A BANKRUPT HEART.

A BANKRUPT HEART.

BY

FLORENCE MARRYAT,

AUTHOR OF
‘LOVE’S CONFLICT,’ ‘MY OWN CHILD,’ ‘PARSON JONES,’
ETC., ETC.

IN THREE VOLUMES.

VOL. II.

LONDON:
F. V. WHITE & CO.,
14 BEDFORD STREET, STRAND, W.C.

1894.

This story being already dramatised, all rights are reserved.

CONTENTS.

A BANKRUPT HEART.

A BANKRUPT HEART.

——o——

CHAPTER I.

For seven weeks Nell Llewellyn fluctuated between life and death before she was fully roused again to a sense of living and its cares and responsibilities. It was on a sunny afternoon, in the middle of October, that she first awoke to the consciousness that she was herself. But she was too weak to do more than be aware of it. The afternoon sun was glinting through the white blind of her bedroom window, and a little breeze caused it to flap gently against the latticed panes. Nell lay on her bed, as weak and unreasoning and incurious as a little child, and watched the tassel of the blind bobbing up and down, without questioning why she lay there, unable to move or think. An old woman named Betsy Hobbs, who came in sometimes to help in an emergency at the farmhouse, was seated by the window, with a large pair of knitting-needles in her hands, a ball of worsted at her feet, and her head sunk on her breast, enjoying a snooze after the labours of the day. Nell stared at her unfamiliar figure with the same sense of incapacity to understand her presence, and the same sense of utter indifference to not understanding it. Her feeble sight roved over everything in the room with the same apathy. The coverlet on her bed was a coloured one, and she kept on counting the squares and wondering in a vague manner why one should be red and the next blue. One red, and the next blue—one red, and the next blue—she kept on mentally repeating to herself, until her eyes had travelled to the foot of the bed, over the footboard of which was thrown a pink knitted shawl, or kerchief, which her mother had bought for her just before she was taken ill, and which she had worn around her shoulders on the evening she had gone to hear Hugh Owen preach in the field. That little link between the past and the present recalled it all. In a moment she comprehended. She was no longer happy, innocent Nell Llewellyn, spending her young life at Panty-cuckoo Farm, but the disgraced and degraded daughter of the house, who had crept home, a living lie, to hide her shame and sorrow in her mother’s bosom. The remembrance brought with it but one desire—one want—which expressed itself in a feeble cry of ‘Mother!’ At least, it was what Nell intended for a cry; but her voice was so faint and weak, that Betsy Hobbs only roused from her nap with a feeling of curiosity if she had heard anything. She was accustomed to nursing the sick, however, and was a light sleeper, so she hobbled up to the bedside and peered into her patient’s face. Sure enough her eyes were open and there was reason in them.

‘Praise the Lord, dearie,’ she ejaculated, ‘you’re yourself agin at last!’

But Nell turned her face to the wall with the same cry of ‘Mother!’

‘To be sure, dearie; and I’ll fetch ’er in ’alf a minnit. She’s only stepped down to the dairy to see ’ow things are goin’ on, for business ’as been sadly neglected of late. Night and day—night and day—the pore dear’s bin by your side, longin’ to ’ear your own voice agin, and she’ll be overj’yed to find you in your senses. Come, drink a drop o’ milk, do, and then I’ll fetch ’er.’

But Nell turned fractiously from the proffered cup and reiterated her cry for her mother. She was gaunt and emaciated to a degree. The cruel fever had wasted her rounded limbs, and dug deep furrows beneath her eyes, and turned her delicate complexion to yellow and brown. She looked like a woman of forty or fifty, instead of a girl of three-and-twenty. As the old woman ambled out of the room, Nell raised her thin hands and gazed at the white nails and bony knuckles with amazement. Where had she been? What had happened to her, to alter her like that? Her questions were answered by the entrance of Mrs Llewellyn.

‘Oh, my dear lass—my own poor lamb!’ she exclaimed, as she came hurriedly to the bedside, and folded her daughter in her arms. ‘Praise the Lord that you have taken a turn at last! I’ve been watching for this days and days, till I began to fear it might never be. You’ve been main ill, my girl, and all the house nursing you through it. Father’s lying down on his bed. He hasn’t had his coat off for three nights. But you’re better, my lass, you’re better, thank God for that!’

‘How long have I been ill?’ asked Nell in a faint voice.

‘Better than six weeks—going on for seven,’ replied her mother; ‘and it’s been an anxious time for all of us. I thought poor Hetty would have cried herself sick last week, when Dr Cowell told us we mustn’t build our hopes too much on keeping you here. I think he will be as surprised as anyone when he hears the good news. Oh, my lass, it would have been a sore day for more than one of us if we had lost you!’

‘I may go yet, mother,’ said Nell, looking at her skeleton hands; ‘there’s not much of me left, I’m thinking.’

‘Oh, no you won’t, my dear, not this time, thank God. I know what these fevers are. I’ve seen too many of them. When they’ve burnt themselves out, they’re over. And you’re as cool as a cucumber now. You feel terrible weak, I know, but good feeding and care will soon set you up again.’

‘What a trouble I must have been to you,’ sighed Nell wearily; ‘and so unworthy of it too. Mother, why didn’t you let me die, and make an end of it? Life is not worth living at any time, and I’ve seen the best of mine.’

‘Nonsense, my girl, you talk like that because you’re so weak, that’s all. You’ll feel quite different in another day or so. Here, just let me give you a few spoonfuls of this beef-tea. I made it myself, so I won’t take a refusal. There’s a good maid, and now you must shut your eyes and go to sleep again.’

‘Don’t leave me,’ murmured Nell, as she lay with her hand clasped in her mother’s. ‘Talk to me, mother. Tell me you are really glad that I am better, and I will try to live for your sake.’

‘Glad, child! Why, what are you thinking of? Glad to get my own lass back from the grave, as you may say? I should be a nice mother if I weren’t. Don’t you know by this time that you’ve been my hope and pride ever since you was born? Why, I’ve been praying night and day to the Lord to spare you for weeks past. Ay, and not only me; all Usk has been asking the same thing, and there’s been one in particular as has wearied Heaven with prayers for your recovery, if ever man did.’

‘One in particular?’ echoed the sick girl faintly curious. ‘Who was that, mother?’

‘Why, that young saint on earth, Hugh Owen, to be sure. I never saw a man so unhappy as he’s been about you. He looks ten years older since you were taken ill. Do you know, Nell, that he’s been here every minute he could spare from his work, kneeling by your bedside whilst you were raving in delirium, praying with all his heart and soul, that God would spare your precious life to us a little longer. Hugh Owen has been your tenderest nurse. I’ve seen him sit here, without saying a word for hours together, only holding you in his arms when you got a bit violent, and coaxing you by every means in his power to take a drop of wine or a spoonful of jelly. I do believe that you owe your life in a great measure to Hugh’s care (and so I’ve told father that if you lived, it would be), for though we all tried our best, no one has had so much influence over you as him, or been able to make you take nourishment like he could.’

‘Did he hear me talk?’ asked Nell, fearfully.

‘Hear you talk, child? Well, pretty nearly all Usk heard you talk, you used to scream so loud sometimes. But it was all nonsense. No one could understand it, so you needn’t be afraid you told any of your little secrets. I couldn’t make head nor tail of what you said, nor Hugh either. But his presence seemed to comfort you, so I let the poor lad have his way. He was nearly broken-hearted when he left the farm last night, you were so terribly weak and low. I expect he’ll nearly go out of his mind when he hears the news I shall have to tell him this evening. He’ll offer up a grand prayer of thanksgiving before he goes to his bed to-night.’

But at this juncture, seeing that Nell’s weary eyes had closed again, Mrs Llewellyn covered her carefully with the bedclothes, and went to communicate the fact of her improvement to the farmer. As the husband and wife were sitting at their evening meal, Hugh Owen, as usual, walked in. His face was very pale, and his expression careworn. His first anxious inquiry was naturally for Nell. When he heard the great improvement that had taken place in her, and that Doctor Cowell had said at his last visit that she was now on the road to recovery, his pallid cheeks glowed with excitement.

‘God Almighty be thanked for all His goodness!’ he said solemnly, and then added rapidly,—‘May I see her, Mrs Llewellyn? Just for one moment. I will not speak to her, if you do not think it desirable, but to see her once more sensible and in her right mind would make me so happy. I shall hardly be able to believe the joyful news is true otherwise.’

The mother looked doubtful.

‘Well, I don’t quite know how Nell would take it, my lad. You’ve been main good to her, I know; but it wouldn’t do to upset her now, and you would be the last to wish it.’

‘Upset her! Oh, no; but I have sat by her so often during her illness.’

‘Ay, when she wasn’t aware of your presence; that makes all the difference. But,’ noting the look of disappointment in the young man’s face, she added, ‘I’ll just step up and see how matters are now; and if Nell’s sleeping you shall have a peep at her, in return for all your goodness.’

The young man thanked her, and in a few minutes she came back to say that her daughter was fast asleep, and, if Hugh would follow her, he should see so for himself. He rose at once, his face radiant with joy, and crept on tip-toe up the stairs and into the familiar bedroom. There lay Nell, prostrate in the sleep of exhaustion—her hands folded together on the coverlet, her head well back on her pillow, her mouth slightly parted, her breathing as regular and calm as that of an infant. At the sight Hugh’s eyes filled with tears.

‘Doesn’t she look as if she were praying—thanking God for His goodness to her?’ he whispered to Mrs Llewellyn. ‘Oh, let us pray too. We can never thank Him enough for all He has done for us.’

