Cicely

AUTHOR OF “SHE WAS YOUNG AND HE WAS OLD,” “NOT WITHOUT THORNS,” ETC. ETC.

As long as Love continues the most imperious passion, and Death the surest fact of our mingled and marvellous humanity, so long will the sweetest and truest music upon earth be ever in the minor key.

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I.

WIDOW LAFON’S SOUP.

ONLY early April, but already a very hot day—what we dwellers in the north would consider an almost unendurably hot day! But in the pleasantest part of the sunny south of France, heat, up to a certain point, is endurable enough, thanks to the perfect purity of the air, ever freshened by the near neighbourhood of mountains and sea.

Still it was very nearly too hot to be pleasant. So thought Geneviève Casalis, the little daughter of the senior pasteur of the Reformed Church at Hivèritz, as she sat under the shade of the wooden gallery running round the little square, half garden, half court-yard, on one side of which was her father’s house. It was Sunday afternoon; Geneviève had been twice at church, and since returning from the second service had read the allotted portion of the history of the Reformation in France, on which she and her brothers would be cross-questioned by their father in the evening. So, Sunday being in certain practical respects a day of rest in the Protestant household, Geneviève felt that her duties for the time were over, and that she might indulge in a little idle meditation. Her Bible and her book of Cantiques lay on her knees; the expression of her girlish face was serious and thoughtful,—“devout,” a casual observer might probably have pronounced it; what and where were her thoughts?

“Ah! but it is truly too vexatious,” she was thinking to herself, “that I should again to-day have had no other dress to wear but this. To see that great awkward Stéphanie Rousille and her sisters in their new piqués,—not that they could ever look bien mises in anything, but it was too provoking. I must absolutely beg maman again to arrange our summer dresses. Poor maman! she has had much to consider lately I know well. It is not that I would add to her troubles; ah! no, but I am sure I could myself alter my last year’s dresses for Eudoxie, which would already save some expense, if maman would let me buy one, or, at the most, two new piqués for myself. Or one piqué and one muslin? I saw some quite charming muslins in the window at Laussat’s yesterday.”

Her glance fell discontentedly on the black alpaca, her Sunday dress for many months past. It was scarcely perhaps the dress for a hot summer’s day, but still far from unbecoming; for it fitted Geneviève’s pretty figure to perfection, and was relieved from sombreness by the neat white collar and coquettish little bow of blue ribbon at the throat.

“This dress,” continued the girl, “will be my every-day one next winter. I think too it will be well to take it when we go to the mountains, there are chilly days there sometimes. Ah! if only it were the time for going. Still six weeks at least, and to me Hivèritz is detestable when every one has left it. How different people’s lives are—how I wish my father were rich and noble, like some of those grand English who come here for the winter and amuse themselves so well! How I wish—”

But at this point Geneviève’s wishes were interrupted. “Mademoiselle,” said a voice at her side, “mademoiselle, madame vous fait demander.”

Geneviève looked up with a momentary impatience. “What is there then, Mathurine?” she asked.

“Only that madame wished that mademoiselle and mademoiselle Eudoxie and I should take the soup to the Widow Lafon. ’Tis not so far, mademoiselle, only round by the allée vert to the other side of St. Cyprien—une gentille promenade, à present qu’il ne fait plus si chaud,” added the old servant coaxingly, observing the slight cloud of unwillingness on Geneviève’s pretty face.

The girl rose slowly. “Ah! well, it must be, I suppose,” she said. “But why take Eudoxie, Mathurine? She is so tiresome when we are out, always wanting to run up the banks and pick flowers. I would much rather—”

“Mais c’est madame qui le veut,” interrupted Mathurine hastily, with a slight gesture of warning; and, turning in the direction of the maid-servant’s eyes, Geneviève caught sight of her mother coming out of the doorway just behind them.

Madame Casalis was tall and thin, with still glossy black hair and bright dark eyes. She looked as if she might once have been pretty and graceful. She was still young; young to be the mother of eighteen-years old Geneviève; but much care and many anxieties had done their usual work, leaving her in appearance considerably older than in years. She had had a hard time of it in many ways; for on her, by nature active, vigorous, and capable, rather than on her gentle, less practical husband, had fallen the greater share of the burden and heat of the day. Under such circumstances some amount of chronic “fussiness,” of irritability even, was, if not inevitable, surely, at least, excusable? Be that as it may, it is very certain that it would have fared but ill with the six young Casalis had their mother belonged to the more easy-going order of matrons. Yet it is to be doubted if in every direction Geneviève’s mother was wholly appreciated: the full depth of a tenderness and devotion which manifest themselves rarely save in ceaseless action is seldom justly estimated; the poetry which only finds expression in prose is too often ignored, its very existence little suspected, least of all by those who benefit most thereby.

But Madame Casalis was on the whole content; she left the dreaming to her husband, the prettinesses to pretty Geneviève, too busy to think about herself at all. And in her own domain she reigned supreme.

“What is there then, Geneviève?” she inquired, as she drew near to her daughter and old Mathurine. “Dost thou not like my little commission, my child? The soup will not be good if we keep it till to-morrow, and the old mother Lafon is always so pleased to see thee.”

Her mother’s tone was unusually gentle. Geneviève felt emboldened by it to express her real objection to the arrangement.

“I like very well to go, mamma,” said Geneviève amiably, “if it might be alone with Mathurine. But with Eudoxie it will take us so long. She is so full of life, the poor child; and surtout le Dimanche, one meets tant de monde, and then it would be so distressing if she soiled her best frock with picking flowers and jumping on the banks. But of course it is as thou wishest, chère mamma.”

A slight look of disappointment crossed Madame Casalis’ face. She would have been glad of an hour’s rest from little Eudoxie’s chatter. But somewhat to Genevievè’s surprise, she answered quickly,

“It may be better for la petite to stay with me. Hasten then, my child; thou shalt go alone with Mathurine.”

Geneviève gave all the credit to her judicious suggestion of possible damage to the best frock; she little suspected that today of all days it would have been hard for her mother to oppose any wish she had expressed. She was turning to go into the house to prepare for her walk, when her mother stopped her.

“When thou shalt be returned, my child,” she said, “come at once to thy father and me. He wishes to talk to thee a little. We shall be in his room;” and she re-entered the house as she spoke, giving Geneviève no opportunity to ask any of the questions her curiosity immediately suggested.

“What could mamma mean, thinkest thou, Mathurine?” she said, a few minutes later, when she and her companion had set off on their errand. “What can my father have to speak about to me?”

“Perhaps some great monsieur, some milord, perhaps—songe à demander ma demoiselle?” said the old servant gravely. “Mademoiselle n’est plus enfant, on voit bien.”

“Nonsense, Mathurine,” exclaimed Geneviève impatiently, with a little toss of her head, “dost thou not understand it will not be so with me. I am Protestant and half English! Thinkest thou I would marry any one, even the greatest ‘milord’ in the world, if he did not make himself agreeable to me myself in the first place? And what is as much to the purpose, perhaps, I have no dot. Great milords are not so ready to marry portionless girls as all that, you silly Mathurine.”

“Pardon, mademoiselle. It is true, I forget often that madame has the English ideas, and it is quite to be understood that mademoiselle should have them too. But what mademoiselle says about having no dot I avow I do not understand. For, à ce que l’on me dit, en Angleterre tout cela est bien différent. I have heard that the demoiselles there, the demoiselles sans dot, je veux dire, se marient souvent très bien,—mais très bien,” with an impressive little pause, “above all, a demoiselle so beautiful, so gracieuse, as mademoiselle.”

“Sometimes perhaps it is so,” said Genevieve with an air of having seriously considered the matter; “still on the whole I would rather take my chance with, than without, a dot. For I am not sure, Mathurine, that I should like to marry an English man, not even a ‘milord.’ Life in England must be often triste, and I imagine also that the husbands there are un peu sévères; expect their wives to amuse themselves enough with the children and the ménage. Bah! that would not suit me. When I marry, it shall not be into that sort of life. I have had enough of it at home. I must have a husband who will let me do as I like; he must adore me, and he must be rich. Oh, so rich!”

“Et beau, mademoiselle,” suggested Mathurine, evidently thinking that as wishing was the order of the day, there was no need to limit the perfections of her young lady’s hero. “Mademoiselle should have un bel homme; mademoiselle who is so pretty.”

“Yes,” agreed Geneviève. “Oh! yes; I should like him to be handsome, though that is not a point of the most important. But every one may not find me pretty, Mathurine? Perhaps, it is only that thou hast taken care of me since I was a baby. Tell me, Mathurine, wast thou pretty in thy youth?” she went on with a sudden change of tone. “Why didst thou never marry? Is it that one has never asked for thee?”

“But no, mademoiselle,” replied the girl, though without the slightest appearance of offence. “One asked for me more than once. But the rich parti was old and ugly, and, one had told me, not too good to his wives—il en avait déjà eu trois—and the young parti was poor, mais très pauvre, and had besides an aged father to support, and I, mademoiselle, had then an aged mother. So what could we do? We waited and waited, but times grew worse instead of better, and other troubles came, and my poor boy and I we lost heart. Then there was a rich widow, a paysanne only, by origin, but her husband had left her his property, who took a fancy to my Etienne, and what prospect had we, that I should keep him? Ah, mademoiselle, dans cette vie, il faut bien souvent marcher sur le caur à deux pieds! The end of it was, Etienne married the widow, and I—enfin, me voilà, mademoiselle, la vieille Mathurine, à votre service.”

“I never heard to the contrary, mademoiselle,” answered Mathurine. “It was many years before I saw him again; then, as it happened one day—it was the neuvaine at the convent close to the village where we lived, and madame, the wife of Etienne, had come with the other fermières of the neighbourhood, and he had driven her over, and as I was saying—”

But Geneviève was not destined to hear the particulars of the meeting of Mathurine and Etienne, for just as the old woman had reached this point her story was interrupted by a sudden cry of warning. It came too late, however. They were crossing the road to enter the allée verte, the ‘Alameda’ of the inhabitants of Hivèritz, when a large open carriage, drawn by two horses, came swiftly round a sharp corner, and in a moment both the young girl and her attendant were thrown to the ground, apparently right under the wheels. There were screams from the carriage, shouts from the by-standers, a general commotion. Mathurine was quickly extricated, still clutching tightly the handle of the little tin soup-can, whose contents lay in a pool on the white dusty road. She declared herself unhurt, and was evidently far more concerned about the fate of her charge than about her own.

“Mais, où est-elle donc, mademoiselle Geneviève, ma petite demoiselle? Ah! qu’est-ce que madame va me dire!” she exclaimed frantically. “Est-elle donc tuée, la chère enfant? La voilà qui ne me ré ponds pas. Dieu, quel horreur!” she continued, as she at last caught sight of Geneviève, pale as death, with eyes closed and apparently quite unconscious, lifted in the arms of a gentleman, who had sprung from the box of the carriage on the first alarm.

“Is she much hurt? Are there any bones broken? Don’t you think you had better not move her till some one can fetch a doctor? Good Heavens, how unfortunate it is! Oh dear! Miss Winter, what will Sir Thomas say?” exclaimed one of the two ladies in the carriage. She was what is euphemistically called “middle-aged,” though to reckon by the old “three score years and ten,” she must a good long time ago have passed the meridian of life. But she was well preserved and well dressed, refined-looking, and on the whole sufficiently pleasing in appearance if not to disarm at least not to suggest criticism. Just now her face was nearly as pale as Geneviève’s own, and as she turned to her companion she seemed on the point of tears.

“Don’t distress yourself so, keep calm, I beseech you, dearest Lady Frederica,” entreated Miss Winter, who, fortunately, had her wits about her; indeed the keeping them well in hand may be said to have been a part of her profession. “Ah! here is some one belonging to the poor girl. What does she say, Mr. Fawcett?”

“I can’t understand her,” replied the gentleman, to whom poor Mathurine had been vainly trying to make herself intelligible. “She talks so confoundedly fast. Can’t you make her out, Miss Winter?”

Miss Winter did her best, but it was no easy matter, for poor Mathurine, in her distress and excitement, unconsciously relapsed at every two or three words, into her native patois. She was begging the young man to lay Geneviève on the ground, for Mr. Fawcett was very tall and Mathurine was very short; in her darling’s present position, therefore, it was almost impossible for the poor woman to obtain a clear view of her face.

“She will soon come to herself, is it not?” Mathurine was saying “She will open her pretty eyes, and will be frightened if she does not see her old Mathurine. If monsieur will but lay her down—see, I can spread my shawl. Ah! but monsieur does not comprehend. What then shall I say?”

She clasped her hands in despair. Miss Winter began a laboured sentence in the most correct French and with the most English of accents. In her turn Mathurine was looking hopelessly puzzled, when, to the amazement of all, a sweet faint voice was suddenly heard in soft tones thanking “monsieur” for his kindness, begging him to deposit its owner beside Mathurine. And to the relief of the English party, the words were in their own tongue, spoken too, without hesitation, and with only the soupçon of a French accent.

“I am not hurt, not wounded at all, I assure monsieur,” said Geneviève, while the bright red rushed to her pale face. “’Twas but the—the shock—is that the word? I can hold myself upright very well at present, and monsieur must be so—géné. Mathurine will take care of me.”

She struggled out of Mr. Fawcett’s arms, as she spoke. He still half held her, however, and but for this she would have fallen. As it was, she grew very pale again and clung to Mathurine’s sturdy figure for support.

“’Tis but a little weakness, my angel,” said the nurse, in her delight at seeing that Geneviève was uninjured, throwing her usual respectful manner to the winds. “She has no pain, mademoiselle chérie, n’est-ce-pas? Only an étourdissement in the head. Naturally, la pauvre enfant! Que le bon dieu soit loué, that it is no worse! If we had only a glass of water; then she could perhaps return to the house!”

“A glass of water,” said Mr. Fawcett, with a smile. “I think a little brandy would be more to the purpose. Don’t you think so, Miss Winter? Mother,” he continued, turning to the lady in the carriage, “I think our best plan will be to drive mademoiselle—I beg your pardon,” to Geneviève, “I don’t think I heard your name.”

“To drive the young lady to our hotel,” he went on; “it is close at hand, and then when you have rested a little,” he turned again to Geneviève, “you must allow us to drive you home.”

“I would like better to go to the house—home, I mean—now, thank you,” said Geneviève. “It is not very far—Rue de la Croix. I think I can walk now.”

“Pray do not attempt it,” said Lady Frederica. “It will be much better to do as my son proposes. Miss Winter, will you help the young lady to get into the carriage? Perhaps,” she added to Geneviève, “your servant (‘maid’ she was going to have said, but poor Mathurine’s appearance puzzled her; her short stout figure, sunburnt face, and fête-day cap by no means suggesting the conventional lady’s-maid) “will follow us if you will direct her to the hotel. What is the name of our hotel, Miss Winter? I never can remember; we have been at so many lately.”

“Hotel d’Espagne,” replied Miss Winter briskly, having by this time settled Geneviève comfortably in the place of honour by Lady Frederica’s side, and seated herself opposite. Then the handsome young ‘milord’ jumped up on to the box again, and the carriage drove off. The little crowd that the accident had collected dropped off one by one, leaving Mathurine standing alone in the middle of the road, shading her eyes with her hand, as she watched the carriage disappear.

“But he is distingué, ce jeune milord!” she murmured to herself, “those are the English of the first rank without doubt, and mademoiselle so beautiful, so gracieuse. Quel dommage she had not a pretty new robe d’été to-day, like the demoiselles Rousille! Still it might have been spoilt, for she is covered with dust. And a dress of alpaca one can brush. Without doubt it is all for the best.”

She gave two or three funny little grunts of satisfaction—it seemed to Mathurine she could see a long way into the future that afternoon—and then trotted away down the street in the direction of the Hotel d’Espagne.

Nearly an hour later, just as Madame Casalis was beginning to think that her messengers must be loitering greatly on their way, she was startled by the sound of a carriage driving past the window of the room where she was sitting and then stopping at the door.

The Rue de la Croix was a quiet little street, leading to nowhere in particular, and quite out of the thoroughfare of Hivèritz; rarely entered therefore but by foot-passengers. But Geneviève’s mother had hardly time to make up her mind whether, in Mathurine’s absence, she must open the door herself, or depute little Eudoxie or one of the boys to do so, when she heard familiar voices in the passage, and in another moment Geneviève, closely followed by Mathurine, came in.

“You have been rather a long time,” she said. “Did the mother Lafon like the soup? Tell me then, Geneviève, was there a carriage in the street as you came in? It seemed to me that I heard one, which stopped at our door. But it must be that I was mistaken.”

“Du tout, maman,” replied Geneviève. “There was indeed a carriage, for we came home in it, Mathurine et moi.”

She smiled as she spoke, but her mother looking up in surprise, now observed her crumpled and soiled dress, her flushed, excited face. For a moment she felt vaguely alarmed.

“But, don’t be frightened, mamma; there is nothing wrong. I have had a little adventure, voilà tout,” said Geneviève, and then she told her story, the dramatic effect of which was considerably increased by Mathurine’s interpolations. “Ah, madame, que j’ai eu peur!”—“une si belle voiture.” “Madame la baronne Anglaise si bien mise—une toilette magnifique”—“un si beau monsieur,” etc. etc.

And “Was it not fortunate that Eudoxie was not with us?” observed Geneviève sagely, in conclusion.

“We must make her some again to-morrow,” said Madame Casalis calmly. She bore the loss of the soup with equanimity. “My child might have been killed,” she thought to herself with a shudder, and the reflection somewhat soothed the bitterness of a new trouble that had been tugging at her heartstrings for several days—a trouble that had come in the shape of a thin, black-edged letter from over the sea, one of the letters from her English relations that at long intervals still found their way to the pasteur’s wife.

For these cousins of hers had never altogether lost sight of her, though since the death of her mother, their relation, Madame Casalis had felt the chain slacken, as must always be the case, however kindly the intentions, once that the links and rivets of mutual interests and common associations begin one by one to drop away. Geneviève had drawn somewhat largely on her imagination in describing herself as “half English.” She was fond of doing so; the thought of these unknown relations had always had a strong fascination for her, and had been the foundation of many a girlish castle in the air. At school she had studied English with twice the amount of attention which she bestowed upon her other lessons, and had eagerly profited by her mother’s instruction at home. And nothing gratified her more when some little jealousy was expressed by her companions on her repeatedly carrying off the “English prize,” than to hear the murmur: “Of course, what can one expect? Geneviève Casalis is of an English family—at least her mother is, which is almost the same thing.”

Not that she was ever communicative to those chattering companions of hers on the subject. By dint of well-timed but persistent cross-questioning she had elicited from her mother sufficient information, respecting the social condition of her cousins, to justify her in occasionally throwing out vague but impressive hints or allusions for the benefit of Stéphanie Rousille or Marguérite Frogé. But, notwithstanding the, comparatively speaking, humble origin and position of the Casalis family, and notwithstanding, too, Geneviève’s excessive sensitiveness on the point, no one could accuse her of consoling herself by boasting of her grand relations. Young as she was, her quick instincts had already taught her the value, in certain positions, of “an unknown quantity,” the expediency of judicious reserve, the folly of limiting by such “stubborn things” as facts the imagination of those she wished to impress. To old Mathurine alone, in all probability, was the girl thoroughly natural and unreserved.

Much to Geneviève’s dissatisfaction her mother sent her to bed very early that Sunday evening. She declared in vain that she was not in the least tired, and that she did not feel the slightest ill effects of the accident. Her varying colour and languid movements told another tale, and, as rarely happened in the Casalis family, her father looked up from his book to enforce his wife’s authority.

“Go to rest thyself, my child,” he said, “as thy good mother counsels thee. To-morrow morning we shall wish to speak to thee on a matter of importance, but not now; and before thou sleepest, Geneviève,” he added with a certain solemnity of manner, suggesting the pastor as well as the father, “remind thyself to thank the good God for having preserved thee from a great danger.”

Geneviève murmured a dutiful “Oui, mon père,” then turning to her mother—“Wilt thou then, dear mamma, come up to see me before I sleep, for a minute?” for she was burning with curiosity to learn something of the nature of the “matter of importance,” which the excitement of the afternoon had made her temporarily forget; anxious also to lead the conversation round again to the English family whose acquaintance she had made so abruptly. “Mamma understands the English,” she said to herself. “I should like to know what sort of people this family Fawcett belongs to. I have heard that in England the sons of the good families may marry to please themselves much more than in France. The young Monsieur Fawcett seems to be an only child. How nicely English gentlemen shake hands! He said ‘au revoir’ too. I wonder if I shall see him again!”

For concerning the seeing him again Geneviève had immediately begun to dream. She was quite satisfied that he was already over head and ears in love with her. For alongside of her precocity and quick-wittedness, a curious credulity, a readiness to be taken in by flattery, and a dangerous amount of so-called “girlish romance,” lay hidden in her character.

Madame Casalis was gratified by her daughter’s unusual request. Geneviève had only just got into bed when her mother appeared. How pretty the child looked, how bright and innocent! Her dark hair in its thick plaits on the pillow making a background for the sweet flushed face, with its deep soft southern eyes! For in appearance at least, Geneviève bore no trace of the northern ancestry she was so proud of.

Some unexpressed feeling made Madame Casalis stoop and kiss her daughter. “Thou hast no uneasiness, no pain of any kind, is it not, my child?” she asked anxiously.

“Not the least in the world, my mother, I assure thee,” answered Geneviève. “Mamma,” she went on, “I forgot to tell thee that the English Lady—Miladi Fawcett, c’est-à-dire—would have wished to accompany me home, to give me safe back to thee and ask thee to forgive them for the fright I had had, but I begged her not to come. I told her it might startle thee to see a stranger. J’ai bien fait, n’est-ce-pas, maman? Mathurine was out too; there was no one to open the door.”

“And,” continued Geneviève, “Monsieur Fawcett, the son,—monsieur le père is called Sir Fawcett, mamma—what does that mean, is it comte, or baron? The son said he would have had the honour of calling to ask if I was quite recovered, but that they leave Hivèritz early to-morrow. They are going to Switzerland, and then to Paris—ah, how delightful! They travel for the health of madame, miladi, je veux dire.”

“Fawcett, is that their name?” said Madame Casalis consideringly. “It seems indeed to me that I have heard that name formerly. Ah! yes, I remember; it was the name of a family living near to the cousins of my mother. Thou rememberest, Geneviève, I have often told thee of the visit I made to England with thy grand mother when I was jeune fille. La famille Methvyn was very liée with la famille Fawcett. It was soon after the marriage of my cousin Helen to le Colonel Methvyn. It would be curious if they are the same; and if thou shouldst see them again in—”

“If I should see them again, mamma!” exclaimed Geneviève starting up in bed, her eyes sparkling with eagerness, “what dost thou mean? Oh! mamma, dear mamma, do tell me,” she went on, clasping her hands in entreaty, “is it then, can it be, that our English cousins have invited me to go there? Oh! mamma, how delightful. And may I go?”

The eager words and tone struck coldly on the mother’s heart. “Wouldst thou so well like to go, Geneviève?” she said half reproachfully, “to leave us all—the friends of thy childhood, the house where thou wast born?”

“It would not be for ever, my mother,” she murmured, though in her heart she thought differently. A return to the old dull life, to the struggles and the privations of home, was not the future she had planned for herself, should she obtain the object of her day-dreams—an introduction to her rich English relations.

“One knows not, my child. Changes bring changes,” said Madame Casalis sadly. Then she kissed Geneviève again, and bade her good-night. “I can tell thee no more at present,” she said. “To-morrow thou shalt hear all. Already thy father will blame me for having told thee anything. Sleep well.”

And Geneviève knew by her mother’s tone that she must obey. It was long before she slept, however, and hours before day break she was awake again; awake, and in a fever of excitement, to hear all the details of this wonderful news.

The invitation was a very cordial one. It came from the only cousin of her own generation still left to Madame Casalis. “Madame Methvyn,” she explained to Geneviève, “is the daughter of the cousin of my mother. Thy grandmother was to her ‘tante à la mode de Bretagne.’ The relationship is not therefore of the nearest, which makes the kindness the greater.” And then she told her some of the particulars contained in the letter. The Methvyns had lately had a great sorrow, a death in the family, and the person most affected by this sorrow had been their youngest and only unmarried daughter.

“She has been very lonely,” wrote the mother, “since her sister went away, and our sad loss has deprived her of her chief pleasure and employment. If you will agree to our proposal, my dear cousin, and let your daughter come to be the friend and companion of our child (they must be about the same age), we shall do our utmost to make her happy. And if she is happy with us, we trust she may learn to look upon this as her home. There are changes, though not immediate, impending in the future, which may not improbably render this a desirable arrangement. I have often wished I could have done more to help you with your large family and many anxieties, but now I feel that in what I am asking all the obligation will be on my side; though, as I have said, we shall all do our utmost to make your child happy and to give her all the advantages in our power. It would at least be a better arrangement for her than the one you spoke of in your last letter.”

“What was that, dear mamma?” said Geneviéve, as her mother left off reading.

“I spoke to my cousin of the possibility of its being necessary that thou shouldst one day be a governess, my child,” said her mother. “I thought she might help to place you well—in some good family. The education of thy brothers is already expensive and will be more so.”

The colour mounted to Geneviève’s face. It had hardly required this to strengthen her decision.

“But we had not thought of a separation so soon,” said Monsieur Casalis with a sigh. “Reflect well, my child. Thou art of an age to judge for thyself. The proposal, as says thy mother, is a kind one and may offer advantages for thy future. But it may probably separate thee for long, perhaps for ever, from thy family. What sayest thou?”

The tears were in the mother’s eyes, but she wiped them away hastily. Geneviève did not see them; she was looking down, apparently in deep consideration. Then she said sweetly,

“It seems to me, dear father, I have hardly the right to refuse, since mamma and you consent. It is not only for myself. I must think also of my brothers and Eudoxie. In accepting the offer of Madame Methvyn, I may be able to help them in the future. It would also be a comfort to my mother and you to reflect that one of your children was no longer dependent only on your care.”

The advantages of Mrs. Methvyn’s proposal were obvious, for besides what Madame Casalis had read to her daughter, the letter contained a very distinct promise that should the offer be accepted, Geneviève’s future should be considered. “We are rich,” wrote the English lady, “and we have few relations. I should like to feel that I had done something for you, Caroline. You are the only representative left of my dear mother’s family.”

So Caroline Casalis dared not take upon herself the responsibility of refusing, or advising her child to refuse, so generous a proposal. Neither could she bring herself to urge its acceptance. But what would she not have given had Geneviève thrown herself upon her neck and sobbed out her grief at the thought of separation?

As it was, the consultation ended with the young girl’s kissing her parents prettily and properly, with the slightest possible suspicion of tears in her eyes, and tremble in her voice as she thanked them for their bonté in allowing her to decide for herself, and expressed her hopes that they would find her digne of their parental love and approbation. Already in her tone there was a slight savour of independence, of her old child life being a thing of the past.

And it was quite decided that she should go to England at the time named by her mother’s cousin. So for the next few weeks there was question not of one, but of several new robes d’été. Only somewhat to Geneviève’s annoyance, they had to be all of half-mourning!

CHAPTER II.

MR. GUILDFORD OF SOTHERNBAY.

Miramont. Faith, yes, but not to women.
His language is to heaven and heavenly wonders,
To Nature and her dark and secret causes.

DOWN in the smiling south, spring had come even earlier than its wont this year, but in England things had been very different. Since January, the weather had been unusually severe; severe enough to lay low many even of the healthy and strong, to snap asunder the last thread of fragile lives, that for long had been quivering like withered leaves ready at the first stormy blast to drop from the tree.

Even in usually mild and sheltered spots, winter this year had cruelly asserted his power. Many a poor invalid, who had left a comfortable home in search of warmth and sunshine, wished himself back again, where at least, if he died, it would be among his own people, or resolved if he lived another year, never again to trust to English climate even at its best. There was illness everywhere; doctors were worn out; people began to talk of not facing winter again without artificial defences against the cold, double windows, Russian stoves, and other devices not often suggested by our modern experiences of weather.

At Sothernbay—a favourite little winter watering-place, as a rule exempt from frost and snow, north winds or east, from cold, in short, in any form—it was just as bad as everywhere else; in the opinion of the Sothernbay visitors naturally very much worse. It was no use telling all these unhappy people that their sufferings were no greater than those of their neighbours in every other part of England; they had no present personal experience of the climate of every other part of England, and they had of that of Sothernbay. It was no use assuring everybody that such a winter had not been known since the year of the famous whole-ox roasting on the Thames; former winters were past and gone, this one was unmistakably and most disagreeably a matter of now, not of then.

In all the seven or eight years during which Mr. Guildford, one of the younger surgeons of Sothernbay, had been settled there, he had never felt so tired and dispirited as on one wretched February evening, when the thermometer had sunk to unknown depths, and there was not the very faintest sign of thaw or break in the pitiless black frost which had reigned remorselessly for many weeks. Personally, Mr. Guildford, who had never been ill in his life, had no fault to find with the frost. As a boy he had never been so happy as during a good old fashioned winter; but his boyhood had been spent in a more invigorating atmosphere, mental and physical, than that of consumptive, hypochondrical Sothernbay; and there were many times when he seriously doubted if he had done well in choosing it for his home. His love for his profession was deep and ardent, and his faith in its possibilities almost boundless. He realized with unusual vividness, for one comparatively young and untried, the great, sad facts of human suffering, and longed for increased power of relieving it. But the peculiar phase of suffering to be met with at Sothernbay was of all kinds the most depressing to see. It was usually so hopeless. What could a doctor do in nine cases out of ten, for blighted lives, whose knell in many instances may be almost said to have sounded before they were born? How even could he cheer them, when the only comfort they craved lay in assurances and promises he could not bring himself to utter? Or the still more trying class of patients—the crowd of hypochondriacs, young and old, who season after season followed each other to the little watering-place, vainly hoping to recover there, as if by magic, the vigour of mind and body they would take no rational means to obtain—what could an honest, intelligent man do for such but tell them the truth, and risk instant dismissal for his pains? Where the physical suffering was genuine, however hopeless, there was certainly the occasional satisfaction of mitigating or temporarily alleviating it; but such satisfaction was poor and meagre to a man so energetic and enthusiastic as Edmond Guildford, Then, as will happen where the power is genuine and steady—a deep, calm flowing river, not a fitful mountain torrent at one time overwhelming in its impetuosity, at another dwindled to a thread—his pent up energies found for themselves a new channel. They turned naturally to study—study and research bearing indirectly upon his own profession. As a youth he had worked fairly, displaying an intelligence above the average, and some originality; as a man he threw his whole soul into these voluntary labours. And gradually this pursuit of truth—

developed in him a definite, practical ambition—the ambition of doing something worth the doing to help forward the special branch of science to which he devoted himself.

“Let me feel before I die that I have advanced if only one step in practical knowledge—broken if but an inch or two of fresh ground for others to work in,” he said to himself.

And this, at eight-and-twenty, he believed in as the passion of his life. And with this he determined no other influence should be allowed sufficient dominion over him to interfere. He knew little of women, enough only to dread and deprecate their intrusion beyond a certain point into a man’s life. That a pure and noble love, of its very essence ennobles, of its very strength strengthens the whole powers—the whole “mingled and marvellous humanity” of him who is capable of it; that a less worthy influence needs not to be despotic to be insidious; that “thus far thou shalt come and no farther,” it is but seldom given to man to say—these were truths which had not entered into the dreams of his philosophy.

He was tired and dispirited this February evening, when at last after a long day’s work he stood upon the door-steps of his own house. He felt too tired even to look forward with his usual eagerness to his quiet evening of study. It was often so with him after a day of the kind—a day filled with visits to the regular Sothernbay invalids—a day in which, as he looked back upon it, he could not feel that he had done any good. And such days and such feelings had of late been on the increase. He even began sometimes to think seriously of throwing to the winds the position he had gained for himself, and trying his fate at a different kind of place. But, being on the whole a reasonable and cautious man, he restricted his dissatisfaction to grumbling to himself, or, when the desire for sympathy was unusually strong upon him, and failing a more responsive audience, to his sister Mrs. Crichton.

This evening, however, an unexpected diversion of his thoughts was in store for him.

“There’s a telegram waiting for you, sir,” said the servant who opened the door.

“A telegram! where? I don’t see it,” he exclaimed, glancing at the table where letters were usually laid for him.

“No, sir; it’s not there. Mrs. Crichton, if you please sir, took it into your room and put it on the chimbley-piece, for fear as I should forget it,” said the boy with a touch of malice in his tone.

Mr. Guildford smiled. “All right,” he said cheerfully, as he went into his room and shut the door. “All the same,” he added to himself; “I do wish Bessie would learn to leave my things alone.”

A telegram was an event. Mr. Guildford’s beat lay within a very small radius, being entirely confined to Sothernbay itself. Now and then, at long intervals, he had been summoned to town to a consultation with one of the great men who wanted his report on some case he had been watching, but this happened rarely, and he knew of nothing of the kind impending at present. So it was with some curiosity he opened the big envelope and glanced at its contents.

“Pray come by first train. The case is very urgent. A carriage shall be at Haverstock Station. Dr. Farmer has given me your address.”

The summons was a very unusual one. Mr. Guildford had once met Dr. Farmer, but he had never been at Haverstock, except when passing through the station in the railway; he did not remember ever having heard of Colonel Methvyn, or of Greystone Abbey, for in the few years he had been at Sothernbay he had had no leisure for exploring the neighbourhood, and his rare holidays had been spent at a distance. No doubt the message came from some county family near Haverstock, but this did not render it the less surprising, for all the county families had their own country doctors for ordinary cases, and for extraordinary ones—when they were very ill indeed—they either went to town to consult one of the great authorities, or summoned him to come to them. For there was a very orthodox amount of ill feeling towards Sothernbay on the part of the county, which, to do the little watering-place justice, it entirely reciprocated.

Mr. Guildford looked about for a railway guide; there was one on his table, but it was not of recent date. Then he remembered that his sister, who had only arrived the week before, would probably have a newer one. He was just leaving his room in search of it, when the front door bell rang, and Mrs. Crichton came in; she had been at an evening service, and shivered with cold, notwithstanding her wraps.

“It is colder than ever, Edmond, I do believe,” she exclaimed, as she saw her brother.

“Yes, I almost think it is,” he answered absently. “Bessie, have you a Bradshaw for this month?”

Mrs. Crichton was obliged to consider for a minute or two how long it was since “this month” had begun.

“Let me see,” she said. “What day did I come? Yesterday? no; the day before yesterday week. And this is the 14th. February began on a Wednesday, didn’t it? Oh! yes; my Bradshaw must be for this month. But this is leap year, there are generally only twenty-eight days in February—will that make any difference about when the month came in? Oh! no, of course not; it isn’t as if we were in March. What do you want a Bradshaw for, Edmond? You’re not going away; it is far too cold for travelling?”

“Tell me first where the Bradshaw is to be found,” said Mr. Guildford good naturedly; he had served a very fair apprenticeship to his sister’s peculiar arrangement of reasoning powers, and was not easily affected by their eccentricity.

“It’s up in my bedroom. No, it’s in my travelling-bag, and that is in the drawing-room—at least it was there the day after I came. Oh! no, by the bye, it is in the pocket of my largest travelling-cloak. It’s here!” and the Bradshaw was triumphantly produced.

A moment’s consultation of the intricate little volume showed Mr. Guildford’s quick eyes that there was no train for Haverstock for an hour and a half. He glanced at the “sent out” date of the telegram; then looked again at the railway guide. “No,” he said, “I could not have caught an earlier train even if I had got the message at once. I am rather glad of that.”

“Glad of what?” said Mrs. Crichton, as her brother, still looking at the guide, followed her into the drawing-room.

“That I have lost no time. It is so terribly disappointing to find that some stupid, trivial little accident has delayed one in an urgent case—a case, I mean, in which there is anything to be done,” he answered, half forgetting he was speaking to his sister and not to himself.

“I don’t know what you are talking about. An urgent case! What urgent case?” said Mrs. Crichton, pricking up her ears in hopes of a little professional gossip. It was so very rarely she could get “Edmond” to talk about his “cases” at all. “Oh! by the bye, that must be what the telegram was about. I was so afraid you would not get it at once, I put it on the mantelpiece in your study, Edmond; did you see?”

“Yes,” he said mildly. “I saw it; but on the whole, my dear Bessie, I prefer all letters being left on the hall-table, then I catch sight of them at once when I come in, you see.”

“Very well,” said Bessie, looking a little snubbed; but she soon recovered herself. “Are you really going away to-night, Edmond?” she asked.

“Yes,” he said again; “I must start in about an hour. I want to see Brewer on my way to the station.”

“Of course; what else did you think I wanted the guide for?” he replied. “I have time for a cup of tea, Bessie, if you will have one ready for me in half an hour. I have one or two letters to write first,” he added, as he left the room without giving Mrs. Crichton time to ask any more questions.

“How absurdly mysterious Edmond is!” said Bessie to herself. “He seems quite to forget what I went through with poor dear Mr. Crichton.”

Half an hour later, when Mr. Guildford came back for his cup of tea, Mrs. Crichton tried him on another side.

“What shall I say to any one who calls or sends for you to-morrow, Edmond?” she asked meekly.

“Whatever you like,” said her brother boyishly, beginning to laugh as he spoke. “No, Bessie,” he went on, “it’s too bad of me to tease you. I shall be back before to-morrow, before your to-morrow begins any way, and I have left notes and directions with Sims, and I shall see Brewer on my way to the station. If you really care to know where I am going, I can only tell you it’s somewhere near Haverstock, but as to whom I am going to see or why I have been sent for, I know as little as you.”

“I do hope for once you’ll tell me all about it when you come back to-morrow,” she said gushingly. “I am sure you must know how thoroughly I am to be trusted. Poor dear Mr. Crichton used to say—and you know a lawyer’s nearly as bad as a doctor that way, about family secrets and all that—he used constantly to say that he would quite as soon tell anything at the town cross as tell it to me—no, that’s not it, I mean the other way, that he would quite as soon tell it to me as to—what are you laughing at so, Edmond? Perhaps it wasn’t about secrets he said that. I daresay it was that I was as safe as the Bank of England. He had so many clever expressions that I confuse them, you see.”

“Yes, my dear Bessie, I see,” said Mr. Guildford gravely. “It is quite natural you should.”

“I do hope it’s nothing horrid they’ve sent for you for,” continued Mrs. Crichton, a new idea striking her. “A murder perhaps, or a suicide, and they may want you to help to hush it up! I do hope you will be careful, Edmond; you know I often tell you you are very rash sometimes. You forgot your comforter again this very morning, and you don’t know what you may get mixed up in if you are not careful.”

“I’ll be very careful,” he assured her. “But I wish I were not going, I am tired to-night.”

“You are so much oftener tired than you used to be, Edmond. I don’t think you can be as strong as you were. I am sure you want a change.”

“I am as strong as ever, I assure you, Bessie. “My tiredness is more mental than physical,” he replied.

“You can if you like. You make me very unhappy, Edmond, when you talk in that indifferent way,” said Mrs. Crichton plaintively. “I don’t believe you take a bit of care of yourself when I’m away, and I can’t be here always, you know. I do wish you were married. You have over and over again said to me you did intend to marry some time or other, and then it has all come to nothing, and everybody knows it’s the proper thing for a doctor to be married. It would double your practice.”

“I have quite as much practice as I want, thank you,” answered her brother; “and if I hadn’t, it wouldn’t at all suit my ideas to marry for the sake of increasing it; but I do still intend to marry some time or other, Bessie, whenever I come across the right person.”

“What do you call the right person?” inquired Mrs. Crichton, looking far from satisfied. “I dare say you expect all sorts of things you are sure never to find in any girl.”

“No, indeed I don’t,” replied Mr. Guildford. “I am most reasonable. I don’t expect much in my wife. She must be pretty—very pretty, I don’t care how pretty; she may be a little conceited if it amuses her, she must have some notion of house-keeping, and a perfectly good temper, that’s about all. Oh! no, by the bye, she must be fond of work—sewing, stitching, I mean—and I think, yes I think, she must not be able to play or sing. I’m not quite sure about singing.”

Bessie looked aghast. “Why, Edmond,” she exclaimed, “you mean to say you don’t want your wife to be clever, not even accomplished? I thought you admired clever women so, Miss Bertram and her sister for instance, though they are so plain-looking, and just think how you enjoy Mrs. Wendover’s playing.”

“So I do, but I never said I should like to marry either of the Bertrams, did I? For a friend, I think I would prefer Frances Bertram to any—man I was going to say—to any one I know. But a wife and a friend are different. A very wise person once said, ‘Descend a step in choosing a wife, mount a step in choosing a friend,’ and I quite agree with him,” replied Mr. Guildford.

“It’s a very nasty, mean, spiteful saying, whoever said it,” said Bessie wrathfully. “It’s just that men are so jealous that they can’t bear their wives to be thought more of than themselves. Who said it, Edmond?” she went on looking rather frightened as an idea struck her. “It wasn’t Solomon, it isn’t in the Bible, is it?”

Her brother looked mischievous. “Not quite, but very nearly,” he said. “It is not in our Bible, but in some other people’s bible. It’s in the Talmud, I believe. Solomon may have said it originally; and, as he had fifty wives, he should surely be an authority on the subject.”

“You shouldn’t joke about such things, Edmond,” said his sister reproachfully, looking nevertheless relieved at hearing where the proverb was to be found. “I don’t know anything about the Talmud; it’s the book those silly hair-dressers in the Arabian Nights’ were always saying verses out of, isn’t it? I remember that story when I was a child. But I wonder at you taking up those Turkish ideas about wives, Edmond.”

“About a wife you mean, I suppose?” he answered. “I don’t intend to have more than one. But you don’t understand me quite, Bessie. I should never be jealous of my wife in the way you mean, whatever she was, only—”

“Only,” he went on, “those grand women would come in the way of other things in a man’s life. A smaller sort of person would be more comfortable and less intrusive. The noblest woman that ever was made would be at best a frail bark to risk a man’s all in,” he added reflectively.

He almost forgot to whom he was speaking, till Mrs. Crichton’s next observation reminded him of her presence.

“You are very funny, Edmond,” she said, “I suppose it’s with being so clever and studying so much and all that. But I don’t believe you have it in you to care much for any woman.”

She gave a gentle sigh as she recalled to herself the days of poor dear Mr. Crichton’s devotion to pretty little Bessie Guildford, twenty years younger than himself. She remembered how some of her friends had laughed at her for choosing to be an “old man’s darling.” “But we were very happy,” she murmured to herself.

“Perhaps not,” said her brother, as he rose to go. “And if so, all the better, I dare say. Good night, Bessie.”

“Good night, and don’t forget your comforter. And remember you are to tell me all your adventures when you come back,” she called after him.

“We’ll see,” he put his head in again at the door to say, and then he was gone.

It was dull sitting there alone, duller somehow than if Edmond had been busy at work in his own room on the other side of the wall. Bessie soon got tired of it and went to bed early. She got up rather before her usual hour the next morning in hopes of her brother’s returning to breakfast with her. But ten, eleven o’clock passed, he did not come. Mrs. Crichton succeeded in remembering a little piece of shopping to be done—a skein of silk was wanting for her fancy work; it would give her an object for a walk. So she went out for an hour, and when she came in was met by little Sims with the information that “Master had come in as soon as she had gone out. He had asked wasn’t Mrs. Crichton in, and he had left word he wouldn’t be back till late.”

Bessie was very much disappointed. She had been so anxious to hear the history of the mysterious journey. “And now,” she thought, “when Edmond comes in, he’ll be tired and thinking about other things, and I shall not hear about his adventures at all.”

It was not very late after all when Mr. Guildford came in, but as his sister had expected would be the case, he looked tired and preoccupied. They dined together, but during dinner he said little. Afterwards, contrary to his general custom, he followed Bessie into the little drawing-room and settled himself in a comfortable easy-chair near the fire.

“I am too sleepy to work to-night,” he said. “It is no use attempting it. But it is a pity, as I did nothing last night either, and I was in the middle of something rather particular.”

“I was up all night,” he said shortly. And then they were silent for a few minutes—Bessie all the while burning with curiosity.

“What poor creatures even the strongest of us are, after all!” said Mr. Guildford suddenly.

“Do you mean about feeling tired?” said Bessie. “Being up all night is enough to knock up any one.”

“It was not that only I was thinking of,” he replied. “I did not think I was still so impressionable. I wish Dr. Farmer had not suggested my being sent for.”

“There was nothing to be done. I was called in too late—but, indeed, I strongly suspect nothing could have been done from the beginning. I see so many hopeless cases in my regular round, that it is depressing to be summoned to another outside it. No, I am sure nothing could have been done.”

“Perhaps it is that you are so much cleverer than other doctors that you see sooner when there is nothing to be done,” suggested his sister.

But Mr. Guildford hardly seemed to hear what she said. “He must always have been exceedingly fragile,” he went on as if thinking aloud.

“No, not till early this morning,” said her brother. “It was very painful—no, not exactly painful, sad and pitiful rather.”

“Not a man at all—only a child, a little boy,” answered Mr. Guildford, but the “only” seemed to reproach him as he uttered it. “Just at the very first I had faint hopes, but they soon died away. He had often been ill before, had had frightful attacks of croup every now and then. But this was bronchitis. There wasn’t a chance for him. Poor little chap!”

“Above five, I think, barely as much. Dr. Farmer sent for me when they got very much alarmed, late yesterday. There wasn’t time to send to town, and they wanted a second opinion. Dr. Farmer is getting old now and easily upset—he was glad to have some one else for his own sake too. He could not have watched it to the end; he had quite broken down before I got there.”

“Was he an only child? How will his mother bear it, poor thing!” said Mrs. Crichton.

“She is not there. She is abroad somewhere—in India, I think,” answered Mr. Guildford.

He was silent for a moment or two and sat gazing into the fire. “What strange creatures women are!” he exclaimed suddenly. “What mixtures of strength and weakness! I wonder if it is at moments of intense feeling that one sees the true nature of women—or is it that feeling ennobles them temporarily, makes shallow ones seem deep, and selfish ones heroic, and cold-hearted ones devoted?”

Bessie felt curious to know what had called forth these remarks. It was not often that her brother troubled himself with speculations concerning her sex.

“What has put that into your head, Edmond?” she asked. “Are you thinking of any one in particular?”

“Oh! no—it was just a reflection on women in general,” he said carelessly.

Then he took up a book and began to read, and Bessie heard no more particulars of his visit to Greystone. Her curiosity was, however, satisfied that there was nothing very exciting to hear; it was only a sad little every-day story. She was very sorry for the little boy’s friends, and she said to herself she was glad that she had no children.

CHAPTER III.

“LITTLE MASTER.”

HAD Mr. Guildford been a native of Sothernshire, he could not but have been familiar with the name of the Methvyns of Carling, one of the oldest and wealthiest families of the county. Had he been in the least addicted to local gossip, or less preoccupied, he could hardly have failed, even at Sothern, to hear casual mention of them and of their younger branch, the Methvyns of Greystone. But if he had ever heard of either Carling or Greystone, he had forgotten all about it; and as he was whirled along to Haverstock that cold February evening, his mind was a perfect blank as regarded Methvyns of anywhere. Nor did he feel much interest or curiosity respecting the summons he had received.

He had brought a book with him, but the lamp gave so feeble and uncertain a light that reading was out of the question. So for the half-hour of his railway journey, Mr. Guildford set himself to think instead; to work out in his head the results of a certain shadowy theory or suggestion bearing upon an obscure and hitherto but slightly considered department of medical science, which had lately come under his notice for the first time. It had interested and even fascinated him, but he had so often fancied himself on the brink of a great discovery, so often imagined that he saw the flashing of “some bright truth in its prism,” only to be disappointed, that he was already learning to be sceptical and cautious, keen to criticise and slow to pronounce. Outward circumstances too, helped to check his impetuosity, to moderate without damping his ardour—the apparent disadvantage of his leisure consisting mostly of odd snatches of time, liable at any moment to interruption; the being constantly recalled to matters of present fact, obliged suddenly to concentrate his powers on subjects seldom presenting anything in common with his chosen studies; all this was excellent training for an excitable, enthusiastic temperament naturally impatient of discipline or restriction. Gradually he acquired great inward self-control—mental independence of, or rather superiority to, his external surroundings for the time being. He learnt to choose and limit his subjects of thought; a habit as valuable to a man of his profession, as was in another direction the great soldier’s far-famed capability of “sleeping to order.”

So Mr. Guildford was really thinking—not merely dreaming, or passively receiving the impressions of the objects around him when the train stopped, and the railway officials’ equivalent for “Haverstock,” was shouted along the little platform. It was only a roadside station, badly lighted and dreary looking. Though not yet ten o’clock, there was a sort of middle-of-the-night air about the place, and the two or three men to be seen looked as if they had been wakened out of their first sleep. For a moment or two Mr. Guildford, as he stood alone mechanically watching the green light of the train that had brought him, as it disappeared in the darkness, felt bewildered and confused. But a voice at his side recalled him to what was before him.

“Are you the doctor, sir, if you please—the doctor from Sothernbay?” and turning at the question, Mr. Guildford saw that the speaker was a pleasant-looking man-servant, buttoned up to the chin in a thick driving coat; his tone was eager and anxious.

“Yes. I have come from Sothernbay in answer to a telegram I received this evening,” he replied. “Are you Colonel Methvyn’s man,—have you come to meet me?”

“I have been here since five o’clock, sir. ’Twas I sent off the message. The dog cart is waiting at the gate, and if you please, sir, I was to say as Miss Cicely—my master, I should say,—hoped you’d excuse the dog-cart instead of a close carriage; the road from here to the Abbey is terrible bad just now, and a heavy carriage would have taken twice as long,” said the man, as he led the way through the station-gate to where a two-wheeled vehicle and an impatient-looking horse stood ready for them.

“I prefer it, thank you,” said Mr. Guildford good-naturedly. Like many self-contained people, he had a liking for a frank manner on the part of others, especially perhaps when they were his inferiors.

“You see, sir,” continued the man, “I was hurried both ways, first to get the telegram off, and then to get you to the Abbey when you came.”

His remarks were interrupted by the zeal with which he set to work to tuck Mr. Guildford up in the rugs, of which there appeared a profusion.

“Miss Cicely—leastways my master, I should say, though for that matter it were Miss Cicely, she never forgets nothing,—she told me as I were to be sure to bring plenty of wraps,” he observed, his language becoming comfortably ungrammatical as he felt himself growing at ease with the “strange doctor.”

“Thank you, that will do capitally,” said Mr. Guildford, as they started off at a brisk pace. “But it doesn’t seem to me as cold here as at Sothernbay, or is there a change in the weather?” he added, glancing up at the sky, in which but few stars were visible.

“Bless you, sir! yes to be sure, there’s a thaw,” said the servant eagerly; “it began this afternoon. We was all so glad, thinking it might be better for little master. Shouldn’t you think so, sir?” he asked with an anxiety in his voice that Mr. Guildford could not understand.

“I have not heard who it is that is ill, my good fellow,” he said kindly; “is ‘little master’ the patient? I am all in the dark, you see; I know nothing except what was in the telegram you sent off.”

“Of course not, sir, of course not,” exclaimed the man. “You see, sir, we’ve been thinking of little else all these days, and it seemed like as if every one must be the same. Yes, sir, it’s little master, bless him! as is ill; it begun with the croup, he’s had that many a time; many a night Miss Cicely has called me up to fetch the old doctor—there’s a bell rings into my room on purpose,—but this time it’s turned to worse. I can’t exactly say what it is. Miss Cicely’s never closed a eye these three nights, Mrs. Moore told me; I’m afraid he’s very bad. But now you’ve come, and the break in the weather, he’ll pull through; don’t you think so, sir?” he inquired wistfully, as if the question of life or death hung upon the opinion it was utterly impossible for Mr. Guildford to express.

“You forget, my good fellow,” said the doctor again, “you forget I have not yet seen the poor little boy; but of one thing you may be sure, I shall do my very best.”

“Is Dr. Farmer still at the Abbey—was he there when you left?” asked Mr. Guildford.

“Yes, sir, but I don’t think you’ll see him tonight; he was quite wore out, poor old gentleman, and I heard Miss Cicely telling him as I came away he must go to bed. He’s gettin’ on in years is the old doctor.”

“Miss Cicely” again. A passing feeling of curiosity crossed Mr. Guildford’s mind as to whom she could be. A maiden sister or aunt perhaps of Colonel Methvyn’s, who managed his household and looked after his children. The name suggested a quaint old-fashioned maiden lady, and, so far, there had been no mention of a Mrs. Methvyn. “Miss Cicely” was evidently the ruling spirit of Greystone Abbey. But it was not Mr. Guildford’s habit to obtain in formation about either people or things save from head-quarters, so he put no more questions to his communicative companion. The road was now becoming so bad that it took all the driver’s skill to avoid catastrophes.

“Do you never have any repairs done hereabouts?” inquired the stranger; “this road is really sadly in want of looking after.”

“It isn’t no road at all, sir, by rights,” replied the servant, when he had time to draw breath after the “joltiest bit” they had yet passed, “it’s only a short cut to Haverstock. Haverstock isn’t our station—not the Abbey station; by the highway, Haverstock is good six mile from us. Our station is Greybridge, but the fast trains don’t stop there, unless notice is given special; and there’s no telegraphy at Greybridge. That’s how I had to bring you such a rough way, sir; it saves four mile and more.”

“We’re near home now, sir,” said the man, and the remaining few minutes were passed in silence.

It was far too dark to distinguish anything plainly. Mr. Guildford felt, rather than saw, when they turned off the road or lane into enclosed grounds; the change from the jolting and jogging they had been enduring for the last quarter of an hour to the smooth roll of a well-kept gravel drive was very pleasant.

“We’re going in by the side way, sir,” said the groom, “I left the gate open as I came out; it’s not often this way is used now.”

A few minutes more and they drew up at the front entrance. A wide porch, with deep stone seats at each side, lighted by a heavy iron-bound lamp hanging from the roof, was all Mr. Guildford could distinguish of the outside of Greystone Abbey, It looked more like the entrance to an ancient church than to a modern dwelling house; it was in keeping, however, with the associations of the name, and Mr. Guildford’s perceptions were acute enough for him to infer from what he saw that by daylight the old house must be picturesque and quaintly beautiful.

The door was opened, almost before the servant had time to ring,—anxious ears evidently were on the alert for the first sound of carriage-wheels,—and two or three servants hurried forward. The hall into which Mr. Guildford was ushered was a picture of comfort; a great log fire blazed in the wide open grate, antlered heads threw grotesque shadows on the wainscoted walls, there were furry fleecy rugs under foot, armchairs and sofas, and little tables in every corner; everything looked homelike and inviting, and seemed to tell of happy gatherings and merry voices. And the pet and pride of the house—the “little master”—upstairs dying! Little as the young doctor knew of the Methvyns, a sort of chill seemed to strike through him at the thought.

His arrival had been quickly announced, for almost immediately a door at the opposite side of the hall opened, and a stout elderly person in black silk, and with a general indescribable look of responsibility and trustworthiness, came forward. She made a sort of curtsey as she drew near the stranger, a salutation which said as plainly as any words, “I am the housekeeper, if you please,” and destroyed instantaneously a passing suspicion of Mr. Guildford’s that “the managing spirit” of Greystone Abbey stood before him.

“I am so very glad you have come, sir,” said the housekeeper respectfully; “it will be a great satisfaction. There are refreshments, sir, in the library, but—if you are not very tired and cold, perhaps—Miss Cicely is so very anxious to see you. Would you take a glass of wine now, sir, and something else later?”

But Mr. Guildford declined everything of the kind for the present. “I should much prefer seeing my patient at once,” he said decidedly; “will you show me the way?”

“Certainly, sir,” she replied, looking relieved. “Miss Cicely wished me to take you upstairs as soon as possible.”

Always “Miss Cicely.” She was becoming a sort of “Marquis de Carabbas” to Mr. Guildford. No mention of the heads of the household; to judge by appearances, Miss Cicely might be the owner as well as the ruler of the whole place. So thought the new-comer, as he followed the worthy Mrs. Moore out of the hall, down a long dimly lighted passage, looking like enclosed cloisters from the vaulted ceiling and succession of narrow sharp-pointed windows along one side, widening at the end into a small square hall, round two sides of which curved a broad shallow-stepped spiral stair case. Upstairs, a long passage again, somewhat wider than the one below, with doors at both sides; at one of these the housekeeper stopped, tapped softly, but, receiving no answer, went in, beckoning to Mr. Guildford to follow her. The room which he entered was small and plainly furnished; it looked almost as if it had once been a schoolroom, but its present contents were somewhat heterogeneous; the carpet was nearly threadbare, the windows had no curtains, but there were two or three good pictures on the walls, a beautiful stand of ferns, several cages, whose little occupants had all retired for the night, each carefully shaded by a curtain drawn round the wires; a glass, filled with lovely flowers, on the table, a Skye terrier asleep on the hearth rug, a bookcase full of books, of which some of the titles would have surprised Mr. Guildford had he read them.

He had time for a certain amount of observation, for the housekeeper, whispering to him a request to wait where he was for a minute, left the room quickly by another door. It was still cold, notwithstanding the thaw. Mr. Guildford instinctively turned towards the fire; the Skye terrier, disturbed by his intrusion, peered up at him for a moment through its shaggy hair with its bright beady eyes, growled lazily, and went off to sleep again. So the stranger took up his position on the hearthrug with his back to the fire, and looked about him with some curiosity. There was a history in this little room—the history not so much of a life, as of a character. But it was not for many a long day that the man who entered it to-night for the first time learnt to read it. There are many such histories that are never read at all.

Still he was conscious vaguely of a certain impress of individuality in the room—some body lived in it and loved all these things thus much was visible at a glance. Perhaps “the marquise” was of the genial order of old maids after all, neither managing nor domineering! Mr. Guildford was smiling at his fancy when the door—the second again. It was not Mrs. Moore returning. Who was it? Could this be “Miss Cicely?”

A tall, fair girl in a crimson dress, with coils of hair that must be sunny by daylight; with a pale, quiet face, and soft, grave eyes. She stood for a moment in the doorway, the lamp-light falling full upon her. Some pictures—a few in a lifetime only—take far less time than our clumsy words can express to imprint themselves for ever on the brain. This was one of them. Through all the chequered future, through happy days and “days of cloudy weather,” in her presence or absent from her, Edmond Guildford never forgot this first vision of Cicely Methvyn, pale, grave Cicely, standing there for a fairy’s moment, in her brilliant crimson dress.

The dress, not improbably, had something to do with the vividness of the impression. Little as he was given to observing such matters, it could not fail to strike him, both from its beauty and extreme unsuitability to the girl’s present occupation. It was of velvet of the richest and loveliest shade of damask red; there was exquisite lace round the throat and wrists, and there was something quaint and peculiar in the shape of the bodice. And to add to the effect, Miss Methvyn wore a thick gold chain round her neck, from which hung a very beautiful, very large, and evidently antique gold cross, which shone out with a rich, dull lustre from its crimson background.

Mr. Guildford stood with his eyes fixed upon her for a moment in absolute amazement. Afterwards he tried to define to himself his exact impression of the young girl. Was she “pretty?” The word seemed utterly unsuited to her. Was she beautiful? Hardly. He could describe her by no words that satisfied his sense of correctness.

She was tall and fair—and then he stopped. She was neither graceful nor dignified, or rather perhaps she was, strictly speaking, both. Only the words did not seem to suit her, for they implied a suspicion of self-consciousness, from which her bearing, her expression—everything about her, was utterly and unmistakably free.

But just now he had hardly time to realise anything but surprise before she came forward and spoke. She spoke rather slowly; it was evidently her habit to do so, her voice was low but clear, and perfectly calm.

“I am so very, very glad you have come,” she said. “It is exceedingly kind of you to have come so quickly. Charlie—it is Charlie that is so ill, did you know?” Mr. Guildford made a slight gesture of assent. “He is in the next room. Will you come in and see him? He is asleep.”

“Oh! I was forgetting to tell you,” she said. “No, Dr. Farmer has gone home. I made him go, and promised to send for him if you did not come. He lives only a mile away. He was so knocked up, I really begged him to go. He left this note for you, and he said he was sure I could tell you everything.”

She drew a letter out of her pocket as she spoke and gave it to Mr. Guildford. As he read it, his face grew graver. She, watching him, observed this.

“I think Charlie is better than when Dr. Farmer left,” she said. “He is less restless. I asked him how he was just before he went go to sleep, and he answered me quite distinctly, and his voice sounded much more like itself.”

“How did he say he felt?” asked Mr. Guildford, stopping for a moment as he was going to follow Miss Methvyn.

“He said he was sleepy,” she replied. “I asked him if he felt very ‘sore,’ that is his word for ‘ill,’” she explained with a faint little smile, “and he said, ‘Not so wenny bad, Cissy,’ He calls me ‘Cissy.’ ”

“Ah!” said Mr. Guildford. Then they went into the room, and Cicely led the stranger to the child’s bedside.

He lay there, propped up with pillows to ease his laboured breathing. He was sleeping, the girl had said, but, ah! what a different sleep from the rosy, easy rest of healthy infancy! It was very pitiful—terribly pitiful. Mr. Guildford looked at the child steadily for some moments. Then he turned to the young lady.

“Dr. Farmer has told me all that has been done,” he said. “Everything has been tried, I see. I should like to watch the little fellow for the next hour or two. I hear you have been up for two or three nights. Will you not go to bed now and let me, who am quite fresh, take my turn?”

For the first time there was a slight quiver in the pale young face as she looked up at Mr. Guildford.

“Won’t you tell me first what you think of him?” she said. “I have been so anxious to hear your opinion.”

Mr. Guildford turned away with a very, very slight gesture of impatience. He was beginning to be very sorry for Miss Methvyn, but he felt the position an uncomfortable one. He was by no means sure that it would be right to express his real opinion to this girl, so young and apparently so lonely. He wished Dr. Farmer had stayed; or at least that he could see the heads of the house, the child’s parents.

“I don’t think you should ask me for my opinion just yet,” he said somewhat brusquely. “If you will leave me here to watch him, I shall soon be able to judge better. Shall I not see your parents? Your father, perhaps I should say? I should like to speak to him about your little brother.”

“He is not my brother,” she answered quietly. “He is my nephew, my only sister’s child. My father is a chronic invalid and suffers a great deal, and my mother is constantly with him. That is why it is impossible for her to nurse Charlie. He is my especial charge; my sister left him in my care when she went to India some months ago. I fancied you understood or I would have explained this before.”

She spoke very gently, almost apologetically. But to Mr. Guildford it sounded like a reproach.

“I should not have given you the trouble of explaining anything,” he said quickly. “But will you not do as I proposed? Will you not take a little rest for an hour or two? I shall stay till the morning. I arranged to do so before I left home.”

Just then Mrs. Moore, who had left the room before they entered it, came back again. She heard what Mr. Guildford was urging upon Cicely.

“Oh! do, Miss Cicely,” she said earnestly. “You will be quite knocked up soon, and what would Master Charlie do then?”

“If he wakes and I am not beside him, he will be so frightened,” said the girl.

“I promise to send for you the moment he wakes—or—or in case of any change.” said Mr. Guildford.

So at last she gave in. Could Mr. Guildford have realised the agony her submission was costing her, he would hardly have had the heart to enforce it, though his motives were of the best. But how was he, a perfect stranger, seeing her for the first time, to pierce below the quiet exterior that puzzled many who had known her for years? She stooped and kissed the little pale drawn face, and repeating,

Mr. Guildford had no intention of deceiving her. His fears were great, but so far, he perceived a chance—a faint chance of their not being realised, and he had no belief in the wisdom of preparing oneself or others for the worst by crushing prematurely the last little blossom of hope which may serve its purpose by cheering hours of otherwise unendurable anguish. But as the night went on, his own hopes faded slowly. He did the little that was possible to alleviate the suffering, more painful, it is to be trusted, at this last sad stage, to witness than to endure; but long before the morning dawned, it became evident that the little life was ebbing away. There was no fear of Charlie waking to miss his young aunt; the short journey through the dark valley was all but over; Charlie’s waking would be in the bright country “beyond the sun.”

“I think you had better call Miss Methvyn. I promised to send for her if there was any change,” said Mr. Guildford to the housekeeper, who had remained with him. There was no need to tell her what the only change would be now. But almost before he had finished speaking the door opened swiftly, and Cicely, still in her beautiful dress, stood again by the bed side.

“I could not stay away any longer. I tried to sleep, but,” she was beginning; but the words died upon her lips. “Oh! he is not better, he is worse,” she exclaimed, catching sight of the baby-face, and reading in Mr. Guildford’s quiet sadness the confirmation of her terror. “Oh! my darling, my dear, dear little Charlie.”

The anguish of her tone was unmistakable; still, by a supreme effort of self-control, she forced herself to speak quietly. “Will he not know me when he wakes?” she whispered to Mr. Guildford.

“He will never wake to consciousness again; all his suffering is over,” said Mr. Guildford very gently, but Cicely interrupted him with a faint cry. “What is that? He has never looked like that. Oh! is that dying?” she sobbed—a slight convulsion had momentarily distorted the exhausted little frame.

“It does not hurt him, he feels no pain. It is far sadder for you than for him,” said Mr. Guildford, wishing he could spare her this ordeal.

But it was not protracted; soon, very soon there was no little Charlie lying there; only the deserted dwelling in which his innocent spirit had sojourned for four short years.

Then the young girl could no longer restrain her grief. The incentive to self-control was gone, the unnatural strain broken at last. She was weakened by her days and nights of watching, and such sorrow as this was new to her. She laid her head down on the pillow beside the still white face of the child she had loved so dearly, and cried as if literally her heart was breaking. She was not a girl who cried often or easily, and to such natures extreme emotion from its very rarity is terribly prostrating. Mrs. Moore took the commonplace view of the matter.

“I never saw Miss Cicely like this,” she said, “but it is better she should cry. It will do her good in the end; will it not, sir?”

“I don’t know about that,” said Mr. Guildford. “If she seldom cries, she will be sadly exhausted by this. There is a good deal of nonsense talked about tears. To some natures they are like drops of blood.”

He made one or two efforts to persuade her to come away, but for some time it was useless.

“Oh! do let me stay here a little,” she prayed. “There is no need to tell any one yet. There is nothing to do. I must not cry to-morrow, for it would distress my father and mother; but do leave me for tonight. And, oh! to-morrow, I must write and tell Amy. Oh! how can I? Her little Charlie that I was to take care of till she came back. And now I can never do anything for him again. I even put on this dress to please him this morning, or was it yesterday morning?” she said confusedly, lifting her head suddenly and looking up in Mr. Guildford’s face with an almost wild expression in her blue eyes. “He was so fond of it, he called it my picture frock. I shall never, never put it on again. I should like never to see it again. Oh, Charlie!”

Then she buried her face in the pillow, and her whole figure shook convulsively. Mrs. Moore looked at Mr. Guildford in despair. Suddenly an idea struck her.

“Miss Cicely, my dear,” she said, “I am very sorry to disturb you, but I think you are forgetting that Mr. Guildford must be very tired. He came from Sothernbay in a hurry, you know, and has been up all night and has had nothing to eat. And it is nearly morning now.”

A faint streak of dawn was creeping in at the window—the cold ghastly dawn of a rainy February morning. Cicely sat up, but shivered as she saw it. This time yesterday she had been glad to see the daylight, for the night had been long and trying, and Charlie had wished many times “morning would come.” Oh! how dreadful these trifling associations sometimes are. “This time yesterday” our darling was still here; “this day last week,” bright and full of life perhaps; “this time last year,”—ah! what bitter changes since then;—to the young, the first tear-stained entries in life’s calendar seem to dim all the leaves of the book, even the white blank sheets of the future; to the old, the gentle, merciful haze of distance mellows and softens the darkness of even the darkest pages.

But Cicely was young, not old, and today the sight of the cold, careless daylight returning again, “as if nothing were the matter,” was strange and repulsive. She shivered, and for a moment covered her face with her hands. But the old servant had touched the right chord. When Miss Methvyn spoke again, it was in quite a different tone.

“I have been very selfish,” she said with a sort of simple dignity, “very selfish and thoughtless. Mr. Guildford, you must for give me.”

Then she stood up and was moving away, when a thought struck her, and she turned back.

“I have not thanked you,” she said, looking up at Mr. Guildford and holding out her hand. “Good-bye, and thank you very much. It will always be a comfort to us that you came so quickly, otherwise we might have thought that something else might have been done.”

Her lips quivered again, in spite of her effort to be calm. She turned quickly, and stooping over the bedside, once more kissed the little face and then hurried away.

An hour later, when the grey dreary dawn was growing into dull daylight, Mr. Guildford was driven away again—to Greybridge Station this time. The same young groom drove as on the night before, but he was very silent this morning, and his eyes looked as if he had been crying all night.

CHAPTER IV.

A SECOND SUMMONS.

“All the land. . . .
Smelt of the coming summer, as one large cloud
Drew downward; but all else of heaven was pure
Up to the sun, and May from verge to verge,
And May with me from head to heel.”

A FEW weeks past, and with the exception of a note from old Dr. Farmer, thanking him in Colonel Methvyn’s name for his readiness in obeying the summons, Mr. Guildford heard no more of the family at Greystone. Sometimes he could almost have fancied the whole occurrence a dream.

The weather grew steadily milder: some of the Sothernbay invalids began to talk of going home; others improved enough to be a good deal cheerier than they had been; a few, too far gone to be recalled by even the balmiest air and brightest sun shine, died. Mr. Guildford was used to sad sights, yet not so used to them as to be insensible to the ever-varying individual sadness of each; but among the many phases of sorrow and suffering he had witnessed during this last winter, no scene had left a stronger impression upon him than that of the death of the little boy at Greystone Abbey. He had come upon it so suddenly and unexpectedly; it seemed peculiarly sad that the little fellow was so far away from his parents, that weeks must pass before they could even know of their loss. He could not forget the anguish in the young aunt’s voice when she had exclaimed, “to-morrow, oh! to-morrow, I must write to tell Amy.” He often thought about her, and always with pity and interest. But few things seemed more unlikely than his ever learning more of Miss Methvyn or her family.

Two months after the February night of his fruitless journey to Haverstock, Mr. Guildford was surprised at receiving another letter from old Dr. Farmer, expressing a great wish to see him on as early a day as he could conveniently name. Dr. Farmer wrote of himself as in bad health, and on the eve of leaving home for some months. He offered to meet Mr. Guildford at Sothernbay if necessary, but at the same time showed plainly that he would be glad to be spared the journey. Mr. Guildford was not very busy, the “slack season” for Sothernbay was beginning; he wrote therefore to Dr. Farmer expressing his readiness to meet him at the old doctor’s own house at Greybridge, wondering a little as he did so what he could be wanted for this time, and feeling some curiosity as to whether the summons was again connected with the family at Greystone Abbey.

“Bessie,” said Mr. Guildford to his sister the evening after he had been over at Greybridge to see Dr. Farmer, “you are always wanting me to have a change. I am thinking of arranging to have one every week.”

“What do you mean, Edmond?” said Mrs. Crichton. “A change that came every week wouldn’t be a change. You might as well say Sunday was a change.”

“So it is—to me at least. That is to say, when I can go to church. I like going to church very much. One can think so comfortably, with such perfect security from interruption; that’s a very pleasant change to me,” said Mr. Guildford.

“Is that all you go to church for?” said Bessie with mild reproach. “And you used to be such a good little boy! I remember the first time you went to church, how still you sat, and how everybody praised you when we came out.”

“Well, I don’t jump about now, do I?” said Mr. Guildford. “I don’t see why I should never be praised now as well as when I was a little boy. Why don’t you praise me, Bessie? It’s very nice to be praised; and it’s far harder to be good when one’s big than when one’s little. You should remember that, Bessie, and encourage me sometimes. You know I do everything you tell me, don’t I?”

But Mrs. Crichton knitted on perseveringly, counting the stitches in a low voice, and taking no notice of her brother’s remarks. She was not fond of being made fun of, and when Edmond talked in this half-lazy, half-bantering way, she waxed suspicious.

“One, two, three, four, take two together,” she murmured. “These socks are for you, Edmond,” she observed, in a “coals of-fire-on-your-head” tone.

“Are they? It’s very good of you to make them for me, but I hope they are not of that prickly wool, Bessie. Some you knitted for me, made me feel as if little needles were running into my feet. Did you knit my socks for me when I was a little boy? If you did, I expect they were of soft wool then; weren’t they?”

Mrs. Crichton tried to go on knitting gravely, but her brother, standing behind her, managed to give every now and then judicious little jogs to her elbows, which much interfered with the progress of the socks. At first, Mrs. Crichton thought the jogs were accidental, and bore them philosophically enough, with a “Take care, Edmond,” or, “Please don’t shake my chair.” But a more energetic jog than usual exhausted her patience.

“Edmond, you are really too bad,” she exclaimed, “I believe you are shaking me on purpose. Just look now, I have dropped two stitches! What is the matter with you, you great, idle boy? Who would think you were a learned man, a solemn, wise doctor?”

She let her knitting fall on her lap, and turning round her pleasant face, looked up at him with fond pride shining out of her eyes. She was only ten years his senior, but her affection for him was almost motherly—she had been the only mother he had known, and no child of her own had ever interfered with her love for her early orphaned little brother.

“I was wondering if you are handsome. I mean if any one else would think you so,” she said naïvely.

Mr. Guildford laughed. “I don’t suppose anybody but you ever thought about it,” he said carelessly.

“Your wife will,” said Bessie. And as she said so, she thought to herself that this shadowy personage would be hard to please were she other than proud of her husband. The bare possibility of her not being so, gave Bessie a momentary grudge at her imaginary sister-in-law. Yet Mr. Guildford was not handsome, not even interestingly ugly, which often serves the purpose just as well. He was well made and well proportioned; he was neither very tall nor very short, he had no striking peculiarity of appearance of any kind. But the grave face could look sunny enough sometimes, the keen grey eyes could soften into sympathy and tenderness, the dark brown hair seemed still to have some of the brightness of boyhood about it—he looked like a man for whom the best things of life were yet to come; whose full powers were fresh and unexhausted. There was plenty of strength in the face; strength which the future might possibly harden into inflexibility; strength which already faintly threatened to destroy some of the finer touches of the young man’s character, by concentrating itself into too narrow a channel, too great independence of external sympathy.

“Leave off knitting for a minute or two, Bessie,” said Mr. Guildford. “I want to tell you of rather an unusual proposal I have had made to me to-day. Do you know where I have been, by the bye?”

“Of course not. You never tell me where you are going, and you don’t suppose I ask Sims, do you?” said Mrs. Crichton virtuously. “Where have you been?”

“Do you remember my being sent for a few weeks ago by a family I had never heard of—a family living near Haverstock?” inquired her brother.

“Where the little boy died?” said Bessie, with more interest. “Oh! yes, I remember. Have they sent for you again?”

“Not exactly. But I have been asked if I would undertake to visit there regularly for the next few months. The father—Colonel Methvyn—is an invalid, and this old Dr. Farmer, who has looked after him for years, is going away for some months; he is ill himself, and is anxious to make some comfortable arrangement for Colonel Methvyn. So he thought of me, knowing the summer was not my busy time. I shall have to go to Greystone, once a week, for some months to come. Don’t you think it will be a nice change for me, Bessie? perhaps they will ask me to stay to dinner sometimes.”

“Are you in fun, Edmond?” she asked. “I should not have thought it the sort of thing you would like to undertake. You like to be so independent, and I dare say this Colonel Methvyn is a disagreeable, stuck-up old man, who would quite look down upon a Sothernbay doctor.”

“I don’t care. If he does what I tell him, I’m quite willing to do my best for him. If he doesn’t, I should give it up,” said Mr. Guildford carelessly. “Still you are right, Bessie, in a sense. It isn’t the sort of thing I generally care about at all. I don’t quite know what made me agree to it.”

His face grew graver; he seemed to be revolving some question in his own mind. “It will be nice to be forced into the country every week during the summer,” he said lightly. “I fancy that was partly the reason I undertook it. I don’t fancy Colonel Methvyn is what you call a ‘stuck-up’ old man. He really suffers a great deal, Farmer tells me, and bears it very well. He was a strong, active man not many years ago, but he had a very bad fall in the hunting-field, and has never recovered it, and never will. He doesn’t require much doctoring, but Mrs. Methvyn gets nervous about him, and so on the whole it is better that some one should see him regularly. Farmer says it seems to cheer him too. He takes great interest in all that is going on. Till this year he has been well enough to go to town for two or three months with his wife and daughter; but he seems to have failed lately—the little boy’s death affected him a good deal.”

“Oh! no; his grandson. So you won’t mind my leaving you once a week, Bessie, for an evening? Sometimes I may have to stay all night if I go by the late train.”

“It won’t matter much to me, Edmond,” said Mrs. Crichton regretfully. “I must really go home in a fortnight. I dare say it will be a good thing for you to leave Sothernbay for a little, if it is only for a few hours. You know I am always telling you, Edmond, that you will grow into an old bachelor before you know what you are about. You never see any one but your patients. I believe it is years since you have gone out to dinner even. I shall be very glad for you to make acquaintance with some people out of Sothernbay if they treat you properly.”

“I shall not require and I don’t intend to ‘make acquaintance’ with any of the family except my patient, Colonel Methvyn,” said Mr. Guildford with slight haughtiness, half repenting his unusual communicativeness to his sister. “I am the last man on earth to make a social stepping-stone of my profession, or to wish to have any relations except professional ones with people out of my own sphere. You might know that, Bessie, I should think.”

Mrs. Crichton looked hurt. “You need not take me up so, Edmond,” she said rather pettishly. “I don’t understand what you mean about sociable stepping-stones; you use such odd expressions. As for people being out of your own sphere, I know what that means, but I think you are very foolish. You don’t mean to say that you haven’t every right to call yourself a gentleman? You will be saying next I am not a lady.”

