"Lady Clavering," he said, "your sister will never marry my cousin
Archie. I look upon the thing as impossible."

"Perhaps it is, Harry, that you,--you yourself would not wish it."

"Why should I wish it?"

"He is your own cousin."

"Cousin indeed! Why should I wish it, or why should I not wish it?
They are neither of them anything to me."

"She ought not to be anything to you."

"And she is nothing. She may marry Archie, if she pleases, for me. I
shall not set her against him. But, Lady Clavering, you might as well
tell him to get one of the stars. I don't think you can know your
sister when you suppose such a match to be possible."

"Hermione!" shouted Sir Hugh,--and the shout was uttered in a voice
that always caused Lady Clavering to tremble.

"I am coming," she said, rising from her chair. "Don't set yourself
against it, Harry," and then, without waiting to hear him further,
she obeyed her husband's summons. "What the mischief keeps you in
there?" he said. It seemed that things had not been going well in the
larger room. The rector had stuck to his review, taking no notice of
Sir Hugh when he entered. "You seem to be very fond of your book, all
of a sudden," Sir Hugh had said, after standing silent on the rug for
a few minutes.

"Yes, I am," said the rector,--"just at present."

"It's quite new with you, then," said Sir Hugh, "or else you're very
much belied."

"Hugh," said Mr. Clavering, rising slowly from his chair, "I don't
often come into my father's house, but when I do, I wish to be
treated with respect. You are the only person in this parish that
ever omits to do so."

"Bosh!" said Sir Hugh.

The two girls sat cowering in their seats, and poor Florence
must have begun to entertain an uncomfortable idea of her future
connexions. Archie made a frantic attempt to raise some conversation
with Mrs. Clavering about the weather. Mrs. Clavering, paying no
attention to Archie whatever, looked at her husband with beseeching
eyes. "Henry," she said, "do not allow yourself to be angry; pray do
not. What is the use?"

"None on earth," he said, returning to his book. "No use on
earth;--and worse than none in showing it."

Then it was that Sir Hugh had made a diversion by calling to his
wife. "I wish you'd stay with us, and not go off alone with one
person in particular, in that way." Lady Clavering looked round and
immediately saw that things were unpleasant. "Archie," she said,
"will you ring for tea?" And Archie did ring. The tea was brought,
and a cup was taken all round, almost in silence.

Harry in the meantime remained by himself thinking of what he had
heard from Lady Clavering. Archie Clavering marry Lady Ongar,--marry
his Julia! It was impossible. He could not bring himself even to
think of such an arrangement with equanimity. He was almost frantic
with anger as he thought of this proposition to restore Lady Ongar to
the position in the world's repute which she had a right to claim, by
such a marriage as that. "She would indeed be disgraced then," said
Harry to himself. But he knew that it was impossible. He could see
what would be the nature of Julia's countenance if Archie should ever
get near enough to her to make his proposal! Archie indeed! There
was no one for whom, at that moment, he entertained so thorough a
contempt as he did for his cousin, Archie Clavering.

Let us hope that he was no dog in the manger;--that the feelings
which he now entertained for poor Archie would not have been roused
against any other possible suitor who might have been named as a
fitting husband for Lady Ongar. Lady Ongar could be nothing to him!

But I fear that he was a dog in the manger, and that any marriage
contemplated for Lady Ongar, either by herself or by others for her,
would have been distasteful to him,--unnaturally distasteful. He knew
that Lady Ongar could be nothing to him; and yet, as he came out of
the small room into the larger room, there was something sore about
his heart, and the soreness was occasioned by the thought that any
second marriage should be thought possible for Lady Ongar. Florence
smiled on him as he went up to her, but I doubt whether she would
have smiled had she known all his heart.

Soon after that Mrs. Clavering rose to return home, having swallowed
a peace-offering in the shape of a cup of tea. But though the tea
had quieted the storm then on the waters, there was no true peace in
the rector's breast. He shook hands cordially with Lady Clavering,
without animosity with Archie, and then held out three fingers to the
baronet. The baronet held out one finger. Each nodded at the other,
and so they parted. Harry, who knew nothing of what had happened, and
who was still thinking of Lady Ongar, busied himself with Florence,
and they were soon out of the house, walking down the broad road from
the front door.

"I will never enter that house again, when I know that Hugh Clavering
is in it," said the rector.

"Don't make rash assertions, Henry," said his wife.

"I hope it is not rash, but I make that assertion," he said. "I will
never again enter that house as my nephew's guest. I have borne a
great deal for the sake of peace, but there are things which a man
cannot bear."

Then, as they walked home, the two girls explained to Harry what had
occurred in the larger room, while he was talking to Lady Clavering
in the smaller one. But he said nothing to them of the subject of
that conversation.

CHAPTER XII.

LADY ONGAR TAKES POSSESSION.

I do not know that there is in England a more complete gentleman's
residence than Ongar Park, nor could there be one in better repair,
or more fit for immediate habitation than was that house when it came
into the hands of the young widow. The park was not large, containing
about sixty or seventy acres. But there was a home-farm attached to
the place, which also now belonged to Lady Ongar for her life, and
which gave to the park itself an appearance of extent which it would
otherwise have wanted. The house, regarded as a nobleman's mansion,
was moderate in size, but it was ample for the requirements of any
ordinarily wealthy family. The dining-room, library, drawing-rooms,
and breakfast-room, were all large and well-arranged. The hall was
handsome and spacious, and the bed-rooms were sufficiently numerous
to make an auctioneer's mouth water. But the great charm of Ongar
Park lay in the grounds immediately round the house, which sloped
down from the terrace before the windows to a fast-running stream
which was almost hidden,--but was not hidden,--by the shrubs on its
bank. Though the domain itself was small, the shrubberies and walks
were extensive. It was a place costly to maintain in its present
perfect condition, but when that was said against it, all was said
against it which its bitterest enemies could allege.

But Lady Ongar, with her large jointure, and with no external
expenses whatever, could afford this delight without imprudence.
Everything in and about the place was her own, and she might live
there happily, even in the face of the world's frowns, if she could
teach herself to find happiness in rural luxuries. On her immediate
return to England, her lawyer had told her that he found there would
be opposition to her claim, and that an attempt would be made to keep
the house out of her hands. Lord Ongar's people would, he said, bribe
her to submit to this by immediate acquiescence as to her income.
But she had declared that she would not submit,--that she would
have house and income and all; and she had been successful. "Why
should I surrender what is my own?" she had said, looking the lawyer
full in the face. The lawyer had not dared to tell her that her
opponents,--Lord Ongar's heirs,--had calculated on her anxiety to
avoid exposure; but she knew that that was meant. "I have nothing to
fear from them," she said, "and mean to claim what is my own by my
settlement." There had, in truth, been no ground for disputing her
right, and the place was given up to her before she had been three
months in England. She at once went down and took possession, and
there she was, alone, when her sister was communicating to Harry
Clavering her plan about Captain Archie.

She had never seen the place till she reached it on this occasion;
nor had she ever seen, nor would she now probably ever see, Lord
Ongar's larger house, Courton Castle. She had gone abroad with him
immediately on their marriage, and now she had returned a widow to
take possession of his house. There she was in possession of it all.
The furniture in the rooms, the books in the cases, the gilded clocks
and grand mirrors about the house, all the implements of wealthy
care about the gardens, the corn in the granaries and the ricks
in the hay-yard, the horses in the stable, and the cows lowing in
the fields,--they were all hers. She had performed her part of the
bargain, and now the price was paid to her into her hands. When she
arrived she did not know what was the extent of her riches in this
world's goods; nor, in truth, had she at once the courage to ask
questions on the subject. She saw cows, and was told of horses; and
words came to her gradually of sheep and oxen, of poultry, pigs, and
growing calves. It was as though a new world had opened itself before
her eyes, full of interest, and as though all that world were her
own. She looked at it, and knew that it was the price of her bargain.
Upon the whole she had been very lucky. She had, indeed, passed
through a sharp agony,--an agony sharp almost to death; but the agony
had been short, and the price was in her hand.

A close carriage had met her at the station, and taken her with her
maid to the house. She had so arranged that she had reached the
station after dark, and even then had felt that the eyes of many were
upon her as she went out to her carriage, with her face covered by
a veil. She was all alone, and there would be no one at the house
to whom she could speak;--but the knowledge that the carriage was
her own perhaps consoled her. The housekeeper who received her was a
stout, elderly, comfortable body, to whom she could perhaps say a few
words beyond those which might be spoken to an ordinary servant; but
she fancied at once that the housekeeper was cold to her, and solemn
in her demeanour. "I hope you have good fires, Mrs. Button." "Yes,
my lady." "I think I will have some tea; I don't want anything else
to-night." "Very well, my lady." Mrs. Button, maintaining a solemn
countenance, would not go beyond this; and yet Mrs. Button looked
like a woman who could have enjoyed a gossip, had the lady been a
lady to her mind. Perhaps Mrs. Button did not like serving a lady as
to whom such sad stories were told. Lady Ongar, as she thought of
this, drew herself up unconsciously, and sent Mrs. Button away from
her.

The next morning, after an early breakfast, Lady Ongar went out. She
was determined that she would work hard; that she would understand
the farm; that she would know the labourers; that she would assist
the poor; that she would have a school; and, above all, that she
would make all the privileges of ownership her own. Was not the price
in her hand, and would she not use it? She felt that it was very good
that something of the price had come to her thus in the shape of
land, and beeves, and wide, heavy outside garniture. From them she
would pluck an interest which mere money could not have given her.
She was out early, therefore, that she might look round upon the
things that were her own.

And there came upon her a feeling that she would not empty this sweet
cup at one draught, that she would dally somewhat with the rich
banquet that was spread for her. She had many griefs to overcome,
much sorrow to conquer, perhaps a long period of desolation to
assuage, and she would not be prodigal of her resources. As she
looked around her while she walked, almost furtively, lest some
gardener as he spied her might guess her thoughts and tell how my
lady was revelling in her pride of possession,--it appeared to her
that those novelties in which she was to find her new interest were
without end. There was not a tree there, not a shrub, not a turn in
the walks, which should not become her friend. She did not go far
from the house, not even down to the water. She was husbanding her
resources. But yet she lost herself amidst the paths, and tried to
find a joy in feeling that she had done so. It was all her own. It
was the price of what she had done; and the price was even now being
paid into her hand,--paid with current coin and of full weight.

As she sat down alone to her breakfast, she declared to herself that
this should be enough for her,--that it should satisfy her. She had
made her bargain with her eyes open, and would not now ask for things
which had not been stipulated in the contract. She was alone, and all
the world was turning its back on her. The relatives of her late
husband would, as a matter of course, be her enemies. Them she had
never seen, and that they should speak evil of her seemed to be only
natural. But her own relatives were removed from her by a gulf nearly
equally wide. Of Brabazon cousins she had none nearer than the third
or fourth degree of cousinship, and of them she had never taken heed,
and expected no heed from them. Her set of friends would naturally
have been the same as her sister's, and would have been made up of
those she had known when she was one of Sir Hugh's family. But from
Sir Hugh she was divided now as widely as from the Ongar people,
and,--for any purposes of society,--from her sister also. Sir Hugh
had allowed his wife to invite her to Clavering, but to this she
would not submit after Sir Hugh's treatment to her on her return.
Though she had suffered much, her spirit was unbroken. Sir Hugh was,
in truth, responsible for her reception in England. Had he come
forward like a brother, all might have been well. But it was too late
now for Sir Hugh Clavering to remedy the evil he had done, and he
should be made to understand that Lady Ongar would not become a
suppliant to him for mercy. She was striving to think how "rich she
was in horses, how rich in broidered garments and in gold," as she
sat solitary over her breakfast; but her mind would run off to other
things, cumbering itself with unnecessary miseries and useless
indignation. Had she not her price in her hand?

Would she see the steward that morning? No,--not that morning. Things
outside could go on for a while in their course as heretofore. She
feared to seem to take possession with pride, and then there was that
conviction that it would be well to husband her resources. So she
sent for Mrs. Button, and asked Mrs. Button to walk through the rooms
with her. Mrs. Button came, but again declined to accept her lady's
condescension. Every spot about the house, every room, closet, and
wardrobe, she was ready to open with zeal; the furniture she was
prepared to describe, if Lady Ongar would listen to her; but every
word was spoken in a solemn voice, very far removed from gossiping.
Only once was Mrs. Button moved to betray any emotion. "That, my
lady, was my lord's mother's room, after my lord died,--my lord's
father that was; may God bless her." Then Lady Ongar reflected that
from her husband she had never heard a word either of his father or
his mother. She wished that she could seat herself with that woman in
some small upstairs room, and then ask question after question about
the family. But she did not dare to make the attempt. She could not
bring herself to explain to Mrs. Button that she had never known
anything of the belongings of her own husband.

