but neither 
 had he made any great fiasco ; and as time went on, there was 
 only the same story to be repeated of his life. 
 
 His mother wanted him to go into Parliament, and marry his 
 
202 Above Suspicion, 
 
 cousin ; but Sir Harry did not seem inclined to pleasure her Lady- 
 ship as regarded either whim. 
 
 Nevertheless, with that pertinacity for which even the gentlest 
 women are remarkable, Lady Medburn felt quite certain her 
 dear Harry would yet add his wisdom to that of the rulers of 
 the people, and make Edith mistress of Cortingford (the name 
 of the family seat), and his poor mother happy. 
 
 Edith was the daughter of Lady Medburns only sister. That 
 sister had run away from her father's vicarage with a handsome 
 young ensign, who speedily left her an almost penniless widow, 
 with one little girl. 
 
 On her death-bed she bequeathed this child to Lady Medburn, 
 and Miss Edith's life had consequently proved a most desirable 
 affair ever since she wore short white frocks and long blue 
 sashes. 
 
 Lady Medburn had no sons or daughters save her Harry, and 
 there was no Miss Medburn to make a wearisome affair of exist- 
 ence to the young dependant, for which reason she, though 
 utterly penniless, had grown up with all the assured certainty of 
 position which might have become an heiress of the house. 
 
 Yes, it had long been decided at Cortingford that Edith was 
 to be the next Lady Medburn ; and if there were those who 
 said Sir Harry would never be more to her than cousin, the 
 majority opined he would settle down some day, and marry 
 Miss Selham, if only to please his mother. 
 
 At seven and twenty, however, the Baronet seemed as far off 
 settling and matrimony as ever; and it did not occur to Lady 
 Medburn and Miss Selham, on that particular day when Fisher- 
 ton was looking its best, that there was any especial need of 
 their prayers to avert the calamity of marriage from so heart- 
 whole a young man. 
 
 "What's all this?" exclaimed Mr. Morrison, as he and his 
 friend, turning a corner, came in sight of the church. " Car- 
 riages — servants — children, of course. Oh ! the confirmation ! 
 I had forgotten it, though I saw three w^ashing-baskets full of 
 flowers, sent in honour of the occasion, yesterday. Let us stop, 
 Medburn, and have a look at the girls as they come out." 
 
 They had not long to wait. Already the ceremony was over, 
 and the little bustle of leaving commencing. Coachmen were 
 bringing their horses up to the gate of the churchyard, footmen 
 were flying from the porch to the road, and from the road back 
 
*^Nothing could be Beitery 203 
 
 again to the porch. The feeble, aged women at the almshouses 
 opposite were shading their eyes with one hand, and holding 
 back obstreperous little urchins with the other. On the tiled 
 roofs the pigeons plumed themselves, as if waiting for the con- 
 gregation to admire their beauty. Glimpses were caught at in- 
 tervals of the Rev. Dionysius bustling about on business con- 
 nected with his Lordship the Bishop ; and all this time people 
 were defiling out of the church, singly, by twos and threes, form- 
 ing groups amongst the grass-covered graves, or walking away 
 solitary and silent, having no one to whom to speak. Even at 
 a village gathering one may always see a few lonely and neglected 
 inhabitants. 
 
 At last came the girls, the commonalty first, the el He last — a 
 goodly company. 
 
 There was naughty Polly Prickley, the most audacious romp 
 in Fisherton, lookmg as demure in her light cotton dress and 
 plain cap, coquettishly worn, as if she had spent every hour 
 since babyhood in reading tracts and reciting the Psalms. There 
 was Victoria, daughter and heiress of Sir John and Lady Giles, 
 of Riversdale, tricked out like a bride, with everything on her a 
 milliner could suggest and wealth and vanity secure, and an ex- 
 pression on her face which said plainly : 
 
 "Good people, look at me. Though I am so charmingly 
 dressed and so handsome, and though I am the only child of 
 my papa. Sir John Giles, and though he is going to give me a 
 splendid fortune, I have just renounced the World, the Flesh, 
 and the Devil. You may be surprised to hear the news ; but 
 it is true. Ask the Bishop if you are inclined to disbelieve me." 
 
 "Gracious heavens ! " exclaimed Mr. Robert Morrison, as he 
 beheld this young lady ambling along in her papa's carriage, 
 "would any other woman except Lady Giles have sent her 
 daughter out dressed for such an occasion like a May Queen ? 
 No, my dear, it is of no use your looking so graciously at me. 
 I am engaged ; and if I were not, I would never marry you, 
 Miss Vic. Do regard that young person, Medburn, and contrast 
 her with the lilies of the field, which she only resembles in so 
 far as she neither toils nor spins." 
 
 But his companion would not regard Miss Giles. His atten- 
 tion was fixed on three other young people, who walked slowly 
 and decorously out of the porch — the very last to leave the 
 church. 
 
204 Above Siispicion. 
 
 " Morrison, who is that lovely girl ? " asked Sir Harry. Hear- 
 ing which question, Mr. Morrison adjusted his eye-glass, and 
 surveyed the group. 
 
 "That — oh! that is our Rector's eldest daughter. Pretty, 
 undeniably, and the drcss becomes her. Maria Wright. The 
 Rector has a baker's dozen. Mrs. Wright is at Southsea with 
 the latest addition to the family. Now, the show is over, shall 
 we be going home ? " 
 
 Their homeward way led them past the line of carriages, and 
 Mr. Robert Morrison had to raise his hat frequently, and to 
 pause often when some demonstrative lady beckoned him to 
 her side. 
 
 From a distance, however, he was at length hailed by his 
 father. 
 
 " Hallo ! Robert," shouted that worthy, "what are you doing 
 here?" 
 
 " We have been following the occupation of the first disciples, 
 and admiring the doings of their descendants," was the reply. 
 
 " In otlier words," added Sir Harry, who saw that Mr. Morri- 
 son looked puzzled, " we have been fishing, and we have been 
 admiring the young ladies of Fisherton." 
 
 " Well, it was a pretty sight," said Mr. Morrison, who had 
 stayed away from a committee meeting in order to support Mr. 
 Wright on the occasion, and meet the Bishop afterwards. 
 
 *' I saw one very pretty sight," agreed the Baronet. 
 
 " He means Maria Wright," explained Mr. Robert, compas- 
 sionately. 
 
 '' Now, do not be ill-natured, Robert," entreated his parent ; 
 "the girl is pretty, very much so indeed. Looks quite like a 
 what-do-you-call-it, in all that light drapery." 
 
 *" I suppose you mean a seraph, sir ? " suggested his son. 
 
 "She is not in the least like a seraph," said Sir Harry, as if 
 there were something especially derogatory in the compa- 
 rison. 
 
 " My dear fellow, she shall be like anything you please," Mr. 
 Robert Morrison was saying, when a movement on the part of 
 Mr. Morrison's footmen indicated some arrival of importance, 
 and Mr. Wright, walking forward, began : 
 
 " Allow me, my Lord, to have the honour of introducing my 
 very good friend and most liberal parishioner, Mr. Morrison. I 
 am proud to have so public-spirited and generous a gentleman 
 
*^ Nothing could be Better. 2o5 
 
 located in this parish. In whatsoever place he may have chosen 
 to cast his lot, he has always proved himself a staunch pillar of 
 the Church." 
 
 The Bishop, who, being a most quiet and unpretending in- 
 dividual, looked, but for his dress, much less like a Bishop than 
 Mr. Wright, expressed himself truly delighted to make Mr. 
 Morrison's acquaintance, and shook hands, with much impres- 
 siveness, on the side path, to which Mr. Morrison had promptly 
 descended. 
 
 Then his Lordship stepped, with an air of dignified accus- 
 tomedness, which was not at all assumed, into the carriage, and 
 Mr. Wright, at Mr. Morrison's solicitation, was about to follow, 
 when his eye fell on the two young men, who had fallen a little 
 back when the Bishop appeared on the scene. 
 
 If Mr. Wright had met Calcraft in his Sunday clothes wander- 
 ing about Fisherton parish, he would have raised the rectorial 
 hat in greeting. The practice had often served him in good 
 stead, and he was not going to deviate from it now; so he 
 greeted Mr. Robert Morrison and Sir Harry Medburn with 
 affable condescension, and they, as in duty bound, returned his 
 salute. 
 
 " My son, Mr. Wright," said Mr. Morrison, senior ; " lately 
 returned from Egypt; and Sir Harry Medburn," added the 
 millionaire. 
 
 Whereupon the Rector seemed to expand, physically and 
 morally. He could not tell Mr. Robert Morrison how charmed 
 he was to see him at Fisherton. He could not express to Sir 
 Harry Medburn how delighted he was to make his acquaintance. 
 
 He trusted they would both come on to the Rectory and 
 partake of luncheon. Only a few friends to meet his Lordship. 
 No ceremony, just a glass of wine, a slice of meat, and a biscuit. 
 With Mrs. Wright absent, he could offer little, but that little 
 he hoped the young men would honour with their presence. 
 Nothing loth, the young men availed themselves of the invitation. 
 
 " Send the carriage back, please, sir," said Mr. Robert IMorri- 
 son to his father ; and then the carriage referred to, containing 
 the Bishop, Mr. Wright, and Mr. Morrison, senior, drove off, 
 the Rector returning the salutations of his parishioners in a 
 "king by the grace of God and defender of the faith" manner, 
 
 _ The meagre glass of wine, the modest slice of beef, the vague 
 biscui*- of which Mr. Wright had made mention, pioved to be 
 
2o6 Above Suspicion, 
 
 simply figurative expressions, really representing a feast that 
 need have shamed the table of no modern Belshazzar. 
 
 On the board appeared everything in season, and many things 
 out of it Each guest, with the exception of the Bishop, had 
 contributed something to the feast, which thus came really to 
 assume a little of the character of a picnic. Spring chickens, as 
 large as young turkeys, came from the yards of Sir John Giles, 
 whose "lady" had made poultry a study, and sold sittings of eggs 
 at fabulous prices. Fruit and flowers were contributed by Mr. 
 Morrison ; the Rector's churchwarden, who had never before 
 found himself in such grand and good company, had sent in 
 enough butter and cheese and bacon from his little farm, as he 
 modestly called eight hundred acres, as would, Bella Miles and 
 Nurse Mary calculated, last the family for three weeks. As to 
 the other churchwarden, who said he was a plain man, and did 
 not want to intrude on the Bishop or anybody else, he dis- 
 patched from his warehouse in tov/n, which warehouse happened, 
 ^'providentially" Mr. Wright said, to be of the description called 
 Italian, such a supply of foreign delicacies that the Rector's 
 heart softened towards the sometime recalcitrant parish repre- 
 sentative, and blessed him for all the dainties he should now be 
 able to take to the seaside, snugly packed, when he next ran 
 down to see poor Selina. 
 
 Never, out of a great man's house, had the Bishop beheld 
 such preparations in his honour, and as it was part and parcel of 
 Mr. Wright's nature and politics to give unbounded honour 
 where honour was due, his Lordship soon understood that the 
 entertainment was rather secular than clerical; that the luncheon 
 was but a series of gifts laid at his own admirable feet, and his 
 soul inclined to the man able, at this time of the world, to draw 
 such admirable offerings from the cellars, and forcing-houses, 
 and dairies, and warehouses, of his friends, in order to do 
 honour to his ecclesiastical chief. 
 
 Especially in the matter of that port. The Colonel had 
 struck by accident his Lordship's weakness. 
 
 He was no gounnaiid, or gourmet. Like most wise people, he 
 liked good things when they fell in his way; but he was moderate 
 in, and not over-particular concerning, his fare, as became a 
 bishop. 
 
 '' But if he must drink wine," this was what he said himself, 
 ** if people would insist on offering him something out of a de- 
 
^Nothing could be Bctterr 207 
 
 cantei, instead of a tumbler of honest Bass — a beverage good 
 enough for an emperor — he did not care to swallow a decoctiou 
 of blackberries." 
 
 And no doubt the poor man had often been forced to taste 
 the products of some even less natural vintage, for which reason 
 his Lordship appreciated the outcome of Colonel Leschelles* 
 cellar, and was gracious to him accordingly. 
 
 Now, this pleased Mr. Wright. The Colonel was, par excel- 
 lence, his friend, and not his parishioner. The Colonel held a 
 different position from that occupied by any one else round and 
 about the table. Further, the Colonel and Sir Harry Medburn 
 had at once discovered they knew each other intimately; knew 
 far more about each other, in fact, Mr. Wright could see plainly, 
 than the Baronet knew of Mr. Robert Morrison. 
 
 " Really exceedingly gratifying,'' the poor Rector thought, 
 mentally planning his evening letter to Selina. " Gratifying in 
 the extreme." 
 
 But gratifying as the luncheon proved, the tea-party on the 
 lawn, to which several ladies, anxious to say iliey had met the 
 Bishop, were bidden, proved more gratifying still. His Lord- 
 ship praised the grounds, and their state of excellent cultiva- 
 tion. 
 
 "Well, it is no credit to me, my Lord," said Mr. Wright, 
 '' and very little expense either. As curate, I naturally moved 
 about a good deal, and in each place where we settled my 
 dear wife found some sickly gardener, or weakly labourer, or 
 pensioner past regular work, whom she was able to help — for 
 it is marvellous how little does help the poor — and now they 
 come to us, first one and then the otlier ; and when they do, 
 they take off their coats and begin to put things in order. And 
 they send us, those who are in situations, roots and plants, the 
 things coming with their masters' compliments ; and it is won- 
 derful, it is really," finished Mr. Wright, "how our garden has 
 grown and been kept passably tidy." 
 
 The Bishop thought the state of the garden spoke highly for 
 all parties concerned ; which was very natural, seeing his Lord- 
 ship had not provided the beef and mutton, and arrowroot, and 
 tea, and so forth, these poor creatures needed, and been forced 
 to wait months and years for his money, like some of the trades- 
 men ]\Ir. Wright benefited by his patronage. 
 
 And then, when the Bishop praised the coffee, Mr. Wright 
 
2o8 Above Suspicion, 
 
 said it was a present from his good kind friend, the parish war- 
 den, and made by one of his girls ; but he did not mention that 
 the girl's name was Bella Miles. 
 
 Indeed, during the whole of that evening Bella passed muster 
 as one of the family. 
 
 Even Robert Morrison, who having seen Maria talking to 
 his mother concerning the clothes-baskets of flowers, knew only 
 her amongst the Rector's daughters, remained under the same 
 delusion, until, happening to remark how little Miss Bella re- 
 sembled her sister. Lady Giles informed him the girl was not 
 even a relation of the Wrights, but some orphan, whose friends 
 paid Mr. Wright " only a hundred a year for the inestimable 
 advantage of living at the rectory." 
 
 This with a sneer ; for Lady Giles, who was no match for 
 Mrs. Wright either in cleverness or rapartee, disliked that lady, 
 as is the pleasing manner of her pleasing sex, for no reason in 
 particular. 
 
 She and Sir John had met the Morrisons abroad — had, in- 
 deed, first directed their attention to Fisherton Lodge as a 
 desirable place to purchase — therefore she and Mr. Robert 
 stood on the basis of old acquaintances ; and her Ladyship 
 hoped Robert — familiarly called Bob — might marry her daugh- 
 ter Victoria, occupied at that present moment in scolding her 
 maid for malpractices in the matter of folding up dresses. 
 
 For Miss Victoria's name had by some mischance been left 
 out of the list of invited guests — greatly, to say the truth, at the 
 instigation of Miss Maria Wright ; and as it would have seemed 
 a special insult to Lady Giles to invite other unmarried ladies 
 and exclude her daughter, no unmarried ladies were present — 
 always excepting the Rector's family (including Bella Miles) — 
 save those who, by reason of there remaining no matrimonial 
 prospect whatsoever, were as good as married, or, by reason of 
 lack of daughters, better. 
 
 Miss Miles did all that lay in her power to make the after- 
 noon pass pleasantly. The Bishop complimented Mr. Wright 
 on his charming family ; and Mr. Wright bowed his delighted 
 acknowledgments, and said : 
 
 " My Lord, though I say it, who perhaps should not, through- 
 out England there is no more united household than mine." 
 
 "And your eldest daughter seems a treasure in herself," re- 
 marked his Lordship, velcrring to Bella. 
 
** Nothing could he Better^ 209 
 
 "She is the image of her mother when I first saw her," said 
 Mr. Wright, referring to Maria. 
 
 " How remarkably unhke," thought the Bishop, "are the rest 
 of the children to the mother." 
 
 After that a wonderful thing happened. The Bishop, while 
 talking to Bella Miles, forgot that his train left at a certain hour, 
 so actually supposed he must v/ait until the next. 
 
 To fill up the interval, some one suggested "music;" and 
 Mrs. Wright being absent, and Mr. Wright knowing perfectly no 
 one present but Miss Miles could satisfy the ears of a bishop, 
 asked her to play. 
 
 And Bella did play. With all the power God had given her 
 — with all the veins of her heart — she brought harmony out of 
 the misused piano that night, and told to more than one of her 
 auditors something of the force and passion in her nature. 
 
 " It is marvellous ! " said the Bishop ; " it is indeed. I could 
 not have believed so young a girl capable of playing as she does. 
 I congratulate you. It is long since I have spent so profitable 
 and pleasant a day — a day, I may truly say, of unmixed satis- 
 faction. I am so much obliged ! — thank you most earnestly." 
 
 And with the last conventional sentence on his lips, exit the 
 Bishop in Mr. Morrison's carriage, Mr. Morrison seeing him to 
 the station. 
 
 "What a wonderful girl that eldest daughter of our friend 
 seems to be," said the Bishop, speaking on the subject just then 
 nearest to his mind. 
 
 " She is extremely pretty," agreed the millionaire, who shared 
 the tastes of his son, and who considered Maria Wright a much 
 " sweeter-looking creature " than Miss Miles. 
 
 "And what an admirable musician !" observed the Bishop. 
 
 " I am told all the Rector's children are clever in that re- 
 spect ; but I am no judge of music myself." 
 
 " Your friend the Baronet is a little attracted in that quarter, 
 or I am much deceived," said his Lordship, a little slyly. 
 
 " Yes ; my son made some remark to a similar effect," an- 
 swered Mr. Morrison, still playing at cross purposes ; and the 
 next time he met Mr. Wright, he asked him some absurd ques- 
 tion about Sir Harry, and told him even the Bishop had noticed 
 how deeply the young man was smitten by Miss Maria's pretty 
 fa^e. 
 
 Out of pure mischief Mr. Robert Morrison had, after the 
 
 14 
 
2 TO Above Suspicion, 
 
 Bishop left, managed to draw Mr. Wright apart, in order to 
 enlarge on the same theme ; and accordingly, between cham- 
 pagne — a good deal of that wine being drunk at a late and very 
 cosy supper, at which only Colonel Leschelles, the Rector, Mr. 
 Robert Morrison, and his friend were present — the remembered 
 affability of the Bishop, the success of the day's proceedings, 
 and visions of rank and wealth for Maria, Mr. Wright went to 
 bed jubilant. 
 
 Not, however, before he had written to his better half. The 
 Reverend Dionysius never neglected her. If he had remem- 
 bered few other promises in life, the vows made at a certain 
 little country church in Wicklow were religiously kept by plau- 
 sible, well-intentioned, selfish, careless Mr. Wright. 
 
 He had never been selfish towards Selina : she and the chil- 
 dren were always considered first, and himself last ; and if some- 
 times he did, as he could not help doing, enjoy a day thoroughly 
 in her absence, there always succeeded to his pleasure a sense 
 of wrong, as if his happiness had been purchased at the cost of 
 a certain disloyalty to her. 
 
 For this reason, ere he slept, Mr. Wright penned the follow- 
 ing letter to his absent wife : — 
 
 " Dearest S." — (it was thus Mr. Wright, in the sacred fami- 
 liarity of matrimonial correspondence, usually addressed his 
 Selina) — "Late as it is — One a.m. — I must write you a Ime to 
 say everything went off splendidly. The confirmation — the 
 luncheon — all a complete success. His Lordship was 7nore than 
 gracious. He was condescendingly familiar; indeed, many a 
 rector we have known has been far less affable. The girls looked 
 lovely — simply lovely ; Maria in especial, saint-like and angelic, 
 reminding me oi you know who, on the day which made me the 
 happiest man in the three kingdoms. 
 
 " Her dress suited the dear child to perfection, and the so- 
 lemnity of the service imparted a look of sv/eet thoughtfulness 
 to her face, which endued it wun 2i finishing chai-nu I am not 
 alone in this opinion. Parental vanity has not led me astray on 
 this point. The dear girl was universally admired. Good, kind, 
 charming Bella looked quite plain by comparison. The simple, 
 modest attire which set off the retiring beauty of the one failed 
 to suit the very different style of our child by adoption, who 
 proved herself to-day all you could wish. 
 
**Notkinz cotild be Better^ 2 1 1 
 
 <^ 
 
 "And now, my dear, I come to the pith of my story. Our 
 Maria has made a conquest. Of course it is not for any poor 
 falhble human being to tell how this may all turn out \ but a 
 certain Sir Harry Medburn, staying with the Morrisons, has — 
 so young Morrison assures me — quite lost his heart to our pretty 
 one. He seems a very nice fellow, and, I find from Dod, is the 
 patron of two livings ! 
 
 "According to Morrison, he has thirteen thousand a year; 
 and Leschelles, who knows him well, says he will be heir to a 
 Sir Alexander Kelvey, who made heaps of money out in India, 
 and who has no other near male relative. You will not, dearest 
 S., take all this for more than it is worth; but I do think our 
 sweet child stands a very fair chance of being asked to become 
 my Lady — God bless her ! Leschelles has invited Medburn to 
 stay with him when he leaves the Morrisons'. I have said no- 
 thing to Leschelles about Maria. He is odd in his notions, as 
 you have often remarked ; and I think the least said in such a 
 case is soonest mended. 
 
 " Enclosed is half of a five-pound note. It is my last, and I 
 do not know where any more is to come from at present ; but 
 the hour before dawn is the darkest, and I trust our dawn \i 
 near at hand. 
 
 "I wrote to Mr. Irwin, asking him for fifty pounds — just 
 another poor fifty — nothing to him, health to you, and ease of 
 mind to me; and what do you suppose he did? — sent me a 
 statement of account^ bringing me in one hundred and sixty-five 
 pounds overdrawn — as if, even supposing he never received that 
 amount, it could repay us for our loving care of that poor child, 
 who is so grateful for our kindness. He explained that business 
 was dull, and money scarce, etc., etc. — the tisual trade cry, \\\\h 
 which time has made us so well acquainted; and he said he 
 must really beg me to excuse him from making any further 
 advances at present. After all, my dear, as you say — I beg 
 your pardon, you do not say anything so vulgar — but as you 
 imply, there is ' a dirty drop ' somewhere in Mr. Irwin, and that 
 will show itself. The longer I live, the more fully satisfied I 
 feel that blood cannot associate for any length of time with bone. 
 If you could only see the difference there is between young 
 Morrison and his friend Sir Harry ! But, of course, you will 
 see, and, as usual, draw your own admirable conclusions. 
 
 14 — 3 
 
212 Above Suspicion, 
 
 " Don't buy anything this week till you see the hamper un- 
 packed, which I shall take down the day after to-morrow. 
 
 " Every one contributed to to-day's feast. We have had in 
 our lives, spite of much anxiety, my dear S., great cause for 
 thankfulness ; and could you have seen the success of to-day, 
 you must have called it a complete victory. Nothing could have 
 been better. I do not believe his Lordship ever sat down to a 
 better luncheon, better served, in his life. 
 
 " Good night — or, rather, good morning, darling. Kiss the 
 young master for me. What do you think of Leschelles and 
 Medburn for godfathers, with Bella Miles for godmother ? The 
 conjunction might please evenW. C. I., and be beneficial to the 
 rogue hereafter. 
 
 " Ever yours devotedly, 
 
 "Dion." 
 
 Having addressed and sealed up and stamped which epistle, 
 ** hers devotedly Dion " put on his hat, and, whistUng softly to 
 himself, walked up to the little village shop that served as post- 
 office, in order to drop his love-letter in the box. 
 
 It was a beautiful night, tender and mild, with refreshing 
 perfumes pervading the air, the sky laden with a suspicion ot 
 light from the coming day. 
 
 The Rector extended his walk, and strolled on past Fisherton 
 Lodge, to Riversdale, and thence home. 
 
 *' Our dear Maria," he thought, " shall be mistress over a 
 finer establishment than either of these. And there have been 
 people who thought they could crush me. Ah ! they did not 
 quite understand the Rev. Mr. Wright I" 
 
A Conjugal Tele-d-Tete, 213 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 A CONJUGAL TETE-A-TETE. 
 
 It was not that time of roses which old-fashioned writers had in 
 their mind when gossiping about the pleasant seasons, and to 
 which modern poets — all honour to them for their constancy — 
 have remained faithful. 
 
 The fragrant cabbage-rose, the picturesque York and Lan- 
 caster, the little button-like des 7iiois — which name children used 
 to alter and improve into des mots — the pure white clustering 
 amid green on great trees, not mere bushes ; the pure white in 
 which, in warm summers, the rose-beetle reflected its brilliant 
 colours to the sun — all these, and many another rose, the beauty 
 and perfume of which delighted our grandmothers, had shed 
 their despised leaves, once considered precious, and collected 
 carefully by dainty fingers for preservation in great china jars, 
 and still the modern standards in the rectory garden, bunches 
 of colour surmounting long bare stems, went on blooming, un- 
 mindful of their dead fair kindred. 
 
 It was late summer in the rectory garden, where were beds 
 all aglow with scarlet geraniums ; borders decked by the Rev. 
 Dion's grateful dependants, with all possible variations of that 
 monstrosity, ribbon gardening ; plots left by good fortune to 
 chance old seeds and the children, and so growing flaunting 
 poppies wreathed by many-coloured diversities of the nasturtium 
 tribe, with here a tuft of mignonette, and there an almost wild 
 growth of sweet peas and French marigolds — a flower which 
 bids fair soon to become as extinct as the tremulous harebell 
 and the deeper-blued gentianella. 
 
 Other beds there were telling of the work of a careful hand 
 directed by a different head. 
 
 Here is one, a centre of fuchsia, surrounded entirely by helio- 
 tropes, well pegged down ; here is a second, a bed filled with 
 ivy geraniums and many-coloured verbenas ; and then what 
 could the heart of man desire to behold more beautiful than 
 
214 Above Suspicion. 
 
 that wealth of gladioli surrounding an arbutus dwarf — as, un- 
 happily, arbutus insists on growing away from Killarney ? 
 
 Yes, the old rose month had long gone by, and that time 
 which the Rev. Mr. Wright declared was the prime of the whole 
 year at Fisherton was come, bringing with it hot days and sultry 
 nights, the perfumes of all rich odorous flowers ; and at inter- 
 vals, too, the first faint scent of autumn's fading leaves. 
 
 Mrs. Wright sat by an open window looking out over the 
 garden sloping to the Thames. From the river came the occa- 
 sional plash of oars, and sometimes the sound of some distant 
 party singing " Row, brothers, row," or a sentimental love 
 ditty. 
 
 It was a calm peaceful scene on which the twilight deepened; 
 but Mrs. Wright did not feel calm or peaceful. 
 
 She had come home expecting to find that everything was 
 going on satisfactorily, and behold nothing was going on as it 
 ought. 
 
 For weeks Sir Harry had been hovering about the rectory, 
 — now staying with Colonel Leschelles, and accompanying him 
 in his visits, then takin;;; up his residence at a riverside inn, some 
 three miles distant, and rowing down to Fisherton ; again rush- 
 ing off to Devonshire, and returning thence accompanied by 
 hampers containing rare fruits and exotics for Mrs. Weight, and 
 within a day or two running up to London, whence he brought 
 gifts that caused the breasts of the younger Wrights to leap for 
 joy under their white pinafores. 
 
 Nor were the elders forgotten. Mrs. Wright could not men- 
 tion any want which the Baronet failed instantly to supply. He 
 gave Mr. Wright a handsome writing-table. He presented the 
 Demoiselles Wright with brooches, which those young ladies 
 displayed next Sunday in church. 
 
 There was only one person to whom Sir Harry gave nothing, 
 and with whom he seemed a little shy — Bella Miles — and she 
 was usually very silent when he spent the evenmg at the rectory. 
 
 At that time she did not, however, talk much to any one. 
 The only peison in whose society she evinced any pleasure was 
 that of Colonel Leschelles. She always left Sir Harry and the 
 girls to amuse themselves, and stole away to the side of her 
 elderly friend, who seemed in some danger in those days of being 
 neglected by all the Wrights save the Reverend Dion. 
 
 Openly Mrs. Wright expressed an opinion that Colonel 
 
A Conjugal Teie-ct-Tite. 215 
 
 Leschelles was acting as a spy on their younger visitor's move- 
 ments. 
 
 " It is no business of his," she commented, " but I am quite 
 certain he does not want Sir Harry to propose for Maria." 
 
 ** I am not altogether of your opinion," said her husband. 
 "The other morning, just to hear what he thought of the matter, 
 I pointed to Maria and the Baronet, and remarked, ' I think 
 our friend is pretty far gone in that quarter.' ' Do you mean in 
 love with your eldest daughter?' he inquired. 'Well, yes, if 
 you will put the case so strongly,' I answered. ' I am afraid he 
 is not,' he said, with a solemn shake of his head." 
 
 " Old simpleton ! " interrupted Mrs. Wright. " I wonder what 
 he and Bella Miles are talking about so perpetually. She never 
 seems happy except when she is strolling off with him some- 
 where. Do you think, Dion, there is any likelihood of his 
 leaving her all his money ? " 
 
 " I do not know. He might make a worse disposition of it," 
 said the Rector. 
 
 On this point, however, Mrs. Wright did not agree with her 
 husband. If Colonel Leschelles left his money to Bella Miles, 
 to what purpose had the latest arrival been christened Archibald 
 Harry Miles Wright, Sir Harry Medburn, the Colonel, and Miss 
 Bella having all stood sponsors for him ? 
 
 " With a fortune, Bella would be sure to marry, and then the 
 Coloi^el might as well never have been — never have enjoyed 
 their hospitality at Christmas. It was most provoking," Mrs. 
 Wright said, beginning to have strong opinions about taking in 
 strangers, about " whom one knows nothing," to the privacy of 
 a refined and delightful home. 
 
 Something to this tune Mrs. Wright sat by the window think- 
 ing. Away in the distance, by the river's brink, two people 
 walked — up and down — up and down — till their monotonous 
 pace made Selina feel quite irritable. 
 
 " Curran," she cried, at last, to that young gentleman, who 
 was disporting himself on the lawn, " run and tell Bella I want 
 her." 
 
 But Curran pursed up his lips and shook his head. 
 
 " Run this instant, you naughty boy ! " persisted his mother. 
 
 " Shan't," said the naughty boy. " Shan't. The Colonel told 
 me to go away and pla)^, and when I once happened to get near 
 them again, he spoke to me, oh ! so cross — ^just as pa does when 
 
2 1 6 A bove Suspicion, 
 
 the butcher has been here for money." Curran, in the excite- 
 ment of making this communication, approached incautiously 
 near the window, and was rewarded for the simile so ingeniously 
 introduced by a smart slap, which had the effect of sending him 
 off howling to the kitchen, where he was solaced with bread and 
 jam, and had the pleasure of telling his tale to an appreciative 
 audience. 
 
 "She's just bewitched, that's what it is," commented Nurse 
 Mary, while Curran swallowed his jam and his tears together. 
 
 " Surely you never think she would be " the housemaid 
 
 was beginning, when a look from Nurse Mary stopped her. 
 
 " Isn't it wonderful," said that privileged domestic, laying her 
 hand on the side of Curran's head, " how the length of children's 
 ears differs?" 
 
 With which profound observation she diverted the talk from 
 Miss Miles and her " old veteran," as she called the Colonel. 
 
 Already the kitchen understood that which the parlour failed 
 to see. 
 
 "I'm thinking she'll take him," Nurse Mary mentally decided. 
 " Well, that will be spring and winter, if you like. The man 's 
 old enough to be ;//y grandfather, for the matter of that." 
 
 Mrs. Wright put a shawl over her head and stepped out into 
 the garden. In the distance she could still see Colonel Les- 
 chelles and Bella Miles, but they were now standing still under 
 a willow which grew beside the walk, and at that point almost 
 concealed every one sheltered by its drooping branches. 
 
 Yes, they were standing still ; but what was Bella Miles doing? 
 Mrs. Wright could not believe the evidence of her senses. 
 
 She had taken the Colonel's left hand and was kissing it — 
 Mrs. Wright felt capable of making affidavit on that point — while 
 the Colonel, not to be behindhand in civilities of so questionable 
 a nature, had laid his right hand on her hair and was speaking 
 to the girl earnestly. 
 
 Mrs. Wright turned and went back to the house; she had 
 seen too much — more than she felt she could trust herself to 
 repeat to the Rev. Dion — then, at all events. 
 
 When the rest of the household had retired, and Mr. and Mrs. 
 Wright were left to enjoy that solitary hour of uninterrupted 
 conversation which the twenty-four contained, the lady began : 
 
 " Dion, I want you to do something for me, or rather two 
 things." 
 
A Cortjiigal Tete-a-Tete. 217 
 
 "Fifty, my dear, if I can," answered the Rector, gallantly 
 but judiciously. 
 
 " Bella is very fond of you, I know.'* 
 
 " "Poor thing ! " remarked Mr. Wright, treating the remark as 
 a compliment, and deprecating it. 
 
 "She has a high opinion of your judgment, and would be 
 likely to listen to any advice you might give her." 
 
 " I am sure, my love, it is very good of you to think so," said 
 the Rector, who would have felt much more comfortable had he 
 understood whither his wife was driving. 
 
 " It is true,'' returned Mrs. Wright solemnly. " Every one 
 must see how partial the girl is to you." 
 
 " She is jealous," thought the Rector ; " I knew how it would 
 be sooner or later." But he only remarked aloud that he be- 
 lieved Bella was partial to all of them. " She has good cause 
 to be fond of you, at any rate," added the worthy Rector, who 
 never missed an opportunity, at home or abroad, of sounding 
 Sehna's praises, " for you have made her what she is." 
 
 " In some respects I hope not, Dion," answered Mrs. Wright. 
 " I have done my best for the girl. If I were on my death-bed 
 to-morrow, and I have been too lately lying on what seemed 
 very like my death-bed to " 
 
 " Now, now, now, my dear," interrupted her husband, stretch- 
 ing his hand across the table and clasping it kindly in her own, 
 "you must not talk in this way. You were very, very ill, but 
 not so bad as that, thank God ! And while you were laid up, 
 Bella, I am sure, did credit to your teaching. She was like a 
 mother to the children " 
 
 " I daresay," interposed Mrs. Wright, hastily wiping the tears 
 from her eyes, and turning very red at the comparison the poor 
 Rector had so innocently instituted : " I daresay she did take a 
 good deal on herself while I was so ill, and away. She is ver>' 
 fond of takmg on a little brief authority. Any one, to see her 
 doing this, that, and the other about the house, might imagine 
 everything had been neglected hitherto." 
 
 " Well, well, Selina, she is young, remember, and young people 
 are not all blessed with the tact you possessed even at twenty. 
 Make allowances for her, my love ; for in some way, though I 
 confess I cannot tell in what way, she has been unfortunately 
 placed. And there can be no doubt but that her progenitors 
 have been very common sort of people ; and we know, you and 
 
21 8 Above Suspicion. 
 
 I, that the old proverb which says, * You cannot make a silk 
 purse out of a sow's ear/ is as true as that * You cannot draw 
 blood out of a turnip.' " 
 
 " I do make allowances for her," answered Mrs. Wright, put- 
 ting aside the Reverend Dion's popular quotations as irrelevant 
 to the matter in hand, " and I am sure I bear no ill-will to the 
 girl, though she does try to make much of herself, and throws 
 our dear ones into the shade. The way she went on playing 
 last night, when Sir Harry was here, I considered perfectly dis- 
 gusting." 
 
 After all, there are two sides to maternal affection : one which 
 is very beautiful, and another which acts as a reminder of the 
 savage pecks a hen is wont to administer to a chicken not her 
 own. Poor dear Mrs. Wright was amiability itself to any girl 
 who did not poach on the manor of her charming flock ; but 
 her eyes were very sharp indeed to notice the faults, real or 
 fancied, of that youthful maiden who stood to intercept the sun- 
 shine falling upon the rectory daughters. 
 
 Said the Rev. Dion, answering his wife's parenthesis : 
 
 " Perhaps Bella did play a little too long and too much last 
 night ; but we ought not to find fault with her, as it enabled our 
 young friend to devote himself exclusively to Maria." 
 
 " I am not quite sure of it," replied Mrs. Wright. " That sort 
 of professional playing is very distracting to many people. I 
 know I never can even write a letter when she is performing. 
 In my opinion, the music annoyed Sir Harry : he looked quite 
 out of sorts all the evening." 
 
 "What is it you want me to do?" asked the Rector, under- 
 standing that this sort of discourse might go on indefinitely, un- 
 less he pinned Selina to one subject. "Am I to ask Bella not 
 to exhibit her accomplishments, or to suggest that she makes 
 herself too busy about the house ? " 
 
 There was a certain bitterness in Mr. Wright's tone as he put 
 his question, which happily dearest S. failed to notice, so eager 
 was she to answer : 
 
 " No, nothing of the kind. I want you to advise her not to 
 be quite so familiar in her manner towards Colonel Leschelles." 
 
 Mr. Wright set down his tumbler. He had been, when his 
 wife spoke, in the act of putting it to his lips. 
 
 " Towards Colonel Leschelles ! " he repeated. " What on 
 earth do you mean, Selina ? What cat is with t%g now ? " 
 
A Conjugal Tete-a-Tete, 219 
 
 " I wish, Dion, you would not use such low expressions. If 
 you accustom yourself to employ them when alone with me, you 
 may say what you would be very sorry to think you had said in 
 public. And there is nothing to cause such expressions of 
 astonishment. Bella Miles is — well, we don't exactly know what 
 Bella Miles is ; and Colonel Leschelles is a vain old simpleton, 
 who could be flattered into leaving his money to a charwoman, 
 if she only knew the way to take him." 
 
 " I wish I knew how to take him," said Mr. Wright, plain- 
 tively. 
 
 " We are not the people to do a thing of that kind," objected 
 Mrs. Wright, plaintively. " We are too honest and too straight- 
 forward to condescend to tricks that are but every-day weapons 
 in the hands of mere worldlings. Bella Miles comes from no 
 one knows where, and belongs to no one knows who ; and if 
 you are bhnd, I cannot shut my eyes. She is wheedling the 
 Colonel into a belief of her utter simplicity and amiability ; and 
 I repeat, you ought to speak to her, and say, though you are 
 certain she means nothing by her manners, still they are not so 
 circumspect as you could wish them to be." 
 
 " Why not speak to her yourself? " asked Mr. Wright. 
 
 " Because she thinks, wrongly, that I am prejudiced — because 
 she understands my standard of propriety in a woman's behaviour 
 is very different to hers — because she likes you better than she 
 likes me, and would attach importance to your advice, and none 
 to mine." 
 
 " You are quite wrong in your idea, Selina," returned the 
 Rector ; " but I will speak to her, if you consider it well for me 
 to do so. What is the next thing in her conduct to which you 
 object ? It may be as well to include all her sins in one lecture." 
 
 " I have nothing more to say about Bella at present^^ an- 
 swered Mrs. Wright, with an ominous emphasis on the two last 
 words. " What I want you to do further is to get some sort of 
 an explanation from Sir Harry. It is not well for him to be 
 hanging about the house and making no sign. If he admires 
 Maria enough to come here three or four days a week, and two 
 or three times a day, he ought to say so in plain English. We 
 cannot have a young man, even if he be a baronet, amusing 
 himself at our expense. Maria is very pretty, we know ; and if 
 he thinks her pretty enough to fall in love with, he ought to ask 
 your permission to propose for her. If she is not pretty enough 
 
220 Above Suspicion. 
 
 to be Lady Medburn, she should not be flirted with — of that 
 there can be no doubt. You must speak to him, Dion. You 
 ought to tell him how difficult our position is here, and how 
 necessary we find it to have everything straightforward and 
 clearly understood. He should have seen this himself without 
 any hint from you ; but as, like all English people, he seems 
 utterly destitute of tact, we must show him that affairs cannot go 
 on much longer as they are." 
 
 The Rev. Dion rose from his seat and took two or three 
 hurried turns up and down his study. He had a man's natural 
 reluctance to force his child upon another man's acceptance; 
 and yet, still knowing Selina's view of the affair was correct, he 
 did not dare to shirk the task assigned to him. 
 
 Nevertheless, he tried to temporize. " Do you think, dear," 
 he asked, once again taking possession of his chair, " that it is 
 necessary to ask Sir HaiTy for an explanation at once? He is 
 not a worldly man, as you see ; he is not a man who has mixed 
 much with worldly people. Supposing we give him a little 
 longer law? The fact is, Selina," finished Mr. Wright, " that I 
 don't know where to turn for money ; and if I speak to Med- 
 burn about Maria, I can't ask him for a loan." 
 
 " I should think not," said Mrs. Wright, scornfully. 
 
 " Then how am I to keep the wolf from the door ? It is 
 very close upon us again, remember." 
 
 " How should you have kept it away had you never seen Sir 
 Harry INIedburn?" 
 
 Which was one of the speeches poor dear clever Mrs. Wright 
 considered trenchant, and yet which was really as absurd as if 
 she had asked the Rev. Dion how he would have reared his 
 family had he never seen her. 
 
 " I am sure I cannot tell, Selina," answered her husband. 
 "All other doors seem shut, and this about the only one which 
 is open." 
 
 " Can't you go to Mr. Morrison ? " 
 
 Mr. Wright shook his head. '* You know, dear, I have never 
 yet applied to a man cei'tain to refuse me." 
 