“‘Gentleman and lady’ are wide words nowadays,” began Mr. Guildford teasingly, but seeing that his sister looked really annoyed, he changed his tone. “Don’t be vexed, Bessie,” he said coaxingly; “I think I am pretty reasonable on these points really. I am afraid it is true that I am growing rather bearish. I wish you would come and live with me altogether and civilize me.”

“I can’t dear, you know I can’t,” replied Bessie, mollified instantly. “You know I promised Mr. Crichton that I would live at Hazel Bank most of the year and keep everything as he liked it, and it’s only right, (when you remember how very handsomely he provided for me), that his sisters should have the pleasure of coming there often.”

“Yes, I know. You’re quite right,” said Edmond. Then he fell into a brown study for some minutes. He was lying on the sofa with his hands clasped above his head. “How like he is just now to what he was when he was a boy!” thought Bessie as she glanced at him. Suddenly he spoke.

“I shall be driven to marry, I believe,” he said. “It’s so uncomfortable when you go away, Bessie. I like the feeling of a woman about the house, I think. I believe you come and go on purpose to make me miss you. I can’t think why you want me to marry. Most sisters would set themselves against it.”

“It’s very silly of them then,” said Bessie sagely. “If you marry somebody nice, and I don’t think you would marry anybody not nice, I should be far more comfortable about you.”

“Well, we’ll see,” said Mr. Guildford. And then he took up a book, and Mrs. Crichton’s attention was again absorbed in her knitting.

A few days later Mr. Guildford paid his second visit to Greystone Abbey. He had intended going there early in the day, but found it impossible to do so. It was not till between five and six in the afternoon that he found himself getting out of the train at Greybridge station.

Colonel Methvyn’s carriage was to meet him by this train—had he come by an earlier one, he intended to have walked to the Abbey—but it had not yet made its appearance. Mr. Guildford set off along the road to meet it.

It was spring now, late spring, all but May. After the severe winter, spring had come with even more than its usual sweetness and radiance. April seemed eager to welcome May; there was a glow and promise everywhere; a sound of cheery bustle and preparation among the leaves, a whisper of rejoicing in the “sweet breathing of the fields,” in the “kisses of the daisies.” For once in a way Mr. Guildford yielded to the soft sensuous enjoyment of the moment; he strolled along the pretty country road where the dear primroses were nestling in the hedges, and the coyer violets too, all but hidden in their leaves; he listened, dreamily to the pretty country sounds, the ever-distant plaintive “cuck-coo,” the near at-hand homely clucking of a matronly hen and her brood, the barking of dogs, the creaking of a mill-wheel, the voices of little children at play, all mingled into a pleasant whole of living, peaceful happiness. For once in a way, the young man yielded to the impression that sometimes in the pauses of a busy life, we are tempted to accept as the interpretation of the dream, that after all the world is a happy place, that life is a good and pleasant thing, that to enjoy and not to suffer is the rule! And a new sort of hopefulness and expectation seemed to thrill through his whole being. Ever afterwards that evening stroll—that bit of commonplace country road—seemed to him to have been an actual realisation of the spirit of the spring; to have contained a breath of the very essence of youth and hope and promise. He did not ask himself why these feelings seemed so suddenly strong within him; he fancied it only the influence of the fresh, pure air, and pleasant sights and sounds. He would not have owned to himself, he did not even suspect the curious eagerness, the more than interest with which he had for some days looked forward to his visit to Greystone Abbey. He did not know till the light of the future shone back upon the past how already a sweet, grave woman’s face had begun to change the world to him, to infuse fresh meaning into the flowers and the sunshine, to set to new music the songs of the birds.

Before he had reached the bend where the road, hitherto little more than lane, grew into wider, unshaded highway, Colonel Methvyn’s carriage met him. It was a phaeton this time, and the driver was not Mr. Guildford’s old acquaintance.

The drive in the pleasant evening air along the smooth, well-kept high-road, was very different from his last approach to Greystone, and when they reached the Abbey, by a different entrance from the gate on the Haverstock Road, Mr. Guildford hardly recognised the place as the same. It was picturesque certainly, as he had expected, but more homely, less imposing, and venerable than his imagination, from the little he had seen of it, had unconsciously pictured it. The hall, which was as lofty as the two stories of the rest of the house, and the wide porch with its quaint stone seats, were the only remains of the original building; the rest had been added at various later dates, some half-ruined walls and outbuildings having been restored and taken into the plan of the house. The walls, both new and old however, were well grown over with ivy, so that no incongruity was visible at first sight, and the effect of the whole was harmonious and pleasing.

Inside, the hall looked scarcely less attractive in the softly fading light of the April evening, than when Mr. Guildford had last seen it in the ruddy blaze of the great log fire. But the servant who had opened the door led him quickly across the long passage he remembered, into a smaller hall with a wide low window at one end, and doors at two sides, one of which he opened and ushered the new-comer into a sort of half-library, half-morning room. It was a pretty room, long and low, with windows down to the ground, opening into a little flower-garden, gay already with crocuses and tulips. Mr. Guildford, seeing no one, crossed the room and stood looking out at the flower-beds. But in a moment a faint rustle at the other end of the library told him that he had been mistaken in imagining it unoccupied; in the furthest off corner a lady was sitting at a little table writing. Apparently she had not heard him come in, but now she looked up suddenly and saw him. For a quarter of an instant, before he was conscious of anything but a slight figure in a grey dress, Mr. Guildford imagined the face, when it looked up, would be Miss Methvyn’s. But he was quickly undeceived. Half mechanically he had made a step or two forward, and seeing this the lady rose from her seat and did the same; then stood before him with a pretty sort of bewilderment.

“I beg your pardon,” he began, resorting to the Englishman’s invariable relief in awkward positions. “I quite thought you were Miss Methvyn. I did not see any one in the room when I came in.”

Long before he had finished the sentence, he had acknowledged to himself that the person before him was the loveliest girl he had ever seen. She was not tall; perhaps her extreme gracefulness made her appear smaller than she really was, or rather made one forget to think about her height at all. She was very simply dressed; but it was a simplicity productive of great results. No dress could have shown her figure to more advantage than the soft slate coloured stuff on the plain make of which apparently no thought had been bestowed; no colour could have better contrasted with the clear, marble-like complexion, rich dark hair and softly brilliant eyes, than this unobtrusive neutral tint; and when, looking up in response to Mr. Guildford’s slightly clumsy apology, the bright colour rose in her cheeks, the effect was complete.

“I am so sorry,” she said very timidly. “I did not know that any one would be coming. I fear I am in the way. Miss Methvyn perhaps does not know that Monsieur is—that you are here. Can I tell her?”

She spoke with a sort of appealing childishness, and her foreign accent was quite perceptible. “Who can she be?” was Mr. Guildford’s first thought. And “She evidently does not know who I am,” was his second.

“Oh! no, thank you. I should apologise for disturbing you,” he began. “It is not Miss Methvyn I have come to see,” he went on, feeling himself somehow stiff and awkward. “I am waiting to see Colonel Methvyn. I have come from Sothernbay,—instead of Dr. Farmer,” he added, seeing she still looked perplexed.

“Doctore Farmère,” she repeated. Then a light seemed to break upon her. “Ah! but I am stupid;” she exclaimed, a merry smile dimpling over her face. “You are then Monsieur the doctor! I did not know. All is still strange to me. There are so few days since I left the house—the home! And here in England all is so different. No longer the dear mamma to direct me. I fear monsieur will have thought me strange, unpolite—to have interrupted him.”

Again the vivid red dyed her cheeks, and at the mention of “the dear mamma,” tears, real tears stood in her eyes.

“Poor little thing; what a mere child she is!” thought Mr. Guildford. But aloud he only said kindly, “I think, mademoiselle,” (the word came instinctively) “it was I, not you, that was guilty of interrupting. Pray do not—”

But at that moment the door, near to which they were standing, opened, and Cicely came in. They both turned. When she saw them, a slight, the very slightest expression of surprise crossed Miss Methvyn’s face, but she came forward quickly, and shook hands with Mr. Guildford without a moment’s hesitation.

“I fear I have kept you waiting,” she said simply; “my father wished me to take you to see him, as—as I have seen you before—a new face makes him a little nervous sometimes—and I had one or two letters to finish for the post.”

Mr. Guildford looked at her as she spoke. Yes, there was the same fair, grave face, looking fairer and graver even from the effect of the heavy black mourning dress, the same quiet eyes looking straight up into his as she spoke, the same thick coils of hair with golden lights upon it now, as she stood with the evening sun full upon her. The same, yet different. She seemed older than when he had seen her before; he could almost have fancied his former impression of her girlishness of face and manner to have been mistaken. There was perfect self possession now in every tone and look. Mr. Guildford felt it to be in a sense infectious. He answered in the same matter-of-fact, business-like way.

“Thank you. I am quite ready to see Colonel Methvyn whenever it suits you. At the same time it is not of the least consequence to me if I wait a little. I arranged to return by a late train, as I was not able to come early.”

“I am glad of that. It was very considerate of you to arrange that your first visit should not be a hurried one,” said Miss Methvyn with the slightly formal courtesy of manner that Mr. Guildford began to understand as being habitual with her. Then turning to the young lady in the grey dress, who still stood with an air of half hesitation beside them, “Geneviève, are your letters ready? It is very nearly post time, dear.”

She spoke kindly, but with the tone of an older person to one many years younger. And there was a pretty air of half apology in the French girl’s reply.

“Oh! thank you. I go to finish them at once. It was only that I was not quite sure if monsieur,” with a glance in Mr. Guildford’s direction, “if this gentleman had been announced. I was going to seek you, my cousin.”

Cicely smiled. She fancied Geneviève had started up in affright, at finding herself tête-à-tête with the stranger. She knew that her cousin had been brought up very secludedly; perhaps, too, she unconsciously associated the idea of almost conventual restraint with every French girl’s education, and she was prepared to make full allowance for Geneviève’s inexperience, and timidity.

“You must let me introduce you to each other, I think,” said Miss Methvyn. “Geneviève, this is Mr. Guildford, who has kindly agreed to come all the way from Sothernbay to see my father in Dr. Farmer’s absence. My cousin, Miss Casalis,” she continued, turning to Mr. Guildford, “has come a very long way to see all of us. We intend to make her very fond of England to turn her into an Englishwoman, don’t we, Geneviève?”

“You are very good for me, my cousin,” she said, “but one must love one’s country, one’s home—le foyer paternel,—above all when one has quitted them for the first time,” and she sighed gently.

Cicely looked at her kindly. “Of course,” she said cheerfully, “of course, you must feel a little home-sick at first.”

Mr. Guildford said nothing, but he fancied Miss Methvyn treated the matter rather cavalierly. An English girl’s sentimentality would have annoyed him, but this poor little thing!—He really pitied her.

“I think my father is expecting us,” said Miss Methvyn, turning to Mr. Guildford. Then she led the way out of the room, across the hall, down the long passage, and up one flight of stairs, the young man following her.

“Is Colonel Methvyn pretty well today?” he inquired, as they went along. “I mean, is this what you consider one of his good days?”

“Yes, I think so,” said Cicely consideringly, stopping for a moment as she spoke. “He has been better this last week or two on the whole. Last month,” her voice faltered a very little, and for an instant she hesitated; “last month he was very far from well. My little nephew’s death was a great shock to him. He will probably speak about it to you. I wanted to tell you so. It was a comfort to him—to us all—that you saw Charlie. I gathered from what Dr. Farmer told me that you thought him constitutionally a very delicate child.”

She looked up with a wistful inquiry in her eyes, somewhat at variance with her perfectly calm tone of voice. Mr. Guildford understood her.

“I did think so,” he said without hesitation. “I believe him to have been an exceedingly fragile child. I have no hesitation in saying that his living to grow up would have been little short of a miracle. And I am equally sure that the greatest care must have been taken of him to rear him even so far.”

“Thank you for telling me this,” she said at last quietly. “I am sure it is true. You will say so to my father, if he comes upon the subject? Invalids, you know,” she went on hurriedly, “are apt to become morbid about anything they think too much about. My father could not for long feel satisfied that everything had been done. It was natural; but,” she paused for a little, “but one must try not to judge by results,” she said at last, as she opened the door of her father’s sitting-room.

Colonel Methvyn half lay, half sat on a sort of couch so constructed as to afford him the greatest possible ease and variety of posture. On a low chair beside him sat his wife, a fair, somewhat careworn, but still handsome woman, who must, once upon a time, have been beautiful. More beautiful, strictly speaking than her daughter, thought Mr. Guildford, as he glanced at them for a moment as they stood together, Mrs. Methvyn having risen as Cicely and the stranger entered. For the resemblance was strong enough to admit of, if not to provoke, comparison. There was more colour and contrast about the mother; her hair and eyes were some shades darker, her complexion had evidently been more brilliant, her expression was more changeful. She looked many years younger than her husband, though in reality he was only ten years her senior; her manner to him was full of anxious devotion, he was evidently her first thought.

Colonel Methvyn greeted Mr. Guildford cordially but nervously; Mrs. Methvyn made some commonplace remark about the weather with the evident object of setting the stranger at his ease, her kindly intention being, however, to some extent defeated by the scarcely veiled anxiety with which she watched to see if the impression made by the stranger upon her husband was to be a favourable one. It was altogether a little stiff and uncomfortable. Miss Methvyn came to the rescue.

“Mother,” she said gently, “Geneviève is just finishing her letter, and you said you had a little bit to put in. There is not much time.”

Mrs. Methvyn looked at her husband irresolutely; a quick glance passed between her daughter and Mr. Guildford. “You don’t mind mother leaving you, do you, papa?” said Cicely.

“Not for a few minutes. You will come back in a few minutes, Helen?” said the invalid.

Cicely was on the alert to take advantage of the permission, and passing her arm through her mother’s, they left the room together.

“He seems a sensible sort of young man,” said Mrs. Methvyn to her daughter, when they were out of hearing. “I do hope your father will take to him.”

“The only way is to leave them alone,” said Cicely. “I do hope papa will like him for more reasons than one. It will be a relief to you, poor mother, if he takes a fancy to Mr. Guildford—even two or three hours change will do you good.”

“Don’t say that, dear,” said Mrs. Methvyn hastily. “I am not happy away from him. I always fancy he must be wanting me. And the most I can do seems nothing, as I have often told you, when I look back upon the past and think of all his goodness. And he is so patient! But do you know, Cicely, I don’t think your father’s spirits are as good as they were, though I can’t see that his health is worse.”

“No, not only that. It almost seems to me as if some new anxiety were on his mind,” answered Mrs. Methvyn. “He talks so much about you and your future.”

“But there is nothing to be anxious about in that?” exclaimed Cicely in surprise. “It is all settled as he wished.”

“Yes, but he has begun lately to say he wishes he could see you settled—he seems to dread anything coming in the way. When Trevor comes home again, I half expect something more definite may be proposed.”

“Do you mean that papa would prefer our engagement being more generally known?” inquired Cicely. “I don’t mind. It was papa’s own wish, you know, that it should not be formally announced, because it was likely to be a long one. But I am sure neither Trevor nor I would object to its being known if it would please papa. Of course that would make no difference about its length. It must be a long one.”

“I don’t know, dear. Sometimes I think it would be better not to delay it so long,” said Mrs. Methvyn with some hesitation.

They were in the large hall by now. Mrs. Methvyn had sat down on one of the sofas, Cicely standing near. As her mother spoke, she knelt down on the floor beside her, and looked up earnestly in her face.

“Mamma, that could not be. Oh! don’t let it be proposed,” she said. “I could not marry Trevor if it were to take me away from you and papa while I know you want me? What would you do without me? Oh! no, no; you must not talk of sending me away from you for a long time. Not at least till Amiel comes home again.”

“But, dear, we must consider the Fawcetts’ wishes—Trevor’s own wishes—as well as ours,” said Mrs. Methvyn.

“Trevor doesn’t mind waiting,” said Cicely naïvely. “I don’t think he is in any hurry to be married. We understand each other perfectly. But I don’t quite understand you, mamma. I don’t believe you have told me all that is in your mind. You first said it was my father who wanted to see me married, and then you jumped off to the other side and said it was Trevor. I believe the truth is, you want to get rid of me.”

“My darling, what nonsense!” exclaimed her mother. “What we should do without you I cannot even think. But I am not inconsistent. What I mean is that I can see your father sometimes of late has begun to fear the Fawcetts may not like the long delay. Frederica said something of the kind before him one day.”

“She didn’t mean it. She often speaks at random. In reality, she is very well pleased to defer the day when her son shall be hers no longer,” said Cicely lightly.

“Geneviève’s letter, mamma,” exclaimed Miss Methvyn. “She is in the library.”

“I will go at once,” said her mother, rising as she spoke. “Poor Geneviève how she must feel leaving her home. I hope she will be happy with us, Cicely. She seems so sweet and gentle, and is so very pretty.”

“Yes, she is lovely, very lovely,” said Cicely thoughtfully, “and I hope she will be happy here. Mamma,” with a change of tone, “you will have to ask Mr. Guildford to stay to dinner.”

Mrs. Methvyn hurried away to write the letter she wished Geneviève to enclose. But it was too late. She was obliged to defer it till the next day, and there was only time for Geneviève to add a word to this effect before the post-bag had to be closed.

CHAPTER V.

“COME INTO THE GARDEN, MAUD.”

“Where lies the land to which the ship would go?
Far, far ahead, is all her seamen know;
And where the land she travels from?
Away, Far, far behind, is all that they can say,”

ALONE with Mr. Guildford, Colonel Methvyn soon lost the nervousness and hesitation of manner, which were evidently the result of his invalidism and secluded life, but the gentleness of tone and bearing, natural to him, remained. He was a very attractive man, intelligent, accomplished and thoughtful, but hardly of the stuff to do battle with the world or to breast unmoved the storms of life.

“You must be patient with me,” he said to Mr. Guildford. “Since my health has broken down, troubles of all kinds have accumulated, and I fear I have grown fanciful and selfish. Constant suffering tries one’s philosophy sadly.”

“It needs not even to be constant to do that,” said Mr. Guildford. “A very little physical pain goes a long way in its mental effect.”

“I feel the want of a son sorely,” continued Colonel Methvyn. “Till my accident I looked after everything myself. This place is not very large, you know; not large enough to require a regular agent, and I can’t make up my mind to give it all up to hirelings. As far as is possible for a woman, my daughter does her best; she writes my letters, looks over the bailiff’s accounts, and so on, in a very creditable fashion, but I have no great faith in taking women out of their own sphere. For her, of course, it was to some extent necessary, as she stands in the place of a son, and must come after me here.”

He talked with some amount of egotism, and an almost amusing taking for granted that the family arrangements of the Methvyns must be subjects of public interest. But Mr. Guildford did not feel repelled, as he usually did, by the inference of superior importance in his patient’s tone. It was too unconscious to offend, even had it not been softened to the stranger by the natural gratification a young man cannot but experience at quickly winning the confidence of one many years his elder. After a while the conversation fell upon Mr. Guildford’s first visit to Greystone; he repeated in other words the opinion he had expressed to Miss Methvyn.

“I am glad to hear what you tell me,” said Colonel Methvyn. “I felt the little boy’s death very much—very much indeed.”

“Naturally,” said Mr. Guildford sympathisingly, “and you would feel it doubly on your daughter’s account.”

“Yes; she felt it a good deal, poor girl!” said Colonel Methvyn; “but young people, my dear sir, can throw off trouble—ah! yes, they can throw it off. It sinks deeper when one is no longer young.”

“But a mother,” said Mr. Guildford, a little surprised, “young or old, a mother’s feelings must be the same.”

“A mother?” repeated Colonel Methvyn. “Ah! I see. I forgot you did not understand the relationship. No, the little fellow’s mother is not my daughter. Lady Forrester is Mrs. Methvyn’s daughter by a former marriage. By the by,” he went on rather hastily, “what arrangements have you made for this evening? You will give us the pleasure of your company at dinner, of course, but will it suit you best to return to Sothernbay to-night, or to-morrow morning.”

“To-night, thank you,” said Mr. Guildford. “I made no definite arrangements. It is such a lovely evening I should enjoy the walk to the station.”

But he did not decline the invitation to dinner, recalling one of Dr. Farmer’s injunctions. “Don’t be in a hurry when you come over to Greystone,” the old family doctor had said; “half the good you can do the colonel will be lost if you fidget him by running away when he wants you to stay. Come over when you feel you have an evening to spare.”

And though this was the sort of thing that Mr. Guildford had often protested he would have nothing to do with—an objectionable mixing up of the professional and social relations, “dancing attendance on people who looked upon you as belonging to another world,” etc. etc.,—somehow when it came in his way he found it nowise disagreeable. He excused his inconsistency by saying to himself that the circumstances were exceptional, the Methvyn family really to be felt for, and so on, and ended before long in forgetting that he was inconsistent, or that any excuses were necessary.

So he stayed to dinner. Colonel Methvyn felt well enough to be wheeled into the dining-room, and to eat his dinner on a little table drawn to the side of his couch, and to take his share in the conversation that went on, which Cicely did her utmost to make cheerful and interesting. Geneviève did not talk much, but what she did say always sounded soft and pretty from the charm of her grace and beauty and winning, appealing manner. And altogether it was very pleasant. Colonel Methvyn had plenty to say, and could talk well too when he was in sufficiently good spirits to make the effort, and his wife looked happy because he seemed to be so.

After dinner they all went into the library, and Cicely played to her father till it was quite dark.

It was evidently her custom to do so, and it was easy to see that the invalid enjoyed it. Mr. Guildford knew too little of music to judge of or criticise her performance, nor was it of a nature to invite criticism. She played quietly and simply, with no thought, it was plain to see, besides that of her father’s gratification, but the music and all seemed in harmony with the peacefulness and refinement, the gentleness and homelike feeling of the evening. Then Colonel Methvyn rang for his servant to wheel him back to his own quarters and Mr. Guildford began to speak of setting off on his walk to the station,

“The carriage is ordered,” said Miss Methvyn, looking up quickly, “you need not leave this till half-past nine, and it is only eight now. You forget how early we dine here.”

“I could not consent to your walking, my dear sir,” said Colonel Methvyn. “I could not, really. I feel already sorry that you should have to come so far out of your way for me, and I assure you I appreciate your kindness. But your walking to the station is not to be thought of for an instant.”

Mr. Guildford judged it wiser, for this time at least, to give in. So Colonel Methvyn, to make the matter all the surer, repeated the order for the carriage, and, having thus satisfied his notions of hospitality, was wheeled away.

Mrs. Methvyn asked Geneviève to play. The girl did so without hesitation, and it seemed to Mr. Guildford that she played well, better than her cousin.

“Do you not sing too?” he inquired, when she stopped. He was standing by the piano, attracted by the music and amused by the pretty way in which her slender fingers ran lightly up and down the keys.

“A little, not much—not well,” she answered. “But to-night, please not. At home we sing all together; maman, the brothers, all.” And again she sighed gently and the lustrous eyes grew dewy.

“You must forgive me. I should not have asked you,” he said kindly, and then he turned away, and Geneviève went on playing.

The blinds were not yet drawn down; glancing round, Mr. Guildford saw Miss Methvyn standing by the window nearest to the piano, looking out into the garden. It was bright moonlight.

“What a lovely evening it is!” said Cicely. “Mr. Guildford, I don’t wonder at your wanting to walk to Greybridge.”

“I fancied my persistence might have annoyed Colonel Methvyn, that was all,” he said lightly.

“That was very good of you,” she said cordially, but some indefinite feeling prompted him to resent her appreciation of his thoughtfulness.

“You forget,” he said coldly, “that thinking of such things is a part of my business.”

Cicely’s face grew graver. When she spoke again, however, there was no change in her tone.

“It looks so tempting out there,” she said, “I cannot stay in doors any longer. Mr. Guildford, will you help me to open this?”

The knob of the glass door was stiff, but it soon yielded. Mrs. Methvyn heard the sound, and looked up.

“Only for a few minutes, mother,” pleaded the girl. “It is so mild, and Geneviève’s music will sound so pretty outside. I have got a shawl. Don’t leave off playing, Geneviève, please.”

Mrs. Methvyn made no further objection, and Cicely stepped out. There was some little difficulty in closing the door again from the outside, Mr. Guildford followed to help her—they stood together on the smooth gravel walk. Before them lay the flower beds, a few hours ago gay with the brightest colours; now, sleeping crocuses and

were hardly to be distinguished from each other, or from the silvery grass of the borders.

“What a strange thing light is,” said Miss Methvyn, as she looked at the flowers. “Light and colour. Not that one should call them things at all, I suppose. I wish I understood about it better. Why should the moonlight actually change, change colour, for instance? It is only faint sunlight really. I could understand its dimming colour, but not altering it.”

“I wish I could,” she replied, quite simply, “but there are difficulties in the way of studying many things I should like to know about. I get all the books I can, but most scientific books take for granted a certain amount of preliminary, technical knowledge that I am deficient in. I had rather an irregular education too, even for a girl.”

“You are just about the age when your education should be beginning, according to some of the new lights on the subject,” observed Mr. Guildford. “Would you not like to go to college, Miss Methvyn?”

“I don’t know. Yes, perhaps I should if I were not needed at home,” she replied, in the last few words a sadness becoming perceptible in her tone. But looking up, she caught the expression on her companion’s face. “Are you laughing at me?” she said. “I dare say you are. I don’t mind. I am quite accustomed to it. My father laughs at me sometimes, and so does—” she stopped suddenly.

“Indeed, I wasn’t laughing, Miss Methvyn,” said Mr. Guildford. “I should be very sorry to be so impertinent.”

“It would not be impertinent,” said Cicely, seemingly rather incredulous, and she said no more about wishing to understand things.

“Are you not afraid of catching cold?” said Mr. Guildford presently. They were still standing in the same place, the sound of Geneviève’s music coming softly through the moonlight.

“I never catch cold, thank you,” said. Miss Methvyn. Mr. Guildford fancied she spoke stiffly, and was annoyed with himself for the suggestion. “That is not a bit of your business,” he imagined her manner to imply. But her next words reassured him. “Perhaps it is not wise to stand still so long,” she said, and she set off walking round the little garden.

There was an opening at the other side in the shrubs and trees that surrounded the enclosure of flower-beds. Here Miss Methvyn paused. “By daylight there is such a pretty view from here,” she said. “You can see Haverstock village, and the church, and the little river. Even now you can see it gleaming—over there to the right, over there where the railway bridge crosses it.”

“Ah! yes, I see. Do you think that the railway spoils the landscape, Miss Methvyn?”

“I don’t know. I never thought about it,” she said. “It has always been there. Charlie used to be so fond of watching for the white feathers of steam coming into sight and disappearing again. He liked the railway, because he had a notion that any day, if he ran to Haverstock, he could get to his mother at once. The fancy cheered him when he first came to live here, and she went away. I have never cared to see the trains go by lately.”

As she spoke a shrill whistle sounded in the distance. Cicely turned and began to retrace her steps.

“Associations must sometimes be terrible things,” said Mr. Guildford gently.

Something in his voice encouraged Cicely to say more. “There is a still more painful feeling that I have never heard described,” she said. “I have often wondered if other people have felt it. The sound of that railway whistle put it into my mind, and the speaking of Charlie’s fancy about it. What I mean is a sort of hatred of everything tangible—material rather. It came over me dreadfully after he died. It seemed to me that even the material things he had loved now separated me from him. Just as he, in his innocence, loved the railway, because he thought it would take him to his mother, so I could not endure to see it, because I felt that it—that nothing material could take me to him or bring him back to me. Everything, except memory, seemed to separate me further from him. I have had this feeling twice; yes, I think, twice in my life,” she repeated. “Did you ever feel it, or is it only a womanish feeling?”

Mr. Guildford had listened to her with some surprise, but still with attention and a wish to follow her meaning.

“I think I understand you,” he said thoughtfully. “It seems to me your feeling must somewhere have affinity with what I—like every student of practical science—realise incessantly; the utter insurmountability of the barrier between matter and spirit. It sounds very commonplace, but it is the puzzle. We are so hedged in, in every direction the old hitting one’s head against the wall. And the only thing to be done is to turn round and work one’s hardest inside the limits.”

“Yes,” said Cicely. “Yes. I understand.” Then she was silent for a minute or two. “I suppose,” she said at last, “I suppose if we could put our feelings into words, we should always find some one who shared them.”

“I suppose so,” he said. “Not that I have ever felt your special kind of revolt against our prison bars, Miss Methvyn. I have never been separated by death from any one that I cared very much about.”

“I don’t know. There are two ways of putting it. Perhaps the truth is that I have never had any one to care enough for, for separation to be or seem terrible,” he answered, in a tone not very easy to interpret.

They were close to the window again. Geneviève’s music had ceased, and glancing up, Cicely saw her cousin standing inside the glass door looking out.

“Mr. Guildford,” she said hastily, “will you just come to the end of the walk again for a moment. I have wanted to ask you something all this evening, and I thought you might be annoyed at it. I want to know what you think about my father. I cannot tell you why I ask you—there—there is something that depends upon it. And I know you are very clever. You must not think me very strange. I am so at a loss,” she hurried on with what she had to say, in evident fear of Mr. Guildford interrupting her with some cold expression of disapproval or annoyance; for she could see that he looked grave and perplexed.

“What do you mean exactly, Miss Methvyn?” he said formally. “Do you want to know if I think Colonel Methvyn in a critical state, or what?”

He thought her inquiry uncalled for and hardly delicate. He felt surprised, and a little disappointed. She was her father’s heiress; Colonel Methvyn had told him so. Could it be—surely not—that she was eager to claim her inheritance, making plans contingent on her speedy succession?

“Yes,” she replied, “that is partly what I want to know. I also want to know if any vexation—being thwarted about anything on which he had set his heart, for instance, could do him harm.”

“Most assuredly it would,” he said somewhat sternly, “the very gravest harm. It is very early for me to give an opinion,” he went on, feeling anxious to avoid saying much. “I never saw Colonel Methvyn till to-day, but I have seen similar cases. I should say he may live as he is for many years, provided his mind is kept at ease, and that he is not thwarted or exposed to vexation. The effect of any great shock, of course, I could not predict.”

“Thank you,” she said very gently, almost humbly, “you have told me what I wanted to know.”

Why did she want to know? he asked himself. She stood still for a minute or two, as if thinking of what he had said. The moonlight fell full on her fair face, and as she looked up with her clear honest eyes, his heart smote him for even his passing misgiving that her motives, her reasons, could be but of the purest and best.

“She is not a commonplace girl,” he thought, “and she won’t be a commonplace woman; but she is too self-reliant for one so young.”

It was almost with a feeling of relief, or what he imagined to be such, that he turned to Geneviève, who had opened the glass door and stood waiting for them.

“How charming it is!” she said; “but, my cousin, my aunt fears lest you should take cold.”

“I am coming in now, mother,” Cicely said as they came within hearing, “do come here for a moment and look at the beautiful moonlight.”

Mrs. Methvyn rose from her seat by the table, and joined the little group at the window.

“Yes,” she said, “it is lovely, but it is rather cold.” She shivered as she spoke, and retired to the fire. The others were following her, when suddenly a whistle was heard, not a railway whistle this time. It sounded at some little distance away, down among the shrubberies. Cicely stopped, and seemed to listen.

“What was that? It surely can’t be” The whistle was repeated. “Go in, Geneviève,” she said, “I shall be back directly.”

And almost before her cousin and Mr. Guildford saw what she was doing, she had started off and was lost to sight among the bushes.

Geneviève and Mr. Guildford looked at each other in surprise. Then Geneviève came into the library again and spoke to her aunt.

“My cousin has gone out again, aunt,” she said; “shall we leave the door open till she returns?”

“Cicely gone out again!” exclaimed Mrs. Methvyn. “How very foolish! Do you see her Mr. Guildford?” she asked, for the young man was still standing by the window.

“No, I don’t,” he replied; “Miss Methvyn ran off so quickly. We had better shut the door in the meantime, however.”

“There was a—what do you call—siffle, siffle—a fistle—wistle?” said Geneviève, “down in the garden, and then Cicely ran.”

“What do you mean, my dear?” said Mrs. Methvyn with slight impatience. “Do you know, Mr. Guildford?”

“It is just as Miss Casalis says,” he replied. “We heard a whistle at some little distance, and Miss Methvyn ran off at once.”

“Was it a peculiar whistle, like two short notes and then a long one?” inquired Mrs. Methvyn more composedly.

“Then the Fawcetts must have returned,” exclaimed Cicely’s mother. “How surprised every one will be! They intended to stay abroad till July.”

“Yes, of course,” said Mrs. Methvyn, “the Fawcetts—our nearest neighbours Colonel Methvyn’s cousins. Mr. Fawcett has been in the habit of coming here at all hours since he was a boy, and there is a short cut through the fields that saves a couple of miles,” she went on, in a sort of generally explanatory way; “it comes out at the little gate in the laurel-walk. By the bye, I wonder if Cicely has the key. We generally keep it locked, for a good many tramps come round by the Ash Lane, and Trev—Mr. Fawcett, always whistles, on the chance of our hearing him, before coming round the other way by the lodge.”

“Cicely had a key to-day,” said Geneviève. “We went through the little gate when we were out, and my cousin unlocked it.”

“Ah! that is all right, then; she often carries it in her pocket,” replied Mrs. Methvyn.

She went to the glass door, and opening it, stood listening as if for approaching voices. Geneviève sat down by the table and began idly turning over some photographs. Mr. Guildford stood at a little distance, wishing the carriage would come round that he might go. From time to time, however, he could not help glancing at the face bent over the photograph book. In profile it was hardly so perfect as when in full view; still it was very lovely—every feature so clear, and yet rounded, the long black eyelashes sweeping the delicately tinted cheek, the expression so innocently wistful.

“I doubt if that little southern flower will take kindly to this soil,” thought Mr. Guildford.

Just then Geneviève happened to look up, and catching sight of the young man’s eyes fixed upon her, blushed vividly. Pitying her discomfort, and annoyed with himself for being the cause of it, he hastily made some remark about the pictures she was looking at, thinking to himself as he did so of the shallowness of the popular notion that French girls were more artificial, less unsophisticated and retiring, than English maidens. Geneviève was on the point of replying to his observation, when the door opened.

Mr. Guildford turned to Mrs. Methvyn, and was beginning to say good-bye, when voices were heard outside—cheerful voices they sounded as they came nearer—Miss Methvyn’s and another, a deeper, fuller toned voice, and in a moment their owners appeared at the glass door.

“Mother,” said Cicely, and to Mr. Guildford her tone sounded bright and eager, “mother, here is Trevor, are you not astonished? Did you think me insane when I ran off in such a hurry?” she went on laughingly.

“We only arrived this afternoon,” said the gentleman, “two months before we were expected. You can fancy what a comfortable reception we had at Lingthurst. My mother and Miss Winter ended by discovering they had lost all their luggage, that is to say, only twenty-nine boxes turned up, and there was such a to-do that I came off.”

“It was very good of you, dear Trevor,” said Mrs. Methvyn. “It is so nice to see you again. But why have you come home so soon? Nothing wrong, I hope?

“Everything wrong,” said the young man laughing. But as he came into the room he caught sight of Mr. Guildford, and, further off, Geneviève seated by the table, but with her face turned away from the others. “You are not alone,” he said hastily, his tone changing a little. The change of tone, slight as it was, was enough to make Mr. Guildford wish that his goodbyes had been completed before the appearance of the new-comers, but almost ere he could realise the wish Miss Methvyn had come forward.

“It was very rude of me to run away in such a hurry, Mr. Guildford,” she said gently, “but I did not like to keep my cousin Mr. Fawcett waiting. I was afraid he would think we had not heard him.”

“I was just about going round by the lodge when I heard your tardy footsteps, Miss Cicely,” said Mr. Fawcett. “I had whistled till I was tired and was thinking of trying a verse or two of Come into the garden, Maud, for I am very tired indeed of being here at the gate alone.”

“It would not have been at all appropriate,” said Cicely, a very slight shadow of annoyance creeping over her face. Then there came a little pause, which Mr. Guildford took advantage of to finish his good-nights this time without interruption. He carried away with him no very distinct impression of the new-comer, only that he was tall and fair and good-looking, and that his voice was soft and pleasant.

“She said he was her cousin,” Mr. Guildford repeated to himself. “Ah! well, I am not likely ever to know more of her, but I almost think she is the sort of woman one might come to make a friend of.”

CHAPTER VI.

“LE JEUNE MILORD.”

“He is as sober a man as most of the young nobility. His fortune is great. In sense he neither abounds nor is wanting; and that class of men, take my word for it, are the best qualified of all others to make good husbands to women of superior talents. They know just enough to admire in her what they have not in themselves.”

HE was tall and fair and very good-looking. He had pleasant somewhat sleepy blue eyes, and a pleasant somewhat sleepy manner. Take him as a whole he was a favourable specimen of the upper class young Englishman of a certain type, prosperous, amiable, well-principled according to his lights, very fairly satisfied with things as he found them, little disposed by nature or education to dive below the surface.

In the little bustle of Mr. Guildford’s leave-taking, the figure of the girl sitting quietly by the table had almost escaped Mr. Fawcett’s notice. But Geneviève had risen to say good-bye to the doctor, and before she sat down again Mrs. Methvyn addressed her.

“Geneviève, my dear, don’t stay over there all alone. By the bye I must introduce a new cousin to you. Not exactly a cousin certainly, but as you both call me aunt, it seems something like it. This is Mr. Fawcett, Geneviève, and this, Trevor, is my little niece—niece ‘à la mode de Bretagne,’ as your mother says, Geneviève—Geneviève Casalis who has come to us all the way from Hivèritz. You must have been near there not long ago, Trevor. I think your mother,” but she stopped short in her sentence, startled by a sudden expression of surprise from the young man.

“By Jove,” he exclaimed, but recovering himself almost immediately, “I beg your pardon, aunt,” he went on, “I was so astonished at seeing Miss Casalis again. I had no idea—”

Geneviève had come forward when her aunt first spoke to her, and when Mrs. Methvyn had gone on to introduce the so-called cousins, Mr. Fawcett had naturally turned towards the young lady, obtaining thus for the first time a full view of her face, her lovely blushing face, with timid up-looking eyes; the face that not many weeks ago had rested white and unconscious on his shoulder, which he had often vaguely wondered if he should ever see again. This very evening, as he had stood waiting by the gate, something had recalled to his mind the accident at Hivèritz, and he had thought to himself that he would tell Cicely about it and try to describe to her the girl’s beautiful face.

“If she could see her, she would want to paint her I am sure,” he thought. “She would make such a stunning gipsy, or Italian peasant girl, or something like that. I wish Cicely could see her. She is so ready to admire pretty girls. I never knew any woman like her for that. Even my mother and Miss Winter began criticising that lovely girl. My mother said she had no manners—poor little soul! she was frightened out of her wits—and Miss Winter found fault with her dress.”

And within ten minutes of his standing at the gate, and thinking over the adventure of Hivèritz, behold the heroine of it standing before him in the flesh! It was enough to excuse a pretty forcible expression of astonishment.

“Do you mean that you and Geneviève have met before?” she inquired. “You never told us so, Geneviève?”

“Perhaps she did not know Trevor’s name,” suggested Cicely, fancying that Geneviève looked shy and embarrassed.

“I knew it was Fawcett,” said Geneviève, “but I knew not but that here in England there are many Fawcetts.”

“Of course,” said Mr. Fawcett eagerly. “Of course. I only wonder you remember the name at all.” He could not have explained why, but he certainly was rather pleased than the reverse to find that Mademoiselle Casalis had not talked about their former meeting.

“When was it you met Mr. Fawcett before? On your way through France?” inquired Mrs. Methvyn of Geneviève.

“Oh! no, dear aunt. It was while I was still at the home. Before I knew that I should come to England at all,” the girl replied simply enough. And then she told about the accident, how kind “Miladi Fawcett” had been, how thankful “maman” had felt that it had done her no harm—all in her pretty, broken English, stopping here and there for a word, or glancing up appealingly with a “how do you say so and so?”—all just as it had happened; Mr. Fawcett now and then joining in with some observation; reserving only to herself her mother’s recollection of the English family’s name and speculation as to whether the Fawcetts of her youth and those of Geneviève’s adventure could be the same. For the mention of this would assuredly have led to a repetition of the question, “Why did you not tell us about it before?” a question that Geneviève was not prepared to answer, for the simple reason that she could not really exactly say why she had not done so. It would have been only natural, girlishly natural, to have inquired of her aunt or cousin if among their neighbours were any family corresponding to her description, but though natural to most girls, to Geneviève anything so frank and straightforward was the reverse. To her the question, “Why should I not tell?” less frequently presented itself than the reverse, “Why should I?”

Perhaps the only definite reason she could have given for her reserve, was one she might certainly be excused for keeping to herself—a foolish, vague, half-romantic, half calculating anticipation of the effect and possible result of her sudden appearance before old Mathurine’s ‘jeune milord,’ the hero of the girl’s latest day-dream.

So she told her little adventure simply and prettily, with here and there a timid blush, and a suspicion of tears in her eyes as she recalled her mother’s thankfulness, the anxiety and terror of ‘cette bonne Mathurine.’

“It is quite a curious coincidence,” said Mrs. Methvyn with interest. “I must take you to see Lady Frederica some day soon Geneviève. She will be pleased to meet you again. In any case she would be glad to see you, for she remembers your mother. In one of her letters to me she said so, and was sorry I had not given her Madame Casalis’s address in case of your passing through Hivèritz, Trevor. It was too late then, for you had already been there.”

“Yes, what a pity,” exclaimed Mr. Fawcett. “I remember my mother saying something about it when we were in Switzerland. She could not remember where Madame Casalis lived. We little thought we had already made her daughter’s acquaintance.”

Trevor looked a little bit annoyed—he hardly liked to own that while the young lady had remembered his, hers had completely escaped his memory.

“We did hear it, we must have heard it,” he said. “I think Miss Casalis mentioned it when I was telling our courier where the coachman was to drive to. But, I suppose it was the stupidity of my English ears—I did not catch it clearly.”

Geneviève smiled sweetly, as if in condonation of the offence, but in her heart she was wishing, oh! so earnestly, that she had not prevented “Miladi Fawcett” from accompanying her home to the Rue de la Croix blanche, that Sunday evening, to see her safely in her mother’s care. What would it have mattered that the house was small and shabby, and that Madame Casalis herself had to open the door, if, as would almost surely have been the case, the familiar name of Fawcett had caught her mother’s ears, and led to a mutual recognition! What pleasant results might not have followed! Geneviève felt exceedingly provoked with herself, and Mrs. Methvyn, unconsciously, added to her vexation.

What a pity,” she too exclaimed. “If Caroline and Lady Frederica had met, it would probably have been arranged for Geneviève to have travelled some part of the way here with your party, Trevor, for I know Madame Casalis was very anxious at that time to hear of a suitable escort. And you would have seen something of Paris, my dear, as you wished so much,” she added, turning to Geneviève, “instead of having to hurry through with Monsieur Rouet.”—“Geneviève came under the care of a pasteur who had to attend some meeting in London,” she went on to explain to Mr. Fawcett.

“And had to travel second-class all the way, and saw nothing of Paris,” added Geneviève in her own mind (though not for worlds would she have said it aloud), feeling too disgusted with herself even to smile. Her one day in Paris had been a Sunday, which the Reverend Joseph Rouet, faithful to his charge, had caused her to spend among the Protestant brethren at Passy, attending two services in a stuffy meeting-house,—Geneviève, whose soul had long ago soared far beyond the homeliness of the Casalis’ narrow little circle at Hivèritz, whose imagination had pictured drives in the Bois de Boulogne, shopping in the Boulevards, nay (‘comble de bonheur,’ hardly to be thought of but with bated breath), even a visit to the theatre itself, as blissful possibilities of a few days in Paris!

“It was really a chapter of cross-purposes,” continued Mrs. Methvyn. “I wonder your mother did not remember the name Fawcett, when you told her of your accident, Geneviève?”

“Perhaps I did not rightly pronounce it,” said the girl. “And mamma was much occupied in her thoughts just then, I remember.”

She happened to catch Cicely’s eye as she spoke, and blushed vividly. A slight look of perplexity crossed Miss Methvyn’s face.

“I hope Geneviève is not afraid of me,” she thought to herself. “What was there to make her look so uncomfortable just now! I am so anxious to be kind to her and win her confidence, but I fear I seem cold and distant to her, poor girl!”

But no more was said on the subject of Geneviève’s former meeting with the Fawcetts.

“Shall I come to see your mother to-morrow, Trevor?” said Mrs. Methvyn as she was bidding Mr. Fawcett good night. “Or will she be busy?”

“She will probably be rather in a state of mind if the missing boxes haven’t turned up,” said the young man. “I’ll look in some time to-morrow and tell you. I have to drive to the village to call on the new clergyman, and I may as well come round this way.”

“Oh! then the new clergyman has come,” said Cicely. “I am very glad. I don’t like driving to Haverstock Church half as well as going to Lingthurst. The walk through the woods is so pretty, Geneviève,” she added; “I almost think it is what I like best about our Sundays here.”

“Cicely, my dear!” said her mother in a somewhat similar tone to that in which Mrs. Crichton had reproved her brother for the avowed reason of his predilection for church.

Cicely smiled. “Well, mother dear,” she said coaxingly, “the walk to church was really more edifying than what we heard when we got there, in the old days. I am so glad Sir Thomas is getting a new organ,” she went on. “We hear Mr.—I don’t think I have heard h is name—is a zealous reformer.”

“Tremendous,” said Mr. Fawcett. “I don’t think my father had any idea what he was bringing upon us when he gave the living to Mr. Hayle.”

“Mr. Hayle, oh! that’s his name, is it? But I thought he was not coming for two months,” said Miss Methvyn.

“So thought everybody except Mr. Hayle,” replied Mr. Fawcett. “There was some mistake about it, and it turned out he had made all his plans for coming at once; that was one of the things that made us come home sooner. But I must be going. Good night, aunt. I shall be sure to look in to-morrow.”

That night when the two girls went upstairs to their rooms, Cicely accompanied Geneviève into hers. She stood for a moment by the dressing-table idly playing with some pretty little toilet ornaments that stood upon it. They were unusually pretty little trifles, and belonged to a set which had been given to her by an old lady who was a connoisseur in such things, and Cicely had placed them in her cousin’s room to please her eye on first arriving. The sight of the little ornament seemed to remind her of what she had to say, or perhaps to encourage her to say it.

“Geneviève,” she began, and her blue eyes looked earnest and thoughtful, “I want to say something to you. I am afraid I seem cold to you, and it would grieve me if you thought I felt so. I am not naturally very demonstrative, and since my father has been so ill, I have had to learn to be even more quiet and calm in manner. And being the only one at home, I have had to do what I could to help my parents, and I fear it has given me a sort of decided, managing manner that may strike you disagreeably. I want to ask you not to be afraid to tell me if I ever seem either cold or hard. You don’t know me yet; you can’t trust me all of a sudden; I should not wish it. But when you know me better, I hope you will believe that I don’t feel cold and indifferent, and that I am very anxious, dear, to make you happy.”

Considering that the burden of the speech was herself and her own feelings, it was an unusually long one for Cicely. But the simple words betrayed no egotism; the kind, true eyes expressed their owner’s real feelings. Impressionable Geneviève threw her arms round her cousin’s neck.

“I do trust you, dear Cécile,” she exclaimed impetuously. “I love you and trust you, and I think you so good and so wise. I wish I were good like you, but I am not. I am foolish and discontent, and at home I did not help the mother and think for her, as you do for my aunt. Teach me to be like you, dear Cécile; let me trust you and give you all my confidence.”

Cicely smiled. It was no sudden friend ship she was asking of her cousin, no romantic compact of girlish devotion which she was proposing—such things were little in her way. But she would not for worlds have chilled Geneviève’s affectionate impulse, so she submitted with apparent satisfaction to a kiss on each cheek, and kissed her again in return, saying as she did so, “Good night, dear Geneviève, and thank you. Now you must ring for Parker and go to bed. It is rather late and you look tired.”

“I was looking for you, dear,” said Mrs. Methvyn. “It is late, but your father is very comfortable to-night. He is still reading the papers.”

They were close to the door of Cicely’s little sitting-room. They went in and stood in silence for a minute by the mantelpiece. All looked the same as on the night little Charlie died; the birds were all asleep, the flowers looked fresh and cared for, the Skye terrier lay on the hearthrug. Cicely sighed as she looked round, for her glance fell on an object she had not yet had the heart to dislodge from its accustomed place—a toy horse, Charlie’s favourite steed, stalled in one corner, which he had called his stable.

But the sigh was quickly stifled. “What did you want me for, mother?” she said.

“I was thinking, Cicely,” began Mrs. Methvyn, “that it would now be well to tell Geneviève of your engagement—don’t you think so? It is different now that Trevor is here again. It may seem strange to her afterwards not to have been told of it.”

Cicely hesitated. “I would much rather she were not told of it just yet,” she said. “She is so young, and I want so much to make her feel quite at ease with me. Besides,” she went on, “you know, mother, what we were saying this afternoon—my engagement is rather an indefinite one; it is not as if I were going to be married soon.”

“But if your father sets his heart upon it—the Fawcetts have always wished to hasten the marriage, you know, Cicely dear—it may not be a very long engagement after all,” said Mrs. Methvyn.

“I hope papa won’t set his heart upon it,” said Cicely with a faint smile. But she did not oppose the suggestion as vehemently as a few hours before.

“Of course not, if you think it best,” said Cicely. “I wish, however, you would not tell her quite yet. Wait a few days. I think she is beginning to feel more at home with me. She will not be surprised at seeing Trevor often here; she knows they are our cousins.”

Geneviève’s last thought that night before she went to sleep was of Mr. Fawcett. To her girlish fancy the coincidence of their meeting again was suggestive of all manner of speculations.

“How I wish Mathurine knew of it,” she said to herself; “how delighted she would be! She thought him so handsome and distinguished. So he certainly is, and his manners are so agreeable, not at all like those of most Englishmen, cold and gloomy” (forgetting her extremely limited experience of Mr. Fawcett’s countrymen). “And then how rich they must be! Ah, how I should have enjoyed travelling with them! No doubt they had a courier, an appartement au premier—everything of the best.”

And another idea entered her silly little head. How delightful would be a wedding journey to Paris with such a hero—rich, amiable, living but to gratify her wishes! Such things had come to pass, thought Geneviève; such good fortune had been the lot of portionless girls far inferior to herself in personal attractions. She did not fear her cousin Cicely as a rival; the idea never even occurred to her. She liked Cicely, and was very well pleased to make a friend of her, but in some respects she could hardly help looking down upon her a little. “She is so good and wise,” thought Geneviève, “but so slow and quiet. English girls never seem half awake. And her dress; bah! if I had all the money she has to spend upon it, would I be content to wear such plain things? She might make herself look twice as well if she liked.”

Such was the maiden meditation, such the “fancy free” of the pasteur’s daughter, who had been brought up in the seclusion and simplicity of a French Protestant household, sheltered, as her parents fondly thought, from every breath of worldliness or ambition.

Mr. Fawcett made his appearance again about luncheon-time the next day. Cicely was alone in the morning room when he came in.

“I’ve been to see the new man,” he said, establishing himself on a comfortable low chair and looking ready for a cousinly chat. “I’m hardly fit to come in here, Cicely; I’m covered with dust.”

He looked dubiously at his boots as he spoke, and began switching them lightly with his riding-whip.”

“Never mind,” said Miss Methvyn; “only please don’t send the dust on to me.” She spoke laughingly; but her tone sobered into gravity as she went on, “Black dresses catch dust so easily.”

“I beg your pardon,” he said. Then he looked up from his boots and fixed his pleasant, good-tempered blue eyes on his cousin. She was sitting at a little table near him,—writing, in point of fact making up accounts. She had stopped when Mr. Fawcett first came in, but had not altogether withdrawn her attention from the papers. before her; and now in the intervals of his remarks, she ran her eye up and down the neat little columns of figures, and jotted down the results of her calculations.

“What are you so busy about, Cicely?” said Mr. Fawcett after a little pause.

Miss Methvyn stopped to put down a figure before she spoke. “It’s Saturday,” she replied laconically, glancing up for a moment, and then putting down another.

His tone was perfectly good-natured. Something in it struck Cicely’s sense of the ludicrous. She threw down her pen and began to laugh.

“You’re very long suffering, Trevor,” she said, “and I’m very rude. On Saturdays I have always to go over all the accounts; the bailiff’s, the gardener’s, and all—and make a sort of summary of them for papa. I generally do them upstairs in my own room, but Geneviève was working at something up there this morning, so I brought them down here.”

“It isn’t proper work for you. Your father should get a regular agent,” said Mr. Fawcett.

“No he shouldn’t,” said Cicely; but the tone and manner disarmed the abruptness of her speech. She glanced at her cousin with an expression of half-playful defiance. He smiled.

There was a likeness of feature and complexion between these two—a material resemblance, which seemed, in a sense, to render more visible the underlying dissimilarity. Both pairs of blue eyes were calm and gentle; but those of the young man told of repose from the absence of conflicting elements; those of the girl, of the quiet of restrained power. There was decision in both faces; in Trevor’s it was that of a straightforward, healthy, uncultivated, not acutely sensitive nature; in Cicely’s it was the firmness of an organisation strong to resist where the necessity of resistance should be the result of conviction, but at the same time exquisitely keen to suffer. A glance at the man told you pretty correctly the extent of his mental capacity. He was no fool, but there was small promise of further intellectual development; such as he was, he was likely to remain; but it took more than many glances to estimate justly the reserve of power and depths of feeling hidden below the stillness of Cicely Methvyn’s young face.

Something in the girl’s manner told Mr. Fawcett that the occasion would not be an auspicious one for entering upon a subject he had come half prepared to discuss. So he said nothing for a minute or two, and Cicely went on with her accounts. As Mr. Fawcett watched her, a slight expression of dissatisfaction crept over his face.

Cicely’s face lost its brightness. There was a slight constraint in her tone as she answered.

“It is not very deep mourning,” she said, glancing at her gown. “There is no crape on my dress. I dislike very deep, elaborate mourning.”

“If it was handsomer of its kind, perhaps it would be more becoming,” said Mr. Fawcett agreeably. “As it is, Cicely, I can’t say I think it so. You are too colourless for that sort of dull-looking dress. It might suit some people—your cousin, for instance; I dare say if we saw her in a plain black dress like yours, we should think she couldn’t wear anything that would suit her as well. She is so brilliant,” he added reflectively.

“Yes,” said Cicely. “I dare say we should. But then, Trevor, I strongly suspect we should think so whatever Geneviève wore. She is so very lovely. But as for me, Trevor, you know I wasn’t thinking of whether it would suit me or not when I got this dress.”

Her coloured deepened a little as she spoke, and the words sounded almost reproachful.

“Of course not. I know that,” said Mr. Fawcett hastily. “Of course, Cicely, you know I didn’t mean to speak unfeelingly. How curious it is about your cousin by the bye,” he went on, as if anxious to change the subject, “about our having knocked her down at Hivèritz, I mean.”

“Yes, it was very curious,” said Cicely. “But you knew a cousin was coming to stay with us, Trevor; I mentioned it in several of my letters.”

“Oh! yes. I knew a Miss Casalis was coming,” said Trevor, “but somehow I didn’t fancy she would be that sort of a cousin.”

“Oh! I fancied she would be an older person, or at least a plain ordinary girl. One doesn’t expect a girl like Geneviève to come out of a French pastor’s household. Do you like her, Cicely?”

“Of course I do,” said Cicely. “It would be very difficult not to like her; don’t you think so? She is so pretty, and so sweet and timid.”

“I wish all the same she had been older, more the sort of person I expected,” observed Mr. Fawcett. “She will be always with you now, Cicely, and it won’t be half so comfortable.”

“I should have got accustomed to her and should have known her always. A stranger coming is quite different. And one must be civil to her, as she is a young lady,” grumbled Mr. Fawcett.

“And so very pretty,” added Cicely mischievously, but she did not succeed in making her cousin smile.

“My dear Trevor, you are very cross. I assure you Geneviève is the last person to interfere with your comfort. She is only too timid and retiring,” remonstrated Cicely.

Mr. Fawcett did not reply. He sat silent for a minute or two, seemingly a very little less good-humoured than his wont. Then suddenly he looked up.

“By the bye, Cicely,” he said, “who was that fellow that was here last night? I have never seen him before, have I?”

Something in his words made Miss. Methvyn’s tone, as she replied, hardly as equable as usual.

“It was Mr. Guildford, the doctor from Sothernbay,” she answered a little coldly. “He is coming over every week now to see my father, as Dr. Farmer has gone.”

“Oh! yes, I remember. A very good thing for him, I dare say. It’s not often a Sothernbay surgeon gets such a chance,” said Mr. Fawcett carelessly.

“I don’t think you—I wish you wouldn’t speak of Mr. Guildford in that way, Trevor,” she said gently. “He isn’t that sort of man. Don’t you remember my telling you how kind he was when Charlie died?—coming at once and staying so long, though he was a perfect stranger. I believe he is a very clever man, and a very kind-hearted one too. Indeed I don’t see how a doctor can be a really good one if he is always thinking about his own advancement more than of anything else.”

“It’s the way of the world unfortunately, for doctors and everybody to do so,” said Mr. Fawcett. “But I didn’t mean to say anything against your doctor, Cicely. I hadn’t the least idea who he was last night. But I’ll tell you what,” he added, after a little pause, as a bright idea suddenly struck him, “if you don’t take care you’ll have this disinterested young man falling in love with your pretty cousin, Cicely, if you let him come about in this tame-cat way.”

“I wish you would not say those things, Trevor. It is disagreeable; Mr. Guildford is quite a different man from what you fancy. I am quite sure his head is full of much more important matters than falling in love. He is an exceedingly clever and learned man.”

“And do ‘exceedingly clever and learned men’ never fall in love?” asked Mr. Fawcett. “It is to be hoped you don’t scorn the idea of exceedingly clever and learned women being guilty of such a weakness.”

His tone was light and bantering, but to Cicely’s quick ears a slight and very unusual bitterness was discernible through the raillery. She looked sorry.

“I don’t believe you care a bit for me, Cicely,” said Trevor, before she had made up her mind what to say.

She looked up in his face with her clear kind eyes. “Don’t say that, Trevor,” she said. “How could I not care for you? Have we not been companions in everything almost longer than I can remember? I cannot recall any part of my life without finding you in it. Dear Trevor, don’t speak so. And please don’t laugh at me and call me clever and learned. I am neither, only things have made me graver and quieter than other girls.”

Mr. Fawcett was standing beside her now. He stooped and kissed her on the forehead.

Cicely smiled and peace was made. But she owned to herself that Trevor had not been quite as kindly and good-natured as usual in his remarks this morning.

Then the luncheon-gong sounded, and Mrs. Methvyn and Geneviève came into the room.

“Geneviève,” said her aunt, as they were all passing through the hall, on their way to the dining-room, “Is your address at Hivèritz, 21, or 31, Rue de la Croix? I always forget. I have just been writing to your mother.”

“31, Rue de la Croix blanche, dear aunt,” said Geneviève, wondering in her own mind if Mr. Fawcett would perhaps go a walk with Cicely and her in the afternoon, and wishing that she had changed her dress before luncheon.

CHAPTER VII.

SOME ARE WISE, SOME OTHERWISE.

“. . . à quoi bon avoir une jolie figure et une délicieuse toilette, si on ne les montre pas?”

THE next day was Sunday. A Sunday beautiful enough to make Cicely’s wish that she could spend it altogether in the woods seem excusable. It was better than “a perfect day;” it was a day brimming over with promise of better things yet to come, a day to infuse one with vague, delicious hopefulness, to set one in tune with oneself, and, as a natural consequence of such a happy state of things, with everybody else as well.

Mrs. Methvyn could not go to church in the morning, for her husband had had a restless night, and as was often the case, objected to her leaving him, so the two girls set off alone. It was Geneviève’s first Sunday in England. She seemed quiet and preoccupied, but Cicely was bright and animated.

“Isn’t it beautiful, Geneviève?” said Cicely, stopping for a moment and gazing up through the thick network of leaves to the brilliant blue beyond. “Don’t you like to see that green light among the trees? It looks so fresh and cool up there, I think I should like to be a squirrel.”

“A squirrel—écureuil, isn’t it, in French? Those dear little creatures with great bushy tails,” said Cicely.

“Oh!” said Geneviève, enlightened, but not interested. But Cicely was in a talkative mood, and was not to be easily discouraged.

“Did you never play at fancying what animal you would like to be when you were a little girl?” she asked. “I thought all children did.”

“I don’t think we ever did,” said Geneviève. “I don’t remember. I was not very happy when I was a little girl. I was not like you, Cicely, the only child; there were so many children, and mamma always busy. Ah! no,” with a slight shrug of her shoulders, “I am glad to be no longer a child.”

“What a pity!” exclaimed Cicely involuntarily. “I mean,” she went on, softening her tone, “I am so sorry for any one that has not a happy remembrance of childhood. I should have fancied you had had such a happy childhood, Geneviève. Of course I was very happy, and, I suspect, a good deal indulged, but I often wished for companions near me in age. My sister Amiel, you know, is seven years older than I, and Trevor Fawcett, my other companion, is five years older than I am. And you had brothers and sisters not much younger than yourself.”

“Brothers,” corrected Geneviève. “Eudoxie is eight years younger. But my brothers amused themselves always without me; they were several. One brother would be different; one brother might have been to me such as Mr. Fawcett was to you.”

Her tone was more animated now. But Cicely did not seem to care to pursue the subject further.

“Yes,” she said, “perhaps your having several brothers made it different,” and then they walked on in silence for a few minutes.

It was very quiet in the woods: such sounds as there were, came clear and crisp; it was too early in the season yet for the rich, all-pervading hum of full summer life; it seemed the morning of the year as well as of the day.

“Could you tell it was Sunday without knowing, Geneviève?” said Cicely suddenly.

Geneviève looked at her with again a puzzled expression on her face; it seemed to her that her sensible cousin said very silly things sometimes. Cicely appeared to read her thoughts. She smiled, as she went on speaking.

“That was another of my fancies when I was little,” she said. “I always thought the birds and the leaves and the insects and everything spoke in hushed tones on Sunday. And a rainy Sunday upset all my theories terribly! Do you hear the brook, Geneviève? When it is in good spirits, that is to say, pretty full, we can hear it a long way off. Ah! yes; there it is.”

She stood still, her head bent slightly forward as she listened, her lips parted, her soft eyes bright with eagerness. And from far away came the tinkling murmur she loved so well to hear.

“It is not very full today,” she said at last. “Sometimes it has quite a rushing sound, as if a crowd of fairies were going by in a great bustle, but to-day it sounds soft and sleepy. But we shall be late. The wind is not the right way for us to hear the bell. Don’t you think it is rather difficult to get to church at all when the road lies through a wood like this, Geneviève?”

“It is very pretty,” said Geneviève; “it would be charming to have a picnic here, Cicely.”

The idea roused her to something like enthusiasm, and made her temporarily forget the fears for the well-being of her pretty lavender muslin, which had considerably interfered with her enjoyment of the walk.

“But yes, certainly I like them,” replied Geneviève; “that is to say, when there are plenty of agreeable people. At Hivèritz the picnics are charming. Once, Madame Rousille, the mother of one of my school companions, invited me to one that she gave when her eldest daughter was married. Ah, it was charming! But I was only fifteen then,” she added with a sigh.

“I was thinking how few pleasures I have had compared with Stéphanie Rousille,” said Geneviève naïvely; “her parents are so rich, they have a so beautiful house. You do not know what it is to be poor, my cousin.”

“No,” said Cicely, “I don’t; but I don’t think I should dread being poor so very much.”

“That is because you do not know,” replied her cousin sagely; and Cicely, owning to herself that the remark might be true, did not contradict her. She felt the less inclined to discuss the point that a certain selfishness in Geneviève’s allusions to her life at home diminished the sympathy she had felt anxious to express.

They were in good time at church, after all; they were almost the first-comers, and, considerably to Geneviève’s disappointment, when she followed her cousin to the Greystone pew, she found that it was in an extreme corner of the church, commanding no view of the rest of the congregation. It was very vexatious; she had set her heart on observing the Fawcett family, on being—not impossibly—observed and recognized by them, and, full of these hopes, she had put on her very best bonnet—for nothing, as it turned out, but a walk with Cicely through the woods, and the feeble admiration of a row of old women in poke bonnets and scarlet cloaks.

It was not an impressive or picturesque little church inside by any means, though outside, its ivy-grown old walls looked respectably venerable, if nothing more. It had never, however, occurred to Cicely Methvyn to remark its ugliness; it had been familiar to her since earliest childhood, the high dark pews, the top-heavy pulpit, and sentry-box reading-desk, even the very stains on the plaster had been a part of Sunday to her ever since she could remember, and had they been suddenly removed, their absence would have pained her, for, like most sensitive children, she shrank curiously from change. But on this particular Sunday, the bareness and general unattractiveness of the little building struck her as they had never done before; it had been shut up for several weeks during the clerical interregnum, and the superiority of Haverstock church had unconsciously impressed her; then, too, the unusual brightness and radiance of the morning outside rendered the contrast with the chill dinginess of the drab-coloured walls the more striking. Cicely could not restrain a passing feeling of pity for the new clergyman.

“How ugly he will think it, especially if he has been accustomed to any of those beautiful new churches,” she thought to herself, recalling what she had heard of Mr. Hayle, and she watched with some interest for his appearance.

He was not the least like what she had expected; he was a small, boyish-looking man—boyish-looking in a way which advancing years would not affect. He read well, and without hesitation, and his voice, though low, was not weak; the only nervousness he betrayed was at the beginning of his sermon, but he quickly recovered his self-possession as he went on. There was nothing remarkable about the sermon; it was not in itself strikingly original, nor expressed in particularly good English, yet Miss Methvyn found herself compelled to listen to it with attention, and though it contained quite the average amount of faulty logic and sweeping denunciation, it failed to irritate or even to annoy her. The gentleness and earnestness of the preacher’s manner disarmed her latent antagonism, the matter-of-fact conviction with which he uttered such of the dogmas of his school as his subject trenched upon, impressed her, in spite of herself, while the evident goodness of the man, the single-minded restrained fervour with which he spoke, aroused her admiration. Once or twice during the service, Cicely glanced at her cousin in some curiosity as to how she was affected by this, her first experience of English church-going. Geneviève’s face looked sad; once, it seemed to Cicely, its expression was troubled and bewildered as well. “Poor girl!” she thought, “I wonder if it all seems very strange to her. I dare say she is thinking about her Sundays at home, when her own father is the preacher.”

Her pity was misplaced; at that moment, home and friends, Monsieur Casalis and his sermons, were far enough from Geneviève’s thoughts. She was looking sad, because there was no Mr. Fawcett to be seen to admire the effect of her pretty bonnet; the distressed expression arose from the furtive efforts she made from time to time to obtain a view of that part of the church behind where she sat, in hopes of catching sight of the tall, fair-haired figure of the young milord.

Coming out of church, Miss Methvyn was waylaid by one of the scarlet cloaks with a string of inquiries and confidences; Geneviève was not partial to poor old women, and was just now too cross and disappointed to simulate an interest she did not feel, so she walked on slowly across the churchyard and a little way down the road by no means in a happy or hopeful frame of mind. This was her first Sunday in England, and already she was half inclined to wish herself back at Hivèritz again; she was beginning to think life at the Abbey triste in the extreme, and to feel provoked with her placid cousin’s content therewith. She certainly liked the sensation of ease and plenty, the comforts and luxuries and absence of the incessant small economies of her home, but this measure of enjoyment was far from being all that she had looked for in her new circumstances; she wanted to be féted and admired and amused; she wanted to see something of English society; she wanted Mr. Fawcett to fall desperately in love with her, and he had not even been at church.

Suddenly there came a quick step behind her,—in her preoccupation of mind she had wandered further than she had imagined; now she turned round with a start at the sound of her own name, and found herself face to face with Mr. Fawcett.

“Miss Casalis,” he exclaimed, “where in the world are you going? Cicely sent me after you, and it is a very hot day for May, let me remind you, and I haven’t a parasol.”

“I am so sorry, so very sorry,” she said with her soft accent and pretty stress upon the r’s, “so sorry to have troubled you; I thought not of it.”

“By George!” thought the young man, as he let his eyes rest for a moment on the lovely blushing face, “she is frightfully pretty.”

Aloud he only made some little joking speech about his perfect readiness to run all the way to Haverstock in her service if she chose. “For this is the Haverstock Road you were posting along at such a rate,” he explained.

A foolish commonplace little speech, but it made Geneviève blush all the more; she had heard so much of the formality and the stiffness of Englishmen, that she was ready to attach absurdly exaggerated importance to the most ordinary little bit of gallantry, and to treasure up in her memory, as fraught with meaning, idle words forgotten by the speaker as soon as uttered.

“Where then is my cousin?” she said, turning as if to retrace her steps, but Mr. Fawcett stopped her.

“Cicely will meet us across the field,” he said; “there is a stile a few steps further on. You are not going home through the woods again, Miss Casalis, you are coming back to Lingthurst with me to luncheon; my mother ordered me to bring you and Cicely back—she has got a cold or a headache or something, and wants cheering—and so I came to church on purpose to fetch you. Wasn’t it good of me?”

He spoke in his usual half-bantering tone, and Geneviève hardly understood how much was fun, and how much earnest. So she said nothing, but looked up again and smiled; then a thought struck her.

“Did Cicely say I too should go to your—to Miladi Fawcett’s house to luncheon?” she inquired; “might it not be better that I should return to Greystone to tell my aunt?”

“Walk all the way there alone?” exclaimed Mr. Fawcett. “Certainly not. Of course you must come to Lingthurst, too. Cicely sent word home by Mrs. Moore. It will be all right. Cicely often comes back with us on Sundays. And didn’t I tell you, Miss Casalis, that I came to church on purpose?”

To his surprise Geneviève grew scarlet, and made no reply. He felt vexed with himself for annoying her.

“French girls are brought up so primly,” he reflected. “I suspect she thinks my manners very free and easy, poor little soul. How sensitive she is!”

“We sit up in the gallery,” he said; “we have a sort of little room up there all to ourselves. So I saw you, Miss Casalis, though you didn’t see me.”

Geneviève felt that the new bonnet and lavender muslin had not been donned in vain.

“There is Cicely,” continued Mr. Fawcett, “as happy as a king, chatting to her old woman. Another stile, Miss Casalis, that’s right; you are as light as a feather.”

Geneviève laughed merrily; the sound of the cheerful voices reached Cicely in front; she stopped, said good-bye to her old friend, and walked back slowly to meet her cousins.

“How much brighter Geneviève looks now,” she thought. “I wonder if it is really true that French people are so changeable. Those commonplace sayings must have had truth in them originally, though one’s inclination is to doubt them. But, certainly, Geneviève is not like an English girl; she is simpler and less sophisticated; and yet—”

Geneviève met her with an apology—an apology disproportionate to the occasion, it seemed to Cicely. She said so.

“Why, Geneviève, you talk as if I were an ogress,” she exclaimed. “Why should I be so vexed with you for walking on a little way? I should rather, if we are to be on such terms, apologize to you for staying behind to talk to old Mrs. Perkins.”.

A little hurt feeling was perceptible in her tone. Geneviève’s face assumed an expression of great distress, and her eyes grew dewy. She fell a few steps behind without speaking. Mr. Fawcett walked on beside Cicely. He looked annoyed.

“Are you put out about anything this morning, Cicely? You don’t seem like yourself,” he remarked.

Miss Methvyn looked up quickly. “You mean that I spoke crossly to Geneviève,” she said. “I didn’t mean it. But it is a little disappointing, Trevor; I can’t get her to understand me. She seems to forget that I am a girl like herself, and she seems in awe of me in a way that hurts me. I wish she were more frank.”

“More frank,” repeated Trevor; “upon my word, Cicely, you are difficult to please. If you had wished the poor little soul were a little more dignified, a degree more self-confident, I could understand you. It is no wonder she is in awe of you, as you say. You must throw off some of your reserve if you want to win her confidence.”

“I did not know you thought me reserved, Trevor,” said Cicely sadly. And then, before he had time to answer, she turned back to Geneviève. “Are you tired, dear?” she said kindly. “I am very thoughtless in forgetting you are not accustomed to such long walks as I.”

“I am not tired, thank you. That is to say, only the least in the world,” said Geneviève, in a sweet but subdued tone. But Cicely was not discouraged; she talked on persistently, drawing her cousin into the conversation, till at last Geneviève unconsciously forgot her role of pretty suffering saint, and Trevor his very rare fit of annoyance, and they were all three the best of friends again.

“And how do you like Mr. Hayle, Cicely?” asked Mr. Fawcett when there fell a little pause in the conversation.

“I don’t know,” she replied doubtfully. “I am sure he is a good man, and there is something in his manner that interests one, though I suspect I should disagree with him on almost every subject.”

“Oh! I can’t tell you,” he replied; “it was just like you, I can’t explain why. I saw that you were interested. I never saw you so attentive before. I shall be getting jeal—”

“Trevor,” exclaimed Cicely remonstratingly. The half word had caught Geneviève’s quick ears. She looked up with a sudden change of expression, and something in her face struck Cicely curiously; but in a moment the look had died out again, for Geneviève imagined that she saw before her the reason of Cicely’s exclamation. A few steps in front of them, in the lane they had just entered, a sudden turn showed the figure of the young clergyman. He was walking very fast, but Mr. Fawcett ran forward and overtook him.

“I looked for you after church,” he was saying to Mr. Hayle when the cousins came up, “but you had disappeared. My mother is expecting you at luncheon, you know.”

“At dinner, thank you,” replied Mr. Hayle, “I shall be very happy to dine with you, but I never take luncheon.”

“Where are you off to, then, in such a hurry?” asked Mr. Fawcett; “but I am forgetting,” he went on, “that you have not met Miss Methvyn before; Cicely, may I introduce Mr. Hayle to you?”

The clergyman bowed, growing rather red as he did so. On nearer view he looked even more boyish than at a little distance, and it was not difficult to see that he was unaccustomed to society.

“I am afraid Lingthurst church must strike you unpleasantly,” said Cicely, anxious to say something to set him at his ease. “I don’t think it ever occurred to me before how very ugly it is. It looked somehow, extra chilly and gloomy this morning. I even felt grateful to the row of old Dame Durdens in their red cloaks.”

“Yes,” said Mr. Hayle calmly, “I think it is the ugliest church, for its size, that I ever saw. I am glad you think it ugly, Miss Methvyn, for I hope you may help me to do what can be done towards improving it.”

“You must ask Lady Frederica in the first place,” she said. “Lingthurst isn’t our church, Mr. Hayle; we only go there because it is so much nearer than Haverstock.”

“And because it is so much nicer to walk through the woods than to drive along the dusty high-road,” observed Mr. Fawcett quietly.

Geneviève began to laugh, but Mr. Hayle looked graver than before. He disliked the faintest suspicion of a joke on certain subjects, and he saw that Miss Methvyn seemed annoyed. He turned to her, completely ignoring Mr. Fawcett’s remark.

“I am afraid there is not very much that can be done,” he said. “At the best I do not hope for much at present.”

Then they talked about other things for a few minutes till their ways separated, Mr. Hayle turning off in the direction of a small hamlet about a mile away.

“This is my best way to Notcotts, is it not?” he inquired as he said good-bye, and Mr. Fawcett went a few steps down the lane with him to make his instructions more clear.

“What in the world is he going to Notcotts for?” Trevor exclaimed as he rejoined the two girls.

Mr. Fawcett gave a species of grunt. “I think he’s a prig,” he announced, at which Cicely smiled, and Geneviève, who had not the slightest idea what he meant, smiled too.

But now they were entering Lingthurst Park, and Miss Casalis’s whole attention was absorbed in looking about her. It was a much larger and grander place than Greystone, but neither as picturesque nor as homelike. It was newer, in every sense of the word, for Sir Thomas, the grandson of the first baronet, was but the second of his family who had owned land in Sothernshire, and his position on first succeeding to Lingthurst was not so assured as not to be strengthened by his marriage with Lady Frederica St. Ives, one of the four remaining unmarried daughters of an Irish earl of long descent and small possessions. Lady Frederica was a cousin on the mother’s side of Colonel Methvyn; she was not very young, and not very wise; she was very poor, and had been very pretty; she was still pleasing-looking, amiable, gentle, and perfectly absorbed in her immediate interests. So, though Sir Thomas, who might have been a usefully clever man, had contented himself with taking prizes for fat oxen and occasional appearances on the board, and though Lady Frederica’s silliness did not diminish with her years, the Fawcett household was looked upon as a happy and prosperous one, and there were not many mothers in Sothernshire who would have been other than delighted to welcome young Trevor as a son-in-law. And of this fact the person chiefly concerned was perfectly well aware. There was, perhaps, but one girl of his acquaintance whose feelings to him he believed to be completely unaffected by his present position or future prospects, and this girl was his cousin Cicely—Cicely, whom he had been trusted to hold in his little arms when he himself was a tiny lad, whose first toddling steps he had proudly guided—sweet Cicely, who was to be his wife “some day.”

But of nearly all that concerned Trevor Fawcett, Geneviève was in ignorance. She only knew that he was rich and handsome and agreeable; very nearly, if not quite, fulfilling the conditions she had prescribed to herself as requisite for the hero of her romance. And the sight of his home went far to confirm her predilections.

