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MAN AND WIFE 
 
 a TRovel 
 
 16 
 
 BY 
 
 I 
 
 WILKiE COLLINS 
 
 AUTHOR or 
 
 'POOB MISS FINCff" "no name" "THE MOONSTONK ' ''baSU." 
 "tHK DKAD SECRIT" " ARMADALE " ETC. 
 
 ILLUSTRATED 
 
 HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS 
 NBW YORK AND LONDON 
 
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 
 B-T 
 
iibhAHV UNIV. OF 
 NORTH CAROLINA J j 
 
 
 
 
MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 PROLOGUE. — THE IRISH MARRIAGE, 
 
 Part tf)c iTirst. 
 THE VILLA AT HAMPSTEAD. 
 
 On a summer's morning, between thirty and forty years ago, 
 two girls were crying bitterly in the cabin of an East Indian 
 passenger ship, bound outward, from Gravesend to Bombay. 
 
 They were both of the same age — eighteen. They had both, 
 from childhood upward, been close and dear friends at the same 
 school. They were now parting for the first time — and parting, 
 it might be, for life. 
 
 The name of one was Blanche. The name of the other was 
 Anne. 
 
 Both were the children of poor parents ; both had been pupil- 
 teachers at the school ; and both were destined to earn their 
 own bread. Personally speaking, and socially speaking, these 
 were the only points of resemblance between them. 
 
 Blanche was passably attractive and passably intelligent, 
 and no more. Anne was rarely beautiful and rarely endowed. 
 Blanche's parents were worthy people, whose first considera- 
 tion was to secure, at any sacrifice, the future well-being of 
 their child. Anne's parents were heartless and depraved. 
 Their one idea, in connection with their daughter, was to spec- 
 ulate on her beauty, and to turn her abilities to profitable ac- 
 count. 
 
 The girls were starting in life under widely difierent con- 
 ditions. Blanche was going to India, to be governess in the 
 household of a Judge, under care of the Judge's wife. Anne 
 was to wait at home until the first opportunity ofiered of send- 
 ing her cheaply to Milan. There, among strangers, she was to 
 be perfected in the actress's and the singer's art ; then to return 
 to England, and make the fortune of her fauiily on the lyric stage, 
 
10 MAN AND "VVrFE, 
 
 Such were the prospects of the two as they sat together in 
 the cabin of the Indiaman locked fast in each other's arms, 
 and crying bitterly. The whispered farewell talk exchanged 
 between them — exaggerated and impulsive as girls' talk is apt 
 to be — came honestly, in each case, straight from the heart. 
 
 "Blanche! you may be married in India. Make your hus- 
 band bring you back to England." 
 
 "Anne ! you may take a dislike to the stage. Come out to 
 India if you do." 
 
 " In England or out of England, married or not married, we 
 will meet, darling — if it's years hence — with all the old love 
 between us; friends who help each other, sisters who trust each 
 other, for life ! Vow it, Blanche !" 
 
 "I vow it, Anne !" 
 
 " With all your heart and soul ?" 
 
 " With all my heart and soul !" 
 
 The sails were spread to the wind, and the ship began to move 
 in the water. It was necessary to appeal to the captain's au- 
 thority before the girls could be parted. The captain inter- 
 fered gently and firmly. " Come, my dear," he said, putting 
 his arm round Anne; "you won't mind me! I have got a 
 daughter of my own." Amie's head fell on the sailor's shoul- 
 der. He put her, with his own hands, into the shore -boat' 
 alongside. In five minutes more the ship had gathered way; 
 the boat was at the landing-stage — and the girls had seen the 
 last of each other for many a long year to come. 
 
 This was in the summer of eighteen hundred and thirty-one. 
 
 II. 
 
 Twenty-four years later — in the summer of eighteen hundred 
 and fifty-five — there was a villa at Hampstead to be let, fur- 
 nished. 
 
 The house was still occupied by the pei'sons who desired to 
 let it. On the evening on which this scene opens a lady and 
 two gentlemen were seated at the dinner-table. Tiie lady had 
 reached the mature age of forty-two. She was still a rarely 
 beautiful woman. Her husband, some years younger than her- 
 self, f-xced her at the table, sitting silent and constrained, and 
 never, even by accident, looking at his wife. The third person 
 was a guest. The husband's name was Vanborough. The 
 guest's name was Kendrew. 
 
 It was the end of the dinner. The fruit and the wine were 
 on the table. Mr. Vanborough pushed the bottles in silence to 
 Mr. Kendrew. The lady of the house looked round at the servant 
 who was waiting, and said, "Tell the children to come in." 
 
 The door opened, and a girl twelve years old entered, leading 
 by the hand a younger girl of five. They were both prettily 
 
MAN AND WIFE. ■ 11' 
 
 dressed in white, with sashes of the same shade of light blue. 
 But there was no faniilj' resemblance between them. The eld- 
 er girl was frail and delicate, with a pale, sensitive face. The 
 younger was light and florid, with round red cheeks and bright, 
 saucy eyes — a charming little picture of happiness and health. 
 
 Mr. Kendrew looked inquiringly at the youngest of the two 
 girls. 
 
 "Here is a young lady," he said, "who is a total stranger to 
 me." 
 
 "If you had not been a total stranger yourself for a whole 
 year past," answered Mrs. Yanborough, " you would never have 
 made that confession. This is little Blanche — the only child 
 of the dearest friend I have. When Blanche's mother and I 
 last saw each other we were two poor school-girls beginning 
 the world. My friend went to India, and mari'ied there late 
 in life. You may have heard of her husband — the famous In- 
 dian officer, Sir Thomas Lundie ? Yes : ' the I'ich Sir Thomas,' 
 as you call him. Lady Lundie is now on her way back to 
 England, for the first time since she left it — I am afraid to say 
 liow many yeai's since. I expected her yesterday; I expect 
 her to-day — she may come at any moment. We exchanged 
 promises to meet, in the ship that took her to India — ' vows' 
 we called them in the dear old times. Imagine how changed 
 Ave shall find each other when we do meet again at last !" 
 
 "In the mean time," said Mr. Kendi'ew, "your friend appears 
 to have sent you her little daughter to represent her? It's a 
 long journe)^ for so young a traveler." 
 
 "A journey ordered by the doctors in India a year since," 
 rejoined Mrs. Yanborough. "They said Blanche's health re- 
 quired English ail-. Sir Tliomns was ill at the time, and his 
 wife couldn't leave him. She had to send the child to En- 
 gland, and who should she send her to but me? Look at her 
 now, and say if the English air hasn't agreed with her! We 
 two mothers, Mr. Kendrew, seem litei'ally to live again in our 
 children. I have an only child. My friend has an only child. 
 My daughter is little Anne — as i" was. My friend's daughter 
 is little Blanche — as she was. And, to crown it all, those two 
 girls have taken the same fiincy to each other which ?fe took 
 to each other in the by-gone days at school. One has often 
 heard of hereditary hatred. Is there such a thing as hei-edi- 
 tary love as well ?" 
 
 Before the guest could answer, his attention was claimed by 
 the master of the house. 
 
 "Kendrew," said Mr. Yanborough, " Avhen you have had 
 enouoh of domestic sentiment, suppose you take a L^Iass of 
 wine'?" 
 
 The words were F;)oken with undisguised contempt of tone 
 
12 MAN AND WIFK. 
 
 and manner, Mrs. Vanborough's color rose. She waited, and 
 controlled the momentary irritation. When she spoke to her 
 husband it was evidently with a wish to soothe and conciliate 
 him. 
 
 " I am afraid, my dear, you are not well this evening ?" 
 
 " I shall be better when those children have done clattering 
 with their knives and forks." 
 
 The girls were peeling fruit. The younger one went on. 
 The elder stopped, and looked at her mother. Mrs. Van- 
 borough beckoned to Blanche to come to her, and pointed to- 
 ward the French window opening to the floor. 
 
 "Would you like to eat your fruit in the garden, Blanche?" 
 
 " Yes," said Blanche, " if Anne will go with me." 
 
 Anne rose at once, and the two girls went away together 
 into the garden, hand in hand. On their departure Mr. Ken- 
 drew wisely started a new subject. He referred to the letting 
 of the house. 
 
 " The loss of the garden will be a sad loss to those two 
 young ladies," he said, " It really seems to be a pity that 
 you should be giving up this pretty place." 
 
 " Leaving the house is not the worst of the sacrifice," an- 
 swered Mrs. Vanborough. " If John finds Hampstead too far 
 for him from London, of course we must move. The only hard- 
 ship that I complain of is the hardship of having the house to let." 
 
 Mr. Vanborough looked across the table, as ungraciously as 
 possible, at his wife. 
 
 " What have you to do with it ?" he asked. 
 
 Mrs. Vanborough tried to clear the conjugal horizon by a 
 smile. 
 
 " My dear John," she said, gently, " you forget that, while 
 you are at business, I am here all day. I can't help seeing 
 the people who come to look at the house. Such people !" she 
 continued, turning to Mr. Kendrew, " They distrust every 
 thing, from the scraper at the door to the chimneys on the 
 roof. They force their way in at all hours. They ask all sorts 
 of impudent questions — and they show you plainly that they 
 don't mean to believe your answers, before you have time to 
 make them. Some wretch of a woman says, ' Do you think 
 the drains are right?' — and snifis suspiciously, before I can say 
 Yes. Some brute of a man asks, ' Are you quite sure this 
 house is solidly built, ma'am ?' — and jumps on the floor at the 
 full stretch of his legs, without waiting for me to reply. No- 
 body believes in our gravel soil and our south aspect. No- 
 body wants any of our improvements. The moment they hear 
 of John's Artesian well, they look as if they never drank wa- 
 ter. And, if they happen to pass my poultry-yard, they in- 
 stantly lose all appreciation of the merits of a fresh egg." 
 
MAN AND WIFE. 13 
 
 Mr. Kendrew laughed. "I have been through it all in ray 
 time," he said. "The people who want to take a house are 
 the horn enemies of the people who want to let a house. Odd, 
 isn't it,Vanborough?" 
 
 Mr. Vanborough's sullen humor resisted his friend as obsti- 
 nately as it had resisted his wife. 
 
 " I dare say," he answered. " I wasn't listening." 
 
 This time the tone was almost brutal. Mrs. Vanborough 
 looked at her husband with unconcealed surprise and distress. 
 
 "John!" she said. "What can be the matter with you? 
 Are you in pain ?" 
 
 "A man may be anxious and worried, I suppose, without 
 being actually in pain." 
 
 " I am sorry to hear you are worried. Is it business ?" 
 
 " Yes — business." 
 
 "Consult Mr. Kendrew." 
 
 "I am waiting to consult him." 
 
 Mrs. Vanborough rose immediately. "Ring, dear," she said, 
 "when you want cofiee." As she passed her husband she 
 stopped and laid her hand tenderly on his forehead. "I wish 
 I could smooth out that frown !" she whispered. jNIr. Van- 
 borough impatiently shook his head. Mrs. Vanborough sighed 
 as slie turned to the door. Her husband called to her before 
 she could leave the room. 
 
 "Mind we are not interrupted !" 
 
 "I will do my best, John." She looked at Mr. Kendi-ew, 
 holding the door open for her; and resumed, with an effort, 
 her former lightness of tone. "But don't forget our 'born 
 enemies !' Somebody may come, even at tliis hour of the 
 evening, who wants to see the house." 
 
 The two gentlemen were left alone over their wine. There 
 was a strong personal contrast between them. Mr. Van- 
 boi'ough was tall and dark — a dashing, handsome man ; with 
 an energy in his face which all the woi-ld saw ; with an inbred 
 falseness under it which only a special observer could detect. 
 Mr. Kendrew was short and light — slow and awkward in man- 
 ner, except when something liappened to rouse him. Looking 
 in his fiice, the world saw an ugly and undemonstrative lit- 
 tle man. The special observei", penetrating under the suiface, 
 found a fine nature beneath, resting on a steady foundation of 
 lioiior and truth. 
 
 Mr. Vanborough opened the conversation. 
 
 " If you ever marry," he said, " don't be such a fool, Ken- 
 drew, as I have been. Don't take a wife from the stage." 
 
 "If I could get such a wife as yours," i-eplied the other, "I 
 would take her from the stage to-morrow. A beautiful wom- 
 an, a clever woman, a woman of unblemished character, and a 
 
24 MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 woman who truly loves you. Man alive ! what do you want 
 more ?" 
 
 " I want a great deal more. I want a woman highly con- 
 nected and highly bred — a woman who can receive the best 
 society in England, and open her husband's way to a position 
 in the world." 
 
 " A position in the world !" cried Mr. Kendrew. " Here is a 
 man whose father has left him half a million of money — with 
 the one condition annexed to it of taking his father's place at 
 the head of one of the greatest mercantile houses in England. 
 And he talks about a position, as if he was a junior clerk in 
 his own office! What on earth does your ambition see, be- 
 yond what your ambition has already got ?" 
 
 Mr. Vanborough finished his glass of wine, and looked his 
 friend steadily in the face. 
 
 " My ambition," he said, " sees a Parliamentary career, with 
 a Peerage at the end of it — and with no obstacle in the way 
 but my estimable wife." 
 
 Mr. Kendrew lifted his hand warningly. "Don't talk in 
 that way," he said. " If you're joking — it's a joke I don't see. 
 If you're in earnest — you force a suspicion on me which I 
 would rather not feel. Let us change the subject." 
 
 "No ! Let us have it out at once. What do you suspect?" 
 
 " I suspect you are getting tired of your wife." 
 
 "She is forty-two, and I am thirty-five; and I have beeii 
 married to her for thirteen years. You know all that — and 
 you only suspect I am tired of her. Bless your innocence I 
 Have you any thing more to say ?" 
 
 " If you force me to it, I take the freedom of an old friend, 
 and I say you are not treating her fairly. It's nearly two 
 years since you broke up your establishment abroad, and came 
 to England on your father's death. With the exception of 
 myself, and one or two other friends of former days, you have 
 presented your wife to nobody. Your new position has 
 smoothed the way for you into the best society. You never 
 take your wife with you. You go out as if you were a single 
 man. I have reason to know that you are actually believed 
 to be a single man, among these new acquaintances of yours, 
 in more than one quarter. Forgive me for speaking ray mind 
 bluntly — I say what I think. It's unworthy of you to keep 
 your wife buried here, as if you were ashamed of her." 
 
 " I am ashamed of her." 
 
 " Vanborough !" 
 
 " Wait a little ! you are not to have it all your own way, 
 my good fellow. What are the facts ? Thirteen years ago I 
 fell in love with a handsome public singer, and married her. 
 My father was angry with me ; and I had to go and live with 
 
MAN AXD WIFB. 15 
 
 her abroad. It didn't matter, abroad. My father forgave me 
 on his death-bed, and I had to bring her home again. It does 
 matter, at home. I find myself, with a great career opening 
 before me, tied to a woman whose relations are (as you well 
 know) the lowest of the low. A woman without the slightest 
 distinction of manner, or the slightest aspiration beyond her 
 nursery and her kitchen, her piano and her books. Is that a 
 wife who can help me to make my place in society ? — who can 
 smooth my way, through social obstacles and political obsta- 
 cles, to the House of Lords? By Jupiter! if ever there was a 
 woman to be 'buried' (as you call it), that woman is my wife. 
 And, what's more, if you want the truth, it's because I caiTbt 
 bury her here that I'm going to leave this house. She has got 
 a cursed knack of making acquaintances wherever she goes. 
 She'll have a circle of friends about her if I leave her in this 
 neighborhood much longer. Friends who remember her as the 
 famous opera -singer. Friends who will see her swindling 
 scoundrel of a father (when my back is turned) coming drunk 
 to the door to borrow money of her! I tell you, my marriage 
 has wrecked my prospects. It's no use talking to me of my 
 wife's virtues. She is a millstone round my neck, with all her 
 virtues. If I had not been a born idiot I should have waited, 
 and married a woman who would have been of some use to 
 me ; a woman with high connections — " 
 
 Mr. Kendrew touched his host's arm, and suddenly inter- 
 rupted him. 
 
 " To come to the point," he said — " a woman like Lady Jane 
 Parnell." 
 
 Mr. Vanborough started. His eyes fell, for the first time, 
 before the eyes of his friend. 
 
 "What do you know about Lady Jane?" he asked. 
 
 " Nothing. I don't move in Lady Jane's world — but I do 
 go sometimes to the opera. I saw you with her last night in 
 her box ; and I heard what was said in the stalls near me. 
 You were openly spoken of as the favored man who was sin- 
 gled out from the rest by Lady Jane. Imagine what would 
 happen if your wife heard that ! You are wrong, Vanborough 
 — you are in every way wrong. You alarm, you distress, you 
 disappoint me. I never sought this explanation — but, now it 
 has come, I won't shrink from it. Reconsider your conduct ; 
 reconsider what you have said to me — or you count me no 
 longer among your friends. No ! I want no further talk about 
 it now. We are both getting hot — we may end in saying 
 what had better have been left unsaid. Once more, let us 
 change the subject. You wrote me word that you wanted me 
 here to-day, because you needed my advice on a matter of 
 some importance. What is it ?" 
 
16 MAN AND WIPE. 
 
 Silence followed that question. Mr. Vanborough's face be- 
 trayed signs of embarrassment. He poured himself out an- 
 other glass of wine, and drank it at a draught before he re- 
 plied. 
 
 " It's not so easy to tell you what I want," he said, " after 
 the tone you have taken with me about my wife." 
 
 Mr. Kendrew looked surprised. 
 
 "Is Mrs. Vanborough concerned in the matter?" he asked. 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Does she know about it ?" 
 
 « No." 
 
 " Have you kept the thing a secret out of regard for her /■" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "Have I any right to advise on it?" 
 
 "You have the right of an old friend." 
 
 "Then, why not tell me frankly what it is?" 
 
 There was another moment of embarrassment on Mr. Van- 
 borough's part. 
 
 " It will come better," he answered, " from a third person, 
 whom I expect here every minute. He is in possession of all 
 the facts — and he is better able to state them than I am." 
 
 " Who is the person ?" 
 
 " My friend Delamayn." 
 
 "Your lawyer?" 
 
 "Yes — the junior partner in the firm of Delamayn, Hawke,^ 
 and Delamayn. Do you know him ?" 
 
 " I am acquainted with him. His wife's family were friends 
 of mine before he married. I don't like him." 
 
 " You're rather hard to please to-day? Delamayn is a rising 
 man, if ever there was one yet. A man with a career before 
 him, and with courage enough to pursue it. He is going to 
 leave the Firm, and try his luck at the Bar. Every body says 
 he will do great things. What's your objection to him ?" 
 
 "I have no objection whatever. We meet with people oc- 
 casionally whom we dislike without knowing why. Without 
 knowing why, I dislike Mr. Delamayn." 
 
 " Whatever you do, you must put up with him this evening. 
 He will be here directly." 
 
 He was there at that moment. The servant opened the 
 door, and announced — " Mr. Delamayn." 
 
 ni. 
 
 Externally speaking, the rising solicitor, who was going to 
 try his luck at the Bar, looked like a man who was going to 
 succeed. His hard, hairless face, his watchful gray eyes, his 
 thin, resolute lips, said plainly, in so many words, " I mean to 
 get on in the world ; and, if you are in my way, I mean to get 
 
MAN AND WIFE. 17 
 
 on at your expense." Mr. Delamayn was habitually polite to 
 every body — but he had never been known to say one unnec- 
 essary word to his dearest friend. A man of rare ability ; a 
 man of unblemished honor (as the code of the world goes) •, 
 but not a man to be taken familiarly by the hand. You 
 would never have borrowed money of him — but you would 
 have trusted him with untold gold. Involved in private and 
 personal troubles, you would have hesitated at asking him to 
 help you. Involved in public and producible troubles, you 
 would have said, Here is ray man. Sure to push his way — 
 nobody could look at him and doubt it — sure to push his way. 
 
 " Kendrew is an old friend of mine," said Mr. Vanborough, 
 addressing himself to the lawyer. " Whatever you have to say 
 to me you may say before him. Will you have some wine ?" 
 
 "No— thank you." 
 
 "Have you brought any news?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " Have you got the written opinions of the two barristers ?" 
 
 « No." 
 
 "Why not?" 
 
 " Because nothing of the sort is necessary. If the facts of 
 the case are correctly stated there is not the slightest doubt 
 about the law." 
 
 With that reply Mr. Delamayn took a written paper from 
 his pocket, and spread it out on the table before him. 
 
 " What is that ?" asked Mr. Vanborough. 
 
 " The case relating to your marriage." 
 
 Mr. Kendrew started, and showed the first tokens of interest 
 in the proceedings which had escaped him yet. Mr. Delamayn 
 looked at him for a moment, and went on. 
 
 "The case," he resumed, "as originally stated by you, and 
 taken down in writing by our head-clerk." 
 
 Mr.Vanborough's temper began to show itself again. 
 
 " What have we got to do with that now ?" he asked. "You 
 have made your inquiries to prove the correctness of my state- 
 ment — haven't you ?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " And you have found out that I am right ?" 
 
 " I have found out that you are right — if the case is right. 
 f wish to be sure that no mistake has occurred between you 
 and the clerk. This is a very important matter. I am going 
 to take the responsibility of giving an opinion which may be 
 followed by serious consequences ; and I mean to assure my- 
 self that the opinion is given on a sound basis, first. I have 
 some questions to ask you. Don't be impatient, if you please. 
 They won't take long." 
 
 He referred to the manuscript, and put the first question. 
 
 9 
 
18 MAN AND WIFE, 
 
 " You were married at Inchmallock, in Ireland, Mr. Van- 
 borough, thirteen years since ?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "Your wife — then Miss Anne Silvester — was a Roman 
 Catholic ?" 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Her father and mother were Roman Catholics?" 
 
 "They were." 
 
 " Your father and mother were Protestants ? and >/ou were 
 baptized and brought up in the Church of England?" 
 
 " All right !" 
 
 "Miss Anne Silvester felt, and expressed, a strong repug- 
 nance to marrying you, because you and she belonged to dif- 
 ferent religious communities ?" 
 
 "She did." 
 
 "You got over her objection by consenting to become a 
 Roman Catholic, like herself?" 
 
 " It was the shortest way with her — and it didn't matter to 
 mc." 
 
 " You were formally received into the Roman Catholic 
 Church?" 
 
 " I went through the whole ceremony." 
 
 " Abroad or at home ?" 
 
 " Abroad." 
 
 " How long was it before the date of your marriage ?" 
 
 " Six weeks before I was married." 
 
 Referring perpetually to the paper in his hand, Mr. Dela- 
 mayn was especially careful in comparing that last answer 
 with the answer given to the head-clerk. 
 
 "Quite right," he said, and went on with his questions. 
 
 " The priest who married you was one Ambrose Redman — 
 a young man recently appointed to his clerical duties ?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " Did he ask if you were both Roman Catholics ?" 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Did he ask any thing more ?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 " Are you sure he never inquired whether you had both 
 been Catholics for more than one year before you came to him 
 to be m.arriedf'' 
 
 " I am certain of it." 
 
 " He must have forgotten that part of his duty — or, being 
 only a beginner, he may well have been ignorant of it alto- 
 gether. Did neither you nor the lady think of informing him 
 on the point?" 
 
 " Neither I nor the lady knew there was any necessity for 
 informing him." 
 
Man and avifk. 19 
 
 Mr. Delamayn folded up the manuscript, and put it back in 
 his pocket. 
 
 " Right," he said, " in every particular." 
 
 Mr. Vanborough's swarthy complexion slowly turned pale. 
 He cast one furtive glance at Mr. Kendrew, and turned away 
 again. 
 
 " Well," he said to the lawyer, " now for your opinion ! 
 What is the law ?" 
 
 "The law," answered Mr. Delamayn, "is beyond all doubt 
 or dispute. Your marriage with Miss Anne Silvester is no 
 marriage at all." 
 
 Mr. Kendrew started to his feet. 
 
 " What do you mean ?" he asked, sternly. 
 
 The rising solicitor lifted his eyebrows in polite surpi'ise. If 
 Mr. Kendrew wanted information, why should Mr. Kendrew 
 ask for it in that way ? " Do you wish me to go into the law 
 of the case ?" he inquired. 
 
 " I do." 
 
 Mr. Delamayn stated the law, as that law still stands — to 
 the disgrace of the English Legislature and the English Na- 
 tion. 
 
 " By the Irish Statute of George the Second," he said, " ev- 
 ery marriage celebrated by a Popish priest between two Prot- 
 estants, or between a Papist and any person who has been a 
 Protestant within twelve months before the marriage, is de- 
 clared null and void. And by two other Acts of the same 
 reign such a celebration of marriage is made a felony on the 
 part of the priest. The clergy in Ireland of other religious de- 
 nominations have been relieved from this law. But it still re- 
 mains in force so far as the Roman Catholic priesthood is con- 
 cerned." 
 
 " Is such a state of things possible in the age we live in !" 
 exclaimed Mr. Kendrew. 
 
 Mr. Delamayn smiled. He had outgrown the customary il- 
 lusions as to the age we live in. 
 
 "There are other instances in which the Irish marriage-law 
 presents some curious anomalies of its own," he went on. " It 
 is felony, as I have just told you, for a Roman Catholic priest 
 to celebrate a marriage which may be lawfully celebrated by 
 a parochial clergyman, a Presbyterian minister, and a Non- 
 conformist minister. It is also felony (by another law) on the 
 part of a parochial clergyman to celebi-ate a marriage that 
 may be lawfully celebrated by a Roman Catholic priest. And 
 it is again felony (by yet another law) for a Presbyterian min- 
 ister and a Non-conformist minister to celebrate a marriage 
 which may be lawfully celebrated by a clergyman of the Es- 
 tablished Church. An odd state of things. Foreigners might 
 
/ 
 
 20 MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 possibly think it a scandalous state of things. In this country 
 we don't appear to mind it. Returning to the present case, 
 the results stand thus: Mr. Vanborough is a single man; Mrs. 
 Vanborough is a single woman ; their child is illegitimate, and 
 the priest, Ambrose Redman, is liable to be tried, and pun 
 ished, as a felon, for marrying them." 
 
 " An infamous law !" said Mr. Kendrew. 
 
 " It is the law," returned Mr. Delamayn, as a sufficient an- 
 swer to him. 
 
 Thus far not a word had escaped the master of the house. 
 He sat with his lips fast closed and his eyes riveted on the ta- 
 ble, thinking. 
 
 Mr. Kendrew turned to him, and broke the silence. 
 
 " Am I to understand," he asked, " that the advice you 
 wanted from me related to this P" 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " You mean to tell me that, foreseeing the present interview 
 and" the result to which it might lead, you felt any doubt as 
 to the course you were bound to take ? Am I really to un 
 derstand that you hesitate to set this dreadful mistake right, 
 and to make the woman who is your wife in the sight of 
 Heaven your wife in the sight of the law ?" 
 
 " If you choose to put it in that light," said Mr. Vanbor 
 ough ; " if you won't consider — " 
 
 " I want a plain answer to my question — ' yes or no.' " 
 
 " Let me speak, will you ! A man has a right to explain 
 himself, I suppose ?" 
 
 Mr. Kendrew stopped him bv a gesture of disgust. 
 
 " I won't trouble you to explain yourself," he said. " I pre 
 fer to leave the house. You have given me a lesson, sir 
 which I shall not forget. I find that one man may havi 
 known another from the days when they were both boys, and 
 may have seen nothing but the false surface of him in all thai 
 time. I am ashamed of having ever been your friend. Yoii 
 are a stranger to me from this moment." 
 
 With those words he left the room. 
 
 " That is a curiously hot-headed man," remarked Mr. Dela 
 mayn. " If you will allow me, I think I'll change my mind 
 I'll have a glass of wine." f 
 
 Mr. Vanborough rose to his feet without replying, and tool 
 a turn in the room impatiently. Scoundrel as he was — in in, 
 tention, if not yet in act — the loss of the oldest friend he ha 
 in the world staggered him for the moment. 
 
 " This is an awkward business, Delamayn," he said. " Wha 
 would you advise me to do ?" 
 
 Mr. Delamayn shook his head, and sipped his claret. 
 
 " I decline to advise you," he answered. " I take no respoi 
 
MAN AND WIFE. 21 
 
 sibility, beyond the responsibility of stating the law as it 
 stands, in your case." 
 
 Mr. Vanborough sat down again at the table, to consider 
 the alternative of asserting or not asserting his freedom from 
 the marriage tie. He had not had much time thus far for 
 turning the matter over in his mind. But for his residence on 
 the Continent the question of the flaw in his marriage might 
 no doubt have been raised long since. As things were, the 
 question had only taken its rise in a chance conversation with 
 Mr. Delaraayn in the summer of that year. 
 
 For some minutes the lawyer sat silent, sipping his wine, 
 and the husband sat silent, thinking his own thoughts. The 
 first change that came over the scene was produced by the ap- 
 pearance of a servant in the dining-room. 
 
 Mr. Vanborough looked up at the man with a sudden out 
 break of anger. 
 
 " What do you want here ?" 
 
 The man was a well-bred English servant. In other wo.ds, 
 a human machine, doing its duty impenetrably when it was 
 once wound up. He had his words to speak, and he spoke 
 them. 
 
 "There is a lady at the door, sir, who wishes to see the 
 house." 
 
 " The house is not to be seen at this time of the evening." 
 
 The machine had a message to deliver, and delivered it. 
 
 " The lady desired me to present her apologies, sir, I was 
 to tell you she was much pressed for time. This was the last 
 house on the house agent's list, and her coachman is stupid 
 about finding his way in strange places." 
 
 " Hold your tongue, and tell the lady to go to the devil !" 
 
 Mr. Delamayn interfered — partly in the interests of his 
 client, partly in the interests of propriety. 
 
 " You attach some importance, I think, to letting this house 
 as soon as possible?" he said. 
 
 "Of course I do!" 
 
 " Is it wise — on account of a momentary annoyance — to lose 
 itiT^ii opportunity of laying your hand on a tenant ?" 
 t " Wise or not, it's an infernal nuisance to be disturbed by a 
 stranger." 
 
 " Just us you please. I don't wish to interfere. I only wish 
 iJi to say — in case you are thinking of my convenience as your 
 ii guest — that it will be no nuisance to me." 
 
 The servant impenetrably waited. Mr. Vanborough impa- 
 ; tiently gave way. 
 
 "Very well. Let her in. Mind, if she comes here, she's 
 only to look into the room, and go out again. If she wants to 
 !■« ask questions, she must go to the agent." 
 
 I 
 
.22 MAN AifD WIPE. 
 
 Mr. Delaraayn interfered once more, in the interests, thi^ 
 time, of the lady of the house. 
 
 " Might it not be desirable," he suggested, " to consult Mrs. 
 Vanborough before you quite decide ?" 
 
 " Where's your mistress ?" 
 
 " In the garden, or the paddock, sir — I am not sure which." 
 
 " We can't send all over the grounds in search of her. Tell 
 the house-maid, and show the lady in." 
 
 The servant withdrew. Mr. Delamayn helped himself to a 
 second glass of wine. 
 
 " Excellent claret," he said. " Do you get it direct from 
 Bordeaux?" 
 
 There was no answer. Mr. Vanborough had returned to 
 the contemplation of the alternative between freeing himself 
 or not freeing himself from the marriage tie. One of his el- 
 bows was on the table ; he bit fiercely at his finger-nails. He 
 muttered between his teeth, "What am I to do?" 
 
 A sound of rustling silk made itself gently audible in the 
 passage outside. The door- opened, and the lady who had 
 come to see the house appeared in the dining-room. 
 
 IV. 
 
 She was tall and elegant ; beautifully dressed, in the hap- 
 piest combination of simplicity and splendor. A light sum- 
 mer veil hung over her face. She lifted it, and made her apol- 
 ogies for disturbing the gentlemen over their wine, with the 
 unaffected ease and grace of a highly-bred woman. 
 
 " Pray accept my excuses for this intrusion. I am ashamed 
 to disturb you. One look at the room will be quite enough." 
 
 Thus far she had addressed Mr. Delamayn, who happened 
 to be nearest to her. Looking round the room, her eye fell 
 on Mr. Vanborough. She started, with a loud exclamation 
 of astonishment. ^^Youf" she said. "Good heavens! who 
 would have thought of meeting you here ?" 
 
 Mr. Vanborough, on his side, stood petrified. 
 
 "Lady Jane !" he exclaimed. " Is it possible?" 
 
 He barely looked at her while she spoke. His eyes wan- 
 dered guiltily toward the window which led into the garden. 
 The situation was a terrible one — equally terrible if his wife 
 discovered Lady Jane, or if Lady Jane discovered his wife. 
 For the moment nobody was visible on the lawn. There was 
 time, if the chance only oflered — there was time for him to 
 get the visitor out of the house. The visitor, innocent of all 
 knowledge of the truth, gayly offered him her hand. 
 
 " I believe in mesmerism for the first time," she said. " This 
 is an instance of magnetic sympathy, Mr. Vanborough. An 
 invalid friend of mine wants a furnished house at Hampstead. 
 
MAN AND WIFE. 23 
 
 I undertake to find one lor her, and tlie day T select to make 
 the discovery is the day you select for dining with a friend. 
 A last house at Hanipstead is left on my list — and in that 
 house I meet you. Astonishing !" She turned to Mr. Dela- 
 mayn. " I presume I am addressing the owner of the house ?" 
 Before a word could be said by either of the gentlemen she 
 noticed the garden. " What pretty grounds ! Do I see a lady 
 in the garden ? I hope I have not driven her away." She 
 looked round, and appealed to Mr. Vanborough. " Your 
 friend's wife ?" she asked, and, on this occasion, waited for a 
 reply. 
 
 In Mr. Vanborough's situation what reply was possible ? 
 
 Mrs. Vanborough was not only visible — but audible — in the 
 garden ; giving her orders to one of the out-of-door servants 
 with the tone and manner which proclaimed the mistress of 
 the house. Suppose he said, " She is not my friend's wife?" 
 Female curiosity would inevitably put the next question, 
 " Who is she ?" Suppose he invented an explanation ? The 
 explanation would take time, and time would give his wife an 
 opportunity of discovering Lady Jane. Seeing all these con- 
 siderations in one breathless moment, Mr. Vanborough took 
 the shortest and the boldest way out of the difficulty. He 
 answered silently by an affirmative inclination of the head, 
 which dexterously turned Mrs. Vanborough into Mrs. Dela- 
 mayn, without allowing Mr. Delamayu the opportunity of 
 hearing it. 
 
 But the lawyer's eye was habitually watchful, and the law- 
 yer saw him. 
 
 Mastering in a moment his first natural astonishment at the 
 liberty taken with him, Mr. Delamayn drew the inevitable 
 conclusion that there was something wrong, and that there 
 was an attempt (not to be permitted for a moment) to mix 
 him up in it. He advanced, resolute to contradict his client, 
 to his client's own face. 
 
 The voluble Lady Jane interrupted him before he could 
 open his lips. 
 
 " Might I ask one question ? Is the aspect south ? Of course 
 it is ! I ought to see by the sun that the aspect is south. 
 These and the other two are, I suppose, the only rooms on the 
 ground-floor? And is it quiet? Of course it's quiet? A 
 charming house. Far more likely to suit my friend than any 
 I have seen yet. Will you give me the refusal of it till to- 
 morrow?" There she stopped for breath, and gave Mr. Dela- 
 mayn his first opportunity of speaking to her, 
 
 "I beg your ladyship's pardon," he began. "I really 
 can't — " 
 
 Mr. Vanborough — passing close behind him, and whispermg 
 
24 MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 as he passed — stopped the lawyer before he could say a word 
 more. 
 
 " For God's sake, don't contradict me ! My wife is coming 
 this way !" 
 
 At the same moment (still supposing that Mr. Delamayn 
 was the master of the house) Lady Jane returned to the 
 charge. 
 
 '' You appear to feel some hesitation," she said. " Do you 
 want a reference ?" She smiled satirically, and summoned her 
 friend to her aid. " Mr. Vanborough !" 
 
 Mr. Vanborough, stealing step by step nearer to the window 
 — intent, come what might of it, on keeping his wife out of 
 the room — neither heeded nor heard her. Lady Jane followed 
 him, and tapped him briskly on the shoulder with her parasol. 
 
 At that moment Mrs. Vanborough appeared on the garden 
 side of the window. 
 
 "Am I in the way?" she asked, addressing her husband, 
 after one steady look at Lady Jane. " This lady appears to 
 be an old friend of yours." There was a tone of sarcasm in 
 that allusion to the parasol, which might develop into a tone 
 of jealousy at a moment's notice. 
 
 Lady Jane was not in the least disconcerted. She had her 
 double privilege of familiarity with the men whom she liked 
 — her privilege as a woman of high rank, and her privilege as 
 a young widow. She bowed to Mrs. Vanborough, with all 
 the highly-finished politeness of the order to which she be- 
 longed. 
 
 "The lady of the house, I presume?" she said, with a gra- 
 cious smile. 
 
 Mrs. Vanborough returned the bow coldly — entered the 
 room first — and then answered, " Yes." 
 
 Lady Jane turned to Mr. Vanborough. 
 
 " Present me !" she said, submitting resignedly to the for- 
 malities of the middle classes. 
 
 Mr. Vanborough obeyed, without looking at his wife, and 
 without mentioning his wife's name. 
 
 "Lady Jane Parnell," he said, passing over the introduction 
 as rapidly as possible. "Let me see you to your carriage," 
 he added, offering his arm. " I will take care that you have 
 the refusal of the house. You may trust it all to me." 
 
 No ! Lady Jane was accustomed to leave a favorable im- 
 pression behind her wherever she went. It was a habit with 
 her to be charming (in widely different ways) to both sexes. 
 The social experience of the upper classes is, in England, an 
 experience of universal welcome. Lady Jane declined to leave 
 until she had thawed the icy reception of the lady of the 
 house. 
 
MAN AND WIFE. 26 
 
 " I must repeat my apologies," she said to Mrs. Vanborough, 
 "for coming at this inconvenient time. My intrusion appears 
 to have sadly disturbed the two gentlemen. Mr. Vanborough 
 looks as if he wished me a hundred miles away. And as for 
 your husband — " She stopped and glanced toward Mr. Dela- 
 mayn. "Pardon me for speaking in that familiar way. I 
 have not the pleasure of knowing your husband's name." 
 
 In speechless amazement Mrs. Vanborough's eyes followed 
 the direction of Lady Jane's eyes — and rested on the lawyer, 
 personally a total stranger to her. 
 
 Mr. Delamayn, resolutely waiting his opportunity to speak, 
 seized it once more — and held it this time. 
 
 " I beg your pardon," he said. " There is some misappre- 
 hension here, for which I am in no way responsible. I am not 
 that lady's husband." 
 
 It was Lady Jane's turn to be astonished. She looked at 
 the lawyer. Useless ! Mr. Delamayn had set himself right — 
 Mr. Delamayn declined to interfere further. He silently took 
 a chair at the other end of the room. Lady Jane addressed 
 Mr. Vanborough. 
 
 " Whatever the mistake may be," she said, " you are re- 
 sponsible for it. You certainly told me this lady was your 
 friend's wife." 
 
 " What ! ! !" cried Mrs. Vanborough — loudly, sternly, incred- 
 ulously. 
 
 The inbred pride of the great lady began to appear behind 
 the thin outer veil of jDoliteness that covered it. 
 
 " I will speak louder if you wish it," she said. " Mr. Van- 
 borough told me you were that gentleman's wife." 
 
 Mr. Vanborough whispered fiercely to his wife through his 
 clenched teeth. 
 
 " The whole thing is a mistake. Go into the garden again !" 
 
 Mrs. Vanborough's indignation was suspended for the mo- 
 ment in dread, as she saw the passion and the terror strug- 
 gling in her husband's face. 
 
 "How you look at me!" she said. "How you speak to 
 me!" 
 
 He only repeated, " Go into the garden !" 
 
 Lady Jane began to perceive — what the lawyer had discov- 
 ered some minutes previously — that there was something 
 wrong in the villa at Hampstead. The lady of the house was 
 a lady in an anomalous position of some kind. And as the 
 house, to all appearance, belonged to Mr. Vanborough's friend, 
 Mr. Vanborough's friend must (in spite of his recent disclaim- 
 er) be in some way responsible for it. Arriving, naturally 
 enough, at this erroneous conclusion, Lady Jane's eyes rested 
 for an instant on Mrs. Vanborough with a finely contemptuous 
 
 2 
 
26 MAN AND WIFK. 
 
 expression of inquiry which would have roused the spirit of 
 the tamest woman in existence. The implied insult stung the 
 wife's sensitive nature to tit Cjuick. She turned once more to 
 her husband — this time without flinching. 
 
 '* Who is that woman ?" she asked. 
 
 Lady Jane was equal to the emergency. The manner in 
 which she wrapped herself up in her own virtue, without the 
 slightest pretension on the one hand, and without the slight- 
 est compromise on the other, was a sight to see. 
 
 " Mr. Vanborough," she said, " you offered to take me to my 
 carriage just now. I begin to understand that I had better 
 have accepted the offer at once. Give me your arm." 
 
 " Stop !" said Mrs. Vanborough, " your ladyship's looks are 
 looks of contempt ; your ladyship's words can bear but one in- 
 terpretation. I am innocently involved in some vile deception 
 which I don't understand. But this I do know — I won't sub- 
 mit to be insulted in my own house. After what you have 
 just said, I forbid my husband to give you his arm." 
 
 Her husband ! 
 
 Lady Jane looked at Mr. Vanborough — at Mr. Vanborough, 
 whom she loved ; whom she had honestly believed to be a, 
 ■single man ; whom she had suspected, up to that moment, of 
 nothing worse than of trying to screen the frailties of his 
 friend. She dropped her highly-bred tone ; she lost her high- 
 ly-bred manners. The sense of her injury (if this was true), 
 the pang of her jealousy (if that woman teas his wife), stripped 
 the human nature in her bare of all disguises, raised the angry 
 color in her cheeks, and struck the angry fire out of her eyes. 
 
 " If you can tell the truth, sir," she said, haughtily, " be so 
 good as to tell it now. Have you been falsely presenting 
 yourself to the world— falsely presenting yourself to me—m 
 the character and with the aspirations of a single man ? Is 
 that lady your wife ?" 
 
 "Do you hear her? do you see her?" cried Mrs. Vanbor- 
 ough, appealing to her husband, in her turn. She suddenly 
 drew back from him, shuddering from head to foot. "He 
 hesitates !" she said to herself, faintly. " Good God ! he hesi- 
 tates !" 
 
 Lady Jane sternly repeated her question. 
 
 "Is that lady your wife?" 
 
 He roused his scoundrel-courage, and said the fatal word : 
 
 "No!" 
 
 Mrs. Vanborough staggei-ed back. She caught at the white 
 curtains of the window to save herself from falling, and tore 
 them. She looked at her husband, with the torn curtain 
 clenched fast in her hand. She asked herself, " Am I mad ? or 
 18 he ?" 
 
MAN AND WIPB. 2*1 
 
 Lady Jane drew a deep breath of relief. He was not mar- 
 ried ! He was only a profligate single man. A pi'ofligate sin- 
 gle man is shocking — but reclaimable. It is possible to blame 
 him severely, and to insibc on his I'eformation in the most un- 
 compromising terms. It is also possible to forgive him, and 
 marry him. Lady Jane took the necessary position under the 
 circumstances with perfect tact. She inflicted reproof in the 
 present without excluding hope in the future. 
 
 "I have made a very painful discovery," she said, gravely, 
 to Mr. Vanborough. " It rests with you to persuade me to 
 forget it ! Good-evening !" 
 
 She accompanied the last words by a farewell look which 
 aroused Mrs. Vanborough to frenzy. She sprang forward and 
 prevented Lady Jane from leaving the room. 
 
 " No !" she said. " You don't go yet !" 
 
 Mr. Vanborough came forward to interfere. His wife eyed 
 him with a terrible look, and turned from him with a terrible 
 contempt. "That man has lied!" she said. "In justice to 
 myself, I insist on proving it !" She struck a bell on a table 
 near her. The servant came in. " Fetch my writing-desk out 
 of the next room." She waited — with her back turned on her 
 husband, with her eyes fixed on Lady Jane. Defenseless and 
 alone she stood on the wreck of her married life, sujierior to 
 the husband's treachery, the lawyer's indifi'erence, and her ri- 
 val's contempt. At that dreadful moment her beauty ahone 
 out again witli a gleam of its old glory. The grand woman, 
 who in the old stage days had held thousands breathlese over 
 the mimic woes of the scene, stood there grander than ever, 
 in her own woe, and held the three people who looked at her 
 breathless till she spoke again. 
 
 The servant came in with the desk. She took out a paper 
 and handed it to Lady Jane. 
 
 " I was a singer on the stage," she said, " when I was a sin- 
 gle woman. The slander to which such women are exposed 
 doubted my marriage. I provided myself with the paper in 
 your hand. It speaks for itself. Even the highest society, 
 madam, respects that/" 
 
 Lady Jane examined the paper. It was a marriage-certifi- 
 cate. She turned deadly pale, and beckoned to Mr. Vanbor- 
 ough. " Are you deceiving me ?" she asked. 
 
 Mr. Vanborough looked back into the far corner of the 
 room, in which the lawyer sat, impenetrably waiting for 
 events. " Oblige me by coming here for a moment," he said. 
 
 Mr. Delamayn rose and complied with the request. Mr. 
 Vanborough addressed himself to Lady Jane. 
 
 " I beg to refer you to my man of business. JETe is not in- 
 terested in deceiving you." 
 
28 MATsT AND WIFE. 
 
 " Am I required simply to speak to the fact ?" asked Mr. 
 Delamayn. " I decline to do more." 
 
 " You are not wanted to do more." 
 
 Listening intently to that interchange of question and an- 
 swer, Mrs. Vanborough advanced a step in silence. The high 
 courage that had sustained her against outrage which had 
 openly declared itself shrank under the sense of something 
 coming which she had not foreseen. A nameless dread throb- 
 bed at her heart and crept among the roots of her hair. 
 
 Lady Jane handed the certificate to the lawyer. 
 
 " In two words, sir," she said, imjDatiently, " what is this ?" 
 
 •' Li two words, madam," answered Mr. Delamayn ; " waste 
 paper." 
 
 " He is not married ?" 
 
 " He is not married." 
 
 After a moment's hesitation Lady Jane looked round at 
 Mrs, Vanborough, standing silent at her side — looked, and 
 started back in terror. " Take me away !" she cried, shrink- 
 ing from the ghastly face that confronted her with the fixed 
 stare of agony in the great, glittering eyes. " Take me away ! 
 That woman will murder me !" 
 
 Mr. Vanborough gave her his arm and led her to the door. 
 There was dead silence in the room as he did it. Step by step 
 the wife's eyes followed them with the same dreadful stare, 
 'till the door closed and shut them out. The lawyer, left alone 
 with the disowned and deserted woman, put the useless cer- 
 tificate silently on the table. She looked from him to the pa- 
 per, and dropped, without a cry to warn him, without an effort 
 to save herself, senseless at his feet. 
 
 He lifted her from the floor and placed her on the sofa, and 
 waited to see if Mr. Vanborough would come back. Looking 
 at the beautiful face — still beautiful, even in the swoon — he 
 owned it was hard on her. Yes ! in his own impenetrable 
 way, the rising lawyer owned it was hard on her. 
 
 But the law justified it. There was no doubt in this case. 
 The law justified it. 
 
 The trampling of horses and the grating of wheels sounded 
 outside. Lady Jane's carriage was driving away. Would the 
 husband come back ? (See what a thing habit is ! Even Mr. 
 Delamayn still mechanically thought of him as the husband — 
 in the face of the law ! in the face of the facts !) 
 
 No. The minutes passed. And no sign of the husband 
 coming back. 
 
 It was not wise to make a scandal in the house. It was not 
 desirable (on his own sole responsibility) to let the servants 
 see what had happened. Still, there she lay senseless. The 
 cool evening air came in through the open window and lifted 
 
MAX AXD WIFE. 29 
 
 the liglit ribbons in her lace cap, lifted the little lock of hair 
 
 that had broken loose and drooped over her neck. Still, there 
 she lay — the wife who had loved him, the mother of his child 
 — there she lay. 
 
 He stretched out his hand to ring the bell and summon help. 
 
 At the same moment the quiet of the summer evening was 
 once more disturbed. He held his hand suspended over the 
 bell. The noise outside came nearer. It was again the tram- 
 pling of horses and the grating of wheels. Advancing — rapid- 
 ly advancing — stopping at the house. 
 
 Was Lady Jane coming back ? 
 
 Was the husband coming back ? 
 
 There was a loud ring at the bell — a quick opening of the 
 house-door — a rustling of a w'oman's dress in the passage. 
 The door of the room opened, and the woman appeared — 
 alone. Not Lady Jane. A stranger — older, years older, than 
 Lady Jane. A plain w^oman, perhaps, at other times. A 
 woman almost beautiful, now, with the eager happiness that 
 beamed in her face. 
 
 She saw the figure on the sofa. She ran to it with a cry — 
 a cry of i-ecognition and a cry of terror in one. She dropped 
 on her knees — and laid that helpless head on her bosom, and 
 kissed, with a sister's kisses, that cold, white cheek. 
 
 " Oh, my darling !" she said. " Is it thus we meet again ?" 
 
 Yes ! After all the years that had passed since the parting 
 in the cabin of the ship, it was thus the two school-friends met 
 again. 
 
 Part tl)e Second. 
 
 THE MARCH OF TIME. 
 
 V. 
 
 Advancing from time past to time present, the Prologue 
 leaves the date last attained (the summer of eighteen hundred 
 and fifty-five), and travels on through an interval of twelve 
 years — tells who lived, who died, who prospered, and who 
 failed among the persons concerned in the tragedy at the 
 Hampstead villa — and, this done, leaves the reader at the 
 opening of The Story, in the spring of eighteen hundred and 
 sixty-eight. 
 
 The record begins with a marriage — the marriage of Mr. 
 Vanborough and Lady Jane Parnell. 
 In three months from the memorable day when his solicitor 
 
30 MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 had informed hira that he was a free man, Mr. Vanboroiigh 
 possessed the wife he desired, to grace the head of his table 
 and to push his fortunes in the world — the Legislature of 
 Great Britain being the humble servant of his treachery, and 
 the respectable accomplice of his crime. 
 
 He entered Parliament. He gave (thanks to his wife) six 
 of the grandest dinners, and two of the most crowded balls of 
 the season. He made a successful first speech in the House 
 of Commons. He endowed a church in a poor neighborhood. 
 He wrote an article which attracted attention in a quarterly- 
 review. Ho discovered, denounced, and remedied a crying 
 abuse in the administration of a public charity. He received 
 (thanks once more to his wife) a member of the Royal family 
 among the visitors at his country house in the autumn recess. 
 These were his triumphs, and this his rate of progress on the 
 way to the peerage, during the first year of his life as the hus- 
 band of Lady Jane. 
 
 There was but one more favor that Fortune could confer 
 on her spoiled child — and Fortune bestowed it. There wl.s a 
 spot on Mr. Vanborough's past life as long as the woman lived 
 whom he had disowned and deserted. At the end of the first 
 year Death took her — and the spot was rubbed out. 
 
 She had met the merciless injury inflicted on her with a rare 
 patience, with an admirable courage. It is due to Mr. Van- 
 borough to admit that he broke her heart, with the strictest 
 attention to propriety. He offered (through his lawyer) a 
 handsome provision for her and for her child. It was rejected, 
 without an instant's hesitation. She repudiated his money — 
 she repudiated his name. By the name which she had borne 
 in her maiden days — the name which she had made illustrious 
 in her Art — the mother and daughter Avere known to all who 
 cared to inquire after them when they had sunk in the world. 
 
 There was no false pride in the resolute attitude which she 
 thus assumed after her husband had forsaken her. Mrs. Sil- 
 vester (as she was now called) gratefully accepted for herself, 
 and for Miss Silvester, the assistance of the dear old friend 
 who had found her again in her aflliction, and who remained 
 faithful to her to the end. They lived with Lady Lundie un- 
 til the mother was strong enough to carry out the plan of life 
 which she had arranged for the future, and to earn her bread 
 as a teacher of singing. To all appearance she rallied, and be- 
 came herself again, in a few months' time. She was making 
 her way ; she was winning sympathy, confidence, and respect 
 everywhere — when she sank suddenly at the opening of her 
 new life. Nobody could account for it. The doctors them- 
 selves were divided in opinion. Scientifically speakina'. tliere 
 was no reason why she should die. It was a mere figure of 
 
MAN AND WIFB. 31 
 
 speech — in no degree satisfactory to any reasonable mind — to 
 say, as Lady Lundie said, that she had got her death-blow on 
 the day when her husband deserted her. The one thing cer- 
 tain was the fact — account for it as you might. In spite of 
 science (which meant little), in spite of her own courage (which 
 meant much), the woman dropped at her post and died. 
 
 In the latter part of her illness her mind gave way. The 
 friend of her old school-days, sitting at the bedside, heard her 
 talking as if she thought herself back again in the cabin of the 
 ship. The poor soul found the tone, almost the look, that had 
 been lost for so many years — the tone of the past time when 
 the two girls had gone their different ways in the world. She 
 said, "We will meet, darling, with all the old love between us," 
 just as she had said almost a lifetime since. Before the end 
 her mind rallied. She surprised the doctor and the nurse by 
 begging them gently to leave the room. When they had gone 
 she looked at Lady Lundie, and woke, as it seemed, to con- 
 sciousness from a dream. 
 
 " Blanche," she said, " you will take care of my child ?" 
 
 " She shall be my child, Anne, when you are gone." 
 
 The dying woman paused, and thought for a little. A sud- 
 den trembling seized her. 
 
 " Keep it a secret !" she said. " I am afraid for my child." 
 
 "Afraid? After what I have promised you ?" 
 
 She solemnly repeated the woi'ds, " I am afraid for my child." 
 
 " Why ?" 
 
 " My Anne is my second self — isn't she ?" 
 
 « Yes." 
 
 " She is as fond of your child as I was of you ?" 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " She is not called by her father's name — she is called by 
 mine. She is Anne Silvester, as I was. Blanche ! Will she 
 end like Me .?" 
 
 The question was put with the laboring breath, with the 
 heavy accents which tell that death is near. It chilled the 
 living woman who heard it to the marrow of her bones. 
 
 " Don't think that !" she cried, horror-struck. " For God's 
 sake, don't think that !" 
 
 The wildness began to appear again in Anne Silvester's eyes. 
 She made feebly-impatient signs with her hands. Lady Lun- 
 die bent over her, and heard her whisper, " Lift me up." 
 
 She lay in her friend's arms; she looked up in her friend's 
 face ; she went back wildly to her fear for her child. 
 
 " Don't bring her up like Me ! She must be a governess — 
 she must get her bread. Don't let her act ! don't let her sing ! 
 don't let her go on the stage !" She stopped — her voice sud- 
 denly recovered its sweetness of tone — she smiled faintly — 
 
32 MAN AND WIPE. 
 
 she said the old girlish words once more, in the old girlish 
 way, " Vow it, Blanche !" Lady Lundie kissed her, and an- 
 swered, as she had answered when they parted in the ship, 
 " I vow it, Anne !" 
 
 The head sank, never to be lifted more. The last look of 
 life flickered in the filmy eyes and went out. For a moment 
 afterward her lips moved. Lady Lundie put her ear close to 
 them, and heard the dreadful question reiterated, in the same 
 dreadful words : " She is Anne Silvester — as I was. Will she 
 end like Me P' 
 
 VI. 
 
 Five years jjassed — and the lives of the three men who had 
 sat at the dinner-table in the Hampstead villa began, in their 
 altered aspects, to reveal the progress of time and change. 
 
 Mro Kendrew ; Mr. Delamayn ; Mr. Vanborough. Let the 
 order in which they are here named be the order in which 
 their lives are reviewed, as seen once more after a lapse of five 
 years. 
 
 How the husband's friend marked his sense of the husband's 
 treachery has been told already. How he felt the death of 
 the deserted wife is still left to tell. ReiDort, which sees the 
 inmost hearts of men, and delights in turning them outward 
 to the public view, had always declared that Mr. Kendrew's 
 life had its secret, and that the secret was a hopeless passion 
 for the beautiful woman who had married his friend. Not a 
 hint ever dropped to any living soul, not a woi'd ever spoken 
 to the woman herself, could be produced in proof of the asser- 
 tion while the woman lived. When she died, Report started 
 up again more confidently than ever, and appealed to the 
 man's own conduct as proof against the man himselC 
 
 He attended the funeral — though he was no relation. He 
 took a few blades of grass from the turf with which they cov- 
 ered her grave — when he thought that nobody was looking at 
 him. He disappeared from his club. He traveled. He came 
 back. He admitted that he was weary of England. He ap- 
 plied for, and obtained, an appointment in one of the colonies. 
 To what conclusion did all this point ? Was it not plain that 
 his usual course of life had lost its attraction for him, when the 
 object of his infatuation had ceased to exist ? It might have 
 been so — guesses less likely have been made at the truth, and 
 have hit the mark. It is, at any rate, certain that he left En- 
 gland, never to return again. Another man lost, Report said. 
 Add to that, a man in ten thousand — and, for once. Report 
 might claim to be right. 
 
 Mr. Delamayn comes next. 
 
 The rising solicitor was struck oflT the roll, at his own re- 
 
MAN AND WIFB. 33 
 
 2uest — and entered himself as a student at one of the Inns of 
 lonrt. For three years nothing was known of him but that 
 he was reading hard and keeping his terms. He was called to 
 the Bar, His late partners in the firm knew they could trust 
 him, and put business into his hands. In two years he made 
 himself a position in Court. At the end of the two years he 
 made himself a position out of Court. He appeared as " Jun- 
 ior " in " a famous case," in which the honor of a great fami- 
 ly, and the title to a great estate were concerned. His " Sen- 
 ior" fell ill on the eve of the trial. He conducted the case 
 for the defendant and won it. The defendant said, " What 
 can I do for you?" Mi*. Delamayn answered, "Put rae into 
 Parliament." Being a landed gentleman, the defendant had 
 only to issue the necessary orders — and behold, Mr. Delamayn 
 was in Parliament ! 
 
 In the House of Commons the new member and Mr. Van- 
 borough met again. 
 
 They sat on the same bench, and sided with the same party. 
 Mr. Delamayn noticed that Mr. Vanborough was looking old 
 and worn and gray. He put a few questions to a well-inform- 
 ed person. The well-informed person shook his head. Mr. 
 Vanborough was rich ; Mr. Vanborough was well-conuected 
 (through his wife) ; Mr. Vanborough was a sound man in every 
 sense of the word ; but — nobody liked him. He had done very 
 well the first year, and there it had ended. He was undenia- 
 bly clever, but he produced a disagi'eeable impression in the 
 House. He gave splendid entertainments, but he wasn't pop- 
 ular in society. His party respected him, but when they had 
 any thing to give they passed him over. He had a temper of 
 his own, if the truth must be told ; and with nothing against 
 him — on the contrary, with every thing in his favor — he didn't 
 make friends. A soured man. At home and abroad, a soured 
 man. 
 
 VII. 
 
 Five years more passed, dating from the day when the de- 
 serted wife was laid in her grave. It was now the year eight- 
 een hundred and sixty-six. 
 
 On a certain day in that year two special items of news ap- 
 peared in the papers — the news of an elevation to the peerage, 
 and the news of a suicide. 
 
 Getting on well at the Bar, Mr. Delamayn got on better still 
 in Parliament. He became one of the prominent men in the 
 House. Spoke clearly, sensibly, and modestly, and was never 
 too long. Held the House, where men of higher abilities 
 " bored" it. The chiefs of his party said openly, " We must 
 do something for Delamayn." The opportunity offered, and 
 
34 MAN AND WIFE, 
 
 the chiefs kept their word. Their Solicitor-General was ad- 
 vanced a step, and they put Delamayn in his place. There was 
 an outcry on the part of the oldei- members of the Bar. The 
 Ministry answered, " We want a man who is listened to in the 
 House, and we have got him." The pa))ers supported the new 
 nomination. A great debate came off, and the new Solicitor- 
 General justified the Ministry and the papers. His enemies 
 said, derisively, " He will be Lord Chancellor in a year or 
 two !" His friends made genial jokes in his domestic circle, 
 which pointed to the same conclusion. They warned his two 
 sons, Julius and Geoffrey (then at college), to be careful what 
 acquaintances they made, as they might find themselves the 
 sons of a lord at a moment's notice. It really began to look 
 like something of the sort. Always rising, Mr. Delamayn rose 
 next to be Attorney-General. About the same time — so true 
 it is that" nothing succeeds like success" — a childless relative 
 died and left him a fortune. In the summer of 'sixty-six a 
 Chief Judgeship fell vacant. The Ministry had made a previ- 
 ous appointment which had been universally unpopular. They 
 saw their way to supplying the place of their Attorney-Gen- 
 eral, and they offered the judicial appointment to Mr. Dela- 
 mayn. He preferred remaining in the House of Commons, and 
 refused to accept it. The Ministry declined to take No for an 
 answer. They whispered, confidentially," Will you take it with 
 a peerage ?" Mr. Delamayn consulted his wife, and took it 
 with a peerage. The London Gazette announced him to the 
 world as Baron Holchester of Holchester. And the friends of 
 the family rubbed their hands and said, " What did we tell 
 you ? Here are our two young friends, Julius and Geoffrey, 
 the sons of a lord !" 
 
 And where was Mr. Vanborough all this time ? Exactly 
 where we left him five years since. 
 
 He was as rich, or richer, than ever. He was as well-con- 
 nected as ever. He was as ambitious as ever. But there it 
 ended. He stood still in the House ; he stood still in society ; 
 nobody liked him ; he made no friends. It was all the old 
 story over again, with this diffei'ence, that the sour man was 
 sourer ; the gray head, grayer ; and the irritable temper more 
 unendurable than ever. His wife had her rooms in the house 
 and he had his, and the confidential servants took care that 
 they never met on the stairs. They had no children. They 
 only saw each other at their grand dinners and balls. People 
 ate at their table, and danced on their floor, and compared 
 notes afterward, and said how dull it was. Step by step the 
 man who had once been Mr. Vanborough's lawyer rose, till the 
 peerage received him, and he could rise no longer ; while Mr. 
 Vanborough, on the lower round of the ladder, looked up and 
 

MAN AND WIFE. 37 
 
 noted it, with no more chance (rich as he was and well-con- 
 nected as he was) of climbing to the House of Lords than your 
 chance or mine. 
 
 The man's career was ended ; and on the day when the 
 nomination of the new peer was announced, the man ended 
 with it. 
 
 He laid the newspaper aside without making any remark, 
 and went out. His carriage set him down, where the green 
 fields still remain, on the north-west of London, near the foot- 
 path which leads to Hampstead. He walked alone to the 
 villa where he had once lived with the woman whom he had 
 so cruelly wronged. New houses had risen round it, part of 
 the old garden had been sold and built on. After a moment's 
 hesitation, he went to the gate and rang the bell. He gave 
 the servant his card. The servant's master knew the name as 
 the name of a man of great wealth, and of a Member of Par- 
 liament. He asked politely to what fortunate circumstance 
 he owed the honor of that visit. Mr. Vanborough answered 
 briefly and simply, I once lived here ; I have associations with 
 the place with which it is not necessary for me to trouble you. 
 Will you excuse what must seem to you a very strange re- 
 quest ? I should like to see the dining-room again, if there is 
 no objection, and if I am disturbing nobody." 
 
 The " strange requests " of rich men are of the nature of 
 " privileged communications," for this excellent reason, that 
 they are sure not to be requests for money. Mr. Vanborough 
 was shown into the dining-room. The master of the house, 
 secretly wondering, watched him. 
 
 He walked straight to a certain spot on the carpet, not far 
 from the window that led into the garden, and nearly opposite 
 the door. On that spot he stood silently, with his head on 
 his breast — thinking. Was it there he had seen her for the 
 last time, on the day when he left the room forever? Y^es; 
 it was there. After a minute or so he roused himself, but in 
 a dreamy, absent manner. He said it was a pretty place, and 
 expressed his thanks, and looked back before the door closed, 
 and then went his way again. His carriage picked him up 
 where it had set him down. He drove to the residence of 
 the new Lord Holchestei', and left a card for him. Then he 
 went home. Arrived at his house, his secretary reminded him 
 that he had an appointment in ten minutes' time. He thanked 
 the secretary in the same dreamy, absent manner in which he 
 had thanked the owner of the villa, and went into his dressing- 
 room. The person with whom he had made the appointment 
 came, and the secretary sent the valet up stairs to knock at 
 the door. There was no answer. On trying the lock, it proved 
 to be turned inside. Thej broke open the door, and saw him 
 
38 MAN AND WIFB. 
 
 lying on the sofa. They went close to look — and found him 
 dead by his own hand. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Drawing fast to its close, the Prologue reverts to the two 
 girls — and tells, in a few words, how the years passed with 
 Anne and Blanche. 
 
 Lady Lundie more than redeemed the solemn pledge that 
 she had given to her friend. Preserved from every tempta- 
 tion which might lure her into a longing to follow her moth- 
 er's career; trained for a teacher's life, with all the arts and 
 all the advantages that money could procure, Anne's first and 
 only essays as a governess were made, under Lady Lundie's 
 own roof, on Lady Lundie's own child. The difference in the 
 ages of the girls — seven years — the love between them, which 
 seemed, as time went on, to grow with their growth, favored 
 the trial of the experiment. In the double relation of teacher 
 and friend to little Blanche, the girlhood of Anne Silvester the 
 youngest passed safely, happily, uneventfully, in the modest 
 sanctuary of home. Who could imagine a contrast more com- 
 plete than the contrast between her early life and her moth- 
 er's ? Who could see any thing but a death-bed delusion in 
 the terrible question which had tortured the mother's last mo- 
 ments : " Will she end like Me ?" 
 
 But two events of importance occurred in the quiet family 
 circle during the lapse of years which is now under review. 
 In eighteen hundred and fifty-eight the household was enliv- 
 ened by the arrival of Sir Thomas Lundie. In eighteen hun- 
 dred and sixty-five the household was broken up by the return 
 of Sir Thomas to India, accompanied by his wife. 
 
 Lady Lundie's health had been failing for some time previ- 
 ously. The medical men, consulted on the case, agreed that a 
 sea-voyage was the one change needful to restore their pa- 
 tient's wasted strength — exactly at the time, as it happened, 
 when Sir Thomas was due again in India. For his wife's sake, 
 he agreed to defer his return, by taking the sea-voyage with 
 her. The one difficulty to get over was the difficulty of leav- 
 ing Blanche and Anne behind in England, 
 
 Appealed to on this point, the doctors had declared that at 
 Blanche's critical time of life they could not sanction her go- 
 ing to India with her mother. At the same time, near and 
 dear relatives came forward, who were ready and anxious to 
 give Blanche and her governess a home — Sir Thomas, on his 
 side, engaging to bring his wife back in a year and a half, or, 
 at most, in two years' time. Assailed in all directions, Lady 
 Lundie's natural unwillingness to leave the girls was overruled. 
 She consented to the parting — with a mind secretly depressed, 
 and secretly doubtful of the future. 
 
MAN AND WIPE. 89 
 
 At the last moment she drew Anne Silvester on one side, 
 out of hearing of the rest. Anne was then a young woman 
 of twenty-two, and Blanche a girl of fifteen. 
 
 "My dear," she said, simply, "I must tell you what I can 
 not tell Sir Thomas, and what I am afraid to tell Blanche. I 
 am going away, with a mind that misgives me. I am per- 
 suaded I shall not live to return to England; and, when I am 
 dead, I believe my husband will marry again. Years ago your 
 mother was imeasy, on her death-bed, about yotir future. I 
 am uneasy, now, about Blanche's future. I promised my dear 
 dead friend that you should be like my own child to me — and 
 it quieted her mind. Quiet my mind, Anne, before I go. What- 
 ever happens in years to come — promise me to be always, what 
 you are now, a sister to Blanche." 
 
 She held out her hand for the last time. With a full heart 
 Anne Silvester kissed it, and gave the promise. 
 
 IX. 
 
 In two months from that time one of the forebodings Avhich 
 had weighed on Lady Lundie's mind was fulfilled. She died 
 on the voyage, and was buried at sea. 
 
 In a year more the second misgiving was confirmed. Sir 
 Thomas Lundie married again. He brought his second wife 
 to England toward the close of eighteen hundred and sixty- 
 six. 
 
 Time, in the new household, promised to pass as quietly as 
 in the old. Sir Thomas remembered and respected the trust 
 which his first wife had placed in Anne. The second Lady 
 Lundie, wisely guiding her conduct in this matter by the con- 
 duct of her husband, left things as she found them in the new 
 house. At the opening of eighteen hundred and sixty-seven 
 the relations between Anne and Blanche were relations of sis- 
 terly sympathy and sisterly love. The prospect in the future 
 was as fair as a prospect could be. 
 
 At this date, of the persons concerned in the tragedy of 
 twelve years since at the Hampstead villa, three were dead ; 
 and one was self-exiled in a foreign land. There now remain- 
 ed living Anne and Blanche, who had been children at the 
 time; and the rising solicitor who had discovered the flaw in 
 the Irish marriage — once Mr. Delamayn : now Lord Holchester. 
 
40 MAN AND WIFB. 
 
 THE STORY. 
 
 FIRST SCENE.— THE SUMMER-HOUSE. 
 CHAPTER THE FIRST. 
 
 THE OWLS. 
 
 In the spring of the year eighteen hundred and sixty-eight 
 there lived, in a certain county of North Britain, two venera- 
 ble VN^hite Owls. 
 
 The Owls inhabited a decayed and deserted summer-house. 
 The summer-house stood in grounds attached to a country 
 seat in Perthshire, known by the name of Wiudygates. 
 
 The situation of Wiudygates had been skillfully chosen in 
 that part of the county where the fertile lowlands first begin 
 to merge into the mountain region beyond. The mansion- 
 house was intelligently laid out, and luxuriously furnished. 
 The stables offered a model for ventilation and space ; and the 
 gardens and grounds were fit for a prince. 
 
 Possessed of these advantages at starting, Wiudygates, nev- 
 ertheless, went the road to ruin in due course of time. The 
 curse of litigation fell on house and lands. For more than ten 
 years an interminable lawsuit coiled itself closer and closer 
 round the place, sequestering it from human habitation, and 
 even from human approach. The mansion was closed. The 
 garden became a wilderness of weeds. The summer-house 
 was choked up by creeping plants ; and the appearance of the 
 creepers was followed by the appearance of the birds of night. 
 
 For years the Owls lived undisturbed on the property which 
 they had acquired by the oldest of all existing rights — the 
 right of taking. Throughout the day they sat peaceful and 
 solemn, with closed eyes, in the cool darkness shed round them 
 by the ivy. With the twilight they roused themselves softly 
 to the business of life. In sage and silent companionship of 
 two, they went flying, noiseless, along the quiet lanes in search 
 of a meal. At one time they would beat a field like a set- 
 ter dog, and drop down in an instant on a mouse unaware of 
 them. At another time — moving spectral over the black sur- 
 face of the water — they would try the lake for a change, anc 
 catch a perch as they had caught the mouse. Their catholic 
 digestions were equally tolerant of a rat or an insect. And 
 
MAN AND WIFE. 41 
 
 there were moments, proud moments, in their lives, when they 
 were clever enough to snatch a small bird at roost off* his 
 perch. On those occasions the sense of superiority which the 
 large bird feels everywhere over the small, warmed their cool 
 blood, and set them screeching cheerfully in the stillness of 
 the night. 
 
 So, fur years, the Owls slept their happy sleep by day, and 
 found their comfortable meal when darkness fell. They had 
 come, with the creepers, into possession of the summer-house. 
 Consequently, the creepers were a part of the constitution of 
 the summer-house. And consequently the Owls were the 
 guardians of the Constitution. There are some human owls 
 who reason as they did, and who are, in this respect — as also 
 in respect of snatching smaller birds oft" their roosts — wonder- 
 fully like them. 
 
 The constitution of the summer-house had lasted until the 
 spring of the year eighteen hundred and sixty-eight, when the 
 unhallowed footsteps of innovation passed that way ; and the 
 venerable privileges of the Owls were assailed, for the first 
 time, from the world outside. 
 
 Two featherless beings appeared, iminvited, at the door of 
 the summer-house, surveyed the constitutional creepers, and 
 said, " These must come down " — looked around at the horrid 
 light of noonday, and said, " That must come in " — went away, 
 thereupon, and were heard, in the distance, agreeing together, 
 "To-morrow it shall be done." 
 
 And the Owls said, " Have we honored the summer-house 
 by occupying it all these years — and is the horrid light of 
 noonday to be let in on us at last ? My lords and gentlemen, 
 the Constitution is destroyed !" 
 
 They passed a resolution to that eflTect, as is the manner of 
 their kind. And then they shut their eyes again, and felt that 
 they had done their duty. 
 
 The same night, on their way to the fields, they observed 
 with dismay a light in one of the windows of the house. 
 What did the light mean ? 
 
 It meant, in the first place, that the lawsuit was over at 
 last. It meant, in the second place, that the owner of Windy- 
 gates, wanting money, had decided on letting the property. 
 It meant, in the third place, that the property had found a ten- 
 ant, and was to be renovated immediately out-of-doors and in. 
 The Owls shrieked as they flapped along the lanes in the dark- 
 ness. And that night they struck at a mouse — and missed him. 
 
 The next morning, the Owls — fast asleep in charge of the 
 Constitution — were roused by voices of featherless beings all 
 round them. They opened their eyes, under protest, and saw 
 instruments of destruction attacking the creepers. Now in 
 
42 MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 one direction, and now in another, those instruments let in on 
 the summer-house the horrid light of day. But the Owls were 
 equal to the occasion. They ruffled their feathers, and cried, 
 "No surrender!" The featherless beings plied their work 
 cheerfully, and answered, " Reform !" The creepers were torn 
 down this way and that. The horrid daylight poured in bright- 
 er and brighter. The Owls had barely time to pass a new res- 
 olution, namely, " That we do stand by the Constitution," when 
 a ray of the outer sunlight flashed into their eyes, and sent 
 them flying headlong to the nearest shade. There they sat 
 winking, while the summer-house w^as cleared of the rank 
 growth that had choked it up, while the rotten wood-work 
 was renewed, while all the murky place was purified with air 
 and light. And when the world saw it, and said, " Now we 
 shall do !" the Owls shut their eyes in pious remembrance of 
 the darkness, and answered, "My lords and gentlemen, the 
 Constitution is destroyed !" 
 
 CHAPTER THE SECOND. 
 
 THE GUESTS. 
 
 Who was responsible for the reform of the summer-house ? 
 The new tenaut at Windygates was responsible. 
 And who was the new tenant? 
 Come, and see. 
 
 In the spring of eighteen hundred and sixty-eight the sum- 
 mer-house had been the dismal dwelling-place of a pair of 
 owls. In the autumn of the same year the summer-house was 
 the lively gathering-place of a crowd of ladies and gentlemen, 
 assembled at a lawn party — the guests of the tenant who had 
 taken Windygates. 
 
 The scene — at the opening of the party — was as pleasant to 
 look at as light and beauty and movement could make it. 
 
 Inside the summer-house the butterfly-brightness of the 
 women in their summer dresses shone radiant out of the gloom 
 shed round it by the dreary modern clothing of the men. 
 Outside the summer-house, seen through three arched open- 
 ings, the cool green prospect of a lawn led away, in the dis- 
 tance, to flower-beds and shrubberies, and, farther still, dis- 
 closed, through a break in the trees, a grand stone house, which 
 closed the view, with a fountain in front of it playing in the sun. 
 
 They were half of them laughing, they were all of them 
 talking — the comfortable hum of the voices was at its loudest; 
 the cheery pealing of the laughter was soaring to its highest 
 
MAN AND WIFE. 48 
 
 notes — when one dominant voice, rising clear and shrill above 
 all the rest, called imperatively for silence. The moment af- 
 ter, a young lady stepped into the vacant space in front of the 
 summer-house, and surveyed the throng of guests as a general 
 in command surveys a regiment under review. 
 
 She was young, she was pretty, she was plump, she was fair. 
 She was not the least embarrassed by her prominent position. 
 She was dressed in the height of the fashion. A hat, like a 
 cheese-plate, was tilted over her forehead. A balloon of light 
 brown hair soared, fully inflated, from the crown of her head. 
 A cataract of beads poured over her bosom. A pair of cock- 
 chafers in enamel (frightfully like the living originals) hung at 
 her ears. Her scanty skirts shone splendid with the blue of 
 heaven. Her ankles twinkled in striped stockings. Her shoes 
 were of the sort called " Watteau." And her heels were of 
 the height at w^hich men shudder, and ask themselves (in con- 
 templating an otherwise lovable woman), " Can this charming 
 person straighten her knees ?" 
 
 The young lady thus presenting herself to the general view 
 was Miss Blanche Lundie — once the little rosy Blanche whom 
 the Prologue has introduced to the reader. Age, at the pres- 
 ent time, eighteen. Position, excellent. Money, certain. Tem- 
 per, quick. Disposition, variable. In a word, a child of the 
 modern time — with the merits of the age we live in, and the 
 failings of the age we live in — and a substance of sincerity and 
 truth and feeling underlying it all. 
 
 " Now, then, good people," cried Miss Blanche, " silence, if 
 you please ! We are going to choose sides at croquet. Busi- 
 ness, business, business !" 
 
 Upon this, a second lady among the company assumed a po- 
 sition of prominence, and answered the young person who had 
 just spoken with a look of mild reproof, and in a tone of be- 
 nevolent protest. 
 
 The second lady was tall, and solid, and five-and-thirty. She 
 presented to the general observation a cruel aquiline nose, an 
 obstinate straight chin, magnificent dark hair and eyes, a serene 
 splendor of fawn-colored apparel, and a lazy grace of move- 
 ment which was attractive at first sight, but inexpressibly mo- 
 notonous and wearisome on a longer acquaintance. This was 
 Lady Lundie the Second, now the widow (after four months 
 only of married life) of Sir Thomas Lundie, deceased. In other 
 words, the step-mother of Blanche, and the enviable person who 
 had taken the house and lands of Windygates. 
 
 "My dear," said Lady Lundie, "words have their meanings 
 even on a young lady's lips. Do you call croquet ' business?'" 
 
 " You don't call it pleasure, surely ?" said a gravely ironical 
 voice in the background of the summer-house. 
 
44 MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 The ranks of the visitors parted before the last speaker, and 
 disclosed to view, in the midst of that modern assembly, a gen- 
 tleman of the by-gone time. 
 
 The manner of this gentleman was distingnished by a pliant 
 grace and conrtesy unknown to thepi'esent generation. The 
 attire of this gentleman was composed of a many-folded white 
 cravat, a close-buttoned blue dress-coat, and nankeen trowsers 
 with gaiters to m.atcli, ridiculous to the present generation. 
 The talk of this gentleman ran in an easy flow — revealing an 
 independent habit of mind, and exhibiting a carefully-polished 
 capacity for satirical retort — dreaded and disliked by the pres- 
 ent generation. Personally, he was little and wiry and slim — 
 with a bright white head, and sparkling black eyes, and a wry 
 twist of humor curling shai"ply at the corners of his lips. At 
 bis lower extremities, he exhibited the defoiTuity which is pop- 
 ularly known as " a club-foot." But he carried his lameness, as 
 he carried his years, gayly. He was socially celebrated for his 
 ivory cane, with a snuff-box artfully let into the knob at the 
 top — and he vv^as socially dreaded for a hatred of modern insti- 
 tutions, which expressed itself in season and out of season, and 
 which always showed the same fatal knack of hitting smaitly 
 on the weakest phace. Such was Sir Patrick Lundie; brother 
 of the late baronet. Sir Thomas • and inheritor, at Sir Thomas's 
 death, of the title and estates. 
 
 Miss Blanche — taking no notice of her step-mother's reproof, 
 or of her uncle's commentary on it — pointed to a table on 
 which croquet mallets and balls were laid ready, and recalled 
 the attention of the company to the matter in hand. 
 
 "I head one side, ladies and gentlemen," she resumed; 
 " and Lady Lundie heads the other. We choose our playei's 
 turn and turn about. Mamma has the advantage of me in 
 years. So mamma chooses fii-st." 
 
 With a look at her step-daughter — which, being interpret- 
 ed, meant, "I would send you back to the nursery, miss, if 
 I could!" — -Lady Lundie turned, and ran her eye over her 
 guests. She had evidently made up her mind, beforehand, 
 what player to pick out first. 
 
 " I choose Miss Silvester," she said — with a special emphasis 
 laid on the name. 
 
 At that there was another parting among the crowd. To 
 us (who know her), it v,'as Anne who now appeared. Stran- 
 gers, who saw her for the first time, saw a lady in the prime 
 of her life — a lady plainly dressed in unornaraented white— 
 who advanced slowly, and confronted the mistress of the 
 bouse. 
 
 A certain proportion— and not a small one — of the men at 
 the lawn-party had been brought there by friends who were 
 
HAN AND WIFS. 45 
 
 privileged to introduce them. The moment she appeared ev- 
 ery one of those men suddenly became interested in the lady 
 who had been chosen first, 
 
 "That's a very charming woman," whispered one of the 
 strangers at the house to one of the friends of the house. 
 " Who is she ?" 
 
 The friend whispered back : 
 
 "Miss Lundie's governess — that's all." 
 
 The moment during which the question was put and answer- 
 ed was also the moment which brought Lady Lundie and Miss 
 Silvester face to face, in the presence of the company. 
 
 The stranger at the house looked at the two women, and 
 whispered again. 
 
 " Something wrong between the lady and the governess," 
 he said. 
 
 The friend looked also, and answered, in one emphatic word : 
 
 " Evidently !" 
 
 There are certain women whose influence over men is an un- 
 fathomable mystery to observers of their own sex. The gov- 
 erness was one of those women. She had inherited the charm, 
 but not the beauty, of her unhappy mother. Judge her by 
 the standard set up in the illustrated gift-books and the print- 
 shop windows — and the sentence must have inevitably follow- 
 ed,* "She has not a single good feature in her face." There 
 was nothing individually remarkable about Miss Silvester, 
 seen in a state of repose. She was of the average height. She 
 was as well made as most women. In hair and complexion, 
 she was neither light nor dark, but provokingly neutral, just 
 between the two. Worse even than this, there were positive 
 defects in her face, which it was impossible to deny, A nerv- 
 ous contraction at one corner of her mouth drew up the lips 
 out of the symmetrically right line, when they moved. A 
 nervous uncertainty in the eye on the same side narrowly es- 
 caped presenting the deformity of a " cast." And yet, with 
 these indisputable drawbacks, here was one of those women — 
 the formidable few — who have the hearts of men and the peace 
 of families at their mercy. She moved — and there was some 
 subtle charm, sir, in the movement, that made you look back, 
 'and suspend your conversation with your friend, and watch 
 her silently while she walked. She sat by you and talked to 
 you — and behold, a sensitive something passed into that little 
 twist at the corner of the mouth, and into that nervous uncer- 
 tainty in the soft gray eye, which turned defect into beauty — 
 ..^which enchained your senses — which made your nerves thrill 
 ,if she touched you by accident, and set your heart beating if 
 you looked at the same book with her, and felt her breath on 
 your face. All this, let it be well understood, only happened 
 
46 MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 if you were a man. If you saw her with the eyes of a wom- 
 an, the results weie of quite another kind. In that case, you 
 merely turned to your nearest female friend, and said, with 
 unaffected pity for the other sex, " What can the men see in 
 her !" 
 
 The eyes of the lady of the house and the eyes of the gov- 
 erness met, with marked distrust on eitlier side. Few people 
 could have failed to see, what the stranger and the friend had 
 noticed alike — that there was something smouldering under 
 the surface here. Miss Silvester spoke first. 
 
 "Thank you, Lady Lundie," she said, "I would rather not 
 l^lay." 
 
 Lady Lundie assumed an extreme surprise which passed the 
 limits of good-breeding. 
 
 " Oh, indeed !" she rejoined, sharply. " Considering that we 
 are all here for the purpose of playing, that seems rather re- 
 markable. Is any thing wrong, Miss Silvester?" 
 
 A flush appeared on the delicate paleness of Miss Silvester's 
 face. But she did her duty as a v/oman and a governess. 
 She submitted, and so preserved appearances, for that time. 
 
 "Nothing is the matter," she answered. "I am not very 
 well this morning. But I will play if you wish it." 
 
 "I do wish it," ansv/ered Lady Lundie. 
 
 Miss Silvester turned aside towai'd one of the entrances into 
 the summer-house. She waited for events, looking out over 
 the lawn, with a visible inner disturbance, marked over the 
 bosom by the rise and fall of iier white dress. 
 
 It Avas Blanche's turn to select the next player. 
 
 In some preliminary uncertainty as to her choice, she looked 
 about among the guests, and caught the eye of a gen^eman in 
 the front ranks. He stood side by side with Sir Patrick — a 
 striking representative of the school that is among us — as Sir 
 Patrick was a striking representative of the school that has 
 passed away. 
 
 The modern gentleman was young and florid, tall and 
 strong. The parting of his curly Saxon locks began in the 
 centre of his forehead, traveled over the top of his head, and 
 ended, rigidly central, at the ruddy nape of his neck. His fea- 
 tures were as perfectly regular and as perfectly unintelligent 
 as human features can be. His expression preserved an im- i 
 movable composure wonderful to behold. The muscles of his \ 
 brawny arms showed through the sleeves of his light summer ' 
 coat. He was deep in the chest, thin in the flanks, firm on the ' 
 legs — in two words, a magnificent human animal, wrought up 
 to the highest pitch of ]ihysical development, from head to " 
 foot. This was Mr. GeoftVey Delamayn — commonly called' 
 "the honorable;" and meriting that distinction in more ways | 
 
MAN AND WIFE. 47 
 
 tlinn one. He was honorable, in the first place, as being the 
 ^on (second son) of that once-rising solicitor, who was now 
 Lord Holchester. He was honorable, in the second place, as 
 having won the highest popular distinction which the educa- 
 tional system of modern England can bestow — he had pulled 
 the stroke-oar in a University boat-race. Add to this, that 
 nobody had ever seen him read any thing but a newspaper, 
 and that nobody had ever known him to be backward in set- 
 tling a bet — and the picture of this distinguished young En- 
 glishman will be, for the present, complete. 
 
 Blanche's eye naturally rested on him. Blanche's voice nat- 
 urally picked him out as the first player on her side. 
 
 " I choose Mr. Delamayn," she said. 
 
 As the name passed her lips tlie flush on Miss Silvester's 
 face died away, and a deadly paleness took its place. She 
 made a movement to leave the summer-house — checked her- 
 self abruptly — and laid one hand on the back of a rustic seat 
 at her side. A gentleman behind hei', looking at the hand, 
 saw it clench itself so suddenly and so fiercely that the glove 
 on it split. The gentleman made a mental memorandum, and 
 registered Miss Silvester in his private books as "the devil's 
 own temper." 
 
 Meanwhile Mr. Delamayn, by a strange coincidence, took 
 exactly the same course which Miss Silvester had taken i>efore 
 him. He, too, attempted to withdraw from the coming game, 
 
 "Thanks very much," he said. "Could you additionally 
 honor me by choosing somebody else? It's not in my line." 
 
 Fifty years ago such an answer as this, addressed to a lady, 
 would have been considered inexcusably impertinent. The 
 social code of the present time hailed it as something frankly 
 amusing. The company laughed. Blanche lost her temper. 
 
 "Can't we interest you in any thing but severe muscular 
 exertion, Mr. Delamayn ?" she asked, sharply. "Must yon al- 
 ways be pulling in a boat-race, or flying over a high jump? 
 If you had a mind, you would want to relax it. You have got 
 muscles instead. Why not relax themf" 
 
 The shafts of Miss Lundie's bitter wit glided ofl' Mr. Geof- 
 frey Delamayn like v/ater ofi"a duck's back. 
 
 "Just as you please," he said, with stolid good-humor. 
 "Don't be ofiended. I came here with ladies — and they 
 wouldn't let me smoke. I miss my smoke. I thought I'd 
 slip away a bit and have it. All right ! I'll play." 
 
 "Oh! smoke by all means !" retorted Blanche. "I shall 
 choose somebody else. I won't have you !" 
 
 The honorable young gentleman looked unafiectedly relieved. 
 The petulant young lady turned her back on him, and surveyed 
 the guests at the other extremity of the summer-house. 
 
48 MAN AND ^VIFK. 
 
 " Who shall I choose ?" she said to lierself. 
 
 A dark young man — with a face burned gypsy-brown by the 
 sun ; with sometliing in his look and manner suggestive of a 
 roving life, and perhaps of a familiar acquaintance with the 
 sea — advanced shyly, and said, in a whisper: 
 
 " Choose me !" 
 
 Blanche's face broke prettily into a charming smile. Judg- 
 ing from appearances, the dark young man had a place in her 
 estimation peculiarly his own. 
 
 " You !" she said, coquettish! y. " You are g.oing to leave us 
 in an hour's time !" 
 
 He ventured a stej) nearer. "I am coming back," he plead- 
 ed, " tiie day after to-morrow." 
 
 " You play very badly !" 
 
 " I might improve — if you would teach me." 
 
 ''•Might you? Then I loill teach you !" She turned, bright 
 and rosy, to her ste[)-mother. "I choose Mr. Arnold Brink- 
 Avorth," slie said. 
 
 Here, again, there appeared to be something in a name un- 
 known to celebrity, which nevertheless produced its effect — 
 not, this time, on Miss Silvester, but on Sir Patrick. He looked 
 at Mr. Brinkworth \\\\\\ a sudden interest and curiosity. If 
 the lady of the house had not claimed his attention at the mo- 
 ment he Avould evidently have spoken to the dark young man. 
 
 But it was Lady Lundie's turn to clioose a second player on 
 her side. Her bi'other-in-law was a person of some impor- 
 tance ; and she had her own motives for ingratiating herself 
 with the head of tlie family. She surprised the whole com- 
 pany by choosing Sir Patrick. 
 
 "Mamma !" cried Blanche. "What can you be thinking of? 
 Sir Patrick won't play. Croquet wasn't discovered in his 
 time." 
 
 Sir Patrick never allowed " his time " to be made the subject 
 of disparaging remarks by the younger generation without 
 paying the younger generation back in its own coin. 
 
 "In my time, ray dear," he said to his niece, " people were 
 expected to bring some agi'eeable quality with them to social 
 meetings of this sort. In your time you have dispensed with 
 all that. Here," remarked the old gentleman, taking up a 
 croquet mallet from the table near him., "is one of the qualifi- 
 cations for success in modern society. And here," he added, 
 takiiici^ up a ball, " is anothei'. Very good. Live and learn. 
 I'll play ! I'll play !" . 
 
 Lady Lundie (boi'n impervious to all sense of irony) smiled 
 graciously. 
 
 "I knew Sir Patrick would play," she said, "to please me."''- 
 
 Sir Patrick bowed with satirical politeness. 
 
MAN AND WIFK. 40 
 
 "Lady Lundie," he answered, " you read me like a book." 
 To the astonishment of all persons present under forty he em- 
 phasized those words by laying his hand on his heart, and 
 quoting poetry. " I may say with Dryden," added the gallant 
 old gentleman : 
 
 " 'Old as I am, for ladies' love unfit, 
 The power of beauty I remember yet.' " 
 
 Lady Lundie looked unaffectedly shocked. Mr. Delamayn 
 went a step further. He interfered on the spot — with the air 
 of a man who feels himself imperatively called upon to perform 
 a public duty. 
 
 '* Dryden never said that," he remarked, " I'll answer for it." 
 
 Sir Patrick wheeled round with the help of his ivory cane, 
 and looked Mr. Delamayn hard in the face. 
 
 " Do you know Dryden, sir, better than I do ?" he asked. 
 
 The Honorable Geoffrey answered, modestly, " I should say 
 I did. I have rowed three races with him, and we trained to- 
 gether." 
 
 Sir Patrick looked round him with a sour smile of triumph. 
 
 " Then let me tell you, sir," he said, " that you trained with 
 a man who died nearly two hundred years ago." 
 
 Mr. Delamayn appealed, in genuine bewilderment, to the 
 company generally : 
 
 " What does this old gentleman mean ?" he asked. " I am 
 speaking of Tom Dryden, of Corpus. Every body in the Uni- 
 versity knows A^■m." 
 
 " I am speaking," echoed Sir Patrick, " of John Dryden the 
 Poet. Apparently, every body in the University does not 
 know him .'" 
 
 Mr. Delamayn answered, with a cordial earnestness very 
 pleasant to see : 
 
 " Give you my word of honor, I never heard of him before in 
 my life ! Don't be angry, sir. Z'm not offended with yow." 
 He smiled, and took out his brier-wood pipe. " Got a light ?" 
 . he asked, in the friendliest possible manner. 
 
 Sir Patrick answered, Avith a total absence of cordiality : 
 
 " I don't smoke, sir." 
 
 Mr. Delamayn looked at him, without taking the slightest 
 offense : 
 
 " You don't smoke !" he repeated. " I wonder how you get 
 through your spare time ?" 
 
 Sir Patrick closed the conversation : 
 
 " Sir," he said, with a low bow, " you riiay wonder." 
 
 While this little skirmish was proceeding Lady Lundie and 
 her step-daughter had organized the game ; and the company, 
 players and spectators, were beginning to move toward the 
 
 4 
 
50 MAN AND WIPE. 
 
 lawn. Sir Patrick stopped his niece on her way out, with the 
 dark young man in close attendance on her. 
 
 " Leave Mr. Brinkworth with me," he said. " I want to 
 speak to him." 
 
 Blanche issued her orders immediately. Mr. Brinkworth 
 was sentenced to stay with Sir Patrick until she wanted him 
 for the game. Mr. Brinkworth wondered, and obeyed. 
 
 During the exercise of this act of authority a circumstance 
 occurred at the other end of the summer-house. Taking ad- 
 vantage of the confusion caused by the general movement to 
 the lawn. Miss Silvester suddenly placed herself close to Mr. 
 Delamayn. 
 
 " In ten minutes," she whispered, " the summer-house will be 
 empty. Meet me here." 
 
 The Honorable Geoffrey started, and looked furtively at the 
 visitors about him. 
 
 " Do you think it's safe ?" he whispered back. 
 
 The governess's sensitive lips trembled, with fear or with 
 anger, it was hard to say which. 
 
 " I insist on it !" she answered, and left him. 
 
 Mr. Delamayn knitted his handsome eyebrows as he looked 
 after her, and then left the summer-house in his turn. The 
 rose-garden at the back of the building was solitary for the 
 moment. He took out his pipe and hid himself among the 
 roses. The smoke came from his mouth in hot and hasty puffs. 
 He was usually the gentlest of masters — to his pipe. When 
 he hurried that confidential servant, it was a sure sign of dis- 
 turbance in the inner man. 
 
 CHAPTER THE THIRD. 
 
 THE DISCOVERIES. 
 
 But two persons were now left in the summer-house — Arnold 
 Brinkworth and Sir Patrick Lundie. 
 
 "Mr. Brinkworth," said the old gentleman, "I have had no 
 opportunity of speaking to you before this ; and (as I hear that 
 you are to leave us to-day) I may find no opportunity at a 
 later time. I want to introduce myself Your father was one 
 of my dearest friends — let me make a friend of your father's 
 son." 
 
 He held out his hand and mentioned his name. Arnold 
 recognized it directly. " Oh, Sir Patrick!" he said, warmly, 
 " if my poor father had only taken your advice — " 
 
 " He would have thouerht twice before he gambled away his 
 
MAN AND WIFE. 51 
 
 fortune on the turf; and he might have been alive here among 
 us, instead of dying an exile in a foreign land," said Sir Patrick, 
 finishing the sentence which the other had begun. " No more 
 of that ! Let's talk of something else. Lady Lundie wrote to 
 me about you the other day. She told me your aunt was dead, 
 and had left you heir to her property in Scotland. Is that 
 true ? — It is ? — I congratulate you with all my heart. Why 
 are you visiting here, instead of looking after your house and 
 lands ? Oh ! it's only three-and-twenty miles from this ; and 
 you're going to look after it to-day, by the next train ? Quite 
 right. And — what ? what ? — coming back again the day after 
 to-morrow ? Why should you come back '? Some special 
 attraction here, I suppose ? I hope it's the right sort of at- 
 traction. You're very young — you're exposed to all sorts of 
 temptations. Have you got a solid foundation of good sense 
 at the bottom of you ? It is not inherited from your poor father, 
 if you have. You must have been a mere boy when he ruined 
 his children's prospects. How have you lived from that time 
 to this? What were you doing when your aunt's will made 
 an idle man of you for life ?" 
 
 The question Avas a searching one. Arnold answered it, 
 without the slightest hesitation ; speaking with an unaflected 
 modesty and simplicity which at once won Sir Patrick's heart. 
 
 " I was a boy at Eton, sir," he said, " when my father's losses 
 ruined him. I had to leave school, and get my own living; 
 and I have got it, in a roughish way, from that time to this. 
 In plain English, I have followed the sea — in the merchant- 
 service." 
 
 " In plainer English still, you met adversity like a brave lad, 
 and you have fairly earned the good luck that has fallen to 
 you," rejoined Sir Patrick. "Give me your hand — I have 
 taken a liking to you. You're not like the other young fellows 
 of the present time. I shall call you 'Arnold.' You mus'n't 
 return the compliment, and call me 'Patrick,' mind — I'm too 
 old to be treated in that way. Well, and how do you get on 
 here ? What sort of a woman is my sister-in-law ? and what 
 sort of a house is this ?" 
 
 Arnold burst out laughing. 
 
 "Those are extraordinary questions for you to put to me," 
 be said. " You talk, sir, as if you were a stranger here." 
 
 Sir Patrick touched a spring in the knob of his ivory cane. 
 A little gold lid flew up, and disclosed the snuflf-box hidden 
 inside. He took a pinch, and chuckled satirically over some 
 passing thought, which he did not think it necessary to com- 
 municate to his young friend. 
 
 " I talk as if I was a stranger here, do I ?" he resumed. 
 " That's exactly what I am. Lady Lundie and I correspond 
 
62 MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 on excellent terras ; but we run in different grooves, and we 
 see each other as seldom as possible. My story," continued 
 the pleasant old man, with a charming frankness which leveled 
 all differences of age and rank between Arnold and himself, 
 " is not entirely unlike yours ; though I am old enough to be 
 your grandfather. I was getting my living, in my way (as 
 a crusty old Scotch lawyer), when my brother married again. 
 His death, without leaving a son by either of his wives, gave 
 me a lift in the world, like you. Here I am (to my own sincere 
 regret) the present baronet. Yes, to my sincere regret ! All 
 sorts of responsibilities which I never bargained for are thrust 
 on my shoulders. I am the head of the family ; I am my 
 niece's guardian ; I am compelled to appear at this lawn-party 
 — and (between ourselves) I am as completely out of my ele- 
 ment as a man can be. Not a single familiar face meets me 
 among all these fine people. Do you know any body here ?" 
 
 " I have one friend at Windygates," said Arnold. " He came 
 here this morning, like you. Geoffrey Delamayn." 
 
 As he made the reply, Miss Silvester appeared at the en- 
 trance to the summer-house. A shadow of annoyance passed 
 over her face when she saw that the place was occupied. She 
 vanished, unnoticed, and glided back to the game. 
 
 Sir Patrick looked at the son of his old friend, with every 
 appearance of being disappointed in the young man for the 
 first time. 
 
 " Your choice of a friend rather surprises me," he said. 
 
 Arnold artlessly accepted the words as an appeal to him for 
 information. 
 
 " I beg your pardon, sir — there's nothing surprising in it,'^ 
 he returned. " We were school-fellows at Eton, in the old 
 times. And I have met Geoffrey since, when he was yacht- 
 ing, ind when I was with my ship. Geoffrey saved my life. 
 Sir Patrick," he added, his voice rising, and his eyes brighten- 
 ing with honest admiration of his friend. " But for him, I 
 should have been drowned in a boat a(!cident. Isn't that a 
 good reason for his being a friend of mine?" 
 
 " It depends entirely on the value you set on your life," said 
 Sir Patrick. 
 
 " The value I set on my life ?" repeated Arnold. " I set a 
 high value on it, of course !" 
 
 " In that case, Mr. Delamayn has laid you under an obliga- 
 tion." 
 
 " Which I can never repay !" 
 
 " Which you will repay one of these days, with interest — if 
 I know any thing of human nature," answered Sir Patrick. 
 
 He said the words with the emphasis of strong conviction. 
 They were barely spoken when Mr. Delamayn appeared (ex- 
 
MAN AJfD WIFE. 53 
 
 actly as Miss Silvester had appeared) at the entrance to the 
 summer-house. He, too, vanished, unnoticed — -like Miss Sil- 
 vester a2:n.in. But liere the parallel stopped. The Honorable 
 Geoffrey's expression, on discovering the place to be occupied, 
 was unmistakably, an expression of relief 
 
 Arnold drew the I'ight inference, this time, from Sir Pat- 
 rick's lanouage and Sir Patrick's tones. He eagerly took up 
 the defense of his friend. 
 
 " You said that rather bitterly, sir," he remarked. " What 
 has Geoffrey done to offend you ?" 
 
 "He presumes to exist — that's what he has done," retorted 
 Sir Patrick. " Don't stare ! I am speaking generally. Your 
 friend is the model young Briton of the present time. I don't 
 like the model young Briton. I don't see the sense of crow- 
 ino- over him as a superb national production, because he is 
 biS and strong, and drinks beer with impunity, and takes a 
 coTd shower-bath all the year round. There is far too much 
 o-lorification in England, just now, of the mere physical quali- 
 ties which an Englishman shares with the savage and the 
 brute. And the ill results are beginning to show themselves 
 already ! We are readier than we ever v/ere to practice all 
 that is rough in our national customs, and to excuse all that is 
 violent and brutish in our national acts. Read the popular 
 books— attend the popular amusements; and you will find at 
 the bottom of them all a lessening regard for the gentler 
 graces of civilized life, and a growing admiration for the vir- 
 tues of the aboriginal Britons !" 
 
 Arnold listened in blank amazement. He had been the in- 
 nocent means of relieving Sir Patrick's mind of an accumula- 
 tion of social protest, unprovided with an issue for some time 
 past. "How hot you are over it, sir!" he exclaimed, in irre- 
 pressible astonishment. 
 
 Sir Patrick instantly recovered himself The genuine won- 
 der expressed in the young man's face was irresistible. 
 
 "Almost as hot," he said, "as if I wt-s cheering at a boat- 
 race, or wrangling over a betting-book — eh? Ah, we were so 
 easily heated when I was a young man ! Let's change the 
 subject. I know nothing to the prejudice of your frien^d, Mr. 
 Delamayn. It's the cant of the day," cried Sir Patrick, re- 
 lapsing again, "to take these physically-wholesome men for 
 granted as being morally-wholesome men into the bargain. 
 Time will show Avhether the cant of the day is right. So you 
 are actually coming back to Lady Lundie's after a mere Qy'mg 
 visit to your own property ? I repeat, that it is a most ex'- 
 traordinary proceeding on the part of a landed gentleman 
 like you. What's the attraction here— eh ?" 
 
 Before Arnold could reply Blanche called to him from the 
 
54 MAN AND WIPE. 
 
 lawn. His color rose, and he turned eagerly to go out. Sh 
 Patrick nodded his head with the air of a man who had beeu 
 answered to his own entire satisfaction. " Oh !" he said, 
 '■'■thafs the attraction, is it?" 
 
 Arnold's life at sea had left him singularly ignorant of the 
 ways of the world on shore. Instead of taking the joke, he 
 looked confused. A deeper tinge of color reddened his dark 
 cheeks. " I didn't say so," he answered, a little irritably. 
 
 Sir Patrick lifted two of his white, wrinkled old fingers, and 
 good-humoredly patted the young sailor on the cheek. 
 
 "Yes you did," he said. " In red letters." 
 
 The little gold lid in the knob of the ivory cane flew up, and 
 the old gentleman rewarded himself for that neat retort with 
 a pinch of snuflT, At the same moment Blanche made her ap- 
 pearance on the scene. 
 
 "Mr. Brinkworth," she said, " I shall want you directly. 
 Uncle, it's your turn to play." 
 
 " Bless my soul !" cried Sir Patrick, " I forgot the game." 
 He looked about him, and saw his mallet and ball left waiting 
 on the table. " Where are the modern substitutes for conver- 
 sation ? Oh, here they are !" He bowled the ball out before 
 him on to the lawn, and tucked the mallet, as if it was an um- 
 brella, under his arm. " Who was the first mistaken person," 
 he said to himself, as he briskly ht)bbled out, " who discovered 
 that human life was a serious thing ? Here am I, with one 
 foot in the grave ; and the most serious question before me at 
 the present moment is. Shall I get through the Hoops ?" 
 
 Arnold and Blanche were left together. 
 
 Among the personal privileges which Nature has accord efl 
 to women, there are surely none more enviable than their priv- 
 ilege of always looking their best when they look at the man 
 they love. When Blanche's eyes turned on Arnold, after her 
 uncle had gone out, not even the hideous fashionable disfigure- 
 ments of the inflated " chignon " and the tilted hat could de- 
 stroy the triple charm of youth, beauty, and tenderness beam- 
 ing in her face. Arnold looked at her — and remembered, as 
 he had never remembered yet, that he was going by the next 
 train, and that he was leaving her in the society of more than 
 one admiring man of his own age. The expei-ience of a whole 
 fortnight passed under the same I'oof with her had proved 
 Blanche to be the most charming girl in existence. It was 
 possible that she might not be mortally oflfended with him if 
 he told her so. He determined that he loould tell her so at 
 that auspicious moment. 
 
 But who shall presume to measure the abyss that lies be- 
 tween the Intention and the Execution ? Arnold's resolution 
 to speak was as firmly settled as a resolution could be. And 
 
MAN AND WIPE. 55 
 
 what came of it? Alas for human infirmity! Nothing came 
 of it but silence. 
 
 "You don't look quite at your ease, Mr. Brinkworth," said 
 Blanche. " What has Sir Patrick been saying to you ? My 
 uncle sharpens his wit on every body. He has been sharpen- 
 ing it on you r 
 
 Arnold began to see his way. At an immeasurable distance 
 — but still he saw it. 
 
 " Sir Patrick is a terrible old man," he answered. " Just 
 before you came in he discovered one of my secrets by only 
 looking in my face." He paused, rallied his courage, pushed 
 on at all hazards, and came headlong to the point. "I won- 
 der," he asked, bluntly, " whether you take after your uncle ?" 
 
 Blanche instantly understood him. With time at her dis- 
 posal, she would have taken him lightly in hand, and led him, 
 by fine gradations, to the object in view. But in two minutes 
 or less it would be Arnold's turn to play. " He is going to 
 make me an ofier," thought Blanche ; " and he has about a 
 minute to do it in. He shall do it !" 
 
 " What !" she exclaimed, " do you think the gift of discovery 
 runs in the family ?" 
 
 Arnold made a plunge. 
 
 " I wish it did !" he said. 
 
 Blanche looked the picture of astonishment. 
 
 " Why ?" she asked. 
 
 " If you could see in my face what Sir Patrick saw — " 
 
 He had only to finish the sentence, and the thing was done. 
 But the tender passion perversely delights in raising obstacles 
 to itself A sudden timidity seized on Arnold exactly at the 
 wrong moment. He stopped short, in the most awkward 
 manner possible. 
 
 Blanche heard from the lawn the blow of the mallet on the 
 ball, and the laughter of the company at some blunder of Sir 
 Patrick's. The precious seconds were slipping away. She 
 could have boxed Arnold on both ears for being so unreason- 
 ably afraid of her. 
 
 " Well," she said, impatiently, " if I did look in your face, 
 what should I see ?" 
 
 Arnold made another plunge. He answered : 
 
 " You would see that I want a little encouraejement." 
 
 "Fromwie.?" 
 
 " Yes — if you please." 
 
 Blanche looked back over her shoulder. The summer-house 
 stood on an eminence, approached by steps. The players on 
 the lawn beneath were audible, but not visible. Any one 
 of them might appear, unexpectedly, at a moment's notice. 
 Blanche listened. There was no sound of approaching foot- 
 
56 MAN AND WIFK. 
 
 steps — there was a general hush, and then another bang of the 
 mallet on the ball, and then a clapping of hands. Sir Patrick 
 was a privileged person. He had been allowed, in all proba- 
 bility, to try again ; and he was succeeding at the !<econd ef- 
 fort. This implied a reprieve of some seconds. Blanche looked 
 back again at Arnold. 
 
 " Consider yourself encouraged," she whispered ; and in- 
 stantly added, with the ineradicable female instinct of self-de- 
 fense, "within limits!" 
 
 Arnold made a last plunge — straight to the bottom, this 
 time. 
 
 " Consider yourself loved," he burst out, " without any lim- 
 its at all." 
 
 It was all over — the words were spoken — he had got her by 
 the hand. Again the perversity of the tender passion showed 
 itself more strongly than ever. The confession which Blanche 
 had been longing to hear had barely escaped her lover's lips 
 before Blanche protested against it ! She struggled to release 
 her hand. She formally appealed to Arnold to let her go. 
 
 Arnold only held her the tighter. 
 
 "Do try to like me a little !" he pleaded. " I am so fond of 
 you .'" 
 
 Who was to resist such wooing as this? — when you were 
 privately fond of him yourself, remember ! and when you were 
 certain to be interrupted in another moment ! Blanche left off 
 struggling, and looked up at her young sailor with a smile. 
 
 " Did you learn this method of making love in the merchant- 
 service ?" she inquired, saucily. 
 
 Arnold persisted in contemplating his prospects from the 
 serious point of view. 
 
 " I'll go back to the merchant-service," he said, " if I have 
 made you angry with me." 
 
 Blanche administered another dose of encouragement, 
 
 " Anger, Mr. Brinkworth, is one of the bad passions," she 
 answered, demurely. "A young lady who has been properly 
 brought up has no bad passions." 
 
 There was a sudden cry from the players on the lawn — a 
 cry for " Mr. Brinkworth." Blanche tried to push him out. 
 Arnold was immovable. 
 
 "Say something to encourage me before I go," he pleaded. 
 " One word will do. Say, Yes." 
 
 Blanche shook her head. Now she had got him, the temp- 
 tation to tease him was irresistible. 
 
 " Quite impossible !" she rejoined. " If you want any more 
 encouragement, you must speak to my uncle." 
 
 " I'll speak to him," returned Arnold, " before I leave the 
 house." 
 
i 
 
MAN AND WIFE. 59 
 
 There was another cry for "Mr. Brinkworth." Blanche 
 made another effort to push him out. 
 
 " Go !" she said. "And mind you get through the hoop !" 
 
 She had both hands on his shoulders — her face was close to 
 his — she was simply irresistible. Arnold caught her round the 
 waist and kissed her. Needless to tell him to get through the 
 hoop. He had surely got through it already ! Blanche was 
 speechless. Arnold's last effort in the art of courtship had 
 taken away her bi'eath. Before she could recover herself a 
 sound of approaching footsteps became plainly audible. Ar- 
 nold gave her a last squeeze, and ran out. 
 
 She sank on the nearest chair, and closed her eyes in a flut- 
 ter of delicious confusion. 
 
 The footsteps ascending to the summer-house came nearer. 
 Blanche opened her eyes, and saw Anne Silvester, standing 
 alone, looking at her. She sprang to her feet, and threw her 
 arms impulsively round Anne's neck. 
 
 " You don't know what has happened," she whispered. 
 " Wish me joy, darling. He has said the words. He is mine 
 for life !" 
 
 All the sisterly love and sisterly confidence of many years 
 was expressed in that embrace, and in the tone in which the 
 words were spoken. The hearts of the mothers, in the past 
 time, could liardly have been closer to each other — as it seem- 
 ed — than the hearts of the daughters were now. And yet, if 
 Blanche had looked up in Anne's face at that moment, she 
 must have seen that Anne's mind was far away from her little 
 love-story. 
 
 " You know who it is ?" she went on, after waiting for a 
 reply. 
 
 "Mr. Brinkworth?" 
 
 " Of course ! Who else should it be ?" 
 
 "And you are really happy, my love?" 
 
 "Happy?" repeated Blanche. "Mind! this is strictly be- 
 tween ourselves. I am ready to jump out of my skin for joy. 
 I love him ! I love him ! I love him !" she cried, with a 
 childish pleasure in repeating the words. They were echoed 
 by a heavy sigh. Blanche instantly looked up into Anne's 
 face. " What's the matter ?" she asked, with a sudden change 
 of voice and manner. 
 
 "Nothing!" 
 
 Blanche's observation saw too plainly to be blinded in that 
 way. 
 
 " There is something the matter," she said. " Is it money ?" 
 she added, after a moment's consideration. " Bills to pay ? I 
 have got plenty of money, Anne. I'll lend you what you like," 
 
 " No, no, my dear !" 
 
60 MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 Blanche drew back, a little hurt. Anne was keeping her at 
 a distance for the first time in Blanche's experience of her. 
 
 " I tell you all my secrets," she said. " Why are you keep- 
 ing a secret from nief Do you know that you have been look- 
 ing anxious and out of spirits for some time past ? Perhaps 
 you don't like Mr. Brinkworth ? No ? you do like him? Is it 
 ray marrying, then ? I believe it is ! You fancy we shall be 
 parted, you goose ? As if I could do without you ! Of course, 
 when I am married to Arnold, you will come and live with us. 
 That's quite understood between us — isn't it ?" 
 
 Anne drew herself suddenly, almost roughly, away from 
 Blanche, and pointed out to the steps. 
 
 " There is somebody coming," she said. " Look !" 
 
 The person coming was Arnold. It was Blanche's turn to 
 play, and he had volunteered to fetch her. 
 
 Blanche's attention — easily enough distracted on other oc- 
 casions — remained steadily fixed on Anne. 
 
 " You are not yourself," she said, " and I must know the 
 reason of it. I will wait till to-night ; and then you will tell 
 me, when you come into my room. Don't look like that ! 
 You sfiall tell me. And there's a kiss for you in the mean 
 time !" 
 
 She joined Arnold, and recovered her gayety the moment 
 she looked at him. 
 
 " Well ! Have you got through the hoops ?" 
 
 " Never mind the hoops. I have broken the ice with Sir 
 Patrick." 
 
 " What ! before all the company !" 
 
 " Of course not ! I have made an appointment to speak to 
 him here." 
 
 They went laughing down the steps, and joined the game. 
 
 Left alone, Anne Silvester walked slowly to the inner an>i 
 darker part of the summer-house. A glass, in a carved wooden 
 frame, was fixed against one of the side walls. She stopped 
 and looked into it — looked, shuddering:, at the reflection of her- 
 self. 
 
 " Is the time coming," she said, " when even Blanche will 
 see what I am in my face ?" 
 
 She turned aside from the glass. With a sudden cry of de- 
 spair she flung up her arms and laid them heavily against the 
 wall, and rested her head on them with her back to the light. 
 At the same moment a man's figure appeared — standing dark 
 in the flood of sunshine at the entrance to the summer-ho'iise. 
 The man was GeoflTrey Delamayn. 
 
MAN AND WIPE. 61 
 
 CHAPTER THE FOURTH. 
 
 THE TWO. 
 
 He advanced a few steps, and stopped. Absorbed in her- 
 self, Anne failed to hear him. She never moved. 
 
 " I have come, as you made a point of it," he said, sullenly. 
 " But, mind you, it isn't safe." 
 
 At the sound of his voice, Anne turned toward him. A 
 change of expression appeared in her face, as she slowly ad- 
 vanced from the back of the summer-house, which revealed a 
 likeness to her mother, not perceivable at other times. As the 
 mother had looked, in by-gone days, at the man who had dis- 
 owned her, so the daughter looked at Geoffrey Delamayn — 
 with the same terrible composure, and the same terrible con- 
 tempt. 
 
 " Well ?" he asked. " What have you got to say to me ?" 
 
 " Mr. Delamayn," she answered, " you are one of the fortu- 
 nate people of this world. You are a nobleman's son. You 
 are a handsome man. You are popular at your college. You 
 are free of the best houses in England. Are you something 
 besides all this? Are you a coward and a scoundrel as well?" 
 
 He started — opened his lips to speak — checked himself — and 
 made an uneasy attempt to laugh it off. "Come," he said, 
 " keep your temper." 
 
 The suppressed passion in her began to force its way to the 
 surface. 
 
 " Keep my temper?" she repeated. " Do you of all men ex- 
 pect me to control myself? What a memory yours must be ! 
 Have you forgotten the time when I was fool enough to think 
 you were fond of me ? and mad enough to believe you could 
 keep a promise ?" 
 
 He persisted in trying to laugh it off. " Mad is a strongish 
 word to use. Miss Silvester !" 
 
 " Mad is the right word ! I look back at my own infatuation 
 — and I can't account for it ; I can't understand myself. What 
 was there in yow," she asked, with an outbreak of contempt- 
 uous surprise, " to attract such a woman as I am ?" 
 
 His inexhaustible good-nature was proof even against this. 
 He put his hands in his pockets, and said, " I'm sure I don't 
 know." 
 
 She turned away from him. The frank brutality of the an- 
 swer had not offended her. It forced her, cruelly forced her, 
 to remember that she had nobody but herself to blame for the 
 
62 MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 position in which she stood at that moment. She was unwill- 
 ing to let him see how the remembrance hurt her — that was 
 all. A sad, sad story ; but it must be told. In her mother's 
 time, she had been the sweetest, the most lovable of children. 
 In later days, under the care of her mother's friend, her girl- 
 hood had passed so harmlessly and so happily — it seemed as 
 if the sleeping passions might sleep forever I She had lived on 
 to the prime of her womanhood — and then, when the treasure 
 of her life was at its richest, in one fatal moment she had flung 
 it away on the man in whose presence she now stood. 
 
 Was she without excuse ? No : not utterly without excuse. 
 
 She had seen him under other aspects than the aspect which 
 he presented now. She had seen him, the hero of the river- 
 race, the first and foremost man in a trial of strength and skill 
 which had roused the enthusiasm of all England. She had 
 seen him, the central object of the interest of a nation ; the 
 idol of the popular worship and the popular applause. His 
 were the arms whose muscle was celebrated in the newspapers. 
 He was first among the heroes hailed by ten thousand roaring 
 throats as the pride and flower of England. A woman, in an 
 atmosphere of red-hot enthusiasm, witnesses the apotheosis of 
 Physical Strength. Is it reasonable — is it just — to expect her 
 to ask herself, in cold blood. What (morally and intellectually) 
 is all this worth ? — and that, when the man who is the object 
 of the apotheosis, notices her, is presented to her, finds her to 
 his taste, and singles her out from the rest? No. While hu- 
 manity is humanity, the woman is not utterly without excuse. 
 
 Has she escaped, without suflering for it ? 
 
 Look at her as she stands there, tortured by the knowledge 
 of her own secret — the hideous secret which she is hiding from 
 the innocent girl, whom she loves with a sister's love. Look 
 at her, bowed down under a humiliation which is unutterable 
 in words. She has seen him below the surface — now, when it 
 is too late. She rates him at his true value — now, when her 
 reputation is at his mercy. Ask her the question : What was 
 there to love in a man who can speak to you as that man has 
 spoken, who can ti-eat you as that man is treating you now ? 
 you so clever, so cultivated, so refined — what, in Heaven's 
 name, could you see in him ? Ask her that, and she will have 
 no answer to give. She will not even remind you that he was 
 once your model of manly beauty, too — that you waved your 
 handkerchief till you could wave it no longer, when he took 
 his seat, with the others, in the boat — that your heart was 
 like to jump out of your bosom, on that later occasion when 
 he leaped the last hurdle at the foot-race, and won it by a 
 head. In the bitterness of her remorse, she will not even seek 
 
MAN AND AVIFE. 63 
 
 for that excuse for herself. Is there no atoning suffering to 
 be seen here ? Do your sympathies shrink from such a cliarac- 
 ter as this? Follow her, good friends of virtue, on the pilgrim- 
 age that leads, by steep and thorny ways, to the purer atmos- 
 phere and the nobler life. Your fellow-creature, who has sin- 
 ned and has repented — you have the authority of the Divine 
 Teacher for it — is your fellow-creature, purified and ennobled. 
 A joy among the angels of heaven — oh, my brothers and sis- 
 ters of the earth, have I not laid my hand on a tit companion 
 for You ? 
 
 There was a moment of silence in the summer-house. The 
 cheerful tumult of the lawn-party was pleasantly audible from 
 the distance. Outside, the hum of voices, the laughter of girls, 
 the thump of the croquet-mallet against the ball. Inside, noth- 
 ing but a woman forcing back the bitter tears of sorrow and 
 shame — and a man who was tired of her. 
 
 She roused herself. She was her mother's daughter; and 
 she had a spark of her mother's spirit. Her life depended on 
 the issue of that interview. It was useless — without father 
 or brother to take her part — to lose the last chance of appeal- 
 ing to him. She dashed away the tears — time enough to cry, 
 is time easily found in a woman's existence — she dashed away 
 the tears, and spoke to him again, more gently than she had 
 spoken yet. 
 
 "You have been three weeks, Geoffrey, at your brother 
 Julius's place, not ten miles from here ; and you have never 
 once ridden over to see me. You would not have come to-day, 
 if I had not written to you to insist on it. Is that the treat- 
 ment I have deserved ?" 
 
 She paused. There was no answer. 
 
 " Do you hear me ?" she asked, advancing and speaking in 
 louder tones. 
 
 He was still silent. It was not in human endurance to bear 
 his contempt. The warning of a coming outbreak began to 
 show itself in her face. He met it, beforehand, with an im- 
 peneti'able front. Feeling nervous about the interview, while 
 he was waiting in the rose-garden — now that he stood com- 
 mitted to it, he was in full possession of himself He was 
 composed enough to remember that he had not put his pipe 
 in its case — composed enough to set that little matter right 
 before other matters went any further. He took the case out 
 of one pocket, and the pipe out of another. 
 
 " Go on," he said, quietly. " I hear you." 
 
 She struck the pipe out of his hand at a blow. If she had 
 had the strength she would have struck him down with it on 
 the floor of the summer-house. 
 
64 MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 " How dare you use me in this way ?" she burst oat, vehe- 
 mently. " Your conduct is infamous. Defend it if you can !" 
 
 He made no attempt to defend it. He looked, with an ex- 
 pression of genuine anxiety, at the fallen pipe. It was beauti- 
 fully colored — it had cost him ten shillings. "I'll pick up my 
 pipe first," he said. His face brightened pleasantly — he looked 
 handsomer than ever — as he examined the precious object, and 
 put it back in the case. "All right," he said to himself. " She 
 hasn't broken it." His attitude, as he looked at her again, 
 was the perfection of easy grace — the grace that attends on 
 cultivated strength in a state of repose. "I put it to your 
 own common sense," he said, in the most reasonable manner, 
 "what's the good of bullying me? You don't want them to 
 hear you out on the lawn there — do you ? You women are all 
 alike. There's no beating a little prudence into your heads, 
 try how one may." 
 
 There he waited, expecting her to speak. She waited, on 
 her side, and forced him to go on. 
 
 " Look here," he said, " there's no need to quarrel, you know. 
 I don't want to break my promise; but what can I do? I'm 
 not the eldest son. I'm dependent on my father for every far- 
 thing I have ; and I'm on bad terms with him already. Can't 
 you see it yourself; you're a lady, and all that, I know. But 
 you're only a governess. It's your interest as well as mine 
 to wait till my father has provided for me. Here it is in a 
 nutshell : if I marry you now, I'm a ruined man." 
 
 The answer came, this time. 
 
 *' You villain ! if you rfon'< marry me, I am a ruined wom- 
 an !" 
 
 "What do you mean?" 
 
 " You know what I mean. Don't look at me in that way." 
 
 " How do you expect me to look at a woman who calls me 
 a villain to my face ?" 
 
 She suddenly changed her tone. The savage element in hu- 
 manity — let the modern optimists who doubt its existence look 
 at any uncultivated man (no matter how muscular), woman 
 (no matter how beautiful), or child (no matter how young) — 
 began to show itself furtively in his eyes, to utter itself furtive- 
 ly in his voice. Was he to blame for the manner in which he 
 looked at her and spoke to her ? Not he ! What had there 
 been in the training of his life (at school or at college) to 
 soften and subdue the savage element in him ? About as much 
 as there had been in the training of his ancestors (without the 
 school or the college) five hundred years since. 
 
 It was plain that one of them must give way. The woman 
 had the most at stake — and the woman set the example of 
 Bubmission. 
 
MAN AND WIFK. 65 
 
 " Don't be hard on me," she pleaded. " I don't mean to be 
 hard on yon. My temper gets the better of me. You know 
 my tempei'. I am sorry I forgot myself. Geoflfrey, my whole 
 future is in your hands. Will you do me justice?" 
 
 She came nearer, and laid her hand persuasively on his arm. 
 
 "Haven't you a word to say to me? No answer? Not 
 even a look ?" She waited a moment more. A marked change 
 came over her. She turned slowly to leave the summer-house. 
 " I am sorry to have troubled you, Mr. Delamayn. I won't de- 
 tain you any longer." 
 
 He looked at her. There was a tone in her voice that he 
 had never heard before. There was a light in her eyes that 
 he had never seen in them before. Suddenly and fiercely he 
 reached out his hand, and stopped her. 
 
 " Where are you going ?" he asked. 
 
 She answered, looking him straight in the face, " Where 
 many a miserable woman has gone before me. Out of the 
 world." 
 
 He drew her nearer to him, and eyed her closely. Even his 
 intelligence discovered that he had brought her to bay, and 
 that she really meant it ! 
 
 " Do you mean you will destroy yourself?" he said. 
 
 " Yes. I mean I will destroy myself" 
 
 He dropped her arm. " By Jupiter, she does mean it !" 
 
 With that conviction in him, he pushed one of the chairs in 
 the summer-house to her with his foot, and signed to her to 
 take it. " Sit down !" he said, roughly. She had frightened 
 him — and fear comes seldom to men of his type. They feel it, 
 when it does come, with an angry distrust ; they grow loud 
 and brutal, in instinctive protest against it. " Sit down !" he 
 repeated. She obeyed him. " Haven't you got a word to say 
 to me ?" he asked, with an oath. No ! there she sat, immov- 
 able, reckless how it ended — as only women can be, when 
 women's minds are made up. He took a turn in the summer- 
 house and came back, and struck his hand angrily on the rail 
 of her chair. " What do you want ?" 
 
 " You know what I want." 
 
 He took another turn. There was nothing for it but to give 
 way on his side, or run the risk of something happening which 
 might cause an awkward scandal, and come to his father's ears. 
 
 " Look here, Anne," he began, abruptly. " I have got some- 
 thing to propose." 
 
 She looked up at him. 
 
 " What do you say to a private marriage ?" 
 
 Without asking a single question, without making objec- 
 tions, she answered him, speaking as bluntly as he had spoken 
 himself'. 
 5 
 
66 MAN AND WIPE. 
 
 "I consent to a private marriage." 
 
 He began to temporize directly. 
 
 " I own I don't see how it's to be managed — " She stopped 
 him there. 
 
 "I do!" 
 
 "What!" he cried out, suspiciously. "You have thought 
 of it yourself, have you ?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " And planned for it ?" 
 
 " And planned for it !" 
 
 "Why didn't you tell me so before?" 
 
 She answered haughtily ; insisting on the respect which is 
 due to women— the respect which was doubly due from him, 
 in her position. 
 
 " Because you owed it to me, sir, to speak first." 
 
 " Very well. I've spoken first. Will you wait a little ?" 
 
 " Not a day !" 
 
 The tone was positive. There was no mistaking it. Her 
 mind was made up. 
 
 " Where's the hurry ?" 
 
 "Have you eyes?" she asked, vehemently. "Have you 
 ears? Do you see how Lady Lundie looks at me? Do you 
 hear how Lady Lundie speaks to me? I am suspected by 
 that woman. My shameful dismissal from this house may be 
 a question of a few hours." Her head sunk on her bosom ; she 
 wrung her clasped hands as they rested on her lap. "And, oh, 
 Blanche !" she moaned to herself, the tears gathering again, 
 and falling, this time, unchecked. " Blanche, who looks up to 
 me ! Blanche, who loves me ! Blanche, who told me, in this 
 very place, that I was to live with her when she was married !" 
 She started up from the chair ; the tears dried suddenly ; the 
 hard despair settled again, wan and white, on her face. " Let 
 me go ! What is death, compared to such a life as is waiting 
 for me .^" She looked him over, in one disdainful glance from 
 head to foot ; her voice rose to its loudest and firmest tones. 
 " Why, even you would have the courage to die if you were in 
 my place !" 
 
 Geofii-ey glanced round toward the lawn. 
 
 " Hush !" he said. " They will hear you !" 
 
 " Let them hear me ! When I am past hearing them, what 
 does it matter ?" 
 
 He put her back by main force on the chair. In another 
 moment they must have heard her, through all the noise and 
 laughter of the game. 
 
 " Say what you want," he resumed, " and I'll do it. Only 
 be reasonable. I can't marry you to-day." 
 
 " You can I" 
 
MAN AND WIFE. 67 
 
 " What nonsense you talk ! The house and grounds are 
 swarming with company. It can't be !" 
 
 " It can ! I have been thinking about it evei* since we came 
 to this house. I have got something to propose to you. Will 
 you hear it, or not ?" 
 
 " Speak lower !" 
 
 " Will you hear it, or not ?" 
 
 " There's somebody coming !" 
 
 " Will you hear it, or not ?" 
 
 " The devil take your obstinacy ! Yes !" 
 
 The answer had been wrung from him. Still, it was the an- 
 swer she wanted — it opened the door to hope. The instant he 
 had consented to hear her her mind awakened to the serious 
 necessity of averting discovery by any third person who might 
 stray idly into the summer-house. She held up her hand for 
 silence, and listened to what was going forward on the lawn. 
 
 The dull thump of the croquet-mallet against the ball was 
 no longer to be heard. The game had stopped. 
 
 In a moment more she heard her own name called. An in- 
 terval of another instant passed, and a familiar voice said, " I 
 know where she is. I'll fetch her." 
 
 She turned to Geoffrey, and pointed to the back of the sum- 
 mer-house. 
 
 "It's my turn to play," she said. "And Blanche is coming 
 here to look for me. Wait there, and I'll stop her on the steps." 
 
 She went out at once. It was a critical moment. Discov- 
 ery, which meant moral-ruin to the woman, meant money-ruin 
 to the man. Geoffrey had not exaggerated his position with 
 his father. Lord Holchester had twice paid his debts, and had 
 declined to see him since. One more outrage on his father's 
 rigid sense of propriety, and he would be left out of the will 
 as well as kept out of the house. He looked for a means of 
 retreat, in case there was no escaping unperceived by the front 
 entrance. A door — intended for the use of servants, when pic- 
 nics and gypsy tea-parties were given in the summer-house — 
 had been made in the back wall. It opened outward, and it 
 was locked. With his strength it was easy to remove that 
 obstacle. He put his shoulder to the door. At the moment 
 when he burst it open he felt a hand on his arm. Anne was 
 behind him, alone. 
 
 " You may want it before long," she said, observing the open 
 door, without expressing any surprise. " You don't want it 
 now. Another person will play for me — I have told Blanche 
 I am not well. Sit down. I have secured a respite of five 
 minutes, and I must make the most of it. In that time, or 
 less, Lady Lundie's suspicions will bring her here — to see how 
 I am. For the present, shut the door." 
 
68 MAN AND WU'E. 
 
 She seated herself, and pointed to a second chair. He took 
 it — with his eye on the closed door. 
 
 " Come to the point !" he said, impatiently. " What is it ?" 
 " You can marry me privately to-day," she answered. " List- 
 en — and I will tell you how !" 
 
 CHAPTER THE FIFTH. 
 
 THE PLAN. 
 
 She took his hand, and began with all the art of persuasion 
 that she possessed. 
 
 " One question, Geoffrey, before I say what I want to say. 
 Lady Lundie has invited you to stay at Windygates. Do you 
 accept her invitation ? or do you go back to your brother's in 
 the evening ?" 
 
 " I can't go back in the evening — they've put a visitor into 
 ray room. I'm obliged to stay here. My brother has done it 
 on purpose. Julius helps me when I'm hard up — and bullies 
 me afterward. He has sent me here, on duty for the fam- 
 ily. Somebody must be civil to Lady Lundie — and I'm the 
 sacrifice." 
 
 She took him up at his last word. " Don't make the sacri- 
 fice," she said. "Apologize to Lady Lundie, and say you are 
 obliged to go back." 
 
 " Why ?" 
 
 " Because we must both leave this place to-day." 
 
 There was a double objection to that. If he left Lady Lun- 
 die's, he would fail to establish a future pecuniary claim on his 
 brother's indulgence. And if he left with Anne, the eyes of 
 the world would see them, and the whispers of the world might 
 come to his father's ears. 
 
 "If we go away together," he said, "good-bye to my pros- 
 pects, and yours too." 
 
 " I don't mean that we shall leave together," she explained. 
 " We will leave separately — and I will go first." 
 
 "There will be a hue and cry after you, when you are 
 missed." 
 
 "There will be a dance when the croquet is over. I don't 
 dance — and I shall not be missed. There will be time, and op- 
 portunity, to get to my own room. I shall leave a letter there 
 for Lady Lundie, and a letter " — her voice trembled for a mo- 
 ment — '* and a letter for Blanche. Don't interrupt me ! I 
 have thought of this, as I have thought of every thing else. 
 The confession I shall make will be the truth in a few hours 
 
MAN AND WIFE. 69 
 
 if it's not the truth now. My letters will say I am privately 
 married, and called away unexpectedly to join my husband. 
 There will be a scandal in the house, I know. But there will 
 be no excuse for sending after me, when I am under my hus- 
 band's protection. So far as you are personally concerned 
 there are no discoveries to fear — and nothing which it is not 
 perfectly safe and perfectly easy to do. Wait here an hour 
 after I have gone, to save appearances ; and then follow me." 
 
 " Follow you ?" interposed Geoffrey. " Where ?" 
 
 She drew her chair nearer to him, and whispered the next 
 words in his ear. 
 
 " To a lonely little mountain inn — four miles from this." 
 
 "An inn !" 
 
 " Why not ?" 
 
 "An inn is a public place." 
 
 A movement of natural impatience escaped her — but she 
 controlled herself, and went on as quietly as before : 
 
 "The place I mean is the loneliest place in the neighborhood. 
 You have no prying eyes to dread there. I have picked it out 
 expressly for that reason. It's away from the railway ; it's 
 away from the high-road : it's kept by a decent, respectable 
 Scotchwoman — " 
 
 "Decent, respectable Scotchwomen who keep inns," inter- 
 posed Geoffrey, " don't cotton to young ladies who are travel- 
 ing alone. The landlady Avon't receive you." 
 
 It was a well-aimed objection — but it missed the mark. A 
 woman bent on her marriage is a woma^n who can meet the 
 objections of the whole world, single-handed, and refute them 
 all. 
 
 " I have provided for every thing," she said ; " and I have 
 provided for that. I shall tell the landlady I am on my wed- 
 ding-trip. I shall say my husband is sight-seeing, on foot, 
 among the mountains in the neighborhood — " 
 
 " She is sure to believe that !" said Geoffrey. 
 
 " She is sure to o?«A'believe it, if you like. Let her ! You 
 have only to appear, and to ask for your wife — and there is my 
 story proved to be true ! She may be the most suspicious 
 woman living, as long as I am alone with her. The moment 
 you join me, you set her suspicions at rest. Leave me to do 
 my part. My part is the hard one. Will you do yours ?" 
 
 It was impossible to say No : she had fairly cut the ground 
 from under his feet. He shifted his ground. Any thing rather 
 than say Yes ! 
 
 " I suppose you know how we are to be married ?" he asked. 
 "All I can say is — Z don't." 
 
 " You do !" she retorted. " You know that we are in Scot- 
 land. You know that there are neither forms, ceremonies, not 
 
r 
 
 10 MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 delays in marriage here. The plan I have proposed to you 
 secures ray being received at the inn, and makes it easy and 
 natural for you to join me there afterward. The rest is in our 
 own hands. A man and a woman who wish to be married (in 
 Scotland) have only to secure the necessary witnesses and the 
 thing is done. If the landlady chooses to resent the deception 
 practiced on her, after that, the landlady may do as she pleases. 
 We shall have gained our object in spite of her — and, what is 
 more, we shall have gained it without risk to you.'''' 
 
 " Don't lay it all on my shoulders," Geoffrey rejoined. 
 " You women go headlong at every thing. Say we are mar- 
 ried. We must separate afterward — or how are we to keep it 
 a secret '?" 
 
 "Certainly. You will go back, of course, to your brother's 
 house, as if nothing had happened." 
 
 "And what is to become of you P^ 
 
 " I shall go to London." 
 
 " What are you to do in London ?" 
 
 " Haven't I already told you that I have thought of every 
 thing ? When I get to London I shall apply to some of ray 
 mother's old friends — friends of hers in the time when she was 
 a musician. Every body tells me I have a voice — if I had only 
 cultivated it. I loill cultivate it ! I can live, and live respect- 
 ably, as a concert singer. I have saved money enough to 
 support me while I am learning — and my mother's friends will 
 h^elp me, for her sake." 
 
 So, in the new life that she was raarking out, was she now 
 unconsciously reflecting in herself the life of her mother before 
 her. Here was the mother's career as a public singer, chosen 
 (in spite of all efforts to prevent it) by the child ! Here (though 
 with other motives, and under other circumstances) was the 
 mother's irregular marriage in Ireland, on the point of being 
 followed by the daughter's irregular marriage in Scotland ! 
 And here, stranger still, M^as the man who was answerable for 
 it — the son of the man who had found the flaw in the Irish 
 marriage, and had shown the way by which her raother was 
 thrown on the world ! " My Anne is ray second self She is 
 not called by her father's name ; she is called by mine. She is 
 Anne Silvester, as I was. Will she end like Me ?" — The answer 
 to those words — the last words that had trembled on the dying 
 mother's lips — was coming fast. Through the chances and 
 changes of many years, the future was pressing near — and 
 Anne Silvester stood on the brink of it. 
 
 ^ " Well ?" she resumed. "Are you at the end of your ob- 
 jections ? Can you give me a plain answer at last ?" 
 
 No ! He had another objection ready as the words passed 
 her lips. 
 
MAN AND WIPE. 71 
 
 " Suppose the witnesses at the inn happen to know me ?" he 
 said. " Suppose it comes to my father's ears in that way ?" 
 
 " Suppose you drive me to my death '?" she retorted, starting 
 to her feet. " Your father shall know the truth, in that case — 
 I swear it !" 
 
 He rose, on his side, and drew back from her. She followed 
 him up. There was a clapping of hands, at the same moment, 
 on the lawn. Somebody had evidently made a brilliant stroke 
 which promised to decide the game. There was no security 
 now that Blanche might not return again. There was every 
 prospect, the game being over, that Lady Lundie would be 
 free, Anne brought the interview to its crisis, without wast- 
 ing a moment more, 
 
 " Mr, Geofirey Delamayn," she said. " You have bargained 
 for a private marriage, and I have consented. Are you, or are 
 you not, ready to marry me on your own terms ?" 
 
 " Give me a minute to think !" 
 
 " Not an instant. Once for all, is it Yes, or No ?" 
 
 He couldn't say " Yes," even then. But he said what was 
 equivalent to it. He asked, savagely, " Where is the inn ?" 
 
 She put her arm in his, and whispered, rapidly, 
 
 "Pass the road on the right that leads to the railway. Fol- 
 low the path over the moor, and the sheep-track up the hill. 
 The first house you come to after that is the inn. You under- 
 stand !" 
 
 He nodded his head, with a sullen frown, and took his pipe 
 out of his pocket again. 
 
 " Let it alone this time," he said, meeting her eye. " My 
 mind's upset. When a man's mind's upset, a man must smoke. 
 What's the name of the place ?" 
 
 " Craig Fernie." 
 
 " Who am I to ask for at the door ?" 
 
 " For your wife." 
 
 " Suppose they want you to give your name when you get 
 there ?" 
 
 "If I must give a name, I shall call myself Mrs., instead of 
 Miss, Silvester. But I shall do my best to avoid giving any 
 name. And you will do your best to avoid making a mistake, 
 by only asking for me as your wife. Is there any thing else 
 you want to know?" 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Be quick about it ! What is it ?" 
 
 " How am I to know you have got away from here ?" 
 
 " If you don't hear from me in half an hour from the time 
 when I have left you, you may be sure I have got away. 
 Hush !" 
 
 Two voices, in conversation, were audible at the bottom of 
 
72 MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 the steps — Lady Lundie's voice and Sir Patrick's. Anne point- 
 ed to the door in the back wall of the summer-house. She had 
 just pulled it to again, after Geoffrey had passed through it, 
 when Lady Lundie and Sir Patrick appeared at the top of the 
 steps. 
 
 CHAPTER THE SIXTH. 
 
 THE SUITOR. 
 
 Lady Lundie pointed significantly to the door, and addressed 
 herself to Sir Patrick's private ear. 
 
 "Observe!" she said. "Miss Silvester has just got rid of 
 somebody." 
 
 Sir Patrick deliberately looked in the wrong direction, and 
 (in the politest possible manner) observed — nothing. 
 
 Lady Lundie advanced into the summer-house. Suspicious 
 hatred of the governess was written legibly in every line of 
 her face. Suspicious distrust of the governess's illness spoke 
 plainly in every tone of her voice. 
 
 " May I inquire, Miss Silvester, if your sufferings are re- 
 lieved ?" 
 
 " I am no better, Lady Lundie." 
 
 " I beg your pardon ?" 
 
 " I said I was no better." 
 
 "You appear to be able to stand up. When /am ill, I am 
 not so fortunate. I am obliged to lie down." 
 
 " I will follow your example, Lady Lundie. If you will be 
 so good as to excuse me, I will leave you, and lie down in my 
 own room." 
 
 She could say no more. The interview with Geoffrey had 
 worn her out ; there was no spirit left in her to resist the petty 
 malice of the woman, after bearing, as she had borne it, the 
 bi'utish indifference of the man. In another moment the hys- 
 tei'ical suffering which she was keeping down would have 
 forced its way outward in tears. Without waiting to know 
 whether she was excused or not, without stopping to hear a 
 word more, she left the summer-house. 
 
 Lady Lundie's magnificent black eyes opened to their ut- 
 most width, and blazed with their most dazzling brightness. 
 She appealed to Sir Patrick, poised easily on his ivory cane, 
 and looking out at the lawn-party, the picture of venerable in- 
 nocence. 
 
 "After what I have already told you, Sir Patrick, of Miss 
 Silvester's conduct, may I ask whether you consider that pro- 
 ceeding at all extraordinary?" 
 
MAN AND WIFE. 73 
 
 The old gentleman touched the spring in the knob of his 
 cane, and answered, in the courtly manner of the old school : 
 
 "I consider no proceeding extraordinary, Lady Lundie, 
 which emanates from your enchanting sex." 
 
 Pie bowed, and took his pinch. With a little jaunty flourish 
 of the hand, he dusted the stray grains of snuff off his finger 
 and thumb, and looked back again at the lawn-party, and be- 
 came more absorbed in the diversions of his young friends 
 than ever. 
 
 Lady Lundie stood her ground, plainly determined to force 
 a serious expression of opinion from her brother-in-law. Be- 
 fore she could speak again, Arnold and Blanche appeared to- 
 gether at the bottom of the steps. " And when does the dan- 
 cing begin ?" inquired Sir Patrick, advancing to meet them, 
 and looking as if he felt the deepest interest in a speedy set- 
 tlement of the question. 
 
 "The very thing I was going to ask mamma," returned 
 Blanche. " Is she in there with Anne ? Is Anne better ?" 
 
 Lady Lundie forthwith appeared, and took the answer to 
 that inquiry on herself. 
 
 " Miss Silvester has retired to her room. Miss Silvester per- 
 sists in being ill. Have you noticed. Sir Patrick, that these 
 half-bred sort of people are almost invariably rude when they 
 are ill ?" 
 
 Blanche's bright face flushed up. "If you think Anne a 
 half-bred person, Lady Lundie, you stand alone in your opinion. 
 My uncle doesn't agree with you, I'm sure." 
 
 Sir Patrick's interest in the first quadrille became almost 
 painful to see. "2>o tell me, my dear, when is the dancing go- 
 ing to begin ?" 
 
 " The sooner the better," interposed Lady Lundie ; " before 
 Blanche picks another quarrel with me on the subject of Miss 
 Silvester," 
 
 Blanche looked at her uncle. " Begin ! begin ! Don't lose 
 time !" cried the ai'dent Sir Patrick, pointing toward the house 
 with his cane. " Certainly, uncle ! Any thing that you wish !" 
 With that parting shot at her step-mother, Blanche withdrew. 
 Arnold, who had thus far waited in silence at the foot of the 
 steps, looked appealingly at Sir Patrick, The train Avhich was 
 to take him to his newly-inherited property would start in less 
 than an hour ; and he had not presented himself to Blanche's 
 guardian in the character of Blanche's suitor yet ! Sir Pat- 
 rick's indifference to all domestic claims on him — claims of 
 persons who loved, and claims of persons who hated, it didn't 
 matter which — remained perfectly unassailable. There he 
 stood, poised on his cane, humming an old Scotch air. And 
 there was Lady Lundie, resolute aot to leave him till he had 
 
Y4 MAN AND WIPE. 
 
 seen the governess with Jier eyes and judged the governo^-^ 
 with her mind. She returned to the charge — in spite of Sir 
 Patrick, humming at the top of the steps, and of Arnold, wait- 
 ing at the bottom. (Her enemies said, " No wonder poor Sir 
 Thomas died in a few months after his marriage !" And, oh 
 dear me, our enemies are sometimes right !) 
 
 " I must once more remind you. Sir Patrick, that I have se- 
 rious reason to doubt whether Miss Silvester is a fit compan- 
 ion for Blanche. My governess has something on her mind. 
 She has fits of crying in private. She is up and walking about 
 her room when she ought to be asleep. She posts her own let- 
 ters — and^ she has lately been excessively insolent to Me. 
 There is something wrong. I must take some steps in the 
 matter — and it is only proper that I should do so with your 
 sanction, as head of the family." 
 
 " Consider me as abdicating my position, Lady Lundie, in 
 your favor." 
 
 " Sir Patrick, I beg you to observe that I am speaking seri- 
 ously, and that I expect a serious reply." 
 
 " My good lady, ask me for any thing else and it is at your 
 service. I have not made 'a serious reply' since I gave uji 
 practice at the Scottish Bar. At my age," added Sir Patrick, 
 cunningly drifting into generalities, " nothing is serious — ex- 
 cept Indigestion, I say, with the philosopher, 'Life is a come- 
 dy to those who think, and a tragedy to those who feel.' " He 
 took his sister-in-law's hand, and kissed it. " Dear Lady Lun- 
 die, why feel ?" 
 
 Lady Lundie, who had never " felt " in her life, appeared 
 perversely determined to feel, on this occasion. She v/as of- 
 fended — and she showed it plainly. 
 
 " When you are next called on, Sir Patrick, to judge of 
 Miss Silvester's conduct," she said, " unless I am entirely mis- 
 taken, you will find yourself compelled to consider it as some- 
 thing beyond a joke." With those words, she walked out of 
 the summer-house — and so forwarded Arnold's interests by 
 leaving Blanche's guardian alone at last. 
 
 It was an excellent opportunity. The guests were safe in 
 the house — there was no interruption to be feared. Arnold 
 showed himself Sir Patrick (perfectly undisturbed by Lady 
 Lundie's parting speech) sat down in the summer-house, with- 
 out noticing his young friend, and asked himself a question 
 founded on profound observation of the female sex. " Were 
 there ever two women yet with a quarrel between them," 
 thought the old gentleman, " who didn't want to drag a man 
 into it ? Let them drag wje in, if thej^ can !" 
 
 Arnold advanced a step, and modestly announced himself 
 " I hope I am not in the way, Sir Patrick ?" 
 
MAN AND WIFB. 
 
 in 
 
 *' In the way ! of course not ! Bless my soul, how serious 
 the boy looks ! Are 1/021 going to appeal to me as the head of 
 the family next?" 
 
 It was exactly what Arnold was about to do. But it was 
 plain that if he admitted it just then Sir Patrick (for some un- 
 intelligible reason) would decline to listen to him. He an- 
 swered cautiously, " I asked leave to consult you in private, 
 sir ; and you kindly said you would give me the opportunity 
 before I left Windygates?" 
 
 "Ay! ay! to be sure. I remember. We were both en- 
 gaged in the serious business of croquet at the time — and it 
 was doubtful which of us did that business most clumsily. 
 Well, here is the opportunity ; and here am I, with all my 
 worldly experience, at your service. I have only one caution 
 to give you. Don't appeal to me as ' the head of the family.' 
 My resignation is in Lady Lundie's hands." 
 
 He was, as usual, half in jest, half in eai'nest. The wry twist 
 of humor showed itself at the corners of his lips. Arnold was 
 at a loss how to approach Sir Patrick on the subject of his 
 niece without reminding him of his domestic responsibilities 
 on one hand, and without setting himself up as a target for the 
 shafts of Sir Patrick's wit on the other. In this difficulty, he 
 committed a mistake at the outset. He hesitated. 
 
 "Don't hurry yourself," said Sir Patrick. "Collect your 
 ideas. I can wait ! I can wait !" 
 
 Arnold collected his ideas — and committed a second mis- 
 take. He determined on feeling his way cautiously at first. 
 Under the circumstances (and with such a man as he had now 
 to deal with), it was perhaps the rashest resolution at which 
 he could possibly have arrived — it was the mouse attempting 
 to outmanoeuvre the cat. 
 
 " You have been very kind, sir, in offering me the benefit 
 of your experience," he began. "I want a word of advice." 
 
 " Suppose you take it sitting ?" suggested Sir Patrick. 
 "Get a chair." His sharp eyes followed Arnold with an ex- 
 pression of malicious enjoyment. "Wants my advice?" he 
 thought. " The young humbug wants nothing of the sort — 
 he wants my niece." 
 
 Arnold sat down under Sir Pati'ick's eye, with a well-found- 
 ed suspicion that he was destined to suffer, before he got up 
 again, under Sir Patrick's tongue. 
 
 " I am only a young man," he went on, moving uneasily in 
 his chair ; " and I am beginning a new life — " 
 
 "Any thing wrong with the chair?" asked Sir Patrick. 
 "Begin your new life comfortably, and get another." 
 
 "There's nothing wrong with the chair, sir. Would you — " 
 
 " Would I keep the chair, in that case ? Certainly." 
 
76 SUIT AND WIFB. 
 
 " I mean, would you advise me — " 
 
 "My good fellow, I'm waiting to advise you. (Pra sure 
 there's something wrong with that chair. Why be obstinate 
 about it? Why not get another?") 
 
 " Please don't notice the chair, Sir Patrick — you put me out, 
 I want — in short — perhaps it's a carious question — " 
 
 " I can't say till I have heard it," remarked Sir Patrick. 
 "However, we will admit it, for form's sake, if you like. Say 
 it's a curious question. Or let us express it more strongly, if 
 that will help you. Say it's the most extraordinary question 
 that ever was put, since the beginning of the world, from one 
 human being to another." 
 
 " It's this !" Arnold burst out, desperately. " I want to be 
 married !" 
 
 " That isn't a question," objected Sir Patrick. " It's an as- 
 sertion. You say, I want to be married. And I say, Just so \ 
 And there's an end of it." 
 
 Arnold's head began to whirl. " Would you advise me to 
 get married, sir?" he said, piteously. " That's what I meant." 
 
 " Oh ! That's the object of the present interview, is it ? 
 Would I advise you to marry, eh ?" 
 
 (Having caught the mouse by this time, the cat lifted his 
 paw and let the luckless little creature breathe again. Sir 
 Patrick's manner suddenly freed itself from any slight signs 
 of impatience which it might have hitherto shown, and became 
 as pleasantly easy and confidential as a manner could be. He 
 touched the knob of his cane, and helped himself, with infinite 
 zest and enjoyment, to a pinch of snuff.) 
 
 " Would I advise you to marry ?" repeated Sir Patrick. 
 " Two courses are open to us, Mr. Arnold, in treating that 
 question. We may put it briefly, or we may put it at great 
 length. I am for putting it briefly. What do you say ?" 
 
 " What yoii say, Sir Patrick." 
 
 "Very good. May I begin by making an inquiry relating 
 to your past life ?" 
 
 "Certainly!"" 
 
 " Very good again. When you were in the merchant service, 
 did you ever have any experience in buying provisions ashore ?" 
 
 Arnold stared. If any relation existed between that ques- 
 tion and the subject in hand it was an impenetrable relation to 
 him. He answered, in unconcealed bewilderment, 
 
 "Plenty of experience, sir." 
 
 " I'm coming to the point," pursued Sir Patrick. " Don't be 
 astonished. I'm coming to the point. What did you think of 
 your moist sugar when you bought it at the grocer's ?" 
 
 " Think ?" repeated Arnold. " Why I thought it was moist 
 sugar, to be sure !" 
 
I 
 
 MAN AND WIFE. 11 
 
 " Marry, by all means !" cried Sir Patrick. " You are one 
 
 of the few men who can try that experiment with a fair chance 
 of success." 
 
 The suddenness of the answer fairly took away Arnold's 
 breath. There was something perfectly electric in the brevity 
 of his venerable friend. He stared harder than ever. 
 
 " Don't you understand me ?" asked Sir Patrick. 
 
 " I don't understand what the moist sugar has got to do with 
 it, sir." 
 
 *' You don't see that ?" 
 
 « Not a bit !" 
 
 " Then I'll show you," said Sir Patrick, crossing his legs, and 
 setting in comfortably for a good talk. " You go to the tea- 
 shop and get your moist sugar. You take it on the under- 
 standing that it is moist sugar. But it isn't any thing of the 
 sort. It's a compound of adulterations made up to look like 
 sugar. You shut your eyes to that awkward fact, and swallow 
 your adulterated mess in various articles of food ; and you and 
 your sugar get on together in that way as well as you can. 
 Do you follow me, so far?" 
 
 Yes, Arnold (quite in the dark) followed, so far. 
 
 " Very good," pursued Sir Patrick. " You go to the mar- 
 riage shop, and get a wife. You take her on the understand- 
 ing — let us say — that she has lovely yellow hair, that she has 
 an exquisite complexion, that her figure is the perfection of 
 plumpness, and that she is just tall enough to carry the plump- 
 ness off. You bring her home, and you discover that it's the 
 old story of the sugar over again. Your wife is an adulterated 
 article. Her lovely yellow hair is — dye. Her exqiiisite skin 
 is — pearl powder. Her plumpness is — padding. And three 
 inches of her height are — in the boot-maker's heels. Shut 
 your eyes, and swallow your adulterated wife as you swallow 
 your adulterated sugar — and, I tell you again, you are one of 
 the few men who can try the marriage experiment with a fair 
 chance of success." 
 
 With that be uncrossed his legs again, and looked hard at 
 Arnold. Ainiold read the lesson, at last, in the right way. He 
 gave up the hopeless attempt to circumvent Sir Patrick, and — 
 come what might of it — dashed at a direct allusion to Sir Pat- 
 rick's niece. 
 
 "That may be all very true, sir, of some young ladies," he 
 said. " There is one I know of, who is neai'ly related to you, 
 and who doesn't deserve what you have said of the rest of 
 them." 
 
 This was coming to the point. Sir Patrick showed his ap- 
 proval of Arnold's frankness by coming to the point himself, 
 as readily as his own whimsical humor would let him. 
 
78 MAN AND WIPE. 
 
 " Is this female phenomenon my niece ?" he inquired. 
 
 " Yes, Sir Patrick." 
 
 " May I ask how you know that my niece is not an adulter- 
 ated article, like the rest of them ?" 
 
 Arnold's indignation loosened the last restraints that tied 
 Arnold's tongue. He exploded in the three words which 
 mean three volumes in every circulating library in the king- 
 dom. 
 
 " I love her." 
 
 Sir Patrick sat back in his chair, and stretched out his legs 
 luxuriously. 
 
 "That's the most convincing answer I ever heard in my 
 life," he said. 
 
 " Vm in earnest !" cried Arnold, reckless by this time of ev- 
 ery consideration but one. " Put me to the test, sir ! put me 
 to the test !" 
 
 " Oh, very well. The test is easily put." He looked at Ar- 
 nold, with the irrepressible humor twinkling merrily in his 
 eyes, and twitching sharply at the corners of his lips. " My 
 niece has a beautiful complexion. Do you believe in her com- 
 plexion ?" 
 
 " There's a beautiful sky above our heads," returned Arnold. 
 " I believe in the sky." 
 
 " Do you '?" retorted Sir Patrick. " You were evidently 
 never caught in a shower. My niece has an immense quantity 
 of hair. Are you convinced that it all grows on her head?" 
 
 "I defy any other woman's head to produce the like of it!" 
 
 "My dear Arnold, you greatly unden-ate the existing re- 
 sources of the trade in hair! Look into the shop-windows. 
 When you next go to London, pray look into the shop-win- 
 dows. In the mean time, what do you think of my niece's 
 figure?" 
 
 " Oh, come ! there can't be any doubt about that I Any 
 man, with eyes in his head, can see it's the loveliest figure in 
 the world." 
 
 Sir Patrick laughed softly, and crossed his legs again. 
 
 " My good fellow, of coui-se it is ! The loveliest figure in 
 the world is the commonest thing in the world. At a rough 
 guess, there are forty ladies at this lawn-party. Every one 
 of them possesses a beautiful figure. It varies in price, and 
 when it's particularly seductive, you may swear it comes from 
 Paris. Why, how you stare ! When I asked you what you 
 thought of my niece's figure, I meant — how much of it comes 
 from Nature, and how much of it comes from the Shop ? I 
 don't know, mind ! Do you ?" 
 
 " I'll take my oath to every inch of it i" 
 
 "Shop?" 
 
MAN AND WIPE. 79 
 
 « Nature !" 
 
 Sir Patrick rose to his feet ; his satirical humor was silenced 
 
 at last. 
 
 " If ever I have a son," he thought to himself, " that son 
 shall go to sea !" He took Arnold's arm, as a preliminary to 
 putting an end to Arnold's suspense. "If I can be serious 
 about any thing," he resumed, " it's time to be serious with 
 you. I am convinced of the sincerity of your attachment. 
 All I know of you is in your favor, and your birth and uosi- 
 tion are beyond dispute. If you have Blanche's consent, vou 
 have mine." Arnold attempted to express his gratitude. Sir 
 Patrick, declining to hear him, went on. "And remember tuis, 
 in the future. When you next want any thing that I can srive 
 you, ask for it plainly. Don't attempt to mystify me on che 
 next occasion, and I will promise, on my side, not to mystify 
 you. There, that's understood. Now about this journey of 
 yours to see your estate. Property has its duties, Master Ar- 
 nold, as well as its rights. The time is fast coming when its 
 rights will be disputed, if its duties are not performed. I have 
 got a new interest in you, and I mean to see that you do youv 
 duty. It's settled you are to leave Windygates to-day. Is it 
 arranged how you are to go ?" 
 
 "Yes, Sir Patrick. Lady Lundie has kindly ordered the gig 
 to take me to the station, in time for the next train." 
 
