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INNOCENT

Her Fancy and His Fact

By MARIE CORELLI

Author of "God's Good Man," "The Treasure of Heaven," Etc.

BOOK ONE: HER FANCY

INNOCENT

BOOK ONE

CHAPTER I

The old by-road went rambling down into a dell of deep green shadow. It was a reprobate of a road,—a vagrant of the land,—having long ago wandered out of straight and even courses and taken to meandering aimlessly into many ruts and furrows under arching trees, which in wet weather poured their weight of dripping rain upon it and made it little more than a mud pool. Between straggling bushes of elder and hazel, blackberry and thorn, it made its solitary shambling way, so sunken into itself with long disuse that neither to the right nor to the left of it could anything be seen of the surrounding country. Hidden behind the intervening foliage on either hand were rich pastures and ploughed fields, but with these the old road had nothing in common. There were many things better suited to its nature, such as the melodious notes of the birds which made their homes year after year amid its bordering thickets, or the gathering together in springtime of thousands of primroses, whose pale, small, elfin faces peeped out from every mossy corner,—or the scent of secret violets in the grass, filling the air with the delicate sweetness of a breathing made warm by the April sun. Or when the thrill of summer drew the wild roses running quickly from the earth skyward, twining their stems together in fantastic arches and tufts of deep pink and flush-white blossom, and the briony wreaths with their small bright green stars swung pendent from over-shadowing boughs like garlands for a sylvan festival. Or the thousands of tiny unassuming herbs which grew up with the growing speargrass, bringing with them pungent odours from the soil as from some deep-laid storehouse of precious spices. These choice delights were the old by-road's peculiar possession, and through a wild maze of beauty and fragrance it strayed on with a careless awkwardness, getting more and more involved in tangles of green,—till at last, recoiling abruptly as it were upon its own steps, it stopped short at the entrance to a cleared space in front of a farmyard. With this the old by-road had evidently no sort of business whatever, and ended altogether, as it were, with a rough shock of surprise at finding itself in such open quarters. No arching trees or twining brambles were here,—it was a wide, clean brick-paved place chiefly possessed by a goodly company of promising fowls, and a huge cart-horse. The horse was tied to his manger in an open shed, and munched and munched with all the steadiness and goodwill of the sailor's wife who offended Macbeth's first witch. Beyond the farmyard was the farmhouse itself,—a long, low, timbered building with a broad tiled roof supported by huge oaken rafters and crowned with many gables,—a building proudly declaring itself as of the days of Elizabeth's yeomen, and bearing about it the honourable marks of age and long stress of weather. No such farmhouses are built nowadays, for life has become with us less than a temporary thing,—a coin to be spent rapidly as soon as gained, too valueless for any interest upon it to be sought or desired. In olden times it was apparently not considered such cheap currency. Men built their homes to last not only for their own lifetime, but for the lifetime of their children and their children's children; and the idea that their children's children might possibly fail to appreciate the strenuousness and worth of their labours never entered their simple brains.

The farmyard was terminated at its other end by a broad stone archway, which showed as in a semi-circular frame the glint of scarlet geraniums in the distance, and in the shadow cast by this embrasure was the small unobtrusive figure of a girl. She stood idly watching the hens pecking at their food and driving away their offspring from every chance of sharing bit or sup with them,—and as she noted the greedy triumph of the strong over the weak, the great over the small, her brows drew together in a slight frown of something like scorn. Yet hers was not a face that naturally expressed any of the unkind or harsh emotions. It was soft and delicately featured, and its rose-white tints were illumined by grave, deeply-set grey eyes that were full of wistful and questioning pathos. In stature she was below the middle height and slight of build, so that she seemed a mere child at first sight, with nothing particularly attractive about her except, perhaps, her hands. These were daintily shaped and characteristic of inbred refinement, and as they hung listlessly at her sides looked scarcely less white than the white cotton frock she wore. She turned presently with a movement of impatience away from the sight of the fussy and quarrelsome fowls, and looking up at the quaint gables of the farmhouse uttered a low, caressing call. A white dove flew down to her instantly, followed by another and yet another. She smiled and extended her arms, and a whole flock of the birds came fluttering about her in a whirl of wings, perching on her shoulders and alighting at her feet. One that seemed to enjoy a position of special favouritism, flew straight against her breast,—she caught it and held it there. It remained with her quite contentedly, while she stroked its velvety neck.

"Poor Cupid!" she murmured. "You love me, don't you? Oh yes, ever so much! Only you can't tell me so! I'm glad! You wouldn't be half so sweet if you could!"

She kissed the bird's soft head, and still stroking it scattered all the others around her by a slight gesture, and went, followed by a snowy cloud of them, through the archway into the garden beyond. Here there were flower-beds formally cut and arranged in the old-fashioned Dutch manner, full of sweet-smelling old-fashioned things, such as stocks and lupins, verbena and mignonette,—there were box-borders and clumps of saxifrage, fuchsias, and geraniums,—and roses that grew in every possible way that roses have ever grown, or can ever grow. The farmhouse fronted fully on this garden, and a magnificent "Glory" rose covered it from its deep black oaken porch to its highest gable, wreathing it with hundreds of pale golden balls of perfume. A real "old" rose it was, without any doubt of its own intrinsic worth and sweetness,—a rose before which the most highly trained hybrids might hang their heads for shame or wither away with envy, for the air around it was wholly perfumed with its honey-scented nectar, distilled from peaceful years upon years of sunbeams and stainless dew. The girl, still carrying her pet dove, walked slowly along the narrow gravelled paths that encircled the flower-beds and box-borders, till, reaching a low green door at the further end of the garden, she opened it and passed through into a newly mown field, where several lads and men were about busily employed in raking together the last swaths of a full crop of hay and adding them to the last waggon which stood in the centre of the ground, horseless, and piled to an almost toppling height. One young fellow, with a crimson silk tie knotted about his open shirt-collar, stood on top of the lofty fragrant load, fork in hand, tossing the additional heaps together as they were thrown up to him. The afternoon sun blazed burningly down on his uncovered head and bare brown arms, and as he shook and turned the hay with untiring energy, his movements were full of the easy grace and picturesqueness which are often the unconscious endowment of those whose labour keeps them daily in the fresh air. Occasional bursts of laughter and scraps of rough song came from the others at work, and there was only one absolutely quiet figure among them, that of an old man sitting on an upturned barrel which had been but recently emptied of its home-brewed beer, meditatively smoking a long clay pipe. He wore a smock frock and straw hat, and under the brim of the straw hat, which was well pulled down over his forehead, his filmy eyes gleamed with an alert watchfulness. He seemed to be counting every morsel of hay that was being added to the load and pricing it in his mind, but there was no actual expression of either pleasure or interest on his features. As the girl entered the field, and her gown made a gleam of white on the grass, he turned his head and looked at her, puffing hard at his pipe and watching her approach only a little less narrowly than he watched the piling up of the hay. When she drew sufficiently near him he spoke.

"Coming to ride home on last load?"

She hesitated.

"I don't know. I'm not sure," she answered.

"It'll please Robin if you do," he said.

A little smile trembled on her lips. She bent her head over the dove she held against her bosom.

"Why should I please Robin?" she asked.

His dull eyes sparkled with a gleam of anger.

"Please Robin, please ME," he said, sharply—"Please yourself, please nobody."

"I do my best to please YOU, Dad!" she said, gently, yet with emphasis.

He was silent, sucking at his pipe-stem. Just then a whistle struck the air like the near note of a thrush. It came from the man on top of the haywaggon. He had paused in his labour, and his face was turned towards the old man and the girl. It was a handsome face, lighted by a smile which seemed to have caught a reflex of the sun.

"All ready, Uncle!" he shouted—"Ready and waiting!"

The old man drew his pipe from his mouth.

"There you are!" he said, addressing the girl in a softer tone,—"He's wanting you."

She moved away at once. As she went, the men who were raking in the last sweepings of the hay stood aside for her to pass. One of them put a ladder against the wheel of the waggon.

"Going up, miss?" he asked, with a cheerful grin.

She smiled a response, but said nothing.

The young fellow on top of the load looked down. His blue eyes sparkled merrily as he saw her.

"Are you coming?" he called.

She glanced up.

"If you like," she answered.

"If I like!" he echoed, half-mockingly, half-tenderly; "You know I like! Why, you've got that wretched bird with you!"

"He's not a wretched bird," she said,—"He's a darling!"

"Well, you can't climb up here hugging him like that! Let him go,—and then I'll help you."

For all answer she ascended the ladder lightly without assistance, still holding the dove, and in another minute was seated beside him.

"There!" she said, as she settled herself comfortably down in the soft, sweet-smelling hay. "Now you've got your wish, and I hope Dad is happy."

"Did he tell you to come, or did you come of your own accord?" asked the young man, with a touch of curiosity.

"He told me, of course," she answered; "I should never have come of my own accord."

He bit his lip vexedly. Turning away from her he called to the haymakers:

"That'll do, boys! Fetch Roger, and haul in!"

The sun was nearing the western horizon and a deep apricot glow warmed the mown field and the undulating foliage in the far distance. The men began to scatter here and there, putting aside their long wooden rakes, and two of them went off to bring Roger, the cart-horse, from his shed.

"Uncle Hugo!"

The old man, who still sat impassively on the beer-barrel, looked up.

"Ay! What is it?"

"Are you coming along with us?"

Uncle Hugo shook his head despondently.

"Why not? It's the last load this year!"

"Ay!" He lifted his straw hat and waved it in a kind of farewell salute towards the waggon, repeating mechanically: "The last load! The very last!"

Then there came a cessation of movement everywhere for the moment. It was a kind of breathing pause in Nature's everlasting chorus,—a sudden rest, as it seemed, in the very spaces of the air. The young man threw himself down on the hay-load so that he faced the girl, who sat quiet, caressing the dove she held. He was undeniably good-looking, with an open nobility of feature which is uncommon enough among well-born and carefully-nurtured specimens of the human race, and is perhaps still more rarely to be found among those whose lot in life is one of continuous hard manual labour. Just now he looked singularly attractive, the more so, perhaps, because he was unconscious of it. He stretched out one hand towards the girl and touched the hem of her white frock.

"Are you feeling kind?"

Her eyes lightened with a gleam of merriment.

"I am always kind."

"Not to me! Not as kind as you are to that bird."

"Oh, poor Cupid! You're jealous of him!"

He moved a little nearer to her.

"Perhaps I am!" And he spoke in a lower tone. "Perhaps I am, Innocent! I grudge him the privilege of lying there on your dear little white breast! I am envious when you kiss him! I want you to kiss ME!"

His voice was tremulous,—he turned up his face audaciously.

She looked at him with a smile.

"I will if you like!" she said. "I should think no more of kissing you than of kissing Cupid!"

He drew back with a gesture of annoyance.

"I wouldn't be kissed at all that way," he said, hotly.

"Why not?"

"Because it's not the right way. A bird is not a man!"

She laughed merrily.

"Nor a man a bird, though he may have a bird's name!" she said. "Oh,
Robin, how clever you are!"

He leaned closer.

"Let Cupid go!" he pleaded,—"I want to ride home on the last load with you alone."

Another little peal of laughter escaped her.

"I declare you think Cupid an actual person!" she said. "If he'll go, he shall. But I think he'll stay."

She loosened her hold of the dove, which, released, gravely hopped up to her shoulder and sat there pruning its wing. She glanced round at it.

"I told you so!" she said,—"He's a fixture."

"I don't mind him so much up there," said Robin, and he ventured to take one of her hands in his own,—"but he always has so much of you; he nestles under your chin and is caressed by your sweet lips,—he has all, and I have,—nothing!"

"You have one hand," said Innocent, with demure gravity.

"But no heart with it!" he said, wistfully. "Innocent, can you never love me?"

She was silent, looking at him critically,—then she gave a little sigh.

"I'm afraid not! But I have often thought about it."

"You have?"—and his eyes grew very tender.

"Oh yes, often! You see, it isn't your fault at all. You are—well!"—here she surveyed him with a whimsical air of admiration,—"you are quite a beautiful man! You have a splendid figure and a good face, and kind eyes and well-shaped feet and hands,—and I like the look of you just now with that open collar and that gleam of sunlight in your curly hair—and your throat is almost white, except for a touch of sunburn, which is RATHER becoming!—especially with that crimson silk tie! I suppose you put that tie on for effect, didn't you?"

He flushed, and laughed lightly.

"Naturally! To please YOU!"

"Really? How thoughtful of you! Well, you are charming,—and I shouldn't mind kissing you at all. But it wouldn't be for love."

"Wouldn't it? What would it be for, then?"

Her face lightened up with the illumination of an inward mirth and mischief.

"Only because you look pretty!" she answered.

He threw aside her hand with an angry gesture of impatience.

"You want to make a fool of me!" he said, petulantly.

"I'm sure I don't! You are just lovely, and I tell you so. That is not making a fool of you!"

"Yes, it is! A man is never lovely. A woman may be."

"Well, I'm not," said Innocent, placidly. "That's why I admire the loveliness of others."

"You are lovely to me," he declared, passionately.

She smiled. There was a touch of compassion in the smile.

"Poor Robin!" she said.

At that moment the hidden goddess in her soul arose and asserted her claim to beauty. A rare indefinable charm of exquisite tenderness and fascination seemed to environ her small and delicate personality with an atmosphere of resistless attraction. The man beside her felt it, and his heart beat quickly with a thrilling hope of conquest.

"So you pity me!" he said,—"Pity is akin to love."

"But kinsfolk seldom agree," she replied. "I only pity you because you are foolish. No one but a very foolish fellow would think ME lovely."

He raised himself a little and peered over the edge of the hay-load to see if there was any sign of the men returning with Roger, but there was no one in the field now except the venerable personage he called Uncle Hugo, who was still smoking away his thoughts, as it were, in a dream of tobacco. And he once more caught the hand he had just let go and covered it with kisses.

"There!" he said, lifting his head and showing an eager face lit by amorous eyes. "Now you know how lovely you are to me! I should like to kiss your mouth like that,—for you have the sweetest mouth in the world! And you have the prettiest hair,—not raw gold which I hate,—but soft brown, with delicious little sunbeams lost in it,—and such a lot of it! I've seen it all down, remember! And your eyes would draw the heart out of any man and send him anywhere,—yes, Innocent!—anywhere,—to Heaven or to Hell!"

She coloured a little.

"That's beautiful talk!" she said,—"It's like poetry, but it isn't true!"

"It is true!" he said, with fond insistence. "And I'll MAKE you love me!"

"Ah, no!" A look of the coldest scorn suddenly passed over her features—"that's not possible. You could never MAKE me do anything! And—it's rude of you to speak in such a way. Please let go my hand!"

He dropped it instantly, and sprang erect.

"All right! I'll leave you to yourself,—and Cupid!" Here he laughed rather bitterly. "What made you give that bird such a name?"

"I found it in a book," she answered,—"It's a name that was given to the god of Love when he was a little boy."

"I know that! Please don't teach me my A.B.C.," said Robin, half-sulkily.

She leaned back laughing, and singing softly:

"Love was once a little boy,
Heigh-ho, Heigh-ho!
Then 'twas sweet with him to toy,
Heigh-ho, Heigh-ho!"

Her eyes sparkled in the sun,—a tress of her hair, ruffled by the hay, escaped and flew like a little web of sunbeams against her cheek. He looked at her moodily.

"You might go on with the song," he said,—"'Love is now a little man—'"

"'And a very naughty one!'" she hummed, with a mischievous upward glance.

Despite his inward vexation, he smiled.

"Say what you like, Cupid is a ridiculous name for a dove," he said.

"It rhymes to stupid," she replied, demurely,—"And the rhyme expresses the nature of the bird and—the god!"

"Pooh! You think that clever!"

"I don't! I never said a clever thing in my life. I shouldn't know how. Everything clever has been written over and over again by people in books."

"Hang books!" he exclaimed. "It's always books with you! I wish we had never found that old chest of musty volumes in the panelled room."

"Do you? Then you are sillier than I thought you were. The books taught me all I know,—about love!"

"About love! You don't know what love means!" he declared, trampling the hay he stood upon with impatience. "You read and read, and you get the queerest ideas into your head, and all the time the world goes on in ways that are quite different from what YOU are thinking about,—and lovers walk through the fields and lanes everywhere near us every year, and you never appear to see them or to envy them—"

"Envy them!" The girl opened her eyes wide. "Envy them! Oh, Cupid, hear! Envy them! Why should I envy them? Who could envy Mr. and Mrs. Pettigrew?"

"What nonsense you talk!" he exclaimed,—"Mr. and Mrs. Pettigrew are married folk, not lovers!"

"But they were lovers once," she said,—"and only three years ago. I remember them, walking through the lanes and fields as you say, with arms round each other,—and Mrs. Pettigrew's hands were always dreadfully red, and Mr. Pettigrew's fingers were always dirty,—and they married very quickly,—and now they've got two dreadful babies that scream all day and all night, and Mrs. Pettigrew's hair is never tidy and Pettigrew himself—well, you know what he does!—"

"Gets drunk every night," interrupted Robin, crossly,—"I know! And I suppose you think I'm another Pettigrew?"

"Oh dear, no!" And she laughed with the heartiest merriment. "You never could, you never would be a Pettigrew! But it all comes to the same thing—love ends in marriage, doesn't it?"

"It ought to," said Robin, sententiously.

"And marriage ends—in Pettigrews!"

"Innocent!"

"Don't say 'Innocent' in that reproachful way! It makes me feel quite guilty! Now,—if you talk of names,—THERE'S a name to give a poor girl,—Innocent! Nobody ever heard of such a name—"

"You're wrong. There were thirteen Popes named Innocent between the years 402 and 1724," said Robin, promptly,—"and one of them, Innocent the Eleventh, is a character in Browning's 'Ring and the Book.'"

"Dear me!" And her eyes flashed provocatively. "You astound me with your wisdom, Robin! But all the same, I don't believe any girl ever had such a name as Innocent, in spite of thirteen Popes. And perhaps the Thirteen had other names?"

"They had other baptismal names," he explained, with a learned air.
"For instance, Pope Innocent the Third was Cardinal Lothario before he
became Pope, and he wrote a book called 'De Contemptu Mundi sive de
Miseria Humanae Conditionis!'"

She looked at him as he uttered the sonorous sounding Latin, with a comically respectful air of attention, and then laughed like a child,—laughed till the tears came into her eyes.

"Oh Robin, Robin!" she cried—"You are simply delicious! The most enchanting boy! That crimson tie and that Latin! No wonder the village girls adore you! 'De,'—what is it? 'Contemptu Mundi,' and Misery Human Conditions! Poor Pope! He never sat on top of a hay-load in his life I'm sure! But you see his name was Lothario,—not Innocent."

"His baptismal name was Lothario," said Robin, severely.

She was suddenly silent.

"Well! I suppose I was baptised?" she queried, after a pause.

"I suppose so."

"I wonder if I have any other name? I must ask Dad."

Robin looked at her curiously;—then his thoughts were diverted by the sight of a squat stout woman in a brown spotted print gown and white sunbonnet, who just then trotted briskly into the hay-field, calling at the top of her voice:

"Mister Jocelyn! Mister Jocelyn! You're wanted!"

"There's Priscilla calling Uncle in," he said, and making a hollow of his hands he shouted:

"Hullo, Priscilla! What is it?"

The sunbonnet gave an upward jerk in his direction and the wearer shrilled out:

"Doctor's come! Wantin' yer Uncle!"

The old man, who had been so long quietly seated on the upturned barrel, now rose stiffly, and knocking out the ashes of his pipe turned towards the farmhouse. But before he went he raised his straw hat again and stood for a moment bareheaded in the roseate glory of the sinking sun. Innocent sprang upright on the load of hay, and standing almost at the very edge of it, shaded her eyes with one hand from the strong light, and looked at him.

"Dad!" she called—"Dad, shall I come?"

He turned his head towards her.

"No, lass, no! Stay where you are, with Robin."

He walked slowly, and with evident feebleness, across the length of the field which divided him from the farmhouse garden, and opening the green gate leading thereto, disappeared. The sun-bonneted individual called Priscilla walked or rather waddled towards the hay-waggon, and setting her arms akimbo on her broad hips, looked up with a grin at the young people on top.

"Well! Ye're a fine couple up there! What are ye a-doin' of?"

"Never mind what we're doing," said Robin, impatiently. "I say,
Priscilla, do you think Uncle Hugo is really ill?"

Priscilla's face, which was the colour of an ancient nutmeg, and almost as deeply marked with contrasting lines of brown and yellow, showed no emotion.

"He ain't hisself," she said, bluntly.

"No," said Innocent, seriously,—"I'm sure he isn't." Priscilla jerked her sunbonnet a little further back, showing some tags of dusty grey hair.

"He ain't been hisself for this past year," she went on—"Mr. Slowton, bein' only a kind of village physic-bottle, don't know much, an' yer uncle ain't bin satisfied. Now there's another doctor from London staying up 'ere for 'is own poor 'elth, and yer Uncle said he'd like to 'ave 'is opinion,—so Mr. Slowton, bein' obligin' though ignorant, 'as got 'im in to see yer Uncle, and there they both is, in the best parlour, with special wine an' seedies on the table."

"Oh, it'll be all right!" said Robin, cheerfully,—"Uncle Hugo is getting old, of course, and he's a bit fanciful."

Priscilla sniffed the air.

"Mebbe—and mebbe not! What are you two waitin' for now?"

"For the men to come back with Roger. Then we'll haul home."

"You'll 'ave to wait a bit longer, I'm thinkin'," said Priscilla—"They's all drinkin' beer in the yard now an' tappin' another barrel to drink at when the waggon comes in. There's no animals on earth as ever thirsty as men! Well, good luck t'ye! I must go, or there'll be a smell of burnin' supper-cakes."

She settled her sunbonnet anew and trotted away,—looking rather like a large spotted mushroom mysteriously set in motion and rolling, rather than walking, off the field.

When she was gone, Innocent sat down again upon the hay, this time without Cupid. He had flown off to join his mates on the farmhouse gables.

"Dad is really not well," she said, thoughtfully; "I feel anxious about him. If he were to die,—" At the mere thought her eyes filled with tears. "He must die some day," answered Robin, gently,—"and he's old,—nigh on eighty."

"Oh, I don't want to remember that," she murmured. "It's the cruellest part of life—that people should grow old, and die, and pass away from us. What should I do without Dad? I should be all alone, with no one in the world to care what becomes of me."

"I care!" he said, softly.

"Yes, you care—just now"—she answered, with a sigh; "and it's very kind of you. I wish I could care—in the way you want me to—but—"

"Will you try?" he pleaded.

"I do try—really I do try hard," she said, with quite a piteous earnestness,—"but I can't feel what isn't HERE,"—and she pressed both hands on her breast—"I care more for Roger the horse, and Cupid the dove, than I do for you! It's quite awful of me—but there it is! I love—I simply adore"—and she threw out her arms with an embracing gesture—"all the trees and plants and birds!—and everything about the farm and the farmhouse itself—it's just the sweetest home in the world! There's not a brick or a stone in it that I would not want to kiss if I had to leave it—but I never felt that way for you! And yet I like you very, very much, Robin!—I wish I could see you married to some nice girl, only I don't know one really nice enough."

"Nor do I!" he answered, with a laugh, "except yourself! But never mind, dear!—we won't talk of it any more, just now at any rate. I'm a patient sort of chap. I can wait!"

"How long?" she queried, with a wondering glance.

"All my life!" he answered, simply.

