Chapter Thirteen.

Chapter Thirteen.In the Vatican.As Phillis passed out from the table-d’hôte at the Alemagna that evening, the porter put a note into her hand.“Get me what information you can,” it said, “address, name of firm, and anything you think useful. And, for pity’s sake don’t let my aunt and Cartouche be completely flattened by that woman in my absence.”The next morning a note went to the Via della Croce.“The information is simply wonderful. The firm is‘Thornton and Hay.’I do think it is the oddest coincidence!”For “Thornton,” the senior of the two great ironmasters, was Peter Thornton of Hetherton Court, of whom mention has been made; and, under the circumstances, Phillis’s astonishment was not to be wondered at. Quite a fire of notes passed between the two streets that morning. The next was to this effect:“Very queer, indeed. If I were you I would say nothing of this to his sister. Where are you going to-day?”An answer came back.“To the Vatican with the Peningtons. I send you an order in case you like to bring the Masters—”Mr Penington was an excellent cicerone. His information was trustworthy, and he had that pleasant way of imparting it which never gives you the impression of mounting a pedestal and declaiming. Phillis thought her afternoon delightful, and it seemed as if he thought the same, for he claimed her interest eagerly. They were in the hall of the Muses standing before the beautiful and stern Thalia, who sits with a garland of ivy leaves on her head, looking out disdainfully at the world’s follies, when Mr Penington touched Phillis.“The most lovely girl imaginable has just come in,” he said; “you must really get a good view of her.”It was Bice, of course. She was walking listlessly before her companions, and scarcely troubling herself to glance at the statues; but she brightened at seeing Phillis, and seemed relieved to join her. Phillis would have liked to tell her what errand was taking Jack to England, but she could not venture to do so, and indeed Mr Penington, who had no intention of allowing his companion’s interest to wander, managed to claim her whole attention. No one noticed the indignant glances which Jack threw at him. Phillis would have been the last to conceive that he could be annoyed at another engrossing her, and perhaps he himself would have scarcely allowed that Bice’s beautiful face could have less attraction for him than Phillis’s brown eyes. As it was, he was thoroughly angry at what he liked to think of as Phillis’s fickleness, and by way of retaliation devoted himself with all his might to Bice. It seems sometimes as if the world was made up of cross-purposes, when we see the mistakes, the unintentional wounds that are inflicted. People observe things which never existed, and shut their eyes to what lies plain before them, and long afterwards, perhaps, look back with a sigh at their own work. What should we do, all of us, if we were left with nothing better than to make the best we could of our tangles!Poor Bice! All sorts of fancies went rushing through her heart that afternoon, as Jack strolled along by her side as he had done in the first days of their acquaintance—passionate longings and regrets, wonder and impatience. How had Phillis and he been separated, how had Oliver and she come together? Why did Jack talk kindly, and ask questions as if he cared? For the girl was not deceived, only troubled, and there was a bitter revolt in her heart against her fate, sometimes a yearning for Jack’s sympathy, sometimes a fierce suspicion that all this time he might have read her secret and despised her. She was not in a mood to look at the white statues, it made her shiver to see them by her side, cold and changeless, and she would not pretend an interest she did not feel. When they came to a great brazier, full of grey or glowing embers, she stretched out her little hands to the warmth, while Ibbetson glanced at her with unmistakable admiration in his eyes.“When first I knew you, I could not picture you in anything but a white dress,” he said in a leisurely tone.“Don’t talk of it,” and she shuddered. “If ever one wants warmth and colour it is in a sculpture gallery. I wouldn’t come here in white on the hottest day of the year.” She was looking before her as she spoke with that fixed mechanical gaze with which people look at something they do not really see. Suddenly she started and caught Jack’s arm. “Oh, look, look!” she cried in a terrified undertone.He could feel her fingers trembling on his arm, and instinctively laid his own hand upon them with a strong firm clasp. The touch brought her to herself, for she withdrew her hand instantly, colouring crimson as she did so, but not removing her eyes from the object which had alarmed her. Ibbetson turned hastily to look where they were fixed.“What was it? What frightened you?” he asked gently, looking at her again, for nothing that he could see accounted for her evident terror.She drew a deep breath.“Who is that man standing with his back towards us on the right?” she said in a quick low voice. “There, do you see?”“I see, but it’s no one I know. Whom do you take him for?”“Are you sure you don’t know him? I begin to think now that I was mistaken,” she said with such evident relief that Ibbetson smiled.“I hope you are not generally so shocked at seeing an acquaintance unexpectedly? Would you like to come a little closer and make sure of the matter?”“Yes—I think so,” she said with some hesitation. “But not too near.”“Oh, we’ll beware of the ghost,” said Jack confidently and kindly. He was still feeling the clinging touch of those little fingers on his arm, and there was a warm impulse of kindness towards her stirring in his heart, as well as a little curiosity as to what likeness had so moved her. She stood still before they had gone many yards.“No, no, it is not,” she said hurriedly, “I see quite well now. It was very foolish of me.”“Better look in his face and get the idea quite out of your head,” persisted Ibbetson. “Otherwise those sorts of notions are apt to prove uncomfortable.”She did not resist. They passed the gentleman and saw his full face, but beyond saying that she did not know how she could have been so mistaken, she did not attempt to explain her terror, and no resemblance to Mr Trent struck Jack so as to give him the clue.Still, real or fancied, the alarm had evidently shaken the girl. She said she would go back to Mrs Masters, who had placed her camp-stool near a brazier, and remained calmly indifferent to the art treasures about her, so long as she could keep warm and avoid fatigue.“Don’t let me detain you from the others,” Bice said, when they had reached her mother.“The others don’t want me,” answered Jack in a voice which had some irritation in it. “That fellow Penington is at it, speechifying away like mad.”“Oh, do you mean he isn’t nice?” asked Bice so innocently that the young man laughed in spite of himself.“I don’t know that there’s much harm in him,” he allowed, “but I dislike to have guide-book information crammed down my throat second-hand. Never mind them. Do you know that I am going away?”“No.”Though she hated herself, she felt the colour leaving her face. And she could not ask when or where.“But I am. I am off to London.”“Do you come back here?”“Well, I hope so, certainly. The only thing likely to stand in the way is a lawsuit in which they sought my services, and I don’t mind confiding to you that the odds are rather against that supposition.”More than one person had certain fancies of theirs confirmed that afternoon. One went and came like the dull tick of a great clock in Phillis Grey’s brain as she sat in her bedroom late at night. “He—loves—her,—he—loves—her,” was what it said with persistent effort. She had sent him away, and though no one suspected it of her, her heart was sometimes nearly breaking.

As Phillis passed out from the table-d’hôte at the Alemagna that evening, the porter put a note into her hand.

“Get me what information you can,” it said, “address, name of firm, and anything you think useful. And, for pity’s sake don’t let my aunt and Cartouche be completely flattened by that woman in my absence.”

The next morning a note went to the Via della Croce.

“The information is simply wonderful. The firm is‘Thornton and Hay.’I do think it is the oddest coincidence!”

For “Thornton,” the senior of the two great ironmasters, was Peter Thornton of Hetherton Court, of whom mention has been made; and, under the circumstances, Phillis’s astonishment was not to be wondered at. Quite a fire of notes passed between the two streets that morning. The next was to this effect:

“Very queer, indeed. If I were you I would say nothing of this to his sister. Where are you going to-day?”

An answer came back.

“To the Vatican with the Peningtons. I send you an order in case you like to bring the Masters—”

Mr Penington was an excellent cicerone. His information was trustworthy, and he had that pleasant way of imparting it which never gives you the impression of mounting a pedestal and declaiming. Phillis thought her afternoon delightful, and it seemed as if he thought the same, for he claimed her interest eagerly. They were in the hall of the Muses standing before the beautiful and stern Thalia, who sits with a garland of ivy leaves on her head, looking out disdainfully at the world’s follies, when Mr Penington touched Phillis.

“The most lovely girl imaginable has just come in,” he said; “you must really get a good view of her.”

It was Bice, of course. She was walking listlessly before her companions, and scarcely troubling herself to glance at the statues; but she brightened at seeing Phillis, and seemed relieved to join her. Phillis would have liked to tell her what errand was taking Jack to England, but she could not venture to do so, and indeed Mr Penington, who had no intention of allowing his companion’s interest to wander, managed to claim her whole attention. No one noticed the indignant glances which Jack threw at him. Phillis would have been the last to conceive that he could be annoyed at another engrossing her, and perhaps he himself would have scarcely allowed that Bice’s beautiful face could have less attraction for him than Phillis’s brown eyes. As it was, he was thoroughly angry at what he liked to think of as Phillis’s fickleness, and by way of retaliation devoted himself with all his might to Bice. It seems sometimes as if the world was made up of cross-purposes, when we see the mistakes, the unintentional wounds that are inflicted. People observe things which never existed, and shut their eyes to what lies plain before them, and long afterwards, perhaps, look back with a sigh at their own work. What should we do, all of us, if we were left with nothing better than to make the best we could of our tangles!

Poor Bice! All sorts of fancies went rushing through her heart that afternoon, as Jack strolled along by her side as he had done in the first days of their acquaintance—passionate longings and regrets, wonder and impatience. How had Phillis and he been separated, how had Oliver and she come together? Why did Jack talk kindly, and ask questions as if he cared? For the girl was not deceived, only troubled, and there was a bitter revolt in her heart against her fate, sometimes a yearning for Jack’s sympathy, sometimes a fierce suspicion that all this time he might have read her secret and despised her. She was not in a mood to look at the white statues, it made her shiver to see them by her side, cold and changeless, and she would not pretend an interest she did not feel. When they came to a great brazier, full of grey or glowing embers, she stretched out her little hands to the warmth, while Ibbetson glanced at her with unmistakable admiration in his eyes.

“When first I knew you, I could not picture you in anything but a white dress,” he said in a leisurely tone.

