CHAPTER XI.

"I have no other but a woman's reason:I think him so, because I think him so."—Shakespeare.

"Where is papa?" she asks, meeting one of the servants in the hall. Hearing he is out, and will not be back for some time, she, too, turns again to the open door, and, as though the house is too small to contain all the thoughtsthat throng her breast, she walks out into the air again, and passes into the garden, where autumn, though kindly and slow in its advances, is touching everything with the hand of death.

"Heavily hangs the broad sunflowerOver its grave i' the earth so chilly;Heavily hangs the hollyhock,Heavily hangs the tiger lily."

With a sigh she quits her beloved garden, and wanders still! farther abroad into the deep woods that "have put their glory on," and are dressed in tender russets, and sad greens, and fading tints, that meet and melt into each other.

The dry leaves are falling, and lie crackling under foot. The daylight is fading, softly, imperceptibly, but surely. There is yet a glow from the departing sunlight, that, sinking lazily beyond the distant hills, tinges with gold the browning earth that in her shroud of leaves is lying.

But death, or pain, or sorrow, has no part with Clarissa to-day. She is quite happy,—utterly content. She marks not the dying of the year, but rather the beauty of the sunset. She heeds not the sullen roar of the ever-increasing streamlets, that winter will swell into small but angry rivers; hearing only the songs of the sleepy birds as they croon their night-songs in the boughs above her.

When an hour has passed, and twilight has come up and darkened all the land, she goes back again to her home, and, reaching the library, looks in, to find her father sitting there, engrossed as usual with some book, which he is carefully annotating as he reads.

"Are you very busy?" asks she, coming slowly up to him. "I want to be with you for a little while."

"That is right. I am never too busy to talk to you. Why, it is quite an age since last I saw you!—not since breakfast; where have you been all day?"

"You are a pet," says Miss Peyton, in a loving whisper, rubbing her cheek tenderly against his, as a reward for his pretty speech. "I have been at the vicarage, and have pleaded Georgie's cause so successfully that I have won it; and have made them half in love with her already."

"A special pleader indeed. Diplomacy is your forte: you should keep to it."

"I mean to. I shouldn't plead in vain with you, should I?" She has grown somewhat earnest.

"Oh! with me!" says her father, with much self-contempt; "I have given up all that sort of thing, long ago. I know how much too much you are for me, and I am too wise to swim against the tide. Only I would entreat you to be merciful as you are strong."

"What a lot of nonsense you do talk, you silly boy!" says Clarissa, who is still leaning over his chair in such a position that he cannot see her face. Perhaps, could he have seen it, he might have noticed how pale it is beyond its wont. "Well, the Redmonds seemed quite pleased, and I shall write to Georgie to-morrow. It will be nice for her to be here, near me. It may keep her from being lonely and unhappy."

"Well, it ought," says George Peyton. "What did the vicar say?"

"The vicar always says just what I say," replies she, a trifle saucily, and with a quick smile.

"Poor man! his is the common lot," says her father; and then, believing she has said all she wants to say, and being filled with a desire to return to his book and his notes, he goes on: "So that was the weighty matter you wanted to discuss, eh? Is that all your news?"

"Not quite," returns she, in a low tone.

"No? You are rich in conversation this evening. Who is it we are now to criticise?"

"The person you love best,—I hope."

"Why, that will be you," says George Peyton.

"You are sure?" says Clarissa, a little tremulously; and then her father turns in his chair and tries to read her face.

"No; stay just as you are; I can tell you better if you do not look at me," she whispers, entreatingly, moving him with her hands back to his former position.

"What is it, Clarissa?" he asks, hastily, though he is far from suspecting the truth. Some faint thought of James Scrope (why he knows not) comes to him at this moment, and not unpleasingly. "Tell me, darling. Anything that concerns you must, of necessity, concern me also."

"Yes, I am glad I know that," she says, speaking withsome difficulty, but very earnestly. "To-day I met Horace Branscombe."

"Yes?" His face changes a little, from vague expectancy to distinct disappointment; but then she cannot see his face.

"And he asked me to be his wife—and—I said, Yes—if—if it pleases you, papa."

It is over. The dreaded announcement is made. The words that have cost her so much to utter have gone out into the air; and yet there is no answer!

