JOHN

A LOVE STORY
BY
MRS OLIPHANT
AUTHOR OF ‘CHRONICLES OF CARLINGFORD,’ ETC.
VOL. II.
WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS
EDINBURGH AND LONDON
MDCCCLXX
ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN BLACKWOOD’S MAGAZINE

JOHN.

CHAPTER XV.

There is nothing so hard in human experience as to fit in the exceptional moments of life into their place, and bring them into a certain harmony with that which surrounds them; and in youth it is doubly hard to understand how it is that the exceptional can come only in moments. When the superlative either of misery or happiness arrives, there is nothing so difficult to an imaginative mind as to descend from that altitude and allow that the commonplace must return, and the ordinary resume its sway. And perhaps, more than any other crisis, the crisis of youthful passion and romance is the one which it is most difficult to come down from. It has wound up the young soul to an exaltation which has scarcely any parallel in life; even to the least visionary, the event which has happened—the union which has taken place between one heart and another—the sentiment which has concentrated all beauty and lovableness and desirableness in one being, and made that being his—is something too supreme and dazzling to fall suddenly into the light of common day. John Mitford was not matter of fact, and the situation to him was doubly exciting. It was attended, besides, by the disruption of his entire life; and though he would readily have acknowledged that the rest of his existence could not be passed in those exquisite pangs and delights—that mixture of absolute rapture in being with her, and visionary despair at her absence—which had made up the story of his brief courtship; yet there was in him a strong unexpressed sense that the theory of life altogether must henceforward be framed on a higher level—that a finer ideal was before him, higher harmonies, a more perfect state of being; instead of all which dreams, when he came to himself he was seated on a high stool, before a desk, under the dusty window of Mr Crediton’s bank, with the sound of the swinging door, and the voices of the public, and the crackle of notes, and the jingle of coin in his ears, and a tedious trade to learn, in which there seemed to him no possible satisfaction of any kind! When John had said—in that golden age which already seemed centuries past—that a clergyman’s was the only work worth doing, he had meant, that it was the only work for mankind in which a man could have any confidence. He had said so, while in the same breath he had expressed his want of absolute belief; and the one sentiment had not affected the other. But here he found himself in a sphere where it did not matter to any one what he believed—where he was utterly out of the way of influencing other people’s thoughts, and had none of that work within reach which seems almost indispensable to men of his training—work which should affect his fellow-men. So long as he knew that two and two make four, that seemed to be all the knowledge that was required of him. With a sense of surprise which almost stupefied him, he found that all the careful education of his life was as nought to him in his new sphere. If it did not harm him—which sometimes he thought it did—at least it was totally useless. The multiplication table was of more use than Homer or Virgil; and John’s mind was the mind of a scholar, not of an active thinker, much less doer. He was the kind of man that dwells and lingers upon the cadence of a line or the turn of a sentence—a man not always very sure which were the most real—the men and women in his books, or those he pushed against in the public ways. “We are such stuff as dreams are made of.” Fancy a man with such words in his mouth finding himself all at once a dream among dreams, gazing vaguely over a counter at the public, feeling himself utterly incapable of any point of encounter with that public such as his education and previous training suggested, except in the way of counting out money to them, or adding up the sums against them. What a wonderful, wonderful change it was! And then to come down to this from that exaltation of love’s dream—to jump into this, shivering as into an ice-cold bath, out of all the excitement of youthful plans and fancies, visions of the nobler existence, ecstasy of first betrothal! The shock was so immense that it took away his breath. He sat all silent, chewing the cud of sweet and bitter fancy for days together, and then got his hat and walked back to the shabby little rooms he had taken on the outskirts of Camelford, stupefied, and not knowing what he was about. What was he to do when he got there? He ate his badly-cooked and painfully-homely meal, and then he would sit and stare at his two candles as he stared at the public in the bank. He did not feel capable of reading—what was the good of reading? Nothing that he had within his reach could be of any use to him in his new career, and his mind was not in a fit condition for resuming any studies or seeking out any occupation for itself. When Kate made inquiries into his life on the Sunday evenings, he found it very difficult to answer her. What could he say? There was nothing in it which was worth describing, or which it would have given her, he thought, anything but pain to know.

“But tell me, have you nice rooms—is there a nice woman to look after you?” Kate would say. “If you don’t answer me I shall have to go and see them some day when you are at the bank. I will say you are my—cousin, or something. Or perhaps if I were to tell the truth,” she added, softly, with her favourite trick, almost leaning her head against his arm, “it would interest her, and she would take more pains.”

“And what would you say if you said the truth?” said foolish John. Poor fellow! this was all he had for his sacrifice, and naturally he longed for his hire, such as it was.

“I should say, of course, that you were a nearer one still, and a dearer one,” said Kate, with a soft little laugh; “what else? but oh, John, is it not very different? That dear Fanshawe Regis, and your mother, and everything you have been used to. Is it not very, very different?” she cried, expecting that he would tell her how much more blessed were his poor lodgings and close work when brightened by the hope of her.

“Yes, it is very different,” he said, in a dreamy, dreary tone. The summer was stealing on; it was August by this time, and the days were shortening. And it was almost dark, as dark as a summer night can be, when they strayed about the garden in the High Street, which was so different from the Rectory garden. There were few flowers, but at the farther end some great lime-trees, old and vast, which made the gravel-path look like a woodland road for twenty paces or so. She could not see his face in the dark, but there was in his voice nothing of that inflection which promised a flattering end to the sentence. Kate was a little chilled, she did not know why.

“But you don’t—grudge it?” she said, softly. “Oh, John, there is something in your voice—you are not sorry you have done so much?—for nothing but me?”

“Sorry!” he said, stooping over her—“sorry to be called into life when I did not know I was living! But, Kate, if it were not for this, that is my reward for everything, I will not deny that there is a great difference. I should have been working upon men the other way; and one gets contemptuous of money. Never mind, I care for nothing while I have you.”

“I never knew any one that was contemptuous of money,” said Kate, gravely; “people here say money can do everything. That is why I want you to be rich.”

“Dear,” he said, holding her close to him, “you don’t understand, and neither did I. I don’t think I shall ever be rich. How should I, a clerk in a bank? Your father does not show me any favour, and it is not to be expected he should. Who am I, that I should try to steal his child from him? Since I have been here, Kate, there are a great many things that I begin to understand——”

“What?” she said, as he paused; raising in the soft summer dark her face to his.

“Well, for one thing, what a gulf there is between you and me!” he said; “and how natural it was that your father should be vexed. And then, Kate—don’t let it grieve you, darling—how very very unlikely it is that I shall ever be the rich man you want me to be. I thought when we spoke of it once that anything you told me to do would be easy; and so it would, if it was definite—anything to bear—if it was labouring night and day, suffering tortures for you——”

Here Kate interrupted him with a little sob of excitement, holding his arm clasped in both her hands: “Oh, John, do I want you to suffer?” she cried. “You should have everything that was best in the world if it was me——”

“But I don’t know how to grow rich—I don’t think I shall ever know,” said John, with a sigh. Up to this moment he had restrained himself and had given no vent to his feelings, but when the ice was once broken they all burst forth. The two went on together up and down under the big lime-trees, she gazing up at him, he bending down to her, as they had done in the old garden at Fanshawe when he confided his difficulties to her. He had thrust off violently that series of difficulties, abandoning the conflict, but only to let a new set of difficulties seize upon him in still greater strength than the former. And the whole was complicated by a sense that it was somehow her doing, and that a complaint of them was next to a reproach of her. But still it was not in nature, his mouth being thus opened, that John could refrain.

“I seem to be always complaining,” he said—“one time of circumstances, another time of myself; for it is of myself this time. Many a fellow would be overjoyed, no doubt, to find himself in the way of making his own fortune, but you can’t think how little good I am. I suppose I never was very bright. If you will believe me, Kate, not only shall I never make any fortune where your father has placed me, but I am so stupid that I cannot see how a man may rise out of such a position, nor how a fortune is to be made.”

“But people do it,” said Kate, eagerly; “one hears of them every day. Of course I don’t know how. It is energy or something—making up their minds to it; and of course though papa may look cross he must be favourable to you. John, you know he must. If I thought he was not, I should make him—I don’t know what I should not make him do——”

“You must not make him do anything,” said John. “You may be sure I don’t mean to give in—I shall try my best, and perhaps there may be more in me than I think. I suppose it is seeing you, and being so far apart from you, that is the worst. Except to-night—if the Sundays came, say three times in a week——”

“I don’t think I should like that,” said Kate; “but seriously, you know, don’t you like to see me?—are you—jealous?” she asked, with a little laugh. The talk had been too grave for her, and she was glad to draw it down to a lower sphere.

“If I were,” he said, with a sudden glow of passion, “I should go away. I have never faced that idea yet; but if I were—jealous, as you say——”

“What?” she cried, with the curiosity of her kind, clinging to him in the fondest proximity, yet half pleased to play with her keen little dagger in his heart.

“That would be the end,” he said, with a long-drawn breath. And a thrill of excitement came over Kate which was more pleasurable than otherwise. Had she really stirred him up to the height of a grande passion? It was not that she meant to be cruel to John. But such an opportunity does not come in everybody’s way. She could not help wondering suddenly how he would feel under the trial, and how his sufferings would show themselves. As for his going away, she did not put much faith in that. He would be very unhappy, and there would be a certain satisfaction in the sight of his torments. Kate did not say this in words, nor was she conscious of meaning it; but in the mere levity of her power the thought flashed through her mind. For, to be sure, it would only be for a moment that she would let him suffer. When she had enjoyed that evidence of her own supremacy, then she would overwhelm him with kindness, prove to him how foolish he was ever to doubt her, give herself to him without waiting for anybody’s leave. But in the mean time that strange curiosity to see how far her power went which is at the bottom of so much cruelty ran through her mind. It all went and came in the twinkling of an eye, passing like the lightning, and when she answered him, poor John had no idea what a sudden gleam of suggestion had come over her, or how far her imagination had gone in the time.

“But there is not going to be an end,” she said, in her soft, coaxing voice. “And you will put up with it, and with papa, and with a great many things we don’t like—won’t you? for the sake of a poor little girl who is not worth it. Oh, John! you know you committed yourself to all that when you saved my life.”

John was nothing loath to commit himself now to anything she asked of him; and as they strayed on under the dark rustling lime-trees, with nobody within sight or sound, and the darkness enclosing them, utter content came over the young man’s mind. After all, was not this hour cheaply purchased by all the tedium and all the disgusts of common life? And even the common life looked more endurable in this sweet gloom which was full of Kate’s soft breathing, and the soft rustle of her dress, and sense of her presence. She was so close to him, leaning on his arm, and yet he could see nothing but an outline of her by his side. It was thus she had been by him on the night which decided his fate—a shadow-woman, tender, clinging, almost invisible. “Kate, Kate,” he said, out of his full heart, “I wonder if you are a little witch leading me astray?—for it is always in the dark when I can’t see you that you are good to me. When we go in you will be kind and sweet, but you will be Miss Crediton. Are we shadows, you and I? or are you Undine or Lorelei drawing me to my fate?”

“You foolish fellow,” said Kate; “how could I be Undine and not a drop of water nearer than Fanshawe Regis? Don’t you see that when we go in papa is there? You would not like me to write up in big letters—“I have gone over to the enemy—I don’t belong to you any longer. You know, John, it would be true. I am not his now, poor papa, and he is so fond of me; but you would not like me to put that on a flag and have it carried before me; you would not be so cruel to papa?”

“I am a poor mortal,” said John, “I almost think I could be cruel. If you are not his, are you mine? Say so, you little Queen of Shadows, and I will try to remember it and comfort my heart.”

“Whose else should I be?” whispered Kate. And the lover’s satisfaction attained for a moment to that point of perfection which lasts but for a moment. His heart seemed to stop beating in that ineffable fulness of content. He took her into his arms in the soft summer darkness—two shadows in a world of shadow. Everything around them, everything before them, was dim with mist. Nothing could be more uncertain than their prospects, a fact which John, at least, had begun to realise fully. The whole scene was an illustration of the words which were so often in his heart. Uncertain gusts of balmy wind, now from one quarter, now from another, agitated the trees overhead. The faint twilight of the skies confused all outlines—the darkness under the trees obliterated every living thing—little mysterious thrills of movement, of the leaves, of the air, of invisible insects or roosted birds, were about them. “We are such stuff as dreams are made of.” But amid these shadows for one moment John caught a passing gleam of satisfaction and delight.

Mr Crediton was in the drawing-room all alone when they went in. Had he been prudent he would have gone to his library, as he usually did, and spared himself the sight; but this night a jealous curiosity had possessed him. To see his child, who had been his for all these years, come in with dazzled, dazzling eyes, and that soft blush on her cheek, and her arm, even as they entered the room, lingering within that of her lover, was very hard upon him. Confound him! he said in his heart, although he knew well that but for John he would have had no child. He noted the change which came over Kate—that change which chilled her lover, and went through him like a blast from the snow-hills—without any pleasure, almost with additional irritation. She is not even frank, as she used to be, he said to himself. She puts on a face to cheat me, and to make me believe I am something to her still; and it might almost be said that Mr Crediton hated the young fellow who had come between him and his child.

“It is such a lovely evening, papa,” said Kate, “we could scarcely make up our minds to come in. It is not the country, of course; but still I am fond of our garden. Even at Fanshawe I don’t think there are nicer trees.”

“Of course the perfection of everything is at Fanshawe,” he said, with a sudden sharpness which changed the very atmosphere of the room all in a moment; “but I think it is imprudent to stay out so late, and it is damp, and there is no moon. I thought you required a moon for such rambles. Please let me have a cup of tea.”

“We did very well without a moon,” said Kate, trying to keep up her usual tone; but it was not easy, and she went off with a subdued step to the tea-table, and had not even the courage to call John to help her as she generally did. Oh, why didn’t papa stay in his own room? she said to herself. It is only one night in the week, and he should not be so selfish. But she took him his tea with her own hand, and tried all she could to soothe him. “You have got a headache, papa,” she said, tenderly, putting down the cup on the table by him, and looking so anxious, so ingenuous, and innocent, that it was hard to resist her.

“I have no headache,” he said; “but I am busy. Don’t take any notice—occupy yourselves as you please, without any thought of me.”

This speech was produced by a sudden compunction and sense of injustice. It was a sacrifice to right, and yet he was all wrong and set on edge. He thought that Kate should have perceived that this amiability was forced and fictitious; but either she was insensible to it, or she did not any longer care to go deeper than mere words. She kissed his forehead as if he had been in the kindest mood, and said, “Poor papa!—thanks. It is so kind of you to think of us when you are suffering.” To think of them! when she must have known he was wishing the fellow away. And then Kate retired to the tea-table, which was behind Mr Crediton, and out of sight, and he saw her beckon to John with a half-perceptible movement. The young man obeyed, and went and sat beside her, and the sound of their voices in low-toned conversation, with little bursts of laughter and soft exclamations, was gall and wormwood to the father. It was all “that fellow,” he thought: his Kate herself would never have used him so; and it was all his self-control could do to prevent him addressing some bitter words to John. But the fact was, it was Kate’s doing alone—Kate, who was less happy to-night than usual, but whom his tone had galled into opposition. “No,” she was whispering to John, “you are not to go away—not unless you want to be rid of me. Papa ought to be brought to his senses—he has no right to be so cross; and I am not going to give in to him.” This was the nature of the conversation which was going on behind Mr Crediton’s back. He did not hear it, and yet it gave him a furious sense of resentment, which expressed itself at last in various little assaults.

