OLIVIA

OR

IT WAS FOR HER SAKE

BY

CHARLES GARVICE

AUTHOR OF

“Lonie; or, Hollow Gold,” “Claire,” “Elaine,” “Leola Dale’s Fortune,” “Leslie’s Loyalty,” etc.

NEW YORK
STREET & SMITH, Publishers

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OLIVIA.

CHAPTER I.
SOMETHING OF A MYSTERY.

It was in the “merry month” of May, the “beautiful harbinger of summer,” as the poets call it; and one of those charming east winds which render England such a delightful place of residence for the delicate and consumptive, and are truly a boon and a blessing to the doctors and undertakers, was blowing gaily through one of the lovely villages of Devonshire, and insidiously stealing through the half opened French windows of the drawing-room of Hawkwood Grange.

Three persons were seated in this drawing-room. An old gentleman, a lady—who would have had a fit on the spot if any one had called her old—and a young girl.

The old gentleman was called Sparrow—Mr. Sparrow, the solicitor, of Wainford, the market town and borough three miles off. The old—the middle-aged and would-be youthful lady—was Miss Amelia Vanley, the maiden sister of the master of Hawkwood Grange; and the young lady was Olivia Vanley, his daughter, and, therefore, Miss Amelia’s niece.

Miss Amelia was presiding at the five o’clock teatable; Mr. Sparrow was performing the difficult feat of balancing a teacup in one hand and a bread-and-butter plate in the other; and Olivia was seated at the piano, which she occasionally touched absently as she half listened to the other two. On a chair beside her was a sealskin jacket—there had been snow on this “merry” May morning, if you please—and she still wore her hat.

Above the piano hung one of those old-fashioned circular mirrors which reflect the face and bust of the player, and it presented a face which was beautiful, and something more than beautiful.

We have lost our climate and our trade—so it is said—but thank Heaven, there are still pretty girls left in England. When they disappear, it will be time for us to put up the shutters and vacate the island; but until that happens, it will still be worth living in.

To be consistent with her name, Olivia should have been of a dark and olive complexion; but the only thing dark in the lovely face were the hazel eyes. Her hair was an auburn chestnut, which Joshua Reynolds loved to paint, with eyebrows to match; mouth “rather large,” as Miss Amelia declared—she possessed, and was exceedingly proud of, one of the well known speaking doll pattern—but as expressive as the eyes. Face and figure were eloquent of youth and perfect health, and her voice was full of that music which youth and health and womanly refinement and delicacy combine to give.

The Grange was the principal house in Hawkwood, and the room was a very fair specimen of the drawing-rooms in a modern country mansion.

Mr. Sparrow was speaking, and his thin, piping voice chimed in not discordantly with the treble notes which Olivia’s hand now and again touched.

“There is—er—something of a mystery about it, and I—er—dislike mysteries, Miss Amelia.”

“Do you, really?” responded Miss Amelia, with a girlish simper. “Now, I love a mystery, Mr. Sparrow; but then we poor women are so fond of romance and—and all that. We have the softer, the more poetic nature, I suppose. You men are so hard!” And she stuck her head very much on one side at the tame-looking old lawyer, who straightened himself as well as he was able under the disadvantage of the teacup and plate, and tried to look as if he were, indeed, hard and practical. “And you do think, there is a mystery! How charming! You really must tell us all about it; we are dying to hear the whole—the whole story. Aren’t we, Olivia?”

The young girl gave the very faintest inclination of her head by way of response, and silently pressed down a chord.

“There’s not much to tell, as a matter of fact,” said Mr. Sparrow, with the little cough with which old gentlemen preface a story they are anxious to relate. “Last Friday my clerk came into my room and said that a gentleman wished to see me. He gave the name of Faradeane.”

“Faradeane! Dear me, how strange, really!” murmured Miss Amelia, who would have made the same comment if the name had been Smith.

“Yes, Faradeane. It was quite unknown to me,” continued Mr. Sparrow, “and the gentleman was quite as unknown. He was a young man and—and a gentleman. There can be no doubt about that. I—er—think I know a gentleman when I see him, Miss Amelia.”

“Indeed, yes,” murmured Miss Amelia, promptly. “Was he very young?”

“About thirty, I should say,” replied Mr. Sparrow, thoughtfully. “Yes, about thirty. A London man; I should say, judging by his clothes. He was very well dressed, very well, indeed. Plainly, but well. I gave him a chair, and he came to the point at once by asking me if I were the owner of The Dell. I said I was, with some surprise, for really I had quite forgotten the little place. It has been shut up so long—it must be just seven years since the last people left it; rather over seven years. He said he had heard that I wanted to sell it, and asked the price. I told him, and—eh—on the spur of the moment, taken so completely by surprise, I stated a price which I cannot help thinking was—er—rather low.”

“Then he accepted it?” said the low, sweet voice of Olivia, and Mr. Sparrow started and colored slightly.

“I nearly forgot you were in the room, my dear Miss Olivia,” he said, with a smile. “Yes, like the Jew who regretted he hadn’t asked more. Yes, yes! He accepted, and at once! ‘If you will have the draft deed made out, I’ll sign it,’ he said, quietly.”

“Dear me, how very sudden and prompt!” murmured Miss Amelia.

“Y—es,” said the old man; “but we lawyers are not accustomed to such suddenness, and I—er—I felt it my duty to ask him for the name of his legal adviser, to whom I might send the draft, and—er—for references.”

“Of course,” assented Miss Amelia.

The girl held her hands above the keys, and turned half round, as if absently waiting for the sequel.

“Well, my dear Miss Amelia, I was very much surprised, indeed, by his response to my very natural request. ‘Send the draft to me at the George Inn, where I am staying,’ he said, quite quietly and indifferently. Oh, quite! His manner was perfect, though—er—rather haughty and reserved, perhaps. ‘Send the draft to the George. As to the references, I need not trouble you with them, as I am quite willing to pay any deposit—or the whole amount, if you like, here and now.’”

“Now, really!” exclaimed Miss Amelia, in a subdued murmur.

Olivia struck the chord softly, and smiled.

“Of course, such a proceeding was quite unusual and—er—unbusinesslike,” continued Mr. Sparrow; “but it was scarcely one I could object to. I was the vendor, he the purchaser, and—er—in short, I declined to accept any money, and sent the draft to the George the next morning. It came back in an hour, the deeds were engrossed that afternoon, duly signed, and the money paid.”

“By check?” murmured Miss Amelia, with some shrewdness.

Mr. Sparrow nodded approvingly.

“No, my dear Miss Amelia, for if it had been a check I should probably, as it no doubt occurred to you, have been able to learn something of Mr. Faradeane through his bankers. The money was paid in gold and notes, which are, to all intents and purposes, untraceable. Thank you; one more cup. Two pieces of sugar. Thank you. In gold and notes. So far, I think you will admit, the proceedings were—er—slightly mysterious.”

“Charmingly so,” assented Miss Amelia.

“And they are nothing to what follows,” said Mr. Sparrow, with a knowing nod. “Having obtained possession of The Dell, Mr. Faradeane has had it put in repair throughout, and is now actually residing there!”

“There was only one thing more mysterious he could have been guilty of,” said Olivia, with a smile. “He could have let it!”

“Wait a moment, my dear Miss Olivia,” said Mr. Sparrow. “There is nothing mysterious in his living at The Dell, but the manner of his living. In the first place, he is living there with only one servant—a manservant; in the next, no woman is permitted to pass the gate. I must give it as a fact. Old Mrs. Williams, from the farm, was stopped by the manservant as she was entering the gate with some eggs and butter, and informed, quite civilly, but firmly, that no female would be permitted to enter the premises, and that for the future she must leave her basket outside.”

“Good gra——” gasped Miss Amelia.

“More than that,” continued Mr. Sparrow, in a state of mild excitement; “Mrs. Williams tells me that the place is barricaded as if for a siege, and that a large mastiff is prowling—loose, actually loose!—about the place, day and night.”

“Great Heav——” Miss Amelia tried to ejaculate, but Mr. Sparrow, thoroughly warmed to his work, rushed on:

“I’ve heard, too, from several people, that lights are seen burning in the windows nearly the whole night through. Indeed, the people in the village—of course it’s very foolish—declare that Mr. Faradeane never goes to bed. Several persons have seen him walking up and down The Dell lane at the most unearthly hours. Now, Miss Olivia, what do you think of the affair?” and the little man leaned back with an air of satisfaction.

Olivia laughed thoughtfully.

“Yes, it is rather mysterious,” she admitted, to his palpable delight. “Do you think that he is a coiner, or simply a gentleman suffering from the pangs of a guilty conscience?”

Mr. Sparrow could not see the twinkle in the dark eyes, and as the sweet voice was perfectly grave, took the question seriously.

“Well, I must confess that the thought did—er—cross my mind; I mean in respect to coining; one reads such—er—extraordinary stories.”

“Ah, yes!” breathed Miss Amelia, with a delighted little gasp. “Good gracious! fancy a coiner in Hawkwood! Of course you have hinted your suspicions to Smallbone?”

Smallbone was the village policeman, who, if having nothing to do from one year’s end to the other can produce happiness, should have been in a continual state of felicity.

“Well—er—no,” said Mr. Sparrow.

“Perhaps it occurred to Mr. Sparrow, aunt, that even coiners are not so utterly imbecile as to set about their work by attracting the attention of all their neighbors,” said Olivia.

“Ahem! That is true! That is very true,” remarked Mr. Sparrow, with a little cough. “And I confess that the counterfeit coinage theory scarcely holds good. Mr. Faradeane does not give one the idea of—er—that class of criminal.”

“Is he more like a burglar?” asked Olivia, with apparent innocence.

Mr. Sparrow shook his head.

“No, no, dear me, no! I think I said he was most distinguished-looking. Quite—er—aristocratic, and—er—patrician. Remarkably good looking, also.”

Miss Amelia pushed her chair nearer a book cabinet, and seized “The Peerage.”

“Oh, I’ve looked through that,” remarked Mr. Sparrow, with charming simplicity. “There is no mention of the name of Faradeane in that or ‘The County Families.’”

Miss Amelia closed the book with a gesture of despair.

“Is there no way of finding out something about him, dear Mr. Sparrow?”

“I know of none,” he replied, solemnly.

“And I can only think of one,” said Olivia.

Both pairs of eyes were turned upon her with eager impatience.

“Really! Now, what is that, my dear?” demanded Aunt Amelia.

“You might ask him to tell you his history,” she said, without moving a muscle.

Aunt Amelia sunk back with a gesture of disgusted disappointment, and Mr. Sparrow coughed.

“I—er—have reason to believe that the manservant was asked a question or two——”

“By you, Mr. Sparrow?” said Olivia, still with the expression of an innocent child.

The little man blushed.

“Well, not exactly; but my man Walker happened to meet Mr. Faradeane’s man, and got into conversation.”

“And what did he say?” demanded Miss Amelia, eagerly.

“Well, I regret to say that he told poor Walker to mind his own business.”

Olivia had only time to turn to the piano to hide the smile which seemed to flash across her face and dance in her eyes like a ray of sunshine.

“Well, I really never——Of course, no one will think of calling upon him,” said Miss Amelia.

Again Mr. Sparrow colored guiltily.

“I—er—thought it my duty as a neighbor,” he said, hesitatingly, “to just call. It was yesterday. The dog”—he shuddered, and screwed up his slender legs, as if at some painful recollection—“the dog is one of the largest and—most awful animals, and I am convinced if the servant hadn’t come up at the moment, I——” He shuddered again. “He said his master was out. I saw Mr. Faradeane walking in the orchard at the side of the cottage quite distinctly.”

“Then he was out,” said Olivia, gravely.

“My dear Olivia,” exclaimed her aunt, “you seem to be quite anxious to make excuses for this extraordinary young man; you do, indeed!”

“Well, it can’t be denied that he was out of the house,” said Olivia, as gravely as before. “We usually look over the stairs and whisper to the servants to say that we are not at home. For the future I shall imitate Mr.—what-is-his-name’s veracity, and go out into the garden.”

“The man added that his master never saw visitors,” said Mr. Sparrow, solemnly.

There was something so irresistibly ludicrous in the little old man’s tone that Olivia’s gravity broke down, and she burst into a peal of laughter. While it was ringing through the room, and the other two were staring at her in startled astonishment and indignation, two gentlemen entered. One—an elderly man, tall and thin, with gray hair and eyes that had a look of Olivia’s in them—was her father, Mr. Vanley. The other was a young man in flannels—a young man who would have been good looking but for a remarkably faulty mouth and an expression in his eyes which seemed to convey the idea to the spectator that their owner was always on the alert listening and watching, and yet endeavoring to conceal the fact.

As Olivia looked up and met the eyes fixed upon her with a sudden, eager curiosity, then turned aside with as sudden an attempt at indifference, the laughter died away abruptly and a sudden change came over her expressive face. It was as if she had hardened it. A moment ago it had been full of girlish mirth and abandon; now in an instant it was eloquent of reserve and almost hauteur.

“What is the matter, Olivia?” asked Mr. Vanley, not irritably, but with a touch of sober earnestness, almost amounting to anxiety, which was always present with him. “What are you laughing at? Good-afternoon, Mr. Sparrow.”

The young man came forward.

“Do tell us, Miss Olivia!” he said, throwing as much eagerness into his voice as possible. “Pray let us share the joke.”

“It was no joke,” she said, calmly; and turning away, began to arrange some music.

“Miss Olivia was laughing at me,” said Mr. Sparrow, almost plaintively.

“My dear Edwin—and you, Mr. Bradstone—you must hear this strange story of Mr. Sparrow’s. Now, Mr. Sparrow, I insist!” exclaimed Miss Amelia, clasping her hands in the latest “intensity.”

Mr. Sparrow was nothing loth, and Mr. Vanley sank into a chair with so palpable an air of resignation that a smile flitted across Olivia’s face. Perhaps that encouraged Bartley Bradstone, for he approached her in a slow, hesitating kind of fashion, and talked to her in a low voice—he was watching her cold, downcast face covertly all the time—while Mr. Sparrow inflicted his story of the mysterious stranger upon Mr. Vanley.

The master of the Grange listened in silence until the narration was complete, and the old gentleman paused to see the effect of his recital; then Mr. Vanley looked up and said, quietly:

“Not a very promising neighbor. One would think he was insane; not that the purchase of The Dell is the act of a lunatic. It is the prettiest little place in the country.”

He rose as he spoke, and, walking to the window, looked out pensively at the chimneys of The Dell, which just peeped over the tops of his own elms growing on the slope of the lane, at the bottom of which The Dell nestled.

“Yes, it is,” said Miss Amelia; “and I am sure I have always wondered why you didn’t buy it yourself, my dear Edwin, seeing that it is almost within your own estate.”

Mr. Vanley’s face clouded for an instant, and he cast a glance toward Bartley Bradstone; then he said, with a slight shrug:

“I have quite enough to worry about. Besides, I didn’t know that Mr. Sparrow wished to part with it.”

“I didn’t—that is—I had no idea of it,” said the old gentleman, nervously. “The—the fact is, this young man—Mr. Faradeane, I mean—took me by surprise.”

“At all events, you have got your price for it,” said Mr. Vanley, as if rather tired of the subject, “and I”—with a grave smile—“should in all probability have beaten you down.”

“I’d rather you had bought it at half the price,” murmured Mr. Sparrow, meekly.

“Well, well,” said Mr. Vanley, almost impatiently. “It is too late now, and—there’s an end of the matter.” He turned to the pair at the piano, and regarded them for a moment. “I shall be in the library if you want to see me before you go, Bradstone,” he said.

Bartley Bradstone looked over his shoulder carelessly—too carelessly for a young man addressing his senior.

“All right,” he said, “I’ll look in as I go.”

CHAPTER II.
“THE CHERUB.”

Mr. Vanley was not only Bartley Bradstone’s senior, but his superior in looks and status.

The Vanleys had held Hawkwood Grange for centuries, and there was no name better known in Devonshire than that which the squire bore. Twice a baronetage and once a peerage had been offered to the Vanleys; but to a Vanley the old English and old Devonshire title of “Squire” was too dear to be exchanged for any other, though it might be higher rank; and so Squire Vanley, the master of the Grange, refused, and certainly was not the less respected for his refusal of a peerage.