When she had seen the upper part of the house, Mrs. Button offered to
convoy her through the kitchens and servants' apartments, but she
declined this for the present. She had done enough for the day. So
she dismissed Mrs. Button, and took herself to the library. How often
had she heard that books afforded the surest consolation to the
desolate. She would take to reading; not on this special day, but as
the resource for many days and months, and years to come. But this
idea had faded and become faint, before she had left the gloomy,
damp-feeling, chill room, in which some former Lord Ongar had stored
the musty volumes which he had thought fit to purchase. The library
gave her no ease, so she went out again among the lawns and shrubs.
For some time to come her best resources must be those which she
could find outside the house.

Peering about, she made her way behind the stables, which were
attached to the house, to a farmyard gate, through which the way led
to the head-quarters of the live-stock. She did not go through, but
she looked over the gate, telling herself that those barns and sheds,
that wealth of straw-yard, those sleeping pigs and idle dreaming
calves, were all her own. As she did so, her eye fell upon an old
labourer, who was sitting close to her, on a felled tree, under the
shelter of a paling, eating his dinner. A little girl, some six years
old, who had brought him his meal tied up in a handkerchief, was
crouching near his feet. They had both seen her before she had seen
them, and when she noticed them, were staring at her with all their
eyes. She and they were on the same side of the farmyard paling, and
so she could reach them and speak to them without difficulty. There
was apparently no other person near enough to listen, and it occurred
to her that she might at any rate make a friend of this old man. His
name, he said, was Enoch Gubby, and the girl was his grandchild. Her
name was Patty Gubby. Then Patty got up and had her head patted by
her ladyship and received sixpence. They neither of them, however,
knew who her ladyship was, and, as far as Lady Ongar could ascertain
without a question too direct to be asked, had never heard of her.
Enoch Gubby said he worked for Mr. Giles, the steward,--that was for
my lord, and as he was old and stiff with rheumatism he only got
eight shillings a week. He had a daughter, the mother of Patty, who
worked in the fields, and got six shillings a week. Everything about
the poor Gubbys seemed to be very wretched and miserable. Sometimes
he could hardly drag himself about, he was so bad with the
rheumatics. Then she thought that she would make one person happy,
and told him that his wages should be raised to ten shillings a week.
No matter whether he earned it or not, or what Mr. Giles might say,
he should have ten shillings a week. Enoch Gubby bowed, and rubbed
his head, and stared, and was in truth thankful because of the
sixpence in ready money; but he believed nothing about the ten
shillings. He did not especially disbelieve, but simply felt
confident that he understood nothing that was said to him. That
kindness was intended, and that the sixpence was there, he did
understand.

[Illustration: Was not the price in her hand?]

But Enoch Gubby got his weekly ten shillings, though Lady Ongar
hardly realized the pleasure that she had expected from the
transaction. She sent that afternoon for Mr. Giles, the steward, and
told him what she had done. Mr. Giles did not at all approve, and
spoke his disapproval very plainly, though he garnished his rebuke
with a great many "my lady's." The old man was a hanger-on about the
place, and for years had received eight shillings a week, which he
had not half earned. "Now he will have ten, that is all," said Lady
Ongar. Mr. Giles acknowledged that if her ladyship pleased, Enoch
Gubby must have the ten shillings, but declared that the business
could not be carried on in that way. Everybody about the place would
expect an addition, and those people who did earn what they received,
would think themselves cruelly used in being worse treated than Enoch
Gubby, who, according to Mr. Giles, was by no means the most worthy
old man in the parish. And as for his daughter--oh! Mr. Giles could
not trust himself to talk about the daughter to her ladyship. Before
he left her, Lady Ongar was convinced that she had made a mistake.
Not even from charity will pleasure come, if charity be taken up
simply to appease remorse.

The price was in her hand. For a fortnight the idea clung to her,
that gradually she would realize the joys of possession; but there
was no moment in which she could tell herself that the joy was hers.
She was now mistress of the geography of the place. There was no more
losing herself amidst the shrubberies, no thought of economizing her
resources. Of Mr. Giles and his doings she still knew very little,
but the desire of knowing much had faded. The ownership of the
haystacks had become a thing tame to her, and the great cart-horses,
as to every one of which she had intended to feel an interest, were
matters of indifference to her. She observed that since her arrival a
new name in new paint,--her own name,--was attached to the carts, and
that the letters were big and glaring. She wished that this had not
been done, or, at any rate, that the letters had been smaller. Then
she began to think that it might be well for her to let the farm to
a tenant; not that she might thus get more money, but because she
felt that the farm would be a trouble. The apples had indeed quickly
turned to ashes between her teeth!

On the first Sunday that she was at Ongar Park she went to the parish
church. She had resolved strongly that she would do this, and she did
it; but when the moment for starting came, her courage almost failed
her. The church was but a few yards from her own gate, and she walked
there without any attendant. She had, however, sent word to the
sexton to say that she would be there, and the old man was ready to
show her into the family pew. She wore a thick veil, and was dressed,
of course, in all the deep ceremonious woe of widowhood. As she
walked up the centre of the church she thought of her dress, and told
herself that all there would know how it had been between her and her
husband. She was pretending to mourn for the man to whom she had sold
herself; for the man who through happy chance had died so quickly,
leaving her with the price in her hand! All of course knew that, and
all thought that they knew, moreover, that she had been foully false
to her bargain, and had not earned the price! That, also, she told
herself. But she went through it, and walked out of the church among
the village crowd with her head on high.

Three days afterwards she wrote to the clergyman, asking him to call
on her. She had come, she said, to live in the parish, and hoped to
be able, with his assistance, to be of some use among the people.
She would hardly know how to act without some counsel from him. The
schools might be all that was excellent, but if there was anything
required she hoped he would tell her. On the following morning the
clergyman called, and, with many thanks for her generosity, listened
to her plans, and accepted her subsidies. But he was a married man,
and he said nothing of his wife, nor during the next week did his
wife come to call on her. She was to be left desolate by all, because
men had told lies of her!

She had the price in her hands, but she felt herself tempted to do as
Judas did,--to go out and hang herself.

CHAPTER XIII.

A VISITOR CALLS AT ONGAR PARK.

[Illustration.]

It will be remembered that Harry Clavering, on returning one evening
to his lodgings in Bloomsbury Square, had been much astonished at
finding there the card of Count Pateroff, a man of whom he had only
heard, up to that moment, as the friend of the late Lord Ongar. At
first he had been very angry with Lady Ongar, thinking that she and
this count were in some league together, some league of which he
would greatly disapprove; but his anger had given place to a new
interest when he learned direct from herself that she had not seen
the count, and that she was simply anxious that he, as her friend,
should have an interview with the man. He had then become very
eager in the matter, offering to subject himself to any amount of
inconvenience so that he might effect that which Lady Ongar asked of
him. He was not, however, called upon to endure any special trouble
or expense, as he heard nothing more from Count Pateroff till he had
been back in London for two or three weeks.

Lady Ongar's statement to him had been quite true. It had been even
more than true; for when she had written she had not even heard
directly from the count. She had learned by letter from another
person that Count Pateroff was in London, and had then communicated
the fact to her friend. This other person was a sister of the
count's, who was now living in London, one Madame Gordeloup,--Sophie
Gordeloup,--a lady whom Harry had found sitting in Lady Ongar's room
when last he had seen her in Bolton Street. He had not then heard her
name; nor was he aware then, or for some time subsequently, that
Count Pateroff had any relative in London.

Lady Ongar had been a fortnight in the country before she received
Madame Gordeloup's letter. In that letter the sister had declared
herself to be most anxious that her brother should see Lady Ongar.
The letter had been in French, and had been very eloquent,--more
eloquent in its cause than any letter with the same object could have
been if written by an Englishwoman in English; and the eloquence was
less offensive than it might, under all concurrent circumstances,
have been had it reached Lady Ongar in English. The reader must not,
however, suppose that the letter contained a word that was intended
to support a lover's suit. It was very far indeed from that, and
spoke of the count simply as a friend; but its eloquence went to show
that nothing that had passed should be construed by Lady Ongar as
offering any bar to a fair friendship. What the world said!--Bah! Did
not she know,--she, Sophie,--and did not her friend know,--her friend
Julie,--that the world was a great liar? Was it not even now telling
wicked venomous lies about her friend Julie? Why mind what the world
said, seeing that the world could not be brought to speak one word of
truth? The world indeed! Bah!

But Lady Ongar, though she was not as yet more than half as old as
Madame Gordeloup, knew what she was about almost as well as that
lady knew what Sophie Gordeloup was doing. Lady Ongar had known
the count's sister in France and Italy, having seen much of her
in one of those sudden intimacies to which English people are
subject when abroad; and she had been glad to see Madame Gordeloup
in London,--much more glad than she would have been had she been
received there on her return by a crowd of loving native friends.
But not on that account was she prepared to shape her conduct in
accordance with her friend Sophie's advice, and especially not
so when that advice had reference to Sophie's brother. She had,
therefore, said very little in return to the lady's eloquence,
answering the letter on that matter very vaguely; but, having a
purpose of her own, had begged that Count Pateroff might be asked to
call upon Harry Clavering. Count Pateroff did not feel himself to
care very much about Harry Clavering, but wishing to do as he was
bidden, did leave his card in Bloomsbury Square.

And why was Lady Ongar anxious that the young man who was her friend
should see the man who had been her husband's friend, and whose name
had been mixed with her own in so grievous a manner? She had called
Harry her friend, and it might be that she desired to give this
friend every possible means of testing the truth of that story which
she herself had told. The reader, perhaps, will hardly have believed
in Lady Ongar's friendship;--will, perhaps, have believed neither
the friendship nor the story. If so, the reader will have done her
wrong, and will not have read her character aright. The woman was
not heartless because she had once, in one great epoch of her life,
betrayed her own heart; nor was she altogether false because she had
once lied; nor altogether vile, because she had once taught herself
that, for such an one as her, riches were a necessity. It might be
that the punishment of her sin could meet with no remission in this
world, but not on that account should it be presumed that there was
no place for repentance left to her.

As she walked alone through the shrubberies at Ongar Park she thought
much of those other paths at Clavering, and of the walks in which
she had not been alone; and she thought of that interview in the
garden when she had explained to Harry,--as she had then thought so
successfully,--that they two, each being poor, were not fit to love
and marry each other. She had brooded over all that, too, during the
long hours of her sad journey home to England. She was thinking of
it still when she had met him, and had been so cold to him on the
platform of the railway station, when she had sent him away angry
because she had seemed to slight him. She had thought of it as she
had sat in her London room, telling him the terrible tale of her
married life, while her eyes were fixed on his and her head was
resting on her hands. Even then, at that moment, she was asking
herself whether he believed her story, or whether, within his breast,
he was saying that she was vile and false. She knew that she had been
false to him, and that he must have despised her when, with her easy
philosophy, she had made the best of her own mercenary perfidy. He
had called her a jilt to her face, and she had been able to receive
the accusation with a smile. Would he now call her something worse,
and with a louder voice, within his own bosom? And if she could
convince him that to that accusation she was not fairly subject,
might the old thing come back again? Would he walk with her again,
and look into her eyes as though he only wanted her commands to show
himself ready to be her slave? She was a widow, and had seen many
things, but even now she had not reached her six-and-twentieth year.

The apples at her rich country-seat had quickly become ashes between
her teeth, but something of the juice of the fruit might yet reach
her palate if he would come and sit with her at the table. As she
complained to herself of the coldness of the world, she thought that
she would not care how cold might be all the world if there might be
but one whom she could love, and who would love her. And him she had
loved. To him, in old days,--in days which now seemed to her to be
very old,--she had made confession of her love. Old as were those
days, it could not be but he should still remember them. She had
loved him, and him only. To none other had she ever pretended love.
From none other had love been offered to her. Between her and that
wretched being to whom she had sold herself, who had been half dead
before she had seen him, there had been no pretence of love. But
Harry Clavering she had loved. Harry Clavering was a man, with all
those qualities which she valued, and also with those foibles which
saved him from being too perfect for so slight a creature as herself.
Harry had been offended to the quick, and had called her a jilt; but
yet it might be possible that he would return to her.

It should not be supposed that since her return to England she had
had one settled, definite object before her eyes with regard to
this renewal of her love. There had been times in which she had
thought that she would go on with the life which she had prepared
for herself, and that she would make herself contented, if not happy,
with the price which had been paid to her. And there were other
times, in which her spirits sank low within her, and she told herself
that no contentment was any longer possible to her. She looked at
herself in the glass, and found herself to be old and haggard. Harry,
she said, was the last man in the world to sell himself for wealth,
when there was no love remaining. Harry would never do as she
had done with herself! Not for all the wealth that woman ever
inherited,--so she told herself,--would he link himself to one who
had made herself vile and tainted among women! In this, I think, she
did him no more than justice, though it may be that in some other
matters she rated his character too highly. Of Florence Burton she
had as yet heard nothing, though had she heard of her, it may well
be that she would not on that account have desisted. Such being her
thoughts and her hopes, she had written to Harry, begging him to see
this man who had followed her,--she knew not why,--from Italy; and
had told the sister simply that she could not do as she was asked,
because she was away from London, alone in a country house.