“Have the goodness not to whisper, Kate,” he said. “You know it sets my nerves on edge. Speak out,” an address which had the effect of ending all conversation between the lovers for a minute or two. They sat silent and looked at each other till Mr Crediton spoke again. “I seem unfortunately to act upon you like a wet blanket,” he said, with an acrid tone in his voice. “Perhaps you would rather I went away.”

At this Kate’s spirit was roused. “Papa, I don’t know what I have done to displease you,” she said, coming forward. “If I am only to see him once in the week, surely I may talk to him when he comes.”

“I am not aware that I have objected to your talk,” said Mr Crediton, restraining his passion.

“Not in words,” said Kate, now fairly up in arms; “but it is not just, papa. It makes John unhappy and it makes me unhappy. He has a right to have me to himself when he comes. You cannot forget that we are engaged. I never said a word when you insisted on once a-week, though it was a disappointment; but you know he ought not to be cheated now.”

All this time John had been moving about at the further end of the room, at once angry to the verge of violence, and discouraged to the lowest pitch. He had cleared his throat and tried to speak a dozen times already. Now he came forward, painfully restraining himself. “I ought to speak,” he said; “but I dare not trust myself to say anything. Mr Crediton cannot expect me to give up willingly the only consolation I have.”

“It is time enough to speak of giving up when any one demands a sacrifice,” said Mr Crediton, taking upon him suddenly that superiority of perfect calm with which a middle-aged man finds it so often possible to confute an impatient boy. “I am sorry that my innocent remarks should have irritated you both. You must school me, Kate,” he added, with a forced smile, “what I am to do and say.”

And then he went to his room, with a sense that he had won the victory. And certainly, if a victory is won every time the other side is discomfited, such was the case at this moment. John did not say anything—did not even come to be comforted, but kept walking up and down at the other end of the room. It was Kate who had to go to him, to steal her hand within his arm, to coax him back to his usual composure. And it was a process not very easy to be performed. She moved him quickly enough to tender demonstrations over herself, which indeed she had no objection to, but John was chilled and discouraged and cast down to the very depths.

“He was only cross,” said Kate; “when he is cross I never pay any attention. Something has gone wrong in business, or that sort of thing. John, dear, say you don’t mind. It is not me that am making myself disagreeable: it is only papa.”

But it was hard to get John to respond. Notwithstanding that Mr Crediton had retired and left the field open, and that Kate did all in her power to detain him, the young man left her earlier than usual, and with a sufficiently heavy heart. Kate’s father was seeking a quarrel—endeavouring to show him the falseness of his position, and make it plain how obnoxious he was. John walked all the long way home to his little lodgings, which were at the other end of the town, contemplating the dim Sunday streets, all so dark, with gleams of lamplight and dim reflections from the wet pavement—for in the mean time rain had fallen. And this was all he had for all he had sacrificed. He did not reckon Kate herself in the self-discussion. She was worth everything a man could do; but to be thus chained and bound, within sight, yet shut out from her—to be made the butt of another man’s jealous resentment—to have a seeming privilege, which was made into a kind of torture—and to have given his life for this;—what could he say even to himself? He sat down in his hard arm-chair and gazed into the flame of his two candles, and felt himself unable to do anything but brood over what had happened. He could not read nor turn his mind from the covert insult, the unwilling consent. And what was to come of it? John covered his face with his hands when he came to that part of the subject. There was nothing to look forward to—nothing but darkness. It was natural that she, a spoiled child of fortune, should smile and trust in something turning up; as for John, he saw nothing that could turn up; and in all the world there seemed to him no single creature with less hope of moulding his future according to his wishes than himself.

CHAPTER XVI.

This moment of dismay, however, passed over, as the moments of delight did, without bringing about any absolute revolution in John’s life. The next day Mr Crediton took occasion to be more than ordinarily civil, repenting of his bad humour, and Kate stopped short before his window as she rode by to wave her hand to him. A man cannot build the comfort of his life permanently on such trifles; but there is a moment when the wave of a girl’s hand as she passes is enough to strengthen and exhilarate his heart. So the crisis blew over as the others had done, and the routine went on. John set his teeth, and confronted his position with all its difficulties, making a desperate effort. A woman might bear such a trial, and live through it; but it is hard upon a man, when he is no longer a boy, to be called upon to give up everything, to change the entire current of his occupations, and make an unquestionable descent in the social scale, for love, without even giving him its natural compensations. An imprudent marriage is a different thing, for then the consequences are inevitable when once the step has been taken, and have to be borne, will he nill he. But to make love his all—the sole object and meaning of his life—there was in this a certain humiliation which by turns overwhelmed John’s fortitude and courage. It was indeed almost a relief to him, and helped him to bear his burden more steadily when the annual removal of the family to Fernwood took place, and Kate vanished from before his eyes. She cried when she parted with him that last Sunday, and John felt a serrement du cœur which almost choked him; but still, at the same time, when it was over and she was gone, life on the whole became easier. He made an effort to interest himself in his brother clerks, and enter into their life; but what was a humiliation to John was to them such a badge of superiority that he could make but little of that. He was Mr Crediton’s future son-in-law, probably their own future employer, in the eyes of the young men around him, who accepted his advances with a deference and half-concealed pride which threw him back again upon himself. He had no equals, no companions. To be sure there were plenty of people in Camelford who would have been glad to receive Dr Mitford’s son, but he had no desire for the ordinary kind of society. And it is not to be described with what pleasure he saw Fred Huntley, a man whom he had never cared for heretofore, push open the swinging door of the bank, and peer round the place with short-sighted eyes. “Mr Mitford, if you please,” Fred said, perhaps rather superciliously, to the clerk who was John’s superior, expecting, it was clear, to be ushered into some secret retirement where the principals of the bank might be. When John rose from his desk, Huntley gazed at him with unfeigned astonishment. “What! you here!” he said; and opened his eyes still wider when John turned round and explained to Mr Whichelo that he was going out, and why. “You don’t mean to say they stick you at a desk like that, among all those fellows?” Fred said, as they left the bank together; which exclamation of wonder revived the original impatience which use and wont by this time had calmed down.

“Exactly like the other fellows,” said John; “and quite right too, or why should I be here?”

“Then I suppose you are—learning—the business,” said Fred. “Old Crediton must mean you to be his successor. And that is great luck, though I confess it would not have much charm for me.”

“It is very well,” said John, “I have nothing to complain of. If I can stick to it I suppose I shall earn some money sooner or later, which is a great matter, all you people say.”

“Of course it is a great matter,” said Fred. “You told that old fellow you were going out in a wonderful explanatory way, as if you thought he mightn’t like it. Can’t you stay and have something with me at the hotel? I have to be here all night, much against my will, and I should spend it all alone unless you’ll stay.”

“Thanks; it does me good to see a known face. I’ll stay if you’ll have me,” said John; and then, as it was still daylight, they took a preparatory stroll about the streets of Camelford. The inn was in the High Street, not very far from the bank and the Crediton mansion. The young men walked about the twilight streets talking of everything in earth and heaven. It was to John as if they had met in the depths of Africa or at a lonely Indian station. He had never been very intimate with Fred Huntley, but they were of the same class, with something like the same training and associations, and the exile could have embraced the new-comer, who spoke his own language, and put the same meaning to ordinary words as he did. It was a long time before he even noticed the inquiring way in which Huntley looked at him, the half-questions he now and then would put sharply in the midst of indifferent conversation, as if to take him off his guard. John was not on his guard, and consequently the precaution was ineffectual; but after a while he observed it with a curious sensation of surprise. It was not, however, till they had dined, and were seated opposite to each other over their modest bottle of claret, that they fairly entered upon personal affairs.

“Do you find the life suit you?” said Fred, abruptly. “I beg your pardon if I am too inquisitive; but of course it must be a great change.”

“I am not sure that it suits me particularly,” said John; but the glance which accompanied the question had been very keen and searching, and somehow, without knowing it, a sense of suspicion ran through him; “I don’t suppose any life does until one is thoroughly used to it. Routine is the grand safeguard in everything—and perhaps more than in anything else to a clerk in a bank.”

“But that is absurd,” said Fred. “How long do you and Mr Crediton mean to keep up the farce? a clerk in the bank betrothed to his daughter—it is too good a joke.”

“I don’t see the farce,” said John, “and neither, I suppose, does Mr Crediton; he is not given to joking. Now tell me, Huntley, before we go any further, is it the dear old people at home who have asked you to come and look after me? was it—my mother? She might have known I would tell her at first hand anything there was to tell.”

At this speech Fred Huntley became very much confused, though he did not look like a man to be easily put out. He grew red, he cleared his throat, he shuffled his feet about the carpet. “Upon my word you mistake,” he said; “I have not seen either Mrs Mitford or the Doctor since you left.”

“Then who has sent you?” said John.

“My dear fellow, you have grown mighty suspicious all at once. Why should any one have sent me? may not I look up an old friend for my own pleasure? surely we have known each other sufficiently for that.”

“You might,” said John, “but I don’t think that is the whole question, and it would be best to tell me at once what you want to know—I am quite willing to unfold my experiences,” he said, with a forced smile; and then there was a pause——

“The fact of the matter is,” said Fred Huntley, after an interval, with an attempt at jocularity, “that you are an intensely lucky fellow. What will you say if I tell you that I have just come from Fernwood, and that if any one sent me it was Kate Crediton, wishing for a report as to your health and spirits—though it is not so long since she has seen you, I suppose?”

“Kate Crediton?” said John, haughtily.

“I beg your pardon: my sisters are intimate with her, you know, and I hear her called so fifty times in a day—one falls into it without knowing. Hang it! since you will have it, Mitford, Miss Crediton did speak to me before I left. She heard I was coming to Camelford, and she came to me the night before—last night, in fact—and told me you were here alone, and she was uneasy about you. I wish anybody was uneasy about me. She wanted to know if you were lonely, if you were unhappy—half a hundred things. I hope you don’t object to her anxiety. I assure you it conveyed a very delightful idea of your good fortune to me.”

“Whatever Miss Crediton chose to say must have been like herself,” cried John, trembling with sudden passion, “and no doubt she thought you were a very proper ambassador. But you must be aware, Huntley, that ladies judge very differently on these points from men. If you please we will not go further into that question.”

“It was not I who began it, I am sure,” said Fred; and another pause ensued, during which John sat with lowering brows, and an expression no one had ever seen on his face before. “Look here, Mitford,” said Fred, suddenly, “don’t go and vex yourself for nothing. If any indiscretion of mine should make dispeace between you——”

“Pray don’t think for a moment that such a thing is likely to happen,” said John.

“Well—well—if I am too presumptuous in supposing anything I say to be likely to move you;” Huntley went on, with a restrained smile—“but you really must not do Miss Crediton injustice through any clumsiness of mine. It came about in the most natural way. She was afraid there had been some little sparring between her father and yourself, and was anxious, as in her position it was so natural to be——”

“Exactly,” said John. “Are you on your way home now, or are you going back to Fernwood? I should ask you to take a little parcel for me if you were likely to be near Fanshawe. How are the birds? I don’t suppose I shall do them much harm this year.”

“Oh, they’re plentiful enough,” said Huntley; “my father has the house full, and I am not much of a shot, you know. They would be charmed to see you if you would go over for a day or two. I mean to make a run to Switzerland, myself. Vaughan has some wonderful expedition on hand—up the Matterhorn, or something—and I should like to be on the spot.”

“Shall you go up with him?” said John.

“Not I, but I should like to be at hand to pick up what remains of him if he comes to grief—and to share his triumph, of course, if he succeeds,” Fred added, with a laugh—“a friend’s privilege. Are you going?—it is scarcely ten o’clock.”

“You forget I am a man of business nowadays,” said John, with an uncomfortable smile; and then they stood over the table, facing but not looking at each other; a suppressed resentment and excitement possessing one, which he was doing his utmost to restrain—and the other embarrassed, with a mixture of charitable vexation and malicious pleasure in the effect he had produced.

“I’ll walk with you,” said Huntley; for to shake hands and separate at this moment would have been something like an irredeemable breach—and that, for two men belonging to the same county, and almost the same set, was a thing to be avoided. John had not sufficient command of himself to make any effusive reply, but he did not object; and presently they were in the street walking side by side and discoursing on every subject except the one in their minds. They had not walked very far, however, before some indefinable impulse made John turn back to cast a glance at the bank—the scene of his daily penance—and the vacant house that stood beside it. They were a good way down the street, on the opposite side. He gave a slight start, which his companion perceived, but offered no explanation of it. “Let us turn back a little, I have forgotten something,” he said. Huntley, who had no particular interest where they went, turned as he was desired, and was just debating with himself whether, all the due courtesies having been attended to, he might not go into his hotel as they passed it, and leave John at peace to pursue his sullen way. But it occurred to him that John made a half-perceptible pause at the door of the “Greyhound,” as if inviting him to withdraw, and this movement decided the question. “Confound the fellow! I’m not going to be dismissed when he pleases,” Fred said to himself; and so went on, not knowing where he went.

“I thought so!” cried John, suddenly, in the midst of some philosophical talk, interrupting Fred in the middle of a sentence—and he rushed across the street to the bank, to his companion’s utter consternation. “What is the matter?” cried Fred. John dashed at the closed door, ringing the bell violently, and beating with his stick upon the panels. Then he called loudly to a passing policeman—“Knock at the house!” he cried. “Fire! fire! Huntley, for heaven’s sake, fly for the engines!—they will let me in and not you, or I should go myself—don’t lose a moment. Fire! fire!”

“But stop a little,” cried Huntley in dismay, plucking at John’s arm; and what with the sound of the knocking and the peals of the bell which sounded sepulchrally in the empty place, he scarcely could hear his own voice. “Stop a moment—you are deceiving yourself; I see no signs of fire.”

“You run!” cried John, hoarsely, turning to the policeman, “or you—five pounds to the man who gets there first! Signs!—Good God! the wretches are out. We must break open the door.” And he beat at it, as if he would beat it in, with a kind of frenzy; while Huntley stood stupefied, and saw two or three of the bystanders, who had already begun to collect, start off with a rush to get the fire-engines. “There’s nobody in the house either, sir, or else I can’t make ’em hear,” said the policeman, coming up to John for his orders. “Then we must break in,” cried John. “There’s a locksmith in the next street: you fly and fetch him, my good fellow. And where shall we get some ladders? There is a way of getting in from the house if we were once in the house.”

“Not to make too bold, sir,” said the policeman, “I’d like to know afore breaking into folks' houses, if you had any title to do the like. You’re not Mr Crediton, and he aint got no son——”

John drew himself to his full height, and even then in his excitement glanced at Huntley, who kept by his side, irresolute and ignorant, not knowing what to do. “I am closely connected with Mr Crediton,” he said; “nobody can have a better right to look after his affairs; and he is away from home. Get us ladders, and don’t let us stand parleying here.”

