"What!  Do you mean to tell me that she would insist upon having him if
you forbade it?" cried the major.

"She thinks that she is bound to him, and that it is impossible to
retract, even if she wished."

"But doesn't she wish to run back from this wretched business?"

"No, she does not wish to run back from her promise."

"I don't believe it," cried the major, over whose white forehead the
veins stood up like a pink network.

"It is true all the same," said Sir John sadly.  "If she had but
expressed the slightest wish, I'd have seen Rolph, even at this eleventh
hour, and, as he would have called it, the match should be off."

"I will go and see her myself, Jack.  I don't want to insult you, my
dear brother, but she does look up to me and my opinion a little.  Let
me try and win her to my way of thinking, and let's get this wretched
business stopped.  She would never be happy, I am sure."

"Go and see her, Jem, by all means."

"You give me your leave?"

"I do."

The major uttered a sigh of relief, and smoothing his beard, and with
his eyes beaming, he walked straight into the drawing-room, where Glynne
was seated, looking very pale and beautiful, with her head resting upon
her soft white hand, gazing full at the lamp.  Marjorie and three lady
friends were in the drawing-room, but they had evidently, out of respect
for the young girl's saddened state, retired to the end of the room,
where they were engaged in conversation in a low tone of voice.

Glynne did not stir as the major entered, for she was deep in thought;
but she turned to him with a sweet, grave smile as he laid his hand upon
hers.

"Will you come into the conservatory, my dear?" he said gently.  "I want
to talk to you."

She rose without a word, and laid her hand upon his arm, letting her
uncle lead her into the great, softly-lit corridor of flowers; while, as
the major realised the difficulties of the task he had before him, he
grew silent, so that they had walked nearly to the end before he spoke.

"My dear child," he said, in a husky, hesitating voice, for, though he
had often dashed with his men at the charge full into the dangers of the
battlefield, he felt a peculiar sensation of nervous dread now at having
to broach the business upon which he had come.

"My dear child," he began again.

"My dear uncle," she answered, tenderly.

"You know my feelings respecting your approaching marriage?"

She looked up at him sadly, and the tears stood in her eyes.

"Yes, uncle, dear, I know," she replied slowly.

"Well, your father has now come over to my side, and he gives me his
consent to see you, to win from you--"

"Hush, uncle--dear uncle," said Glynne softly.  "I know you love me--
dearly, as if I were your own child."

"I do, I do indeed," he cried.

"Then pray spare me all these painful words."

"Plain words to save you pain in the future," he said tenderly.

"It is too late, uncle.  I told my father that.  It is too late."

"No, no, my darling, it is not too late," cried the major excitedly.
"You are afraid of the talk and scandal.  Bah! let them talk and
scandalise till they get tired.  What is it to us?  Look here; we'll
start for the Continent to-morrow, and stay away till this business is
forgotten.  A nine days' wonder, my child.  There, there, you consent.
By George, we'll be off to-night--_now_.  I'll go and order the carriage
at once.  It will be round by the time you have got a few things
together in a bag."

"Stop, uncle, dear uncle."

"No, no; your father will go with us, too."

Glynne shook her head, and, putting one arm round his neck, kissed the
old man fondly.

"Hush, dear," she said; "you forget.  I cannot--I will not hear another
word.  I am determined that I will hold to my promise."

"But, Glynne, my child," cried the major appealingly.

"It is too late--it is too late," responded Glynne.  "And now, uncle, if
you love me, spare me further suffering."

He waited for a few minutes, and resumed the attack, but without effect;
and just as he was gazing despairingly in his niece's face Sir John
entered, looking inquiringly at both, when Glynne went smilingly to his
side at once, and laid her hands upon his breast.

"Dear father," she said tenderly, "let my last few hours at home be
undisturbed by pain."

"My darling," said Sir John softly, "you are mistress here.  Jem, old
fellow, you have spoken."

"Delivered my charge, Jack, and failed.  I retire broken from the
field."

Glynne held out her hand to him, and when he took it she leaned towards
him to kiss his lips.

About an hour later Mason the maid learned a secret which she afterwards
confided to her intimates in the servants' hall.

Mason went up to Glynne's bedroom to carry there a lately-arrived packet
containing a portion of her mistress's _trousseau_.

She had hardly entered the room when she noted that the door connecting
it with Glynne's little study was ajar, and a sigh taught her that it
was occupied.

"I'll take it in, and she'll open it at once," thought Mason, who was
burning with curiosity to see the contents of the package; and, going
lightly across to the door, she pressed it open, and then stood
petrified at the scene before her.

For Glynne was kneeling before a chair with her face buried in her hands
sobbing violently, while in piteous tones she breathed out the agony of
her heart in the wild appeal,--

"Heaven help me and give me strength!  It is more than I can bear."

Volume 3, Chapter VII.

A PROBLEM OF CONJUNCTION.

Want of exercise and incessant study had placed their effects on
Alleyne.  The greyness was showing in streaks in his hair, and the lines
seemed deeper in his forehead, as Lucy came gently into the observatory
where her brother was apparently intent upon some tremendous problem.

Lucy, too, looked thinner than of old.  There was a careworn aspect in
her face, and her eyes told tales of tears more often shed than is the
custom with young ladies as a rule.

As she entered the observatory and closed the door, she stood gazing at
her brother with her hands clasped, thinking of the money that had been
expended upon his scientific pursuits, keeping them all exceedingly
poor, and, for result, helping to make Alleyne a worn and old-looking
man.

What a thing it seemed, she thought; how changed their home and all
their simple life had become, and all through their proximity to
Brackley.

"I wish we had gone away from here months upon months ago," she said to
herself impatiently.  "We might have been so happy anywhere else.  And I
thought, too, that everything was going to be so pleasant, with Glynne
for my companion, only people seemed to have leagued themselves against
us; and I'm sure there's no harm in either poor Moray or myself, only we
couldn't help liking someone else.  Heigho!"

"Who's that?" cried Alleyne, starting, for Lucy's sigh had been uttered
aloud.  "Oh, you, Lucy," he said, dropping his eyes again.

"I've only come to see you, dear, for a little while, Moray, darling,
how late you were last night."

He started wildly, caught the hands she had laid caressingly upon his
shoulders, and stared in her face.

"How did you know?" he cried hoarsely.

"Don't, dear; you hurt me."

He relaxed his grasp, and she felt him trembling.

"Don't be angry with me, Moray," she said, bursting into tears.  "It was
only because I loved you and suffered with you.  I can't bear to see my
darling brother like this."

"You--you were watching me?" he stammered.

"Don't call it by that unkind title, dear," she said.  "I cannot bear
it.  I know how you grieve, and I have often sat at my window and seen
you go out of a night, and waited till you came back.  One night--don't
be angry with me, Moray," she cried, throwing her arms about his
neck--"I followed you to the Fir Mount, to see you were up there
watching Glynne's window."

"Lucy!  Last night?"

"No, no, dear," she cried in alarm.  "Don't--don't be so fierce with me.
It was only once."

He uttered a low, hoarse sigh as if of relief.

"It was one night when you had quite frightened me by being so
despondent.  I was afraid you meant to do yourself some mischief, and I
stole out to see where you went.  As soon as I understood why you had
gone there, I came back."

"Was it so strange a thing for an astronomer to go out to a high place
where he could see some planet rise?"

Lucy was silent for a few moments.

"No, dear," she said at last in a whisper, "nor for a man who loves to
go and watch the house that holds all that is dear to him in life.  But,
Moray, dear, what is the matter with your hand?"

"Nothing," he said, hastily thrusting his bandaged hand into his pocket.
"Only a cut--from a knife--nothing more.  There--that will do.  Why did
you come?"

"It is the twenty-fifth, Moray.  I thought I'd come and remind you."

"Twenty-fifth," he said hurriedly; "twenty-fifth?"

"Yes, dear, Glynne Day's wedding."

She regretted speaking the next instant, as she saw her brother's head
go down upon his hand; but he looked up at her directly, and, to her
surprise, with a peculiar smile.

"Thank you for reminding me, dear," he said.  "I hope she will be very
happy."

"I don't," cried Lucy petulantly, "and I'm sure she won't be.  Oh, how
could she be so foolish as to engage herself to such a man as that!"

Alleyne did not reply, but sat gazing before him at a broad band of
sunlight which cut right across the portion of the great room where he
was seated.  It seemed to him that Glynne was the bright bar of light
that had been thrown across the dark, shadowy life that he had led; and
to make the idea more real, the passing of a cloud cut the ray suddenly,
and the great, chill room, with its uncouth instruments, its piles of
scientific lumber, and its dust, was gloomy once again.

The bright ray had come and gone.  It was but a memory now, and Alleyne
uttered a sigh of relief, for he told himself that the past was dead,
and he must divide it from his present existence by a broad, well-marked
line.

"Have you nothing to say, Moray?" whispered Lucy at last.  "Do you not
understand?  Are you not going to make one more effort to make her
change her purpose."

"My dear Lucy!" he said tenderly.

That was all, but he took her in his arms and kissed her, as if she were
still the little child whom he used to pet and play with years before.

As soon as he released her she stood looking at him with her brows knit
for a few moments, and then said,--

"Moray, should you mind very much if I were to go?"

"Go?" he said dreamily.  "Go?"

"Yes; to see Glynne married."

She saw a twitching of the nerves of his face as he realised her
meaning, and was regretting her question, when he said softly,--

"No, my dear, no.  Go if you wish it.  Yes, go."

He turned from her and resumed his work, making figures rapidly on a
sheet of paper before him, and as he evidently wished to be alone, she
stole softly out of the room.

Half-an-hour later Alleyne, who had left his work as soon as Lucy
quitted him, and gone to a window which overlooked the road, saw his
sister, very plainly dressed in white, go along the lane towards
Brackley Church.

He did not stir, but stood watching till the white dress disappeared
among the tall columnar fir trees.

Then came another figure going in the same direction, and in his moody,
despairing state, Alleyne hardly noted for a few moments who it was,
till the figure stopped short to turn and talk to a tall, gaunt-looking
man, whom Alleyne recognised as Hayle, the man he had seen when Oldroyd
was attending him, and it was the latter now speaking.

After a few minutes conversation, Alleyne saw Hayle shake his head, and
go in one direction, while Oldroyd went in the other, that taken by
Lucy, toward the church.

Then Alleyne turned from the window with a blank look of despair in his
eyes, a strange vacant wildness of aspect in his drawn and haggard
countenance.  He walked to and fro.  He threw himself into his great
chair, but only to spring up again and pace the room with eager, hurried
steps.

He sank helplessly down upon his chair once more, and rested his
throbbing brow upon his hands, his misery so acute that he felt that he
was going mad; but as the time went on, a dull feeling of lethargy came
over him, and he sat there crouched together till Mrs Alleyne came into
the room and touched him with her cold, thin hand, when he started.

"My boy!" she said tenderly, as she laid her hands upon his shoulders,
"is it so hard to bear?"

"Hard?  Yes, cruelly hard," he said, with a sigh of misery.

"And in turn we have to bear these agonies," she said softly.  "I have
known them, too, my boy, hours of despair when life all looked too black
to be faced, and there seemed to be nothing to do but die."

He looked at her inquiringly.

"Yes, my boy, these troubles have been mine at times, and I have thought
like this--thought as you have thought since that woman came between us
to blast our hearth."

"Hush!" he cried, almost fiercely.  "Not one disloyal word against her,
mother.  It was my ill-balanced nature led me wrong, and she never came
between you and me."

"Forgive me, my boy," cried Mrs Alleyne, as he took her in his arms.  "I
know, I know.  Always my own true loving son.  But it seems so hard that
she should have treated you as she did."

"Hush, mother!  Hush!" he replied.  "She was not to blame."

"Not to blame?" retorted Mrs Alleyne.  "You defend her, but, had she not
led you on by her soft words and wiles, you had never come to think of
her like this.  But she will repent: so sure as she marries that man,
she will bitterly repent."

"You are giving me cruel pain, mother," said Alleyne sadly.

"My boy! my own brave boy!" cried Mrs Alleyne, clinging to him.  "I will
say no more!  I will be silent, indeed.  No word on the subject shall
ever leave my lips again.  There: forgive me."

"Forgive you, mother!" he said softly, as he drew her more closely, and
kissed her lips, "I have nothing to forgive.  You felt what you thought
to be a just indignation on my behalf.  It is so easy to think those we
love must be in the right, so hard to see when we alone are in the
wrong.  There, let us talk about it no more, for--Why, Lucy! what is the
matter?"

Lucy hurried into the observatory, looking hot and excited, threw
herself into a chair, sobbing hysterically, and for some time not a word
could be obtained from her.

Mrs Alleyne was the first to get an answer, as she at last exclaimed,--

"Then someone has insulted you?"

"No, no!" she cried; and then more emphatically, "No!  Glynne, Glynne!"

Then her sobs choked her utterance, and she hid her face in her hands,
sobbing in the most violently hysterical manner, till, utterly
exhausted, she lay back in the chair so still and reduced that Alleyne
grew alarmed, and, hurrying out of the room, he set off for Oldroyd.

"Miss Alleyne?  Taken ill?" cried the young doctor excitedly.  "I'll be
with you directly.  Has she heard of that terrible business?"

"Business?  What business?" faltered Alleyne.  "What! haven't you
heard?" cried Oldroyd in amazement.  "Why, about Miss Day."

Alleyne gazed at him enquiringly, and Oldroyd leaned forward and said a
few words in Alleyne's ear, making him sink back silent and ghastly into
a chair.

Volume 3, Chapter VIII.

THE FALLEN STAR.

"There, I think everything is in train," said Sir John, as he and his
brother sat together over a final cigar before retiring for the night,
for Glynne and the friends staying in the house had gone to their rooms,
and the brothers were at last alone.

"Yes, Jack, all seems ready for action."

"Except you, Jem."

"I?--I'm ready."

"No; you ought to have had a new suit, Jem."

"No; I said I would not," cried the major; "and I've kept to that, and
that alone.  I've given way in everything else.  Let me alone there."

"All right; all right.  I say no more.  Change the subject, Jem; we
won't have words to-night.  Glynne looks lovely; doesn't she?"

"Fit bride for a god," said the major.  "Bless her!"

"Amen.  Calm, satisfied and happy in her choice."

"H'm."

The major coughed a little.