“Don’t talk of it,” and she shuddered. “If ever one wants warmth and colour it is in a sculpture gallery. I wouldn’t come here in white on the hottest day of the year.” She was looking before her as she spoke with that fixed mechanical gaze with which people look at something they do not really see. Suddenly she started and caught Jack’s arm. “Oh, look, look!” she cried in a terrified undertone.

He could feel her fingers trembling on his arm, and instinctively laid his own hand upon them with a strong firm clasp. The touch brought her to herself, for she withdrew her hand instantly, colouring crimson as she did so, but not removing her eyes from the object which had alarmed her. Ibbetson turned hastily to look where they were fixed.

“What was it? What frightened you?” he asked gently, looking at her again, for nothing that he could see accounted for her evident terror.

She drew a deep breath.

“Who is that man standing with his back towards us on the right?” she said in a quick low voice. “There, do you see?”

“I see, but it’s no one I know. Whom do you take him for?”

“Are you sure you don’t know him? I begin to think now that I was mistaken,” she said with such evident relief that Ibbetson smiled.

“I hope you are not generally so shocked at seeing an acquaintance unexpectedly? Would you like to come a little closer and make sure of the matter?”

“Yes—I think so,” she said with some hesitation. “But not too near.”

“Oh, we’ll beware of the ghost,” said Jack confidently and kindly. He was still feeling the clinging touch of those little fingers on his arm, and there was a warm impulse of kindness towards her stirring in his heart, as well as a little curiosity as to what likeness had so moved her. She stood still before they had gone many yards.

“No, no, it is not,” she said hurriedly, “I see quite well now. It was very foolish of me.”

“Better look in his face and get the idea quite out of your head,” persisted Ibbetson. “Otherwise those sorts of notions are apt to prove uncomfortable.”

She did not resist. They passed the gentleman and saw his full face, but beyond saying that she did not know how she could have been so mistaken, she did not attempt to explain her terror, and no resemblance to Mr Trent struck Jack so as to give him the clue.

Still, real or fancied, the alarm had evidently shaken the girl. She said she would go back to Mrs Masters, who had placed her camp-stool near a brazier, and remained calmly indifferent to the art treasures about her, so long as she could keep warm and avoid fatigue.

“Don’t let me detain you from the others,” Bice said, when they had reached her mother.

“The others don’t want me,” answered Jack in a voice which had some irritation in it. “That fellow Penington is at it, speechifying away like mad.”

“Oh, do you mean he isn’t nice?” asked Bice so innocently that the young man laughed in spite of himself.

“I don’t know that there’s much harm in him,” he allowed, “but I dislike to have guide-book information crammed down my throat second-hand. Never mind them. Do you know that I am going away?”

“No.”

Though she hated herself, she felt the colour leaving her face. And she could not ask when or where.

“But I am. I am off to London.”

“Do you come back here?”

“Well, I hope so, certainly. The only thing likely to stand in the way is a lawsuit in which they sought my services, and I don’t mind confiding to you that the odds are rather against that supposition.”

More than one person had certain fancies of theirs confirmed that afternoon. One went and came like the dull tick of a great clock in Phillis Grey’s brain as she sat in her bedroom late at night. “He—loves—her,—he—loves—her,” was what it said with persistent effort. She had sent him away, and though no one suspected it of her, her heart was sometimes nearly breaking.

Chapter Fourteen.Fog.The change from Italy to London in the month of December, of all months in the year, is somewhat gloomy. It struck Ibbetson the more that he was greeted the morning after his arrival by a dense yellow fog, which came down chimneys and into people’s throats in the persistent manner with which we are all familiar, but which is dolefully depressing to foreigners. Jack had somewhat of the feeling of a foreigner himself as the gas was turned on to enable him to eat his breakfast in his lodgings—not having as yet effected the counterbalance of comfort versus climate, which a well-brought up and constitutional Englishman derives from his Club and hisTimes. That would come later in the day. Meanwhile, the fog was the reverse of cheerful, his lodging looked grimy, and his thoughts went flying back to the blue skies of Italy, and to people he had left there.What was Phillis doing, for instance, and why should he care to know? the young fellow thought, pushing his fingers through his crisp curly hair. Probably at that moment making plans for some excursions with those confounded Peningtons. What detestable bores people were who dragged others about in that ridiculous way, here, there, and everywhere, and how extraordinary it was that others should be found to submit! Here was he himself come on a wild goose errand, if ever there were such a thing in the world, to look after a youngster, who from all accounts had rapidly developed into a scoundrel, and without the smallest idea what he was to do when he had got hold of him. Good heavens, what an idiot he had been! The only point on which he could fall back with satisfaction was that if he could do anything it would be a possible release for Bice, of whom he thought with great interest and compassion. Only on her account, he assured himself, had he undertaken the quixotic enterprise on the threshold of which he had arrived. Distinctly, only on her account.He put himself into a hansom on the strength of this conviction, and drove to Clive’s lodgings out in the Kensington direction. As he expected, the lad had gone to the City, but he heard the hour at which he was likely to return, and left a card with an explanatory line, saying that he would look in that evening. Then he went to his chambers and began gathering up those odds and ends of life which so soon seem to detach themselves from us if for a moment we lay them down, and yet have a latent power of reproach when we meet them. There had been a little property of the first Lady Ibbetson’s which her husband had made over to her son, on the occasion of his own second marriage, so that Jack had enough to live upon without troubling his head as to his profession. And then the idea of his marriage and the visions of Hetherton had somehow taken away the spur to work. This was at an end. In the foggy dinginess of his chambers he began to try to pull together some floating strands of ambition which had never had much more substance in them than a cobweb-like texture, and which now eluded his grasp. His nature was pre-eminently social. He could not group his dreams round a central and solitary self. He wanted someone else to stimulate him with sympathy or fellow-interest. And, as he stood listlessly turning over a bundle of papers—why did the roar of London suddenly change to the rush of water, the splash of silver streams? Whose were those brown and steadfast eyes which he saw again looking into his—?An exclamation escaped his lips. Then he turned up the gas, and sat down doggedly with the papers on his knees, and two or three big books by his side. His work might not be worth much, but he felt as if it served as a barricade against thoughts which were worthless.He did not go out to Kensington again until half past six or thereabouts, and as he rattled along through the muddy streets, he was the more convinced that his errand was not an agreeable one, and that it would require delicate handling. A good deal must depend upon his first impression of Clive. If this were favourable, well and good; and yet Jack was vaguely conscious that he had no great insight into character, and was apt to see no more than people were disposed to show him.“Mr Masters?” Yes, Mr Masters was at home, and a slipshod girl conducted him into a small room on the ground floor, smelling strongly of smoke, and brightly lit. A tall young man, who was sitting over the fire, came forward with a little shy awkwardness, which at once recalled Kitty to Ibbetson, and muttered something about being sorry he should have had the trouble of calling twice. Jack had an easy kindliness of manner which generally put people at their ease, but this young fellow was as undoubtedly awkward as he was thin and dark, and though evidently interested in hearing news of his family, it did not seem as if it would be within the bounds of possibility to get him to talk freely. Jack, himself, conscious that he was receiving very little that was definite in the way of those first impressions from which he had hoped so much, could hardly help smiling at his own discomfiture. Except the smoke, there was nothing in the room or about Clive himself to assist him in discoveries, and yet he had not come all the way from Rome for nothing.“There’s another link between us,” he said pleasantly. “One of your heads, Mr Thornton, is an uncle of mine.”“We don’t see much of him down at the office.”“No, perhaps not. But I suspect he looks sharply into things. Don’t you feel him in the background?”“I haven’t much to do with the heads,” said the young fellow, looking uncomfortable.“Something pinches there,” said Ibbetson inwardly, with his suspicions confirmed. Aloud he said, laughing, “I’m not in Mr Thornton’s best books at this present moment, but I might be able to give you an introduction—where do you go at Christmas?”“Nowhere. I stay here.”“Gloomy work, isn’t it?” said Jack, compassionately.“It doesn’t matter. I’d rather stop on here,” said Clive, kicking a piece of coal.“Is your cousin in London—I mean Mr Trent?”“Oliver Trent?” glancing up in surprise. “Do you know him? Oh, you met him at the villa, I suppose. Yes, he is. At least I believe so. He and old—he and Mr Thornton are very thick.”“He!”“Didn’t you know it?”“Not I. But perhaps that’s not to be wondered at. Still—”There was a pause while Ibbetson was musing on this information. He was conscious that it aroused a vague uneasiness in his mind, and yet, what should make him uneasy? Phillis’s suspicions had not really touched him, and the half dislike which he at one time felt towards Trent had been as fleeting as other emotions of the same date. But there always remains the possibility that emotions may be revived.Clive volunteered the next remark.“I never knew such a fellow as Oliver for knowing people. You can’t mention anybody but he can tell you all about them. And he seems to find out anything he pleases.”It was the nearest approach to confidence that he had shown, and Jack followed it up with a plunge.“I tell you what it is, Masters,” he said, looking hard at the fire so that Clive might not feel himself stared at, “your cousin has said something to your mother and sisters which has made them very uneasy about you. If he’d said more, it mightn’t have been so bad for them, but they know so little that they are fretting their lives out,” pursued Ibbetson with a bold disregard for the truth which should certainly have been limited here by the third person singular. “I dare say you think I’ve no business to come poking my fingers into what doesn’t concern me, indeed to tell you the truth I’m of the same opinion myself. But I’m here because a friend of theirs for whom I’ve a regard is under the impression they’ve got an exaggerated idea of what is amiss, and thinks you might put things straighter. There! and I hope I’ve not made a bungle of it,” he continued mentally, feeling as if the pause which followed lasted five minutes at the very least.“I don’t see what Oliver can have said,” said the young fellow a little sullenly. “I’ve followed his advice pretty closely.”“Well,” Jack said slowly, “I suppose you’d hardly be disposed to take an outside opinion?”“Yours, you mean?”His manner was not very pleasant, but Jack acknowledged that it was scarcely to be expected it should be different, and so far he had been unable to trace any symptom of fear as of one who held a guilty secret. He began to have a stronger conviction of his innocence himself.“Yes, I meant mine. One moment—I mean, of course, only on their account.”“Oliver is all the world with them,” said Clive uneasily, “at least if one may trust half the messages he brings back.”“Why on earth don’t you write direct instead of trusting to messages?”“Direct? Why of course I do,” said Clive staring blankly.“Well, openly then. Telling them of any—difficulties you may be in.”“I can’t see the good of worrying them about all the particulars when one has made a fool of oneself, but they know the outcome of it.”Clive said this frankly and without hesitation. Jack became more and more doubtful how he was to go on. Even if you believe a fellow-man, you may be offering him the worst insult in your power by telling him so.“They fancy they don’t know, at any rate,” he said rather lamely.“Not know! Why, haven’t they had Oliver out there? There was nothing to prevent their getting it all out of him. In fact, he told me he had explained everything.”“He certainly left them with the impression that there were circumstances you didn’t wish made known.” The young man started to his feet and flushed angrily red.“I?”“Yes.”“There is nothing whatever. Nothing to conceal from them,” he added in a lower tone.“Then a false impression has undoubtedly been given, and I advise you to set it right. By the way, when Miss Capponi wrote to ask the question, why didn’t you explain?”“Bice has never asked anything of the sort?” said Clive angrily, and yet uneasily.“Are you certain? Just reflect. Last October it was.”“I tell you she has never done anything of the sort. Why on earth should she?”Jack got up and put his hand on his shoulder.“I dare say it sounds queer to you, but I give you my word, I’m not asking from idle curiosity. Your sisterdidwrite to you last October. Look here, can you make up your mind to tell me your actual trouble? You owe money, I dare say. Much?”“Much to me,” Clive said reluctantly. “I don’t know what you’d call it. Fifty pounds.”“And to whom?”“Oh, it’s all in Trent’s hands now. That’s one blessing.”“Is that all the difficulty?” said Ibbetson. And this time he faced round and looked full at the other. Clive looked at him too, though distrustfully.“No,” he said slowly. “But what there is besides, matters to no one.”“No trouble with the firm?”Jack’s eyes were on him still, and he saw that he hesitated. But he said “No” again. Then he broke out more eagerly.“I can’t explain it to you, for Oliver wouldn’t like it, and I’m under tremendous obligations to him, there’s nothing wrong, only I’ve met with very bad luck.”“Nothing wrong?”“No. That I’ll swear.”“Well,” said Ibbetson, “perhaps I can’t expect you to say more to me. But at any rate your mother and sisters deserve all your confidence. Write to them fully.”“Oliver said it only bothered them, and that he would explain.”“He has made a mistake or two in the matter, it seems to me,” said Ibbetson with so much concentrated anger in the tone that Clive looked at him in surprise. But he recovered himself quickly and put out his hand, “You’ll write, that’s understood. I’m going down to Hetherton, and will see you again when I come back.”The interview had only been partly satisfactory. He felt sure that Clive had neither forged a cheque nor committed any other crime, and therefore Trent’s black insinuations deserved all that Phillis had thought of them. At the same time there was a depression about the young fellow which seemed to show that he was under some darker cloud than a debt of fifty pounds to a cousin. The more he thought of it, the more this conviction grew on him. Perhaps at Hetherton a light would be thrown upon it.Before he had any chance of getting a hansom, he had to walk for some distance, and a thick wetting rain was falling. Lights were flashing and rolling through the fog, the noise of wheels, the cry of newsmen, were the only distinct sounds which reached him out of that mighty roar which London sends forth day and night. Damp and prosaic enough it all was; a beggar stretched forth a bony hand, the repulsiveness of face and figure unclothed by the picturesqueness which in the South might have softened its hideousness. Yet, as Jack splashed along, something within him seemed to leap into life as if in answer to a trumpet call. After all, it was his own country. He was young, strong, work had in it more of a joy than a burden. He felt as if he had been living of late in a fool’s paradise of dreams, where he was of no good to himself or to anyone else, except, perhaps, to kind Miss Cartwright. He had rather prided himself upon an absence of ambition. But a consciousness of strength and a desire to use it seemed to awaken that evening, and, although he did not own it, probably a wish that others—at any rate one other—should see that he, too, coulddo, awoke at the same time. Hetherton had gone from him, but he felt as if other Hethertons lay beckoning to him from a blue distance, and though he smiled at his own airy castles, they had the power of enabling him to face the prospect of the actual place with perfect cheerfulness. He refused the first hansom that offered itself, feeling as if the walk home among all those other workers who were passing, coming and going, was a sort of pledge of brotherhood with them—given to himself. And he resolved to run down to Hetherton to see what he could find out about Trent and Clive.

