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SOPHIA

By STANLEY J. WEYMAN.

THE HOUSE OF THE WOLF. A Romance. With Frontispiece and Vignette. Crown 8vo, cloth, $1.25.

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New York: Longmans, Green, and Co.

SOPHIA

A ROMANCE

BY

STANLEY J. WEYMAN

AUTHOR OF "THE CASTLE INN," "A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE," "UNDER THE
RED ROBE," "MY LADY ROTHA," ETC.

ILLUSTRATED

LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.
91 AND 93 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK
LONDON AND BOMBAY.
1900

Copyright, 1899
BY
STANLEY J. WEYMAN

Copyright, 1900
BY
STANLEY J. WEYMAN

TROW DIRECTORY
PRINTING AND BOOKBINDING COMPANY
NEW YORK

To

THE GRACIOUS MEMORY

OF

JAMES PAYN

CONTENTS

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

['One Minute!' she cried.]

['Sir!' Sophia cried, her cheeks burning.]

[Grocott ... stole forward, and ... leant over the flushed features of the unconscious lad.]

['This must be--must be stopped at once!']

['Oh, la! I don't want to stay!' Mrs. Martha cried.]

['He cannot!']

['About the two guineas--you stole this morning.']

[He stood, grinning in his finery, unable to say a word.]

[Lady Betty wasted no time on words. She was already in the water and wading across.]

['Why, Betty,' Sophia cried in astonishment, 'What is it?']

['Do you sit, and I'll make you a posy.']

[Her hair ... hung undressed on her neck. He touched it gently. It was the first caress he had ever given her.]

SOPHIA

CHAPTER I

[A LITTLE TOAD]

In the dining-room of a small house on the east side of Arlington Street, which at that period--1742--was the Ministerial street, Mr. and Mrs. Northey sat awaiting Sophia. The thin face of the honourable member for Aldbury wore the same look of severity which it had worn a few weeks earlier on the eventful night when he had found himself called upon to break the ties of years and vote in the final division against Sir Robert; his figure, as he sat stiffly expecting his sister-in-law, reflected the attitudes of the four crude portraits of dead Northeys that darkened the walls of the dull little room. Mrs. Northey on the other hand sprawled in her chair with the carelessness of the fine lady fatigued; she yawned, inspected the lace of her negligée, and now held a loose end to the light, and now pondered the number of a lottery ticket. At length, out of patience, she called fretfully to Mr. Northey to ring the bell. Fortunately, Sophia entered at that moment.

"In time, and no more, miss," madam cried with temper. Then as the girl came forward timidly, "I'll tell you what it is," Mrs. Northey continued, "you'll wear red before you're twenty! You have no more colour than a china figure this morning! What's amiss with you?"

Sophia, flushing under her brother-in-law's eyes, pleaded a headache.

Her sister sniffed. "Eighteen, and the vapours!" she cried scornfully. "Lord, it is very evident raking don't suit you! But do you sit down now, and answer me, child. What did you say to Sir Hervey last night?"

"Nothing," Sophia faltered, her eyes on the floor.

"Oh, nothing!" Mrs. Northey repeated, mimicking her. "Nothing! And pray, Miss Modesty, what did he say to you?"

"Nothing; or--or at least, nothing of moment," Sophia stammered.

"Of moment! Oh, you know what's of moment, do you? And whose fault was that, I'd like to know? Tell me that, miss!"

Sophia, seated stiffly on the chair, her sandalled feet drawn under her, looked downcast and a trifle sullen, but did not answer.

"I ask, whose fault was that?" Mrs. Northey continued impatiently. "Do you think to sit still all your life, looking at your toes, and waiting for the man to fall into your lap? Hang you for a natural, if you do! It is not that way husbands are got, miss!"

"I don't want a husband, ma'am!" Sophia cried, stung at length into speech by her sister's coarseness.

"Oh, don't you?" Mrs. Northey retorted. "Don't you, Miss Innocence? Let me tell you, I know what you want. You want to make a fool of yourself with that beggarly, grinning, broad-shouldered oaf of an Irishman, that's always at your skirts! That's what you want. And he wants your six thousand pounds. Oh, you don't throw dust into my eyes!" Mrs. Northey continued viciously, "I've seen you puling and pining and making Wortley eyes at him these three weeks. Ay, and half the town laughing at you. But I'd have you to know, miss, once for all, we are not going to suffer it!"

"My life, I thought we agreed that I should explain matters," Mr. Northey said gently.

"Oh, go on then!" madam cried, and threw herself back in her seat.

"Only because I think you go a little too far, my dear," Mr. Northey said, with a cough of warning; "I am sure that we can count on Sophia's prudence. You are aware, child," he continued, directly addressing himself to her, "that your father's death has imposed on us the--the charge of your person, and the care of your interests. The house at Cuckfield being closed, and your brother wanting three years of full age, your home must necessarily be with us for a time, and we have a right to expect that you will be guided by us in such plans as are broached for your settlement. Now I think I am right in saying," Mr. Northey continued, in his best House of Commons manner, "that your sister has communicated to you the very advantageous proposal with which my good friend and colleague at Aldbury, Sir Hervey Coke, has honoured us? Ahem! Sophia, that is so, is it not? Be good enough to answer me."

"Yes, sir," Sophia murmured, her eyes glued to the carpet.

"Very good. In that case I am sure that she has not failed to point out to you also that Sir Hervey is a baronet of an old and respectable family, and possessed of a competent estate. That, in a word, the alliance is everything for which we could look on your behalf."

"Yes, sir," Sophia whispered.

"Then, may I ask," Mr. Northey continued, setting a hand on each knee, and regarding her majestically, "in what respect you find the match not to your taste? If that be so?"

The young girl slid her foot to and fro, and for a moment did not answer. Then, "I--I do not wish to marry him," she said, in a low voice.

"You do not wish?" Mrs. Northey cried, unable to contain herself longer. "You do not wish? And why, pray?"

"He's--he's as old as Methuselah!" the girl answered with a sudden spirit of resentment; and she moved her foot more quickly to and fro.

"As old as Methuselah?" Mr. Northey answered, staring at her in unfeigned astonishment; and then, in a tone of triumphant refutation, he continued, "Why, child, what are you dreaming of? He is only thirty-four! and I am thirty-six."

"Well, at any rate, he is old enough--he is nearly old enough to be my father!" Sophia muttered rebelliously.

Mrs. Northey could no longer sit by and hear herself flouted. She knew very well what was intended. She was twenty-nine, Sophia's senior by eleven years, and she felt the imputation that bounded harmlessly off her husband's unconsciousness. "You little toad!" she cried. "Do you think I do not know what you mean? I tell you, miss, you would smart for it, if I were your mother! Thirty-four, indeed; and you call him as old as Methuselah! Oh, thank you for nothing, ma'am! I understand you."

"He's twice as old as I am!" Sophia whimpered, bending before the storm. And in truth to eighteen thirty-four seems elderly; if not old.

"You! You're a baby!" Mrs. Northey retorted, her face red with passion. "How any man of sense can look at you or want you passes me! But he does, and if you think we are going to sit by and see our plans thwarted by a chit of a girl of your years, you are mistaken, miss. Sir Hervey's vote, joined to the two county votes which my lord commands, and to Mr. Northey's seat, will gain my lord a step in the peerage; and when Coke is married to you, his vote will be ours. As for you, you white-faced puling thing, I should like to know who you are that you should not be glad of a good match when it is offered you? It is a very small thing to do for your family."