Everywhere at Lingthurst signs of wealth were scattered by a profuse but not vulgar hand. Everything was perfect of its kind, and perfectly well kept. There were no weeds in the borders, no grass on the paths, which was more than could be said for all the byways and corners of the queer, rambling, old garden at Greystone; the fruit and vegetables were always the finest and earliest of the season; the Lingthurst “glass” was the boast of the country-side. Indoors it was the same; carpets, curtains, sofas, chairs and tables of the best make and material; huge plate-glass windows, beautiful inlaid fireplaces, ormolu, marqueterie, Sèvres and Dresden everywhere. And all, to do the owners or their advisers justice, in unexceptionably good taste. There was no over-crowding, no heterogeneous mixture of colour, no obtrusive “gold.” But there were no quaint cloister passages like those at the Abbey, no latticed casements or deep window seats; no many-cornered, oak wainscoted room with the ivy leaves, peeping in at the windows, like the old library at Greystone. And when Cicely Methvyn, as she could not but do sometimes, glanced forward at her future life as mistress of this rich domain. When she thought of the days that must come, the days when her free, unfettered, girl life would be a thing of the past; when father and mother, already grey haired and ageing, would be further from their darling than the few miles which separated Greystone from Lingthurst,—when she looked forward to these things, sometimes Cicely’s heart failed her; why, she knew not. But a vague wish would arise that Trevor had been her brother; that he, not she, were her father’s heir. “If I could have looked forward to living on always at Greystone with Trevor, just as we are now!” she would say to herself; “I dread changes. I could have been happy never to have been married. Only, if Trevor had been my brother, he would have married—perhaps he would have married some one like Geneviève.”

This last thought came into her head suddenly, as they were all sitting at luncheon this Sunday in the grand Lingthurst dining-room, and though she smiled at herself for speculating on impossibilities, the picture of Geneviève as Trevor’s wife recurred persistently to her imagination. The pastor’s daughter was looking so bright and so very pretty, she seemed so wonderfully at home among the luxuries and splendours of Lingthurst, that Cicely found it difficult to realise the novelty and strangeness of the girl’s position. They all made so much of her; Sir Thomas was evidently struck by her beauty, and Lady Frederica, who prided herself a good deal on her “foreign travels,” and smattering of French and Italian, kept up a constant, gentle chatter about Hivèritz and Paris, and the charms of continental life, as if Geneviève were a little princess travelling incognita. And Geneviève sat on Sir Thomas’s right hand, with Mr. Fawcett beside her, and smiled and blushed and talked her pretty broken English; all with the most perfect propriety, but with a curious, indefinable taking it all as a matter of course in her manner, which surprised Cicely—surprised and puzzled her, and gave her again the uneasy sensation of not understanding her cousin, of having been mistaken in the estimate she had formed of her character. And gradually the feeling of bewilderment affected Cicely’s manner. She grew graver and more silent than usual, and felt provoked with herself for being so, especially when Sir Thomas’s inquiry if she had a headache, drew everybody’s attention to her.

“Oh! no, thank you, I am perfectly well,” she answered. But somehow the words sounded uneasy and constrained, and she felt glad when Lady Frederica proposed that they should stroll through the gardens before getting ready for afternoon church.

Sir Thomas’s gout was bad in one foot, and his wife was supposed to be suffering from influenza, so there were only Mr. Fawcett and Miss Winter to accompany the two girls in their ramble. And Geneviève being the stranger, it naturally came to pass that Mr. Fawcett appointed himself her guide to the points of interest about the grounds. So Cicely was left behind with Miss Winter, and for some minutes the two walked on in silence.

Miss Winter was fussy, but truly kind. She had known Cicely since she was a little girl, and loved her dearly. And, somehow, the order of things to-day was hardly to her liking. She could not bear to see the girl so silent and abstracted.

“You are not well, my dear Miss Methvyn,” she exclaimed at last. “I am perfectly certain you are over-tired, or anxious, or something.”

Cicely started. “No, indeed, I am not,” she replied hastily, “I am quite well, I assure you, Miss Winter. I am only very rude and selfish—I am a little dull, perhaps,” she added hesitatingly, “but it is very silly of me.”

She stifled a little sigh—she could not tell Miss Winter that for, as far as she could remember, the first time in her life, Trevor had to-day spoken unkindly and hurtingly to her.

“Are you?” said Cicely. Then it struck her the question was a thoughtless one, and she looked up quickly to see if Miss Winter felt it to be such. “I beg your pardon,” she added hurriedly.

But there was no annoyance visible in the old maid’s kindly face. A face that had once been young and round and pretty, perhaps, thought Cicely with a sort of dreamy pity as she looked at it,—a face that still lighted up cheerily at small enough provocation.

“Why should you beg my pardon, my dear?” she exclaimed. “Of course, I am dull sometimes, but I try not to give way to it. You know, my dear, it is part of the business of my life to be cheerful.”

Poor Miss Winter! Cicely pitied her more than ever she had done before. But the little diversion of thought had been salutary.

They drove to afternoon church in the Lingthurst brougham, and when the service was over Miss Methvyn’s pony carriage was waiting for them. So Cicely had no more talk with Trevor alone. But as he was putting the reins in her hand, at the church door, he whispered, “You didn’t think me cross to-day; did you, dear? I am very sorry if I seemed so.”

A grateful glance was all the reply she had time for, but she drove home with a lighter heart.

And, “Ah! my cousin, what a pleasant day we have had!” exclaimed Geneviève. “La famille Fawcett est vraiment charmante; and, ah!” she added ecstatically, “quelle belle maison, que de jolies choses! Ah! que je voudrais étre riche!”

“Geneviève!” exclaimed Cicely, in a tone of some remonstrance. But Geneviève only laughed. Then sobering down again, she repeated her speech of the morning. “Ah! Cécile,” she said, “you don’t know what it is to be poor.”

CHAPTER VIII.

“THE WITCHCRAFT OF A TEAR.”

THE week that followed this bright Sunday was dull and rainy. Geneviève went about the house shivering, and was not consoled by Cicely’s calm assurance that it was only what was to be expected for the time of year.

“You forget what a different part of the world you are in, Geneviève,” she said, “for when you first came, the weather was exceptionally beautiful for May, and there was nothing to remind you of being so much further north. Our Mays are generally cold and dull and very often rainy. The real summer has not begun yet. Last week was only a foretaste of it.”

“And how long will it last when it does come?” questioned Geneviève pathetically. “One, two, three weeks perhaps, and everybody cries ‘how beautiful!’ ‘what weather’ ‘superb!’ as if they had never seen the sun before, and then it is over, and again the mists and the fogs. Ah! yes, it is true. I love not the English climate, my cousin.”

“But, my dear child, how can you judge of it yet?” remonstrated Cicely. “You have only been here ten or twelve days. Everybody prophesies a beautiful summer this year.”

She was standing by the library window, looking out into the little garden, where the spring flowers were beginning to look passées already, and the heavy rain made little brown pools in the gravel paths. It had poured steadily for three days.

“It is very dull,” she allowed, as she turned away from the window; “but it may clear this evening. I shall go out to-morrow whether it does or not. I can’t stay in the house any longer. You had better come too, Geneviève, if you are not afraid of catching cold. I dare say it is from not having been out that you feel dull. At Hivèritz you live so much in the open air, don’t you?”

“It depends,” said Geneviève indifferently. “When the days begin to get hot, we go not much out except in the evening. Now it is already very hot at Hivèritz—every one will be going away. Soon—next week probably, papa, mamma, my brothers, all the family will go to the mountains.”

“You have not had a letter from home for some days, have you Geneviève?” she said.

“Not since two—three days after I came,” the girl replied. “There will be one soon, I suppose. I wrote last week—it was the day Mr. Fawcett came first, and the letter of my aunt was not ready. You remember, Cicely? Yes, I could have a letter to-morrow perhaps.”

She had worked herself into a little animation. Feeling dull about things in general, she now began to think she must be home-sick, and was quite ready to accept Cicely’s sympathy.

“You might have a letter this evening,” said Miss Methvyn. “I wonder if any one has been at Haverstock this afternoon. Oh! by the bye,” she went on, “if there is a letter for you, you will get it soon, for Trevor is coming here this evening, and he will be passing through Haverstock, and he always brings our letters when he comes that way.”

“Haverstock,” repeated Geneviève, looking puzzled but interested, “one passes not by there in coming from Lingthurst?”

“No,” said Cicely, “but Mr. Fawcett isn’t coming from Lingthurst. He has been in town since Monday.”

“Oh!” exclaimed Geneviève; but there was a good deal in that “oh” little suspected by Cicely.

Her spirits rose on the spot. “I hope there will be a letter for her,” thought her cousin, half reproaching herself for a suggestion that might end in disappointment.

“I wonder how Cicely knew of Mr. Fawcett’s being away,” thought Geneviève, “I am sure he did not speak of it on Sunday.”

Mr. Fawcett came and stayed an hour, but he brought no letter for Geneviève. It was just possible, however, he said, that it might have been overlooked; his groom had asked for the Lingthurst and Greystone letters on his way to the station, and had got them rather hurriedly.

“So you may have it in the morning after all,” said Cicely kindly, and she was pleased to see how cheerfully Geneviève bore the disappointment.

Trevor was in great spirits. He had enjoyed his few days in town and was full of the newest small talk. He grumbled at his mother’s decision to remain at Lingthurst through the season, and tried to make Cicely discontented with her hard fate in having to spend it at the Abbey, by his descriptions of the pictures he had seen, the music he had heard, and the people he had met. But Cicely was not to be tempted.

“I am very glad we are not going to town this year,” she said quietly, and Geneviève opened wide her dark eyes in astonishment, and marvelled of what she was made.

“Next year I hope,” began Mr. Fawcett, but Cicely interrupted him with a sudden inquiry as to when he intended going to town again, and the sentence was never completed.

Next morning did bring a letter for Geneviève. The post-bag came just as they were finishing breakfast; there were letters for both Mrs. Methvyn and Cicely, and little mutual discussions of their contents in which their young cousin was not interested, followed, so she carried off hers to her own room to read it in private.

Her home affections were certainly by no means as vivid or vehement as Cicely imagined, yet Geneviève after all was only a girl of eighteen, separated for the first time from her parents and early associations, and there was genuine eagerness in the way she tore open the long, thin envelope and hastened to read the contents. It was a loving and motherly letter. Madame Casalis found it easier to express in written than in spoken words the warm affection of her nature, and Geneviève was touched by what she read. Two or three tears rolled down her cheeks, and blistered the thin foreign paper. “La pauvre chère mère,” she murmured to herself, and her heart smote her for the little consideration she had given to the pain the recent separation must have cost her care-worn, unselfish mother. Then she read on with interest about the family plans and arrangements—how they were leaving for the mountains in a few days; how the boys had done well at the last examination at the college; about Eudoxie’s summer frocks even, and Mathurine’s successful confitures, about Madame Casalis having met Madame Rousille and Stéphanie in the street, and of their affectionate inquiries for Geneviève. “They are going to St. Jean-de-Luz for sea-bathing,” wrote Madame Casalis, “and Madame Rousille has expressed her regret that thou wast no longer here; without that, she had hoped to invite thee to accompany them for one or two weeks.”

“Ah! yes,” thought Geneviève with a little toss of the head, “ah! yes! It is plain to be seen I am no longer only the little Casalis, ma chère Madame Rousille! A day may come when thy awkward Stéphanie will think with yet more respect of her old school companion.”

She smiled at a thought that crossed her mind. “Yes,” she said to herself, “I should like to see what Stéphanie would think of Lingthurst;” and for a minute or two she sat still in a pleasant reverie, the letter lying idly on her lap. Then she took it up again. Had she read it all? No, there were a few lines on the other side of the last page; a postscript bearing the date of a day later than the letter itself.

“I have just received the letter of my cousin Helen,” said the postscript,” thy aunt, as she tells me she makes thee call her. She tells me of thy meeting again with the family Fawcett; that is to say that the relations of Colonel Methvyn are indeed the same as the English family of thy adventure! It is truly very amusing that it should be so. I remember them well. I wish now I had tried to see Lady Frederica at the time when I heard the name from thee; it would have been pleasant to me to see some of my child’s new friends. Give the enclosed to Mrs. Methvyn. I have but a moment in which to write to her, so it is not worth a separate postage; but I shall write soon again to thank her more fully for all her kindness to thee.”

Where was the enclosure? Geneviève looked about her,—yes, there it lay on the carpet at her feet, whither it had fluttered when she first hastily drew out the letter from its envelope. A tiny enclosure it was, evidently but a half sheet of paper, but pretty closely written upon, as Geneviève could see from the blank side. How she wished her mother had forgotten to enclose it, how she wished she could read its contents! The sight of it had destroyed all her pleasure in her own letter, for the postscript suggested an unpleasant probability. In this little note to her aunt, written immediately on the receipt of Mrs. Methvyn’s letter, was it not almost certain that her mother would allude to Geneviève’s recognition by Mr. Fawcett, the result of which would be the betrayal to Cicely and her mother of the indirect falsehood in which Geneviève had taken refuge that evening when asked by her aunt how it was that Madame Casalis had not recognised the familiar name of Fawcett? Geneviève had given Mrs. Methvyn to understand that her mother had not done so, she had even suggested as reasons for this her own pronunciation of the name and Madame Casalis’ preoccupation of mind at the time? And why had she thus misled her aunt? Because she did not wish the Methvyns to know that she was aware of the probable identity of the two families and that her mother had immediately suggested it. She did not want them to know that she had purposely refrained from frankly inquiring about the Fawcetts, because she felt instinctively that they would have thought her reticence strange and ungirl-like. She had no explanation to give that they would have thought adequate, or satisfactory, or even intelligible, and indeed, seen with the eyes of her present discomfort, such reasons as she was conscious of having had for her reserve now appeared to herself foolish in the extreme; and even could she bring herself to confess to the only one she could plainly express in words—the romantic anticipation of bursting upon the hero of her adventure surrounded by the prestige of mystery and unexpectedness she was painfully certain that her cousin Cicely would be the last girl in the world to sympathise with such folly.

“She is so stiff—so English—she takes everything ‘au pied de la lettre,’” reflected. Geneviève with a curious mixture of respect and contempt. “She would think me so silly!”

Her cheeks burned at the thought. Then her glance fell again on the tiresome little letter. What a complication it, or her own folly, had brought her into! What disagreeable sifting of motives, what uncomfortable suspicions, what generally undesirable stirring of the smooth waters of her present surroundings might not the reading of this stupid note be the introduction to! If only her mother had not been in such a hurry to answer her aunt’s letter, there might have been time for Geneviève to write and beg her not to allude to her recognition of the Fawcett family by name; the girl felt sure she could trust to her mother to comply with such a request, and to wait for an explanation till some future day when Geneviève might give it by word of mouth—(by which time she hoped her mother would have forgotten all about it). Then a new idea struck her, why should she not still do so, why not take advantage of the fortunate circumstance of the note’s being confided to her care? She looked at it, she turned it about, and wished that she could read it; but it was sealed, and was most plainly not intended for other eyes than Mrs. Methvyn’s. And somehow, the idea of destroying it startled Geneviève.

“I know what I shall do,” she thought suddenly. “I shall send it back to mamma! I will write to her to-day and enclose it, and I will beg her to answer my aunt’s letter at once, and not to tell my aunt that she had said to me the Fawcetts might be the same she had known. That will make it all right—my aunt will not have expected an answer so soon—the few days’ delay cannot do harm.”

She set to work immediately, she wrote an affectionate letter to Madame Casalis, explaining her reason for retaining the little note and begging her to write without the allusion she dreaded. “Say only, dear mamma,” she wrote, “that it was curious the English family should be the same, that it was a pity Miladi Fawcett came not to our house; but say no more, and trust to thy Geneviève to explain to thee afterwards her reasons.” Then she begged her mother to forgive her for what she was doing, not to think she was in any way forgetting her good counsels now that she was away from her, and wound up with loving assurances of her affection and pretty little expressions of gratitude for the motherly love and care she had never valued so highly as since she had been separated from this mère chérie.

When the letter with its enclosure was all ready to be posted; sealed, addressed, and stamped, Geneviève breathed more freely. She put it into her pocket to be ready for the post-bag, and went downstairs to look for her aunt and cousin, uneasy lest her long absence should have attracted their attention. They were not in the library, but her cousin’s maid, whom she met in the passage, told her that Miss Cicely was busy writing in the colonel’s room, and that her aunt was out in the garden, giving directions about some new beds.

“It is all right then; they have not missed me,” thought Geneviève, and she went down again to the library, and played and sang in perfect comfort till the gong sounded for luncheon.

It was not till they were seated at the table that anything was said about her letter.

“You heard from home to-day, my dear,” said her aunt. “I hope you had good news. By the bye, was there nothing for me in your letter?”

Geneviève looked startled and confused. “Nothing for you, aunt?” she repeated, as if hardly taking in the sense of Mrs. Methvyn’s words.

“Yes, don’t you understand me, my dear?” said her aunt, with a touch of impatience, “was there no message? I half expected a letter myself, though—no, perhaps there was hardly time—your mother did not say she had got my letter, did she?”

Geneviève looked still more bewildered. “Oh! yes,” she said slowly, “there was a message. I did not understand.”

“Well, don’t look so frightened about it, my dear child,” exclaimed her aunt, half inclined to laugh at her, “tell me the message. No one is vexed with you when you don’t understand.”

Geneviève looked relieved—the little discussion had given her time to collect her wits; she must tell that her mother had received Mrs. Methvyn’s letter, otherwise her aunt would be expecting an immediate direct acknowledgment of it which would not come.

“I will read you what mamma says,” she replied, putting her hand into her pocket. “Ah! no,” she exclaimed, “the letter is upstairs! But I remember the message quite exactly, I think mamma told me to thank you much for your letter.”

“Yes,” said Geneviève, “she had just got it, just as she sent off my letter. She was very busy, she said, preparing to go to the mountains, but she sent many loves to you and my cousin, and she said she would write soon. I think,” she added more slowly, as if endeavouring to recall the exact words, in reality calculating how soon her mother’s letter could arrive, “I think she said she would write to you, my aunt, as soon as they get to the mountains. There mamma is not so occupied, so affairée as at Hivèritz.”

“Still I wish she had sent me a word,” said Mrs. Methvyn, looking hardly satisfied. “It is not like Caroline—she is generally so exact. My letter was a very particular one. But if she got it, I dare say it is all right.”

An uneasy look came over Geneviève’s face. Cicely, observing it, fancied she was pained by the slight reflection on Madame Casalis’ carefulness.

“I am sure it is all right, mother,” she said, “you know Geneviève says they are very busy, and the particular message about the letter having arrived shows it must be all right.”

“Oh! yes, I have no doubt it is,” answered Mrs. Methvyn, and then they talked of other things.

But Geneviève did not recover her cheerfulness or composure thoroughly throughout the meal, and when it was over she seemed eager to run off. Just as she was leaving the room, her aunt called after her,

“I am quite satisfied with the message you gave me, Geneviève. Don’t say anything to your mother about what I said, when you write. It might worry her, and I am sure she is busy. You will not be writing just yet, by the bye; it is only two days since you wrote, isn’t it?”

“I thought not. Tell me when you do, I shall have a few words for you to enclose,” and then Geneviève was allowed to go.

“I am afraid she was hurt by what I said. I wish she did not look so frightened,” exclaimed Mrs. Methvyn uneasily. You know the reason I was anxious about that letter Cicely? It contained a rather large money order, for what Caroline had advanced for Geneviève’s journey and her little outfit, poor child. I did not want her to hear anything about the money, and therefore I think her mother should have sent me a word direct. A mere message through Geneviève was not business-like, and under the circumstances hardly delicate. I sent more money than they advanced—I am sure they want it all, poor people—and I thought they would have been so pleased. But I wish I had not said anything about it to Geneviève.”

“It does not matter, dear mother,” said Cicely consolingly, “you said so very little. When Geneviève gets to know us better, she will not be so easily distressed. She is exceedingly sensitive.”

And through her own mind there passed the reflection that this extreme sensitiveness of her cousin’s had nearly made her do her injustice.

“I have once or twice been inclined to doubt her perfect straightforwardness,” Cicely thought to herself. “That frightened, startled look puzzled me. But this shows I have misjudged her. She had just the same look just now, when there was nothing she could possibly have not been straightforward about. I am glad of it.”

Geneviève went slowly upstairs to her own room. Here was a new complication! She must not let her aunt see the letter she had ready to send, yet there must be no delay in despatching it. How angry she felt with her want of presence of mind! It would have been so easy to have told her aunt that she had already written again that something in her mother’s letter required an immediate answer. Then her reply could have been openly sent in the bag. But for this it was now too late. She must get it posted without any one seeing or knowing of it. How could this be managed? It was nearly two miles to Greybridge, the nearest post-town. How could she possibly get there and back without her absence being observed? Oh, how tiresome it was! She felt ready to cry with annoyance and irritation.

Circumstances favoured her unexpectedly. Her cousin came running upstairs in search of her.

“Geneviève,” she exclaimed, “would you like to go out with mother, or would you mind being alone this afternoon? Mother can only take one of us, for she is going in the pony-carriage to Haverstock. If you go, Dawson will drive and you must sit behind, but if I go I can drive and he can go behind. I really don’t care whether I go or not; so choose, dear, which you would like.”

Quick as lightning a calculation of her chances flashed through the girl’s mind. Was it likely she would have an opportunity of posting her letter unobserved at Haverstock? Hardly. Better trust to the certainty of two hours to herself and Greybridge.

“Thank you, dear Cicely,” she replied; “I think perhaps it would be best for you to go to-day. I can amuse myself quite well alone. I may go out a little perhaps. Yes, truly, Cicely, I think I would rather not go,” she repeated, fancying her cousin looked a little incredulous.

“Very well,” said Cicely. But she stood still for a minute or two, as if not perfectly satisfied. “Geneviève,” she added suddenly, “you are not refusing to go because you are afraid of being with mother, are you?”

“Afraid of being with your mother!” exclaimed Geneviève, the blood rushing to her face, “how do you mean, Cicely? Why need I be afraid?”

“I don’t think you need be afraid,” replied her cousin, “I only mean that you may misunderstand mother till you know her better. She says little things sharply sometimes, but she never has any sharp feelings, Geneviève; she has the kindest, gentlest heart in the world. You need never be afraid of her, dear.”

“I know,” said Geneviève gently. “I know she is good, very good, and so are you, Cicely. But I cannot help sometimes being afraid. I am not so good. I am silly and foolish, yet I wish not that you should think me so,” she added naïvely.

She looked up in her cousin’s face as she spoke, and Cicely smiled kindly. Oh, how Geneviève wished she could tell her all about the complication she had got herself into! But, no; it was not to be thought of. After this, however, once clear of the present entanglement, Geneviève resolved she would take care never to involve herself in another; she really felt inclined for the future to make a friend of her cousin, and to appeal to her for advice and counsel.

So Cicely drove off with her mother to Haverstock, and as soon as she was sure that the coast was clear, Geneviève equipped herself for her walk to Greybridge.

She knew the way, as she had been there once with her cousin, and the road was direct. She walked quickly, and reached the little post-office without misadventure of any kind, and having safely posted her letter, she turned with a considerably lightened heart to retrace her steps.

Greybridge was a funny little town. There was a main street, with half-a-dozen tiny short ones leading to nowhere, running out of it on one side. And the great thoroughfare was, of course, called the High Street. There were about a dozen shops in the place, a church in no way remarkable, a melancholy and antiquated inn, which like so many of its kin had been brisk and cheery in the old, old days, when his Majesty’s mail clattered over the stones; and there were two or three genteel little terraces, in which dwelt the doctor, the lawyer, the curate, whoever he might be for the time, and several “genteel ladies, always genteel,” though the patent of their gentility bore date long ago. These ladies, spinsters for the most part, were, as a matter of course, perfectly au fait of the doings and sayings, and thoughts even, of their wealthier neighbours. They knew all about the Methvyn household, the nearest of the adjacent families. They were thoroughly posted up in all the details of little Charlie Forrester’s illness and death, which latter event they had predicted with surprising prevision; they knew far more than either old Dr. Farmer or “the young man from Sothernbay” of the concealed progress made by Colonel Methvyn’s somewhat mysterious disease; they could have related all that took place in the family conclave (which had never assembled) in which it was decided that “Miss Cicely and young Mr. Fawcett were to make a match of it,” and they quite understood Mrs. Methvyn’s reasons for sending for “the little French girl” from unknown parts. So, as all their windows looked out directly upon the High Street, and as the post-office lay at the opposite end of the town from that by which Geneviève entered it from the Abbey Road, it was not to be supposed that Mdlle. Casalis’s progress to and from her destination would be unobserved by the several pairs of eyes ever on the look out for a little harmless excitement.

But Genevieve was as yet happily ignorant of the manners and customs common to little out-of-the-way English country towns, so she made her way to the post office, there deposited her letter, and turned to go home again without misgiving, when suddenly she heard the clattering of a horse’s hoofs upon the cobble-stones with which Greybridge High Street was paved, and looking up, to her surprise, recognised Mr. Fawcett riding slowly down the street in her direction.

Her first sensation was one of pleasure, her second of dismay—he would tell of having seen her—her third, which she arrived at just as the gentleman came within speaking distance, a mixture of the two former; she was pleased, yet frightened to see him; she would take him into her confidence to the extent of begging him not to betray her. So it was an eager yet blushing face which looked up at Mr. Fawcett from under the broad-brimmed straw hat which Geneviève had chosen for her walk in the sun. And as the young man recognised the sweet face, notwithstanding his amazement, its loveliness struck him yet more vividly than heretofore.

“What in the world is she doing here? Is that the way they take care of her? Why, my aunt would as soon think of Cicely’s cooking the dinner as of letting her walk to Greybridge alone!” were his first thoughts. And “I do believe she grows prettier every time I see her,” came next.

But neither surprise nor admiration startled away his presence of mind. He knew by woeful experience the preternatural sharpness of the Greybridge eyes; he knew, too, that pretty Geneviève, the French girl from over the sea, who had suddenly appeared on the scene as the distant cousin of Mrs. Methvyn, was just the sort of person, and just in the position, to attract all the gossip of the neighbourhood. He could not understand what his aunt and cousin were thinking of to let her wander about the country in this fashion by herself; but, he at least, was determined to be on the safe side. As he came up to Geneviève, he caught sight of two heads in suspicious proximity to the window panes of the house he was passing, and one of them he recognized as that of the greatest gossip of the little town. So without drawing rein he lifted his hat to the young lady with respectful deference, and rode on.

Geneviève had almost stopped, the smile of welcome was on her face, the first words of greeting all but uttered. And when Mr. Fawcett, after thus giving unmistakable sign of having observed her, proceeded calmly on his way, her dismay was great—for half a second she stood still in consternation. Then pride came to her aid. As if she thought the young man had eyes in the back of his head, she walked steadily and swiftly up the street, glancing neither to the right nor left, hurried along the high-road till all signs of the town were left far behind, then sat down on a low bank at the side and burst into tears.

And Miss Hinton withdrew her head from the window in disgust. “I really thought young Fawcett and that French girl had met by appointment,” she observed to the friend who was visiting her. “It is just the sort of way French girls go on. You remember my telling you she had come to be companion, or something to Mrs. Methvyn when Miss Methvyn is married—not that that marriage will ever take place—you mark my words, my dear. Young Fawcett is the most bare-faced flirt, and Miss Cicely, for all her quietness, has a temper of her own.”

Geneviève felt that she really had something to cry for. It was not only wounded vanity that prompted her tears, she was seriously afraid of the consequences of Mr. Fawcett’s having seen her in Greybridge. Not that she was conscious of having done anything that could gravely displease Mrs. Methvyn, but she dreaded the inquiries that might result from the mention of her expedition. At home, certainly she would never have thought of walking so far alone, but here in England, in the country, she fancied it was different. Cicely and she had walked to church by themselves on Sunday; it never occurred to her that had she openly spoken of her intention, her aunt would have expressed any objection. So of the real reason of Mr. Fawcett’s strange behaviour, she had not any idea. She only fancied he was tired of her, disliked her, perhaps, or found her uninteresting, and, like the mere girl that she was found relief for her mingled feelings in tears.

Suddenly there fell again on her ears the same sound that had startled her in the High Street—horse’s hoofs coming behind her. She did not hear them till they were nearer, this time, for the road was less communicative than the Greybridge cobble-stones, and her ears were dulled by her preoccupation. She had only just time to start to her feet, to wish that she had a veil, or that her parasol were an umbrella, when the steps slackened abruptly, and a well-known voice addressed her by name.

“Miss Casalis,” exclaimed the new-comer, “I could hardly believe it was you I saw just now. Have you run away from Greystone?”

But the jesting tone failed to restore Geneviève’s composure. She felt as if she would burst into tears if she tried to speak. Despite the parasol and the broad-brimmed hat, something in her manner startled Mr. Fawcett. He jumped off his horse, and passing his arm through the reins walked on slowly beside her.

“Is there anything the matter, Geneviève?” he asked gravely, though at a loss to picture to himself what could be the matter to cause Mrs. Methvyn’s niece to be sitting crying by the wayside.

“No, thank you,” she replied, controlling herself to the best of her ability, “there is nothing the matter. If you thought there was something, what for then did you not ask me when you saw me just now—in the street down there?” and she made a little gesture in the direction of Greybridge.

“You were not crying then?” said Mr. Fawcett, somewhat at a loss what to say, and choosing perhaps the unwisest words he could have uttered.

“And because you think I cry now, you follow me and—and—” Geneviève’s inconsequent accusation was lost in a fresh flood of tears.

Mr. Fawcett was considerably embarrassed. It was very evident to him, even though he was not gifted with peculiarly acute perception, that the girl was offended with him. It was annoying, but somehow he could not feel annoyed. He could only feel sorry and concerned and vexed with himself for his own clumsiness.

“I beg you to forgive me,” he said earnestly. “I did not know—how could I—that you were really in distress. I would not have followed you if I had known it would vex you. At least—”

The gentleness and deference of his tone disarmed Geneviève’s very passing indignation.

“There is nothing wrong,” she said, anxious to take him into her confidence to the extent she felt necessary. “I wanted to tell you when I saw you in the street; it was only that I had a letter to post, and I thought I would walk with it to Greybridge. And now I fear my aunt and my cousin might be angry if they knew. It was foolish of me.”

“Then did they not know of your going so far alone?” inquired Trevor, rather mystified.

“Oh! no, they are gone to the other town—to Haverstock, in the little carriage, the pony-carriage that my cousin conducts herself. There is not place for three,” and half unconsciously Geneviève’s voice took a plaintive inflection.

“I don’t think it is very—” began Mr. Fawcett more vehemently than usual, but he stopped suddenly. “And so you came all the way to Greybridge to pass the time, I suppose? There are far prettier walks than along the high-road.”

“It was not that only,” said Geneviève, her tone growing lower, the scarlet rushing back to her cheeks, “It was that I wished to post my letter myself.”

“Oh, indeed!” said the young man, somewhat unreasonably disgusted at having, as he fancied, lighted upon some silly love affair. “I fancied French girls were so well looked after,” he thought to himself.

“It was a letter to my mother,” pursued Geneviève calmly, and an instant revulsion of feeling for the injustice he had done her took place in Trevor’s mind, “and I wished not that they should see it, because I wrote there are but two days, and I feared—” she stopped and hesitated, “I wish not that Cicely should think me silly,” she added.

“Think you silly for writing home often! Cicely, who is so over head and ears devoted to her own home! How could she?” said Mr. Fawcett. There was a slight undertone of bitterness in his words which Geneviève did not understand. She feared that he was firing up in her cousin’s defence.

“Perhaps she would not think so,” she replied meekly. “But—but—will you not tell that I walked alone to Greybridge? I am so strange here, I fear to do wrong,” she added pleadingly, the tears rushing to her eyes again.

“Of course I will say nothing about it if you ask me not,” said Mr. Fawcett. “But I assure you, my dear child, you mistake Cicely. I know her so well, you see—I understand her—and she is the best and kindest girl in the world.”

But in his heart he felt a certain irritation against “the best and kindest girl in the world.” “She has chilled this poor little soul by that cold manner of hers,” he said to himself.

“But you are not afraid of me?” said Trevor rashly. The dewy, dark eyes which had been raised to his, drooped, and again the soft colour flooded over her face.

“Then the next time you are in any trouble about letters or anything, you will tell me first, won’t you?” he said encouragingly, “and not set off to Greybridge alone. And if you want to know some of the pretty walks nearer home, I shall be delighted to show you them. Any day, for instance, that Cicely is busy with her father or mother—I know she is often so. There are some awfully pretty walks between the Abbey and Lingthurst Woods.”

“Thank you,” said Geneviève, her face lighting up with pleasure, “oh! thank you, and thank you too so much that you will not say how far I went to-day,” she added, more timidly.

They had come to a point where the roads to Lingthurst and Greystone separated. Just then there came the sound of rapidly approaching wheels behind.

“I think I must leave you now,” said Mr. Fawcett. “You can’t miss your way. I must hurry home, I fear.”

He shook hands with even more than his ordinary gentle empressement. “The English way of shaking hands,” as Geneviève called it, and which she so admired. Nevertheless, a slight uneasiness was visible in his manner which puzzled her a little.

He mounted and rode off quickly, managing, however, to obtain a glimpse of the dog cart, now at no great distance. He recognized the driver as one of the Abbey grooms, but could not identify the person beside him.

“Whoever it is, he can hardly have seen me,” he thought, as he galloped off, and the reflection reassured him, for he still dreaded any gossip about Geneviève’s escapade. “I hope she will be more careful in future,” he said to himself. “I wish I could give Cicely a hint to be more tender with her. I am glad she has confided her little troubles to me, for in my position of course I am like a sort of brother to her. There would be no risk of gossip in her walking about as much as she likes if she would keep to the Abbey grounds. I must try to make her understand. I wonder, by the bye, if she quite knows how things are between Cicely and me. Surely she does—”.

CHAPTER IX.

OF THE SAME OPINION STILL.

“Then I said, ‘I covet truth,
Beauty is unripe childhood’s cheat—
I leave it behind with the games of youth.’”

MRS. CRICHTON had left Sothernbay a few days before her brother’s first visit to Colonel Methvyn, so Mr. Guildford was alone again. He missed his sister more than usual; his house looked very dull and uninviting when he returned to it late that Friday evening from Greystone, and, not having many external calls upon his time, for the invalids’ season was now past, he spent the greater part of the next few days in his study.

When the following week was about half over, he began to think of going to Greystone again, and a letter which he received one morning from Dr. Farmer, decided him on choosing that same day for his visit. So—as was arranged between him and Colonel Methvyn—he telegraphed to the Abbey, naming the train by which he would reach Greybridge, and, on arriving there, found the dog-cart in waiting.

The driver this time was not his old friend Dawson, but a much less communicative person, whose observations were confined to “Gently then, old lady,” and “Wo-ho now.” He was evidently not accustomed to driving the “quality,” and his whole attention was given to his steed; so they drove on for a mile or two in silence.

Suddenly a turn in the road made visible a little group of figures in front; they were those of a man and a woman and a horse, walking slowly along side by side. Mr. Guildford observed them with a sort of half idle curiosity, but before the dog-cart was near enough for him to distinguish the features of the man and the girl, they separated, the girl entering a road to the right, the man mounting his horse and riding on quickly; but, before separating, they had stood still for a moment, evidently saying “Good-bye,” thus giving the carriage time to approach them more nearly. Suddenly Mr. Guildford was surprised by a remark from his companion.

“She’s a nice little mare, sir, isn’t she—her as the young squire’s on?”

He pointed with his whip to the gentleman in front, now fast leaving them far behind.

“Oh! I did not recognize him,” said Mr. Guildford; “that was Mr. Fawcett in front of us then leading his horse?”

When they came to where the Abbey road branched off, the figure of Geneviève walking quickly in front was again distinctly visible; but before they overtook her, Mr. Guildford had made a little change in his plans.

“Is there not a short cut to Dr. Farmer’s house somewhere about here?” he inquired of the groom, and finding that it was so, and that ten minutes’ quick walking across the fields would save a long round by road, he left the dog-cart, sending by the servant a message to Colonel Methvyn explaining the delay in his appearance.

Half an hour later Mr. Guildford entered the Abbey grounds, having executed the little commission entrusted to him by Dr. Farmer. He walked slowly up the drive, enjoying the sight of the pleasant, quaint old garden, which as yet he had hardly seen by daylight in its summer dress; it was a garden such as there are few of nowadays,—the paths edged with box, whole beds of lavender and sweet William, sweet peas and clove-pinks, marigold, and snap-dragon; for on this side of the house the good taste of its owners allowed of no “new-fangled” gardening; all—from the moss-grown sun-dial on the lawn, to the curiously cut yew-trees guarding the entrance to the bowling green,—remained as it might have been in many a long, long ago summer, when the ever-young flower faces smiled to old-world Cicelys in hoop and farthingale, just as they did now to the fair-haired girl who came swiftly across the smooth short grass to meet the stranger, the mellow light of the afternoon sun falling full upon her.

The young man started when he first caught sight of her, yet at that very instant she had been in his thoughts.

“I am so very glad you have come today,” she said, as she drew near; “my mother and I have just come back from Haverstock,—and oh! by the bye, I must apologise for that stupid old Hodge having been sent to meet you at Greybridge; he can’t drive a bit, but the coachman was away, and Dawson out with us, when your telegram came,—and we have found my father in a perfect fever of eagerness to go out a little. He has not been out since the day before you were here last, it has been so much colder, you know; do you think he may come out this?”

“I don’t see any reason against it,” said Mr. Guildford; “the air is fresh, but perfectly mild. Shall I go and talk about it to Colonel Methvyn before it gets later?”

She turned and walked back again with him across the lawn in the direction of the house.

“I should have been here earlier,” said Mr. Guildford, “but I came round by Dr. Farmer’s; he wrote to ask me to look out some books and papers that he wants forwarded, and that his servants could not have found.”

“Yes, he says he is better,” replied Mr. Guildford; “but I thought the tone of his letter seemed dull, and he says he finds it rather lonely work travelling about all by himself.”

“Yes, poor old man,” said Miss Methvyn thoughtfully; “I think it is very sad to see any one grow old with no one belonging to them. Dr. Farmer has nobody at all.”

“No,” said Cicely, “but he was going to be married once. There was some story about it, my father knows it I think—Dr. Farmer belongs to this neighbourhood—the girl died I believe. Fancy! it must be nearly fifty years ago, and I speak of her as a girl; but she will always have seemed a girl to him.”

“Yes,” replied the young man, “to him she will always have been sweet-and-twenty. And if she had lived to be Mrs. Farmer, she would probably have grown stout and buxom, and not impossibly the cares of life would have developed a temper.”

Miss Methvyn glanced at her companion with some curiosity. Then she said quietly, “You are not really the least cynical, Mr. Guildford, why do you talk as if you were?”

“I think I do,” she said. “Don’t think me rude for saying that that tone of talk is so commonplace nowadays, that—”

She stopped short. He smiled again, but with a slight change of expression, “You mean that the affectation of it is commonplace, I think,” he said. “It is very easily affected, but I was in earnest. I think it is well to look on both sides of a possible picture, and a disappointed bachelor should surely be allowed the consolation of thinking that, after all, the fairest flowers do fade, or at least lose their beauty.”

“But youth and beauty are not everything,” remonstrated Cicely with a very unusual colour in her cheeks.

A slight look of disappointment over-clouded the girl’s fair face, but she said nothing. A curious feeling came over her that the man beside her was not expressing his true sentiments, and this instinct made her averse to say more. But Mr. Guildford understood her better than she thought.

“You are disgusted with me, Miss Methvyn,” he said. “You think I am worse than commonplace, that I don’t believe in there being women whose grandeur and real beauty have little to say to ‘the beauty that must die.’ But you are mistaken.”

“You can’t reconcile my having a high ideal of woman, with my talking in a commonplace matter-of-fact way of marriage? But do not facts strengthen my position? Don’t think I mean to compare myself with such people; but isn’t it true that the giants among men have not looked for, or wished for anything out of the way in their wives? And when a man is by no means a giant, but still feels he has it in him to do something, surely his best strength lies in keeping his powers concentrated, in deprecating any overwhelming outside influence?”

He spoke almost as if he were trying to argue his theory out to himself, to prove its soundness for his own satisfaction rather than for that of his hearer. And his hearer was not to be so readily convinced.

“But, appealing to facts, as you say,” she objected, “you cannot maintain that women’s influence has not in innumerable instances, been an elevating and ennobling one, as well as a softening and purifying one? Of course whatever softens and purifies ennobles, in a sense, but I mean ennobling in the sense of strengthening and widening.”

“Women’s influence has certainly done all you say,” he replied; “but it has seldom been the influence of wives. The grandest women make splendid friends; but I still appeal to past experience to support the side of my position which I see you dislike.”

“Do I dislike it?” said Cicely. “I don’t know. Is it true, I wonder? I am not clever enough to prove that it is not; but still a strong instinct tells me it should not be true.”

An earnest questioning stole into her blue eyes, and, as she spoke she looked up into her companion’s face without a shadow of embarrassment. They had reached the front of the house by now, and were standing just within the old grey porch. The dark leaves of the thick-growing ivy creeping round its entrance seemed to make a frame for the girl’s fair quiet face, and to throw out in relief the delicate features and pure complexion. For a moment Mr. Guildford forgot, in looking at her, what they had been talking about. But recovering his wits he repeated quietly, “I am afraid it is true. Sometimes I have wished it were not, but then again I see that it is better as it is. But I am sorry to destroy your faith in beautiful impossibilities.”

“Don’t distress yourself about that,” she exclaimed. “I am much more obstinate than you think. I am by no means an optimist in the sense of not thinking that what is might not be made a good deal better. And even your giants may have been short-sighted, and one-sided in some directions, may they not? Are you shocked at my irreverence? As for disliking your theory, I am by no means sure that I do dislike it. If I were an ideal woman—that sounds silly, but you know what I mean—hif I were worthy of such a thing, I mean, I should feel infinitely more honoured by being the chosen friend of a clever man than of being—” she stopped abruptly and blushed a little. Then seemingly ashamed of her confusion, she went on bravely, “than by his just falling in love with me,” she added, with a slight tinge of contempt in her tone.

And judging it wise to retire while master of the field, he went into the house and ran upstairs to Colonel Methvyn’s room.

Cicely stood in the porch, thinking. Then she went away to see if the cushions of her father’s Bath chair were properly aired, and was standing ready beside it at the door when the invalid was brought down for his little airing.

Poor Colonel Methvyn enjoyed the sun shine and the flowers and the soft fresh air very much. His expressions of pleasure and Cicely’s satisfaction in his enjoyment touched Mr. Guildford infinitely more than the weary complaints, but too often well founded, which so many of his Sothernbay patients seemed to think necessary to enlist his sympathy.

“It is a nice old place of its kind; is it not, Guildford?” said Cicely’s father, when the chair was brought to anchor in a sheltered corner, whence the principal beauties of the garden—the rose fence enclosing “the lady’s walk,” the yew “peacocks,” the ancient sun-dial—were all visible. “It is a home a man may be forgiven for feeling reluctant to leave, surely? It has always been my home; it would break my heart to think of its ever going away to strangers.”

“I can understand the feeling,” said the young doctor quietly. Thanks to Colonel Methvyn’s gentleness, his egotism did not go the length of repelling sympathy; but yet the sympathy Mr. Guildford felt for him was tinged with fully as much pity as respect. “It must be very natural where one’s associations have been so concentrated. But,” he hesitated a little, “I see no reason why it should not be your home for many years to come.”

“You give me a chance of seeing my grand-children playing about the old garden, do you, eh, Guildford?” asked the invalid, with an affectation of cheerfulness which did not conceal his real anxiety.

Miss Methvyn was standing at some little distance, too far off to overhear what was said, still Mr. Guildford lowered his voice as he replied,

Colonel Methvyn closed his eyes and leaned back. “I think I could die happily if I could see it so,” he murmured. Then as if afraid of having betrayed too much feeling, he went on speaking. “It is a curious thing how few sons there have been in our branch of the family. I was an only son, and so was my father; this place came to him from his mother, and now there is only my little girl there for it to go to.”

“But, happily, that prevents any fear of its going to strangers,” said Mr. Guildford, more for the sake of showing interest in his companion’s train of thought, than from any special remembrance of his remarks.

“Of course, of course,” replied Colonel Methvyn, “of course that could never be. It was a foolish idea that crossed my imagination. I grow morbid, quite ridiculously morbid sometimes.”

He spoke with a nervous eagerness that made Mr. Guildford regret the observation he had made, and he was glad that just at this moment Cicely rejoined them.

“Here is mother coming,” she exclaimed. “Mr. Guildford, will you help me to move papa a yard or two this way, and then she can see him all the way from the house? You have sent Barry in? Ah, that’s right! it is so much more comfortable without him. Mr. Guildford and I can push you beautifully, can’t we papa?”

“Is there anything you don’t think you can do for me better than any one else, my darling?” he said fondly, stroking the fair head, as Cicely knelt on the grass beside him, looking up in his face with bright tenderness in her blue eyes.

Mrs. Methvyn was not alone when she joined them. Geneviève had seen her leave the house and ran after her, so the two came across the lawn together.

“I have finished my letters at last, I am glad to say,” said Cicely’s mother, after she had shaken hands with Mr. Guildford, “so now I have nothing to do till dinner-time, and we can all stay out till the last moment—till Mr. Guildford orders you in, I mean, Philip. What a delicious afternoon it is!”

“Yes, here it is perfect,” said Cicely; “the sun was just a little too hot driving to Haverstock, though the road is pretty shady. Did you not find it disagreeable coming from Greybridge, Mr. Guildford—that road is so unsheltered?”

“It was rather hot, but it is not a long drive,” he replied. “You must have found it rather a tiring walk, did you not, Miss Casalis?” he added, thoughtlessly, turning to Geneviève.

The girl looked at him with a curious half-terrified, half-appealing expression. Her lips parted as if she were going to speak, but before she had time to say anything, Mrs. Methvyn and Cicely interrupted her.

“Geneviève has not been at Greybridge, Mr. Guildford,” they exclaimed; “you must have been mistaken.”

“I did not mean to say I saw Miss Casalis at Greybridge,” he replied quietly. “It was on my way here I thought I saw you in the distance,” he went on, turning to Geneviève.

“Oh! that may be,” said Mrs. Methvyn. “You did go for a little walk you told me, I think, my dear, but of course you would not dream of going so far as Greybridge alone—that would never do.”

“I did not see Mr. Guildford when I was out,” said Geneviève. “Was it at the distance you thought you saw me?”

The words sounded simple in the extreme, and her tone of voice was quiet and collected, but as the young man turned to reply, he saw in her eyes the same expression of mute appeal. A slight chill seemed to run through him; so young, yet so disingenuous! Yet surely, surely, more to be pitied than blamed; and with this reflection there set in a strong feeling of contemptuous indignation against Mr. Fawcett, the man who could in the least take advantage of a young girl’s ignorance and inexperience. Not that Mr. Guildford was a man of the world in the sense of being ready to give the worst explanation to even the faintest appearances of evil, or of crediting his fellow-beings in advance with wrong-doing; he would not have given a second thought to what he had seen but for Geneviève’s unmistakable terror of its being known to her aunt. That she had really been at Greybridge, unknown to her friends, and that this, and not the meeting with Mr. Fawcett, was the terrible secret, naturally, never occurred to him. Had he known it, he would have been saved some present regret and future embarrassment. He looked at Geneviève gravely, as he answered her question.

Something in his tone inclined Cicely to start up in her cousin’s defence—defence from what, she knew not, but she fancied there was a coldness and constraint in his manner to Geneviève, which annoyed her. “Poor little Geneviève is looking quite frightened again,” she thought to herself. “Mr. Guildford may be very clever and estimable—I have no doubt he is, but he would be much pleasanter if he were less abrupt.”

But aloud she only said, “If it was at a distance you thought you saw her, I dare say it was not Geneviève at all. One requires to know a person very well indeed—their appearance, I mean—to recognise them at a distance.”

Then he turned to Colonel Methvyn, and began talking of some different subject, but somehow the brightness and harmony of the pleasant afternoon seemed to have fled.

But Cicely had no idea of allowing such desirable guests to take their departure without making an effort to detain them.

“This day week, my dear?” repeated her father, “this day week?—no, I don’t remember. Oh! yes, to be sure, it will be—”

“My birthday,” she interrupted. “What shall we do to celebrate it? Geneviève, help us to an idea.”

“Let us have a picnic,” exclaimed Geneviève, clapping her hands, her eyes dancing with excitement and glee in a manner that altogether nonplussed Mr. Guildford’s new opinion of her. He looked at her in amazement.

“How can she be so childishly light hearted, and yet so deceitful?” he thought.

Then he wondered if this could be “acting,” but a glance at her pretty flushed face, at her dark eyes raised to Cicely’s in sweet eagerness as they discussed the possibilities of the scheme, altogether put to flight so terrible a suspicion, and the young man was fain to take refuge in the old commonplace axiom of the incomprehensible nature of even the most apparently transparent of women. But, once or twice in the course of the afternoon, a certain something in Geneviève’s manner to him touched his gentler feelings; she seemed to be tacitly appealing to his forbearance and pity. “Don’t judge me till I can explain it all,” she seemed to say, and though he made no effort to reassure her, he grew unconsciously softened by her trust in him. She certainly succeeded in making him think a good deal more about her than would have been the case but for the confidence thus forced upon him, and which he was the last man in the world to welcome.

They all went on talking over Geneviève’s suggestion, but Mr. Guildford hardly noticed what they were saying till he found himself suddenly appealed to.

“Yes, the Lingthurst Copse would be the nicest after all,” Cicely was saying. “If we could get you to the Witch’s Ladder, papa, wouldn’t it be delightful? Think how many times we have had birthday treats there when Amy and Trevor and I were children! Would you not like to see the copse again dreadfully, papa?”

Colonel Methvyn laughed, half sadly. “You want to coax me into fancying myself well again, Cicely,” he said. “But you forget, dear, it is four years since I have been outside the gates except for those weary journeys to town. No, you must go without me.”

“But we won’t; if you can’t come we shall give it up,” persisted Cicely. Then she turned to Mr. Guildford, and unfolded her scheme in full to him. Her father was to be driven in her low pony-carriage to the Copse Farm, and there to be met by Barry and the Bath chair. “It can be sent in a cart to the farm the day before,” she said, “and Barry can go in it if it’s too far to walk, lazy creature that he is! And the paths through the copse are quite wide enough for the chair. It is so pretty there, Geneviève,” she exclaimed to her cousin, “prettier even than in the woods we go to church by. And don’t you think it would do my father good, Mr. Guildford? It is only a three miles’ drive.”

Mr. Guildford was able honestly to agree with her, for he had seen enough of Colonel Methvyn to judge more favourably of his case than at first sight, and to be of opinion that his general health would be improved by less vigorous adherence to invalid rules. So it was settled that Geneviève’s idea should be actually carried out, and that Mr. Guildford’s next visit should be timed so that he should make one of the party.

“Is it not inconvenient for you to promise to come on any particular day?” said Cicely, as she was bidding him good-bye, after her father had been wheeled back to the house again.

“Not now,” he said, “I have not much to do except what I give myself; and before another busy season comes round, I shall probably have left Sothernbay, so I don’t care much about extending my acquaintance—my “business”—there,” he said lightly.

“Are you going to leave Sothernbay? Oh! I am so sorry,” exclaimed Cicely in sudden alarm, “my father will miss you so!”

“I am not thinking of leaving at present,” he replied quickly. “I should certainly not leave till I have done what I undertook to do; that is to say, till I can resign my charge of Colonel Methvyn to Dr. Farmer again.”

“Oh! thank you. I am so glad to be assured of it,” said Cicely gently, but in a tone of great relief.

“Eventually,” continued Mr. Guildford, “I have quite made up my mind that it will be best to leave. I think I see my way to doing more good elsewhere and in a different way.”

But though Miss Methvyn listened courteously she made no reply which could have led him to say more.

“She thinks of me only as her father’s doctor,” reflected Mr. Guildford with a little bitterness when he had said good-bye and was on his way home. It was disappointing. He had rather looked forward to telling her of his change of plan, of his rapidly maturing belief that by increased study and research, he might fit himself for a position which he had long aspired to, and had considerable chance of attaining—a position which would put him in the way of fulfilling his darling ambition, that of doing something worth the doing for the science of medicine. He had fancied she was the sort of woman to have entered into his hopes and sympathised with his aspirations—he had, in his own mind, begun to think of her, young as she was, as belonging to the rare class of women of whom a man might make friends. He had all but said so to her this very afternoon, and she had then seemed thoroughly to enter into his feelings and opinions. But this evening he felt unreasonably chilled and disappointed.

“After all,” he reflected, “I suspect it is safest to restrict one’s relations with women in every direction. There are plenty of good staunch men in the world to make friends of, fortunately—and a gentle, clinging creature like poor little Geneviève even, would be more satisfactory in the end. What can that fellow Fawcett be thinking of to involve her in any underhand flirtation—I can’t make it out.”

His brow darkened as he meditated upon what he had seen. He determined to watch for an opportunity of giving Geneviève a word of advice.

CHAPTER I.

WORK AND PLAY.

“If all the world and love were young
And truth in every shepherd’s tongue”

EARLY summer was the time of all others for seeing Lingthurst Copse to advantage, for the soil thereabouts was dry and gravelly, and a few weeks of hot weather destroyed the freshness of the tints and made all the vegetation look thirsty. It was only a copse, and the trees which composed it were somewhat stunted and meagre, but still it was a very pretty spot in itself, and worth driving more than three miles to, for the sake of the loveliness of the view from the top of the rugged old rock, one side of which was skirted by the miniature forest. The latter part of the ascent of this rock was very steep—in places almost perpendicular, but a series of rough steps greatly facilitated matters in the hardest parts of the climb—these were the steps known as the Witch’s Ladder. Who the witch was and from what uncanny motive she had devoted herself to thus amiably preparing the way for those who were to come after her, had been matter for much grave speculation, but had never been satisfactorily explained, and remained a pleasantly tantalising mystery to the visitors of her ancient haunts. That there had never been a witch at all, and that the steps were but natural irregularities on the rock’s surface, worn, in the lapse of time, to more definite shape by the feet of many climbers, was a theory which had suggested itself to some few irreverent minds. But, as a rule, these scoffers had the grace to keep their scepticism to themselves, and the witch, young or old, fair or hideous, was allowed to retain undisputed possession of Lingthurst Copse and Rock.

Cicely’s—or rather Geneviève’s picnic—had assumed unexpected dimensions. Sir Thomas and Lady Frederica had been invited to join the expedition and had asked leave to bring with them two young ladies, no longer in the very first blush of youth, the daughters of the Haverstock rector, whom Lady Frederica had invited to spend a week with her, from a vague notion that “it would be nice for them to meet Mr. Hayle, poor girls!”—a young and unmarried clergyman being an unprecedented novelty in the neighbourhood. But though the “poor girls” were very ready to come, Lady Frederica found the entertaining of them by no means so easy a matter as she had anticipated. She asked Mr. Hayle to dinner every other day at least, and in her innocent way prepared him to be captivated by one, if not by both, of the Misses Kettering by telling him beforehand what dear good girls they were, how indefatigable in the manufacture of ecclesiastical cushions and altar cloths, how unfailing in their attendance at the daily service instituted since the opening of the new Haverstock church. And Mr. Hayle listened gravely, expressed his satisfaction at finding that the neighbourhood contained such right thinking young women, came to dinner when he was asked, disgusted the elder Miss Kettering the very first evening by remarking that he wondered she had never thought of joining a sisterhood if the secular tone of her home life was not to her mind, and still more desperately offended the younger and better-looking sister by not admiring her rendering of Liszt’s ‘Ave Maria,’ got up by her with considerable labour for the occasion. So Lady Frederica’s benevolent intentions were defeated, and her guests lay heavy on her mind, and the news of the Methvyns’ picnic was welcome indeed, not only to the young ladies themselves but to all their entertainers, including Miss Winter and Mr. Fawcett who were growing very tired indeed of the labours Lady Frederica’s good nature had imposed upon them.

Mr. Hayle, in happy unconsciousness of the offence he had given, accompanied the Lingthurst party to the rendezvous at the Copse Farm, and almost reinstated himself in Miss Kettering senior’s favour by calmly declining to agree with her, when she gushingly demanded of him if he did not think that lovely Miss Casalis the most exquisitely beautiful girl he had ever seen.”

“I don’t care about that sort of beauty,” said Mr. Hayle, and then he walked away to where Cicely and Mr. Guildford were improvising a comfortable couch for Colonel Methvyn with the cushions of the carriages, as the invalid declared himself able to join the lowly luncheon party instead of remaining in the solitary state of his Bath chair.

He really looked and felt better than he had done for years, and Mr. Guildford was not a little elated at the success of his new mode of treatment. Long, long afterwards Cicely looked back with pleasure on that bright morning in the copse, and felt warm gratitude to the man whose care and kindness had enabled her suffering father to enjoy again a breath of the out-door life he had loved so well. And to-day the sight of the invalid’s pleasure seemed to cheer every one else. To all outward appearance they were a very happy little party. Geneviève’s clear soft laugh rang as merrily as if its owner had never known a care or perplexity, and the tender brightness of Cicely’s face was sunshine in itself. Mr. Hayle looked at her and wondered. Edmond Guildford forgot all his cynical theories in the unconscious happiness of the present, forgot even to marvel at his own inconsistency—only Trevor looked moody and dissatisfied, unlike his usual equable contented self.

There were more reasons than one for his gloom. Good-natured and kindly as he was, Cicely’s extreme devotion to her parents and home interests at times tried his patience, and suggested unpleasing comparisons. And a long conversation he had had the night before with his father was also on his mind. Nor was the day to close without yet further annoyance falling to his share.

Mr. Guildford had not forgotten his intention of coming to some sort of understanding with the little lady whose eyes had so successfully appealed to his forbearance. After luncheon the able-bodied members of the party felt themselves in duty bound to scale the Witch’s Ladder; in the ascent they naturally fell apart into little groups of twos and threes, and Mr. Guildford found himself alone with Miss Casalis. He had not sought the opportunity, and she had not evaded it, but now that it occurred, both were plainly conscious that the sooner what had to be said could be got over, the more comfortable they would feel. Somewhat to Mr. Guildford’s surprise, Geneviève herself hastened to break the ice.

“I fear much you thought me very strange the last day you came to Greystone,” she began, with some timidity, but on the whole less trepidation than he had expected. “I know well you did see me on the road, and it grieved me—indeed it grieved me to seem deceitful. But I was so frightened, oh! oh! so frightened, that my aunt would be very angry. And I would not for all the world make her angry. She is so very good for me. And I thank you so much that you did not insist that it was me that you had seen.”

Mr. Guildford was rather taken aback by the calmness of this confession—the girl did not seem by any means ashamed of herself, even though tacitly owning that her conduct deserved her aunt’s serious displeasure—he walked on (they were just now on a comparatively speaking level piece of ground, a sort of landing between the flights of stairs), for a few moments in silence; then he said abruptly,

“Why do you do what would make Mrs. Methvyn angry, if you dread her anger so much?”.

“I could not help it—indeed I could not,” said Geneviève penitently, without appearing in the least to resent his tone. “I was obliged to go to Greybridge, and at the first I did not think how it might displease my aunt.”

“I didn’t know you had been at Greybridge,” he said. “It was not there I saw you—indeed it was not very far from home. It wasn’t on account of—of the distance from home I thought Mrs. Methvyn would be displeased.”

“How then?” exclaimed Geneviève, looking up at him in perplexity. “What else for could I have feared? I went but to Greybridge to the post-office—” and in a few words she explained to him the reason of her secret expedition—the same reason that she had given to Mr. Fawcett, the wish to post unobserved the letter she feared she might be “thought silly” for having written. It sounded sincere enough, indeed; so far as her explanation went, it actually was so, but still Mr. Guildford felt puzzled. Was she telling him all? Had there been no second motive for her walk? Hitherto Mr. Fawcett had not been named, and it had actually not occurred to Geneviève that he was in any way connected with Mr. Guildford’s disapproval of her behaviour. So she looked up with some anxiety, but without embarrassment, to read in her companion’s grave face the effect of her explanation. And something in her expression made him ashamed of his suspicions, though it was not without an effort that he made up his mind to discard them.

“I have done you injustice, Miss Casalis,” he said at last, and I beg your pardon. Don’t you see that if I had had any idea that the mere fact of your being out on the road would have displeased your aunt, I would not have mentioned it so carelessly and casually as I did?”

“Yes,” said Geneviève, after a little cogitation; “I see, but I understand not. You saw nothing wrong, yet you spoke as if you thought I had done wrong. What then was there?”

“There was nothing,” replied the young man, half annoyed, half inclined to laugh. “I should have thought nothing of seeing you walking along the road, had you not immediately shown me you were afraid of its being known, Then, of course, I began to wonder why, and pitched upon the most natural explanation. Now I know why you were afraid, so there is nothing more for me to say except to repeat that I am sorry for having misunderstood you.”

But Geneviève was not satisfied. Light was beginning to dawn upon her. She stood still, her hands clasped together, the colour coming and going in her face.

“What then was it you thought I feared?” she exclaimed vehemently. “I must know. Mr. Guildford, you shall then tell. You are not kind.”

She seemed on the point of tears, and Mr. Guildford was not fond of tears. Still he was sorry for her, and provoked with himself.

“I wish you would believe me, Miss Casalis,” he said earnestly, “that I saw nothing in your conduct that I even fancied unbecoming—nothing that I would have given a second thought to.”

“But what thought you then when you saw that I feared?” she persisted, beginning to lose command both of her temper and her English. “Was it that you have seen me walk with Mr. Fawcett? I thought not that one was so little amiable, so little kind in England! What then was there of wrong in what I have done? I meet the nephew of my aunt, he speaks to me, I answer him—voilà tout! Would you that I should run away—would you—?”

But by this time the tears have come in earnest—the rest of the sentence is lost in sobs.

“My dear Miss Casalis,” exclaimed Mr. Guildford in desperation, “I really entreat you to be reasonable. Have I not told you half-a-dozen times that your behaviour so far as I know was irreproachable? Nor, whatever I had thought of it, would I have presumed to express an opinion but for this unfortunate misunderstanding, brought about—you must do me the justice to allow—by yourself. You appealed to me, silently it is true, but still you did appeal to me, to refrain from drawing attention to what I had seen, and to-day you honoured me with an explanation of the whole. I understand it all now, and for the third time I beg your pardon.”

“Then you do not think I—I was to blame for—for speaking to Mr. Fawcett?” said Geneviève, calming down, but still sobbing.

“Of course not,” said Mr. Guildford, kindly. “I am not much accustomed to young ladies, as I dare say you have found out before now, but if you will forgive plain speaking, what I would think wrong would be your meeting any gentleman and going walks with him without Mrs. Methvyn’s knowledge or approval.”

“But Mr. Fawcett is the relation of my aunt,” said Geneviève, not feeling perfectly comfortable. “I see not that I may not walk with him when I meet him.”

“Of course that is for Mrs. Methvyn to decide,” said Mr. Guildford. “But—”.

“I would much rather not say anything more about it,” said Mr. Guildford. “I was going to say, ‘but if you were my sister’ but you are not my sister, Miss Casalis.”

“But let it be—let me suppose myself your sister, what then? Say then,” she persisted, looking up in his face with a half tearful anxiety, the rosy lips still quivering with agitation.

More to humour her and give her time to recover herself than with any real intention of advising or warning her, Mr. Guildford went on, smiling as he did so,

“If you were my sister then, Miss Casalis (and if I had a young sister like you, you don’t know what care I should take of her), I should try to make you understand that a girl like you cannot be too careful—that you are very beautiful, and that a young man like Mr. Fawcett would naturally find your society charming, but that in the world in which he lives there are many beautiful and charming girls who must be far more worldly wise, whose hearts cannot possibly be as fresh and tender as yours.”

Geneviève understood him. She grew scarlet, and again the tears welled up into her lovely, troubled eyes.

“Of course,” pursued Mr. Guildford, “I am speaking in the dark. There may be circumstances which I am ignorant of—very probably there are—which make your position towards Mr. Fawcett a perfectly unconstrained one. To you he may actually seem what we have been imagining I might have been to you, a brother—a sort of a brother, I should say?”

“Well, a brother in the sense in which Miss Methvyn must seem a sister to you. I only say this because if it is so, all I have said must have seemed ludicrously inappropriate—I have no wish to pry impertinently into your relations’ family affairs.”

His last few words were haughty enough; they ill accorded with the anxiety, quite unowned to himself, with which he waited for her reply. She did not notice his disclaimer of curiosity, she was too selfishly startled by the suggestion which her quick wits had at once seized the full meaning of.

“You would say that my cousin Cicely is perhaps the fiançée of Mr. Fawcett?” she exclaimed, and though Mr. Guildford smiled in assent, he recoiled a little from her distinct expression of his meaning. “But, oh! no,” she went on. “It is not so, I assure you. They are brother and sister, voilà tout!”

She spoke lightly, but a slight cloud had nevertheless risen on her horizon; a cloud whose presence she resolutely ignored, but which to her took the brightness out of the sunshine for the rest of the day. But she had spoken confidently, and her inward misgiving was unsuspected by her companion. And to him the sunshine suddenly increased tenfold in brilliance and beauty, the birds’ songs trilled more joyously than before, the whole world seemed

Geneviève came in for her share in this generally happy state of things. She was somewhat pale and pensive, but had quite recovered her equilibrium, and before they rejoined the others she said something in her pretty, gentle way, of thanks to Mr. Guildford for his kindness and appreciation of his advice.

“Then you are not offended with me you are quite sure you are not?” he inquired.

“Offended!” Geneviève repeated. “Oh! no, no. I was afraid I had done more wrong than I knew. It is all strange here. I fear to do wrong. I thank you very much, Mr. Guildford.”

So the interview which had threatened to be stormy ended most amicably, and Edmond owned to himself that it would not be to be wondered at if Mr. Fawcett did fall in love with the pretty little creature.

They found the rest of the climbers established on the little plateau at the top of the rock, admiring, or fancying they admired, the really beautiful view. The absence of Mr. Guildford and Miss Casalis had not been unobserved, and more than one pair of eyes were sharp enough to detect in Geneviève’s face and manner the traces of recent agitation. She looked so pale and subdued that Cicely felt anxious about her, but, with the quick instinct of shielding her from disagreeable observation, did her utmost to divert the Misses Ketterings’ attention. Mr. Guildford, whose spirits appeared to have risen as incomprehensibly as Geneviève’s had sunk, seemed instinctively to understand Miss Methvyn’s wishes and did his best to help her; and so, in his own way, did Mr. Hayle, but Trevor stalked about gloomy and dissatisfied, was barely civil to Mr. Guildford and ignored poor Miss Fanny Kettering altogether.

It was so unusual for him to be out of temper that it distressed Cicely, though she attached no great importance to the passing cloud. She watched for an opportunity of dispelling it.

“Trevor,” she said gently, as, on their way down again she found herself for a moment alone beside him, out of earshot of the others, “Are you unhappy about anything? I wanted everybody to be in good spirits to-day.”

“You haven’t succeeded very well I’m afraid,” he replied moodily; “Miss Casalis looks as if she had been crying all the morning.”

“It does not take much to make Geneviève cry,” said Cicely. “She will be as merry as ever again in a little while, you will see.”

There was no intention of unkindness in her words, but Mr. Fawcett chose to misunderstand her.

“I think you are rather hard upon your cousin, Cicely,” he said coldly. “It is all very well to be strong nerved and self controlled and all the rest of it, but in my opinion that sort of thing may be carried too far.”

“Trevor, you hurt me,” exclaimed Cicely. “More than once lately you have said something like that to me and it pains me. I thought you knew me better. And to-day is my birthday!”

No one could accuse her of want of feeling now. There were tears in her eyes. Mr. Fawcett felt ashamed of himself.

“Dear Cicely, forgive me,” he exclaimed. “I am cross and unreasonable. But it does seem to me sometimes that you think of everybody else more than of me. But I am sorry to have been ill-tempered, especially on your birthday. Next year if all’s well, I hope it will be celebrated differently—I shall have a hand in the arrangements.”

“I shall be twenty-one next year,” said Cicely. “If I were a son there would be a fuss about it, I suppose.”

“I do hope papa will not be very tired,” she said. “Mr. Guildford thinks it would do him good to come out oftener, Trevor.”

“I dare say it would,” replied Mr. Fawcett rather indifferently. “I always thought Farmer an old woman. Still I very much prefer him to your new authority, Cicely.”

“I dare say he is. It is the man himself I object to; he is so uncommonly free and easy, and makes himself so much at home,” replied Mr. Fawcett, kicking away some loose pebbles on the rough path before him.

“Don’t you agree with me?” he said. “I don’t care about his manner to Geneviève for one thing—he seems to think himself so completely on a par with all of us.”

“I don’t want to vex you, Trevor,” replied Cicely, “but I cannot say I agree with you in the least. I don’t think Mr. Guildford’s manner could be kinder and nicer than it is. He is a little abrupt perhaps, but that is often the case with men who spend their time in work instead of in play.”

“I had better not say anything more about him, I think,” he remarked carelessly. Then, as if he were quite above feeling annoyed by what Cicely had said, he changed the subject. “I want to see your father very much, Cicely,” he said. “What is his best time? I can come at any time you like to-morrow.”

“The afternoon would be best, I think,” said Cicely with a little surprise and anxiety in her tone. “It isn’t about anything that will worry him, Trevor?” she added.

There was no time for Mr. Fawcett to reply, for just at this moment a turn in the path brought them up to Geneviève and Miss Fanny Kettering, who, having arrived at the foot of the Witch’s Ladder, were now staring about them in bewilderment as to which was the right way to go. Geneviève was laughing as the new-comers drew near, but when she saw that they were Cicely and Mr. Fawcett she grew suddenly silent. Cicely noticed it, but imagined her cousin’s change able humour to be simply the result of the little excitement of the day. Trevor noticed it, and set it down to some meddling fool or other who had been frightening the poor little soul again, and resolved to find out the reason of the tears and agitation of which her pretty face still bore traces.

“I wonder if we shall ever come here again,” said Cicely, suddenly, as they were all preparing to leave the copse, for the afternoon was well advanced by now, and Colonel Methvyn had already been wheeled away in his Bath chair. No one heard her but Geneviève and Mr. Guildford, who happened to be standing near.

“I don’t know,” said Cicely; “it was a stupid thing to say. It was just a feeling that came over me. Birthdays and anniversaries make one look backwards and forwards in a silly, childish way.”

“In a more advanced state of society, perhaps, we shall have got rid of them,” observed Mr. Guildford.

“Got rid of what?” inquired Mr. Fawcett, coming up to them laden with an armful of his mother’s shawls. His tone was friendly and good-natured, he evidently meant to please Cicely by behaving with more cordiality to the Sothernbay surgeon; and his cousin rewarded him with a smile as she answered,

“Of birthdays and festivals of all kinds. Mr. Guildford thinks that when the world gets wiser holidays will be discarded. We shall be too big for them,” she said.

“Nay, Miss Methvyn,” exclaimed Mr. Guildford, “you have twisted my meaning a little. I should be sorry to look forward to the world’s ever growing beyond holidays. What a dreadful place it would be!”

“But too much work would be infinitely better than too much play,” said Cicely. “Life to me would be utterly insupportable without plenty of things one must do.”

Cicely grew crimson. “I wish you would not turn everything into ridicule, Trevor,” she said, with an impatience very unlike her usual manner.

As she spoke she became aware that Mr. Guildford was observing her with a curious mixture of expressions in his face. Something in what she saw helped her to recover her composure.

“Don’t you agree with me, Mr. Guildford?” she said. “You must know something of hard work—don’t you prefer it to having nothing to do but to amuse yourself?”

“I can hardly say I have ever known what it is to feel free to amuse myself. I have had to work hard all my life, but I have not got tired of it yet,” the young man replied simply. “But the truth of it is that too much play becomes very hard work, I suspect.”

“It depends on the person,” said Trevor. “You, for instance, Cicely, set to work even at croquet with such earnestness and consideration that it is quite fatiguing to watch you, and Miss Casalis, on the other hand, flutters over her most laborious duties as if—as if—”

“As if she were a butterfly, and I a drone,” said Cicely lightly. She felt touched by Trevor’s good humour, and conscious that she had hardly deserved it. Geneviève looked up and laughed, for the first time since the beginning of the little conversation.

“I think not that I have done even as much work as a butterfly since I have been in England,” she said.

“What would you be doing if you were at home now—at Hivèritz?” asked Cicely.

“At home? Home is not Hivèritz just now. They are all in the mountains. Ah, there we occupy ourselves so well! We make the confitures, we help the old farm wife with the butter, the cheese, we seek the eggs. Ah, the life in the mountains is charming!” she replied.

“How nice!” said Cicely contemplatively. “I should like not to be rich—I mean,” she added hastily, fearful of hurting Geneviève by the inference of her words—“I mean I should like to manage everything for ourselves, without servants; to feel that one really worked for one’s living would be so satisfactory.”

“You would find it very different from what you fancy, in practice, I fear, Miss Methvyn,” he said; “still, the instinct is a sound and healthy one.”

“Sound and healthy!” repeated Trevor to himself. “Can’t he forget for five minutes that he’s a doctor?”

CHAPTER II.

SHADOWS BEFORE.

TREVOR called at Greystone the next day, and was closeted with Colonel Methvyn for some time. Cicely and her cousin were in the house when he came, but, considerably to their surprise, he went away without seeing them. Geneviève said nothing, but felt annoyed. Cicely grew uneasy and anxious, for at dinner it struck her that her mother looked grave and preoccupied; but she had no opportunity during the evening of inquiring if there was any cause for this, as Mrs. Methvyn went straight from the dining-room to her husband, leaving the two girls to their own devices.

“What shall we do, Geneviève,” said Cicely. “I fancy mother will stay in my father’s room this evening. Shall we go out a little? It is deliciously mild.”

“Is your father not well to-day?” asked Geneviève, without replying to her cousin’s proposal.

“Oh! yes. I mean, at least, he is just the same as usual,” answered Cicely. “He said this morning he felt a very little tired with yesterday, but he was in good spirits, and he seems to think the little change did him good.”

“Then what for did my aunt look so distraite—so sad at dinner?” asked Geneviève. She was standing listlessly by the window, but as she spoke she turned round with a certain sharpness which annoyed her cousin more than the question itself.

“If my mother is anxious or uneasy, I don’t think either you or I should notice it or make any remarks about it,” said Cicely coldly. She had hardly uttered the words before she wished she could recall them. “Geneviève meant no harm,” she reflected; “it is because I am uneasy too, that I am cross, but that is no excuse.”

She began to think how she could best soften the harshness of what she had said.

“Geneviève,” she was commencing, “I am sorry I said that; don’t think I meant it—” when her cousin interrupted her.

“You are not sorry. You are not kind,” she exclaimed vehemently.“You wish that I should be a stranger. Nobody cares for me here, nobody. I wish, oh! that I wish I had never come to England.” And she wound up by bursting into tears and sobbing violently.

Cicely was dismayed. She was sorry for Geneviève, she was vexed with herself for having seemed unkind, but she also thought her cousin very silly. Exaggerated display of feeling chilled and repelled her; it cost her, therefore, a little effort to try to smooth poor Geneviève’s ruffled plumage.

“Dear Geneviève,” she said gently, “I am sorry, very sorry for having hurt you. I am sure you meant no harm, and I am very unkind. It is quite true what Trevor says.”

The last few words were added in a lower voice, as if speaking to herself; but they caught Geneviève’s attention far more effectually than what had preceded them.

“What does he say?” she exclaimed, raising her flushed, tear-stained face from the sofa on which she had thrown herself in her outburst.

Cicely hesitated. “I should not have said it,” she began; “but, after all, I dare say it doesn’t matter. Trevor said I was cold and formal in my manner to you, and that he was afraid you were not happy with us, and that it was my fault Is it so, Geneviève?” she added a little wistfully.

“When did Mr. Fawcett say that?” she asked. “I never said to him you were not kind, Cicely.”

“Oh! no; he never said you did. He only spoke from what he had noticed himself. He has said something of the sort two or three times. It was all out of kindness and regard for you,” explained Cicely hastily, a little afraid of rousing another storm.

Her fears were ill-founded. Geneviève’s irritation seemed to have completely disappeared.

“I know,” she said; “I know. He is very kind. He is like your brother, is he not, Cicely?”

“Yes,” pursued Geneviève, hardly noticing the reply; “yes, he is like your brother. It has seemed so to me since ever I came. But you must tell him it is not true that I am unhappy here. You are very good and kind, dear Cicely, and I am very cross. I am sometimes so that the least word makes me cry, and then I wish I were at home again; but it soon passes. I love you and I love to be here, and you must forgive what I said. Kiss me, my cousin, and let us forget the foolish words.”

She held up her rosy lips, and Cicely kissed her; it would have been difficult to refuse to do so. Cicely felt a little bewildered by the girl’s changeableness, but was glad that peace should be restored, and could not but own to herself that, childish as she might be, Geneviève was very sweet.

For the rest of the evening she was sweetness itself. They went out a little after awhile and paced slowly up and down the avenue, where the shade of the trees brought night before its time. It was a mild evening, mild but not oppressive, for little gusts of breeze came every now and then sweeping round among the leaves and causing the branches to nod fantastically in the waning light. Once or twice Miss Methvyn shivered.

“No, not exactly, but there is something rather chilly in the air,” she replied. “Don’t you feel it? If I did not know it was only June, I should fancy it October. There is an autumn feeling about, though it is mild too.”

“I did not feel it so,” said Geneviève. Then suddenly a thought struck her. “I wonder, Cicely, why Mr. Fawcett went away in so great a hurry this?” she exclaimed.

“Did he?” said Cicely absently. “I thought he was a long time with papa.”