The change from Italy to London in the month of December, of all months in the year, is somewhat gloomy. It struck Ibbetson the more that he was greeted the morning after his arrival by a dense yellow fog, which came down chimneys and into people’s throats in the persistent manner with which we are all familiar, but which is dolefully depressing to foreigners. Jack had somewhat of the feeling of a foreigner himself as the gas was turned on to enable him to eat his breakfast in his lodgings—not having as yet effected the counterbalance of comfort versus climate, which a well-brought up and constitutional Englishman derives from his Club and hisTimes. That would come later in the day. Meanwhile, the fog was the reverse of cheerful, his lodging looked grimy, and his thoughts went flying back to the blue skies of Italy, and to people he had left there.

What was Phillis doing, for instance, and why should he care to know? the young fellow thought, pushing his fingers through his crisp curly hair. Probably at that moment making plans for some excursions with those confounded Peningtons. What detestable bores people were who dragged others about in that ridiculous way, here, there, and everywhere, and how extraordinary it was that others should be found to submit! Here was he himself come on a wild goose errand, if ever there were such a thing in the world, to look after a youngster, who from all accounts had rapidly developed into a scoundrel, and without the smallest idea what he was to do when he had got hold of him. Good heavens, what an idiot he had been! The only point on which he could fall back with satisfaction was that if he could do anything it would be a possible release for Bice, of whom he thought with great interest and compassion. Only on her account, he assured himself, had he undertaken the quixotic enterprise on the threshold of which he had arrived. Distinctly, only on her account.

He put himself into a hansom on the strength of this conviction, and drove to Clive’s lodgings out in the Kensington direction. As he expected, the lad had gone to the City, but he heard the hour at which he was likely to return, and left a card with an explanatory line, saying that he would look in that evening. Then he went to his chambers and began gathering up those odds and ends of life which so soon seem to detach themselves from us if for a moment we lay them down, and yet have a latent power of reproach when we meet them. There had been a little property of the first Lady Ibbetson’s which her husband had made over to her son, on the occasion of his own second marriage, so that Jack had enough to live upon without troubling his head as to his profession. And then the idea of his marriage and the visions of Hetherton had somehow taken away the spur to work. This was at an end. In the foggy dinginess of his chambers he began to try to pull together some floating strands of ambition which had never had much more substance in them than a cobweb-like texture, and which now eluded his grasp. His nature was pre-eminently social. He could not group his dreams round a central and solitary self. He wanted someone else to stimulate him with sympathy or fellow-interest. And, as he stood listlessly turning over a bundle of papers—why did the roar of London suddenly change to the rush of water, the splash of silver streams? Whose were those brown and steadfast eyes which he saw again looking into his—?

An exclamation escaped his lips. Then he turned up the gas, and sat down doggedly with the papers on his knees, and two or three big books by his side. His work might not be worth much, but he felt as if it served as a barricade against thoughts which were worthless.

He did not go out to Kensington again until half past six or thereabouts, and as he rattled along through the muddy streets, he was the more convinced that his errand was not an agreeable one, and that it would require delicate handling. A good deal must depend upon his first impression of Clive. If this were favourable, well and good; and yet Jack was vaguely conscious that he had no great insight into character, and was apt to see no more than people were disposed to show him.

“Mr Masters?” Yes, Mr Masters was at home, and a slipshod girl conducted him into a small room on the ground floor, smelling strongly of smoke, and brightly lit. A tall young man, who was sitting over the fire, came forward with a little shy awkwardness, which at once recalled Kitty to Ibbetson, and muttered something about being sorry he should have had the trouble of calling twice. Jack had an easy kindliness of manner which generally put people at their ease, but this young fellow was as undoubtedly awkward as he was thin and dark, and though evidently interested in hearing news of his family, it did not seem as if it would be within the bounds of possibility to get him to talk freely. Jack, himself, conscious that he was receiving very little that was definite in the way of those first impressions from which he had hoped so much, could hardly help smiling at his own discomfiture. Except the smoke, there was nothing in the room or about Clive himself to assist him in discoveries, and yet he had not come all the way from Rome for nothing.

“There’s another link between us,” he said pleasantly. “One of your heads, Mr Thornton, is an uncle of mine.”

“We don’t see much of him down at the office.”

“No, perhaps not. But I suspect he looks sharply into things. Don’t you feel him in the background?”

“I haven’t much to do with the heads,” said the young fellow, looking uncomfortable.

“Something pinches there,” said Ibbetson inwardly, with his suspicions confirmed. Aloud he said, laughing, “I’m not in Mr Thornton’s best books at this present moment, but I might be able to give you an introduction—where do you go at Christmas?”

“Nowhere. I stay here.”

“Gloomy work, isn’t it?” said Jack, compassionately.

“It doesn’t matter. I’d rather stop on here,” said Clive, kicking a piece of coal.

“Is your cousin in London—I mean Mr Trent?”

“Oliver Trent?” glancing up in surprise. “Do you know him? Oh, you met him at the villa, I suppose. Yes, he is. At least I believe so. He and old—he and Mr Thornton are very thick.”

“He!”

“Didn’t you know it?”