For a full minute silence reigns, and then Clarissa lays her hand imploringly upon her father's shoulder. He is looking straight before him, his expression troubled and grave, his mouth compressed.

"Speak to me," says Clarissa, entreatingly.

After this he does speak.

"I wish it had been Dorian," he says, impulsively.

Then she takes her hand from his shoulder, as though it can no longer rest there in comfort, and her eyes fill with disappointed tears.

"Why do you say that?" she asks, with some vehemence. "It sounds as if—as if you undervalued Horace! Yet what reason have you for doing so? What do you know against him?"

"Nothing, literally nothing," answers Mr. Peyton, soothingly, yet with a plaintive ring in his voice that might suggest the idea of his being sorry that such answer must be made. "I am sure Horace is very much to be liked."

"How you say that!"—reproachfully. "It sounds untrue! Yet it can't be. What could any one say against Horace?"

"My dear, I said nothing."

"No, but you insinuated it. You said Dorian was his superior."

"Well, I think he is the better man of the two," said Mr. Peyton, desperately, hardly knowing what to say, and feeling sorely aggrieved in that he is compelled to say what must hurt her.

"I cannot understand you; you said you know nothing prejudicial to Horace (it is impossible you should), and yet you think Dorian the better man. If he has done no wrong, why should any one be a better man? Why drawthe comparison at all? For the first time in all your life, you are unjust."

"No, Clarissa, I am not. At least, I think not. Injustice is a vile thing. But, somehow, Sartoris and I had both made up our minds that you would marry Dorian, and——"

He pauses.

"Then your only objection to poor Horace is that he is not Dorian?" asks she, anxiously, letting her hand once more rest upon his shoulder.

"Well, no doubt there is a great deal in that," returns he, evasively, hard put to it to answer his inquisitor with discretion.

"And if Dorian had never been, Horace would be the one person in all the world you would desire for me?" pursues she, earnestly.

George Peyton makes no reply to this,—perhaps because he has not one ready. Clarissa, stepping back, draws her breath a little quickly, and a dark fire kindles in her eyes. In her eyes, too, large tears rise and shine.

"It is because he is poor," she says, in a low tone, that has some contempt in it, and some passionate disappointment.

"Do not mistake me," says her father, speaking hastily, but with dignity. Rising, he pushes back his chair, and turning, faces her in the gathering twilight. "Were he the poorest man alive, and you loved him, and he was worthy of you, I would give you to him without a murmur. Not that"—hurriedly—"I consider Horace unworthy of you, but the idea is new, strange, and——the other day, Clarissa, you were a child."

"I am your child still,—always." She is sitting on his knee now, with her arms round his neck, and her cheek against his; and he is holding hersveltelissome figure very closely to him. She is the one thing he has to love on earth; and just now she seems unspeakably—almost painfully—dear to him.

"Always, my dear," he reiterates, somewhat unsteadily.

"You have seen so little of Horace lately," she goes on, presently, trying to find some comfortable reason for what seems to her her father's extraordinary blindness to her lover's virtues. "When you see a great deal of him, youwill love him! As it is, darling, do—dosay you like him very much, or you will break my heart!"

"I like him very much," replies he, obediently, repeating his lesson methodically, while feeling all the time that he is being compelled to say something against his will, without exactly knowing why he should feel so.

"And you are quite pleased that I am going to marry him?" reading his face with her clear eyes; she is very pale, and strangely nervous.

"My darling, my one thought is for your happiness." There is evasion mixed with the affection in this speech; and Clarissa notices it.

"No: say you are glad I am going to marry him," she says, remorselessly.

"How can you expect me to say that," exclaims he, mournfully, "when you know your wedding-day must part us?"

"Indeed it never shall!" cries she, vehemently; and then, overcome by the emotion of the past hour, and indeed of the whole day, she gives way and bursts into tears. "Papa, how can you say that? To be parted from you! We must be the same to each other always: my wedding-day would be a miserable one indeed if it separated me from you."

Then he comforts her, fondly caressing the pretty brown head that lies upon his heart, as it had lain in past years, when the slender girl of to-day was a little lisping motherless child. He calls her by all the endearing names he had used to her then, until her sobs cease, and only a sigh, now and again, tells of the storm just past.