"For your family!" Sophia involuntarily exclaimed; the next moment she could have bitten off her tongue.

Fortunately a glance from Mr. Northey, who prided himself on his diplomacy, stayed the outburst that was on his wife's lips. "Allow me, my dear," he said. "And do you listen to me, Sophia. Apart from his age, a ridiculous objection which could only come into the mind of a schoolgirl, is there anything else you have to urge against Sir Hervey?"

"He's as--as grave as death!" Sophia murmured tearfully.

Mr. Northey shrugged his shoulders. "Is that all?" he said.

"Yes, but--but----"

"But what? But what, Sophia?" Mr. Northey repeated, with a fine show of fairness. "I suppose you allow him to be in other respects a suitable match?"

"Yes, but--I do not wish to marry him, sir. That is all."

"In that," Mr. Northey said firmly, "you must be guided by us. We have your interests at heart, your best interests. And--and that should be enough for you."

Sophia did not answer, but the manner in which she closed her lips, and kept her gaze fixed steadfastly on the floor, was far from boding acquiescence. Every feature indeed of her pale face--which only a mass of dark brown hair and a pair of the most brilliant and eloquent eyes redeemed from the commonplace--expressed a settled determination. Mrs. Northey, who knew something of her sister's disposition, which was also that of the family in general, discerned this, and could restrain herself no longer.

"You naughty girl!" she cried, with something approaching fury. "Do you think that I don't know what is at the bottom of this? Do you think I don't know that you are pining and sulking for that hulking Irish rogue that's the laughing-stock of every company his great feet enter? Lord, miss, by your leave I'd have you to know we are neither fools nor blind. I've seen your sighings and oglings, your pinings and sinkings. And so has the town. Ay, you may blush"--in truth, Sophia's cheeks were dyed scarlet--"my naughty madam! Blush you should, that can fancy a raw-boned, uncouth Teague a fine woman would be ashamed to have for a footman. But you shan't have him. You may trust me for that, as long as there are bars and bolts in this house, miss."

"Sophia," Mr. Northey said in his coldest manner, "I trust that there is nothing in this? I trust that your sister is misinformed?"

The girl, under the lash of her sister's tongue, had risen from her chair; she tried in vain to recover her composure.

"There was nothing, sir," she cried hysterically. "But after this--after the words which my sister has used to me, she has only herself to thank if--if I please myself, and take the gentleman she has named--or any other gentleman."

"Ay, but softly," Mr. Northey rejoined, with a certain unpleasant chill in his tone. "Softly, Sophia, if you please. Are you aware that if your brother marries under age and without his guardian's consent, he forfeits ten thousand pounds in your favour? And as much more to your sister? If not, let me tell you that it is so."

Sophia stared at him, but did not answer.

"It is true," Mr. Northey continued, "that your father's will contains no provision for your punishment in the like case. But this clause proves that he expected his children to be guided by the advice of their natural guardians; and for my part, Sophia, I expect you to be so guided. In the meantime, and that there may be no mistake in the matter, understand, if you please, that I forbid you to hold from this moment any communication with the person who has been named. If I cannot prescribe a match for you, I can at least see that you do not disgrace your family."

"Sir!" Sophia cried, her cheeks burning.

But Mr. Northey, a man of slow pulse and the least possible imagination, returned her fiery look unmoved. "I repeat it," he said coldly. "For that and nothing else an alliance with this--this person would entail. Let there be no misunderstanding on that point. You are innocent of the world, Sophia, and do not understand these distinctions. But I am within the truth when I say that Mr. Hawkesworth is known to be a broken adventurer, moving upon sufferance among persons of condition, and owning a character and antecedents that would not for a moment sustain inquiry."

"How can that be?" Sophia cried passionately. "It is not known who he is."

"He is not one of us," Mr. Northey answered with dignity. "For the rest, you are right in saying that it is not known who he is. I am told that even the name he bears is not his own."

"No, it is not!" Sophia retorted; and then stood blushing and convicted, albeit with an exultant light in her eyes. No, his name was not his own! She knew that from his own lips; and knew, too, from his own lips, in what a world of romance he moved, what a future he was preparing, what a triumph might be, nay, would be, his by-and-by--and might be hers! But her mouth was sealed; already, indeed, she had said more than she had the right to say. When Mr. Northey, surprised by her acquiescence, asked with acerbity how she knew that Hawkesworth was not the man's name, and what the man's name was, she stood mute. Wild horses should not draw that from her.

But it was natural that her brother-in-law should draw his conclusions, and his brow grew darker. "It is plain, at least, that you have admitted him to a degree of intimacy extremely improper," he said, with more heat than he had yet exhibited. "I fear, Sophia, that you are not so good a girl as I believed. However, from this moment you will see that you treat him as a stranger. Do you hear me?"

"Yes, sir. Then--then I am not to go with you this evening?"

"This evening! You mean to Vauxhall? And why not, pray?"

"Because--because, if I go I must see him. And if I see him I--I must speak to him," Sophia cried, her breast heaving with generous resentment. "I will not pass him by, and let him think me--everything that is base!"

For a moment Mr. Northey looked a little nonplussed. Then, "Well, you can--you can bow to him," he said, pluming himself on his discretion in leaving the rein a trifle slack to begin. "If he force himself upon you, you will rid yourself of him with as little delay as possible. The mode I leave to you, Sophia; but speech with him I absolutely forbid. You will obey in that on pain of my most serious displeasure."

"On pain of bread and water, miss!" her sister cried venomously. "That will have more effect, I fancy. Lord, for my part, I should die of shame if I thought that I had encouraged a nameless Irish rogue not good enough to ride behind my coach. And all the town to know it."

Rage dried the tears that hung on Sophia's lids. "Is that all?" she asked, her head high. "I should like to go if that is all you have to say to me?"

"I think that is all," Mr. Northey answered.

"Then--I may go?"

He appeared to hesitate. For the first time his manner betrayed doubt; he looked at his wife and opened his mouth, then closed it. At length, "Yes, I think so," he said pompously. "And I trust you will regain our approbation by doing as we wish, Sophia. I am sorry to say that your brother's conduct at Cambridge has not been all that we could desire. I hope that you will see to it, and show yourself more circumspect. I truly hope that you will not disappoint us. Yes, you may go."

Sophia waited for no second permission. Her heart bursting, her cheeks burning, she hurried from the room, and flew up the stairs to shut herself in her chamber. Here, on the second floor, in a room consecrated to thoughts of him and dreams of him, where in a secret nook behind the bow-fronted drawer of her toilet table lay the withered flower he had given her the day he stole her glove, she felt the full wretchedness of her lot. She would see him no more! Her tears gushed forth, her bosom heaved at the thought. She would see him no more! Or worse, she would see him only in public, at a distance; whence his eyes would stab her for a jilt, a flirt, a cold, heartless, worldly creature, unworthy to live in the same world, unworthy to breathe the same air with Constancy.

And he had been so good to her! He had been so watchful, so assiduous, so delicate, she had fondly, foolishly deemed his court a secret from all.