“Oh! yes; he was till five o’clock in Colonel Methvyn’s room,” said Geneviève. “It was after that I mean that he must have been in a hurry. I was thinking if he had stayed to dinner, we might have walked part of the way home with him it is such a pretty way, by the mill.”

“Yes, and you have never been that way,” said Cicely. “We can go any day you like. I generally bring the key of the door into the plantations with me. But it is too late to-night to set off on a walk.”

“Oh! yes; not to-night,” said Geneviève, and they slowly turned back to the house again.

“Are you beginning to like this old place, Geneviève?” said Cicely suddenly.

They were standing still, in front of the porch, and as Miss Methvyn spoke, her gaze rested lovingly on the quaint old house, every stone of which seemed a part of her life, and then wandered away over the garden and the trees and through the network of branches to where the summer moon was slowly rising. “It will be a lovely moonlight night,” she added softly.

Cicely laughed gently. “You silly little thing,” she said. Then she stooped and kissed Geneviève and they both went in.

“Your father has just fallen asleep,” said Mrs. Methvyn; “it was not worth while for me to go downstairs again, and I wanted to see you alone, Cicely. And I did not want Geneviève to fancy there was anything the matter.”

“Is anything the matter? I thought you looked dull at dinner,” said Cicely quickly. “You don’t think papa is worse?”

“No, I think he is very well. But he is anxious and worried,” answered Mrs. Methvyn.

“Trevor was here to-day, you know, Cicely,” her mother went on; “he was a long time with your father. You can guess what they were talking about.”

Cicely sat down on the floor at her mother’s feet and laid her head upon Mrs. Methvyn’s knee.

“Mamma,” she said, “I thought it was fixed that nothing more should be said about it just yet. Mamma, I cannot leave you yet.”

“No, not if Amiel were home again. If she were here, I should not mind leaving you half so much,” said Cicely. “I don’t understand it, mother. Long ago—when it was first spoken of—it was always taken for granted that I should stay with you till Amiel came home. What has made any change? Is it Trevor’s doing?”

Mrs. Methvyn hesitated. “Trevor has always hoped things might hasten the marriage,” she said, “but—I don’t think he felt at liberty to say much about hastening it. It is your father who seems to wish it so much, and of course Trevor is delighted to have him on his side. And the Fawcetts wish it too.”

“But why does papa wish it so much? It is very unnatural,” said Cicely with a tinge of bitterness.

“Don’t say that, dear,” remonstrated her mother. “Your father only wishes it because he dreads the possibility of your being left without a protector. He has a very high opinion of Sir Thomas. As your father-in-law, your interests would be even more to him than now.”

Cicely remained silent for a minute or two. Then she said consideringly, “I suppose it is natural that papa should wish to see me married, but do you know, mother, there are times when I wish things had been left to take their chance. Even if I were left to “fend for myself,” as old Elspeth used to say, I should get on very well, I believe. I should not dread having to fight my way, mother. I should like to know something of the other side of life. I feel sometimes as if there was a sort of energy in me which will never need to be used.”

“But, my child, you forget your position,” said her mother. “Our anxiety to see you well—I mean happily and safely—married, arises greatly from the fact of your being your father’s heiress. I did not feel half as anxious about Amiel’s future—long ago when you were both children and I used to look forward, as all mothers do, I suppose—as about yours. The position of a girl who is known to be an heiress is a very dangerous one.”

“But I have you and papa to take care of me and advise me,” persisted Cicely.

“Yes, but for how long? There is no good trying to deceive ourselves, my darling. Your father’s life is a very uncertain one, and—I can scarcely bear to say it to you, dear—but there are times when I can hardly picture myself as living without him. My whole life has been so given to him, and you know how he has deserved all the devotion I can give him. And it would be terrible to us to leave you alone, Cicely.”

“I see, yes I see how you feel,” answered the girl after a moment’s silence. “I dare say I should feel the same in your place. But, mamma, I wish I had had a brother—then I should have been able to choose my own life; not to marry at all, very likely.”

“Cicely, you make me unhappy when you speak so,” said her mother gravely. “You have been left free to choose. Your father and I approve of your marriage to Trevor, but it was not forced upon you. You do not wish to draw back from it, surely? If you do, however it may disappoint us, it will be far better for you to say so. Cicely, my dear child, you frighten me.”

“But you are not to be frightened, you are not to be unhappy about me, mother,” exclaimed Cicely, smiling up reassuringly in Mrs. Methvyn’s face. “I don’t want to break off my engagement to Trevor. I am quite happy to be going to marry him some time only—only—I don’t want it to be just yet. I want to stay at home with you and papa.”.

“But it cannot always be only going to be,” said Mrs. Methvyn, smiling too, not withstanding her anxiety. “It is not using Trevor or his parents well to keep putting it off. And it disappoints your father.”

“If it disappoints and worries papa, that is a different matter,” replied Cicely. “I would marry Trevor to-morrow morning if it would do papa any good. As for the Fawcetts, I don’t see that it is using them ill, mother. When we were first engaged, it was understood we were not to be married for a long time, and I don’t believe that Sir Thomas and Lady Frederica are in such a desperate hurry to have me for their daughter. They like me very well, but they would have liked lots of other girls just as well. Geneviève, for instance, they were both perfectly captivated by her, and no wonder. She is a hundred times prettier than I, and she kisses Lady Frederica on both cheeks! And as for Trevor, mother, I am sure he is very contented to go on being comfortably engaged without any fuss. He dislikes fuss exceedingly.”

“You are talking nonsense, Cicely, to make me forget the serious part of it,” said Mrs. Methvyn. “But you must not. It is perfectly true that both your father and Trevor wish something to be decided. Trevor has begun to think of it very seriously of late I can see.”

“What is it that papa does want? Tell me plainly, mother. I will not joke any more,” said Cicely growing suddenly quiet.

“I think, indeed I am sure,” answered her mother, “that he would like your marriage to be this summer.”

“This summer; oh, mother! It is only three months since Charlie died,” said Cicely, her voice quivering. “Mother, I tried to be cheerful at that time, because I knew you had enough on your mind, but, oh! I have missed him so! Don’t send me away from you yet. Six months hence perhaps I shall have a different feeling, and it does seem a sudden change. A few months ago there was no thought of my being married this year. I don’t understand it.”

“But I have explained it to you, dear; it is quite easy to understand. Are you sure you understand yourself, Cicely? You speak of wishing you had difficulties and obstacles to face, but yet you shrink from any change in your life?”

“It is different,” said Cicely. “There will be no scope for my energies, mother, in my new life. Living at Lingthurst will be ever so much smoother and more luxurious than here even! I shall have no house-keeping, no responsibilities. Of course I shall try to be like a daughter to Trevor’s parents, but I shall always be wishing they were you and papa, and fancying you want me. We shall be so dreadfully rich! I wish Trevor had his way to make, and that we were going to live in a little house of our own!”

Mrs. Methvyn sighed. There had been a time in her life when she had known what it was not to be “dreadfully rich,” when poverty had destroyed much of the charm even of “a little house of her own.”

“But then in my case there were worse troubles than poverty,” she reflected. She had been so anxious for Cicely’s happiness, surely it was not all to turn out a mistake.

“Mother,” she exclaimed hastily, “I am wrong to speak so. I am foolish and discontented. Of course, I know it is right for Trevor to live at Lingthurst, and I dare say I shall find plenty of interests. But, mother, it must not be just yet. Not for six months. Will you tell my father what I say. He will not be vexed; it will not do him harm or trouble him, will it?”

“No, I think not. Not, at least if it is really definitely fixed for six months hence. I hope the Fawcetts will not be disappointed.”

“What does Trevor expect? Did he go away this afternoon under the impression that it was all going to be settled to be at once? As if I were a doll without any feelings of my own!” said Cicely with some bitterness, again.

“Oh! no,” replied her mother,“he went away in rather low spirits. I told him I feared the idea of leaving us all so very soon would be startling to you, and I asked him to let me speak about it to you first. I am rather sorry for Trevor sometimes.”

“Do you think I don’t consider him enough, mother?” said Cicely anxiously. “I think I do—at least, till quite lately there never seemed to be a cloud between us. But, somehow, Trevor is a little changed. I am sure he is—I don’t understand it. I understand my father’s having grown morbid about it, but I don’t know why Trevor wants to hurry it on so. Mother,” she added, “I will speak to Trevor myself about it. It will be better.”

“Very well,” said her mother. “It is getting late, Cicely, say good-night to me, dear. But, by the bye, I am forgetting something I wanted to speak about to you. Cicely, I think Geneviève should now be told of your engagement. She has been here several weeks, and it may seem strange to her afterwards to have been so long kept in the dark.”

“I almost think she has guessed it—or partly, at least,” said Cicely. “But I am not quite sure. Yes, I think you had better tell her, mamma. If I am really going to be married in six months,” she went on, with a faint smile, “I suppose I shall begin to realise it. Till now it has seemed so indefinite, I could hardly feel as if there were anything to tell—I felt as if Trevor and I should always be just the same to each other as we are now.”

She gave a little sigh, but repeated, “Yes, please, tell Geneviève then, mamma.”

“Geneviève may have confidences of her own some day,” said Mrs. Methvyn; “did you notice how much Mr. Guildford and she seemed to have to say to each other yesterday?”

Cicely looked grave. “I don’t think Geneviève is the kind of girl,” she began—“I mean, I don’t fancy Mr. Guildford is thinking of marrying at all,” she went on. “His head is full of other things.”

“Then he is just the sort of man who will be startled some day by finding he has a heart as well as a head,” observed Mrs. Methvyn oracularly.

The idea of Mr. Guildford’s being attracted by her cousin was somehow distasteful to Miss Methvyn; it jarred against the estimate she had unconsciously formed of him. “I thought he was above things of that kind,” she said to herself dissatisfiedly, “and Geneviève is so young and childish. Still,” she went on to reflect, “perhaps, on that very account she would better suit him as a wife.”

The suggestion nevertheless did not find favour with her. She felt restless and uneasy. She dreaded the impending talk with Trevor; she was afraid of making him angry by her refusal to agree to an immediate marriage, though in this refusal she felt herself perfectly justified. A slight consciousness of not having been treated by Mr. Fawcett of late, with quite his usual delicacy and consideration added to her depression and annoyance.

“I don’t think Trevor should have talked about it to any one till we had talked it over together,” she thought. “It cannot have been altogether my father’s doing. However anxious he may be for the marriage, he would not have startled me by proposing that it should be so very soon. Next month! Trevor must have let papa think that he and I had talked about it, and that was not kind or considerate. For it was always understood we were not to be married for a long time—and lately, since Charlie died, I was glad to put the leaving home as far back in my thoughts as possible. And Trevor understands all I feel, so well or, at least, he used to do.”

It was nearly midnight—a midnight, as Cicely had foretold, nearly as bright as day, for the moon was at the full and the sky was cloudless. Cicely was restless and excited; she had dismissed her maid at the beginning of her conversation with her mother, now she felt disinclined to go to bed, and sat by the still open window looking out into the garden. The breeze had fallen, every object shone out in silvery white distinctness against the black shadows, all the shades and colours of the daylight world merged in the one sharp contrast. A silly fancy crossed Cicely’s brain.

“I wonder,” she thought, “if there are any worlds where there is no stronger light than this. How tired we should get of the everlasting blacks and whites—it would be like living in an engraving!”

She leant her arms on the broad, low window-sill and gazed before her. Away down to the right ran the path across the park leading to the plantations, beyond which again lay the entrance to the long extent of the Lingthurst woods. This was Trevor’s short cut to the Abbey. How often Cicely had watched him coming over the park; how many a time she had run to unlock the little door in the wall, to save him the additional half-mile of road round by the lodge! Many an old remembrance stole across her mind as she sat looking out on the familiar scene in its moonlight dress. Suddenly a small object moving in the distance caught her attention; a figure was hastening over the park in the direction of the Abbey—a small dark figure running, as Cicely could perceive as it drew nearer, at full speed. Who could it be? Twelve o’clock had struck since the girl had taken up her station at the window—a strange hour for a child (for such the figure seemed to be) to be out alone in the great bare expanse of the park, which no one had occasion to cross except visitors to the Abbey. Only one conjecture occurred to Cicely as a possible explanation of what she saw—some cottager’s child must be ill, and in distress and alarm the parents must be sending for assistance to some of the outdoor servants belonging to the house. So Cicely remained at the window watching the gradually approaching figure with some curiosity. It drew nearer and nearer, somewhat diminishing its pace as it came on, till at last the run sobered down into a swift walk. By this time Cicely could distinguish that the strange visitor was not a child, as she had imagined, but a small woman in a long, dark cloak. She kept her eyes fixed upon it with increasing curiosity, not unmixed with a slight flavour of eeriness—was it a real flesh-and-blood woman she was observing, or the restless spirit of some black-veiled sister revisiting at this unearthly hour the haunts which had known her in the flesh? Cicely shivered involuntarily as the idea occurred to her; then she smiled at her own folly, and watched to see the small black figure disappear among the premises at the back of the house. For a minute or two she lost sight of it. “If she is going to the coach man’s house, she will set the dogs barking,” thought the watcher, with some anxiety as to the possible disturbance of her father’s rest. But no dogs began to bark, and in another moment the little figure reappeared again, out of the deep shadow of a projecting wall which had hidden it from view; and then, to Cicely’s amazement, it came on along the front of the house and turned round a corner, evidently making for the terrace-garden, on to which opened the low window-doors of the library. Half mechanically, hardly knowing what she was doing, holding her breath, nevertheless, in instinctive anxiety, Cicely rose from her seat by the window and went to the door, still standing slightly ajar. She stood there, intently listening for any sound from below, for the library was almost immediately underneath her room. She was not frightened, she was only vaguely excited and uneasy what she expected or dreaded she could hardly have put into words.

It came at last—the familiar sound, that till she heard it she hardly knew her ears had been expecting—the slight click of the latch of the library glass door opened by some one from the outside. Then the cautious closing inside, the drawing to of the shutters, the adjusting of the bar—then a pause, as if the intruder were stopping to rest for an instant; and then again faint sounds distinguishable in the intense silence of the house, which told of some one’s moving across the library and entering the corridor leading to the stairs. Cicely no longer hesitated; she flew along the passage and reached the head of the staircase just as the small dark figure began wearily to ascend. Miss Methvyn stood still in the shadow, but as the person she was waiting for arrived at the top, she came forward in the moonlight.

“It is I, Geneviève,” she said at once, speaking clearly, though softly. “Don’t scream, or you will waken the house. Come here—come with me into my room and tell me what in the world is the matter. Where have you been?”

She spoke with a certain authority; she drew her cousin along the passage to the room she had just left, Geneviève apparently too startled to dream of resistance, not attempting to say a word. When they were safely in the room, Cicely closed the door without speaking. Then turning to her cousin, “Now, Geneviève,” she said, “tell me what you have been doing. You have startled me very much.”

“Geneviève,” repeated Cicely, with a growing impatience in her tone, “speak to me. What is the matter?”

She was becoming nervous and alarmed. Was her cousin going out of her mind? Was she walking in her sleep? The last suggestion really impressed her for a moment. She passed her arm round Geneviève’s shoulder and turned her face gently towards her.

“Let me see you, Geneviève,” she said softly. The moonlight fell full on the girl’s face; it looked strangely pale, the lips were quivering, the eyes were cast down, great tears stood on the long dark eyelashes. A sudden impulse came over Cicely. She threw her arms round the poor little trembling figure and kissed her tenderly.

“Geneviève, my dear child!” she exclaimed, “you are in trouble, you are unhappy about something. Won’t you trust me? Tell me, whatever it is.”

A vague remembrance of what her mother had observed about Mr. Guildford, a more distinct recollection of Geneviève’s evident agitation on the day of the picnic flashed across Cicely’s mind. Could it really be the case that her cousin had won the heart of the cynical student, and yielded her own in return? But even if it were so, Cicely was at a loss to understand why Geneviève should take to running across the park at midnight instead of going comfortably to sleep. Still the idea suggested some possible explanation of her tears and dejection. Perhaps she was of the order of romantic young ladies who consider outlandish and uncomfortable behaviour a part of the róle.

“Please do not be angry, Cicely,” she said. “I did not mean to startle you. I knew not it was so late. I had only gone a little way.”

“What do you mean, Geneviève?” exclaimed Cicely. “You must have intended to go out without any one knowing. It is nonsense to speak as if you had accidentally stayed out later—as if it were the day-time instead of the middle of the night. I want to know where you have been, and what you went out for at such an extraordinary hour.”

She had drawn back a little from Geneviève, for her want of frankness chilled her. Geneviève began to cry again.

“I have been nowhere,” she said, between her sobs. “At least only a little way over the park.”

“No, not so far. I went but across the park. The moon shone so bright. I saw it from my window, and I thought I would go.”

“I wish I could understand you, Geneviève,” she said wistfully. “Do you mean that it was just a fancy for going out in the moonlight that made you behave so strangely? I could have sympathised with the wish, if you had mentioned it to me? I am a girl like yourself, why do you seem so afraid of me? We might have gone out a little together. Mamma would not have minded for once in a way. But I thought you disliked moonlight.”

“I never saw it so bright and beautiful as to-night,” said Geneviève, evidently beginning to recover her spirits.

“Nor I,” said Cicely. “It is an unusually lovely night. Well then, Geneviève, the next time you have a fancy for a moonlight ramble tell me and we will go together.”

She spoke lightly, for though still a little perplexed her mind was on the whole relieved.

“Yes, dear Cicely, I will,” said Geneviève. “But I thought you would think me so silly. And when I turned to come home I felt frightened, and I ran so fast! I was quite tired when I got back, and then I thought you would scold me.”

She was chattering away quite as usual by now. Cicely smiled. “You must go off to bed now, you silly child,” she said, kissing her cousin as she spoke.

Geneviève turned to go, but as she moved, an end of her cloak caught in the chair near which she had been standing. She stooped to disengage it; as she did so something fell from her hand with a sharp sound on the floor. Before she could pick it up Cicely had caught sight of it. It was a large key.

“The key of the plantation door!” exclaimed Cicely in amazement. “Oh! Geneviève, you told me you had only been across the park! What did you take the key for? Why cannot you be frank and straightforward?”

She spoke in a tone of wounded and disappointed feeling which stung Geneviève to the quick.

“I did speak what was true, Cicely,” she exclaimed vehemently. “I did but go across the park. I took not the key; I went for to seek it.”

“To seek for the key,” replied Cicely coldly. “I don’t know what you mean.”

Geneviève began to cry again. She had admitted more than she intended. Now there was no help for it.

“Yes,” she said, “I went to seek—to fetch the key. I had taken it this morning when I was out, and I had forgotten it and left it in the door. And to-night when we talked about that way I remembered, and I feared to-morrow you might want it perhaps and would not find it and would be angry; or it might be stolen out of the door. I could not rest till, I had sought it.”

“And that was why you ran out so late, and you let me fancy it was only for the pleasure of a little walk in the moonlight. Oh! Geneviève,” exclaimed Cicely reproachfully.

“But I did not mean to tell you what was not true, Cicely,” repeated Geneviève, “and I tell you all true now, I do—I do. I feared you would be angry that I had taken the key. That was all. Do you not believe me, my cousin?” she sobbed.

“Yes,” said Cicely, “I believe you; but I do not understand you, Geneviève.”

But she kissed her again nevertheless, and Geneviève thanked her and promised to trust her kindness for the future, and went off to bed.

CHAPTER III.

BY THE OLD WATER-MILL.

THERE were letters from Hivèritz the next morning, one for Geneviève and one for Mrs. Methvyn. Both had been looked for with some anxiety, and their contents were fortunately in both instances satisfactory.

“It is all right about my letter to your mother, Geneviève,” said Mrs. Methvyn. “She got it quite safely, and thought I should be satisfied with hearing from you that it had reached her, till she had time to write. She seems to have been so busy. I am so glad we did not write again to tease her.”

She was feeling very anxious to read her own letter, but judged it safer to defer doing so till she should be alone. The first two hours after breakfast were generally Geneviève’s own to employ as she chose, for Cicely always spent them in writing to her father’s dictation in his own room. So Geneviève hastened upstairs and eagerly opened her letter. It was a very kind one, and, as before, the girl’s heart smote her more than once as she read. There was no reproach for Geneviève’s strange behaviour in not delivering the letter entrusted to her care for Mrs. Methvyn. Madame Casalis seemed in a sense touched by her daughter’s trust in her leniency.

“I have written to Mrs. Methvyn again,” she wrote, “and I have avoided the allusion you objected to. I do not of course understand your reason for fearing it, but I doubt not that when we meet again you will explain it. Only, my Geneviève, I would beg you to avoid even the slightest occasion for not acting with perfect frankness. You are so young and far from me, and in England the customs, I believe, are somewhat different. Confide then, my child, as in a mother, in thy good and amiable aunt.”

A slightly disturbed expression came over Geneviève’s face as she read these last words.

“My mother understands not,” she said to herself. “It would be impossible that she could understand. Mais enfin—”

The little time-piece over the fireplace struck the hour—ten o’clock. As she spoke Geneviève started.

“It is late,” she thought, “and I must this morning go round the long way by the lodge.”

She hastily put on her jacket and hat, though not so hastily as to omit a moment’s glance into the looking-glass as she did so.

“How pale I look!” she said to herself; “it is with having sat up so late. I am not pretty when I look so pale. Voyons—ce nœud rose—ah! oui, c’est mieux,” and with a somewhat better satisfied contemplation of herself, she turned away from the dressing table and left the room.

Half an hour later she was at the entrance to the Lingthurst woods—a point, which had she been able to leave the Greystone grounds by the door in the wall, she would have reached in less than half the time. She hurried along as fast as possible till almost within sight of the deserted water mill. There, seated on the remains of what had once been a mill-wheel, long ago, in the days when the little stream, now diverted from its original course for other purposes, had come rushing down with incessant chatter and bustle, Geneviève descried the figure she had been straining her eyes to see. It was Trevor Fawcett.

He was sitting perfectly still; he seemed to be thinking deeply. There was considerable suggestion of melancholy in the place itself. The melancholy of the past, though only the past of a water mill,—the dried-up desertedness of the empty little river-bed carried even the least vivid imagination back to a time of brighter days when the brook and the mill had been in their glory, and forwards—further still—to the universal, inevitable future of decay, the “sic transit” branded even on the everlasting hills themselves.

Mr. Fawcett’s imagination was not exceptionally vivid, nor was he much given to reflections of a depressing nature; it was new to Geneviève to see him anything but alert and cheerful, and a momentary sensation of uneasiness made her heart beat quickly.

“Mr. Fawcett,” she said timidly, for she was quite close to him before he saw her, “Mr. Fawcett.”

“I beg your pardon,” he exclaimed. “I did not hear you. I must have been in a brown study. How late you are this morning! I fancied you would not be coming out.”

“Oh! yes,” said Geneviève, “I would not like to miss my morning walk. It is the pleasantest hour of the day.”

“Yes, in summer especially,” said Mr. Fawcett carelessly. “It is a pity Cicely can never get out in the morning. We might have some capital walks if she could come too.”

Geneviève did not answer at once, and when she did so, her tone sounded constrained.

“My cousin can never leave Colonel Methvyn in the morning,” she said stiffly. “If you would rather that she should be with us, of course I can ask her to come in the afternoon, and not come out any more in the morning. But I thought,” she stopped, and her voice seemed as if she were going to cry.

“I thought you were so kind, and I am so strange here,” she began hesitatingly. “You said you would advise me how to please my English friends, and that I might confide to you my difficulties.”

She raised her great brown eyes, already dewy with tears, to his. There had been a slight frown of impatience and annoyance on his face, but as he looked at her, it melted away.

“You silly child,” he exclaimed with a smile, “What has my wishing that poor Cicely could have a walk too, to do with it? Have you some new trouble on your mind? Do you want to trot off to Greybridge with another letter?”

“Oh! no,” said Geneviève, smiling again. “Oh! no, I have a letter from home to-day. Maman is very good, very good and kind. She has done what I asked her.”

“Then you should be quite happy and bright this morning,” said Trevor. “But I don’t think you are. What makes you look so pale?”

“I had not a good night,” replied Geneviève; “at least I sat up very late, and I was foolish.”

“What were you about? Writing letters? You must take care or you will have my aunt down upon you; she doesn’t approve of such irregular proceedings,” said Mr. Fawcett.

“I was not writing. I had left the key in the door and I did not remember it, and then when I thought all were asleep I ran out,” began Geneviève, going on to tell him all the particulars of her escapade, Cicely’s alarm and annoyance and her own distress. The frown came back again to Trevor’s good-tempered face.

“It was very foolish,” he said in a tone of considerable vexation. “You should not do such silly things, Geneviève. What must a sensible girl like Cicely think of you? There is no use asking me to advise you how to please the Methvyns and win their confidence, if you do such exceedingly foolish things. Did you tell Cicely why you had had the key?”

“No,” said Geneviève, looking very miserable again; “she knows not that I had ever had it more than once. I feared you might be angry if I told her that—that we had walked in the woods.”

“Why should I be angry?” exclaimed Trevor impatiently. “Do you think I should do anything that I would mind being known to the girl I am go—” he stopped abruptly, “to a girl I have known all her life, as I have known Cicely?”—“It is Cicely’s own doing,” he muttered to himself, “this absurd dilly-dallying and concealment.”

“No, I do not think so, if you tell me not,” replied Geneviève with tearful meekness. “If you wish, I will tell Cicely now, as soon as I go in.”

“No, not now. It is too late. Don’t you see if you tell her now, it will look as if there were something?—I mean it would hurt her more that you had not told her before. No; you had better say nothing more about it. But for the future—don’t think me unkind, Geneviève; but for the future, I almost think you had better not come out walks without Cicely. You see anything underhand may cause so much trouble.”

“Very well,” said Geneviève. “I will no more come out. I will no more speak to you, Mr. Fawcett. We will be as strangers.”

She began the speech with an attempt at tragic dignity; but long before she got to its end her voice had broken again, and all the dignity had melted into sobs. Mr. Fawcett muttered some impatient exclamation.

“Really, Miss Casalis, you are unreasonable this morning,” he began. “I was only doing as you asked me to do—advising you for the best, and you begin to cry.”

“I will go home. I wish I had never come to this unkind country, where everybody says things so little amiable, so cruel,” sobbed Geneviève.

“No, not you. Till to-day you have been kind, very kind. But others do. That médecin, that Mr. Guildford, told me that it was not convenable that I should walk with you.”

“He did—did he? Upon my soul that fellow must be taught his place. Meddling snob! When did he condescend to remonstrate with you, may I ask?”

“The day at the picnic. He had seen us that afternoon, two, three weeks ago, on the Greybridge Road. But he was not unkind,” said Geneviève, a little afraid of the effect of her words. “He only told me other people might—I know not what to say—might say it was not convenable.”

“How very considerate of him!” observed Mr. Fawcett. “But perhaps you do not object to his interest, Miss Casalis—perhaps you consulted him as to the matter.”

“You know well I did not. I like him not,” said Geneviève, her eyes flashing. “Mr. Fawcett, you are not kind to-day. You are not as you have been before.”

“I don’t mean to be unkind, my dear child. I don’t indeed. I have been bothered about things lately, and I was put out at the idea of any misunderstanding between you and Cicely. But I dare say it will be all right. Only perhaps we had better all go walks together in future; for fear, you see, of it seeming to Cicely as if we left her out.”

“Very well,” said Geneviève meekly, and this time without any tears. She had sense enough to see that Mr. Fawcett was not in a mood to care about many more of them this morning. “It is getting late,” she went on, looking at her watch, “perhaps I had better go home.”

Her gentleness made Trevor reproach himself for having wounded her. He set to work forthwith to “reward principle” by undoing what he had achieved.

“You are a very good child,” he said warmly. “You are very good not to be angry with me for my roughness. You are not angry with me, are you?”

She had turned her head away, but on his repeating the question, she looked up again in his face; with infinite sweetness in the tender dark eyes and pathos in the droop of the tremulous lips. She looked like a rose after a storm, like a child unjustly chidden, like everything sweet and plaintive and piteous.

“You are an angel,” he said impetuously, but checking himself with a strong effort; “you are a very kind, sensible girl,” he went on, with a little laugh, “which is better than being an angel, isn’t it?”

Geneviève smiled. Trevor saw the smile, but he had not seen the quick flash of gratification and triumph which had lighted up the dark eyes the instant before.

“It is no use going that way,” said Geneviève, “you forget I have not the key.”

“What a bother!” exclaimed Trevor. “Then you must go round by the lodge. Suppose we cut across the wood for a change, and come out on the Haverstock Road? It’s hardly any further, and it’s a much pleasanter way.”

Geneviève seemed to care little where he led her. It was enough for her to be in his company. So they made their way across the wood, trampling down the tall bracken and foxgloves as they went, for there was no path in this direction, startling the pretty wild creatures whose haunts they approached too unceremoniously.

“Isn’t it a pretty place,” said Trevor, standing still for a moment. “Hark, there’s the cuckoo!”

“Where?” said Geneviève, staring about her in all directions, but seeing nothing but the bright eyes of a little rabbit, as he looked about him for a moment, before running out of the way of these strange visitors, the like of whom had never come within his experience before.

“Where?” he repeated. “Where he always is. Listen, don’t look. You have not such sharp ears as Cicely, Miss Casalis! Are there no cuckoos at Hivèritz?”

Mr. Fawcett looked at her uneasily, and seemed once or twice on the point of speaking, but ended by walking on in silence too.

A few minutes brought them to the edge of the wood, then a quarter of a mile down a pretty shady lane, and they would be on the high-road. Trevor made one or two trifling observations, but Geneviève scarcely replied to them. Then he began to lose patience.

“Are you vexed with me again, Miss Casalis?” he said. “I am very unlucky to-day. I seem to do nothing but vex you, and you don’t seem in as good spirits as usual.”

“No; it is not I, it is you, all you,” exclaimed Geneviève. “You are not kind, you do no longer like me. It is all Cicely you want to-day, not Geneviève. There is no Geneviève; she has gone. It is Miss Casalis.”

Mr. Fawcett’s fair face deepened in colour as he listened to her childish words. At first he seemed on the point of answering hastily, but on second thoughts he checked himself. When he did speak, it was very quietly.

“You have mistaken me, Geneviève,” he said. “Why should my mention of Cicely make you think I don’t care for you? Can’t one care for more than one person in the world? Suppose you and Cicely had been my sisters, couldn’t I have cared for you both?”

“I could never be like your sister,” said. Geneviève inconsequently. “Cicely is different; she has been with you always.”

“Yes, of course,” replied Trevor hastily, “but you can be my little friend, can’t you? I have wished you to be my little friend, Geneviève, ever since the first day I saw you; the day I lifted you up from the dusty road at Hivèritz, where those beasts of horses had knocked you down. How pitiful you looked, you poor little soul! Yes, Geneviève, I have always felt a special interest in you since then.”

Unconsciously to himself, his voice grew soft and tender, as the remembrance of the lovely pale face with the closed eyelids and flood of wavy dark hair that had rested on his shoulder, came back to his mind. He looked at her as he spoke. Was the face beside him now less lovely; was it not rather ten times more so, as a smile, called forth by his words, dimpled the flushed cheeks and lighted up the expressive eyes?

Mr. Fawcett’s answer was less sentimental than she expected. Something just at this moment seemed to spring from the ground at their feet, and leap away again so quickly that the girl could hardly distinguish what it was.

“By Jove!” exclaimed Trevor, “what a splendid hare. Did you see it, Geneviève?”

“I thought it was a rabbit,” she replied, but this time she did not resent his laughing at her.

Soon they reached the high-road, and here their paths separated. Trevor hesitated a moment after saying good-bye.

“Will you come out another walk some day, soon?” he said. “I should like to tell you something that I have not been free to tell you yet, and I should like to tell it you myself. I could explain to you why I have been bothered and irritable lately; and—and when you know it, everything will be all right—at least, I think so, and hope so. You have promised to be my friend always, haven’t you, Geneviève?”

“That’s right. Then good-bye again,” and in another moment he was out of sight.

“What a charming little goose it is,” he said, smiling to himself. “I wonder how many moods and humours she has been in, in the last half-hour! The happy man who wins you for his ‘hope’ and ‘joy,’ my dear Geneviève, will find his hands full. And yet how awfully pretty and sweet she is!” An uneasy expression came over his face. “It isn’t fair,” he muttered, “it is too hard upon one; it is, by George! I must come to an understanding with Cicely. I must and shall.”

Geneviève meanwhile went on her way rejoicing. To her self-absorbed imagination Mr. Fawcett’s last words could bear but one interpretation, and her fancy, vivid enough in all that concerned herself, set to work forthwith to build gorgeous castles upon what she now firmly believed to be a substantial foundation.

The chosen of Trevor Fawcett! What a blissful position would be hers! How glad she was that she had agreed to carry the soup to the Widow Lafon that Sunday ever so long ago it seemed now!—how much more inclined she felt to call Monsieur Béret’s horses “angels” than “beasts”! What would Mathurine say? How triumphant she would be at the fulfilment of her prophecy! “Riche, beau, jeune.” Did not Geneviève’s hero well answer the description? Yes, it would be all that could be desired; even the living in England, which had certainly proved a more triste affair than the pastor’s daughter had imagined, would not be so bad as the wife of a man able and willing to gratify her every wish.

“We shall travel often,” thought Geneviève, “we shall go to Paris two—three times a year. All my dresses shall come from there of course. When Eudoxie grows older and is more reasonable, she shall come to visit me. I shall send many presents à la maison. All my old dresses Eudoxie shall have—that in itself will help much my mother. Poor Maman, but she will be pleased to announce the news to Madame Rousille! And Stéphanie shall visit me—I shall enjoy, oh! how I shall enjoy to see her face when she enters Lingthurst! ‘La petite Casalis,’ indeed! Ah! it will no longer be ‘la petite Casalis’ by then.”

The delightful companionship of her thoughts had lent wings to her feet. She found herself at the Abbey Lodge before she knew where she was. She hurried up the drive, then hastened round to the side of the house by the same path in which Cicely had lost sight of her the night before. Just as she reached the glass door, she heard herself called by name, and in another minute Cicely came running across the lawn.

“Where have you been, Geneviève? I have been looking for you everywhere,” she exclaimed. Then without waiting for an answer, “Mother wants you,” she went on, “she is upstairs in her dressing room.”

“I will go at once,” replied Geneviève readily. Something in her bright manner and tone caught Cicely’s attention.

“How happy you look this morning, Geneviève!” she observed with a touch of kindly envy. “You look so fresh and rosy, and yet you were up so late, you naughty girl. Is it your letter from home that has pleased you so? At breakfast time I thought you looked pale.”

“I had good news from home,” replied Geneviève. “I am glad I look well.” She turned to her cousin affectionately; Cicely’s remark had gratified her, and a half impulse came over her to confide to her the cause of her bright looks. But Cicely’s face seemed pale and sad—unusually pale and sad, and the inclination to appeal to her for sympathy died away.

“You don’t look well, Cicely,” said Geneviève, “is anything the matter? It is nothing wrong my aunt wants to see me about?”

Cicely smiled—“a smile beneath a cloud”—afterwards Geneviève wondered to herself how it could be that she of all women in the world could look sad—and the faint light of the smile seemed to make her face still paler.

“Oh! no,” she said, “it is nothing wrong, but mother wants to have a little talk with you.” She was silent for a moment, hesitating seemingly as if she should say more. “Geneviève,” she went on, “you must not think I have treated you like a stranger. It was only that I wanted you to feel quite easy and unconstrained with me that—that I did not tell you what mother is going to tell you. Don’t let it make any difference in your feelings to me. Kiss me, dear.”

A little surprised but nothing loth, Geneviève held up her bright face for Cicely’s kiss. She was pleased that her cousin should feel so kindly to her this morning of all mornings, and her pleasure, in turn, gratified Cicely. She stood watching Geneviève as she ran off, carolling in her clear high voice a little patois ballad she had been teaching Cicely.

“Escoutto d’ Jeannetto
Veux-tu d’biaux habits, laridetto
Escoutto d’ Jeannetto
Pour aller à Paris?”
“Laridetto, laridetto,
Baille me unbaiser, laridetto.”

“Sachez que d’ Jeannetto,
Quand ell’ aimo bien,
Sachez que d’ Jeannetto
Donno ça per rien.”

“I wonder if Geneviève is capable of deep feeling,” thought Cicely. “Will there ever come a time “quand ell’ aimo bien?” She seems like a bird.’ But am I capable of it? I thought I cared for Trevor. I think it still; but, oh! the thought of leaving home is terrible!”

“Come in,” said Mrs. Methvyn in answer to her tap at the door. “Oh! it is you, my dear Geneviève. I am writing to your mother again; I always like to answer letters at once when I can, and besides, I have something I want to tell her now; and I want to tell it to you too; but I hardly think you will be surprised.”

“It is—I fancy you may have noticed Trevor has been here so much,” began Mrs. Methvyn rather confusedly. Geneviève’s heart beat faster, the blood rushed to her cheeks. Could he already have spoken to her aunt?—it was possible that out of respect to her French prejudices he might have done so. “He comes here so much,” her aunt went on, “that even though you know he is our cousin, I can’t help thinking you may have suspected there was some particular attraction; but till now Cicely did not want you to be told of it” (“Cicely, what had she to do with it?” darted through Geneviève’s mind), “because she fancied you would not so soon have felt at ease and friendly with her if you had known she was engaged.”

The room seemed to go round with Geneviève. She caught hold of the arm of the low chair on which she was sitting to prevent herself falling. But still she managed to say quietly, “Yes, dear aunt.”

“And so,” Mrs. Methvyn went on, “I agreed to say nothing about it till you had been a little while with us and felt quite at home. Besides, hitherto the engagement has been so indefinite—I mean to say no time has been fixed—but now I think we must begin to make up our minds to losing Cicely before very long. Not that it will really be like losing her, of course; she will be so near, we can see her almost every day.” She spoke with a forced cheerfulness which would have touched a disinterested listener, but Geneviève was conscious just now but of one sensation, an agonising inclination to burst into hysterical weeping—she had no feeling to spare for any one but herself; she exerted all her strength in forcing herself to remain to outward appearance calm.

When her aunt stopped speaking, and waited in expectation of Geneviève’s reply, none came. Mrs. Methvyn looked up in surprise.

“Are you very much astonished, my dear?” she said. “Had you no idea of it? You are not taking it to heart, dear Geneviève, I hope? If so, I shall blame myself very much for not having prepared you for it before, though I can well understand your regret at losing Cicely just when you have begun to know her.”

Geneviève seized the suggestion. She turned to her aunt, no longer repressing her tears.

Then she drew the girl towards her and kissed her tenderly, and, mistaken as was the motive of the tenderness, in Geneviève’s state of overstrained feeling she had no desire to repel it. She threw her arms round her aunt and sobbed convulsively till Mrs. Methvyn cried in sympathy.

“Oh! no; nothing is fixed yet as to the exact time. It will not be for six months at least. We shall have Cicely all to ourselves for some time yet, you see, dear,” replied Mrs. Methvyn soothingly. But Geneviève felt that she could not bear her present position much longer. The sound of a door opening gave her an excuse; she started up.

“There is Cicely coming,” she exclaimed. “I would not like her to see me crying so. Let me go, dear aunt, and forgive my want of self-control. I should like to go to my own room for a little.”

“Go then, dear,” said Mrs. Methvyn, kissing her again, and Geneviève hastened away.

“How I have mistaken her, the poor, dear child!” thought Cicely’s mother. “I had no idea she was capable of such an amount of feeling. What a loving little creature she is!”

And Cicely was told of her cousin’s unexpected display of affection for her, and felt vexed with herself that she could not help thinking it a little ill-timed and uncalled for.

It is a mistake to suppose that suffering must be noble to be genuine and severe. Geneviève’s distress sprang from no high source: such of it as was not of the nature of mortification and wounded vanity, was principally composed of childish disappointment in the destruction of her dazzling visions of wealth and grandeur. She had some amount of regard for Trevor himself; she admired him, she liked his pleasant voice and gentle deference of manner; she thought she loved him devotedly, she had long ago made up her mind to fall in love with none but a thoroughly desirable parti, therefore the fact of his wealth and position by no means interfered with her belief in the genuineness of her affection for him. That she was very thoroughly in love with the idea of marrying him, of obtaining all the pleasant things that would certainly fall to the share of his wife, there was not the shadow of a doubt. And the disappointment of her hopes fell upon her with crushing weight. There was nothing of true pathos or tragedy in her composition; her cup was but a pretty toy, brittle as egg-shell, though, unlike egg-shell, very capable of repair, but, such at it was, it was just now full to the brim with the bitter draught, which no reserve of latent heroism was at hand to render less unpalatable.

“I wish I had never come to England I wish they had told me at first—I wish, oh! how I wish I had never seen him,” she cried.

Then her glance fell on the little bow of red ribbon which she had fastened to her dress that very morning.

“Naughty little ribbon, detestable little ribbon, I put you on to make me look pretty, that he should think me pretty,” she exclaimed, throwing the rose-coloured knot to the other end of the room, “and now I must think of him as the fiancé of my cousin! It matters not now that he thinks me pretty or ugly; he can never be anything more to me. And Cicely, she who is already rich, fétée,—who could find partis without number. Ah, but it is cruel!”

CHAPTER IV.

MAN AND WOMAN.

“La discussion n’est vraiment possible et efficace qu’entre gens du même avis.”

“Perhaps, however, there is little difference between understanding and sympathising.”

GENEVIÈVE came down to luncheon with hopelessly red eyes and a general air of extreme depression. Cicely looked at her kindly, and spoke to her gently; it was impossible not to be touched by the contrast between her present appearance and the bright joyousness which had attracted her cousin’s notice that very morning. Mrs. Methvyn was more demonstratively affectionate than Geneviève had ever known her.

“I am going to Greybridge this afternoon,” said Mrs. Methvyn, “would you like to come with me, Geneviève? I am going in the large carriage, so you won’t have to sit in the back seat. You cannot come, Cicely?”

She got up from her chair as she spoke, for luncheon was over, and went to the window.

“It looks so fine,” she remarked. “Don’t you think my father might try another drive?”

Mrs. Methvyn shook her head. “I did suggest it,” she said, “but he did not seem inclined for it. I think he might get over his nervousness about it if Mr. Guildford could go with him once or twice.”

“I wish he could,” exclaimed Cicely. “Would it be worth while to write and ask him if he could come some day soon early enough for a drive?”

“You might ask your father,” answered her mother. “Well then, Geneviève, will you come with me?”

Geneviève started. She seemed to wake out of a reverie at the sound of her own name.

“Yes, thank you. I should like very much to go,” she said. “I will go and get ready,” and she left the room.

“How nervous Geneviève seems!” remarked Cicely regretfully. “And this morning she was so bright and happy! I don’t quite understand her.”

“Not understand her, Cicely, when I have been telling you how terribly distressed she was at the thought of losing you! It is entirely that that has upset her. I think you should try to be a little more demonstrative to her, poor child, a cold word or tone chills her in an instant,” said Mrs. Methvyn reproachfully.

“Don’t say that, mother, don’t!” exclaimed Cicely in a quick tone of pain. “I do try, I have tried to be affectionate—more so a great deal than is natural to me—in my manner to Geneviève. But,” she hesitated. “Mamma, it is no use struggling against it,” she went on impetuously, “I would not say so to any one but you, but I cannot get rid of the feeling that she is not perfectly sincere.”

“Cicely!” exclaimed her mother, “my dear child, I am surprised at you. It is not like you to take up an unfounded prejudice. I am quite certain Geneviève is as straightforward and genuine as possible. Indeed, she is transparent to a fault. And her mother is the same. When I knew her as a girl, she was the most guileless creature living.”

“Yes,” said Cicely thoughtfully. “Yes, there is something in that. I mean it is not likely that a girl brought up in an atmosphere of truthfulness and simplicity would be scheming or underhand.”

“Scheming and underhand!” repeated Mrs. Methvyn. “What dreadful words! Really, Cicely, you must not let your fancy run away with you so. It is so unlike you.”

“Forgive me, mamma. I should not have said so much,” said Cicely. “I have been anxious about Geneviève, and I suppose I have grown exaggerated and fanciful. I will try to get rid of my fancies, mother, I will indeed. And I will try to be more demonstrative to poor Geneviève.”

“Very well,” replied her mother. “I should not recognize you, Cicely, if you were to become prejudiced or suspicious. You will go out a little now, won’t you? You have not been out to-day, and Trevor will not be here just yet.”

“Yes, I will go out now,” said Cicely. “Kiss me, mother, and don’t say I am mean and suspicious. I am cross, I think. Kiss me, dear mother.”

She left her mother with a bright face and stood on the lawn by the sun-dial, kissing her hand merrily in farewell as the carriage drove away. But when it was quite out of sight, in spite of her resolutions, her face clouded over again and her heart grew heavy.

“I ought to be glad that mother is so fond of Geneviève,” she thought. “She will miss me the less.”

“I don’t know what is coming over me,” she reflected. “I am mean and unamiable. Can anything be meaner than for me to be jealous of Geneviève, I who have so much, and she so little! Yet I am—I am angry because both Trevor and mother have scolded me for being cold to her. I am spoilt; I can’t bear being scolded—and I am vexed with her because she has the power of showing her affection and enlisting sympathy, whereas I seem to grow colder the more I feel. And as for sympathy, I seem to repel it now—nobody thoroughly sympathises with me.”

She sat down on the stone at the foot of the sun-dial in a very unusual mood of self pity—Cicely, whom at this very moment Geneviève was thinking of as the very happiest girl in all the world! So little do we know of the fit of each other’s garments.

From where she was sitting, Cicely could see the drive almost all the way to the lodge. And in the light dress she wore, she herself was easily to be distinguished, by quick eyes at least, belonging to any one approaching, the Abbey by this front road. There came a sound of wheels. It was too early for Mr. Fawcett, besides which it was more than probable that he would be riding.

“Some people coming to call,” thought Cicely, groaning in the spirit. She felt peculiarly disinclined to-day for small talk and lady-like gossip, and wished she had not placed herself where ignorance of the arrival was impossible. But when the carriage came fairly within view, her fears proved to have been ill-founded. It was only the Greybridge fly. Almost before Cicely had time to wonder who could be its occupant, the carriage stopped and a gentleman got out. He had evidently seen her; he came quickly across the lawn in her direction. Cicely got up from her seat and went forward to meet him.

But there was welcome in her tone. Some thing in his pleasant face, in his keen glance, in his way of shaking hands even, seemed to dispel the cloudy atmosphere of dejection and gloom in which she had been breathing.

“I should have written yesterday to tell you I was coming,” he replied,“but till to-day I was not quite sure that I could make it out. My coming again so soon will not annoy Colonel Methvyn, will it?”

“Oh! dear no; it will please him very much,” she answered heartily. “I was going to write to you this afternoon to ask if you could come again some day soon in time to take papa a drive. He is nervous about going without you; but I am sure going out the other day did him good. Could you go with him to-day?”

“I could easily,” replied Mr. Guildford. “I am not in any hurry; but I hardly think the day is suitable. I mean the weather. It is a good deal colder; the wind is in the east. I noticed it this morning, and some how it made me feel fidgety about Colonel Methvyn. I grew so anxious to know that his drive the day before yesterday had done him no harm that I came to see.”

“It was very kind of you,” said Cicely gratefully. “I think you will find him very well. So the wind is in the east, is it? In June too, what a shame! Perhaps that is why I have felt so cross all day.”

“I don’t know. I used not; but lately I think I have been getting into a bad habit of feeling so from no particular cause. At least,” she hesitated a little, “from no new cause.”

“You mean that there would have been as much excuse for you formerly as there is now, but that it is only lately you have yielded to the irritating influences.”

“No,” said Cicely, laughing. “I don’t think there is now or ever has been any excuse for me. But somehow I don’t think life is as interesting as it used to seem.”

“That is not an uncommon phase of youthful experience,” he said drily. “Don’t you fancy sometimes that nobody understands or sympathises with you?”

“Yes,” said Cicely, looking up in his face with a questioning in her eyes. Was he laughing at her?

“Ah! I thought so,” he said, shaking his head gravely. “Once upon a time I could have sympathised with you, but now—”

“I have come to think one can do very well without much understanding or sympathy; that too little is better than too much. Too much is enervating.”

“You are shifting your ground,” he said. “It is not the clinging—the weak side of your nature—that is discontented just now. It is the energetic, working side that is so.”

“Yes,” she said eagerly, with a sparkle in her eyes, “yes, I think you are right.”

Her countenance fell. “I must say again as I did before, “I am a woman and you are a man,” she answered dejectedly.

He looked at her with more commiseration than he had yet shown. “I suppose it is true,” he said, at last. “It is harder for a woman who has anything in her to find a channel for her energies. Still, you need not despair. You don’t know what is before you.”

“Yes, I do,” she said gloomily. He glanced at her in surprise, and she grew scarlet.

“I mean to say,” she went on hastily, “I mean to say that I know quite well that my life will be very smooth and easy, and that I shall never have anything to do that—that anybody could not do. Don’t think me conceited,” she added pleadingly. “What makes me dull just now is that the only duties that I feel I can do specially well, that seem my own particular business, are going to be taken from me.”

Mr. Guildford made no answer. “You don’t think women should have such feelings, I know,” she went on, in a tone of disappointment. “You think they should take things as they come, and be contented to stay in their own domain.”

“No, not quite that. There are exceptional women as well as exceptional men,” he replied. “I don’t consider myself one of the latter, but still I understand myself. Whatever it was that I said that you are alluding to now, referred only to my own domain. I don’t dictate to other people. I know what is best for myself, and least likely to interfere with the aims of my own life—that is all. And so far as I understand you,” he went on in a different tone, “your present trouble seems to be that you want to stay in your own domain, and you can’t get leave to do so.”

There was a half-veiled inquiry in his tone, but Cicely did not perceive it. He tried to believe that she was only referring to some passing trouble, some wish of her parents, perhaps, that she should enter more into society, or give up the more arduous of her home duties. For Geneviève’s assurance that her cousin and Mr. Fawcett were “like brother and sister only,” was strongly impressed upon him. Cicely’s reply puzzled him still more.

“Perhaps it is rather that I am not sure where is my own domain,” she said. “And you being a man, can never be troubled with doubts of that kind,” she added more lightly.

“I don’t know that,” he answered, feeling instinctively that she wished to turn the conversation from her own affairs. “I often doubt, as I think I have told you, if I did well to come to Sothernbay at all.”

“Yes,” he answered. “When ‘eventually’ may be I can’t say, though things lately seem inclined to hasten it. I had a piece of good luck—at least of great encouragement—a short time ago. But,” he stopped for a moment, “it is very egotistical of me to talk about all this. It can’t possibly interest a young lady.”

“Why not?” she said. “If I had a brother who was clever and learned like you—above all, who worked as hard as you do—do you think I should not be interested in his success? So fancy I am your sister. You have no sister?”

“Yes, I have,” he answered. “I have a very good little sister. She is certainly not the least like you, Miss Methvyn.”

Cicely laughed. Mr. Guildford had a rather original way of expressing himself sometimes.

“Never mind,” she said. “Tell me about your success. I believe I can guess what it is. You have written some learned book, which has set all the medical authorities of Europe in an excitement. And you are the new light of the day.”

“Not quite. Don’t laugh at me, please. I dare say my success won’t sound much to you. It is only that some papers of mine have attracted attention, and I have been invited to contribute a series to one of the first scientific journals of the day. The subject is not directly connected with my own profession, but indirectly it bears upon the very branch of it that I have studied more than any other. So it will be no loss of time to me in any way.”

“I do consider it a success—a great success!” exclaimed Cicely. “And what a reward for your past labours to find that they have been all in the right direction! How I envy you! If it were not so commonplace, I think I should sometimes say that I wished I were a man.”

“Don’t say it,” said Mr. Guildford; “but not because it is commonplace. You needn’t mind that.”

“Because—because it isn’t womanly,” he answered, smiling at his own words.

“I suspect,” she said, “that your interpretation of that word is as arbitrary as most men’s. And your notions about women are just as inconsistent and unreasonable as—as—”

“As theories on subjects one knows very little about usually are?” he suggested. “Perhaps so. Please remember, however, I only make theories for myself, not for the rest of the world.”

“I think papa will be pleased to see you now,” said Cicely. “I always go to him about this time when my mother is out.”

They turned towards the house. “Did you not meet my mother and my cousin as you came from Greybridge?” she asked.

“Yes,” he replied. “I met them about half a mile from here—Miss Casalis is exceedingly pretty,” he remarked inconsequently.

“No, she is too small to be beautiful. She is just the perfection of prettiness.”

Cicely looked up quickly. Her mother’s words recurred to her memory, but Mr. Guildford’s manner perplexed her. Was “the perfection of prettiness” his ideal? She walked on in a reverie, and her companion glanced at her once or twice without attracting her attention. Then he spoke.

“Do you think it is impertinent of me to make such remarks?” he asked with a little anxiety.

“Oh! dear, no,” she replied. “I was only thinking about something that puzzled me a little about—”

“About Miss Casalis?” inquired Mr. Guildford. His tone was so gentle that Cicely never thought of resenting the question.

“But you don’t think her puzzling, do you?” said Mr. Guildford in surprise. “She seems to me transparency itself.”

“I am afraid I sometimes repel where I should like to win,” she remarked with apparent irrelevance. But there was no time to say more, for just then they were met by a servant sent by Colonel Methvyn in quest of his daughter, and Cicely hastened in to tell her father of Mr. Guildford’s arrival.

When Mrs. Methvyn and Geneviève drove up to the hall door on their return from Greybridge, they were met by Mr. Guildford. He came forward to help them out of the carriage.

“I am still here, you see,” he said to Mrs. Methvyn. “I hope you will not think I have tired Colonel Methvyn; we have had such a pleasant afternoon. Colonel Methvyn has been so kind as to let me look over his portfolios.”

“I am so glad,” answered the wife. “There is nothing he enjoys more than showing his engravings to any one who understands them. Your coming to-day was particularly fortunate, Mr. Guildford. I wish we could send for you by magic now and then.”

Mr. Guildford laughed brightly, and Geneviève, who was just stepping out, smiled up in his face as if in agreement with her aunt.

And as the young man turned towards her as she spoke, he felt half inclined to modify his verdict of that very afternoon.

“Pretty! She is more than pretty,” he thought. For Geneviève was at her very loveliest just then. The tears and agitation of the morning had left their traces in an increased depth and tenderness of expression; there was a subdued softness about her face which Mr. Guildford had never remarked before. The unconcealed admiration of his glance caught Mrs. Methvyn’s observation. She smiled, and the smile was not misunderstood by Geneviève.

“That is what my aunt means,” thought the girl, referring in her own mind to something that Mrs. Methvyn had said during their drive, in the fulness of her motherly heart, about the pleasure it would give her to see Geneviève happy like her cousin,—happy as she who showed such appreciation of Cicely, surely deserved to be! And sorely as the girl was suffering, the idea was not altogether devoid of consolation.

“Where is Cicely?” said Mrs. Methvyn, as she entered the hall. “Have you seen her, Mr. Guildford?”

“Not very lately,” he replied. “It must be an hour and a half at least since I went up to Colonel Methvyn’s room, and I have not seen Miss Methvyn since then.”

“Miss Cicely is out; Mr. Fawcett called about an hour ago, and Miss Cicely went out into the garden with him,” said the old butler, in answer to his mistress’s inquiry.

“She will be in soon, I dare say,” said Mrs. Methvyn. “Run upstairs and let your uncle know we have come in, Geneviève dear, and then come and make tea for us in the library. You will not refuse a cup of tea, Mr. Guildford?”

Somewhat to her mother’s surprise, Cicely made her appearance in the library almost immediately. She came in by the glass door, alone, her hat in her hand, an unusual colour in her cheeks, and a forced brightness in her manner which did not deceive the loving eyes.

“What have you done with Trevor?” asked Mrs. Methvyn, with a would-be carelessness of tone. “Simmons said he had been here.”

“Yes; but he could not stay long; he had letters to write or something, and hurried home. Had you a pleasant drive, mother? You look all the better for it, Geneviève,” said Cicely, speaking more quickly than usual, and making greater clatter among the tea-cups than her wont.

“We had a very nice drive,” replied Mrs. Methvyn, and then, quick to take her daughter’s hint, she went on to speak about the commissions they had executed at Greybridge, the neighbours they had met, and the news they had heard, without further allusion to Mr. Fawcett or his call.

Geneviève had fixed her eyes on her cousin when Trevor’s name was first mentioned. She, too, had noticed something unusual in Cicely’s manner. “Can it be that they have quarrelled,” she said to herself, a throb of joy passing through her at the very thought. The mere possibility of such a thing made her feel amiable, and almost capable of pitying her cousin. She got up from her seat and came forward to the tea-table to help Cicely.

“Thank you, dear,” said Cicely. She glanced at Geneviève as she spoke. Some thing in her expression smote Geneviève—a look of distress and endurance, a pained, perplexed expression, new to the calm, fair face. Geneviève carried a cup of tea to Mrs. Methvyn, and then went back to her seat, feeling unhappy and bewildered and hopeful all at once. And as she reflected further on the position of things, the last feeling gradually came to predominate, the shadow of self-reproach faded away. What if Cicely and her lover had quarrelled, and about her! She was not to blame. She had been kept in the dark as to the true state of affairs; and even if she had known it, could she have prevented what had happened?

“I did not make my own face,” thought Geneviève complacently. “I cannot make myself ugly, and if people fall in love with me, it is not my fault.”

She was quite ready to believe that Mr. Guildford, too, was fast falling a victim to her charms. The idea was not unpleasing to her. It brightened her eyes and added sweetness to her smile, as she turned to speak to the young man who stood beside her, absorbed, so it seemed to Mrs. Methvyn, in the contemplation of her lovely face. Cicely noticed them too, and a little sigh escaped her. Was a lovely face the one thing after all? It almost seemed so.

Soon after Mr. Guildford left them, Geneviève went out into the garden, and the mother and daughter were alone.

“Don’t you think that what I said is very evident now, Cicely?” asked Mrs. Methvyn.

“What?” said Cicely absently, listlessly raising her eyes, “what was it that you said, mother?”

“About Geneviève—about Mr. Guildford’s admiring her. Don’t you remember?” said Mrs. Methvyn impatiently.

Oh, yes! I dare say it is so. I have no doubt he admires her. Everybody does. It is not only her face; she is lovable and womanly and gentle; everything I am not,” exclaimed Cicely with most unaccustomed bitterness.

“Cicely!” ejaculated Mrs. Methvyn. In the extremity of her amazement she could say no more.

“Oh! mother, don’t be shocked at me, said Cicely. “I am so unhappy, so very unhappy, I don’t know what I am saying. Oh! mother, I wish there were no such thing as marrying in the world!”

“What is it, dear? Is there anything wrong between you and Trevor? Is he disappointed at your wishing to put off your marriage?” asked Mrs. Methvyn, anxiously.

“Yes,” replied Cicely. “He is more than disappointed. He has spoken very cruelly to me. He is cruel. And I don’t deserve it. I have not put off our marriage, mother. It is Trevor that wished to hurry it on in a way that had never been thought of. It is inconsiderate in the extreme of him. I don’t understand him; he is quite, quite changed.”

Two or three large tears gathered in the troubled eyes and rolled slowly down the pale face. And Cicely so seldom cried!

“I can’t bear to see you so unhappy, my darling,” she said at last. “Tell me more about it. How is he changed? You cannot doubt his affection; his very eagerness to hurry on things is a proof of it.”

“I don’t doubt his affection,” she said, “if I did I could not marry him. But there is something I don’t understand. A few months ago he was so gentle and considerate—so understanding. To-day he was quite different. When I told him that six months hence was quite as soon as I could agree to our marriage taking place, he got quite angry and indignant. He accused me of not caring for him, mother; of making false excuses with the hope of delaying it indefinitely—perhaps for ever—of all sorts of feelings and schemes that he knows I am incapable of. In fact, he quite forgot himself. And, mother, my reasons were right and good ones; a few months ago, yes, even a few weeks ago, he would have completely entered into them. If I did not know—” she hesitated and stopped.

“I was going to say if I did not know Trevor to be perfectly honourable, I could almost have fancied he was trying to provoke me into breaking off our engagement.” She looked up into her mother’s face with a painful doubt in her eyes.

“No,” said Mrs. Methvyn decidedly; “Trevor is incapable of such a thing. Cicely dear, you have mistaken him. It was only a passing fit of irritation, and he said more than he meant.”

“I hope so,” answered Cicely. “Yes, I hope so. He is not capable of anything scheming or dishonourable. Still, mother, he is changed. He has grown suspicious and irritable; he who used to be so sweet tempered and gentle.”

“He will be so again, dear. I am sure he will,” said her mother confidently. “He is only disappointed. And remember it is partly your father’s fault; he led him to believe the marriage might be sooner.”

“But papa says he will be very glad to have me at home for six months. Six months! It is not long, mother.”

“Your father is in better spirits again just now,” said Mrs. Methvyn. “But a week or two ago, he seemed to wish he could see you married at once. He was very dull about himself at that time.”

“Yes, I remember,” replied Cicely. Then she sat silent for a few moments thinking deeply.

“But—but it was all right again between you before Trevor went?” asked Mrs. Methvyn somewhat timidly.

“‘All right?’ You mean we did not actually quarrel?” said Cicely, smiling a little at her mother’s anxiety. “No, we did ‘make it up’ after a fashion. I don’t think Trevor and I could really quarrel. Only—only—somehow it has left a sore feeling, a feeling of not understanding him as thoroughly as I used to do; of not feeling sure that he understands me. But it will go off again. Forgive me for troubling you, dear mother. I shall be all right again now. Don’t tell Geneviève that anything was wrong.”

CHAPTER V.

ONE OF MANY.

“‘It is good when it happens,’ say the children,
‘That we die before our time.’”

WHEN Geneviève woke the next morning, the sun—the beautiful morning sun of an English June—was shining into her room. Her first thought was of gladness.

“What a fine day!” she said to herself. “I shall go out as soon as breakfast is over; I am sure Mr. Fawcett will be out early this morning.”

But suddenly the occurrences of the previous day returned to her recollection. Mr. Fawcett, what was he?—her own all but acknowledged lover, the rich, handsome young Englishman, whom long ago she had pictured as her future husband? Ah! no, all that was at an end. What could he ever be to her now? He, the betrothed of her cousin Cicely,—he, who she now knew had never cared for her as she had imagined, had only been amusing himself at her expense.

Yet she found it difficult to believe he did not care for her, she recalled his looks and words and tones, and dwelt on them till she almost persuaded herself that his engagement to Cicely was repugnant to him; that she, and not her cousin, was in possession of his heart. She knew that he admired her beauty, and she hardly understood the difference between a feeling of this kind and a higher, deeper devotion. She recalled the depression of Cicely’s manner the evening before, and her own suspicion as to its cause, and again a slight uncomfortable sensation of self-reproach passed through her, but again she checked it quickly.

“It is not my fault,” she said to herself; “if Mr. Fawcett thinks me prettier than Cicely I cannot help it. I have not interfered with my cousin’s fiancé, I knew not he was engaged to her, they never told me; it is their fault, not mine.”

And though yesterday, when she had learnt the real state of things from her aunt, she had felt, in the first blush of her disappointment and mortification, as if she could never speak to Mr. Fawcett again, as if she would be thankful to go away home to Hivèritz at once, and forget all her English experiences,—she now began to think she would like to meet Trevor, to see how he bore himself to her now that she knew all, perhaps even to hear his own account of things, possibly even—who could say?—his assurance of the depth of his hopeless regard for her, his soft whispers of regret that they had not met till “too late.”

It was too late. Of that she now felt satisfied, not from any scrupulous feeling of honour due to his own vows, or regard to Cicely’s happiness,—such considerations weighed curiously little in the scales of Geneviève’s judgment,—but she felt that in Trevor’s place she herself would have hesitated before the sacrifice involved by the breaking off of his engagement. Cicely was rich, well-connected, and in every sense a partie to be desired; his parents approved of her,—there was no saying what might not be the results of his displeasing them in so grave a matter. “They might disinherit him,” reflected Geneviève, “and in that case—” She did not finish the sentence, but she was none the less clear in her own mind that Mr. Fawcett penniless and obscure would be by no means the same person as the hero of her castles in the air.

So, with a sigh, she made up her mind that she must think no more of Cicely’s fiancé. To do her justice, no feeling of ill will towards her cousin increased the bitterness of her disappointment; she was doubtful of Cicely’s appreciation of her good fortune, but that was all; and then she consoled herself a little by reflecting that, had Trevor been unfettered, old Mathurine’s predictions would certainly have been fulfilled.

“I wish I could see him,” she thought; “I wonder what he will think when he finds that I know of his engagement. I am glad he did not see me yesterday, when my eyes were so red and swollen. I wonder if Mr. Guildford observed them.”

The recollection of Mr. Guildford sent her thoughts off in another direction. She recalled her aunt’s hints when they were driving the day before, and speculated as to what had called them forth. She did not care for Mr. Guildford in the least; she thought him abrupt and “brusque” in manner; painfully “English” in the objectionable sense of the word, and very far removed in position from that which she aspired to. Still he was clever, and likely to rise in his profession; he was not poor,—Mrs. Methvyn had spoken of him as fairly well off; though not exactly good-looking, he was not without an air of distinction; it might be possible, thought Geneviève, to do worse. Stéphanie Rousille’s eldest sister had married a doctor, and seemed to enjoy most of the good things of life very satisfactorily; and some English doctors, Geneviève had heard, rose to high places, to appointments, à la cour even. It was not unpleasant to feel that if she chose she might, in all probability, be married as soon as Cicely; she was glad to remember that, notwithstanding her depression and preoccupation the day before, she had smiled and talked as usual to Mr. Guildford, and had done nothing to chill or repel his evident admiration.

“My eyes cannot have looked very bad, after all,” she thought, “or my aunt would not have stopped when we met him, for I am sure she wishes me to be admired.”

So Geneviève’s spirits rose again considerably; her distress of mind had not prevented her sleeping, and though, perhaps a very little paler and more subdued than her wont, she looked as fresh and sweet as a newly-opened rosebud when she joined her aunt and cousin at the breakfast-table.

Cicely, on the contrary, looked ill and almost careworn; it seemed to cost her an effort to speak or smile. Geneviève observed her with surprise.

“What then would she have, I wonder?” she said to herself; “I understand not the English.”

She strolled to the window when breakfast was over, wishing it were yesterday. How happy she had felt when she came back from her ramble in the woods! how little she had dreamt of what it was that her aunt was going to say to her! The tears rushed into her eyes again at the thought. It was a lovely day, but Geneviève felt no wish to go out; the morning walk had lost its charm for her; she began again to think England, despite its midsummer sunshine, a very different place from what she had pictured it, and almost to wish she had never come. Almost, not quite, she had made up her mind that she must have nothing more to do with Mr. Fawcett, except what little intercourse was unavoidable with him in his position of Cicely’s fiancé, but still she could not help wishing that she could see him again, if but once. If she could meet him by accident; in that there could be no harm—it was too hard to think she would never see him again, except in her cousin’s presence, in the openly recognised character of her lover.

“Geneviève,” she said, “I have just got a note from Mr. Hayle asking me to send some things to those poor people at Notcotts, whose child is so ill. I think I shall go myself; my father does not want me particularly this morning, and I have got a headache, I should like the walk. Will you come part of the way with me? I don’t want you to come all the way, because mother wants one of us to help her in copying out that French catalogue for papa, and you could do it better than I, but you might come a little way with me if you would like.”

“Geneviève,” she said, looking at her with some anxiety as she spoke, “you don’t look happy. And at breakfast-time you seemed so bright, I hoped you had quite got over your low spirits. And now you look so dull again! What is it, dear?”

The ever-ready tears filled Geneviève’s eyes. She half turned away, as if to hide them.

“It is nothing,” she said, but with no abruptness in her tone. “I was thinking of many things, standing here alone—voilà tout, I assure you.”

“And is there nothing the matter, truly?” asked Cicely, seemingly but half satisfied.

“Nothing, truly nothing, except that I was feeling a little sad,” repeated Geneviève. But after a moment’s pause, she added, considerably to her cousin’s surprise, “Cicely, do you know I think it would be better for me to go home?”

“To go home!” exclaimed Cicely. “Why, Geneviève, you have not been here many weeks, and you have told me several times lately that you were getting to like being here and to feel happy with us! What has changed you so suddenly?”

“It is not that I am changed,” said Geneviève, the colour deepening in her face, “but—but things are changed. I fear now that I shall be in the way—you will have much to do—all the preparation of—of marriage to make, by what my aunt told me. It is all changed. I had thought to be a friend, a companion to you Cicely, but now you will have your own interests and occupations. I see not that I am wanted. I would rather go home.”

Cicely hardly knew whether to be vexed or sorry. She looked distressed and disappointed.

“I wish you would not talk so, Geneviève,” she said at last “you are quite—quite mistaken. The changes that are coming will only make you more wanted. Indeed,” she went on, hesitating a little, “it was partly the looking forward to my leaving home that made us all anxious for you to come to us—to take my place as it were. It was my doing that you were not told of my engagement at the first—before you came even. Now, I almost wish you had known it at the first.”

“Ah! yes, I wish much—I cannot say how much that I had known! Why did you not tell me? It was not kind,” Geneviève exclaimed.

There was a sort of vehement though subdued regret in her tone, which seemed to Cicely exaggerated and uncalled for.

“I don’t think you have any reason to think it unkind,” she said rather coldly. “I thought you would more readily feel at ease with me if you did not know that I was going to be married. I seem older than I am, and I fancied anything of that kind would have made you feel as if I were very much older than you. That was my only reason for not telling you. And besides, there seemed no particular reason for speaking of it immediately—at that time I had no idea that I should be married for a year or two years to come.”

“Had you not?” said Geneviève, quickly. “Oh, I thought not so! I thought you always knew it—your marriage—was to be soon.”

“No,” said Cicely, hardly remembering to whom she was speaking, “No, I had no idea of it—nobody had.”

She sighed as she spoke. She was not looking at her cousin, and did not see the curiously eager expression on her face.

“Then why—if you do not wish it, I mean—” said Geneviève, “should it be sooner than a year, or two years, as you said?”

Cicely was too preoccupied to notice Geneviève’s inquisitiveness. “Trevor wishes it, and so does my father. Everybody wishes it,” she replied.

“I never said I did not wish it,” she answered with a touch of haughtiness. “Geneviève, you should be careful what you say.”

“Forgive me, Cicely. I meant not to vex you. It was only that—I do not understand, I suppose—but it seemed to me strange that Mr. Fawcett should wish to hasten it, if it is your wish to wait a year.”

“No,” answered Cicely gently again,“no, it is different for him. Our marriage involves for him no breaking of old ties as it does for me. It is quite different.”

But in her heart of hearts, Geneviève’s remark had left a little sting. It was strange that her wishes had no longer their old weight with Trevor. She had already owned to herself that it was so, but the putting into words of the thought by another—an outside disinterested spectator—brought it home to her with increased pain and acuteness.

And Geneviève, for her part, had got some new lights on the subject of her cousin’s affairs.

They went out together—through the pleasant shady lanes which led to Notcotts, Cicely carrying a small basket packed with delicacies for the little invalid. She had always loved children, but of late she had seemed to look upon them with an increased tenderness. She loved to see them happy, but it was the sight of childish suffering that called forth her deepest sympathy.

“How sad it must be for a little child to be ill in the summer-time,” she remarked. They had stopped to rest for a moment or too by a stile, for the basket was rather heavy. Cicely set it down on the ground beside her, and gazed up into the mid summer sky with a wistfulness in her eyes.

“Is the little child that you are going to see very ill?” asked Geneviève, more for the sake of saying something than because she felt much interest in the matter.

Geneviève gave a little start. “How dreadful!” she exclaimed, feeling very glad that her cousin had not proposed her accompanying her all the way.

“It is very sad, but not dreadful,” replied Cicely gently. “And the worst of it is that in one sense it is hardly to be called sad. Life, so far as we can see, seems sadder than death to most of the poor little children at Notcotts, the people are so very poor and so very ignorant. Nobody ever took any interest in the place till Mr. Hayle came. He does his best, but a dozen Mr. Hayles could not do enough.”

“No, I wish it did,” answered her cousin. “It belongs to two or three different owners, none of whom live near here, or take any interest in it. But, Geneviève, I think you must turn now; we have walked slowly, and mother may be wanting you. Good-bye, dear; thank you for coming so far.”

Geneviève left her. Cicely sat on the stile watching her for a minute or two. At a turn in the lane Geneviève looked round for an instant, kissing her hand in farewell.

“She seems quite happy again,” thought Cicely, “poor little Geneviève!”

She was lifting her basket and preparing to set off again, when happening to look round, she saw a figure coming quickly across a field at the side of the lane. It was Mr. Hayle. He hurried up to her.

“How good of you to come yourself, Miss Methvyn,” he exclaimed, quite out of breath with his haste. “I take for granted you are going to see that poor child at Notcotts. I hardly hoped you would be able to come yourself, but he will be delighted to see you again. And there is very little that can be done to please him now.”

“Yes; I hardly think he will live over today. That was why I ventured to send to you for the fruit.”

“I am very glad you did,” said Cicely. “I have brought some other little things for him,” she added, glancing at her basket, “but if he is too ill to care for them, I can give them to his brothers and sisters. Poor little creatures, they are more to be pitied than he, if he is dying!”

Mr. Hayle looked at her rather suspiciously. His two or three conversations with Miss Methvyn had rendered him somewhat chary of subscribing to her sentiments till he had examined them on all sides.

“I mean that life—living rather—in such circumstances as those of these poor people, is much more pitiable than death.”

“But there must be poor people. We know for a fact that there always must be,” replied Mr. Hayle. “And knowing this, we have no right to say that the world would be better without them, or to wish them out of it.”

“I did not say that,” said Cicely. “I only say that when they die, they must surely have a better chance than many of them have here. It was only from their side of the question that I was speaking. It would be very dreadful to think that, as you say, there must always be poor—by poor, of course, I mean very poor and wretched people. I know nothing of Political Economy, but I don’t quite see why there always must be such terrible blots on the race. Indeed, I don’t think I do see it at all. Don’t you think that on the whole, things are improving, Mr. Hayle, and if so, will not the world be a better place a few thousands of years hence than it is now?”

She spoke half laughingly, but Mr. Hayle’s face and tone were very grave as he replied to her.

“I was not speaking as a political economist, Miss Methvyn. You misunderstood me. I was speaking as a Christian.”

“I dare say not,” he answered regretfully. “I fear there are many points on which you would not agree with me.”

The words sounded presumptuous and conceited, but Cicely understood that they were neither.

“It is the rock so many split upon in the present day,” pursued Mr. Hayle, his voice sounding as if he was thinking aloud.

“The setting up of reason against revelation, of private judgment against authority,” replied the young clergyman mournfully.

Cicely was not the least vexed. It was impossible for her to take offence at whatever Mr. Hayle could say—boyish as he appeared, he was so honestly in earnest, so single-minded in his conviction—but she felt inclined to smile. And this she knew would wound the young man far more keenly than the most indignant contradiction. In the present instance, however, she found no difficulty in evading the argument she dreaded, for before there was time for her to answer, they came within sight of their destination, and their attention was diverted by what they saw.

The cottage where lay the poor sick child was one of a row of hovels, undrained, unventilated, low-roofed, and dilapidated, so altogether wretched as to make one inclined to doubt whether, after all, the poor of great cities, where some amount of attention to sanitary rules is compulsory, have not the advantage over their country neighbours. Even on this bright June morning Notcotts looked abjectly miserable; no amount of sunshine could gild over its squalid wretchedness. At the gate of little Joe’s home stood a group of half-a-dozen men and women; they fell back without speaking as Mr. Hayle and Cicely came up. Cicely was going in, but her companion stopped her. “Let me ask how he is, first,” he said somewhat abruptly, gently putting her aside as he hastened in. There was no one in the kitchen; the clergyman passed through it to an inner room, and Cicely stood at the door, waiting.

It was some minutes before Mr. Hayle appeared. When he did so, his face was very grave. “It is as I feared,” he said gently, “the poor little boy is dead, Miss Methvyn.”

Cicely made a step or two forward into the kitchen, out of the sight of the curious group at the gate; then two or three large tears trickled down her face.

“I will go in and see the mother,” Cicely added in a minute. Mr. Hayle looked at her doubtfully.

“He—it—the poor little dead body is in there,” he said. “Do you not mind?”

“What a woman she might be if she were but better influenced!” he said to himself.

Cicely did not stay very long, and when she came out again, Mr. Hayle saw that she had been crying. He walked a little way along the road with her, then their ways separated.

“I must take a short cut home across the fields,” he said. “Good-bye, Miss Methvyn, and thank you very much.”

“Thank me,” she repeated “I have done nothing; I wish I could. I wish I had more in my power.”

“You don’t know how much you might have in your power,” he said impressively. “I wonder,” he added, after a little pause, “I wonder if you would read some books I would like to lend you, Miss Methvyn.”

Cicely smiled. “I would read them,” she said, “but I think it would be better not.”

“Because it would vex and disappoint you if I could not honestly say I liked them,” she replied. “I have no doubt I should like parts, and probably admire a great deal. But I fear it would not be the sort of liking and admiration you want. And I dislike seeming presumptuous.”

Then Mr. Hayle went his way. “I wonder if it is true that she is going to marry Fawcett,” he said to himself. “If it is so, in my opinion she will be thrown away upon him. A wife like that might strengthen one’s hands.”

But as he had long ago decided that with marrying and giving in marriage he and such as he had nothing to do, his spirit was not perturbed by the reflection.

CHAPTER VI.

LES PAPILLONS.