While as to Mr. Bartley Bradstone, as the French wit remarked, “He may have had a grandfather, but no one has yet been found credulous enough to believe it!”

Five years before this notable afternoon, Mr. Bradstone had purchased an estate within three miles of the Grange. Perhaps it would be as well to be exact, and explain that he had loaned money on the place, and, foreclosing, got possession of it.

An old, but rather ramshackle house stood upon it—a house quite large enough for a bachelor, by the way—but Mr. Bradstone pulled it down, and in its place built a huge mansion which, by its highly florid architecture, was far more suitable to South Kensington than North Devon.

It was a tremendous place, all gables and turrets, and being built of red brick, with white stone facings, was terribly conspicuous. Olivia had remarked, the first time she saw it, which happened to be on a blazing hot day, that “no one ought to look upon it, except through green spectacles.” And she added that it would be useful in winter—to warm one’s hands at!

The interior was decorated and furnished in strict accordance with the very latest canons of the very latest art craze; and, as if to atone for the red glare of the exterior, the inside was cold and repelling.

Mr. Bartley Bradstone, however, considered it perfection; and here he settled down. The country people were shy of him at first. Devonshire is celebrated for apples, cider and—exclusiveness. Nothing was known of the newcomer, excepting that he was rich; there was no doubt about that—immensely rich; and those who had been thrown into his company were not prepossessed by him. There was that look in his eyes, for one thing; and, for another, with all his careful dressing and studiously “correct” manners, Mr. Bartley Bradstone did not seem, to the very particular country people, to be—well, exactly a gentleman.

But after a time the squire, who had met him once or twice in the market town, seen him at church, touched his hat to him at the meet—of course the squire was the master of the hounds—at last the squire made a formal call upon Mr. Bartley Bradstone at The Maples, as he called the red monstrosity.

That which was good enough for Squire Vanley was, of course, good enough for the rest of the county people, and Mr. Bartley Bradstone was not only asked out to dinner, but, greater honor still, had the gratification of seeing the best people of the neighborhood round his own—new—mahogany.

He gave good dinners—too good, it was whispered; too many covers, too many wines, with too much plate, and too many servants.

“It’s a pity,” remarked Lord Carfield to the squire, as they walked home after one of Mr. Bartley’s dinners, “that there is no one to caution these parvenus against overdoing it. Give you my word, Vanley, I felt all the evening as if I were dining at one of those new hotels in London, where they give you twelve courses, served in a gaudy room, all gilt and white paint, and play music at you all the time. I suppose you have twice as much plate? I have some”—the Carfield plate was the boast of that part of Devonshire—“but we never think of making a silversmith’s counter of our dinner-table every time we ask a neighbor to dinner.”

“He means well,” said the squire.

“Just so,” said the old lord. “That makes it all the worse. It’s a hopeless case.”

They were near neighbors, and an intimacy sprang up between Mr. Bartley Bradstone, the millionaire, and the Squire of Hawkwood. The young man would ride over—on a long park horse, which he rode abominably!—to the Grange in the morning, and was often easily persuaded to stop to lunch. Sometimes he would remain to dinner, a servant being sent to The Maples for Mr. Bradstone’s evening clothes. Miss Amelia quite liked him, and the squire, as has been said, was intimate with him; but he made no way with Olivia. From the first moment she had seen him, when her frank eyes had rested upon his restless, shifting ones, she had kept him at a distance, so to speak.

If her father had brought home the village sweep to dinner, she would have treated him courteously and extended a welcome to him; and that is all she did to Bartley Bradstone. While he——! He was as much in love with Olivia Vanley as utterly selfish man can be, and he had sworn to himself that he would have her. Now, Bartley Bradstone, though he was not a gentleman, though he overdressed, gave too elaborate dinners, and made occasional mistakes in etiquette, was both rich and clever. The man who had bought him for a fool would have lost his money. Olivia, who despised him, was wrong in doing so. She should have been on her guard and—feared him. All the while Mr. Sparrow was repeating his story to Mr. Vanley, Bartley Bradstone was talking in an undertone to her.

“It’s just a simple picnic, a rough affair, but I’ll promise you shan’t be bored, Miss Vanley,” he said. “The squire is coming, and he told me—that is, he said I might ask you. I hope you will come. Lord Carfield is coming, and has promised to bring his son, Viscount Granville. Lord Granville arrives at his father’s to-night. You know him—the viscount, I mean?”

“Bertie Granville? Oh, yes. ‘The Cherub,’ as he is called.”

“That’s the man,” said Bartley Bradstone, with a faint flush. He would not have dared to call him “Bertie” or “The Cherub.” “Well, he is coming, and I hope to persuade Miss Amelia, too. But the whole thing will be spoilt if you refuse.”

Olivia looked at him from under her lids—the look which makes a man—that is, if he has a sensitive skin—feel as if he had been struck by a whip. “I don’t quite see how my absence could spoil your picnic, Mr. Bradstone,” she said, coldly.

He lowered his restless eyes, and caught at his upper lip with his teeth. They were whole and even, but rather too large.

“I mean that it would be spoilt for me,” he said, and added, nervously, “and—and for the rest, of course. Please say ‘Yes,’ Miss Vanley.”

Olivia looked straight before her, with that expression in her eyes which belongs to the unfettered maiden spirit. “I will see,” she said, calmly. “You are not listening to Mr. Sparrow’s story, Mr. Bradstone.”

He was too wise to press her further, and at once turned away toward the old lawyer, and listened to him for a moment or two; then he turned to the door with a contemptuous laugh.

“You’ve sold your property to some fellow who is in hiding from his tailor, Mr. Sparrow,” he said. “Pity you didn’t sell it to me; I’d have given you twice the sum for it this man has given. Shouldn’t be surprised if we have the police down here directly looking for him. ’Pon my word, you ought to be more careful, Mr. Sparrow,” and with a patronizing nod he left the room, pausing for a minute or two to present his invitation to Miss Amelia.

This last straw broke down Mr. Sparrow’s back, and shortly afterward he took himself off, feeling that he had, by selling his property to the mysterious unknown, not only offended his neighbor, but actually lost money!

“How nice of Mr. Bradstone to arrange this picnic, Olivia,” said her aunt, when Mr. Sparrow had sorrowfully taken his departure. “He is always so kind and thoughtful in planning these little parties. Of course you will go, dear.”

“I don’t know,” said Olivia, absently.

She was standing by the window, looking down on the chimneys of The Dell, as her father had done, and thinking of the strange character who had become owner of the cottage.

“You don’t know! My dear Olivia, what a strange reply. Why shouldn’t you go?”

“Why should I?” said Olivia, without turning her head.

Miss Amelia sniffed, and uttered the little cough which always served as a prelude to the lectures which she frequently felt it “her duty” to deliver to her niece.

“Now, my dear Olivia, I do hope that you will not permit yourself to—to—disappoint our excellent young friend. It is evident that he has got up this little affair in your honor, and it would surely be ungracious to disappoint him. Ungraciousness, if I may coin a word, in a lady is, my dear Olivia, unpardonable. Often and often have I, at great inconvenience, accepted an invitation rather than appear ungracious. And I do hope——”

“Is there any tea left, auntie?” broke in Olivia. “You forget me when you are surrounded by your admirers.”

Miss Amelia bridled, then smiled, and simpered:

“My dear Olivia, how can you be so ridiculous? My admirers! I’m sure Mr. Sparrow is old enough to be my grandfather”—in which case poor Mr. Sparrow must have been a modern Methuselah—“and as to Mr. Bradstone, it is not me whom he admires——”

“No sugar, thanks,” said Olivia, cutting in abruptly.

“No! Any one with half an eye could see who it is that he admires, and whose society he seeks. And I must say, my dear Olivia, while I am on the subject, that for a young girl, scarcely out of her teens, your conduct is too cold——”

“This tea is cold,” said Olivia.

“Far too cold,” continued Miss Amelia, disregarding the interruption. “Mr. Bartley Bradstone is a young man worthy of every respect.”

“It is a pity his horse doesn’t share your opinion, auntie,” said Olivia, looking through the window. “It doesn’t appear to respect him in the least. Some of these days it will carry its disrespect so far as to throw him off.”

“Mr. Bradstone may not be a jockey. I repeat, he may not be a jockey; but, all the same, he is a young man worth due consideration. Olivia, do you forget that he is a millionaire—a millionaire!”

“Neither I nor he forgets it,” said Olivia, succinctly.

“Wealth—wealth, my dear Olivia, has its responsibilities and its—its—I may say its claims to our respect.”

“Yes, I know,” said Olivia. “No one accuses you of forgetting what is due to it, auntie.”

“No, my dear. I can lay my hand upon my heart——”

But Olivia had already stepped through the window, and what Miss Amelia would do or say when she laid her hand upon her heart, must remain a mystery.

Olivia paused a moment, looking out upon the view which stretched over an exquisite panorama of wooded vales, and

“... Meadows all bedight

With buttercups and daisies, elves’ delight.”

Then she wandered down the broad garden path, and, with the same air of dreamy self-communion, passed out by the lodge gate into the road. Two dogs, which had been lying asleep on the lawn, had sprung up at the sound of her light footstep, and followed her, barking and yapping in frantic delight.

As she stopped to speak to and pet them, there came out from behind the lodge a small pony-cart, in which was seated a young girl. She was about seventeen, with a pretty, innocent face, from which a pair of soft, brown eyes looked out appealingly. It was the lodge-keeper’s daughter. She colored with timid pleasure at the sight of Olivia, and pulled up the pony, who resented the operation, and made the courtesy she attempted an impossibility.

“Why, Bessie!” said Olivia, going up to the side of the cart. “Are you going for a drive?”

“Yes, miss,” replied the girl, with respectful affection alike in her eyes and in her voice. “I am going to Wainford for father.”

“To Wainford?” said Olivia. “I am almost tempted to go with you.”

“Oh, Miss Olivia,” murmured the girl, with a rapturous delight, “if you would!”

Olivia shook her head laughingly.

“I’m afraid I mustn’t, Bessie. Wainford is too far; I should be late for dinner, and the squire would never forgive either of us. Never mind,” she added, consolingly, as Bessie’s face fell from the dizzy heights of eagerness to the uttermost depths of disappointment; “I will go some other time. I have often wanted to have a ride with you behind that famous pony. What a restless little monkey it is! Take care of him, Bessie! But I suppose you understand each other?”

“Oh, yes, Miss Olivia!” said Bessie. “And you won’t come?” with a sigh. “Well! Is there anything I can do for you, miss? Anything I can bring you?”

Olivia was about to shake her head, when, divining that the girl would be somewhat consoled for her disappointment if she had some errand to perform, she said:

“Oh, yes, Bessie! Will you bring me a yard of ribbon to match this on my hat?”

“Yes, miss,” said Bessie, brightening up. “To match exactly?”

“Oh, near will do” said Olivia. “Stay!” And, taking off her hat, she clipped a piece of ribbon off a bow. “There, as near as you can get it. I hope you will have a pleasant drive, and remember I am coming with you some day—soon.”

“Oh, do, miss!” Bessie exclaimed, or rather jerked out, for the pony, having completely exhausted its patience, declined to wait any longer over such trivialities, and dashed off; and Olivia stood watching Bessie’s frantic efforts to reduce the gallop to a trot, until the pony and its pretty, innocent-faced mistress were lost in a bend of the road.

Then, all unconsciously, though she was thinking of Mr. Sparrow’s account of the new owner of The Dell, Olivia wandered in that direction, and it was almost with a start that she found herself within a few yards of the gate, through which, according to Mr. Sparrow, no female would be allowed to pass.

The Dell was one of those picturesque cottages which all of us have, at some time or other in our lives, had a hankering after. It stood in a hollow, shaded by some beautiful trees, and in a garden which was literally ablaze with crocuses and hyacinths, and the spring flowers which Wordsworth—and Lord Beaconsfield—so dearly loved. The roof was of thatch, the windows diamond-paned, and the whole place as choice a specimen of a country cottage as ever shone on painter’s canvas.

Olivia glanced at it for a moment, then turned aside to follow a lane opposite the gate, when a voice called in accents of delighted greeting:

“Miss Vanley! Olivia!” and a young fellow sprang over a stile and ran toward her.

He was young, not more than twenty, with bright blue eyes, and hair—too short to allow it to curl—of a bright golden yellow. When he smiled—as he was doing now—his whole face, eyes, lips, and even his slight yellow mustache, seemed to smile, and his voice rang out soft and musical almost as a girl’s. This was Viscount Granville, the Earl of Carfield’s son and heir, though Bertie and the Cherub were his usual appellations, bestowed on him by a vast circle of friends and admirers of both sexes, who did their level best to spoil one of the sweetest natures which Heaven had ever bestowed upon a lad.

Olivia went to meet him with a smile which Mr. Bartley Bradstone would have given a thousand pounds to have called up.

“Why, Bertie!” she exclaimed.

“I’m the luckiest beggar in the world,” he said, laughingly, as he wrung her hand in his own ridiculously small one. “Do you know I was going up to the Grange; but I just stepped into the wood to see if I could find an anemone or two—I know you like them—and I saw the dogs. Now, fancy my meeting you, and having you all to myself to walk up to the Grange with! But perhaps you weren’t going back? If not, let me come with you, will you?”

“I’m not going anywhere in particular,” said Olivia, still smiling at the fair, girlishly boyish face. “I’ll go back. Why, what a time it is since I saw you!”

“Isn’t it! Isn’t it!” he responded, letting go her hand reluctantly, and taking his hat off his forehead, which was the only part of his face untanned. “I am so glad to come back. Yes, two years; seems like twenty. Have I got very gray? Now, be candid, Olivia—I mean Miss Vanley,” he corrected himself, with a blush.

“Why Miss Vanley?” said Olivia, blushing too, but looking at him with her frank eyes in a sisterly way that was inexpressibly sweet.

“Well,” he said, raising his eyes to her face, “you—you have altered so, you know.”

“Is that a polite way of informing me that I am gray?” said Olivia, archly.

“You—you have grown such a woman,” he said, his blue eyes all aglow with admiring wonder. “You were quite a girl when I left; at least, I seem to remember. And now”—the pause was as significant as any verbal finale could be—“I suppose I must mind my manners, and call you Miss Vanley?”

“Better keep to the old name,” said Olivia. “Why, it seems only the other day we used to play cricket together.”

“Yes,” he said, wistfully. “I suppose you’d rather die than play now?”

“Much rather,” she said, laughing. “And besides, look at my long dress! But tell me all about yourself and where you have been and what you’ve seen.”

“All?” he said, with a smile. “All right; but perhaps we’d better sit down, for it will take some time; say three weeks. Oh, we had an awfully high old time! Been everywhere. And everybody and everything were so jolly, don’t you know. But I’m very glad to get back to the governor and”—he glanced up shyly at the lovely face so intent upon and absorbed in him—“and all of you. I wanted to come up last night after dinner, but my father didn’t seem to care about my leaving him even for an hour or two. And you are all well? You can’t tell how jolly it is to come back to the old place. It’s all just the same. No, it isn’t, by the way. What on earth is that big red place, like an asylum gone æsthetically mad, on the hill?”

“The Maples, do you mean?” said Olivia, her face crimsoning for one instant, ever so slightly. “That is Mr. Bartley Bradstone’s new house. You don’t admire it?”

“Good heavens! it is like a blot of red with——” He stopped and colored. “I beg your pardon, Olivia; perhaps he’s a friend of yours.”

“Oh, we know him,” she said, carelessly. “Isn’t it ugly; isn’t it? But that is the only change, Bertie; you will find us just the same, and very, very glad to see you.”

“Isn’t that just how you used to speak in the old times?” he exclaimed, enthusiastically. “Now you’re the little girl with the long, black legs——”

He stopped and stammered, and Olivia laughed. Suddenly the two dogs set up a violent barking, and the two young people, hurrying to see the cause, saw a huge mastiff with a broken chain attached to his collar traveling down the road toward them.