The way to her heart had not been difficult. Her father's death had cast her, a timid country girl, into the vortex of the town, where for a time she had shrunk from the whirl of routs and masquerades, the smirking beaux and loud-voiced misses, among whom she found herself. She had sat mum and abashed in companies where her coarser sister ruled and ranted; where one had shunned and another had flouted the silent, pale-faced girl, whose eyes and hair and tall slender shape just redeemed her from insignificance. Only Mr. Hawkesworth, the Irishman, had discerned in her charms that in a remarkably short time won his regards and fixed his attentions. Only he, with the sensibility of an unspoiled Irish heart, had penetrated the secret of her loneliness; and in company had murmured sympathy in her ear, and at the opera, where he had not the entrée to her sister's box, had hung on her looks from afar, speaking more sweetly with his fine eyes than Monticelli or Amorevoli sang on the stage.

For Sir Hervey, his would-be rival, the taciturn, middle-aged man, who was Hervey to half the men about town, and Coke to three-fourths of the women; who gamed with the same nonchalance with which he made his court--he might be the pink of fashion in his dull mooning way, but he had nothing that caught her eighteen-year-old fancy. On the contrary he had a habit of watching her, when Hawkesworth was present, at the mere remembrance of which her cheek flamed. For that alone, and in any event, she hated him; and would never, never marry him. They might rob her of her dear Irishman; they might break her heart--so her thoughts ran to the tremolo of a passionate sob; they might throw her into a decline; but they should never, never compel her to take him! She would live on bread and water for a year first. She was fixed, fixed, fixed on that, and would ever remain so.

Meanwhile downstairs the two who remained in the room she had left kept silence until her footsteps ceased to sound on the stairs. Then Mr. Northey permitted his discontent to appear. "I wish, after all, I had told her," he said, moving restlessly in his chair. "Hang it, ma'am, do you hear?" he continued, looking irritably at his wife, "I wish I had taken my own line, and that is a fact."

"Then you wish you had been a fool, Mr. Northey!" the lady answered with fine contempt. "Do you think that this silly girl would rest content, or let us rest, until you had followed her dear brother Tom, and brought him back from his charmer? Not she! And for him, if you are thinking of him, he was always a rude cub, and bound for the dogs one day or other. What does it matter whether he is ruined before he is of age or after? Eh, Mr. Northey?"

"It matters to us," Mr. Northey answered.

"It may matter ten thousand to us, if we mind our own business," his wife answered coolly. "So do you let him be for a day or two."

"It matters as much to Sophia," he said, trying to find excuses for himself and his inaction.

"And why not? There will be so much the more to bind Coke to us."

"He has plenty now."

"Much wants more, Mr. Northey."

"Of course the thing may be done already," he argued, striving to convince himself. "For all we know, the match is made, and 'tis too late to interfere. Your brother was always wilful; and it is not likely the woman would let him go for a word. On the other hand----"

"There is no other hand!" she cried, out of patience with his weakness. "I tell you, let be. Let the boy marry whom he pleases, and when he pleases. 'Tis no matter of ours."

"Still I wish this tutor had not written to us."

"If the knot was not tied yesterday, there are persons enough will tie it to-day for half a guinea!" she said. "It is not as if you were his only guardian. His father chose another elsewhere. Let him look to it. The girl is charge enough for us; and, for her, she benefits as much as we do if he's foolish. I wish that were the worst of it. But I scent danger, Mr. Northey. I am afraid of this great Teague of hers. He's no Irishman if he doesn't scent a fortune a mile off. And once let him learn that she is worth sixteen thousand pounds instead of six thousand, and he'll off with her from under our very noses."

"It's that Irish Register has done the mischief!" Mr. Northey cried, jumping up with an oath. "She's in there, in print!"

"Under her own name?"

"To be sure, as a fortune. And her address."

"Do you mean it, Mr. Northey? Printed in the book, is it?"

"It is; as I say."

"Hang their impudence!" his wife cried in astonishment. "They ought to be pilloried! But there is just this, we can show the entry to the girl. And if it don't open her eyes, nothing will. Do you get a copy of the book, Mr. Northey, and we'll show it to her to-morrow, and put her on the notion every Irishman has it by heart. And as soon as we can we must get her married to Coke. There'll be no certainty till she's wedded. 'Twould have been done this fortnight if he were not just such a mumchance fool as the girl herself. He may look very wise, and the town may think him so. But there's more than looking wanted with a woman, Mr. Northey; and for what I see he's as big a fool as many that never saw Pall Mall."

"I have never found him that," Mr. Northey answered with a dry cough. He spoke with reason, for he had more than once, as heir to a peerage, taken on himself to set Sir Hervey right; with so conspicuous a lack of success that he had begun to suspect that his brother member's silence was not dulness; nay, that he himself came late into that secret. Or why was Coke so well with that great wit and fashionable, Hanbury Williams? With Henry Fox, and my lord Chesterfield? With young Lord Lincoln, the wary quarry of match-making mothers, no less than with Tom Hervey, against whom no young virgin, embarking on life, failed of a warning? Mr. Northey knew that in the company of these, and their like, he was no favourite, whilst Coke was at home; and he hid with difficulty a sneaking fear of his colleague.

What a man so highly regarded and so well received saw in a girl who, in Mr. Northey's eyes, appeared every way inferior to her loud, easy, fashionable sister, it passed the honourable member to conceive. But the thing was so. Sir Hervey had spoken the three or four words beyond which he seldom went--the venture had been made; and now if there was one thing upon which Mr. Northey's dogged mind was firmly fixed, it was that an alliance so advantageous should not be lost to the family.

"But Sophia is prudent," he said, combating his own fears. "She has always been obedient and--and well-behaved. I am sure she's--she's a good girl, and will see what is right when it is explained to her."

"If she does not, she will see sorrow!" his wife answered truculently. She had neither forgotten nor forgiven the sneer about Methuselah. "I'll tell you what it is, Mr. Northey," madam continued, "she takes you in with her pale, peaky face and her round eyes. But if ever there was a nasty, obstinate little toad, she is one. And you'll find it out by-and-by. And so will Coke to his cost some day."

"Still you think--we can bend her this time?"

"Oh, she'll marry him!" Mrs. Northey retorted confidently. "I'll answer for that. But I would not be Coke afterwards."

CHAPTER II

[AT VAUXHALL]

In a year when all the world was flocking to the new Rotunda in Ranelagh Gardens, Mrs. Northey would be particular, and have her evening party to Vauxhall. Open air was the fashion of the time, and it was from her seat at the open window in Arlington Street that she welcomed her guests. Thence, as each new-comer appeared she shouted her greeting, often in terms that convulsed the chairmen at the corner; or now and again, hanging far out, she turned her attention and wit to the carpenters working late on Sir Robert's house next door, and stated in good round phrases her opinion of the noise they made. When nearly all her company were assembled, and the room was full of women languishing and swimming, and of men mincing and prattling, and tapping their snuff-boxes, Sophia stole in, and, creeping into a corner, hid herself behind two jolly nymphs, who, with hoops six feet wide and cheeks as handsome as crimson could make them, were bandying jokes and horse-play with a tall admirer. In this retreat Sophia fancied that she might hide her sad looks until the party set out; and great was her dismay, when, venturing at last to raise her eyes, she discovered that she had placed herself beside, nay, almost touching the man whom of all others she wished to avoid, the detested Coke; who, singularly enough, had sought the same retirement a few moments earlier.