 " And you think he would ? " 
 
 " He would, without doubt. If I wanted the church restored 
 — if it were necessary for new schools to be built — if there was 
 anything, in fact, to which he could sign his name, Samuel 
 Morrison, and thrust it under the eyes of the public, I should 
 
A Conjugal Tete-d-Tete, 221 
 
 not have to ask in vain ; but as regards giving in private, or 
 lending to a man in straits like myself, he would just as soon 
 fling his money into the Thames. I have taken the latitude 
 and longitude of Fisherton, Selina, pretty well, and know there 
 is only one way of navigating our craft in these waters. If I 
 may not ask Medburn, I tell you candidly, I don't see in which 
 direction we are to turn." 
 
 Then Mrs. Wright's maternal feelings rose triumphant, and 
 she became sublime. 
 
 "We must not be selfish, Dion," she finished. "At whatever 
 cost to ourselves, we must consider our dear child. If by doing 
 anything unwise, or leaving anything wise undone, we prevented 
 Maria becoming Lady Medburn, I should never forgive myself, 
 and I am certain neither would you. Besides, if he once pro- 
 poses for her, we shall be able to get money. In that case, 
 even Mr. Irwin might let you have what you want. No, Dion, 
 I may not be so clever as some women — though you have told 
 me you would trust my judgment and penetration beyond that 
 of any man you ever met — but I am right about our dear child. 
 Speak to Sir Harry to-morrow. You know how to put such a 
 matter, if any one does." 
 
 " Very well," said the Rector, evidently unconsoled by this 
 compliment, however; "but remember, Selina, I don't think 
 speaking is good policy. I should not have liked being spoken 
 to when I was first in love with you." 
 
 At which remark i^Irs. Wright laughed outright. 
 
 " You dear old Dion, you would only have been too glad had 
 any one thought of such a thing ! You know you never for a 
 moment imagined papa and mamma would allow me to think 
 of a poor curate." 
 
 " That is true enough," agreed the Rector, with an affectation 
 of humility and a sly twinkle in his eyes which belied his tone. 
 "You see, at that time I did not know on how little money 
 your father was keeping up appearances ; and I was always a 
 man who entertained a low opinion of my own merits." 
 
 " I think," suggested Mrs. Wright, " that we had better go to 
 bed." 
 
222 Above Suspicion, 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 MR. WRIGHT IS ASTONISHED. 
 
 During the course of that night the Rector slept uneasily, and 
 awoke often. 
 
 Whenever he awoke it was with a start, and a feeling that 
 something had gone very much amiss. 
 
 First he thought — long experience of such miseries having 
 tended naturally to lead his imagination into that and similar 
 channels — that a guest, not invited and not desired, was occupy- 
 ing a certain " chamber on the wall " of the rectory, and, be- 
 tween dreamland and consciousness, he struggled to remember 
 " at whose suit " and for what amount he was there — whether 
 the sheriff's officer was a man he knew, and who knew him, 
 and similar gropings after light. 
 
 Then his notion would change, and he felt certain something 
 dreadful had happened to Selina or one of the children ; and 
 when he had cleared his mind of these fears, he recollected 
 suddenly that he was bound within a very few hours to remon- 
 strate with Bella Miles on the forwardness of her manners, and 
 to hint delicately to Sir Harry ^Nledburn that Maria and Maria's 
 mother, and, inclusively, Maria's father and all her family, to 
 the hundredth cousin, had been waiting so long for his expected 
 proposal that they were tired of waiting much longer. 
 
 " I can't stand any more of this," thought the Reverend Dion, 
 when, after waking for about the twentieth time, he found the 
 sun making his morning investigations into every corner of the 
 apartment, and he exorcised his dream-devils by getting out of 
 bed and passing softly into his dressing-room — after folding the 
 bed-linen with tender hands over the wife who lay, her pale, 
 worn face a little in shadow, sleeping soundly. 
 
 And, lest the sound of sponging and splasliing might disturb 
 her, the Reverend Dion dispensed with his bath, which he loved, 
 and dipping his head into the basin, at once enveloped it in a 
 towel, and dressed himself very noiselessly, and went downstairs, 
 where he found the servants beginning to creep reluctantly 
 
Mr. Wri^/if is Ast07iished. 223 
 
 about that morning work which servants hate with an intensity 
 worthy of a greater grievance. 
 
 "Ah!" considered the Reverend Dion, "they don't tub. 
 How different even poor faithful Nurse Mary would look if she 
 could be persuaded to step out of bed into a cold bath ! " 
 
 As poor faithful Nurse Mary had probably never been washed 
 all over since babyhood (if then), she would have received a 
 friendly suggestion about stepping into a lake of fire and brim- 
 stone with equal favour ; but the ideas evolved out of the spec- 
 tacle of Mary's heavy eyes and unkempt hair served to beguile 
 Mr. Wright's attention till he was out of the rectory grounds, 
 and off for a long morning walk, along one of those hideous 
 roads which intersect the valley of the Thames. 
 
 On his return he found the servants a little wider awake, the 
 children rampant, breakfast ready, and Mrs. Wright — to whom 
 a restorative cup of tea had been administered in bed half an 
 hour previously — ^just down, looking ill and languid. 
 
 " You do not seem very well this morning, Selina," remarked 
 the Rector. 
 
 " I have passed a miserable night," answered his better half. 
 "I felt quite thankful when it was time to get u[)." 
 
 Mr. Wright was far too astute to controvert this statement, 
 which, rendered into EngHsh, he understood to mean : " Re- 
 member, I have all this harass about Maria's affair to keep me 
 awake at night," and, understanding, he girt up his loins for the 
 impending interview with Sir Harry. 
 
 But first he had to remonstrate with Bella Miles, who won- 
 dered during the course of the morning much concerning the 
 nature of the fresh anxiety which caused Mr. Wright to beat his 
 chest so often, and exclaim with such doleful unconsciousness, 
 " Hi ! ho ! hum ! " when he helped himself to butter or cut 
 Selina a slice of bacon. 
 
 Was another unwelcome guest expected? There had been 
 one already in Bella's knowledge of the rectory, and during his 
 twenty-four hours' stay she gathered that such visitors were not 
 uncom.mon where Mr. Wright pitched his tent. 
 
 The Christmas presents and her own small stock of jewellery 
 had then gone on a hurried journey to town; and while she 
 drank her tea and meditatively ate her toast, Bella was consi- 
 dering whether Sir Harry Medburn's offerings would follow ir 
 the way which Mr. Wright's valuables seemed to affect 
 
224 Above Suspicion, 
 
 When, therefore, after breakfast, the Rector said to her, " One 
 moment, Bella, my dear," and opened the door of his study for 
 her to enter the only place safe from intrusion in the house, 
 Bella, my dear, made up her mind that Mr. Wright was in sore 
 pecuniary distress, and about to ask counsel — and help, of 
 course — from her. 
 
 " Sit down, sit down," exclaimed the Rector brusquely; and, 
 thus commanded, she sat down and watched him while he drew 
 down the blind, which hung crooked, and then pulled it up till 
 it hung straight. 
 
 " I have something disagreeable to say to you, Bella, and I 
 don't know how to begin,'' said the Rector, turning away from 
 the window and walking towards his writing-table, on which lay 
 the materials for the next Sunday's sermon, waiting Mr. Wright's 
 skilful manipulation. 
 
 " If you are in trouble," answered the girl, " surely it does not 
 matter how you begin. I hope you can trust mer 
 
 Her voice trembled a little. Short as the years of her life 
 had been, they were long enough for thought to travel back 
 over and recall the trust she once held and fulfilled bravely. 
 
 " My dear, it is not that," said the Rector, softened at once. 
 " I am in trouble. I shall always be in trouble till I am tucked 
 up with a spade in the daisy quilt ; and if it were not for Selina 
 and the children, I should not care how soon that event came 
 to pass. But it is not any worry of my own that is teasing me 
 at this present moment. What I want to say concerns your- 
 self." 
 
 " Myself ! " she repeated ; and the hot tell-tale blood came 
 flushing up into her face, hanging out its crimson colours from 
 each cheek. *'Is it anything about Uncle Walter?" 
 
 " I assure you Mr. Irwin is quite well — at least, he was quite 
 well when last I heard from him. All I have to say need cause 
 you no great distress, though I confess it vexes me to have to 
 lecture you ; but the fact is — ves, the fact is — you are still so 
 much a child — of course no thought of wrong has occurred to 
 your mind — I understand this perfectly — that Mrs. Wright con- 
 siders you ought to be a little more — how shall I phrase my 
 sentence so as not to give a false meaning to my words? — a 
 little more — suppose we say — reticent in your manner towards 
 strangers." 
 
 The worthy Rector had honestly tried to avoid offence, but 
 
Mr. Wright is Astonished. 225 
 
 in doing so fell into another error — that of obscurity — bewilder- 
 ing Bella Miles to such an extent that she could only stare at 
 him in blank astonishment. 
 
 *'I confess/' blundered on Mr. Wright, "the idea of there 
 being anything in your innocent frankness likely to give rise to 
 misconstruction would never have occurred to me ; but no 
 doubt Mrs. Wright is entirely correct in her opinion. She thinks 
 people who do not know you as we do might imagine your 
 manners to be a little too easy and familiar for so young a girl. 
 I repeat, such a notion never crossed my mind. At the same 
 time, my dear Selina is so admirable a judge of the niceties of 
 feminine deportment, and of all shades of propriety, that I have 
 thought it only my duty to mention the matter." 
 
 Poor Bella had seen too little of the world to controvert Mr. 
 Wright's statement concerning the infallibility of his dear Selina's 
 judgment on all subjects, etiquette included, and accordingly 
 she sat silent — stunned and mortified — feeling that if once she 
 opened her lips to reply she should burst into tears. 
 
 This silence encouraged the Rector. 
 
 " I trust, Bella," he said, severely, " you are not cross. Believe 
 me, Mrs. Wright and I have but one object in any remark of 
 this nature — your good. Do you suppose it has been a pleasure 
 to me to find fault with you ? Do you think, had duty permitted, 
 I would not much rather have remained silent for ever?" 
 
 " I am sure of that," she answered bravely, and then broke 
 down, asking, while sobbing as if her heart would break, "But 
 what is it I have done } Towards whom have my — my — manners 
 been too familiar ? " 
 
 " My dear girl — my dear child," said the Rector, laying his 
 hand on her shoulder, a little more tenderly than Selina, with her 
 accurate opinions about les convenances , might altogether have 
 approved, "pray, pray calm, yourself! Remember, /did not 
 say you had done anything. It was only Mrs. Wright, whose 
 motherly apprehensions are always awake to your interests, who 
 thought, that is to say, feared " 
 
 " What did Mrs. Wright fear ? " inquired the girl, her eyes still 
 cast down, her cheeks still aflame. 
 
 " She only feared that others might not understand you so 
 well as we. She only imagined that perhaps the exceeding 
 friendliness of your manner towards Colonel Leschelles might 
 
 15 
 
226 Above Suspicion, 
 
 draw censorious remarks from those likely to forget the extreme 
 simplicity of your nature." 
 
 _ " Colonel Leschelles ! " repeated Bella : and she drew a long 
 sigh of relief. " He is a good man, Mr. Wright I wonder if 
 you know one-half how good he is ?" 
 
 "I think I do," answered the Rector dryly; "at any rate, I 
 am sure I ought to know. Waiving that question, however, for 
 the present, it may be just as well for you to bear in mind that 
 he is a man, though not a young one, and not your grandflither, 
 though old enough to be so twice over." 
 
 She had done blushing now, and she winced at his words no 
 longer. 
 
 " I am sorry," she said, " to have grieved Mrs. Wright ; but I 
 think — I dp think she might have spoken to me herself." 
 
 Now, this was precisely what Mr. Wright had also thought ; 
 but, loyal ever, he replied : 
 
 ''■ My dear girl, you may rest satisfied that Mrs. Wriglit under- 
 stands these things better than you or I, and— but run away 
 now, child, and hide your red eyes. Here come Sir Harry 
 Medburn and Maria." 
 
 And as he conjoined the names of the Baronet and his daugh- 
 ter, the Rector's shirt-front swelled out perceptibly. He threw 
 his head back, he ran his fingers through his hair, in view of one 
 of Sir Harry's livings as a step, and a bishopric as a goal ; he 
 turned over the pages of future manuscript lying on the table ; 
 yea, even when Bella was gone, he hummed to himself a few 
 bars of some tuneless air. 
 
 At that moment Mr. Wright believed that Fortune was smiling 
 upon him, and he, courteous as ever, smiled back at her. But 
 Fortune, as we know, is apt to be deceitful. Fortune was de- 
 ceiving Mr. Wright, while he was thinking how to receive her 
 advances with becoming modesty. 
 
 Down the avenue came Maria and the Baronet, Maria looking 
 "very pret-ty indeed," looking very much like her mother, so 
 Mr. Wright thought, when Selina was in her happy teens, igno- 
 rant of the cares of a family, and knowing very little about dress 
 and bills, Mr. Curran, with that pride which distinguished his 
 character, taking these domestic burdens upon his own ample 
 shoulders. 
 
 Certainly Maria was pretty, a girl " fitted to adorn any sphere," 
 
Mr. Wright is Astonished. 22 J 
 
 decided Mr. Wright, as, stepping to his study window, he wel- 
 comed the Baronet. 
 
 " What a superb morning ! " said the Rector, in rich, rolHng 
 tones of approval. " Come in, come in ; " and he grasped Sir 
 Harry's hand, and made him free of the study, and the chairs 
 and tables, and books and shelves, all of which had been so 
 often held in trust by a man from Reuben's. 
 
 " He has proposed," Mr. Wright said to himself, as he saw 
 Maria disappear and beheld the Baronet suitably seated for a 
 tete-a-tete. " Well, well ! it is a long lane which has no turning, 
 and God knows my lane has been long enough and weary enough 
 to entitle me to some change at last." 
 
 So reflected the Rector, while Sir Harry pulled the ears of a 
 sorry mongrel, once the property of a disreputable costermonger 
 in the New Cut, who had presented the creature to Mrs. Wright 
 as a delicate acknowledgment of various kindnesses done by 
 her to a woman who perhaps should have been his wife, but 
 who was not. 
 
 " Charming weather," said Mr. Wright, finding his visitor made 
 no sign, uneasily moving his sheets of paper. *' Just the very 
 best part of the year for Fisherton, eh ? " 
 
 ** I dare say it is," agreed the young man ; " but I am going 
 away." 
 
 " Going away ! " 
 
 With a sudden jolt Mr. Wright found himself precipitated 
 from his air castle on the bosom of mother earth. 
 
 " Going away ! Well, you do astonish me ! But only for a 
 short time, I suppose? You will be back ere long?" 
 
 " I do not think so," was the reply. " I do not think I shall 
 ever see Fisherton again. I wish to heaven I had never seen it." 
 
 "Something has occurred to annoy you?" suggested the 
 Rector. 
 
 " Yes," was the reply ; " but I need not trouble you about 
 my private affairs. You and Mrs. Wright have been very kind 
 to m.e, and so I— I — thought I could not go away without calling 
 to thank you, and to say good bye." 
 
 "You are not going to slip out of my hands so easily as all 
 that comes to," considered the Rector ; then, after a short pause, 
 added aloud : " My dear young friend, I am about to say some- 
 thing to you which I feel sure you will take in the spirit in which 
 
 it is meant. You will not feel offended, for instance, if I '* 
 
 16— a 
 
228 Above Suspicion. 
 
 "Go on, Mr. Wright," said the Baronet, as that gentleman 
 stopped and hesitated. " I shall not feel offended at anything 
 you may choose to say." 
 
 " Precisely what I expected. You know, Sir Harry, a person 
 has often to say things he would much prefer leaving unsaid. 
 For my part, I think a man should be disassociated from his 
 words in many cases. The words are the world's words, and 
 oftentimes one most unworldly has to become the world's 
 mouthpiece." 
 
 " I don't know — I dare say. If declaring I quite agree with 
 you will make matters any easier for you, pray believe that I 
 agree, so far as I have the slightest comprehension of your 
 meaning." 
 
 Mr. Wright bit his lip. The Baronet had no idea how much 
 he helped his mentor when by these light words he put him on 
 his mettle and dug spurs into the Hanks of his self-love. 
 
 " You have alluded, Sir Harry, to the fact that Mrs. Wright 
 and myself have been able to show you some slight attention 
 during your stay at Fisherton." 
 
 " I can never forget your kindness," murmured the Baronet. 
 
 " It has given us the greatest pleasure to receive you here," 
 went on the Rector. " We have felt honoured by your visits ; 
 but, at the same time, we were not so vain as to suppose we 
 owed the happiness of your society entirely to any attractions 
 possessed by ourselves." 
 
 He paused, but his visitor did not answer. He kept his eyes 
 fastened on the floor, and continued caressing the costermonger's 
 mite. 
 
 "In short," proceeded Mr. Wright, "we felt that what the 
 world feels in such a case must be true. When the world sees 
 a young man visiting constantly at a house, it concludes he must 
 have found some very different loadstone, in that house, from 
 a middle-aged lady and an overworked parson." 
 
 " And for once, Mr. Wright, your opinion and the world's are 
 in unison ? " suggested the Baronet. 
 
 " Even from a Christian standpoint the world is not always 
 wrong," remarked Mr. Wright. 
 
 " The world and you being in unison and right," said Sir 
 Harry, " what then ? " 
 
 " Why, then I say as the world would say, that frequently as 
 you have come to this house, there is something else you ought 
 
Mr. Wright is Astonished. 229 
 
 to have done before bidding me and my wife good bye. Be 
 candid now : don't you think so yourself?" 
 
 " Certainly ; but it seems to me we are playing at cross pur- 
 poses. Evidently you are not aware that I have proposed — that 
 I have been rejected." 
 
 " Nonsense ! ''* exclaimed Mr. Wright. 
 
 " It is very bad sense to me, nevertheless," said the young man. 
 
 " Impossible ! " vociferated the Rector. 
 
 " Perhaps so, but it is true, nevertheless." 
 
 " My dear Sir Harry, there is some terrible mistake ; you 
 must be labouring under some great delusion. She never could 
 — she never would — oh ! it is too ridiculous. You must have 
 been deceived by her shyness — her beautiful timidity; you must 
 have startled her. Why — why did you not take me into your 
 confidence first ? But it is not too late, thank God ! her mother 
 shall talk to her; I myself will ascertain what it all means. 
 Think of her youth, have patience with her inexperience ; why, 
 she is little more than a child — a tender, innocent child. It 
 will be all right, and I shall yet have the happiness of seeing 
 our beloved Maria united to the noblest of men." 
 
 In his enthusiasm, Mr. Wright stretched out his hand ; but 
 Sir Harry did not grasp it as the Rector intended he should. 
 He only laid his own left hand on it, and said : 
 
 "I am so sorry; oh! Mr. Wright, I cannot tell you how- 
 grieved I am. I admire and like Miss Maria, but it is not she 
 who has refused me." 
 
 " Who has, then, in Heaven's name ? " inquired the Rector. 
 
 " Bella." 
 
 *' Bella ! " gasped Mr. Wright, then added in a bewildered 
 aside, " What will Selina say ? And Bella, too ! and that poor 
 dear child ! Well, well ! well, well, well !" 
 
 " Colonel Leschelles, sir," announced the housemaid at this 
 juncture, and so exit Fortune with a gibing smile, and enter the 
 Colonel, tall, thin, erect, closely buttoned up as ever. 
 
 "I will bid you good morning, then," said Sir Harry Medburn, 
 rising hastily. " Pray make my adieux to Mrs. Wright and your 
 family." 
 
 *'Do you go up by the midday train?" asked the Colonel. 
 
 "Yes, and shall but have time to catch it," answered the 
 other, looking at his watch. " Good bye, Mr. Wright, good 
 bye, Colonel." And he was gone. 
 
230 Above Suspicion. 
 
 For once the Rector's presence of mind had forsalcen him 
 and he v/as stricken dumb. He could think of no form of words 
 wliich might undo the evil Bella had wrought and the wrong 
 Maria had sustained — poor dear Maria, who had looked so like 
 Selina in her best days wliile she walked down the drive with 
 Sir Harry sauntering at her side. 
 
 It was all over — the doubt, the hope, the fear, the uncer- 
 tainty ; everything was assured now save this — 
 
 What would Selina say ? 
 
 If the reader remembers, Mr. Wright had asked himself the 
 same question when he first beheld Bella Miles. 
 
 And now Bella had spirited away the lover who otherwise 
 might have made the fortunes of the Wright family, and the 
 Rector had very good reason indeed for wondering what Selina 
 would say. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVII. 
 MRS. Wright's eyes are opened. 
 
 Upon principle, Mr. Wright never drank water when any other 
 beverage was procurable. His was a comfortable creed, which 
 contained no mention of asceticism — which, setting forth as a 
 starting-point that God had provided an infinity of good things 
 for the use ot man, argued that an indifference to or abstinence 
 from partaking of the Almighty's manifold bounties amounted 
 to a positive sin. 
 
Mrs. Wrighfs Eyes are Opened 231 
 
 Aware of his friend's principle, carried, as lie knew well, into 
 practice with an admirable fidelity — such being, indeed, the sort 
 of principle which a man does carry out faithfully — Colonel 
 Leschelles was astonished to behold the Rector fill a glass of 
 water from the caraffe, which, as a matter of form, always stood 
 on the study table, and swallow its contents. 
 
 " I have had a dreadful shock," said the Reverend Dion, in 
 explanation of this unwonted procedure, and speaking of his 
 shortcoming apologetically. 
 
 His visitor had no difficulty in imagining the nature of the 
 shock referred to, so only remarked that "he was very sorry 
 indeed to hear it." 
 
 " I may say," observed the Reverend Dion, " that, in the 
 whole of my experience as a clergyman, my confidence in man- 
 kind has never — I say it advisedly — nevej- .been so shaken as 
 this morning." 
 
 Colonel Leschelles sympathizingly answered that this was 
 indeed speaking strongly. 
 
 "Not too strongly," said Mr. Wright, striking the blotting- 
 pad with his open hand. " I trusted him, Colonel, as I might 
 have trusted a son, I believed in him as if he had been my 
 own flesh and blood," added the Rector plaintively, labouring 
 evidently under the delusion that his flesh and blood were diffe- 
 rent and better from and than the flesh and blood of other 
 people. 
 
 " I hope I am not indiscreet in remarking that I presume the 
 •'him' to whom you are referring is Harry Medburn?" 
 
 "The Baronet — yes," replied Mr. Wright dramatically; "and 
 Selina does not know anything about the matter as yet — and 
 how I am to break the news to her, God only knows." 
 
 "She will be very much disappointed?" said Colonel Les- 
 chelles interrogatively. 
 
 " Disappointed ! — that is not the word to express what her 
 feelings will be ; in fact, there is no word capable of conveying 
 even an idea of her distress. We have been deceived, fooled, 
 betrayed — yes, betrayed," finished the Rector in a tragic tone 
 of voice, and with a stony expres'sion of countenance. 
 
 " I do not think Medburn betrayed you, at any rate," ob- 
 served the Colonel. " I have long believed his attraction here 
 was Miss Miles." 
 
 " Then why did you not say so ? " demanded Mr. Wright. 
 
232 Above Suspicion. 
 
 " Do you consider you acted a friendly part in sitting by while 
 we were being made fools of?" 
 
 " Gently — gently," entreated the other, as if he were soothing 
 a vicious horse. " The young fellow never took me into his 
 confidence, and I had no better means of obtaining information 
 than such as were open to yourself From the first day he came 
 here, you made up your mind — why, I never could imagine — 
 that he was in love with Maria ; and when once, in answer to a 
 remark you hazarded concerning his being pretty well over head 
 and ears in love in that quarter, I said I feared such was not 
 the case, you seemed rather offended at my frankness." 
 
 *' But you never told me you thought he was in love with 
 Bella." 
 
 •'You never asked me my opinion on the subject," returned 
 ^he Colonel dryly. 
 
 ** I don't know how I am to break the bad news to Selina — 
 I don't, really," said Mr. Wright, harking back to that part of 
 the subject. 
 
 " Do you mean to say no suspicion of the actual state of the 
 case ever crossed Mrs. Wright's mind ? " 
 
 " Certainly no idea of the kind ever occurred to her. How 
 should it?" 
 
 " I cannot tell. It occurred to me ; and I should have 
 thought that very hkely Mrs. Wright might have elicited from 
 her daughter whether so constant a visitor was making love to 
 her or not." 
 
 "Ah! you know nothing of Sehna. She would not for the 
 wealth of the Indies speak on such subjects to one of our girls. 
 * Let them be innocent children as long as they can,' she has 
 often remarked to me. ' It is easy to rub the bloom off the 
 peach ; but who can replace it ? ' " 
 
 " A very nice feeling," said Colonel Leschelles. 
 
 " She is full of nice feelings, poor dear," answered Mr. Wright; 
 "and I am afraid what will hurt her in this matter, more than 
 anything else, may be the idea that Bella has not behaved quite 
 circumspectly. She has, as you know, taken vast pains to im- 
 prove Bella — to model her, in fact; and she will, I fear, feel 
 hurt at the notion of a love affair having been conducted under 
 our roof so secretly and, I must say, so slyly. The girl ought 
 to have taken counsel with us. One word from her would have 
 prevented my being placed in a most difficult, and I may add, 
 
Mrs. Wrighfs Eyes are Opened. 233 
 
 humiliating position. We have had nothing hidden away from 
 her in holes and corners. If there was adversity, we informed 
 her of the fact ; if prosperity, we were ahvays pleased to make 
 her a sharer in our happiness. No daughter was ever more au 
 fait with her father's affairs than Bella has been with ours ; and 
 this is the thanks we get ! Well, well, well — oh ! dear, dear me ! " 
 
 " I don't think you ought to be too hard upon the girl," sug- 
 gested Colonel Leschelles. " Like Mrs. Wright, she may feel 
 a delicacy in talking about a lover, more particularly wben she 
 had evidently made up her mind to reject him." 
 
 " Bat why did she make up her mind to anything of the kind?" 
 
 " I think you had better seek information on that point from 
 head-quarters," was the reply. 
 
 " What more could she ask ? " went on Mr. Wright, unheed- 
 ing the Colonel's advice. " In the name of Heaven, what more 
 could she want than a man — young, rich, handsome, a baronet? 
 Does she suppose a royal duke is going to propose for her? 
 Does she imagine, so long as she lives, she will ever get such a 
 chance again ? " 
 
 " I really do not know," remarked the Colonel. " Once again, 
 I can only counsel you to put these questions to the younsr ladv 
 herself." ' 
 
 *' I do not understand it — I really cannot fathom the mystery. 
 Why, he is a man any girl might feel proud to marry. Speak- 
 ing for myself, and putting poor dear Selina out of the question 
 for the present, I may say, if Bella had accepted him, I could 
 have borne the disappointment better. I have always felt like 
 a father towards Bella. She has been very near to my heart. 
 She has seemed like a dear elder daughter. She knows all 
 about our position. I could have asked her to do anything for 
 me ; but, as matters are — as matters are " 
 
 Colonel Leschelles looked curiously at the Rector as he sud- 
 denly broke off the end of his sentence, and gazed out of the 
 window. 
 
 The waters were flooding him again, and no way of escape 
 presented itself He had trusted in Sir Harry Medburn to help, 
 and_ lo ! Sir Harry Medburn was gone, taking the sting of a re- 
 jection with him. 
 
 Even while he talked of Selina's disappointment, he had been 
 veering round from the thought of Maria and her mother, and 
 considering how Bella might have brought him ease of mind. 
 
234 Above Suspicion. 
 
 Supposing Sir Ham', instead of going away a rejected suitor, 
 had remained engaged to Bella? Everything would have seemed 
 very ditierent to what he hoped, of course, but everything would 
 not have been lost. Out of common gratitude, Mr. Irwin must 
 at once have signified his readiness to convert himself for the 
 nonce into a good milch-cow ; whilst the Baronet's purse would 
 have been at Mr. Wright's service, and a future living in Bella's 
 power to bespeak. 
 
 " The girl is mad ! " he said, at last, considering his own 
 position as he spoke — " stark, staring mad ! How could she 
 refuse such a chance? Why, it is just as if I flung away the 
 offer of a bishopric."' 
 
 *'Mr. Wright," here broke in the Colonel. 
 
 " Did you speak ? " asked the Reverend Dion. 
 
 " Yes ; I want to know if you are again in pecuniary diffi- 
 culties." 
 
 " Again ! " repeated Mr. Wright, whom disappointment and 
 despair conjoined had startled out of his usual habits of caution. 
 *' Have you ever known me clear of pecuniary difficulty ? Have 
 you ever seen me when my mind was not occupied with the 
 thought of where the next ten-pound note was to come from ? " 
 
 '^ Well, yes," replied Colonel Leschelles. " On last Christ- 
 mas I do not tliink you were doubtful as to where to turn for a 
 much larger sum than that " 
 
 "True," agreed the Rev. Dion, recovering himself. "Last 
 Christmas I was for the moment easy as regards money matters. 
 I had lulled myself into-a false security. I was depending on 
 a Reed, believing it to be an oak; and the reed has failed me; 
 that is all : and I am a ruined man. But why, my dear, kind 
 friend, should I distress you, who have proved a most generous 
 friend to one most unworthy, but not ungrateful ? No, no . 
 believe anything of me rather than that " 
 
 "I presume," said Mr. Wright's "most generous friend," "that 
 Mr. Irwin confines his ^^ayments strictly to one hundred per 
 annum ? " 
 
 " Not precisely," answered the Rector, who never told a de- 
 liberate falsehood, though he frequently implied one. "Strictly 
 speaking, he does not limit his remittance to that amount, but 
 it comes to the same thing. Remember, I do not complain ; 1 
 have no right to complain. Business, I know, is business, and 
 a bargain is a bargain, and I don't complain. All I can say is, 
 
Mrs. Wrijhfs Eyes are Opened. 235 
 
 Selina and I did not think of business, or of adhering to a mere 
 bargain, in our treatment of Mr. Irwin's niece." 
 
 " I am sure you and Mrs. Wright are the last people in the 
 world to adhere to a mere bargain," remarked Colonel Les- 
 chelles soothingly. 
 
 " Thank you, thank you," said the Rector, with effusion. 
 "You are a true friend. But you understand us." 
 
 " If I do not, I ought to be ashamed of myself," answered 
 the other, "for I have known you for a long time." 
 
 " Yes ; and the longer we know you the better we like you," 
 replied Mr. Wiight, who felt that his friend must have some 
 decent sum burning his pocket, or he never would have spoken 
 in such wise ; and gratitude with the Rector was very prospec- 
 tive. " Now, that is not the case with myself and Mr. Irwin. 
 I thought at first he was charming. I said to Selina, after our 
 first interview, * I could take that man into my confidence, no 
 matter what trouble overtook me, and feel certain of help.' I 
 was mistaken in my impressions. My dear wife was not mis- 
 taken. When she received his first letter, she said, ' That man 
 has the soul of a bookkeeper.' She was right." 
 
 " And so — to return to our sheep — Mr. Irwin will not assist 
 you beyond the hundred a year he pays for the advantages his 
 niece enjoys at Fisherton Rectory?" 
 
 "That is what it comes to, though I am in Mr. Irwin's debt." 
 
 "Yes, I suppose so. We need not, however, go into the 
 pounds, shillings, and pence question. Broadly, Mr. Irwin 
 refuses to allow you to draw further upon him ? " 
 
 " You express the position exactly." 
 
 " And consequently you are once again in difficulties ? " 
 
 " I am," agreed the Rector solemnly. 
 
 There was silence for a few moments, which the Rector would 
 not break, because he wanted to land his fish gently, and wliich 
 the Colonel employed in thinking how he had best say what he 
 wanted to say. 
 
 " It must be very miserable for you to be in such continual 
 hot water," he began at last. 
 
 "Yes," agreed Mr. Wright; "the life is killing me — mentally, 
 I mean. The eternal consideration of ways and means is enough 
 to break the spirit of any man ; and the worst of all," he added 
 — remembering that his latest visions had been dispelled — "is 
 that I begin to feel hopeless. This living seems to have stranded 
 
236 Above Suspicion. 
 
 me. Wherever else we have been placed there appeared a 
 chance of better days to come ; but here there is no prospect. 
 I am shelved. Yes, with the very best intentions, my kind 
 patron has spoiled my life. I feel stultified at Fisherton. Of 
 what avail is it to preach a good sermon to the dolts who come 
 to hear me? I give you my honour, Colonel, I might buy my 
 sermons for sixpence apiece, and my congregation would like 
 them just as well as those to which I have given thought, time, 
 study. When I came down here I imagined I was coming to 
 peace; but I find it is the peace of stagnation, broken only by 
 the occasional advent of noxious reptiles, out of whose reach I 
 trusted I had passed for ever." 
 
 " It is very sad," said the Colonel ; and in truth he thought 
 it all was very sad ; " but don't you think — excuse me if I seem 
 impertinent — that things might be better if you took a compre- 
 hensive view of your position, and looked your affairs straight 
 in the face ? " 
 
 "They have such a sweet face, it ought to be a pleasure for 
 any man to look straight in it ! " answered the Rector grimly. 
 
 " Still, don't you think it would be wise to make the attempt?" 
 urged Colonel Leschelles. " Were I placed as you are, God 
 only knows what I should do ; but I know what I ought to do, 
 and I know what you ought to do. You should put down your 
 income, and you should calculate your expenditure. You should 
 say to your creditors, I can spare so much a year to clear off 
 all my debts : but I must have time to do it. There is not one 
 of the people to whom you owe money who would, I believe, 
 refuse to meet you on these grounds, and )'ou would be then 
 able to live without this everlasting consideration of ways and 
 means, which is enough to take the spirit and energy out of 
 any one." 
 
 Mr. Wright smiled. He understood now that if the Colonel 
 meant to do anything for him, he meant to do very little indeed, 
 and he felt for once in a mood to speak plainly — perhaps because 
 there was little or nothing to be gained by speaking diplomati- 
 cally. 
 
 " Your advice," he said, " is very good ; but, like advice 
 generally, it is better to give than to take. Were you in my 
 position to-morrow, you would understand how impossible it is 
 for an embarrassed man to make terms with his creditors. If I 
 had houses, and lands, and shares, and a variety of other things, 
 
Mj's. Wright's Eyes are Opened, 237 
 
 which I could ;issign, these harpies would take secailty and give 
 me time, doubtless; but that is not the position. I have no 
 houses, no lands, no anything save this living ; and I tell you 
 quite candidly, we cannot make both ends meet upon my income, 
 to say nothing of paying oft' old scores." 
 
 " Do you mean to say," asked the Colonel, " you cannot live 
 upon the income you receive here?" 
 
 " That is precisely v/hat 1 mean," replied JMr. Wright. " Cal- 
 culate the pecuniary question for yourself. The living here is 
 estimated as worth three hundred and fifty pounds a year. As 
 a matter of fact, it is not worth quite so much ; but with fees 
 and one thing or another, probably that amount is nearly made 
 up. Including house and so forth, a good living, as livings go, 
 which is not saying much. Very well : divide this wonderful 
 living by lifteen — 1 am now leaving out our three boys, other- 
 wise provided for, who, nevertheless, cost me something — and 
 the result is twenty-three pounds six shillings and eightpence a 
 head for maintenance, out of which has to be deducted rates 
 and taxes, travelling, wages, dress, subscriptions, and so forth. 
 What do you make of that. Colonel ? " 
 
 " It seems very little," answered the person so addressed ; 
 "but yet some people do live on such an amount." 
 
 " Precisely what I have often said myself. I have remarked 
 to Selina that there are people able to make the two ends meet 
 on so small an annual income, and she has inquired, ' How?' 
 I echo that inquiry. I suppose one ought to live Avithin one's 
 income ; but I confess — always bearing m mind that an appear- 
 ance must be kept up — I do not see how it is to be done. Now 
 look at this house. Colonel. Look at it ! " and Mr. Wright 
 paused in order to enable his auditor to take in at one compre- 
 sive glance the rectory and its domestic economy. " I put it 
 to you. Do we wallow in luxury? Rather, is not our expendi- 
 ture calculated upon a system of the closest economy? Is not 
 our butter, as a rule, Dorset ? Are not our eggs the produce 
 of foreign farmyards? Do we ordinarily indulge in the luxury 
 of wine — except in case of illness, or when a friend sends us in a 
 few bottles? Of course the children must be fed and clothed, 
 and the servants fed and paid. It is essential I should be 
 respectably dressed, but I am not extravagant. I wear a coat 
 till it assumes quite the character of an old acquaintance. My 
 life has been one of shift and struggle, I admit that. First or 
 
2^S Above Suspicion. 
 
 last, I have never done justice to the talents God gave me. 
 They have lain buried among writs, and lawyers' letters, and 
 bills, and suchlike. If it were my last word. Colonel, the Church 
 is the only sphere in England where a man like myself has no 
 chance — no chance at all. Look at the fools who get deaneries 
 and bishoprics, and all the great prizes, and then consider me. 
 By Heaven, if it were not that my faith is built on a rock, it is 
 enough to make me turn infidel to-morrow ! '' 
 
 " Or to-day," said Colonel Leschelles cheerily. " To-morrow 
 you wall probably take a difterent view of the position." 
 
 For he quite understood that Mr. Wright, being occasionally 
 natural and unaffected, his utterances merely meant, he felt dis- 
 appointed at the result of the morning's conversation with Sir 
 Harry Medburn. 
 
 Had things gone right as regarded the Baronet, how differently 
 IMr. Wright would have discoursed concerning the Church and 
 her mode of bestowing benefits ! 
 
 " I shall never take a different view of the position," said Mr. 
 Wright determinedly. "In any other profession I might have 
 made a fortune." 
 
 Colonel Leschelles looked him over, and doubted the truth 
 of this statement ; but he only answered, rising from his chair 
 ami buttoning up his coat : 
 
 " I have very little money available now. Of late, owing to 
 circumstances with which I need not trouble you, it has been 
 necessary for me to expend a considerable amount. Neverthe- 
 less, if a cheque for a small sum can be of any assistance to 
 you " 
 
 Majestically Mr. Wright repudiated the idea of a cheque for 
 any small amount being of the slightest use to him or his. 
 
 Almost with tears he refused Colonel Leschelles' proftered 
 kindness. 
 
 " Why," he asked, " should I take your money dov/n into the 
 abyss of ruin I see yawning before me ? Why should I encroach 
 further upon the kindness and generosity of one of the kindest 
 and most generous of men ? Why should I lay a fresh burden 
 on my already overburdened memory?" 
 
 "Pooh!" interposed the Colonel at this juncture, drawing 
 pen and ink towards him. " You are not a ruined man yet — 
 you will look at life with dift'erent eyes to-morrow. And as for 
 this," he added, blotting off the cheque and laying it, folded, oa 
 
Mrs. IVrighfs Eyes are Opened. 239 
 
 a side of Mr. Wright's manuscript paper, " though it is but little, 
 still it may prove a nest-egg. ' Many a mickle makes a muckle/ 
 remember." 
 
 And he held out his hand, which Mr. Wright pressed with 
 tenderness, as though he would have implied, " The world is 
 not worthy of you ; " and he walked up the drive with his guest, 
 and bade him another adieu at the gate ; after which, with con- 
 siderable rapidity, he retraced his steps to his study, where he 
 at once seized and scanned the neglected cheque. 
 
 " Come," he said, " this is not so mean after all. Courage, 
 courage, Mr. Wright ! something may be made of a bad busi- 
 ness yet.'' 
 
 And, fired with some sudden inspiration, he puslied aside the 
 memoranda of his intended sermon, and, taking note-paper and 
 envelopes, forthwith wrote and addressed two lengthy epistles, 
 which he finished just as Mrs. Wright, gently opening the door, 
 said : 
 
 *' I could scarcely believe Nurse Mary when she told me you 
 were alone. Why did you not come to me at once — surely you 
 knew how anxious I must be ? " 
 
 " Well, yes, my dear, I did," answered the Reverend Dion, 
 " and that was the very reason I stayed away ; because " 
 
 "You do not mean to say you have not spoken to him?" 
 interrupted Mrs. Wright. 
 
 "Oh ! I have spoken," was the reply. "I went straight enough 
 to the point, you may be sure ; and he — yes, he came straight 
 enough to the point also : but the fact is, Selina, we made a 
 little mistake, and I am afraid you will be dreadfully disappointed 
 when you hear what it was." 
 
 " Surely he never said he meant nothing by his visits ! " 
 cried Selina wrathfully. 
 
 "No, not exactly; but nothing as regards IMaria." 
 
 "What did he mean, then?" asked the ladv. 
 
 " He meant — the fact is — now, don't excite yourself — pray 
 don't. He came after Bella ! " 
 
 " After Bella ? " gasped Mrs. Wright. 
 
 " Yes ; and, to cut a long story short, she has refused him, 
 and there is an end of it." 
 
 Then it was that Selina indulged in those remarks previously 
 mentioned. Then it was that she went into a long fit of heart- 
 breaking sobbing ; then it was that Mr. Wright tried to soothe 
 
240 Above Suspicion, 
 
 her, first with wine, and that proving ineffectual, with water; 
 then it was that, finding she alternated between scolding and 
 crying with a somewhat monotonous regularity, he summoned 
 Nurse Mary to his assistance, and, giving Selina into her charge, 
 went out to post his letters. 
 
 After some time, Maria, coming to see what ailed her mother, 
 was received by that lady with tears and an exclamation of 
 ** My poor, poor child ! " 
 
 " Nonsense, mamma ! '' retorted Maria, with the ingenuous 
 brusquerie which formed such a contrast to her pretty young 
 face. " We all of us knew from the first Sir Harry cared for no 
 one but Bella, only we did not like to say so for fear of putting 
 you out \ and besides " 
 
 Here Maria stopped and looked significantly towards Nurse 
 Mary, who took up her parable on the instant. 
 