"She does, Jem," cried Sir John hastily.  "Everybody said so to-night.
I should have liked that little lassie, Lucy Alleyne, to have been asked
to be a bridesmaid though; but after what has passed it was as well
not."

"Yes," said the major gruffly, "just as well not."

"Pretty girl that Marjorie Emlin.  Best looking bridesmaid we shall
have."

"Humph! yes.  Can't say I like her, Jack."

"Prejudiced? old man."

"Perhaps so; but those white-faced red-haired girls always have a foxey
look to me.  There, there, I've done, and I'll play cavalier to her
to-morrow if I get the chance."

"That you will, Jem, I know.  Trust you soldiers for that.  Sad dogs.
Why, Jem, old chap, I never said anything to you before," chuckled Sir
John, "but 'pon my soul, I thought once you were going to make play and
get married before Glynne."

The major moved uneasily in his chair, and suppressed a sigh.

"Nice little girl, Jem," continued Sir John.  "I liked her myself; but
only a woman.  There were rumours about her.  You didn't hear, I
suppose?"

"Yes, I did," said the major, biting hard at his cigar.

"Well, no wonder.  It was enough to make the best girl in the world a
little wild.  Shut up in that dreary house by herself, for you can't
call it anything else."

"Yes; dull life for a young girl," assented the major, "Never heard--
er--er--who it was?"

"I?  Wouldn't listen to the confounded scandal.  Some damned chatter
about her getting up at daylight to go and meet a man.  Did you?"

"Hah!" said the major, drawing a deep breath; "I wouldn't hear."

"Right, Jem, right.  By the way, I think we've got every one here who
ought to come, and we'll make the day go off with a swing, old fellow.
Is there any fellow I ought to have asked on Miss Emlin's account?"

"No," said the major grimly; "you've got him for another purpose."

"Eh?  What do you mean?"

"She wanted Rolph herself."

"Impossible!  Why, the girl's devotedly attached to Glynne, affectionate
in the extreme.  See what a beautiful diamond bracelet she has given
her."

"Yes, that kind of girl always is.  It's a way they have of showing
their spite."

"Nonsense!  Who told you that rubbish?"

"The young lady's aunt--Rob's mother."

"The deuce!"

"But she was quite right.  She said such an union was better avoided,
and that her niece had long ago acquiesced in the wisdom of the
arrangement.  There, my cigar's nearly out, and I'm ready for bed."

"Don't hurry.  I was thinking again of how well Glynne looked when she
said good-night."

"Lovely," said the major, with a sigh.

"Rolph, too," cried Sir John enthusiastically, and as if he had wound
himself up to make the best of everything.  "By George, what a specimen
of a man and a soldier he looked when he went to-night.  Isn't he grand,
Jem?  Wouldn't you have liked to have three or four hundred such fellows
in the Indian war?"

"Yes; in the ranks," said the major.

"Jem!"

"All right.  He's a grand specimen of humanity, and as he says hard as a
brick."

"Sorry to lose her, poor darling; but glad now when it's over, and all
this mob of company gone.  Have another cigar?"

"No; past twelve, and I want to get a good night's rest before this
comes off.  Good-night, Jack!  God bless you, lad!  Happiness for our
darling shall be my prayer to-night."

Sir John started from his seat, and caught his brother's hands.  His
lips moved, but no words came for some moments, and a couple of tears
trickled slowly down his cheeks.

"Thank you, Jem," he said at last hoarsely, and the brothers separated
without another word.

The butler came yawning into the little office-study to put out the
lamp, and half-an-hour later the house, full as it was of relatives and
wedding guests, was silent as the grave.

The clock over the stables chimed the quarters and struck the hours,
while everyone slept soundly except Marjorie Emlin, who lay motionless,
thinking of the coming day, and burnt up as if by a fever.

Only a few hours now and her last hope gone, and as she lay there a
curious jangling sound as of the wedding bells being rung derisively by
demons seemed to drive her mad.

A few hours before she had been hanging about Glynne, smiling and
talking of the happy days to come, and of how dear and good and brave a
fellow Rob was, and how they must both try now to wean him from his love
of athletic sports, till Glynne grew weary and frowned a little, seeking
her father's society as much as attention to the friends staying in the
house would allow.

Then came the good-night of all, and silence fell upon the house.

Major Day slept soundly enough, but his dreams were troubled.  Lucy
Alleyne had a good deal to do with them, and he lay confused, and
fighting hard to go after her, and bring her back, for she was getting
into a bad habit of eloping every morning at daybreak, a habit which he
felt ought to be stopped, but it was impossible he felt to bring it to
an end.

He was in the height of his trouble and perspiring freely when the
object of Lucy's affections seized him roughly by the shoulder and shook
him.

"Jem, Jem, wake up, man; wake up!"

The major started up in bed, and the light confused him, but he made out
that his brother was there half dressed holding a bell glass flat
candlestick over him.

"What's the matter?"

"Don't know.  Slip on your dressing-gown.  Someone ill, I'm afraid."

"Tut, tut, tut!" ejaculated the major, hurrying on trousers and
dressing-gown in prompt military fashion, while his brother explained.

"I was fast asleep and awoke by a cry.  A few moments after it came
again, and I slipped on some things, got a light, and came out into the
corridor."

"Fancy."

"No, I'm sure of it.  Ready?"

"Nearly."

"Let's go and see then.  I don't like to be prowling about the house
alone in the night."

"Why?" said the major gruffly.  "Because it's your own?"

"Don't banter.  I feel sure that the cry came from Miss Emlin's room."

"Well, why not ring for the maids?"

"Because I consider it to be my duty to see if anything is the matter
first.  Ready?"

"Yes."

"Come on."

Sir John led the way out into the corridor, and the brothers listened
with their shadows thrown grotesquely on the walls; but all was
perfectly silent, and the major looked enquiringly at his brother.

"Well," he said; "isn't it a pity to disturb the house?"

"Come this way."

Sir John led the way to one of the doors, stopped listening a few
moments, and then knocked softly.

No answer, and he knocked again.

"Yes," came in a quick musical voice; "who is there?"

"I, my dear," said Sir John.  "Don't be alarmed.  I thought I heard a
cry come from your room.  Are you quite well?"

"Oh, yes, thank you.  I must have cried out in my sleep then.  I'm
afraid I do sometimes."

"Thank you, my child.  Sorry to have disturbed you.  Good-night, my
dear."

"Good-night, Sir John."

"Humph!  Satisfied?" said the major gruffly.

"No, come along."

Sir John tapped at another door, but the inmate of the room made no
reply.

"Hang it all.  Jack, don't rouse up all the house," whispered the major.
"There's nothing the matter, or someone else would have heard it."

Just at that moment the deep baying of a dog was heard from the yard,
followed by a long, low howl.

"There is something the matter," cried Sir John, "or the dog wouldn't
make that noise.  Here, let's wake Glynne, and let her go round and see
who's ill."

"No, no, don't do that, man," cried the major.

But his brother was already at his child's door, where he knocked
sharply.

"Glynne, Glynne, my dear."

A low smothered cry, coming as if from a distance, was the response, and
the dog's baying recommenced.

Volume 3, Chapter IX.

TORN FROM HER SPHERE.

The act was simultaneous.

Moved as if by the same set of nerves, Sir John Day and his brother
dashed themselves against the door again and again, but the panelling
was strong, and it was evidently well fastened within, and, for the time
being, the door refused to yield.  Then, as the brothers literally
hurled themselves against it in their rage of disappointment, the
fastenings gave way, and the door flew back with a crash, while Sir John
fell forward into the darkness upon his knees.

"Quick, Jem, the light," he cried, as he gathered himself up; but the
major had forestalled him, and stepped back to take the candlestick from
where it had been set down.

He had just passed the threshold, casting the light before him into the
chamber, when Sir John's hand was clapped upon his shoulder, and the
candlestick snatched from his hand.

"Stand back, Jem, and guard the door.  I am her father."

The old officer promptly obeyed, and the door was swung to upon him, as
others were being opened along the passage, and excited enquiries began
to be heard on every hand.

For Sir John, in his one quick glance, as the light flashed into the
room, had seen that which caused his prompt action.  The door leading
into Glynne's little studio was wide open, and the current of soft,
moist night air which struck his cheek told that the conservatory and
its windows must be open too.

All this came to him in a flash as, after swinging to the door he had
forced, Sir John ran to where, dishevelled, and with her face bleeding
and distorted by the savage manner in which her cries for help had been
stopped, lay Glynne by the bedside.  She was insensible now, though a
faint groan escaped her as he tenderly raised her from the carpet, and
laid her upon the bed, a pang of combined rage and horror shooting
through him as he felt one arm drop in a strangely unnatural way, which
told that the bone had snapped.

One glance round, as he battled with his agony, showed how terrible a
struggle had taken place; chairs were overturned, a little table, with
its load of feminine knick-knacks, lay upon its side, and on every hand
there were traces of the strife.

Sir John, who was trembling violently, grasped all this as he hurried
back to the door, to find that the whole house had now been alarmed, and
people were gathering fast.

"Find Morris, Jem," said Sir John, in a hoarse voice.  "Quick! send for
Oldroyd."

"Yes," said the major, with military promptitude; "but, one word--
Glynne?"

Sir John made an impatient gesture, and his brother ran down the
corridor at once, the frightened women giving way at his approach, while
their host looked sharply round at the scared faces of those present.

"Ah, Mason," he cried, "go in to your mistress."

"Sir John, what can I do?" cried a piteous voice.  "Dearest Glynne,
pray, pray let me help."

He turned sharply upon the speaker to see Marjorie, with her beautiful
hair lightly looped up, but resting upon her long pale blue _peignoir_;
and as the wild, troubled eyes met his, Sir John softened a little
towards her.

"Thank you," he said hastily.  "It is no place for you, my child.  Yes:
go to her.  You are a woman, and your gentle face should be at her
side."

Marjorie darted into the room after Mason, and Sir John barred the door
against further entrance.

"Here, Miss Emlin," he whispered, "secure the door from within.  No one
enters till the doctor comes."

Then, gathering presence of mind, he hurriedly responded to the
enquiries being made, and in a few minutes the passage was once more
clear.

The major returned then, and his eyes looked searchingly into his
brother's.

"This way," said Sir John.  "Her maid and Miss Emlin are with her.  We
can do nothing there."

Major Day made an impatient gesture, but his old discipline prevailed,
and he followed his brother to the studio door, which opened upon the
corridor.

But it, too, was fastened, and Sir John stepped back to the bedroom door
and tapped sharply.

There was a rustling sound within, and the door was held ajar by Mason,
whose face looked scared and drawn, while a low, piteous moan came to
their ears.

"Quick!" said Sir John.  "Go round and open the other door.  Shut this
first, and admit no one, I say, but the doctor."

The door was closed with a chain, and they heard the slipping back of
the bolts of the little studio, Sir John waiting to give the maid time
to go back into the bed-chamber before he opened the door, and entered
with his brother.

All was in its customary state here, but the conservatory door was open,
and, upon entering there, it was to find that the window was wide, and a
long strand of the wistaria lay upon the floor, as if it had been torn
off by someone who had mounted from below, or else had become entangled
by the climber's dress, and fallen from it when the inside of the window
was reached.

The major was at his brother's side, and together they looked out,
holding a candle down to see plainly enough that the leaves and tender
twigs of the beautiful climber that wreathed the place had been broken
and torn down in several places, the big cable-like twisted main stem
having evidently been utilised as a rope ladder by whoever had climbed
up.

The brothers looked at each other.

"Her favourite creeper, Jem," said Sir John, with a groan--"her
destruction."

"Jack?" whispered the major, in an appealing voice.  Only the one word,
but so full of question that Sir John bent toward him and whispered a
few words.

The major turned away, and marched for the door, but his brother
overtook him.

"To my room."

"What for?"

"My pistols."

"Jem!"

"I'll shoot him like a dog."

Sir John's hand closed tightly upon his brother's arm, and they glared
at each other in silence for a few moments, while twice over there came
a feeble groan through the door from the adjoining chamber.

"No," said Sir John at last, with his voice trembling from emotion; "I
am her father.  It is my task, or her betrothed's.  Jem," he whispered
excitedly, "what am I to say to Rolph?  Jem," he whispered again, with
the hands which clung to his brother trembling violently, "you--you
don't think--they were to be married to-day--he came to her window last
night?"

"No," said the major sternly; "give the devil his clue.  It was not he."

There was silence in the little room, about which lay the many little
books and drawings favoured by her who lay moaning and insensible in the
next room.  Here was a sketch of the father; there one of the uncle;
close by, arch and mocking of aspect, a clever representation of Lucy
Alleyne; and, in a fit of fury, the major strode to the wall, tore it
down, and stamped it under foot.

"What cursed stroke of fate brought them here?" he said hoarsely.

"Hush!  This is no time for loud anger, Jem.  We must act--like men--for
her sake, old fellow!  My God, Jem! what sin have I committed that the
punishment should be struck at me through her?  My poor, poor girl!"

He sank into a chair, sobbing like a child; but as his brother's hand
was laid upon his shoulder, he sprang up again.

"Yes," he said huskily.  "I'm ready.  We need not search.  We know
enough.  But, Jem, we must be silent.  I can't have all the horrible
scandal spread abroad.  We must, for her sake, hush it up."

"Hush it up!" said the major bitterly.  "Jack, the news is being spread
already.  You sent one messenger out a quarter-of-an-hour ago."

Just then the door leading into the bedroom opened, and Marjorie
appeared, quite calm and self-possessed.

"Brandy or sal-volatile!" she said in a quick, decisive whisper.  "She
is coming to, but deadly faint and weak."

Half-an-hour later, Oldroyd was there, and busy in attendance till
daybreak; while Sir John and his brother sat waiting till he joined them
in the library--the calm, business-like doctor, apparently with no
thought outside the condition of his patient.

He came into the room, bowed, looked from one brother to the other, and
waited to be questioned.

Sir John's lips parted, but no words came, and he turned his eyes
imploringly to his brother, who drew himself up and began in his prompt
military way; but his brief question was almost inaudible towards the
end.

"How is she?"

"Suffering terribly from shock, sir, and exhaustion.  Her left arm is
fractured above the elbow; but it is the mental strain we have to fear."

"You will stay of course?" said the major.

"I only came to you for a few moments, gentlemen, and am going back to
my patient now."

No further question was asked, and the brothers were left alone, to sit
in silence till the major said,--

"You must send some kind of message over to The Warren, Jack."

