CHAPTER XLIX.

"When a man hath once forfeited the reputation of his sincerity he is set fast, and nothing will then serve his turn, neither truth nor falsehood."

When he is gone Joyce draws a deep breath. For a moment it seems to her that it is all over—a disagreeable task performed, and then suddenly a reaction sets in. The scene gone through has tried her more than she knows, and without warning now she finds she is crying bitterly.

How horrible it all had been. How detestable he had looked—not so much when offering her his hand (as for his heart—pah!) as when he had given way to his weak exhibition of feeling and had knelt at her feet, throwing himself on her mercy. She placed her hands over her eyes when she thought of that. Oh! she wished he hadn't done it!

She is still crying softly—not now for Beauclerk's behavior, but for certain past beliefs—when a knock at the door warns her that another visitor is coming. She has not had time or sufficient presence of mind to tell a servant that she is not at home, when Miss Maliphant is ushered in by the parlor maid.

"I thought I'd come down and have a chat with you about last night," she begins in her usual loud tones, and with an assumption of easiness that is belied by the keen and searching glance she directs at Joyce.

"I'm so glad," says Joyce, telling her little lie as bravely as she can, while trying to conceal her red eyelids from Miss Maliphant's astute gaze by pretending to rearrange a cushion that has fallen from one of the lounges.

"Are you?" says her visitor, drily. "Seems to me I've come at the wrong moment. Shall I go away?"

"Go! No," says Joyce, reddening, and frowning a little. "Why should you?"

"Well, you've been crying," says Miss Maliphant, in her terribly downright way. "I hate people when I've been crying; but then it makes me a fright, and it only makes you a little less pretty. I suppose I mustn't ask what it is all about?"

"If you did I don't believe I could tell you," says Joyce, laughing rather unsteadily. "I was merely thinking, and it is the simplest thing in the world to feel silly now and then."

"Thinking? Of Mr. Beauclerk?" asks Miss Maliphant, promptly, and without the slightest idea of hesitation. "I saw him leaving this as I came by the upper road! Was it he who made you cry?"

"Certainly not," says Joyce, indignantly.

"It looks like it, however," says the other, her masculine voice growing even sterner. "What was he saying to you?"

"I really do think——" Joyce is beginning, coldly, when Miss Maliphant stops her by an imperative gesture.

"Oh, I know. I know all about that," says she, contemptuously. "One shouldn't ask questions about other people's affairs; I've learned my manners, though I seldom make any use of my knowledge, I admit. After all, I see no reason why I shouldn't ask you that question. I want to know, and there is no one to tell me but you. Was he proposing to you, eh?"

"Why should you think that?" says Joyce, subdued by the masterful manner of the other, and by something honest and above board about her that is her chief characteristic. There is no suspicion, either, about her of her questions being prompted by mere idle curiosity. She has said she wanted to know, and there was meaning in her tone.

"Why shouldn't I?" says she now. "He came down here early this afternoon. He goes away in haste—and I find you in tears. Everything points one way."

"I don't see why it should point in that direction."

"Come, be open with me," says the heiress, brusquely, in an abrupt fashion that still fails to offend. "Did he propose to you?"

Joyce hesitates. She raises her head and looks at Miss Maliphant earnestly. What a good face she has, if plain. Too good to be made unhappy. After all, why not tell her the truth? It would be a warning. It was impossible to be blind to the fact that Miss Maliphant had been glad to receive the dishonest attentions paid to her every now and then by Beauclerk. Those attentions would probably be increased now, and would end but one way. He would get Miss Maliphant's money, and she—that good, kind-hearted girl—what would she get? It seems cruel to be silent, and yet to speak is difficult. Would it be fair or honorable to divulge his secret?

Would it be fair or honorable to let her imagine what is not true? He had been false to her—Joyce (she could not blind herself to the knowledge that with all his affected desire for her he would never have made her an offer of his hand but for her having come in for that money)—he would therefore be false to Miss Maliphant; he would marry her undoubtedly, but as a husband he would break her heart. Is she, for the sake of a word or two, to see her fall a prey to a mere passionless fortune-hunter? A thousand times no! Better inflict a little pain now rather than let this girl endure endless pain in the future.

With a shrinking at her heart, born of the fear that the word will be very bitter to her guest, she says, "Yes;" very distinctly.

"Ha!" says Miss Maliphant, and that is all. Joyce, regarding her anxiously, is as relieved as astonished to see no trace of grief or chagrin upon her face. There is no change at all, indeed, except she looks deeply reflective. Her mind seems to be traveling backward, picking up loose threads of memory, no doubt, and joining them together. A sense of intense comfort fills Joyce's soul. After all; the wound had not gone deep; she had been right to speak.

