CHAPTER X.

THE next day the ordinary guests began to arrive at Oakley. They were not of a very lively character. With an instinctive sense of the difference, which the family were scarcely conscious of, changes had been made in the list of visitors which would have been got together in Arthur’s time. Scarcely any young men were of the party. When there is not a young man in the house what use in asking young men? unless it had been in a matrimonial point of view for Lucy’s sake, an idea which not only Lucy but her mother regarded (in the latter case injudiciously, it ought to be said) with scorn. Sir John had given up hunting long ago, and if he made a serious shot once ortwice in a season, it was more upon the principle which makes an old king open a ball than any more active personal liking for the sport. The party accordingly consisted in great part of his contemporaries, some in Parliament, some in the law, chiefly belonging to the learned professions. There was a judge, and there was the head of a college, and for a few days there was a bishop; but as this latter functionary was the most sportive member of the party, he could not be counted as adding to its solemnity; and these magnates of course did not stay long. And then there was the Master of the Hounds who was more solemn; and there were the wives of these gentlemen, and in some cases their daughters, and a stray man or two of the order of those who know everybody and have been everywhere, and have done a little of everything, without getting more than a general reputation for themselves, and without giving any very clear indications to the world where they sprang from or to whom they belonged. There were also a few ladies of the same species,but whose families and antecedents were unimpeachable. It was Lady Curtis who abhored dullness, who had added these. Sir John liked the dullness, and did not object to having a lady next to him who dined well and said little. In spite of Lady Curtis’s efforts, however, the party was dull. It was perhaps too elderly and too serious. Well conducted married people are dull in society. They are not sufficiently interested in each other to exert themselves for each other’s amusement, and there can be little doubt that as a source of diversion and interest to their fellow creatures, a couple of naughty persons bent on flirtation and ill-behaviour make a better recompense to their entertainers. This element was sadly wanting at Oakley; there was no little drama to watch, legitimate genteel comedy ripening towards marriage and all the domestic joys, or more reprehensible episode tending the other way, such as often proves more exciting still to the jaded appetite of society. And it can scarcely be wondered at, if in the absence of other fun this respectable assembly threw itself on the affairs of the family. There was a great deal of conversation in corners about Arthur’s marriage. The Bates family were too low down in the world to have even reached the level of gossip, and except that he had made a very foolish marriage, amésalliancein every sense of the word, no one knew anything further, except one lady was acquainted with Mrs. Anthony Curtis, and had received from her a vague account of her meeting with Nancy. This lady had formed an idea, quite erroneous as it happened, yet an idea, of Arthur’s wife, which was a point not attained to by anybody else in the house. She thought (as seemed so natural) that Nancy must have been an actress in a minor theatre, a namelessfigurante, one of the class who are supposed to enthral well-born young men, and who, wonder of wonders, do so, to the everlasting astonishment of the world, notwithstanding all its theories on the subject. But it did not enter into anybody’s mind to suppose that the girl whom Arthur hadmarried had not the advantage of being wicked and shameless. The lady who knew the story whispered it to others when none of the family were present. “Turned her out of her rooms, I assure you, my dear,” she said; “they were in the best rooms of a most expensive hotel, I need not say. Such people never spare any expense.”

“A girl from a theatre!—but what theatre? There are such differences; that means anything, from a lady to a dressing-girl.”

“She was not a lady, at least; that is the only one thing that is certain. She was a—” Here the teller of the tale stopped abruptly, adding in a louder tone, “I know only one lady on the stage, but she is enough to justify any amount of raving. Mrs. Kenworthy—don’t you know—you must have seen her.”

It need not be added that it was one of Lady Curtis’s friends, a middle-aged person who knew everybody, who spoke, and that the sudden break was owing to the entrance of Lucy, who came in unsuspicious, and caught them in the middle of their talk.

“Oh, yes, I have seen her,” said another, faltering, while the other members of the party broke up suspiciously, and began to talk to each other with great earnestness. Lucy had thought no evil when she came in, to see all the heads together, but this breaking up and evident desire to conceal the subject of discussion roused her. These were the sort of conversations that went on through the hospitable house. When Sir John was alone for a few minutes with the Judge, who had been the friend of his youth, that learned functionary took him by the buttonhole, and said, “What’s this, what’s this, Curtis, I hear about your son?” They talked of it under Lady Curtis’s eye in the drawing-room as they sipped their tea. Poor Arthur had been cast off by his family, they said; he must have been living a bad life before, or he could never have been thrown in the way of such a person, and never could have married her. Had he married her? that was the nextquestion. Or was it not altogether disreputable, the connection itself and everything about it? So they talked; and Lucy for once got to feel it in the air, and to lose her temper sometimes at the sense of this strange mass of secret criticism of which her family was the object. She made an assault upon her cousin, the Rector, in the midst of it with nervous vehemence. He had been talking to Miss Wilton, the lady who had rushed into a description of Mrs. Kenworthy, when Lucy came into the room that morning and interrupted more important talk. Lucy, watching, had perceived that Bertie had held back while the other had been pressing questions upon him, and that after the interview Miss Wilton had hurried to a pair of expecting friends, and communicated to them the information which she had acquired. Miss Curtis called her cousin to her with a somewhat imperious gesture, a gesture, however, which he was very willing to obey.

Hubert Curtis had not found himself, so far, any the better for the misfortune whichhad happened to Arthur. He was not taken more into favour at the Hall, nor did Lucy incline more to his society than when her brother was at Oakley. He had not gained any ground. However likely it might be that she would have a larger portion of the family goods, Bertie saw no probability that the advantage would in any way come to himself; he had almost, he thought, lost instead of gaining by Arthur’s absence. When Arthur was at home, he, as the nearest neighbour, the only man of anything near his own age close at hand, had a natural place at Oakley besides that derived from his relationship. But now what had he to do at the Hall? Lucy did not encourage him, certainly, in any devotion to her. Lady Curtis had an instinctive, half-jealous dislike to him, as she would have had probably to any young man whose sensible and correct behaviour was a standing reproach to Arthur. And Sir John could not be troubled by Bertie’s peace-making and desire to persuade him that all would eventually be well. Therefore he had suffered with Arthur, which was athing he did not calculate upon; and it would be impossible to deny that his mother’s story about Arthur’s wife had given him a kind of grim satisfaction. If he were not bettered, at least others were the worse; he said, “poor Arthur!” with contemptuous content. If a man chose to make a fool of himself like that, it was only right that he should pay the penalty, and he had been unable to refrain from repeating his mother’s story to Mrs. Rolt, who was shocked and grieved, as Bertie, too, assumed to be. But he had not been guilty of the treachery of discussing it at the Hall. When Miss Wilton spoke to him, he had no desire to give her any further information, but answered as sparingly as possible. Of course it was now, when he really had been exercising a certain amount of virtue, that his punishment came.

“Bertie,” said Lucy, as he came up to her, “I want to know why my aunt goes on spreading that story, and why you talk it over with everybody except mamma and me?”

“What story?” But he did not attempt to deceive her further by pretending that he did not know.

“We were the most interested,” said Lucy. “If you had told us it would have been natural, and perhaps kind; but why do you tell it to other people? What good could that do?”

“What other people have I told it to?” he said. “I was questioned over there, but I made no reply, or at least as little as I could. I told Mrs. Rolt, and I beg your pardon for that. She was so anxious to know something, and I knew she was to be trusted. Don’t blame me, Lucy; I have not intended to be hard upon Arthur.”

“Hard upon Arthur! I did not suppose so; he can fight his own battles,” said Lucy, raising her head with a look which was almost haughty. “But you are unkind to us. You are my cousin, our nearest relation, Bertie. You should not go about telling disagreeable stories. And then you are a—”

“Go on,” he said; “recall me to my duties. I am a clergyman—was not thatwhat you were about to say? and I ought not to be a gossip, going from house to house. I will not attempt to defend myself, Lucy. If that is my character, it is better I should say nothing; and certainly, if you think so, I cannot undertake to undeceive you. It is you who are unkind to me.”

“I don’t think so. I did not mean to say so much as that,” said Lucy, abashed. “But oh, Bertie, why should you treat us so? Are not we, is not Arthur, your own flesh and blood.”

“I am but too ready to acknowledge it, too glad to think of it,” he said with a sudden smile.

And as Lucy had no difficulty in looking at him, no shyness about meeting his eyes, she could not help seeing the eagerness in them, and softening of unmistakeable sentiment. Altogether, apart from the fact that she would be very well off and an excellent match, he liked her as sincerely as was in him. Love, perhaps, is too strong a word; but he liked her, well enough to have wanted to marry her if shehad only possessed a competence and nothing more, if she had not been in any exceptional position as the only obedient and dutiful child of the house. Whether his sentiment was of a robust enough kind to have made him seek Lucy had she been poor, is a different question; but it might even have been strong enough for this, perhaps, for all anyone could say.

She was softened too. Lucy was not one of thosefaroucheyoung women who resent being loved. She was sorry that any such mistaken feeling should be in his mind, if it was in his mind; but all the same she was rather softened than hardened by the look of eager conciliatoriness and desire to please her, which was in his face.

“Aunt Anthony might have told us herself. She need not have let other people know,” she said, shifting her ground, and in a gentler tone.

But here he had a very good answer provided.

“My mother is not here,” he said, quite gently, without a tinge of reproach. “She cannot either explain or defend herself.”

What could Lucy say? She blushed crimson, deeply moved by the sting of this retort courteous.

“I wished her to be here,” she said.

“You always wish what is kind. I did not think it was you; but, Lucy, don’t you see—”

At this moment Sir John came up, placing himself so that the conversation was interrupted. As the mantel-piece was not near enough to be leant upon, he leaned upon one of the marble consoles behind which a big glass rose to the ceiling, reflecting his figure and the faces of the two in front of him.

“I have often noticed,” he said, “that when we have a mild rainy November, the cold is bitter in spring. Have you remarked that, Bertie? But, to be sure, you are not a country bird, you don’t know much about the weather; but you will learn, you will learn before you are my age.”

“It seems a simple enough conclusion, and I don’t mind accepting it as part of my creed,” said the Rector with a laugh, in which, however, there was some surprisemixed, for he did not understand what motive his uncle could have in placing himself there to make this very unimportant remark.

“They tell me the meet is to be here to-morrow,” said Sir John; “and some of the ladies are going to ride. I am very glad Lucy doesn’t hunt. You had better come up and make yourself useful, Bertie, now that there’s nobody in the house. I suppose you don’t ride now to speak of? Of course, there’s Durant; I don’t know what his fancy is. I never was a cross-country man myself. I was always fond of more serious pursuits. Your father now, my brother Tony, he was always fond of it—a sort of practical fellow. As for me, I always took a pleasure in more serious things.”

“You were born for Parliament, Sir,” said the Rector, half with veiled satire, half with a disposition to please his uncle, who had been kind enough, and from whom more kindness yet might come.

“Well, yes, perhaps you are right,” said Sir John; “that was more in my way; I always took an interest in public business. When I was a boy at Eton I used to read the debates as regularly as I do now—and I have never changed my principles or turned my coat, Bertie. That is something to say after thirty years of public life. I have never seen reason to modify my opinions as so many people do. One set of principles has been enough to guide me through life, and I cannot believe that any man wants more.”

“It is a very happy state of mind, Sir,” said the Rector, wondering more and more why his uncle had elected him to hear the characteristics of his wisdom. Lucy had cleverly stolen away to do her duty by the other guests, and only Lady Curtis was aware of her husband’s real meaning. She smiled within herself at his simple device to separate Lucy from a man who might put in the pretensions of a lover. But when Lucy, after stealing away from her cousin’s side, was to be seen a little while after at Durant’s, then it was Lady Curtis’s turn to look serious, and she herself moved from her own chair when she saw them talking,with a lively sense of the same need for interference which had moved her husband. When Lady Curtis joined them their conversation was simple enough, nothing to alarm any parent; but yet she remained there talking with something of her old brightness, until Lucy had left that end of the room, too, in turn, and had gone to carry consolation to old Mrs. Nuttenden in the corner, who was slightly deaf, and not amusing—with her efforts to amuse whom, nobody interfered.

Durant did not notice the gentle interference in the Rector’s case, but he felt it very distinctly in his own, and with a little pang said to himself, that he would give no occasion for this watchfulness, but would shorten his proposed stay as he had already intended to do. This was not because there was any failure of the kindness, even the affection with which he had been first received. Lady Curtis talked to him as she did to nobody else but Lucy, confided in him—called him Lewis, as she had done when he arrived, and discussed her son with him, with family freedom and trust, in a manner indeed which would have filled many young men with fond imaginations and made them feel themselves almost wooed. And Sir John was quite kind, though in a different way. He had always been slightly suspicious of Durant as one of those clever men who are never quite safe, and of whom you cannot be too sure what levelling and atheistical sentiments may accompany their intellectual gifts. One of my Lady’s sort of people, Sir John had always considered him, not a retainer of his own, but on the other side; yet because he was so associated with Arthur, Sir John’s heart had melted to him also. So that it was no failure of the most cordial welcome which made Durant feel it better to hasten away. He went to his room that night quite decided by the manner of the woman who called him by his Christian name, and looked at him with such motherly affection in her eyes. Was it Lady Curtis’s fault? He did not blame her. He said to himself, that had Lucybeen his own sister, he would not have given her to a poor barrister without family, without connections, with burdens of his own upon his shoulders, and no honours to bestow. Why should he linger there? Now that Arthur was so far off from Oakley—now, above all, that Arthur wasmarried, the most complete of severing influences, it was inevitable (he said) that his connection with Oakley must gradually drop off. They would not mean it—they would not wish it—yet it would come to pass; and why should he seek to prevent it? Was there not between them a great gulf fixed—that gulf which wealth might fill up, perhaps, which his old grandfather’s money might have thrown a golden bridge across, had it still existed; but which now gaped like the bottomless pit, and could never be crossed by any skill or effort of his. Should he stay only to impress this more and more upon himself? He made up his mind that very night.

But that did not hinder him on the next day after these events, which was Sunday,from finding himself by Lucy’s side in one of the quiet moments of that quiet day. He was going off the next morning, and it chanced to him, unawares, to come into the Louis Quinze room in the interval between church and luncheon, which is a moment of general dispersion in which no one knows where any one is. Lucy was in the morning-room writing a letter, when Durant came in. He was very self-denying, yet when she stopped and laid down her pen, and said, “Come in, don’t go away!” he could not resist the invitation. He came in and stood near her, leaning upon the corner of the mantel-shelf close to one of those big rococo Cupids between whom Sir John was so fond of placing himself. And Lucy was a little eager, almost agitated, more resolute to talk to him than he was to talk to her. She said without any preface, “Are you really going away to-morrow? I was surprised—and I don’t seem to have seen you at all, or to have said half I had to say.”

“I must go,” he said with a sigh, “for many reasons; and chiefly because—”

“Because what? You do not think there is any change, Mr. Durant? You must not think there is any change: there is no one mamma trusts in so entirely as in you.”

“I am very glad to think so,” he said, “and to believe that she would trust me if any thing occurred—if I was wanted.” Here he made a pause, and added in a low tone, “and you too?”

“And I too! can you doubt it? I know,” said Lucy faltering, “that Arthur has no such true friend.”

He made a little unconscious gesture with his hand. She knew exactly what it meant. It meant Arthur, always Arthur! never anything on his own account; always for the use that might be made of him. But this would have been very unreasonable had he put it into words, for it was precisely on this reason that he had claimed to be trusted, “if anything occurred—if he was wanted.” Very unreasonable and inconsistent; but then men are so.

And what could she say? She couldnot take the initiative, and tell him that her interest in him, at least, was not all on account of Arthur. She made a tremulous pause, and then said, “Everything is so different this year. We have done nothing but talk to you of Arthur. The time seems gone in which we used to talk so freely—of, us all.”

“Yes,” he said, “it is kind, very kind of you to use such words. What talks we have had here of—us all! before we had began to feel the differences between us.”

“What differences?” she said eagerly. “Mr. Durant, I hope you are too generous to think that any outside differences—” Poor Lucy coloured and grew so eager, that her earnestness defeated its object, and she could not get the words out.

“Not that,” he said, “not the loss of our money. I know no one here would think the less of me for that—perhaps the better,” he added with a smile, “as being just a poor man now, without any pretence of equality on account of wealth.I did not mean that; but rather the enlightenment that comes with years, and that shows to me how little I, being what I am, ever could be on the same footing with you.”

“Mr. Durant, you are unkind—youareungenerous!”

“Not so—not so; but I am older and a little wiser. And according to the custom of mortal things, this enlightenment comes just when it is most painful to me—most bitter to realise.”

“I cannot hear you say so,” Lucy said, getting up trembling from her chair. “Difference—what difference? I know none. I never have been told of any.”

And he looked at her all quivering with the desire to say more—to set open the doors of his heart, and show her herself in it, and all that was there. He looked at her, and shook his head sadly.

“I have no right to say any more. I would be a poor creature if I said any more; but still it is so—and it is better for me to go away. You will not misunderstand me? That would be the cruellest of all.”

“I think there is one thing more cruel,” said Lucy with an impulse which carried her away, and for which she could not forgive herself afterwards, “and that is to speak mysteries to your friends, and expect them to understand you, yet never tell them what you mean—that is the thing that is most cruel.”

“Should I speak then, though it is hopeless—though it is almost dishonourable?” he cried excited and breathless. Lucy trembling, turned half, yet but half away.

“Ah! you are here then! I have been looking for you,” said the voice of Lady Curtis at the door. “You are talking to Lucy who has a letter to write, and I have something to say to you, Lewis—come to me here.”

Lucy had gone back to her writing before her mother stopped speaking; she did not even look at him again; but she said very low, “I think I understand,” as he passed her slowly to obey that call.

And next morning he went away.

AFTER the crisis of that conversation with Mrs. Curtis, which was at the bottom of so much harm and mischief, Arthur and Nancy stopped quarrelling with each other. They had each done and said things which they were disposed to repent of—and felt the existence generally of a state of things which was alarming, which at their worst they could not see without feeling that it might be possible to go too far. The fact that Arthur had gone away without seeing her after her rudeness to his aunt, his absence for hours, his absolute silence on the subject when they met at dinner had produced a great effect upon Nancy. It had been on her lips all the evening through to introduce the subject, to excuse herself or defend herself according as might be most suitable at the moment. But Arthur gave her no occasion. He had the advantage of education over her, the habit of self-restraint, at least the sense that it was necessary on occasion to restrain himself, an elementary lesson which Nancy had not as yet arrived at. And the effect upon her was great. She, too, kept silent, though against her will. She shut up in her breast this subject which, if she had talked about it, would, no doubt, have inflamed her to double wrath. And she grew a little frightened of the husband whom hitherto she had played with as she would, but who now in his newborn reserve and stillness was more than she could manage. She was afraid of him for the moment. He was no longer in her power. A tremendous menace seemed to lurk in his silence; and the consequence was that they lived in much greater harmony for the next week, both a little alarmed and penitent, and afraid of taking another step in the wrong direction. Atthe end of that time Arthur made the discovery which Nancy had already suggested to him, that howsoever great might be his desire to go to Italy, his means would not permit it. They had been living in their charming little apartment for three weeks, they had used a carriage constantly, and all that a Paris hotel can furnish that was most agreeable to eye and palate, and there was nothing, or next to nothing left. Arthur had not realised this fact when he had written his letter to his father. He had written indeed more out of the painful determination within him to uphold his wife, even in the face of what she had done to his relatives, by yielding to her will about their future, than from any more reasonable motive. He knew very well how that story would fly, how it would get to the ears of his mother and Lucy, and how everybody who knew him would pity poor Arthur. This it was which made him suddenly abandon his opposition, and determine to do as she wished. At all hazards he would maintain her credit, whatever might be hertreatment of him. They might make her out to be what they pleased, they might tell what stories they would—he could not he knew contest them, but at all events everybody should see that he at least upheld her in her way of acting, gave her his support through all. This generous, if perhaps foolish, resolution, which was full of that grieved and suffering love which can no longer deny the justice of the accusations against its beloved, had been come to before he knew the necessity of returning home; but that necessity made it less forced and unnatural. For the last week of their stay there was little attempt at amusement. Denham, who had found great satisfaction in watching the proceedings of the bride, and who had already made many circles merry by his descriptions of her husband’s anxious endeavours to interest her in what she saw and heard, and her own absolute ignorance and unconcealedennui, was ever at hand to suggest something, and had indeed two or three plans of his own for sharing this charming spectacle with some of his friends, with a trust in Arthur’s simplicity, which might not have been justified by the event. There were two in particular to whom he had promised an introduction to his “delicious Englishwoman,” had the young pair accepted the box at the Odéon which he had offered them, and the mischievous attaché was much disappointed by the failure of his plans. They declined it, however, with one accord. Nancy had quite convinced herself that it was “no fun” going to plays when you did not understand a word, and Arthur, on his side, had become disgusted with everything public. How did he know that they might not meet some one else whom he should be obliged to introduce to his wife, and whom his wife would receive with the same amiability which she had shown to Mrs. Curtis? The Curtises were still in Paris, and he had himself held an agitating conference with his aunt and Mary; but they came no more to the Rue Rivoli. This opportunity of making friends had been turned into the easiest way of making enemies. He would make no more such essays. Accordingly they sat “at home,” in the pretty little room with the white walls and white curtains. Arthur could always write his letters—it was not many he had to write now, as his family correspondence was cut off, and he had dropped most of his friends, but still he kept up the phrase; he wrote his letters, while she sat by the fire, sometimes taking out and putting in frills or trimmings to her dresses, sometimes yawning over a newspaper; they talked to each other a little now and then, and yawned in the intervals; they had no books except a few Tauchnitz volumes, which saved them from a complete breakdown, and they went early to bed which seemed always a virtuous thing to do. Thus the days went by. They did not talk any longer about going “home,” but it was tacitly understood between them that they were goingback. This was what they had got to call it. And the day was fixed, and the boxes packed, and all settled, with scarcely any further consultation. Life, however, had become very sober prose after the triumphant exultationof the beginning, when three weeks after their marriage they crossed the Channel again on an early morning, Nancy very ill, and Arthur dignified but pale, and arrived at London on a rainy December night, wet and miserable as anything could well be.

Next day they wentback. Arthur had taken rooms at the little inn which stood opposite Mr. Eagles’ house, looking on the green, where Durant had been lodged. But before they reached that place there was a greeting to be got through at the station, the whole Bates family, no less, having assembled to welcome their daughter. Nancy’s spirits had risen from the moment she had touched English soil. She had talked to everybody, guards, porters, the servants at the hotel, with exuberant satisfaction, notwithstanding the bad passage and its natural consequences.

“Oh, what a blessing to be at home!” she said. “Oh, Arthur, isn’t it nice to be back? I feel as if I should like to hug everybody. How much nicer everything looks in England! One can have some tea or some beer, instead of always thatsour wine; and sausage-rolls and Bath buns!” cried Nancy, looking at these appalling luxuries in the Dover refreshment-room with unfeigned delight. It had been on Arthur’s lips to cry out, “For heaven’s sake speak a little lower!” but he said to himself, what was the use? One or two people turned round and smiled. And she bought a Bath-bun notwithstanding her recent sufferings. It seemed to Nancy better than all the delicateplatsin the world. It was English, it was adapted to her native tastes and her usually fine digestion. Arthur hurried her away with the objectionable dainty in a little paper-bag in her hand.

“We must give in to prejudices a little,” he said. “You know most people think there is nothing like French cookery.”

“I would not give a nice plain English dinner—mother will have one for us to-morrow, I know—for all the little oddments they have in France,” said Nancy.

When she was Nancy Bates she did not talk like this, nor eat Bath-buns out of paper bags. The fact of being Mrs. ArthurCurtis, with a fine gentleman, an unmistakeable “swell” for a husband, became again an exhilarating consciousness, and turned Nancy’s head a little as soon as she had got to England again; and how could she show her satisfaction so well as by that demonstrative indulgence of personal tastes, and ostentation of personal satisfaction which is the essence of vulgarity, yet may be the mere froth of ignorance and light-hearted confidence? All this was sufficiently trying to Arthur, especially when strangers heard these patriotic outbursts, and showed by their smiles, as they passed, their appreciation of her simplicity. But when they got to Underhayes station, where Mrs. Bates, Matilda, and Sarah Jane stood on the platform waiting, Arthur’s heart sank in his bosom. Why? If Nancy’s mother had been a duchess, she could not have done anything different. But Mrs. Bates, with her brown front, and the flowers in her bonnet, and Sarah Jane in the latest fashion, were too much for poor Arthur. He busied himself about the luggage, and wondered how it was, for allso many times as he had seen them before, that he had never seen them until now? And this was how he was to be surrounded for the rest of his life! Visions of his mother and Lucy came gliding before him as he saw Nancy’s boxes, so much larger and heavier now than when they went away, lifted out—his own people! with their light steps, their soft voices, the tender delight in their eyes. Mrs. Bates was probably as fond of her child as Lady Curtis was of Arthur; that she should show that fondness so differently was not her fault, but that of Providence which had settled her lot in life. He tried to say to himself that this was so, but it was hard. On the whole, the best thing was to look after the boxes until those welcomes and embraces were over, which all the town seemed to have come out to see. Some of Mr. Eagles’ “men” were among the passengers by the train. Arthur shrank among the luggage altogether to escape from their eyes.

“Where is Arthur?” said Mrs. Bates. “I hope Arthur knows that you’re not going to be allowed to go off to an inn thefirst day you come back. To be sure, it’s tea, not dinner, as I suppose you’ve been accustomed to; but tea, with a nice roast chicken and sausages, which is as good as a dinner every day; and it’s all ready and waiting. Arthur! How long he is about the boxes to be sure. Shall we leave him to send them down to the ‘Dragon,’ and you come along, my Nancy, with me?”

“Arthur! Arthur!” cried Sarah Jane at the top of her voice, rushing towards him, “mother’s gone on with Nancy, and I’m to wait for you. You needn’t be so particular about the boxes, the porter will take them safe enough. And come along, do come along! Nancy’s gone on before with mother, and I’m quite hungry for my tea.”

One of the “men” at Mr. Eagles’ turned round, hearing every word of this speech, and grinned, Arthur thought, in derision.

“Don’t wait for me,” he said, faintly. “Go on, please, and I will follow. There are a great many things to be looked after, and I must see what sort of rooms they have given us. Go on, and never mind me.”

“Oh, if you’re too fine to walk downUnderhayes with your own sister-in-law!” cried Sarah Jane; and to Arthur’s great relief she took offence, and rushed after her mother and sisters, calling this time, “Nancy! Nancy! stop a bit, I’m coming.”

The “man” lingered till she was gone, perhaps with a little pity for the bridegroom. He was a happy boy of twenty, working his eyes out for the Indian Civil examination, who had always been accustomed to think that his was rather a hard case, and that Curtis was a great “swell.”

“How d’ye do, Curtis? Can I look after these things for you?” he said, coming up shyly. Arthur made haste to clear every sign of cloudy weather from his downcast face.

“It is a bother looking after them,” he said; “my first try, you know—and one loses one’s temper. Still grinding hard, I suppose?”

“Harder and harder! Eagles gets more mad every day. What lucky fellows some people are!” said the young man with a little sigh, as he nodded and turned away.

Arthur felt himself echo the sigh. Wasit he that was the lucky fellow? He had thought so too when he left Underhayes, carrying with him the bride for whom he had felt willing to relinquish all the world. This is an easy thing enough to say. To relinquish all the world, and carry one’s Nancy off into some flowery Eden where nobody could intermeddle with one’s bliss—ah, yes; but the Bates family! They, it was evident would not permit themselves to be relinquished like all the world. Arthur walked at his leisure, glad to defer the moment of reunion, down to the inn, and saw his rooms and deposited his luggage. Perhaps Nancy had a right to be angry when at last he followed her. They had waited till the chicken and sausages were nearly cold; but by this time they were in the middle of their meal, Mr. Bates already in his slippers at the foot of the table when Arthur arrived. The little parlour was hot and close, full of mingled odours; they were all a little flushed, what with the unusual warmth, what with the meal. Nancy herself had been placed next to the fire, as the traveller to whom the best place was necessarily given, and she was crimson with excitement, pleasure, anger, and the stifling atmosphere all combined. The voices all ceased when Arthur came in.

“I think you might have paid my mother the respect of coming directly,” said Nancy in high tones.

“Oh, hush, dear, hush! I am sure Arthur didn’t mean any rudeness,” said Mrs. Bates.

But there was an interval of silence, marking general disapproval, and they all turned to look at him as at a culprit. He sat down in the vacant place much against his will, amid unfriendly or indignant looks. Even to the Bates’ family he was no longer welcome as an angel from Heaven.

“I am sorry everything is cold,” said Mrs. Bates; “we waited as long as we could. But Nancy wanted her tea very badly after her journey. Here is a leg of chicken I saved for you.”

“I am not hungry,” said Arthur, feeling his new alienation and separation amid all the silent party. “I will take a cup oftea, please. I had the boxes to look after.”

“You might have left the boxes to take care of themselves,” said his wife; “you are not always so careful. You might have come with me when I first came home after being married. And all the people about staring; but you don’t mind. It used to be different when we were here before; but I ain’t of so much consequence now,” cried Nancy. “Wives are different from sweethearts; I see that all now.”

Arthur felt a sensation of chill despair come over him in the midst of this domestic heat. He restrained himself by a strange effort and would say nothing; and, indeed, he did not feel the impulse of passion to speak. A dreary despondency took possession of him. How often he had sat there on the sofa in the corner, and felt himself happy! What was it that made the change? for Nancy had shown “tempers,” fits of caprice, uncertainty of mood before their marriage. But it had not affected him as it did now. Succour came to him, however, in an unexpected way.

“I don’t approve of nagging at a man, whatever he’s done,” said Mr. Bates. “If you’ve had any tiffs honeymooning, you should have the sense to stop ’em now. If you like to quarrel in your own place, I’ll not interfere, I haven’t got the right; but don’t do it here. Your father’s house is no more than a friend’s house so far as that goes. It ain’t your place, Nancy, to expose your husband here.”

“I hope I know what’s my place, as well as you or anyone,” said Nancy, growing red, and accepting the challenge. She had never been fond of restraint, and she liked it now less than ever. She gave her head a toss of defiance, entrenched as she was behind the walls of support and shelter which her mother and sisters gave, who unconditionally took her side. She flashed defiance at the other end of the table, where Arthur sat with a flush of shame on his face, and poor Mr. Bates in his crumpled white tie for his sole partisan.

“I think Mr. Bates is right,” said Arthur, “and that it would be better to postpone this question till we are alone.”

“And I hope you found Paris pleasant, Sir,” said the well-intentioned father. “I have often heard that it was a very fine city. It must have been a great advantage for Nancy, seeing it with one that knew it well. In my young days going to France was more of a business than going to America is now. Me and Mrs. Bates never had the benefit of foreign travel; but there are a many things you young people enjoy now that your fathers and your mothers didn’t have.”