"Eh?  Yes, yes, I suppose so," said Sir John bitterly; "and get rid of
these people in the house.  Do that for me, Jem.  I'm broken, lad--
twenty years older since we shook hands last night.  Who's there?" he
cried with a start, as there was a tap at the door.

Whoever knocked took this for a command to enter; and, looking very pale
and wild-eyed, but perfectly self-possessed, Marjorie entered and fixed
her eyes on Sir John.

"Will you kindly order the carriage?"

"Yes--yes, my dear," he said.  "Thank you for what you have done; but
you wish to leave us?"

She looked at the old man half-wonderingly before answering.

"A message must be sent to my cousin," she said in her sweet, musical
voice; "the wedding cannot take place to-day."

"No, no; of course not," cried the major.

"And I thought it would be kinder to him, poor fellow, for me to be the
bearer of these terrible tidings.  A letter would be so cold and
dreadful.  Oh, Sir John," she cried with a hysterical sob, as she flung
herself at his knees, "it is too horrible to speak of.  Poor darling
Glynne!  My poor cousin!  It will drive him mad!"

"Hush, my dear; be calm; try and be calm," whispered Sir John, laying
his hand gently upon her head.

"Yes," she said amidst her sobs, "I am trying so hard, dear Sir John,
for everybody's sake.  My poor aunt!  It will nearly kill her.  I
thought it would be so much better if I went myself to break the
dreadful news."

"Yes," said Sir John, raising her.  "Heaven bless you for your
forethought.  It is a time when we want a gentle woman's help."

He looked at his brother, who read his wish.

"I will order the carriage round," he said.  "In an hour?"

"No, no, as soon as possible," said Marjorie wildly.  "They must not
hear the news from the village.  Poor, poor, darling Glynne!" she cried,
bursting into a fresh burst of sobs, which made her words almost
inaudible.  "All her jewels gone, too.  She must have been trying to
protect them when the wretches struck her down."

Within half-an-hour Marjorie was on her way back to The Warren; and soon
after breakfast, of the wedding guests not one was left, while the news
rapidly spread that "Doctor" Oldroyd had been fetched suddenly in the
night to Brackley, where he found Sir John's daughter in a violent
fever, and that she was now delirious, and in danger of being taken to
the church as a bride, indeed, but as the bride of death.

Volume 3, Chapter X.

THE LITTLE ORB TURNS ROUND.

There was but one thought in the minds of father and uncle at Brackley,
and that was to silence busy tongues, get Glynne sufficiently well to
move, and go right away abroad; and in Oldroyd they had a willing
coadjutor, and one who seemed not to have a thought beyond his
profession.

The major had been half mad, and ready to follow the bent of his
suspicions again and again; but robbery as well as outrage appeared to
have influenced the man who had escaped unseen, since the greater part
of the valuable jewels, including a diamond bracelet given by Marjorie
to the bride, were missing, and he felt that he was wrong.

Sir John prevailed.

"Jem," he said, "if I knew who it was I'd shoot him ike a dog--curse
him!  No: I couldn't wait to fire, I'd strangle him; but I can't have
this published abroad if we can hush it up.  I won't have my child
dragged into a witness box to give evidence against the devil who has
wrought us this ill.  We must bear it, Jem, and wait."

"But, my dear Jack--"

"But, my dear Jem--I am her father.  What would our darling wish if she
could speak to us--if we could speak to her upon what it would be best
to do?"

The major bowed his head, and as far as possible a veil was drawn over
the events of that night.

Rumour was pretty busy during the next month, during which period
several stories were afloat, but only one bore the stamp of truth--that,
out of despair some said, Captain Rolph obtained leave of absence, and
went off to Norway, shooting, while Mrs Rolph and her niece accompanied
him as far as Hull, and then continued their journey to Scarboro'.

That was perfectly true, Mrs Rolph having her hands pretty full with
Marjorie, who also turned ill having bad, nervous, hysterical fits, and
refusing absolutely to go outside The Warren door without having tight
hold of Mrs Rolph's arm; and even then she was constantly turning her
eyes wildly round as if in expectation of seeing someone start out from
behind bush or hedge.

"The shock to her system," Mrs Rolph used to say to herself, and she
became increasingly gentle toward the girl whose nerves had been
shattered by the affair at The Hall.

By this time the shutters were all closed at Brackley, for, after Sir
John had been severely blamed for not getting down some big physician
when Glynne's brain fever was at its worst, people came to the
conclusion that he knew what he was about, for if ever a clever
practitioner did settle down in a place, it was "Doctor" Oldroyd, who
had cured the young lady in a wonderfully short space of time.  For the
month at its end found the Days in Italy, where Glynne had been
recommended to go on account of her health.

Oldroyd consequently was on the road to fame--that is the fame which
extended for a radius of six miles; but his pockets were very little the
heavier, and he still looked upon men who kept banking accounts with a
feeling akin to awe.

Change in the neighbourhood of Brackley extended no further.  The
blunt-eyed, resident policeman, somehow never managed to come across the
poachers who made raids upon The Warren and upon Brackley during the
absence of their owners; while over at Lindham, the doctor learned from
old Mother Wattley, who grew more chatty and apparently younger, under
her skilful medical man's care, that Ben Hayle--`my son-in-law'--had
taken an acre of land, and was `goin' to make a fortun' there as a
florist; but when Oldroyd met the ex-keeper one day, and went over the
garden with him, it seemed improbable that it would even pay the rent.

"Better turn to your old business, Hayle," said Oldroyd.

"Easier said than done, sir," replied the man.  "Old master gave me my
chance when I was a young fool, and liked to do a bit o' poaching,
believing honestly then that all birds were wild, and that I had as good
a right to them as anybody.  But I soon found out the difference when I
had to rear them, and I served him honest, and Mrs Rolph too, all those
years, till she discharged me because of the captain's liking for my
Judith."

"But surely there were other places to be found by a man with a good
character."

"Didn't seem like it, sir.  I tried till I was beat out, and then, in a
kind of despairing fit, I went out with some of the lads, and you know
what I got for my pains."

"Yes," said the doctor, "and it ought to be a lesson for you, Hayle."

"Yes, sir, it ought; but you see, once a man takes to that kind of work
it's hard to keep from it."

"But, my good fellow, you may be laid by the heels in gaol at any time.
I wondered you were not taken over that affair."

"So I should have been, if I'd had any other doctor, sir," said Hayle,
with a meaning smile, "and the police had been a little sharper.  But
you didn't chatter, and our fellows didn't, and so I got off."

"But think, now; you, the father of a young girl like Miss Hayle, what
would her feelings be if you were sent to prison like that young
fellow--what's his name--was."

"Caleb Kent, sir?"

"Yes.  What's become of him?  I haven't seen him lately."

"Racketing about somewhere, sir.  Me and him had a quarrel or two about
my Judith.  He was always hanging after her; and it got so bad, at last,
that I promised him a charge o' shot in his jacket if he ever came anigh
our place again.  He saw I meant it, sir, and he has left the poor girl
in peace."

"Well, I must be off, Hayle."

"Thankye for calling, sir.  Been to see the old mother-in-law?"

"Yes; she keeps wonderfully well."

"You mean you keep her wonderfully well, sir.  Poor old girl, she's not
a bad one in her way."

"No, and there's nothing the matter with her but old age."

"Hear that the missus is coming back to The Warren, sir?"

"Yes, and that the Brackley people are on their way too.  Look here,
Hayle, shall I put in a word for you to Sir John?"

"No thankye, doctor, let me bide; things 'll come right in time.  Think
there'll be a wedding at the Hall, now, sir?  They tell me Miss Day's
got well and strong again."

"I've enough to do with my people when they want me, Hayle," said the
doctor, drily, "and I never interfere about their private matters; but,
as you ask me that question, I should say decidedly not."

The ex-keeper smiled, as if the doctor's words coincided with his own
thoughts, and he stood watching Oldroyd, as he rode off, getting a peep
at Judith seated by the window working hard as he went by, the girl's
face looking pale and waxen in the shade.

"Fretting a bit, by the look of her, and those dark rings," said
Oldroyd, as he rode away.  "How much happier a place the world would be
if there were no marrying and giving in marriage--no making love at all.
Causes more worry, I think, than the drink."

Volume 3, Chapter XI.

DRAWN TOGETHER.

"Well, dearest," said Mrs Rolph, "have you been all round?"

Rolph, who was leaning back in his chair in the library at The Warren,
reading a sporting paper, uttered a growl.

"Not satisfactory, dear?"

"Satisfactory! the place has gone to rack and ruin.  I don't believe
those cursed poachers have left a head of game on the estate; but I know
who's at the bottom of it, and he'd better look out."

"I'm very sorry, dear," said Mrs Rolph, going behind her son's chair to
stroke his hair.  "The garden looks very nice; both Madge and I thought
so.  Why didn't you run over now and then to see that the keeper was
doing his duty."

"Run over?" cried Rolph, savagely; "who was going to run over here for
every fool one met to be pointing his cursed finger at you, and saying,
`There goes the fellow who didn't get married.'"

"My dearest boy," said Mrs Rolph, soothingly, as she laid her cheek on
the top of his head, "don't fret about that now.  You know it's nearly
eighteen months ago."

"I don't care if it's eighteen hundred months ago--and do leave off,
mother, you know I hate having my hair plastered down."

Mrs Rolph kissed the place where her cheek had been laid, and then drew
back, showing that the complaint had not been merited, for, so far from
the hair being plastered down, there was scarcely any to plaster,
Rolph's head being cropped close in athletic and on anti-Samsonic
principles as regarded strength.

"It was very, very hard for you, my dearest, and it is most unfortunate
that they should have chosen the same time to return as we did.  You--
er--heard that they are back?"

"Of course I did, and if you'd any respect for your son, you'd sell this
cursed hole, and go somewhere else."

"Don't--don't ask me to do that, Rob, dear," said Mrs Rolph.  "I know
your poor father looked forward to your succeeding to it and keeping it
up."

"I hate the place," growled Rolph rustling his paper; and Mrs Rolph
looked pleased, but she said nothing for some time.  Then, very
gently,--

"Rob, dearest, you are going to stay now you are here?"

"No; I'm going to Hounslow to-morrow."

"Not so soon as that, dear," said Mrs Rolph, pleadingly, as she laid her
hand upon his shoulder.

"Why not?  What's the good of staying here?"

"To please your mother, dearest, and--Madge, who is in a terribly weak
state I had great difficulty in getting her back here."

Rolph moved angrily, and crumpled up the paper, but Mrs Rolph bent down
and kissed him.

"There, all right," he said, "only don't bother me about it so.  I can't
forget that other cursed muddle, if you can."

"No, my dear, of course not, but you should try to.  And, Rob, dear, be
a little more thoughtful about dearest Madge.  She has, I know, suffered
cruelly in the past, and does so now at times when you seem neglectful--
no, no, don't start, dear; I know you are not, but girls are exacting,
and do love to spoil men by trying to keep them at their feet."

"Like spaniels or pugs," growled Rolph, the latter being the more
appropriate.

"Yes, dear, but she will grow wiser in that direction, and you cannot be
surprised at her anxiety.  Rob, dearest, you must not blame her for her
worship of one whom she looks upon as a demigod--the perfection of all
that is manly and strong."

"Oh, no; it's all right, mother," said Rolph, who felt flattered by the
maternal and girlish adulation; "I'll behave like a lamb."

"You'll behave like my own true, brave son, dearest, and make me very
happy.  When shall it be, Rob?"

"Eh?  The marriage?"

"Yes, dear," said Mrs Rolph, kneeling at his side and passing an arm
about him.

"Has Madge been at you about it?"

"For shame, dearest!  She would die sooner than speak.  You know how she
gave up to what you fancied would make you happy before.  Never a word,
never a murmur; and she took that poor unfortunate girl, Glynne, to her
heart as a sister."

"Damn it all, mother, do let that cursed business rest," cried Rolph
impatiently.

"Yes, dearest, of course; pray forgive me."

"Oh, all right!  But--er--Madge--she hasn't seen her--hasn't been over
there?"

"No, my love, of course not.  There must be no further communication
between our families.  It was Sir John's own wish, as you know.  No one
could have behaved more honourably, or with more chivalrous
consideration than he did over the horribly distressing circumstances.
But that's all dead, past and forgotten now, and you need not fear any
allusions being made in the place.  It was quite wonderful how little
was ever known outside the house.  But there, no more past; let's have
present and future.  Time is flying, Rob, dearest, and I'm getting an
old woman now."

"And a deuced fine, handsome old woman, too," said Rolph, with an
unwonted show of affection, for he passed his arm about her, and kissed
her warmly.  "I tell you what it is, old lady, I only wish I could meet
with one like you--a fine, handsome, elderly body, with no confounded
damn-nonsense about her.  I'd propose in a minute."

"My dearest boy, what absurd stuff you do talk, when the most beautiful
girl for miles round is waiting patiently for you to say,--`Come, and I
will recompense you with my life's devotion for all your long suffering,
and the agony of years.'"

"Just what I'm likely to say, mother," said Rolph, grimly.

"But you will in your heart."

"All right, I'll try.  She will let me have my own way.  But I say,
mother, she has grown precious thin and old-looking while you have been
on the Continent."

"What wonder, dearest boy.  Can a woman suffer, as she has about you for
two years now, without showing the lines of care.  But what of them.  It
will be your pleasant duty to smooth them all out, and you can, dearest,
and so easily.  A month after she is yours she will not look the same."

Mrs Rolph's words were spoken in all sincerity, and there was a great
deal in them as to their probabilities, but not in the direction she
meant.

"Rob, dearest," she whispered caressingly, soon after, "when shall it
be?"

"Don't know."

"To set your mother's heart at rest--and hers."

"Oh, very well, when you like; but hold hard a minute."

"Rob!" cried Mrs Rolph in dismay, for her heart was beating fast with
hope, and his words had arrested the throbbing.

"I can't have two of my important meetings interfered with.  I've the
Bray Bridge handicap, and a glove fight I must attend."

"Rob, my darling!"

"But I must go to them.  The confounded service takes up so much of my
time, that I've neglected my athletics shamefully."

Marjorie came in from the garden just then, and as she appeared at the
French window, the careworn, hunted look in her eyes, and a suggestion
of twitching about the corners of her lips, fully justified her athletic
cousin's disparaging remarks.