“La beauté,” reprit Riquet à la Houppe, “est unsi grand avantage qu’il doit tenir lieu de tout le reste; et, quand on le possède, je ne vois pas qu’il y ait rien qui puisse vous affliger beaucoup.”

GENEVIÈVE meanwhile had made her way home again—through the pretty lanes, across the daisy-besprinkled fields she passed, heeding but little the summer loveliness surrounding her on all sides, though not insensible to the direct pleasantness of the sunshine, of the soft sweet air and universal warmth and brightness.

Daisies were only daisies to her, the birds’ songs no more than a pretty twitter in a language of which it had never occurred to her that there could be any interpretation; to her “the witchery of the soft blue sky” was almost as little known as to the immortal potter; yet careless and ignorant as she was of Nature’s subtler influences, of the beauty buried everywhere, of the tender secrets of “water, earth, and air,” revealed not to the senses “without a soul behind,” Geneviève was keenly alive to everything affecting, agreeably or the reverse, her material existence. She was miserable on a rainy day, she crept together like a sensitive plant at the approach of cold; she would have drooped and pined far more speedily than her cousin Cicely, had fate suddenly cast her life in some ugly, grimy manufacturing town, she loved brightness and warmth and colour almost as much as admiration.

So this morning her spirits, which had already experienced several chamelion-like variations since she had wakened, rose again when she found herself alone in the sunny, green meadows, out of sight of Cicely’s pale, grave face, which for the last day or two she had been unable to see without an uncomfortable, indefinite sensation of self reproach.

“How strange Cicely is!” she reflected; “they say English girls marry for love—love indeed, they know not what it means. She looks miserable at the thought of leaving her home and her parents—her father surtout, who assuredly cannot live long; her mother, who has all she can wish for, a fine house, carriages, horses, plenty of money, and yet she imagines herself that she cares for Mr. Fawcett! It is not in her cold nature to care. Sensibilité, she can have none; how, if she had any, could she go among those misérables at Notcotts? To see a child who is dying—what a taste! What good can she do? She is not a doctor. However, chacun a son goút, as Mathurine says.”

The recollection of Mathurine brought the cloud back to her face. “I had meant to send her a so beautiful dress of black silk the day I was married,” she thought regretfully.

When she reached the Abbey, she found her aunt in the middle of a housewifely consultation with Mrs. Moore in the store-room.

“Is that you—back again already,—my dear Geneviève?” exclaimed Mrs. Methvyn. “I am so sorry that you have hurried home. I find that your uncle has not got his notes arranged yet for the catalogue of French engravings, so it will have to wait till to-morrow. I am so sorry.”

“It matters not the least in the world, dear aunt,” said Geneviève sweetly. I walked quite far enough, and Cicely, I think, preferred to pay her little visit of charity alone. Is there then nothing else that I can do for you? If not, I will study the piano-practice, I mean, in the library.”

“Yes, dear, do so. Mrs. Moore and I have quite a morning’s work before us, and Cicely will be back by the time her father wants her; so go and practice, by all means.”

Geneviève went slowly to the library. She opened the piano and looked out a piece of music she had half learnt. It was a brilliant waltz, calling for considerable execution, and Geneviève had been working at it very zealously, for Mr. Fawcett had said that he admired it, and had mentioned having heard it beautifully played by some lady of his acquaintance. But to-day it sounded flat and commonplace, her fingers seemed to have lost their cunning; all the verve and spirit had deserted her! Geneviève left off playing, and leant her head wearily on the piano. What was the use of it now? Why should she care any more to please Mr. Fawcett? He had Cicely to play to him—her soft, unobtrusive “songs without words,” and nocturnes, and so on; it was Cicely’s business to play to him, not hers. Mr. Fawcett did not care about her; he had only been amusing himself while all the time he had belonged to Cicely. He had called her butterfly once, had he not? “Yes,” thought Geneviève, “that is just it. He thinks me a pretty silly little butterfly. He liked to play with me, that was all!”

But still she was not angry—not indignant; she was only bitterly disappointed.

She sat thus for a minute or two. She did not hear the glass door, already unlatched, open softly; her eyes were hidden; she did not see a shadow that fell across the white pages of her waltz—Les Papillons, it happened to be called; she was unconscious that any one had entered the room, till a voice close behind her made her start.

Then she looked up, knowing full well before she did so whose it was, knowing, too, by the quick beating of her heart, the sudden thrill through all her being, how welcome, how dangerously welcome was its owner—Cicely’s lover! Little thought she of Cicely at that moment.

She lifted her lovely face; she looked up at Mr. Fawcett with smiles dimpling about her mouth, though her eyes were still wet with tears.

“Mr. Fawcett!” she exclaimed softly. “No, I was not asleep, but I did not hear you come in.”

“What are you doing, or pretending to be doing, you idle little person?” he said, coming nearer and looking over her at the sheets of music on the desk; “practising ‘Les Papillons!’ That is very good of you. I have been longing to hear it again.”

“I do not know it well yet,” said Geneviève, with the right hand idly playing the notes of the waltz. Now that she had got over the first surprise of his presence, she began to feel constrained and unhappy, to realise the vast distance between to-day and yesterday.

“Never mind,” he said. “I won’t ask to hear it till you wish to play it. You will know it soon, your fingers will dance away at it beautifully. But I won’t interrupt you any more,” he added, glancing round the room. “Where is Cicely, by the bye, do you know? Up with her father, I suppose; there is never any getting hold of her.”

“No,” said Geneviève, feeling the colour deepen in her cheeks as she spoke, “no, Cicely is not with my uncle. She is out.”

“Out,” exclaimed Mr. Fawcett impatiently. “Where has she gone to? I thought she never went out in the morning. Or do you only mean,” he went on, his voice softening again, that she is in the garden?”

“No,” said Geneviève again, with a curious sort of timid reluctance in her manner, “no; I think not that she will be long of returning, above all, if she expected you; oh! no, surely, she will not be long, but she has gone to Notcotts to see some poor person that is ill, I think.”

“Gone to Notcotts!” repeated Mr. Fawcett. Then he gave vent to some angry exclamation, which Geneviève did not understand, and walked away to the window, muttering to himself. Some of the words reached the girl’s ear as she sat silently, growing rather frightened, at the piano.

“Gone to Notcotts!” he repeated again. “Yes, there or anywhere else rather than wait at home to see me. Father, mother, anything, anybody, before me. . . By George, what a fool I am!”

He was evidently very much put out, indeed. He had walked over to the Abbey early this morning on purpose to see Cicely, to “make friends” again by begging her to forgive him for his unkind words of the day before. He had been very unhappy in remembering them; never before had he parted from her in anger; never once before in all the years during which they had been childish friends, then boy and girl together, now promised husband and wife. And he could not bear the thought of having done so now. He was very ready to own himself to blame, though in his innermost heart he knew that the very subject of their disagreement, the point on which they differed, was only insisted on by him through his loyalty to Cicely, through his half-acknowledged consciousness that for the first time this loyalty was likely to be tested. Temptation, for the first time in his easy prosperous life, had drawn near him—might, he felt, draw nearer yet. He wished, he longed to resist it, to be true to himself, to Cicely, to what he knew was his best chance in life, what had been, what would be yet more and more, in very truth, “the making of him.” And full of these feelings he had hurried over to Greystone to find—what? Cicely, whom he had been picturing to himself as to the full as unhappy as he, absent—away calmly and comfortably to play the Lady Bountiful in a dirty village with which she had nothing whatever to do—and—Temptation, seated at Cicely’s piano, learning the music he loved, glancing up in his face with sweetest smiles and eyes yet glistening with tears, called forth, he strongly suspected, by his folly.

A pleasant and promising state of things. Being a man, he did what in such circumstances most men would do. He blamed everybody but himself; he swore at everything under his breath, he worked himself up into a passion; but he did not leave the library again by the glass door, still standing ajar—the unlucky glass door, but for which he would have gone round to the front entrance, and there made decorous inquiry for Cicely, or failing her, for her mother; he did not say good-bye to pretty Temptation, sitting there, gazing at him with childish alarm and concern in her great lovely eyes.

She was really frightened. Passions and naughty tempers were tabooed in the peaceful dwelling of Monsieur le Pasteur Casalis, as were worldly tastes and frivolities of all kinds. Only the latter class of unholy visitors, being more easy of concealment, had found their way into one youthful heart in that orthodox household, and made themselves very much at home there. But Geneviève had very rarely seen any one in a passion—her father, good man, never. And the sight of Trevor’s anger altogether overcame her. She sat still for another minute or two, then jumped up, ran across the room to where the young man was standing, his fair face dark with irritation and annoyance, laid her hand on his arm and whispered tremblingly, “Oh! do not be so angry. Oh! please not. She will come soon. I am so sorry; oh! so very sorry for you.”

He turned round quickly. For an instant she feared that his anger was turned upon her, and she trembled more visibly. Trevor’s face softened as he looked at her.

“Don’t look so frightened, child,” he said, not unkindly, but with some impatience. “I am only annoyed. There is nothing to be very, very sorry about.”

“Yes there is,” sobbed Geneviève. “I am sorry for you because I know all now. I know why you are chagrined—vexed, I mean—that Cicely is out. I understand all now.”

“And were you surprised?” inquired Trevor, with a curious mingling of expressions in his face.

Geneviève did not reply at once. When she did so, there was a change in her tone. Mr. Fawcett’s coldness had galled her.

“What matters it?” she said with some indignation, “what matters it if I was surprised? I, what am I? A butterfly—yes, a butterfly you call me. Butterflies have no soul, no heart; what matters what a butterfly feels?”

Mr. Fawcett thought she was going out of her mind. But her eccentric speech had, at least, the effect of calming down his own irritation. He began to laugh.

“You did say so,” she exclaimed. “One day, I know not when; I forget. It matters not. You think not that I have any heart, any feeling. I suffer when I see you suffer. I tell you I am sorry, very sorry, and you laugh! Cicely is not foolish, as I am. She is calm and quiet. She does not weep when her friends are in trouble. She goes quietly to see some sick villager when she knows you are coming. I am a silly butter fly. Soit donc! I leave you to your Cicely.”

She was really so angry, so mortified and miserable that she hardly knew what she was saying. She was rushing out of the room when Trevor called her back.

“Geneviève,” he exclaimed, “dear Geneviève, I entreat you not to go. Listen to me. You have quite misunderstood me.”

She stopped short at this appeal. She stood still, she looked up in his face with tearful reproach in her beautiful eyes, but she said nothing. Trevor drew near her very near.

“Forgive me, Geneviève,” he said, “I did not mean to hurt you. Are you sorry for me, dear, are you really? Tell me why you are sorry for me?”

He had laid one hand upon her shoulder as he spoke; his voice was very gentle and persuasive.

“I was only sorry to see you unhappy. I meant not to blame Cicely,” replied Geneviève confusedly. “Cicely is very good.”

“That—that Cicely cared not so much as—I cannot say,” exclaimed Geneviève.

“Shall I say? You mean that Cicely does not care for poor me as much as I do for her—is that it?

“I know not. No, not that,” replied the girl with crimson cheeks and downcast eyes.

“What is it then? Did you mean that she does not care for me as much as a silly little girl I know, will care, some day, for some lucky man who will believe she has a heart? Was that what you meant?”

“You kind, good little girl,” said Trevor impulsively. But Geneviève shrunk back.

“You know not,” she said, “that day you speak of, that ‘some day’ will never come to me.”

Then she threw away the hand that still rested on her shoulder; she darted one reproachful glance at Mr. Fawcett—“Do you understand me now?” it seemed to say; “do you see what you have done?” and rushed out of the room.

Not a moment too soon. As her figure disappeared through the library door, a slight sound at the window made Trevor look up. There at the glass door stood Cicely, her empty basket on her arm, a smile of welcome on her face as she caught sight of Mr. Fawcett. “Trevor,” she exclaimed, “I am so glad you have come. I wish I had not stayed out so long.” And her betrothed somehow hardly felt equal to reproaching her for her absence, angry though it had made him but ten short minutes before.

At luncheon that day, the cousins again seemed to have changed characters. Cicely had regained her cheerfulness, Geneviève looked anxious and depressed. She had dark lines under her eyes, and a bright crimson spot on each cheek, and in answer to Mrs. Methvyn’s inquiries she owned to a bad headache.

“You did not walk too far, I hope?” said her aunt. “Was the sun very powerful, Cicely? I am afraid Geneviève is the worse for her walk in some way. You looked so well at breakfast,” she observed, turning to her niece.

“I don’t think it could be the walk,” she said. “Geneviève did not come very far and the sun was not unusually hot. Nothing to what it is at Hivèritz, was it, Geneviève?” she remarked cheerfully to her cousin. “I went to the little door with Trevor and even then—just at noon—it was not very hot. There was a pleasant breeze.”

“I really don’t know. I forget if I asked him,” replied Cicely. “Oh! yes, I remember,” she went on, `“he had to go home because his father wanted him. They are going away again—did you know, mother?”

“How should I know?” said her mother. “I have not seen Trevor or any of them for two days, and then there was certainly no thought of it. When are they going, and where to, and which of them?”

“All of them,” answered Cicely. “Sir Thomas and Lady Frederica are going to the seaside somewhere. They are thinking of the Isle of Wight. And Trevor is going to town again for two or three weeks, and then he is going to join them.”

“I can’t think why they are never contented to stay at home,” said Mrs. Methvyn.

Then the attention reverted to Geneviève again. She now looked as pale as she had a few minutes before appeared flushed.

“I hope you are not going to be really ill, my dear child,” said Mrs. Methvyn anxiously. “You don’t feel as if you were, do you?”

“Oh! no, dear aunt. I am sure it is nothing that signifies,” replied Geneviève. “I often have a little headache for a few hours; but a little rest, and I am all right again.”

“If it were you Cicely,” observed her mother, “I should be more alarmed, for I never feel sure where you have been. There is no fever at Notcotts, I hope? You were there to-day?”

“Yes,” replied Cicely, “but I ran no risk. The child I told you about died of consumption. I am sure there is no infectious illness about just now. Mother dear,” she added appealingly, “you know you can trust me. I would not do anything foolish.”

“I am not sure, my dear. Since that Mr. Hayle has been here you seem to me to be always running about among sick people. And one never knows what risk one may run.”

“Mr. Hayle is very careful I assure you, mother,” replied Cicely. “Indeed,” she went on laughingly, “I think he would be very sorry to put me in the way of risk, for he has designs upon me. He thinks that under proper influence and direction I might be trained into a very useful “sister.”

“Cicely!” exclaimed Mrs. Methvyn aghast, “how can you joke about such things? If I thought Mr. Hayle that sort of a high-church clergyman, I would be very sorry to admit him to our acquaintance. One might just as well invite a Jesuit to one’s house.”

Cicely laughed again, but Mrs. Methvyn was really uneasy. There were points on which she did not thoroughly understand her daughter. She was in many ways unlike other girls, and Mrs. Methvyn deprecated eccentricity. She never felt sure of Cicely’s not taking up some crotchet, and, sweet and gentle though the girl was, a crotchet once “taken up” by her, would be, her mother felt instinctively, by no means easy to dislodge. Cicely’s laugh to some extent reassured her.

“You are joking, I know, my dear,” she said philosophically, “but there are some subjects I do not like joking upon. I have known too many sad realities. Do you not remember Evelyn Parry? Why she actually ran away from home to become a nun. It was dreadful!”

“But nuns and sisters are quite different institutions, mother dear, and Evelyn Parry was not quite ‘right’ in her head; she was always doing silly things. You don’t think I am like her, do you? You certainly need not fear my ever running away from you for anything or anybody; our only trouble is that you want me to run away and I won’t.”

Geneviève had left the room by this time, and Cicely was in her favourite posture, kneeling on the ground beside her mother, her fair head resting on Mrs. Methvyn’s knees.

In an instant the sweet face turned to her with a smile. “I am naughty, mother; I am in a teasing humour. I am so much happier since I have seen Trevor again.”

“Yes, quite. Trevor was very nice; but I have got my way, we are not going to be married for six months. He is quite pleased, however; he understands me about it now. He was quite different this morning, so gentle, and ready to agree to what I wished. I am glad they are going away for awhile, however, the change will keep Trevor from grumbling. Now I think I will go to poor Geneviève, and make her lie down for an hour or two. But I am sure there is not much the matter with her, mother, as she says herself.”

“I trust not,” said Mrs. Methvyn. “Cicely,” she said with sudden anxiety, “I hope I have not done her any harm by what I said to her about Mr. Guildford; I mean I hope I have not put it into her head so as to unsettle her and cause these variable spirits.”

“‘By what you said to her about Mr. Guildford!’ What did you say? I don’t understand,” said Cicely, her brow contracting a little.

“Oh! yes, you do. It was very little; only what I said to you, you remember, about Mr. Guildford’s admiring her. Of course, I did not say it so broadly; I only hinted it as it were, more for the sake of amusing and gratifying her when she was in such low spirits yesterday. For, do you know, Cicely, it did strike me afterwards that all that crying and so on when I told her about you might be partly a girlish sort of envy of you—a feeling she was, I dare say, only half conscious of herself.”

“Could she be so silly?” said Cicely. “If so, she certainly may be silly enough to have attached too serious a meaning to what you said. I wish you hadn’t said it, mother dear; but I don’t think Geneviève could be so silly.”

“It is natural she should look forward to being married,” said Mrs. Methvyn, rather inclined again to defend Geneviève.

“Is it? I suppose it is,” replied Cicely thoughtfully. “It is a pity when a girl has no future except marriage to look forward to. There is something lowering and undignified in the position. But still, mother, you have no actual reason for trying to make Geneviève fancy that Mr. Guildford is to be the hero of her third volume.”

Cicely said no more. She found Geneviève in her own room, but by no means in a very biddable humour. She obstinately refused to “lie down,” declaring that there was nothing the matter with her. Cicely grew tired of the discussion.

“You don’t look well, Geneviève,” she said, “but I dare say it is only the hot weather. Mother is uneasy about you, otherwise I would not tease you.”

“You are not teasing, you are very kind,” Geneviève condescended to say. “It is only that I become first red, then white, that my aunt remarks me. But that is my nature. Remember, I come from the south. I am not quiet and never vexed like you, Cicely.”

“Not as I am,” said Geneviève. “You are wise and calm. I, when I am unhappy, I could cry a whole week without ceasing.”

Geneviève did not reply. She turned from her cousin and began putting away her hat and gloves, which were lying as she had thrown them down.

“Tell me, Geneviève,” pursued Cicely boldly—“I am not asking out of curiosity has your unhappiness anything to do with Mr. Guildford?”

“With Mr. Guildford!” she exclaimed. “Certainly not. What know I of him? Not as much as you do. I know him but as my uncle’s doctor—voilà tout.”

“I don’t think we do know him only as a doctor,” she said. “He comes here much more like a friend. I don’t think you need be indignant at my question, Geneviève. I see you are unhappy; you have not been like your self for some time, and it is not—it would not be unnatural if Mr. Guildford or any gentleman you meet were to—you know how I mean; you know you are very pretty.”

“Do you really think so, Cicely?” she said shyly. “It gives me pleasure that you do. You are very kind. But it is not that. I think not that Mr. Guildford has any thought of whether I am pretty or ugly. And if he had—oh! no,” with a grave shake of the head, “I should not wish to marry him.”

But that she had taken the possibility into consideration was evident. And somehow Cicely did not feel sorry that her mother’s very mild attempt at match-making promised to fall to the ground.

“No,” said Geneviève to herself, when her cousin had left her, “no. I don’t want to marry Mr. Guildford. “Si on n’a pas ce qu’on aime, il faut aimer ce qu’on a, Mathurine used to say when I was a little girl. But I am not a little girl now.”

She sighed, and then glanced at herself in the looking-glass. What a strange girl Cicely was! Stéphanie Rousille would never have so frankly acknowledged another’s beauty! And again Geneviève felt the slight uncomfortable twinge of self-reproach. “But he is going away to-morrow,” she remembered. “When he returns, it will be the time for the marriage without doubt. He will think no more of me. I wish I had never come here.”

CHAPTER VII.

FAILING MISS WINTER.

. . . this July noon
Shining on all, on bee and butterfly
And golden beetle creeping in the sun
* * * * * *

LADY FREDERICA FAWCETT was in great tribulation. Her faithful shadow, Miss Winter, had received a letter summoning her at once to the bedside of a dying sister. It was a summons that could not in common humanity be disregarded, and, indeed, Lady Frederica was too kind-hearted to dream of doing so. But she could not refrain from some expression of her distress.

“I am exceedingly sorry for you—and of course, for your poor sister,” she said, when Miss Winter had summoned up courage to break the news, “but I cannot help saying it could not have happened at a more inconvenient time. This is Wednesday, and we leave home on Friday! If I had had any idea of it, nothing should have induced me to consent to going away just now. There is nothing I dislike so much as being at strange places alone—nothing.”

Miss Winter murmured some words of which the only audible ones were “Sir Thomas.” Their effect was by no means that of oil upon the waters.

“Sir Thomas,” repeated Lady Frederica contemptuously. “What good is Sir Thomas to me? I am surprised at you, Miss Winter, knowing him as you do. Will Sir Thomas read aloud to me? Will Sir Thomas match my wools, or go out shopping with me, or write my notes? I wonder you don’t propose that he should make my caps, or get up my laces instead of Todd. Besides I am almost always ill the first few days at a strange place. I quite expect to be laid up when we get to the Isle of Wight—particularly if I am left so much alone with no one to take my thoughts off myself. I really don’t know what to do.”

Miss Winter grew very miserable. Two bright scarlet spots established themselves on her faded pink cheeks, and she looked as if she were going to cry.

“He would, I daresay, have deferred his visit to town and accompanied yourself and Sir Thomas to the Isle of Wight. He is always so kind and unselfish,” remarked Miss Winter, not without a feeble hope that his mother would propose recalling the young man, who had only the day before left for town.

“And do you think I would have allowed such a thing?” exclaimed Lady Frederica virtuously. “Do you think I would have dreamt of letting Trevor make such a sacrifice? You forget, Miss Winter, it is not the beginning of the season—there is no question of deferring his stay in town. He has had a very dull year, poor boy; of course, if his marriage had been fixed for next month as we once expected, it would all have been different. I wish it had been. We should not have been leaving home so soon, and most likely in that case—things always happen so—your poor sister would not have been ill.”

The mention of Mr. Fawcett’s marriage sent Miss Winter’s thoughts off to Greystone. Thence they brought back a brilliant suggestion.

“My dear Lady Frederica,” she exclaimed rapturously. “An idea occurs to me. Suppose you were to invite that pretty, sweet Mademoiselle Casalis to accompany you? I feel sure you would find her a charming companion, and it would be such a pleasure to her to be able to talk about her home to you, who have been so much on the Continent.”

“Do you think she would like to come?” she said doubtfully. “I wonder if Helen would like it.”

“I am sure Miss Casalis would like to come. It was only the other day she confided to me that she does find life at the Abbey rather dull—triste, she called it, poor girl. She begged me not to repeat it, for fear, she said, of seeming ungrateful to her kind friends. And I feel sure Mrs. Methvyn would feel pleased by the invitation—Miss Casalis being her relation.”

“Will you write a note to her at once, Miss Winter, and send one of the men with it?” she said. “Or, stay, perhaps the note should be to Helen—or, must I write my self? I do so hate writing notes, and there would be such a great deal to explain—all about your poor sister’s illness, and apologies for the short invitation and all. I really don’t feel equal to it.”

“If you could see Mrs. Methvyn—such matters are so much more easily explained by word of mouth,” suggested Miss Winter artfully.

Miss Winter took care to strike while the iron was hot, by ordering the carriage, and despatching Todd to dress Lady Frederica before she had time to change her mind, and her energy was crowned with success. The Lingthurst carriage drove up to the Abbey door at an hour that rarely saw Lady Frederica out of her room.

Mrs. Methvyn and Cicely were upstairs; Geneviève was alone in the library, writing, when, to her amazement, the door opened, and the visitor was announced.

“Lady Frederica,” she repeated in her surprise, as she went forward to greet her.

“Yes, my dear. I am so pleased to find you at home. My visit is to you, my dear Miss Casalis,” and in her excitement, Trevor’s mother kissed the girl on both cheeks.

Geneviève grew scarlet, then pale again. What could be the meaning of it? Had it not been for what she knew to be the case, what would she not have thought? As it was, all sorts of wild conjectures flashed across her mind. More than a week had passed since the day that Trevor and she had last met in that very room; the day he had so betrayed his dissatisfaction with Cicely. And since that morning, Geneviève had not seen him. She knew he had gone away; she had heard of his calling to say good-bye, one afternoon that she had been out driving with her aunt, but that was all. And Cicely’s manner had perplexed her; Trevor’s fiancée did not seem to regret his absence, she had grown far more cheerful, and looked much brighter since it had been decided upon. Could it be that they had in sober earnest quarrelled? or, rather, agreed to separate, and that she, Geneviève, not Cicely, was the real object of Mr. Fawcett’s devotion? If this were the case, it would satisfy her of the truth of what she had taken upon herself to suspect, that Cicely was not really attached to her cousin, and that she would be glad to break off her engagement. And if such were the actual state of things, what more natural than that Trevor’s mother should be deputed to explain it all to the one it most nearly concerned—what more natural, or more delightful! for would it not be proof positive that the Fawcetts père et mère were satisfied with their son’s new choice?

All these speculations darted with the speed of lightning across Geneviève’s brain—she had time even to persuade herself that they were based upon a strong foundation of probability, before Lady Frederica had disencumbered herself of the wraps which, even in July, she thought a necessary accompaniment of a drive in an open carriage, and established herself comfortably in an easy chair. Her first words threw Geneviève into utter bewilderment.

“We have heard this morning, my dear Miss Casalis,” she began, “that poor Mrs. Morrison is dreadfully ill—dying, in fact—that is why I came over to see you at once, an explanation by word of mouth is so much more satisfactory, than writing.”

She stopped for a moment, and Geneviève seeing she was expected to say something, expressed her agreement with Lady Frederica in preferring verbal communications, and murmured some vague words of condolence on the “bad news” she had received, and appreciation of her (mysterious) kindness in hastening to impart it; though who or what Mrs. Morrison was, she had not the remotest idea. But she managed to steer clear of committing herself to any possibly damaging confession of ignorance.

“Yes,” said Lady Frederica, “it is very sad, though she is over sixty, and has lost the use of her right leg for some time. She is the eldest of the family, and has been quite like a mother to my Miss Winter, she tells me, so, of course, she feels it very much. And we are going on Friday, so if you can be ready at such short notice, my dear, I cannot tell you how pleased I shall be, and so will Sir Thomas when I tell him.”

Even Geneviève’s studied deference of manner was not proof against the bewilderment this speech aroused. She opened her brown eyes and stared at Lady Frederica in dismay.

“Ready, if I can be ready! I am so sorry, but I do not understand,” she said, at last.

“Dear me, how stupid I am! Of course, I haven’t explained,” exclaimed the visitor. “We are going to the Isle of Wight on Friday—there, at least, in the first place we intend to be some weeks away; Trevor is to join us the latter part of the time, and of course Miss Winter was coming with us, but for this unfortunate contretemps about poor Mrs. Morrison, her sister, you know. And so, talking it over, it just came into our heads how very nice it would be if you would come with us instead—not instead exactly, you understand how I mean, my dear.”

And, with a little more repetition and parenthesis, Lady Frederica at last succeeded in making Geneviève understand what it was she did mean and had come about.

It was very far from being the realisation of the wild dreams she had indulged in a few moments before—an invitation to accompany these two old people to the seaside, only! Still it came at a welcome time, for Geneviève’s spirits had been down, a long way below zero, for several days past, and the prospect of any change was acceptable. Besides, was there not a possibility, an enchanting possibility, lurking in the words, “Trevor is going to join us the latter part of the time?”—“It will be the last I shall see of him before he is married. It can do no harm now that I know of his engagement. I know he can be nothing to me; therefore I need not fear to enjoy the little I can ever see of him again,” thought Geneviève. There was no deliberate intention of disloyalty to her cousin; she would not have put into words even to herself the faint suggestion of what—with the experience she had had already—she knew perfectly well might be the result of Mr. Fawcett and herself being thrown together for even a few days; but to the whisper of her good angel, “Decline to go; take the risk of giving offence and avoid at all costs the temptation,” she resolutely turned a deaf ear.

“It is not my doing,” she said to herself. “I did not seek for the invitation. I am not obliged to sacrifice myself to fancies that I may interfere with Cicely. It would be very conceited to suppose that I could do so—and besides, if her fiancé can be shaken in his attachment to her by the first pretty girl he comes across, why—his attachment to her cannot be very profound!”

So with sparkling eyes and a bright flush of pleasure in her cheeks, Geneviève ran upstairs to tell her aunt of Lady Frederica’s visit and its object, and to ask for her consent to the acceptance of the invitation.

“Lady Frederica here!” she exclaimed. “You must tell Cicely, dear. I shall be down in a moment, but Cicely has just gone out to get some fresh roses for your uncle’s room. I wonder what can have brought Frederica here so early.”

“It was to ask me something, dear aunt,” began Geneviève. Then going on to explain, she made no secret of her gratification, and her hope that Mrs. Methvyn would like the idea of her visit to the Fawcetts.

It would have been hard to refuse consent to a request made so sweetly. Mrs. Methvyn seemed nearly as pleased as Geneviève herself.

“I shall be delighted for you to go, and I think it will do you a great deal of good,” she said cordially. “Run out and find Cicely, and I will go to Lady Frederica.”

Geneviève found Cicely standing on the terrace near the library window, and talking to Lady Frederica through the open glass door. Cicely’s hands were full of roses, and the face with which she turned to her cousin looked as bright and sweet as the flowers.

“I am so pleased, so very pleased, to hear of Lady Frederica’s plan for you, Geneviève,” she exclaimed. “Nothing could have happened more opportunely, for you have not looked quite well lately. Of course mother says you must go, doesn’t she?”

But her tone was hardly as hearty as her cousin had expected. A wild sort of yearning that Cicely could know all that was in her heart, a foolish wish that she could refuse to go, a painful consciousness of not deserving this kindness rushed over her all together, and for an instant she felt as if she should burst into tears. The voice she had so determinedly stifled made itself heard again once more; her cousin’s unselfish sympathy in her pleasure woke once again the stings of self-reproach—a shadow seemed suddenly to have fallen over her bright anticipations.

“Are you not pleased to go, Geneviève?” asked Cicely with a little disappointment in her tone.

“Oh! yes, very pleased,” said Geneviève. “But I am sorry to go away too.”

“But it is only for a few weeks,” said Cicely kindly. “Is there nothing else troubling you?”

“Are you at a loss about your clothes, dear,” she inquired as the idea struck her suddenly. “I thought about them at once. Lady Frederica is rather particular about dressing.”

“Yes, I know,” answered Geneviève; “I have remarked that she is always très bien mise. I have thought about my dresses a little. Do you think they will not be pretty enough, Cicely?”

She looked up in her cousin’s face with genuine anxiety, though half afraid that Cicely would not treat the matter with the importance it deserved. But her fears were ill-founded. Her cousin seemed little less interested than herself in the important question.

“Those you have got are very pretty and suit you very well,” she replied. “But I was thinking that you have perhaps hardly enough. Travelling about with the Fawcetts will be very different from living here so quietly as we do. And there is not time to get any. But, Geneviève, you need not wear half mourning any more. I have two or three pretty dresses, almost new, that could very easily be altered for you. The principal alteration would be shortening the skirts. Parker could easily get them ready for you by Friday.

“Oh! Cicely, how very, very kind you are!” exclaimed Geneviève; and Cicely looking at her was surprised to see that there were actually tears in her eyes.

“Geneviève, you silly child,” she said, “you think far too much of a mere trifle! It is a great pleasure to me to see you pleased. Would you like to come up to my room now, and I will show you the dresses I think you would like? There are a pretty grey silk, and a blue and white gauze, and a white dress—a sort of poplin—that I am sure would suit you. The white dress is trimmed with rose colour.”

Geneviève’s eyes sparkled. In five minutes she was feeling and looking perfectly happy, standing amidst her cousin’s pretty wardrobe, which Parker was quite as ready to exhibit as mademoiselle was to admire.

“What beautiful dresses you have, Cicely!” she observed with a little sigh. “I suppose you wear all these a great deal when you are not in mourning.”

“No indeed, Miss Casalis,” interposed Parker, “Miss Cicely doesn’t wear her pretty things half enough. I am always telling her so. And besides, Miss Cicely is so neat and careful, her dresses last twice as long as most young ladies’! The whole of these,” with a regretful glance at the display of finery, “are really as good as new. The only dresses you ever do wear out, Miss Cicely,” she added, turning to her young mistress, “are your brown hollands.”

Cicely laughed. “It shows I was never meant to be a fine lady, Parker,” she said. “Mother and you get me far too many things.”

“And now there will be all new again before we know where we are,” grumbled Parker, whose mind seemed to resemble that of the gallant train-band captain’s wife; “and none of these half wore out, not to speak of several as good as new.”

A slight increase of colour in Cicely’s cheeks explained the allusion to Geneviève.

“Ah! yes, you will have all new for your trousseau without doubt,” she said to her cousin, and a curious expression flitted across her face. But Cicely did not observe it, nor did she take any notice of Geneviève’s remark. She turned to Parker and began giving her directions for the altering of the dresses that had been selected as most suitable for her cousin, Geneviève’s quick eyes and fingers meantime making voyages of discovery among the finery.

“What is this?” she exclaimed, drawing out a dress of a rich crimson colour, which was hanging in a remote corner of the wardrobe, “Velvet! Du velours de soie—et quel teint superbe! Why, it is a dress for a queen! Cicely, what a beautiful dress; it is far the most beautiful of all.”

Cicely had not been paying special attention to her chatter, but now she turned and, somewhat to Geneviève’s surprise, gently drew the folds of the dress out of her hands and replaced it in its corner.

“Parker,” she said to the maid, “you have forgotten what I told you. I wanted that dress folded away by itself—locked away.”

“I am sorry I forgot,” said Parker meekly. Geneviève felt rather offended. “Cicely has secrets I see,” she reflected maliciously. “I wonder if Mr. Fawcett knows about that dress, and why she is so fond of it.”

But she speedily forgot all about the little mystery in the interest of trying on the pretty grey silk, and submitting to Parker’s skilful nippings and pinnings.

And on Friday morning, thanks to Cicely and her handmaid, Geneviève’s little outfit was complete, and she stood with her trunks all ready for the journey, in the hall, waiting for the Lingthurst carriage, which was to call for her on its way to Greybridge. Mrs. Methvyn and Cicely were beside her; comings and goings had grown to be events of some importance in the nowadays quiet, monotonous life at the Abbey.

“Don’t promise to write too much,” said Cicely, smiling; “I don’t think you will have any great amount of leisure. But here is the carriage.”

The carriage contained Sir Thomas and Lady Frederica, and just behind appeared another, loaded with luggage.

“Your belongings, Miss Casalis? Let me see—two boxes, a bag, etc. etc., four in all, my man will see to them. Good morning, Mrs. Methvyn; good morning, Cicely, my dear. We have no time to spare I fear,” exclaimed Sir Thomas fussily, as he got out of the carriage to superintend Geneviève’s getting in. “Oh! by the bye,” he added, coming back again for a moment, “we heard from Trevor this morning. Had you a letter, Cicely? No? That’s odd. He is an extraordinary fellow. What do you think he is going to do now, after all his grumbling at being so little in town this year? He’s off to Norway for six weeks, in Frederic Halliday’s yacht.”

“Is he really?” exclaimed Cicely. “I am very glad—that is to say, if he enjoys it, which I suppose he is sure to do. But I wonder I haven’t got a letter. It may come this afternoon.

“And good-bye, my dear.” “Adieu chère tante; adieu, Cicely,” came in Lady Frederica’s and Geneviève’s softer tones.

Geneviève smiled and kissed her hand as they drove away, but a cloud had come over her sun again, for all that; she had heard Sir Thomas’s news.

“Yes,” she said to her mother, when she had read it, “yes, Trevor has actually gone to Norway. There is no time even for me to write to him before he leaves England; but he gives the address of some places where they will call for letters. He says he will be away six or seven weeks.”

“He had to decide at once,” answered Cicely. “This friend of his—Captain Halliday, I mean—was just starting. Of course, on the whole, I am very glad he has gone; it will make the summer pass pleasantly to him, and perhaps—”

“Perhaps he will leave off being vexed with me. Don’t think I am dull on account of his having gone, mother; I am not so, truly. But lately, I cannot say how it is, whenever I think of our marriage, I grow dull.

“Partly,” replied Cicely, “and, mother, it is more than that. It is a sort of vague fear of the future—an apprehensiveness that I cannot put in words. I know I care for Trevor and trust him thoroughly, but sometimes I doubt if he knows me enough. I doubt whether I thoroughly satisfy him, even though I feel there is more in me than he has read. Sometimes I think he wishes I were prettier, and lighter. Do you know what I mean, mother? Do all girls have these feelings, mother?”

“Did you?” said Cicely, dropping her voice a little. “I don’t, of course, mean when you married my father, but before?”

Her mother’s first marriage was a subject but rarely alluded to. Cicely looked at her with some anxiety as she put the question.

“My child, my child, never draw any comparison between your future and what my life was with Amiel’s father. No, Cicely; I had no misgivings—I would not allow myself to have any. I was wilfully, madly blind—” she paused, and a little shiver ran through her. “These feelings of yours do not trouble me, Cicely. Your life promises to me all the more brightly from the thoughtfulness with which you enter upon it, my darling.”

She kissed the girl tenderly. Cicely was soothed, though not satisfied; but she said no more.

An hour or two later, when she was alone in her little sitting-room feeding her birds, and trying to grow cheerful among her usual little interests and occupations, there came a knock at the door.

“Come in!” said Cicely, surprised at the unusual ceremony. The intruder was Mr. Guildford.

“Mr. Guildford!” she exclaimed, “I did not hear you come. How have you got here?”

“I walked,” he said quietly. “I have plenty of time to-day, so I thought I would come to take Colonel Methvyn a drive. The day is unexceptionable; I have just seen your father, and he is quite pleased to go, but he wants you to come. It was he that directed me to come here,” he added, glancing round him, “he said I should find you in your own sanctum.”

“Yes,” said Cicely, “I have a great many friends to take care of here, you see. Have you never seen my birds? Why, have you never been in this room before?”

“Only once,” replied he softly. And as he spoke there came before him the picture which had never left his memory—of Cicely as he had first seen her, standing in the doorway in the quaint, rich dress.

“My cousin has gone away to-day. Did you know?” said Cicely, rather irrelevantly.

“Your cousin?” repeated Mr. Guildford. Oh! yes, of course. You mean Miss Casalis. Somehow when you spoke I thought you meant Mr. Fawcett.”

“Well he, as it happens, has gone away too,” said Cicely with a smile. “He is going further away than Geneviève; she has only gone to Ventnor, and Mr. Fawcett is bound for Norway.”

“So you are all alone?” remarked Mr. Guildford. “Does that add to the low spirits you were owning to the other day?”

“Not low spirits—crossness, corrected Cicely, laughing. “No, I don’t think it does. I think sometimes I grow nicer when I am alone.”

“At least, there is no one to dispute the soundness of the pleasing belief?” said Mr. Guildford. “But I think I know what you mean. A little solitude soothes and calms one wonderfully sometimes.”

He walked to the window and looked out. “One can hardly imagine the lines falling to one in a pleasanter place than this,” he observed, as his gaze rested on the beautiful old garden basking in the warmth and brightness of the midsummer afternoon.

“It is a home that one can love,” agreed Cicely. She had followed him to the open window. “Did you ever think to yourself when you would best like to die? I mean,” she added, seeing that her companion glanced up in surprise, “did you ever try to think at what hour and season death would seem least dreadful, least physically repulsive and unnatural, that is to say?”

“Did you?” he inquired. “I don’t think I have ever given it a thought. What does it matter?”

“It does not matter in the least,” she answered, “but still one often considers things that do not matter, as if they did. It was the beautiful, quiet afternoon that made me think of it. I have always thought that I should like to die on a summer afternoon—not evening, evening suggests night—just when the world seems a little tired, but not worn out, just gently exhausted. I should like the sun to be shining in the soft, warm way it is shining now, and the air to be clear. At night, in the darkness, one feels so far away from everywhere else.”

She looked up at the sky and watched the few small feathery clouds whose whiteness deepened the intensity of the blue. There surely could not be a lovelier blue than that,” she said. “I have been so little abroad, I cannot tell if it is true that English skies are never like those of the south. Is it so?”

“I am a poor authority,” he replied, “but I fancy if you said seldom, instead of never, you would be near the truth.”

“Miss Cicely,” she said, “Will you please be ready in ten minutes; the carriage is ordered for then.”

She stopped for a moment to put fresh water in one of her canary’s glasses, which had been overlooked.

“Why are you always called ‘Miss Cicely’ instead of ‘Miss Methvyn?’” asked Mr. Guildford abruptly.

Cicely laughed. “Have you noticed that?” she said. “I suppose it does seem strange. The reason is that when my sister and I were at home together—she is seven years older than I, but still we were companions—we could not bear being called by different surnames; her name before she was married was Bruce, Amiel Bruce; we thought it seemed as if we were not sisters really. So we always asked to be called Miss Amiel and Miss Cicely. That was how it began. Perhaps I should alter it now, but it is hardly—”

She stopped. Her companion was not looking at her; he did not see the quick rising of the pink flush over her face and neck.

“No, I think it would be a pity to change it. I like ‘Miss Cicely,’” he said. And he smiled as he recalled the mental picture he had first formed of the bearer of the name.

CHAPTER VIII.

SOME SUMMER DAYS.

“. . . there arrives a lull in the hot race
* * * * * *
And an unwonted calm pervades his breast.
And then he thinks he knows
The hills where his life rose,
And the sea where it goes.”

WHAT a pleasant drive it was! They left the high-road, where the heat and brightness of the July sun were untempered by shade, and drove along the pretty lanes abounding in the neighbourhood, in which the trees met overhead, and the brilliant sky was seen only through a leafy network of every tint of green.

“I never remember a more beautiful summer day than this,” observed Colonel Methvyn. “I wonder if it seems so to all of you, or if my enjoyment is increased by my long isolation from out-door pleasures? An invalid has some compensations after all. I dare say I should not have given two thoughts to the beauty of the day, if I had been going about in my old way.”

“But it is a quite unusually exquisite day, papa,” said Cicely. “It is not sultry just deliciously soft and yet fresh. An invalid’s friends have some compensations too, you see, for we all enjoy this lovely day doubly through knowing that you enjoy it too!”

“Mr. Guildford best of all, is he not?” said Cicely, “for suggesting that you would be able to enjoy driving.”

She turned to Mr. Guildford with a pretty glance of gratitude, as she spoke, but the young man hardly seemed to appreciate her acknowledgment of what she felt to be owing to him.

“I should be a very poor doctor, Miss Methvyn,” he said, with a very slight emphasis on the objectionable word, “if I contented myself with physicking my patients only. The good effects of fresh air and sunshine are more justly estimated than they used to be, I am glad to say.”

Cicely’s face sobered. “Yes,” she said quietly, “it is a very great blessing that people are growing wiser about such things.”

But the playfulness had died out of her manner. Forthwith Mr. Guildford blamed himself for his touchiness. “Surly idiot that I am,” he said to himself, “why should I be offended at her remembering what my position is?” And he set to work to disperse the little cloud his coldness had brought over the bright young face.

His efforts were successful. Notwithstanding his secluded life, he could talk well and interestingly when he chose; and women of even only ordinary intelligence are as quick to appreciate good talking as to see through and despise the superficial chatter in comparison with which silence is golden indeed. Cicely Methvyn’s intelligence was beyond the average, and its vigour and freshness were unchecked by the slightest touch of self-consciousness. And in this perhaps was the secret of her unusual charm. She forgot herself in the interest of discussion, she was eager to understand what she heard, completely frank in confessing her ignorance. But with it all, ever gentle, ever womanly and docile.

Mr. Guildford had never before seen her quite in the light in which this afternoon she appeared to him. She seemed younger and yet older, simpler and more girlish than he had hitherto imagined her, even while unconsciously allowing him glimpses of a mind of unusual grasp and by no means discreditable cultivation.

“When have you found time to read so much, Miss Methvyn?” he inquired at last, in surprise at her evidently thorough acquaintance with the subject they were discussing. It happened to be one of Colonel Methvyn’s pet hobbies, that of engraving.

Cicely blushed slightly; then glancing affectionately at her father. “It is papa who has taught me all I know about it,” she replied. “I have had unusual advantages—ever so many ‘extras’ in my schooling, thanks to him. I should have been very stupid not to have learnt a little. Shouldn’t I, father?”

Colonel Methvyn smiled. “She has had to be both son and daughter, you see. No wonder she is a little spoilt!” he said, with a sort of half apologetic pride that had in it something both pleasing and pathetic.

“‘Some people’ is being spoilt now, among you all,” answered Mrs. Methvyn.

Cicely laughed and blushed. “Suppose we change the subject,” she said, “I am growing quite hot and nervous. I wonder how Geneviève is getting on, by the bye,” she added suddenly.

“Yes,” said her mother, “we shall be hearing from her to-morrow morning.”

“Has Miss Casalis gone to any distance?” inquired Mr. Guildford. “Is she to be long away?”

“A few weeks, not longer,” said Mrs. Methvyn, she has gone to the sea side—to the Isle of Wight—with the Fawcetts.”

“Oh! indeed,” said Mr. Guildford. “You must miss Miss Casalis a good deal,” he added to Cicely; “at least, I should think she would be missed.”

His tone was perfectly unconstrained at the beginning of the speech, but something in the expression of Cicely’s eyes as she turned to him, caused him to utter the last two or three words confusedly and somewhat incoherently. Miss Methvyn regarded him coolly till he left off speaking, and Mr. Guildford became aware that even blue eyes can be unpleasantly critical.

“Not only that,” replied the young man, a dash of half-defined contradiction lending weight to his words. “Miss Casalis is much more than pretty. She is perfectly charming.”

Then at last she turned away. But not in time to check by her gravity, a very slight, the very slightest of smiles, which Mrs. Methvyn was telegraphing to her daughter from her corner of the carriage, and which unfortunately did not reach its destination unperceived by Mr. Guildford.

He did not like it at all. He began to grow cross again, and would have succeeded in becoming thoroughly so had there been time for the completion of the process. But there was not. Just then the carriage turned in at the lodge on the Greybridge Road, and in two minutes more drew up in front of the ivy-clad porch of the Abbey, and everybody’s attention was given to helping the invalid out, and in the little bustle Mr. Guildford forgot all about his impending crossness and its cause.

He had time to get back into a very happy and amiable state of mind before he left, for he stayed till even the last lights of the long July day had sunk into the soft, mellow darkness of a midsummer night. And as he walked back to Greybridge station—slowly, all but indifferent to whether he lost the last train to Sothernbay or not, enjoying the delicious summer scents of new mown hay and dewy grass and sleeping flowers which came to him in mysterious wafts from unseen fields and hedgerows—it seemed to him as it had seemed on that bright May morning that now looked long ago, that the world was a happy place, and life a blessed thing, and that the future was rich with golden possibilities.

For Midsummer’s day must come once a year even in the coldest lands—and to all of us there must be midsummer once in life—a pause of mingled joy and hope, a living in the blissful present, a foolish dream of its continuance!

And for a while it almost seemed to the young man as if he had succeeded in cheating time into restfulness. He thought himself so different from other men, he thanked God that he was not as they, he stood strong and serene in his self-dominion; he had mastered his life and mapped it out as, it seemed to him, to the best advantage for his fellow-creatures in the special direction in which he felt that he could benefit them. And hitherto his intentions had been fulfilled, and his efforts crowned with success, and the future lay bright before him. He had worked hard, he had allowed nothing to beguile him from his labours, he felt that he had earned a right to some rest and enjoyment when they came in his way. And they offered themselves in so attractive and refined a form at this time; he felt that the society of such a woman as Cicely Methvyn could not but benefit as well as refresh him. He congratulated himself on the perfect knowledge of himself, and on the clear sighted resolution which enabled him to enjoy a pleasure and advantage of the kind with no fear of their leading him too far. For as firmly as ever he believed in his own theories, as determinedly as when he had aroused his sister’s indignation by the expression of his ideas on the subject, was he resolved that when he did marry, his choice should not fall upon a woman of character or intellect likely to lead her beyond the charmed circle of “her own sphere.” The only change in his feelings was an apparently unimportant one. Lately, quite lately, he had begun to doubt if he would marry at all.

“That lovely little cousin of Miss Methvyn’s,” he said to himself, as he was walking to Greybridge that night, “so she has gone away with the Fawcetts! I hope that young Fawcett is not amusing himself with her. He is not likely to be in earnest, for his family would be sure to think her beneath him—poor girl—she is too pretty to be in anything even approaching a dependent position.”

And a vague notion, born half of a sort of chivalry towards Geneviève, half of his admiration of her beauty, floated across his mind, of this innocent little creature as a possible wife. Did she not possess every qualification he had pronounced desirable? She was more than pretty, sweet-tempered certainly—who so gentle and clinging could be otherwise?—unselfish, he felt assured, transparent to a degree; the last sort of woman to trouble herself with understanding matters “too great for her,” or to dream of discontent with her own domain. Yet it had annoyed him to imagine that Cicely had had any deeper meaning than her words had expressed in her remarks about Geneviève that afternoon; the grave inquiry in her eyes had irritated him as much as the smile he had detected on her mother’s face.

“It is so like women to be always jumping to conclusions; their heads are always running on lovers and marriage, but I had fancied Miss Methvyn quite above such folly,” he said to himself by way of explanation of his annoyance.

Then he forgot all about Geneviève, and began considering how to arrange his work for the next day so as to be free to be at the Abbey again on that following, as he had promised to be if the weather should be fine enough for Colonel Methvyn to go out again.

It did prove fine enough, and so did a great many other days in the course of the next few weeks. And even when there came rainy days, such as there must be some of in the brightest summer, and there could be no question of out-of-doors for the invalid, there was yet sure to arise some unavoidable reason why Mr. Guildford’s visit to Greystone—should not be postponed. Either he would fancy it was going to clear, and in this expectation start on his little journey, or, if it were an unmistakable case of “cats and dogs,” his conscience would reproach him for inattention to poor Colonel Methvyn, and carelessness of his probable dreariness in such depressing circumstances, and he would remember some old book he had picked up which might amuse the invalid, or the announcement of some forthcoming sale of rare engravings would catch his eye in the morning paper and furnish the “way” which his “will” was alert to take advantage of.

And so, like many who pride themselves on the perfection of their self-knowledge, who imagine that under no conceivable circumstances could they be so deluded as to call a spade by any other name, “regardless of his doom” the young man marched calmly along the old, old road, seeing but the flowers by the wayside, all heedless and ignorant of what awaited him at the end.

Six or seven weeks passed. There came frequent letters from Geneviève, and an occasional one from Lady Frederica. Geneviève wrote cheerfully on the whole, though often expressing a wish that she were again with her kind friends at Greystone—pretty words which pleased Mrs. Methvyn, which Cicely smiled at with a sort of kindly indulgence, though less inclined than her mother to estimate them at more than their value. But Cicely had grown softer of late; it seemed to herself that her character was maturing and mellowing in the peace and congeniality of her present life.

“I have been very happy this summer,” she said to herself, “I shall always be so thankful to have the remembrance of it. My last summer at home!”

She could not even regret Mr. Fawcett’s absence, for she was satisfied by his cheerful letters that he was enjoying his visit to the north; and for the short time now left to her of home life, it was a relief to feel that no other duties clashed with the devotion she loved to lavish on her parents.

About the end of August, by which time allusions had been made more than once in Geneviève’s letters to coming home before long, Cicely one day received a somewhat lengthy epistle from Lady Frederica. The first part contained nothing of importance, only chit-chat about the weather and the fashions, the drives they had taken and the people they had met. Geneviève was evidently in high favour: “She is the sweetest girl in the world,” wrote her hostess; “I cannot tell you, my dear Cicely, how amiable and unselfish she has shown herself, and really, to me personally, quite devoted. I cannot say that I have missed poor old Winter in the least. I hope she won’t be jealous when she comes back! Of course, Geneviève is admired wherever we go; but we have been moving about too much to make many acquaintances, and I fear it must have been rather dull for her, though she is too unselfish to allow it,”—and so on. But the gist of the feminine letter lay in the postscript. It was quite as long as the rest of the letter.

“What do you think, my dear Cicely,” it began, “Trevor has just returned. He walked into the room all of a sudden when we were at luncheon, and thinking of him as hundreds of miles away; he had not time to write to tell us he was coming, and he says I am to tell you of his arrival, and he will write himself to-morrow. He is looking well, so brown, but he does not seem in his usual spirits. He was so cold and stiff to poor dear Geneviève when he came in, that I felt quite provoked with him; and when she had left the room, he actually said that if he had known we were not alone, he would not have come to us. I fear that Captain Halliday and his friends are a very bachelor set of men; it is quite time you took Trevor in hand, you see, my dear. In writing to him, I wish you would give him a hint that you would feel pleased by his showing kindness to your cousin, for really she deserves it, and, as I told you, she has had very little amusement with us. I really feel quite provoked with him.”

Then came postscript number two:—“Of course you will not tell Trevor that I have written to you about his being so cross.”

Cicely folded up the letter with a somewhat troubled expression of face. “I don’t understand why Trevor should be put out at finding Geneviève with his mother,” she thought. “From what Lady Frederica says, he evidently is so; he always seemed to like Geneviève, and he certainly admired her. He is not like what he used to be; I never remember him cross and unreasonable till lately, never in all his life.” She glanced again at the postscript. “I hate hints,” she said; “besides, what can I say, unless I tell him all his mother has written? Why should I suppose he would not be kind to Geneviève?”

She was still standing by the window, where she had been reading her letter, the perplexed expression had not left her face, when her mother came into the room.

“I have a letter from Geneviève, Cicely,” she exclaimed; “I don’t at all understand it. She writes begging to come home at once. Is it not silly and unreasonable? They are at Eastbourne now; she could not travel all the way here alone, and I have no one to send for her; and the Fawcetts are coming home themselves in a fortnight; they would certainly be offended if Geneviève left them so suddenly—after all their kindness to her, too. I don’t understand her in the least.”

“Trevor come back!” exclaimed Mrs. Methvyn, her thoughts diverted for the moment by the unexpected news. “Dear me! he has returned very suddenly, surely. Have you a letter from him?”

“No,” replied Cicely; “he had not time to write himself, he had just arrived; my letter is from Lady Frederica. Does Geneviève not mention Trevor?”

“Oh! no; she is quite full of this absurd idea of returning here at once,” said Mrs. Methvyn in a tone of annoyance. “What can have put it into her head?”

“It may have to do with Trevor’s return,” said Cicely; “Geneviève is exceedingly quick and impressionable, she would discover at once if she were unwelcome.”

Cicely hesitated a moment, then she took her letter out of its envelope again, and held it towards her mother. “You had better read what Lady Frederica says, mother; evidently Geneviève has been hurt by Trevor’s coldness.”

Mrs. Methvyn took the letter and read it. When she came to the postscript a smile stole over her face. “How stupid Frederica is sometimes,” she said complacently; “of course, poor Trevor was disappointed at finding Geneviève there, and not you, Cicely—quite enough to put him out, poor fellow!”

“But he had not the slightest reason to expect to find me there,” said Cicely, “and he must have known Geneviève was with his mother; I have mentioned it several times in my letters to him, I am sure, and of course his mother will have done so too.”

“You don’t know that he has got all your letters, and of course he might not remember every little thing in them,” persisted Mrs. Methvyn. “Very likely when he got to the hotel, and asked for his father and mother, the people would mention there being a young lady with them, and he would hasten in, quite expecting to see you. I can thoroughly understand how it has been.”

“I must write to Geneviève at once,” said Mrs. Methvyn, seating herself at her writing-table.

“Won’t you wait till to-morrow, mother?” said Cicely persuasively. “If Geneviève has written off hastily in a fit of fancying she was not wanted, she will very probably have changed her mind again by this time, and Trevor and she will be quite good friends. I dare say you will have another letter saying something of the kind, to-morrow morning.”

“Do you think so?” said Mrs. Methvyn irresolutely;—“well, then, perhaps I may as well wait. If I wrote at once, I should certainly tell Geneviève how exceedingly absurd I think her.”

Cicely proved a true prophet. There did come another letter from Geneviève the next day, begging her aunt to forgive her hasty request, and saying that she would be quite happy to stay with her friends till they too came home.

“I was not happy when I wrote before, dear aunt,” she said, “because it appeared to me that Mr. Fawcett when he arrived was not well pleased to see me; but now he tells me that he was only surprised, for, though he knew I had been with his mother, he thought I had returned, there is a long time. Now, however, I understand how it was, and I shall not any more be ill at ease.”

“What a little goose Geneviève is,” said Cicely laughing; “she will make Trevor quite conceited if she studies his manner so.”

There was no mention of Geneviève in Mr. Fawcett’s letter to his fiancée beyond the words, “I was surprised to find your cousin with my mother, I thought she had gone home some time ago; I wish you were here.” And Cicely read the passage to her mother, who was much gratified by the testimony it bore to her sagacity.

Early September was so fine this year that, but for the shortening days, it was difficult to realise that summer had fled. There were not many afternoons which did not see the little party at Greystone in the garden enjoying the loveliness of the balmy autumn weather, very few on which they were not joined by Edmond Guildford.

“This fine season is wonderfully lucky for me,” observed Colonel Methvyn one day. He had just returned from a drive, and the afternoon was so sunny and mild that Cicely had begged for tea on the lawn, and had persuaded her father to stay out.

“Yes,” said Cicely, “it will make the winter seem so much shorter; and then next spring, papa, you are going to be so strong and well! I expect to see you walking about quite briskly.”

“Next spring!” repeated Colonel Methvyn. There was a slight undertone of sadness in his voice. Cicely interpreted it in her own way; a slight colour rose in her cheeks, and Mr. Guildford, who was looking at her, almost fancied that there were tears in her eyes. But if it were so, she was quick to conceal all traces of emotion.

“Next spring is a good way off,” she said brightly, “and therefore we must make the most of this beautiful autumn while we have it. Mr. Guildford, can you come again this week? If you can, I do so want to drive to Roodsmere; we have not been there this year.“

“I think I can come,” said Mr. Guildford; “indeed, I am pretty sure I can. I want to make the most of the fine weather too,—it is thanks to it that I have not more to do at Sothernbay yet.”

“Because it delays the influx of visitors. Some years the place has been full of them by this time; it’s weary work for them, poor people!”

“Sometimes,” he replied with a smile; “but this summer has been such a very pleasant one for me, I don’t feel inclined to quarrel with my fate at present.”

“Then what day shall we go?” said Cicely; “Geneviève will be coming home on Friday, so that day would not do—we must not be out when she arrives.”

“Is Miss Casalis sure to come on Friday?” said Mr. Guildford. “Would it do to wait till next week, and then she could go too?”

“No,” said Cicely decidedly; “there will probably be a change of weather by next week, and then we could not go at all. Will not Thursday do, mother? Will that suit you, Mr. Guildford?”

“Cicely,” said her mother, when they were alone, “why did you answer so sharply when Mr. Guildford proposed to put off going to Roodsmere till Geneviève’s return? It sounded as if you did not want her to come.”

“I am not sure that I did want her, mother,” said Cicely, “but I did not mean to speak unkindly. I don’t think Trevor likes Mr. Guildford, and he will be back when Geneviève is; that was another reason for not putting it off. I had just a sort of wish to have this last drive all by ourselves, mother,—you and father and I.”

“Why do you say ‘this last drive’?” said Mrs. Methvyn. “If the weather keeps fine, your father may be out a good many times yet.”

“I don’t think the weather will keep fine; I have a feeling that we have got to the last of the summer,” replied Cicely sadly.

“Not to find us all three the same as now,” said Cicely sadly; “I shall be away. There are always changes, last summer we had little Charlie here.”

She sighed as she spoke. Mrs. Methvyn said no more. “Cicely will be less fanciful when she is fairly settled in her new life,” she thought to herself.

CHAPTER IX.

A CHANGE IN THE WEATHER.

THEY drove to Roodsmere on Thursday. The weather was still beautiful—summer seemed very reluctant to say good-bye. But the very next day—the Friday on which Geneviève was expected to return—Cicely’s prophecy of a change in the weather was fulfilled. The rain fell almost without intermission from early morning till dusk, and many times during the day Mrs. Methvyn pitied the travellers, and predicted grievous colds and coughs as the result of their dreary journey.

“I fear poor Geneviève will wish herself away again if we are going to have weather like this,” she said to Cicely more than once. And Cicely herself felt a little afraid that such a return home would have a depressing effect on her cousin’s variable spirits.

But their fears were ill-founded. Geneviève had never looked brighter or better than when she jumped out of the Lingthurst carriage which only stopped for a moment at the Abbey door, and ran into the hall to meet her cousin’s cordial welcome.

“Mother is in the library. We did not expect you quite so soon,” said Cicely. “How well you are looking, my dear Geneviève! You have enjoyed yourself very much, I hope?”

“Oh, so well!” exclaimed Geneviève ecstatically. “The last fifteen days have been all there could be of charming. We have made so many excursions, picnics, and riding parties, and I know not what.”

“I am so glad,” said Cicely, heartily. “Here is Geneviève, mother,” she exclaimed as they entered the library, “doesn’t she look well?”

And Geneviève laughed and blushed and kissed her aunt on both cheeks, and chattered and danced about like a fairy, and seemed as if all the rain in the world would be powerless to damp her spirits.

We have had lovely weather till today,” said Cicely. “Mother has been saying you would be wishing yourself back at Hivèritz when you saw the rain.”

“Oh, no!” said Geneviève, “the rain does not trouble me now. I am quite—what do you call it?—climated to England now! I have no more the home-sickness; that is past.”

“I am very glad to hear it,” said Cicely, smiling—“It is a wonder that her head is not turned,” she thought to herself. “I really think she has grown prettier than ever.”—“We have been very happy too, while you have been away, Geneviève,” she said aloud. “Papa has been out several times and enjoyed it so much.”

“He has been very much better,” said Cicely. “But to-day I don’t think he has seemed quite so well. Do you, mother? It is the weather I suppose.”

“He had some letters this morning that worried him a little,” said Mrs. Methvyn. “When you have taken off your things, Geneviève, I would like you to go to your uncle’s room. He will be pleased to see you.”

Colonel Methvyn did not come in to dinner—the two girls and Mrs. Methvyn dined alone. Geneviève went on chattering as merrily as before. She was great on the subject of the fashions, and described the dresses of the ladies at Eastbourne with astonishing minuteness and detail.

“There was one lady,” she proceeded, “who dressed beautifully, but she herself was ‘laide à faire peur.’ She had a good figure though. There was a gentleman there, a friend of Mr. Fawcett’s, who knew her in London. He said she danced so well that one forgot how ugly she was. She was tall—it is nice to be tall for dancing, is it not?” She gave a little sigh, but hastened on again in a moment. “Oh! Cicely,” she exclaimed, “do tell me what you think you will wear at the ball.”

Cicely looked up from her work—she was knitting socks for her father—with astonish ment.

Geneviève looked frightened. “Did you not know?” she said uneasily. “I thought Mr. Fawcett had written to tell you that” she stopped and seemed to grow more confused, but something in Cicely’s face made her go on—“I thought you knew,” she began again, “that there is to be a ball at Lingthurst next month.”

She said no more, but in a minute or two went on talking as usual on other subjects, and her mother, understanding her to some extent, followed her example. But Geneviève’s gaiety had received a check, and soon afterwards she said she was tired and would like to go to bed. Mrs. Methvyn kissed her affectionately; Cicely laid down her work, and, notwithstanding Geneviève’s protestations, went upstairs with her to see that everything in her room was in its usual order for her.

The pretty little room looked very comfortable; the bright fire blazing cheerily was a welcome sight to Geneviève.

“A fire!” she exclaimed, “Oh, how charming! Yet it is only September! Have you fires so soon, my cousin?”

“Not always,” said Cicely. “But I thought it would be cheerful for you—you will feel the cold too more than we do—so I ordered it. Now, good night, dear.”

“How kind you are!” said Geneviève regretfully. “Cicely,” she went on hesitatingly, “I hope you will not be vexed at what I told you about. I thought—”

“Please don’t speak about it,” interrupted Cicely. She spoke quickly, but not ungently. “I would rather hear about it afterwards, to-morrow I mean, from Trevor himself. Good night again.”

Geneviève could not muster up courage to attempt to detain her a second time. She held up her pretty face to be kissed, and Cicely then went downstairs again to the library.

“Cicely,” said her mother, as she entered the room, “I don’t think, dear, you should take up what Geneviève said, so hastily. It may not be a ball; most likely it is just some little evening party, and she, poor child, so unaccustomed to anything of the kind as she is, has taken up an exaggerated idea of it.”

Cicely waited till her mother had finished speaking, though once or twice she seemed on the point of interrupting her.

“No, mother dear, I don’t think Geneviève has made a mistake,” she said. “But,” she went on, making an evident effort to control herself, “I will try not to think about it till I hear what it means from Trevor himself.”

“Yes, dear, that is wise. But, Cicely, even if it be as Geneviève says—a regular ball, I mean—you must remember that the Fawcetts have a perfect right to do as they please in such matters. You must not take it up personally.”

The speech was not judicious. Cicely raised her head proudly; there came an unusual light into the soft eyes, the lines about the gentle mouth grew hard.

“A perfect right,” she repeated. “Yes, of course they have a perfect right to give a ball whenever they please. But they have no right to expect me to go to it. I am engaged to their son certainly, but if they disregard my feelings and consider me no more than a stranger, it leaves me free to behave like one. How could I wish to go to a ball? Think of what sorrow we have had so lately—think of my father’s state oh! mother, it is most inconsiderate.”

“My dear, you are hardly reasonable,” said Mrs. Methvyn. “You are very honest, Cicely,” she went on. “Tell me, dear, is it not partly that you are hurt at not having been consulted about it at all, at not having been asked if the idea of such a thing was pleasant to you?”

Cicely was silent for a little. Then she said slowly, “Yes, I think it is partly that. But I don’t think it is from any small or mean feeling of vexation at not being consulted. It is that it seems to me that Trevor is different.”

“Wait till to-morrow,” said Mrs. Methvyn sagely. What she had said had done some good. It inclined Cicely to restrain her first vehemence of feeling, to receive more gently Mr. Fawcett’s explanation of what had led to this unexpected piece of dissipation. It sounded simple enough when, as Cicely expected, he came the next morning to talk it over with her. They had been speaking about balls, he said, one evening at Eastbourne, and Geneviève, who (though in some mysterious manner she had learnt to dance) had never been at any entertainment of so “wholly worldly” a kind, had expressed with girlish eagerness her intense wish to assister at a real ball. Half in joke, half in earnest, the idea had been mooted; Sir Thomas, who Trevor declared had altogether lost his heart to his pretty visitor, had taken it up and promised to open the ball with her himself, “and,” said Mr. Fawcett in conclusion, “the day was fixed for the twentieth of October, my birthday, you know, Cicely.”

“Don’t you like the idea of a ball, Cicely?” he asked. “I am sure you used to like dancing, especially in the country. And I thought you would have been glad for Geneviève to be pleased.”

“Her notions of pleasure and mine differ,” said Cicely coldly, “if she can find it in amusing herself in a way her parents would disapprove of.”

“Rubbish,” said Mr. Fawcett. “What can they know about it? They would not expect Geneviève to behave differently from other people. She is ‘at Rome’ now, and they must take the consequences of sending her there.”

“I am not dictating anything to Geneviève,” said Cicely more gently; “she must judge for herself. As to my own feeling about it, I confess to you, Trevor, I would have much preferred not taking part in anything of the kind at present, but—”

“If I wish it. Cicely, you speak as if I were an unfeeling tyrant. It is not fair to me, upon my soul it isn’t,” said Trevor, working himself up into vexation. “No one felt more for you than I did last spring, but you cannot shut yourself up for ever.”

“It is not only that,” said Cicely. “I have other feelings—my father’s state of health, my having to leave him so soon—all these things make me sad. But I dare say it is wrong to feel so. Dear Trevor, don’t be vexed with me. I will try and enter into it cheerfully. If I had been with you and could have talked it over with you and your mother before, it would have been all right.”

“I wish you had been with us when it was first proposed. You don’t know how I wished for you at Eastbourne, Cicely,” exclaimed Trevor.

Cicely looked up at him affectionately. For the moment their old, happy relations seemed to have returned—the vague, painful feeling “that Trevor was different,” which of late had so often troubled her, melted away. And for the rest of that day Cicely’s brow looked clear, and her eyes had a smile in them.

But Geneviève’s brilliant spirits seemed already to have received a check. She was tired, she told Cicely, she thought one always felt so the day after a railway journey more than at the time.

“Are you too tired to talk about what you will wear at the Lingthurst ball?” said Cicely brightly. “Mother wants us to have very pretty dresses, and I am going to order them from town; so we must have a grand consultation, Geneviève.”

“I thought you were angry about it—I almost thought you would say you would not go,” she exclaimed.

Cicely was silent for a moment. Then she said quietly,—“It is true I was surprised, and not pleased at the idea of it last night. But I think it was unreasonable of me, and I am sorry for having chilled your pleasure in it.”

“You are very good, Cicely,” said Geneviève. “I wish I were as good as you.”

“You are not to go off into a fit of low spirits, Geneviève,” she said, in a rallying tone. “I am not good when I am cross—the least I can do is to say I am sorry, isn’t it? But if you look miserable it will be like a reproach to me. I was so pleased to see you so bright and merry last night. Now tell me about your dress. What would you like it to be?”

“White,” said Geneviève decidedly. “It is as it were my first ball, you see, my cousin.”

“Yes,” said Cicely drily. “I suppose you did not go to balls at Hivèritz?”

“No,” replied Geneviève, in the most matter-of-fact tone. “Papa being a pasteur, you understand, it would hardly have been convenable that I should go to balls there.”

“Oh! I don’t think I shall say anything about it,” answered Geneviève carelessly. “Not that I think mamma would object—she has placed me under the care of my aunt—it is not for me to dictate to your mother, Cicely.”

Cicely did not contradict her, and Geneviève proceeded to discuss the important question of her dress. She warmed into enthusiasm on the subject, quite astonishing her cousin by her display of millinery lore and perfect acquaintance with the requirements of the occasion.

“I can hardly believe you have never been at balls, and all sorts of things of the kind, Geneviève,” she exclaimed at last. “Where did you learn to dance?”

“There was a class at the pension where I went. I used to watch them and then try by myself afterwards,” said Geneviève. “It is quite simple. Mr. Fawcett says I dance very well.”

“Oh! we only tried once—là-bas—at Eastbourne, I mean, when the band was playing a waltz before our windows,” said Geneviève hastily. “Tell me, Cicely,” she went on quickly, “who will there be at the Lingthurst ball that I shall know. Will Mr. Guildford be there?”

“No, I am sure he will not,” replied Cicely. “He has other things to do.”

“But he comes here very often. He can not be very busy,” pursued Geneviève. “My aunt tells me he has been here three—four times in the week.”

“He doesn’t come here for pleasure—it is perfectly different,” answered Cicely coldly.

“Is it? Ah! yes, I see. He comes here but as my uncle’s doctor,” said Geneviève so innocently that Cicely felt ashamed of the slight feeling of annoyance which her cousin’s remarks aroused in her.

“I wonder if she has heard Trevor speak of Mr. Guildford in that foolish way,” she thought to herself. “Trevor should be careful. Geneviève does not understand—she will be treating Mr. Guildford as if he were beneath her.”

But her fears were misplaced. When Mr. Guildford came the next day, Geneviève made herself as charming as ever. She smiled and blushed more than she talked, it is true; but once or twice Cicely caught Mr. Guildford’s eyes resting upon her in a way which awoke a new feeling in her mind. “Does he really care for her?” she said to herself uneasily. “He, so clever and good. Is she worthy of it?”

She felt more than ever that she could not understand Geneviève. There were times at which it seemed to her that a creature more artless and ingenuous could not exist—that the feeling of bewilderment about her must arise entirely from her own in ability to be carelessly, childishly transparent like this sunny little fairy. Then again a sudden glimpse of something very like calculating selfishness on Geneviève’s part would startle her into perplexity again, and then would follow a fit of disgust at her own suspiciousness.

“Do you understand Geneviève, Trevor?” she asked Mr. Fawcett one day. It was the very day before the ball. They had been at luncheon at Lingthurst, discussing and admiring the all but completed arrangements, and Trevor had walked home with Cicely. Geneviève had been invited to come with them, but for some reason that Cicely was at a loss to explain, had refused to do so, and had driven home with her aunt.

“Do you understand her?” Miss Methvyn repeated, for Mr. Fawcett had not seemed to hear her question the first time.

Trevor started. “What are you saying, Cicely?” he exclaimed. “Do I understand Geneviève? Of course, I do. You are always diving into unknown depths or soaring into the clouds, my dear child. Please remember that other people find it fatiguing. You must be at a loss for a subject of speculation if you are going to make one of poor Geneviève—she is just a sweet, simple little creature, very affectionate, and not very wise, and perhaps a little vain; which is certainly excusable. There is not much to understand about her.”

“Is that it?” said Cicely thoughtfully. She had listened attentively to what Trevor said, looking up into his face with a questioning, somewhat anxious expression in her eyes. Somehow it annoyed Trevor. He began kicking the pebbles on the path impatiently. But just for the moment, Cicely was too intent on what she was saying to observe his irritation.

“I wonder if it is so,” she repeated consideringly. “Sometimes I feel as if she were perfectly artless and sweet and unselfish. And then she says and does things that I don’t like, or rather that I don’t understand. To-day for instance.”

“What did she do to-day?” said Trevor sharply. “I declare Cicely you are just as bad as other women after all—everlastingly picking holes in each other—especially if “each other” has the misfortune to be bewitchingly pretty!”

The sneering tone as well as the unkindness of the speech wounded Cicely to the quick. She turned her face away, and walked on without speaking.

“What are you offended at?” he asked. “I did not in the least mean to vex you—you might know that—but you take up things so hastily now. You, who used to be so sweet-tempered.”

“Am I ill-tempered?” she said anxiously. “You never used to think me so, but perhaps it is true. I don’t understand myself now, it seems to me, so I should not be hard upon Geneviève.”

“That’s just it,” said Trevor. “You are hard upon her, Cicely, and I have always thought so. What was it that she did to vex you to-day?”

“I would much rather not speak about it any more,” said Cicely. “It only makes you think me unkind, and perhaps I am fanciful.”

“It was when we were talking about to-morrow. Something was said about your dancing first with me, and you said I must certainly keep half-a-dozen dances for you, as it was so long since we had had any, Don’t you remember?”

“Geneviève was beside me at the time. When I turned round to speak to her, she would not answer me. Then all of a sudden she muttered something about wishing she had never come here. And when you went away, and I asked her what was the matter, she began to cry, and accused me of unkindness and selfishness and all sorts of things. She was just offended at not being made first in everything. And I have tried to make her happy, Trevor.”

“She is a spoilt child,” said Trevor carelessly, “but you need not trouble yourself so much about her. When we are married, Cicely, and she has it all to herself at Greystone, she will be all right, you will see.”

“Then you do think she dislikes me, Trevor?” said Cicely quickly. “That is the feeling I don’t understand. She almost seems—I don’t like saying so—but she almost seems jealous of me.”

“Really, Cicely, you must not take things up so seriously,” he said. His tone was not unkind this time, however. They were close to the Abbey grounds, and Trevor stopped as if about to turn back.

“I must go home again now, I think,” he said. “Good-bye, Cicely. You will give me the first dance to-morrow, and half-a-dozen others, even if Mademoiselle Geneviève is offended, won’t you?”

Cicely smiled. “I think I can brave her displeasure,” she said. “Good night, Trevor; you won’t come in?”

“I can’t,” he replied. “My mother begged me to come back soon. Miss Winter and I will be kept at work all the evening, I expect, for my mother is never satisfied with anything till it has been undone and then put back again as it was originally. Good night.”

He strode away. Cicely stood watching him for a minute, then taking the key from her pocket, she unlocked the little door near which she was standing, and passed through into the park. How many times she had done so in her life; how far from her thoughts it was just then that this might be the last time she would pass through that little old doorway; how seldom any of us think that to even the commonest and most familiar actions of our daily lives there must come a “last time!” A last time in many cases not known to be such, till looked back upon from the other side of some sudden crisis in life, or sometimes, it must be, from the farther shore of the dark river itself. And it is well that it should be so. We could make no progress in our journey were we constantly to realise the infinite pathos attending every step; we should sink fainting by the way did we suspect the mines of tragic possibilities over which we are ever treading.

When Cicely entered the hall she met Geneviève, who was crossing it on her way to the library.

“Have you come back alone?” she said quickly, when she saw that there was no one with her cousin.

“Oh! no; Trevor came to the park door with me,” replied Cicely. “He had to hurry back again. Have you and mother been home long?”

“Yes, a good while. You have missed some one,” said Geneviève, “Mr. Guildford has been here.”

“Oh! I am so sorry; I wanted to see him!” exclaimed Cicely. “Why would he not stay?”

“He saw my uncle,” said Geneviève shortly. “That was what he came for. I told him where you were; he left no message.”

“I didn’t expect any message,” said Cicely, not quite understanding Geneviève’s curious tone.

“Yes, you did,” answered the girl bitterly, “or you expected him to wait for the chance of seeing you. You think you are to be queen of all—if you are there no one must have a word, a glance! I have said I loved you, that you were good; but I think not so now. I love you not. You are cold and proud, and know not what love means, yet you gain all! And I—I am miserable and alone, and who cares?”