 " When are you to be ready ?" 
 
 Arnold looked at his watch. " In a quarter of an hour." 
 
 " Very good. Mind you are ready. Stop a minute ! you 
 will have plenty of time to speak to Blanche when I have 
 done with you. You don't appear to me to be sufficiently 
 anxious about seeing your own property." 
 
 " I am not vei'y anxious to leave Blanche, sir — that's the 
 truth of it." 
 
 " Never mind Blanche. Blanche is not business. They both 
 begin with a B, and that's the only connection between them. 
 I hear you have got one of the finest houses in this part of 
 Scotland. How long are you going to stay in it ?" 
 
 " I have arranged (as I have already told you, sir) to return 
 to Windygates the day after to-morrow." 
 
 " What ! Here is a man with a palace waiting to receive 
 him — and he is only going to stop one clear day in it !" 
 
 " I am not going to stop in it at all, Sir Patrick — I am going 
 to stay with the steward. I'm only wanted to be present to- 
 morrow at a dinner to my tenants — and, when tihat's over, 
 there's nothing in the world to prevent my coming back here. 
 The stewaM himself told me so in his last letter." 
 
 " Oh, if the steward told you so, of course there is nothing 
 more to be said !" 
 
80 MAN AND WIFK. 
 
 " Don't object to my coming back ! pray don't, Sir Patrick ! 
 I'll promise to live in my new house, when I have got Blanche 
 to live in it with me. If you won't mind, I'll go and tell her 
 at once that it all belongs to her as well as to me." 
 
 " Gently ! gently ! you talk as if you were married to her 
 already !" 
 
 " It's as good as done, sir ! Where's the difficulty in the 
 way now?" 
 
 As he asked the question the shadow of some third person, 
 advancing from the side of the summer-house, was thrown for- 
 ward on the open sunlit space at the top of the steps. In a 
 moment more the shadow was followed by the substance — in 
 the shape of a groom in his riding livery. The man was plain- 
 ly a stranger to the place. He started, and touched his hat, 
 when he saw the two gentlemen in the summer-house. 
 
 " What do you want ?" asked Sir Patrick. 
 
 " I beg your pardon, sir; I was sent by my master — " 
 
 "Who is your master?" 
 
 "The Honorable Mr. Delamayn, sir." 
 
 " Do you mean Mr. Geoffrey Delamayn ?" asked Arnold. 
 
 " No, sir. Mr. Geoffrey's brother — Mr. Julius. I have rid- 
 den over from the house, sir, with a message from my master 
 to Mr. Geoffrey." 
 
 "Can't you find him?" 
 
 " They told me I should find him hereabouts, sir. But I'm 
 a stranger, and don't rightly know where to look." He stop- 
 ped, and took a card out of his pocket. "My master said it 
 was very important I should deliver this immediately. Would 
 you be pleased to tell me, gentlemen, if you happen to know 
 where Mr. Geoffrey is ?" 
 
 Arnold turned to Sir Patrick. " I haven't seen him. Have 
 you ?" 
 
 " I've smelled him," answered Sir Patrick, " ever since I have 
 been in the summer-house. There is a detestable taint of to- 
 bacco in the air — suggestive (disagreeably suggestive to my 
 mind) of your friend, Mr. Delamayn." 
 
 Arnold laughed, and stepped outside the summer-house. 
 
 " If you are right, Sir Patrick, we will find him at once," 
 He looked around, and shouted, " Geoffrey !" 
 
 A voice from the rose-garden shouted back, " Halloo I" 
 
 " You're wanted. Come here !" 
 
 Geoffrey appeared, sauntering doggedly, with his pipe 'u his 
 mouth, and his hands in his pockets. 
 
 " Who wants me ?" 
 
 " A groom — from your brother." 
 
 That answer appeared to electrify the loungmg and lazy 
 athlete. Geoffrey hurried, with eager steps, to the summer- 
 
I MAN AND WIFE. 81 
 
 house. He addressed the groom before the man had time to 
 speak. With horror and dismay in his face, he exclaimed : 
 
 " By Jupiter ! Ratcatcher has relapsed !" 
 
 Sir Patrick and Arnold looked at each other in blank amaze- 
 ment. 
 
 " The best horse in my brother's stables !" cried Geoffrey, 
 explaining, and appealing to them, in a breath. " I left writ- 
 ten directions with the coachman ; I measured out his physic 
 for three days ; I bled him," said Geoffrey, in a voice broken 
 by emotion — " I bled him myself, last night." 
 
 " I beg your pardon, sir — " began the groom. 
 
 " What's the use of begging mj'^ pardon ? You're a pack oi 
 infernal fools ! Where's your horse ? I'll ride back, and break 
 every bone in the coachman's skin ! Where's your horse ?" 
 
 " If you please, sir, it isn't Ratcatcher. Ratcatcher's all 
 right." 
 
 " Ratcatcher's all right ? Then what the devil is it ?" 
 
 " It's a message, sir." 
 
 "About what?" 
 
 "About my lord." 
 
 "Oh ! About ray father?" He took out his handkerchief, 
 and passed it over his forehead, with a deep gasp of relief " I 
 thought it was Ratcatcher," he said, looking at Arnold, with 
 a smile. He put his pipe into his mouth, and rekindled the 
 dying ashes of the tobacco. " Well," he went on, when the 
 pipe was in working order, and his voice was composed again, 
 " what's up with my father ?" 
 
 *' A telegram from London, sir. Bad news of my lord." 
 
 The man produced his master's card. 
 
 Geoffrey read on it (written in his brother's handwriting) 
 these words : 
 
 " I have only a moment to scribble a line on my card. Our 
 father is dangerously ill — his lawyer has been sent for. Come 
 with me to London by the first train. Meet at the junction." 
 
 Without a word to any one of the three persons present, all 
 silently looking at him, Geoffrey consulted his watch. Anne 
 had told him to wait half an hour, and to assume that she had 
 gone if he failed to hear from her in that time. The interval 
 had passed — and no communication of any sort had reached 
 him. The flight from the house had been safely accomplished. 
 Anne Silvester was, at that moment, on her way to the mount- 
 ain inn. 
 6 
 
S2 MATS r AHiD WIF& 
 
 CHAPTER THE SEVENTH. 
 
 THE DEBT. 
 
 Abnold was the first who broke the silence. 
 
 " Is your father seriously ill ?" he asked. 
 
 Geoffrey answered by handing him the card. 
 
 Sir Patrick, who had stood apart (while the question of Rat- 
 catcher's reliapse was under discussion) sardonically studying 
 the manners and customs of modern English youth, now came 
 forward, and took his part in the proceedings. Lady Lundie 
 herself must have acknowledged that he spoke and acted as 
 became the head of the family, on this occasion. 
 
 " Am I right in supposing that Mr. Delamayn's father is 
 dangerously ill ?" he asked, addressing himself to Arnold. 
 
 " Dangerously ill, in London," Arnold answered. " Geoffrey 
 must leave Windygates with me. The train I am traveling 
 by meets the train his brother is traveling by, at the junction. 
 I shall leave him at the second station from here." 
 
 "Didn't you tell me that Lady Lundie was going to send 
 you to the railway in a gig ?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " If the servant drives, there will be three of you — and there 
 will be no room." 
 
 " We had better ask for some other vehicle," suggested Ar- 
 nold. 
 
 Sir Patrick looked at his watch. There was no time to 
 change the carriage. He turned to Geoffrey. "Can you 
 drive, Mr. Delamayn?" 
 
 Still impenetrably silent, Geoffrey replied by a nod of the 
 head. 
 
 Without noticing the unceremonious manner in which he 
 had been answered, Sir Patrick went on : 
 
 " In that case, you can leave the gig in charge of the station- 
 master. I'll tell the servant that he will not be wanted to 
 drive." 
 
 " Let me save you the trouble. Sir Patrick," said Arnold. 
 
 Sir Patrick declined, by a gesture. He turned again, with 
 undiminished courtesy, to Geoffrey. " It is one of the duties 
 of hospitality, Mr. Delamayn, to hasten your departure, under 
 these sad circumstances. Lady Lundie is engaged with her 
 guests. I will see myself that there is no unnecessary delay 
 
MAN AND WIFE. 88 
 
 in sending you to the station." He bowed — and left the sum- 
 mer-house. 
 
 Arnold said a word of sympathy to his friend, when they 
 were alone. 
 
 " I am sorry for this, Geoffrey. I hope and trust you will 
 get to London in time." 
 
 He stopped. There was something in Geoffrey's face — a 
 strange mixture of doubt and bewilderment, of annoyance and 
 hesitation — which was not to be accounted for as the natural 
 result of the news that he had received. His color shifted 
 and changed ; he picked fretfully at his finger-nails ; he looked 
 at Arnold as if he was going to speak — and then looked away 
 again, in silence. 
 
 " Is there something amiss, Geoffrey, besides this bad news 
 about your father ?" asked Arnold. 
 
 " I'm in the devil's own mess," was the answer. 
 
 " Can I do any thing to help you?" 
 
 Instead of making a direct reply, Geoffrey lifted his mighty 
 hand, and gave Arnold a friendly slap on the shoulder which 
 shook him from head to foot. Arnold steadied himself, and 
 waited — wondering what was coming next. 
 
 " I say, old fellow !" said Geoffrey. 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Do you remember when the boat turned keel upward in 
 Lisbon Harbor?" 
 
 Arnold started. If he could have called to mind his first 
 interview in the summer-house with his father's old friend, he 
 might have remembered Sir Patrick's prediction that he would 
 sooner or later pay, with interest, the debt he owed to the 
 man who had saved his life. As it was, his memory reverted 
 at a bound to the time of the boat accident. In the ardor of 
 his gratitude and the innocence of his heart, he almost re- 
 sented his friend's question as a reproach which he had not 
 deserved. 
 
 " Do you think I can ever forget," he cried, warmly, " that 
 you swam ashore with me and saved my life ?" 
 
 Geoffrey ventured a step nearer to the object that he had m 
 view. 
 
 " One good turn deserves another," he said ; " don't it ?" 
 
 Arnold took his hand. " Only tell me !" he eagerly rejoined, 
 ^' only tell me what I can do !" 
 
 "You are going to-day to see your new place, ain't you ?'* 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "Can you put off going till to-morrow?" 
 
 " If it's any thing serious — of course I can !" 
 
 Geoffrey looked round at the entrance to the summer-house, 
 to make sure that they were alone. 
 
84 MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 " You know the governess here, don't you ?" he said in a 
 whisper. 
 
 " Miss Silvester ?" 
 
 " Yes. I've got into a little difficulty with Miss Silvester. 
 And there isn't a living soul I can ask to help me but you?'' 
 
 " You know I will help you. What is it ?" 
 
 " It isn't so easy to say. Never mind — you're no saint either, 
 are you ? You'll keep it a secret, of course ? Look here ! I've 
 acted like an infernal fool. I've gone and got the girl into ft 
 scrape — " 
 
 Arnold drew back, suddenly understanding him. 
 
 " Good heavens, Geoffrey ! You don't mean — " 
 
 "I do ! Wait a bit — that's not the worst of it. She has 
 left the house." 
 
 " Left the house ?" 
 
 " Left, for good and all. She can't come back again." 
 
 " Why not>' 
 
 " Because she's written to her missus. Women (hang 'em !) 
 never do these things by halves. She's left a letter to say 
 she's privately married, and gone off to her husband. Her 
 husband is — Me. Not that I'm married to her yet, you un- 
 derstand. I have only promised to marry her. She has gone 
 on first (on the sly) to a place four miles from this. And we 
 settled I was to follow, and marry her privately this afternoon. 
 That's out of the question now. While she's expecting me at 
 the inn I shall be bowling along to London. Somebody must 
 tell her what has happened — or she'll play the devil, and the 
 whole business will burst up. I can't trust any of the people 
 here. I'm done for, old chap, unless you help me." 
 
 Arnold lifted his hands in dismay. " It's the most dreadful 
 situation, Geoffrey, I ever heard of in my life !" 
 
 Geoffrey thoroughly agreed with him. " Enough to knock 
 a man over," he said, " isn't it ? I'd give something for a drink 
 of beer." He produced his everlasting pipe, from sheer force 
 of habit. " Got a match ?" he asked. 
 
 Arnold's mind was too preoccupied to notice the question. 
 
 "I hope you won't think I'm making light of your fither's 
 illness," he said, earnestly. " But it seems to me — I must say 
 it — it seems to me that the poor girl has the first claim on 
 you." 
 
 Geoffrey looked at him in surly amazement, 
 
 "The first claim on me? Do you think I'm going to risk 
 being cut out of my father's will ? Not for the best woman 
 that ever put on a petticoat !" 
 
 Arnold's admiration of his friend was the solidly-founded 
 admiration of many years ; admiration for a man who could 
 row, boxj wrestle, jump — above all, who could swim — as fevy 
 
MAN AND WrPB. 85 
 
 other men could perform those exercises in contemporary En- 
 gland. But that answer shook his faith. Only for the moment 
 — unhappily for Arnold, only for the moment. 
 
 " You know best," he returned, a little coldly. " What can 
 I do?" 
 
 Geoffrey took his arm — roughly, as he took every thing ; 
 but in a companionable and confidential way. 
 
 " Go, like a good fellow, and tell her what has happened. 
 We'll start from here as if we were both going to the railway ; 
 and I'll drop you at the foot-path, in the gig. You can get on 
 to your own place afterward by the evening train. It puts 
 you to no inconvenience ; and it's doing the kind thing by an 
 old friend. There's no risk of being found out. I'm to drive, 
 remember! There's no servant with us, old boy, to notice 
 and tell tales." 
 
 Even Arnold began to see dimly by this time that he was 
 likely to pay his debt of obligation with interest — as Sir Pat- 
 rick had foretold. 
 
 " What am I to say to her ?" he asked. " I'm bound to do 
 all I can do to help you, and I will. But what am I to say ?" 
 
 It was a natural question to put. It was not an easy ques- 
 tion to answer. What a man, under given muscular circum- 
 stances, could do, no person living knew better than Geoffrey 
 Delamayn. Of what a man, under given social circumstances, 
 could say, no person living knew less. 
 
 " Say ?" he repeated. " Look here ! say I'm half distracted, 
 and all that. And — wait a bit — tell her to stop where she is 
 till I write to her." 
 
 Arnold hesitated. Absolutely ignorant of that low and 
 limited form of knowledge which is called " knowledge of the 
 world," his inbred delicacy of mind revealed to him the seri- 
 ous difficulty of the position which his friend was asking him 
 to occupy as plainly as if he was looking at it through the 
 warily-gathered experience of society of a man of twice his 
 age. 
 
 " Can't you write to her now, Geoffrey ?" he asked. 
 
 " What's the good of that ?" 
 
 " Consider for a minute, and you will see. You have trust- 
 ed me with a very awkward secret. I may be wrong — I nev- 
 er was mixed up in such a matter before — but to present ray- 
 self to this lady as your messenger seems exposing her to a 
 dreadful humiliation. Am I to go and tell her to her face : 
 ' I know what you are hiding from the knowledge of all the 
 world ;' and is she to be expected to endure it?" 
 
 " Bosh !" said Geoffrey. " They can endure a deal more 
 than you think for. I wish you had heard how she bullied 
 me, in this very place. My good fellow, you don't understan4 
 
8tt MAN AND WIPB. 
 
 women. The grand secret, in dealing with a woman, is to tak« 
 her as yo« take a cat, by the scuff of the neck — " 
 
 "I can't face her — unless you will help me by breaking the 
 thing to her first. I'll stick at no sacrifice to serve you ; but 
 — hang it ! — make allowances, Geoffrey, for the difiiculty you 
 are putting me in. I am almost a stranger; I don't know 
 how Miss Silvester may receive me, before I can open my lips." 
 
 Those last words touched the question on its practical side. 
 The matter-of-fact view of the difiiculty, was a view which 
 Geoffrey instantly recognized and understood. 
 
 "She has the devil's own temper," he said. "There's no 
 denying that. Perhaps I'd better write. Have we time to go 
 into the house ?" 
 
 " No. The house is full of people, and we haven't a minute 
 to spare. Write at once, and write here. I have got a pencil." 
 
 " What am I to write on ?" 
 
 "Any thing — your brother's card." 
 
 Geoffrey took the pencil which Arnold offered to him, and 
 looked at the card. The lines his brother had written covered 
 it. There was no room left. He felt in his pocket, and pro- 
 duced a letter — the letter which Anne had referred to at the 
 interview between them ; the letter which she had written to 
 insist on his attending the lawn-party at Windygates. 
 
 "This will do," he said. "It's one of Anne's own letters to 
 me. There's room on the fourth page. If I write," he added, 
 turning suddenly on Arnold, " you promise to take it to her ? 
 Your hand on the bargain !" 
 
 He held out the hand which had saved Arnold's life in Lis- 
 bon Harbor, and received Arnold's promise, in remembrance 
 of that time, 
 
 " All right, old fellow. I can tell you how to find the place 
 as we go along in the gig. By-the-bye, there's one thing that's 
 rather important. I'd better mention it while I think of it." 
 
 " What is that ?" 
 
 " You mustn't present yourself at the inn in your own name ; 
 and you mustn't ask for her by her name." 
 
 « Who am I to ask for ?" 
 
 "It's a little awkward. She has gone there as a married 
 woman, in case they're particular about taking her in — " 
 
 " I understand. Go on." 
 
 " And she has planned to tell them (by way of making it all 
 right and straight for both of us, you know) that she expects 
 her husband to join her. If I had been able to go I should 
 have asked at the door for ' my wife.' You ai-e going in my 
 place — " 
 
 " And I must ask at the door for ' my wife,' or I shall expose 
 Miss Silvester to unpleasant consequences ?" 
 
MAN AND WIFE. 8!? 
 
 « You don't object ?" 
 
 " Not I ! I don't care what I say to the people of the inn. 
 It's the meeting with Miss Silvester that I'm afraid of." 
 
 " I'll put that right for you — never fear !" 
 
 He went at once to the table and rapidly scribbled a few 
 lines — then stopped and considered. " Will that do ?" he asked 
 himself. " No ; I'd better say something spoony to quiet her." 
 He considered again, added a line, and brought his hand down 
 on the table with a cheery smack. " That will do the business ! 
 Read it yourself, Arnold — it's not so badly written." 
 
 Arnold read the note without appearing to share his friend's 
 favorable opinion of it. 
 
 " This is rather short," he said. 
 
 " Have I time to make it longer ?" 
 
 " Perhaps not. But let Miss Silvester see for herself that 
 you have no time to make it longer. The train starts in less 
 than half an hour. Put the time." 
 
 " Oh, all right ! and the date too, if you like." 
 
 He had just added the desired words and figures, and had 
 given the revised letter to Arnold, when Sir Patrick returned 
 to announce that the gig was waiting. 
 
 " Come !" he said. "You haven't a moment to lose !" 
 
 Geoffrey started to his feet. Arnold hesitated. 
 
 " I must see Blanche !" he pleaded. " I can't leave Blanche 
 without saying good-bye. Where is she ?" 
 
 Sir Patrick pointed to the steps, with a smile. Blanche had 
 followed him from the house. Arnold ran out to her instantly. 
 
 " Going?" she said, a little sadly. 
 
 " I shall be back in two days," Arnold whispered. " It's all 
 right ! Sir Patrick consents." 
 
 She held him fast by the arm. The hurried parting before 
 other people seemed to be not a parting to Blanche's taste. 
 
 " You will lose the train !" cried Sir Patrick. 
 
 Geoffrey seized Arnold by the arm which Blanche was hold- 
 ing, and tore him — literally tore him — away. The two were 
 out of sight, in the shrubbery, before Blanche's indignation 
 found words, and addressed itself to her uncle. 
 
 " Why is that brute going away with Mr. Brinkworth ?" she 
 asked. 
 
 " Mr. Delamayn is called to London by his father's illness," 
 replied Sir Patrick. " You don't like him ?" 
 
 « I hate him !" 
 
 Sir Patrick reflected a little. 
 
 " She is a young girl of eighteen," he thought to himself. 
 "And I am an old man of seventy. Curious, that we should 
 agree about any thing. More than curious that we should 
 agree in disliking Mr. Delamayn." 
 
88 MAN AND WIFB. 
 
 He roused himself, aud looked again at Blanche. She was 
 seated at the table, with her head on her hand ; absent, and 
 out of spirits — thinking of Arnold, and yet, with the future all 
 smooth before them, not thinking happily. 
 
 " Why, Blanche ! Blanche !" cried Sir Patrick, " one would 
 think he had gone for a voyage round the world. You silly 
 child ! he will be back again the day after to-morrow." 
 
 " I wish he hadn't gone with that man !" said Blanche, " I 
 wish he hadn't got that man for a friend !" 
 
 " There ! there ! the man was rude enough, I own. Never 
 mind ! he will leave the man at the second station. Come 
 back to the ball-room with me. Dance it off, my dear — dance 
 it off!" 
 
 "No," returned Blanche. "I'm in no humor for dancing. 
 I shall go up stairs, and talk about it to Anne." 
 
 " You will do nothing of the sort !" said a third voice, sud- 
 denly joining in the conversation. 
 
 Both uncle and niece looked up, and found Lady Lundie at 
 the top of the summer-house steps. 
 
 " I forbid you to mention that woman's name again in my 
 hearing," pursued her ladyship. " Sir Patrick ! I warned you 
 (if you remember ?) that the matter of the governess was not 
 a matter to be trifled with. My worst anticipations are re- 
 alized. Miss Silvester has left the house !" 
 
 CHAPTER THE EIGHTH. 
 
 THE SCANDAL. 
 
 It was still early in the afternoon when the guests at Lady 
 Lundie's lawn-party began to compare notes together in corners, 
 and to agree in arriving at a general conviction that " some- 
 thing was wrong." 
 
 Blanche had mysteriously disappeared from her partners in 
 the dance. Lady Lundie had mysteriously abandoned her 
 guests. Blanche had not come back. Lady Lundie had re- 
 turned with an artificial smile, and a preoccupied manner. She 
 acknowledged that she was " not very well." The same excuse 
 had been given to account for Blanche's absence — and, again 
 (some time pi*eviously), to explain Miss Silvester's withdrawal 
 from the croquet ! A wit among the gentlemen declared it I'e- 
 minded him of declining a verb — " I am not very well ; ihou 
 art not very well ; she is not very well," and so on. Sir Pat- 
 rick too ! Only think of the sociable Sir Patrick being in a 
 state of seclusion — pacing up and down by himself in the lone- 
 
MAN AND WIFE. 89 
 
 liest part of the garden. And the servants, again ! it had even 
 spread to the servants ! They were presuming to whisper in 
 corners, like their betters. The house-maids appeared, spas- 
 modically, where house-maids had no business to be. Doors 
 banged and petticoats whisked in the upper regions. Some- 
 thing wrong — depend upon it, something wrong ! " We had 
 much better go away. My dear, order the carriage." — " Louisa, 
 love, no more dancing ; your papa is going." — " (rOO0?-afternoon, 
 Lady Lundie !" — "Haw ! thanks very much!" — "/iSo sorry for 
 dear Blanche!" — "Oh, it's been too charming!" So Society 
 jabbered its poor, nonsensical little jargon, and got itself po- 
 litely out of the way before the storm came. 
 
 This was exactly the consummation of events for which Sir 
 Patrick had been waiting in the seclusion of the garden. 
 
 There was no evading the responsibility which was now 
 thrust upon him. Lady Lundie had announced it as a settled 
 resolution, on her part, to trace Anne to the place in which she 
 had taken refuge, and discover (purely in the interests of vir- 
 tue) whether she actually was married or not. Blanche (already 
 overwrought by the excitement of the day) had broken into an 
 hysterical passion of tears on hearing the news, and had then, 
 on recovering, taken a view of her own of Anne's flight from 
 the house. Anne would never have kept her marriage a secret 
 from Blanche ; Anne would never have written such a formal 
 farewell letter as she had written to Blanche — if things were 
 going as smoothly with her as she was trying to make them 
 believe at Windygates. Some dreadful trouble had fallen on 
 Anne — and Blanche was determined (as Lady Lundie was de- 
 termined) to find out where she had gone, and to follow, and 
 help her. 
 
 It was plain to Sir Patrick (to whom both ladies had opened 
 their hearts, at separate interviews) that his sister-in-law, in 
 one way, and his niece in another, were equally likely — if not 
 duly restrained — to plunge headlong into acts of indiscretion 
 which might lead to very undesirable results. A man in au- 
 thority was sorely needed at Windygates that afternoon — and 
 Sir Patrick was fain to acknowledge that he was the man. 
 
 " Much is to be said for, and much is to be said against, a 
 single life," thought the old gentleman, walking up and down 
 the sequestered garden-path to which he had retired, and ap- 
 plying himself at shorter intervals than usual to the knob of his 
 ivory cane. " This, however, is, I take it, certain. A man's 
 married friends can't prevent him from leading the life of a 
 bachelor, if he pleases. But they can, and do, take devilish 
 good care that he sha'n't enjoy it !" 
 
 Sir Patrick's meditations were inteiTupted by the appear- 
 ance of a servant, previously instructed to keep him informed 
 of the progress of events at the house. 
 
90 MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 " They're all gone, Sir Patrick," said the man. 
 
 " That's a comfort, Simpson. We have no visitors to deal 
 with now, except the visitors who are staying in the house ?" 
 
 " None, Sir Patrick." 
 
 " They're all gentlemen, are they not ?" 
 
 " Yes, Sir Patrick." 
 
 "That's another comfort, Simpson. Very good. Pll see 
 Lady Lundie first." 
 
 Does any other form of human resolution approach the firm- 
 ness of a woman who is bent on discovering the frailties of an- 
 other woman whom she hates ? You may move rocks, under 
 a given set of circumstances. But here is a delicate being in 
 petticoats, who shrieks if a spider drops on her neck, and shud- 
 ders if you approach her after having eaten an onion. Can 
 you move Aer, under a given set of circumstances, as set forth 
 above ? Not you ! 
 
 Sir Patrick found her ladyship instituting her uiquiries on 
 the same admirably exhaustive system which is pursued, in 
 cases of disappearance, by the police. Who was the last wit- 
 ness who had seen the missing person ? Who Avas the last 
 servant who had seen Ann Silvester ? Begin with the men- 
 servants, from the butler at the top to the stable-boy at the 
 bottom. Go on with the women-servants, from the cook in all 
 her glory to the small female child who weeds the garden. 
 Lady Lundie had cross-examined her way downward as far as 
 the page, when Sir Patrick joined her. 
 
 " My dear lady ! pardon me for reminding you again, that 
 this is a free country, and that you have no claim whatever to 
 investigate Miss Silvester's proceedings after she has left your 
 house." 
 
 Lady Lundie raised her eyes, devotionally, to the ceiling. 
 She looked like a martyr to duty. If you had seen her lady- 
 ship at that moment, you would have said yourself, "A mar- 
 tyr to duty." 
 
 "No, Sir Patrick! As a Christian woman, that is not tny 
 way of looking at it. This unhappy person has lived under 
 my roof This unhappy person has been the companion of 
 Blanche. I am responsible — I am, in a manner, morally re- 
 sponsible. I would give the world to be able to dismiss it as 
 you do. But no! I must be satisfied that she is married. In 
 the interests of propi-iety. For the quieting of my own con- 
 science. Before I lay my head on my pillow to-night, Sir Pat- 
 rick — before I lay ray head on my pillow to-night !" 
 
 " One word, Lady Lundie — " 
 
 " No !" repeated her ladyship, with the most pathetic gen- 
 tleness. " Yoti are right, I dare say, from the worldly point 
 of view. I can't take the worldly point of view. The worldly 
 
MAN AND WIFE. 91 
 
 point of view hurts me." She turned, with impressive gravi- 
 ty, to the page. " You know where you will go, Jonathan, if 
 you tell lies !" 
 
 Jonathan was lazy, Jonathan was pimply, Jonathan was fat 
 — hut Jonathan was orthodox. He answered that he did know ; 
 and, what is more, he mentioned the place. 
 
 Sir Patrick saw that further opposition on his part, at that 
 moment, would be worse than useless. He wisely determined 
 to wait, before he interfered again, until Lady Lundie had thor- 
 oughly exhausted herself and her inquiries. At the same time 
 — as it was impossible, in the present state of her ladyship's 
 temper, to provide against what might happen if the inquiries 
 after Anne unluckily proved successful — he decided on taking 
 measures to clear the house of the guests (in the interests of 
 all parties) for the next four-and-twenty hours. 
 
 " I only want to ask you a question. Lady Lundie," he re- 
 sumed. " The position of the gentlemen who are staying here 
 is not a very pleasant one while all this is going on. If you 
 had been content to let the matter pass without notice, we 
 should have done very well. As things are, don't you think 
 it will be more convenient to every body if I relieve you of the 
 responsibility of entertaining your guests ?" 
 
 "As head of the family?" stipulated Lady Lundie. 
 
 "As head of the family!" answered Sir Patrick. 
 
 " I gratefully accept the proposal," said Lady Lundie. 
 
 "I beg you won't mention it," rejoined Sir Patrick. 
 
 He quitted the room, leaving Jonathan under examination. 
 He and his brother (the late Sir Thomas) had chosen widely 
 different paths in life, and had seen but little of each other 
 since the time when they had been boys. Sir Patrick's recol- 
 lections (on leaving Lady Lundie) appeared to have taken him 
 back to that time, and to have inspired him with a certain ten- 
 derness for his brother's memory. He shook his head, and 
 sighed a sad little sigh. " Poor Tom !" he said to himself, 
 softly, after he had shut the door on his brother's widow. 
 " Poor Tom !" 
 
 On crossing the hall, he stopped the first servant he met, 
 to inquire after Blanche. Miss Blanche was quiet, up stairs, 
 closeted with her maid in her own room. " Quiet ?" thought Sir 
 Patrick. "That's a bad sign. I shall hear more of my niece." 
 
 Pending that event, the next thing to do was to find the 
 guests. Unerring instinct led Sir Patrick to the billiard-room. 
 There he found them, in solemn conclave assembled, wonder- 
 ing what they had better do. Sir Patrick put them all at their 
 ease in two minutes. 
 
 " What do you say to a day's shooting to - morrow '?" he 
 asked. 
 
92 MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 Every man present — sportsman or not — said yes. 
 
 " You can start from this house," pursued Sir Patrick ; " or 
 you can start from a shooting-cottage which is on the Windy- 
 gates property — among the woods, on the other side of the 
 moor. The weather looks pretty well settled (for Scotland), 
 and there are plenty of horses in the stables. It is useless to 
 conceal from you, gentlemen, that events have taken a certain 
 unexpected turn in my sister-in-law's family circle. You will 
 be equally Lady Lundie's guests, w^hether you choose the cot- 
 tage or the house. For the next twenty -four hours (let us 
 say) — which shall it be ?" 
 
 Every body — with or without rheumatism — answered " the 
 cottage !" 
 
 " Very good," pursued Sir Patrick. " It is arranged to ride 
 over to the shooting-cottage this evening, and to try the moor, 
 on that side, the first thing in the morning. If events here 
 will allow me, I shall be delighted to accompany you, and do 
 the honors as well as I can. If not, I am sure you will accept 
 my apologies for to-night, and permit Lady Lundie's steward 
 to see to your comfort in my place." 
 
 Adopted unanimously. Sir Patrick left the guests to their 
 billiards, and went out to give the necessary orders at the 
 stables. 
 
 In the mean time Blanche remained portentously quiet in 
 the upper regions of the house ; while Lady Lundie steadily 
 pursued her inquiries down stairs. She got on from Jonathan 
 (last of the males, indoors) to the coachman (first of the males, 
 out-of-doors), and dug down, man by man, through that new 
 stratum, until she struck the stable-boy at the bottom. Not 
 an atom of information having been extracted, in the house or 
 out of the house, from man or boy, her ladyship fell back on 
 the women next. She pulled the bell, and summoned the cook 
 — Hester Deth ridge. 
 
 A very remarkable-looking person entered the room. 
 
 Elderly and quiet ; scrupulously clean ; eminently respecta- 
 ble ; her gray hair neat and smooth under her modest white 
 cap ; her eyes, set deep in their orbits, looking straight at any 
 person who spoke to her — here, at a first view, was a steady, 
 trustworthy woman. Here also, on closer inspection, was a 
 woman with the seal of some terrible past suffering set on her 
 for the rest of her life. You felt it, rather than saw it, in the 
 look of immovable endurance which underlaid her expression 
 — in the death-like tranquillity which never disappeared from 
 her manner. Her story was a sad one — so far as it was 
 known. She had entered Lady Lundie's service at the period 
 of Lady Lundie's marriage to Sir Thomas. Her characte'*' 
 
MAN AND WIFE. 93 
 
 (given by the clergyman of her parish) described her as hav- 
 ing been married to an inveterate drunkard, and as having 
 suffered unutterably during her husband's lifetime. There 
 were drawbacks to engaging her, now that she was a widow. 
 On one of the many occasions on which her husband had per- 
 sonally ill-treated her, he had struck her a blow which had 
 produced very remarkable nervous results. She had lain in- 
 sensible many days together, and had recovered with the total 
 loss of her speech. In addition to this objection, she was odd, 
 at times, in her manner ; and she made it a condition of ac- 
 cepting any situation, that she sliould be privileged to sleep 
 in a room by herself. As a set-off against all this, it was to 
 be said, on the other side of the question, that she was sober; 
 rigidly honest in all her dealings ; and one of the best cooks 
 in England, In consideration of this last merit, the late Sir 
 Thomas had decided on giving her a trial, and had discovered 
 that he had never dined in his life as he dined when Hester 
 Dethridge was at tlie head of his kitchen. She remained, af- 
 ter his death, in his widow's service. Lady Lundie was far 
 from liking her. An unpleasant suspicion attached to the 
 cook, which Sir Thomas had overlooked, but which persons 
 less sensible of the immense importance of dining well could 
 not fail to regard as a serious objection to her. Medical men, 
 consulted about her case, discovered certain physiological 
 anomalies in it which led them to suspect the woman of feign- 
 ing dumbness, for some reason best known to herself She 
 obstinately declined to learn the deaf and dumb alphabet — 
 on the ground that dumbness was not associated with deafness 
 in her case. Stratagems were invented (seeing that she really 
 did possess the use of her ears) to entrap her into also using 
 her speech, and failed. Efforts were made to induce her to 
 answer questions relating to her past life in her husband's 
 time. She flatly declined to reply to them, one and all. At 
 certain intervals, strange impulses to get a holiday away from 
 the house appeared to seize her. If she was resisted, she pas- 
 sively declined to do her work. If she was threatened with 
 dismissal, she impenetrably bowed her head, as much as to 
 say, " Give me the word, and I go." Over and over again. 
 Lady Lundie had decided, naturally enough, on no longer 
 keeping such a servant as this ; but she had never yet carried 
 the decision to execution. A cook who is a perfect mistress 
 of her art, who asks for no perquisites, who allows no waste, 
 who never quarrels with the other servants, who drinks noth- 
 ing stronger than tea, who is to be trusted with untold gold 
 — is not a cook easily replaced. In this mortal life we put up 
 with many persons and things, as Lady Lundie put up with 
 her cook. The woman lived, as it were, on the brink of dis- 
 
94 MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 missal; but thus far the woman kept her place — getting her 
 holidays when she asked for them (which, to do her justice, 
 was not often), and sleeping always (go where she might with 
 the family) with a locked door, in a room by herself 
 
 Hester Dethridge advanced slowly to the table at which 
 Lady Lundie was sitting. A slate and pencil hung at her side, 
 which she used for making such replies as were not to be ex- 
 pressed by a gesture or by a motion of the head. She took 
 up the slate and pencil, and waited with stony submission for 
 her mistress to begin. 
 
 Lady Lundie opened the proceedings with the regular form- 
 ula of inquiry which she had used with all the other servants. 
 
 "Do you know that Miss Silvester has left the house ?" 
 
 The cook nodded her head affirmatively. 
 
 "Do you know at what time she left it?" 
 
 Another affirmative reply. The first which Lady Lundie 
 had received to that question yet. She eagerly went on t*^ 
 the next inquiry. 
 
 " Have you seen her since she left the house ?" 
 
 A third affirmative reply. 
 
 "Where?" 
 
 Hester Dethridge wrote slowly on the slate, in singularly 
 firm upright characters for a woman in her position of life, 
 these words : 
 
 " On the road that leads to the railway. Nigh to Mistress 
 Chew's Farm." 
 
 " What did you want at Chew's Farm ?" 
 
 Hester Dethridge wrote: "I wanted eggs for the kitchen, 
 and a breath of fresh air for myself" 
 
 "Did Miss Silvester see you?" 
 
 A negative shake of the head. 
 
 "Did she take the turning that leads to the railway?" 
 
 Another negative shake of the head. 
 
 " She went on toward the moor?" 
 
 An affirmative reply. 
 
 "What did she do when she got to the moor?" 
 
 Hester Dethridge wrote : " She took the foot-path which 
 leads to Craig Fernie." 
 
 Lady Lundie rose excitedly to her feet. There was but one 
 place that a stranger could go to at Craig Fernie. " The inn !" 
 exclaimed her ladyship. " She has gone to the inn !" 
 
 Hester Dethridge waited immovably. Lady Lundie put a 
 last precautionary question, in these words : 
 
 "Have you reported what you have seen to anybody else?" 
 
 An affirmative reply. Lady Lundie had not bargained for 
 that. Hester Dethridge (she thought) must surely have mis- 
 understood her. 
 
MAN AND WIFE. 97 
 
 "Do you mean that you have told somebody else what you 
 have just told me ?" 
 
 Another affirmative reply, 
 
 "A person who questioned you, as I have done?" 
 
 A third affirmative reply. 
 
 " Who was it ?" 
 
 Hester Dethridge wrote on her slate : " Miss Blanche." 
 
 Lady Lundie stepped back, staggered by the discovery that 
 Blanche's resolution to trace Anne Silvester was, to all appear- 
 ance, as firmly settled as her own. Her step-daughter was 
 keeping her own counsel, and acting on her own responsibil- 
 ity — her step-daughter might be an awkward obstacle in the 
 way. The manner in which Anne had left the house had mor- 
 tally offended Lady Lundie, An inveterately vindictive worn 
 an, she had resolved to discover whatever compromising ele- 
 ments might exist in the governess's secret, and to make them 
 public property (from a paramount sense of duty, of course) 
 among her own circle of friends. But to do this — with Blanche 
 acting (as might certainly be anticipated) in direct opposition 
 to her, and openly espousing Miss Silvester's interests — was 
 manifestly impossible. 
 
 The first thing to be done — and that instantly — was to in- 
 form Blanche that she was discovered, and to forbid her t« 
 stir in the matter. 
 
 Lady Lundie rang the bell twice — thus intimating, accord- 
 ing to the laws of the household, that she required the attend- 
 ance of her own maid. She then turned to the cook — still 
 waiting her pleasure, with stony composure, slate in hand, 
 
 " You have done wrong," said her ladyship, severely, " I 
 am your mistress. You are bound to answer your mistress — " 
 
 Hester Dethridge bowed her head, in icy acknowledgment 
 of the principle laid down — so far. 
 
 The bow was an interruption. Lady Lundie resented it. 
 
 "But Miss Blanche is not your mistress," she went on, 
 sternly. "You are very much to blame for answering Miss 
 Blanche's inquiries about Miss Silvester," 
 
 Hester Dethridge, perfectly unmoved, wrote her justification 
 on her slate, in two stiff sentences : " I had no orders not to 
 answer, I keep nobody's secrets but my own," 
 
 That reply settled the question of the cook's dismissal — the 
 question which had been pending for months past, 
 
 " You are an insolent woman ! I have borne with you long 
 enough — I will bear with you no longer. When your month 
 is up, you go !" 
 
 In those words Lady Lundie dismissed Hester Dethridge 
 from her service. 
 
 Not the slightest change passed over the sinister tranquillity 
 
 n 
 
98 MAN AND WIFB. 
 
 of the cook. She bowed her head again, in acknowledgment 
 of the sentence pronounced on her — dropped her slate at her 
 side — turned about — and left the room. The woman was alive 
 in the world, and working in the world ; and yet (so far as all 
 human interests were concerned) she was as completely out of 
 the world as if she had been screwed down in her coffin and 
 laid in her grave. 
 
 Lady Lundie's maid came into the room as Hester left it. 
 
 " Go up stairs to Miss Blanche," said her mistress, " and say 
 I want her here. Wait a minute !" She paused, and consid- 
 ered. Blanche might decline to submit to her step-mother's 
 interference with her. It might be necessary to appeal to the 
 higher authority of her guardian. " Do you know where Sir 
 Patrick is ?" asked Lady Lundie. 
 
 " I heard Simpson say, my lady, that Sir Patrick was at the 
 stables," 
 
 " Send Simpson with a message. My compliments to Sir 
 Patrick — and I wish to see him immediately." 
 
 The preparations for the departure to the shooting-cottage 
 were just completed ; and the one question that remained to 
 be settled was, whether Sir Patrick could accompany the party 
 — when the man-servant appeared with the message from his 
 mistress. 
 
 " Will you give me a quarter of an hour, gentlemen ?" asked 
 Sir Patrick. " In that time I shall know for certain whether 
 I can go with you or not." 
 
 As a matter of course, the guests decided to wait. The 
 younger men among them (being Englishmen) naturally occu- 
 pied their leisure time in betting. Would Sir Patrick get the 
 better of the domestic crisis ? or would the domestic crisis get 
 the better of Sir Patrick ? The domestic crisis was backed, at 
 two to one, to win. 
 
 Punctually at the expiration of the quarter of an hour, Sir 
 Patrick reappeared. The domestic crisis had betrayed the 
 blind confidence which youth and inexperience had placed in 
 it. Sir Patrick had won the day. 
 
 " Things are settled and quiet, gentlemen ; and I am able to 
 accompany you," he said. " There are two ways to the shoot- 
 ing-cottage. One — the longest — passes by the inn at Craig 
 Fernie. I am compelled to ask you to go with me by that 
 way. While you push on to the cottage, I must drop behind, 
 and say a word to a person who is staying at the inn." 
 
 He had quieted Lady Lundie — he had even quieted Blanche. 
 But it was evidently on the condition that he was to go to 
 Craig Fernie in their places, and to see Anne Silvester himself 
 Without a word more of explanation he mounted his horse 
 and led the way out. The shooting-party left Windygates. 
 
MAN AND WIFE. 09 
 
 SECOND SCENE.— THE INN. 
 CHAPTER THE NINTH, 
 
 ANNE. 
 
 " Ye'll just permit me to reraiud ye again, young leddy, 
 that the hottle's full — exceptin' only this settin'-room, and the 
 bed-chamber yonder belonging to it." 
 
 So spoke " Mistress Inchbare," landlady of the Craig Fernie 
 Inn, to Anne Silvester, standing in the parlor, purse in hand, 
 and oftering the price of the two rooms before she claimed 
 permission to occupy them. 
 
 The time of the afternoon was about the time when Geoffrey 
 Delamayn had started in the train, on his journey to London. 
 About the time, also, when Arnold Brinkworth had crossed the 
 moor, and was mounting the first rising ground which led to 
 the inn. 
 
 Mistress Inchbare was tall and thin, and decent and dry. 
 Mistress Inchbare's unlovable hair lung fast round her head in 
 wiry little yellow curls. Mistress Inchbare's hard bones show- 
 ed themselves, like Mistress Inchbare's hard Presbyterianism, 
 without any concealment or compromise. In short, a savage- 
 ly-respectable woman, who plumed herself on presiding over a 
 savagely-respectable inn. 
 
 There was no competition to interfere with Mistress Inch- 
 bare. She regulated her own prices, and made her own rules. 
 If you objected to her prices, and revolted from her rules, you 
 were free to go. In other words, you were free to cast your- 
 self, in the capacity of houseless wanderer, on the scanty mer- 
 cy of a Scotch wilderness. The village of Craig Fernie was a 
 collection of hovels. The country about Craig Fernie, mount- 
 ain on one side and moor on the other, held no second house 
 of public entertainment, for miles and miles round, at any point 
 of the compass. No rambling individual but the helpless 
 British Tourist wanted food and shelter from strangers, in that 
 part of Scotland ; and nobody but Mistress Inchbare had food 
 and shelter to sell. A more thoroughly independent person 
 than this was not to be found on the thee of the hotel-keeping 
 earth. The most universal of all civilized terrors — the terror 
 of appearing unfavorably in the newspapers — was a sensation 
 absolutely unknown to the Empress of the Inn. You lost your 
 temper, and threatened to send her bill for exhibition in the 
 
100 MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 public journals. Mistress Inchbare raised no objection to your 
 taking any course you pleased with it. " Eh, man ! send the 
 bill whar' ye like, as long as ye pay it first. There's nae such 
 thing as a newspaper ever darkens my doors. Ye've got the 
 Auld and New Testaments in your bed-chambers, and the natu- 
 ral history o' Paiithshire on the coffee-room table — and if that's 
 no' reading eneugh for ye, ye may een gae back South again, 
 and get the rest of it there." 
 
 This was the inn at which Anne Silvester had appeared 
 alone, with nothing but a little bag in her hand. This was^ 
 the woman whose reluctance to receive her she innocently ex- 
 pected to overcome by showing her purse. 
 
 " Mention your charge for the rooms," she said. " I am will- 
 ing to pay for them beforehand." 
 
 Her majesty, Mrs. Inchbare, never even looked at her sub- 
 ject's poor little purse. 
 
 " It just comes to this, mistress," she answered. " I'm no' 
 free to tak' your money, if I'm no' free to let ye the last rooms 
 left in the hoose. The Craig Fernie bottle is a faimily hottle — 
 and has its ain gude name to keep up. Ye're ower-well-look- 
 ing, my young leddy, to be traveling alone." 
 
 The time had been when Anne would have answered sharp- 
 ly enough. The hard necessities of her position made her pa- 
 tient now. 
 
 " I have already told you," she said, "my husband is coming 
 here to join me." She sighed wearily as she repeated her 
 ready-made story — and dropped into the nearest chair, from 
 sheer inability to stand any longer. 
 
 Mistress Inchbare looked at her, with the exact measure of 
 compassionate interest which she might have shown if she had 
 been looking at a stray dog who had fallen foot-sore at the 
 door of the inn. 
 
 " Weel ! weel ! sae let it be. Bide awhile, and rest ye. We'll 
 no' chairge ye for that — and we'll see if your husband comes. 
 I'll just let the rooms, mistress, to ^^m, instead o' lettin' them 
 to you. And, sae, good-morrow t' ye." With that final an- 
 nouncement of her royal will and pleasure, the Empress of the 
 Inn withdrew. 
 
 Anne made no reply. She watched the landlady out of the 
 room — and then struggled to control herself no longer. In 
 her position, suspicion was doubly insult. The hot tears of 
 shame gathered in her eyes ; and the heart-ache wrung her, 
 poor soul — wrung her without mercy. 
 
 A trifling noise in the room startled her. She looked up, 
 and detected a man in a corner dusting the furniture, and 
 apparently acting in the capacity of attendant at the inn. He 
 had shown her into the parlor on her arrival; but he had re- 
 
MAN AND WIFE. 101 
 
 mained so quietly in the room that she had never noticed him 
 since, until that moment. 
 
 He was an ancient man — with one eye filmy and blind, and 
 one eye moist and merry. His head was bald ; his feet were 
 gouty; his nose was justly celebrated as the largest nose and 
 the reddest nose in that part of Scotland. The mild wisdom 
 of years was expressed mysteriously in his mellow smile. In 
 contact with this wicked world, his manner revealed that hap- 
 py mixture of two extremes — the servility which just touches 
 independence, and the independence which just touches servil- 
 ity — attained by no men in existence but Scotchmen. Enor- 
 mous native impudence, which amused but never offended ; im- 
 measurable cunning, masquerading habitually under the dou- 
 ble disguise of quaint prejudice and dry humor, were the solid 
 moral foundations on which the character of this elderly per- 
 son was built. No amount of whisky ever made him drunk; 
 and no violence of bell-ringing ever hurried his movements. 
 Such was the head-waiter at the Craig Fernie Inn ; known, far 
 and wide, to local fame, as "Maister Bishopriggs, Mistress 
 Inchbare's right-hand man." 
 
 " What are you doing there ?" Anne asked, sharply. 
 
 Mr. Bishopriggs turned himself about on his gouty feet ; 
 waved his duster gently in the air ; and looked at Anne, with 
 a mild, paternal smile. 
 
 "Eh! Am just doostin' the things; and settiu' the room in 
 decent order for ye." 
 
 " For me ? Did you hear what the landlady said ?" 
 
 Mr. Bishopriggs advanced confidentially, and pointed with 
 a very unsteady forefinger to the purse which Anne still held 
 in her hand. 
 
 " Never fash yoursel' aboot the landleddy !" said the sage 
 chief of the Craig Fernie waiters, "Your purse speaks for 
 you, my lassie. Pet it up !" cried Mr. Bishopi'iggs, waving 
 temptation away from him with the duster. " In wi' it into 
 yer pocket ! Sae long as the warld's the warld, I'll uphaud it 
 anywhei'e — while there's siller in the purse, there's gude in 
 the woman !" 
 
 Anne's patience, which had resisted harder ti'ials, gave way 
 at this. 
 
 " What do you mean by speaking to me in that familiar 
 manner ?" she asked, rising angrily to her feet again. 
 
 Mr. Bishopriggs tucked his duster under his arm, and pro- 
 ceeded to satisfy Anne that he shared the landlady's view of 
 her position, without sharing the severity of the landlady's 
 principles. "There's nae man livin'," said Mr. Bishopriggs, 
 " looks with mair indulgence at human frailty than my ain sel'. 
 Am I no' to be familiar wi' ye — when I'm auld eneugh to be a 
 
102 MAN AND WIPE. 
 
 fether to ye, and ready to be a father to ye till further notice? 
 Hech ! hech ! Order your bit dinner, lassie. Husband or no 
 husband, ye've got a stomach, and ye must een eat. There's 
 fesh and there's fowl — or, maybe, ye'Il be for the sheep's-head 
 singit, when they've done with it at the tabble dot?" 
 
 There was but one way of getting rid of him : " Order what 
 you like," Anne said, " and leave the room." Mr. Bishopriggs 
 highly approved of the first half of the sentence, and totally 
 overlooked the second. 
 
 "Ay, ay — .just pet a' yer little interests in my hands; it's 
 the wisest thing ye can do. Ask for Maister Bishopriggs 
 (that's me) when ye want a decent 'sponsible man to gi' ye a 
 word of advice. Set ye doon again — set. ye doon. And don't 
 tak' the arm-chair. Hech ! hech ! yer husband will be coming, 
 ye know, and he's sure to want it !" With that seasonable 
 pleasantry the venerable Bishopriggs winked, and went out. 
 
 Anne looked at her watch. By her calculation it was not 
 far from the hour when Geoffrey might be expected to arrive 
 at the inn, assuming Geoffrey to have left Windygates at the 
 time agreed on, A little more patience, and the landlady's 
 scruples would be satisfied, and the ordeal would be at an end. 
 
 Could she have met him nowhere else than at this barbarous 
 house, and among these barbarous people? 
 
 No, Outside the doors of Windygates she had not a friend 
 to help her in all Scotland. There was no place at her dis- 
 posal but the inn ; and she had only to be thankful that it oc- 
 cupied a sequestered situation, and was not likely to be visited 
 by any of Lady Lundie's friends. Whatever the risk might 
 be, the end in view justified her in confronting it. Her whole 
 future depended on Geoffrey's making an honest woman of 
 her. Not her future with him — that way there was no hope ; 
 that way her life was wasted. Her future with Blanche — she 
 looked forward to nothing now but her future with Blanche. 
 
 Her spirits sank lower and lower. The tears rose again. It 
 would only irritate him if he came and found her crying. She 
 tried to divert her mind by looking about the room. 
 
 There was very little to see. Except that it was solidly 
 built of good sound stone, the Craig Fernie hotel differed in 
 no other important respect from the average of second-rate 
 English inns. There was the usual slippery black sofa — con- 
 structed to let you slide when you wanted to rest. There was 
 the usual highly-varnished arm-chair, expressly manufactured 
 to test the endurance of the human spine. There was the usual 
 paper on the walls, of the pattern designed to make your eyes 
 ache and your head giddy. There were the usual engravings, 
 which humanity never tires of contemplating. The Royal 
 Portrait, in the first place of honor. The next greatest of 
 
MAN AND WIFE. 103 
 
 all human beiugs — the Duke of Wellington — in the second 
 place of honor. The third greatest of all human beings — 
 the local member of Parliament — in the third place of honor ; 
 and a hunting scene in the dark. A door opposite the door 
 of admission from the passage opened into the bedroom; 
 and a window at the side looked out on the open space in 
 front of the hotel, and commanded a view of the vast expanse 
 of the Craig Fernie moor, stretching away below the rising 
 ground on which the house was built. 
 
 Anne turned in despair from the view in the room to the 
 view from the window. Within the last half hour it had 
 changed for the worse. The clouds had gathered ; the sun 
 was hidden ; the light on the landscape was gray and dull. 
 Anne turned from the window, as she had turned from the 
 room. She was just making the hopeless attempt to rest her 
 weary limbs on the sofa, when the sound of voices and foot- 
 steps in the passage caught her ear. 
 
 Was Geoffrey's voice among them ? No. 
 
 Were the strangers coming in ? 
 
 The landlady had declined to let her have the rooms : it was 
 quite possible that the strangers might be coming to look at 
 them. There was no knowing who they might be. In the im- 
 pulse of the moment she flew to the bed-chamber and locked 
 herself in. 
 
 The door from the passage opened, and Arnold Brinkworth 
 — shown in by Mr. Bishopriggs — entered the sitting-room. 
 
 " Nobody here !" exclaimed Arnold, looking round. " Where 
 is she ?" 
 
 Mr. Bishopriggs pointed to the bedroom door. " Eh ! yer 
 good leddy's joost in the bed-chamber, nae doot !" 
 
 Arnold started. He had felt no difficulty (when he and 
 Geoffrey had discussed the question at Windygates) about 
 presenting himself at the inn in the assumed character of Anne's 
 husband. But the result of putting the deception in practice 
 was, to say the least of it, a little embarrassing at first. Here 
 was the waiter describing Miss Silvester as his "good lady;" 
 and leaving it (most naturally and properly) to the "good 
 lady's" husband to knock at her bedroom door, and tell her 
 that he was there. In despair of knowing what else to do at 
 the moment, Arnold asked for the landlady, whom he had not 
 seen on arriving at the inn. 
 
 "The landleddy's just tottin' up the ledgers o' the bottle in 
 her ain room," answered Mr, Bishopriggs. " She'll be here 
 anon — the wearyful woman ! — speerin' who ye are and what 
 ye are, and takin' a' the business o' the hoose on her ain pair 
 o' shouthers." He dropped the subject of the landlady, and 
 put in a plea for himself. " I ha' lookit after a' the leddy's 
 
104 MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 little comforts, sir," he whispered. "Trust in me! trust in 
 me!" 
 
 Arnold's attention was absorbed in the very serious difficul- 
 ty of announcing his arrival to Anne. "How am I to get her 
 out ?" he said to himself, with a look of perplexity directed at 
 the bedroom door. 
 
 He had spoken loud enough for the waiter to hear him, 
 Arnold's look of perplexity was instantly reflected on the face 
 of Mr. Bishopriggs. The head-waiter at Craig Fcrnie possessed 
 an immense experience of the manners and customs of newly- 
 manied people on their honey-moon trip. He had been a sec- 
 ond father (with excellent pecuniary results) to innumerable 
 brides and bridegrooms. He knew young married couples in 
 all their varieties : — The couples who try to behave as if they 
 had been married for many years; the couples who attempt 
 no concealment, and take advice from competent authorities 
 about them. The couples who are bashfully talkative before 
 third persons; the couples who are bashfully silent under sim- 
 ilar circumstances. The couples who don't know what to do ; 
 the couples who wish it was over; the couples who must never 
 be intruded upon without careful preliminary knocking at the 
 door ; the couples who can eat and drink in the intervals of 
 "bliss," and the other couples who ca)t''t. But the bridegroom 
 who stood helpless on one side of the door, and the bride who 
 remained locked in on the other, were new varieties of the 
 nuptial species, even in the vast experience of Mr. Bishopriggs 
 himself 
 
 "Hoo are ye to get her oot?" he repeated. "I'll show ye 
 hoo !" He advanced as rapidly as his gouty feet would let 
 him, and knocked at the bedroom door. " Eh, my leddy ! here 
 he is in flesh and bluid. Mercy preserve us ! do ye lock the 
 door of the nuptial-chamber in your husband's face?" 
 
 At that unanswerable appeal the lock was heard turning 
 in the door. Mr. Bishopriggs M'inked at Arnold with his one 
 available eye, and laid his forefinger knowingly along his enor- 
 mous nose. " I'm away before she falls into your arms ! Rely 
 on it, I'll no come in again without knocking first !" 
 
 He left Arnold alone in the room. The bedroom door opened 
 slowly by a few inches at a time. Anne's voice was just audi- 
 ble, speaking cautiously behind it. 
 
 " Is that you, Geoffi-ey ?" 
 
 Arnold's heart began to beat fast, in anticipation of the dis- 
 closure which was now close at hand. He knew neither what 
 to say or do — he remained silent. 
 
 Anne repeated the question in louder tones : 
 
 "Is that you?" 
 
 There was the certain prospect of alarming her, if some 
 
MAN AND WIFE, 105 
 
 reply was not given. There Avas no help for it. Come what 
 come might, Arnold answered, in a whisper : 
 
 « Yes," 
 
 The door was flung wide open. Anne Silvester appeared 
 on the threshold, confronting him. 
 
 " Mr. Brinkworth !! !" she exclaimed, standing petrified with 
 astonishment. 
 
 For a moment more neither of them spoke. Anne advanced 
 one step into the sitting-room, and put the next inevitable 
 question, with an instantaneous change from surprise to sus- 
 picion. 
 
 "What do you want here?" 
 
 Geofi'rey's letter represented the only possible excuse for 
 Arnold's appearance in that place, and at that time. 
 
 " I have got a letter for you," he said — and oflered it to 
 her. 
 
 She was instantly on her guard. They were little better 
 than strangers to each other, as Arnold had said. A sickening 
 presentiment of some treachery on Geoffrey's part struck cold 
 to her heart. She refused to take the letter. 
 
 " I expect no letter," she said. " Who told you I was here ?" 
 She put the question, not only with a tone of suspicion, but 
 with a look of contempt. The look was not an easy one for a 
 man to bear. It required a momentary exertion of self-con- 
 trol on Arnold's part, before he could trust himself to answer 
 with due consideration for her. " Is there a watch set on my 
 actions?" she went on, with rising anger. "And are you the 
 spy?" 
 
 " You haven't known me very long. Miss Silvester," Arnold 
 answered, quietly. " But you ought to know me better than 
 to say that. I am the bearer of a letter from Geoffrey." 
 
 She was on the point of following his example, and of speak- 
 ing of Geoffrey by his Christian name, on her side. But she 
 checked herself before the word had passed her lips. 
 
 " Do vou mean Mr, Delamayn ?" she asked, coldly, 
 
 " Yes,'" 
 
 " What occasion have I for a letter from Mr. Delamayn ?" 
 
 She was determined to acknowledge nothing — she kept him 
 obstinately at arms-length, Arnold did, as a matter of in- 
 stinct, what a man of larger experience would have done as a 
 matter of calculation — he closed with her boldly, then and 
 there, 
 
 " Miss Silvester ! it's no nse beating about the bush. If you 
 won't take the letter, you force me to speak out. I am here 
 on a very unpleasant errand. I begin to wish, from the bot- 
 tom of my heart, I had never undertaken it." 
 
 A quick spasm of pain passed across her face. She was be- 
 
106 MAN AND WIPE. 
 
 ginning, dimly beginning, to understand him. He hesitated. 
 His generous nature shrank from hurting her. 
 
 " Go on," she said, with an effort. 
 
 " Try not to be angry with me. Miss Silvester. Geoffrey 
 and I are old friends. Geoffrey knows he can trust me — " 
 
 " Trust you ?" she interposed. " Stop !" 
 
 Arnold waited. She went on, speaking to herself, not to him. 
 
 " When I was in the other room I asked if Geoffrey was 
 there. And this man answered for him." She sprang forward 
 with a cry of horror. 
 
 " Has he told you—" 
 
 " For God's sake, read his letter !" 
 
 She violently pushed back the hand with which Arnold once 
 more offered the letter. " You don't look at me ! He has 
 told you !" 
 
 " Read his letter," persisted Arnold. " In justice to him, if 
 you won't in justice to me." 
 
 The situation was too painful to be endured. Arnold looked 
 at her, this time, with a man's resolution in his eyes — spoke to 
 her, this time, with a man's resolution in his voice. She took 
 the letter. 
 
 " I beg your pardon, sir," she said, with a sudden humiliation 
 of tone and manner, inexpressibly shocking, inexpressibly piti- 
 able to see. " I understand my position at last. I am a wom- 
 an doubly betrayed. Please to excuse what I said to you just 
 now, when I supposed myself to have some claim on your re- 
 spect. Perhaps you will grant me your pity ? I can ask for 
 nothing more." 
 
 Arnold was silent. Words were useless in the face of such 
 utter self-abandonment as this. Any man living — even Geof- 
 frey himself — must have felt for her at that moment. 
 
 She looked for the first time at the letter. She opened it on 
 the wrong side. " My own letter !" she said to herself. " In 
 the hands of another man !" 
 
 " Look at the last page," said Arnold. 
 
 She turned to the last page, and read the hurried penciled 
 lines. "Villain! villain! villain!" At the third repetition of the 
 word, she crushed the letter in the palm of her hand, and flung 
 it from her to the other end of the room. The instant after, 
 the fire that had flamed up in her died out. Feebly and slow- 
 ly she reached out her hand to the nearest chair, and sat down 
 in it with her back to Arnold. " He has deserted me !" was 
 all she said. The words fell low and quiet on the silence : 
 they were the utterance of an immeasurable despair. 
 
 " You are wrong !" exclaimed Arnold. " Indeed, indeed you 
 are wrong ! It's no excuse — it's the truth. I was present 
 when the messasre came about his father." 
 
MAN AND WIFE. lOY 
 
 She never heeded him, and never moved. She only repeat- 
 ed the words : 
 
 "He has deserted me !" 
 
 " Don't take it in that way !" pleaded Arnold — " pray don't ! 
 It's dreadful to hear you ; it is indeed. I am sure he has not 
 deserted you." There was no answer ; no sign that she heard 
 him : she sat there, struck to stone. It was impossible to call 
 the landlady in at such a moment as this. In despair of know- 
 ing how else to rouse her, Arnold drew a chair to her side, and 
 patted her timidly on the shoulder. " Come !" he said, in his 
 single-hearted, boyish way — " cheer up a little !" 
 
 She slowly turned her head, and looked at him with a dull 
 surprise. 
 
 " Didn't you say he had told you every thing?" she asked. 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Don't you despise a woman like me ?" 
 
 Arnold's heart went back, at that dreadful question, to the 
 one woman who was eternally sacred to him — to the woman 
 from whose bosom he had drawn the breath of life. 
 
 "Does the man live," he said, "who can think of his mother 
 — and despise women ?" 
 
 That answer set the prisoned misery in her free. She gave 
 him her hand — she faintly thanked him. The merciful tears 
 came to her at last. 
 
 Arnold rose, and turned away to the window in despair. 
 "I mean well," he said. "And yet I only distress her !" 
 
 She heard him, and struggled to compose herself. " No," 
 she answered, " you comfort me. Don't mind my crying — I'm 
 the better for it." She looked round at him gratefully. " I 
 won't distress you, Mr. Brinkworth. I ought to thank you — 
 and I do. Come back, or I shall think you are angry with me." 
 Arnold went back to her. She gave him her hand once more. 
 " One doesn't understand people all at once," she said, simply. 
 " I thought you were like other men — I didn't know till to-day 
 how kind you could be. Did you walk here ?" she added, sud- 
 denly, with an effort to change the subject. "Are you tired ? 
 I have not been kindly received at this place — but I'm sure I 
 may offer you whatever the inn affords." 
 
 It was impossible not to feel for her — it was impossible not 
 to be interested in her. Arnold's honest longing to help her 
 expressed itself a little too openly when he spoke next. "All 
 I want, Miss Silvester, is to be of some service to you, if I can," 
 he said. " Is there any thing I can do to make your position 
 here more comfortable? You will stay at this place, won't 
 you ? Geoffrey wishes it." 
 
 She shuddered, and looked away. " Yes ! yes !" she answer- 
 ed, hurriedly. 
 
108 MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 " You will hear from Geoffrey,'" Arnold went on, " to-mor- 
 row or next day. I know he means to write." 
 
 " For Heaven's sake, don't speak of him any more !" she 
 cried out. " How do you think I can look you in the face — " 
 Her cheeks flushed deep, and her eyes rested on him with a 
 momentary firmness. " Mind this ! I am his wife, if promises 
 can make me his wife ! He has pledged his word to me by 
 all that is sacred !" She checked herself impatiently. "What 
 am I saying ? What interest can you have in this miserable 
 state of things ? Don't let us talk of it ! I have something 
 else to say to you. Let us go back to my troubles here. Did 
 you see the landlady when you came in ?" 
 
 "No. I only saw the waiter." 
 
 "The landlady has made some absurd difficulty about let- 
 ting me have these rooms because I came here alone." 
 
 " She won't make any difficulty now," said Arnold. " I have 
 settled that." 
 
 ''Your 
 
 Arnold smiled. After what had passed, it was an indescrib- 
 able relief to him to see the humorous side of his own position 
 at the inn. 
 
 " Certainly," he answered. " When I asked for the lady 
 who had arrived here alone this afternoon — " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " I was told, in your interests, to ask for her as my wife." 
 
 Anne looked at him — in alarm as well as in surprise. 
 
 " You asked for me as your wife ?" she repeated. 
 
 "Yes. I haven't done wrong — have I? As I understood 
 it, there was no alternative. Geofl:Vey told me yon had settled 
 with him to present yourself here as a married lady, whose 
 husband was coming to join her." 
 
 " I thought oihim when I said that. I never thought of yo?<." 
 
 "Natural enough. Still, it comes to the same thing (doesn't 
 it?) with the people of this house." 
 
 " I don't understand you." 
 
 "I will try and explain myself a little better. Geoffrey 
 said your position here depended on my asking for you at the 
 door (as he would have asked for you if he had come) in the 
 character of your husband." 
 
 " He had no right to say that." 
 
 " No right? After what you have told me of the landlady, 
 just think what might have happened if he had not said it! 
 I haven't had much experience myself of these things. But — 
 allow me to ask — wouldn't it have been a little awkward (at 
 my age) if I had come here and inquired for you as a friend ? 
 Don't you think, in that case, the landlady might have made 
 some additional difficulty about letting you have the rooms ?" 
 
MAN AND WIFE. 109 
 
 It was beyond dispute that the landlady would have refused 
 to let the rooms at all. It was equally plain that the decep- 
 tion which Arnold had practiced on the people of the inn was 
 a deception which Anne had herself rendered necessary, in her 
 own interests. She was not to blame ; it was clearly impos- 
 sible for her to have foreseen such an event as Geoffrey's de- 
 parture for London. Still, she felt an uneasy sense of respon- 
 sibility — a vague dread of what might happen next. She sat 
 nervously twisting her handkerchief in her lap, and made no 
 answer. 
 
 "Don't suppose I object to this little stratagem," Arnold 
 went on. " I am serving my old friend, and I am helping the 
 lady who is soon to be his wife." 
 
 Anne rose abruptly to her feet, and amazed him by a very 
 unexpected question. 
 
 "Mr. Brinkworth," she said, " forgive me the rudeness of 
 something I am about to say to you. When are you going 
 away ?" 
 
 Arnold burst out laughing. 
 
 " When I am quite sure I can do nothing more to assist you," 
 he answered. 
 
 "Pray don't think of me any longer." 
 
 " In your situation ! who else am I to think of?" 
 
 Anne laid her hand earnestly on his arm, and answered : 
 
 " Blanche !" 
 
 " Blanche ?" repeated Arnold, utterly at a loss to under- 
 stand her. 
 
 " Yes — Blanche. She found time to tell me what had pass- 
 ed between you this morning before I left Windygates. I 
 know you have made her an offer. I know you are engaged 
 to be married to her." 
 
 Arnold was delighted to hear it. He had been merely un- 
 willing to leave her thus far. He was absolutely determined 
 to stay with her now. 
 
 " Don't expect me to go, after that !" he said. " Come and 
 sit down again, and let's talk about Blanche." 
 
 Anne declined impatiently, by a gesture. Arnold was too 
 deeply interested in the new topic to take any notice of it. 
 
 " You know all about her habits and her tastes," he went 
 on, "and what she likes, and what she dislikes. It's most im- 
 portant that I should talk to you about her. When we are 
 husband and wife, Blanche is to have all her own way in ev- 
 ery thing. That's ray idea of the Whole Duty of Man — when 
 Man is married. You are still standing ? Let me give you a 
 chair." 
 
 It was cruel — under other circumstances it would have been 
 impossible — to disappoint him. But the vague fear of conse- 
 
110 MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 quences which had taken possession of Anne was not to be 
 trifled with. She had no clear conception of the risk (and it 
 is to be added, in justice to Geoffrey, that he had no clear con- 
 ception of the isk) on which Arnold had unconsciously ven- 
 tured, in undertaking his errand to the inn. Neither of them 
 had any adequate idea (i^w people have) of the infiimous ab- 
 sence of all needful warning, of all decent precaution and re- 
 straint, which makes the marriage law of Scotland a trap to 
 catch unmarried men and women, to this day. But, while 
 Geoffrey's mind was incapable of looking beyond the present 
 emergency, Anne's finer intelligence told her that a country 
 which offered such facilities for private marriage as the facili- 
 ties of which she had proposed to take advantage in her own 
 case, was not a country in which a man could act as Arnold 
 had acted, without danger of some serious embarrassment fol- 
 lowing as the possible result. With this motive to animate 
 her, she resolutely declined to take the offered chair, or to en- 
 ter into the proposed conversation. 
 
 " Whatever we have to say about Blanche, Mr. Brinkworth, 
 must be said at some fitter time. I beg you will leave me." 
 
 " Leave you !" 
 
 "Yes. Leave me to the solitude that is best for me, and to 
 the sorrow that I have deserved. Thank you — and good-bye." 
 
 Arnold made no attempt to disguise his disappointment and 
 surprise. 
 
 " If I must go, I must," he said. "But v>'hy are you in such 
 a hui-ry ?" 
 
 " I don't want you to call me your wife again before the 
 people of this inn." 
 
 "Is that all? What on earth are you afraid of?" 
 
 She was unable full)' to realize her own apprehensions. She 
 was doubly unable to express them in words. Li her anxiety 
 to produce some reason which might prevail on him to go, she 
 drifted back into that very conversation about Blanche into 
 which she had declined to enter but the moment before. 
 
 "I have reasons for being afraid," she said. "One that I 
 can't give ; and one that I can. Suppose Blanche heard of 
 what you have done ? The longer you stay here — the more 
 people you see — the more chance there is that she might hear 
 of it." 
 
 "And what if she did?" asked Arnold, in his own straight- 
 forward way. " Do you think she would be angry with me 
 for making myself useful to you?'''' 
 
 "Yes," rejoined Anne, sharply, " if she was jealous of me.'" 
 
 Arnold's unlimited belief in Blanche expressed itself, without 
 the slightest compromise, in two words: 
 
 "That's impossible!" 
 
MAN AND WIFK. Ill 
 
 Anxious as she was, miserable as she was, a faint smile flit- 
 ted over Anne's face. 
 
 " Sir Patrick would tell you, Mr. Brinkworth, that nothing 
 is impossible where women are concerned." She dropped her 
 momentary lightness of tone, and went on as earnestly as ever. 
 " You can't put yourself in Blanche's place — I can. Once 
 more, I beg you to go. I don't like your coming here in this 
 way ! I don't like it at all !" 
 
 She held out her hand to take leave. At the same moment 
 there was a loud knock at the door of the room. 
 
 Anne sank into the chair at her side, and uttered a faint cry 
 of alarm. Arnold, perfectly impenetrable to all sense of his 
 position, asked what there was to frighten her — and answered 
 the knock in the two customary words, 
 
 « Come in !" 
 
 CHAPTER THE TENTH. 
 
 MK. BISHOPEIGGS. 
 
 The knock at the door was repeated — a louder knock than 
 before. 
 
 "Are you deaf?" shouted Arnold. 
 
 The door opened, little by little, an inch at a time. Mr, 
 Bishopriggs appeared mysteriov sly, with the cloth for dinner 
 over his arm, and with his second in command behind him, 
 bearing " the furnishing of the table " (as it was called at 
 Craig Fernie) on a tray. 
 
 "What the deuce were you waiting for?" asked Arnold. 
 " I told you to come in." 
 
 "And I tauld yo?/," answered Mr. Bishopriggs, "that I 
 wadna come in without knocking first. Eh, man !" he went 
 on, dismissing his second in command, and laying the cloth 
 with his own venerable hands, " d'ye think I've lived in this 
 bottle in blinded eegnorance of hoo young married couples 
 pass the time when they're left to themselves? Twa knocks 
 at the door — and an unco trouble in opening it, after that — is 
 joost the least ye can do for them ! Whar' do ye think, noo, 
 I'll set the places for you and your leddy there ?" 
 
 Anne walked away to the window in undisguised disgust. 
 Arnold found Mr. Bishopriggs to be quite irresistible. He an- 
 swered, humoring the joke, 
 
 " One at the top and one at the bottom of the table, I 
 suppose ?" 
 
 " One at tap and one at bottom ?" repeated Mr. Bishopriggs, 
 in high disdain. " De'il a bit of it ! Baith yer chairs as close 
 
112 MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 together as chairs can be. Hech ! hech ! — haven't I caught 
 'em, after goodness knows hoo many preleeminary knocks at 
 the door, dining on their husbands' knees, and steeraulating a 
 man's appetite by feeding him at the fork's end like a child? 
 Eh !" sighed the sage of Craig Fernie, " it's a short life wi' that 
 nuptial business, and a merry one ! A month for yer billin' 
 and cooin' ; and a' the rest o' yer days for wondering ye were 
 ever such a fule, and wishing it was a' to be done ower again. 
 — Ye'll be for a bottle o' sherry wine, nae doot ? and a drap 
 toddy afterward, to do yer digestin' on ?" 
 
 Arnold nodded — and then, in obedience to a signal from 
 Anne, joined her at the window. Mr. Bishopriggs looked after 
 them attentively — observed that they were talking in whispers 
 — and approved of that proceeding, as representing another of 
 the established customs of young married couples at inns, in 
 the presence of third persons appointed to wait on them. 
 
 "Ay! ay!" he said, looking over his shoulder at Arnold, 
 "gae to your deerie ! gae to your deerie ! and leave a' the solid 
 business o' life to Me. Ye've Screepture warrant for it. A 
 man maun leave fether and mother (I'm yer fether),and cleave 
 to his wife. My certie ! 'cleave' is a strong word — there's 
 nae sort o' doot aboot it, when it comes to ' cleaving !' " He 
 wagged his head thoughtfully, and walked to the side-table in 
 a corner, to cut the bread. 
 
 As he took up the knife, his one wary eye detected a morsel 
 of crumpled paper, lying lost between the table and the wall. 
 It was the letter from Geoffrey, which Anne had flung from 
 her, in the first indignation of reading it — and which neither 
 she nor Arnold had thought of since, 
 
 "What's that I see yonder?" muttered Mr. Bishopriggs, un- 
 der his breath. " Mair litter in the room, after I've doosted 
 and tidied it wi' my ain hands !" 
 
 He picked up the crumpled paper, and partly opened it. 
 "Eh! what's here? Writing on it in ink? and writing on it 
 in pencil? Who may this belong to?" He looked round 
 cautiously toward Arnold and Anne. They were both still 
 talking in whispers, and both standing with their backs to 
 him, looking out of the window. " Here it is, clean forgotten 
 and dune with !" thought Mr, Bishopriggs, " Xoo what would 
 a fule do, if he fund this? A fule wad light his pipe wi' it, 
 and then wonder whether he wadna ha' dune better to read it 
 first. And what wad a wise man do, in a seemilar position ?" 
 He practically answered that question by putting the letter 
 into his pocket. It might be worth keeping, or it might not; 
 five minutes' private examination of it would decide the al- 
 ternative, at the first convenient opportunity. "Am gaun' to 
 breen.qr tt^e dinner in !" he called out to Arnold. "And, mind 
 
MAN AND WIFE. 115 
 
 ye, there's nae knocking at the door possible, when I've got 
 the tray in baith my hands, and, mair's the pity, the gout in 
 baith my feet." With that friendly warning, Mr. Bishopriggs 
 went his way to the regions of the kitchen. 
 
 Arnold continued his conversation with Anne, in terms 
 which showed that the question of his leaving the inn had 
 been the question once move discussed between them while 
 they were standing at the window. 
 
 " You see we can't help it," he said. " The waiter has gone 
 to bring the dinner in. What will they think in the house if 
 I go away already, and leave 'my wife' to dine alone?" 
 
 It was so plainly necessary to keep up appearances for the 
 present, that there was nothing more to be said. Arnold was 
 committing a serious imprudence — and yet, on this occasion, 
 Arnold was right. Anne's annoyance "at feeling that conclu- 
 sion forced on her produced the first betrayal of impatience 
 which she had shown yet. She left Arnold at the window, 
 and flung herself on the sofa. "A curse seems to follow me !" 
 she thought, bitterly. "This will end ill — and I shall be an- 
 swerable for it !" 
 
 In the mean time Mr, Bishopriggs had found the dinner in 
 the kitchen, ready, and waiting for him. Instead of at once 
 taking the tray on which it was placed into the sitting-room, 
 he conveyed it privately into his own pantry, and shut the 
 door. 
 
 " Lie ye there, mj' freend, till the spare moment comes — and 
 I'll look at ye again," he said, putting the letter away careful- 
 ly in the dresser-drawer. " Xoo aboot the dinner o' they twu 
 turtle-doves in the parlor?" he continued, dii-ecting his atten- 
 tion to the dinner-tray. " I maun joost see that the cook's 
 dune her duty — the creatures are no' capable o' decidin' that 
 knotty point for their ain selves." He took oiFone of the cov- 
 ers, and picked bits, here and therc^, out of the dish with the 
 fork. " Eh ! eh ! the collops are no' that bad !" He took oW 
 another cover, and shook his head in solemn doubt. " Here's 
 the green meat. I doot green meat's windy diet for a man at 
 my time o' life !" He put the cover on again, and tried the 
 next dish. "The fesh? What the de'il does the woman fry 
 the trout for? Boil it next time, ye betch, wi' a pinch o' saut 
 and a spunefu' o' vinegar." He drew the cork from a bottle 
 of sherry, and decanted the wine. "The sherry-wine?" he 
 said, in tones of deep feeling, holding the decanter up to the 
 light. " Hoo do I know but what it may be corkit ? I maun 
 taste and try. It's on my conscience, as an honest man, to 
 taste and try." He forthwith relieved his conscience — copi- 
 ously. There was a vacant space, of no inconsiderable dimen- 
 sions, left in the decanter, Mr. Bishopriggs gravely filled it 
 H 
 
114 MAN AND WIFB. 
 
 up from the water-bottle. " Eh ! it's joost addin' ten years to 
 the age o' the wine. The turtle-doves will be nane the waur 
 — and I raysel' am a glass o' sherry the better. Praise Provi- 
 dence for a' its maircies !" Having relieved himself of that 
 devout aspiration, he took up the tray again, and decided on 
 letting the turtle-doves have their dinner. 
 
 The conversation in the parlor (dropped for the moment) 
 had been renewed, in the absence of Mr. Bishopriggs. Too 
 restless to remain long in one place, Anne had risen again from 
 the sofa, and had rejoined Arnold at the window. 
 
 " Where do your friends at Lady Lundie's believe you to be 
 now ?" she asked, abruptly. 
 
 " I am believed," replied Arnold, " to be meeting my tenants, 
 and taking possession of my estate." 
 
 " How are you to get to your estate to-night ?" 
 
 " By railway, I suppose. By-the-bye, what excuse am I to 
 make for going away after dinner ? We are sure to have the 
 landlady in here before long. What will she say to my go- 
 ing off by myself to the train, and leaving ' my wife ' behind 
 me?" 
 
 " Mr. Brinkworth ! that joke — if it is a joke — is worn out !" 
 
 " I beg your pardon," said Arnold. 
 
 " You may leave your excuse to me," pursued Anne. " Do 
 you go by the up train, or the down ?" 
 
 " By the up train." 
 
 The door opened suddenly ; and Mr. Bishopriggs appeared 
 with the dinner. Anne nervously separated herself from Ar- 
 nold. The one available eye of Mr. Bishopriggs followed her 
 reproachfully, as he put the dishes on the table. 
 
 " I warned ye baith, it was a clean impossibility to knock at 
 the door this time. Don't blame me, young madam — don't 
 blame me .'" 
 
 " Where will you sit ?" asked Arnold, by way of diverting 
 Anne's attention from the familiarities of Father Bishopriggs. 
 
 "Anywhere!" she answered, impatiently; snatching up a 
 chair, and placing it at the bottom of the table. 
 
 Mr. Bishopriggs politely, but firmly, put the chair back 
 again in its place. 
 
 " Lord's sake ! what are ye doin' ? It's clean contrary to a' 
 the laws and customs o' the honey-mune, to sit as far away 
 from your husband as that !" 
 
 He waved his persuasive napkin to one of the two chairs 
 placed close together at the table. Arnold interfered once 
 more, and prevented another outbreak of impatience from 
 Anne. 
 
 " What does it matter?" he said. "Let the man have his 
 way." 
 
MAN AND WIFE, 117 
 
 " Get it over as soon as you can," she returned. " I can't, 
 and won't, bear it much longer." 
 
 They took their places at tlie table, with Father Bishopriggs 
 behind thera, in the mixed character of major-domo and guard- 
 ian angel. 
 
 " Here's the trout !" he cried, taking the cover off with a 
 flourish. " Half an hour since, he was loupin' in the water. 
 There he lies noo, fried in the dish. An emblem o' human life 
 for ye ! When ye can spare any leisure time from yer twa 
 selves, meditate on that." 
 
 Arnold took up the spoon, to give Anne one of the trout. 
 Mr. Bishopriggs clapped the cover on the dish again, with a 
 countenance expressive of devout horror. 
 
 " Is there naebody gaun' to say grace ?" he asked. 
 
 "Come ! come !" said Arnold. "The fish is getting cold." 
 
 Mr. Bishopriggs piously closed his available eye, and held 
 the cover firmly on the dish. "For what ye're gaun' to re- 
 ceive, may ye baith be truly thankful !" He opened his avail- 
 able eye, and whipped the cover off again. " My conscience 
 is easy noo. Fall to ! Fall to !" 
 
 " Send him away !" said Anne. " His familiarity is beyond 
 all endurance." 
 
 "You needn't wait," said Arnold. 
 
 " Eh ! but I'm here to wait," objected Mr. Bishopriggs. 
 " What's the use o' my gaun' away, when ye'll want me anon 
 to change the plates for ye?" He considered for a moment 
 (privately consulting his experience) ; and arrived at a satis- 
 factory conclusion as to Arnold's motive for wanting to get 
 rid of him. "Tak' her on yer knee," he whispered in Arnold's 
 ear, " as soon as ye like ! Feed him at the fork's end," he add- 
 ed to Anne, " whenever ye please ! I'll think of something 
 else, and look out at the proaspect." He winked — and went 
 to the window. 
 
 " Come ! come !" said Arnold to Anne. " There's a comic 
 side to all this. Try and see it as I do." 
 
 Mr. Bishopriggs returned from the window, and announced 
 the appearance of a new element of embarrassment in the situ- 
 ation at the inn. 
 
 "My certie !" he said, " it's weel ye cam' when ye did. It's 
 ill getting to this hottle in a storm." 
 
 Anne started, and looked round at him. "A storm coming !" 
 she exclaimed. 
 
 " Eh ! ye're well hoosed here — ye needn't mind it. There's 
 the cloud down the valley," he added, pointing out of the win- 
 dow, " coming up one way, when the wind's blawing the other. 
 The storm's brewing, my leddy, when ye see that !" 
 
 There was another knock at the door. As Arnold hfld p''e- 
 dicted, the landlady made her appearance on the scene, 
 
118 MAN AND WIFB. 
 
 " I ha' just lookit in, sir," said Mrs. Inchbare, addressing her- 
 self exclusively to Arnold, *' to see ye've got what ye want." 
 
 " Oh ! you are the landlady ? Very nice, ma'am — very 
 nice." 
 
 Mistress Inchbare had her own private motive for entering 
 the room, and came to it without further preface. 
 
 " Ye'll excuse me, sir," she proceeded. " I wasna in the way 
 when he cam' here, or I suld ha' made bauld to ask ye the 
 question which I maun e'en ask noo. Am I to understand 
 that ye hire these rooms for yersel', and this leddy here — yer 
 wife?" 
 
 Anne raised her head to speak. Arnold pressed her hand 
 warningly, under the table, and silenced her. 
 
 " Certainly," he said. " I take the rooms for myself, and 
 this lady here — my wife !" 
 
 Anne made a second attempt to speak. 
 
 " This gentleman — " she began. 
 
 Arnold stopped her for the second time. 
 
 " This gentleman ?" repeated Mrs. Inchbare, with a broad 
 stare of surprise. "I'm only a puir woman, my leddy — d'ye 
 mean yer husband here ?" 
 
 Arnold's warning hand touched Anne's for the third time. 
 Mistress Inchbare's eyes remained fixed on her in merciless in- 
 quiry. To have given utterance to the contradiction which 
 trembled on her lips would have been to involve Arnold (after 
 all that he had sacrificed for her) in the scandal which would 
 inevitably follow — a scandal which would be talked of in the 
 neighborhood, and which might find its way to Blanche's ears. 
 White and cold, her eyes never moving from the table, she ac- 
 cepted the landlady's implied correction, and faintly repeated 
 the words : " My husband." 
 
 Mistress Inchbare drew a breath of virtuous relief, and wait- 
 ed for what Anne had to say next. Arnold came considerate- 
 ly to the rescue, and got her out of the room. 
 
 "Never mind," he said to Anne; "I know what it is, and 
 I'll see about it. She's always like this, ma'am, when a storm's 
 coming," he went on, turning to the landlady. " No, thank 
 you — I know how to manage her. We'll send to you, if we 
 want your assistance." 
 
 " At yer ain pleasure, sir," answered Mistress Inchbare. She 
 turned, and apologized to Anne (under protest), with a stiflf 
 courtesy. " No oflJense, my leddy ! Ye'll remember that ye 
 cam' here alane, and that the bottle has its ain gude name to 
 keep up." Having once more vindicated " the bottle," she 
 made the long-desired move to the door, and left the room. 
 
 " I'm faint !" Anne whispered. " Give me some water." 
 
 There was no water on the table. Arnold ordered it of Mr. 
 
MAN AND WIFE. 119 
 
 Bishopriggs — who had remained passive in the background 
 (a model of discreet attention) as long as the mistress was in 
 the room. 
 
 "Mr. Brinkworth !" said Anne, when they were alone, "you 
 are acting with inexcusable rashness. That woman's question 
 was an impertinence. Why did you answer it? Why did 
 you force me — ?" 
 
 She stopped, unable to finish the sentence. Arnold insisted 
 on her drinking a glass of wine — and then defended himself 
 with the patient consideration for her which he had shown 
 from the first. 
 
 "Why didn't I have the inn door shut in your face" — he 
 asked, good-humoredly — " with a storm coming on, and with- 
 out a place in which you can take refuge ? No, no, Miss Sil- 
 vester ! I don't presume to blame you for any scruples you 
 may feel — but scruples are sadly out of place with such a 
 woman as that landlady. I am responsible for your safety 
 to GeoflTrey; and Geoffrey expects to find you here. Let's 
 change the subject. The water is a long time coming. Try 
 another glass of wine. No ? Well — here is Blanche's health " 
 (he took some of the wine himself), " in the weakest sherry I 
 ever drank in my life." As he set down his glass, Mr. Bish- 
 opriggs came in with the water. Arnold hailed him satirical- 
 ly. "Well, have you got the water? or have you used it all 
 for the sherry ?" 
 
 Mr. Bishopriggs stopped in the middle of the room, thunder- 
 struck at the aspersion cast on the wine. 
 
 " Is that the way ye talk of the auldest bottle o' sherry-wine 
 in Scotland ?" he asked, gravely. " What's the warld coming 
 to ? The new generation's a foot beyond my fathoming. The 
 maircies o' Providence, as shown to man in the choicest veen- 
 tages o' Spain, are clean thrown away on 'em." 
 
 " Have you brought the water ?" 
 
 " I ha' brought the water — and mair than the water. I ha' 
 brought ye news from ootside. There's a company o' gentle- 
 men on horseback, joost cantering by to what they ca' the 
 shootin' cottage, a mile from this." 
 
 "Well, and what have we got to do with it?" 
 
 " Bide a wee ! There's ane o' them has drawn bridle at the 
 bottle, and he's speerin' after the leddy that cam' here alane. 
 The leddy s your leddy, as sure as saxpence. I doot," said Mr 
 Bishopriggs, walking away to the window, " thafs what's ye've 
 got to do with it." 
 
 Arnold looked at Anne. 
 
 " Do you expect any body ?" 
 
 " Is it Geoffrey ?" 
 
 " Impossible. Geoffrey is on his way to London." 
 
120 MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 " There he is, any way," resumed Mr, Bishopriggs, at the 
 window. "He's loupin' down from his horse. He's turning 
 this way. Lord save us !" he exclaimed, with a start of con- 
 sternation, " what do I see? That incarnate deevil, Sir Pait- 
 rick himself!" 
 
 Arnold sprang to his feet. 
 
 " Do you mean Sir Patrick Lundie ?" 
 
 Anne ran to the window. 
 
 " It is Sir Patrick !" she said. " Hide yourself before he 
 comes in !" 
 
 "Hide myself?" 
 
 " What will he think if he sees you with r/«e.^" 
 
 He was Blanche's guardian, and he believed Arnold to be at 
 that moment visiting his new property. What he would think 
 was not difficult to foresee. Arnold turned for help to Mr. 
 Bishopriggs. 
 
 " Where can I go ?" 
 
 Mr. Bishopriggs pointed to the bedroom door. 
 
 " Whar' can ye go ? There's the nuptial-chamber !" 
 
 " Impossible !" 
 
 Mr. Bishopriggs expressed the utmost extremity of human 
 amazement by a long whistle, on one note. 
 
 " Whew ! Is that the way ye talk o' the nuptial-chamber 
 already?" 
 
 " Find me some other place — I'll make it worth your while." 
 
 " Eh ! there's my paintry ! I trow that's some other place ; 
 and the door's at the end o' the passage." 
 
 Arnold hurried out. Mr. Bishopriggs — evidently under the 
 impression that the case before him was a case of elopement, 
 with Sir Patrick mixed up in it in the capacity of guardian — 
 addressed himself, in friendly confidence, to Anne. 
 
 " My certie, mistress ! it's ill wark deceivin' Sir Paitrick, if 
 that's what ye've dune. Ye must know, I was ance a bit clerk 
 body in his chambers at Embro — " 
 
 The voice of Mistress Inchbare, calling for the head-waiter, 
 rose shrill and imperative from the regions of the bar. Mr, 
 Bishopriggs disappeared. Anne remained, standing helpless 
 by .the M'indow. It was plain by this time that the place of 
 her retreat had been discovered at Windygates. The one 
 doubt to decide, now, was whether it would be wise or not to 
 receive Sir Patrick, for the purpose of discovering whether he 
 came as friend or enemy to the inn. 
 
MAN AND WIFE. 121 
 
 CHAPTER THE ELEVENTH. 
 
 SIK PATEICK. 
 
 The doubt was practically decided before Anne had deter- 
 mined what to do. She was still at the window when the sit- 
 ting-room door Avas thrown open, and Sir Patrick appeared, ob- 
 sequiously shown in by Mr. Bishopriggs. 
 
 "Ye're kindly welcome. Sir Paitrick. Hech, sirs ! the sight 
 oi von is gude for sair eyne." 
 
 Sir Patrick turned and looked at Mi-. Bisliopriggs — as lie 
 might have looked at some troublesome insect which he had 
 driven out of the window, and which liad i-etui-ned on him 
 again. 
 
 "What, you scoundrel ! have you drifted into an honest em- 
 ployment at last ?" 
 
 Mr. Bishopriggs rubbed his hands cheerfully, and took his 
 tone from his superior, with supple readiness. 
 
 "Ye're always in the right of it, Sir Paitrick! Wut, raal 
 wut in that aboot the honest employment, and me drifting into 
 it. Lord's sake, sir, hoo well ye wear !" 
 
 Dismissing Mr. Bishopriggs by a sign. Sir Patrick advanced 
 to Anne. 
 
 "I am committing an intrusion, madam, which must, I am 
 afraid, appear unpardonable in your eyes," he said. " May I 
 hope you will excuse me when I have made you acquainted 
 with my motive ?" 
 
 He spoke with scrupulous politeness. His knoAvledge of 
 Anne was of the slightest possible kind. Like other men, lie 
 had felt the attraction other unaffected grace and gentleness 
 on the few occasions when he had been in her company — and 
 that was all. If he had belonged to the present generation he 
 would, under the circumstances, have fallen into one of the be- 
 setting sins of England in these days — the tendency (to borrow 
 an illustration from the stage) to "strike an attitude" in the 
 presence of a social emergency. A man of the present period, 
 in Sir Patrick's position, would have struck an attitude of 
 (what is called) chivalrous respect ; and would have addressed 
 Anne in a tone of ready-made sympathy, which it was simply 
 impossible for a stranger really to feel. Sir Patrick affected 
 nothing of the sort. One of the besetting sins oi' his time was 
 the habitual concealment of our better selves — upon the \\iiole, 
 ■a far less dangerous national error than the habitual advertise- 
 
 6 
 
122 MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 ment of our better selves, which has become the practice, pub- 
 licly and privately, of society in this age. Sir Patrick as- 
 sumed, if any thing, less sympathy on this occasion than he 
 really felt. Courteous to all women, he was as courteous as 
 usual to Anne — and no more. 
 
 " I am quite at a loss, sir, to know what brings you to this 
 place. The servant here informs me that you are one of a party 
 of gentlemen Avho have just passed by the inn, and who have 
 all gone on except yourself" In those guarded terms Anne 
 opened the interview v/ith the unwelcome visitor, on her side. 
 
 Sir Patrick admitted the fact, without betraying the slight- 
 est embarrassment. 
 
 " The servant is quite right," he said. " I am one of the 
 party. And I liave purposely allowed them to go on to the 
 keeper's cottage without me. Having admitted this, may I 
 count on receiving your permission to explain the motive of 
 my visit ?" 
 
 Necessarily suspicious of him, as coming from Wind5^gates, 
 Anne answered in few and formal words, as coldly as before. 
 
 " Explain it, Sir Patrick, if you please, as briefly as jDOSsible." 
 
 Sir Patrick bowed. He was not in the least oifeuded ; he 
 was even (if the confession may be made without degrading him 
 in the public estimation) privately amused. Conscious of hav- 
 ing honestly presented himself at the inn in Anne's interests, as 
 well as in the interests of tlie ladies at Windygates, it appealed 
 to his sense of humor to find himself kept at arms-length by 
 the very woman whom he had come to benefit. The tempta- 
 tion was strong on him to treat his errand from his own whim- 
 sical point of view. He gravely took out his watch, and noted 
 the time to a second, before he spoke again. 
 
 "I have an event to relate in which you are interested," he 
 said; "and I have two messages to deliver, which I hope you 
 will not object to receive. The event I undertake to describe 
 in one minute. The messages I promise to dispose of in two 
 minutes more. Total duration of this intrusion on youi- time — 
 three minutes." 
 
 He placed a chair for Anne, and waited until she had per- 
 mitted him, by a sign, to take a second chair for himself 
 
 " We will begin with the event," he resumed. " Your arrival 
 at this place is no secret at Windygates. You were seen on 
 the foot-road to Craig Fernie by one of the female servants. 
 And the inference naturally drawn is, that j^ou were on your 
 way to the inn. It may be important for j^ou to know this; 
 and I have taken the liberty of mentioning it accordingly." 
 He consulted his watch. "Event related. Time one minute." 
 
 He had excited her curiosity, to begin with. " Which of the 
 women saw me ?" she asked, impulsively. 
 
MAN AND WIFE. 123 
 
 Sir Patrick (watch in hand) declined to prolong the intef^ 
 view by answering any incidental inquiries which might arise 
 in the course of it. 
 
 " Pardon me," he rejoined ; " I am pledged to occupy three 
 minutes only. I have no room for the woman. With your 
 kind permission, I will get on to the messages next." 
 
 Anne remained silent. Sir Patrick went on. 
 
 " First message : ' Lady Lundie's compliments to her step- 
 daughter's late governess — with whose married name she is not 
 acquainted. Lady Lundie regrets to say that Sir Patrick, as 
 head of the family, has threatened to return to Edinburgh un- 
 less she consents to be guided by his advice in the course she 
 pursues with the late governess. Lady Lundie, accordingly, 
 forgoes her intention of calling at the Craig Fei-nie inn, to ex- 
 press her sentiments and make her inquiries in person, and 
 commits to Sir Patrick the duty of expressing her sentiments ; 
 reserving to herself the right of making her inquiries at the 
 next convenient opportunity. Through the medium of her 
 brother-in-law, she begs to inform the late governess that all 
 intercourse is at an end between them, and that she declines to 
 act as reference in case of future emergency.' — Message text- 
 ually correct. Expressive of Lady Lundie's view of your sud- 
 den departure from the house. Time, two minutes." 
 
 Anne's color rose. Anne's pride was up in arms on the spot. 
 
 "The impertinence of Lady Lundie's message is no more 
 than I should have expected from her," she said. " I am only 
 surprised at Sir Patrick's delivering it." 
 
 " Sir Patrick's motives will appear presently," rejoined the 
 incorrigible old gentleman. " Second message : ' Blanche's 
 fondest love. Is dying to be acquainted with Anne's husband, 
 and to be informed of Anne's married name. Feels indescrib- 
 able anxiety and apprehension on Anne's account. Insists on 
 hearing from Anne immediately. Longs, as she never longed 
 for any thing yet, to order her pony-chaise and drive full gallop 
 to the inn. Yields, under irresistible pressure, to the exertion 
 of her guardian's authority, and commits the expression of her 
 feelings to Sir Patrick, who is a born tyrant, and doesn't in the 
 least mind breaking other people's hearts.' Sir Patrick (speak- 
 ing for himself) places his sister-in-law's view and his niece's 
 view, side by side, before the lady whom he has now the honor 
 of addressing, and on whose confidence he is especially careful 
 not to intrude. Reminds the lady that his influence at Windy- 
 gates, however strenuously he may exert it, is not likely to last 
 forever. Requests her to consider whether his sister-in-law's 
 view and his niece's view, in collision, may not lead to very 
 undesirable domestic results ; and leaves her to take the course 
 which seems best to herself under those circumstances. — Second 
 
124 MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 message delivered textual! y. Time, three minutes. A storm 
 coming on. A quarter of an hour's ride from here to the shoot- 
 ing-cottage. Madam, I wish you good-evening." 
 
 He bowed lower than ever — and, without a word more, 
 quietly left the room. 
 
 Anne's first impulse was (excusably enough, poor soul) an 
 impulse of resentment. 
 
 "Thank you, Sir Patrick !" she said, with a bitter look at the 
 closing door. " The sympathy of society with a friendless 
 woman could hardly have been expressed in a more amusing 
 way I" 
 
 The little irritation of the moment passed off with the 
 moment. Anne's own intelligence and good sense showed her 
 the position in its truer light. 
 
 She recognized in Sir Patrick's abrupt departure Sir Patrick's 
 considerate resolution to spare her from entering into any de- 
 tails on the subject of her position at the inn. He had given 
 her a friendly warning ; and he had delicately left her to de- 
 cide for herself as to the assistance which she might render him 
 in maintaining tranquillity at Windygates. She went at once 
 to a side-table in the room, on which Avriting materials were 
 placed, and sat down to write to Blanche. 
 
 " I can do nothing with Lady Lundie," she thought. " But 
 I have more influence than any body else over Blanche ; and 
 I can prevent the collision between them which Sir Patrick 
 dreads." 
 
 She began the letter. " My deai-est Blanche, I have seen 
 Sir Patrick, and he has given me your message. I will set 
 your mind at ease about me as soon as I can. But, before I 
 say any thing else, let me entreat you, as the greatest favor 
 you can do to your sister and your friend, not to enter into 
 any disputes about me with Lady Lundie, and not to commit 
 the imprudence — the useless imprudence, my love — of coming 
 here." She stopped — the paper swam before her eyes. " My 
 own darling !" she thought, " who could have foreseen that I 
 should ever shrink from the thought of seeing youf'' She 
 sighed, and dipped the pen in the ink, and went on with the 
 letter. 
 
 The sky darkened rapidly as the evening fell. The Avind 
 swept in fainter and fainter gusts across the dreary moor. 
 Far and wide over the face of Nature the stillness was fast 
 falliuo; which tells of a coming storm. 
 
MAN AND WIFK. 125 
 
 CHAPTER THE TWELFTH. 
 
 Meanwhile Arnold remained shut up in the head-waiter's 
 pantry — chafing secretly at the position forced upon him. 
 
 He was, for the first time in his life, in hiding from another 
 person, and that person a man. Twice — stung to it by the 
 inevitable loss of self-respect which his situation occasioned — 
 he had gone to the dooi-, determined to face Sir Patrick bold- 
 ly : and twice he had abandoned the idea, in mercy to Anne. 
 It would have been impossible for him to set himself right 
 with Blanche's guardian without betraying the unhappy wom- 
 an whose secret he was bound in honor to keep. " I wish to 
 Heaven I had never come here !" was the useless aspiration 
 that escaped him, as he doggedly seated himself on the dresser 
 to wait till Sir Patrick's departure set him free. 
 
 After an interval — not by any means the long interval which 
 he had anticipated — his solitude was enlivened by the appear- 
 ance of Father Bishopriggs. 
 
 "Well," cried Arnold, jumping ofi* the dresser, " is the coast 
 clear?" 
 
 There were occasions when Mr. Bishopriggs became, on a 
 sudden, unexpectedly hard of hearing. This was one of them. 
 
 " Hoo do ye find the paintry ?" he asked, without paying the 
 slightest attention to Arnold's question. " Snug and private ? 
 A Patmos in the weelderness, as ye may say !" 
 
 His one available eye, which had begun by looking at Ar- 
 nold's face, dropped slowly downward, and fixed itself, in mute 
 but eloquent expectation, on Arnold's waistcoat pocket. 
 
 "I understand !" said Arnold. " I promised to pay you for 
 the Patmos — eh ? There you are !" 
 
 Mr. Bishopriggs pocketed the money with a dreary smile 
 and a sympathetic shake of the head. Other waiters would 
 have returned thanks. The sage of Craig Fernie returned a 
 few brief remarks instead. Admirable in many things, Father 
 Bishopriggs was especially great at drawing a moral. He drew 
 a moral on this occasion from his own gratuity. 
 
 " There I am — as ye say. Mercy presairve us ! ye need the 
 siller at every turn, when there's a woman at yer heels. It's 
 an awfu' reflection — ye canna hae any thing to do wi' the sex 
 they ca' the opposite sex without its being an expense to ye. 
 There's this young leddy o' yours, I doot she'll ha' been an 
 
126 MAN AND WIPE. 
 
 expense to ye from the first. When you were coortin' her, ye 
 did it, I'll go bail, wi' the open hand. Presents and keepsakes, 
 flowers and jewelry, and little dogues. Sair expenses all of 
 them !" 
 
 " Hang your reflections ! Has Sir Patrick left the inn ?" 
 
 The reflections of Mr. Bishopriggs declined to be disposed 
 of in any thing approaching to a summary way. On they 
 flowed from their parent source, as slowly and as smoothly as 
 ever! 
 
 " Noo ye're married to her, there's her bonnets and goons 
 and under-clothin' — her ribbons, laces, furbelows, and fallals. 
 A sair expense again !" 
 
 "What is the expense of cutting your reflections short, Mr. 
 Bishopriggs ?" 
 
 " Thirdly, and lastly, if ye canna agree wi' her as time gaes 
 on — if there's incompaitibeelity of temper betwixt ye — in short, 
 if ye want a wee bit separation, hech, sirs ! ye pet yer hand in 
 yer poaket, and come to an aimicable understandin' wi' her in 
 that way. Or, maybe she takes ye into Court, and pets her 
 hand in yottr poaket, and comes to a hoastile understandin' wi' 
 ye there. Show me a woman — and I'll show ye a man not far 
 ofi" wha' has mair expenses on his back than he ever bargained 
 for." Arnold's patience would last no longer — he turned to 
 the door. Mr. Bishopriggs, with equal alacrity on his side, 
 turned to the matter in hand. " T es, sir ! The room is e'en 
 clear o' Sir Paitrick, and the leddy's alane, and waitin' for ye." 
 
 In a moment more Arnold was back in the sitting-room. 
 
 "Well?" he asked, anxiously; "what is it? Bad news from 
 Lady Lundie's ?" 
 
 Anne closed and directed the letter to Blanche, which she 
 had just completed. " No," she replied. " Nothing to interest 
 youP 
 
 " What did Sir Patrick want ?" 
 
 " Only to warn me. They have found out at Windygates 
 that I am here." 
 
 " That's awkward, isn't it ?" 
 
 " Not in the least. I can manage perfectly ; I have nothing 
 to fear. Don't think of yne — think of yourself." 
 
 " I am not suspected, am I ?" 
 
 " Thank Heaven — no ! But there is no knowing what may 
 happen if you stay here. Ring the bell at once, and ask the 
 waiter about the trains." 
 
 Struck by the unusual obscurity of the sky at that hour 
 of the evening, Arnold went to the window. The rain had 
 come — and was falling heavily. The view on the moor was 
 fast disappearing in mist and darkness. 
 
 " Pleasant weather to travel in !" he said. 
 
MAN AND WIPE. 127 
 
 " The railway !" Anne exclaimed, impatiently. " It's getting 
 late. See about the railway !" 
 
 Arnold walked to the fire-place to ring the bell. The rail- 
 way time-table hanging over it met his eye. 
 
 " Here's the information I want," he said to Anne ; " if I only 
 knew how to get at it. 'Down' — 'Up' — 'a.m.' — 'p.m.' What 
 a carsed confusion ! I believe they do it on purpose." 
 
 Anne joined him at the fire-place. 
 
 ' L understand it — I'll help you. Did you say it was the up 
 train you wanted ?" 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 "What is the name of the station you stop at?" 
 
 Arnold told her. She followed the intricate net-work of 
 lines and ^gures with her finger — suddenly stopped — looked 
 again to make sure — and turned from the time-table with a 
 face of blank despair. The last train for the day had gone an 
 hour since. 
 
 In the silence which followed that discovery, a first flash of 
 lightning passed across the window, and the low roll of thun- 
 der sounded the outbreak of the storm. 
 
 "What's to be done now?" asked Arnold. 
 
 In the face of the storm, Anne answered without hesitation, 
 " You must take a carriage, and drive." 
 
 "Drive? They told me it was three-and-twenty miles, by 
 railway, from the station to my place — let alone the distance 
 from this inn to the station." 
 
 "What does the distance matter? Mr. Brinkworth, you 
 can't possibly stay here !" 
 
 A second flash of lightning crossed the window ; the roll of 
 the thunder came nearer. Even Arnold's good temper began 
 to be a little ruffled by Anne's determination to get rid of him. 
 He sat down with the air of a man who had made up his mind 
 not to leave the house. 
 
 " Do you hear that ?" he asked, as the sound of the thunder 
 died away grandly, and the hard pattering of the rain on the 
 window became audible once more. " If I ordered horses, do 
 you think they would let me have them, in such weather as 
 this? And, if they did, do you suppose the horses could face 
 it on the moor ? No, no, Miss Silvester — I am sorry to be in 
 the way ; but the train has gone, and the night and the storm 
 have come. I have no choice but to stay here !" 
 
 Anne still maintained her own view, but less resolutely than 
 before. " After what you have told the landlady," she said, 
 " think of the embarrassment, the cruel embarrassment of our 
 position, if you stop at the inn till to-morrow morning !" 
 
 " Is that all ?" returned Arnold. 
 
 Anne looked up at him, quickly and angrily. No ! he was 
 
128 MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 quite unconscious of having said any thing that could offend 
 her. His rough masculine sense broke its way unconsciously 
 through all the little feminine subtleties and delicacies of his 
 companion, and looked the position practically in the face for 
 what it was worth, and no more. " Where's the embarrass- 
 ment ?" he asked, pointing to the bedroom door. " There's 
 your room, all ready for you. And here's the sofa, in this 
 room, all ready for me. If you had seen the places I have 
 slept in at sea — !" 
 
 She interrupted him without ceremony. The places he had 
 slept in at sea, were of no earthly importance. The one ques- 
 tion to consider, was the place he was to sleep in that night. 
 
 " If you must stay," she rejoined, "can't you get a room in 
 some other part of the house?" 
 
 But one last mistake in dealing with her, in her present nerv- 
 ous condition, was left to make — and the innocent Arnold 
 made it. " In some other part of the house ?" he repeated, 
 jestingly. "The landlady would be scandalized. Mr. Bishop- 
 riggs would never allow it !" 
 
 She rose, and stamped her foot impatiently on the floor. 
 " Don't joke !" she exclaimed. " This is no laughing matter." 
 She paced the room excitedly. " I don't like it ! I don't like 
 it !" 
 
 Arnold looked after her, with a stare of boyish wonder. 
 
 " What puts you out so ?" he asked. " Is it the storm ?" 
 
 She threw herself on the sofa again. " Yes," she said, short- 
 ly; "it's the storm." 
 
 Arnold's inexhaustible good-nature was at once roused to 
 activity again. 
 
 " Shall we have the candles," he suggested, " and shut the 
 weather out ?" She turned irritably on the sofa, without re- 
 plying. "I'll promise to go away the first thing in the morn- 
 ing !" he went on. " Do try and take it easy — and don't be 
 angry with me. Come ! come ! you wouldn't turn a dog out. 
 Miss Silvester, on such a night as this !" 
 
 He was irresistible. The most sensitive woman breathing 
 could not have accused him of failing toward her in any single 
 essential of consideration and respect. He wanted tact, poor 
 fellow — but who could expect him to have learned that always 
 superficial (and sometimes dangerous) accomplishment, in the 
 life he had led at sea? At the sight of his honest, pleading 
 face, Anne recovered possession of her gentler and sweeter self. 
 She made her excuses for her irritability with a grace that 
 enchanted him. " We'll have a pleasant evening of it yet !" 
 cried Arnold, in his hearty way — and rang the bell. 
 
 The bell was hung outside the door of that Patmos in the 
 wilderness — otherwise known as the head-waiter's pantry. 
 
MAN AND WIFE. 129 
 
 Mr. Bishopriggs (employing his brief leisure in the seclusion 
 of his own apartment) had just mixed a glass of the hot and 
 comforting liquor called " toddy " in the language of North 
 Britain, and was just lifting it to his lips, when the summons 
 from Arnold invited him to leave his grog. 
 
 " Hand yer screechin' tongue !" cried Mr. Bishopriggs, ad- 
 dressing the bell through the door. " Ye're waur than a wom- 
 an when ye aiuce begin !" 
 
 The bell — like the woman — went on again. Mr. Bishopriggs, 
 equally pertinacious, went on with, his toddy. 
 
 "Ay! ay ! ye may e'en ring yer heart out — but ye won't 
 part a Scotchman from his glass. It's maybe the end of their 
 dinner they'll be wantiu'. Sir Paitrick cam' in at the fair be- 
 ginning of it, and spoilt the coUops, like the dour deevil he is !" 
 The bell rang for the third time. " Ay ! ay ! ring awa' ! I 
 doot yon young gentleman's little better than a belly-god — 
 there's a scandalous haste to comfort the carnal part o' him in 
 a' this ringin' ! He knows naething o' wine," added Mr. Bish- 
 opriggs, on whose mind Arnold's discovery of the watered 
 sherry still dwelt unpleasantly. 
 
 The lightning quickened, and lit the sitting-room horribly 
 with its lurid glare ; the thunder rolled nearer and nearer over 
 the black gulf of the moor. Arnold had just raised his hand 
 to ring for the fourth time, when the inevitable knock was 
 heard at the door. It was useless to say " come in." The im- 
 mutable laws of Bishopriggs had decided that a second knock 
 was necessary. Storm or no storm, the second knock came — 
 and then, and not till then, the sage appeared, with the dish of 
 untasted "collops" in his hand. 
 
 " Candles !" said Arnold. 
 
 Mr. Bishopriggs set the "collops" (in the language of En- 
 gland, minced meat) upon the table, lit the candles on the man- 
 tel-piece, faced about, with the fire of recent toddy flaming in 
 his nose, and waited for further orders, before he went back 
 to his second glass. Anne declined to return to the dinner. 
 Arnold ordered Mr. Bishopriggs to close the shutters, and sat 
 down to dine by himself 
 
 "It looks greasy, and smells gieasy," he said to Anne, turn- 
 ing over tlie collops with a spoon. "I won't be ten minutes 
 dining. Will you have some tea ?" 
 
 Anne declined again. 
 
 Arnold tried her once more. "What shall we do to get 
 through the evening ?" 
 
 "Do what you like," she answered, resignedly. 
 
 Arnold's mind was suddenly illuminated by an idea. 
 
 " I have got it !" he exclaimed. " We'll kill the time as our 
 8 
 
130 MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 cabin-passengers used to kill it at sea." He looked over his 
 shoulder at Mr. Bishopriggs. " Waiter ! bring a pack of 
 cards." 
 
 " What's that ye're wan tin' ?" asked Mr. Bishopriggs, doubt- 
 ing the evidence of his own senses. 
 
 " A pack of cards," repeated Arnold. 
 
 "Cairds?" echoed .Mr. Bishopriggs. "A pack o' cairds? 
 The deevil's allegories in the deevil's own colors — red and 
 black ! I wanna execute yer order. For yer ain saul's sake, 
 I wunna do it. Ha' ye liv«d to your time o' life, and are ye 
 no' awakened yet to the awfu' seenfulness o' gamblin' wi' the 
 cairds ?" 
 
 "Just as you please," returned Arnold. "You will find me 
 awakened — when I go away — to the awful folly of feeing a 
 waiter," 
 
 " Does that mean that ye're bent on the cairds ?" asked Mr. 
 Bishopriggs, suddenly betraying signs of worldly anxiety in 
 his look and manner, 
 
 " Yes — that means I am bent on the cards." 
 
 "I tak' up my testimony against 'em — but I'm no' telling 
 ye that I canna lay ray hand on 'em if I like. What do they 
 say in my country ? ' Him that will to Coupar, maun to Cou- 
 par.' And what do they say in your country ? ' Needs must 
 when the deevil drives,'" With that excellent reason for 
 turning his back on his own principles, Mr, Bishopriggs shuf- 
 fled out of the room to fetch the cards. 
 
 The dresser-drawer in the pantry contained a choice selec- 
 tion of miscellaneous objects — a pack of cards being among 
 them. In searching for the cards, the wary hand of the head- 
 waiter came in contact with a morsel of crumpled-up paper. 
 He drew it out, and recognized the letter which he had picked 
 up in the sitting-room some hours since. 
 
 "Ay! ay! I'll do weel, I trow, to look at this while my 
 mind's runnin' on it," said Mr. Bishopriggs, " The cairds may 
 e'en find their way to the parlor by other hands than mine." 
 
 He forthwith sent the cards to Arnold by his second in 
 command, closed the pantry door, and carefully smoothed out 
 the crumpled sheet of paper on which the two letters were 
 written. This done, he trimmed his candle, and began with 
 the letter in ink, which occupied the first three pages of the 
 sheet of note-paper. 
 
 It ran thus : 
 
 "WiNDTGATES HoTJSE, August 12, 1868. 
 
 " Geoffrey Delamayn, — I have waited in the hope that 
 you would ride over from your brother's place and see me — 
 and I have waited in vain. Your conduct to me is cruelty it- 
 gelf; I will bear it no longer. Consider! in your own inter- 
 
MAN AND WIFE. 131 
 
 ests, consider — before you drive the miserable woman who has 
 trusted you to despair. You have promised me marriage by 
 all that is sacred. I claim your promise, I insist on nothing 
 less than to be what you vowed I should be — what I have 
 waited all this weary time to be — what I am, in the sight of 
 Heaven, your wedded wife. Lady Lundie gives a lawn-party 
 here on the 14th. I know you have been asked. I expect 
 you to accept her invitation. If I don't see you, I won't an- 
 swer for what may happen. My mind is made up to endure 
 this suspense no longer. Oh, Geoffrey, remember the past ! 
 Be faithful — be just — to your loving wife, 
 
 "Anne Silvester." 
 
 Mr. Bishopriggs paused. His commentary on the corre- 
 spondence, so far, was simple enough. " Hot words (in ink) 
 from the leddy to the gentleman !" He ran his eye over the 
 second letter, on the fourth page of the paper, and added, cyn- 
 ically, " A trifle caulder (in pencil) from the gentleman to the 
 leddy ! The way o' the warld, sirs ! From the time o' Adam 
 downward, the way o' the warld !" 
 
 The second letter ran thus : 
 
 " Dear Anne, — Just called to London to my father. They 
 have telegraphed him in a bad way. Stop where you are, and 
 I will write you. Trust the bearer. Upon my soul, I'll keep 
 my promise. Your loving husband that is to be, 
 
 " Geoffrey Delamatn. 
 
 "WiNDTGATES HousE, Aug. 14, 4 P.M. 
 
 "In a mortal hurry. Train starts at 4,30." 
 
 There it ended ! 
 
 "Who are the parties in the parlor? Is ane o' them 'Sil- 
 vester ?' and t'other ' Delamayn ?' " pondered Mr. Bishopriggs, 
 slowly folding the letter up again in its original form, " Hech, 
 sirs ! what, being intairpreted, may a' this mean ?" 
 
 He mixed himself a second glass of toddy, as an aid to re- 
 flection, and sat sipping the liquor, and twisting and turning 
 the letter in his gouty fingers. It was not easy to see his way 
 to the true connection between the lady and gentleman in the 
 parlor and the two letters now in his own possession. They 
 might be themselves the writers of the letters, or they might 
 be only friends of the writers. Who was to decide ? 
 
 In the first case, the lady's object would appear to have 
 been as good as gained ; for the two had certainly asserted 
 themselves to be man and wife, in his own presence, and in 
 the presence of the landlady. In the second case, the corre- 
 spondence so carelessly thrown aside might, for all a stranger 
 knew to the contrary, prove to be of some importance in the 
 
132 MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 ^1 
 
 future. Acting on this latter view, Mr, Bishopriggs — whose 
 past experience as " a bit clerk body," in Sir Patrick's cham- 
 bers, had made a man of business of him — produced his pen 
 and ink, and indorsed the letter witli a brief dated statement 
 of the circumstances under which he had found it. " I'll do 
 weel to keep the Doecument," he thought to himself. " Wha 
 knows but there'll be a reward offered for it ane o' these days? 
 Eh ! eh ! there may be the warth o' a fi' pun' note in this to a 
 puir lad like me !" 
 
 With that comforting reflection, he drew out a battered tin 
 cash-box from the inner recesses of the drawer, and locked up 
 the stolen correspondence to bide its time. 
 
 The storm rose higher and higher as the evening advanced. 
 
 In the sitting-room, the state of affairs, perpetually chang- 
 ing, now presented itself under another new aspect. 
 
 Arnold had finished his dinner, and had sent it away. He 
 had next drawn a side-table up to the sofa on which Anne lay 
 — had shuffled the pack of cards — and was now using all his 
 powers of persuasion to induce her to try one game at Ecart'e. 
 with him, by way of diverting her attention from the tumult 
 of the storm. In sheer weariness, she gave up contesting the 
 matter ; and, raising herself languidly on the sofa, said she 
 would try to play, " Nothing can make matters worse than 
 they are," she thought, despairingly, as Arnold dealt the cards 
 for her. "Nothing can justify my inflicting my own wretch- 
 edness on this kind-hearted boy !" 
 
 Two worse players never probably sat down to a game. 
 Anne's attention perpetually wandered ; and Anne's compan- 
 ion was, in all human probability, the most incapable card- 
 player in Europe, 
 
 Anne turned up the trump — the nine of Diamonds. Arnold 
 looked at his hand — and " proposed," Anne declined to change 
 the cards. Arnold announced, with undiminished good-humor, 
 that he saw his way clearly, now, to losing the game, and then 
 played his first card — the Queen of Trumps ! 
 
 Anne took it with the King, and forgot to declare the King. 
 She played the ten of Trumps, 
 
 Arnold unexpectedly discovered the eight of Trumps in his 
 band, " What a pity !" he said, as he played it. " Halloo ! 
 you haven't marked the King ! I'll do it for you. That's two 
 — no, three — to you. I said I should lose the game. Couldn't 
 be expected to do any thing (could I ?) with such a hand as 
 mine. I've lost every thing, now I've lost my trumps. You 
 to play," 
 
 Anne looked at her hand. At the same moment the light- 
 nine; flashed into the room through the ill-closed shutters ; the 
 
MAN AND WIPE. 133 
 
 roar of the thunder burst over the liouse, and shook it to its 
 foundation. The screaming of some liysterical female tourist, 
 and the barking of a dog, rose shrill from the upper floor of 
 the inn. Anne's nerves could support it no longer. She flung 
 her cards on the table, and sprang to her feet. 
 
 " I can play no more," she said. " Forgive me — I am quite 
 unequal to it. My head burns ! my heart stifles me !" 
 
 She began to pace the room again. Aggravated by the ef- 
 fect of the storm on her nerves, her first vague distrust of the 
 false position into which she and Arnold had allowed them- 
 selves to drift had strengthened, by this time, into a downright 
 horror of their situation which was not to be endured. Noth- 
 ing could justify such a risk as the risk they were now run- 
 ning ! They had dined together like married people — and 
 there they were, at that moment, shut in together, and passing 
 the evening like man and wife ! 
 
 " Oh, Mr. Brinkworth !" she pleaded. " Think— for Blanche's 
 sake, think — is there no way out of this ?" 
 
 Arnold was quietly collecting the scattered cards. 
 
 " Blanche, again ?" he said, with the most exasperating com- 
 posure. " I wonder how she feels in this storm ?" 
 
 In Anne's excited state, the reply almost maddened her. 
 She turned from Arnold, and hurried to the door. 
 
 " I don't care !" she cried, wildly. " I won't let this decep- 
 tion go on. I'll do what I ought to have done before. Come 
 what may of it, I'll tell the landlady the truth !" 
 
 She had opened the door, and was on the point of stepping 
 into the passage — when she stopped, and started violently. 
 Was it possible, in that dreadful weather, that she had actual- 
 ly heard the sound of carriage wheels on the strip of paved 
 road outside the inn ? 
 
 Yes ! others had heard the sound too. The hobbling figure 
 of Mr. Bishopriggs passed her in the passage, making for the 
 house door. The hard voice of the landlady rang through the 
 inn, ejaculating astonishment in broad Scotch. Anne closed 
 the sitting-room door again, and turned to Arnold — who had 
 risen, in surprise, to his feet. 
 
 "Travelers !" she exclaimed. "At this time !" 
 
 "And in this weather !" added Arnold. 
 
 " Can it be Geofi"rey ?" she asked — going back to the old 
 vain delusion that he might yet feel for her, and return. 
 
 Arnold shook his head. " Not Geofii'ey. Whoever else it 
 may be — not Geoff"rey !" 
 
 Mrs. Inchbare suddenly entered the room — with her cap-rib- 
 bons flying, her eyes staring, and her bones looking harder 
 than ever. 
 
 "Eh, mistress !" she said to Anne. " Wha do ye think has 
 
134 MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 driven here to see ye, from Windygates Hoose, and been ower- 
 taken in the storm ?" 
 
 Anne was speechless. Arnold put the question : " Who is it?" 
 
 " Wha is't ?" repeated Mrs. Inchbare. " It's joost the bon- 
 ny young leddy — Miss Blanche hersel'." 
 
 An irrepressible cry of horror burst from Anne. The land- 
 lady set it down to the lightning, wliich flashed into the room 
 again at the same moment. 
 
 " Eh, mistress ! ye'll find Miss Blanche- a bit baulder than to 
 skirl at a flash o' lightning, that gait ! Here she is, the bonny 
 birdie !" exclaimed Mrs. Inchbare, deferentially backing out 
 into the passage again. 
 
 Blanche's voice reached them, calling for Anne. 
 
 Anne caught Arnold by the hand and wrung it hard. *' Go !" 
 she whispered. The next instant she was at the mantel-piece, 
 and had blown out both the candles. 
 
 Another flash of lightning came through the darkness, and 
 showed Blanche's figure standing at the door. 
 
 CHAPTER THE THIRTEENTH. 
 
 BLANCHE. 
 
 Mrs. Inchbare was the first person who acted in the emer- 
 gency. She called for lights ; and sternly rebuked the house- 
 maid, who brought them, for not having closed the house door. 
 " Ye feckless ne'er-do-weel !" cried the landlady ; " the wind's 
 blawn the candles oot." 
 
 The woman declared (with perfect truth) that the door had 
 been closed. An awkward dispute might have ensued if Blanche 
 had not diverted Mrs. Inchbare's attention to herself. The ap- 
 pearance of the lights disclosed her, wet through, with her 
 arms round Anne's neck. Mrs. Inchbare digressed at once to 
 the pressing question of changing the young lady's clothes, 
 and gave Anne the opportunity of looking round her unob- 
 served. Arnold had made his escape before the candles had 
 been brought in. 
 
 In the mean time Blanche's attention was absorbed in her 
 own dripping skirts. 
 
 " Good gracious ! I'm absolutely distilling rain from every 
 part of me. And I'm making you, Anne, as wet as I am ! 
 Lend me some dry things. You can't ? Mrs. Inchbare, what 
 does your experience suggest ? Which had I better do ? Go 
 to bed while my clothes are being dried ? or borrow from your 
 wardrobe — though you are a head and shoulders taller than I 
 am?" 
 
MAN AND WIFE. 135 
 
 Mrs. Inchbare instantly bustled out to fetch the choicest 
 garments that her wardrobe could produce. The moment the 
 door had closed on her Blanche looked round the room in her 
 turn. The rights of affection having been already asserted, 
 the claims of curiosity naturally pressed for satisfaction next. 
 
 " Somebody passed me in the dark," she whispered. " Was 
 it your husband ? I'm dying to be introduced to him. And, 
 oh, my dear ! what is your married name ?" 
 
 Anne answered, coldly, " Wait a little. I can't speak about 
 it yet." 
 
 " Ai-e you ill ?" asked Blanche. 
 
 " I am a little nervous." 
 
 " Has any thing unpleasant happened between you and my 
 uncle ? You have seen him, haven't you ?" 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Did he give you my message ?" 
 
 " He gave me your message. — Blanche ! you promised him 
 to stay at Windygates. Why, in the name of Heaven, did you 
 come here to-night ?" 
 
 " If you were half as fond of me as I am of you," returned 
 Blanche, " you wouldn't ask that. I tried hard to keep my 
 promise, but I couldn't do it. It was all very well, while my 
 uncle was laying down the law — with Lady Lundie in a rage, 
 and the dogs barking, and the doors banging, and all that. 
 The excitement kept me up. But when my uncle had gone, 
 and the dreadful gray, quiet, rainy evening came, and it had 
 all calmed down again, there was no bearing it. The house — 
 without you — was like a tomb. If I had had Arnold with me 
 I might have done very well. But I was all by myself Think 
 of that ! Not a soul to speak to ! There wasn't a horrible 
 thing that could possibly happen to you that I didn't fancy 
 was going to happen. I went into your empty room and look- 
 ed at your things. That settled it, my darling ! I rushed 
 down stairs — carried away, positively carried away, by an im- 
 pulse beyond human resistance. How could I help it ? I ask 
 any reasonable person how could I help it ? I ran to the stables 
 and found Jacob. Impulse — all impulse, I said, ' Get the pony- 
 chaise — I must have a drive ; I don't care if it rains — you come 
 with me.' All in a breath, and all impulse ! Jacob behaved 
 like an angel. He said, 'All right, miss.' I am perfectly cer- 
 tain Jacob would die for me if I asked him. He is drinking hot 
 grog at this moment, to prevent him from catching cold, by 
 my express orders. He had the pony-chaise out in two min- 
 utes ; and off we went. Lady Lundie, my dear, prostrate in her 
 own room — too much sal volatile. I hate her. The rain got 
 worse. I didn't mind it. Jacob didn't mind it. The pony 
 didn't mind it. They had both caught my impulse — especial- 
 
136 MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 ly the pony. It didn't come on to thunder till some time after- 
 ward ; and then we were nearer Craig Fernie than Windygates 
 — to say nothing of your being at one place and not at the 
 other. The lightning was quite awful on the moor. If I had 
 had one of the horses, he would have been frightened. The 
 pony shook his darling little head, and dashed through it. He 
 is to have beer — a mash with beer in it — by my express or- 
 ders. When he has done we'll borrow a lantern, and go into 
 the stable, and kiss him. In the moan time, my dear, here I 
 am — wet through in a thunder-storm, which doesn't in the 
 least matter — and determined to satisfy my own mind about 
 you, which matters a great deal, and must and shall be done 
 before I rest to-night !" 
 
 She turned Anne, by main force, as she sjioke, toward the 
 light of the candles. 
 
 Her tone changed the moment she looked at Anne's face. 
 
 " I knew it !" she said. " You would never have kept the 
 most interesting event in your life a secret from me — you w^ould 
 never have written me such a cold formal letter as the letter 
 you left in your room — if there had not been something wrong. 
 I said so at the time. I know it now ! Why has your hus- 
 band forced you to leave Windygates at a moment's notice? 
 Why does he slip out of the room in the dark, as if he was 
 afraid of being seen ? Anne ! Anne ! what has come to you ? 
 Why do you receive me in this way?" 
 
 At that critical moment Mrs. Inchbare re-appeared, with the 
 choicest selection of wearing apparel which her wardrobe could 
 furnish. Anne hailed the welcome interruption. She took the 
 candles, and led the way into the bedroom immediately. 
 
 " Change your wet clothes first," she said. " We can talk 
 after that." 
 
 The bedroom door had hardly been closed a minute before 
 there was a tap at it. Signing to Mrs. Inchbare not to inter- 
 rupt tlie services she was rendering to Blanche, Anne passed 
 quickly into the sitting-room, and closed the door behind her. 
 To her infinite relief, she only found herself face to face with 
 the discreet Mr. Bishopriggs. 
 
 " What do you want ?" she asked. 
 
 The eye of Mr. Bishopriggs announced, by a wink, that his 
 mission was of a confidential nature. The hand of Mr. Bishop- 
 riggs wavered ; the breath of Mr. Bishopriggs exhaled a spir- 
 ituous fume. He slowly produced a slip of paper, with some 
 lines of Avriting on it. 
 
 "From ye ken who," he explained, jocosely. "A bit love- 
 2etter, I trow, from him that's dear to ye. Eh ! he's an awfu' 
 reprobate is him that's dear to ye. Miss, in the bed-chamber 
 there, will nae doot be the one he's jilted for you? I see it all 
 
MAN AND WIFE. 139 
 
 — ye can't blind Me — I ha' been a frail person ray ain self in 
 ray time. Hech ! he's safe and sound, is the reprobate. I ha' 
 lookit after a' his little creature-coraforts — I'm joost a fether 
 to him, as well as a fether to you. Trust Bishopriggs — when 
 puir human nature wants a bit pat on the back, trust Bishop- 
 riggs." 
 
 While the sage was speaking these comfortable words, Anne 
 was reading the lines traced on the paper. They were signed 
 by Arnold ; and they ran thus : 
 
 " I am in the smoking-room of the inn. It rests with you 
 to say whether I must stop there. I don't believe Blanche 
 would be jealous. If I knew how to explain ray being at the 
 inn without betraying the confidence which you and GeoftVey 
 have placed in me, I wouldn't be away from her another mo- 
 ment. It does grate on me so ! At the same time, I don't 
 want to make your position harder than it is. Think of your- 
 self first. I leave it in your hands. You have only to say. 
 Wait, by the beai-er — and I shall understand that I am to stay 
 where I am till I hear from you again." 
 
 Anne looked up from the raessage. 
 
 " Ask him to wait," she said ; " and I will send word to him 
 again." 
 
 " Wi' mony loves and kisses," suggested Mr. Bishopriggs, 
 as a necessary supplement to the message. " Eh ! it comes as 
 easy as A B C to a man o' my experience. Ye can ha' nae 
 better gae-between than yer puir servant to command Sawm- 
 uel Bishopriggs. I understand ye baith pairfeckly." He laid 
 his forefinger along his flaraing nose, and withdrew. 
 
 Without allowing herself to hesitate for an instant, Anne 
 opened the bedroom door — with the resolution of relieving 
 Arnold from the new sacrifice imposed on him by owning the 
 truth. 
 
 " Is that you ?" asked Blanche. 
 
 At the sound of her voice, Anne started back guiltily. " I'll 
 be with you in a moment," she answered, and closed the door 
 again between them. 
 
 No ! it was not to be done. Something in Blanche's trivial 
 question — or something, perhaps, in the sight of Blanche's face 
 — roused the warning instinct in Anne, which silenced her on 
 the very brink of the disclosure. At the last raoraent, the 
 iron chain of circumstances made itself felt, binding her with- 
 out mercy to the hateful, the degrading deceit. Could she 
 own the truth, about GeoiFrey and herself, to Blanche ? and, 
 without owning it, could she explain and justify Arnold's con- 
 duct in joining her privately at Craig Fernie ? A shameful 
 confession made to an innocent girl ; a risk of fatally shaking 
 Arnold's place in Blanche's estimation ; a scandal at the inn, 
 
140 MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 in the disgrace of which the others would be involved with 
 herself — this was the price at which she must speak, if she fol- 
 lowed her first impulse, and said, in so many words, "Arnold is 
 here." 
 
 It was not to be thought of. Cost what it might in present 
 wretchedness — end how it might, if the deception was discov- 
 ered in the future — Blanche must be kept in ignorance of the 
 truth ; Arnold must be kept in hiding until she had gone. 
 
 Anne opened the door for the second time, and went in. 
 
 The business of the toilet was standing still. Blanche was 
 in confidential communication with Mrs. Inchbare. At the 
 moment when Anne entered the room she was eagerly ques- 
 tioning the landlady about her friend's "invisible husband" — 
 she was just saying, "Do tell me ! what is he like?" 
 
 The capacity for accurate observation is a capacity so un- 
 common, and is so seldom associated, even where it does exist, 
 with the equally rare gift of accurately describing the thing or 
 the person observed, that Anne's dread of the consequences if 
 Mrs. Inchbai'e was allowed time to comply with Blanche's re- 
 quest, was, in all probability, a dread misplaced. Right or 
 wrong, however, the alarm that she felt hurried her into tak- 
 ing measures for dismissing the landlady on the spot. " We 
 liiustn't keep you from your occupations any longer," she said 
 to Mrs. Inchbare. " I will give Miss Lundie all the help she 
 needs." 
 
 Barred from advancing in one direction, Blanche's curiosity 
 turned back, and tried in another. She boldly addressed her- 
 self to Anne. 
 
 " I must know something about him," she said, " Is he shy 
 before strangers ? I heard you whispering with him on the 
 other side of the door. Are you jealous, Anne ? Are you 
 afraid I shall fascinate him in this dress ?" 
 
 Blanche, in Mrs. Inchbare's best gown — an ancient and high- 
 waisted silk garment, of the hue called " bottle-green," pinned 
 up in front, and trailing far behind her — with a short, orange- 
 colored shawl over her shoulders, and a towel tied turban- 
 fashion round her head, to dry her wet hair, looked at once 
 the strangest and the prettiest human anomaly that ever was 
 seen. " For Heaven's sake," she said, gayly, " don't tell your 
 husband I am in Mrs. Inchbare's clothes ! I want to appear 
 suddenly, without a word to warn him of what a figure I am ! 
 I should have nothing left to wish for in this world," she add- 
 ed, " if Arnold could only see me now !" 
 
 Looking in the glass, she noticed Anne's face reflected be- 
 hind her, and started at the sight of it. 
 
 " What is the matter ?" she asked. " Your face frightens 
 me." 
 
MAN AND WIFE. 141 
 
 It was useless to prolong the pain of the inevitable misun- 
 derstanding between them. The one course to take was to si- 
 lence all further inquiries then and there. Strongly as she felt 
 this, Anne's inbred loyalty to Blanche still shrank from de- 
 ceiving her to her face. " I might write it," she thought. " I 
 can't say it, with Arnold Brinkworth in the same house with 
 her !" Write it ? As she reconsidered the word, a sudden 
 idea struck her. She opened the bedroom door, and led the 
 way back into the sitting-room. 
 
 " Gone again !" exclaimed Blanche, looking uneasily round 
 the empty room. "Anne ! there's something so strange in all 
 this, that I neither can, nor will, put up with your silence any 
 longer. It's not just, it's not kind, to shut me out of your con- 
 fidence, after we have lived together like sisters all our lives !" 
 
 Anne sighed bitterly, and kissed her on the forehead. " You 
 shall know all I can tell you — all I dare tell you," she said, 
 gently. " Don't reproach me. It hurts me more than you 
 think." 
 
 She turned away to the side-table, and came back with a 
 letter in her hand. " Read that," she said, and handed it to 
 Blanche. 
 
 Blanche saw her own name on the address, in the handwrit- 
 ing of Anne. 
 
 " What does this mean ?" she asked. 
 
 " I wrote to you, after Sir Patrick had left me," Anne re- 
 plied. " I meant you to have received my letter to-morrow, 
 in time to prevent any little imprudence into which your anx- 
 iety might hurry you. All that I can say to you is said there. 
 Spare me the distress of speaking. Read it, Blanche." 
 
 Blanche still held the letter, unopened. 
 
 "A letter from you to me! when we are both together, and 
 both alone in the same room ! It's worse than formal, Anne ! 
 It's as if there was a quarrel between us. Why should it dis- 
 tress you to speak to me ?" 
 
 Anne's eyes dropped to the ground. She pointed to the let- 
 ter for the second time. 
 
 Blanche broke the seal. 
 
 She passed rapidly over the opening sentences, and devoted 
 all her attention to the second paragraph. 
 
 "And now, my love, you will expect me to atone for the 
 surprise and distress that I have caused you, by explaining 
 what my situation really is, and by telling you all my plans 
 for the future. Dearest Blanche ! don't think me untrue to 
 the affection we bear toward each other — don't think there is 
 any change in my heart toward you — believe only that I am 
 a very unhappy woman, and that I am in a position which 
 forces me, against my own will, to be silent about myself. Si- 
 
142 MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 lent even to you, the sister of ray love — the one person in the 
 world who is dearest to me ! A time may come when I shall 
 be able to open my heart to you. Oh, what good it wuU do 
 me ! what a relief it will be ! For the present, I must be si- 
 lent. For the present, we must be parted. God knows what 
 it costs me to write this. I think of the dear old days that are 
 gone ; I remember how I promised your naother to be a sister 
 to you, when her kind eyes looked at me for the last time — 
 your mother, who was an angel from heaven to mine! All 
 this comes back on me now, and breaks my heart. But it 
 must be! my own Blanche, for the present, it must be ! I will 
 write often — I will think of you, my darling, night and day, 
 till a happier future unites us again. God bless you^ my dear 
 one ! And God help me .^" 
 
 Blanche silently crossed the room to the sofa on which Anne 
 was sitting, and stood there for a moment, looking at her. 
 She sat down, and laid her head on Anne's shoulder. Sorrow- 
 fully and quietly, she put the letter into her bosom — and took 
 Anne's hand, and kissed it. 
 
 "All my questions are answered, dear. I will wait your 
 time." 
 
 It was simply, sweetly, generously said. 
 
 Anne burst into tears. 
 
 The rain still fell, but the storm was dying away. 
 
 Blanche left the sofa, and, going to the window, opened the 
 shutters to look out at the night. She suddenly came back to 
 Anne. 
 
 " I see lights," she said — " the lights of a carriage coming up 
 out of the darkness of the moor. They are sending after me 
 from Windygates. Go into the bedroom. It's just possible 
 Lady Lundie may have come for me herself" 
 
 The ordinary relations of the two toward each other were 
 completely reversed. Anne was like a child in Blanche's 
 hands. She rose, and withdrew. 
 
 Left alone, Blanche took the letter out of her bosom, and 
 read it again, in the interval of waiting for the carriage. 
 
 The second reading confirmed her in a resolution which she 
 had privately taken, while she had been sitting by Anne on 
 the sofa — a resolution destined to lead to far more serious re- 
 sults in the future than any previsions of hers could anticipate. 
 Sir Patrick was the one person she knew on whose discretion 
 and experience she could implicitly rely. She determined, in 
 Anne's own interests, to take her uncle into her confidence, and 
 to tell him all that had happened at the inn. " I'll first make 
 him forgive me," thought Blanche. "And then I'll see if he 
 thinks as I do, when I tell him about Anne." 
 
MAN AND WIFE. 143 
 
 The carriage drew up at the door ; and Mrs. Inclibare show- 
 ed in — not Lady Liindie, but Lady Lundie's maid. 
 
 The woman's account of what had happened at Windygates 
 was simple enough. Lady Luudie had, as a matter of course, 
 placed the right interpretation on Blanche's abrupt departure 
 in the pony-chaise, and had ordered the carriage, with the firm 
 determination of following her step-daughter herself. But the 
 agitations and anxieties of the day had proved too much for 
 her. She had been seized by one of the attacks of giddiness 
 to which she was always subject after excessive mental irrita- 
 tion ; and, eager as she was (on more accounts than one) to go 
 to the inn herself, she had been compelled, in Sir Patrick's ab- 
 sence, to commit the pursuit of Blanche to her own maid, in 
 whose age and good sense slie could place every confidence. 
 The woman — seeing the state of the weather — had thoughtful- 
 ly brought a box with her containing a change of wearing ap- 
 parel. In oiFering it to Blanche, she added, with all due respect, 
 that she had full powers from her mistress to go on, if necessa- 
 ry, to the shooting-cottage, and to place the matter in Sir Pat- 
 rick's hands. This said, she left it to her young lady to decide 
 for herself whether she would return to Windygates, under 
 present circumstances, or not. 
 
 Blanche took the box from the woman's hands, and joined 
 Anne in the bedroom, to dress herself for the drive home. 
 
 " I am going back to a good scolding," she said. " But a 
 scolding is no novelty in my experience of Lady Lundie. I'm 
 not uneasy about that, Anne — I'm uneasy about you. Can I 
 be sure of one thing — do you stay here for the present?" 
 
 The worst that could happen at the inn had happened. 
 Nothing was to be gained now — and every thing might be 
 lost — by leaving the place at which Geofirey had promised to 
 write to her. Anne answered that she proposed remaining at 
 the inn for the present. 
 
 " You promise to write to me ?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " If there is any thing I can do for you — " 
 
 "There is nothing, my love." 
 
 " There may be. If you want to see me, we can meet at 
 Windygates without being discovered. Come at luncheon- 
 time — go round by the shrubbery — and step in at the library 
 window. You know as well as I do there is nobody in the li- 
 brary at that hour. Don't say it's impossible — you don't know 
 what may happen. I shall wait ten minutes every day on the 
 chance of seeing you. That's settled — and it's settled that 
 you write. Before I go, darling, is there any thing else we 
 can think of for the future ?" 
 
 At those words Anne suddenly shook off the depression that 
 
144 MAN AND WIPE. 
 
 weighed on her. She caught Blanche in her arms ; she held 
 Blanche to her bosom with a fierce energy. " Will you always 
 be to me, in the future, what you are now ?" she asked, abrupt- 
 ly. " Or is the time coming when you will hate me ?" She 
 prevented any reply by a kiss — and pushed Blanche toward 
 the door. " We have had a happy time together in the years 
 that are gone," she said, with a farewell wave of her hand. 
 "Thank God for that ! And never mind the rest." 
 
 She threw open the bedroom door, and called to the maid, 
 in the sitting-room. "Miss Lundie is waiting for you." 
 Blanche pressed her hand, and left her. 
 
 Anne waited a while in the bedroom, listening to the sound 
 made by the departure of the carriage from the inn door. Lit- 
 tle by little, the tramp of the horses and the noise of the roll- 
 ing wheels lessened and lessened. When the last faint sounds 
 were lost in silence she stood for a moment thinking — then, 
 rousing herself on a sudden, hurried into the sitting-room, and 
 rang the bell. 
 
 "I shall go mad," she said to herself, "if I stay here alone." 
 
 Even Mr. Bishopriggs felt the necessity of being silent when 
 he stood face to face with her on answering tlie bell. 
 
 " I want to speak to him. Send him hei'e instantly." 
 
 Mr, Bishopriggs understood her, and withdrew. 
 
 Arnold came in. 
 
 "Has she gone?" were the first words he said. 
 
 "She has gone. She won't suspect jou when yoii see her 
 again. I have told her nothing. Don't ask me for my rea- 
 sons !" 
 
 " I have no wish to ask you." 
 
 " Be angry with me if you like !" 
 
 " I have no wish to be angry with you." 
 
 He spoke and looked like an altered man. Quietly seating 
 himself at the table, he rested his head on his hand — and so re- 
 mained silent. Anne was taken completely by surprise. She 
 drew near, and looked at him curiously. Let a woman's mood 
 be what it may, it is certain to feel the influence of any change 
 for which she is unprepared in the manner of a man — when 
 that man interests her. The cause of this is not to be found 
 in the variableness of her humor. It is far more probably to 
 be traced to the noble abnegation of Self, which is one of the 
 grandest — and to the credit of woman be it said — one of the 
 commonest virtues of the sex. Little by little the sweet fem- 
 inine charm of Anne's face came softly and sadly back. The 
 inbred nobility of the woman's nature answered the call which 
 the man had unconsciously made on it. She touched Arnold 
 on the shoulder. 
 
 " This has been bard oo yo^f," she said. " And I am to 
 
MAN AND WIFK. 145 
 
 blame for it. Try and forgive me, Mr. Brinkworth. I am 
 sincerely sorry. I wish with all my heart I could comfort 
 you !" 
 
 " Thank you, Miss Silvester. It was not a very pleasant 
 feeling, to be hiding from Blanche as if I was afraid of her — 
 and it's set me thinking, I suppose, for the first time in my 
 life. Never mind. It's all over now. Can I do any thing 
 for you ?" 
 
 " What do you propose doing to-night ?" 
 
 " What I have proposed doing all along — my duty by Geof- 
 frey. I have promised him to see you through your difficul- 
 ties here, and to provide for your safety till he comes back. I 
 can only make sure of doing that by keeping up appearances, 
 and staying in the sitting-room to-night. When we next meet 
 it will be under pleasanter circumstances, I hope. I shall al- 
 w^ays be glad to think that I was of some service to you. In 
 the mean time I shall be most likely away to-morrow morning 
 before you are up." 
 
 Anne held out her hand to take leave. Nothing could undo 
 what had been done. The time for warning and remonstrance 
 had passed away. 
 
 " You have not befriended an ungrateful woman," she said. 
 " The day may yet come, Mr. Brinkworth, when I shall prove 
 it." 
 
 " I hope not. Miss Silvester. Good-bye, and good luck !" 
 
 She withdrew into her own room. Arnold locked the sit- 
 ting-room door, and stretched himself on the sofa for the night. 
 
 The morning was bright, the air was delicious after the 
 storm. 
 
 Arnold had gone, as he had promised, before Anne was out 
 of her room. It was understood at the inn that important 
 business had unexpectedly called him south. Mr. Bishopriggs 
 had been presented with a handsome gratuity ; and Mrs. Inch- 
 bare had been informed that the rooms were taken for a week 
 certain. 
 
 In every quarter but one the march of events had now, to 
 all appearance, fallen back into a quiet course. Arnold was 
 on his way to his estate ; Blanche was safe at Windygates ; 
 Anne's residence at the inn was assured for a week to come. 
 The one present doubt was the doubt which hung over Geof- 
 frey's movements. The one event still involved in darkness 
 turned on the question of life or death waiting for solution in 
 London — otherwise, the question of Lord Holchestei''s health. 
 Taken by itself, the alternative, either way, was plain enough. 
 If my lord lived — Geofl"rey would be free to come back, and 
 inarry her privately in Scotland, If my lord died — Geoffrey 
 JO 
 
146 MAN AND WIFK. 
 
 would be free to send for her, and marry her publicly in Lon- 
 don. But could Geoffrey be relied on ? 
 
 Anne went out on to the terrace-ground in front of the inn. 
 The cool morning breeze blew steadily. Towering white 
 clouds sailed in grand procession over the heavens, now ob- 
 scuring, and now revealing the sun. Yellow light and purple 
 shadow chased each other over the broad brown surface of the 
 moor — even as hope and fear chased each other over Anne's 
 mind, brooding on what might come to her with the coming 
 time. 
 
 She turned away, weary of questioning the impenetrable 
 future, and went back to the inn. 
 
 Crossing the hall she looked at the clock. It was past the 
 hour when the train from Perthshire was due in London. 
 Geoffrey and his brother were, at that moment, on their way 
 to Lord Holchester's house. 
 
 THIRD SCENE.— LONDON. 
 CHAPTER THE FOURTEENTH. 
 
 GEOFFREY AS A LETTER-WEITER. 
 
 Lord Holchester's servants — with the butler at their head 
 — were on the look-out for Mr. Julius Delamayn's arrival from 
 Scotland. The appearance of the two brothers together took 
 the whole domestic establishment by surprise. All inquiries 
 were addressed to the butler by Julius ; Geoffrey standing by, 
 and taking no other than a listener's part in the proceedings. 
 
 " Is my father alive ?" 
 
 " His lordship, I am rejoiced to say, has astonished the doc- 
 tors, sir. He rallied last night in the most wonderful way. 
 If things go on for the next eight-and-forty hours as they are 
 going now, my lord's recovery is considered certain." 
 
 "What was the illness?" 
 
 "A paralytic stroke, sir. When her ladyship telegraphed 
 to you in Scotland the doctors had given his lordship up." 
 
 " Is my mother at home ?" 
 
 "Her ladyship is at home to yo?^, sir." 
 
 The butler laid a special emphasis on the personal pronoun. 
 Julius turned to his brother. The change for the better in 
 the state of Lord Holchester's health made Geoffrey's position, 
 at that moment, an embarrassing one. He had been positively 
 forbidden to enter the house. His one excuse for setting that 
 prohibitory sentence at defiance rested on the assumption that 
 his father was actually dying. As matters now stood. Lord 
 
MAN AND WIFE. 147 
 
 Holchester's order remained in full force. The imder-servants 
 in the hall (charged to obey that order as they valued their 
 places) looked from "Mr. GeofiVey" to the butler. The but- 
 ler looked from "Mr. Geoifrey " to "Mr. Julius." Julius look- 
 ed at his brother. There was an awkward pause. The posi- 
 tion of the second son was the position of a wild beast in the 
 house — a creature to be got rid of, without risk to yourself, if 
 you only knew how. 
 
 Geoffrey spoke, and solved the problem. 
 
 " Open the door, one of you fellows," he said to the footmen. 
 " I'm off." 
 
 " Wait a minute," interposed his brother. " It will be a sad 
 disappointment to my mother to know^ that you have been 
 here, and gone away again without seeing her. These are no 
 ordinary circumstances, Geoffrey. Come up stairs with me — 
 I'll take it on myself" 
 
 "I'm blessed if I take it on my&eUV returned Geoffrey. 
 " Open the door !" 
 
 " Wait here, at any rate," pleaded Julius, " till I can send 
 you down a message." 
 
 " Send your message to Nagle's Hotel. I'm at home at Na- 
 gle's — I'm not at home here." 
 
 At that point the discussion was interrupted by the appear- 
 ance of a little terrier in the hall. Seeing strangers, the dog 
 began to bark. Perfect tranquillity in the house had been ab- 
 solutely insisted on by the doctors ; and the servants, all try- 
 ing together to catch the animal and quiet him, simply aggra- 
 vated the noise he was making. Geoffrey solved this problem 
 also in his own decisive way. He swung round as the dog 
 was passing him, and kicked it with his heavy boot. The lit- 
 tle creature fell on the spot, whining piteously. " My lady's 
 pet dog !" exclaimed the butler. " You've broken its ribs, sir." 
 "I've broken it of barking, you mean," retorted Geoffrey. 
 " Ribs be hanged !" He turned to his brother, " That settles 
 it," he said, jocosely. " I'd better defer the pleasure of calling 
 on dear mamma till the next opportunity. Ta-ta, Julius. You 
 know where to find me. Come, and dine. We'll give you a 
 steak at Nagle's that will make a man of you." 
 
 He went out. The tall footman eyed his lordship's second 
 eon with unaffected respect. They had seen him, in public, at 
 the annual festival of the Christian-Pugilistic-Association, with 
 " the gloves " on. He could have beaten the biggest man in 
 the hall within an inch of his life in three minutes. The porter 
 bowed as he threw open the door. The whole interest and at- 
 tention of the domestic establishment then present was concen- 
 trated on Geoffrey. Julius went up stairs to his mother with- 
 out attracting the slightest notice. 
 
i48 MAN AND WIPE. 
 
 The month was August. The streets were empty. The 
 vilest breeze that blows — a hot east wind in London — was the 
 breeze abroad on that day. Even GeoflVey appeared to feel 
 the influence of the weather as the cab carried him from his 
 father's door to the hotel. He took off his hat, and unbutton- 
 ed his waistcoat, and lit his everlasting pipe, and growled and 
 grumbled between his teeth in the intervals of smoking. Was 
 it only the hot wind that wrung from him these demonstra- 
 tions of discomfort? Or was there some secret anxiety in his 
 mind which assisted the depressing influences of the day? 
 There was a secret anxiety in his mind. And the name of it 
 was — Anne. 
 
 As things actually w^ere at that moment, what course was 
 he to take with the unhappy woman who was waiting to hear 
 from him at the Scotch inn ? 
 
 To write? or not to write? That was the question with 
 ,§e«ffrey. 
 
 r — The preliminary difiiculty, relating to addressing a letter to 
 ' Anne at the inn, had been already provided for. She had de- 
 cided — if it proved necessary to give her name before Geoff"rey 
 joined her — to call herself Mrs., instead of Miss, Silvester. A 
 letter addressed to " Mrs. Silvester " might be trusted to find 
 its way to her, without causing any embarrassment. The 
 doubt was not here. The doubt lay, as usual, between two al- 
 ternatives. Which course would it be wisest to take ? — to in- 
 form Anne, by that day's post, that an interval of forty-eight 
 hours must elapse before his father's i*ecovery could be consid- 
 ered certain? Or to wait till the interval was over, and be 
 guided by the result ? Considering the alternatives in the 
 cab, he decided that the wise course was to temporize with 
 Anne, by reporting matters as they then stood. 
 
 Arrived at the hotel, he sat down to write the letter — doubt- 
 ed — and tore it up — doubted again — and began again — doubt- 
 ed once more — and tore up the second letter — rose to his feet 
 — and owned to himself (in unprintable language) that he 
 couldn't for the life of him decide w^hich was safest — to write 
 or to wait. 
 
 In this difiiculty, his healthy physical instincts sent him to 
 healthy physical remedies for relief "My mind's in a mud- 
 dle," said Geoff'rey. " I'll try a bath." 
 
 It was an elaborate bath, proceeding through many rooms, 
 and combining many postures and applications. He steamed. 
 He plunged. He simmered. He stood under a pipe, and re- 
 ceived a cataract of cold water on his head. He was laid on 
 his back ; he was laid on his stomach ; he was respectfully 
 pounded and kneaded, from head to foot, by the knuckles of ac- 
 PQmplishe4 practitioaers. He came out of it all, sleek, clear, 
 
MAN AND WIFE. 149 
 
 rosy, beautiful. He returned to the hotel, and took up the 
 writing materials — and behold the intolerable indecision seized 
 him again, declining to be washed out ! This time he laid it 
 all to Anne. " That infernal woman will be the ruin of me," 
 said Geoffrey, taking up his hat. " I must try the dumb-bells." 
 
 The pursuit of the new remedy for stimulating a sluggish 
 brain took him to a public-house, kept by the professional pe- 
 destrian who had the honor of training him when he contend- 
 ed at Athletic Sports. 
 
 " A private room and the dumb-bells !" cried Geoffrey. 
 "The heaviest you have got." 
 
 He sti'ipped himself of his upper clothing, and set to work, 
 with the heavy weights in each hand, waving them up and 
 down, and backward and forward, in every attainable variety 
 of movement, till his magnificent muscles seemed on the point 
 of starting through his sleek skin. Little by little his animal 
 spirits roused themselves. The strong exertion intoxicated 
 the strong man. In sheer excitement he swore cheerfully — in- 
 voking thunder and lightning, explosion and blood, in return 
 for the compliments profusely paid to him by the pedestrian 
 and the pedestrian's son. " Pen, ink, and paper !" he roared, 
 when he could use the dumb-bells no longer. "My mind's 
 made up ; I'll write, and have done with it !" He sat down to 
 his writing on the spot ; he actually finished the letter ; anoth- 
 er minute would have dispatched it to the post — and, in that 
 minute, the maddening indecision took possession of him once 
 more. He opened the letter again, read it over again, and tore 
 it up again. "I'm out of my mind !" cried Geoffrey, fixing his 
 big bewildered blue eyes fiercely on the professor who trained 
 him. " Thunder and lightning ! Explosion and blood ! Send 
 for Crouch." 
 
 Crouch (known and respected wherever English manhood is 
 known and respected) was a retired prize-fighter. He appear- 
 ed with the third and last remedy for clearing the mind known 
 to the Honorable Geoffrey Delamayn — namely, two pair of 
 boxing-gloves in a carpet-bag. 
 