"Ah, my darling!" cried Mrs Rolph, rising.

"I beg pardon, aunt dear.  I did not know you and Rob were engaged."

"Don't go, dearest," said Mrs Rolph, holding out her hands, her tone of
voice making Marjories eyes dilate, and as she began to tremble
violently, a deathly pallor overspread her cheeks, and she tottered and
then sank sobbing in Mrs Rolph's arms.

"My darling--my darling!" whispered her aunt.  "There--there!  Rob,
dearest, help me!"

Rolph rose from his chair, half-pleased, half-amused by his mother's
action, as she shifted the burden to his great muscular arms.

"Help her to the couch, my love.  Why, she is all of a tremble.  I'll go
and fetch my salts.  Rob, dearest, can't you bring back the colour to
her cheeks?"

She moved slowly toward the door in quite a stage exit, smiling with
satisfaction as she saw her son make no effort to place the trembling
woman upon the couch, but holding her to his breast, while, slowly and
timidly, her hands rose to his neck, gained faith and courage, and by
the time the door closed upon the pair, Madge was clinging tightly, and
for the first time for two years felt that the arms which encircled her
held her firmly.

"Rob!" she cried wildly, as she raised her head to gaze wildly in his
eyes.

"All right, pussy," he said.  "The mater says we are to forget all the
past, and forgive, and all that sort of thing, and the event is to be a
fixture, short notice and no flam."

"You mean it, Rob--darling?"

"Of course," he cried; and his lips closed upon hers.

"There," he said, after a time; "now let's go and have a quiet walk and
talk."

"In the garden?  Yes!"

"Hang the garden! outside.  I don't want the old girl to be hanging
about us, patting us on the back and watching for every kiss."

"No, no," she whispered, as she clung to him, as if fearing to lose him
before she had him fast.  "Except for this, Rob, dear, I wish we had not
come back to The Warren."

"Hallo!" he cried, boisterously; "jealous of Judy, pet?  Why, I haven't
seen her for months?  That's all over, and I'm going to be your own good
boy."

"It wasn't that, Rob.  I was afraid."

"What of?  Losing me?  Oh, you're safe now," he cried, with a boisterous
laugh.

"No, dear Rob; it was not that, but of something else."

"What, Brackley?" he said roughly, and with an angry scowl.

"Oh, no, Rob," she cried, with a frightened look and a shudder as she
covered his lips with hers.  "Don't, pray, speak of that.  It is too
horrible.  I didn't mean that."

"What then?"

"It was nothing about you, Rob, dearest.  It was about myself.  I was
frightened, but no, not _now_," she whispered caressingly, as she
nestled to him.  "I shall always have your brave, strong, giant's arms
to be round me, to protect me against everybody."

"Of course," he said, complacently, as he smiled down at her.  "But what
are you afraid of?"

"Oh; nothing," she whispered; "it's because I'm weak and foolish.  Oh,
Rob, how grand it must be to feel big, and strong and brave.  It was
some time before we went away, I was out walking, and a man came out
from among the hazel bushes."

"Eh?" growled Rolph.

"It was that dreadful poacher who used to be about, and he asked for
money, and I gave him some, dear, and then he became insulting, and
tried to catch me in his arms, but I shrieked out and he ran away."

"Caleb Kent?" growled Rolph.

"I think that is what he was called," said Marjorie timidly; "but I need
not be afraid of him now, need I, Rob?"

"You may be afraid for him," said Rolph, fiercely; "for so sure as ever
we meet any night, and he is poaching, I shall have an accident with my
gun."

"But you won't kill him, Rob.  Don't do that, dearest; it would be too
dreadful."

"No; I won't kill him if I can help it.  That would be too bad, eh?  I
won't nail his ears to the pump."

"Ah, my darlings! here still," said Mrs Rolph, who entered, smiling, but
with the tears trickling down her cheeks.  "Madge, my child, what has
become of my salts--you know, the cut-glass bottle with the gold top."

"Never mind the salts, mother," said Rolph, boisterously; "sugar has
done it.  I've quite brought Madge to--haven't I, pussy?"

"Oh, Rob, dearest," cried Madge, hiding her face upon his breast, and
shuddering slightly as she nestled there, as if a cold breath of wind
had passed over to threaten the blasting of her budding hopes.

"It's all right, mother, and--there as soon as you like.  Come, little
wifey to be, begin your duties at once.  Big strong husbands want plenty
of food when they are not training.  They are like the lawyers who need
refreshers.  I'm choking for a pint of Bass.  No, no, mother; let her
ring.  Satisfied?"

"Rob, my darling, you've made me a happy woman at last--so proud, so
very proud of my darling son."

"All right," cried Rolph, gruffly; "but, look here, I'm not going to
figure at Brackley over a business like this.  I'm off back to
barracks."

"So soon, Rob," cried Madge, and the scared look came into her eyes
again, as she involuntarily glanced at the window as if expecting to see
Caleb Kent peering in.

"Madge, my darling!  Look at her, Rob."

"Bah! what a cowardly, nervous little puss it is," cried Rolph, taking
her in his arms, and she clung to him sobbing hysterically.  "Look here,
mother; you'd better take a house, or furnished apartments in town at
once, and we'll get the business done there.  Madge is afraid of bogies.
Weak and hysterical, and that sort of thing.  Get her away; the place
is dull, and the poachers are hanging about here a good deal."

Marjorie uttered a faint shriek which was perfectly real.

"Take us away at once, Rob, dear," she whispered passionately; "I can't
bear to be separated from you now."

"All right," he said.  "I'll stop and take care of you till you're ready
to start, and see you safe in town.  You can go to a hotel for a day or
two.  Will that do?"

"Yes, dear; admirably," cried Mrs Rolph, eagerly; and Marjorie uttered a
sigh of consent that was like a moan of pain.

Volume 3, Chapter XII.

RE THE FOCUS.

News reaches the servants' hall sooner than it does the drawing-room,
and before long it was known at Brackley that a wedding was in the air.

Cook let it off in triumph one day at dinner.  She had been very silent
for some time, and then began to smile, till Morris, the butler, who had
noted the peculiarities of this lady for years, suddenly
exclaimed,--"Now then, what is it?  Out with it, cook!"

"Oh, don't ask me; it's nothing."

"Yes, it is," said the butler, with a wink directed all round the table.
"What are you laughing at?"

"It does seem so rum," cried cook, laughing silently till her face was
peony-like in hue.

"Well, you might give us a bit, cook," said the major's valet.  "What is
it?"

"They've--they've found the focus again," cried cook, laughing now quite
hysterically.

"Eh?  Where?" cried Morris.

"Over at The Warren."

"What," cried the butler severely; "made it up?  Cook, I should be sorry
to say unpleasant things to any lady, but if you were a man, I should
tell you that you were an old fool."

"Well, I'm sure!" cried cook, "that's polite, when I heered it only this
morning from the butcher, who'd just come straight from The Warren,
where he heered it all."

"What?  That Captain Rolph had made it up with our Miss Glynne?
Rubbish, woman, rubbish!  After the way he pitched the poor girl over
and went off shooting, that could never be."

"If people would not be quite so clever," said cook, addressing the
assembled staff of servants round the table, "and would not jump at
things before they know, perhaps they'd get on a little better in life.
As if I didn't know that she'd never marry now.  I said as the captain
had made up matters with his cousin, that carrotty-headed girl who came
to be bridesmaid."

"You don't mean it," cried Morris.

"It's a fact," said cook, "and it's to come off at once."

"What, her?  Disgraceful!"

Cook smiled again, with the quiet confidence of knowledge, and ignoring
the butler's remark, she fixed the maids in turn with her eye.

"Mrs Rolph has taken a furnished house in London for three months, and
they're going to it next week, and as Perkins' man says, it do seem
hard, after getting on for two years without delivering regular joints
at the house for them to be off again."

"Well," said Mason, Glynne's maid, contemptuously, "I wish the lady joy
of him.  A low, common, racing and betting man.  I wouldn't marry him if
he was made of gold."

"Right, Mrs Mason," said Morris.  "I don't know what Nature was thinking
about to make him an officer.  No disrespect meant to those in the
stables, but to my mind, if Captain Rolph--and I saw a deal of him when
he was here--had found his--his--"

"Focus," suggested cook, and there was a roar in which the butler
joined, by way of smoothing matters over with his fellow-servant.

"I meant to say level, cook.  He would have been a helper, or the driver
of a cab.  He was never fit for our young lady."

The servants' hall tattle proved to be quite correct, for within a week
The Warren was vacant again, Rolph being back at barracks, and Mrs Rolph
and her niece at a little house in one of the streets near Lowndes
Square, busily occupied in preparing the lady's _trousseau_, for the
marriage was to take place within a month.

It was not long after that the news reached The Firs, and Lucy became
very thoughtful, and ended by feeling glad.  She hardly knew why, but
she was pleased at the idea of Captain Rolph being married and out of
the way.

And now, by no means for the first time, a great longing came over Lucy
to see Glynne Day again.  She knew that the family had been for a year
and a half in Italy, and only heard by accident that they had returned
to Brackley, so quietly was everything arranged.  Then, as the days
glided by, and she heard no more news, the longing to see Glynne again
intensified.

She felt the tears come into her eyes and trickle down her cheeks as she
thought of the terrible catastrophe--never even alluded to at The Firs--
a horror which had saved her from being Rolph's wife, but at what a
cost!

"Poor Moray!" she sighed more than once in her solitary communings.
"Poor Glynne! and they might have been by now happy husband and wife.
It is too horrible--too dreadful.  How could Fate be so cruel!"

Lucy shivered at times as she mentally called up the careworn,
beautiful, white face of her old friend, who had never been seen outside
the walls of the house, so far as she could learn, since her return.
And at last, trembling the while, as if her act were a sin, instead of
true womanly love and charity, she wrote a simple little letter to
Glynne, asking to see her, for that she loved her very dearly, and that
the past was nothing to them, and ought not to separate two who had
always been dear friends.

She posted the letter secretly, feeling that mother and brother would
oppose the act, and that day the rustic postman was half-a-crown the
richer upon his promising to retain and deliver into her own hands any
letter addressed to her which might arrive.

Then she waited patiently for days in the grim, cheerless home, where
her brother seemed to be settling down into a thoughtful, dreamy man,
who was ageing rapidly, and whose eyes always looked full of some
terrible trouble, which was eating away his life, while, if possible,
Mrs Alleyne looked older, thinner, and more careworn than of yore.

Oldroyd came at intervals professionally, but there was a peculiar
distance observed between him and Lucy, who treated him with petulant
angry resentment, and he was reserved and cold.

But his visits did no good.  There were no walks with the doctor, no
garden flowers bloomed at the astronomer's touch.  Alleyne studied
harder than ever, and his name rose in reputation among the scientific,
but he received no visitors, paid no calls, and only asked for one thing
from those of his household--to be let alone.

A week had elapsed before the postman, with a great deal of mysterious
action, slipped a note into Lucy's hand, making her run to her room
trembling and feeling guilty, to hold the letter open, illegible for the
tears which veiled her eyes.

At last, though, she read the few brief lines which it contained:--

"Think of the past, Lucy, as of happy days spent with one who loved you,
and who is now dead.  Better that we should never meet again.  Better,
perhaps, if I had never lived.  God bless _you_, dear.  Good-bye."

Poor Lucy was too ill to appear at dinner that day, and for several more
she did not stir out.  Then Mrs Alleyne insisted upon her going for a
walk, and, as if drawn by fate, she went straight toward the fir mount
to climb to the top, where she could sit down and gaze at Brackley, and
try to make out Glynne, who might be walking in the garden.

No: she saw no tall white figure there, and she felt that unless she
borrowed some "optick tube" from her brother's observatory, she was not
likely to see her friend a mile away, and she stood there low-spirited
and tearful.

"If I could only see her, and say,--`Glynne, sister, what is all that
terrible trouble to us?  You are still the only friend I ever loved,'
and clasp her in my arms, and let her tears mingle with mine.  Oh,
please God," she said, softly, speaking like a little child, as she sank
upon her knees amongst the thickly-shed pine needles, and clasped her
hands, "let there be no more sorrow for my poor, dear friend; make her
happy once again."

That fir-clad hill became Lucy's favourite resort by day, as it had been
her brother's in the past, by night; and she went again and again, till
one afternoon, following out an old habit, she was stooping to pick a
plant from where it grew, when she became aware of someone approaching,
and she started and coloured, and then recovered herself, and rose erect
and slightly resentful, for Major Day, looking very sad and old stood
before her, raising his hat.

"May I see what you have there?" he said gravely.

"I think it is an _Amanita_," said Lucy, trying hard to speak firmly, as
she held out the whitish-looking fungus toward the old botanist, as if
it had been a tiny Japanese parasol.

Major Day fixed his _pince-nez_ on the organ it was made to pinch, and,
taking the curious vegetable, carefully examined it, turning it over and
over before saying decisively,--

"Yes, exactly; _Amanita Vernus_, a very poisonous species, Miss Alleyne.
I--er--I am very glad to see that you keep up your knowledge of this
interesting branch of botany.  I have been paying a good deal of
attention to it in Italy this past autumn and winter."

"Indeed," said Lucy.

"Yes, my dear--Miss Alleyne," said the major, correcting himself.  "The
Italians are great eaters of fungi.  My brother found Rome and Florence
very dull.  Of course he was longing to be back amongst his farming
stock.  Great student of the improvement of cattle, Miss Alleyne.  I
found the country about Rome and Florence most interesting.  It would
have been far more so if I had had a sympathetic companion."

"I must--I will tell him everything," thought Lucy; and then the colour
came, and she felt that it would be impossible, and that her only course
was to allow time to smooth away this little burr.

"Are you finding truffles?" she said, with assumed cheerfulness.

He looked at her in a curiously wistful manner for a few moments, and
that look was agony to Lucy, as her conscience told her that she had had
a fall from the high niche to which she had risen in the major's
estimation.

"Yes," he said, slowly, and there was an unwonted coldness and gravity
in his manner; "at my old pursuit, Miss Alleyne--at my old pursuit.  So
you have not quite given it up?"

"Oh no," cried Lucy, trying to pass over the coldness, which chilled her
warm young heart.  "I have been collecting several times lately, and--"

Lucy stopped short, for the major was looking at her keenly, as if
recalling the fact that when she had been mushrooming she had
encountered Rolph sauntering about with a cigar in his mouth.

"Yes," said the major, quietly; "and were you very successful?"

It was a very simple question, just such a one as anyone might ask to
help a hesitating speaker who had come to a standstill; but to Lucy it
seemed so different from what she had been accustomed to hear from the
major's lips.  His manner had always been tenderly paternal towards her;
there had been such openness and full confidence between them, and such
a warm pressure of hand to hand.  Now this was gone, and there was a
cold and dreary gap.

"Successful?" said Lucy, with her voice trembling and her face beginning
to work.  "Yes--no--I--Have you many truffles, Major Day?"

This last with an effort to master her emotion, and its effect, as she
spoke sharply and quickly, was to give her time to recover herself, and
the major a respite from what had threatened to be a painful scene.

"Yes, yes; a fair number," he said, as if he were addressing one who was
a comparative stranger, but towards whom he wished to behave with the
greatest deference.  "They are very small, though--very small; not like
those they dig in France.  May I send you a few, my--Miss Alleyne?"

Lucy shook her head, for her emotion mastered her this time.  That
alteration from what was to have been "my dear" to "Miss Alleyne" was
too much for her, and she bowed hastily and hurried away.

But the major hastened after her, and overtook her in the lane.

"Miss Alleyne--Lucy," he cried.  "One moment, please."

"Major Day!" she cried, in surprise.

"And your very good old friend, my dear.  Since I saw you last I have
been thinking a great deal, and many things which troubled me before we
left home have gradually assumed an entirely fresh aspect.  I was hasty,
and, to be frank, I used to think ill of you, and my conscience is so
full of reproach that I--if you'll excuse me--I--I must beg your
pardon."

"Beg my pardon, Major Day?" said Lucy, and she turned red and white by
turns as she began to tremble.

"Yes, my dear, and ask you to forgive me."

"Forgive you, Major Day?"

"Yes, my dear, I fear I was too ready to believe you were weak and
foolish, and did not give you credit for being what you are, and--there,
there, my dear, I surrender at discretion, I leave it to your generosity
to let me march off with colours flying."

"Dear Major Day!  I didn't deserve that you should think so ill of me,"
sobbed Lucy passionately, and laying her hands in the old man's she made
no resistance as he drew her towards him, and kissed her forehead, just
when, according to his unlucky custom, Oldroyd came into sight.

At the moment when the major bent down and pressed his lips on little
Lucy's white forehead, the pony's head was directed straight towards
them; the next instant he had sprung round like a weather-cock, and his
head was directed towards home, but only for a few moments, before it
was dragged round again, and the doctor come slowly ambling towards
them, looking indignant and fierce.

"Then we are to be the best of friends again, eh, my dear, and I am
quite forgiven?"

"Oh, yes, dear Major Day," said Lucy; "but please don't think so ill of
me again."

"I'm a dreadful old scoundrel ever to have thought ill of you at all,"
cried the major.  "There, we must forget all the past.  Ah, doctor, how
are you?  When are you coming up to the hall?  My brother will be glad
to see you, I'm sure."

"I hope Sir John is not unwell?" said Oldroyd, trying to wither Lucy
with a look, and bringing back upon himself such an indignant flash that
he metaphorically curled up, as he muttered something to himself about
the daring impudence some women could display.

"Unwell? dear me, no," said the major.  "A little pulled down by too
much inaction abroad; nothing hurts him though much.  I mean come as a
visitor.  How is the health of the neighbourhood, eh?"

"Excellent, Major Day, that is, excepting Mr Alleyne's."

"What!  Mr Alleyne ill?  Bless my soul! you did not say anything about
it, my dear."

"My dear! my dear!" muttered Oldroyd between his teeth; "always my dear.
Surely the old idiot is not going to marry the wicked little flirt."

"I had not had time, Major Day," said Lucy eagerly, "but I don't think
dear Moray is any worse than usual."

"Worse than usual?  Then he has been unwell?"

"He is ill," replied Lucy, "but it has been coming on so slowly that I
am afraid we do not notice it so much as we should."

"But is he confined to his bed?"

"Oh, no!" cried Lucy.  "He is going on with his studies just as usual."

"I'll come over and see him.  I meant to come, but I--er--I hesitated,
my dear.  Do you think he would be pleased if I called?"

"I'm sure he would, Major Day," cried Lucy.  "Pray come soon."

"Indeed, I will, perhaps to-morrow.  Are you going my way?"

"No, major, I am going back to The Firs.  I do not like to be away when
Mr Oldroyd is going to see my brother."

The major shook hands warmly, and went his way, saying to himself,--

"What did she mean?  She did not like to be away when Mr Oldroyd visited
her brother?  What she said, of course.  Ah, how prone men are to put a
second meaning to other people's words.  How ready I was to think ill of
the little lassie and her brother; and I am as ready now to own that she
is innocence itself.  I used to think, though, that she cared for
Oldroyd."

Meanwhile, Lucy was walking straight along by the side of the road, back
towards The Firs, with Oldroyd, on his disreputable-looking steed, a
yard or two upon her left.

By quitting the road and cutting across the open boggy land, amidst the
furze and whortleberry scrub Lucy could have saved a quarter-of-a-mile,
and left her companion behind; or even if he had elected to follow her,
the softness of the soil and the constant recurrence of swampy patches
about, which one on foot could easily avoid, would have necessitated so
much care that he would have been left far behind.

But Lucy trudged steadily on with her pretty little face trying to look
stern and hard, but failing dis--no, not dismally, for hers was a type
of countenance from which the prettiness could not be eliminated try how
one would.

Oldroyd was angry--bitterly angry.  But he was in love.  Once more
jealous fear had attacked him.  For had not he plainly seen Lucy's face
held up in the most matter-of-fact manner for the major to bend down and
kiss?  Certainly he was an old man, old enough to be her grandfather,
and the kiss had been given when he who witnessed it was two or three
hundred yards away; but there was the fact and Oldroyd felt furious.

All this time had passed since he had felt that he was growing very fond
of Lucy, and his affection had been nipped and blackened like the top of
a spring potato, by an unkindly frost, consequent upon the Rolph affair,
while still like the spring potato, though the first shoots had been
nipped, it was only for more and stronger ones to form and grow faster
and faster than before.  But Lucy had made no sign.

And so they went on towards The Firs on that delicious spring day, when
the larks were singing overhead, the young growth of the pines shed a
sweet odour of lemon to be wafted across the road, and at every step,
Lucy's little feet crushed down a daisy, but the bright-eyed flower
lifted its head again as soon as she had passed and did not seem to be
trampled in the least.  Oldroyd did as Lucy did--stared straight before
him, letting the reins--a much mended pair--rest on the pony's neck;
while Peter hung his head in a sleepy, contemplative way, and sometimes
walked, sometimes slowly ambled on, as if moved by his spirit to keep
abreast of Lucy.

Oldroyd's brow knit closely as he mentally wrote out a prescription to
meet his new case, and then mentally tore it up again, ending by at last
turning quite fiercely towards Lucy, giving the pony's ribs a couple of
kicks as he snatched up the reins to force it forward, and then, as she
started half frightened by his near approach, he said to her in a
reproachful voice,--

"How can you behave so cruelly to me, Lucy?"  According to all canons
the rule in such a case was for Lucy to start, open her eyes a little
more widely, stare, and say,--

"Mr Oldroyd, I don't know what you mean!"  But this was out on a common,
and not in a west-end drawing-room.  Her heart was full, and she was not
disposed just then to fence and screen herself with maidenly
conventionalities.  She knew well enough that Philip Oldroyd loved her
very dearly, almost as dearly, she owned in her heart of hearts, as she
loved him, and that he was alluding broadly to her conduct with Rolph,
her long display of resentment, and also to her having given the major a
kiss that day.  He was very angry and jealous, but that did not annoy
her in the least.  It gave her pleasure.  He spoke very sharply to her
just then--viciously and bitterly; but she did not mind that either.  It
was piquant.  It gave her a pleasant little thrill.  There was a
masterly sound about it, and she felt as if it was pleasant to be
mastered just then, when she was in the most wilful and angry of moods.

"You know what I mean," he said, quickly, "you know how I love you."

"Oh!" said Lucy to herself very softly; but though every nerve tingled
with pleasure, not a muscle stirred, and she kept her face averted.

"You know," continued Oldroyd, "how long I have loved you; but you take
delight in trampling upon my best feelings.  I suppose," he added
bitterly, "it is because I am so poor."

"Indeed it is not!" cried Lucy with spirit, as she kept her back to him;
"how can you think me so pitiful and mean!"

"Well, then, why do you treat me so badly?"

"I don't treat you badly."

This was very commonplace, and Lucy's continuous stare straight before
her did not give it dignity.

"You do treat me badly--cruelly--worse," exclaimed Oldroyd, kicking his
pony's ribs so viciously, that the poor brute resented it by shaking his
head, and wagging his tail.

"You have treated me shamefully, Mr Oldroyd," cried Lucy.

It was getting terribly commonplace now.

"Indeed I have not," he replied.  "How could I help feeling hurt when I
saw you as I did with that horse-jockey foot-racing animal?"

"You might have known that I had a reason for it, and that I was
behaving so on behalf of my friend," said Lucy.

"How was I to be able to analyse the secrets of your heart?" said
Oldroyd, romantically.

"Then you looked insultingly at me just now, when dear old grandfatherly
Major Day spoke to me, and behaved to me as he did.  Why--oh, I haven't
patience with myself for speaking about it all as I do.  It is degrading
and weak; and what right, sir," she panted, "have you to ask me for such
explanations?"

"I do it in all humbleness, Lucy," he whispered, with his voice
softening.  "I have nothing to say in my defence, only that I love you
so dearly that it cuts me to the heart to think that--that--oh, my
darling, look at me like that again."

It was all in a moment.  Lucy's eyes had ceased to flash, and had darted
out such a confession of forgiveness, and love, and tenderness, all
mingled, as made Oldroyd forget all about the laws of equitation, and
fall off his pony on the wrong side, to catch Lucy's hand in his and
draw it tightly through his arm.

Peter began to nibble placidly at shoots, and everything was more
commonplace than ever, for they walked slowly along by the roadside,
with their heads down, perfectly silent; while the pony browsed along,
with his head down, and the rein dragging on the ground, till after a
bit he trod upon it, gave his head a snatch at the check, and broke it,
making it very little worse than it was before.

And so they went on, with the larks singing overhead, the grass and
daisies springing beneath their feet, and the world looking more
beautiful than it ever did before; what time Glynne was sitting, pale,
large-eyed, and thin, in her own room, reading hard--some heavy work,
which she jealously placed aside whenever she had finished perusing; and
Moray Alleyne was alone in his observatory, gaunt, grey, and strange,
busy over the calculations respecting the star he had been watching for
nights past, that bright particular star that seemed somehow connected
with the woman he had ventured to love.

"Are you very angry, Mrs Alleyne?" said Oldroyd, as he took Lucy's hand
in his and walked with her to where the mistress of The Firs was seated,
busily stitching, in the very perfection of neatness, the pleats of a
new garment for her son.

"Angry?" said Mrs Alleyne, starting and flushing, and then turning pale
as she dropped her work, and her hands began to tremble.  "Does this
mean--does this mean--?"

"That we love each other?" replied Oldroyd, glancing sidewise at Lucy.
"Yes, madam, it does, and I feel dread and shame, I scarcely know what,
when I speak to you like this, for I am so poor, and my prospects so
extremely wanting in brightness."

"We are used to being poor, Mr Oldroyd," said Mrs Alleyne, sadly.

"Then you do not object?"

"Why should I?" said Mrs Alleyne.  "It is natural that my child should
some day form an attachment.  She has, I presume, done so?"

"Oh, yes, yes, yes, mamma," cried Lucy, "a long time now."

"Then, knowing as I do, that the attachment is to a man of sterling
worth," said Mrs Alleyne softly, as she held out her hand, "what more
could I wish?"

Oldroyd caught the hand in his and kissed it, hesitated a moment, and
then bent down and kissed Mrs Alleyne's thin pinched lips.

"It has given me the stimulus I wanted," he said, proudly.  "Mrs
Alleyne, Lucy shall not be a poor man's wife, but--Ah, Alleyne."

"Ah, Oldroyd," said the astronomer, in his soft, deep voice, and he
smiled sadly; "come to prescribe for me again.  And I'm better than ever
now--but--is anything wrong?"

For the positions of the three occupants of the room he had entered
struck him as being singular.

"Yes," cried Oldroyd, "very wrong.  I, being a poor surgeon and general
practitioner, have been asking your mother's consent to Lucy's becoming
my wife."

"And Lucy?" said Alleyne softly.

"Oh, yes, Moray, dear Moray," she cried, hiding her face in his breast.

"I am very glad, Oldroyd," said Alleyne, quietly.  "I have thought of it
sometimes, and wondered whether it would come to this, and--and I am
very very glad."

He held out his hand and grasped the young doctor's very warmly, before
kissing his sister, after which she escaped to her room, where she
stayed for quite an hour before coming down shyly, and with a very happy
look in her eyes.

Oldroyd was not gone.  It was not likely.  He had been staying with
Alleyne in the observatory--watching his case as he told himself, but
not succeeding in his self-deceit, and some kind of natural attraction
led him back into the dining-room just as Lucy entered from the other
door.

It must have been a further charge of natural attraction that led them
straight into each other's arms, for the first long embrace and kiss,
from which Lucy started back at last, all shame-faced, rosy-red, and
with the sensation that she had just been guilty of something very
wicked indeed.

"Are you happy, Lucy?" said Oldroyd.

"No," she said, looking at him earnestly, "and I shall not be till
others are happy too."

Volume 3, Chapter XIII.

AS THROUGH A GLASS.

"Love rules the court, the camp, the grove," says the poet; and there he
stops, leaving the rest of the places under the pink little god's
_regime_ to our imagination.

He was busy as ever at Brackley, with people in a humbler walk in life
and there was an attraction there for a person who plays no prominent
part in this narrative, to wit, Thompson, private dragoon in Her
Majesty's service, and valet and confidential man to Captain Rolph.

He had long fixed his affections possibly in military temporary fashion
upon Mason, Glynne's maid.  These affections had glowed during the many
visits to Warren and Hall, cooled down during the activities of
service--rubbing down his master as he would a horse, and helping him to
train--sinking for a year and a half or so after "the upset" at
Brackley, and turning up again when the captain came back to The Warren
to be hitched on again, as he termed it.  For, truth to tell, it was
known that Mason had one hundred and fourteen pounds deposited in
consols with a certain old lady in Threadneedle Street.

Thompson felt glad then, when one day the captain said to him,--

"All packed up, isn't it?" and he replied that the luggage was ready.
Whereupon the captain told him that he would not want him for a month.

"And, by the way, go down to The Warren before my mother returns, and
get my guns, a few books in my room, and the knick-knacks and clothes,
and the rest."

"Won't you want 'em, sir, next time you're going down?"

"Mind your own business, fool, and get the things."

Thompson stood at attention, winked to himself, and thought of how near
he would be to Brackley, and how, in spite of the past he would be sure
of a welcome in the servants' hall.  A month would be long enough to
"pull that off;" and though he did not put it in words, to pull Mason's
savings out of the great British bank.

But then there was Sinkins, the village carpenter and parish clerk, who
often did jobs at the Hall, a man with whom he had come in contact more
than a year before, over the preparations for Glynne's wedding, and had
seen talking to Mason more than once, and whom he held in utter
contempt.

It is of no use to disguise the truth, for no matter whether Matthew
Sinkins was in his Sunday best, or in his regular carpenter's fustian,
he always exhaled a peculiar odour of glue.  Certainly it was often
dashed with sawdust, suggestive of cellars and wine, or the fragrant
resinous scent of newly cut satin shavings; but the glue overbore the
rest, and maintained itself so persistently that, even during the week
when Sinkins had the French polishing job at Brackley, and the naphtha
and shellac clung to his clothes, there, making itself perceptible, was
the regular good old carpenter's shop smell of glue.

Thompson said to Mason that it was disgusting, but she told him frankly
that it was a good, clean, wholesome smell, and far preferable to that
of the stables.

This, with toss of the head soon after Thompson's arrival, for, in spite
of bygones he found on getting himself driven over from The Warren,
quite a warm welcome from old friends, one and all being eager to talk
over the past and learn everything that could be pumped out of Thompson
respecting his master's doings since that terrible night.

Thompson was in the stable-yard smoking a cigar--a very excellent cigar,
that had cost somewhere about a shilling--rather an extravagance for a
young man in his position of life, but as it was one out of his master's
box, the expense did not fall upon him; and had any one suggested that
it was not honest for him to smoke the captain's cigars he would have
looked at him with astonishment, and asked whether he knew the meaning
of the word perquisites.

It was a very excellent cigar, and being so it might have been supposed
to have a soothing effect; but whatever may have been its sedative
qualities they were not apparent, for Thompson's face was gloomy,
consequent upon his having seen Matthew Sinkins go up to the side door
with his basket of tools hanging from his shoulder, and kept in that
position by the hammer being thrust through one of the handles, that
handle being passed through its fellow.

"Him here, again?" exclaimed Thompson.  "He's always hanging about the
place.  Well, it's as free for me as for him, I suppose.  I shall go and
see."

Thompson who was a smart, dapper-looking swarthy man, with closely cut
hair, very small mutton chop whiskers, and dark beady eyes, threw away
the half-smoked cigar, gave a touch to his carefully-tied white cravat,
glanced down at his brightly polished boots, and let his eyes rest upon
his very closely fitting Bedford cord trousers before crossing the yard,
whistling in a nonchalant manner, and walking into the servants' hall,
where Matthew Sinkins was waiting with his tool basket on the floor by
his side.

"Hallo, chips!" said Thompson, condescendingly, "how's trade?"

"Pretty tidy, Mr Thompson," said the carpenter, slowly, and taking out
the two-foot rule which dwelt in a long narrow pocket down one leg of
his trousers, but sheathing it again directly, as if it were a weapon
which he did not at present need.

"Glad of it," said Thompson.  "Haven't they asked you to have a horn of
ale?"

"Yes, Mr Thompson; oh, yes.  Miss Mason has gone to get one for me from
Mr Morris."

"Oh! has she?" said Thompson; and this news was of so discomforting a
nature that he was taken a little aback.  "Job on?"

"Yes, Mr Thompson, I'm wanted.  You're here again, then.  Thought you
was going abroad."

"No," said Thompson, thrusting his hands into his pockets, and
see-sawing himself to and fro, from toe to heel and back.  "No, we're
not gone yet, Mr Sinkins; and if it's any pleasure to you to know it, I
don't see any likelihood of our going for some time to come.  What have
you got to say to that?"

Mr Sinkin's big hand went deliberately down the leg of his trousers, and
he half drew out the rule again, as if he meant to measure the captain's
attendant, but he allowed the narrow strip of boxwood to glide back into
its place and breathed hard.

"I say, what have you got to say to that, Mr Sinkins?" said Thompson,
nodding his head a good deal, and unconsciously making himself
wonderfully like a pugnacious bantam cock ruffling himself in the
presence of a heavy, stolid, barn-door fowl.

"Got to say to it?" replied Sinkins, calmly.

"Yes, sir, got to say to it, sir," cried Thompson, with an irritating
air of superiority that appeared to suggest that he had got the
carpenter in a corner now, from which he did not mean to let him escape
until he had answered the question put to him so sharply.

Sinkins seemed to feel that his rule was necessary once again, but the
boxwood was allowed to slip back as its master shook his head, and said
in a slow serious way,--

"I haven't got anything to say to it, Mr Thompson, sir."

"Oh, you haven't."

"No, sir," replied the carpenter stolidly.  "If I was to say a lot to
it, I don't see as it would make any difference one way or the other."

"No, sir, I should think it wouldn't," cried Thompson; and just then
Miss Mason, the brisk-looking, dark-eyed, ale-bearing Hebe of
two-and-twenty, came in, looking as if she were wearing an altered silk
dress that had once been the property of Glynne Day.

"Oh, you are here, Mr Thompson, are you?" she said with a voice full of
acidity.

"Yes, ma'am, I am here," said Thompson, sharply.

"Perhaps you'll come up as soon as you've drunk your ale, Mr Sinkins,"
said Miss Mason, sweetly.  "I'll show you which room."

Matthew placed the horn at his lips, and removed it so reluctantly that
it ceased to be a horn of plenty, and he set it back upon the table with
a sigh.  He stooped then and took the handle of his hammer, lifting the
tool basket, so that chisels and screws, and drivers, gimlets, saws, and
planes, all jumbled up together, as they were swung round upon the
strong man's shoulder, but only to be swung off again and carried in the
hand, as being more suitable in so grand a place as Brackley Hall.

"Are you quite ready, Mr Sinkins," said Miss Mason, in a tone of voice
that seemed quite affectionate.

"Yes, miss, I'm quite ready."

"Come along, then, Mr Sinkins," said Mason; and with what was meant for
a haughty look at the captain's man, she led the way through the door
opening on to the back staircase, sending the said door back with
unnecessary violence as Mr Thompson essayed to follow, but only essayed
for fear of being ordered back.

"There's something up," he said.  "That fellow's seen something about
master, and been tale-bearing.  And so he's to go up there all alone,
easing and repairing doors as the old major's 'most banged off the
hinges in his passions, and she's to stand by a-giving of him
instructions, and all to aggravate and annoy me."

He took a turn up and down the hall, screwing his doubled-up fist in his
left hand, and grinding his teeth with rage.

"Yes; that's what it's for, just to aggravate and annoy me, and him
smelling that awful of glue!  Bah!  It's disgusting.  A low, common,
heavy-looking country bumpkin of a carpenter, as has never been hardly
outside his village, and can only just sign his name with a square
pencil, pointed up with a chisel.  I say it's disgusting."

Thompson took another turn or two up and down the hall, to ease his
wounded pride, and then went on again talking to himself till he caught
sight of the empty, unoffending horn, which he smote with his doubled
fist, striking out at it scientifically from the shoulder, and sent it
flying to the other end of the hall.

"Here, what I want to know," said Thompson, is this--"Am I going to pull
this here off, or am I not?"

There was no answer to the question, so the man sat down astride of a
form, as if it had been a horse, folded his arms exceedingly tight, and
scowled at the door that had been shut against him, devoured by
jealously, and picturing in his mind other matters beside the easing of
doors and tightening of hinges, for he was measuring other people's
conduct, not by Mr Sinkins' footrule, but by his own bushel.

"I can't stand it," he muttered at last.  "I must have a quiet pipe."

Striding out of the hall as if he were on duty, he marched right out
across the park and into the lane, from whence he struck into the first
opening in the fir woods where the shade seemed to calm him; and, taking
out a pipe-case, he extracted a very black _bruyere_ root pipe, filled
it, stuck it in his mouth, and then, seeking for a match in his vest
pocket, he lit it deftly by giving it a rub on the leg of his trousers,
puffed his tobacco into incandescence, and then threw the glowing vesta,
like a hand grenade, over his left shoulder.

There was a sharp ejaculation, and then,--"Confound your insolence,
fellow!"  Thompson started round, and found himself facing the major,
trowel in one hand, malacca cane in the other.

"That light hit me in the face, sir.  Do you know, sir, that you may set
the woods on fire, sir?" cried the major.  "What!  Thompson!  'Tention!
What the devil are you doing here?"

The man gave a sharp look to left and right, and then, from old habit,
obeyed the imperious military order, and drew himself upright, staring
straight before him--"eyes front."

"You scoundrel!" cried the major, seizing him by the collar, and holding
his cane threateningly, as the idea of some peril to his niece flashed
across his mind.  "You've brought a note or some message to the Hall."

"No, sir! really, sir, I haven't, sir."

"Don't dare to lie to me, you dog!" cried the major, with the stick
moving up and down, and Thompson's eyes following it, in the full belief
that at any moment it might fall upon his shoulders.

"It's gospel truth, sir," he cried.  "I haven't got no note.  How could
I have?"

"Where's your master?"

"Off, sir."

"Off?  What do you mean?  Isn't he at The Warren?"

"No, sir; he only sent me down to fetch his things."

"Ah!" cried the major; "and here with some message."

"No, sir, that he didn't, sir.  I come over here of my own self."

"What do you mean by `off'?" cried the major.  "You don't go from here
till you confess the truth.  After what happened how dare you set foot
on these grounds!  I say, where is your master?"

"Gone abroad, sir."

"Is that the truth?--Here, I was a bit hasty.--A sovereign, my lad.--
Now, then, tell me.  Your master sent you down here?"

"Only to The Warren, sir, to fetch his things, because he wasn't coming
down again."

The major looked at him searchingly.

"Let me see," he said, sharply; "he was to be married the other day,
wasn't he?"

"Yes, sir," said Thompson, with a peculiar look as he held the sovereign
in his pocket, and ran a finger nail round the milled edge.

"What do you mean by that, sir?" cried the major suspiciously, and the
stick was raised again.  "Wasn't he married?"

"Well, he may have been since, sir, but that other didn't come off."

"What?"

"Well, sir, the fact is, master was going to be, but there was a little
trouble, sir, about another lady who lived in these parts, and when it
come out about the wedding as was to be very quiet in London, there was
a bit of a fuss."

"Humph! well, that is nothing to me, my man.  I made a mistake, and I
ask your pardon."

"It's all right, sir, and thank you kindly," said Thompson.  "It was Ben
Hayle's daughter, sir, Miss Judith, who used to be at The Warren before
they were sent away."

The major had turned his back to go, but the man's words arrested him,
and, in spite of himself, he listened.

"Ben Hayle come to Long's, sir, in Bond Street, where we was staying,
and got to see master.  I was packing up, because master was going on
the Continong next day, and there was a tremenjus row, all in whispers
like, because I was in the next room, but Ben Hayle got louder and
louder, and I couldn't help hearing all the last of it."

"There, that will do.  I don't want to hear any more."

"No, sir, certainly not," said Thompson; "but master didn't go to the
church with Miss Emlin, sir, and from what I heered he went abroad next
night, sir."

"Alone?"

"No, sir," said Thompson, smiling.

"Poor Glynne!" muttered the major as he turned away.  "The man is a
disgrace to the service.  An utter scoundrel.  Gone abroad.  No, he
would not go alone."

Thompson, left in the wood, took out and looked at the sovereign, and
concluded that he would not go to the Hall again.

Volume 3, Chapter XIV.

FAR SEEING.

"Poor old soul, she can't be long for this world," said Oldroyd one day
on receiving a message from Lindham, and, mounting Peter, he rode over
across the commons to the old cottage.

"Oh, you've come at last, then," said the old woman, raising herself in
bed and frowning heavily.  "There, don't you go telling me no lies.  I
know where you've been wasting the parish time as you're paid for."

"Wasting the time?" said Oldroyd, laughing.

"Ah, it's nothing to make fun of.  When I told you to take to Miss Lucy,
I didn't mean you to go courting for months, but to marry her and done
with it, so as she might be a bit useful, visiting and nursing some o'
the sick folk on your rounds."

"Why, you dissatisfied old woman," cried Oldroyd merrily, "I rode over
as soon as I got your message."

"Well, then, why don't you do me some good at once, and not stand
talking.  If you knowed the aggynies I suffer, you wouldn't stand
talking.  You heered the news?"

"What, about the French?"

"Tchut!  What do I know about the French?  I mean about my grandbairn."

"Miss Hayle?  No."

"The captain took her off, and we thought he'd married her, you know,
but he didn't."

"Poor girl!" said Oldroyd, sadly.

"Bah!  I haven't patience with her.  Got her head turned up at The
Warren, being with that girl there; and then, in spite of all I said,
and her father said, she must be always thinking of the captain, and
breaking her heart when she heard he was going to marry first this one
and then that.  She got so that at last he had only to hold up his
finger and say come, and away she went; and now she's back in London,
left to shift for herself, with lots of fine clothes.  She's writ home
to her father for help.  But we shall see--we shall see."

"A scoundrel!" exclaimed Oldroyd.

"Yes, he's a bad un," said the old woman, "a reg'lar bad un, but he'll
get his deserts; you see if he don't.  Ben Hayle arn't Sir John Day up
at the Hall.  He won't let my gentleman off so easy; you see if he do.
Ah, it's a strange world, doctor, and I begin to think it gets worse and
worse."

Oldroyd listened to a good deal more of the old lady's moralising about
the state of the world, as he ministered to her "aggynies," and finally
left, after undertaking to call again very soon.

"Mind, you shut the door!" shouted the old woman; "the haps don't fit
well.  You must try it after you've let go."

"I'll mind," said Oldroyd good-humouredly; and, mounting Peter, he was
thoughtfully jogging homeward, when the pony stopped in front of a gate,
on which a man was seated--the pony having apparently recognised an old
patient, and paused for the doctor to have a chat.

"Do, sir?" said the man, getting down slowly and touching his hat.

"Ah, Hayle, glad to see you looking so strong again."

"Ay, sir," said the man, smiling sadly; "you ought to be proud o' me,
and make a show of what you've done for me.  'Bout your best job, warn't
I?"

"Well, I suppose you were, in surgery," said Oldroyd, looking hard at
the man's pinched face and settled frown; "but, I say, my man, hadn't
you better drop that life now, and try something different?"

"Easier said than done, doctor," replied Hayle grimly.  "Give a dog a
bad name and hang him.  Nobody wouldn't employ me.  S'pose I said to
you.  `Change your life and turn parson.'  Wouldn't be easy, would it?"

Oldroyd shook his head.

"Perhaps not," he said; "but you're too good a man for a poacher.  Look
here, Hayle; Morton has left and gone to Lord Bogmere's.  Sir John Day
is very friendly to me.  Let me go and state your case to him frankly."

"Wouldn't be no good, sir."

"Don't say that.  He's a thorough English gentleman, always ready to do
anyone a good turn.  I believe in you, Hayle; and if I say to him that
you would gladly come and serve him faithfully, I should say so
believing honestly that you would.  Shall I speak to him?"

"Thank you kindly, sir, but not now.  I've got too much else on my
mind," said Hayle, gazing at the doctor searchingly.  "Been to see the
old lady?"

"Yes."

"Did--did she tell you any news?"

Oldroyd nodded.

"Ah, she would," said the ex-keeper thoughtfully.  "Hah! he's a bad un;
but I didn't think he'd be quite so bad as that to her; for she's a
handsome gal, doctor--a handsome gal."

"More's the pity," thought Oldroyd, though he did not speak.

"It's well for him that I haven't run again him, I can tell you.  Don't
happen to know where the captain is, do you, sir?"

"No, I have not the least idea; and if I had, I don't think I should
tell you."

"S'pose not, doctor," said the man, with a strange laugh, "seeing what's
coming off."

"Why; what are you going to do?"

"Do, sir," said Hayle slowly, as he leaned on the gate, and looked down
the dark path in the wood.  "When I was a young man, and made up my mind
to trap a hare or a fezzan, or p'raps only a rabbud, I trapped it.
P'r'aps I didn't the first time; p'raps I didn't the second or third;
but I kept on at it till I did, and I'm going to trap him."

"What, Captain Rolph!  Make him pay for the injury to your daughter?"

"I'm going to see if he'll make it up to her first.  If he won't, I'll
make him pay."

"Make it up!  Do you mean marry her?"

"Yes; that's what I mean, sir," said Hayle slowly, and then, turning
round to face the doctor, and fix him with his big dark eyes.  "He shall
pay his debt if he don't marry her!"

"Do you mean in money--breach of promise?"

"No," said the man, speaking to him fiercely.  "No money wouldn't pay my
gal nor me.  He took a fancy to her, and she liked him, and I forgive
him for his cunning way of following her when I was laid by.  I forgive
him, too, for what he did to me.  It was fair fight so far, but it was
his gun as shot me that night.  I didn't bear no malice again him for
all that, as long as he was square toward Judith; but he's thrown her
off, and I'm going to see him about it."

"Man, man, what are you going to do?" cried Oldroyd.

"What am I going to do?" roared Hayle, blazing up into sudden fury.
"You're going to marry sweet young Miss Lucy, yonder.  S'pose eighteen
or nineteen years, by-and-by, doctor, there's another Miss Lucy as
you're very proud on.  You're genteel people, we're not; but the stuff's
all the same.  I was proud o' my Judith, same as you'll be proud of your
Miss Lucy when she comes.  What am I going to do?  What would you do to
the man as took her from you, and when his fancy was over sent her off?"

Oldroyd stood gazing at the fierce face before him.

"Doctor, when I heerd first as he'd thrown her over, I said to myself,
`He's a proud chap--proud of his strong body, and his running and
racing: he shall know what it is to suffer now.  Curse him, I'll break
him across my knee.'  Then I stopped and thought, doctor, and made up my
mind that he should marry her, and if he don't--"

Hayle stopped short, with his lips tightened and his fists clenched; and
then, in a curiously furtive way, he turned his face aside, sprang
lightly over the gate into the wood, and disappeared from the doctor's
sight.

"If I had done that fellow a deadly wrong I should not feel very happy
and comfortable in my own mind," said Oldroyd, as he looked in the
direction in which the man had disappeared.  "Ah, well, it's no business
of mine; and, thank goodness, I lead too busy a life to have many of the
temptations talked of by good old Doctor Watts."

"Now, then, I've taken my physic," he added, after a few minutes'
thought, and with a cheery smile on his countenance, "so I'll go and
have my sugar.  Go on, Peter."

Peter went on, and, as if knowing where to go, took the doctor straight
to The Firs.

Volume 3, Chapter XV.

THE IMAGE FADES.

"Oh, how you startled me."

"Can't help being ugly," said Oldroyd merrily.  "Eliza said you had come
in, and were down the garden, so I took the liberty of following."

"Does mamma know?" said Lucy, with a guilty look at the house.

"I really can't tell," said Oldroyd, smiling.  "I shall not look for her
permission now, since I consider myself your duly qualified medical
attendant, your life physician, I hope."

"Really, Mr Oldroyd," said Lucy, "you need not feel my pulse to-day."

"Indeed, but I must," he said; "and look into your eyes to see if they
are clear."

"What nonsense!" said Lucy.  "I suppose next you'll want me to put out
my tongue."

"No," he said laughing, "your lips will do."

"Philip!  For shame!  Anyone might have seen.  You shouldn't."

"Save that I would not have anyone witness of so holy a joy as that kiss
was to me," whispered Oldroyd, "the whole world might see my love for
you, little wife to be.  There's no shame in it, Lucy.  I am so happy.
And you?"

"I'm very, very miserable," she cried, looking in his face with eyes
that denied the fact.

"Then you are to tell me your trouble," he whispered, fondly, "and I am
to console you."

"But I don't think you can, Philip."

"Well, let us hear," he said.  "What is the trouble?"

"It is about poor Moray."

"Ah!  Yes!" said Oldroyd slowly.

"And Glynne!"

"Whom you have just been to see, eh?"

"Yes."

"I once knew a case," said Oldroyd, "where two people were most tenderly
attached to each other--the gentleman far more so than the lady; but
they, loving as they did, were kept apart by foolish doubts and
misconceptions and pride."

"It is not true," said Lucy sharply.

"That they were kept apart like that?"

"No; that--that--"

"The gentleman was more deeply touched than the lady?  No; that part is
not true.  It was just the reverse."

"And that is not true either," said Lucy archly.

"Well, we'll not argue the point," said Oldroyd, laughing.  "But I'll go
on.  In their case no one interfered to set matters straight, and they
only came right through the tender affection and good heart of the
dearest little girl who ever lived."

"You may say that again, Philip," said Lucy, nestling to him, and
looking up through a veil of tears; "but it isn't a bit true.  I'm
afraid I was very, very weak, and proud and foolish, and I feel now as
if I could never forgive myself for much that I have done."

"I'll forgive you, and you shall forgive me," said Oldroyd.  "And now I
don't think I need go on speaking in parables.  I only wanted to point
out the difference.  Our trouble arranged itself without the help of
friends.  That of someone else ought soon to be set right, with two such
energetic people as ourselves to help."

"But sometimes interference makes matters worse," sighed Lucy.

"Yes; because those who see about these matters are ignorant pretenders.
Now, we are both duly qualified practitioners, Lucy, and, I think, can
settle the matter right off, and cure them both."

"But how?  It is so dreadful."

"Lucy, Lucy!"

It was a sharp, agonised call, as of one in extreme anguish, and,
startled by the cry, Lucy sprang up and ran towards the house, closely
followed by Oldroyd.

"Mamma, dear mamma, what is it?" she cried.

"Your brother.  Oh, thank heaven, Mr Oldroyd, you are here."

"What is it?" cried Oldroyd, catching Mrs Alleyne's white and trembling
hand.

"I--I went--I ventured to go into the observatory just now, my son
seemed so quiet, and--oh, heaven, what have I done that I should suffer
this?"

It was a wild appeal, uttered by one in deep agony of spirit, as Mrs
Alleyne reeled, and would have fallen, had not Oldroyd caught her in his
arms, and gently lowered her on the carpet.

"Only fainting," he whispered.  "Let her lie; loosen her dress, and
bathe her face.  I'll run on to your brother."

Satisfied that he was not wanted there, and, giving Lucy an encouraging
nod, Oldroyd ran quickly along the passage to the observatory, whose
door he found open, but almost in total darkness, for the shutters were
carefully closed, and the shaded lamp gave so little light, save in one
place on the far side of the table, that he was compelled to cross the
great room cautiously, for fear of falling over some one or other of the
philosophical instruments, whose places the student often changed.

On reaching the table, he could see that Alleyne was lying prone upon
the well-worn rug before his chair; and, making his way to the window,
Oldroyd tore open the shutters, admitting a burst of sunshine, and
completely changing the aspect of the great dusty place.

Going back to the table, he took in the position at a glance.  There
were bottles there, in a little rack such a chemist would use, and one
stood alone.

He caught it up, removed the stopper, then put it down with an impatient
"Pish!" and was turning to the prostrate man, when, previously hidden by
a book, another stopper caught his eye, and, drawing in his breath with
a loud hiss, he sprang to Alleyne's side, to find that the fingers of
his right hand tightly clasped a small cut-glass bottle, the one to
which the stopper belonged.

"I was afraid so," muttered Oldroyd, with his eyes scanning the white,
fixed countenance before him.  "He must have taken it as he stood by the
table, and fallen at once.  Poor fellow!  Poor fellow!  He must have
been mad."

These words were uttered as, with all the prompt decision of a medical
man, Oldroyd was examining his friend; his first act being to ascertain
what the little bottle had contained.

It was no easy task to free it from the stiffened fingers; but he tore
it away at last, held it to the light, to his nostrils, and then set it
quickly upon the table, with an impatient exclamation.

"And I call myself a practised doctor," he muttered, "and let my fancy
carry me away as it did.  Poor fellow!  He must have felt it coming on,
and tried that ammonia to keep off the sensation.  Suffered from it
before, perhaps," he continued, as he laid Alleyne's head more easily,
tore open his handkerchief and collar; and then, after drawing up the
lids and examining the pupils of his eyes, he hurriedly threw open both
windows, and caught up a chart from a side table.

His next act was to ring the bell furiously, and then return to
Alleyne's side and begin fanning his head vigorously.

It was Lucy who answered the bell, running in exclaiming,--

"Oh, Philip, what is it, pray?"

"Don't make a fuss, darling," he said, quickly.  "Be a firm little
woman.  I want your help.  Cold water, a big basin, sponge, brandy,
vinegar.  Quick?"

Lucy made an effort to compose herself, and the prompt order had its due
effect, for she ran out, to return in a few minutes laden with all
Oldroyd had demanded.

"That's right," he said, quickly; and in answer to Lucy's inquiring
eyes, "A fit, dear.  He has overdone it.  Exhaustion.  Brain symptoms.
Over pressure.  That's well.  Now, the brandy.  Here, you take this card
and keep on fanning, while I bathe his head with the spirit and water.
We must cool his head.  Fan away.  Be calm now.  A doctor's wife must
not cry.  That's brave."

All the while he was applying the sponge, saturated with spirit and
water, to Alleyne's temples, and checking Lucy when she seemed disposed
to break down, the result being that she worked busily and well.

"Well done, brave little woman," he cried, encouragingly.  "It is a
regular fit of exhaustion, and we must not let it come to anything more.
Give me the fan, dear.  No, go on.  I'll apply some more water.
Evaporates quickly, you see, and relieves the brain.  Spirit stimulates,
even taken through the pores like that.  Good heavens, what a mat of
hair.  Quick!  Scissors.  I must get rid of some of this."

He now took the extemporised fan from Lucy's fingers, using it
energetically, while she rose from her knees, and ran to get a pair of
her sharpest scissors, with which Oldroyd remorselessly sheared off the
long unkempt locks from his patient's temples.

Meanwhile Alleyne lay there perfectly motionless, breathing heavily, and
with a strange fixed look in his eyes.  At times a slight spasm seemed
to convulse him, but only to be succeeded by long intervals of rigidity,
during which Lucy plied the fan, gazing at her brother with
horror-stricken eyes, while Oldroyd continued the cold bathing in the
most matter-of-fact manner.

"If we could get some ice," muttered Oldroyd, as as he laid a cool hand
upon his patient's head; and just then Mrs Alleyne, looking very white
and weak, came into the room.

"I am better now," she whispered.  "It was very foolish of me.  What can
I do?"

"Nothing, at present," replied Oldroyd.  "Yes; send to the Hall.  I know
they have ice there.  Ask Sir John Day to let us have some at once."

Mrs Alleyne darted an agonised look at her son, and then glided out of
the room, when Lucy looked up piteously at Oldroyd.

"Pray, pray, tell me the truth," she whispered; "does this mean--death?"

"Heaven forbid!" he replied, quickly.  "It is a bad fit, but a man may
have several such as this and live to seventy.  Lucy, we were looking
about for a means to a certain--keep on fanning, my dear, that's right--
certain end."

"I don't understand you," she said piteously.

"Alleyne--Glynne--to bring them together.  This is her work--thinking of
her and over-toiling.  Surely her place is here."

Lucy heaved a sigh, but she held her peace, and busily wafted the cool
air to her brother's forehead.

Mrs Alleyne returned, to kneel down a short distance away, in obedience
to a whisper from the doctor; and then an hour passed, and there was no
change, while hope seemed to be slowly departing from poor Lucy's eyes.

Suddenly a horse's feet were heard coming at a gallop, and a minute or
two later there was a tap at the door.

"I came on at once," said Sir John, entering on tiptoe.  "My brother is
having the ice well opened, and he will be over directly with one of the
men.  Now, Mr Oldroyd, what can I do?  I have the cob outside.  Shall
I--don't be offended, you might like help--shall I gallop over and get
Doctor Blunt."