“Not I. But perhaps that’s not to be wondered at. Still—”

There was a pause while Ibbetson was musing on this information. He was conscious that it aroused a vague uneasiness in his mind, and yet, what should make him uneasy? Phillis’s suspicions had not really touched him, and the half dislike which he at one time felt towards Trent had been as fleeting as other emotions of the same date. But there always remains the possibility that emotions may be revived.

Clive volunteered the next remark.

“I never knew such a fellow as Oliver for knowing people. You can’t mention anybody but he can tell you all about them. And he seems to find out anything he pleases.”

It was the nearest approach to confidence that he had shown, and Jack followed it up with a plunge.

“I tell you what it is, Masters,” he said, looking hard at the fire so that Clive might not feel himself stared at, “your cousin has said something to your mother and sisters which has made them very uneasy about you. If he’d said more, it mightn’t have been so bad for them, but they know so little that they are fretting their lives out,” pursued Ibbetson with a bold disregard for the truth which should certainly have been limited here by the third person singular. “I dare say you think I’ve no business to come poking my fingers into what doesn’t concern me, indeed to tell you the truth I’m of the same opinion myself. But I’m here because a friend of theirs for whom I’ve a regard is under the impression they’ve got an exaggerated idea of what is amiss, and thinks you might put things straighter. There! and I hope I’ve not made a bungle of it,” he continued mentally, feeling as if the pause which followed lasted five minutes at the very least.

“I don’t see what Oliver can have said,” said the young fellow a little sullenly. “I’ve followed his advice pretty closely.”

“Well,” Jack said slowly, “I suppose you’d hardly be disposed to take an outside opinion?”

“Yours, you mean?”

His manner was not very pleasant, but Jack acknowledged that it was scarcely to be expected it should be different, and so far he had been unable to trace any symptom of fear as of one who held a guilty secret. He began to have a stronger conviction of his innocence himself.

“Yes, I meant mine. One moment—I mean, of course, only on their account.”

“Oliver is all the world with them,” said Clive uneasily, “at least if one may trust half the messages he brings back.”

“Why on earth don’t you write direct instead of trusting to messages?”

“Direct? Why of course I do,” said Clive staring blankly.

“Well, openly then. Telling them of any—difficulties you may be in.”

“I can’t see the good of worrying them about all the particulars when one has made a fool of oneself, but they know the outcome of it.”

Clive said this frankly and without hesitation. Jack became more and more doubtful how he was to go on. Even if you believe a fellow-man, you may be offering him the worst insult in your power by telling him so.

“They fancy they don’t know, at any rate,” he said rather lamely.

“Not know! Why, haven’t they had Oliver out there? There was nothing to prevent their getting it all out of him. In fact, he told me he had explained everything.”

“He certainly left them with the impression that there were circumstances you didn’t wish made known.” The young man started to his feet and flushed angrily red.

“I?”

“Yes.”

“There is nothing whatever. Nothing to conceal from them,” he added in a lower tone.

“Then a false impression has undoubtedly been given, and I advise you to set it right. By the way, when Miss Capponi wrote to ask the question, why didn’t you explain?”

“Bice has never asked anything of the sort?” said Clive angrily, and yet uneasily.

“Are you certain? Just reflect. Last October it was.”

“I tell you she has never done anything of the sort. Why on earth should she?”

Jack got up and put his hand on his shoulder.

“I dare say it sounds queer to you, but I give you my word, I’m not asking from idle curiosity. Your sisterdidwrite to you last October. Look here, can you make up your mind to tell me your actual trouble? You owe money, I dare say. Much?”

“Much to me,” Clive said reluctantly. “I don’t know what you’d call it. Fifty pounds.”

“And to whom?”

“Oh, it’s all in Trent’s hands now. That’s one blessing.”

“Is that all the difficulty?” said Ibbetson. And this time he faced round and looked full at the other. Clive looked at him too, though distrustfully.

“No,” he said slowly. “But what there is besides, matters to no one.”

“No trouble with the firm?”

Jack’s eyes were on him still, and he saw that he hesitated. But he said “No” again. Then he broke out more eagerly.

“I can’t explain it to you, for Oliver wouldn’t like it, and I’m under tremendous obligations to him, there’s nothing wrong, only I’ve met with very bad luck.”

“Nothing wrong?”

“No. That I’ll swear.”

“Well,” said Ibbetson, “perhaps I can’t expect you to say more to me. But at any rate your mother and sisters deserve all your confidence. Write to them fully.”

“Oliver said it only bothered them, and that he would explain.”

“He has made a mistake or two in the matter, it seems to me,” said Ibbetson with so much concentrated anger in the tone that Clive looked at him in surprise. But he recovered himself quickly and put out his hand, “You’ll write, that’s understood. I’m going down to Hetherton, and will see you again when I come back.”

The interview had only been partly satisfactory. He felt sure that Clive had neither forged a cheque nor committed any other crime, and therefore Trent’s black insinuations deserved all that Phillis had thought of them. At the same time there was a depression about the young fellow which seemed to show that he was under some darker cloud than a debt of fifty pounds to a cousin. The more he thought of it, the more this conviction grew on him. Perhaps at Hetherton a light would be thrown upon it.

Before he had any chance of getting a hansom, he had to walk for some distance, and a thick wetting rain was falling. Lights were flashing and rolling through the fog, the noise of wheels, the cry of newsmen, were the only distinct sounds which reached him out of that mighty roar which London sends forth day and night. Damp and prosaic enough it all was; a beggar stretched forth a bony hand, the repulsiveness of face and figure unclothed by the picturesqueness which in the South might have softened its hideousness. Yet, as Jack splashed along, something within him seemed to leap into life as if in answer to a trumpet call. After all, it was his own country. He was young, strong, work had in it more of a joy than a burden. He felt as if he had been living of late in a fool’s paradise of dreams, where he was of no good to himself or to anyone else, except, perhaps, to kind Miss Cartwright. He had rather prided himself upon an absence of ambition. But a consciousness of strength and a desire to use it seemed to awaken that evening, and, although he did not own it, probably a wish that others—at any rate one other—should see that he, too, coulddo, awoke at the same time. Hetherton had gone from him, but he felt as if other Hethertons lay beckoning to him from a blue distance, and though he smiled at his own airy castles, they had the power of enabling him to face the prospect of the actual place with perfect cheerfulness. He refused the first hansom that offered itself, feeling as if the walk home among all those other workers who were passing, coming and going, was a sort of pledge of brotherhood with them—given to himself. And he resolved to run down to Hetherton to see what he could find out about Trent and Clive.