It is needless to say that neither Olivia nor Bertie was alarmed; but the dogs were very much upset at the terrific apparition, and, yelping, half-indignantly, half-affrightedly, made a noise loud enough to rouse the sleepers in Hawkwood churchyard.

“Is this one of your dogs?” asked Bertie. “(Be quiet, you two! Quiet, Fritz; shut up, Folly!) It has broken loose and followed you, I suppose?”

“It isn’t mine,” commenced Olivia; but before she—remembering Mr. Sparrow’s story—could explain, a tall gentleman opened the gate of The Dell, and came toward them, calling “Leo! Leo!”

The dog stopped instantly, and the owner seemed about to go back with him, when, as if reluctantly, he came forward and raised his hat.

Olivia felt rather than saw his dark eyes fixed on her, and, lifting hers, saw that this distinguished-looking man, with the handsome and strangely grave and reserved face, must be “the mysterious stranger,” as she had jestingly called him. He was young, as Mr. Sparrow had said, but the dark hair was touched where it was cut close on the temples with faint streaks of gray, and the eyes, with their singularly impressive expression, were full of a reserved melancholy.

“I am afraid my dog——” he said, in a grave voice. Then he stopped; and Olivia, looking up to see the cause, saw a strange thing.

On Bertie’s frank face were two expressions struggling for mastery—astonishment, that might or might not have been recognition, and a desire to crush down all sign of this recognition, if recognition it was.

On the stranger’s face was simply a set look of almost grim impassibility. No one, judging by his face, would have guessed that he had ever seen Lord Bertie before.

The pause was only that of a second, a flash of time; and as he continued his sentence, removing the steady gaze of his dark eyes from Bertie to Olivia, his voice remained just the same unfalteringly grave one. “I am sorry that my dog should have annoyed you; he has broken his chain, as you see. I may add that he is particularly quiet, and would not have attacked the dogs. Please forgive me.”

He raised his hat again to Olivia, she inclined her head, and, the dog following close upon his heels, he turned and walked back to The Dell.

There was a moment’s silence; then Olivia, a little pale—why, she could not have told—said:

“I forgot to tell you of another change. Mr. Sparrow has sold The Dell, and that gentleman, I suppose, is the owner.”

“Really?” said Bertie, slowly, and without lifting his eyes to hers. “What is his name?”

“Faradeane,” replied Olivia. “Do you know it?”

Bertie shook his head.

Olivia looked at him half-curiously.

“I fancied,” she said, “that you looked as if you knew him.”

For a second, for so short a time that the pause was imperceptible, Bertie hesitated; then he shook his head.

CHAPTER III.
“TO KNOW HER IS TO LOVE HER.”

“Faradeane?” replied Bertie. “I never heard the name before.”

Nothing more was said on the subject. It was dropped as if by the tacit consent of both; which showed plainly how much they were both affected by the incident; for what would have been more natural than that they should discuss the appearance and manner of this stranger who had come so suddenly and mysteriously into their neighborhood?

Olivia could scarcely have told how much, or explained why, his appearance had affected her. She saw him for a few minutes only, he had spoken about half-a-dozen words, and yet she felt that if she were never to see him again she should never forget the strange expression of the dark, sorrowful eyes, or the peculiar music of the deep, grave voice.

Mesmerism is a recognized fact; and if she had known anything of it Olivia might easily have explained the sensation she felt as that resulting from mesmerization. The dark eyes had seemed to penetrate to her inmost heart, the voice to have set up an echo within her ears which should never fade.

A shadow seemed to have fallen over both her and Bertie, and for a time they actually walked toward the Grange in absolute silence. And for Bertie to be silent was a very remarkable state of things.

It was in the midst of this silence that a voice was heard coming from a walk behind the shrubbery. It was the voice of Mr. Bartley Bradstone, and both Olivia and Bertie heard these words:

“It’s a deuce of a mess, a regular tangle; but we’ll get out of it. Just trust to me——”

Bertie looked up at Olivia, and saw her start and her dark brows come together.

“Who is that?” he asked, in a slightly lowered voice.

“That is Mr. Bradstone,” she said.

The same moment that gentleman and the squire came out upon them.

The squire started slightly, and Bartley Bradstone looked from one to the other with the suspicious, searching look peculiar to him. Then the squire’s face cleared, and he gave both hands to Lord Granville.

“Why, Cherub!” he exclaimed, in altogether happier tones than we have hitherto heard him use. “Welcome back! How well you look, my boy!”

“Doesn’t he, papa!” exclaimed Olivia, eagerly.

“Why, you’ve—yes, you’ve actually grown,” said the squire.

“Oh, come now!” remonstrated Bertie, laughing and blushing. “That’s rather too thin, even for me, squire.”

“But you have. How glad I am to see you! And your father—is he well?” As he turned he caught sight of Mr. Bartley Bradstone, who was standing looking at them with a half-sullen, half-jealous air, and the smile vanished from the squire’s face. “I beg your pardon,” he said; “let me introduce you to our neighbor and friend, Mr. Bradstone. This is Lord Granville, our old friend Bertie, Bradstone.”

The two men exchanged bows; Bertie with a pleasant frankness and cordiality, Bartley Bradstone with hardly suppressed sullenness.

“I was going to call on you to-morrow, Mr. Bradstone,” said Bertie. “I am happy to make your acquaintance. My father tells me that you have gone in very heavily for preserving. By George! it was time some one did, for, begging the squire’s pardon, pheasants and partridges in Hawkwood were getting very rare birds, indeed!” and he nodded with much gravity at Mr. Vanley.

“Oh, yes,” said Bartley Bradstone, with an affected drawl. “I’m going to preserve; it’s the duty of every country gentleman, I take it.”

Bertie looked at him quickly, and a shade of disapproval swept over his handsome, girlish face. Bartley Bradstone’s voice was that of the cad, and of course Bertie detected it.

“The squire hasn’t preserved as closely as he might have done,” he said, rather gravely for him, “because he is too tender-hearted to the village people.”

“The village people will find me a very different kind of customer if they come poaching on my land, my lord,” retorted Bartley Bradstone.

Now, a gentleman, though he be a commoner, does not address a nobleman, to whom he has been introduced on equal terms, as “my lord,” and this time Bertie glanced coldly at the new neighbor, and, apparently now quite satisfied, turned from him to the squire and talked with him.

They made their way to the house, Olivia and her father chatting over old times and Bertie’s travels with Bertie, and thus Bartley Bradstone was left out in the cold, or thought that he was. He stopped at the bottom of the flight of steps and looked at his watch.

“It’s time I was going,” he said, sullenly.

The squire started.

“I hope you’ll stay to dinner, Bradstone,” he said, and the preoccupied, almost anxious look which had been absent while he had been talking to Bertie, came over his face again.

“No, thanks; I’ve got an engagement,” replied Mr. Bradstone. “Good-day; don’t trouble, I can get my horse,” for the squire made a movement to accompany him; and raising his hat a couple of inches to Olivia, who bowed in silence, he strode off.

An awkward silence fell upon the three.

“That’s—that’s a very clever young man,” said the squire, with a little cough; “very clever. I think you’ll find him quite an acquisition to the neighborhood, Bertie.”

“Oh, yes,” said Bertie; “rather a—er—rough kind of fellow, isn’t he? Not very good tempered, is he?” and he looked with a smile from the squire, whose brows contracted, to Olivia, whose face seemed like a mask in its cold reserve. “Not quite a—a gentleman?”

The squire bit his lips.

“Well—he is a very good-natured young fellow, and”—he paused again—“very rich.”

“That’s more his misfortune than his fault, perhaps,” said Bertie, with a laugh.

“Misfortune!” echoed the squire, in a strange tone; then he laughed. “I don’t think he would so describe it. I rather think it is his fault.”

“I see,” said Bertie, easily. “Made his money himself, and all that. Well, that’s in his favor, anyhow. I dare say he is a good fellow, and it’s a capital idea of his, this preserving. Oh, yes! I like a man who has made his own fortune, don’t you, Olivia?”

“It all depends,” replied Olivia, dryly.

The squire glanced at her, not impatiently, but anxiously, questioningly, doubtfully.

“I’ve never heard a word against Mr. Bradstone,” he remarked, with a querulousness which was so new to him that Bertie almost stared at him. “He is the essence of good-nature, and has exerted it on—on several occasions. I hope you’ll like him, Bertie.”

“Of course I shall—if you wish it,” said Bertie, promptly and heartily.

“I wish it?” repeated the squire, almost frowning; “why should I——” Then he stopped short, and rather inconsistently said, with something like irritation: “My dear Bertie, the man has settled here in our midst, and—and is our neighbor. But don’t let us talk any more about him. Come in. Of course you will dine with us?”

But, strange to say, Bertie, with a faint accession of color, pulled out his watch and shook his head.

“I can’t, I’m sorry to say. I’ll come over to dinner to-morrow, if I may.”

The squire looked disappointed.

“I thought your father would have spared you to-night, my boy,” he said. “But come over to us to-morrow, then,” he added, as he shook his hand.

Bertie lingered a moment or two beside Olivia, after the squire had gone up the steps.

“What do you think of Mr. Bradstone, Olivia?” he said, in a low voice.

Olivia smiled faintly; then her brows contracted.

“Exactly as you do,” she replied, and held out her hand.

Bertie took it and held it.

“Yes? Then why on earth does the squire have him here, and—and—praise him, and all that?” he asked. “I never knew him make excuses for a cad before.”

Olivia looked straight before her.

“I give it up,” she said; “ask me another.”

Bertie looked at her averted face with a half-troubled questioning, then his brow cleared.

“I tell you what it is, Olivia,” he said, as if he had found the solution, “the squire is too good-natured by half, that’s what it is!”

“I dare say!” she said, quietly. “Mind, we expect you to-morrow!” and covering him with one of her rare smiles as with a flash of sunlight, she drew her hand from his clasp and ran up the steps.

Bertie watched her till she had disappeared through the French window; watched her with an expression on his handsome, girlish face that made it very sweet and tender with its reverent admiration; then, with a little sigh of wistful longing, turned and walked quickly across the lawn.

He passed out into the lane that led to The Dell, and stopping at the rustic gate, pushed it open.

As he did so, a man dressed something between a butler and a gamekeeper, came toward him.

“Can I see——” commenced Bertie; then he stopped, for the “mysterious stranger” himself appeared in the doorway and walked down the path.

“Hallo! why, my dear——”

“Mr. Faradeane,” interrupted the owner of The Dell. “Come in, Lord Granville,” and he opened the door.

Bertie, coloring with a look of mystification and bewilderment, passed in and followed his host into the sitting-room of the cottage. The latter shut the door, and placing his hands—they were long and white as a woman’s, but as strong as a blacksmith’s—on Bertie’s shoulders, gently forced him into a chair.

“Well?” said Mr. Faradeane, standing over him and looking at him with a strange smile, which was as sad as the shadow that dwelt in his eyes. “Well?”

“Well!” repeated Bertie, almost glaring at him. “My dear——”

“Faradeane,” interposed the other.

“What on earth does this mean?” continued Bertie.

Instead of replying, his companion took a cigar case from the mantelshelf and tossed it to him, then slowly and deliberately lit a pipe.

Bertie took a cigar, but instead of lighting it, stared round the room at the old oak chairs and table, at the gun and pistol rack over the fireplace, at the books in the bookcase, at the grave and singularly handsome face of his host.

“A light?” said Mr. Faradeane, with a smile which was almost an amused one. “Better smoke, my dear Bertie; there is nothing like tobacco on these occasions.”

Bertie pliantly and helplessly lit his cigar, and, still staring at the dark, thoughtful face, said:

“Well, this beats——”

“Cock fighting,” filled in Mr. Faradeane. “Fire off all your battery of astonishment, my dear Bertie. Don’t mind me.”

“Yes; but I say!” exclaimed Bertie. “This is—don’t you know—extraordinary! What on earth! My dear——”

“Faradeane,” put in the other, quietly.

Bertie sprang to his feet, but the strong, white hands fell softly on his shoulders and forced him into his chair again.

“Take time, Bertie,” he said, grimly, “take half an hour, if you like. But don’t forget that my name is Faradeane.”

Bertie leaned forward and stared at him for a moment in densest perplexity; then he laughed.

“Confound it!” he said, “this is the strangest business; Why, my dear——”

“Faradeane,” put in the other, with a faint smile. “I’m sorry to interrupt you, Bertie; but if walls have ears, as they say they have, I have the strongest objection to their hearing the name you will persist in trying to shout. I know what you want to say, what you want to ask. You want to ask me why I am living in this out-of-the-way place, and why I decline—absolutely decline—to be addressed by any other name than that which I have, I am afraid, rather obtrusively given you.”

“By George!” said Bertie, puffing at his cigar, “that’s just what I do want to know! I parted from you rather more than two years ago in London, and left you as jolly and chirpy as a cricket; well, not exactly that, for you never were one of the mad ones; but you were all right, at any rate, and now——It’s the strangest business! Why, I scarcely knew you just now, when you came up with the dog; you’ve—you’ve——”

“Aged so much!” finished Faradeane, with a grim smile, as he leaned against the mantelshelf and looked down at Bertie’s bewildered face. “Yes, I have aged, Bertie. But not so much as some people have done. Didn’t Marie Antoinette’s hair turn white in two days? Whereas mine, you see, has only got speckled in a couple of years. Still, I’ll admit I am, as you say, changed.”

“What—what has happened, old fellow?” asked Bertie, in a lowered voice. “I’m afraid you have had some big trouble——”

The other looked down at him and then at the floor, and appeared to be considering some question. Presently he looked up again and shook his head.

“I’ve been wondering whether I could bring myself to tell you my story—the story of the last two years, Bertie; and I’m sorry to say that I have come to the conclusion that I can’t. For two reasons: First, because the recital would shock you, and cause me a rather unpleasant half hour; and secondly, because the secret is not all my own. I’m only a partner.”

“Secret! There is a secret! And you—you——”

The other held up his hand.

“Take care!” he said, warningly. “My man is just outside. I beg of you not to speak my name.”

“No, no, I won’t. I will be careful,” said Bertie, flushing. “But you have a secret—Faradeane! You who were always so—so——”

“Too ‘high and proud’ for that kind of thing, you were going to say? Thanks for the compliment, my dear Bertie; but, alas! it is quite unmerited. I have a secret, and I cannot tell it to you.”

“And it is of such a character,” said Bertie, slowly, and regarding him with pained surprise, “that you feel compelled to—to——”

“Hide myself here like a poisoned rat in a hole,” put in the other, calmly. “Yes, it is. It is so bad that it has put me out of the world as completely as if I had turned hermit. The shady side of Pall Mall and I have seen the last of each other, Bertie; I have bidden good-by to the world you and I found so pleasant. Scarcely that, however, for I left it so suddenly as to leave no time for good-bys.”

“Great Heaven!” murmured Bertie, still staring up at the handsome face with its sombre, quietly resigned smile. “But—but why did you come here? Why didn’t you go abroad?”

Faradeane smiled.

“For the best of all reasons. Because my pursuers, when I disappeared, at once jumped to the conclusion that I had sought refuge on foreign shores, and are now, I humbly trust, spending their time and energy in scouring the Continent after me.”

Bertie almost groaned.

“Your pursuers!”

Such a word in connection with the noble form and face seemed, indeed, incongruous and absurd.

“Yes, my pursuers,” said the other, gravely and quietly, “and now you wonder what it is that I have done. I wish I could tell you, Cherub, but I can’t. There are some things a man cannot bring himself to confess, even to his dearest friend; this is one of them. And now what will you do?” he asked, fixing his eyes intently upon Bertie’s eloquent face. “I’ve told you enough to show you that my society is not desirable, and that you will do wisely to get up and go. You see, after all, it is a mistake on your part. The man you are listening to is not the old friend you mistook him for, but only a certain Mr. Faradeane, a perfect stranger who somewhat resembles that old friend. Take my advice—I don’t offer it often—take my advice, Lord Granville; make a polite bow, excusing yourself for intruding, and leave me.”

Bertie’s face grew crimson, and he sprang to his feet and laid his small hand upon the broad, straight shoulder.