 "Ay, ye may well feel ashamed to finish, miss; for it is a 
 thing not to be believed unless a body seen it with her own two 
 eyes. To think of a young lady sending away a handsome 
 gentleman like the Baronet to foregather with one who might 
 be her great-grandfather ! " 
 
 "What do you mean, nurse?" asked Mrs. Wright, speaking 
 quite in her natural tone. 
 
 " Just what I say, mem ; that it is unnatural — it 's witchcraft 
 — he has put a spell on her, or sure am I Miss Bella would 
 never think of marrying the Colonel." 
 
 " The Colonel — which Colonel ? " inquired Mrs. Wright. 
 
 "The only one that comes here," retorted Nurse Mary, 
 defiantly. 
 
 " What is the woman talking about, Maria ? " 
 
 " It is quite true, ma," answered Miss Maria, not without a 
 certain comic relish of the position. " Colonel Leschelles wor- 
 ships the ground Bella walks on ; and Bella — well, we cannot 
 tell whether she is going to marry him or not." 
 
 "And this has been going on under my very eyes!" cried 
 poor Mrs. Wright, "and there was not a creature about me 
 honest enough to open them ! Go away, both of you — leave 
 me — my cup is full." 
 
Mr. h'win Reviews the Position. 24.1 
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 
 MR. IRWIN REVIEWS THE POSITION. 
 
 It was a very hot day in London. Down at Fisberton the 
 dust lay thick on the unwatered roads, and there was not a 
 suspicion of shade along any one of the treeless and almost 
 hedgeless highways that intersect the valley of the Thames. 
 Nevertheless, indoors, with blinds down and windows open, it 
 was possible to keep, comparatively speaking, cool. Not so in 
 London. From the freshly-watered streets a steam rose as if 
 the drops had fallen on a hot plate. Into the City offices not 
 a breath of air seemed able to find its way. Even in the narrow 
 lanes, where grateful shadows always fall across one side of the 
 pavement, there was not any relief from the close oppression of 
 the atmosphere. 
 
 A day when people rush off madly to partake of iced drinks ; 
 when messengers are to be met with hat in one hand, and a 
 handkerchief, with which they wipe their foreheads, in the 
 other; when white waistcoats are the rule, and a man with a 
 red face and purple nose appears in the light of a personal 
 offence — an aggravation of the height of the thermometer; 
 when human beings feel as if they were so many drooping 
 shrubs, and wanted rain ; when City folks think longingly of 
 distant mountains, and shores on which the waves plash gently. 
 An intolerably hot day — exceptionally hot, even for London 
 and the time of year. 
 
 So said Mr. Irwin, seated in his office, to Colonel Leschelles, 
 who sat opposite to him, looking as thin, as precise, and, save 
 for a slight moisture on his forehead, as cool as ever. 
 
 "Yes," answered the Colonel, "it is very warm indeed-^- 
 almost as warm as India. And that," he added, reverting to 
 what he had been previously talking about, " being my opinion, 
 I thought I would mention the matter." 
 
 " It is very kind of you," replied Mr. Irwin, pushing some 
 papers away from him with an irritable gesture. " I am quite 
 sure you are right ; and, indeed, in any case, I should not have 
 
 16 
 
242 Above Suspicion. 
 
 allowed Bella to remain at Fisherton — only, v:hat to do with 
 her I do not know ! " 
 
 "Medburn has been with you?" 
 
 " Yes, twice ; yesterday and again this morning. I told him 
 Bella was quite right. Good heaven ! who would have imagined 
 that such a misfortune could happen in a dead-and-alive place 
 like Fisherton ! And then, to crown my annoyance, Mr. Wright 
 sends me a letter, pointing out all the advantages such a mar- 
 riage would secure to my niece, and asking for a further advance, 
 as he has been put to considerable expense during the stay of 
 Sir H. Medburn and Colonel Leschelles in the neighbourhood." 
 
 Colonel Leschelles laughed outright : he could not help doing 
 so. 
 
 " The Rector is incomparable and unconquerable," he re- 
 marked. " If his wife resembled him as much in character as 
 slie does in extravagance, Fisherton might still prove a pleasant 
 enough residence for Miss Miles." 
 
 " I should not allow her to remain under any circumstances," 
 said Mr. Irwin. " I am fond enough of the girl — fond as I am 
 of any one of my own children — but I cannot continue to spend 
 as much money on her as I have done. 1 am willing to pay 
 handsomely for her board and so forth ; but the Wrights are not 
 willing to abide by the terms of their agreement, and I am 
 not willing to put up with the continual annoyance of Mr. 
 Wright's appeals." 
 
 " And yet, as Mr. Wright would tell you. Miss Miles has had 
 the chance at Fisherton of marrying better probably than she 
 could in any other house in England." 
 
 *' But what is the use of that?" demanded Mr. Irwin. 
 
 *' Not much, apparently ; but still you must have had some 
 vague idea of her marrying when you placed her under Mrs. 
 Wright's motherly wing." 
 
 " I do not believe an idea of the kind crossed my mind. 
 What I wanted then was a comfortable home for her — a home 
 where she might learn things she never had a chance of learning 
 previously." 
 
 " It is more than a year since, and you have much to occupy 
 your attention ; but still I think, if you will try to recall the 
 evening when Mr. V/right first asked you for a loan, you will 
 find that something to the following effect occurred to you : 
 
 " Here is a well-educated, gentlemanly sort of man, filling a 
 
Mr. Irwin Reviews the Position. 243 
 
 highly respectable position, but burdened with a large family, 
 and poor ; his wife has the character of being a very sensible 
 woman. Suppose they all take to my niece, and she to them, 
 and that hereafter one of the elder sons falls in love with her, 
 
 and she with him " 
 
 '' Go on," said Mr. Irwin, as his visitor paused. 
 "You probably can supply the finish of my sentence for 
 yourself" 
 
 "As you chose to begin it, Colonel, I think you ought to 
 end it also." 
 
 " Very well. The view I imagine you took of Mr. Wright at 
 your first meeting was, that given a young lady with a little 
 money and a relation with more, he would not, in the event of 
 his son caring for her, think it necessary to inquire into the ante- 
 cedents of her family." 
 
 "You are wrong there, at all events," answered Mr. Irwin 
 " The Rector made very particular inquiries concerning Bella's 
 legitimacy before he consented to introduce her to the notice of 
 his dear Selina." 
 
 " And took you in, no doubt, by his expressions of propriety; 
 the fact being that the man would receive the whole Foundling 
 Hospital with eff"usion, providing the governors sent plenty of 
 money. But this is beside the question. It is not of what Mr. 
 Wright thought I am talking ; it is of what you thought when 
 the notion of sending your niece to Fisherton first entered your 
 head." 
 
 " May I ask you. Colonel, without giving offence, what busi- 
 ness it is of yours what I thought on the occasion when, unfor- 
 tunately for me, I made Mr. Wright's acquaintance ? " 
 
 " Certainly; it is my business so far as this, that I fancy we 
 have both travelled, mentally, the same road, arriving, however, 
 at slightly different results. A year ago, it strikes me, you con- 
 sidered a marriage with one of Mr. Wright's sons might form a 
 not undesirable finish to the story upon which you were just 
 entering. Six months ago, I foolishly began to hope that a 
 marriage with me might end many a difficulty both for you and 
 your niece." 
 
 " With you ! " repeated Mr. Irwin in astonishment. 
 
 " Yes ; I am not young, it is true " 
 
 " No ," agreed Mr. Irwin, who was really too much 
 
 amazed even to think of politeness. 
 
 16—2 
 
244 Above Suspicion, 
 
 " I am not young," repeated the Colonel steadily, though a 
 faint red tinged his cheeks as he made the assertion, " and she 
 is young — very young ; but, knowing something of her story, I 
 thought it not impossible she might learn to cling to a man even 
 as old as myself, in whom she could confide thoroughly, and 
 who would have tried, God knows, to make her happy." 
 
 " I am sure you would," agreed Mr. Irwin heartily ; for he 
 was touched by the simple modesty, by the unaffected candour 
 of the suitor, who had hoped in his age to possess treasures that 
 belong only to youth — who had dreamed in his winter that spring- 
 time can come twice in a human life, and that in dreary Decem- 
 ber it was possible to gather the flowers of May. 
 
 " I am sure I would," repeated the Colonel, slowly. " So far 
 as lay in my power, she should never have repented becoming 
 my wife. I am not a poor man. Quite lately I have fallen 
 into some property in Wales, which largely increases an income 
 which before was not contemptible. I could have given your 
 niece many things which money could buy, and many things 
 which money could never buy ; but it is of no use talking of all 
 that now." 
 
 " No," said Mr. Irwin once again ; but he was not thinking 
 about the Colonel's rejected suit, or his appointment. He was 
 only wondering what he knew of Bella's story, and whether he 
 was aware how largely his — Walter Irwin's — life had been mixed 
 up with that of Miles Barthome. 
 
 The past came forth and stood before him like an actual pre- 
 sence. He was back in the cottage at West Green ; he was 
 spending his best energies to make a fortune unlawfully. He 
 might not actually have been a thief, but he had been a partner 
 with one. Like a receiver, he had asked no awkward questions, 
 but taken his share of the spoil and the profit with a virtuous 
 equanimity. Since then he had lived and struggled and pros- 
 pered; he had w^orked hard; he had found means to silence 
 the tongue of the solitary enemy who was capable of injuring 
 him very materially. His father-in-law's death had left him, to 
 a certain extent, pecuniarily independent of what any one could 
 say. And yet, when Colonel Leschelles stated he knew some- 
 thing of Bella's history, the man's heart seemed to stand still, 
 and the whole phantasmagoria which once haunted the vigils of 
 darkness and the hours of day once more danced before his 
 eyes. 
 
Mr. Irwin Reviews the Position, 245 
 
 Not knowing what he did — unconscious that he had twice 
 essayed to speak and his tongue refused its office, he mechani- 
 cally poured himself out some water and drank eagerly, like one 
 in the first stage of fever ; then turning to Colonel Leschelles, 
 who had watched him closely and with surprise, he said : 
 
 " May I ask how you came to know anything of Bella's ante- 
 cedents? and, for the matter of that, what you know?" 
 
 " I know why she refused Sir Harry Medburn." 
 
 ** Did she tell you her reason ? " 
 
 " No ; I had discovered the cause of the mystery connected 
 with her past, poor girl, and having hinted as much, she con- 
 fessed to me that, for reasons to which we need not novv further 
 allude, it was impossible ior her to marry any one." 
 
 " And you " 
 
 " I advised her to tell Medburn the story, and let him decide ; 
 but she refused to do so. I asked her to let me tell him; and 
 she implored me, with tears, not to betray her secret. So I let 
 him go, though I am afraid I did not act rightly by either of 
 them in doing so. And yet I do not know ; I do not see how 
 he could " 
 
 "Marry her father's daughter," finished Mr. Irwin, as the 
 Colonel paused and hesitated, " although you would be willing 
 to marry her yourself," he added, a little bitterly. 
 
 " I am differently situated from Medburn," answered Colonel 
 Leschelles simply. " I have no relations whose prejudices I am 
 bound to respect ; I have no family traditions binding upon me; 
 I care nothing for the world's opinion ; I have no title to trans- 
 mit ; I can afford to do what I choose, without thinking of the 
 feelings or considering the likes or dislikes of any other human 
 being. Further, I do not consider that a daughter is answer- 
 able for the sins of her parents ; and I would willingly devote 
 the remainder of my life in trying to make her forget her dead 
 father, or think of him as of one who had much to forgive, if he 
 had also much to be forgiven." 
 
 Mr. Irwin rose, and walking to the door of his office, opened 
 it, and looked out on the landing, to see that no eavesdropper 
 was lingering there ; then he closed and locked it, and, resum- 
 ing his seat, said : 
 
 "I see Bella has told you nothing about her father; it was 
 not likely she should. If you knew more about him, I think 
 you might advise me concerning her future. I want help; I 
 
246 Above Siispicion. 
 
 want to take counsel with some one ; and though you cannot 
 be her husband, I am certain you will stand her friend. Tell 
 me first what you know about Barthorne, and how you came to 
 know it, and then I will tell you where my difficulty chiefly 
 lies." 
 
 "What I learnt was first by pure accident," answered the 
 Colonel. " I was struck by your niece's extraordinary likeness 
 to the portrait of a once celebrated court beauty, whose face 
 has been copied often enough to render it familiar to those who, 
 like myself, are fond of wandering through galleries of paintings; 
 and, being surprised to think who it was she resembled, ex- 
 claimed, ' Why, you are the image of Molly Barthorne ! ' I had 
 not the least suspicion of her being in any way related to the 
 lady in question, and was therefore astonished at the effect my 
 remark produced." 
 
 " Yes," said Mr. Irwin, reverting to his favourite expression. 
 
 " Of course," continued Colonel Leschelles, " I had always 
 felt there was a mystery connected with your niece. When a 
 girl of her age confines her reminiscences strictly to school life; 
 when she makes no mention of father or mother, of home, of 
 relations, of holidays, of friends, of pets, of any one of the 
 hundred things which constitute the memories of childhood, we 
 naturally assume there has been something curious associated 
 with her parents." 
 
 " Naturally," agreed Mr. Irwin. 
 
 " Up to that evening, I need not trouble you by explaining 
 what my theory had been. From that evening I devoted myself 
 to solving the enigma presented for solution by the difference 
 between your niece's position and her antecedents, her appear- 
 ance, and her friendlessness." 
 
 " Why did you do this ? " asked Mr. Invin hoarsely. He 
 comprehended that along the road one man had gone another 
 might follow. 
 
 " Because I was fond of her ; because I hoped to make her 
 my wife; because I thought, if there was any shame connected 
 with her birth — any story you and she wished kept secret " 
 
 " You would hold your knowledge of the shame or the story 
 over her." 
 
 "No, by Heaven!" exclaimed Colonel Leschelles. "You 
 must have been brought up in a very bad school to be so ready 
 to impute dishonourable motives to one who only sought full 
 
Mr. Irwin Reviews the Position. 247 
 
 knowledge of her antecedents in order to serve your niece more 
 thoroughly." 
 
 " I have been in many bad schools," was the answer; "and 
 it is the knowledge there acquired which makes me compre- 
 hend that though a man may ferret out the secrets of another 
 human being's life to serve his own turn, he never does so purely 
 and simply for the sake of befriending his fellow-creatures." 
 
 There was a pause ; then said Colonel Leschelles : 
 
 " I am afraid you are right. I imputed too good a motive to 
 my own actions — judged myself, as one rarely judges another, 
 too leniently. But it is not too late to retrace my steps ; the 
 story, so far as I am concerned, can be as if it had never been. 
 I shall never cease to take the deepest interest in all that con- 
 cerns your niece, but that interest need not be active." 
 
 " Sit down," exclaimed Mr. Irwin ; for his visitor had risen 
 with the evident intention of leaving at once. "You have seen 
 so much of the world," he went on, speaking with unusual 
 brusqiierie, " that you must know, or at least ought to know, no 
 man can ever go back one step of the road he has travelled. 
 You cannot undo what you have done j you cannot make your- 
 self the ' one person less ' acquainted with my brother-in-law's 
 story. You can, however, as I said before, tell me how much 
 of that story you have heard, and how and where you heard it ; 
 and possibly you may help me, or rather Bella." 
 
 "I heard the story by chance — thus far," answered the 
 Colonel, swallowing his wrath, " that I had given up the search 
 as hopeless, when I met with my informant. I went down to 
 the neighbourhood of Abbotsleigh to prosecute my inquiries. 
 The family were away, and I was able consequently to see on 
 the walls of the picture gallery a portrait of the beauty, and 
 satisfy myself as to the strong resemblance subsisting between 
 her and your niece. 
 
 " But beyond this it seemed impossible to get. All the bygone 
 Barthornes, male and female, were satisfactorily accounted for, 
 either in the family vault or the family traditions. There was 
 no record of a ne'er-do-weel amongst them — no story of any son 
 or daughter cast out from the ancestral home for any indiscreet 
 marriage. You are getting impatient, however, I see, and I 
 hasten on. The very morning I made up my mind to leave 
 Abbotsleigh, fortune threw me in the way of an old sexton, who 
 had previously narrated to me circumstances connected with the 
 
243 Above Suspicion. 
 
 deaths and burials of many generations of Barthornes. I met 
 him beside the stream which runs through Abbotsleigh, and as 
 he was going up to the garden, I walked with him till we came 
 to a spot where the ha-ha separating the park from the lawns 
 commences. I had before noticed its unusual width, and re- 
 marked upon it to my companion. 
 
 " ' Ay, it is uncommon wide, sir," he answered ; * but I once 
 see a boy of eight clear it on his pony.' 
 
 " ' He must have been plucky,' I remarked. 
 
 " * A daredevil — that 's what he was, sir. God knows how it 
 would have been had the estate gone to him, as many a one 
 thought it would. He was a plucky one, child, boy, and man, 
 and, base-born or not, free and generous. He had hard lines 
 of it. I have always said that, and always will.' 
 
 '' Little by little I got the story out of the depths of the old 
 man's memory. I heard of the boy being brought up to be a 
 gentleman, and then cast out and apprenticed to a common 
 trade. I heard of his proud application to that trade. I heard 
 how he and his master's wife could not agree — heard how he 
 left to come to London, and how well he prospered — how he 
 married, and had one child, a daughter. 
 
 " ' But at last, sir,' finished the man, 'something or other went 
 wrong. I never clearly knew the rights of it ; for friends, and 
 all who had kept up any correspondence with him, were dead 
 or gone away ; and it was only a sort of rumour came down here 
 that Barthorne had stood his trial, and been sent beyond seas. 
 Some said it was the old Squire's son, and others said no — it 
 was no kith or kin. I cannot tell who was right. All I know 
 is, news of him has never come here since.' " 
 
 "And that is all you know?" commented Mr. Irwin. 
 
 "Not quite. In the records of the Old Bailey I found that 
 in the year i8 — Miles Barthorne, aged — , had pleaded guilty 
 to stealing from a house at Enfield Chase, and was sentenced 
 to seven years' transportation. I did not care to pursue the 
 matter further. I had learnt all I wanted to know ; and I may 
 candidly tell you what I had learnt filled me not merely with 
 the deepest pity for your niece, but also with an, if possible, 
 stronger desire to make her my wife. It was folly, if you like; 
 but I felt that, whether as my wife or my widow, it would be 
 well lor her to have my name shielding her from the conse- 
 quences of her father's act." 
 
Mr. Irivin Reviews the Position. 249 
 
 "You were very generous," said Mr. Irwin. 
 
 " Not so ; I was very selfish. I saw what she was. I knew 
 that for gratitude, for remembrance of my love, my care, she 
 would try to give me back something — the fondness a daughter 
 has for a father, perhaps — and come in time to mistake it for 
 affection. 1 built my castle cautiously. She grew to like and 
 trust me. And then Medburn came ; and I know it was better 
 so. If he had come after marriage, and she had then learnt to 
 care for him — true though she is, faithful as I am sure she would 
 have been — it must have proved a worse trial than — this " 
 
 " It must,' sighed the other. He was thinking of his own 
 marriage, without love or happiness. Out of the depths of that 
 experience he comprehended what love might have proved to 
 Bella, had she come to understand its meaning after marriage. 
 *' You have had an escape. Colonel, though I do not think " 
 
 " She would ever have accepted me," finished the other. 
 
 "Though I do not think she would marry any one, remember- 
 ing her — story." 
 
 " But when I knew it — not when I told her, as I have told 
 her — there is no feeling in my heart save compassion for that 
 dead man — that Ishmael, who, cast out from the house and 
 lands he expected would be his, fought his battle bravely, until 
 temptation — what form it took I never inquired — proving too 
 much for him, he fell, and suffered." 
 
 " That is the idealized view of Miles Barthorne," remarked 
 Mr. Irwin. "Shall I tell you mine? A man with an enormous 
 capacity for evil, and little for good ; a m.an who, let him have 
 been what he may as a boy, grew so soured and envious as the 
 years rolled by, that he would stick at no crime to compass 
 wealth and success. A terrible man," added Walter Irwin — 
 sometime Chappell — " clever, cunning, plausible, wicked. Co- 
 lonel Leschelles" — and the successful London merchant, lean- 
 ing forward, laid his hand on the officer's arm — "if you knew 
 one-half so much about Bella's father as I do, you could never 
 again even think about marrying her." 
 
 " I wish she would give me the chance," was the prompt 
 reply. " What do a man's sins signify to man when he is lying 
 in the earth, answerable for his shortcomings to God, and God 
 only ? " 
 
 " But Miles Barthorne is not dead." 
 
 " Not dead ! " repeated the Colonel, with an involuntary ex* 
 
250 Above Stispicion, 
 
 pression of repulsion. "Well, what does that matter to me?*' 
 he added, after a pause. "If she will only give me the right 
 to stand between him and her — between her and the world — 
 she may be as happy as I can make her." 
 
 " But she won't give you the right ; and she cannot stay at 
 Fisherton, and she must not come to me ; so I want your help. 
 How am I to find a lady of limited income with whom the poor 
 child shall be happy? I tell you candidly, I am not so well 
 off as people think. When my father-in-law died I thought my- 
 self a rich man ; but the profits from the business are not so 
 good as I supposed them to be; and further, he had engac;ed 
 in contracts and speculations which have crippled the firm con- 
 siderably. 
 
 "Of all this I knew nothing when I left Bella with the Wrights, 
 and it is a fact I cannot aftbrd to continue to pay a hundred a 
 year for her. Besides, if anything were to happen to me — if I 
 were to fail, or die, or " 
 
 Colonel Leschelles cut relentlessly across this list of possible 
 casualties by saying : 
 
 " You want my advice — it is this : Permit your niece to earn 
 her own living. Virtually she has been doing so at the Wrights' ; 
 only they let her work hard, and received a large sum of money 
 for graciously allowing her to perform it." 
 
 " I should not like her to be ' put upon,' " answered Mr. 
 Irwin, reverting to a phrase culled out of his early vocabulary. 
 " I am so fond of Bella. You do not know what we two have 
 gone through together." 
 
 " And she so young, poor girl ! " said the Colonel, pityingly. 
 Mr. Irwin had been thinking of himself when he spoke. Co- 
 lonel Leschelles thought of Bella as he heard. "It is quite 
 clear," he went on, " that, even if you had no fancy to continue 
 to act the part of generous patron to Mr. Wright, your niece 
 would find life at the rectory somewhat unpleasant. Mr. 
 Wright's dear Selina is, as he himself would admit, but a wo- 
 man, after all ; and she has a good many feminine weaknesses, 
 amongst them jealousy, which is a quality that does not usually 
 promote domestic happiness. Of course poor Mr. Wright felt 
 the loss of the Medburn lands and beeves dreadfully ; but he 
 almost got over his annoyance whilst I was talking to him, and 
 began to consider, if your niece married the Baronet, he might 
 still make a good thing out of him. With Mrs. Wright, how- 
 
Mr. Irwin Reviews the Position, 251 
 
 ever, the case will be different. To the last day of her life the 
 wound will rankle ; and, her own time for conquest being over, 
 she will dislike and distrust a girl who has proved herself so 
 formidable a rival against her daughter." 
 
 "I can see all that," remarked Mr. Irwin impatiently. "What 
 I cannot see is where I am to place her." 
 
 " I have sounded your niece as to her wishes," answered the 
 Colonel. " Her first idea was to return to the French school, 
 and make herself useful by teaching English to the younger 
 children. ' Thanks to Mrs. Wright, I think I should be able 
 to do that now,' she said. Evidently she is anxious not to be 
 more of an expense to you than can possibly be avoided. I 
 cannot tell you how sweetly she spoke of your love for and kind- 
 ness to her — how earnestly she assured me you would share 
 your last shilling with her; but the refrain of everything was, 
 ' I want to work. I shall be happier when I am very, very 
 busy.' " 
 
 There was a little break in the Colonel's voice. If he had 
 been selfish, still he sorrowed for Bella's sorrow with as true 
 and tender a sympathy as ever mother felt for the heart's grief 
 of an only child. 
 
 " To cut the matter short, we decided that, with your appro- 
 val, I should write to a friend of mine who is looking out for a 
 young iac^y to act as amanuensis and companion. She is one 
 of the most amiable persons I ever knew — a thorough gentle- 
 woman, who spends her life and income in trying to do good. 
 With her your niece would be safe from all impertinent ques- 
 tioning ; and I trust, in time, she may be happy. Before 1 left 
 home this morning I wrote this letter. If you read it, you will 
 see how I have put the matter." 
 
 Mr. Irwin took the enclosure out of the envelope and read ; 
 then, with a sigh, he said, " Nothmg could possibly be better. 
 Poor child !— poor Bella ! " 
 
 " I will see you again in the course of a few days," remarked 
 the Colonel, rising. 
 
 " Thank you — and I will let Wright's note remain unanswered 
 until then." 
 
 " You will have another from him," suggested Colonel Les- 
 chelles. 
 
 " Probably two or three. The man has a mania for scribbling." 
 He makes a very good thing out of it, I fancy," was the 
 
 u 
 
252 A bove Suspicion, 
 
 reply ; and the pair shook hands, and the Colonel went out of 
 the hot office into the hotter streets, leaving Mr. Irwin to con- 
 sider the interview and Bella's position. 
 
 " He would marry her, knowing all about the public scandal. 
 As for the other matter^ that is between Bella and myself. There 
 is a great deal in what Leschelles said about a man's sins being 
 little to any one when he can sin no more ; and if it were not 
 that I am so mixed up in the business, and that Barthorne may 
 return at any minute, I would tell the Baronet all about the 
 matter, and let htJii decide." 
 
 If Colonel Leschelles had heard this sentence, he could not 
 have formed a more accurate opinion of Mr. Irwin than he did. 
 
 " There is more in that old business than I know or than he 
 told me," thought Bella's elderly suitor. " Mr. Irwin is keeping 
 back something which concerns himself. And as for being so 
 fond of his niece — pooh ! He is proud of her ; but the man 
 has not it in his nature to be one-half so fond of any other 
 person as he is of himself." 
 
 CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 FORTUNE AGAIN FAVOURS MR. WRIGHT. 
 
 In November, Fisherton, as a residence, was not a place to 
 desire. 
 
 Gone were the flowers of May and the glories of August, and 
 in their stead water reigned supreme — the helds were swamps — 
 the roads muddy — the aspect of Nature gloomy to a degree 
 beyond description. Even Mr. Wright, whose cheerfulness was 
 proof against almost anything except a visitor from Reuben's 
 and who had an affection for a good London fog, declared at 
 
Fortune again Favours Mr. Wright. 253 
 
 breakfast on one particular Sunday morning that the weather 
 was enough to " depress a kitten." 
 
 The younger children and Mrs. Wright having colds, Mr. 
 Wright intimated that he considered they would be much better 
 at home than " in that damp church ; " to which arrangement 
 Selina, nothing loth, assented, and perhaps, as he stepped out 
 into the cheerless weather, Mr. Wright felt he also would have 
 preferred a seat by the fireside to the atmosphere that sent a 
 chill through his bones. A miserable mornmg — cheerless, raw, 
 heavy; not at all the sort of morning any one would have 
 selected on which to preach, to almost empty pews, a sermon 
 which, for its production, had required both time and thought. 
 
 So many persons had evidently been of one mind with the 
 Rector, that they were better at home, as to render his congre- 
 gation a very limited one. Nevertheless, bad though the weather 
 might be, it had not deterred one stranger from venturing to 
 church — a modest, unassuming kind of man apparently, who 
 resolutely refused all ofters of a prominent position, and sat in 
 a dark corner under the organ-loft, an attentive listener to Mr. 
 Wright's utterances. 
 
 When the service was over he did not leave with the rest of 
 the congregation, but sauntered up the aisle, his hands crossed 
 behind his back, looking around with the air of one interested 
 in the architecture and general appearance of the building. 
 Finally he found himself close to the door of the vestry-room, 
 which he opened without ceremony, and so came upon Mr. 
 Wright, who was buttoning up his top-coat, preparatory to ven- 
 turing out into the rain, which by this time had begun to fall 
 heavily. 
 
 " How are you?" asked the stranger, stretching out his hand. 
 
 The Rev. Dion, looking a little surprised and somewhat dis- 
 pleased, replied that he was very well. 
 
 " You don't remember me," suggested the other. 
 
 " Oh, yes, I do, perfectly ' " answered Mr Wright, " but it is 
 a very long time since we met.*' 
 
 Which sentence was true so far as it went. Mr. Wright CI " 
 recollect the face in which he stared, though when he had seen 
 it last he could not decide. He knew a long time had elapsed, 
 of that he was certain; but he was unable to call to mind 
 whether it belonged to a money-lender, to an attorney's clerk, 
 to a sheriff's officer, or to a pawnbroker. 
 
254 Alcie Suspicion, 
 
 The other, looking on, laughed and said : 
 " Come, Wright, confess you don't remember me. You may 
 recollect you have seen me somewhere, but you can't imagine 
 where. Well, I suppose I am changed, I have had lots of 
 ups and downs, and the downs don't made a fellow look younger. 
 As for you, I 'd have known you anywhere. If I 'd met you out 
 in Africa, I 'd have said, 'Holloa, here's Wright, turned mission- 
 ary.' If I 'd seen you with your head shaved, and no end of 
 frippery adorning your person, officiating in Rome, I 'd have 
 said, ' Here 's Wright, turned Papist.' " 
 
 "And pray, sir, may I inquire who you are, who would, under 
 the impossible circumstances you mention, have made the re- 
 marks just quoted?" asked Mr. Wright, drawing himself up, and 
 swelling out perceptibly at the breast pockets of his top-coat. 
 
 Though he had a keen sense of humour, he writhed under 
 even the suspicion of being ridiculed. This is an anomaly, I 
 am informed ; but if so, it is one frequently to be met with. 
 
 " That will do, Wright ; that is capital," went on the stranger, 
 whom the Rev. Dion mentally anathematized as a " brute." 
 " Nothing could be better ; that is the style I want. By-the-bye, 
 I did not think much of your sermon this morning ; it was fair 
 — yes, above the average, certainly ; but not what you used to 
 deliver in the jolly days, when you were lecturer at old Innocents. 
 Lord, what times these are to look back on ! I can do my 
 champagne every day if I like, but it never tastes as the familiar 
 'bitter' did then." 
 
 " Good gracious ! " cried the Rector, with a tragic start, as the 
 other finished, "you must be Ned Cahoon." 
 
 " At your service," said the gentleman with the four-honour- 
 able-professions-already-mentioned cast of countenance ; and 
 then the pair shook hands again in a much more friendly manner; 
 and Mr. Wright, who had pricked up his worldly ears at the little 
 word about champagne, said : 
 
 " My dear fellow, I am delighted to see you ; who would have 
 thought of your turning up at Fisherton? Come and dine with 
 us. Pot-luck, you know, and a hearty welcome for sauce." 
 
 "All right," answered Mr. Cahoon, slipping his hand under 
 the Rector's arm, and in this affectionate manner the pair walked 
 beneath the shelter of two umbrellas along the roads of Fisher- 
 ton, which were by this time of die consistence of Thames mud, 
 back to Selina and the children. 
 
Fortune again Favours Mr. Wright 255 
 
 " Beastly place this," remarked the visitor, who was possessed 
 of ail admirable, if occasionally disconcerting, frankness. 
 
 " We cannot always choose our places in this world," said 
 Mr. Wright, with the air of a man who, having modestly asked 
 only foi daily bread, felt intensely disgusted at nothing better 
 being given to him. 
 
 " Nor in the next, if all you parsons say is true," retorted his 
 companion ; "which brings me back to what I said in the vestry. 
 You 've gone off in your preaching, Wriglit : how does that 
 happen ? " 
 
 " My dear fellow, who do you suppose could preach in such 
 a hole as this ? " answered Mr. Wright, emulating the candour 
 of Mr. Cahoon. 
 
 " Well, there 's something in that, to be sure," observ'ed the 
 other reflectively. " Fill the house, turn up the gas, let the organ 
 peal loud enough, and the singers shout till they could be heard 
 at the gates of the seventh heaven. That is the sort of thing — 
 eh, Wright? — to stir up the eloquence of a fellow who has any 
 eloquence at all. What congregations you used to draw at 
 Innocents ! Do you never feel, old boy, like the racehorse, 
 who, having once sniffed the battle afar off, longs to break 
 loose from his paddock, and find himself in the thick of the 
 7nelee once again ? " 
 
 Mr. Wright paused. Though the rain was then pouring down, 
 he stopped in the middle of the miry side-path, and said : 
 
 '•' ]\Iy dear friend, you are quite correct. This place is kill- 
 ing me, mentally and physically. But why should I complain ? 
 What would be the use of my complaining ? I am here because 
 it is good for those dearest to me that I should be here, where 
 I am likely to remain for the rest of my natural life." 
 
 "No chance of preferment, then?" suggested Mr. Cahoon. 
 
 "Not the slightest. A few months ago I should have made 
 a different answer; but that is all gone and past, and I am left 
 stranded. I feel now just like a ship which, after waiting and 
 waiting for a tide never destined to come, remams on some in- 
 hospitable coast till it drops to pieces." 
 
 " Humph ! " said the other. " I did not myself know ships 
 were sentient creatures ; but that sort of thing is your business; 
 and I have no doubt you have mastered the complexities of the 
 metaphor thoroughly. I cannot say I understand your simile, 
 but I do understand that Fisherton has disappointed you." 
 
2$6 Above Suspicion. 
 
 The Rector paused before he replied. " Be frank if you can, 
 but prudent always," was one of the maxims Mr. Wright would 
 have engraved in a good, gentlemanly, clerical sort of hand, had 
 he been invited by an enterprising publisher to eliminate from 
 his experience and imagination a series of maxims likely to 
 prove useful to the rising population of Great Britain ; and ac- 
 cordingly the Rector was prudent now. 
 
 *' I cannot say," he answered at last, *' that Fisherton has dis- 
 appointed me. I knew when I came here the amount of the 
 emolument to be expected. If I did not know how far such a 
 honorarium would go with a man in my position, it was not the 
 fault of Fisherton, or — I suppose — of myself." 
 
 " Certainly not," agreed his companion cheerfully. " Fisher- 
 ton, no doubt, has been accustomed to having its religious 
 wants attended to by a clergyman either of very ample means, 
 who treated it superciliously, or by a clergyman of no means or 
 brains, accustomed to look at every penny, who treated it in- 
 differently, and did just as little work for his salary as an honest 
 parson might ; but of a person like yourself, possessed of many 
 preaching talents and no money, Fisherton, misguided, unso- 
 phisticated, behind-the-age, sleepy, stupid, proper Fisherton, has 
 really no knowledge." 
 
 "That is true enough," answered the Rector; "though I 
 cannot imagine how you come to know so much about our 
 village. And that reminds me that I have never asked you how 
 you happen to be here ? " 
 
 " I am here on a little matter of business, but it can wait for 
 awhile," was the reply. " Now tell me all about yourself, and 
 the children, and Mrs. Wright, and so forth." 
 
 Mr. Wright did not consider the finish of his friend's sentence 
 as strictly respectful, but as he knew that, whatever other virtues 
 Mr. Cahoon might possess, any clear knowledge oiles convenaiices 
 was not amongst them, he condoned the offence, and still walk- 
 ing jauntily along the muddy roads under the driving rain, he 
 gave his companion a resuuie of his history since the old days 
 when he lectured at Innocents, and Ned Cahoon was the life 
 and soul of an amateur choir and sang bass with the best, and 
 was often asked by Mr. Wright to walk back with him and 
 partake of a cut of beef and a glass of " bitter" — procured from 
 5cr?« corL&dirLff tradesman who felt quite satisfied that, although 
 
For time again Favours Mr. Wright. 257 
 
 the Reverend Dion had so many children, he could, neverthe- 
 less, pay his debts. 
 
 In those days Mr. Ned Cahoon was managing clerk to a 
 solicitor of doubtful reputation and large practice, who finally 
 leaving his clients to take care of themselves, and carrying off 
 with him a considerable amount of money which he probably 
 imagined might have caused some worldly anxiety to its owners, 
 Mr. Cahoon was thrown somewhat suddenly out of a situation 
 and a character. 
 
 People were shy about employing the ex-manager. " Like 
 master like man," they probably remembered ; and Mr. Cahoon 
 must have starved had his clerical friend not come to the rescue 
 and found him a small situation in one of those Religious 
 Societies which are supported by a philanthropic public appa- 
 rently for the laudable jnirpose of paying salaries to persons who 
 might find a difftculty in earning salaries elsewhere. 
 
 Tiring eventually of this employment, Mr. Cahoon procured 
 for himself an appointment in the north of England, and Mr. 
 Wright lost sight of him. 
 
 But that fact made little or no difference in the pleasure with 
 which the Rector recognized his old acquaintance. Cahoon, who 
 was well learned in every shift and subterfuge of the law, had 
 in former times assisted Mr. Wright in many an ugly difhculty, 
 and more than once he helped that gentleman to make, sub rc>sd, 
 a few pounds in a gentlemanly wa*'. 
 
 Though never rich enough to lend, he was good enough to 
 put Mr. Wright in the way of obtaining loans, and in many cases 
 also he had instructed the guileless Rector how to avoid pa) ment 
 of loans already incurred. 
 
 Further, Mr. Wright knew the signs and tokens of a pros- 
 perous man, when such an individual presented himself to his 
 observation, and already the Rector had taken note of the 
 cut and quality of his old friend's new top-coat, and could have 
 told to a sovereign the value of the clothes he stood up in. 
 
 More than this, he saw, as he himself said afterwards, " that 
 Mr. Cahoon wore rings of considerable value, that his studs 
 were not those which a poor man would have selected, that his 
 handkerchief was of cambric, and scented with some refined 
 and superior perfume." 
 
 Add to this that his hands — given to habitual griminess in 
 the days of " Innocents " — were now of a colour and quality 
 
 17 
 
258 Above Suspicion. 
 
 which Sellna herself might have approved, and the reader will 
 comprehend that so acute a reasoner as Mr. Wright drew satis- 
 factory conclusions. 
 
 " We have only very humble fare to offer you," remarked the 
 Rector, as they drew near the gate affording entrance to 
 *' Repose," as Mr. Wright had once entitled his latest residence 
 when writing to his noble patron. 
 
 " That is of no consequence," said Mr. Cahoon considerately. 
 
 " Only a leg of mutton, boiled," explained Mr. Wright. 
 
 " Boiled leg of mutton will be a pleasant change. I never 
 get it at home now." 
 
 ''You are prosperous, Cahoon, I hope," said the Rector, 
 looking him over with fond clerical interest. 
 
 " I can't complain ; but I will tell you all about it after dinner. 
 You have not afternoon service, I hope." 
 
 "Oh, dear, no!" answered Mr. Wright; "two sermons a 
 day are enough for any man. Afternoon service, in any case, 
 is an entire mistake. It is a sort of " 
 
 " Two o'clock performance at Drury Lane," suggested Mr. 
 Cahoon, as the Rector hesitated. 
 
 " Well, very much the same thing," agreed Mr. Wright jovi- 
 ally. " But here we are, here we are, and there are the children, 
 God bless them ! Don't nm away, dears ; or if you do, tell 
 mamma I have brought an old friend to see her. She will be 
 astonished, won't she, Cahoon?" 
 
 With his lips Cahoon said, " No doubt Mrs. Wright would 
 be very much astonished to see him," but in his heart he con- 
 sidered it would be somewhat difficult to surprise either the 
 Rector or his wife. 
 
 He had known Selina when the airs of youth still sat grace- 
 fully enough upon her, but he never could remember her as 
 genuinely unaffected, or other than a ladylike humbug. Mr. 
 Cahoon had taken the moral measure of so many men and 
 women, that the Rev. Dion and Mrs. Wright were not likely to 
 present any insuperable difficulties to his observation. 
 
 " Now guess who this is, Selina," said the Rev. Dion, unfurl- 
 ing his dripping umbrella, and presenting his friend to the ad- 
 miring gaze of half a dozen children in the foreground, with Mrs. 
 Wright standing in the drawing-room doorway, forming an 
 elegant point of perspective in the near distance. 
 
 From the Rector's genial tone Selina took her cue. 
 
Fortune again Favours Mr. Wright. 259 
 
 "Oh!" she said, holding out her hand and advancing one 
 step forward, " if I am to recognize who you are, you must stand 
 where I can see you," and thus exhorted, Mr. Cahoon walked 
 towards the drawing-room, and, smiling somewhat awkwardly, 
 surrendered himself for contemplation ; Mr. Wright meanwhile 
 uttering with silent lips " Cahoon," for the benefit of his wife, 
 who, being in some respects a cleverer man than himself, ex- 
 claimed : 
 
 " I know you quite well, but I cannot recollect your name. 
 Speak to me, that I may try if I can remember it ; but first let 
 me say how glad I am to see you." 
 
 " Thank you, Mrs. Wright," said the new-comer ; " you made 
 me welcome often in times gone by, and I don't forget your 
 kindness to a strugghng man." 
 
 "Why, you are — yes, certainly you are, Mr. Cahoon, who 
 used to sing so beautifully at Innocents. Oh ! I am so glad to 
 see you again. Mr. Wright and I have wondered often and 
 often where you were, or what had become of you." 
 
 And then Selina, with an engaging smile, and a little lift of 
 the left shoulder, which had been once considered captivating 
 by officers and others, shook hands with Mr. Cahoon again, and 
 welcomed him to Fisherton. 
 
 " Snuggish sort of place this, ma'am," observed Mr. Cahoon, 
 as after being made free of the Rectory, he walked from window 
 to window, and looked out in all directions upon acres and 
 acres of submerged country ; " at the same time, I should pre- 
 fer less water myself. It is a matter of taste, however." 
 
 " It is not a matter of choice here, though," struck in the 
 Rector. " Whether we like the water, or not, we are bound to 
 have it." 
 