In the confusion of the moment she recoiled a step; the events of the day had shaken her nerves. Then, "I beg your pardon, sir, I did not see that you were there," she stammered.

"No," he said with a smile, "I know you did not, child. Or you would have gone to the other end of the room. Now, confess. Is it not so?"

She shrugged her shoulders. "As you please, sir," she said, "I would not venture to contradict you," and curtseying satirically she turned away her face. At any rate he should lie in no doubt of her feelings.

He did not answer. And, welcome as his silence was, something like contempt of a suitor who aspired to have without daring to speak took possession of her. Under the influence of this feeling, embittered by the rating she had received that morning, she fell to considering him out of the tail of her eye, but, in spite of herself, she could not deny that he was personable; that his features, if a trifle set and lacking vivacity, were good, and his bearing that of a gentleman at ease in his company. Before she had well weighed him, however, or done more than compare him with the fop who stood before her, and whose muff and quilted coat, long queue and black leather stock were in the extreme of the fashion, Sir Hervey spoke again.

"Why does it not please you?" he asked, almost listlessly.

"To do what, sir?"

"To be beside me."

"I did not say it did not," she answered, looking stiffly the other way.

"But it does not," he persisted. "I suppose, child, your sister has told you what my views are?"

"Yes, sir."

"And what do you say?" he murmured. "That--that I am much obliged to you, but they are not mine!" Sophia answered, with a rush of words and colour; and, punished as she had been that morning, it must be confessed, she cruelly enjoyed the stroke.

For a moment only. Then to her astonishment and dismay Sir Hervey laughed. "That is what you say now," he answered lightly. "What will you say if, by-and-by, when we know one another better, we get on as well together as--as Lady Sophia there, and----"

"And Lord Lincoln?" she cried, seeing that he hesitated. "Never!"

"Indeed!" he retorted. "But, pray, what do you know about Lord Lincoln?"

"I suppose you think I know no scandal?" she cried.

"I would prefer you to know as little as possible," he answered coolly; in the tone she fancied which he would have used had she been already his property. "And there is another thing I would also prefer you did not know," he continued.

"Pray, what is that?" she cried, openly scornful; and she flirted her fan a little faster.

"Mr. Hawkesworth."

The blood rushed to her cheeks. This was too much. "Are you jealous? or only impertinent?" she asked, her voice not less furious because it was low and guarded. "How noble, how chivalrous, to say behind a gentleman's back what you would not dare to say to his face!"

Sir Hervey shrugged his shoulders. "He is not a gentleman," he said. "He is not one of us, and he is not fit company for you. I do not know what story he has told you, nor what cards he has played, but I know that what I say is true. Be advised, child," he continued earnestly, "and look on him coldly when you see him next. Be sure if you do not----"

"You will speak to my sister?" she cried. "If you have not done it already? Lord, sir, I congratulate you. I'm sure you have discovered quite a new style of wooing. Next, I suppose, you will have me sent to my room, and put on bread and water for a week? Or buried in a parsonage in the country with Tillotson's Sermons and the 'Holy Living'?"

"I spoke to you as I should speak to my sister," Sir Hervey said, with something akin to apology in his tone.

"Say, rather, as you would speak to your daughter!" she replied, quick as lightning; and, trembling with rage, she drove home the shaft with a low curtsey. "To be sure, sir, now I think of it, the distance between us justifies you in giving me what advice you please."

He winced at last, and was even a trifle out of countenance. But he did not answer, and she, furiously angry, turned her back on him, and looked the other way. Young as she was, all the woman in her rose in revolt against the humiliation of being advised in such a matter by a man. She could have struck him. She hated him. And they were all in the same story. They were all against her and her dear Irishman, who alone understood her. Tears rose in Sophia's eyes as she pictured her present loneliness and her happiness in the past; as she recalled the old home looking down the long avenue of chestnut trees, the dogs, the horses, the boisterous twin brother, and the father who by turns had coarsely chidden and fondly indulged her. In her loss of all this, in a change of life as complete as it was sudden, she had found one only to comfort her, one only who had not thought the whirl of strange pleasures a sufficient compensation for a home and a father. One only who had read her silence, and pitied her inexperience. And him they would snatch from her! Him they would----

But at this point her thoughts were interrupted by a general movement towards the door. Bent on an evening's frolic the party issued into Arlington Street with loud laughter and louder voices, and in a moment were gaily descending St. James's Street. One or two of the elder ladies took chairs, but the greater part walked, the gentlemen with hats under their arms and canes dangling from their wrists, the more foppish with muffs. Passing down St. James's, where Betty, the fruit woman, with a couple of baskets of fruit, was added to the company, they crossed the end of Pall Mall, now inviting a recruit, after the easy fashion of the day, and now hailing a friend on the farther side of the street. Thence, by the Mall and the Horse Guards, and so to the Whitehall Stairs, where boats were waiting for them on the grey evening surface of the broad river.

Sophia found herself compelled to go in the same boat with Sir Hervey, but she took good heed to ensconce herself at a distance from him; and, successful in this, sat at her end, moody, and careless of appearances. There was singing and a little romping in the stern of the boat, where the ladies principally sat, and where their hoops called for some arrangement. Presently a pert girl, Lady Betty Cochrane, out at sixteen, and bent on a husband before she was seventeen, marked Sophia's silence, nudged those about her, and took on herself to rally the girl.

"La, miss, you must have been at a Quakers' meeting!" she cried, simpering. "It is easy to see where your thoughts are."

"Where?" Sophia murmured, abashed by this public notice.

"I believe there is very good acting in--Doblin!" the provoking creature answered, with her head on one side, and a sentimental air; and the ladies tittered and the gentlemen smiled. "Have you ever been to--Doblin, miss?" she continued, with a look that winged the innuendo.

Sophia, her face on fire, did not answer.

"Oh, la, miss, you are not offended, I hope!" the tormentor cried politely. "Sure, I thought the gentleman had spoken, and all was arranged. To be sure--

"O'Rourke's noble fare

Will ne'er be forgot

By those who were there,

And those who were not!

And those who were not!" she hummed again, with a wink that drove the ladies to hide their mirth in their handkerchiefs. "A fine man, O'Rourke, and I have heard that he was an actor in--Doblin!" the little tease continued.

Sophia, choking with rage, and no match for her town-bred antagonist, could find not a word to answer; and worse still, she knew not where to look. Another moment and she might even have burst into tears, a mishap which would have disgraced her for ever in that company. But at the critical instant a quiet voice at the stern was heard, quoting--

"Whom Simplicetta loves the town would know,
Mark well her knots, and name the happy beau!"

On which it was seen that it is one thing to tease and another to be teased. Lady Betty swung round in a rage, and without a word attacked Sir Hervey with her fan with a violence that came very near to upsetting the boat. "How dare you, you horrid man?" she cried, when she thought she had beaten him enough. "I wish there were no men in the world, I declare I do! It's a great story, you ugly thing! If Mr. Hesketh says I gave him a knot, he is just a----"

A shout of laughter cut her short. Too late she saw that she had betrayed herself, and she stamped furiously on the bottom of the boat. "He cut it off!" she shrieked, raising her voice above the laughter. "He cut it off! He would cut it off! 'Tis a shame you will not believe me. I say----"

A fresh peal of laughter drowned her voice, and brought the boat to the landing-place.

