despair. Mr Cavendish looked her in the face with the composure of
desperation, though she did not know that. All that he was able to think
of was how to get rid of her soonest, and to be able to continue his
way. "Yes, I am going to see Miss Marjoribanks," he said, with a face
which extremity rendered stolid and impassible. As for poor Barbara, her
colour changed in a moment. The very least that she had a right to
expect was that he should have asked her pardon, put himself at her
feet; and her mingled spite and humiliation and mortification at this
response were beyond telling. Her cheeks blazed with sudden rage, her
passion was so furious that she actually did what he wanted and stood
out of his way, and made him an imperious sign to pass on and leave her.
But even then she did not expect to be taken at her word. When Mr
Cavendish took off his hat in that heartless way and passed on, Barbara
stood aghast, not able to believe her senses. Had he really passed and
left her, she who had done so much for him? Had he actually gone over to
her adversary before her very eyes? She stood stock-still when he left
her, gazing after him, blazing with rage and despite, and scarcely able
to keep herself from shrieking out the torrent of reproaches and
vituperations that were in her mind. She made no attempt whatever to
hide her wrath or jealous curiosity from any eyes that might be there to
see; but to be sure she had, as her sister said, no proper pride. If Mr
Cavendish had carried out his intentions, the chances are that Barbara,
driven desperate, would have rushed after him, and found some means of
breaking in upon his interview with Lucilla; but after all this
badgering, he had not the courage to carry out his intentions. He looked
down the long sunshiny line of Grange Lane with a sickening sense that
any of these doors might open at any moment, and his fate rush out upon
him. There was not a soul to be seen, but that only made it all the more
likely to poor Mr Cavendish's distempered fancy that somebody was
coming. He had not even a single thought at leisure to give to Barbara,
and never asked himself whether or not she was standing watching him.
All his senses and faculties were engaged forecasting what might happen
to him before he could reach Dr Marjoribanks's house. He was approaching
it from the lower end of Grange Lane, and consequently had everything to
risk; and when Mr Centum's door opened, and all the nurses and all the
children poured out, the unfortunate man felt his heart jump, and drop
again, if possible, lower than ever. It was this that drove him, instead
of going on to Lucilla, to take refuge in his sister's house, where the
door happened to be open. He rushed in there, and took breath, and was
safe for the instant. But Barbara, for her part, watching him, divined
none of Mr Cavendish's reasons. Her heart too gave a jump, and her wrath
cooled down miraculously. No doubt it was a little impatience at being
questioned which had made him answer as he did. He had not gone to
Lucilla--he had not deserted her standard, who had always met him
half-way, and done so much for him. Barbara calmed down as she saw him
enter at Mrs Woodburn's door. After having thus witnessed his safe exit,
she felt at liberty to go back and return to her own affairs, and
prepare her toilette for the evening; for it moved her very little less
than Mr Cavendish to know that it was Thursday, and that there was no
telling what might happen that night.

As for the hero of all this commotion, he went and buried himself in Mrs
Woodburn's back drawing-room, and threw himself on the sofa in the dark
corner, and wiped his forehead like the Archdeacon. It was not his fault
if events had overwhelmed him. If he had not met in succession Dr
Marjoribanks and Mrs Chiley and Barbara, he would have gone right to
Lucilla without stopping to question himself further--but he could not
bear all this accumulation. Panic had seized upon him, and this panic
wrought more effectually than all argument. It was so terrible to live
under such a shadow, that he felt it must be put an end to. If only he
were left at rest for this moment, he felt that he could make up his
mind to take the perilous leap at night, and dare everything. "It can't
be worse than ruin," he said to himself, and tried not to think that
for his sister it might be something even worse than ruin. But the first
thing of all was to get a little rest in the meantime, and hide himself,
and forget the nightmare that was seated on his shoulders. When Mrs
Woodburn came to him in haste, and saw his careful dress and pale looks,
she was frightened for the moment. She thought it possible for one
second that despair had driven him out of his wits, and that there might
be, for anything she could tell, a little bottle of prussic acid in his
waistcoat pocket. That was her first idea, and her second was that he
was going to carry out at last his most wise and laudable resolution of
proposing to Miss Marjoribanks, and that it was this--naturally a
serious and hazardous enterprise--which made him look so pale.

"Harry, if you are going to Lucilla----!" said Mrs Woodburn; "wait and
rest yourself a little, and I will get you a glass of wine. Keep still;
there's some Tokay," said the anxious sister. "Don't you go and worry
yourself. You shall see nobody. I'll bring it you with my own hand."

"Oh, confound the Tokay!" said Mr Cavendish. "I know what Woodburn's
Tokay is--if that mattered. Look here, I want to speak to you. I _was_
going to Lucilla, but I'm not up to it. Oh, not in the way you think!
Don't be a fool like everybody. I tell you she wouldn't have me, and I
won't ask her. Read this, which is much more to the purpose," Mr
Cavendish added, taking out Miss Marjoribanks's letter. He watched her,
while she read it, with that sense of contempt and superiority which a
man naturally feels who has advanced much beyond the point in any
special matter at which his interlocutor is still stationary. He even
smiled at her cry of horror and amazement, and found the agitation she
showed ridiculous. "Don't make a row about it," he said, regaining his
colour as his sister lost hers. "It's all right. I can't ask Lucilla
Marjoribanks to have me after that, but I mean to put my trust in her,
as she says. I was going to ask her to explain; but after all, on
thinking of it, I don't see the good of explanations," said Mr
Cavendish, with lofty tranquillity. "The fact is, she is right, Nelly,
and, stand or fall, we'll have it out to-night."

But Mrs Woodburn was scarcely in a condition to reply, much less to give
any advice. "Oh, good heavens! what does she know?" cried the trembling
woman. "What do you suppose she can know? She gave me a dreadful
fright, coming and asking about you and your name. And then she never
was a great friend of mine--and if she should say anything to Woodburn!
Oh, Harry, go away, go away, and don't face her. You know you slighted
her, and she is laying a snare for us. Oh, Harry, go away! She can't do
you much harm, but she could ruin me, and any little peace I have!
Woodburn would never--never forgive--he would be frantic, you know. It
has always been he that made a fuss about the Cavendishes--and, good
heavens! to be in a girl's power, and she one that you have slighted,
Harry! Oh, for Heaven's sake, for pity's sake, if you care anything for
me----"

"Hold your tongue, Nelly," said Mr Cavendish. "Don't make a row. What on
earth is the use of Heaven's-saking? I tell you I am going to make an
end of it. If I were to run away now, it would turn up again at some
other corner, and some other moment. Give me a pen and a bit of paper. I
will write a note, and say I am coming. I don't want any explanations.
If it's all a mistake, so much the better; but I'm going to face it out
to-night."

It was some time before Mrs Woodburn recovered her senses; but in the
meantime her brother wrote Lucilla his note, and in sight of his
sister's agitation felt himself perfectly composed and serene and
manful. It even made him complaisant to feel the difference that there
was, when the emergency really arrived at last, between his own manly
calm and her womanish panic. But then it was for herself that she was
afraid, lest her husband should find out that she was not one of the
Cavendishes. "You must have been giving yourself airs on the subject,"
Mr Cavendish said, as he fastened up his note. "I never was so foolish
as that, for my part;" and naturally the more he admired his own
steadiness and courage, the steadier and more courageous he grew--or at
least so he felt for the moment, with her terror before his eyes.

"If you do go," said Mrs Woodburn at last, "oh, Harry, for goodness'
sake, mind that you deny _everything_. If you confess to anything, it
will all be proved against you; don't allow a single thing that's said
to you. It is a mistaken identity, you know--that is what it is; there
was a case in the papers just the other day. Oh, Harry, for Heaven's
sake don't be weak!--deny everything; you don't know anything about
it--you don't know what they mean--you can't understand----"

"It is I that have to do it, Nelly," said Mr Cavendish, more and more
tranquil and superior. "You must let me do it my way;" and he was very
kind and reassuring to her in his composure. This was how things ought
to be; and it was astonishing how much he gained in his own mind and
estimation by Mrs Woodburn's panic. Being the stronger vessel, he was of
course superior to all that. But somehow when he had got back to his own
house again, and had no longer the spectacle of his sister's terror
before him, the courage began to ooze out of Mr Cavendish's
finger-points; he tried hard to stimulate himself up to the same point,
and to regain that lofty and assured position; but as the evening
approached, matters grew rather worse than better. He did not turn and
flee, because flight, in the present alarmed and touchy state of public
opinion, would have equally been destruction; and nobody could answer
for it how far, if he failed to obey her, Miss Marjoribanks's discretion
might go. And thus the eventful evening fell, and the sun went down,
which was to Mr Cavendish as if it might be the last sun he should ever
(metaphorically) see--while, in the meantime, all the other people
dressed for dinner as if nothing was going to happen, and as if it was
merely a Thursday like other Thursdays, which was coming to Grange
Lane.

_Chapter XXXI_

Lucilla waited till twelve o'clock, as she had said, for Mr Cavendish's
visit; and so mingled are human sentiments, even in the mind of a person
of genius, that there is no doubt she was at once a little disappointed,
and that Mr Cavendish gained largely in her estimation by not coming.
Her pity began to be mingled by a certain respect, of which, to tell the
truth, he was not worthy; but then Miss Marjoribanks did not know that
it was circumstances, and not self-regard, or any sense of dignity, that
had kept him back. With the truest consideration, it was in the
dining-room that Lucilla had placed herself to await his visit; for she
had made up her mind that he should not be disturbed _this time_ by any
untimely morning caller. But as she sat at the window and looked out
upon the garden, and was tantalised by fifty successive ringings of the
bell, none of which heralded her expected visitor, a gentler sentiment
gradually grew in Lucilla's mind. Perhaps it would not be just to call
it positively regret; but yet she could not help a kind of impression
that if the Archdeacon had never come to Carlingford, and if Mr
Cavendish had never been so weak as to be drawn aside by Barbara Lake,
and if everything had gone as might have been expected from first
appearances--that, on the whole, it might have been well. After all, he
had a great many good qualities. He had yielded to panic for the moment,
but (so far as Lucilla knew) he was now girding up his loins to meet the
emergency in a creditable way; and if, as has been just said, nothing
had come in the way--if there had been no Archdeacon, no Mrs Mortimer,
no Barbara--if Mr Chiltern had died, as was to have been expected, and
Mr Cavendish been elected for Carlingford--then Lucilla could not help a
momentary sense that the arrangement altogether might have been a not
undesirable one. Now, of course, all that was at an end. By dexterous
management the crisis might be tided over, and the worst avoided; but
Lucilla became regretfully conscious that now no fate higher than
Barbara was possible for the unfortunate man who might once, and with
hope, have aspired to herself. It was very sad, but there was no help
for it. A certain tenderness of compassion entered Miss Marjoribanks's
bosom as she realised this change. It would be hard if a woman did not
pity a man thus shut out by hard fate from any possibility of ever
becoming the companion of her existence--a man who, on the whole, had
many capabilities, yet whose highest fortune in life could not mount
above Barbara Lake!

This thought filled Lucilla's heart with gentle regret. It was sad, but
it was inevitable; and when Mr Cavendish's note was brought to her, in
which he said simply, and very briefly, that though not sure whether he
understood the meaning of her letter, he should certainly do himself the
pleasure of accepting as usual her kind invitation, Miss Marjoribanks's
regret grew more and more profound. Such a man, who had been capable of
appreciating herself, to think that, having known her, he should decline
upon Barbara! The pity was entirely disinterested, for nobody knew
better than Lucilla that, under the circumstances, no other arrangement
was possible. He might marry the drawing-master's daughter, but Miss
Marjoribanks was too well aware of her duty to her friends, and to her
position in society, to have given her consent to his marriage with
anybody's daughter in Grange Lane. But still it was a pity--nobody could
say that it was not a pity--a man so visibly capable of better things.

Lucilla, however, could not afford to waste her morning in unprofitable
regrets. An evening so critical and conclusive had to be provided for in
many different ways. Among other things, she had to invite, or rather
command, the presence of a guest whom, to tell the truth, she had no
particular desire to see. The Archdeacon was only a man when all was
said, and might change his mind like other men; and to bring Mrs
Mortimer to Grange Lane in the evening, looking interesting, as, to be
sure, she could look by times, after that unpleasant exhibition of Dr
Marjoribanks's feelings, was naturally a trial to Lucilla. Mr Beverley
had drawn back once before, and that when Mrs Mortimer was young, and no
doubt a great deal more attractive than at present; and now that she was
a widow, forlorn and faded, it would be no wonder if he were to draw
back, especially, as Lucilla acknowledged to herself, when he saw the
ancient object of his affections in her own society, and among all the
fresh young faces of Grange Lane: and if the Archdeacon should draw
back, and leave the field open, and perhaps the Doctor, who ought to
know better, should step in--when she had got so far, Lucilla rose up
and shook out her draperies, as if by way of shaking off the
disagreeable idea. "At all events I have to do my duty," she said to
herself. And thus it was with that last and most exquisite refinement of
well-doing, the thought that she might possibly be going to harm herself
in benefiting others, that Miss Marjoribanks heroically put on her hat,
and issued forth in the dinner-hour of the little pupils, to invite her
last and most important guest.