The policeman looked at him for a moment, and then moved leisurely across the street to seek the ladders, while in the mean time the two young men stood in front of the blind house with all its shuttered windows, and the closed door which echoed hollow to John’s assault. The dark front so jealously bolted and barred, all dangers without shut out, and the fiery traitor within ravaging at its leisure, drove John wild, excited as he was to begin with. “Good heavens! to think we must stand here,” he said, ringing once more, but this time so violently that he broke the useless bell. They heard it echo shrilly through the silent place in the darkness. “Mr White the porter’s gone out for a walk—I seed him,” said a boy; “there aint no one there.” “But I see no signs of fire,” cried Fred. Just then there came silently through the night air a something which contradicted him to his face—a puff of smoke from somewhere, nobody could tell where; and all at once through the freshness of the autumn night the smell of fire suddenly breathed round them. Fred uttered one sharp exclamation, and then stood still, confounded. As for John, he gave a spring at the lower window and caught the iron bar and swung himself up. But the bar resisted his efforts, and there was nothing for it but to wait. When the ladders were at last visible, moving across the gloom, he rushed at them, without taking time to think, and snatching one out of the slow hands of the indifferent bearers, placed it against the wall of the house, while Fred stood observing, and was up almost at the sill of an unshuttered window on the upper floor before Huntley could say a word. Then Fred contented himself with standing outside and looking on. “One is enough for that sort of work,” he said half audibly, and fell into conversation with the policeman, who stood with an anxious countenance beside him. “I hope as the gentleman won’t hurt himself,” said the policeman. “I hope it’s true as he’s Mr Crediton’s relation, sir. Very excited he do seem, about not much, don’t you think, sir? And them engines will be tearing down, running over the children before a man knows.”

“Do you think there is not much danger, then?” said Fred.

“Danger!” cried the man—“Lord bless you! if it was a regular fire don’t ye think as I’d have noticed it, and me just finished my round not half an hour since? But it’s hawful negligent of that fellow White. I knew as he’d been going to the bad for some time back, and I’m almost glad he’s catched; but as for fire, sir——”

At this moment another puff of smoke, darker and heavier, came in a gust from the roof, and the policeman putting his eye to the keyhole, fell back again exclaiming vehemently, “By George! but it is a fire, and the gentleman’s right,” and sprang his rattle loudly. The crowd round gave a half-cheer of excitement, and up full speed rattled the fire-engines, clearing the way, and filling the air with clangour. At the same moment arrived a guilty sodden soul, wringing his hands, in which was a big key. “Gentlemen,” he cried, “I take you to witness as I never was out before. It’s an accident as nobody couldn’t have foreseen. It’s an accident as has never happened before.” “Open the door, you ass!” cried Huntley; and then the babel of sounds, the gleams of wild light, the hiss of the falling water, all the confused whirl of circumstance that belongs to such a moment swept in, and took all distinct understanding even from the self-possessed perceptions of Fred.

As for John, when he found himself in the silent house which he had entered from the window, he had no time to think of his sensations. He had snatched the policeman’s lantern from his hand ere he made his ascent, and went hastily stumbling through the unknown room, and down the long, echoing stairs, as through a wall of darkness; projecting before him the round eye of light, which made the darkness if possible more weird and mystical. His heart was very sore; it pained him physically, or at least he thought it did, lying like a lump of lead in his breast. But he was glad of the excitement which forced his thoughts away from himself. To unbolt the ponderous doors at either end of the passage which led into the bank, took him what seemed an age; but at last he succeeded in getting them open. A cloud of smoke enveloped him as he went in, and all but drove him back. He burst through it with a confused sense of flames and suffocation, and blazing sheets of red, that waved long tongues towards him to catch him as he rushed through them; but, notwithstanding, he forced his way into Mr Crediton’s room, where he knew there were valuable papers. He thought of nothing as he rushed through the jaws of death; neither of Kate, nor of his past life, nor of his home, nor of any of those things which are supposed to gleam upon the mind in moments of supreme danger. He thought only of the papers in Mr Crediton’s room. Unconsciously he formed an idea of the origin of the fire, as, panting, choked, and scorched, he gathered, without seeing them, into his arms the box of papers, and seized upon everything he could feel with his hands upon the table. He could see nothing, for his eyes were stinging with the smoke, and scorched with the flames. When he had grasped everything he could feel, with his senses failing him, he pushed blindly for the door, hoping, so far as he had wit enough to hope anything, that he might reach the front of the house, and be able to unloose its fastenings before he gave way. By this time there was a roaring of the fire in his ears; an insufferable smell of burning wood and paint; all his senses were assailed, even that of touch, which recoiled from the heated walls against which he staggered trying to find the door. At last the sharp pain with which he struck violently against it, cutting open his forehead, brought him partially to himself. He half-staggered half-fell into the passage, dropping upon his knees, for his arms were full, and he had no hand to support himself with. Then all at once a sudden wild gust of air struck him in the face from the other side; the flames, with (he thought) a cry, leaped at him from behind, and he fell prostrate, clasping tight the papers he had recovered, and knew no more.

It was half an hour later when Fred Huntley, venturing into the narrow hall of the burning house after the first detachment of firemen had entered with their hatchets, found some one lying drenched with water from the engines, and looking like a calcined thing that would drop to powder at a touch, against the wall. The calcined creature moved when it was touched, and gave signs of life; but every one by this time had forgotten John in the greater excitement of the fire; and it had not occurred to Huntley even, the only one who knew much about him, to ask what had become of him. He was dragged out, not very gently, to the steps in front; and there, fortunately for John, was the porter who had been the cause of all the mischief, and who stood outside wringing his hands, and getting in everybody’s way. “Look after him, you!” cried Fred, plunging in again to the heart of the conflict. Some of the clerks had arrived by this time, and were anxiously directing the fire-engines to play upon the strong room in which most of the valuables of the bank were placed. Fred Huntley was not noticeably destitute of courage, but he was more ready to put himself in the front when the pioneers had passed before, and there were plenty of followers to support him behind. He took the command of affairs while John lay moaning, scorched, and drenched on the wet step, with people rushing past him, now and then almost treading on him, and pain gradually rousing him into consciousness. They had tried to take his charge from him and he had resisted, showing a dawn of memory. When the water from the hose struck him again in the face, he struggled half up, and sat and looked round him. “Good Lord, Mr Mitford!” said Mr Whichelo, the chief cashier, discovering him with consternation. “Take me somewhere,” gasped John; “and take care of these,” holding out his innocent booty. Mr Whichelo rushed at him eagerly. “God bless you!” he cried; “it was that I was thinking of. How did you get it? have you been into the fire and the flames to fetch it, and saved my character?” cried the poor man, hysterically. “Hold your tongue, and take me somewhere!” cried John; and the next moment his senses had once more forsaken him, and he knew nothing about either blaze or flame.

The after incidents of the night, of which John was conscious only by glimpses, were—that he was carried to the inn opposite, his treasures taken from his arms and locked carefully away, and the doctor brought, who examined him, and shook his head, and said a great deal about a shock to the nerves. John was in one of his intervals of consciousness when this was said, and raised himself from the strange distance and dreaminess in which he seemed to be lying. “I have had no shock to my nerves,” he said. “I’m burnt and sore and soaking, that’s all. Plaster me or mend me somehow.” And this effort saved him from the feverish confusion into which he was falling. When he came to himself he felt that he was indeed sore all over, with minute burns in a hundred places about his person; his hair and his eyelashes scorched off, and his skin all blistered and burning. Perhaps it was the pain which kept him in full possession of his faculties for all the rest of the night. Then he felt it was not the fire he had cared for, nor the possible loss, but only the pure satisfaction of doing something. When they told him the fire was got under, the strong room saved, and that nothing very serious had happened, the news did not in the least excite him. He had asked as if he was profoundly concerned, and he was scarcely even interested. “Pain has often that effect,” he heard the doctor say. “This kind of irritating, ever-present suffering, absorbs the mind. Of course he cares. Tell him again, that the news may get into his mind.” And then somebody told him again, and John longed to cry, What the devil is that to me! but restrained himself. It was nothing to him; and the burning on his skin was not much: it was nothing indeed to the burning in his heart. She had discussed with another matters which were between themselves. She had sent another to report on his looks and his state of mind; there was between her and another man a secret alliance which he was not intended to know. The blood seemed to boil in John’s veins as he lay tossing through the restless night, trying in vain to banish the thought from him. But the thought, being intolerable, would not be banished. It lay upon him, and tore at him as the vultures tore Prometheus. She had discussed their engagement with Fred Huntley; taken him into her confidence—that confidence which should have been held sacred to another. John was thrown back suddenly and wildly upon himself. His heart throbbed and swelled as if it would break, and felt as if hot irons had seared it. He imagined them sitting together, talking him over. He even fancied the account of this accident which Huntley would give. He would be at her ear, while John was banished. He denied that it had been a shock to his nerves; and yet his nerves had received such a shock as he might never recover in his life.

CHAPTER XVII.

For some days after the fire, John continued in a sadly uncomfortable state both of body and mind. The two, indeed, were not dissimilar. He was much burnt, though superficially, and suffered double pangs from the stinging, gnawing, unrelaxing pain. His spirit was burnt too—scorched by sudden flames; stiff and sore all over, like his limbs, with points of exaggerated suffering here and there,—a thing he could not take his thoughts from, nor try to forget. He was very unmanageable by his attendants, was with difficulty persuaded to obey the doctor’s prescriptions, and absolutely refused to lay himself up. “The end’ll be as you’ll kill yourself, sir, and that you’ll see,” said his landlady. “Not much matter either,” John murmured between his teeth. He was smarting all over, as the poor moth is which flies into the candle. It does the same thing over again next minute, no doubt; and so, probably, would he: but in the mean time he suffered much both in body and mind. He would not keep in bed, or even in-doors, notwithstanding the doctor’s orders; and it was only downright incapacity that kept him from appearing in the temporary offices which had been arranged for the business of the bank. Mr Crediton had come in from Fernwood at once to look after matters; but on that day John was really ill, and so had escaped the visit which otherwise would have been inevitable. Mr Whichelo came that evening to bring his principal’s regrets. “He was very much cut up about not seeing you,” said the head-clerk. “You know your own affairs best, and I don’t wish to be intrusive; but I think you would find it work better not to keep him at such a distance.”

“I keep Mr Crediton at a distance!” said John, with a grimace of pain.

“You do, Mr Mitford. I don’t say that he is always what he might be expected to be; but, anyhow, no advances come from your side.”

“It is not from my side advances should come,” John said, turning his face to the wall with an obstinacy which was almost sullen; while at the same time he said to himself at the bottom of his heart, What does it matter? These were but the merest outward details. The real question was very different. Did a woman know what love meant?—was it anything but a diversion to her—an amusement? was what he was asking himself; while a man, on the other hand, might give up his life for it, and annul himself, all for a passing smile—a smile that was quite as bright to the next comer. Such thoughts were thorns in John’s pillow as he tossed and groaned. They burned and gnawed at his heart worse than his outward wounds; and there were no cool applications which could be made to them. He did not want to be spoken to, nor to have even the friendliest light thrown upon the workings of his mind. To be let alone—to be left to make the best of it—to be allowed to resume his work quietly, and go and come, and wait until the problem had been solved for him, or until he himself had solved it,—it seemed to John that he wished for nothing more.

“That may be,” said Mr Whichelo; “but all the same you don’t take much pains to conciliate him—though that is not my business. A man who has had a number of us round him all his life always anxious to conciliate—as good men as himself any day,” the head-clerk added, with some heat, “but still in a measure dependent upon his will for our bread—it takes a strong head to stand such a strain, Mr Mitford. An employer is pretty near a despot, unless he’s a very good man. I don’t want to say a word against Mr Crediton——”

“Much better not,” said John, with another revulsion of feeling, not indisposed to knock the man down who ventured to thrust in his opinion between Kate’s father and himself; and Mr Whichelo for the moment was silent, with a half-alarmed sense of having gone too far.

“He is very grateful to you for your promptitude and energy,” he continued: “but for you these papers must have been lost. It would have been my fault,” said Mr Whichelo, with animation, yet in a low tone. There was even emotion in his words, and something like a tear in his eye. If he had been a great general or a distinguished artist, his professional reputation could not have been more precious to him. But John was preoccupied, and paid no attention. He did not care for having saved Mr Whichelo’s character any more than Mr Crediton’s money, though he had, indeed, risked his life to do it. He had been in such a mood that to risk his life was rather agreeable to him than otherwise, not for any “good motive,” but simply as he would have thrust his burnt leg or arm into cold water for the momentary relief of his pain.

“Don’t let us talk any more about it,” he said; “they are safe, I suppose, and there is an end of it. But how I got out of that place,” he added, turning himself once more impatiently on his uneasy bed, “is a mystery to me.”

“You have your friend to thank for that,” said his companion, with the sense that now at last a topic had been found on which it would be safe to speak.

“My—what?” cried John, sitting suddenly upright in his bed.

“Your—friend,—the gentleman who was with you. Good God! this is the worst of all,” cried poor Whichelo, driven to his wits' end.

And, indeed, for a minute John’s expression was that of a demon. He had some cuts on his forehead, which were covered with plaster; he was excessively pale; one of his arms was bandaged up; and when you have added to all these not beautifying circumstances the dim light thrown upon the bed under its shabby curtains, and the look of horror, dismay, and rage which passed over the unhappy young fellow’s face, poor Mr Whichelo’s consternation may be understood. “My—friend!” he repeated, with a groan. He could not himself have given any reason for it; but it seemed at the moment to be the last and finishing blow.

“Yes,” said Mr Whichelo, “so they told me. He found you lying in the passage with the engines playing upon you, and dragged you out. It was very lucky for you he was there.”

John fell back in his bed with a look of utter weariness and lassitude. “It doesn’t matter,” he said. “But is anybody such a fool as to think that I should have died with the engines playing on me? Nonsense! He need not have been so confoundedly officious: but it don’t matter, I tell you,” he added, angrily; “don’t let us speak of it any more.”

“My dear Mr Mitford,” said Mr Whichelo, “I don’t wish to interfere; but I am the father of a family myself, with grown-up sons, and I don’t like to see a young man give way to wrong feeling. The gentleman did a most friendly action. I don’t know, I am sure, if you would have died—but—he meant well, there can be no doubt of that.”

“Confound him!” said John between his closed teeth. Mr Whichelo was glad he could not quite hear what it was; perhaps, however, he expected something worse than “confound him”—for a sense of horror crept over him, and he was very thankful that he had no closer interest in this impatient young man than mere acquaintanceship—a man who was going in for the Church! he said to himself. He sat silent for a little, and then got up and took his hat.

“I hear you have to be kept very quiet,” he said; “and as it is late, I will take my leave. Good evening, Mr Mitford; I hope you will have a good night; and if I can be of any use——”

“Good-night,” said John, too much worn to be able to think of politeness. And when Mr Whichelo was gone the doctor came, who gave him a great deal of suffering by way of relieving him. He bore it all in silence, having plenty of distraction afforded him by his thoughts, which were bitter enough. “Doctor,” he said, sitting up all at once while his injured arm was being bandaged, “answer me one question: I hear I was found lying somewhere with the engines playing on me; could I have died like that?”