“Is thy servant a dog that he should do this thing?” he said, in a voice that trembled with indignation. “What do you take me for, old fellow?”

Faradeane put up his hand, and clasping the tiny one, pressed it in silence for a moment.

“I might have known what you would say, Cherub,” he said, his voice softening for the first time. “I might have known——Well, so be it! But remember, remember”—impressively—“that it is, indeed, and in truth a mistake, and that I am not the man you mistook me for. I am Harold Faradeane, and you make my acquaintance for the first time to-day.”

Bertie nodded, and dropped back into his chair.

“I—I consent,” he said, in a low voice. “Of course I consent. But is there nothing I can do——”

“Nothing,” was the calm and instant response. “My case is beyond the help of man. Neither you nor any one else can help me, Bertie. I have got to ‘dree my weird,’ as the Scotch say, and—alone!” He looked round the room slowly, then went on: “You asked me why I chose this place. It was an accident. Knowing that the people who were hunting me”—Bertie winced—“would jump to the conclusion that I had gone on the Continent, I determined to remain in England. In the course of my wanderings I happened to come upon this place. Its utter seclusion struck me; its beauty—it’s pretty, isn’t it?”—Bertie nodded—“its beauty completed the conquest. You remember, I was always inclined to the artistic in the old days when I was not an outcast and a fugitive,” and he smiled.

Bertie sighed.

“You don’t know how it pains me to hear you talk like this, Faradeane!” he said, in a low voice.

“And it costs me a great deal to talk like it, though I try to hide it,” said the other, gravely. “I don’t think there is much more to tell you. It isn’t much, is it, that I have told you?”

Bertie shook his head.

“And—and you mean to remain here? What will you do with yourself? Do you intend to live in complete seclusion—to make no friends?”

Faradeane was silent for a moment.

“I shall remain here until chance puts my pursuers on my track,” he replied. “What am I going to do?” He shrugged his shoulders. “That’s rather a difficult question to answer, Cherub. I find time hangs rather heavily on my hands; but I read a great deal, and I write. You know I always had a knack of scribbling. And I have indulged myself in a horse; he and I—it is a new one—are very good friends already. As to friends of the human kind, barring yourself, Cherub, I must do without them. If you like to take pity on the recluse, and run in now and again, well and good; but no one else.”

“Great Heaven!” muttered Bertie; “and you—you who were so popular, such a favorite with us all! I——Forgive me, Faradeane; but while I have been listening, a possible idea has struck me.”

The other laughed.

“Yes, I know what you mean. You have almost doubted my sanity; have felt inclined to set me down as mad.” He put his hands on Bertie’s shoulders, and looked down at him with an expression which haunted the light-hearted Cherub for many a day. “Bertie, I wish I were mad!” There was a moment’s pause. “Yes, I wish I could persuade myself that it was a horrible dream, and wake up——”

He stretched out his arms, and drew a long breath, then let them fall to his side and turned away.

Bertie rose and went to the window. It is not “the thing” to exhibit emotion, even on behalf of one’s dearest friend; but there was a suspicious moisture in Bertie’s blue eyes.

He turned to him after a moment or two.

“One question more, Faradeane, about your affairs. They must give you a great deal of trouble, anxiety. Can I do nothing to help you respecting them?”

Faradeane shook his head.

“No, thanks, Cherub. Just before I fled I placed all of my business affairs in the hands of Elsmere, my solicitor. He does everything; acts as my other self, in fact, under a power of attorney, as they call it. He is the only man who knows my whereabouts, or my present name, excepting yourself, and I can trust you both, thank Heaven. I have given out that I am a woman-hater—there is more truth in that, by the way,” he put in grimly, “than you think; and my man has instructions to allow no petticoat to enter the premises. I dare say the simple folks down here will be rather curious; but they will get over it in time. At present I rather think they imagine that I am a little mad, and give me a wide berth. The dog, too, is supposed to be dangerous—he is as quiet and gentle as a lamb, poor old fellow!—and so I fancy I shall be left alone. And now that’s enough, and more than enough about myself. Let us talk about a far more interesting subject—you; where are you staying—what are you doing?”

“I am staying with my father,” said Bertie. “You have never met him?”

“No, I am glad to say,” said Faradeane, grimly. “I should not like him to know me as I was—and as I am! Was that your sister with whom I saw you this morning?” he asked, rather abruptly.

A beautiful rose tint suffused Bertie’s face.

“No, no!” he replied. “That was Miss Vanley.”

Faradeane nodded.

“The daughter of the squire here? I have heard of him through my man.”

“Yes,” said Bertie; “Olivia. Didn’t—didn’t you think she was very beautiful, Faradeane?”

Faradeane turned to the fireplace to knock his pipe out, and nodded.

“Yes,” he said, slowly.

“I think she is lovely!” said Bertie, in a low voice. “Olivia was always beautiful; but now—I hadn’t seen her for two years,” he went on, “and—and she startled me. She has grown into a woman. I wish you knew her, old fellow. She is as good as she is beautiful. She is just the girl you would approve of, I know. You always said that women were stupid; you wouldn’t say it of Olivia. Not that I mean that she’s clever in the way of knowing all the things women go in for now; no, not clever in that way; but—but——Oh, I can’t describe her! You must know her to understand what she is like.”

The other man watched, with a smile, the handsome face, as it grew rapt and enthusiastic.

“You have described her very well, Cherub,” he said, quietly. “‘To know her is to love her, and to love her is a liberal education,’” he quoted.

Bertie’s face flushed.

“That’s just it!” he exclaimed. “You always put things so well, Cly——I—I beg your pardon, I mean Faradeane!” he stammered.

“Be careful, Bertie,” said the other, gravely. “Try and get used to my name. A slip at an unwary moment and I am”—he shrugged his shoulders—“ruined. Yes, Miss Vanley is something more than lovely. It is a face ‘that carries goodness in its eyes.’ You ought to be very happy, Cherub.”

Bertie grew scarlet as a poppy.

“No, no,” he said, hurriedly. “You—you have quite misunderstood. I—I——There is nothing between us—no engagement, I mean. I—I don’t think, I’ve no reason to think, that she cares——Why, don’t you see, dear old fellow, that I’m not worthy to—to——Oh, no!”

“No?” said Faradeane. “I thought——Well, you are still happy in loving her,” he added. “Yes, though you never have an iota of hope, though you may never dare to tell her of your love, though your lips may never touch her hands, you are still happy in loving so sweet, so good a woman.”

His voice had grown very earnest, and there was a subtle ring of pain in it that found an echo in Bertie’s heart. He hung his head.

“I know what you mean,” he said, in a low voice.

“‘’Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all,’” said Faradeane. “Better to have loved an angel from afar than——” He stopped short suddenly. “But there’s every hope for you, Cherub,” he said, with a smile.

Bertie shook his head.

“I did think once—that is, I have thought of her always, and while I was away I sometimes plucked up heart, don’t you know, to fancy that I might have a chance. But now I’ve seen how beautiful and queenly and altogether too good for me——” He stopped with a sigh. “Besides, there is some one else in the field,” he added, ruefully.

“Yes?” Faradeane looked at him inquiringly.

“Yes,” said Bertie. “There is a fellow there—confound him! I fancy he is always at the Grange—a man named Bradstone. He has built that huge furnace, The Maples.”

Faradeane nodded.

“I know. He is a financier, or something of that kind. I have heard of him. But surely Miss Vanley——”

“No,” said Bertie, promptly, but with a troubled look. “No, I don’t think that Olivia cares for him, or is even very friendly; but”—he paused—“but the fellow is very much at home there, and the squire seems to have taken to him.”

“I see,” said Faradeane; “but keep your heart up. From the glimpse I got of Miss Vanley’s face I don’t think she is the girl to be smitten by Mr. Bradstone. No!” and a grave smile flickered across his face as he looked dreamily through the window. “No, I don’t think you need be apprehensive in that quarter, Cherub. If there is any truth in a woman’s eyes, Miss Vanley has a soul above the reach of such a man as this Bradstone.”

Bertie laid his hand upon his arm and pressed it gratefully.

“This is just like you, old fellow!” he said. “You understand at once, and—and always know how to sympathize and encourage a man. Thank you! Thank you! Ah, I wish you would know her,” he added, wistfully.

For a moment Faradeane stood silent and dreamy, then he roused himself and almost sternly said:

“No, no! by no means! And now, Cherub, you had better go. This is long enough for a first visit to a man you have never met before,” he smiled. “Some one has certainly seen you come in and will see you go out, and will be—confound them!—curious. If you are asked—you see I am obliged to coach you in falsehood,” he put in bitterly, “you can say that you called to remonstrate with me for allowing that savage dog of mine to be loose; and that, finding me rather a decent kind of a man, you stopped to make my acquaintance.”

“Very well,” assented Bertie, sadly.

“And now, good-by,” said Faradeane, gently pushing him to the door.

Bertie held his hand for a moment or two in a firm grasp, and then went down the path. At the gate he looked back. The tall, graceful figure was leaning against the door-post, and there was something in the attitude, something in the expression of the handsome Van Dyck face, a suggestion of such terrible loneliness and hopelessness and despair, combined with a noble kind of resignation and calmness, that the Cherub’s tender heart throbbed with a sympathetic pain.

Harold Faradeane remained there lost in thought for a moment; then, followed closely by the huge dog, he went back to the room, and, as if with an effort to discard something from his mind, sat down to the table and began to write.

He wrote for a few moments with that rapidity which indicates a stern determination; then gradually the pen slowed off, and presently he was absently sketching something on the blotting-pad.

Suddenly he started, and he gazed at what he had drawn, and a strange expression—of fear, almost—leaped into his eyes. He had drawn an outline, striking in its truth, of Olivia’s face.

With a kind of groan he sprang to his feet, tore the sketch into fragments, and, striding to the door, scattered them to the winds.

“Great Heaven!” he murmured, with a bitter smile. “Bertie must be right. I must be going mad! Stark, staring, raving mad!” and he thrust his hands into his pockets, and leaned against the door with his head drooping despondently upon his breast.

Suddenly in the silence of the gloaming—it was almost dark in the tree-shaded Dell—a sound smote upon his ears, and caused him to look up quickly.

It was the sound of a runaway horse, and no man who has heard it once can ever mistake it. It was coming down the road in the direction of the cottage. He ran down the narrow, flower-lined path, and vaulted over the gate just as a small pony, with a light cart behind it, came tearing up. Faradeane made a spring for the pony’s head, and caught the reins. Even small ponies, when they are on the bolt, are tough customers to tackle; and Faradeane was thrown to the ground. When he got to his feet again after a sharp tussle, and still holding to the reins with a grip of iron, he was shocked and horrified to see a slim, girlish figure lying half in and half out of the cart.

CHAPTER IV.
A WOMAN-HATER.

Dinner was over at the Grange, and Miss Amelia and Olivia were in the drawing-room waiting for the appearance of the squire, who, for form’s sake, lingered behind for a quarter of an hour in the dining-room to sip a glass of the famous Vanley port.

It was Miss Amelia’s custom every evening during this quarter of an hour to enjoy a peaceful snooze in an armchair carefully placed by the footman out of the light of the lamps, from which she awoke on the appearance of her brother to declare with a start that really in another moment she should have been asleep.

Olivia was sitting as usual with a book in her hand; but this evening the volume remained open at the same page, and instead of reading she was thinking of her strange meeting with the “mysterious stranger” of The Dell.

It need scarcely be said that Olivia was not sentimental. She was the last girl in the world to invest any one with a romantic halo or to “get up a sentiment” over any man; but try as she would she could not dismiss the remembrance of the handsome face with its sad eyes, and the grave voice with its almost tragic tones, from her mind, and it was with a feeling of actual relief from her own too persistent dwelling upon him that she heard the door open, and, looking up, saw her father enter.

Miss Amelia heard it too, and jerked herself upright with the usual “Is that you, Edwin? Another moment,” etc.

Olivia, looking at her father, saw that instead of the smile of amused incredulity with which he usually received Miss Amelia’s assertion, his face wore an anxious and thoughtful expression, and as he came up to her to get his cup of coffee, she said in a low voice:

“Is anything the matter, papa?”

“Anything the matter?” he repeated, with a little start. “No. What should be that matter?”

“I don’t know,” said Olivia, “but I thought you looked rather worried, dear.”

“No, no,” he said, with a forced kind of cheerfulness. “I am a little tired, I think, that is all. I am sorry Bertie did not stay to dinner.”

“So am I,” said Olivia, promptly. “How well he looked! Dear Bertie!”

The squire glanced at her.

“Or Mr. Bradstone,” he said. “I thought he meant staying.”

“Yes?” said Olivia in a colder voice.

“A good fellow, Bradstone!” said the squire, stirring his coffee. “I don’t think Bertie did him justice this afternoon. If he knew him as well as I do——”

“But you do not know him very well, papa,” said Olivia, gently.

The squire frowned slightly.

“I don’t know why you should say that, Olivia,” he said. “I—you—have seen a great deal of him——”

“That is true,” responded Olivia, dryly, “and all we have seen is to his credit. Don’t let us discuss Mr. Bradstone, papa,” she was saying almost pleadingly, when the butler entered, and, approaching the squire, said something in a low and guarded voice, and the squire’s face changed.

But Olivia’s ears were quick, and she caught the word “accident.”

“Oh, papa! what is it? Tell me, Fleming.” Fleming, the butler, glanced from her to the squire. “Something has happened,” she said, growing pale, but speaking calmly and composedly, for Olivia was not hysterical by any means. “What is it? Why do you not tell me, papa?”

“Don’t be alarmed,” said the squire, putting his hand upon her arm. “There has been an accident. Tell us again, Fleming; you need not be afraid of your mistress.”

“It’s Bessie Alford, Miss Olivia,” began the butler.

“Ah!” breathed Olivia, with a little, piteous catch in her voice. “Poor Bessie! the pony!”

“Yes, miss,” said Fleming, gravely. “The pony—she was driving him home—has run away with her. I always told Alford that it wasn’t safe for her to drive. He’s run away and Bessie is hurt.”

Olivia’s face grew pale.

“Bessie hurt!” she murmured, piteously.

“What’s that? Who’s killed?” exclaimed Aunt Amelia, springing to her feet like a jack-in-the-box. “Don’t attempt to keep it from me. I will know who is killed! Oh, dear! I feel—I feel as if I was going to faint. Fleming, a glass of water. Oh, Edwin, I know something dreadful is going to happen!” she wound up with a groan and a wail.

Fleming stolidly got her a glass of water; no one else took any notice of her.

Olivia stood for a moment pale and thoughtful; then she moved to the door.

“I must go to her, papa,” she said. “Where is she, Fleming?”

“At the lodge, miss,” he replied, gravely. “The pony fell down or was stopped not far from there—I have not got the rights of it quite, miss—and they carried Bessie home.”

Olivia opened the door, and, disregarding her aunt’s shriek of “Where are you going, Olivia?” ran into the hall and caught up a shawl. The squire, without a word, put on his hat, and they went out together.

“Poor Bessie!” murmured Olivia, as they ran down the drive. “I warned her against the pony this afternoon.”

They saw lights moving behind the windows of the lodge, and in response to the squire’s knock a boy opened the door.

“I will wait here; send for me if you want me,” said the squire.

Olivia passed in, and ran noiselessly up the stairs, and pushed open the half-closed door of Bessie’s room.

For a moment she saw only the pretty, innocent face lying white and pale upon the pillow; then as she entered she saw, in the flickering of the solitary candle, a tall figure bending over the bed.

It moved as she entered, and, turning, presented the face of Mr. Faradeane.

For a moment the two, girl and man, looked at each other, and she saw in that moment that the face was paler even than when she had seen it in the afternoon, and that there was a blood-red mark across the left temple. Alford stood by—stupefied and useless.

She drew near the bed, and went down on her knees beside the unconscious girl, and was about to murmur her name when she felt a hand upon her arm, and a voice said in low accents of command.

“Don’t speak to her, please.”

Olivia looked into the grave, handsome face with a meekness utterly novel and strange to her.

“Can I—can I do anything?” she whispered. “Poor Bessie!”