And quite alone she was sitting one morning, counting up her misery,
feeling that the apples were, in truth, ashes, when a servant came to
her, telling her that there was a gentleman in the hall desirous of
seeing her. The man had the visitor's card in his hand, but before
she could read the name, the blood had mounted into her face as she
told herself that it was Harry Clavering. There was joy for a moment
at her heart; but she must not show it,--not as yet. She had been
but four months a widow, and he should not have come to her in
the country. She must see him and in some way make him understand
this,--but she would be very gentle with him. Then her eye fell upon
the card, and she saw, with grievous disappointment, that it bore
the name of Count Pateroff. No;--she was not going to be caught in
that way. Let the result be what it might, she would not let Sophie
Gordeloup, or Sophie's brother, get the better of her by such a ruse
as that! "Tell the gentleman, with my compliments," she said, as she
handed back the card, "that I regret it greatly, but I can see no
one now." Then the servant went away, and she sat wondering whether
the count would be able to make his way into her presence. She felt
rather than knew that she had some reason to fear him. All that had
been told of him and of her had been false. No accusation brought
against her had contained one spark of truth. But there had been
things between Lord Ongar and this man which she would not care to
have told openly in England. And though, in his conduct to her,
he had been customarily courteous, and on one occasion had been
generous, still she feared him. She would much rather that he should
have remained in Italy. And though, when all alone in Bolton Street,
she had in her desolation welcomed his sister Sophie, she would have
preferred that Sophie should not have come to her, claiming to renew
their friendship. But with the count she would hold no communion now,
even though he should find his way into the room.

A few minutes passed before the servant returned, and then he brought
a note with him. As the door opened Lady Ongar rose, ready to leave
the room by another passage; but she took the note and read it. It
was as follows:--"I cannot understand why you should refuse to see
me, and I feel aggrieved. My present purpose is to say a few words to
you on private matters connected with papers that belonged to Lord
Ongar. I still hope that you will admit me.--P." Having read these
words while standing, she made an effort to think what might be
the best course for her to follow. As for Lord Ongar's papers, she
did not believe in the plea. Lord Ongar could have had no papers
interesting to her in such a manner as to make her desirous of seeing
this man or of hearing of them in private. Lord Ongar, though she had
nursed him to the hour of his death, earning her price, had been her
bitterest enemy; and though there had been something about this count
that she had respected, she had known him to be a man of intrigue and
afraid of no falsehoods in his intrigues,--a dangerous man, who might
perhaps now and again do a generous thing, but one who would expect
payment for his generosity. Besides, had he not been named openly
as her lover? She wrote to him, therefore, as follows:--"Lady Ongar
presents her compliments to Count Pateroff, and finds it to be out
of her power to see him at present." This answer the visitor took
and walked away from the front door without showing any disgust
to the servant, either by his demeanour or in his countenance. On
that evening she received from him a long letter, written at the
neighbouring inn, expostulating with her as to her conduct towards
him, and saying in the last line, that it was "impossible now that
they should be strangers to each other." "Impossible that we should
be strangers," she said almost out loud. "Why impossible? I know no
such impossibility." After that she carefully burned both the letter
and the note.

She remained at Ongar Park something over six weeks, and then, about
the beginning of May, she went back to London. No one had been to see
her, except Mr. Sturm, the clergyman of the parish; and he, though
something almost approaching to an intimacy had sprung up between
them, had never yet spoken to her of his wife. She was not quite
sure whether her rank might not deter him,--whether under such
circumstances as those now in question, the ordinary social rules
were not ordinarily broken,--whether a countess should not call on a
clergyman's wife first, although the countess might be the stranger;
but she did not dare to do as she would have done, had no blight
attached itself to her name. She gave, therefore, no hint; she said
no word of Mrs. Sturm, though her heart was longing for a kind word
from some woman's mouth. But she allowed herself to feel no anger
against the husband, and went through her parish work, thanking him
for his assistance.

Of Mr. Giles she had seen very little, and since her misfortune with
Enoch Gubby, she had made no further attempt to interfere with the
wages of the persons employed. Into the houses of some of the poor
she had made her way, but she fancied that they were not glad to
see her. They might, perhaps, have all heard of her reputation,
and Gubby's daughter may have congratulated herself that there was
another in the parish as bad as herself, or perhaps, happily, worse.
The owner of all the wealth around strove to make Mrs. Button become
a messenger of charity between herself and some of the poor; but Mrs.
Button altogether declined the employment, although, as her mistress
had ascertained, she herself performed her own little missions of
charity with zeal. Before the fortnight was over, Lady Ongar was sick
of her house and her park, utterly disregardful of her horses and
oxen, and unmindful even of the pleasant stream which in these spring
days rippled softly at the bottom of her gardens.

She had undertaken to be back in London early in May, by appointment
with her lawyer, and had unfortunately communicated the fact to
Madame Gordeloup. Four or five days before she was due in Bolton
Street, her mindful Sophie, with unerring memory, wrote to her,
declaring her readiness to do all and anything that the most diligent
friendship could prompt. Should she meet her dear Julie at the
station in London? Should she bring any special carriage? Should
she order any special dinner in Bolton Street? She herself would of
course come to Bolton Street, if not allowed to be present at the
station. It was still chilly in the evenings, and she would have
fires lit. Might she suggest a roast fowl and some bread sauce, and
perhaps a sweetbread,--and just one glass of champagne? And might she
share the banquet? There was not a word in the note about the too
obtrusive brother, either as to the offence committed by him, or the
offence felt by him.

The little Franco-Polish woman was there in Bolton Street, of
course,--for Lady Ongar had not dared to refuse her. A little, dry,
bright woman she was, with quick eyes, and thin lips, and small nose,
and mean forehead, and scanty hair drawn back quite tightly from her
face and head; very dry, but still almost pretty with her quickness
and her brightness. She was fifty, was Sophie Gordeloup, but she had
so managed her years that she was as active on her limbs as most
women are at twenty-five. And the chicken, and the bread-sauce, and
the sweetbread, and the champagne were there, all very good of their
kind; for Sophie Gordeloup liked such things to be good, and knew how
to indulge her own appetite, and to coax that of another person.

Some little satisfaction Lady Ongar received from the fact that she
was not alone; but the satisfaction was not satisfactory. When Sophie
had left her at ten o'clock, running off by herself to her lodgings
in Mount Street, Lady Ongar, after but one moment's thought, sat down
and wrote a note to Harry Clavering.

   DEAR HARRY,--I am back in town. Pray come and see me to-morrow
   evening. Yours ever,

   J. O.

CHAPTER XIV.

COUNT PATEROFF AND HIS SISTER.

After an interval of some weeks, during which Harry had been down
at Clavering and had returned again to his work at the Adelphi,
Count Pateroff called again in Bloomsbury Square;--but Harry was
at Mr. Beilby's office. Harry at once returned the count's visit
at the address given in Mount Street. Madame was at home, said the
servant-girl, from which Harry was led to suppose that the count was
a married man; but Harry felt that he had no right to intrude upon
madame, so he simply left his card. Wishing, however, really to
have this interview, and having been lately elected at a club of
which he was rather proud, he wrote to the count asking him to dine
with him at the Beaufort. He explained that there was a strangers'
room,--which Pateroff knew very well, having often dined at the
Beaufort,--and said something as to a private little dinner for two,
thereby apologizing for proposing to the count to dine without other
guests. Pateroff accepted the invitation, and Harry, never having
done such a thing before, ordered his dinner with much nervousness.

The count was punctual, and the two men introduced themselves.
Harry had expected to see a handsome foreigner, with black hair,
polished whiskers, and probably a hook nose,--forty years of age or
thereabouts, but so got up as to look not much more than thirty.
But his guest was by no means a man of that stamp. Excepting that
the count's age was altogether uncertain, no correctness of guess
on that matter being possible by means of his appearance, Harry's
preconceived notion was wrong in every point. He was a fair man, with
a broad fair face, and very light blue eyes; his forehead was low,
but broad; he wore no whiskers, but bore on his lip a heavy moustache
which was not grey, but perfectly white--white it was with years of
course, but yet it gave no sign of age to his face. He was well made,
active, and somewhat broad in the shoulders, though rather below the
middle height. But for a certain ease of manner which he possessed,
accompanied by something of restlessness in his eye, any one would
have taken him for an Englishman. And his speech hardly betrayed that
he was not English. Harry, knowing that he was a foreigner, noticed
now and again some little acquired distinctness of speech which is
hardly natural to a native; but otherwise there was nothing in his
tongue to betray him.

"I am sorry that you should have had so much trouble," he said,
shaking hands with Harry. Clavering declared that he had incurred no
trouble, and declared also that he would be only too happy to have
taken any trouble in obeying a behest from his friend Lady Ongar. Had
he been a Pole as was the count, he would not have forgotten to add
that he would have been equally willing to exert himself with the
view of making the count's acquaintance; but being simply a young
Englishman, he was much too awkward for any such courtesy as that.
The count observed the omission, smiled, and bowed. Then he spoke of
the weather, and said that London was a magnificent city. Oh, yes,
he knew London well,--had known it these twenty years;--had been
for fifteen years a member of the Travellers';--he liked everything
English, except hunting. English hunting he had found to be dull
work. But he liked shooting for an hour or two. He could not rival,
he said, the intense energy of an Englishman, who would work all day
with his guns harder than ploughmen with their ploughs. Englishmen
sported, he said, as though more than their bread,--as though their
honour, their wives, their souls, depended on it. It was very fine!
He often wished that he was an Englishman. Then he shrugged his
shoulders.

Harry was very anxious to commence a conversation about Lady Ongar,
but he did not know how at first to introduce her name. Count
Pateroff had come to him at Lady Ongar's request, and therefore, as
he thought, the count should have been the first to mention her. But
the count seemed to be enjoying his dinner without any thought either
of Lady Ongar or of her late husband. At this time he had been down
to Ongar Park, on that mission which had been, as we know, futile;
but he said no word of that to Harry. He seemed to enjoy his dinner
thoroughly, and made himself very agreeable. When the wine was
discussed he told Harry that a certain vintage of Moselle was very
famous at the Beaufort. Harry ordered the wine of course, and was
delighted to give his guest the best of everything; but he was a
little annoyed at finding that the stranger knew his club better than
he knew it himself. Slowly the count ate his dinner, enjoying every
morsel that he took with that thoughtful, conscious pleasure which
young men never attain in eating and drinking, and which men as they
grow older so often forget to acquire. But the count never forgot any
of his own capacities for pleasure, and in all things made the most
of his own resources. To be rich is not to have one or ten thousand a
year, but to be able to get out of that one or ten thousand all that
every pound, and every shilling, and every penny will give you. After
this fashion the count was a rich man.

"You don't sit after dinner here, I suppose," said the count, when
he had completed an elaborate washing of his mouth and moustache. "I
like this club because we who are strangers have so charming a room
for our smoking. It is the best club in London for men who do not
belong to it."

It occurred to Harry that in the smoking-room there could be no
privacy. Three or four men had already spoken to the count, showing
that he was well known, giving notice, as it were, that Pateroff
would become a public man when once he was placed in a public circle.
To have given a dinner to the count, and to have spoken no word
to him about Lady Ongar, would be by no means satisfactory to
Harry's feelings, though, as it appeared, it might be sufficiently
satisfactory to the guest. Harry therefore suggested one bottle of
claret. The count agreed, expressing an opinion that the 51 Lafitte
was unexceptional. The 51 Lafitte was ordered, and Harry, as he
filled his glass, considered the way in which his subject should be
introduced.

"You knew Lord Ongar, I think, abroad?"

"Lord Ongar,--abroad! Oh, yes, very well; and for many years here in
London; and at Vienna; and very early in life at St. Petersburg. I
knew Lord Ongar first in Russia when he was attached to the embassy
as Frederic Courton. His father, Lord Courton, was then alive, as was
also his grandfather. He was a nice, good-looking lad then."

"As regards his being nice, he seems to have changed a good deal
before he died." This the count noticed by simply shrugging his
shoulders and smiling as he sipped his wine. "By all that I can hear
he became a horrid brute when he married," said Harry, energetically.

"He was not pleasant when he was ill at Florence," said the count.

"She must have had a terrible time with him," said Harry.

The count put up his hands, again shrugged his shoulders, and then
shook his head. "She knew he was no longer an Adonis when he married
her."

"An Adonis! No; she did not expect an Adonis; but she thought he
would have something of the honour and feelings of a man."

"She found it uncomfortable, no doubt. He did too much of this, you
know," said the count, raising his glass to his lips; "and he didn't
do it with 51 Lafitte. That was Ongar's fault. All the world knew it
for the last ten years. No one knew it better than Hugh Clavering."

"But--" said Harry, and then he stopped. He hardly knew what it was
that he wished to learn from the man, though he certainly did wish
to learn something. He had thought that the count would himself have
talked about Lady Ongar and those Florentine days, but this he did
not seem disposed to do. "Shall we have our cigars now?" said Count
Pateroff.

"One moment, if you don't mind."