"When is it to be?" he asks her, after a little while. "Not too soon, my pet, I hope?"

"Not for a whole year. He said something about November, but I could not leave you in such a hurry. We must have one more Christmas all to ourselves."

"You thought of that," he says, tenderly. "Oh, Clarissa, I hope this thing is for your good. Think of it seriously, earnestly, while you have time. Do not rush blindly into a compact that must be binding on you all your life."

"I hope itwill befor all my life," returns she, gravely. "To be parted from Horace would be the worst thing thatcould befall me. Always remember that, papa. I am bound to him with all my heart and soul."

"So be it!" says George Peyton, solemnly. A sigh escapes him.

For some time neither speaks. The twilight is giving place to deeper gloom, the night is fast approaching, yet they do not stir. What the girl's thoughts may be at this moment, who can say? As for her father, he is motionless, except that his lips move, though no sound comes from them. He is secretly praying, perhaps, for the welfare of his only child, to her mother in heaven, who at this time must surely be looking down upon her with tenderest solicitude. Clarissa puts her lips softly to his cheek.

"Our engagement will be such a long one, that we think—"

"Yes?"

"We should like it keep it secret. You will say nothing about it to any one?"

"Not until you give me leave. You have acted wisely, I think, in putting off your marriage for a while." Almost unconsciously he is telling himself how time changes all things, and how many plans and affections can be altered in twelve months.

"But surely you will tell James Scrope," he goes on, after a while: "that will not be making it public. He has known you and been fond of you ever since you were a baby; and it seems uncivil and unfriendly to keep him in the dark."

"Then tell him; but no one else now, papa. I quite arranged for James, he is such an old friend, and so nice in every way."

Here she smiles involuntarily, and, after a little bit, laughs outright, in spite of herself, as though at some ridiculous recollection.

"Do you know," she says, "when I told Horace I thought I should like Sir James to know of our engagement, I really think he felt a little jealous! At least, he didn't half like it. How absurd!—wasn't it? Fancy being jealous of dear old Jim?"

"Old!—old! He is a long way off that. Why, all you silly little girls think a man past twenty-nine to be hovering on the brink of the grave. He can not be more than thirty-three, or so."

"He is very dreadfully old, for all that," says Miss Peyton, wilfully. "He is positively ancient; I never knew any one so old. He is so profound, and earnest, and serious, and——"

"What on earth has he done to you, that you should call him all these terrible names?" says Mr. Peyton, laughing.

"He scolds me," says Clarissa, "he lectures me, and tells me I should have an aim in life. You have been my aim, darling, and I have been very devoted to it, haven't I?"

"You have, indeed. But now I shall be out in the cold, of course." His tone is somewhat wistful. "That is all one gains by lavishing one's affection upon a pretty child and centring one's every thought and hope upon her."

"No, you are wrong there; it must be something to gain love that will last for ever." She tightens her arm around his neck. "What a horrid little speech! I could almost fancy James dictated it to you. He is a sceptic, an unbeliever, and you have imbibed his notions. Cynical people are a bore. You wouldn't, for example, have me fall in love with James, would you?"

"Indeed I would," says George Peyton, boldly. "He is just the one man I would choose for you,—'not Launcelot, nor another.' He is so genuine, so thorough in every way. And then the estates join, and that. I really wish you had fallen in love with Scrope."

"I love you dearly,—dearly," says Miss Peyton; "but you are a dreadful goose! James is the very last man to grow sentimental about any one,—least of all, me. He thinks me of no account at all, and tells me so in very polite language occasionally. So you see what a fatal thing it would have been if I had given my heart to him. He would have broken it, and I should have died, and you would have put up a touching, and elaborate tablet to my memory, and somebody would have planted snowdrops on my grave. There would have been a tragedy in Pullingham, with Jim for its hero."

"You take a different view of the case from mine. Ibelieve there would have been no broken heart, and no early grave, and you would have been happy ever after."

"That is a more comfortable theory, certainly forme. But think what a miserable lifehewould have had with me forever by his side."

"A very perfect life, I think," says Mr. Peyton, looking with pardonable pride upon the half-earnest, half-laughing, and wholly lovely face so near him. "I don't know what more a fellow could expect."

