CHAPTER VIII.

“HOW SHOULD I GREET THEE?”

The marble countenance scarcely changed as he looked up at her. He took no notice of the outstretched hands.

“What brings you here, Mildred?” he asked coldly.

“I heard that you were ill; I wanted to see for myself,” she faltered.

“I am not ill, and I have not been ill. You were misinformed.”

“I was told you were unhappy.”

“Did you require to be told that? You did not expect to hear that I was particularly happy, I suppose? At my age men have forgotten how to forget.”

“It would be such a relief to my mind if you could find new occupations, new interests, as I hope to do by and by—a wider horizon. You are so clever. You have so many gifts, and it is a pity to bury them all here.”

“My heart is buried here,” he answered, looking down at the grave.

“Your heart, yes; but you might find work for your mind—a noble career before you—in politics, in philanthropy.”

“I am not ambitious, and I am too old to adapt myself to a new life. I prefer to live as I am living. Enderby is my hermitage. It suits me well enough.”

There was a silence after this—a silence of despair. Mildred knelt on the dewy grass, and bent herself over the marble cross, and kissed the cold stone. She could reach no nearer than that marble to the child she loved. Her lips lingered there. Her heart ached with a dull pain, and she felt the utter hopelessness of her life more keenly than she had felt it yet. If she could but die there, at his feet, and make an end!

She rose after some minutes. Her husband’s attitude was unchanged; but he looked at her now, for the first time, with a direct and earnest gaze.

“What took you to Nice?” he asked.

“I wanted to know—all about my unhappy sister.”

“And you are satisfied—you know all; and you think as some of my neighbours thought of me. You believe that I killed my wife.”

“George, can you think so meanly of me—your wife of fourteen years?”

“You spare me, then, so far, in spite of circumstantial evidence. You do not think of me as a murderer?”

“I have never for a moment doubted your goodness to that unhappy girl,” she answered, with a stifled sob. “I am sorry for her with all my heart; but I cannot blame you.”

“There you are wrong. I was to blame. You know that I do not easily lose my temper—to a woman, least of all; but that day I lost control over myself—lost patience with her just when she was in greatest need of my forbearance. She was nervous and hysterical. I forgot her weakness. I spoke to her cruelly—lashed and goaded by her causeless jealousies—so persistent, so irritating—like the continual dropping of water. How I have suffered for that moment of anger God alone can know. If remorse can be expiation, I have expiated that unpremeditated sin!”

“Yes, yes, I know how you have suffered. Your dreams have told me.”

“Ah, those dreams! You can never imagine the agony of them. To fancy her walking by my side, bright and happy, as she so seldom was upon this earth, and to tell myself that I had never been unkind to her, that her suicide was a dream and a delusion, and then to feel the dull cold reality creep back into my brain, and to know that I was guilty of her death. Yes, I have held myself guilty. I have never paltered with my conscience. Had I been patient to the end, she might have lived to be the happy mother of my child. Her whole life might have been changed. I never loved her, Mildred. Fate and her own impulsive nature flung her into my arms; but I accepted the charge; I made myself responsible to God and my own conscience for her well-being.”

Mildred’s only answer was a sob. She stretched out her hand, and laid it falteringly upon the hand that hung loose across the branch of the yew, as if in token of trustfulness.

“Did you find out anything more in your retrospective gropings—at Nice?” he asked, with a touch of bitterness.

She was silent.

“Did you hear that I was out of my mind after my wife’s death?”

“Yes.”

“Did that shock you? Did it horrify you to know you had lived fourteen years with a _ci-devant_ lunatic?”

“George, how can you say such things! I could perfectly understand how your mind was affected by that dreadful event—how the strongest brain might be unhinged by such a sorrow. I can sympathise with you, and understand you in the past as I can in the present. How can you forget that I am your wife, a part of yourself, able to read all your thoughts?”

“I cannot forget that you have been my wife; but your sympathy and your affection seem very far off now—as remote almost as that tragedy which darkened my youth. It is all past and done with—the sorrow and pain, the hope and gladness. I have done with everything—except my regret for my child.”

“Can you believe that I feel the parting less than you, George?” she asked piteously.

“I don’t know. The parting is your work. You have the satisfaction of self-sacrifice—the pride which women who go to church twice a day have in renouncing earthly happiness. They school themselves first in trifles—giving up this and that—theatres, fiction, cheerful society—and then their ambition widens. These petty sacrifices are not enough, and they renounce a husband and a home. If the husband cannot see the necessity, and cannot kiss the rod, so much the worse for him. His wife has the perverted pride of an Indian widow who flings her young life upon the funeral pile, jubilant at the thought of her own exalted virtue.”