“Geneviève, you must be mad! I do not know, and I do not wish to know, what you mean. You have yielded to-day to temper till you have completely lost your reason, that is the only excuse I can make for you.”

Then Cicely walked quietly across the hall and down the passage to the library, leaving her cousin standing alone. Geneviève did not follow her. When Cicely had gone, she ran upstairs to her own room and threw herself down upon the bed, sobbing bitterly.

“Yes, I know; Geneviève has just told me. I wish I had seen him. I think he might have waited a few minutes.”

“He said he would; he seemed to want to see you,” said Mrs. Methvyn. “I told him you would not be out long, and he seemed in no hurry, and went out into the garden with Geneviève. Then, to my surprise, in about a quarter of an hour he came in again suddenly and told me he had just remembered an engagement at Sothernbay, and that he could not possibly wait any longer. But he is coming again to-morrow.”

“I don’t quite know,” said her mother. “Cicely,” she went on tremulously, “I am afraid he does not think your father quite so well.”

“Do you think so, dear mother?” said Cicely. “I hope not. You get nervous. I wish I had been in.”

“So do I,” said Mrs. Methvyn. “I fancied from his manner that he would have spoken more openly to you.”

“What did he say? Tell me exactly, mother,” said Cicely. Her voice sounded calm, but inwardly a sort of icy tremor seemed to have seized her. She would not tell her mother that even to her eyes a slight change had been visible in her father for the last day or two; she had tried to persuade herself that it was “only her fancy;” but she had longed for Mr Guildford’s next visit with intense though concealed anxiety. “Do tell me all he said,” she repeated.

“He did not say much. It was before he had seen Geneviève,” replied Mrs. Methvyn. “After he had been with your father, he came down here and asked when you would be in. Then he said he thought your father rather “low” to-day, and that he had been trying to persuade him not do so much—to get a proper man of business to manage things, and not to worry himself. I think it is true, and I told Mr. Guildford I agreed with him. I know Phillip has been annoyed the last few days by some letters he got.”

“You would not have understood them. I do not. I only know they were about money matters,” replied Mrs. Methvyn vaguely.

“Money matters,” said Cicely. “Oh! he really should not trouble himself about things of that kind.”

She spoke more cheerfully. There was a certain relief in being able to name a cause for her father’s depression. And to her happy experience the expression “money matters” bore no terrible significance. She was only thankful that his anxiety arose from no more important cause.

“Well, Mr. Guildford will be here to-morrow, and then we can talk it over with him, and make papa do what we tell him,” said Cicely brightly.

“Cicely,” she said mysteriously, “do you know that there was something very odd in that young man’s manner this afternoon?”

“How? what do you mean, mother?” replied Cicely. “You speak as if he were going out of his mind.”

“Nonsense, my dear, you know quite well what I mean,” said Mrs. Methvyn. “I really do believe he has got something in his head about Geneviève. It was after he had seen her in the garden that he came in and said he must go home at once.”

“But why should seeing Geneviève in the garden have made him say so?” inquired Cicely.

“My dear, how can I tell? When people are in love, there is no accounting for what they will do. Geneviève may have been cold to him, or—he is a very modest young man—he may think we should not approve of it, and may have been afraid of being tempted to say something. Who can say? I only say that I feel sure he has got something of the kind in his head.”

Cicely looked grave. “Perhaps he has,” she replied. To herself she said, “I wonder why, if it is so, it should have made Geneviève so desperately cross.”—“Mamma,” she added, after a little silence, “I wish you would do something to oblige me.”

CHAPTER X.

FORGIVE ME, AND GOOD-BYE.

“Yet I will but say what mere friends say,
Or only a thought stronger; I will hold your hand but as long as all may,
Or so very little longer!”

IT was the day of the Lingthurst ball. Cicely woke early, and tried to believe that she was in good spirits, and that her anxiety of the evening before had been exaggerated and uncalled for. And when her mother met her with the good news that Colonel Methvyn had had a calm and undisturbed night, and seemed wonderfully refreshed by it, the make-believe seemed something very like reality, and Cicely’s face looked bright enough when she met her cousin in the breakfast-room to satisfy Geneviève that her ebullition of the previous day had been forgiven, if not forgotten, or that at least it was to be tacitly ignored.

Geneviève was excited, but not happy. Some closeness of observation is, however, required to discriminate between the two conditions, and this neither of her companions was this morning sufficiently at leisure to bestow upon her. So, “poor Geneviève is full of her ball. I hope she will enjoy it,” thought Mrs. Methvyn; and “Geneviève cannot have meant what she said yesterday. It must just have been one of her childish little fits of temper, not worth noticing,” was the decision Cicely arrived at.

“Your father is very anxious for his letters this morning,” said Mrs. Methvyn, as they were sitting at breakfast. “I hope there will be nothing wrong in them—nothing to upset him, when he seems so much better.”

“Two for you, Cicely,” she said, as she distributed the budget; “one for Geneviève, three for your father, all business letters I fear.” She looked at them anxiously. “I wish we could keep them till Mr. Guildford comes.”

“It would be no use. Papa would be sure to ask for them,” said Cicely decidedly. “Give them to me, mother; I will take them up to him myself.”

“Is Mr. Guildford coming to-day?” said Geneviève in surprise, as her cousin left the room.

“Yes,” said Mrs. Methvyn; “he promised yesterday, when he had to leave in such a hurry, that he would come again to-day.”

“Oh!” said Geneviève. Then, fancying her aunt looked at her curiously, “I thought that he was so very busy,” she added confusedly.

Cicely meanwhile was knocking at her father’s door. Her first tap was unnoticed. She repeated it.

“Come in,” said Colonel Methvyn’s voice. To Cicely it sounded very weak and feeble. “Oh! is it you, my dear?” he exclaimed when he saw her. “I thought it was Barry with the letters.”

“I have brought them, papa,” said Cicely. “But I do so wish you would not read them yet. They look like business letters, and they always tire you so.”

She stooped and kissed him. He had had a good night Mrs. Methvyn had said, but to Cicely’s eyes he looked sadly white and frail this morning; his voice was tremulous, his hand shook as he held it out for the letters.

“Give them to me, my dear child. I shall be more comfortable when I have read them.”

He opened two of them and tossed them aside with indifference. The third was a longer letter. Colonel Methvyn read it through once—twice—then folded it up again and put it back carefully into its envelope with a little sigh. Cicely watched him anxiously.

“Oh! no, it is all right enough,” he answered rather absently. “Cicely,” he went on, after a little pause, “there will probably be a telegram for me some time to-day. Don’t think of keeping it from me, my dear. It would annoy me inexpressibly if you did so. Let it be brought up at once. Tell your mother so.”

“Very well, papa,” replied Cicely. She leant over him and kissed him again, then she went quietly downstairs.

“I don’t think there is anything particular in papa’s letters,” said Cicely, in answer to her mother’s unspoken question. “But he says there may be a telegram some time to-day, and he wishes it taken to him at once.”

“I hope it won’t come,” said Mrs. Methvyn. “I don’t feel easy about your father. He is doing far too much. How do you think he is looking this morning, Cicely?”

“Pretty well,” replied Cicely. “What time do you think Mr. Guildford will be here, mother?”

“Early—before luncheon, I fancy,” said Mrs. Methvyn. “You will not be out today when he comes, my dear?”

“Oh! no,” said Cicely. “I wish I knew what time he will be coming,” she thought to herself, “I would walk part of the way to meet him.”

For since seeing her father her fears had revived. She felt certain that Mr. Guildford must have thought unfavourably of him the day before, otherwise he would not be coming again so soon; she felt restless and unhappy, and longed with intense longing to express her fears to the only person who could soothe or allay them; the thought of the ball at Lingthurst grew hourly more distasteful to her.

“If only Geneviève could go alone,” she thought, “and mother and I stay at home. But, of course, it would give offence—I must go.”

She could settle to none of her usual occupations, and at last she determined to set off to meet Mr. Guildford. She looked in at the door of her cousin’s room before going. Geneviève was laying out betimes her costume for the evening, apparently perfectly happy in the occupation; she looked up with a bright smile at the sound of Cicely’s voice.

“Is not the effect of these flowers on the skirt beautiful, my cousin?” she exclaimed, pointing to the mass of snowy clouds of gauze that lay on the bed. “I only wish it were time to dress. I am all impatience to put it on.”

“It is very pretty,” said Cicely kindly. “I am sure it will suit you beautifully, Geneviève. I am going out for a little,” she went on, “please tell mamma so if you hear her asking for me. I cannot disturb her just now. She is in papa’s room. You don’t want to come out this morning?”

“Oh! no, thank you,” said Geneviève, “I have twenty things to do. I don’t like the bows they have put on my boots, they make the foot so broad. I am going to arrange them again.”

“Well, good-bye then,” said Cicely, turning to go. Just then there came a ring at the front-door bell. It sounded sharp and loud through the quiet house.

One of the windows of the room looked to the front, but the sill was high and narrow. She drew a chair forward and stepped up on to it. Cicely watched her in astonishment.

“What are you doing, Geneviève?” she exclaimed. “You can’t see anything from there. You forget the porch.”

“Ah! but I can,” replied Geneviève triumphantly. She was by this time mounted on the sill, craning her neck round in a peculiar fashion. “You forget there is a window in the side of the porch. From here, when I put my head so, I can see who stands at the door—voilà! I found this out the first days I was here. Now I see. No, Cicely, it is not the boy from the station. It is a tall figure, a gentleman. Can it be Mr. Fawcett?”

“No,” replied Cicely, “I don’t expect him to-day. Do come down, Geneviève. It would look so strange if any of them saw you climbing up there.”

She spoke rather coldly. Geneviève’s conduct jarred upon her. She only waited till the little lady had accomplished her descent in safety, and then went downstairs, to satisfy herself of the correctness of her cousin’s information.

She was not long left in doubt. Parker was coming in search of her—Mr. Guildford was in the library and had asked for her.

“How kind of him to come so early,” thought Cicely, trying to believe that no thing but kindness was the motive for such prompt fulfilment of his promise. “If he were really uneasy about papa, he would certainly have waited to see me last night,” she said to herself, as she entered the room; but, nevertheless, she looked strangely pale, and the tremor in her voice was not quite imperceptible when Mr. Guildford came forward to meet her. He shook hands somewhat abruptly. Cicely glanced at his face. He too seemed discomposed; he looked worn and tired, as if he had not slept all night. A terror seized Cicely. “Has he come to break it to me? Does he think the very worst?” were the thoughts that flashed through her mind. She felt herself beginning to tremble so much that she sat down on the nearest chair without attempting to speak.

Mr. Guildford did not seem to notice her agitation; he did not look at her, but kept his eyes fixed upon the table beside which he was standing.

“He is afraid of looking at me—he cannot make up his mind how to tell me what he must,” thought Cicely, with a sort of shiver. But the silent waiting at last grew unendurable; she felt that it must be broken.

“It is very kind of you to have come so early,” she began. “I cannot tell you how kind I think it.”

Mr. Guildford turned suddenly. “I came early on purpose,” he said. “I was so afraid of missing you. But how ill you look, Miss Methvyn,” he went on hastily. “Is there anything wrong? You look so dreadfully pale. I am afraid I should not have asked to see you.”

Cicely’s pale lips quivered. “I am quite well,” she whispered. “There is nothing wrong with me. I shall be all right again directly—but, Mr. Guildford, I—I know why you have come this morning I know what you have to tell me. Please don’t hesitate—it is better not. I shall not be silly—you will see.”

She tried to smile, but hardly succeeded. Mr. Guildford looked at her in amazement. “You know why I wanted to see you this morning, Miss Methvyn?” he repeated. “You cannot. It is impossible that—that you should suspect,” he stopped in confusion.

“I have thought him much less well the last few days,” said Cicely. “Of course I cannot judge as you can, but still I almost expected you to tell me you were beginning to lose hope. I knew you would tell me first.”

“Are you speaking about your father?” said Mr. Guildford. “Did you think it was on his account I wanted to see you?”

“Yes, of course,” replied Cicely wonderingly. “Is it not so? Do you not think him much worse?”

“No,” said Mr. Guildford. “I have not thought so. I do not think Colonel Methvyn quite as well as he was some time ago—he is more nervous, more easily upset than he used to be; but I see no important change in him. There is no reason why he should not remain as well as he is—or even gain ground a little—for years to come, provided always his mind is kept tranquil. I could not take upon myself to say how he would stand any severe shock.”

“That is just what you said some months ago,” she exclaimed. “And you really don’t think him much worse?

“I don’t know. I have not thought him quite well. I fear he has been worried and troubled, and I have let my fears get the better of me, I suppose. I felt quite certain that you had come this morning to prepare me for something dreadful.”

She smiled, but faintly still—the revulsion from terror to renewed hope was almost too much for her. Mr. Guildford smiled too, but in his smile there was even less sunshine than in Cicely’s, and in his voice there was even a touch of bitterness as he replied,

“Something dreadful! Far from it. You will believe me when you hear what it really is that I want to say to you this morning—” he paused and took a step or two away from where he had been standing. Then he came back again to the table, and, lifting a book that was lying upon it, turned the leaves over idly with his fingers. “I want you to release me from a promise, Miss Methvyn,” he said at last.

Cicely looked up in surprise. “What promise? I don’t understand,” she replied.

“Don’t you remember,” he went on, speaking slowly, but without looking at her, “don’t you remember that some time ago I promised you—tacitly or directly I am not sure which, and it does not matter, the promise was given—that I would not leave this neighbourhood as long as Colonel Methvyn required me—as long as I felt that I could be of use to him?”

“Yes,” said Cicely, “I have always depended upon your not doing so. I don’t remember the exact words, but I felt satisfied that you had perfectly re-assured me about it, at the time I was afraid of your going.”

“Yes. I did promise as I said. There is no doubt I did,” said Mr. Guildford, and it is from this promise I want you to release me.”

“You want to go away! You have got some better position in prospect!” exclaimed Cicely. “Oh! how unfortunate—can you not defer going, even for a few months? Papa may be stronger, or Dr. Farmer may be back; of course, we cannot expect you to sacrifice your future to us, but I cannot help telling you I am dreadfully sorry. I was so thankful to hear you say that you do not think papa much worse, and now, I shall just feel more anxious about him than ever.”

She turned her head away, but Mr. Guildford felt that there were tears in her eyes.

“You need not—you must not think I would act without regard to Colonel Methvyn,” said Mr. Guildford hurriedly. “I have heard from Dr. Farmer—he is not likely to be away very much longer—and in the meantime I can assure you that the medical man I should recommend to your father is thoroughly deserving of your confidence.

“I dare say he is,” said Cicely impatiently. “It is not that that I am thinking of. I don’t believe any doctor can do much for my father. It is not doctoring he needs as much as cheering and interesting. That is what you have done for him—far better than poor old Dr. Farmer could do. And he will miss you after a while even more than now; there are reasons—” she hesitated. “Oh! I am dreadfully sorry,” she repeated, “but of course we cannot expect you to sacrifice your future. We are only too grateful for what you have done. Forgive me for seeming so selfish.”

Mr. Guildford did not appear to notice her last words. “You mistake me a little,” he said. “My reasons for wishing—for thinking it best I should go away, have nothing to do with my prospects—nothing whatever. At this moment I have not the faintest notion where I shall go, or what I shall do when I leave Sothernbay. I have only one distinct idea.”

“Merely to go away—the further the better,” he replied, with a sort of reckless despondency that startled Cicely; “to be forgotten, doubtless; to forget if I can.”

Once or twice during the interview a thought had occurred to Cicely which explained Mr. Guildford’s unexpected behaviour. Now it gathered strength; his last words especially seeming to confirm it. A sudden impulse seized her to test its correctness.

“Mr. Guildford,” she exclaimed. “You are not at all like yourself this morning. You are generally far too sensible to talk so. You know very well we are not the least likely to forget you—we are not so ungrateful; and if I believed that you mean what you said, I should be very angry with you for saying you would forget us if you could. But you don’t mean it. Something is wrong with you, and I believe,” she went on slowly, “I believe I know what it is.”

“Has it not something to do with my cousin Geneviève?” asked Cicely quietly.

“Certainly not,” he replied promptly. “Not directly, that is to say. She certainly helped me to find it out—for which I suppose I should be very much obliged to her—” he gave a bitter little laugh; “but in no other way has she anything to do with my wish to go away.”

“So I do. I think she is marvellously pretty and charming, and I dare say she is very amiable and sweet-tempered.”

“Yes, that is what you said of her before. Indeed you almost spoke as if she were—as if she realised your ideal woman,” said Cicely with an attempt at playfulness.

“You have a good memory, Miss Methvyn,” he said rather coldly. “If you remember so much, don’t you remember a little more? By what you call my ideal woman, you mean the sort of woman I should choose for a wife; don’t you? But I have had a higher ideal woman—a woman whom I would choose for a friend—don’t you remember my telling you that?”

“I have made a mistake—that’s all.” said the young man drearily. “I have thought I was wiser than other men, and I find I am a greater fool than any man I ever knew. My theories are all smashed. In plain words, Miss Methvyn, I have come across such a woman as in my wildest dreams I never dreamt of—a woman, whom any man would be honoured by having as a friend, but whose friendship only will not satisfy me. The sort of affection I used to picture myself as giving to a wife—to my ‘ideal wife’ remember—seems to me now like the light of a farthing candle beside that of the midday sun. Good God, what a presumptuous fool I have been! I thought I was so strong, so perfectly able to take care of myself—and see where I am now. At this moment I care for nothing—all my studies, all my hopes seem to have turned to ashes between my teeth—I have only one instinct left—that of flight. Now, Miss Methvyn, will you forgive me?”

Cicely had sat in perfect silence, listening to his impetuous words. When he stopped, she said softly, “I am very, very sorry for you.”

“You should not be sorry for me,” he said with a sort of reluctant gentleness. “I have myself to thank for it. I think now,” he went on slowly, “I think that my grand theories about women must have arisen from an instinct in me that if ever I did come under an overwhelming influence of the kind, it would go hard with me—very hard indeed.”

“But,” said Cicely, speaking with an effort, yet earnestly, “I don’t understand you. Do you mean that you are tearing yourself away from the influence you tell me of?—a good and noble influence as far as I can judge—simply because you have resolved that no woman ever shall influence you strongly and entirely? How can you take upon yourself so to thwart your best self? How do you know that this woman, whoever she is, might not be all the truer a friend for being your wife? If you are sacrificing yourself all for the sake of consistency, I should respect you more if you were inconsistent.”

“I am not doing so,” replied Mr. Guildford sadly. “I cannot say whether I think I should have acted as you suppose. I tell you all my theories are put to confusion; I shall have hard work to gather them together again. I have no choice; the longer I remain in this neighbourhood, the worse it will be for me. It is a mere selfish instinct of self-preservation that urges me to flight—a shadowy hope of retaining some of the shreds of what used to be my interests in life. Some day, I suppose—I have read of such things, though I never understood them before—some day, I suppose, I shall find I have outlived this after all, and then I may set to work again in the old way. I can’t say, I don’t think I care. I only want you to give me back my promise, Miss Methvyn, and to forgive me, and let me go.”

There was a despairing tone in the last few words which, coming as they did from a man usually so self-contained, so resolutely cheerful, so strong and manly, seemed, to Cicely, full of a strange pathos. But she did not again say that she wa “very, very sorry” for Mr. Guildford, nor did she at once answer his request. She looked up timidly, and a faint colour rose in her cheeks. “Do you mean—do you mean,” she said, “that you have no choice because you know certainly that—she—does not care for you? Are you sure that you are not letting false pride influence you, that you are not taking for granted what may not be certain after all? Forgive me for saying it—I am so reluctant for you to be unnecessarily unhappy—and in such cases, lives are often ruined by some misapprehension.”

She spoke very gently. Mr. Guildford looked at her for a moment. Then he rose from the chair where he had sat down, and walked a few steps away.

“There is no misapprehension,” he said at last. “In no circumstances could I have imagined it possible that—that I could have been cared for in the only way that would have satisfied me. But, as it happens—fortunately for me, I suppose—circumstances, outward circumstances I mean, are dead against me. Socially even, there could never have been a question of—of such a thing, and besides that—”

He stopped abruptly. He had been standing near the window, at some little distance from Cicely, not looking at her as he spoke. Suddenly he turned, and came back again, close to the table by which she was sitting. “Miss Methvyn,” he said, and his voice sounded so strange that Cicely looked up quickly in affright, “Miss Methvyn,” he repeated, “there is no use in beating about the bush. Even if you despise me, and refuse ever to speak to me again, I think it will be a relief to tell you the truth, if you have not already guessed it. Don’t you know what has opened my eyes? Don’t you know what Miss Casalis told me yesterday—about you—what I never suspected before, blind fool that I was!—don’t you know what I mean?”

“No,” said Cicely. But her voice was low and tremulous. She hesitated a moment, “at least,” she added, “I don’t understand altogether.”

She would rather not have said as much, but it seemed to her as if the words were drawn from her against her will.

He was looking at her now, so earnestly that Cicely, who had grown very pale, felt her cheeks burn with the consciousness of his gaze. She could bear it no longer. She got up from her seat, and, leaning one hand upon the table, spoke out bravely.

“Mr. Guildford,” she exclaimed, “you are trying me painfully. I am very, very sorry for you, but—I think you may regret if you say any more. I don’t know what my cousin told you yesterday—it is true that I do not altogether understand what you mean, and I would rather not understand. Let me tell you again how very sorry I am that you should be troubled or pained; but—you are a man, Mr. Guildford; you have life before you and great aims to live for. Whatever it is that is troubling you now will pass away and leave no lasting traces. I won’t insult you by supposing it could be otherwise. You are a man—some things are harder to be borne by women than by men.”

“Miss Methvyn, you must listen to me. I want you to understand me, if not you may think worse of me than I deserve. I had no intention of troubling you, but I cannot bear you to think of me as I see you do—as a foolish boy who has forgotten himself and his place—” he hesitated a moment, then went on again, without bitterness this time, but with a depth of restrained suffering in his voice which touched Cicely to the quick. “I told you that I had to thank Miss Casalis for bringing me to my senses,” he said. “It was she who told me yesterday that you are shortly to be married to Mr. Fawcett. She told it very abruptly. I had had no idea of it—not, of course, that it could have made any difference to me—but it came upon me very suddenly. People who have been blind, you know, are startled when they first gain the use of their eyes. I am in that condition. As I have told you, I am shaken to the very foundations. I am a man, as you reminded me, not a boy; but, kind and good as you are, you don’t know how a man can suffer. Miss Methvyn, I cannot remain here. I am not really required. I entreat you to absolve me from my promise, and let me go.”

Cicely had turned her face away while he was speaking. She could not bear him to see the tears that were gathering in her eyes. Now she only said gently, and it seemed to him coldly, “I would not dream of preventing your going. It is very good of you to have asked me to release you. Many people would have forgotten all about such a promise.”

“Thank you,” he said. “Will you say good-bye to me, Miss Methvyn?” he added. “I should like to think you have forgiven me.”

Then she turned towards him, and he saw that she was crying. “That I have forgiven you,” she repeated. “What is there I could possibly have to forgive? I cannot tell you how bitterly I regret that your kindness to us should have brought suffering upon you. I thought you so wise and clever, so above such things. I can hardly even now believe that—that I can be the cause of your trouble. It is not only that I have always thought of myself almost as if I were already married, but I never associated you with such possibilities. I never really believed you cared for Geneviève. I thought you were wholly occupied with other thoughts—so above such things,” she repeated. “Have I been to blame in any way?” she added ingenuously.

“Only for believing my own account of myself—for taking me at my own valuation,” he replied with a smile—a curious, bitter smile. “‘Above such things!’ Yes, indeed, I deserve it all. Miss Methvyn, good-bye, and thank you for your gentleness and goodness.”

He was turning away, when Cicely held out her hand. “Good-bye,” she said, simply.

He took her hand, held it for an instant “I don’t think you will ever see me again,” he said in a low voice. “Thank you for being sorry for me;” then he was gone.

Cicely sat down by the table. She buried her face in her hands and cried bitterly. “I am so sorry for him,” she said to herself over and over again. “Why do things go wrong in this world always? I wish I could think that Trevor cared for me as that man does.”

Mr. Guildford went upstairs to see Colonel Methvyn. He sat with him for half an hour, talking as cheerfully as usual, intending, at least once in every five minutes of that half-hour, to break to Cicely’s father the news of his intended departure; but in the end he failed to do so. Colonel Methvyn seemed nervous and depressed, and Mr. Guildford’s courage played him false. He compromised matters at last by promising to call again the next day. “To-morrow,” he said to himself, as he walked slowly down the drive, “to-morrow I shall be better able to talk of my leaving, quietly, so that no one can suspect anything. But I must manage to avoid seeing her again. Oh, Cicely! When I would give ten years of my life for a moment’s glimpse of you! But she said goodbye, and she meant it.”

CHAPTER I.

DÉSILLUSIONNÉE.

“CICELY,” said Mrs. Methvyn late that afternoon, “I want you to do something to please me.”

“What, mother dear?” said the girl, looking up wearily from the book she was trying to read, “what do you want me to do?”

She had felt very miserable all day. Her anxiety about her father was by no means thoroughly allayed, and she knew that her chief support had failed her; and the impression left upon her by her strange interview with Mr. Guildford was still bewilderingly painful. Her mother was struck by her pallor and depression.

“You don’t look well, Cicely,” she said anxiously; “is there anything the matter?”

“I wish we were not going to Lingthurst,” said Cicely. “I cannot tell you how I shrink from the thought of it.”

It was within a very few hours now of the happy moment which Geneviève had been all day eagerly anticipating. “In four hours more it will be time to dress,” she had reminded Cicely with delight, a few minutes before. And Cicely had smiled and tried to think herself “cross-grained and ill-humoured,” for not being able to sympathise with her cousin’s enthusiasm. But it was no use. As the hours went on, she grew more and more disinclined for the evening’s amusement. “I cannot bear the thought of it,” she repeated to her mother.

Mrs. Methvyn looked troubled. “You used to enjoy dancing, Cicely. You used to be merry enough not so very long ago. What has changed you so?”

“Nothing, mother dear,” exclaimed Cicely, ashamed of her selfishness, “nothing truly. I am only rather dull and cross. Perhaps it is true as some say, that it is not good for people to live so much by themselves as we have done the last year or two.” She was silent for a minute or two, then she looked up again. “It is not all crabbedness, mother. It is partly that I can’t bear going to a ball when papa seems less well than usual.”

“That is what I was going to speak to you about,” said Mrs. Methvyn. “I don’t think your father is very well to-day. I don’t like leaving him. What I wanted to ask you was, if you would very much mind going without me.”

“Going without you,” exclaimed Cicely in surprise, “Geneviève and I by ourselves! How could we?”

“You might go very early and be with Frederica before any one comes, as if you were staying in the house,” replied Mrs. Methvyn. “I can easily send a note to explain it. She will be quite pleased. And I have no doubt she will ask you to stay till to-morrow, which will make it all quite easy.”

Cicely’s face grew graver. “I don’t mind going without you, mother,” she said. “Of course, I would much rather stay at home with you, but there is no use repeating that—but please don’t ask me to stay away till to-morrow. Let Parker go with us; she will be delighted to see the fun, and she will take care to wrap us up and all the rest of it. No one need know we are young women without a chaperone—everybody will think we are staying in the house. Don’t say I am not to come home to-night. I can’t bear the idea of it.”

She held up her face coaxingly for her mother to kiss. “Cis, what a baby you are!” said Mrs. Methvyn fondly. “And yet you are so sensible. What in the world will you do when the time comes for you to—”

“Don’t talk about it, mother, please don’t,” interrupted Cicely. “If you do, I shall begin to cry, and then what a fright I shall look to-night!”

“You are not looking well,” said Mrs. Methvyn regretfully. “Indeed, you look as if you had been crying already—have you, dear?”

“Don’t,” exclaimed Cicely, turning away her head to hide the tears only too ready to spring again, “don’t, mother. Let us talk of something cheerful. Geneviève, for instance. Did you ever see a little mortal in such a state of delight as she is? She will look pretty enough to do you credit any way, mother.”

“Yes,” said Mrs. Methvyn absently. “Well, then, Cicely,” she added, “I will go and write my note to Frederica and send it at once; and remember, dear, you must be ready very early.”

“Oh! yes,” replied Cicely, “we shall be sure to be in time. I think I am much more likely to enjoy this evening, mother, knowing you are at home with papa. It was partly the feeling of reluctance to leave him alone that made me dull. It is so long, you know, since he has had an evening by himself.”

She spoke more brightly than she felt. She resolved to dismiss her depression and do her best to be cheerful, but it was hard work. Her pretty ball dress seemed a mockery, Geneviève’s fluttering excitement jarred upon her; over and over again she repeated to herself, “Oh! how I wish this evening were over.” And when she went to her father’s room to say good-night, and poor Colonel Methvyn kissed her fondly, and told her he was pleased to see her in a ball dress once more, she could hardly restrain the tears that had seemed strangely near the surface all day.

“Did Mr. Guildford stay long with you this morning, papa?” she asked, anxious to find out if the young man had said anything about the change in his plans.

“Not very long,” replied her father, “he was rather hurried to-day, but he is coming again to-morrow, or the next day. He says he is not at all busy just now, and I am glad of it. I should quite miss his visits.”

“He has not told him,” thought Cicely, with a certain feeling of relief, “he must be intending to do so the next time he comes. But I can’t help feeling glad he did not tell papa to-day; he must have seen he was not quite as well as usual.”

They reached Lingthurst very early, as had been arranged. They had to wait by themselves for some little time, as Lady Frederica and the visitors staying in the house had not yet made their appearance in the drawing-room. At last Miss Winter, in a new and elegant costume, came fluttering into the room, full of regrets and apologies. Lady Frederica was so sorry, so very sorry to leave dear Miss Methvyn and dear Miss Casalis so long alone, but the fact was, she was not feeling very well and had gone to lie down a little after dinner (evidently a ball at Lingthurst was an event!); and the other ladies were dressing—she must run away again for a minute, dear Miss Methvyn would excuse her she was sure—Lady Frederica was not quite satisfied with her head-dress and she was altering it—she would be back in five minutes, etc. etc., and then she fluttered out of the room again.

“What are these for, Cicely?” said Geneviève, touching a basket full of mysterious little white leaflets.

“Cards of the dances,” replied Cicely, glancing to see what she was doing. “You may take one, Geneviève—look, you write down the names of your partners at one side—so—and then you know whom you are engaged to dance with.”

“Oh! how nice—what a good idea!” exclaimed Geneviève gleefully. “But I am only engaged for one dance,” she went on mournfully, “You Cicely, no doubt, are engaged for all.”

“Certainly not,” replied Cicely, laughing. “I am only engaged for those I am going to dance with Trevor. You needn’t distress yourself, Geneviève. You are sure to have plenty of partners.”

But Geneviève’s face did not clear. “You will dance the first with Mr. Fawcett, I suppose?” she said.

It seemed to Cicely that there was a slight sneer in her tone as she made the remark. She looked at Geneviève in surprise, and as she did so there recurred to her mind what Mr. Guildford had told her of her cousin having been the source of his in formation.

“I am not unhappy,” replied Geneviève hastily, the colour mounting to her cheeks.

“Well, you seem annoyed, at least. I never know how to avoid annoying you, Geneviève,” said Cicely regretfully. “Only yesterday afternoon you spoke to me very strangely and unkindly for no reason at all that I could find out. And that reminds me—Geneviève, how did you come to be talking to Mr. Guildford about my—I mean about my marriage?”

“Who said I had talked about you to him?” said Geneviève defiantly—the scarlet settling into an angry spot on each cheek.

“He himself,” replied Cicely quietly. “He said that you had told him about my marriage.”

“No, he did not,” said Cicely. “I thought he did—I thought he had always known it, but he never knew it till you told him. I am not blaming you for telling it—it was no secret. I only want to know how you came to be talking about me. Mr. Guildford was quite surprised—he said you mentioned it so suddenly. How was it?”

She looked Geneviève full in the face as she asked the question. At first Geneviève’s eyes fell; she seemed frightened and half inclined to cry. But her glance happened to light on the little white card she held in her hand, and her mood changed. She raised her head, and her cheeks glowed with angry excitement. “I told him,” she said, “because I thought it would vex him. I like him not. You think everybody is in love with you, Cicely. It is not so. It is only that you are rich. Some day you may find you have been too sure—you have wanted too much. Some day perhaps you will not get what you want—then you will no longer think you are to have all because you are rich and I am poor!”

“Geneviève!” exclaimed Cicely. She could not trust herself to say more. She turned away and began examining some books that lay on a side-table, astonished, and wounded to the quick.

Another moment and Geneviève’s passion would have ended as usual in a flood of tears, but there came a diversion. Mr. Fawcett suddenly entered the room. He came in quickly, not expecting to see any one there, and as he opened the door, the first object that met his eyes was Geneviève. Geneviève in the full blaze of her beauty; her loveliness enhanced by the excitement which had reddened her cheeks and brightened her eyes, even though its source was unlovely anger; Geneviève, dressed to perfection, as he had never yet seen her, in a cloud of shimmering white, with crimson flowers in her dark hair and pearls on her pretty neck—Trevor started as he saw her, and a half smothered exclamation escaped him. And in an instant Geneviève’s face was all smiles and blushes as she hastened forward a step or two to meet him.

From her corner, Cicely, pale and silent and discomposed, saw it all; saw Trevor’s start of unmistakable admiration, Geneviève’s pretty self-consciousness, saw them shake hands and murmur a word or two as if no such person as herself were in existence. She saw it, but, with instinctive loyalty, before she had allowed herself to realise the position, she forced herself to come forward.

“You did not expect to find any one here already, did you, Trevor?” she said lightly. “Mother made us come at least an hour too soon that we might be with Lady Frederica before any one else comes—we are supposed to be staying in the house, you know.”

Before she had finished the last sentence, Mr. Fawcett had perfectly recovered himself.

“I am so very sorry to hear your father is not as well as usual to-day,” he said kindly, as he shook hands. “But I am glad it was not bad enough to prevent you two coming. There is not much wrong, is there?”

“No, at least I hope not,” replied Cicely. “I have not thought him as well as usual for some time.”

She turned away and Trevor did not reply. Just then Lady Frederica and a bevy of ladies rustled into the room, and a chatter of greetings and introductions and regrets that “the poor Colonel was not well and poor dear Mrs. Methvyn unable to leave him” began.

You are not looking well, dear Cicely,” said Trevor’s mother, in her soft, plaintive voice, and somehow even these commonplace words brought the tears into the girl’s eyes. “He never noticed that I looked ill,” she thought, as she replied to Lady Frederica’s expressions of sympathy, and there rushed through her mind in sharp and painful contrast with Trevor’s indifference, the remembrance of how Mr. Guildford’s firm cheery voice had grown gentle and anxious that morning when he first remarked her paleness and agitation.

“And how perfectly lovely your cousin looks!” continued Lady Frederica. “Pretty as I thought her, I had no idea till to-night how lovely she was.”

“Yes,” said Cicely stoutly, “I think she looks as pretty as anything one can imagine. Do you like our dresses, Lady Frederica? They are from Madame Néret’s.”

“Geneviève’s is lovely, quite lovely,” answered Lady Frederica. “And yours—ah! yes, it is very pretty, Chambéry gauze, I see,” she remarked, putting up her eye glass and surveying Cicely’s draperies with a critical air. “Yes, a beautiful material and everlasting wear—I have had my Chambérys dyed black many a time—I was not sure if yours was a new dress or not.”

“Yes, mother ordered both Geneviève’s and mine expressly for to-night,” said Cicely.

“Ah! yes. Yes, I can see it is new now. Those good dresses, you know, never do look quite so brilliant a white as more fragile materials. And I was thinking of your trousseau, you know, my dear. It is hardly worth while for you to get any more new dresses now.”

“No, tulle, tulle over—” Cicely was beginning, but just then Mr. Fawcett came up.

“Mother,” he said, “people are beginning to come. You mustn’t stay any longer gossiping in that corner, do you hear, my lady?” Lady Frederica laughed. “Impertinent boy!” she said, rising as she spoke. “Where shall I find you, Cicely?” continued Trevor, “We must be ready when the music begins, to set all the young people agoing. Dances are events, at this season, and these country girls have no idea of wasting time.”

“I shall stay here,” said Cicely, “I shall be ready when you come for me.”

Cicely remained in her corner, watching the guests as they began to pour in. Now and then she came forward a little to shake hands with such of her acquaintances as caught sight of her, or to introduce her cousin, who was standing at a little distance, to some of her parents’ more intimate friends who had not yet happened to meet her.

“How lovely Miss Methvyn’s French cousin is! I did not think she was that sort of girl. We heard she was the daughter of a poor French pasteur,” an “how ill poor Miss Methvyn is looking herself!” were the universal remarks on the appearance of the two cousins. “It is the first time Miss Methvyn has been anywhere since the little Forrester boy’s death, you know,” said some kind-hearted girl. Cicely overheard the words, and after that it seemed to her that there was unusual gentleness in the manners and voices of those whom she spoke to, or to whose inquiries about her father she replied. She was glad to think so.

“People are very kindly after all,” she said to herself. “I think I have been growing morbid lately. It must be all my fancy that Trevor is changed. I don’t believe he is. One grows exacting with living so much alone.”

The thought cheered her. She looked brighter and less wearied when Mr. Fawcett came to claim her.

“What has become of Geneviève?” she exclaimed, looking round, as she took Trevor’s arm. “She was standing beside Miss Winter a moment ago.”

Trevor laughed. “You must have been asleep, my dear child,” he said. “Did you not see me introduce Dangerfield to her? There they are. They are to be our vis-à-vis. I told Dangerfield she couldn’t speak English at all, and he doesn’t know a syllable of anything else. It will be great fun watching them.”

Cicely looked uneasy. “I am afraid Geneviève may not quite like it,” she said rather timidly; “I don’t think she understands jokes, Trevor. I wish you would tell Mr. Dangerfield that she can speak English perfectly, for if he begins trying French she would think it would be rude to speak English.”

“Nonsense,” said Trevor rather brusquely; “nonsense. Geneviève understands a joke as well as any one. You don’t understand her Cicely, as I have often told you. She knows all about it, and you will see how she will take off Dangerfield.”

Cicely said no more, but already the little gleam of sunshine seemed clouded over. She went through the quadrille languidly and silently. Mr. Fawcett indeed seemed to have no leisure for talking to his partner; his whole attention was absorbed by watching the way in which his pretty vis-à-vis befooled her partner.

Now and then he turned to Cicely. “Do look at Dangerfield,” he would say; “he has been five minutes over one word. Did you ever see anything so mischievous as the way Geneviève looks up at him in bewilderment?”

Cicely smiled faintly. “I did not know she could act so well,” she said. Then she regretted the words and would have said something to soften them, but Trevor did not seem to have caught their meaning. He was in exuberant spirits, almost excitedly gay and jocular, yet to Cicely it seemed that there was something forced in his manner, and when he gave her his arm again after the quadrille was over she fancied he was eager to avoid a téte-à-tête.

“I am afraid I must leave you here, Cicely,” he said, when he had found a comfortable sofa in one of the drawing-rooms,“I have such a terrible amount of introducing and all that to do between the dances.”

“Very well,” said Cecily. Her tone was rather cold, and Trevor, glancing at her, observed for the first time how pale and fagged she looked.

“Oh! yes. I am well enough,” she answered, brightening up at once under the influence of his words; “but, Trevor,” she went on, after a moment’s hesitation, “I am very dull about papa. I don’t think he is well.”

Mr. Fawcett said nothing, but his blue eyes looked sympathy and encouraged her to say more. “I did not like to make you dull,” she went on, “you seem in such very good spirits, Trevor,” with the slightest possible accent of reproach. “But you must not be vexed with me for being rather stupid. I can’t help it.”

She looked up at him with tears in her eyes. “You are not vexed with me, are you?” she whispered.

Mr. Fawcett’s face had grown grave. “Vexed with you,” he repeated, “of course not. Why should I be? At least I am only vexed with you for one thing. I hate all this—I detest it. I only wish you and I had been married months ago; by this time we should have been away somewhere by ourselves with no one to interfere with us. As it is, I never seem to see you now, Cicely; I don’t know how it is.”

The sunshine seemed to have crept back again,—a somewhat uncertain, tremulous light, but sunshine for all that. “Dear Trevor,” said Cicely softly, “there is not really any change. It is only that I am so much taken up at home, and you have been away so long. But if you are not vexed with me, it will be all right. Sometimes lately I have fancied I had grown dull and stupid and that you—”

She had laid her hand appealingly on Trevor’s arm, his eyes were looking down upon her with an almost remorseful tenderness, some eager words were on his lips, when a voice beside them—it was Geneviève’s—made both him and Cicely start.

“Oh! Mr. Fawcett,” she exclaimed, “I want so much to tell you, ah! is Cicely already tired?” with a curious change of tone from the brightness of the first sentence. “I beg your pardon, I knew not that I interrupted you,” she added timidly, making a little movement as if to retire into the back ground.

“Interrupt! Nonsense,” exclaimed Trevor, laughing. “We have been wondering how you got on with Dangerfield. Cicely, you must remember which are your dances with me. Ours,” to Geneviève, as he passed her, “is the next, you know.”

There was no time for a reply. Up came Lady Frederica, with a gentleman to be introduced to Miss Casalis in humble hope of finding she had still a dance to spare, in which he was not disappointed. This happy person was followed by another and yet another, till the vacant spaces on Geneviève’s card grow few. Then the music begins again. Cicely catches a glimpse of Trevor’s tall figure in the doorway; another moment, and Geneviève disappears on his arm.

“I don’t know, at least I forget. I think I am engaged for this dance,” replied the girl indifferently. “Oh! yes,” consulting her card, “I am engaged to Sir Arthur Vauxley; but he has not come for me. I don’t care. I would rather not dance. Don’t you think it is rather cold, Lady Frederica?”

“Cold, my dear!” repeated her hostess in astonishment, fanning herself with a nearer approach to vigour than she was often in the habit of exerting; “cold! Why we are in the greatest alarm that the heat will be insufferable before supper; we cannot get all the windows open till then. Cold! You must have got a chill.”

“Perhaps I have,” said Cicely, shivering a little and drawing back further into her corner.

But she was not long allowed to remain there. Sir Arthur found her out and claimed his dance. Then followed others, for which she was likewise engaged; the evening began to pass a little more quickly than at first; two dances more, and there would come her second one with Trevor—a waltz this time. Cicely’s eyes brightened and a little colour stole into her checks when at last the intervening dances were over and the waltz music began.

“The ‘Zuleika,’” she said to herself, “that is one of Trevor’s favourites. I wish he would come!”

Her feet beat time to the familiar strains, her eyes turned impatiently towards the doorway in search of the pleasant, fair face of her betrothed—again and again, but in vain. Cicely was only twenty after all; she could not but own to herself that it was disappointing.

“Trevor has a good deal on his hands,” she reminded herself however, “and of course he will know it does not matter if he misses one dance with me. We have two still—one other waltz.”

So the face was still sweet and unruffled, the eyes guiltless of reproach, when, at the very end of the waltz—when the last notes of the inviting Zuleika were dying away—the laggard partner made his appearance. He looked flushed and discomposed, and evidently conscious that he deserved a scolding.

“I am so sorry, so very sorry,” he began. “I was coming here to look for you, but I hadn’t got rid of my last partner, and the music began before I expected, and we found ourselves regularly hemmed in. We took a turn to get clear, and then I had to get Ge—, my partner, an ice, and now it is too late!”

“Never mind,” said Cicely brightly. “What does it matter? I have kept two others for you.”

Trevor looked at her with a curious mixture of expressions in his face. “My dear old Cit,” he said, reverting to a pet name of long ago, “you are awfully sweet-tempered.” Then a frown gathered over his face. Whose soft voice had whispered in his ear a minute before?—“Do not please tell my cousin you were just now dancing with me. It might—it might vex her. She thinks sometimes I forget too much I am but a stranger. I would not that she should think I knew this was the waltz you should dance with her.”

Cicely did not see the frown. She only heard the pleasant words. “Am I?” she said. “I don’t know that it is true, but any way I like you to think so. By the bye, how is Geneviève getting on? I have not seen her for ever so long.”

“Oh! she’s all right. She’s had any number of partners,” replied Mr. Fawcett hastily, as he ran off to fulfil his next engagement—this time probably with some less long-suffering damsel than Miss Methvyn. In the doorway he almost knocked over a small man, quietly making his way in. “I beg your pardon,” he exclaimed. “Ah! Hayle, is it you? Why are you so late?”

“How late you are, Mr. Hayle!” she exclaimed. “I suppose you don’t care about balls though.”

“Not much. I have hardly any experience of them. But I could not come earlier to-night. I have been at Notcotts till half an hour ago,” he answered.

“No,—this is the evening I have fixed for my class there. That is what I wanted to ask you about. We are rather at a loss for some books. Would you mind letting me look over again some of those you offered me before?”

Then Mr. Hayle proceeded to relate to her, as he had got into the habit of doing, the small chronicle of his difficulties, hopes, and fears. Cicely listened with interest—she had found it quite possible to like and respect the boy-faced clergyman, and there was plenty of common ground on which they could meet without jarring. But half an hour before, she could not have listened without impatience to the history of the Notcott’s night-school, the shortcomings of the choir, the ever-increasing necessity for the renovation of Lingthurst church. Whence had the sunshine come again? Trevor had called her his “dear old Cit; it was all nonsense and fancy” about his being changed.

Mr. Hayle did not dance, but he escorted Miss Methvyn in to supper instead. Then he had to resign his charge to the partner to whom she was engaged for the next dance.

It happened to be Mr. Dangerfield. The poor young man could talk of nothing but Geneviève.

“She’s so awfully pretty,” he said. “What a pity she can’t speak English. I didn’t know she was your cousin till just now, when one of the officers from Haverstock asked me if I couldn’t get him an introduction to Miss Methvyn; and being such old friends, of course I said yes. And we were steering away towards you, you know, when he holla’ed out to me to stop, and I found out it was your cousin he meant. He said the Miss Methvyn who was engaged to Fawcett, so of course I thought it was all right. She—your cousin I mean—was dancing with Fawcett at the time, so Captain Burnett had made the mistake. Fawcett put it all right, but I couldn’t catch your cousin’s name—Castle, isn’t it? only that doesn’t sound like a French name.”

“Casalis,” corrected Cicely, smiling. She had known young Dangerfield all her life, and had rather liked him for his unaffected good nature, and been tolerant of his matter of-fact prosiness. This evening however, long before her dance with him was over, she began to think he must surely have grown heavier and more stupid than of old. Could he find nothing else to talk about than Geneviève and that absurd mistake of Captain Burnett’s?

But even the slowest of dances “wears through” at last. Cicely’s next engagement was to one of the aforesaid officers from Haverstock—a quiet man—who danced little but talked sensibly, and did not seem, like every one else this evening, to have had his head turned by Miss Casalis. And when his dance was over, Cicely began to feel tired in earnest. She sat down in the corner where she had been before, resolving not to dance any more—“at least,” she said to herself, “not unless Trevor very much wants to make up for the waltz we missed. I wonder what has become of him? I did not see him dancing the last at all. And Geneviève? She is engaged to Fred Dangerfield again for this one, I think he told me. No, there he is, talking to Miss Falconer. Where can Geneviève be?”

Her speculations were interrupted by Mr. Hayle, who, with great satisfaction, had spied her out again in her retreat.

“I don’t think I remembered to ask you how Colonel Methvyn is,” he began, as he came up to her.

“Not very well, thank you,” said Cicely, “indeed, I was not much inclined to leave him to come here to-night—but—I hardly liked to stay away. My cousin has had very little amusement since she has been with us. I came greatly on her account.”

“Then you yourself don’t care for balls and dancing?” said Mr. Hayle eagerly.

Cicely smiled. “Oh! yes I do,” she answered. “When I am light-hearted about other things, I enjoy them very much.”

“Have you seen my cousin lately?” Cicely went on, “I can’t think what has become of her.”

“If you mean Miss Casalis, I saw her just now with Mr. Fawcett. I think they were going to dance,” said Mr. Hayle.

“Don’t you think it is rather too hot here,” said Mr. Hayle, “would you not like to find a seat where there is a little more air?”

“It is hot,” said Cicely, rising as she spoke; “yes, I think I should like to go into one of the other rooms. I want to find Geneviève—it must be getting late. Will you take me, Mr. Hayle?” she added with a smile.

They made a little tour of the rooms; dancing in the ball-room was still going on vigorously, but no Geneviève, no Trevor, were to be seen.

“I dare say they are in the supper-room,” said Mr. Hayle. “I saw several people there still, a few minutes ago. Suppose we look for a nice cool place in the conservatory, Miss Methvyn; this way—ah! yes, over there among the ferns there is a charming corner. Now, if you will stay here, I will get you an ice and look for Miss Casalis on the way.”

The poor little man seemed quite pleased to find himself of use. Cicely thanked him and established herself comfortably in the nook he had discovered. It was at the further end of the fernery, into which opened the great dining-room, to-night metamorphosed into a ball-room. Cicely looked round her admiringly. She had always coveted the Lingthurst fernery; in the hottest summer day it seemed cool and fresh—there were greens of every shade to rest the eye, an incessant, soothing murmur of trickling water to please the ear; and to-night the soft lights of the many-coloured lamps, hung here and there among the climbing plants which hid the walls, made the whole into a veritable fairy-land.

Cicely leant her head back and shut her eyes. “The music sounds far nicer here than in the ball-room,” she said to herself; “it is almost too loud in there. I shall go to sleep if Mr. Hayle doesn’t come soon. I don’t want an ice in the least, but it would have been a shame to refuse it; he was so pleased with the idea. Ah, there he is!”

Steps were approaching her, but they were not Mr. Hayle’s. Where she sat, some great stands of tall tropical ferns concealed her from the view of any one coming to wards her; but not realising this, it never occurred to her to move when first the sound of voices fell upon her ear. Well known, familiar voices they proved to be, but the words they uttered deprived the girl for the moment of all power or vitality.

“I tell you I will do anything—anything to make you believe me—anything to free myself from this horrible hypocrisy. I can stand it no longer. The words were spoken low, but with a sort of suppressed fierceness; the voice was Trevor’s. Then came a sound of half-smothered weeping, some broken reply of which Cicely could not catch the meaning—then Trevor’s voice again.

“Not care for you? Good God! what will you say next? I wish I did not care for you. I wish we had never seen each other. Not care for you, you say, when I am breaking my word for you, trampling my honour under foot! I only hope that is the worst of what I am doing, Geneviève. I only hope what you tell me is true, that in her heart of hearts Cicely does not care for me except as a brother. If I thought otherwise! No, even for you, Geneviève, I could not do it.”

“But it is true—it is, it is,” broke in the girl’s voice. “I know it is, I have always known it. She does not care as I do—oh, no! Trevor, I shall die if I have to lose you.”

He led her close to where Cicely was sitting, then through a small doorway in the wall leading into a passage used by the gardeners; as the two passed her, the skirt of Geneviève’s dress almost brushed against Cicely’s, but thanks to the subdued light and to their own absorption, she remained unperceived.

She had sat perfectly still—motionless, as if suddenly turned into stone. It had required no effort on her part to remain so, for now even that they were gone—out of sight and hearing—she moved not so much as a muscle of her whole body; afterwards, on looking back, it seemed to herself that she had almost for a time ceased to breathe. She was stunned into a species of unconsciousness, and how long she might have remained thus it would be impossible to say, had not Mr. Hayle made his appearance with the ice he had gone in search of.

“Here is the ice. I had to wait some time—” he was beginning, but broke off in alarm. “What is the matter?” he exclaimed, “you look so dreadfully pale, Miss Methvyn.”

“I have got a chill, I think,” said Cicely shivering, and attempting to smile. She was surprised to find that she could speak; for the last few minutes a sort of dreamy, almost pleasant feeling of death, or dying, had been stealing over her. Now she awoke to a faint consciousness of pain; like the unfortunate traveller in the Alps, who beseeches to be allowed to sleep, even though the sleep should be unto death, she shrank from coming to life again. “I have got a little chill, I think,” she repeated. “I should just like to stay here quietly.”

She leant her head back again among the graceful nestling ferns—their delicate fronds caressing her colourless cheeks and brushing the coils of her bright fair hair; she closed her eyes, and for a moment Mr. Hayle thought she had fainted. Perhaps in a sense she had—at least she was conscious of nothing more till he was again beside her, this time with a glass of wine.

“But you really must,” he insisted. “The sort of chill you have had may make you ill if you don’t take this. Think how frightened Mrs. Methvyn will be if you go home looking like a ghost.”

Mr. Hayle was not wanting in discrimination and common sense. He had met Mr. Fawcett and Miss Casalis on his way to fetch the ice; he was not without a shrewd suspicion as to the nature of the “chill” which the girl beside him had received. His mention of her mother roused Cicely a little. She took the glass and drank some of the wine.

“Thank you very much,” she said to her companion. “I am all right again now. Must we go back to the drawing-room? Oh! I do so want to go home,” she exclaimed wearily. “It is late now, is it not? I wonder if Geneviève—”

“Would you like me to find out if Miss Casalis is ready to go now?” interrupted Mr. Hayle.

“Yes please, I wish you would,” said Cicely. The mention of her cousin’s name had driven back from her cheeks such faint colour as had begun to return to them. Mr. Hayle’s suspicions were confirmed.

“Do I look very dilapidated?” continued Cicely, smiling and smoothing back the ruffled hair from her temples. “I should not like Lady Frederica to think I was ill. I have felt very dull and tired all the evening. You know my father has not been well; we have been anxious about him, and anxiety is very tiring.”

“Yes,” said Mr. Hayle, “nothing more so. You need not go back to the drawing room, Miss Methvyn. We can go round by the passage behind the dining-room, and you can wait in the study while I find your cousin.”

He was turning towards the door through which Trevor and Geneviève had disappeared.

Mr. Hayle glanced at her. “It is much better than having to go through the ball room,” he said composedly. Cicely made no further objections.

The next quarter of an hour was a dream to her. She sat in Sir Thomas’s little study waiting for Geneviève for about ten minutes, clearly conscious of one sensation only an unspeakable horror of meeting Trevor Fawcett face to face and alone. But this she was spared. How Mr. Hayle managed it she never knew; but in a few minutes he reappeared with Geneviève alone.

Then Cicely remembered a vision of Parker and wraps, a hasty progress across the hall, still escorted by the young clergyman, a glimpse through open doors of the still crowded drawing-rooms, a sound of music in the distance—then she seemed to awake to find herself in the carriage, with Parker’s anxious face opposite, dimly discernible in the uncertain light of the flickering lamps, with some one else beside her; some one whose face she dreaded to see, whose voice she shrank from hearing.

CHAPTER II.

AFTER THE BALL.

“Ye banks and braes o’ bonnie Doon,
How can ye bloom sae fresh and fair;
How can ye chant, ye little birds,
And I sae weary, fu’ o’ care!
Ye’ll break my heart, ye warbling birds
That wanton through the flow’ry thorn;
Ye mind me o’ departed joys,
Departed never to return.”

IT was a very dark night. The full moon, whose services had been reckoned upon to light the guests to and from the Lingthurst ball, was not in an obliging humour. She had gone to bed again in the clouds so early, and the curtains behind which she had hidden herself were so thick, that, for all the use she had been of, she might as well not have risen at all. It was so dark that the cautious old Greystone coachman thought it necessary to drive extra slowly; it seemed to Cicely that hours, if not whole days, or nights rather, had passed, when at last they turned in at the Abbey gates.

Not that she cared. She was not eager to be home now—what comfort could meet her there?—anywhere? What was anything in life to her now? What was life itself? A horrible mockery, a delusion, a sham from beginning to end. There was no goodness, no loyalty, no truth. All these things she had once—long ago it seemed already—believed in so firmly, that till now she had never realised how largely such faith had formed a part of her existence, or how frightful could be the results of its destruction. Already she had tasted the bitterest drop of the bitter cup; she had been deceived by her nearest and dearest—by the one of all the world who should have been true to her.

“If even he had trusted me,” she moaned, “if he had come and told me all, I could have borne it. I am not beautiful as she is, I could have forgiven him; I could have believed that this new love had come upon him unawares, and that he had fought against it. If he had trusted me!”

To Geneviève, to her share in the whole, Cicely, in this first chaos of misery and indignation somehow hardly gave a thought. She shrank from her, it is true. She was thankful that Geneviève’s silence prevented the necessity of addressing her, but whatever Geneviève had done, however great her portion of responsibility, she was only Geneviève—a new-comer, a comparative stranger. False-hearted, scheming, unscrupulous she might be—in a sense it did not seem to matter; for her conduct there was at least the possibility of the excuse of ignorance and inexperience,—there was not the aggravation of a broken vow, of life-long affection trampled under foot.

Over and over again during the three quarters of an hour’s drive from Lingthurst these bitter thoughts chased each other round Cicely’s excited brain. The practical results of her discovery, the explanation she must come to with Trevor, what she must say to her parents, how they would look upon Geneviève—all these points she as yet forgot to consider. Extreme misery makes even the best of us selfish for the time. In Cicely’s nature there was no lack of magnanimity, but the first instinct of the victim is not to heap coals of fire upon the head of him whose hand has dealt the cruel blow. Forgiveness, sincere and generous, would come in due time; but not yet. It was no small injury which Cicely Methvyn had received; that it would leave a life-long scar there could be no doubt: would the wound ever heal? was the question at present. Could the faith, once shattered so cruelly, ever again be made whole?

“If I live to be a hundred I can never endure greater suffering than that of this evening,” thought Cicely, as the carriage stopped at last and the cousins got out. That her present suffering could be increased—even, in a sense, overwhelmed by an anguish of a totally different nature—she would have maintained to be all but impossible. At twenty we are apt to be over hasty in declaring that we have already drunk of misery to the very dregs.

The hall-door was opened quickly. The light streaming out into the darkness dazzled Cicely’s eyes for the instant; she did not notice who it was that was standing just inside, evidently awaiting her. She was passing on, followed by Geneviève and the maid, when a slight exclamation from the latter startled her, and almost at the same moment the sound of her own name caused her to stop short.

“Miss Methvyn,” said a voice, which at first in her bewilderment she failed to recognise, “Miss Methvyn, will you wait a moment.”

Cicely turned; there before her stood the man from whom but a few hours before she had parted, as he said, for ever. What was he doing here again? What had brought him to Greystone in the middle of the night? Once, only once before had he been there at so unseasonable an hour. Cicely shuddered as she recalled that once before. He saw the shudder, even then, through the great unselfish pity which was softening his voice and shining out of his grave eyes; he caught the involuntary movement and groaned in his heart.

“It is hard, very hard upon me to have to break it to her,” he said to himself. “I, that am already repulsive to her. What can I say to soothe or comfort? Why did they not send for Mr. Fawcett?”

Cicely stood still. Her pale face had little colour to lose; but what there was faded out of it utterly as she gazed, in but half-conscious terror, at Mr. Guildford. Quick as lightning the thought flashed through her mind, “I had forgotten about papa—I had actually forgotten about papa!” Aloud she only said, in a voice that even to herself sounded unnaturally hard and cold, “What is it, Mr. Guildford? What is it you have to tell me. If it is—any thing wrong, why did you not send for me before?”

“I have not been here very long,” began Mr. Guildford with a sort of apology in his manner very new to him. “It was by Mrs. Methvyn’s wish I waited here to see you when you first came in. We should have sent for you at once, an hour ago that is to say, if—if it had been any use.”

Mr. Guildford glanced round him with a silent appeal. “Will no one help me?” his look seemed to say. Parker had disappeared, but Geneviève was still standing close behind Cicely, and to her his eyes travelled. She understood him, but instead of responding to his unspoken request, she covered her face with her hands, uttered a smothered cry, and rushed away.

But Cicely did not seem to have observed her cousin’s defalcation. She stood there, still in the same attitude, before Mr. Guildford, and still there was an approach to fierceness in her tone, as she repeated her inquiry. “What do you mean? Tell me what you mean.”

“I mean,” he said slowly, speaking with an effort which he did not attempt to conceal, “I mean that even if you had been sent for the very moment Colonel Methvyn was taken ill, it would have been no use. He was utterly unconscious from the first he never spoke again—from the very commencement of the attack there was nothing whatever to be done; not all the doctors in Europe could have restored him to consciousness, or prolonged his life, for five minutes. And, I think,” he added, speaking still more slowly and reluctantly, “I think it was better so.”

Cicely had kept her eyes fixed upon him while he spoke; they seemed to drag the unwilling words out of him by the intensity of their gaze, something in their expression made him instinctively conscious that any attempt at softening what he had to tell, any common-place expressions of sympathy and regret would have been utterly futile; the girl could not have taken in their meaning. Now, when he left off speaking, the strain seemed to slacken; the terrible stony stare left her eyes; she threw out her hands like a child in terror—as if for protection and support. “You mean,” she said, “oh! I know what you mean—but you mustn’t say it. Why didn’t you do anything? Why didn’t you come sooner? I can’t, indeed I can’t bear it.”

What could he do—what could he say? The relentless summons had gone forth—Cicely Methvyn was fatherless. It was very hard upon him!

“I would have given ten years of my life to save him for you, if he could have been saved. I would have cut off my right hand rather than have been the one to tell you. I cannot bear to see you suffer,” he broke out passionately. Then he turned away from her, in despair, ashamed of his want of self-control, heart-broken that he could say nothing to comfort her.

The sight of his distress awoke the unselfishness that seldom slumbered long in Cicely’s heart.

“Forgive me,” she exclaimed, “forgive me. I didn’t know what I was saying. I will try to bear it, indeed I will. I know nothing could have been done, if you say so. Tell me about it—tell me how it was—but must I not go to mamma?”

Mr. Guildford shook his head. “No, not yet,” he said, “she was very much excited. I was a little alarmed about her, and gave her something to soothe her. I think she has fallen asleep. I promised to wait here to meet you, and that seemed to satisfy her.”

Then he told her all he knew. He had been sent for about ten o’clock, but, by the time he reached Greystone, even Mrs. Methvyn had seen that his coming would be of no avail; the life had all but flickered out already. “It was as I always feared it would be,” said Mr. Guildford, hesitating again. “I always dreaded the effect of any great shock.”

He looked at Cicely inquiringly. Had she anticipated anything of the kind; was she in the least acquainted with the nature of the shock, which for some time must have been impending?

She stopped short. With lightning-like rapidity her mind flew back to the events of that evening—could her father have come to the knowledge of what she had discovered? But almost before she had time to dismiss the idea as wild and improbable in the last degree, Mr. Guildford’s next words put it altogether to flight.

“It was some news that came in a telegram this evening, that—that brought on this attack,” he said reluctantly, not feeling sure of his ground with Cicely, but judging it wisest to put her in possession at once of all that there was to tell. By the expression of her face, he saw at once that she did not in the least know to what he referred.

He hesitated again. “You had better tell me,” said Cicely, “that is, unless mamma did not want me to know.”

“Oh! no; Mrs. Methvyn wished me to tell you everything. The telegram was about the failure of some company in which Colonel Methvyn had largely invested. It told him of a great loss of property.”

“And was that all?” said Cicely. “As if that would have mattered! Oh! Mr. Guildford, why should he have taken that to heart so?”

“It was only natural that he should do so,” said Mr. Guildford. There was no necessity at present for telling her how great he suspected the extent of the calamity to be, and indeed just now the loss of a few hundred pounds or of a quarter of a million would have been looked upon by Cicely as matters of equal indifference. “It was only natural he should have felt it as he did,” he repeated. “That is why I think, perhaps, it is best his consciousness never returned. He would only have awakened to distress and anxiety, and at the very best his life could only have been prolonged for a few hours.”

“But he would have known us, he could have said good-bye; we could have told him how little we cared about the loss of the money,” cried Cicely. “Oh! I cannot think it is better never to have seen him again—I cannot.”

For the first time the tears came into her eyes. She sat down and cried unrestrainedly, refusing to be comforted.

Mr. Guildford left her. He was anxious to know if Mrs. Methvyn was asleep. On the staircase he met the housekeeper.

“Miss Cicely is in the hall—alone,” he said. “She knows. I have told her. Do you think you can get her to go to bed?”

Poor Mrs. Moore’s eyes were streaming. She could not speak, but she nodded her head and set off in the direction of the hall, so Mr. Guildford felt that his task was accomplished.

Cicely went to bed, and, strange as it may seem, to sleep. She was only twenty; she had never been really ill in her life, and sorrow was unfamiliar to her; there were vigour and vitality enough in her to stand a much more prolonged attack from adversity, though, as she laid her head on her pillow, she said to herself that but for her mother she would pray never to wake again.

“It could not be wrong,” she thought. “Except mother nobody wants me. Amiel has her husband, but poor mamma has only me now.” And the thought seemed a something to cling to; it made the idea of living on, notwithstanding the wreck of her future, endurable, if nothing more. So Cicely slept.

Who does not know the awful agony of the first waking after some overwhelming sorrow has befallen us? The shuddering glimmer of recollection that something has happened, the frantic clutch at the blessed unconsciousness of the sleep that is leaving us, the wild refusal to recall the truth! And, oh! the unutterable loathing at life, at existence even when at last we realize the whole and find that another day has dawned, that the heartless sunshine is over the world again, that we ourselves must eat and drink and clothe ourselves, and live! If we could see that our individual misery made its mark, if the birds would only leave off singing, if the flowers would all wither, if a veil could be drawn over the sun, would it seem quite so bad?

“No,” thought Cicely, “if the trees and the flowers and all the living things seemed to care, I think I could endure it. But they don’t—they don’t! The world is brighter than ever this morning, though the brightness has died out of my life for ever.”

She was standing by the open window in her room. She had forgotten that the blinds should be drawn down, and was gazing with reproachful appreciation at the beauty of the autumn morning. Yesterday it would have filled her with delight, to-day its very perfection repelled and wounded her. Even Nature, with whose varying moods she had been ever so ready to sympathize, whose face she had learnt to know so well, had played her false. “Why is it so fine to-day?” she said to herself; “why is it not cloudy and raining? Why should it ever be anything else, there must always have been, there always must be, thousands of people to whom the sunshine is as dreadful as it is to-day to me.”

She turned wearily away, and began to think what she had to do. She had been with her mother already this morning, and poor Mrs. Methvyn had clung to her in a way that was pitiful to see.

“You won’t leave me just yet, my darling,” her mother had whispered, and Cicely felt thankful that she could give her the assurance she asked for, without at present adding to her sorrows by explaining the real state of the case. And this reflection led to another. Her father had at least been spared the knowledge of Trevor’s faithlessness.

Then suddenly she recollected what Mr. Guildford had told her of the news contained in the fatal telegram. Her mother had not alluded to it. “We will talk about everything afterwards. Not yet,” she had said to Cicely. What could “everything” mean? Could it be that the loss of property, the tidings of which had, she reflected with a shudder, actually killed her father; could it be that this loss was something very great? For herself she did not care; but when she thought of her delicate mother, a vague apprehension for the first time made itself felt. She wished that she had asked Mr. Guildford to tell her more; from his manner she fancied he was in possession of fuller details than he had mentioned to her; but for this it was now too late. Mr. Guildford had gone back to Sothernbay; the chances were that she would not see him again, as in all probability he would now hasten his departure from the neighbourhood.

“He need not have asked me to release him from his promise,” she said to herself with a sort of sorrowful bitterness.

“If you please, Miss Cicely,” she began timidly, “Miss Casalis has been asking how you are. She would be so pleased if you would let her come and sit with you, or do anythink; anythink she says she would be so pleased to do.”

“Tell her there is nothing whatever she can do to help me, or my mother. And for to-day, at least, Parker, I wish to be left quite alone.”

The cold tone was discouraging, but the pale wan face and poor swollen eyes, moved Parker to another effort.

“Miss Casalis do seem very miserable,” she said insinuatingly. “I should not have thought she was a young lady as would have taken it to heart so. I don’t think she closed a eye last night. I do wish, Miss Cicely, my dear, you would let her come and sit with you. She’s wandering about like a ghost. She seems as if she could settle to nothing.”

Parker’s conscience was pricked by the sight of Geneviève’s distress. She felt that she had done her injustice. Only the evening before, she had been far from amiably disposed to the girl, whose fresh loveliness had won the universal admiration which, according to the old servant’s way of thinking, belonged of right to “her own young lady,” and any appearance of indifference or carelessness would have confirmed her prejudice. But that Geneviève was in real distress, no one could doubt. “She must have a tender heart, for all her flighty, foreign ways,” thought Parker, and she waited with some anxiety for the result of her second appeal.

“I am sorry for her,” said Cicely slowly. The thought of the miserable little figure wandering about alone in the desolate rooms downstairs, the remembrance of Geneviève’s great brown, velvety eyes with the tears in them, moved her in spite of herself. “I am very sorry for her,” she repeated with a quiver in her voice. “I dare say she is very unhappy, but, Parker, I really cannot see her. I don’t want to see any one—not even, remember, Parker, not even Mr. Fawcett if he calls to-day.”

Parker gazed at her young lady in astonishment. “Not Mr. Trevor!” she exclaimed under her breath.

“There is never any telling how trouble will change people,” thought the old servant philosophically. “Poor Miss Cicely doesn’t hardly know how she feels yet; we must let her have her own way for awhile.”

She was leaving the room when Cicely called her back. “On second thoughts,” she said, speaking with an effort, “you may tell Miss Casalis that if she likes to come up here in half an hour or so, I will ask her to write some letters for me.”

Parker departed in triumph. Half an hour later Geneviève, pale, worn-looking, with great black circles under her eyes, and dressed in the plain black gown in which she had travelled from Hivèritz, crept into the room; Cicely looked at her and her heart melted.

“Will you write these letters for me, Geneviève?” she said, pointing to a slip of paper on which she had written down some addresses. “I can easily tell you what to say. Mother asked me to see about her mourning—and I think you had better write home to-day to tell your mother what has happened.”

Her lips quivered, she turned her head away. Geneviève threw her arms round her.

“Oh! Cicely, dear Cicely, I do love you. I do. I am so sorry, oh! I am so sorry. Oh, Cicely, I wish I had never come here!”

“I am glad you are sorry for our sorrow, Geneviève,” she said quietly, “even though it is impossible you should understand all we—I—am feeling.”

Geneviève looked up at her with a puzzled air. “I thought you were colder than you are,” she said. “Perhaps I have mistaken you altogether. I—I don’t know what to do. Shall I go home—to Hivèritz to-day, this afternoon? You would never hear of me again. Would you like me to go?”

“What do you mean, Geneviève?” asked Cicely sternly. “Why should I wish you to go? Do you know any reason why I should?”

Geneviève grew scarlet. In her excitement and confusion of thought, she had almost persuaded herself that Cicely must suspect her secret, or that, if this were not so, that she must confess it. But now that the opportunity offered, her natural cowardice returned and tied her tongue. “I do not know what I mean,” she said. “I thought, perhaps, now that you are sad, I should be a trouble to you.”

Cicely looked at her. “You have no reason to think so,” she said coldly. But she did not press Geneviève to explain herself further. “I shall say what I have to say to Trevor, and to him alone,” she resolved.

Geneviève had begun to cry again. “I am so unhappy, so very unhappy,” she said miserably.

“You would not be if you knew the whole, why I am so unhappy,” sobbed Geneviève.

“Yes, I should be. If I thought even that your unhappiness was of your own causing, that you deserved it,” said Cicely impressively, “still I should be sorry for you—more sorry, perhaps.”

“You are very good. I will never again say you are not,” exclaimed Geneviève impulsively. “You deserve to be happy, Cicely, and I am very sorry for your troubles. I am very sorry you have lost a father so kind, so indulgent. And, oh! Cicely,” she continued impetuously, “can it be that it is also true that you have lost all your riches?”

At any other time the indescribable tragedy of Geneviève’s manner as she reached this climax in her recital of her cousin’s misfortunes would have provoked Cicely to smile. As it was, she turned from her with some impatience. “What would it matter if it were true?” she said wearily. “How can you think of such things just now? You should not listen to servants’ gossip.”

“I did not mean to listen. I could not help hearing,” replied Geneviève timidly. “Cicely says it would not matter to her if she had lost all,” she said to herself. “She must then be sure he will marry her. And I!—he will be sorry for her now; he will think no more of me.”

And the letters Geneviève wrote that morning were plentifully bedewed with tears.

CHAPTER III.

THE NEWS THAT FLIES FAST.

WHO are the social ravens that at all times and places are ready and eager to perform their self-appointed task as bearers of ill tidings? Like the mysterious “rats of Paris,” ever watching their opportunity, they come to the surface, as if by magic, whenever the tocsin of misfortune sounds; but, unlike that very undesirable community, these evil newsmongers remain in visible, even when hardest at work. We know of their existence but by the unfailing promptitude with which they fulfil their rôle; like will-o’-the-wisp, they are never to be caught.

Some of these mysterious beings were of course on the spot to carry to Lingthurst without delay the news of poor Colonel Methvyn’s death, and full details of its manner and cause. The household was not astir very early on the morning succeeding the ball, but the indefatigable ravens were at work betimes. When Mr. Fawcett’s man knocked at his master’s door with hot water and an armful of clothes, he was in full possession of the “latest particulars,” and not a little delighted to find his master awake, so that he might have the privilege of “breaking” to him the news of the sorrow which had befallen his friends.

“The colonel dead, Green? Impossible! It must be some absurd exaggeration,” exclaimed Trevor, greatly shocked, notwithstanding his expressed incredulity. But Green shook his head mournfully, and said he was afraid it was only too true; and when his master heard all the story that the man was brimming over with eagerness to tell, he too was compelled to admit that there was small probability of exaggeration or incorrectness in the version of the facts which had reached them.

Mr. Fawcett dressed hastily. He gave Green no opportunity of “breaking” to him the special bit of news which, in the opinion of the authorities of the servants’ hall, could not but affect their young gentleman more deeply “than all beside,” the news of the overwhelming loss of fortune, the telegraphic announcement of which, said gossip, speaking for once correctly, had been the immediate cause of Colonel Methvyn’s death. But though he knew nothing of this part of the calamity, Trevor knew enough to send him down stairs with a very small appetite for breakfast, and far from hospitable sentiments towards the large party of guests whom it was his bounden duty to help to entertain.

He had come to a decision the night before; he had slept upon it,—very little it is true, for his slumbers had been fitful and broken,—and had not wavered. The words which Cicely had overheard in the fernery were the key to Trevor’s state of mind. For Geneviève he had broken his faith to Cicely—for her he had lost his self-respect and been false to the girl whom still at heart he loved; but he would deceive her no longer. “I must confess it all to Cicely and say good-bye to her; I have promised Geneviève—I must do it,” he repeated to himself over and over again through that weary night. “Cicely is good and generous; if it is true that she has never really cared for me, it will be easier for her to forgive me. She has a home and friends; I cannot think that she will regret me. Geneviève is poor and dependent, and I must not desert her. I have to thank my own folly for all this wretchedness.”

At times he almost felt as if he hated Geneviève; then again the remembrance of her loveliness, her devotion to him, her clinging belplessness came over him powerfully, and he tried to persuade himself that Cicely’s coldness and indifference were the real culprits. But had she looked cold or indifferent last night, when, with the tears in her eyes, she had whispered, “Dear Trevor, there cannot really be any change between us; if you are not vexed with me, it is all right?”

Trevor shuddered as he recalled her look and manner. How could he ever tell her how little cause she had had for trusting him? How could he look into those clear blue eyes and confess his faithlessness? How could he endure Cicely’s contempt and scorn?

He fell asleep soundly at last, Notwithstanding his distress of mind; when he awoke, he was thankful to see that it was broad daylight.

“I will go to Greystone to-day,” he said to himself, “and have it over;” for, unspeakably as he shrank from what he had made up his mind to do, he felt that now there was no drawing back; and he was in this frame of mind when he was met by the utterly unexpected news of Colonel Methvyn’s death.

Everybody at the breakfast-table had heard it by the time Mr. Fawcett made his appearance. He was late, notwithstanding the haste with which he had dressed, and as he entered the dining-room he became aware that a hush fell over the guests; evidently he was looked upon somewhat in the light of a chief mourner on the occasion. Lady Frederica was in tears,—Sir Thomas’s florid face looked a shade paler than its wont; such remarks as were exchanged were in low tones and with subdued glances; the spirit of revelry had been abruptly forced to quit the scene. Trevor was sincerely distressed by the death of his kind old friend, and deeply grieved by the thought of Cicely’s sorrow, yet he was conscious also of a curious sort of irritation at the event. Why had it taken place just then? Who could tell what wretched complications might not result from it, in addition to those already existing?

“Things were bad enough before,” thought he, “but now they will be worse. I cannot possibly come to an understanding with Cicely at such a time; and yet how can I go on in the old way with the burden upon me of my promise to Geneviève, and this miserable feeling of hypocrisy?”

He looked ill and haggard; he hardly spoke, and yet he was angry with every one else for being silent; he ate no breakfast, and answered with impatience when his mother, across the table, begged him “to try to take something.”

“Poor dear boy! he feels it very much. Yes, indeed, poor dear Philip seemed like a second father to him,” murmured Lady Frederica to the lady next her. “It is a most dreadful shock. I don’t think I ever felt more upset in my life;” and she subsided behind her handkerchief again.

Breakfast over, Sir Thomas tapped his son on the arm, “Come to my room with me for a few minutes,” he whispered. “I want to say something to you.”

Trevor followed him to his so-called “study,” the little room where, only a few hours before, Cicely, overwhelmed with the shock of her discovery in the fernery, little thinking of what the night had still in store, had sat waiting for her cousin Geneviève.

It was a rather shabby, comfortable room, by no means in keeping with the rest of the house, but a cosy little den nevertheless. Sir Thomas was standing on the hearthrug, with his back to the fire, when Trevor came in.