"You see I was right. I said you were a goose," says Miss Peyton, irreverently. But she pats his hand, in the very sweetest manner possible, as she says it. Then she goes on:

"Horace said he would come up to-morrow to speak to you."

"Very well, dear. That is the usual thing, I suppose. I hope he won't be long-winded, or lachrymose, or anything that way. When a thing is done it is done, and discussion is so unnecessary."

"Promise me to be very, very kind to him."

"I shan't eat him, if you mean that," says Mr. Peyton, half irritably. "What do you think I am going to say to him? 'Is thy father an ogre, that he should do this thing?' But have you quite made up your mind to this step? Remember there will be no undoing it."

"I know that; but I feel no fear." She has grown pale again. "I love him. How should I know regret when with him? I believe in him, and trust him; and I know he is worthy of all my trust."

Mr. Peyton sighs. Some words come to his memory, and he repeats them,—slowly, beneath his breath,—

"There are no tricks in plain and simple faith!"

Truly, her faith is pure and simple, and free from thought of guile.

"I wonder what James Scrope will say to it all?" he says, presently.

"He never says very much on any subject, does he? If you are going over to the Hall, will you tell him about it?"

"No; tell him yourself," says her father, in a curious tone.

"There is the dressing bell," says Clarissa getting up lazily. "I don't feel a bit like eating my dinner, do you know?"

"Nonsense! The love-sickrôlewon't suit you. And people who don't eat dinner get pale, and lose all their pretty looks. Run away, now, and don't be long. I feel it would be injudicious to put cook into a tantrum again to-night, after last night's explosion. So go and make yourself lovely."

"I'll do my best," says Clarissa, modestly.

"I cannot but remember such things were,That were most precious to me.Oh! I could play the woman with mine eyes."—Macbeth.

"I cannot but remember such things were,That were most precious to me.

Oh! I could play the woman with mine eyes."—Macbeth.

"To tell him herself" has some strange attraction for Clarissa. To hear face to face, what this her oldest friend will say to her engagement with Horace is a matter of great anxiety to her. She will know at once by his eyes and smile whether he approves or disapproves her choice.

Driving along the road to Scrope, behind her pretty ponies, "Cakes" and "Ale," with her little rough Irish terrier, "Secretary Bill," sitting bolt upright beside her, as solemn as half a dozen judges, she wonders anxiously how she shall begin to tell James about it.

She hopes to goodness he won't be in his ultra-grave mood, that, as a rule, leads up to his finding fault with everything, and picking things to pieces, and generally condemning the sound judgment of others. (As a rule, Clarissa is a little unfair in her secret comments on James Scrope's character.) It will be so much better if she can only come upon him out of doors, in his homeliest mood, with a cigar between his lips, or his pipe. Yes, his pipe will be even better. Men are even more genial with a pipe than with the goodliest habana.

Well, of course, if he is the great friend heprofessesto be,—heavy emphasis on the verb, and a little flick on the whip on "Cakes's" quarters, which the spirited but docile creature resents bitterly,—he must be glad at the thoughtthat she is not going to leave the country,—is, in fact, very likely to spend most of her time still in Pullingham.

Not all of it, of course. Horace has duties, and though in her secret soul she detests town life, still there is a joy In the thought that she will be with him, helping him, encouraging him in his work, rejoicing in his successes, sympathyzing with his fai——, but no, of course there will be no failures! How stupid of her to think of that, when he is so clever, so learned, so——

Yet it would be sweet, too, to have him fail once or twice (just a little, insignificant, not-worth-speaking-about sort of a defeat), if only to let him see how she could love him even the more for it.

She blushes, and smiles to herself, and, turning suddenly, bestows a most unexpected caress upon "Secretary Bill," who wags his short tail in return—that is, what they left him of it—lovingly, if somewhat anxiously, and glances at her sideways out of his wonderful eyes, as though desirous of assuring himself of her sanity.

Oh, yes, of course James will be delighted. And he will tell her so with the gentle smile that so lights up his face, and he will take her hand, and say he is so glad, so pleased, and——

With a sharp pang she remembers how her father was neither pleased nor glad when she confided her secret to him. He had been, indeed, distressed and confounded. He had certainly tried his hardest to conceal from her these facts, but she had seen them all the same. She could not be deceived where her father was concerned. He had felt unmistakable regret——"Be quiet, Bill! You sha'n't come out driving again if you can't sit still! What a bore a dog is sometimes!"