“Yes,” he said in the same low, calm tone. “Get me some cold water.”

She glided to the water-jug, and poured some out for him, and watched him in a frenzy of anxiety as he bathed the girl’s white forehead.

But, great as was her anxiety and excitement, she noticed—and remembered long afterward—how gently and pityingly he did his work. He, the woman-hater!

“Is—is she much hurt?” she whispered, after a time.

“No,” he whispered, in reply. “She is stunned. Do not be alarmed. She will recover consciousness presently.”

“Are you—are you a doctor?” asked Olivia, a few minutes later; and the question was caused by the calm, deliberate way in which he did what was best to be done.

He smiled.

“No; but it is not the first accident I have seen. She will come to presently. I have sent to Wainford for the doctor. Do not be alarmed; there is no danger.”

Almost as soon as he spoke, Bessie opened her eyes, and, after a wild glance or two, fixed them upon the pale, handsome face bending over her.

“Is—is he hurt?” she faltered.

“Do you mean me?” said Mr. Faradeane. “No, I am not hurt in the least.”

Bessie heaved a sigh, then she caught sight of the cut on his temple.

“What’s that? You are hurt!” she exclaimed.

“That is nothing,” he said, with a smile; “I think you had better not talk.”

But Bessie did not agree with him, evidently.

“He saved my life—this gentleman, Miss Olivia!” she panted. “I was just falling under the wheel when he stopped Toby, and I saw him go down.” She shuddered. “Yes, Miss Olivia, he saved my life, he did!” and her large, innocent eyes fixed themselves on Mr. Faradeane, and filled with tears.

He smiled.

“You will be quite ashamed of talking such nonsense when you have recovered, Miss Bessie,” he said. “Now drink this, will you, please?” and he held a flask of brandy to her lips.

She sipped it obediently, her brown eyes fixed upon his with the gratitude, the devotion which one sees in a dumb animal often enough, but in a human, alas! only too seldom. Then, with a sigh, she turned her face away, and closed her eyes.

Mr. Faradeane stood upright.

“She will be all right now,” he said. “No bones are broken, thank Heaven! It was the shock as much as the blow on the forehead that stunned her.”

There was a step on the stair, and the local doctor entered.

Mr. Faradeane drew him aside, and gave a short and succinct account of the accident.

“Yes, yes,” murmured the doctor, “and you, sir? you seem to have been hurt!”

“Not in the least,” said Mr. Faradeane, “not in the very least, thanks,” and, with a bow to Olivia, he passed out of the room.

Obeying an impulse she could not resist, Olivia followed him, and, darting at the squire, who was standing outside the lodge door, said:

“He—this gentleman—saved Bessie’s life!”

The squire started, as well he might, and approached the tall figure.

“My daughter tells me, sir,” he said, “that this poor girl owes her life to your courage and presence of mind. I hope you will allow me to express my sense of your bravery. My name is Vanley——”

For a moment Mr. Faradeane stood and regarded him with a frank smile; then his face changed suddenly.

“No thanks are due, sir; good-night,” he said, gravely, almost sternly; and before another word could be said he raised his hat and passed them.

CHAPTER V.
THE KEY TO THE RIDDLE.

The squire looked after the retreating figure in astonishment, and then at Olivia. She was trembling slightly, and the red and white were chasing each other on her downcast face.

“What is the matter? Who was he? Why did he go off like that?” he said.

Olivia was silent for a moment.

“That is the gentleman who has bought The Dell, papa. Mr. Faradeane.”

The squire started.

“It was he, was it? And he saved Bessie’s life?”

“She says so, papa. He was hurt. Did you see the marks on his forehead?”

“No,” said the squire. “I scarcely saw his face, and yet from what I saw of it I should say, emphatically, that he was a gentleman.”

“Oh, yes!” murmured Olivia, drawing her shawl round her.

“Most certainly a gentleman. It was a striking face. What nonsense was it that Sparrow was talking of a coiner or something of that kind? He could not have seen the man.”

“It was not Mr. Sparrow, but Mr. Bradstone, who suggested that Mr. Faradeane was a coiner,” she said in a low voice.

“Nonsense!” said the squire, almost impatiently. “That is not the face of a man in hiding from the consequences of some vulgar crime. There was not a trace of vice in it. Sad and melancholy it was, without doubt, but——Why did he go off like that?”

Olivia was silent a moment.

“You heard what Mr. Sparrow said, papa. He is a woman-hater.”

“What, Sparrow!” exclaimed the squire, staring at her.

“No, no; this—this Mr. Faradeane.”

“And he takes the trouble—and gets knocked about—in saving a girl’s life. What rubbish!” he said. “That is a poor kind of woman-hater. Sparrow has got hold of some cock-and-bull story. I scarcely listened to him this afternoon, and don’t remember what it was he said; but it is nonsense, utter nonsense. This man is a gentleman. I never saw a finer face.” He paused and knit his brows. “Now I recall it, I seem to think that I remember having seen it before.”

Olivia drew nearer to him with an eager expression in her beautiful eyes.

“Papa!”

“Yes,” he said, “I have a vague kind of impression, but I can’t fix it. Are you coming now?”

Olivia breathed a short sigh of disappointment.

“I thought you might have remembered,” she said. “I will come in one moment, papa. I must just see Bessie again.”

“All right, I am in no hurry,” said the squire, and he sat down on the settle outside the door, and instantly, as it would seem, was absorbed by his own thoughts.

Olivia ran upstairs on tiptoe, and entered Bessie’s room.

The girl turned her large, innocent eyes upon the lovely face of her young mistress with eager gratitude.

“Not gone yet, miss?” she said in a low voice.

“Not yet, Bessie. Are you better?”

“I am all right now, Miss Olivia; only weak and trembling like. Has—has the gentleman gone?”

“Mr. Faradeane? Yes,” said Olivia, and she leaned down and smoothed the white coverlid.

Bessie drew a long breath.

“And I scarcely thanked him!” she said.

“Oh, but I think you did, Bessie,” said Olivia.

The girl shook her head, and the color came into her pale, childlike face.

“I couldn’t thank him long enough, miss. He did save my life, though he made light of it, and put it off as nothing at all. Toby had bolted, and was racing like the wind, and the gentleman—tell me his name again, miss; it is a hard one to remember, and yet it sounds nice——”

“Faradeane,” said Olivia.

“Ah, yes, Faradeane! I shan’t forget it. Well, miss, he came out of the cottage, straight like a lion, and he leaped onto Toby. I could just see him before I fainted, and Toby knocked him down, and I thought he was killed, and then—I don’t recollect any more till he carried me in here. He said he wasn’t hurt, miss; but I saw the blood running from his forehead.” She shuddered. “Ah, miss, if I were a lady like you I could thank him as he deserves; but I’m only a poor girl that doesn’t know how to speak what she feels.”

“I think you thanked him very prettily, Bessie,” said Olivia. “But I don’t think he wanted or liked being thanked. He would not stop to speak to papa, outside, just now.”

A swift look of apprehension rose to Bessie’s eyes.

“Ah, miss, he was hurt, and was trying to hide it; he didn’t want the squire to see. Oh, Miss Olivia, what shall I do? There is no one there to see after him.”

Olivia soothed her, and returned to the squire.

“Bessie thinks Mr. Faradeane was hurt, badly perhaps—and that was the reason he did not stay, papa,” she said, with a little catch in her voice.

“Eh?” said the squire. “Well, that may be so.” And, instead of turning up the drive, he went down the lane toward The Dell. Olivia walked in silence by his side, and the squire stopped at the gate, and put his hand upon it. It was fastened securely. “The gate is locked,” he said, looking puzzled and baffled.

Olivia touched his arm, and pointed to the window, upon the white blind of which was the shadow of a tall figure pacing up and down.

“Look, papa,” she whispered.

The squire stared at the shadow with a thoughtful frown.

“That is an unhappy man,” he remarked to her, also in a whisper. “At any rate, he is not so much hurt as Bessie imagined.”

“No,” said Olivia, with a little sigh of relief. Then she touched her father’s hand. “Come away, papa,” she said, almost inaudibly. “I—I feel as if we were watching him.”

“Well, so we are,” retorted the squire, with a suppressed laugh. Then he looked at her uneasily. “Yes; let us go home,” he said. “You look tired and upset. This has been too much for you. I will walk down in the morning and inquire how he is. I suppose he will not refuse me admittance. I am not a woman.”

And he laughed.

But Olivia did not echo the laugh as he had expected; and she remained silent all the way along the drive.

Meanwhile Mr. Bartley Bradstone had ridden back to his splendid and gorgeous house in anything but a good humor. Your parvenu, while he would give half his newly gotten wealth to be a gentleman, invariably hates every gentleman he meets. Bartley Bradstone had taken a dislike to Lord Bertie, first because he was a gentleman, and secondly because he was, evidently, an old friend of Olivia’s, and possibly a lover. As he contrasted her manner to Bertie with the cold reserve with which she treated him, he clinched his teeth and jerked at the reins, making the horse start and shy.

“She treats me as if I were the dirt under her feet,” he muttered, sullenly, “just the dirt under her feet! And I like her all the better for it, confound her! But it’s a dangerous game to play with Bartley Bradstone, Miss Olivia, if you only knew it! Perhaps the day will come when you will lower your pride a little. It will be my turn then. By Heaven! I’d give—I don’t know what I wouldn’t give, to see you at my feet! And it shall come to that, too, or I’m not the clever fellow people think me. It is very hard if Bartley Bradstone isn’t a match for a dozen Lord Granvilles, though he is the son of an earl.”

He rode up the long, newly planted avenue to The Maples, and a couple of grooms came out to take his horse; but, as they had kept him waiting half a moment, he snarled at them as he flung himself from the saddle and mounted the stone steps—painfully white and new—which led to the front entrance. A footman was waiting to take his hat and stick, and his valet stood at the top of the stairs.

The squire and Lord Carfield were capable of hanging up their hats for themselves; but that would not have been “good enough” for Mr. Bartley Bradstone, who liked to see his gorgeous footmen whenever he could, and insisted upon being waited upon, literally, hand and foot.

He passed through the hall—which, notwithstanding its painted windows, and men in armor, and brown oak, looked as new as the rest of the place—and, going into the dining-room, rang for a glass of sherry; the squire would have got it for himself from the sideboard, but Mr. Bradstone flung himself into a chair while the butler and footman “served” the glass of wine on a heavy silver salver. The master of The Maples drank it, and looked round with a restless sigh.

“I was a fool not to stay, after all,” he muttered. “It was cutting off my nose to spite my face. It’s deuced dreary here by one’s self, but it shan’t be for long. Before long she’ll be begging me to stay at the Grange—yes, begging me.”

Then he got up, and, with his hands thrust in his pockets, wandered about the room. Presently he cast a glance at the many pictures, all in heavy gilt frames, and stood before one representing a girl reading a book. It was a recent purchase, and he had bought it because he fancied that it somewhat resembled Olivia; and twenty times a day he would stand before it and gaze at it.

“I’ll have her own portrait here presently,” he murmured, moodily. “I’ll give Millais the commission to paint it the day we’re engaged.”

This resolution seemed to afford some satisfaction, for with something less of his recent sullenness, he rang the bell for his valet to dress him for dinner.

As he did so the footman entered with a note on the salver.

Bartley Bradstone opened and eyed it with an expression of displeased surprise.

“Where is he?” he asked.

“The person is in the hall, sir,” replied the footman.

“Show him into the library,” said Bradstone; then he stood looking at the sheet of paper, which contained only two words—“Ezekiel Mowle”—with a thoughtful frown, and a few minutes afterward went into the library.

In the brand-new room with its brand-new furniture and rows of newly bound books sat, on the edge of one of the morocco chairs, a thin, hatchet-faced man, dressed like a clerk. He would have served very well as a model for Uriah Heep; but instead of that “’umble” personage’s red hair he wore a palpable wig, whose hyacinthine curls, clustering in pious falsehood upon the cadaverous forehead, made the face look like a skull; indeed, being close shaven and without a single eyebrow or eyelash, it would have closely resembled one under any conditions.

Bartley Bradstone shut the door close.

“Well, Mowle,” he said, with marked coldness, “this is an unexpected pleasure. What has brought you down here?”

Mr. Mowle stretched his thin, colorless lips by way of a smile, and coughed apologetically behind a huge, bony hand.

“I thought it best to run down, sir,” he said, and his voice matched his person, being hollow and strained, as if his throat were totally devoid of moisture. “I considered the question most anxiously, Mr. Bartley, and I thought it best to run down,” and he glanced upward with a peculiar expression of servile obsequiousness.

“What’s wrong?” demanded Bartley Bradstone, eyeing him with suppressed irritation. “Why didn’t you telegraph, whatever it is?”

Mr. Mowle fingered his chin and blinked his lashless lids.

“The wire’s useful, but not always to be trusted, especially in country places like this. The young lady at the office is generally so curious, having so little to do, Mr. Bartley. I might have written, but I thought from what you said that time was important; so I ran down.”

“Yes, yes, I see you have,” said Bartley Bradstone, with ill-concealed impatience; “and now you’re here you had better stop to dinner——”

Mr. Mowle shook his head.

“No, no, thank you, sir. There is a train in an hour and a half’s time, and I’ve kept the fly——”

Bartley Bradstone frowned.

“There is no occasion for that,” he said, with bombastic pride. “I dare say I can find something to take you back to the station.” He rang the bell. “Pay the flyman and discharge him,” he said to the footman, “and order the dogcart.”

Mr. Mowle, pawing at his lank chin, watched the pompously attired footman with a vapid air, and then allowed his eyes to roam round the extravagant decorations and furniture of the room.

“You’ll have some wine?” said Bartley Bradstone.

“Thank you, sir; thank you, Mr. Bartley; but I’m a teetotaler, if you remember.”

Bartley Bradstone nodded.

“Oh, yes, I remember. But what is it?”

Mr. Mowle produced a pocketbook from the interior of his shiny frock coat, and, taking out a paper, handed it to Bartley Bradstone.

“You can rely upon that information, sir,” he said in his hollow voice.

Bartley Bradstone looked at the paper.

“When did you get this?” he asked in a constrained voice.

“At a quarter past ten this morning. I considered it, and caught the eleven fast train, Mr. Bartley,” he replied, meekly.

“And—and you think it is right?” said Bartley Bradstone in a low voice.

“I’m sure of it, sir,” replied Mowle. “I got it from a source which has never yet sold me. I’d stake my oath upon it, sir.”

Bartley Bradstone went to the window and looked out, probably to hide the light of satisfaction which gleamed in his eyes. Then, after a moment or two, he turned to Mowle again.

“You were quite right to come down with this, Mowle,” he said; “it is too important to be trusted to a wire.”

“Thank you for your approbation, Mr. Bartley,” said Mowle, servilely.

“According to this,” said Bradstone, touching the paper with his forefinger, “the person named—we will mention no names, Mowle, just, take the initial V.—according to this information V. is liable for something like forty thousand pounds. That’s so?”

“That is so,” assented Mowle, blinking, and rubbing his chin. “Rather more than less, Mr. Bartley. Nearer fifty. Of course it’s a secret.”

“How do you account for it?” asked Bartley Bradstone, thoughtfully, and watching his companion covertly and closely.

Mr. Mowle stretched his lips into the undertaker-like smile, and coughed.

“Seems singular and improbable, doesn’t it, sir? Here’s a gentleman, a tip-top swell, as we may say, one of the old county families, looked up to and respected as a sound man, and yet——” He rubbed his chin, and smiled again. “This is the key to the riddle, Mr. Bartley: Wild oats!”

Bartley Bradstone sank into a chair and nodded.

“Wild oats, sir! Mr. V. began it early, and kept it up as long as he could. Went to the Jews—and the Christians. I don’t know which is worse,” and he coughed again. Bartley Bradstone’s eyes dropped with a faint shadow of consciousness.

“Borrowed right and left on post obits and I O U’s and reversions, and on anything or nothing. Quite the old story, Mr. Bartley. Sixty per cent. interest, any interest they liked to put on, so that he had some money to play ducks and drakes with.”

“That was before he came into the property,” said Bartley. “Why didn’t he pay it off then?”