“This is a sad shock, my boy,” he said, “a very sad shock. I am extremely sorry for those poor things—Methvyn’s wife and daughter,—extremely sorry for them.”

“Of course,” continued Sir Thomas, “of course, we all knew his life was a very poor one—must have been so ever since his accident; still it seems very sad it should have been cut short in this way.”

“Terribly so, poor fellow! they say he never spoke again.” Sir Thomas turned his head away for a moment, then stooped down and gave the fire a supererogatory poke. “If all is true that is said, however, perhaps it is as well he never recovered consciousness; that is what I wanted to speak to you about, my boy. Of course, we can’t tell how much or how little of these reports may be true, but, at the worst, I want you quite to understand it need not make you uneasy. I hope and believe it is exaggerated, but, in any case, it need make no difference.”

Trevor had been listening with a puzzled expression to his father; now he looked up with some anxiety. “I don’t understand what you are referring to, my dear father,” he said. “I don’t see why Colonel Methvyn’s death should make me uneasy. I have heard no reports except about its being very sudden, which, of course, we all know must have been the case.”

“Bless my soul!” exclaimed Sir Thomas excitedly. “Why, everybody’s full of it, though, of course, by the bye, they would not allude to it to you. Why, they say he’s ruined—poor Methvyn I mean—at least, it is a fact that he got a telegram last night containing some very bad news, and that the shock of it brought on this attack.”

“I don’t believe it in the least,” he said. “Of course, he may have got a telegram with bad news, but I don’t believe it could possibly be as bad as you have heard. Such things are always exaggerated.”

“Ye-es,” said Sir Thomas slowly. “I should have said the same but for one or two other things. I know for a certainty that Methvyn has lost money the last year or two. He was very persistent about managing his own affairs, and he meddled with things he did not understand. Falconer thinks badly of it, I can see, and he generally has grounds for his opinions. Still, of course, we must hope it is exaggerated. You will be going over there some time to-day, I suppose?”

“Well, we must wait awhile. No doubt we shall hear more before long. But in any case, my boy, as I said, it need not make you uneasy. Cicely Methvyn would be Cicely Methvyn still, though she hadn’t a penny.”

“Thank you, father,” said Trevor, rousing up a little and seeing he was expected to say something of the kind, “thank you. Yes, I hope it will be all right.”

“Then you will go over this morning? And be sure to say I am most anxious to be of any use I can to poor Helen. I would go myself, but you see I have all these people on my hands till the afternoon; they are all leaving to-day. You will take care to say everything that is kind?”

“Oh! yes. I shall not forget,” said Trevor, as he left the room. But he still spoke absently.

“He feels it a good deal, poor fellow,” thought Sir Thomas, a little perplexed by his son’s manner. “No doubt it will be a great shock and disappointment to us all if things turn out badly. I should not like to see Greystone sold. And Methvyn, at best, was not a very rich man, and a far from wise one in money matters. Still, there’s no saying. I would rather buy the Abbey myself than see it go to strangers.”

Then Sir Thomas returned to his guests, apologizing to them for his son’s absence, by saying he had advised him to ride over to Greystone at once to inquire how Mrs. Methvyn and her daughter had borne the shock.

“So sad,” murmured the ladies, “so very sad for poor Miss Methvyn. It was just after she reached home last night—Was it not?”

“Before, corrected Sir Thomas; “it must have been all over before she got home.”

“Poor girl, what a fearful shock! And she was so attached to her father. Dear me, it is really very sad.”

Then they all talked it over again with Lady Frederica for another quarter of an hour, after which they dispersed to give directions to their various maids for the unexpectedly hastened packing.

“And I must see about mourning at once, I suppose, Miss Winter,” said Lady Frederica with a sigh. “Such a pity, isn’t it, with all my new autumn things? And I think you had better countermand the dress I told Madame Fanchon to lay aside for me for the wedding. It will probably be delayed for some months, and when it does take place, it is sure to be very quiet.”

Late in the afternoon, when all the visitors had gone, Mr. Fawcett returned home. He looked tired and dusty; he had ridden a long way, with no object but to use up the day and to get rid of his uneasy thoughts. His father and mother saw nothing of him till he came into the drawing-room dressed for dinner.

“I did not know you had come back,” said Sir Thomas. “I thought you would probably be there till late.”

Lady Frederica waited in expectation of hearing more, but Mr. Fawcett took up a book from the table and sat down as if he were going to read.

“I am waiting to hear how you found them—poor Helen and Cicely,—you must know that I am very anxious to hear how they are, and if they will see me if I go to Greystone to-morrow,” said Lady Frederica.

Mr. Fawcett played with the leaves of his book, as if impatient to go on reading it. “I cannot tell you,” he said. “I think your best plan will be to go to-morrow and inquire for yourself. My going is no use.”

“Simply because they will not see me,” he replied. “Not Mrs. Methvyn—of course I did not expect to see her—but Cicely, she will not see me.”

“No, the servant said she was very well. As well as could be expected, or some rubbish of that kind. But she most distinctly refused to see me.”

“Did she know it was you?” said Sir Thomas. “She may have given a general order about seeing no one, without meaning to exclude you.”

“So I thought,” said Trevor, “and I waited while they went up again to tell her who it was; but she only sent down the same message again—that Mrs. Methvyn was pretty well, but that neither she nor her mother felt able to see any one. I don’t understand it.”

“Nor do I,” said Lady Frederica. “Then you saw no one—not even Miss Casalis?”

Sir Thomas looked very grave. “I am rather afraid I do understand it,” he said in a low voice. Only Trevor caught the words. He started.

“How do you mean, sir?” he said hastily. “What reason can there be for it?”

Sir Thomas lifted his eyebrows with a significant gesture in the direction of his wife. “Your mother does not know anything about what we were speaking of this morning,” he whispered. “Wait till we are alone.”

So all through dinner time Lady Frederica twittered away about how strange it was; she feared poor dear Cicely must be ill, though she would not own to it; she wished she had sent a note by Trevor; might she have the carriage very early to-morrow morning to drive to Greystone? etc. etc.; till Mr. Fawcett could bear it no longer. He had eaten next to nothing; he drank two or three glasses of sherry off at once; but they failed to compose his nerves. “Mother,” he said at last, “do think of something else to talk about. You might see it is very painful to me.”

Lady Frederica’s eyes filled with tears. Miss Winter looked reproachful, Sir Thomas uncomfortable, and Trevor felt ashamed of himself. Very few remarks of any kind were exchanged till the two ladies had left the dining-room. Then Sir Thomas began at once, “I am afraid things don’t look well about poor Methvyn’s affairs,” he said. “I happened to see Flaxton to-day, and he was full of it.”

“Well, well—I don’t say I think much of his opinion,” allowed Sir Thomas. “What he told me was quite in confidence of course. But what you tell me yourself, Trevor, about Cicely’s refusing to see you, that, I must say, makes me uneasy.”

“Why? Don’t you see that she evidently thinks things are wrong, and she wants you to hold yourself free? The Methvyns are all proud, and I suspect Cicely has her full share of their pride, notwithstanding her quiet ways, poor child. I know what her father was when he was young. You may take my word for it, Trevor, if things are as bad as I fear, Cicely will be proposing to break off with you.”

Mr. Fawcett had risen from his seat, and was tramping up and down the room. He did not wish his father to see how exceedingly he was startled by this fresh view of matters. Cicely to give him up! And why? Because she was no longer rich, could no longer bring Greystone as her dowry—Cicely, his dear old friend and playmate, his promised wife—could he accept such a release? Cicely rich, he had come to think, or, to fancy he thought, that she did not care for him, that she was cold and indifferent, that she would be glad to break with him—he had excused his own weakness and folly by such specious arguments, and had tried to think he believed them. But Cicely poor!

“No,” he said to himself, “if this is true, not all the Genevièves on earth should persuade me to give her up. Was there ever in this world such a fool as I have been? But still, if this is true, my course is clear.”

A momentary relief seemed to come with this reflection, but it was only momentary. A vision of Geneviève, miserable and reproachful, of lovely, silly little Geneviève, came before him, and he groaned in his spirit.

“Father,” he said abruptly, stopping short in his walk, just beside Sir Thomas’s chair, “what you say makes me very uneasy indeed. I have no doubt it is as you say—it quite explains Cicely’s conduct. But it makes it the more necessary that I should see her—at least, that any morbid feeling of the kind she may have should be done away with. What shall we do? Will you go to the Abbey to-morrow? I don’t think they would refuse to see you.”

Sir Thomas considered a little. “Yes,” he said, “I will go if you like. However things are, I don’t think Mrs. Methvyn would refuse to see me. Indeed, till two years ago, I was one of their trustees. Of course, it would not do to seem as if we were prying into things; but if anything is wrong, I dare say Helen will be glad to tell me, and then I can, at least, find out what fancy it is that Cicely has got into her head.”

“Thank you, father. Thank you very much,” said Trevor, with no lack of cordiality in his tone this time.

“I must see Geneviève,” he said to himself. “I must explain to her how I am placed. I must see her before I see Cicely now.”

But on further reflection, he decided that it would be better to do nothing till Sir Thomas had paid his visit.

Sir Thomas was as good as his word. He drove over to Greystone the next morning, and as he had not returned home by luncheon time, it was evident that he had been admitted. Mr. Fawcett fidgeted about all day, sometimes wishing he had gone with his father, sometimes almost hoping the worst of the rumours that had reached them might be true, sometimes earnestly trusting they might be proved to be altogether unfounded.

At last Sir Thomas returned. Trevor heard the sound of the carriage-wheels, and came out to meet him. It seemed to him that his father looked grave and distressed.

“Well, father?” he said with a faint at tempt at speaking lightly, to cover his anxiety, “well, father, how have you got on? You were not turned back at the door it appears.”

“Come into my room,” said Sir Thomas. “Your mother is out? So much the better. Remind me, by the bye, to tell her that those poor things would like to see her to-morrow.”

His son followed him into the study. Sir Thomas took off his gloves, unbuttoned his top-coat, and rubbed his hands together with a sort of affected cheerfulness.

Trevor, who had sat down in one of the old-fashioned leathern arm-chairs beside the fire, looked up anxiously.

“About their affairs, you mean?” he said. “Then the report was true after all. But how can it be certain so soon? It takes a long time to get to the state of a man’s affairs, and Colonel Methvyn has only been dead two days.”

“Wait a minute,” said Sir Thomas. “I’ll tell you all if you won’t interrupt me. The report was true, or something very like it, I fear. I am glad I went over to-day. Methvyn’s lawyer had just arrived; it was absolutely necessary for him to see poor Helen, and she begged me to remain with her on that account. She told me all she knew at once. She is excited and fussy—you might almost call it—not the least like herself, or like what I expected to find her. I fancied she would have been utterly prostrated. On the contrary, she is more energetic than I ever saw her.”

Sir Thomas shook his head. “I suspect that’s it,” he said. “I don’t think she does. Well, as I was saying, she told me all she knew. The actual facts did not look so bad, but she made me uncomfortable by owning that she had known for long that Methvyn was far from easy in his mind about his affairs. The telegram which brought on the attack was telling of the smash of that great mining company—the Brecknock Mining Company. I saw something about it in yesterday’s paper, but I paid very little attention to it. I always thought it a rotten affair. I had not the faintest notion that Methvyn had anything to do with it, and I told her I did not think it possible that he could be in it to any tremendous extent. Nor was he, if that had been all! But when I saw this man from town and heard what he had to say—! My dear boy, it is something frightful. You would hardly believe that any sane man could have made such a mess of his affairs as Methvyn has been doing. No wonder the news of this last smash killed him. It was his very last cast.”

Mr. Fawcett sat up in his chair and stared at his father in amazement. “He must have lost his head!” he exclaimed.

“It looks like it,” said Sir Thomas. “I quite think that terrible fall must have weakened his brain as well as his spine. I can account for it in no other way—in no other way,” he repeated slowly, pausing a little between each word.

“And this man of business of his; what has he been about to let things go so far?” exclaimed Trevor. “Why did he not advise Colonel Methvyn better?”

“He did his best, I think,” said Sir Thomas; “but if a man will ruin himself—? And even he, this Mr. Knox, has not known all, by any means, till quite recently. Methvyn was most persistent in managing for himself, and he has had no one thoroughly in his confidence. And you see he was quite free. Greystone and everything he had was absolutely his own to do what he liked with. If he had had a son it might have been different—but no, I hardly think so. I am certain he meant to act for the best. He was quite as anxious for Cicely as if she had been a boy. Upon my soul, there’s a good deal to be said for tying up property—even a little place like Greystone! Why if it had been entailed on to the Carling Methvyns, Cicely would at least have been sure of her daughter’s portion, whereas now she has nothing.”

“Sold, of course—it is not theirs—at least, very little of the price of it will come to them. I can show you some of the details I got from Knox. It is right you should know.”

Mr. Fawcett hardly felt as if he wished to hear more. He was a poor man of business—an unworthy descendant of his self-made grandsire. But to please his father he listened, wearily enough, to the dreary recital of how poor Philip Methvyn had made ducks and drakes of his patrimony—a commonplace story enough, after all.

“Yes, I see,” he said, when Sir Thomas had come to an end of his history. “I see, at least, that it’s as bad as can be. Excepting Mrs. Methvyn’s settlements, and they are not large, she and Cicely have nothing.”

“Nothing, or next to nothing,” answered Sir Thomas gloomily. And for a few minutes both men remained silent. Then the father spoke again.

“If—if all goes through with you and Cicely,” he began—“I mean if your marriage takes place—I have been thinking, Trevor, the best idea will be for me to buy Greystone. I should be sorry for poor Methvyn’s affairs to become more public than can be avoided; and in this way, managing it privately, things might be kept pretty quiet. It is not a particularly good investment. The house and grounds are far too large for the property, but I can quite afford it. What do you say?”

Mr. Fawcett glanced up quickly. “I should like it extremely,” he said. “The idea had already crossed my mind, but I hardly liked to propose it. But why do you speak so doubtfully, father? Why do you say ‘if?’”

Sir Thomas hesitated. “Because I am not sure of Cicely Methvyn’s state of mind,” he said at last. “I saw her to-day, she was perfectly cordial, thanked me with tears in her eyes for coming to help her mother—she is looking dreadfully ill, poor girl—and all that sort of thing, but still her manner struck me as unsatisfactory. I gave her your message; but she only said she would write to you when she felt able to see you. I told her I thought you would be disappointed; in fact, I said all I could, but she only smiled and repeated that it would be best for her to write to you. I don’t understand it.”

Trevor got up from his chair, and in his turn began to poke the fire. “I don’t either,” he said at last. “That is to say, I can only explain it by what you said,—that she has got it into her head that her loss of fortune may make a difference.”

“I suppose it’s that,” said Sir Thomas. “Of course it would have been impossible for me, without the grossest indelicacy, to have hinted at such a thing. But she must have seen that I really wanted her to agree to see you at once. However, young people must settle their own affairs. You understand my feelings and intentions, at any rate?”

“Quite, thank you,” replied Trevor; “and, however things turn out, you have been awfully good about it, sir. I shall never forget it, I assure you.”

“These things come home to one at my age,” he said after a little pause, “Poor Methvyn was younger than I, Trevor. I am glad you quite understand me, my boy.”

CHAPTER IV.

“TO MY AIN COUNTREE.”

THE sad days that intervened between Colonel Methvyn’s death and his funeral went by slowly. But they wore through at last, and Cicely woke one morning to realise that “all was over,” as runs the common phrase; the worn-out garment of the father she had loved so devotedly laid reverently aside, nothing more to be done for him, no letters to be written, no books to be read, none of the countless little tender daily services which his long ill-health had called for, to be remembered and cheerfully performed!

It was a page torn out of the book of her life, and just now it seemed to her that the wrench had loosened and disfigured all the others.

“I have mother,” she reflected; “but mother will never be more than half in this world now. People say she is bearing it wonderfully. Sir Thomas says he is amazed at her energy and composure; but I know her better. She is only keeping up for me. I cannot count upon her, my only one object in life, for long.”

But though Cicely believed her heart to be almost broken, though the iron had entered deeply into her soul, she yet felt ready for what was before her. Not for one instant had she wavered in the resolution which she had come to on the night of the Lingthurst ball.

“When my father’s funeral is over, I will see Trevor and tell him all I know,” she had determined. And so strong upon her was the impression of the inevitable result of her discovery, that the possible effect upon her relations with Mr. Fawcett of her loss of fortune had never even occurred to her. She was proud, as Sir Thomas had said, but her pride was of a different nature from that of which her kind old friend had suspected the existence.

Not that she was now indifferent to the change in her position. It was beginning to come home to her. Already some faint realisation of what it would be was making itself felt. For her mother’s sake she trembled at the thought of possible poverty and privation. The ignorance and inexperience which at first had rendered her indifferent to this part of the calamity, now that the reaction had set in, exaggerated to her imagination the practical results of it. But to her mother she showed no shadow of misgiving.

“My settlements are secure, you know, my darling,” said poor Mrs. Methvyn. “There will be certainly enough for me to live upon with perfect comfort. And Sir Thomas is so kind; he says nobody need know much about our affairs if, as he wishes, he can arrange to take Greystone off our hands. It will probably still be your home.”

“My home will be where you are, mother dear—for a long time at least,” answered Cicely, forcing herself to the little equivocation, while inwardly shivering at the thought of the bitter blow yet in store for her unselfish mother. “But it is exceedingly kind and good of Sir Thomas to try to arrange so that things need not become public.” She stopped and hesitated. “I wish it could be so,” she went on. “It would be hard to hear remarks made about our loss of money, as if—as if dear papa had been rash or incautious in any way—by people who did not know him, I mean.”

“Yes,” sighed Mrs. Methvyn, “it would be very hard. But since I have heard Sir Thomas’s plans, I do not feel afraid of anything of the kind. It will be a great comfort to me to think of your being settled here again before long, whatever arrangements I make for myself.”

“But, mother, you could not do without me, you know you couldn’t,” said Cicely. “Why do you talk as if it were possible we could ever be separated; we never can be now, mother?”

“We need not talk about it just yet, any way,” she said soothingly. And at that moment Geneviève came into the room, so no more was said.

During these days of darkened rooms and hushed voices and mysterious anxiety, Geneviève had drooped sadly. Her fit of humility and grateful affection for Cicely had passed by; perhaps Cicely had not encouraged its expression, and there had been times when she had been very cross and unamiable, indeed. The truth was that she was exceedingly unhappy; and it takes a higher nature than poor Geneviève’s to bear the strain of a protracted and uncertain trouble with a calm, if not, smiling face, with no querulous complaints of the never-failing trivial annoyances which at such times seem to have a double sting. Even Parker was forced back into her old position of dislike and suspicion. “If she were that sorry as she made out for my mistress and Miss Cicely, she would be thinking too much of their trouble to care about her dress not fitting; or to be always wishing herself back again where she came from, and where I wish she had stayed,” grumbled the maid to Mrs. Moore, who in her heart agreed with Parker, though more cautious in putting her opinions into words.

But Cicely understood her cousin better, and pitied her exceedingly. The more trying and unreasonable Geneviève’s moods and tempers, the more Cicely compassionated the state of mind which gave rise to them.

“It must be so terrible to feel that one has been false and deceitful,” thought Cicely with a shudder, crediting, as was natural for her to do, remorse with a far larger share in Geneviève’s wretchedness than it really deserved. And she was marvellously patient with the wayward girl; but yet in her very patience, in her quiet kindness, there was a something against which Geneviève instinctively rebelled.

“Why does she look at me so? I have done no wrong; it is not my fault that Mr. Fawcett likes me best,” she would say to herself with a species of childish defiance that was one of her characteristics when roused to anger. “It was all that she was rich; but now that she is no longer rich, how will it be now?” and a gleam of hope would shoot across her for an instant, to be as quickly succeeded by misgiving and despair. “He said, he promised, he would tell her he could no longer marry her,” she repeated to herself a dozen times a day. “Why has he not done so? Two, three days are past since her father’s funeral, and he has not yet come; he has never come since the day she would not see him. And Cicely does not seem surprised. What can it be? Perhaps he has gone away!”

At last one morning, Geneviève in a fit of restless dreariness, set off for a walk by herself. It was the same morning on which Mrs. Methvyn and Cicely were talking together in the library, and it was on her return from her walk that Geneviève, entering the room, interrupted their conversation.

“So you have been out, my dear?” said Mrs. Methvyn kindly. “Have you had a nice walk?”

“It is very cold,” replied the girl, shivering a little, and going nearer to the fire.

She still had her hat and cloak on, and the light in the room was not very bright. But now, something in her voice struck both Cicely and her mother as unusual. It sounded faint and toneless.

“You have not caught cold, I hope?” said Mrs. Methvyn anxiously. She was conscious that she had not given much attention to her cousin’s daughter of late, and a touch of self-reproach made itself felt.

“No, thank you; I have not caught cold,” said Geneviève. Then she came a step or two nearer to where her aunt and cousin were sitting, and they, looking at her, saw that she was very pale, and that her eyes were red and swollen with crying.

“Aunt,” she said suddenly, and with a something of dignity in her manner, new to her. “Aunt, you have been very good for me. I thank you much, very much, for your kindness. I shall always thank you. But I want you to let me go home now, home to Hivèritz, to my mother. Please let me go; I can make the voyage by myself alone, perfectly well. Please let me go. To-morrow, or in two or three days at the latest.”

“Geneviève, what is the matter?” she exclaimed. “What has happened to put such an extraordinary idea into your head? Go home alone! Nonsense, you know such a thing is impossible. You must be reasonable, my dear, and tell me what has made you unhappy. I can see you have been crying.”

“Nothing has happened,” replied Geneviève. “It is only quite simply that I want to go home.”

“But you cannot go home all of a sudden in that way,” persisted Mrs. Methvyn. “If there were no other reason against it, the appearance of it at such a time would be an objection. You should consider that, my dear. I have a great many troubles just now, Geneviève. I think you should try not to add to them. And it is plain that something has put you out this morning.”

Geneviève felt that Cicely’s eyes were fixed upon her with what she imagined to be reproach, and she hardened her heart.

“Nothing has put me out,” she repeated. “I am not happy, that is all. I do not love England; I want to go home.”

“But I cannot allow you to go home unless I am shown a good reason for it,” said Mrs. Methvyn firmly. “When I brought you away from your mother, Geneviève, it was with the wish and intention of making you happy with us. If I have not succeeded, I regret it very much; but still that does not free me from the responsibility I undertook. I cannot possibly let you go home as you propose. You do not really mean what you are saying—you are put out about something, and afterwards you will be sorry.”

Mrs. Methvyn leant back wearily in her chair. Geneviève stood before her, her eyes fixed on the ground.

“No,” she said, after a little pause, “no; I shall not be sorry afterwards. I am sorry now,” she glanced up for a moment, “I am sorry to trouble you. But I shall not be sorry for asking to go home. I must go home. If I write and ask my mother, and if she consents, you will let me go then?”

“I cannot prevent your writing home what you choose,” said Mrs. Methvyn, as if tired of the discussion, “but, of course, it is very painful to me that my plans for your welfare should end so, and I know it will disappoint your mother.” She was silent for a moment, then she suddenly looked at her niece with a new suspicion. “Geneviève,” she said, speaking with an effort, “can it be that the reason you want to leave us is, that you have heard any talk about our not being as rich as we were?”

“No; oh, no!” she cried. “Indeed, it is not that. I am not so—so—what do you call it?—so mean. No, it is not that.”

“But you might have some mistaken idea about it without being mean,” replied Mrs. Methvyn, speaking more kindly. “You might have some notion that it would be difficult now for me to do what before was quite easy—that you would be an additional burden upon me. But things are not as bad as all that, my dear. I shall be very glad to have you with me, and I shall be quite able to manage comfortably. If I saw you happy, I should be more pleased even than before to have you with me, when—when I am quite alone—when Cicely has to leave us.”

Her voice faltered a little as she glanced at her daughter, who all this time had sat perfectly silent, neither by word nor look taking part in the discussion. Once or twice during the conversation Cicely had been tempted to interfere, but on reflection she refrained from doing so. “It is better that mother should be prepared for something,” she thought, “even this ill-timed request of Genevieve’s may pave the way for what I must tell her.”

Geneviève’s eyes followed her aunt’s, but again something in Cicely’s expression roused her latent obstinacy and defiance.

“I am sorry,” she said slowly. “I am sorry, but it must be. I cannot stay here. Give me leave then, my aunt, to write to my mother about my return home.”

“I told you before, you must write what you choose,” said Mrs. Methvyn coldly.

“Do you understand her, Cicely?” said Mrs. Methvyn when she was again alone with her daughter. “Do you in the least understand what has put this into her head? She is evidently very unhappy. Surely,” she went on as a new idea struck her, “surely it cannot have anything to do with Mr. Guildford?”

“No,” replied Cicely, almost, in spite of herself, amused at her mother’s recurrence to her favourite scheme; “no. I am perfectly certain it has nothing whatever to do with him.”

“She is certainly not happy,” answered Cicely, evasively. “I am sorry for her.”

“Do you think you could find out more, if you saw her alone?” said Mrs. Methvyn uneasily.

She rose from her chair as she spoke. As she passed her mother, she stooped and kissed Mrs. Methvyn’s soft pale face—the lines had grown much deeper and more numerous on it of late—the roundness and comeliness were fast disappearing.

“Don’t worry yourself about Geneviève, dear mother,” she said. “Even if she leaves you, you have me, haven’t you?”

“Yes, dear,” answered her mother. “I should not want her if I could always have you! But, of course, it is not a question of wanting her. It is so vexing to think of poor Caroline’s disappointment; it is so utterly unexpected. I do not understand the child at all; she is not the least like her mother.”

Cicely made her way up to her cousin’s room. Geneviève was already seated at her little writing-table—pens, paper, and ink, spread out before her.

“Geneviève,” said Cicely. “You have made my mother very uneasy. She is most sorry on your mother’s account. The letter you are going to write will distress Madame Casalis very much. I want you not to send it—at least not to-day.”

“But I will send it,” said Geneviève angrily. “Why should you prevent it? It is best for me to go, I tell you,” her voice softened a little. “You don’t know—” she went on, “and if you did, you, so cold, so réglée, how could you understand?”

Cicely looked at her with a strange mixture of pity and contempt. “No,” she said, “perhaps I could not. But still Geneviève, for my mother’s sake—I am determined to spare her all the annoyance I can—I ask you not to write that hasty letter about going home, to your mother to-day.”

“Because I tell you it is better not,” replied Cicely. “And you know I always have spoken the truth to you, Geneviève.”

Cicely saw that she had gained her point. She left the room without saying any more. And no letter was written by Geneviève that afternoon. She sat in her room crying till it grew dark, and by dinner-time had succeeded in making herself as miserable looking a little object as could well be imagined, so that poor Mrs. Methvyn said in her heart, that if it were not for the disappointment to Caroline, her daughter’s absence would hardly be a matter of regret.

Cicely had no time to spare for crying; and tears, she was beginning to find, are, for the less “med’cinable griefs,” a balm by no means so easy of attainment as for slighter wounds.

“I think my tears are all frozen,” she said to herself with a sigh, as she folded and sealed the last of her letters. She sat for a moment or two gazing at the address before she closed the envelope, as if the familiar words had a sort of fascination for her.

“I wonder if it is the last time I shall ever write to him,” she said to herself. “When—when he is Geneviève’s husband, there can surely never be any necessity for our coming in contact with each other. Yet people grow accustomed to such things I have heard, and my suffering cannot be unprecedented. Ah, what a sad thing life becomes when one’s trust is broken! Far, far sadder than death!” And after all, two or three large tears rolled slowly down her cheeks and dropped upon the white paper.

“My dear Trevor,—I should like to see you alone to-morrow. Will you call here between two and three in the afternoon? I have deferred asking you to come till now, because I thought it best that you should thoroughly understand that I, in what I have determined to do, am not acting hastily or impulsively.

“It will prepare him to some extent,” she said to herself. The note, simple as it was, had a certain formality about it, very different from the girlishly off-hand letters she had been accustomed to send him. “Will he feel it all relief?” she said to herself, as she thought how best and most clearly she must put into words the resolution she had come to. “Or will it be pain too? However he loves her, he did love me, and he cannot have changed so entirely as to give no thought to me.”

And again some tears blistered the smooth surface of the black-bordered envelope in her hand.

CHAPTER V.

“HOW LITTLE YOU UNDERSTAND.”

“What thing is Love which nought can countervail?
Nought save itself, ev’n such a thing is Love.
All worldly wealth in worth as far doth fail,
As lowest earth doth yield to Heaven above,
Divine is love and scorneth worldly pelf,
And can be bought with nothing but itself.”

WHEN Mr. Fawcett called the next day he found, as he expected, Cicely alone in the library waiting for him. She was pale, and her mourning gown made her appear very thin; but still it did not strike Trevor that she was looking ill. The black dress showed to advantage her pretty fair hair, and her blue eyes were clear and calm, as she came quietly forward to meet her cousin. He hastened eagerly up to her.

“Oh! Cicely,” he exclaimed reproachfully before she had time to speak, “you have made me so very unhappy.”

“Made you unhappy,” she repeated, gently withdrawing from his clasp the hand he still held. “How?”

In his turn Mr. Fawcett was set at a disadvantage. “You know how,” he said, “by refusing to see me, of course. Who should be as near you as I, in trouble?”

“I told you in the note I sent you yesterday why I did not ask you to come sooner,” said Cicely.

“No, you didn’t. At least you gave no proper reason,” answered Trevor. “I didn’t understand what you meant in the least, and I don’t want to understand it. You have got some fancy in your head that has no foundation whatever, and I don’t want to hear anything about it.”

“But you must,” said Cicely very gravely. “Trevor, did you not understand what I meant? Do you not know now that I meant that—that everything must be over between us?”

There was a ring of pain in his voice, and his face grew pale. Cicely began to find her task harder than she had anticipated.

“No, you don’t; you mustn’t,” he persisted. “I did not think you attached so much importance to mere outward circumstances—accidents, in fact. You cannot mean that on account of what has happened lately you are going to throw me over? Such a reason is unworthy of you, Cicely?”

Cicely looked perplexed. “What do you mean?” she asked. “What do you think is my reason?”

Trevor hesitated. “You force me to speak plainly,” he said. “I mean that you are too proud to marry me now because—because you are no longer rich.”

“Because I am no longer rich. Ah, it is that you are thinking of! Ah! yes—I understand you now. But oh, how little you understand me!” She looked up in his face with a strange light in her eyes. “Do you think that that would ever have parted us? Do you think I should not have loved to owe everything I had to you? Do you think my pride so paltry a thing as to be weighed against money?”

“No,” said Trevor gloomily. “I found it difficult to believe it. But what else was I to think? How could I explain your change to me? How am I to explain what you tell me now?”

“Do you not know,” she went on, “that I am only doing what you meant to do? Why you have changed in your intention I cannot tell, unless, yes unless, it was out of pity for me. Was it out of pity for me, Trevor?”

“Cicely, you will drive me mad unless you will tell me what you mean,” exclaimed Trevor. “Speak plainly, I entreat you.”

He was braving it out, but Cicely could perceive his increasing nervousness and uneasiness.

“I will speak plainly,” she said calmly. “What you intended to do was to break off our engagement because you had found out that you cared for—for some one else more than for me. I don’t know if you deserve blame for its being so; I cannot judge. But for one thing you deserve blame, and that is for having deceived me, Trevor—for having allowed me to go on thinking of myself as belonging to you, when—when you loved her and not me. Oh, that part of it is horrible!”

She turned away her head. In that moment she went afresh through suffering as acute as on the evening of the ball,—the agony of humiliation, the misery of outraged trust, which, to a nature like hers, were by far the sorest parts of her trial.

“Yourself,” replied Cicely, but still without looking at him. “I was in the fernery at Lingthurst the night of the ball, when you and Geneviève passed through. She was crying, and I heard what you said—what you promised her. I was hidden behind some large plants. I could not, of course, have let you know in time that I was there, but it was better that I heard what I did. I suppose you would have acted as you said but for what happened so soon—and then you shrank from adding to my sorrow; was it not so, Trevor?”

“No, not altogether. I did not mean what I said. I mean I did not wish it. I said it impulsively because—oh, because she cried and threw herself upon my pity! But even if I had wished to break with you, Cicely, I could not. I could not have done so when I learnt the change that had taken place in your position. Do you think I have no feeling of honour?”

“‘Honour’ has come to mean many things,” said Cicely sadly. “Has it nothing to tell you of what you owe to her?”

Trevor muttered something under his breath, which Cicely did not catch the sense of. “Besides,” she went on, “it is true, it must be true, that you care for her?”

“Not as I do for you, Cicely,” he ex claimed vehemently. “Will you not believe me—what can I say—good heavens! what can I say to make you believe me? I see it all now so plainly—what I fancied my love for her was a mere soulless infatuation, a thing that could not have lasted. I was no sooner out of her presence than I repented what I had said. I was mad I think—but at that time I had been worked upon to believe that it would cost you nothing to break with me. I did believe it, and I was reckless.”

“Trevor,” said Cicely, “it is frightful to me to hear you talk like this. I cannot believe it. Let me think as well of you as I can; do not try to deprive yourself of your only excuse—that you do love her.”

“I suppose I fancied I did—after a fashion,” he allowed. “But it was not the sort of love that should be taken up so seriously as you are doing. Would you take it up so if you cared for me, Cicely? It seems to me you are eager to catch at an excuse for throwing me off.”

“How can you, how dare you say so?” exclaimed Cicely, her eyes flashing. “Have you forgotten your own words? Nothing else would have made me doubt you, but can you deny your own words?”

Cecily looked at him with a species of sad contempt. “Oh! Trevor,” she said; then she burst into tears.

Mr. Fawcett was beside her in an instant. He thought he had prevailed. “You do care for me still. I know you do,” he cried triumphantly.

“Listen to me,” she said firmly. “I do not care for you now; I have ceased to love you as I must have loved the man I married. But it is not true that I did not love you. I cannot remember the time when it did not seem to me natural to think of myself as belonging to you. You were a great part of my life. But I see now that you did not understand my love for you. You doubted it, because it was calm and deep and had grown up gradually. So perhaps, perhaps, it is best as it is; best, if it was not the kind of love that would have satisfied you, that it should have died.”

“You don’t know what you are saying,” he persisted. “It cannot have died. You are not the kind of woman to change so suddenly, nor could that sort of love die so quickly.”

“It did not die—you killed it,” she replied. “You killed it when you killed my faith in you. Trevor, it is useless to blind yourself to the truth. I can only tell you the fact. I do not know if it is unwomanly. I do not know if there are nobler natures than mine who would feel differently; I can only tell you what I feel. If Geneviève were not in existence, if she were away for ever, married to some one else perhaps, it would make no difference. Knowing you as I do now I could never marry you; I could never love you again.”

He was convinced at last; he felt that, as she said, she was only stating a fact over which she had no longer any control. He leant his arms upon the table and hid his face in them and said no more.

“I did not think you would care so much,” said Cicely simply, while the tears ran down her cheeks.

“Care,” he repeated bitterly. “I wonder after all if you do know what caring means, Cicely.” Then he was silent.

Cicely grew indignant again. “How little you understand!” she exclaimed. “Supposing I were different from what I am—supposing I could still have cared for you in the old way—what would that have mattered? I would not have married you; do you think I would or could have married a man who came to me with another woman’s broken heart in his hand?”

Mr. Fawcett laughed. “It is hardly a case of a broken heart,” he said sneeringly.

“How can you tell? Oh! Trevor, don’t make me lose respect for you altogether!” exclaimed Cicely passionately. “I know Geneviève better than you do; I know her faults and weaknesses. But I will not let you speak against her. She loves you, she is all but broken hearted already. I tremble to think what she might have been driven to. You don’t know what she has suffered these last days; you have not seen her lately.”

And unconsciously his tone softened as he recalled the blank misery of the pretty face, the anguish in the brown eyes, when, as gently as he knew how, he had broken to her the inevitable change in his intentions, the necessity under which he was placed by her cousin’s altered circumstances of fulfilling his engagement.

“Yesterday morning,” repeated Cicely. “You met her I suppose. Yes, I understand now what made her look as she did when she came in.”

“She has never understood you. She sincerely believed you did not care for me. There is that to be said for her, at least,” said Trevor.

“And she is so young, so ignorant,” added Cicely generously. “And she loves you, Trevor. There is this one thing for you to do, to retain, to increase my sisterly regard for you. You must be very good to her always.”

“I suppose so,” he said. “I must do whatever you tell me.” He lifted his head and gazed absently out of the window. Before his eyes lay Cicely’s little rose-garden. The roses were nearly over now; the gardeners were at work removing the bright coloured bedding-out plants—the geraniums and calceolarias and lobelias which had made it so gay a few weeks ago. A new thought struck Trevor.

“Cicely,” he said wistfully, “my father meant to have bought Greystone privately. No one need have known the particulars of your affairs.”

“Cicely,” he said again, this time even more timidly, “have you thought of your mother?”

She faced him as she spoke. Her tone was firm and resolute, though her face was white and set. Then Trevor gave in at last, and knew that his fate was decided. And he knew, too, that it was his own doing.

Geneviève’s letter requesting her parents’ permission to return home at once, was not only never sent—it was never written.

That same afternoon the girl was sitting in lonely misery in her room when Cicely knocked at the door, and asked leave to come in.

“Have you written home yet, Geneviève?” she inquired, for her cousin was again seated by the writing-table with paper and pens before her.

“I don’t know. I thought, perhaps, I would write a letter to mamma, and then show it to you to see if you liked it.”

Cicely was silent for a moment or two. And then she said quietly and very gravely,

“Geneviève, though perhaps you don’t like me very much, you trust me, don’t you? Don’t you believe that I have wished to be kind to you, and that I would like you to be happy?”

“Yes, I think so,” said Geneviève half reluctantly. With Cicely’s eyes fixed upon her, it would have been difficult to speak other than truthfully, and her nature was neither brave nor enduring. She was already prostrated by trouble. All defiance was fast dying out. She was willing to do whatever Cicely advised. “I think I trust you,” she repeated; “but, oh! Cicely, you do not quite understand. I do not think, perhaps, you could understand—you are wiser and better—how I am miserable.”

She looked up in her cousin’s face with great tears in her lovely brown eyes. When Geneviève allowed herself to be perfectly simple and straightforward, she could be marvellously winning. Even at this moment her cousin recognised this. “I hardly wonder at him,” she said to herself. “There is little fear that he will not love her enough.”

“Poor Geneviève,” she said aloud, “I am very sorry for you. I wish you had let yourself trust me before. I might have saved you some of this unhappiness. I am not much older than you, but I might have warned you, for you were so inexperienced. I would have prevented things going so far. You know the first wrong thing was your getting into the habit of seeing my cousin so much alone—of meeting him and going walks with him.”

“I know now,” said Geneviève meekly, “but I did not at first—truly, I did not. I thought—oh! I cannot say to you what I thought.” She hid her face in her hands. “I had heard,” she went on, “that in England young girls were left free to arrange, tout cela for themselves. I knew not it was not convenable what I did. But Cicely,” she exclaimed in affright, “how do you know all that you say—what am I telling you?”

“You can tell me nothing I do not know,” said Cicely. “My cousin has told me everything.”

“He—Mr. Fawcett—Trevor! He has told you!” cried Geneviève in bewildered amazement. “How can that be? He has told you, and you—you have forgiven him? It remains but for me to go home and be forgotten. But, oh! that I had never come here.”

“I have forgiven him,” said Cicely, ignoring the last sentences; “but, Geneviève, I did not find it easy. I blame him far—far more than you.”

Geneviève looked up again with a sparkle of hope in her eyes. “Cicely,” she whispered, and her face grew crimson, “Cicely, you must remember that when I—when I first began to care so much for him, I knew not that he was more to you than a cousin.”

“I know that. I have not forgotten it,” said Cicely, while a quick look of pain contracted her fair forehead. “I know that, it was my own fault,” she added in a low voice as if thinking aloud. “But as if I could ever have thought of Trevor—! I have not forgotten that, Geneviève,” she repeated. “At first, too, he thought you knew, he thought you looked upon him as a sort of a brother.”

“What do you mean by ‘forgiving’? I have forgiven him, but—of course, knowing what I do now, it is impossible that things can be as they were.”

“You will not marry him! Do you mean that, Cicely? Ah! then it is as I said—you do not, you cannot care for him!” exclaimed Geneviève excitedly.

Hitherto Cicely had completely preserved her self-control. Now, for the first time, it threatened to desert her. A rush of sudden indignation made her eyes sparkle and her cheeks glow.

“How dare you say so?” she exclaimed. “Is it not enough—what I have to bear—without my being taunted with indifference, Geneviève?” She went on more calmly. “You must not speak to me in that way. I do not ask to be thought about at all. What I have to do, I will go through with, but at least you need not speak about me at all, whatever you think.”

Geneviève was sobbing. “If you do love him,” she said, “why do you not marry him? I ask only to go away home. I will never trouble you again!”

“Do you understand me so little?” asked Cicely. “Do you think I could marry a man who I believed cared more for another woman than for me?”

“Yes,” said Cicely deliberately, after a moment’s silence. “I do think so. He may not think so himself, just now,” she added in thought, “but I believe it is so.”

Then Geneviève said no more. Her head was in a whirl of feelings which she dared not express. She could scarcely credit her own happiness, she did not know if it were wicked of her to feel happy. She was afraid of seeming to pity Cicely, or even of expressing anything of the admiration and gratitude she could not but be conscious that her cousin deserved. So she sat beside her in silence, crying quietly, till after a time a new idea struck her.

“Cicely,” she said, “what will they all say? Sir Thomas and Lady Frederica, and my aunt. Will they not be very angry?”

“There is no need for Sir Thomas and Lady Frederica to be told much at present,” replied Cicely. “I have talked it over with my cousin. Of course, they must be told it is all at an end with—with me. But they will not be altogether surprised, and things are different now. I am no longer rich.”

“I had forgotten that,” she exclaimed. “Ah! believe me, I had forgotten it. These last days I have been so unhappy I have forgotten all—since I saw Mr. Fawcett yesterday morning I have had but one thought. Oh! believe me, Cicely, if I had remembered that, I should have gone away without asking—I would indeed!”

“Don’t make yourself unhappy about me on that account,” she said. “I only meant that it would naturally make Trevor’s relations look upon it all somewhat differently. And they are fond of you already.”

Cicely’s face grew graver.“I will do the best I can,” she said. “For every sake I will do that. But I cannot promise you that my mother will ever feel again towards you as she has done. I think it will be best for you soon to go away—to Hivèritz, I suppose—till—till you are married.”

“And when I am married, will you not come to see me? Will you not forgive quite? Will you not love me, Cicely?”

She looked up beseechingly with the tears still shining in her dark eyes, her whole face quivering with agitation.

“You have not cared much for my love hitherto, Geneviève,” said Cicely sadly. “In the future I hope you will need it even less.”

But still she kissed the girl’s sweet face, and for one instant she allowed Geneviève to throw her arms round her. Then she disengaged herself gently and went away.

But try as she might to soften matters, the blow fell very heavily on her mother. Even had she thought it right to do so, it would have been impossible to deceive Mrs. Methvyn as to the true state of the case, and Cicely’s generous endeavours to palliate Geneviève’s conduct, by reminding her mother of the girl’s childishness and inexperience, by blaming herself for having kept her in ignorance of Mr. Fawcett’s true position in the household—all seemed at first only to add fuel to the flame of Mrs. Methvyn’s indignation against her cousin’s child.

“No inexperience is an excuse for double dealing and deceit,” she exclaimed. “Even had it not been Trevor, I should have looked upon such behaviour as disgraceful in the extreme. No, Cicely, you can say nothing to soften it. French or English, however she had been brought up, she must have known she was doing wrong. I cannot believe in her childishness and ignorance. She cannot be so very childish if she has succeeded in achieving her purpose in this way. And as for Trevor, she must have utterly bewitched him. I can pity him if he marries her, for of course it is utterly impossible he can care for her as he does for you.”

“I hope not. I hope it is not impossible, I mean, that he should care for her far more than he has ever done for me,” said Cicely. “Sometimes, mother, I have thought that my coldness and undemonstrativeness have been trying to Trevor. And he is naturally indolent. A wife who will cling to him and look to him for direction in everything may draw out his character and energy—a more gentle, docile wife than I would have been perhaps.”

She tried to smile, but the effort was a failure. Her mother looked at her with an expression of anguish. In her first outburst of angry indignation, she had almost forgotten what her child must be suffering.

“My darling,” she exclaimed, “my own darling, who could be more gentle and docile than you have always been? How can I tell you what I feel for you? And you have known it all these miserable days and never told me! No, Cicely, I cannot forgive them.”

“You will in time, mother dear,” said Cicely soothingly. “At least, you, and I too, will learn to believe it must have been for the best. I feel that I shall be able to bear it if I have still you. Only,” she added timidly,“please don’t speak against them. It seems to stab me somehow, to revive the first horrible pain,” she gave an involuntary shudder. “For my sake, mother dear, you will try to forgive.”

“And,” whispered Cicely, “we can feel that it is only we two who suffer. My father has been spared all this.”

“And after a while,” continued Cicely, “you and I will go away together to some new place where there be nothing to recall all this, and we shall be very happy and peaceful in our own way, mother dear, after all, shall we not?”

Mrs. Methvyn tried to answer cheerfully, but she could not manage it. She only shook her head sorrowfully, while the tears ran down her thin cheeks. Cicely kissed them away.

“I don’t know, dear,” the mother whispered. “I would not feel it so if I could look forward to being able to do anything to make you happy again. But I am getting old, my darling, trouble ages one, and I feel as if half my life had gone with your father.”

“But after a while you will not feel it so bitterly,” persisted Cicely, and Mrs. Methvyn tried to believe it would be so.

As far as was possible Cicely spared her mother all the painful details of the utter change in their prospects. It was arranged that Geneviève should return home to Hivèritz at the same time that the Methvyns left the Abbey; and though before then it became necessary to tell Mr. Fawcett’s parents of his engagement to Miss Casalis, the fact was not made public. And fortunately for herself, Geneviève’s spirits continued in a subdued state during the short remainder of her stay.

“She looks so frightened and miserable, mother,” said Cicely one day when Geneviève had rushed out of the room suddenly, to avoid meeting her aunt, who came in unexpectedly. “Can you not forgive her?”

“I have forgiven her,” said Mrs. Methvyn coldly. “I promised you I would. I confess I have not yet come to pitying her, as you seem to do, Cicely. I know her now better than you do. More than half of that misery is affectation. She will not have a thought of self-reproach when it comes to buying her trousseau and being congratulated. Oh! I do wish that you had let my first letter go, the one in which I told Caroline the truth.”

“But you did tell her the truth in the one that went,” said Cicely. “You told her that my engagement had been broken off entirely by my own wish, and that Mr. Fawcett had fallen in love with Geneviève, and that his parents approved of it.”

“That was not the whole truth,” said Mrs. Methvyn. “Do not take up my words in that way, Cicely.”

“Well, mother, there would have been no good in telling more,” replied Cicely gravely. “What Geneviève may choose to tell her mother herself is a different matter, and does not concern us. In the same way I very much prefer that Trevor’s parents should be told nothing by us, though I fear poor Sir Thomas suspects something. How kind he has been!”

She sighed as she recalled her old friend’s endeavours to shake her determination. Lady Frederica had cried over it till the thought of the admiration that would certainly attend the débút in fashionable society of so lovely a daughter-in-law as Geneviève, had suggested itself as consolation. But long before there was any talk of his son’s “new love,” Sir Thomas had come over to see Cicely in hopes of getting to the bottom of the mysterious misunderstanding between her and Trevor. He had gone away sorrowful, convinced at last that the girl’s decision was unalterable, but none the more reconciled to it on that account.

“I trust, my dear, that, as you assure me, false pride has nothing to say to it,” were the parting words of the honest-hearted old man. “Trevor told me it was no use my coming, but I—well, I fancied old heads were cooler than young ones sometimes, even in a case of this kind. I can’t blame you, Cicely—I think too highly of you for that, even if my boy had not assured me most solemnly that what you have done has only doubled his respect and admiration for you. If I thought he was to blame” a hard look came over Sir Thomas’s comfortable face.

“Don’t think any one is to blame,” Cicely entreated, “in the end we may all come to see that it has been for the best.”

“Yes,” she replied. “It was a most kind thought. But I have understood since that it would not be considered a profitable purchase for you—you don’t want more land about here?”

“No, I don’t care about it. And I don’t care about another house either. I have Barnstay up in the north, you know—the lease is nearly run out; in case Trevor ever marries, he may live there if he likes. No, I don’t want Greystone; but if you would still like the idea of my having it, if there were the ghost of a chance of things ever coming straight again between you and Trevor—”

“There is not the ghost of a chance, dear Sir Thomas,” replied Cicely. “Do not let any thought of us influence you in the matter. Greystone will be dead to me from the day we leave it.”

“That means you will never come back eh?” said Sir Thomas. Cicely did not contradict him. “Ah! well, then, I think I’ll give up the idea. It was different when I thought of keeping it together for poor Philip’s grandchildren.”

He kissed Cicely when he left her, and there were tears in his eyes, but the subjects they had discussed were never alluded to again. Some weeks later when his consent to Trevor’s marriage was asked; he gave it without difficulty. But he thought his own thoughts, nevertheless; and it came to be generally noticed that the old gentleman never “favoured” his pretty daughter-in-law as much as might have been expected. “Not like it would have been with our Miss Cicely,” the people about used to say.

But time went on. Greystone Abbey was sold to strangers, and the desolate widow and daughter of its last owner left it for ever.

CHAPTER VI.

A NEW TERROR.

“It is not for what he would be to me now,
If he still were here, that I mourn him so:
It is for the thought of a broken vow,
And for what he was to me long ago.”

LAST days are generally sad, sometimes terrible things. Sad enough were these last days at Greystone: Cicely felt thankful when they were over, though once gone, she would have given years of life to recall them. It was a relief to both her mother and herself when Geneviève left them, and they were free to take farewell of the places they had loved so dearly, without the painful associations of her presence, gentle and subdued as she remained to the end. It was a relief to them, and they were conscious too that it could not but be a relief to her.

“I shall tell my mother all,” she had said to Cicely, and Cicely was glad to hear of her intention.

“You are right to tell her, Geneviève,” she said, “though no one else would ever have done so.”

But Geneviève’s confession was deferred. She did not, after all, return to Hivèritz as proposed, for there came news from Madame Casalis of a fever having broken out in the household, which threatened to be of a serious kind and without doubt infectious; one of the boys and little Eudoxie were already prostrated by it; the latter, it was feared, likely to have it badly. Under these circumstances, therefore, it was proposed by Geneviève’s parents that she should only go as far as Paris and stay there under the care of an old school friend of Madame Casalis, who was by no means averse to receiving as a visitor the ‘promise’ of a wealthy young ‘milord.’ Geneviève shed tears over her mother’s letter, expressed herself désolée at the thought of the anxiety in her family, but ended by deciding that her persisting in returning home to the modest little house in the Rue de la Croix blanche, would only add to her mother’s trouble and distress.

“It is best I should go to Madame Du plessis,” she said resignedly. “As mamma wishes it, it is best I should not ask still to go home.”

And her satisfaction with her own decision was not a little increased when, the night before she was to leave, her aunt gave her, to expend upon her trousseau, a sum of money which was now to Mrs. Methvyn by no means the trifle it would have been a few weeks before.

“She is my relation, however she has behaved,” said Cicely’s mother. “It would never do for her to enter the Fawcetts’ family without a proper outfit.”

“And I can get everything in Paris,” thought Geneviève delightedly. And her expressions of gratitude were so evidently sincere that even Mrs. Methvyn’s heart was a little softened to her, and she bade her good-bye with more kindliness of manner than might have been expected.

It ended in Geneviève’s remaining in Paris till her marriage—her father and mother joining her there only a few days before it took place. How much or how little, therefore, of the true history of her daughter’s love affairs was confided to Madame Casalis, Cicely did not till long afterwards know, though from the tone of her letters to Mrs. Methvyn it was evident that “poor Caroline’s” satisfaction in Geneviève’s brilliant prospects was not unalloyed.

“I would not conceal from you, my dear and kind Helen,” she wrote, “that I am glad for my child to be well settled in life. But my grief and sorrow for you prevent my being able to rejoice as I might otherwise have done. And though you tell me, and it is no doubt the case that the breaking off of your Cicely’s engagement was by her own desire, I cannot rid myself of the feeling that it is unnatural and strange that Geneviève should so quickly have succeeded her in Mr. Fawcett’s regard. I trust neither he nor my daughter may regret what seems to have been done hastily. She tells me she will explain all when we meet; she says your goodness and that of the dear Cicely is beyond words. I trust, when I understand more, I may not learn that my child has not been deserving of it.”

“She is so simple and unworldly!” said Mrs. Methvyn. “Poor Caroline—how can her daughter have become so different!”

But after reading this letter, she did not again repeat her wish that Cicely had allowed her to tell Geneviève’s mother the whole truth.

When they first left the Abbey, it was the intention of Mrs. Methvyn and her daughter at once to make a new home for themselves at Leobury, a quaintly pretty, quiet little town, far away from Greystone and its associations. It was at Leobury that Mrs. Methvyn’s former widowhood had been spent, and it was there too that after a separation of ten years she had again met her first love—Philip Methvyn. Leobury was endeared to her for this reason, and Cicely was only too glad to find her mother able to express interest on the subject of their home, not to consent readily to what she proposed. But their plans were not at once carried out. There was no suitable house to be had at Leobury at the time they left Greystone. So for nearly a year after Colonel Methvyn’s death, his widow and daughter were without a settled home.

Summer was again on the wane—it had seemed a short summer to Cicely compared with that of the previous year—when they at last found themselves in possession of a pretty little house in the place where, more than a quarter of a century before, young Mrs. Bruce had come to live with her two years old Amiel. She had been poor then; poorer far than now, but in those old days poverty had seemed a smaller matter. She was young, and she had then never known what it was to be rich; the husband she had lost had caused her far sorer griefs than that of his death—she had suffered enough in her short married life to realise even loneliness as a relief. Now, how different everything was! For twenty-two years she had been happier than it falls to the lot of many women to be; hardly a wish of hers had remained ungratified; till Colonel Methvyn’s accident she had not known a care—when suddenly the whole had collapsed—for the second time she found herself a widow, and in comparatively speaking straitened circumstances, her companion this time a daughter even dearer to her than little Amiel—a daughter who, young as she was, had known sorrow and disappointment neither slight nor passing, troubles enough to have soured a less healthy nature, which her mother was powerless to soften or heal. It is hardly to be wondered at that, weakened in strength and nerve, Mrs. Methvyn sometimes found it difficult to look on the bright side of things.

But what she could not do, time and nature had not neglected. Already Cicely was recovering from the crushing effects of the blow that had fallen upon her so unexpectedly. She could look back now without flinching upon all that had happened, could feel that she was still young and strong and hopeful, and that the light had not all died out of her life. To her their loss of riches had been by no means an unmitigated evil; for though they were not so reduced as to come into unlovely proximity with poverty, the change in their circumstances had necessitated the exertion of energy and forethought in their arrangements, which had been for Cicely a healthy and invigorating discipline. She felt that she was of use; that, without her, life would have been a terrible blank to her enfeebled mother; and the consciousness gave her, as nothing else could have done, strength and cheerfulness. One thought only she could not face—what would life be to her now, how would it be possible to endure it were her one interest removed, her mother taken from her?

“I am risking my all in a frail bark,” she would sometimes say to herself with a shudder, “but surely if mamma were to die I should die too. No one could live in such utter desolation.” Yet even as she said so, a misgiving would suggest itself that such things had been and might be again; that life, the awful yet priceless gift, though bestowed unasked, is not therefore so easily to be laid down as at times we would fain imagine. The “sharp malady” must run its course; the “appointed bounds” cannot be passed; the “few days and full of trouble” are to some lonely men and women lengthened into the many, before there comes the longed-for order of release, the permission to depart for the unseen land which, wherever and whatever it may be, is to them more real than any other, since thither have journeyed before them all whose presence made this earth a home—the “faces loved and lost awhile;”—yes, there are some strangely solitary beings in this crowded world of ours.

The first two or three Sundays at Leobury, Cicely was not able to go to church. Her mother was not very well and shrank from being left alone. But, at last, by the end of September, there came a Sunday when there was nothing to prevent Cicely’s at tending the morning service in the fine old church, but a stone’s throw from her mother’s house.

It was a beautiful day, soft and balmy; yet already, through the trees and in the breezes, there came the first far-off notes of the dying year’s lament—the subdued hush of autumn was perceptible.

“The swallows have gone, I feel sure,” thought Cicely, as she walked slowly up the quiet village street (for after all Leobury was hardly deserving of the name of town). “I can always feel that they are gone.”

She gazed up into the sky, the blue was mellowed and yet paled by the golden haze of harvest-time. “The summer has gone again,” she murmured as she passed into the church by an old porch-way with stone seats at each side, which reminded her of the entrance to Greystone Abbey—“the old porch at home”—and it was in a sort of dream that she made her way to a seat in a quiet corner. She hardly noticed when the service began; she stood up mechanically with those about her, but her thoughts were far away. Suddenly, without knowing what had suggested it, she found herself thinking of that Sunday morning, more than a year ago now, in Lingthurst church—the first Sunday after Geneviève’s arrival. She remembered how the sunshine bad streamed into the ugly little building, brightening into brilliant pink the old woman’s brick dust cloaks, making also more conspicuous the mildew stains and patches on the plastered walls. She recalled her feelings of commiseration for the new clergyman on this his first introduction to his church. What had put all this into her mind just now? There was nothing in the place to recall Lingthurst—Leobury church was as picturesque and impressive as Lingthurst was commonplace; the one was perfect of its kind, the other glaringly bare and unattractive—the familiar words of the service had been listened to by Cicely in many churches during the last few months without recalling any special association. Suddenly the riddle was solved Two clergymen were officiating; the one, an old white-headed man with a feeble quavering voice, which contrasted curiously with the firm clear tones of his assistant priest. From where Cicely sat, the younger man was not visible, but by moving a little she obtained a view of him, and understood the trick which the “quaint witch” had been playing her—she saw before her the grave, boyish face of Mr. Hayle!

How had he come there? How strange it seemed! A little shiver passed through her as she recalled the last time she had seen him—it had been on the night of the Lingthurst ball, the night so full of misery for her. She had never seen him since then, for though he had called at the Abbey after her father’s death, she had shrunk from meeting him again, though far from ungrateful for his kindness and consideration. And now here he was at Leobury!

“I shall not mind seeing him again now,” thought Cicely, “I think I am rather glad he is here. Mother liked him. I don’t think she will have any painful feeling to him, poor little man!”

But the rest of the service passed like a dream. Cicely’s thoughts were away in the past—wandering in the land of long ago.” She recalled her happy childhood, her girl hood so full of love and promise—the sunny days when trouble and sorrow seemed such remote, all but impossible, possibilities! How Trevor seemed associated with it all—there was not a walk she had ever taken, not a summer ramble or winter skating expedition in which his figure did not seem prominent.

“I wish he had been my brother, really,” sighed Cicely, “then no one and nothing could ever have separated us!”

It was a torn out page—a page which it would ever be painful to miss. But she was beginning to realise that the book held others—others which hereafter she would not shrink from looking back to and lingering over with loving tenderness of remembrance.

When the service was over, Cicely walked slowly homewards. She was near her mother’s house, when the sound of her own name made her look round. Mr. Hayle was behind her.

“Miss Methvyn,” he exclaimed eagerly, his face flushed with pleasure and the quick rate at which he had been walking, “I thought it was you. I was sure I could not be mistaken.”

“Did you see me in church?” said Cicely, shaking hands with him as she spoke. She was pleased to see him, but again, at this first moment of meeting, there rushed over her the remembrance of the last time she had spoken to him, and unconsciously a slight constraint showed itself in her manner.

“Yes,” said Mr. Hayle. “But I was on the look-out for you. I heard yesterday evening quite accidentally that a lady of your name had taken a house here, and I began to hope it might be you. I trust Mrs. Methvyn is well. I—I hope I may come to see her?”

His tone had sobered down to its usual slightly formal gravity, and his last words sounded somewhat ill-assured and hesitating. Cicely felt vexed with herself for chilling him.

“I am sure mamma will be pleased to see you,” she said, “when I tell her of your being here. I was so surprised to see you,” she continued, “we did not know you had left Lingthurst.” She uttered the word firmly and distinctly. Mr. Hayle looked more guilty than she.

“I left some months ago,” he said. “I am only here temporarily however—staying with my uncle who is the rector of Leobury. He is old and infirm, and I do what I can to help him.”

“Then have you no plans for the future? Why did you leave Lingthurst? Was it not very sudden?” questioned Cicely.

“I got discouraged there,” he replied. “No one—after you left—took any interest in things. There was very little I, alone and unassisted, could do, and that little a less strong man—perhaps I may say a less energetic man—could do quite as well or better. So I gave it up. I have plans, but—”

“Did my cousin—Mr. Fawcett, I mean—did he take no interest in things?” interrupted Cicely. She looked up in Mr. Hayle’s face without flinching. He could see that she wanted an answer.

“No,” he said hesitatingly. “He is not much there now, and—and when they are there Lingthurst is generally full of company. Mrs. Fawcett is fond of amusement.”

“Yes,” said Cicely, “she is young—it is natural she should be. But Trevor used to speak so much, after you came, about doing something really to improve Notcotts and all that neglected part; I am disappointed.”

“He may do so in time. He has had plenty of other things to think of this last year,” said Mr. Hayle. Then he grew scarlet with fear that Miss Methvyn should think he was alluding to the past. But fortunately by this time they had reached Cicely’s home, and it was easy for her to affect not to notice his discomposure.

“Will you come in?” she said, with her hand on the gate. “I think mamma will be downstairs—it is half-past twelve—she is generally dressed by this time.

“Is Mrs. Methvyn not as well as she used to be, then?” inquired Mr. Hayle, recalling the early hours and active habits of Greystone.

“Oh! dear, yes; she is very well—perfectly well,” said Cicely quickly. “She says she has grown lazy, that is all. Won’t you come in and see her for yourself?”

“Not just now, thank you,” he replied. “If I may call to-morrow, I should like very much to see Mrs. Methvyn.”

“Come to-morrow then, by all means,” said Cicely brightly. She smiled as she spoke—she was so anxious to convince him of her cheerfulness and well-being.

“Thank you,” he said simply, with something in his expression which she did not understand. Then he shook hands again and went away.

“What energy and powers of endurance she has,” he said to himself. “Such a woman has it in her to do great things.”

Mrs. Methvyn was not in the drawing room when Cicely went in. The girl ran upstairs.

“Come in,” replied Mrs. Methvyn’s voice, and Cicely entered. Her mother was dressed, sitting in an arm-chair near the fire.

“You are very lazy this morning, mother,” she said laughingly. “I was very nearly bringing an old friend in to see you. Whom do you think I met at church?”

“An old friend,” repeated Mrs. Methvyn. “Was it could it have been Mr. Guildford?”

She spoke so eagerly that Cicely looked at her in surprise; and now for the first time she observed that her mother was exceedingly pale.

“Mother dear, I am afraid I have startled you,” she said penitently. “No, it wasn’t Mr. Guildford. It was Mr. Hayle. Shall you dislike his coming to see you to-morrow.”

“Oh! no. I shall be very glad to see him,” replied Mrs. Methvyn. But the interest had died out of her voice. She leaned back in her chair as if exhausted. “Will you see if Parker has come in, Cicely?” she said. “I sent her out on a message a few minutes ago. I shall come downstairs in a little while, and then you can tell me about Mr. Hayle. I did not know he had left—Lingthurst.”

By her the word was pronounced with an evident effort. Just then Parker came in. “I think this is the same as the last you had, ma’am,” she said, “but it is not often different chemists prepare things quite alike.”

“What have you been getting mamma medicine for, Parker?” she said. “She’s not ill.”

Parker started. “It is only the same tonic that Dr. Farmer gave me long ago,” said Mrs. Methvyn. “Go and take off your things, dear. I shall be down directly.”

Cicely was not satisfied, but she left the room. Later in the afternoon when she and her mother were alone together, she recurred to what had been said. “Mamma,” she began, “what made you think of Mr. Guildford to-day when I told you I had met an old friend?”

“I think I should have been glad if it had been he,” said Mrs. Methvyn. “I had great confidence in him. I think him very clever.”

“But what about it? You are not ill; you don’t want a doctor,” said Cicely.

“I don’t know, dear. I don’t think I am very well,” replied Mrs. Methvyn tremulously. “Long ago—years ago I used to have now and then a sudden sort of attack, a kind of spasm, which some doctors thought had to do with my heart. Then for some time these attacks almost ceased, and I thought it must have been a mistake—but lately they have returned much more frequently and violently than before. And—Cicely dear—when I went up to town with Parker that day from Brighton—I would not let you come, you know—it was to see Dr.——, the great authority on that class of disease.”

“He said that there was nothing to be done. It was true what I had been told. He said that—that I might not get worse for a long time, but that—it is not certain that I shall not.”

“Mamma,” cried Cicely gazing up in her mother’s face with wildly agonised eyes, “mamma, you are going to die and leave me. That is what you mean. Why didn’t you tell me before? oh! why didn’t you?”

“My child, my darling, I could not,” said her mother, the tears coursing down her thin pale cheeks. “How could I break your heart again? And it is only quite lately that I have begun to be afraid about myself—only quite lately. It may pass off again—I may be with you for many years yet.”

“No,” said Cicely, “no. I feel it coming. Mother, oh! mother, what shall I do? How can God be so cruel? May not I die too? Oh, mamma, mamma!”

She burst into an anguish of wild weeping, and for some moments Mrs. Methvyn did not check her. Then at last she whispered, “Cicely dearest, will you not try to be calm? For my sake—I cannot bear to see you go.”

The words recalled Cicely to herself. Yes, she must be calm. The pain of witnessing such stormy grief would assuredly weaken her mother’s already feeble hold on life. With a violent effort she checked her sobs, and fought for self-control. Then she listened to all her mother had to say; listened, and pretended to believe that her fears had exaggerated the danger; but in her heart of hearts she knew the truth—the last drop of bitter sorrow had been poured into the cup of which, for one so young, she had already drunk deeply.

When Mr. Hayle called the next day, he was shown into the drawing-room and there found Mrs. Methvyn alone. He stayed with her a considerable time, but he did not see Cicely at all. When he came away from the house, his face looked sad and careworn, and he sighed deeply: “Poor things, poor things!” he murmured to himself. Yet he was well used to sorrow and suffering! “I will call again in a day or two if you will allow me,” he said to Mrs. Methvyn at parting. And she thanked him warmly and begged him to come. “Cicely will be better again before long,” she said, “and she will like to see you. It is the first shock that has, as it were, overwhelmed her,” she added, with a sort of gentle apology of manner that touched Mr. Hayle greatly. “I will come again soon,” he repeated.

And the next time he came, he found Cicely in the drawing-room with her mother. They were sitting quietly working and talking, these two all but broken-hearted women, as if no terrible tragedy hung over them, as if they found life the easy, even, pleasant thing it looks to some, till their time of trouble comes too, as in due course it must.

At first they talked about commonplace things—the weather and Leobury and some of the people they had come to know there. Then Mr. Hayle told the two ladies something of his own plans; how he was likely to get a living in the east end of London, where there would certainly be no lack of work for mind and body. At another time Cicely would have listened with the greatest interest—even to-day her sorrowful absorption of thought could not altogether enchain her.

“And you will throw yourself altogether utterly—into your work, I suppose,” she said to Mr. Hayle. “I wish I were you. I suppose with so intense an interest, no personal sorrow would be unendurable. If you were without a friend on earth, you could still find happiness in a life so spent.”

“I hope so—I believe so,” replied he, his eyes sparkling with enthusiasm. “Or if not happiness, something better—better at least than what we commonly understand by happiness—blessedness.”

“It is the old martyr spirit in another form, I suppose,” murmured Cicely in a low voice. “I wish I could catch it.”

There fell a little pause. Then with a little hesitation the girl turned to the young clergyman again.

“Mr. Hayle,” she said, “you remember Mr. Guildford, the Sothernbay doctor who was so good to my father. You liked him, did you not? I wonder if by any chance you have kept up correspondence with him. I should so like to know where he is.”

“I can tell you where he is,” said Mr. Hayle. “I did hear from him once after he left Sothernshire. Yes I liked him very much indeed. He is no longer a doctor. He gave up practising when he left Sothernbay, and accepted some sort of professorship—I forget what exactly; he had to lecture on scientific subjects, that is about all I know. And he writes a good deal too; he is becoming very well known—too well known I fear; for I have heard it said that he is overworking himself dreadfully. But he is not in England now; he is, I think, in India, travelling with a party sent out by one of those learned societies, so I fear my information isn’t of much use.”

Soon after, Mr. Hayle left. But he went away, again promising to call in a day or two.

“No, dear. I like him; he is gentle and kind, and I like to see some one who knew us at home,” she sighed a little. “At one time I shrank from reviving any of the associations with our old life, but I am losing that feeling.”

Cicely looked at her with wistful, anguished eyes. “Mother dearest,” she said, “I don’t think I knew how much you loved Greystone. Should I have kept it for you? Would you not have got ill then? I might have hidden it all from you; Trevor would have been glad to do so, and you need have never known there was any trouble between us. Was I selfish and hasty—did I sacrifice you to my pride? Have I done wrong, and is this my punishment?”

“My darling, no—a thousand times no,” replied her mother. “You could not have married Trevor after—after his disappointing you so terribly. You could not love where you did not respect. And you must try to be more hopeful about me, dear, or I shall regret having told you. I have felt better to-day than for some time past.”

Cicely tried to smile. “I think you do look a little better,” she said. “Oh! I do so wish Mr. Guildford could have seen you.”

“He could not have done anything more. He said just the same as Dr.——” replied Mrs. Methvyn. “My wishing to see him was more a matter of feeling. He was so good to your father, I had learnt to trust him; for your sake too, I wish he had been able to see me. He would have understood it all so well.”

“He must be becoming quite a great man,” she went on after a pause; “did you hear what Mr. Hayle said about him?”—“I dare say,” she added to herself, “I dare say he has forgotten all about that fancy of his. Men are better off than women; they can always bury trouble in work.”

CHAPTER VII.

ALONE.

“Is Death as sad as Life?
Soon we shall know.
It does not seem to me
They find it so
Who die, and going from us
Smile as they go.”

FOR some weeks Mrs. Methvyn seemed to gain ground, and gradually, very gradually, Cicely’s fears abated. She began to think it possible, or more than possible, that her mother had unconsciously exaggerated her own danger; and that after all, many years of life and, comparatively speaking, health, might be before her. And to this opinion her mother’s greatly improved spirits seemed to lend a strong colour of probability. The truth was, that Mrs. Methvyn felt infinitely happier now that Cicely knew the worst; for it had been the terror of breaking to her child these fresh tidings of impending woe, far more than any personal shrinking from death, that had weighed down the poor mother’s spirit so heavily. But of this explanation of the favourable change, Cicely was happily ignorant.

“Mamma must be feeling much better,” she said to herself. “I know her so well; she could not hide from me if she felt worse.”

About this time, too, there came good news from the far-away sister in India; news which cheered Mrs. Methvyn greatly. Amiel wrote that there was a prospect of her husband’s returning home much sooner than had at first been expected.

“In two years from now, we may have her back again mother,” said Cicely brightly. “Two years!—that is a short time compared to five.”

Mrs. Methvyn smiled and agreed with her, and in her heart prayed that she might live to see the end of the two years. “For then,” she thought, “my darling would not be left alone in the world. Amiel and she would be together.”

But Cicely knew nothing of that unspoken prayer, and her mother’s evident rejoicing at Lady Forrester’s news, seemed to her a distinct confirmation of her increasing hopes.

“Mamma would not be so delighted at the thought of Amy’s coming home sooner, if she did not feel stronger,” she thought.

So it came to pass that the terrible cloud cleared off a little, and over Cicely’s quiet, somewhat monotonous life, a faint tremulous sunlight began again softly to shine.

To Mr. Hayle, whom she knew to be fully in her mother’s confidence, she allowed herself to express something of her returning hopefulness.

“Do you not think mamma wonderfully better?” she said to him one day when he had called to see his old friends. “Don’t you think she looks ever so much stronger than when we first came here?”

“Of course not,” said Cicely, “I said so. What I am saying is that she is looking so much better now; don’t you think so?”

Mr. Hayle hesitated. There came before him a vision of Cicely’s mother as he had seen her, little more than a year ago, at Greystone—the contrast between that picture and the gentle faded invalid lying on the sofa in the little Leobury drawing-room was sharp. “I don’t know,” he said at last, for he was not good at dissembling his real feelings.

Cicely’s face fell. She was half inclined to be angry with him. “You need not grudge me a little gleam of hope,” she said.

“I cannot say what I do not think,” he replied. “And even if I could, I don’t think I would do so. It would be very hard upon you to begin to feel confident and hopeful again, and then—”

Cicely understood him. A few days after this conversation, Dr.— came down from town to see Mrs. Methvyn. He thought her on the whole better than when he had last seen her, and left Cicely somewhat comforted, though warning her that the best to be hoped for was not much. So the winter drew on—slowly this year. Christmas, the second Christmas since they left the Abbey, came and went, and still the mother and daughter spoke cheerfully of the future, made plans for Amiel’s return, and smiled in each other’s faces with smiles of resolute cheerfulness—the smiles that are oftentimes more pathetic than tears.

And when the blow fell, it came, as in such cases it often does, from an unexpected direction. The winter was over and gone, the time for the singing of birds was at hand; it was early March, and Cicely was beginning to breathe more freely. “It is a great thing to have got mamma so nicely through the winter,” she said one morning to Parker. And the old servant agreed with her, and had not the heart to add that had the winter been coming instead of going, she would have trembled for her mistress. For to her eyes Mrs. Methvyn’s slow but steady decay of strength was only too plainly perceptible. “It is nearly two months since she had an attack,” Cicely went on, “she cannot but be gaining strength. If only the fine weather will come quickly this year, and we can get her out a little, Parker, I shall feel quite happy about her.”

The fine weather did come quickly, and what was of more consequence, lasted when it came. But Mrs. Methvyn was not able to enjoy it. She never went out again. In some inexplicable way, just as the summer flowers were beginning to spring, and the grass to look bright in the sunshine again, she caught cold, and soon to all eyes but those of the daughter who would not see, it was evident that the last stage of her journey had been entered upon. Under the pressure of the new acute symptoms, those of her chronic malady disappeared or were cast into the shade; so for long Cicely hoped, and defended her hope with some show of plausibility. But at last her mother entered into a region of suffering so painful to witness, so apparently agonising to endure, that the unselfishness of true devotion forbade the child to hope, or to wish to hope for anything but her release.

“I must not ask to keep her,” murmured Cicely in her anguish. “I only pray that she may be spared any more suffering.”

And at the end, the very end, there fell upon the dying woman a great calm—a few hours of perfect peace, and to Cicely there was given strength to ease her mother’s heart of its one great burden.

“Mother dear, I can bear it,” she whispered, “I think it is better for you to go. It cannot be for very long that we shall be separated. I think I shall feel happier when I know that you cannot suffer any more. Amiel will come home to me soon, and then I shall not be alone. Mother dear, don’t be afraid for me.”

And with a smile of gratitude to her child for the unselfish words, a smile of relief, and hope, and love beyond expression, Cicely’s mother died.

Then came the real agony of sorrow. She was gone. There was nothing more to do for her; no motive to be strong and cheerful any more. There was her empty room; there stood the sofa on which so lately, so incredibly short time ago, she had lain and smiled at Cicely as she moved about the room, and answered her when she spoke to her; there was the book she had been reading, the desk at which she had been writing, the clothes she had worn—everything in its accustomed place, all the inanimate objects associated with her, among which she had lived, there, present, tangible—and she? Gone, dead; her sweet face blotted out of existence; her loving, gentle voice hushed for ever. “For even if it be all true,” cried Cicely in her agony, “even if it be true that I shall meet her again, will she ever be the very same mother? I cannot believe it. If God loved and pitied us, He would not torture us so. Life is no gift to be grateful for, since it is made up of such anguish. Better far, never to have been born.”

And for a time, through a crisis of intense suffering, the girl’s spirit sank within her, her very heart failed her. Faith and hope alike deserted her, “the cloud was thick and the storm great,” and it seemed to her that the very foundations of her being were shaken to their centre.

But after the strong wind and the earth quake and the fire, there comes to those who will hear it the sound of the still, small voice—the voice of eternal love and compassion, of patient tenderness and all wise consolation—and Cicely, exhausted by suffering, listened and was comforted. She remembered the smile on her mother’s dying face, and her faith revived. She bowed her head, and the rebellion died out of her heart. “Bitter as it is, if it is God’s will it must be best,” she said at last, unmurmuringly. Then she looked her life in the face, and realised that it was yet hers to use, if possible even, yet to enjoy. How to employ it, how to save herself from drifting out into lonely aimlessness and indifference, she could not yet see. But she began to trust that sooner or later, there would come a gleam of light.

What was she to do, where was she to go? Before long these questions pressed upon her, and she knew not how to answer them. She was to all intents and purposes alone in the world, for excepting her sister Amiel, she had no near relations.

“If I were a man like you,” she said one day to Mr. Hayle, when he had called to see her, a few weeks after her mother’s death, “I could be at no loss. I could find, if not happiness, at least peace, in spending my life for others as you are going to do. And what little money I have might do some good. But being a woman, it is quite different. I am hedged in on every side, unless I joined one of those sisterhoods you tell me of. I cannot devote myself to charitable work of that kind. I should do more harm than good trying to do anything of the kind by myself. And I could not join any of those sisterhoods.”