Chapter Fifteen.Jack Expresses an Opinion.It was afternoon the next day before he left London, and past dark when he reached the Hetherton station. But the day had been fairly fine, and there was nothing in the evening to prevent his walking the two or three miles which lay between the station and the house, while his portmanteau was to come after him in the carrier’s cart. He lingered a little, especially when he had crossed the sandy common and got down among the sturdy Scotch firs, so that, what with listening to the rustling of the wind in their tops, and the brawling of the swollen river, as he passed in at the lodge he heard the little clock striking seven, the dinner hour at the Court.Jack was a favourite with all the servants, and the old butler bustled out from the dining-room directly he heard who had arrived, and sent a young footman off with orders about the room.“You’ll like to wash your hands, Mr John, and I’ll let master know you’re come.”“Anyone dining here, Jones?”“Only one gentleman, sir.”There was no time for more. Jack went up the broad stairs, two or three at a time, and coming down more leisurely, walked into the dining-room and found himself face to face with Mr and Mrs Thornton and—Oliver Trent.Jack would have been more discomposed had he not heard of this acquaintanceship from Clive, but as it was, the meeting annoyed him, and he did not trouble himself to conceal the feeling. Oliver was prepared, and wore a passive countenance. Mr Thornton, who liked Jack as well as, and his own will very much better than, he liked anybody, was divided between welcome and displeasure.“Upon my word, Jack, upon my word, you take us by surprise. Come for Christmas, eh? Well, fortunately a visitor more or less does not make much difference to Mrs Thornton, and your room is no doubt ready. But a carriage should have met you if you had acquainted us. How did you come?”“I walked from the station, and my things were put into old Brook’s cart.”He knew that Mr Thornton hated old Brook’s cart, and there was partly a mischievous desire to tease him, and partly a wish to show Oliver Trent that he held very lightly the grandeur and riches of the Court.Mrs Thornton interposed. She was always interposing with kindly attempts to smooth down her husband, and an utter want of tact which made the smoothing produce the contrary effect.“How did you leave Phillis?” she said.“Whydid you leave her? would be more to the purpose,” snorted Mr Thornton, under his breath.“She was very well,” said Jack, quietly helping himself to cucumber. “And as to why I came, it was on a little matter of business, and partly to look after a protégé or cousin of yours, Mr Trent, unless I’m mistaken—Clive Masters.”Oliver Trent’s face could not turn pale, but it changed to an indescribable shade of colour which answered the same purpose, and gave Ibbetson a moment of delight.“Masters?” repeated Mr Thornton. “Isn’t that the clerk you were speaking of?”“I presume it is,” said Trent, recovering himself with an effort, “although I am at a loss to conceive how my interest for him and Mr Ibbetson’s should run in an identical line?”“And I am afraid I cannot enlighten you,” said Jack. “Perhaps they don’t. At any rate I can only answer for my own.”There was a little silence. Oliver Trent had no desire to force explanations, and Mr Thornton looked at the young fellow with a feeling which was partly pride and partly exasperation. He could never think that he impressed Jack as he would have liked to impress him, but the oddest part was that in his heart he envied his imperturbability, and the ease of manner to which he had never attained. Not that he was not a gentleman by birth. He was a new man in Surrey, but the Thorntons were a good old family, and he had a right to good manners and good breeding; perhaps it was that very fact which made him sore over the consciousness that he had neither. Money had been his aim in life, and he had an exaggerated respect for its value, but his pleasure in it was a good deal marred by his having sufficient acuteness to perceive when others held it in small account, and he could neither forgive them, nor in his heart of hearts help respecting them for their indifference. He got more dislike than was really his due. To Jack, both as man and boy, he had indeed been very kind, and yet Jack sometimes almost detested him. At this moment as he looked across the table, sparkling with silver and valuable glass, he wondered how Phillis had ever endured her life, and yet more how she had lived it and still preserved that simplicity and quiet self-possession to which his eyes had lately seemed to open. Mr Thornton, with his bald head, insignificant features, and pompous manner, looked to him more vulgar than ever. Evidently Oliver Trent was a favourite. Ibbetson said no more about Clive, but set himself with something like amusement to watch Trent’s skilful treatment of his host. He deferred to him on all subjects, but not in any manner which should give the suspicion of open flattery, rather expressing at first a difference of opinion, and gradually allowing himself to be as it were convinced by Mr Thornton’s arguments. He showed, also, a delicate appreciation of wealth. Neither dinner nor wines were lost upon him, but his praise was discriminating, and implied reserve. Jack felt as if he were the spectator of some admirably played game of skill, the more so that Oliver took no pains to ingratiate himself with him, rather treating his comparative youth as something to be looked upon with condescension which was not without contempt.The evening passed heavily. Mrs Thornton wished to pet Jack, and was always irritating her husband, so that at last she got up with a sigh and went off to bed. Mr Thornton himself crossed his legs, leaned his head back against the crimson satin chair and fell asleep; Jack laid down theTimeswhich he had been studying deeply, and walked towards Oliver Trent.“As we have met here,” he said, “will you give me five minutes’ conversation in the next room?”“Conversation? Oh, certainly.”A heavy portière separated the rooms; that which they now entered, less gorgeous in itself, and less glaringly lit, was one in which Phillis often sat; her piano was in a corner, and a sudden remembrance struck Jack of the evening when she had been at the window, and had gone out to him at his request. A dark flush rose to his forehead at the recollection; how changed were his thoughts of her since then, and yet by the strange irony of fate, or more truly by his own folly, then she was his, and now they were separated—for ever? Oliver Trent, watchful and composed, threw himself into a great chair; Ibbetson stood with his back to the fire. Moved by these thoughts, he was less at his ease than he had been throughout the evening, but it was he who had asked for the conversation, and he who had first to speak.“I saw young Masters last night,” he began.“So I gathered. Did you find your interview worth the trouble it had cost you?”“You mean a journey from Rome? I think so.”“Indeed! Your mission then may be considered fortunate.”Trent’s soft voice was touched with scorn, perhaps a little more strongly than he would have permitted had it been under perfect control, but Jack took no notice. He repeated, “I think so. I believe I shall now be able to remove some misunderstandings which have been causing his family considerable anxiety and pain. You will allow me to add that it strikes me as a pity that you ever suffered the misunderstandings to exist.”“I certainly shall not allow you to add anything which implies that you have the right to interfere with what relates to the private concerns of my own family,” said Trent hotly.“I am afraid the veto, if it rested in your hands, would be applied too late,” said Jack with a cool scorn which stung the older man. “My advice has been already given.” And then he made a step forward on the rug, and a sudden fire flashed into his eyes which few persons had ever seen there. “You are in my uncle’s house as his guest, and that, Mr Trent, prevents me from speaking as plainly as I might otherwise do. But it does not hinder my thinking, and I leave you to imagine what is my opinion of a man who has suffered three helpless women, in a foreign land, to endure all the anguish of believing that their son and brother had sunk into a villain when a word from him would have lifted the load from their hearts. Suffered, did I say? Rather himself raised the suspicion in their hearts, and nursed it there.”The contempt in the young man’s tone was unmistakable. When Trent answered, it was as if he struggled to use the same weapons and could not bring them to bear.“May I enquire from whom you have gathered these remarkable facts?”“From those who were interested,” replied Jack after a momentary pause. He did not wish to bring in Bice’s name, but Oliver understood whom he meant, and became almost livid. He started up.“And it is you who venture to bring such scandalous accusations—you, whose conduct in Florence was so unworthy the name of gentleman that if Mr Thornton, with his high and honourable character, was acquainted with it, he would not, I believe, tolerate you in his house! I repudiate your charge. It is false. If my cousins mistook my warnings, it is not my fault. The word you have used never passed my lips—”Jack interrupted him.“It could not. But you implied it.”“Implied!”“Yes. To women who were terrified at shadows—and no wonder. What did they know about possibilities or proofs?”“Until you enlightened them,” said Oliver with a sneer. “Pray, Mr Ibbetson, do you habitually indulge in romances of this description?”Jack treated this speech with lofty indifference.“I have said my say, and there’s an end of it I suppose,” he said, turning to the fire, and pushing a log with his foot. He went on speaking with his back turned to Trent. “I intended to let you know my opinion, and have done so; as for the others who are mixed up in the matter, they can form their own as they please.”“I have something of my own for you to listen to, though,” Trent answered, recovering his coolness. “Your opinions are of too small importance for me to treat this impertinence as it perhaps deserves. Probably it arises from pique, and I may afford to pity it. But if we come to opinions I can give you my own hot and strong. I should like to hear what any honourable man would say of a gentleman who, engaged to one lady, not only flung away her affections, but deliberately insulted her by trying to gain those of another who was already pledged. Eh, Mr Ibbetson? Is this cock-and-bull story your last hope?”There was enough truth in this speech for it to sting, and Jack felt an instinctive conviction that it was spoken for an auditor, and that if he looked round he should see Mr Thornton standing in the doorway. There he actually was, and the anger and perplexity in his red face were so ludicrously strong, that Jack’s anger was choked in an inclination to laugh.“What is that you say, Trent? Be good enough to repeat it,” he said, coming forward and waving back the chair which Jack pushed forward.“It is a private matter between your nephew and myself,” said Trent, as if reluctantly.“Private? Nonsense. You alluded to an affair in which I am as much interested as anyone. I knew there was something of which I had not been informed. Both of you were aware I was within hearing, so now I insist upon hearing properly. Well, sir?”The last interrogation was addressed loudly to Jack, who was leaning against the chimney-piece in an easy attitude which seemed like a personal affront to his uncle. He shrugged his shoulders slightly.“Mr Trent was speaking, sir, not I.”“Do you suppose I require to be toldthat? Mr Trent was speaking, and he was saying things which you should be ashamed of anyone having the power of saying,” said Mr Thornton, angrily.“Excuse me. Not of any one. The force of an accusation altogether depends upon who makes it,” said Jack, with a haughty look at the other.“If you will allow me, Mr Thornton,” said Trent rising, “I will wish you good-night. Your nephew would naturally prefer to offer his explanations alone with you. I exceedingly regret my own rashness of speech.”“Stop, sir!” said Mr Thornton, bringing down his closed fist on his knees with a thump. “I manage matters in my own house in my own way. Let me hear what you have to say, and let me hear what he has to say, and then I shall know something of where we all are.”“You must make allowances for my feeling sore,” said Oliver, still apologetically, “as the other lady to whom I alluded is my promised wife.”“Now is that the truth or a lie?” reflected Ibbetson. “If it’s the truth I had better have left the matter alone.”“Do you mean that he tried to make her jilt you, while he himself jilted Phillis Grey?” demanded Mr Thornton strongly. All Jack’s indifference was shaken. He stepped forward, drawing himself up to his full height, and his face was resolute and stern.“I see no use in dragging Miss Grey’s name into this discussion,” he said, with a determination which impressed his uncle in spite of himself; “but since you and Mr Trent have done so, you will be good enough to understand that the facts have not been correctly represented. At the time of which he speaks, he was certainly not engaged to Miss Capponi, and as for my acting towards Miss Grey as you suppose, though I am perhaps a fool, I am not such an utter fool as that would prove me. That is sufficient for to-night, I think. Good-night, Uncle Peter,” and he marched out of the room, with his head rather high, and without a glance at Oliver.No one stopped him; his uncle would have liked to have done so, but was not sure that in his present mood he would have attended to his wishes. Mr Thornton looked after the young fellow with an anger that was partly envy. Trent got up.“I regret this very much,” he said in his soft tone. “He made an uncalled-for attack upon me, and I lost my temper and retaliated, without knowing that you were present.”“Didn’t you see me?” said Mr Thornton simply. “Well, what you said explained a good deal. I never believed Phillis would have set all my wishes aside.” Then, as Trent remained silent, he went on—“However, they both of them know the alternative. When I have made up my mind I don’t change.”“No, you have an enviable force of determination. I believe it to be the secret of your success.”“No doubt, no doubt,” said Mr Thornton, rising also, and shaking himself as if he would have thus got rid of a lingering compunction. “I’m a plain man, and I keep to my word. None of your shilly-shallying for me, and that Master Jack will learn, in spite of his confounded airs. Good-night, Trent.”

It was afternoon the next day before he left London, and past dark when he reached the Hetherton station. But the day had been fairly fine, and there was nothing in the evening to prevent his walking the two or three miles which lay between the station and the house, while his portmanteau was to come after him in the carrier’s cart. He lingered a little, especially when he had crossed the sandy common and got down among the sturdy Scotch firs, so that, what with listening to the rustling of the wind in their tops, and the brawling of the swollen river, as he passed in at the lodge he heard the little clock striking seven, the dinner hour at the Court.

Jack was a favourite with all the servants, and the old butler bustled out from the dining-room directly he heard who had arrived, and sent a young footman off with orders about the room.

“You’ll like to wash your hands, Mr John, and I’ll let master know you’re come.”

“Anyone dining here, Jones?”

“Only one gentleman, sir.”

There was no time for more. Jack went up the broad stairs, two or three at a time, and coming down more leisurely, walked into the dining-room and found himself face to face with Mr and Mrs Thornton and—Oliver Trent.

Jack would have been more discomposed had he not heard of this acquaintanceship from Clive, but as it was, the meeting annoyed him, and he did not trouble himself to conceal the feeling. Oliver was prepared, and wore a passive countenance. Mr Thornton, who liked Jack as well as, and his own will very much better than, he liked anybody, was divided between welcome and displeasure.