“Would you not sacrifice your happiness to your conscience, George, if conscience spoke plainly?” Mildred asked reproachfully.

“I don’t know. Human love might be too strong for conscience. God knows I would not have sacrificed you to a scruple—to a law made by man. God’s laws are different. There is no doubt about them.”

The evening was darkening. The nightingale burst out suddenly into loud melody, more joyous than her reputation. Mildred could see the lights in the house that had been her home. The lamp-light in the drawing-room shone across the intervening space of lawn and shrubberies; the broad window shone vividly at the end of a vista, like a star. O lovely room, O happy life; so far off, so impossible for evermore!

“Good-night and good-bye,” Mildred sighed, holding out her hand.

“Good-bye,” he answered, taking the small cold hand, only to let it drop again.

He made no inquiry as to how she had come there, or whither she was going. She had appeared to him suddenly as a spirit in the soft eventide, and he let her go from him unquestioned, as if she had been a spirit. She felt the coldness of her dismissal, and yet felt that it could be no otherwise. She must be all to him or nothing. After love so perfect as theirs had been there could be no middle course.

She went across the meadow by the way she had come, and through the village street, where all the doors were closed at this hour, and paraffin-lamps glowed brightly in parlour-windows. Dear little humble street, how her heart yearned over it as she went silently by like a ghost, closely veiled, a slender figure dressed in black! She had been very fond of her villagers, had entered into their lives and been a brightening influence for most of them, she and her child. Lola had been familiar with every creature in the place, from the humpbacked cobbler at the corner to the gray-haired postmaster in the white half-timbered cottage yonder, where the letter-boxes were approached by a narrow path across a neat little garden. Lola had entered into all their lives, and had been glad and sorry with them with a power of sympathy which was the only precocious element in her nature. She had been a child in all things except charity; there she had been a woman.

There was a train for Salisbury in half-an-hour, and there was a later train at ten o’clock. Mildred had intended to travel at the earlier hour, but she felt an irresistible inclination to linger in the beloved place where her happiness was buried. She wanted to see some one who would talk to her of her husband, and she knew that the curate could be trusted; so she determined upon waiting for the later train, in the event of her finding Mr. Rollinson at home.

The paraffin-lamp in the parlour over the carpenter’s shop was brighter than any other in the village, and Mr. Rollinson’s shadow was reflected on the blind, with the usual tendency towards caricature. The carpenter’s wife, who opened the door, was an old friend of Mrs. Greswold’s, and was not importunate in her expressions of surprise and pleasure.

“Please do not mention to any one that I have been at Enderby, Mrs. Mason,” Mildred said quietly. “I am only here for an hour or two on my way to Salisbury. I should like to see Mr. Rollinson, if he is disengaged.”

“Of course he is, ma’am, for you. He’ll be overjoyed to see you, I’m sure.”

Mrs. Mason bustled up the steep little staircase, followed closely by Mildred. She flung open the door with a flourish, and discovered Mr. Rollinson enjoying a tea-dinner, with the _Times_ propped up between his plate and the teapot.

He started to his feet at sight of his visitor like a man distraught, darted forward and shook hands with Mildred, then glanced despairingly at the table. For such a guest he would have liked to have had turtle and ortolans; but a tea-dinner, a vulgar tea-dinner—a dish of pig’s trotters, a couple of new-laid eggs, and a pile of buttered toast! He had thought it a luxurious meal when he sat down to it, five minutes ago, very sharp set.

“My dear Mrs. Greswold, I am enchanted. You have been travelling? Yes. If—if you would share my humble collation—but you are going to dine at the Manor, no doubt.”

“No; I am not going to the Manor. I should be very glad of a cup of tea, if I may have one with you.”

“Mrs. Mason, a fresh teapot, directly, if you please.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And could you not get some dinner for Mrs. Greswold? A sole and a chicken, a little asparagus. I saw a bundle in the village the day before yesterday,” suggested the curate feebly.

“On no account. I could not eat any dinner. I will have an egg and a little toast, if you please,” said Mildred, seeing the curate’s distressed look, and not wishing to reject his hospitality.