A silence fell between them. Some inward touch of embarrassment troubled the girl, for the colour came and went flatteringly in her soft cheeks and her eyes drooped under his fervent gaze. The glowing light of the sky deepened, and the sun began to sink in a mist of bright orange, which was reflected over all the visible landscape with a warm and vivid glory. That strange sense of beauty and mystery which thrills the air with the approach of evening, made all the simple pastoral scene a dream of incommunicable loveliness,—and the two youthful figures, throned on their high dais of golden-green hay, might have passed for the rustic Adam and Eve of some newly created Eden. They were both very quiet,—with the tense quietness of hearts that are too full for speech. A joy in the present was shadowed with a dim unconscious fear of the future in both their thoughts,—though neither of them would have expressed their feelings in this regard one to the other. A thrush warbled in a hedge close by, and the doves on the farmhouse gables spread their white wings to the late sunlight, cooing amorously. And again the man spoke, with a gentle firmness:

"All my life I shall love you, Innocent! Whatever happens, remember that! All my life!"

CHAPTER II

The swinging open of a great gate at the further end of the field disturbed the momentary silence which followed his words. The returning haymakers appeared on the scene, leading Roger at their head, and Innocent jumped up eagerly, glad of the interruption.

"Here comes old Roger!" she cried,—"bless his heart! Now, Robin, you must try to look very stately! Are you going to ride home standing or sitting?"

He was visibly annoyed at her light indifference.

"Unless I may sit beside you with my arm round your waist, in the Pettigrew fashion, I'd rather stand!" he retorted. "You said Pettigrew's hands were always dirty—so are mine. I'd better keep my distance from you. One can't make hay and remain altogether as clean as a new pin!"

She gave an impatient gesture.

"You always take things up in the wrong way," she said—"I never thought you a bit like Pettigrew! Your hands are not really dirty!"

"They are!" he answered, obstinately. "Besides, you don't want my arm round your waist, do you?"

"Certainly not!" she replied, quickly.

"Then I'll stand," he said;—"You shall be enthroned like a queen and
I'll be your bodyguard. Here, wait a minute!"

He piled up the hay in the middle of the load till it made a high cushion where, in obedience to his gesture, Innocent seated herself. The men leading the horse were now close about the waggon, and one of them, grinning sheepishly at the girl, offered her a daintily-made wreath of wild roses, from which all the thorns had been carefully removed.

"Looks prutty, don't it?" he said.

She accepted it with a smile.

"Is it for me? Oh, Larry, how nice of you! Am I to wear it?"

"If ye loike!" This with another grin.

She set it on her uncovered head and became at once a model for a Romney; the wild roses with their delicate pink and white against her brown hair suited the hues of her complexion and the tender grey of her eyes;—and when, thus adorned, she looked up at her companion, he was fain to turn away quickly lest his admiration should be too plainly made manifest before profane witnesses.

Roger, meanwhile, was being harnessed to the waggon. He was a handsome creature of his kind, and he knew it. As he turned his bright soft glance from side to side with a conscious pride in himself and his surroundings, he seemed to be perfectly aware that the knots of bright red ribbon tied in his long and heavy mane meant some sort of festival. When all was done the haymakers gathered round.

"Good luck to the last load, Mr. Clifford!" they shouted.

"Good luck to you all!" answered Robin, cheerily.

"Good luck t'ye, Miss!" and they raised their sun-browned faces to the girl as she looked down upon them. "As fine a crop and as fair a load next year!"

"Good luck to you!" she responded—then suddenly bending a little forward she said almost breathlessly: "Please wish luck to Dad! He's not well—and he isn't here! Oh, please don't forget him!"

They all stared at her for a moment, as if startled or surprised, then they all joined in a stentorian shout.

"That's right, Miss! Good luck to the master! Many good years of life to him, and better crops every year!"

She drew back, smiling her thanks, but there were tears in her eyes. And then they all started in a pretty procession—the men leading Roger, who paced along the meadow with equine dignity, shaking his ribbons now and again as if he were fully conscious of carrying something more valuable than mere hay,—and above them all smiled the girl's young face, framed in its soft brown hair and crowned with the wild roses, while at her side stood the very type of a model Englishman, with all the promise of splendid life and vigour in the build of his form, the set of his shoulders and the poise of his handsome head. It was a picture of youth and beauty and lovely nature set against the warm evening tint of the sky,—one of those pictures which, though drawn for the moment only on the minds of those who see it, is yet never forgotten.

Arriving presently at a vast enclosure, in which already two loads of hay were being stacked, they were hailed with a cheery shout by several other labourers at work, and very soon a strong smell of beer began to mingle with the odour of the hay and the dewy scent of the elder flowers and sweet briar in the hedges close by.

"Have a drop, Mr. Clifford!" said one tall, powerful-looking man who seemed to be a leader among the others, holding out a pewter tankard full and frothing over.

Robin Clifford smiled and put his lips to it.

"Just to your health, Landon!" he said—"I'm not a drinking man."

"Haymaking's thirsty work," commented the other. "Will Miss Jocelyn do us the honour?"

The girl made a wry little face.

"I don't like beer, Mr. Landon," she said—"It's horrid stuff, even when it's home-brewed! I help to make it, you see!"

She laughed gaily—they all laughed with her, and then there was a little altercation which ended in her putting her lips to the tankard just offered to Robin and sipping the merest fleck of its foam. Landon watched her,—and as she returned the cup, put his own mouth to the place hers had touched and drank the whole draught off greedily. Robin did not see his action, but the girl did, and a deep blush of offence suffused her cheeks. She rose, a little nervously.

"I'll go in now," she said—"Dad must be alone by this time."

"All right!" And Robin jumped lightly from the top of the load to the ground and put the ladder up for her to descend. She came down daintily, turning her back to him so that the hem of her neat white skirt fell like a little snowflake over each rung of the ladder, veiling not only her slim ankles but the very heels of her shoes. When she was nearly at the bottom, he caught her up and set her lightly on the ground.

"There you are!" he said, with a laugh—"When you get into the house you can tell Uncle that you are a Rose Queen, a Hay Queen, and Queen of everything and everyone on Briar Farm, including your very humble servant, Robin Clifford!"

"And your humblest of slaves, Ned Landon!" added Landon, with a quick glance, doffing his cap. "Mr. Clifford mustn't expect to have it all his own way!"

"What the devil are you talking about?" demanded Robin, turning upon him with a sudden fierceness.

Innocent gave him an appealing look.

"Don't!—Oh, don't quarrel!" she whispered,—and with a parting nod to the whole party of workers she hurried away.

With her disappearance came a brief pause among the men. Then Robin, turning away from Landon, proceeded to give various orders. He was a person in authority, and as everyone knew, was likely to be the owner of the farm when his uncle was dead. Landon went close up to him.

"Mr. Clifford," he said, somewhat thickly, "you heard what I said just now? You mustn't expect to have it all your own way! There's other men after the girl as well as you!"

Clifford glanced him up and down.

"Yourself, I suppose?" he retorted.

"And why not?" sneered Landon.

"Only because there are two sides to every question," said Clifford, carelessly, with a laugh. "And no decision can be arrived at till both are heard!"

He climbed up among the other men and set to work, stacking steadily, and singing in a fine soft baritone the old fifteenth-century song:

"Yonder comes a courteous knight,
Lustily raking over the hay,
He was well aware of a bonny lass,
As she came wandering over the way.
Then she sang Downe a downe, hey downe derry!

"Jove you speed, fair ladye, he said,
Among the leaves that be so greene,
If I were a king and wore a crown,
Full soon faire Ladye shouldst thou be queene.
Then she sang Downe a downe, hey downe derry!"

Landon looked up at him with a dark smile.

"Those laugh best who laugh last!" he muttered, "And a whistling throstle has had its neck wrung before now!"

Meanwhile Innocent had entered the farmhouse. Passing through the hall, which,—unaltered since the days of its original building,—was vaulted high and heavily timbered, she went first into the kitchen to see Priscilla, who, assisted by a couple of strong rosy-cheeked girls, did all the housework and cooking of the farm. She found that personage rolling out pastry and talking volubly as she rolled:

"Ah! YOU'LL never come to much good, Jenny Spinner," she cried. "What with a muck of dirty dishes in one corner and a muddle of ragged clouts in another, you're the very model of a wife for a farm hand! Can't sew a gown for yerself neither, but bound to send it into town to be made for ye, and couldn't put a button on a pair of breeches for fear of 'urtin' yer delicate fingers! Well! God 'elp ye when the man comes as ye're lookin' for! He'll be a fool anyhow, for all men are that,—but he'll be twice a fool if he takes you for a life-satchel on his shoulders!"

Jenny Spinner endured this tirade patiently, and went on with the washing-up in which she was engaged, only turning her head to look at Innocent as she appeared suddenly in the kitchen doorway, with her hair slightly dishevelled and the wreath of wild roses crowning her brows.

"Priscilla, where's Dad?" she asked.

"Lord save us, lovey! You gave me a real scare coming in like that with them roses on yer head like a pixie out of the woods! The master? He's just where the doctors left 'im, sittin' in his easy-chair and looking out o' window."

"Was it—was it all right, do you think?" asked the girl, hesitatingly.

"Now, lovey, don't ask me about doctors, 'cos I don't know nothin' and wants to know nothin', for they be close-tongued folk who never sez what they thinks lest they get their blessed selves into hot water. And whether it's all right or all wrong, I couldn't tell ye, for the two o' them went out together, and Mr. Slowton sez 'Good-arternoon, Miss Friday!' quite perlite like, and the other gentleman he lifts 'is 'at quite civil, so I should say 'twas all wrong. For if you mark me, lovey, men's allus extra perlite when they thinks there's goin' to be trouble, hopin' they'll get somethin' for theirselves out of it."

Innocent hardly waited to hear her last words.

"I'm going to Dad," she said, quickly, and disappeared.

Priscilla Friday stopped for a minute in the rolling-cut of her pastry. Some great stress of thought appeared to be working behind her wrinkled brow, for she shook her head, pursed her lips and rolled up her eyes a great many times. Then she gave a short sigh and went on with her work.

The farmhouse was a rambling old place, full of quaint corners, arches and odd little steps up and down leading to cupboards, mysterious recesses and devious winding ways which turned into dark narrow passages, branching right and left through the whole breadth of the house. It was along one of these that Innocent ran swiftly on leaving the kitchen, till she reached a closed door, where pausing, she listened a moment-then, hearing no sound, opened it and went softly in. The room she entered was filled with soft shadows of the gradually falling dusk, yet partially lit by a golden flame of the after-glow which shone through the open latticed window from the western sky. Close to the waning light sat the master of the farm, still clad in his smock frock, with his straw hat on the table beside him and his stick leaning against the arm of his chair. He was very quiet,—so quiet, that a late beam of the sun, touching the rough silver white of his hair, seemed almost obtrusive, as suggesting an interruption to the moveless peace of his attitude. Innocent stopped short, with a tremor of nervous fear.

"Dad!" she said, softly.

He turned towards her.

"Ay, lass! What is it?"

She did not answer, but came up and knelt down beside him, taking one of his brown wrinkled hands in her own and caressing it. The silence between them was unbroken for quite two or three minutes; then he said:

"Last load in all safe?"

"Yes, Dad!"

"Not a drop of rain to wet it, and no hard words to toughen it, eh?"

"No, Dad."

She gave the answer a little hesitatingly. She was thinking of Ned Landon. He caught the slight falter in her voice and looked at her suspiciously.

"Been quarrelling with Robin?"

"Dear Dad, no! We're the best of friends."

He loosened his hand from her clasp and patted her head with it.

"That's right! That's as it should be! Be friends with Robin, child! Be friends!—be lovers!"

She was silent. The after-glow warmed the tints of her hair to russet-gold and turned to a deeper pink the petals of the roses in the wreath she wore. He touched the blossoms and spoke with great gentleness.

"Did Robin crown thee?"

She looked up, smiling.

"No, it's Larry's wreath."

"Larry! Ay, poor Larry! A good lad—but he can eat for two and only work for one. 'Tis the way of men nowadays!"

Another pause ensued, and the western gold of the sky began to fade into misty grey.

"Dad," said the girl then, in a low tone—"Do tell me—what did the
London doctor say?"

He lifted his head quickly, and his old eyes for a moment flashed as though suddenly illumined by a flame from within.

"Say! What should he say, lass, but that I am old and must expect to die? It's natural enough—only I haven't thought about it. It's just that—I haven't thought about it!"

"Why should you think about it?" she asked, with quick tenderness—"You will not die yet—not for many years. You are not so very old. And you are strong."

He patted her head again.

"Poor little wilding!" he said—"If you had your way I should live for ever, no doubt! But an' you were wise with modern wisdom, you would say I had already lived too long!"

For answer, she drew down his hand and kissed it.

"I do not want any modern wisdom," she said—"I am your little girl and
I love you!"

A shadow flitted across his face and he moved uneasily. She looked up at him.

"You will not tell me?"

"Tell you what?"

"All that the London doctor said."

He was silent for a minute's space—then he answered.

"Yes, I will tell you, but not now. To-night after supper will be time enough. And then—"

"Yes—then?" she repeated, anxiously.

"Then you shall know—you will have to know—" Here he broke off abruptly. "Innocent!"

"Yes, Dad?"

"How old are you now?"

"Eighteen."

"Ay, so you are!" And he looked at her searchingly. "Quite a woman!
Time flies! You're old enough to learn—"

"I have always tried to learn," she said—"and I like studying things out of books—"

"Ay! But there are worse things in life than ever were written in books," he answered, wearily—"things that people hide away and are ashamed to speak of! Ay, poor wilding! Things that I've tried to keep from you as long as possible—but—time presses, and, I shall have to speak—"

She looked at him earnestly. Her face paled and her eyes grew dark and wondering.

"Have I done anything wrong?" she asked.

"You? No! Not you! You are not to blame, child! But you've heard the law set out in church on Sundays that 'The sins of the fathers shall be visited on the children even unto the third and fourth generation.' You've heard that?"

"Yes, Dad!"

"Ay!—and who dare say the fourth generation are to blame! Yet, though they are guiltless, they suffer most! No just God ever made such a law, though they say 'tis God speaking. I say 'tis the devil!"

His voice grew harsh and loud, and finding his stick near his chair, he took hold of it and struck it against the ground to emphasise his words.

"I say 'tis the devil!"

The girl rose from her kneeling attitude and put her arms gently round his shoulders.

"There, Dad!" she said soothingly,—"Don't worry! Church and church things seem to rub you up all the wrong way! Don't think about them! Supper will be ready in a little while and after supper we'll have a long talk. And then you'll tell me what the doctor said."

His angry excitement subsided suddenly and his head sank on his breast.

"Ay! After supper. Then—then I'll tell you what the doctor said."

His speech faltered. He turned and looked out on the garden, full of luxuriant blossom, the colours of which were gradually merging into indistinguishable masses under the darkening grey of the dusk.

She moved softly about the room, setting things straight, and lighting two candles in a pair of tall brass candlesticks which stood one on either side of a carved oak press. The room thus illumined showed itself to be a roughly-timbered apartment in the style of the earliest Tudor times, and all the furniture in it was of the same period. The thick gate-legged table—the curious chairs, picturesque, but uncomfortable—the two old dower chests—the quaint three-legged stools and upright settles, were a collection that would have been precious to the art dealer and curio hunter, as would the massive eight-day clock with its grotesquely painted face, delineating not only the hours and days but the lunar months, and possessing a sonorous chime which just now struck eight with a boom as deep as that of a cathedral bell. The sound appeared to startle the old farmer with a kind of shock, for he rose from his chair and grasped his stick, looking about him as though for the moment uncertain of his bearings.

"How fast the hours go by!" he muttered, dreamily. "When we're young they don't count—but when we're old we know that every hour brings us nearer to the end-the end, the end of all! Another night closing in—and the last load cleared from the field—Innocent!"

The name broke from his lips like a cry of suffering, and she ran to him trembling.

"Dad, dear, what is it?"

He caught her outstretched hands and held them close.

"Nothing—nothing!" he answered, drawing his breath quick and hard—"Nothing, lass! No pain—no—not that! I'm only frightened! Frightened!—think of it!—me frightened who never knew fear! And I—I wouldn't tell it to anyone but you—I'm afraid of what's coming—of what's bound to come! 'Twould always have come, I know—but I never thought about it—it never seemed real! It never seemed real—"

Here the door opened, admitting a flood of cheerful light from the outside passage, and Robin Clifford entered.

"Hullo, Uncle! Supper's ready!"

The old man's face changed instantly. Its worn and scared expression smoothed into a smile, and, loosening his hold of Innocent, he straightened himself and stood erect.

"All right, my lad! You've worked pretty late!"

"Yes, and we've not done yet. But we shall finish stacking tomorrow," answered Clifford—"Just now we're all tired and hungry."

"Don't say you're thirsty!" said the old farmer, his smile broadening.
"How many barrels have been tapped to-day?"

"Oh, well! You'd better ask Landon,"—and Clifford's light laugh had a touch of scorn in it,—"he's the man for the beer! I hardly ever touch it—Innocent knows that."

"More work's done on water after all," said Jocelyn. "The horses that draw for us and the cattle that make food for us prove that. But we think we're a bit higher than the beasts, and some of us get drunk to prove it! That's one of our strange ways as men! Come along, lad! And you, child,"—here he turned to Innocent—"run and tell Priscilla we're waiting in the Great Hall."

He seemed to have suddenly lost all feebleness, and walked with a firm step into what he called the Great Hall, which was distinguished by this name from the lesser or entrance hall of the house. It was a nobly proportioned, very lofty apartment, richly timbered, the roof being supported by huge arched beams curiously and intricately carved. Long narrow boards on stout old trestles occupied the centre, and these were spread with cloths of coarse but spotlessly clean linen and furnished with antique plates, tankards and other vessels of pewter which would have sold for a far larger sum in the market than solid silver. A tall carved chair was set at the head of the largest table, and in this Farmer Jocelyn seated himself. The men now began to come in from the fields in their work-a-day clothes, escorted by Ned Landon, their only attempt at a toilet having been a wash and brush up in the outhouses; and soon the hall presented a scene of lively bustle and activity. Priscilla, entering it from the kitchen with her two assistants, brought in three huge smoking joints on enormous pewter dishes,—then followed other good things of all sorts,—vegetables, puddings, pasties, cakes and fruit, which Innocent helped to set out all along the boards in tempting array. It was a generous supper fit for a "Harvest Home"—yet it was only Farmer Jocelyn's ordinary way of celebrating the end of the haymaking,—the real harvest home was another and bigger festival yet to come. Robin Clifford began to carve a sirloin of beef,—Ned Landon, who was nearly opposite him, actively apportioned slices of roast pork, the delicacy most favoured by the majority, and when all the knives and forks were going and voices began to be loud and tongues discursive, Innocent slipped into a chair by Farmer Jocelyn and sat between him and Priscilla. For not only the farm hands but all the servants on the place were at table, this haymaking supper being the annual order of the household. The girl's small delicate head, with its coronal of wild roses, looked strange and incongruous among the rough specimens of manhood about her, and sometimes as the laughter became boisterous, or some bucolic witticism caught her ear, a faint flush coloured the paleness of her cheeks and a little nervous tremor ran through her frame. She drew as closely as she could to the old farmer, who sat rigidly upright and quiet, eating nothing but a morsel of bread with a bowl of hot salted milk Priscilla had put before him. Beer was served freely, and was passed from man to man in leather "blackjacks" such as were commonly used in olden times, but which are now considered mere curiosities. They were, however, ordinary wear at Briar Farm, and had been so since very early days. The Great Hall was lighted by tall windows reaching almost to the roof and traversed with shafts of solid stonework; the one immediately opposite Farmer Jocelyn's chair showed the very last parting glow of the sunset like a dull red gleam on a dark sea. For the rest, thick home-made candles of a torch shape fixed into iron sconces round the walls illumined the room, and burned with unsteady flare, giving rise to curious lights and shadows as though ghostly figures were passing to and fro, ruffling the air with their unseen presences. Priscilla Priday, her wizened yellow face just now reddened to the tint of a winter apple by her recent exertions in the kitchen, was not so much engaged in eating her supper as in watching her master. Her beady brown eyes roved from him to the slight delicate girl beside him with inquisitive alertness. She felt and saw that the old man's thoughts were far away, and that something of an unusual nature was troubling his mind. Priscilla was an odd-looking creature but faithful;—her attachments were strong, and her dislikes only a shade more violent,—and just now she entertained very uncomplimentary sentiments towards "them doctors" who had, as she surmised, put her master out of sorts with himself, and caused anxiety to the "darling child," as she invariably called Innocent when recommending her to the guidance of the Almighty in her daily and nightly prayers. Meanwhile the noise at the supper table grew louder and more incessant, and sundry deep potations of home-brewed ale began to do their work. One man, seated near Ned Landon, was holding forth in very slow thick accents on the subject of education:

"Be eddicated!" he said, articulating his words with difficulty,—"That's what I says, boys! Be eddicated! Then everything's right for us! We can kick all the rich out into the mud and take their goods and enjoy 'em for ourselves. Eddication does it! Makes us all we wants to be,—members o' Parli'ment and what not! I've only one boy,—but he'll be eddicated as his father never was—"

"And learn to despise his father!" said Robin, suddenly, his clear voice ringing out above the other's husky loquacity. "You're right! That's the best way to train a boy in the way he should go!"

There was a brief silence. Then came a fresh murmur of voices and Ned
Landon's voice rose above them.

"I don't agree with you, Mr. Clifford," he said—"There's no reason why a well-educated lad should despise his father."

"But he often does," said Robin—"reason or no reason."

"Well, you're educated yourself," retorted Landon, with a touch of envy,—"You won a scholarship at your grammar school, and you've been to a University."

"What's that done for me?" demanded Robin, carelessly,—"Where has it put me? Just nowhere, but exactly where I might have stood all the time. I didn't learn farming at Oxford!"

"But you didn't learn to despise your father either, did you, sir?" queried one of the farm hands, respectfully.

"My father's dead," answered Robin, curtly,—"and I honour his memory."

"So your own argument goes to the wall!" said Landon. "Education has not made you think less of him."

"In my case, no," said Robin,—"but in dozens of other cases it works out differently. Besides, you've got to decide what education IS. The man who knows how to plough a field rightly is as usefully educated as the man who knows how to read a book, in my opinion."

"Education," interposed a strong voice, "is first to learn one's place in the world and then know how to keep it!"

All eyes turned towards the head of the table. It was Farmer Jocelyn who spoke, and he went on speaking:

"What's called education nowadays," he said, "is a mere smattering and does no good. The children are taught, especially in small villages like ours, by men and women who often know less than the children themselves. What do you make of Danvers, for example, boys?"

A roar of laughter went round the table.

"Danvers!" exclaimed a huge red-faced fellow at the other end of the board,—"Why he talks yer 'ead off about what he's picked up here and there like, and when I asked him to tell me where my son is as went to Mexico, blowed if he didn't say it was a town somewheres near New York!"

Another roar went round the table. Farmer Jocelyn smiled and held up his hand to enjoin silence.

"Mr. Danvers is a teacher selected by the Government," he then observed, with mock gravity. "And if he teaches us that Mexico is a town near New York, we poor ignorant farm-folk are bound to believe him!"

They all laughed again, and he continued:

"I'm old enough, boys, to have seen many changes, and I tell you, all things considered, that the worst change is the education business, so far as the strength and the health of the country goes. That, and machine work. When I was a youngster, nearly every field-hand knew how to mow,—now we've trouble enough to find an extra man who can use a scythe. And you may put a machine on the grass as much as you like, you'll never get the quality that you'll get with a well-curved blade and a man's arm and hand wielding it. Longer work maybe, and risk of rain—but, taking the odds for and against, men are better than machines. Forty years we've scythed the grass on Briar Farm, and haven't we had the finest crops of hay in the county?"