 The gentleman and the prize-fighter put on the gloves, and 
 faced each other in the classically-correct posture of pugilistic 
 defense. " None of your play, mind !" growled Geoffrey. 
 " Fight, you beggar, as if you were in the Ring again, with 
 orders to win." No man knew better than the great and ter- 
 rible Crouch what real fighting meant, and what heavy blows 
 might be given even with such apparently harmless weapons 
 as stuffed and padded gloves. He pretended, and only pre- 
 tended, to comply with his patron's request. Geoffrey re- 
 warded him for his polite forbearance by knocking him down. 
 The great and terrible rose with unruffled composure, "Well 
 
150 MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 hit, sir!" he said. "Try it with the other hand now." Geof- 
 frey's temper was not under similar control. Invoking ever- 
 lasting destruction on the frequently-blackened eyes of Crouch, 
 he threatened instant withdrawal of his patronage and support 
 unless the polite pugilist hit, then and there, as hard as he 
 could. The hero of a hundred fights quailed at the dreadful 
 prospect. "I've got a family to support," remarked Crouch. 
 " If you will have it, sir — there it is !" The fall of Geoffrey 
 followed, and shook the house. He was on his legs again in an 
 instant — not satisfied even yet. " None of your body-hitting !" 
 he roared. " Stick to my head. Thunder and lightning ! ex- 
 plosion and blood ! Knock it out of me ! Stick to the head !" 
 Obedient Crouch stuck to the head. The two gave and took 
 blows which would have stunned — possibly have killed — any 
 civilized member of the community. Now on one side of his 
 patron's iron skull, and now on the other, the hammering of the 
 prize-fighter's gloves fell, thump upon thump, horrible to hear — 
 until even Geoffrey himself had had enough of it. " Thank you, 
 Crouch," he said, speaking civilly to the man for the first time. 
 - " That will do. I feel nice and clear again." He shook his head 
 two or three times ; he was rubbed down like a horse by the 
 professional runner ; he drank a mighty draught of malt liquor ; 
 he recovered his good-humor as if by magic. " Want a pen 
 and ink, sir ?" inquired his pedestrian host. " Not I !" answered 
 Geoffrey. "The muddle's out of me now. Pen and ink be 
 hanged ! I shall look up some of our fellows, and go to the 
 play," He left the public-house in the happiest condition of 
 mental calm. Inspired by the stimulant application of Crouch's 
 gloves, his torpid cunning had been shaken up into excellent 
 working order at last. Write to Anne? Who but a fool 
 would write to such a woman as that until he was forced to 
 it ? Wait and see what the chances of the next eight-and- 
 forty hours might bring forth, and then write to her, or desert 
 
 Lher, as the event might decide. It lay in a nutshell, if you 
 could only see it. Thanks to Crouch, he did see it — and so 
 away, in a pleasant temper for a dinner with " our fellows " 
 and an evening at the play ! 
 y . 
 
 CHAPTER THE FIFTEENTH. 
 
 GEOPFKEY IN THE MARRIAGE MARKET, 
 
 The interval of eight-and-forty hours passed — without the 
 occurrence of any personal communication between the two 
 brothers in that time. 
 
 Julius, remaining at his father's house, sent brief written 
 
MAN AND WIFE. 151 
 
 bulletins of Lord Holchester''s health to his brother at the 
 hotel. The first bulletin said, " Going on well. Doctors sat- 
 isfied." The second was firmer in tone. " Going on excel- 
 lently. Doctors very sanguine." The third was the most ex- 
 plicit of all. " I am to see ray father in an hour from this. 
 The doctors answer for his recovery. Depend on my putting 
 in a good word for you, if I can ; and wait to hear from me 
 further at the hotel." 
 
 Geoflfrey's face darkened as he read the third bulletin. He 
 called once more for the hated writing materials. There could 
 be no doubt now as to the necessity of communicating with 
 Anne. Lord Holchester's recovery had put him back again in 
 the same critical position which he had occupied at Windy- 
 gates. To keep Anne from committing some final act of de- 
 spair, which would connect him with a public scandal, and ruin 
 him so far as his expectations from his father were concerned, 
 was, once more, the only safe policy that Geoflfrey could piirsue. 
 His letter began and ended in twenty words : 
 
 "Dear Anne, — Have only just heard that my father is 
 turning the corner. Stay where you are. Will write again." 
 
 Having dispatched this Spartan composition by the post, 
 GeoflTrey lit his pipe, and waited the event of the interview be- 
 'tween Lord Holchester and his eldest son. 
 
 Julius found his father alarmingly altered in personal ap- 
 pearance, but in full possession of his faculties nevertheless. 
 Unable to return the pressure of his son's hand — unable even 
 to turn in the bed without help — the hard eye of the old law- 
 yer was as keen, the hard mind of the old lawyer was as clear, 
 as ever. His grand ambition was to see Julius in Parliament. 
 Julius was ofiering himself for election in Perthshire, by his 
 father's express desire, at that moment. Lord Holchester en- 
 tered eagerly into politics before his eldest son had been two 
 minutes by his bedside, 
 
 " Much obliged, Julius, for your congratulations. Men of 
 my sort are not easily killed. (Look at Brougham and Lynd- 
 hurst !) You won't be called to the Upper House yet. You 
 will begin in the House of Commons — precisely as I wished. 
 What are your prospects with the constituency? Tell me ex- 
 actly how you stand, and where I can be of use to you." 
 
 " Surel)^ sir, you are hardly recovered enough to enter on 
 matters of business yet ?" 
 
 " I am quite recovered enough. I want some present inter- 
 est to occupy me. My thoughts are beginning to drift back to 
 past times, and to things which are better forgotten." A sud- 
 den contraction crossed his livid face. He looked hard at his 
 
162 MAN AND WIFB. 
 
 son, and entered abruptly on a new question. "Julius !" he 
 resumed, " have you ever heard of a young woman named 
 Anne Silvester?" 
 
 Julius answered in the negative. He and his wife had ex- 
 changed cards with Lady Lundie, and had excused themselves 
 from accepting her invitation to the lawn-party. With the 
 exception of Blanche, they were both quite ignorant of the per- 
 sons who composed the family circle at Windygates. 
 
 " Make a memorandum of the name," Lord Holchester went 
 on. "Anne Silvester. Her father and mother are dead. I 
 knew her father in former times. Her mother was ill-used. It 
 .Vas a bad business. I have been thinking of it again, for the 
 first time for many years. If the girl is alive and about the 
 world, she may remember our family name. Help her, Julius, 
 if she ever wants help, and applies to you." The painful con- 
 iraction passed across his face once more. Were his thoughts 
 taking him back to the memorable summer evening at the 
 Hampstead villa? Did he see the deserted woman swooning 
 at his feet again ? "About your election ?" he asked, impa- 
 tiently. " My mind is not used to be idle. Give it something 
 to do." 
 
 Julius stated his position as plainly and as briefly as he 
 could. The father found nothing to object to in the report — 
 except the son's absence from the field of action. He blamed 
 Lady Holchester for summoning Julius to London. He was 
 annoyed at his son's being there, at the bedside, when he ought 
 to have been addressing the electors. " It's inconvenient, 
 Julius," he said, petulantly. "Don't you see it yourself?" 
 
 Having previously arranged with his mother to take the 
 first opportunity that ofiered of risking a reference to Geoffrey, 
 Julius decided to " see it " in a light for which his father was 
 not prepared. The opportunity was before him. He took it 
 on the spot. 
 
 " It is no inconvenience to me, sir," he replied, " and it is 
 no inconvenience to my brother either. Geoffrey was anxious 
 about you too. Geoffrey has come to London with me." 
 
 Lord Holchester looked at his eldest son with a grimly-satir- 
 ical expression of surprise. 
 
 "Have I not already told you," he rejoined, " that my mind 
 is not affected by my illness ? Geoffrey anxious about me ! 
 Anxiety is one of the civilized emotions. Man in his savage 
 state is incapable of feeling it." 
 
 " My brother is not a savage, sir." 
 
 " His stomach is generally full, and his skin is covered with 
 linen and cloth, instead of red ochre and oil. So far, certainly, 
 your brother is civilized. In all other respects your brother is 
 a savage." 
 
MAN AND WIFE. 153 
 
 " I know what you mean, sir. But there is something to be 
 said for Geoffrey's way of life. He cultivates his courage and 
 his strength. Courage and strength are fine qualities, surely, 
 in their way ?" 
 
 " Excellent qualities, as far as they go. If you want to know 
 how far that is, challenge Geoffrey to write a sentence of 
 decent English, and see if his courage doesn't fail him there. 
 Give him his books to read for his degree, and, strong as he is, 
 he will be taken ill at the sight of them. You wish me to see 
 your brother. Nothing will induce me to see him until his 
 way of life (as you call it) is altered altogether, I have but 
 one hope of its ever being altered now. It is barely possible 
 that the influence of a sensible woman — possessed of such ad- 
 vantages of birth and fortune as may compel respect, even from 
 a savage — might produce its effect on Geoffrey. If he wishes 
 to find his way back into this house, let him find his way back 
 into good society first, and bring me a daughter-in-law to plead 
 his cause for him — whom his mother and I can respect and re- 
 ceive. When that happens, I shall begin to have some belief 
 in Geoffrey. Until it does happen, don't introduce your broth- 
 er into any future conversations which you may have with me. 
 To return to your election. I have some advice to give you be- 
 fore you go back. You will do well to go back to-night. Lift 
 me up on the pillow. I shall speak more easily with my head 
 high." 
 
 His son lifted him on the pillows, and once more entreated 
 him to spare himself. 
 
 It was useless. No remonstrances shook the iron resolution 
 of the man who had hewed his way through the rank and file 
 of political humanity to his own high place apart from the rest. 
 Helpless, ghastly, snatched out of the very jaws of Death, there 
 he lay, steadily distilling the clear common sense which had 
 won him all his worldly rewards into the mind of his son. 
 Not a hint was missed, not a caution was forgotten, that could 
 guide Julius safely through the miry political ways which he 
 had trodden so safely and so dexterously himself An hour 
 more had passed before the impenetrable old man closed his 
 weary eyes, and consented to take his nourishment and com- 
 pose himself to rest. His last words, rendered barely articu- 
 late by exhaustion, still sang the praises of party manoeuvres 
 and political strife. " It's a grand career ! I miss the House 
 of Commons, Julius, as I miss nothing else !" 
 
 Left free to pursue his own thoughts and to guide his own 
 movements, Julius went straight from Lord Holchester's bed- 
 side to Lady Holchester's boudoir. 
 
 " Has your father said any thing about Geoffrey ?" was his 
 
 mother's first question as soon as he entered the room, 
 
 1^* 
 
154 MAN ANr WIFE. 
 
 " My father gives Geoffrey a last chance, if Geoffrey will 
 only take it." 
 
 Lady Holchester's face clouded. " I know," she said, with 
 a look of disappointment. " His last chance is to read for his 
 degree. Hopeless, my dear. Quite hopeless ! If it had only 
 been something easier than that ; something that rested with 
 me—" 
 
 "It does rest with you," interposed Julius. "My dear 
 mother! — can you believe it? — Geoffrey's last chance is (in 
 one word) Marriage !" 
 
 " Oh, Julius ! it's too good to be true !" 
 
 Julius repeated his father's own words. Lady Holchester 
 looked twenty years younger as she listened. When he had 
 done she rang the bell. 
 
 "No matter who calls," she said to the servant, "I am not 
 at home." She turned to Julius, kissed him, and made a place 
 for him on the sofa by her side. " Geoffrey shall take that 
 chance," she said, gayly — " I will answer for it ! I have three 
 women in my mind, any one of whom would suit him. Sit 
 down, my dear, and let us consider carefully which of the three 
 will be most likely to attract Geoffrey, and to come up to your 
 father's standard of what his daughter-in-law ought to be. 
 When we have decided, don't trust to writing. Go yourself 
 and see Geoffrey at his hotel." 
 
 Mother and son entered on their consultation — and innocent- 
 ly sowed the seeds of a terrible harvest to come. 
 
 CHAPTER THE SIXTEENTH. 
 
 GEOFFREY AS A PUBLIC CHARACTER. 
 
 Time had advanced to after noon before the selection of 
 Geoffrey's future wife was accomplished, and before the in- 
 structions of Geoffrey's brother were complete enough to Jus- 
 tify the opening of the matrimonial negotiation at Nagle's 
 Hotel. 
 
 " Don't leave him till you have got his promise," were Lady 
 Holchester's last words when her son started on his mission. 
 
 "If Geoffrey doesn't jump at what I am going to offer him," 
 was the son's reply, " I shall agree with my father that the 
 case is hopeless ; and I shall end, like my father, in giving 
 Geoffrey up." 
 
 This was strong language for Julius to use. It was not 
 easy to rouse the disciplined and equable temperament of Lord 
 Holchester's eldest son. No two men were ever more__thor- 
 oughly unlike each other ChalPthcse two brothers. „It is mel; 
 
^tm;mamxy^! ti>f>ieii;x^mv.;i^-', JSi .Tr -•» ;.' iBty * jy:-7 * rTir 'ffirrAv r. jf /TytMjai 
 
 MAN AND WIFE. 155 
 
 anclioly to acknowledge it of the blood-relatioii of a " stroke 
 oav," li^wt it must be owned, in the interests of truth, that Ju- 
 lius cultivated his intelligence. This degenerate Briton could 
 digest books — and couldn't digest beer. Could learn lan- 
 guages — and couldn't learn to row. Practiced the foi-eign 
 vice of perfecting himself in the art of plajdng on a musical in- 
 strument — and couldn't learn the English virtue of knowing a 
 good horse when he saw him. Got through life (Heaven only 
 knows how !) without either a biceps or a betting-book. Had 
 openly acknowledged, in English society, that he didn't think 
 the barking of a pack of hounds the finest music in the world. 
 Could go to foreign parts, and see a mountain which nobody 
 had ever got to the top of yet — and didn't instantly feel his 
 honor as an Englishman involved in getting to the top of it 
 himself Such people may, and do, exist among tlie inlerior 
 races of the Continent. Let us thank Heaven, sii', that En- 
 gland never has been, and never will be, the right place for 
 them ! 
 
 Arrived at Nagle's Hotel, and finding nobody to inquire of 
 in the hall, Julius applied to the young lady who sat behind 
 the window of " the bar." The young lady was reading some- 
 thing so deeply interesting in the evening newspaper that she 
 never even heard him. Julius went into the coffee-room. 
 
 The waiter, in his corner, was absorbed over a second news- 
 paper. Three gentlemen, at three different tables, were ab- 
 sorbed in a third, fourth, and fifth newspaper. They all alike 
 went on with their reading without noticing the entrance of 
 the stranger. Julius ventured on disturbing the waiter by 
 asking for Mr. Geoffrey Delamayn. At the sound of that il- 
 lustrious name the waiter looked up with a start. "Are you 
 Mr. Delamayn's brother, sir?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 The three gentlemen at the tables looked up with a start. 
 The light of Geoffrey's celebrity fell, reflected, on Geoffrey's 
 brother, and made a public character of him. 
 
 "You'll find Mr. Geoffrey, sir," said tae vvaiter, in a flurried, 
 excited manner, "at the Cock and Bottle, Putney." 
 
 "I expected to find him here. I had an a]ipointment Avith 
 him at this hotel." 
 
 The waiter opened his eyes on Julius with an expression of 
 blank astonishment. "Haven't you heard the news, sir?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 "God bless my soul!" exclaimed the waiter — and offered 
 the newspaper. 
 
 " God bless my soul !" exclaimed the three gentlemen — and 
 offered the three newspapers. 
 
 "What is it?" asked Julius. 
 
156 MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 " What is it ?" repeated the waiter, in a hollow voice, 
 "The most dreadful thing that's happened in my time. It's 
 all up, sir, with the Great Foot-race at Fulham. Tinkler has 
 gone stale." 
 
 The three gentlemen dropped solemnly back into their three 
 chairs, and i-epeated the dreadful intelligence, in chorus — 
 " Tinkler has gone stale." 
 
 A man who stands face to face with a great national dis- 
 aster, and who doesn't understand it, is a man who will do 
 wisely to hold his tongue, and enlighten his mind without 
 asking other people to help him. Julius accepted the waiter'^ 
 newspaper, and sat down to make (if possible) two discoveries: 
 First, as to whether " Tinkler " did, or did not, mean a man. 
 Second, as to what particular form of human affliction you im- 
 plied when you described that man as " gone stale." 
 
 There was no difficulty in finding the news. It was printed 
 in the largest type, and was followed by a personal statement 
 of the facts, taken one way — which was followed, in its turn, 
 by another personal statement of the facts, taken in another 
 way. More particulars, and further personal statements, were 
 promised in later editions. The royal salute of British jour- 
 nalism thundered the announcement of Tinkler's staleness be- 
 fore a people prostrate on the national betting-book. 
 
 Divested of exaggeration, the facts were few enough and 
 simple enough. A famous Athletic Association of the North 
 had challenged a famous Athletic Association of the South. 
 The usual " Sports " were to take place — such as running, 
 jumping, " putting " the hammer, throwing cricket-balls, and 
 the like — and the whole was to wand up with a Foot-Race of 
 unexampled length and difficulty in the annals of human 
 achievement between the two best men on either side. " Tink- 
 ler " was the best man on the side of the South. "Tinkler" 
 w\as backed in innumerable betting-books to win. And Tink- 
 ler's lungs had suddenly given way under stress of training ! 
 A prospect of witnessing a prodigious achievement in foot- 
 racing, and (more important still) a prospect of winning and 
 losing large sums of money, was suddenly withdrawn from the 
 eyes of the British people. The " South " could produce no 
 second opponent worthy of the North out of its own associated 
 resources. Surveying the athletic world in general, but one 
 man existed who might possibly replace "Tinkler" — and it 
 was doubtful, in the last degree, whether he would consent to 
 come forward under the circumstances. The name of that man 
 — Julius read it with horror — was Geoffrey Delamayn. 
 
 Profound silence reigned in the coffee-room. Julius laid 
 down the newspaper and looked about him. The waiter was 
 busy, in his corner, with a pencil and a betting-book. The 
 
MAN AND WIFE. 15 V 
 
 three gentlemen were busy, at the three tables, with pencila 
 and betting-books. 
 
 " Try and persuade him !" said the waiter, piteously, as 
 Delamayn's brother rose to leave the room. 
 
 "Try and persuade him!" echoed tlie three gentlemen, as 
 Delamayn's brother opened the door and went out. 
 
 Julius called a cab, and told the driver (busy with a pencil 
 and a betting-book) to go to the Cock and Bottle, Putney. 
 The man brightened into a new being at the prospect. No 
 need to hurry him; he drove, unasked, at the top of his horse's 
 speed. 
 
 As the cab drew near to its destination the signs of a great 
 national excitement appeared, and multiplied. The lips of 
 a people pronounced, with a grand unanimity, the name of 
 "Tinkler." The heart of a people hung suspended (mostly iu 
 the public-houses) on the chances for and against the possibil- 
 ity of replacing "Tinkler" by another man. The scene in front 
 of the inn was impressive in the highest degree. Even the 
 London blackguard stood awed and quiet in the presence of 
 the national calamity. Even the irrepressible man with the 
 apron, who always turns up to sell nuts and sweetmeats in a 
 crowd, plied his trade in silence, and found few indeed (to the 
 credit of the nation be it spoken) who had the heart to crack 
 a nut at such a time as this. The police were on the spot, in 
 large numbers, and in mute sympathy with the people, touch- 
 ing to see. Julius, on being stopped at the door, mentioned 
 his name — and received an ovation. His brother ! oh, heav- 
 ens, his brother ! The people closed round him, the people 
 shook hands with him, the people invoked blessings on his 
 head. Julius was half suffocated, when the police rescued him, 
 and landed him safe in the privileged haven on the inner side 
 of the public-house door. A deafening tumult broke out, as 
 he entered, from the regions above stairs. A distant voice 
 screamed, " Mind yourselves !" A hatless shouting man tore 
 down through the people congregated on the stairs. " Hoo- 
 ray ! Hooray ! He's promised to do it ! He's entered for 
 the race !" Hundreds on hundreds of voices took up the cry. 
 A roar of cheering burst from the people outside. Reporters 
 for the newspapers raced, in frantic procession, out of the inn, 
 and rushed into cabs to put the news in print. The hand of 
 the landlord, leading Julius carefully up stairs by the arm, 
 trembled with excitement. " His brother, gentlemen ! his 
 brother !" At those magic words a lane was made througli 
 the throng. At those magic words the closed door of the 
 council-chamber flew open ; and Julius found himself among 
 the Athletes of his native country, in full parliament assem- 
 bled. Is any description of them needed? The description 
 
I 
 
 158 MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 of Geoffrey applies to them all. The manhood and muscle of 
 
 England resemble the wool and raiitton of England, in this re- 
 spect, that there is about as much variety in a flock of athletes 
 as in a flock of sheep. Julius looked about him, and saw the 
 same man in the same dress, with the same health, strength, 
 tone, tastes, habits, conversation, and pursuits, repeated infinite- 
 ly in every part of the room. The din was deafening ; the en- 
 thusiasm (to an uninitiated stranger) something at once hid- 
 eous and terrifying to behold. Geofirey had been lifted bodily 
 on to the table, in his chair, so as to be visible to the whole 
 room. They sang round him, they danced round him, they 
 cheered round him, they swore round him. He was hailed, in 
 maudlin terms of endearment, by grateful giants with tears in 
 their eyes. " Dear old man !" " Glorious, noble, splendid, 
 beautiful fellow !" They hugged him. They patted him on 
 the back. They wrung his hands. They prodded and punch- 
 ed his muscles. They embraced the noble legs that were go- 
 ing to run the unexampled race. At the opposite end of the 
 room, where it was physically impossible to get near the hero, 
 the enthusiasm vented itself in feats of strength and acts of 
 destruction. Hercules I. cleared a space with his elbows, and 
 laid down — and Hercules II. took him up in his teeth. Hercu- 
 les HI. seized the poker from the fire-place, and broke it on his 
 arm. Hercules IV. followed with the tongs, and shattered 
 them on his neck. The smashing of the furniture and the pull- 
 ing down of the house seemed likely to succeed — when Geof- 
 frey's eye lighted by accident on Julius, and Geoffrey's voice, 
 calling fiercely for his brother, hushed the wild assembly into 
 sudden attention, and turned the fiery enthusiasm into a new 
 course. Hooray for his brother ! One, two, three — and up 
 with his brother on our shoulders ! Four, five, six — and on 
 with his brother, over our heads, to the other end of the room ! 
 See, boys — see ! the hero has got him by the collar ! the hero 
 has lifted him on the table ! The hero, heated red-hot with 
 his own triumph, welcomes the poor little snob cheerfully, 
 with a volley of oaths. " Thunder and lightning ! Explosion 
 and blood ! What's up now, Julius ? "What's up now ?" 
 
 Julius recovered his breath, and arranged his coat. The 
 quiet little man, who had just muscle enough to lift a Diction- 
 ary from the shelf, and just training enough to play the fiddle, 
 so far from being daunted by the rough reception accorded to 
 him, appeared to feel no other sentiment in relation to it than 
 a sentiment of unmitigated contempt. 
 
 " You're not frightened, are you ?" said Geoffrey. " Our fel- 
 lows are a roughish lot, but they mean well." 
 
 "I am not frightened," answered .Tulins. "I am only won- 
 derincr — when the Schools and Universities of England turn 
 
MAN AND WIFE. 169 
 
 out such a set of ruffians as these — how long the Schools and 
 Universities of England will last." 
 
 " Mind wliat you are about, Julius ! They'll cart you out 
 of window if they hear you." 
 
 " They will only contirm my opinion of them, Geoffrey, if 
 they do." 
 
 Here the assembly, seeing but not hearing the colloquy be- 
 tween the two brothers, became uneasy on the subject of the 
 coming race. A roar of voices summoned Geoffrey to an- 
 nounce it, if there was any thing wrong. Having pacified the 
 meeting, Geoffrey turned again to his brother, and asked him, 
 in no amiable mood, what the devil he wanted there? 
 
 " I want to tell you something before I go back to Scot- 
 land," answered Julius. "My father is willing to give you a 
 last chance. If you don't take it, my doors are closed against 
 you as well as his.'''' 
 
 Nothing is moi"e remarkable, in its way, than the sound com- 
 mon sense and admirable self restraint exhibited by the youth 
 of the present time, when confronted by an emergency in 
 which their own interests are concerned. Instead of resenting 
 the tone which his brother had taken with him, Geoffrey in- 
 stantly descended from the pedestal of glory on which he 
 stood, and placed himself without a struggle in the hands 
 which vicariously held his destiny — otherwise, the hands which 
 vicariously held the purse. In five minutes more the meeting 
 had been dismissed, with all needful assurances relating to 
 Geoffrey's share in the coming Sports — and the two brothers 
 were closeted together in one of the private rooms of the inn. 
 
 " Out with it l" said Geoffrey. " And don't be long about 
 it." 
 
 "I won't be five minutes," replied Julius. "I go back to- 
 night by the mail-train ; and I have a great deal to do in the 
 mean time. Here it is, in plain words : My father consents to 
 see you again, if you choose to settle in life — with his approv- 
 al. And my mother has discovered where you may find a 
 wife. Birth, beauty, and money are all offered to you. Take 
 them — and you recover your position as Lord Holchester's son. 
 Refuse them — and you go to ruin your own way." 
 
 Geoffrey's reception of the news from home was not of the 
 most re-assuring kind. Instead of answering, he struck his fist 
 furiously on the table, and cursed with all his heart some ab- 
 sent woman unnamed. 
 
 "I have nothing to do with any degrading connection which 
 you may have formed," Julius went on. " I have only to put 
 the matter before you exactly as it stands, and to leave you to 
 decide for yourself The lady in question was formerly Miss 
 Newenden — a descendant of one of the oldest families in En- 
 
160 MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 gland. She is now Mrs. Glenarm — the young widow (and the 
 childless widow) of the great iron-master of tliat name. Birth 
 and fortune — she unites both. Her income is a clear ten thou- 
 sand a year. My father can, and will, make it fifteen thousand, 
 if you are lucky enough to persuade her to marry you. My 
 mother answers for her personal qualities. And my wife has 
 met her at our house in London. She is now, as I hear, stay- 
 ing with some friends in Scotland ; and when I get back I will 
 take care that an invitation is sent to her to pay her next visit 
 at my house. It remains, of course, to be seen whether you 
 are fortunate enough to produce a favorable impression on her. 
 In the mean time you will be doing every thing that my father 
 can ask of you, if you make the attempt." 
 
 Geoftrey impatiently dismissed that part of the question 
 from all consideration. 
 
 " If she don't cotton to a man who's going to run in the 
 Great Race at Fulhara," he said, " there arc plenty as good as 
 she is who will ! That's not the difficulty. Bother thatP'' 
 
 "I tell you again, I have nothing to do with your difficul- 
 ties," Julius resumed. "Take the rest of the day to consider 
 what I have said to you. If you decide to accept the propos- 
 al, I shall expect you to prove you are in earnest by meeting 
 ine at the station to-night. We will travel back to Scotland 
 together. You will complete your interrupted visit at Lady 
 Lundie's (it is important, in my interests, that you should treat 
 a person of her position iu the county with all due respect) ; 
 and my wife will make the necessary arrangements with Mrs. 
 Glenarm, in anticipation of your return to our house. There 
 is nothing more to be said, and no further necessity of my 
 staying here. If you join me at the station to-night, your 
 sister-in-law and I will do all we can to help you. If I travel 
 back to Scotland alone, don't trouble yourself to follow — I 
 have done with you." He shook hands with his brother, and 
 went out. 
 
 Left alone, Geoffrey lit his pipe and sent for the landlord. 
 
 " Get me a boat. I shall scull myself up the river for an 
 hour or two. And put in some towels. I may take a swim." 
 
 The landlord received the order — with a caution addressed 
 to his illustrious guest. 
 
 " Don't show yourself in front of the house, sir ! If you let 
 the people see you, they're in such a state of excitement, the 
 police won't answer for keeping them in order." 
 
 "All right. I'll go out by the back way." 
 
 He took a turn up and down the room. What were the 
 difficulties to be overcome before he could profiit by the golden 
 prospect which his brother had offered to him ? The Sports ? 
 No ! The committee had promised to defer the day, if he 
 
MAN AND WIFE. 161 
 
 wished it — and a month's training, in liis physical condition, 
 would be amply enough for him. Ilad he any personal objec- 
 tion to trying his luck with Mrs. Glenarm? Not he! Any 
 woman would do — provided his father was satisfied, and the 
 money was all right. The obstacle which was really in his 
 way was the obstacle of the woman whom he had ruined. 
 Anne ! The one insuperable difficulty was the difficulty of 
 dealing with Anne. 
 
 "We'll see how it looks," he said to himself, "after a pull 
 xip the river !" 
 
 The landlord and the police inspector smuggled him out by 
 the back way unknown to the expectant populace in front. 
 The two men stood on the river-bank admiring him, as he 
 pulled away from them, with his long, powerful, easy, beauti- 
 ful stroke. 
 
 "That's what I call the pride and flower of England !" said 
 the inspector. "Has the betting on him begun ?" 
 
 " Six to four," said the landlord, " and no takers." 
 
 Julius went early to the station that night. His mother 
 was very anxious, "Don't let Geoflrey find an excuse in your 
 example," she said, " if he is late." 
 
 The first person whom Julius saw on getting out of the cai'- 
 riage was Geoffrey — with his ticket taken, and his portman- 
 teau in charge of the guard. 
 
 FOURTH SCENE.—WINDYGATES. 
 CHAPTER THE SEVENTEENTH. 
 
 NEAR IT. 
 
 The Library at Windygates was the largest and the hand- 
 somest room in the house. The two grand divisions under 
 which Literature is usually arranged in these days occupied 
 the customary places in it. On the shelves which ran round 
 the walls were the books which humanity in general respects 
 — and does not read. On the tables distributed over the floor 
 were the books which humanity in general reads — and does 
 not respect. In the first class, the works of the wise ancients ; 
 and the Histories, Biographies, and Essays of writers of more 
 modern times — otherwise the Solid Literature, which is uni- 
 versally respected, and occasionally read. In the second class, 
 the Novels of our own day — otherwise the Light Literature, 
 which is universally read, and occasionally respected. At 
 
 11 
 
162 MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 Windygates, as elsewhere, we believed History to be high lit- 
 erature, because it assumed to be true to Authorities (of which 
 we knew little) — and Fiction to be low literature, because it 
 attempted to be true to Nature (of which we knew less). At 
 Windygates, as elsewhere, we were always more or less satis- 
 fied with ourselves, if we were publicly discovered consulting 
 our History — and more or less ashamed of ourselves, if we 
 were publicly discovered devouring our Fiction. An archi- 
 tectural peculiarity in the original arrangement of the library 
 favored the development of this common and curious form of 
 human stupidity. While a row of luxurious arm-chairs, in the 
 main thoroughfare of the room, invited the reader of solid lit- 
 erature to reveal himself in the act of cultivating a virtue, a 
 row of snug little curtained recesses, opening at intervals out 
 of one of the walls, enabled the reader of light literature to 
 conceal himself in the act of indulging a vice. For the rest, 
 all the minor accessories of this spacious and tranquil place 
 were as plentiful and as well chosen as the heart could desire. 
 And solid literature and light literature, and great writers and 
 small, were all bounteously illuminated alike by a fine broad 
 flow of the light of heaven, pouring into the room through win- 
 dows that opened to the floor. 
 
 It was the fourth day from the day of Lady Lundie's gar- 
 den-party, and it wanted an hour or more of the time at which 
 the luncheon-bell usually rang. 
 
 The guests at Windygates were most of them in the garden, 
 enjoying the morning sunshine, after a prevalent mist and rain 
 for some days past. Two gentlemen (exceptions to the gen- 
 eral rule) were alone in the library. They were the last two 
 gentlemen in the world who could possibly be supposed to 
 have any legitimate motive for meeting each other in a place 
 of literary seclusion. One was Arnold Brinkworth, and the 
 other was Geofii-ey Delamayn. 
 
 They had arrived together at Windygates that morning. 
 Geofirey had traveled from London with his brother by the 
 train of the previous night. Arnold, delayed in getting away 
 at his own time, from his own property, by ceremonies inci- 
 dental to his position which were not to be abridged without 
 giving offense to many worthy people — had caught the pass- 
 ing train early that morning at the station nearest to him, and 
 had returned to Lady Lundie's, as he had left Lady Lundie's, 
 in company with his friend. « 
 
 After a short preliminary interview with Blanche, Arnold 
 had rejoined Geoffrey in the safe retirement of the library, to 
 say what was still left to be said between them on the subject 
 of Anne. Having completed his report of events at Craig 
 
MAN AND WIFE. 163 
 
 Kernie, he "^vas now naturally waiting to hear what Geoffrey 
 had to say on his side. To Arnold's astonishment, Geoffrey 
 coolly turned away to leave the library without uttering a 
 word. Arnold stopped him without ceremony. 
 
 " Not quite so fast, Geoffrey," he said. " I have an interest 
 in Miss Silvester's welfare as well as in yours. Now you are 
 back again in Scotland, what are you going to do?" 
 
 If Geoflrey had told the truth, he must have stated his po- 
 sition much as follows : 
 
 He had necessarily decided on deserting Anne when he had 
 decided on joining his brother on the journey back. But he 
 had advanced no farther than this. How he v/as to abandon 
 the woman who had trusted him, v/ithout seeing his own das- 
 tardly conduct dragged into the light of day, was more than 
 he yet knew. A vague idea of at once pacifying and deluding 
 Anne, by a marriage which should be no marriage at all, had 
 crossed liis mind on the journey. He had asked himself wheth- 
 er a trap of that sort might not be easily set in a country no- 
 torious for the looseness of its marriage laws — if a man only 
 knew how? And he had thought it likely that his well-in- 
 formed brother, v/ho lived in Scotland, might be tricked into 
 innocently telling him what he wanted to know. He had 
 turned the conversation to the subject of Scotch marriages in 
 general by way of trying the expei'iraent. Julius had not stud- 
 ied the question; Julius knew nothing about it; and there the 
 experiment had come to an end. As the necessary result of 
 the check thus encountered, he was now in Scotland with ab- 
 solutely nothing to trust to as a means of effecting his release 
 but the chapter of accidents, aided by his own resolution to 
 marry Mrs. Glenarra. Such was his position, and such should 
 have been the substance of his repl}^, Avhen he was confronted 
 by Arnold's question, and plainly asked what he meant to do. 
 
 "The right thing," he answered, unblushingly. "And no 
 mistake about it." 
 
 "I'm glad to hear you see your way so plainly," returned 
 Arnold. " In your place, I should have been all abroad. I 
 was wondering, only the other day, whether you would end, 
 as I should have ended, in consulting Sir Patrick." 
 
 Geotirey eyed him sharply. 
 
 "Consult Sir Patrick?" he repeated. "Why would you 
 have done that ?" 
 
 "-/shouldn't have known how to set about marrying her," 
 replied Arnold. "And — being in Scotland — I should have 
 applied to Sir Patrick (without mentioning names, of course), 
 because he would be sure to know all about it." 
 
 " Suppose I don't see my way quite so plainly as you think," 
 said Geoffrey. " Would you advise me — " 
 
1Q4, MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 "To consult Sir Patrick? Certainly! He has passed his 
 life in the practice of the Scotch law. Didn't you know 
 that ?" 
 
 " No." 
 
 "Then take ray advice — and consult him. You needn't 
 mention names. You can say it's the case of a friend." 
 
 The idea was a new one and a good one. Geoffrey looked 
 longingly toward the door. Eager to make Sir Patrick his 
 innocent accomplice on the spot, he made a second attempt to 
 leave the library; and made it for the second time in vain. 
 Arnold had more unwelcome inquiries to make, and more ad- 
 vice to give unasked. 
 
 "How have you arranged about meeting Miss Silvester?" 
 he went on. " You can't go to the hotel in the character of 
 her husband. I have prevented that. Where else are you to 
 meet her ? She is all alone ; she must be weary of waiting, 
 poor thing. Can you manage matters so as to see her to-day ?" 
 
 After staring hard at Arnold while he was speaking, Geof- 
 frey burst out laughing when he had done. A disinterested 
 anxiety for the welfare of another person was one of those re- 
 finements of feeling which a muscular education had not fitted 
 him to understand. 
 
 " I say, old boy," he burst out, " you seem to take an ex- 
 traordinary interest in Miss Silvester! You haven't fallen in 
 love with her yourself — have you ?" 
 
 " Come ! come !" said Arnold, seriously. " Neither she nor 
 I deserve to be sneered at in that way. I have made a sacri- 
 fice to your interests, Geoifrey — and so has she." 
 
 Geoftrey's face became serious again. His secret was in 
 Arnold's hands ; and his estimate of Arnold's character was 
 founded, iinconsciously, on his experience of himself "All 
 right," he said, by way of timely apology and concession. "I 
 was only joking." 
 
 "As much joking as you please, when you have married 
 her," replied Arnold. " It seems serious enough, to my mind, 
 till then." He stopped— considered — and laid his hand very 
 earnestly on Geofii-ey's arm. "Mind!" he resumed. "You 
 are not to breathe a word to any living soul of my having 
 been near the inn !" 
 
 " Pve promised to hold my tongue, once already. What do 
 you want more ?" 
 
 " I am anxious, Geoffrey. I was at Craig Fernie, remember, 
 when Blanche came there ! She has been telling me all that 
 happened, poor darling, in the firm persuasion that I was miles 
 off at the time. I swear I couldn't look her in the face ! 
 What would she think of me if she knew the truth ? Pray 
 be careful ! pray be careful !" 
 
MAN AND WIPE. 165 
 
 Geoffrey's patience began to fail him. 
 
 ' We had all this out," he said, " on the way here from the 
 Btation, What's the good of going over the ground again ?" 
 
 " You're quite right," said Arnold, good-humoredly. " The 
 fact is — I'm out of sorts this morning. My mind misgives 
 me — I don't know why." 
 
 " Mind ?" repeated Geoff'rey, in high contempt. '* It's flesh 
 — that's what's the matter with you. You're nigh on a stone 
 over your right weight. Mind be hanged ! A man in healthy 
 training don't know that he has got a mind. Take a turn 
 with the dumb-bells, and a run up hill with a great-coat on. 
 Sweat it oft*, Arnold ! Sweat it off"!" 
 
 With that excellent advice, he turned to leave the room for 
 the third time. Fate appeared to have determined to keep 
 him imprisoned in the library that morning. On this occa- 
 sion, it was a servant wlio got in the way — a servant, with a 
 letter and a message. "The man waits for an answer." 
 
 Geoff'rey looked at the letter. It was in his brother's hand- 
 writing. He had left Julius at the junction about three hours 
 since. What could Julius possibly have to say to him now ? 
 
 He opened the letter. Julius had to announce that Fortune 
 was favoring them already. He had heard news of Mrs. Glen^ 
 arm, as soon as he reached home. She had called on his wife, 
 during his absence in London — she had been invited to the 
 house — and she had promised to accept the invitation early in 
 the week. " Early in the week," Julius wrote, " may mean to- 
 morrow. Make your apologies to Lady Lundie ; and take 
 care not to offend her. Say that family reasons, which you 
 hope soon to have the pleasure of confiding to her, oblige you 
 to appeal once more to her indulgence — and come to-morrow, 
 and help us to receive Mrs. Glenarm." 
 
 Even Geoff'rey was startled, when he found himself met by 
 a sudden necessity for acting on his own decision. Anne knew 
 where his brother lived. Suppose Anne (not knowing where 
 else to find him) appeared at his brother's house, and claimed 
 him in the presence of Mrs. Glenarm ? He gave ordei's to 
 have the messenger kept waiting, and said he would send back 
 a written reply. 
 
 " From Craig Fernie ?" asked Arnold, pointing to the letter 
 in his friend's hand. 
 
 Geoff'rey looked up with a frown. He had just opened his 
 lips to answer that ill-timed reference to Anne in no very 
 friendly terms, when a voice, calling to Arnold from the lawn 
 outside, announced the appearance of a third person in the li- 
 brary, and warned the two gentlemen that their private intar- 
 view was at an end. 
 
166 MAN AND WIPB. 
 
 CHAPTER THE EIGHTEENTH. 
 
 NEAEEK STILL. 
 
 Blanche stepped lightly into the room, through one of the 
 open French windows. 
 
 " What are you doing here?" she said to Arnold. 
 
 " Nothing. I was just going to look for you in the garden." 
 
 " The garden is insufferable this morning." Saying those 
 words, she fanned herself with her handkerchief, and noticed 
 Geoffrey's presence in the room with a look of very thinly con- 
 cealed annoyance at the discovery. " Wait till I am married !" 
 she thought. " Mr. Delamayn will be cleverer than I take him 
 to be, if he gets much of his friend's company then .'" 
 
 "A trifle too hot — eh ?" said Geoffrey, seeing her eyes fixed 
 on him, and supposing that he was expected to say something. 
 
 Having performed that duty, he walked away without wait- 
 ing for a reply ; and seated himself, with his letter, at one of 
 the writing-tables in the library. 
 
 " Sir Patrick is quite right about the young men of the pres- 
 ent day," said Blanche, turning to Arnold. " Here is this one 
 asks me a question, and doesn't wait for an answer. There are 
 three more of them out in the garden, who have been talking 
 of nothing, for the last hour, but the pedigrees of horses and 
 the muscles of men. When we are married, Arnold, don't 
 present any of your male friends to me unless they have turn- 
 ed fifty. What shall we do till luncheon-time ? It's cool and 
 quiet in here among the books. I want a mild excitement — 
 and I have got absolutely nothing to do. Suppose you read 
 me some poetry ?" 
 
 " While he is here ?" asked Arnold, pointing to the personified 
 antithesis of poetry — otherwise to Geoffrey, seated with his 
 back to them at the farther end of the library. 
 
 " Pooh !" said Blanche. " There's only an animal in the 
 room. We needn't mind him .^" 
 
 " I say !" exclaimed Arnold. " You're as bitter, this morn- 
 ing, as Sir Patrick himself What will you say to Me when 
 we are married, if you talk in that way of my friend ?" 
 
 Blanche stole her hand into Arnold's hand, and gave it a lit- 
 tle significant squeeze. " I shall always be nice to you^'' she 
 whispered — with a look that contained a host of pretty prom- 
 ises in itself Arnold returned the look (Geoffrey was unques- 
 
MAN AND WITH. IBV 
 
 tionably in the way !). Their eyes met tenderly (why couldn't 
 the great awkward brute write his letters somewhere else?). 
 With a faint little sigh, Blanche dropped resignedly into one 
 of the comfortable arm-chairs — and asked once more for " some 
 poetry," in a voice that faltered softly, and with a color that 
 was brighter than usual. 
 
 " Whose poetry am I to read ?" inquired Arnold. 
 
 "Any body's," said Blanche. " This is another of my im- 
 pulses. I am dying for some poetry. I don't know whose 
 poetry. And I don't know why." 
 
 Arnold went straight to the nearest book-shelf, and took 
 down the first volume that his hand lighted on — a solid quarto, 
 bound in sober brown, 
 
 " Well ?" asked Blanche. " What have you found ?" 
 
 Arnold opened the volume, and conscientiously read the title 
 exactly as it stood : 
 
 " ' Paradise Lost. A Poem. By John Milton.' " 
 
 " I have never read Milton," said Blanche. " Have you ?" 
 
 "Another instance of sympathy between us. No educated 
 person ought to be ignorant of Milton. Let us be educated 
 persons. Please begin." 
 
 "At the beginning?" 
 
 " Of course ! Stop ! You mustn't sit all that way off — you 
 must sit where I can look at you. My attention wanders if I 
 don't look at people while they read." 
 
 Arnold took a stool at Blanche's feet, and opened the " First 
 Book " of Paradise Lost. His " system " as a reader of blank 
 verse was simplicity itself. In poetry we are some of us (as 
 many living poets can testify) all for sound ; and some of us 
 (as few living poets can testify) all for sense. Arnold was for 
 sound. He ended every line inexorably with a full stop ; and 
 he got on to his full stop as fast as the inevitable impediment 
 of the words would let him. He began : 
 
 " Of Man's first disobedience and the fruit. 
 Of that forbidden tree whose mortal taste. 
 Brought death into the world and all our woe. 
 With loss of Eden till one greater Man. 
 Restore us and regain the blissful seat. 
 Sing heavenly Mnse — " 
 
 " Beautiful !" said Blanche. " What a shame it seems to have 
 had Milton all this time in the library and never to have read 
 him yet ! We will have Mornings with Milton, Arnold. He 
 seems long ; but we are both young, and we mat/ live to get 
 to the end of him. Do you know, dear, now I look at you 
 again, you don't seem to have come back to Windygates in 
 good spirits ?" 
 
168 MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 " Don't I ? I can't account for it." 
 
 " I can. It's sympathy with Me. I am out of spirits too." 
 
 " You !" 
 
 " Yes. After what I saw at Craig Fernie, I grow more and 
 more uneasy about Anne. You will understand that, I am 
 sure, after what I told you this morning ?" 
 
 Arnold looked back in a violent hurry, from Blanche to Mil- 
 ton. That renewed reference to events at Craig Fernie was a 
 renewed reproach to him for his conduct at the inn. He at- 
 tempted to silence her by pointing to Geoifrey. 
 
 " Don't forget," he whispered, " that there is somebody in 
 the room besides ourselves." 
 
 Blanche shrugged her shoulders contemptuously. 
 
 '' What does Jie matter ?" she asked. " What does he know 
 or care about Anne ?" 
 
 There was only one other chance of diverting her from the 
 delicate subject. Arnold went on reading headlong, two lines 
 in advance of the place at which he had left off, with more 
 sound and less sense than ever : 
 
 "In the beginning how the heavens and earth. 
 Rose out of Chaos or if 8ion hill — " 
 
 At " Sion hill," Blanche interrupted him again. 
 
 " Do wait a little, Arnold. I can't have Milton crammed 
 down my throat in that way. Besides, I had something to 
 say. Did I tell you that I consulted my uncle about Anne? 
 I don't think I did. I caught him alone in this very room, I 
 told him all I have told you. I showed him Anne's letter. 
 And I said, ' What do you think ?' He took a little time (and 
 a great deal of snuff) before he would say what he thought. 
 When he did speak, he told me I might quite possibly be right 
 in suspecting Anne's husband to be a very abominable person. 
 His keeping himself out of ray way was (just as I thought) a 
 suspicious circumstance, to begin with. And then there was 
 the sudden extinguishing of the candles, when I first went in. 
 I thought (and Mrs. Inchbare thought) it was done by the 
 wind. Sir Patrick suspects it was done by the horrid man 
 himself, to prevent me from seeing him when I entered the 
 room. I am firmly persuaded Sir Patrick is right. What do 
 yoti think?" 
 
 " I think we had better go on," said Arnold, witli his head 
 down over his book, " We seem to be forgetting Milton." 
 
 "How you do worry about Milton! That last bit wasn't 
 as interesting as the other. Is there any love in Paradise 
 Lost?" 
 
 " Perhaps we may find some if we go on," 
 
 " Very well, then. Go on. And be quick about it." 
 
MAN AND WIPE. 169 
 
 Arnold was so quick about it that he lost his place. Instead 
 of going on he went back. He read once more: 
 
 "In the beginning how the heavens and earth, 
 liose out of Chaos or if Sion hill — " 
 
 " You read that before," said Blanche. 
 
 "I think not." 
 
 *' I'm sure you did. When you said ' Sion hill ' I recollect I 
 thought of the Methodists directly. I couldn't have thought 
 of the Methodists if you hadn't said ' Sion hill.' It stands to 
 reason." 
 
 " I'll try the next page," said Arnold. " I can't have read 
 that before — for I haven't turned over yet." 
 
 Blanche drew herself back in her chair, and flung her hand- 
 kerchief resignedly over her face. "The flies," she explained. 
 "I'm not going to sleejD. Try the next page. Oh, dear me, 
 try the next page !" 
 
 Arnold proceeded : 
 
 " Say first for heaven hides nothing from thy view. 
 Nor the deep tract of hell say first what cause. 
 Moved our grand parents in that happy state — " 
 
 Blanche suddenly threw the handkerchief ofi" again, and sat 
 bolt upright in her chair. " Shut it up," she cried. " I can't 
 bear any more. Leave oif, Arnold — leave ofl"!" 
 
 " What's the matter now ?" 
 
 "'That happy state,'" said Blanche. "What does 'that 
 happy state' mean? Marriage, of course! And marriage re- 
 minds me of Anne. I won't have any more. Paradise Lost is 
 painful. Shut it up. Well, ray next question to Sir Patrick 
 was, of course, to know what he thought Anne's husband had 
 done. The wretch had behaved infamously to her in some way. 
 In what way ? Was it any thing to do with her marriage ? My 
 uncle considered again. He thought it quite possible. Private 
 marriages were dangerous things (he said) — especially in Scot- 
 land. He asked me if they were married in Scotland. I 
 couldn't tell him — I only said, 'Suppose they were? What 
 then ?' ' It's barely possible, in that case,' says Sir Patrick, 
 ' that Miss Silvester may be feeling uneasy about her marriage. 
 She may even have reason — or may think she has reason — to 
 doubt whether it is a marriage at all." 
 
 Arnold started, and looked round at Geofi'rey still sitting at 
 £he writing-table with his back turned on them. Utterly as 
 Blanche and Sir Patrick were mistaken in their estimate of 
 Anne's position at Craig Pernio, they had drifted, nevertheless, 
 into discussing the very question in which Geoffrey and Miss 
 Silvester were interested — the question of marriage in Scotland. 
 
IVO MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 It was impossible in Blanche's presence to tell Geoffrey that 
 he might do well to listen to Sir Patrick's opinion, even at 
 second-hand. Perliaps the words had found their way to him ? 
 perhaps he was listening already, of his own accord? 
 
 (He loas listening. Blanche's last words had found their 
 way to him, while he was pondering over his half-finished let- 
 ter to his brother. He waited to hear more — without moving, 
 and with the pen suspended in his hand.) 
 
 Blanche proceeded, absently winding her fingers in and out 
 of Arnold's hair as he sat at her feet : 
 
 "It flashed on me instantly that Sir Patrick had discovered 
 the truth. Of course I told him so. He laughed, and said I 
 mustn't jump at conclusions. We were guessing quite in the 
 dark; and all the distressing things I had noticed at the inn 
 might admit of some totally different explanation. He would 
 have gone on splitting straws in that provoking way the whole 
 morning if I hadn't stopped him. I was strictly logical. I 
 said I had seen Anne, and he hadn't — and that made all thd 
 difference. I said,' Every thing that puzzled and frightened me 
 in the poor darling is accounted for now. The law must, and 
 shall, reach that man, uncle — and I'll pay for it !' I Avas so 
 much in earnest that I believe I cried a little. What do you 
 think the dear old man did ? He took me on his knee and gave 
 me a kiss ; and he said, in the nicest way, that he would adopt 
 my view, for the present, if I Avould promise not to cry any 
 more ; and — wait ! the cream of it is to come !— that he would 
 put the view in quite a new light to me as sooii.as I was com- 
 posed again. You may imagine how soon I dried my eyes, 
 and what a picture of composure I presented in the course oi 
 half a minute. 'Let us take it for granted,' says Sir Patrick, 
 ' that this man unknown has really tried to deceive Miss Sil- 
 vester, as you and I suppose. I can tell you one thing : it'a 
 as likely as not that, in trying to overreach her, he may (with- 
 out in the least suspecting it) have ended in overreaching him- 
 self " 
 
 (Geoffrey held his breath. The pen dropped unheeded from 
 his fingers. It was coming ! The light that his brother couldn't 
 throw on the subject was dawning on it at last !) 
 
 Blanche resumed : 
 
 " I was so interested, and it made such a tremendous im- 
 pression on me, that I haven't forgotten a word. ' I mustn't 
 make that poor little head of yours ache with Scotch law,' my 
 uncle said ; ' I must put it ])lainly. Tliere are marriages al- 
 lowed in Scotland, Blanche, which ai-e called Irregular Mar- 
 riages — and very abominable things they are. But they have 
 this accidental merit in the present case. It is extremely diffi- 
 cult for a man to pretend to marry in Scotland, and not really 
 
MAN AND WIFE. 171 
 
 to do it. And it is, on the other hand, extremely easy for a 
 man to drift into marrying in Scotland without feeling the 
 slightest suspicion of having done it himself That was ex- 
 actly what he said, Arnold. When ice are married, it slia'n't 
 be in Scotland !" 
 
 (Geoffrey's ruddy color paled. If this was true, he might 
 be caught himself in the trap which he had schemed to set for 
 Anne ! Blanche went on with her narrative. He waited and 
 listened.) 
 
 "My uncle asked me if I understood him so far. It was as 
 plain as the sun at noonday; of course I understood him! 
 'Very well, then — now for the application !' says Sir Patrick. 
 'Once more supposing our guess to be the right one. Miss Sil- 
 vester may be making herself very unliaiipy without any real 
 cause. If this invisible man at Craig Feriiie has actually med- 
 dled, I won't say with marrying hei-, but only with pretending 
 to make her his wife, and if he has attempted it in Scotland, 
 the chances are nine to one (though he may not believe it, and 
 though she may not believe it) that he has really married her, 
 after all.' My uncle's own words again ! Quite needless to 
 say that, half an hour after they were out of his lips, I had 
 sent them to Craig Fernie in a letter to Anne !" 
 
 (Geoffrey's stolidly-staring eyes suddenly brightened. A 
 light of the devil's own striking illuminated him. An idea of 
 the devil's own bringing entei'ed his mind. He looked stealth- 
 ily round at the man whose life he had saved — at the man who 
 liad devotedly served him in return. A liideous cunning leered 
 at his mouth and peeped out of his eyes. " Arnold Brinkworth 
 pretended to be married to her at the inn. By the lord Harry ! 
 that's a way out of it that never struck me before !" With 
 that thought in his heart he turned back again to his half-fin- 
 ished letter to Julius. For once in his life he was strongly, 
 fiercely agitated. For once in his life he was daunted — and 
 that by his own thought ! He had written to Julius under a 
 strong sense of the necessity of gaining time to delude Anne 
 into leaving Scotland before he ventured on paying his ad- 
 dresses to Mrs. Glenarm. His letter contained a string of 
 clumsy excuses, intended to delay his i-eturn to his brother's 
 house. "No," he said to himself, as he read it again. " What- 
 ever else may do — this won't !" He looked round once more at 
 Arnold, and slowly toi-e the letter into fragments as he looked.) 
 
 In the mean time Blanche had not done yet. " No," she 
 eaid, when Arnold proposed an adjournment to the garden ; " I 
 have something more to say, and you are interested in it this 
 time." Arnold resigned himself to listen, and, worse still, to 
 answer, if there was no help for it, in the character of an inno- 
 cent stransier \<\\o had nevei- been near the Craig Fernie inn. 
 
172 MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 " Well," Blanche resumed, " aud what do you think has come 
 of my letter to Anne ?" 
 
 " I'm sure I don't know." 
 
 " Nothing has come of it !" 
 
 " Indeed ?" 
 
 "Absolutely nothing! I know she received the letter yes- 
 terday morning. I ought to have had the answer to-day at 
 breakfast." 
 
 " Perhaps she thought it didn't require an answer." 
 
 " She couldn't have thought that, for reasons that I know of. 
 Besides, in my letter yesterday, I implored her to tell me (if it 
 was one line onl}-) whether, in guessing at what her trouble 
 was. Sir Patrick and I had not guessed right. And here is the 
 day getting on, and no answer ! What am I to conclude ?" 
 
 " I really can't say !" 
 
 " Is it jjossible, Arnold, that we have not guessed right, after 
 all? Is the wickedness of that man who blew the candles out 
 wickedness beyond our discovering? The doubt is so dread- 
 ful that I have made up my mind not to bear it after to-day. 
 I count on your sympathy and assistance when to-morrow 
 comes !" 
 
 Arnold's heart sank. Some new complication was evidently 
 gathering round him. He waited in silence to hear the worst. 
 Blanche bent forward, and whispered to him. 
 
 " This is a secret," she said. " If that creature at the writ- 
 ing-table has ears for any thing but rowing and racing, he 
 mustn't hear this ! Anne may come to me privately to-day 
 while you are all at luncheon. If she doesn't come, and if I 
 don't hear from her, then the mystery of her silence must be 
 cleared up ; and You must do it !" 
 
 " I !" 
 
 "Don't make difficulties! If you can't find your way to 
 Craig Fernie, I can help you. As for Anne, you kiiow what a 
 charming person she is, and you know she will receive you 
 perfectly, for my sake. I must and will have some news of 
 her. I can't break the laws of the household a second time. 
 Sir Patrick sympathizes, but he won't stir. Lady Lundie is a 
 bitter enemy. The servants are threatened with the loss of 
 their places if any one of them goes near Anne. There is no^ 
 body but you. And to Anne you go to-morrow, if I don't sefe 
 her or hear from her to-day !" 
 
 This to the man who had passed as Anne's husband at the 
 inn, and who had been forced into the most intimate knowl- 
 edge of Anne's miserable secret ! Arnold rose to put Milton 
 away, wnth the composure of sheer despair. Any other secret 
 he might, in the last resort, have confided to the discretion of 
 a third person. But a woman's secret — with a woman's repu- 
 
MAN AND WlfB. 173 
 
 tation depending on his keeping it — was not to be confided to 
 any body, under any stress of circumstances whatever. " If 
 Geoffrey doesn't get me out of this,'''' he thought, " I shall have 
 no choice but to leave Windygates to-morrow." 
 
 As he replaced the book on the shelf. Lady Lundie entered 
 the library from the garden. 
 
 " What are you doing here ?" she said to her step-daughter. 
 
 " Improving my mind," replied Blanche. " Mr. Brinkworth 
 and I have been reading Milton." 
 
 " Can you condescend so far, after reading Milton all the 
 morning, as to help me with the invitations for the dinner next 
 week?" 
 
 " If i/ou can condescend. Lady Lundie, after feeding the poul- 
 try all the morning, I must be humility itself after only reading 
 Milton !" 
 
 With that little interchange of the acid amenities of femi- 
 nine intercourse, step-mother and step-daughter withdrew to 
 a writing-table, to put the virtue of hospitality in practice to- 
 gether. 
 
 Arnold joined his friend at the other end of the library. 
 
 Geoffrey was sitting with his elbows on the desk, and his 
 clenched fists dug into his cheeks. Great drops of perspiration 
 stood on his forehead, and the fragments of a torn letter lay 
 scattered all round him. He exhibited symptoms of nervous 
 sensibility for the first time in his life — he started when Ar- 
 nold spoke to him. 
 
 " What's the matter, Geoffrey ?" 
 
 "A letter to answer. And I don't know how." 
 
 " From Miss Silvester ?" asked Arnold, dropping his voice 
 so as to prevent the ladies at the other end of the room from 
 hearing him. 
 
 " No," answered Geoffrey, in a lower voice still. 
 
 " Have you heard what Blanche has been saying to me 
 about Miss Silvester?" 
 
 " Some of it." 
 
 "Did you hear Blanche say that she meant to send me to 
 Craig Fernie to-morrow, if she failed to get news from Miss 
 Silvester to-day ?" 
 
 " No." 
 
 *' Then you know it now. That is what Blanche has just 
 said to me." 
 
 " Well ?" 
 
 " Well — there's a limit to what a man can expect even from 
 his best friend. I hope you won't ask me to be Blanche's mes- 
 senger to-morrow. I can't and won't go back to the inn as 
 thing's are now," 
 
 '■ You have had enough of it — eh ?" 
 
174 MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 " I have had enough of distressing Miss Silvester, and more 
 than enough of deceiving Blanche." 
 
 " What do you mean by ' distressing Miss Silvester?' " 
 
 " She doesn't take the same easy view that you and I do, 
 Geoffrey, of my passing her off on the people of the inn as my 
 wife." 
 ^^ Treoffrey absently took up a paper-knife. Still with his head 
 down, he began shaving off the topmost layer of paper from 
 the blotting-pad under his hand. Still with his head down, 
 he abruptly broke the silence in a whisper. 
 
 " I say !" 
 
 "Yes?" 
 
 " How did you manage to pass her off as your wife ?" 
 
 "*I told you how, as we were driving from the station here." 
 
 " I was thinking of something else. Tell me again." 
 
 Arnold told him once more what had happened at the inn. 
 feoffrey listened, without making any remark. He balanced 
 the paper-knife vacantly on one of his fingers. He was strange- 
 ly sluggish and strangely silent. 
 
 " All that is done and ended," said Arnold, shaking him by 
 the shoulder. " It rests with you now to get me out of the 
 difficulty I'm placed in with Blanche. Things must be settled 
 with Miss Silvester to-day." 
 
 " Things shall be settled." 
 
 "Shall be? What are you waiting for?" 
 
 "I'm waiting to do what you told me." 
 
 " What I totd you ?" 
 
 " Didn't you tell me to consult Sir Patrick before I married 
 her ?" 
 
 " To be sure ! so I did." 
 
 " Well — I am waiting for a chance with Sir Patrick." 
 
 " And then ?" 
 
 "And then — " He looked at Arnold for the first time. 
 "Then," he said, " you may consider it settled." 
 
 " The marriage ?" 
 
 He suddenly looked down again at the blotting-pad. " Yes 
 — the marriage." 
 
 Arnold offered his hand in congratulation. Geoffrey never 
 noticed it. His eyes Ave re off the blotting-pad again. He was 
 looking out of the window near him. 
 
 " Don't I hear voices outside ?" he asked. 
 
 " I believe our friends are in the garden," said Arnold. " Sir 
 Patrick may be among them. I'll go and see." 
 
 The instant his back was turned Geoffrey snatched up a 
 sheet of note-paper. " Before I forget it !" he said to himself 
 He wrote the word "Memorandum" at the top of the page, 
 and added these lines beneath it : 
 
MAN AND WIFK. 176 
 
 " He asked for her by the name of his wife at the door. He 
 said, at dinner, before the landlady and the waiter, ' I take 
 these rooms for my wife.' He made her say he was her hus- 
 band at the same time. After that he stopped all night. 
 What do the lawyers call this in Scotland ? — (Query : a mar- 
 riage ?)" 
 
 After folding up the paper, he hesitated for a moment. 
 " No !" he thought. " It won't do to trust to what Miss Lun- 
 die said about it, I can't be certain till I have consulted Sir 
 Patrick himself" 
 
 He put the paper away in his pocket, and wiped the heavy 
 perspiration from his forehead. He was pale — for hiin^ strik- 
 ingly pale — when Arnold came back. 
 
 " Any thing wrong, Geoffrey ? — you're as white as ashes." 
 
 " It's the heat. Where's Sir Patrick ?" 
 
 "You may see for yourself" 
 
 Arnold pointed to the window. Sir Patrick was crossing 
 the lawn, on his way to the library, with a newspaper in his 
 hand ; and the guests at Windygatcs were accompanying him. 
 Sir Patrick was smiling, and saying nothing. The guests 
 were talking excitedly at the tops of their voices. There had 
 apparently been a collision of some kind between the old 
 school and the new. Arnold directed Geoffrey's attention to 
 the state of affairs on the lawn. 
 
 "How are you to consult Sir Patrick with all those people 
 about him?" 
 
 " I'll consult Sir Patrick, if I take him by the scruff of the 
 neck and cany him into the next county?" He rose to his 
 feet as he spoke those words, and emphasized them under his 
 breath with an oath. 
 
 Sir Patrick entered the library, with the guests at his heels. 
 
 CHAPTER THE NINETEENTH. 
 
 CLOSE ON IT. 
 
 The object of the invasion of the library by the party in 
 the garden appeai*ed to be twofold. 
 
 Sir Patrick had entered the room to restore the newspaper 
 to the place from which he had taken it. The guests, to the 
 number of five, had followed him, to appeal in a body to Geof- 
 frey Delamayn. Between these two apparently dissimilar mo- 
 tives there was a connection, not visible on the surface, which 
 was now to assert itself 
 
 Of the five guests, two were middle-aged gentlemen belong- 
 ing to that large, but indistinct, division of the human family 
 
176 MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 whom the hand of Nature has painted in unobtrusive neutral 
 tint. They had absorbed the ideas of their time with such 
 receptive capacity as they possessed; and they occupied much 
 the same place in society which the chorus in an opera occupies 
 on the stage. They echoed the prevalent sentiment of the mo- 
 ment ; and they gave the solo-talker time to fetch his breath. 
 
 The three remaining guests were on the right side of thirty. 
 All profoundly versed in horse -racing, in athletic sports, in 
 pipes, beer, billiards, and betting. All profoundly ignorant of 
 every thing else under the sun. All gentlemen by birth, and 
 all marked as such by the stamp of " a University education." 
 They may be personally described as faint reflections of Geof- 
 frey; and they may be numerically distinguished (in the ab- 
 sence of all other distinction) as One, Two, and Three. 
 
 Sir Patrick laid the newspaper on the table, and placed him- 
 self in one of the comfortable arm-chairs. He was instantly 
 assailed, in his domestic capacity, by his irrepressible sister- 
 in-law. Lady Lundie dispatched Blanche to him with the list 
 of her guests at the dinner. " For your uncle's approval, my 
 dear, as head of the family." ' 
 
 While Sir Patrick was looking over the list, and while Ar- 
 nold was making his way to Blanche, at the back of her un- 
 cle's chair. One, Two, and Three — with the Chorus in attend- 
 ance on them — descended in a body on GeoftVey, at the other 
 end of the room, and appealed in rapid succession to his sujdc- 
 rior authority, as follows : 
 
 " I say, Delamayu. We want You. Here is Sir Patrick 
 running a regular Muck at us. Calls us aboriginal Britons. 
 Tells us we ain't educated. Doubts if we could read, write, 
 and cipher, if he tried us. Swears he's sick of fellows showing 
 their arms and legs, and seeing which fellow's hardest, and 
 who's got three belts of muscle across his wind, and who 
 hasn't, and the like of that. Says a most infernal thing of a 
 chap. Says — because a chaj) likes a healthy out-of-door life, 
 and trains for rowing and running, and the rest of it, and don't 
 see his way to stewing over his books — therefore he's safe to 
 commit all the crimes in the calendar, murder included. Saw 
 your name down in the newspaper for the Foot-race; and 
 said, when we asked him if he'd taken the odds, he'd lay any 
 odds we liked against you in the other Race at the University 
 ■ — meaning, old boy, your Degree. Nasty, that about the De- 
 gree — in the opinion of Number One. Bad taste in Sir Pat- 
 rick to rake up what we never mention among ourselves — in 
 the opinion of Number Two. Un-English to sneer at a man 
 in that way behind his back — in the opinion of Number Tlii-ee. 
 Bring him to book, Delamayn. Your name's in the papers; 
 he can't ride rough-shod over You." 
 
MAN AND TVIFE. 177 
 
 The two choral gentlemen agreed (in the minor key) with 
 the general opinion. "Sir Patrick's views are certainly ex- 
 treme, Smith ?" " I think, Jones, it's desirable to hear Mr. 
 Delamayn on the other side." 
 
 GeoiFrey looked from one to the other of his admirers with 
 an expression on his face which was quite new to them, and 
 with something in his manner which puzzled them all. 
 
 " You can't argue with Sir Patrick yourselves," he said, 
 " and you want me to do it ?" 
 
 One, Two, Three, and the Chorus all answered, " Yes." 
 
 "I won't do it." 
 
 One, Two, Three, and the Chorus all asked, " Why ?" 
 
 " Because," answered Geoffrey, " you're all wrong. And 
 Sir Patrick's right." 
 
 Not astonishment only, but downright stupefaction, struck 
 the deputation from the garden speechless. 
 
 Without saying a word more to any of the persons standing 
 near him, Geoffrey walked straight up to Sir Patrick's arm- 
 chair, and personally addressed him. The satellites followed, 
 and listened (as well they might) in wonder. 
 
 "You will lay any odds, sir," said Geoffrey, "against me 
 taking my Degree ? You're quite right. I sha'n't take my 
 Degree. You doubt whether I, or any of those fellows behind 
 me, could read, write, and cipher correctly if you tried us. 
 You're right again — we couldn't. You say you don't know 
 why men like Me, and men like Them, may not begin with 
 rowing and running, and the like of that, and end in commit- 
 ting all the crimes in the calendar, murder included. Well ! 
 you may be right again there. Who's to know what may hap- 
 pen to him ? or what he may not end in doing before he dies ? 
 It may be Another, or it may be Me. How do I know ? and 
 how do you ?" He suddenly turned on the deputation, stand- 
 ing thunderstruck behind him. " If you want to know what 
 I think, there it is for you, in plain words." 
 
 There was something, not only in the shamelessness of the 
 declaration itself, but in the fierce pleasure that the speaker 
 seemed to feel in making it, which struck the circle of listen- 
 ers, Sir Patrick included, with a momentary chill. 
 
 In the midst of the silence a sixth guest appeared on the 
 lawn, and stepped into the library — a silent, resolute, unas- 
 suming, elderly man, who had arrived the day before on a 
 visit to Windygates, and who was well known, in and out of 
 London, as one of the first consulting surgeons of his time. 
 
 "A discussion going on ?" he asked. "Am I in the way ?" 
 
 "There's no discussion — we are all agreed," cried Geoffrey, 
 answering boisterously for the rest. " The more the merrier. 
 
 sir 
 
 12 
 
178 MAN AISTD WIFE. 
 
 After a glance at Geoffrey the surgeon suddenly checked 
 himself on the point of advancing to the inner part of the 
 room, and remained standing at the window. 
 
 " I beg your pardon," said Sir Patrick, addressing himself to 
 Geoffrey, with a grave dignity which was quite new in Ar- 
 nold's experience of him, " We are not all agreed. I decline, 
 Mr. Delamayn, to allow you to connect me with such an ex- 
 pression of feeling on your part as we have just heard. The 
 language you have used leaves me no alternative but to meet 
 your statement of what you suppose me to have said by my 
 statement of what I really did say. It is not my fault if the 
 discussion in the garden is revived before another audience in 
 this room — it is yours." 
 
 He looked, as he spoke, to Arnold and Blanche, and from 
 them to the surgeon standing at the window. 
 
 The surgeon had found an occupation for himself which com- 
 pletely isolated him among the rest of the guests. Keeping 
 his own face in shadow, he was studying Geoffrey's face, in the 
 full flood of light that fell on it, with a steady attention which 
 must have been generally remarked, if all eyes had not been 
 turned toward Sir Patrick at the time. 
 
 It was not an easy face to investigate at that moment. 
 
 While Sir Patrick had been speaking Geoffrey had seated 
 himself riear the window, doggedly impenetrable to the re- 
 proof of which he was the object. In his impatience to con- 
 sult the one authority competent to decide the question of Ar- 
 nold's position toward Anne, he had sided with Sir Patrick, as 
 a means of ridding himself of the unwelcome presence of his 
 friends — and he had defeated his own purpose, thanks to his 
 own brutish incapabiUty of bridling himself in the pursuit of 
 it. Whether he was now discouraged under these circum- 
 stances, or whether he was simply resigned to bide his time 
 till his time came, it was impossible, judging by outward ap- 
 pearances, to say. With a heavy dropping at the corners of 
 his mouth, with a stolid indifference staring dull in his eyes, 
 there he sat, a man forearmed, in his own obstinate neutrality, 
 against all temptation to engage in the conflict of opinions 
 that was to come. 
 
 Sir Patrick took up the newspaper which he had brought in 
 from the garden, and looked once more to see if the surgeon 
 was attending to him. 
 
 No ! The surgeon's attention was absorbed in his own sub- 
 ject. There he was in the same position, with his mind still 
 hard at work on something in Geoffrey which at once interest- 
 ed and puzzled it ! "That man," he was thinking to himself, 
 " has come here this morning after traveling from London all 
 night. Does any ordinary fatigue explain what I see in his 
 face? No!" 
 
MAN AND WIFE. 181 
 
 " Our little discussion in the garden," resumed Sir Patrick, 
 answering Blanche''s inquiring look as she bent over him, " be- 
 gan, my dear, in a paragraph here announcing Mr. Delamayn's 
 forthcoming appearance in a foot-race in the neighborhood of 
 London. I hold very unpopular opinions as to the athletia 
 displays which are so much in vogue in England just now. 
 And it is possible that I may have expressed those opinions a 
 little too strongly, in the heat of discussion, with gentlemen 
 who are opposed to me — I don't doubt, conscientiously, op- 
 posed — on this question." 
 
 A low groan of protest rose from One, Two, and Three, in 
 return for the little compliment which Sir Patrick had paid to 
 them. "How about rowing and running ending in the Old 
 Bailey and the gallows ? You said that, sir — you know you 
 did !" 
 
 The two choral gentlemen looked at each other, and agreed 
 with the prevalent sentiment. " It came to that, I think. 
 Smith." " Yes, Jones, it certainly came to that." 
 
 The only two men who still cared nothing about it were 
 Geoffrey and the surgeon. There sat the first, stolidly neutral 
 — indifferent alike to the attack and the defense. There stood 
 the second, pursuing his investigation — with the growing in- 
 terest in it of a man who was beginning to see his way to the 
 end. 
 
 "Hear my defense, gentlemen," continued Sir Patrick, as 
 courteously as ever. "You belong, remember, to a nation 
 which especially claims to practice the rules of fair play. I 
 must beg to remind you of what I said in the garden. I start- 
 ed with a concession. I admitted — as every person of the 
 smallest sense must admit — that a man will, in the great ma- 
 jority of cases, be all the fitter for mental exercise if he wisely 
 combines physical exercise along with it. The whole question 
 between the two is a question of proportion and degree ; and 
 my complaint of the present time is that the present time 
 doesn't see it. Popular opinion in England seems to me to be 
 not only getting to consider the cultivation of the muscles as 
 of equal importance with the cultivation of the mind, but to 
 be actually extending — in practice, if not in theory — to the 
 absurd and dangerous length of putting bodily training in the 
 first place of importance, and mental training in the second. 
 To take a case in point : I can discover no enthusiasm in the 
 nation any thing like so genuine and any thing like so gen- 
 eral as the enthusiasm excited by your University boat-race. 
 Again : I see this Athletic Education of yours made a matter 
 of public celebration in schools and colleges ; and I ask any 
 unprejudiced witness to tell me which excites most popular 
 enthusiasm, and which gets the most prominent place in the 
 
182 MAN AND WIPB. 
 
 public journals — the exhibition, indoors (on Prize-day), of what 
 the boys can do with their minds ? or the exhibition, out-of- 
 doors (on Sports -day), of what the boys can do with their 
 bodies ? You know perfectly well which performance excites 
 the loudest cheers, which occupies the prominent place in the 
 newspapers, and which, as a necessary consequence, confers the 
 highest social honors on the hero of the day." 
 
 Another murmur from One, Two, and Three. " We have 
 nothing to say to that, sir ; have it all your own way, so far." 
 
 Another ratification of agreement with the prevalent opinion 
 between Smith and Jones. 
 
 " Very good," pursued Sir Patrick. " We are all of one 
 mind as to which way the public feeling sets. If it is a feeling 
 to be respected and encouraged, show me the national advan- 
 tage which has resulted from it. Where is the influence of 
 this modern outburst of manly enthusiasm on the serious con- 
 cerns of life? and how has it improved the character of the 
 people at large? Are we any of us individually readier than 
 we ever were to sacrifice our own little private interests to 
 the public good? Are we dealing with the serious social 
 questions of our time in a conspicuously determined, down- 
 right, and definite way? Are we becoming a visibly and in- 
 disputably purer people in our code of commercial morals? Is 
 there a healtliier and higher tone in those public amusements 
 which faithfully reflect in all countries the public taste ? Pro- 
 duce me affirmative answers to these questions, which rest on 
 solid proof, and I'll accept the present mania for athletic sports 
 as something better than an outbreak of our insular boastful- 
 ness and our insular barbarity in a new form." 
 
 " Question ! question !" in a general cry, from One, Two, and 
 Threc^^. 
 
 '" Question ! question !" in meek reverberation, from Smith 
 and Jones. 
 
 "That is the question," rejoined Sir Patrick, "You admit 
 the existence of the public feeling ; and I ask, what good does 
 it do ?" 
 
 " What harm does it do ?" from One, Two, and Three. 
 
 " Hear ! hear !" from Smith and Jones. 
 
 "That's a fair challenge," replied Sir Patrick. "I am bound 
 to meet you on that new ground. I won't point, gentlemen, 
 by way of answer, to the coarseness which I can see growing 
 on our national manners, or to the deterioration which appears 
 to me to be spreading more and more widely in our national 
 tastes. You may tell me with perfect truth that I am too old 
 a man to be a fair judge of manners and tastes which have got 
 beyond my standards. We will try the issue, as it now stands 
 between us, on its abstract merits only. I assert that a state 
 
MAN AND WIFE. 183 
 
 of public feeling which does practically place physical train- 
 ing, in its estimation, above moral and mental training, is a 
 positively bad and dangerous state of feeling in this, that it 
 encourages the inbred reluctance in humanity to submit to 
 the demands which moral and mental cultivation must inevi- 
 tably make on it. Which am I, as a boy, naturally most ready 
 to do — to try how high I can jump ? or to try how much I can 
 learn ? Which training comes easiest to me as a young man ? 
 The training which teaches me to handle an oar ? or the train- 
 ing which teaches me to return good for evil, and to love my 
 neighbor as myself? Of those two experiments, of those two 
 trainings, which ought society in England to meet with the 
 warmest encouragement? And which does society in England 
 practically encourage, as a matter of fact ?" 
 
 "What did you say yourself just now?" from One, Two, and 
 Three. 
 
 " Remarkably well put !" from Smith and Jones. 
 
 " I said," admitted Sir Patrick, " that a man will go all the 
 better to his books for his healthy physical exercise. And I 
 say that again — provided the physical exercise be restrained 
 within fit limits. But when public feeling enters into the 
 question, and directly exalts the bodily exercises above the 
 books — then I say public feeling is in a dangerous extreme. 
 The bodily exercises, in that case, will be uppermost in the 
 youth's thoughts, will have the strongest hold on his interest, 
 will take the lion's share of his time, and will, by those means 
 — barring the few purely exceptional instances — slowly and 
 surely end in leaving him, to ail good moral and mental pur- 
 pose, certainly an uncultivated, and, possibly, a dangerous 
 man." 
 
 A cry from the camp of the adversaries : " He's got to it 
 at last ! A man who leads an out-of-door life, and uses the 
 strength that God has given to him, is a dangerous man. Did 
 any body ever hear the like of that ?" 
 
 Cry reverberated, with variations, by the two human echpes : 
 " No ! Nobody ever heard the like of that !" 
 
 " Clear your minds of cant, gentlemen," answered Sir Pat- 
 rick. "The agricultural laborer leads an out-of-door life, and 
 uses the strength that God has given to him. The sailor in 
 the merchant service does the same. Both are an uncultiva- 
 ted, a shamefully uncultivated, class — and see the result ! Look 
 at the Map of Crime, and you will find the most hideous of- 
 fenses in the calendar, committed — not in the towns, where 
 the average man doesn't lead an out-of-door life, doesn't, as a 
 rule, use his strength, but is, as a rule, comparatively cultiva- 
 ted — not in the tow^ns, but in the agricultural districts. As for 
 the English sailor — except when the Royal Navy catches and 
 
184 MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 cultivates him — ask Mr, Brinkworth, who has served in the 
 merchant navy, wliat sort of specimen of the moral influence 
 of out-of-door life and muscular cultivation he is." 
 
 " In nine cases out of ten," said Arnold, *' he is as idle and 
 vicious a ruflian as walks the earth." 
 
 Another cry from the Opposition: "Are we agricultural la- 
 borers? Are we sailors ir *he merchant service?" 
 
 A smart reverberation from the human echoes : " Smith ! 
 am I a laborer?" "Jones ! am I a sailor?" 
 
 "Pray let us not be personal, gentlemen," said Sir Patrick. 
 " I am speaking generally ; and I can only meet extreme ob- 
 jections by pushing my argument to extreme limits. The la- 
 borer and the sailor have served my purpose. If the laborer 
 and the sailor offend you, by all means let them walk off the 
 stage ! I hold to the position which I advanced just now. A 
 man may be well born, well off, well dressed, well fed — but if 
 he is an uncultivated man, he is (in spite of all those advan- 
 tages) a man with special capacities for evil in him, on that 
 very account. Don't mistake me ! I am far from saying that 
 the present rage for exclusively muscular accomplishments 
 must lead inevitably downward to the lowest deep of depravi- 
 ty. Fortunately for society, all special depravity is more or 
 less certainly the result, in the first instance, of special temp- 
 tation. The ordinary mass of us, thank God, pass through life 
 without being exposed to other than ordinary temptations. 
 Thousands of the young gentlemen, devoted to the favorite 
 pursuits of the present time, will get through existence with 
 no worse consequences to themselves than a coarse tone of 
 mind and manners, and a lamentable incapability of feeling 
 any of those higher and gentler influences which sweeten and 
 purify the lives of more cultivated men. But take the other 
 case (which may occur to any body), the case of a special 
 temptation trying a modern young man of your prosperous 
 class and of mine. And let me beg Mr. Delamayn to honor 
 with his attention what I have now to say, because it refers 
 to the opinion which I did really express — as distinguished 
 from the opinion which he affects to agree with, and which I 
 never advanced." 
 
 Geoffrey's indifference showed no signs of giving way. " Go 
 on !" he said — and still sat looking straight before him, with 
 heavy eyes, which noticed nothing, and expressed nothing. 
 
 "Take the example which we have now in view," pursued 
 Sir Patrick — " the example of an average young gentleman of 
 our time, blest with every advantage that physical cultivation 
 can bestow on him. Let this man be tried by a temptation 
 which insidiously calls into action, in his own interests, the 
 savage instincts latent in humanity — the instincts of self-seek- 
 
MAN AND WIFE. 185 
 
 ing and cruelty which are at the bottom of all crime. Let \ 
 this man be placed toward some other person, guiltless of in- 1 
 juring him, in a position which demands one of two sacrifices \ 
 — the sacrifice of the other person, or the sacrifice of his own ■ 
 interests and his own desires. His neighbor's happiness, or his 
 neighbor's life, stands, let us say, between him and the attain- 
 ment of something that he wants. He can wreck the happi- 
 ness, or strike down the life, without, to his knowledge, any 
 fear of suffering for it himself "What is to prevent him, being 
 the man he is, from going straight to his end on those condi- 
 tions ? Will the skill in rowing, the swiftness in running, the 
 admirable capacity and endurance in other physical exercises, 
 which he has attained, by a strenuous cultiv ation in this kind 
 that has excluded any similarly strenuous cultivation in oth- 
 er kinds — will these physical attainments help him to win a 
 purely moral victory over his own selfishness and his own 
 cruelty? They won't even help him to see that it is selfish- 
 ness, and that it is cruelty. The essential principle of his 
 rowing and racing (a harmless principle enough, if you can 
 be sure of applying it to rowing and racing only) has taught 
 him to take every advantage of another man that his superior 
 strength and superior cunning can suggest. There has been 
 nothing in his training to soften the barbarous hardness in his 
 heart, and to enlighten the barbarous darkness in his mind. 
 Temptation finds this man defenseless, when temptation passes 
 his way, I don't care w^ho he is, or how high he stands acci- 
 dentally in the social scale — he is, to all moral intents andj 
 purposes, an Animal, and nothing moi*e. If my happiness 
 stands in his way — and if he can do it with impunity to him-j 
 self — he will trample down my happiness. If my life happens 
 to be the next obstacle he encounters — and if he can do it 
 with impunity to himself — he will trample down my life. 
 Not, Mr. Delamayn, in the character of a victim to irresistible "\ 
 fatality, or to blind chance ; but in the character of a man 
 who has sown the seed, and reaps the harvest. That, sir, is 
 the case which I put as an extreme case only, when this dis- 
 cussion began. As an extreme case only — but as a perfectly 
 possible case, at the same time — I restate it now." 
 
 Before the advocates of the other side of the question could 
 open their lips to reply, Geoffrey suddenly flung off his indif- 
 ference, and started to his feet. 
 
 "Stop!" he cried, threatening the others, in his fierce impa- 
 tience to answer for himself, with his clenched fist. 
 
 There was a general silence. 
 
 Geoffrey turned and looked at Sir Patrick, as if Sir Patrick 
 had personally insulted him. 
 
 " Who is this anonymous man, who finds his way to his own 
 
186 MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 ends, and pities nobody and sticks at nothing?" he asked. 
 " Give him a name !" 
 
 " I am quoting an example," said Sir Patrick, " I am not 
 attacking a man." 
 
 " What right have you," cried Geoffrey — utterly forgetful, 
 in the strange exasperation that had seized on him, of the in- 
 terest that he had in controlling himself before Sir Patrick — 
 " what right have you to pick out an example of a rowing-man 
 who is an infernal scoundrel — when it's quite as likely that a 
 rowing-man may be a good fellow : ay ! and a better fellow, 
 if you come to that, than ever stood in your shoes !" 
 
 " If the one case is quite as likely to occur as the other 
 (which I readily admit)," answered Sir Patrick, " I have surely 
 a right to choose which case I please for illustration. (Wait, 
 Mr. Delamayn ! These are the last words I have to say, and 
 I mean to say them.) I have taken the example — not of a 
 specially depraved man, as you erroneously suppose — but of 
 an average man, with his average share of the mean, cruel, and 
 dangerous qualities which are part and parcel of unreformed 
 human nature — as your religion tells you, and as you may see 
 for yourself, if you choose to look at your untaught fellow- 
 creatures anywhere. I suppose that man to be tried by a 
 temptation to wickedness, out of the common ; and I show, to 
 the best of my ability, how completely the moral and mental 
 neglect of himself, which the present material tone of public 
 feeling in England has tacitly encouraged, leaves him at the 
 mercy of all the worst instincts in his nature ; and how surely, 
 under those conditions, he must go down (gentleman as he is) 
 step by step — as the lowest vagabond in the streets goes down 
 under his special temptation — from the beginning in ignorance 
 to the end in crime. If you deny my right to take such an 
 example as that, in illustration of the views I advocate, you 
 must either deny that a special temptation to wickedness can 
 assail a man in the position of a gentleman ; or you must as- 
 sert that gentlemen who are naturally superior to all tempta- 
 tion are the only gentlemen who devote themselves to athletic 
 pursuits. There is my defense. In stating my case, I have 
 spoken out of my own sincere respect for the interests of vir- 
 tue and of learning : out of my own sincere admiration for 
 those young men among us who are resisting the contagion 
 of barbarism about them. In their future is the future hope 
 of England. I have done." 
 
 Angrily ready with a violent personal reply, Geoffrey found 
 himself chocked, in his turn, by another person with something 
 to say, and with a resolution to say it at that particular moment. 
 
 For some little time past the surgeon had discontinued his 
 
MAN AND WIFR. 187 
 
 steady investigation of GeoiFrey's face, and had given all his 
 attention to the discussion, with the air of a man whose self- 
 imposed task had come to an end. As the last sentence fell 
 from the last speaker's lips, he interposed so quickly and so 
 skillfully between Geoftrey and Sir Patrick, that Geoffrey him- 
 self was taken by surprise. 
 
 "There is something still wanting to make Sir Patrick's 
 statement of the case complete," he said. " I think I can sup- 
 ply it, from the result of my own professional experience. Be- 
 fore I say what I have to say, Mr. Delamayn will perhaps excuse 
 me if I venture on giving him a caution to control himself." 
 
 " Are you going to make a dead set at me, too ?" inquired 
 Geoffrey. 
 
 "I am recommending you to keep your temper — nothing 
 more. There are plenty of men who can fly into a passion 
 without doing themselves any particular harm. You are not 
 one of them." 
 
 " What do you mean ?" 
 
 " I don't think the state of your health, Mr. Delamayn, is 
 quite so satisfactory as you may be disposed to consider it 
 yourself." 
 
 Geoffrey turned to his admirers and adherents with a roar 
 of derisive laughter. The admirers and adherents all echoed 
 him together. Arnold and Blanche smiled at each other. 
 Even Sir Patrick looked as if he could hardly credit the evi- 
 dence of his own ears. There stood the modern Hercules, self- 
 vindicated as a Hercules, before all eyes that looked at him. 
 And there, opposite, stood a man whom he could have killed 
 with one blow of his fist, telling him, in serious earnest, that he 
 was not in perfect health ! 
 
 " You are a rare fellow !" said Geoffrey, half in jest and half 
 in anger. "What's the matter with me?" 
 
 " I have undertaken to give you what I believe to be a nec- 
 essary caution," answered the surgeon. " I have 7iot under- 
 taken to tell you what I think is the matter with you. That 
 may be a question for consideration some little time hence. 
 In the mean while, I should like to put my impression about 
 you to the test. Have you any objection to answer a question 
 on a matter of no particular importance relating to yourself?" 
 
 *' Let's hear the question first." 
 
 *' I have noticed something in your behavior while Sir Pat- 
 rick was speaking. You are as much interested in opposing 
 his views as any of those gentlemen about you. I don't un- 
 derstand your sitting in silence, and leaving it entirely to the 
 others to put the case on your side — until Sir Patrick said 
 something which happened to irritate you. Had you, all the 
 time before that, no answer ready in your own mind ?" 
 
188 MAN AJSTD WIFE. 
 
 " I had as good answers in my mind as any that have been 
 made here to-day." 
 
 " And yet you didn't give them ?" 
 
 " No ; I didn't give them." 
 
 "Perhaps you felt — though you knew your objections to be 
 good ones — that it was hardly worth while to take the trouble 
 of putting them into words? In short, you let your friends 
 answer for you, rather than make the effort of answering for 
 yourself?" 
 
 Geoffrey looked at his medical adviser with a sudden curios- 
 ity and a sudden distrust, 
 
 " I say," he asked, " how do you come to know what's going 
 on in my mind — without my telling you of it?" 
 
 " It is my business to find out what is going on in people's 
 bodies — and to do that it is sometimes necessary for me to find 
 out (if I can) what is going on in their minds. If I have right- 
 ly interpreted what was going on in your mind, there is no need 
 for me to press my question. You have answered it already." 
 
 He turned to Sir Patrick next. 
 
 " There is a side to this subject," he said, " which you have 
 not touched on yet. There is a Physical objection to the pres' 
 ent rage for muscular exercises of all sorts, which is quite as 
 strong, in its way, as the Moral objection. You have stated 
 the consequences as they may affect the mind, I can state the 
 consequences as they do affect the body." 
 
 " From your own experience ?" 
 
 " From my own experience. I can tell you, as a medical 
 man, that a proportion, and not by any means a small one, of 
 the young men who are now putting themselves to violent 
 athletic tests of their strength and endurance, are taking that 
 course to the serious and permanent injury of their own health. 
 The public who attend rowing-matches, foot-races, and other 
 exhibitions of that sort, see nothing but the successful results 
 of muscular training. P^'athers and mothers at home see the 
 failures. There are households in England — miserable house- 
 holds, to be counted, Sir Patrick, by more than ones and twos 
 — in wliich there are young men who have to thank the strain 
 laid on their constitutions by the popular physical displays of 
 the present time, for being broken men, and invalided men, for 
 the rest of their lives." 
 
 " Do you hear that?" said Sir Patrick, looking at Geoffrey, 
 
 Geoffrey carelessly nodded his head. His irritation had had 
 time to subside: the stolid indifference had got possession of 
 him again. He had resumed his chair — he sat, with outstretch- 
 ed legs, staring stupidly at the pattern on the carpet. " What 
 does it matter to Me?" was the sentiment expressed all over 
 him, from head to foot. 
 
MAX AND TVIFE. 189 
 
 The surgeon went on. 
 
 "I can SCO no remedy for this sad state of things," he said, 
 " as long as the public feeling remains what the public feeling 
 is now. A line healthy-looking young man, with a superb 
 muscular development, longs (naturally enough) to distinguish 
 himself like others. The training authorities at his college, or 
 elsewhere, take him in hand (naturally enough again) on the 
 strength of outward appearances. And whether they have 
 been right or wrong in choosing him is more than they can 
 say, until the experiment has been tried, and the mischief has 
 been, in many cases, irretrievably done. How many of them 
 are aware of the important physiological truth, that the mus- 
 cular power of a man is no fair guarantee of his vital power? 
 How many of them know that we all have (as a great French 
 writer puts it) two lives in us — the surface life of the muscles, 
 and the inner life of the heart, lungs, and brain ? Even if they 
 did know this — even with medical men to help them — it would 
 be in the last degree doubtful, in most cases, whether any pre- 
 vious examination would result in any reliable discovery of the 
 vital fitness of the man to undergo the stress of muscular exer- 
 tion laid on him. Apply to any of my brethren ; and they will 
 tell you, as the result of their own professional observation, that 
 I am in no sense overstating this serious evil, or exaggerating 
 the deplorable and dangerous consequences to which it leads. 
 I have a patient, at this moment, who is a young man of twen- 
 ty, and who possesses one of the finest muscular developments 
 I ever saw in my life. If that young man had consulted me be- 
 fore he followed the example of the other young men about him, 
 I can not honestly say that T could have foreseen the results. 
 As things are, after going through a certain amount of muscu- 
 lar training, after performing a certain number of muscular 
 feats, he suddenly fainted one day, to the astonishment of his 
 family and friends. I was called in, and I have watched the 
 case since. He will probably live, but he will never recover, 
 I am obliged to take precautions with this youth of twenty 
 which I should take with an old man of eighty. He is big 
 enough and muscular enough to sit to a painter as a model for 
 Samson — and only last week I saw him swoon away like a 
 young girl, in his mother's arms." 
 
 " Name !" cried Geoffrey's admirers, still fighting the battle 
 on their side, in the absence of any encouragement from Geof- 
 frey himself. 
 
 " I am not in the habit of mentioning my patients' names," 
 replied the surgeon. " But if you insist on my producing an 
 example of a man broken by athletic exercises, I can do it." 
 
 "Doit! Who is he?" 
 
 "You all know him perfectly well." 
 
190 MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 " Is he in the doctor's hands?" 
 
 " Not yet." 
 
 " Where is he ?" 
 
 " There !" 
 
 In a pause of breathless silence — with the eyes of every per- 
 son in the room eagerly fastened on him — the surgeon lifted 
 his hand and pointed to Geoffrey Delamayn. 
 
 CHAPTER THE TWENTIETH. 
 
 TOUCHING IT. 
 
 As soon as the general stupefaction was allayed, the general 
 incredulity asserted itself as a matter of course. 
 
 The man who first declared that "seeing" was "believing" 
 laid his finger (whether he knew it himself or not) on one of 
 the fundamental follies of humanity. The easiest of all evi- 
 dence to receive is the evidence that requires no other judg- 
 ment to decide on it than the judgment of the eye — and it 
 will be, on that account, the evidence which humanity is most 
 ready to credit, as long as humanity lasts. The eyes of every 
 body looked at Geoffrey; and the judgment of every body de- 
 cided, on the evidence there visible, that the surgeon must be 
 wrong. Lady Lundie herself (disturbed over her dinner invi- 
 tations) led the general protest. "Mr. Delamayn in broken 
 health !" she exclaimed, appealing to the better sense of her 
 eminent medical guest. " Really, now, you can't expect us 
 to believe that !" 
 
 Stung into action for the second time by the startling asser- 
 tion of which he had been made the subject, Geoffrey rose, and 
 looked the surgeon, steadily and insolently, straight in the face. 
 
 " Do you mean what you say ?" he asked, 
 
 "Yes," 
 
 " You point me out before all these people — " 
 
 " One moment, Mr. Delamayn, I admit that I may have 
 been wrong in directing the general attention to you. You 
 have a right to complain of my having answered too publicly 
 the public challenge offered to me by your friends, I apolo- 
 gize for having done that. But I don't retract a single word 
 of what I have said on the subject of your health," 
 
 " You stick to it that I'm a broken-down man ?" 
 
 « I do." 
 
 *'I wish you were twenty years younger, sir?" 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 " I'd ask you to step out on the lawn there, and I'd show 
 you whether I'm a broken-down man or not," 
 
M4N AND WIFE. 191 
 
 Lady Lundie looked at her brother-in-law. Sir Patrick in- 
 stantly interfered. 
 
 " Mr. Delamayn," he said, " you were invited here in the 
 cliaracter of a gentleman, and you are a guest in a lady's 
 iii>use." 
 
 " No ! no !" said the surgeon, good-humoredly. " Mr. Dela- 
 nuiyn is using a strong argument, Sir Patrick — and that is all. 
 If I loere twenty years younger," he went on, addressing him- 
 self to Geoifrey, " and if I did step out on the lawn with you, 
 the result wouldn't aflect the question between us in the least. 
 I don't say that the violent bodily exercises in which you are 
 famous have damaged your muscular power. I assert that 
 they have damaged your vital power. In what particular 
 way they have affected it I don't consider myself bound to 
 tell you. I simply give you a warning, as a matter of com- 
 mon humanity. You will do well to be content with the suc- 
 cess you have already achieved in the field of athletic pursuits, 
 and to alter your mode of life for the future. Accept my ex- 
 cuses, once more, for having said this publicly instead of pri- 
 vately — and don't foi'get my warning." 
 
 He turned to move away to another part of the room. Geof- 
 frey fairly forced him to return to the subject. 
 
 " Wait a bit," he said. " You have had your innings. My 
 turn now. I can't give it words as you do ; but I can come to 
 the point. And, by the Lord, I'll fix you to it ! In ten days 
 or a fortnight from this I'm going into training for the Foot- 
 race at Fulhara. Do you say I shall break down ?" 
 
 " You will probably get through your training." 
 
 "Shall I get through the race?" 
 
 " You may j^ossibly get through the race. But if you do — " 
 
 " If I do ?" 
 
 " You will never run another." 
 
 " And never row in another match ?" 
 
 " Never." 
 
 " I have been asked to row in the Race, next spring ; and I 
 liave said I will. Do you tell me, in so many words, that I 
 feha'n't be able to do it ?" 
 
 " Yes — in so many words." 
 
 "Positively?" 
 
 " Positively." 
 
 " Back your opinion !" cried Geoffrey, tearing his betting- 
 book out of his pocket. " I lay you an even hundred I'm in fit 
 condition to row in the University Match next spring." 
 
 " I don't bet, Mr. Delamayn." 
 
 With that final reply the surgeon walked away to the other 
 end of the library. Lady Lundie (taking Blanche in custcdy) 
 withdrew, at the same time, to return to the serious business 
 
192 MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 of her invitations for the dinner. Geoffrey turned defiantly, 
 book in hand, to his college friends about him. The British 
 blood was up; and the British resolution to bet, which suc- 
 cessfully defies common decency and common law from one 
 end of the country to the other, was not to be trifled with. 
 
 " Come on !" cried Geoffrey. " Back the doctor, one of you !" 
 
 Sir Patrick rose in undisguised disgust, and followed the 
 surgeon. One, Two, and Three, invited to business by their 
 illustrious friend, shook their thick heads at him knowingly, 
 and answered with one accord, in one eloquent word — " Gam- 
 mon !" 
 
 " One of you back him !" persisted Geoffrey, appealing to the 
 two choral gentlemen in the background, with his temper fast 
 rising to fever heat. The two choral gentlemen compared 
 notes, as usual. " We weren't born yesterday, Smith ?" " Not 
 if we know it, Jones." 
 
 " Smith !" said Geoffrey, with a sudden assumption of polite- 
 ness ominous of something unpleasant to come. 
 
 Smith said " Yes ?" — with a smile. 
 
 « Jones !" 
 
 Jones said " Yes ?" — with a reflection of Smith. 
 
 " You're a couple of infernal cads — and you haven't got a 
 hundred pound between you !" 
 
 " Come ! come !" said Arnold, interfering for the first time. 
 " This is shameful, Geoffrey !" 
 
 " Why the " — (never mind what !) — " won't they any of them 
 take the bet ?" 
 
 " If you must be a fool," returned Arnold, a little irritably 
 on his side, " and if nothing else will keep you quiet, IHl take 
 the bet." 
 
 "An even hundred on the doctor !" cried Geoffrey. " Done 
 with you !" 
 
 His highest aspirations were satisfied ; his temper was in 
 perfect order again. He entered the bet in his book ; and 
 made his excuses to Smith and Jones in the heartiest way. 
 " No offense, old chaps ! Shake hands !" The two choral gen- 
 tlemen were enchanted with him. " The English aristocracy 
 — eh, Smith ?" " Blood and breeding — eh, Jones !" 
 
 As soon as he had spoken, Arnold's conscience reproached 
 him : not for betting (who is ashamed of that form of gambling 
 in England ?), but for "backing the doctor." With the best 
 intention toward his friend, he was speculating on the failure 
 of his friend's health. He anxiously assured Geoffrey that no 
 man in the room could be more heartily persuaded that the 
 Burgeon was wrong than himself " I don't cry off from the 
 bet," he said. " But, ray dear fellow, pray understand that I 
 only take it to please you," 
 
MAN AND WIPK, 19ft 
 
 " Bother all that !" answered Geoffrey, with the steady eye 
 to business, which was one of the choicest virtues of his charac- 
 ter. "A bet's a bet — and hang your sentiment !" He drew 
 Arnold by the arm out of ear-shot of the others. " I say !" he 
 asked, anxiously. " Do you think I've set the old fogy's back 
 up?" 
 
 " Do you mean Sir Patrick ?" 
 
 Geoffrey nodded, and went on. 
 
 " I haven't put that little matter to him yet — about marry- 
 ing in Scotland, you know. Suppose he cuts up rough with 
 me if I try him now?" His eye wandered cunningly, as he 
 put the question, to the farther end of the room. The surgeon 
 was looking over a port-folio of prints. The ladies were still 
 at work on their notes of invitation. Sir Patrick was alone 
 at the book-shelves, immersed in a volume which he had just 
 taken down. 
 
 " Make an apology," suggested Arnold. " Sir Patrick may 
 be a little irritable and bitter ; but he's a just man and a kind 
 man. Say you were not guilty of any intentional disrespect 
 toward him — and you will say enough." 
 
 "All right !" 
 
 Sir Patrick, deep in an old Venetian edition of The Decam- 
 eron, found himself suddenly recalled from mediaeval Italy to 
 modern England, by no less a person than Geoffrey Delamayn. 
 
 " What do you want ?" he asked, coldly. 
 
 " I want to make an apology," said Geoffrey. " Let by-gones 
 be by-gones — and that sort of thing. I wasn't guilty of any 
 intentional disrespect toward you. Forgive and forget. Not 
 half a bad motto, sir — eh ?" 
 
 It was clumsily expressed — but still it was an apology. 
 Not even Geoffrey could appeal to Sir Patrick's courtesy and 
 Sir Patrick's consideration in vain. 
 
 " Not a word more, Mr. Delamayn !" said the polite old 
 man. "Accept my excuses for any thing which I may have 
 said too sharply, on my side ; and let us by all means forget 
 the rest." 
 
 Having met the advance made to him, in those terms, he 
 paused, expecting Geoffrey to leave him free to return to the 
 Decameron. To his unutterable astonishment, Geoffrey sud- 
 denly stooped over him, and whispered in his ear, "I want a 
 word in private with you." 
 
 Sir Patrick started back, as if Geoffrey had tried to bite him. 
 
 " I beg your pardon, Mr. Delamayn — what did you say ?" 
 
 " Could you give me a word in private ?" 
 
 Sir Patrick put back the Decameron, and bowed in freezing 
 silence. The confidence of the Honorable Geoffrey Delamayn 
 was the last confidence in the world into which he desired to 
 
196 MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 be drawn. " This is the seci'et of the apology !" he thought. 
 " What can he possibly want with Me ?" 
 
 " It's about a friend of mine," pursued Geoffrey, leading the 
 way toward one of the windows. " He's in a scrape, my friend 
 is. And I want to ask your advice. It's strictly private, you 
 know." There he came to a full stop — and looked to see what 
 impression he had produced, so far. 
 
 Sir Patrick declined, either by word or gesture, to exhibit 
 the slightest anxiety to hear a word more. 
 
 " Would you mind taking a turn in the garden ?" asked 
 Geoffrey. 
 
 Sir Patrick pointed to his lame foot. " I have had my al- 
 lowance of walking this morning," he said. "Let my infirmity 
 excuse me." 
 
 Geoffrey looked about him for a substitute for the garden, 
 and led the way back again toward one of the convenient cur- 
 tained recesses opening out of the inner wall of the library. 
 " We shall be private enough here," he said. 
 
 Sir Patrick made a final effort to escape the proposed confer- 
 ence — an undisguised effort, this time. 
 
 " Pray forgive me, Mr. Delamayn. Are you quite sure that 
 you apply to the right person in applying to vief'' 
 
 " You're a Scotch lawyer, ain't you ?" 
 
 " Certainly." 
 
 "And you understand about Scotch marriages — eh?" 
 
 Sir Patrick's manner suddenly altered, 
 
 " Is that the subject you wish to consult me on?" he asked. 
 
 " It's not me. It's my friend." 
 
 " Your friend, then ?" 
 
 "Yes. It's a scrape with a woman. Here, in Scotland. 
 My friend don't know whether he is married to her or not." 
 
 " I am at your service, Mr. Delamayn." 
 
 To Geoffrey's relief — by no means unmixed with surprise — 
 Sir Patrick not only showed no further reluctance to be con- 
 sulted by him, but actually advanced to meet his wishes, by 
 leading the way to the recess that was nearest to them. The 
 quick brain of the old lawyer had put Geoffrey's application to 
 him for assistance, and Blanche's application to him for assist- 
 ance together : and had built its own theory on the basis thus 
 obtained. "Do I see a connection between the present posi- 
 tion of Blanche's governess and the present position of Mr. 
 Delamayn's friend ?" thought Sir Patrick. " Stranger extremes 
 than that have met me in my experience. Something may 
 come out of this." 
 
 The two strangely-assorted companions seated themselves, 
 one on each side of a little table in the recess. Arnold and 
 the other guests had idled out again on to the lawn. The sur- 
 
MAN AND WIFE. 197 
 
 ^»on with his prints, and the ladies with their invitations, were 
 earely absorbed in a distant part of the library. The confer- 
 ence between the two men, so trifling in appearance, so terrible 
 in its destined influence, not over Anne's future only, but over 
 the future of Arnold and Blanche, was, to all practical pur- 
 poses, a conference with closed doors. 
 
 " Now," said Sir Patrick, " what is the question ?" 
 
 " The question," said Geoffrey, " is whether my friend is 
 mari'ied to her or not ?" 
 
 " Did he mean to marry her ?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 " He being a single man, and she being a single woman, at 
 the time? And both in Scotland ?" 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 "Very well. Now tell me the circumstances." 
 
 Geoffrey hesitated. The art of stating circumstances implies 
 the cultivation of a very rare gift — the gift of arranging ideas- 
 No one was better acquainted with this truth than Sir Patrick. 
 He was purposely puzzling Geoffrey at starting, under the firm 
 conviction that his client had something to conceal from him. 
 The one process that could be depended on for extracting the 
 truth, under those circumstances, was the process of interroga- 
 tion. If Geoffrey was submitted to it, at the outset, his cun- 
 ning might take the alarm. Sir Patrick's object was to make 
 the man himself invite interrogation. Geoffrey invited it 
 forthwith, by attempting to state the circumstances, and by 
 involving them in the usual confusion. Sir Patrick waited 
 until he had thoroughly lost the thread of his narrative — and 
 then played for the winning trick. 
 
 " Would it be easier to you if I asked a few questions ?" he 
 inquired, innocently. 
 
 " Much easier." 
 
 " I am quite at your service. Suppose we clear the ground 
 to begin with ? Are you at liberty to mention names ?" 
 
 " No." 
 
 "Places?" 
 
 " No." 
 
 "Dates?" 
 
 "Do you want me to be particular?" 
 
 " Be as particular as you can." 
 
 " Will it do, if I say the present year ?" 
 
 " Yes. Were your friend and the lady — at some time in the 
 present year — traveling together in Scotland ?" 
 
 " No." 
 
 " Living together in Scotland ?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 " What ^oere they doing together in Scotland ?" 
 
/98 MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 " Well — they were meeting each other at an inn." 
 
 " Oh ? They were meeting each other at an inn. Which 
 was first at the rendezvous ?" 
 
 " The woman was first. Stop a bit ! We are getting to it 
 now." He produced from his pocket the written memorandum 
 of Arnold's proceedings at Craig Fernie, which he had taken 
 down from Arnold's own lips. " I've got a bit of note here," 
 he went on, "Perhaps you'd like to have a look at it?" 
 
 Sir Patrick took the note — read it rapidly through to himself 
 — then re-read it, sentence by sentence, to Geofi"rey ; using it 
 as a text to speak from, in making further inquiries. 
 
 " ' He asked for her by the name of his wife, at the door,' " 
 read Sir Patrick. " Meaning, I presume, the door of the inn ? 
 Had the lady previously given herself out as a married woman 
 to the people of the inn ?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "How long had she been at the inn before the gentleman 
 joined her ?" 
 
 " Only an hour or so." 
 
 " Did she give a name ?" 
 
 " I can't be quite sure — I should say not." 
 
 " Did the gentleman give a name ?" 
 
 " No. Pra certain he didn't." 
 
 Sir Patrick returned to the memorandum. 
 
 " ' He said at dinner, before the landlady and the waiter, 1 
 take these rooms for my wife. He made her say he was her 
 husband, at the same time.' Was that done jocosely, Mr. Dela- 
 mayn — either by the lady or the gentleman ?" 
 
 " No. It was done in downright earnest," 
 
 " You mean it was done to look like earnest, and so to de 
 ceive the landlady and the waiter?" 
 
 « Jes." _ 
 
 Sir Patrick returned to the memorandum. 
 
 "'After that, he stopped all night.' Stopped in the rooms 
 he had taken for himself and his wife ?" 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " And what happened the next day ?" 
 
 " He went away. Wait a bit ! Said he had business, for an 
 excuse." 
 
 " That is to say, he kept up the deception with the people 
 of the inn ? and left the lady behind him, in the character o\ 
 his wife?" 
 
 "That's it." 
 
 " Did he go back to the inn ?" 
 
 « No." 
 
 " How long did the lady stay there, after he had gone ?" 
 
 " She staid — well, she staid a few days." 
 
MAN AND WIFB. 199 
 
 "And your friend has not seen her since?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 " Are your friend and the lady English or Scotch ?" 
 
 " Both English." 
 
 "At the time when they met at the inn, had they either of 
 Jhem arrived in Scotland, from the place in which they were 
 previously living, within a period of less than twenty-one 
 days?" 
 
 Geoffrey hesitated. There could be no difficulty in answer- 
 ing for Anne. Lady Lundie and her domestic circle had occu- 
 Eied Windygates for a much longer period than three weeks 
 efore the date of the lawn-party. The question, as it affected 
 Arnold, was the only question that required reflection. After 
 searching his memory for details of the conversation which 
 had taken place between them, when he and Arnold had met 
 at the lawn-party, Geoffrey recalled a certain reference on the 
 part of his friend to a performance at the Edinburgh theatre, 
 which at once decided the question of time. Arnold had been 
 necessarily detained in Edinburgh, before his arrival at Windy- 
 gates, by legal business connection with his inheritance ; and 
 he, like Anne, had certainly been in Scotland, before they met 
 at Craig Fernie, for a longer period than a period of three 
 weeks. He accordingly informed Sir Patrick that the lady and 
 gentleman had been in Scotland for more than twenty-one days 
 — and then added a question on his oAvn behalf: "Don't let 
 me hurry you, sir — but, shall you soon have done ?" 
 
 " I shall have done, after two more questions," answered Sir 
 Patrick. "Am I to understand that the lady claims, on the 
 strength of the circumstances which you have mentioned to 
 me, to be your friend's wife ?" 
 
 Geoffrey made an affirmative reply. The readiest means of 
 obtaining Sir Patrick's opinion was, in this case, to answer yes. 
 In other words, to represent Anne (in the character of " the 
 lady") as claiming to be married to Arnold (in the character 
 of" his friend"). 
 
 Having made this concession to circumstances, he was, at 
 the same time, quite cunning enough to see that it was of vital 
 importance to the purpose which he had in view, to confine 
 himself strictly to this one perversion of the truth. There 
 could be plainly no depending on the lawyer's opinion, unless 
 that opinion was given on the facts exactly as they had oc- 
 curred at the inn. To the facts he had, thus far, carefully 
 adhered ; and to the facts (with the one inevitable departure 
 from them which had been just forced on him) he determined 
 to adhere to the end. 
 
 " Did no letters pass between the lady and gentleman ?" 
 pursued Sir Patrick. 
 
200 MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 " None that I know of," answered Geoffrey, steadily return- 
 ing to the truth. 
 
 " I have done, Mr. Delamayn." 
 
 " Well ; and what's your opinion ?" 
 
 "Before I give my opinion I am bound to preface it by a 
 personal statement which you are not to take, if you please, as 
 a statement of the law. You ask me to decide — on the facts 
 with which you have supplied me — whether your friend is, ac- 
 ."ording to the law of Scotland, married or not?" 
 
 Geoffrey nodded. "That's it !" he said, eagerly. 
 
 "My experience, Mr. Delamayn, is that any single man, in 
 Scotland, may marry any single woman, at any time, and under 
 any circumstances. In short, after thirty years' practice as a 
 lawyer, I don't know what is not a marriage in Scotland." 
 
 " In plain English," said Geoffrey, " you mean she's his wife ?" 
 
 In spite of his cunning, in spite of his self-command, his eyes 
 brightened as he said those words. And the tone in which he 
 spoke— though too carefully guarded to be a tone of triumph 
 — was, to a fine ear, unmistakably a tone of relief. 
 
 Neither the look nor the tone was lost on Sir Patrick. 
 
 His first suspicion, when he sat down to the conference, had 
 been the obvious suspicion that, in speaking of " his friend," 
 Geoffrey was speaking of himself But, like all lawyers, he 
 habitually distrusted first impressions, his own included. His 
 object, thus far, Jiad been to solve the problem of Geoffrey's 
 true position and Geoffrey's real motive. He had set the snare 
 accordingly, and had caught his bird. 
 
 It was now plain to his mind — first, that this man who was 
 consulting him, was, in all probability, really speaking of the 
 case of another person : secondly, that he had an interest (of 
 what nature it was impossible yet to say) in satisfying his own 
 mind that "his friend" was, by the law of Scotland, indisputa- 
 bly a married man. Having penetrated to that extent the se- 
 cret which Geoffrey was concealing from him, he abandoned 
 the hope of making any further advance at that present sit- 
 ting. The next question to clear up in the investigation was 
 the question of who the anonymous " lady " might be. And 
 the next discovery to make was, whether " the lady" could, or 
 could not, be identified with Anne Silvester. Pending the in- 
 evitable delay in reaching that result, the straight coarse was 
 (in Sir Patrick's present state of iincertainty) the only course 
 to follow in laying down the law. He at once took the ques- 
 tion of the raai-riage in hand — v/ith no concealment whatever, 
 as to the legal bearings of it, from the client who was consult- 
 ing him. 
 
 "Don't rush to conclusions, Mr. Delamayn," he said. "I 
 have only told you what my general experience is thus far. 
 
MAN AND WIFE. 201 
 
 My professional opinion on the special case of your friend has 
 not been given yet." 
 
 Geoffrey's face clouded again. Sir Patrick carefully noted 
 the new change in it. 
 
 " The law of Scotland," he went on, " so far as it relates to 
 Irregular Marriages, is an outrage on common decency and 
 common sense. If you think my language in thus describing 
 it too strong — I can refer you to the language of a judicial au- 
 thority. Lord Deas delivered a recent judgment of marriage 
 in Scotland, from the bench, in these words : ' Consent makes 
 marriage. No form or ceremony, civil or religious ; no notice 
 before, or publication after ; no cohabitation, no writing, no 
 witnesses even, are essential to the constitution of this, the 
 most important contract which two persons can enter into.' — 
 There is a Scotch judge's own statement of the law that he ad- 
 ministers ! Observe, at the same time, if you please, that we 
 make full legal provision in Scotland for contracts affecting 
 the sale of houses and lands, horses and dogs. The only con- 
 tract which we leave without safeguards or precautions of any 
 sort is the contract that unites a man and a woman for life. 
 As for the authority of parents, and the innocence of children, 
 our law recognizes no claim on it either in the one case or in 
 the other, A girl of twelve and a boy of fourteen have noth- 
 ing to do but to cross the Border, and to be married — without 
 the interposition of the slightest delay or restraint, and with- 
 out the slightest attempt to inform their parents on the part 
 of the Scotch law. As to the marriages of men and women, 
 even the mere interchange of consent which, as you have just 
 heard, makes them man and wife, is not required to be directly 
 proved : it may be proved by inference. And, more even than 
 that, whatever the law for its consistency may presume, men 
 and women are, in point of fact, held to be married in Scotland 
 where consent has never been interchanged, and where the 
 parties do not even know that they are legally held to be 
 married persons. Are you sufficiently confused about the law 
 of Irregular Marriages in Scotland by this time, Mr. Dela- 
 mayn ? And have I said enough to justify the strong lan- 
 guage I used when I undertook to describe it to you ?" 
 
 " Who's that ' authority ' you talked of just now ?" inquired 
 Geoffrey. " Couldn't I ask liim .?" 
 
 "You might find him flatly contradicted, if you did ask him, 
 by another authority equally learned and equally eminent," 
 answered Sir Patrick. " I am not joking — I am only stating 
 facts. Have you heard of the Queen's Commission ?" 
 
 " No." 
 
 " Then listen to this. In March, 'sixty-five, the Queen ap- 
 pointed a Commission to inquire into the Marriage-Laws of 
 
202 MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 the United Kingdom. The report of that Commission is pub- 
 lished in London ; and is accessible to any body who chooses 
 to pay the price of two or three shillings for it. One of the 
 results of the inquiry was, the discovery that high authorities 
 were of entirely contrary opinions on one of the vital ques- 
 tions of Scottish raarriage-law. And the Commissioners, in 
 announcing that fact, add that the question of which opinion 
 is right is still disputed, and has never been made the subject 
 of legal decision. Authorities are everywhere at variance 
 throughout the Report. A haze of doubt and uncertainty 
 hangs in Scotland over the most important contract of civil- 
 ized life. If no other reason existed for reforming the Scotch 
 marriage-law, there would be reason enough afforded by that 
 one fact. An uncertain marriage-law is a national calamity." 
 
 "You can tell me what you think yourself about my friend's 
 case — can't you ?" said Geoffrey, still holding obstinately to 
 the end that he had in view. 
 
 "Certainly. Now that I have given you due warning of 
 the danger of implicitly relying on any individual opinion, I 
 may give my opinion with a clear conscience. I say that there 
 has not been a positive marriage in this case. There has been 
 evidence in favor of possibly establishing a marriage — nothing 
 more." 
 
 The distinction here was far too fine to be appreciated by 
 Geoffrey's mind. He frowned heavily, in bewilderment and 
 disgust. 
 
 " Not married !" he exclaimed, " when they said they were 
 man and wife, before witnesses ?" 
 
 "That is a common popular error," said Sir Patrick. "As I 
 have already told you, witnesses are not legally necessary to 
 make a marriage in Scotland. They are only valuable — as in 
 this case — to help, at some future time, in proving a marriage 
 that is in dispute," 
 
 Geoffrey caught at the last words. 
 
 "Tlie landlady and the waiter might make it out to be a 
 marriage, then ?" he said. 
 
 " Yes. And, remember, if you choose to apply to one of my 
 professional colleagues, he might possibly tell you they were 
 married already. A state of the law which allows the inter- 
 change of matrimonial consent to be proved by inference leaves 
 a wide door open to conjecture. Your friend refers to a cer- 
 tain lady, in so many words, as his wife. The lady refers to 
 your friend, in so many words, as her husband. In the rooms 
 which they have taken, as man and wife, they remain, as man 
 and wife, till the next morning. Your friend goes away, with 
 out undeceiving any body. The lady stays at the inn, for 
 some days after, in'the character of his wife. And all these 
 
MAN AND WIFE. 203 
 
 Circumstances take place in the presence of competent wit- 
 nesses. Logically — if not legall}'^ — there is apparently an in- 
 ference of the interchange of matrimonial consent here. I 
 stick to my own opinion, nevertheless. Evidence in proof of 
 a marriage (I say) — nothing more." 
 
 While Sir Patrick had been speaking, Geoffrey had been 
 considering with himself By dint of hard thinking he had 
 found his way to a decisive question on his side. 
 
 "Look here !" he said, dropping his heavy hand down on the 
 table. " I want to bring you to book, sir ! Suppose my friend 
 had another lady in his eye ?" 
 
 " Yes ?" 
 
 "As things are now — would you advise him to marry her?" 
 
 " As things are now — certainly not !" 
 
 Geoffrey got briskly on his legs, and closed the interview. 
 
 " That will do," he said, " for him and for me." 
 
 With those words he walked back, without ceremony, into 
 the main thoroughfare of the room. 
 
 "I don't know who your friend is," thought Sir Patrick, 
 looking after him, " But if your interest in the question of 
 his marriage is an honest and a harmless interest, I know no 
 more of human nature than the babe unborn !" 
 
 Immediately on leaving Sir Patrick, Geoffrey was encoun- 
 tered by one of the servants in search of him. 
 
 " I beg your pardon, sir," began the man. " The groom 
 from the Honorable Mr. Delamayn's — " 
 
 " Yes ? The fellow who brought me a note from my brother 
 this morning?" 
 
 " He's expected back, sir — he's afraid he mustn't wait any 
 longei'." 
 
 " Come here, and Pll give you the answer for him." 
 
 He led the way to the writing table, and referred to Julius's 
 letter again. He ran his eye carelessly over it, until he reached 
 the final lines : " Come to-morrow, and help us to receive Mrs. 
 Glenarm." For a while he paused, with his eye fixed on that 
 sentence ; and with the happiness of three people — of Anne, 
 who had loved him ; of Arnold, who had served him ; of 
 Blanche, guiltless of injuring him — resting on the decision that 
 guided his movements for the next day. After what had 
 passed that morning between Arnold and Blanche, if he re- 
 mained at Lady Lundie's, he had no alternative but to per- 
 form his promise to Anne. If he returned to his brother's 
 house, he had no alternative but to desert Anne, on the infa- 
 mous pretext that she was Arnold's wife. 
 
 He suddenly tossed the letter away from him on the table, 
 and snatched a sheet of note-paper out of the writing-case. 
 " Here goes for Mrs. Glenarm !" he said to himself; and wrote 
 
204 MA>f AND WIFB. 
 
 back to his brother, in one line : " Dear Julius, expect me to^ 
 morrow. G. D." The impassible man-servant stood by while 
 he wrote, looking at his magnificent breadth of chest and think- 
 ing what a glorious " staying-power " was there for the last 
 terrible mile of the coming race. 
 
 " There you are !" he said, and handed his note to the man. 
 
 " All right, Geoffrey ?" asked a friendly voice behind him. 
 He turned — and saw Arnold, anxious for news of the consul- 
 tation with Sir Patrick. 
 
 " Yes," he said. " All right." 
 
 Note. — There are certain readers who feel a disposition to doubt Facts, when 
 they meet with them in a work of fiction. Persons of this way of thinking may 
 be profitably referred to the book which first suggested to me the idea of writ- 
 ing the present Novel. The book is the Report of the Royal Commissioners on 
 the Laws of Marriage. Published by the Queen's Printers. For her Majes- 
 ty's Stationery Ofiice. (London, 1868.) What Sir Patrick says professionally 
 of Scotch Marriages in this chapter is taken from this high authority. What 
 the lawyer (in the Prologue) says professionally of Irish Marriages is also de- 
 rived from the same source. It is needless to encumber these pages with quo- 
 tations. But as a means of satisfying my readers that they may depend on me, 
 I subjoin an extract from my list of references to the Report of the Marriage 
 Commission, which any persons who may be so inclined can verify for them- 
 selves. 
 
 Irish Marriages (in the Prologue). — See Report, pages XII., XIIL, XXIV. 
 
 Irregular Marriages in Scotland. Statement of the law by Lord Deas. Re- 
 port, page XVI. — Mari'iages of children of tender years. Examination of Mr. 
 Muirhead by Lord Chelmsford (Question ()8i»). — Interchange of consent, estab- 
 lished by inference. Examination of Mr. Muirhead by the Lord Justice Clerk 
 (Question G54). — Marriage where consent has never been interchanged. Ob- 
 servations of Lord Ueas. Report, page XIX. — Contradiction of opinions be- 
 tween authorities. Report, pages XIX., XX. — Legal provision for the sale of 
 horses and dogs. No legal provision for the marriage of men and women. Mr. 
 Seeton's Remarks. Report, page XXX. — Conclusion of the Commissioners. 
 In spite of the arguments advanced before them in favor of not interfering with 
 Irregular Marriages in Scotland, the Commissioners declare their opinion that 
 "Such marriages ought not to continue." (Report, page XXXIV.) 
 
 In reference to the arguments (alluded to above) in favor of allowing the pres- 
 ent disgraceful state of things to continue, I find them resting mainly on these 
 grounds : That Scotland doesn't like being interfered with by England (!). That 
 Irregular Marriages cost nothing (! !). That they are diminishing in number, 
 and may therefore be trusted, in course of time, to exhaust themselves (! ! !). 
 That they act, on certain occasions, in the capacity of a moral trap to catch a 
 profligate man (! ! ! !). Such is the elevated point of view from which the In- 
 stitution of Marriage is regarded by some of the most pious and learned men in 
 Scotland. A legal enactment providing for the sale of your wife, when you 
 have done with her, or of your husband, when you "really cin't put up with 
 him any longer," appears to be all that is wanting to render this North British 
 estimate of the "Estate of Matrimony " practically complete. It is only fair to 
 add that, of the witnesses giving evidence — oral and written — before the Com- 
 missioners, fully one-half regard the Irregular Marriages of Scotland from the 
 Christian and the civilized point of view, and entirely agree with the authorita- 
 tive conclusion already cited — that such marriages ought to be abolished. 
 ^ W. C. 
 
MAN AND WIFE. 206 
 
 CHAPTER THE TWENTY-FHIST. 
 
 DONE ! 
 
 Arnold was a little surprised by the curt manner in which 
 Geoffrey answered him. 
 
 " Has Sir Patrick said any thing unpleasant ?" he asked. 
 
 "Sir Patrick has said just what I wanted him to say." 
 
 " No difficulty about the marriage ?" 
 
 "None." 
 
 " No fear of Blanche — " 
 
 "She won't ask you to go to Craig Fernie — I'll answer for 
 that !" He said the words with a strong emphasis on them, 
 took his brother's letter from the table, snatched up his hat, 
 and went out. 
 
 His friends, idling on the lawn, hailed him. He passed by 
 them quickly without answering, without so much as a glance 
 at them over his shoulder. Arriving at the rose-garden, he 
 stopped and took out his pijDC ; then suddenly changed his 
 mind, and turned back again by another path. There was no 
 certainty, at that hour of the day, of his being left alone in the 
 rose-garden. He had a fierce and hungry longing to be by 
 himself; he felt as if he could have been the death of any body 
 who came and spoke to him at that moment. With his head 
 down and his brows knit heavily, he followed the path to see 
 what it ended in. It ended in a wicket-gate which led into a 
 kitchen-garden. Here he was well out of the way of interrup- 
 tion : there was nothing to attract visitors in the kitchen-gar- 
 den. He went on to a walnut-tree planted in the middle of 
 the inclosure, with a wooden bench and a broad strip of turf 
 running round it. After first looking about him, he seated 
 himself and lit his pipe. 
 
 " I wish it was done !" he said. 
 
 He sat, with his elbows on his knees, smoking and thinking. 
 Before long the restlessness that had got possession of him 
 forced him to his feet again. He rose, and paced round and 
 round the strip of greensward under the walnut-tree, like a 
 wild beast in a cage. 
 
 What was the meaning of this disturbance in the inner 
 man ? Now that he had committed himself to the betrayal 
 of the friend who had trusted and served him, was he torn by 
 remorse ? 
 
 He was no more torn by remorse than you are while your 
 
206 MAN AND WIFB. 
 
 eye is passing over this sentence. He was simply in a raging 
 fever of impatience to see himself safely lauded at the end 
 which he had in view. 
 
 Why should he feel remorse ? All remorse springs, more or 
 less directly, from the action of two sentiments, which are nei- 
 ther of them inbred in the natural man. The first of these sen- 
 timents is the product of the respect which we learn to feel for 
 ourselves. The second is the product of the respect which we 
 learn to feel for others. In their highest manifestations, these 
 two feelings exalt themselves, until the first becomes the love 
 of God, and the second the love of Man. I have injured you, 
 and I repent of it when it is done. Why should I repent of it 
 if I have gained something by it for my own self, and if you 
 can't make me feel it by injuring Me ? I rej^ent of it, because 
 there has been a sense put into me which tells me that I have 
 sinned against Myself, and sinned against You. No such 
 sense as that exists among the instincts of the natural man. 
 And no such feelings as these troubled Geoifrey Delamayn ; 
 for Geoffrey Delamayn was the natural man. 
 
 When the idea of his scheme had sprung to life in his mind, 
 the novelty of it had startled him — the enormous daring of it, 
 suddenly self-revealed, had daunted him. The signs of emo- 
 tion which he had betrayed at the writing-table in the library 
 were the signs of mere mental perturbation, and of nothing 
 more. 
 
 That first vivid impression past, the idea had made itself fa- 
 miliar to him. He had become composed enough to see such 
 difficulties as it involved, and such consequences as it implied. 
 These had fretted him with a passing trouble ; for these he 
 plainly discerned. As for the cruelty and the treachery of the 
 thing he meditated doing — that consideration never crossed 
 the limits of his mental view. His position toward the man 
 whose life he had preserved was the position of a dog. The 
 "noble animal" who has saved you or me from drowning will 
 fly at your throat or mine, under certain conditions, ten min- 
 utes afterward. Add to the dog's unreasoning instinct the 
 calculating cunning of a man ; suppose yourself to be in a po- 
 sition to say of some trifling thing, " Curious ! at such and 
 such a time I happened to pick up such and such an object ; 
 and now it turns out to be of some use to me !" — and there 
 you have an index to the state of Geoffrey's feeling toward his 
 friend when he recalled the past or when he contemplated the 
 future. When Arnold had spoken to him at the critical mo- 
 ment, Arnold had violently irritated him ; and that was all. 
 
 The same impenetrable insensibility, the same primitively 
 natural condition of the moral being, prevented him from be- 
 ing troubled by the slightest sense of pity for Anne. " She's 
 
MAN AND WIFE. 207 
 
 out of 111}' way !" was his first thought. " She's pi-ovided for, 
 without any trouble to Me !" was his second. He was not in 
 the least uneasy about her. Not the slightest doubt crossed 
 his mind that, when once she had realized her own situation, 
 when once she saw herself placed between the two alternatives 
 of facing her own ruin or of claiming Arnold as a last resource, 
 she would claim Arnold. She would do it as a matter of 
 course ; because he would have done it in her place. 
 
 But he wanted it over. He was Avild, as he paced round 
 and round the walnut-tree, to hurry on the crisis and be done 
 with it. Give me my freedom to go to the other woman, and 
 to train for the foot-race — that's what I want. They injured? 
 Confusion to them both ! It's I who am injured by them. 
 They are the worst enemies I have ! They stand in my way. 
 
 How to be rid of them ? There was the difficulty. He had 
 made up his mind to be rid of them that day. How was he td 
 begin? 
 
 There was no picking a quarrel with Arnold, and so begin- 
 ning with him. This course of proceeding, in Arnold's position 
 toward Blanche, would lead to a scandal at the outset — a scan^ 
 dal which would stand in the way of his making the right im- 
 pression on Mrs. Glenarm. The woman — lonely and friendless, 
 with her sex and her position both against her if she tried to 
 make a scandal of it — the woman was the one to begin with. 
 Settle it at once and forever with Anne ; and leave Arnold to 
 hear of it and deal with it, sooner or later, no matter which. 
 
 How was he to break it to her before the day was out ? 
 
 By going to the inn and openly addressing her to her face 
 as Mrs. Arnold Brinkworth ? No ! He had had enough, at 
 Windygates, of meeting her face to face. The easy way was 
 to write to her, and send the letter, by the first messenger he 
 could find, to the inn. She might appear afterward at Windy- 
 gates ; she might follow him to his brother's ; she might ap- 
 peal to his father. It didn't matter ; he had got the whip- 
 hand of her now. " You are a married woman." There was 
 the one sufficient answer, which was strong enough to back 
 him in denying any thing ! 
 
 He made out the letter in his own mind. " Something like 
 this would do," he thought, as he went round and round the 
 walnut-tree: "You may be surprised not to have seen me. 
 You have only yourself to thank for it. I know what took 
 place between you and him at the inn. I have had a lawyer's 
 advice. You are Arnold Brinkworth's wife. I wish you joy, 
 and good-bye forever." Address those lines : " To Mrs. Arnold 
 Brinkworth;" instruct the messenger to leave the letter late that 
 night, without waiting for an answer ; start the first thing the 
 next morning for his brother's house ; and behold, it was done ] 
 
208 MAN AND ■WTPB. 
 
 But even here there was an obstacle — one last exasperating 
 obstacle — still in the way. 
 
 If she was known at the inn by any name at all, it was by 
 the name of Mrs, Silvester. A letter addressed to " Mrs. Ar- 
 nold Brinkworth " would probably not be taken in at the door ; 
 or if it was admitted, and if it was actually offered to her, she 
 might decline to receive it, as a letter not addressed to herself. 
 A man of readier mental resources would have seen that the 
 name on the outside of the letter mattered little or nothing, 
 so long as the contents were read by the person to whom they 
 were addressed. But Geoffrey's was the order of mind which 
 expresses disturbance by attaching importance to trifles. He 
 attached an absurd importance to preserving absolute consist- 
 ency in his letter, outside and in. If he declared her to be Ar- 
 nold Brinkworth's wife, he must direct to her as Arnold Brink- 
 worth's wife; or who could tell what the law might say, or 
 what scrape he might not get himself into by a mere scratch 
 of the pen ! The more he thought of it, the more persuaded 
 he felt of his own cleverness here, and the hotter and the an- 
 grier he grew. 
 
 There is a way out of every thing. And there was surely 
 a way out of this, if he could only see it. 
 
 He failed to see it. After dealing with all the great diffi- 
 culties, the small difficulty proved too much for him. It struck 
 him that he might have been thinking too long about it — con- 
 sidering that he was not accustomed to thinking long about 
 any thing. Besides, his head was getting giddy with going 
 mechanically round and round the tree. He irritably turned 
 his back on the tree, and struck into another path : resolved to 
 think of something else, and then to return to his difficulty, 
 and see it with a new eye. 
 
 Leaving his thoughts free to wander where they liked, his 
 thoughts naturally busied themselves with the next subject 
 that was uppermost in his mind, the subject of the Foot-race. 
 In a week's time his arrangements ought to be made. Now, 
 as to the training, first. 
 
 . He decided on employing two trainers this time. One to 
 travel to Scotland, and begin with him at his brother's house. 
 The other to take him up, with a fresh eye to him, on his re- 
 turn to London. He turned over in his mind the performances 
 of the formidable rival against whom he was to be matched. 
 That other man was the swiftest runner of the two. The bet- 
 ting in Geoffrey's favor was betting which calculated on the 
 unparalleled length of the race, and on Geoffrey's prodigious 
 powers of endurance. How long he should " wait on " the 
 man? Whereabouts it would be safe to " pick the man up ?" 
 How near the end to calculate the man's exhaustion to a nice- 
 
MAN AND WIFE. 209 
 
 ty and "put on the spurt," and pass him? These were nice 
 points to decide. The deliberations of a pedestrian-privy-coun- 
 cil would be required to help him under this heavy responsi- 
 bility. What men could he trust ? He could trust A and B — 
 both of them authorities : both of them staunch. Query about 
 C ? As an authority, unexceptionable ; as a man, doubtful. 
 The problem relating to C brought him to a standstill — and 
 declined to be solved, even then. Never mind ! he could al- 
 ways take the advice of A and B. In the mean time, devote 
 C to the infernal regions ; and, thus dismissing him, try and 
 think of something else. What else ? Mrs. Glenarm ? Oh, 
 bother the women ! one of them is the same as another. They 
 all waddle when they run ; and they all fill their stomachs be- 
 fore dinner with sloppy tea. That's the only difference be- 
 tween women and men — the rest is nothing but a weak imita- 
 tion of Us. Devote the women to the infernal regions ; and, 
 so dismissing them, try and think of something else. Of what? 
 Of something worth thinking of, this time — of filling another 
 pipe. 
 
 He took out his tobacco-pouch, and suddenly suspended op- 
 erations at the moment of opening it. 
 
 What was the object he saw, on the other side of a row of 
 dwarf pear-trees, away to the right ? A woman — evidently a 
 servant, by her dress — stooping down with her back to him, 
 gathering something : herbs they looked like, as well as he 
 could make them oat at the distance. 
 
 What was that thing hanging by a string at the woman's 
 side ? A slate ? Yes. What the deuce did she want with a 
 slate at her side? He was in search of something to divert his 
 mind, and here it was found. "Any thing will do for me," he 
 thought. " Suppose I ' chaff' her a little about her slate ?" 
 
 He called to the woman across the pear-trees. " Halloo !" 
 
 The woman raised herself, and advanced toward him slowly 
 — looking at him, as she came on, with the sunken eyes, the 
 sorrow-stricken face, the stony tranquillity of Hester Deth- 
 ridge. 
 
 Geoffrey was staggered. He had not bargained for ex- 
 changing the dullest producible vulgarities of human speech 
 (called in the language of slang, " Chaff ") with such a woman 
 as this. 
 
 " What's that slate for ?" he asked, not knowing what else 
 to say, to begin with. 
 
 The woman lifted her hand to her lips — touched them — and 
 shook her head. 
 
 " Dumb ?" 
 
 The woman bowed her head. 
 
 " Who are you ?" 
 14 
 
210 MAN AND WIPE. 
 
 The woman wrote on her slate, and handed it to him over 
 the pear-trees. He read : " I am the cook." 
 
 " Well, cook, were you born dumb ?" 
 
 The woman shook her head. 
 
 " What struck you dumb ?" 
 
 The woman wrote on her slate: "A blow." 
 
 " Who gave you the blow ?" 
 
 She shook her head. 
 
 " Won't you tell me ?" 
 
 She shook her head again. 
 
 Her eyes had rested on his face while he was questioning 
 her; staring at him, cold, dull, and changeless as the eyes of 
 a corpse. Firm as his nerves were — dense as he was, on all or- 
 dinary occasions, to any thing in the shape of an imaginative 
 impression — the eyes of the dumb cook slowly peneti'ated him 
 with a stealthy inner chill. Something crept at the marrow 
 of his back, and shuddered under the roots of his hair. He 
 felt a sudden impulse to get away from her. It was simple 
 enough ; he had only to say good-morning, and go on. He 
 did say good-morning — but he never moved. He put his hand 
 into his pocket, and oflered her some money, as a way of mak- 
 ing her go. She stretched out her hand across the pear-trees 
 to take it — and stopped abruptly, with her arm suspended in 
 the air. A sinister change passed over the death-like tranquil- 
 lity of her face. Her closed lips slowly dropped apart. Her 
 dull eyes slowly dilated ; looked away, sideways, from his 
 eyes ; stopped again ; and stared, rigid and glittering, over 
 his shoulder — stared as if they saw a sight of horror behind 
 him. " What the devil are you looking at ?" he asked — and 
 turned round quickly, with a start. There was neither person 
 nor thing to be seen behind him. He turned back again to 
 the woman. The woman had left him, under the influence of 
 some sudden panic. She was hurrying away from him — run- 
 ning, old as she was — flying the sight of him, as if the sight of 
 him was the pestilence. 
 
 " Mad !" he thought — and turned his back on the sight of 
 her. 
 
 He found himself (hardly knowing how he had got there) 
 under the walnut-tree once more. In a few minutes his hardy 
 nerves had recovered themselves — he could laugh over the re- 
 membrance of the strange impression that had been produced 
 on him. " Frightened for the first time in my life," he thought 
 — " and that by an old woman ! It's time I went into training 
 again, when things have come to this !" 
 
 He looked at his watch. It was close on the luncheon hour 
 up at the house ; and he had not decided yet what to do about 
 his letter to Anne. He resolved to decide, then and there, 
 
MAN AND WIFE. 211 
 
 The woman — the dnmb woman, with the stony face and the 
 horrid eyes — re-appeared in his thoughts, and got in the way 
 of his decision. Pooh ! some crazed old servant, who might 
 once have been cook ; who was kept out of charity now. 
 Nothing more important than that. No more of her ! no more 
 of her ! 
 
 He laid himself down on the grass, and gave his mind to 
 the serious question. How to address Anne as " Mrs. Arnold 
 Brinkworth ?" and how to make sure of her receiving the let- 
 ter? 
 
 The dumb old woman got in his way again. 
 
 He closed his eyes impatiently, and tried to shut her out in 
 a darkness of his own making. 
 
 The woman showed herself through the darkness. He saw 
 her, as if he had just asked her a question, writing on her 
 slate. What she wrote he failed to make out. It was all 
 over in an instant. He started up, with a feeling of astonish- 
 ment at himself — and, at the same moment, his brain cleared 
 with the suddenness of a flash of light. He saw his way, with- 
 out a conscious efibrt on his own part, through the difficulty 
 that had troubled him. Two envelopes, of course : an inner 
 one, unsealed, and addressed to " Mrs. Arnold Brinkworth ;" 
 an outer one, sealed, and addressed to " Mrs. Silvester :" and 
 there was the problem solved ! Surely the simplest problem 
 that had ever puzzled a stupid head. 
 
 Why had he not seen it before? Impossible to say. 
 
 How came he to have seen it now ? 
 
 The dumb old woman re-appeared in his thoughts — as if the 
 answer to the question lay in something connected with her. 
 
 He became alarmed about himself, for the first time in his 
 life. Had this persistent impression, produced by nothing but 
 a crazy old woman, any thing to do with the broken health 
 which the surgeon had talked about ? Was his head on the 
 turn ? Or had he smoked too much on an empty stomach, and 
 gone too long (after traveling all night) without his custom- 
 ary drink of ale ? 
 
 He left the garden to put that latter theory to the test 
 forthwith. The betting would have gone dead against him if 
 the public had seen him at that moment. He looked haggard 
 and anxious — and with good reason too. His nervous system 
 had suddenly forced itself on his notice, without the slightest 
 previous introduction, and was saying (in an unknown tongue), 
 Here I am ! 
 
 Returning to the purely ornamental part of the grounds, 
 Geofirey encountered one of the footmen giving a message to 
 one of the gardeners. He at once asked for the butler — as the 
 only safe authority to consult in the present emergency. 
 
212 MAN AND WIPE. 
 
 Conducted to the butler's pantry, Geoffrey requested that 
 functionary to produce a jug of his oldest ale, with appropri- 
 ate solid nourishment in the shape of "a hunk of bread and 
 cheese." 
 
 The butler stared. As a form of condescension among the 
 upper classes this was quite new to him. 
 
 " Luncheon will be ready directly, sir." 
 
 " What is there for lunch ?" 
 
 The butler ran over an appetizing list of good dishes and 
 rare wines. 
 
 " The devil take your kickshaws !" said Geoffrey. " Give 
 me my old ale, and my hunk of bread and cheese." 
 
 " Where will you take them, sir ?" 
 
 " Here, to be sure ! And the sooner the better." 
 
 The butler issued the necessary orders with all needful alac- 
 rity. He spread the simple refreshment demanded, before his 
 distinguished guest, in a state of blank bewilderment. Here 
 was a nobleman's son, and a public celebrity into the bargain, 
 filling himself with bread and cheese and ale, in at once the 
 most voracious and the most unpretending manner, at his ta- 
 ble ! The butler ventured on a little complimentary familiari- 
 ty. He smiled, and touched the betting-book in his breast- 
 pocket. " I've put six pound on you, sir, for the Race." "All 
 right, old boy ! you shall win your money !" With those no- 
 ble words the honorable gentleman clapped him on the back, 
 and held out his tumbler for some more ale. The butler felt 
 trebly an Englishman as he filled the foaming glass. Ah ! for- 
 eign nations may have their revolutions ! foreign aristocracies 
 may tumble down ! The British aristocracy lives in the hearts 
 of the people, and lives forever ! 
 
 "Another!" said Geoffrey, presenting his empty glass. 
 "Here's luck!" He tossed off his liquor at a draught, and 
 nodded to the butler, and went out. 
 
 Had the experiment succeeded ? Had he proved his own 
 theory about himself to be right ? Not a doubt of it ! An 
 empty stomach, and a determination of tobacco to the head — 
 these were the true causes of that strange state of mind into 
 which he had fallen in the kitchen-garden. The dumb woman 
 with the stony face vanished as if in a mist. He felt nothing 
 now but a comfortable buzzing in his head, a genial warmth 
 all over him, and an unlimited capacity for carrying any re- 
 sponsibility that could rest on mortal shoulders. Geoffrey was 
 himself again. 
 
 He went round toward the library, to write his letter to 
 Anne — and so have done with that, to begin with. The com- 
 pany had collected in the library waiting for the luncheon- 
 bell. All were idly talking ; and some would be certain, if he 
 
MAN AND WIFE. 213 
 
 showed himself, to fasten on him. He turned back again, 
 without showing himself. The only way of writing in peace 
 and quietness would be to wait until they were all at lunch- 
 eon, and then return to the library. The same opportunity 
 would serve also for finding a messenger to take the letter, 
 without exciting attention, and for going away afterward, un- 
 seen, on a long walk, by himself An absence of two or three 
 hours would cast the necessary dust in Arnold's eyes ; for it 
 would be certainly interpreted by him as meaning absence at 
 an interview with Anne. 
 
 He strolled idly through the grounds, farther and farther 
 away from the house. 
 
 The talk in the library — aimless and empty enough, for the 
 most part — was talk to the purpose, in one corner of the room, 
 in which Sir Patrick and Blanche were sitting together. 
 
 " Uncle ! I have been watching you for the last minute or 
 two." 
 
 "At my age, Blanche, that is paying me a very pretty com- 
 pliment." 
 
 " Do you know what I have seen ?" 
 
 " You have seen an old gentleman in want of his lunch." 
 
 " I have seen an old gentleman with something on his mind. 
 What is it?" 
 
 " Suppressed gout, my dear." 
 
 " That won't do ! I am not to be put off in that way. Un- 
 cle ! I want to know — " 
 
 " Stop there, Blanche ! A young lady who says she 'wants 
 to know,' expresses very dangerous sentiments. Eve ' wanted 
 to know ' — and see what it led to. Faust ' wanted to know ' 
 — and got into bad company, as the necessary result." 
 
 "You are feeling anxious about something," persisted 
 Blanche. " And, what is more. Sir Patrick, you behaved in a 
 most unaccountable manner a little while since." 
 
 " When ?" 
 
 " When you went and hid yourself with Mr. Delamayn in 
 that snug corner there. I saw you lead the way in, while I 
 was at work on Lady Lundie's odious dinner-invitations." 
 
 " Oh ! you call that being at work, do you ? I wonder 
 whether there was ever a woman yet who could give the 
 whole of her mind to any earthly thing that she had to do ?" 
 
 " Never mind the women ! What subject in common could 
 you and Mr. Delamayn possibly have to talk about ? And 
 why do I see a wrinkle between your eyebrows, now you have 
 done with him? — a wrinkle which certainly wasn't there be- 
 fore you had that private conference together ?" 
 
 Before answering, Sir Patrick considered whether he should 
 
214 MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 take Blanche into his confidence or not. The attempt to iden- 
 tify Geoffrey's unnamed " lady," which he was determined to 
 make, would lead him to Craig Fernie, and would no doubt 
 end in obliging him to address himself to Anne. Blanche's in- 
 timate knowledge of her friend might unquestionably be made 
 useful to him under these circumstances ; and Blanche's dis- 
 cretion was to be trusted in any matter in which Miss Silves- 
 ter's interests wei'e concerned. On the other hand, caution was 
 imperatively necessary, in the present imperfect state of his in- 
 formation — and caution, in Sir Patrick's mind, carried the day. 
 He decided to wait and see what came first of his investigation 
 at the inn. 
 
 " Mr. Delamayn consulted me on a dry point of law, in which 
 a friend of his was interested," said Sir Patrick. " You have 
 wasted your curiosity, my dear, on a subject totally unworthy 
 of a lady's notice." 
 
 Blanche's penetration was not to be deceived on such easy 
 terms as these. " Why not say at once that you won't tell 
 me ?" she rejoined. " Ybic shutting yourself up with Mr, Del- 
 amayn to talk law ! You looking absent and anxious about it 
 afterward ! I am a very unhappy girl !" said Blanche, with a 
 little bitter sigh. " There is something in me that seems to 
 repel the people I love. Not a word in confidence can I get 
 from Anne. And not a word in confidence can I get from 
 you. And I do so long to sympathize! It's very hard. I 
 think I shall go to Arnold." 
 
 Sir Patrick took his niece's hand. 
 
 " Stop a minute, Blanche. About Miss Silvester ? Have 
 you heard from her to-day ?" 
 
 " No. I am more unhappy about her than words can say." 
 
 " Suppose somebody went to Craig Fernie and tried to find 
 out the cause of Miss Silvester's silence ? Would you believe 
 that somebody sympathized with you then ?" 
 
 Blanche's face flushed brightly with pleasure and surprise. 
 She raised Sir Patrick's hand gratefully to her lips. 
 
 " Oh !" she exclaimed. " You don't mean that you would 
 do that ?" 
 
 " I am certainly the last person who ought to do it — •seeing 
 that you went to the inn in flat rebellion against ray orders, 
 and that I only forgave yon, on your own promise of amend- 
 ment, the other day. It is a miserably weak proceeding on the 
 part of ' the head of the family ' to be turning his back on his 
 own principles, because his niece happens to be anxious and 
 unhappy. Still (if you could lend me your little carriage), I 
 might take a surly drive toward Craig Fernie, all by myself, 
 and I might stumble against Miss Silvester — in case you have 
 any thing to say." 
 
MAN AND WIFK. 215 
 
 "Any thing to say ?" repeated Blanche, She put her arm 
 round her uncle's neck, and whispered in his ear one oi the 
 most interminable messages that ever was sent from one hu- 
 man being to another. Sir Patrick listened, with a growing 
 interest in the inquiry on which he was secretly bent, " The 
 woman must have some noble qualities," he thought, " who can 
 inspire such devotion as this." 
 
 While Blanche was whispering to her uncle, a second private 
 conference — of the purely domestic sort — was taking place be- 
 tween Lady Lundie and the butler, in the hall outside the li- 
 brary door. 
 
 " I am sorry to say, my lady, Hester Dethridge has broken 
 out again." 
 
 " What do you mean ?" 
 
 " She was all right, my lady, when she went into the kitch- 
 en-garden, some time since. She's taken strange again, now 
 she has come back. Wants the rest of the day to herself, your 
 ladyship. Says she's overworked, with all the company in the 
 house — and, I must say, does look like a person troubled and 
 worn out in body and mind." 
 
 " Don't talk nonsense, Roberts ! The woman is obstinate 
 and idle and insolent. She is now in the house, as you know, 
 under a month's notice to leave. If she doesn't choose to do 
 her duty for that month, I shall refuse to give her a character. 
 Who is to cook the dinner to-day if I give Hester Dethridge 
 leave to go out ?" 
 
 " Any way, my lady, I am afraid the kitchen-maid will have 
 to do her best to-day. Hester is very obstinate, when the fit 
 takes her — as your ladyship says," 
 
 " If Hester Dethridge leaves the kitchen-maid to cook the 
 dinner, Roberts, Hester Dethridge leaves my service to-day, 
 I want no more words about it. If she persists in setting my 
 orders at defiance, let her bring her account-book into the li- 
 brary, while we are at lunch, and lay it on my desk, I shall 
 be back in the library after luncheon — and if I see the account- 
 book I shall know what it means. In that case, you will re- 
 ceive my directions to settle with her and send her away. 
 Ring the luncheon-bell," 
 
 The luncheon-bell rang. The guests all took the direction 
 of the dining-room ; Sir Patrick following, from the far end of 
 the library, with Blanche on his arm. Arrived at the dining- 
 room door, Blanche stopped, and asked her uncle to excuse her 
 if she left him to go in by himself 
 
 "I will be back directly," she said, "I have forgotten 
 something up stairs," 
 
 Sir Patrick went in. The dining-room door closed ; and 
 Blanche returned alone to the library. Now on one pretense. 
 
216 MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 and now on another, she had, for three days past, faithfully ful 
 filled the engagement she had made at Craig Fernie to wait 
 ten minutes after luncheon-time in the library, on the chance 
 of seeing Anne. On this, the fourth occasion, the faithful girl 
 sat down alone in the great room, and waited with her eyes 
 fixed on the lawn outside. 
 
 Five minutes passed, and nothing living appeared but the 
 birds hopping about the grass. 
 
 In less than a minute more Blanche's quick ear caught the 
 faint sound of a woman's dress brushing over the lawn. She 
 ran to the nearest window, looked out, and clapj^ed her hands 
 with a cry of delight. There was the well-known figure, rap- 
 idly approaching her! Anne was true to their friendship — 
 Anne had kept her engagement at last ! 
 
 Blanche hurried out, and drew her into the library in tri- 
 umph. "This makes amends, love, for every thing ! You an- 
 swer my letter in the best of all ways — you bring me your 
 own dear self" 
 
 She placed Anne in a chair, and, lifting her veil, saw her 
 plainly in the brilliant midday light. 
 
 The change in the whole woman was nothing less than 
 dreadful to the loving eyes that rested on her. She looked 
 years older than her real age. There was a dull calm in her 
 face, a stagnant, stupefied submission to any thing, pitiable to 
 see. Three days and nights of solitude and grief, three days 
 and nights of unresting and unpartakeu suspense, had crushed 
 that sensitive nature, had frozen that warm heart. The ani- 
 mating spirit was gone — the mere shell of the woman lived 
 and moved, a mockery of her former self 
 
 " Oh, Anne ! Anne ! What can have happened to you ? 
 Are you frightened ? There's not the least fear of any body 
 disturbing us. They are all at luncheon, and the servants are 
 at dinner. We have the room entirely to ourselves. My dar- 
 ling ! you look so faint and strange ! Let me get you some- 
 thing." 
 
 Anne drew Blanche's head down and kissed her. It was 
 done in a dull, slow way — without a word, without a tear, 
 without a sigh. 
 
 " You're tired — I'm sure you're tired. Have you walked 
 here ? You sha'n't go back on foot ; I'll take care of that ?" 
 
 Anne roused herself at those words. She spoke for the first 
 time. The tone w^as lower than was natural to her; sadder 
 than was natural to her — but the charm of her voice, the native 
 gentleness and beauty of it, seemed to have survived the wreck 
 of all besides. 
 
 "I don't go back, Blanche. I have left the inn.^ 
 
 ' ' Left the inn ? With your husband ?" 
 
MAN AND WIFK. 217 
 
 She answered the first question — not the second. 
 
 " I can't go back," she said. " The inn is no place for me. 
 A curse seems to follow me, Blanche, wherever I go. I am 
 the cause of quarreling and wretchedness, without meaning it, 
 God knows. The old man who is head- waiter at the inn has 
 been kind to me, my dear, in his way, and he and the landlady 
 had hard words together about it. A quarrel, a shocking, vio- 
 lent quarrel. He has lost his place in consequence. The 
 woman, his mistress, lays all the blame of it to my door. She 
 is a hard woman ; and she has been harder than ever since 
 Bishopriggs went away. I have missed a letter at the inn — I 
 must have thrown it aside, I suppose, and forgotten it. I only 
 know that I remembered about it, and couldn't find it last 
 night. I told the landlady, and she fastened a quarrel on me 
 almost before the words were out of my mouth. Asked me if I 
 charged her with stealing my letter. Said things to me — I 
 can't repeat them. I am not very well, and not able. to deal 
 with people of that sort. I thought it best to leave Craig 
 Fernie this morning. I hope and pray I shall never see Craig 
 Fernie again." 
 
 She told her little story Avith a total absence of emotion of 
 any sort, and laid her head back wearily on the chair when it 
 was done. 
 
 Blanche's eyes filled with tears at the sight of her. 
 
 " I won't tease you with questions, Anne," she said, gently. 
 " Come up stairs and rest in my room. You're not fit to travel, 
 love. I'll take care that nobody comes near us." 
 
 The stable-clock at Windygates struck the quarter to two. 
 Anne raised herself in the chair with a start. 
 
 " What time was that ?" she asked. 
 
 Blanche told her. 
 
 "I can't stay," she said. "I have come here to find some- 
 thing out, if I can. You won't ask me questions ? Don't, 
 Blanche, don't ! for the sake of old times." 
 
 Blanche turned aside, heart-sick. " I Avill do nothing, dear, 
 to annoy you," she said, and took Anne's hand, and hid the 
 tears that were beginning to fall over her cheeks. 
 
 " I want to know something, Blanche. Will you tell me ?" 
 
 "Yes. What is it?" 
 
 " Who are the gentlemen staying in the house ?" 
 
 Blanche looked round at her again, in sudden astonishment 
 and alarm. A vague fear seized her that Anne's mind had 
 given way under the heavy weight of trouble laid on it. Anne 
 persisted in pi'essing her strange request. 
 
 " Run over their names, Blanche. I have a reason for wish- 
 ing to know who the gentlemen are who are staying in the 
 house." 
 
218 MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 Blanche repeated the names of Lady Lundie's guests, leay- 
 ing to the last the guests who had arrived last. 
 
 " Two more came back this morning," she went on. "Arnold 
 Brinkworth and that hateful friend of his, Mr, Delamayn." 
 
 Anne's head sank back once more on the chair. She had 
 found her way, without exciting suspicion of the truth, to the 
 one discovery which she had come to Windygates to make. 
 He was in Scotland again, and he had only arrived from Lon- 
 don that morning. There w^as barely time for him to have 
 communicated with Craig Feruie before she left the inn — he, 
 too, who hated letter-writing ! The circumstances were all in 
 his favor : there was no reason, there was really and truly no 
 reason, so far, to believe that he had deserted her. The heart 
 of the unhappy woman bounded in her bosom, under the first 
 ray of hope that had warmed it for four days past. Under 
 that sudden revulsion of feeling, her weakened frame shook 
 from head to foot. Her face flushed deep for a moment — then 
 turned deadly pale again. Blanche, anxiously watching her, 
 saw the serious necessity for giving some restorative to her 
 instantly. 
 
 " I am going to get you some wine — you will faint, Anne, if 
 you don't take something. I shall be back in a moment ; and 
 I can manage it without any body being the wiser." 
 
 She pushed Anne's chair close to the nearest open window — 
 a window at the upper end of the library — and ran out. 
 
 Blanche had barely left the room, by the door that led into 
 the hall, when Geofl"rey entered it by one of the lower windows 
 opening from the lawn. 
 
 With his mind absorbed in the letter that he was about to 
 write, he slowly advanced up the room toward the nearest 
 table. Anne, hearing the sound of footsteps, started, and 
 looked round. Her failing strength rallied in an instant, un- 
 der the sudden relief of seeing him again. She rose and ad- 
 vanced eagerly, with a faint tinge of color in her cheeks. He 
 looked up. The two stood face to face together — alone. 
 
 " Geoffrey !" 
 
 He looked at her without answering — without advancing a 
 step, on his side. There Avas an evil light in his eyes; his 
 silence was the brute silence that threatens dumbly. He had 
 made up his mind never to see her again, and she had entrapped 
 hira into an interview. He had made up his mind to write, 
 and there she stood forcing him to speak. The sum of her of- 
 fenses against him was now complete. If there had ever been 
 the faintest hope of her raising even a passing pity in his heart, 
 that hope would have been annihilated now. 
 
 She failed to understand the full meaning of his silence. 
 She made her excuses, poor soul, for venturing back to Windy- 
 
MAN AND WIFE. 219 
 
 gates — her excuses to the man whose purpose at that moment 
 was to throw her helpless on the world. 
 
 " Pray forgive me for coming here," she said. " I have done 
 nothing to compromise you, GeoftVey. Nobody but Blanche 
 knows I am at Windygates. And I have contrived to make 
 my inquiries about you without allowing her to suspect our 
 secret." She stopped and began to tremble. She saw some- 
 thing more in his face than she had read in it at first. " I got 
 your letter," she went on, rallying her sinking courage. "I 
 don't complain of its being so short : you don't like letter- 
 writing, I know. But you promised I should hear from you 
 again. And I have never heard. And oh, Geoffrey, it was so 
 lonely at the inn !" 
 