“Will you really, now? Mrs. Mason’s eggs are excellent; and she makes toast better than any one else in the world, I think,” replied Rollinson, flinging his napkin artfully over the trotters, and with a side glance at Mrs. Mason which implored their removal.

That admirable woman grasped the situation. She whisked off the dish, and the curate’s plate with its litter of bones and mustard. She swept away crumbs, tidied the tea-tray, brought a vase of spring flowers from a cheffonier to adorn the table, lighted a pair of wax candles on the mantelpiece, and gave a touch of elegance to the humble sitting-room, while Mildred was taking off her mantle and bonnet, and sinking wearily into Mr. Rollinson’s easy-chair by the hearth, where a basket of fir-cones replaced the winter fire.

She felt glad to be with this old familiar friend—glad to breathe the very air of Enderby after her six months’ exile.

“Your letter frightened me,” she said, when she was alone with the curate. “I came to look at my husband. I could not help coming.”

“Ah, dear Mrs. Greswold, if you could only come back for good—nothing else is of any use. Have you seen him?”

“Yes,” she sighed.

“And you find him sadly changed?”

“Sadly changed. I wish you would try to rouse him—to interest him in farming—building—politics—anything. He is so clever; he ought to have so many resources.”

“For his mind, perhaps; but not for his heart. You are doing all you can to break that.”

Mildred turned her head aside with a weary movement, as of a creature at bay.

“Don’t talk about it. You cannot understand. You look up to Clement Cancellor, I think. You would respect his opinion.”

“Yes; he is a good man.”

“He is—and he approves the course I have taken. He is my confidant and my counsellor.”

“You could have no better adviser in a case of conscience—yet I can but regret my friend’s ruined life, all the same. But I will say no more, Mrs. Greswold. I will respect your reserve.”

Mrs. Mason came bustling in with a tea-tray, on which her family teapot—the silver teapot that had been handed down from generation to generation since the days of King George the Third—and her very best pink and gold china sparkled and glittered in the lamp-light. The toast and eggs might have tempted an anchorite, and Mildred had eaten nothing since her nine-o’clock breakfast. The strong tea revived her like good old wine, and she sat resting and listening with interest to Mr. Rollinson’s account of his parishioners, and the village chronicle of the last six months. How sweet it was to hear the old familiar names, to be in the old place, if only for a brief hour!

“I wonder if they miss me?” she speculated. “They never seemed quite the same—after—after the fever.”

“Ah, but they know your value now. They have missed you sadly, and they have missed your husband’s old friendly interest in their affairs. He has given me _carte blanche_, and there has been no one neglected, nothing left undone; but they miss the old personal relations, the friendship of past days. You must not think that the poor care only for creature comforts and substantial benefits.”

“I have never thought so. And now tell me all you can about my husband. Does he receive no one?”

“No one. People used to call upon him for a month or two after you left, but he never returned their visits, he declined all invitations, and he made his friends understand pretty clearly that he had done with the outside world. He rarely comes to the eleven-o’clock service on Sundays, but he comes to the early services, and I believe he walks into Romsey sometimes for the evening service. He has not hardened his heart against his God.”

“Do you see him often?”

“About once a week. I take him my report of the sick and poor. I believe he is as much interested in that as he can be in anything; but I always feel that my society is a burden to him, in spite of his courteousness. I borrow a book from him sometimes, so as to have an excuse for spending a few minutes with him when I return it.”

“You are a good man, Mr. Rollinson, a true friend,” said Mildred, in a low voice.

“Would to God that my friendship could do more for him! Unhappily it can do so little.”

The fly came back for Mildred at nine o’clock. She had telegraphed from Brighton to the inn at Salisbury where she was to spend the night, and her room was ready for her when she arrived there at half-past ten: a spacious bedroom with a four-post bed, in which she lay broad awake all night, living over and over again that scene beside the grave, and seeing her husband’s gloomy face, and its mute reproach. She knew that she had done wrong in breaking in upon his solitude, she who renounced the tie that bound her to him; and yet there had been something gained. He knew now that under no stress of evidence could she ever believe him guilty of his wife’s death. He knew that his last and saddest secret was revealed to her, and that she was loyal to him still—loyal although divided.

She went to the morning service at the Cathedral. She lingered about the grave old Close, looking dreamily in at the gardens which had such an air of old-world peace. She was reluctant to leave Salisbury. It was near all that she had loved and lost. The place had the familiar air of the district in which she had lived so long—different in somewise from all other places, or seeming different by fond association.

