Volume One—Chapter Five.

Volume One—Chapter Five.Mutual Friends.“Que serait la vie sans espérance? Qu’ils le disent ceux qui n’ont plus rien à espérer ici bas.”L’Homme de Quarante Ans.“Alas! alas! Hope is not prophecy.”“Sorry to keep you waiting—quite against my habit, I assure you. But trains, you see, are worse than time and tide—they not only wait for no one, they very often make people wait for them,” said the lawyer, as he shook bands cordially with his mother’s guests. “And how is Master Quintin?” he inquired, turning again to Mrs Eyrecourt. “He got no cold bath this morning, I hope? I heard he was going skating with my youngsters.”Gertrude was much more at home in skating and cricket than in babies and eye-teeth, and Quin was always a congenial subject; so seeing her released from her purgatory, Roma looked about in search of entertainment for herself. Old Mrs Montmorris was now busy talking to some one on her other side; it was the new arrival. Roma glanced up at him, he was standing besides his hostess listening attentively to her little soft, uninteresting remarks. He was quite a young man, at which Roma felt surprised; for with the curious impatience of suspense, with which a lively imagination, even on commonplace and not specially interesting details, takes precedence of knowledge, she had unconsciously pictured this friend of the lawyer’s as middle-aged, if not elderly. Her surprise made her examine him more particularly. He was not exactly what she was accustomed to consider good-looking, though tall and powerfully made without being awkward or clumsy. His hair, though dark, was distinctly brown, not black, and he somehow gave the impression of being naturally a fair-complexioned man, though at present so tanned by exposure to sun and air, that one could but guess at his normal colouring. From where she sat, Roma could not see much of his eyes: she was wondering if they were brown or blue—when a general movement, told her that dinner was announced.Old Mr Montmorris toddled off with Gertrude on his arm, Roma was preparing to follow her with Mr Christian Montmorris, whom she saw bearing down in her direction, when his mother turned towards her with an apologetic little smile.“You will excuse me, my dear, I am sure, for keeping my son to myself. I am very proud of having my boy’s arm into the dining-room when he is here—which is not so often as I should like.”Miss Eyrecourt was perfectly resigned, and expressed her feelings to this effect in suitable language. She looked round for Miss Cecilia and Miss Bessie, with whom she supposed she was to bring up the rear in good-little-girl fashion, but this she found was by no means in accordance with the Montmorris ideas of etiquette.“Miss Eyrecourt,” said the lawyer, recalling her truant attention, “will you allow me to introduce my friend Mr Thurston to you?”So on Mr Thurston’s arm Miss Eyrecourt gracefully sailed away, feeling herself, to tell the truth, much smaller than she ever remembered to have felt herself before; he was so very tall and held himself so uprightly, giving her, at this first introduction, a general impression of unbendingness.“What can I find to talk to him about?” she said to herself, for already her instinct had told her he was not one of the order of men with whom she was never at a loss for conversation. “He has only just returned from India. He won’t know anything about the regular set of things one begins with. And I can see he is the sort of man that looks down upon women as inferior creatures, and hasn’t tact or breeding enough to hide it. How I wish I could turn him into Beauchamp just till dinner is over. How different it would be! Only the night before last, I was sitting beside him at the Dalrymples’! Poor Beauchamp—he is certainly very nice to talk to and laugh with!”She gave a little sigh, quite unconscious that it was audible, till looking up, she found that Mr Thurston was observing her with, a slight smile on his face. She blushed—a weakness her four-and-twenty years were not often guilty of. “Hateful man!” she said to herself. Yet she could not help glancing at him again, unconcernedly as it were, just to show him she was above feeling annoyed by his rudeness. She found out what colour his eyes were now: they were grey, deep-set and penetrating. Suddenly he surprised her by beginning to speak.“I am sorry I smiled just now,” he said—his voice was clear and decisive in tone—“I saw you did not like it. But I really could not help it. Your sigh was so very melancholy.”“I hardly see that that is any excuse for your smiling,” she replied, rather stiffly.“Perhaps not. I daresay it was quite inexcusable,” he said, quietly. “I fear I am a very uncivilised being altogether,” he went on. “For the last three years I have been living in an out-of-the-way part of India, where I seldom saw any Europeans but those immediately connected with my work, and you would hardly believe how strange it seems to me to be among cultivated, refined people again.”“Then you are not in the army?” asked Miss Eyrecourt.“Oh, no, I am an engineer; but only a civil one,” he replied. Roma looked as if she hardly understood him. “I don’t suppose you know much of my sort of work, or my part of the country,” he went on. “The south knows less of the north, in some ways, than the north of the south. It strikes one very forcibly when one returns home to little England, after being on the other side of the world. Still, it is natural you shouldn’t know much of the north; for though we come south for variety and recreation, we cannot expect you to find pleasure in visiting such places as the Black Country or the manufacturing districts.”“You are taking a great deal for granted, I think,” said Roma, becoming interested. “And why should you not give credit for sometimes having other motives than pleasure to—” “other classes besides your own,” she was going to have added, but the words struck her as ill-bred. “I mean to say,” she went on, choosing her words with difficulty, a very unusual state of things for her—“don’t you think it possible people—an idle person, like me, we will say—ever do anything or go anywhere with any other motive than pleasure or amusement? I think it a great mistake to take up those wholesale notions. As it happens, Idoknow something of the north—yes, of the north, in your sense of the word,” for she fancied he looked incredulous. “I only left Wareborough yesterday morning.” (“I needn’t tellyouwhat took me up there,” she added to herself, smiling as she remembered how she had teased Beauchamp by her exaggerated account of the motives of her visit to Deepthorne).“Wareborough!” exclaimed Mr Thurston. Roma was amused by his evident surprise. “How very odd! Wareborough is my home. I hope to be there again by Wednesday or Thursday. But that can’t interest you,” he went on, looking a little ashamed of his own eagerness; “and of course it isn’t really odd. People must be travelling between Wareborough and Brighton every day. One gets in the way of exaggerating trifles of the kind absurdly when one has lived some time so completely out of the world as I have done. It struck me as such a curious little coincidence, for I think you are the first lady I have had any conversation with since I landed. I came by long sea too, for the sake of an invalid friend, so my chances of re-civilising myself have been very small, so far.”“Itwasan odd little coincidence,” replied Roma, good-humouredly. “But after all, you know,” she added, “the world is very small.”He hardly caught the sense of her remark.“In one sense, I suppose it is,” he said, slowly; “but in another—all, no, Miss Eyrecourt, you are fortunate if you have never felt how dreadfully big the world is! It used to seem a perfectly frightful way off from everything—everybody I cared for, out there sometimes.”He spoke gravely, and with an introspective look in his eyes, as if reviewing past anxieties known only to himself.“And then,” he went on in the same tone, “absence is absence, after all. One can never count surely on finding any one, or anything what one left them.”“Nought looks the same save the nest we made,” said Roma, softly. “Don’t laugh at me, Mr Thurston—fray don’t,” she went on, hurriedly. “I am not the least sentimental. I never look at poetry, only sometimes little rubbishy bits I learnt as a child come into my head and ‘give me feelings,’ as I once heard a little girl say.”“Then they are poetry toyou,” said her companion, kindly—earnestly almost, and a look came into his eyes which she had not seen in them before—a look which gave Roma a silly passing feeling of envy of the woman on whom some day they might rest with an intensity of that gaze. “Let me see,” he went on, “I think I too remember learning those verses as a child—“Gone are the heads of the silvery hair.And the young that were have a brow of care.“Isn’t that it? I don’t think I am likely to find those changes exactly. Perhaps, after all, what I most dread is not actual change—not change from what reallywas—but change from what I have gone on imagining to myself—hoping for, dreaming of. Ah, it would be very hard to bear!”He seemed almost to have forgotten he was speaking aloud. Roma felt interested, though she could not altogether follow his train of thought.“It looks rather like a case of the girl he left behind,” she said to herself, with her usual habit of making fun of anything approaching “sentiment,” and she thought it would be as well to give the conversation a turn. “Are you going to live at Wareborough now?” she inquired, “I wonder if you know my friends there!”Here broke in the voice of Miss Bessie Montmorris, whose ears, from her seat on Mr Thurston’s other side, had caught the word Wareborough. “We had a governess once who afterwards went to live at Wareborough,” she remarked, with amusing irrelevancy; the truth was she thought Miss Eyrecourt had had quite her share of the good-looking stranger’s attention, and caught at the first straw to draw it to herself. “It was some years ago,” she continued.“So I should suppose,” muttered Roma, who was not altogether pleased at Miss Bessie’s interruption, and felt delighted to see by a slight contraction of the muscles of Mr Thurston’s mouth, that her murmur had reached his ears.“Her name,” went on Miss Bessie, calmly, “was Bérard—Mademoiselle Bérard. She was French. I remember all about her going to live at Wareborough, for she used to write to us regularly. I can tell you the name of the family she went to. She stayed there some years. I have the name and address written down somewhere, so I am sure I am right,” as if her hearers had been eagerly beseeching her for accurate information on the subject—“it was Laurence. There were two little girls, and no mother.”Confirmed story-tellers, it is said, “sometimes speak the truth by mistake.” In the same way, exceedingly silly people do sometimes by a happy chance succeed in producing a sensation. Miss Bessie Montmorris, had she been gifted with clairvoyance, could not have hit upon a name as certain to affect vividly both her hearers as the one that had just passed her lips. For the interest of the morning’s conversation was still strong upon Roma, and Mr Thurston, for reasons best known to himself, was not in a frame of mind to hear quite unmoved this unexpected mention of his friends by name.Both started, then each looked surprised at the other for doing so. Mr Thurston was the first to speak—it seemed to Miss Eyrecourt, that he was eager to conceal the slight momentary disturbance of his equilibrium. His words were addressed to Miss Bessie, but Roma felt that she was intended to listen to them.“I remember your friend, Mademoiselle Bérard, very well, Miss Montmorris,” he said. “And an excellent creature she is. The Laurences are old friends of mine. I thought them most fortunate in meeting with Mademoiselle Bérard, for of course motherless girls require extra care. Do you happen to know where she is now? Somewhere in the South of France was her home, I think, was it not?”He engaged Miss Bessie in recalling how long it was since she had heard from “Mademoiselle,” what she had then said as to her plans, etc, and rather mischievously muddled the poor thing with questions exposing the extremely limited state of her acquaintance with French geography. So that in a few minutes Miss Bessie felt not indisposed to retire from the field and gave, subsequently, in the family council, as her opinion of “Christy’s friend,” that he was a “heavy, prosy young man, quite without conversation.”When she was safely off his hands, engaged in an amicable sisterly discussion with Mrs Christian across the table as to the precise hour at which Mr Beamish, the family apothecary, had called this morning, and about what o’clock to-morrow it was thought probable the last eye-tooth would appear, Mr Thurston returned to Roma.“After all,” he said, smiling. “I quite agree with you, the world isverysmall.” Roma laughed. “I certainly did not expect to have an instance of the truth of my quotation so very soon,” she said. “I met the Laurences when I was staying at Wareborough just now. I see you know them too.”“Very well indeed,” he replied. “You will not wonder so much at my evident interest in what Miss Montmorris was talking about when I tell you that one of the Miss Laurences is engaged to be married to my brother—my only brother. He is a curate at Wareborough. Perhaps you met him too?”Roma’s face expressed extreme surprise, and to any one well enough acquainted with her to read a little below the surface, it would have been plain, that at first, the surprise was not of a disagreeable kind.