Well, after all, he is her father. It is only natural he should dislike the thought of parting from her. She thinks, with an instant softening of her heart, of how necessary she has become to him, ever since her final return home. Before that he had been dull anddistrait; now he is bright and cheerful, if still rather too devoted to his books to be quite good for him.

He might, indeed, be forgiven for regarding the man who should take her from him as an enemy. But Jim is different; he is a mere friend,—a dear and valued one, itis true, but still only a friend,—a being utterly independent of her, who can be perfectly happy without her, and therefore, of course, unprejudiced.

He will, she feels sure, say everything kind and sweet to her, and wish her joy sincerely.

James, too, is very sensible, and will see the good points in Horace. He evidently likes him; at least, they have always appeared excellent friends when together. Dorian, of course, is the general favorite,—she acknowledges that,—just because he is a little more open, more outspoken perhaps,—easier to understand; whereas, she firmly believes, she alone of all the world is capable of fully appreciating the innate goodness of Horace!

Here she turns in the huge gateway of Scrope; and the terrier, growing excited, gives way to a sharp bark, and the ponies swing merrily down the avenue; and just before she comes to the hall door her heart fails her, and something within her—that something that never errs—tells her that James Scrope will not betray any pleasure at her tidings.

Before she quite reaches the hall door, a groom comes from a side-walk, and, seeing him, Clarissa pulls up the ponies sharply, and asks the man,—

"Is Sir James at home?"

"Yes, miss; he is in the stables, I think; leastways, he was half an hour agone. Shall I tell him you are here?"

"No, thank you. I shall go and find him myself."

See flings her reins to her own groom, and, with Bill trotting at her heels, goes round to the yard, glad, at least, that her first hope is fulfilled,—that he is out of doors.

As she goes through the big portals into the ivied yard, she sees before her one of the stablemen on his knees, supporting in his arms an injured puppy: with all a woman's tenderness he is examining the whining little brute's soft, yellow paw, as it hangs mournfully downwards.

Sir James, with a pipe in his mouth,—this latter fact Clarissa hails with rapture,—is also bending anxiously over the dog, and is so absorbed in his contemplation ofit as not to notice Clarissa's approach until she is close beside him.

"What is the matter with the poor little thing?" she asks, earnestly, gazing with deep pity at the poor puppy, that whines dismally and glances up at her with the peculiarly tearful appealing expression that belongs to setters.

"A knock of a stone, miss, nayther more nor less," exclaims the man, angrily. "That's the honest truth, Sir James, you take my word for't. Some o' them rascally boys as is ever and allus about this 'ere yard, and spends their lives shyin' stones at every blessed sign they sets their two eyes on, has done this. 'Ere's one o' the best pups o' the season a'most ruined, and no satisfaction for it. It's a meracle if he comes round (quiet there, my beauty, and easy there now, I tell ye), and nobody does anything."

The old man stops, and regards his master reprovingly, nay, almost contemptuously.

"I really don't see why you should think it was the boys, Joe?" says Sir James, meekly.

"'Twarn't anythin' else, anyway," persists Joe, doggedly.

"Poor little fellow!—dear fellow!" murmurs Miss Peyton, caressingly, to the great soft setter pup, patting its head lovingly, as it barks madly, and makes frantic efforts to get from Joe's arms to hers, while Bill shrieks in concert, being filled with an overwhelming amount of sympathy.

"Better leave him to me, miss," says Joe, regarding the injured innocent with a parent's eye. "He knows me. I'll treat him proper," raising his old honest weather-beaten face to Clarissa, in a solemn reassuring manner, "you be bound. Yet them pups" (disgustedly) "is like children, allus ungrateful. For the sake o' your handsome face, now, he'd go to you if he could, forgetful of all my kindness to him. Well, 'tis the way o' the world, I believe," winds up old Joe, rising from his knees,—cheered, perhaps, by the thought that his favorite pup, if only following the common dictates of animals, is no worse than all others.

He grumbles something else in an undertone, and finally carries off the puppy to his kennel.