"All the same, Lady Betty," the nearest girl said as they prepared to step out, "you'd better not let your mother hear, or you'll go milk cows, my dear, in the country! Lord, you little fool, the boy's not worth a groat, and should be at school by rights!"

Miss Betty did not answer, but cocking her chin with disdain, which made her look prettier than ever, stepped out, sulking. Sophia followed, her cheeks a trifle cooler than they had been; and the party, once more united, proceeded on foot from the river to the much-praised groves of Pleasure; where ten thousand lamps twinkled and glanced among the trees, or outlined the narrowing avenue that led to the glittering pavilion. In the wide and open space before this Palace of Aladdin a hundred gay and lively groups were moving to and fro to the strains of the band, or were standing to gaze at the occupants of the boxes; who, sheltered from the elements, and divided from the humbler visitors by little gardens, supped al fresco, their ears charmed by music, and their eyes entertained by the ever-changing crowd that moved below them.

Two of the best boxes had been retained for Mrs. Northey's party, but before they proceeded to them her company chose to stroll up and down a time or two, diverting themselves with the humours of the place and the evening. More than once Sophia's heart stood still as they walked. She fancied that she saw Hawkesworth approaching, that she distinguished his form, his height, his face amid the crowd; and conscious of the observant eyes around her, as well as of her sister's displeasure, she knew not where to look for embarrassment. On each occasion it turned out that she was mistaken, and to delicious tremors succeeded the chill of a disappointment almost worse to bear. After all, she reflected, if she must dismiss him, here were a hundred opportunities of doing so in greater freedom than she could command elsewhere. The turmoil of the press through which they moved, now in light and now in shadow, now on the skirts of the romantic, twilit grove, and now under the blaze of the pavilion lamps, favoured the stolen word, the kind glance, the quick-breathed sigh. But though he knew that she was to be there, though of late he had seldom failed her in such public resorts as this, he did not appear; and by-and-by her company left the parade, and, entering the boxes, fell to mincing chickens in china bowls, and cooking them with butter and water over a lamp, all with much romping and scolding, and some kissing and snatching of white fingers, and such a fire of jests and laughter as soon drew a crowd to the front of the box, and filled the little gardens on either side of them with staring groups.

Gayest, pertest, most reckless of all, Lady Betty was in her glory. Never was such a rattle as she showed herself. Her childish treble and shrill laugh, her pretty flushed face and tumbled hair were everywhere. Apparently bent on punishing Coke for his interference she never let him rest, with the result that Sophia, whose resentment still smouldered, was free to withdraw to the back of the box, and witness rather than share the sport that went forward. To this a new zest was given when Lord P----, who had been dining at a tavern on the river, arrived very drunk, and proceeded to harangue the crowd from the front of the box.

Sophia's seat at the back was beside the head of the half-dozen stairs that descended to the gardens. The door at her elbow was open. On a sudden, while the hubbub was at its height, and a good half of the party were on their feet before her--some encouraging his lordship to fresh vagaries, and others striving to soothe him--she heard a stealthy hist! hist! in the doorway beside her, as if some one sought to gain her attention. With Hawkesworth in her mind she peered that way in trembling apprehension; immediately a little white note dropped lightly at her feet, and she had a glimpse of a head and shoulders, withdrawn as soon as seen.

With a tumultuous feeling between shame and joy, Sophia, who, up to this moment, had had nothing clandestine on her conscience, slipped her foot over the note? and glanced round to see if any one had seen her. That moment an eager childish voice cried in her ear, "Give me that! Give it me!" And then, more urgently, "Do you hear? It is mine! Please give it me!"

The voice was Lady Betty's; and her flushed pleading face backed the appeal. At which, and all it meant, it is not to be denied that a little malice stirred in Sophia's breast. The chit had so tormented her an hour earlier, had so held her up to ridicule, so shamed her. It was no wonder she was inclined to punish her now. "Yours, child," she said, looking coldly at her. "Impossible."

"Yes, miss. Please--please give it me--at once, please, before it is too late."

"I do not know that I shall," Sophia answered virtuously, from the height of her eighteen years. "Children have no right to receive notes. I ought to give it to your mother." Then, with an unexpected movement, she stooped and possessed herself of the folded scrap of paper. "I am not sure that I shall not," she continued.

Lady Betty's face was piteous. "If you do, I--I shall be sent into the country," she panted. "I--I don't know what they'll do to me. Oh, please, please, will you give it me!"

Sophia had a kindly nature, and the girl's distress appealed to her. But it appealed in two ways.

"No, I shall not give it you," she answered firmly. "But I shall not tell your mother, either. I shall tear it up. You are too young, you little baby, to do this!" And suiting the action to the word, she tore the note into a dozen pieces and dropped them.

Lady Betty glared at her between relief and rage. At last "Cat! Cat!" she whispered with childish spite. "Thank you for nothing, ma'am. I'll pay you by-and-by, see if I don't!" And with a spring, she was back at the front of the box, her laugh the loudest, her voice the freshest, her wit the boldest and most impertinent of all. Sophia, who fancied that she had made an enemy, did not notice that more than once this madcap looked her way; nor that in the midst of the wildest outbursts she had an eye for what happened in her direction.

Sophia, indeed, had food for thought more important than Lady Betty, for the girl had scarcely left her side when Mrs. Northey came to her, shook her roughly by the shoulder--they had direct ways in those days--and asked her in a fierce whisper if she were going to sulk there all the evening. Thus adjured, Sophia moved reluctantly to a front seat at the right-hand corner of the box. Lord P---- had been suppressed, but broken knots of people still lingered before the garden of the box expecting a new escapade. To the right, in the open, fireworks were being let off, and the grounds in that direction were as light as in the day. Suddenly, Sophia's eyes, roving moodily hither and thither, became fixed. She rose to her feet with a cry of surprise, which must have been heard by her companions had they not been taken up at that moment with the arrest of a cutpurse by two thief-takers, a drama which was going forward on the left.

"There's--there's Tom!" she cried, her astonishment extreme, since Tom should have been at Cambridge. And raising her voice she shouted "Tom! Tom!"

Her brother did not hear. He was moving across the open lighted space, some fifteen paces from the box; a handsome boy, foppishly dressed, moving with the affected indifference of a very young dandy. Sophia glanced round in an agony of impatience, and found that no one was paying any attention to her; there was no one she could send to call him. She saw that in a twinkling he would be lost in the crowd, and, acting on the impulse of the moment, she darted to the stairs, which were only two paces from her, and flew down them to overtake him. Unfortunately, she tripped at the bottom and almost fell, lost a precious instant, and lost Tom. When she reached the spot where she had last seen him, and looked round, her brother was not to be seen.

Or yes, there he was, in the act of vanishing down one of the dim alleys that led into the grove. Half laughing, half crying, innocently anticipating his surprise when he should see her, Sophia sped after him. He turned a corner--the place was a maze and dimly lighted--she followed him; she thought he met some one, she hurried on, and the next moment was all but in the arms of Hawkesworth.