"He is not worth thinking about," says she, tremulously,aproposof nothing, as it seems.

"No?" says Miss Maliphant; "then what were you crying about?"

"I hardly know. I felt nervous—and once I did like him—not very much—but still I liked him—and he was a disappointment."

"Tell you what," says Miss Maliphant, "you've hit upon a big truth. He is not worth thinking about. Once, perhaps, I, too, liked him, and I was an idiot for my pains; but I shan't like him again in a hurry. I expect I've got to let him know that, one way or another. And as for you——"

"I tell you I never liked him much," says Joyce, with a touch of displeasure. "He was handsome, suave, agreeable—but——"

"He was, and is, a hypocrite!" interrupts Miss Maliphant, with truly beautiful conciseness. She has never learned to mince matters. "And, when all is told, perhaps nothing better than a fool! You are well out of it, in my opinion."

"I don't think I had much to do with it," says Joyce, unable to refrain from a smile. "I fancy my poor uncle was responsible for the honor done me to-day." Then a sort of vague feeling that she is being ungenerous distresses her. "Perhaps, after all, I misjudge him too far," she says.

"Could you?" with a bitter little laugh.

"I don't know," doubtfully. "One often forms an opinion of a person, and, though the groundwork of it may be just, still one is too inclined to build upon it and to rear stories upon it that get a little beyond the actual truth when the structure is completed."

"Oh! I think it is he who tells all the stories," said Miss Maliphant, who is singularly dull in little unnecessary ways, and has failed to follow Joyce in her upstairs flight. "In my opinion he's a liar; I was going to say 'pur et simple,' but he is neither pure nor simple."

"A liar!" says Joyce, as if shocked. Some old thought recurs to her. She turns quickly to Miss Maliphant. The thought grows into words almost before she is aware of it. "Have you a cousin in India?" asks she.

"In India?" Miss Maliphant regards her with some surprise. Why this sudden absurd question in an interesting conversation about that "Judas"? I regret to say this is what Miss Maliphant has now decided upon naming Mr. Beauclerk when talking to herself.

"Yes, India."

"Not one. Plenty in Manchester and Birmingham, but not one in India."

Joyce leans back in her chair, and a strange laugh breaks from her. She gets up suddenly and goes to the other and leans over her, as though the better to see her.

"Oh, think—think," says she. "Not a cousin you loved? Dearly loved? A cousin for whom you were breaking your heart, who was not as steady as he ought to be, but who——"

"You must be going out of your mind," says Miss Maliphant, drawing back from her. "If you saw my Birmingham cousins, or even the Manchester ones, you wouldn't ask that question twice. They think of nothing but money, money, money, from morning till night, and are essentially shoppy. I don't mind saying it, you know. It is as good to give up, and acknowledge things—and certainly they——"

"Never mind them. It is the Indian cousin in whom I am interested," says Joyce, impatiently. "You are sure, sure that you haven't one out there? One whom Mr. Beauclerk knew about? And who was in love with you, and you with him. The cousin he told me of——"

"Mr. Beauclerk?"

"Yes—yes. The night of the ball at the Court, last autumn. I saw you with Mr. Beauclerk in the garden then, and he told me afterward you had been confiding in him about your cousin. The one in India. That you were going to be married to him. Oh! there must be truth—some truth in it. Do try to think!"

"If," says Miss Maliphant, slowly, "I were to think until I was black in the face, as black as any Indian of 'em all, I couldn't even by so severe a process conjure up a cousin in Hindostan! And so he told you that?"

"Yes," says Joyce faintly. She feels almost physically ill.

"He's positively unique," says Miss Maliphant, after a slight pause. "I told you just now that he was a liar, but I didn't throw sufficient enthusiasm into the assertion. He is a liar of distinction very far above his fellows! I suppose it would be superfluous now to ask if that night you speak of you were engaged to Mr. Dysart?"

"Oh, no," says Joyce quickly, as if struck. "There never has been, there never will be aught of that sort between me and Mr. Dysart Surely—Mr. Beauclerk did not——"

"Oh, yes, he did. He assured me—not in so many words (let me be perfectly just to him)—but he positively gave me to understand that you were going to marry Felix Dysart. There! Don't mind that," seeing the girl's pained face. "He was bound to say something, you know. Though it must be confessed the Indian cousin story was the more ingenious. Why didn't you tell me of that before?"