“Miss Laurence engaged to your brother?” she repeated, without noticing the latter part of Mr Thurston’s speech. “How very strange! Somehow I feel as if I could hardly believe it—having seen her so lately, only the—night before last—” she hesitated. After all, she must have been completely mistaken in her estimate of that girl’s character. She must be a flirt indeed, and not a very desirable sort of a flirt either, even according to Roma’s not very stringent notions on these subjects, to have looked up into any man’s face, be he never so charming, with those bright innocent smiles of hers, in the sort of way she had looked up into Beauchamp’s, knowing herself to be engaged to another. And a clergyman, too! Somehow the latter fact seemed to Roma to aggravate the unbecomingness of her dancing half the evening with him, and the still more marked “sitting out,” all of which Roma had explained by her extreme inexperience and youth, finding any other theory untenable in the presence of that buoyant girlish bearing, those lovely, honest, unsuspicious eyes. “I think I had fallen a little in love with her myself,” thought Roma. “But if she is really engaged, it is a great relief on Beauchamp’s account, and indirectly on my own. For Gertrude may be as incredulous as she likes—it is not often he will come across a girl like that, and more than half in love with him already, as, engaged or not engaged, I amcertainshe is.”But when she had reached this point in her meditations, she became aware that Mr Thurston was looking at her in some perplexity, waiting for her to finish her uncompleted sentence. How could she finish it? She could not tell him what she was thinking, that his brother was very much to be pitied, and that Miss Laurence was by no means “what she seemed,” but that on all accounts,herown and Captain Chancellor’s included, the sooner they were married the better. “What a complication,” thought Roma, “and how odd that this complete stranger, this Mr Thurston, or rather his brother, should be mixed up in my private affairs in this roundabout way.” She felt a silly sort of inclination to burst out laughing: it made her feel nervous to see him sitting there looking at her, waiting for her to speak. Why did he want so much to hear what she had to say? She could not understand the look of restrained eagerness in her face. She must say something.“It is very absurd of me to feel as if Miss Laurence could not be engaged without its having been formally announced to me,” she began. “I only saw her a few times, but I think she impressed me unusually. She is soverypretty, so—I don’t know what to call it—like a bunch of wild flowers; a perfect embodiment of brightness andyoung-ness, and everything sweet and fresh and—ingenuous;” the last word came with a little halt. It was not lost on her companion; not a tone or a look of Miss Eyrecourt’s but had been noted by him with breathless acuteness since Eugenia Laurence had become the subject of their conversation. But he refrained just yet from explaining her mistake to her. “It is rather curious that Mrs Dalrymple, my cousin, where I was staying—you know her, no doubt, she is a friend of the Laurence’s—did not tell me of it, is it not?”“I am not at all sure that she knows of the engagement as a fact,” Mr Thurston replied, quietly. “It has been a sort of taken-for-granted thing among ourselves, but they were both so young, that it was agreed it should not be formally recognised for some time. Indeed, my return home is to be the signal for its actual announcement, as I standin loco parentisto my brother, though not very many years his senior. It is nosecret, though,” with a smile, “most likely I should not have mentioned it had this been Wareborough instead of Brighton. But I fancied you must have thought my manner odd when the Laurences were mentioned. I must set you right on one point, however. From what you say of her I see you think it is the elder Miss Laurence I mean. It is not Eugenia, who is engaged to my brother, but the younger one—Sydney.”“Sydney, a younger sister? Oh yes, I remember; but I never happened to see her. She was away from home nearly all the week I was there. But, dear me, she must be a perfect child. Eugenia doesn’t look eighteen,” exclaimed Miss Eyrecourt.“Sydney is almost that. Eugenia has always looked younger than her age. It was by that I recognised her—in your description, I mean.”He spoke rather confusedly, and his own slight embarrassment prevented his noticing the curious mingling of expressions on his companion’s face. She did not know if she was glad or sorry to find herself mistaken.“So I may reinstate Eugenia in my good opinion, and fall in love with her again if I choose,” she reflected. “And Beauchamp may do so too, unfortunately, without clashing with the curate; but I am not by any means sure that it would not be clashing with the curate’s brother.”She looked up again at Mr Thurston as the thought struck her definitely for the first time. Her wits were quick, her instinct quicker. Why should he have so instantly discovered it was Eugenia she was thinking of? That was a lame excuse he had given of her reference to the girl’s extreme youth. Sydney was still younger. Ah, no! her words had been tinged with the charm she had herself felt the influence of in Eugenia; and he, lover-like, had forthwith appropriated the tribute of admiration as his lady-love’s, and no one else’s! Was she—would she be his lady-love? How would it all end? Roma fell into a reverie, which lasted till she found herself back in the drawing-room again, listening to old Mrs Montmorris’s platitudes, and young Mrs Montmorris’s pitter-patter conversation till she could almost have fancied the last hour was a dream.After a while they asked her to sing. She was not sorry to do anything to get over the time till the gentlemen joined them again, for four female Montmorrises without an idea among them were not entertaining. And singing was a pleasure to Roma. It cost her no effort; her voice was sound and true and suggestive, and so well trained that it sounded perfectly natural. She had sung two songs, and was half-way through a third, when she heard the door open and the gentlemen enter. “Hush!” said Mrs Christian. “Hush!” repeated Miss Bessie and Miss Cecilia, and the two Messrs Montmorris obediently seated themselves with audibly elaborate endeavours at noiselessness till the song should be over. Roma felt more than half inclined to stop, and was lifting her hands from the piano with this intention, when a voice beside her whispering, “Go on, please,” made her change her mind. It was Mr Thurston. “How could such a great tall creature as he have come across the room so quietly?” thought Miss Eyrecourt to herself; and then she became suddenly alive to the very sentimental nature of the ballad she was singing. It was new to her to feel the least shy or self-conscious; she had sung it hundreds of times before, often with Beauchamp standing behind her chair, but the meaning of the words had never before come home to her as now. There was no help for it, however; she must go through with it now; but she wished Mr Thurston would go over to the sofa and talk to Miss Cecilia. She came to the fourth verse—The time and all so fairy sweet,That at each word we did say,I felt the time for love so meetThat love I gave away.She caught sight of Mr Thurston’s face. It was very grave. Was he thinking of Eugenia? Roma resolved she would never sing a love song again. She got to the last verse:—We take on trust, forsooth we must,And reckon as we see;But oh, my love, if false thou prove,What recks all else to me?“Thank you,” said Mr Thurston, and his words were echoed from all parts of the room. “I don’t think I ever heard that song before,” he observed, when the clamour of thanks had subsided again.“I don’t fancy you ever did,” replied Roma. “I have only got it in manuscript. It was set to music by a friend of Be— my—my—” She stopped. Mr Thurston was looking at her curiously. For no reason that she could give to herself she felt her cheeks suddenly blushing crimson. What had come over her to-night? Never in all her life did she remember having been so absurdly silly. She made a great effort. “I always tumble over Captain Chancellor’s connexion with me,” she said, boldly; “it is such an indescribable one. He is my sister-in-law’s brother. By the way, Mr Thurston, he is at Wareborough just now—stationed there; you may meet him.”“I shall certainly remember your mention of him if I do,” said Mr Thurston, courteously. Then he recurred to the subject of the song. “It is very pretty, both words and music, and it is a great treat to me to hear such singing as yours, Miss Eyrecourt.”“It is the only thing I can do. I am very idle and useless,” she said, rather sadly.“Your one talent? I don’t know about that,” he replied. “I should say you could do a great many things well if you liked to try. Perhaps it is the thing you best like doing? We are often apt to consider that the only thing wecando.”“Perhaps. I daresay you are right,” her voice was more subdued than usual. “I suppose there is no law forcing certain human beings to be drones.”“Or butterflies?” suggested Mr Thurston. “Well, or butterflies,” she continued, with a smile, “whether they will or not. But,” with a little hesitation, and a glance round to make sure that Gertrude was not within hearing, “when one has no special duties, no very near ties—however kind one’s friends may be—it is a little difficult, isn’t it, to be anything better?”“Not a little—very,” he said, kindly, looking sorry for her. “But it may not always be so,” in a lower tone.“That is thanks to my idiotic blush when I mentioned Beauchamp,” thought Roma. She felt annoyed, and, rising from her seat, stood by the piano turning over the loose music lying about, without speaking. For a moment Mr Thurston watched her silently, his face had a perplexed look as if he were endeavouring to make up his mind about something.“Miss Eyrecourt,” he said at last. “Will you do me a little favour? Will you tell me something I want to know, and not think it odd of me to ask it?”“If I can, I will,” she answered. “What is it?”“I want you to tell me,” he said, speaking clearly and unhesitatingly now, “I want you to tell me why it was so much easier for you to believe the fact of my brother’s engagement to the younger Miss Laurence than to the elder.”In her embarrassment, Roma gave a foolish answer—“You forget,” she said, “that I don’t know the younger sister. It is easy to accept anything one is told about a perfect stranger, though I did feel surprised. She is so young.”“Surprised perhaps, but nothing more?” he persisted. “It is just what you say—you know nothing of the one sister, but you do know something of the other; something which made it difficult for you to credit what you thought I told you ofher. It is that something I want you to tell me. You don’t know what a service you may be doing me.”“But I can’t tell you,” said Roma, becoming more and more uncomfortable. “And I don’t think I would if I could. It makes me feel like a spy.”Just then her eye caught the last words of the song she had been singing, lying on the piano beside her!But oh,mylove, if false thou prove!Mr Thurston’s glance followed hers. He read the line too.“You don’t understand me,” he said, not resenting her hasty accusation. “It is nothing of that kind. One can’t talk of ‘false,’ when there has been no sort of promise claimed or given, directly or indirectly. I shall have no one but myself to thank for it, if it is all over. Only I think I should be much better—less likely to make a fool of myself, in short,” with a smile, “if I were not quite unprepared. That is why I want you to tell me what was in your mind. I know it is a very odd thing to ask, but our whole conversation has been odd. Just think; what have I not told you or allowed you to infer, and two hours ago I had never heard your name?”While he was speaking, Roma had been collecting her wits. “Mr Thurston,” she said gravely, “I cannot tell you anything. There are passing impressions and fancies which take a false substance and form from merely putting them into words. Truly, I have nothing it would be fair—to yourself, I mean—to tell you her;” decision was strengthened by the recollection of Gertrude’s ridicule of her “absurd fancifulness” this very morning. “I can only say,” with a smile, “that I don’t agree with my song. There is no need for ‘taking on trust.’ Go and see for yourself. If you are disappointed, I pity you with all my heart, but if you are deceived in any way it will be your own fault, nothers. She is candour itself. Still, don’t be too easily discouraged. I wish you well.”“Thank you,” he said, for he saw she was thoroughly determined to say no more, and they both moved away to other parts of the room.Nothing more passed between them except a word or two when they were saying good-night. “We may meet again some day, Miss Eyrecourt—at Wareborough. Perhaps,” said Mr Thurston.“Perhaps,” said Roma, “but ‘some day’ is a wide word.”“Not always,” he replied, and that was all. “You seemed to get on unusually well with that friend of Christian Montmorris’s, Roma,” said Gertrude, when they were shut up together in the carriage on their way home. Her tone was half satisfied and inquisitive: she evidently had not made up her mind if her sister-in-law should be scolded or not. Roma had been debating how much of her conversation with Mr Thurston it would be well to retail to Mrs Eyrecourt, but something in Gertrude’s remark jarred upon her, and she instantly resolved to tell her nothing.“Did I?” she said, indifferently. “Well, there was no one else to get on with; and he had just come from India, so he was rather more amusing than the Montmorrises.”“Is he going back again immediately?” asked Mrs Eyrecourt, but she never waited for the answer. A new idea struck her. “Oh, by-the-bye, Roma,” she exclaimed. “Isn’t it odd—just when we were talking about the Halswood Chancellors this morning—old Mr Montmorris tells me the second son, that is to say rather, the secondgrandson, died last year. Isn’t it odd we never heard of it? He seems to have a very high opinion of the new head of the family—Herbert Chancellor; he says Halswood will be a very different place now. The income has increased amazingly; old Uncle Chancellor spent so little; and Herbert Chancellor’s wife has a large fortune too, he tells me. Fancy, Roma, their eldest child, a girl, is eighteen. Wouldn’t she be nice for Beauchamp?”“Very,” replied Roma, satirically. “She’s got money—that’s all that needs to be considered.”“You shouldn’t speak so, Roma. As ifIwould ever put money before other things—goodness and suitableness and all that,” said Gertrude, in an injured tone. “You’re in one of your queer humours to-night, I see. But I daresay you’re very tired, poor child! and it was very good-natured of you to come to the Montmorrises’ with me.”