"Certainly, certainly. There is no hurry."

"You will take no more wine?"

"No more wine. I take my wine at dinner, as you saw."

"I want to ask you one special question,--about Lady Ongar."

"I will say anything in her favour that you please. I am always ready
to say anything in the favour of any lady, and, if needs be, to swear
it. But anything against any lady nobody ever heard me say."

Harry was sharp enough to perceive that any assertion made under
such a stipulation was worse than nothing. It was as when a man, in
denying the truth of a statement, does so with an assurance that on
that subject he should consider himself justified in telling any
number of lies. "I did not write the book,--but you have no right to
ask the question; and I should say that I had not, even if I had."
Pateroff was speaking of Lady Ongar in this way, and Harry hated him
for doing so.

"I don't want you to say any good of her," said he, "or any evil."

"I certainly shall say no evil of her."

"But I think you know that she has been most cruelly treated."

"Well, there is about seven--thousand--pounds a year, I think!
Seven--thousand--a year! Not francs, but pounds! We poor foreigners
lose ourselves in amazement when we hear about your English fortunes.
Seven thousand pounds a year for a lady all alone, and a beau-tiful
house! A house so beautiful, they tell me!"

"What has that to do with it?" said Harry; whereupon the count again
shrugged his shoulders. "What has that to do with it? Because the man
was rich he was not justified in ill-treating his wife. Did he not
bring false accusations against her, in order that he might rob her
after his death of all that of which you think so much? Did he not
bear false witness against her, to his own dishonour?"

[Illustration: "Did he not bear false witness against her?"]

"She has got the money, I think,--and the beautiful house."

"But her name has been covered with lies."

"What can I do? Why do you ask me? I know nothing. Look here, Mr.
Clavering, if you want to make any inquiry you had better go to my
sister. I don't see what good it will do, but she will talk to you by
the hour together, if you wish it. Let us smoke."

"Your sister?"

"Yes, my sister. Madame Gordeloup is her name. Has not Lady Ongar
mentioned my sister? They are inseparables. My sister lives in Mount
Street."

"With you?"

"No, not with me; I do not live in Mount Street. I have my address
sometimes at her house."

"Madame Gordeloup?"

"Yes, Madame Gordeloup. She is Lady Ongar's friend. She will talk to
you."

"Will you introduce me, Count Pateroff?"

"Oh, no; it is not necessary. You can go to Mount Street, and she
will be delighted. There is the card. And now we will smoke." Harry
felt that he could not, with good-breeding, detain the count any
longer, and, therefore, rising from his chair, led the way into the
smoking-room. When there, the man of the world separated himself from
his young friend, of whose enthusiasm he had perhaps had enough, and
was soon engaged in conversation with sundry other men of his own
standing. Harry soon perceived that his guest had no further need
of his countenance, and went home to Bloomsbury Square by no means
satisfied with his new acquaintance.

On the next day he dined in Onslow Crescent with the Burtons, and
when there he said nothing about Lady Ongar or Count Pateroff. He
was not aware that he had any special reason for being silent on the
subject, but he made up his mind that the Burtons were people so far
removed in their sphere of life from Lady Ongar, that the subject
would not be suitable in Onslow Crescent. It was his lot in life to
be concerned with people of the two classes. He did not at all mean
to say,--even to himself,--that he liked the Ongar class the better;
but still, as such was his lot, he must take it as it came, and
entertain both subjects of interest, without any commingling of them
one with another. Of Lady Ongar and his early love he had spoken to
Florence at some length, but he did not find it necessary in his
letters to tell her anything of Count Pateroff and his dinner at the
Beaufort. Nor did he mention the dinner to his dear friend Cecilia.
On this occasion he made himself very happy in Onslow Crescent,
playing with the children, chatting with his friend, and enduring,
with a good grace, Theodore Burton's sarcasm, when that ever-studious
gentleman told him that he was only fit to go about tied to a woman's
apron-string.

On the following day, about five o'clock, he called in Mount Street.
He had doubted much as to this, thinking that at any rate he ought,
in the first place, to write and ask permission. But at last he
resolved that he would take the count at his word, and presenting
himself at the door, he sent up his name. Madame Gordeloup was at
home, and in a few moments he found himself in the room in which the
lady was sitting, and recognized her whom he had seen with Lady Ongar
in Bolton Street. She got up at once, having glanced at the name upon
the card, and seemed to know all about him. She shook hands with him
cordially, almost squeezing his hand, and bade him sit down near
her on the sofa. "She was so glad to see him, for her dear Julie's
sake. Julie, as of course he knew, was at 'Ongere' Park. Oh! so
happy,"--which, by the by, he did not know,--"and would be up in the
course of next week. So many things to do, of course, Mr. Clavering.
The house, and the servants, and the park, and the beautiful things
of a large country establishment! But it was delightful, and Julie
was quite happy!"

No people could be more unlike to each other than this brother and
his sister. No human being could have taken Madame Gordeloup for an
Englishwoman, though it might be difficult to judge, either from her
language or her appearance, of the nationality to which she belonged.
She spoke English with great fluency, but every word uttered declared
her not to be English. And when she was most fluent she was most
incorrect in her language. She was small, eager, and quick, and
appeared quite as anxious to talk as her brother had been to hold
his tongue. She lived in a small room on the first floor of a small
house; and it seemed to Harry that she lived alone. But he had
not been long there before she had told him all her history, and
explained to him most of her circumstances. That she kept back
something is probable; but how many are there who can afford to tell
everything?

Her husband was still living, but he was at St. Petersburg. He was
a Frenchman by family, but had been born in Russia. He had been
attached to the Russian embassy in London, but was now attached to
diplomacy in general in Russia. She did not join him because she
loved England,--oh, so much! And, perhaps, her husband might come
back again some day. She did not say that she had not seen him for
ten years, and was not quite sure whether he was dead or alive; but
had she made a clean breast in all things, she might have done so.
She said that she was a good deal still at the Russian embassy; but
she did not say that she herself was a paid spy. Nor do I say so now,
positively; but that was the character given to her by many who knew
her. She called her brother Edouard, as though Harry had known the
count all his life; and always spoke of Lady Ongar as Julie. She
uttered one or two little hints which seemed to imply that she knew
everything that had passed between "Julie" and Harry Clavering in
early days; and never mentioned Lord Ongar without some term of
violent abuse.

"Horrid wretch!" she said, pausing over all the _r's_ in the name she
had called him. "It began, you know, from the very first. Of course
he had been a fool. An old roué is always a fool to marry. What does
he get, you know, for his money? A pretty face. He's tired of that
as soon as it's his own. Is it not so, Mr. Clavering? But other
people ain't tired of it, and then he becomes jealous. But Lord Ongar
was not jealous. He was not man enough to be jealous. Hor-r-rid
wr-retch!" She then went on telling many things which, as he
listened, almost made Harry Clavering's hair stand on end, and which
must not be repeated here. She herself had met her brother in Paris,
and had been with him when they encountered the Ongars in that
capital. According to her showing, they had, all of them, been
together nearly from that time to the day of Lord Ongar's death. But
Harry soon learned to feel that he could not believe all that the
little lady told him.

"Edouard was always with him. Poor Edouard!" she said. "There was
some money matter between them about écarté. When that wr-retch got
to be so bad, he did not like parting with his money,--not even when
he had lost it! And Julie had been so good always! Julie and Edouard
had done everything for the nasty wr-retch." Harry did not at all
like this mingling of the name of Julie and Edouard, though it did
not for a moment fill his mind with any suspicion as to Lady Ongar.
It made him feel, however, that this woman was dangerous, and that
her tongue might be very mischievous if she talked to others as she
did to him. As he looked at her,--and being now in her own room she
was not dressed with scrupulous care,--and as he listened to her, he
could not conceive what Lady Ongar had seen in her that she should
have made a friend of her. Her brother, the count, was undoubtedly
a gentleman in his manners and way of life, but he did not know by
what name to call this woman, who called Lady Ongar Julie. She was
altogether unlike any ladies whom he had known.

"You know that Julie will be in town next week?"

"No; I did not know when she was to return."

"Oh, yes; she has business with those people in South Audley Street
on Thursday. Poor dear! Those lawyers are so harassing! But when
people have seven--thousand--pounds a year, they must put up with
lawyers." As she pronounced those talismanic words, which to her were
almost celestial, Harry perceived for the first time that there was
some sort of resemblance between her and the count. He could see that
they were brother and sister. "I shall go to her directly she comes,
and of course I will tell her how good you have been to come to
me. And Edouard has been dining with you? How good of you. He told
me how charming you are,"--Harry was quite sure then that she was
fibbing,--"and that it was so pleasant! Edouard is very much attached
to Julie; very much. Though, of course, all that was mere nonsense;
just lies told by that wicked lord. Bah! what did he know?" Harry by
this time was beginning to wish that he had never found his way to
Mount Street.

"Of course they were lies," he said roughly.

"Of course, mon cher. Those things always are lies, and so wicked!
What good do they do?"

"Lies never do any good," said Harry.

To so wide a proposition as this madame was not prepared to give an
unconditional assent; she therefore shrugged her shoulders and once
again looked like her brother.

"Ah!" she said. "Julie is a happy woman now. Seven--thousand--pounds
a year! One does not know how to believe it; does one?"

"I never heard the amount of her income," said Harry.

"It is all that," said the Franco-Pole, energetically, "every franc
of it, besides the house! I know it. She told me herself. Yes. What
woman would risk that, you know; and his life, you may say, as good
as gone? Of course they were lies."

"I don't think you understand her, Madame Gordeloup."

"Oh, yes; I know her, so well. And love her--oh, Mr. Clavering, I
love her so dearly! Is she not charming? So beautiful you know, and
grand. Such a will, too! That is what I like in a woman. Such a
courage! She never flinched in those horrid days, never. And when he
called her,--you know what,--she only looked at him, just looked at
him, miserable object. Oh, it was beautiful!" And Madame Gordeloup,
rising in her energy from her seat for the purpose, strove to throw
upon Harry such another glance as the injured, insulted wife had
thrown upon her foul-tongued, dying lord.

"She will marry," said Madame Gordeloup, changing her tone with a
suddenness that made Harry start; "yes, she will marry of course.
Your English widows always marry if they have money. They are wrong,
and she will be wrong; but she will marry."

"I do not know how that may be," said Harry, looking foolish.

"I tell you I know she will marry, Mr. Clavering; I told Edouard so
yesterday. He merely smiled. It would hardly do for him, she has so
much will. Edouard has a will also."

"All men have, I suppose."

"Ah, yes; but there is a difference. A sum of money down, if a man is
to marry, is better than a widow's dower. If she dies, you know, he
looks so foolish. And she is grand and will want to spend everything.
Is she much older than you, Mr. Clavering? Of course I know Julie's
age, though perhaps you do not. What will you give me to tell?" And
the woman leered at him with a smile which made Harry think that she
was almost more than mortal. He found himself quite unable to cope
with her in conversation, and soon after this got up to take his
leave. "You will come again," she said. "Do. I like you so much. And
when Julie is in town, we shall be able to see her together, and I
will be your friend. Believe me."

Harry was very far from believing her, and did not in the least
require her friendship. Her friendship indeed! How could any decent
English man or woman wish for the friendship of such a creature as
that? It was thus that he thought of her as he walked away from Mount
Street, making heavy accusations, within his own breast, against Lady
Ongar as he did so. Julia! He repeated the name over to himself a
dozen times, thinking that the flavour of it was lost since it had
been contaminated so often by that vile tongue. But what concern was
it of his? Let her be Julia to whom she would, she could never be
Julia again to him. But she was his friend--Lady Ongar, and he told
himself plainly that his friend had been wrong in having permitted
herself to hold any intimacy with such a woman as that. No doubt Lady
Ongar had been subjected to very trying troubles in the last months
of her husband's life, but no circumstances could justify her, if she
continued to endorse the false cordiality of that horribly vulgar
and evil-minded little woman. As regarded the grave charges brought
against Lady Ongar, Harry still gave no credit to them, still looked
upon them as calumnies, in spite of the damning advocacy of Sophie
and her brother; but he felt that she must have dabbled in very
dirty water to have returned to England with such claimants on her
friendship as these. He had not much admired the count, but the
count's sister had been odious to him. "I will be your friend.
Believe me." Harry Clavering stamped upon the pavement as he
thought of the little Pole's offer to him. She be his friend! No,
indeed;--not if there were no other friend for him in all London.

Sophie, too, had her thoughts about him. Sophie was very anxious
in this matter, and was resolved to stick as close to her Julie as
possible. "I will be his friend or his enemy;--let him choose." That
had been Sophie's reflection on the matter when she was left alone.

CHAPTER XV.

AN EVENING IN BOLTON STREET.