"Sophia!" the Irishman cried, pressing his hat to his heart as he bowed before her. "Oh, my angel, that I should be so blest! This is indeed a happy meeting."

But she was far at the moment from thinking of him. Her brother occupied her whole mind. "Where is he," she cried, looking every way. "Where is Tom? Mr. Hawkesworth, you must have seen him. He must have passed you."

"Seen whom, ma'am?" her admirer asked with eager devotion. He was tall, with a certain florid grace of carriage; and ready, for his hand was on his heart, and his eyes expressed the joy he felt, almost before she knew who stood before her. "If it is any one I know, make me happy by commanding me. If he be at the ends of the earth, I will bring him back."

"It is my brother!"

"Your brother?"

"Yes--but you would not know him," she cried, stamping her foot with impatience. "How annoying!"

"Not know him?" he answered gallantly. "Oh, ma'am, how little you know me!" And Hawkesworth extended his arm with a gesture half despairing, half reproachful. "How little you enter into my feelings if you think that I should not know your brother! My tongue I know is clumsy, and says little, but my eyes"--and certainly they dwelt boldly enough on her blushing face, "my eyes must inform you more correctly of my feelings."

"Please, please do not talk like that!" she cried in a low voice, and she wrung her hands in distress. "I saw my brother, and I came down to overtake him, and--and somehow I have missed him."

"But I thought that he was at Cambridge?" he said.

"He should be," she replied. "But it was he. It was he indeed. I ran to catch him, and I have missed him, and I must go back at once. If you please, I must go back at once."

"In one moment you shall!" he cried, barring the road, but with so eloquent a look and a tone so full of admiration that she could not resent the movement. "In one moment you shall. But, my angel, heaven has sent you to my side, heaven has taken pity on my passion, and given me this moment of delight--will you be more cruel and snatch it from me? Nay, but, sweet," he continued with ardour, making as if he would kneel, and take possession of her hand, "sweetest one, say that you, too, are glad! Say----"

"Mr. Hawkesworth, I am glad," she murmured, trembling; while her face burned with blushes. "For it gives me an opportunity I might otherwise have lacked of--of--oh, I don't know how I can say it!"

"Say what, madam?"

"How I can take--take leave of you," she murmured, turning away her head.

"Take leave of me?" he cried. "Take leave of me?"

"Yes, oh, yes! Believe me, Mr. Hawkesworth," Sophia continued, beginning to stammer in her confusion, "I am not ungrateful for your attentions, I am not, indeed, ungrateful, but we--we must part."

"Never!" he cried, rising and looking down at her. "Never! It is not your heart that speaks now, or it speaks but a lesson it has learned."

Sophia was silent.

"It is your friends who would part us," he continued, with stern and bitter emphasis. "It is your cold-blooded, politic brother-in-law; it is your proud sister----"

"Stay, sir," Sophia said unsteadily. "She is my sister."

"She is; but she would part us!" he retorted. "Do you think that I do not understand that? Do you think that I do not know why, too? They see in me only a poor gentleman. I cannot go to them, and tell them what I have told you! I cannot," he continued, with a gesture that in the daylight might have seemed a little theatrical, but in the dusk of the alley and to a girl's romantic perceptions commended itself gallantly enough, "put my life in their hands as I have put it in yours! I cannot tell them that the day will come when Plomer Hawkesworth will stand on the steps of a throne and enjoy all that a king's gratitude can confer. When he who now runs daily, nightly, hourly the risk of Layer's fate, whose head may any morning rot on Temple Bar and his limbs on York Gates----"

Sophia interrupted him; she could bear no more. "Oh, no, no!" she cried, shuddering and covering her eyes. "God forbid! God forbid, sir! Rather----"

"Rather what, sweet?" he cried, and he caught her hand in rapture.

"Rather give up this--this dangerous life," she sobbed, overcome by the horror of the things his words had conjured up. "Let others tread such dangerous ways and run such risks. Give up the Jacobite cause, Mr. Hawkesworth, if you love me as you say you do, and I----"

"Yes? Yes?" he cried; and across his handsome face, momentarily turned from her as if he would resist her pleading, there crept a look half of derision, half of triumph. "What of you, sweet?"

But her reply was never spoken, for as he uttered the word the fireworks died down with startling abruptness, plunging the alley in which they stood into gloom. The change recalled the girl to a full and sudden sense of her position; to its risks and to its consequences, should her absence, even for a moment, be discovered. Wringing her hands in distress, in place of the words that had been on her lips, "Oh, I must go!" she cried. "I must get back at once!" And she looked for help to her lover.

He did not answer her, and she turned from him, fearing he might try to detain her. But she had not taken three steps before she paused in agitation, uncertain in the darkness which way she had come. A giggling, squealing girl ran by her into the grove, followed by a man; at the same moment a distant fanfare of French horns, with the confused noise of a multitude of feet trampling the earth at once, announced that the entertainment was over, and that the assembly was beginning to leave the gardens.

Sophia's heart stood still. What if she were missed? Worse still, what if she were left behind? "Oh," she cried, turning again to him, her hands outstretched, "which is the way? Mr. Hawkesworth, please, please show me the way! Please take me to them!"

But the Irishman did not move.

CHAPTER III

[THE CLOCK-MAKER]

It even seemed to Sophia that his face, as he stood watching her, took on a smirk of satisfaction, faint, but odious; and in that moment, and for the moment, she came near to hating him. She knew that in the set in which she moved much might be overlooked, and daily and hourly was overlooked, in the right people. But to be lost at Vauxhall at midnight, in the company of an unauthorised lover--this had a horribly clandestine sound; this should be sufficient to blacken the fame of a poor maid--or her country education was at fault. And knowing this, and hearing the confused sounds of departure rise each moment louder and more importunate, the girl grew frantic with impatience.

"Which way? Which way?" she cried. "Do you hear me? Which way are the boxes, Mr. Hawkesworth? You know which way I came. Am I to think you a dolt, sir, or--or what?"

"Or what?" he repeated, grinning feebly. To be candid, the occasion had not been foreseen, and the Irishman, though of readiest wit, could not on the instant make up his mind how he would act.

"Or a villain?" she cried, with a furious glance. And in the effort to control herself, the ivory fan-sticks snapped in her small fingers as if they had been of glass. "Take me back this instant, sir," she continued, her head high, "or never presume to speak to me again!"

What he would have said to this is uncertain, for the good reason that before he answered, two men appeared at the end of the alley. Catching the sheen of Sophia's hoop skirt, where it glimmered light against the dark of the trees, they espied the pair, took them for a pair of lovers, and with a whoop of drunken laughter came towards them. One was Lord P----, no soberer than before; the other a brother buck flushed with wine to the same pitch of insolence, and ready for any folly or mischief. Crying "So ho! A petticoat! A petticoat!" the two Mohocks joined hands, and with a tipsy view-halloa! swept down the green walk, expecting to carry all before them.