She telegraphed to her aunt that she might be late in returning, and lingered on till three o’clock in the afternoon, and then took the train, which dawdled at three or four stations before it came to Bishopstoke—the familiar junction where the station-master and the superintendents knew her, and asked after her husband’s health, giving her a pain at her heart with each inquiry. She would have been glad to pass to the Portsmouth train unrecognised, but it was not to be.

“You have been in the South all the winter, I hear, ma’am. I hope it was not on account of your health?”

“Yes,” she faltered, “partly on that account,” as she hurried on to the carriage which the station-master opened for her with his own hand.

His face was among her home faces. She had travelled up and down the line very often in the good days that were gone—with her husband and Lola, and their comfort had been cared for almost as if they had been royal personages.

It was night when she reached Brighton, and Franz was on the platform waiting for her, and the irreproachable brougham was drawn up close by, the brown horse snorting, and with eyes of fire, not brooking the vicinity of the engine, though too grand a creature to know fear.

She found Miss Fausset in low spirits.

“I have missed you terribly,” she said. “I am a poor creature. I used to think myself independent of sympathy or companionship—but that is all over now. When I am alone for two days at a stretch I feel like a child in the dark.”

“You have lived too long in this house, aunt, I think,” Mildred answered gently. “Forgive me if I say that it is a dull house.”

“A dull house? Nonsense, Mildred! It is one of the best houses in Brighton.”

“Yes, yes, aunt, but it is dull, all the same. The sun does not shine into it; the colouring of the furniture is gray and cold—”

“I hate gaudy colours.”

“Yes, but there are beautiful colours that are not gaudy—beautiful things that warm and gladden one. The next room,” glancing back at the front drawing-room and its single lamp, “is full of ghosts. Those long white curtains, those faint gray walls, are enough to kill you.”

“I am not so fanciful as that.”

“Ah, but you are fanciful, perhaps without knowing it. The influence of this dull gray house may have crept into your veins and depressed you unawares. Will you go to the Italian Lakes with me next September, aunt? Or, better, will you go to the West of England with me next week—to the north coast of Cornwall, which will be lovely at this season? I am sure you want change. This monotonous life is killing you.”

“No, no, Mildred. There is nothing amiss with my life. It suits me well enough, and I am able to do good.”

“Your lieutenants could carry on all that while you were away.”

“No; I like to be here; I like to organise, to arrange. I can feel that my life is not useless, that my talent is placed at interest.”

“It could all go on, aunt; it could indeed. The change to new scenes would revive you.”

“No. I am satisfied where I am. I am among people whom I like, and who like and respect me.”

She dwelt upon the last words with unction, as if there were tangible comfort in them.

Mildred sighed and was silent. She had felt it her duty to try and rouse her aunt from the dull apathy into which she seemed gradually sinking, and she thought that the only chance of revival was to remove her from the monotony of her present existence.

Later on in the evening the fire had been lighted in the inner drawing-room, Miss Fausset feeling chilly, in spite of the approach of summer, and aunt and niece drew near the hearth for cheerfulness and comfort. The low reading-lamp spread its light only over Miss Fausset’s book-table and the circle in which it stood. The faces of both women were in shadow, and the lofty room with its walls of books was full of shadows.

“You talk so despondently of life sometimes, aunt, as if it had been all disappointment,” said Mildred, after a long silence, in which they had both sat watching the fire, each absorbed by her own thoughts; “yet your girlhood must have been bright. I have heard my dear father say how indulgent his father was, how he gave way to his children in everything.”

“Yes, he was very indulgent; too indulgent perhaps. I had my own way in everything; only—one’s own way does not always lead to happiness. Mine did not. I might have been a happier woman if my father had been a tyrant.”

“You would have married, perhaps, in that case, to escape from an unhappy home. I wish you would tell me more about your girlish years, aunt. You must have had many admirers when you were young, and amongst them all there must have been some one for whom you cared—just a little. Would it hurt you to talk to me about that old time?”

“Yes, Mildred. There are some women who can talk about such things—women who can prose for hours to their granddaughters or their nieces—simpering over the silliness of the past—boasting of conquests which nobody believes in; for it is very difficult to realise the fact that an old woman was ever young and lovely. I am not of that temper, Mildred. The memory of my girlhood is hateful to me.”