“Upon my word, Jack, upon my word, you take us by surprise. Come for Christmas, eh? Well, fortunately a visitor more or less does not make much difference to Mrs Thornton, and your room is no doubt ready. But a carriage should have met you if you had acquainted us. How did you come?”

“I walked from the station, and my things were put into old Brook’s cart.”

He knew that Mr Thornton hated old Brook’s cart, and there was partly a mischievous desire to tease him, and partly a wish to show Oliver Trent that he held very lightly the grandeur and riches of the Court.

Mrs Thornton interposed. She was always interposing with kindly attempts to smooth down her husband, and an utter want of tact which made the smoothing produce the contrary effect.

“How did you leave Phillis?” she said.

“Whydid you leave her? would be more to the purpose,” snorted Mr Thornton, under his breath.

“She was very well,” said Jack, quietly helping himself to cucumber. “And as to why I came, it was on a little matter of business, and partly to look after a protégé or cousin of yours, Mr Trent, unless I’m mistaken—Clive Masters.”

Oliver Trent’s face could not turn pale, but it changed to an indescribable shade of colour which answered the same purpose, and gave Ibbetson a moment of delight.

“Masters?” repeated Mr Thornton. “Isn’t that the clerk you were speaking of?”

“I presume it is,” said Trent, recovering himself with an effort, “although I am at a loss to conceive how my interest for him and Mr Ibbetson’s should run in an identical line?”

“And I am afraid I cannot enlighten you,” said Jack. “Perhaps they don’t. At any rate I can only answer for my own.”

There was a little silence. Oliver Trent had no desire to force explanations, and Mr Thornton looked at the young fellow with a feeling which was partly pride and partly exasperation. He could never think that he impressed Jack as he would have liked to impress him, but the oddest part was that in his heart he envied his imperturbability, and the ease of manner to which he had never attained. Not that he was not a gentleman by birth. He was a new man in Surrey, but the Thorntons were a good old family, and he had a right to good manners and good breeding; perhaps it was that very fact which made him sore over the consciousness that he had neither. Money had been his aim in life, and he had an exaggerated respect for its value, but his pleasure in it was a good deal marred by his having sufficient acuteness to perceive when others held it in small account, and he could neither forgive them, nor in his heart of hearts help respecting them for their indifference. He got more dislike than was really his due. To Jack, both as man and boy, he had indeed been very kind, and yet Jack sometimes almost detested him. At this moment as he looked across the table, sparkling with silver and valuable glass, he wondered how Phillis had ever endured her life, and yet more how she had lived it and still preserved that simplicity and quiet self-possession to which his eyes had lately seemed to open. Mr Thornton, with his bald head, insignificant features, and pompous manner, looked to him more vulgar than ever. Evidently Oliver Trent was a favourite. Ibbetson said no more about Clive, but set himself with something like amusement to watch Trent’s skilful treatment of his host. He deferred to him on all subjects, but not in any manner which should give the suspicion of open flattery, rather expressing at first a difference of opinion, and gradually allowing himself to be as it were convinced by Mr Thornton’s arguments. He showed, also, a delicate appreciation of wealth. Neither dinner nor wines were lost upon him, but his praise was discriminating, and implied reserve. Jack felt as if he were the spectator of some admirably played game of skill, the more so that Oliver took no pains to ingratiate himself with him, rather treating his comparative youth as something to be looked upon with condescension which was not without contempt.

The evening passed heavily. Mrs Thornton wished to pet Jack, and was always irritating her husband, so that at last she got up with a sigh and went off to bed. Mr Thornton himself crossed his legs, leaned his head back against the crimson satin chair and fell asleep; Jack laid down theTimeswhich he had been studying deeply, and walked towards Oliver Trent.

“As we have met here,” he said, “will you give me five minutes’ conversation in the next room?”

“Conversation? Oh, certainly.”

A heavy portière separated the rooms; that which they now entered, less gorgeous in itself, and less glaringly lit, was one in which Phillis often sat; her piano was in a corner, and a sudden remembrance struck Jack of the evening when she had been at the window, and had gone out to him at his request. A dark flush rose to his forehead at the recollection; how changed were his thoughts of her since then, and yet by the strange irony of fate, or more truly by his own folly, then she was his, and now they were separated—for ever? Oliver Trent, watchful and composed, threw himself into a great chair; Ibbetson stood with his back to the fire. Moved by these thoughts, he was less at his ease than he had been throughout the evening, but it was he who had asked for the conversation, and he who had first to speak.

“I saw young Masters last night,” he began.

“So I gathered. Did you find your interview worth the trouble it had cost you?”

“You mean a journey from Rome? I think so.”

“Indeed! Your mission then may be considered fortunate.”

Trent’s soft voice was touched with scorn, perhaps a little more strongly than he would have permitted had it been under perfect control, but Jack took no notice. He repeated, “I think so. I believe I shall now be able to remove some misunderstandings which have been causing his family considerable anxiety and pain. You will allow me to add that it strikes me as a pity that you ever suffered the misunderstandings to exist.”

“I certainly shall not allow you to add anything which implies that you have the right to interfere with what relates to the private concerns of my own family,” said Trent hotly.

“I am afraid the veto, if it rested in your hands, would be applied too late,” said Jack with a cool scorn which stung the older man. “My advice has been already given.” And then he made a step forward on the rug, and a sudden fire flashed into his eyes which few persons had ever seen there. “You are in my uncle’s house as his guest, and that, Mr Trent, prevents me from speaking as plainly as I might otherwise do. But it does not hinder my thinking, and I leave you to imagine what is my opinion of a man who has suffered three helpless women, in a foreign land, to endure all the anguish of believing that their son and brother had sunk into a villain when a word from him would have lifted the load from their hearts. Suffered, did I say? Rather himself raised the suspicion in their hearts, and nursed it there.”

The contempt in the young man’s tone was unmistakable. When Trent answered, it was as if he struggled to use the same weapons and could not bring them to bear.

“May I enquire from whom you have gathered these remarkable facts?”

“From those who were interested,” replied Jack after a momentary pause. He did not wish to bring in Bice’s name, but Oliver understood whom he meant, and became almost livid. He started up.

“And it is you who venture to bring such scandalous accusations—you, whose conduct in Florence was so unworthy the name of gentleman that if Mr Thornton, with his high and honourable character, was acquainted with it, he would not, I believe, tolerate you in his house! I repudiate your charge. It is false. If my cousins mistook my warnings, it is not my fault. The word you have used never passed my lips—”

Jack interrupted him.

“It could not. But you implied it.”

“Implied!”

“Yes. To women who were terrified at shadows—and no wonder. What did they know about possibilities or proofs?”

“Until you enlightened them,” said Oliver with a sneer. “Pray, Mr Ibbetson, do you habitually indulge in romances of this description?”

Jack treated this speech with lofty indifference.

“I have said my say, and there’s an end of it I suppose,” he said, turning to the fire, and pushing a log with his foot. He went on speaking with his back turned to Trent. “I intended to let you know my opinion, and have done so; as for the others who are mixed up in the matter, they can form their own as they please.”

“I have something of my own for you to listen to, though,” Trent answered, recovering his coolness. “Your opinions are of too small importance for me to treat this impertinence as it perhaps deserves. Probably it arises from pique, and I may afford to pity it. But if we come to opinions I can give you my own hot and strong. I should like to hear what any honourable man would say of a gentleman who, engaged to one lady, not only flung away her affections, but deliberately insulted her by trying to gain those of another who was already pledged. Eh, Mr Ibbetson? Is this cock-and-bull story your last hope?”

There was enough truth in this speech for it to sting, and Jack felt an instinctive conviction that it was spoken for an auditor, and that if he looked round he should see Mr Thornton standing in the doorway. There he actually was, and the anger and perplexity in his red face were so ludicrously strong, that Jack’s anger was choked in an inclination to laugh.

“What is that you say, Trent? Be good enough to repeat it,” he said, coming forward and waving back the chair which Jack pushed forward.

“It is a private matter between your nephew and myself,” said Trent, as if reluctantly.

“Private? Nonsense. You alluded to an affair in which I am as much interested as anyone. I knew there was something of which I had not been informed. Both of you were aware I was within hearing, so now I insist upon hearing properly. Well, sir?”

The last interrogation was addressed loudly to Jack, who was leaning against the chimney-piece in an easy attitude which seemed like a personal affront to his uncle. He shrugged his shoulders slightly.

“Mr Trent was speaking, sir, not I.”

“Do you suppose I require to be toldthat? Mr Trent was speaking, and he was saying things which you should be ashamed of anyone having the power of saying,” said Mr Thornton, angrily.

“Excuse me. Not of any one. The force of an accusation altogether depends upon who makes it,” said Jack, with a haughty look at the other.

“If you will allow me, Mr Thornton,” said Trent rising, “I will wish you good-night. Your nephew would naturally prefer to offer his explanations alone with you. I exceedingly regret my own rashness of speech.”

“Stop, sir!” said Mr Thornton, bringing down his closed fist on his knees with a thump. “I manage matters in my own house in my own way. Let me hear what you have to say, and let me hear what he has to say, and then I shall know something of where we all are.”

“You must make allowances for my feeling sore,” said Oliver, still apologetically, “as the other lady to whom I alluded is my promised wife.”

“Now is that the truth or a lie?” reflected Ibbetson. “If it’s the truth I had better have left the matter alone.”

“Do you mean that he tried to make her jilt you, while he himself jilted Phillis Grey?” demanded Mr Thornton strongly. All Jack’s indifference was shaken. He stepped forward, drawing himself up to his full height, and his face was resolute and stern.

“I see no use in dragging Miss Grey’s name into this discussion,” he said, with a determination which impressed his uncle in spite of himself; “but since you and Mr Trent have done so, you will be good enough to understand that the facts have not been correctly represented. At the time of which he speaks, he was certainly not engaged to Miss Capponi, and as for my acting towards Miss Grey as you suppose, though I am perhaps a fool, I am not such an utter fool as that would prove me. That is sufficient for to-night, I think. Good-night, Uncle Peter,” and he marched out of the room, with his head rather high, and without a glance at Oliver.