 "This has been an exceptionally wet season," said Mrs. 
 Wright, in kindly excuse of the forlorn landscape, "and one 
 cannot have the pure air of the country without some of its dis- 
 advantages." 
 
 " Humph ! " observed Mr. Cahoon, in a tone which caused 
 the Rector to inquire whether he would not like to step up 
 into his dressing-room before dinner. 
 
 " Warm water, Mary," cried the Rev. Dion, from the top of 
 the kitchen stairs, whilst Mr. Cahoon stood half-way up the next 
 flight, looking over the banisters, and smiling to himself. 
 
 Upon the whole, dinner was not an entire success. Dinner 
 
 17 — 2 
 
26o Above Suspicion, 
 
 rarely is when children have to be carved for at the same time 
 as adults. 
 
 Mr. Cahoon made himself as pleasant as he could, and talked 
 as much as was compatible with perpetual interruption from the 
 darlings clustering round the board. 
 
 Unfortunately the familiar friend had selected a day for his 
 visit when, owing either to the state of the finances, to some 
 crisis with the servants, or to one of those fits of utter careless- 
 ness and mental aberration to which both Mrs. Wright and 
 Nurse Mary were subject, there was not a thing in the house 
 fit for any one to eat. The mutton was tough and almost raw. 
 The turnips were hot as Eastern pickles, and porous as sponges. 
 The butter tasted of everything of which butter should not taste. 
 The caper sauce was manufactured out of the berries of the nas- 
 turtium, and there were no potatoes. 
 
 The housemaid waited, however, very well, and Mr. Cahoon, 
 in the absence of food, no doubt solaced himself by observing 
 that the attendance was conducted upon the most correct 
 principles. 
 
 As for poor Mr. Wright, he could have wept with vexation 
 when he cut into the obnoxious leg, and felt the truth of its 
 exceeding hardness unmollified by any careful culinary pro- 
 cesses. 
 
 Nor did his heart grow lighter after the mutton disappeared ; 
 the joint only vanished to be replaced with an enormous apple 
 dumpling, the crust of which was quite an inch thick. 
 
 " Dear, dear ! dear, dear, dear! you cannot eat that, Cahoon," 
 exclaimed the Rector, as he saw a helpmg of this remarkable 
 pudding handed to their visitor. 
 
 "Can't I !" replied Cahoon cheerily, sprinkling as he spoke 
 some of the coarse brown sugar which Mrs. Wright, who was 
 wont occasionally to take inconvenient economical fancies into 
 her head, had decided was quite good enough to be served with 
 apples defended by such ample bulwarks ; and Mr. Cahoon 
 did try, working his way manfully through fruit, and cloves, and 
 syrup, and pastry, till at length Mr. Wright, thrusting his own 
 plate aside in disgust, desired the maid to take it away, adding, 
 
 " Don't make a martyr of yourself, Cahoon, out of any mis- 
 taken idea of politeness. Follow my example, and have some 
 cheese." 
 
 At which juncture the housemaid, very red and flurried, looked 
 
Fortune again Favours Mr. Wright. 261 
 
 at Mrs. Wright, and Mrs. Wright, apparently a little put out, 
 said : 
 
 "I am sorry, dear — but when the cheese went down from 
 supper last night " 
 
 The Rector waved his hand and rose to his feet. He knew 
 what was coming. Selina rose likewise, meekly and gracefully 
 drooping her head. With a clatter the children dropped to 
 their feet and folded their hands. 
 
 " For these and all Thy mercies," said the Rev. Dion, " may 
 the Lord make us truly thankful ! — Now, Cahoon, come into 
 my sanctum, and have a comfortable tumbler." 
 
 *' Heaven send there may prove no hitch about that!" 
 thought Mr. Cahoon, as he walked into the Rector's study. 
 
 " I must apologize," began Mr. Wright, as he mixed the 
 modest glass calculated to inspire happiness in a stranger even 
 at Fisherton Rectory. 
 
 " Pray don't ! " entreated his visitor. " You know I have 
 been used to roughing it; and now that I am better off, my 
 appetite is not one-half so good as it used to be. Nine times 
 out of ten, rich people eat and drink only to please their cook 
 and their butler. Now, what I like is this " — and he held up 
 the familiar " Irish " between himself and as good a light as 
 Fisherton, on that day, could offer to visitors. 
 
 " I can recommend it, at any rate," said Mr. Wright, relaxing. 
 
 " So can I. And now to business. I want to talk ' shop ' 
 to you, though it is Sunday. I suppose, however, your shop is 
 not shop, even on a Sunday." 
 
 " Cahoon ! " observed Mr. Wright impressively, *' I just want 
 to make one stipulation : do not be irreverent — do not speak 
 lightly on sacred subjects." 
 
 " AH right ! " answered the other, with an appreciative twinkle 
 in his eyes. " Usually, I am as grave as an archbishop ; but 
 the sight of you has carried me back to times when I was younger 
 than 1 am now, and — not so prosperous." 
 
 " You have been prosperous, then ? " said the Rector, who 
 considered youth quite an indifferent subject in comparison 
 with money. 
 
 " Or I should not be here," returned the other. 
 
 " Now, now, now ! don't be so unjust," exclaimed Mr. Wright 
 in his most soothing tone. 
 
 "lam not unjust," returned Mr. Cahoon. "I never said, 
 
262 Above Suspicion, 
 
 nor thought, you would refuse me a welcome, even if I came 
 to you without a coat to my back. It is not that ; only, what 
 is the use of one poor devil going to bother another as poor as 
 himself, with an account of his pecuniary troubles? I have 
 had my ups and downs, as I told you before, but I am not 
 going to enlarge on the subject of the downs, as I am up now, 
 and mean to keep up." 
 
 "Always under Providence," suggested Mr. Wright, some- 
 what in the tone in which mothers admonish their children to 
 say " please," and " thank you." 
 
 " Implied, Wright. Pray consider all that sort of thing im- 
 plied. You need not trouble yourself to question the soundness 
 of my doctrines. I have gone in for everything which is purely 
 and thoroughly respectable; and I am bound to say the policy 
 has paid remarkably well." 
 
 With a deprecating wave of his hand Mr. Wright put aside 
 this remark. He could not allow it to pass quite unrebuked, 
 but he Avas too anxious to come to the real purport of Mr. 
 Gaboon's visit to venture upon any verbal argument. 
 
 " Yes, it has paid," repeated Mr. Gaboon. " You remember 
 how poor I used to be in the old days at Innocents. Well, per- 
 haps you may have heard of Huntingdon Park — a few years 
 since, meadows, afterwards brick-fields, after that a suburb of 
 London covered with handsome villa residences, much affected 
 by Gity gentlemen able to pay long rents. Well, that estate is 
 mine ; and you may guess I am drawing a pretty penny out of it." 
 
 " Bless my soul ! " cried the Rector, " is it possible ? From 
 the bottom of my heart I congratulate you. No man ever 
 deserved success better. And yet I am astonished ! " 
 
 " You cannot be more astonished than I am," was the reply. 
 "As for the deserving part of the business, however, perhaps 
 the less we say about that the better. I have worked hard, it 
 is true, but " 
 
 " Don't malign yourself, my dear friend," interposed Mr. 
 Wright, who beheld in imagination a cheque handed to him as 
 a thank-offering for mercies vouchsafed. 
 
 " To come now to the point," said Mr. Gaboon. "A church 
 is badly wanted on the property ; and it has occurred to me 
 that, if you wish a change, there is the very opening for you." 
 
 " Thank you ! " answered the Rector. " It is very good of 
 you to think of me — thank you greatly." 
 
Fortune again Favours Mr. Wright. 263 
 
 ^ But he uttered the words in a crestfallen tone, and sipped 
 his punch less in triumph than by way of consolation. 
 
 " li you don't take kindly to the notion " suggested Mr. 
 
 Cahoon. 
 
 "It is new to me — it has come upon me by surprise. A 
 person situated as I am is obliged to be very cautious. When 
 a man has given hostages to Fortune, he cannot afford to play 
 at pitch-and-toss with Success." 
 
 " That is very true," agreed Mr. Cahoon. He knew his man 
 of old, and understood perfecdy what was the matter with him ; 
 for which reason he refrained from further observation, and 
 turned his eyes, with an appearance of much interest, on the 
 Rector's bookshelves. 
 
 " How much, now, do you suppose," began Mr. Wright at 
 last, " what do you imagine the value of such a livim^ would 
 be?" 
 
 " Anything you could make it between two hundred and fifty 
 and twelve hundred a year." 
 
 The sound of that twelve hundred a year was pleasant to Mr. 
 Wright, but he would not confess the fact. 
 
 " You see, one would have to give up all one's independence," 
 he remarked. 
 
 " Do you think so?" 
 
 " Under the voluntary system, one can only live by cun-ying 
 favour with rich men." 
 
 " Humph ! It seems to me much the same under any system. 
 But no doubt you know all about the matter much better that I." 
 
 " You see —to give up a certainty for an uncertainty," said 
 the Rector coyly. 
 
 "Yes— all such steps require consideration. So far as I am 
 concerned, the matter stands thus. We must have a churcli 
 on the estate, and I thought that such a church might suit you. 
 We can put up a temporary iron structure as a beginning, and 
 then build a permanent church when enough money has'come 
 in for the purpose. Of course I should guarantee you, or any 
 other likely man, a certain income until the pews were all let'; 
 and when the church is built, no doubt some arrangement could 
 be made to include a suitable parsonage in the scheme. ' 
 
 Before the Rector's eyes that scheme seemed to be growing 
 brighter and brighter still; but, diplomaticary, he reuained 
 from showing how fair the prospect was beginning to appear. 
 
264 Above Suspicion, 
 
 " I suppose you don't want an answer to-day?" lie said. 
 
 " I don't want a decision, if that is what you mean," answered 
 Mr. Cahoon ; " but I should Hke to know whether you mean to 
 consider the matter. If not, I must, of course, turn my attention 
 elsewhere." 
 
 This was bringing affairs to a crisis ; and any other man except 
 Mr. Wright must have felt compelled to face it. Mr. Wright, 
 however, rose equal to the occasion. 
 
 "Let us consult my wife," he suggested. " She is twice as 
 clever in worldly matters as I am — although she is the most 
 unworldly creature living." 
 
 " You cannot do better than consult Mrs. Wright," was the 
 reply. But Mr. Cahoon laughed to himself as he uttered the 
 words, and remembered how utterly in accord he had found Mr. 
 and Mrs. Wright on almost all worldly subjects in those bright 
 days at Innocents, long departed. 
 
 Mr. Wright rang the bell (he was determined Mr. Cahoon 
 should see there was no collusion between him and Selina), and 
 desired the servant to inquire if Mrs. Wright could come to the 
 study for a few minutes. 
 
 *' Selina, my dear," he said as Mrs. Wright entered the room, 
 "we want the help of your clear head." 
 
 "Yes," added Mr. Cahoon, with a bow, handing her a chair 
 IS he rose, " we have got into a little difficulty, and we shall 
 never creep out of it unless you give us the benefit of your 
 opinion." 
 
 Hearing which, Selina — who had already telegraphed a look 
 to her husband, asking, " Is anything wrong ? " and receiving 
 another look in reply, which said, "All right; money to be made" 
 — accepted the proffered chair with graceful ease, and then, 
 glancing at Mr. Cahoon with a languid smile, gave it to be un- 
 derstood that her " clear head " was at the service of anybody 
 who chose to make use of it. 
 
 " By Heaven ! she is the best man of the two," thought Mr. 
 Cahoon, as he saw how thoroughly she went into the subject. 
 " Wright is but a fool to her. It is a pity she won't see after 
 the cooking, though — thinks herself a cut above it, I fancy. 
 Well, we can't have everything, and she is a woman no fellow 
 need feel ashamed to say is the wife of his parson." 
 
 " It would be so desirable an arrangement for the boys, 
 Dion," she remarked. 
 
Fortune again Favours Mr. Wright 265 
 
 " I never thouglit about that. See what it is to have a wife, 
 Cahoon." 
 
 " Most strongly I advise you to consider the matter in all its 
 bearings," she continued. 
 
 ''Very well, my dear; I will, then. Meantime, Cahoon, I 
 am most grateful to you for bearing me in mind." 
 
 " There was a great deal of selfishness mixed up with my 
 friendship," explained Mr. Cahoon with needless frankness. 
 
 " Tush ! " said the Rector. " We know how much selfishness 
 there is about Edward Cahoon — don't we, Selina?" 
 
 "You are a mass of selfishness, are you not, Mr. Cahoon? 
 You never went out of your way to serve a friend ; you never 
 worked night and day for those unable to repay you in any way. 
 Oh, yes, indeed, you are a mass of selfishness — for you are kind, 
 and good, and generous, only to serve your own purposes. We 
 understand that perfectly." 
 
 And then, with a little gasping sob, Mrs. Wright put her hand- 
 kerchief to her eyes, and her hand towards Mr. Cahoon ; who, 
 taking it, said : 
 
 " Upon my honour, Mrs. Wright, if I had not believed your 
 husband would do well at Huntingdon Park, I should never 
 have mentioned it." 
 
 *' Poor dear Ned Cahoon ! " remarked the Rev. Dion that 
 night to his wife, "he is just the same as of old." 
 
 " Yes," she agreed. " But he has much more in his power 
 than formerly." 
 
 " That place might be made worth a thousand a year," said 
 Mr. Wright. 
 
 " At least," agreed his wife. 
 
 " Though it would not have done to seem too much elated, 
 I feel that, at last, fortune has relented in our favour," observed 
 the Rector. 
 
 "But what about the debts?" asked Selina. 
 
 " Cahoon must see to them." And, having thus spoken, Mr. 
 Wright fell asleep. 
 
266 Above Sitspaoji, 
 
 CHAPTER XXX. 
 
 ON THE WAY FROM CHURCH. 
 
 On the very same day as that on which the Reverend Dionyslus 
 Wright lound, to quote SeHna's version of the affair, that *' Pro- 
 vidence had opened another door of escape from their diffi- 
 culties," Bella Miles, towards whom the Rector's thoughts had 
 more than once during the progress of dinner turned regretfully, 
 walked, under a November sky, from the house of her new friend 
 or patroness, to church. 
 
 She had thought in work to find distraction, but she was far 
 less happy with Miss Grahame than at Fisherton. Her life was 
 outwardly peaceful enougli, it is true, but it was, to quote Mr. 
 Wright, the peace of stagnation. Existence, so far as events 
 or interests were concerned, seemed suddenly to have come 
 to a standstill. In Miss Grahame's home the routine of one 
 day was the routine of that which preceded and that which 
 should follow It. Externally there was no difference, except 
 such as might be caused by the state of the weather or of Miss 
 Grahame's health. If she was pretty well, she read prayers in 
 the breakfast-parlour ; if she was not well, she read prayers in 
 her dressing-room ; if she was very ill, Bella read prayers to the 
 assembled domestics, all old and feminine, in Miss Grahame's 
 bed-chamber. It was the home of a good and Christian and 
 charitable woman, who out of her abundance gave liberally, and 
 who led the calm, monotonous life which is at once so eminently 
 respectable and so painfully dull, that girls who " have nothing 
 to complain of, and are only discontented," beat their hearts 
 out in vain struggles to escape from its bondage. 
 
 To Bella such an existence seemed simply a living death. 
 From her father she had inherited some of his excessive vitality; 
 and the sluggish waters of the life on which her own vessel now 
 lay becalmed, filled her soul with an unspeakable despair. 
 
 Between herself and the gentle invalid, who, having early lost 
 her lover, relinquished the world and all its pleasures forthwith, 
 and lived the life of a hermit for the sake ot memory, there 
 
On the Way from Church. 267 
 
 ya\vned a gulf which all the girl's sympathy was unable to bridge 
 across. 
 
 Her early memories, her later experiences, her young quick 
 pulses, had nothing in common with the pensive lady who could 
 think of little save her dead, her religion, and her poor; 
 whose only recreation was almsgiving ; whose only pet was an 
 old, half-blind, half-deaf, wholly disagreeable King Charles ; 
 who having, at the time of her lover's death, stopped all the 
 clocks of her life, could not understand how other people were 
 able to bear the ticking caused by natural interests in their own; 
 who had never had any secret to keep in the whole of her life, 
 and who was as innocent of the world and the world's ways, of 
 its sins, sorrows, pleasures, disappointments, as a dead baby. 
 
 Amongst other feelings which she had outlived was curiosity, 
 and Bella was consequently left in perfect peace as regarded 
 her antecedents. Colonel Leschelles having informed Miss 
 Grahame that some sad circumstances were associated with the 
 young girl's earlier years, she found herself accepted as one who 
 had a i^w melancholy memories, concerning the nature of 
 which, however, inquiry never was made, less because Miss 
 Grahame happened to be a gentlewoman, than because she had 
 survived the power of being mterested save in the condition of 
 the poor and the state of her friends' souls. 
 
 Coming from the bosom of a clergyman's family, the lady had 
 anticipated much holy pleasure in holding intercourse with a 
 young saint ; but it may readily be believed that from Mr. Wright 
 Bella had, on the whole, acquired more worldly than spiritual 
 lore ; which, indeed, can well be understood when we remember 
 how far unconscious teaching excels that of line and plummet. 
 Miss Grahame, therefore, being unable to exchange sentiments 
 with her young companion, was fain to improve the girl's spiritual 
 state by making her read aloud volumes of good books — which 
 Bella did with an edifying composure, her thoughts meanwhile 
 being miles distant. Of the girl's passionate longings to be able 
 to do right — of the struggle she was maintaining against herself 
 — of the stern resolves she was always making, that if her parents 
 had done ill, she would try, Heaven helping her, to do well — 
 of the utter conviction of her own weakness in being unable to 
 cast the memory of her lover out of her mind, and of her own 
 wickedness in sometimes falling into daydreams concerning him, 
 from which she always awakened, as if she had been really 
 
268 Above Suspicion. 
 
 asleep, with a start — Miss Grahame, of course, could have no 
 knowledge. 
 
 She never saw anything but an extremely pretty girl with a 
 thoughtful, downcast face, whom Colonel Leschelles wanted to 
 make his wife, and who, no doubt, would some day marry him, 
 when she became sufficiently a child of grace to care little whom 
 she married, so long as he could help her to do the Lord's work. 
 
 " Crucifying our vile affections " was a favourite phrase on 
 Miss Grahame's lips ; but it seemed never to occur to her that 
 all the best years of her life she had spent in offering up worship 
 to a dead idol, and making unto herself a god of her early love; 
 for which reason it came to pass that Bella Miles led at Miss 
 Grahame's a life calculated, morally, to do her even less good 
 than the life which she had experienced at Fisherton. 
 
 It was an introspective life, which is usually a weakening life 
 to the moral sense ; it was an idle life, which is trying to physi- 
 cal health. She had nothing to take her out of herself, her past, 
 her future ; of all the hundred interests she made for herself at 
 Fisherton, not one remained. Servants did everything for Miss 
 Grahame except read to her, and write at her dictation ; if she 
 were more than ordinarily ill, it was her maid who sat up with 
 and nursed her, the cook who prepared the jelly and the beef- 
 tea; and there seemed, therefore, little for Bella, once busy 
 Bella, to perform, save the part of spectator in this drama of 
 still life. 
 
 Not even Bella's superb constitution could stand up against 
 the monotony of so terrible a dead-and-alive existence. She 
 grew thin, her cheeks lost their roundness, her eyes their bright- 
 ness. When Miss Grahame could dispense with her presence 
 the girl went down to the seaside, and, sitting on some rock 
 overlooking the lonely expanse of waters, would cry as if her 
 heart were breaking, — cry for the loneliness of her life, cry for 
 the loneliness of the life she felt it was only right hers should 
 be. 
 
 From the thought of mother and father she shrank with equal 
 dread. In her childhood it may be imagined she had met with 
 but scant kindness from either. In such leisure time as his life 
 boasted, her father had occasionally, even towards the latter 
 part of his West Green life, been able to bestow a good-natured 
 word and kindly look on his only child ; but of her mother, 
 Bella's longest memories were of scoldings and slappings, and 
 
On tiie Way from Church. 269 
 
 such othei- indignities mth which a disappointed woman is loo apt 
 to vent her temper upon the nearest and most helpless object. 
 
 Every day in her short experience had since her separation 
 from her parents been removing her farther from them. If she 
 had ever loved them, she loved them no longer; if she had ever 
 wished to be reunited to those to whom she owed what grati- 
 tude might be involved in the gift of birth, that wish had long 
 ago given place to utter dread of some still indefinite period 
 when they and she would in the ordinary course of events 
 resume, but with a difference, their old positions. 
 
 What she wished for, what she desired, it would have proved 
 utterly vain to explain. What she said to herself was that some- 
 where far, far away, her father and mother were well and — 
 happy. Beyond that she dare not go in the matter of selt- 
 examination, for otherwise she would have found the one vehe- 
 ment desire of her nature was never to look upon the face of 
 either evermore. 
 
 At Miss Grahame's she had ample time to consider her po- 
 sition, to think how it would fare with her if, with wealth at his 
 back, her father returned and claimed his only child. 
 
 Strange to say, she never thought of him as poor ; she had 
 never seen him in any grievous strait until that night when, 
 through her mother's folly, his life was placed in jeopardy ; she 
 had faith in his talent, his brains, his readiness, as one might 
 have in the strength of a strong man whom one has never seen 
 reduced to weakness. 
 
 To her he was a mental athlete ; to her he always so remained 
 in memorv, through every hour of her life in which memory 
 recalled him. But she did not love her father : with a terrible 
 grief she, in her lonely life, realized this fact ; if she had ever 
 loved him, the love was dead and gone, and dread alone lived 
 in its place. 
 
 And Bella hated herself for not loving her father. There are 
 parents for whom under all circumstances it is possible to retain 
 an affection ; on the other hand, there are parents to whom it 
 is possible to retain an affection under none. 
 
 Sentimental writers ignore this last possibility, but matter-of- 
 fact authors are compelled to acknowledge that it is quite pos- 
 sible for a parent to hate a child and for a child to dislike a 
 parent. 
 
 In the midst of Bella's self-communings, however, there came 
 
270 Above Suspicion. 
 
 from the outside world one of those facts which rouse people 
 from the contemplation of artificial evils. 
 
 " I have news from Australia," wrote Mr. Irwin. " Your 
 father is dead. He was robbed and killed when bringing gold 
 to Melbourne. Your mother it is who sends me the tidings. 
 
 " She talks of remaining in Australia for the present : I trust 
 she will marry again, and stay there permanently. I will run 
 down the first opportunity, as there are several matters it is 
 ecessary T should discuss with you." 
 
 That was all. As in a mirror, Bella beheld reflected in her 
 uncle's letter the thoughts which had been filling her own heart. 
 She saw he felt her father's death to be an unutterable reUef, 
 and that he expected her to share his feelings. She had got her 
 wish now: one parent, at all events, would trouble her no more ; 
 and then, in an agony of remorse, Bella wept sore for the father 
 whose faults, so far as she was concerned, were blotted out by 
 the hand of death. 
 
 It was at night this letter arrived ; and next morning the girl's 
 heavy eyes and pale face attracted Miss Grahame's attention. 
 
 " What is the matter with you, Bella ? " she asked. " Are 
 you ill ? has any one vexed you, or have you any bad news ? " 
 
 It was one of Miss Grahame's good days, and consequently 
 the foregoing exhaustive inquiry was made at the breakfast- 
 table. 
 
 Then, after one or two vain attempts to answer, Bella so far 
 mastered her voice as to say that she had heard of the death of 
 a near relative ; whereupon Miss Grahame, after condoling with 
 her in a gentle and useless manner, said : 
 
 " I trust, dear, you have comfort in this matter, and that she 
 died in the Lord." 
 
 " I don't know," answered Bella, covering her face with her 
 hands, and sobbing out her explanation. " My uncle gives me 
 no particulars of that kind : and it was not a woman, Miss 
 Grahame — it was a man. At one time he did not lead a good 
 life — and — and oh ! may I go to my own room, please?" 
 
 That was all the plaint she ever made to any human being. 
 Even when her uncle came down, he found she could talk as 
 quietly and rationally about the matter as he himself " It was 
 better," she agreed ; and then, in the watches of the night, she 
 cried and fretted till her health began to fail, and even Miss 
 Graname s anxiety was aroused concerning her. 
 
On the Way from Church. 271 
 
 "I am afraid, Bella, this place is too dull for you — that you 
 are not happy here," she at length suggested. 
 
 "Oh, Miss Grahame ! " was the answer, "I am as happy here 
 as I could be anywhere. I am far happier than I deserve — 
 than I could be in most places." 
 
 " As to the deserving part of your sentence, no doubt you 
 are right, dear," said the lady in her soft, plaintive tones'; "all 
 lives are happier than they would be if strict justice were meted 
 out." 
 
 " Not all, surely," pleaded Bella, " not all ? " 
 
 " All," repeated Miss Grahame, with as much sternness as it 
 was in her nature to assume. "And yet, still," she added, "as 
 in this world the lot of some girls seems to fall in pleasant 
 places, I could wish, child, that your lot were more free from 
 trouble than appears to be the case at present. You are so 
 young," she went on, with a little pathetic break in her voice, 
 " and you try to be so good." 
 
 " But I am not good," said Bella, with a fresh memory of her 
 unspoken sins recurring to her. 
 
 " You will try to be good, I know," remarked the kindly 
 though unpractical lady, who might, had she been wise as a 
 serpent, have done Bella much benefit at this precise juncture; 
 "and God, in His own good time, will help you to find His 
 eternal peace," 
 
 Which, being translated into plain English, meant that, sooner 
 or later. Miss Cirahame trusted Bella would marry Colonel Les- 
 chelles, and occupy herself in works of charity and of religion. 
 Life had at last narrowed itself into the smallest dimensions 
 compatible with retainmg the slightest interest in the well-being 
 of others ; and to dispense soup and flannel petticoats, to dis- 
 tribute tracts, to subscribe liberally to missions, to swallow 
 quantities of medicine and dwell upon her physical ailments, 
 seemed to the invalid the whole pleasure and duty of woman. 
 And all the time Bella's young heart was protesting against the 
 useless monotony of such a grey existence, the quietness and 
 peace of which might once have seemed to her desirable 
 enough. 
 
 Through the winter months Miss Grahame never ventured 
 out, and accordingly it came to pass that on that particular 
 November Sunday when Mr. Cahoon made his proposition to 
 Mr. Wright, Bella walked alone to church. 
 
272 Above Suspicion. 
 
 It was not raining, as at Fisherton ; but a leaden sky hung 
 over land and sea, and the waves came rolling sullenly in 
 upon a dreary, desolate shore — a scene and a day calculated to 
 depress anyone: but there was something in sympathy with her 
 own thoughts m the sad expanse of sea and the gloomy canopy 
 of sky ; and seating herself upon a great stone, Bella, looking 
 with her outward eyes over the waste of water, let memory and 
 imagination take her whithersoever they would. 
 
 Through the still, heavy air came the sound of the church 
 bell, tinkling as if it were hung round the neck of some old ram. 
 Not a living creature within sight, for, the shore being shingly, 
 few persons cared to walk that way, for which reason Bella 
 usually selected it in preference to the shorter and more fre- 
 quented route. 
 
 At last she rose and wended her way to church. It was a 
 small building, inside and out of the barn fashion, with an old 
 red-tiled roof, with something resembling a dovecote in place 
 of spire or tower ; with bare whitewashed walls inside, relieved 
 by a few stained and discoloured marble tablets ; with a low 
 gallery for the choir; with square windows filled with small 
 diamond-shaped pieces of greenish glass; with a high pulpit, 
 and without the smallest adornment of any kind, sort, or de- 
 scription. But, possessing a clergyman who could write a good 
 sermon, and deliver it well afterwards ; who, though he had for 
 audience, as a rule, few except farmers about as intelligent as 
 their own cattle, and labourers a little less intelligent than the 
 animals they tended, still brought his best Sunday after Sunday, 
 and gave it to them freely, casting his bread upon the waters in 
 faith, that if it never returned to him, some fasting soul might, 
 at a minute of dire extremity, eat of it and live. 
 
 Bella Miles loved that whitewashed old barn. Some of the 
 best lessons she ever learned were taught her within its walls, 
 although she oftentimes rebelled against the truths, the stern, 
 unflinching truths, she heard uttered there. 
 
 Anything more widely different from Mr. Wright's style it 
 would be impossible to conceive ; but the clergyman preached 
 a truer, and higher, and holier religion than Mr. Wright, who, 
 always groping after light, never really discovered it. Always, 
 less or more, Mr. Wright preached himself; always his older 
 and, it may be, in some respects less gifted brother, preached 
 God's Word to the best of his ability and understanding. 
 
On the Way from Church, 273 
 
 On that particular Sunday which brought about a change in 
 Bella's life the Vicar took for his text these words : " The sins 
 of the fathers shall be visited upon the children." 
 
 What he made of his subject it is no part of this story to tell. 
 All that need be said is that to Bella Miles his sermon was full 
 of a sad and terrible significance ; and as she walked home- 
 wards, after the service was over, she pondered the mystery 
 with that increasing thoughtfulness which had wrought so great 
 a change in her. 
 
 She chafed under her lot. It is the misfortune of strong 
 natures to be long in learning how to bear troubles meekly ; 
 and with this girl the one ever-recurring question that eternally 
 perplexed her was, " Why should I suffer ? What have I done, 
 that life, before I am twenty, should appear so terribly hope- 
 less ? How shall I ever endure the length of the weary, weary 
 years to come, when the last few months have dragged on so 
 slowly ? I must get away from this place. I was happy enough 
 at Fisherton ; I was very happy there until— " 
 
 And at that point she would break down. She had been 
 happy until she understood precisely how the sins of her father 
 affected her own life. Yes, the sins of her father were being 
 visited on his child. Pitiless as the sea, changeless as the great 
 hills, was the law which declared that, in this world, at all events, 
 the evil a man does shall not lie down with him in the grave, but 
 continue to live and sting long after his own career has ended. 
 
 There is nothing vaguer than the theology of youth — nothing 
 at some times blinder than its faith — nothing at others more 
 daring in its questionings ; and as Bella walked by the seashore, 
 an idea, which had often occurred to her before, presented itself 
 once more, namely, the terrible similarity there often seems 
 between natural and Divine laws ; unchanging and unchange- 
 able, remaining ever the same, while man frets out his little 
 day and spends his strength for nought. 
 
 Unconsciously almost, she repeated aloud part of a hymn 
 which had been sung before the sermon — repeated it with the 
 sea moaning an accompaniment, and the grey sky making the 
 scene one of utter gloom. 
 
 " Yet with the woes of sin and strife 
 The world has suftVred lonir ; 
 Eeneath the angel strain have rolled 
 Two ibousaiid }ears of wrong.** 
 
 18 
 
2/4 Above Suspicion, 
 
 Two thousand years — making due allowance for the exigencies 
 and exaggeration of poetry ! 
 
 Two thousand years of people sinning and suffering, sowing 
 wickedness, and garnering themselves, or leaving others to garner, 
 the evil grain 1 
 
 Two thousand years, and she, an unit amongst the millions 
 who had lived and sorrowed — she, a mere mote in the sunbeam 
 of that weary stretch of time, was adding her mite of trouble to 
 the giant mountain already accumulated by the efflux of time 
 and the accession of wrong and misery ! 
 
 At bottom she was a good girl — a good and a religious — but 
 she could not help, as all this occurred to her, sending a wail 
 across the sea. 
 
 " Why was I born ? why should I ever have lived here if I 
 am to suffer more and more, as the years go on, for a sin I did 
 not commit ? " And then the tears came welling up in her eyes, 
 and her heart grew softer, and she prayed a quiet little prayer 
 that she might become thankful instead of thankless — able to 
 remember the mercies vouchsafed, rather than the trouble per- 
 mitted. 
 
 Then slowly, while the sea kept sobbing and fretting, and the 
 grey sky looked down upon a sombre earth, she walked home- 
 ward, steadfastly determined to begin from that day a better 
 life, and to be content with the lot which seemed most fitting 
 for her. 
 
 " When I grow older," she thought, " I will go out and nurse 
 the sick, and try to comfort those who have met with trouble. 
 1 will try to forget the foolish past — my own past, with its dreams 
 and its pleasures. It is right I should work, I like working hard, 
 and some day I shall surely be able to find out what my hand 
 was meant to do. Meanwhile " 
 
 She stopped at that point, suddenly— stopped, while her face 
 turned first red and then white, for, as she rounded a little jut- 
 ting rock, she suddenly met the man who had never, poor child ! 
 been absent from her thoughts since the days which were so 
 happy and so miserable at Fisherton. 
 
 If he had ever felt doubtful concerning her feelings towards 
 him, he must have been blind indeed had he then failed to read 
 her secret in her eyes. Never had mortal beheld so glad a light 
 in them as did he when she recognized him ; and then, fast as 
 it had sprung to life, the happiness faded out of her face, and 
 
The Family Motto. 275 
 
 the old look of trouble he remembered so well crept over and 
 took its place. 
 
 "What have they been doing to you?" he asked, holding 
 her cold hand in his, and looking anxiously at her. " Are you 
 ill ? " 
 
 " No," she said ; " only not quite well ; that is all, indeed." 
 
 " i\Iiss Grahame told me you had gone to church, and that I 
 should probably meet you if I walked by the shore. Will you 
 sit down for a few minutes, or are you afraid of catching cold?" 
 
 " I am not afraid," she replied, and sat down on the same 
 stone whence she had gazed over the sea a few hours previously; 
 while he, leaning against the rock, began to speak. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXI. 
 
 THE FAMILY MOTTO. 
 
 " I COULD not keep away." 
 
 No answer. Only the far look-out seaward. 
 
 *' And indeed I think it was high time for me to come and 
 see after you." 
 
 Still no answer; but a deeper gravity settled down on the 
 sorrowful face. 
 
 " My dear" (he did not draw nearer to her, except by voice, 
 as he spoke), "will you give me the right to see after you always?" 
 
 Then she answered — not looking at him, but still over the 
 sea : 
 
 " I hoped you had forgotten all about that long ago.** 
 
 18—2 
 
276 Above Suspicion. 
 
 "Hoped ! did you?" he said, and there ensued a dead silence. 
 Sir Harry broke it. 
 
 " Bella," he began, " if you can only say truthfully that you 
 do not like me — that you could never like me — I will go away 
 
 at once/' 
 
 " You had better, much better, go away," she answered. 
 
 " Not till you assure me that you do not care for me — that 
 you could never care enough for me to marry me." 
 
 " I shall never marry any one," she said. 
 
 " My child, you are only fencing with my question. You 
 evade replying to it because, as I hope, you do like me a little. 
 And, oh ! Bella, if it is as I believe, why should you make two 
 lives miserable because of some foolish scruple or absurd obstacle 
 which exists only in your own imagination ? " 
 
 " You do not know — you do not know," was all her answer ; 
 but the waves caught it, and flung back a wailing response. 
 
 "And I do not want to know," he added, "unless, indeed, the 
 knowledge might better enable me to combat your fancies. 
 Take a case — I do not say a probable, but just a possible one 
 — that you had got entangled with some person you discovered 
 subsequently to be unworthy of trust, and that he had held a 
 threat over you that you should marry no one else. I am just 
 supposing such a case were yours, my dear. I have such faith 
 in you — I have such faith that, if I knew for a certainty, now, 
 some scoundrel was trying to trade on your fears, all I should 
 ask would be the right to protect you from him — to stand 
 between you and the world." 
 
 In her amazement at this speech she turned her head towards 
 him. When he had finished, she said, " I do not understand 
 what you mean." 
 
 It was difficult for him, after having spoken in the heat of ex- 
 citement, to explain to her what he did mean in cold blood ; 
 but he managed, somehow, to tell what he had fancied — what 
 he had feared might have been the case ; and then Bella laughed. 
 
 For the first time in all their later Interviews, he saw her eyes 
 dance and her cheek dimple. 
 
 " Oh ! no, no ! " she exclaimed. " At the pensionnat, though 
 some of the girls might be a little silly, such things were imj)os- 
 sible quite for any one ; while, as for me, I thought never of 
 being cared for till I went to Fisherton ; and you know all about 
 that time, as I do." 
 
The Family Motto. 2'jj 
 
 She always, when excited, reverted to the French idiom, and 
 her lover had never thought it so charming as at that moment, 
 though she went on to add : 
 
 '' My trouble had nothing to do with love, neither with love- 
 making, till you came ; and if you will only go away and forget 
 me, I will bear it as I am able.'' 
 He was beside her now. 
 
 " My darling," he said, " I will never go away again. I will 
 haunt you till you say ' Yes.' I have all most men would con- 
 sider necessary to make life valuable, but without you I can 
 honestly say life to me is valueless. Before I came down here 
 your uncle told me the great obstacle to the gratification of my 
 hopes had been removed. Do not waste your life and mine in 
 dwelling upon imaginary difficulties. Marry me, and let us share 
 whatever trouble the future my have in store together." 
 
 She remained silent for a long time — for so long a time that 
 he felt tempted to speak himself, and would have spoken, but 
 that he felt he might serve both better by possessing his soul in 
 patience. 
 
 At last, almost with a gasp, she drew her gaze back from the 
 sea over which her eyes had been wandering, and looking 
 fixedly at the sand, asked, " Did my uncle tell you what the 
 obstacle was which had been removed ? " 
 
 " Certainly not. He might have done so had I inquired ; 
 but I did not want to know." 
 
 " It is better you should know. The obstacle he meant was 
 my father — my father, who is dead." 
 
 Sir Harry stood amazed. He would not ask a question, but 
 he was so evidently trying to comprehend her meaning that 
 Bella said : 
 
 *' When I met you at Fisherton my father was not really dead. 
 He has died since I came here." 
 " My poor darling." 
 
 " Shall I tell you about him ? Shall I tell you the terrible 
 story ? " she went on, rismg. " I should be thankful to do it, 
 though I know you will go away and leave me. But spare my 
 uncle. Never repeat what I am going to say to any one. Let 
 it be between us — you, I, and the great sea." 
 
 " You shall not tell me," answered her lover. " Whatever 
 his sins or short-comings may have been, he is dead. No doubt 
 he has suffered, so let everything concerning him now rest." 
 
278 Above Suspicion, 
 
 But at that moment Bella felt strong enough to tell him the 
 tale of sin and sorrow which had cursed her life. Her lips were 
 opened, her tongue unloosed, and she began, not with any idea 
 of making him her arbiter, but simply of telling him that which 
 should part them for ever. 
 
 " You must hear me — I will tell you everything — everything 
 When you know all, you cannot be sorry to leave me." 
 
 *' Sorry to leave you, no," he interrupted ; " for I never inten 
 to leave you now. Let your father have been what lie will, 
 love his daughter, and I mean to marry you and try to make 
 you forget the past. I want to hear nothing about your father 
 — no matter what sins he committed. Being in his grave, if you 
 can remember any good about him, do ; if not, try and forget 
 his faults. What rests between us to-day is a question relating 
 solely to us two ; not to my mother and your father, but to you 
 and me — to me who love you so much; and to you, who I think 
 love me a little. Marry me, dear, and end all doubts, all diffi- 
 culties." 
 
 " I cannot," she whispered. 
 
 " That is what you say," he answered. " What I say is, you 
 can. See, Bella, unless you are married already, you can marry 
 me at once. Now, are you married ? " 
 
 " Oh, no — no — no ! " cried the girl. " I wish it were any- 
 thing like that — anything of my — mine own — anything in which 
 I had been wrong myself — I could then say all without trouble." 
 
 " And I wish nothing of the sort," he finished gravely. " So 
 long as it is not your affair personally — so long, in fact, as you 
 belong to no one else — I feel you belong to me. I don't care 
 about father or mother, or brother or sister, or uncle or aunt — 
 I care for you, and you only. I shall marry you, and you 
 only. If I never marry you, I shall marry no one." 
 
 " Oh ! let m.e tell you all," she pleaded. " After you hear 
 what I have to say, you will be glad enough to leave me, and 
 try to forget my name." 
 
 " Whatever you might have to tell, I should not leave you," 
 he answered, "and you shall not tell me anything. Hereafter 
 you must feel no pangs of conscience about having spoken o\ 
 a father's shortcomings to your husband. All 1 want is you. 
 If your father sinned, he is dead ; let his sins die with him. 
 My dear, you are morbid. You are young, you are ignorant of 
 the world, and the follies, not to say crimes, men commit in it 
 
The Family Motto. 279 
 
 every day ; and it is just because you are so young, so tender, 
 so ignorant, so sensitive, that I long to call you my very own, 
 and shield you for the future from every worldly blast which 
 blows." 
 
 He was right ; she did know nothing of the world ; not even 
 vaguely could she grasp all of sorrow, all of humiliation in the 
 future, her father's sin might mean to this man who loved her 
 — nay, so ignorant was she, that although she understood to 
 some extent how far he was stooping from his high estate to 
 love her, she had yet not the faintest comprehension how mad 
 an act the world would consider his marriage. 
 
 So far Bella had thought of nothing save her father's sin as a 
 barrier between them. As in the presence of a great light all 
 lesser lights seem but darkness, so under the horrors of Bar- 
 thorne's crime all other social considerations dwarfed themselves 
 before his daughter's imagination. 
 
 Sir Harry had been much talked of at the rectory, but so had 
 the lord to whom Mr. Wright owed his promotion, Colonel Les- 
 chelles, Mr. Morrison, and innumerable other people; and Bella 
 had yet to learn the enormous distinction there is between 
 bestowing your right hand in friendship, and linking your name, 
 your fame, the honour of your house, the welfare of children 
 yet unborn, with the antecedents of a total stranger. 
 
 What Montaigne says is right. Translating his meaning into 
 decent English, other deities besides love should be present at 
 a marriage which is likely to prove happy for the contracting 
 parties. Love certainly; but prudence, and respect, and assurance 
 of position, to say nothing of several matters too numerous to 
 mention. 
 