 She stopped again, and supported herself by resting her 
 hand on the table. The faintness was stealing back on her. 
 She tried to go on again. It was useless — she could only look 
 at him now. 
 
 " What do you want ?" he asked, in the tone of a man who 
 was putting an unimportant question to a total stranger. 
 
 A last gleam of her old energy flickered up in her face, like 
 a dying flame. 
 
 "I am broken by what I have gone through," she said. 
 " Don't insult me by making me remind you of your promise." 
 
 " What promise ?" 
 
 " For shame, Geoffrey ! for shame ! Your promise to marry 
 me." 
 
 "You claim my promise after what you have done at the 
 inn ?" 
 
 She steadied herself against the table with one hand, and 
 put the other hand to her head. Her brain was giddy. The 
 effort to think was too much for her. She said to herself, 
 vacantly, " The inn ? What did I do at the inn ?" 
 
 " I have had a lawyer's advice, mind ! I know what I am 
 talking about." 
 
 She appeared not to have heard him. She repeated the 
 words, " What did I do at the inn ?" and gave it up in despair. 
 Holding by the table, she came close to him and laid her hand 
 on his arm. 
 
 " Do you refuse to marry me ?" she asked. 
 
 He saw the vile opportunity, and said the vile words. 
 
 " You're married already to Arnold Brinkworth." 
 
 Without a cry to warn him, without an effort to save her- 
 self, she dropped senseless at his feet ; as her mother had 
 dropped at his father's feet in the by-gone time. 
 
 He disentangled himself from the folds of her dress. " Done !" 
 lie said, looking down at her as she lay on the floor. 
 
 As the word fell from his lips he was startled by a sound in 
 
220 MAN AND WIFK. 
 
 the inner part of the house. One of the library doors had not 
 been completely closed. Light footsteps were audible, advan- 
 cing rapidly across the hall. 
 
 He turned and fled, leaving the library, as he had entered 
 it, by the open window at the lower end of the room. 
 
 CHAPTER THE TWENTY-SECOND. 
 
 GONE. 
 
 Blanche came in, with a glass of wine in her hand, and 
 saw the swooning woman on the floor. 
 
 She was alarmed, but not surprised, as she knelt by Anne 
 and raised her head. Her own previous observation of her 
 friend necessarily prevented her from being at any loss to ac- 
 count for the fainting fit. The inevitable delay in getting the 
 wine was — naturally to her mind — alone to blame for the re- 
 sult which now met her view. 
 
 If she had been less ready in thus tracing the efiect to the 
 cause, she might have gone to the window to see if any thing 
 had happened, out-of-doors, to frighten Anne — might have 
 seen Geoffrey before he had time to turn the corner of the 
 house — and, making that one discovery, might have altered 
 the whole course of events, not in her coming life only, but in 
 the coming lives of others. So do we shape our own desti- 
 nies, blindfold. So do we hold our poor little tenure of happi- 
 ness at the capricious mercy of Chance. It is surely a blessed 
 delusion which persuades us that we are the highest product 
 of the great scheme of creation, and sets us doubting whether 
 other planets are inhabited, because other planets are not sur- 
 rounded by an atmosphere which we can breathe ! 
 
 After trying such simple remedies as were within her reach, 
 and trying them without success, Blanche became seriously 
 alarmed. Anne lay, to all outward appearance, dead in her 
 arms. She was on the point of calling for help — come M'hat 
 might of the discovery which would ensue — when the door 
 from the hall opened once more, and Hester Dethridge entered 
 the room. 
 
 The cook had accepted the alternative which her mistress's 
 message had placed before her, if she insisted on having her 
 own time at her own sole disposal for the rest of that day. 
 Exactly as Lady Lundie had desired, she intimated her resolu- 
 tion to carry her point by placing her account-book on the 
 desk in the library. It was only when this had been done 
 that Blanche received any answer to her entreaties for help. 
 
MAN AND WIFE. 223 
 
 Slowly and deliberately Hester Dethridge walked up to the 
 spot where the young girl knelt with Anne's head on her bo- 
 som, and looked at the two without a trace of human emotion 
 in her stern and stony face, 
 
 " Don't you see what's happened ?" cried Blanche. "Are 
 you alive or dead ? Oh, Hester, I can't bring her to ! Look 
 at her ! look at her !" 
 
 Hester Dethridge looked at her, and shook her head. Look- 
 ed again, thought for a while, and wrote on her slate. Held 
 out the slate over Anne's body, and showed what she had 
 written : 
 
 " Who has done it ?" 
 
 " You stupid creature !" said Blanche. " Nobody has done 
 it." 
 
 The eyes of Hester Dethridge steadily read the worn white 
 face, telling its own tale of sorrow mutely on Blanche's breast. 
 The mind of Hester Dethridge steadily looked back at her 
 own knowledge of her own miserable married life. She again 
 returned to writing on her slate — again showed the written 
 words to Blanche. 
 
 "Brought to it by a man. Let her be — and God will take 
 her." 
 
 " You horrid unfeeling woman ! how dare you write such an 
 abominable thing !" With this natural outburst of indigna- 
 tion, Blanche looked back at Anne ; and, daunted by the death- 
 like persistency of the swoon, appealed again to the mercy of 
 the immovable woman who was looking down at hei'. " Oh, 
 Hester ! for Heaven's sake help me !" 
 
 The cook dropped her slate at her side, and bent her head 
 gravely in sign that she submitted. She motioned to Blanche 
 to loosen Anne's dress, and then — kneeling on one knee — took 
 Anne to support her while it was being done. 
 
 The instant Hester Dethridge touched her, the swooning 
 woman gave signs of life. 
 
 A faint shudder ran through her from head to foot — her 
 eyelids trembled — half opened for a moment — and closed 
 again. As they closed, a low sigh fluttered feebly from hei 
 lips. 
 
 Hester Dethridge put her back in Blanche's arms — consid- 
 ered a little with herself — returned to writing on her slate — 
 and held out the written words once more : 
 
 "Shivered when I touched her. That means I have been 
 walking over her grave." 
 
 Blanche turned from the sight of the slate, and from the 
 sight of the woman, in horror. "You frighten me!" she said. 
 " You will frighten Aer, if she sees you. I don't meaa tc ^f 
 fend you ; but — leave us, please leave us." 
 
224 MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 Hester Dethridge accepted her dismissal, as she accepted 
 every thing else. She bowed her head in sign that she under- 
 stood — looked for the last time at Anne — dropped a stiff court- 
 esy to her young mistress — and left the room. 
 
 An hour later the butler had paid her, and she had left the 
 house. 
 
 Blanche breathed more freely when she found herself alone. 
 She could feel the relief now of seeing Anne revive. 
 
 "Can you hear me, darling?" she whisj^ei'ed. "Can you 
 let me leave you for a moment ?" 
 
 Anne's eyes slowly opened and looked round her — in that 
 torment and terror of reviving life which marks the awful pro- 
 test of humanity against its recall to existence when mortal 
 mercy has dared to wake it in the arms of Death. 
 
 Blanche rested Anne's head against the nearest chair, and 
 ran to the table upon which she had placed the wine on enter- 
 ing the room. 
 
 After swallowing the first few drops Anne began to feel 
 the effect of the stimulant. Blanche persisted in making her 
 empty the glass, and refrained from asking or answering ques- 
 tions until her recovery under the influence of the wine was 
 complete. 
 
 " You have over-exerted yourself this morning," she said, as 
 soon as it seemed safe to speak. " Nobody has seen you, dar- 
 ling — nothing has happened. Do you feel like yourself again ?" 
 
 Anne made an attempt to rise and leave the library; Blanche 
 placed her gently in the chair, and went on : 
 
 " There is not the least need to stir. We have another 
 quarter of an hour to ourselves before any body is at all likely 
 to disturb us. I have something to say, Anne — a little pro- 
 posal to make. Will you listen to me?" 
 
 Anne took Blanche's hand, and pressed it gratefully to her 
 lips. She made no other reply. Blanche proceeded : 
 
 "I won't ask any questions, my dear — I won't attempt to 
 keep you here against your will — I won't even remind you of 
 my letter yesterday. But I can't let you go, Anne, without 
 having my mind made easy about you in some way. You will 
 relieve all my anxiety, if you will do one thing — one easy thing, 
 for my sake." 
 
 " What is it, Blanche ?" 
 
 She put that question with her mind far away from the 
 subject before her. Blanche was too eager in pursuit of her 
 object to notice the absent tone, the purely mechanical man- 
 ner, in which Anne had spoken to her. 
 
 " I want you to consult my uncle," she answered. " Sir 
 Patrick is interested in you ; Sir Patrick proposed to me this 
 very day to go and see you at the inn. He is the wisest, the 
 
MAN AND WIFE. 225 
 
 kindest, the dearest old man living — and you can trust him as 
 you could trust nobody else. Will you take my uncle into 
 your confidence, and be guided by his advice ?" 
 
 With her mind still far away from the subject, Anne looked 
 out absently at the lawn, and made no answer. 
 
 " Come !" said Blanche. " One word isn't much to saj^ Is 
 it Yes or No ?" 
 
 Still looking out on the lawn— still thinking of something 
 else — Anne yielded, and said "Yes." 
 
 Blanche was enchanted. " How well I must have managed 
 it !" she thought. " This is what my uncle means, when my 
 uncle talks of ' putting it strongly.' " 
 
 She bent down over Anne, and gayly patted her on the 
 shoulder. 
 
 " That's the wisest ' Yes,' darling, you ever said in your life. 
 Wait here — and I'll go in to luncheon, or they will be sending 
 to know what has become of me. Sir Patrick has kept ray 
 place for me, next to himself. I shall contrive to tell him 
 what I want ; and he will contrive (oh, the blessing of hav- 
 ing to do with a clever man ; there are so few of them ! — he 
 will contrive to leave the table before the rest, without ex- 
 citing any body's suspicions. Go away with him at once to 
 the summer-house (we have been at the summer-house all the 
 morning; nobody will go back to it now), and I will follow 
 you as soon as I have satisfied Lady Lundie by eating some 
 lunch. Nobody will be any the wiser but our three selves. 
 In five minutes or less you may expect Sir Patrick. Let me 
 go ! We haven't a moment to lose !" 
 
 Anne held her back. Anne's attention was concentrated on 
 her now. 
 
 " What is it ?" she asked. 
 
 " Are you going on happily with Arnold, Blanche ?" 
 
 " Arnold is nicer than ever, my dear." 
 
 " Is the day fixed for your marriage ?" 
 
 " The day will be ages hence. Not till we are back in tov/n, 
 at the end of the autumn. Let me go, Anne !" 
 
 " Give me a kiss, Blanche." 
 
 Blanche kissed her, and tried to release her hand. Anne 
 held it as if she was drowning, as if her life depended on not 
 letting it go. 
 
 " Will you always love me, Blanche, as you love me now ?" 
 
 " How can you ask me ?" 
 
 "Zsaid Yes just now. You say Yes too." 
 
 Blanche said it. Anne's eyes fastened on her face, with one 
 long, yearning look, and then Anne's hand suddenly dropped 
 hers. 
 
 She ran out of the room, more agitated, more uneasy, than 
 
 15 
 
226 MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 she liked to confess to herself. Never had she felt so certain 
 of the urgent necessity of appealing to Sir Patrick's advice as 
 she felt at that moment. 
 
 The guests were still safe at the luncheon - table when 
 Blanche entered the dining-room. 
 
 Lady Lundie expressed the necessary surprise, in the prop- 
 erly graduated tone of reproof, at her step-daughter's want of 
 punctuality. Blanche made her apologies with the most ex- 
 emplary humility. She glided into her chair by her uncle'g 
 side, and took the first thing that was offered to her. Sir Pat- 
 rick looked at his niece, and found himself in the company of 
 a model young English Miss — and marveled inwardly what it 
 might mean. 
 
 The talk, interrupted for the moment (topics, Politics and 
 Sport — and then, when a change was wanted, Sport and Poli- 
 tics), was resumed again all round the table. Under cover of 
 the conversation, and in the intervals of receiving the atten- 
 tions of the gentlemen, Blanche whispered to Sir Patrick, 
 "Don't start, uncle. Anne is in the library." (Polite Mr. 
 Smith offered some ham. Gratefully declined.) " Pray, pray, 
 pray go to her: she is waiting to see you — she is in dreadful 
 trouble." (Gallant Mr, Jones proposed fruit tart and cream. 
 Accepted with thanks.) " Take her to the summer-house : Pll 
 follow you when I get the chance. And manage it at once, 
 uncle, if you love me, or you will be too late." 
 
 Before Sir Patrick could whisper back a word in reply, Lady 
 Lundie, cutting a cake of the richest Scottish composition, at 
 the other end of the table, publicly proclaimed it to be her 
 "own cake," and, as such, offered her brother-in-law a slice. 
 The slice exhibited an eruption of plums and sweetmeats, over- 
 laid by a perspiration of butter. It has been said that Sir Pat- 
 rick had reached the age of seventy — it is, therefore, needless 
 to add that he politely declined to commit an unprovoked out- 
 rage on his own stomach. 
 
 "My cake!" persisted Lady Lundie, elevating the horrible 
 composition on a fork. " Won't that tempt you ?" 
 
 Sir Patrick saw his way to slipping out of the room under 
 cover of a compliment to his sister-in-law. Pie summoned his 
 courtly smile, and laid his hand on his heart. 
 
 "A fallible mortal," he said, "is met by a temptation which 
 he can not possibly resist. If he is a wise mortal, also, what 
 does he do ?" 
 
 "He eats some of My cake," said the prosaic Lady Lundie. 
 
 " No !" said Sir Patrick, with a look of unutterable devotion di- 
 rected at his sister-in-law. " He flies temptation, dear lady — as 
 I do now." He bowed, and escaped, unsuspected, from the room. 
 
MAN AND WIFE, 227 
 
 Lady Lundie cast down her eyes, with an expression of vii- 
 tuous indulgeuce for human frailty, and divided Sir Patrick's 
 compliment modestly between herself and her cake. 
 
 Well aware that his own departure from the table would 
 be followed in a few minutes by the rising of the lady of the 
 house, Sir Patrick hurried to the library as fast as his lame 
 foot would let him. Now that he was alone, his manner be- 
 came anxious, and his face looked grave. He entered the 
 room. 
 
 Not a sign of Anne Silvester was to be seen anywhere. The 
 library was a perfect solitude. 
 
 " Gone !" said Sir Patrick. " This looks bad." 
 
 After a moment's reflection he went back into the hall to 
 get his hat. It was possible that she might have been afraid 
 of discovery if she staid in the library, and that she might 
 have gone on to the summer-house by herself 
 
 If she was not to be found in the summer-house, the quieting 
 of Blanche's mind and the clearing up of her uncle's suspicions 
 alike depended on discovering the place in which Miss Silves- 
 ter had taken refuge. In this case time would be of impor- 
 tance, and the capacity of making the most of it would be a 
 precious capacity at starting. Arriving rapidly at these con- 
 clusions. Sir Patrick rang the bell in the hall which communi- 
 cated with the servants' ofiices, and summoned his own valet 
 — a person of tried discretion and fidelity, nearly as old as 
 himself 
 
 " Get your hat, Duncan," he said, when the valet appeared, 
 " and come out with me." 
 
 Master and servant set forth together silently, on their way 
 through the grounds. Arrived within sight of the summer- 
 house, Sir Patrick ordered Duncan to wait, and went on by 
 himself. 
 
 There was not the least need for the precaution that he had 
 taken. The summer-house was as empty as the library. He 
 stepped out again and looked about him. Not a living crea- 
 ture was visible. Sir Patrick summoned his servant to join 
 Mm. 
 
 "Go back to the stables, Duncan," he said, "and say that 
 Miss Lundie lends me her pony-carriage to-day. Let it be got 
 ready at once and kept in the stable-yard. I want to attract 
 as little notice as possible. You are to go with me, and no- 
 body else. Provide yourself with a railway time-table. Have 
 you got anv money?" 
 
 " Yes, Sir Patrick." 
 
 "Did you happen to see the governess (Miss Silvester) on 
 the day when we came here — the day of the lawn-party ?" 
 
228 MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 " I did, Sir Patrick." 
 
 " Should you know her again ?" 
 
 " I thought her a very distinguished-looking person, Sir Pat- 
 rick. I should certainly know her again." 
 
 "Have you any reason to think she noticed you?" 
 
 " She never even looked at me, Sir Patrick." 
 
 " Very good. Put a change of linen into your bag, Dun- 
 can — I may possibly want you to take a journey by railway. 
 Wait for me in the stable-yard. This is a matter in which 
 every thing is trusted to my discretion and to yours." 
 
 "Thank you, Sir Patrick." 
 
 With that acknowledgment of the compliment which had 
 been just paid to him, Duncan gravely went his way to the 
 stables ; and Duncan's master returned to the summer-house, 
 to wait there until he was joined by Blanche. 
 
 Sir Patrick showed signs of failing patience during the in- 
 terval of expectation through which he was now condemned 
 to pass. He applied perpetually to the snuff-box in the knob 
 of his cane. He fidgeted incessantly in and out of the sum- 
 mer-house. Anne's disappearance had placed a serious obsta- 
 cle in the way of further discovery ; and there was no attack- 
 ing that obstacle, until precious time had been wasted in wait- 
 ing to see Blanche. 
 
 At last she appeared in view, from the steps of the summer- 
 house; breathless and eager, hastening to the place of meeting 
 as fast as her feet would take her to it. 
 
 Sir Patrick considerately advanced, to spare her the shock 
 of making the inevitable discovery. "Blanche," he said, "try 
 to prepare yourself, my dear, for a disappointment. I am 
 alone." 
 
 " You don't mean that you have let her go ?" 
 
 " My poor child ! I have never seen her at all." 
 
 Blanche pushed by him, and ran into the summer-house. 
 Sir Patrick followed her. She came out again to meet him, 
 with a look of blank despair. " Oh, uncle ! I did so truly 
 pity her ! And see how little pity she has for meP'' 
 
 Sir Patrick put his arm round his niece, and softly patted 
 the fair young head that dropped on his shoulder. 
 
 "Don't let us judge her harshly, my dear; we don't know 
 what serious necessity may not plead her excuse. It is plain 
 that she can trust nobody — and that she only consented to see 
 me to get you out of the room and spare you the pain of part- 
 ing. Compose yourself, Blanche. I don't despair of discover- 
 ing where she has gone, if you will help me." 
 
 Blanche lifted her head, and dried her tears bravely. 
 
 " My father himself wasn't kinder to me than you are," she 
 said. " Only tell me, uncle, what I can do !" 
 
MAN AND WIFE. 229 
 
 " I want to hear exactly what happened in the library," said 
 Sir Patrick. " Forget nothing, my dear child, no matter liow 
 trifling it may be. Trifles are precious to us, and minutes are 
 precious to us, now." 
 
 Blanche followed her instructions to the letter, her uncle 
 listening with the closest attention. When she had completed 
 her narrative, Sir Patrick suggested leaving the summer- 
 house. " I have ordered your chaise," he said ; " and I can 
 tell you what I propose doing on our way to the stable-yard." 
 
 " Let me drive you, uncle." 
 
 " Forgive me, my dear, for saying No to that. Your step- 
 mother's suspicions are very easily excited — and you had bet- 
 ter not be seen with me if my inquiries take me to the Craig 
 Fernie inn. I promise, if you will remain here, to tell you ev- 
 ery thing when I come back. Join the others in any plan 
 they have for the afternoon — and you will prevent my ab- 
 sence from exciting any thing more than a passing remark. 
 You will do as I tell you ? That's a good girl ! Now you 
 shall hear how I propose to search for this poor lady, and how 
 your little story has helped me." 
 
 He paused, considering with himself whether he should 
 begin by telling Blanche of his consultation with Geoflfrey. 
 Once more he decided that question in the negative. Better 
 to still defer taking her into his confidence until he had per- 
 formed the errand of investigation on which he was now set- 
 ting forth. 
 
 " What you have told me, Blanche, divides itself, in my mind, 
 into two heads," began Sir Patrick. " There is what happened 
 in the library before your own eyes; and there is what Miss 
 Silvester told you had happened at the inn. As to the event 
 in the library (in the first place), it is too late now to inquire 
 whether that fainting-fit was the result, as you say, of mere ex- 
 haustion — or whether it was the result of something that oc- 
 curred while you were out of the room." 
 
 "What could have happened while I was out of the room?" 
 
 " I know no more than you do, my dear. It is simply one of 
 the possibilities in the case, and, as such, I notice it. To get on 
 to what practically concerns us: if Miss Silvester is in delicate 
 health it is impossible that she could get, unassisted, to any 
 great distance from Windygates. She may have taken refuge 
 in one of the cottages in our immediate neighborhood. Or she 
 may have met with some passing vehicle from one of the farms 
 on its way to the station, and may have asked the person driv- 
 ing to give her a seat in it. Or she may have walked as far as 
 she can, and may have stopped to rest in some sheltered place, 
 among the lanes to the south of this house." 
 
 " I'll inquire at the cottages, uncle, while you are gone." 
 
230 MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 "My dear child, there xiiust be a dozen cottages, at least, 
 within a circle of one mile from Windygates ! Your inquiries 
 would probably occupy you for the whole afternoon, I won't 
 ask what Lady Lundie would tliink of your being away all 
 that time by yourself. I will only remind you of two things. 
 You would be making a public matter of an investigation 
 which it is essential to pursue as privately as possible; and, 
 even if you happened to hit on the right cottage, your inquiries 
 would be completely baffled, and you would discover nothing." 
 
 " Why not ?" 
 
 " I know the Scottish peasant better than you do, Blanche. 
 In his intelligence and his sense of self-respect he is a very dif- 
 ferent being from the English peasant. He would receive you 
 civilly, because you are a young lady ; but he would let you 
 see, at the same time, that he considered you had taken advan- 
 tage of the diiFerence between your position and his position to 
 commit an intrusion. And if Miss Silvester had appealed, in 
 confidence, to his hospitality, and if he had granted it, no pow- 
 er on earth would induce him to tell any person living that 
 she was under his roof — without her express permission." 
 
 " But, uncle, if it's of no use making inquiries of any body, 
 how are we to find her ?" 
 
 " I don't say that nobody will answer our inquiries, my dear 
 — I only say the peasantry won't answer them, if your friend 
 has trusted herself to their protection. The way to find her is 
 to look on, beyond what Miss Silvester may be doing at the 
 present moment, to what Miss Silvester contemplates doing — 
 let us say, before the day is out. We may assume, I think (af- 
 ter what has happened), that, as soon as she can leave this 
 neighborhood, she assuredly will leave it. Do vou agree, so 
 far?" 
 
 " Yes ! yes ! Go on." 
 
 " Very well. She is a woman, and she is (to say the least 
 of it) not strong. She can only leave this neighborhood either 
 by hiring a vehicle or by traveling on the railway. I propose 
 going first to the station. At the rate at which your pony 
 gets over the ground, there is a fair chance, in spite of the time 
 we have lost, of my being there as soon as she is— assuming 
 that she leaves by the first train, up or down, that })asses." 
 
 " There is a train in half an hour, uncle. She can never get 
 there in time for that." 
 
 " She may be less exhausted than we think ; or she may get 
 a lift ; or she may not be alone. How do we know but some- 
 body may have been waiting in the lane — her husband, if there 
 is such a person — to help her? No! I shall assume she is 
 now on her way to the station ; and I shall get there as fast 
 as possible — " 
 
MAN AND WIFE. 231 
 
 "And stop her, if you tinJ her there?" 
 
 " What I do, Blanche, must be left to my discretion. If I 
 find her there, I must act for the best. If I don't find her 
 there, I shall leave Duncan (who goes with me) on the watch 
 for the remaining trains, until the last to-night. He knows 
 Miss Silvester by sight, and he is sure that she has never no- 
 ticed him. Whether she goes north or south, early or late, 
 Duncan will have my orders to follow her. He is thorough- 
 ly to be relied on. If she takes the railway, I answer for it 
 we shall know where she goes." 
 
 " How clever of you to think of Duncan !" 
 
 " Not in the least, my dear. Duncan is my factotum ; and 
 the course I am taking is the obvious course which would have 
 occurred to any body. Let us get to the really difficult part 
 of it now. Suppose she hires a carriage ?" 
 
 " There are none to be had, except at the station." 
 
 "There are farmers about here, and farmers have light carts, 
 or chaises, or something of the sort. It is in the last degree 
 unlikely that they would consent to let her have them. Still, 
 women break through difficulties which stop men. And this 
 is a clever woman, Blanche — a woman, you may depend on it, 
 who is bent on preventing you from tracing her. I confess I 
 wish we had somebody we could trust lounging about where 
 those two roads branch off from the road that leads to the rail- 
 way. I must go in another direction ; Z can't do it." 
 
 "'Arnold can do it !" 
 
 Sir Patrick looked a little doubtful. "Arnold is an excellent 
 fellow," he said. " But can we trust to his discretion ?" 
 
 "He is, next to you, the most perfectly discreet person I 
 know," rejoined Blanche, in a very positive manner; "and, 
 what is more, I have told him every thing about Annie, except 
 what has happened to-day. I am afraid I shall tell him that, 
 when I feel lonely and miserable, after you have gone. There 
 is something in Arnold — I don't know what it is — that com- 
 forts me. Besides, do you think he would betray a secret that 
 I gave him to keep? You don't know how devoted he is to 
 me !" 
 
 " My dear Blanche, I am not the cherished object of his de- 
 votion ; of course I don't know ! You are the only authority 
 on that point. I stand corrected. Let us have Arnold by all 
 means. Caution him to be careful ; and send him out by him- 
 self, where the roads meet. We have now only one other place 
 left in which there is a chance of finding a trace of her. I un- 
 dertake to make the necessary investigation at the Craig Fernie 
 inn." I 
 
 " The Craig Fernie inn ? Uncle ! you have forgotten what 
 I told you." 
 
232 MAN AISTD WIFE. 
 
 " Wait a little, my dear. Miss Silvester herself has left the 
 inn, I grant you. But (if we should unhappily fail in finding 
 her by any other means) Miss Silvester has left a trace to guide 
 us at Craig Fernie. That trace must be picked up at once, 
 in case of accidents. You don't seem to follow me ? I am 
 getting over the ground as fast as the pony gets over it. I 
 have arrived at the second of those two heads into which your 
 story divides itself in my mind. What did Miss Silvester tell 
 you had happened at the inn ?" 
 
 " She lost a letter at the inn." 
 
 " Exactly. She lost a letter at the inn ; that is one event. 
 And Bishopriggs, the Avaiter, has quarreled with Mrs. Inch- 
 bare, and has left his situation ; that is another event. As to 
 the letter first. It is either really lost, or it has been stolen. 
 In either case, if we can lay our hands on it, there is at least a 
 chance of its helping us to discover something. As to Bish- 
 opriggs, next — " 
 
 "You're not going to talk about the waiter, surely?" 
 
 " I am ! Bishopriggs possesses two important merits. He is a 
 link in my chain of reasoning, and he is an old friend of mine." 
 
 "A friend of yours?" 
 
 " We live in days, my dear, when one workman talks of an- 
 other workman as ' that gentleman.' I march with the age, 
 and feel bound to mention my clerk as my friend. A few 
 years since Bishopriggs was employed in the clerks' room at 
 my chambers. He is one of the most intelligent and most un- 
 scrupulous old vagabonds in Scotland ; perfectly honest as to 
 all average matters involving pounds, shillings, and pence ; per- 
 fectly unprincipled in the pursuit of his own interests, where 
 the violation of a trust lies on the boundary-line which marks 
 the limit of the law. I made two unpleasant discoveries when 
 I had him in my employment. I found that he had contrived 
 to supply himself with a duplicate of my seal ; and I had the 
 strongest reason to suspect him of tampering with some papers 
 belonging to two of my clients. He had done no actual mis- 
 chief, so far ; and I had no time to waste in making out the nec- 
 essary case against him. He was dismissed from my service, 
 as a man who was not to be trusted to respect any letters or 
 papers that happened to pass through his hands." 
 
 " I see, uncle ! I see !" 
 
 " Plain enough now — isn't it ? If that missing letter of Miss 
 Silvestei''s is a letter of no importance, I am inclined to believe 
 that it is merely lost, and may be found again. If, on the oth- 
 er hand, there is any thing in it that could promise the most 
 remote advantage to any person in possession of it, then, in 
 the execrable slang of the day, I will lay any odds, Blanche, 
 that Bishopriggs has got the letter !" 
 
MAN AND WIFE. 233 
 
 "And he has left the inn ! How unfortunate !" 
 
 " Unfortunate as causing delay — nothing worse than that. 
 Unless I am very much mistaken, Bishopriggs will come back 
 to the inn. The old rascal (there is no denying it) is a most 
 amusing person. He left a terrible blank when he left my 
 clerks'* room. Old customers at Craig Fernie (especially the 
 English), in missing Bishopriggs, will, you may rely on it, 
 miss one of the attractions of the inn. Mrs. Inchbare is not a 
 woman to let her dignity stand in the way of her business. 
 She and Bishopriggs will come together again, sooner or later, 
 and make it up. When I have put certain questions to her, 
 which may possibly lead to very important results, I shall 
 leave a letter for Bishopriggs in Mrs. Inchbare's hands. The 
 letter will tell him I have something for him to do, and will 
 contain an address at which he can write to me. I shall hear 
 of him, Blanche ; and, if the letter is in his possession, I shall 
 get it." 
 
 " Won't he be afraid — if he has stolen the letter — to tell you 
 he has got it ?" 
 
 " Very well put, my child. He might hesitate with other 
 people. But I have my own way of dealing with him ; and I 
 know how to make him tell Me. — Enough of Bishopriggs till 
 his time comes. There is one other point, in regard to Miss 
 Silvester. I may have to describe her. How was she dressed 
 when she came here? Kemember, I am a man — and (if an 
 Englishwoman's dress can be described in an Englishwoman's 
 language) tell me, in English, what she had on." 
 
 "She wore a straw hat, with corn-flowers in it, and a white 
 veil. Corn-flowers at one side, uncle, which is less common 
 than corn-flowers in front. And she had on a light gray shawl, 
 and a Pique — " 
 
 " There you go with your French ! Not a word more ! A 
 straw hat, with a white veil, and with corn-flowers at one side 
 of the hat. And a light gray shawl. That's as much as the 
 ordinar}' male mind can take in ; and that will do. I have got 
 my instructions, and saved precious time. So far — so good. 
 Here we are at the end of our conference — in other words, at 
 the gate of the stable-yard. You understand what you have 
 to do while I am away ?" 
 
 " I have to send Arnold to the cross-roads. And I have to 
 behave (if I can) as if nothing had happened." 
 
 "Good child ! Well put again ! You have got what I call 
 grasp of mind, Blanche. An invaluable faculty ! You will 
 govern the future domestic kingdom. Arnold will be nothing 
 but a constitutional husband. Those are the only husbands 
 who are thoroughly happy. You shall hear every thing, my 
 love, when I come back, Got your bag, Duncan ? Good. 
 
234 MAN AND WIFK. 
 
 And tne time-table? Good. You take the reins — I won't 
 drive. I want to think. Driving is incompatible with intel- 
 lectual exertion. A man jDuts his mind into his horse, anc' 
 sinks to the level of that useful animal — as a necessary condi- 
 tion of getting to his destination without being upset. God 
 blesB you, Blanche ! To the station, Duncan ! to the station !" 
 
 CHAPTER THE TWENTY-THIRD. 
 
 TRACED. 
 
 The chaise rattled out through the gates. The dogs barked 
 furiously. Sir Patrick looked round, and waved his hand as 
 he turned tbe corner of the road. Blanche was left alone in 
 the yard. 
 
 She lingered a little, absently patting the dogs. They had 
 especial claims on her sympathy at that moment ; they, too, 
 evidently thought it hard to be left behind at the house. Af- 
 ter a while she roused herself. Sir Patrick had left the respon- 
 sibility of superintending the cross-roads on her shoulders. 
 There was something to be done yet before the arrangements 
 for tracing Anne were complete. Blanche left the yard to 
 do it. 
 
 On her way back to the house she met Arnold, disj^atched 
 by Lady Lundie in search of her. 
 
 The plan of occupation for the afternoon had been settled 
 during Blanche's absence. Some demon had whis^^ered to 
 Lady Lundie to cultivate a taste for feudal antiquities, and to 
 insist on spreading that taste among her guests. She had pro- 
 posed an excursion to an old baronial castle among the hills — 
 far to the westward (fortunately for Sir Patrick's chance of 
 escaping discovery) of the hills at Craig Fernie. Some of the 
 guests were to ride, and some to accompany their hostess in 
 the open carriage. Looking right and left for proselytes, Lady 
 Lundie had necessarily remarked the disappearance of certain 
 members of her circle. Mr. Delamayn had vanished, nobody 
 knew where. Sir Patrick and Blanche had followed his exam- 
 ple. Her ladyship had observed, upon this, with some asperi- 
 ty, that if they were all to treat each other in that unceremo- 
 nious manner, the sooner Windygates was turned into a Peni- 
 tentiary, on the silent system, the fitter the house would be for 
 the people who inhabited it. Under these cii-cumstances, Ar- 
 nold suggested that Blanche would do well to make her ex- 
 cuses as soon as possible at head-quarters, and accept the seat 
 in *^he carriage which her step-mother wished her to take. 
 
MAN AND WIFE. 235 
 
 "We are in for the feudal antiquities, Blanche; and we must 
 help each other through as well as we can. If you will go in 
 the carriage, I''ll go too." 
 
 Blanche shook her head. 
 
 " There are serious reasons for my keeping up appearances," 
 she said. " I shall go in the carriage. You mustn't go at 
 all." 
 
 Arnold naturally looked a little surprised, and asked to be 
 favored with an explanation. 
 
 Blanche took his arm and hugged it close. Now that Anne 
 was lost, Arnold was more precious to her than ever. She lit- 
 erally hungered to hear at that moment, from his own lips, how 
 fond he was of her. It mattered nothing that she was already 
 perfectly satisfied on this point. It was so nice (after he had 
 said it five hundred times already) to make him say it once 
 more ! 
 
 " Suppose I had no explanation to give ?" she said. " Would 
 you stay behind by yourself to please me.^" 
 
 " I would do any thing to please you !" 
 
 "Do you really love me as much as that?" 
 
 They were still in the yard ; and the only witnesses present 
 were the dogs. Arnold answered in the language without 
 words — which is nevertheless the most expressive language in 
 use between men and women all over the world. 
 
 " This is not doing my duty," said Blanche, penitently. 
 " But oh, Arnold, I am so anxious and so miserable ! And it 
 is such a consolation to know that you won't turn your back 
 on me too !" 
 
 With that preface she told him what had happened in the 
 library. Even Blanche's estimate of her lover's capacity for 
 sympathizing with her was more than realized by the effect 
 which her narrative produced on Arnold. He was not merely 
 surprised and sorry for her. His face showed plainly that he 
 felt genixine concern and distress. He had never stood higher 
 in Blanche's opinion than he stood at that moment. 
 
 " What is to be done ?" he asked. " How does Sir Patrick 
 propose to find her ?" 
 
 Blanche repeated Sir Patrick's instructions relating to the 
 cross-roads, and also to the serious necessity of pursuing the 
 investigation in the strictest privacy. Arnold (relieved from 
 all fear of being sent back to Craig Fernie) undertook to do 
 every thing that was asked of him, and promised to keep the 
 secret from every body. 
 
 They went back to the house, and met with an icy welcome 
 from Lady Lundie. Her ladyship repeated her remark on the 
 subject of turning Windygates into a Penitentiary for Blanche's 
 benefit. She received Arnold's petition to be excused from 
 
236 MAN AND WIFE, 
 
 going to see the castle with the barest civility. " Oh, take 
 your walk by all means ! You may meet your friend, Mr. 
 Delamayn — who appears to have such a passion foi* walking 
 that he can't even wait till luncheon is over. As for Sir Par- 
 rick — Oh ! Sir Patrick has borrowed the pony-carriage ? and 
 gone out driving by himself? — I'm sure I never meant to of- 
 fend my brother-in-law when I offered him a slice of my poor 
 little cake. Don't let me offend any body else. Dispose of 
 your afternoon, Blanche, without the slightest reference to me. 
 Nobody seems inclined to visit the ruins — the most interesting 
 relic of feudal times i.i Perthshire, Mr. Brinkworth. It doesn't 
 matter — oh, dear me, it doesn't matter ! I can't force my 
 guests to feel an intelligent curiosity on the subject of Scottish 
 Antiquities. No! no! ray dear Blanche! — it won't be the 
 first time, or the last, that I have driven out alone. I don't at 
 all object to being alone. ' My mind to me a kingdom is,' as 
 the poet says." So Lady Lundie's outraged self-importance 
 asserted its violated claims on human respect, until her distin- 
 guished medical guest came to the rescue and smoothed his 
 hostess's ruffled plumes. The surgeon (he privately detested 
 ruins) begged to go. Blanche begged to go. Smith and 
 Jones (profoundly interested in feudal antiquities) said they 
 would sit behind, in the " rumble " — rather than miss this un- 
 expected treat. One, Two, and Three caught the infection, 
 and volunteered to be the escort on horseback. Lady Lun- 
 die's celebrated " smile " (warranted to remain unaltered on her 
 foce for hours together) made its appearance once more. She 
 issued her orders with the most charming amiability. " We'll 
 take the guide-book," said her ladyship, with the eye to mean 
 economy, which is only to be met wath in very rich people, 
 " and save a shilling to the man who shows the ruins." With 
 that she went up stairs to array herself for the drive ; and 
 looked in the glass ; and saw a perfectly virtuous, fascinating, 
 and accomplished Moman, facing her irresistibly in a new 
 French bonnet ! 
 
 At a private signal from Blanche, Arnold slipped out and 
 repaired to his post, where the roads crossed the road that led 
 to the railway. 
 
 There w^as a space of open heath on one side of him, and the 
 stone-wall and gates of a farm-house inclosure on the other. 
 Arnold sat down on the soft heather — and lit a cigar — and 
 tried to see his way through the double mystery of Anne's ap- 
 pearance and Anne's flight. 
 
 He had interpreted his fiiend's absence exactly as his friend 
 had anticipated : he could only assume that Geoffrey had gone 
 to keep a private appointment with Anne. Miss Silvester's ap- 
 pearance at Windygatcs alone, and Miss Silvester's anxiety to 
 
MAN AXD WIFE. 23Y 
 
 hear the names of the gentlemen who \ve\*e staying in the 
 house, seemed, under these circumstances, to point to the plain 
 conclusion that the two had in some way unfortunately missed 
 each other. But what could be the motive of her flight ? 
 Whether she knew of some other place in which she might 
 meet Geoffrey ? or whether she had gone back to the inn ? or 
 whether she had acted under some sudden impulse of despair? 
 — were questions which Arnold was necessarily quite incom- 
 petent to solve. There was no choice but to wait until an op- 
 portunity offered of reporting what had happened to Geoffrey 
 himself. 
 
 After the lapse of half an hour, the sound of some approach- 
 ing vehicle — the first sound of the sort that he had heard — at- 
 tracted Arnold's attention. He started up, and saw the pony- 
 chaise approaching him along the road from the station. Sir 
 Patrick, this time, was compelled to drive himself — Duncan 
 was not with him. On discovering Arnold, he stopped the 
 pony. 
 
 "So! so!" said the old gentleman. "You have heard all 
 about it, I see ? You understand that this is to be a secret 
 from every body, till further notice ? Very good. Has any 
 thing happened since you have been here?" 
 
 "Nothing. Have you made any discoveries, Sir Patrick?" 
 
 " None. I got to the station before the train. No signs of 
 Miss Silvester anywhere. I have left Duncan on the watch — 
 with ordei's not to stir till the last train has passed to-night." 
 
 "I don't think she will turn up at the station," said Arnold. 
 " I fancy she has gone back to Craig Fernie." 
 
 " Quite possible. I am now on my way to Craig Fernie, to 
 make inquiries about her. I don't know how long I may be 
 detained, or what it may lead to. If you see Blanche before I 
 do, tell her I have instructed the station-master to let me know 
 (if Miss Silvester does take the railway) what place she books 
 for. Thanks to that arrangement, we sha'n't have to wait for 
 news till Duncan can telegraph that he has seen her to her 
 journey's end. In the mean time, you understand what you 
 are wanted to do here ?" 
 
 " Blanche has explained every thing to me." 
 
 " Stick to your post, and make good use of your eyes. You 
 were accustomed to that, you know, when you were at sea. 
 It's no great hardship to pass a few hours in this delicious 
 summer air. I see you have contracted the vile modern habit 
 of smoking — that will be occupation enough to amuse you, no 
 doubt! Keep the roads in view; and, if she does come your 
 way, don't attempt to stop her — you can't do that. Speak to 
 her (quite innocently, mind !), by way of getting time enough 
 to notice the face of the man who is driving her, and the name 
 
238 MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 (if there is one) on his cart. Do that, and you will do enough. 
 Pah ! how that cigar poisons the air! What will have become 
 of your stomach when you get to my age ?" 
 
 " I sha'n't complain, Sir Patrick, if I can eat as good a 
 dinner as you do." 
 
 " That reminds me ! I met somebody I knew at the station. 
 Hester Dethridge has left her place, and gone to London by 
 the train. We may feed at Windygates — we have done with 
 dining now. It has been a final quarrel this time between the 
 mistress and the cook. I have given Hester my address in 
 London, and told her to let me know before she decides on an- 
 other place. A woman who can''t talk and a woman who can 
 cook, is simply a woman who has arrived at absolute perfec- 
 tion. Such a treasure shall not go out of the family, if I can 
 help it. Did you notice the Bechamel sauce at lunch ? Pooh ! 
 a young man who smokes cigars doesn't know the difference 
 between Bechamel sauce and melted butter. Good afternoon ! 
 good afternoon !" 
 
 He slackened the reins, and away he went to Craig Fernie. 
 Counting by years, the pony was twenty, and the pony's driver 
 was seventy. Counting by vivacity and spirit, two of the 
 most youthful characters in Scotland had got together that 
 afternoon in the same chaise. 
 
 An hour more wore itself slowly out ; and nothing had pass- 
 ed Arnold on the cross-roads but a few stray foot-passengers, a 
 heavy wagon, and a gig with an old woman in it. He rose 
 again from the heather, weary of inaction, and resolved to 
 walk backward and forward, within view of his post, for a 
 change. At the second turn, when his face happened to be 
 set toward the open heath, he noticed another foot-passenger 
 — apparently a man — far away in the empty distance. Was 
 the person coming toward him ? 
 
 He advanced a little. The stranger was doubtless advan- 
 cing too, so rapidly did his figure now reveal itself, beyond all 
 doubt, as the figure of a man. A few minutes more, and Ar- 
 nold fancied he recognized it. Yet a little longer, and he was 
 quite sure. There was no mistaking the lithe strength and 
 grace of that man, and the smooth easy swiftness with which 
 he covered his ground. It was the hero of the coming foot- 
 race. It was Geofii-ey on his M'ay back to Windygates House. 
 
 Arnold hurried forward to meet him. Geoffrey stood still, 
 poising himself on his stick, and let the other come up. 
 
 " Have you heard what has happened at the house ?" asked 
 Arnold. 
 
 He instinctively checked the next question as it rose to his 
 lips. There was a settled defiance in the expression of Geof- 
 frey's face, which Arnold was quite at a loss to understand. 
 
MAN AND WIFE. 239 
 
 He looked like a man who had made up his mind to confrout 
 any thing that could happen, and to contradict any body who 
 spoke to him. 
 
 " Something seems to have annoyed you ?" said Arnold. 
 
 " What's up at the house?" returned Geoflfrey, with his loud- 
 est voice and his hardest look. 
 
 " Miss Silvester has been at the house." 
 
 " Who saw her ?" 
 
 "Nobody but Blanche." 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 " Well, she was miserably weak and ill, so ill that she faint- 
 ed, poor thing, in the library. Blanche brought her to." 
 
 "And what then?" 
 
 " We were all at lunch at the time. Blanche left the library, 
 to speak privately to her uncle. When she went back Miss 
 Silvester was gone, and nothing has been seen of her since." 
 
 "A row at the house ?" 
 
 " Nobody knows of it at the house, except Blanche — " 
 
 "And you ? And how many besides?" 
 
 "And Sir Patrick. Nobody else." 
 
 " Nobody else ? Any thing more ?" 
 
 Arnold remembered his promise to keep the investigation 
 then on foot a secret from every body. Geoffrey's manner 
 made him — unconsciously to himself — readier than he might 
 otherwise have been to consider Geoffrey as included in the 
 general prohibition. 
 
 " Nothing more," he answered. 
 
 Geoffrey dug the point of his stick deep into the soft, sandy 
 ground. He looked at the stick, then suddenly pulled it out 
 of the ground and looked at Arnold. " Good afternoon !" he 
 said, and went on his way again by himself 
 
 Arnold followed, and stopped him. For a moment the two 
 men looked at each other without a word passing on either 
 side. Arnold spoke first. 
 
 "You're out of humor, Geoffrey. What has upset you in 
 this way ? Have you and Miss Silvester missed each other ?" 
 
 Geoffrey was silent. 
 
 " Have you seen her since she left Windygates ?" 
 
 No reply. 
 
 " Do you know where Miss Silvester is now ?" 
 
 Still no reply. Still the same mutely-insolent defiance of 
 look and manner. Arnold's dark color began to deepen. 
 
 " Why don't you answer me ?" he said. 
 
 " Because I have had enough of it." 
 
 " Enough of what ?" 
 
 " Enough of being worried about Miss Silvester. Miss Sil- 
 vester's my business — not yours," 
 
240 MAN AND WIFli. 
 
 " Gently, Geoffrey ! Don't forget that I have been mixed 
 up in that business — without seeliing it myself." 
 
 " There's no fear of my forgetting. You have cast it in mj 
 teeth often enough." 
 
 " Cast it in your teeth ?" 
 
 " Yes ! Am I never to hear the last of my obligation to 
 you ? The devil take the obligation ! I am sick of the sound 
 of it." 
 
 There was a spirit in Arnold — not easily brought to the 
 surface, through the overlaying simplicity and good-humor of 
 his ordinary character — which, once roused, was a spirit not 
 readily quelled. Geoffrey had roused it at last. 
 
 " When you come to your senses," he said, " I'll remember 
 old times — and receive your apology. Till you do come to your 
 senses, go your way by yourself. I have no more to say to you." 
 
 GeoflVey set his teeth, and came one step nearer. Arnold's 
 eyes met his, with a look which steadily and firmly challenged 
 him — though he 7cas the stronger man of the two — to force 
 the quarrel a step further, if he dared. The one human virtue 
 which Geoffrey respected and understood was the virtue of 
 courage. And there it was before him — the undeniable cour- 
 age of the weaker man. The callous scoundrel was touched 
 on the one tender place in his whole being. He turned, and 
 went on his way in silence. 
 
 Left by himself, Arnold's head dropped on his breast. The 
 friend who had saved his life — the one friend he possessed, 
 who was associated with his earliest and happiest remembrances 
 of old days — had grossly insulted him ; and had left him delib- 
 erately, without the slightest expression of regret. Arnold's 
 affectionate nature — simple, loyal, clinging where it once fast- 
 ened — was wounded to the quick. Geoffrey's fast-retreating 
 figure, in the open view before him, became blurred and indis- 
 tinct. He put his hand over his eyes, and hid, with a boyish 
 shame, the hot tears that told of the heart-ache, and that hon- 
 ored the man who shed them. 
 
 He was still struggling with the emotion which had over- 
 powered him, when something happened at the place where 
 the roads met. 
 
 The four roads pointed as nearly as might be toward the 
 four points of the compass. Arnold was now on the road to 
 the eastward, having advanced in that direction to meet Geof- 
 frey, between two and three hundred yards from the farm-house 
 inclosure before which he had kept his watch. The road to 
 the westward, curving away behind the farm, led to the near- 
 est market-town. The road to the south was the way to the 
 station. And the road to the north led back to Windygates 
 House. 
 
MAN AND WIPE. 241 
 
 While Geoffrey was still fifty yards from the turning which 
 would take him back to Windygates — while the tears were 
 still standing thickly in Arnold's eyes — the gate of the farna 
 inclosure opened. A light four-wheeled chaise came out, with 
 a man driving, and a woman sitting by his side. The woman 
 was Anne Silvester, and the man was the owner of the farm. 
 
 Instead of taking the way which led to the station, the 
 chaise pursued the westward j'oad to the market-town. Pro- 
 ceeding in this direction, the backs of the persons in the vehicle 
 were necessarily turned on Geoffrey, advancing behind them 
 from the eastward. He just carelessly noticed the shabby lit- 
 tle chaise, and then turned off north on his way to Windygates. 
 
 By the time Arnold was composed enough to look round 
 him, the chaise had taken the curve in the road which wound 
 behind the farm-house. He returned — faithful to the engage- 
 ment which he had undertaken — to his post before the inclosure. 
 The chaise was then a speck in the distance. In a minute more 
 it was a speck out of sight. 
 
 So (to use Sir Patrick's phrase) had the woman broken 
 through difficulties which would have stopped a man. So, in 
 her sore need, had Anne Silvester won the sympathy which 
 had given her a place, by the farmer's side, in the vehicle that 
 took him on his own business to the market-town. And so 
 by a hair-breadth, did she escape the treble risk of discovery 
 which threatened her — from Geoffrey, on his way back ; from 
 Arnold, at his post ; and from the valet, on the watch for her 
 appearance at the station. 
 
 The afternoon wore on. The servants at Windygates, airing 
 themselves in the grounds — in the absence of their mistress 
 and her guests — were disturbed, for the moment, by the unex- 
 pected return of one of "the gentlefolks." Mr. Geoffrey Dela- 
 mayn re-appeared at the house, alone ; went straight to the 
 smoking-room ; and calling for another supply of the old ale, 
 settled himself in an arm-chair with the newspaper, and began 
 to smoke. 
 
 He soon tired of reading, and fell into thinking of what had 
 happened during the latter part of his walk. 
 
 The prospect before him had more than realized the most 
 sanguine anticipations that he could have formed of it. He 
 had braced himself — after what had happened in the library — 
 to face the outbreak of a serious scandal, on his return to the 
 house. And here — when he came back — was nothing to face ! 
 Here were three people (Sir Patrick, Arnold, and Blanche) who 
 must at least know that Anne was in some serious trouble, 
 keeping the secret as carefully as if they felt that his interests 
 were at stake ! And, more wonderful still, here was Anne 
 Hi 
 
242 MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 herself— SO far from raising a hue and cry after him — actually 
 
 taking flight, without s^xying a word that could compromise 
 him with any living soul ! 
 
 What in the name of wonder did it mean ? He did his best 
 to find his way to an explanation of some sort ; and he actually 
 contrived to account for the silence of Blanche and her uncle, 
 and Arnold. It was pretty clear that they must have all three 
 combined to keep Lady Lundie in ignorance of her runaway 
 governess's return to the house. 
 
 But the secret of Anne's silence completely bafiled him. 
 
 He was simply incapable of conceiving that the horror of 
 seeing herself set up as an obstacle to Blanche's marriage 
 might have been vivid enough to overpower all sense of her 
 own wrongs, and to hurry her away, resolute, in her ignorance 
 of what else to do, never to return again, and never to let liv- 
 ing eyes rest on her in the character of Arnold's wife. " It's 
 clean beyond my making out," was the final conclusion at 
 which Geoffrey arrived. " If it's her interest to hold her tongue, 
 it's my interest to hold mine, and there's an end of it for the 
 present !" 
 
 He put up his feet on a chair, and rested his magnificent 
 muscles after his walk, and filled another pipe, in thorough 
 contentment with himself No interference to dread from Anne, 
 no more awkward questions (on the terms they were on now) 
 to come from Arnold. He looked back at the quarrel on the 
 heath with a certain complacency — he did his friend justice, 
 though they Aaf? disagreed. "Who would have thought the 
 fellow had so much pluck in him !" he said to himself as he 
 struck the match and lit b''^ second pipe. 
 
 An hour more wore on ; and Sir Patrick was the next per- 
 son who returned. 
 
 He was thoughtful, but in no sense depressed. Judging by 
 appearances, his errand to Craig Fernie had certainly not ended 
 in disappointment. The old gentleman hummed his favorite 
 little Scotch air — rather absently, perhaps — and took his pinch 
 of snufi" from the knob of his ivory cane much as usual. He 
 went to the library bell and summoned a servant. 
 
 "Any body been here for me?"—" No, Sir Patrick."—" No 
 letters ?" — " No, Sir Patrick." — " Very well. Come up stairs 
 to my room, and help me on with my dressing-gown." The 
 man helped him to his dressing-gown and slippers. " Is Miss 
 Lundie at home ?" — " No, Sir Patrick. They're all away with 
 my lady on an excursion." — " Very good. Get me a cup of 
 cofiee ; and wake me half an hour before dinner, in case I take 
 a nap." The servant went out. Sir Patrick stretched himself 
 on the sofa. "Ay ! ay ! a little aching in the back, and a cer- 
 tain stiffness in the legs. I dare say the pony feels just as I do. 
 
MAN AXD WIFE. 243 
 
 Age, I suppose, in both cases ? Well ! well well ! let's try 
 and be young at heart, 'The rest' (as Pope says) 'is leather 
 and prunella.' " He returned resignedly to his little Scotch 
 air. The servant came in with the coftee. And then the 
 room was quiet, except for the low humming of insects and the 
 gentle rustling of the creepers at tlie window. For five minutes 
 or so Sir Patrick sipped his coftee, and meditated — by no means 
 in the character of a man who was depressed by any recent 
 disappointment. In five minutes more he was asleep. 
 
 A little later, and the party returned from the ruins. 
 
 With the one exception of their lady-leader, the whole ex- 
 pedition was depressed — Smith and Jones, in particular, being 
 quite speechless. Lady Lundie alone still met feudal antiquities 
 with a cheerful front. She had cheated the man who showed 
 the ruins of his shilling, and she was thoroughly well satisfied 
 Avith herself Her voice was flute-like in its melody, and the 
 celebrated " smile " had never been in better order. " Deeply 
 interesting !" said her ladyship, descending from the carriage 
 with ponderous grace, and addressing herself to Geofii'ey, loung- 
 ing under the portico of the house. " You have had a loss, 
 Mr. Delamayn. The next time you go out for a walk, give your 
 hostess a word of warning, and you won't repent it." Blanche 
 (looking very weary and anxious) questioned the servant, the 
 moment she got in, about Arnold and her uncle. Sir Patrick 
 was invisible up stairs. Mr. Brinkworth had not come back. 
 It wanted only twenty minutes of dinner-time ; and full evening 
 dress was insisted on at Windygates. Blanche, nevertheless, 
 still lingered in the hall in the hope of seeing Arnold before 
 she went up stairs. The hope was realized. As the clock struck 
 the quarter he came in. And he, too, was out of spirits like 
 the rest ! 
 
 " Have you seen her ?" asked Blanche. 
 
 "No," said Arnold, in the most perfect good faith. "The 
 way she has escaped by is not the way by the cross-roads — I 
 answer for that." 
 
 They separated to dress. When the party assembled again, 
 in the library, before dinner, Blanche found her way, the mo- 
 ment he entered the room, to Sir Patrick's side. 
 
 " News, uncle ! I'm dying for news." 
 
 " Good news, my dear — so far." 
 
 " You have found Anne ?" 
 
 " Not exactly that." 
 
 " You have heard of her at Craig Fernie ?" 
 
 " I have made some important discoveries at Craig Fernie, 
 Blanche. Hush ! here's your stepmother. Wait till after din- 
 ner, and you may hear more than I can tell you now. There 
 may be news from the station between this and then," 
 
244 MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 The dinner was a wearisome ordeal to at least two other 
 persons present besides Blanche. Arnold, sitting opposite to 
 Geoffrey, without exchanging a word with hira,felt the altered 
 relations between his former friend and himself very painfully. 
 Sir Patrick, missing the skilled hand of Hester Dethridge in 
 every dish that was oftered to him, marked the dinner among 
 the wasted opportunities of his life, and resented his sister-in- 
 law's flow of spirits as something simply inliuman under present 
 circumstances. Blanche followed Lady Lundie into the draw 
 ing-room in a state of burning impatience for the rising of the 
 gentlemen from their wine. Her stepmother — mapping out 
 a new antiquarian excursion for the next day, and finding 
 Blanche's ears closed to her occasional remarks on baronial 
 Scotland five hundred years since — lamented, with satirical em- 
 phasis, the absence of an intelligent companion of her own sex; 
 and stretched her majestic figure on the sofa to wait until an 
 audience worthy of her flowed in from the dining-room. Before 
 very long — so soothing is the influence of an after-dinner view 
 of feudal antiquities, taken through the medium of an approv- 
 ing conscience — Lady Lundie's eyes closed ; and from Lady 
 Lundie's nose there poured, at intervals, a sound, deep, like her 
 ladyship's learning ; regular, like her ladyship's habits — a sound 
 associated with night-caps and bedrooms ; evoked alike by Na- 
 ture, the leveler, from high and low — the sound (oh, Truth, 
 what enormities find publicity in thy name !) — the sound of a 
 Snore. 
 
 Free to do as she pleased, Blanche left the echoes of the 
 drawing-room in undisturbed enjoyment of Lady Lundie's au- 
 dible repose. 
 
 She went into the library, and turned over the novels. Went 
 out again, and looked across the hall at the dining-room door. 
 Would the men never have done talking their politics and 
 drinking their wine ? She went up to her own room, and changed 
 her ear-rings, and scolded her maid. Descended once more — - 
 and made an alarming discovery in a dark corner of the hall. 
 
 Two men were standing there, hat in hand, whispering to the 
 butler. The butler, leaving them, went into the dining-room — 
 came out again with Sir Patrick — and said to the two men, 
 " Step this way, please." The two men came out into the light. 
 Murdock, the station-master ; and Duncan, the valet ! News 
 of Anne ! 
 
 " Oh, uncle, let me stay !" pleaded Blanche. 
 
 Sir Patrick hesitated. It was impossible to say — as matters 
 stood at that moment — what distressing intelligence the two 
 men might not have brought of the missing woman. Duncan's 
 return, accompanied by the station-master, looked serious. 
 Blanche instantly penetrated the secret of her uncle's hesita- 
 
MAX AND WIFK. 245 
 
 tion. She turned pale, and caught him by the arm. " Don't 
 send me away," she whispered. " I can bear any thing but 
 suspense." 
 
 " Out with it !" said Sir Patrick, holding his niece's hand. " Is 
 she found or not?" 
 
 " She's gone by the up train," said the station-master. "And 
 we know where." 
 
 Sir Patrick breathed freely; Blanche's color came back. In 
 different ways the relief to both of them was equally great. 
 
 " You had my orders to follow her," said Sir Patrick to Dun- 
 can. " Why have you come back?" 
 
 " Your man is not to blame, sir," interposed the station-mas- 
 ter. "The lady took the train at Kirkandrew." 
 
 Sir Patrick started, and looked at the station-master. 
 "Ay? ay? The next station — the market-town. Inexcusa- 
 bly stupid of me. I never thought of that." 
 
 " I took the liberty of telegraphing your description of the 
 lady to Kirkandrew, Sir Patrick, in case of accidents." 
 
 " I stand corrected, Mr. Murdoch. Your head, in this mat- 
 ter, has been the sharper head of the two. Well ?" 
 
 " There's the answer, sir." 
 
 Sir Patrick and Blanche read the telegram together. 
 
 "Kirkandrew. Up train. 7.40 p.m. Lady as described. 
 No luggage. Bag in her hand. Traveling alone. Ticket — 
 second-class. Place — Edinburgh." 
 
 " Edinburgh !" repeated Blanche. " Oh, uncle ! we shall lose 
 her in a great place like that !" 
 
 "We shall find her, my dear; and you shall see how. Dun- 
 can, get me pen, ink, and paper. Mr. Murdoch, you are going 
 back to the station, I suppose ?" 
 
 " Yes, Sir Patrick." 
 
 " I will give you a telegram, to be sent at once to Edin- 
 burgh." 
 
 He wrote a carefully-worded telegraphic message, and ad- 
 dressed it to The Sheriff of Mid-Lothian. 
 
 " The Sheriff is an old friend of mine," he explained to his 
 niece. " And he is now in Edinburgh. Long before the train 
 gets to the terminus he will receive this personal description 
 of Miss Silvester, with my request to have all her movements 
 carefully watched till further notice. The police are entirely 
 at his disposal, and the best men will be selected for the pur- 
 pose. I have asked for an answer by telegraph. Keep a 
 special messenger ready for it at the station, Mr. Murdoch, 
 Thank you ; good-evening. Duncan, get your supper, and 
 make yourself comfortable. Blanche, my dear, go back to the 
 drawing-room, and expect us in to tea immediately. You will 
 know where your friend is before you go to bed to-night." 
 
246 MAX AND WIFK. 
 
 With those comforting words he returned to the gentlemen. 
 In ten minutes more they all appeared in the drawing-room; 
 and Lady Lundie (firmly persuaded that she had never closed 
 her eyes) was back again in baronial Scotland five hundred 
 years since. 
 
 Blanche, watching her opportunity, caught her uncle alone. 
 
 " Now for your promise," she said. " You have made some 
 important discoveries at Craig Fernie. What are they ?" 
 
 Sir Patrick's eye turned toward Geoffrey, dozing in an arm- 
 chair in a corner of the room. He showed a certain disposi- 
 tion to trifle with the curiosity of his niece. 
 
 "After the discovery we have already made," he said," can't 
 you wait, my dear, till we get the telegram from Edinburgh?" 
 
 " That is just what it's impossible for me to do ! The tele- 
 gram won't come for hours yet. I want something to go on 
 with in the mean time." 
 
 She seated herself on a sofa in the corner opposite Geoffrey, 
 and pointed to the vacant place by her side. 
 
 Sir Patrick had promised — Sir Patrick had no choice but to 
 keep his word. After another look at- Geoffrey, he took the 
 vacant place by his niece. 
 
 CHAPTER THE TWENTY-FOURTH. 
 
 BACKWARD. 
 
 " Well ?" whispered Blanche, taking her uncle confidential- 
 ly by the arm. 
 
 ' "Well," said Sir Patrick, with a spark of his satirical humor 
 flashing out at his niece, " I am going to do a very rash thing. 
 I am going to place a serious trust in the hands of a girl of 
 eighteen." 
 
 "The girl's hands will keep it, uncle — though she is only 
 eighteen." 
 
 " I must run the risk, my dear ; your intimate knowledge of 
 Miss Silvester may be of the greatest assistance to me in the 
 next step I take. You shall know all that I can tell you, but 
 I must warn you first. I can only admit you into my confi- 
 dence by startling you with a great surprise. Do you follow 
 me, so far ?" 
 
 " Yes ! yes !" 
 
 " If you fail to control yourself, you place an obstacle in the 
 way of my being of some future use to Miss Silvester. Re- 
 member that, and now prepare for the surprise. What did I 
 {,ell you before dinner?" 
 
MAN AND AVIPB. 24V 
 
 "You said you had made discoveries at Craig Fernie. What 
 have you found out?" 
 
 " I have found out that there is a certain person who is in 
 full possession of the information which Miss Silvester has 
 concealed from you and from nie. The person is within our 
 reach. The person is in this neighborhood. The person is in 
 this room !" 
 
 He caught up Blanche's hand, resting on his arm, and press- 
 ed it significantly. She looked at him with the cry of surprise 
 suspended on her lips — waited a little with her eyes fixed on 
 Sir Patrick's face — struggled resolutely, and composed herself. 
 
 "Point the person out." She said the words with a self- 
 possession which won her uncle's hearty approval. Blanche 
 had done wonders for a girl in her teens. 
 
 " Look !" said Sir Patrick ; " and tell me what you see." 
 
 " I see Lady Lundie, at the other end of the room, with the 
 map of Perthshire and the Baronial Antiquities of Scotland on 
 the table. And I see every body but you and me obliged to 
 listen to her." 
 
 "Everybody?" 
 
 Blanche looked carefully round the room, and noticed Geof 
 frey in the opposite corner ; fast asleep by this time in his arm- 
 chair. 
 
 " Uncle ! you don't mean — ?" 
 
 "There is the man." 
 
 " Mr. Delamayn — !" 
 
 "Mr. Delamayn knows every thing." 
 
 Blanche held mechanically by her uncle's arm, and looked 
 at the sleeping man as if her eyes could never see enough of 
 him. 
 
 " You saw me in the library in private consultation with 
 Mr. Delamayn," resumed Sir Patrick. " I have to acknowl- 
 edge, my dear, that you were quite right in thinking this a sus- 
 picious circumstance. And I am now to justify myself for 
 having purposely kept you in the dark up to the present time." 
 
 With those introductory words, he briefly reverted to the 
 earlier occurrences of the day, and then added, by way of 
 commentary, a statement of the conclusions which events had 
 suggested to his own mind. 
 
 The events, it may be remembered, were three in number. 
 First, Geoffrey's private conference with Sir Patrick on the 
 subject of Irregular Marriages in Scotland. Secondly, Anne 
 Silvester's appearance at Windygates. Thirdly, Anne's flight. 
 
 The conclusions which had thereupon suggested themselves 
 to Sir Patrick's mind were six in number. 
 
 First, that a connection of some sort might possibly exist 
 between Geofii'ey's acknowledged difficulty about his friend, 
 
248 MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 and Miss Silvester's presumed difficulty about herself. Sec- 
 ondly, that Geoffrey had really put to Sir Patrick — not his own 
 case — but the case of a friend. Thirdly, that Geoffrey had 
 some interest (of no harmless kind) in establishing the fact of 
 his friend's marriage. Fourthly, that Anne's anxiety (as de- 
 scribed by Blanche) to hear the names of the gentlemen who 
 were staying at Windygates, pointed, in all probability, to Geof- 
 frey. Fifthly, that this last inference disturbed the second 
 conclusion, and re-opened the doubt whether Geoffrey had not 
 been stating his own case, after all, under pretense of stating 
 the case of a friend. Sixthly, that the one way of obtaining 
 any enlightenment on this point, and on all the other points 
 involved in mystery, was to go to Craig Fernie, and consult 
 Mrs. Inchbare's experience during the period of Anne's resi- 
 dence at the inn. Sir Patrick's apology for keeping all this a 
 secret from his niece followed. He had shrunk from agitating 
 her on the subject until he could be sure of proving his conclu- 
 sions to be ti'ue. The proof had been obtained; and he was now, 
 therefore, ready to open his mind to Blanche without reserve. 
 
 " So much, my dear," proceeded Sir Patrick, " for those nec- 
 essary explanations which are also the necessary nuisances of 
 human intercourse. You now know as much as I did when 1 
 arrived at Craig Fernie — and you are, therefore, in a position 
 to appreciate the value of my discoveries at the inn. Do you 
 understand every thing, so far ?" 
 
 " Perfectly !" 
 
 "Very good. I drove up to the inn; and — behold me 
 closeted with Mrs. Inchbare in her own private parlor! (My 
 reputation may or may not suffer, but Mrs. Inchbare's bones 
 are above suspicion !) It was a long business, Blanche. A 
 more sour-tempered, cunning, and distrustful witness I never 
 examined in all my experience at the Bar. She would have 
 upset the temper of any mortal man but a lawyer. We have 
 such wonderful tempers in our profession ; and we can be so 
 aggravating when we like ! In short, my dear, Mrs. Inchbare 
 was a she-cat, and I was a he-cat — and I clawed the truth out 
 of her at last. The result was well worth arriving at, as you 
 shall see. Mr. Delamayn had described to me certain remarka- 
 ble circumstances as taking place between a lady and a gentle- 
 man at an inn : the object of the parties being to pass them- 
 selves off at the time as man and wife. Every one of those 
 circumstances, Blanche, occurred at Craig Fernie, between a 
 lady and a gentleman, on the day when Miss Silvester disap- 
 peared from this house. And — wait ! — being pressed for her 
 name, after the gentleman had left her behind him at the inn, 
 the name the lady gave was, 'Mrs. Silvester.' What do you 
 think of that ?" 
 
MAN AND WIFE, 249 
 
 "Think ! I'm bewildered— I can't realize it." 
 
 " It's a startling discovery, niy dear child — there is no deny- 
 ing that. Shall I wait a little, and let you recover yourself?" 
 
 " No ! no ! Go on ! The gentleman, uncle ? The gentle- 
 man who was with Anne ? Who is he ? Not Mr. Delamayn ?" 
 
 " Not Mr. Delamayn," said Sir Patrick. " If I have proved 
 nothing else, I have proved that." 
 
 " What need was there to prove it ? Mr, Delamayn went 
 to London on the day of the lawn-party. And Arnold — " 
 
 "And Arnold went with him as far as the second station 
 from this. Quite true ! But how was I to know what Mr. 
 Delamayn might have done after Arnold had left him ? I 
 could only make sure that he had not gone back privately to 
 the inn, by getting the proof from Mrs. Inchbare." 
 
 " How did you get it ?" 
 
 " I asked her to describe the gentleman who was with Miss 
 Silvester. Mrs. Inchbare's description (vague as you will pres- 
 ently find it to be) completely exonerates that man," said Sir 
 Patrick, pointing to Geoffrey, still asleep in his chair, '•'•He is 
 not the person who passed Miss Silvester off as his wife at 
 Craig Fernie. He spoke the truth when he described the case 
 to me as the case of a friend." 
 
 "But who is the friend ?" persisted Blanche, " That's what 
 I want to know." 
 
 "That's what I want to know, too," 
 
 "Tell me exactly, uncle, what Mrs. Inchbare said. I have 
 lived with Anne all my life. I must have seen the man some- 
 where." 
 
 " If you can identify him by ]Mrs. Inchbare's description," 
 returned Sir Patrick, "you will be a great deal cleverer than I 
 am. Here is the picture of the man, as painted by the land- 
 lady: Young; middle-sized; dark hair, eyes, and complex- 
 ion ; nice temper ; pleasant way of speaking. Leave out 
 ' young,' and the rest is the exact contrary of Mr. Delamayn. 
 So far, Mrs. Inchbare guides us plainly enough. But how are 
 we to applj^ her description to the right person ? There must 
 be, at the lowest computation, five hundred thousand men in 
 England who are young, middle-sized, dark, nice-tempered, and 
 pleasant spoken. One of the footmen here answers that de- 
 scription in every particular." 
 
 "And Arnold answers it," said Blanche — as a still stronger 
 instance of the provoking vagueness of the description. 
 
 "And Arnold answers it," repeated Sir Patrick, quite agree- 
 ing with her. 
 
 They had barely said those Avords when Arnold himself ap- 
 peared, approaching Sir Patrick with a pack of cards iu hia 
 hand. 
 
250 MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 There — at the very moment when they had both guessed the 
 truth, witliout feeling the slightest suspicion of it in their own 
 minds — there stood Discovery, presenting itself unconsciously 
 to eyes incapable of seeing it, in the person of the man who 
 had passed Anne Silvester off as his wife at the Craig Fernie 
 inn ! The terrible caprice of Chance, the merciless irony of 
 Circumstance, could go no further than this. The three had 
 their feet on the brink of the precipice at that moment. And 
 two of them wei'e smiling at an odd coincidence ; and one of 
 them was shuffling a pack of cards ! 
 
 " We have done with the Antiquities at last !" said Arnold ; 
 " and we are going to play at Whist. Sir Patrick, will you 
 choose a card ?" 
 
 " Too soon after dinner, my good fellow, for me. Play the 
 first rubber, and then give me another chance. By-the-way," 
 he added, " Miss Silvester has been traced to Kirkandrew. 
 How is it that you never saw her go by?" 
 
 " She can't have gone my way. Sir Patrick, or I must have 
 seen her." 
 
 Having justified himself in those terms, he was recalled to 
 the other end of the room by the whist-party, impatient for 
 the cards which he had in his hand. 
 
 " What were we talking of when he interrupted us ?" said 
 Sir Patrick to Blanche. 
 
 " Of the man, uncle, who was with Miss Silvester at the 
 inn." 
 
 " It's useless to pursue that inquiry, my dear, with nothing 
 better than Mrs. Inchbare's description to help us." 
 
 Blanche looked round at the sleeping Geoffrey. 
 
 "And he knows !" she said. " It's maddening, uncle, to look 
 at the brute snoring in his chair !" 
 
 Sir Patrick held up a warning hand. Before a word more 
 could be said between them they were silenced again by an- 
 other interruption. 
 
 The whist-party comprised Lady Lundie and the surgeon, 
 playing as partners against Smith and Jones. Arnold sat be- 
 hind the surgeon, taking a lesson in the game. One, Two, and 
 Three, thus left to their own devices, naturally thought of the 
 billiard-table ; and, detecting Geoffrey asleep in his corner, ad- 
 vanced to disturb his slumbers, under the all-sufficing apology 
 of " Pool." Geoffrey roused himself, and rubbed his eyes, and 
 said, drowsily, "All right." As he rose, he looked at the op- 
 posite corner in which Sir Patrick and his niece were sitting. 
 Blanche's self-possession, resolutely as she struggled to pre- 
 serve it, was not strong enough to keep her eyes from turning 
 toward Geoffrey, with an expression which betrayed the reluc- 
 tant interest that she now felt in him. He stopped, noticing 
 
MAN" AND WIPE. 251 
 
 something entirely new in the look with which the young lady 
 was regarding him. 
 
 " Beg your pardon," said Geoffrey. " Do you wish to speak 
 to me ?"" ' 
 
 Blanche's face flushed all over. Her uncle came to the res- 
 cue, 
 
 " Miss Lundie and I hope you have slept well, Mr. Dela- 
 mayn," said Sir Patrick, jocosely. " That's all." 
 
 " Oh ? That's all ?" said Geoffrey, still looking at Blanche. 
 " Beg your pardon again. Deuced long walk, and deuced 
 heavy dinner. Natural consequence — a nap." 
 
 Sir Patrick eyed him closely. It was plain that he had been 
 honestly puzzled at finding himself an object of special atten- 
 tion on Blanche's part. " See you in the billiard-room ?" he 
 said, carelessly, and followed his companions out of the room 
 — as usual, without waiting for an answer." 
 
 "Mind what you are about," said Sir Patrick to his niece. 
 "That man is Quicker than he looks. We commit a serious 
 mistake if we put him on his guard at starting." 
 
 " It sha'n't happen again, uncle," said Blanche. " But think 
 of his being in Anne's confidence, and of my being shut out of 
 it!" 
 
 "In his frietid's confidence, you mean, my dear; and (if we 
 only avoid awakening his suspicion) there is no knowing how 
 soon he may say or do something which may show us who his 
 friend is." 
 
 " But he is going back to his brother's to-morrow — he said 
 so at dinner-time." 
 
 " So much the better. He will be out of the way of seeing 
 strange things in a certain young lady's face. His brother's 
 house is within easy reach of this ; and I am his legal adviser. 
 My experience tells me that he has not done consulting mo 
 yet, and that he will let out something more next time. So 
 much for our chance of seeing the light through Mr. Delamayn 
 — if we can't see it in any other way. And that is not our 
 only chance, remember. I have something to tell you about 
 Bishopriggs and the lost letter," 
 
 " Is it found ?" 
 
 " No. I satisfied myself about that — I had it searched for, 
 under my own eye. The letter is stolen, Blanche ; and Bish- 
 opriggs has got it. I have left a line for him, in Mrs. Inch- 
 bare's care. The old rascal is missed already by the visitors 
 at the inn, just as I told you he would be. His mistress is 
 feeling the penalty of having been fool enough to vent her ill 
 temper on her head-waiter. She lays the whole blame of the 
 quarrel on Miss Silvester, of course. Bisliopriggs neglected 
 every body at the inn to wait on Miss Silvester. Bishopriggs 
 
252 MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 was insolent on being remonstrated with, and Miss Silvester 
 encouraged him — and so on. The result will be — now Miss 
 Silvester has gone — that Bishopriggs will return to Craig 
 Fernie before the autumn is over. We are sailing with wind 
 and tide, my dear. Come, and learn to play whist." 
 
 He rose to join the card-players. -Blanche detained him. 
 
 "You haven't told me one thing yet," she said. "Whoever 
 the man may be, is Anne married to him ?" 
 
 "Whoever the man may be," returned Sir Patrick, "he had 
 better not attempt to marry any body else." 
 
 So the niece unconsciously put the question, and so the un- 
 cle unconsciously gave the answer, on which depended the 
 whole happiness of Blanche's life to come. The " man !" How 
 lightly they both talked of the "man !" Would nothing hap- 
 pen to rouse the faintest suspicion — in their minds or in Ar- 
 nold's mind— that Arnold was the " man " himself? 
 
 " You mean that she is married ?" said Blanche. 
 
 " I don't go as far as that." 
 
 " You mean that she is not married?" 
 
 " I don't go as far as that.'''' 
 
 " Oh ! the law !" 
 
 "Provoking, isn't it, my dear? I can tell you, professional- 
 ly, that (in my opinion) she has grounds to go on if she claims 
 to be the man's wife. That is what I meant by my answer; 
 and, until we know more, that is all I can say." 
 
 " When shall we know more ? When shall we get the tele- 
 gram ?" 
 
 " Not for some hours yet. Come, and learn to play whist." 
 
 " I think I would rather talk to Arnold, uncle, if you don't 
 mind." 
 
 " By all means ! But don't talk to him about Avhat I have 
 been telling you to-night. He and Mr, Delamayn are old asso- 
 ciates, remember ; and he might blunder into telling his friend 
 what his friend had better not know. Sad (isn't it?) for me 
 to be instilling these lessons of duplicity into the youthful 
 mind. A wise person once said, 'Tlie older a man gets the 
 worse he gets.' That wise person, my dear, had me in his eye, 
 and was perfectly right." 
 
 He mitigated the pain of that confession with a pinch of 
 snuff, and went to the whist-table to wait until the end of the 
 rubber gave him a place at the game. 
 
MAN AND WIFE. 25 J 
 
 CHAPTER THE TWENTY-FIFTH. 
 
 FORWARD. 
 
 Blanche found her lover as attentive as usual to her slight- 
 est wish, but not in his customary good spirits. He pleaded 
 fatigue, after his long watch at the cross-roads, as an excuse 
 for his depression. As long as there was any hope of a recon- 
 ciliation with Geoffrey, he was unwilling to tell Blanche what 
 had happened that afternoon. The hope grew fainter and 
 fainter as the evening advanced. Arnold purposely suggested 
 a visit to the billiard-roora, and joined the game, with Blanche, 
 to give Geoffrey an opportunity of saying the few gracious 
 words which would have made them friends again. Geoffrey 
 never spoke the words ; he obstinately ignored Arnold's pres- 
 ence in the room. 
 
 At the card-table the whist went on interminably. Lady 
 Lundie, Sir Patrick, and the surgeon were all inveterate play- 
 ers, evenly matched. Smith and Jones (joining the game al- 
 ternately) were aids to whist, exactly as they were aids to con- 
 versation. The same safe and modest mediocrity of style dis- 
 tinguished the proceedings of these two gentlemen in all the 
 affairs of life. 
 
 The time wore on to midnight. They went to bed late and 
 they rose late at Windygates House. Under that hospitable 
 roof, no intrusive hints, in the shape of flat candlesticks exhib- 
 iting themselves with ostentatious virtue on side-tables, hur- 
 ried the guest to his room ; no vile bell rang him ruthlessly 
 out of bed the next morning, and insisted on his breakfasting 
 at a given hour. Life has surely hardships enough that are 
 inevitable, without gratuitously adding the hardship of abso- 
 lute government, administered by a clock ? 
 
 It was a quarter past twelve when Lady Lundie rose bland- 
 ly from the whist-table, and said that she supposed somebody 
 must set the example of going to bed. Sir Patrick and Smith, 
 the surgeon and Jones, agreed on a last rubber. Blanche van- 
 ished while her stepmother's eye was on her; and appeared 
 again in the drawing-room, when Lady Lundie was safe in the 
 hands of her maid. Nobody followed the example of the mis- 
 tress of the house but Arnold. He left the billiard-room with 
 the certainty that it was all over now between Geoffrey and 
 himself. Not even the attraction of Blanche proved strong 
 enough to detain him that night. He went his way to bed, 
 
254 MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 It was past one o'clock. The final rubbei* was at an end; 
 the accounts were settled at the card-table ; the surgeon had 
 strolled into the billiard-room, and Smith and Jones had fol- 
 lowed him, when Duncan came in, at last, with the telegram in 
 his hand. 
 
 Blanche turned from the broad, calm autumn moonlight 
 which had drawn her to the window, and looked over her un- 
 cle's shoulder while he opened the telegram. 
 
 She read the first line — and that was enough. The whole 
 scaffolding of hope built round that morsel of paper fell to the 
 ground in an instant. The train from Kirkandrew had reached 
 Edinburgh at the usual time. Every passenger in it had pass- 
 ed under the eyes of the police; and nothing had been seen of 
 any person who answered the description given of Anne ! 
 
 Sir Patrick pointed to the last two sentences in the tele- 
 gram : " Inquiries telegraphed to Falkirk. If with any result, 
 you shall know." 
 
 " We must hope for the best, Blanche. They evidently sus- 
 pect her of having got out at the junction of the two railways 
 for the purpose of giving the telegraph the slip. There is no 
 help for it. Go to bed, child — go to bed." 
 
 Blanche kissed her iincle in silence and went away. The 
 bright young face was sad with the first hopeless sorrow which 
 the old man had yet seen in it. His niece's parting look dwelt 
 painfully on his mind when he was up in his room, with the 
 faithful Duncan getting him ready for his bed. 
 
 "This is a bad business, Duncan. I don't like to say so 
 to Miss Lundie ; but I greatly fear the governess has bafiled 
 us." 
 
 " It seems likely, Sir Patrick. The poor young lady looks 
 quite heart-broken about it." 
 
 " You noticed that too, did you ? She has lived all her 
 life, you see, with Miss Silvester ; and there is a very strong 
 attachment between them. I am uneasy about my niece, 
 Duncan. I am afraid this disappointment will have a seri- 
 ous effect on her." 
 
 " She's young, Sir Patrick." 
 
 "Yes, my friend, she's young; but the young (when they 
 are good for any thing) have warm hearts. Winter hasn't 
 stolen on them, Duncan ! And they feel keenly." 
 
 " I think there's reason to hope, sir, that Miss Lundie may 
 get over it more easily than you suppose." 
 
 " What reason, pray ?" 
 
 "A person in my position can hardly venture to speak free- 
 ly, sir, on a delicate matter of this kind." 
 
 Sir Patrick's temper flashed out, half-seriously, half-whimsi- 
 cally, as usual. 
 
MAN AND WIFK. 256 
 
 " Is that a snap at Me, you old dog ? If I am not your 
 friend, as well as your master, who is ? Am / in the habit of 
 keeping any of ray harmless fellow-creatures at a distance ? I 
 'lespise the cant of modern Liberalism; but it's not the less 
 ' ; ue that I have, all my life, protested against the inhuman sep- 
 .nution of classes in England. "VVe are, in that respect, brag as 
 we may of our national virtue, the most unchristian people in 
 the civilized world." 
 
 " I beg your pardon. Sir Patrick — " 
 
 " God help me ! I'm talking politics at this time of night ! 
 It's your fault, Duncan. What do you mean by casting my 
 station in my teeth, because I can't put my night-cap on com- 
 fortably till you have brushed my hair? I have a good mind 
 to get up and brush yours. There ! there ! I'm uneasy about 
 ray niece — nervous irritability, ray good fellow, that's all. 
 Let's hear w^hat you have to say about Miss Lundie. And go 
 on with ray hair. And don't be a humbug." 
 
 " I was about to remind you. Sir Patrick, that Miss Lundie 
 has another interest in her life to turn to. If this matter of 
 Miss Silvester ends badly — and I own it begins to look as if it 
 would — I should hurry ray niece's marriage, sir, and see if that 
 wouldn't console her." 
 
 Sir Patrick started under the gentle discipline of the hair- 
 brush in Duncan's hand. 
 
 " That's very sensibly put," said the old gentleman. " Dun- 
 can ! you are what I call a clear-minded man. Well worth 
 thinking of, old Truepenny ! If the worst comes to the worst, 
 well worth thinking of !" 
 
 It was not the iirst time that Duncan's steady good sense 
 had struck light, under the form of a new thought, in his raas- 
 ter's mind. But never yet had he wrought such mischief as 
 the mischief which he had innocently done now. He had sent 
 Sir Patrick to bed with the fatal idea of hastening the mar- 
 riage of Arnold and Blanche. 
 
 The situation of affairs at Windygates — now that Anne had 
 apparently obliterated all trace of herself — was becoming seri- 
 ous. The one chance on which the discovery of Arnold's po- 
 sition depended, was the chance that accident might reveal 
 the truth in the lapse of tirae. In this posture of circum- 
 stances. Sir Patrick now resolved — if nothing happened to re- 
 lieve Blanche's anxiety in the course of the week — to advance 
 the celebration of the marriage from the end of the autumn 
 (as originally contemplated) to the first fortnight of the ensu- 
 ing month. As dates then stood, the change led (so far as free 
 scope for the development oi accident was concerned) to this 
 serious result. It abridged a lapse of three months into an in- 
 terval of three weeks. 
 
256 MAN AND WrPE. 
 
 The next morning came ; and Blanche marked it as a mem- 
 orable morning, by committing an act of imprudence which 
 struck away one more of the chances of discovery that had ex- 
 isted, before the arrival of the Edinburgh telegram on the pre- 
 vious day. 
 
 She had passed a sleepless night ; fevered in mind and body ; 
 thinking, hour after hour, of nothing but Anne. At sunrise 
 she could endure it no longer. Her power to control herself 
 was completely exhausted ; her own impulses led her as they 
 pleased. She got up, determined not to let GeoffVey leave the 
 house without risking an effort to make him reveal what he 
 knew about Anne. It was nothing less than downright trea- 
 son to Sir Patrick to act on her own responsibility in this way. 
 She knew it was wrong; she was heartily ashamed of herself 
 for doing it. But the demon that possesses women with a leck- 
 lessness all their own, at the critical moment of their lives, had 
 got her — and she did it. 
 
 Geoffrey had arranged, overnight, to breakfast early, by him- 
 self, and to walk the ten miles to his brother's house ; sending 
 a servant to fetch his luggage later in the day. 
 
 He had got on his hat ; he was standing in the hall, search- 
 ing his pocket for his second self, the pipe — when Blanche sud- 
 denly appeared from the morning-room, and placed herself be- 
 tween him and the house door. 
 
 " Up early— eh ?" said Geoffrey. " I'm off to my brother's." 
 
 She made no reply. He looked at her closer. The girl's 
 eyes were trying to read his face, with an utter carelessness 
 of concealment, which forbade (even to his mind) all unworthy 
 interpretation of her motive for stopping him on his way out. 
 
 "Any commands for me?" he inquired. 
 
 This time she answered him. " I have something to ask 
 you," she said. 
 
 He smiled graciously, and opened his tobacco-pouch. He 
 was fresh and strong after his night's sleep — healthy and hand- 
 some and good-humored. The house-maids had had a peep at 
 him that morning, and had wished— like Desdemona, with a 
 difference — that " Heaven had made all three of them such a 
 man." 
 
 " Well," he said, " what is it ?" 
 
 She put her question, without a single word of preface — pur- 
 posely to surprise him. 
 
 " Mr. Delamayn," she said, " do you know where Anne Sil- 
 vester is this morning?" 
 
 He was filling his pipe as she spoke, and he dropped some 
 of the tobacco on the floor. Instead of answering before he 
 picked up the tobacco he answered after — in surly self-posses- 
 sion, and in one word — " No." 
 
MAN AND WIFE. 257 
 
 "Do you know nothing about her?" 
 
 He devoted liimself doggedly to the filling of his pipe. 
 « Nothing." 
 
 " On 3'our word of honor as a gentleman ?" 
 
 "On my word of honor as a gentleman." 
 
 He put back his tobacco-pouch in his pocket. His handsome 
 fiice was as hard as stone. His clear blue eyes defied all the 
 girls in England put together to see into his mind. "Have 
 you done, Miss Lundie ?" he asked, suddenly changing to a 
 bantering politeness of tone and manner. 
 
 Blanche saw that it was hopeless — saw that she had com- 
 promised her own interests by her own headlong act. Sir 
 Patrick's warning words came back reproachfully to her now 
 when it was too late. " We commit a serious mistake if we 
 put him on his guard at starting." 
 
 There was but one course to take now. " Yes," she said ; 
 " I have done." 
 
 "My turn now," rejoined Geoffrey. "You want to know 
 where Miss Silvester is. Why do you ask Me ?" 
 
 Blanche did all that could he done toward repairing the er- 
 ror that she had committed. She kept Geofirey as far away 
 as Geoff*rey had kept he?' from the truth. 
 
 " I happen to know," she replied, " that Miss Silvester left 
 the place at which she had been staying about the time when 
 you went out walking yesterday. And I thought you might 
 have seen hei-." 
 
 " Oh ? That's the reason — is it ?" said Geofii-ey, with a 
 smile. 
 
 The smile stung Blanche's sensitive temper to the quick. 
 She made a final efibrt to control herself, before her indigna- 
 tion got the better of her. 
 
 " I have no more to say, Mr. Delamayn." With that reply 
 she turned her back on him, and closed the door of the morn- 
 ing-room between them. 
 
 Geoffrey descended the house steps and lit his pipe. He 
 was not at the slightest loss, on this occasion, to account for 
 what had happened. Pie assumed at once that Arnold had 
 taken a mean revenge on him after his conduct of the day be- 
 fore, and had told the whole secret of his errand at Craig Fer- 
 nie to Blanche. The thing would get next, no doubt, to Sir 
 Patrick's ears ; and Sir Patrick would thereupon be probably 
 the first person who revealed to Arnold the position in which 
 he had placed himself with Anne. All right ! Sir Patrick 
 would be an excellent witness to appeal to, when the scandal 
 broke out, and when the time came for repudiating Anne's 
 claim on him as the barefaced imposture of a woman who was 
 man led already to another man. He pufted away unconceru- 
 
258 MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 edly at his pipe, and started, at his swinging, steady pace, for 
 his brother's house. 
 
 Blanche remained alone in the morning-room. The prospect 
 of getting at the truth, by means of what GeoflTrey might say 
 on the next occasion when he consulted Sir Patrick, was a 
 prospect that she hei'self had closed from that moment. She 
 sat down in despair by the window. It commanded a view of 
 the little side-terrace which had been Anne's favorite walk at 
 Windygates. With weary eyes and aching heart the poor 
 child looked at the familiar place ; and asked herself, with the 
 bitter repentance that comes too late, if she had detroyed the 
 last chance of finding Anne ! 
 
 She sat passively at the window, while the hours of the 
 moi'ning wore on, until the postman came. Before the serv- 
 ant could take the letter-bag she was in the hall to receive it. 
 Was it possible to hope that the ba^ had brought tidings of 
 Anne ? She sorted the letters, and lighted suddenly on a let- 
 ter to herself It bore the Kirkandrew post-mark, and it was 
 addressed to her in Anne's handwriting. 
 
 She tore the letter open, and read these lines: 
 
 " I have left you forever, Blanche. God bless and reward 
 you ! God make you a happy woman in all your life to come ! 
 Cruel, as you will think me, love, I have never been so truly 
 your sister as I am now. I can only tell you this — I can nev- 
 er tell you more. Forgive me, and forget me. Our lives are 
 parted lives from this day." 
 
 Going down to breakfast about his usual hour, Sir Patrick 
 missed Blanche, whom he was accustomed to see waiting for 
 him at the table at that time. The room was empty ; the oth- 
 er members of the household having all finished their morning 
 meal. Sir Patrick disliked breakfasting alone. He sent Dun- 
 can with a message, to be given to Blanche's maid. 
 
 The maid appeared in due time. Miss Lundie was unable to 
 leave her room. She sent a letter to her uncle, with her love 
 — and begged he would read it. 
 
 Sir Patrick opened the letter, and saw what Anne had writ- 
 ten to Blanche. 
 
 He waited a little, reflecting, with evident pain and anxiety, 
 on what he had read — then opened his own letters, and hur- 
 riedly looked at the signatures. There was nothing for him 
 from his friend, the sheriiF, at Edinburgh, and no communica- 
 tion from the railway, in the shape of a telegram. He had de- 
 cided, overnight, on waiting till the end of the week before he 
 interfered in the matter of Blanche's marriage. The events 
 of the morning determined him on not waiting another day. 
 Duncan returned to the breakfast- room to pour out his mas- 
 
MAN AND WIFE. 259 
 
 ter's coffee. Sir Patrick sent him away again with a second 
 message. 
 
 " Do you know where Lady Lundie is, Duncan ?" 
 
 " Yes, Sir Patrick." 
 
 " My compliments to her ladyship. If she is not otherwise 
 engaged, I shall be glad to speak to her privately in an hour's 
 time." 
 
 CHAPTER THE TWENTY-SIXTH. 
 
 DROPPED. 
 
 Sir Patrick made a bad breakfast. Blanche's absence 
 fretted him, and Anne Silvester's letter puzzled him. 
 
 He read it, short as it was, a second time, and a third. If it 
 meant any thing, it meant that the motive at the bottom of 
 Anne's flight was to accomplish the sacrifice of herself to the 
 happiness of Blanche. She had parted for life from his niece 
 for his niece's sake ! What did this mean ? And how was it 
 to be reconciled with Anne's position — as described to him by 
 Mrs. Inchbare during his visit to Craig Fernie ? 
 
 All Sir Patrick's ingenuity, and all Sir Patrick's experience, 
 failed to find so much as the shadow of an answer to that 
 question. 
 
 While he was still pondering over the letter, Arnold and 
 the surgeon entered the breakfast-room together. 
 
 " Have you heard about Blanche ?" asked Arnold, excitedly. 
 " She is in no danger. Sir Patrick — the worst of it is over now." 
 
 The surgeon interposed before Sir Patrick could appeal to 
 him. 
 
 " Mr. Brinkworth's interest in the young lady a little exag- 
 gerates the state of the case," he said. " I have seen her, at 
 Lady Lundie's request ; and I can assure you that there is not 
 the slightest reason for any present alarm. Miss Lundie has 
 had a nervous attack, which has yielded to the simplest domes- 
 tic remedies. The only anxiety you need feel is connected 
 with the management of her in the future. She is suffering 
 from some mental distress, which it is not for me, but for her 
 friends, to alleviate and remove. If you can turn her thoughts 
 from the painful subject — whatever it may be — on which they 
 are dwelling now, you will do all that needs to be done." He 
 took up a newspaper from the table, and strolled out into the 
 garden, leaving Sir Patrick and Arnold together. 
 
 " You heard that ?" said Sir Patrick. 
 
 " Is he right, do j'ou think ?" asked Arnold. 
 
 " Right ? Do you suppose a man gets his reputation by 
 
260 MAN AND WIPE. 
 
 making mistakes ? You're one of the new generation, Mastei 
 Arnold. You can all of you stare at a famous man ; but you 
 haven't an atom of respect for his fame. If Shakspeare came 
 to life again, and talked of play-writing, the first pretentious 
 nobody who sat opposite at dinner would differ with him as 
 composedly as he might differ with you and me. Veneration 
 is dead among us ; the present age has buried it, without a 
 stone to mark the place. So much for that ! Let's get back 
 to Blanche, I suppose you can guess what the painful subject 
 is that's dwelling on her mind ? Miss Silvester has baffled 
 me, and baffled the Edinburgh police. Blanche discovered that 
 we had failed last night, and Blanche received that letter this 
 morning." 
 
 He pushed Anne's letter across the breakfast-table. 
 
 Arnold I'ead it, and handed it back without a word. Viewed 
 by the new light in which he saw Geoffrey's character after 
 the quarrel on the heath, the letter conveyed but one conclu- 
 sion to his mind. Geoffrey had deserted her, 
 
 " Well ?" said Sir Patrick. " Do you understand what it 
 means ?" 
 
 "I understand Blanche's wretchedness when she read it." 
 
 He said no more than that. It was plain that no informa- 
 tion which he could afford — even if he had considered himself 
 at liberty to give it — would be of the slightest use in assisting 
 Sir Patrick to trace Miss Silvester, under present circumstances. 
 There was — unhappily — no temptation to induce him to break 
 the honorable silence which he had maintained thus far. And 
 — more unfortunately still — assuming the temptation to pi*esent 
 itself, Arnold's capacity to resist it had never been so strong a 
 capacity as it was now. 
 
 To the two powerful motives which had hitherto tied his 
 tongue — respect for Anne's reputation, and reluctance to re- 
 veal to Blanche the deception which he had been compelled to 
 practice on her at the inn — to these two motives there was 
 now added a third. The meanness of betraying the confidence 
 which Geoffrey had reposed in him would be doubled meanness 
 if he proved false to his trust after Geoffrey had personally in- 
 suited him. The paltry revenge which that false friend had 
 unhesitatingly suspected him of taking was a revenge of which 
 Arnold's nature was simply incapable. Never had his lips 
 been more effectually sealed than at this moment — when his 
 wnoie future depended on Sir Patrick's discovering the part 
 that he had played in past events at Craig Fernie. 
 
 Yes ! yes !" resumed Sir Patrick, impatiently. " Blanche's 
 aiscress is intelligible enough. But here is my niece apparent- 
 ly answerable for this unhappy woman's disappearance. Can 
 you explain what my niece has got to do with it ?" 
 
MAN AND WIFE. 261 
 
 " I ! Blanche herself is completely mystified. How should 
 J know?" 
 
 Answering in those terms, he spoke with perfect sincerit3^ 
 Anne's vague distrust of the position in which they had inno- 
 cently placed themselves at the inn had produced no corre- 
 sponding effect on Arnold at the time. He had not regarded 
 it; he had not even understood it. As a necessary result, not 
 the faintest suspicion of the motive under which Anne was act- 
 ing existed in his mind now. 
 
 Sir Patrick put the letter into his pocket-book, and abandoned 
 all further attempt at interpreting the meaning of it in despair. 
 
 "Enough, and more than enough, of groping in the dark," 
 he said. " One point is clear to me, after what has happened 
 up stairs this morning. We must accept the position in v/hich 
 Miss Silvester has placed us. I shall give up all further effort 
 to trace her from this moment." 
 
 "Surely that will be a dreadful disappointment to Blanche, 
 Sir Patrick?" 
 
 "I don't deny it. We must face that result." 
 
 "If you are sure there is nothing else to be done, I suppose 
 we must." 
 
 " I am not sure of any thing of the sort. Master Arnold ! 
 There are two chances still left of throwing light on this mat- 
 ter, which are both of them independent of any thing that Miss 
 Silvester can do to keep it in the dark." 
 
 "Then why not try them, sir ? It seems hard to drop Miss 
 Silvester when she is in trouble." 
 
 "We cau't help her against her own will," rejoined Sir Pat- 
 rick. "And Ave can't run the risk, after that nervous attack 
 this morning, of subjecting Blanche to any further suspense. 
 I have thought of my niece's interests throughout this busi- 
 ness ; and if I now change ray mind, and decline to agitate her 
 by more experiments, ending (quite possibly) in more failures, 
 it is because I am thinking of her interests still. I liave no 
 other motive. However numerous my weaknesses may be, 
 ambition to distinguish myself as a detective policeman is not 
 one of them. The case, from the police point of view, is by no 
 means a lost case. I drop it, nevertheless, for Blanche's sake. 
 Instead of encouraging her thoughts to dwell on this melan- 
 choly business, we must apply the remedy suggested by our 
 medical friend." 
 
 " How is that to be done ?" asked Arnold. 
 
 The sly twdst of humor began to show itself in Sir Patrick's 
 face. 
 
 "Has she nothing to think of in the future, which is a pleas- 
 anter subject of reflection than the loss of her friend ?" he ask- 
 ed. "To?< are interested, my young gentleman, in the remedy 
 
262 MAN AND WIFE, 
 
 that is to cure Blanclie. You are one of the drugs in the 
 moral prescription. Can j^ou guess what t is ?" 
 
 Arnold started to his feet, and brightened into a new being. 
 
 " Perhaps you object to be hurried ?" said Sir Patrick. 
 
 " Object ! If Blanche will only consent, I'll take her to 
 church as soon as she comes down stairs !" 
 
 " Thank you !" said Sir Patrick, dryly. " Mr. Arnold Brink- 
 worth, may you always be as ready to take Time by the fore- 
 lock as you are now ! Sit down again : and don't talk non- 
 sense. It is just possible — if Blanclie consents (as you say), 
 and if we can hurry the lawyei's — that you may be married in 
 three weeks' or a montli's time." 
 
 "What have the lawyers got to do with it?" 
 
 "My good fellow, this is not a marriage in a novel ! This 
 is the most unromantic affair of the sort that ever happened. 
 Here are a young gentleman and a young lady, both rich peo- 
 ple, botli well matched in birtli and character ; one of age, 
 and the other marrying witli the full consent and approval of 
 her guardian. What is the consequence of this purely prosaic 
 state of things ? Lawyers and settlements, of course !" 
 
 " Come into the library, Sir Patrick ; and I'll soon settle the 
 settlements ! A bit of paper, and a dip of ink. ' I hereby 
 give every blessed farthing I have got in the Avorld to my dear 
 Blanche.' Sign that ; stick a wafer on at the side ; clap your 
 finger on the wafer; ' I deliver this as my act and deed ;' and 
 there it is — done !" 
 
 "Is it, really ? You are a born legislator. You create and 
 codify ypur own system all in a breath. Moses-Justinian-Mo- 
 hammed, give me yoiu- arni ! There is one atom of sense in 
 what you have just said. ' Come into the library' — is a sug- 
 gestion worth attending to. Do j'ou happen, among your 
 other superfluities, to have such a thing as a lawyer about 
 you .'"' 
 
 " I have got two. One in London, and one in Edinburgh." 
 
 "We will take the nearest of the two, because v/e are in a 
 hurry. Who is the Edinburgh lawyer? Pringle of Pitt 
 Street ? Couldn't be a better man. Come and write to him. 
 You have given me your abstract of a marriage settlement 
 with the brevity of an ancient Roman. I scorn to be outdone 
 by an amateur lawyer. Here is mi/ abstract: you are just 
 and genei'ous to Blanche ; Blanche is just and generous to 
 you ; and you both combine to be just and generous together 
 to your children. There is a model settlement ! and there are 
 your instructions to Pringle of Pitt Street ! Can you do it by 
 yourself? No; of course you can't. Now don't be slovenly- 
 minded ! See the points in their order as they come. You 
 are going to be njari-ied ; you state to whom ; you add that I 
 
MAN AND WIFE. 263 
 
 am the lady's guardian ; you give tlie name and address of my 
 lawyer in Edinburgh ; you write your instructions plainly in 
 the fewest words, and leave details to your legal adviser ; you 
 refer the lawyers to each other ; you request that the draft 
 settlements be prepared as speedily as possible ; and you give 
 your address at this house. There are the heads. Can't you 
 do it now ? Oh, the rising generation ! Oh ! the progress we 
 are making in these enlightened modern times ! There ! there ! 
 you can marry Blanche, and make her happy, and increase the 
 population — and all without knowing how to write the En- 
 glish language. One can only say with the learned Bevoris- 
 kius, looking out of his window at the illimitable loves of the 
 sparrows, ' How merciful is Heaven to its creatures !' Take 
 up the pen. I'll dictate ! I'll dictate !" 
 
 Sir Patrick read the letter over, approved of it, and saw it 
 safe in the box for the post. This done, he pei-emptorily for- 
 bade Arnold to speak to his niece on the subject of the mar- 
 riage without his express permission. " There's somebody 
 else's consent to be got," he said, " besides Blanche's consent 
 and mine." 
 
 " Lady Lundie ?" 
 
 " Lady Lundie. Strictly speaking, I am the only authority. 
 But my sister-in-law is Blanche's stepmother, and she is ap- 
 pointed guardian in the event of my death. She has a right 
 to be consulted — in courtesy, if not in law. Would you like 
 to do it ?" 
 
 Arnold's face fell. He looked at Sir Patrick in silent dis- 
 may. 
 
 " What ! you can't even speak to such a perfectly pliable per- 
 son as Lady Lundie ? You may have been a very useful fel- 
 low at sea. A more helpless young man I never met with on 
 shore. Get out with you into the garden among the other 
 sparrows ! Somebody must confront her ladyship. And if 
 you won't — I must." 
 
 He pushed Arnold out of the libraiy, and applied meditative- 
 ly to the knob of his cane. His gayety disappeared, now that 
 he was alone. His experience of Lady Lundie's character told 
 him that, in attempting to win her approval to any scheme for 
 hurrying Blanche's marriage, he was undertaking no easy task. 
 " I suppose," mused Sir Patrick, thinking of his late brother — 
 " I suppose poor Tom had some way of managing her. How 
 did he do it, I wonder ? If she had been the wife of a brick- 
 layer, she is the sort of woman who would have been kept in 
 perfect order by a vigorous and regular application of her 
 husband's fist. But Tom wasn't a bricklayer. I wonder how 
 Tom did it ?" After a little hard thinking on this point. Sir 
 Patrick gave up the problem as beyond human solution. " It 
 
264 MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 must be done," he concluded. "And my own mother-wit must 
 help me to do it." 
 
 In that resigned frame of mind he knocked at the door of 
 Lady Lundie's boudoir. 
 
 CHAPTER THE TWENTY-SEVENTH. 
 
 OUTWITTED. 
 
 Sir Patrick found his sister-in-law immersed in domestic 
 business. Her ladyship's correspondence and visiting list; 
 her ladyship's household bills and ledgers ; her ladyship's 
 Diary and Memorandum-book (bound in scarlet morocco) ; 
 her ladyship's desk, envelope-case, match-box, and taper can- 
 dlestick (all in ebony and silver) ; her ladyship herself, presid- 
 ing over her responsibilities, and wielding her materials, equal 
 to any calls of emergency, beautifully dressed in correct morn- 
 ing costume, blessed with perfect health both of the secretions 
 and the principles ; absolutely void of vice, and formidably full 
 of virtue, presented, to every properly -constituted mind, the 
 most imposing spectacle known to humanity — the British Ma- 
 tron on her throne, asking the world in general, When will you 
 produce the like of me ? 
 
 " I am afraid I disturb you," said Sir Patrick. " I am a per- 
 fectly idle person. Shall I look in a little later?" 
 
 Lady Lundie put her hand to her head, and smiled faintly. 
 
 " A little pressure here^ Sir Patrick. Pray sit down. Duty 
 finds me earnest ; Duty finds me cheerful ; Duty finds me ac- 
 cessible. From a poor, weak woman, Duty must expect no 
 more. Now what is it ?" (Her ladyship consulted her scarlet 
 memorandum-book.) " I have got it here, under its proper 
 head, distinguished by initial letters. P. — the poor. No. H. 
 M. — heathen missions. No. V, T. A. — Visitors to arrive. No. 
 P. L P. — Here it is : private interview with Patrick. Will 
 you forgive me the little harmless familiarity of omitting your 
 title ?" Thank you ! You are always so good. I am quite 
 at your service when you like to begin. If it's any thing 
 painful, pray don't hesitate. I am quite prepared." 
 
 With that intimation her ladyship threw herself back in her 
 chair, with her elbows on the arms, and her fingers joined at 
 the tips, as if she was receiving a deputation. " Yes ?" she 
 said, interrogatively. Sir Patrick paid a private tribute of 
 pity to his late brother's memory, and entered on his business. 
 
 " We won't call it a painful matter," he began. " Let ub 
 say it's a matter of domestic anxiety. Blanche — " 
 
MAN AND WIPE. 265 
 
 Lady Lundie emitted a faint scream, and put her hand over 
 her eyes. 
 
 ^'■Miist you?" cried her ladyship, in a tone of touching re- 
 monstrance. " Oh, Sir Patrick, 7nust you?" 
 
 "Yes; I must." 
 
 Lady Lundie's magnificent eyes looked up at that hidden 
 court of human appeal which is lodged in the ceiling. The 
 hidden court looked down at Lady Lundie, and saw — Duty 
 advertising itself in the largest capital letters. 
 
 " Go on, Sir Patrick. The motto of woman is Self-sacrifice. 
 You sha'n't see how you distress me. Go on." 
 
 Sir Patrick went on impenetrabl}^ — without betraying the 
 slightest expression of sympathy or surprise. 
 
 " I was about to refer to the nervous attack from which 
 Blanche has suffered this morning," he said. " May I ask 
 whether you have been informed of the cause to which the 
 attack is attributable ?" 
 
 " There !" exclaimed Lady Lundie, with a sudden bound in 
 her chair, and a sudden development of vocal power to corre- 
 spond. "The one thing I shrank from speaking of! the cruel, 
 cruel, cruel behavior I was prepared to pass over ! And Sir 
 Patrick hints on it! Innocently — don't let me do an injustice 
 — innocently hints on it !" 
 
 " Hints on what, my dear madam ?" 
 
 " Blanche's conduct to me this morning. Blanche's heartless 
 secrecy. Blanche's undutiful silence, I repeat the words: 
 Heartless secrecy. L^ndutiful silence." 
 
 "Allow me for one moment, Lady Lundie — " 
 
 "Allow vie, Sir Patrick! Heaven knows how unwilling I 
 am to speak of it. Heaven knows that not a word of refer- 
 ence to it escaped my lips. But you leave me no choice now. 
 As mistress of the household, as a Christian woman, as the 
 widow of your dear brother, as a mother to this misguided 
 girl, I must state the facts. I know you mean well ; I know 
 you wish to spare me. Quite useless ! I must state the 
 facts." 
 
 Sir Patrick bowed, and submitted. (If he had only been a 
 bricklayer ! and if Lady Lundie had not been, what her lady- 
 ship unquestionably was, the strongest person of the two !) 
 
 "Permit me to draw a veil, for your sake," said Lady Lun- 
 die, " over the horrors — I can not, with the best wish to spare 
 you, conscientiously call them by any other name — the hor- 
 rors that took place up stairs. The moment I heard that 
 Blanche Avas ill I was at my post. Duty will always find 
 me ready, Sir Patrick, to ray dying day. Shocking as the 
 whole thing was, I presided calmly over the screams and sobs 
 of my stepdaughter. I closed my ears to the profane violence 
 
266 MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 of her language, T set the necessary example, as an English 
 gentlewoman at the head of her household. It was only when 
 I distinctly heard the name of a person, never to be mentioned 
 :<gain in my family circle, issue (if I may use the expression) 
 from Blanche's lips that I began to be really alarmed. I said 
 to my maid : ' Hopkins, this is not Hysteria. This is a posses- 
 sion of the devil. Fetch the chloroform.'" 
 
 Chloroform, applied in the capacity of an exorcism, was en- 
 tirely new to Sir Patrick. He preserved his gravity with con- 
 siderable difficulty. Lady Lundie went on : 
 
 " Plopkins is an excellent person — but Hopkins had a tongue. 
 She met our distinguished medical guest in the corridor, and 
 told him. He was so good as to come to the door. I was 
 shocked to trouble him to act in his professional capacity while 
 he was a visitor, an honored visitor, in my house. Besides, I 
 considered it more a case for a clergyman than for a medical 
 man. However, there Avas no help for it after Hopkins's tongue. 
 I requested our eminent friend to favor us with — I think the 
 exact scientific term is — a Prognosis. He took the purely 
 material view which was only to be expected from a person 
 in his profession. He prognosed — am I right ? Did he prog- 
 nose? or did he diagnose? A habit of speaking correctly is 
 so important, Sir Patrick ! and I should be so grieved to mis- 
 lead you !" 
 
 "Never mind. Lady Lundie ! I have heard the medical re- 
 port. Don't trouble yourself to repeat it," 
 
 "Don't trouble myself to repeat it?" echoed Lady Lundie, 
 with her dignity up in arms at the bare prospect of finding her 
 remai'ks abridged. "Ah, Sir Patrick I that little constitutional 
 impatience of yours !— Oh, dear me! how often you must have 
 given way to it, and how often you must have regretted it, in 
 your time !" 
 
 " My dear lady ! if you wish to repeat the report, why not 
 say so, in plain words ? Don't let me hurry you. Let us have 
 the prognosis, by all means," 
 
 Lady Lundie shook her head compassionately, and smiied 
 with angelic sadness, " Our little besetting sins !" she said. 
 "What slaves we are to our little besetting sins! Take a turn 
 in the room — do !" 
 
 Any ordinary man would have lost his temper. But the law 
 (as Sir Patrick had told his niece) has a special temper of its 
 own. Without exhibiting the smallest irritation. Sir Patrick 
 dexterously applied his sister-in-law's blister to his sister-in-law 
 herself. 
 
 "What an eye you have!" he said. "I was impatient. I 
 am impatient. I am dying to know what Blanche said to you 
 when she ^ot better ?" 
 
MAN AND WrPK. 267 
 
 The British Matron froze up into a matron of stone on the 
 spot. 
 
 " Nothing !" answered her ladyship, with a vicious snap of 
 her teeth, as if she had tried to bite the word before it escaped 
 her. 
 
 "Nothing !" exclaimed Sir Patrick. 
 
 " Nothing," repeated Lady Lundie, with her most formidable 
 emphasis of look and tone. " I applied all the remedies with 
 my own hands; I cut her laces with my own scissors; I com- 
 pletely wetted her head through with cold water ; I remained 
 with her until she was quite exhausted ; I took her in my arms, 
 and folded her to my bosom ; I sent every body out of the 
 room; I said, 'Dear child, confide in me.' And how were my 
 advances — my motherly advances — met ? I have already told 
 you. By heartless secrecy. By undutiful silence." 
 
 Sir Patrick pressed the blister a little closer to the skin. 
 " She was probably afraid to speak," he said. 
 
 '' Afraid '? Oh I" cried Lady Lundie, distrusting the evidence 
 of her own senses. " You can't have said that ? I have evident- 
 ly misapprehended you. You didn't really say afraid?" 
 
 " I said she was probably afraid — " 
 
 " Stop ! I can't be told to my face that I have failed to do 
 my duty by Blanche. No, Sir Patrick ! I can bear a great deal ; 
 but I can't bear that. After having been more than a mother 
 to your dear brother's child; after having been an elder sister 
 to Blanche; after having toiled — I say tolled, Sir Patrick ! — to 
 cultivate her intelligence (with the sweet lines of the poet ever 
 present to my memory : ' Delightful task to I'ear the tender 
 mind, and teach the young idea how to shoot I") ; after having 
 done all I have done — a place in the carriage only yesterday, 
 and a visit to the most interesting relic of feudal times in 
 Perthshire — after having sacrificed all I have sacrificed, to be 
 told that I have behaved in such a manner to Blanche as to 
 frighten her when I ask her to confide in me, is a little too cruel. 
 I have a sensitive, an unduly sensitive nature, dear Sir Patrick. 
 Forgive me for wincing when I am wounded. Forgive me for 
 feeling it when the wound is dealt me by a person whom I re- 
 vere." 
 
 Her ladyship put her handkerchief to her eyes. Any other 
 man would have taken ofiT the blister. Sir Patrick pressed it 
 harder than evei". 
 
 " You quite mistake me," he replied. " I meant that Blanche 
 was afraid to tell you the t"ve cause of her illness. The true 
 cause is anxiety about Miss Silvester." 
 
 Lady Lundie emitted another scream — a loud scream this 
 time — and closed her eyes in horror. 
 
 " I can run out of the house," cried her ladyship, wildly. "I 
 
268 MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 can fly to the uttermost corners of the earth ; but I can not hear 
 that person's name mentioned ! N'o, Sir Patrick ! not in my 
 presence ! not in my room ! not while I am mistress at Windy- 
 gates House !" 
 
 "I am sorry to say any thing that is disagreeable to you, 
 Lady Lundie. But the nature of my errand here obliges me 
 to touch — as lightly as possible — on something which has hap- 
 pened in your house without your knowledge," 
 
 Lady Lundie suddenly opened her eyes, and became the pic- 
 ture of attention, A casual observer might have supposed her 
 ladyship to be not wholly inaccessible to the vulgar emotion 
 of curiosity. 
 
 "A visitor came to Windygates yesterday, while we were all 
 at lunch," proceeded Sir Patrick, " She — " 
 
 Lady Lundie seized the scarlet memorandum-book, and stop- 
 ped her brother-in-law, before he could get any further. Her 
 ladyship's next words escaped her lips spasmodically, like words 
 let at intervals out of a trap. 
 
 " I undertake — as a woman accustomed to self-restraint. Sir 
 Patrick — I undertake to control myself, on one condition. I 
 won't have the name mentioned, I won't have the sex men- 
 tioned. Say ' The Person,' if you please. ' The Person,' " 
 continued Lady Lundie, opening her memorandum-book and 
 taking up her pen, " committed an audacious invasion of my 
 premises yesterday !" 
 
 Sir Patrick bowed. Her ladyship made a note — a fiercely- 
 penned note that scratched the paper viciously — and then pro- 
 ceeded to examine her brother-in-law, in the capacity of witness. 
 
 " What part of my house did ' The Person' invade ? Be very 
 careful. Sir Patrick ! I pi-opose to place myself under the pro- 
 tection of a justice of the peace; and this is a memorandum 
 of my statement. The library — did I understand you to say ? 
 Just so — the library." 
 
 "Add," said Sir Patrick, wdth another pressure on the blis- 
 ter, " that The Person had an interview with Blanche in the 
 library." 
 
 Lady Lundie's pen suddenly stuck in the paper, and scattered 
 a little shower of ink-drops all round it. "The library," repeat- 
 ed her ladyship in a voice suggestive of approaching suffoca- 
 tion. " I undertake to control myself. Sir Patrick ! Any thing 
 missing from the library ?" 
 
 " Nothing missing, Lady Lundie, but The Person herself. 
 She—" 
 
 " No, Sir Patrick ! I won't have it ! In the name of my 
 own sex, I won't have it !" 
 
 " Pray pardon me — I forgot that ' she ' was a prohibited pro- 
 noun on the present occasion. The Person has written a fare- 
 
MAN AND WIFH. 269 
 
 well letter to Blanche, and has gone nobody knows where. 
 The distress produced by these events is alone answerable for 
 what has happened to Blanche this morning. If you bear that 
 in mind — and if you remember what your own opinion is of 
 Miss Silvester — you will understand why Blanche hesitated to 
 admit you into her confidence." 
 
 There he waited for a reply. Lady Lundie was too deeply 
 absorbed in completing her memorandum to be conscious of 
 his presence in the room. 
 
 " ' Carriage to be at the door at two-thirty,' " said Lady 
 Lundie, i-epeating the final words of the memorandum while 
 she wrote them. " ' Inquire for the nearest justice of the peace, 
 and place the privacy of Wiudygates under the protection of 
 the law.' — I beg your pardon !" exclaimed her ladyship, be- 
 coming conscious again of Sir Patrick's presence. " Have I 
 missed any thing particularly painful ? Pray mention it if I 
 have !" 
 
 " You have missed nothing of the slightest importance," re- 
 turned Sir Patrick. " I have placed you in possession of facts 
 which you had a right to know ; and we have now only to re- 
 turn to our medical friend's report on Blanche's health. You 
 were about to favor me, I think, with the Prognosis '?" 
 
 " Diagnosis !" said her ladyship, spitefully. " I had forgot- 
 ten at the time — I remember now. Prognosis is entirely 
 wrong." 
 
 "I sit corrected, Lady Lundie. Diagnosis." 
 
 " You have informed me, Sir Patrick, that you were already 
 acquainted with the Diagnosis. It is quite needless for me to 
 repeat it now." 
 
 " I was anxious to correct my own impression, my dear 
 lady, by comparing it with yours." 
 
 " You are very good. You are a learned man. I am only a 
 poor ignorant woman. Your impression can not possibly re- 
 quire correcting by mine." 
 
 " My impression, Lady Lundie, was that our friend recom- 
 mended moral, rather than medical, treatment for Blanche. 
 If we can turn her thoughts from the painful subject on which 
 they are now dwelling, we shall do all that is needful. Those 
 were his own words, as I remember them. Do you confirm 
 me?" 
 
 "Can jT presume to dispute with you, Sir Patrick? You 
 are a master of refined irony, I know. I am afraid it's all 
 thrown away on poor me." 
 
 (The law kept its wonderful temper ! The law met the 
 most exasperating of living women with a counter-power of 
 defensive aggravation all its own !) 
 
 " I take that as confirming me, Lady Lundie. Thank you. 
 
2*70 MAN AND WIPE. 
 
 Now as to the method of carrying out our friend's advice. 
 The method seems plain. All we can do to divert Blanche's 
 mind is to turn Blanche's attention to some other subject of 
 reflection less painful than the subject which occupies her 
 now. Do you agree, so far ?" 
 
 " Why place the whole responsibility on my shoulders ?" in- 
 quired Lady Lundie. 
 
 " Out of profound deference for your opinion," answered Sir 
 Patrick. " Strictly speaking, no doubt, any serious responsi- 
 bility rests with me. I am Blanche's guardian — " 
 
 "Thank God !" cried Lady Lundie, with a perfect explosion 
 of pious fervor, 
 
 " I hear an outburst of devout thankfulness," remarked Sir 
 Patrick. "Am I to take it as expressing — let me say — some 
 little doubt, on your part, as to the prospect of managing 
 Blanche successfully, under present circumstances ?" 
 
 Lady Lundie's temper began to give way again — exactly as 
 her brother-in-law had anticipated. 
 
 " You are to take it," she said, " as expressing my conviction 
 that I saddled myself with the charge of an incorrigibly heart- 
 less, obstinate, and perverse girl, when I undertook the care 
 of Blanche." 
 
 " Did you say ' incorrigibly ?' " 
 
 " I said ' incorrigibly.' " 
 
 "If the case is as hopeless as that, ray dear Madam — as 
 Blanche's guardian, 1 ought to find means to relieve you of the 
 charge of Blanche." 
 
 "Nobody shall relieve me of a duty that I have once under- 
 taken !" retorted Lady Lundie. "Not if I die at my post !" 
 
 "Suppose it was consistent with your duty," pleaded Sir 
 Patrick, " to be relieved at your post ? Suppose it was in 
 harmony with that ' self- sacrifice ' which is ' the motto of 
 women ?' " 
 
 " I don't understand you, Sir Patrick. Be so good as to ex- 
 plain yourself" 
 
 Sir Patrick assumed a new character — the character of a 
 hesitating man. He cast a look of respectful inquiry at his 
 sister-in-law, sighed, and shook his head. 
 
 " No !" he said. " It would be asking too much. Even 
 with your high standard of duty, it would be asking too 
 much." 
 
 " Nothing which you can ask me in the name of duty is too 
 much." 
 
 " No ! no ! Let me remind you. Human nature has its 
 limits." 
 
 "A Christian gentlewoman's sense of duty knows no limits." 
 
 " Oh, surely yes !" 
 
MAN AND WIFE. 271 
 
 " Sir Patrick ! after what I have just said, your perseverance 
 in doubting me amounts to something like an insult !" 
 
 " Don't say that ! Let me put a case. Let us suppose the 
 future interests of another person to depend on your saying 
 Yes — when all your own most cherished ideas and opinions 
 urge you to say No. Do you really mean to tell me that you 
 could trample your own convictions under foot, if it could be 
 shown that the purely abstract consideration of duty was in- 
 volved in the sacrifice?" 
 
 " Yes !" cried Lady Lundie, mounting the pedestal of her 
 virtue on the spot. " Yes — without a moment's hesitation !" 
 
 " I sit corrected. Lady Lundie. You embolden me to pro- 
 ceed. Allow me to ask (after what I have just heard) — wheth- 
 er it is not your duty to act on advice given for Blanche's 
 benefit, by one of the highest medical authorities in England ?" 
 
 Her ladyship admitted that it was her duty; pending a more 
 favorable opportunity for contradicting her brother-in-law. 
 
 " Very good," pursued Sir Patrick. "Assuming that Blanche 
 is like most other human beings, and has some prospect of 
 happiness to contemplate, if she could only be made to see it 
 — are we not bound to make her see it, by our moral obliga- 
 tion to act on the medical advice?" He cast a courteously- 
 persuasive look at her ladyship, and paused in the most inno- 
 cent manner for a reply. 
 
 If Lady Lundie had not been bent — thanks to the irritation 
 fomented by her brother-in-law — on disputing the ground with 
 him, inch by inch, she must have seen signs, by this time, of 
 the snare that was being set for her. As it was, she saw noth- 
 ing but the opportunity of disparaging Blanche and contra- 
 dicting Sir Patrick. 
 
 " If my stepdaughter had any such prospect as you describe," 
 she answered, " I should of course say Yes. But Blanche's is 
 an ill-regulated mind. An ill-regulated mind has no prospect 
 of happiness." 
 
 " Pardon me," said Sir Patrick. " Blanche has a prospect 
 of happiness. In other words, Blanche has a prospect of being 
 married. And, what is more, Arnold Brinkworth is ready to 
 marry her as soon as the settlements can be prepared." 
 
 Lady Lundie started in her chair — turned crimson with rage 
 — and opened her lips to speak. Sir Patrick rose to his feet, 
 and went on before she could utter a word. 
 
 " I beg to relieve you, Lady Lundie — by means which you 
 have just acknowledged it to be your duty to accept — of all 
 further charge of an incorrigible girl. As Blanche's guardian, 
 I have the honor of proposing that her marriage be advanced 
 to a day to be hereafter named in the first fortnight of the eij- 
 guing month." 
 
272 MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 In those words he closed the trap which he had set for his 
 
 sister-in-law, and waited to see what came of it. 
 
 A thoroughly spiteful woman, thoroughly roused, is capable 
 of subordinating every other consideration to the one impera- 
 tive necessity of gratifying her spite. There was but one way 
 now of turning the tables on Sir Patrick — and Lady Lundie 
 took it. She hated him, at that moment, so intensely, that not 
 even the assertion of her own obstinate will promised her more 
 than a tame satisfaction, by comparison with the priceless en- 
 joyment of beating her brother-in-law with his own weapons. 
 
 " My dear Sir Patrick !" she said, with a little silvery laugh, 
 *' you have wasted much precious time and many eloquent 
 words in trying to entrap me into giving my consent, when 
 you might have had it for the asking. I think the idea of has- 
 tening Blanche's marriage an excellent one. I am charmed to 
 transfer the charge of such a person as my stepdaughter to 
 the unfortunate young man who is willing to take her off my 
 hands. The less he sees of Blanche's character the more satis- 
 fied I shall feel of his performing his engagement to marry her. 
 Pray hurry the lawyers. Sir Patrick, and let it be a week soon- 
 er rather than a week later, if you wish to please Me." 
 
 Her ladyship rose in her grandest proportions, and made a 
 courtesy which was nothing less than a triumph of polite satire 
 in dumb show. Sir Patrick answered by a profound bow and 
 a smile which said, eloquently, " I believe every word of that 
 charming answer. Admirable woman — adieu !" 
 
 So the one person in the family circle, whose opposition 
 might have forced Sir Patrick to submit to a timely delay, 
 was silenced by adroit management of the vices of her own 
 character. So, in despite of herself, Lady Lundie was won 
 over to the project for hurrying the marriage of Arnold and 
 Blanche. 
 
 CHAPTER THE TWENTY-EIGHTH. 
 
 STIFLED. 
 
 It is the nature of Truth to struggle to the light. In more 
 than one direction, the truth strove to pierce the overlying 
 darkness, and to reveal itself to view, during the interval be- 
 tween the date of Sir Patrick's victory and the date of the 
 wedding-day. 
 
 Signs of perturbation under the surface, suggestive of some 
 hidden influence at w^ork, were not wanting, as the time passed 
 on. The one thing missing was the prophetic faculty that 
 could read those signs aright at Windygates House. 
 
MAN AND WIFE. 275 
 
 On the very day when Sir Patrick's dexterous treatment of 
 his sister-in-law had smoothed the way to the hastening of the 
 marriage, an obstacle was raised to the new arrangement by 
 no less a person than Blanche herself. She had sufficiently 
 recovered, toward noon, to be able to receive Arnold in her 
 own little sitting-room. It proved to be a very brief inter- 
 view. A quarter of an hour later, Arnold appeared before Sir 
 Patrick — while the old gentleman was sunning himself in the 
 warden — with a face of blank despair. Blanche had indig- 
 nantly declined even to think of such a thing as her marriage, 
 at a time when she was heart-broken by the discovery that 
 Anne had left her forevei'. 
 
 " You gave me leave to mention it, Sir Patrick — didn't you?" 
 said Arnold. 
 
 Sir Patrick shifted round a little, so as to get the sun on his 
 back, and admitted that he had given leave. 
 
 " If I had only known, I would rather have cut my tongue 
 out than have said a word about it. What do you think she 
 did '? She burst out crying, and ordered me to leave the room." 
 
 It was a lovely morning — a cool breeze tempered the heat 
 of the sun ; the birds were singing ; the garden wore its bright- 
 est look. Sir Patrick was supremely comfortable. The little 
 wearisome vexations of this mortal life had retired to a re- 
 spectful distance from him. He positively declined to invite 
 them to come any nearer. 
 
 " Here is a world," said the old gentleman, getting the sun 
 a little more broadly on his back, " which a merciful Creator 
 has filled with lovely sights, harmonious sounds, delicious 
 scents ; and here are creatures with faculties expressly made 
 for enjoyment of those sights, sounds, and scents — to say noth- 
 ing of Love, Dinner, and Sleep, all thrown into the bargain. 
 And these same creatures hate, starve, toss sleepless on their 
 pillows, see nothing pleasant, hear nothing pleasant, smell 
 nothing pleasant — cry bitter tears, say hard words, contract 
 painful illnesses ; wither, sink, age, die ! What does it mean, 
 Arnold ? And how much longer is it all to go on ?" 
 
 The fine connecting link between the blindness of Blanche 
 to the advantage of being married, and the blindness of hu- 
 manity to the advantage of being in existence, though suffi- 
 ciently perceptible, no doubt, to venerable Philosophy ripening 
 in the sun, was absolutely invisible to Arnold. He deliberate- 
 ly dropped the vast question opened by Sir Patrick, and, re- 
 verting to Blanche, asked what was to be done. 
 
 "What do you do with a fire, when you can't extinguish 
 it ?" said Sir Patrick. " You let it blaze till it goes out. 
 What do you do with a woman when you can't pacify her? 
 Jjet Jwr blaze till she goes out." 
 
276 MAN AND WIPE. 
 
 Arnold failed to see the wisdom embodied in that excellent 
 advice. " I thought you would have helped me to put things 
 right with Blanche," he said. 
 
 "I am helping you. Let Blanche alone. Don't speak of 
 the marriage again, the next time you see her. If she men- 
 tions it, beg her pardon, and tell her you won't press the ques- 
 tion any more. I shall see her in an hour or two, and I shall 
 take exactly the same tone myself. You have put the idea 
 into her mind — leave it there to ripen. Give her distress about 
 Miss Silvester nothing to feed on. Don't stimulate it by con- 
 tradiction ; don't rouse it to defend itself by disparagement 
 of her lost friend. Leave Time to edge her gently nearer and 
 nearer to the husband M'ho is waiting for her — and take my word 
 for it, Time will have her ready when the settlements are ready." 
 
 Toward the luncheon hour Sir Patrick saw Blanche, and put 
 in practice the principle Avhich he had laid down. She was 
 perfectly tranquil before her uncle left her. A little later, Ar- 
 nold was forgiven. A little later still, the old gentleman's 
 sharp observation noted that his niece was unusually thought- 
 ful, and that she looked at Arnold, from time to time, with an 
 interest of a new kind — an interest which shyly hid itself from 
 Arnold's view. Sir Patrick went up to dress for dinner, with 
 a comfortable inner conviction that the diiEculties -which had 
 beset him were settled at last. Sir Patrick had never been 
 more mistaken in his life. 
 
 The business of the toilet was far advanced. Duncan had 
 just placed the glass in a good light ; and Duncan's master 
 was at that turning-point in his daily life which consisted in 
 attaining or not attaining, absolute perfection in the tying of 
 his white cravat — when some outer barbarian, ignorant of the 
 first principles of dressing a gentleman's throat, presumed to 
 knock at the bedroom door. Neither master nor servant 
 moved or breathed until the integrity of the cravat was 
 placed beyond the reach of accident. Then Sir Patrick cast 
 the look of final criticism in the glass, and breathed again when 
 he saw that it was done. 
 
 "A little labored in style, Duncan. But not bad, consider- 
 ing the interruption ?" 
 
 " By no means, Sir Patrick." 
 
 " See who it is." 
 
 Duncan went to the door, and returned to his master, with 
 an excuse for the interruption, in the shape of a telegram ! 
 
 Sir Patrick started at the sight of that unwelcome message. 
 "Sign the receipt, Duncan," he said — and opened the envelope. 
 Yes ! Exactly as he had anticipated ! News of Miss Silves' 
 ter, on the very day when he had decided to abandon all fur- 
 ther attempt at discovering her. The telegram ran thus-' 
 
MAN AND "WIFE. 27T 
 
 "Message received from Falkirk this morning. Lady, as 
 described, left the train at Falkirk last night. Went on, by 
 the tirst train this mornnig, to Glasgow. Wait further in- 
 structions." 
 
 " Is the messenger to take any thing back, Sir Patrick ?" 
 
 " No. I must consider what I am to do. If I find it neces- 
 sary, I will send to the station. Here is news of Miss Silves- 
 ter, Duncan," continued Sir Patrick, when the messenger had 
 gone. "She has been traced to Glasgow." 
 
 " Glasgow is a large place. Sir Patrick." 
 
 "Yes. Even if they have telegraphed on and had her 
 watched (which doesn't appear), she may escape us again at 
 Glasgow. I am the last man in the world, I hope, to shrink 
 from accepting my fair share of any responsibility. But I 
 own I would have given something to have kept this tele- 
 gram out of the house. It raises the most awkward question 
 I have had to decide on for many a long day past. Help me 
 on with my coat. I must think of it ! I must think of it !" 
 
 Sir Patrick went down to dinner in no agreeable frame of 
 mind. The unexpected recovery of the lost trace of Miss Sil- 
 vester — there is no disguising it — seriously annoyed him. 
 
 The dinner-party that day, assembling punctually at the 
 stroke of the bell, had to wait a quarter of an hour before the 
 hostess came down stairs. 
 
 Lady Lundie's apology, when she entered the library, in- 
 formed her guests that she had been detained by some neigh- 
 bors who had called at an unusually late hour. Mr. and Mrs. 
 Julius Delamayn, finding themselves near Windygates, had 
 favored her with a visit, on their way home, and had left cards 
 of invitation for a garden-party at their house. 
 
 Lady Lundie was charmed with her new acquaintances. 
 They had included every body who was staying at Windy- 
 gates in their invitation. They had been as pleasant and easy 
 as old friends. Mrs. Delamayn had brought the kindest mes- 
 sage from one of her guests — Mrs. Glenarm — to say that she 
 remembered meeting Lady Lundie in London, in the time of 
 the late Sir Thomas, and was anxious to improve the acquaint- 
 ance. Mr. Julius Delamayn had given a most amusing ac- 
 count of his brother. Geoffrey had sent to London for a train- 
 er ; and the whole household was on the tiptoe of expectation 
 to witness the magnificent spectacle of an athlete preparing 
 himself for a foot-race. The ladies, with Mrs. Glenarm at their 
 head, were hard at work, studying the profound and compli- 
 cated question of human running — the muscles employed in it, 
 the preparation required for it, the heroes eminent in it. The 
 men had been all occupied that morning in assisting Geoffrey 
 to measure a mile, for his exercising-ground, in a remote part 
 
2 'J' 8 MAN AND WIFB. 
 
 of the park — where there was an empty cottage, which wai 
 to be fitted with all the necessary appliances for the reception 
 of Geoffrey and his trainer. " You will see the last of my 
 brother," Julius had said, " at the garden-party. After that 
 he retires into athletic privacy, and has but one interest in life 
 — the interest of watching the disappearance of his own super- 
 fluous flesh." Throughout the dinner Lady Lundie was in op- 
 pressively good spirits, singing the praises of her new friends. 
 Sir Patrick, on the other hand, had never been so silent within 
 the memory of mortal man. He talked with an effort ; and he 
 listened with a greater effort still. To answer or not to an- 
 swer the telegram in his pocket? To persist or not to persist 
 in his resolution to leave Miss Silvester to go her own way? 
 Those were the questions which insisted on coming round to 
 him as regularly as the dishes themselves came round in the 
 orderly progression of the dinner. 
 
 Blanche — who had not felt equal to taking her place at the 
 table — appeared in the drawing-room afterward. 
 
 Sir Patrick came in to tea with the gentlemen, still uncer- 
 tain as to the right course to take in the matter of the tele- 
 gram. One look at Blanche's sad face and Blanche's altered 
 manner decided him. What would be the result if he roused 
 new hopes by resuming the effort to trace Miss Silvester, and 
 if he lost the trace a second time ? He had only to look at his 
 niece and to see. Could any consideration justify him in turn- 
 ing her mind back on the memory of the friend who had left 
 her at the moment when it was just beginning to look forward 
 for relief to the prospect of her marriage ? Nothing could jus- 
 tify him ; and nothing should induce him to do it. 
 
 Reasoning — soundly enough, from his own point of view — 
 on that basis, Sir Patrick determined on sending no further 
 instructions to his friend at Edinburgh. That night he warn- 
 ed Duncan to preserve the strictest silence as to the arrival of 
 the telegram. He burned it, in case of accidents, with his own 
 hand, in his own room. 
 
 Rising the next day and looking out of his window. Sir Pat- 
 rick saw the two young people taking their morning walk at 
 a moment when they happened to cross the open grassy space 
 which separated the two shrubberies at Windygates. Ar- 
 nold's arm was round Blanche's waist, and they were talking 
 confidentially with their heads close together. " She is coming 
 round already !" thought the old gentleman, as the two disap- 
 peared again in the second shrubbery from view. " Thank 
 Heaven ! things are running smoothly at last !" 
 
 Among the ornaments of Sir Patrick's bedroom there was a 
 view (taken from above) of one of the Highland water-falls. 
 Jf he had looked at the picture when he turned away from his 
 
MAN AND WIFE. 279 
 
 window, he might have remarked that a river which is runuing 
 with its utmost smoothness at one moment may be a river 
 which plunges into its most violent agitation at another ; and 
 he might have remembered, with certain misgivings, that the 
 progress of a stream of water has been long siace likened, with 
 the universal consent of humanity, to the progress of the stream 
 of life. 
 
 FIFTH SCENE.— GLASGOW. 
 CHAPTER THE TWENTY-NINTR 
 
 ANNE AMONG THE LAWYERS. 
 
 On the day when Sir Patrick received the second of the two 
 telegrams sent to him from Edinburgh, four respectable inhab- 
 itants of the City of Glasgow were startled by the appearance 
 of an object of interest on the monotonous horizon of their 
 daily lives. 
 
 The persons receiving this wholesome shock were — Mr. and 
 Mrs. Karnegie of the Sheep's Head Hotel ; and Mr. Camp and 
 Mr. Crum, attached as " Writers " to the honorable profession 
 of the Law, 
 
 It was still early in the day when a lady arrived in a cab 
 from the railway, at the Sheep's Head Hotel. Her luggage 
 consisted of a black box, and of a well-worn leather bag which 
 she carried in her hand. The name on the box (recently writ- 
 ten on a new luggage label, as the color of the ink and paper 
 showed) was a very good name in its way, common to a very 
 great number of ladies, both in Scotland and England. It 
 was "Mrs. Graham." 
 
 Encountering the landlord at the entrance to the hotel, 
 " Mrs. Graham " asked to be accommodated with a bedroom, 
 and was transferred in due course to the chamber-maid on 
 duty at the time. Returning to the little room behind the 
 bar, in which the accounts were kept, Mr. Karnegie surprised 
 his wife by moving more briskly, and looking much brighter 
 than usual. Being questioned, Mr. Karnegie (who had cast 
 the eye of a landlord on the black box in the passage) an- 
 nounced that one " Mrs. Graham " had just arrived, and was 
 then and there to be booked as inhabiting Room Number Sev- 
 enteen. Being informed (with considerable asperity of tone 
 and manner) that this answer failed to account for the inter- 
 est which appeared to have been inspired in him by a total 
 stranger, Mr. Karnegie came to the point, and confessed that 
 "Mrs. Graham" was one of the sweetest-looking women he 
 
280 MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 bad seen for many a long day, and that he feared she was very 
 seriously out of health. 
 
 Upon that reply the eyes of Mrs. Karnegie developed in 
 size, and the color of Mrs. Karnegie deepened in tint. She got 
 up from her chair, and said that it might be just as well if she 
 personally superintended the installation of "Mrs. Graham "in 
 her room, and personally satisfied herself that "Mrs. Graham" 
 was a fit inmate to be received at the Sheep's Head Hotel. 
 Mr. Karnegie thereupon did what he always did — he agreed 
 with his wife. 
 
 Mrs. Karnegie was absent for some little time. On her re- 
 turn her eyes had a certain tigerish cast in them when they 
 rested on Mr. Karnegie. She ordered tea and some light re- 
 freshment to be taken to Number Seventeen. This done — 
 without any visible provocation to account for the remark — 
 she turned upon her husband, and said, " Mr. Karnegie, you 
 are a fool." Mr. Kai'negie asked " Why, my dear?" Mrs. 
 Karnegie snapped her fingers, and said, '■''That for her good 
 looks ! You don't know a good-looking woman when you see 
 her." Mr. Karnegie agreed with his wife. 
 
 Nothing more was said until the waiter appeared at the bar 
 with his tray. Mrs. Karnegie, having first waived the tray 
 ofij without instituting her customary investigation, sat down 
 suddenly with a thump, and said to her husband (who had not 
 uttered a word in the interval), " Don't talk to Me about her 
 being out of health ! That for her health ! It's trouble on 
 her mind." 
 
 Mr. Karnegie said, " Is it now ?" Mrs. Karnegie replied, 
 " When I have said. It is, I consider myself insulted if another 
 person says. Is it ?" Mr. Karnegie agreed with his wife. 
 
 There was another interval. Mrs. Karnegie added up a 
 bill, with a face of disgust. Mr. Karnegie looked at her with 
 a face of wonder. Mrs. Karnegie suddenly asked him why he 
 wasted his looks on Ae?', when he would have " Mrs. Graham " 
 to look at before long. Mr. Karnegie, upon that, attempted to 
 compromise the matter, by looking, in tlie interim, at his own 
 boots. Mrs. Karnegie wished to know whether, after twen- 
 ty years of married life, she was considered to be not worth 
 answering by her own husband. Treated with bare civility 
 (she expected no more), she might have gone on to explain 
 that " Mrs. Graham " was going out. She might also have 
 been prevailed on to mention that "Mrs. Graham" had asked 
 her a very remarkable question of a business nature, at the in- 
 terview between them up stairs. As it was, Mrs. Karnegie's 
 lips were sealed, and let Mr. Karnegie deny, if ho dared, that 
 he richly deserved it. Mr. Karnegie agreed with his wife. 
 
 In half an hour more " Mrs. Graham " came down stairs, and 
 
MAN AND WIFE. 281 
 
 a cab was sent for. Mr. Karuegie, in fear of the consequences 
 if he did otherwise, kept in a corner. Mrs. Karnegie followed 
 him into the corner, and asked him how he dared act in that 
 way? Did he presume to think, after twenty years of mar- 
 ried life, that his wife was jealous ? " Go, you brute, and 
 hand Mrs. Graham into the cab !" 
 
 Mr. Karnegie obeyed. He asked, at the cab window, to 
 what part of Glasgow he should tell the driver to go. The 
 reply informed him that the driver was to take " Mrs. Gra- 
 ham" to the office of Mr. Camp, the lawyer. Assuming "Mrs. 
 Graham" to be a stranger in Glasgow, and remembering tliat 
 Mr. Camp was Mr. Karnegie's lawyer, the inference appeared 
 to be, that "Mrs. Graham's" remarkable question, addressed to 
 the landlady, had related to legal business, and to the discov- 
 ery of a trustworthy person capable of transacting it for her. 
 
 Returning to the bar, Mr. Karnegie found his eldest daugh- 
 ter in charge of the books, the bills, and the waiters. Mrs. 
 Karnegie had retired to her own room, justly indignant with 
 her husband for his infamous conduct in handing "Mrs. Gra- 
 ham " into the cab before her own eyes. " It's the old story, 
 Pa," remarked Miss Karnegie, with the most perfect compos- 
 ure. " Ma told you to do it, of course ; and then Ma says 
 you've insulted her before all the servants. I wonder how 
 you bear it ?" Mr. Karnegie looked at his boots, and answer- 
 ed, "I wonder, too, my dear." Miss Karnegie said, "You're 
 not going to Ma, are you?" Mr. Karnegie looked up from his 
 boots, and answered, " I must, my dear," 
 
 Mr. Camp sat in his private room, absorbed over his papers. 
 Multitudinous as those documents were, they appeared to be 
 not sufficiently numerous to satisfy Mi*. Camp. He rang his 
 bell, and ordered more. 
 
 The clerk appearing with a new pile of papers, appeared 
 also with a message. A lady, recommended by Mrs. Karne- 
 gie, of the Sheep's Head, Avished to consult Mr. Camp profes- 
 sionally. Mr. Camp looked at his watch, counting out pre- 
 cious time before him, in a little stand on the table, and said, 
 " Show the lady in, in ten minutes." 
 
 In ten minutes the lady appeared. She took the client's 
 chair and lifted her veil. The same effect which had been 
 produced on Mr. Karnegie was once more produced on Mr. 
 Camp. For the first time, for many a long year past, he felt 
 personally interested in a total stranger. It might have been 
 something in her eyes, or it might have been something in her 
 manner. Whatever it was it took softly hold of him, and 
 made him, to his own exceeding surprise, unmistakably anx- 
 ious to hear what she had to say I 
 
282 MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 The lady announced— iu a low sweet voice, touched with a 
 quiet sadness — that her business related to a question of mar- 
 riage (as marriage is understood by Scottisii law), and that her 
 own peace of mind, and the happiness of a person very dear to 
 her, were concerned alike in the opinion which Mr. Camp might 
 give when he had been placed in possession of the facts. 
 
 She then proceeded to state the facts, without mentioning 
 names : relating iu every particular precisely the same succes- 
 sion of events which Geoffrey Delamayn had already related 
 to^'Sir Patrick Lundie — with this one difference, that she ac- 
 knowledged herself to be the woman who was personally con- 
 cerned in knowing whether, by Scottish law, she was now held 
 to be a married woman or not. 
 
 Mr. Camp's opinion given upon this, after certain questions 
 had been asked and answered, differed from Sir Patrick's opin- 
 ion, as given at Windygates. He too quoted the language 
 used by the eminent judge — Lord Deas — but he drew an infer- 
 ence of his own from it. " In Scotland, consent makes mar- 
 riage," he said ; " and consent may be proved by inference. I 
 see a plain inference of matrimonial consent in the circum- 
 stances which you have related to me ; and I say you are a 
 married woman." 
 
 The effect produced on the lady, when sentence was pro- 
 nounced on her in those terms, was so distressing that Mi*. 
 Camp sent a message up stairs to his wife ; and Mrs, Camp 
 appeared in her husband's private room, in business hours, for 
 the first time in her life. When Mrs. Camp's services had in 
 some degree restored the lady to herself, Mr. Camp followed 
 with a word of professional comfort. He, like Sir Patrick, ac- 
 knowledged the scandalous divergence of opinions produced by 
 the confusion and uncertainty of the marriage-law of Scotland. 
 He, like Sir Patrick, declared it to be quite possible that an- 
 other lawyer might arrive at another conclusion. " Go," he 
 said, giving her his card, with a line of writing on it, " to my 
 colleague, Mr. Crum, and say I sent you." 
 
 The lady gratefully thanked Mr. Camp and his wife, and 
 went next to the office of Mr. Crum. 
 
 Mr. Crum was the older lawyer of the two, and the harder 
 lawyer of the tW'O ; but he, too, felt the influence which the 
 charm that there was in this woman exercised, more or less, 
 over every man who came in contact with her. He listened 
 with a patience which was rare with him ; he put his questions 
 with a gentleness which was rarer still ; and when he was in 
 possession of the circumstances — behold, his opinion flatly con- 
 tradicted the opinion of Mr. Camp ! 
 
 "No marriage, ma'am," he said, positively. "Evidence in 
 favor of perhaps establishing a marriage, if you propose to 
 
MAN AXD WIFE. 283 
 
 claim the man. But that, as I understand it, is exactly what 
 you don't wish to do." 
 
 The relief to the lady, on hearing this, almost overpowered 
 her. For some minutes she was unable to speak. Mr. Crum 
 did, wliat lie had never done yet in all his experience as a law- 
 yer. He patted a client on the shoulder; and, more extraor- 
 dinary still, he gave a client permission to waste his time. 
 " Wait, and compose yourself," said Mr. Crum — administering 
 the law of humanity. The ladj^ composed herself. " I must 
 ask you some questions, ma'am," said Mr. Crum — administering 
 the law of the land. The lady bowed, and waited for him to 
 begin. 
 
 "I know, thus far, that you decline to claim the gentleman," 
 said Mr. Crum. " I want to know now whether the gentleman 
 is likely to claim youP 
 
 The answer to this was given in the most positive terms. 
 The gentleman was not even aware of the position in which he 
 stood. And, more )^et, he was engaged to be married to the 
 dearest friend whom the lady had in the world. 
 
 Mi*. Crum opened his eyes — considered — and put another 
 question as delicately as he could : 
 
 " Would it be painful to you to tell me how the gentleman 
 came to occupy the awkward position in which he stands 
 now ?" 
 
 The lady acknowledged that it would be indescribably 
 painful to her to answer that question. 
 
 Mr. Crum offered a suggestion under the form of an inquiry; 
 
 " Would it be painful to you to reveal the circumstances — 
 in the interests of the gentleman's future prospects — to some 
 discreet person (a legal person would be best) who is not, 
 what I am, a stranger to you both ?" 
 
 The lady declared herself willing to make any sacrifice on 
 those conditions — no matter how painful it might be — for her 
 friend's sake. 
 
 Mr. Crum considered a little longer, and then delivered his 
 word of advice : 
 
 " At the present stage of the affair," he said, " I need only 
 tell you what is the first step that you ought to take under 
 the circumstances. Inform the gentleman at once — eitlier by 
 word of mouth or by writing — of the position in wliich he 
 stands ; and authorize him to place the case in the hands of 
 a person known to you both, who is competent to decide on 
 what you are to do next. Do I understand that you know of 
 such a person so qualified ?" 
 
 The lady answered that she knew of such a j^erson. 
 
 Mr. Crum asked if a day had been fixed for the gentleman's 
 marriage. 
 
284 MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 The lady answered that she had made this inquiry herself 
 on the last occasion when she had seen the gentleman's be- 
 trothed wife. The marriage was to take place, on a day to be 
 hereafter chosen, at the end of the autumn, 
 
 " That," said Mr. Crura, " is a fortunate circumstance. You 
 have time before you. Time is, here, of very great importance. 
 Be careful not to waste it." 
 
 The lady said she would return to her hotel and write by 
 that night's post, to warn the gentleman of the position in 
 which he stood, and to authorize him to refer the matter to a 
 competent and trustworthy friend known to them both. 
 
 On rising to leave the room she was seized with giddiness, 
 and with some sudden pang of pain, which turned her deadly 
 pale and forced her to drop back into her chair. Mr. Crum 
 had no wife ; but he possessed a housekeeper — and he offered 
 to send for her. The lady made a sign in the negative. She 
 drank a little water, and conquered the pain. " I am sorry to 
 have alarmed you," she said. "It's nothing — I am better 
 now." Mr, Crum gave her his arm, and put her into the cab. 
 She looked so pale and faint that he proposed sending his 
 housekeeper with her. No : it was only five minutes' drive to 
 the hotel. The lady thanked him, and went her way back 
 by herself. 
 
 " The letter !" she said, when she was alone. " If I can only 
 live long enough to write the letter !" 
 
 CHAPTER THE THIRTIETH. 
 
 ANNE IN THE NEWSPAPERS. 
 
 Mrs. Karnegie was a woman of feeble intelligence and vio- 
 lent temper ; prompt to take offense, and not, for the most 
 part, easy to appease. But Mrs. Karnegie being — as we all 
 are in our various degrees — a compound of many opposite 
 qualities, possessed a character with more than one side to it, 
 and had her human merits as well as her human faults. Seeds 
 of sound good feeling were scattered away in the remoter 
 corners of her nature, and only waited for the fertilizing occa- 
 sion that was to help them to spring up. The occasion exert- 
 ed that benign influence when the cab brought Mr. Crum's 
 client back to the hotel. The face of the weary, heart-sick 
 woman, as she slowly crossed the hall, roused all that was 
 heartiest and best in Mrs, Karnegie's nature, and said to her, 
 as if in words, " Jealous of this broken creatui-e ? Oh, wife 
 and mother, is there no appeal to your common womanhood 
 here r 
 
 II 
 
MAN AND WIFE. 285 
 
 " I am afraid you have overtired yourself, ma'am. Let me 
 send you something up stairs ?" 
 
 " Send me pen, ink, and paper," was the answer. " I must 
 write a letter. I must do it at once," 
 
 It was useless to remonstrate with her. She was ready to 
 accept any thing proposed, provided the Avriting materials 
 were supplied first. Mrs. Karnegie sent them up, and then 
 compounded a certain mixture of eggs and hot wine, for which 
 The Sheep's Head was famous, with her own hands. In five 
 minutes or so it was ready ; and Miss Karnegie was dispatch- 
 ed by her mother (who had other business on hand at the time) 
 to take it up stairs. 
 
 After the lapse of a few moments a cry of alarm was heard 
 from the upper landing. Mrs. Karnegie recognized her daugh- 
 ter's voice, and hastened to the bedroom floor. 
 
 " Oh, mamma I Look at her ! look at her !" 
 
 The letter was on the table with the first lines written. The 
 woman was on the sofa with her handkerchief twisted between 
 her set teeth, and her tortured face terrible to look at. Mrs. 
 Karnegie raised her a little, examined her closely — then sud- 
 denly changed color, and sent her daughter out of the room 
 with directions to dispatch a messenger instantly for medical 
 help. 
 
 Left alone with the suflferer, Mrs. Karnegie carried her to 
 her bed. As she was laid down her left hand fell helpless over 
 the side of the bed. Mrs. Karnegie suddenly checked the 
 word of sympathy as it rose to her lips — suddenly lifted the 
 hand, and looked, with a momentary sternness of scrutiny, at 
 the third finger. There was a ring on it. Mrs. Karnegie's 
 face softened on the instant : the word of pity that had been 
 suspended the moment before passed her lips freely now. 
 " Poor soul !" said the respectable landlady, taking appearances 
 for granted. " Where's your husband, dear ? Try and tell 
 me." 
 
 The doctor made his appearance, and went up to the patient. 
 
 Time passed, and Mi\ Karnegie and his daughter, carrying 
 on the business of the hotel, received a message from up stairs 
 which was ominous of something out of the common. The 
 message gave the name and address of an experienced nurse — 
 with the doctor's compliments, and would Mr. Karnegie have 
 the kindness to send for her immediately. 
 
 The nurse was found and sent up stairs. 
 
 Time went on, and the business of the hotel went on, and it 
 was getting to be late in the evening, when Mrs. Karnegie ap- 
 peared at last in the parlor behind the bar. The landhidy's 
 face was grave ; the landlady's manner was subdued. " Very, 
 yery ill," was the only reply she made to her daughter's in^ 
 
286 MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 quiries. When she and her husband were together, a little 
 later, she told the news from up stairs in greater detail. *'A 
 child born dead," said Mrs. Karnegie, in gentler tones than 
 were customary with her. "And the mother dying, poor 
 thing, so far as /can see." 
 
 A little later the doctor came down. Dead? No, — Likely 
 to live? Impossible to say. The doctor returned twice in 
 the course of the night. Both times he had but one answer. 
 " Wait till to-morrow." 
 
 The next day came. She rallied a little. Toward the after- 
 noon she began to speak. Slie expressed no surprise at seeing 
 strangers by her bedside : her mind wandered. She passed 
 again into insensibility. Then back to delirium once more. 
 The doctor said, " This may last for weeks. Or it may end 
 suddenly in death. It's time you did something toward find- 
 ing her friends." 
 
 "(Her friends ! She had left the one friend she had forever !) 
 
 Mr. Camp was summoned to give his advice. The first 
 thing he asked for was the unfinished letter. 
 
 It was blotted, it was illegible in more places than one. 
 With pains and care they made out the address at the begin- 
 ning, and here and there some fragments of the lines that fol- 
 lowed. It began : " Dear Mr. Brinkworth." Then the writing 
 got, little by little, worse and worse. To the eyes of the stran- 
 gers who looked at it, it ran thus : " I should ill requite * * * 
 Blanche's interests * * * For God's sake ! * * * don't think 
 of me * * * — " There was a little more, but not so much as 
 one word, in those last lines, was legible. 
 
 The names mentioned in the letter were reported by the 
 doctor and the nurse to be also the names on her lips when she 
 spoke in her wanderings. " Mr. Brinkworth " and " Blanche " 
 — her mind ran incessantly on those two persons. The one in- 
 telligible thing that she mentioned in connection with them 
 was the letter. She was perpetually trying, trying, trying to 
 take that unfinished letter to the post; and she could never 
 get there. Sometimes the post was across the sea. Some- 
 times it was at the top of an inaccessible mountain. Some- 
 times it was built in by prodigious walls all round it. Some- 
 times a man stopped her cruelly at the moment when she was 
 close at the post, and forced her back thousands of miles away 
 from it. She once or twice mentioned this visionary man by 
 his name. They made it out to be " Geoffrey." 
 
 Finding no clue to her identity either in the letter that she 
 had tried to write or in the wild words that escaped her from 
 time to time, it was decided to search her luggage, and to look 
 at the clothes which she had worn when she arrived at the 
 hotel. 
 
MAN AND WIFE. 2 8 '7 
 
 Her black box sufficiently proclaimed itself as recently pur- 
 chased. On opening it the address of a Glasgow trunk-maker 
 was discovered inside. The linen was also new, and unmark- 
 ed. The receipted shop-bill was found with it. The trades- 
 men, sent for in each case and questioned, referred to their 
 books. It was proved that the box and the linen had both 
 been purchased on the day when she appeared at the hotel. 
 
 Her black bag was opened next. A sum of between eighty 
 and ninety pounds in Bank of England notes ; a few simple 
 articles belonging to the toilet ; materials for needle-work ; 
 and a photographic portrait of a young lady, inscribed, " To 
 Anne, from Blanche," were found in the bag — but no letters, 
 and nothing whatever that could afford the slightest clue by 
 which the owner could be traced. The pocket in her dress 
 was searched next. It contained a purse, an empty card-case, 
 and a new handkerchief unmarked. 
 
 Mr. Camp shook his head. 
 
 "A woman's luggage without any letters in it," he said, 
 " suggests to my mind a woman who has a motive of her own 
 for keeping her movements a secret. I suspect she has de- 
 stroyed her letters, and emptied her card-case, with that view." 
 Mrs. Karnegie's report, after examining the linen which the so- 
 called " Mrs. Graham " had worn when she arrived at the inn, 
 proved the soundness of the lawyer's opinion. In every case 
 the marks had been cut out. Mrs. Karnegie began to doubt 
 whether the ring which she had seen on the third finger of the 
 lady's left hand had been placed there with the sanction of 
 the law. 
 