And he fell on his knees by the bedside, Mrs Llewellyn following his example.

‘Oh, Father, God, Protector, Friend,’ said the young man, with tears running down his worn cheeks, ‘what can we render to Thee for all Thou art to us, for all Thou doest for us? We have cried to Thee in our distress, and Thou hast heard our cry. We wept in our abject fear of loss, and Thou hast dried our tears. Thou hast sent Thy messenger angels, with healing in their wings, to succour this dear child of Thine—this dear companion of ours—and give her and us alike time to do something to prove the sense of gratitude we have for Thy great love to us. Oh, Father, make us more grateful, more thankful, more resolved to live the lives which Thou hast given us, to Thee, more careful of the beautiful, earthly love with which Thou hast brightened and made happy these lives. Amen.’

No one could mistake the earnestness and fervour and genuineness of this address, which Hugh delivered as simply as if he had been speaking to his earthly father in his earthly home. Mrs Llewellyn could not restrain mingling her tears with his. She told the farmer afterwards that Hugh’s way of praying made her feel as if the Almighty were standing just beside them where they knelt. Softly as the young minister had preferred his petition, it seemed to have reached the sleeper’s ear, even through her dreams, for as his ‘Amen’ fell on the air, Nell opened her eyes and said very softly,—

‘Thank you, Hugh.’

The sound of her voice, and the assurance that his presence had not disturbed her, so moved his sensitive disposition that he sprung forward, and, sinking again upon his knees by her side, raised her thin hand to his lips and kissed it several times in succession, whilst his dark eyes glowed with feeling.

‘Thank you,’ again sighed Nell. ‘Good-night.’

‘Yes, yes, my lad, it must be good-night, for you mustn’t stay here!’ exclaimed Mrs Llewellyn, who was fearful of the effects of any agitation on her invalid. ‘You’ve had your wish and seen Nell, and you’ve prayed a beautiful prayer, and now you must come back to the parlour with me and have a bit of supper. Go down to the kitchen, Betsy,’ she continued to the old nurse, ‘and get our Nell another drop of beef-tea, and I’ll be up to see after her as soon as the table’s cleared. Bless her heart! if she isn’t off again. She’ll want all the sleep she can get now, to make up for the sore time she’s passed through. Come, Hugh.’

But the young minister refused all her offers of hospitality. He felt as if food would choke him just then. He wanted to be alone to think of his great and unexpected joy—to thank the Giver of it over and over again. He walked home through the crisp October evening, wandering far afield, in order to commune with his own thoughts, and enlarging the prayer of thankfulness, with which his heart was bursting, by another petition, that God, who had given this woman back to him and her friends, would give her to him also and altogether as his wife.

He did not see Nell again during the period of convalescence that she spent in her own room. But not one day passed without his presence at the farm and his thoughts of her being brought to her notice by some little offering from his hands. One day it would be a bunch of glowing chrysanthemums, from the deepest bronze to the palest pink and purest white. The next, he brought a basket of fruit—a cluster of hothouse grapes—to get which he had walked for miles, or a bunch of bananas, or anything which was considered a dainty in Usk. Once he sent her a few verses of a hymn, neatly copied out on fair paper; but these Nell put on one side with a smile which savoured of contempt. She was now fairly on the road for recovery; and even Hetty, who had been going backwards and forwards every day, began to find the walk from Dale Farm was rather long, and that her mother-in-law needed a little more of her company. The services of the doctor and old Betsy Hobbs were dispensed with, and Mrs Llewellyn found there was no longer any necessity for her to leave all the churning and baking to her farm maids, but that she could devote the usual time to them herself. It was an accredited fact that Nell had been snatched from the jaws of death, and that her relatives need have no more fears on her account. Still Hugh Owen continued to pay her his daily attentions, till she, like women courted by men for whom they have no fancy, began to weary of seeing the flowers and fruit and books coming in every afternoon, and to cast them somewhat contemptuously aside. It was a grand day at Panty-cuckoo Farm when she first came down the stairs, supported by her father and mother—very shaky and weak, but really well again, and saying good-bye to bed in the daytime for good and all. Mrs Llewellyn was a proud and happy woman when she saw her daughter installed on the solitary sofa which the house could boast of, swathed round in shawls and blankets, and a very ghost of her former self, but yet alive, and only needing time to make her strong again.

‘Well, my dear lass,’ she said, as she helped Nell to her cup of tea, ‘I never thought at one time to see you on that sofa again, nor downstairs at all, except it was in your coffin. You’ve got a lot to be thankful for, Nell; it’s not many constitutions that could have weathered such an illness.’

Nell sipped the tea she held in her hand, and wondered what was the use of coming back to a world that didn’t want her, and which she didn’t want. But she was still too weak to argue, even if she would have argued such a subject with her mother. As the meal was in the course of progress a gentle tap sounded on the outer door.

‘Now, I’ll bet that’s Hugh Owen, dear lad!’ exclaimed Mrs Llewellyn briskly, as she rose to answer it. ‘He’ll be main pleased and surprised to see our Nell downstairs. He’s been so curious to hear when the doctor would let her get up, and I wouldn’t tell him, just to keep him a bit in suspense.’

She opened the door as she spoke, calling out,—

‘How are ye, Hugh, my lad? Come in, do. We’ve got company to tea to-night, and you’re heartily welcome.’

But Hugh shrunk back.

‘I won’t disturb you if you’ve company, Mrs Llewellyn,’ he said. ‘I only stepped over to hear how your daughter is this evening, and to ask her acceptance of these,’ and he shyly held out a bouquet of hot-house flowers.

‘Eh, Hugh, but they’re very beautiful. Wherever did you get them?’ said Mrs Llewellyn.

‘I’ve a friend in the florist way up by Pontypool,’ he answered, ‘and I thought Nell might like them to make her room gay.’

‘To be sure she will, and give you many thanks in return. Come in and give them her yourself.’

‘Oh, may I?’ said Hugh, as he walked gladly over the threshold and saw Nell lying on the couch and holding out an attenuated hand to him.

She looked thinner even than when she had been confined to bed. People do, as a rule, when they first come downstairs. Her cheeks were sunken and white as death itself, and her eyes seemed preternaturally large and staring. But it was Nell, and Hugh Owen’s face grew scarlet at the mere sight of her.

‘Oh, Nell!’ he exclaimed, as he advanced quickly to grasp her outstretched hand, ‘this is a joyful surprise to see you downstairs again. Your mother had not prepared me for it. Are you sure you feel none the worse for the exertion—that it will not do you any harm?’

Nell was about to reply, but Mrs Llewellyn anticipated her.

‘Now, my lad!’ she exclaimed, rather tartly, ‘don’t you make a fool of yourself. You don’t suppose, do you, that I would let my lass injure her health after all the trouble and anxiety we’ve had on her account, by letting her do anything rash? Don’t you make any mistake about it, Hugh. What Nell’s mother don’t foresee for her, no one else will, let alone a stripling like yourself.’

‘Oh, Mrs Llewellyn!’ exclaimed the young man, turning all kinds of colours, ‘I am sure you must know—you cannot think that I would presume—who knows better than I, how you have nursed and watched over her? Only I—I—the natural anxiety, you know—’

‘Oh, yes, my lad, I know all about it. You needn’t stammer in that fashion, nor take the trouble to explain, and I’ve no call to find fault with you either, for you’ve been the kindest friend poor Nell has had in her sickness, and the most thoughtful, not excepting her own sister. But don’t fear but what she’s well looked after, though I hope the day’s not far distant now when she’ll look after herself.’

‘And so do I,’ said young Owen. ‘You’re looking bravely, Nell, considering what you’ve gone through. It’s been a sore time with you. Please God it may be the last.’

‘Mother tells me you’ve been very good to me through it all, Hugh,’ replied Nell, in a low voice, ‘and prayed for my recovery scores of times. You meant it kindly, I know, though perhaps whilst you were about it, it would have been better to have asked the Lord to let me go.’

Mrs Llewellyn, seeing Nell was in good hands, had wandered away after some of her household arrangements, and left them by themselves.

‘No, Nell, no; not whilst He has work for you to do here, and permits you to remain. Besides, think what a grief it would have been to your father and mother and sister—and to me, if you had died. We could not have easily filled your place, Nell. You mustn’t be sorry because you have been spared to make us happy. And why should you want to go so soon? You are young and beautiful—you don’t mind an old friend like me telling you that, do you?—and have all your life before you. It is unnatural that you should be loath to live. It can only be your extreme weakness that makes you say so.’

‘If you knew me better, Hugh, you would not talk like that. My life is past—not to come—and there seems nothing (that I can see) for me to do. I don’t want to look back, and the future is a blank—a dark, horrible uncertainty, in which I can discern no good in living. I shall help mother in the farmhouse work, of course, now I have come home, but it will not be any pleasure to me. It is so different from what I have been accustomed to, and when all’s said and done a dairymaid would do it far better than I. I have grown beyond it, in fact (though you mustn’t tell mother I said so for all the world), and so—and so—I think you are my friend, Hugh, and I tell you the truth—I would have much rather died.’

The young man looked distressed. He guessed there was more behind this statement than Nell would confess. But he replied to her appeal energetically.

‘Your friend, Nell. You may do more than think it. You may regard it as an undoubted fact. I only wish I could, or I dared make you understand how much I am your friend. And as for there being no work for you to do, except household drudgery, oh! if you will listen to me, I can tell you of glorious work that lies close to your hand—work that would bring you both peace and happiness. Will you let me show it you, dear Nell? Will you listen to me whilst I point it out to you?’