 Ah, yes, of all these Sir Harry — generous, trusting, honest, 
 honourable Sir Harry, who was as far above suspicion as he was 
 above deceit, lost sight, as by the sea he pleaded his suit — not 
 unsuccessfully. 
 
 She was so young, she could not but show that she loved him. 
 She was so young, that when she began her story he found no 
 difhculty in stopping its recital. She was so young, and this 
 trouble was so new, she failed to conceal its effect upon her. 
 
 Well, well, what need is there to dwell longer on this part of 
 the story? 
 
 Eventually Sir Harry carried the day. She agreed to refer 
 the matter to her uncle. Her uncle, when referred to, saw openly 
 
28o Above Suspicion, 
 
 no obstacle in the way of the marriage, and wrote privately to 
 Bella that she would be worse than a fool to refuse the goods the 
 gods sent her. Which remark disgusted Bella, and might have 
 broken off the affair altogether had she not loved her lover. 
 
 Loving him as she did, she only stipulated that for a year 
 there should be no talk of marriage, and that for the aforesaid 
 period Sir Harry should not " consider there was any engage- 
 ment, so as to know his own mind." 
 
 To which latter condition Sir Harry, knowing his own mind, 
 and perhaps wishing the engagement kept secret, assented with- 
 out reluctance, while to the former, considering the dead man 
 was her father, he felt he could offer no objection, and so the 
 affair drifted on through the winter. And spring came once 
 again over the fields, through the woods, adown the rivers. 
 Spring — bright, beautiful, heart-gladdening spring, burst in all 
 her simple beauty upon the sight of men. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXn. 
 
 GOING WITH THE CURRENT. 
 
 Bringing even to sick-rooms some of the freshness of reviving 
 nature. 
 
 From her closely shut-up apartments Miss Grahame looked 
 out with brighter eyes on the spectacle of a world waking after 
 a winter's sleep. And what a winter it had been ! Hail, rain, 
 frost, snow, wind. At Fisherton the meadows lying near the 
 Thames still lay a foot under water ; while as for the Fisherton 
 
Going iviih tite Current. 281 
 
 roads, Mr. Wright said, " A man should have an extra hundred 
 a year for wading through them." 
 
 But it is not with Fisherton our concern is at present. Near 
 the sea the frost had not, of course, continued, or the snow 
 lain so long, as in the valley of the Thames ; but all the winter 
 through the rain had rained, and the snow fallen, and the wind 
 blown great guns in the district where Miss Graharae's house 
 was situated. 
 
 Therefore she felt, even in her heated, unventilated, stifling 
 rooms, something of happiness when the winter storms sank to 
 rest, and sunshine, though it was only the capricious sunshine 
 of the early spring-time, succeeded to storm. 
 
 " My dear," she said to Bella, as the girl arranged the pillows 
 in her easy chair, and wheeled the table, on which stood a vase 
 filled with violets, close to the window that commanded a view 
 of trees already beginning to put forth their leaves, " my dear, 
 should we not thank God for His seasons ? " 
 
 " I think we ought to thank God for everything,** answered 
 Bella; "but it is sometimes very hard to do so." And then, 
 with a tender gesture, she drew the invalid's shawl closer round 
 her, and opened a window on which the spring sun shone 
 beneficently, and, after stirring the still welcome fire into a 
 blaze, took up one of the books Miss Grahame loved, and was 
 about to commence reading, when that lady stopped her. 
 
 "Come here to me for a minute," said that lady; and Bella 
 obeying. Miss Grahame pushed the hair back from her fore- 
 head, and, looking at her steadily, asked—" What has changed 
 you so much during the course of this winter ? " 
 
 " Am I changed ? " asked the girl. 
 
 " Yes. You used to be sad ; now you are restless. You 
 have always been thoughtful for me, but you are more thoughtful 
 now. Your ways were from the first soft and gentle, but they 
 are gentler and softer now than they ever were before. Further, 
 you seem to take an interest in serious matters to a greater 
 extent than previously. Is it, dear, that you are forgetting the 
 world and its vanities, and seeing more clearly that nothing 
 except religion can confer peace here and give happiness here- 
 after ? " 
 
 For a moment Bella stood with a conventional phrase on her 
 lips ready for utterance. She had told herself over and over 
 again it was of no use talking to Miss Grahame as she might 
 
282 A^ove Suspicion, 
 
 to most people, and that it was better to humour her whims 
 than to provoke discussion ; but as she mentally repeated the 
 conventional phrase over again, her better nature asserted itself, 
 and she said : 
 
 " No, Miss Grahame, I am afraid I have not forgotten the 
 world or its vanities either. If I am softer and more tender — ■ 
 I did not know I was either — it can only be because I am at 
 times happy — oh ! so happy. If I am more serious than I used 
 to be, it is only because at times I am more miserable than you 
 can imagine. I have promised to marry, and I am afraid — oh ! 
 I am so much afraid I have done wrong." 
 
 She covered her face with her hands as she finished, but Miss 
 Grahame drew them away gently, and said : 
 
 " You have done quite right, my love. Think how happy 
 you can make him." 
 
 *' If I were sure of that — if I could only be sure of it," mur- 
 mured Bella. 
 
 " Then I can assure you," persisted Miss Grahame. " In 
 point of years it may appear an unsuitable match, but in every- 
 thing else it seems to me eminently desirable. When did you 
 write to him, my child? When did you end the long suspense? 
 I suppose we may expect him back by the first possible 
 steamer." 
 
 Then it all dawned upon Bella, and she cried out, " Oh ! 
 Miss Grahame, you are thinking of Colonel Leschelles, and I 
 was talking about Sir Harry Medburn." 
 
 ** About whom ? " asked Miss Grahame, severely. 
 
 " About — the — the — gentleman who has called here two or 
 three times during the course c f the winter." 
 
 " What, that friend of the Colonel's ? " 
 
 "Yes," rejoined Bella. 
 
 " Who is this Sir Harry Medburn ? Get me Debrett, that I 
 may see for myself." 
 
 With fear and trembling Bella got the book, and, opening it 
 at the page where the glories of the Medburn family were set 
 forth, handed it to Miss Grahame. 
 
 When she had read all Debrett had to say, she remarked : 
 
 " And so you have promised to marry this young man ? " 
 
 " I have," Bella answered firmly enough. 
 
 " And may I ask how long all this has been going on ? " 
 
 " It was ' going on,' " said the girl, " before I left Fisherton." 
 
Going with tJie Current, 283 
 
 "Does your uncle know anything of the matter?" 
 
 "Everything," repUed Bella, a little stiffly. "I have no 
 secrets from my uncle." 
 
 "And he approves?" 
 
 " Entirely. I wish he did not. I wish he would look at the 
 matter from the same point of view as I do." 
 
 " Are you not fond of this Baronet personage, then ? " 
 
 " Not fond ! " 
 
 She only repeated these two words, and yet Miss Graham 
 understood that love had come upon this girl — as she said to 
 herself — like an armed man, and taken her captive. 
 
 It was an unsuitable match ; and yet, looking at Bella as she 
 did with her poor weak eyes at that moment, Miss Grahame 
 could not but acknowledge the Baronet might be excused. 
 
 Before her was the girl standing in one of those attitudes of 
 unconscious grace which artists are sometimes able to transfer 
 to canvas — standing, as that evil-famed ancestress of theirs 
 might have done when, the devil leaving her for a time, the 
 better part of her nature could assert its existence. 
 
 With no trick of attitude — with no affectation of expression 
 — with a soft, dreamy light in her eyes and a little tremulous 
 smile playing about her lips — she looked so fitted to be loved 
 by any man, no matter how high his station, that Miss Gra- 
 hame hesitated for a moment before she said, with a sigh : 
 
 " I hope you have asked for Divine guidance in the matter, 
 my dear. Remember, the welfare of two lives is at stake. I 
 do not usually attach much weight to the world's opinion, but 
 when it says unequal marriages rarely prove happy, I am obliged 
 to agree with it." 
 
 " Unequal ? " repeated Bella, involuntarily. 
 
 " Yes," said Miss Grahame. " Of course I have no desire 
 to speak slightingly of the great gifts wherewith God has 
 endowed you. You are beautiful — you are accomplished — you 
 are clever — you are amiable — but, as a rule, a man of high 
 station, or, at all events, his friends, look for more than beauty 
 and talent in the wife he presents to them." And then the 
 lady was proceeding to state at length v/hat the friends of a 
 man in high station did look for, when Bella stopped her by 
 saying : 
 
 " I know what you mean. I did not think of it before ; but 
 I see it all now — I see it all now." 
 
284 Above Suspicion. 
 
 " I hope you are not vexed with me," observed Miss Grahame. 
 "I could not conscientiously have said less." 
 
 " Oh ! no ; not vexed. Only sorry I never thought of that 
 before. I thought of other obstacles, but not of that. Shall I 
 read to you now ? " she asked abruptly, as if desirous to end 
 the discourse. 
 
 " Not this morning," said the invalid. " You had better go 
 out for a walk. Send Hughes to me, and do what you like 
 until luncheon ; but kiss me before you go, and say again you 
 are not vexed." 
 
 " I am vexed with myself — only with myself," was the answer; 
 and then the girl stooped and kissed Miss Grahame's withered 
 cheek indifferently, as though her thoughts were hundreds of 
 miles absent — as, indeed, they were. 
 
 By the afternoon's post there went two letters — one from 
 Miss Grahame to Colonel Leschelles, then in America ; the 
 other from Bella to Sir Harry Medburn, to say the engagement 
 must be considered at an end — that she had never thought as 
 she ought to have done of the difference in their position until 
 Miss Grahame put it plainly before her ; and, now it had been 
 put before her, she understood how wicked she would be to 
 allow him to sacrifice everything for her sake. 
 
 The letter, written in hot haste, with the sting of Miss 
 Grahame's remarks rankling in her heart — with all the old 
 sorrow brought to life again and a new one superadded, was 
 very earnest in its unstudied phraseology, in its singleness of 
 purpose, and in its perfect and straightforward truth. 
 
 From her heart she wrote, without preamble, or disguise, or 
 diffuseness more than ordinarily attaches itself to the productions 
 of women. 
 
 It was for his sake — for his dear sake she indited the epistle; 
 and whatever else may have remained obscure, no one reading 
 her letter could fail to see that she loved him so utterly, so 
 boundlessly, that self for her had, as far as he was concerned, 
 ceased to exist. 
 
 "Yes, she would for his good give him up." She said so to 
 God that night, weeping, on her knees, such tears as the very 
 young alone can shed — tears which bring a virtue of relief with 
 them. She said so when, braiding her hair and tiring herself 
 next morning, she looked out on life — as life, she believed, must 
 henceforth present itself. 
 
Going with the Current. 285 
 
 But she thought he would answer to say farewell, at all 
 events ; and he did not answer. No word, no line came in 
 response. 
 
 *' He sees it now as I saw it all along," said the poor girl to 
 herself, wandering by the seashore, beside which Miss Grahame's 
 kindness gave her free leave to ramble and bewail her grief. 
 
 The days passed by, and still Sir Harry made no sign. Miss 
 Grahame's hopes rose high. With all her soul — such portion 
 of it, at least, as could still take part in mundane concerns — she 
 hoped that eventually Bella might he induced to marry Colonel 
 Leschelles. 
 
 When people grow elderly, their prejudices are generally in 
 favour of the old. Concerning the probable doings of a man 
 of twenty-five there must be always doubt; whereas the character 
 of a veteran of above sixty may be considered formed. 
 
 Thus Miss Grahame argued, perhaps unconsciously. So 
 many advantages were combined in such a match ! If she had 
 youth, he had money. If he were old, her belongings had no 
 connection with the " upper ten." 
 
 Miss Grahame, a thorough Christian, entertained a Christian 
 respect for gentle blood, and never, even by implication, had 
 Bella suggested her relation to any one better than a nobody. 
 
 Thus, whichever way the matter was looked at, a beautiful 
 sense of proportion obtained : on her side there was so much 
 weight in the scale — on his side so much, all exquisitely 
 balancing, and all eventually capable of resolving itself into a 
 church being built somewhere, or a tribe converted somehow. 
 
 That was the broad view Miss Grahame took of life — missions 
 here or missions there. 
 
 For the compassing of such purposes every life except her 
 own was to be sacrificed. Did it matter in what weary schools 
 human hearts were disciplined, so long as her medicine was 
 regularly dropped into the stated amount of water ? To her, 
 most certainly not. Did it matter who lay cold in this world, 
 so long as her pet converts were prevented from entering fires 
 of an inconceivable heat in the next? Very little indeed. 
 
 Nevertheless, it is only fair to say that the conclusions she 
 drew from entirely wrong premises were perfectly right. This 
 is a fact worth noticing in connection with the conclusions 
 generally of very silly people. By means of some mental road 
 not given to wise men to follow, she decided the girl ought to 
 
2S6 Above Suspicion. 
 
 marry Colonel Leschelles and ought not to marry Sir Harry 
 Medburn. In which idea she was, unfortunately, correct ; 
 though she could not, between sunrise and sunset in a raid- 
 summer day, have given a sufficient reason for the faith that 
 was in her. 
 
 Nevertheless, even while she believed her wishes were about 
 to be compassed, she felt sorry to see Bella moping — poor dear 
 Bella, who had nearly brought her to believe some things left 
 in the world might be worth thinking about — who was never 
 too tired, nor too sick, nor too sorry to attend to her lightest 
 wish, and who had Hghtened her sombre home with youth and 
 beauty. 
 
 The days passed by — there came no letter, no message of 
 any kind. Was there ever so dreary a spring? thought the girl. 
 She complained of the sunshine dazzling her eyes, of the glitter- 
 ing sea making her head ache, of the wind being too high, of 
 the dust blowing along the roads. She felt as if she would have 
 given anything to escape from Miss Grahame's even babble of 
 inane talk — from her kindly-meant platitudes. For her even 
 nature had lost its beauty. It was right for her to release him 
 from so unequal an engagement. It was well for him to accept 
 that release ; but he might have written one line. He might 
 have sent her a note of farewell — something to keep her heart 
 from starving — something on which in the future she could stay 
 her pride. 
 
 But no note came. Bella moped about the house, and Miss 
 Grahame, watching her, thought what a pity it was Sir Harry 
 had ever crossed the girl's path. 
 
 As unexpectedly, however, as he had arrived some months 
 previously, the young man appeared once again — this time 
 asking to see Miss Grahame, and remaining closeted with that 
 lady for more than an hour ; while Bella, unaware of his return, 
 was slowing pacing the sands beside the sea. In ten minutes 
 he had silenced Miss Grahame's arguments against unequal 
 marriages, though he entirely failed to alter her opinion. He 
 had all his life been accustomed to have his own way — so had 
 ms father before him — so had his father's father, and many 
 another Medbum besides. 
 
 Fortunate was it for the family that their way was, upon the 
 whole, a good one. Had the road they wished to travel led 
 direct to ruin, they would have travelled it just as determinedly. 
 
GoiJig with the Current. 287 
 
 Wives and daughters and mothers had influenced the Medbura 
 counsels only in the very smallest degree. In all matters the 
 males had followed the bent of their own inclinations ; and the 
 women soon learned that their wisest policy was to stand aside. 
 To her husband Lady Medburn had always deferred ; and now 
 she had given up the dearest wish of her heart, in order to 
 please her son. 
 
 It was a shock at first to find every hope of a marriage 
 between her son and his cousin must be abandoned. Little 
 as her wishes had ever received in the way of encouragement, 
 she never believed the project futile till her son told her he did 
 not love the girl she wished to see his wife, and that he did love 
 a total stranger. 
 
 Ill of a disease which must prove fatal eventually — which 
 might take a sudden turn for the worse any day or hour, she 
 resolved to speak seriously to her son concerning marriage — to 
 tell him it was the wish lying nearest her heart to see him and 
 Edith husband and wife before her death. And she did speak 
 to him. In one of the pleasant rooms of the house where she 
 had passed so many happy years, she talked of the death she 
 was travelling on so surely to meet — of Edith — of himself — 
 talked so tenderly and so solemnly, that, though he would fain 
 have kept his secret from her, he could not do it. He was 
 forced, almost against his will, to tell her that he loved, not 
 Edith, but another, and that he would never marry unless he 
 could wed Bella. 
 
 He broke his bad news tenderly and gently, as had ever been 
 the fashion of the Medburns, even when they were crossing the 
 wills of those nearest and dearest to them. But no tenderness 
 or gentleness could greatly lessen the extent of the blow. 
 Under it Lady Medburn sank, and her illness assumed so 
 serious a character that for a time her life was in danger. It 
 was during this period Bella's letter arrived, and when he read 
 it Sir Harry took his resolution. 
 
 The moment he could leave his mother he would go to Mr. 
 Irwin, explain his position, and obtain the sanction of 'Bella's 
 uncle to an immediate marriage. 
 
 " There has been too long a delay already," he considered. 
 "My darling must not be at the mercy of every old woman 
 who conceives it to be his or her mission to see that the upper 
 ten thousand do not marry imprudently. Once she is my wife* 
 
288 Above Suspicion. 
 
 no one dare speak to her of inequality of rank. Inequality, 
 indeed ! Why, she might be a princess ! I won't write to her, 
 though — I will take my answer to her myself. I will say nothing 
 till I can say in person : * My dear, I never mean to give you 
 up; and I shall not leave the neighbourhood till you are my 
 wife.' " 
 
 And so he waited day after day until the doctors should 
 pronounce his mother out of danger for the time at least. 
 
 " I won't vex her any more about the matter," he thought. 
 " I will get married, and then tell her. She will soon reconcile 
 herself to the fact when discussion is useless." 
 
 But the rare tact which love teaches — even if nature has not 
 been beforehand as an instructor — enabled Lady Medburn to 
 save her son from committing an act he would always after- 
 wards have regretted. 
 
 '' I have been standing on the brink of the grave, Harry," she 
 said, " and I would not that, when I am laid there, you should 
 be able to remember I had ever thought of my own wishes 
 first, of yours last. If she is good and true, and can make you 
 happy, take her; only be quite sure, my dear, dear boy, it is 
 you she is fond of, and not your title or your money." 
 
 For answer, he placed Bella's letter in his mother's hands. 
 No studied epistle could have touched the lady as did that 
 hurriedly-traced scrawl, containing words written in bitterness 
 of spirit, straight from her heart. 
 
 "She loves you, Harry," was Lady Medbum's comment, 
 when she had read to the end; and with a sigh his mother 
 folded up the note and gave it back to him. 
 
 " My dear boy, I hope it will all prove for your happiness;" 
 and she sighed again, and then added, " I will write a few lines 
 to her — a few lines of welcome to my daughter that is to be." 
 
 So Sir Harry carried his point, as his father before him had 
 been in the habit of doing; and it was an understood thing 
 between him and his mother that he should endeavour to 
 persuade Bella to marry him at once. 
 
 " I hope you will be very happy, Hal," said his cousin, after 
 she had bid him good bye the morning he left for London. 
 " Here is a little present worked by my own hand. Will you 
 take it to her, with — my love?" 
 
 Her voice faltered a litde; but she looked up at him with 
 tearless eyes. 
 
Going with the Current. 289 
 
 • 
 
 "God bless you, Edith!" he answered; and then he did 
 what he had not done before since she was quite a little girl — 
 stooped and kissed her. 
 
 Almost involuntarily she drew back, flushing painfully ; then 
 remembering, she touched his cheek with her lips, and repeating 
 her former sentence, "I hope you will be very happy," flitted 
 away. 
 
 Having carried the day with the ladies of his own household, 
 Sir Harry's next anxiety was to gain over Miss Grahame; but 
 Miss Grahame was not to be so easily won. He could silence 
 her, and he did ; but he failed to convince her. All he could 
 extract in the shape of compromise was a promise to maintain 
 a strict neutrality. She would not try to influence Bella one 
 way or the other. She would place no obstacle in the way ol 
 the girl, and she trusted the marriage, if it took place, might be 
 overruled for good. Concerning Bella herself, she had nothing 
 to say except in her praise; but she observed she believed 
 much unhappiness arose from people marrying out of their own 
 rank in life. She advised Sir Harry to consider the matter yet 
 a little longer, and then, when Bella returned, she left them to 
 arrange their future without let or hindrance from her. 
 
 Which they effected, after much objection on Bella's part, as 
 follows : — 
 
 The sins and shortcomings of all her family were never to 
 be mentioned any more for ever. The question of difl"erence 
 of rank Sir Harry pooh-poohed altogether. There was no dif- 
 ference. A lady could only be a lady, were she a duchess. 
 As for money, he had enough for both. He hoped he could 
 make her happy ; he knew she could make him happy. His 
 mother was longing to welcome her; his cousin would be as a 
 sister to her. He himself — well, what was there Sir Harry did 
 not feel he would be to her ? 
 
 And as regarded the marriage, Sir Harry would have liked 
 to be married that minute. Such precipitancy being, however, 
 impossible, he pleaded hard that the wedding should take place 
 in a fortnight ; and finally it was settled that Bella should try 
 to be ready in a month. 
 
 From that moment time sped by to Bella as if she were in a 
 dream. 
 
 Once launched upon the undertaking. Miss Grahame entered 
 into it with spirit. She sent her own maid up to London ; she 
 
 VJ 
 
290 , Above Suspicion, 
 
 wrote to tradespeople ; she inspected silks, and held interviews 
 with dressmakers. Out of her own stores she produced won- 
 derful laces of unfamiliar appearance, and quaint jewellery, 
 " which I shall never wear again, my dear," she said with a 
 little sigh over departed vanities. 
 
 Mr. Irwin gave car/e d/anc/ie with regard to the trousseait ; 
 while Sir Harry poured in gifts, though Bella entreated him not 
 to make her any more presents. 
 
 For the first time, the girl began to realize what a great 
 match she was making; and the knowledge frightened her so 
 terribly that, when olden memories cropped up, as they did 
 with terrible frequency, she felt as if she must run away from 
 all the grandeur so unsuited to her antecedents, and hide her 
 head in some remote corner of the earth. 
 
 Time after time she opened her lips to tell her lover the 
 whole weary story; but her tongue refused its office. She could 
 not go back now ; she could not bring misery on him, shame 
 on herself; and she felt it would make no difterence in the 
 absolute course of events, now she understood Sir Harry would 
 marry her no matter what the consequences might be. Already 
 she was beginning to accept the position all women related to 
 them adopted, sooner or later, with the Medburns. When he 
 was near, she had no will but his ; her own identity seemed to 
 have become merged in his. Love him ! Ay, indeed ! fondly 
 enough to satisfy fifty mothers — but not well enough to save 
 him from the misery of an ill-assorted marriage. 
 
 And yet, perhaps, she was right after all. Through the 
 trouble, and the sorrow, and the agony to come, Sir Harry 
 never repented having made her his wife — never, he can truth- 
 fully say, once. 
 
 It was to be a very quiet wedding. The state of Lady Med- 
 bum's health precluded the idea of any other than the most 
 private ceremony which could be performed ; and accordingly 
 one pouring wet morning a very small party entered the church 
 by the sea, and, in the sight of only Mr. Irwin and a few of the 
 parishioners who had obtained intelligence of the approaching 
 ceremony from Miss Grahame's servants, Harry Medburn and 
 Mabella Miles were made man and wife. 
 
 When, on a subsequent occasion, the Rev. Dionysius Wright, 
 finding himself in the neighbourhood, took occasion to examine 
 the registry, he found that Miss Miles' father was described as 
 
At Highgate. 291 
 
 "of Tottenham, Gentleman." "Humph!" remarked Mr. 
 Wright, and closed the book, feeling that he had not made 
 much progress in his investigation. 
 
 When the party returned to Miss Grahame's, the first person 
 they encountered was Colonel Leschelles. He looked older 
 and greyer, and he had a sad, anxious expression in his face, 
 which seemed to Bella to reproach her for her conduct. But 
 if his expression reproached her, his words did not. The first 
 moment they were alone together, he asked : 
 
 '' Have you told him ? '* 
 
 " No, I could not ; and, besides, he would not let me." 
 
 " Then never tell him," he said earnestly. " Keep the secret 
 now, if it can be kept, for ever. And one thing more," he 
 added, as she was gliding away. " So long as I live, remember, 
 if you need a friend, I shall always be a friend in need." 
 
 *' And you — are you going away again ? " 
 
 "No," he said gravely , " I shall take no more long journeys 
 till I go upon that from which there is no return." 
 
 CHAPTER XXXni. 
 
 AT HIGHGATE. 
 
 After more than a year spent on the Continent, Sir Harry and 
 Lady Medburn were back in England. It was quite the end 
 of the season, but as the Baronet had business to transact in 
 London, they remained there for some weeks ere travelling 
 westward. 
 
 19 — 2 
 
292 Above Sitspicioii. 
 
 Why they had passed such a length of time in foreign travel 
 is easily explained. Lady Med burn never seemed so happy as 
 when they were moving about from place to place ; and the 
 doctors having said that this fancy must be humoured, Sir 
 Harry for once in his life put his own wishes aside, and con- 
 sulted only the likings of his wife. 
 
 After the death of the dowager, which occurred shortly after 
 Sir Harry's marriage, Bella fell into a low, nervous state, for 
 which the family medical adviser felt quite at a loss to account, 
 so he had recourse to the formula generally used on such 
 occasions. 
 
 "Lady Medburn," he said to Sir Harry, "is of a highly 
 nervous and sensitive temperament. She has been constant in 
 her attendance in the sick-room. She has eaten little and slept 
 little — in fact, taken no care of herself whatever. Unless she 
 be removed from the depressing atmosphere of a house with 
 which her first associations cannot have been pleasant, I fear 
 she may fall into a nervous condition from which there will be 
 some difficulty in rousing her. Change, my dear Sir Harry, 
 change is the medicine she requires. Take her abroad, and you 
 will find her health improve immediately." 
 
 Acting on which suggestion. Sir Harry took his wife abroad, 
 and found her spirits and her health did both rally as by magic. 
 
 But after a year had gone by, the Baronet grew so tired of a 
 life he detested that he asked Bella — or Mabel, as he called her 
 — whether she thought she could now return to England. 
 
 He put the matter before her reasonably and kindly. He 
 told her that, whilst he would do anything for her sake, he still 
 should be thankful to know she could rest satisfied to reside 
 quietly on the estate where his fathers had lived before him. 
 
 " I am not clever, like you, dear," he said ; " I am not much* 
 fitted to shine in society ; but I have a strong feeling of duty 
 attaching itself to my position — of responsibility, when I re- 
 member how much has been entrusted to me. I think, if he 
 possibly can, a man should reside on his property, know his 
 tenantry, give employment to his labourers, and — don't think me 
 absurd, Mab — ask stupid old squires and squiresses to dinner, 
 and dine with them in return. You shall have as much pleasant 
 society as we can surround ourselves with ; but " 
 
 At that point she interrupted him. " Why did you not speak 
 sooner?" she said. " I want no society except yours. I desire 
 
At Highgate. 293 
 
 nothing upon earth except your happiness. Let us start for 
 England at once." 
 
 " There is one thing I want to tell you, Mabel. I am afraid 
 you will find the Court fearfully dull. I always hoped Edith 
 would live with us for a time at least, and now I find her great- 
 uncle — mine as well as hers — Sir Alexander Kelvey, wishes her 
 to reside with him and his sister." 
 
 Bella was seated by the window, her head turned a little aside, 
 so that her husband could not see the expression of sudden 
 gladness which swept over her face. Only when she looked at 
 him and said, " No place can be dull to me where you are," he 
 saw there was a light in her eyes and a smile on her lips he had 
 missed for many a month past. 
 
 " Let us go home at once," she went on ; "I am quite well 
 now, perfectly well. I will do my part with the squires and 
 squiresses \ the stupider they are the better 1 shall like them. 
 And as to the tenantry and the labourers, only say what you 
 want me to do, Harry, and I will do it. All I desire is that you 
 should be happy, that I should be able to make you so." 
 
 " I am happy," he answered ; " but you, my love, but you?" 
 
 " As long as you are happy, I shall have everything I wish 
 for," she said. " I have no ' self left ; you are me now — all I 
 care for, all I ever shall care for on earth." 
 
 " Mabel, my darling ! " Those were the only words he spoke; 
 for a great pain seemed to stop his further utterance as he 
 strained her to his heart. 
 
 Already a dread of what that something might be to which 
 she and her uncle had referred was beginning to cast an influ- 
 ence over him. 
 
 Before marriage he felt inclined to think little of any domestic 
 slur, of any family misfortune ; but since his marriage Sir Harry, 
 though, as he truly said, not clever, had learnt that you can no 
 more travel, matrimonially, in peace with a person possessed of 
 a secret, than you can walk with a lame person and fail to feel 
 weary. Not that he ever suspected her — so he told himself 
 perpetually ; and yet, and yet he was glad, honestly, disgustingly 
 glad, when on their way back to England his wife asked him to 
 take her to the school where she had been educated. 
 
 " I do think they liked me," she said naively ; " and oh, in- 
 deed, I did like all of them ! " 
 
 So they went and saw her schoolmistress and some of her 
 
294 Above Suspicion, 
 
 old schoolfellows ; and the lady was voluble in her praises of 
 the dear Bella. *' Ah ! that girl, so amiable, so docile, one of 
 the very dearest girls — she might say, indeed, the very dearest 
 — she had ever had the happiiiess to instruct. Behold how timiC 
 made of changes so many ! It was but three short summers, 
 but three, since she lost her favourite, and now view that she 
 was become a woman, wte grande datne, married so suitably. 
 Bon Dieti ! united, made alliance with one in all ways so well- 
 sufficient to make her happy." 
 
 Nevertheless there was something the dear old fussy madame 
 failed to comprehend entirely. " In the good days — for her, 
 but, oh ! not good by so many, for the child once Bella, now 
 Lady Medburn — there was no look, to be swept away, across 
 her eyes — no trouble about the mouth. Was she ill? oh! grand 
 del! had that fearful climate ravaged the constitution once so 
 superb? had the fogs of Albion caused ailments in her who 
 while in La Belle France had understood not the meaning of 
 the word illness ? " 
 
 At the moment he could see in fancy Bella amongst her old 
 schoolfellows — his Bella whom he had known at Fisherton — 
 whom he had never really seen since. 
 
 " My wife is not very strong," he remarked to his garrulous 
 companion. " My mother's death proved a great shock to her, 
 and she has as yet scarcely recovered from its effects. When 
 she next conies to see you I think she will be perfectly well, 
 ^he is very sensitive, as you know." 
 
 "Ah, Heaven! yes," answered the lady; "if one of our chil- 
 dren cut its fingers, it ran to the English girl for help. If one 
 was in disgrace, it went to her for comfort. She had a heart for 
 all troubles.. I was so sorry when her good uncle, saying the 
 time had come, removed her. But I am sorry no more, monsieur. 
 I see my dear child married so happily; and, as you say, I think 
 her health may be made quite right — in time." 
 
 Soon after that they left Paris ; and with almost feminine 
 tenderness Sir Harry watched over the wife most people seemed 
 to think so delicate, as they journeyed. 
 
 Long since he had decided there was nothing much the 
 matter with her physical health. Love makes even the blind 
 see clearly, and in Sir Harry's case the miracle had been per- 
 formed of causing a man who had never before drawn a conclusion 
 to feel certain Bella's ailment was mental. 
 
At HigJigate. 295 
 
 " If I had only let her talk to me that day on the seashore," 
 he thought sadly, "my poor dear would by this time have been 
 quite happy and strong." 
 
 Would she? Perhaps so; perhaps the man's love and the 
 man's generosity might even in such a case have impelled him 
 to marry her ; and yet I think the human being whv » knowing 
 everything, could have taken Miles Barthorne's daughter to 
 wife, must have been singularly constituted. 
 
 Passion, it is said, is all-powerful. Nevertheless, any one who 
 in such a case should have so far forgotten all the traditions of 
 his family as to suffer himself to fall irretrievably in love even 
 with Bella Miles, had he known the nature of her antecedents 
 from the first, must have been differently constituted from Sir 
 Harry Medburn. And, indeed, the worst of the most trifling 
 deceit is, that not merely eventually does it render any retrograde 
 movement as difficult as travelling onward, but it invariably 
 complicates matters for some other besides the deceiver. 
 
 But what, then, is a man to do ? He must spoil his own life 
 certamly, or take his chance of spoiling better lives possibly than 
 his own eventually. On the one side is the Charybdis of speak- 
 ing the truth, on the other the Scylla of telling a lie. Between 
 the two poor humanity tries to steer in silence — blind to the 
 fact that eventually shipwreck must come with a more precious 
 freight on board than when the bark carried only itself and its 
 personal fortunes. 
 
 Lady Medburn had not been married a month — nay, she had 
 not been married a day — before she understood something of 
 all this ; and, understanding, tried to put hei foot on the head 
 of the serpent reared to sting her. 
 
 And she might have managed to compass some success in 
 her endeavous but for Edith — Sir Harry's cousin — that girl with 
 her tender tints of pink and white, with her great blue childish 
 eyes, with her full red lips, with her brown hair flecked with 
 gold, with her willowy figure and sweet gracious manner, and 
 loving heart holding no secret but one that had no shame in it, 
 which was only love for a cousin — always destined, as she sup- 
 posed, to be her husband, but who had passed her by for the 
 sake of a woman younger, certainly, handsomer to some tastes, 
 no doubt, but whom she could not understand, who was to her 
 totally unintelligible. 
 
 The missing leaves in the manuscript of Bella's life v/ere 
 
296 Above Suspicion. 
 
 puzzling beyond measure to the girl who had never in all her 
 life shaken hands with deceit. The missing leaves — the missing 
 years concerning which no mention was ever voluntarily made, 
 filled Miss Selham with a terrible fear, with a sickening distrust. 
 
 So well she loved her cousin that, though she always should 
 have disliked the woman, still she could have given him over 
 almost cheerfully into the keeping of any human being whose 
 nature she comprehended. 
 
 She loved him so utterly, so entirely, she could have abnegated 
 self had she felt such self-abnegation would make him happy; 
 but with the subtle craft of her sex, which grasps in five minutes 
 so much more than a man comprehends in five hours, she 
 understood, the very first evening she talked to Bella, while she 
 sipped her tea and sate in an easy chair the time Lady Medbum's 
 maid brushed out her long, soft tresses, that there was something 
 behind, something which ;^r ^z^d-/- would prevent Bella making 
 her cousin quite happy, quite content. 
 
 And Bella knew this ; for which reason her heart leapt within 
 her when she heard Miss Selham was not likely to reside per- 
 manently under the same roof which sheltered herself. 
 
 And once again the heart, so often weary, grew hopeful. 
 There was an enormous amount of buoyancy in Bella's nature, 
 spite of all its sensitiveness. 
 
 " When we are living at Cortingford," she thought, *' I shall 
 be able to find so much to do and to talk about, that perhaps 
 people may never find out my life has been different from that of 
 any one else. I will read all the new works, as Mrs. Wright used 
 to do. I will try to understand politics. I will see after the poor 
 and the schools, and help the Rector's wife, and pay visits, and 
 strive to forget all about those dreadful days at West Green. 
 Why do they now come back to me so persistently in dreams, 
 I wonder? I used never to dream about them — I scarcely 
 thought of them, even in the daytime, till I went to Fisherton. 
 Why should I remember when others can forget? I am quite 
 certain uncle is able to banish the memory of that time. Why 
 should I, who am so young, let it make me wretched ? " 
 
 Thus Bella, who, with all her experience, was not old enough 
 to know life could not be lived if, as years crept by, men and 
 women were always brooding over the sins and sorrows and 
 follies of the past. Concerning Mr. Irwin her surmise was quite 
 right. From the hour when news arrived of Miles Barthorne's 
 
At Highgate, 297 
 
 death he resolutely and successfully thrust all unpleasant recol- 
 lections aside. 
 
 The dread of his brother-in-law's return, which had been a 
 haunting presence for years, weighing him down no longer ; he 
 looked — spite of his ailing, discontented wife, and the anxieties 
 of business — younger than Bella could ever remember him. 
 
 Long before he had settled matters satisfactorily with the 
 attorney who threatened to " expose him," and no lion having 
 since arisen in his path, he pursued the tenour of City life, and 
 felt, in most respects, exactly like his neighbours. 
 
 As for his sister, she was still in Australia. All the money 
 Barthorne had saved Mr. Irwin sent out for her benefit. 
 
 " Bella shall never want for anything while I live," he told 
 her, " so do not be uneasy on her account. 1 have placed her 
 with a lady, and she is well and happy. She may now write to 
 you occasionally ; " but he forbade his niece to add her address 
 to any letter ; and when she was married he insisted that she 
 should say nothing about the change in her position. 
 
 " If she knew you were a baronet's wife we should have her 
 home by the first vessel," he observed; "and then God only 
 knows what would become of us all." 
 
 Amongst the first visits of Lady Medburn, when she returned 
 to London, was one to the Wrights, who had long since left 
 Fisherton and transported themselves, and such of their worldly 
 effects as Mrs. Wright considered worth removing, to Hunting- 
 don Park. 
 
 There Bella found them, living in one of Mr. Gaboon's villas, 
 with new furniture in the drawing and dining-rooms and library, 
 with new oilcloth in the hall, with new stair-carpets, with unre- 
 membered bedsteads in the best sleeping apartments, with 
 everything, in fact, surrounding them which the hearts of Mr. 
 and Mrs. Wright had always desired. 
 
 With outstretched hands Mr. Wright welcomed his "dear 
 girl ; " and though Mrs. Wright did not greet her very cordially, 
 she was gracious in her manners, and apparently willing, if she 
 could not quite forget past injuries, to make a pretence of for- 
 giving them. 
 
 Nevertheless, the studied way in which, spite of her guest's 
 remonstrances she called her Lady Medburn, never once fall- 
 ing back into the once familiar Bella, was very suggestive. 
 
 I am so glad to see you so much more prosperous, and 
 
 <( 
 
298 Above Suspicion. 
 
 looking so much happier and better," remarked Bella, out of 
 the fulness of her heart, fondling Rosie, who, having quite for- 
 gotten her existence, had to be won back to fictitious recol- 
 lection of her old friend's identity with bon-bons, and presents 
 of all sorts. 
 
 " Thank you," said Mrs. Wright coldly. " I am thankful for 
 the change in our position also, I can assure you. Fishe^ton 
 was in every way unsuitable for us. Mr. Wright's talents were 
 buried there. Here he preaches to those who can appreciate 
 his sermons, and he is in the w^ay if any preferment should be 
 open. In the Church, as everywhere else, if people are out of 
 sight they are out of mind." 
 
 " Come, come, Selina," remonstrated her husband. "It was 
 not out of sight out of mind with Ned Cahoon." 
 
 " Because he had a purpose to gain in remembering you," 
 retorted Mrs. Wright. '' If he had not, you might have waited 
 long enough before he would have held out his little finger to 
 help you. He is not a man, as you know, to give anything for 
 nothing." 
 
 Which remark, having reference to certain binding arrange- 
 ments in connection with pew rents which Mr. Cahoon had 
 made, when he agreed to find money to relieve the Rector of 
 Fisherton from the incubus of his old creditors, caused Diony- 
 sius to smite his chest and sound his roll-call, and remind Mrs. 
 Wright that there was no necessity to worry dear Bella with 
 their little trumpery difficulties. 
 
 " We are in much calmer water," he finished, " as you and 
 your kind husband will be pleased to know, and things have 
 worked together wonderfully for us — wonderfully," added the 
 Rev. Dion in a tone which had once been so familiar to Bella, 
 that she looked at him fixedly for an instant, and arrived at the 
 conclusion that, spite the splendour of his surroundings and 
 the general prosperity of his appearance, her reverend friend 
 had found one very much crumpled rose-leaf in his new couch. 
 
 And the Rev. Dion was quite as sharp to notice the change 
 in her. 
 
 " Did you ever see a girl so altered ? " he asked his wife, re- 
 entering the drawing-room after handing ''dear Bella" to her 
 carriage and assuring her he was "char-med" with — if he might 
 say so, and he knew he might without giving offence — the im- 
 provement in her appearance. "I look upon you as a daughter," 
 
An Old Story Retold. 299 
 
 he explained; "and I must say you are more beautiful than 
 
 ever." 
 
 " Thank you, Mr. Wright," she answered simply ; " you had 
 always a kind word for me." 
 
 But even as she smiled he saw there were tears gathering in 
 her eves. 
 
 Down the length of the new surburban road ^Ir. Wright 
 watched the liveries, and the horses, and the carriage, till all 
 disappeared from view, when he turned to Selina and delivered 
 himself of the remark already recorded. 
 
 " She has gone off greatly in appearance/' said Mrs. Wright 
 complacently; ''but then you must remember, Dion, those dark 
 beauties never wear well." And Mrs. Wright turned to tlie 
 drawing-room mirror and, with a simper, mentally pitted her 
 faded middle age against Bella's youth. 
 
 " Yes, of course, dear," agreed the Rev. Dion, thinking at the 
 same time that no congenital blindness could equal that of a 
 woman mentally blinded by prejudice and vanity. "Still she 
 is very nice and all that sort of thing— and it is a desirable con- 
 nection." 
 
 "If you can use it," added Mrs. Wright, who, indeed, could 
 generally, except in matters feminine, see farther into a milestone 
 than her husband. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIV. 
 
 AN OLD STORY RETOLD. 
 
 " I DO not, 01 course, wish to dictate to you, Bella," said Mr. 
 Trwin to his niece, a few days after her visit to Huntingdon 
 Park ; " but if you care to follow my advice, you will not have 
 
300 Above Suspicion. 
 
 much in the future to do with the Wrights. I think it is a great 
 pity you called upon them. Take my word for this : when you 
 are beginning a new life, it is better to begin it with new people ; 
 and if you encourage the Wrights, they will prove Old Men of 
 the Sea to y )u every day throughout the whole of your future." 
 
 " They were very kind to me," remonstrated Bella. 
 