"Because he told it to me in the strictest confidence."

"Of course. Bound you on your honor not to speak of it, lest my feelings should be hurt. Really, do you know, I think he was almost clever enough to make one sorry he didn't succeed. Well, good-by." She rises abruptly, and, taking Joyce's hand, looks at her for a moment. "Felix Dysart has a good heart," says she, suddenly. As suddenly she kisses Joyce, and, crossing the room with a quick stride, leaves it.

"Shall we not laugh, shall we not weep?"

It is quite four o'clock, and therefore two hours later. Barbara has returned, and has learned the secret of Joyce's pale looks and sad eyes, and is now standing on the hearthrug looking as one might who has been suddenly wakened from a dream that had seemed only too real.

"And you mean to say—you really mean, Joyce, that you refused him?"

"Yes. I actually had that much common-sense," with a laugh that has something of bitterness in it.

"But I thought—I was sure——"

"I know you thought he was my ideal of all things admirable. And you thought wrong."

"But if not he——"

"Barbara!" says Joyce sharply. "Was it not enough that you should have made one mistake? Must you insist on making another?"

"Well, never mind," says Mrs. Monkton hastily. "I'm glad I made that one, at all events; and I'm only sorry you have felt it your duty to make your pretty eyes wet about it Good gracious!" looking put of the window, "who is coming now? Dicky Browne and Mr. Courtenay and those detestable Blakes. Tommy," turning sharply to her first-born. "If you and Mabel stay here you must be good. Do you hear now, good! You are not to ask a single question or touch a thing in the room, and you are to keep Mabel quiet. I am not going to have Mrs. Blake go home and say you are the worst behaved children she ever met in her life. You will stay, Joyce?" anxiously to her sister.

"Oh, I suppose so. I couldn't leave you to endure their tender mercies alone."

"That's a darling girl! You know I never can get on with that odious woman. Ah! how d'ye do, Mrs. Blake? How sweet of you to come after last night's fatigue."

"Well, I think a drive a capital thing after being up all night," says the new-comer, a fat, little, ill-natured woman, nestling herself into the cosiest chair in the room. "I hadn't quite meant to come here, but I met Mr. Browne and Mr. Courtenay, so I thought we might as well join forces, and storm you in good earnest. Mr. Browne has just been telling me that Lady Swansdown left the Court this morning. Got a telegram, she said, summoning her to Gloucestershire. Never do believe in these sudden telegrams myself. Stayed rather long in that anteroom with Lord Baltimore last night."

"Didn't know she had been in any anteroom," says Mrs. Monkton, coldly. "I daresay her mother-in-law is ill again. She has always been attentive to her."

"Not on terms with her son, you know; so Lady Swansdown hopes, by the attention you speak of, to come in for the old lady's private fortune. Very considerable fortune, I've heard."

"Who told you?" asks Mr. Browne, with a cruelly lively curiosity. "Lady Swansdown?"

"Oh, dear no!"

Pause! Dicky still looking expectant and Mrs. Blake uncomfortable. She is racking her brain to try and find some person who might have told her, but her brain fails her.

The pause threatens to be ghastly, when Tommy comes to the rescue.

He had been told off as we know to keep Mabel in a proper frame of mind, but being in a militant mood has resented the task appointed him. He has indeed so far given in to the powers that be that he has consented to accept a picture book, and to show it to Mabel, who is looking at it with him, lost in admiration of his remarkable powers of description. Each picture indeed, is graphically explained by Tommy at the top of his lungs, and in extreme bad humor.

He is lying on the rug, on his fat stomach, and is becoming quite a martinet.

"Look at this!" he is saying now. "Look! do you hear, or I won't stay and keep you good any longer. Here's a picture about a boat that's going to be drowned down in the sea in one minnit. The name on it is"—reading laboriously—"'All hands to the pump.' And" with considerable vicious enjoyment—"it isn't a bit of good for them, either. Here"—pointing to the picture again with a stout forefinger—"here they're 'all-handsing' at the pump. See?"

"No, I don't, and I don't want to," says Mabel, whimpering and hiding her eyes. "Oh, I don't like it; it's a horrid picture! What's that man doing there in the corner?" peeping through her fingers at a dead man in the foreground. "He is dead! I know he is!"

"Of course he is," says Tommy. "And"—valiantly—"I don't care a bit, I don't."

"Oh, but I do," says Mabel. "And there's a lot of water, isn't there?"

"There always is in the sea," says Tommy.