“You might—in time,” said the doctor, with a smile, “but not just for as long as the fire lasted; unless you had taken cold, which you don’t appear to have done, better luck.”

“But there was no other danger?”

“You could not have been burnt alive with the engines playing on you,” said the doctor. “Yes, of course there was danger: the roof might have fallen in, which it did not—thanks, I believe, to your promptitude; or even if the partition had come down upon you, it would have been far from pleasant; but I should think you have had quite enough of it as it is.”

“I want to make sure,” said the patient, with incomprehensible eagerness, “not for my own sake—but—there never was any real danger? you can tell me that.”

“One can never say as much,” was the answer. “I should not myself like to lie insensible in a burning house, close to a partition which fell eventually. At the least you might have been crippled and disfigured for life.”

A groan burst from John’s breast when he found himself alone on that weary lingering night. How long it seemed!—years almost since the excitement of the fire which had sustained him for the moment, though he was not aware of it. He put his hand up to his eyes, and found that there were tears in them, and despised himself, which added another thorn to his pillow. He had nobody to console him; nobody to keep him from brooding over the sudden misery. Was it a fit revenge of fate upon him for his feeling of right in regard to Kate? He had felt that he had a right to her because he had saved her life. Was it possible that he had taken an ungenerous advantage of that? He went back over the whole matter, and he said to himself that, had he loved a girl so much out of his sphere, without this claim upon her, he would have smothered his love, and made up his mind from the beginning that it was useless. But the sense that he had saved her life had given him a sense of power—yes, of ungenerous power—over her. And now he himself had fallen into the same subjection. Another man had saved his life; or, at least, was supposed by others, and no doubt would himself believe that he had done so. Fred Huntley, whom she had taken into her confidence, to whom she had described the state of the affairs between them, whose advice almost she had asked on a matter which never should have been breathed to profane ears—Fred Huntley had saved his life. He groaned in his solitude, and put up his hand to his eyes, and despised himself. “I had better cry over it, like a sick baby,” he said to himself, with savage irony; and oh to think that was all, all he could do!

Next morning John insisted on getting up, in utter disobedience to his doctor. He had his arm in a sling, but what did that matter? and he had still the plaster on the cuts on his forehead. He tried to read, but that was not possible. He wrote to his mother as best he could with his left hand, telling her there had been a fire, and that he had burned his fingers pulling some papers out of it—“nothing of the least importance,” he said. And when he had done that he paused and hesitated. Should he write to Kate? He had not done it for several days past. It was the longest gap that had ever occurred in their correspondence. His heart yearned a little within him notwithstanding all its wounds; yet after he had taken up the pen he flung it down again in the sickness of his heart. Why should he write? She must have heard all about it from Fred Huntley and from her father. She had heard, no doubt, that Fred had saved his life—and she had taken no notice. Why should she take any notice? It did not humiliate a woman to be under such an obligation, but it did humiliate a man. John rose and stalked about his little room, which scarcely left him space enough for four steps from end to end. He stared out hopelessly at the window which looked into the little humble suburban street with its tiny gardens; and then he went and stared into the little glass over the mantelpiece, which was scarcely tall enough to reflect him unless he stooped. A pretty sight he was to look at; three lines of plaster on his forehead, marks of scorching on his cheek, dark lines of pain under his eyes, and the restless, anxious, uneasy expression of extreme suffering on his scarred face. He was not an Adonis at the best, poor John, and he was conscious of it. What was there in him that she should care for him? She had been overborne by his claim of right over her. It had been ungenerous of him; he had put forth a plea which never ought to be urged, and which another man now had the right of urging over himself. With a groan of renewed anguish he threw himself down on the little sofa, and leaned his head and his folded arms on the table at which he had been writing his mother’s letter. He had nothing to fall back upon: all his life and hopes he had given up for this, and here was what it had come to. He had no capability left in his mind but of despair.

It was, no doubt, because he was so absorbed in his own feelings and unconscious of what was passing, that he heard nothing of any arrival at the door. He scarcely raised his head when the door of his own little sitting-room was opened. “I want nothing, thanks,” he said, turning his back on his officious landlady, he thought. She must have come into the room more officious than ever, for there was a faint rustling sound of a woman’s dress, and that sense of some one in the room which is so infallible; but John only turned his back the more obstinately. Then all at once there came something that breathed over him like a wind from the south, something made up of soft touch, soft sound, soft breath. “John, my poor John!” said the voice; and the touch was as of two arms going round that poor wounded head of his. It was impossible—it could not be. He suffered his hands to be drawn down from his face, his head to be encircled in the arms, and said to himself that it was a dream. “Am I mad?” he said, half aloud; “am I losing my head?—for I know it cannot be.”

“What cannot be? and why should not it be?” said Kate, in his ear. “Oh, you unkind, cruel John! Did you want me to break my heart without a word or a message from you? Not even to see papa! not to send me a single line! to leave me to think you were dying or something, and you not even in bed. If I were not so glad, I should be in a dreadful passion. You horrid, cruel, brave, dear old John!”

He did not know what to think or say. All his evil thoughts slid away from him unawares, as the ice melts. There was no reason for it; but the sun had shone on them, and they were gone. He took hold of, and kept fast in his, the hands that had touched his aching head. “I do not think it is you,” he said; “I am afraid to look lest it should not be you.”

“I know better than that,” said Kate; “it is because you will not let me see your face. Poor dear face!” cried the impulsive girl, and cried a little, and dropped a sudden, soft, momentary kiss upon the scorched cheek. That was her tribute to the solemnity of the occasion. And then she laughed half hysterically. “John, dear, you are so ugly, and I like you so,” she said; and sat down by him, and clasped his arm with both her hands. John’s heart had melted into the foolishest tenderness and joy by this time. He was so happy that his very pain seemed to him the tingling of pleasure. “I cannot think it is you,” he said, looking down upon her with a fondness which could find no words.

“I have come all this way to see him,” she cried, “and evidently now he thinks it is not proper. Look, I have brought Parsons with me. There she is standing in the window all this time, not to intrude upon us. Do you think I am improper now?”

“Hush!” he said, softly; “don’t blaspheme yourself. Because I cannot say anything except wonder to feel myself so happy——”

“My poor John, my poor dear old John!” she said, leaning the fairy head against him which ought to have had a crown of stars round it instead of a mite of a bonnet. Kate took no thought of her bonnet at that moment. She sat by his side, and talked and talked, healing his wounds with her soft words. And Parsons drew a chair quietly to her and sat down in the window, turning her back upon the pair. “Lord, if I was to behave like that,” Parsons was saying to herself, “and somebody a-looking on!” And she sat and stared out of the window, and attracted a barrel-organ, which came and played before her, with a pair of keen Italian eyes gleaming at her over it from among the black elf-locks. Parsons shook her head at the performer; but her presence was enough for him, and he kept on grinding “La Donna é Mobile” slowly and steadily, through her thoughts and through the murmuring conversation of the other two. Neither Kate nor John paid any attention to the music. They had not heard it, they would have said; and yet it was strange how the air would return to both of them in later times.

“I see now you could not write,” said Kate; “but still you have scribbled something to your mother. I think I might have had a word too. But I did not come to scold you. Oh, that horrid organ-man, I wish he would go away! You might have sent me a message by papa.”

“I did not see him,” said John.

“Or by Fred Huntley. You saw him, for he told me—— John! what is the matter? Are you angry? Ought I not to have come?”

Then there was a pause; he had drawn his arm away out of her clasping hands, and all at once the tingling which was like pleasure became pain again, and gnawed and burned him as if in a sudden endeavour to overcome his patience. And yet it was so difficult to look down upon the flushed wondering face, the eyes wide open with surprise, the bewildered look, and remain unkind to her. For it was unkind to pull away the arm which she was clasping with both her hands. He felt himself a barbarian, and yet he could not help it. Huntley’s name was like a shot in the heart to him. And the organ went on with its creaks and jerks, playing out its air. “That organ is enough to drive one wild,” he said, pettishly, and felt that he had committed himself, and was to blame.

“Is it only the organ?” said Kate, relieved. “Yes, is it not dreadful? but I thought you were angry with me. Oh, John, I don’t think I could bear it if I thought you were really angry with me.”

“My darling! I am a brute,” he said, and put the arm which he had drawn so suddenly away round her. He had but one—the other was enveloped in bandages and supported in a sling.

“Does it hurt?” said Kate, laying soft fingers full of healing upon it. “I do so want to hear how it all happened. Tell me how it was. They say the bank might all have been burned down if you had not seen it, and papa would have lost such heaps of money. John, dear, I think you will find papa easier to manage now.”

“Do you think so?” he said, with a faint smile; “but that is buying his favour, Kate.”

“Never mind how we get it, if we do get it,” cried Kate. “I am sure I would do anything to buy his favour—but I cannot go and save his papers and do such things for him. Or, John, was it for me?” she said, lowering her voice, and looking up in his face.

“No, I don’t think it was for you,” he answered, rather hoarsely; “and it was not for him. I did it because I could not help it, and to escape from myself.”

“To escape from yourself! Why did you want that?” she said, with an innocent little cry of astonishment. It was clear she was quite unaware of having done him any wrong.

“Kate, Kate,” he said, holding her close, “you did not mean it; but why did you take Fred Huntley into your confidence—why did you speak to him about you and me?”

She gave him a wondering look, and then the colour rose into her cheek. “John!” she said, in a tone of amazement, “what is this about Fred Huntley? Are you jealous of him—jealous of him? Oh, I hope I am not quite so foolish as that.”

Was that all she was going to say? No disclaimer of having given him her confidence, nothing about her part in the matter, only about his. Was he jealous? the question sank into John’s heart like a stone.

“I don’t know if I am jealous,” he said, with a falter in his voice, which went to Kate’s impressionable heart. “It must be worse to me than it is to you, or you would not ask me. To have said anything to anybody about us, Kate!”

“I see,” she said, holding away from him a little; “I see,”—and was silent for two seconds at least, which felt like two hours to them both. And the man went on playing “La Donna é Mobile,”—and Parsons, very red in the face, kept shaking her head at him, but did not attempt to leave her post. Then Kate turned and lifted her pretty eyes, full of tears, to her lover’s face, and spoke in his very ear. “John, it was very silly of me, and thoughtless, and nasty, I see. But I have had nobody to tell me such things. I have never had a mother like you; I say whatever comes into my head. John! I am so sorry——”

Could he have let her say any more? he ended the sweet confession as lovers use; he held her to him, and healed himself by her touch, by her breath, by the softness of her caressing hands. He forgot everything in the world but that she was there. She had meant no harm, she had thought no harm. It was her innocence, her ignorance, that had led her into this passing error, and foolish John was so happy that all his sufferings passed from his mind.

“His old remembrances went from him wholly,
And all the ways of men, so vain and melancholy.”

Everything smiled and brightened before him; the organ-grinder stopped and found out from poor Parsons’s perpetual gesticulations that pennies were not to be expected; and something soft and tranquil and serene seemed to steal into the room and envelop the two, who were betrothing themselves over again, or so they thought. “Papa says you are to come to Fernwood. You must come and let me nurse you,” Kate whispered in his ear. “That would be too sweet,” John whispered back again; and then she opened the note to his mother and wrote a little postscript to it, with his arm round her, and his poor scarred face over her shoulder watching every word as she wrote it. “He looks so frightful,” Kate wrote, “you never saw any one so hideous, dear mamma, or such a darling [don’t shake my arm, John]. I never knew how nice he was, nor how fond I was of him, till now.”

This was how the day ended which had been begun in such misery; for it was nearly dusk when Kate left him with the faithful Parsons. “Indeed you shall not come with me,” she said, “you who ought to be in bed——” but, notwithstanding this protest and all his scars, he went with her till they came within sight of the bank, where the carriage was standing. Of course it did him harm, and the doctor was very angry; but what did John, in the delight of his heart, care for that?

CHAPTER XVIII.

A day or two after this visit John found himself at Fernwood.

It was not perhaps a judicious step for any of them. He came still suffering—and, above all, still marked by his sufferings—among a collection of strangers to whom the bank, and the fire, and the value of the papers he had saved, were of the smallest possible consequence, and who were intensely mystified by his heterogeneous position as at once the betrothed of Kate Crediton and a clerk in her father’s bank. Then there was a sense of embarrassment between him and Mr Crediton which it was impossible either to ignore or to make an end of—John had done so much for the man who was so unwilling to grant him anything in return. He had not only saved the banker’s daughter, but his papers, perhaps his very habitation, and the bulk of all he had in the world, and Mr Crediton was confused by such a weight of obligations. “I must take care he don’t save my life next,” he said to himself; but, notwithstanding this weight of gratitude which he owed, he was not in the least changed in his reluctance to pay. To give his child as salvage-money was a thing he could not bear to think of; and when he looked at John’s pale face among the more animated faces round him, Mr Crediton grew wellnigh spiteful. “That fellow! without an attraction!”—he would say to himself. John was not handsome; he had little of the ready wit and ready talk of society; he did not distinguish himself socially above other men; he was nobody to speak of—a country clergyman’s son without a penny. And yet he was to have Kate! Mr Crediton asked himself why he had ever consented to it, when he saw John’s pale face at his table. He had done it—because Kate had set her heart upon it—because he thought Kate would be fickle and change her mind—because—he could scarcely tell why; but always with the thought that it would come to nothing. He would not allow, when any one asked him, that there was an engagement. “There is some nonsense of the kind,” he would say, “boy and girl trash. I take it quietly because I know it never can come to anything. He saved her that time her horse ran away with her, and it is just a piece of romantic gratitude on her part. If I opposed it I should make her twice as determined, and therefore I don’t oppose.” He had said as much to almost everybody at Fernwood, though neither of the two most immediately concerned were aware. And this was another reason why the strangers were mystified, and could not make out what it meant.

As for Kate, though she had been so anxious for his coming, it cannot be said that it made her very happy; for the first time the complications of the matter reached her. She was not, as when she had been at Fanshawe, a disengaged young lady able to give up her time to her lover, but, on the contrary, the mistress of the house, with all her guests to look after, and a thousand things to think of. She could not sit and talk with him, or walk with him, as she had done at the Rectory. He could not secure the seat next to her, or keep by her side, as, in other circumstances, it would have been so natural for him to do. He got her left hand at table the first day of his arrival, and was happy, and thought this privilege was always to be his; but, alas! the next day was on the other side, unable so much as to catch a glimpse of her. “I am the lady of the house. I have to be at everybody’s beck and call,” she said, trying to smooth him down. “On the contrary, you ought to do just what you please,” said foolish John; and he wandered about all day seeking opportunities to pounce upon her—for, to be sure, he cared for nobody and nothing at Fernwood but Kate, and he was ill and sensitive, and wanted to be cared for, even petted, if that could have been. He could not go out to ride with the rest of the party on account of his injured hand, but Kate had to go, or thought she must, leaving him alone to seek what comfort was possible in the library. No doubt it was very selfish of John to wish to keep her back from anything that was a pleasure to her, but then he was an eager, ardent lover, who had been much debarred from her society, and was set on edge by seeing others round her who were more like her than he was. To be left behind, or to find himself shut out all day from so much as a word with her, was one pang; but to find even when he was with her, that he had little to say that interested her, and to see her return to the common crowd as soon as any excuse occurred to make it possible, was far harder and struck more deep. He would sit in a corner of the drawing-room and look and listen while the conversation went on. They talked about the people they knew, the amusements they had been enjoying, the past season and the future one, and a hundred little details which only persons in their own “set” could understand. John himself could have talked such talk in college rooms or the chambers of a friend, but he would have thought it rude to continue when strangers were present; but the fashionable people did not think it rude. And even when he was leaning over her chair whispering to her, he could note that Kate’s attention failed, and could see her face brighten and her ear strain to hear some petty joke bandied about among the others. “Was it Mr Lunday that said that? it is so like him,” she said once in the very midst of something he was saying. And poor John’s heart sank down—down to his very boots.