“He did; some of it,” replied Mr. Mowle. “He has been trying to clear it for years past; but this kind of thing’s not easily got rid of, and these have been bad times for landlords. There are a good many in the same fix as Mr. V., but not so badly, perhaps.”

“And he cannot pay it off now?” asked Bartley Bradstone.

Mr. Mowle shook his head.

“If my information is correct—and I’ll answer for it—he certainly cannot.”

“How is it that his condition has been kept so secret? No one suspects it here—in his neighborhood.”

“The gentlemen who hold the bills are only too pleased to keep quiet while he pays the interest, of course; sixty per cent.”

“Of course,” assented Bartley, “and have you got a list of the names of these people?”

“Yes, sir,” said Mowle, and he handed him a paper from his pocketbook.

Bartley Bradstone examined it, and whistled.

“Tough customers!” he said. “Sharks, all of them. Are you sure this is all?”

“I am quite sure,” said Mowle. “I may as well tell you, sir, that my informant is the confidential clerk to Mr. V.’s solicitors.” He paused a moment. “He owes us a hundred or two——”

“Us?” said Bartley Bradstone, with a frown.

Mr. Mowle coughed and glanced up nervously.

“I beg your pardon, Mr. Bartley; I should have said me! He owes me; just so.”

Bartley Bradstone eyed him with suspicious displeasure.

“Look here, Mowle,” he said. “That’s rather an awkward slip of yours. I hope it doesn’t occur with other people. They’ll be asking who the ‘us’ is.”

“No, sir; no, Mr. Bartley, I’m careful. I’m cautious in the extreme. Why, Mr. Bartley, if you think of the years I’ve kept the business dark——”

“I know, I know. I only warned you,” interrupted Bartley Bradstone. “Once let a hint of our connection get abroad, and—well, I think you know the consequences. I’ve still got that interesting little check you so kindly signed with my name.”

Mr. Mowle’s colorless face grew livid, his cadaverous lips twitched, and his bony hands closed convulsively.

“You’ve no reason to fear, Mr. Bartley,” he said, almost inaudibly, his hands shaking.

“No, it is you who have reason to fear,” retorted Mr. Bradstone. “I’m a man of my word, as you know, and I mean that if the slightest suspicion is aroused that you are working for me, I hand that check over to the police and send you to penal servitude.”

Mr. Mowle nodded.

“I know you will, sir,” he said, moistening his lips, “and I am cautious accordingly. I think you’ll admit that, Mr. Bartley? For nearly twelve years I’ve worked for you, and thousands upon thousands have passed through these hands”—he extended them—“and every penny has been accounted for. And no one—no one, Mr. Bartley—has ever heard me mention your name, or suspected that you were my master.”

Mr. Bradstone nodded.

“It’s well for you they haven’t,” he said, coldly. “It is more important than ever that our connection should be kept dark. I don’t like the risk of your coming here even.”

“I’ve been very careful,” said Mowle, meekly; “I didn’t give the servant my name. I said I’d brought a note from your London tailor.”

Mr. Bradstone nodded.

“Yes, and you’re right in going back to-night. Now take my instructions.”

Mr. Mowle took out his pencil, and looked up at his master with a dogged intentness.

“Buy Mr. V.’s debts,” said Bartley Bradstone, coolly, but with his eyes downcast.

Mr. Mowle did not start, but his eyes blinked, and he turned them upon Bartley Bradstone.

“You quite understand—I made myself clear, I hope, sir—that Mr. V. couldn’t possibly pay if he were pressed?”

“Yes, I understood,” said Bartley Bradstone. “I don’t suppose he could. All the same I want these bills and I O U’s. All of them, mind! Don’t let one escape.”

Mr. Mowle nodded.

“I shall have to pay, sir,” he said, succinctly.

Bartley Bradstone sighed.

“Yes, I expect so, confound them! Do the best you can; but buy them, and as soon as you can. When you have got them all, let me know. That’s all.”

Mr. Mowle closed his book.

“Very good, sir,” he said, shutting his lips. “I won’t detain you longer, sir. Everything is going on all right, as you saw by the last statement.”

Mr. Bradstone nodded, and opened the door.

“You’ve got a little time to spare. You may as well see the house,” he said, carelessly.

“Thank you, sir; thank you, Mr. Bartley, if it’s not giving you too much trouble,” croaked Mr. Mowle obsequiously, as he followed him.

“This is the hall,” said Bartley Bradstone, waving his hand. “Notice this window, Mowle. It cost me fifteen hundred pounds.”

Mowle blinked at the window, and cast a fishy eye round the oaken panels and the men in armor.

“The drawing-room,” said Mr. Bradstone. “Decorated by Marks. I paid him four hundred pounds. Had the furniture designed by Fox.”

“Beautiful! beautiful!” murmured Mowle.

“And this is the dining-room. Sorry you can’t stay to dinner, I’d have shown you the plate.”

“Superb apartment,” croaked Mowle, peering in with his shoulders bent meekly.

“Library you’ve seen. Here’s the billiard-room. Electric light, you see.”

“I see, sir. Delightful.”

“Come upstairs. First corridor. My rooms,” and he signed to a footman to open the door.

Mr. Mowle peered into the luxurious bedchamber and dressing-room, and his gaunt eyes took note of the silver toilet set and Brussels lace draperies.

“Fit for a prince!” he croaked.

“Guest chambers No. 1 and Nos. 2 and 3. There are fourteen of them, all like this,” said Mr. Bradstone.

“Delightful! quite delightful!” murmured Mowle. “Fourteen, Mr. Bradstone?”

“Fourteen,” assented the owner. “Reading-room and ladies’ boudoir, gray and yellow satin. Piano, Collard & Collard grand. Pictures by Long and Leighton.”

“Splendid! Fit for a queen, Mr. Bartley!” exclaimed Mowle, staring about him.

“Statuary gallery,” said. Mr. Bradstone. “‘Sleeping Nymph,’ two thousand pounds. ‘Hercules,’ by Boehm, a thousand pounds. Group, by Gleichen. Down there is the palm-garden—fountain of scented water. My own room.” He passed into a small room, luxuriously furnished, with cabinet pictures on the walls, and a large iron safe in the corner. “Books, guns, and all that kind of thing,” he said, waving his hand. “Safe by Milner.” He looked round, and, seeing the footman was out of hearing, added, with a smile, “That’s where your little check is, Mowle.”

Mr. Mowle’s face went livid, and he passed his hands over each other as if to warm them. “Don’t, Mr. Bartley, don’t!” he murmured, hoarsely.

Bartley Bradstone laughed.

“Oh, it is as well to remind you,” he said, coolly. “That door leads to the stables. This way,” and he led him across a courtyard covered by a glass roof. “Here you are; twenty-four stalls. I hunt, you know.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Yes. That’s my best horse. Gave two hundred and fifty for him.”

“Beautiful creature, sir.”

“Yes. Carriage horses—six of them. And here’s your dogcart. Sure you won’t have anything before you go?”

“Nothing, thank you, sir,” replied Mr. Mowle. “Thank you for showing me over, Mr. Bradstone. It is a truly beautiful place, and fit for a king. Beautiful! I’ll see that your kind orders are properly executed, sir. Good-day.”

Mr. Bartley Bradstone nodded. “Good-day,” he replied, and, his hands thrust into his pockets, he returned to the house to dress for dinner.

Mr. Mowle climbed into the dogcart, and was driven rapidly away. At the end of the avenue he laid his hand upon the arm of the groom.

“One moment, young man,” he said.

The groom pulled up the impatient horse, and Mr. Mowle turned and looked back at the house.

“And to think that I made it all!” he muttered. “You—you beast!” Then he said aloud, “Thank you; drive on now, please.”

CHAPTER VI.
THE FORTUNE-TELLER’S WARNING.

As a rule it is only necessary to arrange a picnic to insure a wet day; but the day of Mr. Bradstone’s picnic proved an exception, and the morning was as clear and bright, and almost as warm, as a spring day in the sunny south.

Mr. Bradstone had bestowed a great deal of thought on this little outing which he had planned for Olivia’s amusement—and his own advantage, of course—and when, but only the day before, she consented, in response to the squire’s pressure, to join the party, Mr. Bradstone redoubled his exertions.

Lord Carfield had been asked; but, while accepting for Bertie, he had declined for himself. “My picnic days are over, Mr. Bradstone,” he said; “I have arrived at the period when cold pie and salad, when eaten in the posture absolutely unavoidable on these occasions, settle somewhere in the small of my back. But my son Bertie will be delighted, I am sure.”

And he had spoken the truth. Bertie would have eaten cold pie or poison, if, by so doing, he could insure a few hours of Olivia’s society.

The only other persons besides the Vanleys who had been asked were Mary and Annie Penstone, the two daughters of Sir William Penstone, whose estates lay about five miles from Hawkwood Grange.

They were going to ride over to Glenmaire, the spot Mr. Bradstone had fixed upon for the luncheon, and Mr. Bradstone had arranged to drive the squire and Olivia to the rendezvous in a brand-new mail phæton, of which he was, not altogether without reason, exceedingly proud. Imagine his disappointment, then, when, having dashed up to the Grange door, he saw Olivia standing on the steps in her riding-habit, and Bertie just below her with his arm hooked in the bridles of his own and her horse.

“I—I thought you were going to drive with me and your father, Miss Olivia?” he said, as she gave him her hand; and he muttered some almost inaudible response to Bertie’s cheery “Good-morning!”

“Did I promise?” said Olivia. “I don’t think it was a distinct promise. I had to ride into Wainford this morning for some medicine for Bessie, and I kept my habit on.”

“I am afraid I am the culprit, really, Mr. Bradstone,” said Bertie, pleasantly. “I rode over to ask after Bessie at the Lodge, and, being lucky enough to find Miss Vanley just starting for Wainford, I persuaded her to ride to Glenmaire. Her horse really wants a little more work.”

Bartley Bradstone bit his lip. After all his carefully laid plans, this young lordling had managed not only to balk him, but to snatch a tête-à-tête gallop with Olivia.

“I’m afraid you’ll be tired,” he said, ignoring Bertie’s explanation. “I should have thought you would have sent for the medicine.”

Bertie’s eyes opened widely, and he looked at Olivia to see how she would take this piece of impertinence; but her clear, calm gaze did not change in the slightest.

“Yes, I might have done so,” she said, quietly. “However, if you wish me to drive, I can change my habit in ten minutes.”

“Oh, no, it isn’t worth while,” he said; “don’t trouble.”

“Very well,” said Olivia, at once.

With an effort Bartley Bradstone cleared the sullen cloud from his brow, and forced himself to look more amiable.

“And how is the girl?” he asked. “I heard some cock-and-bull story of this accident. I always knew she’d have an accident with that brute of a pony. One of my men said that that fellow who has taken The Dell had a hand in it—startled the pony or something.”

Olivia did not offer to correct this amiable representation of the affair, and stood flicking her habit with her whip in silence; but the ready flush rose to Bertie’s face in a moment, and he said:

“You have heard an extraordinarily wrong version of the story. Instead of being in any way the cause of the accident, Mr. Faradeane, at some peril to his own limbs and life, stopped the pony, and saved Bessie from a serious fall.”

“Oh! quite a hero,” said Bartley Bradstone, with as much of a sneer as he dared display to a viscount.

“As you say, quite a hero,” assented the Cherub, simply.

At that moment the squire appeared at the door, and came down the steps.

“Sorry to keep you waiting, young people,” he said, in a brighter tone than usual; but his face fell as he saw that Olivia was in her habit. “I thought you were going to drive with Mr. Bradstone and me, Olivia,” he said.

“And so I shall, if you will wait ten minutes,” she said.

But Bartley Bradstone had got his temper under mastery by this time, and he said, quickly:

“Indeed you shall not take the trouble to change, Miss Olivia. I won’t wait a minute.”

And with a nod and a smile he sprang up to the box-seat and took the reins.

Olivia watched them drive off in her calm, reflective way, and then allowed Bertie to lift her to her saddle.

He was in the seventh heaven of delight which followed the dread of the loss of her society, and the two rode side by side, as they had ridden scores of times when they were schoolboy and schoolgirl, chatting with frank freedom on Olivia’s part, and with that half-shy timidity which the timorous lover always feels.

By the time they had reached Glenmaire the Cherub’s light-heartedness had awakened a responsive sentiment in Olivia’s breast, and she was laughing and forgetting the sudden and mysterious repulse which Mr. Faradeane had inflicted upon her on the preceding day, when Bertie pulled up, and uttered an exclamation.

“Good heavens! Just look at that!”

Before them, in a space which had been cleared for the occasion by Mr. Bartley Bradstone’s woodman—Glenmaire was a part of the property he had purchased—were four huge footmen in the Bradstone livery setting out an elaborate collation, adorned by a complete service of plate, and flanked by several magnums of Pommery.

A luggage fourgon, with a pair of horses in silver-plated harness, which had conveyed the feast from The Maples, stood at a little distance, and presiding over the whole of the preparations was The Maples’ butler in regulation white tie and suit of solemn black.

“Good heavens!” exclaimed Bertie, “fancy a picnic with plate, four footmen, and a butler!” And he laughed; then, with his usual good-nature, he added, quickly, “But it is awfully good of Mr. Bradstone to have taken so much trouble.”

“Yes,” said Olivia, dreamily. “But he might have had a brass band.”

This so tickled the Cherub that he burst into a loud laugh, which brought two bright-eyed, fresh young girls to their side. They were the two Penstone girls, who were in nowise remarkable, excepting for their position as Sir William’s daughters—the baronetage was one of the oldest in the county—and their perfectly frank and unenvying delight in, and admiration for, Olivia.

To these two simple country girls there had never been, since the world was created, so beautiful and clever and altogether fascinating a creature as Olivia Vanley.

They pounced upon her, one on each side of the horse, and clung to her with loving eagerness.

“Why, dear, we thought you were never coming!” exclaimed Mary, drawing the supple neck downward that she might kiss the fresh, red lips. “How well you are looking!”

“And how beautiful!” murmured Annie, drawing her gauntlet from her hand.

“You flatterers!” said Olivia, kissing them both and slipping from her horse.

“We were so afraid you wouldn’t come,” said Mary, “and we are so glad to see you, you can’t tell. And isn’t this delightful? So kind of Mr. Bradstone! And you rode over with dear Bertie. No wonder he looks so bright and happy!” and she shot a half-playful, half-jealous glance from her boyish eyes at the Cherub, who, having got rid of one of the giants in plush, was mixing a salad.

“He will look ever so much brighter and happier when he has had some lunch,” said Olivia.

“For Heaven’s sake persuade him to send some of those fellows away, sir,” said Bertie in a low voice to the squire, as they seated themselves; “it isn’t a bit like a picnic with them hovering like huge birds-of-paradise over us!”

The squire shrugged his shoulders.

“Let him alone—he means well,” he said, good-naturedly.

Bartley Bradstone came up to them at this moment. He was looking flushed and excited and—fussy.

“Have you got all you want? Miss Olivia, let them give you some of this pâté. Squire, I think you will find this champagne correct—Pommery ’73.”

The butler swooped solemnly down with the bottle, just as he would have done in the dining-room at The Maples.

It was fearfully and dreadfully unlike a picnic; but the high spirits of the two Penstone girls rose even above the overwhelming presence of the footmen and butler, and they were soon laughing and romping, and Olivia was smiling at them in sympathy, when suddenly, in the very middle of the informally formal repast, and just as Mr. Bartley Bradstone was mentally congratulating himself upon its complete success, a man and a woman, with a couple of children clinging to them, came through the opening of the trees. The woman stopped short, and, with the true gypsy whine, said, as she hungrily eyed the costly spread:

“Will the pretty ladies cross the poor gypsy’s hand with silver, and let her tell them their fortunes?”

Mr. Bradstone looked up, almost choking with rage. That gypsies should dare at any time to trespass upon his property was bad enough to bear, but that they should inflict their odious presence upon his special picnic party was simply unendurable.

“What do you mean?” he demanded, angrily. “Here! Go away! Go away at once!”

The woman shrank back a little; but the man, at the sound of his voice, gave a little start, and came a step nearer.