 " As for that, I don't know. They were kind to you as they 
 would have been to a costermonger or an old beggar-woman, 
 just because it is not in their natures to be very unkind to any 
 one, except under great provocation ; but when the provocation 
 came — eh ! Bella — what about the amiable Wrights then?" 
 
 " Mr. Wright was never unkind, uncle ; and as for Mrs. 
 Wright, I only care to remember pleasant things about people." 
 
 He did not answer for a moment ; then, without any reference 
 to what she had said, remarked : 
 
 " The whole matter as regards the Wrights was a purely busi- 
 ness one. They were paid more than handsomely for all they 
 did for you ; and I am quite certain your husband would not 
 wish to have them saddled on him for ever." 
 
 "How for ever?" Bella inquired. 
 
 *' In the way of borrowing money, for instance," explained 
 Mr. Irwin. " Mr. Wright says he has, through you, lost one of 
 the very oldest and best friends he ever possessed — Colonel 
 Leschelles, and in consequence he extracts from me many five- 
 pound notes." 
 
 " But they are now so well off," suggested Lady Medburn. 
 
 " My dear girl, when people who have, say, five hundred a 
 year, live at the rate of two thousand, how long shall they remain 
 well off? Mr. Wright pestered me to such an extent that I went 
 to his house-warming, as he called it — went for dinner and 
 stayed the evening. According to his account everything was 
 given him ; but I do not believe that for a moment. The wines 
 had no flavour of a private cellar; the flowers, I could swear, 
 were supplied by a nurseryman ; the game and iish came, I am 
 satisfied, from a confiding local tradesman ; and — and, to cut 
 short my catalogue, eventually Mr. Wright must pay for these 
 things ; and he will either try to use your husband as a milch- 
 cow or as a voucher for his respectability." 
 
 Lady Medburn sat silent for a minute, considering all the 
 words of wisdom which had fallen from her uncle's lips ; but 
 after that thoughtful pause she said : 
 
A7t Old Story Retold, 301 
 
 "I think you are right — indeed, I know you are. I will try 
 in my own way to let them understand they are not forgotten; 
 but it is, to quote your own remark, wise to begin a new life 
 — with new people." 
 
 "And you are happy?" he said anxiously. 
 
 " No," she answered ; " I am not. I have done a grievous 
 wrong to the truest gentleman the world ever held, and I suffer 
 accordingly. But we need not talk about that. The wrong has 
 been done, and no one save God can set it straight, and not 
 even God except by death." 
 
 " How you talk, Bella ! " said her uncle. 
 
 "Foolishly you think, no doubt," she observed; "but," she 
 went on, stretching out her arm?, "how I have suffered! If 
 you could only imagine the agony I have undergone — sleeping 
 and waking — sleeping and waking. Death would be rest to 
 me. I feel I have brought such disgrace on an honoured name, 
 that sometimes I hate to hear myself called by it. If I had 
 been brought up as a housemaid or a cook — but, dear, dear 
 uncle, you did your best, and whatever comes — and I feel there 
 is something coming — no blame attaches to you." 
 
 " My dear," he said, " disgrace can never attach itself to you 
 or your husband so long as the story remains a secret, and there 
 is no one to reveal it. No one has the faintest idea of who your 
 father was except Colonel Leschelles, and you may trust him 
 implicidy; and, besides, he does not know all." 
 
 " That is true," she answered ; " and yet I live in constant 
 dread. I wake at night feeling that some terrible trouble is on 
 its way towards me. It seems to me that through the darkness 
 I can hear its footfalls." 
 
 " If you do not strive to conquer these morbid fancies, Bella, 
 you will bring on some serious illness," said her uncle severely. 
 
 " Perhaps illness may have something to do with the fancies," 
 she answered. "Since we came to London I have not felt well. 
 I shall be glad when we get out of town. Everything seems to 
 weary me; and, kind as all my husband's relatives are, it is a 
 misery to me to be with them. Now, we are going to dine 
 with Sir Alexander Kelvey this evening, and, do you know ? I 
 quite dread having to talk to Miss Kelvey and Edith. Sir 
 Harry ought to have married Edith. I wonder why it is that, 
 out of all the millions of women in the world, he should have 
 chosen me." 
 
302 Above Suspicion. 
 
 "With whom did you say you were going to dine, Bella?'* 
 asked her uncle. 
 
 " Sir Alexander Kelvey," she answered, 
 
 " Oh ! " and Mr. Irwin walked towards the window, and so 
 hid his white shocked face from view. Was his niece right — 
 was some trouble coming ? After all these years, was the dead 
 past about to rise up in judgment, and the sins of the father to 
 be visited upon the child ? " 
 
 " Do you know Sir Alexander ? " asked his niece, marvelling 
 at his sudden silence. 
 
 "No : the name, however, seems familiar. He is a judge or 
 something of that sort, is not he? What relation is he to your 
 husband ? " 
 
 " Grand-uncle, I think." 
 
 " Indeed? Well, you must try to get over your foolish fears, 
 Bella. You will be better when you leave London. Good bye. 
 I cannot stay with you any longer." And then he turned, and 
 for the first time she noticed the pallor of his face. 
 
 "What is the matter? — are you ill?" she asked anxiously. 
 
 "No — yes — that is, nothing is really amiss with me; only 
 sometimes I feel faint for a moment." 
 
 "Have some wine," she suggested; but he shook his head. 
 
 "I shall be better when I get into the air," he answered. 
 " Wine would only make me worse. Good bye again, dear, and 
 leave London as soon as you can." 
 
 For the remainder of the day Bella puzzled herself about that 
 singular and sudden indisposition. In all her experience of her 
 uncle she had never before seen him look so ghastly ill ; and, 
 spite of his denial that he knew Sir Alexander Kelvey, she 
 could not help connecting the change in his appearance with 
 the mention of that gentleman's name. 
 
 " I wonder," she thought, " I wonder if he was judge on that 
 trial ? " In her ignorance she imagined he might have sat on 
 the bench in England after his return from India. " I must ask 
 uncle ; anything would be better than this suspense. I shall 
 keep fancying all kinds of horrors till I have seen him again." 
 
 But she was not destined to wait long for information. After 
 dinner, while Miss Kelvey was indulging in her evening nap — 
 the imputation of which she so strongly resented that at last no 
 one dare venture to suggest the soft impeachment — Miss Selham 
 and her cousin's wife strolled out into the garden and looked 
 
A71 Old Story Retold. 303 
 
 down on the Great City, the hum of which was distinctly 
 audible where they stood dreamily surveying the scene. 
 
 " What a sweet place this is ! " said Lady Medburn, at last 
 breaking the silence. "I do not wonder that Sir Alexander 
 likes it ?o much. If it were mine I should be as fond of it as 
 he is." 
 
 " Well, I do not know," answered her companion ; " the 
 house is comfortable and home-like, and the grounds are cer- 
 tainly very beautiful, and the view magnificent ; but still I con- 
 fess I do not like Hillview. The thought of that murder makes 
 me feel chill whenever I pass the spot. I knew the poor old 
 man from the time I was a litde child, and it was just like 
 losing a relative by violence. I am sure when the news reached 
 Cortingford, we all felt as if some one very near and dear had 
 been killed." 
 
 " What murder ? " inquired Bella. 
 
 " Has Harry never told you about it ? " said Miss Selham. 
 " How very odd ! I thought everybody had heard of poor 
 M'Callum's murder. Let us walk round this way, and I will 
 tell you the story. Here is the spot — the very spot where the 
 body was found ; his brother pointed it out to me time after 
 time. He used to be buder here, but after the murder he sank 
 into a state of utter despondency, and became so useless that 
 my uncle was obliged to pension him off : he lives in a cottage 
 not very far off." 
 
 "But about the murder?" asked Lady Medburn. 
 
 " The poor old man was found one morning lying where you 
 are standing now, with his head split open. He was quite dead. 
 At the time no one could imagine the motive for such a crime; 
 but it afterwards transpired that a great quantity of plate and 
 other valuables had been stolen out of the strong-room, and it 
 is supposed that M'Callum, having met the thief, was murdered 
 to prevent his giving any alarm. I have often heard his brother 
 describe the scene. 
 
 " ' It was the loveliest morning ever broke, miss,' he told me ; 
 * the sun v;as shining, and the birds singing, and there was a 
 light, pleasant breeze, and the flowers were all in bloom, and 
 everything but one looked bright. 
 
 "'And there, out in the sunshine, he lay; his grey hair 
 dabbled with blood, his right hand clenched ; a frown on hifs 
 face — but that went away afterwards. 
 
304 Above Suspicion. 
 
 " * His eyes were wide open ! It was an awful sight ! * ** 
 "And the person — who — killed him?" asked Sir Harry*s 
 wife. 
 
 She knew what was coming — she had known it almost from 
 the first ; but she could no more help putting the question than 
 she could help the horrible deadly sickness she felt creeping 
 over her. 
 
 "He has never yet been brought to justice. The presump- 
 tion was that one of the workmen employed in executing some 
 repairs was the guilty person ; and Sir Alexander had his house 
 searched in order to see if any of the stolen property could be 
 discovered. Nothing, however, was found to connect him with 
 that crime ; but other goods were discovered, and I believe he 
 was transported in consequence. 
 
 " M'Callum still declares he, and no other, was the murderer. 
 ' Out of them all,' he says, * Barthorne was the only man who 
 refused to touch the body. He was afraid to do it ! But my 
 brother's blood will be avenged yet ! I know it ; I feel it ! ' 
 —Mabel ! " 
 
 With that exclamation Miss Selham broke off her narrative. 
 On the grass where David M'Callum had lain in the bright 
 morning light, Lady Medburn lay in the gathering night, totally 
 insensible. She had, grasping the branch of a tree, fought 
 agamst the deadly faintness till it conquered her, and then her 
 hold relaxed, and she fell in a heap to the ground. 
 
 In another niinute the whole house was in confusion. Miss 
 Kelvey, aroused from her slumbers, was inquiring whether the 
 house had taken fire : Sir Harry was carrying his wife across 
 the quiet garden ; servants were rushing oft" for doctors ; the 
 housekeeper hurried into the drawing-room to render assistance; 
 — and through all the uproar Bella lay insensible — lay like one 
 dead. 
 
 At last a doctor came, and, after what seemed to the anxious 
 husband an eternity, Lady Medburn's eyelids trembled, then 
 slightly unclosed, and, with a sigh, she began to return to con- 
 sciousness — began to take up the burden of existence once 
 more. 
 
 "Tell me the truth, doctor," said Sir Harry, as he stood with 
 one of the medical men summoned in the hall. " What is the 
 cause of this swoon ? — what is really the matter with my wife ? " 
 
 " I do not think you need make yourself uneasy about the 
 
An Old Story Retold. 305 
 
 matter," was the reply, uttered with a significant smile. "Though 
 alarming to witness, these attacks are not dangerous, I assure 
 you — not at all uncommon under the circumstances." 
 
 " Under what circumstances ? " 
 
 The doctor smiled again, and then explained his meaning 
 more fully. 
 
 " You must not allow Lady Medburn to over-exert herself," 
 he finished ; " the more quietly she lives, for some little time 
 to come, the better." 
 
 With all speed Sir Harry arranged the business which had 
 detained him in London, and carried his wife off to Devonshire. 
 There she would be able to keep perfectly quiet ; there her 
 child should be born ; there, in the quaint old church where so 
 many Medburns had been baptized, the heir he hoped for 
 should be christened. About Cortingford Sir Harry walked a 
 happy man. He was not now uneasy about his wife : her 
 despondency — her restlessness were at last accounted for. 
 
 The one thing was coming his happiness had lacked ; and 
 all the time Bella was breaking her heart to remember that the 
 heir of all those broad acres — of that good name — could not, if 
 he were a child of hers, be ever other than the grandson of a 
 murderer. 
 
 The sins of the father were being visited on the child. But 
 Bella did not lament on her own account; it was always and 
 ever for Sir Harry and his unborn infant she prayed. 
 
 " Punish me, O Lord ! " was her moan, " but spare them. I 
 have brought it all on myself. Let me have all the suft^'ering." 
 
 One day, when Sir Harry was entering the lodge gates, he 
 met one of the grooms riding, with a scared look on his face, 
 at full gallop down the drive. At sight of his master he pulled 
 up. 
 
 " My lady is very ill," he explained, " and I am going for the 
 doctor." 
 
 Ill ! — and she had been perfectly well when he left home. 
 With a sinking heart Sir Harry drove on as fast as his horses 
 could go. 
 
 "How is she?" were his first words when he entered the 
 house, and the answer he received was : 
 
 " My lady is alive, but the child is dead." 
 
 What was the cause of it all ? No one could give him any 
 information. 
 
 20 
 
3o6 A hove Suspicion, 
 
 An hour previously, when her maid took her up a letter, she 
 was apparently quite well, and spoke of going out for a short 
 walk. Immediately almost, however, her bell was rung sharply, 
 and when her maid answered it, she found Lady Medburn sit- 
 ting in a chair, " looking like death itself, and trembling from 
 head to foot." 
 
 The doctors, when they came, were unable to account for 
 the attack ; and, subsequently, Bella herself declared she could 
 give no information about the matter. 
 
 She was a long time in recovering her health. People said 
 she fretted over the dead child and the bitter disappointment, 
 and Bella never undeceived them. It was only when she was 
 quite alone that she turned her face to the wall, and talked to 
 her own heart about her misery ; for the letter she had received 
 on the day when she was stricken down so suddenly was to tell 
 her that the tidings of Miles Barthorne's death had been false 
 — that he was in England 1 
 
 CHAPTER XXXV. 
 
 MR. WRIGHT AGAIN IN TROUBLE, 
 
 •* After all, there are two sides to everything except a bank- 
 note. There is always unlimited satisfaction to be got out of 
 that." 
 
 The speaker was the Reverend Dionysius Wright, who, while 
 uttering the foregoing sentence, looked at a crisp bit of paper 
 lying before him which had orobably suggested his sentence. 
 
Mr, Wright again in Trouble. 307 
 
 Mrs. Wright, who was engaged in crocheting a baby's boot 
 for an impending bazaar, looked across at her husband, and 
 smiled pensively. 
 
 "I think, dear," she said, "there is a reverse side even to a 
 bank-note. I never see one without remembering how short a 
 way it goes." 
 
 '' With us," agreed the Rev. Dion. " Other people manage 
 somehow to make money go farther than we seem able to do." 
 
 Remarks of this kind had of late become somewhat common, 
 so Mrs. Wright resumed her occupation with a deprecating grace 
 which proved on that occasion very gall and wormwood to her 
 husband. 
 
 " I often wonder," he resumed, " that is, I have often won- 
 dered lately, whether the game has been worth the candle, 
 Selina. I look back through years and years, and strive in vain 
 to recall the memory of a single easy hour. I have worked hard. 
 In my own way, I think few men have worked harder. From 
 one source and another we have had large sums of money, and 
 yet we have been only able to keep our heads above water. It 
 has proved an eternal struggle even to do that." 
 
 Mrs. Wright took her crochet-needle out of her work, put it 
 to her lips as if engaged in profound reflection, looked out of 
 the window, and sighed — then once again stuck her hook in the 
 wool, and made a few stitches. 
 
 " Now, here is this living," continued Mr. Wright ; " it brings 
 me in already — say half as much more as Fisherton ; and I ask 
 you — I just ask you candidly, Selina, are we one bit better off 
 than we were there?" 
 
 Selina, suspending her operations for a moment, said she 
 " hoped they would be in time. She did not see how they could 
 expect to be in a much better position till they were out of the 
 hands of such an impracticable person as Mr. Cahoon." 
 
 "Well, I 'm sure I don't know,'' answered Mr. Wright; "some- 
 times I begin to despair. Cahoon said the other day we had 
 always been trying the impossible feat of living at just double 
 our actual income; and I'll be hanged if I don't think he is 
 about right." 
 
 " If you are going to adopt the opinions of Mr. Cahoon, of 
 course you cannot expect me to sympathize with you," observed 
 Selina, her head a little on one side, and a spot of red beginning 
 to show on each cheek. 
 
 20—2 
 
3o8 Above Suspicion, 
 
 Like most people, Mrs. Wright was somewhat susceptible to 
 criticism, and Mr. Cahoon had lately not been sparing of it. 
 
 "Undoubtedly," she added, after a momentary pause, "in 
 many respects Fisherton was preferable to Huntingdon Park. 
 There, at any rate, one did not live within a stone's throw of all 
 one's creditors. We cannot, however, go back to Fisherton, 
 even if we wished to do so : a thing you, I am sure, do not." 
 
 And Selina closed her mouth and went on with her work. 
 
 " But don't you think " — the Rev. Dion was terribly in earnest 
 at that moment — " don't you think we might manage to retrench 
 — to live in some respects more economically?" 
 
 Mrs. Wright laid down the red wool and the crochet-hook, 
 and, crossing her hands on the table, said : 
 
 " Do you know, Dion, what retrenching and living economi- 
 cally means? It means always doing without something — it 
 means eternal self-abnegation — it means stinting yourself, and 
 your wife, and your children. It means being afraid to give 
 away a basin of soup or a bottle of wine to the sick and dying 
 — it means a constant thoughtfulness about pence and halfpence 
 — it means that a man has decided to trust hmiself rather than 
 the Almighty, and that he must therefore grub along with his 
 face always turned earthward. We have had great trouble, to 
 be sure ; but I think, if you will look back, you will find Provi- 
 dence has always helped us at the critical moment. For my 
 part, remembering how wonderfully we have been supported, I 
 could not doubt now but that we shall be supported to the end." 
 
 If Mr. Wright had spoken out his mind at that juncture, he 
 would have said, " And what is there exceptional about us, 
 Selina, that Providence should go out of its way to attend 
 specially to our affairs ? " — but he was wise, and held his peace. 
 
 Once he had ventured to make some such observation, and 
 being then met with an inquiry as to what he thought of the 
 Jews, foK whose sake so many miracles were wrought, and a 
 further inquiry as to whether he did not believe much more 
 would be done for a Christian, he decided it was better to allow 
 his wife to air her theories unopposed ; so he only looked 
 gloomily out of the window, and said nothing. 
 
 " You dear Dion," remarked his wife, " what is the matter ? 
 We have nothing pressing now except that overdue bill ; and I 
 am sure Mr. Cahoon can settle that little matter for you if he 
 likes — and he will like. He has sense enough to comprehend 
 
Mr. Wright again i^t Trouble. 309 
 
 your value. Much as I dislike the man personally, I do admire 
 his thorough appreciation of you." 
 
 "I wish, Selina," said Mr. Wright, " you would not show your 
 
 feelings so plainly as you do. It is playing the 1 mean, it 
 
 makes things very difficult for me when you and Cahoon are at 
 sixes and sevens. The fact is," added the Reverend Dion, " I 
 am afraid this place has uplifted us all too much, and that we 
 shall have a terrible fall in consequence." 
 
 " My dear," said Mrs. Wright, with judicial calmness, " I 
 should be so thankful if you would see Dr. Boyd. You know 
 you never look at things through smoked glass except when you 
 are ill." 
 
 To which the Reverend Dion made no reply. 
 
 The husband and wife were sitting in a room overlooking that 
 which, to my thinking, is the wretchedest sight on earth — a new 
 garden in a London suburb. 
 
 The late September sun threw its beams across no trees laden 
 with fruit, no well-grown evergreens, no creepers already turning 
 from green to yellow and from yellow to red ; but fell instead 
 athwart an enclosure which looked, spite of the wretched grass- 
 plot and the scarlet geraniums planted in the few star and 
 crescent-shaped beds, as if it had been that hour, that instant, 
 fenced in from the original brick-field. 
 
 No doubt, had the so-called garden been left to nature, she 
 would soon have covered the dreary soil with sufficient verdure 
 by means of docks, burdocks, nettles, chickweed, and other 
 plants admirably adapted for clothing naked places possessed 
 of unpromising soils ; but Mr. Cahoon, having an objection to 
 nature's management, had, over burnt clay and a little gravel, 
 laid sods, and created a space of burnt-up greenery which he 
 called a lawn, and in which he carved out wonderfully-designed 
 beds, that looked as if cut with a series of paste-cutters. In 
 these he or his tenants put a few geraniums, while over the 
 grass a limited number of standard rose-trees were stuck, which 
 bore a resemblance to a flamingo standing on one leg, withour 
 any resemblance to the £ amingo body. 
 
 The walks were covered with reddish gravel, well rolled, and 
 the garden was surrounded with aggravatingly new brick walls, 
 too low to train anything upon, and yet still so hideously ugly 
 that even the young Wrights had felt impelled to sow nastur- 
 tiums, convolvuli, and other such cheap, flabby annuals around 
 
3IO Above Suspicion. 
 
 the borders, in order to break the dead monotony of the brick 
 and mortar, on the top of which the domestic cat prowled by 
 day and woke the echoes by night. 
 
 The Rector had a certain love of things beautiful and sooth- 
 ing. Like most men who lead an anxious and. restless life, he 
 felt a grateful peace in looking at greenery — at rich foliage, at a 
 wealth of flower and leaf. A field full of buttercups had ere 
 then sent him home in a happier frame of mind. Soft, shaded 
 light in a drawing-room, the subtle scent of hothouse blossoms, 
 ay, even the familiar look of old, dark furniture, of worn carpets, 
 of an accustomed chair, of bookshelves edged with a remem- 
 bered leather, had all in turn, some time or another, quieted his 
 nerves and eased the throbbing of his temples. 
 
 At Fisherton, though the quietness wearied him, and the 
 change from an exciting to an utterly still life proved too 
 violent to be accepted patiently, still the Rector had never felt 
 anything of the irritation which occasionally overmastered him 
 in Huntingdon Park. 
 
 What had he there? A brand-new house; a house freshly 
 painted and papered; a conventional house, with plate-glass 
 windows and stone-coloured Venetian blinds relieved by red 
 tapes, broad steps leading to the front door, wide steps leading 
 down into the area; a strip of desolate garden in front, orna- 
 mented with a starved laurel and a wretched yew, the slip of 
 ground already described at the back; a house with new carpets 
 in the drawing-room, dining-room, and library; a house smelling 
 of varnish; a house where his old books looked as much out of 
 place as his old coat did; a house which, though Mr. Cahoon 
 charged them only a very moderate rent, had one way and 
 another cost Mr. Wright more than he had the slightest right 
 to spend, and which was likely to go on costing till he died or 
 became bankrupt. 
 
 And what added to his trouble was that not even in his 
 church had he now any comfort. It was of iron, and conse- 
 quently a more hideous building; than even modern architects 
 can eliminate out of their imaginations. Most clergymen have 
 the same pleasure in officiating in a beautiful church that a 
 musician has in playing on a fine instrument. But pleasures of 
 that kind were not for the Rev. Dion. He could not even think 
 of the new church, " chaste in design, admirable in its propor- 
 tions," which v/as in course of progress, without a shudder. 
 
Mr. Wright again in Trouble, 3 1 T 
 
 He could not sleep at night, he could not relish his food by 
 day. When he talked and laughed, at parties, his talk and his 
 laughter sounded to him like those of another man. For once 
 he had borne his trouble alone ; for once Selina and he were 
 playing no little game together : but looking out on that cheer- 
 less bit of garden, and thinking of all he had left behind when 
 he left Fisherton, Mr. Wright felt he could carry his burden no 
 longer in silence — that it was time his wife took some share of 
 the knowledge, at all events. 
 
 " I am afraid, Selina," he began, " that there is a considerable 
 amount of truth in the saying that there are no such fools as 
 clever people. You and I are clever ; but we do not seem to 
 have done much good for ourselves after all." 
 
 " Perhaps you would still like to be a struggling curate," com- 
 mented Mrs. Wright, sarcastically. 
 
 " I should like to be anything, even a day labourer, if I 
 could have an easy mind," said the Rev. Dion. " Don't you 
 see, cannot you understand, Selina, that in a life like ours, the 
 better our social position the more dreadful it is to contemplate 
 losing it? And every upward step we take makes it harder to 
 undo any false step taken at the beginning. If, when we came 
 here, we had come as comparatively poor, struggling people — " 
 
 " We might have gone on struggling to the end," interpolated 
 his wife. 
 
 " I don't believe it, Selina ; the longer I live, the more I 
 doubt whether there is any real benefit in keeping up false 
 appearances. The public will read an author's book if it be 
 worth reading, whether he lives in a garret or dines with dukes 
 every night of his life : and just the same the public will come 
 and hear a man preach, if he is able to preach, whether he have 
 hemp carpeting on his floors, or dresses in purple and fine linen, 
 and fares sumptuously every day." 
 
 "And do you think the man could ^vrite as well, or preach as 
 well, if he lived on bread and water instead of on beef and 
 mutton, and Bass and Guinness ? " 
 
 " Under certain circumstances, yes. I consider an easy mind 
 one of the essentials to success, in middle life at any rate. I do 
 not believe any man stands a chance of reaching the winning- 
 post if care be always sitting behind on the crupper." 
 
 " Well, I do not know," said Mrs. Wright plaintively. " I am 
 sure I thought we were managing admirably. Here we have very 
 
312 Above Suspicion, 
 
 good society, of its kind ; we need never from necessity spend 
 an evening at home. Our boys have fair appointments in the 
 City ; our girls may marry well ; you preach to an intelligent 
 and educated audience, while, as for me, I have not felt so 
 strong for many years." 
 
 " That is the only comfort I can see about the matter; for all 
 the other benefits you have mentioned the price paid has been 
 fearful. I have kept our last trouble from you as long as I 
 could, but I can keep it no longer. Unless, in a very short 
 space of time, I can manage to raise a large, an extremely large 
 sum of money, I shall be not merely ruined, but disgraced." 
 " What do you mean, Dion ? " inquired his wife. 
 Then he told her how, having received subscriptions for the 
 new church, he had, under pressure, withdrawn the money from 
 his bankers, and employed it for the settlement of pressing 
 claims, believing he should be able to replace all sums so taken 
 long before he was called upon to hand them over. 
 
 But suddenly a day of reckoning came — it always does come 
 when least expected — and Mr. Wright was called upon to make 
 up his accounts, and deliver the money collected by him to the 
 trustees. 
 
 For a period he pleaded pressure of parish work as an excuse 
 for delay : then stated he had not received all the money 
 promised ; that he would lose no time in writing to those who 
 were thus lagging behind, and have everything ready to lay 
 before the committee ere long. 
 
 Eventually, however, as he did not lay everything before the 
 committee, or, indeed, any part of it, he had received a letter 
 from the secretary, civil, indeed, but pressing, stating that as it 
 was necessary for the accounts to be made up immediately, he 
 would feel obliged by Mr. Wright favouring him with a state- 
 ment of the amounts he had received, not later than the 21st of 
 October. 
 
 "And now it is getting towards the end of September," 
 said Mr. Wright, rising, and pacing the room, his hands crossed 
 behind his back ; " and God only knows what I am to do." 
 
 For once, Mrs. Wright did not suggest that Providence would 
 open some road for them. She sate, her work lying idly in her 
 lap, her eyes wandering over the arid garden, utterly silent, 
 stunned by the weight of a trouble as tremendous as it was un- 
 expected. 
 
Mr. Wright again in Trouble. 313 
 
 " Selina," said the Rector, and his voice shook as he pro- 
 nounced her name — was her manner a premonitory symptom of 
 how the world would receive the story of his fall? — ''I would 
 have spared you this if I could." 
 
 She pressed her hand across her eyes as one who comes 
 suddenly into the light after walking through darkness, and 
 looked at him for a moment like one dazed : then she rose 
 equal to the occasion, and answered : 
 
 " Dion, we must not sink under this ; we must face the diffi- 
 culty. You can get the money somehow. Why did you not 
 tell me before ? 1 could have helped you. How much do you 
 want ? Why do you not go to Mr. Cahoon ? " 
 " I have been to him," explained the Rector. 
 "And what did he say? Did you explain the matter to 
 him ? " 
 
 " I did fully ; that is one of the advantages, or disadvantages, 
 of having to do with a man who is not easily scandalized. He 
 expressed no astonishment ; indeed, I believe he had suspected 
 something of the sort ; but he declined to help me." 
 "What excuse did he make?" 
 
 "Well, he made several. One, that previous arrangements 
 with me had entailed a good deal of trouble. Another, that as 
 he had befriended me, he thought I might have compelled my 
 children to be ordinarily civil to his ; and a third, that he did 
 not beheve any human being could keep us out of debt. 
 
 " ' You have been in debt and in trouble ever since I knew 
 you,' he said, ' and you will be in debt so long as you are not 
 in jail or your grave. Time teaches a little to some people, 
 but time has taught nothing to you. King Solomon expresses 
 an opinion that " Though you should bray a fool in a mortar 
 among wheat with a pestle, yet will not his foolishness depart 
 from him; " and I am inclined to think King Solomon was about 
 right.' " 
 
 " The profane wretch ! " murmured Selina. 
 " I humbled myself," continued the Rector. " I give you my 
 word, I never so prayed and besought a favour from a human 
 being; but I might just as well have entreated that chimney- 
 piece. I reminded him of the long years during which I had 
 worked; T spoke of the disgrace to my children; I pleaded on 
 your behalf; I implored him by the memory of old times: 
 I " 
 
314 -^ i>ove Suspicion, 
 
 But here Mr. Wright broke off with a sob, to the intense 
 dismay of his wife, who had never seen him so utterly dis- 
 heartened before. 
 
 " Dion ! " she cried, *'for pity's sake don't give way now! We 
 shall get through this trouble somehow, if you only face it 
 boldly. We will write to every one we know. Bella, I dare- 
 say, could get her husband to help us; and then there is Mr. 
 Irwin, and — and plenty of people besides." 
 
 For answer, Mr. Wright unlocked a drawer, and pulling out 
 some letters, handed them across the table. 
 
 One — the first Mrs. Wright unfolded — was from Bella herself, 
 hurriedly written and expressed, enclosing all the money she 
 had at the moment — thirty pounds — and saying that when Sir 
 Harry, who was out of town for a few days, returned, she would 
 beg him to .cjive her twenty more to make up the fifty Mr. 
 Wright wanted. 
 
 " Why did you not ask her for a hundred ? " inquired Mrs. 
 Wright, a little scornfully; **you would have got it just as 
 easily." 
 
 " Read on," was Mr. Wright's reply. 
 
 The next letter proved to be from Sir Harry himself, apolo- 
 gizing for a delay in writing, occasioned by Lady ]\Iedburn's 
 dangerous illness, and begging to be excused from sending the 
 cheque requested. 
 
 The wording of this epistle was icily cold; nevertheless Mrs. 
 Wright said : 
 
 "I do not attach any importance to that. Naturally the man 
 was in an ill humour at being disappointed of the long-expected 
 heir. It was wretched management on Bella's part, in some 
 way — of that I am quite sure." 
 
 " Very likely, my dear," agreed the Rev. Dion, who had never 
 been disappointed in that way himself; "but read on." 
 
 Mr. Irwin's refusal came next. After that Colonel Leschelles' ; 
 after that, half a dozen more. 
 
 " That is the state of the case, you see, my dear," remarked 
 Mr. Wright resignedly. 
 
 "At present," said Mrs. Wright; "but I will get the money 
 out of some one, if I have to ask for it on my knees." 
 
 It was noticeable that the lady made at that time no further 
 reference to the especial care she believed was exercised by 
 Providence over her husband's affairs; though it was not long 
 
Mr. Wright again in Trouble. 315 
 
 ere she declared that, from two most unlikely quarters, help 
 had been coming all the time — and that she always had firm 
 faith help would come, though she felt scarcely justified, under 
 the circumstances, in expressing such an opinion. 
 
 " For you know, dear, we ought not to do wrong that good 
 may come of it," finished the graceful self-deceiver. 
 
 " Yes, Selina, I know that, perhaps, a little better than you," 
 answered the Reverend Dion, somewhat brusquely. After all, 
 it was he who had sinned, he had sinned for her sake, and that 
 of his children; and it was he who had borne the sleepless 
 nights of care, the long, long days of struggle, the humiliations, 
 the rebuffs, the sickening hope deferred. And it had not been 
 pleasant to hear Cahoon's remarks on his own folly and the in- 
 competency of Selina. To be told in plain words that he is a 
 fool, and his wife another, is trying to the complacency of any 
 man. But Mr. Wright took his revenge. When he was quite 
 out of the wood, he preached two sermons intended to strike 
 home to the heart of that purse-proud upstart, Cahoon. 
 
 People said they were wonderful sermons — so perhaps they 
 impressed that "recreant" Cahoon, as the Rector loved to style 
 him. 
 
 The only remark Cahoon, however, made on the subject was 
 this— 
 
 " I believe, Wright, you would boil your own mother down if 
 you ran short of literary stock. I wonder if you ever had a 
 feeling or an experience you have not turned into a sermon, or 
 money." 
 
 "And," considered the Rev. Mr. Wright, as he turned his 
 steps towards home, " now he speaks of it, I wonder if I ever 
 had." 
 
3i6 Above Suspicion, 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVI. 
 MR. Wright's difficulties. 
 
 The first great deliverance accomplished for Mr. Wright was 
 wrought through the death of his brother. 
 
 Never did Mr. Wright feel that he had loved that brother so 
 well as when, close upon the 21st of October, news arrived that 
 Mr. Horatio Wright had taken his departure heavenward from 
 the obscure town in which for many years he dispensed medi- 
 cines and practised as a fourth-rate surgeon. 
 
 In that town he mixed with people who were — so said the 
 Rev. Dion — "entirely unsuitable;" but, upon the whole, Mr. 
 Horatio Wright managed to lead, according to his lights, not a 
 bad sort of life. 
 
 True, the doctor of the neighbourhood patronized him, 
 whilst the gentry of the neighbourhood never even dreamt of 
 asking him to their houses ; but then Horatio did not owe one 
 penny he was unable to pay ; he contrived to put by a little 
 money ; he was burdened with neither wife nor child. He had 
 an old maid to keep his house, who, always secretly hoping he 
 would eventually marry her, devoted all her attention to com- 
 passing his happiness. 
 
 In the county no man was a better judge of whisky, and 
 throughout the county no man could have been found capable 
 of imbibing so much liquor at night and rising utterly sober 
 in the mornmg ; whilst as for fame, had he not his brother 
 Dionysius ? 
 
 That was fame enough for him. In a very dilapidated box 
 were found, after his death, carefully packed away, " Sermon 
 by the Rev. Dionysius Wright, M.A. Trin. Coll. Dub., Curate 
 of St. Augustine-in-the-East, Lecturer at the Church of the Holy 
 Innocents;" "Sermon on behalf of the Poor and Needy, 
 preached at St. Mary's beyond the Precincts, by the Rev. 
 Dionysius Wright," etc., etc., etc. ; " A Lecture on the Con- 
 gruity existmg between Ancient and Modern Infidelity, delivered 
 at the City of London Christian Improvement Society, Bevis 
 
Mr. Wright's Difficulties. 317 
 
 Marks, May, 18 — ;" besides the Times of a certain date, con- 
 taining an account of some meeting at which the Rev. Dion 
 had nourished away on the platform; many local papers bearing 
 testimony to the activity of that celebrated divine, the Rev. D. 
 Wright; a copy of the Middlesex Co7iservative which gave a 
 description of his induction to Fisherton and a sketch of his 
 career — the last contributed .by Mr. Wright himself; other 
 copies of the same paper containing accounts of various meet- 
 ings at which the Rev. Dion addressed a select audience, as 
 well as paragraphs relating to local festivities in which the Rev. 
 Dion and Mrs. Wright and the Misses Wright took honourable 
 place. 
 
 Each of us takes a pleasure in something quite unaccountable 
 to our fellows ; and, next to whisky, Mr. Horatio Wright prided 
 himself on his brother the parson. 
 
 Not that he would have lent him ten pounds, had that 
 precise amount stood between the Rev. D. Wright and the 
 workhouse; but he dehghted in sending him the best whisky he 
 could procure, which was, indeed, better than any money could 
 buy, and talking to his boon companions about Dion, who was 
 "hail fellow well met" with bishops and earls. 
 
 And his audience believed him — an Irish audience always 
 believes in the success of a man who has orone to England — 
 and Mr. H. Wright, the surgeon, derived a sort of reflected 
 glory from the doings of ]Mr. D. Wright, the divine. 
 
 "They cannot hurry a man to make up his accounts who 
 has just lost his brother," thought the Reverend Dion as he 
 took his seat — back to the engine, second-class — at Euston 
 Square. " Poor Horatio ! Dear ! dear ! it seems only yester- 
 day since we went poaching together in old Tracy's park ; and 
 now all the Tracys are dead and gone, and Horatio is gone 
 too." After which tender tribute to his brother's memory Mr. 
 Wright unfolded the Times^ and began reading the leading 
 articles. 
 
 ^ Arrived in Dublin, without waiting, as he told Selina, " for 
 bite or sup," he drove straight to the Broadstone Station, and 
 arrived at the late Mr. Horatio Wright's residence about a 
 couple of hours before the time fixed for the funeral. 
 
 " I have seen him," wrote the Rector to his wife. "His face 
 wears a most peaceful expression. He was ill only twenty-four 
 hours; but the clerg}^man who was with him at the Ir 
 
3 1 8 -^ hove Suspicion. 
 
 who was good enough to call upon me immediately after my 
 arrival — says he had for some time past been directing his 
 attention to serious matters, and that he was fully prepared for 
 the Great Change. From the appearance of the house, I 
 should imagine he has been obliged to live with strict economy. 
 Poor fellow ! I wish I could have made his life happier ; but 
 where he is now he will understand all my troubles, and it is a 
 comfort to think he has passed to a land where money can 
 neither make nor mar the happiness of its inhabitants. I write 
 this before the funeral, as the post leaves at four o'clock. I 
 shall look anxiously for a letter from you at Jury's to-morrow." 
 
 But when the morrow came Mr. Wright did not return to 
 Dublin. 
 
 The previous night he had indited another epistle to Selina. 
 
 He wrote it after partaking liberally of the whisky which 
 had — so said his companion, the local attorney — "never 
 paid the Queen, nor cost Mr. Horatio Wright, one halfpenny. 
 Ah!" continued the speaker, "your worthy brother had some 
 queer patients. Up the hills and among the bogs there are 
 many who will miss him, and that was how he came to get 
 such good spirits." 
 
 "He was always a curious fellow, but the best-hearted 
 creature alive," observed the Rector. 
 
 "Well, perhaps so," said the attorney, a little doubtfully. 
 " Now, really I must be going. By to-morrow at two o'clock, 
 then, Mr. Wright, I shall have gone fully into the matter we 
 have been talking over. Good night. Delighted to have made 
 your acquaintance, I am sure. Pray do not come to the door; 
 I know the way far better than you do. Good night again." 
 And the Reverend Dion was left standing alone in the hall, a 
 candle in his left hand, his right laid on his shirt-front, and a 
 look of happiness pervading his features. 
 
 " I hardly know, my beloved wife " — thus the Reverend Dion 
 began his letter — "how to find words to tell you the news I 
 have learnt since I dispatched a few lines to inform you of my 
 safe arrival. Our dear departed was not straitened in his cir- 
 cumstances, as I supposed. He died possessed of house 
 property to the value- of about forty pounds a year. This 
 amount he has left to 7ne. To his housekeeper he bequeaths 
 his furniture. She is greatly dissatisfied, I can see, and hopes 
 I will do something handsome for her, which, indeed, I would 
 
Mr.Wrighfs Difficulties. 319 
 
 most gladly, were I differently situated ; but, as matters stand, 
 how can I ? The lawyer who acted for H. spent the evening 
 with me. He is a rogue, I believe, and he evidently thinks me 
 a fool as regards worldly affairs ; but, as it happens, his roguery 
 suits my folly on the present occasion to a T. He wants to 
 buy the houses, and I want the ready money, so he supposes 
 * that I could never be worried with looking after such a small 
 property,' and I have agreed to sell if he can find a purchaser 
 likely to give a fair price. I shall settle the matter before I leave, 
 and you may expect to see me with the purchase-money in my 
 pocket. Not a word of this to Cahoon, if )'ou happen to see 
 him. He knows too much about the state of my affairs already. 
 I cannot tell you how utterly different a man I feel to-night. 
 A load has been taken off my mind. I shall sleep sound for 
 the first time for months. Poor H. ! I trust saving was a 
 pleasure to him, for I fear he must have stinted himself sadly 
 to put by anything out of the wretched pittance he earned here. 
 My heart is full — of gratitude, wonder, and relief!" 
 
 And indeed Mr. Wright's heart was so full, that, when he 
 reached Dublin, out of the money paid him by the attorney — 
 who did not deal more hardly by the divine than might have 
 been expected — he purchased so many things for Selina, the 
 children, and himself, that, on casting up the total expended, 
 he found a considerable inroad had been made on the amount 
 — originally only sufficient to cover the deficiency in his accounts. 
 
 " But never mind," thought the Reverend Dion ; " if I give 
 them this I will make some excuse about the balance, and ere 
 long I shall be receiving money, and can then settle up every- 
 thing." 
 
 Thus the lighted-hearted divine, who had not been able to 
 sleep sound for months, slipped back into the waters of difficulty 
 from which he was but just rescued ; into shallow waters, perhaps, 
 but still quite deep enough to drown him unless another miracle 
 were wrought in his favour. 
 
 Back in London, however, Mr. Wright found that unless he 
 immediately paid over every halfpenny he had left, he would 
 find himself in an extremely awkward position ; and, indeed, it 
 was only by dint of telling more untruths than he probably ever 
 uttered before at one sitting, that he could defer the evil day of 
 accounting for the deficiency still remaining. 
 
 "■ And then there is that thing of Averill's," he remarked to 
 
320 Above SiLspicion, 
 
 his wife. " I had entirely forgotten it ; but when the list is pub- 
 lished he must find his name amongst the subscribers, or I know 
 he will make a fuss." 
 
 " I should let him make a fuss," said Mrs. Wright philosophi- 
 cally; but the Reverend Dion shook his head. 
 
 " My dear," he explained, " there are things a curate can do, 
 and things an incumbent cannot do ; and I must refund that 
 money, or run the risk of a most unpleasant exposure." 
 