And then Kate had a hundred things to do in concert with her other guests. She sang with one, and John did not sing, and had to look on with the forlornest thoughts, while a precious hour would pass, consumed by duet after duet and such talk as the following:—“Do you know this?” “Let us try that.” “I must do something to amuse all those people,” she would say, when he complained. She was not angry with him for complaining, but always kind and sweet, and ready, if she gave him nothing else, to give him one of her pretty smiles.

“But I shall be gone directly, and I have not had ten minutes of you,” he said, bitterly.

“Oh, a great deal more than ten minutes,” said Kate; “you unkind, exacting John! When I was at Fanshawe I had all my time on my hands, and nobody but you to think of;—I mean, no other claims upon me. Don’t you think it hurts me as much as any one, when they all crowd round me, and I see your dear old face, looking so pale and glum, on the outside? Please don’t look so glum! You know I should so much, much rather be with you.”

“Should you?” said John, mournfully. Perhaps she believed it; but he found it so very hard to believe. “Dear, I don’t mean to be glum, and spoil your pleasure,” he said, with a certain pathetic humility; “perhaps I had better go and get to my work again, and wait for the old Sunday nights when you come back.”

“That will look as if you were angry with me,” she said. “Oh, John, I thought you would understand! You know I can’t do what I would do with all these people in the house. What I should like would be to nurse you and take care of you, and be with you always; but what can I do with all these girls and people? I hate them sometimes, though they are my great friends. Don’t go and make me think you are angry. It is that that would spoil my pleasure. Look here! come and get your hat, and bring me a shawl; there is time for a little walk before the dinner-bell rings.”

And then the poor fellow would be rapt into paradise for half an hour under shadow of the elm-trees, which were beginning to put on their bright-coloured garments. His reason told him how vain this snatch of enjoyment was, and gave him many a warning that he was spending his life for nought, and giving his treasure for what was not bread; but at such moments John would not listen to the voice of reason. Her hands were on his arm—her head inclining towards him, sometimes almost touching his sleeve—her eyes raised to his—her smile and her sweet kind words all his own. She was as kind as if she had been his mother—as tender and affectionate and forbearing with him. “Don’t be so cross and so exacting. Because I am fond of you, is that any reason why you should tyrannise over me?” said Kate, with a voice as of a dove close to his ear. And how could he answer her but with abject protestations of penitence and ineffable content?

“It is because I hunger for you—and I have so little of my darling,” said repentant John; “what do I care for all the world if I have not my Kate?”

“But you have your Kate, you foolish boy,” she said; “and what does anything matter when you know that? Do I ever distrust you? When I see you talking to somebody at the very other end of the drawing-room, just when I am wanting you perhaps, I don’t make myself wretched, as you do. I only say to myself, Never mind, he is my John and not hers; and I am quite happy—though I am sure a girl has a great deal more cause to be uneasy than a man.”

And when John had been brought to this point, he would swallow such a speech, and would not allow himself to ask whether it was possible that his absence at the other end of the drawing-room could make Kate wretched. Had he put the question to himself, no doubt Reason would have come in; but why should Reason be allowed to come in to spoil the moments of happiness which came so rarely? He held the hands which were clasped on his arm closer to his side, and gave himself up to the sweetness. And he kept her until ever so long after the dressing-bell had pealed its summons to them under the silent trees. It was the stillest autumn night—a little chill, with a new moon which was just going to set as the dining-room was lighted up for dinner—and now and then a leaf detached itself in the soft darkness, and came down with a noiseless languid whirl in the air, like a signal from the unseen. One of these fell upon Kate’s pretty head as she raised it towards her lover, and he lifted the leaf from her hair and put it into his coat. “I will give you a better flower,” said Kate; “but oh, John, I must go in. I shall never have time to dress. Well——then, just one more turn: and never say I am not the most foolish yielding girl that ever was, doing everything you like to ask—though you scold me and threaten to go away.”

This interview made the evening bearable for John; and it was all the more bearable to him, though it is strange to say so, because Fred Huntley had returned, and sat next him at dinner. He had hated Fred for some days, and was not yet much inclined towards him; but still there was a pleasure in being able to talk freely to some one, and to feel himself, to some extent at least, comprehended, position and all. He was very dry and stiff to Huntley at first, but by degrees the ice broke. “I have never seen you since that night,” said Fred. “My heart has smote me since for the way in which I left you, lying on those door-steps. In that excitement one forgets everything. But you bear considerable marks of it, I see.”

“Nothing to signify,” said John; and Fred gave him a nod, and began to eat his soup with an indifference which was balm to the other’s excited feelings. Finding thus that no gratitude was claimed of him, John grew generous. “I hear it was you who dragged me out; and I have never had a chance of thanking you,” he said.

“Thanking me—what for? I don’t remember dragging any one out,” said Fred. “It was very hot work. I did not rush into the thick of it, like you, to do any good; but I daresay I could give the best description of it. Have they found out how much damage was done?—but I suppose the bank is still going on all the same.”

“Banks cannot stop,” said John, “unless things are going very badly with them indeed.”

“That comes of going in for a special study,” said Huntley; “you always did know all about political economy, didn’t you? No, it wasn’t you, it was Sutherland—never mind; if you have not studied it theoretically, you have practically. I often think if I had gone in for business it would have been better for me on the whole.”

“You have less occasion to say so than most men,” said John.

“Because we are well off?—or because I have got my fellowship, and that sort of thing? I don’t know that it matters much. A man has to work—or else,” said Fred, with a sigh, swallowing something more than that entrée, “he drifts somehow into mischief whether he will or no.”

Did he cast a glance at the head of the table as he spoke, where Kate sat radiant, dispensing her smiles on either hand? It was difficult to imagine why he did so, and yet so it seemed. John looked at her too, and for the moment his heart failed him. Could he say, as she herself had suggested, “After all, she is my Kate and no one’s else,” as she sat there in all her splendour? What could he give her that would bear comparison? Of all the men at her father’s table, he was the most humble. At that moment he caught Kate’s eye, and she gave him the most imperceptible little nod, the brightest momentary glance. She acknowledged him when even his own faith failed him. His heart came bounding up again to his breast, and throbbed and knocked against it, making itself all but audible in a kind of shout of triumph. Then he turned half round to his companion, with heightened colour, and an animation of manner which was quite unusual to him. He found Huntley’s eyes fixed upon his face, looking at him with grave, wondering, almost sympathetic interest. Of course Fred’s countenance changed as soon as he found that it was perceived, and sank into the ordinary expressionless look of good society. He was the spectator looking on at this drama, and felt himself so much better qualified to judge than either of those more closely concerned.

“How do you like Fernwood?” Huntley began, with some precipitation. “It is rather too full to be pleasant while you are half an invalid, isn’t it? Does your arm give you much pain?”

“It is very full,” said John, “and one is very much alone among a crowd of people whom one does not know.”

“You will soon get to know them,” said Fred, consolingly; “people are very easy to get on with nowadays on the whole.”

“I am going away on Thursday,” said John.

“What! the day after to-morrow? before your arm is better, or—anything different? Do you know, Mitford, I think you stand a good deal in your own light.”

“That may be,” John said, hotly, “but there are some personal matters of which one can only judge for one’s self.”

Fred made no answer to this; he shrugged his shoulders a little as who should say, It is no business of mine, and began to talk of politics and the member for Camelford, about whose election there were great searchings of heart in the borough and its neighbourhood. An inquiry was going on in the town, and disclosures were being made which excited the district. The two young men turned their thoughts, or at least their conversation, to that subject, and seemed to forget everything else; but whether the election committee took any very strong hold upon them, or if they were really much interested about the doings of the Man in the Moon, it would be hard to say.

The drawing-room was very bright and very gay that evening—like a scene in a play, John was tempted to think. There was a great deal of music, and he sat in his corner and looked and saw everything, and would have been amused had he felt no special interest in it. Kate was in the very centre of it all, guiding and directing, as it was natural she should be. The spectator in the corner watched her by the piano, now taking a part, now accompanying, now throwing herself back into her chair with an air of relief when something elaborate had been set agoing, and whispering and smiling behind her fan to some favoured being, though never to himself. At one moment his vague pain in watching her rose to a positive pang. It was when Fred Huntley was the person with whom she talked. He was stooping down over her, leaning on the back of a chair, and Kate’s face was raised to him and half screened with her fan. Their talk looked very confidential, very animated and friendly; and it seemed to John (but that must have been a mistake) that she gave him just the tips of her fingers as she dismissed him. Fred rose from the chair on which he had been half kneeling with a little movement of his head, which Kate reciprocated, and went off upon a meandering passage round the room. She had given him some commission, John felt—to him, and not to me, he said bitterly in his heart, and then tried to comfort himself, not very successfully, with the words she had taught him, “After all, she is my Kate and not his.” Was she John’s? or was it all a dream and phantasmagoria, that might vanish in an instant and leave no trace behind? He covered his eyes with his hand for a second in the sickness of jealous love with which he was struggling; but when he looked up again, found that a new revelation waited him, harder than anything he had yet had to undergo. It was that Fred Huntley was approaching himself, and that the mission with which Kate, giving him the tips of her fingers, had intrusted the man to whom of all others he felt most antagonistic, concerned himself. Fred managed the business very cleverly, and would have taken in any unsuspicious person; but John, on the contrary, was horribly suspicious, looking for pricks at all possible points. The ambassador threw himself into a vacant chair which happened to be handy, and stretched himself out comfortably in it, and said nothing for a minute. Then he yawned (was that, too, done on purpose?) and turned to John. “Were you asleep, Mitford?” he said; “I don’t much wonder. It’s very amusing, but it’s very monotonous night after night.”

“I have not had so much of it as you have, to get so tired,” said John.

“Well, perhaps there is something in that; and, after all, there are some nice people here. The worst for a new-comer,” said Fred, poising himself lazily in his chair, “is, that everybody has made acquaintance before he comes; and till he has been here for some time and gets used to it, he is apt to feel himself left out in the cold. Of course you can’t have any such sensations in this house—but I have felt it; and Ka—Miss Crediton, though she is an admirable hostess, can’t be everywhere at once.”

“But she can send ambassadors,” said John, with a faint attempt at a smile.

“Oh yes; of course she can send ambassadors,” said Huntley, confused, “when she has any ambassadors to send. I wanted to ask you, Mitford, about that archæological business your father takes so much interest in. I hear they are to visit Dulchester——”

“Did she tell you that?” said John. “My dear fellow, say to me plainly, I have been sent to talk to you and draw you out. That is reasonable and comprehensible, and I should not be ungrateful. But never mind my father. Let us talk since we are required to do so. When are you likely to be at Westbrook? I want to go home one of these days; and my mother would like to see you, to thank you——”

“To thank me for what?” said Fred, with much consternation.

“For dragging me out of that fire. I don’t say for saving my life, for it did not come to that—but still you have laid me under a great obligation,” said John, with a setting together of his teeth which did not look much like gratitude; and then he rose up suddenly and went away out of his corner, leaving Huntley alone there, and not so happy as his wont. As for John himself, he was stung to exertions quite unusual to him. He went and talked politics, and university talk, and sporting talk, with a variety of men. He did not approach any of the ladies—his heart was beating too fast for that; but he stood up in the doorway and against the wall wherever the men of the party most congregated. And he never so much as looked at the creature who was at once his delight and his torment during all the long weary tedious evening, which looked as if it never would come to an end and leave him at peace.

CHAPTER XIX.

Next morning John packed himself up before he saw any one. He had not slept all night. It is true that the incidents of the past evening had been trifling enough—not of sufficient consequence to affect, as his sudden departure might do, the entire complexion of his life. It was only as a climax, indeed, that they were of any importance at all; but as such, they had wound him up to a point of resolution. The present state of affairs, it was evident, could not go on. Had he been a mere idle man of society, he said to himself, in whose life this perpetual excitement might supply a painful-pleasant sensation, then it might have been possible; but he could not, love as he might, wear away his existence in watching a girl’s face, or waiting for such moments of her society as she might be able to give him. It was impossible: better to go away where he should never see her again; better to give up for ever all the joys of life, than wear out every vestige of manliness within him in this hopeless way. He had been born to higher uses and better purposes surely, or where was the good of being born at all? Accordingly he prepared all his belongings for instant departure. Kate was still dearer to him than anything in earth or heaven, he acknowledged with a sigh; but unless perhaps time or Providence might arrange the terms of their intercourse on a more possible footing, that intercourse for the present must be suspended. He could not go on. With this resolution in his mind he went down-stairs; and looked so pale, that he attracted the attention of the lady who sat next to him at the breakfast-table, where Kate, who was so often late, had not yet appeared.

“I am afraid you are ill,” she said; “I fear your arm pains you more than usual. I think I knew your mother, Mr Mitford, a thousand years ago. Was not she a Miss Olive, of Burton? Ah, yes! I remember—one of the prettiest girls I ever saw. I think——you are a little like her,” said this benevolent woman, with a slight hesitation. And then there was a titter at the table, in which John did not feel much disposed to join.

“Oh no,” cried Kate, who had just come in; “it is not him that is like Mrs Mitford, but me. I allow he is her son, but that does not matter. I was at Fanshawe Regis ever so long in summer. Mr John, tell Lady Winton she was like me when she was a girl, and I shall be like her when I am an old lady. You know it is so.”

And she paused a moment just beside him, with her hand on Lady Winton’s chair, and looked into John’s pale face as he rose at her appeal. Something was wrong—Kate was not sure what. Lady Winton, perhaps, had been annoying him with questions, or Fred Huntley with criticism. It did not occur to her that she herself could be the offender. She looked into John’s face, meaning to say a thousand things to him with her eyes, but his were blank, and made no reply.

“She was prettier than you are, Kate,” said Lady Winton, with a smile.

“Nay,” said John, unawares. He had not meant to enter into the talk—but to look at her standing there before him in her fresh morning dress, in all her perfection of youth and sweetness, and to believe that anybody had ever been more lovely, was impossible. At that moment, when he was about to leave her, he could have bent down and kissed the hem of her dress. It seemed the only fitting thing to do, but it could not be done before all these people. Kate was still more and more perplexed what he could mean. His eyes, which had been blank, lighted up all in a moment, and spoke things to her which she could not understand. What was the meaning of the pathos in them—the melancholy, the dumb appeal that almost made her cry? She gave a little laugh instead, much fluttered and disturbed in her mind the while, and nodded her head and went on to her seat at the head of the table.