“Que serait la vie sans espérance? Qu’ils le disent ceux qui n’ont plus rien à espérer ici bas.”L’Homme de Quarante Ans.“Alas! alas! Hope is not prophecy.”

“Que serait la vie sans espérance? Qu’ils le disent ceux qui n’ont plus rien à espérer ici bas.”L’Homme de Quarante Ans.“Alas! alas! Hope is not prophecy.”

“Sorry to keep you waiting—quite against my habit, I assure you. But trains, you see, are worse than time and tide—they not only wait for no one, they very often make people wait for them,” said the lawyer, as he shook bands cordially with his mother’s guests. “And how is Master Quintin?” he inquired, turning again to Mrs Eyrecourt. “He got no cold bath this morning, I hope? I heard he was going skating with my youngsters.”

Gertrude was much more at home in skating and cricket than in babies and eye-teeth, and Quin was always a congenial subject; so seeing her released from her purgatory, Roma looked about in search of entertainment for herself. Old Mrs Montmorris was now busy talking to some one on her other side; it was the new arrival. Roma glanced up at him, he was standing besides his hostess listening attentively to her little soft, uninteresting remarks. He was quite a young man, at which Roma felt surprised; for with the curious impatience of suspense, with which a lively imagination, even on commonplace and not specially interesting details, takes precedence of knowledge, she had unconsciously pictured this friend of the lawyer’s as middle-aged, if not elderly. Her surprise made her examine him more particularly. He was not exactly what she was accustomed to consider good-looking, though tall and powerfully made without being awkward or clumsy. His hair, though dark, was distinctly brown, not black, and he somehow gave the impression of being naturally a fair-complexioned man, though at present so tanned by exposure to sun and air, that one could but guess at his normal colouring. From where she sat, Roma could not see much of his eyes: she was wondering if they were brown or blue—when a general movement, told her that dinner was announced.

Old Mr Montmorris toddled off with Gertrude on his arm, Roma was preparing to follow her with Mr Christian Montmorris, whom she saw bearing down in her direction, when his mother turned towards her with an apologetic little smile.

“You will excuse me, my dear, I am sure, for keeping my son to myself. I am very proud of having my boy’s arm into the dining-room when he is here—which is not so often as I should like.”

Miss Eyrecourt was perfectly resigned, and expressed her feelings to this effect in suitable language. She looked round for Miss Cecilia and Miss Bessie, with whom she supposed she was to bring up the rear in good-little-girl fashion, but this she found was by no means in accordance with the Montmorris ideas of etiquette.

“Miss Eyrecourt,” said the lawyer, recalling her truant attention, “will you allow me to introduce my friend Mr Thurston to you?”

So on Mr Thurston’s arm Miss Eyrecourt gracefully sailed away, feeling herself, to tell the truth, much smaller than she ever remembered to have felt herself before; he was so very tall and held himself so uprightly, giving her, at this first introduction, a general impression of unbendingness.

“What can I find to talk to him about?” she said to herself, for already her instinct had told her he was not one of the order of men with whom she was never at a loss for conversation. “He has only just returned from India. He won’t know anything about the regular set of things one begins with. And I can see he is the sort of man that looks down upon women as inferior creatures, and hasn’t tact or breeding enough to hide it. How I wish I could turn him into Beauchamp just till dinner is over. How different it would be! Only the night before last, I was sitting beside him at the Dalrymples’! Poor Beauchamp—he is certainly very nice to talk to and laugh with!”

She gave a little sigh, quite unconscious that it was audible, till looking up, she found that Mr Thurston was observing her with, a slight smile on his face. She blushed—a weakness her four-and-twenty years were not often guilty of. “Hateful man!” she said to herself. Yet she could not help glancing at him again, unconcernedly as it were, just to show him she was above feeling annoyed by his rudeness. She found out what colour his eyes were now: they were grey, deep-set and penetrating. Suddenly he surprised her by beginning to speak.

“I am sorry I smiled just now,” he said—his voice was clear and decisive in tone—“I saw you did not like it. But I really could not help it. Your sigh was so very melancholy.”

“I hardly see that that is any excuse for your smiling,” she replied, rather stiffly.

“Perhaps not. I daresay it was quite inexcusable,” he said, quietly. “I fear I am a very uncivilised being altogether,” he went on. “For the last three years I have been living in an out-of-the-way part of India, where I seldom saw any Europeans but those immediately connected with my work, and you would hardly believe how strange it seems to me to be among cultivated, refined people again.”

“Then you are not in the army?” asked Miss Eyrecourt.

“Oh, no, I am an engineer; but only a civil one,” he replied. Roma looked as if she hardly understood him. “I don’t suppose you know much of my sort of work, or my part of the country,” he went on. “The south knows less of the north, in some ways, than the north of the south. It strikes one very forcibly when one returns home to little England, after being on the other side of the world. Still, it is natural you shouldn’t know much of the north; for though we come south for variety and recreation, we cannot expect you to find pleasure in visiting such places as the Black Country or the manufacturing districts.”

“You are taking a great deal for granted, I think,” said Roma, becoming interested. “And why should you not give credit for sometimes having other motives than pleasure to—” “other classes besides your own,” she was going to have added, but the words struck her as ill-bred. “I mean to say,” she went on, choosing her words with difficulty, a very unusual state of things for her—“don’t you think it possible people—an idle person, like me, we will say—ever do anything or go anywhere with any other motive than pleasure or amusement? I think it a great mistake to take up those wholesale notions. As it happens, Idoknow something of the north—yes, of the north, in your sense of the word,” for she fancied he looked incredulous. “I only left Wareborough yesterday morning.” (“I needn’t tellyouwhat took me up there,” she added to herself, smiling as she remembered how she had teased Beauchamp by her exaggerated account of the motives of her visit to Deepthorne).