‘Another time, Hugh. Not just now, thank you, for my brain is still too weak to understand half I hear. When I am stronger, and able to take an interest in things again, you shall talk to me as much as you like, for I am very grateful to you for all your goodness to me, and shall be glad to return it in any way I can.’

So Hugh left her with a heart brimming over with content, and a great hope springing up in it for the future.

CHAPTER II.

Such of the villagers of Usk who met Hugh Owen during the few days that succeeded this interview spoke to each other with surprise of the alteration that had taken place in his demeanour. The sober, grave, young minister, who had seldom smiled, and usually appeared too wrapped in his own thoughts to take much part in what went on before him, was now to be seen with a beaming countenance and an animated welcome for all whom he met.

‘Why, farmer,’ quoth one worthy to Mr Owen, ‘but what’s come to yon lad of yourn, the minister? Is he going to be elected an elder, or is he thinking of getting spliced?’

‘Spliced!’ roared the farmer, who, notwithstanding his pride in his learning and attainments, cherished rather a mean opinion of his eldest son as a man. ‘Spliced! the Lord save us, no! Where would Hugh get the courage to ask a lass to have him? He can’t so much as look them in the face; and when his mother or Hetty brings one of the neighbours’ girls in for a bit of a talk, he sneaks out at the back door with his tail between his legs, for all the world like a kicked cur. Married! Hugh will never be married. He wouldn’t know what to do with a wife if he’d got one, not he. He’s a minister, is Hugh—just that and nothing more. What makes you ask such a thing, Ben?’

‘Why because I met him near Thomson’s patch this afternoon, with his mouth one grin, and talking to himself as if he was preaching.

‘“Why minister,” I says, “are you making up your next sermon?” and he says, “No, Ben,” he says, “I’m trying over a thanksgiving service for myself.” And he smiled as if someone had left him a fortune.’

‘And yesterday,’ interposed a woman, ‘when my little Nan ran across the road and fell down, and whimpered a bit, as children will, Hugh he was after her in a minute, and picked her up, and there he did kiss her as I never see. Nan, she didn’t know what to make of it, and stopped crying from sheer surprise, and when I called out, “That’s right, minister, nothing like getting your hand in for nursing,” he reddened. Lor’! just like my turkey-cock when the lads throw stones at him.’

‘Well, my woman, you needn’t think he’s going to nurse any of his own for all that. Hugh is too much of a scholar to bear the noise of children in the house. If Hetty ever gets any little ones I expect he’ll find another place for himself. He said the other night that the old farm would never seem like the same again if there was babies in it.’

‘He’s up a deal at Panty-cuckoo, I hear,’ said the first speaker.

‘Oh, ay. That’s all in his own line,’ replied the farmer. ‘The poor lass up there has been mortal bad—nearly dead, by my missus’s account—and Hugh’s been praying with her and for her, and such like. And his prayers have been heard, it seems, for my daughter-in-law says her sister is downstairs again, and in a fair way to mend. I expect she brought the fever from London town with her. We’re not used to have such fads in Usk. A young lass stricken down like an old woman. ’Twas an ugly sight, and I’m main glad, for the Llewellyns’ sake, as she’s been spared. ’Twould have been a sad coming-home else.’

‘That it would,’ said his friend Ben. ‘And I expect it was thinking over the prayers he has put up for her as made the minister so smiling this afternoon. Well, he have cause to be proud, and he do pray beautiful, to be sure. My old woman say he bawl them so loud, that if the Lord can’t hear him it’s no manner of use any of us trying for ourselves. Well, morning to ye, farmer,’ and off went Ben on his own business.

Hugh Owen would not have been over-pleased could he have heard them discussing his private feelings after this fashion; but, luckily for him, he did not hear them. It is lucky for all of us when we do not hear what our neighbours say of us behind our backs. We should not have an acquaintance left in the world if we did. But the young minister went on his way, little dreaming that anyone guessed the sweet, sacred hope which he was cherishing in his heart of hearts, and which he only waited for Nell’s complete convalescence to confide to her. The time for doing so arrived (for him) only too soon, and often afterwards he wished he had been content to nurse his love for her in secret.

It was one day when she was downstairs again, looking so much older since her illness that people who had only known her in London would hardly have recognised her, that Hugh asked Nell if she would grant him an hour’s conversation. Even then she did not think the request was made for more than friendship, for she had spoken to Hugh Owen of her desire to train herself for better things than farm work, that she might be able, perhaps, to keep a comfortable home for her parents when they were past labour. This appeared to Nell the only ambition that could give her any interest in life again—the idea that she would repay in some measure her father’s and mother’s great love for her. Hugh might have thought of something, or heard of something, so she granted him the interview he asked for gladly, and received him with a kind smile and an outstretched hand, which he grasped eagerly and detained long.

‘You are quite well again now, Nell,’ he said, as he looked into her face, which was still so beautiful, though pale and worn.

‘Yes, quite well, Hugh, thank you,’ she replied. ‘I walked across the Park this morning to see Sir Archibald’s old housekeeper, Mrs Hody, and had quite a long chat with her. The family is not coming down for Christmas this year, she tells me, but have put it off till the cub-hunting begins, and then the Hall will be full. She gave me a clutch of golden pheasants’ eggs. I am going to set them under one of our hens. Don’t you like golden pheasants, Hugh? I think they are such lovely creatures.’

‘I like and admire all God’s creatures, Nell, and cannot understand anyone doing otherwise. I well remember your love for animals as a child, and how you smacked my face once for putting your kitten up on the roof of the stable, where she couldn’t get down.’

‘Did I? That was very rude. But I’m afraid, from what I can remember, that I always treated you rather badly, poor Hugh, and encroached upon your kindness to me. You have always been kind to me, and lately most of all. Mother believes I owe my life to you.’

‘No, no, Nell, you owe it to the dear God, Who would not see us all plunged into despair by your loss—I most of all. But if you really think you owe me ever so little, you can return it a hundredfold, if you will.’

Nell turned towards him eagerly.

‘Oh, Hugh, how? Tell me, and I will do it. Don’t think I have so many friends that I can afford to undervalue your friendship. I have very few friends, Hugh—very, very few,’ said the girl, with a quivering lip.

‘How can you repay me?’ repeated the young man, musingly. ‘Is it possible you do not guess? Nell, do you know, have you ever thought why I lead such a lonely life, why I have not married like Will? My brother is five years younger than myself, and most of the lads in Usk are thinking of getting a wife as soon as they can make their pound or thirty shillings a week. I make four times that as a minister, Nell, and most girls would think me well able to keep them in comfort and respectability. Yet I have never given a thought to one of them—why?’

‘Because you’re a minister, I suppose,’ replied Nell, ‘and all your mind is set upon your chapel and sermons and the open-air preaching. Isn’t that it?’ with a shy glance upwards to see how he took the suggestion. But Hugh only sighed and turned away.

‘No, no; why should that be it? Because I’m a minister, and want to do all I can for God whilst I live, am I the less a man with less of a man’s cravings for love and companionship? No, Nell, there is a reason for it, but a very different one from what you imagine. The reason I have never given a thought to marriage yet is because when I was a lanky, awkward lad, there was a little maid whom I used to call my sweetheart—who used to let me carry her over the boulders in the river, to go with her black-berrying, to walk beside her as she went to and came from church. Though, as we grew up, I was separated from that little maid, Nell, I never forgot her, and I never shall. No other will take her place with me.’

‘Oh, don’t say that, Hugh, pray don’t say that!’ cried Nell, with visible agitation. ‘You mustn’t! It is folly—worse than folly, for that little maid will never be yours again—never, never!’

She uttered the last words with so deep a sigh that it sounded almost like a requiem over her departed, innocent childhood. But Hugh would not accept it as such.

‘But why, dear Nell?’ he questioned. ‘We have met again, and we are both free. What objection can there be to our marriage, if you have none? I would not hurry you. You should name your own time, only let us be engaged. I have told you that I can keep you in comfort, and if parting with your parents is an obstacle, I’ll consent to anything you think best. Only don’t send me away without hope. You will take all the spirit out of my life and work if you do. I think your people like me—I don’t anticipate any trouble with them, but the word that is to make me happy must come from your lips, Nell—from yours alone!’

‘It can never come from them,’ answered Nell sadly.

‘Don’t say that, my little sweetheart of olden days. Oh, Nell, if you only knew, if I could only make you understand how I have kept your image in my heart all these years, how your face has come between me and my duties, till I’ve had to drive it away by sheer force of will. When I found you had come back to Usk, I thought God had sent you expressly for me. Don’t say now, after all my hopes and longings to meet you again—after you have come back from the grave to me, Nell—don’t say, for God’s sake, that it has been all in vain!’

He bowed his head upon his outstretched arm as he spoke, and Nell knew, though she could not see, that he was weeping.

‘What can I say to you, Hugh,’ she began, after a pause. ‘I do love you for all your goodness to me, but not in that way. I cannot be your wife. If you knew me as well as I know myself, you would never ask it, for I am not fit for it, Hugh. I am not worthy.’

The young man raised his head in astonishment.

‘Not worthy? What do you mean? You, who are as far above me as the stars in heaven. It is I who have no right to aspire to be your husband—a rough, country clod like me, only, only—I would love you with the best, Nell, if I could but make you believe it.’

‘I do believe it, Hugh, and I am sorry it should be so, because my love for you is so different from yours. I regard you as a dear friend. I have no other love to give you.’