“We means no harm, gentleman,” he said, whiningly, his dark eyes fixed upon Bartley Bradstone’s angry face. “Let the wise woman tell the pretty ladies’ fortunes.”

Bartley Bradstone was about to send them about their business with the nearest approach to an oath he dared to utter in the presence of the ladies, when Mary Penstone, with a laugh, said:

“Oh, don’t send them away, Mr. Bradstone. I should like to have my fortune told, I should indeed.”

“It’s all nonsense,” he said, with ill-concealed impatience.

“But is it?” demanded Annie, eying the dark-hued gypsy woman, wistfully. “Oh, yes, of course it is, I know; but let her stay, Mr. Bradstone, just for a minute. Mary, lend me a shilling. I’ll be the first.”

Mary did not possess the coin; but Olivia found one, and Mary, with manifold gigglings, gave it to the gypsy.

The woman crossed the soft palm with it.

“Your fortune is easy to tell, miss,” she said. “You’ll marry the man of your choice and live happy.”

Annie snatched her hand away with a disappointed pout of her full lips.

“I don’t think that’s worth a shilling,” she said. “It’s a swindle. I ought to have fallen in love with the wrong man and died of consumption. Now, Mary.”

But Mary declined, positively.

“Well, you, then, squire,” said Annie, tugging at his arm.

“My fortune’s made or marred long ago,” he said, shaking his head as he tossed half a crown to the woman.

“Well, then, it’s Olivia’s turn,” said Annie. “Now, Olivia, you must, you must have your fortune told.”

Olivia smiled, and held out her hand promptly.

“Don’t prophesy anything very dreadful, please,” she said.

The woman crossed her long, shapely hand and peered at it; then she slowly let the hand drop.

“Is there any other gentleman or lady would like their fortune told?” she said.

“Oh, but that isn’t fair!” exclaimed Annie Penstone. “You must tell this lady’s, you know.”

The woman glanced at her, then at Olivia.

“Am I to tell it, miss?” she said.

Olivia smiled. “Of course,” she said. “Why not?”

The woman took her hand, and looked into her eyes, just as a short-sighted person might have done; then she glanced behind her at the spot where the man stood in an attitude of perfect repose and self-possession, his dark eyes fixed upon Bartley Bradstone.

“Shall I tell this pretty lady her fortune, Seth——”

The man nodded, and the woman in a low voice said:

“There are lines of much sorrow, miss, and much doubt. You will mate with a man you do not love, and love a man you do not mate. But in the end——”

She stopped short, and, dropping Olivia’s hand, bent over one of the children.

Olivia smiled her calm, sweet smile.

“It is your turn now,” she said to Bertie; but Bertie, with affected horror and awe, shook his head.

“Your experience is enough for me,” he said.

“That will do,” said Bartley Bradstone, and he flung a coin toward the group. “Clear off now.”

The woman darted at the coin, but as her hand closed over it she said:

“Let me tell this gentleman his fortune.”

“Oh, do! oh, come, Mr. Bradstone!” exclaimed the two Penstone girls in chorus. “In common fairness——”

“Oh, I’m quite ready,” said Bartley Bradstone, but with anything but alacrity; and, leaning on his elbow, he extended his right hand reluctantly.

“The left, if you please, gentleman,” said the woman.

“You are mighty particular,” he said, with an uneasy laugh, and he shifted his position, and gave her the left hand.

As he did so the man took a step forward, and whispered something in the woman’s ear.

Her face did not change from its impassibility, but she bent lower over Bartley Bradstone’s hand, and amidst the almost solemn silence she said in the dreamy voice she had adopted in the former cases:

“It is a fair hand, a clever hand; but there are lines that trouble the poor gypsy. Lines of the past, and the coming future. Beware of the woman with the black eyes and the cut lip.”

Bartley Bradstone changed color, and snatched his hand away.

“That will do,” he said. “Don’t bother us with anymore, but take yourselves off. And look here; I don’t allow gypsies to settle or squat, or whatever you call it, upon my land.”

The woman tied the coins she had received in the corner of her apron with deliberate composure, then, dropping a curtsey, followed the man, who had already struck into the thick undergrowth.

“How delightful!” exclaimed Annie Penstone. “Mr. Bradstone, I believe you had them brought here on purpose, just to make your picnic complete.”

“No, I didn’t,” he said, abruptly. “I hate them. They are the worst thieves——” He stopped. “Bring some more wine,” he called to the butler.

“Beware of the woman with the cut lip and the black eyes, Mr. Bradstone!” exclaimed Annie, laughingly.

The butler filled their glasses, and in the midst of the general laughing and talking Bartley Bradstone was recovering his composure, and feeling pretty comfortable again, when he heard the sound of horse’s hoofs, and looking up, saw a man on horseback riding into the glade.

The horse was a hunter of good character, and his rider was evidently so lost in thought that he had thrown the reins almost on the animal’s neck, and was perfectly indifferent to the course it was taking.

All the picnic party stared at him, and Mary Penstone had just time to whisper to Olivia “What a handsome man!” when Bartley Bradstone sprang to his feet, and seized the horse’s loose rein.

It was bad enough to have his grand picnic interrupted by ill-conditioned gypsies, but that an unknown rider should dare to intrude was simply intolerable.

“Here, you, sir!” he exclaimed, angrily, “do you know you are trespassing?”

The gentleman pulled up, and looked from the angry face below him to the rest of the party with a half-awakened expression.

Then he drew the rein from Bartley Bradstone’s grasp, and, looking at him calmly, said:

“I beg your pardon. I did not know I was trespassing.”

“But you are!” insisted the giver of the feast. “This is private land, and you ought to know it! Confound it, sir, you’ve no right to ride over private property like this!”

The stranger’s face flushed; but before he could speak Bertie sprang to his feet, and approached the two men.

“Mr. Bradstone,” he said, “this gentleman is a friend of mine, and I can assure you that he had no desire to trespass——”

Bartley Bradstone looked from one to the other with his characteristic expression of moody suspicion.

“A friend of yours! Of course that makes a difference. I suppose it’s all right.”

Olivia had risen, and came slowly toward them. The rest kept their seats.

“Yes, this is a friend of mine—Mr. Faradeane,” said Bertie; and he laid his hand upon the bridle of the stranger’s horse.

He looked from Bertie to Bartley Bradstone, and then at Olivia, and on her face his eyes seemed fixed.

“Although a friend of Lord Granville, I am still a trespasser,” he said, “and I beg your pardon;” and he turned and rode off.

Both Bartley Bradstone and Olivia turned upon Bertie.

“Is he a friend of yours, Lord Granville?” demanded Bartley.

Olivia said nothing, though her eyes were eloquent enough. The color rose to poor Bertie’s face.

“It—it is Mr. Faradeane, of The Dell,” he stammered—fancy the Cherub stammering!—“I made his acquaintance the day his dog ran loose, Olivia. That’s all.”

CHAPTER VII.
A SIMPLE BIT OF CHARITY.

It was the morning after Mr. Bradstone’s elaborate picnic, and the clock was striking twelve as Olivia, with her hat and jacket on, knocked at the door of the squire’s den, as the room in which he kept his guns and fishing-rods, and in which he transacted his business as justice of the peace, was called.

She knocked twice, then, having received no answer, opened the door and entered.

To her surprise she saw her father seated in his well-worn leather chair, bending over the table, his head leaning on his hand. Before him was a goodly—or evil—array of papers, and his face, as he raised it, wore that anxious and troubled expression which Olivia had seen upon it so often of late.

“I beg your pardon, papa,” she said. “I did not want to disturb you, but I knocked twice, and, thinking you were out, ventured in. I want a book for Bessie.”

The squire was an inveterate novel reader, and there was always a goodly stock of popular fiction lying about the den.

“A novel. Yes, my dear,” and he made an attempt at rising; but Olivia went to him quickly and put her hand upon his shoulder.

“No, you shan’t trouble, dear. I can find it. You are busy, I can see.”

“Busy?” he said, in a dull way. “Oh, yes, I am, rather,” and he sighed.

“Is it anything very troublesome, anything I can help you with?” she inquired, as she turned over the pile of yellow-covered volumes. “I can sometimes, you know.”

He shook his head with a mirthless smile.

“I am afraid not, my dear,” he said, cheerlessly. “This is a matter which——” He stopped and gazed at her with a sad, vacant expression. “Have you found a book for Bessie? By the way, speaking of her reminds me. I called upon that strange Mr. Faradeane this morning.”

Olivia bent over the heap of dusty books, and, after a moment’s silence, said:

“Yes, papa; I am glad of that.”

“Are you? Why? Well, there’s not much to be glad of, for he was not at home.”

“He was out riding, perhaps,” she said, with the faintest tinge of disappointment in her voice.

“No, he was in,” said the squire, dryly. “He was in the house, for I saw him at the window as I went up the path.”

Olivia looked round thoughtfully.

“You saw him——”

“At the window. Yes; and he told his servant to say that he was not at home. I must say I was much annoyed. I am not used to rebuffs of that kind, especially from strangers. I was so irritated that I felt inclined to tell the man that I had seen his master, but I thought better of it, and left a card. I think this young fellow is acting in a very extraordinary fashion.”

Olivia seemed to ponder for a moment. “Why, dear?” she asked, in a low voice.

“Why?” repeated the squire, with the nearest approach to impatience he ever permitted himself toward his darling. “Well, first by buying The Dell in the strange way he did, and then shunning all intercourse with his neighbors in the mysterious fashion he adopts. I hate mysteries! In my opinion, there is always something shady and shameful at the bottom of them.”

“Mr. Faradeane does not look as if he had anything to be ashamed of,” she said, in the same low, thoughtful voice.

“No,” assented the squire, impatiently; “that is what puzzles me. I never saw a more gentleman-like man, or one with a more prepossessing face. But his manners and conduct——” He pulled up. “However,” he continued, “if he prefers to live a secluded and isolated life, why that is his business, not mine. I shall not call again, of course.”

“No,” said Olivia; “yet Bertie likes him.”

“Likes him? How do you know that? Oh, because he spoke up for him yesterday. I don’t know why you should say that he ‘likes’ him.”

“I watched Bertie’s face,” said Olivia, quietly.

The squire knitted his brows.

“It was very unfortunate, his turning up as he did yesterday. And those gypsies, too. It was very annoying for Mr. Bradstone. Did you enjoy the picnic, Olivia?”

“Yes,” she replied, indifferently, and turned to the books again.

“It was an admirable luncheon.” he said, watching her, with the deep lines graving themselves in his forehead; “admirable. Mr. Bradstone must have spared no expense or trouble. He did his very best to make it a success.”

“Oh, yes,” she assented, coldly; “I think it was a success. Annie and Mary enjoyed themselves.”

“Yes,” he said, leaning his head on his hand, and watching her with the same troubled, anxious, wistful gaze. “Yes. Was he very attentive to them? I didn’t notice. It would be a very good match for one of them. He is a very rich man, Olivia.”

“Is he?” she said, with supreme indifference. “I think this will do for Bessie; I remember reading it. It is full of incident, and yet the characters talk naturally——”

“Bartley Bradstone is very rich,” said the squire, ignoring her criticism of the novel. “He would be a good match for most girls. If he were in London he would be snapped up at once.”

“I dare say,” said Olivia, turning the leaves of the book carelessly.

“Yes,” said the squire, thoughtfully, “money is everything nowadays. It is all that any one thinks of, and Bartley Bradstone has it in abundance.”

“Is it all any one thinks of?” said Olivia. “We don’t think of it much, dear; but I suppose that’s because we have enough of it,” and she smiled with blissful serenity.

The squire shifted in his seat and smiled, but, oh, how uneasily!

“Yes, yes, I dare say,” he said, “and Bradstone is a good fellow in spite of his money.”

“Yes?” said Olivia. “I think I will go now, papa; Bessie will be waiting for me,” and, with a nod and a loving smile, she left the room.

The squire looked after her with the same troubled, wistful gaze, then with a deep sigh returned to the heap of papers upon the table.

Olivia, with the book she had selected, and a basket of hothouse flowers, walked down to the lodge.

At the little wicket gate stood Alford, Bessie’s father, smoking a pipe, which he instantly caused to disappear as he touched his hat to Olivia.

“Good-morning, Alford!” she said. “How is Bessie this morning? Better, I hope.”

“Yes, Miss Olivia, much better. She be more like her old self again this morning—thanks to you, miss, and Mr. Faradeane. She says to me last night that it was worth while being knocked out of the cart to get all the kindness she have had from you and him, miss. Of course, we know how good-hearted you be, miss, as we’re used to it; but we didn’t expect it from a perfect stranger, so to speak. If Bessie had been his own kith and kin he couldn’t have been more kind; and I says, I do, miss, that to set all these here stories again such a thorough, kind-hearted gentleman—ah, and true, brave-handed man, miss—is a crying shame.”

“They speak ill of him! Who?” asked Olivia.

Alford looked rather embarrassed, as if he had said more than he had intended.

“Oh, miss, you know what Hawkwood folks be! They give every stranger a bad name if they don’t know his mother and his father, and all he’s been and what he is. And as they don’t know nothing about Mr. Faradeane, why, they just blackguard him, that’s all. I was in the George last night—I just looked in for a drop o’ brandy for Bessie, in case she wanted it,” he put in hurriedly and with a little cough, “and I heard some of ’em a-talkin’ nonsense about him; but I set ’em down, I did, miss, and pretty smartly. Harry Tucker says I cracked his skull; but don’t you believe that, miss, it’s impossible—it’s too thick.”

Olivia could scarcely repress a smile at this naïve statement.

“I’m afraid you will get into trouble, Alford,” she said, with her gentle gravity.

“Oh, no, miss,” he responded, cheerfully, “don’t you be afraid of me. But if it meant six months in jail I’d stand for the gentleman as saved my Bessie.”

“And I think you’re right,” said Olivia, with a sudden warmth which astonished Alford, and made her blush a moment afterward. “I—I mean that of course it is absurd to suppose that because Mr. Faradeane is a stranger he must necessarily be disreputable—and—and—unworthy. Why, Alford, a wicked man would never have risked his limbs for Bessie, as Mr. Faradeane did.”

“Do not be too sure of that, Miss Vanley,” said a voice, and Olivia, starting, turned and saw the man she had been defending. He had come round the bend by the thick garden hedge, unperceived by either Alford or herself.

Olivia stood with her hands on the gate, white and red by turns, and Alford coughed and shuffled in awkward confusion.

Mr. Faradeane regarded them with a faint smile that was more sad than mirthful.

“As a rule, listeners hear anything but good of themselves, Miss Vanley,” he said, raising his hat. “This is the exception. Thank you for your defense, but I fear that it is not, as the lawyers would say, a sound one.”

Olivia fought down her strange shyness—strange because it had never until now attacked her in the presence of any man.

“Was it not?” she said, in a low voice. “I thought it was a very reasonable proposition.”

He shook his head, still with the same grave smile.

“Some of the worst men have been conspicuous by their courage as well as their crimes. There was a convict the other day who stood up on behalf of a warder who had been attacked by the rest of the gang, some fifteen in number. When they came to inquire into the man’s antecedents they found that he, who had defended his keeper at the risk of his own life, had been sentenced to penal servitude for a particularly bad case of manslaughter. That’s a modern instance. Ancient history is full of examples of bad men who have exhibited, not once, but many times, extraordinary courage—have even done braver things than stopping a small pony,” and he smiled.

“Ah!” grunted Alford, “I thought it was coming to that. Mr. Faradeane always tries to make out as it was nothing at all; and look at his forehead,” and he pointed to the scar.

Olivia raised her eyes to it, and met his grave, sad, half-smiling gaze, beneath which her own drooped instantly.

“I am afraid you won’t succeed in persuading me that I am even a second-rate hero, Alford,” he said. “How is Bessie this morning?”

Alford told him that she was much better, and Mr. Faradeane turned as if to go, when a sudden impulse seized Olivia, and, falteringly, she said:

“I—I am so sorry for what occurred yesterday at the picnic, Mr. Faradeane.”