“Ah, then there was some sad story—some unhappy attachment. I was sure it must have been so,” said Mildred, in a low voice. “But tell me of that happier time before you went into society—the time when you were in Italy with your governess, studying at the Conservatoire at Milan. I thought of you so much when I was at Milan the other day.”

“I have nothing to tell about that time. I was a foreigner in a strange city, with an elderly woman who was paid to take care of me, and whose chief occupation was to take care of herself: a solicitor’s widow, whose health required that she should winter in the South, and who contrived to make my father pay handsomely for her benefit.”

“And you were not happy at Milan?”

“Happy! no. I got on with my musical education—that was all I cared for.”

“Had you no friends—no introductions to nice people?”

“No. My chaperon made my father believe that she knew all the best families in Milan, but her circle resolved itself into a few third-rate musical people who gave shabby little evening-parties. You bore me to death, Mildred, when you force me to talk of that time, and of that woman, whom I hated.”

“Forgive me, aunt, I will ask no more questions,” said Mildred, with a sigh.

She had been trying to get nearer to her kinswoman, to familiarise herself with that dim past when this fading life was fresh and full of hope. It seemed to her as if there was a dead wall between her and Miss Fausset—a barrier of reserve which should not exist between those who were so near in blood. She had made up her mind to stay with her aunt to the end, to do all that duty and affection could suggest, and it troubled her that they should still be strangers. After this severe repulse she could make no further attempt. There was evidently no softening influence in the memory of the past. Miss Fausset’s character, as revealed by that which she concealed rather than by that which she told, was not beautiful. Mildred could but think that she had been a proud, cold-hearted young woman, valuing herself too highly to inspire love or sympathy in others; electing to be alone and unloved.

After this, time went by in a dull monotony. The same people came to see Miss Fausset day after day, and she absorbed the same flatteries, accepted the same adulation, always with an air of deepest humility. She organised her charities, she listened to every detail about the circumstances, and even the mental condition and spiritual views of her poor. Mildred discovered before long that there was a leaven of hardness in her benevolence. She could not tolerate sin, she weighed every life in the same balance, she expected exceptional purity amidst foulest surroundings. She was liberal of her worldly goods; but her mind was as narrow as if she had lived in a remote village a hundred years ago. Mildred found herself continually pleading for wrong-doers.

The only event or excitement which the bright June days brought with them was the arrival of Pamela Ransome, who was escorted to Brighton by Lady Lochinvar herself, and who had been engaged for the space of three weeks to Malcolm Stuart, with everybody’s consent and approval.

“I wrote to Uncle George the very day I was engaged, aunt, as well as to you; and he answered my letter in the sweetest way, and he is going to give me a grand piano,” said Pamela, all in a breath.

Lady Lochinvar explained that, much as she detested London, she had felt it her solemn duty to establish herself there during her nephew’s engagement, in order that she might become acquainted with Pamela’s people, and assist her dear boy in all his arrangements for the future. When a young man marries a nice girl with an estate worth fifteen hundred a year—allowing for the poor return made by land nowadays—everything ought to go upon velvet. Lady Lochinvar was prepared to make sacrifices, or, in other words, to contribute a handsome portion of that fortune which she intended to bequeath to her nephew. She could afford to be generous, having a surplus far beyond her possible needs, and she was very fond of Malcolm Stuart, who had been to her as a son.

“I was quite alone in the world when my husband died,” she told Mildred. “My father and my own people were all gone, and I should have been a wretched creature without Malcolm. He was the only son of Lochinvar’s favourite sister, who went off in a decline when he was eight years old, and he had been brought up at the Castle. So it is natural, you see, that I should be fond of him and interested in his welfare.”

Pamela kissed her, by way of commentary.

“I think you are quite the dearest thing in the world,” she said, “except Aunt Mildred.”

It may be seen from this remark that the elder and younger lady were now on very easy terms. Mildred had stayed in Paris with Lady Lochinvar, and a considerable part of her trousseau, the outward and visible part, had been chosen in the _ateliers_ of fashionable Parisian dressmakers and man milliners. The more humdrum portion of the bride’s raiment was to be obtained at Brighton, where Pamela was to spend a week or two with her aunt before she went to London to stay with the Mountfords, who had taken a house in Grosvenor Gardens, from which Pamela was to be married.

“And where do you think we are to be married, aunt?” exclaimed Pamela excitedly.

“At St. George’s?”