‘You care for some other man,’ said Hugh, with the quick jealousy of lovers. ‘You are engaged to be married. Oh, why did you not tell me so before? Why have you let me go on seeing you—talking with you and longing for you, without giving me one hint that you had bound yourself to marry another man? It was cruel of you, Nell—very, very cruel. You might have had more mercy on an unfortunate fellow who has loved you all his life.’

Nell shook her head.

‘But I’m not bound to marry another man; I shall never marry,’ she said in a low voice.

‘Then, why are you so hard on me? Tell me the reason, Nell. There must be a reason for your refusal. You owe me so much for the pain you’ve made me suffer.’

‘Oh, how can I tell you? What good would it do you to hear?’ she exclaimed passionately. ‘Cannot you understand that there may be a hundred things in a girl’s life that make her feel indisposed to marry the first man who asks her?’

‘Perhaps so,’ he said mournfully; ‘I know so little of girls or their feelings. But I think you might give me a better reason for your refusal, than that you are determined not to marry.’

‘Can I trust you with the story of my life?’ she asked. ‘Oh, yes, I’m sure I can. You are good and faithful, and you would never betray my confidence to father, or mother, or Hetty, or disgrace me in the eyes of the world.’

Hugh Owen grew pale at the idea, but he answered,—

‘Disgrace you? How can you think it for a moment? I would sooner disgrace myself. But how could I do it, Nell? What can you have ever done to make you speak like that?’

‘I’ve done what the worst woman you’ve ever met has done. Hugh, you have forced the truth from me. Don’t blame me if it hurts you. I am not a good girl, like Hetty, or Sarah Kingston, or Rachel Grove. I’m not fit to speak to any one of them. I have no right to be at Panty-cuckoo Farm. If father knew all, perhaps he’d turn me out again. I—I—have fallen, Hugh! and now you know the worst!’

The worst seemed very bad for him to know. As the terrible confession left her, he turned his dark, thoughtful face aside, and bit his lips till the blood came, but he did not say a word. Nell had told him the bitter truth almost defiantly, but the utter silence by which it was succeeded did not please her. What right had this man, who had worried her into saying what she never said to any other creature, to sit there and upbraid her by his silence? She felt as if she wanted to shake him.

‘Speak, speak!’ she cried at last, impatiently. ‘Say what you like; call me all the bad names you have ever heard applied in such cases, but say something, for goodness’ sake. Have you never heard of such a thing before? Have none of the girls in Usk ever made a false step in their lives? Don’t sit there as if the news had turned you to stone, or you will drive me mad!’

Then he raised his white, strained face, and confronted her,—

‘My poor, dear girl!’ he said, ‘who am I, that I should condemn you? I am far too conscious of my own besetting sins. But how did this awful misfortune happen? Who was the man? Has he deserted you? Won’t you tell me, Nell?’

‘It happened soon after I went to London,’ she answered, in a more subdued voice. ‘I was very young at the time, you know, Hugh, and very ignorant of the world and the world’s ways. He—he—was a gentleman, and I loved him, and he persuaded me. That is the whole story, but it has broken my heart.’

‘But where is this “gentleman” now? Cannot he be induced to make you reparation?’ asked Hugh, with set teeth.

‘Reparation! What reparation can he make? Do you mean marriage? What gentleman would marry a poor girl like me—a common farmer’s daughter? And if it were likely, do you suppose that I would stoop to become the wife of a man who did not want to marry me—who did so on compulsion? You don’t know me, Hugh.’

‘But, Nell, my dear Nell, do you mean to tell me that this inhuman brute seduced you, and then deserted you? What have you been doing since, Nell? Where have you been living? I thought you came here from service at the Earl of Ilfracombe’s?’

‘So I did.’

‘And you were with him for three years?’

‘I was,’ replied Nell, who felt as if her secret were being drawn from her, bit by bit.

‘Then you had a shelter and a home. Oh, Nell, do you mean to tell me that you did this thing of your own free will, knowing that it could not last, nor end lawfully? When you had a refuge and an honourable service, did you still consent to live in concubinage with this gentleman—knowing he only kept you as a toy which he could get rid of whenever the whim suited him?’

‘I did!’ she cried defiantly, ‘if you will have the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth—there it is. I loved him, and I lived with him of my free consent. It was my heaven to live with him. I never regretted it. I only regretted when it came to an end.’

‘Oh, Nell,’ he said, ‘I thought higher of you than that.’

His evident misery touched her.

‘Hugh, how can I make you understand?’ she cried. ‘I believed it was for ever. I knew we could never be married, because he was so much above me; but I thought—he told me—that we should never part. I considered myself his wife, I did indeed; and when I was undeceived it nearly killed me.’

And, breaking down for the first time, Nell burst into tears.

‘There, there, don’t cry,’ said Hugh, wearily. ‘Remember, your mother might come in at any moment, and ask the reason of your tears. Try and restrain yourself. Your sad secret is safe with me, rely on that. Only—only let us consider, is there really no remedy for your trouble?’

‘How can there be? He is married; that is why I am here. For three years I was the happiest woman under the sun. He is a rich man, and he gave me more than I ever desired; not that I cared for anything in comparison with his love. Ah, if he had only left me that, I would have begged in the streets by his side and been happy. But it all came to an end. He had gone away for a little while, and I had not the least idea that he was not coming back again. I was only longing and hoping for his return; and then one day his lawyer called to tell me that my darling—I mean that he was going to marry some lady, and I could be nothing ever to him again. Hugh, it drove me mad. I didn’t know what I was doing. I rushed out of the house and threw myself into the river.’

‘Merciful God!’ exclaimed the young man, losing all control over himself.

‘I did. Father and mother think I left service in a regular way; but they don’t know in London where I’m gone. They never saw me again. I daresay they think I’m drowned. Was it very wicked, Hugh? I did so long to die. Isn’t it funny that, first, I should have thrown myself into the water and been picked out again, and then had this bad illness, and still I can’t die? Why won’t God let me end it all?’

‘Because He designs you for better things, my poor Nell,’ said her companion.

‘I don’t think so. Better things are not in my way. I believe I shall die a violent death after all. I remember some time ago—ah! it was the races he took me to—a gipsy told my fortune, and she said the same thing, that I should come to a violent end. It little matters to me, so long as it gives me forgetfulness and rest.

‘You mustn’t talk like that,’ said Hugh, reprovingly. ‘We must all die in God’s time, and it is our duty to wait for it. But do you mean to say that this man has cast you off without a thought, Nell?’

‘Oh, no! he offered, or his lawyer did, to settle money on me, but I would not take it. What did I want with money without him?’

‘You did right to refuse it. Money coming from such a source could have brought no blessing with it. But surely you do not lament the loss of this scoundrel who, not content with betraying you, has left you in this heartless manner for another woman?’

But no true woman ever let another man abuse her lover, however guilty he might be, without resenting it. Least of all women was Nell Llewellyn likely to stand such a thing.

‘How dare you call him by such a name?’ she cried angrily. ‘Whatever he may have done, it is not your place to resent it. I am nothing to you. He is not a scoundrel. There never was a more honourable, kind-hearted, generous creature born. He would never have deserted me if it had not been for his lawyer, who was always dinning into his ears that with such a property it was his duty to marry. And the woman, too, whom he has married—she inveigled him into it. I know she did. Oh, Hugh, if I could only kill her how happy I should be. If I could be in the same room with her for five minutes, with a knife in my hand, and stab her with it to the very heart, and see her die—die—with pain and anguish as she has made my heart die, I think I should be happy.’

‘Nell, you shock and terrify me!’ exclaimed the young man. ‘Do you know what you are saying? Do you know that in harbouring such feelings you are as guilty as if you had committed the crime itself? What has this poor lady done to injure you that you should cherish such animosity against her?’

‘What has she done?’ echoed Nell fiercely. ‘Why she has taken my lover—the man whom I adored—from me. Torn him from my very arms. She has destroyed my happiness—my life. Made the world a howling wilderness. Left my heart bare, and striped, and empty. And I would make her die a thousand deaths for it if I could. I would tear her false heart from her body and throw it to the dogs to eat.’

Nell’s eyes were flashing. Her head was thrown back defiantly in the air as she spoke; her teeth were clenched; she looked like a beautiful, bloodthirsty tigress panting to fasten on her prey. But Hugh Owen saw no beauty in her attitudes or expression. He rose hastily from his chair, and moved towards the door. His action arrested her attention.

‘Stop!’ she cried. ‘Where are you going? Why do you leave me alone?’

‘Because I cannot bear to listen to you whilst you blaspheme like that, Nell. Because it is too dreadful to me to hear you railing against the wisdom of God, who has seen fit to bring you to a sense of the life you were leading, by wresting it from your grasp. You have called me your friend. So I am; but it is not the act of a friend to encourage you in such vindictive feelings. I could remain your friend though I knew you guilty of every weakness common to human nature, but I dare not take the hand of a woman who deliberately desires the death of a fellow-creature. Depend on it, Nell, that this unfortunate lady, who has married the man who behaved so basely to you, will have enough trouble without you wishing her more. Were it justifiable to harbour the thought of vengeance on any one, yours might, with more propriety, be directed towards him who has probably deceived his wife as much as he deceived you!’

‘If that is the spirit in which you receive my confidence,’ said Nell hotly, ‘I wish I had never confided in you. Perhaps the next thing you will consider it right to do will be to proclaim my antecedents to the people of Usk. Make them the subject of your next sermon maybe! I am sure they would form a most edifying discourse on the wickedness of the world (and London world in particular), especially when the victim is close at hand to be trotted out in evidence of the truth of what you say.’