"They'll all be drowned, I know they will," says Mabel, pushing away the book. "Oh, I hate 'handsing'; turn over, Tommy, do! It's a nasty cruel, wicked picture!"

"Tommy, don't frighten Mabel," says his mother anxiously.

"I'm not frightening her. I'm only keeping her quiet," says Tommy defiantly.

"Hah-hah!" says Mr. Courtenay vacuously.

"How wonderfully unpleasant children can make themselves," says Mrs. Blake, making herself 'wonderfully unpleasant' on the spot. "Your little boy so reminds me of my Reginald. He pulls his sister's hair merely for the fun of hearing her squeal!"

"Tommy does not pull Mabel's hair," says Barbara a little stiffly. "Tommy, come here to Mr. Browne; he wants to speak to you."

"I want to know if you would like a cat?" says Mr. Browne, drawing Tommy to him.

"I don't want a cat like our cat," says Tommy, promptly. "Ours is so small, and her tail is too thin. Lady Baltimore has a nice cat, with a tail like mamma's furry for her neck."

"Well, that's the very sort of a cat I can get you if you wish."

"But is the cat as big as her tail?" asks Tommy, still careful not to commit himself.

"Well, perhaps not quite," says Mr. Browne gravely. "Must it be quite as big?"

"I hate small cats," says Tommy. "I want a big one! I want—" pausing to find a suitable simile, and happily remembering the kennel outside—"a regular setter of a cat!"

"Ah," says Mr. Browne, "I expect I shall have to telegraph to India for a tiger for you."

"A real live tiger?" asks Tommy, with distended eyes and a flutter of wild joy at his heart, the keener that some fear is mingled with it. "A tiger that eats people up?"

"A man-eater," says Mr. Browne, solemnly. "It would be the nearest approach I know to the animal you have described. As you won't have the cat that Lady Baltimore will give you, you must only try to put up with mine."

"Poor Lady Baltimore!" lisps Mrs. Blake. "What a great deal she has to endure."

"Oh, she's all right to-day," returns Mr. Browne, cheerfully. "Toothache any amount better this morning."

Mrs. Blake laughs in a little mincing way.

"How droll you are," says she. "Ah! if it were only toothache that was the matter But—" silence very effective, and a profound sigh.

"Toothache's good enough for me," says Dicky. "I should never dream of asking for more." He glances here at Joyce, and continues sotto voce, "You look as if you had it."

"No," returns she innocently. "Mine is neuralgia. A rather worse thing, after all."

"Yes. You can get the tooth out," says he.

"Have you heard," asks Mrs. Blake, "that Mr. Beauclerk is going to marry that hideous Miss Maliphant. Horrid Manchester person, don't you know! Can't think what Lady Baltimore sees in her"—with a giggle—"her want of beauty. Got rather too much of pretty women I should say."

"I'm really afraid," says Dicky, "that somebody has been hoaxing you this time, Mrs. Blake;" genially. "I happen to know for a fact that Miss Maliphant is not going to marry Beauclerk."

"Indeed!" snappishly. "Ah, well really he is to be congratulated, I think. Perhaps," with a sharp glance at Joyce, "I mistook the name of the young lady; I certainly heard he was going to be married."

"So am I,"' says Mr. Browne, "some time or other; we are all going to get married one day or another. One day, indeed, is as good as another. You have set us such a capital example that we're safe to follow it."

Mr. and Mrs. Blake being a notoriously unhappy couple, the latter grows rather red here; and Joyce gives Dicky a reproachful glance, which he returns with one of the wildest bewilderment. What can she mean?

"Mr. Dysart will be a distinct loss when he goes to India," continues Mrs. Blake quickly. "Won't be back for years, I hear, and leaving so soon, too. A disappointment, I'm told! Some obdurate fair one! Sort of chest affection, don't you know, ha-ha! India's place for that sort of thing. Knock it out of him in no time. Thought he looked rather down in the mouth last night. Not up to much lately, it has struck me. Seen much of him this time, Miss Kavanagh?"

"Yes. A good deal," says Joyce, who has, however, paled perceptibly.

"Thought him rather gone to seed, eh? Rather the worse for wear."

"I think him always very agreeable," says Joyce, icily.

A second most uncomfortable silence ensues. Barbara tries to get up a conversation with Mr. Courtenay, but that person, never brilliant at any time, seems now stricken with dumbness. Into this awkward abyss Mabel plunges this time. Evidently she has been dwelling secretly on Tommy's comments on their own cat, and is therefore full of thought about that interesting animal.