Ten days after his visit in Mount Street, Harry received the note
which Lady Ongar had written to him on the night of her arrival in
London. It was brought to Mr. Beilby's office by her own footman
early in the morning; but Harry was there at the time, and was thus
able to answer it, telling Lady Ongar that he would come as she had
desired. She had commenced her letter "Dear Harry," and he well
remembered that when she had before written she had called him "Dear
Mr. Clavering." And though the note contained only half-a-dozen
ordinary words, it seemed to him to be affectionate, and almost
loving. Had she not been eager to see him, she would hardly thus have
written to him on the very instant of her return. "Dear Lady Ongar,"
he wrote, "I shall dine at my club, and be with you about eight.
Yours always, H. C." After that he could hardly bring himself to work
satisfactorily during the whole day. Since his interview with the
Franco-Polish lady he had thought a good deal about himself, and had
resolved to work harder and to love Florence Burton more devotedly
than ever. The nasty little woman had said certain words to him
which had caused him to look into his own breast and to tell himself
that this was necessary. As the love was easier than the work, he
began his new tasks on the following morning by writing a long and
very affectionate letter to his own Flo, who was still staying
at Clavering rectory;--a letter so long and so affectionate that
Florence, in her ecstasy of delight, made Fanny read it, and confess
that, as a love-letter, it was perfect.

"It's great nonsense, all the same," said Fanny.

"It isn't nonsense at all," said Florence; "and if it were, it would
not signify. Is it true? That's the question."

"I'm sure it's true," said Fanny.

"And so am I," said Florence. "I don't want any one to tell me that."

"Then why did you ask, you simpleton?" Florence indeed was having
a happy time of it at Clavering rectory. When Fanny called her a
simpleton, she threw her arms round Fanny's neck and kissed her.

And Harry kept his resolve about the work too, investigating plans
with a resolution to understand them which was almost successful.
During those days he would remain at his office till past four
o'clock, and would then walk away with Theodore Burton, dining
sometimes in Onslow Crescent, and going there sometimes in the
evening after dinner. And when there he would sit and read; and
once when Cecilia essayed to talk to him, he told her to keep her
apron-strings to herself. Then Theodore laughed and apologized,
and Cecilia said that too much work made Jack a dull boy; and then
Theodore laughed again, stretching out his legs and arms as he
rested a moment from his own study, and declared that, under those
circumstances, Harry never would be dull. And Harry, on those
evenings, would be taken upstairs to see the bairns in their cots;
and as he stood with their mother looking down upon the children,
pretty words would be said about Florence and his future life; and
all was going merry as a marriage bell. But on that morning, when
the note had come from Lady Ongar, Harry could work no more to his
satisfaction. He scrawled upon his blotting-paper, and made no
progress whatsoever towards the understanding of anything. It was
the day on which, in due course, he would write to Florence; and he
did write to her. But Florence did not show this letter to Fanny,
claiming for it any meed of godlike perfection. It was a stupid,
short letter, in which he declared that he was very busy, and that
his head ached. In a postscript he told her that he was going to see
Lady Ongar that evening. This he communicated to her under an idea
that by doing so he made everything right. And I think that the
telling of it did relieve his conscience.

He left the office soon after three, having brought himself to
believe in the headache, and sauntered down to his club. He found men
playing whist there, and, as whist might be good for his head, he
joined them. They won his money, and scolded him for playing badly
till he was angry, and then he went out for a walk by himself. As he
went along Piccadilly, he saw Sophie Gordeloup coming towards him,
trotting along, with her dress held well up over her ankles, eager,
quick, and, as he said to himself, clearly intent upon some mischief.
He endeavoured to avoid her by turning up the Burlington Arcade, but
she was too quick for him, and was walking up the arcade by his side
before he had been able to make up his mind as to the best mode of
ridding himself of such a companion.

"Ah, Mr. Clavering, I am so glad to see you. I was with Julie last
night. She was fagged, very much fagged; the journey, you know, and
the business. But yet so handsome! And we talked of you. Yes, Mr.
Clavering; and I told her how good you had been in coming to me. She
said you were always good; yes, she did. When shall you see her?"

Harry Clavering was a bad hand at fibbing, and a bad hand also at
leaving a question unanswered. When questioned in this way he did not
know what to do but to answer the truth. He would much rather not
have said that he was going to Bolton Street that evening, but he
could find no alternative. "I believe I shall see her this evening,"
he said, simply venturing to mitigate the evil of making the
communication by rendering it falsely doubtful. There are men who fib
with so bad a grace and with so little tact that they might as well
not fib at all. They not only never arrive at success, but never even
venture to expect it.

"Ah, this evening. Let me see. I don't think I can be there to-night;
Madame Berenstoff receives at the embassy."

"Good afternoon," said Harry, turning into Truefit's, the
hairdresser's, shop.

"Ah, very well," said Sophie to herself; "just so. It will be better,
much better. He is simply one lout, and why should he have it all? My
God, what fools, what louts, are these Englishmen!" Now having read
Sophie's thoughts so far, we will leave her to walk up the remainder
of the arcade by herself.

I do not know that Harry's visit to Truefit's establishment had been
in any degree caused by his engagement for the evening. I fancy that
he had simply taken to ground at the first hole, as does a hunted
fox. But now that he was there he had his head put in order, and
thought that he looked the better for the operation. He then went
back to his club, and when he sauntered into the card-room one old
gentleman looked askance at him, as though inquiring angrily whether
he had come there to make fresh misery. "Thank you; no,--I won't play
again," said Harry. Then the old gentleman was appeased, and offered
him a pinch of snuff. "Have you seen the new book about whist?" said
the old gentleman. "It is very useful,--very useful. I'll send you a
copy if you will allow me." Then Harry left the room, and went down
to dinner.

It was a little past eight when he knocked at Lady Ongar's door.
I fear he had calculated that if he were punctual to the moment,
she would think that he thought the matter to be important. It was
important to him, and he was willing that she should know that it was
so. But there are degrees in everything, and therefore he was twenty
minutes late. He was not the first man who has weighed the diplomatic
advantage of being after his time. But all those ideas went from him
at once when she met him almost at the door of the room, and, taking
him by the hand, said that she was "so glad to see him,--so very
glad. Fancy, Harry, I haven't seen an old friend since I saw you
last. You don't know how hard all that seems."

"It is hard," said he; and when he felt the pressure of her hand, and
saw the brightness of her eye, and when her dress rustled against
him as he followed her to her seat, and he became sensible of the
influence of her presence, all his diplomacy vanished, and he was
simply desirous of devoting himself to her service. Of course,
any such devotion was to be given without detriment to that other
devotion which he owed to Florence Burton. But this stipulation,
though it was made, was made quickly, and with a confused brain.

"Yes,--it is hard," she said. "Harry, sometimes I think I shall go
mad. It is more than I can bear. I could bear it if it hadn't been my
own fault,--all my own fault."

There was a suddenness about this which took him quite by surprise.
No doubt it had been her own fault. He also had told himself that;
though, of course, he would make no such charge to her. "You have not
recovered yet," he said, "from what you have suffered lately. Things
will look brighter to you after a while."

"Will they? Ah,--I do not know. But come, Harry; come and sit down,
and let me get you some tea. There is no harm, I suppose, in having
you here,--is there?"

"Harm, Lady Ongar?"

"Yes,--harm, Lady Ongar." As she repeated her own name after him,
nearly in his tone, she smiled once again; and then she looked as she
used to look in the old days, when she would be merry with him. "It
is hard to know what a woman may do, and what she may not. When my
husband was ill and dying, I never left his bedside. From the moment
of my marrying him till his death, I hardly spoke to a man but in his
presence; and when once I did, it was he that had sent him. And for
all that people have turned their backs upon me. You and I were old
friends, Harry, and something more once,--were we not? But I jilted
you, as you were man enough to tell me. How I did respect you when
you dared to speak the truth to me. Men don't know women, or they
would be harder to them."

"I did not mean to be hard to you."

"If you had taken me by the shoulders and shaken me, and have
declared that before God you would not allow such wickedness, I
should have obeyed you. I know I should." Harry thought of Florence,
and could not bring himself to say that he wished it had been so.
"But where would you have been then, Harry? I was wrong and false and
a beast to marry that man; but I should not, therefore, have been
right to marry you and ruin you. It would have been ruin, you know,
and we should simply have been fools."

"The folly was very pleasant," said he.

"Yes, yes; I will not deny that. But then the wisdom and the prudence
afterwards! Oh, Harry, that was not pleasant. That was not pleasant!
But what was I saying? Oh! about the propriety of your being here. It
is so hard to know what is proper. As I have been married, I suppose
I may receive whom I please. Is not that the law?"

"You may receive me, I should think. Your sister is my cousin's
wife." Harry's matter-of-fact argument did as well as anything else,
for it turned her thought at the moment.

"My sister, Harry! If there was nothing to make us friends but our
connection through Sir Hugh Clavering, I do not know that I should be
particularly anxious to see you. How unmanly he has been, and how
cruel."

"Very cruel," said Harry. Then he thought of Archie and Archie's
suit. "But he is willing to change all that now. Hermione asked me
the other day to persuade you to go to Clavering."

"And have you come here to use your eloquence for that purpose? I
will never go to Clavering again, Harry, unless it should be yours
and your wife should offer to receive me. Then I'd pack up for the
dear, dull, solemn old place though I was on the other side of
Europe."

"It will never be mine."

"Probably not, and probably, therefore, I shall never be there again.
No; I can forgive an injury, but not an insult,--not an insult such
as that. I will not go to Clavering; so, Harry, you may save your
eloquence. Hermione I shall be glad to see whenever she will come
to me. If you can persuade her to that, you will persuade her to a
charity."

"She goes nowhere, I think, without his--his--"

"Without his permission. Of course she does not. That, I suppose, is
all as it should be. And he is such a tyrant that he will give no
such permission. He would tell her, I suppose, that her sister was no
fit companion for her."

"He could not say that now, as he has asked you there."

"Ah, I don't know that. He would say one thing first and another
after, just as it would suit him. He has some object in wishing
that I should go there, I suppose." Harry, who knew the object, and
who was too faithful to betray Lady Clavering, even though he was
altogether hostile to his cousin Archie's suit, felt a little proud
of his position, but said nothing in answer to this. "But I shall
not go; nor will I see him, or go to his house when he comes up to
London. When do they come, Harry?"

"He is in town now."

"What a nice husband, is he not? And when does Hermione come?"

"I do not know; she did not say. Little Hughy is ill, and that may
keep her."

"After all, Harry, I may have to pack up and go to Clavering even
yet,--that is, if the mistress of the house will have me."

"Never in the way you mean, Lady Ongar. Do not propose to kill all my
relations in order that I might have their property. Archie intends
to marry, and have a dozen children."

"Archie marry! Who will have him? But such men as he are often in the
way by marrying some cookmaid at last. Archie is Hugh's body-slave.
Fancy being body-slave to Hugh Clavering! He has two, and poor Hermy
is the other; only he prefers not to have Hermy near him, which is
lucky for her. Here is some tea. Let us sit down and be comfortable,
and talk no more about our horrid relations. I don't know what made
me speak of them. I did not mean it."

Harry sat down and took the cup from her hand, as she had bidden the
servant to leave the tray upon the table.

"So you saw Count Pateroff," she said.

"Yes, and his sister."

"So she told me. What do you think of them?" To this question Harry
made no immediate answer. "You may speak out. Though I lived abroad
with such as them for twelve months, I have not forgotten the sweet
scent of our English hedgerows, nor the wholesomeness of English
household manners. What do you think of them?"

"They are not sweet or wholesome," said he.

"Oh, Harry, you are so honest! Your honesty is beautiful. A spade
will ever be a spade with you."

He thought that she was laughing at him, and coloured.

"You pressed me to speak," he said, "and I did but use your own
words."

"Yes, but you used them with such straightforward violence! Well, you
shall use what words you please, and how you please, because a word
of truth is so pleasant after living in a world of lies. I know you
will not lie to me, Harry. You never did."

He felt that now was the moment in which he should tell her of his
engagement, but he let the moment pass without using it. And, indeed,
it would have been hard for him to tell. In telling such a story he
would have been cautioning her that it was useless for her to love
him,--and this he could not bring himself to do. And he was not sure
even now that she had not learned the fact from her sister. "I hope
not," he said. In all that he was saying he knew that his words were
tame and impotent in comparison with hers, which seemed to him to
mean so much. But then his position was so unfortunate! Had it not
been for Florence Burton he would have been long since at her feet;
for, to give Harry Clavering his due, he could be quick enough at
swearing to a passion. He was one of those men to whom love-making
comes so readily that it is a pity that they should ever marry. He
was ever making love to women, usually meaning no harm. He made
love to Cecilia Burton over her children's beds, and that discreet
matron liked it. But it was a love-making without danger. It simply
signified on his part the pleasure he had in being on good terms with
a pretty woman. He would have liked to have made love in the same
way to Lady Ongar; but that was impossible, and in all love-making
with Lady Ongar there must be danger. There was a pause after the
expression of his last hopes, during which he finished his tea, and
then looked at his boots.

"You do not ask me what I have been doing at my country-house."

"And what have you been doing there?"

"Hating it."

"That is wrong."

"Everything is wrong that I do; everything must be wrong. That is the
nature of the curse upon me."