“Nothing so humdrum. We are going to be married in the Abbey—in Westminster Abbey—the burial-place of heroes and poets. I happened to say one day when Malcolm and I were almost strangers—it was at Rumpelmeyer’s, sitting outside in the sun, eating ices—that I had never seen a wedding in the Abbey, and that I should love to see one; and Malcolm said we must try and manage it some day—meaning anybody’s wedding, of course, though he pretends now that he always meant to marry me there himself.”

“Presumptious on his part,” said Mildred, smiling.

“O, young men are horribly presumptious; they know they are in a minority—there is so little competition—and a plain young man, too, like Malcolm. But I suppose he knows he is nice,” added Pamela conclusively.

“Don’t you think it will be lovely for me to be married in the Abbey?” she asked presently.

“I think, dear, in your case I would rather have been married from my own house, and in a village church.”

“What, in that poky little church at Mapledown? I believe it is one of the oldest in England, and it is certainly one of the ugliest. Sir Henry Mountford suggested making a family business of it; but Rosalind and I were both in favour of the Abbey. We shall get much better notices in the society papers,” added Pamela, with a business-like air, as if she had been talking about the production of a new play.

“Well, dear, as I hope you are only to be married once in your life, you have a right to choose your church.”

Pamela was bitterly disappointed presently when her aunt refused to be present at her wedding.

“I will spend an hour with you on your wedding morning, and see you in your wedding-gown, if you like, Pamela; but I cannot go among a crowd of gay people, or share in any festivity. I have done with all those things, dear, for ever and ever.”

Pamela’s candid eyes filled with tears. She felt all the more sorry for her aunt, because her own cup of happiness was overflowing. She looked round the silver-gray drawing-room, and her eyes fixed themselves on the piano which _he_ had played, so often, so often, in the tender twilight, in the shadowy evening when that larger room was left almost without any light save that which came through the undraped archway yonder. But Castellani was no longer a person to be thought of in italics. From the moment Pamela’s eyes had opened to the excellence of Mr. Stuart’s manly and straightforward character, they had also become aware of the Italian’s deficiencies. She had realised the fact that he was a charlatan; and now she looked wonderingly at the piano, at a loss to understand the intensity of bygone emotions, and inclined to excuse herself upon the ground of youthful foolishness.

“What a silly romantic wretch I must have been!” she thought; “a regular Rosa Matilda! As if the happiness of life depended upon one’s husband having an ear for music!”

Mildred was by no means unsympathetic about the trousseau, although she herself had done with all interest in fashion and finery. She drove about to the pretty Brighton shops with Pamela, and exercised a restraining influence upon that young lady’s taste, which inclined to the florid. She sympathised with the young lady’s anxiety about her wedding-gown, which was to be made by a certain Mr. Smithson, a _faiseur_ who held potent sway over the ladies of fashionable London, and who gave himself more airs than a Prime Minister. Mr. Smithson had consented to make Miss Ransome a wedding-gown—despite her social insignificance and the pressure of the season—provided that he were not worried about the affair.

“If I have too many people calling upon me, or am pestered with letters, I shall throw the thing up,” he told Lady Mountford one morning, when she took him some fine old rose-point for the petticoat. “Yes, this lace is pretty good. I suppose you got it in Venice. I have seen Miss Ransome, and I know what kind of gown she can wear. It will be sent home the day before the wedding.”

With this assurance, haughtily given, Lady Mountford and her sister had to be contented.

“If I were your sister I would let a woman in Tottenham Court Road make my gowns rather than I would stand such treatment,” said Sir Henry; at which his wife shrugged her shoulders and told him he knew nothing about it.

“The cut is everything,” she said. “It is worth putting up with Smithson’s insolence to know that one is the best-dressed woman in the room.”

“But if Smithson dresses all the other women—”

“He doesn’t. There are very few who have the courage to go to him. His manners are so humiliating—he as good as told me I had a hump—and his prices are enormous.”

“And yet you call me extravagant for giving seventy pounds for a barb!” cried Sir Henry; “a bird that might bring me a pot of money in prizes.”

* * * * *

The grand question of trousseau and wedding-gown being settled, there remained only a point of minor importance—the honeymoon. Pamela was in favour of that silly season being spent in some rustic spot, far from the madding crowd, and Pamela’s lover was of her opinion in everything.