“Wareborough!” exclaimed Mr Thurston. Roma was amused by his evident surprise. “How very odd! Wareborough is my home. I hope to be there again by Wednesday or Thursday. But that can’t interest you,” he went on, looking a little ashamed of his own eagerness; “and of course it isn’t really odd. People must be travelling between Wareborough and Brighton every day. One gets in the way of exaggerating trifles of the kind absurdly when one has lived some time so completely out of the world as I have done. It struck me as such a curious little coincidence, for I think you are the first lady I have had any conversation with since I landed. I came by long sea too, for the sake of an invalid friend, so my chances of re-civilising myself have been very small, so far.”

“Itwasan odd little coincidence,” replied Roma, good-humouredly. “But after all, you know,” she added, “the world is very small.”

He hardly caught the sense of her remark.

“In one sense, I suppose it is,” he said, slowly; “but in another—all, no, Miss Eyrecourt, you are fortunate if you have never felt how dreadfully big the world is! It used to seem a perfectly frightful way off from everything—everybody I cared for, out there sometimes.”

He spoke gravely, and with an introspective look in his eyes, as if reviewing past anxieties known only to himself.

“And then,” he went on in the same tone, “absence is absence, after all. One can never count surely on finding any one, or anything what one left them.”

“Nought looks the same save the nest we made,” said Roma, softly. “Don’t laugh at me, Mr Thurston—fray don’t,” she went on, hurriedly. “I am not the least sentimental. I never look at poetry, only sometimes little rubbishy bits I learnt as a child come into my head and ‘give me feelings,’ as I once heard a little girl say.”

“Then they are poetry toyou,” said her companion, kindly—earnestly almost, and a look came into his eyes which she had not seen in them before—a look which gave Roma a silly passing feeling of envy of the woman on whom some day they might rest with an intensity of that gaze. “Let me see,” he went on, “I think I too remember learning those verses as a child—

“Gone are the heads of the silvery hair.And the young that were have a brow of care.

“Gone are the heads of the silvery hair.And the young that were have a brow of care.

“Isn’t that it? I don’t think I am likely to find those changes exactly. Perhaps, after all, what I most dread is not actual change—not change from what reallywas—but change from what I have gone on imagining to myself—hoping for, dreaming of. Ah, it would be very hard to bear!”

He seemed almost to have forgotten he was speaking aloud. Roma felt interested, though she could not altogether follow his train of thought.

“It looks rather like a case of the girl he left behind,” she said to herself, with her usual habit of making fun of anything approaching “sentiment,” and she thought it would be as well to give the conversation a turn. “Are you going to live at Wareborough now?” she inquired, “I wonder if you know my friends there!”

Here broke in the voice of Miss Bessie Montmorris, whose ears, from her seat on Mr Thurston’s other side, had caught the word Wareborough. “We had a governess once who afterwards went to live at Wareborough,” she remarked, with amusing irrelevancy; the truth was she thought Miss Eyrecourt had had quite her share of the good-looking stranger’s attention, and caught at the first straw to draw it to herself. “It was some years ago,” she continued.

“So I should suppose,” muttered Roma, who was not altogether pleased at Miss Bessie’s interruption, and felt delighted to see by a slight contraction of the muscles of Mr Thurston’s mouth, that her murmur had reached his ears.

“Her name,” went on Miss Bessie, calmly, “was Bérard—Mademoiselle Bérard. She was French. I remember all about her going to live at Wareborough, for she used to write to us regularly. I can tell you the name of the family she went to. She stayed there some years. I have the name and address written down somewhere, so I am sure I am right,” as if her hearers had been eagerly beseeching her for accurate information on the subject—“it was Laurence. There were two little girls, and no mother.”

Confirmed story-tellers, it is said, “sometimes speak the truth by mistake.” In the same way, exceedingly silly people do sometimes by a happy chance succeed in producing a sensation. Miss Bessie Montmorris, had she been gifted with clairvoyance, could not have hit upon a name as certain to affect vividly both her hearers as the one that had just passed her lips. For the interest of the morning’s conversation was still strong upon Roma, and Mr Thurston, for reasons best known to himself, was not in a frame of mind to hear quite unmoved this unexpected mention of his friends by name.

Both started, then each looked surprised at the other for doing so. Mr Thurston was the first to speak—it seemed to Miss Eyrecourt, that he was eager to conceal the slight momentary disturbance of his equilibrium. His words were addressed to Miss Bessie, but Roma felt that she was intended to listen to them.

“I remember your friend, Mademoiselle Bérard, very well, Miss Montmorris,” he said. “And an excellent creature she is. The Laurences are old friends of mine. I thought them most fortunate in meeting with Mademoiselle Bérard, for of course motherless girls require extra care. Do you happen to know where she is now? Somewhere in the South of France was her home, I think, was it not?”

He engaged Miss Bessie in recalling how long it was since she had heard from “Mademoiselle,” what she had then said as to her plans, etc, and rather mischievously muddled the poor thing with questions exposing the extremely limited state of her acquaintance with French geography. So that in a few minutes Miss Bessie felt not indisposed to retire from the field and gave, subsequently, in the family council, as her opinion of “Christy’s friend,” that he was a “heavy, prosy young man, quite without conversation.”

When she was safely off his hands, engaged in an amicable sisterly discussion with Mrs Christian across the table as to the precise hour at which Mr Beamish, the family apothecary, had called this morning, and about what o’clock to-morrow it was thought probable the last eye-tooth would appear, Mr Thurston returned to Roma.

“After all,” he said, smiling. “I quite agree with you, the world isverysmall.” Roma laughed. “I certainly did not expect to have an instance of the truth of my quotation so very soon,” she said. “I met the Laurences when I was staying at Wareborough just now. I see you know them too.”

“Very well indeed,” he replied. “You will not wonder so much at my evident interest in what Miss Montmorris was talking about when I tell you that one of the Miss Laurences is engaged to be married to my brother—my only brother. He is a curate at Wareborough. Perhaps you met him too?”

Roma’s face expressed extreme surprise, and to any one well enough acquainted with her to read a little below the surface, it would have been plain, that at first, the surprise was not of a disagreeable kind.

“Miss Laurence engaged to your brother?” she repeated, without noticing the latter part of Mr Thurston’s speech. “How very strange! Somehow I feel as if I could hardly believe it—having seen her so lately, only the—night before last—” she hesitated. After all, she must have been completely mistaken in her estimate of that girl’s character. She must be a flirt indeed, and not a very desirable sort of a flirt either, even according to Roma’s not very stringent notions on these subjects, to have looked up into any man’s face, be he never so charming, with those bright innocent smiles of hers, in the sort of way she had looked up into Beauchamp’s, knowing herself to be engaged to another. And a clergyman, too! Somehow the latter fact seemed to Roma to aggravate the unbecomingness of her dancing half the evening with him, and the still more marked “sitting out,” all of which Roma had explained by her extreme inexperience and youth, finding any other theory untenable in the presence of that buoyant girlish bearing, those lovely, honest, unsuspicious eyes. “I think I had fallen a little in love with her myself,” thought Roma. “But if she is really engaged, it is a great relief on Beauchamp’s account, and indirectly on my own. For Gertrude may be as incredulous as she likes—it is not often he will come across a girl like that, and more than half in love with him already, as, engaged or not engaged, I amcertainshe is.”

But when she had reached this point in her meditations, she became aware that Mr Thurston was looking at her in some perplexity, waiting for her to finish her uncompleted sentence. How could she finish it? She could not tell him what she was thinking, that his brother was very much to be pitied, and that Miss Laurence was by no means “what she seemed,” but that on all accounts,herown and Captain Chancellor’s included, the sooner they were married the better. “What a complication,” thought Roma, “and how odd that this complete stranger, this Mr Thurston, or rather his brother, should be mixed up in my private affairs in this roundabout way.” She felt a silly sort of inclination to burst out laughing: it made her feel nervous to see him sitting there looking at her, waiting for her to speak. Why did he want so much to hear what she had to say? She could not understand the look of restrained eagerness in her face. She must say something.

“It is very absurd of me to feel as if Miss Laurence could not be engaged without its having been formally announced to me,” she began. “I only saw her a few times, but I think she impressed me unusually. She is soverypretty, so—I don’t know what to call it—like a bunch of wild flowers; a perfect embodiment of brightness andyoung-ness, and everything sweet and fresh and—ingenuous;” the last word came with a little halt. It was not lost on her companion; not a tone or a look of Miss Eyrecourt’s but had been noted by him with breathless acuteness since Eugenia Laurence had become the subject of their conversation. But he refrained just yet from explaining her mistake to her. “It is rather curious that Mrs Dalrymple, my cousin, where I was staying—you know her, no doubt, she is a friend of the Laurence’s—did not tell me of it, is it not?”

“I am not at all sure that she knows of the engagement as a fact,” Mr Thurston replied, quietly. “It has been a sort of taken-for-granted thing among ourselves, but they were both so young, that it was agreed it should not be formally recognised for some time. Indeed, my return home is to be the signal for its actual announcement, as I standin loco parentisto my brother, though not very many years his senior. It is nosecret, though,” with a smile, “most likely I should not have mentioned it had this been Wareborough instead of Brighton. But I fancied you must have thought my manner odd when the Laurences were mentioned. I must set you right on one point, however. From what you say of her I see you think it is the elder Miss Laurence I mean. It is not Eugenia, who is engaged to my brother, but the younger one—Sydney.”

“Sydney, a younger sister? Oh yes, I remember; but I never happened to see her. She was away from home nearly all the week I was there. But, dear me, she must be a perfect child. Eugenia doesn’t look eighteen,” exclaimed Miss Eyrecourt.

“Sydney is almost that. Eugenia has always looked younger than her age. It was by that I recognised her—in your description, I mean.”

He spoke rather confusedly, and his own slight embarrassment prevented his noticing the curious mingling of expressions on his companion’s face. She did not know if she was glad or sorry to find herself mistaken.

“So I may reinstate Eugenia in my good opinion, and fall in love with her again if I choose,” she reflected. “And Beauchamp may do so too, unfortunately, without clashing with the curate; but I am not by any means sure that it would not be clashing with the curate’s brother.”

She looked up again at Mr Thurston as the thought struck her definitely for the first time. Her wits were quick, her instinct quicker. Why should he have so instantly discovered it was Eugenia she was thinking of? That was a lame excuse he had given of her reference to the girl’s extreme youth. Sydney was still younger. Ah, no! her words had been tinged with the charm she had herself felt the influence of in Eugenia; and he, lover-like, had forthwith appropriated the tribute of admiration as his lady-love’s, and no one else’s! Was she—would she be his lady-love? How would it all end? Roma fell into a reverie, which lasted till she found herself back in the drawing-room again, listening to old Mrs Montmorris’s platitudes, and young Mrs Montmorris’s pitter-patter conversation till she could almost have fancied the last hour was a dream.

After a while they asked her to sing. She was not sorry to do anything to get over the time till the gentlemen joined them again, for four female Montmorrises without an idea among them were not entertaining. And singing was a pleasure to Roma. It cost her no effort; her voice was sound and true and suggestive, and so well trained that it sounded perfectly natural. She had sung two songs, and was half-way through a third, when she heard the door open and the gentlemen enter. “Hush!” said Mrs Christian. “Hush!” repeated Miss Bessie and Miss Cecilia, and the two Messrs Montmorris obediently seated themselves with audibly elaborate endeavours at noiselessness till the song should be over. Roma felt more than half inclined to stop, and was lifting her hands from the piano with this intention, when a voice beside her whispering, “Go on, please,” made her change her mind. It was Mr Thurston. “How could such a great tall creature as he have come across the room so quietly?” thought Miss Eyrecourt to herself; and then she became suddenly alive to the very sentimental nature of the ballad she was singing. It was new to her to feel the least shy or self-conscious; she had sung it hundreds of times before, often with Beauchamp standing behind her chair, but the meaning of the words had never before come home to her as now. There was no help for it, however; she must go through with it now; but she wished Mr Thurston would go over to the sofa and talk to Miss Cecilia. She came to the fourth verse—

The time and all so fairy sweet,That at each word we did say,I felt the time for love so meetThat love I gave away.

The time and all so fairy sweet,That at each word we did say,I felt the time for love so meetThat love I gave away.

She caught sight of Mr Thurston’s face. It was very grave. Was he thinking of Eugenia? Roma resolved she would never sing a love song again. She got to the last verse:—

We take on trust, forsooth we must,And reckon as we see;But oh, my love, if false thou prove,What recks all else to me?

We take on trust, forsooth we must,And reckon as we see;But oh, my love, if false thou prove,What recks all else to me?

“Thank you,” said Mr Thurston, and his words were echoed from all parts of the room. “I don’t think I ever heard that song before,” he observed, when the clamour of thanks had subsided again.

“I don’t fancy you ever did,” replied Roma. “I have only got it in manuscript. It was set to music by a friend of Be— my—my—” She stopped. Mr Thurston was looking at her curiously. For no reason that she could give to herself she felt her cheeks suddenly blushing crimson. What had come over her to-night? Never in all her life did she remember having been so absurdly silly. She made a great effort. “I always tumble over Captain Chancellor’s connexion with me,” she said, boldly; “it is such an indescribable one. He is my sister-in-law’s brother. By the way, Mr Thurston, he is at Wareborough just now—stationed there; you may meet him.”

“I shall certainly remember your mention of him if I do,” said Mr Thurston, courteously. Then he recurred to the subject of the song. “It is very pretty, both words and music, and it is a great treat to me to hear such singing as yours, Miss Eyrecourt.”

“It is the only thing I can do. I am very idle and useless,” she said, rather sadly.

“Your one talent? I don’t know about that,” he replied. “I should say you could do a great many things well if you liked to try. Perhaps it is the thing you best like doing? We are often apt to consider that the only thing wecando.”

“Perhaps. I daresay you are right,” her voice was more subdued than usual. “I suppose there is no law forcing certain human beings to be drones.”

“Or butterflies?” suggested Mr Thurston. “Well, or butterflies,” she continued, with a smile, “whether they will or not. But,” with a little hesitation, and a glance round to make sure that Gertrude was not within hearing, “when one has no special duties, no very near ties—however kind one’s friends may be—it is a little difficult, isn’t it, to be anything better?”

“Not a little—very,” he said, kindly, looking sorry for her. “But it may not always be so,” in a lower tone.

“That is thanks to my idiotic blush when I mentioned Beauchamp,” thought Roma. She felt annoyed, and, rising from her seat, stood by the piano turning over the loose music lying about, without speaking. For a moment Mr Thurston watched her silently, his face had a perplexed look as if he were endeavouring to make up his mind about something.

“Miss Eyrecourt,” he said at last. “Will you do me a little favour? Will you tell me something I want to know, and not think it odd of me to ask it?”

“If I can, I will,” she answered. “What is it?”

“I want you to tell me,” he said, speaking clearly and unhesitatingly now, “I want you to tell me why it was so much easier for you to believe the fact of my brother’s engagement to the younger Miss Laurence than to the elder.”

In her embarrassment, Roma gave a foolish answer—

“You forget,” she said, “that I don’t know the younger sister. It is easy to accept anything one is told about a perfect stranger, though I did feel surprised. She is so young.”

“Surprised perhaps, but nothing more?” he persisted. “It is just what you say—you know nothing of the one sister, but you do know something of the other; something which made it difficult for you to credit what you thought I told you ofher. It is that something I want you to tell me. You don’t know what a service you may be doing me.”

“But I can’t tell you,” said Roma, becoming more and more uncomfortable. “And I don’t think I would if I could. It makes me feel like a spy.”

Just then her eye caught the last words of the song she had been singing, lying on the piano beside her!

But oh,mylove, if false thou prove!

Mr Thurston’s glance followed hers. He read the line too.

“You don’t understand me,” he said, not resenting her hasty accusation. “It is nothing of that kind. One can’t talk of ‘false,’ when there has been no sort of promise claimed or given, directly or indirectly. I shall have no one but myself to thank for it, if it is all over. Only I think I should be much better—less likely to make a fool of myself, in short,” with a smile, “if I were not quite unprepared. That is why I want you to tell me what was in your mind. I know it is a very odd thing to ask, but our whole conversation has been odd. Just think; what have I not told you or allowed you to infer, and two hours ago I had never heard your name?”

While he was speaking, Roma had been collecting her wits. “Mr Thurston,” she said gravely, “I cannot tell you anything. There are passing impressions and fancies which take a false substance and form from merely putting them into words. Truly, I have nothing it would be fair—to yourself, I mean—to tell you her;” decision was strengthened by the recollection of Gertrude’s ridicule of her “absurd fancifulness” this very morning. “I can only say,” with a smile, “that I don’t agree with my song. There is no need for ‘taking on trust.’ Go and see for yourself. If you are disappointed, I pity you with all my heart, but if you are deceived in any way it will be your own fault, nothers. She is candour itself. Still, don’t be too easily discouraged. I wish you well.”

“Thank you,” he said, for he saw she was thoroughly determined to say no more, and they both moved away to other parts of the room.

Nothing more passed between them except a word or two when they were saying good-night. “We may meet again some day, Miss Eyrecourt—at Wareborough. Perhaps,” said Mr Thurston.

“Perhaps,” said Roma, “but ‘some day’ is a wide word.”

“Not always,” he replied, and that was all. “You seemed to get on unusually well with that friend of Christian Montmorris’s, Roma,” said Gertrude, when they were shut up together in the carriage on their way home. Her tone was half satisfied and inquisitive: she evidently had not made up her mind if her sister-in-law should be scolded or not. Roma had been debating how much of her conversation with Mr Thurston it would be well to retail to Mrs Eyrecourt, but something in Gertrude’s remark jarred upon her, and she instantly resolved to tell her nothing.

“Did I?” she said, indifferently. “Well, there was no one else to get on with; and he had just come from India, so he was rather more amusing than the Montmorrises.”

“Is he going back again immediately?” asked Mrs Eyrecourt, but she never waited for the answer. A new idea struck her. “Oh, by-the-bye, Roma,” she exclaimed. “Isn’t it odd—just when we were talking about the Halswood Chancellors this morning—old Mr Montmorris tells me the second son, that is to say rather, the secondgrandson, died last year. Isn’t it odd we never heard of it? He seems to have a very high opinion of the new head of the family—Herbert Chancellor; he says Halswood will be a very different place now. The income has increased amazingly; old Uncle Chancellor spent so little; and Herbert Chancellor’s wife has a large fortune too, he tells me. Fancy, Roma, their eldest child, a girl, is eighteen. Wouldn’t she be nice for Beauchamp?”

“Very,” replied Roma, satirically. “She’s got money—that’s all that needs to be considered.”

“You shouldn’t speak so, Roma. As ifIwould ever put money before other things—goodness and suitableness and all that,” said Gertrude, in an injured tone. “You’re in one of your queer humours to-night, I see. But I daresay you’re very tired, poor child! and it was very good-natured of you to come to the Montmorrises’ with me.”