"You think too much of all that now."

"Ah, Harry, that is so easily said. People do not think of such
things if they can help themselves. The place is full of him and his
memories; full of him, though I do not as yet know whether he ever
put his foot in it. Do you know, I have a plan, a scheme, which
would, I think, make me happy for one half-hour. It is to give
everything back to the family. Everything! money, house, and name;
to call myself Julia Brabazon, and let the world call me what it
pleases. Then I would walk out into the streets, and beg some one
to give me my bread. Is there one in all the wide world that would
give me a crust? Is there one, except yourself, Harry--one, except
yourself?"

Poor Florence! I fear it fared badly with her cause at this moment.
How was it possible that he should not regret, that he should not
look back upon Stratton with something akin to sorrow? Julia had been
his first love, and to her he could have been always true. I fear he
thought of this now. I fear that it was a grief to him that he could
not place himself close at her side, bid her do as she had planned,
and then come to him, and share all his crusts. Had it been open to
him to play that part, he would have played it well, and would have
gloried in the thoughts of her poverty. The position would have
suited him exactly. But Florence was in the way, and he could not do
it. How was he to answer Lady Ongar? It was more difficult now than
ever to tell her of Florence Burton.

His eyes were full of tears, and she accepted that as his excuse for
not answering her. "I suppose they would say that I was a romantic
fool. When the price has been taken one cannot cleanse oneself of the
stain. With Judas, you know, it was not sufficient that he gave back
the money. Life was too heavy for him, and so he went out and hanged
himself."

"Julia," he said, getting up from his chair, and going over to where
she sat on a sofa, "Julia, it is horrid to hear you speak of yourself
in that way. I will not have it. You are not such a one as the
Iscariot." And as he spoke to her, he found her hand in his.

"I wish you had my burden, Harry, for one half day, so that you might
know its weight."

"I wish I could bear it for you--for life."

"To be always alone, Harry; to have none that come to me and scold
me, and love me, and sometimes make me smile! You will scold me at
any rate; will you not? It is terrible to have no one near one that
will speak to one with the old easiness of familiar affection. And
then the pretence of it where it does not, cannot, could not, exist!
Oh, that woman, Harry;--that woman who comes here and calls me Julie!
And she has got me to promise too that I would call her Sophie! I
know that you despise me because she comes here. Yes; I can see it.
You said at once that she was not wholesome, with your dear outspoken
honesty."

"It was your word."

"And she is not wholesome, whosever word it was. She was there,
hanging about him when he was so bad, before the worst came. She read
novels to him,--books that I never saw, and played écarté with him
for what she called gloves. I believe in my heart she was spying me,
and I let her come and go as she would, because I would not seem to
be afraid of her. So it grew. And once or twice she was useful to
me. A woman, Harry, wants to have a woman near her sometimes,--even
though it be such an unwholesome creature as Sophie Gordeloup. You
must not think too badly of me on her account."

"I will not;--I will not think badly of you at all."

"He is better, is he not? I know little of him or nothing, but he has
a more reputable outside than she has. Indeed I liked him. He had
known Lord Ongar well; and though he did not toady him nor was afraid
of him, yet he was gentle and considerate. Once to me he said words
that I was called on to resent;--but he never repeated them, and I
know that he was prompted by him who should have protected me. It is
too bad, Harry, is it not? Too bad almost to be believed by such as
you."

"It is very bad," said Harry.

"After that he was always courteous; and when the end came and things
were very terrible, he behaved well and kindly. He went in and out
quietly, and like an old friend. He paid for everything, and was
useful. I know that even this made people talk;--yes, Harry, even at
such a moment as that! But in spite of the talking I did better with
him then than I could have done without him."

"He looks like a man who could be kind if he chooses."

"He is one of those, Harry, who find it easy to be good-natured,
and who are soft by nature, as cats are,--not from their heart, but
through instinctive propensity to softness. When it suits them,
they scratch, even though they have been ever so soft before. Count
Pateroff is a cat. You, Harry, I think are a dog." She perhaps
expected that he would promise to her that he would be her dog,--a
dog in constancy and affection; but he was still mindful in part of
Florence, and restrained himself.

"I must tell you something further," she said. "And indeed it is this
that I particularly want to tell you. I have not seen him, you know,
since I parted with him at Florence."

"I did not know," said Harry.

"I thought I had told you. However, so it is. And now, listen:--He
came down to Ongar Park the other day while I was there, and sent
in his card. When I refused to receive him, he wrote to me pressing
his visit. I still declined, and he wrote again. I burned his note,
because I did not choose that anything from him should be in my
possession. He told some story about papers of Lord Ongar. I have
nothing to do with Lord Ongar's papers. Everything of which I knew
was sealed up in the count's presence and in mine, and was sent to
the lawyers for the executors. I looked at nothing; not at one word
in a single letter. What could he have to say to me of Lord Ongar's
papers?"

"Or he might have written?"

"At any rate he should not have come there, Harry. I would not see
him, nor, if I can help it, will I see him here. I will be open with
you, Harry. I think that perhaps it might suit him to make me his
wife. Such an arrangement, however, would not suit me. I am not going
to be frightened into marrying a man, because he has been falsely
called my lover. If I cannot escape the calumny in any other way, I
will not escape it in that way."

"Has he said anything?"

"No; not a word. I have not seen him since the day after Lord Ongar's
funeral. But I have seen his sister."

"And has she proposed such a thing?"

"No, she has not proposed it. But she talks of it, saying that it
would not do. Then, when I tell her that of course it would not do,
she shows me all that would make it expedient. She is so sly and so
false, that with all my eyes open I cannot quite understand her, or
quite know what she is doing. I do not feel sure that she wishes it
herself."

"She told me that it would not do."

"She did, did she? If she speaks of it again, tell her that she is
right, that it will never do. Had he not come down to Ongar Park, I
should not have mentioned this to you. I should not have thought that
he had in truth any such scheme in his head. He did not tell you that
he had been there?"

"He did not mention it. Indeed, he said very little about you at
all."

"No, he would not. He is cautious. He never talks of anybody to
anybody. He speaks only of the outward things of the world. Now,
Harry, what you must do for me is this." As she was speaking to him
she was leaning again upon the table, with her forehead resting upon
her hands. Her small widow's cap had become thus thrust back, and was
now nearly off her head, so that her rich brown hair was to be seen
in its full luxuriance, rich and lovely as it had ever been. Could it
be that she felt,--half thought, half felt, without knowing that she
thought it,--that while the signs of her widowhood were about her,
telling in their too plain language the tale of what she had been, he
could not dare to speak to her of his love? She was indeed a widow,
but not as are other widows. She had confessed, did hourly confess to
herself, the guilt which she had committed in marrying that man; but
the very fact of such confessions, of such acknowledgment, absolved
her from the necessity of any show of sorrow. When she declared how
she had despised and hated her late lord, she threw off mentally
all her weeds. Mourning, the appearance even of mourning, became
impossible to her, and the cap upon her head was declared openly to
be a sacrifice to the world's requirements. It was now pushed back,
but I fancy that nothing like a thought on the matter had made itself
plain to her mind. "What you must do for me is this," she continued.
"You must see Count Pateroff again, and tell him from me,--as my
friend,--that I cannot consent to see him. Tell him that if he will
think of it, he must know the reason why."

"Of course he will know."

"Tell him what I say, all the same; and tell him that as I have
hitherto had cause to be grateful to him for his kindness, so also
I hope he will not put an end to that feeling by anything now, that
would not be kind. If there be papers of Lord Ongar's, he can take
them either to my lawyers, if that be fit, or to those of the family.
You can tell him that, can you not?"

"Oh, yes; I can tell him."

"And have you any objection?"

"None for myself. The question is,--would it not come better from
some one else?"

"Because you are a young man, you mean? Whom else can I trust, Harry?
To whom can I go? Would you have me ask Hugh to do this? Or, perhaps
you think Archie Clavering would be a proper messenger. Who else have
I got?"

"Would not his sister be better?"

"How should I know that she had told him? She would tell him her own
story,--what she herself wished. And whatever story she told, he
would not believe it. They know each other better than you and I know
them. It must be you, Harry, if you will do it."

"Of course I will do it. I will try and see him to-morrow. Where does
he live?"

"How should I know? Perhaps nobody knows; no one, perhaps, of all
those with whom he associates constantly. They do not live after our
fashion, do they, these foreigners? But you will find him at his
club, or hear of him at the house in Mount Street. You will do it;
eh, Harry?"

"I will."

"That is my good Harry. But I suppose you would do anything I asked
you. Ah, well; it is good to have one friend, if one has no more.
Look, Harry! if it is not near eleven o'clock! Did you know that you
had been here nearly three hours? And I have given you nothing but a
cup of tea!"

"What else do you think I have wanted?"

"At your club you would have had cigars and brandy-and-water, and
billiards, and broiled bones, and oysters, and tankards of beer.
I know all about it. You have been very patient with me. If you go
quick perhaps you will not be too late for the tankards and the
oysters."

"I never have any tankards or any oysters."

"Then it is cigars and brandy-and-water. Go quick, and perhaps you
may not be too late."

"I will go, but not there. One cannot change one's thoughts so
suddenly."

"Go, then; and do not change your thoughts. Go and think of me, and
pity me. Pity me for what I have got, but pity me most for what I
have lost." Harry did not say another word, but took her hand, and
kissed it, and then left her.

Pity her for what she had lost! What had she lost? What did she mean
by that? He knew well what she meant by pitying her for what she had
got. What had she lost? She had lost him. Did she intend to evoke his
pity for that loss? She had lost him. Yes, indeed. Whether or no the
loss was one to regret, he would not say to himself; or rather, he,
of course, declared that it was not; but such as it was, it had been
incurred. He was now the property of Florence Burton, and, whatever
happened, he would be true to her.

Perhaps he pitied himself also. If so, it is to be hoped that
Florence may never know of such pity. Before he went to bed, when
he was praying on his knees, he inserted it in his prayers that the
God in whom he believed might make him true in his faith to Florence
Burton.

CHAPTER XVI.

THE RIVALS.

[Illustration.]

Lady Ongar sat alone, long into the night, when Harry Clavering had
left her. She sat there long, getting up occasionally from her seat,
once or twice attempting to write at her desk, looking now and then
at a paper or two, and then at a small picture which she had, but
passing the long hours in thinking,--in long, sad, solitary thoughts.
What should she do with herself,--with herself, her title, and her
money? Would it be still well that she should do something, that she
should make some attempt; or should she, in truth, abandon all, as
the arch-traitor did, and acknowledge that for her foot there could
no longer be a resting-place on the earth? At six-and-twenty, with
youth, beauty, and wealth at her command, must she despair? But her
youth had been stained, her beauty had lost its freshness; and as
for her wealth, had she not stolen it? Did not the weight of the
theft sit so heavy on her, that her brightest thought was one which
prompted her to abandon it?

As to that idea of giving up her income and her house, and calling
herself again Julia Brabazon, though there was something in the
poetry of it which would now and again for half an hour relieve her,
yet she hardly proposed such a course to herself as a reality. The
world in which she had lived had taught her to laugh at romance,
to laugh at it even while she liked its beauty; and she would tell
herself that for such a one as her to do such a thing as this, would
be to insure for herself the ridicule of all who knew her name. What
would Sir Hugh say, and her sister? What Count Pateroff and the
faithful Sophie? What all the Ongar tribe, who would reap the rich
harvest of her insanity? These latter would offer to provide her a
place in some convenient asylum, and the others would all agree that
such would be her fitting destiny. She could bear the idea of walking
forth, as she had said, penniless into the street, without a crust;
but she could not bear the idea of being laughed at when she got
there.

To her, in her position, her only escape was by marriage. It was the
solitude of her position which maddened her;--its solitude, or the
necessity of breaking that solitude by the presence of those who were
odious to her. Whether it were better to be alone, feeding on the
bitterness of her own thoughts, or to be comforted by the fulsome
flatteries and odious falsenesses of Sophie Gordeloup, she could
not tell. She hated herself for her loneliness, but she hated
herself almost worse for submitting herself to the society of
Sophie Gordeloup. Why not give all that she possessed to Harry
Clavering--herself, her income, her rich pastures and horses and
oxen, and try whether the world would not be better to her when she
had done so?

She had learned to laugh at romance, but still she believed in
love. While that bargain was going on as to her settlement, she had
laughed at romance, and had told herself that in this world worldly
prosperity was everything. Sir Hugh then had stood by her with truth,
for he had well understood the matter, and could enter into it with
zest. Lord Ongar, in his state of health, had not been in a position
to make close stipulations as to the dower in the event of his
proposed wife becoming a widow. "No, no; we won't stand that," Sir
Hugh had said to the lawyers. "We all hope, of course, that Lord
Ongar may live long; no doubt he'll turn over a new leaf, and die at
ninety. But in such a case as this the widow must not be fettered."
The widow had not been fettered, and Julia had been made to
understand the full advantage of such an arrangement. But still she
had believed in love when she had bade farewell to Harry in the
garden. She had told herself then, even then, that she would have
better liked to have taken him and his love,--if only she could have
afforded it. He had not dreamed that on leaving him she had gone
from him to her room, and taken out his picture,--the same that she
had with her now in Bolton Street,--and had kissed it, bidding him
farewell there with a passion which she could not display in his
presence. And she had thought of his offer about the money over and
over again. "Yes," she would say; "that man loved me. He would have
given me all he had to relieve me, though nothing was to come to him
in return." She had, at any rate, been loved once; and she almost
wished that she had taken the money, that she might now have an
opportunity of repaying it.