A chorus of gruff voices answered him:

"Ay, Mister Jocelyn!"

"That's right!"

"I never 'member more'n two wet seasons and then we got last load in 'tween showers," observed one man, thoughtfully.

"There ain't never been nothin' wrong with Briar Farm hay crops anyway—all the buyers knows that for thirty mile round," said another.

"And the wheat and the corn and the barley and the oats the same," struck in the old farmer again—"all the seed sown by hand and the harvest reaped by hand, and every man and boy in the village or near it has found work enough to keep him in his native place, spring, summer, autumn and winter, isn't that so?"

"Ay, ay!"

"Never a day out o' work!"

"Talk of unemployed trouble," went on Jocelyn, "if the old ways were kept up and work done in the old fashion, there'd be plenty for all England's men to do, and to feed fair and hearty! But the idea nowadays is to rush everything just to get finished with it, and then to play cards or football, and get drunk till the legs don't know whether it's land or water they're standing on! It's the wrong way about, boys! It's the wrong way about! You may hurry and scurry along as fast as you please, but you miss most good things by the way; and there's only one end to your racing—the grave! There's no such haste to drop into THAT, boys! It'll wait! It's always waiting! And the quicker you go the quicker you'll get to it! Take time while you're young! That time for me is past!"

He lifted his head and looked round upon them all. There was a strange wild look in his old eyes,—and a sudden sense of awe fell on the rest of the company. Farmer Jocelyn seemed all at once removed from them to a height of dignity above his ordinary bearing. Innocent's rose-crowned head drooped, and tears sprang involuntarily to her eyes. She tried to hide them, not so well, however, but that Priscilla Priday saw them.

"Now, lovey child!" she whispered,—"Don't take on! It's only the doctors that's made him low like and feelin' blue, and he ain't takin' sup or morsel, but we'll make him have a bite in his own room afterwards. Don't you swell your pretty eyes and make 'em red, for that won't suit me nor Mr. Robin neither, come, come!—that it won't!"

Innocent put one of her little hands furtively under the board and pressed Priscilla's rough knuckles tenderly, but she said nothing. The silence was broken by one of the oldest men present, who rose, tankard in hand.

"The time for good farming is never past!" he said, in a hearty voice—"And no one will ever beat Farmer Jocelyn at that! Full cups, boys! And the master's health! Long life to him!"

The response was immediate, every man rising to his feet. None of them were particularly unsteady except Ned Landon, who nearly fell over the table as he got up, though he managed to straighten himself in time.

"Farmer Jocelyn!"

"To Briar Farm and the master!"

"Health and good luck!"

These salutations were roared loudly round the table, and then the whole company gave vent to a hearty 'Hip-hip-hurrah!' that roused echoes from the vaulted roof and made its flaring lights tremble.

"One more!" shouted Landon, suddenly, turning his flushed face from side to side upon those immediately near him—"Miss Jocelyn!"

There followed a deafening volley of cheering,—tankards clinked together and shone in the flickering light and every eye looked towards the girl, who, colouring deeply, shrank from the tumult around her like a leaf shivering in a storm-wind. Robin glanced at her with a half-jealous, half-anxious look, but her face was turned away from him. He lifted his tankard and, bowing towards her, drank the contents. When the toast was fully pledged, Farmer Jocelyn got up, amid much clapping of hands, stamping of feet and thumping on the boards. He waited till quiet was restored, and then, speaking in strong resonant accents, said:

"Boys, I thank you! You're all boys to me, young and old, for you've worked on the farm so long that I seem to know your faces as well as I know the shape of the land and the trees on the ridges. You've wished me health and long life—and I take it that your wishes are honest—but I've had a long life already and mustn't expect much more of it. However, the farm will go on just the same whether I'm here or elsewhere,—and no man that works well on it will be turned away from it,—that I can promise you! And the advice I've always given to you I give to you again,—stick to the land and the work of the land! There's nothing finer in the world than the fresh air and the scent of the good brown earth that gives you the reward of your labour, always providing it is labour and not 'scamp' service. When I'm gone you'll perhaps remember what I say,—and think it not so badly said either. I thank you for your good wishes and"—here he hesitated—"my little girl here thanks you too. Next time you make the hay—if I'm not with you—I ask you to be as merry as you are to-night and to drink to my memory! For whenever one master of Briar Farm has gone there's always been another in his place!—and there always will be!" He paused,—then lifting a full tankard which had been put beside him, he drank a few drops of its contents—"God bless you all! May you long have the will to work and the health to enjoy the fruits of honest labour!"

There was another outburst of noisy cheering, followed by a new kind of clamour,

"A song!"

"A song!"

"Who'll begin?"

"Where's Steevy?"

"Little Steevy!"

"Steevy! Wheer be ye got to?" roared one old fellow with very white hair and a very red face—"ye're not so small as ye can hide in yer mother's thimble!"

A young giant of a man stood up in response to this adjuration, blushing and smiling bashfully.

"Here I be!"

"Sing away, lad, sing away!"

"Wet yer pipe, and whistle!"

"Tune up, my blackbird!"

Steevy, thus adjured, straightened himself to his full stature of over six feet and drank off a cupful of ale. Then he began in a remarkably fine and mellow tenor:

"Would you choose a wife
For a happy life,
Leave the town and the country take;
Where Susan and Doll,
And Jenny and Moll,
Follow Harry and John,
While harvest goes on,
And merrily, merrily rake!"

"The lass give me here,
As brown as my beer,
That knows how to govern a farm;
That can milk a cow,
Or farrow a sow,
Make butter and cheese,
And gather green peas,
And guard the poultry from harm."

"This, this is the girl,
Worth rubies and pearl,
The wife that a home will make!
We farmers need
No quality breed,
But a woman that's won
While harvest goes on,
And we merrily, merrily rake!"

[Footnote: Old Song 1740.]

A dozen or more stentorian voices joined in the refrain:

"A woman that's won
While harvest goes on,
And we merrily, merrily rake."

"Bravo!"

"Good for you, Steevy!"

"First-class!"

"Here's to you, my lad!"

The shouting, laughter and applause continued for many minutes, then came more singing of songs from various rivals to the tuneful Steevy. And presently all joined together in a boisterous chorus which ran thus:

"A glass is good and a lass is good,
And a pipe is good in cold weather,
The world is good and the people are good,
And we're all good fellows together!"

In the middle of this performance Farmer Jocelyn rose from his place and left the hall, Innocent accompanying him. Once he looked back on the gay scene presented to him—the disordered supper-table, the easy lounging attitudes of the well-fed men, the flare of the lights which cast a ruddy glow on old and young faces and sparkled over the burnished pewter,—then with a strange yearning pain in his eyes he turned slowly away, leaning on the arm of the girl beside him, and went,—leaving the merry-makers to themselves.

CHAPTER III

Returning to the room where he had sat alone before supper, he sank heavily into the armchair he had previously occupied. The window was still open, and the scent of roses stole in with every breath of air,—a few stars sparkled in the sky, and a faint line of silver in the east showed where the moon would shortly rise. He looked out in dreamy silence, and for some minutes seemed too much absorbed in thought to notice the presence of Innocent, who had seated herself at a small table near him, on which she had set a lit candle, and was quietly sewing. She had forgotten that she still wore the wreath of wild roses,—the fragile flowers were drooping and dying in her hair, and as she bent over her work and the candlelight illumined her delicate profile, there was something almost sculptural in the shape of the leaves as they encircled her brow, making her look like a young Greek nymph or goddess brought to life out of the poetic dreams of the elder world. She was troubled and anxious, but she tried not to let this seem apparent. She knew from her life's experience of his ways and whims that it was best to wait till the old man chose to speak, rather than urge him into talk before he was ready or willing. She glanced up from her sewing now and again and saw that he looked very pale and worn, and she felt that he suffered. Her tender young heart ached with longing to comfort him, yet she knew not what she should say. So she sat quiet, as full of loving thoughts as a Madonna lily may be full of the dew of Heaven, yet mute as the angelic blossom itself. Presently he moved restlessly, and turning in his chair looked at her intently. The fixity of his gaze drew her like a magnet from her work and she put down her sewing.

"Do you want anything, Dad?"

He rose, and began to fumble with the buttons of his smock.

"Ay—just help me to get this off. The working day is over,—the working clothes can go!"

She was at his side instantly and with her light deft fingers soon disembarrassed him of the homely garment. When it was taken off a noticeable transformation was effected in his appearance. Clad in plain dark homespun, which was fashioned into a suit somewhat resembling the doublet and hose of olden times, his tall thin figure had a distinctly aristocratic look and bearing which was lacking when clothed in the labourer's garb. Old as he was, there were traces of intellect and even beauty in his features,—his head, on which the thin white hair shone like spun silver, was proudly set on his shoulders in that unmistakable line which indicates the power and the will to command; and as he unconsciously drew himself upright he looked more like some old hero of a hundred battles than a farmer whose chief pride was the excellence of his crops and the prosperity of his farm managed by hand work only. For despite the jeers of his neighbours, who were never tired of remonstrating with him for not "going with the times," Jocelyn had one fixed rule of farming, and this was that no modern machinery should be used on his lands. He was the best employer of labour for many and many a mile round, and the most generous as well as the most exact paymaster, and though people asserted that there was no reasonable explanation for it, nevertheless it annually happened that the hand-sown, hand-reaped crops of Briar Farm were finer and richer in grain and quality, and of much better value than the machine-sown, machine-reaped crops of any other farm in the county or for that matter in the three counties adjoining. He stood now for a minute or two watching Innocent as she looked carefully over his smock frock to see if there were any buttons missing or anything to be done requiring the services of her quick needle and thread,—then as she folded it and put it aside on a chair he said with a thrill of compassion in his voice:

"Poor little child, thou hast eaten no supper! I saw thee playing with the bread and touching no morsel. Art not well?"

She looked up at him and tried to smile, but tears came into her eyes despite her efforts to keep them back.

"Dear Dad, I am only anxious," she murmured, tremulously. "You, too, have had nothing. Shall I fetch you a glass of the old wine? It will do you good."

He still bent his brows thoughtfully upon her.

"Presently—presently—not now," he answered. "Come and sit by me at the window and I'll tell you—I'll tell you what you must know. But see you, child, if you are going to cry or fret, you will be no help to me and I'll just hold my peace!"

She drew a quick breath, and her face paled.

"I will not cry," she said,—"I will not fret. I promise you, Dad!"

She came close up to him as she spoke. He took her gently in his arms and kissed her.

"That's a brave girl!" And holding her by the hand he drew her towards the open window—"Look out there! See how the stars shine! Always the same, no matter what happens to us poor folk down here,—they twinkle as merrily over our graves as over our gardens,—and yet if we're to believe what we're taught nowadays, they're all worlds more or less like our own, full of living creatures that suffer and die like ourselves. It's a queer plan of the Almighty, to keep on making wonderful and beautiful things just to destroy them! There seems no sense in it!"

He sat down again in his chair, and she, obeying his gesture, brought a low stool to his feet and settled herself upon it, leaning against his knee. Her face was upturned to his and the flickering light of the tall candles quivering over it showed the wistful tender watchfulness of its expression—a look which seemed to trouble him, for he avoided her eyes.

"You want to know what the London doctor said," he began. "Well, child, you'll not be any the better for knowing, but it's as I thought. I've got my death-warrant. Slowton was not sure about me,—but this man, ill as he is himself, has had too much experience to make mistakes. There's no cure for me. I may last out another twelve months—perhaps not so long—certainly not longer."

He saw her cheeks grow white with the ashy whiteness of a sudden shock. Her eyes dilated with pain and fear, and a quick sigh escaped her, then she set her lips hard.

"I don't believe it," she said, adding with stronger emphasis—"I WON'T believe it!"

He patted the small hand that rested on his knee.

"You won't? Poor little girl, you must believe it!—and more than that, you must be prepared for it. Even a year's none too much for all that has to be done,—'twill almost take me that time to look the thing square in the face and give up the farm for good."—Here he paused with a kind of horror at his own words—"Give up the farm!—My God! And for ever! How strange it seems!"

The tumult in her mind found sudden speech.

"Dad, dear! Dad! It isn't true! Don't think it! Don't mind what the doctor says. He's wrong—I'm sure he's wrong! You'll live for many and many a happy year yet—oh yes, Dad, you will! I'm sure of it! You won't die, darling Dad! Why should you?"

She broke off with a half-smothered sob.

"Why should I?" he said, with a perplexed frown; "Ah!—that's more than I can tell you! There's neither rhyme nor reason in it that I can see. But it's the rule of life that it should end in death. For some the end is swift—for some it's slow—some know when it's coming—some don't,—the last are the happiest. I've been told, you see,—and it's no use my fighting against the fact,—a year at the most, perhaps less, is the longest term I have of Briar Farm. Your eyes are wet—you promised you wouldn't cry."

She furtively dashed away the drops that were shining on her lashes.
Then she forced a faint quivering smile.

"I'm not crying, Dad," she said. "There's nothing to cry for," and she fondled his hand in her own—"The doctors are wrong. You're only a little weak and run down—you'll be all right with rest and care—and—and you shan't die! You shan't die! I won't let you."

He drew a long breath and passed his hand across his forehead as though he were puzzled or in pain.

"That's foolish talk," he said, with some harshness; "You've got trouble to meet, and you must meet it. I'm bound to show you trouble—but I can show you a way out of it as well."

He paused a moment,—a light wind outside the lattice swayed a branch of roses to and fro, shaking out their perfume as from a swung censer.

"The first thing I must tell you," he went on, "is about yourself. It's time you should know who you are."

She looked up at him startled.

"Who I am?" she repeated,—then as she saw the stern expression on his face a sudden sense of fear ran through her nerves like the chill of an icy wind and she waited dumbly for his next word. He gripped her hand hard in his own.

"Now hear me out, child!" he said—"Let me speak on without interruption, or I shall never get through the tale. Perhaps I ought to have told you before, but I've put it off and put it off, thinking 'twould be time enough when you and Robin were wed. You and Robin—you and Robin!—your marriage bells have rung through my brain many and many a night for the past two years and never a bit nearer are you to the end of your wooing, such fanciful children as you both are! And you're so long about it and I've so short a time before me that I've made up my mind it's best to let you have all the truth about yourself before anything happens to me. All the truth about yourself—as far as I know it."

He paused again. She was perfectly silent. She trembled a little—wondering what she was going to hear. It must be something dreadful, she thought,—something for which she was unprepared,—something that might, perhaps, like a sudden change in the currents of the air, create darkness where there had been sunshine, storm instead of calm. His grip on her hand was strong enough to hurt her, but she was not conscious of it. She only wished he would tell her the worst at once and quickly. The worst,—for she instinctively felt there was no best.

"It was eighteen years ago this very haymaking time," he went on, with a dreamy retrospective air as though he were talking to himself,—"The last load had been taken in. Supper was over. The men had gone home,—Priscilla was clearing the great hall, when there came on a sudden storm—just a flash of lightning—I can see it now, striking a blue fork across the windows—a clap of thunder—and then a regular downpour of rain. Heavy rain, too,—buckets-full—for it washed the yard out and almost swamped the garden. I didn't think much about it,—the hay was hauled in dry, and that was all my concern. I stood under a shed in the yard and watched the rain falling in straight sheets out of a sky black as pitch—I could scarcely see my own hand if I stretched it out before me, the night was so dark. All at once I heard the quick gallop of a horse's hoofs some way off,—then the sound seemed to die away,—but presently I heard the hoofs coming at a slow steady pace down our muddy old by-road—no one can gallop THAT, in any weather. And almost before I knew how it came there, the horse was standing at the farmyard gate, with a man in the saddle carrying a bundle in front of him. He was the handsomest fellow I ever saw, and when he dismounted and came towards me, and took off his cap in the pouring rain and smiled at me, I was fairly taken with his looks. I thought he must be something of a king or other great personage by his very manner. 'Will you do me a kindness?' he said, as gently as you please. 'This is a farm, I believe. I want to leave my little child here in safe keeping for a night. She is such a baby,—I cannot carry her any further through this storm.' And he put aside the wrappings of the bundle he carried and showed me a small pale infant asleep. 'She's motherless,' he added, 'and I'm taking her to my relatives. But I have to ride some distance from here on very urgent business, and if you will look after her for to-night I'll call for her to-morrow. Poor little innocent! She's hungry and fretful. I haven't anything to give her and the storm looks like continuing. Will you let her stay with you?' 'Certainly!' said I, without thinking a bit further about it. 'Leave her here by all means. We'll see she gets all she wants.' He gave me the child at once and said in a very soft voice: 'You are most generous!—"verily I have not found so great a faith, no not in Israel!" You're sure you don't mind?' 'Not at all!' I answered him,—'You'll come back for her to-morrow, of course.' He smiled and said—'Oh yes, of course! To-morrow! I'm really very much obliged to you!' Then he seemed to think for a moment and put his hand in his pocket, but I stopped him—'No, sir,' I said, 'excuse me, but I don't want any pay for giving a babe a night's shelter.' He looked at me very straight with his big clear hazel eyes, and then shook hands with me. 'You're an honest fellow,' he said,—and he stooped and kissed the child he had put into my arms. 'I'm extremely sorry to trouble you, but the storm is too much for this helpless little creature.' 'You yourself are wet through,' I interrupted. 'That doesn't matter,' he answered,—'for me nothing matters. Thank you a thousand times! Good-night!' The rain was coming down faster than ever and I stepped back into the shed, covering the child up so that the drifting wet should not beat upon it. He came after me and kissed it again, saying 'Good-night, poor little innocent, good-night!' three or four times. Then he went off quickly and sprang into his saddle and in the blur of rain I saw horse and man turn away. He waved his hand once and his handsome pale face gleamed upon me like that of a ghost in the storm. 'Till to-morrow!' he called, and was gone. I took the child into the house and called Priscilla. She was always a rough one as you know, even in her younger days, and she at once laid her tongue to with a will and as far as she dared called me a fool for my pains. And so I was, for when I came to think of it the man was a stranger to me, and I had never asked him his name. It was just his handsome face and the way he had with him that had thrown me off my guard as it were; so I stood and looked silly enough, I suppose, while Priscilla fussed about with the baby, for it had wakened and was crying. Well!"—and Jocelyn heaved a short sigh—"That's about all! We never saw the man again, and the child was never claimed; but every six months I received a couple of bank-notes in an envelope bearing a different postmark each time, with the words: 'For Innocent' written inside—"

She uttered a quick, almost terrified exclamation, and drew her hand away from his.

"Every six months for a steady twelve years on end," he went on,—"then the money suddenly stopped. Now you understand, don't you? YOU were the babe that was left with me that stormy night; and you've been with me ever since. But you're not MY child. I don't know whose child you are!"

He stopped, looking at her.

She had risen from her seat beside him and was standing up. She was trembling violently, and her face seemed changed from the round and mobile softness of youth to the worn pallor and thinness of age. Her eyes were luminous with a hard and feverish brilliancy.

"You—you don't know whose child I am!" she repeated,—"I am not yours—and you don't know—you don't know who I belong to! Oh, it hurts me!—it hurts me, Dad! I can't realise it! I thought you were my own dear father!—and I loved you!—oh, how much I loved you!—yet you have deceived me all along!"

"I haven't deceived you," he answered, impatiently. "I've done all for the best—I meant to tell you when you married Robin—"

A flush of indignation flew over her cheeks.

"Marry Robin!" she exclaimed—"How could I marry Robin? I'm nothing!
I'm nobody! I have not even a name!"

She covered her face with her hands and an uncontrollable sob broke from her.

"Not even a name!" she murmured—"Not even a name!"

With a sudden impulsive movement she knelt down in front of him like a child about to say its prayers.

"Oh, help me, Dad!" she said, piteously—"Comfort me! Say something—anything! I feel so lost—so astray! All my life seems gone!—I can't realise it! Yes, I know! You have been very kind,—all kindness, just as if I had been your own little girl. Oh, why did you tell me I was your own?—I was so proud to be your daughter—and now—it's so hard—so hard! Only a few moments ago I was a happy girl with a loving father as I thought—now I know I'm only a poor nameless creature,—deserted by my parents and left on your hands. Oh, Dad dear! I've given you years of trouble!—I hope I've been good to you! It's not my fault that I am what I am!"

He laid his wrinkled hand on her bowed head.

"Dear child, of course it's not your fault! That's what I've said all along. You're innocent, like your name,—and you've been a blessing to me all your days,—the farm has been brighter for your living on it,—so you've no cause to worry me or yourself about what's past long ago and can't be helped. No one knows your story but Priscilla,—no one need ever know."

She sprang up from her kneeling attitude.

"Priscilla!" she echoed—"She knew, and she never said a word!"

"If she had, she'd have got the sack," answered Jocelyn, bluntly. "You were brought up always as MY child."

He broke off, startled by the tragic intensity of her look.

"I want to know how that was," she said, slowly. "You told me my mother died when I was born."

He avoided her eyes.

"Well, that was true, or so I suppose," he said. "The man who brought you said you were motherless. But I—I have never married."

"Then how could you tell Robin—and everyone else about here that I was your daughter?"

He grew suddenly angry.

"Child, don't stare at me like that!" he exclaimed, with all an old man's petulance. "It doesn't matter what I said—I had to let the neighbours think you were mine—"

A light flashed in upon her, and she gave vent to a shuddering cry.

"Dad! Oh, Dad!"

Gripping both arms of his chair he raised himself into an upright posture.

"What now?" he demanded, almost fiercely—"What trouble are you going to make of it?"

"Oh, if it were only trouble," she exclaimed, forlornly. "It's far worse! You've branded me with shame! Oh, I understand now! I understand at last why the girls about here never make friends with me! I understand why Robin seems to pity me so much! Oh, how shall I ever look people in the face again!"

His fuzzy brows met in a heavy frown.

"Little fool!" he said, roughly,—"What shame are you talking of? I see no shame in laying claim to a child of my own, even though the claim has no reality. Look at the thing squarely! Here comes a strange man with a baby and leaves it on my hands. You know what a scandalous, gossiping little place this is,—and it was better to say at once the baby was mine than leave it to the neighbours to say the same thing and that I wouldn't acknowledge it. Not a soul about here would have believed the true story if I had told it to them. I've done everything for the best—I know I have. And there'll never be a word said if you marry Robin."

Her face had grown very white. She put up her hand to her head and her fingers touched the faded wreath of wild roses. She drew it off and let it drop to the ground.

"I shall never marry Robin!" she said, with quiet firmness—"And I will not be considered your illegitimate child any longer. It's cruel of you to have made me live on a lie!—yes, cruel!—though you've been so kind in other things. You don't know who my parents were—you've no right to think they were not honest!"

He stared at her amazed. For the first time in eighteen years he began to see the folly of what he had thought his own special wisdom. This girl, with her pale sad face and steadfast eyes, confronted him with the calm reproachful air of an accusing angel.

"What right have you?" she went on. "The man who brought me to you,—poor wretched me!—if he was my father, may have been good and true. He said I was motherless; and he, or someone else, sent you money for me till I was twelve. That did not look as if I was forgotten. Now you say the money has stopped—well!—my father may be dead." Her lips quivered and a few tears rolled down her cheeks. "But there is nothing in all this that should make you think me basely born,—nothing that should have persuaded you to put shame upon me!"

He was taken aback for a minute by her words and attitude—then he burst out angrily:

"It's the old story, I see! Do a good action and it turns out a curse! Basely born! Of course you are basely born, if that's the way you put it! What man alive would leave his own lawful child at a strange farm off the high-road and never claim it again? You're a fool, I tell you! This man who brought you to me was by his look and bearing some fine gentleman or other who had just the one idea in his head—to get rid of an encumbrance. And so he got rid of you—"

"Don't go over the whole thing again!" she interrupted, with weary patience-"-I was an encumbrance to him—I've been an encumbrance to you. I'm sorry! But in no case had you the right to set a stigma on me which perhaps does not exist. That was wrong!"

She paused a moment, then went on slowly:

"I've been a burden on you for six years now,—it's six years, you say, since the money stopped. I wish I could do something in return for what I've cost you all those six years,—I've tried to be useful."

The pathos in her voice touched him to the quick.

"Innocent!" he exclaimed, and held out his arms.

She looked at him with a very pitiful smile and shook her head.

"No! I can't do that! Not just yet! You see, it's all so unexpected—things have changed altogether in a moment. I can't feel quite the same—my heart seems so sore and cold."

He leaned back in his chair again.

"Ah, well, it is as I thought!" he said, irritably. "You're more concerned about yourself than about me. A few minutes ago you only cared to know what the doctors thought of my illness, but now it's nothing to you that I shall be dead in a year. Your mind is set on your own trouble, or what you choose to consider a trouble."

She heard him like one in a dream. It seemed very strange to her that he should have dealt her a blow and yet reproach her for feeling the force of it.

"I am sorry!" she said, patiently. "But this is the first time I have known real trouble—you forget that!—and you must forgive me if I am stupid about it. And if the doctors really believe you are to die in a year I wish I could take your place, Dad!—I would rather be dead than live shamed. And there's nothing left for me now,—not even a name—"

Here she paused and seemed to reflect.

"Why am I called Innocent?"

"Why? Because that's the name that was written on every slip of paper that came with each six months' money," he answered, testily. "That's the only reason I know."

"Was I baptised by that name?" she asked.

He moved uneasily.

"You were never baptised."

"Never baptised!" She echoed the words despairingly,—and then was silent for a minute's space. "Could you not have done that much for me?" she asked, plaintively, at last—"Would it have been impossible?"

He was vaguely ashamed. Her eyes, pure as a young child's, were fixed upon him in appealing sorrow. He began to feel that he had done her a grievous wrong, though he had never entirely realised it till now. He answered her with some hesitation and an effort at excuse.

"Not impossible—no,—maybe I could have baptised you myself if I had thought about it. 'Tis but a sprinkle of water and 'In the Name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.' But somehow I never worried my head—for as long as you were a baby I looked for the man who brought you day after day, and in my own mind left all that sort of business for him to attend to—and when he didn't come and you grew older, it fairly slipped my remembrance altogether. I'm not fond of the Church or its ways,—and you've done as well without baptism as with it, surely. Innocent is a good name for you, and fits your case. For you're innocent of the faults of your parents whatever they were, and you're innocent of my blunders. You're free to make your own life pleasant if you'll only put a bright face on it and make the best of an awkward business."

She was silent, standing before him like a little statuesque figure of desolation.

"As for the tale I told the neighbours," he went on—"it was the best thing I could think of. If I had said you were a child I had taken in to adopt, not one of them would have believed me; 'twas a case of telling one lie or t'other, the real truth being so queer and out of the common, so I chose the easiest. And it's been all right with you, my girl, whichever way you put it. There may be a few stuck-up young huzzies in the village that aren't friendly to you, but you may take it that it's more out of jealousy of Robin's liking for you than anything else. Robin loves you—you know he does; and all you've got to do is to make him happy. Marry him, for the farm will be his when I'm dead, and it'll give me a bit of comfort to feel that you're settled down with him in the old home. For then I know it'll go on just the same—just the same—"

His words trailed off brokenly. His head sank on his chest, and some slow tears made their difficult way out of his eyes and dropped on his silver beard.

She watched him with a certain grave compassion, but she did not at once go, as she would usually have done, to put her arms round his neck and console him. She seemed to herself removed miles away from him and from everything she had ever known. Just then there was a noise of rough but cheery voices outside shouting "good-night" to each other, and she said in a quiet tone:

"The men are away now. Is there anything you want before I go to bed?"

With a sudden access of energy, which contrasted strangely with his former feebleness, he rose and confronted her.

"No, there's nothing I want!" he said, in vehement tones—"Nothing but peace and quietness! I've told you your story, and you take it ill. But recollect, girl, that if you consider any shame has been put on you, I've put equal shame on myself for your sake—I, Hugo Jocelyn,—against whom never a word has been said but this,—which is a lie—that my child, mine!—was born out of wedlock! I suffered this against myself solely for your sake—I, who never wronged a woman in my life!—I, who never loved but one woman, who died before I had the chance to marry her!—and I say and I swear I have sacrificed something of my name and reputation to you! So that you need not make trouble because you also share in the sacrifice. Robin thinks you're my child, and therefore his cousin,—and he counts nothing against you, for he knows that what the world would count against you must be my fault and would be my fault, if the lie I started against myself was true. Marry Robin, I tell you!—and if you care to make me happy, marry him before I die. Then you're safe out of all harm's way. If you DON'T marry him—"

Her breath came and went quickly—she folded her hands across her bosom, trying to still the loud and rapid beating of her heart, but her eyes were very bright and steadfast.

"Yes? What then?" she asked, calmly.

"Then you must take the consequences," he said. "The farm and all I have is left to Robin,—he's my dead sister's son and my nearest living kin—"

"I know that," she said, simply, "and I'm glad he has everything. It's right that it should be so. I shall not be in his way. You may be quite sure of that. But I shall not marry him."

"You'll not marry him?" he repeated, and seemed about to give vent to a torrent of invective when she extended her hands clasped together appealingly.

"Dad, don't be angry!—it only hurts you and it does no good! Just before supper you reminded me of what they say in Church that 'the sins of the fathers should be visited on the children, even unto the third and fourth generation.' I will not visit the sin of my father and mother on anyone. If you will give me a little time I shall be able to understand everything more clearly, and perhaps bear it better. I want to be quite by myself. I must try to see myself as I am,—unbaptised, nameless, forsaken! And if there is anything to be done with this wretched little self of mine, it is I that must do it. With God's help!" She sighed, and her lips moved softly again in the last words, "With God's help!"

He said nothing, and she waited a moment as if expecting him to speak. Then she moved to the table where she had been sitting and folded up her needlework.

"Shall I get you some wine, Dad?" she asked presently in a quiet voice.

"No!" he replied, curtly—"Priscilla can get it."

"Then good-night!"

Still standing erect he turned his head and looked at her.

"Are you going?" he said. "Without your usual kiss?—your usual tenderness? Why should you change to me? Your own father—if he was your father—deserted you,—and I have been, a father to you in his place, wronging my own honourable name for your sake; am I to blame for this? Be reasonable! The laws of man are one thing and the laws of God are another,—and we have to make the best we can of ourselves between the two. There's many a piece of wicked injustice in the world, but nothing more wicked than to set shame or blame on a child that's born without permit of law or blessing of priest. For it's not the child's fault,—it's brought into the world without its own consent,—and yet the world fastens a slur upon it! That's downright brutal and senseless!—for if there is any blame attached to the matter it should be fastened on the parents, and not on the child. And that's what I thought when you were left on my hands—I took the blame of you on myself, and I was careful that you should be treated with every kindness and respect—mind you that! Respect! There's not a man on the place that doesn't doff his cap to you; and you've been as my own daughter always. You can't deny it! And more than that"—here his strong voice faltered—"I've loved you!—yes-I've loved you, little Innocent—"

She looked up in his face and saw it quivering with suppressed emotion, and the strange cold sense of aloofness that had numbed her senses suddenly gave way like snow melting in the spring. In a moment she was in his arms, weeping out her pent-up tears on his breast, and he, stroking her soft hair, soothed her with every tender and gentle word he could think of.

"There, there!" he murmured, fondly. "Thou must look at it in this way, dear child! That if God deprived thee of one father he gave thee another in his place! Make the best of that gift before it be taken from thee!"

CHAPTER IV

There are still a few old houses left in rural England which are as yet happily unmolested by the destroying ravages of modern improvement, and Briar Farm was one of these. History and romance alike had their share in its annals, and its title-deeds went back to the autumnal days of 1581, when the Duke of Anjou came over from France to England with a royal train of noblemen and gentlemen in the hope to espouse the greatest monarch of all time, "the most renowned and victorious" Queen Elizabeth, whose reign has clearly demonstrated to the world how much more ably a clever woman can rule a country than a clever man, if she is left to her own instinctive wisdom and prescience. No king has ever been wiser or more diplomatic than Elizabeth, and no king has left a more brilliant renown. As the coldest of male historians is bound to admit, "her singular powers of government were founded equally on her temper and on her capacity. Endowed with a great command over herself, she soon obtained an uncontrolled ascendant over her people. Few sovereigns of England succeeded to the throne under more difficult circumstances, and none ever conducted the government with such uniform success and felicity." Had Elizabeth been weak, the Duke of Anjou might have realised his ambitious dream, with the unhappiest results for England; and that he fortunately failed was entirely due to her sagacity and her quick perception of his irresolute and feeble character. In the sumptuous train attendant upon this "Petit Grenouille," as he styled himself in one of his babyish epistles to England's sovereign majesty, there was a certain knight more inclined to the study of letters than to the breaking of lances,—the Sieur Amadis de Jocelin, who being much about the court in the wake of his somewhat capricious and hot-tempered master, came, unfortunately for his own peace of mind, into occasional personal contact with one of the most bewitching young women of her time, the Lady Penelope Devereux, afterwards Lady Rich, she in whom, according to a contemporary writer, "lodged all attractive graces and beauty, wit and sweetness of behaviour which might render her the mistress of all eyes and hearts." Surrounded as she was by many suitors, his passion was hopeless from the first, and that he found it so was evident from the fact that he suddenly disappeared from the court and from his master's retinue, and was never heard of by the great world again. Yet he was not far away. He had not the resolution to leave England, the land which enshrined the lady of his love,—and he had lost all inclination to return to France. He therefore retired into the depths of the sweet English country, among the then unspoilt forests and woodlands, and there happening to find a small manor-house for immediate sale, surrounded by a considerable quantity of land, he purchased it for the ready cash he had about him and settled down in it for the remainder of his life. Little by little, such social ambitions as he had ever possessed left him, and with every passing year he grew more and more attached to the simplicity and seclusion of his surroundings. He had leisure for the indulgence of his delight in books, and he was able to give the rein to his passion for poetry, though it is nowhere recorded that he ever published the numerous essays, sonnets and rhymed pieces which, written in the picturesque caligraphy of the period, and roughly bound by himself in sheepskin, occupied a couple of shelves in his library. He entered with animation and interest into the pleasures of farming and other agricultural pursuits, and by-and-bye as time went on and the former idol of his dreams descended from her fair estate of virtue and scandalised the world by her liaison with Lord Mountjoy, he appears to have gradually resigned the illusions of his first love, for he married a simple village girl, remarkable, so it was said, for her beauty, but more so for her skill in making butter and cheese. She could neither read nor write, however, and the traditions concerning the Sieur Amadis relate that he took a singular pleasure in teaching her these accomplishments, as well as in training her to sing and to accompany herself upon the lute in a very pretty manner. She made him an excellent wife, and gave him no less than six children, three boys and three girls, all of whom were brought up at home under the supervision of their father and mother, and encouraged to excel in country pursuits and to understand the art of profitable farming. It was in their days that Briar Farm entered upon its long career of prosperity, which still continued. The Sieur Amadis died in his seventieth year, and by his own wish, expressed in his "Last Will and Testament," was buried in a sequestered spot on his own lands, under a stone slab which he had himself fashioned, carving upon it his recumbent figure in the costume of a knight, a cross upon his breast and a broken sword at his side. His wife, though several years younger than himself, only lived a twelve-month after him and was interred by his side. Their resting-place was now walled off, planted thickly with flowers, and held sacred by every succeeding heir to the farm as the burial-place of the first Jocelyns. Steadily and in order, the families springing from the parent tree of the French knight Amadis had occupied Briar Farm in unbroken succession, and through three centuries the property had been kept intact, none of its possessions being dispersed and none of its land being sold. The house was practically in the same sound condition as when the Sieur Amadis fitted and furnished it for his own occupation,—there was the same pewter, the same solid furniture, the same fine tapestry, preserved by the careful mending of many hundreds of needles worked by hands long ago mingled with the dust of the grave, and, strange as it may seem to those who are only acquainted with the flimsy manufactures of to-day, the same stout hand-wrought linen, which, mended and replenished each year, lasted so long because never washed by modern methods, but always by hand in clear cold running water. There were presses full of this linen, deliriously scented with lavender, and there were also the spinning-wheels that had spun the flax and the hand-looms on which the threads had been woven. These were witnesses to the days when women, instead of gadding abroad, were happy to be at home—when the winter evenings seemed short and bright because as they sat spinning by the blazing log fire they were cheerful in their occupation, singing songs and telling stories and having so much to do that there was no time to indulge in the morbid analysis of life and the things of life which in our present shiftless day perplex and confuse idle and unhealthy brains.

And now after more than three centuries, the direct male line of Amadis de Jocelin had culminated in Hugo, commonly called Farmer Jocelyn, who, on account of some secret love disappointment, the details of which he had never told to anyone, had remained unmarried. Till the appearance on the scene of the child, Innocent, who was by the village folk accepted and believed to be the illegitimate offspring of this ill-starred love, it was tacitly understood that Robin Clifford, his nephew, and the only son of his twin sister, would be the heir to Briar Farm; but when it was seen how much the old man seemed to cling to Innocent, and to rely upon her ever tender care of him, the question arose as to whether there might not be an heiress after all, instead of an heir. And the rustic wiseacres gossiped, as is their wont, watching with no small degree of interest the turn of events which had lately taken place in the frank and open admiration and affection displayed by Robin for his illegitimate cousin, as it was thought she was, and as Farmer Jocelyn had tacitly allowed it to be understood. If the two young people married, everybody agreed it would be the right thing, and the best possible outlook for the continued prosperity of Briar Farm. For after all, it was the farm that had to be chiefly considered, so they opined,—the farm was an historic and valuable property as well as an excellent paying concern. The great point to be attained was that it should go on as it had always gone on from the days of the Sieur Amadis,—and that it should be kept in the possession of the same family. This at any rate was known to be the cherished wish of old Hugo Jocelyn, though he was not given to any very free expression of his feelings. He knew that his neighbours envied him, watched him and commented on his actions,—he knew also that the tale he had told them concerning Innocent had to a great extent whispered away his own good name and fastened a social slur upon the girl,—yet he could not, according to his own views, have seen any other way out of the difficulty. The human world is always wicked-tongued; and it is common knowledge that any man or woman introducing an "adopted" child into a family is at once accused, whether he or she be conscious of the accusation or not, of passing off his own bastard under the "adoption" pretext. Hugo Jocelyn was fairly certain that none of his neighbours would credit the romantic episode of the man on horseback arriving in a storm and leaving a nameless child on his hands. The story was quite true,—but truth is always precisely what people refuse to believe.

The night on which Innocent had learned her own history for the first time was a night of consummate beauty in the natural world. When all the gates and doors of the farm and its outbuildings had been bolted and barred for the night, the moon, almost full, rose in a cloudless heaven and shed pearl-white showers of radiance all over the newly-mown and clean-swept fields, outlining the points of the old house gables and touching with luminous silver the roses that clambered up the walls. One wide latticed window was open to the full inflowing of the scented air, and within its embrasure sat a lonely little figure in a loose white garment with hair tumbling carelessly over its shoulders and eyes that were wet with tears. The clanging chime of the old clock below stairs had struck eleven some ten minutes since, and after the echo of its bell had died away there had followed a heavy and intense silence. The window looked not upon the garden, but out upon the fields and a suggestive line of dark foliage edging them softly in the distance,—away down there, under a huge myriad-branched oak, slept the old knight Sieur Amadis de Jocelin and his English rustic wife, the founders of the Briar Farm family. The little figure in the dark embrasure of the window clasped its white hands and turned its weeping eyes towards that ancient burial-place, and the moon-rays shone upon its fair face with a silvery glimmer, giving it an almost spectral pallor. "Why was I ever born?" sighed a trembling voice—"Oh, dear God! Why did you let it be?"

The vacant air, the vacant fields looked blankly irresponsive. They had no sympathy to give,—they never have. To great Mother Nature it is not important how or why a child is born, though she occasionally decides that it shall be of the greatest importance how and why the child shall live. What does it matter to the forces of creative life whether it is brought into the world "basely," as the phrase goes, or honourably? The child exists,—it is a human entity—a being full of potential good or evil,—and after a certain period of growth it stands alone, and its parents have less to do with it than they imagine. It makes its own circumstances and shapes its own career, and in many cases the less it is interfered with the better. But Innocent could not reason out her position in any cold-blooded or logical way. She was too young and too unhappy. Everything that she had taken pride in was swept from her at once. Only that very morning she had made one of her many pilgrimages down to the venerable oak beneath whose trailing branches the Sieur Amadis de Jocelin lay, covered by the broad stone slab on which he had carved his own likeness, and she had put a little knot of the "Glory" roses between his mailed hands which were folded over the cross on his breast, and she had said to the silent effigy:

"It is the last day of the haymaking, Sieur Amadis! You would be glad to see the big crop going in if you were here!"

She was accustomed to talk to the old stone knight in this fanciful way,—she had done so all her life ever since she could remember. She had taken an intense pride in thinking of him as her ancestor; she had been glad to trace her lineage back over three centuries to the love-lorn French noble who had come to England in the train of the Due d'Anjou—and now—now she knew she had no connection at all with him,—that she was an unnamed, unbaptised nobody—an unclaimed waif of humanity whom no one wanted! No one in all the world—except Robin! He wanted her;—but perhaps when he knew her true history his love would grow cold. She wondered whether it would be so. If it were she would not mind very much. Indeed it would be best, for she felt she could never marry him.

"No, not if I loved him with all my heart!" she said, passionately—"Not without a name!—not till I have made a name for myself, if only that were possible!"

She left the window and walked restlessly about her room, a room that she loved very greatly because it had been the study of the Sieur Amadis. It was a wonderful room, oak-panelled from floor to ceiling, and there was no doubt about its history,—the Sieur Amadis himself had taken care of that. For on every panel he had carved with his own hand a verse, a prayer, or an aphorism, so that the walls were a kind of open notebook inscribed with his own personal memoranda. Over the wide chimney his coat-of-arms was painted, the colours having faded into tender hues like those of autumn leaves, and the motto underneath was "Mon coeur me soutien." Then followed the inscription:

"Amadis de Jocelin,
Knight of France,
Who here seekynge Forgetfulness did here fynde Peace."

Every night of her life since she could read Innocent had stood in front of these armorial bearings in her little white night-gown and had conned over these words. She had taken the memory and tradition of Amadis to her heart and soul. He was HER ancestor,—hers, she had always said;—she had almost learned her letters from the inscriptions he had carved, and through these she could read old English and a considerable amount of old French besides. When she was about twelve years old she and Robin Clifford, playing about together in this room, happened to knock against one panel that gave forth a hollow reverberant sound, and moved by curiosity they tried whether they could open it. After some abortive efforts Robin's fingers closed by chance on a hidden spring, which being thus pressed caused the panel to fly open, disclosing a narrow secret stair. Full of burning excitement the two children ran up it, and to their delight found themselves in a small square musty chamber in which were two enormous old dower-chests, locked. Their locks were no bar to the agility of Robin, who, fetching a hammer, forced the old hasps asunder and threw back the lids. The coffers were full of books and manuscripts written on vellum, a veritable sixteenth-century treasure-trove. They hastened to report the find to Farmer Jocelyn, who, though never greatly taken with books or anything concerning them, was sufficiently interested to go with the eager children and look at the discovery they had made. But as he could make nothing of either books or manuscripts himself, he gave over the whole collection to Innocent, saying that as they were found in her part of the house she might keep them. No one—not even Robin—knew how much she had loved and studied these old books, or how patiently she had spelt out the manuscripts; and no one could have guessed what a wide knowledge of literature she had gained or what fine taste she had developed from her silent communications with the parted spirit of the Sieur Amadis and his poetical remains. She had even arranged her room as she thought he might have liked it, in severe yet perfect taste. It was now her study as it had been his,—the heavy oak table had a great pewter inkstand upon it and a few loose sheets of paper with two or three quill pens ready to hand,—some quaint old vellum-bound volumes and a brown earthenware bowl full of "Glory" roses were set just where they could catch the morning sunshine through the lattice window. One side of the room was lined with loaded bookshelves, and at its furthest end a wide arch of roughly hewn oak disclosed a smaller apartment where she slept. Here there was a quaint little four-poster bedstead, hung with quite priceless Jacobean tapestry, and a still more rare and beautiful work of art—an early Italian mirror, full length and framed in silver, a curio worth many hundreds of pounds. In this mirror Innocent had surveyed herself with more or less disfavour since her infancy. It was a mirror that had always been there—a mirror in which the wife of the Sieur Amadis must have often gazed upon her own reflection, and in which, after her, all the wives and daughters of the succeeding Jocelyns had seen their charms presented to their own admiration. The two old dower-chests which had been found in the upper chamber were placed on either side of the mirror, and held all the simple home-made garments which were Innocent's only wear. A special joy of hers lay in the fact that she knew the management of the secret sliding panel, and that she could at her own pleasure slip up the mysterious stairway with a book and be thus removed from all the household in a solitude which to her was ideal. To-night as she wandered up and down her room like a little distraught ghost, all the happy and romantic associations of the home she had loved and cherished for so many years seemed cut down like a sheaf of fair blossoms by a careless reaper,—a sordid and miserable taint was on her life, and she shuddered with mingled fear and grief as she realised that she had not even the simple privilege of ordinary baptism. She was a nameless waif, dependent on the charity of Farmer Jocelyn. True, the old man had grown to love her and she had loved him—ah!—let the many tender prayers offered up for him in this very room bear witness before the throne of God to her devotion to her "father" as she had thought him! And now—if what the doctors said was true—if he was soon to die—what would become of her? She wrung her little hands in unconscious agony.

"What shall I do?" she murmured, sobbingly—"I have no claim on him, or on anyone in the world! Dear God, what shall I do?"

Her restless walk up and down took her into her sleeping-chamber, and there she lit a candle and looked at herself in the old Italian mirror. A little woe-begone creature gazed sorrowfully back at her from its shining surface, with brimming eyes and quivering lips, and hair all tossed loosely away from a small sad face as pale as a watery moon, and she drew back from her own reflection with a gesture of repugnance.

"I am no use to anybody in any way," she said, despairingly—"I am not even good-looking. And Robin—poor foolish Robin!—called me 'lovely' this afternoon! He has no eyes!"

Then a sudden thought flew across her brain of Ned Landon. The tall powerful-looking brute loved her, she knew. Every look of his told her that his very soul pursued her with a reckless and relentless passion. She hated him,—she trembled even now as she pictured his dark face and burning eyes;—he had annoyed and worried her in a thousand ways—ways that were not sufficiently open in their offence to be openly complained of, though had Farmer Jocelyn's state of health given her less cause for anxiety she might have said something to him which would perhaps have opened his eyes to the situation. But not now,—not now could she appeal to anyone for protection from amorous insult. For who was she—what was she that she should resent it? She was nothing!—a mere stray child whose parents nobody knew,—without any lawful guardian to uphold her rights or assert her position. No wonder old Jocelyn had called her "wilding"—she was indeed a "wilding" or weed,—growing up unwanted in the garden of the world, destined to be pulled out of the soil where she had nourished and thrown contemptuously aside. A wretched sense of utter helplessness stole over her,—of incapacity, weakness and loneliness. She tried to think,—to see her way through the strange fog of untoward circumstance that had so suddenly enshrouded her. What would happen when Farmer Jocelyn died? For one thing she would have to quit Briar Farm. She could not stay in it when Robin Clifford was its master. He would marry, of course; he would be sure to marry; and there would be no place for her in his home. She would have to earn her bread; and the only way to do that would be to go out to service. She had a good store of useful domestic knowledge,—she could bake and brew, and wash and scour; she knew how to rear poultry and keep bees; she could spin and knit and embroider; indeed her list of household accomplishments would have startled any girl fresh out of a modern Government school, where things that are useful in life are frequently forgotten, and things that are not by any means necessary are taught as though they were imperative. One other accomplishment she had,—one that she hardly whispered to herself—she could write,—write what she herself called "nonsense." Scores of little poems and essays and stories were locked away in a small old bureau in a corner of the room,—confessions and expressions of pent-up feeling which, but for this outlet, would have troubled her brain and hindered her rest. They were mostly, as she frankly admitted to her own conscience, in the "style" of the Sieur Amadis, and were inspired by his poetic suggestions. She had no fond or exaggerated idea of their merit,—they were the result of solitary hours and long silences in which she had felt she must speak to someone,—exchange thoughts with someone,—or suffer an almost intolerable restraint. That "someone" was for her the long dead knight who had come to England in the train of the Duc d'Anjou. To him she spoke,—to him she told all her troubles—but to no one else did she ever breathe her thoughts, or disclose a line of what she had written. She had often wondered whether, if she sent these struggling literary efforts to a magazine or newspaper, they would be accepted and printed. But she never made the trial, for the reason that such newspaper literature as found its way into Briar Farm filled her with amazement, repulsion and disgust. There was nothing in any modern magazine that at all resembled the delicate, pointed and picturesque phraseology of the Sieur Amadis! Strange, coarse slang-words were used,—and the news of the day was slung together in loose ungrammatical sentences and chopped-up paragraphs of clumsy construction, lacking all pith and eloquence. So, repelled by the horror of twentieth-century "style," she had hidden her manuscripts deeper than ever in the old bureau, under little silk sachets of dried rose-leaves and lavender, as though they were love-letters or old lace. And when sometimes she shut herself up and read them over she felt like one of Hamlet's "guilty creatures sitting at a play." Her literary attempts seemed to reproach her for their inadequacy, and when she made some fresh addition to her store of written thoughts, her crimes seemed to herself doubled and weighted. She would often sit musing, with a little frown puckering her brow, wondering why she should be moved to write at all, yet wholly unable to resist the impulse.

To-night, however, she scarcely remembered these outbreaks of her dreaming fancy,—the sordid, hard, matter-of-fact side of life alone presented itself to her depressed imagination. She pictured herself going into service—as what? Kitchen-maid, probably,—she was not tall enough for a house-parlourmaid. House-parlourmaids were bound to be effective,—even dignified,—in height and appearance. She had seen one of these superior beings in church on Sundays—a slim, stately young woman with waved hair and a hat as fashionable as that worn by her mistress, the Squire's lady. With a deepening sense of humiliation, Innocent felt that her very limitation of inches was against her. Could she be a nursery-governess? Hardly; for though she liked good-tempered, well-behaved children, she could not even pretend to endure them when they were otherwise. Screaming, spiteful, quarrelsome children were to her less interesting than barking puppies or squealing pigs;—besides, she knew she could not be an efficient teacher of so much as one accomplishment. Music, for instance; what had she learned of music? She could play on an ancient spinet which was one of the chief treasures of the "best parlour" of Briar Farm, and she could sing old ballads very sweetly and plaintively,—but of "technique" and "style" and all the latter-day methods of musical acquirement and proficiency she was absolutely ignorant. Foreign languages were a dead letter to her—except old French. She could understand that; and Villon's famous verses, "Ou sont les neiges d'antan?" were as familiar to her as Herrick's "Come, my Corinna, let us go a-maying." But, on the whole, she was strangely and poorly equipped for the battle of life. Her knowledge of baking, brewing, and general housewifery would have stood her in good stead on some Colonial settlement,—but she had scarcely heard of these far-away refuges for the destitute, as she so seldom read the newspapers. Old Hugo Jocelyn looked upon the cheap daily press as "the curse of the country," and never willingly allowed a newspaper to come into the living-rooms of Briar Farm. They were relegated entirely to the kitchen and outhouses, where the farm labourers smoked over them and discussed them to their hearts' content, seldom venturing, however, to bring any item of so-called "news" to their master's consideration. If they ever chanced to do so, he would generally turn round upon them with a few cutting observations, such as,—

"How do you know it's true? Who gives the news? Where's the authority? And what do I care if some human brute has murdered his wife and blown out his own brains? Am I going to be any the better for reading such a tale? And if one Government is in or t'other out, what does it matter to me, or to any of you, so long as you can work and pay your way? The newspapers are always trying to persuade us to meddle in other folks's business;—I say, take care of your own affairs!—serve God and obey the laws of the country, and there won't be much going wrong with you! If you must read, read a decent book—something that will last—not a printed sheet full of advertisements that's fresh one day and torn up for waste paper the next!"

Under the sway of these prejudiced and arbitrary opinions, it was not possible for Innocent to have much knowledge of the world that lay outside Briar Farm. Sometimes she found Priscilla reading an old magazine or looking at a picture-paper, and she would borrow these and take them up to her own room surreptitiously for an hour or so, but she was always more or less pained and puzzled by their contents. It seemed to her that there were an extraordinary number of pictures of women with scarcely any clothes on, and she could not understand how they managed to be pictured at all in such scanty attire.

"Who are they?" she asked of Priscilla on one occasion—"And how is it that they are photographed like this? It must be so shameful for them!"

Priscilla explained as best she could that they were "dancers and the like."

"They lives by their legs, lovey!" she said soothingly—"It's only their legs that gits them their bread and butter, and I s'pose they're bound to show 'em off. Don't you worry 'ow they gits done! You'll never come across any of 'em!"

Innocent shut her sensitive mouth in a firm, proud line.

"I hope not!" she said.

And she felt as if she had almost wronged the sanctity of the little study which had formerly belonged to the Sieur Amadis by allowing such pictures to enter it. Of course she knew that dancers and actors, both male and female, existed,—a whole troupe of them came every year to the small theatre of the country town which, by breaking out into an eruption of new slate-roofed houses among the few remaining picturesque gables and tiles of an earlier period, boasted of its "advancement" some eight or ten miles away; but her "father," as she had thought him, had an insurmountable objection to what he termed "gadding abroad," and would not allow her to be seen even at the annual fair in the town, much less at the theatre. Moreover, it happened once that a girl in the village had run away with a strolling player and had gone on the stage,—an incident which had caused a great sensation in the tiny wood-encircled hamlet, and had brought all the old women of the place out to their doorsteps to croak and chatter, and prognosticate terrible things in the future for the eloping damsel. Innocent alone had ventured to defend her.

"If she loved the man she was right to go with him," she said.

"Oh, don't talk to me about love!" retorted Priscilla, shaking her head—"That's fancy rubbish! You know naught about it, dearie! On the stage indeed! Poor little hussy! She'll be on the street in a year or two, God help her!"

"What is that?" asked Innocent. "Is it to be a beggar?"

Priscilla made no reply beyond her usual sniff, which expressed volumes.

"If she has found someone who really cares for her, she will never want," Innocent went on, gently. "No man could be so cruel as to take away a girl from her home for his own pleasure and then leave her alone in the world. It would be impossible! You must not think such hard things, Priscilla!"

And, smiling, she had gone her way,—while Priscilla, shaking her head again, had looked after her, dimly wondering how long she would keep her faith in men.

On this still moonlight night, when the sadness of her soul seemed heavier than she could bear, her mind suddenly reverted to this episode. She thought of the girl who had run away; and remembered that no one in the village had ever seen or heard of her again, not even her patient hard-working parents to whom she had been a pride and joy.

"Now she had a real father and mother!" she mused, wistfully—"They loved her and would have done anything for her—yet she ran away from them with a stranger! I could never have done that! But I have no father and no mother—no one but Dad!—ah!—how I have loved Dad!—and yet I don't belong to him—and when he is dead—"

Here an overpowering sense of calamity swept over her, and dropping on her knees by the open window she laid her head on her folded arms and wept bitterly.

A voice called her in subdued accents once or twice, "Innocent!
Innocent!"—but she did not hear.

Presently a rose flung through the window fell on her bent head. She started up, alarmed.

"Innocent!"

Timidly she leaned out over the window-sill, looking down into the dusky green of clambering foliage, and saw a familiar face smiling up at her. She uttered a soft cry.

"Robin!"

"Yes—it's Robin!" he replied. "Innocent, what's the matter? I heard you crying!"

"No—no!" she answered, whisperingly—"It's nothing! Oh, Robin!—why are you here at this time of night? Do go away!"

"Not I!" and Robin placed one foot firmly on the tough and gnarled branch of a giant wistaria that was trained thickly all over that side of the house—"I'm coming up!"

"Oh, Robin!" And straightway Innocent ran back into her room, there to throw on a dark cloak which enveloped her so completely that only her small fair head showed above its enshrouding folds,—then returning slowly she watched with mingled interest and trepidation the gradual ascent of her lover, as, like another Romeo, he ascended the natural ladder formed by the thick rope-like twisted stems of the ancient creeper, grown sturdy with years and capable of bearing a much greater weight than that of the light and agile young man, who, with a smile of amused triumph, at last brought himself on a level with the window-sill and seated himself on its projecting ledge.

"I won't come in," he said, mischievously—"though I might!—if I dared! But I mustn't break into my lady's bower without her sovereign permission! I say, Innocent, how pretty you look! Don't be frightened!—dear, dear little girl,—you know I wouldn't touch so much as a hair of your sweet little head! I'm not a brute—and though I'm longing to kiss you I promise I won't even try!"

She moved away from him into the deeper shadow, but a ray of the moon showed him her face, very pale, with a deep sadness upon it which was strange and new to him.

"Tell me what's wrong?" he asked. "I've been too wide-awake and restless to go to bed,—so I came out in the garden just to breathe the air and look up at your window—and I heard a sound of sobbing like that of a little child who was badly hurt—Innocent!"

For she had suddenly stretched out her hands to him in impulsive appeal.

"Oh yes—that's true!—I am badly hurt, Robin!" she said, in low trembling accents—"So badly hurt that I think I shall never get over it!"

Surprised, he took her hands in his own with a gentle reverence, though to be able to draw her nearer to him thus, set his heart beating quickly.

"What is it?" he questioned her, anxiously, as all unconsciously she leaned closer towards him and he saw her soft eyes, wet with tears, shining upon him like stars in the gloom. "Is it bad news of Uncle Hugo?"

"Bad news of him, but worse of me!" she answered, sighingly. "Oh,
Robin, shall I tell you?"

He looked at her tenderly. The dark cloak about her had fallen a little aside, and showed a gleam of white neck emerging from snowy drapery underneath—it was, to his fancy, as though a white rose-petal had been suddenly and delicately unfurled. He longed to kiss that virginal whiteness, and trembled at the audacity of his own desire.

"Yes, dear, tell me!" he murmured, abstractedly, scarcely thinking of what he was saying, and only conscious of the thrill and ecstasy of love which seemed to him the one thing necessary for existence in earth or heaven.

And so, with her hands still warmly held in his, she told him all. In a sad voice, with lowered eyes and quivering lips, she related her plaintive little history, disclosing her unbaptised shame,—her unowned parentage,—her desperately forlorn and lonely condition. And Robin listened—amazed and perplexed.

"It seems to be all my fault," concluded Innocent, sorrowfully—"and yet it is not really so! Of course I ought never to have been born—but I couldn't help it, could I? And now it seems quite wrong for me to even live!—I am not wanted—and ever since I was twelve years old your Uncle has only kept me out of charity—"

But at this Robin started as though some one had struck him.

"Innocent!" he exclaimed—"Do not say such a thing!—do not think it!
Uncle Hugo has LOVED you!—and you—you have loved him!"

She drew her hands away from his and covered her face.

"I know!—I know!" and her tears fell fast again—"But I am not his, and he is not mine!"

Robin was silent. The position was so unexpected and bewildering that he hardly knew what to say. But chiefly he felt that he must try and comfort this little weeping angel, who, so far as he was concerned, held his life subservient to her charm. He began talking softly and cheerily:

"Why should it matter so much?" he said. "If you do not know who you are—if none of us know—it may be more fortunate for you than you can imagine! We cannot tell! Your own father may claim you—your own mother—such things are quite possible! You may be like the princess of a fairy-tale—rich people may come and take you away from Briar Farm and from me—and you will be too grand to think of us any more, and I shall only be the poor farmer in your eyes—you will wonder how you could ever have spoken to me—"

"Robin!" Her hands dropped from her face and she looked at him in reproachful sadness. "Why do you say this? You know it could never be true!—never! If I had a father who cared for me, he would not have forgotten—and my mother, if she were a true mother, would have tried to find me long ago! No, Robin!—I ought to have died when I was a baby. No one wants me—I am a deserted child—'base-born,' as your Uncle Hugo says,—and of course he is right—but the sin of it is not mine!"

She had such a pitiful, fragile and fair appearance, standing half in shadow and half in the mystic radiance of the moon, that Robin Clifford's heart ached with love and longing for her.

"Sin!" he echoed—"Sin and you have never met each other! You are like your name, innocent of all evil! Oh, Innocent! If you could only care for me as I care for you!"

She gave a shivering sigh.

"Do you—can you care?—NOW?" she asked.

"Of course! What is there in all this story that can change my love for you? That you are not my cousin?—that my uncle is not your own father? What does that matter to me? You are someone else's child, and if we never know who that someone is, why should we vex ourselves about it? You are you!—you are Innocent!—the sweetest, dearest little girl that ever lived, and I adore you! What difference does it make that you are not Uncle Hugo's daughter?"

"It makes a great difference to me," she answered, sadly—"I do not belong any more to the Sieur Amadis de Jocelin!"

Robin stared, amazed—then smiled.

"Why, Innocent!" he exclaimed—"Surely you're not worrying your mind over that old knight, dead and gone more than three hundred years ago! Dear little goose! How on earth does he come into this trouble of yours?"

"He comes in everywhere!" she replied, clasping and unclasping her hands nervously as she spoke. "You don't know, Robin!—you would never understand! But I have loved the Sieur Amadis ever since I can remember;—I have talked to him and studied with him!—I have read his old books, and all the poems he wrote—and he seemed to be my friend! I thought I was born of his kindred—and I was proud of it—and I felt it would be my duty to live at Briar Farm always because he would wish his line quite unbroken—and I think—perhaps—yes, I think I might have married you and been a good wife to you just for his sake!—and now it is all spoiled!—because though you will be the master of Briar Farm, you will not be the lineal descendant of the Sieur Amadis! No,—it is finished!—all finished with your Uncle Hugo!—and the doctors say he can only live a year!"

Her grief was so touching and pathetic that Robin could not find it in his heart to make a jest of the romance she had woven round the old French knight whose history had almost passed into a legend. After all, what she said was true—the line of the Jocelyn family had been kept intact through three centuries till now—and a direct heir had always inherited Briar Farm. He himself had taken a certain pride in thinking that Uncle Hugo's "love-child," as he had believed her to be, was at any rate, love-child or no, born of the Jocelyn blood—and that when he married her, as he hoped and fully purposed to do, he would discard his own name of Clifford and take that of Jocelyn, in order to keep the continuity of associations unbroken as far as possible. All these ideas were put to flight by Innocent's story, and, as the position became more evident to him, the smiling expression on his face changed to one of gravity.

"Dear Innocent," he said, at last—"Don't cry! It cuts me to the heart! I would give my very life to save you from a sorrow—you know I would! If you ever thought, as you say, that you could or would marry me for the sake of the Sieur Amadis, you might just as well marry me now, even though the Sieur Amadis is out of it. I would make you so happy! I would indeed! And no one need ever know that you are not really the lineal descendant of the Knight—"

She interrupted him.

"Priscilla knows," she said—"and, no matter how you look at it, I am 'base-born.' Your Uncle Hugo has let all the village folk think I am his illegitimate child—and that is 'base-born' of itself. Oh, it is cruel! Even you thought so, didn't you?"

Robin hesitated.

"I did not know, dear," he answered, gently—"I fancied—"

"Do not deny it, Robin!" she said, mournfully. "You did think so! Well, it's true enough, I suppose!—I am 'base-born'—but your uncle is not my father. He is a good, upright man—you can always be proud of him! He has not sinned,—though he has burdened me with the shame of sin! I think that is unfair,—but I must bear it somehow, and I will try to be brave. I'm glad I've told you all about it,—and you are very kind to have taken it so well—and to care for me still—but I shall never marry you, Robin!—never! I shall never bring my 'base-born' blood into the family of Jocelyn!"

His heart sank as he heard her—and involuntarily he stretched out his arms in appeal.

"Innocent!" he murmured—"Don't be hard upon me! Think a little longer before you leave me without any hope! It means so much to my life! Surely you cannot be cruel? Do you care for me less than you care for that old knight buried under his own effigy in the garden? Will you not think kindly of a living man?—a man who loves you beyond all things? Oh, Innocent!—be gentle, be merciful!"

She came to him and took his hands in her own.

"It is just because I am kind and gentle and merciful," she said, in her sweet, grave accents, "that I will not marry you, dear! I know I am right,—and you will think so too, in time. For the moment you imagine me to be much better and prettier than I am—and that there is no one like me!—poor Robin!—you are blind!—there are so many sweet and lovely girls, well born, with fathers and mothers to care for them—and you, with your good looks and kind ways, could marry any one of them—and you will, some day! Good-night, dear! You have stayed here a long time talking to me!—just suppose you were seen sitting on this window-ledge so late!—it is past midnight!—what would be said of me!"

"What could be said?" demanded Robin, defiantly. "I came up here of my own accord,—the blame would be mine!"

She shook her head sadly, smiling a little.

"Ah, Robin! The man is never blamed! It's always the woman's fault!"

"Where's your fault to-night?" he asked.

"Oh, most plain!" she answered. "When I saw you coming, I ought to have shut the window, drawn the curtains, and left you to clamber down the wall again as fast as you clambered up! But I wanted to tell you what had happened—and how everything had changed for me—and now—now that you know all—good-night!"

He looked at her longingly. If she would only show some little sign of tenderness!—if he might just kiss her hand, he thought! But she withdrew into the shadow, and he had no excuse for lingering.

"Good-night!" he said, softly. "Good-night, my angel Innocent!
Good-night, my little love!"

She made no response and moved slowly backward into the room. But as he reluctantly left his point of vantage and began to descend, stepping lightly from branch to branch of the accommodating wistaria, he saw the shadowy outline of her figure once more as she stretched out a hand and closed the lattice window, drawing a curtain across it. With the drawing of that curtain the beauty of the summer night was over for him, and poising himself lightly on a tough stem which was twisted strongly enough to give him adequate support and which projected some four feet above the smooth grass below, he sprang down. Scarcely had he touched the ground when a man, leaping suddenly out of a thick clump of bushes near that side of the house, caught him in a savage grip and shook him with all the fury of an enraged mastiff shaking a rat. Taken thus unawares, and rendered almost breathless by the swiftness of the attack, Clifford struggled in the grasp of his assailant and fought with him desperately for a moment without any idea of his identity,—then as by a dexterous twist of body he managed to partially extricate himself, he looked up and saw the face of Ned Landon, livid and convulsed with passion.

"Landon!" he gasped—"What's the matter with you? Are you mad?"

"Yes!" answered Landon, hoarsely—"And enough to make me so! You devil!
You've ruined the girl!"

With a rapid movement, unexpected by his antagonist, Clifford disengaged himself and stood free.

"You lie!" he said—"And you shall pay for it! Come away from the house and fight like a man! Come into the grass meadow yonder, where no one can see or hear us. Come!"

Landon paused, drawing his breath thickly, and looking like a snarling beast baulked of its prey.

"That's a trick!" he said, scornfully—"You'll run away!"

"Come!" repeated Clifford, vehemently—"You're more likely to run away than I am! Come!"

Landon glanced him over from head to foot—the moonbeams fell brightly on his athletic figure and handsome face—then turned on his heel.

"No, I won't!" he said, curtly—"I've done all I want to do for to-night. I've shaken you like the puppy you are! To-morrow we'll settle our differences."

For all answer Clifford sprang at him and struck him smartly across the face. In another moment both men were engaged in a fierce tussle, none the less deadly because so silent. A practised boxer and wrestler, Clifford grappled more and more closely with the bigger but clumsier man, dragging him steadily inch by inch further away from the house as they fought. More desperate, more determined became the struggle, till by two or three adroit manoeuvres Clifford got his opponent under him and bore him gradually to the ground, where, kneeling on his chest, he pinned him down.

"Let me go!" muttered Landon—"You're killing me!"

"Serve you right!" answered Clifford—"You scoundrel! My uncle shall know of this!"

"Tell him what you like!" retorted Landon, faintly—"I don't care! Get off my chest!—you're suffocating me!"

Clifford slightly relaxed the pressure of his hands and knees.

"Will you apologise?" he demanded.

"Apologise?—for what?"

"For your insolence to me and my cousin."

"Cousin be hanged!" snarled Landon—"She's no more your cousin than I am—she's only a nameless bastard! I heard her tell you so! And fine airs she gives herself on nothing!"

"You miserable spy!" and Clifford again held him down as in a vise—"Whatever you heard is none of your business! Will you apologise?"

"Oh, I'll apologise, if you like!—anything to get your weight off me!"—and Landon made an abortive effort to rise. "But I keep my own opinion all the same!"

Slowly Robin released him, and watched him as he picked himself up, with an air of mingled scorn and pity. Landon laughed forcedly, passing one hand across his forehead and staring in a dazed fashion at the shadows cast on the ground by the moon.

"Yes—I keep my own opinion!" he repeated, stupidly. "You've got the better of me just now—but you won't always, my pert Cock Robin! You won't always. Don't you think it! Briar Farm and I may part company—but there's a bigger place than Briar Farm—there's the world!—that's a wide field and plenty of crops growing on it! And the men that sow those kind of crops and reap them and bring them in, are better farmers than you'll ever be! As for your girl!"—here his face darkened and he shook his fist towards the lattice window behind which slept the unconscious cause of the quarrel—"You can keep her! A nice 'Innocent' SHE is!—talking with a man in her bedroom after midnight!—why, I wouldn't have her as a gift—not now!"

Choking with rage, Clifford sprang towards him again—Landon stepped back.

"Hands off!" he said—"Don't touch me! I'm in a killing mood! I've a knife on me—you haven't. You're the master—I'm the man—and I'll play fair! I've my future to think of, and I don't want to start with a murder!"

With this, he turned his back and strode off, walking somewhat unsteadily like a blind man feeling his way.

Clifford stood for a moment, inert. The angry blood burned in his face,—his hands were involuntarily clenched,—he was impatient with himself for having, as he thought, let Landon off too easily. He saw at once the possibility of mischief brewing, and hastily considered how it could best be circumvented.

"The simplest way out of it is to make a clean breast of everything," he decided, at last. "Tomorrow I'll see Uncle Hugo early in the morning and tell him just what has happened."

Under the influence of this resolve, he gradually calmed down and re-entered the house. And the moonlight, widening and then waning over the smooth and peaceful meadows of Briar Farm, had it all its own way for the rest of the night, and as it filtered through the leafy branches of the elms and beeches which embowered the old tomb of the Sieur Amadis de Jocelin it touched with a pale glitter the stone hands of his sculptured effigy,—hands that were folded prayerfully above the motto,—"Mon coeur me soutien!"

CHAPTER V

As early as six o'clock the next morning Innocent was up and dressed, and, hastening down to the kitchen, busied herself, as was her usual daily custom, in assisting Priscilla with the housework and the preparation for breakfast. There was always plenty to do, and as she moved quickly to and fro, fulfilling the various duties she had taken upon herself and which she performed with unobtrusive care and exactitude, the melancholy forebodings of the past night partially cleared away from her mind. Yet there was a new expression on her face—one of sadness and seriousness unfamiliar to its almost child-like features, and it was not easy for her to smile in her ordinary bright way at the round of scolding which Priscilla administered every morning to the maids who swept and scrubbed and dusted and scoured the kitchen till no speck of dirt was anywhere visible, till the copper shone like mirrors, and the tables were nearly as smooth as polished silver or ivory. Going into the dairy where pans of new milk stood ready for skimming, and looking out for a moment through the lattice window, she saw old Hugo Jocelyn and Robin Clifford walking together across the garden, engaged in close and earnest conversation. A little sigh escaped her as she thought: "They are talking about me!"—then, on a sudden impulse, she went back into the kitchen where Priscilla was for the moment alone, the other servants having dispersed into various quarters of the house, and going straight up to her said, simply—

"Priscilla dear, why did you never tell me that I wasn't Dad's own daughter?"

Priscilla started violently, and her always red face turned redder,—then, with an effort to recover herself, she answered—

"Lord, lovey! How you frightened me! Why didn't I tell you? Well, in the first place, 'twasn't none of my business, and in the second, 'twouldn't have done any good if I had."

Innocent was silent, looking at her with a piteous intensity.

"And who is it that's told you now?" went on Priscilla, nervously—"some meddlin' old fool—"

Innocent raised her hand, warningly.

"Hush, Priscilla! Dad himself told me—"

"Well, he might just as well have kept a still tongue in his head," retorted Priscilla, sharply. "He's kept it for eighteen years, an' why he should let it go wagging loose now, the Lord only knows! There's no making out the ways of men,—they first plays the wise and silent game like barn-door owls,—then all on a suddint-like they starts cawing gossip for all they're worth, like crows. And what's the good of tellin' ye, anyway?"

"No good, perhaps," answered Innocent, sorrowfully—"but it's right I should know. You see, I'm not a child any more—I'm eighteen—that's a woman—and a woman ought to know what she must expect more or less in her life—"

Priscilla leaned on the newly scrubbed kitchen table and looked across at the girl with a compassionate expression.

"What a woman must expect in life is good 'ard knocks and blows," she said—"unless she can get a man to look arter her what's not of the general kicking spirit. Take my advice, dearie! You marry Mr. Robin!—as good a boy as ever breathed—he'll be a kind fond 'usband to ye, and arter all that's what a woman thrives best on—kindness—an' you've 'ad it all your life up to now—"

"Priscilla," interrupted Innocent, decidedly—"I cannot marry Robin! You know I cannot! A poor nameless girl like me!—why, it would be a shame to him in after-years. Besides, I don't love him—and it's wicked to marry a man you don't love."

Priscilla smothered a sound between a grunt and a sigh.

"You talks a lot about love, child," she said—"but I'm thinkin' you don't know much about it. Them old books an' papers you found up in the secret room are full of nonsense, I'm pretty sure—an' if you believes that men are always sighin' an' dyin' for a woman, you're mistaken—yes, you are, lovey! They goes where they can be made most comfortable—an' it don't matter what sort o' woman gives the comfort so long as they gits it."

Innocent smiled, faintly.

"You don't know anything about it, Priscilla," she answered—"You were never married."

"Thank the Lord and His goodness, no!" said Priscilla, with an emphatic sniff—"I've never been troubled with the whimsies of a man, which is worse than all the megrims of a woman any day. I've looked arter Mr. Jocelyn in a way—but he's no sort of a man to worry about—he just goes reglar to the farmin'—an' that's all—a decent creature always, an' steady as his own oxen what pulls the plough. An' when he's gone, if go he must, I'll look arter you an' Mr. Robin, an' please God, I'll dance your babies on my old knees—" Here she broke off and turned her head away. Innocent ran to her, surprised.

"Why, Priscilla, you're crying!" she exclaimed—"Don't do that! Why should you cry?"

"Why indeed!" blubbered Priscilla—"Except that I'm a doiterin' fool! I can't abear the thoughts of you turnin' yer back on the good that God gives ye, an' floutin' Mr. Robin, who's the best sort o' man that ever could fall to the lot of a little tender maid like you—why, lovey, you don't know the wickedness o' this world, nor the ways of it—an' you talks about love as if it was somethin' wonderful an' far away, when here it is at yer very feet for the pickin' up! What's the good of all they books ye've bin readin' if they don't teach ye that the old knight you're fond of got so weary of the world that arter tryin' everythin' in turn he found nothin' better than to marry a plain, straight country wench and settle down in Briar Farm for all his days? Ain't that the lesson he's taught ye?"

She paused, looking hopefully at the girl through her tears—but Innocent's small fair face was pale and calm, though her eyes shone with a brilliancy as of suppressed excitement.

"No," she said—"He has not taught me that at all. He came here to 'seek forgetfulness'—so it is said in the words he carved on the panel in his study,—but we do not know that he ever really forgot. He only 'found peace,' and peace is not happiness—except for the very old."

"Peace is not happiness!" re-echoed Priscilla, staring—"That's a queer thing to say, lovey! What do you call being happy?"

"It is difficult to explain"—and a swift warm colour flew over the girl's cheeks, expressing some wave of hidden feeling—"Your idea of happiness and mine must be so different!" She smiled—"Dear, good Priscilla! You are so much more easily contented than I am!"

Priscilla looked at her with a great tenderness in her dim old grey eyes.

"See here, lovey!" she said—"You're just like a young bird on the edge of a nest ready to fly. You don't know the world nor the ways of it. Oh, my dear, it ain't all gold harvests and apples ripening rosy in the sun! You've lived all your life in the open country, and so you've always had the good God near you,—but there's places where the houses stand so close together that the sky can hardly make a patch of blue between the smoking chimneys—like London, for instance—ah!—that's where you'd find what the world's like, lovey!—where you feels so lonesome that you wonders why you ever were born—"

"I wonder that already," interrupted the girl, quickly. "Don't worry me, dear! I have so much to think about—my life seems so altered and strange—I hardly understand myself—and I don't know what I shall do with my future—but I cannot—I will not marry Robin!"

She turned away quickly then, to avoid further discussion.

A little later she went into the quaint oak-panelled room where the fateful disclosures of the past night had been revealed to her. Here breakfast was laid, and the latticed window was set wide open, admitting the sweet scent of stocks and mignonette with every breath of the morning air. She stood awhile looking out on the gay beauty of the garden, and her eyes unconsciously filled with tears.

"Dear home!" she murmured—"Home that is not mine—that never will be mine! How I have loved you!—how I shall always love you!"

A slow step behind her interrupted her meditations—and she looked around with a smile as timid as it was tender. There was her "Dad"—the same as ever,—yet now to her mind so far removed from her that she hesitated a moment before giving him her customary good-morning greeting. A pained contraction of his brow showed her that he felt this little difference, and she hastened to make instant amends.

"Dear Dad!" she said, softly,—and she put her soft arms about him and kissed his cheek—"How are you this morning? Did you sleep well?"

He took her arms from his shoulders, and held her for a moment, looking at her scrutinisingly from under his shaggy brows.

"I did not sleep at all," he answered her—"I lay broad awake, thinking of you. Thinking of you, my little innocent, fatherless, motherless lamb! And you, child!—you did not sleep so well as you should have done, talking with Robin half the night out of window!"

She coloured deeply. He smiled and pinched her crimsoning cheek, apparently well pleased.

"No harm, no harm!" he said—"Just two young doves cooing among the leaves at mating time! Robin has told me all about it. Now listen, child!—I'm away to-day to the market town—there's seed to buy and crops to sell—I'll take Ned Landon with me—" he paused, and an odd expression of sternness and resolve clouded his features—"Yes!—I'll take Ned Landon with me—he's shrewd enough when he's sober—and he's cunning enough, too, for that matter!—yes, I'll take him with me. We'll be off in the dog-cart as soon as breakfast's done. My time's getting short, but I'll attend to my own business as long as I can—I'll look after Briar Farm till I die—and I'll die in harness. There's plenty of work to do yet—plenty of work; and while I'm away you can settle up things—"

Here he broke off, and his eyes grew fixed in a sudden vacant stare. Innocent, frightened at his unnatural look, laid her hand caressingly on his arm.

"Yes, dear Dad!" she said, soothingly—"What is it you wish me to do?"

The stare faded from his eyeballs, and his face softened.

"Settle up things," he repeated, slowly, and with emphasis—"Settle up things with Robin. No more beating about the bush! You talked to him long enough out of window last night, and mind you!—somebody was listening! That means mischief! I don't blame you, poor wilding!—but remember, SOMEBODY WAS LISTENING! Now think of that and of your good name, child!—settle with Robin and we'll have the banns put up next Sunday."

While he thus spoke the warm rose of her cheeks faded to an extreme pallor,—her very lips grew white and set. Her hurrying thoughts clamoured for utterance,—she could have expressed in passionate terms her own bitter sense of wrong and unmerited shame, but pity for the old man's worn and haggard look of pain held her silent. She saw and felt that he was not strong enough to bear any argument or opposition in his present mood, so she made no sort of reply, not even by a look or a smile. Quietly she went to the breakfast table, and busied herself in preparing his morning meal. He followed her and sat heavily down in his usual chair, watching her furtively as she poured out the tea.

"Such little white hands, aren't they?" he said, coaxingly, touching her small fingers when she gave him his cup—"Eh, wilding? The prettiest lily flowers I ever saw! And one of them will look all the prettier for a gold wedding-ring upon it! Ay, ay! We'll have the banns put up on Sunday."

Still she did not speak; once she turned away her head to hide the tears that involuntarily rose to her eyes. Old Hugo, meanwhile, began to eat his breakfast with the nervous haste of a man who takes his food more out of custom than necessity. Presently he became irritated at her continued silence.

"You heard what I said, didn't you?" he demanded—"And you understood?"

She looked full at him with sorrowful, earnest eyes.

"Yes, Dad. I heard. And I understood."

He nodded and smiled, and appeared to take it for granted that she had received an order which it was her bounden duty to obey. The sun shone brilliantly in upon the beautiful old room, and through the open window came a pleasant murmuring of bees among the mignonette, and the whistle of a thrush in an elm-tree sounded with clear and cheerful persistence. Hugo Jocelyn looked at the fair view of the flowering garden and drew his breath hard in a quick sigh.

"It's a fine day," he said—"and it's a fine world! Ay, that it is! I'm not sure there's a better anywhere! And it's a bit difficult to think of going down for ever into the dark and the cold, away from the sunshine and the sky—but it's got to be done!"—here he clenched his fist and brought it down on the table with a defiant blow—"It's got to be done, and I've got to do it! But not yet—not quite yet!—I've plenty of time and chance to stop mischief!"

He rose, and drawing himself up to his full height looked for the moment strong and resolute. Taking one or two slow turns up and down the room, he suddenly stopped in front of Innocent.

"We shall be away all day," he said—"I and Ned Landon. Do you hear?"

There was something not quite natural in the tone of his voice, and she glanced up at him in a little surprise.

"Well, what are you wondering at?" he demanded, a trifle testily—"You need not open your eyes at me like that!"

She smiled faintly.

"Did I open my eyes, Dad?" she said—"I did not mean to be curious. I only thought—"

"You only thought what?" he asked, with sudden heat—"What did you think?"

"Oh, just about your being away all day in the town—you will be so tired—"

"Tired? Not I!—not when there's work to do and business to settle!" He rubbed his hands together with a kind of energetic expectancy. "Work to do and business to settle!" he repeated—"Yes, little girl! There's not much time before me, and I must leave everything in good order for you and Robin."

She dropped her head, and the expression of her face was hidden from him.

"You and Robin!" he said, again. "Ay, ay! Briar Farm will be in the best of care when I'm dead, and it'll thrive well with young love and hope to keep it going!" He came up to her and took one of her little hands in his own. "There, there!" he went on, patting it gently—"We'll think no more of trouble and folly and mistakes in life; it'll be all joy and peace for you, child! Take God's good blessing of an honest lad's love and be happy with it! And when I come home to-night,"—he paused and appeared to think for a moment—"yes!—when I come home, let me hear that it's all clear and straight between you—and we'll have the banns put up on Sunday!"

She said not a word in answer. Her hand slid passively from his hold,—and she never looked up. He hesitated for a moment—then walked towards the door.

"You'll have all the day to yourself with Robin," he added, glancing back at her—"There'll be no spies about the place, and no one listening, as there was last night!"

She sprang up from her chair, moved at last by an impulse of indignation.

"Who was it?" she asked—"I said nothing wrong—and I do not care!—but who was it?"

A curious strained look came into old Hugo's eyes as he answered—

"Ned Landon."

She looked amazed,—then scared.

"Ned Landon?"

"Ay! Ned Landon. He hasn't the sweetest of tempers and he isn't always sober. He's a bit in the way sometimes,—ay, ay!—a bit in the way! But he's a good farm hand for all that,—and his word stands for something! I'd rather he hadn't heard you and Robin talking last night—but what's done is done, and it's a mischief easy mended—"

"Why, what mischief can there be?" the girl demanded, her colour coming and going quickly—"And why should he have listened? It's a mean trick to spy upon others!"

He smiled indulgently.

"Of course it's a mean trick, child!—but there's a good many men—and women too—who are just made up of mean tricks and nothing more. They spend their lives in spying upon their neighbours and interfering in everybody's business. You'd soon find that out, my girl, if you lived in the big world that lies outside Briar Farm! Ay!—and that reminds me—" Here he came from the door back into the room again, and going to a quaint old upright oaken press that stood in one corner, he unlocked it and took out a roll of bank-notes. These he counted carefully over to himself, and folding them up put them away in his breast pocket. "Now I'm ready!" he said—"Ready for all I've got to do! Good-bye, my wilding!" He approached her, and lifting her small face between his hands, kissed it tenderly. "Bless thee! No child of my own could be dearer than thou art! All I want now is to leave thee in safe and gentle keeping when I die. Think of this and be good to Robin!"

She trembled under his caress, and her heart was full of speechless sorrow. She longed to yield to his wishes,—she knew that if she did so she would give him happiness and greater resignation to the death which confronted him; and she also knew that if she could make up her mind to marry Robin Clifford she would have the best and the tenderest of husbands. And Briar Farm,—the beloved old home—would be hers!—her very own! Her children would inherit it and play about the fair and fruitful fields as she had done—they, too, could be taught to love the memory of the old knight, the Sieur Amadis de Jocelin—ah!—but surely it was the spirit of the Sieur Amadis himself that held her back and prevented her from doing his name and memory grievous wrong! She was not of his blood or race—she was nameless and illegitimate,—no good could come of her engrafting herself like a weed upon a branch of the old noble stock—the farm would cease to prosper.

So she thought and so she felt, in her dreamy imaginative way, and though she allowed old Hugo to leave her without vexing him by any decided opposition to his plans, she was more than ever firmly resolved to abide by her own interior sense of what was right and fitting. She heard the wheels of the dog-cart grating the gravel outside the garden gate, and an affectionate impulse moved her to go and see her "Dad" off. As she made her appearance under the rose-covered porch of the farm-house door, she perceived Landon, who at once pulled off his cap with an elaborate and exaggerated show of respect.

"Good-morning, Miss Jocelyn!"

He emphasized the surname with a touch of malice. She coloured, but replied "Good-morning" with a sweet composure. He eyed her askance, but had no opportunity for more words, as old Hugo just then clambered up into the dog-cart, and took the reins of the rather skittish young mare which was harnessed to it.

"Come on, Landon!" he shouted, impatiently—"No time for farewells!" Then, as Landon jumped up beside him, he smiled, seeing the soft, wistful face of the girl watching him from beneath a canopy of roses.

"Take care of the house while I'm gone!" he called to her;—"You'll find Robin in the orchard."

He laid the lightest flick of the whip on the mare's ears, and she trotted rapidly away.

Innocent stood a moment gazing after the retreating vehicle till it disappeared,—then she went slowly into the house. Robin was in the orchard, was he? Well!—he had plenty of work to do there, and she would not disturb him. She turned away from the sunshine and flowers and made her way upstairs to her own room. How quiet and reposeful it looked! It was a beloved shrine, full of sweet memories and dreams,—there would never be any room like it in the world for her, she well knew. Listlessly she sat down at the table, and turned over the pages of an old book she had been reading, but her eyes were not upon it.

"I wonder!" she said, half aloud—then paused.

The thought in her mind was too daring for utterance. She was picturing the possibility of going quietly away from Briar Farm all alone, and trying to make a name and career for herself through the one natural gift she fancied she might possess, a gift which nowadays is considered almost as common as it was once admired and rare. To be a poet and romancist,—a weaver of wonderful thoughts into musical language,—this seemed to her the highest of all attainment; the proudest emperor of the most powerful nation on earth was, to her mind, far less than Shakespeare,—and inferior to the simplest French lyrist of old time that ever wrote a "chanson d'amour." But the doubt in her mind was whether she, personally, had any thoughts worth expressing,—any ideas which the world might be the happier or the better for knowing and sharing? She drew a long breath,—the warm colour flushed her cheeks and then faded, leaving her very pale,—the whole outlook of her life was so barren of hope or promise that she dared not indulge in any dream of brighter days. On the face of it, there seemed no possible chance of leaving Briar Farm without some outside assistance—she had no money, and no means of obtaining any. Then,—even supposing she could get to London, she knew no one there,—she had no friends. Sighing wearily, she opened a deep drawer in the table at which she sat, and took out a manuscript—every page of it so neatly written as to be almost like copper-plate—and set herself to reading it steadily. There were enough written sheets to make a good-sized printed volume—and she read on for more than an hour. When she lifted her eyes at last they were eager and luminous.

"Perhaps," she half whispered—"perhaps there is something in it after all!—something just a little new and out of the ordinary—but—how shall I ever know!"

Putting the manuscript by with a lingering care, she went to the window and looked out. The peaceful scene was dear and familiar—and she already felt a premonition of the pain she would have to endure in leaving so sweet and safe a home. Her thoughts gradually recurred to the old trouble—Robin, and Robin's love for her,—Robin, who, if she married him, would spend his life gladly in the effort to make her happy,—where in the wide world would she find a better, truer-hearted man? And yet—a curious reluctance had held her back from him, even when she had believed herself to be the actual daughter of Hugo Jocelyn,—and now—now, when she knew she was nothing but a stray foundling, deserted by her own parents and left to the care of strangers, she considered it would be nothing short of shame and disgrace to him, were she to become his wife.

"I can always be his friend," she said to herself—"And if I once make him understand clearly how much better it is for us to be like brother and sister, he will see things in the right way. And when he marries I am sure to be fond of his wife and children—and—and—it will be ever so much happier for us all! I'll go and talk to him now."

She ran downstairs and out across the garden, and presently made a sudden appearance in the orchard—a little vision of white among the russet-coloured trees with their burden of reddening apples. Robin was there alone—he was busied in putting up a sturdy prop under one of the longer branches of a tree heavily laden with fruit. He saw her and smiled—but went on with his work.

"Are you very busy?" she asked, approaching him almost timidly.

"Just now, yes! In a moment, no! We shall lose this big bough in the next high wind if I don't take care."

She waited—watching the strength and dexterity of his hands and arms, and the movements of his light muscular figure. In a little while he had finished all he had to do—and turning to her said, laughingly—

"Now I am at your service! You look very serious!—grave as a little judge, and quite reproachful! What have I done?—or what has anybody done that you should almost frown at me on this bright sun-shiny morning?"

She smiled in response to his gay, questioning look.

"I'm sorry I have such a depressing aspect," she said—"I don't feel very happy, and I suppose my face shows it."

He was silent for a minute or two, watching her with a grave tenderness in his eyes.

By and by he spoke, gently—

"Come and stroll about a bit with me through the orchard,—it will cheer you to see the apples hanging in such rosy clusters among the grey-green leaves. Nothing prettier in all the world, I think!—and they are just ripening enough to be fragrant. Come, dear! Let us talk our troubles out!"

She walked by his side, mutely—and they moved slowly together under the warm scented boughs, through which the sunlight fell in broad streams of gold, making the interlacing shadows darker by contrast. There was a painful throbbing in her throat,—the tension of struggling tears which strove for an outlet,—but gradually the sweet influences of the air and sunshine did good work in calming her nerves, and she was quite composed when Robin spoke again.

"You see, dear, I know quite well what is worrying you. I'm worried myself—and I'd better tell you all about it. Last night—" he paused.

She looked up at him, quickly.

"Last night?—Well?"

"Well—Ned Landon was in hiding in the bushes under your window—and he must have been there all the time we were talking together. How or why he came there I cannot imagine. But he heard a good deal—and when you shut your window he was waiting for me. Directly I got down he pounced on me like a tramp-thief, and—now there!—don't look so frightened!—he said something that I couldn't stand, so we had a jolly good fight. He got the worst of it, I can tell you! He's stiff and unfit to work to-day—that's why Uncle Hugo has taken him to the town. I told the whole story to Uncle Hugo this morning—and he says I did quite right. But it's a bore to have to go on 'bossing' Landon—he bears me a grudge, of course—and I foresee it will be difficult to manage him. He can hardly be dismissed—the other hands would want to know why; no man has ever been dismissed from Briar Farm without good and fully explained reasons. This time no reasons could be given, because your name might come in, and I won't have that—"

"Oh, Robin, it's all my fault!" she exclaimed. "If you would only let me go away! Help me—do help me to go away!"

He stared at her, amazed.

"Go away!" he echoed—"You! Why, Innocent, how can you think of such a thing! You are the very life and soul of the place—how can you talk of going away! No, no!—not unless"—here he drew nearer and looked at her steadily and tenderly in the eyes—"not unless you will let me take you away!—just for a little while!—as a bridegroom takes a bride—on a honeymoon of love and sunshine and roses—"

He stopped, deterred by her look of sadness.

"Dear Robin," she said, very gently—"would you marry a girl who cannot love you as a wife should love? Won't you understand that if I could and did love you I should be happier than I am?—though now, even if I loved you with all my heart, I would not marry you. How could I? I am nothing—I have no name—no family—and can you think that I would bring shame upon you? No, Robin!—never! I know what your Uncle Hugo wishes—and oh!—if I could only make him happy I would do it!—but I cannot—it would be wrong of me—and you would regret it—"

"I should never regret it," he interrupted her, quickly. "If you would be my wife, Innocent, I should be the proudest, gladdest man alive! Ah, dear!—do put all your fancies aside and try to realise what good you would be doing to the old man if he felt quite certain that you would be the little mistress of the old farm he loves so much—I will not speak of myself—you do not care for me!—but for him—"

She looked up at him with a sudden light in her eyes.

"Could we not pretend?" she asked.

"What do you mean?"

"Why, pretend that we're engaged—just to satisfy him. Couldn't you make things easy for me that way?"

"I don't quite understand," he said, with a puzzled air—"How would it make things easy?"

"Why, don't you see?" and she spoke with hurried eagerness—"When he comes home to-night let him think it's all right—and then—then I'll run away by myself—and it will be my fault—"

"Innocent! What are you talking about?"—and he flushed with vexation. "My dear girl, if you dislike me so much that you would rather run away than marry me, I won't say another word about it. I'll manage to smooth things over with my uncle for the present—just to prevent his fretting himself—and you shall not be worried—"

"You must not be worried either," she said. "You will not understand, and you do not think!—but just suppose it possible that, after all, my own parents did remember me at last and came to look after me—and that they were perhaps dreadful wicked people—"

Robin smiled.

"The man who brought you here was a gentleman," he said—"Uncle Hugo told me so this morning, and said he was the finest-looking man he had ever seen."

Innocent was silent a moment.

"You think he was a 'gentleman' to desert his own child?" she asked.

Robin hesitated.

"Dear, you don't know the world," he said—"There may have been all sorts of dangers and difficulties—anyhow, I don't bear him any grudge! He gave you to Briar Farm!"

She sighed, and made no response. Inadvertently they had walked beyond the orchard and were now on the very edge of the little thicket where the tomb of the Sieur Amadis de Jocelin glimmered pallidly through the shadow of the leaves. Innocent quickened her steps.

"Come!" she said.

He followed her reluctantly. Almost he hated the old stone knight which served her as a subject for so many fancies and feelings, and when she beckoned him to the spot where she stood beside the recumbent effigy, he showed a certain irritation of manner which did not escape her.

"You are cross with him!" she said, reproachfully. "You must not be so.
He is the founder of your family—"

"And the finish of it, I suppose!" he answered, abruptly. "He stands between us two, Innocent!—a cold stone creature with no heart—and you prefer him to me! Oh, the folly of it all! How can you be so cruel!"

She looked at him wistfully—almost her resolution failed her. He saw her momentary hesitation and came close up to her.

"You do not know what love is!" he said, catching her hand in his own—"Innocent, you do not know! If you did!—if I might teach you—!"

She drew her hand away very quickly and decidedly.

"Love does not want teaching," she said—"it comes—when it will, and where it will! It has not come to me, and you cannot force it, Robin! If I were your wife—your wife without any wife's love for you—I should grow to hate Briar Farm!—yes, I should!—I should pine and die in the very place where I have been so happy!—and I should feel that HE"—here she pointed to the sculptured Sieur Amadis—"would almost rise from this tomb and curse me!"

She spoke with sudden, almost dramatic vehemence, and he gazed at her in mute amazement. Her eyes flashed, and her face was lit up by a glow of inspiration and resolve.

"You take me just for the ordinary sort of girl," she went on—"A girl to caress and fondle and marry and make the mother of your children,—now for that you might choose among the girls about here, any of whom would be glad to have you for a husband. But, Robin, do you think I am really fit for that sort of life always?—can't you believe in anything else but marriage for a woman?"

As she thus spoke, she unconsciously created a new impression on his mind,—a veil seemed to be suddenly lifted, and he saw her as he had never before seen her—a creature removed, isolated and unattainable through the force of some inceptive intellectual quality which he had not previously suspected. He answered her, very gently—

"Dear, I cannot believe in anything else but love for a woman," he said—"She was created and intended for love, and without love she must surely be unhappy."

"Love!—ah yes!" she responded, quickly—"But marriage is not love!"

His brows contracted.

"You must not speak in that way, Innocent," he said, seriously—"It is wrong—people would misunderstand you—"

Her eyes lightened, and she smiled.

"Yes!—I'm sure 'people' would!" she answered—"But 'people' don't matter—to ME. It is truth that matters,—truth,—and love!"

He looked at her, perplexed.

"Why should you think marriage is not love?" he asked—"It is the one thing all lovers wish for—to be married and to live together always—"

"Oh, they wish for it, yes, poor things!" she said, with a little uplifting of her brows—"And when their wishes are gratified, they often wish they had not wished!" She laughed. "Robin, this talk of ours is making me feel quite merry! I am amused!"

"I am not!" he replied, irritably—"You are much too young a girl to think these things—"

She nodded, gravely.

"I know! And I ought to get married while young, before I learn too many of 'these things,'" she said—"Isn't that so? Don't frown, Robin! Look at the Sieur Amadis! How peacefully he sleeps! He knew all about love!"

"Of course he did!" retorted Robin—"He was a perfectly sensible man—he married and had six children."

Innocent nodded again, and a little smile made two fascinating dimples in her soft cheeks.

"Yes! But he said good-bye to love first!"

He looked at her in visible annoyance.

"How can you tell?—what do you know about it?" he demanded.

She lifted her eyes to the glimpses of blue sky that showed in deep clear purity between the over-arching boughs,—a shaft of sunlight struck on her fair hair and illumined its pale brown to gold, so that for a moment she looked like the picture of a young rapt saint, lost in heavenly musing.

Then a smile, wonderfully sweet and provocative, parted her lips, and she beckoned him to a grassy slope beneath one of the oldest trees, where little tufts of wild thyme grew thickly, filling the air with fragrance.

"Come and sit beside me here," she said—"We have the day to ourselves—Dad said so,—and we can talk as long as we like. You ask me what I know?—not much indeed! But I'll tell you what the Sieur Amadis has told me!—if you care to hear it!"

"I'm not sure that I do," he answered, dubiously.

She laughed.

"Oh, Robin!—how ungrateful you are! You ought to be so pleased! If you really loved me as much as you say, the mere sound of my voice ought to fill you with ecstasy! Yes, really! Come, be good!" And she sat down on the grass, glancing up at him invitingly. He flung himself beside her, and she extended her little white hand to him with a pretty condescension.

"There!—you may hold it!" she said, as he eagerly clasped it—"Yes, you may! Now, if the Sieur Amadis had been allowed to hold the hand of the lady he loved he would have gone mad with joy!"

"Much good he'd have done by going mad!" growled Robin, with an affectation of ill-humour—"I'd rather be sane,—sane and normal."

She bent her smiling eyes upon him.

"Would you? Poor Robin! Well, you will be—when you settle down—"

"Settle down?" he echoed—"How? What do you mean?"

"Why, when you settle down with a wife, and—shall we say six children?" she queried, merrily—"Yes, I think it must be six! Like the Sieur Amadis! And when you forget that you ever sat with me under the trees, holding my hand—so!"

The lovely, half-laughing compassion of her look nearly upset his self-possession. He drew closer to her side.

"Innocent!" he exclaimed, passionately—"if you would only listen to reason—"

She shook her head.

"I never could!" she declared, with an odd little air of penitent self-depreciation—"People who ask you to listen to reason are always so desperately dull! Even Priscilla!—when she asks you to 'listen to reason,' she's in the worst of tempers! Besides, Robin, dear, we shall have plenty of chances to 'listen to reason' when we grow older,—we're both young just now, and a little folly won't hurt us. Have patience with me!—I want to tell you some quite unreasonable—quite abnormal things about love! May I?"

"Yes—if I may too!" he answered, kissing the hand he held, with lingering tenderness.

The soft colour flew over her cheeks,—she smiled.

"Poor Robin!" she said—"You deserve to be happy and you will be!—not with me, but with some one much better, and ever so much prettier! I can see you as the master of Briar Farm—such a sweet home for you and your wife, and all your little children running about in the fields among the buttercups and daisies—a pretty sight, Robin!—I shall think of it often when—when I am far away!"

He was about to utter a protest,—she stopped him by a gesture.

"Hush!" she said.

And there was a moment's silence.

CHAPTER VI

"When I think about love," she began presently, in a soft dreamy voice—"I'm quite sure that very few people ever really feel it or understand it. It must be the rarest thing in all the world! This poor Sieur Amadis, asleep so long in his grave, was a true lover,—and I will tell you how I know he had said good-bye to love when he married. All those books we found in the old dower-chest, that day when we were playing about together as children, belonged to him—some are his own compositions, written by his own hand,—the others, as you know, are printed books which must have been difficult to get in his day, and are now, I suppose, quite out of date and almost unknown. I have read them all!—my head is a little library full of odd volumes! But there is one—a manuscript book—which I never tire of reading,—it is a sort of journal in which the Sieur Amadis wrote down many of his own feelings—sometimes in prose, sometimes in verse—and by following them carefully and piecing them together, it is quite easy to find out his sadness and secret—how he loved once and never loved again—"

"You can't tell that," interrupted Robin—"men often say they can only love once—but they love ever so many times—"

She smiled—and her eyes showed him what a stupid blunder he had made.

"Do they?" she queried, softly—"I am so glad, Robin! For you will find it easy then to love somebody else instead of me!"

He flushed, vexedly.

"I didn't mean that—" he began.

"No? I think you did!—but of course if you had thought twice you wouldn't have said it! It was uttered quite truly and naturally, Robin!—don't regret it! Only I want to explain to you that the Sieur Amadis was not like that—he loved just once—and the lady he loved must have been a very beautiful woman who had plenty of admirers and did not care for him at all. All he writes proves that. He is always grieved to the heart about it. Still he loved her—and he seems glad to have loved her, though it was all no use. And he kept a little chronicle of his dreams and fancies—all that he felt and thought about,—it is beautifully and tenderly written all in quaint old French. I had some trouble to make it out—but I did at last—every word—and when he made up his mind to marry, he finished the little book and never wrote another word in it. Shall I tell you what were the last lines he wrote?"

"It wouldn't be any use," he answered, kissing again the hand he held—"I don't understand French. I've never even tried to learn it."

She laughed.

"I know you haven't! But you've missed a great deal, Robin!—you have really! When I made up my mind to find out all the Sieur Amadis had written, I got Priscilla to buy me a French dictionary and grammar and some other French lesson-books besides—then I spelt all the words carefully and looked them all up in the dictionary, and learned the pronunciation from one of the lesson-books—and by-and-bye it got quite easy. For two years at least it was dreadfully hard work—but now—well!—I think I could almost speak French if I had the chance!"

"I'm sure you could!" said Robin, looking at her, admiringly—"You're a clever little girl and could do anything you wanted to."

Her brows contracted a little,—the easy lightness of his compliment had that air of masculine indifference which is more provoking to an intelligent woman than downright contradiction. The smile lingered in her eyes, however,—a smile of mingled amusement and compassion.

"Well, I wanted to understand the writing of the Sieur Amadis," she went on, quietly—"and when I could understand them I translated them. So I can tell you the last words he wrote in his journal—just before he married,—in fact on the very eve of his marriage-day—" She paused abruptly, and looked for a moment at the worn and battered tomb of the old knight, green with moss and made picturesque by a trailing branch of wild roses that had thrown itself across the stone effigy in an attempt to reach some of its neighbours on the opposite side. Robin followed her gaze with his own, and for a moment was more than usually impressed by the calm, almost stern dignity of the recumbent figure.

"Go on," he said—"What were the words?"

"These"—and Innocent spoke them in a hushed voice, with sweet reverence and feeling—"'Tonight I pull down and put away for ever the golden banner of my life's ideal. It has been held aloft too long in the sunshine of a dream, and the lily broidered on its web is but a withered flower. My life is no longer of use to myself, but as a man and faithful knight I will make it serve another's pleasure and another's good. And because this good and simple girl doth truly love me, though her love was none of my seeking, I will give her her heart's desire, though mine own heart's desire shall never be accomplished,—I will make her my wife, and will be to her a true and loyal husband, so that she may receive from me all she craves of happiness and peace. For though I fain would die rather than wed, I know that life is not given to a man to live selfishly, nor is God satisfied to have it wasted by any one who hath sworn to be His knight and servant. Therefore even so let it be!—I give all my unvalued existence to her who doth consider it valuable, and with all my soul I pray that I may make so gentle and trustful a creature happy. But to Love—oh, to Love a long farewell!—farewell my dreams!—farewell ambition!—farewell the glory of the vision unattainable!—farewell bright splendour of an earthly Paradise!—for now I enter that prison which shall hold me fast till death release me! Close, doors!—fasten, locks!—be patient in thy silent solitude, my Soul!'"

Innocent's voice faltered here—then she said—"That is the end. He signed it 'Amadis.'"

Robin was very quiet for a minute or two.

"It's pretty—very pretty and touching—and all that sort of thing," he said at last—"but it's like some old sonnet or mediaeval bit of romance. No one would go on like that nowadays."

Innocent lifted her eyebrows, quizzically.

"Go on like what?"

He moved impatiently.

"Oh, about being patient in solitude with one's soul, and saying farewell to love." He gave a short laugh. "Innocent dear, I wish you would see the world as it really is!—not through the old-style spectacles of the Sieur Amadis! In his day people were altogether different from what they are now."

"I'm sure they were!" she answered, quietly—"But love is the same to-day as it was then."

He considered a moment, then smiled.

"No, dear, I'm not sure that it is," he said. "Those knights and poets and curious people of that kind lived in a sort of imaginary ecstasy—they exaggerated their emotions and lived at the top-height of their fancies. We in our time are much more sane and level-headed. And it's much better for us in the long run."

She made no reply. Only very gently she withdrew her hand from his.

"I'm not a knight of old," he went on, turning his handsome, sun-browned face towards her,—"but I'm sure I love you as much as ever the Sieur Amadis could have loved his unknown lady. So much indeed do I love you that I couldn't write about it to save my life!—though I did write verses at Oxford once—very bad ones!" He laughed. "But I can do one thing the Sieur Amadis didn't do—I can keep faithful to my Vision of the glory unattainable'—and if I don't marry you I'll marry no-body—so there!"

She looked at him curiously and wistfully.

"You will not be so foolish," she said—"You will not put me into the position of the Sieur Amadis, who married some one who loved him, merely out of pity!"

He sprang up from the grass beside her.

"No, no! I won't do that, Innocent! I'm not a coward! If you can't love me, you shall not marry me, just because you are sorry for me! That would be intolerable! I wouldn't have you for a wife at all under such circumstances. I shall be perfectly happy as a bachelor—perhaps happier than if I married."

"And what about Briar Farm?" she asked.

"Briar Farm can get on as best it may!" he replied, cheerily—"I'll work on it as long as I live and hand it down to some one worthy of it, never fear! So there, Innocent!—be happy, and don't worry yourself! Keep to your old knight and your strange fancies about him—you may be right in your ideas of love, or you may be wrong; but the great point with me is that you should be happy—and if you cannot be happy in my way, why you must just be happy in your own!"

She looked at him with a new interest, as he stood upright, facing her in all the vigour and beauty of his young manhood. A little smile crept round the corners of her mouth.

"You are really a very handsome boy!" she said—"Quite a picture in your way! Some girl will be very proud of you!"

He gave a movement of impatience.

"I must go back to the orchard," he said—"There's plenty to do. And after all, work's the finest thing in the world—quite as fine as love—perhaps finer!"

A faint sense of compunction moved her at his words—she was conscious of a lurking admiration for his cool, strong, healthy attitude towards life and the things of life. And yet she was resentful that he should be capable of considering anything in the world "finer" than love. Work? What work? Pruning trees and gathering apples? Surely there were greater ambitions than these? She watched him thoughtfully under the fringe of her long eyelashes, as he moved off.

"Going to the orchard?" she asked.

"Yes."

She smiled a little.

"That's right!"

He glanced back at her. Had she known how bravely he restrained himself she might have made as much a hero of him as of the knight Amadis. For he was wounded to the heart—his brightest hopes were frustrated, and at the very instant he walked away from her he would have given his life to have held her for a moment in his arms,—to have kissed her lips, and whispered to her the pretty, caressing love-nonsense which to warm and tender hearts is the sweetest language in the world. And with all his restrained passion he was irritated with what, from a man's point of view, he considered folly on her part,—he felt that she despised his love and himself for no other reason than a mere romantic idea, bred of loneliness and too much reading of a literature alien to the customs and manners of the immediate time, and an uncomfortable premonition of fear for her future troubled his mind.

"Poor little girl!" he thought—"She does not know the world!—and when she DOES come to know it—ah, my poor Innocent!—I would rather she never knew!"

Meanwhile she, left to herself, was not without a certain feeling of regret. She was not sure of her own mind—and she had no control over her own fancies. Every now and then a wave of conviction came over her that after all tender-hearted old Priscilla might be right—that it would be best to marry Robin and help him to hold and keep Briar Farm as it had ever been kept and held since the days of the Sieur Amadis. Perhaps, had she never heard the story of her actual condition, as told her by Farmer Jocelyn on the previous night, she might have consented to what seemed so easy and pleasant a lot in life; but now it seemed to her more than impossible. She no longer had any link with the far-away ancestor who had served her so long as a sort of ideal—she was a mere foundling without any name save the unbaptised appellation of Innocent. And she regarded herself as a sort of castaway.

She went into the house soon after Robin had left her, and busied herself with sorting the linen and looking over what had to be mended. "For when I go," she said to herself, "they must find everything in order." She dined alone with Priscilla—Robin sent word that he was too busy to come in. She was a little piqued at this—and almost cross when he sent the same message at tea-time,—but she was proud in her way and would not go out to see if she could persuade him to leave his work for half-an-hour. The sun was slowly declining when she suddenly put down her sewing, struck by a thought which had not previously occurred to her—and ran fleetly across the garden to the orchard, where she found Robin lying on his back under the trees with closed eyes. He opened them, hearing the light movement of her feet and the soft flutter of her gown—but he did not rise. She stopped—looking at him.

"Were you asleep?"

He stretched his arms above his head, lazily.

"I believe I was!" he answered, smiling.

"And you wouldn't come in to tea!" This with a touch of annoyance.

"Oh yes, I would, if I had wanted tea," he replied—"but I didn't want it."

"Nor my company, I suppose," she added, with a little shrug of her shoulders. His eyes flashed mischievously.

"Oh, I daresay that had something to do with it!" he agreed.

A curious vexation fretted her. She wished he would not look so handsome—and—yes!—so indifferent. An impression of loneliness and desertion came over her—he, Robin, was not the same to her now—so she fancied—no doubt he had been thinking hard all the day while doing his work, and at last had come to the conclusion that it was wisest after all to let her go and cease to care for her as he had done. A little throbbing pulse struggled in her throat—a threat of rising tears,—but she conquered the emotion and spoke in a voice which, though it trembled, was sweet and gentle.

"Robin," she said—"don't you think—wouldn't it be better—perhaps—"

He looked up at her wonderingly—she seemed nervous or frightened.

"What is it?" he asked—"Anything you want me to do?"

"Yes"—and her eyes drooped—"but I hardly like to say it. You see, Dad made up his mind this morning that we were to settle things together—and he'll be angry and disappointed—"

Robin half-raised himself on one arm.

"He'll be angry and disappointed if we don't settle it, you mean," he said—"and we certainly haven't settled it. Well?"

A faint colour flushed her face.

"Couldn't we pretend it's all right for the moment?" she suggested—"Just to give him a little peace of mind?"

He looked at her steadily.

"You mean, couldn't we deceive him?"

"Yes!—for his good! He has deceived ME all my life,—I suppose for MY good—though it has turned out badly—"

"Has it? Why?"

"It has left me nameless," she answered,—"and friendless."

A sudden rush of tears blinded her eyes—she put her hands over them. He sprang up and, taking hold of her slender wrists, tried to draw those hands down. He succeeded at last, and looked wistfully into her face, quivering with restrained grief.

"Dear, I will do what you like!" he said. "Tell me—what is your wish?"

She waited a moment, till she had controlled herself a little.

"I thought"—she said, then—"that we might tell Dad just for to-night that we are engaged—it would make him happy—and perhaps in a week or two we might get up a quarrel together and break it off—"

Robin smiled.

"Dear little girl!—I'm afraid the plan wouldn't work! He wants the banns put up on Sunday—and this is Wednesday."

Her brows knitted perplexedly.

"Something can be managed before then," she said. "Robin, I cannot bear to disappoint him! He's old—and he's so ill too!—it wouldn't hurt us for one night to say we are engaged!"

"All right!"—and Robin threw back his head and laughed joyously—"I don't mind! The sensation of even imagining I'm engaged to you is quite agreeable! For one evening, at least, I can assume a sort of proprietorship over you! Innocent! I—I—"

He looked so mirthful and mischievous that she smiled, though the teardrops still sparkled on her lashes.

"Well? What are you thinking of now?" she asked.

"I think—I really think—under the circumstances I ought to kiss you!" he said—"Don't you feel it would be right and proper? Even on the stage the hero and heroine ACT a kiss when they're engaged!"

She met his laughing glance with quiet steadfastness.

"I cannot act a kiss," she said—"You can, if you like! I don't mind."

"You don't mind?"

"No."

He looked from right to left—the apple-boughs, loaded with rosy fruit, were intertwined above them like a canopy—the sinking sun made mellow gold of all the air, and touched the girl's small figure with a delicate luminance—his heart beat, and for a second his senses swam in a giddy whirl of longing and ecstasy—then he suddenly pulled himself together.

"Dear Innocent, I wouldn't kiss you for the world!" he said, gently—"It would be taking a mean advantage of you. I only spoke in fun. There!—dry your pretty eyes!—you sweet, strange, romantic little soul! You shall have it all your own way!"

She drew a long breath of evident relief.

"Then you'll tell your uncle—"

"Anything you like!" he answered. "By-the-bye, oughtn't he to be home by this time?"

"He may have been kept by some business," she said—"He won't be long now. You'll say we're engaged?"

"Yes."

"And perhaps"—went on Innocent—"you might ask him not to have the banns put up yet as we don't want it known quite so soon—"

"I'll do all I can," he replied, cheerily—"all I can to keep him quiet, and to make you happy! There! I can't say more!"

Her eyes shone upon him with a grateful tenderness.

"You are very good, Robin!"

He laughed.

"Good! Not I! But I can't bear to see you fret—if I had my way you should never know a moment's trouble that I could keep from you. But I know I'm not a patch on your old stone knight who wrote such a lot about his 'ideal'—and yet went and married a country wench and had six children. Don't frown, dear! Nothing will make me say he was romantic! Not a bit of it! He wrote a lot of romantic things, of course—but he didn't mean half of them!—I'm sure he didn't!"

She coloured indignantly.

"You say that because you know nothing about it," she said—"You have not read his writings."

"No—and I'm not sure that I want to," he answered, gaily. "Dear Innocent, you must remember that I was at Oxford—my dear old father and mother scraped and screwed every penny they could get to send me there—and I believe I acquitted myself pretty well—but one of the best things I learned was the general uselessness and vanity of the fellows that called themselves 'literary.' They chiefly went in for disparaging and despising everyone who did not agree with them and think just as they did. Mulish prigs, most of them!" and Robin laughed his gay and buoyant laugh once more—"They didn't know that I was all the time comparing them with the honest type of farmer—the man who lives an outdoor life with God's air blowing upon him, and the soil turned freshly beneath him!—I love books, too, in my way, but I love Nature better."

"And do not poets help you to understand Nature?" asked Innocent.

"The best of them do—such as Shakespeare and Keats and Tennyson,—but they were of the past. The modern men make you almost despise Nature,—more's the pity! They are always studying THEMSELVES, and analysing THEMSELVES, and pitying THEMSELVES—now I always say, the less of one's self the better, in order to understand other people."

Innocent's eyes regarded him with quiet admiration.

"Yes, you are a thoroughly good boy," she said—"I have told you so often. But—I'm not sure that I should always get on with anyone as good as you are!"

She turned away then, and moved towards the house. As she went, she suddenly stopped and clapped her hands, calling:

"Cupid! Cupid! Cu-COO-pid!"

A flash of white wings glimmered in the sunset-light, and her pet dove flew to her, circling round and round till it dropped on her outstretched arm. She caught it to her bosom, kissing its soft head tenderly, and murmuring playful words to it. Robin watched her, as with this favourite bird-playmate she disappeared across the garden and into the house. Then he gave a gesture half of despair, half of resignation—and left the orchard.