 There was but one chance left of discovering — or rather of 
 attempting to discover — her friends. Mr. Camp drew out an 
 advertisement to be inserted in the Glasgow newspapers. If 
 those newspapers happened to be seen by any member of her 
 family, she would, in all probability, be claimed. In the con- 
 trary event there would be nothing for it but to wait for her 
 recovery or her death — with the money belonging to her sealed 
 up, and deposited in the landlord's strong-box. 
 
 The advertisement appeared. They waited for three days 
 afterward, and nothing came of it. No change of importance 
 occurred, during the same period, in the condition of the suf- 
 fering woman. Mr. Camp looked in, toward evening, and said, 
 " We have done our best. There is no help for it but to wait." 
 
 Far away in Perthshire that third evening was marked as a 
 joyful occasion at Windygates House. Blanche had consented 
 at last to listen to Arnold's entreaties, and had sanctioned the 
 writing of a letter to London to order her wedding-dress. 
 
288 MAN AND WlFB. 
 
 SIXTH SCENE.— SWANHA VEN LODGE. 
 CHAPTER THE THIRTY-FIRST. 
 
 SEEDS OF THE FUTURE (fIEST SOWINg). 
 
 " Not so large as Windy gates. But — shall we say snug- 
 Jones ?" 
 
 " And comfortable, Smith. I quite agree with you." 
 
 Such was the judgment pronounced by the two choral gen- 
 tlemen on Julius Delamayn's house in Scotland. It M'as, as 
 usual with Smith and Jones, a sound judgment — as far as it 
 went. Swauhaven Lodge was not half the size of Windy- 
 gates ; but it had been inhabited for two centuries when the 
 foundations of Windygates were first laid — and it possessed 
 the advantages, without inheriting the drawbacks, of its age. 
 There is in an old house a friendly adaptation to the human 
 character, as there is in an old hat a friendly adaptation to the 
 human head. The visitor who left Swanhaven quitted it with 
 something like a sense of leaving home. Among the few houses 
 not our own which take a strong hold on our sympathies this 
 was one. The ornamental grounds were far inferior in size and 
 splendor to the grounds at Windygates. But the park was 
 beautiful — less carefully laid out, but also less monotonous than 
 an English park. The lake on the northern boundary of the 
 estate, famous for its breed of swans, was one of the curiosities 
 of the neighborhood ; and the house had a history, associating 
 it with more than one celebrated Scottish name, which had 
 been written and illustrated by Julius Delamayn. Visitors 
 to Swanhaven Lodge were invariably presented with a copy 
 of the volume (privately printed). One in twenty read it. 
 The rest were " charmed," and looked at the pictures. 
 
 The day was the last day of August, and the occasion was 
 the garden-party given by Mr. and Mrs. Delamayn. 
 
 Smith and Jones — following with the other guests at Windy- 
 gates, in Lady Lundie's train — exchanged their opinions on the 
 merits of the house, standing on a terrace at the back, near a 
 flight of steps which led down into the garden. They formed 
 the van-guard of the visitors, appearing by twos and threes 
 from the reception-rooms, and all bent on going to see the 
 swans before the amusements of the day began. Julius Del- 
 amayn came out with the first detachment, recruited Smith 
 and Jones, and other wandering bachelors, by-the-way, and set 
 
MAN AND WIFE. 289 
 
 forth for the lake. An interval of a minute or two passed — 
 and the terrace remained empty. Then two ladies — at the head 
 of a second detachment of visitors — appeared under the old 
 stone porch which sheltered the- entrance on that side of the 
 house. One of the ladies was a modest, pleasant little person, 
 very simply dressed. The other was of the tall and formidable 
 type of " fine women," clad in dazzling array. The first was 
 Mrs. Julius Delamayn. The second was Lady Lundie. 
 
 " Exquisite !" cried her ladyship, surveying the old muU- 
 ioned windows of the house, with their framing of creepers, 
 and the grand stone buttresses projecting at intervals from the 
 wall, each with its bright little circle of flowers blooming round 
 the base. " I am really grieved that Sir Patrick should have 
 missed this." 
 
 " I think you said, Lady Lundie, that Sir Patrick had been 
 called to Edinburgh by family business ?" 
 
 "Business, Mrs. Delamayn, which is any thing but agreeable 
 to me, as one member of the family. It has altered all my ar- 
 rangements for the autumn. My stepdaughter is to be mar- 
 ried next week." 
 
 " Is it so near as that ? May I ask who the gentleman is ?" 
 
 " Mr. Arnold Brinkworth." 
 
 " Surely I have some association with that name ?" 
 
 " You have probably heard of him, Mrs. Delamayn, as the 
 heir to Miss Brinkworth's Scotch property ?" 
 
 " Exactly ! Have you brought Mr. Brinkworth here to-day?" 
 
 " I bring his apologies, as well as Sir Patrick's. They went 
 to Edinburgh together the day before yesterday. The law- 
 yers engage to have the settlements ready in three or four 
 days more, if a personal consultation can be managed. Some 
 formal question, I believe, connected with title-deeds. Sir Pat- 
 rick thought the safest way and the speediest way would be 
 to take Mr. Brinkworth with him to Edinburgh — to get the 
 business over to-day — and to wait until we join them, on our 
 way south, to-morrow." 
 
 " You leave Windygates, in this lovely weather ?" 
 
 "Most unwillingly! The truth is, Mrs. Delamayn, I am at 
 my stepdaughter's mercy. Her uncle has the authority, as 
 her guardian — and the use he makes of it is to give her her 
 own way in every thing. It was only on Friday last that she 
 consented to let the day be fixed — and even then she made it 
 a positive condition that the marriage was not to take place 
 in Scotland. Pure willfulness ! But what can I do? Sir Pat- 
 rick submits; and Mr. Brinkworth submits. If I am to be 
 present at the marriage I must follow their example. I feel 
 it my duty to be present — and, as a matter of course, I sacri- 
 fice myself We start for London to-morrow." 
 19 
 
290 MAN AND WIFE, 
 
 "Is Miss Lundie to be married in Loudon at this time of 
 year '?" 
 
 " No. We only pass through, on our way to Sir Pati'ick'e 
 place in Kent — the place that came to him with the title ; the 
 place associated with the last days of my beloved husband. 
 Another trial for me! The marriage is to be solemnized on 
 the scene of my bereavement. My old wound is to be re- 
 opened on Monday next — simply because my stepdaughter hag 
 taken a dislike to Windygates." 
 
 " This day week, then, is the day of the marriage ?" 
 
 " Yes ; this day week. There have been reasons for hurry- 
 ing it which I need not trouble you with. No words can say 
 how I wish it was over. — But, my dear Mrs. Delamayn, how 
 thoughtless of me to assail you with my family worries ! You 
 are so sympathetic. That is my only excuse. Don't let me 
 keep you from your guests, I could linger in this sweet place 
 forever ! Where is Mrs. Glenarm ?" 
 
 " I really don't know. I missed her when we came out on 
 the terrace. She will very likely join us at the lake. Do you 
 cai'e about seeing the lake, Lady Lundie ?" 
 
 " I adore the beauties of Nature, Mrs. Delamayn — especially 
 lakes !" 
 
 " We have something to show you besides ; we have a breed 
 of swans on the lake, peculiar to the place. My husband has 
 gone on with some of our friends ; and I believe we are ex- 
 pected to follow, as soon as the rest of the party — in charge of 
 my sister — have seen the house." 
 
 " And what a house, Mrs. Delamayn ! Historical associations 
 in every corner of it ! It is such a relief to my mind to take 
 refuge in the past. When I am far away from this sweet 
 place I shall people Swanhaven with its departed inmates, and 
 share the joys and sorrows of centuries since." 
 
 As Lady Lundie announced, in these terms, her intention 
 of adding to the population of the past, the last of the guests 
 who had been roaming over the old house appeared under the 
 porch. Among the members forming this final addition to 
 the garden-party were Blanche, and a friend of her own age 
 whom she had met at Swanhaven. The two girls lagged be- 
 hind the rest, talking confidentially, arm in arm — the subject 
 (it is surely needless to add ?) being the coming marriage. 
 
 " But, dearest Blanche, why are you not to be married at 
 Windygates ?" 
 
 " I detest Windygates, Janet. I have the most miserable 
 associations with the place. Don't ask me what they are ! 
 The effort of my life is not to think of them now. I long to 
 see the last of Windygates. As for being married there, I 
 have made it a condition that I am not to be married in Scot- 
 land at all." 
 
MAN AND WIFE. 291 
 
 " What has poor Scotland done to forfeit your good opinion, 
 my dear ?" 
 
 " Poor Scotland, Janet, is a place where people don't know 
 whether they are married or not. I have heard all about it 
 from my uncle. And I know somebody who has been a vic- 
 tim — an innocent victim — to a Scotch marriage." 
 
 "Absurd, Blanche ! You are thinking of runaway matches 
 and making Scotland responsible for the difficulties of people 
 who daren't own the truth !" 
 
 " I am not at all absurd. I am thinking of the dearest 
 friend I have. If you only knew — " 
 
 " My dear ! I am Scotch, remember ! You can be married 
 just as well — I really must insist on that — in Scotland as iu 
 England." 
 
 " I hate Scotland !" 
 
 " Blanche !" 
 
 " I never was so unhappy in my life as I have been in Scot- 
 land. I never want to see it again. I am determined to be 
 married in England — from the dear old house where I used to 
 live when I was a little girl. My uncle is quite willing. He 
 understands me and feels for me." 
 
 " Is that as much as to say that i" don't understand you and 
 feel for you '? Perhaps I had better relieve you of my com- 
 pany, Blanche ?" 
 
 " If you are going to speak to me in that way, perhaps you 
 had !" 
 
 "Am I to hear my native country run down and not say a 
 word in defense of it ?" 
 
 " Oh ! you Scotch people make such a fuss about your na- 
 tive country !" 
 
 " We Scotch people ! you are of Scotch extraction yourself, 
 and you ought to be ashamed to talk in that way. I wish you 
 good-morning !" 
 
 " I wish you a better temper !" 
 
 A minute since the two young ladies had been like twin 
 roses on one stalk. Now they parted with red cheeks and 
 hostile sentiments and cutting words. How ardent is the 
 warmth of youth ! how unspeakably delicate the fragility of 
 female friendship ! 
 
 The flock of visitors followed Mrs. Delamayn to the shores 
 of the lake. For a few minutes after the terrace was left a 
 solitude. Then there appeared under the porch a single gen- 
 tleman, lounging out with a flower in his mouth and his hands 
 in his pockets. This was the strongest man at Swanhaven — 
 otherwise, Geoffrey Delamayn. 
 
 After a moment a lady appeared behind him, walking soft- 
 ly, 80 as not to be heard. She was superbly dressed after the 
 
292 MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 newest and the most costly Parisian design. The brooch on 
 her bosom was a single diamond of resplendent water and 
 great size. The fan in her hand was a masterpiece of the finest 
 Indian workmanship. She looked what she was, a person pos- 
 sessed of plenty of superfluous money, but not additionally 
 blessed with plenty of superfluous intelligence to correspond. 
 This was the childless young widow of the great iron-master — 
 otherwise, Mrs. Glenai'm. 
 
 The rich woman tapped the strong man coquettishly on the 
 shoulder with her fan. "Ah ! you bad boy !" she said, with a 
 slightly-labored archness of look and manner. " Have I found 
 you at last !" 
 
 Geoflfrey sauntered on to the terrace — keeping the lady be- 
 hind him with a thoroughly savage superiority to all civilized 
 submission to the sex — and looked at his watch. 
 
 " I said I'd come here when I'd got half an hour to myself," 
 )ie mumbled, turning the flower carelessly between his teeth. 
 ■*' I've got half an hour, and here I am." 
 
 " Did you come for the sake of seeing the visitors, or did 
 you come for the sake of seeing Me ?" 
 
 Geofirey smiled graciously, and gave the flower another 
 turn in his teeth. " You, of course." 
 
 The iron-master's widow took his arm, and looked up at him 
 — as only a young woman would have dared to look up — with 
 the searching summer light streaming in its full brilliancy on 
 her face. 
 
 Reduced to the plain expression of what it is really worth, 
 the average English idea of beauty in women may be summed 
 up in three words — youth, health, plumpness. The more spirit- 
 ual charm of intelligence and vivacity, the subtler attraction 
 of delicacy of line and fitness of detail, are little looked for 
 and seldom appreciated by the mass of men in this island. It 
 is impossible otherwise to account for the extraordinary blind- 
 ness of perception which (to give one instance only) makes 
 nine Englishmen out of ten who visit France come back de- 
 claring that they have not seen a single pretty Frenchwoman, 
 in or out of Paris, in the whole country. Our popular type of 
 beauty proclaims itself, in its fullest material development, at 
 every shop in which an illustrated periodical is sold. The 
 sajne fleshy-faced girl, with the same inane smile, and with no 
 other expression whatever, appears under every form of illus- 
 tration, week after week, and month after month, all the year 
 round. Those who wish to know what Mrs. Glenarm was like, 
 have only to go out and stop at any bookseller's or news-ven- 
 der's shop, and there they will see her in the first illustration, 
 with a young woman in it, which they discover in the window. 
 The one noticeable peculiarity in Mrs. Glenarm's purely com- 
 
MAN AND WIFE. 293 
 
 monplace and purely material beauty, which would have struck 
 an observant and a cultivated man, was the curious girlishness 
 of her look and manner. No stranger speaking to this woman 
 — who had been a wife at twenty, and who was now a widow 
 at twenty-four — would ever have thought of addressing her 
 otherwise than as "Miss." 
 
 " Is that the use you make of a flower when I give it to 
 you ?" she said to GeoS'rey. " Mumbling it in your teeth, you 
 wretch, as if you were a horse !" 
 
 " If you come to that," returned Geoffrey, " I'm more a horse 
 than a man. I'm going to run in a race, and the public are 
 betting on me. Haw ! haw ! Five to four." 
 
 " Five to four ! I believe he thinks of nothing but betting. 
 You great heavy creature, I can't move you. Don't you see I 
 want to go like the rest of them to the lake? No; you're not 
 to let go of my arm ! You're to take me." 
 
 " Can't do it. Must be back with Perry in half an hour." 
 
 (Perry was the trainer from London. He had arrived sooner 
 than he had been expected, and had entered on his functions 
 three days since.) 
 
 " Don't talk to me about Perry ! A little vulgar wretch. 
 Put him off. You won't? Do you mean to say you are such 
 a brute that you would rather be with Perry than be with me ?" 
 
 " The betting's at five to four, my dear. And the race comes 
 off in a month from this." 
 
 " Oh ! go away to your beloved Perry ! I hate you. I hope 
 you'll lose the race. Stop in your cottage. Pray don't come 
 back to the house. And — mind this ! — don't presume to say 
 'my dear' to me again." 
 
 " It ain't presuming half far enough, is it ? Wait a bit. Give 
 me till the race is run — and then I'll presume to marry you." 
 
 " You ! You will be as old as Methuselah, if you wait till I 
 am your wife. I dare say Perry has got a sister. Suppose you 
 ask him? She would be just the right person for you." 
 
 Geoffrey gave the flower another turn in his teeth, and look- 
 ed as if he thought the idea worth considering. 
 
 "All right," he said. "Any thing to be agreeable to you. 
 I'll ask Perry." 
 
 He turned away, as if he was going to do it at once. Mrs. 
 Glenarm put out a little hand, ravishingly clothed in a blush- 
 colored-glove, and laid it on the athlete's mighty arm. She 
 pinched those iron muscles (the pride and glory of England) 
 gently. " What a man you are !" she said. " I never met with 
 any body like you before !" 
 
 The whole secret of the power that Geoffrey had acquired 
 over her was in those words. 
 
 They had been together at Swanhaven for little more than 
 
294 MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 ten days ; and in that time he had made the conquest of Mrs. 
 Glenaim. On the day before the garden-party — in one of the 
 leisure intervals allowed him by Perry — he had caught her 
 alone, had taken her by the arm, and had asked her in so many 
 words, if she would marry him. Instances on record of wom- 
 en who have been wooed and won in ten days are — to speak it 
 with all possible respect — not wanting. But an instance of a 
 woman willing to have it known still remains to be discover- 
 ed. The iron-master's widow exacted a promise of secrecy 
 before she committed herself When Geoffrey had pledged his 
 word to hold his tongue in public until she gave him leave to 
 speak, Mrs. Glenarra, without further hesitation, said Yes — hav- 
 ing, be it observed, said No, in the course of the last two years, 
 to at least half a dozen men who were Geoffrey's superiors in 
 every conceivable respect, except personal comeliness and per- 
 sonal strength. 
 
 There is a reason for every thing ; and there was a reason 
 for this. 
 
 However persistently the epicene theorists of modern times 
 may deny it, it is nevertheless a truth plainly visible in the 
 whole past history of the sexes that the natural condition of a 
 woman is to find her master in a man. Look in the face of any 
 woman who is in no direct way dependent on a man ; and, as 
 certainly as you see the sun in a cloudless sky, you see a wom- 
 an who is not happy. The want of a master is their great un- 
 known want; the possession of a master is — unconsciously to 
 themselves — the only possible completion of their lives. In 
 ninety-nine cases out of a hundred this one primitive instinct is 
 at the bottom of the otherwise inexplicable sacrifice, when we 
 see a woman, of her own free-will, throw herself away on a man 
 who is unworthy of her. This one primitive instinct was at 
 the bottom of the otherwise inexplicable facility of self-surren- 
 der exhibited by Mrs. Glenarm. 
 
 Up to the time of her meeting with Geoffrey, the young wid- 
 ow had gathered but one experience in her intercourse with 
 the world — the experience of a chartered tyrant. In the brief 
 six months of her married life with the man whose granddaugh- 
 ter she might have been — and ought to have been — she had 
 only to lift her finger to be obeyed. The doting old husband 
 was the willing slave of the petulant young wife's slightest ca- 
 price. At a later period, when society offered its triple wel- 
 come to her birth, her beauty, and her wealth — go where she 
 might, she found herself the object of the same prostrate admi- 
 ration among the suitors who vied with each other in the rival- 
 ry for her hand. For the first time in her life she encountered 
 a man with a will of his own when she met Geoffrey Delamayn 
 at Swanhaven Lodge. 
 
MAN AND WIPE. 296 
 
 Geoffi'ey's occupation of the moment especially favored the 
 conflict between the woman's assertion of her influence and 
 the man's assertion of his will. 
 
 During the days that had intervened between his return to 
 his brother's house and the arrival of the trainer, Geofi*rey bad 
 submitted himself to all needful preliminaries of the physical 
 discipline which was to prepare him for the race. He knew, 
 by previous experience, what exercise he ought to take, what 
 hours he ought to keep, what temptations at the table he was 
 bound to resist. Over and over again Mrs. Glenai'm tried to 
 lure him into committing infractions of his own discipline — 
 and over and over again the influence with men which had 
 never failed her before failed her now. Nothing she could say, 
 nothing she could do, would move this man. Perry arrived ; 
 and Geofi'rey's defiance of every attempted exercise of the 
 charming feminine tyranny, to which every one else had bow- 
 ed, gi'ew more outrageous and more immovable than ever. 
 Mrs. Glenarm became as jealous of Perry as if Perry had been 
 a woman. She flew into passions ; she burst into tears ; she 
 flirted with other men ; she threatened to leave the house. 
 All quite useless ; Geofi'rey never once missed an appointment 
 with Perry ; never once touched any thing to eat or drink that 
 she could ofier him, if Perry had forbidden it. No other hu- 
 man pursuit is so hostile to the influence of the sex as the pur- 
 suit of athletic sports. No men are so entirely beyond the 
 reach of women as the men whose lives are passed in the culti- 
 vation of their own physical strength. Geofi'rey resisted Mrs. 
 Glenarm without the slightest eftbrt. He casually extorted 
 her admiration, and undesignedly forced her respect. She 
 clung to him, as a hero ; she recoiled from him, as a brute ; she 
 struggled with him, submitted to him, despised him, adored 
 him, in a breath. And the clue to it all, confused and contra- 
 dictory as it seemed, lay in one simple fact — Mrs. Glenarm had 
 found her master. 
 
 " Take me to the lake, Geofi'rey !" she said, with a little 
 pleading pressure of the blush-colored hand. 
 
 Geofi'rey looked at his watch. " Perry expects me in twenty 
 minutes," he said. 
 
 " Perry again !" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 Mrs. Glenarm raised her fan, in a sudden outburst of tury, 
 and broke it with one smart blow on Geofi'rey's face. 
 
 " There !" she cried, with a stamp of her foot. " My poor 
 fan broken ! You monster, all through you !" 
 
 Geoffrey coolly took the broken fan and put it in his pocket. 
 " I'll write to London," lie said, " and get you another. Come 
 along ! Kiss, and make it up." 
 
296 MAX AND WIFK. 
 
 He looked over each shoulder to make sure that they \vere 
 alone ; then lifted her off the ground (she was no light weight), 
 held her up in the air like a baby, and gave her a rough loud- 
 sounding kiss on each cheek, " With kind compliments from 
 yours truly I" he said — and burst out laughing, and put her 
 down again. 
 
 " How dai'e you do that ?" cried Mrs. Glenarm. " I shall 
 claim Mrs. Delamayn's protection if I am to be insulted in this 
 way! I will never forgive you, sir!" As she said those in- 
 dignant words she shot a look at him which flatly contradicted 
 them. The next moment she was leaning on his arm, and was 
 looking at him wonderingly, for the thousandth time, as an 
 entire novelty in her experience of male humankind. " How 
 rough you are, Geoffrey !" she said, softly. He smiled in recog- 
 nition of that artless homage to the manly virtue of his char- 
 acter. She saw the smile, and instantly made another effort 
 to dispute the hateful supremacy of Perry. " Put him off !" 
 whispered the daughter of Eve, determined to lure Adam into 
 taking a bite of the apple. " Come, Geoffrey, dear, never mind 
 Perry, this once. Take me to the lake !" 
 
 Geoffrey looked at his watch. " Perry expects me in a 
 quarter of an hour," he said. 
 
 Mrs. Glenarm's indignation assumed a new form. She burst 
 out crying. Geoffrey surveyed her for a moment with a bi-oad 
 stare of surprise — and then took her by both arms, and shook 
 her. 
 
 " Look here !" he said, impatiently. " Can you coach me 
 through my training ?" 
 
 " I would if I could !" 
 
 " That's nothing to do with it ! Can yoa turn me out, fit, 
 on the day of the race ? Yes ? or No ?" 
 
 " No." 
 
 " Then dry your eyes, and let Perry do it." 
 
 Mrs. Glenarm dried her eyes, and made another effort. 
 
 " Pm not fit to be seen," she said. " Pm so agitated, I don't 
 know what to do. Come indoors, Geoffrey — and have a cup 
 of tea." 
 
 Geoffrey shook his head. " Perry forbids tea," he said, " in 
 the middle of the day." 
 
 " You brute !" cried Mrs. Glenarm. 
 
 " Do you want me to lose the race ?" retorted Geoffrey. 
 
 " Yes !" 
 
 With that answer she left him at last, and ran back into the 
 liouse. 
 
 Geoffrey took a turn on the terrace — considered a little — 
 stopped — and looked at the porch under which the irate widow 
 had disappeared from his view. " Ten thousand a yeai-," he 
 
MAN AND WIFE. 299 
 
 said, thinking of the matrimonial prospect which he was pla- 
 cing in peril. " And devilish well earned," he added, going 
 into the house, under protest, to appease Mrs. Glenarm. 
 
 The olFended lady was on a sofa, in the solitary drawing- 
 room. Geoffrey sat down by her. She declined to look at 
 him. " Don't be a foel !" said Geoffrey, in his most persuasive 
 manner. Mrs. Glenarm put her handkerchief to her eyes. 
 Geoffrey took it away again without ceremony. Mrs. Glenarm 
 rose to leave the room. Geoffrey stopped her by main force. 
 Mrs. Glenarm threatened to summon the servants. Geoffrey 
 said, "All right ! I don't care if the whole house knows I'm 
 fond of you !" Mrs. Glenarm looked at the door, and whispered, 
 " Hush ! for Heaven's sake !" Geoffrey put her arm in his, and 
 said, " Come along with me : I've got something to say to 
 you." Mrs. Glenarm drew back, and shook her head. Geof- 
 frey put his arm around her waist, and walked her out of the 
 room, and out of the house — taking the direction, not of the 
 terrace, but of a fir plantation on the opposite side of the 
 grounds. Arrived among the trees, he stopped and held up a 
 warning forefinger before the offended lady's face. " You're 
 just the sort of woman I like," he said ; " and there ain't a man 
 living w^ho's half as sweet on you as I am. You leave off 
 bullying me about Perry, and I'll tell you what I'll do — I'll let 
 you see me take a Sprint." 
 
 He drew back a step, and fixed his big blue eyes on her, 
 with a look which said, " You are a highly-favored woman, if 
 ever there was one yet !" Curiosity instantly took the leading 
 place among the emotions of Mrs. Glenarm. " What's a Sprint, 
 Geoffrey ?" she asked. 
 
 "A short run, to try me at the top of my speed. There ain't 
 another living soul in all England that I'd let see it but you. 
 N^oio am I a brute ?" 
 
 Mrs. Glenarm was conquered again, for the hundredth time 
 at least. She said, softly, " Oh, Geoffrey, if you could only be 
 always like this !" Her eyes lifted themselves admiringly to 
 his. She took his arm of her own accord, and pressed it with 
 a loving clasp. Geoffrey prophetically felt the ten thousand a 
 year in his pocket. " Do you really love me ?" whispered Mrs. 
 Glenarm. " Don't I !" answered the hero. The peace was 
 made, and the two walked on again. 
 
 They passed through the plantation, and came out on some 
 open ground, rising and falling prettily, in little hillocks and 
 hollows. The last of the hillocks sloped down into a smooth 
 level plain, with a fringe of sheltering trees on its farther side 
 — with a snug little stone cottage among the trees — and with 
 a smart little man, walking up and down before the cottage, 
 holding his hands behind him. The level plain was the hero's 
 
300 MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 exercising ground ; the cottage was the hero's retreat ; and the 
 smart little man was the hero's trainer. 
 
 If Mrs. Glenarm hated Perry, Perry (judging by appearances) 
 was in no danger of loving Mrs. Glenarm. As Geoffrey ap- 
 proached with his companion, the trainer came to a stand-still, 
 and stared silently at the lady. The lady, on her side, declined 
 to observe that any such person as the trainer was then in ex- 
 istence, and present in bodily form on the scene. 
 
 " How about time ?" said Geoffrey. 
 
 Perry consulted an elaborate watch, constructed to mark time 
 to the fifth of a second, and answered Geoffrey, with his eye all 
 the while on Mrs. Glenarm. 
 
 " You've got five minutes to spare." 
 
 " Show me where you run ; Pm dying to see it !" said the ea- 
 ger widow, taking possession of Geoffrey's arm with both hands. 
 
 Geoffrey led her back to a place (marked by a sapling with 
 a little flag attached to it) at some short distance from the 
 cottage. She glided along by his side, wath subtle undulations 
 ot movement which appeared to complete the exasperation of 
 Perry. He waited until she was out of hearing — and then he 
 invoked (let us say) the blasts of heaven on the fashionably- 
 dressed head of Mrs. Glenarm. 
 
 " You take your place there," said Geoffrey, posting her by 
 the sapling. " When I pass you — " He stopped, and surveyed 
 her with a good-humored, masculine pity. " How the devil am 
 I to make you understand it ?" he went on. " Look here ! when 
 I pass you it will be at w^hat you would call (if I was a horse) 
 full gallop. Hold your tongue — I haven't done yet. You're 
 to look on after me as I leave you, to where the edge of the 
 cottage wall cuts the trees. When you have lost sight of me 
 behind the wall, you'll have seen me run my three hundred 
 yards from this flag. You're in luck's way ! Perry tries me at 
 the long Sprint to-day. You understand you're to stop here? 
 Very M^ell then — let me go and get my toggery on." 
 
 " Sha'n't I see you again, Geoffrey ?" 
 
 " Haven't I just told you that you'll see me run ?" 
 
 " Yes— but after that ?" 
 
 " After that, Pm sponged and rubbed down — and rest in the 
 cottage." 
 
 " You'll come to us this evening?" 
 
 He nodded and left her. The face of Perry looked unutter- 
 able things when he and Geoffrey met at the door of the cottage. 
 
 " Pve got a question to ask you, Mr. Delamayn," said the 
 trainer. " Do you want me ? or don't you ?" 
 
 " Of course I want you." 
 
 " What did I say when I first come here ?" proceeded Perry. 
 sternly. " I said ' I won't have nobody a-looking on at a man 
 
MAN AND WIFE. 301 
 
 I'm training. These here ladies and gentlemen may all have 
 made up their minds to see you, I've made up my mind not 
 to have no lookers-on. I won't have you timed at your work 
 by nobody but me. I won't have every blessed yard of ground 
 you cover put in the uoospapers. I won't have a living soul in 
 the secret of what you can do, and what you can't, except our 
 two selves.' — Did I say that, Mr. Delmayn? or didn't I?" 
 
 "All right!" 
 
 "Did I say it? or didn't I ?" 
 
 " Of course you did !" 
 
 " Then don't you bring no more women here. It's clean 
 against rules. And I won't have it." 
 
 Any other living creature adopting this tone of remonstrance 
 would probably have had reason to repent it. But Geoffrey 
 himself was afraid to show his temper in the presence of Perry. 
 In view of the coming race, the first and foremost of British 
 trainers was not to be trifled with, even by the first and fore- 
 most of British athletes. 
 
 " She won't come again," said Geoffrey. " She's going away 
 from Swanhaven in two days' time." 
 
 " I've put every shilling I'm worth in the world on you," 
 pursued Perry, relapsing into tenderness. "And 1 tell you I 
 felt it ! It cut me to the heart v>'hen I see you coming along 
 with a woman at your heels. It's a fraud on his backers, I 
 says to myself — that's what it is, a fraud on his backers !" 
 
 "Shut up !" said Geoffrey. "And come and lielp me to win 
 your money." He kicked open the door of the cottage — and 
 athlete and trainer disappeared from view. 
 
 After waiting a few minutes by the little flag, Mrs, Glenarm 
 saw the two men approaching her from the cottage. Dressed 
 in a close-fitting costume, light and elastic, adapting itself to ev- 
 ery movement, and made to answer every purpose required by 
 the exercise in which he v/as about to engage, Geoffrey s phys- 
 ical advantages showed themselves in their best and bravest 
 aspect. His head sat proud and easy on his firm, white throat, 
 bared to the air. The rising of his mighty chest, as he drew 
 in deep draughts of the fragrant summer breeze; the play of 
 his lithe and supple loins ; the easy, elastic stride of his straight 
 and shapely legs, presented a triumph of physical manhood in 
 its highest type, Mrs, Glenarm's eyes devoured him in silent 
 admiration. He looked like a young god of mythology — like 
 a statue animated with color and life. " Oh, Geoffrey !" she 
 exclaimed, softly, as he went by. He neither answered nor 
 looked : he had other business on hand than listening to soft 
 nonsense. He was gathering himself up for the efibrt ; his lips 
 were set ; his fists were lightly clenched. Perry posted him- 
 self at his place, grim and silent, with the watch in his hand. 
 
302 MAN AND WIPE, 
 
 Geoffrey walked on beyond the flag, so as to give himself start 
 enough to reach his full speed as he passed it. " Now then I" 
 said Perry. In an instant more lie flew by (to Mrs. Glenarm's 
 excited imagination) like an arrow from a bow. His action 
 was perfect. His speed, at its utmost rate of exertion, pre- 
 served its rare underlying elements of strength and steadiness. 
 Less and less and less he grew to the eyes that followed his 
 course ; still lightly flying over the ground, still firmly keeping 
 the straight line. A moment more, and the runner vanished 
 behind the wall of the cottage, and the stop-watch of the train- 
 er returned to its place in his pocket. 
 
 In her eagerness to know the result, Mrs. Glenarm forgot her 
 jealousy of Perry. 
 
 "How long has he been ?" she asked. 
 
 " There's a good many besides you would be glad to know 
 that," said Perry. 
 
 " Mr. Delamayn will tell me, you rude man !" 
 
 "That depends, ma'am, on whether Ztell him.'''' 
 
 With this reply. Perry hurried back to the cottage. 
 
 Not a word passed while the trainer was attending to his 
 man, and while the man was recovering his breath. When 
 Geoffrey had been carefully rubbed down, and clothed again 
 in his ordinary garments, Perry pulled a comfortable easy-chair 
 out of a corner. Geoffrey fell into the chair, rather than sat 
 down in it. Perry started, and looked at him attentively. 
 
 "Well?" said Geoffrey. "How about the time? Long? 
 short ? or middling ?" 
 
 " Very good time," said Perry. 
 
 *' How long ?" 
 
 " When did you say the lady was going, Mr. Delamayn ?" 
 
 " In two days." 
 
 "Very well, sir. I'll tell you 'how long' when the lady's 
 gone." 
 
 GeoftVey made no attempt to insist on an immediate reply. 
 He smiled faintly. After an interval of less than ten minutes 
 he stretched out his legs and closed his eyes. 
 
 " Going to sleep ?" said Perry. 
 
 Geoffrey opened his eyes with an effort. "No," he said. 
 The word had hardly passed his lips before his eyes closed 
 again. 
 
 " Halloo !" said Perry, watching him. " I don't like that." 
 
 He went closer to the chair. There was no doubt about it. 
 The man was asleep. 
 
 Perry emitted a long whistle under his breath. He stooped 
 and laid two of his fingers softly on Geoffrey's pulse. The 
 beat was slow, heavy, and labored. It was unmistakably the 
 pulse of an exhausted man. 
 
MAN AND WIFE. 803 
 
 The trainer changed color, and took a turn in the room. 
 He opened a cupboard, and produced from it his diary of the 
 preceding year. The entries relating to the last occasion on 
 which he had prepared Geoifrey for a foot-race included the 
 fullest details. He turned to the report of the first trial, at 
 three hundred yards, full speed. The time was, by one or two 
 seconds, not so good as the time on this occasion. But the 
 result, afterward, was utterly different. There it was, in Per- 
 ry's own words: "Pulse good. Man in high spirits. Ready, 
 if I would have let him, to run it over again." 
 
 Perry looked round at the same man, a year afterward — ut- 
 terly worn out, and fast asleep in the chair. 
 
 He fetched pen, ink, and paper out of the cupboard, and 
 wrote two letters — both marked " Private." The first was to 
 a medical man, a great authority among trainers. The second 
 was to Pei-ry's own agent in London, whom he knew he could 
 trust. The letter pledged the agent to the strictest secrecy, 
 and directed him to back Geoffrey's opponent in the Foot-race 
 for a sum equal to the sum which Perry had betted on Geof- 
 frey himself. "If you have got any money of your own on 
 him," the letter concluded, " do as I do. ' Hedge ' — and hold 
 your tongue." 
 
 "Another of 'em gone stale !" said the trainer, looking round 
 again at the sleeping man. " He'll lose the race." 
 
 CHAPTER THE THHITY-SECOND. 
 
 SEEDS OF THE FUTURE (sECOND SOWING). 
 
 And what did the visitors say of the Swans ? 
 
 They said, " Oh, what a number of them !" — which was all 
 that was to be said by persons ignorant of the natural history 
 of aquatic birds. 
 
 And what did the visitors say of the lake ? 
 
 Some of them said, " How solemn !" Some of them said, 
 " How romantic !" Some of them said nothing — but privately 
 thought it a dismal scene. 
 
 Here again the popular sentiment struck the right note at 
 starting. The lake was hidden in the centre of a fir-wood. 
 Except in the middle, where the sunlight reached them, the 
 waters lay black under the sombre shadow of the trees. The 
 one break in the plantation was at the farther end of the lake. 
 The one sign of movement and life to be seen was the ghostly 
 gliding of the swans on the dead-still surface of the water. It 
 was solemn — as they said ; it was romantic — as they said. It 
 
804 MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 was dismal — as they thought. Pages of description could ex- 
 press no more. Let pages of description be absent, therefore, 
 in this place. 
 
 Having satiated itself with the swans, having exhausted the 
 lake, the general curiosity reverted to the break in the trees at 
 the farther end — remarked a startlingly artificial object, intrud- 
 ing itself on the scene, in the shape of a large red curtain, which 
 hung between two of the tallest firs, and closed the prospect be- 
 yond from view — requested an explanation of tlie curtain from 
 Julius Delamayn — and received for answer that the mystery 
 should be revealed on the arrival of his wife with the tardy 
 remainder of the guests who had loitered about the house. 
 
 On the appearance of Mrs. Delamayn and the stragglers, the 
 united party coasted the shore of the lake, and stood assembled 
 in front of the curtain. Pointing to the silken cords, hanging 
 at either side of it, Julius Delamayn picked out two little girls 
 (children of his wife's sister), and sent them to the cords, with 
 instructions to pull, and see what happened. The nieces of 
 Julius pulled with the eager hands of children in the presence 
 of a mystery — the curtains parted in the middle, and a cry of 
 universal astonishment and delight saluted the scene revealed 
 to view. 
 
 At the end of a broad avenue of firs a cool green glade 
 spread its grassy carpet in the midst of the surrounding plan- 
 tation. The ground at the farther end of the glade rose; and 
 here, on the lower slopes, a bright little spring of water bub- 
 bled out between gray old granite rocks. Along the right- 
 hand edge of the turf ran a row of tables, arrayed in spotless 
 white, and covered with refreshments waiting for the guests. 
 On the opposite side was a band of music, which burst into 
 harmony at the moment when the curtains were drawn. 
 Looking back through the avenue, the eye caught a distant 
 glimpse of the lake, where the sunlight played on the water, 
 and the plumage of the gliding swans flashed softly in brilliant 
 white. Such was the chai-ming surprise which Julius Dela- 
 mayn had arranged for his friends. It was only at moments 
 like these — or when he and his wife were playing Sonatas in 
 the modest little music-room at Swanhaven — that Lord Hol- 
 chester's eldest son was really happy. He secretly groaned 
 over the duties which his position as a landed gentleman im- 
 posed upon him; and he suffered under some of the highest 
 privileges of his rank and station as under social martyrdom 
 in its crudest form. 
 
 " We'll dine first," said Julius, " and dance afterward. There 
 is the programme !" 
 
 He led the way to the tables, with the two ladies nearest to 
 him — utterly careless whether they were or were not among 
 
MAN AND WIPE. 805 
 
 the ladies of the highest rank theu present. To Lady Lundie's 
 astonishment he took the first seat he came to, without appear- 
 ing to care what place he occupied at his own feast. The 
 guests, following his example, sat where they pleased, reckless 
 of precedents and dignities. Mrs. Delaraayn, feeling a special 
 interest in a young lady who was shortly to be a bride, took 
 Blanche's arm. Lady Lundie attached herself resolutely to 
 her hostess on the other side. The three sat together. Mrs. 
 Delamayn did her best to encourage Blanche to talk, and 
 Blanche did her best to meet the advances made to her. The 
 experiment succeeded but poorly on either side. Mrs. Dela- 
 raayn gave it up in despair, and turned to Lady Lundie, with 
 a strong suspicion that some unpleasant subject of reflection 
 was preying privately on the bride's mind. The conclusion 
 was soundly drawn. Blanche's little outbreak of temper with 
 her friend on the terrace, and Blanche's present deficiency of 
 gayety and spirit, were attributable to the same cause. She 
 hid it from her uncle, she hid it from Arnold — but she was as 
 anxious as ever, and as wretched as ever, about Anne; and she 
 was still on the watch (no matter what Sir Patrick might say 
 or do) to seize the first opportunity of renewing the search for 
 her lost friend. 
 
 Meanwhile the eating, the drinking, and the talking went 
 merrily on. The band played its liveliest melodies ; the serv- 
 ants kept the glasses constantly filled : round all the tables 
 gayety and freedom reigned supreme. The one conversation 
 in progress, in which the talkers were not in social harmony 
 with each other, was the conversation at Blanche's side, be- 
 tween her stepmother and Mrs. Delamayn. 
 
 Among Lady Lundie's other accomplishments the power of 
 making disagreeable discoveries ranked high. At the dinner 
 in the glade she had not failed to notice — what every body 
 else had passed over — the absence at the festival of the host- 
 ess's brother-in-law ; and more remarkable still, the disappear- 
 ance of a lady who was actually one of the guests staying in 
 the house: in plainer words, the disappearance of Mrs. Glen- 
 arm. 
 
 "Am I mistaken?" said her ladyship, lifting her eyeglass, 
 and looking round the tables. " Surely there is a member of 
 our party missing ? I don't see Mr. Geoff'rey Delamayn." 
 
 " Geoffrey promised to be here. But he is not particularly 
 attentive, as you may have noticed, to keeping engagements 
 of this sort. Every thing is sacrificed to his training. We 
 only see him at rare intervals now." 
 
 With that reply Mrs. Delamayn attempted to change the 
 subject. Lady Lundie lifted her eyeglass, and looked round 
 the tables for the second time. 
 20 
 
306 MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 "Pardon me," persisted her ladyship — "but is it possible 
 that I have discovered another absentee '? I don't see Mrs. 
 Glenarm. Yet surely she must be here ! Mrs. Glenarm is not 
 training for a foot-race. Do you see her ? I don't." 
 
 "I missed her when we went out on the terrace, and I have 
 not seen her since." 
 
 " Isn't it very odd, dear Mrs. Delamayn ?" 
 
 "Our guests at Swanhaven, Lady Lundie, have perfect liber- 
 ty to do as they please." 
 
 In those words Mrs. Delamayn (as she fondly imagined) dis- 
 missed the subject. But Lady Lundie's robust curiosity proved 
 unassailable by even the broadest hint. Carried away, in all 
 probability, by the infection of merriment about her, her lady- 
 ship displayed unexpected reserves of vivacity. The mind de- 
 clines to realize it ; but it is not the less true that this majes- 
 tic woman actually simpered ! 
 
 " Shall we put two and two together ?" said Lady Lundie, 
 with a ponderous playfulness wonderful to see. " Here, on 
 the one hand, is Mr. Geoffrey Delamayn — a young single man. 
 And hei'e, on the other, is Mrs. Glenarm — a young widow. 
 Rank on the side of the young single man ; riches on the side 
 of the young widow. And both mysteriously absent at the 
 same time, from the same pleasant party. Ha, Mrs. Delamayn ! 
 should I guess wrong if I guessed that you will have a mar- 
 riage in the family, too, before long ?" 
 
 Mrs. Delamayn looked a little annoyed. She had entered, 
 with all he heart, into the conspiracy for making a match be- 
 tween Geoffrey and Mrs. Glenarm. But she was not prepared 
 to own that the lady's facility had (in spite of all attempts to 
 conceal it from discovery) made the conspiracy obviously suc- 
 cessful in ten days' time. 
 
 " I am not in the secrets of the lady and gentleman whom 
 you mention," she replied, dryly. 
 
 A heavy body is slow to acquire movement — and slow to 
 abandon movement, when once acquired. The playfulness of 
 Lady Lundie, being essentially heavy, followed the same rule. 
 She still persisted in being as lively as ever. 
 
 "Oh, what a diplomatic answer !" exclaimed her ladyship. 
 "I think I can interpret it, though, for all that. A little bird 
 tells me that I shall see a Mrs. Geoffrey Delamayn in London 
 next season. And I, for one, shall not be surprised to find my- 
 self congratulating Mrs. Glenarm." 
 
 "If you persist in letting your imagination run away with 
 you. Lady Lundie, I can't possibly help it. I can only request 
 permission to keep the bridle on wime." 
 
 This time even Lady Lundie understood that it would be 
 wise to say no more. She smiled and nodded, in high private 
 
MAN ANT) WIFB. 807 
 
 approval of her own extraordinary cleverness. If she had 
 been asked at that moment who was the most brilliant En- 
 glishwoman living, she would have looked inward on herself — 
 and would have seen, as in a glass brightly, Lady Lundie, of 
 Windj'gates. 
 
 From the moment when the talk at her side entered on the 
 subject of Geoffrey Delamayn and Mrs. Glenarm — and through- 
 out the brief period during which it remained occupied with 
 that topic — Blanche became conscious of a strong smell of 
 some spirituous liquor; wafted down on her, as she fancied, 
 from behind and from above. Finding the odor grow stronger 
 and stronger, she looked round to see whether any special man- 
 ufacture of grog was proceeding inexplicably at the back of 
 her chair. The moment she moved her head, her attention 
 was claimed by a pair of tremulous gouty old hands, offering 
 her a grouse pie, profusely sprinkled with truffles. 
 
 " Eh, my bonny miss !" whispered a persuasive voice at her 
 ear, " ye're joost stairving in a land o' plenty. Tak' my ad- 
 vice, and ye'll tak' the best thing at tebble — groose-poy and 
 trufflers." 
 
 Blanche looked up. 
 
 There he was — the man of the canny eye, the fatherly man- 
 ner, and the mighty nose — Bishopriggs — preserved in spirits, 
 and ministering at the festival at Swanhaven Lodge ! 
 
 Blanche had only seen him for a moment on the memorable 
 night of the storm, when she had surprised Anne at the inn. 
 But instants passed in the society of Bishopriggs were as good 
 as hours spent in the company of inferior men. Blanche in- 
 stantly recognized him ; instantly called to mind Sir Patrick's 
 conviction that he was in possession of Anne's lost letter ; in- 
 stantly rushed to the conclusion that, in discovering Bishop- 
 riggs, she had discovered a chance of tracing Anne. Her first 
 impulse was to claim acquaintance with him on the spot. But 
 the eyes of her neighbors were on her, warning her to wait. 
 She took a little of the pie, and looked hard at Bishopriggs. 
 That discreet man, showing no sign of recognition on his side, 
 bowed respectfully, and went on round the table. 
 
 "I wonder whether he has got the letter about him?" 
 thought Blanche. 
 
 He had not only got the letter about him — but, more than 
 that, he was actually then on the look-out for the means of 
 turning the letter to profitable pecuniary account. 
 
 The domestic establishment of Swanhaven Lodge included 
 no formidable array of servants. When Mrs. Delamayn gave 
 a large party, she depended for such additional assistance as 
 was needed partly on the contributions of her friends, partly 
 on the resources of the principal inn at Kirkandrew. Mr, 
 
308 M>N AISTD WIFE. 
 
 Bishopriggs, serving at the time (in the absence of any bet- 
 ter employment) as a supernumerary at the inn, made one 
 among the waiters who could be spared to assist at the gar- 
 den-party. The name of the gentleman by whom he was to 
 be employed for the day had struck him, when he first heard 
 it, as having a familiar sound. He had made his inquiries ; 
 and had then betaken himself, for additional information, to 
 the letter which he had picked up from the parlor floor at 
 Craig Fernie. 
 
 The sheet of note-paper, lost by Anne, contained, it may be 
 remembered, two letters — one signed by herself; the other 
 signed by Geoffrey — and both suggestive, to a stranger's eye, 
 of relations between the writers which they were interested in 
 concealing from the public view. 
 
 Thinking it just possible — if he kept his eyes and ears well 
 open at Swanhaven — that he might improve his prospect of 
 making a marketable commodity of the stolen correspondence, 
 Mr. Bishopriggs had put the letter in his pocket when he left 
 Kirkandrew. He had recognized Blanche, as a friend of the 
 lady at the inn — and as a person who might be perhaps turned 
 to account, in that capacity. And he had, moreover, heard ev- 
 ery word of the conversation between Lady Lundie and Mrs. 
 Delamayn on the subject of Geoffrey and Mrs. Glenarm. There 
 were hours to be passed before the guests would retire, and 
 before the waiters would be dismissed. The conviction was 
 strong in the mind of Mr. Bishopriggs that he might find good 
 reason yet for congratulating himself on the chance which had 
 associated him with the festivities at Swanhaven Lodge. 
 
 It was still early in the afternoon when the gayety at the 
 dinner-table began, in certain quarters, to show signs of wear- 
 ing out. 
 
 The young members of the party — especially the ladies — 
 grew restless with the appearance of the dessert. One after 
 another they looked longingly at the smooth level of elastic 
 tiirf in the middle of the glade. One after another they beat 
 time absently with their fingers to the waltz which the musi- 
 cians happened to be playing at the moment. Noticing these 
 symptoms, Mrs. Delamayn set the example of rising ; and her 
 husband sent a message to the band. In ten minutes more 
 the first quadrille was in progress on the grass ; the spectators 
 were picturesquely grouped round, looking on ; and the serv- 
 ants and waiters, no longer wanted, had retired out of sight, 
 to a picnic of their own. 
 
 The last person to leave the deserted tables was the vener- 
 able Bishopriggs. He alone, of the men in attendance, had 
 contrived to combine a sufficient appearance of waiting on the 
 company with a clandestine attention to his own personal 
 
MAN AND WIFE. 309 
 
 need of refreshment. Instead of hurrying away to the serv- 
 ants' dinner with the rest, he made the round of the tables, ap- 
 parently clearing away the crumbs — actually, emptying the 
 wine-glasses. Immersed in this occupation, he was startled 
 by a lady's voice behind him, and, turning as quickly as he 
 could, found himself face to face with Miss Lundie. 
 
 " I want some cold water," said Blanche. " Be so good as 
 to get me some from the spring." 
 
 She pointed to the bubbling rivulet at the farther end of the 
 glade. 
 
 Bishopriggs looked unaffectedly shocked. 
 
 " Lord's sake, miss," he exclaimed, " d'ye relly mean to of- 
 fend yer stomach \vi' cauld water — when there's wine to be 
 had for the asking !" 
 
 Blanche gave him a look. Slowness of perception was not 
 on the list of the failings of Bishopriggs. He took up a tum- 
 bler, winked with his one available eye, and led the way to 
 tlie rivulet. There was nothing remarkable in the spectacle 
 of a young lady who wanted a glass of spring-water, or of a 
 waiter who was getting it for her. Nobody was surprised ; 
 and (with the band playing) nobody could by any chance over- 
 hear what might be said at the spring-side. 
 
 "Do you remember me at the inn on the night of the 
 Rtorm?" asked Blanche. 
 
 Mr. Bishopriggs had his reasons (carefully inclosed in his 
 pocket-book) for not being too ready to commit himself with 
 Blanche at starting. 
 
 " I'm no' saying I eanna remember ye, miss. Whar's the 
 man would raak' sic an answer as that to a bonny young leddy 
 iike you?" 
 
 By way of assisting his memory Blanche took out her purse. 
 Bishopriggs became absorbed in the scenery. He looked at 
 the running water with the eye of a man who thoroughly dis- 
 trusted it, viewed as a beverage. 
 
 " There ye go," he said, addressing himself to the rivulet, 
 " bubblin' to yer ain annihilation in the loch yonder ! It's lit- 
 tle I know that's gude aboot ye, in yer unconvairted state. 
 Ye're a type o' human life, they say. I tak' up my testimony 
 against tliat. Ye're a type o' naething at all till ye're heated 
 wi' fire, and sweetened wi' sugar, and strengthened wi' whusky ; 
 and then ye're a type o' toddy — and human life (I grant it) 
 has got something to say to ye in that capacity !" 
 
 " I have heard more about you since I was at the inn," pro- 
 ceeded Blanche, " than you may suppose." (She opened hef 
 purse : Mr. Bishopriggs became the picture of attention.) 
 " You were very, very kind to a lady who was staying at Craig 
 Fernie," she went on, earnestly. " I know that you have lost 
 
810 MAN ANL» WIFE. 
 
 your place at the inn, because you gave all your attention to 
 that lady. She is my dearest friend, Mr. Bishopriggs. I want 
 to thank you. I do thank you. Please accept what I have 
 got here ?" 
 
 All the girl's heart was in her eyes and in her voice as she 
 emptied her purse into the gouty (and greedy) old hand of 
 Bishopriggs. 
 
 A young lady with a well-filled purse (no matter how rich 
 the young lady may be) is a combination not often witnessed 
 in any country on the civilized earth. Either the money is al- 
 ways spent, or the money has been forgotten on the toilet-ta- 
 ble at home. Blanche's purse contained a sovereign and some 
 six or seven shillings in silver. As pocket-money for an heir- 
 ess it was contemptible. But as a gratuity to Bishopriggs it 
 was magnificent. The old rascal put the money into his pocket 
 with one hand, and dashed away the tears of sensibility, which 
 he had not shed, with the other. 
 
 " Cast yer bread on the waters," cried Mr. Bishopriggs, with 
 his one eye raised devotionally to the sky, " and ye sail find it 
 again after monny days ! Hech ! hech ! didna I say when I 
 first set eyes on that puir leddy, ' I feel like a fether to ye '?' 
 It's seemply mairvelous to see hoo a man's ain gude deeds find 
 him oot in this lower warld o' ours. If ever I heard the voice 
 o' naitural afiection speaking in my ain breast," pursued Mr. 
 Bishopriggs, with his eye fixed in uneasy expectation on 
 Blanche, " it joost spak' trumpet-tongued when that winsome 
 creature first lookit at me. Will it be she now that told ye 
 of the wee bit sairvice I rendered to her in the time when I 
 was in bondage at the hottle ?" 
 
 " Yes — she told me herself" 
 
 "Might I mak' sae bauld as to ask whar' she may be at the 
 present time ?" 
 
 "I don't know, Mr, Bishopriggs. I am more miserable 
 about it than I can say. She has gone away — and I don't 
 know where." 
 
 "Ow ! ow ! that's bad. And the bit husband-creature dan- 
 glin' at her petticoat's tail one day, and awa' wi' the sunrise 
 next mornin' — have they baith taken leg-bail together ?" 
 
 "I know nothing of him; I never saw him. You saw him. 
 Tell me — what was he like ?" 
 
 "Eh! he was joost a puir weak creature. Didn't know a 
 glass o' good sherry-wine when he'd got it. Free wi' the siller 
 — that's a' ye can say for him — free wi' the siller !" 
 
 Finding it impossible to extract from Mr. Bishopriggs any 
 clearer description of the man who had been with Anne at the 
 inn than this, Blanche approached the main object of the inter- 
 view. Too anxious to waste time m circumlocution, she turn- 
 
MAN AND WIFE. 311 
 
 ed the conversation at once to the delicate and doubtful sub- 
 ject of the lost letUT. 
 
 " There is something else that I want to say to you," she re- 
 sumed. " My friend had a loss while she was staying at the inn." 
 
 The clouds of doubt rolled off the mind of Mr, Bishopriggs. 
 The lady's friend knew of the lost letter. And, better still, the 
 lady's friend looked as if she wanted it! 
 
 " Ay ! ay !" he said, with all due appearance of carelessness. 
 "Like eneugh. From the mistress downward, they're a' kittle 
 cattle at the inn since I've left 'em. What may it ha' been 
 that she lost ?" 
 
 " She lost a letter." 
 
 The look of uneasy expectation re-appeared in the eye of 
 Mr. Bishopriggs. It was a question — and a serious question, 
 from his point of view — whether any suspicion of theft was at- 
 tached to the disappearance of the letter. 
 
 " When ye say ' lost,' " he asked, " d'ye mean stolen ?" 
 
 Blanche was quite quick enough to see the necessity of quiet- 
 ing his mind on this point. 
 
 " Oh no !" she answered. " Not stolen. Only lost. Did 
 you hear about it ?" 
 
 " Wherefore suld I ha' heard aboot it ?" He looked hard 
 at Blanche — and detected a momentary hesitation in her face. 
 " Tell me this, my young leddy," he went on, advancing warily 
 nearer to the point. " When ye're speering for news o' your 
 friend's lost letter — what sets ye on comin' to nief'' 
 
 Those words were decisive. It is hardly too much to say 
 that Blanche's future depended on Blanche's answer to that 
 question. 
 
 If she could have produced the money; and if she had said, 
 boldly, " You have got the letter, Mr. Bishopriggs : I pledge 
 my word that no questions shall be asked, and I offer you ten 
 pounds for it" — in all probability the bargain would have 
 been struck ; and the whole course of coming events would, 
 in that case, have been altered. But she had no money left ; 
 and there Avere no friends, in the circle at Swanhaven, to whom 
 she could apply, without being misinterpreted, for a loan of 
 ten pounds, to be privately intrusted to her on the spot. Un- 
 der stress of sheer necessity Blanche abandoned all hope of 
 making any present appeal of a pecuniary nature to the confi- 
 dence of Bishopriggs. 
 
 The one other way of attaining her object that she could see 
 was to arm herself with the influence of Sir Patrick's name. A 
 man, placed in her position, would have thought it mere mad- 
 ness to venture on such a risk as this. But Blanche — with one 
 act of rashness already on her conscience — rushed, woman-like, 
 straight to the commission of another. The same headlong 
 
312 MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 eagerness to reach her end, which had hurried her into ques- 
 tioning Geoffrey before he left Windygates, now drove her, 
 just as recklessly, into taking the management of Bishopriggs 
 out of Sir Patrick's skilled and practiced hands. The starving 
 sisterly love in her hungered for a trace of Anne. Her heart 
 whispered, Risk it ! And Blanche risked it on the spot. 
 
 " Sir Patrick set me on coming to you," she said. 
 
 The opening hand of Mr. Bishopriggs — ready to deliver the 
 letter, and receive the reward — closed again instantly as she 
 spoke those words. 
 
 "Sir Paitrick?" he repeated. " Ow ! ow ! ye've een tauld 
 Sir Paitrick aboot it, have ye? There's a chiel wi' a lang 
 head on his shouthers, if ever there was ane yet! What might 
 Sir Paiti-ick ha' said ?" 
 
 Blanche noticed a change in his tone. Blanche was rigidly 
 careful (when it was too late) to answer him in guarded terras. 
 
 " Sir Patrick thought you might have found the letter," she 
 said, " and might not have remembered about it again until 
 after you had left the inn." 
 
 Bishopriggs looked back into his own personal experience 
 of his old master — and drew the correct conclusion that Sir 
 Patrick's view of his connection with the disappearance of 
 the letter was not the purely unsuspicious view reported by 
 Blanche. " The dour auld deevil," he thought to himself, 
 "knows me better than thatP'' 
 
 " Well?" asked Blanche, impatiently ; " is Sir Patrick right?" 
 
 " Kicht ?" rejoined Bishopriggs, briskly. " Pie's as far awa' 
 from the truth as John o' Groat's house is from Jericho." 
 
 " You know nothing of the letter ?" 
 
 "Deil a bit I know^o' the letter. The first I ha' heard o' it 
 is what I hear noo." 
 
 Blanche's heart sank within her. Had she defeated her own 
 object, and cut the ground from under Sir Patrick's feet, for 
 the second time? Surely not! There was unquestionably a 
 chance, on this occasion, that the man might be prevailed upon 
 to place the trust in her uncle which he was too cautious to 
 confide to a stranger like herself The one wise thing to do 
 now was to pave the way for the exertion of Sir Patrick's su- 
 perior influence, and Sir Patrick's superior skill. She resumed 
 the conversation with that object in view. 
 
 " I am sorry to hear that Sir Patrick has guessed wrong," 
 she resumed, " My friend was anxious to recover the letter 
 when I last saw her ; and I hoped to hear news of it from 
 you. However, right or wrong, Sir Patrick has some reasons 
 for wishing to see you — and I take the opportunity of telling 
 you so. He has left a letter to wait for you at the Craig 
 Fernie inn." 
 
MAN AND WIFE. 313 
 
 "I'm thinking the letter Avill ha' lang eneugh to wait, if it 
 waits till I gae back for it to the hottle," remarked Bishopriggs. 
 
 "In that case," said Blanche, promptly, "you had better 
 give me an address at which Sir Patrick can write to you. 
 You wouldn't, I suppose, wish me to say that I had seen you 
 here, and that you refused to communicate with him?" 
 
 " Never think it !" cried Bishopriggs, fervently. " If there's 
 ain thing raair than anither that I'm carefu' to presairve intact, 
 it's joost the respectful attention that I owe to Sir Patrick. 
 I'll make sae bauld, miss, as to chairge ye wi' that bit caird. 
 I'm no' settled in ony place yet (mair's the pity at my time o' 
 life !),but Sir Paitrick may hear of me, when Sir Paitrick has 
 need o' me, there." He handed a dirty little card to Blanche 
 containing the name and address of a butcher in Edinburgh. 
 " Sawmuel Bishopriggs," he went on, glibly. " Care o' Davie 
 Dow, flesher; Cowgate ; Embro. My Patmos in the weelder- 
 ness. miss, for the time being." 
 
 Blanche received the address with a sense of unspeakable 
 relief. If she had once more ventured on taking Sir Patrick's 
 place, and once more failed in justifying her rashness by the 
 results, she had at least gained some atoning advantage, this 
 time, by opening a means of communication between her un- 
 cle and Bishopriggs. "You will hear from Sir Patrick," she 
 said, and nodded kindly, and returned to her place among the 
 guests. 
 
 " I'll hear from Sir Paitrick, wull I ?" repeated Bishopriggs, 
 when he was left by himself. " Sir Paitrick will wark nae- 
 thing less than a meeracle if he finds Sawmuel Bishopriggs at 
 the Cowgate, Embro !" 
 
 He laughed softly over his own cleverness ; and withdrew 
 to a lonely place in the plantation, in which he could consult 
 the stolen correspondence without fear of being observed by 
 any living creature. Once more the truth had tried to strug- 
 gle into light, before the day of the marriage, and once more 
 Blanche had innocently helped the darkness to keep it from 
 view. 
 
 CHAPTER THE TIHRTY-THIRD. 
 
 SEEDS OF THE FUTURE (tHIED SOWINg). 
 
 After a new and attentive reading of Anne's letter to 
 Geoffrey, and of Geoffrey's letter to Anne, Bishopriggs laid 
 down comfortably under a tree, and set himself the task of 
 seeing his position plainly as it was at that moment. 
 
 The profitable disposal of the correspondence to Blanche 
 
314 MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 was no longer among the possibilities involved in the case. 
 As for treating with Sir Patrick, Bishopriggs determined to 
 keep equally clear of the Cowgate, Edinburgh, and of Mrs. 
 Inchbare's inn, so long as there was the faintest chance of his 
 pushing his own interests in any other quarter. No person 
 living would be capable of so certainly extracting the corre- 
 spondence from him, on such ruinously cheap terms, as his old 
 master. " I'll no' put myself under Sir Paitrick's thumb," 
 thought Bishopriggs, " till Pve gane my ain rounds among 
 the lave o' them first." 
 
 Rendered into intelligible English, this resolution pledged 
 him to hold no communication with Sir Patrick — until he had 
 first tested his success in negotiating with other persons, who 
 might be equally interested in getting possession of the cor- 
 respondence, and more liberal in giving hush-money to the 
 thief who had stolen it. 
 
 Who were the " other persons " at his disposal, under these 
 circumstances ? 
 
 He had only to recall the conversation which he had over- 
 heard between Lady Lundie and Mrs, Delamayn to arrive at 
 the discovery of one person, to begin with, who was directly 
 interested in getting possession of his own letter. Mr, Geof- 
 frey Delamayn was in a fair way of being married to a lady 
 named Mrs. Glenarm. And here was this same Mr, Geofirey 
 Delamayn in matrimonial correspondence, little more than a 
 fortnight since, with another lady — who signed herself " Anne 
 Silvester," 
 
 Whatever his position between the two women might be, 
 his interest in possessing himself of the correspondence was 
 plain beyond all doubt. It was equally clear that the first 
 thing to be done by Bishopriggs was to find the means of ob- 
 taining a personal interview with him. If the interview led 
 to nothing else, it would decide one important question which 
 still remained to be solved. The lady whom Bishopriggs had 
 waited on at Craig Fernie might well be "Anne Silvester," 
 Was Mr. Geoffrey Delamayn, in that case, the gentleman who 
 had passed as her husband at the inn ? 
 
 Bishopriggs rose to his gouty feet with all possible alacrity, 
 and hobbled away to make the necessary inquiries, address- 
 ing himself, not to the men-servants at the dinner-table, who 
 would be sure to insist on his joining them, but to the wom- 
 en-servants left in charge of the empty house. 
 
 He easily obtained the necessary directions for finding the 
 cottage. But he was warned that Mr. Geoffi'ey Delamayn's 
 trainer allowed nobody to see his patron at exercise, and that 
 he would certainly be ordered off again the moment he ap- 
 peared on the scene. 
 
MAN AND WIFE. 317 
 
 Bearing this caution in mind, Bishopriggs made a circuit, on 
 reaching the open ground, so as to approach the cottage at the 
 back, under shelter of the trees behind it. One look at Mr. 
 GeottVey Delamayn was all that he wanted in the first in- 
 stance. They were welcome to order him off again, as long as 
 he obtained that. 
 
 He was still hesitating at the outer line of the trees, when 
 he heard a loud, imperative voice, calling from the front of the 
 cottage, " Now, Mr. Geoffrey ! Time's up !" Another voice 
 answered, "All right !" and, after an interval, Geoffrey Dela- 
 mayn appeared on the open ground, proceeding to the point 
 from which he was accustomed to walk his measured mile. 
 
 Advancing a few steps to look at his man more closely, 
 Bishopriggs was instantly detected by the quick eye of the 
 trainer. " Halloo !" cried Perry, " what do you want here ?" 
 Bishopriggs opened his lips to make an excuse. " Who the 
 devil are you ?" roared Geoffrey. The trainer answered the 
 question out of the resources of his own experience. "A spy, 
 sir — sent to time you at your work." Geoffrey lifted his 
 mighty fist, and sprang forward a step. Perry held his pa- 
 tron back. "You can't do that, sir," he said; "■ the man's too 
 old. No fear of his turning up again — you've scared him out 
 of his wits." The statement was strictly true. The terror of 
 Bishopriggs at the sight of Geoffrey's fist restored to him the 
 activity of his youth. He ran for the first time for tw^enty 
 years ; and only stopped to remember his infirmities, and to 
 catch his breath, when he was out of sight of the cottage, 
 among the trees. 
 
 He sat down to rest and recover himself, with the com- 
 forting inner conviction that, in one respect at least, he had 
 gained his point. The furious savage, with the eyes that dart- 
 ed fire and the fist that threatened destruction, Avas a total 
 stranger to him. In other words, not the man who had passed 
 as the lady's husband at the inn. 
 
 At the same time it was equally certain that he was the 
 man involved in the compromising correspondence which 
 Bishopriggs possessed. To appeal, however, to his interest in 
 obtaining the letter was entirely incompatible (after the re- 
 cent exhibition of his fist) w'ith the strong regard which Bish- 
 opriggs felt for his own personal security. There was no al- 
 ternative now but to open negotiations with the one other per- 
 son concerned in the matter (fortunately, on this occasion, a 
 person of the gentler sex), who was actually within reach. 
 Mrs. Glenarm was at Swanhaven. She had a direct interest 
 in clearing up the question of a prior claim to Mr. Geoffrey 
 Delamayn on the part of another woman. And she could only 
 do that by getting the correspondence into her own handa 
 
318 MAN AND WrPB. 
 
 " Praise Providence for a' its mercies !" said Bishopriggs, 
 getting on his feet again. " I've got twa strings, as they say, 
 to my boo. I trow the woman's the canny string o' the twa 
 — and we'll een try the twanging of her." 
 
 He set forth on his road hack again, to search among the 
 company at the lake for Mrs. Glenarm. 
 
 The dance had reached its climax of animation when Bishop- 
 riggs re-appeared on the scene of his duties ; and the ranks of 
 the company had been recruited, in his absence, by the very 
 person whom it was now his foremost object to approach. 
 
 Receiving, with supple submission, a reprimand for his pro- 
 longed absence from the chief of the servants, Bishopriggs — 
 keeping his one observant eye carefully on the look-out — busied 
 himself in promoting the circulation of ices and cool drinks. 
 
 While he was thus occupied, his attention was attracted by 
 two persons who, in very different ways, stood out prominently 
 as marked characters among the rank and file of the guests. 
 
 The first person was a vivacious, irascible old gentleman, who 
 persisted in treating the undeniable fact of his age on the foot- 
 ing of a scandalous false report set afloat by time. He was 
 superbly strapped and padded. His hair, his teeth, and his 
 complexion were triumphs of artificial youth. When he was 
 not occupied among the youngest women present — which was 
 very seldom — he attached himself exclusively to the youngest 
 men. He insisted on joining every dance. Twice he measured 
 his length upon the grass ; but nothing daunted him. He was 
 waltzing again, with another young woman, at the next dance, 
 as if nothing had happened. Inquiring who this effervescent 
 old gentleman might be, Bishopriggs discovered that he was 
 a retired oflicer in the navy ; commonly known (among his in- 
 feriors) as "The Tartar;" more formally described in society 
 as Captain Newenden, the last male representative of one of 
 the oldest families in England. 
 
 The second person, who appeared to occupy a position of 
 distinction at the dance in the glade, was a lady. 
 
 To the eye of Bishopriggs, she was a miracle of beauty, with 
 a small fortune for a poor man carried about her in silk, lace, 
 and jewelry. No woman present was the object of such special 
 attention among the men as this fixscinating and priceless crea- 
 ture. She sat fanning herself with a matchless work of art 
 (supposed to be a handkerchief) representing an island of 
 cambric in the midst of an ocean of lace. She was surrounded 
 by a little court of admirers, who fetched and carried at her 
 slightest nod, like well-trained dogs. Sometimes they brought 
 refreshments, which she had asked for, only to decline taking 
 them when they came. Sometimes they brought infoiination 
 of what was going on among the dancers, which the lady had 
 
MAN AND WIFE. 319 
 
 been eager to receive when they went away, and in which she 
 had ceased to feel the smallest interest when they canu- l)ack. 
 Every body burst into ejaculations of distress when she was 
 asked to account for her absence from the dinner, and answered, 
 " My poor nerves." Every body said, " What should we have 
 done without you !" — when she doubted if she had done wise- 
 ly in joining the party at all. Inquiring who this favored lady 
 might be, Bishopriggs discovered that she was the niece of the 
 indomitable old gentleman who would dance — or, more plain- 
 Ij'^ still, no less a person than his couteni|)lated customer, Mrs. 
 Glen arm. 
 
 With all his enormous assurance, Bishopriggs was daunted 
 when he found himself facing the question of what he was to 
 do next. 
 
 To open negotiations with Mrs. Glenarm, under present cir- 
 cumstances, was, for a man in his position, simply impossible. 
 But, apart from this, the prospect of profitably addressing him- 
 self to that lady in the future was, to say the least of it, beset 
 with difficulties of no common kind. 
 
 Supposing the means of disclosing Geoifrey's position to her 
 to be found — what would she do when she received her warn- 
 ing ? She would in all probability apply to one of two formi- 
 dable men, both of whom were interested in the matter. If she 
 went straight to the man accused of attempting to marry her, 
 at a time when he was already engaged to another woman — 
 Bishopriggs would find himself confronted with the owner of 
 that terrible fist, which had justly terrified him even on a dis- 
 tant and cursory view. If, on the other hand, she placed her 
 interests in the care of her uncle — Bishopriggs had only to look 
 at the captain, and to calculate his chance of imposing terms on 
 a man wiio owed Life a bill of more than sixty years' date, and 
 who openly defied Time to recover the debt. 
 
 With these serious obstacles standing in the way, what was 
 to be done? The only alternative left was to approach Mrs. 
 Glenarm under shelter of the dark. 
 
 Reaching this conclusion, Bishopriggs decided to ascertain 
 from the servants what the lady's future movements might be; 
 and, thus informed, to startle her by anonymous warnings, con- 
 veyed through the post, and claiming their answer through the 
 advertising channel of a newspaper. Here was the certainty 
 of alarming her, coupled with the certainty of safety to him- 
 self! Little did Mrs. Glenarm dream, when she capriciously 
 stopped a servant going by with some glasses of lemonade, that 
 the wretched old creature who offered the tray contemplated 
 corresponding with her before the week was out, in the double 
 character of her "Well-Wisher" and her "True Friend." 
 
 The evening advanced. The shadows lengthened. The wa- 
 
320 MAN AND WIFK. 
 
 ters of the lake grew pitchy black. The gliding of the ghostly- 
 swans became rare and more rare. The elders of the party 
 thought of the drive home. The juniors (excepting Captain 
 Newenden) began to flag at the dance. Little by little the 
 comfortable attractions of the house — tea, coffee, and candle- 
 light in snug rooms — resumed their influence. The guests aban- 
 doned the glade ; and the fingers and lungs of the musicians 
 rested at last. 
 
 Lady Lundie and her party were the first to send for the car- 
 riage and say farewell ; the break-up of the household at Win- 
 dygates on the next day, and the journey south, being suffi- 
 cient apologies for setting the example of retreat. In an hour 
 more the only visitors left were the guests staying at Swanha- 
 ven Lodge. 
 
 The company gone, the hired waiters from Kirkandrew were 
 paid and dismissed. 
 
 On the journey back the silence of Bishopriggs created some 
 surprise among his comrades. " I've got my ain concerns to 
 think of," was the only answer he vouchsafed to the remon- 
 strances addressed to him. " The concerns " alluded to com- 
 prehended, among other changes of plan, his departure from 
 Kirkandrew the next day — with a reference, in case of inquiries, 
 to his convenient friend at the Cowgate, Edinburgh. His act- 
 ual destination — to be kept a secret from every body — was 
 Perth. The neighborhood of this town — as stated on the au- 
 thority of her own maid — was the part of Scotland to which 
 the rich widow contemplated removing when she left Swan- 
 haven in two days' time. At Perth, Bishopriggs knew of more 
 than one place in which he could get temporary employment 
 — and at Perth he determined to make his first anonymous ad- 
 vances to Mrs. Glenarm. 
 
 The remainder of the evening passed quietly enough at the 
 Lodge. 
 
 The guests were sleepy and dull after the excitement of the 
 day. Mrs. Glenarm retired early. At eleven o'clock Julius 
 Delamayn was the only person left up in the house. He was 
 understood to be in his study, preparing an address to the elect- 
 ors, based on instructions sent from London by his father. He 
 was actually occupied in the music-room — now that there was 
 nobody to discover him — playing exercises softly on his be- 
 loved violin. 
 
 At the trainer's cottage a trifling incident occurred, that night, 
 which aff'orded materials for a note in Perry's professional diary. 
 
 Geoffi-ey had sustained the later trial of walking for a given 
 time and distance, at his full speed, without showing any of 
 those symptoms of exhaustion which had followed the more 
 serious expei-iment of running, to which he had been subjected 
 
MAN AND WIFE. 321 
 
 earlier in the day. Perry, honestly bent — though he had pri- 
 vately hedged his owu bets — on doing bis best to bring his man 
 in good order to the post on the day of the race, had forbidden 
 Geoffrey to pay his evening visit to the house, and had sent him 
 to bed earlier than usual. The trainer was alone, looking over 
 his own written rules, and considering what modifications he 
 should introduce into the diet and exercises of the next day, 
 when he was startled by a sound of groaning from the bedroom 
 in which his patron lay asleep. 
 
 He went in, and found Geoffrey rolling to and fro on the pil- 
 low, with his face contorted, with his hands clenched, and with 
 the perspiration standing thick on his forehead — suffering evi- 
 dently under the nei'vous oppression produced by the phantom- 
 terrors' of a dream. 
 
 Perry spoke to him, and pulled him up in the bed. He woke 
 with a scream. He stared at his trainer in vacant terror, and 
 spoke to his trainer in wild words. "What are your horrid 
 eyes looking at over my shoulder?" he cried out. " Go to the 
 devil — and take your infernal slate with you !" Perry spoke 
 to him once more. "You've been dreaming of somebody, Mr. 
 Delaraayn. What's to do about a slate ?" Geoffrey looked 
 eagerly round the room, and heaved a heavy breath of relief 
 "1 could have sworn she was staring at me over the dwarf 
 pear-trees," he said. "All right, I know where I am now." 
 Perry (attributing the dream to nothing more important than 
 a passing indigestion) administered some brandy-and-water, 
 and left him to drop off again to sleep. He fretfully forbade 
 the extinguishing of the light. " Afraid of the dark?" said Per- 
 ry, with a laugh. No. He was afraid of dreaming again of the 
 dumb cook at Windygates House. 
 
 SEVENTH SCENE.— HAM FARM. 
 CHAPTER THE THIRTY-FOURTH. 
 
 THE NIGHT BEFORE. 
 
 The time was the night before the marriage. The place 
 was Sir Patrick's house in Kent. 
 
 The lawyers had kept their word. The settlements had 
 been forwarded, and had been signed two days since. 
 
 With the exception of the surgeon and one of the three 
 young gentlemen from the University, who had engagements 
 elsewhere, the visitors at Windygates had emigrated south- 
 ward to be present at the marriage. Besides these gentlemen, 
 
322 MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 there were some ladies among the guests invited by Sir Pat- 
 rick — all of them family connections, and three of them ap- 
 pointed to the position of Blanche's brides-maids. Add one 
 or two neighbors to be invited to the breakfast, and the wed- 
 ding-party would be complete. 
 
 There was nothing architecturally remarkable about Sir 
 Patiick's house. Ham Farm possessed neithei' the splendor 
 of Windygates nor the picturesque antiquarian attraction of 
 Swanhaven. It was a perfectly commonplace English country 
 seat, surrounded by perfectly commonplace English scenery. 
 Snug monotony welcomed you when you went in, and snug 
 monotony met you again when you turned to the window and 
 looked out. 
 
 The animation and variety wanting at I lam Farm were far 
 from being supplied by the company in the house. It was re- 
 membered, at an after-period, that a duller wedding-party had 
 never been assembled together. 
 
 Sir Patrick, having no early associations with the place, open- 
 ly admitted that his residence in Kent preyed on his spirits, 
 and that he would have infinitely preferred a room at the inn 
 in the village. The effort to sustain his customary vivacity 
 was not encouraged by persons and circumstances about him. 
 Lady Lundie's fidelity to the memory of the late Sir Thomas 
 on the scene of his last illness and death persisted in asserting 
 itself, under an ostentation of concealment which tried even 
 the trained temper of Sir Patrick himself. Blanche, still de- 
 pressed by her private anxieties about Anne, was in no con- 
 dition of mind to look gayly at the last memorable days of her 
 maiden life. Arnold, sacx'ificed — by express stipulation on the 
 part of Lady Lundie — to the prurient delicacy which forbids 
 the bridegroom, before marriage, to sleep in the same house 
 with the bride, found himself ruthlessly shut out from Sir Pat- 
 rick's hospitality, and exiled every night to a bedroom at 
 the inn. He accepted his solitary doom with a resignation 
 which extended its sobering influence to his customary flow of 
 spirits. As for the ladies, the elder among them existed in a 
 state of chronic protest against Lady Lundie, and the younger 
 were absorbed in the essentially serious occupation of consid- 
 ering and comparing their wedding-dresses. The two young 
 gentlemen from the University performed prodigies of yawn- 
 ing in the intervals of prodigies of billiard -playing. Smith said, 
 in despair, " There's no making things pleasant in this house, 
 Jones." And Jones sighed, and mildly agreed with him. 
 
 On the Sunday evening — which was the evening before the 
 marriage — the dullness, as a matter of course, reached its cli- 
 max. 
 
 But two of the occupations in which people may indulge on 
 
MAN AND WIFE. 323 
 
 week days are regarded as harmless on Sunday by the obsti- 
 nately anti-Christian tone of feeling which prevails in this mat- 
 ter among the Anglo-Saxon race. It is not sinful to wrangle 
 in religious controversy ; and it is not sinful to slumber over 
 a religious book. The ladies at Ham Farm practiced the pious 
 observance of the evening on this plan. The seniors of the 
 sex wrangled in Sunday controversy; and the juniors of the 
 sex slumbered over Sunday books. As for the men, it is un- 
 necessary to say that the young ones smoked when they were 
 not yawning, and yawned when they were not smoking. Sir 
 Patrick staid in the library, sorting old letters and examining 
 old accounts. Every person in the house felt the oppression 
 of the senseless social prohibitions which they had imposed on 
 themselves. And yet every person in the house would have 
 been scandalized if the plain question had been put : You 
 know this is a tyranny of your own making, you know you 
 don't really believe in it, you know you don't really like it — 
 why do you submit ? The freest people on the civilized earth 
 are the only people on the civilized earth who dare not face 
 that question. 
 
 The evening dragged its slow length on ; the welcome time 
 drew nearer and nearer for oblivion in bed. Arnold was silent- 
 ly contemplating, for the last time, his customary prospects of 
 banishment to the inn, when he became aware that Sir Patrick 
 was making signs to him. He i-ose, and followed his host into 
 the empty dining-room. Sir Patrick carefully closed the door. 
 What did it mean ? 
 
 It meant — so far as Arnold was concerned — that a private 
 conversation was about to diversify the monotony of the long 
 Sunday evening at Ham Fai'm. 
 
 " I have a word to say to you, Arnold," the old gentleman 
 began, " before you become a married man. Do you remem- 
 ber the conversation at dinner yesterday about the dancing- 
 party at Swanhaven Lodge ?" 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 "Do you remember what Lady Lundie said while the topic 
 was on the table?" 
 
 " She told me, what I can't believe, that Geoffrey Delamayn 
 was going to be married to Mrs. Glenarm." 
 
 " Exactly ! I observed that you appeared to be startled by 
 what my sister-in-law had said ; and when you declared that 
 appearances must certainly have misled her, you looked and 
 spoke (to my mind) like a man animated by a strong feeling 
 of indignation. Was I wrong in drawing that conclusion ?" 
 
 " No, Sir Patrick. You were right." 
 
 "Have you any objection to tell me why you felt indig- 
 nant ?" 
 
324 MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 Arnold hesitated. 
 
 " You are probably at a loss to know what interest I can 
 feel in the matter ?" 
 
 Arnold admitted it with his customary frankness. 
 
 " In that case," rejoined Sir Patrick, " I had better go on at 
 once with the matter in liaud — leaving you to see for yourself 
 the connection between what I am about to say and the ques- 
 tion tliat I have just put. When I have done, you shall then 
 reply to me or not, exactly as you think right. My dear 
 boy, the subject on which I want to speak to you is — Miss Sil- 
 vester." 
 
 Arnold started. Sir Patrick looked at him with a moment's 
 attention, and went on : 
 
 " My niece has her faults of temper and her failings of judg- 
 ment," he said. " But she has one atoning quality (among 
 many others) which ought to make — and which I believe will 
 make — the happiness of your married life. In the popular 
 phrase, Blanche is as true as steel. Once her friend, always 
 her friend. Do you see what I am coming to ? She has said 
 nothing about it, Arnold ; but she has not yielded one inch in 
 her resolution to reunite herself to Miss Silvester. One of the 
 tirst questions you will have to determine, after to-morrow, 
 will be the question of whether you do, or not, sanction your 
 wife in attempting to communicate with her lost friend." 
 
 Arnold answered without the slightest reserve. 
 
 " I am heartily sorry for Blanche's lost friend, Sir Patrick. 
 My wife will have my full approval if she tries to bring Miss 
 Silvester back — and my best help too, if I can give it." 
 
 Those Avords were earnestly spoken. It was plain that they 
 came from his heart. 
 
 " I think you are wrong," said Sir Patrick. " I, too, am 
 soiTy for Miss Silvester. But I am convinced that she has not 
 left Blanche without a serious reason for it. And I believe 
 you will be encouraging your wife in a hopeless effort, if you 
 encourage her to persist in the search for her lost friend. How- 
 ever, it is your affair, and not mine. Do you wish me to offer 
 you any facilities for tracing Miss Silvester which I may hap- 
 pen to possess ?" 
 
 " If you can help us over any obstacles at starting. Sir Pat- 
 rick, it will be a kindness to Blanche, and a kindness to me." 
 
 " Very good. I suppose you remember what I said to you, 
 one morning, when we were talking of Miss Silvester at Windy- 
 gates ?" 
 
 "You said you had determined to let her go her own way." 
 
 "Quite right ! On the evening of the day when I said that 
 I received information that Miss Silvester had been traced to 
 Glasgow. You won't require me to explain why I never men- 
 
MAN AND WIFE. . 325 
 
 tioned this to you or to Blanche, In mentioning it now, I com- 
 municate to you the only positive information, on the subject 
 of the missing woman, which I possess. There are two other 
 chances of finding her (of a more speculative kind) which can 
 only be tested by inducing two men (both equally difficult to 
 deal with) to confess; what they know. One of those two men 
 is — a person named Bishopriggs, formerly waiter at the Craig 
 Fernie inn." 
 
 Arnold started, and changed color. Sir Patrick (silently 
 noticing him) stated the circumstances I'elating to Anne's lost 
 lettei', and to the conclusion in his own mind which pointed to 
 Bishopriggs as the person in possession of it. 
 
 "I have to add," he proceeded, "that Blanche, unfortunate- 
 ly, found an opportunity of speaking to Bishopriggs at Swan- 
 haven. When she and Lady Lundie joined us at Edinburgh 
 she showed me privately a card which had been given to her 
 by Bishopriggs. He had described it as the address at which 
 he might be heard of — and Blanche entreated me, before we 
 started for London, to put the reference to the test. I told 
 her that she had committed a serious mistake in attempting 
 to deal with Bishopriggs on her own responsibility ; and I 
 warned her of the result in Avhich I was firmly persuaded the 
 inquiry would end. She declined to believe that Bishopriggs 
 had deceived her. I saw that she would take the matter into 
 her own hands again unless I interfered, and I went to the 
 place. Exactly as I had anticipated, the person to whom the 
 card referred me had not heard of Bishopriggs for years, and 
 knew nothing whatever about his present movements. Blanche 
 had simply put him on his guard, and shown him the propriety 
 of keeping out of the way. If you should ever meet with him 
 in the future — say nothing to your wife, and communicate 
 with me. I decline to assist you in searching for Miss Silves- 
 ter ; but I have no objection to assist in recovering a stolen 
 letter from a thief. So much for Bishopriggs. — Now as to the 
 other man." 
 
 " Who is he ?" 
 
 " Your friend, Mr. Geoffrey Delamayn." 
 
 Arnold sprang to his feet in ungovernable surprise. 
 
 " I appear to astonish you," remarked Sir Patrick. 
 
 Arnold sat down again, and waited, in speechless suspense, 
 to hear what was coming next. 
 
 " I have reason to know," said Sir Patrick, " that Mr. Dela- 
 mayn is thoroughly M'ell acquainted with the nature of Miss 
 Silvester's present troubles. What his actual connection is 
 with them, and how he came into possession of his information, 
 I have not found out. My discovery begins and ends with the 
 simple fact that he has the information." 
 
326 ♦ MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 " May I ask one question, Sir Patrick ?" 
 
 " What is it ?" 
 
 " How did you find out about Geoffrey Delamayn?" 
 
 "It would occupy a long time," answered Sir Patrick, "to 
 tell you how — and it is not at all necessary to our purpose 
 that you should know. My present obligation merely binds 
 me to tell you — in strict confidence, mind ! — that Miss Silves- 
 ter's secrets are no secrets to Mr. Delamayn. I leave to your 
 discretion the use you may make of that information. You 
 are now entirely on a par with me in relation to your knowl- 
 edge of the case of Miss Silvester. Let us return to the ques- 
 tion which I asked you when we first came into the room. Do 
 you see the connection, now, between that question and what 
 I have said since ?" 
 
 Arnold was slow to see the connection. His mind was run- 
 ning on Sir Patrick's discovery. Little dreaming that he was 
 indebted to Mrs. Inchbare's incomplete description of him for 
 his own escape from detection, he was wondering how it had 
 happened that he had remained unsuspected, while Geoffrey's 
 position had been (in part at least) revealed to view, 
 
 " I asked you," resumed Sir Patrick, attempting to help him, 
 " why the mere report that your friend was likely to marry 
 Mrs. Glenarm roused your indignation, and you hesitated at 
 giving an answer. Do you hesitate still?" 
 
 " It's not easy to give an answer. Sir Patrick." 
 
 " Let us put it in another way. I assume that your view of 
 the report takes its rise in some knowledge, on your part, of 
 Mr. Delamayn's private affairs, which the rest of us don't pos- 
 sess. — Is that conclusion correct ?" 
 
 " Quite correct." 
 
 "Is what you know about Mr. Delamayn connected with 
 any thing that you know about Miss Silvester?" 
 
 If Arnold had felt himself at liberty to answer that ques- 
 tion. Sir Patrick's suspicions would have been aroused, and Sir 
 Patrick's resolution would have forced a full disclosure from 
 him before he left the house. 
 
 It was getting on to midnight. The first hour of the wed- 
 ding-day was at hand, as the truth made its final effort to 
 struggle into light. The dark Phantoms of Trouble and Ter- 
 ror to come were waiting near them both at that moment. 
 Arnold hesitated again — hesitated painfully. Sir Patrick 
 paused for his answer. The clock in the hall struck the quar- 
 ter to twelve. 
 
 " I can't tell you !" said Arnold. 
 
 " Is it a secret ?" 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Committed to your honor?" 
 
MAN AND WIFE. 327 
 
 " Doubly committed to my honor." 
 
 " What do you mean ?" 
 
 " I mean that Geoflrey and I have quarreled since he lOok 
 me into his confidence. I am doubly bound to respect his con- 
 fidence after that." 
 
 " Is the cause of your quarrel a secret also ?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 Sir Patrick looked Arnold steadily in the face. 
 
 " I have felt an inveterate distrust of Mr. Delamayn from 
 the first," he said. "Answer me this. Have you any reason 
 to think — since we first talked about your friend in the sum- 
 mer-house at Windygates — that my opinion of him might have 
 been the right one after all ?" 
 
 " He has bitterly disappointed me," answered. Arnold. " I 
 can say no more." 
 
 " You have had very little experience of the world," pro- 
 ceeded Sir Patrick. "And you have just acknowledged that 
 you have had reason to distrust your experience of your friend. 
 Are you quite sure that you are acting wisely in keeping his 
 secret from me ? Are yon quite sure that you will not repent 
 the course you are taking to-night ?" He laid a marked em- 
 phasis on those last words. " Think, Arnold," he added, kind- 
 ly — " think before you answer." 
 
 "I feel bound in honor to keep his secret," said Arnold. 
 " No thinking can alter that." 
 
 Sir Patrick rose, and brought the interview to an end. 
 
 " There is nothing more to be said." With those words he 
 gave Arnold his hand, and, pressing it cordially, wished him 
 good-night. 
 
 Going out into the hall, Arnold found Blanche alone, look- 
 ing at the barometer. 
 
 " The glass is at Set Fair, my darling," he whispered. " Good- 
 night for the last time !" 
 
 He took her in his arras, and kissed her. At the moment 
 when he released her Blanche slipped a little note into his 
 hand. 
 
 " Read it," she whispered, " when you are alone at the inn.' 
 
 So they parted on the eve of their wedding-day. 
 
328 MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 CHAPTER THE THIRTY-FIFTH. 
 
 THE DAY, 
 
 The promise of the weather-glass was fulfilled. The sun 
 shone on Blanche's marriage. 
 
 At nine in the morning the first of the proceedings of the 
 day began. It was essentially of a clandestine nature. The 
 bride and bridegroom evaded the restraints of lawful author- 
 ity, and presumed to meet together privately, before they were 
 married, in the conservatory at Ham Farm. 
 
 "You have read ray letter, Arnold?" 
 
 "I have come here to answer it, Blanche. But why not 
 have told me ? Why write?" 
 
 " Because I put off telling you so long, and because I didn't 
 know how you might take it; and for fifty other reasons. 
 Never mind ! I've made my confession. I haven't a single 
 secret now which is not your secret too. There's time to say 
 No, Arnold, if you think I ought to have no room in my heart 
 for any body but you. My uncle tells me I am obstinate and 
 wrong in refusing to give Anne up. If you agree with him, 
 say the word, dear, before you make me your wife." 
 
 " Shall I tell vou what I said to Sir Patrick last night ?" 
 
 "About thisr 
 
 " Yes. The confession (as yoix call it) which you make in 
 your pretty note, is the very thing that Sir Patrick spoke to 
 me about in the dining-room before I went away. He told me 
 your heart was set on finding Miss Silvester. And he asked 
 me what I meant to do about it when we were married." 
 
 "And you said — ?" 
 
 Arnold repeated his answer to Sir Patrick, with fervid em- 
 bellishments of the original language, suitable to the emergen- 
 cy. Blanche's delight expressed itself in the form of two un- 
 blushing outrages on propriety, committed in close succession. 
 She threw her arms round Arnold's neck ; and she actually 
 kissed him, three hours before tlie consent of State and Church 
 sanctioned her in taking that proceeding. Let us shudder — 
 but let us not blame her. These are the consequences of free 
 institutions. 
 
 " Now," said Arnold, " it's my turn to take to pen and ink. 
 I have a letter to write before we are married as well as you. 
 Only there's this diflTerence between us — I want you to help 
 me." 
 
MAN AND WIPE. 329 
 
 " Who are you going to write to ?" 
 
 "To my lawyer in Edinburgh. There will be no time unless 
 I do it now. We start for Switzerland this afternoon — don't 
 we?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " Very well. I want to relieve your mind, my darling, be- 
 fore we go. Wouldn't you like to know — while we are away 
 — that the right people are on the look-out for Miss Silvester ? 
 Sir Patrick has told me of the last place that she has been 
 traced to, and my lawyer will set the right people at work. 
 Come and help me to put it in the proper language, and the 
 whole thing will be in train." 
 
 " Oh, Arnold ! can I ever love you enough to reward you for 
 this !" 
 
 " We shall see, Blanche — in Switzerland." 
 
 They audaciously penetrated, arm in arm, into Sir Patrick's 
 own study — entirely at their disposal, as they well knew, at 
 that hour of the morning. With Sir Patrick's pens and Sir 
 Patrick's paper they produced a letter of instructions, deliber- 
 ately re-opening the investigation which Sir Patrick's superior 
 wisdom had closed. Neither pains nor money were to be 
 spared by the lawyer in at once taking measures (beginning 
 at Glasgow) to find Anne. The report of the result was to 
 be addressed to Arnold, under cover to Sir Patrick at Ham 
 Farm. By the time the letter was completed the morning had 
 advanced to ten o'clock. Blanche left Arnold to array herself 
 in her bridal splendor — after another outrage on propriety, and 
 more consequences of free institutions. 
 
 The next proceedings were of a public and avowable na- 
 ture, and strictly followed the customary precedents on such 
 occasions. 
 
 Village nymphs strewed flowers on the path to the church 
 door (and sent in the bill the same day). Village swains rang 
 the joy-bells (and got drunk on their money the same evening). 
 There was the proper and awful pause while the bridegroom 
 was kept waiting at the church. There was the proper and 
 pitiless staring of all the female spectators when the bride was 
 led to the altar. There was the clergyman's preliminary look 
 at the license — which meant ofiicial caution. And there was 
 the clerk's preliminary look at the bridegroom — which meant 
 official fees. All the women appeared to be in their natural 
 element; and all the men appeared to be out of it. 
 
 Then the service began — rightly considered, the most terri- 
 ble, surely, of all mortal ceremonies — the service which binds 
 two human beings, who know next to nothing of each other's 
 natures, to risk the tremendous experiment of living together 
 till death parts them — the service which says, in effect if not 
 
330 MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 in words, Take your leap in the dark : we sanctify, but we 
 don't insure, it ! 
 
 The ceremony went on, without the slightest obstacle to 
 mar its effect. There were no unforeseen interruptions. There 
 were no ominous mistakes. 
 
 The last words were spoken, and the book was closed. 
 They signed their names on the register ; the husband was 
 congratulated ; the wife was embraced. They went back 
 again to the house, with more flowers strewn at their feet. 
 The wedding-breakfast was hurried ; the wedding-speeches 
 were curtailed : there was no time to be wasted, if the young 
 couple were to catch the tidal train. 
 
 In an hour more the carnage had whirled them away to the 
 station, and the guests had given them the farewell cheer from 
 the steps of the house. Young, happy, fondly attached to each 
 other, raised securely above all the sordid cares of life, what a 
 golden future was theirs ! Married with the sanction of the 
 Family and the blessing of the Church — who could suppose 
 that the time was coming, nevertheless, when the blighting 
 question would fall on them, in the spring-time of their love : 
 Are you Man and Wife ? 
 
 CHAPTER THE THIRTY-SIXTH. 
 
 THE TRUTH AT LAST. 
 
 Two days after the marriage — on Wednesday, the ninth of 
 September — a packet of letters, received at Windygates, was 
 forwarded by Lady Lundie's steward to Ham Farm. 
 
 With one exception, the letters were all addressed either to 
 Sir Patrick or to his sister-in-law. The one exception was 
 directed to "Arnold Brinkworth, Esq., care of Lady Lundie, 
 Windygates House, Perthshire" — and the envelope was special- 
 ly protected by a seal. 
 
 Noticing that the post-mark was " Glasgow," Sir Patrick 
 (to whom the letter had been delivered) looked with a certain 
 distrust at the handwriting on the address. It was not known 
 to him — but it was obviously the handwriting of a woman. 
 Lady Lundie was sitting opposite to him at the table. He 
 said, carelessly, "A letter for Arnold " — and pushed it across 
 to her. Her ladyship took up the letter, and dropped it, the 
 instant she looked at the handwriting, as if it had burned her 
 fingers. 
 
 "The Person again!" exclaimed Lady Lundie. "The Per- 
 son, presuming to address Arnold Brinkworth, at my house !" 
 
MAN AND WIFB. 331 
 
 " Miss Silvester ?" asked Sir Patrick. 
 
 "No," said her ladyship, shutting her teeth with a snap. 
 "The Person may insult me by addressing a letter to my care. 
 But the Person's name shall not pollute my lips. Not even in 
 your house. Sir Patrick. Not even to please yoii." 
 
 Sir Patrick was sufficiently answered. After all that had 
 happened — after her farewell letter to Blanche — here was Miss 
 Silvester writing to Blanche's husband, of her own accord ! It 
 was unaccountable, to say the least of it. He took the letter 
 back, and looked at it again. Lady Lundie's steward was a 
 methodical man. He had indorsed each letter received at 
 Windygates with the date of its delivery. The letter address- 
 ed to Arnold had been delivered on Monday, the seventh of 
 September — on Arnold's wedding-day. 
 
 What did it mean ? 
 
 It was pure waste of time to inquire. Sir Patrick rose to 
 lock the letter up in one of the drawers of the writing-table 
 behind him. Lady Lundie interfered (in the interest of moral- 
 ity). 
 
 " Sir Patrick !" 
 
 " Yes ?" 
 
 " Don't you consider it your duty to open that letter ?" 
 
 "My dear lady ! what can you possibly be thinking of?" 
 
 The most virtuous of living women had her answer ready 
 on the spot. 
 
 " I am thinking," said Lady Lundie, "of Arnold's moral wel- 
 fare." 
 
 Sir Patrick smiled. On the long list of those respectable 
 disguises under which we assert our own importance, or gratify 
 our own love of meddling in our neighbor's .affairs, a moral re- 
 gard for the welfare of others figures in the foremost place, 
 and stands deservedly as number one. 
 
 "We shall probably hear from Arnold in a day or two," said 
 Sir Patrick, locking the letter up in the drawer. " He shall 
 have it as soon as I know where to send it to him." 
 
 The next morning brought news of the bride and bridegroom. 
 
 They reported themselves to be too supremely happy to 
 care where they lived, so long as they lived together. Every 
 question but the question of love was left in the competent 
 hands of their courier. This sensible and trustworthy man 
 had decided that Paris was not to be thought of as a place of 
 residence, by anj' sane human being, in the month of September. 
 He had airanged that they were to leave for Baden — on their 
 way to SM'itzerland — on the tenth. Letters were accordingly 
 to be addressed to that place, until further notice. If the 
 courier liked Baden, they would probably stay there for some 
 time. If the courier took a fancy for the mountains, they 
 
332 MAIS" AND WIFE, 
 
 would in that case go on to Switzerland. In the mean while 
 nothing mattered to Arnold but Blanche — and nothing mat- 
 tered to Blanche but Arnold. 
 
 Sir Patrick re-directed Anne Silvester's letter to Arnold, at 
 the Poste Restante, Baden. A second letter, which had arrived 
 that morning (addressed to Arnold in a legal handwriting, and 
 bearing the post-mark of Edinburgh), was forwarded in the 
 same way, and at the same time. 
 
 Two days later Ham Farm was deserted by the guests. 
 Lady Lundie had gone back to Windygates. The rest had 
 separated in their diiferent directions. Sir Patrick, who also 
 contemplated returning to Scotland, remained behind for a 
 week — a solitary prisoner in his own country house. Accumu- 
 lated arrears of business, with which it was impossible for his 
 steward to deal single-handed, obliged him to remain at his 
 estates in Kent for that time. To a man without a taste for 
 partridge-shooting the ordeal was a trying one. Sir Patrick 
 got through the day with the help of his business and his books. 
 In the evening the rector of a neighboring parish drove over 
 to dinner, and engaged his host at the noble but obsolete game 
 of piquet. They arranged to meet at each other's houses on 
 alternate days. The rector was an admirable player ; and Sir 
 Patrick, though a born Presbyterian, blessed the Church of 
 England from the bottom of his heart. 
 
 Three more days passed. Business at Ham Farm began to 
 draw to an end. The time for Sir Patrick's journey to Scot- 
 land came nearer. The two partners at piquet agreed to meet 
 for a final game, on the next night, at the rector's house. But 
 (let us take comfort in remembering it) our superiors in Church 
 and State are as completely at the mercy of circumstances as 
 the humblest and the poorest of us. That last game of piquet 
 between the baronet and the parson was never to be played. 
 
 On the afternoon of the fourth day Sir Patrick came in from 
 a drive, and found a letter from Arnold waiting for him, which 
 had been delivered by the second post. 
 
 Judged by externals only, it was a letter of an unusually 
 perplexing — possibly also of an unusually interesting — kind. 
 Arnold was one of the last persons in the world whom any of 
 his friends would have suspected of being a lengthy corre- 
 spondent. Here, nevertheless, was a letter from him, of three 
 times the customary bulk and weight — and, apparently, of 
 more than common importance, in the matter of news, besides. 
 At the top of the envelope was marked '''' Lnmediatey And at 
 one side (also underlined) was the ominous word, '"'' Private?'' 
 
 " Nothing wrong, I hope ?" thought Sir Patrick, 
 
 He opened the envelope. 
 
 Two inclosures fell out on the table. He looked at them for 
 
MAN AND WIFE. 333 
 
 a moment. They were the two letters which he had for- 
 warded to Baden. The third letter remaining in his hand, and 
 occupying a double sheet, was from Arnold himself. Sir Pat- 
 rick read Arnold's letter first. It was dated " Baden," and it 
 began as follows : 
 
 " My dear Sir Patrick, — Don't be alarmed, if you can possi- 
 bly help it. I am in a terrible mess." 
 
 Sir Patrick looked up for a moment from the letter. Given 
 a young man who dates from " Baden," and declares himself 
 to be in " a terrible mess," as representing the circumstances of 
 the case — what is the interpretation to be placed on them? 
 Sir Patrick drew the inevitable conclusion. Arnold had been 
 gambling. 
 
 He shook his head, and went on with the letter. 
 
 " I must say, dreadful as it is, that I am not to blame — nor 
 she either, poor thing." 
 
 Sir Patrick paused again. " She ?" Blanche had apparent- 
 ly been gambling too ! Nothing was wanting to complete the 
 picture but an announcement in the next sentence, presenting 
 the courier as carried away, in his turn, by the insatiate pas- 
 sion for play. Sir Patrick resumed : 
 
 " You can not, I am sure, expect me to have known the law. 
 And as for poor Miss Silvester — " 
 
 " Miss Silvester ?" What had Miss Silvester to do with it ? 
 And what could be the meaning of the reference to " the law ?" 
 
 Sir Patrick had read the letter, thus far, standing up. A 
 vague distrust stole over him at the appearance of Miss Silves- 
 ter's name in connection with the lines which had preceded it. 
 He felt nothing approaching to a clear prevision of what was 
 to come. Some indescribable influence was at work in him, 
 which shook his nerves, and made him feel the infirmities of 
 his age (as it seemed) on a sudden. It went no further than 
 that. He was obliged to sit down : he was obliged to wait a 
 moment before he went on. 
 
 The letter proceeded, in these words : 
 
 "And, as for poor Miss Silvester, though she felt, as she re- 
 minds me, some misgivings — still, she never could have fore- 
 seen, being no lawyer either, how it was to end. I hardly 
 know the best way to break it to you. I can't, and won't, be- 
 lieve it myself. But even if it should be true, I am quite sure 
 you will find a way out of it for us. I will stick at nothing, 
 and Miss Silvester (as you will see by her letter) will stick at 
 nothing either, to set things right. Of course, I have not said 
 one word to my darling Blanche, who is quite happy, and sus- 
 pects nothing. All this, dear Sir Patrick, is very badly written, 
 I am afraid, but it is meant to prepare you, and to put the best 
 side on matters at starting. However, the truth must be told 
 
334 MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 — and shame on the Scotch law is what I say. This it is, in 
 short : Geoffrey Delamayn is even a greater scoundrel than 
 you think him; and I bitterly repent (as things have turned 
 out) having held my tongue that night when you and I had 
 our private talk at Ham Farm. You will think I am mixing 
 two things up together. But I am not. Please to keep this 
 about Geoffrey in your mind, and piece it together with what 
 I have next to say. The worst is still to come. Miss Silves- 
 ter's letter (inclosed) tells me this terrible thing. You must 
 know that I went to her privately, as Geoffrey's messenger, on 
 the day of the lawn-party at Windygates. Well — how it 
 could have happened. Heaven only knows — but there is reason 
 to fear that I married her, without being aware of it myself, in 
 August last, at the Craig Fernie inn." 
 
 The letter dropped from Sir Patrick's hand. He sank back 
 in the chair, stunned for the moment, under the shock that had 
 fallen on him. 
 
 He rallied, and rose bewildered to his feet. He took a turn 
 in the room. He stopped, and summoned his will, and stead- 
 ied himself by main force. He picked up the letter, and read 
 the last sentence again. His face flushed. He was on the 
 point of yielding himself to a useless outburst of anger against 
 Arnold, when his better sense checked him at the last moment. 
 " One fool in the family is enough," he said. "JWy business 
 in this dreadful emergency is to keep my head clear for 
 Blanche's sake." 
 
 He waited once more, to make sure of his own composure — 
 and turned again to the letter, to see what the writer had to 
 say for himself, in the way of explanation and excuse. 
 
 Arnold had plenty to say — with the drawback of not know- 
 ing how to say it. It was hard to decide which quality in his 
 letter was most marked — the total absence of arrangement, or 
 the total absence of reserve. Without beginning, middle, or 
 end, he told the story of his fatal connection with the troubles 
 of Anne Silvester, from the memorable day when Geoffrey 
 Delamayn sent him to Craig Fernie, to the equally memorable 
 night when Sir Patrick had tried vainly to make him open his 
 lips at Ham Farm. 
 
 "I own I have behaved like a fool," the letter concluded, 
 "in keeping Geoffrey Delamayn's secret for him — as things 
 have turned out. But how could I tell upon him without com- 
 promising Miss Silvester ? Read her letter, and you will see 
 what she says, and how generously she releases me. It's no 
 use saying I am sorry I wasn't more cautious. The mischief 
 is done. I'll stick at nothing — as I have said before — to undo 
 it. Only tell me what is the first step I am to take ; and, as 
 long as it don't part me from Blanche, rely on my taking it. 
 
MAN AND WIFB. 335 
 
 Waiting to hear from yon, I remain, dear Sir Patrick, yours in 
 great perplexity, Arnold Brinkworth." 
 
 Sir Patrick folded the letter, and looked at the two inclo- 
 sures lying on the table. His eye was hard, his brow was 
 frowning, as he put his hand to take up Anne's letter. The 
 letter from Arnold's agent in Edinburgh lay nearer to him. 
 As it happened, he took that first. 
 
 It was short enough, and clearly enough written, to invite a 
 reading before he put it down again. The lawyer reported 
 that he had made the necessary inquiries at Glasgow, with this 
 result : Anne had been traced to The Sheep's Head Hotel, 
 She had lain there utterly helpless, from illness, until the begin- 
 ning of September. She had been advertised, without result, 
 in the Glasgow newspapers. On the 5th of September she had 
 sufficiently recovered to be able to leave the hotel. She had 
 been seen at the railway station on the same day— but from 
 that point all trace of her had been lost once more. The law- 
 yer had accordingly stopped the proceedings, and now waited 
 further instructions from his client. 
 
 This letter was not without its effect in encouraging Sir Pat- 
 rick to suspend the harsh and hasty judgment of Anne, which 
 any man, placed in his present situation, must have been in- 
 clined to form. Her illness claimed its small share of sympa- 
 thy. Her friendless position — so plainly and so sadly revealed 
 by the advertising in the newspapers — pleaded for merciful 
 construction of faults committed, if faults there were. Grave- 
 ly, but not angrily, Sir Patrick opened her letter — the letter 
 that cast a doubt on his niece's marriage. 
 
 Thus Anne Silvester wrote : 
 
 "Glasgow, September 5. 
 
 " Dear Mr. Brinkworth, — Nearly three weeks since I at- 
 tempted to write to you from this place. I was seized by 
 sudden illness while I was engaged over my letter; and from 
 that time to this I have laid helpless in bed — very near, as 
 they tell me, to death. I was strong enough to be dressed, 
 and to sit up for a little while yesterday and the day before. 
 To-day I have made a better advance toward recovery, I 
 can hold my pen, and control my thoughts. The first use to 
 which I put this improvement is to write these lines. 
 
 "I am going (so far as I know) to surprise — possibly to 
 alarm — you. There is no escaping from it, for you or for me : 
 it must be done. 
 
 " Thinking of how best to introduce what I am now obliged 
 to say, I can find no better way than this. I must ask you to 
 take your memory back to a day which we have both bitter 
 reason to regret — the day when Geoffrey Delamayn sent you 
 to see me at the inn at Craig Fernie. 
 
336 MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 " You may possibly not remember — it unhappily produced 
 no impression on you at the time — that I felt, and expressed, 
 more than once on that occasion, a very great dislike to your 
 passing me off on the people of the inn as your wife. It was 
 necessary to my being permitted to remain at Craig Fernie 
 that you should do so. I knew this; but still I shrank from 
 it. It was impossible for me to contradict you, without in- 
 volving you in the painful consequences, and running the risk 
 of making a scandal which might find its way to Blanche's 
 ears. I knew this also; but still my conscience reproached me. 
 It was a vague feeling. I was quite unaware of the actual 
 danger in which you were placing yourself, or I would have 
 spoken out, no matter what came of it. I had what is called a 
 presentiment that you were not acting discreetly — nothing 
 moi-e. As I love and honor my mother's memory — as I trust 
 in the mercy of God — this is the truth. 
 
 " You left the inn the next morning, and we have not met 
 since. 
 
 " A few days after you went away my anxieties grew more 
 than I could bear alone. I went secretly to Windygates, and 
 had an interview with Blanche. 
 
 " She was absent for a few minutes from the room in which 
 we had met. In that interval I saw Geoffrey Delamayn for 
 the first time since I had left him at Lady Lunelle's lawn-party. 
 He treated me as if I was a stranger. He told me that he had 
 found out all that had passed between us at the inn. He said 
 he had taken a lawyei-'s opinion. Oh, Mr. Brinkworth ! how 
 can I break it to you ? how can I write the words which re- 
 peat what he said to me next ? It must be done. Cruel as it 
 is, it must be done. He refused to my face to marry me. He 
 said I was married already. He said I was your wife. 
 
 "Now you know why I have referred you to what I felt 
 (and confessed to feeling) when we were together at Craig 
 Fernie. If you think hard thoughts, and say hard words of 
 me, I can claim no right to blame you. I am innocent — and 
 yet it is my fault. 
 
 " My head swims, and the foolish tears are rising in spite of 
 me. I must leave off, and rest a little. 
 
 "I have been sitting at the window, and watching the peo- 
 ple in the street as they go by. They are all strangers. But, 
 somehow, the sight of them seems to rest my mind. The hum 
 of the great city gives me heart, and helps me to go on. 
 
 " I can not trust myself to write of the man who has be- 
 trayed us both. Disgraced and broken as I am, there is some- 
 thing still left in me which lifts me above him. If he came 
 repentant at this moment, and offered me all that rank and 
 
MAN AND WIPE. 339 
 
 wealth and worldly consideration can give, I would rather be 
 what I am now than be his wife, 
 
 " Let me speak of you, and (for Blanche's sake) let me speak 
 of myself 
 
 " I ought, no doubt, to have waited to see you at Windy- 
 gates, and to have told you at once of what had happened. 
 But I was weak and ill ; and the shock of heaving what I heard 
 fell so heavily on me that I fainted. After I came to myself I 
 was so horrified, when I thought of you and Blanche, that a 
 sort of madness possessed me. I had but one idea — the idea 
 of running away and hiding myself 
 
 " My mind got clearer and quieter on the way to this place ; 
 and, arrived here, I did what I hope and believe was the best 
 thing I could do. I consulted two lawyers. They differed in 
 opinion as to whether we were married or not — according to 
 the law which decides on such things in Scotland. The first 
 said Yes. The second said No — but advised me to write im- 
 mediately and tell you the position in which you stood. I at- 
 tempted to write the same day, and fell ill as you know. 
 
 "Thank God, the delay that has happened is of no conse- 
 quence. I asked Blanche, at Windygates, when you were to 
 be married — and she told me not until the end of the autumn. 
 It is only the fifth of September now. You have plenty of 
 time before you. For all our sakes, make good use of it. 
 
 " What are you to do ? 
 
 " Go at once to Sir Patrick Lundie, and show him this let- 
 ter. Follow his advice — no matter how it may affect me. I 
 should ill requite your kindness, I should be false indeed to 
 the love' I bear to Blanche, if I hesitated to brave any expos- 
 ure that may now be necessary in your interests and in hers. 
 You have been all that is generous, all that is delicate, all that 
 is kind in this mattei". You have kept my disgraceful secret 
 — I am quite sure of it — with the fidelity of an honorable man 
 who has had a woman's reputation placed in his charge. I 
 release you, with my whole heart, dear Mr. Brinkworth, from 
 your pledge. I entreat you, on my knees, to consider yourself 
 free to reveal the truth. I will make any acknowledgment, 
 on my side, that is needful under the circumstances — no mat- 
 ter how public it may be. Release yourself at any price ; and 
 then, and not till then, give back your regai'd to the miserable 
 woman who has laden you with the burden of her sorrow, and 
 darkened your life for a moment with the shadow of her 
 shame. 
 
 "Pray don't think there is any painful sacrifice involved in 
 this. The quieting of my own mind is involved in it — and 
 that is all. 
 
 "What has life left for mef Nothinsr but the barren ne- 
 
340 MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 cessity of living. When I think of the future now, my mind 
 passes over the years that may be left to me in this world. 
 Sometimes I dare to hope that the Divine Mercy of Christ — 
 which once pleaded on earth for a woman like me — may plead, 
 when death has taken me, for my spirit in Heaven. Some- 
 times I dare to hope that I may see my mother, and Blanche's 
 mother, in the better world. Their hearts were bound togeth- 
 er as the hearts of sisters while they were here ; and they left 
 to their children the legacy of their love. Oh, help me to say, 
 if we meet again, that not in vain I promised to l)e a sister to 
 Blanche ! The debt I owe to her is the hereditary debt of my 
 mother's gratitude. And what am I now? An obstacle in 
 the way of the happiness of her life. Sacrifice me to that 
 happiness, for God's sake ! It is the one thing I have left to 
 live for. Again and again I say it — I care nothing for my- 
 self. I have no right to be considered; I have no wish to be 
 considered. Tell the whole truth about me, and call me to 
 bear witness to it as publicly as you please ! 
 
 " I have waited a little, once more, trying to think, before I 
 close my letter, what there may be still left to write. 
 
 "I can not think of any thing left but the duty of inform- 
 ing you how you may find me, if you wish to wi'ite — or if it 
 is thought necessary that we should meet again. 
 
 " One word before I tell you this. 
 
 " It is impossible for me to guess what you will do, or what 
 you will be advised to do by others, when you get my letter. 
 I don't even know that you ma}^ not already have heard of 
 what your position is from Geoffrey Delaniayn himself In 
 this event, or in the event of your thinking it desirable to take 
 Blanche into your confidence, I venture to suggest that you 
 should appoint some person whom you can trust to see me 
 on your behalf — or, if you can not do this, that you should 
 see me in the presence of a third person. The man who has 
 not hesitated to betray us both, will not hesitate to misrepre- 
 sent us in the vilest way, if he can do it in the future. For 
 your own sake, let us be careful to give lying tongues no op- 
 portunity of assailing your place in Blanche's estimation. Don't 
 act so as to risk putting yourself in a false position again ! 
 Don't let it be possible that a feeling unworthy of her should 
 be roused in the loving and generous nature of your future 
 wife ! 
 
 "This written, I may now tell you how to communicate with 
 me after I have left this place. 
 
 "You will find on the slip of paper inclosed the name and 
 address of the second of the two lawyers whom I consulted 
 in Glasgow. It is arranged between us that I am to inform 
 
MAN AND WIFE. 341 
 
 hirn, by letter, of the next place to which I remove, and that 
 lie is to communicate the information either to you or to Sir 
 Patrick Lundie, on your applying for it personally or by writ- 
 ino-. I don't yet know myself where I may find refuge. Noth- 
 ing is certain but that I can not, in my present state of weak- 
 ness, travel far, 
 
 " If you wonder why I move at all until I am stronger, I 
 can only give a reason which may appear fanciful and over- 
 strained. 
 
 "I have been informed that I was advertised in the Glasgow 
 newspapers during the time when I lay at this hotel, a stranger 
 at the point of death. Trouble has perhaps made me morbidly 
 suspicious. I am afraid of what may happen if I stay here, af- 
 ter my place of residence has been made publicly known. So, as 
 soon as I can move, I go away in secret. It will be enough for 
 me, if I can find rest and peace ia some quiet place, in the coun- 
 try round Glasgow. You need feel no anxiety about my 
 means of living. I have money enough for all that I need — 
 and, if I get well again, I know how to earn my bread. 
 
 " I send no message to Blanche — I dare not till this is over. 
 Wait till she is your happy wife ; and then give her a kiss, 
 and say it comes from Anne. 
 
 " Try and forgive me, dear Mr. Brinkworth. I have said all. 
 Yours gratefully, Anne Silvester." 
 
 Sir Patrick put the letter down with unfeigned respect for 
 the woman who had written it. 
 
 Something of the personal influence which Anne exercised 
 more or less over all the men with whom she came in contact 
 seemed to communicate itself to the old lawyer through the 
 medium of her letter. His thoughts perversely wandered 
 away from the serious and pressing question of his niece's po- 
 sition, into a region of purely speculative inquiry relating to 
 Anne. What infatuation (he asked himself) had placed that 
 noble creature at the mercy of such a man as Geoffrey Dela- 
 mayn ? 
 
 We have all, at one time or another in our lives, been per- 
 plexed as Sir Patrick was perplexed now. 
 
 If we know any thing by experience, we know that women 
 cast themselves away impulsively on unworthy men, and that 
 men ruin themselves headlong for unworthy vromen. We 
 have the institution of Divorce actually among us, existing 
 mainly because the two sexes are perpetually placing them- 
 selves in these anomalous relations toward each other. And 
 yet, at every fresh instance which comes before us, we persist 
 in being astonished to find that the man and the woman have 
 not chosen each other on rational and producible grounds ! 
 
342 MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 We expect human passion to act on logical principles ; and 
 human fallibility — with love for its guide — to be above all dan- 
 ger of making a mistake I Ask the wisest among Anne Silves- 
 ter's sex what they saw to rationally justify them in choosing 
 the men to whom they have given their hearts and their lives, 
 and you will be putting a question to those wise women which 
 they never once thought of putting to themselves. Nay, 
 more still — look into your own experience, and say frankly, 
 Could you justify your own excellent choice at the time when 
 you irrevocably made it ? Could you have put your reasons 
 on paper when you first owned to yourself that you loved him ? 
 And would the reasons have borne critical inspection if you 
 had? 
 
 Sir Patrick gave it up in despair. The interests of his niece 
 were at stake. He wisely determined to rouse his mind by 
 occupying himself with tlie practical necessities of the moment. 
 It was essential to send an apology to the rector, in the first 
 place, so as to leave the evening at his disposal for considering 
 what preliminary course of conduct he should advise Arnold 
 to pursue. 
 
 After writing a few lines of apology to his partner at Piquet 
 — assigning family business as the excuse for breaking his en- 
 gagement — Sir Patrick rang the bell. The faithful Duncan 
 appeared, and saw at once in his master's face that something 
 had happened. 
 
 " Send a man with this to the Rectory," said Sir Patrick. 
 " I can't dine out to-day. I must have a chop at home." 
 
 " I am afraid, Sir Patrick — if I may be excused for remark- 
 ing it — you have had some bad news ?" 
 
 " The worst possible news, Duncan. I can't tell you about 
 it now. Wait within hearing of the bell. In the mean time 
 let nobody interrupt me. If the steward himself comes, I can't 
 see him." 
 
 After thinking it over carefully. Sir Patrick decided that 
 there was no alternative but to send a message to Arnold and 
 Blanche, summoning them back to England in the first place. 
 The necessity of questioning Arnold, in the minutest detail, as 
 to every thing tliat had happened between Anne Silvester and 
 himself at the Craig Fernie inn, was the first and foremost 
 necessity of the case. 
 
 At the same time it appeared to be desirable, for Blanche's 
 sake, to keep her in ignorance, for the present at least, of what 
 had happened. Sir Patrick met this difliculty with character- 
 istic ingenuity and readiness of resource. 
 
 He wrote a telegram to Arnold, expressed in the following 
 terms : 
 
 " Your letter and inclosures received. Return to Ham Farm 
 
MAN AND WIFB. 343 
 
 as soon as you conveniently can. Keep the thing still a secret 
 from Blanche. Tell her, as the reason for coming back, that 
 the lost trace of Anne Silvester has been recovered, and that 
 there may be reasons for her returning to England before any 
 thing further can be done." 
 
 Duncan having been dispatched to the station with this mes- 
 sage, Duncan's master proceeded to calculate the question of 
 time. 
 
 Arnold would in all probability receive the telegram at Ba- 
 den on the next day, September the seventeenth. In three 
 days more he and Blanche might be expected to reach Ham 
 Farm. During the interval thus placed at his disposal Sir 
 Patrick would have ample time in which to recover himself, 
 and to see his way to acting for the best in the alarming 
 emergency that now confronted him. 
 
 On the nineteenth Sir Patrick received a telegram informing 
 him that he might expect to see the young couple late in the 
 evening on the twentieth. 
 
 Late in the evening the sound of carriage-wheels was au- 
 dible on the drive ; and Sir Patrick, opening the door of his 
 room, heard the familiar voices in the hall. 
 
 " Well !" cried Blanche, catching sight of him at the door, 
 " is Anne found ?" 
 
 " Not just yet, my dear." 
 
 " Is there news of her ?" 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 "Am I in time to be of use ?" 
 
 " In excellent time. You shall hear all about it to-morrow. 
 Go and take off your traveling-things, and come down again 
 to supper as soon as you can." 
 
 Blanche kissed him, and went on up stairs. She had, as 
 her uncle thought in the glimpse he had caught of her, been 
 improved by her marriage. It had quieted and steadied her. 
 There were graces in her look and manner which Sir Patrick 
 had not noticed before. Arnold, on his side, appeared "to less 
 advantage. He was restless and anxious ; his position with 
 Miss Silvester seemed to be preying on his mind. As soon as 
 his young wife's back was turned, he appealed to Sir Patrick in 
 an eager whisper. 
 
 " I hardly dare ask you what I have got it on my mind to 
 say," he began. " I must bear it, if you are angry with me, 
 Sir Patrick. But — only tell me one thing. Is there a way out 
 of it for us ? Have you thought of that ?" 
 
 " I can not trust myself to speak of it clearly and composed- 
 ly to-night," said Sir Patrick. " Be satisfied if I tell you that I 
 have thousfht it all out — and wait for the rest till to-morrow." 
 
344 MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 Other persons concerned in the coming drama had had past 
 difficulties to think out, and future movements to consider, 
 during the interval occupied by Arnold and Blanche on their 
 return journey to England. Between the seventeenth and the 
 twentieth of September Geoifrey Delamayn had left Swanha- 
 ven, on the way to his new training quarters in the neighbor- 
 hood in which the Foot-Race at Fulham was to be run. Be- 
 tween the same dates, also, Captain Newenden had taken the 
 opportunity, while passing through London on his way south, 
 to consult his solicitors. The object of the conference was to 
 find means of discovering an anonymous letter-writer in Scot- 
 land, who had presumed to cause serious annoyance to Mrs. 
 Glenarm. 
 
 Thus, by ones and twos, converging from widely distant 
 quarters, they were now beginning to draw together, in the 
 near neighborhood of the great city which was soon destined 
 to assemble them all, for the first and the last time in this 
 world, face to face. 
 
 CHAPTER THE THIRTY-SEVENTH. 
 
 THE WAY OUT. 
 
 Breakfast was just over. Blanche, seeing a pleasantly- 
 idle morning before her, proposed to Arnold to take a stroll in 
 the grounds. 
 
 The garden was bright with sunshine, and the bride was 
 bright with good-humor. She caught her uncle's eye, looking 
 at her admiringly, and paid him a little compliment in return. 
 " You have no idea," she said, " how nice it is to be back at 
 Ham Farm !" 
 
 " I am to understand then," rejoined Sir Patrick, " that I am 
 forgiven for interrupting the honey-moon ?" 
 
 " You are more than forgiven for interrupting it," said 
 Blanche — " you are thanked. As a married woman," she pro- 
 ceeded, with the air of a matron of at least twenty years' 
 standing, " I have been thinking the subject over, and I have 
 arrived at the conclusion that a honey-moon which takes the 
 form of a tour on the Continent, is one of our national abuses 
 which stands in need of reform. When you are in love with 
 each other (I consider a marriage without love to be no mar- 
 riage at all), what do you want with the excitement of see- 
 ing strange places ? Isn't it excitement enough, and isn't it 
 strange enough, to a newly-maiTied woman to see such a to- 
 tal novelty as a husband ? What is the most interesting ob- 
 ject on the face of creation to a ijian in Arnold's position ? 
 
MAN AND WIFE. 345 
 
 The Alps? Certainly not ! The most interesting object is the 
 wife. And the proper time for a bridal tour is the time — say 
 ten or a dozen years later — when you are beginning (not to 
 get tired of each other ; that's out of the question) but to get 
 a little too well used to each other. Then take your tour to 
 Switzerland — and you give the Alps a chance. A succession 
 of honey-moon trips, in the autumn of married life — there 
 is my proposal for an improvement on the present state of 
 things ! Come into the garden, Arnold ; and let us calculate 
 how long it will be before we get weary of each other, and 
 want the beauties of nature to keep xxs company." 
 
 Arnold looked appealiugly to Sir Patrick. Not a word had 
 passed between them, as yet, on the serious subject of Anne 
 Silvester's letter. Sir Patrick undertook the responsibility of 
 making the necessary excuses to Blanche. 
 
 " Forgive me," he said, " if I ask leave to interfere with your 
 monopoly of Arnold for a little while. I have something to 
 say to him about his property in Scotland. Will you leave 
 him with me, if I promise to release him as soon as pos- 
 sible ?" 
 
 Blanche smiled graciously. "You shall have him as long 
 as you like, uncle. There's your hat," she added, tossing it to 
 her husband, gayly. " I brought it in for you when I got my 
 own. You will find me on the lawn." 
 
 She nodded, and went out. 
 
 " Let me hear the worst at once. Sir Patrick," Arnold began. 
 "Is it serious? Do you think I am to blame?" 
 
 " I will answer your last question first," said Sir Patrick. 
 "Do I think you are to blame? Yes — in this way. You com- 
 mitted an act of unpardonable rashness when you consented to 
 go, as Geofi"rey Delamayn's messenger, to Miss Silvester at the 
 inn. Having once placed yourself in that false position, you 
 could hardly have acted, afterward, otherwise than you did. 
 You could not be expected to know the Scotch law. And, as 
 an honorable man, you were bound to keep a secret confided 
 to you, in which the reputation of a woman was concerned. 
 Your first and last error in this matter was the fatal error of 
 involving yourself in responsibilities which belonged exclusive- 
 ly to another man." 
 
 " The man had saved my life," pleaded Arnold — " and I be- 
 lieved I was giving service for service to my dearest friend." 
 
 "As to your other question," proceeded Sir Patrick. "Do 
 I consider your position to be a serious one ? Most assuredly, 
 I do ! So long as we are not absolutely certain that Blanche 
 is your lawful wife, the position is more than serious : it is un- 
 endurable. I maintain the opinion, mind, out of which (thanks 
 to your honorable silence) that scoundrel Delamayn contrived 
 
346 MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 to cheat me. I told him, what I now tell you — that your say- 
 ings and doings at Craig Fernie do 7iot constitute a mari-iage, 
 according to Scottish law. But," pursued Sir Patrick, holding 
 up a warning forefinger at Arnold, " you have read it in Miss 
 Silvester's letter, and you may now take it also as a result of 
 my experience, that no individual opinion, in a matter of this 
 kind, is to be relied on. Of two lawyers, consulted by Miss 
 Silvester at Glasgow, one draws a directly opposite conclusion 
 to mine, and decides that you and she are married. I believe 
 him to be wrong ; but, in our situation, we have no other choice 
 than to boldly encounter the view of the case which he repre- 
 sents. In plain English, we must begin by looking the worst 
 in the face." 
 
 Arnold twisted the traveling-hat which Blanche had thrown 
 to him, nervously, in both hands. " Supposing the worst 
 comes to the worst," he asked, " what will happen ?" 
 
 Sir Patrick shook his head. 
 
 "It is not easy to tell you," he said, " without entering into 
 the legal aspect of the case. I shall only puzzle you if I do 
 that. Suppose we look at the matter in its social bearings — 
 I mean, as it may possibly affect you and Blanche, and your 
 unborn children ?" , 
 
 Arnold gave the hat a tighter twist than ever. "I never 
 thought of the children," he said, with a look of consterna- 
 tion. 
 
 "The children may present themselves," returned Sir Pat- 
 rick, dryly, " for all that. Now listen. It may have occurred 
 to your mind that the plain way out of our present dilemma 
 is for you and Miss Silvester, respectively, to affirm what we 
 know to be the truth — namely, that you never had the slight- 
 est intention of marrying each other. Beware of founding any 
 hopes on any such remedy as that ! If you reckon on it, you 
 reckon without Geoffrey Delamayn. He is interested, remem- 
 ber, in proving you and Miss Silvester to be man and Avife. 
 Circumstances may arise — I won't waste time in guessing at 
 Avhat they may be — which will enable a third person to pro- 
 duce the landlady and the waiter at Craig Fernie in evidence 
 against you — and to assert that your declaration and Miss 
 Silvester's declaration are the result of collusion between you 
 two. Don't start ! Such things have happened before now. 
 Miss Silvester is jioor, and Blanche is rich. You may be 
 made to stand in the awkward position of a man who is deny- 
 ing his marriage with a poor woman, in order to establish his 
 marriage wnth an heiress : Miss Silvester presumably aiding 
 the fraud, with two strong interests of her own as inducements 
 — the interest of assorting the claim to be the wife of a man 
 of rank, and the interest of earning her reward in money for 
 
MAN AND WIFE. 347 
 
 resigning yon to Blanche. There is a case which a scoundrel 
 might set up — and with some appearance of truth too — in a 
 court of justice !" 
 
 "Surely the law wouldn't allow him to do that?" 
 "The law will argue any thing, with any body who will 
 pay the law for the use of its brains and its time. Let that 
 view of the matter alone now. Delamayn can set the case 
 going, if he likes, without applying to any lawyer to help 
 him. He has only to cause a report to reach Blanche's ears 
 which publicly asserts that she is not your lawful wife. With 
 her temper, do you suppose she would leave us a minute's 
 peace till the matter was cleared up? Or take it the other 
 way. Comfort yourself, if you will, with the idea that this 
 afiair will trouble nobody in the present. How are we to 
 know it may not turn up in the future under circumstances 
 which may place the legitimacy of your children in doubt? 
 We have a man to deal with who sticks at nothing. We 
 have a state of the law which can only be described as one 
 scandalous uncertainty from beginning to end. And we have 
 two people (Bishopriggs and Mrs. Inchbare) who can, and will, 
 speak to what took place between you and Anne Silvester at 
 the inn. For Blanche's sake, and for the sake of your unborn 
 children, we must face this matter on the spot — and settle it 
 at once and foi'ever. The question before us now is this -. Shall 
 we open the proceedings by communicating with Misis Silves- 
 ter or not ?" 
 
 At that important point in the conversation they were in- 
 terrupted by the re-appearance of Blanche. Had she, by any 
 accident, heard what they had been saying ? 
 
 No ; it was the old story of most interruptions. Idleness 
 that considers nothing, had come to look at Industry that 
 bears every thing. It is a law of nature, apparently, that the 
 people in this world who have nothing to do can not support 
 the sight of an uninterrupted occupation in the hands of their 
 neighbors. Blanche produced a new specimen from Arnold's 
 collection of hats. " I have been thinking about it in the gar- 
 den," she said, quite seriously. " Here is the brown one with 
 the high crown. You look better in this than in the white 
 one with the low crown. I have come to change them, that's 
 all." She changed the hats with Arnold, and went on, without 
 the faintest suspicion that she was in the way. " Wear the 
 brown one when you come out — and come soon, dear. I won't 
 stay an instant longer, uncle — I wouldn't interrupt you for the 
 world." She kissed her hand to Sir Patrick, and smiled at her 
 husband, and went out. 
 
348 MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 " What were we saying ?" asked Arnold. " It's awkward 
 to be interrupted in this way, isn't it ?" 
 
 " If I know any thing of female human nature," returned 
 Sir Patrick, composedly, " your wife will be in and out of the 
 room, in that way, the whole morning. I give her ten min- 
 utes, Arnold, before she changes her mind again on the serious 
 and weighty subject of the white hat and the brown. These 
 little interruptions — otherwise quite charming — raised a doubt 
 in my mind. Wouldn't it be wise (I ask myself), if we made 
 a virtue of necessity, and took Blanche into the conversation? 
 What do you say to calling her back and telling her the truth '?" 
 
 Arnold started and changed color. 
 
 "There are difficulties in the way," he said. 
 
 " ^^y good fellow ! at every step of this business there are 
 difficulties in the way. Sooner or later, your wife must know 
 what has happened. The time for telling her is, no doubt, a 
 matter for your decision, not mine. All I say is this: Con- 
 sider whether the disclosure won't come from you with a bet- 
 ter grace, if you make it before you are fairly driven to the 
 wall, and obliged to open your lips." 
 
 Arnold rose to his feet — took a turn in the room — sat down 
 again — and looked at Sir Patrick, with the expression of a 
 thoroughly bewildered and thoroughly helpless man. 
 
 " I don't know what to do," he said. " It beats me alto- 
 gether. The truth is. Sir Patrick, I was fairly forced, at Craig 
 Fernie, into deceiving Blanche — in what might seem to her a 
 very unfeeling and a very unpardonable way." 
 
 "That sounds awkward! What do you mean?" 
 
 "I'll try and tell you. You remember when you went to 
 the inn to see Miss Silvester? Well, being there privately at 
 the time, of course I was obliged to keep out of your way." 
 
 " I see ! And, when Blanche came afterward, you were 
 obliged to hide from Blanche, exactly as you had hidden from 
 me ?" 
 
 " Worse even than that ! A day or two later, Blanche took 
 me into her confidence. She spoke to me of her visit to the 
 inn, as if I was a perfect stranger to the circumstances. She 
 told me to my face. Sir Patrick, of the invisible man who had 
 kept so strangely out of her way — without the faintest suspi- 
 cion that I was the man. And I never opened my lips to set 
 her right ! I was obliged to be silent, or I must have betrayed 
 Miss Silvester. What will Blanche think of me if I tell her 
 now ? That's the question !" 
 
 Blanche's name had barely passed her husband's lips before 
 Blanche hei'self verified Sir Patrick's prediction, by re-appear- 
 ing at the open French window, with the superseded white 
 hat in her hand. 
 
MAN AND WIFE. 349 
 
 "Haven't you clone yet!" she exclaimed. "I am shocked, 
 uncle, to interrupt you again — but these horrid hats of Ar- 
 nold's are beginning to weigh upon my mind. On reconsider- 
 ation, I think the white hat with the low crown is the most 
 becoming of the two. Change again, dear. Yes! the brown 
 hat is hideous. There's a beggar at the gate. Before I go 
 quite distracted, I shall give him the brown hat, and have 
 done with the difficulty in that manner. Am I very much in 
 the way of business ? I'm afraid I must appear restless ? In- 
 deed, I am restless. I can't imagine what is the matter with 
 me this morning." 
 
 " I can tell you," said Sir Patrick, in his gravest and dryest 
 manner. "You are suffering, Blanche, from a malady which 
 is exceedingly common among the young ladies of England. 
 As a disease it is quite incurable — and the name of it is Noth- 
 ing-to-Do." 
 
 Blanche dropped her uncle a smart little courtesy. "You 
 might have told me I was in the way in fewer words than 
 that." She whisked round, kicked the disgraced brown hat 
 out into the veranda before her, and left the two gentlemen 
 alone once more. 
 
 "Your position with your wife, Arnold," resumed Sir Pat- 
 rick, returning gravely to the matter in hand, " is certainly a 
 difficult one." He paused, tliinking of the evening when he 
 and Blanche had illustrated the vagueness of Mrs. Inchbare's 
 description of the man at the inn, by citing Arnold himself as 
 being one of the hundreds of innocent people who answered to 
 it ! " Perhaps," he added, " the situation is even more difficult 
 than you suppose. It would have been certainly easier for 
 you — and it would have looked more honorable in her estima- 
 tion — if you had made the inevitable confession before your 
 marriage. I am, in some degree, answerable for your not hav- 
 ing done this — as well as for the far more serious dilemma 
 with Miss Silvester in which you now stand. If I had not in- 
 nocently hastened your marriage with Blanche, Miss Silves- 
 ter's admirable letter would have reached us in ample time to 
 prevent mischief. It's useless to dwell on that now. Cheer 
 up, Arnold ! I am bound to show you the way out of the laby- 
 rinth, no matter what the difficulties may be — and, please God, 
 I will do it !" 
 
 He pointed to a table at the other end of the room, on which 
 writing raatei'ials were placed. " I hate moving the moment 
 I have had ray breakfast," he said. " We won't go into the 
 library. Bring me the pen and ink here." 
 
 "Are you going to write to Miss Silvester?" 
 
 "That is the question before us which we have not settled 
 
350 MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 yet. Before I decide, 1 want to be in possession of the facts — 
 down to the smallest detail of what took place between you 
 and Miss Silvester at the inn. There is only one way of get- 
 ting at those facts. I am going to examine you as if I had you 
 before me in the witness-box in court," 
 
 With that preface, and with Arnold's letter from Baden in 
 his hand as a brief to speak from. Sir Patrick put his questions 
 in clear and endless succession ; and Arnold patiently and 
 faithfully answered them all. 
 
 The examination proceeded uninterruptedly until it had 
 reached that point in the progress of events at which Anne 
 had crushed GeoiFrey Delamayn's letter in her hand, and had 
 thi'own it from her indignantly to the other end of the room. 
 There, for the first time, Sir Patrick dipped his pen in the ink, 
 apparently intending to take a note. " Be very careful here," 
 he said; "I want to know every thing that you can tell me 
 about that letter." 
 
 " The letter is lost," said Arnold. 
 
 " The letter has been stolen by Bishopriggs," returned Sir Pat- 
 rick, " and is in the possession of Bishopriggs at this moment." 
 
 " Why, you know more about it than I do !" exclaimed Ar- 
 nold. 
 
 " I sincerely hope not. I don't know what was inside the 
 letter. Do you ?" 
 
 " Yes. Part of it at least." 
 
 " Part of it ?" 
 
 " There were two letters written on the same sheet of paper," 
 said Arnold. " One of them was written by Geoffrey Dela- 
 mayn — and that is the one I know about." 
 
 Sir Patrick started. His face brightened ; he made a hasty 
 note. " Go on !" he said, eagerly. " How came the letters to 
 be written on the same sheet? Explain that !" 
 
 Arnold explained that Geoffrey, in the absence of any thing 
 else to write his excuses on to Anne, had written to her on the 
 fourth or blank page of a letter which had been addressed to 
 him by Anne herself. 
 
 " Did you read that letter ?" asked Sir Patrick. 
 
 "I might have read it if I had liked." 
 
 "And you didn't read it?" 
 
 " No." 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 " Out of delicacy." 
 
 Even Sir Patrick's carefully trained temper was not proof 
 against this. " That is the most misplaced act of delicacy I 
 ever heard of in my life !" cried the old gentleman, warmly. 
 " Never mind ! it's useless to regret it now. At any rate you 
 read Delamayn's answer to Miss Silvester's letter ?" 
 
MAN AND WIFE. 351 
 
 « Yes— I did." 
 
 " Repeat it — as nearly as you can remember at this distance 
 of time." 
 
 " It was so short," said Arnold, " that there is hardly any 
 thing to repeat. As well as I remember, Geoffrey said he was 
 called away to London by his father's illness. He told Miss 
 Silvester to stop where she was ; and he referred her to me as 
 messenger. That's all I recollect of it now." 
 
 " Cudgel your brains, ray good fellow ! this is very impor- 
 tant. Did he make no allusion to his engagement to marry 
 Miss Silvester at Craig Fernie ? Didn't he try to pacify her 
 by an apology of some sort ?" 
 
 The question roused Arnold's memory to make another effort. 
 
 " Yes," he answered. " Geoffrey said something about being 
 true to his engagement, or keeping his promise, or words to 
 that effect." 
 
 " You're sure of what you say now ?" 
 
 " I am certain of it." 
 
 Sir Patrick made another note. 
 
 " Was the letter signed ?" he asked, when he had done. 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 "And dated?" 
 
 " Yes." Arnold's memory made a second effort, after he had 
 given his second affirmative answer. " Wait a little," he said. 
 " I remember something else about the letter. It was not only 
 dated. The time of day at which it was written was put as 
 well." 
 
 " How came he to do that ?" 
 
 " I suggested it. The letter was so short I felt ashamed to 
 deliver it as it stood. I told him to put the time — so as to 
 show her that he was obliged to write in a hurry. He put the 
 time when the train started ; and (I think) the time when the 
 letter was written as well." 
 
 "And you delivered that letter to Miss Silvester, with your 
 own hand, as soon as you saw her at the inn ?" 
 
 " I did." 
 
 Sir Patrick made a third note, and pushed the paper away 
 from him with an air of supreme satisfaction. 
 
 " I always suspected that lost letter to be an important 
 document," he said, "or Bishopriggs would never have stolen 
 it. We must get possession of it, Arnold, at any sacrifice. 
 The first thing to be done (exactly as I anticipated) is to write 
 to the Glasgow lawyer, and find Miss Silvester." 
 
 " Wait a little !" cried a voice at the veranda. " Don't for- 
 get that I have come back from Baden to help you !" 
 
 Sir Patrick and Arnold both looked up. This time Blanche 
 
352 MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 had heard the last words that had passed between them. She 
 sat down at the table by Sir Patrick's side, and laid her hand 
 caressingly on his shoulder. 
 
 " You are quite right, uncle," she said. " I am suffering 
 this morning from the malady of having nothing to do. Are 
 you going to write to Anne? Don't. Let me write instead." 
 
 Sir Patrick declined to resign the pen. 
 
 "The person who knows Miss Silvester's address," he said, 
 ' is a lawyer in Glasgow. I am going to write to the lawyer. 
 When he sends us word where she is — then, Blanche, will be 
 the time to employ your good offices in winning back your 
 friend." 
 
 He drew the writing materials once more within his reach, 
 and, suspending the remainder of Arnold's examination for the 
 present, began his letter to Mr. Crum. 
 
 Blanche pleaded hard for an occupation of some sort. " Can 
 nobody give me something to do '?" she asked. " Glasgow is 
 such a long way off, and waiting is such weary work. Don't 
 sit there staring at me, Arnold ! Can't you suggest some- 
 thing ?" 
 
 Arnold, for once, displayed an unexpected readiness of re- 
 source. 
 
 " If you want to write," he said, "you owe Lady Lundie a 
 letter. It's three days since you heard from her — and you 
 haven't answered her yet." 
 
 Sir Patrick paused, and looked up quickly from his writing- 
 desk. 
 
 " Lady Lundie ?" he muttered, inquiringly. 
 
 " Yes," said Blanche, " It's quite true ; I owe her a letter. 
 And of course I ought to tell her we have come back to En- 
 gland. She will be finely provoked when she hears why !" 
 
 The prospect of provoking Lady Lundie seemed to I'ousc 
 Blanche's dormant energies. She took a sheet of her uncle's 
 note-paper, and began writing her answer then and there. 
 
 Sir Patrick completed his communication to the lawyer — af- 
 ter a look at Blanche, which expressed any thing rather tlian 
 approval of her present employment. Having placed his com- 
 pleted note in the post-bag, he silently signed to Arnold to fol- 
 low him into the garden. They w^ent out together, leaving 
 Blanche absorbed over her letter to her stepmother. 
 
 " Is my wife doing any thing wrong ?" asked Arnold, who 
 had noticed the look which Sir Patrick had cast on Blanche. 
 
 " Your wife is making mischief as fast as her fingers can 
 spread it." 
 
 Arnold stared. "She must answer Lady Lundie's letter," 
 he said. 
 
 " Unquestionably." 
 
MAN AND WIFE, 353 
 
 "And she must tell Lady Lundie we have come back." 
 
 " I don't deny it/' 
 
 " Then what is the objection to liur writing ?" 
 
 Sir Patrick took a pinch of snuif, and pointed with his ivory 
 cane to the bees humming busily about the flower-beds in the 
 sunshine of the autumn morning. 
 
 "I'll show you tlie objection," he said. "Suppose Blanche 
 told one of those inveterately intrusive insects that the honey 
 in the flowers happens, through an unexpected accident, to 
 have come to an end — do you think he would take the state- 
 ment for granted? Xo, He would plunge head-foremost into 
 the nearest flower, and investigate it for himself." 
 
 " Well ?" said Arnold. 
 
 " Well — there is Blanche in the breakfast-room telling Lady 
 Lundie that the bridal tour happens, through an unexpected 
 accident, to have come to an end. Do you think Lady Lundie 
 is the sort of person to take the statement for granted ? Noth- 
 ing of the sort ! Lady Lundie, like the bee, will insist on in- 
 vestigating for herself How it will end, if she discovers the 
 truth — and what new complications she may not introduce 
 into a matter which. Heaven knows, is complicated enough al- 
 ready- — I leave you to imagine. My poor powers of prevision 
 are not equal to it." 
 
 Before Arnold could answer, Blanche joined them from the 
 breakfast-room. 
 
 " I've done it," she said. " It was an awkward letter to 
 write — and it's a comfort to have it over." 
 
 " You have done it, my dear," remarked Sir Patrick, quietly. 
 "And it may be a comfort. But it's not over." 
 
 " What do you mean ?" 
 
 " I think, Blanche, we shall hear from your stepmother by 
 return of post." 
 
 CHAPTER THE THIRTY-EIGHTH. 
 
 THE NEWS FROM GLASGOW. 
 
 The letters to Lady Lundie and to Mr. Crum having been 
 dispatched on Monday, the return of the post might be looked 
 for on Wednesday afternoon at Ham Farm. 
 
 Sir Patrick and Arnold held more than one private consulta- 
 tion, during the interval, on the delicate and difticult subject 
 of admitting Blanche to a knowledge of what had happened. 
 The wise elder advised, and the inexperienced junior listened. 
 "Think of it," said Sir Patrick; "and do it." And Arnold 
 thought of it — and left it undone. 
 
 23 
 
354 MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 Let those who feel inclined to blame him remember that he 
 had only been married a fortnight. It is hard, surely, after 
 but two weeks' possession of your wife, to appear before her 
 in the character of an offender on trial — and to find that an 
 angel of retribution has been thrown into the bargain by the 
 liberal destiny which bestowed on you the woman whom you 
 adore ! 
 
 They were all three at home on the Wednesday afternoon, 
 looking out for the postman. 
 
 The correspondence delivered included (exactly as Sir Pat- 
 rick had foreseen) a letter from Lady Lundie. Further inves- 
 tigation, on the far more interesting subject of the expected 
 news from Glasgow, revealed — nothing. The lawyer had not 
 answered Sir Patrick's inquiry by return of post. 
 
 " Is that a bad sign ?" asked Blanche. 
 
 " It is a sign that something has happened," answered her 
 uncle. " Mr. Crum is possibly expecting to receive some spe- 
 cial information, and is waiting on the chance of being able to 
 communicate it. We must hope, my dear, in to-morrow's 
 post." 
 
 " Open Lady Lundie's letter in the mean time," said Blanche. 
 "Are you sure it is for you — and not for me ?" 
 
 There was no doubt about it. Her ladyship's reply was 
 ominously addressed to her ladyship's brother-in-law. "I 
 know what that means," said Blanche, eying her uncle eager- 
 ly while he was reading the letter. " If you mention Anne's 
 name you insult my stepmother. I have mentioned it freely. 
 Lady Lundie is mortally offended with me," 
 
 Rash judgment of youth ! A lady who takes a dignified at- 
 titude, in a family emergency, is never mortally offended — 
 she is only deeply grieved. Lady Lundie took a dignified at- 
 titude. "I well know," wrote this estimable and Christian 
 woman, " that I have been all along regarded in the light of 
 an intruder by the family connections of my late beloved hus- 
 band. But I was hardly prepared to find myself entirely shut 
 out from all domestic confidence, at a time when some serious 
 domestic catastrophe has but too evidently taken place. I 
 have no desire, dear Sir Patrick, to intrude. Feeling it, how- 
 ever, to be quite inconsistent with a due regard for my own 
 position — after what has happened — to correspond with 
 Blanche, I addressed myself to the head of the family, purely 
 in the interests of propriety. Permit me to ask whether — un- 
 der circumstances which appear to be serious enough to re- 
 quire the recall of my stepdaughter and her husband from 
 their wedding-tour — you think it Decent to keep the widow 
 of the late Sir Thomas Lundie entirely in the dark ? Pray 
 consider this — not at all out of regard for Me ! — but out of re- 
 
MAN AND WIFE. 355 
 
 gard for your own position with Society. Curiosity is, as you 
 know, foreign to my nature. But when this dreadful scandal 
 (whatever it may be) comes out — which, dear Sir Patrick, it 
 can not fail to do — what will the world think, when it asks for 
 Lady Lundie's opinion, and hears that Lady Lundie knew noth- 
 ing about it ? Whichever way you may decide, I shall take no 
 oftense. I may possibly be wounded — but that won't matter. 
 My little round of duties will find me still earnest, still cheer- 
 ful. And even if you shut me out, my best wishes will find 
 their way, nevertheless, to Ham Farm. May I add — without 
 encountering a sneer — that the prayers of a lonely woman are 
 oflTered for the welfare of all ?" 
 
 " Well '?" said Blanche. 
 
 Sir Patrick folded up the letter, and put it in his pocket. 
 
 "You have your stepmother's best wishes, ray dear." Hav- 
 ing answered in those terms, he bowed to his niece with his 
 best grace, and walked out of the room. 
 
 " Do I think it decent," he repeated to himself, as he closed 
 the door, " to leave the widow of the late Sir Thomas Lundie 
 in the dark? When a lady's temper is a little ruffled,! think 
 it more than decent, I think it absolutely desirable, to let that 
 lady have the last word." He went into the library, and drop- 
 ped his sister-in-law's remonstrance into a box, labeled "Un- 
 answered Letters." Having got rid of it in that way, he 
 bummed his favorite little Scotch air, and put on his hat, and 
 went out to sun himself in the garden. 
 
 Meanwhile, Blanche was not quite satisfied with Sir Patrick's 
 reply. She appealed to her husband. "There is something 
 wrong," she said — " and my uncle is hiding it from me." 
 
 Arnold could have desired no better opportunity than she 
 had offered to him, in those words, for making the long-defer- 
 red disclosure to her of the truth. He lifted his eyes to 
 Blanche's face. By an unhappy fatality she was looking charm- 
 ingly that morning. How would she look if he told her the 
 story of the hiding at the inn ? Arnold was still in love with 
 her — and Arnold said nothing. 
 
 The next day's post brought not only the anticipated let- 
 ter from Mr. Crum, but an unexpected Glasgow newspaper as 
 well. 
 
 This time Blanche had no reason to complain that her uncle 
 kept his correspondence a secret from her. After reading the 
 lawyer's letter, with an interest and agitation which showed 
 that the contents had taken him by surprise, he handed it to 
 Arnold and his niece. " Bad news there," he said. " We must 
 share it together." 
 
 After acknowledging the receipt of Sir Patrick's letter of in- 
 
856 MAN AND WIFK 
 
 quiry, Mr. Crum began by stating all that he knew of Miss Sil- 
 vester's movements — dating from the time when she bad left 
 the Sheep's Head Hotel. About a fortnight since he had re- 
 ceived a letter from her informing him that she had found a 
 suitable place of residence in a village near Glasgow. Feeling 
 a strong interest in Miss Silvester, Mr. Crum had visited her 
 some few days afterward. He had satisfied himself that she 
 was lodging with respectable people, and was as comfortably 
 situated as circumstances would permit. For a week more he 
 had heard nothing from the lady. At the expiration of that 
 time he had received a letter from her, telling him that she 
 had read something in a Glasgow newspaj^er, of that day's 
 date, which seriously concerned herself, and which would 
 oblige her to travel northward immediately as fast as her 
 strength would permit. At a later period, when she would be 
 more certain of her own movements, she engaged to write 
 again, and let Mr. Crum know where he might communicate 
 with her if necessary. In the mean time, she could only thank 
 him for his kindness, and beg him to take care of any letters 
 or messages which might be left for her. Since the receipt of 
 this communication the lawyer had heard nothing further. 
 He had waited for the morning's post in the hope of being 
 able to repoi't that he had received some further intelligence. 
 The hope had not been realized. He had now stated all that 
 he knew himself thus far — and he had forwarded a copy of the 
 newspaper alluded to by Miss Silvester, on the chance that an 
 examination of it by Sir Patrick might possibly lead to further 
 discoveries. In conclusion, he pledged himself to write again 
 the moment he had any information to send. 
 
 Blanche snatched up the newspaper, and opened it. " Let 
 me look!" she said. "I can find what Anne saw here, if any 
 body can !" 
 
 She ran her eye eagerly over column after column and page 
 after page, and dropped the newspaper on her lap with a ges- 
 ture of despair. 
 
 " Nothing !" she exclaimed. " Nothing anywhere, that I 
 can see, to interest Anne. Nothing to interest any body — ex- 
 cept Lady Lundie," she went on, brushing the newspaper oiF 
 her lap. "It turns out to be all true, Arnold, at Swanhaven. 
 Geoftrey Delamayn is going to marry Mrs. Glenarm." 
 
 " What !" cried Arnold ; the idea instantly flashing on him 
 that this was the news which Anne had seen. 
 
 Sir Patrick gave him a warning look, and picked up the 
 newspaper from the floor. 
 
 " I may as well run through it, Blanche, and make quite sure 
 that you have missed nothing," he said. 
 
 The report to which Blanche had referred was among the 
 
MAN ANI) WIFE, 357 
 
 paragraphs arranged under the heading of " Fashionable 
 News." "A matrimonial alliance" (the Glasgow journal an- 
 nounced) " was in prospect between the Honorable Geoffrey 
 Delamayn and the lovely and accomplished relict of the late 
 Matthew Glenarm, Esq., formerly Miss Newenden." The mar- 
 riage would, in all probability, " be solemnized in Scotland, be- 
 fore the end of the present autumn ;" and the wedding break- 
 fast, it was whispered, " would collect a large and fashionable 
 party at Swanhaven Lodge." 
 
 Sir Patrick handed the new^spaper silently to Arnold. It 
 was plain to any one who knew Anne Silvester's story that 
 those were the words which had found their fatal way to her 
 in her place of rest. The inference that followed seemed to be 
 hardly less clear. But one intelligible object, in the opinion 
 of Sir Patrick, could be at the end of her journey to the North. 
 The deserted woman had rallied the last relics of her old ener- 
 gy — and had devoted herself to the desperate purpose of stop- 
 ping the marriage of Mrs. Glenarm. 
 
 Blanche was the first to break the silence. 
 
 " It seems like a fatality," she said. " Perpetual failure ! 
 Perpetual disappointment ! Are Anne and I doomed never to 
 1 meet again ?" 
 
 She looked at her uncle. Sir Patrick showed none of his 
 I customary cheerfulness in the face of disaster. 
 
 " She has promised to write to Mr. Crum," he said. " And 
 'Mr. Crum has promised to let us know when he hears from 
 iher. That is the only prospect before us. We must accept 
 lit as resignedly as we can." 
 
 Blanche wandered out listlessly among the flowers in the con- 
 servatory. Sir Patrick made no secret of the impression pro- 
 duced upon him by Mr. Crum's letter, when he and Arnold were 
 left alone. 
 
 "There is no denying," he said, " that matters have taken a 
 .very serious turn. My plans and calculations are all thrown 
 ;out. It is impossible to foresee what new mischief may not 
 come of it, if those two women meet ; or what desperate act 
 IDelamayn may not commit, if he finds himself driven to the 
 •wall. As things are, I own frankly I don't know what to do 
 next. A great light of the Presbyterian Church," he added, 
 with a momentary outbreak of his whimsical humor, " once 
 Ideclared, in my hearing, that the invention of printing was 
 eothing more nor less than a proof of the intellectual activity 
 of the Devil. Upon my honor, I feel for the first time in my 
 life inclined to agree with him." 
 
 He mechanically took up the Glasgow journal, which Ar- 
 jaold had laid aside, while he spoke. 
 \ " What's this !" he exclaimed, ae a name caught his eye in 
 
358 MAN AND AVIFE, 
 
 the first line of the newspaper at which he happened to look. 
 " Mrs. Glenarm again ! Are they turning the iron-master's 
 widow into a public cliaracter ?" 
 
 There the name of the widow was, unquestionably; figuring 
 for the second time in type, in a letter of the gossiping sort, 
 supplied by an " Occasional Correspondent," and distinguish- 
 ed by the title of " Sayings and Doings in the North." After 
 tattling pleasantly of the prospects of the shooting season, of 
 the fashions from Paris, of an accident to a tourist, and of a 
 scandal in the Scottish Kirk, the writer proceeded to the nar- 
 rative of a case of interest, relating to a marriage in the sphere 
 known (in the language of footmen) as the sphere of " high 
 life." 
 
 Considerable sensation (the correspondent announced) had 
 been caused in Perth and its neighborhood, by the exposure 
 of an anonymous attempt at extortion, of which a lady of dis- 
 tinction had lately been made the object. As her name had 
 already been publicly mentioned in an application to the mag- 
 istrates, there could be no impropriety in stating that the lady 
 in question was Mrs. Glenarm, whose approaching union with 
 the Honorable Geofii'ey Delamayu was alluded to in another 
 column of the journal. 
 