Volume One—Chapter Six.Gerald’s Home-Coming.Fairer than stars were the roses,Faint was the fragrance and rare;Not any flower in the gardenCould with those roses compare.*****But another had taken delightIn colour and perfume rare.And another hand had gatheredMy roses beyond compare.Wild Roses.It was late in the evening when Gerald Thurston at last found himself again at Wareborough. He had written to Frank to expect him by a certain train, or, failing that, not till the following day; but after all he found himself too late to leave town at the appointed hour, and only just in time to catch the afternoon express. He hesitated at first about remaining where he was another night. It would be a disappointment to his brother not to meet him at the station; but in the end, the temptation of reaching a few hours sooner the place containing everything and everybody dearest to him on earth—to him, ugly and repellent though it might be to a stranger, emphaticallyhome—proved too strong. And thus it came to pass that he reached his destination pretty late in the evening, and that no familiar figure standing on the station platform in eager anticipation met his eyes, as, in a sort of vague hope that “Frank or some one” might have thought it worth while to see the express come in, he stretched his head out of the carriage window, when the slackening speed and drearily-prolonged whistle told him he had reached his journey’s end. He had not expected any one. It was entirely his own fault, he repeated to himself so positively, as to suggest some real though unrecognised and perhaps unreasonable disappointment. It seemed in every sense a cold welcome, and he felt glad to get away from the dingy station, where even the porters were strangers to him, out into the sloppy streets, for now every turn of the cab wheels was taking him nearer home. It was raining heavily, and was very cold. It had been raining heavily and had been bitterly cold too, he remembered, when he had left Wareborough at the same season three years ago.“It all looks exactly the same,” he thought to himself, as he glanced at the gas-lighted shops, the muddy pavements, the passers-by hurrying along as if eager to get out of the rain. “For all the change I see, it might be the very evening I went away, and my three years in India a dream.”He had left the bulk of his luggage at the station, and drove straight to the little house his brother and he had called home since their parents’ death, where, with the help of an old servant who had once been their nurse, they had kept together the most valued of their household gods, and where Gerald had for long lived on the plainest fare, and denied himself every luxury, that Frank’s university career might not come to an untimely close. All that was over now, however; brighter days had come: Frank had fulfilled Gerald’s best hopes, and Gerald himself was now, comparatively speaking, a rich man. He had seen the worst of the material part of the struggle; he had made his way some distance up the hill now, he told himself. He might pause and take breath, might allow himself to dream about a future he had worked hard for, the destruction of which, though he might strive to bear it manfully, would be no passing disappointment, would, it seemed to him, take all the light out of his life.He was lost in a reverie when the cab stopped. Another little chill fell upon him, when the opening door showed, not Dorothy’s familiar face, all aflame with eager anxiety to welcome her boy, but that of a total stranger. A freezingly proper maiden of mature years, who inquired in suspicious tones, eyeing with dissatisfaction the carpet bag he held in his hand, his only visible luggage, “if he were Mr Thurston’s brother, for if so there was a note for him on the dining-room chimbley-piece.” And into the dining-room she followed him, though evidently reassured by his acquaintance with the arrangements of the house, and stood by him in an uncomfortably uncertain uninterested manner, as unlike Dorothy’s hospitable heartiness as darkness is to light, while he read Frank’s note.“I have been twice to the station,” it said; “for as you named 4:50 as ‘the latest,’ I thought I had better meet the 3:55 also. You say so positively you will not come by a later, that I think I must quite give you up. I am dining at the Laurences’. There was a particular reason for it, so I can’t get off without a better excuse than the mere ghost of a chance that you may still come to-night. Still, I leave this note, in the remote possibility of your doing so, to ask you, if you do come, to follow me. They will be delighted to see you, and it would never do for your first evening to be spent alone. Be sure you make Martha get you something. I wish we had Dorothy back.”Gerald remembered about Dorothy now. She had married a few months before. Of course; how stupid to have forgotten it! He had actually a wedding present for her in his trunk.“No, thank you—nothing,” he replied to Martha’s inquiries as to what he would have, delivered in a tone suggestive of latent resentment of untimely meals. “Nothing except a glass of sherry—you can get me that, I suppose—and a biscuit; and stay—I shall want a cab in—yes, in ten minutes. Is the boy in?—you have a boy, I suppose? In ten minutes, remember;” for Martha’s muttered reply that she “would see” was not very promising.She was as good as, or rather better than, her words. Within the prescribed time the cab was at the door, and Gerald ready (for a postscript to Frank’s note had told him “not to trouble about dressing. It would be too late if he stopped to unpack, and there were only to be one or two gentlemen at the Laurences’”), and rattling off again through the plashing streets, along the muddy road leading to the suburb where Mr Laurence lived. It was not a long drive, barely a mile, but to Gerald it seemed hours till he at last found himself standing outside the familiar door, the rain beating down steadily on his umbrella. The servant who opened here was also a stranger to him, and evidently Frank had forgotten to mention his brother’s possible appearance, for she stood irresolute, at a loss to account for his unseasonable visit. It was uncomfortable, and for the first time Gerald began to get impatient at this succession of small rebuffs, individually of no-moment, but, all together, sufficient to lower the temperature of his eager hopes and anticipations. A sort of reaction began to set in; for a minute or two he felt inclined not to reply to the servant’s inquiry as to whether he wished to see her master, but to turn away and walk home again through the rain—to Martha’s disgust, no doubt,—and never let Frank know he had obeyed his injunctions. Then he laughed at himself for even momentarily contemplating conduct which, had he been a boy again, and Dorothy there to give her opinion, she would certainly have described as “taking the pet,” and mustering his good spirits afresh, he inquired if Mr Frank Thurston were not dining with Mr Laurence.“Mr Thurston is here to-night—Mr Thurston the clergyman,” replied the young woman, with more alacrity, imagining evidently that this call was on Frankex officio. “He is still in the dining-room with the other gentlemen; but if it is anything very particular, I can tell him he is wanted at once; or if not, perhaps you will wait a few minutes till he leaves the dining-room.”“Yes, that will be better. Do not disturb him till they come out. I am Mr Fra—Mr Thurston’s brother,” whereupon the damsel became all eagerness and civility—she was young and nice-looking, in no wise resembling the forbidding-looking Martha; “but I would rather you did not say who I am; just tell him he is wanted when he comes out. Where can I wait? In here?” She opened the door of the school-room. “Ah, yes, that will do.”A chain of small coincidences seemed to connect Gerald’s return with his departure three years ago; trifling commonplace coincidences which, in a less highly-wrought state of feeling, he would probably not have observed, subtly preparing him, nevertheless, for sharper perception of the changes he had not yet owned to himself that he dreaded. For the least material natures are yet the most vividly impressed by their sensible surroundings, and a background of outward similarity throws out in strong relief immaterial differences and variations we should otherwise have been slower to realise, or, where the interest is but superficial, never perhaps have been conscious of at all.A curious sensation came over Gerald as he entered the old school-room. Here it was that three years before he had seen the last of the Laurence sisters; it had been almost the same hour of the evening, for nine o’clock, he remembered, had struck while they were all standing there, and Frank had hurried him off, fearing he would lose his train. They had driven to the station by a very circuitous route, that his oldest friends might have his latest good-bye. And Sydney had cried, he remembered, when he kissed her, and Eugenia had grown pale when he shook hands withher, and mademoiselle had stood by with tears in her kind black French eyes, and three years had seemed to them all a very long look-out indeed! And now they were over; the winter of banishment and separation was past. Were the flowers about to spring for Gerald? was the singing of birds henceforth to sound through his life? was the fulfilment of his brightest hopes at hand?Somethingwas at hand. The door had been left slightly ajar, and his ear caught the approaching sounds of a slight rustle along the passage, and of a young, happy voice softly humming a tune. It came nearer and nearer. A sudden impulse caused Gerald to step back behind the doorway; the gas-light was low in the room: it was easy to remain in shadow.She came in quickly, gave a slight exclamation of impatience at the insufficient light, then came forward into the middle of the room and stood on tiptoe, one arm stretched up as far it could reach to turn on the gas. She succeeded rather beyond her intentions, the light blazed out to the full, illuminating brilliantly her upraised face and whole figure, as she remained for a few moments in the same attitude, uncertain evidently if the flame was too high for safety. Was she changed? No, not changed, improved only, developed, young as she looked, from mere girlhood into early womanhood, of a loveliness surpassing even his high expectations. She was dressed in white, with no colour save somewhere a spot of bright rose; a knot of ribbon or a flower, he did not notice which, on the front of her dress. That was Eugenia all over; he remembered her love of brilliant contrast; however neutral in tint and unobtrusive the rest of her dress, there was always sure to be a dash of bright rich colour somewhere, in her hair, at her collar, round her wrists. Outwardly she was the same Eugenia, grown marvellously beautiful, but the same. And one look into her eyes would, he fancied, tell him all he so longed to know—that in spirit and heart she was still the same transparent, guileless, sensitive creature he had left, innocent and unsuspicious as a child, yet brightly intelligent, vividly imaginative. A rare creature, yet full of faults and inconsistencies; whose nature, however, he had studied closely, and knew well, and knowing it, asked no greater privilege than to take it into his own keeping, through life to guard it from all rude contact that might sully its purity or stunt its rich promise. He had left her, as he told Roma, free as air, bound by no shadow of a tie; yet there were times when he felt it almost impossible to believe that she had not guessed his secret, guessed it and—hope whispered—not resented it, and even, perhaps, in her vague girlish way looked forward to a day when it should no longer be a secret, when this strong deep love of his should receive its reward.These were the dreams he had been living in, for three years; these were the hopes that had kept up his courage through much hard and toilsome work—dreams and hopes whose destruction would, indeed, be very hard to bear. But he felt no misgivings now; the mere sight of Eugenia, the delight of her near presence, seemed to have dispelled them like mists. He felt reluctant to break the sort of spell that had come over him since she entered the room; he stood in perfect silence, watching her, as if bewitched. She moved away in a minute or two, satisfied seemingly that the light might remain as it was, and crossed the room to a low cupboard at the other side from where Gerald stood. She pulled out a pile of loose music, and began searching among it for some missing piece. Mr Thurston thought it time to let her know he was there: she might be startled if she saw him suddenly when leaving the room. He came forward into the full light, giving a chair an obtrusively noisy push to attract her attention. She looked up, startled for an instant, but before she had time to realise her fear, he spoke.“Eugenia.” That was all he said.The colour came rushing over her face, for the momentary start had turned it somewhat pale. Whether her first sensation was pleasure or annoyance, it was impossible to say. That it was one or other Gerald felt certain, for that this crisis, to which he had looked forward so long and so anxiously, could appear to Eugenia an event of very trifling importance, it would have been impossible for him to believe. It took all his self-control to refrain from any expression of the strong emotion with which his whole being was filled; and he not unnaturally, therefore, attributed some degree of emotion, agreeable or the reverse, to the other chief actor in the little drama whose scenes he had so often rehearsed in imagination. He waited eagerly for her to speak.“Gerald!” she exclaimed. “How you startled me! What in the world did you come in; in this queer way, for? We quite gave you up when you were not in time for dinner. Come into the drawing-room, or stay, I’ll send for Frank, if you would rather see him alone first. He will be so delighted.”She was running away, but he called her back. Her last words were cordial enough, though her first had been undoubtedly cross. Few people like being startled; it sets them at a disadvantage, and in a more or less ludicrous position. Eugenia had a peculiar dislike to it; she could not bear to be thought nervous or wanting in self-control, and she felt conscious that her cheeks had betrayed her momentary panic, and this added to her annoyance. She had been very desirous of meeting Gerald Thurston heartily when he came, she wanted to please Sydney and Frank; she had felt so happy the last few days that she wanted to please everybody. It was just a little awkward Gerald’s arriving in this unexpected way when she was preoccupied and perhaps a little excited about other things, but after all it wouldn’t matter. Sydney and Frank would soon make him feel himself at home. So, her momentary annoyance past, she turned back, and willingly enough, when he called to her to stop.“Won’t you even shake hands with me, Eugenia?” he said.There was a strange change in his voice from the bright, eager tone in which he had first called her by her name, but she was too self-absorbed to perceive it.“Of course I will,” she replied, heartily, holding out her hand. “I beg your pardon for forgetting it. But you really did startle me a good deal, Gerald,” she added, looking up with a pretty little air of mingled apology and reproach.“Did I?” he said, gently. “I am very sorry.”He had taken her hand and held it, and, anxious now to welcome him kindly, Eugenia did not at once withdraw it.“Yes, indeed,” she said. “How was I to know you were not a housebreaker, standing there, you huge person. Fancy meeting you again for the first time in such a queer way.”She was now fall of brightness and merriment. So like, so very like, the Eugenia he had left, that he began to recover from the first thrill of disappointment, to think that perhaps there had been no real cause for it. This gay, laughing manner was not exactly what he had imagined hers would be when they first met again; but still it was natural and unaffected, and she had always had rather a horror of “scenes.” And, after all, if he found her as he had left her, should he not feel satisfied? He had had no grounds for suspecting that she in the least returned his feelings, or was even aware of their existence. He was quite patient enough to begin at the beginning: to teach her by gentle degrees to love him; to serve, if need be, the old world seven years’, service for her sake, content with slow progress and small signs of her growing favour. There was but one dread which paralysed him altogether. What if he were too late?He let go her hand. He was anxious in no way to ruffle the extreme sensitiveness he knew so well.“You don’t know how I have looked forward to coming home again all these long years, Eugenia.”Her sympathy was touched. “Poor Gerald,” she said, and for the first time she looked straight into his face, and their eyes met. He had thought he could read so much in those eyes; they were less easily fathomed than he had imagined.“Eugenia,” he said, very gravely—she could not imagine what he was going to say—“you have grown very beautiful.”To his surprise, she neither blushed nor looked down. She smiled up in his face, a bright, happy smile that seemed to flood over as with sunshine her lovely face, to add brilliance even to the rich wavy chestnut hair. “I am so glad you think so,” she said, softly. “It makes it more possible to understandhisthinking so,” was the unuttered reflection that explained her curious speech.Gerald had no key to her thoughts, therefore the strangeness of her reply struck him sharply, for he knew her to be incapable of small vanity or self-conceit. He looked at her again; she was still smiling; long ago her smile had seemed to him one of her greatest charms; it was so sweet and tender as well as bright, so wonderfully fresh and youthful, and with a certain dauntlessness about it—a defiance of failure and trouble, a fearless, childlike trustfulness. All this Gerald used to fancy he could read in Eugenia’s smile; could he do so still? He could not tell, he turned away. He would not own to himself that his instinct had discovered a change; a dreaminess, a strange wistfulness had come over the dear face as it smiled up at him—a subtle indescribable shadow of alteration.“Perhaps it would be as well to tell Frank I am here,” said Mr Thurston, after a moment’s silence. “I should just like to shake hands with him in here, and then, if you will excuse my clothes,” he glanced down at his grey tweed travelling-suit rather doubtfully—the contrast between it and Eugenia’s delicate white evening dress striking him disagreeably, “I might go into the drawing-room for a few minutes to see your father and Sydney. You have some friends with you, though, have you not?”“Only two or three gentlemen; never mind your clothes,” said Eugenia, lightly; and then she went to send a message to Frank, still in the dining-room, deep in a discussion with her father and Mr Foulkes. It was rather unlucky, she said to herself again, as she walked slowly along the passage, this unexpected appearance of Gerald’s. Of course it didn’t really matter about his clothes, but he did look rather rough, and papa would be sure to introduce him to Captain Chancellor as one of their most intimate friends; indeed, any one might see he considered himself such from his addressing her by her Christian name. Eugenia did not feel quite sure that she liked it; three years made a difference in that sort of thing; still, it might seem unkind, and might vex the others, if she were to give him a hint by calling him “Mr Thurston.” With Sydney, of course, it was different—at this point in her meditations she ran against Sydney, just coming to inquire what had detained her so long; could she not find the song she wanted? Captain Chancellor had come in and Mr Payne, and Sydney didn’t like the task of entertaining two gentlemen all alone. Eugenia’s news threw her into a state of great excitement; she readily undertook the pleasant task of telling Frank, and Miss Laurence returned to the drawing-room.Gerald was not left long alone. In two minutes he heard his brother’s voice, and felt Frank’s hand shaking his with boyish vehemence. Sydney was there too—Sydney, just what he had expected to find her, fair and calm and sweet, the same as a woman that she had been as a girl.“Frankwouldmake me come with him,” she said apologetically, as she shook hands; “dear Gerald, we are so pleased to have you back again.”Mr Thurston stooped and kissed her, and Sydney accepted it quite simply as his brotherly right. There was no doubt about the cordiality of the welcome of these two young people, nor of that of Mr Laurence, who soon joined them, and Gerald’s spirits began to rise.“Had we not better go back to the drawing-room?” said Sydney, when some minutes had been spent in the eager cross-questioning that always succeeds a long-looked-for arrival. “Eugenia is alone there with those three gentlemen, and she may not like it.”It hardly appeared on entering the drawing-room that their absence had been regretted. Mr Foulkes and Mr Payne, two middle-aged men who rode the same hobbies with agreeably adverse opinions as to the direction and management thereof, were seated comfortably by the fire in animated conversation, but it was not on them that Mr Thurston’s eyes rested when they took in the little scene before him. At the other end of the room, before the piano, her fingers idly touching a note now and then, sat Eugenia. Leaning over her with an air of the most complete absorption, stood a gentleman whom Gerald had never seen before. Tall, or appearing so from his somewhat slight build, with clear regular features, fair hair and almond-shaped deep blue eyes, his possession of unusual good looks was undeniable at even the first glance, though what perhaps struck Mr Thurston more strongly, was the extreme, almost exaggerated, refinement of his whole bearing and appearance. Instinctively—so curiously even in moments of intense feeling do such trifles force themselves upon our attention—Gerald glanced down at his own somewhat travel-stained figure and rough attire. “Fop,” was the word that rose to his lips with a sudden boyish impulse of resentment, but when he looked again he felt he could not apply it. The refinement might be outward only, but it was genuine and unaffected. While he was still silently observing them, it happened that Eugenia looked up for an instant into her companion’s face. It was only a moment’s quick passing glance, but it was enough: it told him all. Gerald felt faint and giddy, strong man that he was, and instinctively seemed to clutch at something to steady himself by. It had all passed so quickly, only one person had had time to notice him. Mr Laurence had not entered the room with the others, and Frank had joined the gentlemen by the fire. But one pair of eyes had followed Gerald’s with anxious sympathy. Some one pulled his sleeve gently. It was Sydney.“Will you come and sit down by me for a few minutes, Gerald,” she said. “I have such a lot of things to say to you.”He followed her mechanically to the sofa she pointed out, but did not speak. When they were seated, she chattered away for a few minutes about various trifles, that did not call for a reply, till she thought he had recovered the first physical effects of the shock. Then she remained silent for a minute or two. Suddenly Gerald spoke. “Who is he, Sydney?” he asked, not seeming to care what Sydney might think.She did not affect to misunderstand him.“His name is Chancellor—Captain Chancellor. I think he is in the 203rd. He is stationed here just now. You know there is generally a company—isn’t it called so? I think he spoke of his company at dinner—a small detachment, any way, at Wareborough, belonging to the regiment at Bridgenorth,” she replied.“I know,” said Gerald, and relapsed into silence. But he quickly roused up again.“Chancellor,” he repeated—“Captain Chancellor. I have heard that name lately. I know something of him, Sydney, I am certain I do.” Sydney looked eager to hear. “What can it be? No, it is no use, I cannot remember. It may come into my head afterwards. Have you—has—has your sister seen much of him?”“No, oh no. I never saw him till to-night, and Eugenia has only seen him once before; but—” Sydney stopped.“But that sort of thing isn’t always reckoned by many or few times, eh, Sydney?“Whoever loved, that loved not at first sight?“You think there’s something in that old saying, do you? I can’t say, I’m sure. My experience is limited in these matters,” said Gerald.His tone was bitterly sarcastic, almost jeeringly so. It was so thoroughly unlike him that Sydney looked up in surprise and alarm. “Was this the Gerald she remembered so gentle, so delicate, so chivalrous? Ah, no. It must be as she feared. Poor Gerald!”The distress in her face softened him—still more her words when she spoke again.“I don’t know, Gerald. I can’t answer you. I only know that I amveryanxious about her.”“Don’t you like him, then? Do you know any ill of him?” inquired Mr Thurston, with a sort of fierce eagerness.“Oh, no,” said Sydney, quickly. “Not that at all. I like him very well. Of course any one can see he is a gentleman and all that. And papa likes him. He has set himself to please papa, I can see already. It is just that we know so little of him, and Eugenia issopretty, and so—I don’t know what to call it. You know how clever she is, Gerald, but even that makes me more anxious about her. She sees everything by her own ideas, as it were. And some day I feel as if she might be terribly, dreadfully disappointed. I believe it would kill her, Gerald,” in a lower voice.“Ah,” he said, “I see. She would venture all.” His tone was perfectly gentle now. A great throb of manly pity seemed to drown for the moment his bitter, bitter disappointment. Only for the time, there was many a hard struggle before him yet, for this love of his had entwined itself round every fibre of his being, and now—sometimes it seemed to him that the beautiful thing he had so nursed and cherished had turned to a viper in his bosom; that its insidious breath would change to poison every spring of love, and trust, and hope in his whole nature.No more was said for a few minutes. Then Sydney spoke—she had to call him twice by name before she caught his attention.“Gerald,” she said, “I see papa speaking to Captain Chancellor. Now he is coming this way. I am sure he is going to introduce you and him to each other.”“Very well,” replied Mr Thurston. “I have no objection.”He rose as he spoke, and went forward a few steps to meet Mr Laurence, whose intention Sydney had guessed correctly. The two young men bowed and shook hands civilly enough. Then Captain Chancellor, who was always thoroughly equal to these little social occasions, said something pleasant in his soft, low voice, about the new arrival’s return home, as if he had known all about it, and had been anticipating Mr Thurston’s return with nearly as much eagerness as Frank himself. There was no denying it—there was a great charm about this man; even Gerald felt it as he replied to Beauchamp’s well-chosen words. And his face was far from a bad face, Mr Thurston was forced to admit, when he saw it more closely; the want in it he could not readily define.Beauchamp, too, was making up his mind about this new-comer, and taking his measure in his own way, though from his manner no one would have suspected it. He hadn’t felt altogether easy about the absence of male cousin or old friend, in Miss Laurence’s case. Hitherto the only thing in the shape of a tame cat he had discovered about the establishment was most charmingly and felicitously engaged to the little sister. So far nothing could be better. But there might be other discoveries to make, and he didn’t want to get into anybody’s way, or cause any unpleasantness—he hated unpleasantnesses, and the only way out of unpleasantnesses ofthiskind, rivals, and all that, was sometimes a way in which Beauchamp’s training had by no means prepared him to go in a hurry—and he quite meant to be very careful, for Roma’s warning had impressed him a little after all. He only wanted to get over the next few weeks comfortably in this dreadful place, and had no objection to Roma’s hearing indirectly of the manner in which he was doing so. It would be too bad if this great hulking “cousin from India,” was going to come in the way of his harmless little amusement. And whether or not there was any fear of this, Captain Chancellor could not all at once make up his mind, though from Miss Laurence’s side, so far, it hardly looked like it.When Gerald Thurston came to say good-night to Eugenia, she noticed that he called her “Miss Laurence.” Captain Chancellor was within hearing, and Eugenia felt pleased by Gerald’s tact and good taste, and her own good-night was on this account all the more cordial.Beauchamp observed it all too, and drew his own conclusions.