This period of suspense had not been by any means a happy or comfortable
period for Mrs Mortimer. The poor widow was living in a constant
expectation of something happening, whereas her only true policy was to
have made up her mind that nothing would ever happen, and shaped herself
accordingly to her life. Instead of eating her dinner as she ought to
have done at that hour of leisure, and fortifying herself for the weary
afternoon's work, she was sitting as usual at the window when Miss
Marjoribanks came to the door. And if it was a tedious business looking
out of the window when the rain was drenching the four walls of the
garden and breaking down the flowers, and reducing all the poor little
shrubs to abject misery, it could not be said to be much more cheerful
in the sunshine, when pleasant sounds came in over that
enclosure--voices and footsteps of people who might be called alive,
while this solitary woman was buried, and had nothing to do with life.
Such a fate may be accepted when people make up their minds to it; but
when, so far from making up one's mind, one fixes one's thoughts upon
the life outside, and fancies that every moment the call may come, and
one may find one's place again in the active world, the tedium grows
more and more insupportable. As for Lucilla, naturally she could not see
any reason why Mrs Mortimer should sit at the window--why she could not
content herself, and eat her dinner instead.

"There are a great many people in Carlingford who have not nearly such a
pleasant lookout," Lucilla said; "for my part, I think it is a very
pretty garden. The wistaria has grown quite nice, and there is a little
of everything," said Miss Marjoribanks; and, so far as that went, she
was no doubt the best judge, having done it all herself.

"Oh, yes, it is very pretty; and I am sure I am very grateful to
Providence for giving me such a home," said the widow; but she sighed,
poor soul, as she said it: for, to tell the truth, though she was not
so young as she once was, it takes some people a long time to find out
that they themselves are growing old, and have done with life. And then
outside, in that existence which she could hear but could not see, there
was one figure which was wonderfully interesting to poor Mrs Mortimer;
which is a complication which has a remarkable effect on the question of
content or discontent.

"You ought to take a walk every day," said Miss Marjoribanks, "that is
what is the matter with you; but, in the meantime, there is something
else I want you to do. This is Thursday, you know, and I have always
some people on Thursday. It is not a party--it is only an Evening--and
no dress to speak of. Your black silk will look quite nice, and be all
that is necessary. Black is very becoming to some people," said Lucilla
reflectively. She looked at Mrs Mortimer with her head a little on one
side, and saw in a moment, with the rapid glance of genius, just what
she wanted. "And some lace for your head," Miss Marjoribanks added. "I
don't think you have gone off at all, and I am sure you will look very
nice. It is at nine o'clock."

"This evening, Lucilla!" said Mrs Mortimer, faintly: "but you know I
never go out--I am not fit for society. Oh, don't ask me, please! Since
poor Edward died----'

"Yes," said Lucilla, "it must have been a great loss, I am sure; though
I can't say I mind going into a room alone, as some people do; but you
know you can avoid that, if you like, by coming early. Come at eight,
and there will be nobody in the drawing-room, and you can choose your
own corner. Put it quite back--at the back of your head," said Miss
Marjoribanks, with a little anxiety. "I could show you how if I had the
lace. I do so want you to look nice. Oh, never mind the fashion. When
one has a style of one's own, it is always twenty times better. Put it
as you used to wear it before you were married; and then, with that nice
black silk----"

"Oh, Lucilla, don't ask me," said the widow. "I shall not know how to
talk, nor look, nor anything; and then I know nobody; and then----"

"My dear, you have always _me_," said Lucilla, with tender reproach. "I
am so sorry I can't stop any longer. I leave it quite to your own taste
about the lace. And you will find people you know, you may be quite sure
of that. Remember, not later than nine o'clock; and come at eight if you
don't like to come into the room by yourself. Good-bye now. I want you
to look very nice to-night," Miss Marjoribanks added, giving her friend
an affectionate kiss; "you must, for my sake."

"But, Lucilla----" cried Mrs Mortimer.

It was vain to make any further protest, however, for Lucilla was gone,
having, in the first place, communicated her requirements to Mary Jane,
who was not likely to forget, nor to let her mistress be late. "And mind
she is _nice_," said Miss Marjoribanks emphatically, as she went out at
the door. It was necessary she should be nice; without that the intended
_situation_ which Lucilla was preparing--the grand finale of her
exertions--would fall flat, and probably fail of its effect. For this it
was necessary that the widow should look not only pretty, but
interesting, and a little pathetic, and all that a widow should look
when first dragged back into society. Miss Marjoribanks gave a momentary
sigh as she emerged from the garden door, and could not but feel
conscious that in all this she might be preparing the most dread
discomfiture and downfall for herself. Even if it passed over as it
ought to do, and nobody was charmed but the Archdeacon, who was the
right person to be charmed, Lucilla felt that after this she never could
have that entire confidence in her father which she had had up to this
moment. The incipient sentiment Dr Marjoribanks had exhibited was one
that struck at the roots of all faith in him as a father; and every
person of sensibility will at once perceive how painful such a
suggestion must have been to the mind of a young woman so entirely
devoted as was Miss Marjoribanks to the consolation and comfort of her
dear papa.

Lucilla was not allowed to spend the rest of this momentous afternoon in
maturing her plans, as might have been necessary to a lesser
intelligence; and when the refreshing moment came at which she could
have her cup of tea before preparing for the fatigues of the evening, it
was Mrs Chiley who came to assist at that ceremony. The old lady came in
with an important air, and gave Lucilla a long, lingering kiss, as old
ladies sometimes do when they particularly mean it. "My dear, I am not
going to stay a moment, but I thought you might have something to tell
me," the kind old woman said, arranging herself in her chair with the
satisfaction of a listener who expects to be confided in. As for
Lucilla, who had no clue to Mrs Chiley's special curiosity, and who had
a good many things on her mind just at that moment which she rather
preferred not to talk about, she was for once struck with veritable
astonishment, and did not know what to say.

"Dear Mrs Chiley, what should I have to tell you?" said Miss
Marjoribanks. "You know very well where I should go the very first
moment if anything happened;" and by way of staving off more particular
questions, she took her old friend a cup of tea.

"Yes, my dear, I hope so," said Mrs Chiley, but at the same time her
disappointment was evident. "It is very nice, thank you--your tea is
always nice, Lucilla--but it was not that I was thinking of. I can't
understand how it is, I am sure. I saw him to-day with my own eyes, and
could not help seeing how anxious he was looking! I hope, I do hope, you
have not been so cruel as to refuse him, Lucilla--and all for something
that is not his fault, poor fellow, or that could be explained, you may
be sure."

Miss Marjoribanks grew more and more surprised as she listened. She put
away the kettle without filling the teapot, and left her own cup
standing untasted, and went and sat down on the stool by Mrs Chiley's
feet. "Tell me whom I have refused this time, for I don't know anything
about it," said Lucilla; and then her visitor burst forth.

"It must be all that creature's fault! He told me he was coming here;
and to tell the truth, I stood and watched him, for you know how
interested I am, my dear; and then a little while after he met _that_
Barbara. Oh, Lucilla, why were you ever so foolish as to have her here?
I told you how it would end when you brought those artist people about
your house. They are all a set of adventurers!" cried Mrs Chiley. "I saw
them meet, and I was so disgusted that I did not know what I was doing;
but he passed her as nicely as possible. Just a civil word, you know,
and then he was past. Just as I would have done myself; for it is always
best not to be uncivil to anybody. I could see her standing as if she
had been struck with lightning; and naturally, Lucilla, I never thought
anything else than that he had come here, and that all was right between
you. Oh, my dear, I hope you are sure you have not refused him," Mrs
Chiley said, piteously; "anyhow, Lucilla, you need not mind telling
_me_. I may be sorry, but I will not blame you, my dear."

"I have not refused anybody," said Lucilla, with a modest innocence that
it was a pleasure to see; "but, dear Mrs Chiley," she continued,
raising her drooping eyelids, "I think you make a mistake about Mr
Cavendish. My own opinion is that Barbara would make him a very nice
wife. Oh, please, don't be angry! I don't mean to say, you know, that I
think her quite what one would call _nice_--for oneself. But then the
gentlemen have such strange ways of thinking. Many a girl whom we could
not put up with is quite popular with Them," said Miss Marjoribanks,
with a certain mild wonder at the inexplicable creatures whom she thus
condescended to discuss. "I suppose they have a different standard, you
know; and for my part, I would advise Mr Cavendish to marry Barbara. I
think it is the best thing he could do."

"Lucilla!" cried Mrs Chiley, almost with a shriek of horror. She
thought, as was perhaps natural, that there was some pique in what her
young companion said; not doing Miss Marjoribanks justice--as indeed few
people did--for that perfect truthfulness which it was Lucilla's luck
always to be able to maintain. Mrs Chiley thought it was her young
friend's maidenly pride and determination not to take up the part of a
woman slighted or jilted. "You may refuse him, my dear, if your heart is
not with him," said the old lady; "but I would not be so hard upon him
as that, poor fellow. You may say what you please, but I always will
think him nice, Lucilla. I know I ought to be on the Archdeacon's side,"
said Mrs Chiley, putting her handkerchief to her eyes; "but I am an old
woman, and I like my old friends best. Oh, Lucilla, it is not kind of
you to keep up appearances with me. I wish you would give way a little.
It would do you good, my darling; and you know I might be both your
grandmothers, Lucilla," she cried, putting her arm round her favourite.
As for Miss Marjoribanks, she gave her old friend a close embrace, which
was the only thing that even her genius could suggest to do.

"I have always _you_," said Lucilla, with touching eloquence; and then
she freed herself a little from Mrs Chiley's arms. "I don't say,
perhaps, that everybody will receive her; but I mean to make an effort,
for my part; and I shall certainly tell Mr Cavendish so if he ever
speaks of it to me. As for Mr Beverley, he is going to be married too.
Did not you hear? He told me all about it himself one day," said Miss
Marjoribanks; "and I will ask him to-night if I may not tell you who the
lady is. It is quite a little romance, and I hope we shall have two
marriages, and it will make it quite gay for the winter. When you know
all about it," Lucilla added tenderly, by way of breaking the shock, "I
am sure you will be pleased."

But instead of being pleased, Mrs Chiley was speechless for the moment.
Her fresh old cheeks grew ashy with dismay and horror. "The Archdeacon
too!" she cried, gasping for breath. "Oh, Lucilla, my dear?--and you?"
Then the kind old lady held Miss Marjoribanks fast, and sobbed over her
in the despair of the moment. To think, after all the pains that had
been taken, and all the hopes and all the speculations, that neither the
one nor the other was coming to anything! "If it should be that General,
after all--and I cannot abide him," sobbed Lucilla's anxious friend. But
Miss Marjoribanks's genius carried her through this trial, as well as
through all the others which she had yet encountered on her way.

"Dear Mrs Chiley!" said Lucilla, "it is so good of you to care; but if
it had been _that_ I was thinking of, I need never have come home at
all, you know; and my object in life is just what it has always been, to
be a comfort to papa."

Upon which Mrs Chiley kissed her young friend once more with lingering
meaning. "My dear, I don't know what They mean," she said, with
indignation; "everybody knows men are great fools where women are
concerned--but I never knew what idiots they were till now; and you are
too good for them, my darling!" said Mrs Chiley, with indignant
tenderness. Perhaps Miss Marjoribanks was in some respects of the same
way of thinking. She conducted her sympathetic friend to the garden
door, when it came to be time for everybody to go and dress, with a
certain pathetic elevation in her own person, which was not out of
accord with Mrs Chiley's virtuous wrath. To have Mrs Mortimer and
Barbara Lake preferred to her did not wound Lucilla's pride--one can be
wounded in that way only by one's equals. She thought of it with a
certain mild pity and charitable contempt. Both these two men had had
the chance of having _her_, and this was how they had chosen! And there
can be little wonder if Miss Marjoribanks's compassion for them was
mingled with a little friendly and condescending disdain.

It was, however, an ease to Lucilla's mind that she had let Mrs Chiley
know, and was so far free to work out her plans without any fear of
misconception. And on the whole, her old friend's tender indignation was
not disagreeable to her. Thus it was, without any interval of repose to
speak of, that her lofty energies went on unwearied to overrule and
guide the crisis which was to decide so many people's fate.

_Chapter XXXII_

Dr Marjoribanks was not a man to take very much notice of trivial
external changes; and he knew Lucilla and her constitution, and, being a
medical man, was not perhaps so liable to parental anxieties as an
unprofessional father might have been; but even he was a little struck
by Miss Marjoribanks's appearance when he came into the drawing-room. He
said, "You are flushed, Lucilla? is anything going to happen?" with the
calmness of a man who knew there was not much the matter--but yet he did
observe that her colour was not exactly what it always was. "I am quite
well, papa, thank you," said Lucilla, which, to be sure, was a fact the
Doctor had never doubted; and then the people began to come in, and
there was no more to be said.

But there could be no doubt that Lucilla had more colour than usual. Her
pulse was quite steady, and her heart going on at its ordinary rate; but
her admirable circulation was nevertheless so far affected, that the
ordinary rose-tints of her complexion were all deepened. It was not so
distinctly an improvement as it would have been had she been habitually
pale; but still the flush was moderate, and did Miss Marjoribanks no
harm. And then it was a larger party than usual. The Centums were there,
who were General Travers's chaperons, and so were the Woodburns, and of
course Mrs Chiley, which made up the number of ladies beyond what was
general at Dr Marjoribanks's table. Lucilla received all her guests with
the sweetest smiles and all her ordinary ease and self-possession, but
at the same time her mind was not free from some excitement. She was on
the eve of a crisis which would be the greatest failure or the greatest
success of her public life, and naturally she anticipated it with a
certain emotion.