Hugh raised his dark, melancholy eyes to her reproachfully.

‘Have I deserved that of you, Nell?’ he asked.

‘I don’t care whether you have or not. I see very plainly that I have made a fool of myself. There was no occasion for me to tell you anything; but I fancied I should have your sympathy, and blurted it out, and my reward is to be accused of blasphemy. It is my own fault; but now that you have wrung my secret from me, for pity’s sake keep it.’

‘Oh, Nell, how can you so distrust me? Your secret is as sacred with me as if you were in your grave. What a brute you must think me to imagine otherwise.’

‘I don’t know,’ she answered wearily. ‘I have no faith in anybody or anything now. Why should you behave better to me than the rest of the world has done? No, don’t touch me,’ as he approached her, holding out his hand. ‘Your reproaches have turned all my milk of human kindness into gall. Go away; there’s a good man, and leave me to myself. It is useless to suppose you could understand my feelings or my heart. You must have gone through the mill as I have before you do.’

‘At least, Nell, you will let me remain your friend,’ he said in a voice of pain.

‘No, no, I want no friends—nothing. Leave me with my memories. You cannot understand them; but they are all that remain to me now. Go on serving God; devoting all your time and your energies to Him, and wait till He gives you a blow in the face, like mine, and see what you think of His loving-kindness then. It’ll come some day; for Heaven doesn’t appear to spare the white sheep any more than the black ones. We all get it sooner or later. When you get yours you may think you were a little hard on me.’

‘I think I have got it already,’ murmured poor Hugh, half to himself. ‘Good-bye, Nell.’

‘Oh, go, do,’ she cried impetuously, ‘and never come here again. After what you have said to-day your presence can only be an extra pain to me, and I have enough of that already. Go on with your praying and preaching, and don’t think of me. I sha’n’t come to hear any more of it. It does me no good, and it might do me harm. It might make my hand unsteady,’ she continued, with a significant glance, ‘when the time comes, and it has that knife in it!’

She laughed mockingly in his face as she delivered this parting shot, and Hugh Owen, with a deep sob in his throat, turned on his heel, and walked quickly away from Panty-cuckoo Farm.

CHAPTER III.

The Countess of Ilfracombe had had no desire to meet Mr Portland again; in fact, she would have declined the honour, had she not been afraid of exciting the suspicions of the earl; and she had not been under the same roof with him for more than a few days, before she was heartily sorry that she had not done so. Nora was a flirt, there was no question of that. She could keep a dozen men at her feet at the same time, and let each of them imagine he was the favoured individual. But she was not a fool. She had a countess’s coronet on her head, and she had no intention of soiling or risking the treasure she had won. Mr Jack Portland was, as the reader will have guessed, the same admirer of whom Nora had spoken to Ilfracombe before their marriage, as having hair of the ‘goldenest golden’ hue, and who was the only man for whose loss she had ever shed a tear. The earl had been a little jealous at the time, but he had forgotten the circumstance long ago. When the countess heard she was destined to meet her old flame again, and as the intimate friend of her husband, she had felt rather afraid lest her heart should ache a little from the encounter. But the first glance at him had dispelled this idea. Two years is not a long time in reality, but it is far too long to indulge in continual dissipation with impunity. It had wrought havoc with the charms of Mr Jack Portland. His manly figure had begun to show signs of embonpoint. His complexion was very florid, and there were dropsical-looking bags under his bloodshot eyes, and sundry rolls of flesh rising above the back of his collar, which are not very attractive in the eyes of ladies. His ‘goldenest golden’ hair had commenced to thin on the top, and his heated breath was too often tainted with the fumes of alcohol. The habits he had indulged in had destroyed the little modesty Mr Portland had ever possessed, and he was so presuming in his words and looks, that Nora had been on the point, more than once since he had come down to Thistlemere, of telling him to hold his tongue or leave the house. But then, there were those unfortunate letters of hers, which he retained, and the importance of the contents of which, perhaps she exaggerated. The fact is, that in the days when Mr Portland came to Malta to stay with the Lovelesses, he and Nora had made very fierce love to each other. There was no denying that, and the young lady herself had never pretended to be a model of all the domestic virtues. Her father had been very angry with her, and threatened to send her to England to a boarding-school. But the mischief had been done by the time Sir Richard discovered it. People generally lock the door after the steed has been stolen. Not that it had gone quite so far with Miss Nora Abinger as that; but a great deal of folly had passed between her and handsome Jack Portland, a good many secret meetings had taken place, and many letters written. Oh, those letters, those written protestations of eternal fidelity; those allusions to the past; those hopes for the future; how much mischief have they not done in this world. We talk of women’s tongues; they might chatter to all eternity, and not bring one half the trouble in their train as their too ready pens create. Mr Portland, not being approved of by the admiral, had found his visits to the house not so welcome as they might have been, and so the lovers resorted to writing as a vent for their feelings, and perhaps wrote more that they really felt—certainly more than they cared to think about or look back upon. Nora positively shivered when she thought what might, or might not be, in those letters which Mr Portland had promised to deliver up to her as soon as he returned to town. Meanwhile, she was on tenterhooks and afraid to a degree of offending the man who held such a sword of Damocles over her head, and presumed on his power, to treat her exactly as he chose, with coldness or familiarity. But if she attempted to resent his conduct, Mr Portland could always give her a quiet hint on the sly, that she had better be very polite to him. So her life on first coming to her husband’s home was not one of roses. She could remember the time when she had believed she loved Jack Portland, but she wondered at herself for having done so now. Perhaps it was not entirely the alteration which had taken place in himself, but more likely that her taste had refined and become more exclusive with the passing years. At anyrate, his present conduct towards her, in its quiet insolence and presumption, made her loathe and hate him. She wondered sometimes that her husband did not perceive the aversion she had for his chosen friend, but Ilfracombe had been very subdued and melancholy since the day of their arrival. As Nora was so new to English society, and could not be presented at Court till the following spring, they had decided to pass their first Christmas very quietly, the Dowager Lady Ilfracombe, and the earl’s two sisters, Lady Laura and Lady Blanche Devenish, being, with the exception of the obnoxious Jack Portland, the only guests at Thistlemere. The Ladies Devenish were not disposed to make her life any easier than it needed to be to the youthful countess. In the first place, they were both considerably older than their brother, and resented Nora’s twenty years and her vivacity and independence as an affront to themselves. She ought to have been humbler in their opinion, and more alive to the honour that had been accorded her. To hear her talking to the earl on terms of the most perfect familiarity, and just as if he had been a commoner, like her own people, offended them. And then they considered that Ilfracombe should have married into the aristocracy, and chosen a woman as high born as himself. So they ‘held their heads high’ (as the servants would have said) in consequence, and elevated their eyebrows at Nora’s repartees, when she was conversing with gentlemen, and frowned at her boldness in giving her opinion, especially if it happened to clash with their own. The Dowager Countess did not agree with her daughters. She thought Nora a very clever, smart and fashionable woman, and quite capable of filling the position to which her son had raised her, and supporting her title with dignity.

‘Well, I don’t agree with you, mamma,’ said Lady Blanche. ‘I consider she is far too forward in her manners with gentlemen. I’m sure the way in which Mr Portland leans over her when she is singing is quite disgusting. I wonder Ilfracombe does not take some notice of it. And what could be more undignified than her jumping up last evening to show Lord Babbage what she calls the “Boston lurch?” Such a name too. I think some of her expressions are most vulgar. I heard her tell Ilfracombe that some place they went to together was “confoundedly slow.” Fancy, a lady swearing! If those are to be the manners of the new aristocracy, commend me to the old.’

‘Well, my dear,’ said her easy-going mother, ‘you know that times are altered from what they were. Now that so many of our noblemen are marrying American heiresses for money, you must expect to see a difference. Look at the Duke of Mussleton and Lord Tottenham! One married a music-hall singer, and the other, somebody a great deal worse! Young men will have their own way in these days. We must be thankful that Ilfracombe has chosen a nice, lady-like, intelligent girl for his wife. For my part, I like Nora, and think she will make him very happy. And,’ lowering her voice, ‘you know, my dear girls, that, considering the dreadful life he led before, and the awful creature he introduced into his house, we really should be very thankful he has married at all. Mr Sterndale was afraid, at one time, that nothing would break that business off. But I feel sure Ilfracombe has forgotten all about it. He seems quite devoted to his wife.’

‘Do you really think so, mamma?’ asked Lady Laura. ‘I think you are very short-sighted. Blanche and I have often said we were afraid he doesn’t care a pin for her. Just see how melancholy and low-spirited he seems. He goes about with a face like a hatchet. I asked Nora yesterday what on earth was the matter with him—if he were ill—and she replied she was sure she didn’t know. Such an indifferent answer, it struck me, for a young wife. But really one does not know what to make of the girls now-a-days. They are quite different from what they were a few years ago. I am sure of one thing, that Nora has no sense of the responsibility of marrying into the aristocracy. I heard her say once that she would just as soon Ilfracombe had been a tradesman!’

‘Oh, that must have been meant for impertinence!’ exclaimed Lady Blanche. ‘What did she marry him for, then? I am sure she can’t love him. She has told me she was engaged to six men at one time. Really, mamma, her conversation at times is not fit for Laura and me to listen to.’

‘Now you’re going a great deal too far,’ said the old countess, ‘and I won’t let you speak of Nora in that way. Remember, if you please, that she is the head of the family, and that some day you may both be dependent on her for a chaperon.’