“If you have the real love of such work in your heart, some way will open to you,” replied Mr. Hayle, with a shade of professional formality in his tone.

“But I don’t by any means think that I have,” said Cicely bluntly and yet piteously. “I don’t like going among very poor and miserable people. I think it is dreadful. I have no missionary spirit. You think better of me than I deserve. I would do it, or try to do it, if I saw my way to it, but not from love of the thing. My motive would be simply and purely the wish to do something, to be of use in some way.”

“There could not be a better motive,” said the young clergyman, more naturally. “The love of it would come.”

He was silent for a few moments, then he spoke again, somewhat inconsequently it seemed to Cicely. “Did you not say that you had heard again from Lady Forrester?” he inquired. “Is she not likely to return home even sooner than you expected?”

“Yes,” said Cicely. “She—they, I should say—will probably be in England next summer. But that does not help me. They are only coming home for a few months; not to stay altogether as I hoped.”

“Oh, yes! for the time, of course, it will be. But when Amiel has to leave me again—” she gave a little shiver. “And for the next few months I am quite at a loss what to do,” she went on in a more practical tone. “Miss Winter cannot stay with me after September; you know she has to look after her sister’s children now? That is why she left Lady Frederica. I don’t know what to do. I must make some plans I suppose. How I envy you, Mr. Hayle! When are you going away; next week did you say?”

“I shall miss you so much,” she went on. “I can never tell you how thankful I have felt that you were here. Mamma told me that I must try to tell you how much your kindness had comforted her, and I wish I could thank you sufficiently, but I cannot.”

Mr. Hayle’s face flushed. “You cannot make me happier than by saying I have been of any—of the slightest use to you,” he said. “I only wish I could help you now.”

“It is very difficult to know what to do,” pursued Cicely sadly. “Perhaps it would have been better for me if I had been left quite poor, then there would have been no doubt about it; I should have had to work for my daily bread.”

“Perhaps not,” she replied, “but at least it would have been something to do. As it is, no occupation is forced upon me and I have no energy to seek any. You don’t know how difficult it is for me even to wish to live.”

She leant back in her chair in an attitude of listless despondency. Mr. Hayle did not speak for a minute or two; he seemed to be thinking deeply.

“Miss Methvyn,” he said suddenly, “there is one way open to you in which I believe you might be of the greatest use. You underrate your own powers, I think. I believe you are capable of doing immense good among the poor and wretched. It is confidence in yourself that you want. This you would acquire if—if you were with any one who would always be ready to encourage you and sympathise with you.”

“Perhaps I might,” said Cicely. “It is loneliness that appals me as much as anything. I am strong I know—perhaps I might get over my shrinking from the sight of misery in time, if, as you say, I could look for direction to some one wiser. But I could never make up my mind to join one of your sisterhoods, Mr. Hayle. You are not thinking of that again, are you?”

She looked up with a very slight sparkle of her old playful manner, but the clergy man’s face grew graver.

“I was thinking,” he began, then hesitated and stopped short. “I don’t think you will misunderstand me,” he resumed, as if encouraging himself with the idea. “I was thinking if possibly life would look less bare and empty to you if you were to make up your mind to join me in my work.”

Then Cicely in turn looked at him. How, small and fair and boyish he seemed—how innocent and almost childlike! The idea of regarding him as a husband, a protector, and guide, struck Cicely with a sense of the strangest incongruity. For half a second there came over her a foolish, half-nervous inclination to laugh, but another glance at him, at the serious matter-of-fact earnestness of his expression, checked the impulse and restored her to composure.

“You are very kind and good,” she began. “I know you are thinking most unselfishly of my happiness, for I have often heard you say you would never marry, but—”

“Stay a moment,” he interrupted, and in spite of the strong effort he was evidently making for calmness, his colour deepened and his voice trembled a little, “you must not give me credit for what I do not deserve. It is true I never intended to marry—such a prospect has never come into the life I had sketched out for myself. But if—if, as I think possible, marriage would be a help not a hindrance to me—and a marriage with you would, it seems to me, be so—I should not feel that I was departing from my principles or, on the other hand, that I deserved credit for unselfishness in proposing it,” he stopped again. “You can imagine that a friend—a wife—always at hand to sympathise with me in my work would make life a very different thing to me,” he added.

“But I am afraid I could not be the sort of friend—of wife—you imagine,” said Cicely gently. “I am not devoted and unworldly as you are. You think better of me than I deserve.”

“I wish,” she said in a tone of distress, “I wish you had not thought of it.”

“You mean that you cannot entertain the idea of it—you dislike me personally?” he said.

“But you don’t like me,” he suggested with a faint smile. “It is much better to be honest, Miss Methvyn. Not that I expected, at the best, much. I know something of your past sufferings—I know you have known feelings in comparison with which the best I could hope for must be poor and small. Forgive me for alluding to it,” he added hastily. “You will believe me it was unintentionally I did so.” For he fancied that a look of pain had crept over her face as he spoke. He was mistaken.

“I don’t mind your alluding to it at all,” she said frankly. “No one could have been kinder and more considerate to me than you were then. It is all completely, utterly, past and gone. Lately, quite lately, I have come to feel perfectly satisfied of its having been best for me as it was. It is no remembrance of that kind, it is nothing that has to do with my old feeling for my cousin that makes it”—“impossible” she added after an instant’s hesitation, “for me to do anything but thank you for what you have said just now.”

“Yes, I fear so,” said Cicely. “I wish I could feel it were not so. I own to you I wish I dared think it could be otherwise, but I cannot. I am very, very lonely. Your friendship is a temptation to me. But it would not satisfy me. I know myself better than I once did; if I consented now to what you propose, I should only be storing up misery for both you and me. As it is, I do not think I need be afraid of paining you by my decision, for I am sure you have thought more of me than of yourself in the matter. Your life will be more consistent and harmonious without me. Will it not?”

“Possibly it may be so,” he replied. But as he said the words he grew very pale.

“No,” he said abruptly. “I don’t deserve it. I have deceived myself. I believed it was my work I was thinking of—the assistance you would be to it—I was mistaken. It was gross presumption. It was you I was thinking of. I did not know it was in me to care for any woman as I care for you, and now I know it.”

He turned away sharply, and almost before Cicely saw what he was doing, had left the room. A moment after, she heard the front door shut.

“He has gone away,” she thought sorrow fully. “Almost the only friend I have, and in trouble caused by me.”

But late that evening a note was brought to her. “There was no answer,” the servant told Cicely as she opened it. It was a short note.

“Dear Miss Methvyn,” it said, “I am leaving Leobury at once. The sooner I get to my new work the better. I have made a mistake, and but for your gentleness and goodness my eyes might have been more harshly opened. I know you will have forgiven my presumption. I only write to say good-bye and to beg you to let me know if at any time I can be of use to you. When your plans are settled, I shall be very grateful if you will let me know what they are. I enclose my address. Yours very truly,

And a few weeks later when her plans were settled, Cicely wrote to him as he asked.

It was a letter which reached her by the very next post which helped her to come to a decision. There were two letters for her that morning. One in a handwriting which she had not seen for many months, familiar as it used to be—that of Trevor Fawcett. He wrote in his own name and that of his wife to entreat her to consider the possibility of going to them at least for a time. The tone of the letter touched Cicely.

“I hardly know how to put in words the extreme gratification it would give us to receive you for as long as it would suit you to stay,” wrote Trevor. “We are at Barnstay now; indeed, we spend most of our time here. Geneviève would write herself, but I have asked her to let me do so instead, fancying I might be able to say something which might induce you to come. I cannot tell you what it would be to me to see you again.”

“Poor Trevor!” thought Cicely. Would Geneviève have written herself? She doubted it. “Poor Trevor,” she repeated. “I wish, what long ago I used to fancy I wished—I wish it far more now—that he had been really my brother. There could have been no mistakes or troubles then. I do hope he is happy.”

But of going to them as Mr. Fawcett proposed, of making her home even temporarily with the two people who had so cruelly deceived her—of this, Cicely felt that there could be no question.

“I have forgiven all that I had to forgive,” she said to herself. “I see where I myself was to blame, and for myself I do not regret the results. But I could never feel at home with them again.”

And in the gentlest but firmest words she wrote to her cousin declining his invitation.

She sent another letter by the same post, a letter in reply to the one which had reached her at the same time as Trevor’s, and which had also contained an invitation—an invitation which after some consideration she had decided to accept.

“I think it is a very nice plan, my dear Miss Methvyn, a very nice plan indeed,” said Miss Winter when Cicely told her of her intention. “I hope the change will do you a great deal of good, and the sooner you arrange for it the better, sorry though I shall be to leave you. If you had been intending to keep house for yourself and I had been free, I should have asked nothing better than to have remained with you. I have been so happy with you, dear Miss Methvyn. But duty calls me elsewhere; and of course even if I were free, it would hardly do for me to take another situation without first inquiring if dear Lady Frederica wanted me—considering all her kindness.”

Poor Miss Winter! A long course of genteel dependence had taught her the expediency of seeing most things “couleur de rose,” but as Cicely looked at her faded pink cheeks and listened to her nervously amiable platitudes, she came to agree with Mr. Hayle, she felt thankful that she was not called upon to join the ranks of the vast army of decayed gentlewomen who have to earn for themselves their daily bread.

CHAPTER VIII.

MADAME GENTILLE.

“Pourquoi me regardez vous comme cela?
Est-ce que je vous ai fait quelque chose?
— Non, répondit-il.
Certes, il n’avait rien contre elle. Loin de là.”

THE band was playing on the “Place” at Hivèritz; it was a beautiful spring-like afternoon, though only the middle of January. A goodly number of the visitors, and many of the residents too, were to be seen promenading up and down, or sitting at the open windows of the hotels and other large houses which overlooked the square,—the West End of the little town.

A girl of twelve years old, or thereabouts, was crossing the quieter and less frequented side of the place with a young lady in deep mourning; the young lady was tall and slight, fair hair peeped out from under her crape-trimmed black hat, she had blue eyes, and a pale clear complexion.

“English, of course; I don’t think I have seen her here before,” said an American lady to the gentleman she was walking with, as they passed the fair-haired girl.

“New-comers, I dare say,” replied the gentleman carelessly. “Rather pretty, isn’t she?”

“I didn’t notice her much. They cannot be anything particular,—not people of rank, that is to say,” said the daughter of the nation where rank is supposed to be unknown, with some contempt in her tone, “or we should have heard of their arrival.”

But the blue-eyed English girl, innocent of being classed among the nobodies of conceited little Hivèritz, walked on quietly, enjoying the sweet air and the sunshine, the mountains in the distance, the music near at hand.

“C’est bien ici, ma cousine, n’est-ce pas?” said her little companion. “Will you not stay for a few minutes? We can get chairs for a sou each; it is so seldom I can hear the music.”

She looked up entreatingly. She was not a pretty child, but her face was frank and merry, her dark eyes bright and honest.

“I don’t mind staying a little, if your mother will not be wondering what has become of us,” said the young lady. “Don’t you often come here when the band plays, Eudoxie?”

Eudoxie shook her head. “Mamma is quite pleased for me to come,” she said, “but it is not often there is any one to bring me. When Geneviève was at home, she often came to the Place, but she would not let me come; she said children were tiresome. She came with Stéphanie Rou sille, or the Demoiselles Frogé. I am not sorry that Geneviève is married and away, ma cousine; she sends me pretty presents now, and I like you better for my sister.”

“Ma cousine” smiled. “Don’t you know, little Eudoxie, that comparisons are odious?” she said playfully. “However, I am glad you think I shall do for a sister. Who is that lady?” she inquired, as at that moment Eudoxie nodded and smiled to a pleasant-looking, middle-aged little English woman in orthodox winter costume of velvet and sealskin, who was passing by.

“I know not,” replied Eudoxie, “I know not her name; I call her Madame Gentille, she always smiles so nicely. She is English, she lives in the Rue St. Louis, and I pass her house in the morning, on my way to school, and she nods to me. She has a husband who is very old, I think, for he never goes out, except in a carriage, and the blinds are never drawn up.”

“Poor thing!” said Cicely compassionately. Her few weeks at Hivèritz had already accustomed her to the sight of some melancholy little family groups. “Perhaps he is not very old, but very ill, Eudoxie.”

“If he were very ill she would look more sad,” said Eudoxie, who had evidently a theory of her own on the subject of her unknown friend’s domestic history. “She does not look sad, she has rosy cheeks, and she is plump and gay. Des fois I hear her laugh when I pass her house and the window of her salon is open. And one morning she was at the door, talking to the confectioner’s boy, who had brought some cakes; she offered me one, it was a macaroon. She spoke with un accent affreux, but she smiled, and the macaroon was very good.”

“And so you call her Madame Gentille?” said Cicely, amused by the child’s chatter. “She has a pleasant face certainly; but I think, Eudoxie,” she went on, “it must be getting late; see, the musicians are preparing to go. Aunt Caroline will be expecting us.”

Aunt Caroline was expecting them. Her kind face was at the door to welcome them, when the cousins reached the little courtyard of No. 31, Rue de la Croix blanche. It was pleasant to be welcomed thus, thought motherless Cicely.

“Dear aunt,” she said impulsively as she met Madame Casalis, and she held up her face for a kiss.

“Dear Cicely!” replied Eudoxie’s mother. Then they went into the little drawing-room together, while the child ran off to her own quarters.

“It is such a happiness to me to have you with us,” said Madame Casalis; “I can not tell you how great a pleasure it is.”

Cicely looked at her gratefully. Already, though barely a month had passed since the girl’s introduction to her mother’s cousin, these two understood each other well.

“It is so pleasant to me to feel I have still some one belonging to my mother who cares for me,” said Cicely softly.

“I have a letter from Geneviève to-day,” said Madame Casalis. “It came while you were out.”

Her tone was quite without constraint. She was fully in possession of Madame Casalis’s feelings on the subject of her daughter’s marriage, and so much of the truth as it was right that the mother should now know, Cicely had gently and considerately told her, in answer to her earnest request to have the whole explained. For Geneviève had not, after all, been as frank to her mother as she had promised; her view of her own conduct had altered to some extent when she found herself free of Greystone associations, and her account of her engagement to Mr. Fawcett and the events which had led to it, had left Madame Casalis uneasy and dissatisfied.

“It was no use my pressing her to tell me more,” the mother said to Cicely; “we were together so short a time, and I could not bear to cloud the few last days. Besides, what was done, was done. But I have longed to speak of it to you, to ask your forgiveness for the suffering I could not but fear my child had been partly the cause of.”

And Cicely had soothed poor Caroline’s distress even while not concealing that her suspicions had been well founded—and the friendship between the two grew and strengthened daily.

Madame Casalis drew Geneviève’s letter out of its envelope again as she replied to Cicely’s inquiry.

“She does not say very much. Her letters are never very long,” she sighed a little. “They have had a great many visitors to spend Christmas. Now they are gone and Geneviève finds Barnstay dull triste. Her husband she says is always at the hunt—she wishes it were already the season to visit ‘town.’ ‘Londres,’ she means, I suppose? Did Mr. Fawcett always go so much to the hunt?” she inquired, looking up from the letter to which she had been referring as she in formed Cicely of its contents.

“He used to hunt a good deal. Not constantly,” replied Cicely. “I am sorry if Geneviève is dull,” she added regretfully.

“Yes,” said Cicely, “when people have children I cannot understand their ever being dull. I remember mamma telling me what a comfort my sister Amiel was to her long ago, when she was lonely and unhappy. She must have been very unhappy during her first husband’s life. Did you ever see her then, Aunt Caroline?”

Madame Casalis shook her head. “No,” she said, “I knew her as a girl, but not again till she was married to your father. Her first husband was not good; she was wrong to marry him, but it was not all her fault.”

“Her father would not let her marry papa, because he was then poor, before his brother died,” said Cicely.

“Yes—and your father was proud—he went away and Helen knew not why, and in her sorrow they persuaded her to marry Mr. Bruce. And she was very unhappy. But afterwards, when in the end she met again Colonel Methvyn and they were married, she was very happy.”

“Yes,” said Cicely, “they were very happy. She never forgot how papa had thought of her always and never dreamt of marrying any one else even when he became rich. It is not often one hears of such love as that. Yes, they were very happy.”

“Yet she had great trouble first,” said Madame Casalis gently. “I should like you too to be happy like her some day, Cicely.”

Cicely shook her head. “I don’t think it is likely,” she replied. “I almost feel as if I were too old for anything of that kind again, do you know, aunt? Troubles make one feel old.”

“My Madame Gentille does not look old, and I am sure she has troubles,” observed Miss Eudoxie, who entered the room as Cicely was uttering her last sentence; “she has nice fat rosy cheeks, and her hair is not grey.”

“An English lady whom she has taken a fancy to,” said Cicely. “We saw her to-day in the Place, and Eudoxie and she smiled and nodded to each other like old acquaintances.”

“The lady who gave you macaroons? Oh! yes, I remember. I wonder who she is,” said Madame Casalis. “It is not often we make acquaintance with any of the visitors,” she went on, turning to Cicely. “Their world is a different one from ours, though sometimes my husband has been asked to call upon Protestant families, coming here for the winter. But just now I think we have no acquaintance among the visitors at all.”

“So Madame Gentille will probably remain Madame Gentille to the end of the story, Eudoxie,” said Cicely.

“Well,” replied the child philosophically, “I don’t mind. It is a nice name for her.”

But fate had not so willed it. A few days later when Cicely came downstairs one morning, she found Monsieur Casalis frowning over a letter which, notwithstanding his utmost efforts, he was unable to understand.

“Caroline,” he exclaimed, without looking up, “I have an English letter here which I cannot read. Translate it then for me, I pray thee.”

“It is not Aunt Caroline,” said Cicely. “Shall I do instead, Monsieur Casalis?”

“Thank you, my child,” said the pasteur in a tone of relief, pushing back his spectacles and beginning to stir his coffee, “thank you well. Yes, if you please,” and he held out the letter. “It is forwarded to me by a friend in Paris, Monsieur Carraud, who has received it from some one of his acquaintance in England; a lady, is it not?”

“Yes,” said Cicely, translating it as she spoke. “Yes, it is from a Mrs. Hulme, asking Monsieur Carraud if he has any friends at Hivèritz who would be so kind as to show some attention to a cousin of hers, a Mrs. Crichton, who, with her brother, is spending the winter here. They are quite strangers to Hivèritz, Mrs. Hulme says, and one or other evidently an invalid. It is a very short note, written hurriedly; I think that is all she says.”

“Does she not give the address—let me see, my dear,” asked Monsieur Casalis, looking over Cicely’s shoulder. “Ah! yes, here it is, Madame Creech—Creesh—how say you? Quel nom barbare! Madame Creeshton, Rue St. Louis, No. 14. Ah! yes, I know the apartement. Caroline, my friend,” he continued, as his wife came into the room, “here is something that thou must do to oblige our friend Monsieur Carraud.”

“I shall be very glad to call on the lady,” said Madame Casilis, when the matter was explained to her, “but I fear there is not much that we can do besides.”

The pasteur and his wife were kind hearted people, who never lost time in doing any little service to others that might be in their power. They called that very afternoon on the lady with the barbarous name in the Rue St. Louis. When they came home Madame Casalis was quite excited.

“Imagine, Cicely,” she exclaimed, “is it not amusing—this Madame Creetonne is no other than Eudoxie’s Madame Gentille? Eudoxie will be quite delighted. We discovered it at once by her telling me she had made no friends at Hivèritz except one little girl. ‘To whom,’ said I, ‘you gave a macaroon, was it not?’ She looked astonished; then we laughed at the coincidence, but it made us feel quite friendly. In general I feel somewhat génée with the English one meets here. They are so rich, so unlike us, but this Madame Creetonne is not so; she is most simple and amiable. She wants Eudoxie to go to see her to-morrow. I told her also about you, Cicely, that I had a cousin, an English lady, visiting me—she was so pleased to hear you were English.”

“Do you think she would like me to go to see her?” said Cicely good-naturedly. “I will take Eudoxie there to-morrow if you like, aunt. She must be dull, poor thing. Is it she that is ill? She does not look so.”

“Yes,” said Madame Casalis, smiling. “Eudoxie is wrong for once. Madame Creetonne is a widow. I know not if her brother be old. He is a very clever man; a writer, I think, she said. He overworked himself and was very ill. Now he is better, but the overwork has weakened his eye sight. They came here because he had been in a warm country, and they feared England for him this winter. He is writing some book now, his sister told me. Monsieur Casalis is going to lend him some dictionnaires he is in want of, which they could not get at the librairie here.”

“Yes,” said Monsieur Casalis. “He must be a very learned man, ce Monsieur Creetonne.”

“Is his name Crichton too?” said Cicely. “I thought you said she was his married sister.”

“Of course!” exclaimed Madame Casalis. “I forgot. No, his name cannot be the same, but we did not hear what it was.”

Armed with two or three learned-looking volumes—for in his humble way Monsieur Casalis was something of a bookworm—Cicely and her little cousin set off the next morning to call on Mrs. Crichton. She was at home, and evidently very glad to see them.

“So kind of you to come to see me so soon, Miss——, and to bring your little cousin,” she hurried on, trying to slur over her ignorance of Cicely’s name. “I am particularly glad you have come, because, do you know, it is very stupid of me; but I generally am very stupid about such things.” She sighed plaintively. “I don’t know what becomes of my head I am sure. What was I saying? Oh! yes to be sure, it was about quite forgetting to ask madame—your mamma’s, I mean” (to Eudoxie)—“to ask madame’s name and address when she was so kind as to come to see me yesterday. Not that I should have required to ask it, but I am so stupid at catching French names. And so you see if you had not come to see me, I could not have come to see you till I had written to ask Mrs. Hulme to get your address. How absurd that would have been to be sure!”

She laughed merrily. Her laugh and voice were both pretty and musical, and there was an infectious sort of youthfulness about her—a genuine naïveté—which was not without its charm. She was small and plump, and still pretty, though no longer young; and though Eudoxie had considerable difficulty in interpreting her rather roundabout way of talking, she remained decidedly of opinion that her soubriquet had been well bestowed.

“I have got some fresh macaroons on purpose for Eudoxie,” said Mrs. Crichton when she had mastered her visitors’ names in full. “What a nice confectioner’s there is here! Indeed, the shops are very good, though my brother feels the want of a library greatly. So kind of Monsieur Casalis to have sent him those dreadful books.“She eyed the volumes as she spoke with mingled complacency and aversion. “That will be some hard work for me,” she said, turning to Cicely with a smile.

“Yes. I have to spell out all manner of things I don’t understand in the least for Ed—for my brother. He is not allowed to use his eyes in reading or writing at all yet. To tell you the truth, I was rather pleased when he was stopped short for want of these books. I am sure he is beginning to work too hard again; but of course I could not refuse Monsieur Casalis’s offer of them—so kind. I had the names down on a bit of paper to try for them at the bookseller’s when he called, you know. And of course it’s very worrying for a clever person like my brother to have to be dependent on any one so out-of-the-way stupid as I am.”

“He is,” said Mrs. Crichton eagerly. “Would you believe it,” she went on, turning to some papers that lay on a side-table, “I have three times tried to make a clear copy of these notes and lists—it’s something botanical—and each time when he has just taken a peep at it from under his shade, poor fellow, just to make sure it was all right, he has found some perfectly horrible mistake that could not possibly be corrected—not to speak of my handwriting, which is fearful, as you see.” She held out the manuscript to Cicely. “They have to be in London the end of this week,” she went on in a tone of despair. “I was just setting to work at them again when you came in; but it’s no good. I shall never get them done.”

Cicely was examining the papers critically. “Your writing is perhaps rather too large for this sort of thing—” she began. “I should think it was—too large and too sprawly and too everything,” interrupted Mrs. Crichton. It’s dreadful, and so is my spelling. I never can spell correctly—Wednesday and business and spinach I always carry about with me in my pocket-book—not that the spelling matters for these things, as they are all in Latin.”

“I think—you won’t think me presumptuous for saying so, I hope,” said Cicely “I think I could help you with these, if you like. I have had a great deal of copying out to do long ago for my father, and I can write a very clerkly hand when I try. Do you think Mr.—, your brother, would be afraid to trust me with these papers? I can easily have them ready for to-morrow’s post, if that will do.”

Mrs. Crichton’s face beamed with delight. “How kind of you—how very kind of you!” she exclaimed. “I am sure you could do them beautifully. You look so clever—no, I don’t mean clever. Clever people are ugly; but you look so wise—dear me!—what can I say?—that sounds like an owl.”

“Never mind,” said Cicely, laughing. “Will you ask your brother if he will try me?”

“Of course I will, this very moment,” said the little lady, and off she went. Within five minutes she returned in triumph. “He is delighted,” she said. “I knew he would be. He is coming to thank you himself, and to point out one or two things. He does not like seeing any one now; his eyes make him feel nervous, poor fellow. He would not come in to see Monsieur and Madame Casalis yesterday, but he is so pleased about his papers, he proposed himself to come and thank you.”

“I hope it will not annoy him,” said Cicely, a little uneasy at the idea of the learned man’s personal injunctions. But “Oh! no, he didn’t mind a bit,” answered Mrs. Crichton in so well assured a tone that Cicely dismissed her misgivings.

There had certainly been nothing in his sister’s explanation to make him “mind a bit.”

“There’s a young lady here who would like to do your copying, Edmond,” had been her very lucid account of Cicely’s offer. “She’s English, though she’s a niece of that nice old French clergyman who called yesterday. She looks clever. I am sure she would do it nicely. She says she is quite accustomed to it.”

“Do you mean that she would do it for nothing?” inquired Mr. Guildford. “I could not put myself under such an obligation to a stranger. But perhaps she would let me pay for it. Many poor ladies make money by copying; and I dare say if she be longs to the family of a French pasteur, she is not rich. Do you think that she meant that she would take payment for it?”

“What does she look like? Is she a governess, or anything of that kind? What did she say?”

“She only offered out of kindness. She had heard about your eyes, and I—I told her how stupid I was,” admitted Mrs. Crichton. “You had much better come and see for yourself, Edmond.”

“Very well—perhaps it would be better. Of course, I should be very glad to get it well done, if this lady would not be above letting me pay her,” he said. “But I won’t say anything about that if she looks like a person that would be offended by such a proposal. I’ll come in directly; and if I can arrange about it with her, I will show her how I want it done. But I wish,” he added to himself when his sister had left him, “I wish Bessie were less communicative to strangers.”

Five minutes later he followed her into the drawing-room. He came in, expecting to find Mrs. Crichton’s new acquaintance some insignificant-looking person of the poor lady order, for, notwithstanding Bessie’s assertion that the pasteur’s niece “did not look like that,” his mind was prepossessed by its own idea; nor did he attach sufficient importance to his sister’s judgment to think much of her description. The light in the room struck upon his eyes somewhat dazzlingly, for, out of deference to the stranger, he had taken off the shade he usually wore. The first object he noticed was Eudoxie seated on a low chair, consuming her cakes with great equanimity. For a moment he glanced at her in bewilderment. Could this be his would-be amanuensis? He looked on beyond her to his sister for explanation, when suddenly from another corner of the room a third person approached. Had the figure before him been that of one risen from the dead he could hardly have been more astonished. Instinctively he lifted his hand to his eyes, as if suspecting them of playing him false. Was not the light deceiving him, exaggerating some slight and superficial resemblance into the likeness of a face whose features he believed would never to him grow misty or confused—a face he had seen once, long, long ago it seemed to him now, pale and wistful, with sweet sad eyes, and lips parted to entreat his help,—the face of Cicely Methvyn as she stood in the doorway on the night that little Charlie died. He looked again—the illusion, if such it were, grew more perfect. He felt as if in a dream—he was turning to seek Mrs. Crichton’s assistance, when suddenly the spell was broken. The lady came forward quietly and held out her hand.

“Mr. Guildford,” she said gently, and the slight colour which rose to her cheeks helped him to realise the fact of her presence, “you did not expect to see me here, and certainly I did not expect to see you. How strange it is!”

But he made no movement towards her, he showed no readiness to take her offered hand.

“Mr. Guildford,” she repeated, in her turn bewildered by a momentary doubt as to the identity of the man before her with the owner of the name by which she addressed him, “don’t you know me?”

Then he started. “I could not believe it,” he exclaimed abruptly. “You must forgive me, Miss Meth—no, you are not Miss Methvyn now.”

Cicely’s colour deepened, but she smiled. A pleasant sincere smile it was, though not without a certain sadness about it too. “Yes,” she said, “I am. My name is the same any way, though it seems as if otherwise I must be very much changed.”

He had not yet shaken hands, and as she spoke, Cicely’s arm dropped quietly by her side. There was a slight inference of reproach in her tone, and Mr. Guildford was not slow to perceive it.

“I don’t think you are changed,” he said; “I knew you instantly. That was what startled me so, I was so utterly taken by surprise.”

“Yes,” she said, “I know where you thought I was; but I am not, you see. That was all changed long ago. Have you heard nothing about us since you left Sothernshire?” she went on. “Do you not know that Greystone was sold—that we left it soon after my father’s death? Do you not know about,” she glanced at her deep mourning dress, “do you not know that I am quite an orphan now?”

“Yes,” he said in turn; “yes, I know that—I saw it in the ‘Times.’”

His tone was grave and sad. A feeling of self-reproach crept through him as he recalled the half-bitter sympathy with which he had seen the announcement of Mrs. Methvyn’s death.

“She has her husband to comfort her,” he had said to himself. For once, in some fashionable record of “arrivals in town” he had seen the names of “Mr. and Mrs. Fawcett from Barnstay Castle;” and till this moment when he met Cicely Methvyn again, a doubt of her marriage having taken place had never crossed his mind. There fell a slightly awkward pause. In the presence of a third person, and that person a stranger, Cicely could not speak to Mr. Guildford of her mother’s illness and death as she would have liked to do, nor could he say anything to lead her to do so. At last Bessie came to the rescue. Amazed by the unexpected discovery of her brother’s acquaintance with the pasteur’s niece, Mrs. Crichton had been startled into keeping silence for much longer than was usual with her. “It is just like a story,” she said to herself in an awe struck whisper. Suddenly glancing at Mr. Guildford, a new idea struck her, “Oh! Edmond,” she exclaimed, “you have taken off your shade. Oh! how very wrong of you, and the light in this room is so strong!”

Mr. Guildford looked annoyed. “It does not matter for a few minutes, Bessie,” he said.

Cicely glanced at him. There was nothing in the appearance of his eyes, dark and keen as ever, to suggest injured or enfeebled powers of sight.

“My eyes are much stronger now,” he said to Cicely. “I strained them when I was in India, but they are recovering now.”

“Yes, indeed,” exclaimed Mrs. Crichton. “It was not India, it was nothing but overwork, and it will be the same thing again if you don’t take care. He will never be able to use his eyes very much,” she added, turning to Cicely.

“Not for a long time, I dare say,” she said quickly. “But I have always heard that rest does wonders in such cases. And that reminds me,” she went on, “will you show me exactly how you want these papers done?”

Mr. Guildford had forgotten all about the papers. Now he looked up with some embarrassment. “I could not,” he began, but Cicely interrupted him.

“You thought of letting a stranger do it,” she said. “Why then not me? I have very little occupation here; it would be a real pleasure to me.”

She spoke simply but earnestly, and Mr. Guildford made no further objection. He took up the papers and pointed out Bessie’s mistakes. Then came a moment in which Mrs. Crichton left the room in search of another manuscript. Cicely seized the opportunity.

“Mr. Guildford,” she said hastily, in a voice too low to catch the long ears of the little pitcher in the corner, “I think I had better tell you that my cousin Trevor Fawcett’s wife is Geneviève Casalis—Geneviève Fawcett now, of course. It is with her parents I am now staying here; they are very kind and good. Eudoxie,” with a glance towards the child, “is Geneviève’s sister. I thought it best you should know, as I dare say you will see Monsieur and Madame Casalis sometimes.”

Mr. Guildford did not speak. One rapid glance of inquiry he could not repress. Cicely stood it with perfect calmness.

“It happened a long time ago, very soon after my father’s death,” she said quietly. “I—I believed it was for the best then; since, I have come to feel sure of it.” Here her colour rose a very little. “It was a comfort to me to be able to devote myself entirely to my mother when her health failed,” she went on, as if in explanation of her words; “there was no other tie to interfere.”

Mr. Guildford bowed his head slightly, as if to signify that he understood. “Thank you for telling me,” he said, as Bessie came in again.

Cicely was very silent during the walk home, and answered at random to Eudoxie’s chatter, agreeing with the child’s announcement that she did not intend to call “him Monsieur Gentil.” “He is not gentil at all,” she decided, the truth being that Mr. Guildford had not taken any notice of her, for there was a spice of Geneviève in Eudoxie now and then after all.

“How strange to have met again here!” Cicely was thinking to herself. “It is as well, if it was to be, that it happened unexpectedly. It will prevent his feeling constrained and ill at ease with me on account of that fancy of his, if indeed he remembers it.”

CHAPTER IX.

A SOUTHERN WINTER.

“Listen how the linnets sing, Cicely dear;
Watch you where the lilies spring, Cicely sweet.”
* * * * * *
“The lilies shall be for thy brow to wear,
The linnets shall sing of the love I bear.”

NO sooner had the door closed on Cicely and her little cousin than Mrs. Crichton’s pent-up curiosity broke forth. She overwhelmed her brother with questions and cross-questions as to the how, where, and when of his former acquaintance with Miss Methvyn, till Mr. Guildford was fairly driven into a corner. He defended himself valiantly for some time; he tried short answers, but even monosyllables failed in their usually chilling effect on the irrepressible Bessie. She was not to be snubbed; she only grew increasingly pertinacious and finally cross.

“It is too bad of you to be so absurdly reserved with me, Edmond,” she said at last. “You are not a doctor now; I am not asking you to gossip about your patients. You will make me suspect something mysterious if you don’t take care.”

Then Edmond saw that his best policy would be to volunteer as much information as it suited him that his sister should be in possession of, knowing by experience that to baffle temporarily her curiosity was surely to increase it in the end. Hydra-like, it but sprouted afresh in a hundred new directions, if extinguished in one; and that she should even suspect the existence of anything he wished to conceal, with regard to Cicely, was disagreeable and undesirable in the extreme. So he smiled at her petulant speech, and answered good-humouredly. “I know what you always mean by something mysterious, Bessie. You are constantly fancying you have got on the scent of a love-story. I have no love-story to confide to you about Miss Methvyn—at least—” he stopped and hesitated.

“I was thinking,” he said, “of what you said about my not being a doctor any longer. That does not make me free to gossip about what I became acquainted with when I was one, does it?”

“No, I suppose not,” said Bessie. “But I shall never tell over anything about Miss Methvyn. I want to know about her, I have taken a fancy to her. Do go on after ‘at least.’ ”

“I was merely going to say that the only love-story I can tell you about her, is painful and must not be alluded to. But under the circumstances, perhaps, it is best you should know it. When I last saw Miss Methvyn, she was on the point of marriage with her cousin, a Mr. Fawcett—the marriage was broken off, and within a very short time he married another girl—her cousin, but not his, a French girl, the daughter of these people here, the pasteur and his wife.”

“What a shame!” ejaculated Bessie. “I thought they seemed such nice people.”

“So they are, I have no doubt. If not, she—Miss Methvyn—would not be staying with them.”

“But the girl—their daughter—must have been very designing.” Mr. Guildford did not answer. “How dreadful for Miss Methvyn!” continued Bessie. “I wonder it did not break her heart.”

“She doesn’t look like it,” said Mrs. Crichton. “She looks grave and rather sad, but she smiles brightly; there is nothing bitter or sour about her.”

“She has had troubles enough of other kinds to make her grave and sad. Though, indeed, her face always had that look when in repose,” he said thoughtfully. “Bessie,” he went on, with a sudden impulse of communicativeness, born of a yearning for sympathy, “do you remember one night, nearly two years ago, when I had to go out into the country beyond Haverstock—a very cold night?”

“Yes,” said Bessie, “I remember it—a little child was very ill. It died, I think.”

“That night was the first time I saw Miss Methvyn.”—“Standing with that crimson dress on,” he murmured to himself softly. “Yes,” he went on aloud, “the child died. He was her nephew. And since then she has lost father and mother and her home too.”

“Poor girl!” said Mrs. Crichton, with the ready tears in her eyes. “By the bye,” she added in a brisker tone, “was she Miss Methvyn of Something Abbey? I never can remember names.”

“Yes, to be sure. I knew it was a colour, black or white or something. Oh! then, I know about them a little. Some friends of the Lubecks bought Blackstone, and are living there now. It was sold because when the father died, they found he had lost a lot of money—in horse-racing, wasn’t it?”

“Not exactly,” said Mr. Guildford, smiling. “The poor man had been paralysed for some years. But he did lose money by speculation—that was true enough. What else did you hear?”

Bessie’s brain was not the best arranged repository of facts in the world, but by dint of diving into odd corners, and bringing to light a vast mass of totally irrelevant matter, she managed to give her brother a pretty clear idea of what she had learnt about the Methvyns’ affairs. And joining this to what he already knew, Mr. Guildford arrived at a fair enough understanding of the actual state of the case. “I don’t believe it was her loss of fortune that separated them,” he said to himself; “she is not the sort of girl to have allowed that to influence her. And he—if it had been that—would not have married a completely penniless girl immediately after. No, it could not have been that. He must have deceived her—how she must have suffered! Yet, as Bessie says, I don’t think she does look broken-hearted.”

He fell to thinking of how she did look. He was silent and abstracted, but Bessie asked no more questions. Her curiosity was so far set at rest, but it is to be doubted if her brother’s carefully considered communicativeness had satisfied her of the non existence of her “something mysterious.” But she was loyal and womanly, despite her inquisitiveness; her brother’s secret, if he had one, was safe.

During the rest of the day, Mr. Guildford was restless and ill at ease. . He was constantly acting over again the morning’s interview with Cicely, and wishing that he had said or done differently. Sometimes it seemed to him that his manner must have appeared almost rudely repellent and ungracious; at others, he reproached himself with having behaved with unwarrantable freedom.

“I did not even shake hands with her,” he remembered. “Rude boor that I am. As if I had any business to annoy her by my absurd self-consciousness, when she was so sweet and gracious and unaffected—so evidently anxious to be just as friendly to me as if I had never made a fool of myself. Of course, it is easy for her to be unconstrained and at ease with me—there is no reason why she should not be so—the question is whether I shall ever attain to it with her.”

Then he grew hot at the thought of having allowed her to copy his papers—actually to work for him—and ended by saying to himself that he devoutly wished he had not come into the room, or that, better still, Bessie had held her silly little tongue about his occupation. Yet all the time he was looking forward with unacknowledged eagerness to the next day, cherishing a foolish hope that Cicely might herself bring back her completed work, or that possibly she might find it necessary to apply to him for information or instruction upon some difficult part of the manuscript. And when the next day came, and the papers, beautifully written, and perfectly correct, were brought to the Rue St. Louis by old Mathurine, with a little note from Cicely, hoping that Mr. Guildford would not hesitate to return them if in any way faulty, he felt a pang of disappointment which startled him into acute realisation of the fact that he was as ready as ever, nay, ten times more so, to “make a fool of himself” for this woman, whom he thought he had grown indifferent to. “It is as if some one that one had thought dead had come to life again. It is very hard upon me. For more than a year I have thought of her as Fawcett’s wife, as more than dead to me, and now the old struggle must begin again.”

But after a time he grew calmer. The events of the last two years had altered—some superficial observers might have said, weakened—this man, once so strong a believer in his own opinion, so confident in his own power of acting up to it. But if he were weakened, the weakness was that arising from a greater knowledge of himself, a juster estimate of human nature, a nobler, because truer ideal—it was a weakness promising strength. He was less given to make theories, less loftily determined to live the life he sketched out for himself. “I am well punished for my presumption in thinking I was stronger than other men, or that in such strength there was nobility. Here am I at thirty with powers already curtailed, thankful now not to be threatened with a future of utter dependence. Here am I who despised and depreciated woman’s influence—feeling that without the love of a woman who will never love me, life, in no one direction, can be other than stunted and imperfect. Yes, I am well punished!”

And it was through this last reflection that he attained to a more philosophic state of mind. If the disappointment which this love of his had brought upon him, were a recompense merited by his self-confidence and self-deception, what could he do but accept it? what more futile than to waste his strength of mind in going back upon a past of mistakes and might-have-beens? Why not exert the self-control he possessed in making the best of what remained, in enjoying the friendship which Cicely was evidently ready to bestow upon him, with which, in her altered circumstances, there was little prospect of any closer tie coming into collision?

“I dare say she will never marry,” he said to himself with unconsciously selfish satisfaction. “She is not the sort of woman to ‘get over’ such an experience as she has had, in a hurry. I doubt if she will ever do so. Her very serenity looks as if she had gauged her own powers of suffering pretty thoroughly, and had now reached a tableland of calm—I feel sure she will never marry. I should like to show her that I am able to value her friendship, and that she need have no fear of my ever dreaming of anything more. I should like her to respect me.”

So, considerably to Bessie’s surprise, a day or two after the papers had been despatched, her brother proposed that they should return Monsieur and Madame Casalis’s call.

“I should like to thank Miss Methryn personally,” he said calmly. “And I am sure her relations are kind, good sort of people from what you tell me. It was very civil of them to call. I should not like them to think me a surly hypochondriac.”

“But are you fit for it?” said Mrs. Crichton, hardly able to believe her ears.

“Fit to make a call?” he exclaimed, laughing. “Of course I am; there’s nothing wrong with me now except my eyes, and they are much better. They never pain me now unless I read or write. I don’t want to drive there, Bessie,” he went on, “we can walk. It is only two or three streets off.”

“Very well,” said Bessie, in her heart nothing loth to see something more of their only acquaintances at Hivèritz. She looked up at her brother curiously. “I wonder if Edmond has anything in his head that he hasn’t told me,” she thought. But Edmond met her glance with perfect self-possession. He felt that he had no motive of the kind that she evidently suspected; he only wished to return to his old friendly relations with Cicely Methvyn; there was no fear of further self-deception. He was satisfied that, having now recovered from the first surprise of meeting her again, he was in a fair way of attaining to a composed and comfortable state of mind with regard to this girl, whose path and his had once more so unexpectedly crossed each other.

So Bessie was fain to suppose that her discrimination had actually been at fault, and that her brother was uninfluenced by any other motives than those he averred. And for some time to come, there was nothing to disturb her in this opinion. They called on Madame Casalis, and found both her and Miss Methvyn at home, and the half-hour spent in the modest little drawing-room in the Rue de la Croix blanche, was a very pleasant one, and Mr. Guildford returned home well contented with himself, and satisfied that Cicely tacitly appreciated his resolution.

“She has great tact,” he thought; “her manner is so simple and unconstrained that it makes it infinitely easier for me.”

And for her part, Cicely was saying to herself that things were turning out just as she had hoped—Mr. Guildford had evidently quite forgotten all about that passing fancy of his; he wished—by his manner she could see that he wished—to be thoroughly friendly and kind; he was a man whose friendship any woman might be proud of possessing. And as she thought thus, there flitted across her mind a vague recollection of something she had once said to him on this subject of friendship—it was one summer’s day in the garden at Greystone—and Mr. Guildford had been expounding for her benefit some of the wonderful theories which he then believed in so firmly. She remembered all he had said quite well (how little she suspected what bombastic nonsense it now appeared to him!), and she remembered, too, that what she had replied had made him declare he had converted her. It was something about feeling more honoured by the friendship than by the love of a man capable of friendship of the highest kind.

“I did not say it so plainly,” thought Cicely, “but that was the sense of it. I know I was rather proud of the sentiment. I wonder if Mr. Guildford remembers it. I do think him a man whose friendship is an honour; and it is much better that I should henceforth keep clear of anything else. I have had storms and troubles enough. Only—only—sometimes life looks very lonely now.”

But during the remainder of this so-called winter, life passed on the whole pleasantly enough. The acquaintance between the two families progressed to friendliness; then to intimacy, till there were few days when some of their members did not meet. Cicely owned to herself that the society of the brother and sister added much to the interest of her otherwise somewhat monotonous life; and Mr. Guildford, having thoroughly shaken himself free from any possibility of further self-deception, allowed himself to enjoy Miss Methvyn’s friendship without misgiving, and day by day congratulated himself more heartily on the strength of mind with which he had recognised his position and bravely made the best of it. Only Bessie, commonplace, womanly, silly little Bessie, sometimes looked on with vague uneasiness, now and then trembled a little at the thought that perchance this pleasant present might contain the elements of future suffering.

“Edmond doesn’t think he is in love with her,” she said to herself, “and he certainly gives her no reason to think he is. But he has it all his own way just now; how would it be if some rival turned up all of a sudden, would not that open his eyes? And though she has been unlucky once, it is unlikely she will never marry. I could not bear Edmond to be made miserable. If she were less high-principled and thought more of herself, I would fear less for him.”

Once or twice there occurred little incidents which increased the sister’s anxiety, and of one of these she was herself in part the cause. Little Mrs. Crichton, “stupid” as she called herself, had one gift. She possessed an unusually beautiful voice. It was powerful and of wide compass, but above all clear and sweet and true, and with a ring of youth about it which little suggested her eight-and-thirty years. She sang as if she liked to hear herself; there was no shadow of effort or study of effect discernible in the bright, blithe notes, which yet at times could be as exquisitely plaintive. Cicely, who loved music more, probably, than she understood it, soon discovered this gift of her new friend’s, and profited thereby, thanks to Bessie’s unfailing good-nature, greatly. She was never tired of Mrs. Crichton’s singing.

“I am glad you like my sister’s voice,” said Mr. Guildford one day, when Bessie had been singing away for a long time. “I like it better than any I ever heard, but then I am no judge of music.”

“Nor am I. But in singing one knows quickly what one likes,” said Cicely. “I have heard a great many voices—some wonderfully beautiful no doubt, but I never heard one I liked quite as much, or in the same way, as Mrs. Crichton’s.”

Mr. Guildford looked pleased. “Don’t leave off, Bessie,” he said, “not, at least, unless you are tired.”

“What shall I sing?” said Bessie, turning over the loose music lying before her. “Ah! here is one of your favourites, Edmond, though I don’t think it very pretty. You must judge of it, Miss Methvyn. I have not sung it lately. Edmond has got tired of it, I suppose. At one time he was so fond of it, he used to make me sing it half-a-dozen times a day.”

She placed the song on the desk, and began to sing it before her brother noticed what she was doing. When he heard the first few bars, he got up from his seat and strolled to the window, where he stood impatiently waiting for a pause. Bessie had hardly reached the end of the first verse before he interrupted her. “I am sure Miss Methvyn will not care for that song, Bessie,” he exclaimed. “Do sing something else.”

He crossed the room to the piano, beside which Cicely was standing, and opened a book of songs which lay on the top. Mrs. Crichton left off singing, but turned towards her brother with some impatience. “You are very rude, Edmond,” she exclaimed with half playful petulance. “You should not interrupt me in the middle of a song. And you are very changeable—a very few months ago you thought this song perfectly lovely. Do you like it, Miss Methvyn?” she inquired, turning to Cicely. “The words are pretty.”

“Are they?” said Cicely, “I don’t think I caught them all. Yes, I think the song is rather pretty—not exceedingly so.”

“The other verses all end in the same way,” said Bessie, humming a note or two of the air; “that is the prettiest part, ‘Cicely, Cicely sweet.’”

Cicely gave an involuntary little start, but she did not speak. Mr. Guildford turned over the leaves of the book with increasing energy. “Here, Bessie, do sing this,” he exclaimed, placing another song in front of the tabooed one on the desk.

“No, I won’t,” said Bessie obstinately, “not till I have finished Cicely. I can’t understand your being so changeable—it was such a favourite of yours.”

“One outgrows fancies of the kind,” observed Cicely quietly. “Our tastes change. I dare say it is a good thing they do.”

“Do you think so?” said Mr. Guildford quickly. “I don’t quite agree with you. My tastes do not change, and I do not wish them to do so.”

He looked at her as he spoke. Cicely felt her cheeks flush, and she turned away. Bessie went on singing. By the time the song was over, Cicely, glancing up again, saw that Mr. Guildford had quietly left the room.

“How cross Edmond is!” said Bessie, getting up from the piano pettishly. Suddenly a thought struck her. “Miss Methvyn,” she exclaimed abruptly, “your name isn’t ‘Cicely,’ is it?”

“Cicely did not immediately answer. “I never thought of it before,” Mrs. Crichton continued; “it just struck me all at once that I had heard Madame Casalis call you by some name like it, but she pronounced it funnily.”

“She very often calls me Cécile,” replied Miss Methvyn quietly. “But my name is Cicely.”

Bessie was silent. Then suddenly she turned to Cicely and laid both hands on her arm entreatingly. “Miss Methvyn,” she said, “Edmond is like a son to me. I could not bear him to be miserable. He is not a man to go through anything of that kind lightly. Forgive me for saying this.”

“There is nothing to forgive,” replied Cicely. “But I think you are mistaken. Mr. Guildford is not a boy, he is wiser than either you or I.”

Bessie hardly understood these rather enigmatical words, but she dared say no more. After that day, however, she could never find her brother’s favourite ballad again; it disappeared mysteriously.

And things went on as quietly as before. Mr. Guildford’s health seemed perfectly reestablished, and even his eyesight failed to trouble him. He gave himself a holiday for the remainder of his stay at Hivèritz, and the days passed only too pleasantly. There were all manner of simple festivities arranged to amuse their visitor, by the Casalis family in those days, and in these, Madame Gentille and her brother were invariably invited to join. There were gipsy parties to the woods, drives or rides to some of the queer picturesque out-of the-world villages, which few of the ordinary visitors to Hivèritz cared to explore; one delightful day spent up in the mountains at Monsieur Casalis’s little farm. And despite the sorrows, whose traces could never be effaced, Cicely found life a happy thing at these times and felt glad that youth had not yet deserted her. She spoke often of her mother to Mr. Guildford, and in so doing lost gradually the sense of loneliness which had so sadly preyed upon her. And she listened with all her old interest to his account of his own hopes and ambitions, of the studies and research in which he had been engaged. But whenever he was speaking of himself or his own work, a slight hesitation, a somewhat doubtful tone struck her which she could not explain. One day she learnt the reason of it.

They had gone for a long ramble in the woods—Cicely, Eudoxie, and two of the Casalis boys, and on their way through the town they fell in with Mrs. Crichton and her brother, who forthwith volunteered to accompany them. It was March by now, and quite as hot as was pleasant for walking.

“It is like English midsummer,” said Cicely, looking up half longingly into the depth of brilliant blue sky overhead, “only I don’t think the skies at home are ever quite so blue or the trees and grass quite so green. The most beautiful English summer day is like to-day with a veil over it. But I like home best.”

“I don’t think I care particularly where I am,” said Mr. Guildford, “if I have plenty to do.”

“I don’t know,” replied he. They had walked on a little in front of the others; there was no one to overhear what was said. “There will always be plenty for me to do, certainly, but whether I shall be able to do it is a different matter.”

“How do you mean?” said Cicely quickly. “Are you afraid about your eyes?”

“Yes,” he said. “I can’t bear to say it, but I don’t think I mind your knowing. I am afraid I shall never have very much use of my eyes. With care I may keep my sight, but I shall never be able to do half I should otherwise have done.”

Cicely was silent for a few moments. Then, “I am so sorry,” she said simply. But that was all, for Eudoxie came running up, begging them not to walk so fast, as Mrs. Crichton was tired.

Before April was at an end nearly all the visitors had left Hivèritz. Mr. Guildford and his sister began to talk of returning home, and the Casalis household of moving to the mountains for the summer. And one morning’s post brought letters which helped to decide the plans of the three English people. That same afternoon Mr. Guildford called at the Rue de la Croix blanche. Madame Casalis was out, but “Mademoiselle,” which had come to be Cicely’s special title in the family, was in the salon, said old Mathurine. So into the salon the visitor made his way. Cicely was writing. She looked up with a smile of welcome when she saw who it was.

“I have come to say good-bye—at least, almost good-bye,” he exclaimed. “I have letters this morning which have decided us to go home the end of this week. I shall lose a chance I have been waiting for a long time if I don’t go. And it is getting too hot here.”

“Yes,” Cicely answered. “The Casalises are going to the farm next week.”

“I think so. Indeed, I have decided to do so now. I too had letters this morning. My sister hopes to be in England some time late in the autumn. I think I shall stay here till then, and meet the Forresters at Marseilles. Then I shall be with them for some months; they will not be quite a year in England.”

Mr. Guildford listened with interest. “I wish we could spend the summer up in the mountains too,” he said. “I am not as English as you, Miss Methvyn—at least, I am very sorry to go away.”

“The winter has passed pleasantly,” said Cicely. “I am glad I came here. I am very glad to be able to look forward a little. I began to fear something might prevent Amiel’s coming.”

“May I come to see you there sometimes?” asked Mr. Guildford with a little hesitation.

“Of course,” replied Cicely cordially. “My sister will be very glad to see you too. You know,” she added, “little Charlie was her child, and she has no other children.”

“You don’t know what your address will be, of course,” said Mr. Guildford after a little pause.

“No,” said Cicely. “Amiel only says,” she went on, drawing Lady Forrester’s letter out of her pocket and reading from it,—“‘We shall take a furnished house in some good neighbourhood; but at first we can go to a hotel. Of course you will be with us, and if you can meet us at Marseilles so much the better.’” She had taken another letter out without noticing it; now her glance fell upon it. “Oh! by the bye,” she exclaimed, “you can hear of our whereabouts from Mr. Hayle. He will be sure to know my address.”

“From Mr. Hayle!” exclaimed Mr. Guildford, eyeing the English letter on her lap with suspicion.

“Yes,” said Cicely. “He writes to me often. He is settled now, you know; he has a large parish, and seems quite in his element. I told you, I think, how very, very good and kind he was when mamma was so ill.”

She spoke without hesitation, looking Mr. Guildford straight in the face as she did so. But to her extreme annoyance she felt her face colour. Something in the expression of the dark eyes observing her destroyed her composure, and the more she endeavoured to recover it, the more uncomfortable she grew. “Why does he look at me so suspiciously?” she said to herself. “But how foolish of me to mind it!” “Don’t you remember my telling you about our meeting Mr. Hayle again at Leobury?” she repeated, confusedly.

“Yes. I think I remember some little mention of it,” he replied coldly. And soon after he got up to say good-bye.

It was virtually their real good-bye; for though Mrs. Crichton ran in and out half-a-dozen times during the few remaining days of their stay at Hivèritz, she was never accompanied by her brother. He called the last evening, but most of the half-hour of his visit he spent in the pasteur’s study, only looking into the salon for five minutes on his way out, to bid a hasty farewell to madame, and to thank her for her kindness and hospitality. And he said no more to Cicely about seeing her when she returned to England.

So their paths separated again. Edmond Guildford went back to his work in crowded, busy London—Cicely went up to spend the long sweet summer days among the beautiful Pyrenees. But both often wished the winter back again.

CHAPTER X.

AMIEL TO THE FORE.

“Hero. I will do any modest office, my lord, to help her to a good husband.”

“WHO was that gentleman that bowed to you just now, Cicely? No; over there, near the door—don’t you see him?”

“I didn’t notice him. I don’t see any one that I ever saw before in my life, as far as I know,” replied the girl of whom the question was asked, glancing indifferently round. “Are you not rather tired, Amiel? Come and sit down for a little; there are some empty chairs.”

“I’m not tired. I think you get tired more quickly than I. But it will be nice to sit down, I dare say. I am rather tired of the pictures. Let us look at the people a little instead. That is always amusing, particularly in a small room like this, where one can keep the same groups in sight. There, Cicely, look now, there he is again, over in the corner beside that horrible martyr picture. Quick, or you will lose sight of him. He is a handsome man, whoever he is. He is turning our way.”

“The man who bowed to you just now, I want to know who he is. He must be a friend of yours; he keeps giving little glances to see if it’s any use for him to bow again. Now, Cicely, you must see him.”

Cicely looked up. This time she at once caught sight of the person her sister had been so perseveringly pointing out to her. A rather tall, dark man—handsome, Amiel had called him; he was standing but a few yards away from where they were sitting, apparently engrossed in the picture before him. But as Cicely watched him, he again glanced in their direction; in another moment he had returned Cicely’s bow and had crossed the room towards the sisters.

“Amiel, you must let me introduce Mr. Guildford to you,” said Miss Methvyn. Lady Forrester bowed and smiled, but from the expression of her face Cicely saw that she had either not heard the name correctly, or had failed to associate it with any one of whom she had any previous knowledge.

“Do you admire that horrible picture you have been looking at so long?” she said brightly, imagining that she was only addressing some ordinary acquaintance of her sister’s, and that a little small-talk was desirable, little dreaming that this meeting, this chance, matter-of-fact coming across each other in a London picture gallery, was to the two beside her a crisis in life, an unacknowledged goal, to which, for ten long months, each had been secretly and with ever-increasing anxiety looking forward. Mr. Guildford smiled as he replied—to some extent he understood the position, Cicely’s forte had never been small-talk, and her sister was evidently in the habit of taking the lead on such occasions—“No,” he said, “I certainly don’t admire it. But I don’t think it is ‘horrible;’ it is too unnatural to be anything worse than annoying. Anatomically speaking, it is an impossible figure.”

“Oh! you mean the twist in the right arm,” said Lady Forrester. “Yes, that was pointed out to me. But I never look at pictures critically as my sister does. I only think if they are pretty or ugly.”

Mr. Guildford smiled again. But it was a smile concealing an intense anxiety. Why would not Cicely speak? She stood there beside her sister, calm and quiet as ever, unruffled apparently in the slightest degree by this sudden meeting, which had set his heart beating and his pulses throbbing almost beyond his power to conceal. No, there was not, there never could be, any hope for him, such as, during these weary months, he had now and then wildly dreamt of. It was a cruel fate surely which thus tantalised him. He answered Lady Forrester’s remarks in her own strain, smiled, and looked interested in the right place, so that Amiel mentally pronounced him an agree able man, and wondered again who he was and where her sister had met him. But ever and anon he glanced at Cicely. She seemed to him to have gained in beauty since he last saw her; there was a mixture of bright colour in her dress now, she looked well and untroubled. “I suppose she is quite happy now that she has got her sister again,” he thought. “Well, I should be glad of it; she was very friendless.”

But somehow he felt further away from her than he had ever done before—further away even than on that miserable day when the news of her engagement to her cousin had revealed to him his own feelings towards her and had broken down his self-control. He felt now as if she could never again have need of him, as if their paths must henceforth utterly diverge. “Evidently these Forresters are rich and fashionable,” he thought, with an unreasonable impulse of irritation at poor Amiel’s pretty dress and general air of breeding and prosperity. “No doubt, Lady Forrester is ambitious and has her own ideas about her sister’s future. I hate fashionable people;” little suspecting that as these reflections were crossing his brain, the subject of his animadversions was saying to herself, “I wonder who he is. He is very good-looking, and clever I should think. Ever so much more like other people than some of Cicely’s friends—that odd-looking little Mr. Hayle, for instance.”

But when, in a few minutes, Lady Forrester’s small-talk gave signs of coming to an end, Mr. Guildford turned to go. He had already bowed to the sisters without shaking hands with either, and was just moving away, when almost as if involuntarily, Miss Methvyn uttered his name. “Mr. Guildford,” she said, with a half appeal in her tone which puzzled him, “will you not come to see us as you promised? I am sure Amy will be pleased if you will.”

She turned to her sister. Lady Forrester looked surprised, but replied smilingly, without hesitation and with only so very slight a touch of constraint in her voice that Cicely trusted Mr. Guildford would not detect its presence—“Certainly, Sir Herbert and I are always pleased to see any friend of my sister’s. I hope you will come to see us.”

Mr. Guildford bowed. “You are very kind,” he said, “but,” with a glance at Cicely, “as Miss Methvyn knows, I am not an idle man; I have very little time for paying calls.—I am only one of her numerous acquaintances, I see,” he thought bitterly. “Lady Forrester has never even heard my name, it appears.” But at that instant he caught sight of Cicely, a quick flush of shame, of disappointment, or wounded feeling, which, he could not tell had spread over her face; a contraction of pain—how well he remembered that look!—had ruffled the fair forehead; he could almost have imagined that there were tears in the blue eyes—he was softened in a moment. “I don’t think I know your address,” he said, turning again to Lady Forrester.

“It is 31, Upper L—— Place,” she replied amiably. “I have one of my husband’s cards in my pocket-book I think; I can add the address in pencil if you like.”

“No thank you; I am quite sure I shall not forget it,” and again he lifted his hat in farewell and left the sisters alone.

“Amy,” exclaimed Cicely, as soon as he was out of hearing, “Amy, why were you not more cordial in your manner to him about coming to see us? I am sure he thought you did not want him to come.”

The reproach in her tone surprised Lady Forrester. She looked at Cicely with bewilderment in her bright brown eyes. “Not cordial,” she exclaimed, “I thought I was quite as cordial as there was any need to be. In fact, I did not quite understand what you said about his coming to see us; he is some friend of Trevor’s, I suppose? You forget I don’t know all the friends you have made since I was married, and Herbert is very particular.”

“Herbert will never require to be ‘particular’ about any one I introduce to you,” said Cicely with momentary haughtiness. “But Amy,” she went on, more gently, “you cannot have such a short memory. You haven’t forgotten all I told you about Mr. Guildford; don’t you remember he was the doctor at Sothernbay, who—”

“The doctor who was with my little darling when he died,” exclaimed Amiel. “Oh! Cicely, forgive me. Oh! how stupid I am—how horribly heartless and ungrateful I must have seemed!” the tears rushed into her eyes. “Oh! I wish I could call him back, Cicely, and tell him I hadn’t the least idea who he was!”

“But I have so often told you his name, Amy dear,” said Cicely, compassionating her distress, yet still a little vexed with her. “And couldn’t you have understood by my manner that there was some reason for asking him to come to see us? I don’t ask gentlemen to your house.”

“No, not except Mr. Hayle. Mr. Hayle called and you yourself asked him to come again, because you knew how much mamma liked him. But, oh, how silly of us to get cross about it! Forgive me, Amy, only I wish you had seen that I had a reason for what I did.”

“So do I!” said Lady Forrester penitently. “But you see, dear, I was no more thinking of the Sothernbay doctor at that moment than of the man in the moon. You never in the least described him to me, remember. And this man doesn’t look like a doctor.”

“He is not exactly a doctor now,” said Cicely. “I never thought of him as only a doctor. He was clever in other directions too.”

“Well, he will call in a few days, at least I hope so,” said Amiel, getting up her spirits again, and to do her justice, it was not often she let them go down,—“and then you will see how nice I shall be to him. Has he a wife, by the bye?” she added quickly.

“No,” replied Cicely. They were out in the street by this time, walking briskly homewards. Was it the keen, fresh air—it was a frosty day—which had given the girl’s cheeks the sudden glow which her sister observed, as she answered the question? Amiel, like Mrs. Crichton, though in a general way the most outspoken of human beings, sometimes had her own thoughts about things. “I wonder if Mr. Guildford will call,” she said to herself.

But some days passed without his doing so, and Amiel was beginning to think that either she had been mistaken in imagining her sister’s manner to have been different from usual on the day of the unexpected meeting in the picture-room, or that there was some stronger reason for Mr. Guildford’s staying away than she had then suspected, when, by one of those curious little social coincidences on which hang apparently so many of the great events of life, she met him again at the house of a friend of Sir Herbert’s where they were dining.

Cicely was not with them. The guests were few in number, consisting principally of men of position and mark in science or literature, for the host and hostess were what Lady Forrester described as “horribly clever people,” and their house was a favourite resort of many of the sociably inclined lions of the day.

“I used to hate that kind of dinner-party when we were first married,” she confessed to her sister while dressing for the entertainment. “I used to be always imagining to myself what a little fool they must all think me, and how they must wonder what a grave, middle-aged ‘diplomate’ like dear old Herbert could have seen in me to make him want to marry me. But I’ve quite got over all that now. Not that they don’t think me a little fool, I am quite sure they do, but I am beginning to suspect that very clever people find it rather refreshing sometimes to come across some one utterly unlike themselves and who isn’t the least overawed by all their learning. I am very happy indeed in my profound ignorance—I don’t even offend by possessing a little knowledge. Only now and then I come across some one I really can’t get to talk. Do you remember that terrible Dr. Furnival, the man who could talk twenty living languages, but was never known to make an observation in his own? He was hopeless, and he was always taking me in to dinner at one time! I wonder whom I shall be consigned to to-night.”

“You must tell me all about it to-morrow,” said Cicely. “I am going to bed early. I am rather tired.”

“I don’t think you are looking well,” said Amiel, anxiously. “And you so often say you are tired. Cicely dearest,” she added fondly, “is anything troubling you? Some times lately I have fancied—” she hesitated.

“What?” asked Cicely, smiling. But her smile seemed to Amiel to have strangely little brightness in it. “What have you fancied, Amy?”

“Yes, but the look I mean doesn’t come from those. It is an uncertain, wistful look, as if you were trying to be satisfied about something and couldn’t. I don’t want you to tell me, dear, if you don’t like, but if—if I could help you or be any good to you, you would tell me, wouldn’t you?”

Cicely kissed her. “Yes, I would,” she said. “But don’t trouble about me, Amy. You have made yourself look quite anxious, and I was just thinking how bright and pretty you were to-night,” she added regretfully.

“I shall look ‘bright and pretty’ again in a minute,” said Lady Forrester insinuatingly, “if—if—Cicely don’t be angry with me—if you’ll satisfy me about one thing.”

“Whatever is it that is troubling you has nothing to do with Trevor Fawcett, has it?” asked Amiel boldly. “It is not that you are looking back to all that, is it?”

Cicely’s face cleared. “No,” she said unhesitatingly, “it has nothing to do with that.”

“I am glad to hear it,” said Amiel. “You know I never thought him good enough for you, Cicely. That wife of his is welcome to him as far as you are concerned, in my opinion, though I must say—”

“Please don’t say it, Amy,” interrupted Cicely. “I don’t like even you to say bitter things about them. Why should you? You see how completely I have outgrown it. I can’t bear you to be unforgiving to Trevor, poor Trevor. I wish he had been our brother, Amy!”

“I will forgive him—utterly,” said Amiel. “I promise you I will, whenever, or if ever, I see you as happy as I am; and that, he would never have made you. You would have been so tired of him—as tired of him as Herbert ought to have been of me long ago!”

And so saying she gathered together her velvet draperies, and held up her face—she was not quite as tall as her sister—for a parting kiss. Cicely spent the evening quietly by herself—she had disappeared for the night before the Forresters’ return. It was not till the next morning at breakfast that she heard anything about the dinner-party.

“How did you get on last night?” she asked her sister. “Did Dr. Furnival take you in to dinner?”

“No, my dear, he did not,” said Amiel importantly. “Would you like to know who had the honour of doing so?”

“Lord H—himself, perhaps,” said Cicely. “There were not many people there, were there?”

“No, very few,” replied Lady Forrester. “Only two other ladies, but they were both far bigger people than I, so I was not the prima donna, as Mrs. Malaprop or Mrs. Gamp or somebody says. Who do you think was my fate for the evening?”

Amy’s eyes sparkled. “Can’t you really?” she exclaimed. “Well, then, I’ll tell you. It was the gentleman we have been staying at home to see for nearly a week. I told him so,” she added maliciously.

“Yes, my dear, Mr. Guildford. And I made myself very nice to him. Didn’t I, Herbert?”

“It looked like it certainly,” said Sir Herbert, from behind his newspaper. He was a grave, somewhat matter-of-fact man as a rule, but Cicely, who sat next him, fancied that she discerned a twinkle of amusement in his eyes, as he answered Amiel’s appeal.

“Yes,” she repeated, “I made myself very nice to him. He is coming to call, and he was very sorry—really distressed—at our having stayed in for him so many days.”

“Amy,” exclaimed Cicely, in a tone of genuine vexation, “you didn’t really say that?”

“Of course not, you silly child, I am only teasing you,” replied Amy, at the same time, however, throwing unperceived by her sister a triumphant glance across the table at her husband. “Seriously, Cicely, I like him very much, and he is coming to see us some day soon. I had no idea he was a man of such position and note as he is. Herbert tells me he is considered one of the most rising men of the day—among scientific people I mean.”

“Yes,” said Sir Herbert, “he is a very clever and original man. He is now known to have been the author of a series of papers in the ‘Six-weekly,’ which made quite a sensation a few months ago. Your Sothernbay doctor has awakened to find himself famous, Cicely.”

“I did not know it,” she replied simply. “I knew he was clever and very hard-working, but I did not know he had already reached any recognised position.”

“The meeting him at the H.’s shows what he is in itself,” said Sir Herbert. Then he returned to his paper, and no more was said about Mr. Guildford.

But a good deal was thought about him. Amiel’s head was full of him, and the discovery which she believed she had made.

“Herbert,” she had said to her husband the instant they were alone in the carriage on their way home the evening before, “Herbert, I know now what is the matter with Cicely. I know why she has grown so silent, and as if she could not feel interested in anything. She does care for him, and she thinks he doesn’t care for her.”

“My dear child, what are you talking about?” exclaimed poor Sir Herbert. “Cicely does care for whom?”

“For Mr. Guildford. I told you we met him when we went to see those pictures the other day. I suspected it then; I am sure of it now. I mean I am sure now that he cares for her too.”

“Surely you are jumping to a conclusion in an extraordinary way, my dear. What can she know of Mr. Guildford? Where have they ever met? And the last thing you told me—only last night I believe it was, you were quite angry because I ventured to express a doubt about it—was that Cicely was breaking her heart for that cousin of hers, Fawcett, I mean, the man who behaved so strangely to her,” said Sir Herbert.

“But that was all a mistake. She has told me it isn’t that,” exclaimed Amiel eagerly. “And, Herbert, you don’t understand. Mr. Guildford was the doctor at Sothernbay.”

She went on to explain his identity with the man, of whom during the first part of their residence in India, there had been frequent mention in home letters. Sir Herbert began to understand things.

“I never dreamt of his being the same Guildford,” he said. “But Amy, my dear, you had better take care what you are about.”

“You don’t mind my asking him to come to see us?” she said. “And supposing what I think should be the case, Herbert, what then?”

“A bad marriage? In a worldly sense, you mean, I suppose? No, I don’t know that it would. Of course had her position remained what it was, she might have done better. But as things are—no, there would be nothing to object to. And personally I know he is a very estimable man. The H.’s think very highly of him.”

Amiel breathed more freely. She was conscious that she had, as she expressed it, “made herself very nice to Mr. Guildford.” In her dexterous, woman’s way she had succeeded in eliciting from him far more particulars of his acquaintance with her sister than she had before been in possession of, and putting one thing with another, a favourite occupation of hers, she had arrived at her own conclusions. And with even more tact, she had managed to infuse into her companion’s heart, a feeling that hitherto he had never ventured to encourage. She had given him to understand that, in her opinion, he might hope.

And then, being on the whole a sensible as well as a quick-witted and impulsive woman, she had grown a little frightened at what she had done.

CHAPTER XI.

FRIEND AND WIFE.

CICELY was but half satisfied by Amiel’s assurance that she “was only teasing her,” and very much inclined to arrange shopping expeditions—a bait she had generally found irresistible—for some days to come, at the hour when their visitor was to be expected. But “for to-day, I need not ask her to alter her plans,” she said to herself. “He will certainly not call to-day.” So when Amiel said that she had letters to write and could not go out, Cicely made no objection, and the sisters spent the afternoon in the house.

It was growing dusk when Sir Herbert’s voice was heard coming upstairs. “I have brought you a visitor, Amy,” he exclaimed, as he opened the drawing-room door.

“How do you do, Mr. Guildford?” said Lady Forrester, calmly shaking hands with her guest. Then Cicely found herself calmly shaking hands with him too, and in another five minutes it seemed to her quite natural to see him sitting there among them, while Amiel poured out tea, and the room looked bright and homelike in the firelight.

He stayed about an hour, and when he left he had promised to dine with them the next day; and when Cicely woke the next morning, she fancied the sun was shining more brightly than was usual through London windows!

The evening passed pleasantly. Cicely liked to listen to Mr. Guildford and her brother-in-law; she liked to realise the high estimation in which each evidently held the other; she herself felt satisfied to sit in silence, without analysing her content.

“I wish Mrs. Crichton were here to sing to us,” she said towards the end of the evening to Bessie’s brother.

“Yes,” he answered, but somewhat absently. Then he went on hastily. “Miss Methvyn,” he said, “I want to ask you a favour. Will you copy out another manuscript for me. It is not a long one.”

“Certainly I will,” she replied cordially. “Send it to me whenever you like.”

“I have never got any professional copier to do them as well as you did that one at Hivèritz. And,” he continued, “I cannot manage them myself.”

He hesitated. Cicely looked up quickly. “Do you mean,” she said, “that your eyes are not any better?”

He bent his head. “Yes,” he replied, “that is what I meant to tell you. I wanted you to know.”

A little shiver ran through Cicely; she was sitting by the piano: they were out of hearing of Sir Herbert and Amiel, engrossed with cribbage, in the other drawing-room; for an instant she turned her head away; when she looked up again there were tears in her eyes,—was it the sight of them that lighted up with a strange new light the dark ones so earnestly regarding her?

“Do you mean,” she said tremulously, “that you are growing blind? Is that what you want me to know—did you mean to—to break it by asking me to copy the manuscript for you?”

He smiled—a smile so brightly happy, so full of sunshine that Cicely felt bewildered.

“Do you mean,” he whispered, “that if it were so, you would care so much? Do you—can you care so much for anything that might happen to me?”

One of Cicely’s hands was lying on the keys. Edmond covered it with his own. She did not withdraw it—but she did not speak; only, one of the tears’ dropped quietly on to the hand that held hers. It seemed to give him courage to say more.

“Cicely,” he said softly, “will you not answer me? Is it possible you care for me so?”

Cicely looked up. “I care so much—I care for you so much that—is it horribly selfish of me?—forgive me—I could hardly regret your being blind, if—if I might be eyes to you. Oh! you know what I mean,” she went on. “Life would be worth having to me if I could use it in helping you.”

He looked at her with a whole world of feeling beyond expression in his eyes. “I can hardly believe it,” he whispered, as if to himself. “What have I done to deserve it? Cicely, are you sure you are not mistaken? Is it love, not pity—are you sure?”

“I never really knew what love meant till I learnt to love you,” she said softly.

He kissed away the tears still trembling on her eyelids, he whispered the sweet, fond foolish words that will never seem worn-out or hackneyed while time and youth last in this old world of ours, though never will they express the hundredth part of a true man’s love for a noble woman. And then he told her what by this time he had almost forgotten all about, the worst to be feared for him was hardly so bad as she had imagined; his sight was by no means irrevocably doomed, it might be yet spared to him, with care and attention there was good reason for hoping it would be so. “For now,” he said, “I shall value it doubly.”

Sir Herbert had fallen asleep by the fire long ago. Amiel had disappeared; there was nothing to interrupt the many questions these two were now eager to ask and answer.

“Why were you so cold to me the other day, when we met in the picture-room?” he said.

“What was I to think?” she answered. “Why had you never come to see us?”

He tried to evade a reply, but she persisted. Then at last he confessed to his foolish jealousy of Mr. Hayle. “I had no reason to think you cared for me in the least, remember,” he said. “All that time at Hivèritz, your manner was more discouraging than any coldness. You were so dreadfully friendly and unconstrained.”

“Yes,” he said, “but I was deceiving myself. I thought I was satisfied with what I believed to be all you could give me—your friendship. Then my eyes were opened, and since then—oh! what a dreary mockery everything has seemed all this time!”

“Yes,” she whispered, “I know. I thought it was only I that felt it so. I thought you had quite forgotten, or outgrown any other feeling—that you were glad to be able to keep to your theory of not letting love gain much hold of you, and I tried to think I was satisfied too.”

“Ah, yes! My theories,” he said, with a smile. “I thought I could keep Love in its place. It never struck me that Love may be a master, not in the sense of a tyrant, but of a teacher. But I shall be an apt pupil now. Cicely, I love you with heart and soul, and mind and conscience approve. It is the best of me that loves you, my darling—I understand now how such love can be called divine, and I feel that it must be immortal.”

He was silent for a moment. Then he said, as if thinking aloud. “Yes, I understand it now:

“‘Sole spark from God’s life at strife,
With death, so, sure of range above
The limits here.’

“Do you know,” he went on, do you know that it is just three years—three years this very evening—since I first saw you, Cicely?”

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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Cicely

CICELY.

CONTENTS.

WIDOW LAFON’S SOUP.

MR. GUILDFORD OF SOTHERNBAY.

“LITTLE MASTER.”

A SECOND SUMMONS.

“COME INTO THE GARDEN, MAUD.”

“LE JEUNE MILORD.”

SOME ARE WISE, SOME OTHERWISE.

“THE WITCHCRAFT OF A TEAR.”

OF THE SAME OPINION STILL.

WORK AND PLAY.

SHADOWS BEFORE.

BY THE OLD WATER-MILL.

MAN AND WOMAN.

ONE OF MANY.

LES PAPILLONS.

FAILING MISS WINTER.

SOME SUMMER DAYS.

A CHANGE IN THE WEATHER.

FORGIVE ME, AND GOOD-BYE.

DÉSILLUSIONNÉE.

AFTER THE BALL.

THE NEWS THAT FLIES FAST.

“TO MY AIN COUNTREE.”

“HOW LITTLE YOU UNDERSTAND.”

A NEW TERROR.

ALONE.

MADAME GENTILLE.

A SOUTHERN WINTER.

AMIEL TO THE FORE.

FRIEND AND WIFE.

THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE