Early school was excused that morning, as a matter of necessity; for the master—relying upon the holiday—did not emerge from his bed-chamber until between eight and nine; and you may be very sure that the boys did not proceed to the college hall of their own accord. But after breakfast they assembled as usual at half-past nine, and the master, uneasy and angry, went in also to the minute. Henry Arkell failed to make his appearance, and it was remarked upon by the masters.
"By the way," said Mr. Wilberforce, "how came he to fall down in college yesterday? Does anybody know?"
"Please, sir, he trod upon a surplice," said Vaughan the bright. "Lewis junior says so."
"Trod upon a surplice!" repeated Mr. Wilberforce. "How could he do that? You were standing. Your surplices are not long enough to be trodden upon. What do you mean by saying that, Lewis junior?"
Lewis junior's face turned red, and he mentally vowed a licking to Bright Vaughan, for being so free with his tongue; but he looked up at the master with an expression as innocent as a lamb's.
"I only said he might have trodden on a surplice, sir. Perhaps he was giddy yesterday afternoon, as he fainted afterwards."
The subject dropped. The choristers went into college for service at ten o'clock, but the master remained in his place. It was not his week for chanting. Before eleven they were back again; and the master had called up the head class, and was again remarking on the absence of Henry Arkell, when the dean and Mr. St. John walked into the hall. Mr. Wilberforce rose, and pushed his spectacles to the top of his brow in his astonishment.
"Have the goodness to call up Aultane," said the dean, after a few words of courtesy, as he stood by the master's desk.
"Senior, or junior, Mr. Dean?"
"The chorister."
"Aultane, junior, walk up," cried the master. And Aultane, junior, walked up, wishing himself and his tongue and the dean, and all the rest of the world within sight and hearing, were safely boxed up in the coffins in the cathedral crypt.
"Now, Aultane," began the dean, regarding him with as much severity as it was in the dean's nature to regard anyone, even a rebellious college boy, "you preferred a charge to me yesterday against the senior chorister; that he had been pledging his gold medal at Rutterley's. Have the goodness to substantiate it."
"Oh, my heart alive, I wish he'd drop through the floor!" groaned Aultane to himself. "What will become of me? What a jackass I was!"
"I did not enter into the matter then," proceeded the dean, for Aultane remained silent. "You had no business to make the complaint to me on a Sunday. What grounds have you for your charge?"
Aultane turned red and white, and green and yellow. The dean eyed him closely. "What proof have you?"
"I have no proof," faltered Aultane.
"No proof! Did you make the charge to me, knowing it was false?"
"No, sir. Hehaspledged his medal."
"Tell me how you know it. Mr. St. John knows he had it in his own house on Saturday."
Aultane shuffled first on one foot, and then on the other; and the dean, failing explanation from him, appealed to the school, but all disclaimed cognizance of the matter. "If you behave in this extraordinary way, you will compel me to conclude that you have made the charge to prejudice me against Arkell; who, I hear, had a serious charge to prefer againstyoufor ill-behaviour in college," continued the dean to Aultane.
"If you will send to the place, you will find his medal is there, sir," sullenly replied Aultane.
"The shortest plan would be to send to Arkell's, and request him to dispatch his medal here, if the dean approves," interposed Mr. St. John, speaking for the first time.
The dean did approve, and Cookesley was despatched on the errand. He brought back the medal. Henry was not in the way, but Mrs. Arkell had found it and given it to him.
"Now what do you mean by your conduct?" sternly asked the dean of Aultane.
"I know he pledged it on Saturday, if he has got it out to-day," persisted the discomfited Aultane, who was in a terrible state, between wishing to prove his charge true, and the fear of compromising himself.
"I know Henry Arkell could not be guilty of a despicable action," spoke up Mr. St. John; "and, hearing of this charge, I went to Rutterley's to ask him a few questions. He informed me therewasa college boy at his place on Saturday, endeavouring to pledge a table-spoon, but he knew the crest, and would not take it in—not wishing, he said, to encourage boys to rob their parents. Perhaps Aultane can tell the dean who that was?"
There was a dead silence in the school, and the look of amazement on the head-master's face was only matched by the confusion of Aultane's. The dean, a kind-hearted man, would not examine further.
"I do not press the matter until I hear the complaint of the senior chorister against Aultane," said he aloud, to Mr. Wilberforce. "It was something that occurred in the cathedral yesterday, in the hearing, unfortunately, of the judges. But a few preliminary tasks, by way of present punishment, will do Aultane no harm."
"I'll give them to him, Mr. Dean," heartily responded the master, whose ears had been so scandalised by the mysterious allusions to Rutterley's, that he would have liked to treat the whole school to "tasks" and to something else, all round. "I'll give them to him."
"You see what a Tom-fool you have made of yourself!" grumbled Prattleton senior to Aultane, as the latter returned to his desk, laden with work. "That's all the good you have got by splitting to the dean."
"I wish the dean was in the sea, I do!" madly cried Aultane, as he savagely watched the retreat of that very reverend divine, who went out carrying the gold medal between his fingers, and followed by Mr. St. John. "And I wish that brute, St. John was hung! He——"
Aultane's words and bravery alike faded into silence, for the two were coming back again. The master stood up.
"I forgot to tell you, Mr. Wilberforce, that I have recommended Henry Arkell to take a holiday for a day or two. That was a violent fall yesterday; and his fainting afterwards struck me as not wearing a favourable appearance."
"Have you seen him, Mr. Dean?"
"I saw him an hour ago, just before service. I was going by the house as he came out of it, on his way to college, I suppose. It is a strange thing what it could have been that caused the fall."
"So it is," replied the master. "I was inquiring about it just now, but the school does not seem to know anything."
"Neither does he, so far as I can learn. At any rate, rest will be best for him for a day or two."
"No doubt it will, Mr. Dean. Thank you for thinking of it."
They finally went out, St. John casting a significant look behind him, at the boys in general, at Aultane junior in particular. It said as plainly as looks could say, "I'd not peach again, boys, if I were you;" and Aultane junior, but for the restraining presence of the head master, would assuredly have sent a yell after him.
How much St. John told of the real truth to the dean, that the medalhadbeen pledged, we must leave between them. The school never knew. Henry himself never knew. St. John quitted the dean at the deanery, and went on to restore the medal to its owner: although Georgina Beauclerc was standing at one of the deanery windows, looking down expectantly, as if she fancied he was going in.
Travice was at that moment at Peter Arkell's, perched upon a side-table, as he talked to them. Henry leaned rather languidly back in an elbow-chair, his fingers pressed upon his head; Lucy was at work near the window; Mrs. Peter, looking very ill, sat at the table. Travice had not been at service on the previous afternoon, and the accident had been news to him this morning.
"But how did you fall?" he was asking with uncompromising plainness, being unable to get any clear information on the point. "What threw you down?"
"Well—I fell," answered Henry.
"Of course you fell. But how? The passage is all clear between the seats of the king's scholars and the cross benches; there's nothing for you to strike your foot against; howdidyou fall?"
"There was some confusion at the time, Travice; the first lesson was just over, and the people were rising for the cantate. I was walking very fast, too."
"But something must have thrown you down: unless you turned giddy, and fell of your own accord."
"I felt giddy afterwards," returned Henry, who had been speaking with his hand mostly before his eyes, and seemed to answer the questions with some reluctance. "I feel giddy now."
"I think, Travice, he scarcely remembers how it happened," spoke Mrs. Arkell. "Don't press him; he seems tired. I am so glad the dean gave him holiday."
At this juncture, Mr. St. John came in with the medal. He stayed a few minutes, telling Harry he should take him for a drive in the course of the day, which Mrs. Arkell negatived; she thought it might not be well for the giddiness he complained of in the head. St. John took his leave, and Henry went with him outside, to hear the news in private of what had taken place in the college hall. Mrs. Arkell had left the room then, and Travice took the opportunity to approach Lucy.
"Does it strike you that there's any mystery about this fall, Lucy?"
"Mystery!" she repeated, raising her eyes. "In what way?"
"It is one of two things: either that he does not remember how he fell, or that he won't tell. I think it is the latter; there is a restraint in his manner when speaking of it: an evident reluctance to speak."
"But why should he not speak of it?"
"There lies what I call the mystery. A sensational word, you will say, for so slight a matter. I may be wrong—if you have not noticed anything. What's that you are so busy over?"
Lucy held it up to the light, blushing excessively at the same time. It was Harry's rowing jersey, and it was getting the worse for wear. Boating would soon be coming in.
"It wants darning nearly all over, it is so thin," she said. "And the difficulty is to darn it so that the darn shall be neither seen nor suspected on the right side."
"Can't you patch it?" asked Travice.
She laughed out loud. "Would Harry go rowing in a patched jersey? Would you, Travice?"
He laughed too. "I don't think I should much mind it."
"Ah, but you are Travice Arkell," she said, her seriousness returning. "A rich man may go about without shoes if he likes; but a poor one must not be seen even in mended ones."
"True: it's the way of the world, Lucy. Well, I should mend that jersey with a new one. Why, you'll be a whole day over it."
"I dare say I shall be two. Travice, there's Mr. St. John looking round for you. He was beckoning. Did you not see him.
"No, I only saw you," answered Travice, in a tone that was rather a significant one. "I see now; he wants me. Good-bye, Lucy."
He took her hand in his. There was little necessity for it, seeing that he came in two or three times a day. And he kept it longer than he need have done.
It was two o'clock in the afternoon, and a crowd of busy idlers was gathered round the Guildhall at Westerbury, for the great cause was being brought on—CarrversusCarr.
That they could not get inside, you may be very sure, or they would not have been round it. In point of fact, the trial had not been expected to come on before the Tuesday; but in the course of Monday morning two causes had been withdrawn, and the Carr case was called on. The Nisi Prius Court immediately became filled to inconvenience, and at two o'clock the trial began.
It progressed equably for some time, and then there arose a fierce discussion touching the register. Mr. Fauntleroy's counsel, Serjeant Wrangle, declaring the marriage was there up to very recently; and Mynn and Mynn's counsel, Serjeant Siftem, ridiculing the assertion. The judge called for the register.
It was produced and examined. The marriage was not there, neither was there any sign of its having been abstracted. Lawrence Omer was called by Serjeant Wrangle; and he testified to having searched the register, seen the inscribed marriage, and copied the names of the witnesses to it. In proof of this, he tendered his pocket-book, where the names were written in pencil.
Up rose Serjeant Siftem. "What day was this, pray?"
"It was the 4th of November."
"And so you think you saw, amidst the many marriages entered in the register, that of Robert Carr and Martha Ann Hughes?"
"I am sure I saw it," replied Mr. Omer.
"Were you alone?"
"I looked over the book alone. Hunt, the clerk of the church, was present in the vestry."
"It must appear to the jury as a singular thing that you only, and nobody else, should have seen this mysterious entry," continued Serjeant Siftem.
"Perhaps nobody else looked for it; they'd have seen it if they had," shortly returned the witness, who felt himself an aggrieved man, and spoke like one, since Mynn and Mynn had publicly accused him that day of having gone down to St. James's in his sleep, and seen the entry in a dream alone.
"Does it not strike you, witness, as being extraordinary that this one particular entry, professed to have been seen by your eyes, and by yours alone, should have been abstracted from a book safely kept under lock and key?" pursued Serjeant Siftem. "I am mistaken if it would not strike an intelligent man as being akin to an impossibility."
"No, it does not strike me so. But events, hard of belief, happen sometimes. I swear the marriage was in the book last November: why it is not there now, is the extraordinary part of the affair."
It was no use to cross-examine the witness further; he was cross and obstinate, and persisted in his story. Serjeant Siftem dismissed him; and Hunt was called, the clerk of the church, who came hobbling in.
The old man rambled in his evidence, but the point of it was, that he didn't believe any abstraction had been made, not he; it must be a farce to suppose it; a crotchet of that great lawyer, Fauntleroy; how could the register be touched when he himself kept it sure and sacred, the key of the safe in a hiding-place in the vestry, and the key of the church hanging up in his own house, outside his kitchen door? His rector said it had been robbed, and in course he couldn't stand out to his face as it hadn't, but he were upon his oath now, and must speak the truth without shrinking.
Serjeant Wrangle rose. "Did the witness mean to tell the court that he never saw or read the entry of the marriage?"
"No, he never did. He never heard say as it were there, and he never looked."
"But you were present when the witness Omer examined the register?" persisted Serjeant Wrangle.
"Master Omer wouldn't have got to examine it, unless I had been," retorted Hunt to Serjeant Wrangle. "I was a-sitting down in the vestry, a-nursing of my leg, which were worse than usual that day; it always is in damp weather, and—"
"Confine yourself to evidence," interrupted the judge.
"Well, sir, I was a-nursing of my leg whilst Master Omer looked into the book. I don't know what he saw there; he didn't say; and when he had done looking I locked it safe up again."
"Did you see him make an extract from it?" demanded Serjeant Wrangle.
"Yes, I saw him a-writing' something down in his pocket-book."
"Have you ever entrusted the key of the safe to strange hands?"
"I wouldn't do such a thing," angrily replied the witness. "I never gave it to nobody, and never would; there's not a soul knows where it is to be found, but me, and the rector, and the other clergyman, Mr. Prattleton, what comes often to do the duty. I couldn't say as much for the key of the church, which sometimes goes beyond my custody, for the rector allows one or two of the young college gents to go in to play the organ. By token, one on 'em—the quietest o' the pair, it were, too—flung in that very key on to our kitchen floor, and shivered our cat's beautiful chaney saucer into seven atoms, and my missis——"
"That is not evidence," again interrupted the judge.
Nothing more, apparently, that was evidence, could be got from the witness, so he was dismissed.
Call the Reverend Mr. Wilberforce.
The Reverend Mr. Wilberforce, rector of St. James the Less, minor canon and sacrist of Westerbury Cathedral, and head-master of the collegiate school, came forward, and was sworn.
"You are the rector of St. James the Less?" said Serjeant Wrangle.
"I am," replied Mr. Wilberforce.
"Did you ever see the entry of Robert Carr's marriage with Martha Ann Hughes in the church's register."
"Yes, I did." Serjeant Siftem pricked up his ears.
"When did you see it?"
"On the 7th of last November."
"How do you fix the date, Mr. Wilberforce?" inquired, the judge, recognising him as the minor canon who had officiated in the chanter's desk the previous day in the cathedral.
"I had been marrying a couple that morning, my lord, the 7th. After I had entered their marriage, I turned back and looked for the registry of Robert Carr's, and I found it and read it."
"What induced you to look for it?" asked the counsel.
"I had heard that his marriage was discovered to have taken place at St. James's, and that it was recorded in the register;" and Mr. Wilberforce then told how he had heard it. "Curiosity induced me to turn back and read it," he continued.
"You both saw it and read it?" continued Serjeant Wrangle.
"I both saw it and read it," replied Mr. Wilberforce.
"Then you testify that it was undoubtedly there?"
"Most certainly it was."
"The reverend gentleman will have the goodness to remember that he is upon his oath," cried Serjeant Siftem, impudently bobbing up.
"Sir!" was the indignant rebuke of the clergyman. "You forget to whom you are speaking," he added, amidst the dead silence of the court.
"Can you remember the words written?" resumed Serjeant Wrangle.
"The entry was properly made; in the same manner that the others were, of that period. Robert Carr and Martha Ann Hughes had signed it; also her brother and sister as witnesses."
"You have no doubt that the entry was there, then, Mr. Wilberforce?" observed the judge.
"My lord," cried the reverend gentleman, somewhat nettled at the question, "I can believe my own eyes. I am not more certain that I am now giving evidence before your lordship, than I am that the marriage was in the register."
"It is not in now?" said the judge.
"No, my lord; it must have been cleverly abstracted."
"The whole leaf, I presume?" said Serjeant Wrangle.
"Undoubtedly. The marriage entered below Robert Carr's was that of Sir Thomas Ealing: I read that also, with its long string of witnesses: that is also gone."
"Can you account for its disappearance?" asked Serjeant Wrangle.
"Not in the least. I wish I could: and find out the offenders."
"The incumbent of the parish at that time is no longer living, I believe?" observed Serjeant Wrangle.
"He has been dead many years," replied Mr. Wilberforce. "But it was not the incumbent who married them: it was a strange clergyman who performed the ceremony, a friend of Robert Carr's."
"How do you know that?" snapped Serjeant Siftem, bobbing up again.
"Because he signed the register as having performed it," replied Mr. Wilberforce, confronting the Serjeant with a look as undaunted as his own.
What cared Serjeant Siftem for being confronted? "How do you know he was a friend of Robert Carr's?" went on he.
"In that I speak from hearsay. But there are many men of this city, older than I am, who remember that the Reverend Mr. Bell and Robert Carr were upon exceedingly intimate terms: they can testify it to you, if you choose to call them."
Serjeant Siftem growled, and sat down; but was up again in a moment. "Who was clerk of the parish at that time?" asked he.
"There was no clerk," replied the witness. "The office was in abeyance. Some of the parishioners wanted to abolish it; but they did not succeed in doing so."
"Allow me to ask you, sir," resumed Serjeant Wrangle, "whether the entrance of the marriage there is not a proof of its having taken place?"
"Most assuredly," replied Mr. Wilberforce. "A proof indisputable."
But courts of justice, judges, and jury require ocular and demonstrative proof. It is probable there was not a soul in court, including the judge and Serjeant Siftem, but believed the evidence of the Reverend Mr. Wilberforce, even had they chosen to doubt that of Lawrence Omer; but the register negatively testified that there had been no marriage, and upon the register, in law, must rest the onus of proof. Had there been positive evidence, not negative, of the abstraction of the leaf from the register, had the register itself afforded such, the aspect of affairs would have been very different. Mr. Mynn testified that on the 2nd day of December he had looked and could find no trace of the marriage in the register: it was certainly evident that it was not in now. When the court rose that night, the trial had advanced down to the summing-up of the judge, which was deferred till morning: but it was felt by everybody that that summing-up would be dead against the client of Mr. Fauntleroy, and that Squire Carr had gained the cause.
The squire, and his son Valentine, and Mynn and Mynn, and one or two of the lesser guns of the bar, but not the great gun, Serjeant Siftem, took a late dinner together, and drank toasts, and were as merry and uproarious as success could make them: and Westerbury, outside, echoed their sentiments—that 'cute old Fauntleroy had not a leg to stand upon.
'Cute old Fauntleroy—'cute enough, goodness knew, in general—was thinking the same thing, as he took a solitary chop in his own house: for he did not get home until long past the dinner-hour, and his daughters were out. After the meal was finished, he sat over the fire in a dreamy mood, he scarcely knew how long, he was so full of vexation.
The extraordinary revelation, that the disputed marriage had taken place at St. James the Less, and lain recorded all those years unsuspiciously in the register, with the still more extraordinary fact that it had been mysteriously taken out of it, electrified Westerbury. The news flew from one end of the city to the other, and back again, and sideways, and everywhere.
But not until late in the evening was it carried to Peter Arkells. Cookesley, the second senior of the school, went in to see Henry, and told it; and then, for the first time, Henry found that the abstraction of the leaf had reference to the great cause—Carr versus Carr.
"Will Mrs. Carr lose her verdict through it?" he asked of Cookesley.
"Of course she will. There's no proof of the leaf's having been taken out. If they could only prove that, she'd gain it; and very unjust it will be upon her, poor thing! We had such a game in school!" added Cookesley, passing to private interests. "Wilberforce was at the court all the afternoon, giving evidence; and Roberts wanted to domineer over us upper boys; as if we'd let him! He was so savage."
Cookesley departed. Henry had his head down on the table: Mrs. Arkell supposed it ached, and bade him go to bed. He apparently did not hear her; and presently started up and took his trencher.
"Where are you going?" she asked, in surprise.
"Only to Prattleton's. I want to speak to George."
"But, Henry——"
Remonstrance was useless. He had already gone. Prattleton senior came to the door to him.
"George? George is at Griffin's; Griffin has got a bachelor's party. Whatever do you want with him? I say, Arkell, have you heard of the row in school this morning? The dean came in about that medal business—what a fool Aultane junior was for splitting!—and St. John spoke about one of the fellows having been at Rutterley's on Saturday, trying to pledge a spoon with the Aultane crest upon it: he didn't say actually the crest was the Aultanes', or that the fellow was Aultane, but his manner let us know it. Wasn't Aultane in a way! He said afterwards that if he had had a pistol ready capped and loaded, he should have shot himself, or the dean, or St. John, or somebody else. Serve him right for his false tongue! There'll be an awful row yet. I know I'd shoot myself, before I'd go and peach to the dean!"
But Prattleton was wasting his words on air. Henry had flown on to Griffin's—the house in the grounds formerly occupied by Mr. and Mrs. Lewis. The Reverend Mr. Griffin was the old minor canon, with the cracked voice, and it was his son and heir who was holding the bachelor's party. George Prattleton came out.
There ensued a short, sharp colloquy—Henry insisting upon being released from his promise; George Prattleton, whom the suggestion had startled nearly out of his senses, refusing to allow him to divulge anything.
"She'll not get her cause," said Henry, "unless I speak. It will be awfully unjust."
"You'll just keep your tongue quiet, Arkell. What is it to you? The Carr folks are not your friends or relatives."
"If I were to let the trial go against her, for the want of telling the truth, I should have it on my conscience always."
"My word!" cried George Prattleton, "a schoolboy with a conscience! I never knew they were troubled with any."
"Will you release me from my promise of not speaking?"
"Not if you go down on your knees for it. What a green fellow you are!"
"Then I shall speak without."
"You won't," cried Prattleton.
"I will. I gave the promise only conditionally, remember; and, as things are turning out, I am under no obligation to keep it. But I would not speak without asking your consent first, whether I got it or not."
"I have a great mind to carry you by force, and fling you into the river," uttered Prattleton, in a savage tone.
"You know you couldn't do it," returned Henry, quietly: "if I am not your equal in age and strength, I could call those who are. But there's not a moment to be lost. I am off to Mr. Fauntleroy's."
Henry Arkell meant what he said: he was always resolute inright: and Prattleton, after a further confabulation, was fain to give in. Indeed he had been expecting nothing less than this for the last hour, and had in a measure prepared himself for it.
"I'll tell the news myself," said George Prattleton, "if it must be told: and I'll tell it to Mr. Prattleton, not to Fauntleroy, or any of the law set."
"I must go to Mr. Prattleton with you," returned Henry.
"You can wait for me out here, then. We are at whist, and my coming out has stopped the game. I shan't be more than five minutes."
George Prattleton retreated indoors, and Henry paced about, waiting for him. He crossed over towards the deanery, and came upon Miss Beauclerc. She had been spending an hour at a neighbouring house, and was returning home, attended by an old man-servant. Muffled in a shawl and wearing a pink silk hood, few would have known her, except the college boy. His heart beat as if it would burst its bounds.
"Why, it's never you!" she cried. "Thank you, Jacob, that will do," she added to the servant. "Don't stand, or you'll catch your rheumatism; Mr. Arkell will see me indoors."
The old man turned away with a bow, and she partially threw back her pink silk hood to talk to Henry, as they moved slowly on to the deanery door.
"Were you going to call upon us, Harry?"
"No, Miss Beauclerc. I am waiting for George Prattleton. He is at Griffin's."
"Miss Beauclerc!" she echoed; "how formal you are to-night. I'd not be as cold as you, Henry Arkell, for the whole world!"
"I, cold!"
He said no more in refutation. If Georgina could but have known his real feelings! If she could but have divined how his pulses were beating, his veins coursing! Perhaps she did.
"Are you better? What a fall you had! And to faint after it!"
"Yes, I think I am better, thank you. It hurt my head a little."
"And you had been annoyed with those rebellious school boys! You are not half strict enough with the choristers. I hope Aultane will get a flogging, as Lewis did for locking you up in St. James's Church. I asked Lewis the next day how he liked it: he was so savage. I think he'd murder you if he could: he's jealous, you know."
She laughed as she spoke the last words, and her gay blue eyes were bent on him; he could discern them even in the dark, obscure corner where the deanery door stood. Henry did not answer: he was in wretched spirits.
"Harry, tell me—why is it you so rarely come to the deanery? Do you think any other college boy would dare to set at nought the dean's invitations—and mine?"
"Remembering what passed between us one night at the deanery—the audit night—can you wonder that I do not oftener come?" he inquired.
"Oh, but you were so stupid."
"Yes, I know. I have been stupid for years past."
Miss Beauclerc laughed. "And you think that stopping away will cure you?"
"It will not cure me; years will not cure me," he passionately broke forth, in a tone whose anguish was irrepressible. "Absence andyoualone will do that. When I go to the university——" He stopped, unable to proceed.
"When you go to the university you will come back a wise man. Henry," she continued, changing her manner to seriousness, "it was the height of folly to suffer yourself to care for me. If I—if it were reciprocated, and I cared for you, if I were dying of love for you, there are barriers on all sides, and in all ways."
"I am aware of it. There is the barrier between us of disparity of years; there is a wide barrier of station; and there is the greatest barrier of all, want of love on your side. I know that my loving you has been nothing short of madness, from the first: madness and double madness since I knew where your heart was given."
"So you will retain that crotchet in your head!"
"It is no crotchet. Do you think my loving eyes—my jealous eyes, if you so will it—have been deceived? You must be happy, now that he has come back to Westerbury."
"Stupid!" echoed Miss Beauclerc.
"But it has been your fault, Georgina," he resumed, reverting to himself. "Imustreiterate it. You saw what my feelings were becoming for you, and you did all you could to draw them on; you may have deemed me a child then in years; you knew I was not, in heart. They might have been checked in the onset, and repressed: why did you not do it? why did you do just the contrary, and give me encouragement? You called it flirting; you thought it good sport: but you should have remembered that what is sport to one, may be death to another."
"This estrangement makes me uncomfortable," proceeded Miss Beauclerc, ignoring the rest. "Papa keeps saying, 'What is come to Henry Arkell that he is never at the deanery?' and then I invent white stories, about believing that your studies take up your time. I miss you every day; I do, Henry; I miss your companionship; I miss your voice at the piano; I miss your words in speaking to me. But here comes your friend George Prat, for that's the echo of old Griffin's door. I know the different sounds of the doors in the grounds. Good night, Harry: I must go in."
She bent towards him to put her hand in his, and he—he was betrayed out of his propriety and his good manners. He caught her to his heart, and held her there; he kissed her face with his fervent lips.
"Forgive me, Georgina," he murmured, as she released herself. "It is the first and the last time."
"I will forgive you for this once," cried the careless girl; "but only think of the scandal, had anybody come up: my staid mamma would go into a fit. It is whathehas never done," she added, in a deeper tone. "And why your head should run upon him I cannot tell. Mine doesn't."
Henry wrung her hand. "But for him, Georgina, I should think you cared for me. Not that the case would be less hopeless."
Miss Beauclerc rang a peal on the door-bell, and was immediately admitted—whilst Henry Arkell walked forward to join George Prattleton, his heart a compound of sweet and bitter, and his brain in a mazy dream.
But we left Mr. Fauntleroy in a dream by the side of his fire, and by no means a pleasant one. He sat there he did not know how long, and was at length interrupted by one of his servants.
"You are wanted, sir, if you please."
"Wanted now! Who is it?"
"The Rev. Mr. Prattleton, sir, and one or two more. They are in the drawing-room, and the fire's gone out."
"He has come bothering about that tithe case," grumbled Mr. Fauntleroy to himself. "I won't see him: let him come at a proper time. My compliments to Mr. Prattleton, Giles, but I am deep in assize business, and cannot see him."
Giles went out and came in again. "Mr. Prattleton says they must see you, sir, whether or no. He told me to say, sir, that it is about the cause that's on, Carr and Carr."
Mr. Fauntleroy proceeded to his drawing-room, and there he was shut in for some time. Whatever the conference with his visitors may have been, it was evident, when he came out, that for him it had borne the deepest interest, for his whole appearance was changed; his manners were excited, his eyes sparkling, and his face was radiant.
They all left the house together, but the lawyer's road did not lie far with theirs. He stopped at the lodgings occupied by Serjeant Wrangle, and knocked. A servant-maid came to the door.
"I want to see Serjeant Wrangle," said Mr. Fauntleroy, stepping in.
"You can't sir. He is gone to bed."
"I must see him for all that," returned Mr. Fauntleroy.
"Missis and master's gone to bed too," she added, by way of remonstrance. "I was just a-going."
"With all my heart," said Mr. Fauntleroy. "I must see the serjeant."
"'Tain't me, then, sir, that'll go and awaken him," cried the girl. "He's gone to bed dead tired, he said, and I was not to disturb him till eight in the morning."
"Give me your candle," replied Mr. Fauntleroy, taking it from her hand. "He has the same rooms as usual, I suppose; first floor."
Mr. Fauntleroy went up the stairs, and the girl stood at the bottom, and watched and listened. She did not approve of the proceedings, but did not dare to check them; for Mr. Fauntleroy was a great man in Westerbury, and their assize lodger, the serjeant, was a greater.
Tap—tap—tap: at Serjeant Wrangle's door.
No response.
Tap—tap—tap, louder.
"Who the deuce is that?" called out the serjeant, who was only dignified in his wig and gown. "Is it you, Eliza? what do you want? It's not morning, is it?"
"'Tain't me, sir," screamed out Eliza, who had now followed Mr. Fauntleroy. "I told the gentleman as you was dead tired and wasn't to be woke up till eight in the morning, but he took my light and would come up."
"I must see you, Serjeant," said Mr. Fauntleroy.
"See me! I'm in bed and asleep. Who the dickens is it?"
"Mr. Fauntleroy. Don't you know my voice? Can I come in?"
"No; the door's bolted."
"Then just come and undo it. For, see you, I must."
"Can't it wait?"
"If it could I should not have disturbed you. Open the door and you shall judge for yourself."
Serjeant Wrangle was heard to tumble out of bed in a lump, and undo the bolt of the door. Eliza concluded that he was in his night attire, and modestly threw her apron over her face. Mr. Fauntleroy entered.
"The most extraordinary thing has turned up in Carr versus Carr," cried he. "Never had such a piece of luck, just in the nick of time, in all my practice."
"Do shut the door," responded Serjeant Wrangle; "I shall catch the shivers."
Mr. Fauntleroy shut the door, shutting out Eliza, who forthwith sat down on the top stair, and wished she had ten ears. "Have you not a dressing-gown to put on?" cried he to the serjeant.
"I'll listen in bed," replied the serjeant, vaulting into it.
A whole hour did that ill-used Eliza sit on the stairs, and not a syllable could she distinguish, listen as she would, nothing but an eager murmuring of voices. When Mr. Fauntleroy came out, he put the candle in her hand and she attended him to the door, but not in a gracious mood.
"I thought you were going to stop all night, sir," she ventured to say. "Dreadful dreary it was, sitting there, a-waiting."
"Why did you not wait in the kitchen?"
"Because every minute I fancied you must be coming out. Good night, sir."
"Good night," returned Mr. Fauntleroy, putting half-a-crown in her hand. "There; that's in case you have to wait on the stairs for me again."
Eliza brightened up, and officiously lighted Mr. Fauntleroy some paces down the street, in spite of the gas-lamp at the door, which shone well. "What a good humour the old lawyer's in!" quoth she. "I wonder what his business was? I heard him say something had arose in Carr and Carr."
Tuesday morning dawned, and before nine o'clock the Nisi Prius court was more densely packed than on the preceding day: all Westerbury—at least, as many as could push in—were anxious to hear his lordship's summing up. At twenty-eight minutes after nine, the javelins of the sheriff's men appeared in the outer hall, ushering in the procession of the judges.
The senior judge proceeded to the criminal court; the other, as on the Monday, took his place in the Nisi Prius. His lordship had his notes in his hand, and was turning to the jury, preparatory to entering on his task, when Mr. Serjeant Wrangle rose.
"My lord—I must crave your lordship's permission to state a fact, bearing on the case, Carr versus Carr. An unexpected witness has arisen; a most important witness; one who will testify to the abstraction from the register; one who was present when that abstraction was made. Your lordship will allow him to be heard?"
Serjeant Siftem, and Mynn and Mynn, and Squire Carr and his son Valentine, and all who espoused that side, looked contemptuous daggers of incredulity at Serjeant Wrangle. But the judge allowed the witness to be heard, for all that.
He came forward; a remarkably handsome boy, at the stage between youth and manhood. The judge put his silver glasses across his nose and gazed at him: he thought he recognised those beautiful features.
"Swear the witness," cried some official.
The witness was sworn.
"What is your name?" demanded Serjeant Wrangle.
"Henry Cheveley Arkell."
"Where do you reside?"
"In Westerbury, near the cathedral."
"You are a member of the college school and a chorister, are you not?" interposed the judge, whose remembrance had come to him.
"A king's scholar, my lord, and senior chorister."
"Were you in St. James's Church on a certain night of last November?" resumed Serjeant Wrangle.
"Yes. On the twentieth."
"For how long? And how came you to be there?"
"I went in to practise on the organ, when afternoon school was over, and some one locked me in. I was there until nearly two in the morning."
"Who locked you in?"
"I did not know then. I afterwards heard that it was one of the senior boys."
"Tell the jury what you saw."
Henry Arkell, amidst the confused scene, so unfamiliar to him, wondered which was the jury. Not knowing, he stood as he had done before, looking alternately at the examining counsel and the judge.
"I went to sleep on the singers' seat in the organ-gallery, and slept until a noise awoke me. I saw two people stealing up the church with a light; they turned into the vestry, and I went softly downstairs and followed them, and stood at the vestry door looking in."
"Who were those parties?"
"The one was Mr. George Prattleton; the other a stranger, whose name I had heard was Rolls. George Prattleton unlocked the safe and gave Rolls the register, and Rolls sat down and looked through it: he was looking a long while."
"What next did you see?"
"When George Prattleton had his back turned to the table, I saw Rolls blow out the light. He pretended it had gone out of itself, and asked George Prattleton to fetch the matches from the bench at the entrance door. As soon as George Prattleton had gone for them, a light reappeared in the vestry, and I saw Rolls place what looked to be a piece of thick pasteboard behind one of the leaves, and then draw a knife down it and cut it out. He put the leaf and the board and the knife into his pocket, and blew out the candle again.
"Did George Prattleton see nothing of this?"
"No. He was gone for the matches, and when he came back the vestry was in darkness, as he had left it. 'Nothing risk, nothing win; I thought I could do him,' I heard Rolls say to himself."
"After that?"
"After that, when Mr. George Prattleton came back with the matches, Rolls lighted the candle and continued to look over the register, and George Prattleton grumbled at him for being so long. Presently Rolls shut the book and hurrahed, saying that it was not in, and Mr. Prattleton might put it up again."
"Did you understand what he meant by 'it.' Can you repeat the words he used?"
"I believe I can, or nearly so, for I have thought of them often since. 'It's not in the register, Prattleton,' he said. 'Hurrah! It will be thousands of pounds in our pockets. When the other side brought forth the lame tale that there was such an entry, we thought it a bag of moonshine.' I think that was it."
"What next happened?"
"I saw Rolls hand the book to George Prattleton, and then I went down the church as quietly as I could, and found the key in the door and got out. I hid behind a tombstone, and I saw them both come from the church, and Mr. George Prattleton locked it and put the key in his pocket. I heard them disputing at the door, when they found it open; Rolls accused George Prattleton of unlocking the door when he went to get the matches; and George Prattleton accused Rolls of having neglected to lock it when they entered the church."
"Meanwhile it was you who had unlocked it, to let yourself out?"
"Yes. And I was in too great a hurry, for fear they should see me, to shut it after me."
"A very nicely concocted tale!" sneered Serjeant Siftem, after several more questions had been asked of Henry, and he rose to cross examine. "You would like the court and jury to believe you, sir?"
"I hope all will believe, who hear me, for it is the truth," he answered, with simplicity. And he had his wish; for all did believe him; and Serjeant Siftem's searching questions, and insinuations that the fancied George Prattleton and Rolls were nothing but ghosts, failed to shake his testimony, or their belief.
The next witness called was Roland Carr Lewis, who had just come into court, marshalled by the second master. A messenger, attended by a javelin man, had been despatched in hot haste to the college schoolroom, demanding the attendance of Roland Lewis. Mr. Roberts, confounded by their appearance, and perplexed by the obscure tale of the messenger, that "two of the college gentlemen, Lewis and another, was found to have had som'at to do with the theft from the register, though not, he b'lieved, in the way of thieving it theirselves," left his desk and his duties, and accompanied Lewis. The head master had been in court all the morning.
"You are in the college school," said Serjeant Wrangle, after Lewis was sworn, and had given his name.
"King's scholar, sir, and third senior," replied Lewis, who could scarcely speak for fright; which was not lessened when he caught sight of the Dean of Westerbury on the bench, next the judge.
"Did you shut up a companion, Henry Cheveley Arkell, in the church of St. James the Less, one afternoon last November, when he had gone in to practise on the organ?"
Lewis wiped his face, and tried to calm his breathing, and glared fearfully towards the bench, but never spoke.
"You have been sworn to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, sir, and you must do so," said the judge, staring at his ugly face, through his glasses. "Answer the question."
"Y—es."
"What was your motive for doing so?" asked Serjeant Wrangle.
"It was only done in fun. I didn't mean to hurt him."
"Pretty fun!" ejaculated one of the jury, who had a timid boy of his own in the college school, and thought how horrible might be the consequences should he get locked up in St. James's Church.
"How long did you leave him there?"
"I don't know. I took back the key to the clerk's, and the next morning, when we went to let him out, he was gone."
"Who is 'we?' Who was with you?" cried Serjeant Wrangle, catching at the word.
"Mr. George Prattleton. He was at the clerk's in the morning, and I told him about it, and asked him to get the key, for Hunt would not let me have it. So he was coming with me to open the church; but Hunt happened to say that Arkell had just been to his house. He had got out somehow."
When this witness, after a good deal of badgering, was released, Serjeant Siftem, a bright thought having occurred to him, desired that the Reverend Mr. Wilberforce might get into the witness-box. The Reverend Mr. Wilberforce did so; and the serjeant began, in an insinuating tone:
"The witness, Henry Cheveley Arkell, is under your tuition in the collegiate school, I assume?"
"He is," sternly replied Mr. Wilberforce, who had not forgotten Serjeant Siftem's insult of the previous day.
"Would you believe him on his oath?"
"On his oath, or without it."
"Oh, you would, would you?" retorted the Serjeant. "Schoolboys are addicted to romancing, though."
"Henry Arkell is of strict integrity. His word may be implicitly trusted."
"I can bear testimony to Henry Arkell's honourable and truthful nature," spoke up the dean, from his place beside the judge. "His general conduct is exemplary; a pattern to the school."
"Henry Cheveley Arkell," roared out the undaunted Serjeant Siftem, drowning the dean's voice. "I have done withyou, Mr. Wilberforce." So the master left the witness-box, and Henry re-entered it.
"I omitted to put a question to you, Mr. Chorister," began Serjeant Siftem. "Should you know this fabulous gentleman of your imagination, this Rolls, if you were to see him?"
"Yes," replied Henry. "I saw him this morning as I came into court."
That shut up Serjeant Siftem.
"Where did you see him?" inquired the judge.
"In the outer hall, my lord. He was with Mr. Valentine Carr. But I am not sure that his name is Rolls," added the witness. "When I pointed him out to Mr. Fauntleroy, he was surprised, and said that was Richards, Mynn and Mynn's clerk."
The judge whispered a word to somebody with a white wand, who was standing near him, and that person immediately went hunting about the court to find this Rolls or Richards, and bring him before the judge. But Rolls had made himself scarce ere the conclusion of Henry Arkell's first evidence; and, as it transpired afterwards, decamped from the town. The next witness put into the box was Mr. George Prattleton.
"You are aware, I presume, of the evidence given by Henry Cheveley Arkell," said Serjeant Wrangle. "Can you deny that part of it which relates to yourself?"
"No, unfortunately I cannot," replied George Prattleton, who was very down in the mouth—as his looks were described by a friend of his in court. "Rolls is a villain."
"That is not evidence, sir," said the judge.
"He is a despicable villain, my lord," returned the witness, giving way to his injured feelings. "He came to Westerbury, pretending to be a stranger, and calling himself Rolls, and I got acquainted with him; that is, he scraped acquaintance with me, and we were soon intimate. Then he began to make use of me; he asked if I would do him a favour. He wanted to get a private sight of the register in St. James's Church. So I consented, I am sorry to say, to get him a private sight; but I made the bargain that he should not copy a single word out of it, and of course I meant to be with him and watch him."
"Did you know that his request had reference to the case of Carr versus Carr?" inquired Serjeant Wrangle.
"No, I'll swear I did not," retorted the witness, in an earnest tone, forgetting, probably, that he was already on his oath. "He never told me why he wanted to look. He would go in at night: if he were seen entering the church in the day, it might be fatal to his client's cause, was the tale he told; and I am ashamed to acknowledge that I took him in at night, and suffered him to look at the register. I have heard to-day that his name is Richards."
"You knew where the key of the safe was kept?"
"Yes; I was one day in the church with the Reverend Mr. Prattleton, and saw him take it from its place."
"Did you see Rolls (as we will call him) abstract the leaf?"
"Of course I did not," indignantly retorted the witness. "I suddenly found the vestry in darkness, and he got me to fetch the matches, which were left on the bench at the entrance door. It must have been done then. Soon after I returned he gave me back the register, saying the entry he wanted was not there, and I locked it up again. When we got to the church door we were astonished to find it open, but——"
"But did you not suspect it was opened by one who had watched your proceedings," interrupted the judge.
"No, my lord. Rolls left the town the next morning early; when I went to find him he was gone, and I have never been able to see him since. That's all I know of the transaction, and I can only publicly repeat my deep regret and shame that I should have been drawn into such a one."
"Drawn, however, without much scruple, as it appears," rebuked the judge, with a severe countenance. "Allow me to ask you, sir, when it was you first became acquainted with the fact that a theft had been perpetrated on the register?"
Mr. George Prattleton did not immediately answer. He would have given much not to be obliged to do so: but the court wore an ominous silence, and the judge waited his reply.
"The day after it took place, Arkell, the college boy, came and told me what he had seen, but——"
"Then, sir, it was your duty to have proclaimed it, and to have had steps taken to arrest your confederate, Rolls," interrupted the stern judge.
"But, my lord, I did not believe Arkell. I did not indeed," he added, endeavouring to impart to his tone an air of veracity, and therefore—as is sure to be the case—imparting to it just the contrary. "I could not believe that Rolls, or any one else in a respectable position, such he appeared to occupy, would be guilty of so felonious an action."
"The less excuse you make upon the point, the better," observed the judge.
For some few minutes Serjeant Siftem and his party had been conferring in whispers. The serjeant, at this stage, spoke.
"My lord, this revelation has come upon my instructors, Mynn and Mynn, with, the most utter surprise, and——"
"The man, Rolls, or Richards, is really clerk to Mynn and Mynn, I am informed," interrupted the judge, in as significant a tone as a presiding judge permits himself to assume.
"He was, my lord; but he will not be in future. They discard him from this hour. In fact, should he not make good his escape from the country, which it is more than likely he is already endeavouring to effect, he will probably at the next assizes find himself placed before your lordship for judgment, should you happen to come this circuit, and preside in the other court. But Mynn and Mynn wish to disclaim, in the most emphatic manner, all cognizance of this man's crime. They——"
"There is no charge to be brought against Mynn and Mynn in connexion with it, is there?" again interposed the judge.
"Most certainly not, my lord," replied the counsel, in a lofty tone, meant to impress the public ear.
"Then, Brother Siftem, it appears to me that you need not take up the time of the court to enter on their defence."
"I bow to your lordship's opinion. Mynn and Mynn and their client, Squire Carr, are not less indignant that so rascally a trick should have been perpetrated than the public must be. But this evidence, which has come upon them in so overwhelming a manner, they feel they cannot hope to confute. I am therefore instructed to inform your lordship and the jury, that they withdraw from the suit, and permit a verdict to be entered for the other side."
"Very good," replied the judge.
And thus, after certain technicalities had been observed, the proceedings were concluded, and the court began to empty itself of its spectators. For once theRighthad prospered. But Westerbury held its breath with awe when it came to reflect that it was the revengeful act of Roland Carr Lewis, that locking up in the church, which had caused his family to be despoiled of the inheritance they had taken to themselves!
The Reverend Mr. Wilberforce laid hold of Henry Arkell, as he was leaving the Guildhall. "Tell me," said he, but not in an angry tone, "how much more that is incomprehensible are you keeping secret, allowing it to come out to me piecemeal?"
Henry smiled. "I don't think there is any more, sir."
"Yes, there is. It is incomprehensible why you should not have disclosed at the time all you had been a witness to in the church. Why did you not?"
"I could not speak without compromising George Prattleton, sir; and if I had, he might have been brought to trial for it."
"Serve him right too," said Mr. Wilberforce.
Presently Henry met the dean, his daughter, Frederick St. John, and Lady Anne. The dean stopped him.
"What do you call yourself? A lion?"
Henry smiled faintly.
"I think you stand a fair chance of being promoted into one. Do you know what I wished to-day, when you were giving your evidence?"
"No, sir."
"That you were my own son."
Henry involuntarily glanced at Georgina, and she glanced at him: her face retained its calmness, but a flush of crimson came over his. No one observed them but Mr. St. John.
"I want you at the deanery to-night," continued the dean, releasing Henry. "No excuse about lessons now: your fall on Sunday has given you holiday. You will come?"
"Yes, sir."
"I mean to dinner—seven o'clock. The judges will be there. The one who tried the cause said he should like to meet you. Go and rest yourself until then."
"Thank you, sir. I will come."
Georgina's eyes sparkled, and she nodded to him in triumph a dozen times, as she walked on with the dean.
Following in the wake of the dean's party came the Rev. Mr. Prattleton. Henry approached him timidly.
"I hope you will forgive me, sir. I could not help giving my evidence."
"Forgive you!" echoed Mr. Prattleton; "I wish nobody wanted forgiveness worse than you do. You have acted nobly throughout. I have recommended Mr. George to get out of the town for a while; not to remain in it in idleness and trouble my table any longer. He can join his friend Rolls on the continent if he likes: I understand he is most likely off thither."
The fraud was not brought home to the Carr family. It was indisputably certain that the squire himself had known nothing whatever of it: had never even been aware that the marriage was entered on the register of St. James the Less. Whether his sons Valentine and Benjamin were equally guiltless, was a matter of opinion. Valentine solemnly protested that nothing had ever been told to him; but he did acknowledge that Richards came to him one evening, and said he thought the cause was likely to be imperilled by "certain proceedings" that the other side were taking. He, Valentine Carr, authorized him to do what he could to counteract these proceedings (only intending him to act in a fair manner), and gave him carte blanche in a moderate way for the money that might be required. He acknowledged to no more: and perhaps he had no more to acknowledge: neither did he sayhow muchhe had paid to Richards. Benjamin treated the whole matter with contempt. The most indignant of all were Mynn and Mynn. Really respectable practitioners, it was in truth a very disagreeable thing to have been forced upon them; and could they have got at their ex-clerk, they would willingly have transported him.
And Mr. Fauntleroy, in the flush of his great victory, in the plenitude of his gratitude to the boy whose singular evidence had caused him to win the battle, went down that same day to Peter Arkell's and forgave him the miserable debt that had so long hampered him. For once in his life, the lawyer showed himself generous. People used to say that such was his nature before the world hardened him.
So, taking one thing with another, it was a satisfactory termination to the renowned cause, Carr versus Carr.
It was a large state dinner at the deanery. But the chief thing that Henry Arkell saw at it was, that Mr. St. John sat by Georgina Beauclerc. The judges—who did not appear in their wigs and fiery gowns, to the relief of private country individuals of wide imaginations, that could not usually separate them—were pleasant men, and their faces did not look so yellow by candle-light. They talked to Henry a great deal, and he had to rehearse over, for the general benefit, all the scene of that past night in St. James's Church. Mrs. Beauclerc, usually so indifferent, was aroused to especial interest, and would not quit the theme; neither would Lady Anne St. John, now visiting at the Palmery, and who was present with Mrs. St. John.
But Georgina—oh, the curious wiles of a woman's heart!—took little or no notice of Henry. They had been for some time in the drawing-room before she came near him at all—before she addressed a word to him. At dinner she had been absorbed in Mr. St. John: gay, laughing, animated, her thoughts, her words, were all for him. Sarah Beauclerc, conspicuous that night for her beauty, sat opposite to them, but St. John had not the opportunity of speaking to her, beyond a passing word now and again. In the drawing-room, no longer fettered—though perhaps the fetters had been willing ones—St. John went at once to Sarah, and he did not leave her side. Ah! Henry saw it all: both those fair girls loved Frederick St. John! What would be the ending?
Georgina sat at a table apart, reading a new book, or appearing to read it. Was she covertly watching that sofa at a distance? It was so different, this sitting still, from her usual restless habits of flitting everywhere. Suddenly she closed her book, and went up to them.
"I have come to call you to account, Fred," she began, speaking in her most familiar manner, but in a low tone. "Don't you see whose heart you are breaking?"
He had been sitting with his head slightly bent, as he spoke in a whisper to his beautiful companion. Her eyes were cast down, her fingers unconsciously pulled apart the petals of some geranium she held; her whole attitude bespoke a not unwilling listener. Georgina's salutation surprised both, for they had not seen her approach. They looked up.
"What do you say?" cried St. John. "Breaking somebody's heart? Whose? Yours?"
She laughed in derision, flirting some of the scent out of a golden phial she had taken up. "Sarah,youshould have more consideration," she continued. "It is all very well when Lady Anne's not present, but when sheis—There! you need not go into a flaming fever and fling your angry eyes upon me. Look at Sarah's face, Mr. St. John."
Mr. St. John walked away, as though he had not heard. Sarah caught hold of her cousin.
"There is a limit to endurance, Georgina. If you pursue this style of conversation to me—learnt, as I have repeatedly told you, from the housemaids, unless it is inherent," she added, in deep scorn—"I shall make an appeal to the dean."
"Make it," said Georgina, laughing. "It was too bad of you, Sarah, with his future wife present. She'll go to bed and dream of jealousy."
Quitting her cousin, she went straight up to Henry Arkell. "Why do you mope like this?" she cried.
"Mope!" he repeated.
He had been at another table leaning his head upon his hand. It was aching much: and he told her so.
"Oh, Harry, I am sorry; I forgot your fall. Will you sing a song?"
"I don't think I can to-night."
"But papa has been talking to the judges about it. I heard him say your singing was worth listening to. I suppose he had been telling them all about you, and the whole romance, you know, of Mrs. Peter Arkell's marriage, for one of them—it was the old one—said he used to be intimate with her father, Colonel Cheveley. Here comes the dean! that's to ask you to sing."
He sat down at once, and sang a song of the day. Then he went on to one that I dare say you all know and like—"Shall I, wasting in despair." At its conclusion one of the judges—it was the old one, as Georgina irreverently called him—came to him at the piano, and asked if he could sing Luther's Hymn.
A few chords by way of prelude, lasting some few minutes, probably played to form a break between the worldly song and the sacred one—for if anyone was ever endowed with an innate sense of what was due to sacred things, it was Henry Arkell—and then the grand old hymn, in all its beautiful simplicity, burst upon their ears. Never had it been done greater justice to than it was by that solitary college boy. The room was hushed to stillness; the walls echoed with the sweet sounds; the solemn words thrilled on the listeners' hearts, and the singer's whole soul seemed to go up with them. Oh, how strange it was, that the judge should have called for that particular, sacred song!
The echoes of it died away in the deepest stillness. It was broken by Henry himself; he closed the piano, as if nothing else must be allowed to come after that; and the tacit mandate was accepted, and nobody thought of inquiring how he came to assume the liberty in the dean's house.
Gradually the room resumed its humming and its self-absorption, and Georgina Beauclerc, under cover of it, went up to him.
"How could you make the excuse that your head was aching? None, with any sort of sickness upon them, could sing as you have just done."
"Not even with heart sickness," he answered.
"Now you are going to be absurd again! What do you mean?"
"To-night has taught me a great deal, Georgina. If I have been foolish enough—fond enough, I might say—to waver in my doubts before, that's over for ever."
"So much the better; you will be cured now."
She had spoken only lightly, not meaning to be unkind or unfeeling; but she saw what she had done, by his quivering lip. Leaning across him as he stood, under cover of showing him something on the table, she spoke in a deep, earnest tone.
"Henry, you know it could never be. Better that you should see the truth now, than go on in this dream of folly. Stay away for a short while if you will, and overget it; and then we will be fast friends as before."
"And this is to be the final ending?"
She stole a glance round at him, his voice had so strange a sound in it. Every trace of colour had faded from his face.
"Yes; it is the only possible ending. If you get on well and become somebody grand, you and I can be as brother and sister in after life."
She moved away as she spoke. It may be that she saw further trifling would not do. But even in the last sentence, thoughtlessly though she had spoken it, there was an implied consciousness of the wide difference in their social standing, all too prominent to that sensitive ear.
A minute afterwards St. John looked round for him, and could not see him.
"Where's Henry Arkell?" he asked of Georgina.
She looked round also.
"He is gone, I suppose," she answered. "He was in one of his stupid moods to-night."
"That's something new for him. Stupid?"
"I used the word in a wide sense. Crazy would have been better."
"What do you mean, Georgina?"
"He is a little crazy at times—to me. There! that's all I am going to tell you: you are not my father confessor."
"True," he said; "but I think I understand without confession. Take care, Georgina."
"Take care of what?"
"Of—I may as well say it—of exciting hopes that are most unlikely to be realized. Better play a true part than a false one."
She laughed a little saucy laugh.
"Don't you think I might turn the tables and warn you of that? What false hopes are you exciting, Mr. St. John?"
"None," he answered. "It is not in my nature to be false, even in sport."
Her laugh changed to one of derision; and Mr. St. John, disliking the sound, disliking the words, turned from her, and joined the dean, who was then deep in a discussion with one of the judges.