No one stopped him; his uncle would have liked to have done so, but was not sure that in his present mood he would have attended to his wishes. Mr Thornton looked after the young fellow with an anger that was partly envy. Trent got up.

“I regret this very much,” he said in his soft tone. “He made an uncalled-for attack upon me, and I lost my temper and retaliated, without knowing that you were present.”

“Didn’t you see me?” said Mr Thornton simply. “Well, what you said explained a good deal. I never believed Phillis would have set all my wishes aside.” Then, as Trent remained silent, he went on—“However, they both of them know the alternative. When I have made up my mind I don’t change.”

“No, you have an enviable force of determination. I believe it to be the secret of your success.”

“No doubt, no doubt,” said Mr Thornton, rising also, and shaking himself as if he would have thus got rid of a lingering compunction. “I’m a plain man, and I keep to my word. None of your shilly-shallying for me, and that Master Jack will learn, in spite of his confounded airs. Good-night, Trent.”

Chapter Sixteen.“The Hand of Douglas is his Own.”Jack took care to come down late to breakfast the next morning, having no inclination to partake of it with Oliver Trent, and feeling sure that Trent would respect the punctuality which reigned at Hetherton. He had cold fare in consequence himself, though the old butler did what he could, and when it was finished, he received a message to the effect that Mr Thornton was waiting for him in the small room where he sometimes transacted business. He was a little sorry to find Mrs Thornton also there, for, although her aim was always to make peace, the result where her husband was concerned was almost invariably of an opposite nature, all her married years having failed to teach her the management of his temper. She was fonder of Jack than of Phillis, and defended him wildly, in a manner which was most exasperating to an irritable man. Jack saw at a glance as he entered that some passage at arms had already taken place, for she was sitting upright, injured and tearful, while his uncle with a very red face poked the fire furiously.“Very sorry to disturb you so early,” he said, brandishing the poker, and looking hard at a timepiece, “we poor working men are obliged to descend to such insignificant details of life as punctuality. Of course with you it is different.”“I don’t know about that,” said Jack, good-humouredly, “I’m afraid you’re trying to chaff me. But you ought to allow I’m not often so late.”“That is what I told your uncle,” broke in Mrs Thornton with eagerness. “I am sure there are so many young men who come here who are so much worse—”“Much fiddlesticks!” growled her husband. “What are those young idiots to me? However, you never can do anything that’s not perfect, so, of course I give in. I suppose I am to be told this morning that all this Italian business is just as it should be.”“We are both sorry that you should be disappointed,” Jack said quietly, “but—”“Disappointed! The disappointment will be on your side you will find!”“Excuse me, I had not finished my sentence. I was going to say that grateful as I am for your kindness, this is a matter in which I could not allow anyone to dictate to me.”“Oh, very well, sir, very well. You must go your own way. I shall not attempt to interfere. Only you will quite understand that neither you nor Phillis have anything more to look for from my hands.”Mrs Thornton broke in appealingly. “My dear Peter! Now do not be so hasty. You know how sorry you often are when it is too late.”“Will you hold your tongue?” said her husband, glaring at her.“You don’t really mean it,” she went on disregarding, “you know you don’t. Jack has been about the place ever since we came here twelve years ago, and he was a nice little boy in a short jacket—”“Willyou be quiet?”“No, I won’t. If nobody else is here to speak, I shall tell you what I think of it. There is nobody so near you as Jack. As to all this business, you know very well that it is no one’s fault but Phillis’s, she said so herself in her letters, and I do say it is a shame that the poor boy should suffer—”Mr Thornton was in a red heat of passion. Jack said abruptly.“No, that is not the case. Whatever blame there is—and I suppose there always is blame, first or last, in a broken engagement—rests entirely with me. It will be very unjust, Uncle Peter, if you visit my sins on poor Phillis. I tell you honestly that I liked the thought of Hetherton at first, I dare say I should like it still; but it was a mistake of yours, I think, though no doubt you meant it kindly, to mix up the two things together, and it makes it uncommonly hard upon one of the two, don’t you see? Set it right with Phillis, and I shall take my disinheriting without grumbling.”Phillis was Mr Thornton’s favourite as Jack was his wife’s, and this speech of Jack’s smoothed him down a little. But he shook his head obstinately.“Whatever I may be, I’m not a weather-cock. I made up my mind deliberately, and I’m not going to change it for any boy or girl fancies. Marry Phillis, and you and she and your heirs after you shall have Hetherton, and plenty to keep it on. Don’t marry her, and I shall find another successor. That’s all. You can’t have it more plainly.”“Oh, it’s plain enough,” said Jack with some bitterness, walking over to the window. What he thought was that it placed a wider gulf than ever between them. For he could not think that she cared about Hetherton, and he knew he did—to a certain degree; and how could he come near her again with this condition hanging over them? “Well,” he said, turning back to the fire, “then there’s no more to be said, except that I still hope you will alter your determination. I wanted a word with you about young Masters.”“What of him?”“Is he doing well?”“Just the reverse. We should have sent him off by this time if it had not been for my very good friend Mr Trent,” said Mr Thornton, pressing up his under lip and looking defiantly at his nephew.“What are his sins?”“Perhaps you don’t think so much of them in your set. We business men have an antiquated idea that it is dishonourable to give a promissory note when you have no means of meeting it when due.”“I am sure Jack would never be dishonourable,” murmured Mrs Thornton.“Ah—” said Jack musingly. “Then the money was not forthcoming?”“Certainly not.”“And you heard of it?”“I was informed by Mr Trent, who being interested in the young scamp—”“His cousin,” put in Jack.“His cousin!” Mr Thornton looked astonished for a moment. “Well, then, his cousin—very generously paid the money and got the note into his own hands. He acted throughout in the manner I should have expected from him, came to me at once, asked my advice, and begged me, if I felt it a possibility, to give the lad another chance. After consideration I consented. Pray have you anything to say against all this?”“Not to-day,” Ibbetson answered quietly.“Not to-day!” repeated his uncle. “Perhaps you intend setting yourself up as the young man’s champion against his best friend. And I tell you what, Jack. You seemed to me to be trying to pick a quarrel with Mr Trent last night. Don’t let me see anything of the sort again. You will be good enough to behave to him as my friend.”“Not as mine, at all events,” said Jack, smiling as he reflected that his uncle treated him with as much authority as if, instead of disinheriting, he had just invested him with all his worldly goods.“And why not?” demanded Mr Thornton.“That I cannot explain at present. Never mind, Uncle Peter, we shan’t clash. I’m going up to town by the next train, and shall be out of the way.”Mr Thornton’s face fell. In spite of all that had passed, he was very much disappointed. He thought Jack, who seldom gave in to him and never lost his temper, and who was therefore a very pleasant companion, would have spent Christmas with them. Under present circumstances he could not condescend to ask him to stay, but he would have liked his wife to do so in private, instead of exclaiming—“There, Peter, I told you so! Now you have driven him away. Your uncle didn’t mean it, my dear boy, though I don’t think you are right about that nice Mr Trent.”“I haven’t said anything, have I?”“Well, I suppose it means something when you decline to meet him as a friend.””‘The hand of Douglas is his own,’” quoted Jack. “I am very sorry, but I can’t do otherwise. And I must be off at once, if I am to catch the train.”“You can have the carriage,” said Mr Thornton gruffly.“No, thank you, the morning is so fine, I prefer to walk.”“Stop a moment. Then you are not going out again to Rome?”“Not unless I am obliged to do so. I shall spend Christmas with my father, and then come up for real hard work. Good-bye; good-bye, Aunt Harriet.”“Hard work!” repeated Mr Thornton with scorn, as the door closed. And yet he was feeling a reluctant admiration for the straightforwardness with which the young fellow had behaved. If he had been left alone he would probably have relented, but his wife, with the best intentions in the world, immediately rubbed him up the wrong way.“Of course you don’t mean it, Peter,” she said anxiously.Perhaps nothing irritates a man so much as being told that he does not mean what he has just proclaimed with some emphasis as his intention. He faced round—“Don’t I? I mean every word of it. I gave them both fair notice.”“Then I do think it is a shame. And there will be nobody we care for to come after us. I don’t believe you will be able to think of anyone at all.”Mr Thornton was immediately possessed with a desire to prove his prescience.“Pooh!” he said, “you don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m not by any means sure that it’s not a good thing for the property that this has happened. Jack treats it all too lightly, as if money were got together in a week. I should prefer some one who would take my name, and go on carefully building up as I have done. Such a man as Trent, for instance. Highly principled, and thoroughly trustworthy, I don’t know such another. If it hadn’t been for him I should never have known the rights of this business.”Mr Thornton banged the door to emphasise his last sentence, and then frowned, hearing Jack whistling as he ran down the steps. With the frown on his face he went in pursuit of Mr Trent.“Look here, Trent,” he began, “that young clerk’s business was plain enough, I suppose?”“Quite so,” said Trent steadily. “Your nephew has been talking of him? He seems to have taken an unaccountable prejudice against me, but I am sure I wish his efforts could prove the poor boy blameless. I have done my best in that direction, and failed. From his being a connection of my own, and from an especial cause of interest, I am peculiarly desirous for it. Nothing else could have led me to appeal to your kindness as I have done, and I assure you I cannot be sufficiently grateful.”“Never mind that,” said Mr Thornton with a wave of the hand.“Excuse me, it is impossible to forget it. I can take credit for nothing but entire frankness in the matter. Dismissal would have been ruin, and with most men dismissal must have resulted; but I could not have allowed you to remain in the dark, and your kindness in the matter may be the saving of the unhappy boy.”“What can Jack know about him?” asked Mr Thornton.“Probably some distorted account of the matter has reached him,” Trent replied calmly. “Unfortunately, as I said, your nephew is prejudiced against me. Does his opinion affect you? Because, if so, you must allow me to insist upon Masters’s dismissal.”“Affect me? Certainly not,” said Mr Thornton, swelling. “I am not likely to be influenced in my opinions by Master Jack. Besides, he seemed to take his part.”“You may be sure that I am keeping an eye upon him,” said Trent, not noticing these words. “If I see anything at all unsatisfactory, your interests will at all times be paramount to every other consideration. Have you seen the paper? I was wishing particularly to hear your opinion on last night’s news.”