"I am too amazed for speech," says Sir James, rising also to his feet, and contemplating Clarissa with admiration. "That man," pointing to Joe's retiring figure, "has been in my father's service, and in mine, for fifty years, and never before did I hear a civil word from his lips. I think he said your face was handsome, just now?—or was I deceived?"

"I like Joe," says Miss Peyton, elevating her rounded chin: "I downright esteem him. He knows where beauty lies."

"How he differs from the rest of the world!" says Scrope, not looking at her.

"Does he? That is unkind, I think. Why," says Clarissa, with a soft laugh, full of mischief, "should any one be blind to the claims of beauty?"

"Why, indeed? It is, as I have been told, 'a joy forever.' No one nowadays disputes anything they are told, do they?"

"Don't be cynical, Jim," says Miss Peyton, softly. What an awful thing it will be if, now when her story is absolutely upon her lips, he relapses into his unsympathetic mood!

"Well, I won't, then," says Scrope, amiably, which much relieves her. And then he looks lovingly at his pipe, which he has held (as in duty bound) behind his back ever since her arrival, and sighs heavily, and proceeds to knock the ashes out of it.

"Oh, don't do that," says Clarissa, entreatingly. "I really wish you wouldn't!" (This is the strict truth.) "You know you are dying for a smoke, and I—I perfectly love the smell of tobacco. There is, therefore, no reason why you should deny yourself."

"Are you really quite sure?" says Scrope, politely and hopefully.

"Quite,—utterly. Put it in your mouth again. And—do you mind?"—with a swift glance upwards, from under her soft plush hat,—"I want you to come for a little walk with me."

"To the end of the world, withyou, would be a short walk," says Scrope, with a half laugh, but a ring in his tone that, to a woman heart-whole and unoccupied with thoughts of another man, must have meant much. "Command me, madam."

"I have something very—very—veryimportant to tellyou," says Miss Peyton, earnestly. This time she looks at her long black gloves, not at him, and makes a desperate effort to button an already obedient little bit of ivory.

They have turned into the orchard, now bereft of blossom, and are strolling carelessly along one of its side-paths. The earth is looking brown, the trees bare; for Autumn—greedy season—has stretched its hand "to reap the ripened fruits the which the earth had yold."

"Are you listening to me?" asks she, presently, seeing he makes no response to her first move.

"Intently." He has not the very faintest idea of her meaning, so speaks in a tone light and half amused, that leads her to betray her secret sooner than otherwise she might have done. "Is it an honest mystery," he says, carelessly, "or a common ghost story, or a state secret? Break it to me gently."

"There is nothing to break," says Clarissa, softly. Then she looks down at the strawberry borders at her side,—now brown and aged,—and then says, in a very low tone, "I am going to be married!"

There is a dead silence. Sir James says nothing. He walks on beside her with an unfaltering footstep, his head erect as ever, his hands clasped in their old attitude behind his back. The sun is shining; some birds are warbling faintly (as though under protest) in some neighboring thicket; yet, I think Scrope neither sees the sun, nor heeds the birds, nor knows for the moment that life flows within him, after that little, low-toned speech of hers.

Then he awakes from his stupor, and, rousing himself, says, huskily, yet with a certain amount of self-possession that deceives her,—

"You were saying——?"

"Only that I am going to be married," repeats Clarissa, in a somewhat changed tone. The nervousness had gone out of it, and the natural hesitation; she is speaking now quite composedly and clearly, as if some surprise betrays itself in her voice.

Scrope is aware that his heart is beating madly. He has stopped, and is leaning against the trunk of an apple-tree, facing Clarissa, who is standing in the middle of the path. His face is ashen gray, but his manner is quite calm.

"Who is it?" he asks, presently, very slowly.

"Mr. Branscombe,"—coldly.

"Dorian?"

"No. Horace."

"I wish it had been Dorian," he says, impulsively.

It is the last straw.

"And why?" demands she, angrily. She is feeling wounded, disappointed at his reception of her news; and now the climax has come. Like her father, he, too, prefers Dorian,—nay, by his tone, casts a slur upon Horace. The implied dislike cuts her bitterly to the heart.

"What evil thing have you to say of Horace," she goes on, vehemently, "that you so emphatically declare in favor of Dorian? When you are with him you profess great friendship for him, and now behind his back you seek to malign him to the woman he loves."

"You are unjust," says Scrope, wearily. "I know nothing bad of Horace. I merely said I wished it had been Dorian. No, I have nothing to say against Horace."

"Then why do you look as if you had?" says Miss Peyton, pettishly, frowning a little, and letting her eyes rest on him for a moment only, to withdraw them again with a deeper frown. "Your manner suggests many things. You are like papa—" She pauses, feeling she has made a false move, and wishes vainly her last words unsaid.

"Does your father disapprove, then?" asks he, more through idleness than a desire to know.

Instinctively he feels that, no matter what obstacles may be thrown in this girl's way, still she will carry her point and marry the man she has elected to love. Nay, will not difficulties but increase her steadfastness, and make strong the devotion that is growing in her heart?

Not until now, this moment, when hope has died and despair sprung into life, does he know how freely, how altogether, he has lavished the entire affection of his soul upon her. During all these past few months he has lived and thought and hoped but for her; and now—all this is at an end.

Like a heavy blow from some unseen hand this terrible news has fallen upon him, leaving him spent and broken, and filled with something that is agonized surprise at the depth of the misfortune that has overtaken him. It is asa revelation, the awakening to a sense of the longing that has been his,—to the knowledge of the cruel strength of the tenderness that binds his heart to hers.

With a slow wonder he lifts his eyes and gazes at her. There is a petulant expression round her mobile lips, a faint bending of her brows that bespeaks discontent, bordering upon anger, yet, withal, she is quite lovely,—so sweet, yet so unsympathetic; so gentle, yet so ignorant of all he is at present feeling.

With a sickening dread he looks forward to the future that still may lie before him. It seems to him that he can view, lying stretched out in the far distance, a lonely cheerless road, over which he must travel whether he will or not,—a road bare and dusty and companionless, devoid of shade, or rest, or joy, or that love that could transform the barrenness into a "flowery mead."

"He that loses hope"—says Congreve—"may part with anything." To Scrope, just now, it seems as though hope and he have parted company forever. The past has been so dear, with all its vague beliefs and uncertain dreamings,—all too sweet for realization,—that the present appears unbearable.

The very air seems dark, the sky leaden, the clouds sad and lowering. Vainly he tries to understand how he has come to love, with such a boundless passion, this girl, who loves him not at all, but has surrendered herself wholly to one unworthy of her,—one utterly incapable of comprehending the nobility and truthfulness of her nature.

The world, that only yesterday seemed so desirable a place, to-day has lost its charm.

"What is life, when stripped of its disguise? A thing to be desired it cannot be." With him it seems almost at an end. An unsatisfactory thing, too, at its best,—a mere "glimpse into the world of might have been."

Some words read a week ago come to him now, and ring their changes on his brain. "Rien ne va plus,"—the hateful words return to him with a pertinacity not to be subdued. It is with difficulty he refrains from uttering them aloud.

"No; he does not disapprove," says Clarissa, interrupting his reflections at this moment: "he has given his full consent to my engagement." She speaks somewhat slowly,as if remembrance weighs upon her. "And, even if he had not, there is still something that must give me happiness: it is the certainty that Horace loves me, and that I love him."

Though unmeant, this is a cruel blow. Sir James turns away, and, paling visibly,—had she cared to see it,—plucks a tiny piece of bark from the old tree against which he is leaning.

There is something in his face that, though she understands it not, moves Clarissa to pity.

"You will wish me some good wish, after all, Jim, won't you?" she says, very sweetly, almost pathetically.

"No, I cannot," returns he with a brusquerie foreign to him. "To do so would be actual hypocrisy."

There is silence for a moment: Clarissa grows a little pale, in her turn. Inhisturn, he takes no notice of her emotion, having his face averted. Then, in a low, faint, choked voice, she breaks the silence.

"If I had been wise," she says, "I should have stayed at home this morning, and kept my confidences to myself. Yet I wanted to tell you. So I came, thinking, believing, I should receive sympathy from you; and now what have I got? Only harsh and cruel words! If I had known—"

"Clarissa!"

"Yes! If any one had told me you would so treat me, I should—should—"

It is this supreme moment she chooses to burst out crying; and she cries heartily (by which I mean that she gives way to grief of the most vehement and agonized description) for at least five minutes, without a cessation, making her lament openly, and in a carefully unreserved fashion, intended to reduce his heart to water. And not in vain isher"weak endeavor."