Mr Cavendish, for his part, had sufficient sense to come very early, and
to get into a dark corner and keep himself out of the way; for though he
was screwed up to the emergency, his self-possession was nothing to
that of Lucilla. But on the whole, it was perhaps Mrs Woodburn who
suffered the most. Her heightened colour was more conspicuous than that
of Miss Marjoribanks, because as a general rule she was pale. She was
pale, almost white, and had dark eyes and dark hair, and possessed
precisely all the accessories which make a sudden change of complexion
remarkable; and the effect this evening was so evident that even her
husband admired her for a moment, and then stopped short to inquire, "By
George! had she begun to paint?" to which question Mrs Woodburn
naturally replied only by an indignant shrug of her white shoulders and
aversion of her head. She would not have been sorry, perhaps, for this
night only, if he had believed that it was rouge, and not emotion. Of
all the people at Dr Marjoribanks's table, she perhaps was the only one
really to be pitied. Even Mr Cavendish, if vanquished, would at the most
receive only the recompense of his deeds, and could go away and begin
over again somewhere else, or bury himself in the great depths of
general society, where nobody would be the wiser; but as for his sister,
she could not go away. The first result for her would be to give the
master to whom she belonged, and for whom she had, with some affection,
a great deal of not unnatural contempt, a cruel and overwhelming power
over her; and she knew, poor soul, that he was not at all too generous
or delicate to make use of such a power. In such a case she would be
bound to the rock, like a kind of hapless Andromeda, to be pecked at by
all the birds and blown at by all the winds, not to speak of the
devouring monster from whom no hero could ever deliver her; and with all
these horrible consequences before her eyes, she had to sit still and
look on and do nothing, to see all the hidden meaning of every look and
movement without appearing to see it, to maintain ordinary conversation
when her ear was strained to the uttermost to hear words of fate on
which her whole future depended. No wonder her colour was high; and she
could not go into a corner, as Mr Cavendish did, nor keep silent, nor
withdraw herself from observation. Neither her pulse nor her heart would
have borne the scrutiny to which Miss Marjoribanks's calm organs might
have been subjected with perfect security; and the chances are, if the
Doctor had by any hazard put his finger on her wrist when he shook hands
with her, that instead of handing her over to General Travers to be
taken down to dinner, he would have, on the contrary, sent her off to
bed.

Fortunately by this time the year was declining, and that happy season
had returned in which people once more begin to dine by artificial
light; and at the same time it was not absolutely dark in the
drawing-room, so that Lucilla had not, as she said, thought it necessary
to have the candles lighted. "If there should happen to be a mistake as
to who is to take down who, it will only be all the more amusing," said
Miss Marjoribanks, "so long as you do not go off and leave _me_." This
was addressed to the Archdeacon, to whom Lucilla was very particular in
her attentions at that moment. Mrs Chiley, who was looking on with a
great sense of depression, could not help wondering why--"When she knows
he is engaged and everything settled," the old lady said to herself,
with natural indignation. For her part, she did not see what right a man
had to introduce himself thus under false pretences into the confiding
bosom of society--when he was as bad as married, or even indeed worse.
She was ruffled, and she did not think it worth while to conceal that
she was so; for there are limits to human patience, and a visitor who
stays six weeks ought at least to have confidence in his entertainers.
Mrs Chiley for once in her life could have boxed Lucilla's ears for her
uncalled-for civility. "I think it very strange that it is not the
General who takes her downstairs," she said to Mrs Centum. "It is all
very well to have a respect for clergymen; but after being here so
often, and the General quite a stranger--I am surprised at Lucilla,"
said the indiscreet old lady. As for Mrs Centum, she felt the neglect,
but she had too much proper pride to own that her man was not receiving
due attention. "It is not the first time General Travers has been here,"
she said, reserving the question; and so in the uncertain light, when
nobody was sure who was his neighbour, the procession filed downstairs.

To enter the dining-room, all brilliant and shining as it was, radiant
with light and flowers and crystal and silver, and everything that makes
a dinner-table pretty to look upon, was, as Mrs Centum said, "quite a
contrast." A close observer might have remarked, as Mrs Woodburn and
Lucilla took their places, that both of them, instead of that flush
which had been so noticeable a short time before, had become quite pale.
It was the moment of trial. Poor Mr Cavendish, in his excitement, had
taken just the place he ought not to have taken, immediately under the
lamp at the centre of the table. During the moment when the unsuspecting
Archdeacon said grace with his eyes decorously cast down, Miss
Marjoribanks owned the ordinary weakness of humanity so much as to drop
her fan and her handkerchief, and even the napkin which was arranged in
a symmetrical pyramid on her plate. Such a sign of human feebleness
could but endear her to everybody who was aware of the momentous
character of the crisis. When these were all happily recovered and
everybody seated, Lucilla kept her eyes fixed upon the Archdeacon's
face. It was, as we have said, a terrible moment. When he raised his
head and looked round him, naturally Mr Beverley's eyes went direct to
the mark like an arrow; he looked, and he saw at the centre of the
table, surrounded by every kind of regard and consideration, full in the
light of the lamp, his favourite adventurer, the impostor whom he had
denounced the first time he took his place by Miss Marjoribanks's side.
The Archdeacon rose to his feet in the excitement of the discovery; he
put his hand over his eyes as if to clear them. He said, "Good God!"
loud out, with an accent of horror which paralysed the two people lower
down than himself. As for Miss Marjoribanks, she was not paralysed--she
who had not lost a single glance of his eyes or movement of his large
person. Lucilla rose to the height of the position. She put her hand
upon his arm sharply, and with a certain energy. "Mr Beverley, Thomas is
behind you with the soup," said Miss Marjoribanks. The Archdeacon turned
round to see what it was, conscious that somebody had spoken to him, but
as indifferent to his companion and to civility as he was to Thomas and
the soup. "What?" he said hoarsely, interrupting his scrutiny for the
moment. But when he had met Miss Marjoribanks's eye the Archdeacon sat
down. Lucilla did not liberate him for a moment from that gaze. She
fixed her eyes upon his eyes, and looked at him as people only look when
they mean something. "If you tell me what surprised you so much, perhaps
I can explain," said Miss Marjoribanks. She spoke so that nobody could
hear but himself; and in the meantime General Travers at her left hand
was making himself excessively agreeable to Mrs Woodburn, and no doubt
occupying all her attention; and Lucilla never turned her eyes for a
moment from the Archdeacon's face.

"I beg your pardon," said Mr Beverley. "I was confounded by what I saw.
Good heavens! it is not possible I can deceive myself. I understand your
alarm. I am not going to make a disturbance and break up your party. I
can wait," the Archdeacon said, drawing a rapid forcible breath. "Miss
Marjoribanks, do you know who that man is?"

"Oh, yes," said Lucilla, softening into a smile. "Perfectly, I assure
you. He is one of papa's guests, and very much respected in Carlingford;
and he is one of my--very particular friends," Miss Marjoribanks added.
She laughed as she spoke, a kind of laugh which is only appropriate to
one subject, and which is as good, any day, as a confession; and the
flush was so obliging as to return at that moment to her ingenuous
countenance. "We have known each other a long time," Lucilla went on
after that pretty pause; and then she raised her confiding eyes, which
had been cast down, once more to the Archdeacon's face. "You can't think
how nice he is, Mr Beverley," said Miss Marjoribanks. She clasped her
hands together, just for a moment, as she did so, with an eloquent
meaning which it was impossible to mistake. The Archdeacon, for his
part, gazed at her like a man in a dream. Whether it was true--or
whether he was being made a fool of more completely than ever man before
was--or whether he was the victim of an optical or some other kind of
delusion,--the poor man could not tell. He was utterly stricken dumb,
and did not know what to say. He accepted the soup humbly, which Thomas
set before him, though it was a white soup, an effeminate dish, which
went utterly in the face of his principles. And then he looked at the
innocent young creature at his side in that flutter of happy confusion.
It was a terrible position for the Broad-Churchman. After such a tacit
confession he could not spring from his seat and hurl the impostor out
of the room, as in the first place he had a mind to do. On the contrary,
it was with a voice trembling with emotion that he spoke.

"My dear Miss Marjoribanks," said the Archdeacon, "I am struck dumb by
what you tell me. Good heavens! that it should have come to this; and
yet I should be neglecting my duty if I kept silent. You do not--you
cannot know who he is."

"Oh, yes," said Lucilla, with another little laugh--"_everything_--and
how he used to know Mrs Mortimer, and all about it. He has no secrets
from me," said Miss Marjoribanks. She caught Mr Cavendish's eye at the
moment, who was casting a stealthy glance in her direction, and who
looked cowed and silenced and unquiet to the most miserable degree; and
she gave him a little reassuring nod, which the Archdeacon watched with
an inward groan. What was he to do? He could not publicly expose the man
who had just received this mark of confidence from his young hostess,
who knew everything. Perhaps it was one of the greatest trials of
Christian patience and fortitude which the Archdeacon, who was not
great, as he himself would have said, in the passive virtues, had
undergone in all the course of his life. He was so utterly subdued and
confounded that he ate his soup, and never found out what kind of soup
it was. That is, he consumed it in large spoonfuls without being aware,
by way of occupying his energies and filling up the time.

"You cannot mean it," he said, after a pause. "You must be imperfectly
informed. At least let me talk to your father. You must hear all the
rights of the story. If you will let me speak half a dozen words to--to
that person, Miss Marjoribanks, I am sure he will leave the place; he
will give up any claim----"

"Oh, yes, please talk to him," said Miss Marjoribanks, "it will be so
nice to see you friends. Nothing would make me so happy. You know I have
heard all about it from you and from Mrs Mortimer already, so I am sure
there cannot be much more to tell; and as for papa, he is very fond of
Mr Cavendish," said Lucilla, with an imperceptible elevation of her
voice.

"Is it _he_ whom you call Mr Cavendish?" said the Archdeacon. He too had
raised his voice without knowing it, and several people looked up, who
were not at the moment engaged in active conversation of their own. The
owner of that name, for his part, also turned his face towards the upper
end of the table. He was sick of the suspense and continued endurance,
and by this time was ready to rush upon his fate.

"Did any one call me?" he said; and there was a little pause, and the
company in general fixed its regard upon those three people with a sense
that something remarkable was going on among them, though it could not
tell what or why.

"The Archdeacon wants to make your acquaintance," said Miss
Marjoribanks. "Mr Cavendish--Mr Beverley. There, you know each other;
and when we are gone you can talk to each other if you like," Lucilla
added; "but in the meantime _you_ are too far off, and _I_ want the
Archdeacon. He is _so_ much liked in Carlingford," she continued,
lowering her voice. "You can't think how glad we are to have him back
again. I am sure if you only knew him better----" said Miss
Marjoribanks. As for the Archdeacon, words could not give any idea of
the state of his mind. He ate his dinner sternly after that, and did not
look at anything but his plate. He consumed the most exquisite _plats_,
the tenderest wings of chicken and morsels of _paté_, as if they had
been his personal enemies. For, to tell the truth, he felt the tables
altogether turned upon him, and was confounded, and did not know what it
could mean.

It was the General who took up Mr Beverley's abandoned place in the
conversation. The gallant soldier talked for two with the best will in
the world. He talked of Cavendish, and all the pleasant hours they had
spent together, and what a good fellow he was, and how much the men in
the club would be amused to hear of his domesticity. It was a kind of
talk very natural to a man who found himself placed at table between his
friend's sister, and, as he supposed, his friend's future bride. And
naturally the Archdeacon got all the benefit. As for Lucilla, she
received it with the most perfect grace in the world and saw all the
delicate points of the General's wit, and appreciated him so thoroughly,
that he felt half inclined to envy Cavendish. "By Jove! he is the
luckiest fellow I know," General Travers said; and probably it was the
charms of his intelligent and animated conversation that kept the ladies
so long at table. Mrs Chiley, for her part, did not know what to make of
it. She said afterwards that she kept looking at Lucilla until she was
really quite ashamed; and though she was at the other end of the table,
she could see that the poor dear did not enjoy her dinner. It happened,
too, that when they did move at last, the drawing-room was fuller than
usual. Everybody had come that evening--Sir John, and some others of the
county people, who only came now and then, and without any exception
_everybody_ in Carlingford. And Lucilla certainly was not herself for
the first half-hour. She kept close to the door, and regarded the
staircase with an anxious countenance. When she was herself at the helm
of affairs, there was a certain security that everything would go on
tolerably--but nobody could tell what a set of men left to themselves
might or might not do. This was the most dreadful moment of the evening.
Mrs Mortimer was in the drawing-room, hidden away under the curtains of
a window, knowing nobody, speaking to nobody, and in a state of mind to
commit suicide with pleasure; but Miss Marjoribanks, though she had
cajoled her into that martyrdom, took no notice of Mrs Mortimer. She was
civil, it is true, to her other guests, but there could not be a doubt
that Lucilla was horribly preoccupied, and in a state of mind quite
unusual to her. "I am sure she is not well," Mrs Chiley said, who was
watching her from afar. "I saw that she did not eat any dinner"--and the
kind old lady got up slowly and extricated herself from the crowd, and
put herself in motion as best she could, to go to her young friend's
aid.