“When one’s friends begin to discuss one’s looks, don’t you think it is best to withdraw?” she said. “Oh, thanks, Madeline, for doing my duty. It is so wretched to be late. Please, somebody, have some tea.”

And then the ordinary talk came in and swept this little episode out of sight.

When breakfast was over, and one after another the guests began to disperse to their morning occupations, Kate, turning round to accompany one of the last to the morning room, where all the embroidery and the practising and the gossip went on, had her uncomfortable thoughts brought back in a moment by the sight of John standing right in her way, holding out his hand. “I am obliged to go away,” he said, in the most calm tone he could muster. “Good-bye, Miss Crediton; and thanks, many thanks.”

“Going away!” cried Kate, standing still in her amazement. “Going away! Has anything happened at Fanshawe Regis—— Your mother—or Dr Mitford——?”

“They are both well,” he said. “I am not going to Fanshawe, only back to the town to my work. Good-bye.”

“I must hear about this,” said Kate, abruptly. “Please don’t wait for me, Madeline; I want to speak to Mr Mitford. Go on, and I will join you. Oh, John, what does it mean?” she cried, turning to her lover, almost without waiting until the door had closed on her companion. By this time everybody was gone, and the two were left alone in the great empty room where five minutes ago there had been so much sound and movement. They were standing in front of one of the deeply-recessed windows, with the light falling direct upon them as on a stage. He held out his hand again and took hers, which she was too much disturbed to give.

“It is nothing,” he said, with a forlorn sort of smile, “except just that I must go away. Don’t let that cloud your face, dear. I can’t help myself. I am obliged to go.”

“Is any one ill?” she cried; “is that the reason? Oh, John, tell me! are you really obliged to go? Or is it—anything—we have done?”

“No,” he said, holding her hand in his. “It is all my fault. It does not matter. It is that I cannot manage this sort of life. No blame to you, my darling. Don’t think I am blaming you. When I am back at my work, things will look different. I was not brought up to it, like you. You must pardon me as you would pardon me for being ignorant and not knowing another language; but it is best I should go away.”

“John!” she cried, the tears coming with a sudden rush into the wondering eyes that had been gazing at him so intently, “what have I done?”

“Nothing—nothing,” he said, stooping over her hand and kissing it again and again. “There is only myself to blame. I can’t take things, I suppose, as other people do. I am exacting and inconsiderate and—— Never mind, dear, I must go away; and you will not remember my faults when I am gone.”

“But I never thought you had any faults,” cried Kate. “You speak as if it were me. I never have found fault with you, John—nor asked anything more—nor—— I know I am silly. Tell me, and scold me, and forgive me. Say as papa does—it is only Kate. I know I did not mean it. Oh, John, dear, if I beg your pardon, though I don’t know what I have done——”

“You have done nothing,” he cried, in despair. “Oh, my Kate! are you my Kate? or are you a witch coming into my arms to distract me from everything? No, no, no! I must not be conquered this time. My love, it will be best for both of us. I cannot go on seeing you always within my reach and always out of my reach. I would have you always like this—always here—always mine; but I can’t have you; and I have no strength to stand by at a distance and look on. Do you understand me now? I shall go away so much happier because of this five minutes. Good-bye.”

“But, John!” she cried, clinging to him, “don’t go away; why should you go away? I will do anything you please. I will—make a change; don’t go and leave me. I want you to be here.”

“You break my heart!” he cried; “but I cannot be here. What use is it to you? And to me it is distraction. Kate! don’t ask me to stay.”

“But it is of use to me,” she said, with a flush on her face, and an expression unlike anything he had seen before—an uneasy look, half of shame and half of alarm. Then she turned from him a little, with a slight change of tone. “It is a strange way of using me,” she said, looking steadfastly at the carpet, “after my going to you, and all; not many girls would have gone to you as I did; you might stay now when I ask you—for my sake.”

“I will do anything in the world for your sake,” he said; “but, Kate, it does you no good, you know. It is an embarrassment to you,” John went on, with a half-groan escaping him, “and it is distraction to me.”

Then there followed a pause. She drew her hand away from his with a little petulant movement. She kept her eyes away from him, not meeting his, which were fixed upon her. Her face glowed with a painful heat; her little foot tapped the carpet. “Do you mean that—other things—are to be over too?” she said; and twisted her fingers together, and gazed out of the window, waiting for what he had to say.

Such a question comes naturally to the mind of a lover whenever there is any fretting of his silken chain; and accordingly it was not novel to John’s imagination—but it struck upon his heart as if it had been a blow. “Surely not—surely not,” he answered, hastily; “not so far as I am concerned.”

And then they stood again—for how long?—side by side, not looking at each other, waiting a chance word to separate or to reunite them. Should she be able to bear her first rebuff? she, a spoiled child, to whom everybody yielded? Or could she all in a moment learn that sweet philosophy of yielding in her own person, which makes all the difference between sorrow and unhappiness? Everything—the world itself—seemed to hang in the balance for that moment. Kate terminated it suddenly, in her own unexpected way. She turned on him all at once, with the sweetness restored to her face and her voice, and held out her hand: “Neither shall it be so far as I am concerned,” she said. “Since you must go, good-bye, John!”

And thus it came to an end. When he was on his way back to Camelford, and the visit to Fernwood, with all its pains and pleasures, and the last touch of her hand, were things of the past, John asked himself, with a lover’s ingenuity of self-torment, if this frank sweetness of reply was enough? if she should have let him go so easily? if there was not something of relief in it? He drove himself frantic with these questions, as he made his way back to his poor little lodgings. Mr Crediton had looked politely indifferent, rather glad than otherwise, when he took his leave. “Going to leave us?” Mr Crediton had said. “I am very sorry; I hope it is not any bad news. But perhaps you are right, and perfect quiet will be better for your arm. Never mind about business—you must take your own time. If you see Whichelo, tell him I mean to come in on Saturday. I am very sorry you have given us so short a visit. Good-bye.” Such was Mr Crediton’s farewell; but the young man made very little account of that. Mr Crediton’s words or ways were not of so much importance to him as one glance of Kate’s eye. What she meant by her dismay and distress, and then by the sudden change, the sweet look, the good-bye so kindly, gently said, was the question he debated with himself; and naturally he had put a hundred interpretations upon it before he reached his journey’s end.

It was still but mid-day when he reached the little melancholy shabby rooms which were his home in Camelford. The place might be supportable at night, when he came in only for rest after the day’s labours, though even then it was dreary enough; but what could be thought of it in the middle of a bright autumn day, when the young man came in and closed his door, and felt the silence hem him in and enclose him, and put seals, as it were, to the grave in which he had buried himself. Full day and nothing to do, and a little room to walk about in, four paces from one side to the other—and a suburban street to look out upon, with blinds drawn over the windows, and plants shutting out the air, and an organ grinding melancholy music forth along each side of the way: could he stay still and bear it? When he was at Fernwood his rooms looked to him like a place of rest, where he could go and hide himself and be at peace. But as soon as he had entered them, it was Fernwood that grew lovely in the distance, where Kate was, where there were blessed people who would be round her all day long, and the stir of life, and a thousand pleasant matters going on. He was weary and sick of himself, and sick of the world. Could he sit down and read a novel in the light of that October day—or what was he to do?

The end was that he took his portmanteau, which had not been unpacked, and threw it into a passing cab, and went off to the railway. He had not gone home since he came to his clerkship in the bank, and that was three months since. It seemed the only thing that was left for him to do now. He went back along the familiar road with something of the feelings of a prodigal approaching his home. It seemed strange to him when the porter at the little roadside station of Fanshawe touched his cap, and announced his intention of carrying Mr John’s portmanteau to the Rectory. He felt it strange that the poor fellow should remember him. Surely it was years since he had been there before.

And this feeling grew as John walked slowly along the quiet country road that led to his home. Everything he passed was associated with thoughts which were as much over and gone as if they had happened in a different existence. He had walked along by these hedgerows pondering a thousand things, but scarcely one that had any reference to, any relation with, his present life. He had been a dreamer, planning high things for the welfare of the world; he had been a reformer, rousing, sometimes tenderly, sometimes violently, the indifferent country from its slumbers; sometimes, even, retiring to the prose of things, he had tried to realise the details of a clergyman’s work, and to fit himself into them, and ask himself how he should perform them. But never, in all these questionings, had he thought of himself as a banker’s clerk—a man working for money alone, and the hope of money. It was so strange that he did not know what to make of it. As he went on, the other John, his former self, seemed to go with him—and which was the real man, and which the phantom, he could not tell. All the quiet country lifted prevailing hands, and laid hold on him as he went home. It looked so natural—and he, what was he? But the country, too, had changed as if in a dream. He had left it in the full blaze of June, and now it was October, with the leaves in autumn glory, the fields reaped, the brown stubble everywhere, and now and then in the clear blue air the crack of a sportsman’s gun. All these things had borne a different aspect once to John. He too had been a little of a sportsman, as was natural; but the dog and the gun did not harmonise with the figure of a banker’s clerk. The women on the road, who stared at him, and curtsied to him with a smile of recognition, confused him, he could not tell why. It was so strange that everybody should recognise him—he who did not recognise himself.

And as he approached the Rectory, a vague sense that something must have happened there, came over him. It was only three days since he had received a letter from his mother full of those cheerful details which it cost her, though he did not know it, so much labour and pain to write. He tried to remind himself of all the pleasant everyday gossip, and picture of things serene and unchangeable which she had sent him; but still the nearer he drew and the more familiar everything became, the more he felt that something must have happened. He went in by the little garden-gate, which opened noiselessly, and made his way through the shrubbery, to satisfy himself that no cloud of calamity had fallen upon the house. It was a warm genial autumn day, very still, and somewhat pathetic, but almost as balmy as summer. And the drawing-room window stood wide open as it had done through all those wonderful June days when John’s life had come to its climax. The lilies had vanished that stood up in great pyramids against the buttresses; even their tall green stalks were gone, cut down to the ground; and there were no roses, except here and there a pale monthly one, or a half-nipped, half-open bud. John paused under the acacia-tree where he had so often placed Kate’s chair, and which was now littering all the lawn round about with its leaflets—to gain a glimpse, before he entered, of what was going on within. The dear, tender mother! to whom he had been everything—all her heart had to rest on. What had she to recompense her for all the tender patience, all the care and labour she took upon herself for the sake of her Saviour and fellow-creatures! Her son, who had taken things for granted all this time as sons do, opened his eyes suddenly as he stood peeping in like a stranger, and began to understand her life. God never made a better, purer woman; she had lived fifty years doing good and not evil to every soul around her, and what had she in return? A husband, who thought she was a very good sort of ignorant foolish little woman on the whole, and very useful in the parish, and handy to keep off all interruptions and annoyances; and a son who had gone away and abandoned her at the first chance—disappointed all her hopes, left her alone, doubly alone, in the world. “It is her hour for the school, the dearest little mother,” he said to himself, with the tears coming to his eyes; “she never fails, though we all fail her;” but even as the words formed in his mind he perceived that the room into which he was gazing was not empty. There she sat, thrown back into a chair; her work was lying on the floor at her feet; but John had never seen such an air of weariness and lassitude in his mother before. He recognised the gown she had on, the basket of work on the table, all the still life round her; but her he could not recognise. She had her hands crossed loosely in her lap, laid together with a passive indifference that went to his heart. Could she be asleep? but she was not asleep; for after a while one of the hands went softly up to her cheek, and something was brushed off, which could only be a tear. He could scarcely restrain the cry that came to his lips; but at that moment the door, which he could not see, must have opened, for she gave a start, and roused herself, and turned to speak to somebody. “I am coming, Lizzie,” John heard her answer in a spiritless, weary tone; and then she rose and put away her work, and took up her white shawl, which was lying on the back of a chair. She liked white and pretty bright colours about her, the simple soul. They became her, and were like herself. But when she had wrapped herself in the shawl, which was as familiar to John as her own face, his mother gave a long weary sigh, and sat down again as if she could not make up her mind to move. He had crept quite close to the window by this time, moved beyond expression by the sight of her, with tears in his eyes, and unspeakable compunction in his heart. “What does it matter now?” she said to herself, drearily. She had come to be so much alone that the thought was spoken and not merely thought. When John stepped into the room a moment after, his mother stood and gazed at him as if he had risen out of the earth, and then gave a great cry which rang through all the house, and fell upon his neck. Fell upon his neck—that was the expression—reaching her arms, little woman as she was, up to him as he towered over her; and would not have cared if she had died then, in the passion of her joy.

“Mother, dear, you are trembling,” John said, as he put her tenderly into her chair and knelt down beside her, taking her hands into his. “I should not have been so foolish startling you; but I could not resist the temptation when I saw you here.”

“Joy does not hurt,” said Mrs Mitford. “I have grown so silly, my dear, now I have not you to keep me right; and it was a surprise. There—I don’t in the least mean to cry; it is only foolishness. And oh, my poor John, your arm!”

“It is nothing,” he said; “it is almost well. Never mind it. I am a dreadful guy, to be sure. Is that what you are looking at, mamma mia?” In his wan face and fire-scorched hair she had not known her child.

“Oh, John, that you could think so,” she said, in her earnest matter-of-fact way. “My own boy! as if I should not have known you anywhere, whatever you had done to yourself. It was not that. John, my dear?”

“What, mother?”

“I was looking to see if you were happy, my dearest, dearest boy. Don’t be angry with me. As long as you are happy I don’t mind—what happens—to me.”

John laid his head down on his mother’s lap. How often he had done it!—as a child, as a lad, as a man—sometimes after those soft reproofs which were like caresses—sometimes in penitence, when he had been rebellious even to her; but never before as now, that her eyes might not read his heart. He did it by instinct, having no time to think; but in the moment that followed thought came, and he saw that he must put a brave face on it, and not betray himself. So he raised his head again, and met her eyes with a smile, believing, man as he was, that he could cheat her with that simulation of gladness which went no further than his lips.

“What could I be but happy?” he said; “but not to see you looking so pale, and trembling like this, my pretty mamma. You are too pretty to-day—too pink and too white and too bright-eyed. What do you mean by it? It must be put a stop to, now I have come home.”

“What does that mean?” she asked, with tremulous eagerness. He was not happy; he might deceive all the world, she said to herself, but he could not deceive his mother. He was not happy, but he did not mean her to know it, and she would not betray her knowledge. So she only trembled a little more, and smiled pathetically upon him, and kissed his forehead, and shed back the hair from it with her soft nervous hands. “Coming home has such a sound to me. It used to mean the long nice holidays; and once I thought it meant something more; but now——”

“Now it means a week or two,” he said; “not much, but still we can make a great deal out of it. And the first thing must be to look after your health, mother. This will never do.”

“My health will mend now,” she said, with a smile; and then, afraid to have been supposed to consent to the fact that her health had need of mending—“I mean I never was better, John. I am only a little—nervous—because of the surprise; the first thing is to make you enjoy your holiday, my own boy.”

“Yes,” he said, with a curious smile. Enjoy his holiday!—which was the escape of a man beaten from the field on which he had failed in his first encounter with fate. But I will not let her know that, John said to himself. And I must not show him that I see it, was the reflection of his mother. This was how they met again after the great parting which looked like the crisis of their lives.

CHAPTER XX.