This prospect silenced the Ladies Devenish for a time at least, and the subject of the young Countess of Ilfracombe was dropped by mutual consent. But their remarks on their brother’s low spirits attracted Nora’s attention to her husband, when she soon perceived that they were right. Ilfracombe was certainly depressed. He seldom joined in the general conversation, and when he did his voice was low and grave. The earl was not a brilliant talker, as has been said before, but he had always been able to hold his own when alone with his wife, and used to relate every little incident that had occurred during the day to her as soon as they found themselves shut in from the eyes of the world. But he had dropped even this. Once or twice she had rallied him on his low spirits, and had made him still graver in consequence. But when others began to notice his moodiness, and make unkind remarks on it, Nora thought it was time, for her own sake, to try and find out the cause. It was after a long evening spent in his company, during which Ilfracombe had let Jack Portland and two or three other guests do all the talking, that his wife attacked him on the subject. Seizing hold of his arm as he was about to pass from her bedroom to his dressing-room, she swung him round and pulled him down upon the sofa by her side.

‘Not yet, Ilfracombe,’ she said archly. ‘I want to speak to you first. You haven’t said a word to me the whole evening.’

‘Haven’t I, my darling?’ he replied, slipping his arm round her slender waist. ‘It’s only because all these confounded women never give one time to put in a syllable. I wish you and I were alone, Nora. I should be so much happier.’

‘Should you, Ilfracombe?’ she asked, a little fearfully. ‘Why?’

She was so afraid lest he should get jealous of Mr Portland’s intimacy with her before she had the power to promise him she would never speak to the man again. But Mr Portland was the last person in Lord Ilfracombe’s mind. All he was thinking of, was the disastrous fate of Nell Llewellyn, and wishing he had had the courage to tell his wife about it before he married her.

‘Because, if we were alone together day after day, we should get to know each other’s hearts and minds better than we do now, and I should feel more courage to speak to you of several little things that annoy me.’

‘Things about me, you mean,’ she said in her confident manner, though not without a qualm.

‘Things about you, my angel!’ exclaimed her enamoured husband, with genuine surprise. ‘What is there about you that could possibly annoy me? Why, I think you perfection—you know I do—and would not have you altered in any particular for all the world.’

‘Then why are you so depressed, Ilfracombe?’ said Nora. ‘It is not only I who have noticed it. Everybody, including your mother and sister, say the same, and it is not very complimentary to me, you know, considering we have only been married five months, is it?’

Lord Ilfracombe grew scarlet. The moment had come, he saw, for an explanation, and how could he make it? He feared the girl beside him would shrink from him with horror if she heard the truth. And yet he was a man of honour, according to a man’s idea of honour, and could not find it in his heart to stoop to subterfuge. If he told Nora anything, he must tell her all.

‘Dearest,’ he said, laying his fair head down on her shoulder, ‘I confess I have felt rather miserable lately, but it has nothing to do with you. It concerns only my self and my past life. I have heard a very sad story since we came home, Nora. I wonder if I dare tell it to you?’

‘Why should you not, Ilfracombe? Perhaps I can guess a good part of it before you begin.’

‘Oh, no, no, you cannot. I would rather not think you should. And yet you are a little woman of the world, although you have been so long cooped up (as you used to tell me) in Malta. Your father told me, when I proposed for you, that I must be entirely frank and open with you, for that girls now-a-days were not like the girls of romance, but were wide awake to most things that go on in the world, and resented being kept in the dark where their affections were concerned.’

‘I think my father was right,’ was all that Nora replied.

‘And yet—and yet—how can I tell you? What will you think of me? Nora, I have been trying so hard to keep it to myself, lest you should shrink from me, when you hear the truth; and yet, we are husband and wife, and should have no secrets from each other. I should be wretched, I know, if I thought you had ever deceived me. I would rather suffer any mortification than know that, and so perhaps you, too, would rather I were quite honest with you, although I have put it off so long. Would you, my dearest?’ he asked, turning his handsome face up to hers. Nora stooped and kissed him. It was a genuine kiss. She had not been accustomed to bestow them spontaneously on her husband, but she knew what was coming, and she felt, for the first time, how much better Ilfracombe was than herself.

‘Yes, Ilfracombe,’ she answered gravely, ‘trust me. I am, as you say, a woman of the world, and can overlook a great deal.’

‘That kiss has emboldened me,’ said the earl, ‘and I feel I owe it to you to explain the reason of my melancholy. Nora, I have been no better than other young men—’

‘I never supposed you were,’ interposed his wife.

‘Ah, wait till you hear all. Some years before I met you, I took a fancy to a girl, and she—lived in my house. You understand?’

Lady Ilfracombe nodded.

‘Most men knew of this, and your father made it a condition of our marriage that the whole thing was put an end to. Of course it was what I only intended to do, but I knew it was my duty to make some provision for the young woman, so directed Mr Sterndale to tell her of my intended marriage, and settle a certain sum of money on her. I returned to England, so happy in you, my darling, as you well know, and looking forward to spending such a merry Christmas with you, for the first time in our own home, when I was met with the news that—that—’

‘That—what, Ilfracombe? Don’t be afraid of shocking me. Is she coming to Thistlemere to throw some vitriol in my face?’

‘Oh, no, my darling, don’t speak like that. Poor Nell never would have injured you or anyone, and it is out of her power to do so now. She is dead, Nora—dead by her own hand. When she heard the news she went and threw herself into the river. Can you wonder if I feel miserable and self-reproachful when I remember that I have caused that poor girl’s death? that my great happiness has been built up on her despair? Oh, what did the foolish child see in me to drive her to so rash an act for my sake? I feel as if her dead face would haunt me to the end of my life.’

And the earl covered his face with his hands. Nora also felt very much shocked. Death seems a terrible thing to the young and careless. It takes sorrow and disappointment and bodily pain to make us welcome it as a release from all evil.

‘Oh, Ilfracombe,’ she whispered, ‘I am so sorry for you. Death is an awful thing. But I cannot see it was your fault. You meant to be good and kind. She expected too much, surely? She must have known that some day you would marry, and it would come to an end?’

‘That is just what Sterndale said!’ exclaimed the earl joyfully; ‘and you say the same. You do not spurn me from you, my own darling, because of the vileness of my former life? Oh, Nora, you are a woman in a thousand. I have been dreading lest you should find this disgraceful story out, or hear it from some kind friend. But now my mind will be at perfect rest. You know the worst, my dearest. There is nothing more for me to tell. We two are one for evermore,’ and he kissed her rapturously as he concluded.

Nora shuddered under her husband’s caresses, although they had never been so little disagreeable to her as now. How she wished she could echo his words, and say that she, too, had nothing more to reveal. But those terrible letters; what did they contain? what had she said in them, or not said, to rise up at any moment and spoil her life? She had never been so near honouring Ilfracombe as at that moment—never so near despising herself. But she answered very quietly,—

‘My dear boy, you have told me nothing new. Do you remember a letter that you received at the hotel a few days after we were married, Ilfracombe? You left it in the sitting-room, and were terribly upset because you could not find it, until the waiter said he had destroyed one which he picked up. He didn’t destroy your letter. It was I who picked it up, and I have it still.’

‘And you read it?’ said the earl, with such genuine dismay, that it completely restored Nora’s native assurance.

‘Now, what on earth do you suppose that a woman would do with a letter of her husband’s that she had the good fortune to pick up?’ she cried, ‘especially a letter from a young woman who addressed him in the most familiar terms? Why, of course, I read it, you simpleton, as I shall read any others which you are careless enough to leave on the floor. Seriously, Ilfracombe, I have known your great secret from the beginning; and, well, let us say no more about it. I would rather not venture an opinion on the subject. It’s over and done with, and, though I’m awfully grieved the poor woman came to so tragic an end, you cannot expect me, as your wife, to say that I’m sorry she’s out of the way. I think it is awfully good of you to have told me of it, Ilfracombe. Your confidence makes me feel small, because I know I haven’t told you everything that I’ve ever done; but then, you see,’ added Nora, with one of her most winning expressions of naughtiness, ‘I’ve done such lots, I can’t remember the half of it. It will come to the surface by degrees, I daresay; and if we live to celebrate our golden wedding, you may have heard all.’

But Ilfracombe would not let her finish her sentence. He threw his arms around her, and embraced her passionately, saying,—

‘You’re the best and dearest and sweetest wife a man ever had, and I don’t care what you’ve done, and I don’t want to hear a word about it; only love me a little in return for my great love for you.’

But Lady Ilfracombe knew the sex too well not to be aware that, if he had imagined there was anything to tell, he would not have rested till he had heard it; and, as she lay down to sleep that night, all her former love of intrigue and artifice seemed to have deserted her, and she wished from the bottom of her heart that she could imitate the moral courage of her husband, and “leave the future nothing to reveal.”’

CHAPTER IV.

The Dowager Countess of Ilfracombe was an amiable old lady, but she was also very fond and proud of her son, and anxious to preserve his interests. His long friendship with Miss Llewellyn had been a great sorrow to her, and she was rejoiced when she heard that he had made a respectable marriage. But the remarks of her daughter on Nora’s behaviour had made her a little more observant, and for the next few days she watched the young countess narrowly. The consequence of which was that she determined to have a private talk with the girl, and the first time she found her alone she proceeded to the attack.

She was a sweet old lady this dowager countess, like her son in many ways, with soft grey curls each side her face, and mild blue eyes and delicately-chiselled features. She drew her chair close to that on which her daughter-in-law sat, carelessly turning over the latest magazines, and laid her withered hand on the girl’s slim, white one,—

‘Reading, my dear,’ she commenced pleasantly. ‘Is there anything particularly good in the Christmas numbers this year?’