It was at this moment that Lucilla turned round radiant upon the
observant assembly. The change occurred in less than a moment, so
suddenly that nobody saw the actual point of revolution. Miss
Marjoribanks turned round upon the company and took Mr Cavendish's arm,
who had just come upstairs. "There is a very, very old friend of yours
in the corner who wants to see you," said Lucilla; and she led him
across the room as a conqueror might have led a captive. She took him
through the crowd, to whom she dispensed on every side her most gracious
glances. "I am coming directly," Miss Marjoribanks said--for naturally
she was called on all sides. What most people remarked at this moment
was, that the Archdeacon, who had also come in with the other gentlemen,
was standing very sullen and lowering at the door, watching that
triumphal progress. And it certainly was not Lucilla's fault if Mrs
Chiley and Lady Richmond, and a few other ladies, were thus led to form
a false idea of the state of affairs. "I suppose it is all right between
them at last," Lady Richmond said, not thinking that Barbara Lake was
standing by and heard her. According to appearances, it was all
perfectly right between them. Miss Marjoribanks, triumphant, led Mr
Cavendish all the length of the room to the corner where the widow sat
among the curtains, and the Archdeacon looked on with a visible passion,
and jealous rage, which were highly improper in a clergyman, but yet
which were exciting to see. And this was how the little drama was to
conclude, according to Lady Richmond and Mrs Chiley, who, on the whole,
were satisfied with the conclusion. But, naturally, there were other
people to be consulted. There was Mr Beverley, whom Miss Marjoribanks
held in leash, but who was not yet subdued; and there was Dr
Marjoribanks, who began to feel a little curiosity about his daughter's
movements, and did not make them out; and there was Barbara Lake, who
had begun to blaze like a tempest with her crimson cheeks and black
bold eyes. But by this time Lucilla was herself again, and felt the
reins in her hands. When she had deposited Mr Cavendish in safety, she
faced round upon the malcontents and upon the observers, and on the
world in general. Now that her mind was at rest, and everything under
her own inspection, she felt herself ready and able for all.

_Chapter XXXIII_

The Archdeacon stood before the fireplace with Dr Marjoribanks and a
host of other gentlemen. Mr Beverley's countenance was covered with
clouds and darkness. He stood, not with the careless ease of a man
amusing himself, but drawn up to his full height and breadth, a
formidably muscular Christian, in a state of repression and restraint,
which it was painful, and at the same time pleasing to see. The
Berserker madness was upon him; and yet such are the restraints of
society, that a young woman's eye was enough to keep him down--Lucilla's
eye, and the presence of a certain number of other frivolous creatures
in white muslin, and of some old women, as he irreverently called them,
who were less pleasant, but not more imposing. He was an Archdeacon, and
a leading man of his party, whose name alone would have conferred
importance upon any "movement," and whom his bishop himself--not to
speak of the clergy whom he charged in his visitation addresses like a
regiment of cavalry--stood a little in awe of. Yet such are the
beneficial restraints of society, that he dared not follow his natural
impulses, nor even do what he felt to be his duty, for fear of Miss
Marjoribanks, which was about the highest testimony to the value of
social influence that could be given. At the same time, it was but
natural that under such circumstances the Archdeacon should feel a
certain savage wrath at the bond that confined him, and be more
indignant than usual at the false and tyrannical conventionalism called
society. And it was at this moment, of all times in the world, that
General Travers, like a half-educated brute as (according to Mr
Beverley's ideas) he was, took the liberty of calling his attention to
what the soldier called "a lot of pretty girls." "And everything
admirably got up, by Jove!" he added; not having the remotest idea what
effect so simple an observation might produce.

"Yes, it is admirably got up," said the Archdeacon, with a snarl of
concealed ferocity. "You never said anything more profoundly true. It is
all got up, the women, and the decorations, and the gaiety, and all this
specious seeming. And these are creatures made in the image of God!"
said the Broad-Churchman--"the future wives and mothers of England. It
is enough to make the devils laugh and the angels weep!"

It may be supposed that everybody was stricken with utter amazement by
this unlooked-for remark. Dr Marjoribanks, for his part, took a pinch of
snuff, which, as a general rule, he only did at consultations, or in the
face of a difficulty; and as for the unlucky soldier who had called it
forth, there can be no doubt that a certain terror filled his manly
bosom; for he naturally felt as if he must have said something
extraordinary to call forth such a response.

"I never was accused before of saying anything profoundly true," the
General said, and he grew pale. "I didn't mean it, I'm sure, if that is
any justification. Where has Cavendish vanished to, I wonder?" the
soldier added, looking round him, scared and nervous--for it was evident
that his only policy was to escape from society in which he was thus
liable to commit himself without knowing how.

"Female education is a monstrous mistake," said Mr Beverley--"always has
been, and, so far as I can see, always will be. Why should we do our
best to make our women idiots? They are bad enough by nature. Instead of
counterbalancing their native frivolity by some real instruction----good
heavens!" The critic paused. It was not that his emotions were too much
for him; it was because the crowd opened a moment, and afforded him a
glimpse of a figure in black silk, with the lace for which Miss
Marjoribanks had stipulated falling softly over a head which had not
quite lost its youthful grace. He gave a glance round him to see if the
coast was clear. Lucilla was out of the way at the other end of the
room, and he was free. He made but one stride through the unconscious
assembly which he had been criticising so severely, and all but knocked
down little Rose Lake, who was not looking at the Archdeacon, though she
stood straight in his way. He might have stepped over her head without
knowing it, so much was he moved. All the gay crowd gave way before him
with a cry and flutter; and Lucilla, for her part, was out of the way!

But there are moments when to be out of the way is the highest proof of
genius. Miss Marjoribanks had just had a cup of tea brought her, of
which she had great need, and her face was turned in the other
direction, but yet she was aware that the Archdeacon had passed like a
Berserker through those ranks which were not the ranks of his enemies.
She felt without seeing it that the "wind of his going" agitated his own
large coat tails and heavy locks, and made a perfect hurricane among the
white muslin. Lucilla's heart beat quicker, and she put down her tea,
though she had so much need of it. She could not swallow the cordial at
such a moment of excitement. But she never once turned her head, nor
left off her conversation, nor betrayed the anxiety she felt. Up to this
time she had managed everything herself, which was comparatively easy;
but she felt by instinct that now was the moment to make a high effort
and leave things alone. And it may be added that nothing but an inherent
sense of doing the right thing under the circumstances could have
inspired Miss Marjoribanks to the crowning achievement of keeping out of
the way.

When Mr Beverley arrived in front of the two people who were seated
together in the recess of the window, he made no assault upon them, as
his manner might have suggested. On the contrary, he placed himself in
front of them, with his back to the company, creating thus a most
effectual moral and physical barrier between the little nook where his
own private vengeance and fate were about to be enacted, and the
conventional world which he had just been denouncing. The Archdeacon
shut the two culprits off from all succour, and looked down upon them,
casting them into profound shade. "I don't know what combination of
circumstances has produced this meeting," he said, "but the time was
ripe for it, and I am glad it has happened," and it was with dry lips
and the calmness of passion that he spoke.

Mrs Mortimer gave a little cry of terror, but her companion, for his
part, sat quite dumb and immovable. The moment had arrived at last, and
perhaps he too was glad it had come. He sat still, expecting to see the
earth crumble under his feet, expecting to hear the humble name he had
once borne proclaimed aloud, and to hear ridicule and shame poured upon
the impostor who had called himself one of the Cavendishes. But it was
no use struggling any longer. He did not even raise his eyes, but sat
still, waiting for the thunderbolt to fall.

But to tell the truth, the Archdeacon, though a torrent of words came
rushing to his lips, felt at a difficulty how to begin. "I don't
understand how it is that I find you here with the man who has ruined
your prospects," he said, with a slight incoherence; and then he changed
the direction of his attack. "But it is you with whom I have to do," he
said; "you, sir, who venture to introduce yourself into society
with--with your victim by your side. Do you not understand that
compassion is impossible in such a case, and that it is my duty to
expose you? You have told some plausible story here, I suppose, but
nothing can stand against the facts. It is my duty to inform Dr
Marjoribanks that it is a criminal who has stolen into his house and his
confidence--that it is a conspirator who has ventured to approach his
daughter--that it is----"

"A criminal? a conspirator?" said Mr Cavendish, and he looked in his
accuser's face with an amazement which, notwithstanding his rage, struck
the Archdeacon. If he had called him an impostor, the culprit would have
quailed and made no reply. But the exaggeration saved him. After that
first look of surprise, he rose to his feet and confronted the avenger,
who saw he had made a blunder without knowing what it was. "You must be
under some strange mistake," he said. "What do you accuse me of? I know
nothing about crime or conspiracy. Either you are strangely mistaken, or
you have forgotten what the words mean."

"They are words which I mean to prove," said the Archdeacon; but there
can be no doubt that his certainty was diminished by the surprise with
which his accusation was received. It checked his first heat, and it was
with a slightly artificial excitement that he went on, trying to work
himself up again to the same point. "You who worked yourself into a
wretched old man's confidence, and robbed an unoffending woman," said Mr
Beverley; and then in spite of himself he stopped short; for it was
easier to say such things to a woman, who contradicted without giving
much reason, than to a man who, with an air of the utmost astonishment,
stood regarding his accuser in the face.

"These are very extraordinary accusations," said Mr Cavendish. "Have you
ever considered whether you had any proof to support them?" He was not
angry to speak of, because he had been entirely taken by surprise, and
because at the same time he was unspeakably relieved, and felt that the
real danger, the danger which he had so much dreaded, was past and over.
He recovered all his coolness from the moment he found out that it was
not a venial imposition practised upon society, but a social crime of
the ugliest character, of which he was accused. He was innocent, and he
could be tranquil on that score. "As for robbing Mrs Mortimer," he added
with a little impatience, "she knows, on the contrary, that I have
always been most anxious and ready to befriend her----"

"To befriend----Her!" cried the Archdeacon, restored to all his first
impetuosity. He could not swear, because it was against his cloth and
his principles; but he said, "Good heavens!" in a tone which would have
perfectly become a much less mild expletive. "It is better we should
understand each other thoroughly," he said. "I am not in a humour for
trifling. I consider it is _her_ fortune which enables you to make an
appearance here. It is _her_ money you are living upon, and which gives
you position, and makes you presume as--as you are doing--upon my
forbearance. Do you think it possible that I can pass over all this and
let you keep what is not yours? If you choose to give up everything, and
retire from Carlingford, and withdraw all your pretensions----It is not
for my part," said Mr Beverley, with solemnity, taking breath, "to deal
harshly with a penitent sinner. It is my duty, as a clergyman, to offer
you at least a place of repentance. After _that_----"

But he was interrupted once more. Mrs Mortimer made her faint voice
heard in a remonstrance. "Oh, Charles, I always told you--I had no right
to anything!" cried the terrified widow; but that was not what stopped
the Archdeacon. It was because his adversary laughed that he stopped
short. No doubt it was the metallic laugh of a man in great agitation,
but still Mr Beverley's ear was not fine enough at that moment to
discriminate. He paused as a man naturally pauses at the sound of
ridicule, still furious, yet abashed, and half conscious of a ludicrous
aspect to his passion--and turned his full face to his antagonist, and
stood at bay.

"It is a modest request, certainly," Mr Cavendish said. "Give up all I
have and all I am, and perhaps you will forgive me! You must think me a
fool to make such a proposal; but look here," said the accused
energetically; "I will tell you the true state of affairs, if for once
you will listen. I do it, not for my sake, nor for your sake, but for
the sake of--of the women involved," he added hastily; and it was well
for him that, instead of looking at the shrinking widow beside him as he
said so, his eye had been caught by the eager eye of his sister, who was
watching from her corner. With that stimulus he went on, calming himself
down, and somehow subduing and imposing upon the angry man by the mere
act of encountering him fairly and openly. "I will tell you what are the
actual circumstances, and you can see the will itself if you will take
the trouble," said the defendant, with a nervous moderation and
self-restraint, in which there was also a certain thrill of indignation.
"The old man you speak of might have left his money to a more worthy
person than myself, but he never meant to leave it to his grand-niece;
and she knew that. She was neither his companion nor his nurse. There
was nothing between them but a few drops of blood. For my part, I gave
him----but, to be sure, it would not interest you to know how I spent my
youth. You came upon the scene like--a man in a passion," Mr Cavendish
said, with an abrupt laugh, which this time was more feeble, and proved
that his composure was giving way, "and misjudged everything, as was
natural. You are doing the same again, or trying to do it. But you are a
clergyman, and when you insult a man----"

"I am ready to give him satisfaction," said the Broad-Churchman hotly;
and then he made a pause, and that sense of ridicule which is latent in
every Englishman's mind, came to the Archdeacon's aid. He began to feel
ashamed of himself, and at the same time his eye caught his own
reflection in a mirror, and the clerical coat which contrasted so
grotesquely with his offer of "satisfaction." Mr Beverley started a
little, and changed his tone. "This has lasted long enough," he said, in
his abrupt imperious way. "_This_ is not the place nor the time for such
a discussion. We shall meet elsewhere," the Archdeacon added austerely,
with a significance which it is impossible to describe. His air and his
words were full of severe and hostile meaning, and yet he did not know
what he meant any more than Mr Cavendish did, who took him at his word,
and retired, and made an end of the interview. Whatever the Archdeacon
meant, it was his adversary who was the victor. _He_ went off, threading
his way through the curious spectators with a sense of relief that
almost went the length of ecstasy. He might have been walking on his
head for anything he knew. His senses were all lost and swallowed up in
the overwhelming and incredible consciousness of safety. Where were they
to meet elsewhere? With pistols in a corner of Carlingford Common, or
perhaps with their fists alone, as Mr Beverley was Broad-Church? When a
man has been near ruin and has escaped by a hair-breadth, he may be
permitted to be out of his wits for a few minutes afterwards. And the
idea of fighting a duel with a dignitary of the Church so tickled Mr
Cavendish, that he had not the prudence to keep it to himself. "You will
stand by me if he calls me out?" he said to General Travers as he
passed; and the air of utter consternation with which the warrior
regarded him, drove Mr Cavendish into such agonies of laughter, that he
had to retire to the landing-place and suffocate himself to subdue it.
If any man had said to him that he was hysterical, the chances are that
it was he who would have called that man out, or at least knocked him
down. But he had to steal downstairs afterwards and apply to Thomas for
a cordial more potent than tea; for naturally, when a man has been
hanging over an abyss for ever so long, it is no great wonder if he
loses his head and balance when he suddenly finds himself standing on
firm ground, and feels that he has escaped.