The sun sank, and the evening shadows began to steal slowly in their long darkening lines over the quiet fields, and yet Farmer Jocelyn had not yet returned. The women of the household grew anxious—Priscilla went to the door many times, looking up the tortuous by-road for the first glimpse of the expected returning vehicle—and Innocent stood in the garden near the porch, as watchful as a sentinel and as silent. At last the sound of trotting hoofs was heard in the far distance, and Robin, suddenly making his appearance from the stable-yard where he too had been waiting, called cheerily,—

"Uncle at last! Here he comes!"

Another few minutes and the mare's head turned the corner—then the whole dog-cart came into view with Farmer Jocelyn driving it. But he was quite alone.

Robin and Innocent exchanged surprised glances, but had no time to make any comment as old Hugo just then drove up and, throwing the reins to his nephew, alighted.

"Aren't you very late, Dad?" said Innocent then, going to meet him—"I was beginning to be quite anxious!"

"Were you? Poor little one! I'm all right! I had business—I was kept longer than I expected—" Here he turned quickly to Robin—"Unharness, boy!—unharness!—and come in to supper!"

"Where's Landon?" asked Robin.

"Landon? Oh, I've left him in the town."

He pulled off his driving-gloves, and unbuttoned his overcoat—then strode into the house. Innocent followed him—she was puzzled by his look and manner, and her heart beat with a vague sense of fear. There was something about the old man that was new and strange to her. She could not define it, but it filled her mind with a curious and inexplicable uneasiness. Priscilla, who was setting the dishes on the table in the room where the cloth was laid for supper, had the same uncomfortable impression when she saw him enter. His face was unusually pale and drawn, and the slight stoop of age in his otherwise upright figure seemed more pronounced than usual. He drew up his chair to the table and sat down,—then ruffling his fine white hair over his brow with one hand, looked round him with an evidently forced smile.

"Anxious about me, were you, child?" he said, as Innocent took her place beside him. "Well, well! you need not have given me a thought! I—I was all right—all right! I made a bit of a bargain in the town—but the prices were high—and Landon—"

He broke off suddenly and stared in front of him with strange fixed eyeballs.

Innocent and Priscilla looked at one another in alarm. There was a moment's tense stillness,—then Innocent said in rather a trembling voice—

"Yes, Dad? You were saying something about Landon—"

The stony glare faded from his eyes and he looked at her with a more natural expression.

"Landon? Did I speak of him? Oh yes!—Landon met with some fellows he knew and decided to spend the evening with them—he asked me for a night off—and I gave it to him. Yes—I—I gave it to him."

Just then Robin entered.

"Hullo!" he exclaimed, gaily—"At supper? Don't begin without me! I say, Uncle, is Landon coming back to-night?"

Jocelyn turned upon him sharply.

"No!" he answered, in so fierce a tone that Robin stood amazed—"Why do you all keep on asking me about Landon? He loves drink more than life, and he's having all he wants to-night. I've let him off work to-morrow."

Robin was silent for a moment out of sheer surprise.

"Oh well, that's all right, if you don't mind," he said, at last—"We're pretty busy—but I daresay we can manage without him."

"I should think so!" and Hugo gave a short laugh of scorn—"Briar Farm would have come to a pretty pass if it could not get on without a man like Landon!"

There was another silent pause.

Priscilla gave an anxious side-glance at Innocent's troubled face, and decided to relieve the tension by useful commonplace talk.

"Well, Landon or no Landon, supper's ready!" she said, briskly—"and it's been waiting an hour at least. Say grace, Mister Jocelyn, and I'll carve!"

Jocelyn looked at her bewilderedly.

"Say grace?" he queried—"what for?"

Priscilla laughed loudly to cover the surprise she felt.

"What for? Lor, Mister Jocelyn, if you don't know I'm sure I don't! For the beef and potatoes, I suppose, an' all the stuff we eats—'for what we are going to receive—'"

"Ah, yes! I remember—'May the Lord make us truly thankful!'" responded Jocelyn, closing his eyes for a second and then opening them again—"And I'll tell you what, Priscilla!—there's a deal more to be thankful for to-night than beef and potatoes!—a great deal more!"

CHAPTER VII

The supper was a very silent meal. Old Hugo was evidently not inclined to converse,—he ate his food quickly, almost ravenously, without seeming to be conscious that he was eating. Robin Clifford glanced at him now and again watchfully, and with some anxiety,—an uncomfortable idea that there was something wrong somewhere worried him,—moreover he was troubled by the latent feeling that presently his uncle would be sure to ask if all was "settled" between himself and Innocent. Strangely enough, however, the old man made no allusion to the subject. He seemed to have forgotten it, though it had been the chief matter on which he had laid so much stress that morning. Each minute Innocent expected him to turn upon her with the dreaded question—to which she would have had to reply untruly, according to the plan made between herself and Robin. But to her great surprise and relief he said nothing that conveyed the least hint of the wish he had so long cherished. He was irritable and drowsy,—now and again his head fell a little forward on his chest and his eyes closed as though in utter weariness. Seeing this, the practical Priscilla made haste to get the supper finished and cleared away.

"You be off to bed, Mister Jocelyn," she said,—"The sooner the better, for you look as tired as a lame dog that 'as limped 'ome twenty miles. You ain't fit to be racketing about markets an' drivin' bargains."

"Who says I'm not?" he interrupted, sitting bolt upright and glaring fiercely at her—"I tell you I am! I can do business as well as any man—and drive a bargain-ah! I should think so indeed!—a hard-and-fast bargain!—not easy to get out of, I can tell you!—not easy to get out of! And it has cost me a pretty penny, too!"

Robin Clifford glanced at him enquiringly.

"How's that?" he asked—"You generally make rather than spend!"

Jocelyn gave a sudden loud laugh.

"So I do, boy, so I do! But sometimes one has to spend to make! I've done both to-day—I've made and I've spent. And what I've spent is better than keeping it—and what I've made—ay!—what I've made—well!—it's a bargain, and no one can say it isn't a fair one!"

He got up from the supper table and pushed away his chair.

"I'll go," he said—"Priscilla's right—I'm dog-tired and bed's the best place for me." He passed his hand over his forehead. "There's a sort of buzzing in my brain like the noise of a cart-wheel—I want rest." As he spoke Innocent came softly beside him and took his arm caressingly. He looked down upon her with a smile. "Yes, wilding, I want rest! We'll have a long talk out tomorrow—you and I and Robin. Bless thee, child! Good-night!"

He kissed her tenderly and held out one hand to Clifford, who cordially grasped it.

"Good boy!" he said-"Be up early, for there's much to do—and Landon won't be home till late—no—not till late! Get on with the field work—for if the clouds mean anything we shall have rain." He paused a moment and seemed to reflect, then repeated slowly—"Yes, lad! We shall have rain!—and wind, and storm! Be ready!—the fine weather's breaking!"

With that he went, walking slowly, and they heard him stumble once or twice as he went up the broad oak staircase to his bedroom. Priscilla put her head on one side, like a meditative crow, and listened. Then she heaved a sigh, smoothed down her apron and rolled up her eyes.

"Well, if Mister Jocelyn worn't as sober a man as any judge an' jury," she observed—"I should say 'e'd bin drinkin'! But that ain't it. Mr. Robin, there's somethin' gone wrong with 'im—an' I don't like it."

"Nor I," said Innocent, in a trembling voice, suggestive of tears. "Oh, Robin, you surely noticed how strange he looked! I'm so afraid! I feel as if something dreadful was going to happen—"

"Nonsense!" and Robin assumed an air of indifference which he was far from feeling—"Uncle Hugo is tired—I think he has been put out—you know he's quick-tempered and easily irritated—he may have had some annoyance in the town—"

"Ah! And where's Landon?" put in Priscilla, with a dark nod—"That do beat me! Why ever the master should 'ave let a man like that go on the loose for a night an' a day is more than I can make out! It's sort of tempting Providence—that it is!"

Clifford flushed and turned aside. His fight with Landon was fresh in his mind—and he began to wonder whether he had done rightly in telling his uncle how it came about. But meeting Innocent's anxious eyes, which mutely asked him for comfort, he answered—

"Oh, well, there's nothing very much in that, Priscilla! I daresay Landon wanted a holiday—he doesn't ask for one often, and he's kept fairly sober lately. Hadn't we better be off to bed? Things will straighten out with the morning."

"Do you really think so?" Innocent sighed as she put the question.

"Of course I think so!" answered Robin, cheerily. "We're all tired, and can't look on the bright side! Sound sleep is the best cure for the blues! Good-night, Innocent!"

"Good-night!" she said, gently.

"Good-night, Priscilla!"

"Good-night, Mr. Robin. God bless ye!"

He smiled, nodded kindly to them both, and left the room.

"There's a man for ye!" murmured Priscilla, admiringly, as he disappeared—"A tower of strength for a 'usband, which the Lord knows is rare! Lovey, you'll never do better!"

But Innocent seemed not to hear. Her face was very pale, and her eyes had a strained wistful expression.

"Dad looks very ill," she said, slowly—"Priscilla, surely you noticed—"

"Now, child, don't you worry—'tain't no use"—and Priscilla lit two bedroom candles, giving Innocent one—"You just go up to bed and think of nothing till the morning. Mister Jocelyn is dead beat and put out about something—precious 'ungry too, for he ate his food as though he hadn't 'ad any all day. You couldn't expect him to be pleasant if he was wore out."

Innocent said nothing more. She gave a parting glance round the room to assure herself that everything was tidy, windows bolted and all safe for the night, and for a fleeting moment the impression came over her that she would never see it look quite the same again. A faint cold tremor ran through her delicate little body—she felt lonely and afraid. Silently she followed Priscilla up the beautiful Tudor staircase to the first landing, where, moved by a tender, clinging impulse, she kissed her.

"Good-night, you dear, kind Priscilla!" she said—"You've always been good to me!"

"Bless you, my lovey!" answered Priscilla, with emotion—"Go and sleep with the angels, like the little angel you are yourself! And mind you think twice, and more than twice, before you say 'No' to Mr. Robin!"

With a deprecatory shake of her head, and a faint smile, Innocent turned away, and passed through the curious tortuous little corridor that led to her own room. Once safely inside that quiet sanctum where the Sieur Amadis of long ago had "found peace," she set her candle down on the oak table and remained standing by it for some moments, lost in thought. The pale glimmer of the single light was scarcely sufficient to disperse the shadows around her, but the lattice window was open and admitted a shaft of moonlight which shed a pearly radiance on her little figure, clothed in its simple white gown. Had any artist seen her thus, alone and absorbed in sorrowful musing, he might have taken her as a model of Psyche after her god had flown. She was weary and anxious—life had suddenly assumed for her a tragic aspect. Old Jocelyn's manner had puzzled her—he was unlike himself, and she instinctively felt that he had some secret trouble on his mind. What could it be? she wondered. Not about herself and Robin—for were he as keen on "putting up the banns" as he had been in the morning he would not have allowed the matter to rest. He would have asked straight questions, and he would have expected plain answers,—and they would, in accordance with the secret understanding they had made with each other, have deceived him. Now there was no deception necessary—he seemed to have forgotten—at least for the present—his own dearest desire. With a sigh, half of pain, half of relief, she seated herself at the table, and opening its one deep drawer with a little key which she always wore round her neck, she began to turn over her beloved pile of manuscript, and this occupied her for several minutes. Presently she looked up, her eyes growing brilliant with thought, and a smile on her lips.

"I really think it might do!" she said, aloud—"I should not be afraid to try! Who knows what might happen? I can but fail—or succeed. If I fail, I shall have had my lesson—if I succeed—"

She leaned her head on her two hands, ruffling up her pretty hair into soft golden-brown rings.

"If I succeed!—ah!—if I do! Then I'll pay back everything I owe to Dad and Briar Farm!—oh, no! I can never pay back my debt to Briar Farm!—that would be impossible! Why, the very fields and trees and flowers and birds have made me happy!—happier than I shall ever be after I have said good-bye to them all!—good-bye even to the Sieur Amadis!"

Quick tears sprang to her eyes—and the tapering light of the candle looked blurred and dim.

"Yes, after all," she went on, still talking to the air, "it's better and braver to try to do something in the world, rather than throw myself upon Robin, and be cowardly enough to take him for a husband when I don't love him. Just for comfort and shelter and Briar Farm! It would be shameful. And I could not marry a man unless I loved him quite desperately!—I could not! I'm not sure that I like the idea of marriage at all,—it fastens a man and woman together for life, and the time might come when they would grow tired of each other. How cruel and wicked it would be to force them to endure each other's company when they perhaps wished the width of the world between them! No—I don't think I should care to be married—certainly not to Robin."

She put her manuscript by, and shut and locked the drawer containing it. Then she went to the open lattice window and looked out—and thought of the previous night, when Robin had swung himself up on the sill to talk to her, and they had been all unaware that Ned Landon was listening down below. A flush of anger heated her cheeks as she recalled this and all that Robin had told her of the unprepared attack Landon had made upon him and the ensuing fight between them. But now? Was it not very strange that Landon should apparently be in such high favour with Hugo Jocelyn that he had actually been allowed to stay in the market-town and enjoy a holiday, which for him only meant a bout of drunkenness? She could not understand it, and her perplexity increased the more she thought of it. Leaning far out over the window-sill, she gazed long and lovingly across the quiet stretches of meadowland, shining white in the showered splendour of the moon—the tall trees—the infinite and harmonious peace of the whole scene,—then, shutting the lattice, she pulled the curtains across it, and taking her lit candle, went to her secluded inner sleeping-chamber, where, in the small, quaintly carved four-poster bed, furnished with ancient tapestry and lavendered linen, and covered up under a quilt embroidered three centuries back by the useful fingers of the wife of Sieur Amadis de Jocelin, she soon fell into a sound and dreamless slumber.

The hours moved on, bearing with them different destinies to millions of different human lives, and the tall old clock in the great hall of Briar Farm told them off with a sonorous chime and clangour worthy of Westminster itself. It was a quiet night; there was not a breath of wind to whistle through crack or key-hole, or swing open an unbolted door,—and Hero, the huge mastiff that always slept "on guard" just within the hall entrance, had surely no cause to sit up suddenly on his great haunches and listen with uplifted ears to sounds which were to any other creature inaudible. Yet listen he did—sharply and intently. Raising his massive head he snuffed the air—then suddenly began to tremble as with cold, and gave vent to a long, low, dismal moan. It was a weird noise—worse than positive howling, and the dog himself seemed distressfully conscious that he was expressing something strange and unnatural. Two or three times he repeated this eerie muffled cry—then, lying down again, he put his nose between his great paws, and, with a deep shivering sigh, appeared to resign himself to the inevitable. There followed several moments of tense silence. Then came a sudden dull thud overhead, as of a heavy load falling or being thrown down, and a curious inexplicable murmur like smothered choking or groaning. Instantly the great dog sprang erect and raced up the staircase like a mad creature, barking furiously. The house was aroused—doors were flung open—Priscilla rushed from her room half dressed—and Innocent ran along the corridor in her little white nightgown, her feet bare, and her hair falling dishevelled over her shoulders.

"What is it?" she cried piteously—"Oh, do tell me! What is it?"

Robin Clifford, hearing the dog's persistent barking, had hastily donned coat and trousers and now appeared on the scene.

"Hero, Hero!" he called—"Quiet, Hero!"

But Hero had bounded to his master Jocelyn's door and was pounding against it with all the force of his big muscular body, apparently seeking to push or break it open. Robin laid one hand on the animal's collar and pulled him back—then tried the door himself—it was locked.

"Uncle Hugo!"

There was no answer.

He turned to one of the frightened servants who were standing near. His face was very pale.

"Fetch me a hammer," he said—"Something—anything that will force the lock. Innocent!"—and with deep tenderness he took her little cold hands in his own—"I wish you would go away!"

"Why?" and she looked at him with eyes full of terror. "Oh no, no! Let me be with you—let me call him!"—and she knelt outside the closed door—"Dad! Dear Dad! I want to speak to you! Mayn't I come in? I'm so frightened—do let me come in. Dad!"

But the silence remained unbroken.

"Priscilla!"—and Robin beckoned to her—"keep Innocent beside you—I'm afraid—"

Priscilla nodded, turning her head aside a moment to wipe away the tears that were gathering in her eyes,—then she put an arm round Innocent's waist.

"Don't kneel there, lovey," she whispered—"It's no good and you're in the way when they open the door. Come with me!—there's a dear!"—and she drew the trembling little figure tenderly into her arms. "There!—that'll be a bit warmer!" and she signed to one of the farm maids near her to fetch a cloak which she carefully wrapped round the girl's shoulders. Just then the hammer was brought with other tools, and Robin, to save any needless clamour, took a chisel and inserted it in such a manner as should most easily force the catch of the door—but the lock was an ancient and a strong one, and would not yield for some time. At last, with an extra powerful and dexterous movement of his hand, it suddenly gave way—and he saw what he would have given worlds that Innocent should not have seen—old Hugo lying face forward on the floor, motionless. There was a rush and a wild cry—

"Dad! Dad!"

She was beside him in a moment, trying with all her slight strength to lift his head and turn his face.

"Help me—oh, help me!" she wailed. "He has fainted—we must lift him—get some one to lift him on the bed. It is only a faint—he will recover—get some brandy and send for the doctor. Don't lose time!—for Heaven's sake be quick! Robin, make them hurry!"

Robin had already whispered his orders,—and two of the farm lads, roused from sleep and hastily summoned, were ready to do what he told them. With awed, hushed movements they lifted the heavy fallen body of their master between them and laid it gently down on the bed. As the helpless head dropped back on the pillow they saw that all was over,—the pinched ashen grey of the features and the fast glazing eyes told their own fatal story—there was no hope. But Innocent held the cold hand of the dead man to her warm young bosom, endeavouring to take from it its cureless chill.

"He will be better soon," she said,—"Priscilla, bring me that brandy—just a little will revive him, I'm sure. Why do you stand there crying? You surely don't think he's dead?—No, no, that isn't possible! It isn't possible, is it, Robin? He'll come to himself in a few minutes—a fainting fit may last quite a long time. I wish he had not locked his door—we could have been with him sooner."

So she spoke, tremblingly nursing the dead hand in her bosom. No one present had the heart to contradict her—and Priscilla, with the tears running down her face, brought the brandy she asked for and held it while she tenderly moistened the lips of the corpse and tried to force a few drops between the clenched teeth—in vain. This futile attempt frightened her, and she looked at Robin Clifford with a wild air.

"I cannot make him swallow it," she said—"Can you, Robin? He looks so grey and cold!—but his lips are quite warm."

Robin, restraining the emotion that half choked him and threatened to overflow in womanish weeping, went up to her and tried to coax her away from the bedside.

"Dear, if you could leave him for a little it would perhaps be better," he said. "He might—he might recover sooner. We have sent for the doctor—he will be here directly—"

"I will stay here till he comes," replied the girl, quietly. "How can you think I would leave Dad when he's ill? If we could only rouse him a little—"

Ah, that "if"! If we could only rouse our beloved ones who fall into that eternal sleep, would not all the riches and glories of the world seem tame in comparison with such joy! Innocent had never seen death—she could not realise that this calm irresponsiveness, this cold and stiffening rigidity, meant an end to the love and care she had known all her life—love and care which would never be replaced in quite the same way!

The first peep of a silver dawn began to peer through the lattice window, and as she saw this suggestion of wakening life, a sudden dread clutched at her heart and made it cold.

"It will be morning soon," she said—"Priscilla, when will the doctor come?"

Scarcely had she said the words when the doctor entered. He took a comprehensive glance round the room,—at the still form on the bed—at the little crouching girl—figure beside it—at Priscilla, trembling and tearful—at Robin, deadly pale and self-restrained—at the farm-lads and servants.

"When did this happen?" he said.

Robin told him.

"I see!" he said. "He must have fallen forward on getting out of bed. I rather expected a sudden seizure of this kind." He made his brief examination. The eyes of the dead man were open and glassily staring upward—he gently closed the lids over them and pressed them down.

"Nothing to be done," he went on, gently—"His end was painless."

Innocent had risen—she had laid the cold hand of the corpse back on its breast—and she stood gazing vacantly before her in utter misery.

"Nothing to be done?" she faltered—"Do you mean that you cannot rouse him? Will he never speak to me again?"

The doctor looked at her gravely and kindly.

"Not in this world, my dear," he said—"in the next—perhaps! Let us hope so!"

She put her hand up to her forehead with a bewildered gesture.

"He is dead!" she cried—"Dead! Oh, Robin, Robin! I can't believe it!—it isn't true! Dad, dear Dad! My only friend! Good-bye—good-bye, Dad!—good-bye, Briar Farm—good-bye to everything—oh, Dad!"

Her voice quavered and broke in a passion of tears.

"I loved him as if he were my own father," she sobbed. "And he loved me as if I were his own child! Oh, Dad, darling Dad! We can never love each other again!"

CHAPTER VIII

The news of Farmer Jocelyn's sudden death was as though a cloud-burst had broken over the village, dealing utter and hopeless destruction. To the little community of simple workaday folk living round Briar Farm it was a greater catastrophe than the death of any king. Nothing else was talked of. Nothing was done. Men stood idly about, looking at each other in a kind of stupefied consternation,—women chattered and whispered at their cottage doors, shaking their heads with all that melancholy profundity of wisdom which is not wise till after the event,—the children were less noisy in their play, checked by the grave faces of their parents—the very dogs seemed to know that something had occurred which altered the aspect of ordinary daily things. The last of the famous Jocelyns was no more! It seemed incredible. And Briar Farm? What would become of Briar Farm?

"There ain't none o' th' owd folk left now" said one man, lighting his pipe slowly—"It's all over an' done wi'. Mister Clifford, he's good enow—but he ain't a Jocelyn, though a Jocelyn were his mother. 'Tis the male side as tells. An' he's young, an' he'll want change an' rovin' about like all young men nowadays, an' the place'll be broke up, an' the timber felled, an' th' owd oak'll be sold to a dealer, an' Merrikans'll come an' buy the pewter an' the glass an' the linen, an' by-an'-bye we won't know there ever was such a farm at all—"

"That's your style o' thinkin', is it?" put in another man standing by, with a round straw hat set back upon his head in a fashion which gave him the appearance of a village idiot—"Well, it's not mine! No, by no means! There'll be a Will,—an' Mister Robin he'll find a Way! Briar Farm'll allus be Briar Farm accordin' to MY mind!"

"YOUR mind ain't much," growled the first speaker—"so don't ye go settin' store by it. Lord, Lord! to think o' Farmer Jocelyn bein' gone! Seems as if a right 'and 'ad bin cut off! Onny yesterday I met 'im drivin' along the road at a tearin' pace, with Ned Landon sittin' beside 'im—an' drivin' fine too, for the mare's a tricky one with a mouth as 'ard as iron—but 'e held 'er firm—that 'e did!—no weakness about 'im—an' 'e was talkin' away to Landon while 'e drove, 'ardly lookin' right or left, 'e was that sure of hisself. An' now 'e's cold as stone—who would a' thort it!"

"Where's Landon?" asked the other man.

"I dunno. He's nowhere about this mornin' that I've seen."

At that moment a figure came into view, turning the corner of a lane at the end of the scattered thatched cottages called "the village,"—a portly, consequential-looking figure, which both men recognised as that of the parson of the parish, and they touched their caps accordingly. The Reverend William Medwin, M.A., was a great personage,—and his "cure of souls" extended to three other villages outlying the one of which Briar Farm was the acknowledged centre.

"Good-morning!" he said, with affable condescension—"I hear that
Farmer Jocelyn died suddenly last night. Is it true?"

Both men nodded gravely.

"Yes, sir, it's true—more's the pity! It's took us all aback."

"Ay, ay!" and Mr. Medwin nodded blandly—"No doubt-no doubt! But I suppose the farm will go on just the same?—there will be no lack of employment?"