‘Not much,’ replied Nora, laying the magazine down. ‘The stories are all on the same old lines. I wish they would invent something new. I think it is so silly to imagine that Christmas tales must all take place in the snow, or be mixed up with a ghost. Isn’t it?’

‘Very silly,’ acquiesced the old lady, ‘but as long as there are fools found to read them there will be fools left to write them. But where is Ilfracombe this afternoon? Has he left you all alone to the mercy of the Christmas numbers?’

Nora laughed.

‘It is my own fault,’ she said. ‘He wanted me to go out driving with him; but I thought it was too cold. So I think he and Mr Portland have walked over to Critington to play billiards with Lord Babbage.’

‘Ah, I thought dear Ilfracombe had not forgotten his little wife,’ said the dowager in a patronising tone of voice, which Nora immediately resented. ‘He is too good and amiable for that. I am sure that you find him most kind in everything. Don’t you, dear?’

The young countess shrugged her shoulders.

‘So, so; much the same as other young men,’ she answered, and then perceiving the look of astonishment on her mother-in-law’s face, she added, apologetically,—‘You see, Lady Ilfracombe, that I’m not a gusher, and I’ve known so many men I’ve learned to pretty well estimate the value of them.’

‘Perhaps, my dear, though I cannot say I think the knowledge an enviable one for a young lady. But you do not rank your husband with other men, surely? He loves you dearly—anyone could see that—and you must have a good deal of influence over him.’

‘Yes, I fancy I’ve got the length of his foot,’ replied Nora.

‘My dear son is almost all that a son and a husband should be,’ continued the fond mother. ‘He has no vices, but he has some weaknesses, and one is, being too easily influenced by his friends, and all his friends are not such as I should choose for him. I may be wrong, but I distrust that Mr Portland with whom Ilfracombe is so intimate. More than that, I dislike him.’

‘So do I,’ said Nora shortly.

A look of satisfaction came into her companion’s face.

‘Do you really, Nora? I am so glad to hear you say so, for I fancied that he was a great friend of yours.’

‘What, Mr Portland? Oh, Lady Ilfracombe, how mistaken you are. If I had my will I would never ask him to Thistlemere again. But you won’t tell him so, will you?’ she said, looking fearfully round.

‘My dear girl, what are you thinking of? As if it were likely. But, Nora, now you have told me so, I must tell you what is in my mind. Mr Portland has, in my opinion, been Ilfracombe’s worst enemy for years. Not wilfully so, of course; but he is a man who almost lives upon the turf, and is always betting and gambling. He has no settled income, or a very small one. He is, in fact, an adventurer, though our dear Ilfracombe would be angry if he heard me say so. I am sure this Mr Portland borrows large sums of him. My brother, General Brewster, warned me of it long ago. He has also encouraged Ilfracombe in many things which I cannot speak to you about, but which a word from Mr Portland would have made him see the folly of. But he has been his evil genius. You must be his good genius, and rid Ilfracombe of him.’

The old lady smiled very kindly at Nora as she said this. She was so relieved to find that she did not stick up for the vaurien Jack Portland as she had feared she might do.

‘I? Lady Ilfracombe!’ exclaimed the young countess, with somewhat of a scared look; ‘but what could I do? Mr Portland is my husband’s friend, not mine. I don’t think Ilfracombe would hear a word against him.’

‘I think he would be the first to listen and approve, my dear, were you to complain to him of the offensive familiarity with which Mr Portland treats you. I don’t think it is either respectful to your rank or yourself. Several people have noticed it. To see that dissipated-looking man hanging over you, as he often does, at the piano or the sofa, with his red face close to yours, sometimes almost whispering in your ear before other people, is most indecent. Ilfracombe should put a stop to it, and the proper person to draw his attention to it is yourself.’

‘I hate it! I detest it!’ cried Nora, her face flushing with annoyance and the knowledge that she had put it out of her power to resent such conduct, as she ought to do. ‘I think Mr Portland is vulgar and presuming to a degree; but if it is Ilfracombe’s pleasure to have him here he would surely not like me the better for making mischief between them.’

‘I should not call it “making mischief,”’ replied the dowager. ‘I should say it was what was due to your position as Ilfracombe’s wife. However, my dear, perhaps you know best. Only, pray promise me to discourage that odious man as much as possible. I shall have to speak to him some day myself, if you don’t.’

‘Indeed, indeed, I will, Lady Ilfracombe. I will come and sit close by you every day after dinner if you will let me, and then he will hardly have the presumption I should think, to thrust himself between us.’

‘My dear, I should not like to put a limit to Mr Portland’s presumption. He is one of the most offensive men I have ever met. However, if you dislike him as much as I do, there is no harm done, and I should think, judging from your courageous and independent manner, that you are quite capable of keeping him at a distance, if you choose.’

‘I hope so,’ laughed Nora uneasily. ‘Don’t have any fears for me, dear Lady Ilfracombe. My only wish in this particular is not to annoy my husband by offending his great friend, whom he has commended over and over again to my hospitality; but, if matters go too far, he shall hear of it, I promise you.’

The dowager kissed her daughter-in-law, and felt perfectly satisfied with the way in which she had received her advice, telling the Ladies Devenish afterwards that they had taken an utterly wrong view of the young countess’s conduct, and she only wished every young married woman were as well able to take care of herself and her husband’s honour. The Ladies Devenish shrugged their ancient shoulders as soon as her back was turned, and told each other that ‘mother’s geese were always swans, and, of course, anyone whom Ilfracombe had married, could do no wrong in her eyes.’ But they ceased making remarks on Nora for the future all the same.

Meanwhile the young countess did all she could, without being positively rude, to discourage Jack Portland’s intimacy with her. She kept as close as she could to her mother and sisters-in-law, and took every precaution to prevent herself being left alone with him; but perceived, in a few days, that Mr Portland had guessed the cause of her avoidance, and was prepared to resent it. If he could not get an opportunity of speaking to her privately during the evening, he would stand on the hearthrug and gaze at her with his bloodshot eyes, till she was afraid that everybody in the room must guess the secret between them. One afternoon, as they were seated round the luncheon-table, he lolled over her and stared so fixedly into her face, that she felt as if she must rebuke his conduct openly. She saw the dowager put up her eyeglass to observe them, and the Ladies Devenish nudge each other to look her way; Ilfracombe, of all present, seemed to take no notice of Mr Portland’s behaviour. Nora writhed like a bird in the coils of a serpent. She did not know how to act. She could have slapped the insolent, heated face which was almost thrust in her own; she professed not to hear the words addressed to her in a lowered tone, but tried to treat them playfully, and told him to ‘speak up.’ But it was useless. She saw Jack Portland’s bloated face grow darker and darker as she parried his attempts at familiarity, until she dreaded lest, in his anger at her repulsion, he should say something aloud that would lower her for ever in the eyes of her relations. Who can trust the tongue of a man who is a habitual drinker? At last Nora could stand it no longer, and, rising hastily, she asked the dowager to excuse her leaving the table, as she did not feel well. Her plea was sufficient to make her husband follow her, but he could not get the truth out of her, even when alone.

‘It’s nothing,’ she told him when he pressed her to say if she were really ill; ‘but the room was warm, and I didn’t want any more luncheon, and Mr Portland bored me.’

‘Jack bored you!’ exclaimed the earl in a voice of astonishment, as if such a thing could never be, ‘I never heard a woman say that before. Shall I speak to him about it, darling?’

But Nora’s look of horror at the proposal was enough to answer the question.

‘Speak to him, Ilfracombe? Oh, no, pray don’t. What would he think of me? It would sound so horribly rude, and when he is a guest in the house too. Never mention it again, please. I wouldn’t offend a friend of yours for the world.’

‘Thanks. Yes, I’m afraid dear old Jack might feel a little sore if I were to tell him he bored you. But it mustn’t be allowed to occur again, Nora. I’ll take him out of the house more than I have done. He won’t worry you this afternoon, for we’re going to ride over to the Castle together and pay old Nettleton a visit. I want to get a brace of his pointers if he will part with them. We mean to be home to dinner; but if we’re a little late, don’t wait for us.’

‘Very well,’ said Nora brightly.

She was glad to think she would be relieved from her bête noir for the afternoon at all events.

The earl stooped and kissed her, and ran downstairs. Nora would have liked to return that kiss, but as she was about to do it, she suddenly felt shy and drew back again. Women are so generally accredited with changing their minds, that when they do so, they don’t like to confess the truth. But she waved her hand gaily as Lord Ilfracombe left the room, and sent him off on his expedition happy and contented. The afternoon passed quietly away; nothing unusual occurred until the ladies had assembled in the drawing-room, preparatory to dinner being served.

‘Ilfracombe particularly requested that we should not wait if he were late,’ said Nora to her mother-in-law; ‘so I think we had better not do so. I fancy he had some idea that Mr Nettleton might press them to dine at the Castle—any way that was what he said to me.’

‘I would give them ten minutes’ grace, my dear,’ replied the dowager; ‘the roads are very bad to-day, and they may not reach home as soon as they anticipated. It is so uncomfortable to come in just as the soup has been removed. Besides, they must change their clothes before dining.’

‘Yes, you are right,’ replied Nora, glancing at the clock on the mantelpiece, ‘it is a quarter to seven now. I will ring and tell Warrender to put off dinner till half-past. Shall I?’

‘Yes, my dear, do,’ the old lady was saying, just as Warrender entered the room unceremoniously, and with an air of decided perturbation.

‘What is the matter?’ cried Nora hurriedly, for she saw at once he was the bearer of news. ‘What has occurred? Why do you look like that?’

‘Oh, my lady!’ exclaimed the servant, ‘nothing, I hope—your ladyship mustn’t be alarmed, but I thought it right you should hear that—that—’

‘That—what? For God’s sake, speak!’ cried Nora impetuously. ‘It is folly to keep us in such suspense.’

‘Well, my lady, Johnson, he has just come up from the stables to say that the Black Prince—his lordship’s horse, you know, my lady—ran into the yard a few minutes back, without—without his lordship, my lady!’

‘Thrown!’ exclaimed Lady Laura shrilly.

‘Without Lord Ilfracombe?’ queried Lady Blanche; ‘but where, then, is Mr Portland?’

‘Oh, heavens, my poor son! He may be lying dead in the road at this moment,’ said the dowager, wringing her hands.

But Nora said nothing. She was standing in the centre of the room, motionless as though turned to stone. Presently she asked in a harsh voice,—

‘Have they sent out to search along the roads?’

‘No, my lady, they thought—’ commenced Warrender.

‘Thought? Thought? What is the good of thinking when they should act? Tell Johnson to go out at once and scour the road to the Castle, and let the carriage be got ready to follow him. His lordship may be unable to walk. Go at once; don’t lose a moment. Stay, where is Johnson? I will give him the directions myself.’

She flew down to the lower premises as she spoke, regardless that her dress was quite unsuited to cold corridors and stone passages. She was very white, but perfectly calm and collected as she gave her orders, whilst Lady Laura was shrieking in hysterics in the drawing-room, and Lady Blanche had her hands full in trying to prevent the dowager fainting under the dreadful suspense. As soon as Nora was satisfied that assistance had been dispatched in case of need, she went slowly up to her own room, with her hand tightly pressed against her heart. She could not realise what might be taking place, or might have taken place. She had only one fear, one dread, Ilfracombe and she might be parted before she had had time to tell him that she loved him. She kept both hands and teeth clenched to prevent her crying out, and making her cowardice patent to all around, whilst her cold lips went on murmuring, ‘Oh, God, save him! oh, God, save him!’ without any idea of the meaning of what she said.

She had stood thus, not having the heart or the sense to sit down, for perhaps half an hour, when she heard a shout from the hall—a shout of laughter, and then her husband’s voice exclaiming,—

‘So sorry to have given you such a scare. Not my fault I assure you. We came on as quick as we could. No, I’m not hurt. Was Nora frightened? Where is she? I must go to her. Down in a minute. Tell you all about it then,’ and his feet came flying two steps at a time up the stairs to her side.

She stood with clasped hands expecting him, all the blood in her body mantling in her face.

‘Oh, Ilfracombe,’ was all she could say as he entered the room.

‘My darling, I am so sorry that brute frightened you all so by coming home without me. Jack and I were within a mile of home when the Black Prince shied suddenly at something and threw me clean over his head. We tried our best to catch him, but he bolted to his stables, and I had to walk back.’

‘And you are not hurt?’ she asked tremblingly; ‘not at all?’

‘Not at all,’ he echoed, ‘only splashed from head to foot with mud, and feeling very much as if I would like to have a warm bath before dinner. But, love, you are shaking all over. Has it really upset you like this?’

Nora drew back a little, ashamed of having displayed so much feeling.

‘It was rather alarming,’ she answered, with a slight laugh. ‘We—we—might—never have seen you again.’

‘And you would have grieved for me?’ said the earl, pressing her to his heart. ‘Oh, my dearest, you make me feel so happy.’

A sudden impulse, which she could not resist, seized Nora. She threw her slender arms round Ilfracombe and laid her cheek against his. It was the first evidence of deep feeling which she had ever given him. But a moment afterwards she seemed ashamed of it.

‘There is no doubt you gave us a start, dear old boy,’ she said, smiling, ‘but it is over now, and I’ll run down and send Wilkins up to get your bath ready. You’ll have heaps of time. I had already postponed dinner to half-past seven. Make as much haste as you can though.’

‘One more kiss, darling, before you go,’ cried the earl.

‘No such thing! We mustn’t waste any more time in fooling or the fish will be in rags. I will go down and see that Lady Ilfracombe has a glass of wine. The poor old lady has been crying fit to make herself ill.’ And in another second she had left him to himself.

She found the drawing-room people in solemn conclave; the Ladies Devenish rather inclined to be offended at being disappointed of a sensation, and the dowager, telling Mr Portland of the terrible scare they had experienced, and how she thought poor dear Nora would go mad when the news of the riderless horse’s arrival was announced to her.

‘I am sure I thought her mind was going, Mr Portland,’ she was saying as Nora entered. ‘She stood as if she had been turned to marble, and when she rushed from the room I thought she was going to fly out into the night air just as she was after him.’

‘Of course it would have been an awful thing for Lady Ilfracombe to have lost her position so soon after attaining it,’ replied Mr Portland politely.

‘And her husband,’ returned the old lady sympathetically.

It was at this juncture that Nora appeared. She was still pale from the fright she had experienced, and had lost much of her usual jolly, off-hand manner.

‘Ilfracombe will be down directly,’ she said, addressing her mother-in-law; ‘he is going to have a bath before dinner, as, though he has broken no bones, he has a considerable number of bruises from the fall.’

‘Of course, poor, dear boy,’ acquiesced the dowager. ‘Oh, my dear, what a mercy it is no worse. He might have been killed from such a sudden fall. I shall never feel easy when he is on horseback again.’

‘Never is a long time,’ replied Nora, smiling; ‘but won’t you and Blanche and Laura take a glass of wine before dinner? I am sure you must need it after the shock you have had.’

The wine was rung for, and when Warrender appeared with it, and Nora refused to have any, Mr Portland took the opportunity of observing sarcastically,—

‘Surely you must require some yourself, Lady Ilfracombe? I have just been listening to an account of the terrible emotion you displayed at the supposition of Ilfracombe’s danger.’

The butler poured out a glass and handed it to his young mistress without a word. He had seen her excitement and interpreted it aright, but he did not understand why this gentleman should mention it as though it were something to be surprised at.

The young countess took the wine silently and drank it. Portland again addressed her.

‘It must have been an awful moment for you when Black Prince’s arrival was announced. Did you really think Ilfracombe was killed? It would have been a great misfortune for you if it had been so. The title would have gone, I believe, to a distant cousin, and the whole object of his marriage frustrated. And you would have sunk at once from the queen regnant to a mere dowager. Aren’t you glad he is all right?’

This was said sotto voce, so as to be inaudible to the rest of the party.

‘I do not see that it signifies to you, what I feel, or do not feel,’ said Nora, with her most indifferent air, as she turned from Jack Portand to address some commonplace to her mother-in-law.

‘By Jove, though, but I’ll make it signify!’ he muttered to himself, as he saw the Ladies Devenish secretly amused at the evident snub he had received. The earl now joined the assembly. He was in high spirits, and disposed to make light of everything that had occurred. The evening passed pleasantly, though Nora was rather hysterically gay; but towards the close of it, when the other ladies had retired, and she was about to follow their example, her husband was told that his steward wished to speak to him.

‘Don’t go yet, Nora,’ he called out, on leaving the room, ‘wait till I come back. I want to tell you something before Jack and I go to the smoking-room. Keep her amused, Jack, till I return.’

It was Jack Portland’s opportunity, and he seized it.

‘What an actress you are,’ he commenced, as soon as they were alone. ‘You would have made your fortune on the stage.’

‘I don’t understand you,’ she said. ‘In what have I acted a part to-night?’

‘Why, in your well counterfeited dismay at the idea of danger to Ilfracombe, of course. When the old lady was telling me about it, I thought I should have split. You—turned to stone with apprehension. You—the coldest woman in Christendom! who has no more feeling than a piece of marble! It is ridiculous. You know it was all put on.’

‘Why shouldn’t I feel uneasy if he is in danger? He is my husband. You cannot deny that.’

‘Your husband, yes. And what did you marry him for? His title and his money! You cannot deny that. Two years ago you were, or fancied yourself, desperately in love with another man—modesty forbids me to mention him by name—but you chucked him over; why? Because he hadn’t as much money as you expected to sell yourself for!’

‘It isn’t true,’ she answered hotly. ‘You know that it was my father who separated us and forbade your coming to the house again. Else, perhaps, there is no knowing I might have been your wife at the present moment. But as for being, as you express it, “desperately in love,” you know that is untrue—that it is not in my nature—that I am not one of your gushing, spooney girls, who are ready to jump down the throat of the first man who looks at them, and never was.’

‘Well, I wouldn’t be too sure of that,’ said Mr Portland. ‘Certain little epistles in my possession tell a different tale. Most of them are “spooney” enough in all conscience. At least, if you do not call them so, I should like to see the ones you do!’

‘You have not returned those letters to me yet,’ she answered quickly. ‘I trust to your honour to do so, without reading them again.’

‘Why should I read them again, ma chère, when they no longer interest me? I know you women like to think you can chuck your victims over, and still keep them writhing at your feet; but I am not one of that sort. Once repulsed is enough for me. Your ladyship need never fear that I shall ever trouble you again. But don’t say you never were one of the “gushing, spooney girls,” or you may tempt me to make you retract your words. Perhaps you have quite forgotten what you wrote in those letters?’ he demanded meaningly.