Kate was very much perplexed by her interview with her lover, and by the abrupt conclusion of his visit. She was very sweet-tempered and good-natured, and could not bear to vex any one; but perhaps it pained her secretly a little to be brought in contact with those very strong feelings which she scarcely understood, and which did not bear much resemblance to her own tender, affectionate, caressing love. She was very fond of John; at bottom she knew and felt that of all the men she had ever seen, he was the man whom she preferred trusting her life and happiness to; and when opportunity served she was very willing to give him her smiles, her sweet words, to lean her head against him, caressing and dependent, to bestow even a soft unimpassioned kiss; but to think of nothing but John, to resign any part of her duties as mistress of the house, or to neglect other people, and make them uncomfortable, on account of him, would never have occurred to her, and there was in her mind at the same time something of that fatal curiosity which so often attends power. She wanted to know how far her power could go: it gave her a thrill of excitement to speculate upon just touching the utmost borders of it, coming to the verge of loss and despair, and then mending everything with a touch of her hand or sudden smile. By nature Kate seemed to have been so completely separated from all tragical possibilities. She had never wanted anything in all her life that had not been procured for her. Everything had given way to her, everything conspired to give her her will. And what if she should give herself one supreme pleasure to end with, and skirt the very edge of the abyss, and feel the awful thrill of danger, and go just within a hair’s-breadth of destruction? Kate’s heart beat as the thought occurred to her. If she could do this, then she might sip the very essence of tragedy, and never more be obliged to despise herself as ignorant of intense emotions—while yet she would still keep her own happiness all the time to fall back upon. Such was the thought—we cannot call it project—which gradually shaped itself in Kate’s mind, and which accident went so far to carry out.

“So he has gone,” her father said to her; “we have not paid our deliverer sufficient attention, I suppose.”

“Papa, you know I will not have him talked of so,” cried Kate; “he went away because he chose to go. I am dreadfully sorry; and it makes me think a great deal less of the people who are staying here, not of John.”

“How do you make that out?” said her father.

“Because they did not understand him better,” said Kate, with flashing eyes; “they took their cue from you, papa—not from me—which shows what they are; for of course it is the lady of the house who has to be followed, not the gentleman. And he did not see anything of me, which was what he came for. I only wonder that he should have stayed a single day.”

“That is complimentary to us,” said her father; and then he looked her keenly in the face. “It is not much use trying to deceive me,” he said. “You have quarrelled with Mitford; why don’t you tell me so at once? You have no reproach to expect from me.”

“I have not quarrelled with Mr Mitford,” said Kate, raising her head with an amount of indignation for which Mr Crediton was not prepared.

“No, by Jove! you need not expect any reproaches from me; a good riddance, I should be disposed to say. The fellow begins to get intolerable. Between you and me, Kate, I would almost rather the Bank had been burnt to the ground than owe all this to a man I——”

“Papa,” said Kate, loftily, “the man you are speaking of is engaged to be married to me.”

Upon which Mr Crediton laughed. Such a cynical Mephistophelian laugh was not in his way, neither was it usual with him to swear by Jove; but he was aggravated, and his mind was twisted quite out of its general strain. No doubt it is very hard to have favours heaped upon you by a man whom you do not like. And then he had the feeling which embittered his dislike, that for every good service John had done him, he had repaid him with harm. As a recompense for his daughter’s life, he had placed her lover in the dingy outer office—a clerk with more pretensions and less prospect of success than any of the rest. As a reward for the devotion which had saved him his property, he made his house, if not disagreeable, at least unattractive to his visitor, and now felt a certain vigorous satisfaction in the thought of having beaten him off the field. “That fellow!” he said, and flattered himself that Kate too was getting tired of him. John had not even taken his preferment gratefully and humbly, as would have been natural; but insisted upon taking possession of Kate whenever he could monopolise her society, and looked as black as night when she was not at his call. Instead of being overjoyed with the prospect of going to Fernwood at any price, he had the assurance to resent his cool reception and to cut short his visit, as if he were on an equal or even superior footing. Mr Crediton was very glad to get rid of him, but yet he was furious at his presumption in venturing to take it upon himself to go away. It was a curious position altogether. He dared not be rude to the man who had done so much for him; everybody would have called shame on him had he attempted it; and yet he began to hate him for his services. And at the same time he had the substantial foundation of justice to rest upon, that in point of fact John Mitford was not a suitable match for Kate Crediton. It was in this mood that he accosted Kate, almost expecting to find her disposed to respond in his own vein.

“There is many a slip between the cup and the lip,” he said oracularly, and left her standing where he had found her, almost diverted from her own thoughts by indignation and that healthful impulse of opposition which springs so naturally in the young human breast. “There shall be no slips in John’s cup,” she said to herself, with a certain fury, as she turned away, not thinking much of the unity of the metaphor. No, nothing should interfere with John’s happiness; at least nothing should permanently interfere with it. The course of true love should certainly be made to run smooth for him, and everything should go right—at the last. That, of course, was all that was necessary—the most severe critic could not demand more than a happy conclusion. “Papa is very, very much mistaken if he thinks he can make me a traitor to John,” Kate said within herself, indignantly, and hurried off to put on her habit, and went out to ride with a countenance severe in conscious virtue. She was pleased that it was Fred Huntley who kept most closely by her side all the way. For one thing, he rode very well, which is always a recommendation; and then she felt that she could speak to him of the subject which was most in her thoughts. It was true that she had almost quarrelled with her lover on Fred’s account, and that there had been a moment when her mind was full of the thought that her choice must lie between the two. But Kate forgot these warnings in the impulse of the moment, and in her longing for confidential communion with somebody who was interested in John.

“Papa has been making himself so disagreeable to-day,” she said. “No, I know I have not much to complain of in that way; generally he is very good; but this morning—though perhaps I ought not to say anything about it,” Kate concluded with a sigh.

“It is a way our fathers have,” said Fred, “though they ought to know better at their time of life; but Mr Crediton is a model in his way—small blame to him when he has only to deal with——”

“Me,” said Kate; “please don’t pay me any compliments; we don’t really like them, you know, though we have to pretend to. I know I am sometimes very aggravating; but if there is any good in a girl at all, she must stand up for anybody who—who is fond of her: don’t you think so, Mr Huntley? What could any one think of her if she had not the heart to do that?”

“I am afraid I don’t quite follow your meaning,” said Fred; “to stand up for everybody who is fond of her? but in that case your life would be a series of standings-up for somebody or other—and one might have too much of that.”

“There you go again,” said Kate; “another compliment! when that is not in the least what I want. I want backing up myself. I want—advice.”

“Indeed, indeed,” said Fred—“I am quite ready to give any quantity of backing up—on the terms you have just mentioned; or—advice.”

“Well,” said Kate, with a certain softness in her tone—she could not help being slightly caressing to anybody she talked confidentially with—“you know we have been friends almost all our lives; at least I was a very small little girl when I first knew you; we used to call you Fred in those days—Minnie and Lizzie and I——”

“Minnie and Lizzie call me Fred still,” said her companion, dryly; and he brought his horse very close, almost too close, to her side.

“Of course, they are your sisters,” said Kate; “but that was not what I meant. I meant that it was natural I should talk to you. I have not got any brother to advise me, and papa has been so disagreeable; and then, besides knowing me so well, you are quite intimate—with—poor John.”

“Do you know,” said Fred, with apparent hesitation, “I meant to have spoken to you on that subject. I fear Mitford does not like it. I don’t blame him. If I had been as fortunate as he is—pardon the supposition—I don’t think I should have liked you—I mean the lady—to talk to any other man of me.”

Kate did not answer for some minutes. She went along very slowly, her head and her horse’s drooping in harmony; and then she suddenly roused herself as they came to a level stretch of turf, and with a little wave of her hand went off at full speed. Such abrupt changes were familiar to all her friends, but Fred had a feeling that the caprice for once was policy, and that she wanted time to recover herself, and make up her mind what kind of answer she should give. Perhaps she had another notion too, and had half hoped to shake off her attendant, and pick up some one else who would not tempt her into paths so difficult. However that might be, the fact was that she did not shake Fred off, but found him at her side when she drew rein and breath a good way ahead of the rest of the party.

“That was sudden,” he said, with a smile, stopping as she did, and timing all his movements to hers with a deference that half flattered, half annoyed her. And Kate was silent again. Her spirit failed at this emergency—or else, which was more likely, she had not made up her mind that it was an emergency, or that now was the moment when any decision must be made.

“I don’t understand why you should feel like that,” she said, all at once. “It is natural to talk about people one—cares for; and who should one talk of them to but their friends? I told you papa had been dreadfully disagreeable all this time—to him; I am sure I can’t think why—unless it is to make me unhappy; and I am unhappy whenever I think of it,” Kate added, with a candour of which she herself was unaware.

“I think I can understand quite well why,” said Fred. “It is natural enough. I daresay he hates every fellow that ventures to look at you; and as for a man who hopes to take you from him altogether—I don’t see how the best of Christians could be expected to stand that.”

“Oh, nonsense,” said Kate. “All the books say that our fathers and mothers are only too glad to get rid of us. I don’t think, however, it would be true to say that of papa. He would be very lonely. But in that case, don’t you think the thing would be to make very good friends with—poor John?”

Fred shook his head with every appearance of profound gravity and deliberation. “I do not think my virtue would be equal to such an exertion,” he said, with great seriousness, “if I were your papa.”

“You are very absurd,” said Kate, laughing; “as if you could be my papa! Yes, indeed, it is easy to laugh; but if you had as much on your mind as I have, Mr Huntley——”

“You said you used to call me Fred.”

“That was only with your sisters,” said Kate. “We are too old for that now; and, besides, if you were my real friend, and felt for me, you would not talk nonsense when I tell you how much I have on my mind.”

“Am I talking nonsense?” said Fred; and just then, as ill luck would have it, their companions overtook them and interrupted the conversation, just, Kate said to herself, as it began to be interesting. And she had not really been able to obtain any advice from this old friend of her own and of John’s, who was, she reflected, of all people the right one to consult. John had been impatient about it, but of course it was simply because John did not know. He thought Fred was intruding between them, attempting to take his own place, which was, oh, such folly! Fred of all men! who never even looks at me! said Kate. And then her conscience smote her a little, for Fred had surely looked at her, even this very day, more perhaps than John would have approved of. However, he was perfectly innocent, he was a man who never had been fond of any girl—who was a fellow of a college, and that sort of thing: and it was natural that she should want to talk over the circumstances and discuss the matter with somebody. Though she would not really have vexed John for the world, yet somehow his unreasonable dislike to Fred rather stimulated than prevented her from seeking Fred’s advice. Why should she give in to an injustice? And surely in such a matter it was she who must know best.

As for Fred Huntley, there was a curious combat going on within him which he concealed skilfully from everybody, and even laboriously from himself. He pretended not to be aware of the little internal controversy. When his heart gave him a little tug and intimation that he was John Mitford’s friend, and ought to guard his interests, he acquiesced without allowing that any question on the matter was possible. Of course he was John’s friend—of course he would stand by him; and he only saw with the tail of his eye, and took no notice of, the little imp which in a corner of his mind was gibing at this conscientious resolution. And then he said to himself how pretty Kate Crediton looked to-day, when she suddenly woke out of her reverie, and gathered up her reins and went off like a wild creature, her horse and she one being, over the level turf. He could not but allow it was very odd that he had never remarked it before. He supposed she must have been as pretty all these years, when he had seen her growing from summer to summer into fuller bloom. But the fact was that he had never taken any notice of her until now; and he did not know how to explain it. While the thought passed through his mind, it appeared to Fred as if the little demon, whom he could just perceive with the tail of the eye of his mind, so to speak, made a grimace at him, as much as to say, I know the reason why. Impertinent little imp! Fred turned and looked himself full in the face, as it were, and there was no demon visible. It was only to be seen with the tail of his eye, when his immediate attention was fixed on other things.

And thus the day passed on at Fernwood, with the ride and the talk; and at night the great dinner, which was like a picture, with its heaps of flowers on the table, and pretty toilettes and pretty faces round it—a long day for those who had no particular interest, and a short day for those who were better occupied. Lady Winton, who had known Mrs Mitford when she was a girl, yawned over her dressing, and told her confidential maid drearily that she could not think why she had come, and wished she might go, except that the next place would be just as bad. But Fred felt in his calm veins a little thrill of excitement, as of a man setting forth in an unknown country, and found Fernwood much more interesting than he had ever done before. “They have always such nice people—Lady Winton for one,” he said to the man who sat next him after dinner; for Lady Winton was a very clever woman, and rather noted in society. Such was the fashion of life at Fernwood, when John sat down in the shadow of his mother’s lamp at Fanshawe Regis, and did his best to make the evening cheerful for her, for the first time for three months.

CHAPTER XXI.

The conversation above recorded was, it may be supposed, very far from being the last on so tempting a subject. In short, the two who had such a topic to themselves did with it what two people invariably do with a private occasion for talk,—produced it perpetually, had little snatches of discussion over it, which were broken off as soon as any stranger appeared, and gradually got into a confidential and mysterious intimacy. Kate, to do her justice, had no evil intention. None of the girls about her knew John sufficiently well to discuss him. They had seen him but for these two days, when he had been distrait, preoccupied, and suffering; and indeed her friends did not admire her choice, and Madeline Winton, who was her chief intimate, had not hesitated to say so. “Of course I don’t doubt Mr Mitford is very nice,” had been Miss Winton’s deliverance; “but if you really ask my opinion, Kate, I must say he did not captivate me.” “I did not want him to captivate you,” Kate had answered, with some heat. But nevertheless it is discouraging to have your confidences about your betrothed thus summarily checked. And on the whole, perhaps, it was more piquant to have Fred Huntley for a confidant than Madeline Winton. He never snubbed her. To be sure, with him it was not possible to indulge in very much enthusiasm over the excellences of the beloved; but that was not in any case Kate’s way; and the matter, without doubt, was full of difficulties. It was hard to know how to overcome Mr Crediton’s passive but unfaltering resistance—how to bring the father and the lover to something like an understanding of each other—how to satisfy John and smooth down his asperities and make him content with his position. “It is not that he is discontented,” Kate said, with an anxious pucker on her brow, on one of those evenings when she had stolen a moment from her cares and her guests. “It is not that he is discontented,” she repeated; “I hope he is too fond of me for that—but——”

“I don’t understand how such a word as discontent could be spoken in the same breath with his name,” said Fred—“a lucky fellow! No, surely it cannot be that.”

“I told you it was not discontent,” Kate said, almost sharply; “and as for lucky and all that, you always make me angry with your nonsense—when we are talking gravely of a subject which is of so much importance; at least it is of great importance to me.”

“I think you might know by this time,” said Fred, with soft reproach, “that everything that concerns you is important to me.”

She looked up at him with that soft glow of gratitude and thanks in her eyes which had subdued John, and half extended to him the tips of her fingers. “Yes, indeed,” she said, “you are very, very kind. I don’t know why I talk to you like this. I can’t talk so to anybody else. And I do so want some one to feel for me. Is it very selfish? I am afraid it is.”