 " Well, all I can say is," remarked his better half, " that it is 
 a very hard case indeed." 
 
 " Perhaps so ; but fretting over spilt milk won't put it back 
 in the jug, SeUna." 
 
 *' You never go to Ireland but you come back with a number 
 of the commonest proverbs at your fingers' ends. I do wish, 
 Dion, you would be more careful." 
 
 " I wish I had been," muttered the Reverend Dion sotto voce. 
 The man was always a most repentant sinner when in trouble. 
 
 "What was that hitch about Averill?" some over-curious 
 reader inquires. Just this. In days too remote for the Rector 
 to remember anything about the transaction till reminded of it, 
 he had once, when schools were wanted for a parish with which 
 he was temporarily connected, taken from a list of subscribers 
 to some other charities the names of various philanthropic per- 
 sons, to whom he sent a moving circular, drawn up by himself, 
 stating the need of schools, the condition of the parish, and 
 various other matters upon which it is unnecessary to enlarge 
 here. 
 
 In reply he received some letters containing money, but not 
 sufficient money even to begin to build the schools ; so he used 
 the subscriptions for his own purposes — meaning, of course, 
 ultimately to restore the amounts to the donors — and then 
 quarrelling with the Rector, just come home from foreign parts, 
 he left suddenly, and, having a judicious and well-balanced 
 memory, forgot all about the schools and the subscriptions. 
 
 But Mr. Averill had a better memory. When once again the 
 signature of Dionysius Wright lay on his study table, that gen- 
 tleman, who was methodical and regular in his habits, referred 
 to his filed letters and well-kept correspondence-book, and 
 among them he found : "Rev. Dionysius Wright, curate in charge 
 of St. Lazarus-in-the- North, for schools, £^2^ ;" whereupon he 
 wrote to the incumbent of St. Lazarus to ascertain about the 
 
Mr, Wright's Difficulties. 321 
 
 schools; and, finding none had been built, sent a letter to Mr. 
 Wright, in which he remarked that he might apply the twenty- 
 five pounds subscribed for the purpose of assisting the St. 
 Lazarus Schools, which had never been erected, to the fund for 
 " rearing that beautiful structure, the Church of the Disciples, 
 Huntingdon Park." Having quoted which elegant extract from 
 Mr. Wright's own circular, Mr. Averill proceeded, on his own 
 account, to add, " I shall expect to see my name amongst your 
 list of subscribers " — an observation full of significance, as the 
 Reverend Dion comprehended. 
 
 " I must make up the whole amount ere long," he said, on an 
 average about twice a week, in a tone of great conviction, and 
 Mrs. Wright agreed that she supposed he must, with the air of 
 an injured woman; but months passed by, and still the account 
 was not made up. Neither did there seem the slightest pros- 
 pect of its ever being made up. 
 
 Out of each fresh payment Mr. Wright expected to receive, 
 a certain sum was verbally and mentally subtracted to liquidate 
 "that fearful debt," as the Reverend Dion styled it; but, some- 
 how, when the money came, the whole of it was found to go so 
 short a way in even partially satisfying hungry creditors, that 
 not a halfpenny could be spared to provide for the payment 
 which had already been delayed so long. 
 
 Christmas came and passed. With one excuse and another 
 Mr. Wright had staved off the evil day for months enough to 
 have enabled him to find the cash by some means ; but at 
 length, when February arrived, the secretary grew very peremp- 
 tory — "very nasty indeed," explamed the Rector; "and there 
 are now but three alternatives open for me— to pay the money, 
 confess my real position, or be publicly and eternally dis- 
 graced." 
 
 "Oh, Dion!" exclaimed his wife, "do not despair. You 
 will be helped out of this, I am sure. A man who has done as 
 much for others as you have done will never, I am confident, 
 be deserted in his hour of need." 
 
 " I am not quite so certain about that, Selina," he answered. 
 " We have been helped wonderfully, it is true ; but I do think, 
 sooner or later a man is expected to help himself a little, instead 
 of lying a burden upon Providence. ' Upon my word, I often 
 feel as if Heaven must be tired of assisting people who so eter- 
 nally stand in need of assistance." 
 
 21 
 
322 Above Suspicion. 
 
 "If you are going to talk in that way," said Mrs. Wright a 
 little severely, " of course we cannot expect assistance. If you 
 mean to relinquish faith, and to become totally oblivious of and 
 ungrateful for all the great mercies vouchsafed to us, we shall, 
 I fear, be forgotten. But, Dion, what is the meaning of this 
 change in you — of this unintelligible depression ? " 
 
 " The meaning of it is, Selina, that I am tired, that I am sick 
 of debt, and borrowing, and lying, and keeping up appearances 
 when we have nothing to keep them up on. I would rather live 
 in the meanest house, I would rather eat the humblest fare, 
 than continue to endure the life of harass I have done." 
 
 " My poor dear," answered his wife, "I am afraid living in a 
 hut on potatoes and salt would not mend the matter. We 
 should want less money, it is, true, but we should have just as 
 much trouble in getting it. If people have to live on their 
 talents instead of a settled income, they must expect annoyances. 
 But do not let this worry conquer you, Dion. I am certain a 
 way out of it will be presented, and when you are a bishop you 
 will look back and laugh at the troubles you now think so 
 unendurable." 
 
 " When I am a bishop perhaps I may," agreed the Reverend 
 Dion, "but I certainly do not feel inclined to laugh at them 
 now. Suppose, for a change, Selina, you write to Lady Med 
 burn. I really think, as you could put the need for pecuniary 
 assistance, she might get her husband to help us." 
 
 But Selina declined. She would write to Colonel Leschelles, 
 if Dion wished, but she could not — no, really she could not — 
 ask a favour from Bella, " who was always your protegee, if you 
 remember. I never liked the girl, nor understood her. In my 
 opinion she is a sly hypocrite." 
 
 "Well, well, well, my dear," said Mr. Wright, which Selina 
 correctly interi.)reting to mean that he courted no discussion 
 about the matter, she swept out of the room with a languid 
 grace, the skirt of her unpaid-for silk dress sweeping the dust 
 out of the also unpaid-for library carpet as she walked. 
 
 " Dear me ! " thought the Rev. Dion, as he watched her exit, 
 " I wonder if anybody living ever paid so high for having 
 nothing done as we do ! " 
 
 The letters were written and dispatched. From Colonel Les- 
 chelles was reluctantly wrung a five-pound note ; from Sir Harry 
 Medburn a cheque for ten pounds, and a hint that, as Lady 
 
Mr. Wright's Difficulties. 323 
 
 Medburn had to give largely to local charities, he trusted Mr. 
 Wright would not ask her to contribute any further sums to the 
 good work carried on in the parish of *' The Disciples." 
 
 Mr. Irwin refused to advance another penny, as did many 
 more dear, good friends of the Wright family. In fact, all the 
 Rector could scrape together was five-and-twenty pounds. "Not 
 enough to pay for the time, trouble, humiliation, and postage," 
 he said sadly. 
 
 " I will send it in, though, as Averill's subscription," he ob- 
 served, noticing a look in his wife's face which warned him she 
 had thoughts of annexing so useless an amount. 
 
 " Mr. Irwin ought to be ashamed of himself," said Mrs. 
 Wright. *'Why, his niece never would have been married at 
 all had it not been for us." 
 
 " I wish he had done what I asked him," mused the Rev. 
 Dion. " He could not have been a loser, and it would have 
 proved temporal salvation to me. However," he added, striking 
 his bosom with emphasis, " Mr. Wright is not beaten yet. If 
 any one thinks he has beaten Mr. Wright, he is greatly mis- 
 taken." Which utterance, rendered into plain English, meant 
 that Mr. Wright had bethought him of some other person, be- 
 sides Mr. Cahoon, who might feel inclined to lend money on 
 his pew rents. 
 
 " While I am about it I will ask for a couple of hundred," he 
 thought ; and meantime, to stave off the secretary, he sent him 
 twenty-five pounds, re Averill. 
 
 It was a wet day on which the Rev. Dion sallied forth to try 
 his fortune with the rrtoney-lenders ; but he had come from a 
 country where a downpour is considered of little importance, 
 and, merely remarking to his Selina that rain, as a rule, meant 
 " at home," he sallied out, took the first omnibus that offered — 
 local trains were then almost unknown — looked benignantly on 
 his fellow-passengers — some of whom whispered to each other, 
 " That is the great preacher at Huntingdon Park ! " — and tra- 
 velled Cityward. 
 
 Arrived there, the very first man he met whom he knew 
 chanced to be Mr. Irwin — Mr. Irwin, walking with a dark- 
 bearded gentleman, whose face seemed, in some curious way, 
 tamiliar to the Rector. 
 
 " How do you do?" exclaimed Mr. Wright, joyously holding 
 out his hand, and standing quite at ease on the pavement as if 
 
 21—2 
 
324 Above Suspicion, 
 
 the finest weather prevailed, umbrella jauntily poised, dress as 
 neat and irreproachable as ever. "How do you do? What 
 an age it is since I have seen you ! " 
 
 Remembering that within a day or two he had refused the 
 speaker pecuniary help, Mr. Irwin took the outstretched hand 
 rather sheepishly, and shook it with a bad grace. 
 
 " All well at home?" weni on Mr. Wright, as though he and 
 Mrs. Irwin and the little Irwins were the dearest of dear friends. 
 
 "Thank you, yes; Mrs. Irwin and the children are pretty 
 well." 
 
 " Rather wet to-day," observed Mr. Wright, glancing at the 
 stranger as he spoke, and understanding he had "money" written 
 on him from the crown of his head to the heels of his boots. 
 
 " Very wet indeed," replied Mr. Irwin, trying to move on. 
 ^ " Have you heard lately from her ladyship?" asked Mr. Wright, 
 still airily poising his umbrella. 
 
 For a moment Mr. Irwin hesitated; then he said, "I heard 
 of her the other day : she was quite well." 
 
 " Dear, sweet creature ! " ejaculated the Rector. 
 
 "I am sorry to say I must bid you good bye," observed Mr. 
 Irwin ; " I have an appointment." 
 
 " Good bye, then," said the Rector, in dulcet accents. " So 
 glad to see you looking so well. Good bye ! God bless you." 
 And he was gone. 
 
 "Who is your rosy friend, Walter?" asked the dark and 
 bearded gentleman. 
 
 " Only a begging parson, and a cursed nuisance," was the 
 answer. 
 
 " And who is her Udyship ? " pursued the other. 
 
 " A lady I met at his house, and to whom I have been able 
 to prove of some little service," was the reply. 
 
 But as he repHed, Walter Chappell Irwin could not help 
 looking straight at his companion, who only remarked : 
 
 " Oh ! indeed ; you seem to have got into high company since 
 we parted." 
 
 " I suppose so, though I have never been inside her doors." 
 
 " How very odd ! " 
 
 " Not more odd than true," 
 
A Fresh Interposition, 325 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVII. 
 
 A FRESH INTERPOSITION, 
 
 Still wet weather ; still an even, industrious, apparently untiring 
 downpour of rain, and the Rev. Dionysius Wright was no nearer 
 an advance of money than ever. 
 
 The twenty per cent, men, and the thirty, and the forty, and 
 the fifty, and the sixty, had apparently taken his measure, and 
 either could not or would not advance what he wanted. Per- 
 haps they did not think it was well to try to fleece a parson, 
 more especially one so popular as the Reverend Dion ; perhaps 
 they had unpleasant visions of police courts and brutal cross- 
 examinations if they tried to extort their pound of flesh from a 
 man in Mr. Wright's position. Whatever the cause may have 
 been, the result was disastrous. He could not get the money. 
 If he had offered all the tribes of Israel five hundred per cent, 
 the answer would have been the same. 
 
 Since the time when Jacob, by subtlety, annexed the stronger 
 of Laban's sheep, the Jews have rarely, save in their dealings 
 with the Almighty, forgotten their own interests ; and, happily 
 for themselves, they did not overlook those interests when Mr. 
 Wright, suave, well dressed, prosperous-looking, plausible, went 
 to ask for the advance of a mere bagatelle. 
 
 " It is a thing quite out of our line," answered, as with one 
 voice, the descendants of Jacob's dozen sons ; and accordingly, 
 at length, even Mr. Wright was fain to confess himself beaten. 
 
 " Really," he said to his dear Selina, after one of these un- 
 successful journeys, "it is wonderful to see how totally insensible 
 the Jews are to any Christian feeling." 
 
 " But the Christians are as bad as the Jews," sighed Mrs. 
 Wright ; which was, indeed, so true, that one wet, dreary day 
 the Rev. Dion found himself in Cornhill, still minus the money 
 he required, very cold, very miserable, very much depressed. 
 
 " I will just turn into Birch's," he said, mentally, feeling at 
 the same time if he had any silver in his pocket, "and have 
 some soup and a glass of Madeira. Perhaps I might have been 
 
326 Above Suspicion, 
 
 more fortunate to-day had I, before going to those creatures, 
 partaken of some refreshment." 
 
 And accordingly he went into Birch's, sat down to the ordered 
 soup and the well-remembered Madeira, his hair already turnmg 
 grey, and his admirable appearance making a sort of clerical 
 halo in that totally worldly room. 
 
 While he was breaking some bread, after three spoonfuls of 
 the soup and a sip of the Madeira, he chanced to look across 
 the narrow table, and saw the man with whom Mr. Irwin had 
 been walking when last he met him. Already the stranger had 
 recognized him, and consequently, as their eyes met, remarked 
 " I think I have had the pleasure of meeting you before." 
 " Delighted, I am sure, to have the pleasure of meeting you 
 again," said the Reverend Dion genially. " Any friend of my 
 dear friend Mr. Irwin must always be acceptable to me." 
 
 " You are very kind," replied the other, with a smile, which, 
 as Mr. Wright afterwards observed, might, like Mr. Irwin's "Yes," 
 have meant anything. 
 
 What it probably did mean was that he remembered the 
 criticism of Mr. Wright's dear friend upon that gentleman, also 
 that Mr. Irwin had not thought it necessary to introduce him. 
 
 They went on chatting for a time, in the intervals of soup and 
 Madeira, concerning the weather, the City, the state of trade, 
 politics, and various other subjects; and when they had paid 
 the waiter, and gone downstairs, and passed through the shop, 
 they continued to walk together towards Princes Street. 
 
 " I am going to the Joint-Stock Bank," observed Mr. Wright's 
 new friend, " and shall soon have to say good morning ; but I 
 trust our acquaintance will not end here." 
 
 Mr. Wright trusted it might not either, and said he was 
 charmed to have the happiness of meeting a gentleman pos- 
 sessed of such an amount of varied information, as was the case 
 with his companion. 
 
 " I have been knocking about the world all my life," answered 
 the other. " I have been in all sorts of places, and mixed 
 amongst all sorts of people ; and if a man keeps his eyes and 
 ears open, he cannot well avoid picking up a good deal." 
 
 " Very true — very admirably put," commended the Rev. Dion, 
 wondering whether pecuniarily he could pick anything out of 
 one who had, he felt convinced, "knocked about" to some 
 purpose. 
 
A Fresh Interposition. yi'j 
 
 " You, 4:00, must have seen something of the world," observed 
 his proposed prey; "enough, at all events, to enable you upon 
 occasion to dispense with ceremony. Dine with me, will you, 
 this evening? I know scarcely any one in London — no one, 
 indeed, intimately except Mr. Irwin ; and he, though doubtless 
 a most excellent person, is not a very lively companion." 
 
 Mr. Wright remarked he could not listen to a word in dis- 
 paragement of the very best man in existence ; but his face 
 showed at the same time that he understood the stranger had 
 detected Mr. Irwin's weak spot, and appreciated his cleverness 
 in doing so. 
 
 " You will dine with me, however ? " persisted his com- 
 panion. 
 
 " Indeed I will, if I can," ansv/ered the Reverend Dionysius 
 with hearty alacrity. " Now just let me see," and standing at 
 the door of the Joint-Stock Bank, he made a dive into his breast 
 pocket, and extracting from its depths an immense memorandum- 
 book, studied the last written page it contained attentively. 
 
 " After half-past six I shall be at leisure," he said at length ; 
 " that is to say, I can be at leisure." 
 
 "Seven, then, will suit you. I am staying at the Golden 
 Cross." 
 
 And he was turning away when Mr. Wright stopped him. 
 
 " By-the-bye, to whom am I indebted for the honour of this 
 invitation ? " 
 
 " I beg your pardon. I quite forgot that neither of us knows 
 the name of the other," and he pulled out a card and handed 
 it to Mr. Wright, Mr. Wright following suit. 
 
 " Mr. Sanson," read out the Rev. Dion, " delighted, I am sure, 
 to have made your acquaintance." 
 
 "A rough diamond," he remarked to Selinawhen he reached 
 home ; " but a gentleman — decidedly a gentleman , and, what 
 is far better, I feel confident a very good man." 
 
 After he had dined, however, and found himself on the top 
 of a Huntingdon Park omnibus on his way home, he was not, 
 perhaps, quite so satisfied about the latter point. 
 
 Over a bottle of remarkably good port Mr. Sanson approached 
 the subject at that moment nearest his heart. 
 
 " The first time I had the pleasure of seeing you, Mr. Wright," 
 he began, "you made an inquiry concerning a friend of Mr. 
 Irwin's." 
 
328 A bove Suspicion. 
 
 u 
 
 Ho ! ho ! " thought the Rector, " sits the wind in that 
 quarter ? " But he only said, with an admirable semblance of 
 forgetfulness : 
 
 "Did I?" 
 
 "You old fox ! " thought the other. Then he said out loud, 
 " Yes ; you asked after some one you spoke of as ' her lady- 
 ship.'" 
 
 " So I did, so I did," agreed Mr. Wright. 
 
 " Will you tell me the name of the lady to whom you re- 
 ferred ? " 
 
 " Before I say yes, or no, will you tell me what passed 
 between you and Mr. Irwin after I parted from him? You 
 asked him the same question. What reply did he make?" 
 
 " An evasive reply." 
 
 " Exactly as I expected. Such being the case, I cannot tell 
 you her name." 
 
 " But, sir, I must know it." 
 
 "Not from me." 
 
 " Why should you make a mystery about so simple a matter? " 
 
 " Why should you make a point of solving the mystery ? " 
 
 " Because it is important that I should solve it ; because for 
 months past I have been trying to extract the secret from Irwin; 
 because I hate being baffled. Look here, sir : if you understood 
 me better, you would know I am a man who never yet really 
 turned back from any enterprise on which I once embarked. 
 Three times I seemed to have fortune within my grasp — three 
 tiroes fortune was swept from me. And yet I persevered ; and 
 now I am rich enough to buy a fine estate and take rank with 
 anybody." 
 
 " Most creditable, I am sure," murmured the Rector; "quite 
 an exceptional career." 
 
 " You would say so with more reason were I to describe it 
 you," said the other, with an unpleasant smile. " My path has 
 not been over roses and lilies, believe me. But to return to 
 the point. I want to know who this ladyship is, concerning 
 whom you maintain such secresy. She may or she may not be 
 the person of whom I am in search ; but, at any rate, I mean 
 to find out where she is, and see her." 
 
 "If not an impertinent question, who is this person of whom 
 you are in search ? " 
 
 " That is my affair," was the reply. " Come now, Mr. Wright, 
 
A Fresh Interposition, 329 
 
 we need not beat about the bush any longer. I am determined 
 to find out what I want to know. Will you give the informa- 
 tion at once, and greatly oblige me, or must I employ a detec- 
 tive ? I would rather subscribe handsomely to one of your, no 
 doubt, numerous charitable undertakings than fee a spy." Which 
 sentence contained a great deal more truth than even Mr. 
 Wright imagined. 
 
 *' You are very kind, I am sure," said the Rector ; " and I am 
 greatly concerned to think I cannot comply with your request. 
 Mr. Irwin has been a dear good friend to me, and 1 really can- 
 not betray his confidence." 
 
 " That means, I suppose, that he has assisted you pecuniarily, 
 and that you are afraid of offending him." 
 
 " No ; I am not afraid of ofiending him. That he has helped 
 me materially, however, I am not ashamed to confess ; and of 
 whatever sins I may be guilty, ingratitude is not amongst the 
 number." 
 
 " Of course ; I understand all that ; but between ourselves, 
 I don't think you owe Irwin much gratitude in the past, and 
 I believe he will give you litde chance of being grateful to him 
 in the future. Be good-natured, therefore : tell me the lady's 
 name, and I will hand you over twenty-five pounds for any 
 charity you like to mention. Will that do ? " 
 
 With all sincerity Mr. Wright said it would not. He could 
 not think of being a party to such a transaction. He would not 
 betray his dear friend for any consideration whatsoever. 
 
 " Not for twice twenty-five pounds?" asked the other, eyeing 
 him curiously. 
 
 " Not for twice twenty-five," declared the Rector firmly ; but 
 firmly as he spoke, he was wavering, and the other saw it. 
 
 "Well, then, this is my last bid. If you refuse it I shall em- 
 ploy some one to-morrow who will not be long in worming out 
 the secret. If you tell me, without further trouble, where to 
 find her ladyship, you can have a hundred pounds. You won't 
 serve her by refusing to help me ; and you won't serve yourself. 
 Be quite sure of that." 
 
 " Give me five minutes," gasped the Rector. Behold, here 
 was the amount needed ready to his hand. Why should he let 
 it go ? What Mr. Sanson said was doubtless quite true. The 
 discovery now could only be regarded as a question of time ; 
 and in any case Sir Harry Medburn and Mr. Irwin were rich 
 
330 Above Suspicion, 
 
 and prosperous, men well able to take care of themselves, whilst 
 ruin and disgrace stared him, the Rev. Dion, in the face. 
 
 Nevertheless he hesitated. If ever a devil lurked in a hand- 
 some face, Mr. Wright saw it in Mr. Sanson's then. It seemed 
 gibing at him as he looked helplessly at his tempter. It shone 
 out of the dark eyes, and he knew, if the concealing hair were 
 removed, he should behold it curling the resolute mouth. 
 
 Could he jeopardize Bella's happiness by telling this man 
 where to find her? Could he, on the other hand, jeopardize 
 his own position by refusing to avail himself of an opportunity 
 so wonderfully offered ? 
 
 ** I must have time for consideration," he said at last. " Let 
 me have four-and-twenty hours, and you shall hear from me, 
 yea or nay.'' 
 
 " No," answered the other ; *• now or never. If you refuse to 
 oblige me, I shall take other measures without delay." 
 
 "Do you know anything to her prejudice?" asked Mr. Wright. 
 
 "Nothing. What could have put such an idea into your 
 mind ? " 
 
 " And you do not want to trade on your knowledge of any 
 secret connected with her ? " 
 
 *' No. I only wish to become one of the family party." 
 
 " But of what advantage can that possibly prove to you ? " 
 
 ** Perhaps some — perhaps none. Most likely I should never 
 have wanted to see her again, had Irwin not made such a secret 
 of the matter." 
 
 Another pause — another wrestle between the demon which 
 had cursed Mr. Wright's life and his better nature, and he said ; 
 
 " Give me the hundred pounds." 
 
 Without a word Mr. Sanson counted out the required sum, 
 and laid it on the table, keeping a stern grasp on it the while. 
 
 *' Now," he said triumphantly, looking across at his visitor, 
 "let us exchange." 
 
 The Rev. Dion pushed a pencilled card over to his tempter, 
 and, covering his face with one hand, placed the other on the 
 notes. 
 
 " All right — take them," remarked Mr. Sanson ; and then he 
 pocketed the address, and Mr. Wright the money. 
 
 "She is pretty, no doubt," observed Mr. Sanson; but Mr. 
 Wright refused to notice the suggestion. He simply rose, but- 
 toned up his coat, said : 
 
A Fresh hiterposition, 331 
 
 " It is time I bade you good night ; " and so betook himself, 
 as has been already stated, to the top of a Huntingdon Park 
 omnibus. 
 
 Next morning he overslept himself. He had not designed to 
 commit such an enormity ; but, in good truth, he felt worn out, 
 mentally and physically, and the consequence was that he had 
 but just entered his study after breakfast when Mr. Irwin was 
 announced. 
 
 " My dear, good friend," Mr. Wright was beginning, when 
 the other waved him off. 
 
 " Read that," said Mr. Irwin imperatively, thrusting a letter 
 into his hand. 
 
 "Dear Walter," so ran the epistle, "your clergyman deserved 
 all you said of him, and more. He is a ' begging parson,' and 
 a * cursed nuisance.' Nevertheless he has served my turn. I 
 start for Devonshire to-morrow. Why did you cause me and 
 yourself so much trouble ? 
 
 " Yours, Miles." 
 
 "How much did he give you?" asked Mr. Irwin; and Mr. 
 Wright, smarting under the maddening influence of finding his 
 dear friend had called him a begging parson, answered : 
 " One hundred pounds." 
 
 " I would have given you five hundred to keep her secret." 
 " Why, who is the man ? " inquired the Rev. 13ion curiously 
 " Her father, and the greatest scoundrel in England." 
 "Ah!" said Mr. Wright, "you should have been more ex- 
 plicit, and more liberal. But all that cannot be helped now ! " 
 which was the Rector's lament over Bella — and the lost five 
 hundred. 
 
 "And yet he might never have paid it," he considered. 
 "Really, when one comes to think over the matter calmly, 
 there was not much generosity about Irwin. A mean fellow, 
 like all self-made men. He was self made." 
 
 " I shall acquaint Colonel Leschelles with the details of this 
 most disgraceful transaction," observed Mr. Irwin at the end of 
 his interview. 
 
 " Perhaps you will make Sir Harry Medbum acquainted with 
 it also," said the Rev. Dion sarcastically. " No doubt it will 
 
332 Above Suspicion. 
 
 afford him the keenest pleasure to meet, in the person of his 
 wife's father, the greatest scoundrel in England.' " 
 
 Then Mr. Irwin understood he had in his haste and rage 
 put a weapon into the hand of the Rev, Dionysius which that 
 popular divine would not hesitate about using, should necessity 
 arise for doing so. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVIII. 
 
 LADY MEDBURN SPEAKS PLAINLY. 
 
 Time went on. Considering time has been doing the same 
 thing for six thousand years> or thereabouts, it is singular that 
 people should be so much surprised to find it still does go on, 
 making the young old, and the old older — bringing happiness, 
 making happmess away — making all sorts of chimes and changes 
 as it hurries along. 
 
 But the experience is new to each of us. Life is a fresh toy 
 to each child born into it. Life is as a wonderful experience to 
 each man and woman in existence. The life he or she enjoys 
 or endures may not be much to speak of, amongst the millions; 
 but still it is all that the individual unit has to make or to mar. 
 
 A five-pound note might not seem much to the possessor of 
 three hundred thousand a year, but it appears a fortune to the 
 struggling widow who loses what stands between her and beg- 
 gary; and so it is with the little dot existence gives to some 
 
Lady Medbiirn Speaks Plainly. 333 
 
 amongst us — when it is gone, everything is gone. In your eyes 
 it seems but Httle; but, oh, friends, hpw much its loss may mean 
 to me! 
 
 Vaguely Lady Medburn grasped this truth. Lives were being 
 lived all around her for good or for ill; but the only life she 
 really thought of was her own, so far as it affected herself, her 
 husband, and her again expected child. People were suffering, 
 people were enjoymg, people were sinning, people were striving 
 to do good; but she could not look over the fields where they 
 were sowing and reaping, scattering the seed, garnering the 
 harvest, because her own trouble was too near and too keen to 
 let her eyes behold the troubles and joys of others. 
 
 If her husband had grown cold or neglectful, she might have 
 borne the misery of her own deceit better; but, as matters stood, 
 she never rested night nor day for thinking of that awful secret 
 he should have known, which sooner or later, she was quite 
 aware, she would be compelled to divulge. For she could not 
 allow things to go on drifting— she could not peril the hopes 
 and happiness of one after another, because her lips were stew 
 to utter that which she believed would break Sir Harry's heart. 
 
 The county ladies thought that the " little upstart," as they 
 called her, gave herself airs, because she shrank from society. 
 The county gentlemen thought she must have had a previous 
 lover, and thrown him over for the Baronet and the estate; 
 while Sir Harry himself felt he could not understand her. 
 
 " It cannot be any sin of her own she is fretting about," he 
 considered; "and yet what is wrong I am unable to imagine. 
 I think she is fond of me, and God knows I try to make her 
 happy; but she is uneasy when I am with her. She does not 
 rejoice at the prospect of becoming a mother. She is wretched 
 when that queer relation of hers, Sanson, is in the room with 
 her; and yet the fellow tries to make himself agreeable, and 
 there is no reason why she should feel ashamed of him. I 
 wonder what that old story was she wanted to tell me before 
 we were married ? It had nothing to do with my darling— of 
 that I am confident. For ever she shall stand * Above Sus- 
 picion ' with me." 
 
 ^ As for Colonel Leschelles, who, coming from his new estates 
 m Wales to visit his old friends, looked often dubiously from 
 Mr. Sanson to Lady Medburn, he was more perplexed even 
 than Sir Harry. ^ 
 
334 Above Siispicio7t, 
 
 He had guessed the truth; but he could not understand 
 Bella — could not comprehend how any woman should sit by 
 and see the game played which was being played without utter- 
 ing a word to prevent it. 
 
 At last he spoke. 
 
 "You notice what is going on, I suppose?" he said, one day 
 as he and his hostess walked through the gardens together. 
 
 " I notice — yes." 
 
 " And shall you allow it to go on ?" 
 
 " No ; but there is no necessity for hurry : she does not care 
 for him. How, indeed, could she? If she could, I must have 
 stopped it all long, long ago." 
 
 *'Why do you not stop it now?" 
 
 She put her hand to her head while she answered : 
 
 ''Because whenever I even think of speaking, such a pain 
 here distracts me. At Fisherton Mr. Wright used to say how 
 strong I was ; but I am not strong now. It has all been too 
 much." 
 
 " It has," he sadly agreed. " Shall I say what is necessary 
 for you? Shall I take it all off your hands? You may be 
 quite sure nothing can change your husband's heart towards 
 you ; but something ought to be done at once, my dear. Every 
 hour you delay will make each minute of the future harder 
 to bear." 
 
 " I know it," she replied. " But if he will go away quietly, 
 who but you, and me, and uncle need ever be the wiser?" 
 
 " No one, perhaps ; no one, I hope. But will he go?" 
 
 " I think so. I have something to say which may make him 
 go. If that fail, I know what I intend to do." 
 But why not do something at once?" 
 I cannot," she answered; "not while I have this stupid 
 pain ; not while I have Sir Harry here, or you. But I promise 
 to speak soon ; I will — I will, indeed." 
 
 " Poor child!" said the Colonel pityingly ; then went on : " I 
 wish you would let me settle this matter for you ; but perhaps 
 it is better for it to rest between himself and yourself. Of 
 course you have your husband to depend on in case of need ; 
 but if ever he should be ill or away, when you are in trouble, 
 remember I will come at any moment — any moment," he added, 
 with a lingering tenderness which sounded like the faintest echo 
 of hopeful music, which once had been, but which was dead. 
 
 (( 
 << 
 
Lady Medburn Speaks Plainly, 335 
 
 " I shall always remember," she answered, taking his hand 
 and humbly kissing it. " You have been so good to me always 
 — always so good." 
 
 ^ Time went on, however. Colonel Leschelles left Cortingford. 
 Sir Harry was here and there on business connected with a 
 lawsuit then pending. Miss Selham was my lady's guest, as 
 she had been for three months following Miss Kelvey's death 
 and Sir Alexander's consequent absence on the Continent. 
 Then suddenly he returned, claiming hospitahty from his nephew 
 in his nephew's absence. 
 
 As may be imagined, Lady Medburn, the most ill-starred 
 lady who ever queened it at Cortingford, had now no gracious, 
 winning ways, but she was possessed of a presence. 
 
 " I am so glad to see you, Sir Alexander," said the miserable 
 wretch, copying the accepted formula. " It is most kind of you 
 to come and see us." 
 
 " It is most kind of you to welcome an old man," answered 
 Sir Alexander. 
 
 "Does that relative of Lady Medburn's live here?" he took 
 occasion to ask Miss Selham the morning after his arrival. 
 
 "He is here almost constantly," was the reply. "He is 
 looking out for a suitable property." 
 
 "Rich, I suppose, in that case?" hazarded the ex- Judge. 
 
 "Very rich, I beheve." 
 
 " Humph !" said Sir Alexander. 
 
 Somehow he and Mr. Sanson could not stable their horses 
 together; indeed, so indifferently did thev agree, that Lady 
 Medburn's relative betook himself to London, and would pro- 
 bably have remained there, but that once again a woman was 
 influencing his life. 
 
 From the moment he first beheld her, he believed Edith 
 Selham to be the most beautiful girl he had ever met ; further, 
 she belonged to an order with which he had previously had 
 nothing whatever to do. He was for the time being like one 
 intoxicated, with her and the atmosphere in which she lived. 
 The luxury surrounding her, the flowers, the scents, the silent- 
 footed servants, what these things proved to a man who, always 
 yearning after wealth, and the things wealth can command, had 
 yet been forced to pass through years of toil— years of shame — 
 years of frightful companionship, may hardly be imagined. 
 
 He was no longer young, and he was ten times older in 
 
33^ Above Suspicion. 
 
 feeling even than in age; and yet it is true that for the first 
 time in his life he was in love — if, indeed, the passion he con- 
 ceived for Miss Selham could be dignified by that name. For 
 it was a love which cared for nothing, thought of nothing, but 
 its^wn gratification — which, finding him a bad man, made him 
 worse — which rendered him quite mdifferent to consequences, 
 providing only he could secure the prize. 
 
 And Lady Medbum remained silently watching, while the 
 terrible pain grew worse and worse, and its agony seemed to 
 numb her conscience as well as her tongue. 
 
 Relieved, however, by his absence, she experienced some 
 slight ease. She talked more willingly; she did not sit so 
 utterly mute ; sometimes a faint smile appeared on her lips ; 
 and then he came back, and the shadow fell over her once 
 again — a shadow which seemed to her like the precursor ot 
 death. 
 
 A purpose delayed is often a purpose frustrated ; and so time 
 passed on, and she had not yet spoken — seemed farther off 
 speaking, indeed, than ever, when, one evening at dinner, there 
 occured this conversation : 
 
 " I have bad news about M'Callum, Edith," said Sir Alexander 
 Kelvey. 
 
 " Poor M'Callum ! is he very ill?" 
 
 " He is ill no longer," answered Sir Alexander. " He is 
 dead ; and that reminds me of a letter I had from him when 
 abroad. In it he stated that he had seen Barthorne walking 
 down Highgate Hill, looking quite like a gentleman. He said 
 he was so prosperous in his appearance, and so changed in some 
 respects, he felt doubtful about his identity till he spoke ; and 
 then, though he denied being Barthorne, his voice betrayed him 
 in a minute." 
 
 "Did you ever see the man, uncle?" asked Miss Selham. 
 
 " I may have done so, but I retain no recollection of him. 
 M 'Galium, however, knew him intimately. Nevertheless, 
 though it is not impossible he may have have met Barthorne, 
 whose term of transportation must long since have expired, I 
 think the matter is open to doubt. M 'Galium was a perfect 
 monomaniac on the subject of his brother's murder. Poor 
 fellow! where he is gone now he will know whether his sus- 
 picions were correct." 
 
 All this time Lady Medbum had sat looking at her father j 
 
Lady Medburn Speaks Plainly, 337 
 
 all this time he had sat staring defiantly at her. Then, in an 
 instant, the pain she suffered seemed to cease, and her head 
 grew clear and her mind collected. 
 
 For weeks previously she had been eating little, so that her 
 lack of appetite attracted no attention. Only one thing Miss 
 Selham noticed at the time, and recalled afterwards, viz., that 
 she swallowed a glass of wine, which, as a rule, she disliked ; 
 also that she made the signal for leaving table almost imme- 
 diately dessert was placed. 
 
 Without entering the drawing-room, Lady Medburn passed 
 straight on to the library, saying she had some letters to write. 
 
 " But the post has gone out ! " exclaimed Miss Selham. 
 
 " No matter ; I will write them to-night," was the answer. 
 
 An hour later, when she appeared in the drawing-room, there 
 was a red spot burning on each cheek, and a glitter in her eyes 
 no one had ever seen in them before. 
 
 Mr. Sanson, his chair drawn near to Miss Selham, was giving 
 her a description of life in the bush and at the Gold Fields ; and 
 so engrossed was he in his subject that he started when Lady 
 Medburn, coming behind him, said : 
 
 " I wish to speak to you for a few minutes. Will you come 
 into the library ? " 
 
 " Certainly," he answered, rising, and following Lady Med- 
 burn as she led the way. 
 
 " What is the meaning of this ? " he said, watching her lock 
 the library door. " If you had anything to say to me, why could 
 you not have deferred saying it till to-morrow ? " 
 
 *' Because to-morrow I may not be able to say it ; because all 
 this shall not go on twenty-four hours longer; because you either 
 leave here first thing in the morning, or I shall tell Sir Harry 
 who you are." 
 
 " And, consequently, who you are," he remarked, 
 
 " And, consequently, who I am," she agreed. " Do not 
 deceive yourself. I have ccjuied the cost. I know what tell- 
 ing the truth will prove to me, and to him ; but I mean to tell 
 it, nevertheless." 
 
 "No, you will not," he said. "You are frightened now 
 because of that drivelling old Judge's talk about M'Callum. The 
 fellow was right, too. I did go to Highgate, and he did speak 
 to me ; but he is dead, and there is an end of the matter. No 
 fear of any one else recognizing me." 
 
 22 
 
338 Above Stispicion, 
 
 " It is not lii^e," she explained. " If you had stayed here 
 only for a short time, and been quiet and discreet, as you pro- 
 mised to be, I should never have spoken ; but you have not 
 kept your promise. How dare you, knowing what you are, think 
 of trying to marry Miss Selham ? " 
 
 " Dare ! " he repeated. " That is rather an ugly word to be 
 used by a daughter to her father. But if it comes to such plain 
 speaking, how dare you, knowing what you are, marry a man 
 who, when he knows the deception you have practised, will 
 never forgive you ? " 
 
 " I do not expect him to forgive me," she said. " I tell you 
 I have counted the cost, and 1 shall speak the truth now, unless 
 you leave here early to-morrow." 
 
 " That I will not do," he answered. *' You seem to forget 
 that I want to have some innings out of life as well as you, and 
 that if I marry this girl, as I intend to do — for she has no money 
 of her own, and will look kindly on mine in time, more espe- 
 cially as the only man she loves is married to you — it will insure 
 to me position and respectability." 
 
 " But even supposing the past could be blotted out — that with 
 your money you could begin a new life — supposing there were 
 nothing about you which she ought to know, and which she 
 shall know — you could not marry her while my mother lives." 
 
 " She may not be alive. Australia is a long way off. She 
 may be married again, for aught I know or care. Perhaps also 
 you are not aware that the fact of my — well, of my absence from 
 the country, annuls the marriage." 
 
 ** I do not believe it ; but even if it were so — even if ray 
 mother were dead — you should not marry Miss Selham." 
 " Who says so ? " he inquired. 
 " I do," she returned. 
 
 For a moment the pair looked at each other, and there came 
 a wonderful resemblance into the two faces as they stood darkly 
 defying — she him, he her. Then suddenly he dropped his eyes, 
 and began : 
 
 " Mabel, what folly this is ! Why should we not make our 
 interests identical ? Why should it profit you to cross my path, 
 to ruin yourself, for the sake of ruining me? Can you undo 
 what has been done — can you unmarry yourself? can you alter 
 the fact that your child will call Sir Harry Medburn father? 
 Don't be rash — don't, by one foolish word, curse your own life 
 
Lady Medburn Speaks Plainly, 339 
 
 and that of your husband! 'Where ignorance is bliss' — you 
 know j and if ever there was a case in point, it is yours. What 
 you have to do is to hold your tongue. If I talked for a year I 
 could give you no better advice." 
 
 " Will you go away, then ? " she said. 
 
 *' Not to remain away," he answered. 
 
 The red in her cheeks deepened in colour — the glitter in her 
 eyes grew brighter — the dark determination of her expression 
 became more intense as she repeated : 
 
 " Will you go away ? For the last time, I ask whether you 
 will leave me in such peace as I can ever know, or compel m.e 
 to tell Sir Harry he has under his roof the murderer of David 
 M'Callum ? " 
 
 With a curse, he lifted his clenched hand to strike her, but, 
 checked by something he beheld in her face — some reflection, 
 perhaps, of his own nature — refrained. 
 
 " Tell what you like," he said. " Only remember there is 
 nothing you can tell that will be worse for me than for you." 
 
 Then, striding to the door, he unlocked it, and quitting the 
 library, left her there alone. 
 
 Contrary to his expectations, she came into the drawing-room 
 before they all separated for the night. 
 
 "Do you leave in the morning?" w^ere the last words she 
 addressed to him. 
 
 Looking at her quite steadily, he said : 
 
 " No — I do not ! " ' While Sir Alexander Kelvey, looking at 
 both, said nothing, but thought a great deal. 
 
340 Above Suspicion. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIX. 
 
 NEAR THE END. 
 
 Lady Medburn did not go to her o\vn apartments when her 
 guests had left her, but, ringing the bell, desired that Sir Harry's 
 valet should be sent to the drawing-room. 
 
 " Can you catch the mail train to London, Ellis ? " 
 
 " If I start at once, my lady." 
 
 " Do so, then," she said. '• I want you to give this letter into 
 Sir Harry's own hands. Do not allow any one else to see or 
 touch it on any pretence whatever. And, Ellis," she added, as 
 he was leaving the room, " tell your master I am quite well — do 
 not forget." 
 
 The man assured his mistress the message should be de- 
 livered. He thought it a very curious message to accompa iy 
 a letter, but he was a discreet and silent individual, and rarely, 
 by word or look, gave an indication of what was passing in his 
 mind. 
 