“You may speak for yourself, Mr. Bates,” said his wife. “I cannot say that I ever had any desire to go to foreign parts. There is plenty to learn in England if one would make a good use of what one knows; and Nancy, poor child, don’t seem to have enjoyed it. Look how thin she is, and so pale. She quite frightened me when I saw her first. ‘Is that my blooming Nancy?’ I said to myself—not meaning to throw any reflection upon Arthur. What does man know of such things? She’s been doing too much. I feel sure that’s what it is, rattling abouthere and there and everywhere, and engagements in the evening—”

“We didn’t have many engagements in the evening,” said Nancy. “We used to go to the theatres at first; but we soon got tired. The acting was so bad, not like English acting; and such queer French, not a bit like anything I ever learnt. For one thing, they talk so fast. But I could not understand a bit, and what was the good of going to a play and not understanding a word? And we never saw anybody, except an aunt of Arthur’s, a person—but I won’t speak of her, for she was rude to me—and Sir John Denham, who used to come and sit of an evening, and who brought us tickets for places. It was very kind of him; and there was a lot of places to see, and a whole lot of old pictures and things that Arthur thought I was to go crazy over; but I never did. One place was where some prison was knocked down (I never remembered the names) and, another was where the Queen had her head cut off.”

“Oh, la!” cried Sarah Jane.

“Yes, that was a pleasant thing to be interested in, wasn’t it? Oh, the lots and lots of people that had their heads cut off, if you could put any faith in it! As if that was what one wanted to see! I never believed one quarter of what they said.”

“And quite right,” said her mother; “they do make up stories; but didn’t you go to see something a little livelier, Nancy? I thought there was everything that was gay in Paris. But if that was all, my poor child, I don’t wonder if you felt low, away from everybody you knew. But things will be quite different now,” she said, encouragingly. “You will settle down, you and Arthur, in a nice snug little English ’ome. There is no place like ’ome, as the song says. And you’ll fall into each other’s ways; and you’ll have us close at hand if anything’s wrong. Oh, you’ll see everything will go as smooth as velvet! and me, or Sarah Jane, or Matty always to help you to put things straight.”

At this prospect Nancy brightened up, and the conversation went on in a livelierstrain. But Nancy’s brows lowered when Arthur, feeling it all grow more and more intolerable, got up just before the rum-and-water stage, under pretence of business.

“I have some letters which I must write,” he said. Nancy’s countenance grew dark again, and Mr. Bates lamented audibly.

“I thought you’d have joined me and been comfortable, now you’re a married man and got your courting over,” said the tax-collector. Poor Arthur! was this expected of him, that he should share the rum-and-water too? He scarcely knew how he managed to get away at last, promising to return for his wife when his letters were written. But he had in reality no letters to write. He walked about through the darkness very sadly, wondering what he was to do. It was weak perhaps to have yielded to her, to have suffered her to lead him back here; it was all intolerable, the house, the family, the talk. They had been well enough once, how did it happen that they were beyond all patience now?

NEXT day, restored to perfect good-humour by the occupation, Nancy went out with her mother to look at some houses which they had already selected for her choice. She came into the little sitting-room, in which Arthur had talked to Durant about his marriage, and where the young pair were established now—glowing and beaming from her early walk, to tell him all about these desirable residences. Rose Villas, Glenfield Road, was the name of the row, in which there were two houses, one empty, and one furnished, to be let.

“You must come with me and see them the moment you have had your lunch—I don’t want any lunch,” cried Nancy. “I am so delighted! The dearest little houses,Arthur! just big enough for us, and so bright, with gardens back and front, and everything that heart could desire.”

“But we don’t want two houses, do we?” he said.

“No, you silly boy; but if we take the one that is furnished, don’t you see, for little while, and the one that is not furnished for a permanency, then we can be comfortable in the one house while we furnish the other; ain’t that clever?” said Nancy, laughing. “I can’t fancy anything more delightful. Make haste with your luncheon, Arthur. Oh, yes, I will sit down with you, I will take a morsel; but I am in such a hurry. I do hope you will like them as much as I do. It is so nice to think of having a ’ome, as mother says.”

Arthur did not make any reply; after so much stormy weather as there had been, it grieved him to destroy all this sunshine by any remonstrances. He was glad to bask in it a little and put off the next difficulty. It was a bright winter afternoon when they sallied forth together,the red sun descending towards the west, and throwing up all the leafless trees beyond Mr. Eagles’ great house as on a crimson background, against which every branch and twig stood out—the Green more brilliantly green than usual from the many rains and from the afternoon redness which enhanced its colour—the red-brick houses all ruddy and warm in the light. Even to Arthur, whose heart was heavy, it was a pleasant walk to Glenfield Road. They were alone, and Nancy was in the gayest humour, full of satisfaction with herself. Though she had lost her confidence in the Paris dresses, which had much disappointed her mother and sisters, and was afraid that her travelling costume looked dreadfully dowdy (which was Sarah Jane’s opinion)—yet the sense of being at home, able to dazzle all her old companions with her good fortune, and to feel that her house and husband, and all her possessions, would be admired and to envied by the right people, had calmed all Nancy’s susceptibilities and raised her spirits to the highest point. She all butdanced along the street, holding Arthur’s arm in a way which may be old-fashioned, but still comes natural to a bride. She was about to have a house of her own, a house fit for a lady, where obsequious tradesmen, once her equals, or better than she, would come for orders. She was about to have servants of her own—not a “girl,” as in the Bates’ establishment, but a cook and housemaid, as good as the Vicar or any of the fine people on the Green. And all these fine people would call upon her, Nancy thought; who was there among them equal to Mrs. Arthur Curtis, a baronet’s daughter-in-law, some time or other to be Lady Curtis—a baronet’s wife?—and who could speak familiarly of other baronets, Denham, for instance, as an intimate friend. And then there was Durant.

“Who is Durant,” she said, “Arthur? Is he anybody, is his father anybody? I had a long talk with him here once. I was angry—But on the whole I liked Durant.”

“He is—my oldest friend; and the man in all the world who knows most aboutme,” said Arthur, laughing in spite of himself; “but further information would not enlighten you, Nancy—”

“You mean that I don’t know your peerages, and that sort of thing,” said Nancy, piqued a little.

This time Arthur laughed with good will. “I don’t think the peerages would help you much,” he said. “Lewis Durant is a clergyman’s son, Nancy.”

“Onlya clergyman?” She was disappointed. “But they must have been very rich or something, Arthur, or such proud folks as your people would not have let Durant be so intimate with you.”

“My people,” said Arthur with some haste, “would not have thought of interfering with my school friends to ask whose sons they were; and Lewis’s family,wererich—but they are not rich now. Call him Lewis, if you please, when you speak of him, Nancy; but don’t say Durant. It soundsfast; and you never will be fast, I hope.”

“Oh, it sounds fast, do you think?” Nancy was mollified. When he had madethe same request before, she had thought it a stigma upon her as not knowing how a lady should talk, but this was a lesser offence. “Well then, Mr. Durant—if I must say Mr. Durant—isn’t he rich now?”