As for the Archdeacon, when the other was gone, he sat down silently on
his abandoned chair. He was one of the men who take pride in seeing both
sides of a question; and to tell the truth, he was always very candid
about disputed points in theology, and ready to entertain everybody's
objection; but it was a different thing when the matter was a matter of
fact. He put down his face into his hands, and tried to think whether it
was possible that what he had just heard might be the true state of the
case. To be sure, the widow who was seated half fainting by his side had
given him the same account often enough, but somehow it was more
effective from the lips of a man who confronted him than from the mild
and weeping woman whom he loved better than anything else in the world,
but whose opinion on any earthly (or heavenly) subject had not the
weight of a straw upon him. He tried to take that view of it; and then
it occurred to him that nothing was more ludicrous and miserable than
the position of a man who goes to law without adequate reason, or
without proof to maintain his cause. Such a horrible divergence from
everything that was just and right might be, as that the well-known and
highly-esteemed Archdeacon Beverley might be held up for the amusement
and edification of the country in a _Times_ leader, which was a
martyrdom the Archdeacon would have rather liked than otherwise in a
worthy cause, but not for a wretched private business connected with
money. He sighed as he pondered, feeling, as so many have felt, the
difficulties which attend a good man's progress in this life--how that
which is just is not always that which is expedient, and how the
righteous have to submit to many inconveniences in order that the
adversary may have no occasion to blaspheme. In this state of mind a man
naturally softens towards a tender and wistful sympathiser close at
hand. He sighed once more heavily, and lifted his head, and took into
his own a soft pale hand which was visible near him among the folds of
black silk.

"So you too have been brought into it, Helen," the Archdeacon said
pathetically; "I did not expect to see you here."

"It was Lucilla," said Mrs Mortimer timidly; "it was not any wish of
mine. Oh, Charles! if you would let me speak. If you will but forget all
this, and think no more about it; and I will do my best to make you
a----" Here the poor woman stopped short all at once. What she meant to
have said was, that she would make him a good wife, which nature and
truth and the circumstances all prompted her to say--as the only
possible solution to the puzzle. But when she had got so far, the poor
widow stopped, blushing and tingling all over, with a sense of shame,
more overwhelming than if she had done a wicked action. It was nothing
but pure honesty and affection that prompted her to speak; and yet, if
it had been the vilest sentiment in human nature, she would not have
been so utterly ashamed. "That was not what I meant to say!" she cried,
with sharp and sudden wretchedness; and was not the least ashamed of
telling a downright lie instead.

But, to tell the truth, the Archdeacon was paying no particular
attention. He had never loved any other woman; but he was a little
indifferent as to what innocent nonsense she might please to say. So
that her confusion and misery, and even the half offer of herself which
occasioned these feelings, were lost upon him. He kept her hand and
caressed it in the midst of his own thoughts, as if it was a child's
head he was patting. "My poor Helen," he said, coming back to her when
he found she had stopped speaking, "I don't see why you should not
come, if this sort of thing is any pleasure to you; but afterwards----"
he said reflectively. He went to that sort of thing often himself, and
rather liked it, and did not think of any afterwards; but perhaps the
case of a weak woman was different, or perhaps it was only that he
happened to be after his downfall in a pathetic and reflective state of
mind.

"Afterwards?" said Mrs Mortimer. She did not take the word in any
religious or philosophical, but in its merest matter-of-fact meaning,
and she was sadly hurt and wounded to see that he had not even noticed
what she said, much as she had been ashamed of saying it. She drew away
her hand with a quick movement of despite and mortification, which
filled Mr Beverley with surprise. "Afterwards I shall go back to my
little house and my school, and shut myself in, and never, never come
back again, you may be sure," said the widow, with a rush of tears to
her eyes. Why they did not fall, or how she kept herself from
fainting--she who fainted so easily--she never, on reviewing the
circumstances, could tell; and Miss Marjoribanks always attributed it to
the fact that _she_ was absent, and there was no eau-de-Cologne on the
table. But whatever the cause might be, Mrs Mortimer did not faint; and
perhaps there never was anything so like despair and bitterness as at
that moment in her mild little feminine soul.

"Never come back again?" said the Archdeacon, rousing up a little; and
then he put out his large hand and took back the other, as if it had
been a pencil or a book that he had lost. All this, let it be known, was
well in the shadow, and could not be seen by the world in general to
teach the young people a bad lesson. "Why should not you come back? I am
going away too," said Mr Beverley; and he stopped short, and resisted
the effort his prisoner made to withdraw. Oddly enough at that moment
his Rectory rose suddenly before him as in a vision--his Rectory, all
handsome and sombre, without a soul in it, room after room uninhabited,
and not a sound to be heard, except that of his own foot or his
servant's. It was curious what connection there could be between that
and the garden, with its four walls, and the tiny cottage covered with
wistaria. Such as it was, it moved the Archdeacon to a singular, and,
considering the place and moment, rather indecorous proceeding. Instead
of contenting himself with the resisting hand, he drew the widow's arm
within his as they sat together. "I'll tell you what we must do,
Helen," he said confidentially--"we must go back to Basing together, you
and I. I don't see the good of leaving you by yourself here. You can
make what alterations you like when you get to the Rectory; and I shall
let that--that person alone, if you wish it, with his ill-gotten gear.
He will never come to any good," said the Archdeacon, with some
satisfaction; and then he added in a parenthesis, as if she had
expressed some ridiculous doubt on the subject, "Of course I mean that
we should be married before we go away." It was in this rapid and
summary manner that the whole business was settled. Naturally his
companion had nothing to say against such a reasonable arrangement. She
had never contradicted him in her life about anything but one thing; and
that being set aside, there was no possible reason why she should begin
now.

_Chapter XXXIV_

This was how the crisis came to an end, which had been of so much
interest to the parties immediately affected. Mrs Woodburn had one of
her nervous attacks next morning, and was very ill, and alarmed Dr
Marjoribanks; but at her very worst moment the incorrigible mimic
convulsed her anxious medical adviser and all her attendants by a sudden
adoption of the character of Mrs Mortimer, whom she must have made a
careful study of the previous night. "Tell him to tell him to go
downstairs," cried the half-dead patient; "I want to speak to him, and
he is not to hear;--if he were not so thoughtless, he would offer him
some lunch at least," Mrs Woodburn said pathetically, with closed eyes
and a face as pale as death. "She never did anything better in her
life," Dr Marjoribanks said afterwards; and Mr Woodburn, who was fond of
his wife in his way, and had been crying over her, burst into such an
explosion of laughter that all the servants were scandalised. And the
patient improved from that moment. She was perfectly well and in the
fullest force a week afterwards, when she came to see Lucilla, who had
also been slightly indisposed for a day or two. When Thomas had shut the
door, and the two were quite alone, Mrs Woodburn hugged Miss
Marjoribanks with a fervour which up to that moment she had never
exhibited. "It was only necessary that we should get into full sympathy
with each other as human creatures," she said, lifting her finger like
the Archdeacon; and for all the rest of that autumn and winter Mrs
Woodburn kept society in Carlingford in a state of inextinguishable
laughter. The odd thing was that Miss Marjoribanks, who had been one of
her favourite characters, disappeared almost entirely from her
repertory. Not quite altogether, because there were moments of supreme
temptation which the mimic could not resist; but as a general rule
Lucilla was the only woman in Carlingford who escaped the universal
critic. No sort of acknowledgment passed between them of the obligations
one had to the other, and, what was still more remarkable, no discussion
of the terrible evening when Lucilla had held the Archdeacon with her
eye, and prevented the volcano from exploding. Perhaps Mrs Woodburn, for
her part, would have been pleased to have had such an explanation, but
Miss Marjoribanks knew better. She knew it was best not to enter upon
confidences which neither could ever forget, and which might prevent
them meeting with ease in the midst of the little world which knew
nothing about it. What Lucilla knew, she knew, and could keep to
herself; but she felt at the same time that it was best to have no
expansions on the subject. She kept it all to herself, and made the
arrangements for Mrs Mortimer's marriage, and took charge of everything.
Everybody said that nothing could be more perfect than the bride's
toilette, which was as nice as could be, and yet not like a _real_ bride
after all; a difference which was only proper under the circumstances;
for she was married in lavender, poor soul, as was to be expected. "You
have not gone off the least bit in the world, and it is quite a pleasure
to see you," Lucilla said, as she kissed her _that_ morning--and
naturally all Carlingford knew that it was owing to her goodness that
the widow had been taken care of and provided for, and saved up for the
Archdeacon. Miss Marjoribanks, in short, presided over the ceremony as
if she had been Mrs Mortimer's mother, and superintended the wedding
breakfast, and made herself agreeable to everybody. And in the meantime,
before the marriage took place, most people in Carlingford availed
themselves of the opportunity of calling on Mrs Mortimer. "If she should
happen to be the future bishop's lady, and none of us ever to have
taken any notice of her," somebody said, with natural dismay. Lucilla
did not discourage the practical result of this suggestion, but she felt
an instinctive certainty in her mind that _now_ Mr Beverley would never
be bishop of Carlingford, and indeed that the chances were Carlingford
would never be elevated into a bishopric at all.

It was not until after the marriage that Mr Cavendish went away. To be
sure, he was not absolutely present at the ceremony, but there can be no
doubt that the magnificent _parure_ which Mrs Mortimer received the
evening before her marriage, "from an old friend," which made
everybody's mouth water, and which she herself contemplated with mingled
admiration and dismay, was sent by Mr Cavendish. "Do you think it could
be from _him_; or only from him?" the bride said, bewildered and
bewildering. "I am sure he might have known I never should require
anything so splendid." But Lucilla, for her part, had no doubt whatever
on the subject; and the perfect good taste of the offering made Miss
Marjoribanks sigh, thinking once more how much that was admirable was
wasted by the fatal obstacle which prevented Mr Cavendish from aspiring
to anybody higher than Barbara Lake. As for the Archdeacon, he too found
it very easy to satisfy his mind as to the donor of the emeralds. He put
them away from him severely, and did not condescend to throw a second
glance at their deceitful splendour. "Women are curiously constituted,"
said Mr Beverley, who was still at the height of superiority, though he
was a bridegroom. "I suppose those sort of things give them
pleasure--things which neither satisfy the body nor delight the soul."

"If it had been something to eat, would it have pleased you better?"
said Lucilla, moved for once in her life to be impertinent, like an
ordinary girl. For really when a man showed himself so idiotic as to
despise a beautiful set of emeralds, it went beyond even the well-known
tolerance and compassionate good-humour with which Miss Marjoribanks
regarded the vagaries of "the gentlemen." There is a limit in all
things, and this was going too far.

"I said, to satisfy the body, Miss Marjoribanks," said the Archdeacon,
"which is an office very temporarily and inadequately performed by
something to eat. I prefer the welfare of my fellow-creatures to a few
glittering stones--even when they are round Her neck," Mr Beverley
added, with a little concession to the circumstances. "Jewellery is
robbery in a great town where there is always so much to be done, and so
little means of doing it; to secure health to the people, and
education----"

"Yes," said Miss Marjoribanks, who knew in her heart that the Archdeacon
was afraid of her. "It is so nice of you not to say any of those
dreadful sanitary words--and I am sure you could make something very
nasty and disagreeable with that diamond of yours. It is a beautiful
diamond; if I were Helen I should make you give it me," said Lucilla
sweetly; and the Archdeacon was so much frightened by the threat that he
turned his ring instinctively, and quenched the glitter of the diamond
in his closed hand.

"It was a present," he said hastily, and went away to seek some better
occupation than tilting with the womankind, who naturally had possession
of the bride's little house and everything in it at that interesting
moment. It was the last evening of Lucilla's reign, and she was disposed
to take the full good of it. And though Mrs Mortimer's trousseau was
modest, and not, as Lydia Brown repeated, like that of a _real_ bride,
it was still voluminous enough to fill the room to overflowing, where it
was all being sorted and packed under Miss Marjoribanks's eye.