“If it is selfish, I hope you will always be selfish,” said Fred, with a fervour which was out of place, considering all things, and yet was natural enough; and though he could not kiss the finger-tips with so many eyes looking on, he squeezed them furtively in the shadow of her dress. And then for one moment they looked at each other and felt they were going wrong. To Fred, I am afraid, the feeling was not new, nor so painful as it ought to have been; but it sent the blood pulsing suddenly with a curious thrill up to Kate’s very hair, startling her as if she had received an electric shock. And then next moment she said to herself, “Nonsense! it is only Fred; he is fond of me as if he were my brother. And how nice it would be to have a brother!” she added unconsciously, with a half-uttered sigh.

“Did you speak?” said Fred.

“No; I was only thinking how nice it would be—if you were my real brother,” said Kate. “How I wish you were my brother! You have always been so kind; and then you would settle it all for me, and everything would come right. It would have been so nice for papa too to have had a son like you. He would not have minded losing me so much; and he would have been so proud of your first class and all that. What a nice arrangement it would have been altogether!” she ran on, beginning to see a little fun in the suggestion, which even in her present anxious state was sweet to her. “I wonder, you know—- I don’t mean to be wicked, but I do wonder—why Providence shouldn’t think of such things. It would have been so very, very nice both for me and for papa!”

To this Fred made no reply: he even looked a little glum, if the truth must be told, and wondered, after all, was she laughing at him as well as at the rest of the world? and the general company, as it happened, wanted a little stirring up just at that particular moment, and Kate had darted off before he was aware, and was here and there among her guests looking as if vexation of any kind had never come near her. Fred asked himself, did she mean what she said—was she really moved by the difficulties that lay in John Mitford’s way, or did she care anything about John Mitford? and what was still more important, what did she mean about himself?—did she mean anything?—was she playing with him as a cat plays with a mouse? or was it all real for the moment—her anxieties, her friendship, all her winning ways?—for they were winning ways, though he did not feel sure what faith was to be put in them; and Fred felt a certain pleasant weakness about his heart at the very thought of her—though she was not his but another man’s Kate, and though he had no desire to be her brother. There were various men within reach with whom he could have talked pleasantly enough in other circumstances; and there were women whom he liked—Lady Winton, for instance—who was very clever, and a great friend of Fred’s. Yet instead of consoling himself with any of these resources, he sat in his corner, going over and over the foolish little conversation which had just passed, watching Kate’s movements, and wondering if she would come back. The time was—and that not so very long ago—when he would have thought Lady Winton’s company worth twenty of Kate Crediton’s; though Lady Winton was as old as his mother, and as free from any thought of flirting with her son’s friend. But something had suddenly made the very idea of Kate Crediton much more captivating than her ladyship’s wit and wisdom. What was it? Is it quite fair to Mitford? Fred even asked himself faintly, though he gave himself no answer. At the last, however, his patience was rewarded. Kate came back after a long interval, after she had suggested “a little music,” and had herself sung, and successfully started the performances of the evening. She came back to Fred, as she had never gone back to John,—partly, perhaps, because Fred was not much to her, and John was a great deal. But nevertheless, she slid into the easy-chair again, and threw herself back, and gave herself up to the enjoyment of the music. “This is so sweet. Please don’t talk to me—any one,” she said, audibly. And Fred did not talk; but he sat half behind her, half concealed by her chair and dress, and felt a curious beatitude steal over him. Why? He could not tell, and he did not ask;—he felt it, that was all.

“Do you know,” Kate said, with a certain abruptness, in the middle of a bar, “that I think everything might come right, Mr Huntley, if you would really use your influence; if you would represent to papa how good he is; and if you would only be patient with him, and show him how much better things might be. You men are so queer. If it were me, I would put on any look, it would not matter. Could there be anything wrong in putting on a look just for a little while, when it might conciliate papa? Any girl would do it naturally,” Kate continued, in a slightly aggrieved tone. “I know you men are honester, and superior, and all that; but when one has not a bad motive, it can’t be any harm to make-believe a little, for so short a time.”

“I think I could make-believe as much and as long as you liked,” said Fred, “if you would condescend to ask me.”

“Everybody does it—a little—in ordinary society,” said Kate. “Of course we all smile and say things we don’t mean. And wouldn’t it be all the more innocent if one had a good motive? You men are so stiff and so strange. You can put on looks easily enough when it is for your own ends; and then, when one wants you just to be a little prudent——”

“Happy Mitford!” said Fred. “I should stand on my head, if you took the trouble to ask me.”

“That is not the question,” said Kate, giving her pretty head a little toss, as if to shake off the suspicion of a blush which had come against her will; “why should I ask you to stand on your head? Now you are vexed,” she added, hastily, seeing his face cloud over. “What have I done? I am sure I did not mean to vex you. I was only thinking of—poor John.”

Fred was silent. He had almost betrayed himself, and it was hard to make any reply. He swallowed his vexation as he best could, and represented to himself that he had no right to be vexed. Of course it was John she was thinking of. That fellow! he said to himself, as Mr Crediton had done; though even in saying so he was aware that he was unjust. And, to be sure, he had known that John was more interesting to Kate than he was; yet he felt it hard. He drew back a little, and bit his lip, and twisted his thumbs, and looked black in spite of himself.

“Don’t, please!” said Kate, carried away by her desire of smoothing things down and making everybody comfortable. “I have nearly quarrelled with papa. Don’t you quarrel with me too.”

“I quarrel with you!” cried Fred, leaning forward once more, and gazing at her with eyes that made Kate quake; and then he paused and added, in restrained tones that had a thrill of passion in them, “Do anything with me you like. I will try not to shrink from anything you want me to do. But Kate, Kate, don’t forget I am a man—as well as John.”

It was a great relief to Kate that Lady Winton came up at that moment and took a seat near her, and put an effectual stop to any more whispering. Perhaps it would be nonsense to say that she was very much surprised by this little outbreak of feeling. It is common to admire and wonder at the unfathomableness of women; and, like most other common and popular ideas, it is great nonsense; for women are no more mysterious to men than men are to women, and both are equally incomprehensible. But perhaps the sentiments of a young woman in respect to the man who pays court to her, are really as curious things as are to be found within the range of humanity. The girl has no intention to be cruel—is no coquette—and would be astonished beyond measure if she could fully realise what she is herself doing. And yet there is a curiosity, an interest, in admiration for itself—in love (still more) for itself—which draw her on unawares. It requires a strong mind, or an insensible heart, not to be interested in such an investigation, and sometimes it goes to the point of cruelty. When she knows what she is about, of course a good girl will stop short, and do what she can to show the infatuated one “some discourtesy,” as Sir Lancelot was bidden do to Elaine; but there are some women, like Lancelot, who cannot be discourteous, whatever is the cost; and with a mixture of awe, and wonder, and poignant gratification which is half pain, the woman looks on while that costly offering is made to her. It is cruel, and yet it is not meant to be cruel. Such were Kate’s feelings now. Was it possible that Fred Huntley could be coming to the point of loving her—the collected, cool, composed being that he was? What kind of love would his be? How would it move him? Would it be true love, or only a pretence at it? These questions filled her with a curiosity and desire to carry on the experiment, which were too strong to be resisted. She was glad of Lady Winton’s approach, because when it comes to plain speaking, it is difficult to pursue this subtle inquiry without compromising one’s self. But she turned half round and gave him a wondering, anxious look. You poor dear fellow! what can you mean? was what the look said; and it was not the kind of glance which discourages a lover either secret or avowed. And then she turned to Lady Winton, who had established herself at Kate’s other side.

“I have scarcely seen you all day,” she said. “Madeline told me you were too tired to talk, and that it was best to leave you alone.”

“That was very true,” said Lady Winton, “but I am better now, and I have something to say to you before I go away. Mr Huntley, will you fetch me my fan, which I have left on the piano? Thanks. Now we have got rid of him, my dear, I can say what I have to say.”

“But probably he will come back,” said Kate, with a thrill of fear.

“I don’t think he will. Fred Huntley has a great deal of sense. When I send him off with a commission like that, of course he knows we don’t want him here; and I am so glad he is gone, Kate, for it was to speak of him I came.”

“To speak of—him!”

“Yes, indeed,” said Lady Winton. “Tell me frankly, Kate, as one woman to another, which is it to be?”

“Which is what to be?—I don’t understand you,” said Kate, flushing crimson; “which of which? Lady Winton, I can’t even guess what you mean.”

“Oh yes, you can,” said her new adviser. “My dear, it is not permitted by our laws to have two husbands, and that makes two lovers very dangerous—I always warn a girl against it. You think, perhaps, there is no harm, and that one of them will be wise enough not to go too far; but they will go too far, those silly men—and when they don’t, we despise them, my dear,” said the experienced woman. “A woman may shilly-shally, and hold off and on, and make an entertainment of it—but when a man is capable of that sort of thing he is not worth a thought; and so I ask, which is it to be?”

It will be seen from this that Lady Winton, like so many clever women of her age, was deeply learned in all the questions that arise between men and women. She had studied the matter at first hand of course, in her youth; and though she had never been a flirt, she had not been absolutely devoid of opportunity for study, even in her maturer years, when the faculty of observation was enlarged, and ripe judgment had come; and accordingly she spoke with authority, as one fully competent to fathom and realise the question which she thus fearlessly opened. As for Kate, she changed colour a great many times while she was being addressed, but her courage did not fail.

“Mr Huntley is my friend,” she said, facing her accuser bravely: “as for which it is to be, I introduced Mr Mitford to you, Lady Winton——”

“Yes, my dear, and that is what makes me ask; and a very nice young fellow, I am sure—a genuine reliable sort of young man, Kate——”

“Oh, isn’t he?” cried that changeable personage, with eyes glowing and sparkling; “dear Lady Winton, you always understand—that is just what he is—one could trust him with anything and he would never fail.”

“You strange girl,” said Lady Winton, “what do you mean? Why, you are in earnest! and yet you sit and talk with Fred Huntley a whole evening in a corner, and do everything you can to break the other poor fellow’s heart.”

“The other poor fellow is not here,” said Kate, with a half-alarmed glance round her. If it came to that, she felt that after all she would not have liked John to have watched her interview with her friend and his: and then she perceived that she had betrayed herself, and coloured high, recollecting that she was under keen feminine inspection which missed nothing.

“Don’t trust to that,” said Lady Winton; “you may be sure there is somebody here who will let him know. I don’t say much about Fred Huntley’s heart, for he is very well able to take care of that; but, Kate, for heaven’s sake, mind what you are about! Don’t get into the habit of encouraging one man because another is absent and will not know. Everybody knows everything, my dear; there is no such thing as a secret; you forget there are more than a dozen pairs of eyes in this very room.”

“Lady Winton,” said Kate, “I am not afraid of any one seeing what I do. I hope I have not done anything wrong; and as for Mr Mitford, I know him and he knows me.”

“Well, well—let us hope so,” said Lady Winton, with a prolonged shake of her head; “and I hope he is more philosophical than I gave him credit for; I should not have said it was his strong point. But, however, as you are so very sure, my dear——”

“Perfectly sure,” said Kate, with dignity; and the moment she had said it, would have liked to throw her arms round her monitor’s neck and have a good cry; but that was quite impossible in the circumstances; and Fred Huntley from afar seeing the two ladies draw imperceptibly apart, and seeing their conversation had come to an end, approached with the fan, and took up his position in front of them, and managed to bring about a general conversation. He did it very skilfully, and contrived to cover Kate’s annoyance and smooth her down, and restore her to self-command; and that night Kate was not only friendly but grateful to him, which was a further step in the downward way.

CHAPTER XXII.

Fred Huntley was a man of considerable ingenuity as well as coolness of intellect; and it was impossible that he could remain long unconscious of what he was doing, or take any but the first steps in any path without a clear perception of whither it led. And accordingly, before he had reached this point he had become fully aware of the situation, and had contemplated it from every possible point of view. No feeling of treachery to John weighed upon him when he thought it fully over. He had not been confided in by Kate’s accepted lover, nor appealed to, nor put upon his honour in the matter; and John was not even a very intimate friend that he should give in to him; nor did it occur to him to stifle the dawning love in his own heart, and withdraw from the field, even for Kate’s sake, to leave her tranquil to the enjoyment of her first love. Such an idea was not in Fred’s way. To secure his own will and his own happiness was naturally the first thing in his estimation, and he had no compunctions about his rival. There seemed to him no possible reason why he should sacrifice himself, and leave the field clear to John. And then there were so many aspects in which to consider the matter. It would be much better for her, Fred felt, to marry himself. He could make appropriate settlements upon her; he could maintain her in that position to which she had been accustomed; he could give her everything that a rich man’s daughter or rich man’s wife could desire. His blood, perhaps, might not be so good as John Mitford’s blood, if you entered into so fine a question; but he was heir to his father’s money, if not to much that was more ethereal. And money tells with everybody, Fred thought; it would tell with Kate, though perhaps she did not think so. Of all people in the world was not she the last who could consent to come down from her luxurious state, and be the wife of a poor man, with next to no servants, no horses, no carriage, and nothing but love to make up to her for a thousand wants? Fred Huntley was in love himself, and indeed it was love that was the origin of all these deliberations; and yet he scoffed at love as a compensation. By dint of reasoning, he even got himself to believe that it was an unprincipled thing on John’s part to seek her at all, and that any man would do a good deed who should deliver her from his hands. He had reached to this point by the next evening after the one whose events we have just recorded. Kate had not ridden out that day; she had been little visible to any one, and Fred had not more than a distant glimpse of her at the breakfast-table and in the twilight over the tea, which called together most of the party. Madeline Winton and her mother had gone away that morning; and Madeline was Kate’s gossip, her confidential friend, the only one with whom she could relieve her soul. She was somewhat low-spirited in the evening. Fred looked on, and saw her languid treatment of everything, and the snubs she administered to several would-be consolers. He kept apart with conscious skill; and yet, when he happened to be thrown absolutely in her way, was very full of attention and care for her comfort. He placed her seat just as he thought she liked it, arranged her footstool for her with the most anxious devotion, and was just retiring behind her chair when she stopped him, struck by his melancholy looks. “Are you ill, Mr Huntley?” she said, with something like solicitude; and Fred shook his head, fixing his eyes on her face.

“No,” he said, “I am not ill;” and then drew a little apart, and looked down upon her with a certain pathos in his eyes.

“There is something the matter with you,” said Kate.

“Well, perhaps there is; and I should have said there was something the matter with you, Miss Crediton, which is of a great deal more importance.”

“Mine is easily explained,” said Kate; “I have lost my friend. I am always low when Madeline goes away. We have always been such friends since we were babies. There is nobody in the world I am so intimate with. And it is so nice to have some one you can talk to and say everything that comes into your head. I am always out of spirits when she goes away.”

“If the post is vacant I wish I might apply for it,” Fred said, with exaggerated humility. “I think I should make an excellent confidant. Discreet and patient and ready to sympathise, and not at all given to offering impertinent advice.”

“Ah, you!” cried Kate, with a sudden glance up at him. And then she laughed, notwithstanding her depressed condition. “I wonder what Lady Winton would say?” she added merrily, but the next moment grew very red and felt confused under his eye; for what if he should try to find out what Lady Winton had said?—which, of course, he immediately attempted to do.

“Lady Winton is a great friend of mine. She would never give her vote against me,” said Fred, cunningly disarming his adversary.