He stopped and looked at her absently for a moment, as if the incident had escaped his memory; then he said:

“Pray don’t give it a moment’s thought or regret. Mr. Bradstone’s indignation was very natural. Trespassers are a nuisance at any time; but at a picnic they are intolerable. I have written to Mr. Bradstone apologizing for my intrusion, and assuring him that ‘it shan’t occur again.’ I hope you had a pleasant day.”

“Very,” said Olivia; and he turned to go again, when she said: “My father called on you this morning. He was sorry to find you were out.”

He looked down at the path in grave silence for a moment; then he said, as he raised his eyes to hers:

“Will you please thank Mr. Vanley for his courtesy. I live a very solitary and secluded life, Miss Vanley.”

“Does that mean that you decline his acquaintance?” asked Olivia, in her straightforward way.

His brow furrowed with a wistful, troubled frown.

“I am afraid it does,” he said. “I am what is called a recluse, a misanthrope——”

“What is called,” said Olivia, quietly; “a misanthrope who stops runaway ponies, and takes the trouble to inquire daily after a sick girl! Isn’t that a little inconsistent?”

He smiled.

“You are rather hard upon me,” he said, in a low voice. He paused. “I am sorry I did not see Mr. Vanley this morning; but consider—what sympathy, what friendship could exist between Harold Faradeane of The Dell and the Squire of Hawkwood?”

Olivia flushed.

“Do you think my father values a man by the size of the house he inhabits, Mr. Faradeane?”

“I think him a high-minded English gentleman,” he responded, with grave earnestness, “but between a man in his position and a man in mine there is a vast difference.”

Olivia bit her lip, and turned aside with a slight bow.

“Will you give these to Bessie, Alford?” she said, as if she had finished with Mr. Faradeane.

He stood with his dark, sad eyes fixed on the ground; then he approached her.

“I have offended you,” in a low, almost an appealing voice.

Olivia turned to him with lowered lids.

“Oh, no.”

“Your words say ‘No,’ but your tone says ‘Yes,’” he said.

Olivia tried to laugh.

“Well, you must admit that one may be rather displeased at having one’s overtures of friendship declined, however politely,” she said.

He dug a stone out of the path with his stick; then he looked up at her.

“You have put the case candidly; but think, Miss Vanley—your father knows nothing of me. He has paid me the attention of a call, because I was so fortunate as to be of slight service to one of his servants. Am I to take advantage of such an accident? He knows nothing of me, remember.”

“My father is perfectly free to choose his friends,” she retorted. “He would have called on you, even if this accident of Bessie’s had not occurred.”

He struck the pebble he had dug out, and sighed.

“Do not tempt me,” he murmured, in so low a voice that Olivia did not hear him.

“What did you say?” she asked.

He fixed his dark eyes on hers.

“Miss Vanley,” he said, the lines of his forehead deepening, as if he were going through a mental struggle, “I came to this place resolved to isolate myself, separate myself, from the society of my fellowmen. My reasons are of no consequence in the argument. I came here to bury myself. Chance, accident, Providence, as some would call it, has thrown me into intercourse with my neighbors.”

“Providence,” murmured Olivia.

He inclined his head.

“Your father has come to me and extended the right hand of fellowship——”

“He was not the first; there was Bertie—I mean Lord Granville,” put in Olivia, softly. “You consented to know him.”

“The Cherub?” he said. Then, as Olivia looked up with a start, he colored. “He is called the Cherub, is he not?”

“Yes,” she said, perplexedly. “I did not know you knew that.”

He nodded.

“Yes, I have made the acquaintance of Lord Granville. His sobriquet is pretty well known, I think.”

“Every one likes Bertie,” she said.

He glanced at her inquiringly, as he assented:

“Yes, and there must be a great deal of good in the man or woman whom everybody likes. Speaking of the Cherub, here comes the flutter of his wings,” he added, as Bertie’s voice was heard in the lane.

“There is some one with him. It is my aunt,” said Olivia, as Miss Amelia’s falsetto was heard joining with Bertie’s. The next moment they came around the corner.

“Oh, here is Olivia!” said Miss Amelia. Then she pulled up short, with a little, affected start at sight of the tall, handsome man.

Bertie came forward with his usual eagerness.

“We have been looking for you, Olivia,” he said, his eyes dwelling on her with the light that always shone in them. “And I told Miss Amelia this would turn out a sure find. Good-morning, Faradeane!”

Miss Amelia gave another start, and coughed nervously.

“This is my aunt—Miss Vanley!” said Olivia. “This is Mr. Faradeane, aunt.”

Miss Amelia bent her head.

“Delighted, I’m sure!” she simpered in the conciliatory voice which old ladies use to dogs and dangerous characters. “Quite a—a—pleasant surprise.”

Mr. Faradeane bowed, with the suspicion of a smile flickering under his mustache.

“I’m sure we are all very much indebted to Mr. Faradeane for his heroic rescue of Bessie Alford, very much so—ahem!” and she coughed again. “I hope it will prove a lesson to her. All these things, if properly viewed, are sent for our good.”

“Mr. Faradeane was certainly sent for Bessie’s, on this occasion,” said Olivia, strangely irritated by her aunt’s half-suspicious, half-irritating manner.

Bertie, with his usual promptitude, cut in to set matters on an easier footing.

“I’m glad to hear Bessie’s better. I called as I was going up to the house. And now, Olivia, I’ll bet you two to one in Dent’s best that you don’t guess what Miss Amelia wants me to do.”

“May I have three tries?” said Olivia, with a smile.

“Something good and laudable, I am sure,” said Faradeane.

Miss Amelia’s gaze softened, and she bridled and smiled.

“Oh, thank you, Mr. Faradeane,” she simpered.

“Is it to subscribe to the Mothers’ Sewing Club?” said Olivia.

“No,” said Bertie.

“To teach in the Sunday-school. No?” as Bertie shook his head. “To give the pug or the canary a dose of medicine?”

“No!” he cried, triumphantly. “You’ve lost. I take large nines,” and he held out his tiny fist. “Miss Amelia’s modest request is that I should give a reading at the forthcoming village entertainment.”

Olivia laughed.

“I’d forgotten the entertainment,” she said.

“My dear Olivia,” murmured Miss Amelia, solemnly, “you should never be weary of doing good.”

“I do too little to be anything like weary,” said Olivia. “Of course you have consented, Bertie?”

He made a gesture of mock horror.

“I!” he exclaimed. “Great goodness! Fancy me attempting to recite! Why, I should have stage fright, and fall in a fit off the platform!” and he laughed. “Now, Faradeane here is a first-class amateur actor, and used to all this kind of thing——” He pulled up short, warned by Faradeane’s grave, steady gaze, and Olivia’s look of astonishment. “That is, I should think so,” said poor Bertie. “He looks like it, while I——Oh! the mere thought of facing a room full of people sends cold shivers through me.”

He had not got out of it so badly after all, and, quite unwittingly, Miss Amelia helped.

“Really,” she simpered, surveying the handsome face, with its grave smile, “really, I think Bertie is right, and that Mr. Faradeane has—er—that kind of face, and I am sure he will not refuse to help us in our effort to amuse our humbler neighbors.”

“And air our own accomplishments,” added Olivia, with a smile.

“My dear Olivia——” began Miss Amelia, with her severest air; but Bertie cut in again.

“I think you’d better, Faradeane,” he said; “that is, if you can, and I think you have got the reciter’s face. Something awfully tragic, you know.”

“Such as ‘The Little Vulgar Boy,’ or ‘The Jackdaw of Rheims,’” murmured Miss Amelia, coaxingly. “Some people insist that they are too frivolous; but I maintain, and always shall maintain, that we may draw a lesson from even the most trivial stories.”

“‘The Little Vulgar Boy,’ for instance, aunt. What is the lesson?”

“Not to put any trust in strangers,” said Mr. Faradeane, quietly, and with the same flickering smile.

Olivia colored, Bertie looked embarrassed, and Miss Amelia laughed awkwardly.

“Oh, come,” said Bertie; “I’m sure you will give them something with a moral tagged to it. Better say yes, Faradeane.”

There was silence for a moment or two.

“Perhaps I’d better state that the proceeds of the entertainment will be devoted to the funds of the Muffin and Crumpet Society,” said Miss Amelia, with due solemnity.

Mr. Faradeane looked up gravely.

“That decides it,” he said. “I shall be very pleased to place my poor services at the disposal of so worthy a cause.”

“You see, Olivia!” exclaimed Miss Amelia. “You are always laughing at the society. Now, Mr. Faradeane, whose opinion is, I am sure, of the greatest value, testifies to its great usefulness.”

“Any cause advocated by Miss Vanley,” he said, with a bow, “must necessarily be a laudable and deserving one.”

Miss Amelia simpered and bridled with pleasure, and Olivia turned to hide a smile.

“I am going up to see Bessie,” she said. “Will you come with me, aunt?” and she bowed to Faradeane and nodded smilingly at Bertie.

“Good-morning, Mr. Faradeane,” said Miss Amelia, giving him her hand graciously. “You will not forget. The twenty-ninth, at the schoolroom. I will send you a programme. Let me see; I think I shall put you between the vicar’s concertina and Miss Browne’s ‘Three Little Pigs.’”

“Good gracious!” exclaimed Bertie, aghast.

“I understand, Miss Vanley,” said Mr. Faradeane, with perfect gravity; and, linking his arm in Bertie’s, he raised his hat and walked away.

For some few moments the two men did not speak; then Faradeane said:

“You are thinking that I am a weak-minded kind of idiot, eh, Cherub?”

Bertie gave a little start.

“I——No, I wasn’t thinking about you, old fellow,” he replied. “I was thinking of Olivia. How beautiful she looked this morning!”

“Yes,” assented Faradeane, succinctly.

“I think her lovelier and sweeter every time I see her,” continued Bertie, with a sigh. Then he pulled himself together. “But I say, fancy finding her and you chatting together like old friends!”

“Yes, and after my solemn declaration the other day that nothing should induce me to know her or any one else,” retorted Faradeane. “But men propose and the gods dispose. Only this morning I refused to see her father, and now——”

“I’m glad, awfully glad,” said Bertie, eagerly. “I can’t tell you how delighted I was to see you with her. And I tell you what, old fellow: you may consider yourself highly honored. It isn’t every one Miss Olivia is free and—and pleasant with at starting. As a rule, people think her stiff and—and—cold, don’t you know, till they know more of her.”

Faradeane nodded, with his dark eyes bent on the ground.

“Yes, she could be stiff and reserved,” he said, more to himself than to Bertie.

“Rather! They all call her proud, and so she is, in a right way. God bless her! She is everything that is right to me. And you have promised to spout for them, old fellow! I’m awfully glad of that, too.”

“Yes,” said Faradeane, grimly. “The man who falls into the river may just as well take a bath; he couldn’t be wetter. So go all my resolutions to the winds!” he added, with a kind of desperation. “But mind, Bertie, our compact remains in full force. I am still the Harold Faradeane whose acquaintance you made the other day for the first time! Remember, you do not know, cannot guess, how much depends on your caution.”

“I know. I’m awfully sorry I made that slip,” said Bertie, penitently. “But it is so hard to talk as if you and I were strangers until the other day.”

“Hard as it is, you will have to do it, Cherub,” responded Faradeane, gravely.

“And I—I cannot help you—you will tell me nothing?” said Bertie, gently.

“You cannot help me; and I can tell you nothing,” replied Faradeane.

As he spoke they reached the gate of The Dell, and saw a woman coming down the path from the cottage. She held something closely wrapped in her thin shawl, from which proceeded the unmistakable wail of a sick child.

Faradeane smiled grimly.

“The first time the gate has been unlocked, and the great disturber of man’s peace finds entrance instantly,” he said.

“Why, it’s the gypsy who told our fortunes yesterday at the picnic, you know,” said Bertie.

The anxious, black eyes flashed from face to face, and she dropped a curtsey.

“Will you help a poor woman in distress, kind gentlemen?” she said.

“Oh, come, my good woman,” said Bertie, “your memory is a short one. Why, you made enough yesterday to keep the wolf from the door for some days.”

The woman looked at him keenly, but not angrily.

“I didn’t ask for money for myself,” she said; “it’s my child—my little girl,” and she drew the shawl a few inches from the child’s face.

“What’s the matter with her?” asked Bertie, in quite a different voice.

Faradeane leaned against the gate, and looked on with an absent air of preoccupation.

“She’s ill, sir,” replied the gypsy. “She was took ill yesterday. I don’t know what ails her. It’s my only one, kind gentlemen, and——” She stopped and looked at Faradeane. “Ah! it’s hard to understand a mother’s feelings.”

“I dare say,” said Bertie, gently. “But why do you keep her out in the open air? The day is chilly, and you earned plenty of money yesterday to find shelter for her.”

The gypsy shook her head slowly.

“That’s gone, sir,” she said, with that quiet resignation which women acquire, Heaven help them!

“I see,” said Bertie. “Your husband—the man who was with you——”

She nodded, and raised her hand to her lips with the action of drinking.

“Yes, gentlemen, he’s my husband, and the money’s gone where it always goes. If he’d only left me enough to buy a blanket or a thick shawl for her; but——”

She stopped and rocked the child, crooning to it soothingly.

Bertie put his hand in his pocket, then uttered an exclamation of disappointment.

“By Jove! I’ve left my purse in my other coat. Faradeane, lend me——”

Faradeane straightened himself and came forward.

“Let me look at the child,” he said, in his low, musical voice.

The woman looked up at him for an instant with the mother’s searching glance; then, reading something in his eyes that reassured her, threw the shawl off the child’s face and turned it toward him.

It was a poor, thin little mite, whose face should have been white, but was flushed and burning.

Faradeane took it from her.

“Don’t be afraid,” he said, gently, as she clung to it a little.

“Are you a doctor, gentleman?” she asked, looking up at Faradeane, eagerly.

“No, no,” said Bertie. “But you can rely on what he says. What is it, Faradeane?” he asked, in a lower voice.

Faradeane looked at the child attentively.

“Fever,” he said. “The child has been exposed to this charming English spring of ours. Poor mite!”

The woman’s dark eyes grew moist, and her hands clasped together with a spasmodic action.

“Is—is it going to die, gentleman?” she asked, huskily. “It’s—it’s the only one I’ve got left, and—and, bein’ a girl, I’ve got fond of it like,” she added, apologetically.

“I hope it won’t die,” he said, gently, “but it is very bad. This thin shawl—wait a moment,” and he handed the child back to her.

She pressed it to her bosom with a choking sob, and bent over it speechlessly.

Faradeane came out of the cottage again presently with a traveling wrap of gray fox and sable; a rare and costly fur even for a man of wealth—a wrap which many a lady would have coveted with the fiercest longing.

As he was wrapping this round the child, touching it as gently as he had done poor Bessie, Bertie laid his hand upon his arm.

“Isn’t that rather extravagant, old fellow?” he said, in a voice too low for the woman to hear. “A blanket would have served the purpose, besides, the father will requisition that the moment he sees it.”

Faradeane shrugged his shoulders.

“It will keep the little one warm till it gets to the hospital. That’s where you’re to send it.” He took out his pocketbook, and, tearing out a sheet, wrote a few lines on it. “Take the child on to the doctor’s at Wainford, and do as he tells you. He knows me; he is the doctor who is attending Bessie Alford,” he looked round, to explain to Bertie. “Tell him that I will pay what the hospital people demand, and here is some money to go on with. Keep it from your husband—if you can,” he added, grimly.

The woman took the paper and the money, and looked from the child, whose wailing seemed already less despairing, to the costly rug, and, lastly, up at the handsome face and the sad eyes regarding her with a grave pity.

Her black eyes filled, her lips twitched, but for a moment she seemed speechless; then she looked at Bertie appealingly.

“I—I can’t tell him,” she said, piteously. “If it was for myself, I could thank him; but it is for the child, and—and I don’t know; but in my heart,” and she pressed the child to her with a fierce energy, “but I feel it in my heart.”

“That’s all right,” said Faradeane, nodding to her, soothingly. “Oh, wait; I must give the doctor your name. What is it?” and he took the paper from her.

“Liz Lee,” she said, with a little catch in her breath.