"It is a very nice diamond indeed," said Lucilla; "if I were you I would
certainly make him give it to me--rings are no good to a gentleman. They
never have nice hands, you know--though indeed when they have nice
hands," said Miss Marjoribanks reflectively, "it is a great deal worse,
for they keep always thrusting them under your very eyes. It is curious
why They should be so vain. They talk of women!" Lucilla added, with
natural derision; "but, my dear, if I were you I would make him give it
me; a nice diamond is always a nice thing to have."

"Lucilla," said the widow, "I am sure I don't know how to thank you for
all you have done for me; but, dear, if you please, I would not talk
like that! The gentlemen laugh, but I am sure they don't like it all the
same;" for indeed the bride thought it her duty, having won the prize in
her own person, to point out to her young friend how, to attain the same
end, she ought to behave.

Miss Marjoribanks did not laugh, for her sense of humour, as has been
said, was not strong, but she kissed her friend with protecting
tenderness. "My dear, if that had been what I was thinking of I need
never have come home," said Lucilla; and her superiority was so calm
and serene, that Mrs Mortimer felt entirely ashamed of herself for
making the suggestion. The widow was simple-minded, and, like most other
women, it gratified her to believe that here and there, as in Miss
Marjoribanks's case, there existed one who was utterly indifferent to
the gentlemen, and did not care whether they were pleased or not; which
restored a little the balance of the world to the widow-bride, who felt
with shame that she cared a great deal, and was quite incapable of such
virtue. As for Lucilla herself, she was not at that moment in conscious
enjoyment of the strength of mind for which her friend gave her credit.
On the contrary, she could not help a certain sense of surprised
depression as she superintended the packing of the boxes. The man had
had it in his power to propose to her, and he was going to be married to
Mrs Mortimer! It was not that Lucilla was wounded or disappointed, but
that she felt it as a wonderful proof of the imperfection and weakness
of human nature. Even in the nineteenth century, which has learnt so
much, such a thing was possible! It filled her with a gentle sadness as
she had the things put in, and saw the emeralds safely deposited in
their resting-place. Not that she cared for the Archdeacon, who had thus
disposed of himself; but still it was a curious fact that such a thing
could be.

Altogether it must be admitted that at this special moment Miss
Marjoribanks occupied a difficult position. She had given the Archdeacon
to understand that Mr Cavendish was a "_very_ particular friend"; and
even when the danger was past, Lucilla scorned to acknowledge her pious
prevarications. During all this interval she continued so gracious to
him that everybody was puzzled, and Mrs Woodburn even insisted on her
brother, after all, making his proposal, which would be better late than
never.

"I am sure she is fond of you," said the softened mimic, "and that sort
of thing doesn't matter to a woman as it does to a man;" for it has been
already said that Mrs Woodburn, notwithstanding her knack of external
discrimination, had very little real knowledge of character. And even at
moments, Mr Cavendish himself, who ought to have known better, was half
tempted to believe that Lucilla meant it. The effect upon Dr
Marjoribanks was still more decided. He thought he saw in his daughter
the indications of that weakness which is sometimes so surprising in
women, and it disturbed the Doctor's serenity; and he actually tried to
snub Lucilla on sundry occasions, with that wonderful fatuity which is
common to men.

"I hope when this marriage is over people will recover their senses. I
hear of nothing else," Dr Marjoribanks said one day at dessert, when
they were alone. He took some chestnuts as he spoke, and burned his
fingers, which did not improve his temper. "That sort of rubbish, I
suppose, is much more interesting than attending to your natural
duties," the Doctor added morosely, which was not a kind of address
which Miss Marjoribanks was used to hear.

"Dear papa," said Lucilla, "if I attended to my duties ever so much I
could not keep you from burning your fingers. There are some things that
people _must_ do for themselves," the dutiful daughter added, with a
sigh. Nobody could doubt who knew Lucilla that she would have gladly
taken the world on her shoulders, and saved everybody from those little
misadventures; but how could she help it if people absolutely would not
take care of themselves?

The Doctor smiled grimly, but he was not satisfied. He was, on the
contrary, furious in a quiet way. "I don't need at this time of day to
be told how clever you are, Lucilla," said her father; "and I thought
you had been superior to the ordinary folly of women----"

"Papa, for Heaven's sake!" cried Miss Marjoribanks. She was really
alarmed this time, and she did not hesitate to let it be apparent. "I do
not mean to say that I always do precisely what I ought to do," said
Lucilla; "nobody does that I know of; but I am sure I never did anything
to deserve _that_. I never was superior, and I hope I never shall be;
and I know I never pretended to it," she said, with natural horror; for
the accusation, as everybody will perceive, was hard to bear.

The Doctor laughed again, but with increased severity. "We understand
all that," he said. "I am not in the secret of your actions, Lucilla. I
don't know what you intend, or how far you mean to go. The only thing I
know is that I see that young fellow Cavendish a great deal oftener in
the house and about it than I care to see him; and I have had occasion
to say the same thing before. I know nothing about his means," said Dr
Marjoribanks; "his property may be in the Funds, but I think it a great
deal more likely that he speculates. I have worked hard for my money,
and I don't mean it to go in that way, Lucilla. I repeat, I am not in
the secret of your proceedings----"

"Dear papa! as if there was any secret," said Lucilla, fixing her candid
eyes upon her father's face. "I might pretend I did not understand you
if there was anything in what you say, but I never go upon false
pretences when I can help it. I am very fond of Mr Cavendish," she
continued regretfully, after a pause. "There is nobody in Carlingford
that is so nice; but I don't see whom he can marry except Barbara Lake."
Miss Marjoribanks would have scorned to conceal the unfeigned regret
which filled her mind when she uttered these words. "I am dreadfully
sorry, but I don't see anything that can be done for him," she said, and
sighed once more. As for the Doctor, he forgot all about his chestnuts,
and sat and stared at her, thinking in his ignorance that it was a piece
of acting, and not knowing whether to be angry or to yield to the
amusement which began to rise in his breast.

"He may marry half a dozen Barbara Lakes," said Dr Marjoribanks, "and I
don't see what reason we should have to interfere: so long as he doesn't
want to marry you----"

"That would be impossible, papa," said Lucilla, with pensive gravity. "I
am sure I am very, very sorry. She has a very nice voice, but a man
can't marry a voice, you know; and if there was anything that I could
do----I am not sure that he ever wished for _that_ either," Miss
Marjoribanks added, with her usual candour. "It is odd, but for all that
it is true." For it was a moment of emotion, and she could not help
giving utterance to the surprise with which this consideration naturally
filled her mind.

"What is odd, and what is true?" said Dr Marjoribanks, growing more and
more bewildered. But Lucilla only put aside her plate and got up from
her chair.

"Not any more wine, thank you," she said. "I know you don't want me any
more, and I have so much to do. I hope you will let me invite Barbara
here when they are married, and pay her a little attention; for nobody
likes her in Grange Lane, and it would be so hard upon _him_. The more I
think of it, the more sorry I am," said Lucilla; "he deserved better,
papa; but as for me, everybody knows what is my object in life."

Thus Miss Marjoribanks left the table, leaving her father in a singular
state of satisfaction and surprise. He did not believe a word of what
she had been saying, with that curious perversity common to the people
who surrounded Lucilla, and which arose not so much from doubt of her
veracity as from sheer excess of confidence in her powers. He thought
she had foiled him in a masterly manner, and that she was only, as
people say, amusing herself, and had no serious intentions; and he
laughed quietly to himself when she left him, in the satisfaction of
finding there was nothing in it. Miss Marjoribanks, for her part, went
on tranquilly with the arrangements for the marriage; one by one she was
disembarrassing herself from the complications which had grown round her
during the first year of her reign in Carlingford; and now only the last
links of the difficulty remained to be unrolled.

The explanation she had with Mr Cavendish himself was in every way more
interesting. It happened pretty late one evening, when Lucilla was
returning with her maid from the widow's little cottage, which was so
soon to be deserted. She was just at that moment thinking of the
wistaria which had grown so nicely, and of all the trouble she had taken
with the garden. Nobody could tell who might come into it now, after she
had done so much for it; and Miss Marjoribanks could not but have a
momentary sense that, on the whole, it was a little ungrateful on the
part of Mrs Mortimer, when everybody had taken such pains to make her
comfortable. At this moment, indeed, Lucilla was slightly given to
moralising, though with her usual wisdom she kept her meditations to
herself. She was thinking with a momentary vexation of all the plants
that had been put into the beds, and of so much time and trouble
lost--when Mr Cavendish came up to her. It was a cold evening, and there
was nothing in common between this walk and the walk they had taken
together from Grove Street to Grange Lane on an earlier occasion. But
this time, so far from being reluctant to accompany her, Mr Cavendish
came to her side eagerly. The maid retired a little behind, and then the
two found themselves in that most perfect of all positions for mutual
confidence--a street not too crowded and noisy, all shrouded in the
darkness, and yet twinkling with the friendly lights of an autumn
evening. Nothing could have been more perfect than their isolation from
the surrounding world, if they thought proper to isolate themselves; and
yet it was always there to be taken refuge in if the confidence should
receive a check, or the mind of the chance companions change.

"I have been trying to catch a glimpse of you for a long time," said Mr
Cavendish, after they had talked a little in the ordinary way, as
everybody was doing in Grange Lane, about the two people henceforward to
be known in Carlingford as "the Beverleys." "But you are always so busy
serving everybody. And I have a great deal to say to you that I don't
know how to say."

"Then don't say it, please," said Lucilla. "It is a great deal better
not. It might be funny, you know; but I am not disposed to be funny
to-night. I am very glad about Mrs Mortimer, to be sure, that she is to
be settled so nicely, and that they are going to be married at last.
But, after all, when one thinks of it, it is a little vexatious. Just
when her house was all put to rights, and the garden looking so pretty,
and the school promising so well," said Lucilla; and there was a certain
aggrieved tone in her voice.

"And it is you who have done everything for her, as for all the rest of
us," said Mr Cavendish, though he could not help laughing a little; and
then he paused, and his voice softened in the darkness by Lucilla's
side. "Do not let us talk of Mrs Mortimer," he said. "I sometimes have
something just on my lips to say, and I do not know whether I dare say
it. Miss Marjoribanks----"

And here he came to a pause. He was fluttered and frightened, which was
what she, and not he, ought to have been. And at the bottom of his heart
he did not wish to say it, which gave far more force to his hesitation
than simply a doubt whether he might dare. Perhaps Lucilla's heart
fluttered too, with a sense that the moment which once would not have
been an unwelcome moment, had at last arrived. Her heart, it is true,
was not _very_ particularly engaged; but still she was sensible of all
Mr Cavendish's capacities, and was "very fond" of him, as she said; and
her exertions on his behalf had produced their natural effect, and moved
her affections a little. She made an involuntary pause for the hundredth
part of a minute, and reckoned it all up again, and asked herself
whether it were possible. There was something, in the first place,
becoming and suitable in the idea that she, who was the only person who
knew his secret, should take him and it together and make the best of
them. And Lucilla had the consciousness that she could indeed make a
great deal of Mr Cavendish. Nobody had ever crossed her path of whom so
much could be made; and as for any further danger of his real origin and
position being found out and exposed to the world, Miss Marjoribanks was
capable of smiling at that when the defence would be in her own hands.
She might yet accept him, and have him elected member for Carlingford,
and carry him triumphantly through all his difficulties. For a small
part--nay, even for the half of a minute--Lucilla paused, and made a
rapid review of the circumstances, and reconsidered her decision.
Perhaps if Mr Cavendish had been really in earnest, that which was only
a vague possibility might have become, in another minute, a fact and
real. It was about the first time that her heart had found anything to
say in the matter; and the fact was that it actually fluttered in her
reasonable bosom, and experienced a certain _malaise_ which was quite
new to her. Was it possible that she could be in love with Mr Cavendish?
or was it merely the excitement of a final decision which made that
unusual commotion far away down at the bottom of Lucilla's heart?

However that might be, Miss Marjoribanks triumphed over her momentary
weakness. She saw the possibility, and at the same moment she saw that
it could not be; and while Mr Cavendish hesitated, she, who was always
prompt and ready, made up her mind.

"I don't know what I have done in particular, either for her or the rest
of you," she said, ignoring the other part of her companion's faltering
address, "except to help to amuse you; but I am going to do something
very serious, and I hope you will show you are grateful, as you
say--though I don't know what you have to be grateful about--by paying
great attention to me. Mr Cavendish, I am going to give you good
advice," said Lucilla; and, notwithstanding her courage, she too
faltered a little, and felt that it was rather a serious piece of
business that she had taken in hand.

"Advice?" Mr Cavendish said, like an echo of her voice; but that was all
he found time to say.

"We are such old friends, that I know you won't be vexed," said Lucilla;
"and then we understand each other. It is so nice when two people
understand each other; they can say quantities of things that strangers
cannot say. Mr Cavendish, you and Barbara are in love," said Lucilla,
making a slight pause, and looking in his face.

"Miss Marjoribanks!" cried the assaulted man, in the extremity of his
amazement and horror. As for Lucilla, she came a little closer to him,
and shook her head in a maternal, semi-reproving way.

"Don't say you are not," said Miss Marjoribanks; "you never could
deceive _me_--not in anything like that. I saw it almost as soon as you
met. They are not rich, you know, but they are very nice. Mr Lake and
Rose," said Lucilla, with admirable prudence, keeping off the difficult
subject of Barbara herself, "are the two very nicest people I know; and
everybody says that Willie is dreadfully clever. I hope you will soon be
married, and that you will be very happy," she continued, with an
effort. It was a bold thing to say, and Lucilla's throat even contracted
a little, as if to prevent the words from getting utterance; but then
she was not a person, when she knew a thing was right, to hesitate about
doing it; and in Miss Marjoribanks's mind duty went before all, as has
already been on several occasions said.

After this a horrible silence fell upon the two--a silence which, like
darkness, could be felt. The thunderbolt fell upon the victim's
unprotected head without any warning. The idea that Lucilla would talk
to him about Barbara Lake was the very last that could have entered Mr
Cavendish's mind. He was speechless with rage and mortification. He took
it for an insult inflicted upon him in cold blood, doing Lucilla much
injustice as the other people who took the candid expression of her
sentiments for a piece of acting. He was a gentleman, notwithstanding
his doubtful origin, and civilised down to his very finger-tips; but he
would have liked to have knocked Miss Marjoribanks down, though she was
a woman. And yet, as she was a woman, he dared not for his life make any
demonstration of his fury. He walked along by her side down into the
respectable solitude of Grange Lane, passing through a bright bit of
George Street, and seeing askance, by the light from the shop windows,
his adviser walking beside him, with the satisfaction of a good
conscience in her face. This awful silence lasted until they reached Dr
Marjoribanks's door.

"Thank you for coming with me so far," said Lucilla, holding out her
hand. "I suppose I must not ask you to come in, though papa would be
delighted to see you. I am afraid you are very angry with me," Miss
Marjoribanks added, with a touch of pathos; "but you may be sure I would
always stand by _you_; and I said it because I thought it was for the
best."

"On the contrary, I am much obliged to you," said Mr Cavendish, with
quiet fury, "and deeply touched by the interest you take in my
happiness. You may be sure I shall always be grateful for it; and for
the offer of your support," said the ungrateful man, with the most
truculent meaning. As for Miss Marjoribanks, she pressed quite kindly
the hurried hand with which he touched hers, and went in, still saying,
"Good-night." She had done her duty, whatever might come of it. He
rushed home furious; but she went to a little worsted-work with a mind
at peace with itself and all men. She was gentler than usual even to the
maids, who always found Miss Marjoribanks a good mistress--but she felt
a little sad in the solitude of her genius. For it is true that to be
wiser and more enlightened than one's neighbours is in most cases a
weariness to the flesh. She had made a sacrifice, and nobody appreciated
it. Instead of choosing a position which pleased her imagination, and
suited her energies, and did not go against her heart, Lucilla, moved by
the wisest discretion, had decided, not without regret, to give it up.
She had sacrificed her own inclination, and a sphere in which her
abilities would have had the fullest scope, to what she believed to be
the general good; and instead of having the heroism acknowledged, she
was misunderstood and rewarded with ingratitude. When Miss Marjoribanks
found herself alone in the solitude of her drawing-room, and in the
still greater solitude, as we have said, of her genius, she felt a
little sad, as was natural. But at the same moment there came into
Lucilla's mind a name, a humble name, which has been often pronounced in
the pages of this history, and it gave her once more a certain
consolation. A sympathetic presence seemed to diffuse itself about her
in her loneliness. There are moments when the faith of a very humble
individual may save a great soul from discouragement; and the
consciousness of being believed in once more came with the sweetest and
most salutary effect upon Lucilla's heart.

_Chapter XXXV_

It was the very day after the marriage, and two or three days after this
conversation, that Mr Cavendish left Carlingford. He went to spend the
winter in Italy, which had long been "a dream" of his, as he explained
to some of the young ladies--most of whom had the same "dream," without
the enviable power of carrying it out. He made very brief and formal
adieux to Lucilla, to the extreme amazement of all the surrounding
world, and then disappeared, leaving--just at that moment after the
excitement of the marriage was over, when Grange Lane stood most in need
of somebody to rouse its drooping spirits--a wonderful blank behind him.
Lucilla said much less about her feelings on this occasion than she was
in the habit of doing, but there could be no doubt that she felt it, and
felt it acutely. And the worst of it was, that it was she who was
universally blamed for the sudden and unexplained departure of the most
popular man in Carlingford. Some people thought he had gone away to
escape from the necessity of proposing to her; and some of more friendly
and charitable disposition believed with Mrs Chiley that Lucilla had
refused him; and some, who were mostly outsiders and of a humble class,
were of opinion that Miss Marjoribanks had exercised all her influence
to send Mr Cavendish out of the way of Barbara Lake. It was with this
impression that Rose made her way one of those foggy autumn mornings
through the fallen leaves with which the garden was carpeted, to see if
any explanation was to be got from Lucilla. The art-inspectors from
Marlborough House had just paid their annual visit to Carlingford, and
had found the Female School of Design in a condition which, as they said
in their report, "warranted the warmest encomiums," and Rose had also
won a prize for her veil in the exhibition at Kensington of ornamental
art. These were triumphs which would have made the little artist
overwhelmingly happy, if they had not been neutralised by other
circumstances; but as it was, they only aggravated the difficulties of
the position in which she found herself. She came to Lucilla in a
bonnet--a circumstance which of itself was solemn and ominous; for
generally that portentous article of dress, which was home-made, and did
not consist with cheerful dispositions, was reserved by Rose for going
to church; and her soft cheeks were pale, and the hazel eyes more dewy
than usual, though it was rain, and not dew, that had been falling from
them during those last painful days.

"I am ashamed to ask you such a question," said Rose; "but I want you to
tell me, Lucilla, if you know why Mr Cavendish has gone away. She will
not come and ask you herself, or rather I would not let her come; for
she is so passionate, one does not know what she might do. You have
behaved a little strange, Lucilla," said the straightforward Rose. "If
he cared for her, and she cared for him, you had no right to come and
take him away."

"My dear, I did not take him away," said Miss Marjoribanks. "I had to
talk to him about some--business; that was all. It is disgraceful of
Barbara to bother you about it, who are only a baby and oughtn't to know
anything----"

"Lucilla!" cried Rose, with flashing eyes, "I am seventeen, and I will
not put up with it any longer. It is all your fault. What right had you
to come and drag us to your great parties? We are not as rich as you,
nor as fine, but we have a rank of our own," cried the little artist.
"You have a great deal more money, but we have some things that money
cannot buy. You made Barbara come and sing, and put things into her
head; and you made me come, though I did not want to. Why did you ask
_us_ to your parties, Lucilla? It is all your fault!"

Lucilla was in a subdued state of mind, as may have been perceived, and
answered quite meekly. "I don't know why you should all turn against me
like this," she said, more sadly than surprised. "It is unkind of you to
say it was my fault. I did not expect it from you; and when I have so
many vexations----" Miss Marjoribanks added. She sat down as she spoke,
after being repulsed by Rose, with an air of depression which was quite
unusual to her; for to be blamed and misunderstood on all sides was hard
for one who was always working in the service of her fellow-creatures,
and doing everything for the best.

As for Rose, her heart smote her on the instant. "Have _you_ vexations,
Lucilla?" she said, in her innocence. It was the first time such an idea
had entered into her mind.

"I don't think I have anything else," said Lucilla; though even as she
said it she began to recover her spirits. "I do all I can for my
friends, and they are never pleased; and when anything goes wrong it is
always my fault."

"Perhaps if you were not to do so much----" Rose began to say, for she
was in her way a wise little woman; but her heart smote her again, and
she restrained the truism, and then after a little pause she resumed her
actual business. "I am ashamed to ask you, but do you know where Mr
Cavendish is, Lucilla?" said Rose. "She is breaking her heart because he
has gone away."

"Did he never go to say good-bye nor anything?" asked Miss Marjoribanks.
She was sorry, for it was quite the contrary of the advice she had
given, but still it would be wrong to deny that Mr Cavendish rose higher
in Lucilla's opinion when she heard it. "I don't know any more than
everybody knows. He has gone to Italy, but he will come back, and I
suppose she can wait," Miss Marjoribanks added, with perhaps a touch of
contempt. "For my part, I don't think she will break her heart."

"It is because you do not know her," said Rose, with some
indignation--for at seventeen a broken heart comes natural. "Oh,
Lucilla, it is dreadful, and I don't know what to do!" cried the little
artist, changing her tone. "I am a selfish wretch, but I cannot help it.
It is as good as putting an end to my Career; and just after my design
has been so successful--and when papa was so proud--and when I thought I
might have been a help. It is dreadful to think of oneself when her
heart is breaking; but I shall have to give up everything; and I--I
can't help feeling it, Lucilla," cried Rose, with a sudden outburst of
tears.

All this was sufficiently unintelligible to Miss Marjoribanks, who was
not the least in anxiety about Barbara's breaking heart. "Tell me what
is the matter, and perhaps we can do something," said Lucilla,
forgetting how little her past exertions had been appreciated; and Rose,
with equal inconsistency, dried her tears at the sound of Miss
Marjoribanks's reassuring voice.

"I know I am a wretch to be thinking of myself," she said. "She cannot
be expected to stay and sacrifice herself for us, after all she has
suffered. She has made up her mind and advertised in the _Times_, and
nothing can change it now. She is going out for a governess, Lucilla."

"Going for a--what?" said Miss Marjoribanks, who could not believe her
ears.

"For a governess," said Rose calmly; for though she had been partly
brought up at Mount Pleasant, she had not the elevated idea of an
instructress of youth which might have been expected from a pupil of
that establishment. "She has advertised in the _Times_," Rose added,
with quiet despair, "with no objections to travel. I would do anything
in the world for Barbara, but one can't help thinking of oneself
sometimes, and there is an end of my Career." When she had said this she
brushed the last tear off her eyelashes, and sat straight up, a little
martyr and heroic victim to duty. "Her eye, though fixed on empty space,
beamed keen with honour"; but still there was a certain desperation in
the composure with which Rose regarded, after the first outburst, the
abandonment of all her hopes.

"She is a selfish thing," said Lucilla indignantly; "she always was a
selfish thing. I should like to know what she can teach anybody? If I
were you and your papa, I certainly would not let her go away. I don't
see any reason in the world why you should give in to her and let her
stop your--your Career, you know; why should you? I would not give in to
her for one moment, if I were your papa and you."

"Why should I?" said Rose; "because there is nobody else to do anything,
Lucilla. Fleda and Dreda are such two little things; and there are all
the boys to think of, and poor papa. It is of no use asking why. If I
don't do it, there will be nobody to do it," said Rose, with big tears
coming to her eyes. Her Career was dear to her heart, and those two
tears welled up from the depths; but then there would be nobody else to
do it--a consideration which continually filters out the people who are
good for anything out of the muddy current of the ordinary world.

"And your pretty drawings, and the veil, and the School of Design!"
cried Lucilla. "You dear little Rose, don't cry. It never can be
permitted, you know. She cannot teach anything, and nobody will have
her. She is a selfish thing, though she is your sister; and if I were
your papa and you----"

"It would be no good," said Rose. "She will go, whatever anybody may
say. _She_ does not care," said the little martyr, and the two big tears
fell, making two big round blotches upon the strings of that bonnet
which Lucilla had difficulty in keeping her hands off. But when she had
thus expressed her feelings, Rose relented over her sister. "She has
suffered so much here; how can any one ask her to sacrifice herself to
us?" said the young artist mournfully. "And I am quite happy," said
Rose--"quite happy; it makes all the difference. It is her _heart_, you
know, Lucilla; and it is only my Career."

And this time the tears were dashed away by an indignant little hand.
Barbara's heart, if she had such an organ, had never in its existence
cost such bitter drops. But as for Lucilla, what could she do? She could
only repeat, "If I was your papa and you," with a melancholy sense that
she was here balked and could do no more. For even the aid of Miss
Marjoribanks was as nothing against dead selfishness and folly, the two
most invincible forces in the world. Instead of taking the business into
her own hands, and carrying it through triumphantly as she had hitherto
been in the habit of doing, Lucilla could only minister to the sufferer,
and keep up her courage, and mourn over the Career thus put in danger.
Barbara's advertisement was in the newspapers, and her foolish mind was
made up; and the hope that nobody would have her was a forlorn hope, for
somebody always does have the incapable people, as Miss Marjoribanks was
well aware. And the contralto had been of some use in Grange Lane and a
little in Grove Street, and it would be difficult, either in the one
sphere or the other, to find any one to fill her place. It was thus amid
universal demolition that Christmas approached, and Miss Marjoribanks
ended the first portion of her eventful career.

_Chapter XXXVI_

One fytte of Lucilla's history is here ended, and another is to be told.
We have recorded her beginning in all the fulness of youthful confidence
and undaunted trust in her own resources; and have done our best to show
that in the course of organising society Miss Marjoribanks, like all
other benefactors of their kind, had many sacrifices to make, and had to
undergo the mortification of finding out that many of her most able
efforts turned to other people's profit and went directly against
herself. She began the second period of her career with, to some certain
extent, that sense of failure which is inevitable to every high
intelligence after a little intercourse with the world. She had
succeeded in a great many things, but yet she had not succeeded in all;
and she had found out that the most powerful exertions in behalf of
friends not only fail to procure their gratitude, but sometimes convert
them into enemies, and do actual harm; which is a discovery which can
only be made by those who devote themselves, as Miss Marjoribanks had
done, to the good of the human species. She had done everything for the
best, and yet it had not always turned out for the best; and even the
people who had been most ready to appeal to her for assistance in their
need, had proved the readiest to accuse her when something disagreeable
happened, and to say "It was your fault." In the second stage of her
progress Miss Marjoribanks found herself, with a great responsibility
upon her shoulders, with nearly the entire social organisation of
Carlingford depending upon her; and, at the same time, with her means of
providing for the wants of her subjects sensibly diminished, and her
confidence in the resources of the future impaired to an equal degree.
One thing was sure, that she had taken the work upon her shoulders, and
that she was not the woman to draw back, whatever the difficulties might
be. She did not bate a jot of her courage, though the early buoyancy of
hope had departed, never to return. It is true that she was not so
joyful and triumphant a figure as when she conquered Nancy, and won over
Dr Marjoribanks, and electrified Mr Holden by choosing curtains which
suited her complexion; but with her diminished hopes and increased
experience and unabated courage, no doubt Miss Marjoribanks presented a
still nobler and more imposing aspect to everybody who had an eye for
moral grandeur, though it would be difficult to tell how many of such
worthy spectators existed in Grange Lane.

There was, as our readers are aware, another subject also on which
Lucilla had found her position altered. It was quite true that, had she
been thinking of _that_, she never need have come home at all; and that,
in accepting new furniture for the drawing-room, she had to a certain
extent pledged herself not to marry immediately, but to stay at home and
be a comfort to her dear papa. This is so delicate a question that it is
difficult to treat it with the freedom necessary for a full development
of a not unusual state of mind. Most people are capable of falling in
love only once or twice, or at the most a very few times, in their life;
and disappointed and heartbroken suitors are not so commonly to be met
with as perhaps could be wished. But at the same time, there can be
little doubt that the chief way in which society is supposed to signify
its approval and admiration and enthusiasm for a lady, is by making
dozens of proposals to her, as may be ascertained from all the
best-informed sources. When a woman is a great beauty, or is very
brilliant and graceful, or even is only agreeable and amusing, the
ordinary idea is that the floating men of society, in number less or
more according to the lady's merits, propose to her, though she may not
perhaps accept any of them. In proportion as her qualities rise towards
the sublime, these victims are supposed to increase; and perhaps, to
tell the truth, no woman feels herself set at her true value until some
poor man, or set of men, have put, as people say, their happiness into
her hands. It is, as we have said, a delicate subject to discuss; for
the truth is, that this well-known and thoroughly established reward of
female excellence had not fallen to Miss Marjoribanks's lot. There was
Tom, to be sure, but Tom did not count. And as for the other men who had
been presented to Lucilla as eligible candidates for her regard, none of
them had given her this proof of their admiration. The year had passed
away, and society had laid no tribute of this description upon Lucilla's
shrine. The Archdeacon had married Mrs Mortimer instead, and Mr
Cavendish had been led away by Barbara Lake! After such an experience
nothing but the inherent sweetness and wholesome tone of Miss
Marjoribanks's character could have kept her from that cynicism and
disbelief in humanity which is so often the result of knowledge of the
world. As for Lucilla, she smiled as she thought of it, not cynically,
but with a sweetly melancholy smile. What she said to herself was, Poor
men! they had had the two ways set before them, and they had not chosen
the best. It made her sad to have this proof of the imperfection of
human nature thrust upon her, but it did not turn her sweet into bitter,
as might have been the case with a more ordinary mind. Notwithstanding
that this universal reward, which in other cases is, as everybody knows,
given so indiscriminately, and with such liberality, had altogether
failed in her case, Lucilla still resumed her way with a beautiful
constancy, and went forward in the face of fate undaunted and with a
smile.

It was thus that she began the second period of her career. Up to this
moment there had never been a time in which it was not said in
Carlingford that some one was paying attention to Miss Marjoribanks; but
at present no one was paying attention to her. There were other
marriages going on around her, and other preliminaries of marriage, but
nobody had proposed to Lucilla. Affairs were in this state when she took
up her burden again boldly, and set out anew upon her way. It was a
proof of magnanimity and philanthropy which nobody could have asked from
her, if Lucilla had not been actuated by higher motives than those that
sway the common crowd. Without any assistance but that of her own
genius--without the stimulating applause of admirers, such as a woman in
such circumstances has a right to calculate upon--with no sympathising
soul to fall back upon, and nothing but a dull level of ordinary people
before her,--Miss Marjoribanks, undaunted, put on her harness and
resumed her course. The difficulties she had met only made her more
friendly, more tender, to those who were weaker than herself, and whom
evil fortune had disabled in the way. When Barbara Lake got her
situation, and went out for a governess, and Rose's fears were realised,
and she had with bitter tears to relinquish her Career, Lucilla went and
sat whole afternoons with the little artist, and gave her the handiest
assistance, and taught her a great many things which she never could
have learned at the School of Design. And the effect of this
self-abnegation was, that Lucilla bore General Travers's decision, and
gave up all hope of the officers, with a stout-heartedness which nobody
could have looked for, and did not hesitate to face her position
boldly, and to erect her standard, and to begin her new campaign,
unaided and unappreciated as she was. People who know no better may go
away upon marriage tours, or they may fly off to foreign travel, or go
out as governesses, when all things do not go just as they wish. But as
for Miss Marjoribanks, she stood bravely at her post, and scorned to
flinch or run away. Thus commenced, amid mists of discouragement, and in
an entire absence of all that was calculated to stimulate and
exhilarate, the second grand period of Lucilla's life.

_Chapter XXXVII_

It would be vain to follow Lucilla in detail through her consistent and
admirable career; nor is it necessary to say that she went on steadily
in face of all her discouragements, with that mixture of success and
failure which comes natural to all human affairs. The singular thing
about it was, that the years passed on, and that she was permitted by
the world in general to fulfil her own promise and prophecy about
remaining ten years at home to be a comfort to her dear papa. She had
been nineteen when she began her career, and she was nine-and twenty
when that little episode occurred with young Dr Rider, before he was
married to his present wife. There would have been nothing in the least
unsuitable in a marriage between Dr Rider and Miss Marjoribanks, though
people who were the best informed never thought either of them had any
serious meaning; but, of course, the general public, having had Lucilla
for a long time before their eyes, naturally added on seven or eight
years to her age, and concluded her to be a great deal older than the
young doctor, though everybody allowed that it would have been a most
advantageous match for him in every possible point of view. But,
however, it did not come to anything, no more than a great many other
nibbles of the same kind did. The period arrived at which Lucilla had
thought she might perhaps have begun to go off in her looks, but still
there was no immediate appearance of any change of name or condition on
her part. Many people quite congratulated themselves on the fact, as it
was impossible to imagine what might be the social condition of Grange
Lane without Miss Marjoribanks; but it is doubtful whether Lucilla
congratulated herself. She was very comfortable, no doubt, in every way,
and met with little opposition to speak of, and had things a great deal
more in her own hands than she might have had, had there been a husband
in the case to satisfy; but notwithstanding, she had come to an age when
most people have husbands, and when an independent position in the world
becomes necessary to self-respect. To be sure, Lucilla _was_
independent; but then--there is a difference, as everybody knows.

And Miss Marjoribanks could not but feel that the world had not shown
that appreciation of her, to which, in her earlier days, she looked
forward with so little fear. The ten years, as they had really gone by,
were very different from the ten years she had looked forward to, when,
in the triumph of her youth, she named that period as the time when she
might probably begin to go off, and would be disposed to marry. By this
time the drawing-room carpets and curtains had faded a little, and
Lucilla had found out that the delicate pale green which suited her
complexion was not to call a profitable colour; and nobody could have
thought or said that to marry at this period would be in the least
degree to swindle the Doctor. Thus the moment had arrived to which she
looked forward, but the man had not arrived with it. Ten years had
passed, during which she had been at the head of society in Grange Lane,
and a great comfort to her dear papa; and now, if there remained another
development for Lucilla's character, it was about time that it should
begin to show itself. But at the same time, the main element necessary
for that new development did not seem at present likely to be found in
Grange Lane.

Unless, indeed, it might happen to be found in the person of Mr
Ashburton, who was so often in Carlingford that he might be said to form
a part of society there. It was he who was related to the Richmonds, who
were a family much respected in the county. He had been at the bar, and
even begun to distinguish himself, before old Miss Penrhyn died and left
him the Firs. He had begun to distinguish himself, but he had not, it
appeared, gone so far as to prevent him from coming down to his new
property and settling upon it, and taking his place as a local
notability. He was not a man who could be expected to care for evening
parties in a provincial town; but he never refused to dine with Dr
Marjoribanks, and was generally popular upstairs, where he always paid a
little attention to Lucilla, though nothing very marked and noticeable.
Mr Ashburton was not like Mr Cavendish, for instance (if anybody
remembered Mr Cavendish), a man whose money might be in the Funds, but
who more probably speculated. Everybody knew everything about him, which
was an ease to the public mind. The Firs was as well known as
Carlingford steeple, and how much it was worth a year, and everything
about it; and so was the proprietor's pedigree, which could be traced to
a semi-mythical personage known as old Penrhyn, whose daughter was Sir
John Richmond's grandmother. The Firs, it is true, had descended in the
female line, but still it is something to know where a man comes from,
even on one side.

Mr Ashburton made himself very agreeable in the neighbourhood, and was
never above enlightening anybody on a point of law. He used to say that
it was kind to give him something to do, which was an opinion endorsed
practically by a great many people. It is true that some of his
neighbours wondered much to see his patience, and could not make out why
he chose to rusticate at the Firs at his age, and with his abilities.
But either he never heard these wonderings, or at least he never took
any notice of them. He lived as if he liked it, and settled down, and
presented to all men an aspect of serene contentment with his sphere.
And it would be difficult to say what suggestion or association it was
which brought him all of a sudden into Miss Marjoribanks's head, one
day, when, seeing a little commotion in Masters's shop, she went in to
hear what it was about. The cause of the commotion was an event which
had been long expected, and which, indeed, ten years before, had been
looked on as a possible thing to happen any day. The wonder was, not
that old Mr Chiltern should die, but that he should have lived so long.
The ladies in Masters's cried, "Poor dear old man!" and said to each
other that however long it might have been expected, a death always
seemed sudden at the last. But, to tell the truth, the stir made by this
death was rather pleasant than sad. People thought, not of the career
which was ended, but of the one which must now begin, and of the
excitement of an election, which was agreeable to look forward to. As
for Lucilla, when she too had heard the news, and had gone upon her way,
it would be vain to assert that a regretful recollection of the time
when Mr Cavendish was thought a likely man to succeed Mr Chiltern did
not occur to her. But when Miss Marjoribanks had dismissed that
transitory thought, Mr Ashburton suddenly came into her head by one of
those intuitions which have such an effect upon the mind that receives
them. Lucilla was not of very marked political opinions, and perhaps was
not quite aware what Mr Ashburton's views were on the Irish Church
question, or upon parliamentary reform; but she said after, that it came
into her mind in a moment, like a flash of lightning, that he was the
man. The idea was so new and so striking, that she turned back and went,
in the excitement of the moment, to suggest it to Mrs Chiley, and see
what her old friend and the Colonel would say. Of course, if such a
thing was practicable, there was no time to lose. She turned round
quickly, according to her prompt nature; and such was her absorbed
interest in the idea of Mr Ashburton, that she did not know until she
had almost done it, that she was walking straight into her hero's arms.

"Oh, Mr Ashburton!" said Lucilla, with a little scream, "is it you? My
mind was quite full of you. I could not see you for thinking. Do come
back with me, for I have something very particular to say----"

"To me?" said Mr Ashburton, looking at her with a smile and a sudden
look of interest; for it is always slightly exciting to the most
philosophical mortal to know that somebody else's mind is full of him.
"What you have said already is so flattering----"

"I did not mean anything absurd," said Miss Marjoribanks. "Don't talk
any nonsense, please. Mr Ashburton, do you know that old Mr Chiltern is
dead?"

Lucilla put the question solemnly, and her companion grew a little red
as he looked at her. "It is not my fault," he said, though he still
smiled; and then he grew redder and redder, though he ought to have been
above showing such signs of emotion; and looked at her curiously, as if
he would seize what she was going to say out of her eyes or her lips
before it was said.

"It is not anything to laugh about," said Lucilla. "He was a very nice
old man; but he is dead, and somebody else must be Member for
Carlingford: that was why I told you that my mind was full of you. I am
not in the least superstitious," said Miss Marjoribanks, solemnly; "but
when I stood there--there, just in front of Mr Holden's--you came into
my mind like a flash of lightning. I was not thinking of you in the
least, and you came into my mind like--like Minerva, you know. If it was
not an intimation, I don't know what it was. And that was why I ran
against you, and did not see you were there. Mr Ashburton, it is you who
must be the man," said Lucilla. It was not a thing to speak lightly
about, and for her part she spoke very solemnly; and as for Mr