And she was again free, and her old lover was again by her side. Had
that fatal episode in her life been so fatal that she must now regard
herself as tainted and unfit for him? There was no longer anything to
separate them,--anything of which she was aware, unless it was that.
And as for his love,--did he not look and speak as though he loved
her still? Had he not pressed her hand passionately, and kissed it,
and once more called her Julia? How should it be that he should not
love her? In such a case as his, love might have been turned to
hatred or to enmity; but it was not so with him. He called himself
her friend. How could there be friendship between them without love?

And then she thought how much with her wealth she might do for him.
With all his early studies and his talent Harry Clavering was not
the man, she thought, to make his way in the world by hard work; but
with such an income as she could give him, he might shine among the
proud ones of his nation. He should go into Parliament, and do great
things. He should be lord of all. It should all be his without a word
of reserve. She had been mercenary once, but she would atone for that
now by open-handed, undoubting generosity. She herself had learned to
hate the house and fields and widespread comforts of Ongar Park. She
had walked among it all alone, and despised. But it would be a glory
to her to see him go forth, with Giles at his heels, boldly giving
his orders, changing this and improving that. He would be rebuked for
no errors, let him do with Enoch Gubby and the rest of them what he
pleased! And then the parson's wife would be glad enough to come to
her, and the house would be full of smiling faces. And it might be
that God would be good to her, and that she would have treasures, as
other women had them, and that the flavour would come back to the
apples, and that the ashes would cease to grate between her teeth.

She loved him, and why should it not be so? She could go before God's
altar with him without disgracing herself with a lie. She could put
her hand in his, and swear honestly that she would worship him and
obey him. She had been dishonest;--but if he would pardon her for
that, could she not reward him richly for such pardon? And it seemed
to her that he had pardoned her. He had forgiven it all and was
gracious to her,--coming at her beck and call, and sitting with her
as though he liked her presence. She was woman enough to understand
this, and she knew that he liked it. Of course he loved her. How
could it be otherwise?

But yet he spoke nothing to her of his love. In the old days there
had been with him no bashfulness of that kind. He was not a man to
tremble and doubt before a woman. In those old days he had been ready
enough,--so ready, that she had wondered that one who had just come
from his books should know so well how to make himself master of a
girl's heart. Nature had given him that art, as she does give it to
some, withholding it from many. But now he sat near her, dropping
once and again half words of love, hearing her references to the old
times;--and yet he said nothing.

But how was he to speak of love to one who was a widow but of four
months' standing? And with what face could he now again ask for her
hand, knowing that it had been filled so full since last it was
refused to him? It was thus she argued to herself when she excused
him in that he did not speak to her. As to her widowhood, to herself
it was a thing of scorn. Thinking of it, she cast her weepers from
her, and walked about the room, scorning the hypocrisy of her dress.
It needed that she should submit herself to this hypocrisy before
the world; but he might know,--for had she not told him?--that the
clothes she wore were no index of her feeling or of her heart. She
had been mean enough, base enough, vile enough, to sell herself
to that wretched lord. Mean, base, and vile she had been, and she
now confessed it; but she was not false enough to pretend that she
mourned the man as a wife mourns. Harry might have seen enough to
know, have understood enough to perceive, that he need not regard her
widowhood.

And as to her money! If that were the stumbling-block, might it not
be well that the first overture should come from her? Could she not
find words to tell him that it might all be his? Could she not say to
him, "Harry Clavering, all this is nothing in my hands. Take it into
your hands, and it will prosper." Then it was that she went to her
desk, and attempted to write to him. She did write to him a completed
note, offering herself and all that was hers for his acceptance. In
doing so, she strove hard to be honest and yet not over bold; to be
affectionate and yet not unfeminine. Long she sat, holding her head
with one hand, while the other attempted to use the pen which would
not move over the paper. At length, quickly it flew across the sheet,
and a few lines were there for her to peruse.

"Harry Clavering," she had written,

   I know I am doing what men and women say no woman should
   do. You may, perhaps, say so of me now; but if you do,
   I know you so well, that I do not fear that others will
   be able to repeat it. Harry, I have never loved any one
   but you. Will you be my husband? You well know that I
   should not make you this offer if I did not intend that
   everything I have should be yours. It will be pleasant to
   me to feel that I can make some reparation for the evil
   I have done. As for love, I have never loved any one but
   you. You yourself must know that well. Yours, altogether
   if you will have it so,--JULIA.

She took the letter with her, back across the room to her seat by the
fire, and took with her at the same time the little portrait; and
there she sat, looking at the one and reading the other. At last she
slowly folded the note up into a thin wisp of paper, and, lighting
the end of it, watched it till every shred of it was burnt to an ash.
"If he wants me," she said, "he can come and take me,--as other men
do." It was a fearful attempt, that which she had thought of making.
How could she have looked him in the face again had his answer to her
been a refusal?

Another hour went by before she took herself to her bed, during
which her cruelly-used maiden was waiting for her half asleep in
the chamber above; and during that time she tried to bring herself
to some steady resolve. She would remain in London for the coming
months, so that he might come to her if he pleased. She would remain
there, even though she were subject to the daily attacks of Sophie
Gordeloup. She hardly knew why, but in part she was afraid of Sophie.
She had done nothing of which Sophie knew the secret. She had no
cause to tremble because Sophie might be offended. The woman had
seen her in some of her saddest moments, and could indeed tell
of indignities which would have killed some women. But these she
had borne, and had not disgraced herself in the bearing of them.
But still she was afraid of Sophie, and felt that she could not
bring herself absolutely to dismiss her friend from her house.
Nevertheless, she would remain;--because Harry Clavering was in
London and could come to her there. To her house at Ongar Park she
would never go again, unless she went as his wife. The place had
become odious to her. Bad as was her solitude in London, with Sophie
Gordeloup to break it,--and perhaps with Sophie's brother to attack
her, it was not so bad as the silent desolation of Ongar Park. Never
again would she go there, unless she went there, in triumph,--as
Harry's wife. Having so far resolved she took herself at last to her
room, and dismissed her drowsy Phoebe to her rest.

And now the reader must be asked to travel down at once into the
country, that he may see how Florence Burton passed the same evening
at Clavering Rectory. It was Florence's last night there, and on
the following morning she was to return to her father's house at
Stratton. Florence had not as yet received her unsatisfactory letter
from Harry. That was to arrive on the following morning. At present
she was, as regarded her letters, under the influence of that one
which had been satisfactory in so especial a degree. Not that the
coming letter,--the one now on its route,--was of a nature to disturb
her comfort permanently, or to make her in any degree unhappy. "Dear
fellow; he must be careful, he is overworking himself." Even the
unsatisfactory letter would produce nothing worse than this from her;
but now, at the moment of which I am writing, she was in a paradise
of happy thoughts.

Her visit to Clavering had been in every respect successful. She had
been liked by every one, and every one in return had been liked by
her. Mrs. Clavering had treated her as though she were a daughter.
The rector had made her pretty presents, had kissed her, and called
her his child. With Fanny she had formed a friendship which was to
endure for ever, let destiny separate them how it might. Dear Fanny!
She had had a wonderful interview respecting Fanny on this very day,
and was at this moment disquieting her mind because she could not
tell her friend what had happened without a breach of confidence!
She had learned a great deal at Clavering, though in most matters
of learning she was a better instructed woman than they were whom
she had met. In general knowledge and in intellect she was Fanny's
superior, though Fanny Clavering was no fool; but Florence, when she
came thither, had lacked something which living in such a house had
given to her;--or, I should rather say, something had been given to
her of which she would greatly feel the want, if it could be again
taken from her. Her mother was as excellent a woman as had ever sent
forth a family of daughters into the world, and I do not know that
any one ever objected to her as being ignorant, or specially vulgar;
but the house in Stratton was not like Clavering Rectory in the
little ways of living, and this Florence Burton had been clever
enough to understand. She knew that a sojourn under such a roof, with
such a woman as Mrs. Clavering, must make her fitter to be Harry's
wife; and, therefore, when they pressed her to come again in the
autumn, she said that she thought she would. She could understand,
too, that Harry was different in many things from the men who had
married her sisters, and she rejoiced that it was so. Poor Florence!
Had he been more like them it might have been safer for her.

But we must return for a moment to the wonderful interview which
has been mentioned. Florence, during her sojourn at Clavering, had
become intimate with Mr. Saul, as well as with Fanny. She had given
herself for the time heartily to the schools, and matters had so far
progressed with her that Mr. Saul had on one occasion scolded her
soundly. "It's a great sign that he thinks well of you," Fanny had
said. "It was the only sign he ever gave me, before he spoke to
me in that sad strain." On the afternoon of this, her last day at
Clavering, she had gone over to Cumberly Green with Fanny, to say
farewell to the children, and walked back by herself, as Fanny had
not finished her work. When she was still about half a mile from the
rectory, she met Mr. Saul, who was on his way out to the Green. "I
knew I should meet you," he said, "so that I might say good-by."

"Yes, indeed, Mr. Saul,--for I am going in truth, to-morrow."

"I wish you were staying. I wish you were going to remain with us.
Having you here is very pleasant, and you do more good here, perhaps,
than you will elsewhere."

"I will not allow that. You forget that I have a father and mother."

"Yes; and you will have a husband soon."

"No, not soon; some day, perhaps, if all goes well. But I mean to be
back here often before that. I mean to be here in October, just for a
little visit, if mamma can spare me."

"Miss Burton," he said, speaking in a very serious tone--. All his
tones were serious, but that which he now adopted was more solemn
than usual. "I wish to consult you on a certain matter, if you can
give me five minutes of your time."

"To consult me, Mr. Saul?"

"Yes, Miss Burton. I am hard pressed at present, and I know no one
else of whom I can ask a certain question, if I cannot ask it of you.
I think that you will answer me truly, if you answer me at all. I do
not think you would flatter me, or tell me an untruth."

"Flatter you! how could I flatter you?"

"By telling me--; but I must ask you my question first. You and Fanny
Clavering are dear friends now. You tell each other everything."

"I do not know," said Florence, doubting as to what she might best
say, but guessing something of that which was coming.

"She will have told you, perhaps, that I asked her to be my wife.
Did she ever tell you that?" Florence looked into his face for a
few moments without answering him, not knowing how to answer such a
question. "I know that she has told you," said he. "I can see that it
is so."

"She has told me," said Florence.

"Why should she not? How could she be with you so many hours, and not
tell you that of which she could hardly fail to have the remembrance
often present with her. If I were gone from here, if I were not
before her eyes daily, it might be otherwise; but seeing me as she
does from day to day, of course she has spoken of me to her friend."

"Yes, Mr. Saul; she has told me of it."

"And now, will you tell me whether I may hope."

"Mr. Saul!"

"I want you to betray no secret, but I ask you for your advice. Can I
hope that she will ever return my love?"

"How am I to answer you?"

"With the truth. Only with the truth."

"I should say that she thinks that you have forgotten it."

"Forgotten it! No, Miss Burton; she cannot think that. Do you believe
that men or women can forget such things as that? Can you ever forget
her brother? Do you think people ever forget when they have loved?
No, I have not forgotten her. I have not forgotten that walk which
we had down this lane together. There are things which men never
forget." Then he paused for an answer.

Florence was by nature steady and self-collected, and she at once
felt that she was bound to be wary before she gave him any answer.
She had half fancied once or twice that Fanny thought more of Mr.
Saul than she allowed even herself to know. And Fanny, when she had
spoken of the impossibility of such a marriage, had always based the
impossibility on the fact that people should not marry without the
means of living,--a reason which to Florence, with all her prudence,
was not sufficient. Fanny might wait as she also intended to wait.
Latterly, too, Fanny had declared more than once to Florence her
conviction that Mr. Saul's passion had been a momentary insanity
which had altogether passed away; and in these declarations Florence
had half fancied that she discovered some tinge of regret. If it were
so, what was she now to say to Mr. Saul?

"You think then, Miss Burton," he continued, "that I have no chance
of success? I ask the question because if I felt certain that this
was so,--quite certain, I should be wrong to remain here. It has been
my first and only parish, and I could not leave it without bitter
sorrow. But if I were to remain here hopelessly, I should become
unfit for my work. I am becoming so, and shall be better away."

"But why ask me, Mr. Saul?"

"Because I think that you can tell me."

"But why not ask herself? Who can tell you so truly as she can do?"

"You would not advise me to do that if you were sure that she would
reject me?"