"Our cat is going to have chickens!" says she, with all the air of one who is imparting exciting intelligence.

This astounding piece of natural history is received with varied emotions by the listeners. Mr. Browne, however, is unfeignedly charmed with it, and grows as enthusiastic about it as even Mabel can desire.

"You don't say so! When? Where?" demands he with breathless eagerness.

"Don't know," says Mabel seriously. "Last time 'twas in nurse's best bonnet; but," raising her sweet face to his, "she says she'll be blowed if she has them there this time!"

"Mabel!" cries her mother, crimson with mortification.

"Yes?" asked Mabel, sweetly.

But it is too much for every one. Even Mrs. Blake gives way for once to honest mirth, and under cover of the laughter rises and takes her departure, rather glad of the excuse to get away. She carries off Mr. Courtenay.

Dicky having lingered a little while to see that Mabel isn't scolded, goes too; and Barbara, with a sense of relief, turns to Joyce.

"You look so awful tired," says she. "Why don't you go and lie down?"

"I thought, on the contrary, I should like to go out for a walk," says Joyce indifferently. "I confess my head is aching horribly. And that woman only made me worse."

"What a woman! I wonder she told so many lies. I wonder if——"

"If Mr. Dysart is going to India," supplies Joyce calmly. "Very likely. Why not. Most men in the army go to India."

"True," say Mrs. Monkton with a sigh. Then in a low tone: "I shall be sorry for him."

"Why? If he goes"—coldly—"it is by his own desire. I see nothing to be sorry about."

"Oh, I do," says Barbara. And then, "Well, go out, dearest. The air will do you good."

"'Tis with our judgment as our watches, noneGo just alike, yet each believes his own."

Lord Baltimore had not spoken in a mere fit or pique when he told Lady Swansdown of his fixed intention of putting a term to his present life. His last interview with his wife had quite decided him to throw up everything and seek forgetfulness in travel. Inclination had pointed toward such countries as Africa, or the northern parts of America, as, being a keen sportsman, he believed there he might find an occupation that would distract his mind from the thoughts that now jarred upon him incessantly.

His asking Lady Swansdown to accompany him therefore had been a sudden determination. To go on a lengthened shooting expedition by one's self is one thing, to go with a woman delicately nurtured is another. Of course, had she agreed to his proposal, all his plans must necessarily have been altered, and perhaps his second feeling, after her refusal to go with him, was one of unmistakable relief. His proposal to her at least had been born of pique!

The next morning found him, however, still strong in his desire for change. The desire was even so far stronger that he now burned to put it into execution; to get away to some fresh sphere of action, and deliberately set himself to obliterate from his memory all past ties and recollections.

There was, too, perhaps a touch of revenge that bordered upon pleasure as he thought of what his wife would say when she heard of his decision. She who shrank so delicately from gossip of all kinds could not fail to be distressed by news that must inevitably leave her and her private affairs open to public criticism. Though everybody was perpetually guessing about her domestic relations with her husband, no one as a matter of fact knew (except, indeed, two) quite the real truth about them. This would effectually open the eyes of society, and proclaim to everybody that, though she had refused to demand a separation, still she had been obliged to accept it. This would touch her. If in no other way could he get at her proud spirit, here now he would triumph. She had been anxious to get rid of him in a respectable way, of course, but death as usual had declined to step in when most wanted, and now, well! She must accept her release, in however disreputable a guise it comes.

It is just at the moment when Mrs. Blake is holding forth on Lady Baltimore's affairs to Mrs. Monkton that Baltimore enters the smaller drawing-room, where he knows he will be sure to meet his wife at this hour.

It is far in the afternoon, still the spring sunshine is streaming through the windows. Lady Baltimore, in a heavy tea gown of pale green plush, is sitting by the fire reading a book, her little son upon the hearth rug beside her. The place is strewn with bricks, and the boy, as his father enters, looks up at him and calls to him eagerly to come and help him. At the sound of the child's quick, glad voice a pang contracts Baltimore's heart. The child——He had forgotten him.

"I can't make this castle," says Bertie, "and mother isn't a bit of good. Hers always fall down; come you and make me one."

"Not now," says Baltimore. "Not to-day. Run away to your nurse. I want to speak to your mother."

There is something abrupt and jerky in his manner—something strained, and with sufficient temper in it to make the child cease from entreaty. The very pain Baltimore, is feeling has made his manner harsher to the child. Yet, as the latter passes him obediently, he seizes the small figure in his arms and presses him convulsively to his breast. Then, putting him down, he points silently but peremptorily to the door.