“No, not at all rich.”

“Oh, then I suppose he has to work for his living like—any common man? I am so glad you are not like that, Arthur. What a difference it must make! To have one’s husband away all day at his work—or to have one’s husband always at one’s side, ready to take a walk, or to answer a question, or anything. I am so glad you are a gentleman, Arthur. I never should have been happy had I married a man in any other rank of life.”

“Durant is just as much a gentleman as I am, Nancy.”

“What! when he has to work for his living? Oh, yes, I know. Whoever wears good clothes, and knows how to behave himself in society, is called a gentleman for the name of the thing, Arthur. The assistants in Shoolbred’s are all gentlemen, of course; but that is not what I mean—you know what I mean. Now supposing that Durant—I mean Mr. Durant—had known us longer, and got to coming to our house as you did, and Sarah Jane and he had fancied each other, she would not have been nearly so happy as I am.”

“Wasthatthought of?” said Arthur, with a smile which did not evidence any real amusement. “I did not know that had been seriously thought of.”

“Oh, yes, it was thought of. Why shouldn’t it have happened? He was your friend; and they say one wedding brings on another. I don’t think Sarah Jane would have minded,” said Nancy in perfect good faith. “She would have thrown Raisins over in a moment; and indeed I think she treats Raisins very badly with all her flirtations. I tell her it is he who will throw her over one of these days.”

“So Durant might have been preferred to Mr. Raisins,” said Arthur. “What a chance for Lewis!”

Nancy did not feel quite comfortable about the meaning of this laugh. Perhaps it was not entirely regret for what Duranthad lost; but as at this moment they came in sight of Rose Villas, her whole attention was drawn to the more exciting subject. “There is the empty one, Arthur,” she said, “look, how pretty! But I see the door of No. 6 is open, so let us go there first. There is such a pretty garden behind, and the windows open into it. There is not much in the garden now, but it will be delicious in summer. Oh, yes, here we are; this is Mr. Curtis, Mrs. Smith. We have come again, if you please, to go over the house.”

“If you please, ma’am,” said the prim little landlady, whose lodgings had not let so well as usual, and who was not unwilling to get rid of her house. Nancy ran through it delighted, taking her husband from one room to another. “This you could have to write your letters in, Arthur, and this would be my drawing-room,” cried Nancy, glowing with not unlovely pride; “and look what a dear little Davenport, and an inlaid table, and that funny little three-cornered thing in the corner, and a nice white cloth over thecarpet—so clean-looking—almost like our white carpets in Paris.”

Arthur allowed himself to be dragged all over the house. It was like a hundred, nay a million other semi-detached suburban villakins. The little rooms were neat enough, if not beautiful; and Arthur, though he had been brought up in Oakley, amid his mother’s favourite splendours, was not sufficiently fastidious to be annoyed by the common-place surroundings. It was not the want of beauty that moved him; but the sensation of “settling down,” which was so delightful to Nancy, affected his imagination like a nightmare. She was so satisfied herself, so anxious to know every particular about the maids whom Mrs. Smith “could recommend,” so eager about everything, that his gloomy looks passed without remark. And Arthur did not check her delight until, having settled matters with Mrs. Smith, she insisted upon carrying him next to No. 9, which was to let unfurnished. “This is the most interesting,” she said. “Come along, Arthur; for you know thiswill be our real ’ome—this we will furnish ourselves;” and she dragged him to the door. Nancy did not usually drop her h’s, but she was too familiar with this form of the word to call it anything but ’ome.

Here, however, Arthur had strength of mind to resist. “That is enough for to-day. You must not ask me to do more to-day. After dinner we will talk it all over, all about it, over the fire.”

“After dinner?” said Nancy. “Oh! I said we would go and see mother, and tell her what we had settled. Why, what is the matter, Arthur—may not I go and see mother? We have only been one day back, and you begin to make faces already! You cannot say I am bringing my people onyou.”

“I think you might be content with me sometimes,” said Arthur, with an attempt at a smile.

“I have been content with you for three weeks,” said Nancy. “I have never seen a soul but you. I should think you would like to see another face now and again as well as I do—and my own folks!” Arthur did not say any more. He diverted theconversation into other channels, and led her back to the subject of the villa, which on the whole was safer ground; and when the evening came and their dinner was over, and Nancy went off with a certain gay temerity, yet not without alarm, to get her wrap, Arthur took his hat to accompany her without saying a word. She was in a state of the greatest exultation, scarcely able to restrain little songs of triumph as they walked along the half-lighted street, and clasping his arm close, with a show of affection which went to Arthur’s heart.

“At what time shall I come for you?” he said, as they drew near the door.

“Come for me! are you not coming with me, Arthur?”

“I have not finished my letters,” he said; “asyousay, we have had three weeks of holiday; and then I was out with you all this afternoon. I must finish my letters for the post to-night.”

She unclasped her hands from his arm without a word, and went in; and the glimpse Arthur had of the parlour did not tempt him to follow. Young Raisins wasone of the company. He was seated on the sofa where Arthur had been in the habit of sitting, presumably behind backs, and out of the observation of the others, with Nancy. Young Raisins was now the lover on hand, and the sight of him in that place sent the blood to Arthur’s head as he walked away. Could it be possible that he himself had been unspeakably happy there a few weeks ago, finding nothing but pleasantness in the four straight walls, and beauty in the family affection that made all these people hang so closely together. Raisins now occupied the foreground of the picture as he had done before, with infinitely greater suitability. And this was the home which his wife loved. There was the sting of it! had she been indifferent, undutiful—even careless, as he thought he remembered that she once was; but Nancy’s matrimonial experience, which was not entirely successful, perhaps, had thrown her back upon her earlier affections in a way which is not unusual, though Arthur was not aware of that. Her husband and shehad only their love to hold them together; their habits were not like, their manner of thought was different. Even when she was at her boldest and most confident point, Nancy was never quite at home with the “gentleman” she had married; but with her own people, she was entirely at her ease. Arthur did not take this into consideration; but he was candid enough to feel a compunction as he walked away, and to acknowledge that from Nancy’s point of view, it might seem hard that he could not spend an hour or two without complaining in the society of the family who had been everything to her all her life. It was hard, that so soon, before a month of her married life was over, she should have to choose between the old home and the new, between her parents and her husband. Arthur had a generous mind, and this perception kept him from feeling himself the aggrieved person, as he had been half disposed to do. It forced him, also, instead of wandering about as he had done on the previous night, and brooding over the difficulties of his newposition, to go back to his hotel and really write the half imaginary letters which were his only business, and the reason which he had again given for his abandonment of that family circle. His letters were not all imaginary: there was one from Mr. Rolt, the agent, in answer to Arthur’s letter to his father. Sir John had been too indignant, as well as perhaps (but this he was not conscious of) too little disposed for exertion to answer it himself. He had handed over the note, not to the lawyer brother, against whom Arthur had vowed vengeance, but to the agent, who had always been a favourite, the friend of their youth, with the young Curtises, both boy and girl. Mr. Rolt’s letter was very kind and reasonable, and to answer it without proving himself to be in the wrong was difficult. Sir John did not object to raising his allowance—he did not refuse anything Arthur asked him. There was nothing hard in the stipulations, nothing forbidding in what his father’s deputy wrote.

“Your family do not wish you to suffer,how could you think it?—they do not wish to reduce you from your natural position. Had you treated them as they might have expected to be treated, my dear Arthur,” wrote the good man who had known him all his life, “you might, I think, have reckoned on Sir John’s indulgence to any extent; but you have not put that trust in your father and mother, though they certainly deserved it at your hands; and can you wonder if Sir John is angry? He will not write to you himself, feeling that your letter is not the kind of letter he ought to have had from you in the circumstances; but he has instructed me to tell you that your wishes shall be complied with to any reasonable amount. He does not wish you to suffer in personal comfort in consequence of the step you have taken.”

This was the letter which Arthur had to answer. He paused, reflecting on it, repeating to himself, “does not wish you to suffer in personal comfort.” Were there other ways which they suspected and calculated upon in which he mightsuffer for his disobedience? He paused to go over all that had happened within the last three months. Could he have acted otherwise than he had done? If he had given his confidence to his parents from the beginning, as they reproached him for not doing, what would have been the issue? With what eyes would Lady Curtis and Lucy have looked upon his Nancy, who, for her part, would have defied them? He shook his head as he sat pondering over the sheet of paper before him. No! no! had he confided in them things would have been worse, not better—for anyhow he would have married Nancy, if without their consent, if against their deliberate judgment, what did it matter? except that the last would have been the worst. He could fancy how she would have met their inspection—how she would have repulsed and scorned them. No—no, he repeated to himself. Better to leave them in ignorance than to hazard the open quarrels, the inevitable rending asunder that must have followed. They could not have withdrawn his heart fromNancy. No, again no! And the breach would have been more bitter, not less. With a sigh he decided that, on the whole, he had not chosen the worst way. He did not say to himself that both were bad enough, but he sighed. Nancy had left him to go to her family, to be happy in the stuffy little parlour, where her father drank his rum and water; and he—he sighed, going no further—forhisbelongings, for his home, for the natural occupations of his life. They did not regret their choice either of them; but yet within the first month of their marriage, this curious return upon themselves had happened to both. Perhaps this is not so wonderful even among the happiest as we pretend; for is not the beginning the hardest, in marriage as in so many other things? Arthur wrote and posted his letter, feeling himself bound to do so after what he had said; then went on to fetch his wife from her father’s house. They were very merry there, he could hear as he passed the lighted window; and it was more and more curious to him when hewent in to find young Raisins the master of the situation, amusing them all with his jokes. Arthur, in his time, had never had so muchsuccès. He was rather glad to see that Nancy was not enjoying the fun like the rest, but sat a little apart and with a somewhat moody countenance until he entered, when she flung off her gravity, plunged into the riot that was going on round the table, where Mr. Raisins was doing tricks with cards, and laughed and talked with the best. Arthur could not make out whether this was to show him her superior gaiety and light-heartedness at home, or whether it was his own presence which brought back her light-heartedness. And he himself, touched by compunction, did his best to make himself agreeable, to show that he wished for a good intelligence between them. He was more successful in this than he had hoped. Young Raisins’ fine qualities had so charmed and delighted the house that Arthur too shared the good feeling he had called forth. Mrs. Bates melted altogether, and spreading out her hands declared that “thiswasa happy meeting,” and that “parents” had reason to be satisfied, indeed, when their girls were thus happily settled. “When you all rally round the ‘old house,’”were the words the gratified mother used; but unfortunately in the general impulse of emotion that followed, Arthur could scarcely restrain a slight laugh, which Nancy, who seemed to be all ear, remarked, though no one else noticed it. Why should he laugh? He would not have laughed had it been the old house of Oakley, amid its trees and parks, that was to be rallied round; and why not the small tenement in East Street, Underhayes? Was it possible that materialism could go so far as to measure sentiment by the size of the house? He said this to himself, yet still laughed in his mind, and could not tell why.

“I hope you have written your letters,” Nancy said, coldly, as they walked home.

“Yes; the one I specially wanted to write is gone. It was an answer to Mr. Rolt’s which I told you about.”

“Then you will have no excuse aboutwriting letters to-mor—I mean another night. You will not have that reason to give for staying away.”

“You do not want me to spend every evening at your mother’s, Nancy?”

“Ah, now it comes out,” she said. “I knew it all along. It was not letters, but because you wanted to escape from us, from my family, whom you look down upon. If you despise them, you should never have married me; for I will stick to them as long as I live.”

“I am not in the habit of making lying excuses,” said Arthur, as calmly as he could; “and it is not necessary,” he added after a pause, controlling the sentiment in his voice, “to despise a family because you do not wish to be with them every night.”

“Every night! this is the second night,” cried Nancy in high disdain.

“Nancy,” said Arthur, “do not let us quarrel. I don’t want to interfere with your natural affection, but you cannot expect me to feel exactly as you do. It is not possible! And don’t you think it would be wise to agree that there are great differences between your family and me? that we are likely to agree better apart, and that a meeting now and then would be best, not too often? I don’t want to dictate to you—”

“No; it would be more wise, as you say, not to try,” said Nancy. “I see now. This is why you wouldn’t condescend to look at the other house. Ah, I see! you mean to go away, to leave this place, which is the only place I can be happy in. This is your plan? Oh, I allow it is a fine plan! but it will not be so easy to carry out.”

“I don’t want, I say, to dictate to you. I don’t want you to give up anything that is important for your happiness. But I have given up my people for you, Nancy—”

“Then go back to your people, and have done with it!” cried Nancy, throwing herself free from his arm, to which she had been clinging, and pushing him from her. Arthur was so startled to find himself driven to the edge of the pavement by this energetic impulse, that even the power of speech seemed taken from him. And what was there to say?

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