 Mrs. Glenarm had, it appeared, received an anonymous let- 
 ter, on the first day of her arrival as guest at the house of a 
 friend, residing in the neighborhood of Perth. The letter 
 warned her that there was an obstacle, of which she was her- 
 self probably not aware, in the way of her projected marriage 
 with Mr. Geofii-ey Delamayn. That gentleman had seriously 
 compromised himself with another lady ; and the lady would 
 oppose his marriage to Mrs. Glenarm, with proof in writing to 
 produce in support of her claim. The proof was contained in 
 two letters exchanged between the parties, and signed by their 
 names ; and the correspondence was placed at Mrs. Glenarm's 
 disposal, on two conditions, as follows : 
 
 First, that she should offer a sufficiently liberal price to in- 
 duce the present possessor of the letters to part with them. 
 Secondly, that she should consent to adopt such a method of 
 paying the money as should satisfy the person that he was in 
 no danger of finding himself brought within reach of the law. 
 The answer to these two proposals was directed to be made 
 through the medium of an advertisement in the local newspa- 
 per — distinguished by this address, " To a Friend in the Dark." 
 
 Cei-tain turns of expression, and one or two mistakes in 
 spelling, pointed to this insolent letter as being, in all proba- 
 bility, the production of a Scotchman, in the lower ranks of 
 life. Mrs. Glenarm had at once shown it to her nearest rela- 
 tive, Captain Newenden. The captain had sought legal advice 
 
MAN AND WIFE. 350 
 
 in Perth. It had been decided, after due consideration, to in- 
 sert the advertisement demanded, and to take measures to en- 
 trap the writer of the letter into revealing himself — without, 
 it is needless to add, allowing the fellow really to profit by his 
 attempted act of extortion. 
 
 The cunning of the "Friend in the Dark" (whoever he 
 might be) had, on trying the proposed experiment, proved to 
 be more than a match for the lawyers. He had sucessfullj 
 eluded not only the snare first set for him, but others subse- 
 quently laid. A second, and a third, anonymous letter, one 
 more impudent than the other, had been received by Mrs. 
 Glenarm, assuring that lady and the friends who were acting 
 for her, that they were only wasting time, and raising the 
 price which would be asked for the correspondence, by the 
 course they were taking. Captain Newenden had thereupon, 
 in default of knowing what other course to pursue, appealed 
 publicly to the city magistrates; and a reward had been oiFer- 
 ed, under the sanction of the municipal authorities, for the dis- 
 covery of the man. This proceeding also having proved quite 
 fruitless, it was understood that the captain had arranged, 
 with the concurrence of his English solicitors, to place the mat- 
 ter in the hands of an experienced officer of the London police. 
 
 Here, so far as the newspaper correspondent was aware, the 
 affair rested for the present. 
 
 It was only necessary to add, that Mrs. Glenarm had left 
 the neighborhood of Perth, in order to escape further annoy- 
 ance ; and had placed herself under the protection of friends 
 in another part of the county. Mr. Geoffrey Delamayn, whose 
 fair fame had been assailed (it was needless, the correspondent 
 added in parenthesis, to say how groundlessly), was under- 
 stood to have expressed, not only the indignation natural un- 
 der the circumstances, but also his extreme regret at not find- 
 ing himself in a position to aid Captain Newenden's efforts to 
 bring the anonymous slanderer to justice. The honorable 
 gentleman was, as the sporting public were well aware, then 
 in course of strict training for his fortlicoming appearance at 
 the Fulham Foot-race. So important was it considered that 
 his mind should not be harassed by annoj^ances, in his pres- 
 ent responsible position, that his trainer and his principal 
 backers had thought it desirable to hasten his removal to the 
 neighborhood of Fulham — where the exercises which were to 
 prepare him for the race were now being continued on the 
 spot. 
 
 "The mystery seems to thicken," said Arnold. 
 " Quite the contrary," returned Sir Patrick, briskly. " Th<i 
 mystery is clearing fast — thanks to the Glasgow newspaper. 
 
360 MAN AND WIFE, 
 
 I shall be spared the trouble of dealing with Bishopriggs for 
 the stolen letter. Miss Silvester has gone to Perth, to recover 
 her correspondence with Geoffrey Delamayn," 
 
 "Do you think she would recognize it," said Arnold, point- 
 ing to the newspaper, "in the account given of it here?" 
 
 " Certainly ! And she could hardly fail, in my opinion, to 
 get a step farther than that. Unless I am entirely mistaken, 
 the authorship of the anonymous letters has not mystified Aer." 
 
 "How could she guess at that?" 
 
 " In this way, as I think. Whatever she may have previ- 
 ously thought, she must suspect, by this time, that the missing 
 correspondence has been stolen, and not lost. Now, there are 
 only two persons whom she can think of as probably guilty 
 of the theft — Mrs, Inchbare or Bishopriggs, The newspaper 
 description of the style of the anonymous letters declares it to 
 be the style of a Scotchman in the lower ranks of life — in oth- 
 er words, points plainly to Bishopriggs, You see that? Very 
 well. Now suppose she recovers the stolen property. What 
 is likely to happen then ? She will be more or less than wom- 
 an if she doesn't make her way next, provided with her proofs 
 in writing, to Mrs. Glenarm. She may innocently help, or she 
 may innocently frustrate, the end we have in view — either 
 way, our course is clear before us again. Our interest in com- 
 municating with Miss Silvester remains precisely the same in- 
 terest that it was before we received the Glasgow newspaper, 
 I propose to wait till Sunday, on the chance that Mr, Crum 
 may write again. If we don't hear from him, I shall start for 
 Scotland on Monday morning, and take my chance of finding 
 my way to Miss Silvester, through Mrs, Glenarm." 
 
 " Leaving me behind ?" 
 
 " Leaving you behind. Somebody must stay with Blanche, 
 After having only been a fortnight married, must I remind you 
 of that ?" 
 
 " Don't you think Mr, Crum will write before Monday ?" 
 
 " It will be such a fortunate circumstance for us, if he does 
 write, that I don't venture to anticipate it." 
 
 " You are down on our luck, sir." 
 
 "I detest slang, Arnold. But slang, I own, expresses my 
 state of mind, in this instance, with an accuracy which almost 
 reconciles me to the use of it — for once in a way," 
 
 "Every body's luck turns sooner or later," persisted Arnold. 
 " I can't help thinking our luck is on the turn at last. Would 
 you mind taking a bet. Sir Patrick ?" 
 
 " Apply at the stables, I leave betting, as I leave cleaning 
 the horses, to my groom," 
 
 With that crabbed answer he closed the conversation for tLe 
 day. 
 
MAN AND WIFE. 361 
 
 'The hours passed, and time brought the post again in due 
 course — and the post decided in Arnold's favor ! Sir Patrick's 
 want of confidence in the favoring patronage of Fortune was 
 practically rebuked by the arrival of a second letter from the 
 Glasgow lawyer on the next day. 
 
 " I have the pleasure of announcing " (Mr. Crum wrote) 
 " that I have heard from Miss Silvester, by the next postal de- 
 livery ensuing, after I had dispatched my letter to Ham Farm. 
 She writes, very briefly, to inform me that she has decided on 
 establishing her next place of residence in London. The rea- 
 son assigned for taking this step — which she certainly did not 
 contemplate when I last saw her — is, that she finds herself ap- 
 proaching the end of her pecuniary resources. Having already 
 decided on adopting, as a means of living, the calling of a con- 
 cert-singer, she has arranged to place her interests in the hands 
 of an old friend of her late mother (who appears to have be- 
 longed also to the musical profession) : a dramatic and musical 
 agent long established in the metropolis, and well known to 
 her as a trustworthy and respectable man. She sends me the 
 name and address of this person — a copy of which you will 
 find on the inclosed slip of paper — in the event of my having 
 occasion to write to her, before she is settled in London, This 
 is the whole substance of her letter. I have only to add, that 
 it does not contain the slightest allusion to the nature of the 
 errand on which she left Glasgow." 
 
 Sir Patrick happened to be alone when he opened Mr. Crum's 
 letter. 
 
 His first proceeding, after reading it, was to consult the rail- 
 way time-table hanging in the hall. Having done this, he re- 
 turned to the library — wrote a short note of inquiry, addressed 
 to the musical agent — and rang the bell. 
 
 "Miss Silvester is expected in London, Duncan. I want a 
 discreet person to communicate with her. You are the per- 
 son." 
 
 Duncan bowed. Sir Patrick handed him the note. 
 
 "If you start at once you will be in time to catch the train. 
 Go to that address, and inquire for Miss Silvester. If she has 
 arrived, give her ray compliments, and say I will have the hon- 
 or of calling on her (on Mr. Brink worth's behalf) at the earli- 
 est date which she may find it convenient to appoint. Be 
 quick about it — and you will have time to get back before the 
 last train. Have Mr. and Mrs. Brinkworth returned from their 
 drive ?" 
 
 " No, Sir Patrick." 
 
 Pending the return of Arnold and Blanche, Sir Patrick loot 
 ed at Ml'. Crura"'s letter for the second time. 
 
362 MA?f A^D WIFE. 
 
 He was not quite satisfied that the pecuniary motive was 
 really the motive at the bottom of Anne's journey south. Re- 
 membering that Geoffrey's trainers had removed him to the 
 neighborhood of London, he was inclined to doubt whether 
 some serious quarrel had not taken place between Anne and 
 Mrs. Glenarm — and whether some direct appeal to Geoffrey 
 himself might not be in contemplation as the result. In that 
 event, Sir Patrick's advice and assistance would be placed, 
 without scruple, at Miss Silvester's disposal. By asserting her 
 claim, in opposition to tlie claim of Mrs. Glenarm, she was also 
 asserting herself to be an unmarried woman, and was thus serv- 
 ing Blanche's interests as well as her own. " I owe it to Blanche 
 to help lier," thought Sir Patrick. " And I owe it to myself 
 to bring Geoffrey Delamayn to a day of reckoning if I can." 
 
 The barking of the dogs in the yard announced the return 
 of the carriage. Sir Patrick went out to meet Arnold and 
 Blanche at the gate, and tell them the news. 
 
 Punctual to the time at which he was expected, the discreet 
 Duncan re-appeared with a note from the musical agent. 
 
 Miss Silvester had not yet reached London ; but she was 
 expected to arrive not later than Tuesday in the ensuing week. 
 The agent had already been favored with her instructions to 
 pay the strictest attention to any commands received from Sir 
 Patrick Lundie. He would take care that Sir Patrick's mes- 
 sage should be given to Miss Silvester as soon as she arrived. 
 
 At last, then, there was liews to be relied on ! At last there 
 was a prospect of seeing her ! Blanche was radiant with hap- 
 piness. Arnold was in high spirits for the first time since his 
 return from Baden. 
 
 Sir Patrick tried hard to catch the infection of gayety from 
 his young friends ; but, to his own surprise, not less than to 
 theirs, the effort proved fruitless. With the tide of events 
 turning decidedly in his favor — relieved of the necessity of 
 taking a doubtful journey to Scotland ; assured of obtaining 
 his interview with Anne in a few days' time — he was out of 
 spirits all through the evening. 
 
 " Still down on our luck !" exclaimed Arnold, as he and his 
 host finished their last game of billiards, and parted for the 
 night. " Surely, we couldn't wish for a more promising pros- 
 pect than oicr prospect next week ?" 
 
 Sir Patrick laid his hand on Arnold's shoulder. 
 
 "Let us look indulgently together," he said, in his whimsi- 
 cally grave way, " at the humiliating spectacle of an old man's 
 folly. I feel at this moment, Arnold, as if I would give every 
 thing that I possess in the world to have passed over next 
 week, and to be landed safely in the time beyond it." 
 
MAN AND WIFB. 363 
 
 " But why ?" 
 
 " There is the folly ! I can't tell why. With every reason 
 to be in better spirits than usual, I am unaccountably, irra- 
 tionally, invincibly depressed. What are we to conclude from 
 that ? Am I the object of a supernatural warning of misfor- 
 tune to come ? Or am I the object of a temporary derange- 
 ment of the functions of the liver? There is the question. 
 Who is to decide it ? How contemptible is humanity, Arnold, 
 rightly understood ! Give me my candle, and let's hope it's 
 the liver." 
 
 EIGHTH SCENE. — THE PANTR Y. 
 CHAPTER THE THIRTY-NINTH. 
 
 ANNE WINS A VICTORY. 
 
 On a certain evening in the month of September (at that 
 period of the month when Arnold and Blanche were traveling 
 back from Baden to Ham Farm) an ancient man — with one 
 eye filmy and blind, and one eye moist and merry — sat alone 
 in the pantry of the Harp of Scotland Inn, Perth, pounding the 
 sugar softly in a glass of whisky-punch. He has hitherto been 
 personally distinguished in these pages as the self-appointed 
 father of Anne Silvester and the humble servant of Blanche at 
 the dance at Swanhaven Lodge. He now dawns on the view 
 in amicable relations with a tliird lady, and assumes the mys- 
 tic character of Mrs. Glenarm's " Friend in the Dark." 
 
 Arriving in Perth the day after the festivities at Swanhaven, 
 Bishopriggs proceeded to the Harp of Scotland — at which es- 
 tablishment for the reception of travelers he possessed the ad- 
 vantage of being known to the landlord as Mrs, Inchbare's 
 right-hand man, and of standing high on the head-waiter's list 
 of old and intimate friends. 
 
 Inquiring for the waiter first by the name of Thomas (other- 
 wise Tammy) Pennyquick, Bishopriggs found his friend in soi'e 
 distress of body and mind. Contending vainly against the 
 disabling advances of rheumatism, Thomas Pennyquick ruefully 
 contemplated the prospect of being laid up at home by a long 
 illness — with a wife and children to support, and with the 
 emoluments attached to his position passing into the pockets 
 of the first stranger who could be found to occupy his place 
 at the inn. 
 
 Hearing this doleful story, Bishopriggs cunningly saw his 
 way to serving his own private interests by performing the 
 part of Thomas Pennyquick's generous and devoted friend. 
 
364 MAN AND AVIFE. 
 
 He forthwith offered to fill the place, without taking the 
 emoluments of the invalided head-waiter — on the understand- 
 ing, as a matter of course, that the landlord consented to board 
 and lodge him free of expense at the inn. The landlord hav- 
 ing readily accepted this condition, Thomas Pennyquick re- 
 tired to the bosom of his family. And there was Bishopriggs, 
 doubly secure behind a respectable position and a virtuous 
 action, against all likelihood of suspicion falling on him, as a 
 stranger in Perth — in the event of his correspondence with 
 Mrs. Glenarm being made the object of legal investigation on 
 the part of her friends ! 
 
 Having opened the campaign in this masterly manner, the 
 same sagacious foresight had distinguished the operations of 
 Bishopriggs throughout. 
 
 His correspondence with Mrs. Glenarm was invariably writ- 
 ten with the left hand — the writing thus produced, defying 
 detection, in all cases, as bearing no resemblance of character 
 whatever to writing produced by persons who habitually use 
 the other hand. A no less far-sighted cunning distinguished 
 his proceedings in answering the advertisements which the 
 lawyers duly inserted in the newspaper. He appointed hours 
 at which he was employed on business-errands for the inn, and 
 places which lay on the way to those errands, for his meetings 
 with Mrs. Glenarm's representatives : a pass-word being de- 
 termined on, as usual in such cases, by exchanging which the 
 persons concerned could discover each other. However care- 
 fully the lawyers might set the snare — whether they had their 
 necessary " witness " disguised as an artist sketching in the 
 neighborhood, or as an old woman selling fruit, or what not — • 
 the wary eye of Bishopriggs detected it. He left the pass- word 
 unspoken ; he went liis way on his errand ; he was followed 
 on suspicion ; and he was discovered to be only " a respecta- 
 ble person," charged %vith a message by the landlord of the 
 Harp of Scotland Inn. 
 
 To a man intrenched behind such precautions as these, the 
 chance of being detected might well be reckoned among the 
 last of all the chances that could possibly happen. 
 
 Discovery was, nevertheless, advancing on Bishopriggs from 
 a quarter which had not been included in his calculations. 
 Anne Silvester was in Perth ; forewarned by the newspaper 
 (as Sir Patrick had guessed) that the letters offei'ed to Mrs. 
 Glenarm were the letters between Geoffrey and herself, which 
 she had lost at Craig Fernie, and bent on clearing up the sus 
 picion which pointed to Bishopriggs as the person who was try- 
 ing to turn the correspondence to pecuniary account. The in- 
 quiries made for him, at Anne's request, as soon as she arrived 
 in the town, openly described his name, and his former posi- 
 
MAN AND WirE. 367 
 
 tion as head waiter at Craig Fernie — and thus led easil)' to the 
 discovery of him, in his publicly avowed character of Thomas 
 Pennyquick's devoted friend. Toward evening, on the day 
 after she reached Perth, the news came to Anne that Bishop- 
 rio-crs was in service at the inn known as the Harp of Scotland. 
 The landlord of the hotel at which she was staying inquired 
 whether he should send a message for her. She answered, 
 " No, I will take my message myself. All I want is a person 
 to show me the way to the inn." 
 
 Secluded in the solitude of the head-waiter's pantry, Bishop- 
 riggs sat peacefully melting the sugar in his whisky-punch. 
 
 It was the hour of the evening at which a period of tranquil- 
 lity generally occurred before what was called the " night bus- 
 iness " of the house began. Bishopriggs was accustomed to 
 drink and meditate daily in this interval of repose. He tasted 
 the punch, and smiled contentedly as he set down his glass. 
 The prospect before him looked fairly enough. He had out- 
 witted the lawyers in the preliminary negotiations thus far. 
 All that was needful now was to wait till the terror of a pub- 
 lic scandal (sustained by occasional letters from her " PViend 
 in the Dark") had its due effect on Mrs. Glenarm, and hurried 
 her into paying the purchase-money for the correspondence 
 with her own hand. " Let it breed in the brain," he thought, 
 " and the siller will soon come out o' the purse." 
 
 His reflections were interrupted by the appearance of a slov- 
 enly maid-servant, with a cotton handkerchief tied round her 
 head, and an uncleaned saucepan in her hand. 
 
 " Eh, Maister Bishopriggs," cried the girl, " here's a braw 
 young leddy speerin' for ye by yer ain name at the door." 
 
 " A leddy ?" repeated Bishopriggs, with a look of virtuous 
 disgust. "Ye donnert ne'er-do-weel, do you come to a decent, 
 'sponsible man like me, wi' sic a Cyprian overture as that? 
 What d'ye tak' me for? Mark Antony that lost the world for 
 love (the mair fule he !) ? or Don Jovanny that counted his 
 concubines by hundreds, like the blessed Solomon himself? 
 Awa' wi' ye to yer pots and pans ; and bid the wandering Ve- 
 nus that sent ye go spin !" 
 
 Before the girl could answer she was gently pulled aside 
 from the door-way, and Bishopriggs, thunderstruck, saw Anne 
 Silvester standing in her place. 
 
 "You had better tell the servant I am no stranger to you," 
 said Anne, looking toward the kitchen-maid, who stood in the 
 passage staring at her in stolid amazement. 
 
 " My ain sister's child !" cried Bishopriggs, lying with his 
 customary readiness. "Go yer ways, Maggie. The bonny 
 lassie's my ain kith and kin. The tongue o' scandal, I trow, 
 
368 MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 has naething to say against that. — Lord save ub and guide us !" 
 he added in another tone, as the girl closed the door on them, 
 " what brings ye here ?" 
 
 " I have something to say to you. I am not very well ; I 
 must wait a little first. Give me a chair." 
 
 Bishopriggs obeyed in silence. His one available eye rested 
 on Anne, as he produced the chair, with an uneasy and suspi- 
 cious attention. " I'm wanting to know one thing," he said. 
 " By what meeraiculous means, young madam, do ye happen 
 to ha' fund yer way to this inn ?" 
 
 Anne told him how her inquiries had been made, and what 
 the result had been, plainly and frankly. The clouded face of 
 Bishopriggs began to clear again. 
 
 " Hech ! hech !" he exclaimed, recovering all his native im- 
 pudence, " I hae had occasion to remark already, to anither 
 leddy than yersel', that it's seeraply mairvelous hoo a man's 
 ain gude deeds find him oot in this lower warld o' ours. I hae 
 dune a gude deed by pure Tammy Pennyquick, and here's a' 
 Pairth ringing wi' the report o' it ; and Sawmuel Bishopriggs 
 sae weel known that ony stranger has only to ask, and find 
 him. Understand, I beseech ye, that it's no hand o' mine that 
 pets this new feather in my cap. As a gude Calvinist, my 
 Saul's clear o' the smallest figment o' belief in Warks. When 
 I look at my ain celeebrity I joost ask, as the Psawmist asked 
 before me, ' Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine 
 a vain thing?' It seems ye've something to say to me," he 
 added, suddenly reverting to the object of Anne's visit. " Is 
 it humanly possible that ye can ha' come a' the way to Pairth 
 for naething but that." 
 
 The expression of suspicion began to show itself again in his 
 face. Concealing as she best might the disgust that he m- 
 spired in her, Anne stated her errand in the most direct man- 
 ner, and in the fewest possible words. 
 
 " I have come here to ask you for something," she said. 
 
 " Ay ? ay ? What may it be ye' re wanting of me ?" 
 
 " I want the letter I lost at Craig Fernie." 
 
 Even the solidly-founded self-possession of Bishopriggs him- 
 self was shaken by the startling directness of that attack on it. 
 His glib tongue was paralyzed for the moment. " I dinna ken 
 what ye're drivin' at," he said, after an interval, with a sullen 
 consciousness that he had been all but tricked into betraying 
 himself 
 
 The change in his manner convinced Anne that she had 
 found in Bishopriggs the person of whom she was in search. 
 
 "You have got my letter," she said, sternly insisting on the 
 truth. "And you are trying to turn it to a disgraceful use. 
 I won't allow you to make a market of my private afiairp. 
 
MAN AND WIFE. 369 
 
 You have offered a letter of mine for sale to a stranger. I 
 insist on your restoring it to me before I leave this room !" 
 
 Bishopriggs hesitated again. His first suspicion that Anne 
 had been privately instructed by Mrs. Glenarm's lawyers re- 
 turned to his mind as a suspicion confirmed. He felt the vast 
 importance of making a cautious repl3^ 
 
 "I'll no' waste precious time," he said, after a moment's 
 consideration with himself, " in brushing awa' the fawse breath 
 o' scandal, when it passes my way. It blaws to nae purpose, 
 my young leddy, when it blaws on an honest man like me. 
 Fie for shame on ye for saying what ye've joost said — to me 
 that was a fether to ye at Craig Fernie ! Wha' set ye on to 
 it ? Will it be man or woman that's misca'ed me behind my 
 back ?" 
 
 Anne took the Glasgow newspaper from the pocket of her 
 traveling -cloak, and placed it before him, open at the para- 
 graph which described the act of extortion attempted on Mrs, 
 Glenarm. 
 
 " I have found there," she said, " all that I want to know." 
 
 "May a' the tribe o' editors, preenters, paper-makers, news- 
 venders, and the like, bleeze together in the pit o' Tophet !" 
 With this devout aspiration — internally felt, not openly ut- 
 tered — Bishopriggs put on his spectacles, and read the passage 
 pointed out to him. " I see naething here touching the name 
 o' Sawmuel Bishopriggs, or the matter o' ony loss ye may or 
 may not ha' had at Craig Fernie," he said, when he had done ; 
 still defending his position, with a resolution worthy of a bet- 
 ter cause. 
 
 Anne's pride recoiled at the prospect of prolonging the dis- 
 cussion with him. She rose to her feet, and said her last 
 words. 
 
 "I have learned enough by this time," she answered, "to 
 know that the one argument that prevails with you is the ar- 
 gument of money. If money will spare me the hateful neces- 
 sity of disputing with you — poor as I am, money you shall 
 have. Be silent, if you please. You are personally interested 
 in what I have to say next." 
 
 She opened her purse, and took a five-pound note from it. 
 
 "If you choose to own the truth, and produce the letter," 
 she resumed, " I will give you this, as your reward for finding, 
 and restoring to me something that I had lost. If you persist 
 in your present prevarication, I can, and will, make that sheet 
 of note-paper you have stolen from me nothing but waste pa- 
 per in your hands. You have threatened Mrs. Glenarm with 
 my interference. Suppose I go to Mrs. Glenarm ? Suppose I 
 interfere before the week is out ? Suppose I have other letters 
 of Mr. Delamayn's in my possession, and produce them to speak 
 
370 MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 for me? What has Mrs. Glenarm to purchase of you then? 
 Answer me that !" 
 
 The color rose on Iier pale face. Her eyes, dim and weary 
 when she entered the room, looked hira brightly through and 
 through in immeasurable contempt. "Answer me that!" she 
 repeated, with a burst of her old energy which revealed the 
 fire and passion of the woman's nature, not quenched even 
 
 If Bishopriggs had a merit, it was a rare merit, as men go, 
 of knowing when he was beaten. If he had an accomplish- 
 ment, it was the accomplishment of retiiing defeated, with all 
 the honors of war. 
 
 " Mercy presairve us !" he exclaimed, in the most innocent 
 manner. " Is it even You Yersel' that writ the letter to the 
 man ca'ed Jaifray Delamayn, and got the wee bit answer in 
 pencil, on the blank page ? Hoo, in Heeven's name, was I to 
 know that was the letter ye were after when ye cam' in here ? 
 Did ye ever tell me ye were Anne Silvester, at the hottle ? 
 Never ance ! Was the puir feckless husband-creature ye had 
 wi' ye at the inn, Jaifray Delamayn ? Jaftray wad mak' twa 
 o' him, as my ain eyes ha' seen. Gi' ye back yer letter? My 
 certie ! noo I know it is yer letter, I'll gi' it back wi' a' the 
 pleasure in life !" 
 
 He opened his pocket-book, and took it out, with an alacrity 
 worthy of the honestest man in Christendom — and (more won- 
 derful still) he looked with a perfectly assumed expression of 
 indifference at the five-pound note in Anne's hand. 
 
 " Hoot I toot !" he said, " I'm no' that clear in my mind that 
 I'm free to tak' yer money. Eh, weel ! weel ! I'll een receive 
 it, if ye like, as a bit memento o' the time when I was o' some 
 sraa' sairvice to ye at the hottle. Ye'll no' mind," he added, 
 suddenly returning to business, " writin' me joost a line — in 
 the way o' receipt, ye ken— to clear me o' ony future suspicion 
 in the matter o' the letter ?" 
 
 Anne threw down the bank-note on the table near which 
 they were standing, and snatched the letter from him. 
 
 *' You need no receipt," she answered. " There shall be no 
 letter to bear witness against you !" 
 
 She lifted her other hand to tear it in pieces. Bishopriggs 
 caught her by both wrists, at the same moment, and held her 
 fast. 
 
 " Bide a wee !" he said. " Ye don't get the letter, young 
 madam, without the receipt. It may be a' the same to yo?/, 
 now ye've married the other man, whether Jaffray Delamayn 
 ance promised ye fair in the by-gone time or no. But, my 
 certie ! it's a matter o' some moment to me^ that ye've chairged 
 wi' steal in' the letter, and making a market o't, and Lord 
 
MAN AND WIPE. 371 
 
 knows what besides, that I sulci hae yer ain acknowledgment 
 for it in black and white. Gi' me my bit receipt — and een do 
 as ye will with yer letter after that !" 
 
 Anne's hold of the letter relaxed. She let Bishopriggs re- 
 possess himself of it as it dropped on the floor between them, 
 without making an effort to prevent him. 
 
 " It may be a' the same to yo?<, now ye've married the other 
 man, whether Jaff"ray Delamayn ance promised ye fair in the 
 by-gone time, or no." Those words presented Anne's position 
 before her in a light in which she had not seen it yet. She 
 had truly expressed the loathing that Geoff'rey now inspired 
 in her, when she had declared in her letter to Arnold, that, 
 even if he offered her marriage, in atonement for the past, she 
 would rather be what she was than be his wife. It had never 
 occurred to her, until this moment, that others would misin- 
 terpret the sensitive pride which had prompted the abandon- 
 ment of her claim on the man who had ruined her. It had 
 never been brought home to her until now, that if she left him 
 contemptuously to go his own way, and sell himself to the 
 first woman who had money enough to buy him, her conduct 
 would sanction the false conclusion that she was powerless to 
 interfere, because she was married already to another man. The 
 color that had risen in her face vanished, and left it deadly 
 pale again. She began to see that the purpose of her journey 
 to the North was not completed yet. 
 
 " I will give you your receipt," she said. " Tell me what to 
 write, and it shall be written." 
 
 Bishopriggs dictated the receipt. She wrote and signed it. 
 He put it in his pocket-book with the five-pound note, and 
 handed her the letter in exchange. 
 
 " Tear it if ye will," he said. " It matters naething to me." 
 
 For a moment she hesitated. A sudden shuddering shook 
 her from head to foot — the forewarning, it might be, of the in- 
 flnence which that letter, saved from destruction by a hair- 
 breadth, was destined to exercise on her life to come. She 
 recovered herself, and folded her cloak closer to her, as if she 
 had felt a passing chill. 
 
 " No," she said ; "I will keep the letter." 
 
 She folded it and put it in tlie pocket of her dress. Then 
 turned to go — and stopped at the door. 
 
 " One thing more," she added. " Do you know Mrs. Glen- 
 arm's present address ?" 
 
 " Ye're no' reely going to Mistress Glenarm?" 
 
 " That is no concern of yours. You can answer my question 
 or not, as you please." 
 
 " Eh, my leddy ! yer temper's no' what it used to be in the 
 auld times at the hottle. Aweel ! aweel ! ye ha' gi'en me yej* 
 
372 MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 money, and I'll een gi' ye back gude measure for it, on my Bide. 
 Mistress Glenarm's awa' in private — incog, as they say — to Jaf- 
 fray Delamayn's brither at Swanhaven Lodge. Ye may rely 
 on the information, and it's no' that easy to come at either. 
 They've keepit it a secret, as they think, from a' the warld. 
 Hech ! hech ! Tammy Pennyquick's youngest but twa is page- 
 boy at the hoose where the leddy's been veesitiii', on the out- 
 skirts o' Pairth. Keep a secret if ye can frae the pawky ears 
 o' yer domestics in the servants' hall ! — Eh ! she's aif, without 
 a word at parting !" he exclaimed as Anne left him without 
 ceremony in the middle of his dissertation on secrets and serv- 
 ants' halls. " I trow I ha' gaen out for wool, and come back 
 shorn," he added, reflecting grimly on the disastrous over- 
 throw of the promising speculation on which he had embarked, 
 "My certie ! there was naething left for't, when madam's fin- 
 gers had grippit me, but to slip through them as cannily as I 
 could. What's JaiFray's marrying, or no' marrying, to do wi' 
 her .^" he wondered, reverting to the question which Anne had 
 put to him at parting. "And whar's the sense o' her errand, if 
 she's reely bent on finding her way to Mistress Glenarm ?" 
 
 Whatever the sense of her errand might be, Anne's next pro- 
 ceeding proved that she was really bent on it. After resting 
 two days, she left Perth by the first train in the morning, for 
 Swanhaven Lodge. 
 
 NINTH SCENE. — THE MUSICROOM. 
 CHAPTER THE FORTIETH. 
 
 JULIUS MAKES MISCHIEF. 
 
 Julius Delamatn was alone; idly sauntering to and fro, 
 with his violin in his hand, on the terrace at Swanhaven Lodge. 
 
 The first mellow light of evening was in the sky. It was 
 the close of the day on which Anne Silvester had left Perth. 
 
 Some hours earlier, Julius had sacrificed himself to the du- 
 ties of his political position — as made for him by his father. 
 He had submitted to the dire necessity of delivering an oration 
 to the electors, at a public meeting in the neighboring town 
 of Kirkandrew. A detestable atmosphere to breathe ; a dis- 
 orderly audience to address ; insolent opposition to conciliate ; 
 imbecile inquiries to answer; brutish interruptions to endure; 
 greedy petitioners to pacify ; and dirty hands to shake : these 
 are the stages by which the aspiring English gentleman is 
 compelled to travel on the journey which leads him from the 
 
MAN AND WIFE. 873 
 
 modest obscurity of private life to the glorious publicity of 
 the House of Commons. Julius paid the preliminary penalties 
 of a political first appearance, as exacted by free institutions, 
 with the necessary patience ; and returned to the welcome 
 shelter of home, more indifferent, if possible, to the attractions 
 of Parliamentary distinction than when he set out. The dis- 
 cord of the roaring " people " (still echoing in his ears) had 
 sharpened his customary sensibility to the poetry of sound, as 
 composed by Mozart, and as interpreted by piano and violin. 
 Possessing himself of his beloved instrument, he had gone out 
 on the terrace to cool himself in the evening air, pending the 
 arrival of the servant whom he had summoned by the music- 
 room bell. The man appeared at the glass door which led 
 into the room ; and reported, in answer to his master's inquiry, 
 that Mrs. Julius Delamayn was out paying visits, and was not 
 expected to return for another hour at least. 
 
 Julius groaned in spirit. The finest music which Mozart 
 has written for the violin associates that instrument with the 
 piano. Without the wife to help him, the husband was mute. 
 After an instant's consideration, .Tubus hit on an idea which 
 promised, in some degree, to remedy the disaster of Mrs. Dela- 
 mayn's absence from home. 
 
 " Has Mrs. Glenarm gone out, too ?" he asked. 
 
 "No, sir." 
 
 "My compliments. If Mrs. Glenarm has nothing else to do, 
 will she be so kind as to come to me in the music-room ?" 
 
 The servant went away with his message. Julius seated 
 himself on one of the terrace benches, and began to tune his 
 violin. 
 
 Mrs. Glenarm — rightly reported by Bishopriggs as having 
 privately taken refuge from her anonymous correspondent at 
 Swanhaven Lodge — was, musically speaking, far from being 
 an efficient substitute for Mrs. Delamayn. Julius possessed, 
 in his wife, one of the few players on the piano-forte under 
 whose subtle touch that shallow and soulless instrument be- 
 comes inspired with expression not its own, and produces mu- 
 sic instead of noise. The fine organization which can work 
 this miracle had not been bestowed on Mrs. Glenarm. She 
 had been carefully taught ; and she was to be trusted to play 
 correctly — and that was all. Julius, hungry for music, and re- 
 signed to circumstances, asked for no more. 
 
 The servant returned with his answer. Mrs. Glenarm would 
 join Mr. Delamayn in the music-room in ten minutes' time. 
 
 Julius rose, relieved, and resumed his sauntering walk ; now 
 playing little snatches of music ; now stopping to look at the 
 flowers on the terrace, with an eye that enjoyed their beauty, 
 and a \jand that fondled them with caressing touch. If Im- 
 
SYi MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 perial Parliament had seen him at that moment, Imperial Par- 
 liament must have given notice of a question to his illustrious 
 father: Is it possible, my loi'd, that you can have begotten 
 such a Member as this ? 
 
 After stopping for a moment to tighten one of the strings 
 of his violin, Julius, raising his head from the instrument, was 
 surprised to see a lady approaching him on the terrace. Ad- 
 vancing to meet her, and perceiving that she was a total 
 stranger to him, he assumed that she was, in all probability, a 
 visitor to his wife. 
 
 " Have I the honor of speaking to a friend of Mrs. Dela- 
 mayn's ?" he asked. " My wdfe is not at home, I am sorry to 
 say." 
 
 " I am a stranger to Mrs. Delaraayn," the lady answered. 
 " The servant informed me that she had gone out ; and that I 
 should find Mr. Delamayn here." 
 
 Julius bowed — and waited to hear more. 
 
 " I must beg you to forgive my intrusion," the stranger 
 went on. " My object is to ask permission to see a lady who 
 is, I have been informed, a guest in your house." 
 
 The extraordinary formality of the request rather puzzled 
 Julius. 
 
 " Do you mean Mrs. Glenarm ?" he asked. 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 "Pray don't think any permission necessary. A friend of 
 Mrs. Glenarm's may take her welcome for granted in this 
 house." 
 
 " I am not a friend of Mrs. Glenarm. I am a total sti*anger 
 to her." 
 
 This made the ceremonious request preferred by the lady a 
 little more intelligible — but it left the lady's object in wishing 
 to speak to Mrs. Glenarm still in the dark. Julius politely 
 -waited, until it pleased her to proceed further, and explain 
 herself The explanation did not appear to be an easy one to 
 give. Her eyes dropped to the ground. She hesitated pain- 
 fully. 
 
 " My name — if I mention it," she resumed, without looking 
 up, " may possibly inform you — " She paused. Her color 
 came and went. She hesitated again ; struggled with her agi- 
 tation, and controlled it. " I am Anne Silvester," she said, 
 suddenly raising her pale face, and suddenly steadying her 
 trembling voice. 
 
 Julius started, and looked at her in silent surprise. 
 
 The name was doubly known to him, Not long since, he 
 had heard it from his father's lips, at his father's bedside. 
 Lord Holchester had charged him, had earnestly charged him, 
 to bear that name in mind, and to help the woman who bore 
 
MAN AND WIFE. 375 
 
 it, if the woman ever applied to him in time to come. Again, 
 he had heard the name, more lately, associated scandalously 
 with the name of his brother. On the receipt of the first of 
 the anonymous letters sent to her, Mrs. Glenarm had not only 
 summoned Geoffrey himself to refute the aspersion cast upon 
 him, but had forwarded a private copy of the letter to his rela- 
 tives at Swanhaven. Geoffrey's defense had not entirely sat- 
 isfied Julius that his brother was free from blame. As he 
 now looked at Anne Silvester, the doubt returned upon him 
 strengthened — almost confirmed. Was this woman — so mod- 
 est, so gentle, so simply and unaffectedly refined — the shame- 
 less adventuress denounced by Geoffrey, as claiming him on 
 the strength of a foolish flirtation ; knowing herself, at the 
 time, to be privately married to another man ? Was this 
 woman— with the voice of a lady, the look of a lady, the man- 
 ner of a lady — in league (as Geoffrey had declared) with the 
 illiterate vagabond who was attempting to extort money 
 anonymously from Mrs. Glenarm ? Impossible! Making ev- 
 ery allowance for the proverbial deceitfulness of appearances, 
 impossible ! 
 
 " Your name has been mentioned to me," said Julius, an- 
 swering her after a momentary pause. Ilis instincts, as a gen- 
 tleman, made him shrink from referring to the association of 
 her name with the name of his brother, "My father mention- 
 ed you," he added, considerately explaining his knowledge of 
 her in that way, " when I last saw him in London." 
 
 "Your fiither I" She came a step nearer, with a look of dis- 
 trust as well as a look of astonishment in her face. " Your fa- 
 ther is Lord Holchester — is he not?" 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " What made him speak of me .?" 
 
 "He was ill at the time," Julius answered. "And he had 
 been thinking of events in his past life with which I am en- 
 tirely unacquainted. He said he had known your father and 
 mother. He desired me, if you were ever in want of any as- 
 sistance, to place my services at your disposal. When he ex- 
 pressed that wish, he spoke very earnestly — he gave me tlie 
 impression that there was a feeling of regret associated with 
 the recollections on which he had been dwelling." 
 
 Slowly, and in silence, Anne drew^ back to the low wall of 
 the terrace close by. She rested one hand on it to support her- 
 self Julius had said words of terrible import without a sus- 
 picion of what he had done. Never until now had Anne Sil- 
 vester knowm that the man w^ho had betrayed her was the son 
 of that other man whose discovery of the flaw in the marriage 
 had ended in the betrayal of her mother before her. She felt 
 the shock of the revelation with a chill of superstitious dread. 
 
376 MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 Was the chain of a fatality wound invisibly round her ? Turn 
 which way she might, was she still going darkly on, in the 
 track of her dead mother, to an appointed and hereditary 
 doom? Present things passed from her view as the awful 
 doubt cast its shadow over her mind. She lived again for a 
 moment in the time when she was a child. She saw the face 
 of her mother once more, with the wan despair on it of the by- 
 gone days when the title of wife was denied her, and the social 
 prospect was closed forever. 
 
 Julius approached, and roused her. 
 
 "Can I get you any thing?" he asked. "You are looking 
 very ill. I hope I have said nothing to distress you ?" 
 
 The question failed to attract her attention. She put a 
 question herself instead of answering it. 
 
 " Did you say you were quite ignorant of what your father 
 was thinking of when he spoke to you about me ?" 
 
 " Quite ignorant." 
 
 " Is your brother likely to know more about it than you 
 do?" 
 
 " Certainly not." 
 
 She paused, absorbed once more in her own thoughts. Star- 
 tled, on the memorable day when they had first met, by Geof- 
 frey's family name, she had put the question to him whether 
 there had not been some acquaintance between their parents 
 in the past time. Deceiving her in all else, he had not deceived 
 in this. He had spoken in good faith, when he had declared 
 that he had never heard her father or her mother mentioned 
 at home. 
 
 The curiosity of Julius was aroused. He attempted to lead 
 her on into saying more. 
 
 " You appear to know what my father was thinking of when 
 he spoke to me," he resumed. " May I ask — " 
 
 She interrupted him with a gesture of entreaty. 
 
 " Pray don't ask ! It's past and over — it can have no in- 
 terest for you — it has nothing to do with my errand here. I 
 must return," she went on, hurriedly, " to my object in tres- 
 passing on your kindness. Have you heard me mentioned, 
 Mr. Delamayn, by another member of your family besides your 
 father?" 
 
 Julius had not anticipated that she would approach, of her 
 own accord, the painful subject on which he had himself for- 
 borne to touch. He was a little disappointed. He had ex- 
 pected more delicacy of feeling from her than she had shown. 
 
 " Is it necessary," he asked, coldly, " to enter on that ?" 
 
 The blood rose again in Anne's cheeks. 
 
 " If it had not been necessary," she answered, " do you think 
 I could have forced myself to mention it to you ? Let me re- 
 
MAN AND WIFE. 3V7 
 
 mind you that I am here on sufferance. If I don't speak plain- 
 ly (no matter at wliat sacrifice to my own feelings), I make my 
 situation more embarrassing than it is already. I have some- 
 thing to tell Mrs. Glenarm relating to the anonymous letters 
 which she has lately received. And I have a word to say to 
 her, next, about her contemplated marriage. Before you allow 
 me to do this, you ought to know who I am. (I have owned 
 it.) You ought to have heard the worst that can be said of 
 my conduct. (Your face tells me you have heard the worst.) 
 After the forbearance you have shown to me, as a perfect 
 stranger, I will not commit the meanness of taking you by sur- 
 prise. Perhaps, Mr. Delamayn, you understand, 7ioic, why I 
 felt myself obliged to refer to your brother. Will you trust 
 me with permission to speak to Mrs. Glenarm ?" 
 
 It was simply and modestly said — with an unaffected and 
 touching resignation of look and manner. Julius gave her 
 back the respect and the sympathy which, for a moment, he 
 had unjustly withheld from her. 
 
 " You have placed a confidence in me," he said, " which most 
 persons in your situation would have withheld, I feel bound, 
 in return, to place confidence in you. I will take it for granted 
 that your motive in this matter is one which it is my duty to 
 respect. It will be for Mrs. Glenarm to say whether she wish- 
 es the interview to take place or not. All that I can do is to 
 leave you free to propose it to her. You are free." 
 
 As he spoke, the sound of the piano reached them from the 
 music-room. Julius pointed to the glass door which opened 
 on to the terrace. 
 
 "You have only to go in by that door," be said, "and you 
 will find Mrs. Glenarm alone." 
 
 Anne bowed, and left him. Arrived at the short flight of 
 steps which led up to the door, she paused to collect her 
 thoughts before she went in. 
 
 A sudden reluctance to go on and enter the room took pos- 
 session of her, as she waited with her foot on the lower step. 
 The report of Mrs. Glenarm's contemplated marriage had pro- 
 duced no such effect on her as Sir Patrick had supposed : it 
 had found no love for Geoffrey left to wound, no latent jeal- 
 ousy only waiting to be inflamed. Her object in taking the 
 journey to Perth was completed when her correspondence 
 with Geoffrey was in her own hands again. The change of 
 purpose which had brought her to Swanhaven was due entire- 
 ly to the new view of her position toward Mrs. Glenarm which 
 the coarse common sense of Bishopriggs had first suggested to 
 her. If she failed to protest against Mrs. Glenarm's marriage, 
 in the interests of the reparation which Geoffrey owed to her, 
 
3V8 MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 her conduct would only confirm Geoffrey's audacious assertion 
 that she was a married woman already. For her own sake 
 she might still have hesitated to move in the matter. But 
 Blanche's interests were concerned as well as her own ; and, 
 for Blanche's sake, she had resolved on making the journey to 
 Swanhaven Lodge. 
 
 At the same time, feeling toward Geoffrey as she felt now — 
 conscious that she was of not really desiring the reparation on 
 which she was about to insist— it was essential to the preser- 
 vation of her own self-respect that she should have some pur- 
 pose in view which could justify her to her own conscience in 
 assuming the character of Mrs. Glenarm's rival. 
 
 She had only to call to mind the critical situation of Blanche 
 — and to see her purpose before her plainly. Assuming that 
 she could open the coming interview by peaceably proving 
 that her claim on Geoffrey was beyond dispute, she might 
 then, without fear of misconception, take the tone of a friend 
 instead of an enemy, and might, with the best grace, assure 
 Mrs. Glenarm that she had no rivalry to dread, on the one 
 easy condition that she engaged to make Geoffrey repair the 
 evil that he had done. " Marry him without a word against 
 it to dread from tne — so long as he unsays the words and un- 
 does the deeds which have thrown a doubt on the marriage 
 of Arnold and Blanche." If she could but bring the interview 
 to this end — there was the way found of extricating Arnold, 
 by her own exertions, from the false position in which she had 
 innocently placed him toward his wife ! Such was the object 
 before her, as she now stood on the brink of her interview with 
 Mrs. Glenarm. 
 
 Up to this moment, she had firmly believed in her capacity 
 to realize her own visionary project. It was only when she 
 had her foot on the step that a doubt of the success of the 
 coming experiment crossed her mind. For the first time she 
 saw the weak point in her own reasoning. For the first time 
 she felt how much she had blindly taken for granted, in assum- 
 ing that Mrs. Glenarm would have sufficient sense of justice and 
 sufficient command of temper to hear her patiently. All her 
 hopes of success rested on her own favorable estimate of a wom- 
 an who was a total stranger to her ! What if the first words 
 exchanged between them proved the estimate to be wrong? 
 
 It was too late to pause and reconsider the position. Julius 
 Delamayn had noticed her hesitation, and was advancing to- 
 ward her from the end of the terrace. There was no help for 
 it but to master her own irresolution, and to run the risk bold- 
 ly. " Come what may, I have gone too far to stop Acre." 
 With that desperate resolution to animate her, she opened the 
 glass door at the to]) of the steps, and went into the room. 
 
MAN AND WIFE. 379 
 
 Mrs. Glenarm rose from the piano. The two women — one 
 so richly, the other so plainly dressed ; one with her beauty in 
 its full bloom, the other worn and blighted ; one with society 
 at her feet, the other an outcast living under the bleak shadow 
 of reproach — the two women stood face to face, and exchanged 
 the cold courtesies of salute between strangers, in silence. 
 
 The first to meet the trivial necessities of the situation was 
 Mrs. Glenarm. She good-humoredly put an end to the em- 
 barrassment — which the shy visitor appeared to feel acutely — 
 by speaking first. 
 
 " I am afraid the servants have not told you ?" she said. 
 " Mrs. Delamayu has gone out." 
 
 " I beg your pardon — I have not called to see Mrs. Dela- 
 mayn." 
 
 Mrs. Glenarm looked a little surprised. She went on, how- 
 ever, as amiably as before. 
 
 " Mr. Delamayn, perhaps ?" she suggested. " I expect him 
 here every moment." 
 
 Anne explained again. " I have just parted from Mr. Dela- 
 mayn." Mrs. Glenarm opened her eyes in astonishment. Anne 
 proceeded. " I have come here, if you will excuse the intru- 
 sion — " 
 
 She hesitated — at a loss how to end the sentence. Mrs. 
 Glenarm, beginning by this time to feel a strong curiosity as 
 to what might be coming next, advanced to the rescue once 
 more. 
 
 "Pray don't apologize," she said. "I think I understand 
 that you are so good as to have come to see me. You look 
 tired. Won't you take a chair ?" 
 
 Anne could stand no longer. She took the offered chair. 
 Mrs. Glenarm resumed her place on the music-stool, and ran 
 her fingers idly over the keys of the piano. " Where did you 
 see Mr. Delamayn ?" she went on. " The most irresponsible 
 of men, except when he has got his fiddle in his hand ! Is he 
 coming in soon? Are we going to have any music? Have 
 you come to play with us? Mr. Delamayn is a perfect fanatic 
 in music, isn't he ? Why isn't he here to introduce us ? I 
 suppose you like the classical style, too ? Did you know that 
 I was in the music-room ? Might I ask your name ?" 
 
 Frivolous as they were, Mrs. Glenarm's questions were not 
 without their use. They gave Anne time to summon her res- 
 olution, and to feel the necessity of explaining herself 
 
 "I am speaking, I believe, to Mrs. Glenarm?" she began. 
 
 The good-humored widow smiled, and bowed graciously. 
 
 " I have come here, Mrs. Glenarm — by Mr. Delamayn's per- 
 mission — to ask leave to speak to you on a matter in which 
 you are interested." 
 
380 MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 Mrs, Glenarra's many-ringed fingers paused over the keys 
 of the piano. Mrs. Glenarra's plump face turned on the sti'an- 
 ger Avith a dawning expression of surprise. 
 
 "Indeed ? I am interested in so many matters. May I ask 
 what this matter is ?" 
 
 The flippant tone of the speaker jarred on Anne. If Mrs. 
 Glenarm's nature was as shallow as it appeared to be on the 
 surface, there was little hope of any sympathy establishing it- 
 self between them. 
 
 " I wished to speak to you," she answered, " about something 
 that happened while you were paying a visit in the neighbor- 
 hood of Perth." 
 
 The dawning surprise in Mrs. Glenarm's face became intensi- 
 fied into an expression of distrust. Her hearty manner vanish- 
 ed under a veil of conventional civility, drawn over it sudden- 
 ly. She looked at Anne. " Never at the best of times a beau- 
 ty," she thought. " Wretchedly out of health now. Dressed 
 like a servant, and looking like a lady. What does it mean ?" 
 
 The last doubt was not to be borne in silence by a person 
 of Mrs. Glenarm's temperament. She addressed herself to the 
 solution of it with the most unblushing directness — dextei'ous- 
 ly excused by the most winning frankness of manner. 
 
 " Pardon me," she said. " My memory for faces is a bad 
 one; and I don't think you heard me just now, when I asked 
 for your name. Have we ever met before ?" 
 
 " Never." 
 
 " And yet — if I understand what you are referring to — you 
 wish to speak to me about something which is only interesting 
 to myself and my most intimate friends." 
 
 " You understand me quite correctly," said Anne. " I wish 
 to speak to you about some anonymous letters — " 
 
 "For the third time, will you permit me to ask for your 
 name ?" 
 
 " You shall hear it directly — if you will first allow me to 
 finish what I wanted to say. I wish — if I can — to persuade 
 you that I come here as a friend, before I mention my name. 
 You will, I am sure, not be very sorry to hear that you need 
 dread no further annoyance — " 
 
 " Pardon me once more," said Mrs. Glenarm, interposing for 
 the second time. " I am at a loss to know to what I am to at- 
 tribute this kind interest in my affairs on the part of a total 
 stranger." 
 
 This time her tone was more than politely cold — it was 
 politely impertinent. Mrs. Glenarm had lived all her life in 
 good society, and was a perfect mistress of the subtleties of 
 refined insolence in her intercourse with those who incurred 
 her displeasure. 
 
MAN AND WIFE. 381 
 
 Anne's sensitive nature felt the wound — but Anne's patient 
 courage submitted. She put away from her the insolence 
 which had tried to sting, and went on, gently and firmly, as if 
 nothing had happened. 
 
 "The person who wi'ote to you anonymously," she said, "al 
 luded to a cori-espondenee. He is no h)nger in possession of 
 it. The correspondence has passed into hands which may be 
 trusted to respect it. It will be put to no base use in the fu- 
 ture — I answer for that." 
 
 "You answer for that?" repeated Mrs. Glenarm. She sud- 
 denly leaned forward over the piano, and fixed her eyes in un- 
 concealed scrutiny on Anne's face. The violent temper, so 
 often found in combination with the weak nature, began to 
 show itself in her rising color and her lowering brow. " How 
 do yoii know what the person wrote?" she asked. "How do 
 yoxi, know that the correspondence has passed into other hands ? 
 Who are you ?" Before Anne could answer her, she sprang to 
 her feet, electrified by a new idea. "The man who wrote to 
 me spoke of something else besides a correspondence. He 
 spoke of a w^oman. I have found you out !" she exclaimed, 
 with a burst of jealous fury. " I'oi^ are the woman !" 
 
 Anne rose, on her side, still in firm possession of her self-con- 
 trol. 
 
 "Mrs. Glenarm," she said, calmly, "I warn — no, I entreat 
 you — not to take that tone with me. Compose yourself; and 
 I promise to satisfy you that you are more interested than you 
 are willing to believe in what I have still to say. Pray bear 
 with me for a little longer. I admit that you have guessed 
 right. I own that I am the miserable woman who has been 
 ruined and deserted by GeoiFrey Delamayn." 
 
 " It's false !" cried Mrs. Glenarm. "You wretch! Do you 
 come to me with your trumped-up story? What does Julius 
 Delamayn mean by exposing me to this ?" Her indignation at 
 finding herself in the same room with Anne broke its way 
 through, not the restraints only, but the common decencies of 
 politeness. " I'll ring for the servants !" she said. " I'll have 
 you turned out of the house." 
 
 She tried to cross the fire-place to ring the bell. Anne, who 
 was standing nearest to it, stepped forward at the same mo- 
 ment. Without saying a word, she motioned with her hand 
 to the other woman to stand back. There was a pause. The 
 two waited, with their eyes steadily fixed on one another — each 
 with her resolution laid bare to the other's view. In a mo- 
 ment more, the finer nature prevailed. Mrs. Glenarm drew 
 back a step in silence. 
 
 " Listen to me," said Anne. 
 
 ''Listen to you?" repeated Mrs. Glenarm. "You have no 
 
382 MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 right to be in this honso. You have no right to force yourself 
 in here. Leave the room !" 
 
 Anne's patience — so firmly and admirably preserved thus 
 far — began to fail her at last. 
 
 "Take care, Mrs. Glenarm !" she said, still struggling with 
 herself. "I am not naturally a patient woman. Trouble has 
 done much to tame my temper — but endurance has its limits. 
 You have reached the limits of mine. I have a claim to be 
 heard — and after what you have said to me, I loill be heard !" 
 
 " You have no claim ! You shameless woman, you are mar- 
 ried already. I know the man's name. Arnold Brinkworth." 
 
 " Did Geoffrey Delamayn tell you that ?" 
 
 " I decline to answer a woman who speaks of Mr. Geoffrey 
 Delamayn in that familiar way." 
 
 Anne advanced a step nearer. 
 
 " Did Geoffrey Delamayn tell you that ?" she repeated. 
 
 There was a light in her eyes, there was a ring in her voice, 
 which showed that she was roused at last. Mrs. Glenarm an- 
 swered her this time. 
 
 " He did tell me." 
 
 " He lied !" 
 
 "He did 7iot! He knew. I believe him. I don't believe 
 you.'''' 
 
 " If he told you that I was any thing but a single woman — 
 if he told you that Arnold Brinkworth was married to any 
 body but Miss Lundie of Windygates — I say again he lied I" 
 
 "I say again — I believe him, and not yotf.'''' 
 
 " You believe I am Arnold Brinkworth's wife ?" 
 
 " I am certain of it." 
 
 " You tell me that to ray face?" 
 
 "I tell you to your face — you raay have been Geoffrey Del- 
 amayn's mistress ; you are Arnold Brinkworth's wife." 
 
 At those words the long-restrained anger leaped up in Anne 
 — all the more hotly for having been hitherto so steadily con- 
 trolled. In one breathless moment the whirlwind of her indig- 
 nation swept away, not only all remembrance of the purpose 
 which had brought her to Swanhaven, but all sense even of 
 the unpardonable wrong which she had suffered at Geoffrey's 
 hands. If he had been there at that moment, and had offered 
 to redeem his pledge, she would have consented to marry him, 
 while Mrs. Glenarm's eye was on her — no matter whether she 
 destroyed herself in her first cool moment afterward or not. 
 The small sting had planted itself at last in the great nature. 
 The noblest woman is only a woman, after all ! 
 
 " I forbid your marriage to Geoffrey Delamayn ! I insist on 
 his performing the promise he gave me, to make me his wife ! 
 I have got it here in his own words, in his own writing. On 
 
MAN AND WIFE. 385 
 
 his soul, he swears it to me — he will redeem his pledjje. His 
 mistress, did you say ? His wife, Mrs. Glenarra, before the 
 week is out !" 
 
 In those wild words she cast back the taunt — with the let- 
 ter held in triumph in her hand. 
 
 Daunted for the moment by the doubt now literally forced 
 on her, that Anne might really have the claim on Geoffrey 
 which she advanced, Mrs. Glenarm answered nevertheless with 
 the obstinacy of a woman brought to bay — with a resolution 
 not to be convinced by conviction itself 
 
 " I won't give him up !" she cried. " Your letter is a forgery. 
 You have no proof I won't, I won't, I won't give him up !" 
 she repeated, with the impotent iteration of an angry child. 
 
 Anne pointed disdainfully to the letter that she held. 
 "Here is his pledged and written word," she said. "While I 
 live, you will never be his wife." 
 
 " I shall be his wife the day after the race. I am going to 
 him in London — to warn him against You !" 
 
 " You will find me in London before you — with this in my 
 hand. Do you know his writing ?" 
 
 She held up the letter, open. Mrs. Glenarm's hand flew out 
 with the stealthy rapidity of a cat's paw, to seize and destroy 
 it. Quick as she was, her rival was quicker still. For an in- 
 stant they faced each other breathless — one with the letter 
 held behind her ; one with her hand still stretched out. 
 
 At the same moment — before a word more had passed be- 
 tween them — the glass door opened ; and Julius Delamayn ap- 
 peared in the room. 
 
 He addressed himself to Anne. 
 
 " We decided, on the terrace," he said, quietly, " that you 
 should speak to Mrs. Glenarm, if Mrs. Glenarm wished it. Do 
 you think it desirable that the interview should be continued 
 any longer ?" 
 
 Anne's head drooped on her breast. The fiery anger in her 
 was quenched in an instant. 
 
 " I have been cruelly provoked, Mr. Delamayn," she answer- 
 ed. "But I have no right to plead that." She looked up at 
 him for a moment. The hot tears of shame gathered in her 
 eyes, and fell slowly over her cheeks. She bent her head 
 again, and hid them from him. " The only atonement I can 
 make," she said, " is to ask your pardon, and to leave the 
 house." 
 
 In silence, she turned away to the door. In silence, Julius 
 Delamayn paid her the trifling courtesy of opening it for her. 
 She went out. 
 
 Mrs. Glenarm's indignation — suspended for the moment- 
 transferred itself to Julius. 
 25 
 
386 MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 " If I have been entrapped into seeing that woman, with 
 your approval," she said, haughtily, " I owe it to myself, Mr. 
 Delamayn, to follow her example, and to leave your house." 
 
 "I authorized her to ask you for an interview, Mrs. Glen- 
 arm. If she has presumed on the permission that I gave her, 
 I sincerely regret it, and I beg you to accept my apologies. 
 At the same time, I may venture to add, in defense of my con- 
 duct, that I thought her — and think her still — a woman to be 
 pitied more than to be blamed." 
 
 " To be pitied — did you say ?" asked Mrs. Glenarm, doubtful 
 whether her ears had not deceived her. 
 
 "To be pitied," repeated Julius. 
 
 " You may find it convenient, Mr. Delamayn, to forget what 
 your brother has told us about that person. I happen to re- 
 member it." 
 
 " So do I, Mrs. Glenarm. But, with my experience of Geof- 
 frey — " He hesitated, and ran his fingers nervously over the 
 strings of his violin. 
 
 " You don't believe hira ?" said Mrs. Glenarm. 
 
 Julius declined to admit that he doubted his brother's word, 
 to the lady who was about to become his brother's wife. 
 
 " I don't quite go that length," he said. " I find it difficult 
 to reconcile what Geoffi'ey has told us, with Miss Silvester's 
 manner and appearance — " 
 
 " Her appearance !" cried Mrs. Glenarm, in a transport of 
 astonishment and disgust. ^^Her appearance ! Oh, the men ! 
 I beg your pardon — I ought to have remembered that there is 
 no accounting for tastes. Go on — pray go on !" 
 
 " Shall we compose ourselves with a little music ?" suggest- 
 ed Julius. 
 
 "I particularly request you will go on," answered Mrs. Glen- 
 arm, emphatically. "You find it 'impossible to reconcile — '" 
 
 " I said ' difficult.' " 
 
 " Oh, very well. Difficult to reconcile what Geofii'ey told 
 us, with Miss Silvester's manner and appearance. What next? 
 You had something else to say, when I was so rude as to in- 
 terrupt you. What was it ?" 
 
 " Only this," said Julius. " I don't find it easy to under- 
 stand Sir Patrick Lundie's conduct in permitting Mr. Brink- 
 worth to commit bigamy with his niece." 
 
 " Wait a minute ! The marriage of that horrible woman to 
 Mr. Brinkworth was a private marriage. Of course. Sir Pat- 
 rick knew nothing about it !" 
 
 Julius owned that this might be possible, and made a second 
 attempt to lead the angry lady back to the piano. Useless, 
 once more ! Though she shrank from confessing it to herself, 
 Mrs. Glenarm's belief in the genuineness of her lover's defense 
 
MAN AND WIFE. 58? 
 
 had been shaken. The tone taken by Julius — moderate as it 
 was — revived the first startling suspicion of the credibility of 
 Geoffrey's statement which Anne's language and conduct had 
 forced on Mrs. Glenarm. She dropped into the nearest chair, 
 and put her handkerchief to her eyes. " You always hated 
 poor Geoffrey," she said, with a burst of tears. "And now 
 you're defaming him to me !" 
 
 Julius managed her admirably. On the point of answering 
 her seriously, he checked himself. " I always hated poor Geof- 
 frey?" he repeated, with a smile. "You ought to be the last 
 person to say that, Mrs. Glenarm ! I brought him all the way 
 from London expressly to introduce him to you.'''' 
 
 " Then I wish you had left him in London !" retoi'ted Mrs. 
 Glenarm, shifting suddenly from tears to temper. " I was a 
 happy woman before I met your brother. I can't give him up !" 
 she burst out, shifting back again fi'om temper to tears. " I 
 don't care if he has deceived me. I won't let another woman 
 have him ! I will be his wife !" She threw herself theatrically 
 on her knees before Julius. " Oh, do help me to find out the 
 truth !" she said. " Oh, Julius, pity me ! I am so fond of him !" 
 
 There was genuine distress in her face, there was true feel- 
 ing in her voice. Who would have believed that there were 
 reserves of merciless insolence and heartless cruelty in this 
 woman, and that they had been lavishly poured out on a fallen 
 sister not five minutes since ? 
 
 " I will do all I can," said Julius, raising her. " Let us talk 
 of it when you are more composed. Try a little music," he 
 repeated, "just to quiet your nerves." 
 
 "Would you like me to play?" asked Mrs. Glenarm, becom- 
 ing a model of feminine docility at a moment's notice. 
 
 Julius opened the Sonatas of Mozart, and shouldered his 
 violin. 
 
 " Let's try the Fifteenth," he said, placing Mrs. Glenarm at 
 the piano. " We will begin with the Adagio. If ever there 
 was divine music written by mortal man, there it is !" 
 
 They began. At the third bar Mrs. Glenarm dropped a note 
 — and the bow of Julius paused shuddering on the strings. 
 
 "I can't play !" she said. " I am so agitated ; I am so anx- 
 ious. How a))i I to find out whether that wretch is really 
 married or not ? AVho can I ask ? I can't go to Geoftrey in 
 London — the trainers won't let me see him. I can't appeal to 
 Mr, Brinkworth himself — I am not even acquainted with him. 
 Who else is there ? Do think, and tell me !" 
 
 There was but one chance of making her return to the Ada- 
 gio — the chance of hitting on a suggestion which would satis- 
 fy and quiet her. Julius laid his violin on the piano, and con- 
 sidered the question before him carefully. 
 
388 MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 " There are the witnesses," he said. " If Geoffrey's story is 
 to be depended on, the landlady and the waiter at the inn can 
 speak to the facts." 
 
 " Low people !" objected Mrs. Glenarm. " People I don't 
 know. People who might take advantage of my situation, 
 and be insolent to me." 
 
 Julius considered once more ; and made another suggestion. 
 With the fatal ingenuity of innocence, he hit on the idea of 
 referring Mrs. Glenarm to no less a person than Lady Lundie 
 herself! 
 
 " There is our good friend at Windygates," he said. " Some 
 whisper of the matter may have reached Lady Lundie's ears. 
 It may be a little awkward to call on her (if she has heard any 
 thing) at the time of a serious family disaster. You are the 
 best judge of that, however. All I can do is to throw out the 
 notion. Windygates isn't verj^ far off — and something might 
 come of it. What do you think ?" 
 
 Something might come of it ! Let it be remembered that 
 Lady Lundie had been left entirely in the dark — that she had 
 written to Sh* Patrick in a tone which plainly showed that her 
 self-esteem was wounded and her suspicion roused — and that 
 her first intimation of the serious dilemma in which Arnold 
 Brinkworth stood was now likely, thanks to Julius Delamayn, 
 to reach her from the lips of a mere acquaintance. Let this be 
 remembered ; and then let the estimate be formed of what might 
 come of it — not at Windygates only, but also at Ham Farm ! 
 
 " What do you think ?" asked Julius. 
 
 Mrs. Glenarm was enchanted. " The very person to go to !" 
 she said. " If I am not let in, I can easily write — and explain 
 my object as an apology. Lady Lundie is so right-minded, so 
 sympathetic. If she sees no one else — I have only to confide my 
 anxieties to her, and I am sure she will see me. You will lend 
 me a carriage, won't you ? I'll go to Windygates to-morrow." 
 
 Julius took his violin off the piano. 
 
 " Don't think me very troublesome," he said, coaxingly. " Be- 
 tween this and to-morrow we have nothing to do. And it is 
 sxich music, if you once get into the swing of it ! Would you 
 mind trying again ?" 
 
 Mrs. Glenarm was willing to do any thing to prove her grat- 
 itude, after the invaluable hint which she had just received. 
 At the second trial the fair pianist's eye and hand were in per- 
 fect harmony. The lovely melody which the Adagio of Mozart's 
 Fifteenth Sonata has given to violin and piano flowed smooth- 
 ly at last — and Julius Delamayn soared to the seventh heaven 
 of musical delight. 
 
 The next day Mrs. Glenarm and Mrs. Delamayn went to- 
 gether to Windygates House. 
 
MAN AN1> WIFE. 389 
 
 TENTH SCENE.— THE BEDROOM. 
 CHAPTER THE FORTY-FIRST. 
 
 LADY LUNDIE DOES HER DUTY. 
 
 The scene opens on a bedroom — and discloses, in broad day- 
 light, a lady in bed. 
 
 Persons with an irritable sense of propriety, whose self-ap- 
 pointed duty it is to be always crying out, a,re warned to pause 
 before they cry out on this occasion. The lady now presented 
 to view being no less a person than Lady Lundie herself, it fol- 
 lows, as a matter of course, that the utmost demands of pro- 
 priety are, by the mere assertion of that fact, abundantly and 
 indisputably satisfied. To sr.y that any thing short of direct 
 moral advantage could, by any possibility, accrue to any living 
 creature by the presentation of her ladyship in a hoi'izontal, in- 
 stead of a perpendicular position, is to assert that Virtue is a 
 question of posture, and that Respectability ceases to assert 
 itself when it ceases to appear in morning or evening dress. 
 Will any body be bold enough to say that ? Let nobody cry 
 out, then, on the present occasion. 
 
 Lady Lundie was in bed. 
 
 Her ladyship had received Blanche's written announcement 
 of the sudden stoppage of the bridal tour ; and had penned the 
 answer to Sir Patrick — the receipt of which at Ham Farm has 
 been already described. This done. Lady Lundie felt it due 
 to herself to take a becoming position in her own house, pend- 
 ing the possible arrival of Sir Patrick's reply. What does a 
 right-minded woman do when she has reason to believe that 
 she is cruelly distrusted by the members of her own family ? 
 A right-minded woman feels it so acutely that she falls ill. 
 Lady Lundie fell ill accordingly. 
 
 The case being a serious one, a medical practitioner of the 
 highest grade in the profession was required to treat it. A 
 physician from the neighboring town of Kirkandrew was call- 
 ed in. 
 
 The physician came in a carriage and pair, with the neces- 
 sary bald head, and the indispensable white cravat. He felt 
 her ladyship's pulse, and put a few gentle questions. He turn- 
 ed his back solemnly, as only a great doctor can, on his own 
 
390 MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 positive internal conviction that his patient had nothing what- 
 ever the matter with her. He said, with every appearance of 
 believing in himself, " N^erves, Lady Lundie. Repose in bed is 
 essentially necessary. I will write a prescription." He pre- 
 scribed with perfect gravity : Aromatic Spirits of Ammonia — 
 15 drops. Spirits of Red Lavender — 10 drops. Sirup of Or- 
 ange Peel — 2 drams. Camphor Julep — 1 ounce. When he had 
 written, Misce fiat Haustus (instead of Mix a Draught) — when 
 he had added, Ter die Sumendus (instead of To be taken Three 
 times a day) — and when he had certified to his own Latin, by 
 putting his initials at the end, he had only to make his bow ; 
 to slip two guineas into his pocket; and to go his way, with an 
 approving professional conscience, in the character of a physi- 
 cian who had done his duty. 
 
 Lady Lundie was in bed. The visible part of her ladyship 
 was perfectly attired, with a view to the occasion. A fillet of 
 superb white lace encircled her head. She wore an adorable 
 invalid jacket of white cambric, trimmed with lace and pink 
 ribbons. The rest was — bed-clothes. On a table at her side 
 stood the Red Lavender Draught — in color soothing to the eye ; 
 in flavor not unpleasant to the taste. A book of devotional 
 character was near it. The domestic ledgers, and the kitchen 
 report for the day, were ranged modestly behind the devout 
 book. (Not even her ladyship's nerves, observe, were permit- 
 ted to interfere with her ladyship's duty.) A fan, a smelling- 
 bottle, and a handkerchief lay within reach on the counterpane. 
 The spacious room was partially darkened. One of the lower 
 windows was open, affording her ladyship the necessary cubic 
 supply of air. The late Sir Thomas looked at his widow, in effi- 
 gy, from the wall opposite the end of the bed. Not a chair 
 was out of its place ; not a vestige of wearing apparel dared 
 to show itself outside the sacred limits of the wardrobe and the 
 drawers. The sparkling treasures of the toilet-table glittered 
 in the dim distance. The jugs and basins were of a rare and 
 creamy white ; spotless and beautiful to see. Look where you 
 might, you saw a perfect room. Then look at the bed — and 
 you saw a perfect woman, and completed the picture. 
 
 It was the day after Anne's appearance at Swanhaven — to- 
 ward the end of the afternoon. 
 
 Lady Lundie's own maid opened the door noiselessly, and 
 stole on tip-toe to the bedside. Her ladyship's eyes were 
 closed. Her ladyship suddenly opened them. 
 
 " Not asleep, Hopkins. Suffering. What is it ?" 
 
 Hopkins laid two cards on the counterpane. "Mrs. Dela- 
 mayn, my lady — and Mi-s. Glenarm." 
 
 " They were told I was ill, of course?" 
 
MAN AND WIFE. 391 
 
 " Yes, my lady. Mrs. Glenarm sent for me. She went ii.oO 
 the library, and wrote this note." Hopkins produced the note, 
 neatly folded in three-cornered form. 
 
 " Have they gone ?" 
 
 " 'No, my lady. Mrs. Glenarm told me Yes or No would do 
 for answer, if you could only have the goodness to read this." 
 
 "Thoughtless of Mrs. Glenarm — at a time when the doctor 
 insists on perfect repose," said Lady Lundie. " It doesn't mat- 
 ter. One sacrifice more or less is of very little consequence." 
 
 She fortified herself by an application of the smelling-bottle, 
 and opened the note. It ran thus : 
 
 " So grieved, dear Lady Lundie, to hear that you are a pris- 
 oner in your room ! I had taken the opportunity of calling 
 with Mrs. Delamayn, in the hope that I might be able to ask 
 you a question. Will your inexhaustible kindness forgive me 
 if I ask it in writing ? Have you had any unexpected news 
 of Mr. Arnold Briukworth lately ? I mean, have you heard 
 any thing about him which has taken you very much by sur- 
 prise? I have a serious reason for asking this. I will tell 
 you what it is, the moment you are able to see me. Until 
 then, one word of answer is all I expect. Send word down — 
 Yes, or No. A thousand apologies — and pray get better soon !" 
 
 The singular question contained in this note suggested one 
 of two inferences to Lady Lundie's mind. Either Mrs. Glen- 
 arm had heard a report of the unexpected return of the mar- 
 ried couple to England— or she was in the far more interest- 
 ing and important position of possessing a clue to the secret 
 of what was going on under the surface at Ham Farm. The 
 phrase used in the note, " I have a serious reason for asking 
 this," appeared to favor the latter of the two interpretations. 
 Impossible as it seemed to be that Mrs. Glenarm could know 
 something about Arnold of which Lady Lundie was in abso- 
 lute ignorance, her ladyship's curiosity (already powerfully ex- 
 cited by Blanche's mysterious letter) was only to be quieted 
 by obtaining the necessary explanation forthwith, at a person- 
 al interview. 
 
 " Hopkins," she said, " I must see Mrs. Glenarm." 
 
 Hopkins respectfully held up her hands in horror. Com- 
 pany in the bedroom in the present state of her ladyship's 
 health ! 
 
 " A matter of duty is involved in this, Hopkins. Give me 
 the glass." 
 
 Hopkins produced an elegant little hand-mirror. Lady 
 Lundie carefully surveyed herself in it down to the margin of 
 the bed-clothes. Above criticism in every respect ? Yes — 
 even when the critic was a woman. 
 
 " Show Mrs. Glenarm up here. ' 
 
392 MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 In a minute or two more the iron-master's widow fluttered 
 into the room — a little over-dressed as usual ; and a little pro- 
 fuse in expressions of gratitude for her ladyship's kindness, 
 and of anxiety about her ladyship's health. Lady Lundie en- 
 dured it as long as she could — then stopped it with a gesture 
 of polite remonstrance, and came to the point. 
 
 " Now, my dear — about this question in your note ? Is it 
 possible you have heard already that Arnold Brinkworth and 
 his wife have come back from Baden ?" Mrs. Glenarm opened 
 her eyes in astonishment. Lady Lundie put it more plainly. 
 " They were to have gone on to Switzerland, you know, for 
 their wedding tour, and they suddenly altered their minds, and 
 came back to England on Sunday last." 
 
 " Dear Lady Lundie, it's not that ! Have you heai'd noth- 
 ing about Mr. Brinkworth except what you have just told 
 me ?" 
 
 " Nothing." 
 
 There was a pause. Mrs. Glenarm toyed hesitatingly with 
 her parasol. Lady Lundie leaned forward in the bed, and 
 looked at her attentively. 
 
 " What have you heard about him ?" she asked. 
 
 Mrs. Glenarm was embarrassed. " It's so difficult to say," 
 she began. 
 
 " I can bear any thing but suspense," said Lady Lundie. 
 " Tell me the worst." 
 
 Mrs. Glenarm decided to risk it. " Have you never heard," 
 she asked, " that Mr. Brinkworth might possibly have commit- 
 ted himself with another lady before he married Miss Lun- 
 die?" 
 
 Her ladyship first closed her eyes in horror, and then search- 
 ed blindly on the counterpane for the smelling-bottle. Mrs. 
 Glenarm gave it to her, and waited to see how the invalid 
 bore it before she said any more. 
 
 "There are things one must hear," remarked Lady Lundie. 
 " I see an act of duty involved in this. No words can describe 
 how you astonish me. Who told you ?" 
 
 "Mr. Geoffrey Delamayn told me." 
 
 Her ladyship applied for the second time to the smelling- 
 bottle. "Arnold Brinkworth's most intimate friend !" she ex- 
 claimed. " He ought to know if any body does. This is 
 dreadful. Why should Mr. Geoffrey Delamayn tell you .^" 
 
 " I am going to marry him," answered Mrs. Glenarm. " That 
 is my excuse, dear Lady Lundie, for troubling you in this mat- 
 ter." 
 
 Lady Lundie partially opened her eyes in a state of faint 
 bewilderment. " I don't understand," she said. " For Heav- 
 en's sake explain yourself!" 
 
MAN AND WIFE. 393 
 
 "Haven't you heard about the anonymous letters?" asked 
 .'Mrs. Gleiitirm. 
 
 Yes. Lady Lnndie had heard about the letters. But only 
 ' what the public in general had heard. The name of the lady 
 in the background not mentioned ; and Mr. Geoffrey Dela- 
 mayn assumed to be as innocent as the babe unborn. Any 
 mistake in that assumption ? " Give me your hand, my poor 
 i dear, and confide it all to me .^" 
 
 " He is not quite innocent," said Mrs. Glenarm. " He own- 
 I ed to a foolish flirtation — all her doing, no doubt. Of course, 
 I insisted on a distinct explanation. Had she really any claim 
 on him ? Not the shadow of a claim. I felt that I only had 
 his word for that — and I told him so. He said he could prove 
 it — he said he knew her to be privately married already. Her 
 husband had disowned and deserted her ; she was at the end 
 of her resources ; she was desperate enough to attempt any 
 thing. I thought it all very suspicious — until Geoffrey men- 
 tioned the man's name. That certainly proved that he had 
 cast off his wife ; for I myself knew that he had lately married 
 another person." 
 
 Lady Lundie suddenly started up from her pillow — honestly 
 agitated ; genuinely alarmed by this time. 
 
 " Mr. Delamayn told you the man's name ?" she said, breath- 
 lessly. 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Do i know it ?" 
 
 " Don't ask me." 
 
 Lady Lundie fell back on the pillow. 
 
 Mrs. Glenai-m rose to ring for help. Before she could touch 
 the bell, her ladyship had rallied again. 
 
 " Stop !" she cried. " I can confirm it ! It's true, Mrs. Glen- 
 arm ! it's true ! Open the silver box on the toilet-table — you 
 will find the key in it. Bring me the top lettei-. Here ! Look 
 at it ! I got this from Blanche. Why have they suddenly 
 given up their bridal tour ? Why have they gone back to Sir 
 Patrick at Ham Farm ? Why have they put me off with an 
 infamous subterfuge to account for it ? I felt sure something 
 dreadful had happened. Now I know what it is !" She sank 
 back again, with closed eyes, and repeated the words, in a 
 fierce whisper, to herself " Now I know what it is !" 
 
 Mrs. Glenarm read the letter. The reason given for the sus- 
 piciously-sudden return of the bride and bridegroom was pal- 
 pably a subterfuge — and, more remarkable still, the name of 
 Anne Silvester was connected with it. Mrs. Glenarm became 
 strongly agitated on her side. 
 
 "' This is a confirmation," she said. " Mr. Brinkworth has 
 been found out — the woman is married to him — Geoffrey is 
 
394 MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 free. Oh, my dear friend, what a load of anxiety you have 
 taken off my mind ! That vile wretch — " 
 
 Lady Lundie suddenly opened her eyes. 
 
 " Do you mean," she asked, " the woman who is at the bot- 
 tom of all the mischief?" 
 
 " Yes. I saw her yesterday. She forced herself in at Swan- 
 haven. She called him Geoffrey Delamayn, She declared 
 herself a single woman. She claimed him before my face in 
 the most audacious manner. She shook my faith, Lady Lundie 
 — she shook my faith in Geoffrey !" 
 
 " Who is she ?" 
 
 " Who ?" echoed Mrs. Glenarm. " Don't you even know 
 that ? Why, her name is repeated half a dozen times in this 
 letter !" 
 
 Lady Lundie uttered a scream that rang through the room. 
 Mrs. Glenarm started to her feet. The maid appeared at the 
 door in terror. Her ladyship motioned to the woman to with- 
 draw again instantly, and then pointed to Mrs. Glenarm's chair. 
 
 " Sit down," she said. " Let me have a minute or two of 
 quiet. I want nothing more." 
 
 The silence in the room was unbroken until Lady Lundie 
 spoke again. She asked for Blanche's letter. After reading 
 it carefully, she laid it aside, and fell for a while into deep 
 thought. 
 
 ''I have done Blanche an injustice !" she exclaimed. "My 
 poor Blanche I" 
 
 " You think she knows nothing about it ?" 
 
 " I am certain of it ! You forget, Mrs. Glenarm, that this 
 horrible discovery casts a doubt on my stepdaughter's mar- 
 riage. Do you think, if she knew the truth, she would write 
 of a wretch who has mortally injured her as she writes here ? 
 They have put her off with the excuse that she innocently 
 sends to rue. I see it as plainly as I see you ! Mr. Brink- 
 worth and Sir Patrick are in league to keep us both in the 
 dark. Dear child ! I owe her an atonement. If nobody 
 else opens her eyes, I will do it. Sir Patrick shall land that 
 Blanche has a friend in Me !" 
 
 A smile — the dangerous smile of an inveterately vindictive 
 woman thoroughly roused — showed itself with a furtive sud- 
 denness on her face. Mrs. Glenarm was a little startled. Lady 
 Lundie below the surface — as distinguished from Lady Lundie 
 on the surface — M'as not a pleasant object to contemplate. 
 
 " Pray try to compose yourself," said Mrs. Glenarm. " Dear 
 Lady Lundie, you frighten me !" 
 
 The bland surface of her ladyship appeared smoothly once 
 more ; drawn back, as it were, over the hidden inner self, which 
 it had left for the moment exposed to view. 
 
MAN AND WIFE. 895 
 
 "Forgive me for feeling it!" she said, with the patient 
 sweetness which so eminently distinguished her in times of 
 trial. " It falls a little heavily on a poor sick woman — inno- 
 cent of all suspicion, and insulted by the most heartless neg- 
 lect. Don't let me distress you. I shall rally, my dear; I 
 shall rally ! In this dreadful calamity — this abyss of crime 
 and misery and deceit — I have no one to depend on but my- 
 self For Blanche's sake, the whole thing must be cleared up 
 — probed, my dear, probed to the depths. Blanche must take 
 a position that is worthy of her. Blanche must insist on her 
 rights, under My protection. Never mind what I suifer, or 
 what I sacrifice. There is a work of justice for poor weak 
 Me to do. It shall be done !" said her ladyship, fanning her- 
 self with an aspect of illimitable resolution. "It shall be 
 done !" 
 
 " But, Lady Lundie, what can you do ? They are all away 
 in the South. And as for that abominable woman — " 
 
 Lady Lundie touched Mrs. Glenarm on the shoulder with 
 her fan. 
 
 " I have my surprise in store, dear friend, as well as you. 
 That abominable woman was employed as Blanche's governess 
 in this house. Wait ! that is not all. She left us suddenly — 
 ran away — on the pretense of being privately married. I know 
 where she went. I can trace what she did. I can find out 
 who was with her. I can follow Mr. Brinkworth's proceed- 
 ings, behind Mr. Brinkworth's back. I can search out the 
 truth, without depending on people compromised in this black 
 business, whose interest it is to deceive me. And I will do it 
 to-day !" She closed the fan with a sharp snap of triumph, 
 and settled herself on the pillow in placid enjoyment of her 
 dear friend's surprise. 
 
 Mrs. Glenarm drew confidentially closer to the bedside. 
 " How can you manage it ?" she asked, eagerly. " Don't think 
 me curious. I have my interest, too, in getting at the truth. 
 Don't leave me out of it, pray !" 
 
 "Can you come back to-morrow at this time?" 
 
 "Yes! yes!" 
 
 " Come, then — and you shall know." 
 
 " Can I be of any use ?" 
 
 "Not at present." 
 
 " Can my uncle be of any use ?" 
 
 " Do you know where to communicate with Captain Newen- 
 den ?" 
 
 " Yes — he is staying with some friends in Sussex." 
 
 "We may possibly want his assistance. I can't tell yet. 
 Don't keep Mrs. Delamayn waiting any longer, my dear. I 
 shall expect you to-morrow." 
 
396 MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 They exchanged an affectionate embrace. Lady Lundie was 
 left alone. 
 
 Her ladyship resigned herself to meditation, with frowning 
 brow and close-shut lips. She looked her full age, and a year 
 or two more, as she lay thinking, with her head on her hand, 
 and her elbow on the pillow. After committing herself to the 
 physician (and to the red lavender draught), the commonest 
 regard for consistency made it necessary that she should keep 
 her bed for that day. And yet it was essential that the pro- 
 posed inquiries should be instantly set on foot. On the one 
 hand, the problem was not an easy one to solve ; on the other, 
 her ladyship was not an easy one to beat. How to send for 
 the landlady at Craig Fernie, without exciting any special 
 suspicion or remark — was the question before her. In less 
 than five minutes she had looked back into her memory of 
 current events at Windygates — and had solved it. 
 
 Her first proceeding Avas to ring the bell for her maid. 
 
 " I am afraid I frightened you, Hopkins. The state of my 
 nerves. Mrs. Glenarm was a little sudden with some news 
 that surprised me. I am better now — and able to attend to 
 the household matters. There is a mistake in the butcher's 
 account. Send the cook here." 
 
 She took up the domestic ledger and the kitchen report; 
 corrected the butcher ; cautioned the cook, and disposed of all 
 arrears of domestic business before Hopkins was summoned 
 again. Having, in this way, dexterously prevented the woman 
 from connecting any thing that her mistress said or did, after 
 Mrs. Glenarm's departure, with any thing that might have 
 passed during Mrs. Glenarm's visit. Lady Lundie felt herself at 
 liberty to pave the way for the investigation on which she was 
 determined to enter before she slept that night. 
 
 " So much for the indoor arrangements," she said. " You 
 must be my prime minister, Hopkins, while I lie helpless here. 
 Is there any thing wanted by the people out-of-doors? The 
 coachman? The gardener?" 
 
 " I have just seen the gardener, my lady. He came with 
 last week's accounts. I told him he couldn't see your ladyship 
 to-day." 
 
 " Quite right. Had he any report to make ?" 
 
 "No, my lady." 
 
 "Surely, there was something I wanted to say to him — or 
 to somebody else ? My memorandum-book, Hopkins. In the 
 basket, on that chair. Why wasn't the basket placed by my 
 bedside?" 
 
 Hopkins brought the memorandum - book. Lady Lundie 
 consulted it (without the slightest necessity), with the same 
 masterly gravity exhibited by the doctor when he wrote her 
 prescription (without the slightest necessity also). 
 
MAN AND WIFE. 397 
 
 "Here it is," she said, recovering the lost remembrance, 
 " Not the gardener, but the gardener's wife. A memorandum 
 to speak to her about Mrs. Inchbare. Observe, Hopkins, the 
 association of ideas. Mrs. Inchbare is associated with the 
 poultry ; the poultry are associated with the gardener's wife ; 
 the gardener's wife is associated with the gardener — and so 
 the gardener gets into my head. Do you see it ? I am al- 
 ways trying to improve your mind. You do see it ? Very 
 well. Now about Mrs. Inchbare. Has she been here again ?" 
 
 " No, my lady." 
 
 " I am not at all sure, Hopkins, that I was right in declin- 
 ing to consider the message Mrs. Inchbare sent to me about 
 the poultry. Why shouldn't she offer to take any fowls that 
 I can spare off my hands ? She is a respectable woman; and 
 it is important to me to live on good terms w4th all my neigh- 
 bors, great and small. Has she got a poultry-yard of her own 
 at Craig Fernie ?" 
 
 " Yes, my lady. And beautifully kept, I am told." 
 
 " I really don't see — on reflection, Hopkins — why I should 
 hesitate to deal with Mrs. Inchbare, (I don't think it beneath 
 me to sell the game killed on my estate to the poulterer.) 
 What was it she wanted to buy ? Some of my black Spanish 
 fowls?" 
 
 "Yes, my lady. Your ladyship's black Spaniards are fa- 
 mous all round the neighborhood. Nobody has got the breed. 
 And Mrs. Inchbare — " 
 
 " Wants to share the distinction of having the breed with 
 me," said Lady Lundie. " I won't appear ungracious. I will 
 see her myself, as soon as I am a little better, and tell her that 
 I have changed my mind. Send one of the men to Craig Fer- 
 nie with a message. I can't keep a trifling matter of this sort 
 in my memory — send him at once, or I may forget it. He is 
 to say I am willing to see Mrs. Inchbare, about the fowls, the 
 first time she finds it convenient to come this way." 
 
 " I am afraid, my lady — Mrs. Inchbare's heart is so set on 
 the black Spaniards — she will find it convenient to come this 
 way at once as fast as her feet can carry her." 
 
 " In that case, you must take her to the gardener's wife. 
 Say she is to have some eggs — on condition, of course, of 
 paving the price for them. If she does come, mind I hear 
 
 of It," 
 
 Hopkins withdrew. Hopkins's mistress reclined on her com- 
 fortable pillows, and fanned herself gently. The vindictive 
 smile re-appeared on her face. " I fancy I shall be well enough 
 to see Mrs. .Inchbare," she thought to herself. "And it is just 
 possible that the conversation may get beyond the relative 
 merits of her poultry-yard and mine." 
 
398 MAN AND WIFE, 
 
 A lapse of little more than two hours proved Hopkins's esti- 
 mate of the latent enthusiasm in Mrs. Inchbare's character to 
 have been correctly formed. The eager landlady appeared at 
 Windygates on the heels of the returning servant. Among 
 the long list of human weaknesses, a passion for poultry seems 
 to have its practical advantages (in the shape of eggs) as com- 
 pared with the more occult frenzies for collecting snuff-boxes 
 and fiddles, and amassing autographs and old postage-stamps. 
 When the mistress of Craig Fernie was duly announced to the 
 mistress of Windygates, Lady Lundie developed a sense of 
 humor for the first time in her life. Her ladyship was feebly 
 merry (the result, no doubt, of the exhilarating properties of 
 the red lavender draught) on the subject of Mrs. Inchbare and 
 the Spanish fowls. 
 
 " Most ridiculous, Hopkins ! This poor woman must be suf- 
 fering from a determination of poultry to the brain. Ill as I 
 am, I should have thought that nothing could amuse me. But, 
 really, this good creature starting up and rushing here, as you 
 say, as fast as her feet can carry her— it's impossible to resist 
 it ! I positively think I must see Mrs. Inchbare. With my 
 active habits, this imprisonment to my room is dreadful. I 
 can neither sleep nor read. Any thing, Hopkins, to divert my 
 mind from myself It's easy to get rid of her if she is too 
 much for me. Send her up." 
 
 Mrs. Inchbare made her appearance, courtesying deferential- 
 ly ; amazed at the condescension which admitted her within 
 the hallowed precincts of Lady Lundie's room. 
 
 " Take a chair," said her ladyship, graciously. " I am suffer- 
 ing from illness, as you perceive." 
 
 " My certie ! sick or well, yer leddy ship's a braw sight to 
 gee !" returned Mrs. Inchbare, profoundly impressed by the 
 elegant costume which illness assumes when illness appears in 
 the regions of high life. 
 
 " I am far from being in a fit state to receive any body," 
 proceeded Lady Lundie. " But I had a motive for wishing to 
 speak to you when you next came to my house. I failed to 
 treat a proposal you made to me, a short time since, in a friend- 
 ly and neighborly way. I beg you to understand that I regret 
 having forgotten the consideration due from a person in my 
 position to a person in yours. I am obliged to say this under 
 very unusual circumstances," added her ladyship, with a glance 
 round her magnificent bedroom, " through your unexpected 
 promptitude in favoring me with a call. You have lost no 
 time, Mrs. Inchbare, in profiting by the message which I had 
 the pleasure of sending to you." 
 
 " Eh, my leddy, I wasna that sure (yer leddyship having 
 ance changed yer mind) but that ye might e'en change again 
 
MAN AND WIFE. 399 
 
 if I failed to strike, as they say, while the iron's het. I crave 
 yer pardon, I'm sure, if I ha' been ower hasty. The pride o' 
 my hairt's in my powltry — and the ' black Spaniards' (as they 
 ca' tliem) are a sair temptation to me to break the tenth com- 
 mandment, sae lang as they're a' in yer leddyship's possession, 
 and nane o' them in mine." 
 
 " I am shocked to hear that I have been the innocent cause 
 of your falling into temptation, Mrs. Inchbare ! Make your 
 proposal — and I shall be happy to meet it, if I can." 
 
 "I must e'en be content vvi' what yer leddyship will conde- 
 scend on. A haitch o' eggs if I can come by naething else." 
 
 "There is something else you would prefer to a hatch of 
 eggs ?" 
 
 " I wad prefer," said Mrs. Inchbare, modestly, " a cock and 
 twa pullets." 
 
 " Open the case on the table behind you," said Lady Lundie, 
 " and you will find some writing-paper inside. Give me a 
 sheet of it — and the pencil out of the tray." 
 
 Eagerly watched by Mrs. Inchbare, she wrote an order to 
 the poultry-woman, and held it out with a gracious smile. 
 
 "Take that to the gardener's wife. If you agree with her 
 about the price, you can have the cock and the two pullets." 
 
 Mrs. Inchbare opened her lips — no doubt to express the ut- 
 most extremity of human gratitude. Before she had said three 
 words, Lady Luudie's impatience to reach the end which she 
 had kept in view from the time when Mrs. Glenarm had left the 
 house burst the bounds which had successfully restrained it 
 thus far. Stopping the landlady without ceremony, she fairly 
 forced the conversation to the subject of Anne Silvester's pro- 
 ceedings at the Craig Fernie inn. 
 
 " How are you getting on at the hotel, Mrs. Inchbare ? 
 Plenty of tourists, I suppose, at this time of year?" 
 
 "Full, my leddy (praise Providence), frae the basement to 
 the ceiling." 
 
 " You had a visitor, I think, some time since of whom I know 
 something? A person — " She paused, and put a strong con- 
 straint on herself. There was no alternative but to yield to 
 the hard necessity of making her inquiry intelligible. "A 
 lady," she added, " who came to you about the middle of last 
 month." 
 
 " Could yer leddyship condescend on her name ?" 
 
 Lady Lundie put a still stronger constraint on herself. 
 " Silvester," she said, sharply. 
 
 " Presairve us a' !" cried Mrs. Inchbare. " It will never be 
 the same that cam' driftin' in by hersel' — wi' a bit bag in her 
 hand, and a husband left daidling an hour or mair on the road 
 behind her?" 
 
400 MAN AND "WIFE. 
 
 " I have no doubt it is the same." 
 
 " Will she be a freend o' your leddyship's ?" asked Mrs. Inch- 
 bare, feeling her ground cautiously. 
 
 " Certainly not !" said Lady Lundie. " I felt a passing 
 curiosity about her — nothing more." 
 
 Mrs. Inchbare looked relieved. "To tell ye truth, my led- 
 dy, there was nae love lost between us. She had a maisterfu' 
 temper o' her ain — and I was weel pleased when I'd seen the 
 last of her." 
 
 " I can quite understand that, Mrs. Inchbare — I know some- 
 thing of her temper myself Did I understand you to say that 
 she came to your hotel alone, and that her husband joined her 
 shortly afterward ?" 
 
 " E'en sae, yer leddyship. I was no' free to gi' her house- 
 room in the hottle till her husband daidled in at her heels and 
 answered for her." 
 
 " I fancy I must have seen her husband," said Lady Lundie. 
 " What sort of a man was he ?" 
 
 Mrs. Inchbare replied in much the same words which she 
 had used in answering the similar question put by Sir Patrick. 
 
 " Eh ! he was ower young for the like o' her. A pratty man, 
 my leddy — betwixt tall and short; wi' bonny brown eyes and 
 cheeks, and fine coal-blaik hair. A nice douce-spoken lad. I 
 hae naething to say against him — except that he cam' late one 
 day, and took leg-bail betimes the next morning, and left mad- 
 am behind, a load on my hands." 
 
 The answer produced precisely the same eiFect on Lady Lun- 
 die which it had produced on Sir Patrick. She, also, felt that 
 it was too vaguely like too many young men of no uncommon 
 humor and complexion to be relied on. But her ladyship pos- 
 sessed one immense advantage over her brother-in-law in 
 attempting to arrive at the truth. She suspected Arnold — 
 and it was possible, in her case, to assist Mrs. Inchbare's mem- 
 ory by hints contributed from her own superior resources of 
 experience and observation. 
 
 " Had he any thing about him of the look and way of a 
 sailor?" she asked. "And did you notice, when you spoke to 
 him, that he had a habit of playing with a locket on his watch- 
 chain ?" 
 
 " There he is, het aff to a T !" cried Mrs. Inchbare. " Yer 
 leddyship's weel acquented wi' him — there's nae doot o' that." 
 
 " I thought I had seen him," said Lady Lundie. " A modest, 
 well-behaved young man, Mrs. Inchbare, as you say. Don't 
 let me keep you any longer from the poultry-yard. I am 
 transgressing the doctor's orders in seeing any body. We 
 quite understand each other now, don't we ? Very glad to 
 have seen you. Good-evening." 
 
MAN AND WIFE. 401 
 
 So she dismissed Mrs. Inchbare, when Mrs. Inchbare had 
 served her purpose. 
 
 Most women, in her position, would have been content with 
 the information which she had now obtained. But Lady Lun- 
 die — having a man like Sir Patrick to deal with — determined 
 to be doubly sure of her facts before she ventured on interfer- 
 ing at Ham Farm. She had learned from Mrs. Inchbare that 
 the so-called husband of Anne Silvester had joined her at Craig 
 Fernie on the day when she arrived at the inn, and had left lier 
 again the next morning. Anne had made her escape from 
 Windygates on the occasion of the lawn-party — that is to say, 
 on the fourteenth of August. On the same day Arnold Brink- 
 worth had taken his departure for the purpose of visiting the 
 Scotch property left to him by his aunt. If Mrs. Inchbare was 
 to be depended on, he must have gone to Craig Fernie instead 
 of going to his appointed destination — and must, therefore, 
 have arrived to visit his house and lands one day later than 
 the day which he had originally set apart for that purpose. 
 If this fact could be proved on the testimony of a disinterested 
 witness, the case against Arnold would be strengthened tenfold; 
 and Lady Lundie might act on her discovery with something 
 like a certainty that her information was to be relied on. 
 
 After a little consideration she decided on sending a mes- 
 senger with a note of inquiry addressed to Arnold's steward. 
 The apology she invented to excuse and account for the strange- 
 ness of the proposed question referred it to a little family dis- 
 cussion as to the exact date of Arnold's arrival at his estate, 
 and to a friendly wager in which the difference of opinion had 
 ended. If the steward could state whether his employer had 
 arrived on the fourteenth or on the fifteenth of August, that 
 was all that would be wanted to decide the question in dispute. 
 
 Having written in those terms. Lady Lundie gave the neces- 
 sary directions for having the note delivered at the earliest 
 possible hour on the next morning; the messenger being or- 
 dered to make his way back to Windygates by the first return 
 train on the same day. 
 
 This arranged, her ladyship was free to refresh herself with 
 another dose of the red lavender draught, and to sleep the 
 sleep of the just, who close their eyes with the composing con- 
 viction that they have done their duty. 
 
 The events of the next day at Windygates succeeded each 
 other in due course, as follows: 
 
 The post arrived, and brought no reply from Sir Patrick. 
 Lady Lundie entered that incident on her mental register of 
 debts owed by her brother-in-law — to be paid, with interest, 
 when the day of reckoning came, 
 
 26 
 
402 MAN AND WIPE. 
 
 Next in order occurred the return of the messenger with the 
 steward's answer. 
 
 He had referred to his Diary ; and he had discovered that 
 Mr. Brinkworth had written beforehand to announce his ar- 
 rival at his estate for the fourteenth of August — but that he 
 had not actually appeared until the fifteenth. The one dis- 
 covery needed to substantiate Mrs. Inchbare's evidence being 
 now in Lady Lundie's possession, she decided to allow another 
 day to pass — on the chance that Sir Patrick might alter his 
 mind, and write to her. If no letter arrived, and if nothing 
 more was received from Blanche, she resolved to leave Windy- 
 gates by the next morning's train, and to try the bold experi- 
 ment of personal interference at Ham Farm. 
 
 The third in the succession of events was the appearance of 
 the doctor to pay his professional visit. 
 
 A severe shock awaited him. He found his patient cured 
 by the draught! It was contrary to all rule and precedent; 
 it savored of quackery — the red lavender liad no business to 
 do what the red lavender had done — but there she was, never- 
 theless, up and dressed, and contemplating a journey to Lon- 
 don on the next day but one. "An act of duty, doctor, is in- 
 volved in this — whatever the sacrifice, I must go !" No other 
 explanation could be obtained. The patient was plainly de- 
 termined — nothing remained for the physician but to retreat 
 with unimpaired dignity, and a paid fee. He did it. " Our 
 art," he explained to Lady Lundie in confidence, " is nothing 
 after all, but a choice between alternatives. For instance. I 
 see you — not cured, as you think — but sustained by abnormal 
 excitement. I have to ask which is the least of the two evils 
 — to risk letting you travel, or to irritate you by keeping you 
 at home. With your constitution, we must risk the journey. 
 Be careful to keep the window of the carriage up on the side 
 on which the wind blows. Let the extremities be moderately 
 warm, and the mind easy — and pray don't omit to provide 
 yourself with a second bottle of the Mixture before you start." 
 He made his bow, as before — he slipped two guineas into his 
 pocket, as before — and he went his way, as before, with an ap- 
 proving conscience, in the character of a physician who had 
 done his duty. (What an enviable profession is Medicine ! 
 And why don't we all belong to it ?) 
 
 The last of the events was the arrival of Mrs. Glenarm. 
 
 " Well," she began, eagerly, " what news?" 
 
 The narrative of her ladyship's discoveries — recited at full 
 length ; and the announcement of her ladyship's resolution — 
 declared in the most uncompromising terms — raised Mrs. Glen- 
 arm's excitement to the highest pitch. 
 
 " You go to town on Saturd^,v ?" she said. " I will go with 
 
 I 
 
MAN AND WIFE. 403 
 
 you. Ever since that woman declared she should be in Lon- 
 don before me, I have been dying to hasten ray journey — and 
 it is such an opportunity to go with you ! I can easily raan- 
 age it. My uncle and I were to have met in London, early 
 next week, for the foot-race. I have only to write and tell 
 him of my change of plans, — By-the-bye, talking of my uncle, I 
 have heard, since I saw you, from the lawyers at Perth." 
 
 " More anonymous letters ?" 
 
 "One more — received by the lawyers this time. My un- 
 known correspondent has written to them to withdraw his 
 proposal, and to announce that he has left Perth. The law- 
 yers recommended me to stop my uncle from spending money 
 uselessly in employing the London police. I have forwarded 
 their letter to the captain ; and he will probably be in town to 
 see his solicitors as soon as I get there with you. So much for 
 what I have done in this matter. Dear Lady Lundie — when 
 we are at our journey's end, what do you mean to do ?" 
 
 " My course is plain," answered her ladyship, calmly. " Sir 
 Patrick will hear from me, on Sunday morning next, at Ham 
 Farm." 
 
 "Telling him what you have found out?" 
 
 " Certainly not ! Telling him that I find myself called to 
 London by business, and that I propose paying him a short 
 visit on Monday next." 
 
 " Of course, he must receive you ?" 
 
 " I think there is no doubt of that. Even his hatred of his 
 brother's widow can hardly go to the length — after leaving 
 ray letter unanswered — of closing his doors against rae next." 
 
 "How will you manage it when you get there?" 
 
 " When I get there, ray dear, I shall be breathing an atmos- 
 phere of treachery and deceit, and, for my poor child's sake 
 (abhorrent as all dissiraulation is to me), I must be careful what 
 I do. Not a word will escape ray lips until I have first seen 
 Blanche in private. However painful it may be, I shall not 
 shrink from my duty, if ray duty corapels rae to open her eyes 
 to the truth. Sir Patrick and Mr. Brinkworth will have sorae- 
 body else besides an inexperienced young creature to deal with 
 on Monday next. I shall be there." 
 
 With that forraidable announceraent. Lady Lundie closed 
 the conversation ; and Mrs. Glenarra rose to take her leave. 
 
 " We raeet at the Junction, dear Lady Lundie?" 
 
 " At the Junction, on Saturday." 
 
404 MAN AXD WIFE. 
 
 ELEVENTH SCENE.— SIR PATRICK'S HOUSE. 
 CHAPTER THE FORTY-SECOND. 
 
 THE SMOKING-KOOM WINDOW. 
 
 " I can't believe it ! I won't believe it ? You're trying to 
 part me from my husband — you're trying to set me against 
 my dearest friend. It's infamous. It's horrible. What have 
 I done to you ? Oh, my head ! my head ! Are you trying to 
 drive me mad ?" 
 
 Pale and wild ; her hands twisted in her hair ; her feet hur- 
 rying her aimlessly to and fro in the room — so Blanche an- 
 swered her stepmother, when the object of Lady Lundie's pil- 
 grimage had been accomplished, and the cruel truth had been 
 plainly told. 
 
 Her ladyship sat, superbly composed, looking out through 
 the window at the placid landscape of woods and fields which 
 surrounded Ham Farm. 
 
 " I was prepared for this outbreak," she said, sadly. " These 
 wild words relieve your overburdened heart, my poor child. 
 I can wait, Blanche — I can wait !" 
 
 Blanche stopped, and confronted Lady Lundie. 
 
 "You and I never liked each other," she said. "I wrote 
 you a pert letter from this place. I have always taken Anne's 
 part against you. I have shown you plainly — rudely, I dare 
 say — that I was glad to be married and get away from you. 
 This is not your revenge, is it ?" 
 
 " Oh, Blanche, Blanche, what thoughts to think ! what words 
 to say ! I can only pray for you." 
 
 "I am mad. Lady Lundie. You bear with mad people. 
 Bear with me, I have been hardly more than a fortnight 
 married. I love him — I love her — with all my heart. Re- 
 member what you have told me about them. Remember! 
 remember ! remember !" 
 
 She reiterated the words with a low cry of pain. Her hands 
 went up to her head again ; and she returned restlessly to pa- 
 cing this way and that in the room. 
 
 Lady Lundie tried the effect of a gentle remonstrance. " For 
 your own sake," she said, " don't persist in estranging your- 
 self from me. In this dreadful trial, I am the only friend you 
 Lave." 
 
MAX AND YCIPE. 4-05 
 
 Blanche came back to her stepmother's chair, and looked 
 at her steadily, in silence. Lady Lundie submitted to inspec- 
 tion — and bore it perfectly. 
 
 " Look into my heart," she said, " Blanche ! it bleeds for 
 
 Blanche heard, without heeding. Her mind was painfully 
 intent on its own thoughts. "You are a religious woman," 
 she said, abruptly. "Will you swear on your Bible, that what 
 you told me is true ?" 
 
 "J/y Bible !" repeated Lady Lundie, with sorrowful empha- 
 sis. " Oh, my child ! have you no part in that precious inher- 
 itance ? Is it not your Bible, too ?" 
 
 A momentary triumph showed itself in Blanche's face. 
 " You daren't swear it !" she said. " That's enough for me !" 
 
 She turned away scornfully. Lady Lundie caught her by 
 the hand, and drew her sharply back. The suffering saint dis- 
 appeared, and the woman who w^as no longer to be trifled with 
 took her place. 
 
 " There must be an end to this," she said. " You don't be- 
 lieve what I have told you. Have you courage enough to put 
 it to the test ?" 
 
 Blanche started, and released her hand. She trembled a lit- 
 tle. There was a horrible certainty of conviction expressed in 
 Lady Lundie's sudden change of manner. 
 
 " How ?" she asked. 
 
 " You shall see. Tell me the truth, on your side, first. 
 Where is Sir Patrick ? Is he really out, as his servant told 
 me ?" 
 
 "Yes. He is out with the farm bailiff. You have taken 
 us all by surprise. You wrote that we were to expect you by 
 the next train." 
 
 " When does the next train arrive ? It is eleven o'clock 
 now." 
 
 " Between one and two." 
 
 " Sir Patrick will not be back till then ?" 
 
 " Not till then." 
 
 '• Where is Mr. Brinkworth ?" 
 
 " My husband ?" 
 
 " Your husband — if you like. Is he out, too ?" 
 
 " He is in the smoking-room." 
 
 " Do you mean the long room, built out from the back of 
 the house ?" 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Come down stairs at once with me." 
 
 Blanche advanced a step — and drew back. " What do you 
 want of me ?" she asked, inspired by a sudden distrust. 
 
 Lady Lundie turned round, and looked £it her impatiently. 
 
406 MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 " Can't you see yet," she said, sharply, " that your interest 
 and my interest in this matter are one ? What have I told 
 you ?" 
 
 " Don't repeat it !" 
 
 " I must repeat it ! I have told you that Arnold Brink- 
 worth was privately at Craig Fernie, with Miss Silvester, in 
 the acknowledged character of her husband — when we sup- 
 posed him to be visiting the estate left him by his aunt. You 
 refuse to believe it — and I am about to put it to the proof Is 
 it your interest or is it not, to know whether this man deserves 
 the blind belief that you place in him ?" 
 
 Blanche trembled from head to foot, and made no reply. 
 
 " I am going into the garden, to speak to Mr. Brinkworth 
 through the smoking-room window," pursued her ladyship. 
 " Have you the courage to come with me ; to wait behind out 
 of sight ; and to hear what he says with his own lips? I am 
 not afraid of putting it to that test. Are you ?" 
 
 The tone in which she asked the question roused Blanche's 
 spirit. 
 
 " If I believed him to be guilty," she said, resolutely, " I 
 should not have the courage. I believe him to be innocent. 
 Lead the way. Lady Lundie, as soon as you please." 
 
 They left the room — Blanche's own room at Ham Farm — 
 and descended to the hall. Lady Lundie stopped, and con- 
 sulted the railway time-table hanging near the house-door. 
 
 " There is a train to London at a quarter to twelve," she 
 said. " How long does it take to walk to the station ?" 
 
 •' Why do you ask ?" 
 
 "You will soon know. Answer my question." 
 
 " It's a walk of twenty minutes to the station." 
 
 Lady Lundie referred to her watch. " There will be just 
 time," she said. 
 
 " Time for what ?" 
 
 " Come into the garden." 
 
 With that answer, she led the way out. 
 
 The smoking-room projected at right angles from the wall 
 of the house, in an oblong form — with a bow-window at the 
 farther end, looking into the garden. Before she turned the 
 corner, and showed herself within the range of view from the 
 window, Lady Lundie looked back, and signed to Blanche to 
 wait behind the angle of the wall. Blanche waited. 
 
 The next . instant she heard the voices in conversation 
 through the open window. Arnold's voice was the first that 
 spoke. 
 
 " Lady Lundie ! Why, we didn't expect you till luncheon- 
 time !" 
 
 Lady Lundie was ready with her answer. 
 
MAN AND WIFE. 407 
 
 "I was able to leave town earlier than I had anticipated. 
 Don't put out your cigar; and don't move. I am not coming 
 in." 
 
 The quick interchange of question and answer went on — ev- 
 ery word being audible in the perfect stillness of the place. 
 Arnold was the next to speak, 
 
 "Have you seen Blanche?'' 
 
 " Blanche is getting ready to go out with me. We mean to 
 have a walk together. I have many things to say to her. 
 Before we go, I have something to say to yoz^" 
 
 " Is it any thing very serious ?" 
 
 " It is most serious." 
 
 "About me?" 
 
 "About you. I know where you went on the evening of 
 my lawn-party at Windygates — you went to Craig Fernie." 
 
 " Good heavens ! how did you find out — ?" 
 
 " I know whom you went to meet — Miss Silvester. I know 
 "what is said of you and of her — you are man and wife." 
 
 "Hush ! don't speak so loud. Somebody may hear you !" 
 
 " What does it matter if they do ? I am the only person 
 whom you have kept out of the secret. You all of you know 
 it here." 
 
 " Nothing of the sort ! Blanche doesn't know it." 
 
 " What ! Neither you nor Sir Patrick has told Blanche of 
 the situation you stand in at this moment ?" 
 
 " Not yet. Sir Patrick leaves it to me. I haven't been able 
 to bring myself to do it. Don't say a word, I entreat you ! I 
 don't know how Blanche may interpret it. Her friend is ex- 
 pected in London to-morrow. I want to wait till Sir Patrick 
 can bring them together. Her friend will break it to her bet- 
 ter than I can. It's my notion. Sir Patrick thinks it a good 
 one. Stop ! you're not going away already ?" 
 
 "She will be here to look for me if I stay any longer." 
 
 " One word ! I want to know — " 
 
 " You shall know later in the day." 
 
 Her ladyship appeared again round the angle of the wall. 
 The next words that passed were words spoken in a whisper. 
 
 "Are you satisfied now, Blanche ?" 
 
 "Have you mercy enough left. Lady Lundie, to take me 
 away from this house ?" 
 
 " My dear child ! Why else did I look at the time-table in 
 the hall?" 
 
408 MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 CHAPTER THE FORTY-THIRD. 
 
 THE EXPLOSION. 
 
 Arnold's mind was far from easy when he was left by h;m- 
 self again in the smoking-room. 
 
 After wasting some time in vainly trying to guess at the 
 source from which Lady Lundie had derived her information, 
 he put on his hat, and took the direction which led to Blanche's 
 favorite walk at Ham Farm. Without absolutely distrusting 
 her ladyship's discretion, the idea had occurred to him that he 
 would do well to join his wife and her stepmother. By mak- 
 ing a third at the interview between them, he might prevent 
 the conversation from assuming a perilously confidential turn. 
 
 The search for the ladies proved useless. They had not 
 taken the direction in which he supposed them to have gone. 
 
 He returned to the smoking-room, and composed himself to 
 wait for events as patiently as he might. In this passive po- 
 sition — with his thoughts still running on Lady Lundie — his 
 memory reverted to a brief conversation between Sir Patrick 
 and himself, occasioned, on the previous day, by her ladyship's 
 announcement of her proposed visit to Ham Farm. Sir Pat- 
 rick had at once expressed his conviction that his sister-in- 
 law's journey South had some acknowledged purpose at the 
 bottom of it. 
 
 "I am not at all sure, Arnold" (he had said), "that I have 
 done wisely in leaving her letter unanswered. And I am 
 strongly disposed to think that the safest course will be to 
 take her into the secret when she comes to-morrow. We can't 
 help the position in which we are placed. It was impossible 
 (without admitting your wife to our confidence) to prevent 
 Blanche from writing that unlucky letter to her — and, even if 
 we had prevented it, she must have heard in other ways of 
 your return to England. I don't doubt my own discretion, so 
 far; and I don't doubt the convenience of keeping her in the 
 dark, as a means of keeping her from meddling in this business 
 of yours, until I have had time to set it right. But she may, 
 by some unlucky accident, discover the truth for herself — and, 
 in that case, I strongly distrust the influence which she might 
 attempt to exercise on Blanche's mind." 
 
 Those were the words — and what had happened on the day 
 after they had been spoken ? Lady Lundie had discovered the 
 truth ; and she was, at that moment, alone somewhere with 
 
MAN AND WIFE. 409 
 
 Blanche. Arnold took up his hat once more, and set forth on 
 the search for the ladies in another direction. 
 
 The second expedition was as fruitless as the first. Nothing 
 was to be seen, and nothing was to be heard, of Lady Lundie 
 and Blanche. 
 
 Arnold's watch told him that it was not far from the time 
 when Sir Patrick might be expected to return. In all proba- 
 bility, while he had been looking for them, the ladies had gone 
 back by some other way to the house. He entered the rooms 
 on the ground-floor, one after another. They were all empty. 
 He went up stairs, and knocked at the door of Blanche's room. 
 There was no answer. He opened the door and looked in. 
 The room was empty, like the rooms down stairs. But, close 
 to the entrance, there was a trifling circumstance to attract 
 notice, in the shape of a note lying on the carpet. He picked 
 it up, and saw that it was addressed to him in the handwrit- 
 ing of his wife. 
 
 He opened it. The note began, without the usual form of 
 address, in these words : 
 
 " I know the abominable secret that you and my uncle have 
 hidden from me. I know your infamy, and her infamy, and 
 the position in which, thanks to you and to her, I now stand. 
 Reproaches would be wasted words, addressed to such a man 
 as you are. I write these lines to tell you that I have placed 
 myself under my stepmother's protection in London. It is 
 useless to attempt to follow me. Others will find out whether 
 the ceremony of marriage which you went through with me is 
 binding on you or not. For myself, I know enough already. 
 I have gone, never to come back, and never to let you see me 
 again. — Blanche." 
 
 Hurrying headlong down the stairs with but one clear idea 
 in his mind — the idea of instantly following his wife — Arnold 
 encountered Sir Patrick, standing by a table in the hall, on 
 which cards and notes left by visitors were usually placed, 
 with an open letter in his hand. Seeing in an instant what 
 had happened, he threw one of his arms round Arnold, and 
 stopped him at the house-door. 
 
 " You are a man," he said, firmly. " Bear it like a man." 
 
 Arnold's head fell on the shoulder of his kind old friend. 
 He burst into tears. 
 
 Sir Patrick let the irrepressible outbreak of grief have its 
 way. In those first moments, silence Avas mercy. He said 
 nothing. The letter which he had been reading (from Lady 
 Lundie, it is needless to say) dropped unheeded at his feet. 
 
 Arnold lifted his head, and dashed away the tears. 
 
 " I am ashamed of myself," he said. " Let me go." 
 
 " Wrong, ray poor fellow — doubly wrong !" returned Sir 
 
410 MAN AND WIPE. 
 
 Patrick. "There is no shame in shedding such tears as those. 
 And there is nothing to be done by leaving me." 
 
 " I must and will see her !" 
 
 " Read that," said Sir Patrick, pointing to the letter on the 
 floor. "See your wife? Your wife is with the woman who 
 has written those lines. Read them." 
 
 Arnold read them. 
 
 "Dear Sir Patrick, — If you had honored me with your 
 confidence, I should have been happy to consult you before I 
 interfered to rescue Blanche from the position in which Mr. 
 Brinkworth has placed her. As it is, your late brother's child 
 is under my protection at my house in London. If you at- 
 tempt to exercise your authority, it must be by main force — I 
 will submit to nothing less. If Mr. Brinkworth attempts to 
 exercise his authority, he shall establish his right to do so (if 
 he can) in a police-court. 
 
 " Very truly yours, Julia Lundie." 
 
 Arnold's resolution was not to be shaken even by this. 
 " What do I care," he burst out, hotly, " whether I am drag- 
 ged through the streets by the police or not ! I loill see my 
 wife. I loill clear myself of the horrible suspicion she has 
 about me ! You have shown me your letter. Look at mine !" 
 
 Sir Patrick's clear sense saw the wild words that Blanche 
 had written in their true light. 
 
 "Do you hold your wife responsible for that letter?" he 
 aeked. " I see her stepmother in every line of it. You de- 
 scend to something unworthy of you, if you seriously defend 
 yourself against this! You can't see it ? You persist in hold- 
 ing to your own view ? Write, then. You can't get to her — 
 your letter may. No ! When you leave this house, you leave 
 it with me. I have conceded something, on ray side, in allow- 
 ing you to write. I insist on your conceding something, on 
 your side, in return. Come into the library ! I answer for 
 setting things right between you and Blanche, if you will 
 place your interests in my hands. Do you trust me or not ?" 
 
 Arnold yielded. They went into the library together. Sir 
 Patrick pointed to the writing-table. "Relieve your mind 
 there," he said ; "and let me find you a reasonable man again 
 v^rhen I come back." 
 
 When he returned to the library the letter was written; 
 and Arnold's mind was so far relieved — for the time at least. 
 
 "I shall take your letter to Blanche myself," said Sir Pat- 
 rick, " by the train that leaves for London in half an hour's 
 time." 
 
 " You will let me go with you ?" 
 
MAN AND WIFB. 411 
 
 " Not to-day. I shall be back this evening to dinner. You 
 shall hear all that has happened ; and you shall accompany 
 me to London to-moirow — if I find it necessary to make any 
 lengthened stay there. Between this and then, after the shock 
 that you have suffered, you will do well to be quiet here. Be 
 satisfied with my assurance that Blanche shall have your let- 
 ter. I will force my authority on her stepmother to that ex- 
 tent (if her stepmother resists) without scruple. The respect 
 in which I hold the sex only lasts as long as the sex deserves 
 it — and does not extend to Lady Lundie. There is no advan- 
 tage that a man can take of a woman which I am not fully 
 prepared to take of my sister-in-law." 
 
 With that characteristic farewell, he shook hands with Ar- 
 nold, and departed for the station. 
 
 At seven o'clock the dinner was on the table. At seven 
 o'clock Sir Patrick came down stairs to eat it, as perfectly 
 dressed as usual, and as composed as if nothing had happened. 
 
 "She has got your letter," he whispered, as he took Ar- 
 nold's arm, and led him into the dining-room. 
 
 " Did she say any thing ?" 
 
 " Not a word." 
 
 " How did she look ?" 
 
 " As she ought to look — sorry for what she has done." 
 
 The dinner began. As a matter of necessity, the subject of 
 Sir Patrick's expedition was dropped while the servants were 
 in the room — to be regularly taken up again by Arnold in the 
 intervals between the courses. He began when the soup was 
 taken away. 
 
 " I confess I had hoped to see Blanche come back with you !" 
 he said, sadly enough. 
 
 " In other words," returned Sir Patrick, " you forgot the na- 
 tive obstinacy of the sex. Blanche is beginning to feel that 
 she has been wrong. What is the necessary consequence ? 
 She naturally persists in being wrong. Let her alone, and 
 leave your letter to have its effect. The serious difficulties in 
 our way don't rest with Blanche. Content yourself with 
 knowing that." 
 
 The fish came in, and Arnold was silenced — until his next 
 opportunity came with the next interval in the course of the 
 dinner. 
 
 " What are the difficulties ?" he asked. 
 
 " The difficulties are my difficulties and yours," answered 
 Sir Patrick. " My difficulty is, that I can't assert my authori- 
 ty as guardian if I assume my niece (as I do) to be a married 
 woman. Your difficulty is, that you can't assert your authori- 
 ty as her husband, until it is distinctly proved that you and 
 
412 MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 Miss Silvester are not man and wife. Lady Lundie was per- 
 fectly aware that she would place us in that position when she 
 removed Blanche from this house. She has cross-examined 
 Mrs. Inchbare ; she has written to your steward for the date 
 of your arrival at your estate ; she has done every thing, cal- 
 culated every thing, and foreseen every thing — except my ex- 
 cellent temper. The one mistake she has made, is in thinking 
 she could get the better of that. No, my dear boy ! My 
 trump card is my temper. I keep it in my hand, Arnold — I 
 keep it in my hand !" 
 
 The next course came in — and there was an end of the sub- 
 ject again. Sir Patrick enjoyed his mutton, and entered on a 
 long and interesting narrative of the history of some rare white 
 Burgundy on the table imported by himself Arnold resolute- 
 ly resumed the discussion with the departure of the mutton. 
 
 " It seems to be a dead-lock," he said. 
 
 " No slang !" retorted Sir Patrick. 
 
 " For Heaven's sake, sir, consider my anxiety, and tell me 
 what you propose to do !" 
 
 " I propose to take you to London with me to-morrow, on 
 this condition — that you promise me, on your word of honor, 
 not to attempt to see your wife before Saturday next." 
 
 " I shall see her then ?" 
 
 " If you give me your promise." 
 
 "I do! I do!" 
 
 The next course came in. Sir Patrick entered on the ques- 
 tion of the merits of the partridge, viewed as an eatable bird. 
 " By himself, Arnold — plainly roasted, and tested on his own 
 merits — an overrated bird. Being too fond of shooting him in 
 this country, we become too fond of eating him next. Prop- 
 erly understood, he is a vehicle for sauce and truffles — nothing 
 more. Or no — that is hardly doing him justice. I am bound 
 to add that he is honorably associated with the famous French 
 receipt for cooking an olive. Do you know it '?" 
 
 There was an end of the bird ; there was an end of the jelly. 
 Arnold got his next chance — and took it. 
 
 " What is to be done in London to-morrow ?" he asked. 
 
 " To-morrow," answered Sir Patrick, " is a memorable da / 
 in our calendar. To-morrow is Tuesday — the day on which I 
 am to see Miss Silvester." 
 
 Arnold set down the glass of wine which he was just raising 
 to his lips. 
 
 "After what has happened," he said, "I can hardly bear to 
 hear her name mentioned. Miss Silvester has parted me from 
 my wife." 
 
 " Miss Silvester may atone for that, Arnold, by uniting you 
 again." 
 
 I 
 
MAN AND WIFK 413 
 
 " She has been the ruin of nie so far." 
 
 " She may be the salvation of you yet." 
 
 The cheese came in ; and Sir Patrick returned to the Art ot 
 Cookery, 
 
 " Do you know the receipt for cooking an olive, Arnold ?" 
 
 » No." 
 
 "What does the new generation know? It knows how to 
 row, how to shoot, liow to play at cricket, and how to bet. 
 When it has lost its muscle and lost its money — that is to say, 
 when it has grown old — what a generation it will be ! It 
 doesn't matter : I sha'n't live to see it. Are you listening, 
 Arnold ?" 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 " How to cook an olive ; Put an olive into a lark ; put a lark 
 into a quail ; put a quail into a plover ; put a plover into a 
 partridge ; put a partridge into a pheasant ; put a pheasant 
 into a turkey. Good, First, partially roast ; then carefully 
 stew — until all is thoroughly done down to the olive. Good 
 again. Next, open the window. Throw out the turkey, the 
 pheasant, the partridge, the plover, the quail, and the lark. 
 Then, eat the olive. The dish is expensive, but (we have it on 
 the highest authority) well worth the sacrifice. The quintes- 
 sence of the flavor of six birds, concentrated in one olive. 
 Grand idea ! Tiy another glass of the white Burgundy, Ar- 
 nold." 
 
 At last the servants left them, with the wine and dessert on 
 the table, 
 
 "I have borne it as long as I can, sir," said Arnold, "Add 
 to all your kindness to me by telling me at once what happen- 
 ed at Lady Lundie's," 
 
 It was a chilly evening. A bright wood fire was burning 
 in the room. Sir Patrick drew his chair to the fire. 
 
 " This is exactly what happened," he said. " I found com- 
 pany at Lady Lundie's, to begin with. Two perfect strangers 
 to me. Captain Newenden, and his niece, Mrs. Glenarm. 
 Lady Lundie offered to see me in another room ; the two 
 strangers offered to withdraw. I declined both proposals. 
 First check to her ladyship ! She has reckoned throughout, 
 Arnold, on our being afraid to face public opinion. I showed 
 her at starting that we were as ready to face it as she was. 
 *I always accept what the French call accomplished facts,' I 
 said. ' You have brought matters to a crisis, Lady Lundie. 
 So let it be. I have a word to say to my niece (in your pres- 
 ence, if you like) ; and I have another word to say to you af- 
 terward — without presuming to disturb your guests.' The 
 guests sat down again (both naturally devoured by curiosity). 
 Could her ladyship decently refuse me an interview with my 
 
414 MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 own niece, while two witnesses were looking on ? Impossible. 
 I saw Blanche (Lady Lundie being present, it is needless to 
 say) in the back drawing-room. I gave her your letter ; I 
 said a good word for you ; I saw that she was sorry, though 
 she wouldn't own it — and that was enough. We went back 
 into the front drawing-room. T had not spoken five words on 
 our side of the question before it appeared, to my astonishment 
 and delight, that Captain Newenden was in the house on the 
 very question that had brought me into the house — the ques- 
 tion of you and Miss Silvester. My business, in the interests 
 of tny niece, was to deny your marriage to the lady. His busi- 
 ness, in the interests of his niece, was to assert your marriage 
 to the lady. To the unutterable disgust of the two women, 
 we joined issue, in the most friendly manner, on the spot. 
 'Charmed to have the pleasure of meeting you, Captain New- 
 enden.' — ' Delighted to have the honor of making your ac- 
 quaintance. Sir Patrick.' — ' I think we can settle this in two 
 minutes?' — 'My own idea perfectly expressed.' — 'State your 
 position, Captain.' — ' With the greatest pleasure. Here is my 
 niece, Mrs. Glenarra, engaged to marry Mr. Geoffrey Delamayn. 
 All very well, but there happens to be an obstacle — in the shape 
 of a lady. Do I put it plainly?' — 'You put it admirably, Cap- 
 tain : but for the loss to the British navy, you ought to have 
 been a lawyer. Pray, go on.' — ' You are too good. Sir Patrick. 
 I resume. Mr. Delamayn asserts that this person in the back- 
 ground has no claim on him, and backs his assertion by declar- 
 ing that she is married already to Mr. Arnold Brinkworth. 
 Lady Lundie and my niece assure me, on evidence which sat- 
 isfies them^ that the assertion is true. The evidence does not 
 satisfy me. I hope. Sir Patrick, I don't strike you as being an 
 excessively obstinate man ?' — ' My dear sir, you impress me with 
 the highest opinion of your capacity for sifting human testimo- 
 ny ! May I ask, next, what course you mean to take ?' — ' The 
 very thing I was going to mention. Sir Patrick ! This is my 
 course : I refuse to sanction my niece's engagement to Mr. De- 
 lamayn, until Mr. Delamayn has actually proved his statement 
 by appeal to witnesses of the lady's marriage. He refers me to 
 two witnesses; but declines acting at once in the matter for 
 himself, on the ground that he is in training for a foot-race. I 
 admit that that is an obstacle, and consent to arrange for bring- 
 ing the two witnesses to London myself By this post I have 
 written to my lawyers in Perth to look the witnesses up; to 
 offer them the necessary terms (at Mr. Delamayn's expense) 
 for the use of their time ; and to produce them by the end of 
 the week. The foot-race is on Thursday next. Mr. Delamayn 
 will be able to attend after that, and establish his own asser- 
 tion by his own witnesses. What do you say, Sir Patrick, to 
 
MAN AND WIFE. 416 
 
 Saturday next (with Lady Lnudie's permission) in this room?' 
 There is the substance of the captain's statement. He is as 
 old as I am, and is dressed to look like thirty; but a very 
 pleasant fellow for all that. I struck my sister-in-law dumb 
 by accepting the proposal without a moment's hesitation. 
 Mrs. Glenarm and Lady Lundie looked at each other in mute 
 amazement. Here was a difference about which two women 
 would have mortally quarreled; and here were two men set- 
 tling it in the friendliest possible manner. I wish you had seen 
 Lady Lundie's face when I declared myself deeply indebted to 
 Captain Newenden for rendering any prolonged interview with 
 her ladyship quite unnecessary. ' Thanks to the captain,' I 
 said to her, in the most cordial manner, ' we have absolutely 
 nothing to discuss. I shall catch the next train, and set Ar- 
 nold Brinkworth's mind quite at ease,' To come back to seri- 
 ous things, I have engaged to produce you, in the presence of 
 every body — your wife included — on Saturday next. I put a 
 bold face on it before the others. But I am bound to tell you 
 that it is by no means easy to say — situated as we are now — 
 what the result of Saturday's inquiry will be. Every thing 
 depends on the issue of my interview with Miss Silvester to- 
 mon-ow. It is no exaggeration to say, Arnold, that your fate 
 is in her hands." 
 
 " I wish to Heaven I had never set eyes on her !" said Arnold. 
 
 " Lay the saddle on the right horse," returned Sir Patrick. 
 *' Wish you had never set eyes on Geoffrey Delamayn." 
 
 Arnold hung his head. Sir Patrick's sharp tongue had got 
 the better of him once more. 
 
 TWELFTH SCENE.— DRURY LANE. 
 CHAPTER THE FORTY-FOURTH. 
 
 THE LETTER AND THE LAW. 
 
 The many-toned murmur of the current of London life — 
 flowing through the murky channel of Drury Lane — found its 
 muffled w^ay from the front room to the back. Piles of old 
 music lumbered the dusty floor. Stage masks and weapons, 
 ftnd portraits of singers and dancers, hung round the walls. 
 An empty violin-case in one corner faced a broken bust of 
 Rossini in another. A frameless print, representing the Trial 
 of Queen Caroline, was pasted over the fire-place. The chairs 
 were genuine specimens of ancient carving in oak. The table 
 was an equally excellent example of dirty modern deal. A 
 
416 MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 small morsel of drugget was on the floor ; and a large deposit 
 of soot was on the ceiling. The scene thus presented, revealed 
 itself in the back drawing-room of a house in Drury Lane, de- 
 voted to the transaction of musical and theatrical business of 
 the humbler sort. It was late in the afternoon, on Michaelmas- 
 day. Two persons were seated together in the room : they 
 were Anne Silvester and Sir Patrick Lundie. 
 
 The opening conversation between them — comprising, on 
 one side, the narrative of what had happened at Perth and 
 at Swanhaven ; and, on the other, a statement of the circum- 
 stances attending the separation of Arnold and Blanche — had 
 come to an end. It rested with Sir Patrick to lead the Avay 
 to the next topic. He looked at his companion, and hesitated. 
 
 " Do you feel strong enough to go on ?" he asked. " If you 
 would prefer to rest a little, pray say so." 
 
 " Thank you, Sir Patrick. I am more than ready, I am 
 eager, to go on. No words can say how anxious I feel to be 
 of some use to you, if I can. It rests entirely with your expe- 
 rience to show me how." 
 
 "I can only do that. Miss Silvester, by asking you withoul 
 ceremony for all the information that I want. Had you any 
 object in traveling to London, which you have not mentioned 
 to me yet ? I mean, of course, any object with which I have 
 a claim (as Arnold Brinkworth's representative) to be ac- 
 quainted ?" 
 
 " I had an object, Sir Patrick. And I have failed to accom- 
 plish it." 
 
 " May I ask what it was ?" 
 
 "It was to see Geoffrey Delamayn." 
 
 Sir Patrick started. " You have attempted to see him ! 
 When ?" 
 
 "This morning." 
 
 " Why, you only arrived in London last night !" 
 
 " I only arrived," said Anne, " after waiting many days on 
 the journey. I was obliged to rest at Edinburgh, and again 
 at York — and I was afraid I had given Mrs. Glenarm time 
 enough to get to Geoffrey Delamayn before me." 
 
 "Afraid?" repeated Sir Patrick. "I understood that you 
 had no serious intention of disputing the scoundrel with Mrs. 
 Glenarm. What motive could possibly have taken you his 
 way ?" 
 
 " The same motive which took me to Swanhaven." 
 
 " What ! the idea that it rested with Delamayn to set things 
 I'ight ? and that you might bribe him to do it, by consenting 
 to release him, so far as your claims were concerned ?" 
 
 " Bear with my folly, Sir Patrick, as patiently as yon can ! 
 I am always alone now ; and I get into a habit of brooding 
 
MAN AND WIFE. 417 
 
 over things. I have been brooding over the position in which 
 my misfortunes have placed Mr. Brinkworth. I have been 
 obstinate — unreasonably obstinate — in believing that I could 
 pi-evail with Geoffrey Delamayn, after I had failed with Mrs. 
 Glenarm. I am obstinate about it still. If he would only have 
 heard me, my madness in going to Fulham might have had its 
 excuse." She sighed bitterly, and said no more. 
 
 Sir Patrick took her hand. 
 
 " It has its excuse," he said, kindly. " Your motive is be- 
 yond reproach. Let me add — to quiet your mind — that, even 
 if Delamayn had been willing to hear you, and had accepted 
 the condition, the result would still have been the same. You 
 are quite wrong in supposing that he has only to speak, and to 
 set this matter right. It has passed entirely beyond his con- 
 trol. The mischief was done when Arnold Brinkworth spent 
 those unlucky hours with you at Craig Fei-nie." 
 
 " Oh, Sir Patrick, if I had only known that, before I went to 
 Fulhara this morning !" 
 
 She shuddered as she said the words. Something was plain- 
 ly associated with her vi^it to Geoffrey, the bare remembrance 
 of which shook her nerves. What was it? Sir Patrick re- 
 solved to obtain an answer to that question before he ventured 
 on proceeding further with the main object of the interview. 
 
 " You have told me your reason for going to Fulham," he 
 said. " But I have not heard what happened there yet," 
 
 Anne hesitated. "Is it necessary for me to trouble you 
 about that ?" she asked, with evident reluctance to enter on 
 the subject, 
 
 " It is absolutely necessary," answered Sir Patrick, " because 
 Delamayn is concerned in it," 
 
 Anne summoned her resolution, and entered on her narrative 
 in these words : 
 
 " The person who carries on the business here discovered 
 the address for me," she began. " I had some difficulty, how- 
 ever, in finding the house. It is little more than a cottage ; 
 and it is quite lost in a great garden, surrounded by high walls. 
 I igaw a carriage waiting. The coachman was walking his 
 horses up and down — and he showed me the door. It was a 
 high wooden door in the wall, with a grating in it. I rang the 
 bell. A servant-girl opened the grating, and looked at me. 
 She refused to let me in. Her mistress had ordei'ed her to close 
 the door on all strangers — especially strangers who were wom- 
 en. I contri^ved to pass some money to her through the grat- 
 ing, and asked to speak to her mistress. After waiting some 
 time I saw another face behind the bars — and it struck me that 
 I recognized it, I suppose I was nervous. It startled me. I 
 27 
 
418 MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 said, ' I think we know each other.' There was no answer. 
 The door was suddenly opened — and who do you think stood 
 before me ?" 
 
 " Was it somebody I know ?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " Man ? or woman ?" 
 
 " It was Hester Dethridge." 
 
 " Hester Dethridge !" 
 
 " Yes. Dressed just as usual, and looking just as usual — 
 with her slate hanging at her side." 
 
 "Astonishing ! Where did I last see her? At the Windy- 
 gates station, to be sure — going to London, after she had left 
 my sister-in-law's service. Has she accepted another place — 
 without letting me know first, as I told her?" 
 
 " She is living at Fulham." 
 
 " In service ?" 
 
 " No. As mistress of her own house." 
 
 " What ! Hester Dethridge in possession oi a house of her 
 own ? Well ! well ! why shouldn't she have a rise in the 
 world like other people ? Did she let you in ?" 
 
 " She stood for some time looking at me, in that dull strange 
 way that she has. The servants at Windygates always said 
 she was not in her right mind — and you will say, Sir Patrick, 
 when you hear what happened, that the servants were not mis- 
 taken. She must be mad. I said, 'Don't you remember me?' 
 She lifted her slate, and wrote, ' I remember you, in a dead 
 swoon at Windygates House.' I was quite unaware that she 
 had been present when I fainted in the library. The discovery 
 startled me — or that dreadful, dead-cold look that she has in 
 her eyes startled me — I don't know which. I couldn't speak 
 to her just at first. She wrote on her slate again — the strangest 
 question — in these words : ' I said, at the time, brought to it 
 by a man. Did I say true?' If the question had been put in 
 the usual way, by any body else, I should have considered it 
 too insolent to be noticed. Can you understand my answer- 
 ing it. Sir Patrick ? I can't understand it myself, now — and 
 yet I did answer. She forced me to it with her stony eyes. I 
 said 'Yes.'" 
 
 " Did all this take place at the door ?" 
 
 "At the door." 
 
 " When did she let you in ?" 
 
 " The next thing she did was to let me in. She took me by 
 the arm, in a rough way, and drew me inside the door, and 
 shut it. My nerves are broken ; my courage is gone. I crept 
 with cold when she touched me. She dropped my arm. I 
 stood like a child, waiting for what it pleased her to say or do 
 next. She rested her two hands on her sides, and took a long 
 
MAN AND WIFE. 419 
 
 look at me. She made a horrid dumb sound — not as if she was 
 angry ; more, if such a thing could be, as if she was satisfied — 
 pleased even, I should have said, if it had been any body but 
 Hester Dethridge. Do you understand it ?" 
 
 " Not yet. Let me get nearer to understanding it by asking 
 something before you go on. Did she show any attachment 
 to you, when you were both at Windygates ?" 
 
 " Not the least. She appeared to be incapable of attach- 
 ment to me, or to any body." 
 
 " Did she write any more questions on her slate ?" 
 
 " Yes. She wrote another question under what she had 
 written just before. Her mind was still running on ray faint- 
 ing-fit, and on the ' man ' who had ' brought me to it.' She 
 held up the slate ; and the words were these : ' Tell me how 
 he served you ; did he knock you down ?' Most people would 
 have laughed at the question. I was startled by it. I told 
 her, No. She shook her head as if she didn't believe me. She 
 wrote on her slate, ' We are loth to own it when they up with 
 their fists and beat us — ain't we?" I said, 'You are quite 
 wrong.' She went on obstinately with her writing. 'Who is 
 the man ?' was her next question. I had control enough over 
 myself to decline telling her that. She opened the door, and 
 pointed to me to go out. I made a sign entreating her to wait 
 a little. She went back, in her impenetrable way, to the writ- 
 ing on the slate — still about the ' man.' This time the ques- 
 tion was plainer still. She had evidently placed her own in- 
 terpretation of my appearance at the house. She wrote, ' Is it 
 the man who lodges here?' I saw that she would close the 
 door on me if I didn't answer. My only chance with her was 
 to own that she had guessed right. I said 'Yes. I want to 
 see him.' She took me by the arm as roughly as before and 
 led me into the house." 
 
 " I begin to understand her," said Sir Patrick. " I remem- 
 ber hearing, in my brother's time, that she had been brutally 
 ill-used by her husband. The association of ideas, even in her 
 confused brain, becomes plain, if you bear that in mind. What 
 is her last remembrance of you ? It is the remembrance of a 
 fainting woman at Windygates." 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " She makes you acknowledge that she has guessed right, 
 in guessing that a man was, in some way, answerable for the 
 condition in which she found you. A swoon produced by a 
 shock inflicted on the mind, is a swoon that she doesn't under- 
 stand. She looks back into her own experience, and associates 
 it with the exercise of actual physical brutality on the part of 
 the man. And she sees, in you, a reflection of her own sufier- 
 ings and her own case. It's curious — to a student of human 
 
420 MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 nature. And it explains, what is otherwise unintelligible, her 
 overlooking her own instructions to the servant, and letting 
 you into the house. What happened next ?" 
 
 " She took me into a room, which I suppose was her own 
 room. She made signs, offering me tea. It was done in the 
 strangest way — without the least appearance of kindness. Af- 
 ter what you have just said to me, I think I can in some degree 
 interpret what was going on in her mind. I believe she felt 
 a hard-hearted interest in seeing a woman whom she supposed 
 to be as unfortunate as she had once been herself. I declined 
 taking any tea, and tried to return to the subject of what I 
 wanted in the house. She paid no heed to me. She pointed 
 round the room ; and then took me to a window, and pointed 
 round the garden — and then made a sign indicating herself. 
 'My house; and my garden' — that was what she meant. 
 There were four men in the garden — and Geoffrey Delamayn 
 was one of them. I made another attempt to tell her that I 
 wanted to speak to him. But, no ! She had her own idea in 
 her mind. After beckoning to me to leave the window, she 
 led the way to the fire-place, and showed me a sheet of paper 
 with writing on it, framed and placed under a glass, and hung 
 on the wall. She seemed, I thought, to feel some kind of pride 
 in her framed manuscript. At any rate, she insisted on my 
 reading it. It was an extract from a will." 
 
 " The will under which she had inherited the house ?" 
 
 " Yes. Her brother's will. It said, that he regretted, on 
 his death-bed, his estrangement from his only sister, dating 
 from the time when she had married in defiance of his wishes 
 and against his advice. As a proof of his sincere desire to be 
 reconciled with her before he died, and as some compensation 
 for the sufferings that she had endured at the hands of her de- 
 ceased husband, he left her an income of two hundred pounds a 
 year, together with the use of his house and garden, for her 
 lifetime. That, as well as I remember, was the substance of 
 what it said." 
 
 " Creditable to her brother and creditable to herself," said 
 Sir Patrick. " Taking her odd character into consideration, I 
 understand her liking it to be seen. What puzzles me, is her 
 letting lodgings with an income of her own to live on." 
 
 " That was the very question which I put to her myself I 
 was obliged to be cautious, and to begin by asking about the 
 lodgers first — the men being still visible out in the garden, to 
 excuse the inquiry. The rooms to let in the house had (as I 
 understood her) been taken by a person acting for Geoffrey 
 Delamayn — his trainer, I presume. He had surprised Hester 
 Dethridge by barely noticing the house, and showing the most 
 extraordinary interest in the garden." 
 
MAN AND WIFE. 421 
 
 " That is quite intelligible, Miss Silvester. The garden you 
 have described would be just the place he wanted for the ex- 
 ercises of his employer — plenty of space, and well secured from 
 observation by the high walls all round. What next ?" 
 
 " Next, I got to the question of why she should let her house 
 in lodgings at all. When I asked her that, her face turned hard- 
 er than ever. She answered me on her slate in these dismal 
 words : ' I have not got a friend in the world. I dare not live 
 alone.' There was her reason ! Dreary and dreadful. Sir Pat- 
 rick, was it not?" 
 
 " Dreary indeed ! How did it end ? Did you get into the 
 garden ?" 
 
 " Yes — at the second attempt. She seemed suddenly to 
 change her mind ; she opened the door for me herself. Pass- 
 ing the window of the room in which I had left her, I looked 
 back. She had taken her place at a table before the window, 
 apparently watching for what might happen. There was some- 
 thing about her, as her eyes met mine (I can't say what), which 
 made me feel uneasy at the time. Adopting your view, I am 
 almost inclined to think now, horrid as the idea is, that she had 
 the expectation of seeing me treated as she had been treated in 
 former days. It was actually a relief to me — though I knew 
 I was going to run a serious risk — to lose sight of her. As I 
 got nearer to the men in the garden, I heard two of them talk- 
 ing very earnestly to Geoftrey Delamayn. The fourth person, 
 an elderly gentleman, stood apart from the rest at some little 
 distance. I kept as far as I could out of sight, waiting till the 
 talk was over. It was impossible for me to help hearing it. 
 The two men were trying to persuade Geoffrey Delamayn to 
 speak to the elderly gentleman. They pointed to him as a fa- 
 mous medical man. They reiterated over and over again, that 
 his opinion was well worth having — " 
 
 Sir Patrick interrupted her. " Did they mention his name ?" 
 
 IIP flSKPO 
 
 " Yes. They called him Mr. Speedwell." 
 
 "The man himself! This is even more interesting. Miss Sil- 
 vester, than you suppose. I myself heard Mr. Speedwell warn 
 Delamayn that he was in broken health, when we were visiting 
 together at Windygates House last month. Did he do as the 
 other men wished him ? Did he speak to the surgeon ?" 
 
 " No. He sulkily refused — he remembered what you remem- 
 ber. He said, ' See the man who told me I was broken down ? 
 — not I !' After confirming it with an oath, he turned away 
 from the others. Unfortunately, he took the direction in which 
 I was standing, and discovered me. The bare sight of me seem- 
 ed to throw him instantly into a state of frenzy. He — it is im- 
 possible for me to repeat the language that he used : it is bad 
 
422 MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 enough to have heard it. I believe, Sir Patrick, but for the 
 two men, who ran up and laid hold of him, that Hester Deth- 
 ridge would have seen what she expected to see. The change 
 in him was so frightful — even to me, w^ell as I thought I knew 
 him in his fits of passion — I tremble when I think of it. One 
 of the men who had restrained him was almost as brutal in his 
 way. He declared, in the foulest language, that if Delamayn 
 had a fit, he would lose the race, and that I should be answer- 
 able for it. But for Mr. Speedwell, I don't know what I should 
 have done. He came forward directly. ' This is no place either 
 for you or for me,' he said — and gave me his arm, and led me 
 back to the house. Hester Dethridge met us in the passage, 
 and lifted her hand to stop me. Mr. Speedwell asked her what 
 she wanted. She looked at me, and then looked toward the gar- 
 den, and made the motion of striking a blow with her clench- 
 ed fist. For the first time in my experience of her — I hope it 
 was my fancy — I thought I saw her smile. Mr. Speedwell took 
 me out. ' They are well matched in that house,' he said, ' The 
 woman is as complete a savage as the men.' The carriage which 
 I had seen waiting at the door was his. He called it up, and 
 politely offered me a place in it. I said I would only trespass 
 on his kindness as far as to the railway station. While we 
 were talking, Hester Dethridge followed us to the door. She 
 made the same motion again with her clenched hand, and look- 
 ed back toward the garden — and then looked at me, and nod- 
 ded her head, as much as to say, ' He will do it yet !' No words 
 can describe how glad I was to see the last of her. I hope and 
 trust I shall never set eyes on her again !" 
 
 " Did you hear how Mr. Speedwell came to be at the house? 
 Had he gone of his own accord ? or had he been sent for ?" 
 
 "He had been sent for. I ventured to speak to him about 
 the persons whom I had seen in the garden. Mr. Speedwell ex- 
 plained every thing which I was not able of myself to under- 
 stand, in the kindest manner. One of the two strange men in 
 the garden was the trainer ; the other was a doctor, whom the 
 trainer was usually in the habit of consulting. It seems that 
 the real reason for their bringing Geoffrey Delamayn away from 
 Scotland when they did, was that the trainer was uneasy, and 
 wanted to be near London for medical advice. The doctor, oai 
 being consulted, owned that he was at a loss to understand thej 
 symptoms which he was asked to treat. He had himself fetch- 
 ed the great surgeon to Fulham, that morning. Mr. Speedwellj 
 abstained from mentioning that he had foreseen what would 
 happen at Windygates. All he said was, ' I had met Mr. Del- 
 amayn in society, and I felt interest enough in the case to pay 
 him a visit — with what result, you have seen yourself" 
 
 " Did he tell you any thing about Delamayn's health ?'* 
 
MAN AND WIFE. 423 
 
 " He said that be had questioned the doctor on the way to 
 Fulham, and that some of the patient's symptoms indicated se- 
 rious mischief. What the symptoms were I did not hear. Mr. 
 Speedwell only spoke of changes for the worse in him which a 
 woman would be likely to understand. At one time, he would 
 be so dull and heedless that nothing could rouse him. At an- 
 other, he flew into the most terrible passions without any ap- 
 parent cause. The trainer had found it almost impossible (in 
 Scotland) to keep him to the right diet ; and the doctor had 
 only sanctioned taking the house at Fulham, after being fii'st 
 satisfied not only of the convenience of the garden, but also 
 that Hester Dethridge could be thoroughly trusted as a cook. 
 With her help, they had placed him on an entirely new diet. 
 But they had found an unexpected difficulty even in doing 
 that. When the trainer took him to the new lodgings, it 
 turned out that he had seen Hester Dethridge at Windygates, 
 and had taken the strongest prejudice against her. On seeing 
 her again at Fulham, he appeared to be absolutely terrified." 
 
 "Terrified? Why?" 
 
 " Nobody knows why. The trainer and the doctor together 
 could only prevent his leaving the house, by threatening to 
 throw up the responsibility of preparing him for the race, un- 
 less he instantly controlled himself, and behaved like a man 
 instead of a child. Since that time, he has become reconciled, 
 little by little, to his new abode — partly through Hester Deth- 
 ridge's caution in keeping herself always out of his way ; and 
 partly through his own appreciation of the change in his diet, 
 which Hester's skill in cookery has enabled the doctor to make. 
 Mr. Speedwell mentioned some things which I have forgotten. 
 I can only repeat, Sir Patrick, the result at which he has ar- 
 rived in his own mind. Coming from a man of his authority, 
 the opinion seems to me to be startling in the last degree. If 
 Geoflrey Delamayn runs in the race on Thursday next, he will 
 do it at the risk of his life," 
 
 " At the risk of dying on the ground ?" 
 
 " Jes." _ 
 
 Sir Patrick's face became thoughtful. He waited a little be- 
 fore he spoke again. 
 
 " We have not wasted our time," he said, " in dwelling on 
 what happened during your visit to Fulham. The possibility 
 of this man's death suggests to my mind serious matter for 
 consideration. It is very desirable, in the interests of my niece 
 and her husband, that I should be able to foresee, if I can, how 
 a fatal result of the race might efiect the inquiry which is to 
 be held on Saturday next. I believe vou may be able to help 
 me in this." 
 
 " You have only to tell me how, Sir Patrick." 
 
424 MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 " I may count on your being present on Saturday ?" 
 
 " Certainly." 
 
 " You thoroughly understand that, in meeting Blanche, you 
 will meet a person estranged from you, for the present — a 
 friend and sister who has ceased (under Lady Lundie's influ- 
 ence mainly) to feel as a friend and sister toward you now ?" 
 
 " I was not quite unprepared, Sir Patrick, to hear that 
 Blanche had misjudged me. When I wrote my letter to Mr. 
 prinkworth, I warned him as delicately as I could, that his 
 wife's jealousy might be very easily roused. You may rely 
 on my self-restraint, no matter how hardly it may be tried. 
 Nothing that Blanche can say or do will alter my grateful re- 
 membrance of the past. While I live, I love her. Let that 
 assurance quiet any little anxiety that you may have felt as 
 to my conduct — and tell me how I can serve those interests 
 which I have at heart as well as you." 
 
 " You can serve them. Miss Silvester, in this way. You can 
 make me acquainted with the position in which you stood to- 
 ward Delamayn at the time when you went to the Craig Fer- 
 nie inn." 
 
 " Put any questions to me that you think right, Sir Patrick." 
 
 " You mean that ?" 
 
 " I mean it." 
 
 "I will begin by recalling something which you have al- 
 ready told me. Delamayn has promised you marriage — " 
 
 " Over and over again !" 
 
 " In words ?" 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " In writing ?" 
 
 « Yes." 
 
 " Do you see what I am coming to ?" 
 
 " Hardly yet." 
 
 "You referred, when we first met in this room, to a letter 
 which you recovered from Bishopriggs, at Perth. I have as- 
 certained from Arnold Brinkworth that the sheet of note-paper 
 stolen from you contained two letters. One was written by 
 you to Delamayn — the other was written by Delamayn to 
 you. The substance of this last Arnold remembered. Your 
 letter he had not read. It is of the utmost importance. Miss 
 Silvester, to let me see that correspondence before we part to- 
 day." 
 
 Anne made no answer. She sat with her clasped hands on 
 her lap. Her eyes looked uneasily away from Sir Patrick's 
 face, for the first time. 
 
 '-'Will it not be enough," she asked, after an interval, "if I 
 tell you the substance of my letter, without showing it?" 
 
 " It will not be enough," returned Sir Patrick, in the plain- 
 
MAN AND WIFE. 425 
 
 est manner. "I hinted — if you remember — at the propriety 
 of my seeing the letter, when you first mentioned it ; and I 
 observed that you purposely abstained from understanding 
 me. I am grieved to put you, on this occasion, to a painful 
 test. But if you are to help me at this serious crisis, I have 
 shown you the way." 
 
 Anne rose from her chair, and answered by putting the let- 
 ter into Sir Patrick's hands. " Remember what he has done 
 since I wrote that," she said. "And try to excuse me, if I 
 own that I am ashamed to show it to you now." 
 
 With those words she walked aside to the window. She 
 stood there, with her hand pressed on her breast, looking out 
 absently on the murky London view of house-roof and chim- 
 ney, while Sir Patrick opened the letter. 
 
 It is necessary to the right appreciation of events, that other 
 eyes besides Sir Patrick's should follow the brief course of the 
 itorrespondence in this place. 
 
 1. From Anne Silvester to Geoffrey Delamayn. 
 
 "WiNDTGATEs HousE, August 12, 1868. 
 " Geoffrey Delamayn, — I have waited in the hope that 
 you would ride over from your brother's place and see me — 
 and I have waited in vain. Your conduct to me is cruelty it- 
 self; I will bear it no longer. Consider! in your own inter- 
 ests, consider — before you drive the miserable woman who has 
 trusted you to despair. You have promised me marriage by 
 all that is sacred. I claim your promise. I insist on nothing 
 less than to be what you vowed I should be — what I have 
 waited all this weary time to be — what I «m, in the sight of 
 Heaven, your wedded wife. Lady Lundie gives a lawn-party 
 here on the 14th. I know you have been asked. I expect 
 you to accept her invitation. If I don't see you, I won't an- 
 swer for what may happen. My mind is made up to endure 
 this suspense no longer. Oh, Geoffrey, remember the past ! 
 Be faithful — be just — to your loving wife, 
 
 "Anne Silvestee." 
 
 2. From Geoffrey Delmnayn to Anne Silvester. 
 
 " Dear Anne, — Just called to London to my father. They 
 have telegraphed him in a bad way. Stop where you are, and 
 I will write you. Trust the bearer. Upon my soul, I'll keep 
 my promise. Your loving husband that is to be, 
 
 " Geoffrey Delamayn. 
 
 "WiNDYGATES HoUSE, Augt. 14, 4 P.M. 
 
 " In a mortal hurry. The train starts 4.30." 
 
426 MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 Sir Patrick read the correspondence with breathless atten- 
 tion to the end. At the last lines of the last letter he did what 
 he had not done for twenty years past — he sprang to his feet at 
 a bound, and he crossed a room without the help of his ivory 
 cane. 
 
 Anne started ; and turning round from the window, looked 
 at him in silent surprise. He was under the influence of strong 
 emotion ; his face, his voice, his manner, all showed it. 
 
 "How long had you been in Scotland when you wrote 
 this ?" He pointed to Anne's letter as he asked the question, 
 putting it so eagerly that he stammered over the first words. 
 "More than three weeks?" he added, with his bright black 
 eyes fixed in absorbing interest on her face. 
 ' " Yes." 
 
 "Are you sure of that ?" 
 
 " I am certain of it." 
 
 " You can refer to persons who have seen you ?" 
 
 " Easily." 
 
 He turned the sheet of note-paper, and pointed to Geofirey's 
 penciled letter on the fourth page. 
 
 "How long had he been in Scotland when he wrote this? 
 More than three weeks, too?" 
 
 Anne considered for a moment. 
 
 " For God's sake, be careful !" said Sir Patrick, " You don't 
 know what depends on this. If your memory is not clear 
 about it, say so." 
 
 " My memory was confused for a moment. It is clear again 
 now. He had been at his brother's in Perthshire three weeks 
 before he wrote that. And before he went to Swanhaven, he 
 spent three or four days in the valley of the Esk." 
 
 " Are you sure again ?" 
 
 " Quite sure !" 
 
 " Do you know of any one who saw him in the valley of the 
 Esk ?" 
 
 " I know of a person who took a note to him from me." 
 
 " A person easily found ?" 
 
 " Quite easily." 
 
 Sir Patrick laid aside the letter, and seized in ungovernable 
 agitation on both her hands. 
 
 "Listen to me," he said. "The whole conspiracy against 
 Arnold Brinkworth and you falls to the ground before that 
 correspondence. When you and he met at the inn — " 
 
 He paused, and looked at her. Her hands were beginning 
 to tremble in his, 
 
 " When you and Arnold Brinkworth met at the inn," he re- 
 sumed, " the law of Scotland had made you a married woman. 
 On the day, and at the hour, when he wrote those lines at the 
 
MAN AND WIFE. 427 
 
 back of your letter to him, you were Geoffrey DelamayrCs 
 wedded wife /" 
 
 He stopped, and looked at her again. 
 
 Without a word in reply, without the slightest movement 
 in her from head to foot, she looked back at him. The blank 
 stillness of horror was in her face. The deadly cold of horror 
 was in her hands. 
 
 In silence, on his side. Sir Patrick drew back a step, with a 
 faint reflection of her dismay in his face. Married — to the vil- 
 lain who had not hesitated to calumniate the woman whom he 
 had ruined, and then to cast her helpless on the world. Mar- 
 ried — to the traitor who had not shrunk fi'om betraying Ar- 
 nold's trust in him, and desolating Arnold's home. Married — 
 to the ruffian who would have struck her that morning, if the 
 hands of his own friends had not held him back. And Sir Pat- 
 rick had never thought of it ! Absorbed in the one idea of 
 Blanche's future, he had never thought of it, till that horror- 
 stricken face looked at him, and said. Think of tny future, too ! 
 
 He came back to her. He took her cold hand once more in 
 his. 
 
 " Forgive me," he said, " for thinking first of Blanche." 
 
 Blanche's name seemed to rouse her. The life came back to 
 her face ; the tender brightness began to shine again in her 
 eyes. He saw that he might venture to speak more plainly 
 still : he went on. 
 
 "I see the dreadful sacrifice as you see it. I ask myself, 
 have I any right, has Blanche any I'ight — " 
 
 She stopped him by a faint pressure of his hand. 
 
 " Yes," she said, softly, " if Blanche's happiness depends 
 on it." 
 
 THIRTEENTH SCENE.— FULHAM. 
 CHAPTER THE FORTY-FIFTH. 
 
 THE FOOT-RACE. 
 
 A SOLITARY foreigner, drifting about London, drifted toward 
 Fulham on the day of the Foot-race. 
 
 Little by little, he found himself involved in the current of 
 a throng of impetuous English people, all flowing together to- 
 ward one given point, and all decorated alike with colors of 
 two prevailing hues — pink and yellow. He drifted along with 
 the stream of passengers on the pavement (accompanied by a 
 stream of carriages in the road) until they stopped with one 
 accord at a gate — and paid admission-money to a man in of 
 
428 MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 fice — and poured into a great open space ot ground which 
 looked like an uncultivated garden. 
 
 Arrived here, the foreign visitor opened his eyes in wonder 
 at the scene revealed to view. He observed thousands of peo- 
 ple assembled, composed almost exclusively of the middle and 
 upper classes of society. They were congregated round a vast 
 inclosure ; they were elevated on amphitheatrical wooden 
 stands ; and they were perched on the roofs of horseless car- 
 riages, drawn up in rows. From this congregation there rose 
 such a roar of eager voices as he had never heard yet from any 
 assembled multitude in these islands. Predominating among 
 the cries, he detected one everlasting question. It began with, 
 "Who backs — ?" and it ended in the alternate pronouncing 
 of^ two British names unintelligible to foreign ears. Seeing 
 these extraordinary sights, and hearing these stirring sounds, 
 he applied to a policeman on duty ; and said, in his best pro- 
 ducible English, " If you please, sir, what is this ?" 
 
 The policeman answered, " North against South — Sports." 
 
 The foreigner was informed, but not satisfied. He pointed 
 all round the assembly with a circular sweep of his hand ; and 
 said, " Why ?» 
 
 The policeman declined to waste words on a man who could 
 ask such a question as that. He lifted a large purple forefin- 
 ger, with a broad white nail at the end of it, and pointed 
 gravely to a printed Bill, posted on the wall behind him. The 
 drifting foreigner drifted to the Bill. 
 
 After reading it carefully, from top to bottom, he consulted 
 a polite private individual near at hand, who proved to be far 
 more communicative than the policeman. The result on Ijis 
 mind, as a person not thoroughly awakened to the enormous 
 national importance of Athletic Sports, was much as folloAvs : 
 
 The color of North is pink. The color of South is yellow. 
 North produces fourteen pink men, and South produces thir- 
 teen yellow men. The meeting of pink and yellow is a solem- 
 nity. The solemnity takes its rise in an indomitable national 
 passion for hardening the arms and legs, by throwing ham- 
 mers and cricket-balls with the first, and running and jumping 
 with the second. The object in view is to do this in public 
 rivalry. The ends arrived at are (physically) an excessive de- 
 velopment of the muscles, purchased at the expense of an ex- 
 cessive strain on the heart and the lungs — (morally), glory; 
 conferred at the moment by the public applause ; confirmed 
 the next day by a report in the newspapers. Any person who 
 presumes to see any physical evil involved in these exercises 
 to the men who practice them, or any moral obstruction in the 
 exhibition itself to those civilizing influences on which the 
 true greatness of all nations depends, is a person without a 
 
MAN AND WIFE. 429 
 
 biceps, who is simply incomprehensible. Muscular England 
 develops itself, and takes no notice of him. 
 
 The foreigner mixed with the assembly, and looked more 
 closely at the social spectacle around him. 
 
 He had met with these people before. He had seen them 
 (for instance) at the theatre, and had observed their manners 
 and customs with considerable curiosity and surprise. When 
 the curtain was down, they were so little interested in what 
 they had come to see, that they had hardly spirit enough to 
 speak to each other between the acts. When the curtain was 
 up, if the play made any appeal to their sympathy with any 
 of the higher and nobler emotions of humanity, they received 
 it as something wearisome, or sneered at it as something ab- 
 surd. The public feeling of the countrymen of Shakspeai'e, 
 so far as they represenied it, recognized Ijut two duties in the 
 dramatist — the duty of making them laugh, and the duty of 
 getting it over soon. The two great merits of a stage propri- 
 etor, in England (judging by the rare applause of his cultivated 
 customers), consisted in spending plenty of money on his scen- 
 ery, and in hiring plenty of brazen-faced women to exhibit their 
 bosoms and their legs. Not at theatres only; but among oth- 
 er gatherings, in other places, the foreigner had noticed the 
 same stolid languor where any effort was exacted fi'om gen- 
 teel English brains, and the same stupid contempt Avhere any 
 appeal was made to genteel English hearts. Preserve us from 
 enjoying any thing but jokes and scandal ! Preserve us from 
 respecting any thing but rank and money! There were the 
 social aspirations of these insular ladies and gentlemen, as ex- 
 pressed under other circumstances, and as betrayed amidst 
 other scenes. Here all was changed. Here was the strong 
 feeling, the breathless interest, the hearty enthusiasm, not vis- 
 ible elsewhere. Here were the superb gentlemen who were too 
 weary to speak when an Art was addressing them, shouting 
 themselves hoarse with burst on burst of genuine applause. 
 Here were the fine ladies who yawned behind their fans at the 
 bare idea of being called on to think or to feel, waving their 
 handkerchiefs in honest delight, and actually flushing with ex- 
 citement thi-ough their powder and their paint. And all for 
 what? All for running and jumping — all for throwing ham- 
 mers and balls. 
 
 The foreigner looked at it, and tried, as a citizen of a civil- 
 ized country, to understand it. He was still trying — when 
 there occui-red a pause in the performances. 
 
 Certain hurdles, which had served to exhibit the present 
 satisfactory state of civilization (in jumping) among the upper 
 classes, were removed. The privileged persons who had duties 
 to perform Avithin the inclosure, looked all round it; and dis- 
 
430 MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 appeared one after another. A great hush of expectation per- 
 vaded the whole assembly. Something of no common interest 
 and importance was evidently about to take place. On a sud- 
 den, the silence was broken by a roar of cheering from the mob 
 in the road outside the grounds. People looked at each other 
 excitedly, and said, " One of them has come." The silence pre- 
 vailed again — and was a second time broken by another roar 
 of applause. People nodded to each other with an air of relief 
 and said, " Both of them have come." Then the great hush 
 fell on the crowd once more; and all eyes looked toward one 
 particular point of the ground, occupied by a little wooden 
 pavilion, with the blinds down over the open windows, and 
 the door closed. 
 
 The foreigner was deeply impressed by the silent expecta- 
 tion of the great throng about him. He felt his own sympa- 
 thies stirred, without knowing why. He believed himself to 
 be on the point of understanding the English people. 
 
 Some ceremony of grave importance was evidently in prep- 
 aration. Was a great orator going to address the assembly? 
 Was a glorious anniversary to be commemorated? Was a 
 religious service to be performed ? He looked round him to 
 apply for information once more. Two gentlemen — who con- 
 trasted favorably, so far as refinement of manner was concerned, 
 Avith most of the spectators present — were slowly making their 
 way, at that moment, through the crowd near him. He re- 
 spectfully asked what national solemnity was now about to 
 take place. They informed him that a pair of strong young 
 men were going to run round the inclosure for a given num- 
 ber of turns, with the object of ascertaining which could run 
 the fastest of the two. 
 
 The foreigner lifted his hands and eyes to heaven. Oh mul- 
 tifarious Providence ! who would liave suspected that the in- 
 finite diversities of thy creation included such beings as these! 
 With that aspiration, he turned his back on the race-course, 
 and left the place. 
 
 On his way out of the grounds he had occasion to use his 
 handkerchief, and found that it was gone. He felt next for 
 his purse. His pui'se was missing too. When he was back 
 again in his own country, intelligent inquiries were addressed 
 to him on the subject of England. He had but one reply to 
 give. "The whole nation is a mystery to me. Of all the En- 
 glish people I only understand the English thieves !" 
 
 In the mean time the two gentlemen, making their way 
 through the crowd, reached a wicket-gate in the fence which 
 surrounded the inclosure. 
 
 Presenting a written order to the policeman in charge of the 
 
MAN AND WITH. 431 
 
 gate, they were forthwith admitted within the sacred precincts. 
 The closely packed spectators, regarding them with mixed 
 feelings of envy and curiosity, wondered who they might be. 
 Were they referees appointed to act at the coming race ? or 
 reporters for the newspapers? or commissioners of police? 
 They were neither the one nor the other. They were only 
 Mr, Speedwell, the surgeon, and Sir Patrick Lundie, 
 
 The two gentlemen walked into the centre of the inclosure, 
 and looked round them. 
 
 The grass on which they were standing was girdled by a 
 broad smooth path, composed of finely-sifted ashes and sand — 
 and this again was surrounded by the fence and by the spec- 
 tators ranked behind it. Above the lines thus formed rose on 
 one side the amphitheatres with their tiers of crowded bench- 
 es, and on the other the long rows of carriages with the sight- 
 seers inside and out. The evening sun was shining brightly, 
 the light and shade lay together in grand masses, the varied 
 colors of objects blended softly one with the other. It was a 
 splendid and an inspiriting scene. 
 
 Sir Patrick turned from the rows of eager faces all round 
 him to his friend the surgeon. 
 
 " Is there one person to be found in this vast crowd," he 
 asked, " who has come to see the race with the doubt in his 
 mind which has brought us to see it ?" 
 
 Mr. Speedwell shook his head. " Not one of them knows or 
 cares what the struggle may cost the men who engage in it." 
 
 Sir Patrick looked round him again. " I almost wish I had 
 not come to see it," he said. " If this wretched man — " 
 
 The surgeon interposed, "Don't dwell needlessly, Sir Pat- 
 rick, on the gloomy view," he rejoined. " The opinion I have 
 formed has, thus far, no positive grounds to rest on. I am 
 guessing rightly, as I believe, but at the same time I am guess- 
 ing in the dark. Appearances may have misled me. There 
 may be reserves of vital force in Mr. Delamayn's constitution 
 which I don't suspect. I am here to learn a lesson — not to see 
 a prediction fulfilled. I know his health is broken, and I be- 
 lieve he is going to run this race at his own proper peril. 
 Don't feel too sure beforehand of the event. The event may 
 prove me to be wrong." 
 
 For the moment Sir Patrick dropped the subject. He was 
 not in his usual spirits. 
 
 Since his interview with Anne had satisfied him that she was 
 Geoffrey's lawful wife, the conviction had inevitably foi'ced 
 itself on his mind that the one possible chance for her in the 
 future was the chance of Geoffrey's death. Horrible as it was 
 to him, he had been possessed by that one idea — go where he 
 might, do what he might, struggle as he might to force bis 
 
432 MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 thoughts in other directions. He looked round the broad ash- 
 en path on which the race was to be run, conscious that he had 
 a secret interest in it which it was unutterably repugnant to 
 him to feel. He tried to resume the conversation with his 
 friend, and to lead it to other topics. The effort was useless. 
 In despite of himself, he returned to the one fatal subject of 
 the struggle that was now close at hand. 
 
 " How many times must they go round this inclosure," he 
 inquired, " before the race is ended ?" 
 
 Mr. Speedwell turned toward a gentleman who was approach- 
 ing them at the moment. " Here is somebody coming who can 
 tell us," he said. 
 
 " You know him ?" 
 
 "He is one of my patients." 
 
 " Who is he ?" 
 
 " After the two runners he is the most important personage on 
 the ground. He is the final authority — the umpire of the race." 
 
 The person thus described was a middle-aged man, with a 
 prematurely wrinkled face, with prematurely white hair, and 
 with something of a military look about him — brief in speech, 
 and quick in manner. 
 
 "The path measures four hundred and forty yards round," 
 he said, when the surgeon had repeated Sir Patrick's question 
 to him. "In plainer words, and not to put you to your arith- 
 metic, once round it is a quarter of a mile. Each round is call- 
 ed a 'Lap.' The men must run sixteen Laps to finish the race. 
 Not to put you to your arithmetic again, they must run four 
 miles — the longest race of this kind which it is customary to 
 attempt at sports like these." 
 
 " Professional pedestrians exceed that limit, do they not ?" 
 
 " Considerably — on certain occasions." 
 
 "Are they a long-lived race?" 
 
 " Far from it. They are exceptions when they live to be 
 old men." 
 
 Mr. Speedwell looked at Sir Patrick. Sir Patrick put a ques- 
 tion to the umpire. 
 
 "You have just told us," he said, "that the two young men 
 who appear to-day are going to run the longest distance yet at- 
 tempted in their experience. Is it generally thought, by per- 
 sons who understand such things, that they are both fit to 
 bear the exertion demanded of them ?" 
 
 " You can judge for yourself, sir. Here is one of them." 
 
 He pointed toward the pavilion. At the same moment there 
 rose a mighty clapping of hands from the great throng of 
 spectators. Fleetwood, champion of the North, decorated in 
 his pink colors, descended the pavilion steps and walked into 
 the arena. \ 
 
MAN AND WIFE. 433 
 
 Young, lithe, and elegant, with supple strength expressed in 
 every movement of his limbs, with a bright smile on his reso- 
 lute young face, the man of the North won the women's hearts 
 at starting. The murmur of eager talk rose among them on 
 all sides. The men were quieter — especially the men who 
 understood the subject. It was a serious question with these 
 experts whether Fleetwood was not " a little too fine." Su- 
 perbly trained, it was admitted — but, possibly, a little over- 
 trained for a four-mile race. 
 
 The Northern hero was followed into the inclosure by his 
 friends and backers, and by his trainer. This last carried a tin 
 can in his hand. " Cold water," the umpire explained. " If 
 he gets exhausted, his trainer will pick him up with a dash of 
 it as he goes by." 
 
 A new burst of hand-clapping rattled all round the arena. 
 Delamayn, champion of the South, decorated in his yellow col- 
 ors, presented himself to the public view. 
 
 The immense hum of voices rose louder and louder as he 
 walked into the centre of the great green space. Surprise at 
 the extraordinary contrast between the two men was the prev- 
 alent emotion of the moment. Geoffrey was more than a head 
 taller than his antagonist, and broader in full proportion. 
 The women, who had been charmed with the easy gait and con- 
 fident smile of Fleetwood, were all more or less painfully im- 
 pressed by the sullen strength of the Southern man, as he pass- 
 ed before them slowly, with his head down and his brows knit, 
 deaf to the applause showered on him, reckless of the eyes that 
 looked at him; speaking to nobody; concentrated in him- 
 self; biding his time. He held the men who understood the 
 subject breathless with interest. There it was ! the famous 
 " staying power " that was to endure in the last terrible half- 
 mile of the race, when the nimble and jaunty Fleetwood was 
 run off his legs. Whispers had been spread abroad hinting at 
 something which had gone wrong with Delamayn in his train- 
 ing. And now that all eyes could judge him, his appearance 
 suggested criticism in some quarters. It was exactly the op- 
 posite of the criticism passed on his antagonist. The doubt as 
 to Delamayn was whether he had been sufficiently trained. 
 Still the solid strength of the man, the slow, panther-like 
 smoothness of his movements — and, above all, his great reputa- 
 tion in the world of muscle and sport — had their effect. The 
 betting which, with occasional fluctuations, had held steadily 
 in his favor thus far, held, now that he was publicly seen, 
 steadily in his favor still. "Fleetwood for shorter distances, 
 if you like ; but Delamayn for a four-mile race." 
 
 " Do you think he sees us ?" whispered Sir Patrick to the 
 Burgeon. 
 28 
 
434 MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 "He sees nobody." 
 
 " Can you judge of the condition he is in, at this distance ?" 
 
 " He has twice the muscular strength of the other man. His 
 trunk and limbs are magnificent. It is useless to ask me more 
 than that about his condition. We are too far from him to see 
 his face plainly." 
 
 The conversation among the audience began to flag again ; 
 and the silent expectation set in among them once more. One 
 by one the diflerent persons ofiicially connected with the race 
 gathered together on the grass. The trainer Perry was among 
 them, with his can of water in his hand, in anxious whispering 
 conversation with his principal — giving him the last words of 
 advice before the start. The trainer's doctor, leaving them to- 
 gether, came up to pay his respects to his illustrious colleague. 
 
 "How has he got on since I was at Fulham ?" asked Mr. 
 Speedwell. 
 
 " First-rate, sir ! It was one of his bad days when you saw 
 him. He has done wonders in the last eight-and-forty hours." 
 
 " Is he going to win the race ?" 
 
 Privately the doctor had done what Perry had done before 
 him — he had backed Geoffrey's antagonist. Publicly he was 
 true to his colors. He cast a disparaging look at Fleetwood 
 — and answered Yes, without the slightest hesitation. 
 
 At that point, the conversation was suspended by a sudden 
 movement in the inclosure. The runners were on their way to 
 the starting-place. The moment of the race had come. 
 
 Shoulder to shoulder, the two men waited — each with his 
 foot touching the mark. The firing of a pistol gave the signal 
 for the start. At the instant when the report sounded they 
 were off. 
 
 Fleetwood at once took the lead ; Delamayn following, at 
 from two to three yards behind him. In that order, they ran 
 the first round, the second, and the third — both reserving 
 their strength ; both watched with breathless interest by ev- 
 ery soul in the place. The trainers, with their cans in their 
 hands, ran backward and forward over the grass, meeting their 
 men at certain points, and eying them narrowly, in silence. 
 The official persons stood together in a group, their eyes fol- 
 lowing the runners round and round with the closest attention. 
 The trainer's doctor, still attached to his illustrious colleague, 
 offered the necessary explanations to Mr. Speedwell and his 
 friend. 
 
 " Nothing much to see for the first mile, sir, except the 
 'style' of the two men." 
 
 "You mean they are not really exerting themselves yet?'* 
 
 " No ; getting their wind, and feelins? their legs. Pretty run- 
 
MAN AND WIFB. 435 
 
 ner, Fleetwood — if you notice, sir ? Gets his legs a trifle better 
 iu front, and hardly lifts his heels quite so high as our man. His 
 action's the best of the two ; I grant that. But just look, as 
 they come by, which keeps the straightest line. There's where 
 Delamayn has him ! It's a steadier, stronger, truer pace ; and 
 you'll see it tell when they're half-way through." So, for the 
 first three rounds, the doctor expatiated on the two contrasted 
 "styles" — in terms mercifully adapted to the comprehension 
 of persons unacquainted with the language of the running ring. 
 
 At the fourth round — in other words, at the round which 
 completed the first mile, the first change in the relative posi- 
 tion of the runners occurred. Delamayn suddenly dashed to 
 the front. Fleetwood smiled as the other passed him. Dela- 
 mayn held the lead till they were half-way through the fifth 
 round — when Fleetwood, at a hint from his trainer, forced the 
 pace. He lightly passed Delamayn in an instant ; and led 
 again to the completion of the sixth round. At the opening 
 of the seventh, Delamayn forced the pace on his side. For a 
 few moments, they ran exactly abreast. Then Delamayn drew 
 away inch by inch ; and recovered the lead. The first burst 
 of applause (led by the South) rang out, as the big man beat 
 Fleetwood at his own tactics, and headed him at the critical 
 moment when the race was nearly half run. 
 
 " It begins to look as if Delamayn teas going to win !" said 
 Sir Patrick. 
 
 The trainer's doctor forgot himself. Infected by the rising 
 excitement of every body about him, he let out the truth. 
 
 " Wait a bit !" he said. " Fleetwood has got directions to 
 let him pass — Fleetwood is waiting to see what he can do." 
 
 " Cunning, you see. Sir Patrick, is one of the elements in a 
 manly sport," said Mr. Speedwell, quietly. 
 
 At the end of the seventh round, Fleetwood proved the doc- 
 tor to be right. He shot past Delamayn like an arrow from a 
 bow. At the end of the eighth round, he was leading by two 
 yards. Half the race had then been run. Time, ten minutes 
 and thirty-three seconds. 
 
 Toward the end of the ninth round, the pace slackened a lit- 
 tle ; and Delamayn was in front again. He kept ahead, until 
 the opening of the eleventh round. At that point, Fleetwood 
 flung up one hand in the air with a gesture of triumph, and 
 bounded past Delamayn with a shout of " Hooray for the 
 North ?" The shout was echoed by the spectators. In pro- 
 portion as the exertion began to tell upon the men, so the ex- 
 citement steadily rose among the people looking at them. 
 
 At the twelth round, Fleetwood was leading by six yards. 
 Cries of triumph rose among the adherents of the North, met 
 by counter-cries of defiance from the South. At the next turij 
 
486 MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 Delamayn resolutely lessened the distance between his antag- 
 onist and himself. At the opening of the fourteenth round, 
 they were coming side by side. A few yards more, and Dela- 
 mayn was in front again, amidst a roar of applause from the 
 whole public voice. Yet a few yards farther, and Fleetwood 
 neared him ; passed him ; dropped behind again ; led again ; 
 and was passed again at the end of the round. The excite- 
 ment rose to its highest pitch, as the runners — gasping for 
 breath ; with dark-flushed faces, and heaving breasts — altei*- 
 nately passed and repassed each other. Oaths were heard now 
 as well as cheers. Women turned pale, and men set their 
 teeth, as the last round but one began. 
 
 At the opening of it, Delamayn was still in advance. Be- 
 fore six yards more had been covered, Fleetwood betrayed the 
 purpose of his running in the previous round, and electrified 
 the whole assembly, by dashing past his antagonist — for the 
 first time in the race at the top of his speed. Every body 
 present could see, now, that Delamayn had been allowed to 
 lead on sufierance — had been dexterously drawn on to put out 
 his whole power — and had then, and not till then, been seri- 
 ously deprived of the lead. He made another efibrt, with a 
 resolution that roused the public enthusiasm to frenzy. While 
 the voices were roaring ; while the hats and handkerchiefs 
 were waving round the course ; while the actual event of the 
 race was, for one supreme moment, still in doubt — Mr. Speed- 
 well caught Sir Patrick by the arm. 
 
 "Prepare yourself !" he whispered. "It's all over." 
 
 As the words passed his lips, Delamayn swerved on the path. 
 His trainer dashed water over him. He rallied, and ran an- 
 other step or two — swerved again — staggered — lifted his arm 
 to his mouth with a hoarse cry of rage — fastened his own 
 teeth in his flesh like a wild beast — and fell senseless on the 
 course. 
 
 A Babel of sounds arose. The cries of alarm in some places, 
 mingling with the shouts of triumph from the backers of Fleet- 
 wood in others — as their man ran lightly on to win the now 
 uncontested race. Not the inclosure only, but the course it- 
 self was invaded by the crowd. In the midst of the tumult 
 the fallen man was drawn on to the grass — with Mr. Speedwell 
 and the trainer's doctor in attendance on him. At the terrible 
 moment when the surgeon laid his hand on the heart, Fleet- 
 wood passed the spot — a passage being forced for him through 
 the people by his friends and the police — running the six- 
 teenth and last round of the race. 
 
 Had the beaten man fainted under it, or had he died under 
 it ? Every body waited, with their eyes riveted on the sur- 
 geon's hand. 
 
MAN AND WIPE. 439 
 
 The surgeon looked up from him, and called for water to 
 throw over his face, for brandy to put into his mouth. He 
 was coming to life again — he had survived the race. The last 
 shout of applause which hailed Fleetwood's victory rang out 
 as they lifted him from the ground to carry him to the pavil- 
 ion. Sir Patrick (admitted at Mr, Speedwell's request) was 
 the one stranger allowed to pass the door. At the moment 
 when he was ascending the steps, some one touched his arm. 
 It was Captain Newenden, 
 
 " Do the doctors answer for his life ?" asked the captain, " I 
 can't get my niece to leave the ground till she is satisfied of 
 that," 
 
 Mr. Speedwell heard the question, and replied to it briefly 
 from the top of the pavilion steps. 
 
 " For the present — yes," he said. 
 
 The captain thanked him, and disappeared. 
 
 They entered the pavilion. The necessary restorative meas- 
 ures were taken under Mr, Speedwell's directions. There the 
 conquered athlete lay : outwardly an inert mass of strength, 
 formidable to look at, even in its fall ; inwardly, a weaker 
 creature, in all that constitutes vital force, than the fly that 
 buzzed on the window-pane. By slow degrees the fluttering 
 life came back. The sun was setting; and the evening light 
 was beginning to fail, Mr. Speedwell beckoned to Perry to 
 follow him into an unoccupied corner of the room. 
 
 " In half an hour or less he will be well enough to be taken 
 home. Where are his friends? He has a brother — hasn't 
 he?" 
 
 " His brother's in Scotland, sir. " 
 
 "His father?" 
 
 Perry scratched his head. " From all I hear, sir, he and his 
 father don't agree." 
 
 Mr. Speedwell applied to Sir Patrick. 
 
 "Do you know any thing of his family affairs?" 
 
 " Very little. I believe what the man has told you to be 
 the truth." 
 
 " Is his mother living ?" 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " I will write to her myself In the mean time, somebody 
 must take him home. He has plenty of friends here. Where 
 are they ?" 
 
 He looked out of the window as he spoke. A throng of peo- 
 ple had gathered round the pavilion, waiting to hear the latest 
 news. Mr. Speedwell directed Perry to go out and search 
 among them for any friends of his employer whom he might 
 know by sight. Perry hesitated, and scratched his head for 
 the second time. 
 
440 MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 " What are you waiting for ?" asked the surgeon, sharply. 
 " You know his friends by sight, don't you ?" 
 
 " I don't think I shall find them outside," said Perry. 
 
 "Why not?" 
 
 " They backed him heavily, sir — and they have all lost." 
 
 Deaf to this unanswerable reason for the absence of friends, 
 Mr. Speedwell insisted on sending Perry out to search among 
 the persons who composed the crowd. The trainer returned 
 with his report. " You were right, sir. There are some of his 
 friends outside. They want to see him." 
 
 " Let two or three of them in." 
 
 Three came in. They stared at him. They uttered brief 
 expressions of pity in slang. They said to Mr. Speedwell, " We 
 wanted to see him. What is it — eh ?" 
 
 " It's a break-down in his health." 
 
 " Bad training ?" 
 
 "Athletic Sports." 
 
 " Oh ! Thank you. Good-evening." 
 
 Mr. Speedwell's answer drove them out like a flock of sheep 
 before a dog. There was not even time to put the question to 
 them as to who was to take him home. 
 
 " ril look after him, sir," said Perry. " You can trust me." 
 
 " Pll go too," added the trainer's doctor ; " and see him lit- 
 tered down for the night." 
 
 (The only two men who had " hedged " their bets, by pri- 
 vately backing his opponent, were also the only two men who 
 volunteered to take him home !) 
 
 They went back to the sofa on which he was lying. His 
 bloodshot eyes were rolling heavily and vacantly about him, 
 on the search for something. They rested on the doctor — and 
 looked away again. They turned to Mr. Speedwell — and stop- 
 ped, riveted on his face. The surgeon bent over him, and said, 
 " What is it ?" 
 
 He answered with a thick accent and laboring breath — ut- 
 tering a word at a time : " Shall — I — die ?" 
 
 " I hope not." 
 
 " Sure ?" 
 
 « No." 
 
 He looked round him again. This time his eyes rested on 
 the trainer. Perry came forward. 
 
 " What can I do for you, sir ?" 
 
 The reply came slowly, as before. " My — coat — pocket." 
 
 "This one, sir?" 
 
 " No." 
 
 " This ?" 
 
 "Yes. Book." ^ 
 
 The trainer felt in the pocket, and produced a betting-book. 
 
MAN AND WIFB. 441 
 
 " What's to be done with this, sir ?" 
 
 " Read." 
 
 The trainer held the book before him ; open at the last two 
 pages on which entries had been made. He rolled his head 
 impatiently from side to side of the sofa pillow. It was plain 
 that he was not yet sufficiently recovered to be able to read 
 what he had written. 
 
 " Shall I read for you, sir ?" 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 The trainer read three entries, one after another, without re- 
 sult ; they had all been honestly settled. At the fourth the 
 prostrate man said, " Stop !" This was the first of the entries 
 which still depended on a future event. It recorded the wa- 
 ger laid at Windygates, when Geofirey had backed himself (in 
 defiance of the surgeon's opinion) to row in the University 
 boat-race next spring — and had forced Arnold Brinkworth to 
 bet against him. 
 
 " Well, sir ? What's to be done about this ?" 
 
 He collected his strength for the efibrt ; and answered by a 
 word at a time. 
 
 " Write — brother — Julius. Pay — Arnold — wins." 
 
 His lifted hand, solemnly emphasizing what he said, dropped 
 at his side. He closed his eyes, and fell into a heavy sterto- 
 rous sleep. Give him his due. Scoundrel as he was, give him 
 his due. The awful moment, when his life was trembling in 
 the balance, found him true to the last living faith left among 
 the men of lais tribe and time — the faith of the betting-book. 
 
 Sir Patrick and Mr. Speedwell quitted the race-ground to- 
 gether ; GeofiTrey having been previously removed to his lodg- 
 ings hard by. They met Arnold Brinkworth at the gate. He 
 had, by his own desire, kept out of view among the crowd ; 
 and he decided on walking back by himself The separation 
 from Blanche had changed him in all his habits. He asked but 
 two favors during the interval which was to elapse before he 
 saw his wife again — to be allowed to bear it in his own way, 
 and to be left alone. 
 
 Relieved of the oppression which had kept him silent while 
 the race was in progress, Sir Patrick put a question to the sur- 
 geon as they drove home, which had been in his mind from the 
 moment when Geofirey had lost the day. 
 
 " I hai'dly understand the anxiety you showed about Dela- 
 mayn," he said, " when you found that he had only fainted un- 
 der the fatigue. Was it something more than a common faint- 
 ing-fit?" 
 
 "It is useless to conceal it now," replied Mr. Speedwell. 
 " He has had a narrow escape from a paralytic stroke." 
 
442 MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 "Was that what you dreaded when you spoke to him at 
 Windygates ?" 
 
 "That was what I saw in his face when I gave him the 
 warning. I was right, so far. I was wrong in my estimate 
 of the reserve of vital power left in him. When he dropped 
 on the race-course, I firmly believed we should find him a dead 
 man." 
 
 " Is it hereditary paralysis ? His father's last illness was 
 of that sort." 
 
 Mr. Speedwell smiled. " Hereditary paralysis ?" he repeat- 
 ed. " Why the man is (naturally) a phenomenon of health 
 and strength — in the prime of his life. Hereditary paralysis 
 might have found him out thirty years hence. His rowing 
 and his running, for the last four years, are alone answerable 
 for what has happened to-day." 
 
 Sir Patrick ventured on a suggestion. 
 
 " Surely," he said, " with your name to compel attention to 
 it, you ought to make this public — as a warning to others ?" 
 
 " It would be quite useless. Delamayn is far from being the 
 first man who has dropped at foot-racing, under the cruel stress 
 laid on the vital organs. The public have a happy knack of 
 forgetting these accidents. They would be quite satisfied when 
 they found the other man (who happens to have got through 
 it) produced as a sufficient answer to me." 
 
 Anne Silvester's future was still dwelling on Sir Patrick's 
 mind. His next inquiry related to the serious subject of Geof- 
 frey's prospect of recovery in the time to come. 
 
 " He will never recover," said Mr. Speedwell. " Paralysis is 
 hanging over him. How long he may live it is impossible for 
 me to say. Much depends on himself In his condition, any 
 new imprudence, any violent emotion, may kill him at a mo- 
 ment's notice." 
 
 " If no accident happens," said Sir Patrick, " will he be suffi- 
 ciently himself again to leave his bed and go out ?" 
 
 " Certainly." 
 
 " He has an appointment that I know of for Saturday next. 
 Is it likely that he will be able to keep it ?" 
 
 " Quite likely." 
 
 Sir Patrick said no more. Anne's face was before him again 
 at the memorable moment when he had told her that she was 
 Geoflfrey's wife. 
 
MAN AND WIFB. 443 
 
 FOURTEENTH SCENE.— PORTLAND PLACE. 
 CHAPTER THE FORTY-SIXTH. 
 
 A SCOTCH MARRIAGE. 
 
 It was Saturday, the third of October — the day on which 
 the assertion of Arnold's marriage to Anne Silvester was to be 
 put to the proof 
 
 Toward two o'clock in the afternoon Blanche and her step- 
 mother entered the drawing-room of Lady Lundie's town- 
 house in Portland Place. 
 
 Since the previous evening the weather had altered for the 
 worse. The rain, which had set in from an early hour that 
 morning, still fell. Viewed from the drawing-room windows, 
 the desolation of Portland Place in the dead season wore its 
 aspect of deepest gloom. The dreary opposite houses were all 
 shut up; the black mud was inches deep in the roadway; the 
 soot, floating in tiny black particles, mixed with the falling 
 rain, and heightened the dirty obscurity of the rising mist. 
 Foot-passengers and vehicles, succeeding each other at rare in- 
 tervals, left great gaps of silence absolutely uninterrupted by 
 sound. Even the grinders of organs were mute ; and the wan- 
 dering dogs of the street were too wet to bark. Looking back 
 from the view out of Lady Lundie's state windows to the 
 view in Lady Lundie's state-room, the melancholy that reigned 
 without was more than matched by tlie melancholy that 
 reigned within. The house had been shut up for the season : 
 it had not been considered necessary, during its mistress's 
 brief visit, to disturb the existing state of things. Coverings 
 of dim brown hue shrouded the furniture. The chandeliers 
 hung invisible in enormous bags. The silent clocks hibernated 
 under extinguishers dropped over them two months since. 
 The tables, drawn up in corners — loaded with ornaments at 
 other times — had nothing but pen, ink, and paper (suggestive 
 of the coming proceedings) placed on them now. The smell 
 of the house was musty ; the voice of the house was still. One 
 melancholy maid haunted the bedrooms up stairs, like a ghost. 
 One melancholy man, appointed to admit the visitors, sat soli- 
 tary in the lower regions — the last of the flunkies, moldering 
 in an extinct servants' hall. Not a word passed, in the draw- 
 ing-room, between Lady Lundie and Blanche. Each waited 
 the appearance of the persons concerned in the coming inquiry, 
 
444 MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 absorbed in her own thoughts. Their situation at the moment 
 was a solemn burlesque of the situation of two ladies who are 
 giving an evening party, and who are waiting to receive their 
 guests. Did neither of them see this ? Or, seeing it, did they 
 shrink from acknowledging it ? In similar positions, who does 
 not shrink ? The occasions are many on which we have ex- 
 cellent reason to laugh when the tears are in our eyes ; but 
 only children are bold enough to follow the impulse. So 
 strangely, in human existence, does the mockery of what is 
 serious mingle with the serious reality itself, that nothing but 
 our own self-respect preserves our gravity at some of the most 
 important emergencies in our lives. The two ladies waited 
 the coming ordeal together gravely, as became the occasion. 
 The silent maid flitted noiseless up stairs. The silent man 
 waited motionless in the lower regions. Outside, the street 
 was a desert. Inside, the house was a tomb. 
 
 The church clock struck the hour. Two. 
 
 At the same moment the first of the persons concerned in 
 the investigation arrived. 
 
 Lady Lundie waited composedly for the opening of the draw- 
 ing-room door. Blanche started, and trembled. Was it Ar- 
 nold ? Was it Anne ? 
 
 The door opened, and Blanche drew a breath of relief The 
 first arrival was only Lady Lundie's solicitor — invited to at- 
 tend the proceedings on her ladyship's behalf He was one of 
 that large class of purely mechanical and perfectly mediocre 
 persons connected with the practice of the law who will prob- 
 ably, in a more advanced state of science, be superseded by 
 machinery. He made himself useful in altering the arrange- 
 ment of the tables and chairs, so as to keep the contending 
 parties effectually separated from each other. He also entreat- 
 ed Lady Lundie to bear in mind that he knew nothing of 
 Scotch law, and that he was there in the capacity of friend 
 only. This done, he sat down, and looked out with silent in- 
 terest at the rain — as if it was an operation of Nature which 
 he had never had an opportunity of inspecting before. 
 
 The next knock at the door heralded the arrival of a visitor 
 of a totally different order. The melancholy man-servant an- 
 nounced Captain Newenden. 
 
 Possibly in deference to the occasion, possibly in defiance of 
 the weather, the captain had taken another backward step to- 
 ward the days of his youth. He was painted and padded, wig- 
 ged and dressed, to represent the abstract idea of a male hu- 
 man being of five-and-twenty in robust health. There might 
 have been a little stiffness in the region of the waist, and a 
 slight want of firmness in the eyelid and the chin. Otherwise 
 there was the fiction of five-and-twenty, founded in appearance 
 
MAN AND WIFB. 445 
 
 on the fact of five-and-thirty — with the truth invisible behind 
 it, counting seventy years ! Wearing a flower in his button- 
 hole, and carrying a jaunty little cane in his hand — brisk, rosy, 
 smiling, perfumed — the captain's appearance brightened the 
 dreary room. It was pleasantly suggestive of a morning visit 
 from an idle young man. He appeared to be a little surprised 
 to find Blanche present on the scene of approaching conflict. 
 Lady Lundie thought it due to herself to explain. "My step- 
 daughter is here in direct defiance of my entreaties and my ad- 
 vice. Persons may present themselves whom it is, in my opin- 
 ion, improper she should see. Revelations will take place which 
 no young woman, in her position, should hear. She insists on 
 it, Captain Newenden — and I am obliged to submit." 
 
 The captain shrugged his shoulders, and showed his beauti- 
 ful teeth. 
 
 Blanche was far too deeply interested in the coming ordeal 
 to care to defend herself: she looked as if she had not even 
 heard what her stepmother had said of her. The solicitor re- 
 mained absorbed in the interesting view of the falling rain. 
 Lady Lundie asked after Mrs. Glenarm. The captain, in reply, 
 described his niece's anxiety as something— something — some- 
 thing, in short, only to be indicated by shaking his ambrosial 
 curls and waving his jaunty cane. Mrs. Delamayn was stay- 
 ing with her until her uncle returned with the news. And 
 where was Julius ? Detained in Scotland by election busi- 
 ness. And Lord and Lady Holchester ? Lord and Lady Hol- 
 chester knew nothing about it. 
 
 There was another knock at the door. Blanche's pale face 
 turned paler still. Was it Arnold ? Was it Anne ? After a 
 longer delay than usual, the servant announced Mr. Geoffrey 
 Delamayn and Mr. Moy. 
 
 Geoflrey, slowly entering first, saluted the two ladies in si- 
 lence, and noticed no one else. The London solicitor, with- 
 drawing himself for a moment from the absorbing prospect of 
 the rain, pointed to the places reserved for the new-comer and 
 for the legal adviser whom he had brought with him. Geoflrey 
 seated himself, without so much as a glance round the room. 
 Leaning his elbows on his knees, he vacantly traced patterns 
 on the carpet with his clumsy oaken walking-stick. Stolid in- 
 difierence expressed itself in his lowering brow and his loose- 
 ly-hanging mouth. The loss of the race, and the circumstances 
 accompanying it, appeared to have made him duller than usual 
 and heavier than usual — and that was all. 
 
 Captain Newenden, approaching to speak to him, stopped 
 half-way, hesitated, thought better of it — and addressed him- 
 self to Mr. Moy. 
 
 Geofirey's legal adviser — a Scotchman of the ruddy, ready, 
 
446 MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 and convivial type — cordially met the advance. He announced, 
 in reply to the captain's inquiry, that the witnesses (Mrs. Inch- 
 bare and Bishopriggs) were waiting below until they were 
 wanted, in the housekeeper's room. Had there been any diffi- 
 culty in finding them ? Not the least. Mrs. Inchbare was, as 
 a matter of course, at her hotel. Inquiries being set on foot 
 for Bishopriggs, it appeared that he and the landlady had come 
 to an understanding, and that he had returned to his old post of 
 head- waiter at the inn. The captain and Mr. Moy kept up the 
 conversation between them, thus begun, with unflagging ease 
 and spirit. Theirs were the only voices heard in the trying in- 
 terval that elapsed before the next knock was heard at the door. 
 
 At last it came. There could be no doubt now as to the 
 persons who might next be expected to enter the room. Lady 
 Lundie took her stepdaughter firmly by the hand. She was 
 not sure of what Blanche's first impulse might lead her to do. 
 For the first time in her life, Blanche left her hand willingly in 
 her stepmother's grasp. 
 
 The door opened, and they came in. 
 
 Sir Patrick Lundie entered first, with Anne Silvester on his 
 arm. Arnold Brinkworth followed them. 
 
 Both Sir Patrick and Anne bowed in silence to the persons 
 assembled. Lady Lundie ceremoniously returned her brother- 
 in-law's salute, and pointedly abstained from noticing Anne's 
 presence in the room. Blanche never looked up. Arnold ad- 
 vanced to her, with his hand held out. Lady Lundie rose, and 
 motioned him back. " Not yet, Mr, Brinkworth !" she said, in 
 her most quietly merciless manner. Arnold stood, heedless of 
 her, looking at his wife. His wife lifted her eyes to his ; the 
 tears rose in them on the instant. Arnold's dark complexion 
 turned ashy pale under the efibrt that it cost him to command 
 himself " I won't distress you," he said, gently — and turned 
 back again to the table at which Sir Patrick and Anne were 
 seated together, apart from the rest. Sir Patrick took his hand, 
 and pressed it in silent approval. 
 
 The one person who took no part, even as spectator, in the 
 events that followed the appearance of Sir Patrick and his 
 companions in the room — was Geoifrey. The only change vis- 
 ible in him was a change in the handling of his walking-stick. 
 Instead of tracing patterns on the carpet, it beat a tattoo. For 
 the rest, there he sat with his heavy head on his breast and his 
 brawny arms on his knees — weary of it by anticipation before 
 it had begun. 
 
 Sir Patrick broke the silence. He addressed himself to his 
 sister-in-law. 
 
 " Lady Lundie, are all the persons present whom you ex- 
 pected to see here to-day ?" 
 
MAN AND WIFE. 447 
 
 The gathered venom in Lady Lundie seized the opportunity 
 of planting its first sting. 
 
 "All whom I expected are here," she answered. "And 
 more than I expected," she added, with a look at Anne. 
 
 The look was not returned — was not even seen. From the 
 moment when she had taken her place by Sir Patrick, Anne's 
 eyes had rested on Blanche. They never moved — they never 
 for an instant lost their tender sadness — when the woman who 
 hated her spoke. All that was beautiful and true in that no- 
 ble nature seemed to find its one sufiicieut encouragement in 
 Blanche. As she looked once more at the sister of the unfor- 
 gotten days of old, its native beauty of expression shone out 
 again in her worn and weary face. Every man in the room 
 (but GeoflVey) looked at her ; and every man (but Geoflfrey) 
 felt for her. 
 
 Sir Patrick addressed a second question to his sister-in-law. 
 
 " Is there any one here to represent the interests of Mr. Geof- 
 frey Delamayn ?" he asked. 
 
 Lady Lundie referred Sir Patrick to Geoffrey himself With- 
 out looking up, Geoffrey motioned with his big brown hand to 
 Mr. Moy, sitting by his side. 
 
 Mr. Moy (holding the legal rank in Scotland which corre- 
 sponds to the rank held by solicitors in England) rose and bow- 
 ed to Sir Patrick, with the courtesy due to a man eminent in 
 his time at the Scottish Bar. 
 
 " I represent Mr. Delamayn," he said. " I congratulate my- 
 self, Sir Patrick, on having your ability and experience to ap- 
 peal to in the conduct of the pending inquiry." 
 
 Sir Patrick returned the compliment as well as the bow. 
 
 " It is I who should learn from you," he answered. "Zhave 
 had time, Mr. Moy, to forget what I once knew." 
 
 Lady Lundie looked from one to the other with unconcealed 
 impatience as these formal courtesies were exchanged between 
 the lawyers. "Allow me to remind you, gentlemen, of the sus- 
 pense that we are suffering at this end of the room," she said ; 
 " and permit me to ask when you propose to begin ?" 
 
 Sir Patrick looked invitingly at Mr. Moy. Mr. Moy looked in- 
 vitingly at Sir Patrick. More formal courtesies ! a polite contest 
 this time as to which of the two learned gentlemen should permit 
 the other to speak first ! Mr. Moy's modesty proving to be quite 
 immovable, Sir Patrick ended it by opening the proceedings. 
 
 " I am here," he said, " to act on behalf of my friend, Mr. Ar- 
 nold Brinkworth. I beg to present him to you, Mr. Moy, as the 
 husband of my niece — to whom he was lawfully married on the 
 seventh of September last, at the Chui'ch of Saint Margaret, in 
 the parish of Hawley, Kent. I have a copy of the marriage cer- 
 tificate here — if you wish to look at it." 
 
448 MA2f AND WIFE. 
 
 Mr. Moy's modesty declined to look at it. 
 
 " Quite needless, Sir Patrick ! I admit that a marriage cere- 
 mony took place on the date named, between the persons named; 
 but I contend that it was not a valid marriage. I say, on be- 
 half of my client here present (Mr, Geoffrey Delamayn), that 
 Arnold Brinkworth was married at a date prior to the seventh 
 of September last — namely, on the fourteenth of August in this 
 year, and at a place called Craig Fernie, in Scotland — to a lady 
 named Anne Silvester, now living, and present among us (as I 
 understand) at this moment." 
 
 Sir Patrick presented Anne. " This is the lady, Mr. Moy." 
 
 Mr. Moy bowed, and made a suggestion. " To save needless 
 formalities, Sir Patrick, shall we take the question of identity 
 as established on both sides ?" 
 
 Sir Patrick agreed with his learned friend. Lady Lundie 
 opened and shut her fan in undisguised impatience. The Lon- 
 don solicitor was deeply interested. Captain Newenden, taking 
 out his handkerchief, and using it as a screen, yawned behind 
 it to his heart's content. Sir Patrick resumed. 
 
 " You assert the prior marriage," he said to his colleague, 
 "It rests with you to begin." 
 
 Mr. Moy cast a preliminary look around him at the persons 
 assembled. 
 
 " The object of our meeting here," he said, " is, if I am not 
 mistaken, of a twofold nature. In the first place, it is thought 
 desirable, by a person who has a special interest in the issue of 
 this inquiry " (he glanced at the captain — the captain sudden- 
 ly became attentive), "to put my client's assertion, relating to 
 Mr. Brinkworth's marriage, to the proof In the second place, 
 we are all equally desirous — whatever difference of opinion may 
 otherwise exist — to make this informal inquiry a means, if pos- 
 sible, of avoiding the painful publicity which would result from 
 an appeal to a Court of Law." 
 
 At those words the gathered venom in Lady Lundie planted 
 its second sting — under cover of a protest addressed to Mr. Moy. 
 
 " I beg to inform you, sir, on behalf of my stepdaughter," 
 she said, " that we have nothing to dread from the widest pub- 
 licity. We consent to be present at, what you call, ' this infor- 
 mal inquiry,' reserving our right to carry the matter beyond the 
 four walls of this room. I am not referring now to Mr. Brink- 
 worth's chance of clearing himself from an odious suspicion 
 which rests upon him and upon another Person present. That 
 is an after-matter. The object immediately before us — so far 
 as a woman can pretend to understand it — is to establish my 
 stepdaughter's right to call Mr. Brinkworth to account in the 
 character of his wife. If the result, so far, fails to satisfy us in 
 that particular, we shall not hesitate to appeal to a Court of 
 
MAN AND WIFE. 449 
 
 Law." She leaned back in her chair, and opened her fan, and 
 looked round her with the air of a woman who called society 
 to witness that she had done her duty. 
 
 An expression of pain crossed Blanche's face while her step- 
 mother was speaking. Lady Lundie took her hand for the sec- 
 ond time. Blanche resolutely and pointedly withdrew it — Sir 
 Patrick noticing the action with special interest. Before Mr. 
 Moy could say a word in answer, Arnold centred the general 
 attention on himself by suddenly interfering in the proceedings. 
 Blanche looked at him. A bright flush of color appeared on 
 her face — and left it again. Sir Patrick noted the change of 
 color — and observed her more attentively than ever. Arnold's 
 letter to his wife, with time to help it, had plainly shaken her 
 ladyship's influence over Blanche. 
 
 "After what Lady Lundie has said, in my wife's presence," 
 Arnold burst out, in his straightforward, boyish way, " I think 
 I ought to be allowed to say a word on my side. I only 
 want to explain how it was I came to go to Craig Fernie at 
 all — and I challenge Mr. Geofirey Delamayn to deny it, if he 
 can." 
 
 His voice rose at the last words, and his eyes brightened with 
 indignation as he looked at Geoffrey. 
 
 Mr. Moy appealed to his learned friend. 
 
 " With submission. Sir Patrick, to your better judgment," he 
 said, " this young gentleman's proposal seems to be a little out 
 of place at the present stage of the proceedings." 
 
 " Pardon me," answered Sir Patrick. " You have yourself 
 described the proceedings as representing an informal inquiry. 
 An informal proposal — with submission to your better judg- 
 ment, Mr. Moy — is hardly out of place, under those circum- 
 stances, is it ?" 
 
 Mr. Moy's inexhaustible modesty gave way without a strug- 
 gle. The answer which he received had the efiect of puzzling 
 him at the outset of the investigation. A man of Sir Patrick's 
 experience must have known that Arnold's mere assertion of 
 his own innocence could be productive of nothing but useless 
 delay in the proceedings. And yet he sanctioned that delay. 
 Was he privately on the watch for any accidental circumstance 
 which might help him to better a case that he knew to be a 
 bad one? 
 
 Permitted to speak, Arnold spoke. The unmistakable ac- 
 cent of truth was in every word that he uttered. He gave a 
 fairly coherent account of events, from the time when Geofii'ey 
 had claimed his assistance at the lawn-party to the time when 
 he found himself at the door of the inn at Craig Fernie. There 
 Sir Patrick interfered, and closed his lips. He asked leave to 
 appeal to Geofirey to confirm him. Sir Patrick amazed Mr. 
 
450 MAN AND WIFE, 
 
 Moy by sanctioning this irregularity also. Arnold sternly ad- 
 dressed himself to Geoffrey. 
 
 " Do you deny that what I have said is true ?" he asked. 
 
 Mr. Moy did his duty by his client. " You are not bound 
 to answer," he said, " unless you wish it yourself." 
 
 Geoffrey slowly lifted his heavy head, and confronted the 
 man whom he had betrayed. 
 
 " I deny every word of it," he answered — with a stolid defi- 
 ance of tone and manner. 
 
 " Have we had enough of assertion and counter-assertion, 
 Sir Patrick, by this time ?" asked Mr. Moy, with undiminished 
 politeness. 
 
 After first forcing Arnold — with some little difficulty — to 
 control himself. Sir Patrick raised Mr. Moy's astonishment to 
 the culminating point. For reasons of his own, he determined 
 to strengthen the favorable impression which Arnold's state- 
 ment had plainly produced on his wife before the inquiry pro- 
 ceeded a step further. 
 
 " I must throw myself on your indulgence, Mr. Moy," he 
 said. " I have not had enough of assertion and counter-asser- 
 tion, even yet." 
 
 Mr. Moy leaned back in his chair with a mixed expression 
 of bewilderment and resignation. Either his colleague's intel- 
 lect was in a failing state, or his colleague had some purpose 
 in view which had not openly asserted itself yet. He began 
 to suspect that the right reading of the riddle was involved in 
 the latter of those two alternatives. Instead of entering any 
 fresh protest, he wisely waited and watched. 
 
 Sir Patrick went on unblushingly from one irregularity to 
 another. 
 
 " I request Mr. Moy's permission to revert to the alleged 
 marriage, on the fourteenth of August, at Craig Fernie," he said. 
 " Arnold Brinkworth ! answer for yourself, in the presence of 
 the persons here assembled. In all that you said, and all that 
 you did, while you were at the inn, were you not solely influ- 
 enced by the wish to make Miss Silvester's position as little 
 painful to her as possible, and by anxiety to carry out the in- 
 structions given to you by Mr. Geoffrey Delamayn ? Is that 
 the whole truth ?" 
 
 " That is the whole truth. Sir Patrick." 
 
 " On the day when you went to Craig Fernie, had you not, 
 a few hours previously, applied for my permission to marry my 
 niece ?" 
 
 " I applied for your permission, Sir Patrick, and you gave 
 it me." 
 
 " From the moment when you entered the inn to the mo- 
 ment when you left it, were you absolutely innocent of the 
 slightest intention to marry Miss Silvester ?" 
 
MAN AND WIFE. 451 
 
 " No such thing as the thought of marrying Miss Silvester 
 ever entered my head." 
 
 "And this you say, on your word of honor as a gentleman ?" 
 
 "On my word of honor as a gentleman." 
 
 Sir Patrick turned to Anne. 
 
 " Was it a matter of necessity, Miss Silvester, that you should 
 appear in the assumed character of a married woman — on the 
 fourteenth of August last, at the Craig Fernie inn ?" 
 
 Anne looked away from Blanche for the first time. She re- 
 plied to Sir Patrick quietly, readily, firmly — Blanche looking 
 at her, and listening to her with eager interest. 
 
 " I went to the inn alone. Sir Patrick. The landlady re- 
 fused, in the plainest terms, to let me stay there unless she was 
 first satisfied that I was a married woman." 
 
 " Which of the two gentlemen did you expect to join you 
 at the inn — Mr. Arnold Brinkworth, or Mr. Geoffrey Dela- 
 mayn ?" 
 
 " Mr. Geoffrey Delamayn." 
 
 " When Mr. Arnold Brinkworth came in his place, and said 
 what was necessary to satisfy the scruples of the landlady, you 
 understood that he was acting in your interests, from motives 
 of kindness only, and under the instructions of Mr. Geoffrey 
 Delamayn ?" 
 
 " I understood that • and I objected as strongly as I could 
 to Mr. Brinkworth placing himself in a false position on my 
 account." 
 
 " Did your objection proceed from any knowledge of the 
 Scottish law of marriage, and of the position in which the pe- 
 culiarities of that law might place Mr. Brinkworth ?" 
 
 " I had no knowledge of the Scottish law. I had a vague 
 dislike and dread of the deception which Mi-. Brinkworth was 
 practicing on the people of the inn. And I feared that it might 
 lead to some possible misinterpretation of me on the part of a 
 person whom I dearly loved." 
 
 "That person being my niece ?" 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " You appealed to Mr. Brinkworth (knowing of his attach- 
 ment to my niece), in her name, and for her sake, to leave you 
 to shift for yourself?" 
 
 " I did." 
 
 "As a gentleman who had given his promise to help and 
 protect a lady, in the absence of the person whom she had de- 
 pended on to join her, he refused to leave you to shift for your- 
 self?" 
 
 " Unhappily, he refused on that account." 
 
 " From first to last you were absolutely innocent of the 
 slightest intention to marry Mr. Brinkworth ?" 
 
452 MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 " I answer, Sir Patrick, as Mr. Brinkworth has answered. 
 No such thing as the thought of marrying him ever entered 
 my head." 
 
 " And this you say, on your oath as a Christian woman ?" 
 
 " On my oath as a Christian woman." 
 
 Sir Patrick looked round at Blanche. Her face was hidden 
 in her hands. Her stepmother was vainly appealing to her to 
 compose herself 
 
 In the moment of silence that followed, Mr. Moy interfered 
 in the interests of his client. 
 
 " I waive my claim. Sir Patrick, to put any questions on my 
 side. I merely desire to remind you, and to remind the com- 
 pany present, that all that we have just heard is mere assertion 
 — on the part of two persons strongly interested in extricating 
 themselves from a position which fatally compromises them 
 both. The marriage which they deny I am now waiting to 
 prove — not by assertion, on my side, but by appeal to compe- 
 tent witnesses." 
 
 After a brief consultation with her own solicitor. Lady Lun- 
 die followed Mr. Moy, in stronger language still. 
 
 " I wish you to understand. Sir Patrick, before you proceed 
 any further, that I shall remove my stepdaughter from the 
 room if any more attempts are made to harrow her feelings 
 and mislead her judgment. I want words to express my sense 
 of this most cruel and unfair way of conducting the inquiry." 
 
 The London lawyer followed, stating his professional approv- 
 al of his client's view. "As her ladyship's legal adviser," he 
 said, " I support the protest which her ladyship has just made." 
 
 Even Captain Newenden agreed in the general disapproval 
 of Sir Patrick's conduct. " Hear, hear !" said the captain, when 
 the lawyer had spoken. " Quite right. I must say, quite 
 right." 
 
 Apparently impenetrable to all due sense of his position, Sir 
 Patrick addressed himself to Mr. Moy, as if nothing had hap- 
 pened. 
 
 " Do you wish to produce your witnesses at once ?" he ask- 
 ed. " I have not the least objection to meet your views — on 
 the understanding that I am permitted to return to the pro- 
 ceedings as interrupted at this point." 
 
 Mr. Moy considered. The adversary (there could be no 
 doubt of it by this time) had something in reserve — and the 
 adversary had not yet shown his hand. It was more immedi- 
 ately important to lead him into doing this than to insist on 
 rights and privileges of the purely formal sort. Nothing 
 could shake the strength of the position which Mr. Moy occu- 
 pied. The longer Sir Patrick's irregularities delayed the pro- 
 ceedings, the more irresistibly the plain facts of the case would 
 
MAN AND WIFE. 453 
 
 assert themselves — with all the force of contrast — out of the 
 mouths of the witnesses wlio were in attendance down stairs. 
 He determined to wait. 
 
 " Reserving my right of objection, Sir Patrick," he answer- 
 ed, " I beg you to go on." 
 
 To the surprise of every body, Sir Patrick addressed him- 
 self directly to Blanche — quoting the language in which Lady 
 Lundie bad spoken to him, with perfect composure of tone and 
 manner. 
 
 "You know me well enough, my dear," he said, "to be as- 
 sured that lam incapable of willingly liarrowing your feelings 
 or misleading your judgment. I have a question to ask you, 
 which you can answer or not, entirely as you please." 
 
 Before he could put the question there was a momentary 
 contest between Lady Lundie and her legal adviser. Silen- 
 cing her ladyship (not without difficulty), the London lawyer 
 interposed. He also begged leave to reserve the right of ob- 
 jection, so far as his client was concerned. 
 
 Sir Patrick assented by a sign, and proceeded to put his 
 question to Blanche. 
 
 " You have heard wiiat Arnold Brinkworth has said, and 
 what Miss Silvester has said," he resumed. " The husband 
 who loves you, and the sisterly friend who loves you, have each 
 made a solemn declaration. Recall your past experience of 
 both of them ; remember what they have just said; and now 
 tell me — do you believe they have spoken falsely ?" 
 
 Blanche answered on the instant. 
 
 " I believe, uncle, they have spoken the truth !" 
 
 Both the lawyers registered their objections. Lady Lundie 
 made another attempt to speak, and was stopped once more — 
 this time by Mr. Moy as well as by her own adviser. Sir Pat- 
 rick went on. 
 
 "Do you feel any doubt as to the entire propriety of your 
 husband's conduct and your friend's conduct, now you have 
 seen them and heard them, face to face ?" 
 
 Blanche answered again, with the same absence of reserve. 
 
 " I ask them to forgive me," she said. " I believe I have 
 done them both a gi'eat wrong." 
 
 She looked at her husband first — then at Anne. Arnold 
 attempted to leave his chair. Sir Patrick firmly restrained 
 him. " Wait !" he whispered. " You don't know what is com- 
 ing." Having said that, he turned toward Anne. Blanche's 
 look had gone to the heart of the faithful Avoman who loved 
 her. Anne's face was turned away — the tears were forcing 
 themselves through the worn weak hands that tried vainly to 
 hide them. 
 
 The formal objections of the lawyers were registered once 
 
454 MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 more. Sir Patrick addressed himself to his niece for the last 
 time, 
 
 " You believe what Arnold Brinkworth has said ; you believe 
 what Miss Silvester has said. You know that not even the 
 thought of marriage was in the mind of either of them at the 
 inn. You know — whatever else may happen in the future — 
 that there is not the most remote possibility of either of them 
 consenting to acknowledge that they ever have been, or ever 
 can be, Man and Wife. Is that enough for you ? Are you 
 willing, before this inquiry proceeds any further, to take your 
 husband's hand ; to return to your husband's protection ; and 
 to leave the rest to me — satisfied with my assurance that, on 
 the facts as they happened, not even the Scotch Law can prove 
 the monstrous assertion of the marriage at Craig Fernie to be 
 true ?" 
 
 Lady Lundie rose. Both the lawyers rose. Arnold sat lost 
 in astonishment. Geoflfrey himself — brutishly careless thus far 
 of all that had passed — lifted his head with a sudden start. In 
 the midst of the profound impression thus produced, Blanche, 
 on whose decision the whole future course of the inquiry now 
 turned, answered in these words : 
 
 "I hope you will not think me ungrateful, uncle. I am sure 
 that Arnold has not knowingly done me any wrong. But I 
 can't go back to him until I am first certain that I am his wife." 
 
 Lady Lundie embraced her stepdaughter, with a sudden 
 outburst of affection. " My dear child !" exclaimed her lady- 
 ship, fervently. " Well done, my own dear child !" 
 
 Sir Patrick's head dropped on his breast. " Oh, Blanche ! 
 Blanche !" Arnold heard him whisper to himself; " if you only 
 knew what you are forcing me to !" 
 
 Mr. Moy put in his word, on Blanche's side of the question. 
 
 " I must most respectfully express my approval also of the 
 course which the young lady has taken," he said. "A more 
 dangerous compromise than the compromise which we have 
 just heard suggested it is difticult to imagine. With all defer- 
 ence to Sir Patrick Lundie, his opinion of the impossibility of 
 proving the marriage at Craig Fernie remains to be confirmed 
 as the right one. My own professional opmion is opposed to 
 it. The opinion of another Scottish lawyer (in Glasgow) is, to 
 my certain knowledge, opposed to it. If the young lady had 
 not acted with a wisdom and courage which do her honor, she 
 might have lived to see the day when her reputation would 
 have been destroyed, and her children declared illegitimate. 
 Who is to say that circumstances may not happen in the future 
 which may force Mr. Brinkworth or Miss Silvester — one or the 
 other — to assert the very marriage which they repudiate now ? 
 Who is to say that interested relatives (property being con- 
 
MAN AND WIFE. 455 
 
 oerned here) may not, in the lapse of years, discover motives 
 of tlieir own for questioning the asserted marriage in Kent? 
 I acknowledge that I envy the immense self-confidence which 
 emboldens Sir Patrick to venture, what he is willing to venture 
 upon his own individual opinion on an undecided point of law." 
 
 He sat down amidst a murmur of approval, and cast a slyly- 
 expectant look at his defeated adversary. " If that doesn't ir- 
 ritate him into shoAving his hand," thought Mr. Moy, " nothing 
 will!" 
 
 Sir Patrick slowly raised his head. There was no irritation 
 — there was only distress in his face — when he spoke next. 
 
 " I don't propose, Mr. Moy, to argue the point with you," he 
 said, gently. "I can understand that my conduct must nec- 
 essarily appear strange and even blameworthy, not in your 
 eyes only, but in the eyes of others. My young friend here 
 will tell you" (he looked toward Arnold) "that the view which 
 you express as to the future peril involved in this case was 
 once the view in my mind too, and that in what I have done 
 thus far I have acted in direct contradiction to advice which I 
 myself gave at no very distant period. Excuse me, if you 
 please, from entering (for the present at least) into the motive 
 which has influenced me from the time when I entered this 
 room. My position is one of unexampled responsibility and 
 of indescribable distress. May I appeal to that statement to 
 stand as my excuse, if I plead for a last extension of indul- 
 gence toward the last irregularity of which I shall be guilty, 
 in connection with these proceedings ?" 
 
 Lady Lundie alone resisted the unaffected and touching 
 dignity with which those words were spoken. 
 
 " We have had enough of irregularity," she said, sternly. 
 " I, for one, object to more." 
 
 Sir Patrick waited patiently for Mr. Moy's reply. The 
 Scotch lawyer and the English lawyer looked at each other — 
 and understood each other. Mr. Moy answered for both. 
 
 " We don't presume to restrain you. Sir Patrick, by other 
 limits than those which, as a gentleman, you impose on your- 
 self. Subject," added the cautious Scotchman, " to the right 
 of objection which we have already reserved." 
 
 " Do you object to my speaking to your client ?" asked Sir 
 Patrick. 
 
 " To Mr. Geoff'rey Delamayn ?" 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 All eyes turned on Geoff'rey. He was sitting half asleep, as 
 it seemed — wath his heavy hands hanging listlessly over his 
 knees, and his chin resting on the hooked handle of his stick. 
 
 Looking toward Anne, when Sir Patrick pronounced Geof- 
 frey's name, Mr. Moy saw a change in her. She withdrew her 
 
456 MAN 4XD WIFE. 
 
 hands from her face, and turned suddenly toward her legal 
 adviser. Was she in the secret of the carefully concealed ob- 
 ject at which his opponent had been aiming from the first? 
 Mr. Moy decided to put that doubt to the test. He invited 
 Sir Patrick, by a gesture, to proceed. Sir Patrick addressed 
 himself to Geoffrey. 
 
 "You are seriously intei*ested in this inquiry," he said ; " and 
 you have taken no part in it yet. Take a part in it now. Look 
 at this lady." 
 
 Geoffrey never moved. 
 
 "I've seen enough of her already," he said, brutally. 
 
 "You may well be ashamed to look at her," said Sir Pat- 
 rick, quietly. " But you might have acknowledged it in fitter 
 words. Carry your memory back to the fourteenth of Au- 
 gust. Do you deny that you promised to marry Miss Silves- 
 ter privately at the Craig Fernie inn ?" 
 
 " I object to that question," said Mr. Moy. " My client is 
 under no sort of obligation to answer it." 
 
 Geoffrey's rising temper — ready to resent any thing — re- 
 sented his adviser's interference. "I shall answer if I like," 
 he retorted, insolently. He looked up for a moment at Sir 
 Patrick, without moving his chin from the hook of his stick. 
 Then he looked down again. " I do deny it," he said. 
 
 " You deny that you have promised to marry Miss Sil- 
 vester ?" 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " I asked you just now to look at her — " 
 
 "And I told you I had seen enough of her already." 
 
 " Look at me. In my presence, and in the presence of the 
 other persons here, do you deny that you owe this lady, by 
 your own solemn engagement, the reparation of marriage?" 
 
 He suddenly lifted his head. His eyes, after resting for an 
 instant only on Sir Patrick, turned, little by little, and, bright- 
 ening slowly, fixed themselves with a hideous, tigerish glare 
 on Anne's face. "I know what I owe her," he said. 
 
 The devouring hatred of his look was matched by the fero- 
 cious vindictiveness of his tone, as he spoke those words. It 
 was horrible to see him; it was horrible to hear him. Mr. 
 Moy said to him, in a whisper, " Control yourself, or I will 
 throw up your case." 
 
 Without answering — without even listening — he lifted one 
 of his hands, and looked at it vacantly. He whispered some- 
 thing to himself; and counted out what he was whispering 
 slow'ly ; in divisions of his own, on three of his fingers in suc- 
 cession. He fixed his eyes again on Anne, with the same de- 
 vouring hatred in their look, and spoke (this time dii-ectly ad- 
 dressing himself to her) with the same ferocious vindictiveness 
 
MAN AND WIFE. 457 
 
 in his tone. " But for you, I should be married to Mrs. Glen- 
 arm. But for you, I should be friends with my father. But 
 for you, I should have won the race. I know what I owe you." 
 His loosely hanging hands stealthily clenched themselves. His 
 head sank again on his broad breast. He said no more. 
 
 Not a soul moved — not a word was spoken. The same com- 
 mon horror held them all speechless. Anne's eyes turned once 
 more on Blanche. Anne's courage upheld her, even at that 
 moment. 
 
 Sir Patrick rose. The strong emotion which he had sup- 
 pressed thus far showed itself plainly in his face — uttered it- 
 self plainly in his voice. 
 
 " Come into the next room," he said to Anne. " I must 
 speak to you instantly !" 
 
 Without noticing the astonishment that he caused ; without 
 paying the smallest attention to the remonstrances addressed to 
 him by his sister-in-law and by the Scotch lawyer, he took Anne 
 by the arm — opened the folding-doors at one end of the room — 
 entered the room beyond with her — and closed the doors again. 
 
 Lady Lundie appealed to her legal adviser, Blanche rose — 
 advanced a few steps — and stood in breathless suspense, look- 
 ing at the folding-doors, Arnold advanced a step, to speak to 
 his wife. The captain approached Mr. Moy. 
 
 " What does this mean ?" he asked. 
 
 Mr. Moy answered, in strong agitation on his side. 
 
 " It means that I have not been properly instructed. Sir 
 Patrick Lundie has some evidence in his possession that seri- 
 ously compromises Mr. Delamayn's case. He has shrunk from 
 producing it hitherto — he finds himself forced to produce it 
 now. How is it," asked the lawyer, turning sternly on his cli- 
 ent, "that you have left me in the dark ?" 
 
 " I know nothing about it," answered Geoffrey, without lift- 
 ing his head. 
 
 Lady Lundie signed to Blanche to stand aside, and advanced 
 toward the folding-doors. Mr. Moy stopped her. 
 
 "I advise your ladyship to be patient. Interference is use- 
 less there." 
 
 "Am I not to interfere, sir, in my own house ?" 
 
 " Unless I am entirely mistaken, madam, the end of the pro- 
 ceedings in your house is at hand. You will damage your 
 own interests by interfering. Let us know what we are about 
 at last. Let the end come." 
 
 Lady Lundie yielded, and returned to her place. They all 
 waited in silence for the opening of the doors. 
 
 Sir Patrick Lundie and Anne Silvester were alone in the 
 room. 
 
458 MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 He took from the breast-pocket of his coat the sheet of note- 
 paper which contained Anne's letter, and Geoffrey's reply. 
 His hand trembled as he held it ; his voice faltered as he spoke. 
 
 " I have done all that can be done," he said. " I have left 
 nothing untried, to prevent the necessity of producing this." 
 
 " I feel your kindness gratefully, Sir Patrick, You must 
 produce it now." 
 
 The woman's calmness presented a strange and touching 
 contrast to the man's emotion. There was no shrinking in her 
 face, there was no unsteadiness in her voice as she answered 
 him. He took her hand. Twice he attempted to speak ; and 
 twice his own agitation overpowered him. He offered the let- 
 ter to her in silence. 
 
 In silence on her side, she put the letter away from her, won- 
 dering what he meant. 
 
 " Take it back," he said. " I can't produce it ! I daren't 
 px'oduce it ! After what my own eyes have seen, after what 
 my own ears have heard, in the next room — as God is my wit- 
 ness, I daren't ask you to declare yourself Geoffrey Delamayn's 
 wife !" 
 
 She answered him in one word. 
 
 " Blanche !" 
 
 He shook his head impatiently. "Not even in Blanche's 
 interests ! Not even for Blanche's sake ! If there is any risk, 
 it is a risk I am ready to run. I hold to my own opinion. I 
 believe my own view to be right. Let it come to an appeal to 
 the law ! I will fight the case, and win it." 
 
 "Are you sure of winning it. Sir Patrick?" 
 
 Instead of replying, he pressed the letter on her. " Destroy 
 it," he whispered. "And rely on my silence." 
 
 She took the letter from him. 
 
 " Destroy it," he repeated. " They may open the doors. 
 They may come in at any moment, and see it in your hand." 
 
 " I have something to ask you. Sir Patrick, before I destroy 
 it. Blanche refuses to go back to her husband, unless she re- 
 turns with the certain assurance of being really his wife. If I 
 produce this letter, she may go back to him to-day. If I de- 
 clare myself Geoffrey Delamayn's wife, I clear Arnold Brink- 
 worth, at once and forever, of all suspicion of being married to 
 me. Can you as certainly and effectually clear him in any 
 other way ? Answer me that, as a man of honor speaking to a 
 woman who implicitly trusts him !" 
 
 She looked him full in the face. His eyes dropped before 
 hers — he made no reply. 
 
 " I am answered," she said. 
 
 With those words, she passed him, and laid her hand on the 
 door. 
 
MAN AND WIFE. 461 
 
 He checked her. The tears rose in his eyes as he drew her 
 gently back into the room. 
 
 "Why should we wait?" she asked. 
 
 " Wait," he answered, " as a favor to me." 
 
 She seated herself calmly in the nearest chair, and rested her 
 head on her hand, thinking. 
 
 He bent over her, and roused her, impatiently, almost angri- 
 ly. The steady resolution in her face was terrible to him, when 
 he thought of the man in the next room. 
 
 " Take time to consider," he pleaded. " Don't be led away 
 by your own impulse. Don't act under a false excitement. 
 Nothing binds you to this dreadful sacrifice of yourself" 
 
 "Excitement ! Sacrifice !" She smiled sadly as she repeated 
 the words. " Do you know. Sir Patrick, what I was thinking 
 of a moment since ? Only of old times, when I was a little 
 girl. I saw the sad side of life sooner than most children see 
 it. My mother was cruelly deserted. The hard marriage 
 laws of this country were harder on her than on me. She died 
 broken-hearted. But one friend comforted her at the last mo- 
 ment, and promised to be a mother to her child. I can't re- 
 member one unhappy day in all the after-time when I lived 
 with that faithful woman and her little daughter — till the day 
 that parted us. She went away with her husband ; and I and 
 the little daughter were left behind. She said her last words 
 to me. Her heart was sinking under the dread of coming 
 death. 'I promised your mother that you should be like my 
 own child to me, and it quieted her mind. Quiet mi/ mind, 
 Anne, before I go. Whatever happens in years to come — 
 promise me to be always what you are now, a sister to Blanche.' 
 Where is the false excitement. Sir Patrick, in old remembrances 
 like these ? And how can there be a sacrifice in any thing that 
 I do for Blanche ?" 
 
 She rose, and oflfered him her hand. Sir Patrick lifted it to 
 his lips in silence. 
 
 " Come !" she said. " For both our sakes, let us not prolong 
 this." ^ 
 
 He turned aside his head. It was no moment to let her see 
 that she had completely unmanned him. She waited for him, 
 with her hand on the lock. He rallied his courage — he forced 
 himself to face the horror of the situation cajmly. She opened 
 the door, and led the way back into the other room. 
 
 Not a word was spoken by any of the persons present, as the 
 two returned to their places. The noise of a carriage passing 
 in the street was painfully audible. The chance banging of a 
 door in the lower regions of the house made every one start 
 
 Anne's sweet voice broke the dreary silence. 
 
462 MAN AND WIPE. 
 
 " Must I speak for myself, Sir Patrick ? Or will you (I ask 
 it as a last and greatest favor) speak for me ?" 
 
 "You insist on appealing to the letter in your hand?" 
 
 "I am resolved to appeal to it." 
 
 " Will nothing induce you to defer the close of this inquiry 
 — so far as you are concerned — for four-and-twenty hours'?" 
 
 "Either you or I, Sir Patrick, must say what is to be said, 
 and do what is to be done, before we leave this room," 
 
 "Give me the letter." 
 
 She gave it to him. Mr. Moy whispered to his client, " Do 
 you know what that is ?" Geoffrey shook his head. " Do you 
 really remember nothing about it ?" Geoffrey answered in one 
 surly word, " Nothing !" 
 
 Sir Patrick addressed himself to the assembled company. 
 
 " I have to ask your pardon," he said, " for abruptly leaving 
 the room, and for obliging Miss Silvester to leave it with me. 
 Every body present, except that man " (he pointed to Geof- 
 frey), " will, I believe, understand and forgive me, now that I 
 am forced to make my conduct the subject of the plainest and 
 the fullest explanation. I shall address that explanation, for 
 reasons which will presently appear, to my niece." 
 
 Blanche started. " To me !" she exclaimed. 
 
 "To you," Sir Patrick answered, 
 
 Blanche turned toward Arnold, daunted by a vague sense of 
 something serious to come. The letter that she had received 
 from her husband on her departure from Ham Farm had nee- 
 essarily alluded to relations between Geoffrey and Anne, of 
 which Blanche had been previously ignorant. Was any refer- 
 ence coming to those relations? Was there something yet to be 
 disclosed Avhich Arnold's letter had not prepared her to hear ? 
 
 Sir Patrick resumed. 
 
 "A short time since," he said to Blanche," I proposed to you 
 to return to your husband's protection, and to leave the ter- 
 mination of this matter in my hands. You have refused to go 
 back to him until you are first certainly assured that you are 
 his wife. Thanks to a sacrifice to your interests and your hap- 
 piness, on Miss Silvester's part — which I tell you frankly I 
 have done my utmost to prevent — I am in a position to prove 
 positively that Arnold Brink worth was a single man when he 
 married you from my house in Kent." 
 
 Mr. Moy's experience forewarned him of what was coming. 
 He pointed to the letter in Sir Patrick's hand. 
 
 " Do you claim on a promise of marriage ?" he asked. 
 
 Sir Patrick rejoined by putting a question on his side. 
 
 "Do you remember the famous decision at Doctors' Com- 
 mons, which established the marriage of Captain Dalrymple 
 and Miss Gordon ?" 
 
MAN AND WIFE. 463 
 
 Mr. Moy was answered. "I understand you, Sir Patrick," 
 he said. After a moment's pause, he addressed his next words 
 to Anne. "And, from the bottom of my heart, madam, I re- 
 spect youy 
 
 It was said witli a fervent sincerity of tone Avhich wrought 
 the interest of the other persons, who were still waiting for en- 
 lightenment, to tlie highest pitcli. Lady Lundie and Captain 
 Newenden whispered to each other anxiously. Arnold turned 
 pale. Blanche burst into tears. 
 
 Sir Patrick turned once more to his niece. 
 
 "Some little time since," he said, "I had occasion to speak 
 to you of the scandalous uncertainty of the marriage laws of 
 Scotland. But for that uncertainty (entirely without parallel 
 in any other civilized country in Europe), Arnold Brinkworth 
 would never liave occupied the position in which he stands 
 liere to-day — and these proceedings would never have taken 
 place. Bear that fact in mind. It is not only answerable for 
 the mischief that has been already done, but for the far more 
 serious evil Avhich is still to come." 
 
 JMr. Moy took a note. Sir Patrick went on. 
 
 "Loose and reckless as the Scotch law is, there happens, 
 liowever, to be one case in which the action of it has been con- 
 firmed and settled by the English Courts. A written promise 
 of marriage exchanged between a man and woman, in Scot- 
 land, marries that man and woman by Scotch law. An En- 
 glish Court of Justice (sitting in judgment on the case I ha\'e 
 just mentioned to Mr. Moy) has pronounced that law to bo 
 good — and the decision has since been confirmed by the su- 
 ]>reme authority of the House of Lords. Where the persons 
 therefore — living in Scotland at the time- — have promised 
 each other marriage in writing, there is now no longer any 
 doubt. They are certainly, and lawfully, Man and Wife." 
 He turned from his niece, and appealed to Mr. ]Mov. "Am I 
 right ?" 
 
 "Quite right. Sir Patrick, as to the facts. I own, however, 
 that 3'our commentary on them surprises me. I have the high- 
 est opinion of our Scottish marriage law. A man who has be- 
 trayed a woman under a promise of marriage is forced by that 
 law (in the interests of public morality) to acknowledge her as 
 his wife." 
 
 "The persons here present, Mr. Moy, are now about to see 
 the moral merit of the Scotch law of marriage (as approved by 
 England) practically in operation before their own eyes. They 
 will judge for themselves of the morality (Scotch or English) 
 which first forces a deserted woman back on the villain who 
 has betrayed her, and then virtuously leaves her to bear the 
 consequences.'.' 
 
464 MAN AND WITE. 
 
 With that answer, he turned to Anne, and showed her the 
 letter, open in his hand. 
 
 " For the last time," he said, " do you insist on my appeal- 
 ing to this ?" 
 
 She rose, and bowed her head gravely. 
 
 " It is my distressing duty," said Sir Patrick, " to declare, 
 in this lady's name, and on the faith of written promises of 
 marriage exchanged between the parties, then residing in 
 Scotland, that she claims to be now — and to have been on the 
 afternoon of the fourteenth of August last — Mr. Geoffrey Del- 
 amayn's wedded wife." 
 
 A cry of horror from Blanche, a low murmur of dismay from 
 the rest, followed the utterance of those words. 
 
 There was a pause of an instant. 
 
 Then Geoffrey rose slowly to his feet, and fixed his eyes on 
 the wife who had claimed hira. 
 
 The spectators of the terrible scene turned with one accord 
 toward the sacrificed woman. The look which Geoffrey had 
 cast on her — the words which •Geoffrey had spoken to her — 
 were present to all their minds. She stood, waiting by Sir 
 Patrick's side — her soft gray eyes resting sadly and tenderly 
 on Blanche's face. To see that matchless courage and resigna- 
 tion was to doubt the reality of what had happened. They 
 were forced to look back at the man to possess their minds 
 with the truth. 
 
 The triumph of law and morality over him was complete. 
 He never uttered a word. His furious temper was perfectly 
 and fearfully calm. With the promise of merciless vengeance 
 written in the Devil's writing on his Devil-possessed face, he 
 kept his eyes fixed on the hated woman whom he had ruined 
 — on the hated woman who was fastened to him as his wife. 
 
 His lawyer went over to the table at which Sir Patrick sat. 
 Sir Patrick handed him the sheet of note-paper. 
 
 He read the two letters contained in it with absorbed and 
 deliberate attention. The moments that passed before he lift- 
 ed his head from his reading seemed like hours. " Can you 
 prove the handwritings ?" he asked ; " and prove the resi- 
 dence ?" 
 
 Sir Patrick took up a second morsel of paper lying ready 
 under his hand. 
 
 "There are the names of persons who can prove the writing, 
 and prove the residence," he replied. " One of your two wit- 
 nesses below stairs (otherwise useless) can speak to the hour 
 at which Mr. Brinkworth arrived at the inn, and so can prove 
 that the lady for whom he asked was, at that moment, Mrs. 
 Geoffrey Delamayn. The indorsement on the back of the 
 note-paper, also referring to the question of time, is in the 
 
MAN AND WIPE. 465 
 
 handwriting of the same witness — to whom I refer you when 
 
 it suits your convenience to question him." 
 
 " I will verify the references, Sir Patrick, as a matter of 
 form. In the mean time, not to interpose needless and vexa- 
 tious delay, I am bound to say that I can not resist the evi- 
 dence of the marriage." 
 
 Having replied in those terms, he addressed himself, with 
 marked respect and sympathy, to Anne. 
 
 "On the faith of the written promise of marriage exchanged 
 between you in Scotland," he said, " you claim Mr. GeoiFrey 
 Delamayn as your husband ?" 
 
 She steadily repeated the words after him. 
 
 " I claim Mr. Geoffrey Delamayn as my husband." 
 
 Mr. Moy appealed to his client. Geoffrey broke silence at 
 last. 
 
 " Is it settled ?" he asked. 
 
 "To all practical purposes, it is settled," 
 
 He went on, still looking at nobody but Anne, 
 
 "Has the law of Scotland made her my wife?" 
 
 " The law of Scotland has made her your wife," 
 
 He asked a third and last question. 
 
 "Does the law tell her to go where her husband goes?" 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 He laughed softly to himself, and beckoned to her to cross 
 the room to the place at which he was standing. 
 
 She obeyed. At the moment when she took the first step 
 to approach him, Sir Patrick caught her hand, and whispered 
 to her, " Rely on me !" She gently pressed his hand in token 
 that she understood him, and advanced to Geoffrey. At the 
 same moment, Blanche rushed between them, and flung her 
 arms around Anne's neck. 
 
 " Oh, Anne ! Anne !" 
 
 An hysterical passion of tears choked her utterance. Anne 
 gently unwound the arras that clung round her — gently lifted 
 the head that lay helpless on her bosom. 
 
 "Happier days are coming, my love," she said. "Don't 
 think of /ne." 
 
 She kissed her — looked at her — kissed her again — and placed 
 her in her husband's arms. Arnold remembered her parting 
 words at Craig Fernie, when they had wished each other 
 good-night. " You have not befriended an ungrateful woman. 
 The day may yet come when I shall prove it." Gratitude and 
 admiration struggled in him which should utter itself first, and 
 held him speechless. 
 
 She bent her head gently in token that she understood him. 
 Then she went on, and stood before Geoffrey. 
 
 " I am here," she said to him. " What do you wish me to do ?" 
 
 30 
 
466 MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 A hideous smile parted his heavy lips. He offered her his 
 arm. 
 "*T9r8. Geoffrey Delamayn," he said. " Come home." 
 
 The picture of the lonely house, isolated amidst its high 
 walls; the ill-omened figure of the dumb woman with the 
 stony eyes and the savage ways — the whole scene, as Anne 
 had pictured it to him but two days since, rose vivid as reality 
 before Sir Patrick's mind. "No," he cried out, carried away 
 by the generous impulse of the moment. " It shall not be !" 
 
 Geoffrey stood impenetrable — waiting with liis offered arm. 
 Pale and resolute, she lifted her noble head — called back the 
 courage which had faltered for a moment — and took his arm. 
 
 He led her to the door. " Don't let Blanche fret about me," 
 she said, simply, to Arnold as they went by. They passed Sir 
 Patrick next. Once more his sympathy for her set every oth- 
 er consideration at defiance. He started up to bar the way to 
 Geoffrey. Geoflrey paused, and looked at Sir Patrick for the 
 first time. 
 
 " The law tells her to go with her husband," he said. " The 
 law forbids you to part Man and Wife." 
 
 True. Absolutely, undeniably true. The law sanctioned 
 the sacrifice of her as unanswerably as it had sanctioned the 
 sacrifice of her mother before her. In the name of Morality, 
 let him take her ! In the interests of Virtue, let her get out 
 of it if she can ! 
 
 Her husband opened the door. Mr. Moy laid his hand on 
 Sir Patrick's arm. Lady Lundie, Captain Newenden, the Lon- 
 don lawyer, all left their places ; influenced, for once, by the 
 same interest ; feeling, for once, the same suspense. Arnold 
 followed them, supporting his wife. For one memorable in- 
 stant Anne looked back at them all. Then she and her hus- 
 band crossed the threshold. They descended the stairs to- 
 gether. The opening and closing of the house door was heard. 
 They were gone. 
 
 Done, in the name of Morality. Done, in the interests of 
 Virtue. Done, in an age of progress, and under the most per 
 feet government on the face of the earth. 
 
MAN AND WIFE. 467 
 
 FIFTEENTH SCENE.— HOLCHESTER HOUSE, 
 CHAPTER THE FORTY-SEVENTH. 
 
 THE LAST CHANCE, 
 
 "Ilis lordship is dangerously ill, sir. Her ladyship can le- 
 eeive no visitors." 
 
 "Be so good as to take that card to Lady Holchester. It is 
 absolutely necessary that your mistress should be made ac- 
 quainted — in the interests of her younger son — with something 
 which I can only mention to her ladyship herself," 
 
 The two persons speaking were Lord Holchester's head 
 Tservant and Sir Patrick Lundie. At that time barely half an 
 hour had passed since the close of the proceedings at Portland 
 Place, 
 
 The servant still hesitated with the card in bis hand. "I 
 shall forfeit my situation," he said, "if I do it," 
 
 "You will most assuredly forfeit your situation if you donH 
 do it," returned Sir Patrick, " I warn you plainly, this is too 
 serious a matter to be trifled with," 
 
 The tone in which those words were spoken bad its effect. 
 The man went up stairs with his message. 
 
 Sir Patrick waited in the hall. Even the momentary delay 
 of entering one of the reception-rooms was more than he could 
 endure at that moment, Anne's happiness was hopelessly sac- 
 rificed already. The preservation of her personal safety — 
 which Sir Patrick firmly believed to be in danger — was the 
 one service which it was possible to render to her now. The 
 perilous position in which she stood toward her husband — as 
 an immovable obstacle, while she lived, between GeoflTrey and 
 Mrs. Glenarm — was beyond the reach of remedy. But it was 
 still possible to prevent her from becoming the innocent cause 
 of Geofirey's pecuniary ruin, by standing in the way of a rec- 
 onciliation between father and son. Resolute to leave no 
 means untried of serving Anne's interests, Sir Patrick had al- 
 lowed Arnold and Blanche to go to his own residence in Lon- 
 don, alone, and had not even waited to say a farewell word to 
 any of the persons who had taken part in the inquiry, " Her 
 life may depend on what I can do for her at Holchester House !" 
 With that conviction in him, he had left Portland Place. 
 With that conviction in him, he had sent his message to Lady 
 Holchester, and was now waiting for the reply. 
 
468 MAN AND WIPE. 
 
 The servant appeared again on the stairs. Sir Patrick went 
 up to meet him. 
 
 " Her ladyship Avill see you, sir, for a few minutes." 
 
 The door of an upper room was opened ; and Sir Patrick 
 found himself in the presence of Geoffrey's mother. There 
 was only time to observe that she possessed the remains of 
 rare personal beauty, and that she received her visitor with a 
 grace and courtesy which implied (under the circumstances) a 
 considerate regard for his position at the expense of her own. 
 
 " You have something to say to me, Sir Patrick, on the sub- 
 ject of my second son. I am in great affliction. If you bring 
 me bad news, I will do my best to bear it. May I trust to 
 your kindness not to keep me in suspense ?" 
 
 " It will help me to make my intrusion as little painful as 
 possible to your ladyship," replied Sir Patrick, " if I am per- 
 mitted to ask a question. Have you heard of any obstacle 
 to the contemplated marriage of Mr. Geoffrey Delamayn and 
 Mrs. Glenarm ?" 
 
 Even that distant reference to Anne produced an ominous 
 change for the worse in Lady Holchester's manner. 
 
 " I have heard of the obstacle to which you allude," she 
 said. " Mrs. Glenarm is an intimate friend of mine. She has 
 informed me that a person named Silvester, an impudent ad- 
 venturess — " 
 
 "I beg your ladyship's pardon. You are doing a cruel 
 wrong to the noblest woman I have ever met with." 
 
 " I can not undertake. Sir Patrick, to enter into your reasons 
 for admiring her. Her conduct toward my son has, I repeat, 
 been the conduct of an impudent adventuress." 
 
 Those words showed Sir Patrick the utter hopelessness of 
 shaking her prejudice against Anne. He decided on proceed- 
 ing at once to the disclosure of the truth. 
 
 " I entreat you to say no more," he answered. " Your lady- 
 ship is speaking of your son's wife." 
 
 " My son has married Miss Silvester ?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 She turned deadly pale. It appeared, for an instant, as if 
 the shock had completely overwhelmed her. But the mother's 
 weakness was only momentary. The virtuous indignation of 
 the great lady had taken its place before Sir Patrick could 
 speak again. She rose to terminate the interview. 
 
 "I presume," she said, "that your errand here is at an end." 
 
 Sir Patrick rose, on his side, resolute to do the duty which 
 had brought him to the house. 
 
 "I am compelled to trespass on your ladyship's attention for 
 a few minutes more," he answered. "The circumstances at- 
 tending the marriage of Mr, Geoffrey Delamayn are of no com' 
 
i MAN AND WIFE. 469 
 
 mon importance. I beg permission (in the interests of his fam- 
 ily) to state, very briefly, what they are." 
 
 In a few clear sentences he narrated what had happened, 
 !that afternoon, in Portland Place. Lady Holchester listened 
 with the steadiest and coldest attention. So far as outward 
 appearances were concerned, no impression was produced upon 
 iher. 
 
 "Do you expect me," she asked, " to espouse the interests of 
 a person who has prevented my son from marrying the lady 
 I of his choice, and of mine ?" 
 
 " Mr. Geoffrey Delamayn, unhappily, has that reason for re- 
 senting his wife's innocent interference with interests of con- 
 siderable importance to him," returned Sir Patrick. "I re- 
 quest your ladyship to consider whether it is desirable — in 
 view of your son's conduct in the future — to allow his wife to 
 stand in the doubly perilous relation toward him of being also 
 a cause of estrangement between his father and himself" 
 
 He had put it with scrupulous caution. But Lady Holches- 
 ter understood what he had refrained from saying as well as 
 what he had actually said. She had hitherto remained stand- 
 ing — she now sat down again. There was a visible impression 
 produced on her at last. 
 
 " In Lord Holchester's critical state of health," she answered, 
 " I decline to take the responsibility of telling him what you 
 have just told me. My own influence has been uniformly ex- 
 erted in my son's favor — as long as my interference could be 
 productive of any good result. The time for my interference 
 has passed. Lord Holchester has altered his will this morn- 
 ing. I was not present ; and I have not yet been informed of 
 what has been done. Even if I knew — " 
 
 " Your ladyship would naturally decline," said Sir Patrick, 
 " to communicate the information to a stranger." 
 
 "Certainly. At the same time, after what you have said, I 
 do not feel justified in deciding on this matter entirely by my- 
 self One of Lord Holchester's executors is now in the house. 
 There can be no impropriety in your seeing him — if you wish 
 it. You are at liberty to say, from me, that I leave it entirely 
 to his discretion to decide what ought to be done." 
 
 " I gladly accept your ladyship's proposal." 
 
 Lady Holchester rang the bell at her side. 
 
 " Take Sir Patrick Lundie to Mr. Marchwood," she said to 
 the servant. 
 
 Sir Patrick started. The name was familiar to him, as the 
 name of a friend. 
 
 " Mr. Marchwood of Hurlbeck?" he asked. 
 
 " The same." 
 
 With that brief answer. Lady Holchester dismissed her vis- 
 
470 MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 itor. Following the servant to the other end of the corridor, 
 Sir Patrick was conducted into a small room — the antecham- 
 ber to the bedroom in which Lord Holchester lay. The door 
 of communication was closed. A gentleman sat writing at a 
 table near the window. He rose, and held out his hand, with 
 a look of surprise, when the servant announced Sir Patrick's 
 name. This was Mr. Marchwood. 
 
 After the first explanations had been given. Sir Patrick pa- 
 tiently reverted to the object of his visit to Holchester House. 
 On the first occasion when he mentioned Anne's name he ob- 
 served that Mr. Marchwood became, from that moment, spe- 
 cially interested in what he was saying. 
 
 " Do you happen to be acquainted with the lady ?" he asked. 
 
 " I only know her as the cause of a very strange proceeding, 
 this morning, in that room." He pointed to Lord Holchester's 
 bedroom as he spoke. 
 
 "Are you at liberty to mention what the proceeding was?" 
 
 "Hardly — even to an old friend like you — unless I felt it a 
 matter of duty, on my part, to state the circumstances. Pray 
 go on with what you were saying to me. You were on the 
 point of telling me what brought you to this house." 
 
 Without a word more of preface, Sir Patrick told him the 
 news of Geoffi'ey's marriage to Anne. 
 
 "Married !" cried Mr. Marchwood. "Are you sure of what 
 you say?" 
 
 " I am one of the witnesses of the marriage." 
 
 " Good heavens ! And Lord Holchester's lawyer has left 
 the house !" 
 
 "Can I replace him? Have I, by any chance, justified you 
 in telling me what happened this morning in the next room ?" 
 
 " Justified me ? You have left me no other alternative. 
 The doctors are all agreed in dreading apoplexy — his lordship 
 may die at any moment. In the lawyer's absence, I must take 
 it on myself Here are the facts. There is the codicil to Lord 
 Holchester's Will, which is still unsigned." 
 
 " Relating to his second son ?" 
 
 " Relating to Geofii-ey Delamayn, and giving him (when it 
 is once executed) a liberal provision for life." 
 
 " What is the object in the way of his executing it?" 
 
 "The lady whom you have just mentioned to me." 
 
 "Anne Silvester?" 
 
 "Anne Silvester — now (as you tell me) Mrs. Geoffrey Dela- 
 mayn. I can only explain the thing very imperfectly. There 
 are certain painful circumstances associated in his lordship's 
 memory with this lady, or with some member of her family. 
 We can only gather that he did something — in the early part 
 of his professional career — which was strictly within the lini- 
 
■ MAN AND WIFE. 4*71 
 
 its of his duty, but which apparently led to very sad results. 
 Some days since he unfortunately heard (either through Mrs. 
 iGlenarm or through Mrs. Julius Delamayn) of Miss Silvester's 
 i appearance at Swanhaven Lodge. No remark on the subject 
 I escaped him at the time. It was only this morning, when the 
 codicil giving the legacy to Geoffrey was waiting to be exe- 
 cuted, that his real feeling in the matter came out. To our as- 
 tonishment, he refused to sign it. 'Find Anne Silvester' (was 
 the only answer we could get from him); 'and bring her to 
 my bedside. You all say my son is guiltless of injuring her. 
 I am lying on my death-bed. I have serious reasons of my 
 own — I owe it to the memory of the dead — to assure myself 
 of the truth. If Anne Silvester herself acquits him of having 
 wronged her, I will provide for Geoffrey. Not otherwise.' 
 We went the length of reminding him that he might die be- 
 fore Miss Silvester could be found. Our interference had but 
 one result. He desired the lawyer to add a second codicil to 
 the Will — which he executed on the spot. It directs his ex- 
 ecutors to inquire into the relations that have actually existed 
 between Anne Silvester and his younger son. If we find rea- 
 son to conclude that Geoffrey has gravely wronged her, we are 
 directed to pay her a legacy — provided that she is a single 
 woman at the time." 
 
 "And her marriage violates the provision !" exclaimed Sir 
 Patrick. 
 
 " Yes. The codicil actually executed is now worthless. 
 And the other codicil remains unsigned until the lawyer can 
 produce Miss Silvester. He has left the house to apply to 
 Geoffrey at Fulham, as the only means at our disposal of find- 
 ing the lady. Some hours have passed — and he has not yet 
 returned." 
 
 " It is useless to wait for him," said Sir Patrick. " While 
 the lawyer was on his way to Fulham, Lord Holchester's son 
 was on his way to Portland Place. This is even more serious 
 than you suppose. Tell me, what under less pressing circum- 
 stances I should have no right to ask. Apart from the unex- 
 ecuted codicil, what is Geoffrey Delamayn's position in the 
 will ?" 
 
 " He is not even mentioned in it." 
 
 " Have you got the will ?" 
 
 Mr. Marchwood unlocked the drawer, and took it out. 
 
 Sir Patrick instantly rose from his chair. " No waiting for 
 the lawyer !" he repeated, vehemently. " This is a matter of 
 life and death. Lady Holchester bitterly resents her son's mar- 
 riage. She speaks and feels as a friend of Mrs. Glenarm. Do 
 you think Lord Holchester would take the same view, if he 
 knew of it?" 
 
472 MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 " It depends entirely on the circumstances." 
 
 " Suppose I informed him — as I inform you in confidence — 
 that his son has gravely wronged Miss Silvester ? And sup- 
 pose I followed that up by telling him that his son has made 
 atonement by marrying her ?" 
 
 "After the feeling that he has shown in the matter, I believe 
 he would sign the codicil." 
 
 " Then, for God's sake, let me see him !" 
 
 " I must speak to the doctor." 
 
 "Do it instantly !" 
 
 With the will in his hand, Mr. Marchwood advanced to the 
 bedroom door. It was opened from within before he could 
 get to it. The doctor appeared on the threshold. He held up 
 his hand warningly when Mr. Marchwood attempted to speak 
 to him. 
 
 " Go to Lady Holchester," he said. " It's all over." 
 
 " Dead ?" 
 
 "Dead." 
 
 SIXTEENTH SCENE.— SALT PATCH. 
 CHAPTER THE FORTY-EIGHTH. 
 
 THE PLACE. 
 
 Early in the present century it was generally reported 
 among the neighbors of one Reuben Limbrick that he was 
 in a fair way to make a comfortable little fortune by dealing 
 in salt. 
 
 His place of abode was in StaiFordshire, on a morsel of free- 
 hold land of his own — appropriately called Salt Patch. With- 
 out being absolutely a miser, he lived in the humblest manner, 
 saw very little company ; skillfully invested his money ; and 
 persisted in remaining a single man. 
 
 Toward eighteen hundred and forty he first felt the approach 
 of the chronic malady which ultimately terminated his life. 
 After trying what the medical men of his own locality could 
 do for him, with very poor success, he met by accident with a 
 doctor living in the western suburbs of London, who thorough- 
 ly understood his complaint. After some journeying backward 
 and forward to consult this gentleman, he decided on retiring 
 from business, and on taking up his abode within an easy dis- 
 tance of his medical man. 
 
 Finding a piece of freehold land to be sold in the neighbor- 
 hood of Fulham, he bought it, and had a cottage residence 
 built on it^ under his own directions. He surrounded the whole 
 
MAN AND WIFE. 473 
 
 ■ — being a man singularly jealous of any intrusion on his retire- 
 ment, or of any chance observation of his ways and habits — 
 with a high wall, which cost a large sum of money, and which 
 was rightly considered a dismal and hideous object by the 
 neighbors. When the new residence was completed, he called 
 it after the name of the place in Staifordshire, where he had 
 made his money, and where he had lived during the happiest 
 period of his life. His relatives, failing to understand that a 
 question of sentiment was involved in this proceeding, appealed 
 to hard facts, and reminded him that there were no salt-mines 
 in the neighborhood. Reuben Limbrick answered, " So much 
 the worse for the neighborhood" — and persisted in calling his 
 property " Salt Patch." 
 
 The cottage was so small that it looked quite lost in the 
 large garden all round it. There was a ground-floor and a 
 floor above it — and that was all. 
 
 On either side of the passage, on the lower floor, were two 
 rooms. At the right-hand side, on entering by the lYont door, 
 there was a kitchen, with its outhouses attached. The room 
 next to the kitchen looked into the garden. In Reuben Lim- 
 brick's time it was called a study, and contained a small col- 
 lection of books and a large store of fishing-tackle. On the 
 left-hand side of the passage there was a drawing-room situated 
 at the back of the house, and communicating with a dining- 
 room in the front. On the upper floor there were five bed- 
 rooms — two on one side of the passage, corresponding in size 
 with the dining-room and the drawing-room below, but not 
 opening into each other; three on the other side of the pas- 
 sage, consisting of one larger room in front, and of two small 
 rooms at the back. All these were solidly and completely fur- 
 nished. Money had not been spared, and workmanship had 
 not been stinted. It was all substantial — and, up stairs and 
 down stairs, it was all ugly. 
 
 The situation of Salt Patch was lonely. The lands of the 
 market-gardeners separated it from other houses. Jealously 
 surrounded by its own high walls, the cottage suggested, even 
 to the most imimaginative persons, the idea of an asylum or a 
 prison. Reuben Limbrick's relatives, occasionally coming to 
 stay with him, found the place prey on their spirits, and re- 
 joiced when the time came for going home again. They were 
 never pressed to stay against their will. Reuben Limbrick 
 was not a hospitable or a sociable man. He set very little 
 value on human sympathy, in his attacks of illness; and he 
 bore congratulations impatiently, in his intervals of health. 
 " I care about nothing but fishing," he used to say. " I find 
 my dog very good company. And I am quite happy as long 
 as I am free from pain." 
 
474 MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 On his death-bed he divided his money justly enough among 
 his relations. The only part of his Will which exposed itself to 
 unfavorable criticism, was a clause conferring a legacy on one 
 of his sisters (then a widow) who had estranged herself from 
 her family by marrying beneath her. The family agreed in con- 
 sidering this unhappy person as undeserving of notice or bene- 
 fit. Her name was Hester Dethridge. It proved to be a great 
 aggravation of Hester's offenses, in the eyes of Hester's rela- 
 tives, when it was discovered that she possessed a life interest 
 in Salt Patch, and an income of two hundred a year. 
 
 Not visited by the surviving members of her family, living, 
 literally, by herself in the world, Hester decided, in spite of her 
 comfortable little income, on letting lodgings. The explana- 
 tion of this strange conduct which she had written on her slate, 
 in reply to an inquiry from Anne, was the true one. " I have 
 not got a friend in the world : I dare not live alone." In that 
 desolate situation, and with that melancholy motive, she put the 
 house into an agent's hands. The first person in want of lodg- 
 ings whom the agent sent to see the place was Perry the train- 
 er ; and Hester's first tenant was Geoffrey Delamayn. 
 
 The rooms which the landlady reserved for herself were the 
 kitchen, the room next to it, which had once been her brother's 
 " study," and the two small back bedrooms up stairs — one for 
 herself, the other for the servant-girl whom she employed to 
 help her. The whole of the rest of the cottage was to let. It 
 was more than the trainer wanted ; but Hester Dethridge re- 
 fused to dispose of her lodgings — either as to the rooms occu- 
 pied, or as to the period for which they were to be taken — on 
 other than her own terms. Perry had no alternative but to 
 lose the advantage of the garden as a private training-ground, 
 or to submit. 
 
 Being only two in number, the lodgers had three bedrooms 
 to choose from. Geoffrey established himself in the back room, 
 over the drawing-room. Perry chose the front room, placed on 
 the other side of the cottage, next to the two smaller apart- 
 ments occupied by Hester and her maid. Under this arrange- 
 ment, the front bedroom, on the opposite side of the passage — 
 next to the room in which Geoffrey slept — was left empty, and 
 was called, for the time being, the spare room. As for the low- 
 er floor, the athlete and his trainer ate their meals in the dining- 
 room ; and left the drawing-room, as a needless luxury, to take 
 care of itself. 
 
 The Foot-race once over, Perry's business at the cottage was 
 at an end. His empty bedroom became a second spare room. 
 The term for which the lodgings had been taken was then still 
 unexpired. On the day after the race Geoffrey had to choose 
 between sacrificing the money, or remaining in the lodgings 
 
MAN AND WIFE. 475 
 
 by himself, with two spare bedrooms on his hands, and with a 
 drawing-room for the reception of his visitors — who called with 
 pipes in their mouths, and whose idea of hospitality was a pot 
 of beer in the garden. 
 
 To use his own phrase, he was " out of sorts." A sluggish 
 reluctance to face change of any kind possessed him. He de- 
 cided on staying at Salt Patch until his marriage to Mrs. Glen- 
 arm (which he then looked upon as a certainty) obliged him to 
 alter his habits completely, once for all. From Fulham he had 
 gone, the next day, to attend the inquiry in Portland Place. 
 And to Fulham he returned, when he brought the wife who 
 had been forced upon him to her "home." 
 
 Such was the position of the tenant, and such were the ar- 
 rangements of the interior of the cottage, on the memorable 
 evening when Anne Silvester entered it as GeofiVey's wife. 
 
 CHAPTER THE FORTY-NINTH. 
 
 THE NIGHT. 
 
 On leaving Lady Lundie's house, Geoffrey called the fir^ 
 empty cab that passed him. He opened the door, and signed 
 to Anne to enter the vehicle. She obeyed him mechanically. 
 He placed himself on the seat opposite to her, and told the man 
 to drive to Fulham. 
 
 The cab started on its journey, husband and wife preserv- 
 ing absolute silence. Anne laid her head back wearily, and 
 closed her eyes. Her strength had broken down under the ef- 
 fort which had sustained her from the beginning to the end of 
 the inquiry. Her power of thinking was gone. She felt noth- 
 ing, knew nothing, feared nothing. Half in faintness, half in 
 slumber, she had lost all sense of her own terrible position be- 
 fore the first five minutes of the journey to Fulham had come 
 to an end. 
 
 Sitting opposite to her, savagely self-concentrated in his own 
 thoughts, Geoffrey roused himself on a sudden. An idea had 
 sprung to life in his sluggish brain. He put his head out of 
 the window of the cab, and directed the driver to turn back, 
 and go to a hotel near the Great Northern Railway. 
 
 Resuming his seat, he looked furtively at Anne. She neither 
 moved nor opened her eyes — she was, to all appearance, uncon- 
 scious of what had happened. He observed her attentively. 
 Was she really ill ? Was the time coming when he would be 
 freed from her? He pondered over that question — watching 
 her closely. Little by little the vile hope slowly in him died 
 away, and a vile suspicion took its place. What if this ap- 
 
476 MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 pearance of illness was a pretense ? What if she was waiting 
 to throw him olF his guard, and escape from him at the first op- 
 portunity ? He put his head out of the window again, and 
 gave another order to the driver. The cab diverged from the 
 direct route, and stopped at a public-house in Holborn, kept 
 (under an assumed name) by Perry the trainer. 
 
 Geofirey wrote a line in pencil on his card, and sent it into 
 the house by the driver. After waiting some minutes, a lad 
 appeared and touched his hat. Geoffrey spoke to him out of 
 the window in an under-tone. The lad took his place on the 
 box by the driver. The cab turned back, and took the road 
 to the hotel near the Great Northern Railway. 
 
 Arrived at the place, Geoffrey posted the lad close at the 
 door of the cab, and pointed to Anne, still reclining with closed 
 eyes ; still, as it seemed, too weary to lift her head, too faint 
 to notice any thing that happened. " If she attempts to get 
 out, stop her and send for me." With those parting directions 
 he entered the hotel, and asked for Mr. Moy. 
 
 Mr. Moy was in the house ; he had just returned from Port- 
 land Place. He rose, and bowed coldly, when Geoffrey was 
 shown into his sitting-room. 
 
 " What is your business with me ?" he asked. 
 
 " I've had a notion come into my head," said Geoffrey, "and 
 I want to speak to you about it directly." 
 
 " I must request you to consult some one else. Consider 
 me, if you please, as having withdrawn from all further con- 
 nection with your affairs." 
 
 Geoffrey looked at him in stolid surprise. 
 
 " Do you mean to say you're going to leave me in the lurch ?" 
 he asked. 
 
 " I mean to say that I will take no fresh step in any business 
 of yours," answered Mr. Moy, firmly. "As to the future, I have 
 ceased to be your legal adviser. As to the past, I shall care- 
 fully complete the formal duties toward you which remain to 
 be done. Mrs. Inchbare and Bishopriggs are coming here, by 
 appointment, at six this evening, to receive the money due to 
 them before they go back. I shall return to Scotland myself 
 by the night mail. The persons referred to in the matter of 
 the promise of marriage, by Sir Patrick, are all in Scotland. I 
 will take their evidence as to the handwriting, and as to the 
 question of residence in the North — and I will send it to you 
 in written form. That done, I shall have done all. I decline 
 to advise you in any future step which you propose to take." 
 
 After reflecting for a moment, Geoffrey put a last question. 
 
 " You said Bishopriggs and the woman would be here at six 
 this evening." 
 
 " Yes." 
 
MAN AND WIFE. 477 
 
 " Wliere are they to be found before that ?" 
 
 Mr. Moy wrote a few words on a slip of paper, and handed 
 it to Geoffrey. "At their lodgings," he said. "There is the 
 address." 
 
 Geoffrey took the address, and left the room. Lawyer and 
 client parted without a word on either side. 
 
 Returning to the cab, Geoffrey found the lad steadily wait- 
 ing at his post. 
 
 " Has any thing happened ?" 
 
 " The lady hasn't moved, sir, since you left her." 
 
 " Is Perry at the public-house ?" 
 
 " Not at this time, sir." 
 
 " I want a lawyer. Do you know who Perry's lawyer is ?" 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 "And where he is to be found ?" 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 " Get up on the box, and tell the man where to drive to." 
 
 The cab went on again along the Euston Road, and stopped 
 at a house in a side street, with a professional brass plate on 
 the door. The lad got down and came to the window. 
 
 " Here it is, sir." 
 
 " Knock at the door, and see if he is at home." 
 
 He proved to be at home. Geoffrey entered the house, leav- 
 ing his emissary once more on the watch. The lad noticed 
 that the lady moved this time. She shivered as if she felt 
 cold — opened her eyes for a moment wearily, and looked out 
 through the window — sighed, and sank back again in the cor- 
 ner of the cab. 
 
 After an absence of more than half an hour Geoffrey came 
 out again. His interview with Perry's lawyer appeared to 
 have relieved his mind of something that had oppressed it. 
 He once more ordered the driver to go to Fulham — opened the 
 door to get into the cab — then, as it seemed, suddenly recol- 
 lected himself — and, calling the lad down from the box, order- 
 ed him to get inside, and took his place by the driver. 
 
 As the cab started, he looked over his shoulder at Anne 
 through the front window. " Well worth trying," he said to 
 himself "It's the way to be even with her. x\nd it's the 
 way to be free." 
 
 They arrived at the cottage. Possibly, repose had restored 
 Anne's strength. Possibly, the sight of the place had roused 
 the instinct of self-preservation in her at last. To Geoffrey's 
 surprise, she left the cab without assistance. When he open- 
 ed the wooden gate, with his own key, she recoiled from it, 
 and looked at him for the first time. 
 
 He pointed to the entrance. 
 
 " Go in," he said. 
 
4V8 MAN AXD WIFE. 
 
 " On what terms ?" she asked, without stlrrhig a step. 
 
 Geoffrey dismissed the cab, and sent the lad in to wait for 
 further orders. These things done, he answered her loudly 
 and brutally, the moment they were alone : 
 
 " On any terms I please," 
 
 " Nothing will induce me," she said, firmly, " to live with 
 you as your wife. You may kill me — but you will never bend" 
 me to that." 
 
 He advanced a step — opened his lips — and suddenly check- 
 ed himself. He waited a while, turning something over in his 
 mind. When he spoke again, it was with marked delibera- 
 tion and constraint — with the air of a man who was repeating 
 words put into his lips, or words prepared beforehand. 
 
 " I have something to tell you in the presence of witnesses," 
 he said. " I don't ask you, or wish you, to see me in the cot- 
 tage alone." 
 
 She started at the change in him. His sudden composure, 
 and his sudden nicety in the choice of words, tried her cour- 
 age far more severely than it had been tried by his violence 
 of the moment before. 
 
 He waited her decision, still pointing through the gate. 
 She trembled a little — steadied herself again — and went in. 
 The lad, waiting in the front garden, followed her. 
 
 He threw open the drawing-room door, on the left-band side 
 of the passage. She entered the room. The servant-girl ap- 
 peared. He said to her, " Fetch Mrs. Dethridge ; and come 
 back with her yourself" Then he went into the room ; the 
 lad by his own directions, following him in; and the door be- 
 ing left wide open. 
 
 Hester Dethridge came out from the kitchen, with the girl 
 behind her. At the sight of Anne, a faint and momentary 
 change passed over the stony stillness of her face. A dull light 
 glimmered in her eyes. She slowly nodded her head. A 
 dumb sound, vaguely expressive of something like exultation 
 or relief, escaped her lips. 
 
 Geoffrey spoke — once more, with marked deliberation and 
 constraint; once more, with the air of repeating something 
 which had been prepared beforehand. He pointed to Anne. 
 
 " This woman is ray wife," he said. " In the presence of 
 you three, as witnesses, I tell her that I don't forgive her. I 
 have brought her here — having no other place in which I can 
 trust her to be — to wait the issue of proceedings, undertaken 
 in defense of my own honor and good name. While she stays 
 here, she will live separate from me, in a room of her own. 
 If it is necessary for me to communicate with her, I shall only 
 see her in the presence of a third person. Do you all under- 
 stand me ?" 
 
 I 
 
MAN AND WIFE. 4*79 
 
 Hester Dethvidge bowed her head. The other two answered, 
 " Yes " — and turned to go out. Anne rose. At a sign from 
 Geoffrey, the servant and the lad waited in the room to hear 
 what she had to say. 
 
 " I know nothing in mj'- conduct," she said, addressing her- 
 self to Geoffrey, " which justifies you in telling these people 
 that you don't forgive me. Those words applied by you to 
 me are an insult, I am equally ignorant of what you mean 
 when you speak of defending your good name. All I under- 
 stand is, that we are separate persons in this house, and that I 
 am to have a room of my own, I am grateful, whatever your 
 motives may be, for the arrangement that you have proposed. 
 Direct one of these two women to show me my room." 
 
 Geoffrey turned to Hester Dethridge, 
 
 " Take her up stairs," he said ; " and let her pick which room 
 she pleases. Give her what she wants to eat or drink. Bring 
 down the address of the place where her luggage is. The lad 
 here will go back by railway and fetch it. That's all. Be off." 
 
 Hester went out. Anne followed her up the stairs. In the 
 passage on the upper floor she stopped. The dull light flicker- 
 ed again for a moment in her eyes. She wrote on her slate, 
 and held it up to Anne, with these words on it : "I knew you 
 would come back. It's not over yet between you and him." 
 Anne made no reply. She went on writing, with something 
 faintly like a smile on her thin, colorless lips. " I know some- 
 thing of bad husbands. Yours is as bad a one as ever stood 
 in shoes. He'll try you." Anne made an effort to stop her. 
 "Don't you see how tired I am?" she said, gently. Hester 
 Dethridge dropped the slate — looked with a steady and un- 
 compassionate attention in Anne's face — nodded her head, as 
 much as to say, " I see it now " — and led the way into one of 
 the empty rooms. 
 
 It was the front bedroom over the drawing-room. The first 
 glance round showed it to be scrupulously clean, and solidly 
 and tastelessly furnished. The hideous paper on the walls, the 
 hideous carpet on the floor, were both of the best quality. 
 The great heavy mahogany bedstead, with its curtains hanging 
 from a hook in the ceiling, and with its clumsily-carved head 
 and foot on the same level, offered to the view the anomalous 
 spectacle of French design overwhelmed by English execution. 
 The most noticeable thing in the room was the extraordinary 
 attention which had been given to the defense of the door. 
 Besides the usual lock and key, it possessed two solid bolts, 
 fastening inside at the top and the bottom. It had been one 
 among the many eccentric sides of Reuben Limbrick's char- 
 acter to live in perpetual dread of thieves breaking into his 
 cottasre at night. All the outer doors and all the window 
 
480 MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 shutters were solidly sheathed with iron, and had alarm-bells 
 attached to them on a new principle. Every one of the bed- 
 rooms possessed its two bolts on the inner side of the door. 
 And to crown all, on the roof of the cottage was a little belfry, 
 containing a bell large enough to make itself heard at the Ful- 
 hani police station. In Reuben Limbrick's time the rope had 
 communicated with his bedroom. It hung now against the 
 wall, in the passage outside. 
 
 Looking from one to the other of the objects around her, 
 Anne's eyes rested on the partition wall which divided the room 
 from the room next to it. The wall was not broken by a door 
 of communication ; it had nothing placed against it but a wash- 
 hand-stand and two chairs. 
 
 " Who sleeps in the next room ?" said Anne. 
 
 Hester Dethridge pointed down to the drawing-room in which 
 they had left Geoffrey. Geoffrey slept in the room. 
 
 Anne led the way out again into the passage. 
 
 " Show me the second room," she said. 
 
 The second room was also in front of the house. More ugli- 
 ness (of first-rate quality) in the paper and the carpet. Another 
 heavy mahogany bedstead ; but, this time, a bedstead with a 
 canopy attached to the head of it — supporting its own curtains. 
 Anticipating Anne's inquiry, on this occasion, Hester looked 
 toward the next room, at the back of the cottage, and pointed 
 to herself. Anne at once decided on choosing the second 
 room ; it was the farthest from Geoffrey. Hester waited while 
 she wrote the address at Avhich her luggage would be found 
 (at the house of the musical agent), and then, having applied 
 for and received her directions as to the evening meal which 
 she should send up stairs, quitted the room. 
 
 Left alone, Anne secured the door, and threw herself on the 
 bed. Still too weary to exert her mind, still physically inca- 
 pable of realizing the helplessness and the peril of her position, 
 she opened a locket that hung from her neck, kissed the por- 
 trait of her mother and the portrait of Blanche placed opposite 
 to each other inside it, and sank into a deep and dreamless 
 sleep. 
 
 Meanwhile Geoffrey repeated his final orders to the lad at 
 the cottage gate. 
 
 " AVhen you have got the luggage, you are to go to the law- 
 yer. If he can come here to-night, you will show him the way. 
 If he can't come, you will bring me a letter from him. Make 
 any mistake in this, and it will be the worst day's work you 
 ever did in your life. Away with you, and don't lose the train." 
 
 The lad ran off. Geoffrey waited, looking after him, and 
 turning over in his mind what had been done up to that time. 
 
 *'Ali right so far," be said to himself. " I didn't ride in the 
 
MAN AND WIFE, 481 
 
 cab with her. I told her before witnesses I didn't forgive her, 
 and why I had her in the house. I've put her in a room by 
 herself. And if I nnist see her, I see her with Hester Dethridge 
 for a witness. My part's done — let the kwyer do his." 
 
 He strolled round into the back garden, and lit his pipe. 
 After a while, as the twilight faded, he saw a light in Hester's 
 sitting-room on the ground-floor. He went to the window. 
 Hester and the servant-girl were both there at work, " Well," 
 he asked, " how about the woman up stairs ?" Hester's slate, 
 aided by the girl's tongue, told him all about " the woman " 
 that was to be told. They had taken up to her room tea and 
 an omelet ; and they had been obliged to wake her from a sleep. 
 She had eaten a little of the omelet, and had drunk eagerly of 
 the tea. They had gone up again to take the tray down. She 
 had returned to the bed — she was not asleep — only dull and 
 heavy. Made no remark. Looked clean worn out. We left 
 her a light ; and we let her be. Such was the report. After 
 listening to it, without making any remark, Geoffrey filled a 
 second pipe, and resumed his walk. The time wore on. It 
 began to feel chilly in the garden. The rising wind swept 
 audibly over the open lands round the cottage; the stars 
 twinkled their last ; nothing was to be seen overhead but the 
 black void of night. More rain coming. Geoffrey went indoors. 
 
 An evening newspaper was on the dining-room table. The 
 candles were lit. He sat down, and tried to read. ISo! 
 There was nothing in the newspaper that he cared abou*^, 
 The time for hearing from the lawyer was drawing nearer and 
 nearer. Reading was of no use. Sitting still was of no use 
 He got up, and went out in the front of the cottage — strolled 
 to the gate — opened it — and looked idly up and down the road. 
 
 But one living creature was visible by the light of the gas- 
 lamp over the gate. The creature came nearer, and proved to 
 be the postman going his last round, with the last delivery for 
 the night. He came up to the gate with a letter in his hand. 
 
 " The Honorable Geoffrey Delamayn ?" 
 
 "All right." 
 
 He took the letter from the postman, and went back into the 
 dining-room. Looking at the address by the light of the can- 
 dles, he recognized the handwriting of Mrs. Glenarm. "To 
 congratulate me on my marriage !" he said to himself, bitterly, 
 and opened the letter. 
 
 Mrs. Glenarm's congratulations were expressed in these 
 terms: 
 
 "Mt adored Geoffrey, — I have heard all. My beloved 
 one ! my own ! you are sacrificed to the vilest wretch that 
 walks the earth, and I have lost you ! How is it that I liv« 
 
 31 
 
482 MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 after hearing it ? How is it that I can think, and write, with 
 my brain on fire, and ray heart broken ? Oh, my angel, there 
 is a purpose that supports me — pure, beautiful, worthy of us 
 both. I live, Geoffrey — I live to dedicate myself to the adored 
 idea of You. My hero ! my first, last love ! I will marry no 
 other man. I will live and die — I vow it solemnly on my 
 bended knees — I will live and die true to You. I am your 
 Spiritual Wife. My beloved Geoffrey ! she can't come be- 
 tween us, there — she can never rob you of my heart's unaltera- 
 ble fidelity, of my soul's unearthly devotion. I am your Spir- 
 itual Wife ! Oh, the blameless luxury of writing those words ! 
 Write back to me, beloved one, and say you feel it too. Vow 
 it, idol of my heart, as I have vowed it. Unalterable fidelity ! 
 unearthly devotion! Never, never will I be the wife of any 
 other man ! Never, never will I forgive the woman who has 
 come between us ! Yours ever and only ; yours with the 
 stainless passion that burns on the altar of the heart ; yours, 
 yours, yours, E. G." 
 
 This outbreak of hysterical nonsense — in itself simply ridicu- 
 lous — assumed a serious importance in its effect on Geoffrey. 
 It associated the direct attainment of his own interests with 
 the gratification of his vengeance on Anne. Ten thousand a 
 year self-dedicated to him — and nothing to prevent his putting 
 out his hand and taking it but the woman who had caught 
 him in her trap, the woman up stairs who had fastened herself 
 on him for life ! 
 
 He put the letter into bis pocket. " Wait till I hear from 
 the lawyer," he said to himself. " The easiest way out of it is 
 that way. And it's the law." 
 
 He looked impatiently at his watch. As he put it back 
 again in his pocket there was a ring at the bell. Was it the 
 lad bringing the luggage ? Yes. And, with it, the lawyer's 
 report ? No. Better than that — the lawyer himself. 
 
 " Come in !" cried Geoffrey, meeting his visitor at the door. 
 
 The lawyer entered the dining-room. The candle-light re- 
 vealed to view a corpulent, full-lipped, bright-eyed man — with 
 a stai?i of negro blood in his yellow face, and with unmistaka- 
 ble traces in his look and manner of walking habitually in the 
 dirtiest professional by-ways of the law. 
 
 "I've got a little place of my own in your neighborhood," 
 he said. " And I thought I would look in myself, Mr. Dela- 
 mayn, on my way home." 
 
 " Have you seen the witnesses ?" 
 
 " I have examined them both, sir. First, Mrs. Inchbare and 
 Mr. Bishopriggs together. Next, Mrs. Inchbare and Mr. Bish- 
 opriggs separately." 
 
MAN AND WIFE. 483 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 " Well, sir, the result is unfavorable, I am sorry to say." 
 
 " What do you mean ?" 
 
 " Neither the one nor the other of them, Mr. Delamayn, can 
 give the evidence we want. I have made sure of that." 
 
 "Made sure of that? You have made an infernal mess of 
 it ! You don't understand the case !" 
 
 The mulatto lawyer smiled. The rudeness of his client ap- 
 peased only to amuse him. 
 
 "Don't I?" he said. "Suppose you tell me where I am 
 wrong about it ? Here it is in outline only. On the four- 
 teenth of August last your wife was at an inn in Scotland. A 
 gentleman named Arnold Brinkworth joined her there. He 
 represented himself to be her husband, and he staid with her 
 till the next morning. Starting from those facts, the object 
 you have in view is to sue for a Divorce from your wife. You 
 make Mr. Arnold Brinkworth the co-respondent. And you 
 produce in evidence the waiter and the landlady of the inn. 
 Any thing wrong, sir, so far ?" 
 
 Nothing wrong. At one cowardly stroke to cast Anne dis< 
 graced on the world, and to set himself free — there, plainly and 
 truly stated, was the scheme which he had devised when he 
 had turned back on the way to Fulham to consult Mr. Moy. 
 
 "So much for the case," resumed the lawyer. "Now for 
 what I have done on receiving your instructions. I have ex- 
 amined the witnesses; and I have had an interview (not a 
 very pleasant one) with Mr. Moy. The result of those two 
 proceedings is briefly this. First discovery : In assuming the 
 character of the lady's husband, Mr. Brinkworth was acting 
 under your directions — which tells dead against you. Second 
 discovery : Not the slightest impropriety of conduct, not an 
 approach even to harmless familiarity, was detected by either 
 of the witnesses, while the lady and gentleman were together 
 at the inn. There is literally no evidence to produce against 
 them, except that they xcere together — in two rooms. How 
 are you to assume a guilty piirpose, when you can't prove an 
 approach to a guilty act ? You can no more take such a case as 
 that into Court than you can jump over the roof of this cottage." 
 
 He looked hard at his client, expecting to receive a violent 
 reply. His client agreeably disappointed him. A very strange 
 impression appeared to have been produced on this reckless 
 and headstrong man. He got up quietly ; he spoke with per- 
 fect outward composure of face and manner when he said his 
 next words. 
 
 " Have you given up the case ?" 
 .. "As things are at present, Mr. Delamayn, there is no case." 
 
 "And no hope of my getting divorced from her?" 
 
484 MAN AND WrFE. 
 
 " Wait a moment. Have your wife and Mr. Brinkworth met 
 nowhere since they were together at the Scotch inn ?" 
 
 " Nowhere." 
 
 "As to the future, of course I can't say. As to the past, 
 there is no hope of your getting divorced from her." 
 
 "Thank you. Good-night." 
 
 " Good-night, Mr. Delamayn." 
 
 Fastened to her for life — and the law powerless to cut the 
 knot. 
 
 He pondered over that result until he had thoroughly real- 
 ized it and fixed it in his mind. Then he took out Mrs. Glen- 
 arm's letter, and read it through again attentively from be- 
 ginning to end. 
 
 Nothing could shake her devotion to him. Nothing would 
 induce her to marry another man. There she was — in her own 
 words — dedicated to him; waiting, with her fortune at her 
 own disposal, to be his wife. There also was his father, wait- 
 ing (so far as he knew, in the absence of any tidings from Hol- 
 chester House) to welcome Mrs. Glenarm as a daughter-in-law, 
 and to give Mrs. Glenarm's husband an income of his own. As 
 fair a prospect, on all sides, as man could desire. And notli- 
 ing in the way of it but the woman who had caught him in 
 her trap — the woman up stairs who had fastened herself on 
 him for life. 
 
 He went out in the garden in the darkness of the night. 
 
 There was open communication, on all sides, between the 
 back garden and the front. He walked round and round the 
 cottage — now appearing in a stream of light from a window ; 
 now disappearing again in the darkness. The wind blew re- 
 freshingly over his bare head. For some minutes he went 
 round and round, faster and faster, without a pause. When f 
 he stopped at last, it was in front of the cottage. He lifted ^ 
 his head slowlj^, and looked up at the dim light in the window ! 
 of Anne's room. * 
 
 "How ?" he said to himself " That's the question. How ?" J 
 
 He went indoors again, and rang the bell. The servant-girl %\ 
 who answered it started back at the sight of him. His florid 
 color was all gone. His eyes looked at her without appearing 
 to see her. The perspiration was standing on his forehead in 
 great heavy drops. 
 
 " Are you ill, sir ?" said the girl. 
 
 He told her, with an oath, to hold her tongue and bring the |i 
 brandy. When she entered the room for the second time, he 
 was standing with his back to her, looking out at the night. 
 He never moved when she put the bottle on the table. She ''l 
 heard him muttering as if he was talking to himself. 
 
MAN AND WIFE. 485 
 
 The same difficulty which had been present to his mind in 
 secret under Anne's window was present to his mind still. 
 How ? That was the problem to solve. How? 
 He turned to the brandy, and took counsel of that. 
 
 CHAPTER THE FIFTIETH. 
 
 THE MORNING. 
 
 When does the vain regret find its keenest sting ? When 
 is the doubtful future blackened by its darkest cloud ? When 
 is life least worth having, and death oftenest at the bedside ? 
 [n the terrible morning hours, when the sun is rising in its 
 glory, and the bii'ds are singing in the stillness of the new- 
 born day. 
 
 Anne woke in the strange bed, and looked round her, by the 
 light of the new morning, at the strange room. 
 
 The rain had all fallen in the night. The sun was master 
 n the clear autumn sky. She rose, and opened the window. 
 The fresh morning air, keen and fragrant, filled the room. Far 
 ind near, the same bright stillness possessed the view. She 
 Stood at the window looking out. Her mind was clear again 
 — she could think, she could feel; she could face the one last 
 pestion M'hich the merciless morning now forced on her — How 
 ivill it end ? 
 
 Was there any hope ? — hope, for instance, in what she might 
 lo for herself What can a married woman do for herself? 
 She can make her misery public — provided it be misery of a 
 sertain kind — and can reckon single-handed with Society whep 
 jhe has done it. Nothing more. 
 
 Was there hope in what others might do for her ? Blanche 
 night write to hei' — might even come and see her — if her hus- 
 band allowed it ; and that was all. Sir Patrick had pressed 
 ler hand at parting, and had told her to rely on him. He was 
 he firmest, the truest of friends. But what could he do ? 
 ?here were outrages which her husband was privileged to 
 ommit, under the sanction of marriage, at the bare thought 
 f which her blood ran cold. Could Sir Patrick protect her ? 
 Absurd ! Law and Society armed her husband with his con- 
 ugal rights. Law and Society had but one answer to give, 
 fshe appealed to them — You are his wife. 
 
 No hope in herself; no hope in her friends; no hope any- 
 where on earth. Nothing to be done but to wait for the end 
 -with faith in the Divine Mercy ; with faith in the better 
 rorld. 
 
486 MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 She took out of her trunk a little book of Prayers and Med- 
 itations — worn with much use — which had once belonged to 
 her mother. She sat by the window reading it. Now and 
 then she looked up from it — thinking. The parallel between 
 her mother's position and her own position was now complete. 
 Both married to husbands who hated them ; to husbands 
 whose interests pointed to mercenary alliances with other 
 women ; to husbands whose one want and one purpose was to 
 be free from their wives. Strange, what different ways had 
 led mother and daughter both to the same fate ! Would the 
 parallel hold to the end ? " Shall I die," she wondered, think- 
 ing of her mother's last moments, " in Blanche's arms ?" 
 
 The time had passed unheeded. The morning movement in 
 the house had failed to catch her ear. She was first called out 
 of herself to the sense of the present and passing events by the 
 voice of the servant-girl outside the door. 
 
 " The master wants you, ma'am, down stairs." 
 
 She rose instantly, and put away the little book. 
 
 " Is that all the message ?" she asked, opening the door. 
 
 " Yes, ma'am." 
 
 She followed the gii'l down stairs ; recalling to her memory 
 the strange words addressed to her by Geoffrey, in the pres- 
 ence of the servants, on the evening before. Was she now 
 to know what those words really meant ? The doubt would 
 Boon be set at rest. " Be the trial what it may," she thought 
 to herself, " let me bear it as my mother would have borne it." 
 
 The servant opened the door of the dining-room. Break* 
 fast was on the table. Geoffrey was standing at the window. 
 Hester Dethridge was waiting, posted near the door. He 
 came forward — with the nearest approach to gentleness in his 
 manner which she had ever yet seen in it — he came forward^ 
 with a set smile on his lips, and offered her his hand ! 
 
 She had entered the room, prepared (as she believed) for 
 any thing that could happen. She was not prepared for thia 
 She stood speechless, looking at him. 
 
 After one glance at her, when she came in, Hester Dethridge 
 looked at him, too — and from that moment never looked away 
 again, as long as Anne remained in the room. 
 
 He broke the silence — in a voice that was not like his own ; 
 with a furtive restraint in his manner which she had never no- 
 ticed in it before. 
 
 "Won't you shake hands with your husband," he asked, 
 " when your husband asks you ?" 
 
 She mechanically put her hand in his. He dropped it in- 
 stantly, with a start. " God ! how cold !" he exclaimed. His 
 own hand was burning hot, and shook incessantly. 
 
MAN AND WIFE. 487 
 
 He pointed to a chair at the head of the table. 
 
 " Will you make the tea?" he asked. 
 
 She had given him her hand mechanically ; she advanced a 
 step mechanically — and then stopped. 
 
 "Would you prefer breakfasting by yourself?" he said. 
 
 "If you please," she answered, faintly. 
 
 "Wait a minute. I have something to say before you go." 
 
 She waited. He considered with himself; consulting his 
 memory — visibly, unmistakably, consulting it before he spoke 
 1 1 again, 
 
 "I have had the night to think in," he said. "The night 
 has made a new man of me. I beg your pardon for what I 
 said yesterday. I was not myself yesterday. I talked non- 
 sense yesterday. Please to forget it, and forgive it. I wish 
 to turn over a new leaf, and make amends — make amends for 
 imy past conduct. It shall be my endeavor to be a good hus- 
 band. In the presence of Mrs. Dethridge, I request you to 
 give me a chance. I won't force your inclinations. We are 
 married — what's the use of regretting it? Stay here, as you 
 said yesterday, on your own terms. I wish to make it up. In 
 the presence of Mrs. Dethridge, I say I wish to make it up. I 
 ' won't detain you. Irequest you to thinkof it. Good-morning." 
 
 He said those extraordinary words like a slow boy saying a 
 I hard lesson — his eyes on the ground, his fingers restlessly fas- 
 .1 tening and unfastening a button on his waistcoat. 
 
 Anne left the room. In the passage she was obliged to 
 , wait, and support herself against the wall. His unnatural po- 
 liteness was horrible ; his carefully asserted repentance chilled 
 her to the soul with dread. She had never felt — in the time 
 of his fiercest anger and his foulest language — the unutterable 
 horror of him that she felt now. 
 ' Hester Dethridge came out, closing the door behind her. 
 : She looked attentively at Anne — then wrote on her slate, and 
 held it out, with these words on it: 
 
 " Do you believe him ?" 
 
 Anne pushed the slate away, and ran up stairs. She fasten- 
 ed the door, and sank into a chair. 
 
 " He is plotting something against me," she said to herself. 
 " What ?" 
 
 A sickening, physical sense of dread — entirely new in her 
 experience of herself—made her shrink from piarsuing the ques- 
 tion. The sinking at her heart turned her faint. She went to 
 get the air at the open window. 
 
 At the same moment there was a ring at the gate-bell. Sus- 
 picious of any thing and everything, she felt a sudden distrust 
 of letting herself be seen. She drew back behind the curtain 
 and looked out. 
 
488 MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 A man-servant, in livery, was let in. He had a letter in hia 
 hand. He said to the girl as he passed Anne's window, " I 
 come from Lady Holchester; I must see Mr. Delamayn in- 
 stantly." 
 
 They went in. There was an interval. The footman re-ap- 
 peared, leaving the place. There was another interval. Then 
 there came a knock at the door. Anne hesitated. The knock 
 was repeated, and the dumb murmuring of Hester Dethridge 
 was heard outside. Anne opened the door. 
 
 Hester came in with the breakfast,- She pointed to a letter, 
 among other things, on the tray. It was addressed to Anne, 
 in Geoffrey's handwriting, and it contained these words : 
 
 "My father died yesterday. Write your orders for your 
 mourning. The boy will take them. You are not to trouble 
 yourself to go to London. Somebody is to come here to you 
 from the shop." 
 
 Anne dropped the paper on her lap without looking up. 
 At the same moment Hester Dethridge's slate was passed 
 stealthily between her eyes and the note — with these words 
 traced on it. "His mother is coming to-day. His brother 
 has been telegraphed from Scotland. He was drunk last night. 
 He's drinking again. I know what that means. Look out, 
 missus — look out !" 
 
 Anne signed to her to leave the room. She went out, pull- 
 ing the door to, but not closing it behind her. 
 
 There was another ring at the gate-bell. Once moi'e Anne 
 went to the window. Only the lad this time — arriving to 
 take his orders for the day. He had barely entered the gar- 
 den when he was followed by the postman with letters. In 
 a minute more Geoffrey's voice was heard in the passage, and 
 Geoffrey's heavy step ascended the wooden stairs. Anne hur- 
 ried across the room to draw the bolts. Geoffrey met her be- 
 fore she could close the door. 
 
 "A letter for you," he said, keeping scrupulously out of the 
 room. " I don't wish to force your inclinations — I only re- 
 quest you to tell me who it's from." 
 
 His manner was as carefully subdued as ever. But the un- 
 acknowledged distrust in him (when he looked at her) betrayed 
 itself in his eye. 
 
 She glanced at the handwriting on the address. 
 
 " From Blanche," she answered. 
 
 He softly put his foot between the door and the post — and 
 waited until she had opened and read Blanche's letter. 
 
 " May I see it ?" he asked — and put in his hand for it 
 through the door. 
 
 The spirit in Anne which would once have resisted him was 
 dead in her now. She handed him the open letter. 
 
MAN AND WIFB. 489 
 
 It was very short. Excepting some brief expressions of 
 I fondness, it was studiously confined to stating the purpose for 
 wliich it had been written. Blanche proposed to visit Anne 
 !that afternoon, accompanied by her uncle; sh« sent word before- 
 1 hand, to make sure of finding Anne at home. That was all. The 
 I letter had evidently been written under Sir Patrick's advice. 
 
 Geoifrej'- handed it back, after first waiting a moment to 
 think. 
 
 "My father died yesterday," he said. "My wife can't re- 
 ceive visitors before he is buried. I don't wish to force your 
 inclinations. I only say I can't let visitors in here before the 
 funeral — except my own family. Send a note down stairs. 
 The lad will take it to your friend when he goes to London." 
 With those words, he left her. 
 
 An appeal to the proprieties of life, in the mouth of Geoffrey 
 IDelamayn, could only mean one of two things. Either he had 
 spoken in brutal mockery — or he had spoken with some ul- 
 terior object in view. Had he seized on the event of his fa- 
 thei-'s death as a pretext for isolating his wife from all com- 
 munication with the outer world '? Were there reasons, which 
 had not yet asserted themselves, for his dreading the result, 
 if he allowed Anne to communicate with her friends? 
 
 The hour wore on, and Hester Dethridge appeared again. 
 The lad was waiting for Anne's orders for her mourning, and 
 for her note to Mrs. Arnold Bi'inkworth. 
 
 Anne wrote the orders and the note. Once more the horri- 
 ble slate appeared when she had done, between the writing- 
 paper and her eyes, with the hard lines of warning pitilessly 
 traced on it. " He has locked the gate. When there's a ring 
 we are to come to him for the key. He has written to a wom- 
 an. Name outside the letter, Mrs. Glenarm. He has had more 
 brandy. Like my husband. Mind yourself." 
 
 The one way out of the high walls all round the cottage 
 locked. Friends forbidden to see her. Solitary imprisonment, 
 with her husband for a jailer. Before she had been four-and- 
 twenty hours in the cottage it had come to that. And what 
 was to follow? 
 
 She went back mechanically to the window. The sight of 
 the outer world, the occasional view of a passing vehicle, help- 
 ed to sustain her. 
 
 The lad appeared in the front garden departing to perform 
 his errand to London. Geoffrey went with him to open the 
 gate, and called after him, as he passed through it, " Don't for- 
 get the books !" 
 
 The " books ?" What " books ?" Who wanted them ? The 
 slightest thing now roused Anne's suspicion. For hours af- 
 terward the books haunted her mind. 
 
490 MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 He secured the gate and came back again. He stopped un- 
 der Anne's window and called to her. She showed herself. 
 "When you want air and exercise," he said, " the back garden 
 is at your own disposal." He put the key of the gate in his 
 pocket and returned to the house. 
 
 After some hesitation, Anne decided on taking him at his 
 word. In her state of suspense, to remain within the four 
 walls of the bedroom was unendurable. If some lurking snare 
 lay hid under the fair-sounding proposal which Geoffrey had 
 made, it was less repellent to her boldly to prove what it 
 might be than to wait pondering over it with her mind in the 
 dark. She piit on her hat and went down into the garden. 
 
 Nothing happened out of the common. Wherever he was, 
 he never showed himself She wandered up and down, keep- 
 ing on the side of the garden which was farthest from the din- 
 ing-room window. To a woman, escape from the place was 
 simply impossible. Setting out of the question the height of 
 the walls, they were armed at the top with a thick setting of 
 jagged broken glass. A small back door in the end wall (in- 
 tended probably for the gardener's use) was bolted and locked 
 — the key having been taken out. There was not a house 
 neai-. The lands of the local growers of vegetables surround- 
 ed the garden on all sides. In the nineteenth century, and in 
 the immediate neighborhood of a great metropolis, Anne was 
 as absolutely isolated from all contact with the humanity 
 around her as if she lay in her grave. 
 
 After the lapse of half an hour, the silence was broken by a 
 noise of carriage-wheels on the public road in front, and a ring 
 at the bell. Anne kept close to the cottage, at the back ; de- 
 termined, if a chance offered, on speaking to the visitor, who- 
 ever the visitor might be. 
 
 She heard voices in the dining-room through the open win- 
 dow — Geoffrey's voice and the voice of a woman. Who was 
 the woman ? Not Mrs. Glenarm, surely ? After a while the 
 visitor's voice was suddenly raised. " Where is she ?" it said, 
 " I wish to see her." Anne instantly advanced to the back- 
 door of the house, and found herself face to face with a lady 
 who was a total stranger to her. 
 
 "Are you my son's wife?" asked the lady. 
 
 " I am your son's prisoner," Anne answered. 
 
 Lady Holchester's pale face turned paler still. It was plain 
 that Anne's reply had confirmed some doubt in the mother's 
 mind which had been already suggested to it by the son. 
 
 " What do you mean ?" she asked, in a whisper. 
 
 Geoffrey's heavy footsteps crossed the dining-room. There 
 was no time to explain. Anne whispered back : 
 
 " Tell my friends what I have told you." 
 
MAN AND WIFE. 491 
 
 Geoffrey appeared at the dining-room door, 
 
 " Name one of your friends," said Lady Holchester. 
 
 "Sir Patrick Lundie." 
 
 Geoffrey heard the answer. " What about Sir Patrick Lun- 
 die?" he asked. 
 
 " I wish to see Sir Patrick Lundie," said his mother. "And 
 your wife can tell me where to find him." 
 
 Anne instantly understood that Lady Holchester would com- 
 municate with Sir Patrick. She mentioned his London address. 
 Lady Holchester turned to leave the cottage. Her son stopped 
 her. 
 
 "Let's set things straight," he said, "before you go. My 
 mother," he went on, addressing himself to Anne, " don't think 
 there's much chance for us two of living comfortably together. 
 Bear witness to the truth— will you ? What did I tell you at 
 breakfast-time? Didn't I say it should be my endeavor to 
 make you a good husband ? Didn't I say — in Mrs. Dethridge's 
 presence — I wanted to make it up ?" He waited until Anne 
 had answered in the affirmative, and then appealed to his 
 mother. " Well ? what do you think now ?" 
 
 Lady Holchester declined to reveal what she thought. " You 
 shall see me, or hear from me, this evening," she said to Anne. 
 Geoffrey attempted to repeat his unanswered question. His 
 mother looked at him. His eyes instantly dropped before hers. 
 She gravely bent her head to Anne, and drew her veil. Her 
 son followed her out in silence to the gate. 
 
 Anne returned to her room, sustained by the first sense of 
 relief which she had felt since the morning. " His mother is 
 alarmed," she said to herself. "A change will come." 
 
 A change teas to come — with the coming night. 
 
 CHAPTER THE FIFTY-FmST. 
 
 THE PROPOSAL. 
 
 Toward sunset, Lady Holchester's carriage drew up before 
 the gate of the cottage. 
 
 Three persons occupied the carriage : Lady Holchester, her 
 eldest son (now Lord Holchester), and Sir Patrick Lundie. 
 
 " Will you wait in the carriage. Sir Patrick ?" said Julius. 
 " Or will you come in ?" 
 
 " I will wait. If I can be of the least use to her, send for me 
 instantly. In the mean time, don't forget to make the stipula- 
 tion which I have suggested. It is the one certain way of 
 putting your brother's real feeling in this matter to the test." 
 
492 MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 The servant had rung the beil wiihout producing any result. 
 He rang again. Lady Holchester put a question to Sir Patrick. 
 
 "If I have an opportunity of speaking to ray son's wife 
 alone," she said, " have you any message to give ?" 
 
 Sir Patrick produced a little note. 
 
 " May I appeal to your ladyship's kindness to give her this ?" 
 The gate was opened by the servant-girl, as Lady Holchester 
 took the note. " Remember," reiterated Sir Patrick, earnestly, 
 " if I can be of the smallest service to hei- — don't think of my 
 position with Mr. Delamayn. Send for me at once." 
 
 Julius and his mother were conducted into the drawing- 
 room. The girl informed them that her master had gone up 
 stairs to lie down, and that he would be with them immediately. 
 
 Both mother and son were too anxious to speak. Julius 
 wandered uneasily about the room. Some books attracted his 
 notice on a table in the corner — four dirty, greasy volumes, 
 with a slip of paper projecting from the leaves of one of them, 
 and containing this inscription, " With Mr. Perry's respects." 
 Julius opened the volume. It was the ghastly popular record 
 of Criminal Trials in England, called the Newgate Calendar. 
 Julius showed it to his mother. 
 
 " Geoffrey's taste in literature !" he said, with a faint smile. 
 
 Lady Holchester signed to him to put the book back. 
 
 " You have seen Geoffrey's wife already — have you not ?" 
 she asked. 
 
 There was no contempt now in her tone when she referred to 
 Anne. The impression produced on her by her visit to the 
 cottage, earlier in the day, associated Geoffrey's wife with 
 family anxieties of no trivial kind. She might still (for Mrs. 
 Glenarm's sake) be a woman to be disliked — but she was no 
 longer a woman to be despised. 
 
 " I saw her when she came to Swanhaven," said Julius. " I 
 agree with Sir Patrick in thinking her a veiy interesting person." 
 
 " What did Sir Patrick say to you about Geoffrey this after- 
 noon — while I was out of the room ?" 
 
 " Only what he said to you. He thought their position 
 toward each other here a very deplorable one. He considered 
 that the reasons were serious for our interfering immediately." 
 
 "Sir Patrick's own opinion, Julius, goes further than that." 
 
 " He has not acknowledged it, tliat I know of" 
 
 " How can he acknowledge it — to us ?" 
 
 The door opened, and Geoffre}^ entered the room. 
 
 Julius eyed him closely as they shook hands. His eyes were 
 bloodshot ; his face was flushed ; his utterance was thick — the 
 look of him was the look of a man who had been drinking 
 hard. 
 
 "Well," he said to his mother, "what brings you back?" 
 
MAN AND WIFE. 493 
 
 "Julius has a proposal to make to you," Lady Holchester 
 answered. " I approve of it ; and I have come with him." 
 
 Geoffrey turned to his brother, 
 
 " What can a rich man like you want of a poor devil like 
 me ?" he asked. 
 
 " I want to do you justice, Geoffrey — if you will help me, by 
 meeting me half-way. Our mother has told you about the 
 will ?" 
 
 " I'm not down for a half-penny in the will. I expected as 
 much. Go on." 
 
 " You are wrong — you are down in it. There is liberal pro- 
 vision made for you in a codicil. Unhappily, my father died 
 without signing it. It is needless to say that I consider it bind- 
 ing on me for all that. I am ready to do for you what your 
 father would have done for you ; and I only ask for one con- 
 cession in return." 
 
 " What may that be ?" 
 
 " You are living here very unhappily, Geoffrey, with your 
 wife." 
 
 " Who says so ? I don't, for one." 
 
 Julius laid his hand kindly on his brother's arm. 
 
 "Don't trifle with such a serious matter as this," he said. 
 " Your marriage is, in every sense of the word, a misfortune — 
 not only to you but to your wife. It is impossible that you 
 can live together. I have come here to ask you to consent to 
 a separation. Do that, and the provision made for you in the 
 unsigned codicil is yours. What do you say ?" 
 
 Geoffrey shook his brother's hand off his arm. 
 
 " I say — No !" he answered. 
 
 Lady Holchester interfered for the first time. 
 
 " Your brother's generous offer deserves a better answer than 
 that," she said. 
 
 " My answer," reiterated Geoffrey, " is — No !" 
 
 He sat between them with his clenched fists resting on his 
 knees — absolutely impenetrable to any thing that either of 
 them could say. 
 
 " In your situation," said Julius, "a refusal is sheer madness. 
 I won't accept it." 
 
 " Do as you like about that. My mind's made up. I won't 
 let my wife be taken away from me. Here she stays." 
 
 The brutal tone in which he had made that reply roused Lady 
 Holchester's indignation. 
 
 " Take care !" she said. " You are not only behaving with 
 the grossest ingratitude toward your brother — you are forcing 
 a suspicion into your mother's mind. You have some motive 
 that you are hiding from us," 
 
 He turned on his mother with a sudden ferocity which made 
 
494 MAN AND WIFE, 
 
 Julius spring to his feet. The next instant his eyes were on 
 the ground, and the devil that possessed hini was quiet again. 
 
 " Some motive I'm hiding from you ?" he repeated, with his 
 head down, and his utterance thicker than ever. " I'm ready 
 to have my motive posted all over London, if you like. I'm 
 fond of her." 
 
 He looked up as he said the last words. Lady Holchester 
 turned away her head — recoiling from her own son. So over- 
 whelming was the shock inflicted on her that even the strong- 
 ly rooted prejudice which ]\Irs. Glenarm had implanted in her 
 mind yielded to it. At that moment she absolutely pitied Anne ! 
 
 " Poor creature !" said Lady Holchester. 
 
 He took instant offense at those two words. " I won't have 
 my wife pitied by any body." With that reply he dashed 
 into the passage, and called out, "Anne ! come down !" 
 
 Her soft voice answered ; her light footfall was heard on the 
 stairs. She came into the room. Julius advanced, took her 
 hand, and held it kindly in his. " We are having a little fam- 
 ily discussion," he said, trying to give her confidence. "And 
 Geoffrey is getting hot over it, as usual." 
 
 Geoffrey appealed sternly to his mother. 
 
 " Look at her !" he said. " Is she starved ? Is she in rags ? 
 Is she covered with bruises ?" He turned to Anne. " They 
 have come here to propose a separation. They both believe I 
 hate you. I don't hate you. I'm a good Christian. I owe it 
 to you that I'm cut out of my father's will. I forgive you that. 
 I owe it to you that I've lost the chance of marrying a woman 
 with ten thousand a year, I forgive you that. I'm not a man 
 who does things by halves. I said it should be my endeavor 
 to make you a good husband. I said it was my wish to make 
 it up. Well ! I am as good as my word. And what's the con- 
 sequence? I am insulted. My mother comes here, and my 
 brother comes here — and they offer me money to part from you. 
 Money be hanged ! I'll be beholden to nobody. I'll get my 
 own living. Shame on the people who interfere between man 
 and wife ! Shame ! — that's what I say — shame !" 
 
 Anne looked for an explanation from her husband to her hus- 
 band's mother. 
 
 "Have you proposed a separation between us?" she asked. 
 
 " Yes — on terms of the utmost advantage to my son ; ar- 
 ranged with every possible consideration toward you. Is there 
 any objection on your side?" 
 
 " Oh, Lady Holchester ! is it necessary to ask me ? What 
 does he say ?" 
 
 " He has refused." 
 
 " Refused !" 
 
 " Yes," said Geoffrey. " I don't go back from my word ; I 
 
MAN AND WIFE. 495 
 
 Stick to what T said this morning. It's my endeavor to make 
 you a good husband. It's my wish to make it up." He paused, 
 and then added his last leason : " I'm fond of you." 
 
 Their eyes met as he said it to her. Julius felt Anne's hand 
 suddenly tighten round his. The desperate grasp of the frail 
 cold fingers, the imploring terror in the gentle sensitive face 
 as it slowly turned his way, said to him as if in words, " Don't 
 leave me friendless to-night !" 
 
 "If you both stop here till doomsday," said Geoffrey, "you'll 
 get nothing more out of me. You have had my reply." 
 
 With that he seated himself doggedly in a corner of the room; 
 waiting — ostentatiously waiting' — for his mother and his broth- 
 er to take their leave. The position was serious. To argue 
 the matter with him that night was hopeless. To invite Sir 
 Patrick's interference would only be to provoke his savage tem- 
 per to a new outbreak. On the other hand, to leave the help- 
 less woman, after what had passed, without another effort to be- 
 friend her, was, in her situation, an act of downright inhuman- 
 ity, and nothing less. Julius took the one way out of the diffi- 
 culty that was left — the one way worthy of him as a compas- 
 sionate and an honorable man, 
 
 " We will drop it for to-night, Geoffrey," he said. " But I 
 am not the less resolved, in spite of all that you have said, to 
 return to the subject to-morrow. It would save me some in- 
 convenience — a second journey here from town, and then going 
 back again to my engagements — if I staid wuth you to-night. 
 Can you give me a bed ?" 
 
 A look flashed on him from Anne, which thanked him as no 
 words could have thanked him. 
 
 " Give you a bed ?" repeated Geoffrey. He checked himself, 
 on the point of refusing. His mother was watching him ; his 
 wife was watching him — and his wife knew that the room 
 above them was a room to spare. "All right !" he resumed in 
 another tone, with his eye on his mother. " Thei-e's an empty 
 room up stairs. Have it, if you like. You w^on't find I've 
 changed my mind to-morrow ; but that's your look-out. Stop 
 here, if the fancy takes you. I've no objection. It don't mat- 
 ter to Me. — Will you trust his lordship under my roof?" he add- 
 ed, addressing his mother. " I might have some motive that 
 I'm hiding fiom you, you know !" Without waiting for an an- 
 swer, he turned to Anne. " Go and tell old Dummy to put the 
 sheets on the bed. Say there's a live lord in the house — she's 
 to send in something devilish good for supper !" 
 
 He burst fiercely into a forced laugh. Lady Holchester 
 rose at the moment when Anne was leaving the room. 
 
 "I shall not be here when you return," she said. "Let me 
 bid you good-night." 
 
496 MAN AXD WIFE. 
 
 She shook hands with Anne — giving her Sir Patrick's note, 
 unseen, at the same moment. Anne left the room. Without 
 addressing another word to her second son, Lady Holchester 
 beckoned to Julius to give her his arm. " You have acted no- 
 bly toward your brother," she said to him. " My one comfort 
 and my one hope, Julius, are in you." They went out togeth- 
 er to the gate, Geoffrey following them with the key in his 
 hand. " Don't be too anxious," Julius whispered to his moth- 
 er. "I will keep the drink out of his way to-night, and I 
 will bring you a better account of him to-morrow. Explain 
 every thing to Sir Patrick as you go home." He handed Lady 
 Holchester into the carriage, and re-entered, leaving Geoffrey 
 to lock the gate. 
 
 The brothers returned in silence to the cottage. Julius had 
 concealed it from his mother — but he was seriously uneasy in 
 secret. Naturally prone to look at all things on their brighter 
 side, he could place no hopeful interpretation on what Geoffrey 
 had said and done that night. The conviction that he was de- 
 liberately acting a part, in his present relations with his wife, 
 for some abominable purpose of his own, had rooted itself firm- 
 ly in Julius. For the first time in his experience of his broth- 
 er, the pecuniary consideration was not the uppermost consid- 
 eration in Geoffrey's mind. 
 
 They went back into the drawing-room. 
 
 "What will you have to drink?" said Geoffrey. 
 
 " Nothing." 
 
 " You won't keep me company over a drop of brandy-and- 
 water ?" 
 
 " No. You have had enough brandy-and-water." 
 