"Well?" says Lady Baltimore. She has risen, startled by his abrupt entrance, his tone, and more than all, by that last brief but passionate burst of affection toward the child. "You, wish to speak to me—again?"

"There won't be many more opportunities," says he, grimly. "You may safely give me a few moments to-day. I bring you good news. I am going abroad. At once. Forever."

In spite of the self-control she has taught herself, Lady Baltimore's self-possession gives way. Her brain seems to reel. Instinctively she grasps hold of the back of a tallprie-dieunext to her.

"Hah! I thought so—I have touched her at last, through her pride," thinks Baltimore, watching her with a savage satisfaction, which, however, hurts him horribly. And after all he was wrong, too. He had touched her, indeed; but it was her heart, not her pride, he had wounded.

"Abroad?" echoes she, faintly.

"Yes; why not? I am sick of this sort of life. I have decided on flinging it up."

"Since when have you come to this decision?" asks she presently, having conquered her sudden weakness by a supreme effort.

"If you want day and date I'm afraid I shan't be able to supply you. It has been growing upon me for some time—the idea of it, I mean—and last night you brought it to perfection."

"I?"

"Have you already forgotten all the complimentary speeches you made me? They"—with a sardonic smile—"are so sweet to me that I shall keep them ripe in my memory until death overtakes me—and after it, I think! You told me, among many other wifely things—if my mind does not deceive me—that you wished me well out of your life, and Lady Swansdown with me."

"That is a direct and most malicious misapplication of my words," says she, emphatically.

"Is it? I confess that was my reading of them. I accepted that version, and thinking to do you a good turn, and relieve you of both yourbêtes noireat once, I proposed to Lady Swansdown last night that she should accompany me upon my endless travels."

There is a long, long pause, during which Lady Baltimore's face seems to have grown into marble. She takes a step forward now. Through the stern pallor of her skin her large eyes seem to gleam like fire.

"How dare you!" she says in a voice very low but so intense that it rings through the room. "How dare you tell me of this! Are you lost to all shame? You and she to go—to go away together! It is only what I have been anticipating for months. I could see how it was with you. But that you should have the insolence to stand before me—" she grows almost magnificent in her wrath—"and declare your infamy aloud! Such a thought was beyond me. There was a time when I would have thought it beyond you!"

"Was there?" says he. He laughs aloud.

"There, there, there!" says she, with a rather wild sort of sigh. "Why should I waste a single emotion upon you. Let me take you calmly, casually. Come—come now." It is the saddest thing in the world to see how she treads down the passionate, most natural uprisings within her against the injustice of life: "Make me at leastau courantwith your movements, you and she will go—where?"

"To the devil, you thought, didn't you?" says he. "Well, you will be disappointed as far as she is concerned. I maybe going. It appears she doesn't think it worth while to accompany me there or anywhere else."

"You mean that she refused to go with you?"

"In the very baldest language, I assure you. It left nothing to be desired, believe me, in the matter of lucidity. 'No,' she would not go with me. You see there is not only one, but two women in the world who regard me as being utterly without charm."

"I commiserate you!" says she, with a bitter sneer. "If, after all your attention to her, your friend has proved faithless, I——"

"Don't waste your pity," says he, interrupting her rather rudely. "On the whole, the decision of my 'friend,' as you call her, was rather a relief to me than otherwise. I felt it my duty to deprive you of her society"—with an unpleasant laugh—"and so I asked her to come with me. When she declined to accompany me she left me free to devote myself to sport."

"Ah! you refuse to be corrupted?" says she, contemptuously.

"Think what you will," says he, restraining himself with determination. "It doesn't matter in the least to me now. Your opinion I consider worthless, because prejudiced—as worthless as you consider me. I came here simply to tell you of my determination to go abroad."

"You have told me of that already. Lady Swansdown having failed you, may I ask"—with studied contempt—"who you are going to take with you now?"

"What do you mean?" says he, wheeling round to her. "What do you mean by that? By heavens!" laying his hands upon her shoulders, and looking with fierce eyes into her pale face. "A man might well kill you!"

"And why?" demands she, undauntedly. "You would have taken her—you have confessed so much—you had the coarse courage to put it into words. If not her, why"—with a shrug—"then another!"

"There! think as you will," says he, releasing her roughly. "Nothing I could say would convince or move you. And yet, I know it is no use, but I am determined I will leave nothing unsaid. I will give you no loop-hole. I asked her to go with me in a moment of irritation, of loneliness, if you will; it is hard for a man to be forever outside the pale of affection, and I thought—well, it is no matter what I thought. I was wrong it seems. As for caring for her, I care so little that I now feel actually glad she had the sense to refuse my senseless proposal. She would have bored me, I think, and I should undoubtedly have bored her. The proposition was made to her in a moment of folly."