But it was in such an emergency as this that the Irishman was at his best. Throwing himself between the shrinking, frightened girl and the onset of the drunken rakes, he raised his cane with an air so determined that the assailants thought better of their plan, and, pausing with a volley of drunken threats, parted hands and changed their scheme of attack. While one prepared to rush in and overturn the man, the other made a feint aside, and, thrusting himself through the shrubs, sprang on the girl. Sophia screamed, and tried to free herself; but scream and effort were alike premature. With a rapid twirl Hawkesworth avoided my lord's rush, caught him by the waist as he blundered by, and, swinging him off his legs, flung him crashing among the undergrowth. Then, whipping out his sword, he pricked the other who had seized Sophia, in the fleshy part of the shoulder, and forced him to release her; after which, plying his point before the bully's eyes, he drove him slowly back and back. Now the man shrieked and flinched as the glittering steel menaced his face; now he poured forth a volley of threats and curses, as it was for a moment withdrawn. But Hawkesworth was unmoved by either, and at length the fellow, seeing that he was not to be intimidated either by his lordship's name or his own menaces, thought better of it--as these gentlemen commonly did when they were resisted; and springing back with a parting oath, he took to his heels, and saved himself down a bypath.

The Irishman, a little breathed by his victory, wasted no time in vaunting it. The girl had witnessed it with worshipping eyes; he could trust her to make the most of it. "Quick," he cried, "or we shall be in trouble!" And sheathing his sword, he caught the trembling Sophia by the hand, and ran with her down the path. They turned a corner; a little way before her she saw lights, and the open space near the booths which she had seen her brother cross. But now Hawkesworth halted; his purpose was still fluid and uncertain. But the next moment a shrill childish voice cried "Here she is; I've found her!" and Lady Betty Cochrane flew towards them. A little behind her, approaching at a more leisurely pace, was Sir Hervey Coke.

Lady Betty stared at Hawkesworth with all her eyes, and giggled. "Oh, lord, a man!" she cried, and veiled her face, pretending to be overcome.

"I saw my brother," Sophia faltered, covered with confusion, "and ran down--ran down to--to meet him."

"Just so! But see here, brother!" Lady Betty answered with a wink. "Go's the word, now, if you are not a fool."

Hawkesworth hesitated an instant, looking from Sophia to Sir Hervey Coke; but he saw that nothing more could be done on the occasion, and muttering "Another time," he turned away, and in a moment was lost in the grove.

"She was with her brother," Lady Betty cried, turning, and breathlessly explaining the matter to Coke, who had seen all. "Think of that! She saw him, and followed him. That's all. Lord, I wonder," she continued, with a loud giggle, "if they would make such a fuss if I were missing. I declare to goodness I'll try." And, leaving Sophia to follow with Sir Hervey, she danced on in front until they met Mrs. Northey, who, with her husband and several of her party, was following in search of the culprit. Seeing she was found, the gentlemen winked at one another behind backs, while the ladies drew down the corners of their mouths. One of the latter laughed, maliciously expecting the scene that would follow.

But Lady Betty had the first word, and kept it. "Lord, ma'am, what ninnies we are!" she cried. "She was with her brother. That's all!"

"Hee, hee!" the lady tittered who had laughed before. "That's good! Her brother!"

"Yes, she was!" Betty cried, turning on her, a very spitfire. "I suppose seeing's believing, ma'am, though one is only fifteen, and not forty. She saw her brother going by the--the corner there, and ran after him while we were watching--watching the---- But oh, I beg your pardon, ma'am, you were otherwise engaged, I think!" with a derisive curtsey.

Unfortunately the lady who had laughed had a weakness for one of the gentlemen in company; which was so notorious that on this even her friends sniggered. With Mrs. Northey, however, Lady Betty's advocacy was less effective. That pattern sister, from the moment she discovered Sophia's absence, and divined the cause of it, had been fit to burst with spleen. Fortunately, the coarse rating which she had prepared, and from which neither policy nor mercy could have persuaded her to refrain, died on her shrewish lips at the word "brother."

"Her brother?" she repeated mechanically, as she glowered at Lady Betty. "Her brother here? What do you mean?"

"To be sure, ma'am, what I say. She saw him."

"But how did she know--that he was in London?" Mrs. Northey stammered, forgetting herself for the moment.

"She didn't know! That's the strange part of it!" Lady Betty replied volubly. "She saw him, ma'am, and ran after him."

"Well, anyway, you have given us enough trouble!" Mrs. Northey retorted, addressing her sister; who stood before them trembling with excitement, and overcome by the varied emotions of the scene through which she had passed in the alley. "Thank you for nothing, and Master Tom, too! Perhaps if you have quite done you'll come home. Sir Hervey, I'll trust her to you, if you'll be troubled with her. Now, if your ladyship will lead the way? I declare it's wondrous dark of a sudden."

The party, taking the hint, turned, and quickly made its way along the deserted paths towards the entrance. As they trooped by twos and threes down the Avenue of Delight many of the lamps had flickered out, and others were guttering in the sockets, fit images of wit and merriment that had lost their sparkle, and fell dull on jaded ears. Coke walked in silence beside his companion until a little interval separated them from the others. Then, "Child," he said in a tone grave and almost severe, "are you fixed to take no warning? Are you determined to throw away your life?"

It was his misfortune--and hers--that he chose his seasons ill. At that moment her heart was filled to overflowing with her lover, and her danger; his prowess, and his brave defence of her. Her eyes were hot with joyful, happy tears hardly pent back. Her limbs trembled with a delicious agitation; all within her was a tumult of warm feelings, of throbbing sensibilities.

For Sir Hervey to oppose himself to her in that mood was to court defeat; it was to associate himself with the worldliness that to her in her rapture was the most hateful thing on earth; and he had his reward. "Throw away my life," she cried, curtly and contemptuously, "'tis just that, sir, I am determined not to do!"

"You are going the way to do it," he retorted.

"I should be going the way--were I to entertain the suit of a spy!" she cried, her voice trembling as she hurled the insult at him. "Were I to become the wife of a man who, even before he has a claim on me, dogs my footsteps, watches my actions, defames my friends! Believe me, sir, I thank you for nothing so much as for opening my eyes to your merits."

"Oh, Lord!" he exclaimed in despair almost comic.

"Thank you," she said. "I see your conduct is of a piece, sir. From the first you treated me as a child; a chattel to be conveyed to you by my friends, with the least trouble to yourself. You scarcely stooped to speak to me until you found another in the field, and then 'twas only to backbite a gentleman whom you dared not accuse to his face?"

As she grew hotter he grew cool. "Well, well," he said, tapping his snuff-box, "be easy; I sha'n't carry you off against your will."

"No, you will not!" she cried. "You will not! Don't think, if you please, that I am afraid of you. I am afraid of no one!"

And in the fervour of her love she felt that she spoke the truth. At that moment she was afraid of no one.

"'Tis a happy state; I hope it may continue," Coke answered placidly. "You never had cause to fear me. After this you shall have no cause to reproach me. I ask only one thing in return."

"You will have nothing," she said rudely.

"You will grant me this, whether you will or no!"

"Never!"

"Yes," he said, "for it is but this, and you cannot help yourself. When you have been married to that man a month think of this moment and of me, and remember that I warned you."