"It is not necessary," said Oldroyd thoughtfully, "but it would be more
satisfactory to all parties.  I should be glad if you could go, Sir
John."

"Yes; exactly.  How is he?"

"There's no change, and not likely to be for some time," replied
Oldroyd, quietly.

Sir John looked pityingly at Alleyne, turned to Mrs Alleyne, took her
hand and pressed it gently.  Then, bending over Lucy, he took her hand
in his.

"Keep a good heart, my dear," he whispered.  "He'll be better soon;" and
going out on tiptoe, it hardly seemed a minute before the regular beat
of his horse's hoofs could be heard dying away in the distance.

A few minutes later the rumble of wheels was heard, and directly after
Eliza came to the door with a pail of ice.

"And Major Day's in the dining-room, please, ma'am," whispered the girl,
in a broken voice; "and is master better, and can he do anything?"

"Go and speak to him, Lucy.  Here, your handkerchief first.  That's
right!" said Oldroyd sharply.  "Now, the smallest pieces of the ice.
That's right.  Go and say--No change.  Perhaps he'll sit down and wait."

As he spoke, with Mrs Alleyne's help, he was busily arranging the
smaller fragments from the pail of ice in a couple of handkerchiefs, and
applying them to his patient's head.

"There," he said, "that's better than all our fanning.  Now, I hope to
see some difference."

The change was long in coming, Alleyne remaining perfectly insensible
for hour after hour.  Towards evening the principal physician of the
neighbourhood arrived, and was for some time with the sick man,
returning afterwards to where Mrs Alleyne, Lucy, Sir John, and the major
were, waiting impatiently for news.

He said he was not surprised at the seizure, upon learning the history
of the case from his friend, Mr Oldroyd, upon whose treatment he could
make no change whatever.

"Then you think the worst!" cried Mrs Alleyne piteously.

"Pardon me, my dear madam; not at all.  There are cases that time alone
can decide.  The ailment has been growing for many months.  Your son
must have had premonitory warnings, attacks of faintness, and the like;
for he had provided himself with a strong preparation of ammonia; but he
has not been leading a life that would improve the general state of his
health.  Over-study and general mental anxiety have, no doubt, been the
causes of this attack; and as it has taken months to reach this
culmination, it will take a long time to bring him back to health."

"Then you think there is no danger?" said Sir John eagerly.

"I think there is great danger, Sir John; but I hope that we shall be
able to successfully ward it off."

Oldroyd and Mrs Alleyne resumed their places by the patient, the
observatory being turned into a sick chamber, and mattresses and bedding
were brought down; and there the astronomer lay, in the midst of the
trophies of his study, his instruments and his piles of notes; the great
grim tubes pointing through the opened shutters at the far-off worlds,
towards which it almost seemed as if--weary with the struggle to reach
them while chained to earth--he was about to wing his flight.

Lucy came in on tiptoe to bend forward over her brother, but Oldroyd
rose.

"Go back, dear," he said, "and get some refreshment.  It is time you
dined."

"Dined!--at a time like this!" she said reproachfully.

"Yes; at a time like this.  It will be a case of long nights of
watching.  He must not be left, and we must have strength to attend him
through it all.  Leave it to me, dear, and do as I wish."

Lucy bent down and kissed his hand in token of obedience, and soon after
joined Sir John and the major in the dining-room.

"Can I do anything else now?" said Sir John; "if not, I'll go.  I
promised Glynne to go back with news as soon as there was any to carry.
Are you coming, Jem?"

"No," said the major quietly.  "I'm going to stop and help, if it's only
to see that Miss Lucy here has rest and food."

Volume 3, Chapter XVI.

CELESTIAL MATTERS.

Sir John nodded and went straight back to Brackley to find Glynne
dressed and impatiently pacing the drawing-room, pale even to
ghastliness, and with eyes dilated and looking large and wild.

"How long you have been!" she panted, catching his hand.  "Tell me
quickly--how is he?  Tell me the worst."

"The worst is that he is very bad.  It is a serious seizure, my dear,
but the doctors give hope."

"Father, this long waiting has been more than I could bear," she cried
hysterically.  "I felt as if I should go mad.  Now take me there--at
once."

"Take you--to The Firs?"

"Yes; now.  The carriage is ready.  I told them to have it waiting."

"But, Glynne--my darling, is it--is it quite right that you should go?
Well, perhaps as Lucy's friend."

"I am not going as Lucy's friend, father," cried Glynne; "this is no
time for paltry subterfuge.  I am going to him who is stricken down.  I
must go; I cannot stay away."

Sir John looked serious, but beyond knitting his brows, he said nothing,
only rang for the carriage, and then hurried away to fortify himself
with a tumbler of claret and some biscuits.

In a few minutes they were being rapidly driven to The Firs, Glynne
remaining perfectly silent till they were near the gates, when she laid
her hand upon her father's.

"Don't think me strange," she said in a low voice.  "I feel as if I must
go to him now.  I may never hear his voice again."

They were shown into the drawing-room, where, at Oldroyd's wish, Mrs
Alleyne had been taken by Lucy to partake of some refreshment, and, as
Glynne advanced into the dimly-lighted room, their neighbour rose from
her seat and stood confronting her.

"Well?" she said bitterly; "have you come to see your work?"

Glynne did not speak, but catching at Mrs Alleyne's hand, sank upon her
knees, while Sir John drew back with Lucy.

"Why do you come here?" said Mrs Alleyne, after a pause, painful in its
silence to all.

The door closed softly just then, and Glynne started and glanced round
to see that she was alone with Mrs Alleyne.  Then she uttered a low,
weary cry.

"You do not know--you do not know how I have suffered, or you would not
speak to me like this," she whispered.

"Suffered!" retorted Mrs Alleyne, bitterly; "what have your sufferings
been to his?  Woman, you came upon this house like a curse, to play with
his true, noble heart; and when you had, with your vile coquetry, won
it, you tossed it from you with insult, leaving him to suffer patiently,
till nature could bear no more; and now you have come to look upon the
wreck you have made.  But you were not to go unpunished.  Do you hear
me, woman--he, my brave, true son, is stricken to his death."

"No, no, no," cried Glynne, flinging her arms round Mrs Alleyne; "it is
not true--he is not dying--he shall not die, for I love him; I love him
with all my weary heart."

"You?" cried Mrs Alleyne, striving to free herself from the frantic
grasp that was about her.

"Yes; I--even now," cried Glynne, rising and clinging to her firmly; "it
is true that I loved him from the first.  How could I help loving one so
wise and true?"

"And yet you trifled with him," cried Mrs Alleyne fiercely.

"No; it was with my own heart," sobbed Glynne, "I did not know.  What
could I do?  You know all.  I seemed to wake at last standing upon the
brink of an abyss;" and then, "Mrs Alleyne, is there to be no pardon for
such as I?  Was my act such a crime in the sight of Heaven that the rest
of my life was to be blasted, for he loved me--he loved me with all his
heart."

Mrs Alleyne shuddered and shrank away.  "Are you, too, pitiless?" cried
Glynne.  "You must know all--how he loved me, and loves me still.  Has
he told you all?"

"Told me--all?  What do you mean?"

"Must I speak to you?" whispered Glynne hoarsely, as she sank upon her
knees and clung to Mrs Alleyne's dress, "I would have given the world to
go back upon my promise, for I knew how he loved me, but in my blindness
I said it was too late."

"Yes; it was too late," said Mrs Alleyne coldly.  "But you will let me
see him.  Let me go to him.  I ask no more.  Let me be at his side, for
it may be that I can save his life.  Then--send me away, and let me have
but one thought--that I have given life to him I loved.  Mrs Alleyne,
have I not suffered enough?  Have some pity on me.  Have pity on your
son."

Mrs Alleyne caught her by the shoulder and drew her nearer, so that she
could gaze into the thin, white face; and, as she studied its lines of
care, her fierce look softened, and she caught Glynne tightly to her
breast, sobbing over her wildly, and crying from time to time, "My
child!--my poor child!"

Some time had passed before they went in softly, hand in hand, to where
Oldroyd sat by his patient's head.

The doctor did not look in the least surprised, but nodded his head as
if it was exactly what he had expected, and, after bending down over
Alleyne for a moment, he left the room.

And so it was, that when reason began to resume its seat in Moray
Alleyne's mind, his eyes rested upon the pale, careworn face of Glynne.
For she had stayed.  There was no question of her leaving The Firs while
the patient was in danger, and when the peril seemed past she still
stayed, to glide large-eyed, pale and patient about the quiet chamber,
Mrs Alleyne giving up to her, as her hand smoothed the pillow and lent
support, when, feeble as an infant, Moray lay breathing the summer
breeze which came perfumed through the pines.

It was when speech had returned that Glynne sat near him one evening,
watching his white face with its grey silken hair, and the heavy beard
which had been spared by the doctor when his patient was at the worst.

Neither had spoken for some time, but gazed, each with a strange
yearning, in the other's eyes.  For it had been coming for days, and
instinctively they knew that it must come that night--the end, and with
it a long farewell, perhaps only to meet again upon the further shore.

Glynne was the first to speak, and it was in a whisper.

"Moray, when I knew that you were stricken down, I prayed that I might
come to you, and struggle with the deadly shade to save your life."

He looked at her with a wistful gaze, and his lips trembled as he closed
his eyes.

"My work is done now.  Forgive me for coming.  I cannot touch your hand
again."

"No," he said sadly; and his voice was so low and deep that she bent
forward to hear his words, and lowered her face into her hands that she
might not let him see the agony and despair working, as she bent to her
unhappy fate.

For there had been some vague, undefined idea floating through her
brain, that he might have said one gentle, sorrowing, pitying sentence
before she went--he, the man whom she knew now to have loved her
tenderly and well.  But he had acquiesced so readily.  That simple
little "no" had gone to her heart like a stiletto thrust.  She, degraded
as she was, could not take him by the hand again.

Then she started up to gaze at him wildly and reproachfully, for he
repeated the negative, and added,--

"Better, may be, dear, that I had died, as perhaps I shall before long.
But, before you go, take with you the knowledge that I loved you dearly
from the first.  Ah, Glynne, what might have been!"

"Yes, what might have been!" she said sadly.  "Better too that I had
died, as I have often prayed that I might; but I was mad to offer such a
prayer, for my work in life was not at an end.  I did not know then.  I
know now, and my task is done."

He was silent then, and she rose to go.

"Good-bye," she whispered.  "We shall never meet again."

She had glided to the door, and her hand was raised to the fastening,
when he cried faintly,--

"Stop!"

A low sigh escaped her lips.

Was he, then, going to speak one loving word to soften the bitterness of
the last farewell?  Her eyes brightened at the thought, and she turned
and took a step or two towards him, with outstretched hands, which fell
to her sides as she uttered a groan full of the despair at her heart.

"No, no: don't touch me," he cried wildly.  "You--innocent and sinned
against--cannot take me by the hand again.  Listen, Glynne, I must tell
you before you go.  It will be our secret, dear, for the confession to
another, and my punishment, would mean fresh suffering and agony to
you."

"I--I do not understand you," she faltered, as she looked at him wildly.

"No; it has been my secret until now.  Glynne, dear, in my mad despair,
I had gone to watch your window from the fir wood, as I had watched it
scores of times before, and I said.  `It is for the last time.
To-morrow she belongs to him, and I will not degrade the idol of my love
by thoughts that are not true.'  I reached the place sacred to me for my
sorrow, but that night I could not rest there.  It was as if something
impelled me, against which I fought for hours before it mastered me, and
as if by a strange magnetism--an evil planet attracted to a good--I was
drawn nearer and nearer to the spot which contained all I held dear in
life."

A faint ejaculation, half wonder, half horror, escaped Glynne's lips,
and, with one quick movement she was close to his side, bending over him
and gazing with wildly dilated eyes at the dimly-seen face upon the
pillow, the faint smile upon his lips, as he referred to her in his
astronomical simile, seeming almost repellent at such a time.

"I felt guilty, dear," he went on, and she shivered while he turned his
face a little toward the faint light of the window, and was silent for a
few moments, while a fit of trembling came upon Glynne, and she had to
catch at the bed and support herself.

"I was not master of myself, dear.  I loved you, and in my madness, weak
from my bitter struggle with the power which led me on, I stole like
some guilty wretch across the park till I reached the garden, and there
I once more paused to renew the fight--to master the desire to be near
you for the last time and then go back."

"Oh, Moray, Moray," she cried, with a piteous moan, and she sank upon
her knees, uttering low, hysterical sobs.

"My poor lost love!" he whispered faintly; and his hand was laid feebly
upon her bent head, which sank lower at his touch.  "It was in vain.  I
can hardly recall it dear, for I tell you I must have been mad, but I
crept closer and closer till I was beneath your window, and could touch
the long, rope-like stems that reached from where I stood praying for
your happiness, and a wild and guilty joy thrilled me, for I touched the
tendrils which clung around the chamber which held you, my love--my
love!"

"Moray!" she cried wildly; and in ecstasy of horror, wonder, and
confused thought mingled, she clasped her arms about his neck, and
buried her burning face in his breast.

"Ah!" he sighed; and his trembling hands rose to press her head closer
and closer to his fluttering heart.

A few moments only, and then she started from him.

"No, no," she cried wildly, as she cast back the thought which, for a
moment, she had gladly harboured.  "Impossible!  It could not be."

"I speak the truth," he said gently.  "I must tell you now--while there
is time."

She clasped her hands, and her fingers seemed to grow into her flesh
with the agonised pressure as she crouched there, trembling, by his bed,
her lips apart, her throat dry, and her breath coming and going with a
harsh laboured sound, while his came feebly, and his words were harder
to hear in the darkness which now shrouded them.

"Yes," he sighed; "I must tell you before it is too late."

He was silent for a moment or two, and then went on, with every word
sending a pang of agony and shame through his listener's ears.

"Glynne, dearest, since that night I have often prayed that I might die,
but death is long in coming to those who ask its help.  I had raised my
hand to steal one leaf from the creeper, when it fell to my side.  Yes,"
he said, with a hurried intensity now taking the place of his feeble
whisper, "I remember--I see all clearly now.  I had raised my hand, but
it fell to my side, and a pang of horror shot through me, for there was
the noise of struggling overhead, faint, half-stifled cries, and then
the baying of a dog.  For a moment I was dazed, then I turned to run to
the door and raise an alarm, when a cry rang out again, and, for the