"Oh, folly?" says she with a curious laugh.

"Well, give it any other name you like. And after all," in a low tone, "you are right. It was not the word. If I had said despair I should have been nearer the mark."

"There might even be another word," said she slowly.

"Even if there were," says he, "the occasion for it is of your making. You have thrown me; you must be prepared, therefore, to accept the consequences."

"You have prepared me for anything," says she calmly, but with bitter meaning.

"See here," says he furiously. "There may still be one thing left for you which I have not prepared. You have just asked me who I am going to take with me when I leave this place forever. Shall I answer you?"

Something in his manner terrifies her; she feels her face blanching. Words are denied her, but she makes a faint movement to assent with her hand. What is he going to say!

"What if I should decide, then, on taking my son with me?" says he violently. "Who is there to prevent me? Not you, or another. Thus I could cut all ties and put you out of my life at once and forever!"

He had certainly not calculated on the force of his words or his manner. It had been a mere angry suggestion. There was no crudity in Baltimore's nature. He had never once permitted himself to dwell upon the possibility of separating the boy from his mother. Such terrible revenge as that was beyond him, his whole nature would have revolted against it. He had spoken with passion, urged by her contempt into a desire to show her where his power lay, without any intention of actually using it. He meant perhaps to weaken her intolerable defiance, and show her where a hole in her armor lay. He was not prepared for the effect of his words.

An ashen shade has overspread her face; her expression has become ghostly. As though her limbs have suddenly given way under her, she falls against the mantel-piece and clings to it with trembling fingers. Her eyes, wild and anguished, seek his.

"The child!" gasps she in a voice of mortal terror. "The child! Not the child! Oh! Baltimore, you have taken all from me except that. Leave me my child!"

"Good heavens! Don't look at me like that," exclaims he, inexpressibly shocked—this sudden and complete abandonment of herself to her fear has horrified him. "I never meant it. I but suggested a possibility. The child shall stay with you. Do you hear me, Isabel! The child is yours! When I go, I go alone!"

There is a moment's silence, and then she bursts into tears. It is a sharp reaction, and it shakes her bodily and mentally. A wild return of her love for him—that first, sweet, and only love of her life, returns to her, born of intense gratitude. But sadly, slowly, it dies away again. It seems to her too late to dream of that again. Yet perhaps her tears have as much to do with that lost love as with her gratitude.

Slowly her color returns. She checks her sobs. She raises her head and looks at him still with her handkerchief pressed to her tremulous lips.

"It is a promise," says she.

"Yes. A promise."

"You will not change again—" nervously. "You——"

"Ah! doubt to the last," says he. "It is a promise from me to you, and of course the word of such a reprobate as you consider me can scarcely be of any avail."

"But you could not break this promise?" says she in a low voice, and with a long, long sigh.

"What trust you place in me!" said he, with an open sneer—"Well, so be it. I give you home and child. You give me——Not worth while going into the magnificence of your gifts, is it?"

"I gave you once a whole heart—an unbroken faith," says she.

"And took them back again! Child's play!" says he. "Child's promises. Well, if you will have it so, you have got a promise from me now, and I think you might say 'thank you' for it as the children do."

"I do thank you!" says she vehemently. "Does not my whole manner speak for me?" Once again her eyes filled with tears.

"So much love for the child," cries he in a stinging tone, "and not one thought for the father. Truly your professions of love were light as thistledown. There! you are not worth a thought yourself. Expend any affection you have upon your son, and forget me as soon as ever you can. It will not take you long, once I am out of your sight!"

He strides towards the door, and then looks back at her.

"You understand about my going?" he says; "that it is decided, I mean?"

"As you will," says she, her glance on the ground. There is such a total lack of emotion in her whole air that it might suggest itself to an acute student of human nature that she is doing her very utmost to suppress even the smallest sign of it. But, alas! Baltimore is not that student.

"Be just:" says he sternly. "It is as you will—not as I. It is you who are driving me into exile."

He has turned his back, and has his hand on the handle of the door in the act of opening it. At this instant she makes a move toward him, holding out her hands, but as suddenly suppresses herself. When he turns again to say a last word she is standing where he last saw her, pale and impassive as a statue.