 After a moment of frowning self-consideration in the glass, 
 Geoffrey abruptly agreed with Julius. " I look like it," he 
 said. " I'll soon put that right." He disappeared, and return- 
 ed with a wet towel tied round his head. "What will you 
 do while the women are getting your bed ready ? Liberty 
 Hall here. Pve taken to cultivating my mind — I'm a reform- 
 ed character, you know, now I'm a married mac. You do 
 what you like. I shall read." 
 
 He turned to the side-table ; and, producing the volumes of 
 the Newgate Calendar, gave one to his brother. Julius hand- 
 ed it back again. 
 
 "You won't cultivate your mind," he said, " with such a 
 book as that. Vile actions, recorded in vile English, make vile 
 reading, Geoffrey, in every sense of the word." 
 
 " It will do for me. I don't know good English when I see 
 it." 
 
 With that frank acknowledgment — to which the great ma- 
 iority of his companions at school and college might have sub* 
 
MAN AND WIFB. 497 
 
 vicribed without doing the slightest injustice to the present 
 ■otate of English education — Geoffrey drew his chair to the ta- 
 ble, and opened one of the volumes of his record of crime. 
 
 The evening newspaper was lying on the sofa. Julius took 
 it up, and seated himself opposite to his brother. He noticed, 
 with some surprise, that Geoffrey appeared to have a special 
 object in consulting his book. Instead of beginning at the 
 first page, he ran the leaves through his fingers, and turned 
 them down at certain places before he entered on his reading. 
 If Julius had looked over his brother's shoulder, instead of only 
 looking at him across the table, he would have seen that Geof^ 
 frey passed by all the lighter crimes reported in the Calendar, 
 and marked for his own private reading the cases of murder 
 only. 
 
 CHAPTER THE FIFTY-SECOND. 
 
 THE APPARITION. 
 
 The night had advanced. It was close on twelve o'clock, 
 when Anne heard the servant's voice, outside her bedroom 
 I door, asking leave to speak with her for a moment. 
 
 "What is it?" 
 
 " The gentleman down stairs wishes to see you, ma'am." 
 
 " Do you mean Mr. Delamayn's brother ?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " Where is Mr. Delamayn ?" 
 
 " Out in the garden, ma'am." 
 
 Anne went down stairs, and found Julius alone in the draw- 
 ing-room. 
 
 " I am sorry to disturb you," he said. " I am afraid Geof- 
 ! frey is ill. The landlady has gone to bed, I am told — and I 
 t don't know where to apply for medical assistance. Do you 
 know of any doctor in the neighborhood ?" 
 
 Anne, like Julius, was a perfect stranger to the neighbor- 
 hood. She suggested making inquiry of the servant. On 
 speaking to the girl, it tui-ned out that she knew of a medical 
 man, living within ten minutes' walk of the cottage. She 
 could give plain directions enabling any person to find the 
 place — but she was afraid, at that hour of the night and in that 
 lonely neighborhood, to go out by herself. 
 
 " Is he seriously ill ?" Anne asked. 
 
 "He is in such a state of nervous irritability," said Julius, 
 
 " that he can't remain still for two moments together in the 
 
 same place. It began with incessant restlessness while he was 
 
 reading here. I persuaded him to go to bed. He couldn't lie 
 
 32 
 
498 MAN^ AND WIFB. 
 
 still for an instant — he came down again, burning with fever, 
 and more restless than ever. He is out in the garden in spite 
 of every thing I could do to prevent liim ; trying, as he says, 
 to ' run it off.' It appears to be serious to me. Come and 
 judge for yourself" 
 
 He led Anne into the next room, and, opening the shutter, 
 pointed to the garden. 
 
 The clouds had cleared off; the night was fine. The clear 
 starlight showed Geoffrey, stripped to his shirt and drawers, 
 running round and round the garden. He apparently believed 
 himself to be contending at the Fulhara foot-race. At times, as 
 the white figure circled round and round in the starlight, they 
 heard him cheering for " the South." The slackening thump 
 of his feet on the ground, the heavier and heavier gasps in 
 which he drew his breath, as he passed the window, gave 
 warning that his strength was failing him. Exhaustion, if it 
 led to no worse consequences, would force him to return to the 
 house. In the state of his brain at that moment, who could 
 say what the result might be, if medical help was not called in? 
 
 " I will go for the doctor," said Julius, " if you don't mind 
 ray leaving you." 
 
 It was impossible for Anne to set any apprehensions of her 
 own against the plain necessity for summoning assistance. 
 They found the key of the gate in the pocket of Geoffrey's 
 coat up stairs. Anne went with Julius to let him out. " How 
 can I thank you !" she said, gratefully. " What should I have 
 done without you .'" 
 
 " I won't be a moment longer than I can help," he answered, 
 and left her. 
 
 She secured the gate again, and went back to the cottage. 
 The servant met her at the door, and proposed calling up Hes- 
 ter Dethridge. 
 
 " We don't know what the master may do while his broth- 
 er's away," said the girl. "And one more of us isn't one too 
 many, when we are only women in the house." 
 
 " You are quite right," said Anne. " Wake your mistress." 
 
 After ascending the stairs, they looked out into the garden, 
 through the window at the end of the passage on the upper 
 floor. He was still going round and round, but very slowly : 
 his pace was fast slackening to a walk. 
 
 Anne went back to her room, and waited near the open door 
 — ready to close and fasten it instantly if any thing occurred 
 to alarm her. " How changed I am !" she thought to herself 
 "Every thing fiightens me now." 
 
 The inference was the natural one, but not the true one. 
 The change was not in herself, but in the situation in which 
 she was placed. Her position during the investigation at Lady 
 
MAN AXD WIFE. 499 
 
 Lniidi«'s house had tried her moral courage only. It had ex- 
 acted from her one of those noble efforts of self-sacrifice which 
 the hidden forces in a woman's nature are essentially capable 
 of making. Her position at the cottage tried her physical 
 courage : it called on her to rise superior to the sense of actual 
 bodily danger — while that danger was lurking in the dark. 
 There, the woman's nature sank under the stress laid on it — 
 there, her courage could strike no root in the strength of her 
 love — there, the animal instincts were the instincts appealed 
 to ; and the firmness wanted was the firmness of a man. 
 
 Hester Dethridge's door opened. She walked straight into 
 Anne's room. 
 
 The yellow clay-cold color of her face showed a faint flush 
 of warmth ; its death-like stillness was stirred by a touch of 
 life. The stony eyes, fixed as ever in their gaze, shone strange- 
 ly with a dim inner lustre. Her gray hair, so neatly arranged 
 at other times, was in disorder under her cap. All her move- 
 ments Avere quicker than usual. Something had roused the 
 stagnant vitality in the woman — it was working in her mind ; 
 it was forcing itself outward into her face. The servants at 
 Windygates, in past times, had seen these signs, and had 
 known them for a warning to leave Hester Dethridge to her- 
 self 
 
 Anne asked her if she had heard what had happened. 
 
 She bowed her head. 
 
 " I hope you don't mind being disturbed ?'* 
 
 She wrote on her slate : "I'm glad to be disturbed. I have 
 been dreaming bad dreams. It's good for me to be wakened, 
 when sleep takes me backward in my life. What's wrong 
 with you? Frightened?" 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 She wrote again, and pointed toward the garden with one 
 hand, while she held the slate up with the other : " Frightened 
 of him .^" 
 
 "Terribly frightened." 
 
 She wrote for the third time, and offered the slate to Anne 
 with a ghastly smile : "I have been through it all. I know. 
 You're only at the beginning now. He'll put the wrinkles in 
 your face, and the gray in your hair. There will come a time 
 when you'll wish yourself dead and buried. You will live 
 through it, for all that. Look at Me." 
 
 As she read the last three words, Anne heard the garden 
 door below opened and banged to again. She caught Hester 
 Dethridge by the arm, and listened. The tramp of Geoffrey's 
 feet, staggering heavily in the passage, gave token of his ap- 
 proach to the stairs. He was talking to himself, still possess- 
 ed by the delusion that he was at the foot-race. "Five to 
 
600 MAN AND WIPE. 
 
 four on Delamayn. Delaraayn's won. Three cheers for the 
 South, and one cheer more. Devilish long race. Night al- 
 ready ! Perry ! where's Perry ?" 
 
 He advanced, staggering from side to side of the passage. 
 The stairs below creaked as he set his foot on them. Hester 
 Dethridge dragged herself free from Anne, advanced, with lier 
 candle in her hand, and threw open Geoffrey's bedroom door ; 
 returned to the head of the stairs ; and stood there, firm as a 
 rock, waiting for him. He looked up, as he set his foot on the 
 next stair, and met the view of Hester's face, brightly illumi- 
 nated by the candle, looking down at him. On the instant 
 he stopped, rooted to the place on which he stood. " Ghost ! 
 witch ! devil !" he cried out, " take your eyes off me !" He 
 shook his fist at her furiously, with an oath — sprang back into 
 the hall — and shut himself into the dining-room from the sight 
 of her. The panic which had seized him once already in the 
 kitchen-garden at Windygates, under the eyes of the dumb 
 cook, had fastened its hold on him once more. Frightened — 
 absolutely frightened — of Hester Dethridge ! 
 
 The gate-bell rang. Julius had returned with the doctor. 
 
 Anne gave the key to the girl to let them in. Hester wrote 
 on her slate, as composedly as if nothing had happened : 
 " They'll find me in the kitchen, if they want me. I sha'n't 
 go back to my bedroom. My bedroom's full of bad dreams." 
 She descended the stairs. Anne waited in the upper passage, 
 looking over into the hall below. " Your brother is in the 
 drawing-room," she called down to Julius. " The landlady is 
 in the kitchen, if you want her." She returned to her room, 
 and waited for what might happen next. 
 
 After a brief interval she heard the drawing-room door 
 open, and the voices of the men outside. There seemed to be 
 some difiiculty in persuading Geoffrey to ascend the stairs ; he 
 persisted in declaring that Hester Dethridge was waiting for 
 him at the top of them. After a little they persuaded him 
 that the way was free. Anne heard them ascend the stairs 
 and close his bedroom door. 
 
 Another and a longer interval passed before the door open- 
 ed again. The doctor was going away. He said his parting 
 words to Julius in the passage. " Look in at him from time 
 to time through the night, and give him another dose of the 
 sedative mixture if he wakes. There is nothing to be alarmed 
 about in the restlessness and the fever. They are only the 
 outward manifestations of some serious mischief hidden under 
 them. Send for the medical man who has last attended him. 
 Knowledge of the patient's constitution is very important 
 knowledge in this case." 
 
 As Julius returped from letting the doctor out, Anne met 
 
 I 
 
: MAN" AND WIFE. 501 
 
 him in the hall. She was at once struck by the worn look in 
 his face, and by the fatigue which expressed itself in all his 
 movements. 
 
 "You want rest," she said, "Pray go to your room. I 
 have heard what the doctor said to you. Leave it to the 
 landlady and to me to sit up." 
 
 Julius owned that he had been traveling from Scotland dur- 
 ing the previous night. But he was unwilling to abandon the 
 responsibility of watching his brother. " You are not strong 
 enough, I am sure, to take my place," he said, kindly. "And 
 Geoffrey has some unreasoning horror of the landlady, which 
 makes it very undesirable that he should see her again, in his 
 present state. I will go up to my room, and rest on the bed. 
 If you hear any thing, you have only to come and call me." 
 
 An hour more passed. 
 
 Anne went to Geoffrey's door and listened. He was stirring 
 in his bed, and muttering to himself She went on to the door 
 of the next room, which Julius had left partly open. Fatigue 
 had overpowered him; she heard, within, the quiet breathing 
 of a man in a sound sleep. Anne turned back again, resolved 
 not to disturb him. 
 
 At the head of the stairs she hesitated — not knowing what 
 to do. Her horror of entering Geoffrey's room by herself 
 was insurmountable. But who else was to do it ? The girl 
 had gone to bed. The reason which Julius had given for not 
 employing the assistance of Hester Dethridge was unanswer- 
 able. She listened again at Geoffrey's door. No sound was 
 now audible in the room to a person in the passage outside. 
 Would it be well to look in, and make sure that he had only 
 fallen asleep again ? She hesitated once more — she was still 
 hesitating, when Hester Dethridge appeared from the kitchen. 
 
 She joined Anne at the top of the stairs — looked at her — 
 and wrote a line on her slate: "Frightened to go in? Leave 
 it to Me." 
 
 The silence in the room justified the inference that he was 
 asleep. If Hester looked in, Hester could do no harm now. 
 Anne accepted the proposal. 
 
 " If you find any thing wrong," she said, " don't disturb his 
 brother. Come to me first." 
 
 With that caution she withdrew. It was then nearly two 
 in the morning. She, like Julius, was sinking from fatigue. 
 After waiting a little, and hearing nothing, she threw herself 
 on the sofa in her room. If any thing happened, a knock at 
 the door would rouse her instantly. 
 
 In the mean while Hester Dethridge opened Geoffrey's bed 
 room door and wept in, 
 
602 MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 The movements and the rautterings which Anne had heard, 
 had been movements and mutterings in his sleep. The doc- 
 tor's comjiosing draught, partially disturbed in its operation 
 for the moment only, had recovered its sedative influence on 
 his brain. Geofi"rey was in a deep and quiet sleep. 
 
 Hester stood near the door, looking at him. She moved to 
 go out again — stopped — and fixed her eyes suddenly on one 
 of the inner corners of the room. 
 
 The same sinister change which had passed over her once 
 already in Geoffrey's presence, when they met in the kitchen- 
 garden at Windygates, now passed over her again. Her closed 
 lips dropped apart. Her eyes slowly dilated — moved, inch by 
 inch from the corner, following something along the empty 
 wall, in the direction of the bed — stopped at the head of the 
 bed, exactly above Geoffrey's sleeping face — stared, rigid and 
 glittering, as if they saw a sight of horror close over it. He 
 sighed faintly in his sleep. The sound, slight as it was, broke 
 the spell that held her. She slowly lifted her withered hands, 
 and wrung them above her head ; fled back across the passage ; 
 and, rushing into her room, sank on her knees at the bedside. 
 
 Now, in the dead of night, a strange thing happened. Now, 
 in the silence and the darkness, a hideous secret was revealed. 
 
 In the sanctuary of her own room — with all the other in- 
 mates of the house sleeping round her — the dumb woman 
 threw off the mysterious and terrible disguise under which 
 she deliberately isolated herself among her fellow-creatures in 
 the hours of the day. Hester Dethridge spoke. In low, thick, 
 smothered accents — in a wild litany of her own — she prayed. 
 She called upon the mercy of God for deliverance from her- 
 self; for a deliverance from the possession of the Devil ; for 
 blindness to fall on her, for death to strike her, so that she 
 might never see that unnamed Horror more ! Sobs shook the 
 whole frame of the stony woman, whom nothing human moved 
 at other times. Tears poured over those clay-cold cheeks. 
 One by one the frantic words of her prayer died away on her 
 lips. Fierce shuddering fits shook her from head to foot. 
 Slae started up from her knees in the darkness. Light ! light ! 
 light ! The unnamed Horror was behind her in his room. 
 The unnamed Horror was looking at her through his open 
 door. She found the match-box, and lit the candle on her 
 table — lit the two other candles set for ornament only on the 
 mantel-piece — and looked all round the brightly-lighted little 
 room. ''Aha!" she said to herself, wiping the cold sweat of 
 her agony from her face. " Candles to other people. God's 
 light to me. Nothing to be seen I nothing to be seen !" Tak- 
 ing one of the candles in her hand, she crossed the passage, 
 with her head down, turned her back on Geoffrey's open door. 
 
MAN AND WIFE. 603 
 
 closed it quickly and softly, stretching out her hand behind 
 her, and retreated again to her own room. She lastened the 
 door, and took an ink-bottle and a pen from the mantel-piece. 
 After considering for a moment, she hung a handkerchief over 
 the key-hole, and laid an old shawl longways at the bottom of 
 the door, so as to hide the light in her room from the observa- 
 tion of any one in the house who might wake and come that 
 way. This done, she opened the upper part of her dress, and, 
 slipping her lingers into a secret pocket hidden in the inner 
 side of her stays, produced from it some neatly folded leaves 
 of thin paper. Spread out on the table, the leaves revealed 
 themselves— all but the last — as closely covered with writing, 
 in her own hand. 
 
 The first leaf was headed by this inscription : " My Confes- 
 sion. To be put into my coffin, and to be buried with me when 
 I die." 
 
 She turned the manuscript over, so as to get at the last page. 
 The greater part of it was left blank. A few lines of writing, 
 at the top, bore the date of the day of the week and month 
 on which Lady Lundie had dismissed her from her situation 
 at Windygates. The entry was expressed in these terms : 
 
 " I have seen it again to-day. The first time for two months 
 past. In the kitchen-garden. Standing behind the young 
 gentleman whose name is Delamayn. Resist the Devil, and 
 he will flee from you. I have resisted. By prayer. By med- 
 itation in solitude. By reading good books. I have left my 
 place. I have lost sight of the young gentleman for good. 
 Who will IT stand behind ? and point to next ? Lord have 
 mercy upon me ! Christ have mercy upon me !" 
 
 Under this she now added the following lines, first carefully 
 prefixing the date : 
 
 " I have seen it again to-night. I notice one awful change. 
 It has appeared twice behind the same person. This has never 
 happened before. This makes the temptation more terrible 
 than ever. To-night, in his bedroom, between the bed-head 
 and the wall, I have seen it behind young Mr. Delamayn again. 
 The head just above his face, and the finger pointing downward 
 at his throat. Twice behind this one man. And never twice 
 behind any other living creature till now. If I see it a third 
 time behind him — Lord deliver me ! Christ deliver me ! I 
 daren't think of it. He shall leave my cottage to-morrow. I 
 would fain have drawn back from the bargain, when the 
 stranger took the lodgings for his friend, and the friend proved 
 to be Mr. Delamayn. I didn't like it, even then. After the 
 warning to-night, my mind is made up. He shall go. He may 
 have his money back, if he likes. He shall go. (Memorandum: 
 Felt the temptation whispering this time, and the terror tear- 
 
504 MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 ing at me all the while, as I have never felt them yel. Re- 
 sisted, as before, by prayer. Am now going down stairs to 
 meditate against it in solitude — to fortify myself against it by 
 good books. Lord be merciful to me a sinner !)" 
 
 In those words she closed the entry, and put the manuscript 
 back in the secret pocket in her stays. 
 
 She went down to the little room looking on the garden, 
 which had once been her brother's study. There she lit a 
 lamp, and took some books from a shelf that hung against the 
 wall. The books were the Bible, a volume of Methodist ser- 
 mons, and a set of collected Memoirs of Methodist saints. 
 Ranging these last carefully round her, in an order of her own, 
 Hester Dethridge sat down with the Bible on her lap to watch 
 out the night. 
 
 CHAPTER THE FIFTY-THIRD. 
 
 What had happened in the hours of darkness ? 
 
 This was Anne's first thought, when the sunlight poured in 
 at her window, and woke her the next morning. 
 
 She made immediate inquiry of the servant. The girl could 
 only speak for herself Nothing had occurred to disturb her 
 after she had gone to bed. Her master was still, she believed, 
 in his room. Mrs. Dethridge was at her work in the kitchen. 
 
 Anne went to the kitchen. Hester Dethridge was at her usual 
 occupation at that time — preparing the breakfast. The slight 
 signs of animation which Anne had noticed in her when they 
 last met appeared no more. The dull look was back again in 
 her stony eyes ; the lifeless torpor possessed all her movements. 
 Asked if any thing had happened in the night, she slowly shook 
 her stolid head, slowly made the sign with her hand which sig- 
 fied, " Nothing." 
 
 Leaving the kitchen, Anne saw Julius in the front garden. 
 She went out and joined him. 
 
 "I believe I have to thank your consideration for me for 
 some hours of rest," he said. " It was five in the morning when 
 I woke. I hope you had no reason to regret having left me to 
 sleep ? I went into Geoftrey's room, and found him stirring. 
 A second dose of the mixture composed him again. The fever 
 has gone. He looks weaker and paler, but in other respects 
 like himself We will retui-n directly to the question of his 
 health. I have something to say to you, first, about a change 
 which may be coming in your life here." 
 
 " Has he consented to the separation ?" 
 
 ** No. He is as obstinate about it as ever. I have placed 
 
MAN AND WIFE. 605 
 
 the matter before him in every possible light. He still refuses, 
 positively refuses, a provision which would make him an inde- 
 pendent man for life." 
 
 " Is it the provision he might have had, Lord Holchester, 
 if_?" 
 
 " If he had married Mrs. Glenarm ? No. It is impossible, 
 consistently with my duty to my mother, and with what I owe 
 to the position in which my father's death has placed me, that 
 I can ofler him such a fortune as Mrs. Glenarm's. Still, it is a 
 handsome income which he is mad enough to refuse. I shall 
 persist in pressing it on him. He must and shall take it." 
 
 Anne felt no reviving hope roused in her by his last words. 
 She turned to another subject. 
 
 " You had something to tell me," she said. " You spoke of 
 a change." 
 
 *' True. The landlady here is a very strange person ; and 
 she has done a very strange thing. She has given Geoffrey 
 notice to quit these lodgings." 
 
 " Notice to quit ?" Anne repeated, in amazement. 
 
 " Yes. In a formal letter. She handed it to me open, as 
 soon as I was up this morning. It was impossible to get any 
 explanation from her. The poor dumb creature simply wrote 
 on her slate : ' Pie may have his money back, if he likes : he 
 shall go !' Greatly to my surprise (for the woman inspires him 
 with the strongest aversion) Geoffrey refuses to go until his 
 term is up. I have made the peace between them for to-day. 
 Mrs. Dethridge, very reluctantly, consents to give him four-and- 
 twenty hours. And there the matter rests at present." 
 
 " What can her motive be ?" said Anne. 
 
 " It's useless to inquire. Her mind is evidently off its bal- 
 ance. One thing is clear, Geoffrey can not keep you here much 
 longer. The coming change will remove you from this dismal 
 place — which is one thing gained. And it is quite possible that 
 new scenes and new surroundings may have their influence on 
 Geoffrey for good. His conduct — otherwise quite incompre- 
 hensible — may be the result of some latent nervous irritation 
 which medical help might reach. I don't attempt to disguise 
 from myself or from you, that your position here is a most de- 
 plorable one. But befoi'e we despair of the future, let us at 
 least inquire whether there is any explanation of my brother's 
 present behavior to be found in the present state of my broth- 
 er's health. I have been considering what the doctor said to 
 me last night. The first thing to do is to get the best medical 
 advice on Geoffrey's case which is to be had. What do you 
 think?" 
 
 " I daren't tell you what I think. Lord Holchester, I will 
 try — it is a very small return to make for your kindness — I will 
 
506 MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 try to see my position with your eyes, not with mine. The 
 best medical advice that you can obtain is the advice of Mr. 
 Speedwell. It was he who first made the discovery tliat your 
 brother was in broken health." 
 
 "The very man for our purpose! I will send him here to- 
 day or to-morrow. Is there any thing else I can do for you ? 
 I shall see Sir Patrick as soon as I get to town. Have you any 
 message for him ?" 
 
 Anne hesitated. Looking attentively at her, Julius noticed 
 that she changed color when he mentioned Sir Patrick's name. 
 
 " Will you say that I gratefully thank him for the letter 
 which Lady Holchester was so good as to give me last night," 
 she replied. " And will you entreat him, from me, not to ex- 
 pose himself, on my account, to — " she hesitated, and finished 
 the sentence with her eyes on the ground — " to what might 
 happen, if he came here and insisted on seeing me." 
 
 " Does he propose to do that ?" 
 
 She hesitated again. The little nervous contraction of her 
 lips at one side of the mouth became more marked than usual. 
 " He writes that his anxiety is unendurable, and that he is re- 
 solved to see me," she answered, softly. 
 
 " He is likely to hold to his resolution, I think," said Julius. 
 " When I saw him yesterday. Sir Patrick spoke of you in tej-ms 
 of admiration — " 
 
 He stopped. The bright tears were glittering on Anne's eye- 
 lashes; one of her hands was toying nervously with something 
 hidden (possibly Sir Patrick's letter) in the bosom of her dress. 
 "I thank him with my whole heart," she said, in low, faltering- 
 tones. " But it is best that he should not come here." 
 
 " Would you like to write to him ?" 
 
 " I think I should prefer your giving him my message." 
 
 Julius understood that the subject was to proceed no fur- 
 ther. Sir Patrick's letter had produced some impression on 
 her, which the sensitive nature of the woman seemed to shrink 
 from acknowledging, even to herself. They turned back to en- 
 ter the cottage. At the iioor they were met by a surprise. 
 Hester Dethridge, with her bonnet on — dressed, at that hour 
 of the morning to go out ! 
 
 "Are you going to market already ?" Anne asked. 
 
 Hester shook her head. 
 
 " When are you coming back ?" 
 
 Hester wrote on her slate : " Not till the night-time." 
 
 Without another word of explanation she pulled her veil 
 down over her face, and made for the gate. The key had been 
 left in the dining-room by Julius, after he had let the doctor 
 out. Hester had it in her hand. She opened the gate, and 
 closed the door after her, leaving the key in the lock. At the 
 
MAN AND WIFE. 507 
 
 moment when the door banged to Geoffrey appeared in the 
 passage. 
 
 " Where's the key ?" he asked. " Who's gone out ?" 
 
 His brother answered the question. He looked backward and 
 forward suspiciously between Julius and Anne, " What does 
 she go out for at this time ?" he said. " Has she left the house 
 to avoid Me ?" 
 
 Julius thought this the likely explanation. Geoffrey went 
 down sulkily to the gate to lock it, and returned to them, with 
 the key in his pocket. 
 
 " I'm obliged to be careful of the gate," he said. " The neigh- 
 borhood swarms with beggars and tramps. If you want to go 
 out," he added, turning pointedly to Anne, " I'm at your serv- 
 ice, as a good husband ought to be." 
 
 After a hurried breakfast Julius took his departure. " I don't 
 accept your refusal," he said to his brother, before Anne. " You 
 will see me here again." Geoffrey obstinately repeated the re- 
 fusal. " If you come here every day of your life," he said, " it 
 will be just the same." 
 
 The gate closed on Julius. Anne returned again to the soli- 
 tude of her own chamber. Geoffrey entered the drawing-room, 
 placed the volumes of the Newgate Calendar on the table be- 
 fore him, and resumed the reading which he had been unable 
 to continue on the evening before. 
 
 Hour after hour he doggedly plodded through one case of 
 murder after another. He had read one good half of the hor- 
 rid chronicle of crime before his power of fixing his attention 
 began to fail him. Then he lit his pipe, and went out to think 
 over it in the garden. However the atrocities of which he had 
 been reading might differ in other respects, there was one terri- 
 ble point of resemblance, which he had not anticipated, and in 
 which every one of the cases agreed. Sooner or later, there 
 was the dead body always certain to be found ; always bear- 
 ing its dumb witness, in the traces of poison or in the marks of 
 violence, to the crime committed on it. 
 
 He walked to and fro slowly, still pondering over the prob- 
 lem which had first found its way into his mind when he had 
 stopped in the front garden, and had looked up at Anne's win- 
 dow in the dark. " How ?" That had been the one question 
 before him, from the time when the lawyer had annihilated his 
 hopes of a divorce. It remained the one question still. There 
 was no answer to it in his own brain ; there was no answer to 
 it in the book which he had been consulting. Every thing was 
 in his favor, if he could only find out " how." He had got his 
 hated wife up stairs at his mercy — thanks to his refusal of the 
 money which Julius had offered to him. He was living in a 
 place absolutely secluded from public observation on all sides 
 
508 MAN AND WIPE. 
 
 of it — thanks to his resolution to remain at the cottage even 
 after his landlady had insulted him by sending him a notice to 
 quit. Every thing had been prepared, every thing had been 
 sacrificed to the fulfillment of one purpose — and how to attain 
 that purpose was still the same impenetrable mystery to him 
 which it had been from the first ! 
 
 What was the other alternative ? To accept the proposal 
 which Julius had made. In other words, to give up his ven- 
 geance on Anne, and to turn his back on the splendid future 
 which Mrs. Glenarm's devotion still offered to him. 
 
 Never ! He would go back to the books. He was not at 
 the end of them. The slightest hint in the pages which were 
 still to be read might set his sluggish brain working in the 
 right direction. The way to be rid of her, without exciting 
 the suspicion of any living creature, in the house or out of it, 
 was a way that might be found yet. 
 
 Could a man, in his position of life, reason in this brutal man- 
 ner ? could he act in this merciless way ? Surely the thought 
 of what he was about to do must have troubled him this time ! 
 
 Pause for a moment — and look back at him in the past. 
 
 Did he feel any remorse when he was plotting the betrayal 
 of Arnold in the garden at Windygates? The sense which 
 feels remorse had not been put into him. What he is now is 
 the legitimate consequence of what he was then. A far more 
 serious temptation is now urging him to commit a far more 
 serious crime. How is he to resist ? W^ill his skill in rowing 
 (as Sir Patrick once put it), his swiftness in running, his ad- 
 mirable capacity and endurance in other physical exercises, 
 help him to win a purely moral victory over his own selfish- 
 ness and his ow^n cruelty ? No ! The moral and mental neg- 
 lect of himself, which the material tone of public feeling about 
 him has tacitly encouraged, has left him at the mercy of the 
 worst instincts in his nature — of all that is most vile and of all 
 that is most dangerous in the composition of the natural man. 
 With the mass of his fellows, no harm out of the common has 
 come of this, because no temptation out of the common has 
 passed their way. But with Am, the case is reversed. A 
 temptation out of the common has passed his way. How does 
 it find him prepared to meet it? It finds him, literally and 
 exactly, what his training has left him, in the presence of any 
 temptation small or great — a defenseless man. 
 
 Geoffrey returned to the cottage. The servant stopped him 
 in the passage, to ask at what time he wished to dine. In- 
 stead of answering, he inquired angrily for Mrs. Dethridge. 
 Mrs. Dethridffe had not come back. 
 
MAX AND WIFE. 509 
 
 It was now late in the afternoon, and she had been out since 
 the early morning. This had never happened before. Vague 
 suspicions of her, one more monstrous than another, began to 
 rise in Geoifrey's mind. Between the drink and the fever, he 
 had been (as Julius had told him) wandering in his mind dur- 
 ing a part of the night. Had he let any thing out in that con- 
 dition ? Had Hester heard it ? And was it, by any chance, 
 at the bottom of her long absence and her notice to quit ? He 
 determined — without letting her see that he suspected her — 
 to clear up that doubt as soon as his landlady returned to the 
 house. 
 
 The evening came. It was past nine o'clock before there 
 was a ring at the bell. The servant came to ask for the key. 
 GeofiVey rose to go to the gate himself — and changed his mind 
 before he left the room. Her suspicions might be roused (sup- 
 posing it to be Hester who was waiting for admission) if he 
 opened the gate to her when the servant was there to do it. 
 He gave the girl the key, and kept out of sight. 
 
 " Dead tired !" — the servant said to herself, seeing her mis- 
 tress by the light of the lamp over the gate. 
 
 " Dead tired !" — Geoffrey said to himself, observing Hester 
 suspiciously as she passed him in the passage on her w^ay up 
 stairs to take off her bonnet in her own room. 
 
 " Dead tired !" — ^Anne said to herself, meeting Hester on the 
 upper floor, and receiving from her a letter in Blanche's hand- 
 writing, delivered to the mistress of the cottage by the post- 
 man, who had met her at her own gate. 
 
 Having given the letter to Anne, Hester Dethridge with- 
 drew to her bedroom. 
 
 Geoffrey closed the door of the drawing-room, in which the 
 candles were burning, and went into the dining-room, in which 
 there was no light. Leaving the door ajar, he waited to inter- 
 cept his landlady on her way back to her supper in the kitchen. 
 
 Hester wearily secured her door, wearily lit the candles, 
 wearily put the pen and ink on the table. For some minutes 
 after this she was compelled to sit down, and rally her strength 
 and fetch her breath. After a little she was able to remove 
 her upper clothing. This done, she took the manuscript, in- 
 scribed, "My Confession," out of the secret pocket of her stays 
 — turned to the last leaf as before — and wrote another entry, 
 under the entry made on the previous night. 
 
 "This morning I gave him notice to quit, and offered him 
 his money back if he wanted it. He refuses to go. He shall 
 go to-morrow, or I will burn the place over his head. All 
 through to-day I have avoided him by keeping out of the 
 
510 MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 house. No rest to ease my mind, and no sleep to close my 
 eyes. I humbly bear my cross as long as my strength will 
 le* me." 
 
 At those words the pen dropped from her fingers. Her head 
 nodded on her breast. She roused herself with a start. Sleep 
 was the enemy she dreaded : sleep brought dreams. 
 
 She unfastened the window-shutters and looked out at the 
 night. The peaceful moonlight was shining over the garden. 
 The clear depths of the night sky were soothing and beautiful 
 to look at. What ! Fading already ? clouds ? darkness ? No ! 
 Nearly asleep once more. She roused herself again, w^ith a 
 start. There was the moonlight, and there was the garden as 
 bright under it as ever. 
 
 Dreams or no dreams, it was useless to fight longer against 
 the weariness that overpowered her. She closed the shutters, 
 and w^ent back to the bed ; and put her Confession in its cus- 
 tomary place at night, under her pillow. 
 
 She looked round the room — and shuddered. Every corner 
 of it was filled with the terrible memories of the past night. 
 She might wake from the torture of the dreams to find the ter- 
 ror of the Apparition watching at her bedside. Was there no 
 remedy ? no blessed safeguard under which she might tranquil- 
 ly resign herself to sleep? A thought crossed her mind. The 
 good book — the Bible. If she slept with the Bible under her 
 pillow, there was hope in the good book — the hope of sleeping 
 in peace. 
 
 It was not worth while to put on the gown and the stays 
 whicli she had taken ofi". Her shawl would cover her. It was 
 equally needless to take the candle. The lower shutters would 
 not be closed at that hour ; and if they were, she could lay 
 her hand on the Bible, in its place on the parlor book-shelf, 
 in the dark. 
 
 She removed the Confession from under the pillow. Not 
 even for a minute could she prevail on herself to leave it in 
 one room while she was away from it in another. With the 
 manuscript folded up, and hidden in her hand, she slowly de- 
 scended the stairs again. Her knees trembled under her. She 
 was obliged to hold by the banisters with the hand that was 
 free. 
 
 Geoffrey observed her from the dining-room, on her way 
 down the stairs. He waited to see what she did, before he 
 showed himself, and spoke to her. Instead of going on into the 
 kitchen, she stopped short, and entered the parlor. Another 
 suspicious circumstance ! What did she want in the parlor, 
 without a candle, at that time of night? 
 
 She went to the book-case — her dark figure plainly visible 
 in the moonlight that flooded the little room. She statrgered 
 
MAN AND WIFE. 511 
 
 and put her hand to her head ; giddy, to all appearance, from 
 extreme fatigue. She recovered herself, and took a book from 
 the shelf She leaned against the wall after she had possessed 
 herself of the book — too weary, as it seemed, to get up stairs 
 again without a little rest. Her arm-chair was near her. Bet- 
 ter rest, for a moment or two, to be had in that than could be 
 got by leaning against the wall. She sat down heavily in the 
 chair, with the book on her lap. One of her arms hung over 
 the arm of the chair, with the hand closed, apparently holding 
 something. 
 
 He hea^ nodded on her breast — recovered itself — and sank 
 gently on the cushion at the back of the chair. Asleep? Fast 
 asleep. 
 
 In less than a minute the muscles of the closed hand that 
 hung over the arm of the chair slowly relaxed. Something 
 white slipped out of her hand, and lay in the moonlight on the 
 floor. 
 
 Geofii-ey took off his heavy shoes, and entered the room 
 noiselessly in his stockings. He picked up the white thing on 
 the floor. It proved to be a collection of several sheets of 
 thin paper, neatly folded together, and closely covered with 
 writing. 
 
 Writing ? As long as she was awake she had kept it hidden 
 in her hand. Why hide it ? 
 
 Had he let out any thing to compromise himself when he 
 was light-headed with the fever the night before ? and had she 
 taken it down in writing to produce against him ? Possessed 
 by guilty distrust, even that monstrous doubt assumed a look 
 of probability to Geoffrey's mind. He left the parlor as noise- 
 lessly as he had entered it, and made for the candle-light in the 
 drawing-room, determined to examine the manuscript in his 
 hand. 
 
 After carefully smoothing out the folded leaves on the table, 
 he turned to the first page, and read these lines. 
 
 CHAPTER THE FIFTY-FOURTH. 
 
 THE MANUSCRIPT. 
 1. 
 
 " My Confession : To be put into my cofiin ; and to be buried 
 with me when I die. 
 
 " This is the history of what I did in the time of my married 
 life. Here — known to no other mortal creature, confessed to 
 my Creator alone — is the truth. 
 
512 MAN" AND WIFE. 
 
 "At the great day of the Resurrection, we shall all vise 
 again in our bodies as we have lived. When I am called be- 
 fore the Judgment Seat I shall have this in my hand. 
 
 " Oh, just and merciful Judge, Thou knowest what I have 
 suflfered. My trust is in Thee. 
 
 2. 
 
 " I am the eldest of a large family, bom of pious parents. 
 We belonged to the congregation of the Primitive Method- 
 ists. 
 
 "My sisters were all married before me. I remained for 
 some years the only one at home. At the latter part of the 
 time my mother's health failed ; and I managed the house in 
 her place. Our spiritual pastor, good Mr. Bapchild, used often 
 to dine with us, on Sundays, between the services. He ap- 
 proved of my management of the hou5?6, and, in particular, of 
 my cooking. This was not pleasant to my mother, who felt a 
 jealousy of my being, as it were, set over her in her place. 
 My unhappiness at home began in this way. My mother's 
 temper got worse as her health got worse. My father was 
 much away from us, traveling for his business. I had to bear 
 it all. About this time I began to think it would be well for 
 me if I could marry as my sisters had done ; and have good 
 Mr. Bapchild to dinner, between the services, in a house of 
 my own. 
 
 " In this frame of mind, I made acquaintance with a young 
 man who attended service at our chapel. 
 
 " His name was Joel Dethridge. He had a beautiful voice. 
 When we sang hymns, he sang off the same book with me. By 
 trade he was a paper-hanger. We had much serious talk to- 
 gether, I walked with him on Sundays. He was a good ten 
 years younger than I was ; and, being only a journeyman, his 
 worldly station was below mine. My mother found out the 
 liking that had grown up between us. She told my father the 
 next time he was at home. Also my married sisters and my 
 brothers. They all joined together to stop things from going 
 further between me and Joel Dethridge. I had a hai-d time of 
 it. Ml*. Bapchild expressed himself as feeling much grieved 
 at the turn things were taking. He introduced me into a ser- 
 mon — not by name, but I knew who it was meant for. Per- 
 haps I might have given way if they had not done one thing. 
 They made inquiries of my young man's enemies, and brought 
 wicked stories of him to me behind his back. This, after we 
 had sung off the same hymn-book, and walked together, and 
 agreed one with the other on religious subjects, was too much 
 to bear. I was of age to judge for myself. And I married 
 Joel Dethridge. 
 
MAN AND WIFB, 513 
 
 "My relations all turned their backs on me. Not one of 
 them was present at my marriage ; my brother Reuben, in par- 
 ticular, who led the rest, saying that they had done with me 
 from that time forth. Mr. Bapchild was much moved ; he 
 shed tears, and said he would pray for me. 
 
 " I was married in London by a pastor who was a stranger ; 
 and we settled in London with fair prospects. I had a little 
 fortune of my own — my share of some money left to us girls 
 by our aunt Hester, whom I was named after. It was three hun- 
 dred pounds. Nearly one hundred of this I spent in buying 
 furniture to fit up the little house we took to live in. The rest 
 I gave to my husband to put into the bank against the time 
 when he wanted it to set up in business for himself 
 
 " For three months, uiore or less, we got on nicely — except 
 in one particular. My husband never stirred in the matter 
 of starting in business for himself. 
 
 " He was once or twice cross with me when I said it seemed 
 a pity to be spending the money in the bank (which might be 
 afterward wanted) instead of earning more in business. Good 
 Mr. Bapchild, happening about this time to be in London, staid 
 over Sunday, and came to dine with us between the services. 
 He had tried to make my peace with my relations — but he had 
 not succeeded. At my request he spoke to my husband about 
 the necessity of exerting himself My husband took it ill. I 
 then saw him seriously out of temper for the first time. Good 
 Mr. Bapchild said no more. He appeared to be alarmed at 
 what had happened, and he took his leave early. 
 
 " Shortly afterward my husband went out. I got tea ready 
 for him — but he never came back. I got supper ready for him 
 — but he never came back. It was past twelve at night be- 
 fore I saw him again. I was very much startled by the state 
 he came home in. He didn't speak like himself, or look like 
 himself: he didn't seem to know me — wandered in his mind, 
 and fell all in a lump like on our bed. I ran out and fetched 
 the doctor to him. 
 
 " The doctor pulled him up to the light, and looked at him ; 
 smelled his breath, and dropped him down again on the bed ; 
 turned about, and stared at me. ' What's the matter, sir ?' I 
 says. ' Do you mean to tell me you don't know ?' says the 
 doctoi". ' No, sir,' says I. ' Why what sort of a woman are 
 you,' says he, ' not to know a drunken man when you see him !' 
 With that he went away, and left me standing by the bedside, 
 all in a tremble from head to foot. 
 
 " This was how I first found out that I was the wife of a 
 drunken man. 
 
 33 
 
514 MAN A2iD WIPE. 
 
 4. 
 
 " I have omitted to say any thing about my husband's family, 
 
 " While we were keeping company together he told me he 
 was an orphan — with an uncle and aunt in Canada, and an 
 only brother settled in Scotland. Before we were married he 
 gave me a letter from this brother. It was to say that he was 
 sorry he was not able to come to England, and be present at 
 my marriage, and to wish me joy and the rest of it. Good 
 Mr. Bapchild (to whom, in my distress, I wrote word privately 
 of what had happened) wrote back in return, telling me to wait 
 a little, and see whether my husband did it again. 
 
 " I had not long to wait. He was in liquor again the next 
 day, and the next. Hearing this, Mr. Bapchild instructed me 
 to send him the letter from my husband's brother. He re- 
 minded me of some of the stories about my husband, which I 
 had refused to believe in the time before I was married ; and 
 he said it might be well to make inquiries. 
 
 " The end of the inquiries was this : The brother, at that 
 very time, was placed privately (by his own request) under a 
 doctor's care to get broken of habits of drinking. The craving 
 for strong liquor (the doctor wrote) was in the family. They 
 would be sober sometimes for months together, drinking noth- 
 ing stronger than tea. Then the fit would seize them ; and 
 they would drink, drink, drink, for days together, like the mad 
 and miserable wretches that they were. 
 
 "This was the husband I was married to. And I had of- 
 fended all my relations, and estranged them from me, for his 
 sake. Here was surely a sad prospect for a woman after only 
 a few months of wedded life ! 
 
 " In a year's time the money in the bank was gone, and my 
 husband was out of employment. He always got work — be- 
 ing a first-rate hand when he was sober — and always lost it 
 again when the drinking-tit seized him. I was loath to leave 
 our nice little house, and part with my pretty furniture ; and I 
 proposed to him to let me try for employment, by the day, as 
 cook, and so keep things going while he was looking out again 
 for work. He was sober and penitent at the time ; and he 
 agreed to what I proposed. And, more than that, he took the 
 Total Abstinence Pledge, and promised to turn over a new 
 leaf. Matters, as I thought, began to look fairly again. We 
 had nobody but our two selves to think of. I had borne no 
 child, and had no prospect of bearing one. Unlike most wom- 
 en, I thought this a mercy instead of a misfortune. In my 
 situation (as I soon grew to know) my becoming a mother 
 would only have proved to be an aggravation of my hard lot. 
 \ "The sort of employment I wanted was not to be got in fc 
 
MAN AND WIPE. 516 
 
 Iday. Good Mr, Bapchild gave me a character ; and our land- 
 lord, a worthy man (belonging, I am sorry to say, to the Pop- 
 ish Church), spoke for me to the steward of a club. Still, it 
 took time to persuade people that I was the thorough good 
 cook I claimed to be. Nigh on a fortnight had passed before 
 I got tlie chance I had been looking out for. I went home in 
 good spirits (for me) to report what had happened, and found 
 the brokers in the house carrying off the fnruiture which I had 
 bought with my own money for sale by auction. I asked 
 them how they dared touch it without my leave. They an- 
 swered, civilly enough I must own, that they were acting un- 
 der my husband's orders ; and they went on removing it, be- 
 fore my own eyes, to the cart outside. I ran up stairs, and 
 found my husband on the landing. He was in liquor again. 
 It is useless to say what passed between us. I shall only men- 
 tion that this was the first occasion on which he lifted his fist 
 and struck me. 
 
 5. 
 
 "Having a spirit of my own, I was resolved not to endure 
 dt. I ran out to the Police Court, hard by. 
 j "My money had not only bought the furniture — it had kept 
 the house going as well; paying the taxes which the Queen 
 and the Parliament asked for among other things. I now 
 went to the magistrate to see what the Queen and the Parlia- 
 ment, in return for the taxes, would do for me. 
 
 " ' Is your furniture settled on yourself?' he says, when I told 
 him what had happened. 
 
 " I didn't understand what he meant. He turned to some 
 person who was sitting on the bench with him. 'This is a 
 hard case,' he says. ' Poor people in this condition of life 
 idon't even know what a marriage settlement means. And, if 
 they did, how many of them could afford to pay the lawyer's 
 charges '?' Upon that he turned to me. ' Yours is a common 
 case,' he said. ' In the present state of the law I can do noth- 
 ing for you.' 
 
 " It was impossible to believe that. Common or not, I put 
 any case to him over again. 
 
 " ' I have bought the furniture with my own money, sir,' I 
 says. ' It's mine, honestly come by, with bill and receipt to 
 prove it. They are taking it away from me by force, to sell it 
 against my will. Don't tell me that's the law. This a Chris- 
 tian country. It can't be." 
 
 " ' My good creature,' says he, ' you are a married woman. 
 The law doesn't allow a married woman to call any thing her 
 own — unless she has previously (with a lawyer's help) made a 
 bargain to that efiect with her husband before marrying him. 
 
516 MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 You have made no bargain. Your husband has a right to sell 
 your furniture if he likes. I am sorry for you ; I can't hinder 
 him.' 
 
 " I was obstinate about it. ' Please to answer me this, sir,' 
 I says. ' I've been told by wiser heads than mine that we all 
 pay our taxes to keep the Queen and the Parliament going, 
 and that the Queen and the Parliament make laws to protect 
 us in return. I have paid my taxes. Why, if you please, ia 
 there no law to protect me in return ?' 
 
 " ' I can't enter into that,' says he. 'I must take the law aa 
 I find it ; and so must you. I see a mark there on the side of 
 your face. Has your husband been beating you ? If he has, 
 summon him here. I can punish him for thaV 
 
 "'How can you punish him, sir?' says I. 
 
 " ' I can fine him,' says he. ' Or I can send him to prison.' 
 
 " 'As to the fine,' says I, 'he can pay that out of the money 
 he gets by selling my furniture. As to the prison, while he's 
 in it, what's to become of me, with my money spent by him, 
 and my possession gone ; and when he's out of it, what's to 
 become of me again, with a husband whom I have been the 
 means of punishing, and who comes home to his wife knowing 
 it ? It's bad enough as it is, sir,' says I. ' There's more that's 
 bruised in me than what shows in my face. I wish you good- 
 morning.' 
 
 / 
 
 " When I got back the furniture was gone, and my husband 
 was gone. There was nobody but the landlord in the empty 
 house. He said all that could be said — kindly enough toward 
 me, so far as I Avas concerned. When he was gone I locked 
 my trunk, and got away in a cab after dark, and found a lodg- 
 ing to lay my head in. If ever there was a lonely, broken- 
 s hearted creature in the world, I was that creature that night. 
 
 " There was but one chance of earning my bread — to go to 
 the employment offered me (under a man cook, at a club). 
 And there was but one hope — the hope that I had lost sight 
 of my husband forever. 
 
 " I went to my work — and prospered in it — and earned my 
 first quarter's wages. But it's not good for a woman to be sit- 
 uated as I was ; friendless and alone, with her things that she 
 took a pride in sold away from her, and with nothing to look 
 forward to in her life to come. I was regular in my attendance 
 at chapel ; but I think my heart began to get hardened, and ray 
 mind to be overcast in secret with its own thoughts about this 
 time. There was a change coming. Two or three days after 
 I had earned the wages just mentioned my husband found me 
 out. The furniture-money was all spent. He made a disturb* 
 
MAN AND AVIFE. 517 
 
 ance at the club. I was only able to quiet him by giving him 
 1 all the money I could spare from my own necessities. The 
 scandal was brought before the committee. They said, if the 
 circumstance occurred again, they should be obliged to part 
 ' with me. In a fortnight the circumstance occurred again. It's 
 useless to dwell on it. They all said they were sorry for me, 
 I lost the place. My husband went back with me to my lodg- 
 ings. The next morning I caught him taking my purse, with 
 the few shillings I had in it, out of my trunk, which he had 
 broken open. We quarreled. And he struck me again — this 
 time knocking me down. 
 
 "I went once more to the police court, and told my story — 
 to another magistrate this time. My only petition was to have 
 my husband kept away from me. "I don't want to be a bur- 
 den on others' (I says) ; 'I don't want to do any thing but 
 what's right. I don't even complain of having been cruelly 
 used. All I ask is to be let to earn an honest living. Will 
 the law protect me in the effort to do that ?' 
 
 "The answer, in substance, was that the law might protect 
 me, provided I had money to spend in asking some higher 
 ' court to grant me a separation. After allowing my hus- j 
 I band to rob me openly of the only property I possessed — 
 ' namely, my furniture — the law turned round on me when I 
 called upon it in my distress, and held out its hand to be paid. 
 I had just three-and-sixpence left in the world — and the pros- 
 pect, if I earned more, of my husband coming (with permission 
 ! of the law) and taking it away from me. There was only one 
 ' chance — namely, to get time to turn round in, and to escape 
 him again. I got a month's freedom from him, by charging 
 : him with knocking me down. The magistrate (happening to 
 
 • be young, and new to his business) sent him to prison, instead 
 of fining him. This gave me time to get a character from the 
 club, as well as a special testimonial from good Mr. Bapchild. U 
 
 I With the help of these, I obtained a place in a private family n 
 , — a place in the country, this time. 
 
 " I found myself now in a haven of peace. I was among wor- 
 thy, kind-hearted people, who felt for my distresses, and treat- 
 ■ ed me most indulgently. Indeed, through all my troubles, I 
 
 • must say I have found one thing hold good. In my experi- 
 ( ence, I have observed that people are oftener quick than not to 
 J feel a human compassion for others in distress. Also, that they 
 ; mostly see plain enough what's hard and cruel and unfair on 
 
 them in the governing of the country which they help to keep 
 i going. But once ask them to get on from sitting down and 
 1 grumbling about it, to rising up and setting it I'ight, and what 
 ; do you find them ? As helpless as a flock of sheep — that's 
 ' what you find them. 
 
 H 
 
518 MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 " More than six months passed, and I saved a little money 
 again. 
 
 "One night, just as we were going to bed, there was a loud 
 ring at the bell. The footman answered the door, and I heard 
 my husband's voice in the hall. He had traced me, with the 
 help of a man he knew in the police ; and he had come to claim 
 his rights. I ottered him all the little money I had to let me 
 be. My good master spoke to him. It was all useless. He 
 was obstinate and savage. If — instead of my running off from 
 him — it had been all the other way, and he had run off from me, 
 something might have been done (as I understood) to protect 
 me. But he stuck to his wife — as long as I could make a far- 
 thing, he stuck to his wife. Being married to him, I had no 
 right to have left him ; I was bound to go with my husband ; 
 there was no escape for me. I bade them good-bye. And I 
 have never forgotten their kindness to me from that day to this. 
 
 " My husband took me back to London. 
 
 "As long as the money lasted, the drinking went on. When 
 it was gone I was beaten again. Where was the remedy? 
 There was no remedy, but to try and escape him once more. 
 Why didn't I have him locked up ? What was the good of 
 having him locked up? In a few weeks he would be out of 
 prison ; sober and penitent, and promising amendment — and 
 then when the fit took him, there he would be, the same furi- 
 ous savage that he had been often and often before. My heart 
 got hard under the hopelessness of it ; and dark thoughts be- 
 set me, mostly at night. About this time I began to say to my- 
 self, ' There's no deliverance from this but in death — his death 
 or mine.' 
 
 " Once or twice I went down to the bridges after dark, and 
 looked over at the river. No. I wasn't the sort of woman who 
 ends her own wretchedness in that way. Your blood must be 
 in a fever, and your head in a flame — at least I fancy so — you 
 must be hurried into it, like, to go and make away with your- 
 self My troubles never took that effect on me, I always turn- 
 ed cold under them, instead of hot. Bad for me, I dare say; 
 but what you are — you are. Can the Ethiopian change his skin, 
 or the leopard his spots ? 
 
 " I got away from him once more, and found good employ- 
 ment once more. It don't matter how, and it don't matter 
 where. My story is always the same thing, over and over again. 
 Best get to the end. 
 
 "There was one change, however, this time. My employ- 
 ment was not in a private family. I was also allowed to teach 
 cookery to young women, in my leisure hours. What with this, 
 and what with a longer time passing on the present occasion 
 before my husband found me out, I was as comfortably off as 
 
MAN AND WIFE. 619 
 
 an my position T could hope to be. When ray work was done, 
 I went away at night to sleep in a lodging of my own. It was 
 only a bedroom ; and I furnished it myself — partly for the sake 
 of economy (the rent being not half as much as for a furnished 
 room) ; and partly for the sake of cleanliness. Through all my 
 troubles I always liked things neat about me — neat and shape- 
 ly and good. 
 
 " Well, it's needless to say how it ended. He found me out 
 ,iagain — this time by a chance meeting with me in the street. 
 
 " He was in rags, and half starved. But that didn't matter 
 now. All he had to do was to put his hand into my pocket 
 and take what he wanted. There is no limit, in England, to 
 what a bad husband may do — as long as he sticks to his wife. 
 On the present occasion, he was cunning enough to see that he 
 iwould be the loser if he disturbed me in my employment. For 
 :a while things went on as smoothly as they could. I made a 
 ! pretense that the work was harder than usual; and I got leave 
 i (loathing the sight of him, I honestly own) to sleep at the place 
 where I was employed. This was not for long. The fit took 
 him again, in due course; and he came and made a disturb- 
 ance. As before, this was not to be borne by decent people. 
 tAs before, they were sorry to part with me. As before, I lost 
 
 I my place. 
 
 "Another woman would have gone mad under it. I fancy 
 lit just missed, by a hair-breadth, maddening Me. 
 
 " When I looked at him that night, deep in his drunken sleep, 
 
 II thought of Jael and Sisera (see the Book of Judges; chapter 
 4th ; verses 17 to 21). It says, she ' took a nail of the tent, and 
 
 itook a hammer in her hand, and went softly unto him, and 
 ' smote the nail into his temples, and fastened it into the ground ; 
 tfor he was fast asleep and weary. So he died.' She did this 
 ( deed to deliver her nation from Sisera. If there had been a 
 1 hammer and a nail in the room that night, I think I should 
 1 have been Jael — with this difference, that I should have done 
 i it to deliver myself " 
 
 " With the morning this passed off, for the time. I went 
 ; and spoke to a lawyer. 
 
 "Most people, in my place, would have had enough of the 
 law already. But I was one of the sort who drain the cup to 
 the dregs. What I said to him was, in substance, this: 'I 
 come to ask your advice about a madman. Mad people, as I 
 understand it, are people who have lost control over their own 
 minds. Sometimes this leads them to entertaining delusions ; 
 and sometimes it leads them to committing actions hurtful to 
 others or to themselves. My husband has lost all control over 
 his own craving for strong drink. He requires to be kept from 
 liquor, as other madmen require to be kept from attempting 
 
/ 
 
 520 MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 their own lives, or the lives of those about them. It's a frenzy 
 beyond his own control, with him — just as it's a frenzy beyond 
 their own control, with them. There are Asylums for mad peo- 
 ple, all over the country, at the public disposal, on certain con- 
 ditions. If I fulfill those conditions, will the law deliver me 
 from the misery of beini; married to a madman, whose madness 
 is drink?' — ' No,' says the lawyer. 'The law of England de- 
 clines to consider an incurable drunkard as a fit object for re- 
 straint; the law of England leaves the husbands and wives of 
 snch people in a perfectly helpless situation, to deal witli their 
 own misery as they best can.' 
 
 " I made my acknowledgments to the gentleman and left 
 him. The last chance was this chance — and this had failed me. 
 
 " The thought that had once found its way into my mind 
 already, now found its way back again ; and never altogether 
 left me from that time forth. No deliverance for me but in 
 death — his death, or mine. 
 
 "I had it before me night and day; in chapel and out of 
 chapel just the same. I read the story of Jael and Sisera so 
 often that the Bible got to open of itself at that place. 
 
 "The laws of my country, which ought to have protected 
 me as an honest woman, left me helpless. In place of the laws 
 I had no friend near to open my heart to. I was shut up in 
 myself And I was married to that man. Consider me as a 
 human creature, and say, Was this not trying my humanity 
 very hardly ? 
 
 " I wrote to good Mr. Bapchild. Not going into particulars ; 
 only telling him I was beset by temptation, and begging him 
 to come and help me. He was confined to his bed by illness; 
 he could only write me a letter of good advice. To profit by 
 good advice, people must have a glimpse of happiness to look 
 forward to as a reward for exerting themselves. Religion it- 
 self is obliged to hold out a reward, and to say to us poor 
 mortals. Be good, and you shall go to heaven. I had no 
 glimpse of happiness. I was thankful (in a dull sort of Avay) 
 to good Mr. Bapchild — and there it ended. 
 
 "The time had been when a word from my old pastor would 
 have put me in the right way again. I began to feel scared by 
 myself If the next ill usage I received from Joel Dethridge 
 found me an unchanged woman, it was borne in strongly on 
 my mind that I should be as likely as not to get my deliver- 
 ance from him by my own hand. 
 
 " Goaded to it, by the fear of this, I humbled myself before 
 my relations for the first time. I wrote to beg their pardon ; 
 to own that they had proved to be right in their opinion of my 
 
MAN AND WIFE. 521 
 
 ihusband ; and to entreat them to be friends with me again, so 
 far as to lot me visit them from time to time. My notion was, 
 that it might soften my heart if I could see the old place, and 
 talk the ofd talk, and look again at the well-remembered faces. 
 I am almost ashamed to own it — but, if I had had any thing 
 to give, I would have parted with it all, to be allowed to go 
 back into mother's kitchen and. cook the Sunday dinner for 
 them once more. 
 
 " But this was not to be. Not long before my letter was re- 
 ceived mother had died. They laid it all at my door. She 
 had been ailing for years past, and the doctors had said it was 
 hopeless from the first — but they laid it all at my door. One 
 of ray sisters wrote to say that much, in as few words as could 
 possibly suffice for saying it. My father never answered my 
 letter at all. 
 
 9. 
 
 "Magistrates and lawyers; relations and friends; endurance 
 of injuries, patience, hope, and honest work — I had tried all 
 these, and tried them vainly. Look round me where I might, 
 the prospect was closed on all sides. 
 
 [ "At this time my husband had got a little work to do. He 
 came home out of temper one night, and I gave him a warn- 
 ing. ' Don't try me too far, Joel, for your own sake,' was all I 
 said. It was one of his sober days ; and for the first time a 
 word from me seemed to have an efiect on him. He looked 
 hard at me for a minute or so. And then he went and sat 
 down in a corner, and held his peace. 
 
 " This was on a Tuesday in the week. On the Saturday he 
 got paid, and the drinking fit took him again. 
 
 " On Friday in the next week I happened to come back late 
 — having had a good stroke of work to do that day, in the way 
 of cooking a public dinner for a tavern-keeper who knew me. 
 II found my husband gone, and the bedroom stripped of the 
 furniture which I had put into it. For the second time he 
 had rol)bed me of my own property, and had turned it into 
 I money to be spent in drink. 
 
 " I didn't say a word. I stood and looked round the empty 
 iroom. What was going on in me I hardly knew myself at the 
 time, and can't describe now. All I remember is, that, after a 
 little, I turned about to leave the house. I knew the places 
 where my husband was likely to be found ; and the devil pos- 
 sessed me to go and find him. The landlady came out into the 
 passage and tried to stop me. She was a bigger and a stronger 
 woman than I was. But I shook her ofi" like a child. Think- 
 ing over it now, I believe she was in no condition to put out 
 her strength. The sight of me frightened her. 
 
522 MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 " I found him. I said — well, I said what a woman beside 
 herself with fury would be likely to say. It's needless to tell 
 how it ended. He knocked me down. 
 
 "After that, there is a spot cf darkness like in my memory. 
 The next thing I can call to mind, is coming back to my senses 
 after some days. Three of my teeth were knocked out — but 
 that was not the worst of it. My head had struck against 
 something in falling, and some part of me (a nerve, I think 
 they said) was injured in such a way as to affect my speech. 
 I don't mean that I was downright dumb — I only mean that, 
 all of a sudden, it had become a labor to me to sjieak. A long 
 word was as serious an obstacle as if I was a child again. They 
 took me to the hospital. When the medical gentlemen heard 
 what it was, the medical gentlemen came crowding round me. 
 I appeared to lay hold of their interest, just as a story-book 
 lays hold of the interest of other people. The upshot of it 
 w^as, that I might end in being dumb, or I might get my speech 
 again — the chances were about equal. Only two things were 
 needful. One of them was, that I should live on good nourish- 
 ing diet. The other was, that I should keep my mind easy. 
 
 "About the diet it was not possible to decide. My getting 
 good nourishing food and drink depended on my getting money 
 to buy the same. As to my mind, there was no difficulty 
 about that. If my husband came back to me, my mind was 
 made up to kill him. 
 
 " Horrid — I am well aware this is horrid. Nobody else, in 
 my place, would have ended as wickedly as that. All the oth- 
 er women in the world, tried as I was, would have risen su- 
 perior to the trial. 
 
 10. 
 
 " I have said that people (excepting my husband and my re- 
 lations) were almost always good to me. 
 
 " The landlord of the house which we had taken when we 
 were married heard of my sad case. He gave me one of his 
 empty houses to look after, and a little weekly allowance for 
 doing it. Some of the furniture in the upper rooms, not being 
 wanted by the last tenant, was left to be taken at a valuation 
 if the next tenant needed it. Two of the servants' bedrooms 
 (in the attics), one next to the other, had all that was wanted 
 in them. So I had a roof to cover me, and a choice of beds lo 
 lie on, and money to get me food. All well again — but all too 
 late. If that house could speak, what tales that house would 
 have to tell of me ! 
 
 "I have been told by the doctors to exercise my speech. 
 Being all alone, with nobody to speak to, except when the 
 landlord dropped in, or when the servant next door said, * JsTice 
 
MAN AND WIFE. 523 
 
 day, ain't it ?' or, ' Don't you feel lonely ?' or such like, I bought 
 the newspaper, and read it out loud to myself to exercise my 
 speech in that way. One day I came upon a bit about the 
 wives of drunken husbands. It was a report of something 
 said on that subject by a London coroner, who had held in- 
 quests on dead husbands (in the lower ranks of life), and who 
 had his reasons for suspecting the wives. Examination of the 
 body (he said) didn't prove it; and witnesses didn't prove it; 
 but he thought it, nevertheless, quite possible, in some cases, 
 that, when the woman could bear it no longer, she sometimes 
 took a damp towel, and waited till the husband (drugged with 
 his own liquor) was sunk in his sleep, and then put the towel 
 over his nose and mouth, and ended it that way without any 
 body being the wiser. I laid down the newspaper, and fell 
 into thinking. My mind was, by this time, in a prophetic way. 
 I said to myself, ' I haven't happened on this for nothing : this 
 means that I shall see my husband again.' 
 
 "It was then just after my dinner-time — two o'clock. The 
 same night, at the moment when I had put out ray candle and 
 laid me down in bed, I heard a knock at the street door. Be- 
 fore I had lit my caudle I says to myself, ' Here he is.' 
 
 "I huddled on a few things, and struck a light, and went 
 down stairs. I called out through the door, ' Who's there ?' 
 And his voice answered, 'Let me in.' 
 
 " I sat down on a chair in the passage, and shook all over 
 like a person struck with palsy. Not from the fear of him— 
 but from my mind being in the prophetic way. I knew I was 
 going to be driven to it at last. Try as I might to keep from 
 doing it, ray mind told rae I was to do it now. I sat shaking 
 on the chair in the passage ; I on one side of the door, and he 
 on the other. 
 
 " He knocked again, and again, and again. I knew it was 
 useless to try — and yet I resolved to try. I determined not 
 to let him in till I was forced to it. I determined to let hira 
 alarm the neighborhood, and to see if the neighborhood would 
 step between us. I went up stairs and waited at the open 
 staircase window over the door. 
 
 " The policeman came up, and the neighbors came out. 
 They were all for giving hira into custody. The policeman 
 laid hands on him. He had but one word to say ; he had only 
 to point up to me at the window, and to tell them I was his 
 wife. The neighbors went indoors again. The policeman 
 dropped hold of his arm. It was I who was in the wrong, and 
 not he. I was bound to let my husband in. I went down 
 stairs again, and let him in, 
 
 "Nothing passed between us that night. I threw open the 
 dooi? of the bedroom next to mine, and went and locked my- 
 
524 MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 self into my own room. He was dead beat with roaming the 
 streets, without a penny in his pocket, all day long. The bed 
 to lie on was all he wanted for that night. 
 
 " The next morning I tried again — tried to turn back on the 
 way that I was doomed to go ; knowing beforehand that it 
 would be of no use. I ofiered him three parts of my poor 
 weekly earnings, to be paid to him regularly at the landlord's 
 office, if he would only keep away from me and from the house. 
 He laughed in my face. As my husband, he could take all my 
 earnings if he chose. And as for leaving the house, the house 
 offered him free quarters to live in as long as I was employed 
 to look after it. The landlord couldn't part man and wife. 
 
 " I said no more. Later in the day the landlord came. He 
 said if we could make it out to live together peaceably he had 
 neither the right nor the wish to interfere. If we made any 
 disturbances, then he should be obliged to provide himself 
 with some other woman to look after the house. I had no- 
 where else to go, and no other employment to undertake. If, 
 in spite of that, I had put on my bonnet and walked out, my 
 husband would have walked out after me. And all decent 
 people would have patted him on the back, and said, ' Quite 
 right, good man — quite right.' 
 
 " So there he was by his own act, and with the approval of 
 others, in the same house with rae. 
 
 "I made no remark to him or to the landlord. Nothing 
 roused me now. I knew what was coming ; I waited for the 
 end. There was some change visible in me to others, as I sup- 
 pose, though not noticeable by myself, which first surprised 
 my husband and then daunted him. When the next night 
 came, I heard him lock the door softly in his own room. It 
 didn't matter to me. When the time was ripe, ten thousand 
 locks wouldn't lock out what was to come. 
 
 " The next day bringing my weekly payment, brought me 
 a step nearer on the way to the end. Getting the money, he 
 could get the drink. This time he began cunningly — in other 
 words, he began his drinking by slow degrees. The landlord 
 (bent, honest man, on trying to keep the peace between us) 
 had given him some odd jobs to do, in the way of small re- 
 pairs, here and there about the house. 'You owe this,' he 
 says, ' to my desire to do a good turn to your poor wife. I 
 am helping you for her sake. Show yourself worthy to be 
 helped, if you can.' 
 
 " He said, as usual, that he was going to turn over a new 
 leaf. Too late ! The time had gone by. He was doomed, 
 and I was doomed. It didn't matter what he said now. It 
 didn't matter when he locked his door again the last thing at 
 night. 
 
MAN AND WIFE. 525 
 
 "The next day was Sunday. Nothing happened. I went 
 to chapel. Mere habit. It did me no good. He got on a lit- 
 tle with the drinking — but still cunningly, by slow degrees. 
 I knew by experience that this meant a long fit, and a bad one, 
 to come. 
 
 "Monday, there were the odd jobs about the house to be 
 begun. He was by this time just sober enough to do his work, 
 and just tipsy enough to take a spiteful pleasure in persecuting 
 his wife. He went out and got the things he wanted, and 
 came back and called for me. A skilled workman like he was 
 (he said) wanted a journeyman under him. There were things 
 which it was beneath a skilled workman to do for himself. 
 He was not going to call in a man or a boy, and then liave to 
 pay them. He was going to get it done for nothing, and he 
 meant to make a journeyman of me. Half tipsy and half sober, 
 he went on talking like that, and laying out his things, all 
 quite right, as he wanted them. When they were ready he 
 straightened himself uj), and he gave me his orders what I was 
 to do. 
 
 "I obeyed him to the best of my ability. Whatever he said, 
 and whatever he did, I knew he was going as straight as man 
 could go to his own death by my hands. 
 
 "The rats and mice were all over the house, and the place 
 generally was out of repair. He ought to have begun on the 
 kitchen-floor ; but (having sentence pronounced against him) 
 he began in the empty parlors on the ground-floor. 
 
 "These parlors were separated by what is called a ' lath-and- 
 plaster wall.' The rats had damaged it. At one part they 
 had gnawed through and spoiled the paper ; at another part 
 they had not got so far. The landlord's orders were to spare 
 the paper, because he had some by him to match it. My hus- 
 band began at a place where the paper was whole. Under 
 his directions I mixed up — I won't say what. With the help 
 of it he got the paper loose from the wall, without injuring 
 it in any Avay, in a long, hanging strip. Under it was the plas- 
 ter and the laths, gnaw^ed away in places by the rats. Though 
 strictly a paper-hanger by trade, he could be plasterer too 
 when he liked. I saw how he cut aw^ay the rotten laths and 
 ripped off" the plaster ; and (under his directions again) I mixed 
 up the new plaster he wanted, and handed him the new laths, 
 and saw how he set them. I won't say a word about how 
 this was done either, 
 
 " I have a reason for keeping silence here, which is, to my 
 mind, a very dreadful one. In every thing that my husband 
 made me do that day he was showing me (blindfold) the way 
 to kill him, so that no living soul, in the police or out of it, 
 could suspect me of the deed. 
 
526 MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 "We finished the job on the wall just before dark. I went 
 to my cup of tea, and he went to his bottle of gin. 
 
 "I left him, drinking hard, to put our two bedrooms tidy 
 for the night. The place that his bed happened to be set in 
 (which I had never remarked particularly before) seemed, in a 
 manner of speaking, to force itself on my notice now. 
 
 " The head of the bedstead was set against the wall which 
 divided his room from mine. From looking at the bedstead I 
 got to looking at the wall next. Then to wondering what it 
 was made of. Then to rapping against it with my knuckles. 
 The sound told me there was nothing but lath and plaster un- 
 der the paper. It was the same as the wall we had been at 
 work on down stairs. We had cleared our way so far through 
 this last — in certain places where the repairs were most needed 
 — that we had to be careful not to burst through the paper in 
 the room on the other side. I found myself calling to mind 
 the caution my husband had given me while we were at this 
 part of the work, word for word as he had spoken it. ^Take 
 care you donut find your hands in the next room.'' That was 
 what he had said down in the parlor. Up in his bedroom I 
 kept on repeating it in my own mind — with my eyes all the 
 while on the key, which he had moved to the inner side of the 
 door to lock himself in — till the knowledge of what it meant 
 burst on me like a flash of light. I looked at the wall, at the 
 bed-head, at my own two hands — and I shivered as if it was 
 winter-time. 
 
 " Hours must have passed like minutes while I was up stairs 
 that night. I lost all count of time. When my husband came 
 up from his drinking, he found me in his room. 
 
 12. 
 
 " I leave the rest untold, and pass on purposely to the next 
 morning. 
 
 "No mortal eyes but mine will ever see these lines. Still, 
 there are things a woman can't write of even to herself I shall 
 only say this. I suflered the last and worst of many indigni- 
 ties at my husband's hands — at the very time when I first saw, 
 set plainly before me, the way to take his life. He went out 
 toward noon next day, to go his rounds among the public- 
 houses ; ray mind being then strung up to deliver myself from 
 him, for good and all, when he came back at night. 
 
 "The things we had used on the pi-evious day were left in 
 the parlor. 1 was all by myself in the house, free to put in 
 practice the lesson he had taught me. I proved mj^self an apt 
 scholar. Before the lamps were lit in the street I had my own 
 way prepared (in my bedroom and in his) for laying my own 
 hands on him — after he had locked himself up for the night. 
 
MAN AND WIFE. 527 
 
 " T '^cn't remember feeling either fear or doubt through all 
 those hours. I sat down to my bit of supper with no better 
 and no worse an appetite than usual. The only change in me 
 that I can call to mind was that I felt a singular longing to 
 have somebody with me to keep me company. Having no 
 friend to ask in, I went to the street door and stood looking at 
 the people passing this way and that. 
 
 "A stray dog, sniffing about, came up to me. Generally I 
 dislike dogs and beasts of all kinds. I called this one in and 
 gave him his supper. He had been taught (I suppose) to sit 
 up on his hind-legs and beg for food ; at any rate, that was his 
 way of asking me for more. I laughed — it seems impossible 
 when I look back at it now, but for all that it's true — I laughed 
 till the tears ran down my cheeks, at the little beast on his 
 haunches, with his ears pricked up and his head on one side 
 and his mouth watering for the victuals. I wonder whether 
 I was in my right senses? I don't know, 
 
 " When the dog had got all he could get, he whined to be 
 let out to roam the streets again. 
 
 "As I opened the door to let the creature go his ways, I 
 saw my husband crossing the road to come in. ' Keep out ' 
 (I says to him) ; ' to-night, of all nights, keep out.' He was 
 too drunk to heed me ; he passed by, and blundered his way 
 up stairs. I followed and listened. I heard hira open his 
 door, and bang it to, and lock it. I waited a bit, and went 
 up another stair or two. I heard him drop down on to his 
 bed. In a minute more he was fast asleep and snoring. 
 
 " It had all happened as it was wanted to happen. In two 
 minutes — without doing one single thing to bring suspicion 
 on myself — I could have smothered him. I went into my 
 own room. I took up the towel that I had laid ready. I was 
 within an inch of it — when there came a rush of something up 
 into my head. I can't say what it was. I can only say the 
 horrors laid hold of me and hunted me then and there out of 
 the house. 
 
 " I put on my bonnet, and slipped the key of the street door 
 into my pocket. It was only half-past nine — or maybe a quar- 
 ter to ten. If I had any one clear notion in my head, it was 
 the notion of running away, and never allowing myself to set 
 eyes on the house or the husband more. 
 
 " I went up the street — and came back. I went down the 
 street — and came back. I tried it a third time, and went 
 round and round and round — and came back. It was not to 
 be done. The house held me chained to it like a dog to his 
 kennel. I couldn't keep away from it. For the life of me, I 
 couldn't keep away from it. 
 
 "A company of gay young men and women passed me, just 
 
528 MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 as I was going to let myself in again. They were in a great 
 luury. 'Step out,' says one of the men ; 'the theatre's close 
 by, and we shall be just in time for tlie farce.' I turned about 
 and followed them. Having been piously brought up, I had 
 never been inside a theatre in my life. It struck me that I 
 might get taken, as it were, out of myself, if I saw something 
 that was quite strange to me, and heard something which 
 would put new thoughts into my mind. 
 
 " They went in to the pit, and I went in after them. 
 
 "The thing they called the farce had begun. Men and 
 women came on to the stage, turn and turn about, and talked, 
 and went off again. Before long all the people about me in 
 the pit were laughing and clapping their hands. The noise 
 they made angered me. I don't know how to describe the 
 state I was in. My eyes wouldn't serve me, and my ears 
 wouldn't serve me, to see and to hear what the rest of them 
 were seeing and hearing. There must have been something, I 
 fancy, in my mind that got itself between me and what was 
 going on upon the stage. The play looked fair enough on the 
 surface ; but there was danger and death at the bottom of it. 
 The players were talking and laughing to deceive the people 
 — with murder in their minds all the time. And nobody knew 
 it but me — and my tongue was tied when I tried to tell the 
 others. I got up, and ran out. The moment I was in the 
 street my steps turned back of themselves on the way to the 
 house. I called a cab, and told the man to drive (as far as a 
 shilling would take me] the opposite way. He put me down 
 — I don't know where. Across the street I saw an inseiiption 
 in letters of flame over an open door. The man said it was a 
 dancing-place. Dancing was as new to me as plaj'-going. I 
 had one more shilling left ; and I paid to go in, and see M^hat 
 a sight of the dancing would do for me. The light from the 
 ceiling poured down in this place as if it was all on fire. The 
 crashing of the music was dreadful. The whirling round and 
 round of men and women in each other's arms was quite mad- 
 dening to see. I don't know what happened to me here. The 
 great blaze of light from the ceiling turned blood-red on a 
 sudden. The man standing in front of the musicians waving 
 a stick took the likeness of Satan, as seen in the picture in 
 our family Bible at home. The whirling men and women 
 went round and round, with white faces like the faces of the 
 dead, and bodies robed in winding-sheets, I screamed out 
 with the terror of it ; and some person took me by the arm 
 and put me outside the door. The darkness did me good : it 
 was comforting and delicious — like a cool hand laid on a hot 
 head. I went walking on through it, without knowing where; 
 composing my mind with thp belief that I had lost my way. 
 
MAN AND WIFE. 529 
 
 and that I should find myself miles distant from home when 
 morning dawned. After some time I got too weary to go on, 
 and I sat me down to rest on a door-step. I dozed a bit, and 
 woke up. When I got on my feet to go on again, I happened 
 to turn my head toward the door of the house. The number 
 on it was the same number as ours. I looked again. And be- 
 hold, it was our steps I had been resting on. The door was 
 our door. 
 
 "All my doubts and all my struggles dropped out of my 
 mind when I made that discovery. There was no mistaking 
 what this perpetual coming back to the house meant. Resist 
 it as I might, it was to be. 
 
 " I opened the street door and went up stairs, and heard him 
 sleeping his heavy sleep, exactly as I had heard him when I 
 went out. I sat down on my bed and took off my bonnet, 
 quite quiet in myself, because I knew it was to be. I damped 
 the towel and put it ready, and took a turn in the room. 
 
 "It was just the dawn of day. The sparrows were chirpiug 
 among the trees in the square hard by. 
 
 " I drew up my blind ; the faint light spoke to me as if in 
 words, ' Do it now, before I get brighter, and show too much.' 
 
 " I listened. The friendly silence had a word for me too : 
 'Do it now, and trust the secret to Me.' 
 
 " I waited till the church clock chimed before striking the 
 hour. At the first stroke — without touching the lock of his 
 door, without setting foot in his room — I had the towel over 
 his face. Before the last stroke he had ceased struggling. 
 When the hum of the bell through the morning silence was 
 still and dead, he was still and dead with it. 
 
 13. 
 
 " The rest of this history is counted in my mind by four 
 days — Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday. After that 
 it all fades off like, and the new years come with a strange 
 look, being the years of a new life. 
 
 " What about the old life first ? What did I feel, in the 
 horrid quiet of the morning, when I had done it? 
 
 " I don't know what I felt. I can't remember it, or I can't 
 tell it, I don't know which. I can write the history of the 
 four days, and that's all. 
 
 "Wednesday. — I gave the alarm toward noon. Hours be- 
 fore, I had put things straight and fit to be seen. I had only 
 to call for lielp, and to leave the people to do as they pleased. 
 The neighbors came in, and then the police. They knocked, 
 uselessly, at his door. Then they broke it open, and found 
 him dead in his bed. 
 
 " Not the ghost of a suspicion of me entered the mind of 
 
 34 
 
530 MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 any one. There was no fear of human justice finding me out : 
 my one unutterable di-ead was dread of an Avenging Provi- 
 dence. I had a short sloop that night, and a dream, in which 
 I did the deed over again. For a time my mind was busy 
 with thoughts of confessing to the police, and of giving myself 
 up. If I had not belonged to a respectable family, I should 
 have done it. From generation to generation there had been 
 no stain on our good name. It would be death to my father, 
 and disgrace to all my family, if I owned what I had done, and 
 suffered for it on the public scaffold. I prayed to be guided ; 
 and I had a revelation, toward morning, of what to do. 
 
 " I was commanded, in a vision, to open the Bible, and vow 
 on it to set my guilty self apart among my innocent fellow- 
 creatures from that day forth ; to live among them a separate 
 and silent life ; to dedicate the use of my speech to the lan- 
 guage of prayer only, offered up in the solitude of my own 
 chamber, when no human ear could hear me. Alone, in the 
 morning, I saw the vision, and vowed the vow. No human 
 ear has heard me from that time. No human ear icill hear 
 me, to the day of my death. 
 
 " Thursday. — The people came to speak to me, as usual. 
 They found me dumb, 
 
 " What had happened to me in the past, when my head had 
 been hurt, and my speech affected by it, gave a likelier look 
 to my dumbness than it might have borne in the case of an- 
 other person. They took me back again to the hospital. The 
 doctors were divided in opinion. Some said the shock of what 
 had taken place in the house, coming on the back of the other 
 shock, might, for all they knew, have done the mischief. And 
 others said, 'She got her speech again after the accident; 
 there has been no new injury since that time ; the woman is 
 shamming dumb, for some purpose of her own.' I let them 
 dispute it as they liked. All human talk was nothing now to 
 me. I had set myself apart among my fellow-creatures; I 
 had begun my separate and silent life. 
 
 " Through all this time the sense of a coming punishment 
 hanging over me never left my mind, I had nothing to dread 
 from human justice. The judgment of an Avenging Provi- 
 dence — there was what I was waiting for. 
 
 " Friday. — They held the inquest. He had been known for 
 years past as an inveterate drunkard ; he had been seen over- 
 night going home in liquor ; he had been found locked up in 
 his room, with the key inside the door, and the latch of the 
 window bolted also. No fire-place was in this garret; nothing 
 was disturbed or altered ; nobody by human possibility could 
 have got in. The doctor reported that he had died of conges- 
 tion of the lungs ; and the jury gave their verdict accordingly 
 
MAN AND WIFE. 531 
 
 14. 
 
 "Saturday. — Marked forever in my calendar as the memo- 
 rable day on which the judgment descended on me. Toward 
 three o'clock in the afternoon — in the broad sunlight, under 
 the cloudless sky, with hundreds of innocent human creatures 
 all around me — I, Hester Dethridge, saw, for the first time, the 
 Appearance which is appointed to haunt me for the rest of my 
 life. 
 
 " I had had a terrible night. My mind felt much as it had 
 felt on the evening when I h.ad gone to the play. I went out 
 to see what the air and the sunshine and the cool green of 
 trees and grass would do for me. The nearest place in which 
 I could find what I wanted was the Regent's Park. I went 
 into one of the quiet walks in the middle of the park, where 
 the horses and carriages are not allowed to go, and where old 
 people can sun themselves, and children play, without danger. 
 
 " I sat me down to rest on a bench. Among the children 
 near me was a beautiful little boy, playing with a brand-new 
 toy — a horse and wagon. While I was watching him busily 
 plucking up the blades of grass and loading his wagon with 
 them, I felt for the first time — what I have often and often felt 
 since — a creeping chill come slowly over ray flesh, and then a 
 suspicion of something hidden near me, which would steal out 
 and show itself if I looked that way. 
 
 "There was a big tree hard by. I looked toward the 
 tree, and waited to see the something hidden appear from be- 
 hind it. 
 
 "The Thing stole out, dark and shadowy in the pleasant 
 sunlight. At first I saw only the dim figure of a woman. Af- 
 ter a little it began to get plainer, brightening from within 
 outward — brightening, brightening, brightening, till it set be- 
 fore me the vision of my own self, rej^eated as if I was stand- 
 ing before a glass — the double of myself, looking at me with 
 my own eyes. I saw it move over the grass. I saw it stop 
 behind the beautiful little boy. I saw it stand and listen, as I 
 had stood and listened at the dawn of morning, for the chim- 
 ing of the bell before the clock struck the hour. When it 
 heard the stroke it pointed down to the boy with my own 
 hand ; and it said to me, with my own voice, ' Kill him.' 
 
 "A time passed. I don't know whether it was a minute or 
 an hour. The heavens and the earth disappeared from before 
 me. I saw nothing but the double of myself, with the point- 
 ing hand. I felt nothing but the longing to kill the boy. 
 
 " Then, as it seemed, the heavens and the earth rushed back 
 upon me. I saw the people near staring in surprise at me, and 
 wondering if I was in my right mind. 
 
5.12 MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 "I got^ by main force, to m-,'- feet ; I looked, by main force, 
 away from the beautiful boy ; I escaped, by main force, from 
 the siglit of t])e Thing, back into the streets. I can only de- 
 scribe the overpowering strength of the temptation that tried 
 me in one way. It was like tearing the life out of me to tear 
 myself from killing the boy. And what it was on this occa- 
 sion it has been ever since. No remedy against it but in that 
 torturing effort, and no quenching the after-agony but by soli- 
 tude and prayer, 
 
 " The sense of a coming punishment had hung over me. And 
 the punishment had come. I had waited for the judgment of 
 an Avenging Providence. And the judgment was pronounced. 
 With pious David I could now say, Thy fierce wrath goeth 
 over me; thy terrors have cut me off" 
 
 Arrived at that point in the narrative, Geoffrey looked up 
 from the manuscript for the first time. Some sound outside 
 the room had disturbed him. Was it a sound in the passage? 
 
 He listened. There was an interval of silence. He looked 
 back again at the Confession, turning over the last leaves to 
 count how much was left of it before it came to an end. 
 
 After relating the circumstances under which the writer had 
 returned to domestic service, the narrative was resumed no 
 more. Its few remaining pages were occupied by a fragment- 
 ary journal. The brief entries all referred to the various 
 occasions 'on which Hester Dethridge had again and again 
 seen the terrible apparition of herself, and had again and again 
 resisted the homicidal frenzy roused in her by the hideous 
 creation of her own distempered brain. In the effort which 
 that resistance cost her lay the secret of her obstinate deter- 
 mination to insist on being freed from her work at certain 
 times, and to make it a condition with any mistress who em- 
 ployed her that she should be privileged to sleep in a room of 
 her own at night. Having counted the pages thus filled, Geof- 
 frey turned back to the place at which he had left off, to read 
 the manuscript through to the end. 
 
 As his eyes rested on the first line the noise in the passage 
 — intermitted for a moment only — disturbed him again. 
 
 This time there was no doubt of what the sound implied. 
 He heard her hurried footsteps; he heard her dreadful cry. 
 Hester Dethridge had woke in her chair in the parlor, and 
 had discovered that the Confession was no longer in her own 
 hands. 
 
 He put the manuscript into the breast-pocket of his coat. 
 On this occasion his reading had been of some use to him. 
 Needless to go on further with it. Needless to return to the 
 Newgate Calendar, The problem was solved, 
 
MAN AND WIFE. 533 
 
 As he rose to his feet his heavy face brightened slowly with 
 a terrible smile. While the woman's Confession was in his 
 pocket the woman herself was in his power. "If she wants 
 it back," he said, "she must get it on my terms." With that 
 resolution he opened the door and met Hester Dethridge face 
 to face in the passage. 
 
 CHAPTER THE FIFTY-FIFTH. 
 
 THE SIGNS OF THE END. 
 
 The servant, appearing the next morning in Anne's room 
 with the breakfast tray, closed the door with an air of mys- 
 tery, and announced that strange things were going on in the 
 house. 
 
 " Did you hear nothing last night, ma'am," she asked, " down 
 stairs in the passage ?" 
 
 " I thought I heard some voices whispering outside my 
 lOom," Anne replied. " Has any thing happened ?" 
 
 Extricated from the confusion in wliich she involved it, the 
 girl's narrative amounted in substance to this : She had been 
 startled by the sudden appearance of her mistress in the pas- 
 sage, staring about her wildly, like a woman who had gone 
 out of her senses. Almost at the same moment " the master " 
 had flung open the drawing-room door. He had caught Mrs. 
 Dethridge by the arm, had dragged her into the room, and had 
 closed the door again. After the two had remained shut up 
 together for more than half an hour, Mrs. Dethridge had come 
 out as pale as ashes, and had gone up stairs trembling like a 
 person in great terror. Some time later, when the servant was 
 in bed, but not asleep, she had seen a light under her door, in 
 the narrow wooden passage which separated Anne's bedroom 
 from Hester's bedroom, and by which she obtained access to 
 her own little sleeping-chamber beyond. She had got out of 
 bed ; had looked through the key-hole ; and had seen " the 
 master" and Mrs. Dethridge standing together examining the 
 walls of the passage. "The master" had laid his hand upon 
 the wall, on the side of his wife's room, and had looked at Mrs. 
 Dethridge. And Mrs. Dethridge had looked back at hira, and 
 had shaken her head. Upon that he had said in a whisper 
 (still with his hand on the wooden wall), " Not to be done 
 here ?" And Mrs. Dethridge had shaken her head. He had 
 considered a moment, and had whispered again, " The other 
 room will do, won't it ?" And Mrs. Dethridge had nodded her 
 head — and so they had parted. That was the story of the 
 pight. Early in the moniing, more strange things had hap' 
 
534 MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 pened. The master had gone out, with a large sealed packet 
 in his hand, covered with many stamps; taking his own letter 
 to the post, instead of sending the servant with it as usual. 
 On his return, Mrs. Dethridge had gone out next, and had 
 come back with something in a jar which she had locked up in 
 her own sitting-room. Shortly afterward, a working-man had 
 brought a bundle of laths, and some mortar and plaster of 
 Paris, which had been carefully placed together in a corner of 
 the scullery. Last, and most remarkable in the series of do- 
 mestic events, the girl had received permission to go home 
 and see her friends in the country, on that very day ; having 
 been previously informed, when she entered Mrs. Dethridge's 
 service, that she was not to expect to have a holiday granted 
 to her until after Christmas. Such were the strange things 
 which had happened in the house since the previous night. 
 What was the interpretation to be placed on them ? 
 
 The right interpretation was not easy to discover. 
 
 Some of the events pointed apparently toward coming re- 
 pairs or alterations in the cottage. But what Geoffrey could 
 have to do with them (being at the time served with a notice 
 to quit), and why Hester Dethridge should have shown the 
 violent agitation which had been described, were mysteries 
 which it was impossible to penetrate. 
 
 Anne dismissed the girl with a little present and a few kind 
 words. Under other circumstances, the incomprehensible pi'o- 
 ceedings in the house might have made her seriously uneasy. 
 But her mind was now occupied by more jiressing anxieties. 
 Blanche's second letter (received from Hester Dethridge on 
 the previous evening) informed her that Sir Patrick persisted 
 in his resolution, and that he and his niece might be expected, 
 come what might of it, to present themselves at the cottage on 
 that day. 
 
 Anne opened the letter and looked at it for the second time. 
 The passages relating to Sir Patrick were expressed in these 
 terms : 
 
 " I don't think, darling, you have any idea of the interest 
 that you have roused in my uncle. Although he has not to 
 reproach himself, as I have, with being the miserable cause of 
 the sacrifice that you have made, he is quite as wretched and 
 quite as anxious about you as I am. We talk of nobody else. 
 He said last night that he did not believe there was your equal 
 in the world. Think of that from a man who has such terribly 
 sharp eyes for the faults of women in general, and such a ter- 
 ribly sharp tongue in talking of them I I am pledged to secrecy ; 
 but I must tell you one other thing between ourselves. Lord 
 Holchester's announcement that his brother refuses to consent 
 to a separation put my uncle almost beside himself. If there 
 
MAN AND WIFE. 535 
 
 is not some change for the better in your life in a few days* 
 time, Sir Patrick will find out a way of his own — lawful or not, 
 he doesn't care — for rescuing you from the dreadful position 
 in which you are placed, and Arnold (with my full approval) 
 will help him. As we understand it, you are, under one pre- 
 tense or another, kept a close prisoner. Sir Patrick has already 
 secured a post of observation near you. He and Arnold went 
 all round the cottage last night, and examined a door in your 
 back garden wall, with a locksmith to help them. You will 
 no doubt hear further about this from Sir Patrick himself Pray 
 don't appear to know any thing of it when you see him ! I 
 am not in his confidence — but Arnold is, which comes to tlie 
 same thing exactly. You will see us (I mean you will see my 
 uncle and me) to-morrow, in spite of the brute who keeps you 
 under lock and key. Arnold will not accompany us ; he is not 
 to be trusted (he owns it himself) to control his indignation. 
 Courage, dearest ! There are two people in the world to whom 
 you are inestimably precious, and who are determined not to 
 let your happiness be sacrificed. I am one of them, and (foi 
 Heaven's sake keep this a secret also !) Sir Patrick is the othei'." 
 
 Absorbed in the letter, and in the conflict of opposite feelincrs 
 which it roused — her color rising when it turned her though, 
 inward on herself, and fading again when she was reminded 
 by it of the coming visit — x\nne was called back to a sense of 
 present events by the re-appearance of the servant, charged 
 with a message. Mi*. Speedwell had been for some time in the 
 cottage, and he was now waiting to see her down stairs. 
 
 Anne found the surgeon alone in the drawing-room. He 
 apologized for disturbing her at that early hour. 
 
 " It was impossible for me to get to Fulham yesterday," he 
 said, "and I could only make sure of complying with Lord 
 Holchester's request by coming here before the time at which 
 I receive patients at home. I have seen Mr. Delamayn, and I 
 have requested permission to say a word to you on the subject 
 of his health." 
 
 Anne looked through the window, and saw GeoflTrey smoking 
 his pipe — not in the back garden, as usual, but in front of the 
 cottage, where he could keep his eye on the gate. 
 
 "Is he ill?" she asked. 
 
 "He is seriously ill," answered Mr. Speedwell. "I should 
 not otherwise have troubled you with this interview. It is a 
 matter of professional duty to warn you, as his wife, that he is 
 in danger. He may be seized at any moment by a paralytic 
 stroke. The only chance for him — a very poor one, I am bound 
 to say — is to make him alter his present mode of life without 
 loss of time." 
 
 "In one way he will be obliged to alter it," said Anue. 
 
636 MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 "He has received notice from the landlady to quit this cot- 
 tage." 
 
 Mr. Speedwell looked surprised. 
 
 " I think you will find that the notice has been withdrawn," 
 he said. "I can only assure you that Mr. Delamayu distinctly 
 informed me, when I advised change of air, that he had decided, 
 for reasons of his own, on remaining here," 
 
 (Another in the series of incomprehensible domestic events ! 
 Hester Dethridge — on all other occasions the most immovable 
 of women — had changed her mind !) 
 
 " Setting that aside," proceeded the surgeon, " there are two 
 preventive measures which I feel bound to suggest. Mr. Dela- 
 mayn is evidently suffering (though he declines to admit it 
 himself) from mental anxiety. If he is to have a chance for his 
 life, that anxiety must be set at rest. Is it in your power to 
 relieve it ?" 
 
 "It is not even in my power, Mr. Speedwell, to tell you 
 what it is." 
 
 The surgeon bowed, and went on : 
 
 " The second caution that I have to give you," he said, " is 
 to keep him from drinking spirits. He admits having com- 
 mitted an excess in that way the night before last. In his 
 state of health, drinking means literally death. If he goes 
 back to the brandy-bottle — forgive me for saying it plainly; 
 the matter is too serious to be trifled with — if he goes back to 
 the brandy-bottle, his life, in my opinion, is not worth iive 
 minutes' purchase. Can you keep him from drinking ?" 
 
 Anne answered sadly and plainly : 
 
 " I have no influence over him. The terms we are living on 
 here — " 
 
 Mr. Speedwell considerately stopped her. 
 
 " I understand," he said. " I will see his brother on my way 
 home." He looked for a moment at Anne. " You are far from 
 well yourself," he resumed. " Can I do any thing for you ?" 
 
 " While I am living my present life, Mr. Speedwell, not even 
 your skill can help me." 
 
 The surgeon took his leave. Anne hurried back up stairs, 
 before Geoffrey could re-enter the cottage. To see the man 
 who had laid her life waste — to meet the vindictive hatred 
 that looked furtively at her out of his eyes — at the moment 
 when sentence of death had been pronounced on him, was an 
 ordeal from which every finer instinct in her nature shrank in 
 horror. 
 
 Hour by hour the morning wore on, and he made no attempt 
 to communicate with her. Stranger still, Hester Dethridge 
 never appeared. The servant came up stairs to say good-bye; 
 and went away for her holiday. Shortly afterward, cei'tain 
 
MAN AND WIFE. 537 
 
 sounds reached Anne's ears from the opposite side of the pas- 
 sage. She heard the strokes of a hammer, and then a noise as 
 of some heavy piece of furniture being moved. The mysterious 
 repairs were apparently being begun in the spare room. 
 
 She went to the window. The hour was approaching at 
 which Sir Patrick and Blanche might be expected to make the 
 attempt to see her. 
 
 For the third time she looked at the letter. 
 
 It suggested, on this occasion, a new consideration to her. 
 Did the strong measures which Sir Patrick had taken in secret 
 indicate alarm as well as sympathy ? Did he believe she was 
 in a position in which the protection of the law was powerless 
 to reach her ? It seemed just possible. Suppose she were free 
 to consult a magistrate, and to own to him (if words could ex- 
 press it) the vague presentiment of danger which was then 
 present in her mind — what proof could she produce to satisfy 
 the mind of a stranger? The proofs were all in her husband's 
 favor. Witnesses could testify to the conciliatory words which 
 he had spoken to her in their presence. The evidence of his 
 mother and brother would show that he had preferred to sac- 
 rifice his own pecuniary interests rather than consent to part 
 with her. She could furnish nobody with the smallest excuse, 
 in her case, for interfering between man and wife. Did Sir 
 Patrick see this ? And did Blanche's description of what he 
 and Arnold Brinkworth were doing point to the conclusion 
 that they were taking the law into their own hands in de- 
 spair? The more she thought of it, the more likely it seemed. 
 
 She was still pursuing the train of thought thus suggested, 
 when the gate-bell rang. 
 
 The noises in the spare room suddenly stopped. 
 
 Anne looked out. The roof of a carriage was visible on the 
 other side of the wall. Sir Patrick and Blanche had arrived. 
 After an interval Hester Dethridge appeared in the garden, 
 and went to the grating in the gate. Anne heard Sir Pat- 
 rick's voice, clear and resolute. Every word he said reached 
 her ears through the open window. 
 
 " Be so good as to give my card to Mr. Delaraayn. Say 
 that I bring him a message from Holchester House, and that I 
 can only deliver it at a personal interview." 
 
 Hester Dethridge returned to the cottage. Another and 
 a longer interval elapsed. At the end of the time, Geoffrey 
 himself appeared in the front garden, with the key in his 
 hand. Anne's heart throbbed fast as she saw him unlock the 
 gate, and asked herself what was to follow. 
 
 To her unutterable astonishment, Geoffrey admitted Sir Pat- 
 rick without the slightest hesitation — and, more still, he in- 
 vited Blanche to leave the carriage and come in .' 
 
 23* 
 
538 MAN ANT) WIFE. 
 
 " Let by-gones be by-gones," Anne heard him say to Sir 
 Patrick. " I only want to do the right thing. If it's the right 
 thing for visitors to come here so soon after ray father's death, 
 come, and welcome. My own notion was, when you proposed 
 it before, that it was wrong. I am not much versed in these 
 things. I leave it to you." 
 
 "A visitor who brings you messages from your mother and 
 your brother," Sir Patrick answered, gravely, " is a person 
 whom it is your duty to admit, Mr. Delamayn, under any cir- 
 cumstances." 
 
 "And he ought to be none the less welcome," added Blanche, 
 " when he is accompanied by your wife's oldest and dearest 
 friend." 
 
 Geoffrey looked in stolid submission from one to the other. 
 
 " I am not much versed in these things," he repeated. " I 
 have said already, I leave it to you." 
 
 They were by this time close under Anne's window. She 
 showed herself Sir Patrick took ofi' his hat. Blanche kissed 
 her hand with a cry of joy, and attempted to enter the cot- 
 tage. Geoffrey stopped her — and called to his wife to come 
 down, 
 
 " No ! no !" said Blanche. " Let me go up to her in her 
 room." 
 
 She attempted for the second time to gain the stairs. For 
 the second time, Geoffrey stopped her. " Don't trouble your- 
 self," he said ; " she is coming down." 
 
 Anne joined them in the front garden. Blanche flew into 
 her arms and devoured her with kisses. Sir Patrick took her 
 hand in silence. For the first time in Anne's experience of him, 
 the bright, resolute, self-reliant old man was, for the moment, 
 at a loss what to say, at a loss what to do. His eyes, resting 
 on her in mute sympathy and interest, said plainly, " In your 
 husband's presence I must not trust myself to speak." 
 
 Geoffrey broke the silence. 
 
 "Will you go into the drawing-room?" he asked, looking 
 with steady attention at his wife and Blanche. 
 
 Geoffrey's voice appeared to rouse Sir Patrick. He raised 
 his head — he looked like himself again. 
 
 " Why go indoors this lovely weather ?" he said. " Suppose 
 we take a turn in the garden ?" 
 
 Blanche pressed Anne's hand significantly. The proposal 
 was evidently made for a purpose. They turned the corner of 
 the cottage and gained the large garden at tlie back — the two 
 ladies walking together arm in arm ; Sir Patrick and Geoffrey 
 following them. Little by little, Blanche quickened her pace. 
 " I have got my instructions," she whispered to Anne. " Let's 
 get out of his hearing." 
 
MAN AND WIFE. 539 
 
 It was more easily said than done. Geoffrey kept close 
 behind them. 
 
 "Consider my lameness, Mr. Delamayn," said Sir Patrick. 
 "Not quite so last." 
 
 It was well intended. But Geoffrey's cunning had taken 
 the alarm. Instead of dropping behind with Sir Patrick, he 
 called to his wife. 
 
 " Consider Sir Patrick's lameness," he repeated. " Not quit6 
 so fast." 
 
 Sir Patrick met that check with characteristic readiness. 
 When Anne slackened her pace, he addressed himself to Geof- 
 frey, stopping deliberately in the middle of the path. "Let 
 me give you ray message from Holchester House," he said. 
 The two ladies were still slowly walking on. Geoffrey was 
 placed between the alternatives of staying with Sir Patrick and 
 leaving them by themselves, or of following them and leaving 
 Sir Patrick. Deliberately, on his side, he followed the ladies. 
 
 Sir Patrick called him back. " I told you I wished to speak 
 to you," he said, sharply. 
 
 Driven to bay, Geoffrey openly revealed his resolution to 
 give Blanche no opportunity of speaking in private to Anne. 
 He called to Anne to stop. 
 
 "I have no secrets from my wife," he said. "And I expect 
 my wife to have no secrets from me. Give me the message in 
 her hearing." 
 
 Sir Patrick's eyes brightened with indignation. He con- 
 trolled himself, and looked for an instant significantly at his 
 niece before he spoke to Geoffrey. 
 
 "As you please," he said. "Your brother requests me to tell 
 you that the duties of the new position in which he is placed 
 occupy the whole of his time, and will prevent him from re- 
 turning to Fulham, as he had proposed, for some days to come. 
 Lady Holchester, hearing that I was likely to see you, has 
 charged me with another message from herself She is not 
 well enough to leave home ; and she wishes to see you at Hol- 
 chester House to-morrow — accompanied (as she specially de- 
 sires) by Mrs. Delamayn." 
 
 In giving the two messages, he gradually raised his voice to 
 a louder tone than usual. While he was speaking, Blanche 
 (warned to follow her instructions by the glance her uncle had 
 cast at her) lowered her voice, and said to Anne : 
 
 " He won't consent to the separation as long as he has got 
 you here. He is trying for higher terms. Leave him, and" he 
 must submit. Put a candle in your window, if you can get 
 into the garden to-night. If not, any other night. Make for 
 the back gate in the wall. Sir Patrick and Arnold will man- 
 age the rest." 
 
540 MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 She slipped those words into Anne's ears — swinging her par- 
 asol to and fro, and looking as if the merest gossip was drop- 
 ping from her lips — with the dexterity which rarely fails a 
 woman when she is called on to assist a deception in which her 
 own interests are concerned. Cleverly as it had been done, 
 however, Geoffrey's inveterate distrust was stirred into action 
 by it. Blanche had got to her last sentence before he was able 
 to turn his attention from what Sir Patrick was saying to what 
 his niece was saying. A quicker man would have heard more. 
 Geoffrey had only distinctly heard the first half of the last sen- 
 tence. 
 
 " What's that," he asked, " about Sir Patrick and Arnold ?" 
 
 " Nothing very interesting to you," Blanche answered, readi- 
 ly. " I will repeat it if you like. I was telling Anne about 
 my stepmother. Lady Lundie. After what happened that day 
 in Portland Place, she has requested Sir Patrick and Arnold 
 to consider themselves, for the future, as total strangers to her. 
 That's all." 
 
 " Oh J" said Geoffrey, eying her narrowly. " That's all ?" 
 
 " Ask my uncle," returned Blanche, " if you don't believe that 
 I have reported her correctly. She gave us all our dismissal, 
 in her most magnificent manner, and in those very words. 
 Didn't she. Sir Patrick ?" 
 
 It was perfectly true. Blanche's readiness of resource had 
 met the emergency of the moment by describing something, in 
 connection with Sir Patrick and Arnold, which had really hap- 
 pened. Silenced on one side, in spite of himself, Geoftrey was 
 at the same moment pressed on the other, for an answer to his 
 mother's message. 
 
 " I must take your reply to Lady Holchester," said Sir Pat- 
 rick. " What is it to be ?" 
 
 Geoffrey looked hard at him, without making any reply. 
 
 Sir Patrick repeated the message — with a special emphasis 
 on that part of it which related to Anne. The emphasis roused 
 Geoffrey's temper. 
 
 " You and my mother have made that message up between 
 you, to try me !" he burst out. " D — n all undei-hand work, is 
 what / say !" 
 
 " I am waiting for your answer," persisted Sir Patrick, stead- 
 ily ignoring the words which had just been addressed to him. 
 
 Geoffrey glanced at Anne, and suddenly recovered himself. 
 
 "My love to my mothei,"he said. "I'll go to her to-mor- 
 row—and take my wufe with me, with the greatest pleasure. 
 Do vou hear that ? With the greatest pleasure." He stopped 
 to observe the effect of his reply. Sir Patrick waited impene- 
 trably to hear more — if he had more to say. " I'm sorry I lost 
 my temper just now," he resumed. " I am badly treated — I'm 
 
MAN^ AND WIFE. 541 
 
 distrusted without a cause. I ask you to bear witness," lie add- 
 ed, his voice getting louder again, while his eyes moved uneasi- 
 ly backward and forward between Sir Patrick and Anne, " tliat 
 I treat ray wife as becomes a lady. Her friend calls on her — 
 and she's free to receive her friend. My mother wants to see 
 her — and I promise to take her to my mother's. At two o'clock 
 to-morrow. Where am I to blame ? You stand there looking 
 at me and saying nothing. Where am I to blame ?" 
 
 " If a man's own conscience justifies him, Mr. Delamayn," 
 said Sir Patrick, "the opinions of others are of very little im- 
 portance. My errand here is performed." 
 
 As he turned to bid Anne farewell, the uneasiness that he 
 felt at leaving her forced its way to view. The color faded out 
 of his face. His hand trembled as it closed tenderly and firm- 
 ly on hers. " I shall see you to-morrow at Holchester House," 
 he said ; giving his arm while he spoke to Blanche. He took 
 leave of Geoffrey without looking at him again, and without 
 seeing his offered hand. In another minute they were gone. 
 
 Anne waited on the lower floor of the cottage, w^hile Geoffrey 
 closed and locked the gate. She had no wish to appear to avoid 
 him, after the answer that he had sent to his mother's message. 
 He returned slowly half-way across the front garden, looked to- 
 ward the passage in which she was standing, passed before the 
 door, and disappeared round the corner of the cottage on his 
 way to the back garden. The inference was not to be mis- 
 taken. It was Geoffrey who M-as avoiding her. Had he lied to 
 Sir Patrick? When the next day came, would he find reasons 
 of his own for refusing to take her to Holchester House ? 
 
 She went up stairs. At the same moment Hester Dethridge 
 opened her bedroom door to come out. Observing Anne, she 
 closed it again ; and remained invisible in her room. Once 
 more the inference was not to be mistaken. Hester Dethridge, 
 also, had her reasons for avoiding Anne. 
 
 What did it mean ? What object could there be in common 
 between Hester and Geoffrey ? 
 
 There was no fathoming the meaning of it. Anne's thoughts 
 reverted to the communication which had been secretly made 
 to her by Blanche. It was not in womanhood to be insensible 
 to such devotion as Sir Patrick's conduct implied. Terrible 
 as her position had become in its ever-growing uncertainty, in 
 its never-ending suspense, the oppression of it yielded for the 
 moment to the glow of pride and gratitude which warmed her 
 heart, as she thought of the sacrifices that had been made, of 
 the perils that were still to be encountered, solely for her sake. 
 To shorten the period of suspense seemed to be a duty which 
 she owed to Sir Patrick, as well as to herself. Why, in her sit- 
 uation, wait for what the next day might bring forth ? If the 
 
542 MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 opportunity offerecl, she determiued to put the signal in the 
 window that night. 
 
 Toward evening she heard once more the noises which ap- 
 peared to indicate that repairs of some sort were going on in 
 the house. This time the sounds were fainter ; and they came, 
 as she fancied, not from the spare room, as before, but from 
 Geoffrey's room, next to it. 
 
 The dinner was later than usual that day. Hester Dethridge 
 did not appear with the tray till dusk. Anne spoke to her, 
 and received a mute sign in answer. Determined to see the 
 woman's face plainly, she put a question which required a 
 written answer on the slate ; and, telling Hester to wait, went 
 to the mantel-piece to light her candle. When she turned 
 round with the lighted candle in her hand, Hester was gone. 
 
 Night came. She rang her bell to have the tray taken 
 away. The fall of a strange footstep startled her outside 
 her door. She called out, " Who's there ?" The voice of 
 the lad whom Geoffrey employed to go on errands for him an- 
 swered her. 
 
 " What do you want here ?" she asked, through the door. 
 
 " Mr. Delamayn sent me up, ma'am. He wishes to speak to 
 you directly." 
 
 Anne found Geoffrey in the dining-room. His object in 
 wishing to speak to her was, on the surface of it, trivial enough. 
 He wanted to know how she would prefer going to Holchester 
 House on the next day — by the railway, or in a carriage. " If 
 you prefer driving," he said, " the boy has come here for or- 
 ders ; and he can tell them to send a carriage from the livery- 
 stables as he goes home." 
 
 "The railway will do perfectly well for me," Anne replied. 
 
 Instead of accepting the answer, and dropping the subject, 
 he asked her to reconsider her decision. There was an absent, 
 uneasy expression in his eye as he begged her not to consult 
 economy at the expense of her own comfort. He appeared to 
 have some reason of his own for preventing her from leaving 
 the room. " Sit down a minute, and think before you decide," 
 he said. Having forced her to take a chair, he put his head 
 outside the door, and directed the lad to go up stairs and see 
 if he had left his pipe in his bedroom. " I want you to go in 
 3omfort, as a lady should," he repeated, with the uneasy look 
 more marked than ever. Before Anne could reply, the lad's 
 voice reached them from the bedroom floor, raised in shrill 
 alarm, and screaming " Fir? !" 
 
 Geoffrey ran up stairs. Anne followed him. The lad met 
 them at the top of the stairs. He pointed to the open door of 
 Anne's room. She was absolutely certain of having left her 
 lighted caudle, when she went down to Geoffrey, at a safe dis- 
 
MAN AND WIFE. 543 
 
 tance from the bed-curtains. The bed-curtains, nevertheless, 
 were in a blaze of fii'e. 
 
 There was a supply of water to the cottage on the upper 
 floor. The bedroom jugs and cans, usually in their places at 
 an earlier hour, were standing that night at the cistern. An 
 empty pail was left near them. Directing the lad to bring 
 him water from these resources, Geoflrey tore down the cur- 
 tains in a flaming heap, partly on the bed and partly on the 
 sofa near it. Using the can and the pail alternately, as the 
 boy brought them, he drenched the bed and the sofa. It was 
 all over in little more than a minute. The cottage was saved, 
 but the bed-furniture was destroyed ; and the room, as a mat- 
 ter of course, was rendered uninhabitable, for that night at 
 least, and probably for more nights to come. 
 
 Geofi"rey set down the empty pail, and, turning to Anne, 
 pointed across the passage. 
 
 "You won't be much inconvenienced by this," he said. 
 "You have only to shift your quarters to the spare room." 
 
 With the assistance of the lad, he moved Anne's boxes, and 
 the chest of drawers, which had escaped damage, into the op- 
 posite room. This done, he cautioned her to be careful with 
 her candles for the future — and went down stairs, without 
 waiting to hear what she said in reply. The lad followed 
 him, and was dismissed for the night. 
 
 Even in the confusion which attended the extinguishing of 
 the fire, the conduct of Hester Dethridge had been remarkable 
 enough to force itself on the attention of Anne. 
 
 She had come out from her bedroom when the alarm was 
 given ; had looked at the flaming curtains ; and had drawn 
 back, stolidly submissive, into a corner to wait the event. 
 There she had stood — to all appearance, utterly indiflerent to 
 the possible destruction of her own cottage. The tire extin- 
 guished, she still waited impenetrably in her corner, while the 
 chest of drawers and the boxes were being moved — then lock- 
 ed the door, without even a passing glance at the scorched 
 ceiling and the burned bed-furniture — put the key into her 
 pocket — and went back to her room. 
 
 Anne had hitherto not shared the conviction felt by most 
 other persons who were brought into contact with Hester 
 Dethridge, that the woman's mind was deranged. After what 
 she had just seen, however, the general impression became her 
 impression too. She had thought of putting certain questions 
 to Hester, when they were left together, as to the origin of the 
 fire. Reflection decided her on saying nothing, for that night 
 at least. She crossed the passage, and entered the spare room 
 — the room which she had declined to occupy on her arrival 
 at the cottage, and which she was obliged to sleep in now. 
 
544 MAN A^D WIPE. 
 
 She was instantly struck by a change in the disposition of 
 the furniture of the room. 
 
 The bed had been moved. The head — set, when she had 
 last seen it, against the side wall of the cottage — was placed 
 now against the partition wall which separated the room from 
 Geoft'rey's room. This new arrangement had evidently been 
 effected with a settled purpose of some sort. The hook in the 
 ceiling which supported the curtains (the bed, unlike the bed 
 in the other room, having no canopy attached to it) had been 
 moved so as to adapt itself to the change that had been made. 
 The chairs and the washhaiid-stand, formerly placed against the 
 partition wall, were now, as a matter of necessity, shifted over to 
 the vacant space against the side wall of the cottage. For the 
 rest, no other alteration was visible in any part of the room. 
 
 In Anne's situation, any event not immediately intelligible 
 on the face of it was an event to be distrusted. Was there a 
 motive for the change in the position of the bed? And was 
 it, by any chance, a motive in which she was concerned? 
 
 The doubt had barely occurred to her, before a startling sus- 
 picion succeeded it. Was there some secret purpose to be an- 
 swered by making her sleep in the spare room ? Did the ques- 
 tion which the servant had heard Geoffrey put to Hester on 
 the previous night refer to this? Had the fire which had so 
 unaccountably caught the curtains in her own room been, by 
 any possibility, a fire purposely kindled, to force her out ? 
 
 She dropped into the nearest chair, faint with horror, as 
 those three questions forced themselves in rapid succession on 
 her mind. 
 
 After waiting a little, she recovered self-possession enough 
 to recognize the first plain necessity of putting her suspicions 
 to the test. It was possible that her excited fancy had filled 
 her with a purely visionary alarm. For all she knew to the 
 contrary, there might be some undeniably sufficient reason for 
 changing the position of the bed. She went out, and knocked 
 at the door of Hester Dethridge's room, 
 
 " I want to speak to you," she said. 
 
 Hester came out. Anne pointed to the spare room, and led 
 the way to it. Hester followed her. 
 
 " Why have you changed the place of the bed," she asked, 
 "from the wall there to the wall here?" 
 
 Stolidly submissive to the question, as she had been stolidly 
 submissive to the fire, Hester Dethridge wrote her reply. On 
 all other occasions she was accustomed to look the persons to 
 whom she offei'ed her slate steadily in the face. Now, for the 
 first time, she handed it to Anne with her eyes on the floor. 
 The one line written contained no direct answer: the words 
 were these : 
 
MAN AND WIFE. 545 
 
 " I have meant to move it for some time past." 
 
 "I ask you why you liuve moved it." 
 
 She wrote these four words ou the slate: "The wall is 
 damp." 
 
 Anne looked at the wall. There was no sign of damp on 
 the paper. She passed her hand over it. Feel where she 
 might, the wall was dry. 
 
 " That is not your reason," she said. 
 
 Hester stood immovable. 
 
 " There is no dampness in the wall." 
 
 Hester pointed persistently with her pencil to the four words, 
 still without looking up — waited a moment for Anne to read 
 them again — and left the room. 
 
 It was plainly useless to call her back. Anne's first impulse 
 when she was alone again was to secure the door. She not 
 only locked it, but bolted it at top and bottom. The mortise 
 of the lock and the staples of the bolts, when she tried them, 
 were firm. The lurking treachery — wherever else it might be 
 — was not in the fiistenings of the door. 
 
 She looked all round the room; examining the fire-place, the 
 window and its shutters, the interioi- of the wardrobe, the hid- 
 den space under the bed. Nothing was anywhere to be dis- 
 covered which could justify the most timid person living in 
 feeling suspicion or alarm. 
 
 Appearances, fair as they were, failed to convince her. The 
 presentiment of some hidden treachery, steadily getting nearer 
 and nearer to her in the dark, had rooted itself firmly in her 
 mind. She sat down, and tried to trace her way back to the 
 clue through the earlier events of the day. 
 
 The efibrt was fruitless : nothing definite, nothing tangible, 
 rewarded it. Worse still, a new doubt grew out of it— a doubt 
 whether the motive which Sir Patrick had avowed (through 
 Blanche) was the motive for helping her which was really in 
 his mind. 
 
 Did he sincerely believe Geoffrey's conduct to be animated 
 by no worse object than a mercenary object? and was his only 
 purpose, in planning to remove her out of her husband's reach, 
 to force Geofii"rey's consent to their separation on the terms 
 which Julius had proposed ? Was this really the sole end that 
 he had in view? or was he secretly convinced (knowing Anne's 
 position as he knew it) that she was in personal danger at the 
 cottage? and had he considerately kept that conviction con- 
 cealed, in the fear that he might otherwise encourage her to 
 feel alarmed about herself? She looked round the strange 
 room in the silence of the night, and she felt that the latter 
 interpretation was the likeliest interpretation of the two. 
 
 The sounds caused by the closing of the doors and win- 
 35 
 
546 MAX AND avif:-. 
 
 dows reached her from the ground-floor. What was to he 
 done? 
 
 It was impossible to show the signal which had been agreed 
 on to Sir Patrick and Arnold. The window in which they ex- 
 pected to see it was the window of the room in which the fire 
 had broken out — the room which Hester Dethridge had locked 
 up for the night. 
 
 It was equally hopeless to wait until the policeman passed 
 on his beat, and to call for help. Even if she could prevail 
 upon herself to make that open acknowledgment of distrust 
 under her husband's roof, and even if help was near, what valid 
 reason could she give for raising an alarm? There was not 
 the shadow of a reason to justify any one in placing her under 
 the protection of the law. 
 
 As a last resource, impelled by her blind distrust of the 
 change in the position of the bed, she attempted to move it. 
 The utmost exertion of her strength did not suffice to stir the 
 heavy piece of furniture out of its place by so much as a hair- 
 breadth. 
 
 There was no alternative but to trust to the security of the 
 locked and bolted door, and to keep watch through the night 
 — certain that Sir Patrick and Arnold were, on their part, also 
 keeping watch in the near neighborhood of the cottage. She 
 took out her work and her books ; and returned to her chair, 
 placing it near the table, in the middle of the room. 
 
 The last noises which told of life and movement about her 
 died away. The breathless stillness of the night closed round 
 her. 
 
 CHAPTER THE FIFTY-SIXTH. 
 
 THE MEANS. 
 
 The new day dawned ; the sun rose ; the household was 
 astir again. Inside the spare room, and outside the spare 
 room, nothing had happened. 
 
 At the hour appointed for leaving the cottage to pay the 
 promised visit to Holchester House, Hester Dethridge and 
 Geoffrey were alone together in the bedroom in which Anne 
 had passed the night. 
 
 "She's dressed, and waiting for me in the front garden," said 
 Geoffrey. " You wanted to see me here alone. What is it ?" 
 
 Hester pointed to the bed. 
 
 " You want it moved from the wall ?" 
 
 Hester nodded her head. 
 
 They moved the bed some feet away from the partition 
 wall. After a momentary pause, Geoffrey spoke again. 
 
MAN AND WIFE. 647 
 
 " It must be done to-night," he said. " Her friends may in- 
 terfere ; the girl may come back. It must be done to-night." 
 
 Hester bowed her head slowly. 
 
 "How long do you want to be left by yourself in the 
 aouse ?" 
 
 She held up three of her fingers. 
 ; " Does that mean three hours ?" 
 
 She nodded her head. 
 1 " Will it be done in that time ?" 
 ' She made the affirmative sign once more. 
 
 Thus far she had never lifted her eyes to his. In her man- 
 ler of listening to him when he spoke, in the slightest move- 
 ■nent that she made when necessity required it, the same life- 
 ess submission to him, the same mute horror of him, was ex- 
 oressed. He had, thus far, silently resented this, on his side. 
 On the point of leaving the room the restraint which he had 
 !aid on himself gave way. For the first time he resented it in 
 words. 
 
 " Why the devil can't you look at me ?" he asked. 
 
 She let the question pass, without a sign to show that she 
 had heard him. He angrily repeated it. She wn-ote on her 
 slate, and held it out to him — still without raising her eyes to 
 his face. 
 
 " You know you can speak," he said. " You know I have 
 found you out. What's the use of playing the fool with 
 me r 
 
 She persisted in holding the slate before him. He read 
 these words : 
 
 " I am dumb to you, and blind to you. Let me be." 
 ; "Let you be!" he repeated. "It's a little late in the day 
 to be scrupulous, after what you have done. Do you want 
 your Confession back, or not ?" 
 
 As the reference to the Confession passed his lips, she raised 
 her head. A faint tinge of color showed itself on her livid 
 cheeks ; a momentary spasm of pain stirred her death-like face. 
 IThe one last interest left in the woman's life was the interest 
 of recovering the manuscript which had been taken from her. 
 ITo that appeal the stunned intelligence still faintly answered — ■ 
 land to no other. 
 
 "Remember the bargain on your side," GeoflTrey went on, 
 " and I'll remember the bargain on mine. This is how it 
 stands, you know. I have read your Confession ; and I find 
 one thing wanting. You don't tell how it was done. I know 
 you smothered him ; but I don't know how. I want to know. 
 You're dumb ; and you can't tell me. You must do to the 
 wall here what you did in the other house. You run no risks. 
 There isn't a soul to see you. You have got the place to 
 
548 MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 yourself. When I come back let me find this wall like the 
 other wall — at that small hour of the morning, you know, when 
 you were waiting, with the towel in your hand, for the first 
 stroke of the clock. Let me find that, and to-morrow you 
 shall have your Confession back again." 
 
 As the reference to the Confession passed his lips for the 
 second time, the sinking energy in the woman leaped up in her 
 once more. She snatched her slate from her side, and, writing 
 on it rapidly, held it, with both hands, close under his eyes. 
 He read these words : 
 
 " I won't wait. I must have it to-night." 
 
 "Do you think I keep your Confession about me?" said 
 Geoffrey. " I haven't even got it in the house." 
 
 She staggered back, and looked up for the first time. 
 
 " Don't alarm yourself," he went on. " It's sealed up with 
 my seal ; and it's safe in my bankers' keeping. I posted it to 
 them myself You don't stick at a trifle, Mrs. Dethridge. If 
 I had kept it locked up in the house, you might have forced 
 the lock when my back was turned. If I had kept it about 
 me — I might have had that towel over my face, in the small 
 hours of the morning ! The bankers will give you back your 
 Confession — just as they have received it from me — on receipt 
 of an order in my handwriting. Do what I have told you, 
 and you shall have the order to-night." 
 
 She passed her apron over her face, and drew a long breath 
 of relief. Geoffrey turned to the door, 
 
 " I will be back at six this evening," he said. " Shall I find 
 it done ?" 
 
 She bowed her head. 
 
 His first condition accepted, he proceeded to the second. 
 
 " When the opportunity offers," he resumed, " I shall go up 
 to my room. I shall ring the dining-room bell first. You will 
 go up before me when you hear that — and you will show me 
 how you did it in the empty house ?" 
 
 She made the affirmative sign once more. 
 
 At the same moment the door in the passage below was 
 opened and closed again. Geoffrey instantly went down 
 stairs. It was possible that Anne might have forgotten 
 something ; and it was necessary to prevent her from return- 
 ing to her own room. 
 
 They met in the passage. 
 
 " Tired of waiting in the garden ?" he asked, abruptly. 
 
 She pointed to the dining-room. 
 
 "The postman has just given me a letter for you, through 
 the grating in the gate," she answered. " I have put it on the 
 table in there." 
 
 He went in. The handwriting on the address of the lettet 
 
MAN AND Wipe. 54^ 
 
 was the handwriting of Mrs. Glenarm. He pnt it unread into 
 
 his pocket, and went back to Anne. 
 
 "Step out!" he said. "We shall lose the train." 
 They started for their visit to Holchester House. 
 
 CHAI'TER THE FIFTY-SEVENTH. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 At a few minutes before six o'clock that evening, Lord Hol- 
 chester's carriage brought Geoffrey and Anne back to the cot- 
 tage. 
 
 GeoiFrey prevented the servant from ringing at the gate. 
 He had taken the key with him, when he left home earlier in 
 the day. Having admitted Anne, and having closed the gate 
 again, he went on before her to the kitchen window, and called 
 to Hester Dethridge. 
 
 " Take some cold water into the drawing-room, and fill the 
 vase on the chimney-piece," he said. "The sooner you put 
 those flowers into water," he added, turning to his wife, " the 
 longer they will last." 
 
 He pointed, as he spoke, to a nosegay in Anne's hand, which 
 Julius had gathered for her from the conservatory at Holches- 
 ter House. Leaving her to arrange the flowers iu the vase, he 
 went up stairs. After waiting for a moment, he was joined by 
 Hester Dethridge. 
 
 " Done ?" he asked, in a whisper. 
 
 Hester made the aflirmative sign. Geoff'rey took off" his 
 boots, and led the way into the spare room. They noiselessly 
 moved the bed back to its place against the partition wall, 
 and left the room again. When Anne entered it, some min- 
 utes afterward, not the slightest change of any kind was visi- 
 ble since she had last seen it in the middle of the day. 
 
 She removed her bonnet and mantle, and sat down to rest. 
 
 The whole course of events, since the previous night, had 
 tended one way, and had exerted the same delusive influence 
 over her mind. It was impossible for her any longer to resist 
 the conviction that she had distrusted appearances without the 
 slightest reason, and that she had permitted purely visionary 
 suspicions to fill her with purely causeless alarm. In the firm 
 belief that she was in danger, she had watched through the 
 night — and nothing had happened. In the confident anticipa- 
 tion that Geoftrey had promised what he was resolved not to 
 perform, she had waited to see what excuse he would find for 
 keeping her at the cottage. And, when the time came for the 
 
650 MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 visit, she found him ready to fulfill the engagement which he 
 had made. At Holchester House, not the slightest interfer- 
 ence had been attempted with her perfect liberty of action and 
 speech. Resolved to inform Sir Patrick that she had changed 
 her room, she had described the alarm of fire and the events 
 which had succeeded it, in the fullest detail — and had not been 
 once checked by Geoflrey from beginning to end. She had 
 spoken in confidence to Blanche, and had never been interrupt- 
 ed. Walking round the conservatory, she had dropped behind 
 the others with perfect impunity, to say a grateful word to Sir 
 Patrick, and to ask if the interpretation that he placed on Geof- 
 frey's conduct was really the interj^retation which had been 
 hinted at by Blanche. They had talked together for ten min- 
 utes or more. Sir Patrick had assured her that Blanche had 
 correctly represented his opinion. He had declared his con- 
 viction that the rash way was, in her case, the right way ; and 
 that she would do well (with his assistance) to take the in- 
 itiative, in the matter of the separation, on herself "As long 
 as he can keep you under the same roof with him " — Sir Pat- 
 rick had said — " so long he will speculate on our anxiety to re- 
 lease you from the oppression of living with him ; and so long 
 he will hold out with his brother (in the character of a peni- 
 tent husband) for higher terms. Put the signal in the win 
 dow, and try the experiment to-night. Once find your way to 
 the garden door, and I answer for keeping you safely out of 
 his reach until he has submitted to the separation, and has 
 signed the deed." In those words, he had urged Anne to 
 prompt action. He had received, in return, her promise to bo 
 guided by his advice. She had gone back to the drawing- 
 room ; and Geoffrey had made no remark on her absence. She 
 had returned to Fulham, alone with him in his brother's car- 
 riage ; and he had asked no questions. What was it natural, 
 with her means of judging, to infer from all this? Could she 
 see into Sir Patrick's mind, and detect that he was deliberate- 
 ly concealing his own conviction, in the fear that he might 
 paralyze her energies if he acknowledged the alarm for her 
 that he really felt? No. She could only accept the false ap- 
 pearances that surrounded her in the disguise of truth. She 
 could only adopt, in good faith. Sir Patrick's assumed point of 
 view, and believe, on the evidence of her own observation, that 
 Sir Patrick was right. 
 
 Toward dusk, Anne began to feel the exhaustion which was 
 the necessary result of a night passed without sleep. She rang 
 her bell, and asked for some tea. 
 
 Hester Dethridge answered the bell. Instead of making the 
 usual sign, she stood considering — and then wrote on her slate. 
 
MAN AND WIFE. 551 
 
 These were the words : " I have all the work to do, now the 
 girl has gone. If you would have your tea in the drawing- 
 room, you would save me another journey up stairs." 
 
 Anne at once engaged to comply with the request. 
 
 "Are you ill ?" she asked ; noticing, faint as the light now 
 was, something strangely altered in Hester's manner. 
 
 Without looking up, Hester shook her head. 
 
 " Has any thing happened to vex you ?" 
 
 The negative sign was repeated. 
 
 " Have I offended you ?" 
 
 She suddenly advanced a step ; suddenly looked at Anne ; 
 checked herself with a dull moan, like a moan of pain ; and 
 hurried out of the room. 
 
 Concluding that she had inadvertently said or done some- 
 thing to offend Hester Dethridge, Anne determined to return 
 to the subject at the first favorable opportunity. In the mean 
 time she descended to the ground - floor. The dining - room 
 door, standing wide open, showed her Geoffrey sitting at the 
 table, writing a letter, with the fatal brandy-bottle at his side. 
 
 After what Mr. Speedwell had told her, it was her duty to 
 interfere. She performed her duty without an instant's hesi- 
 tation. 
 
 " Pardon me for interrupting you," she said. " I think you 
 have forgotten what Mr. Speedwell told you about that." 
 
 She pointed to the bottle. Geoffrey looked at it ; looked 
 down again at his letter, and impatiently shook his head. She 
 made a second attempt at remonstrance — again without effect. 
 He only said, "All right!" in lower tones than were custom- 
 ary with him, and continued his occupation. It was useless to 
 court a third repulse. Anne went into the drawing-room. 
 
 The letter on which he was engaged was an answer to Mrs. 
 Glenarm, who had written to tell him that she was leaving 
 town. He had reached his two concluding sentences when 
 Anne spoke to him. They ran as follows : " I may have news 
 to bring you, before long, which you don't look for. Stay 
 where you are through to-morrow, and wait to hear from me." 
 
 After sealing the envelope, he emptied his glass of brandy- 
 and-water, and waited, looking through the open door. When 
 Hester Dethridge crossed the passage with the tea-tray, and 
 entered the drawing-room, he gave the sign which had been 
 agreed on. He rang his bell, Hester came out again, closing 
 the drawing-room door behind her, 
 
 " Is she safe at her tea?" he asked, removing his heavy boots, 
 and putting on the slippers which were placed ready for him. 
 
 Hester bowed her head. 
 
 He pointed up the stairs. "You go first," he whispered. 
 ' No nonsense ! and no noise !" 
 
652 MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 She ascended the stairs. He followed slowly. Although he 
 had only drank one glass of brandy-and-water, his step was 
 uncertain already. With one hand on the wall, and one hand 
 on the banister, he made his way to the top ; stopped, and 
 listened for a moment ; then joined Hester in his own room, 
 and softly locked the door. 
 
 " Well ?" he said. 
 
 She was standing motionless in the middle of the room — not 
 like a living woman — like a machine waiting to be set in move- 
 ment. Finding it useless to speak to her, he touched her (with 
 a strange sensation of shrinking in him as he did it), and 
 pointed to the partition wall. 
 
 The touch roused hei'. With slow step and vacant face — 
 moving as if she was walking in her sleep — she led the way to 
 the papered wall ; knelt down at the skirting-board ; and, tak- 
 ing out two small sharp nails, lifted up a long strip of the 
 paper which had been detached from the plaster beneath. 
 Mounting on a chair, she turned back the strip and pinned it 
 up, out of the way, using the two nails, which she had kept 
 ready in her hand. 
 
 By the last dim rays of twilight, Geoffrey looked at the wall. 
 
 A hollow space met his view. At a distance of some three 
 feet from the floor the laths had been sawn away, and the 
 plaster had been ripped out, piecemeal, so as to leave a cavity, 
 sufficient in height and width to allow free power of working 
 in any direction, to a man's arms. The cavity completely 
 pierced the substance of the wall. Nothing but the paper on 
 the other side prevented eye or hand from penetrating into the 
 next room. 
 
 Hester Dethridge got down from the chair, and made signs 
 for a light, 
 
 Geoffrey took a match from the box. The same strange un- 
 certainty which had already possessed his feet, appeared now 
 to possess his hands. He struck the match too heavily against 
 the sand-paper, and broke it. He tried another, and struck it 
 too lightly to kindle the flame. Hester took the box out of 
 his hands. Having lit the candle, she held it low, and pointed 
 to the skirting-board. 
 
 Two little hooks were fixed into the floor, near the part of 
 the wall from which the paper had been removed. Two lengths 
 of fine and strong string were twisted once or twice round the 
 hooks. The loose ends of the string, extending to some length 
 beyond the twisted parts, were neatly coiled away against the 
 skirting-board. The other ends, drawn tight, disappeared in 
 two small holes drilled through the wall, at a height of a foot 
 from the floor. 
 
 After first untwisting the strings from the hooks, Hester rose, 
 
MAN AND WIFE. 553 
 
 and held the candle so as to light the cavity in the wall. Two 
 more pieces of the fine string were seen here, resting loose upon 
 the uneven surface which marked the lower boundary of the 
 hollowed space. Lifting these higher strings, Hester lifted the 
 loosened paper in the next room — the lower strings, which had 
 previously held the strip firm and flat against the sound por- 
 tion of the wall, working in their holes, and allowing the paper 
 to move up freely. As it rose higher and higher, Geofli'ey saw 
 thin strips of cotton wool lightly attached, at intervals, to the 
 back of the paper, so as effectually to prevent it from making 
 a grating sound against the wall. Up and up it came slowly, 
 till it could be pulled through the hollow space, and pinned up 
 out of the way, as the strip previously lifted had been pinned 
 before it. Hester drew back, and made way for Geoffrey to 
 look through. There was Anne's room, visible through the 
 wall! He softly parted the light curtains that hung over the 
 bed. There was the pillow, on which her head would rest at 
 night, within reach of his hands ! 
 
 The deadly dexterity of it struck him cold. His nerves gave 
 way. He drew back with a start of guilty fear, and looked 
 round the room. A pocket-flask of brandy lay on the table at 
 his bedside. He snatched it up, and emptied it at a draught — 
 and felt like himself again. 
 
 He beckoned to Hester to approach him. 
 
 " Before we go any further," he said, " there's one thing I 
 want to know. How is it all to be put right again ? Suppose 
 this room is examined ? Those strings will show." 
 
 Hester opened a cupboard and produced a jar. She took 
 out the cork. There was a mixture inside which looked like 
 glue. Partly by signs, and partly by help of the slate, she 
 showed how the mixture could be applied to the back of the 
 loosened strip of paper in the next room — how the paper could 
 be glued to the sound lower part of the wall by tightening the 
 strings — how the strings, having served that purpose, could be 
 safely removed — how the same process could be followed in 
 Geoffrey's room, after the hollowed place had been filled up 
 again with the materials waiting in the scullery, or even with- 
 out filling up the hollow place if the time failed for doing it. 
 In either case, the refastened paper would hide every thing, 
 and the wall would tell no tales. 
 
 Geoffrey was satisfied. He pointed next to the towels in his 
 room. 
 
 '' Take one of them," he said, " and show me how you did it, 
 with your own hands." 
 
 As he said the words, Anne's voice reached his ear from be- 
 low, calling for " Mrs. Dethridge." 
 
 it was impossible to say what might happen next. In an- 
 
564 MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 other minute she might go up to her room and discover every 
 thing. Geoffrey pointed to the wall. 
 
 " Put it right again," he said. " Instantly !" 
 
 It was soon done. All that was necessary was to let the 
 two strips of paper drop back into their places — to fasten the 
 strip to the wall in Anne's room, by tightening the two lower 
 strings — and then to replace the nails which held the loose 
 strip on Geoffrey's side. In a minute the wall had re-assumed 
 its customary aspect. 
 
 They stole out, and looked over the stairs into the passage 
 below. After calling uselessly for the second time, Anne ap- 
 peared ; crossed over to the kitchen ; and, returning again with 
 the kettle in her hand, closed the drawing-room door. 
 
 Hester Dethridge waited impenetrably to receive her next 
 directions. There were no further directions to give. The 
 hideous dramatic representation of the woman's crime for which 
 Geoffrey had asked was in no respect necessary : the means 
 were all prepared, and the manner of using them was self-evi- 
 dent. Nothing but the opportunity, and the resolution to 
 profit by it, were wanting to lead the way to the end. Geof- 
 frey signed to Hester to go down stairs. 
 
 " Get back into the kitchen," he said, " before she comes out 
 again. I shall keep in the garden. When she goes up into 
 her room for the night, show yourself at the back-door — and 1 
 shall know." 
 
 Hester set her foot on the first stair — stopped — turned round 
 — and looked slowly along the two walls of the passage, from 
 end to end — shuddered — shook her head — and went slowly on 
 down the stairs. 
 
 " What were you looking for ?" he whispered after her. 
 
 She neither answered nor looked back — she went her way 
 into the kitchen. 
 
 He waited a minute, and then followed her. 
 
 On his way out to the garden, he went into the dining-room. 
 The moon had risen, and the window-shutters were not closed. 
 It was easy to find the brandy and the jug of water on tlie 
 table. He mixed the two, and emptied the tumbler at a 
 draught. " My head's queer," he whispered to himself He 
 passed his handkerchief over his face. " How infernally hot it 
 is to-night !" He made for the door. It was open, and plainly 
 visible — and yet he failed to find his way to it. Twice he 
 found himself trying to walk through the wall, on either side. 
 The third time he got out, and reached the garden. A strange 
 sensation possessed him, as he walked round and round. He 
 had not drunk enough, or nearly enough, to intoxicate him. 
 His mind, in a dull way, felt the same as usual; but his bodj 
 was like the body of a drunken man. 
 
MAN AND WIFE. 555 
 
 The night advanced ; the clock of Putney Church struck ten. 
 
 Anne appeared again from the drawing-room, with her bed- 
 room candle in her hand. 
 
 " Put out the lights," she said to Hester, at the kitchen door ; 
 " I am going up stairs," 
 
 She entered her room. The insupportable sense of weari- 
 ness, after the sleepless night that she had passed, weighed 
 more heavily on her than ever. She locked the door, but for- 
 bore, on this occasion, to fasten the bolts. The dread of dan- 
 ger was no longer present to her mind ; and there was this 
 positive objection to using the bolts, that the unfastening of 
 them would increase the difficulty of leaving the room noise- 
 lessly later in the night. She loosened her dress, and lifted 
 her hair from her temples — and paced to and fro in the room 
 wearily, thinking. Geoffrey's habits were irregular; Hester 
 seldom went to bed early. Two hours at least — more probably 
 three — must pass, before it would be safe to communicate with 
 Sir Patrick by means of the signal in the window. Her 
 strength was fast failing her. If she persisted, for the next 
 three hours, in denying herself the repose which she sorely 
 needed, the chances were that her nerves might fail her, through 
 sheer exhaustion, when the time came for facing the risk and 
 making the effort to escape. Sleep was falling on her even 
 now, and sleep she must have. She had no fear of failing to 
 wake at the needful time. Falling asleep, with a special neces- 
 sity for rising at a given hour present to her mind, Anne (like 
 most other sensitively organized people) could trust herself to 
 wake at that given hour, instinctively. She put her lighted 
 candle in a safe position, and laid down on the bed. In less 
 than five minutes she was in a deep sleep. 
 
 The church clock struck the quarter to eleven. 
 
 Hester Dethridge showed herself at the back garden door. 
 Geoffrey crossed the lawn, and joined her. The light of the 
 lamp in the passage fell on his face. She started back from 
 the sight of it. 
 
 " What's wrong ?" he asked. 
 
 She shook her head, and pointed through the dining-room 
 door to the brandy-bottle on the table. 
 
 " I'm as sober as you are, you fool !" he said. " Whatever 
 else it is, it's not .that." 
 
 Hester looked at him again. He was right. However un- 
 steady his gait might be, his speech was not the speech, his 
 eyes were not the eyes, of a drunken man. 
 
 " Is she in her room for the night ?" 
 
 Hester made the affirmative sign. 
 
 Geoffrey ascended the stairs, swaying from side to side. Ha 
 
556 ilAN AND WIFE. 
 
 stopped at the top, and beckoned to Hester to join him. He 
 went on into his room; and, signing to her to follow him, 
 closed the door. 
 
 He looked at the partition wall — without approaching it. 
 Hester waited, behind him. 
 
 " Is she asleep ?" he asked. 
 
 Hester went to the wall ; listened at it ; and made the aflBrm- 
 ative reply. 
 
 He sat down. " My head's queer," he said. " Give me a 
 drink of water." He drank part of the water, and poured the 
 rest over his head. Hester turned toward the door to leave 
 him. He instantly stopped her. "Z can't unwind the strings. 
 Z can't lift up the paper. Do it." 
 
 She sternly made the sign of refusal : she resolutely opened 
 the door to leave him. " Do you want your Confession back ?" 
 he asked. She closed the door, stolidly submissive in an in- 
 stant ; and crossed to the partition wall. 
 
 She lifted the loose strips of paper on either side of the wall 
 — pointed through the hollowed place — and drew back again 
 to the other end of the room. 
 
 He rose, and walked unsteadily from the chair to the foot of 
 his bed. Holding by the wood-work of the bed, he waited a 
 little. While he waited, he became conscious of a change in 
 the strange sensations that possessed him. A feeling as of a 
 breath of cold air passed over the right side of his head. He 
 became steady again : he could calculate his distances : he 
 could put his hands through the hollowed place, and draw 
 aside the light curtains, hanging from the hook in the ceil- 
 ing over the head of her bed. He could look at his sleeping 
 wife. 
 
 She was dimly visible, by the light of the candle placed at 
 the other end of her room. The worn and weary look had dis- 
 appeared from her face. All that had been purest and sweet- 
 est in it, in the by-gone time, seemed to be renewed by the 
 deep sleep that held her gently. She was young again in the 
 dim light: she was beautiful in her calm repose. Her head 
 lay back on the pillow. Her upturned face was in a position 
 which placed her completely at the mercy of the man under 
 whose eyes she was sleeping — the man Avho was looking at 
 her, with the merciless resolution in him to take her life. 
 
 After waiting a while, he drew back. " She's more like a 
 child than a woman to-night," he muttered to himself under 
 his breath. He glanced across the room at Hester Dethridge. 
 The lighted candle which she had brought up stairs with her 
 was burning near the place where she stood. " Blow it out," 
 he whispered. She never moved. He repeated the direction. 
 There she stood, deaf to him. 
 
MAN AND WIFE. 557 
 
 What was she doing ? She was looking fixedly into one of 
 ihe corners of the room. 
 
 He turned his head again toward the hollowed place in the 
 vail. He looked at the peaceful face on the pillow once more. 
 le deliberately revived his own vindictive sense of the debt 
 hat he owed her. "But for you," he whispered to himself, 
 ■ I should have won the race : but for you, I should have been 
 i'iends with my father : but for you, I might marry Mrs. Glen- 
 lirm." He turned back again into the room while the sense of 
 t was at its fiercest in him. He looked round and round hira. 
 le took up a towel ; considered for a moment ; and threw it 
 iown again. 
 
 A new idea struck him. In two steps he was at the side of 
 lis bed. He seized on one of the pillows, and looked suddenly 
 It Hester. " It's not a drunken brute this time," he said to 
 ier. " It's a woman who will fight for her life. The pillow's 
 jhe safest of the two." She never answered him, and never 
 ooked toward him. He made once more for the place in the 
 svall, and stopped midway between it and his bed — stopped, 
 ind cast a backward glance over his shoulder. 
 Hester Dethridge was stirring at last. 
 
 With no third person in the room, she was looking, and 
 moving, nevertheless, as if she was following a third person 
 along the wall, from the corner. Her lips were parted in hor- 
 ror ; her eyes, opening wider and wider, stared rigid and glit- 
 tering at the empty wall. Step by step she stole nearer and 
 nearer to Geoffrey, still following some visionary Thing, which 
 was stealing nearer and nearer too. He asked himself what 
 it meant. Was the terror of the deed that he was about to do 
 more than the woman's brain could bear ? Would she burst 
 out screaming, and wake his wife ? 
 
 He hurried to the place in the wall — to seize the chance, 
 while the chance was his. 
 
 He steadied his strong hold on the pillow. 
 He stooped to pass it through the opening. 
 He poised it over Anne's sleeping face. 
 
 At the same moment he felt Hester Dethridge's hand laid 
 on him from behind. The touch ran through him, from head 
 to foot, like a touch of ice. He drew back with a start, and 
 faced her. Her eyes were staring straight over his shoulder 
 ftt something behind him — looking as they had looked in the 
 garden at Windygates. 
 
 Before he could speak he felt the flash of her eyes in his 
 eyes. For the third time, she had seen the Apparition behind 
 him. The homicidal frenzy possessed her. She flew at his 
 throat like a wild beast. The feeble old woman attacked the 
 athlete ! 
 
558 MAN AND WIFK. 
 
 He dropped the pillow, and lifted his terrible right arm t 
 brush her from him, as he might have brushed an insect fron 
 him. 
 
 Even as he raised the arm a frightful distortion seized on hi 
 face. As if with an invisible hand, it dragged down the brov 
 and the eyelid on the right ; it dragged down the mouth oi 
 the same side. His arm fell helpless ; his whole body, on th( 
 side under the arm, gave way. He dropped on the floor, lik( 
 a man shot dead. 
 
 Hester Dethridge pounced on his prostrate body — knelt or 
 
 his broad breast — and fastened her ten fingers on his throat. 
 * * * * * * * 
 
 The shock of the fall woke Anne on the instant. She start 
 ed up — looked round — and saw a gap in the wall at the head 
 of her bed, and the candle-light glimmering in the next room 
 Panic-stricken ; doubting, for the moment, if she were in her 
 right mind, she drew back, waiting — listening— looking. Sh 
 saw nothing but the glimmering light in the room ; she heard 
 nothing but a hoarse gasping, as of some person laboring for 
 breath. The sound ceased. There was an interval of silence. 
 Then the head of Hester Dethridge rose slowly into sight 
 through the gap in the wall — rose with the glittering light of 
 madness in the eyes — and looked at her. 
 
 She flew to the open window, and screamed for help. 
 
 Sir Patrick's voice answered her, from the road in front of 
 the cottage. 
 
 " Wait for me, for God's sake !" she cried. 
 
 She fled from the room, and rushed down the stairs. In an- 
 other moment she had opened the door, and was out in the 
 front garden. 
 
 As she ran to the gate, she heard the voice of a strange man 
 on the other side of it. Sir Patrick called to her encouraging- 
 ly. " The policeman is with us," he said. " He patrols the 
 garden at night — he has a key." As he spoke the gate was 
 opened from the outside. She saw Sir Patrick, Arnold, and 
 the policeman. She staggered toward them as they came in — 
 she v/as just able to say, " Up stairs !" before her senses tailed 
 her. Sir Patrick saved her from falling. He placed her on 
 the bench in the garden, and waited by her, while Arnold and 
 the policeman hurried into the cottage. 
 
 " Where first ?" asked Arnold. 
 
 "The room the lady called from," said the policeman. 
 
 They mounted the stairs, and entered Anne's room. Th© 
 gap in the wall was instantly observed by both of them. 
 They looked through it. 
 
 Geoffi-ey Delamayn's dead body lay on the floor. Hester 
 Dethridge was kneeling at his head, praying. 
 
 out 
 
MAN AND WIFK. 559 
 
 lil 
 
 II 
 
 EPILOGUE. 
 A MORNING CALL. 
 
 The newspapers have announced the return of Lord and 
 jady Holchester to their residence in London, after an absence 
 •n the continent of more than six months. 
 
 ^ It is the height of the season. All day long, within the ca- 
 'lonical hours, the door of Holchester House is perpetually open- 
 ng to receive visitors. The vast majority leave their cards, 
 
 »ind go away again. Certain privileged individuals only get 
 Vit of their carriages and enter the house. 
 
 Among these last, arriving at an earlier hour than is custom- 
 iry, is a person of distinction who is positively bent on seeing 
 (Bither the master or the mistress of the house, and who will 
 take no denial. While this person is parleying with the chief 
 of the servants, Lord Holchester, passing from one room to an- 
 other, happens to cross the inner end of the hall. The person 
 instantly darts at him with a cry of " Dear Lord Holchester !" 
 Julius turns and sees — Lady Lundie ! 
 
 I He is fairly caught, and he gives way with his best grace. 
 
 [As he opens the door of the nearest room for her ladyship, he 
 
 if furtively consults his watch and says, in his inmost soul, "How 
 
 I am I to get rid of her before the others come ?" 
 
 Lady Lundie settles down on a sofa in a whirlwind of silk and 
 
 I lace, and becomes, in her own majestic way, " perfectly charm- 
 ing." She makes the most affectionate inquiries about Lady 
 
 ' Holchester, about the Dowager Lady Holchester, about Julius 
 himself Where have they been ? what have they seen ? have 
 time and change helped them to recover the shock of that dread- 
 ful event, to which Lady Lundie dare not more particularly al- 
 lude ? Julius answers resignedly and a little absently. He 
 makes polite inquiries, on his side, as to her ladyship's plans 
 and proceedings — with a mind uneasily conscious of the inex- 
 orable lapse of time, and of certain probabilities which that 
 lapse may bring with it. Lady Lundie has very little to say 
 about herself. She is only in town for a few weeks. Her life 
 is a life of retirement. " My modest round of duties at Windy- 
 gates, Lord Holchester ; occasionally relieved, when ray mind 
 is overworked, by the society of a few earnest friends whose 
 views harmonize with my own — my existence passes (not quite 
 
560 MAN AND WIFE, 
 
 uselessly, I hope) in that M'ay, I have no news ; I see nothi " 
 — except, indeed, yesterday, a sight of the saddest kind." ' 
 pauses there. Julius observes that he is expected to make - 
 quiries, and makes them accordingly. 
 
 Lady Luudie hesitates ; announces that her news refers 
 that painful past event which she has already touched on ; 
 knowledges that she could not find herself in London with' 
 feeling an act of duty involved in making inquiries at the a, 
 lum in which Hester Dethridge is confined for life ; announc 
 that she has not only made the inquiries, but has seen the ul 
 happy woman herself, has spoken to her, has found her uncon- 
 scious of her dreadful position, incapable of the smallest exer- 
 tion of memory, resigned to the existence that she leads, and 
 likely (in the opinion of the medical superintendent) to live for 
 some years to come. Having stated these facts, her ladyship 
 is about to make a few of those " remarks appropriate to the 
 occasion," in which she excels, when the door opens ; and Lady 
 Holchester, in search of her missing husband, enters the room. 
 
 II. 
 
 There is a new outburst of afiectionate interest on Lady Lun- 
 die's part — met civilly, but not cordially, by Lady Holchester. 
 Julius's wife seems, like Julius, to be uneasily conscious of thej 
 lapse of time. Like Julius again, she privately wonders howj 
 long Lady Lundie is going to stay. 
 
 Lady Lundie shows no signs of leaving the sofa. She has ev- 
 idently come to Holchester House to say something — and shej 
 has not said it yet. Is she going to say it ? Yes. She is go- 
 ing to get, by a roundabout way, to the object in view. Sht 
 has another inquiry of the afiectionate sort to make. May shel 
 be permitted to resume the subject of Lord and Lady Holches- 
 ter's travels? They have been at Rome. Can they confirm 
 the shocking intelligence which has reached her of the " apos- 
 tasy " of Mrs. Glenarm ? 
 
 Lady Holchester can confirm it, by personal experience. Mrs. 
 Glenarm has renounced the world, and has taken refuge in the 
 bosom of the Holy Catholic Church, Lady Holchester has seen 
 her in a convent at Rome. She is passing through the period 
 of her probation ; and she is resolved to take the veil. Lady 
 Lundie, as a good Protestant, lifts her hands in horror — de- 
 clares the topic to be too painful to dwell on — and by way of 
 varying it, goes straight to the point at last. Has Lady Hol- 
 chester, in the course of her continental experience, happened 
 to meet with, or to hear of— Mrs. Arnold Brinkworth ? 
 
 " I have ceased, as you know, to hold any communication 
 with my relatives," Lady Lundie explains. " The course they 
 took at the time of our family trial — the sympathy they felt 
 
MAN AND WIFE. 561 
 
 with a Person whom I can not even now trust myself to name 
 more particularly — alienated us from each other. I may be 
 grieved, dear Lady Holchester, but I bear no malice. And I 
 shall always feel a motherly interest in hearing of Blanche's 
 welfare. I have been told that she and her husband were 
 traveling, at the time when you and Lord Holchester were 
 traveling. Did you meet with them?" 
 
 Julius and his wife looked at each other. Lord Holchester 
 is dumb. Lady Holchester replies : 
 
 " We saw Mr. and Mrs. Arnold Brinkworth at Florence, 
 and afterward at Naples, Lady Lundie. They returned to En- 
 gland a Aveek since, in anticipation of a certain happy event, 
 which will possibly increase the members of your family circle. 
 They are now in London. Indeed,! may tell you that we ex- 
 pect them here to lunch to-day." 
 
 Having made this plain statement. Lady Holchester looks at 
 Lady Lundie. (If that doesn't hasten her departure, nothing 
 will !) 
 
 Quite useless ! Lady Lundie holds her ground. Having 
 heard absolutely nothing of her relatives for the last six months, 
 she is burning with curiosity to hear more. There is a name 
 she has not mentioned yet. She places a certain constraint 
 upon herself, and mentions it now. 
 
 "And Sir Patrick?" says her ladyship, subsiding into a gen- 
 tle melancholy, suggestive of past injuries condoned by Chris- 
 tian forgiveness. " I only know what report tells me. Did you 
 meet with Sir Patrick at Florence and Naples also ?" 
 
 Julius and his wife look at each other again. The clock in 
 the hall strikes. Julius shudders. Lady Holchester's patience 
 begins to give way. There is an awkward pause. Somebody 
 must say something. As before. Lady Holchester replies : 
 
 "Sir Patrick went abroad. Lady Lundie, with his niece and 
 her husband ; and Sir Patrick has come back with them." 
 
 " In good health ?" her ladyship inquires. 
 
 "Younger than ever," Lady Holchester rejoins. 
 
 Lady Lundie smiles satirically. Lady Holchester notices 
 the smile ; decides that mercy shown to this woman is mercy 
 misplaced; and announces (to her husband's horror) that she 
 has news to tell of Sir Patrick, which will probably take his 
 sister-in-law by surprise. 
 
 Lady Lundie waits eagerly to hear what the news is. 
 
 " It is no secret," Lady Holchester proceeds — " though it is 
 only known, as yet, to a few intimate friends. Sir Patrick 
 has made an important change in his life." 
 
 Lady Lundie's charming smile suddenly dies out. 
 
 "Sir Patrick is not only a very clever and a very agreeable 
 man," Lady Holchester resumes, a little maliciously; "he is 
 
 24* 
 
562 MAN AND "WIFE. 
 
 also, in all his habits and ways (as you well know), a man 
 yov;nger than his years — who still possesses many of the qual- 
 ities which seldom fail to attract women." 
 
 Lady Lundie starts to her feet. 
 
 "You don't mean to tell me, Lady Holchester, that Sir Pat- 
 rick is married ?" 
 
 "I do." 
 
 Her ladyship drops back on the sofa — helpless, really and 
 iruly helpless, under the double blow that has fallen on her. 
 fehe is not only struck out of her place as the chief woman of 
 the family, but (still on the right side of forty) she is socially 
 superannuated, as The Dowager Lady Lundie, for the rest of 
 her life ! 
 
 "At his age !" she exclaims, as soon as she can speak. 
 
 "Pardon me for reminding you," Lady Holchester answers, 
 " that jDlenty of men marry at Sir Patrick's age. In his case, 
 it is only due to him to say that his motive raises him beyond 
 the reach of ridicule or reproach. His marriage is a good 
 action in the highest sense of the word. It does honor to him, 
 as well as to the lady who shares his position and his name." 
 
 "A young girl, of course !" is Lady Lundie's next remark, 
 
 " No. A woman who has been tried by no common suffering, 
 and who has borne her hard lot nobly. A woman who de- 
 serves the calmer and the happier life on which she is entering 
 now." 
 
 " May I ask who she is ?" 
 
 Before the question can be answered, a knock at the house 
 door announces the arrival of visitors. For the third time, 
 Julius and his wife look at each other. On this occasion, 
 Julius interferes. 
 
 " My wife has already told you, Lady Lundie, that we ex- 
 pect Mr. and Mrs. Brinkworth to lunch. Sir Patrick and the 
 new Lady Lundie accompany them. If I am mistaken in sup- 
 posing that it might not be quite agreeable to you to meet 
 them, I can only ask your pardon. If I am right, I will leave 
 Lady Holchester to receive our friends, and will do myself the 
 honor of taking you into another room." 
 
 He advances to the door of an inner room. He offers his arm 
 to Lady Lundie. Her ladyship stands immovable ; determined 
 to see the woman who has supplanted her. In a moment more, 
 the door of entrance from the hall is thrown open ; and the 
 servant announces, " Sir Patrick and Lady Lundie. Mr. and 
 Mrs. Arnold Brinkworth." 
 
 Lady Lundie looks at the woman who has taken her place at 
 the head of the family; and sees — Anne Silvester! 
 
 THE END.