"That is what I would advise."

"I will take your advice, Miss Burton. Now, good-by, and may God
bless you. You say you will be here in the autumn; but before the
autumn I shall probably have left Clavering. If so our farewells
will be for very long, but I shall always remember our pleasant
intercourse here." Then he went on towards Cumberly Green; and
Florence, as she walked into the vicarage grounds, was thinking that
no girl had ever been loved by a more single-hearted, pure-minded
gentleman than Mr. Saul.

As she sat alone in her bed-room, five or six hours after this
interview, she felt some regret that she should leave Clavering
without a word to Fanny on the subject. Mr. Saul had exacted no
promise of secrecy from her; he was not a man to exact such promises.
But she felt not the less that she would be betraying confidence to
speak, and it might even be that her speaking on the matter would do
more harm than good. Her sympathies were doubtless with Mr. Saul, but
she could not therefore say that she thought Fanny ought to accept
his love. It would be best to say nothing of the matter, and to allow
Mr. Saul to fight his own battle.

Then she turned to her own matters, and there she found that
everything was pleasant. How good the world had been to her to give
her such a lover as Harry Clavering! She owned with all her heart the
excellence of being in love, when a girl might be allowed to call
such a man her own. She could not but make comparisons between him
and Mr. Saul, though she knew that she was making them on points that
were hardly worthy of her thoughts. Mr. Saul was plain, uncouth, with
little that was bright about him except the brightness of his piety.
Harry was like the morning star. He looked and walked and spoke as
though he were something more godlike than common men. His very
voice created joy, and the ring of his laughter was to Florence
as the music of the heavens. What woman would not have loved Harry
Clavering? Even Julia Brabazon,--a creature so base that she had sold
herself to such a thing as Lord Ongar for money and a title, but
so grand in her gait and ways, so Florence had been told, that she
seemed to despise the earth on which she trod,--even she had loved
him. Then as Florence thought of what Julia Brabazon might have had
and of what she had lost, she wondered that there could be women born
so sadly vicious.

But that woman's vice had given her her success, her joy, her great
triumph! It was surely not for her to deal hardly with the faults of
Julia Brabazon,--for her who was enjoying all the blessings of which
those faults had robbed the other! Julia Brabazon had been her very
good friend.

But why had this perfect lover come to her, to one so small, so
trifling, so little in the world's account as she, and given to her
all the treasure of his love? Oh, Harry,--dear Harry! what could
she do for him that would be a return good enough for such great
goodness? Then she took out his last letter, that satisfactory
letter, that letter that had been declared to be perfect, and read it
and read it again. No; she did not want Fanny or any one else to tell
her that he was true. Honesty and truth were written on every line of
his face, were to be heard in every tone of his voice, could be seen
in every sentence that came from his hand. Dear Harry; dearest Harry!
She knew well that he was true.

Then she also sat down and wrote to him, on that her last night
beneath his father's roof,--wrote to him when she had nearly prepared
herself for her bed; and honestly, out of her full heart, thanked him
for his love. There was no need that she should be coy with him now,
for she was his own. "Dear Harry, when I think of all that you have
done for me in loving me and choosing me for your wife, I know that
I can never pay you all that I owe you."

Such were the two rival claimants for the hand of Harry Clavering.

CHAPTER XVII.

"LET HER KNOW THAT YOU'RE THERE."

A week had passed since the evening which Harry had spent in Bolton
Street, and he had not again seen Lady Ongar. He had professed to
himself that his reason for not going there was the non-performance
of the commission which Lady Ongar had given him with reference
to Count Pateroff. He had not yet succeeded in catching the count,
though he had twice asked for him in Mount Street and twice at the
club in Pall Mall. It appeared that the count never went to Mount
Street, and was very rarely seen at the club. There was some other
club which he frequented, and Harry did not know what club. On both
the occasions of Harry's calling in Mount Street, the servant had
asked him to go up and see madame; but he had declined to do so,
pleading that he was hurried. He was, however, driven to resolve that
he must go direct to Sophie, as otherwise he could find no means of
doing as he had promised. She probably might put him on the scent of
her brother.

But there had been another reason why Harry had not gone to Bolton
Street, though he had not acknowledged it to himself. He did not
dare to trust himself with Lady Ongar. He feared that he would be
led on to betray himself and to betray Florence,--to throw himself
at Julia's feet and sacrifice his honesty, in spite of all his
resolutions to the contrary. He felt when there as the accustomed but
repentant dram-drinker might feel, when having resolved to abstain,
he is called upon to sit with the full glass offered before his lips.
From such temptation as that the repentant dram-drinker knows that
he must fly. But though he did not go after the fire-water of Bolton
Street, neither was he able to satisfy himself with the cool fountain
of Onslow Crescent. He was wretched at this time,--ill-satisfied with
himself and others, and was no fitting companion for Cecilia Burton.
The world, he thought, had used him ill. He could have been true to
Julia Brabazon when she was well-nigh penniless. It was not for her
money that he had regarded her. Had he been now a free man,--free
from those chains with which he had fettered himself at Stratton,--he
would again have asked this woman for her love, in spite of her past
treachery; but it would have been for her love and not for her money
that he would have sought her. Was it his fault that he had loved
her, that she had been false to him, and that she had now come back
and thrown herself before him? Or had he been wrong because he had
ventured to think that he loved another when Julia had deserted him?
Or could he help himself if he now found that his love in truth
belonged to her whom he had known first? The world had been very
cruel to him, and he could not go to Onslow Crescent and behave there
prettily, hearing the praises of Florence with all the ardour of a
discreet lover.

He knew well what would have been his right course, and yet he did
not follow it. Let him but once communicate to Lady Ongar the fact of
his engagement, and the danger would be over, though much, perhaps,
of the misery might remain. Let him write to her and mention the
fact, bringing it up as some little immaterial accident, and she
would understand what he meant. But this he abstained from doing.
Though he swore to himself that he would not touch the dram, he would
not dash down the full glass that was held to his lips. He went
about the town very wretchedly, looking for the count, and regarding
himself as a man specially marked out for sorrow by the cruel hand of
misfortune. Lady Ongar, in the meantime, was expecting him, and was
waxing angry and becoming bitter towards him because he came not.

Sir Hugh Clavering was now up in London, and with him was his brother
Archie. Sir Hugh was a man who strained an income, that was handsome
and sufficient for a country gentleman, to the very utmost, wanting
to get out of it more than it could be made to give. He was not a man
to be in debt, or indulge himself with present pleasures to be paid
for out of the funds of future years. He was possessed of a worldly
wisdom which kept him from that folly, and taught him to appreciate
fully the value of independence. But he was ever remembering how many
shillings there are in a pound, and how many pence in a shilling. He
had a great eye to discount, and looked very closely into his bills.
He searched for cheap shops;--and some men began to say of him that
he had found a cheap establishment for such wines as he did not drink
himself! In playing cards and in betting he was very careful, never
playing high, never risking much, but hoping to turn something by the
end of the year, and angry with himself if he had not done so. An
unamiable man he was, but one whose heir would probably not quarrel
with him,--if only he would die soon enough. He had always had a
house in town, a moderate house in Berkeley Square, which belonged
to him and had belonged to his father before him. Lady Clavering
had usually lived there during the season; or, as had latterly been
the case, during only a part of the season. And now it had come to
pass, in this year, that Lady Clavering was not to come to London at
all, and that Sir Hugh was meditating whether the house in Berkeley
Square might not be let. The arrangement would make the difference
of considerably more than a thousand a year to him. For himself, he
would take lodgings. He had no idea of giving up London in the spring
and early summer. But why keep up a house in Berkeley Square, as Lady
Clavering did not use it?

He was partly driven to this by a desire to shake off the burden of
his brother. When Archie chose to go to Clavering the house was open
to him. That was the necessity of Sir Hugh's position, and he could
not avoid it unless he made it worth his while to quarrel with his
brother. Archie was obedient, ringing the bell when he was told,
looking after the horses, spying about, and perhaps saving as much
money as he cost. But the matter was very different in Berkeley
Square. No elder brother is bound to find breakfast and bed for a
younger brother in London. And yet from his boyhood upwards Archie
had made good his footing in Berkeley Square. In the matter of the
breakfast, Sir Hugh had indeed of late got the better of him. The
servants were kept on board wages, and there were no household
accounts. But there was Archie's room, and Sir Hugh felt this to be a
hardship.

The present was not the moment for actually driving forth the
intruder, for Archie was now up in London, especially under his
brother's auspices. And if the business on which Captain Clavering
was now intent could be brought to a successful issue, the standing
in the world of that young man would be very much altered. Then he
would be a brother of whom Sir Hugh might be proud; a brother who
would pay his way, and settle his points at whist if he lost them,
even to a brother. If Archie could induce Lady Ongar to marry him, he
would not be called upon any longer to ring the bells and look after
the stable. He would have bells of his own, and stables too, and
perhaps some captain of his own to ring them and look after them. The
expulsion, therefore, was not to take place till Archie should have
made his attempt upon Lady Ongar.

But Sir Hugh would admit of no delay, whereas Archie himself seemed
to think that the iron was not yet quite hot enough for striking. It
would be better, he had suggested, to postpone the work till Julia
could be coaxed down to Clavering in the autumn. He could do the work
better, he thought, down at Clavering than in London. But Sir Hugh
was altogether of a different opinion. Though he had already asked
his sister-in-law to Clavering, when the idea had first come up, he
was glad that she had declined the visit. Her coming might be very
well if she accepted Archie; but he did not want to be troubled with
any renewal of his responsibility respecting her, if, as was more
probable, she should reject him. The world still looked askance at
Lady Ongar, and Hugh did not wish to take up the armour of a paladin
in her favour. If Archie married her, Archie would be the paladin;
though, indeed, in that case, no paladin would be needed.

"She has only been a widow, you know, four months," said Archie,
pleading for delay. "It won't be delicate, will it?"

"Delicate!" said Sir Hugh. "I don't know whether there is much of
delicacy in it at all."

"I don't see why she isn't to be treated like any other woman. If you
were to die, you'd think it very odd if any fellow came up to Hermy
before the season was over."

"Archie, you are a fool," said Sir Hugh; and Archie could see by his
brother's brow that Hugh was angry. "You say things that for folly
and absurdity are beyond belief. If you can't see the peculiarities
of Julia's position, I am not going to point them out to you."

"She is peculiar, of course,--having so much money, and that place
near Guildford, all her own for her life. Of course it's peculiar.
But four months, Hugh!"

"If it had been four days it need have made no difference. A home,
with some one to support her, is everything to her. If you wait till
lots of fellows are buzzing round her you won't have a chance. You'll
find that by this time next year she'll be the top of the fashion;
and if not engaged to you, she will be to some one else. I shouldn't
be surprised if Harry were after her again."

"He's engaged to that girl we saw down at Clavering."

"What matters that? Engagements can be broken as well as made. You
have this great advantage over every one, except him, that you can go
to her at once without doing anything out of the way. That girl that
Harry has in tow may perhaps keep him away for some time."

"I tell you what, Hugh, you might as well call with me the first
time."

"So that I may quarrel with her, which I certainly should do,--or,
rather, she with me. No, Archie; if you're afraid to go alone, you'd
better give it up."

"Afraid! I'm not afraid!"

"She can't eat you. Remember that with her you needn't stand on your
p's and q's, as you would with another woman. She knows what she is
about, and will understand what she has to get as well as what she is
expected to give. All I can say is, that if she accepts you, Hermy
will consent that she shall go to Clavering as much as she pleases
till the marriage takes place. It couldn't be done, I suppose, till
after a year; and in that case she shall be married at Clavering."

Here was a prospect for Julia Brabazon;--to be led to the same altar,
at which she had married Lord Ongar, by Archie Clavering, twelve
months after her first husband's death, and little more than two
years after her first wedding! The peculiarity of the position did
not quite make itself apparent either to Hugh or to Archie; but there
was one point which did suggest itself to the younger brother at that
moment.

"I don't suppose there was anything really wrong, eh?"

"Can't say, I'm sure," said Sir Hugh.

"Because I shouldn't like--"

"If I were you I wouldn't trouble myself about that. Judge not, that
you be not judged."

"Yes, that's true, to be sure," said Archie; and on that point he
went forth satisfied.

But the job before him was a peculiar job, and that Archie well
knew. In some inexplicable manner he put himself into the scales and
weighed himself, and discovered his own weight with fair accuracy.
And he put her into the scales, and he found that she was much
the heavier of the two. How he did this,--how such men as Archie
Clavering do do it,--I cannot say; but they do weigh themselves, and
know their own weight, and shove themselves aside as being too light
for any real service in the world. This they do, though they may
fluster with their voices, and walk about with their noses in the
air, and swing their canes, and try to look as large as they may.
They do not look large, and they know it; and consequently they ring
the bells, and look after the horses, and shove themselves on one
side, so that the heavier weights may come forth and do the work.
Archie Clavering, who had duly weighed himself, could hardly bring
himself to believe that Lady Ongar would be fool enough to marry him!