 For a minute after Ellis left the room Lady Medburn stood 
 motionless, her eyes fixed on the ground. When she lifted 
 them, it was only to look round the apartment with a weary, 
 hopeless glance. 
 
 " The die is cast ! " she said, unconsciously speaking aloud, 
 and then slowly, but without once faltering, she walked out of 
 the room she was not again to enter. 
 
 Next morning there was such consternation at Cortingford 
 as had never agitated it before. 
 
 My Lady was nowhere to be found. My Lady had not been 
 to bed. My Lady was gone without bag or baggage. No one 
 had seen her leave. She must have made her way out of the 
 park by a little-frequented path which led away to the uplands 
 behind the house; for no gate had been unlocked except to 
 give egress to Ellis, hurrying off to catch the night express. 
 
 Sir Alexander Kelvey telegraphed to London, begging his 
 nephew to return by the first train, but already Sir Harry was 
 speeding westward. 
 
Near the End, 341 
 
 The old Judge was standing on the platform as the train 
 drew in, and looked amazed to see his nephew alight. 
 
 "I did not think you* could have got my message so soon," 
 he remarked. 
 
 " I have had no message from you," was the answer. 
 
 And then Sir Alexander broke the news. 
 
 " I know why she has gone," was the answer. *' No doubt 
 she is in London with her uncle. I will follow her there — but 
 I have something to do first at Cortingford." 
 
 They drove home in utter silence. Sir Harry never opened 
 his lips, and there was a white despair in his face which told 
 his uncle that he was battling with some sudden anguish that 
 had, for the moment, almost mastered him. 
 
 "Can you tell me what it is?" the old man had said, as 
 they walked out of the station ; and Sir Harry had answered, 
 " Not yet." 
 
 Arrived at Cortingford, the Baronet, after telling a servant to 
 request Mr. Sanson's presence in the librar>^, walked straight 
 into that room. 
 
 " Shall I leave you, Harry ? " asked his uncle, hesitating at 
 the door. 
 
 " If you please," was the answer. 
 
 Not when he stood in the dock had Miles Barthome looked 
 more dark and defiant than was the case when he and the young 
 Baronet faced each other. 
 
 " I had a letter this morning from my wife," began Sir Harry 
 in a low voice, hoarse with restrained passion. "You can 
 imagine what it contained. I have only one thing to say in re- 
 ference to that letter now — leave my house — leave it at once ! " 
 
 " Before I go " the other was beginning, when Sir Harry 
 
 interrupted him. 
 
 "Will you go?" he asked, furiously, "or must I order the 
 servants to put you out? Is it not enough that you have driven 
 my wife to tell me a secret I had better never have known — 
 but you must strive to bandy words with a man who holds your 
 very life in his hands ? " 
 
 "The man who says so must be very tired of his own," 
 retorted Barthorne, scarcely able to speak, because his lips were 
 dry and cracked, and impotent rage was choking him. 
 
 " Will you go ? " said Sir Harry, striking the table with a 
 vehemence which caused every article on it to jumQ as if 
 
342 Above Suspicion, 
 
 endued with vitality. " I am not master of myself — I cannot 
 answer for what I may do if you staad there another instant. 
 Go ! " and, flinging the door wide open, Sir Hairy pointed the 
 way out. 
 
 So Barthome went, and Sir Harry, his passion spent, sat 
 down in the sorrowful silence, and wept like a child. Wept for 
 the tarnished honour of his house, for his own broken heart, 
 and the downfall of every hope a man can centre in his children 
 yet unborn; but more — ay, far more — for the misery his wife 
 had suffered, the misery he believed she would endure for ever- 
 more. 
 
 "Above Suspicion," he had said, he would ever hold her; 
 but no loyalty, no faith, no future, no love could alter the fact 
 that she he had taken to his heart was the child of a convicted 
 thief, of an unconvicted murderer. 
 
 " Harry," said his uncle, entering the room softly, and laying 
 his hand on the young man's shoulder, " can you tell me now 
 what it is ? " 
 
 " Not yet — never, perhaps. I must think it all over first. So 
 far, I have not thought ; I have only felt. Will you come back 
 with me to London ? I must go there by the first train." 
 
 But even while Sir Alexander was consulting the time-table. 
 Miss Selham came to them, holding a telegraphic message in 
 her hand. The word telegram was unknown in those days. 
 
 " From Colonel Leschelles," she said, and read : 
 
 " Lady Medburn is here, and very ill. Let Sir Harry know. 
 Tell him to come at once." 
 
 Small need to tell him to hurry. Before his cousin had 
 finished the message, he had seized his hat, and was half-way 
 across the hall. 
 
 Miss Selham looked at Sir Alexander, who, answering her 
 thoughts, said : 
 
 " We can follow him." 
 
 Instantly Ellis was ordered to pack a few things for his 
 master and his master's uncle, whilst in like manner Lady Med- 
 burn's maid was hurried off to put up some necessary clothing 
 for her mistress and Miss Selham, 
 
 " Lady Medburn has gone to Colonel Leschelles'," explained 
 Miss Selham thankfully; for she did not know what the 
 servants might have been thinking and saying. " Sir Harry 
 knows all about it." 
 
Near the End. 343 
 
 "My lady seemed to me last night as if she was going to 
 have a fever," said the maid, as she passed and repassed from 
 the trunk to the wardrobe. '" When she spoke she appeared 
 scarcely to know wliat she was saying. And when I was brush- 
 ing her hair I could see in the glass that her cheeks were like 
 two twin damask roses, while it is unusual for her to have 
 much colour." 
 
 "She is very ill," remarked Miss Selham, still mindful of 
 appearances, and anxious to encourage the impression which 
 had evidently gained ground. 
 
 " Could not I go with you, miss ? " ventured the woman. 
 
 " If she is not able to return with us, I will send for you," 
 was the reply ; but when they reached Colonel Leschelles' Miss 
 Selham found that a very different attendant would be required. 
 
 " What fever is it? " asked Sir Henry of the doctors, when he 
 saw his wife's convulsive struggles, and heard her cries. 
 
 They glanced at each other, and then the elder of the two 
 answered : 
 
 " It is not fever at all — it is insanity." 
 
 For a moment the room seemed whirling round with Sir 
 Harry. The faces of the doctors grew dim and indistinct, and 
 their voices sounded as if heard from some immense distance. 
 
 All at once it appeared to Sir Harry that he was able to grasp 
 what his wife must have endured, the agony she had suffered. 
 
 " My darling ! — my poor darling ! And you bore it all alone ! " 
 That was the one thought that took possession of Lira. In that 
 supreme moment, pride, the love of self, the memory of the 
 wrong done him, died out, leaving only pity in their place. 
 His heart was so full of it that no space remained for a second 
 feeling. 
 
 What she had suffered ! not even Bella herself could ever have 
 told that, for she herself scarcely knew. The sleepless nights, 
 the wretched days, the constant suppression, the agony, the 
 fear, the pain, the shame, had all culminated in this ! 
 
 " But there is hope," he murmured, when at last, the room 
 ceasing to reel round, and the doctors' faces becoming once 
 more distinct, he could speak like a rational being; " she will 
 be better soon." 
 
 They looked at each other again. Then the younger, taking 
 up his parable, said : 
 
 "We should like, ere pronouncing a positive opinion, to 
 
344 Above Suspicion, 
 
 know how this attack commenced. Was it after a sudden 
 shock of any kind, or had the patient been for any time in a low 
 and despondent condition?" 
 
 " Both. She had been enduring a mental trouble for a long 
 time, and at last she experienced a great shock," explained Sir 
 Harry eagerly. 
 
 "Just so," said both doctors simultaneously, but there was 
 no gladness in their voices. 
 
 " Is there madness in the family? " they asked, after a pause. 
 
 " I never heard of there being," answered the Baronet, think- 
 ing how very incompetent he was to speak as to the tendencies 
 of his wife's ancestors. 
 
 " I think," said the senior physician, " that we had better be 
 quite frank with you. There is a hope, and only one, for Lady 
 Medburn. If after her child is born she recover her reason, 
 she may live and do well; if not " 
 
 " And if not ? " questioned Sir Harry, clutching the back of a 
 chair as he spoke. 
 
 "Why should we anticipate evil, and diagnose the worst?" 
 here interrupted the younger doctor cheerfully. " Please God, 
 Lady Medburn may yet be as sane as any of us — and live to be 
 the mother of many children." 
 
 At which utterance Sir Harr}^ crept away sick at heart. The 
 wife was one thing, the children another. Thoroughly he under- 
 stood why Bella had never seemed to desire daughter or son. 
 
 " My poor dear!" he said sorrowfully; "my most unhappy 
 wife!" 
 
 He could not always remain in Wales. It was necessary for 
 him now and then to make hurried journeys to Devonshire and 
 to London, and during these absences Mr. Irwin visited his 
 niece, and son.etimes Barthorne his daughter ! 
 
 Of the blacker mark against Barthorne Colonel Leschelles 
 was totally ignorant, and, considering Lady Medburn's con- 
 dition, he scarcely felt justified in denying the man admittance. 
 
 " My whole future," explained Bella's father, " depends on 
 her recovery." And how was the Colonel to know that he 
 came to Wales solely in the hope of seeing Miss Selham, and 
 being able to entreat Bella to plead for her father? 
 
 All he wanted was leave to stay in England. That Sir 
 Harry would pursue him to the death he never for one mo- 
 ment imagined. 
 
Near the End, 345 
 
 And so he came and went — sometimes seeing Miss Selham, 
 who was eviiiently quite ignorant of the story, and sometimes 
 seeing no one, not even the Colonel, who had suddenly grown 
 an aged man. 
 
 All at once, however, his visits ceased. Colonel Leschelles 
 told him he must not come while Bella's life and reason hung 
 in the balance \ and while he stayed away a child was born — 
 the heir so long expected — alive, and instantly handed over to 
 the care of a healthy Welsh matron. 
 
 But Lady Medburn's state did not improve. The mania was 
 exhausted, it is true : and then the doctors said they understood 
 her case thoroughly. She lapsed into childishness. For a fort- 
 night they entertained some hope ; at the end of that fortnight 
 they were not chary of saying Lady jMedburn would for the re- 
 mainder of her life be imbecile. 
 
 The imbecility proved a harder trial than the mania. When 
 she could get about she was found to be quite quiet and harm- 
 less ; but amongst Colonel Leschelles' curiosities she found a 
 foreign doll, which she kissed and fondled as she might a real 
 baby. 
 
 Beyond the animal instinct which told her she had been a 
 mother, no one could trace the smallest knowledge of human 
 interests. 
 
 The doctors said, " Try to rouse her \ " and her friends did 
 try, all in vain. 
 
 To each and all she presented the doll, saying, " Is not my 
 baby pretty ? " and then she would push the short hair off her 
 forehead, and remark that she had been ill lately, and she hoped 
 her visitor would excuse her want of memory. 
 
 When she was in this state, down came Mr. Wright to see 
 her. 
 
 At Cortingford he had been informed she was staying at 
 Colonel Leschelles', and so, with a view of preferring a request, 
 came westward. 
 
 " My dear Lady Medburn, I am indeed rejoiced to see you 
 once more," he was beginning, when ushered into her room, but 
 there she stopped him. 
 
 " You have come to see my baby ; is not it a darling ? " and 
 she turned the glazed face of Colonel Leschelles' foreign doll 
 towards the intruder, who fled, appalled. 
 
 " Selina," he said, on his return to London, " you never saw 
 
34^ Above Suspicion, 
 
 anything so awful. I could never have believed a doll could 
 attain dimensions at once so awful and so pathetic." 
 
 " As people sow, they must reap," said Mrs. Wright, senten- 
 tiously. " As Bella sowed in our house, she is reaping now. I 
 suppose she will never recover her reason?" 
 
 " The doctors say never," agreed the Rev. Dion, ruefully. 
 
 But for once the doctors' dictum was wrong ; Lady Medburn 
 did recover her reason. 
 
 She had been failing in health for some time, becoming rest- 
 less, and evidencing a certain irritability and fretfulness, which 
 caused those around her much anxiety, and made them inwardly 
 marvel whether it might not become absolutely necessary to place 
 her under careful and gentle supervision for the remainder of 
 her life, when all at once she fell into a deep sleep, from which 
 she awoke very weak indeed, it is true, but with all fever and 
 mania gone, quite sane, reasonable, and collected. 
 
 " Where am I ? " were the first words she uttered ; and Edith 
 Selham rose, startled at hearing the sound of her natural voice 
 again, 
 
 •'At Colonel Leschelles', love." 
 
 " At — Colonel — Leschelles' ? " she repeated slowly. 
 
 "Yes ; you came here the night you were taken ill." 
 
 " Have 1 been ill long ? " 
 
 " A long time." 
 
 *'And my husband?" 
 
 ** Has been with you almost constantly. But now you must 
 ask no more questions. Dear, dear Mabel ! how thankful I am 
 to hear you speak rationally once again ! " 
 
 Just at the first the invalid spoke more than the doctors con- 
 sidered good for her, but shortly she lapsed into silence, and 
 remained so quiet that Miss Selham understood she was trying 
 to recall for herself the events which preceded her journey. 
 
 The only impatience she manifested was on the subject of Sir 
 Harry's return. 
 
 " I wish he would come — I do wish he would come — I do so 
 wish he would come ! " she repeated, weakly and plaintively. 
 
 " My darling, your wish cannot be greater than his," answered 
 Miss Selham ; and then she would go to the window and look 
 out over the hill-path she knew her cousin would be sure to take, 
 because it was so much shorter than the road. 
 
 " Come here, Edith," said Bella, at length ; " I know he will 
 
Near the End. 347 
 
 not delay, and I will try to be patient. Sit down, I want to look 
 at you." 
 
 Many a time in the after years Edith recalled that hour — re- 
 called the sad expression of the wistful eyes that gazed upon her, 
 as if trying to photograph each feature in her face. 
 
 " Smile, Edith." 
 
 She tried to comply, but the smile refused to come ; instead, 
 she broke down and burst into tears. 
 
 " Forgive me, Mabel," she said ; " I am sorry to have been 
 so fooHsh." 
 
 But Bella did not answer ; she only put out her hand feebly, 
 and turned her head a little from the light. 
 
 The hours went by, and still Lady Medburn lay so still that 
 Miss Selham, thinking she must again have fallen asleep, crept 
 softly from the room. 
 
 But Bella was not asleep. Her eyes were closed, it is true, 
 but her mind was busy travelling back along the road so merci- 
 fully forgotten for a time, but again so well remembered. 
 
 Slowly and weakly she retraced it all, step by step, from the 
 hour when in darkness and silence she left her husband's house, 
 on the day of the Confirmation at Fisherton. 
 
 Once again she saw the young girls in their pretty dresses. 
 She saw the chestnut-trees glorious with bloom \ the scent of the 
 hawthorn seemed floating around her. She saw the. sunshine 
 lying over the churchyard and tenderly resting on the lowly 
 graves; the chatter and song of birds were in her ears; the 
 figure of the Reverend Dionysius rose again before her. She 
 could see the picturesque cottages, and the old women and 
 children watching the sight. And then he came into the fore- 
 ground of that peaceful, happy scene — he whose life she had 
 marred — who had loved her — whom she had loved too much 
 for the happiness of either. 
 
 It was not until the next day that Sir Harry arrived. He 
 had started the moment the message reached him, but, being 
 absent from Cortingford, he did not receive it until his return 
 thither. 
 
 He found his wife very weak, very quiet, but with a look of 
 rest on her face he had never seen since their marriage. 
 
 " Harry ! " she said. 
 
 " My darling ! " he answered ; and then there ensued a dead 
 silence, whilst, hand clasped in hand, they gazed at each other. 
 
34^ Above Suspicion^ 
 
 It was she at length who spoke. 
 
 ** You forgive me, Harry ? " 
 
 " Forgive you, dear ! I have nothing to forgive," he said 
 simply. " I love you." 
 
 " As much as you ever did ? " 
 
 " More." 
 
 She gave a little sobbing sigh, and her poor thin fingers 
 closed tighter on his. 
 
 " My poor Bella ! " It seemed natural to him then to call 
 her by the name first known, first loved. "My poor Bella, 
 what you must have suffered ! " 
 
 "Yes; but it is over now." 
 
 " Why did you not tell me sooner ? " he asked. 
 
 " I wonder I ever told you at last," she said feebly. 
 
 "You must not talk any more now, dear," he declared. 
 "The doctors particularly wish you not to exert yourself." 
 
 " Never mind the doctors. I know as well as they what I 
 am able to do, what I must leave undone. I have very little 
 to say. Still I should like to say it." 
 
 " So long as you do not exhaust yourself," he answered. 
 
 She lay with her eyes closed for a minute, then, partly un- 
 closing them, murmured : 
 
 " The child " 
 
 " Is dead, poor baby ! He died a fortnight ago." 
 
 " Thank God ! " she whispered, after a pause adding, " I 
 hoped it was so when Edith never mentioned him." 
 
 Sir Harry did not answer, he only drooped his head. Her 
 words brought back to mind all the shame and the sorrow, 
 forgotten in the ecstacy of her recovered reason. 
 
 How in the future should it fare with husband and wife, 
 when the mother thanked God for the death of her child ! 
 
 Once again the weak voice began to speak. 
 
 " Have you told any one ? " it inquired. 
 
 " No one ; it all rests between you and me and Irwin." 
 
 " I wish them to know," she said. " Tell Edith and Colonel 
 Leschelles and your uncle. They will advise what you ought 
 to do. They will help you to bear it." 
 
 " Do you really mean this ? " he asked in amazement. 
 
 " Really. Have no secrets from such true friends. I want 
 Edith to know all now. I want her to understand to>night.'' 
 
 " She shall, dear— she shall." 
 
Near the End, 349 
 
 ** She will see then why I was so different from every one 
 else. She will know what life has been to me." 
 
 *'She will love you the better for what you have endured." 
 
 "I think so — I believe so. And, Harry, I should like to 
 see my father. Don't be angry. You will know why I want 
 to see him later on. I will get him to go away — far, far away 
 — where he will trouble you no more. Send for him soon, will 
 you ? Ask him to come at once." 
 
 " As you like, dearest — as you like, even in that." 
 
 " I am getting very tired now," she went on. " I think I 
 could sleep. Kiss me once again, Harry. I am so happy; 
 I have never felt so happy before in all my life." 
 
 Lingeringly he smoothed her pillow, drew the coverlet closer 
 around her, and left the room. 
 
 First, he dispatched the promised message to Miles Bar- 
 thorne ; and then, while his powers were strung up to tell the 
 story of Bella's father, he repeated it to Miss Selham and 
 Colonel Leschelles. 
 
 And while he talked night dropped down over the Welsh 
 mountains, and closed into the room where Lady Medbum lay 
 so peaceful and so happy. And in London, under the gaslight, 
 Miles Barthorne was studying " Bradshaw," and found it would 
 be quite possible for him to reach Colonel Leschelles' house 
 early the next morning. 
 
 *' Recovered her reason — wants to see me at once," he said 
 to himself, repeating the sense of the telegraphic despatch. 
 
 " Wants, I suppose, to get rid of me for ever, is about the 
 English of it. What a fool I have been ! Always a woman — 
 always — always a woman. Well, a woman shall work no more 
 evil for me. So now for Wales and my daughter Lady 
 Medburn 1 " 
 
3 so Above Suspicion, 
 
 CHAPTER XL. 
 
 WHAT BARTHORNE SAW, 
 
 There is no such glory of sunrising as that over the sea and 
 upon the hills; but to the opal tints of morning Miles Barthorne, 
 striding along the path leading to Colonel Leschelles' house, 
 was as indifferent as to most other wonders of nature. 
 
 Taking it round as a rule, a man must have a fixed income 
 and a contented mind to enable him really to enjoy any one of 
 the marvels our great Mother daily unfolds. 
 
 Artists fancy they alone can thoroughly appreciate sweet 
 sights. Artists, I conceive, are really the last people on earth 
 who enjoy anything natural. They cannot revel in the dews of 
 early morning ; in the sunlit fields of noon ; in the gold and 
 purple of evening, and the silvery bars of moonlight, without 
 thinking how each would bear reproduction on canvas ; and 
 the man who has once, as regards the loveliness of nature, an 
 arriere-pensee, can never look upon her face with the same 
 appreciative fondness as that which sometimes touches even 
 the dull apprehension of a hind. 
 
 And the same remark applies, though with possibly a diffe- 
 rence, to the human being who has made for him or herself gods 
 of things temporal — such as money, ambition, fame : ay, even 
 fame, dear young friend. Follow the leading of that vanity, 
 which is usually considered a safe enough guide, and see where 
 it shall land you. 
 
 Or rather do not follow it. Keep, instead, to the old familiar 
 life and the sweet home gods ; and though the world ring v/ith 
 your plaudits, hardly cross your door-step to respond to the 
 cheers of those who would just as soon, or sooner, hiss you 
 to-morrow. 
 
 So when the end comes, the inevitable end, Nature will step 
 in and help you to cross the last threshold over which your feet 
 may ever pass on earth. To the very confines of eternity she 
 has great consolation for the children who have understood her 
 on earth. 
 
 Since to a certain extent such children must have been true- 
 
What Barthorne Saw, 351 
 
 hearted, which Miles Barthorne never was ; and yet — and yet 
 — as he crossed the hills, his heart recalled what he fain would 
 have forgotten. 
 
 There are times in a man's life when, whether he be willing 
 or not, memory insists on his reviewing the road he has travelled; 
 and one of these times came to Barthorne as he strode across 
 the grass still glittering with dew, and looked with his bodily 
 eyes on the gay patterns wrought by gorse and heather, on the 
 cloudless sky, up which the sun was climbing, on the sea lying 
 below, calm and quiet as some inland lake. 
 
 With all his soul he hated morning. The recollections he 
 held of it were none so pleasant as to cause him to give it a 
 cheerful greeting. 
 
 Mornings when he was running wild about Abbotsleigh. Ay ! 
 they were mornings worth having, if you like. Early mornings 
 spent by the river's brink, watching the speckled trout darting 
 hither and thither through the clear stream, and then hiding in 
 dark places sheltered by the alder-trees; or with the game- 
 keepers in the woods; or clearing the ha-ha in the park; or 
 watching the men bark-peeling; or shouting for glee when, the 
 ice on the ground, the great logs were carted to the Hall. 
 
 Happy mornings, whether the sun were shining or the snow 
 falling ! As memory gave them back to him. Miles Barthorne 
 felt his heart must break for very pity of himself. 
 
 After all, it is not necessary for a man to be of a very sym- 
 pathetic nature in order to feel for his own wrongs. And then, 
 after those days so blissfully long in the passing, so brief in the 
 retrospect, came other mornings of which Barthorne thought 
 with unspeakable disgust — mornings when he had to work at a 
 trade hateful to him ; mornings when, with a scowl on his brow 
 and curses brooding in his heart, he had to stand, cap in hand, 
 before his father's equals, to be to them as some being of an 
 inferior race. 
 
 And then came his Tottenham experiences, when he used to 
 watch the sun rise over the fiat marshes bordering the Lea — 
 when, from his cottage door at West Green, he beheld morning 
 coming across green fields bordered by rows of elm-trees. 
 
 Not so bad a life that, could he have made enough money to 
 satisfy his requirements without annexing his neighbours' goods; 
 but, good or not, it ended the mor ng David M'Callum was 
 murdered. 
 
352 Above Suspicion, 
 
 That was a morning ! Lovelier, surely, than morning that 
 ever dawned before upon the earth. Not a cloud in the tender 
 blue sky — not a sound breaking the stillness. Far below lay 
 the Great City — silent ; each gilt vane and weathercock and 
 cross glittering in the glorious sunshine. And then — but what 
 boots it to go on with the chronicle, save as speedily as may 
 be? Mornings when the sunbeams darting through barred 
 windows roused him from blessed forgetfulness — mornings 
 passed at sea — mornings on land while working out his sen- 
 tence — mornings when at the first streak of dawn he was 
 labouring away to find the gold afterwards stolen from him. 
 
 And there was one morning stamped upon his memory — 
 when he woke to find himself bruised, battered, wounded, alone 
 — left for dead. He lay there all day, and then all night again; 
 and the sun rose once more, and he had scarcely strength left 
 to unclose his eyes and look at it. He could not crawl from 
 the spot — he could not cry for help ; and yet help came, and 
 he was nursed back to health, and had strength given him to 
 make a better thing of life and the future than he had ever made 
 of it in the past. 
 
 But he was incapable of learning. At the end, as at the 
 beginning, he thought of self first, of duty last; and the natural 
 consequence of such personal devotion proved that while he 
 walked over the headlands he felt no delight in the sunshine 
 flooding land and sea, no happiness in the remembrance of a 
 daughter restored to reason, no resolves to lead a better life 
 stirring within him — nothing save a craven dread of having to 
 give up England and his hopes of position there — nothing save 
 a mad anger at his plans having been thwarted and his schemes 
 destroyed. 
 
 " I had better have left the girl alone," he said, lifting his hat 
 from his head and letting the morning air play about his temples. 
 *' If that fool Irwin had not made such a mystery about the 
 matter, she would never have been troubled by me." 
 
 Wherein he chanced to be wrong. But then, men like Miles 
 Barthorne are in the habit of shifting the blame attached to their 
 actions off their shoulders on to the shoulders of somebody else. 
 
 And so he went on, unheeding that placid sea, regardless of 
 the grand old hills — on over the headlands, till he came to the 
 point where the path dipped and led him, by a circuitous route, 
 
iVMai Barthorne Saw, 353 
 
 to the rear of Colonel Leschelles' house. Over the wicket gate 
 he found the Colonel leaning listlessly, wearily. 
 
 Barthorne stretched out his hand in greeting, but the other 
 affected not to notice the movement. 
 
 " Does the amendment still continue ? " asked Bella's father 
 anxiously. 
 
 " She is well," was the answer. 
 
 "Can I see her?" 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Had I better send a message up?** 
 
 " No." 
 
 *'The old room, I suppose?" 
 
 " The old room," assented Colonel Leschelles. 
 
 There was something strange about his manner, Barthorne 
 felt — something more than resentment against himself. 
 
 Were they sorry she had recovered her reason ? Did they 
 feel it a misfortune that his daughter should — sane, as he under- 
 stood her to be — come between the wind and their nobility ? 
 
 Without another word he turned from the Colonel and walked 
 straight through the open door into the hall. Up the remem- 
 bered staircase, at the head of which he paused for a moment 
 to note the extraordinary stillness of the house. 
 
 " The servants have overslept themselves," he thought, " and 
 no one except those attached to the sick-room are yet stirring." 
 
 Even while he stood thinking this, however, a light footstep 
 sounded along a distant corridor — it came nearer and nearer, 
 then suddenly Miss Selham appeared in the distance. The mo- 
 ment she caught sight of him she turned and retraced her way. 
 
 There was nothing wonderful in that action, though Barthorne 
 smiled as he noted it, and smiled still more grimly at the in- 
 voluntary gathering of her skirts about her, as if to escape the 
 possibility of the contamination of touch from such as he. 
 
 " She knows all. The game is played out, my lady — but I was 
 very near winning it," he murmured, and then walked straight 
 on along another gallery to the rooms set apart for Lady Med- 
 burn. 
 
 Through the first apartment, where Mr. Wright had seen her 
 fondling the doll she imagined to be her baby — through the 
 dressing-room beyond, opening to her sleeping-chamber, this 
 man passed swiftly; but on the last threshold he paused — it 
 
 was so horribly neat, so orderly, so 
 
 ^3 
 
354 Above Suspicion. 
 
 Through chinks in the closed shutters came some rays of light, 
 otherwise the room was in total darkness ; and yet Barthome 
 placed his hand so as to shade his eyes, as if he had been stand- 
 ing in the full sunshine. 
 
 What did he see ? 
 
 Only a man and a woman — only a husband and wife — she 
 with the sheet drawn closely up around her throat — he, sitting 
 by the bedside, his weary head resting on the pillow beside her, 
 fast asleep. 
 
 Ay, both asleep ! 
 
 Barthome advanced a step or two forward. As he did so, a 
 stray sunbeam fell across the faces of husband and wife — across 
 the man's, worn, stained with tears, wan and haggard with watch- 
 ing : across hers, white with a pallor no one had ever seen on it 
 before, with the long dark lashes, which might never be lifted 
 again, resting on her thin cheeks ; with the mouth set in a smile 
 which was terrible to behold ; with the mark of the grave upon 
 her ; with death written, in Death's own stern caligraphy, upon 
 every feature ! 
 
 Out again, over the thick carpets, along the corridors, down 
 the stairs, Barthorne groped his way like one blind. 
 
 When he came to himself, he was standing in the hall, hold- 
 ing fast by the rail of the banisters. 
 
 " My God ! " he said, " my God ! " uttering the words, as men 
 do in their most grievous troubles and perplexities, all uncon- 
 sciously ; and then he wiped the cold dew off his forehead, and 
 stood quite still till such time as he felt able to pass out into 
 the open air again and face his future. 
 
 As he had left him, so Colonel Leschelles stood when he 
 spoke to him once more. 
 
 " When did she die ? " asked Barthome, touching him on the 
 arm. 
 
 "Yesterday evening," the Colonel replied, absently bmshing 
 the portion of his sleeve Barthome had contaminated. 
 
 " Will you tell him I leave for America by the first steamer?" 
 
 *' I will tell him," was the answer ; but still Mr. Barthorne 
 waited. 
 
 " Have you any further message you wish me to deliver?" 
 asked the Colonel. 
 
 *' None whatever." 
 
 " Then, had you not better go wherever you mean to go ? ** 
 
What Bart home Saw, 355 
 
 " Certainly ; I will adopt your advice at once." And with a 
 mocking laugh, Barthorne took off his hat, said, " Good bye, 
 Colonel — not au revoir this time," and went on his way across 
 the hills above the sea, the sunshine flooding hill, and sea, and 
 valley with gleams of golden light. 
 
 On, like a man drunk or delirious or in a dream, to his inn, 
 where the first person he met was Mr. Wright, who speedily 
 restored him to his senses. 
 
 " How is my good friend ? " asked the Reverend Dion, hold- 
 ing out his hand and clutching Barthome's with vehemence, 
 even while keeping his head averted to prove that his feelings 
 were too much for him. " How is my good friend ? " 
 
 "If you mean me," answered his good friend,"! am quite well." 
 
 " My dear fellow," pursued Mr. Wright, " I cannot tell you 
 how delighted I was at hearing such cheering news as I did 
 from Mr. Irwin yesterday ; I cannot indeed." 
 
 At that Barthorne turned upon him with the old cynical 
 smile, and said : 
 
 "I suppose it is cheering news ; but I confess I never before 
 imagined a man would say he felt delighted at hearing it." 
 
 " Why not— why not, pray ? " asked the Rev. Dion, looking 
 very red, and ruffling up his clerical feathers for an argument. 
 " Must it not be cheering to all her friends to know that our 
 dear Bella — we always call her Bella still amongst ourselves — 
 is in a fair way of getting strong again ? And is it not doubly 
 delightful to me to know that the sweet girl will at length be 
 able to reproach her most devoted friend with all his sins of 
 commission and omission?" 
 
 For an instant Barthorne paused, then he said : 
 
 " I suppose, Mr. Wright, you came down to congratulate my 
 daughter's husband on the occasion of her auspicious re- 
 covery ? " 
 
 " Most certainly I did," answered Mr. Wright, looking, at the 
 door of the clean, quaint, but modest Welsh hostelry, a very 
 great dignitary of the English Church. 
 
 " And I suppose you had no other errand in this part of the 
 country — no wish, say, for ten minutes' private chat with Sir 
 Harry or Colonel Leschelles ? " 
 
 "I fail to follow your meaning," said the Rector, with a 
 delightful assumption of innocence. 
 
 "I had only one object in making the inquiry," pursued 
 
 23 — 2 
 
356 Above Suspicion, 
 
 Barthome with pitiless candour — "to save you trouble. If, 
 upon the strength of my daughter's recovery, you have come to 
 see her husband about business, it may be as well to inform 
 you she is dead. She died yesterday evening." 
 
 "You are jesting. It is impossible," gasped Mr. Wright. 
 
 "Sir ! " said the father who had just left his dead child. 
 
 "Why, they told me," gasped Mr. Wright, "she had quite 
 recovered her reason." 
 
 " I suppose she had — I know nothing to the contrary ; and 
 the first use she made of it, apparently, was to leave a world 
 you and I, for instance, did not help to make happy for her." 
 
 " I always tried to make her happy," said the Rector. 
 
 " I have no doubt you gave me her address solely with that 
 intention," agreed Miles Barthorne. 
 
 Mr. Wright was by far too old a diplomatist to continue this 
 sort of discourse. Instead, he put his hands behind his back, 
 and with head bent down, began to walk to and fro, that all 
 beholders might see his grief. 
 
 " Dear, dear, dear ! " he said; and, spite of bailiffs, and duns 
 and impending bankruptcy, or perhaps, indeed, because of 
 them, his grief was very genuine. " Poor, poor Lady Med bum ! 
 It is the last thing I should have supposed possible ; but to God 
 all things are possible, and, in His hands, probable. Such a 
 superb constitution, and yet first insanity and then death ! 
 Only last night ! I will go over and say a word or two to the 
 poor husband. At such a time language truer than any man 
 can speak must be grateful to him." 
 
 " You can see," observed Mr. Barthorne, " whether anything 
 you say is favourably received. I am no authority on such 
 matters myself, otherwise I might remark that I should have 
 thought to intrude into a house of mourning is scarcely in good 
 taste." 
 
 " In some cases, doubtless," returned the Rev. Dionysius ; 
 "but the dear creature was like a child of my own; and her 
 bereaved husband knows that, and will understand how fully I 
 sympathize with him." 
 
 "Very well, then, go," retorted the other. "Do anything 
 you like, in fact, except stay talking to me." And he turned 
 into the inn, followed by a caressing entreaty from Mr. Wright 
 ♦hat •• he would not stand on ceremony with him." 
 
 A little after noon the Rector reappeared. Sir Harry, he 
 
W/iai BartJiorne Saiv, 357 
 
 explained, had left for Cortingford, and Colonel Leschelles had 
 treated him most scurvily. 
 
 " I suppose, sir, you would hardly credit the fact," proceeded 
 Mr. Wright, "but, although Colonel Leschelles has stayed at 
 roy house for weeks and weeks at a time, and partaken of the 
 best we had to offer, he never asked me to sit down, or to take 
 a glass of wine. I never was treated so vilely in all my life 
 before, never." 
 
 " You chose an unfortunate time for your visit," was the reply. 
 ** The next time you call Leschelles will probably give you the 
 title-deeds of his estate." 
 
 "What are your plans now, my dear friend?" asked Mr. 
 Wright, wisely ignoring his friend's last remark. " Do you 
 purpose to remain here, or return to London, or what are you 
 going to do ? " 
 
 " I have no plans," answered Mr. Barthome. " At the pre- 
 sent moment I have only one intention, and that is, not to have 
 you fastened on to me. If you are going to stay here, I will go 
 to London ; if you are going to London, I will stay here." 
 
 " Poor fellow ! it is natural you should feel a little bitter, 
 after what you have gone through this morning; but I need not 
 tell you where consolation is to be found, and " 
 
 *• Now, will you stop all that," said Barthorne fiercely, " and 
 just tell me whether you are going back whence you came, or 
 whether you purpose remaining here ? " 
 
 " I shall return to town," answered Mr. Wright, his clerical 
 countenance wearing a look of sorrow, more than anger. 
 
 "Very well, then, I shall remain here," said the other; and 
 taking his hat, he went out. 
 
 " I shall not leave until this evening," decided the Reverend 
 Dion, as he watched Barthorne's figure growing more and more 
 indistinct in the distance : and accordingly, having inquired for 
 what time his friend had ordered dinner, he requested that 
 something might be prepared for him at the same hour, and 
 sallied forth for a walk. 
 
 When he returned dinner was ready, but Barthome had not 
 appeared. 
 
 " I will not go to London to-night," thought the Rector, after 
 he had finished his meal. " In fact, I cannot go till he returns, 
 for I have not enough money to settle with mine host. Dear, 
 dear ! — it seems as if money always went to the wrong person." 
 
358 Above Suspicion, 
 
 Evening drew on, night came, it grew quite late, and still no 
 Barthorne. 
 
 * ' Perhaps he is staying at the Colonel's," suggested the landlord. 
 " It is hardly safe for a stranger to cross the hills after dark." 
 
 " I suppose not. Very likely he is at the Colonel's," agreed 
 Mr. Wright, thinking in his heart it was much more probable 
 Barthorne had sought another inn. 
 
 Had he guessed where Barthorne really was, how differently 
 would he have passed the night ! How frantically he would 
 have organized a rescue party — how he would have roused the 
 village, and called for ropes, and men, and dogs, and lanterns 
 • — how he would have hurried hither and thither, shouting till 
 the welkin rang again, for his dear friend to answer — to say 
 where he was — to be certain there was help close at hand — his 
 help, Dionysius Wright's ! 
 
 It was a lost opportunity ; but then, as the Rector said after- 
 wards, " How could I know the man was lying at the bottom 
 of a quarry?" 
 
 That was why Barthorne did not return. Wandering in the 
 dark from the direct path, he climbed over what seemed to him 
 a fence, and went straight down on the other side, a depth of 
 some thirty feet 
 
 For a time he lay insensible — for a long time it must have 
 been, as when he recovered consciousness the stars were shining, 
 and the moon, then in her last quarter, throwing a ghastly light 
 across the sky. 
 
 He tried to move, but he could not — he strove to call out, 
 but his voice failed him j and so he lay there thinking — think- 
 ing about his life — about the years piled up behind — about what 
 he had set out to do — about what he had done, till he dropped 
 off into a troubled doze, from which he woke, thinking David 
 M'Callum was sitting on his chest, crying out, " I am avenged 
 at last!" 
 
 He was found next morning by a shepherd, whose attention 
 was attracted to the spot by his dog; but when, help being 
 procured, they tried to lift him, he prayed them with such groans 
 to let him die where he lay that the men drew back, and looked 
 at each other in frightened silence. 
 
 Just then a doctor came hurrying up. 
 
 " He must be lifted," he said. " Never mind his cries ; he 
 will faint, and then we can take him to the inn." 
 
What Barthorne Saw. 359 
 
 And so it fell out : he did faint, and remained unconscious as 
 the men carried him, carefully and tenderly as they were able, 
 across the hills overlooking the sea, down the hillside, and so 
 to the inn where the Rev. Dionysius Wright was regaling him- 
 self with a dish of excellent trout. 
 
 An hour afterwards the doctor stood in the street talking to 
 Colonel Leschelles. 
 
 " You can send to London for a surgeon, if it will be any 
 satisfaction to you," he said; "but the whole College of Surgeons, 
 president included, could not benefit him. He may live for ten 
 days or a fortnight ; but if he died before sunset, it would be a 
 merciful release." 
 
 Softly the Colonel entered the darkened room where Bar- 
 thorne lay trying to bear his sufferings in silence. 
 
 " It is death, I suppose ? " came slowly from the blue, trem- 
 bling lips. 
 
 " I fear so. Tell me if there is anything I can do for you, 
 and I will try to do it." 
 
 *'SenQ Wright away. He adds a new terror to He will 
 
 go if you give him ten pounds. There is more than that in my 
 pocket-book." 
 
360 Above Suspicion. 
 
 CHAPTER XLI. 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 Winter's snows and spring's showers have fallen often and 
 often upon the earth, since, in the little Welsh hostelry, Miles 
 Barthorne breathed his last. 
 
 The story I have told is now an old one, and, although her 
 memory still remains green in some few fond hearts, the world 
 has since her death gone on much the same as if the first Lady 
 Medburn had never existed. 
 
 A mistress, fair, gracious, wise, has stepped into her vacant 
 place ; and if she is not able quite to fill Sir Harry's heart, he 
 is, nevertheless, happy and content. 
 
 He can think of the dead wife with no pang of self-reproach. 
 He can look on his living children, and feel thankful to re- 
 member that no shadow of the disgrace which once troubled 
 him can cloud their future. But Bella is not forgotten. She 
 never will be by him, till he is carried to the gloomy vault 
 where they laid her to rest. 
 
 Under Miles Barthome's will, the second son at Cortingford 
 is amply provided for. 
 
 Sir Harry cannot disturb the arrangement if he would, and 
 although he chafed about the legacy at first, he has perhaps 
 (time being a great promoter of worldly prudence) become 
 more than reconciled to the arrangement. 
 
 He allows Barthorne's widow a handsome income. She has 
 long since returned from Australia, and been married for years 
 to a dissenting minister, whose eloquence is much admired by 
 his own congregation, and the members of his denomination 
 generally. He is a great contrast to her first husband, and she 
 is, in her own opinion, an important person now. She drives 
 about in a neat brougham, she dresses in the richest attire, and 
 remembers her daughter was Lady Medburn, a fact she never 
 allows her acquaintances to forget 
 
 She rather looks down on her brother, whose worldly affairs 
 have not prospered since the time of Barthome's return. He is 
 
Conclusion. 36 1 
 
 considerably poorer than in the old Fisherton days; but his 
 wife is dead, and he is probably better satisfied with life than 
 formerly. 
 
 As for Mr. Wright, he has once been bankrupt, and once 
 compounded with his creditors, during the course of the years 
 intervening between this present and that morning when he 
 beheld Miles Barthorne for the last time. He can still preach, 
 however, and is apparently as genial and cheerful as ever. 
 Nevertheless, in moments of confidence, he tells Selina that he 
 feels he is getting old ; that the wine of life has, somehow, not 
 the flavour it once possessed, and that he believes the game so 
 long played has not been worth the many candles burnt over it. 
 With which opinion Mrs. Wright does not agree — for she pre- 
 serves a firm and admirable faith in a bishopric, "which must," 
 so she says, "come eventually to Dion," and with it five 
 thousand a year 1 
 
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