Sir James, when the first sob falls upon his ear, turns from her, and, as though unable to endure the sound, deliberately walks away from her down the garden path.

When he gets quite to the end of it, however, and knows the next turn will hide him from sight of her tears or sound of her woe, he hesitates, then is lost, and finally coming back again to where she is standing, hidden by a cambric handkerchief, lays his hand upon her arm. At his touch her sobs increase.

"Don't do that!" he says, so roughly that she knows his heart is bleeding. "Do you hear me, Clarissa? Stop crying. It isn't doing you any good, and it is driving me mad. What has happened?—what is making you so unhappy?"

"Youare," says Miss Peyton, with a final sob, and a whole octave of reproach in her voice. "Anything so unkind I never knew. And just when I had come all the way over here to tell you what I would tell nobody else except papa! There was a time, Jim" (with a soft but upbraiding glance), "when you would have been sweet and kind and good to me on an occasion like this."

She moves a step nearer to him, and lays her hand—the little, warm, pulsing hand he loves so passionately—upon his arm. Her glance is half offended, half beseeching: Scrope's strength of will gives way, and, metaphorically speaking, he lays himself at her feet.

"If I have been uncivil to you, forgive me," he says, taking her hand from his arm, and holding it closely in his own. "You do not know; you cannot understand; and I am glad you do not. Be happy! There is no substantial reason why you should not extract from life every sweet it can afford: you are young, the world is before you, and the love you desire is yours. Dry your eyes, Clarissa: your tears pierce my heart."

He has quite regained his self-control by this time, and having conquered emotion, speaks dispassionately. Clarissa, as he has said, does not understand the terrible struggle it costs him to utter these words in an ordinary tone, and with a face which, if still pale, betrays no mental excitement.

She smiles. Her tears vanish. She sighs contentedly, and moves the hand that rests in his.

"I am so glad we are friends again," she says. "And now tell me why you were so horrid at first: you might just as well have begun as you have ended: it would have saved trouble and time, and" (reproachfully) "all my tears."

"Perhaps I value you so highly that I hate the thought of losing you," says Scrope, palliating the ugliness of his conduct as best he may. His voice is very earnest.

"How fond you are of me!" says Miss Peyton, with some wonder and much pleasure.

To this he finds it impossible to make any answer.

"Whenever I wish I had had a brother, I always think of you," goes on she, pleasantly, "you are so—so—quiet, and your scoldings so half-hearted. Now, even though rather late, wish me joy."

"My dear, dear girl," says Scrope, "if I were to speak forever, I could not tell you how I long for and desire your happiness. If your life proves as calm and peaceful as I wish it, it will be a desirable life indeed! You have thought of me as your brother: let me be your brother indeed,—one in whom you can confide and trust should trouble overtake you."

He says this very solemnly, and again Clarissa's eyes fill with tears. She does now what she has not done since she was a little, impulsive, loving girl: she lifts her head and presses her lips to his cheek.

For one brief moment he holds her in his arms, returning her caress, warmly, it is true, but with ineffable sadness. To her, this embrace is but the sealing of a fresh bond between them. To him it is a silent farewell, a final wrenching of the old sweet ties that have endured so long.

Up to this she has been everything to him,—far more than he ever dreamed until the rude awakening came,—the one bright spot in his existence; but now all is changed, and she belongs to another.

He puts her gently from him, and, with a kindly word and smile, leads her to the garden gate, and so round to where her ponies are impatiently awaiting her coming: after which he bids her good-by, and, turning, goes indoors, and locks himself into his own private den.

"The snow is on the mountain,The frost is on the vale,The ice hangs o'er the fountain,The storm rides on the gale."—Ouseley.

Clarissa's letter to Georgie Broughton receives a most tender response,—tender as it is grateful. The girl writesthankfully, heartily, and expresses almost passionate delight at Clarissa's instantaneous and ready sympathy.

The letter is short, but full of feeling. It conveys to Clarissa the sad impression that the poor child's heart is dry and barren for lack of that gracious dew called love, without which not one of us can taste the blessedness of life.

Back to Index Next