"There will be some matters to arrange," says he, "before my going. I have telegraphed to Hansard" (his lawyer), "he will be down in the morning. There will be a few papers for you to sign to-morrow——"

"Papers?"

"My will and your maintenance whilst I am away; and matters that will concern the child's future."

"His future. That means——"

"That in all probability when I have started I shall never see his face again—or yours."

He opens the door abruptly, and is gone.

"While bloomed the magic flowers we scarcely knewThe gold was there. But now their petals strewLife's pathway.""And yet the flowers were fair,Fed by youth's dew and love's enchanted air."

The cool evening air breathing on Joyce's flushed cheeks calms her as she sets out for the walk that Barbara had encouraged her to take.

It is an evening of great beauty. Earth, sea, and sky seem blended in one great soft mist, that rising from the ocean down below floats up to heaven, its heart a pale, vague pink.

The day is almost done, and already shadows are growing around trees and corners. There is something mystical and strange in the deep murmurs that come from the nestling woods, the sweet wild coo of the pigeons, the chirping of innumerable songsters, and now and then the dull hooting of some blinking owl. Through all, the sad tolling of a chapel bell away, away in the distance, where the tiny village hangs over the brow of the rocks that gird the sea.

"While yet the woods were hardly more than brown,Filled with the stillness of the dying day,The folds and farms, and faint-green pastures lay,And bells chimed softly from the gray-walled town;The dark fields with the corn and poppies sown,The dull, delicious, dreamy forest way,The hope of April for the soul of May—On all of these night's wide, soft wings swept down."

Well, it isn't night yet, however. She can see to tread her way along the short young grasses down to a favorite nook of hers, where musical sounds of running streams may be heard, and the rustling of growing leaves make songs above one's head. Here and there she goes through brambly ways, where amorous arms from blackberry bushes strive to catch and hold her, and where star-eyed daisies and buttercups and delicate faint-hearted primroses peep out to laugh at her discomfiture.

But she escapes from all their snares and goes on her way, her heart so full of troublous fancies that their many wiles gain from her not so much as one passing thought.

The pretty, lovely May is just bursting into bloom; its pink blossoms here and its white blossoms there mingle gloriously, and the perfume of it fills the silent air.

Joyce picks a branch or two as she goes on her way, and thrusts them into the bosom of her gown.

And now she has reached the outskirts of the wood, where the river runs, crossed by a rustic bridge, on which she has ever loved to rest and dream, leaning rounded arms upon the wooden railings and seeing strange but sweet things in the bright, hurrying water beneath her eyes.

She has gained the bridge now, and leaning languidly upon its frail ramparts lets her gaze wander a-field. The little stream, full of conversation as ever, flows on unnoticed by her. Its charms seem dead. That belonged to the old life—the life she will never know again. It seems to her quite a long time since she felt young. And yet only a few short months have flown since she was young as the best of them—when even Tommy did not seem altogether despicable as a companion, and she had often been guilty of finding pleasure in running a race with him, and of covering him not only with confusion, but with armfuls of scented hay, when at last she had gained the victory over him, and had turned from the appointed goal to overwhelm the enemy with merry sarcasms.

Oh, yes, that was all over. All done! An end must come to everything, and to her light-heartedness an end had come very soon. Too soon, she was inclined to believe, in an excess of self, until she remembered that life was always to be taken seriously, and that she had deliberately trifled with it, seeking only the very heart of it—the gaiety, the carelessness, the ease.

Well, her punishment has come! She has learned that life is a failure after all. It takes some people a lifetime to discover that great fact; it has taken her quite a short time. Nothing is of much consequence. And yet——

She sighs and looks round her. Her eyes fall upon a distant bank of cloud overhanging a pretty farmstead, and throwing into bold relief the ricks of hay that stand at the western side of it. A huge, black crow standing on the top of this is napping his wings and calling loudly to his mate. Presently he spreads his wings, and, with a creaking of them like the noise of a sail in a light wind, disappears over her head. She has followed his movements with a sort of lazy curiosity, and now she knows that he will return in an hour or so with thousands of his brethren, darkening the heavens as they pass to their night lodgings in the tall elm trees.

It is good to be a bird. No care, no trouble. No pain! A short life and a merry one. Better than a long life and a sorry one. Yes, the world is all sorry.

She turns her eyes impatiently away from the fast vanishing crow; and now they fall upon a perfect wilderness of daffodils that are growing upon the edge of the bank a little way down. How beautiful they are. Their soft, delicate heads nod lazily this way and that way. They seem the very embodiment of graceful drowsiness. Some lines lately read recur to her, and awake within her memory;

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