Jack took care to come down late to breakfast the next morning, having no inclination to partake of it with Oliver Trent, and feeling sure that Trent would respect the punctuality which reigned at Hetherton. He had cold fare in consequence himself, though the old butler did what he could, and when it was finished, he received a message to the effect that Mr Thornton was waiting for him in the small room where he sometimes transacted business. He was a little sorry to find Mrs Thornton also there, for, although her aim was always to make peace, the result where her husband was concerned was almost invariably of an opposite nature, all her married years having failed to teach her the management of his temper. She was fonder of Jack than of Phillis, and defended him wildly, in a manner which was most exasperating to an irritable man. Jack saw at a glance as he entered that some passage at arms had already taken place, for she was sitting upright, injured and tearful, while his uncle with a very red face poked the fire furiously.

“Very sorry to disturb you so early,” he said, brandishing the poker, and looking hard at a timepiece, “we poor working men are obliged to descend to such insignificant details of life as punctuality. Of course with you it is different.”

“I don’t know about that,” said Jack, good-humouredly, “I’m afraid you’re trying to chaff me. But you ought to allow I’m not often so late.”

“That is what I told your uncle,” broke in Mrs Thornton with eagerness. “I am sure there are so many young men who come here who are so much worse—”

“Much fiddlesticks!” growled her husband. “What are those young idiots to me? However, you never can do anything that’s not perfect, so, of course I give in. I suppose I am to be told this morning that all this Italian business is just as it should be.”

“We are both sorry that you should be disappointed,” Jack said quietly, “but—”

“Disappointed! The disappointment will be on your side you will find!”

“Excuse me, I had not finished my sentence. I was going to say that grateful as I am for your kindness, this is a matter in which I could not allow anyone to dictate to me.”

“Oh, very well, sir, very well. You must go your own way. I shall not attempt to interfere. Only you will quite understand that neither you nor Phillis have anything more to look for from my hands.”

Mrs Thornton broke in appealingly. “My dear Peter! Now do not be so hasty. You know how sorry you often are when it is too late.”

“Will you hold your tongue?” said her husband, glaring at her.

“You don’t really mean it,” she went on disregarding, “you know you don’t. Jack has been about the place ever since we came here twelve years ago, and he was a nice little boy in a short jacket—”

“Willyou be quiet?”

“No, I won’t. If nobody else is here to speak, I shall tell you what I think of it. There is nobody so near you as Jack. As to all this business, you know very well that it is no one’s fault but Phillis’s, she said so herself in her letters, and I do say it is a shame that the poor boy should suffer—”

Mr Thornton was in a red heat of passion. Jack said abruptly.

“No, that is not the case. Whatever blame there is—and I suppose there always is blame, first or last, in a broken engagement—rests entirely with me. It will be very unjust, Uncle Peter, if you visit my sins on poor Phillis. I tell you honestly that I liked the thought of Hetherton at first, I dare say I should like it still; but it was a mistake of yours, I think, though no doubt you meant it kindly, to mix up the two things together, and it makes it uncommonly hard upon one of the two, don’t you see? Set it right with Phillis, and I shall take my disinheriting without grumbling.”

Phillis was Mr Thornton’s favourite as Jack was his wife’s, and this speech of Jack’s smoothed him down a little. But he shook his head obstinately.

“Whatever I may be, I’m not a weather-cock. I made up my mind deliberately, and I’m not going to change it for any boy or girl fancies. Marry Phillis, and you and she and your heirs after you shall have Hetherton, and plenty to keep it on. Don’t marry her, and I shall find another successor. That’s all. You can’t have it more plainly.”

“Oh, it’s plain enough,” said Jack with some bitterness, walking over to the window. What he thought was that it placed a wider gulf than ever between them. For he could not think that she cared about Hetherton, and he knew he did—to a certain degree; and how could he come near her again with this condition hanging over them? “Well,” he said, turning back to the fire, “then there’s no more to be said, except that I still hope you will alter your determination. I wanted a word with you about young Masters.”

“What of him?”

“Is he doing well?”

“Just the reverse. We should have sent him off by this time if it had not been for my very good friend Mr Trent,” said Mr Thornton, pressing up his under lip and looking defiantly at his nephew.

“What are his sins?”

“Perhaps you don’t think so much of them in your set. We business men have an antiquated idea that it is dishonourable to give a promissory note when you have no means of meeting it when due.”

“I am sure Jack would never be dishonourable,” murmured Mrs Thornton.

“Ah—” said Jack musingly. “Then the money was not forthcoming?”

“Certainly not.”

“And you heard of it?”

“I was informed by Mr Trent, who being interested in the young scamp—”

“His cousin,” put in Jack.

“His cousin!” Mr Thornton looked astonished for a moment. “Well, then, his cousin—very generously paid the money and got the note into his own hands. He acted throughout in the manner I should have expected from him, came to me at once, asked my advice, and begged me, if I felt it a possibility, to give the lad another chance. After consideration I consented. Pray have you anything to say against all this?”

“Not to-day,” Ibbetson answered quietly.

“Not to-day!” repeated his uncle. “Perhaps you intend setting yourself up as the young man’s champion against his best friend. And I tell you what, Jack. You seemed to me to be trying to pick a quarrel with Mr Trent last night. Don’t let me see anything of the sort again. You will be good enough to behave to him as my friend.”

“Not as mine, at all events,” said Jack, smiling as he reflected that his uncle treated him with as much authority as if, instead of disinheriting, he had just invested him with all his worldly goods.

“And why not?” demanded Mr Thornton.

“That I cannot explain at present. Never mind, Uncle Peter, we shan’t clash. I’m going up to town by the next train, and shall be out of the way.”

Mr Thornton’s face fell. In spite of all that had passed, he was very much disappointed. He thought Jack, who seldom gave in to him and never lost his temper, and who was therefore a very pleasant companion, would have spent Christmas with them. Under present circumstances he could not condescend to ask him to stay, but he would have liked his wife to do so in private, instead of exclaiming—

“There, Peter, I told you so! Now you have driven him away. Your uncle didn’t mean it, my dear boy, though I don’t think you are right about that nice Mr Trent.”

“I haven’t said anything, have I?”

“Well, I suppose it means something when you decline to meet him as a friend.”

”‘The hand of Douglas is his own,’” quoted Jack. “I am very sorry, but I can’t do otherwise. And I must be off at once, if I am to catch the train.”

“You can have the carriage,” said Mr Thornton gruffly.

“No, thank you, the morning is so fine, I prefer to walk.”

“Stop a moment. Then you are not going out again to Rome?”

“Not unless I am obliged to do so. I shall spend Christmas with my father, and then come up for real hard work. Good-bye; good-bye, Aunt Harriet.”

“Hard work!” repeated Mr Thornton with scorn, as the door closed. And yet he was feeling a reluctant admiration for the straightforwardness with which the young fellow had behaved. If he had been left alone he would probably have relented, but his wife, with the best intentions in the world, immediately rubbed him up the wrong way.

“Of course you don’t mean it, Peter,” she said anxiously.

Perhaps nothing irritates a man so much as being told that he does not mean what he has just proclaimed with some emphasis as his intention. He faced round—

“Don’t I? I mean every word of it. I gave them both fair notice.”

“Then I do think it is a shame. And there will be nobody we care for to come after us. I don’t believe you will be able to think of anyone at all.”

Mr Thornton was immediately possessed with a desire to prove his prescience.

“Pooh!” he said, “you don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m not by any means sure that it’s not a good thing for the property that this has happened. Jack treats it all too lightly, as if money were got together in a week. I should prefer some one who would take my name, and go on carefully building up as I have done. Such a man as Trent, for instance. Highly principled, and thoroughly trustworthy, I don’t know such another. If it hadn’t been for him I should never have known the rights of this business.”

Mr Thornton banged the door to emphasise his last sentence, and then frowned, hearing Jack whistling as he ran down the steps. With the frown on his face he went in pursuit of Mr Trent.

“Look here, Trent,” he began, “that young clerk’s business was plain enough, I suppose?”

“Quite so,” said Trent steadily. “Your nephew has been talking of him? He seems to have taken an unaccountable prejudice against me, but I am sure I wish his efforts could prove the poor boy blameless. I have done my best in that direction, and failed. From his being a connection of my own, and from an especial cause of interest, I am peculiarly desirous for it. Nothing else could have led me to appeal to your kindness as I have done, and I assure you I cannot be sufficiently grateful.”

“Never mind that,” said Mr Thornton with a wave of the hand.

“Excuse me, it is impossible to forget it. I can take credit for nothing but entire frankness in the matter. Dismissal would have been ruin, and with most men dismissal must have resulted; but I could not have allowed you to remain in the dark, and your kindness in the matter may be the saving of the unhappy boy.”

“What can Jack know about him?” asked Mr Thornton.

“Probably some distorted account of the matter has reached him,” Trent replied calmly. “Unfortunately, as I said, your nephew is prejudiced against me. Does his opinion affect you? Because, if so, you must allow me to insist upon Masters’s dismissal.”

“Affect me? Certainly not,” said Mr Thornton, swelling. “I am not likely to be influenced in my opinions by Master Jack. Besides, he seemed to take his part.”

“You may be sure that I am keeping an eye upon him,” said Trent, not noticing these words. “If I see anything at all unsatisfactory, your interests will at all times be paramount to every other consideration. Have you seen the paper? I was wishing particularly to hear your opinion on last night’s news.”

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