He spoke soberly, but he might have spoken to the winds for all the good he did. She was in air, picturing her lover's strength and prowess, his devotion, his gallantry. Once again she saw the drunken lord lifted and flung among the shrubs, and Hawkesworth's figure as he stood like Hector above his fallen foe. Again she saw the other bully flinching before his steel, cursing, reviling and hiccoughing by turns, and Hawkesworth silent, inexorable, pressing on him. She forgot the preceding moment of dismay when she had turned to her lover for help, and read something less than respect in his eyes; that short moment during which he had hung in the wind uncertain what course he would take with her. She forgot this, for she was only eighteen, and the scene in which he had championed her had cast its glamour over her, distorting all that had gone before. He had defended her; he was her hero, she was his chosen. What girl of sensibility could doubt it?

Coke, who left them at the door of the house in Arlington Street, finished the evening at White's, where, playing deep for him, he won three hundred at hazard without speaking three unnecessary words. Returning home with the milk in the morning, he rubbed his eyes, surprised to find himself following Hawkesworth along Piccadilly. The Irishman had a companion, a young lad who reeled and hiccoughed in the cool morning air; who sung snatches of tipsy songs, and at the corner of Berkeley Street would have fought with a night chairman if the elder man had not dragged him on by force. The two turned up Dover Street and Sir Hervey, after following them with his eyes, lost sight of them, and went on, wondering why a drunken boy's voice, heard at haphazard in the street, reminded him of Sophia.

He would have wondered less and known more had he followed them farther. At the bottom of Hay Hill the lad freed himself from his companion's arm, propped his shoulders against the wall of Berkeley Gardens, and with drunken solemnity proceeded to argue a point. "I don't understand," he said. "Why shouldn't I speak to S'phia, if I please. Eh? S'phia's devilish good girl, why do you go and drag her off? That's what I want to know."

"My dear lad," Hawkesworth answered with patience, "if she saw you she'd blow the whole thing."

"Not she!" the lad hiccoughed obstinately. "She's a good little girl. She's my twin, I tell you."

"But the others were with her."

"What others?"

"Northey."

"I shall kick Northey, when I am married," the lad proclaimed with drunken solemnity. "That's all."

"Well, you'll be married to-morrow."

"Why not to-day? That's what I want to know. Eh? Why not to-day?"

"Because the fair Oriana is at Ipswich, and you are here," the Irishman answered with a trace of impatience in his tone. Then under his breath he added, "D--n the jade! This is one of her tricks. She's never where she is wanted."

In the meantime the lad had been set in motion again, and the two had reached the end of Davies Street at the north-west corner of the square. Here, perceiving the other mutter, Tom--for Sophia's brother, Tom, it was--stopped anew. "Eh? What's that?" he said. "What's that you are saying, old tulip?"

"I was saying you were a monstrous clever fellow to win her--to-day or to-morrow," Hawkesworth answered coolly. "And I am hanged if I know how you did it. I can tell you a hundred gay fellows in the town are dying to marry her. And no flinchers, either."

"'Pon honour?"

"Ay, and a hundred more would give their ears for a kiss. But lord, out of all she must needs choose you! I vow, lad," Hawkesworth continued with enthusiasm, "it is the most extraordinary thing that ever was. The finest shape this side of Paris, eyes that would melt a stone, ankles like a gossamer, a toast wherever she goes, and the prettiest wit in the world; sink me, lad, she might have had the richest buck in town, and she chooses you."

"Might she really? Honest now, might she?"

"That she might!"

Tom was so moved by this picture of his mistress's devotion and his own bliss that he found it necessary to weep a little, supporting himself by the huge link-extinguisher at the corner of Davies Street. His wig awry, and his hat clapped on the back of it, he looked as abandoned a young rake as the five o'clock sun ever shone upon; and yet under his maudlin tears lay a real if passing passion. "She's an angel!" he sobbed presently. "I shall never forget it! Never! And to think that but for you, if your chaise had not broken down at my elbow, just when you had picked her up after the accident at Trumpington, I should never have known her! And--and I might have been smugging at Cambridge now, instead of waiting to be made the happiest of men. Oriana," he continued, clinging to the railings in a tipsy rhapsody, "most beautiful of your sex, I vow----"

A couple of chairmen and a milk-girl were looking on grinning. "There, bed's the word now!" Hawkesworth cried, seizing him and dragging him on. "Bed's the word! I said we would make a night of it, and we have. What's more, my lad," he continued in a tone too low for Tom's ear, "if you're not so cut to-morrow, you're glad to keep the house--I'm a Dutchman!"

This time his efforts were successful. His lodging, taken a week before in the name of Plomer, was only a few doors distant. In two minutes he had got Tom thither; in three, the lad, divested of his coat, boots and neckcloth, was snoring heavily on the bed; while the Irishman, from an armchair on the hearth, kept dark watch over him. At length he too fell asleep, and slumbered as soundly as an innocent child, until a muffled hammering in the parlour roused him, and he stood up yawning and looked about him. The room, stiflingly close, lay in semi-darkness; on the bed sprawled the young runagate, dead asleep, his arms tossed wide. Hawkesworth stared awhile, still half asleep; at last, thirsting for small beer, he opened the door and went into the parlour. Here the windows were open: it was high noon. The noise the Irishman had heard was made by a man whose head and, shoulders were plunged in a tall clock that stood in one corner. The man was kneeling at his task mending something in the works of the clock. The Irishman touched him roughly with his foot.

"Sink that coffin-making!" he cried coarsely. "Do you hear? Get up!"

The clock-maker withdrew his head, looked up meekly to see who disturbed him, and--and swore. Simultaneously Hawkesworth drew back with a cry, and the two glared at one another. Then the man on the floor--he wore a paper cap, and below it his fat elderly face shone with sweat--rose quickly to his feet. "You villain!" he cried, in a voice tremulous and scarcely articulate, so great was his passion. "I have found you at last, have I? Where's my daughter?" and he stretched out his open hands, crook-fingered, and shook them in the younger man's face. "Where is my daughter?"

"Lord, man, how do I know?" Hawkesworth answered. He tried to speak lightly, but with all his impudence he was taken aback, and showed it.

"How do you know?" the clock-maker retorted, again shaking his hands in his face. "If you don't know, who should? Who should? By heaven, if you don't tell me, and truly, I'll rouse the house on you. Do you hear! I'll make you known here, you scoundrel, for what you are. This is a respectable house, and they'll have none of you. I'll so cry you, you shall trick no man of his daughter again. No, for I'll set the crowd on you, and mark you."

"Hush, man, hush!" Hawkesworth answered, with an anxious glance at the door of the chamber he had left. "You do yourself no good by this."

"No; but by heaven I can do you harm!" the other replied, and nimbly stepping to the door that led to the stairs, he opened it, and held it ajar. "I can do you harm! A silver tankard and twenty-seven guineas she took with her, and I'll swear them to you. By God, I will!"

Hawkesworth's face turned a dull white. Unwelcome as the meeting and the recognition were, he had not realised his danger until now. The awkward circumstances connected with the tankard and the guineas had escaped his memory. Now it was clear he must temporise. "You need not threaten," he said doggedly. "I'll tell you all I know. She's--she's not with me; she is on the stage. She's not in London."

"She's not with you?"

"No."

"You're a liar!" the clock-maker cried, brutally.

"I swear it is true!" Hawkesworth protested.

"She is not living with you?"

"No."

"Did you marry her?"