“We have both seen the best part of the Continent,” said Pamela, taking tea in Mildred’s upstairs sitting-room, which had assumed a brighter and more home-like aspect in her occupation than any other room in Miss Fausset’s house; “we don’t want to rush off to Switzerland or the Pyrenees; we want just to enjoy each other’s society and to make our plans for the future. Besides, travelling is so hideously unbecoming. I have seen brides with dusty hats and smuts on their faces who would have been miserable if they had only known what objects they were.”

“I think you and Mr. Stuart are very wise in your choice, dear,” answered Mildred. “England in July is delicious. Have you decided where to go?”

“No, we can’t make up our minds. We want to find a place that is exquisitely pretty—yet not too far from London, so that we may run up to town occasionally and see about our furnishing. Sir Henry offered us Rainham, but as it is both ugly and inconvenient I unhesitatingly refused. I don’t want to spend my honeymoon in a place pervaded by prize pigeons.”

“What do you think of the neighbourhood of the Thames, Pamela?” asked Mildred thoughtfully. “Are you fond of boating?”

“Fond! I adore it. I could live all my life upon the river.”

“Really! I have been thinking that if you and Mr. Stuart would like to spend your honeymoon at The Hook it is just the kind of place to suit you. The house is bright and pretty, and the gardens are exquisite.”

Pamela’s face kindled with pleasure.

“But, dear aunt, you would never think—” she began.

“The place is at your service, my dear girl. It will be a pleasure for me to prepare everything for you. I cannot tell you how dearly I love that house, or how full of memories it is for me. The lease of my father’s house in Parchment Street was sold after his death, and I only kept a few special things out of the furniture, but at The Hook nothing has been altered since I was a child.”

Pamela accepted the offer with rapture, and wrote an eight-page letter to her lover upon the subject, although he was coming to Brighton next day, and was to dine in Lewes Crescent. Mildred was pleased at being able to give so much pleasure to her husband’s niece. It may be also that she snatched at an excuse for revisiting a spot she fondly loved.

She offered to take Pamela with her, to explore the house and gardens, and discuss any small arrangements for the bride’s comfort, but against this Miss Ransome protested.

“I want everything to be new to us,” she said, “all untrodden ground, a delicious surprise. I am sure the place is lovely; and I want to know no more about it than I know of fairyland. I haven’t the faintest notion what a Hook can be in connection with the Thames. It may be a mountain or a glacier, for anything I know to the contrary; but I am assured it is delightful. Please let me know nothing more, dearest aunt, till I go there with Malcolm. It is adorable of you to hit upon such a splendid idea. And it will look very well in the society papers,” added Pamela, waxing business-like. “‘Mr. and Mrs. Malcolm Stuart!’ (O, how queer that sounds!) ‘are to spend their honeymoon at The Hook, the riverside residence of the bride’s aunt.’ I wonder whether they will say ‘the well-known residence’?” mused Pamela.

Mildred went up to town with Miss Ransome and her betrothed at the end of the young lady’s visit. Miss Fausset had been coldly gracious, after her manner, had allowed Mr. Stuart to come to her house whenever he pleased, and had given up the rarely-used front drawing-room to the lovers, who sat and whispered and tittered over their own little witticisms, by the distant piano, and behaved altogether like those proverbial children of whom we are told in our childhood, who are seen but not heard. Mildred lunched in Grosvenor Gardens, and went to Chertsey by an afternoon train. The housekeeper who had once ruled over both Mr. Fausset’s houses, subject to interference from Bell, was now caretaker at The Hook, with a housemaid under her. She was an elderly woman, but considerably Bell’s junior, and she was an admirable cook and manager. A telegram two days before had told her to expect her mistress, and the house was in perfect order when Mrs. Greswold arrived in the summer twilight. All things had been made to look as if the place were in family occupation, though no one but the two servants had been living there since Mr. Fausset’s death. The familiar aspect of the rooms smote Mildred with a sudden unexpected pain. There were the old lamps burning on the tables, the well-remembered vases—her mother’s choice, and always artistic in form and colour—filled with the old June flowers from garden and hothouse. Her father’s chair stood in its old place in the bay-window in front of the table at which he used to write his letters sometimes, looking out at the river between whiles. Mrs. Dawson had put a lamp in his study, a small room opening out of the drawing-room, and with windows on two sides, and both looking towards the river, which he had loved so well. The windows were open in the twilight, and the rose-garden was like a sea of bloom.

In her father’s room nothing was altered. As it had been in the last days he had lived there, so it was now.

“I haven’t moved so much as a penholder, ma’am,” said Dawson tearfully.