Fairer than stars were the roses,Faint was the fragrance and rare;Not any flower in the gardenCould with those roses compare.*****But another had taken delightIn colour and perfume rare.And another hand had gatheredMy roses beyond compare.Wild Roses.

Fairer than stars were the roses,Faint was the fragrance and rare;Not any flower in the gardenCould with those roses compare.*****But another had taken delightIn colour and perfume rare.And another hand had gatheredMy roses beyond compare.Wild Roses.

It was late in the evening when Gerald Thurston at last found himself again at Wareborough. He had written to Frank to expect him by a certain train, or, failing that, not till the following day; but after all he found himself too late to leave town at the appointed hour, and only just in time to catch the afternoon express. He hesitated at first about remaining where he was another night. It would be a disappointment to his brother not to meet him at the station; but in the end, the temptation of reaching a few hours sooner the place containing everything and everybody dearest to him on earth—to him, ugly and repellent though it might be to a stranger, emphaticallyhome—proved too strong. And thus it came to pass that he reached his destination pretty late in the evening, and that no familiar figure standing on the station platform in eager anticipation met his eyes, as, in a sort of vague hope that “Frank or some one” might have thought it worth while to see the express come in, he stretched his head out of the carriage window, when the slackening speed and drearily-prolonged whistle told him he had reached his journey’s end. He had not expected any one. It was entirely his own fault, he repeated to himself so positively, as to suggest some real though unrecognised and perhaps unreasonable disappointment. It seemed in every sense a cold welcome, and he felt glad to get away from the dingy station, where even the porters were strangers to him, out into the sloppy streets, for now every turn of the cab wheels was taking him nearer home. It was raining heavily, and was very cold. It had been raining heavily and had been bitterly cold too, he remembered, when he had left Wareborough at the same season three years ago.

“It all looks exactly the same,” he thought to himself, as he glanced at the gas-lighted shops, the muddy pavements, the passers-by hurrying along as if eager to get out of the rain. “For all the change I see, it might be the very evening I went away, and my three years in India a dream.”

He had left the bulk of his luggage at the station, and drove straight to the little house his brother and he had called home since their parents’ death, where, with the help of an old servant who had once been their nurse, they had kept together the most valued of their household gods, and where Gerald had for long lived on the plainest fare, and denied himself every luxury, that Frank’s university career might not come to an untimely close. All that was over now, however; brighter days had come: Frank had fulfilled Gerald’s best hopes, and Gerald himself was now, comparatively speaking, a rich man. He had seen the worst of the material part of the struggle; he had made his way some distance up the hill now, he told himself. He might pause and take breath, might allow himself to dream about a future he had worked hard for, the destruction of which, though he might strive to bear it manfully, would be no passing disappointment, would, it seemed to him, take all the light out of his life.

He was lost in a reverie when the cab stopped. Another little chill fell upon him, when the opening door showed, not Dorothy’s familiar face, all aflame with eager anxiety to welcome her boy, but that of a total stranger. A freezingly proper maiden of mature years, who inquired in suspicious tones, eyeing with dissatisfaction the carpet bag he held in his hand, his only visible luggage, “if he were Mr Thurston’s brother, for if so there was a note for him on the dining-room chimbley-piece.” And into the dining-room she followed him, though evidently reassured by his acquaintance with the arrangements of the house, and stood by him in an uncomfortably uncertain uninterested manner, as unlike Dorothy’s hospitable heartiness as darkness is to light, while he read Frank’s note.

“I have been twice to the station,” it said; “for as you named 4:50 as ‘the latest,’ I thought I had better meet the 3:55 also. You say so positively you will not come by a later, that I think I must quite give you up. I am dining at the Laurences’. There was a particular reason for it, so I can’t get off without a better excuse than the mere ghost of a chance that you may still come to-night. Still, I leave this note, in the remote possibility of your doing so, to ask you, if you do come, to follow me. They will be delighted to see you, and it would never do for your first evening to be spent alone. Be sure you make Martha get you something. I wish we had Dorothy back.”

Gerald remembered about Dorothy now. She had married a few months before. Of course; how stupid to have forgotten it! He had actually a wedding present for her in his trunk.

“No, thank you—nothing,” he replied to Martha’s inquiries as to what he would have, delivered in a tone suggestive of latent resentment of untimely meals. “Nothing except a glass of sherry—you can get me that, I suppose—and a biscuit; and stay—I shall want a cab in—yes, in ten minutes. Is the boy in?—you have a boy, I suppose? In ten minutes, remember;” for Martha’s muttered reply that she “would see” was not very promising.

She was as good as, or rather better than, her words. Within the prescribed time the cab was at the door, and Gerald ready (for a postscript to Frank’s note had told him “not to trouble about dressing. It would be too late if he stopped to unpack, and there were only to be one or two gentlemen at the Laurences’”), and rattling off again through the plashing streets, along the muddy road leading to the suburb where Mr Laurence lived. It was not a long drive, barely a mile, but to Gerald it seemed hours till he at last found himself standing outside the familiar door, the rain beating down steadily on his umbrella. The servant who opened here was also a stranger to him, and evidently Frank had forgotten to mention his brother’s possible appearance, for she stood irresolute, at a loss to account for his unseasonable visit. It was uncomfortable, and for the first time Gerald began to get impatient at this succession of small rebuffs, individually of no-moment, but, all together, sufficient to lower the temperature of his eager hopes and anticipations. A sort of reaction began to set in; for a minute or two he felt inclined not to reply to the servant’s inquiry as to whether he wished to see her master, but to turn away and walk home again through the rain—to Martha’s disgust, no doubt,—and never let Frank know he had obeyed his injunctions. Then he laughed at himself for even momentarily contemplating conduct which, had he been a boy again, and Dorothy there to give her opinion, she would certainly have described as “taking the pet,” and mustering his good spirits afresh, he inquired if Mr Frank Thurston were not dining with Mr Laurence.

“Mr Thurston is here to-night—Mr Thurston the clergyman,” replied the young woman, with more alacrity, imagining evidently that this call was on Frankex officio. “He is still in the dining-room with the other gentlemen; but if it is anything very particular, I can tell him he is wanted at once; or if not, perhaps you will wait a few minutes till he leaves the dining-room.”

“Yes, that will be better. Do not disturb him till they come out. I am Mr Fra—Mr Thurston’s brother,” whereupon the damsel became all eagerness and civility—she was young and nice-looking, in no wise resembling the forbidding-looking Martha; “but I would rather you did not say who I am; just tell him he is wanted when he comes out. Where can I wait? In here?” She opened the door of the school-room. “Ah, yes, that will do.”

A chain of small coincidences seemed to connect Gerald’s return with his departure three years ago; trifling commonplace coincidences which, in a less highly-wrought state of feeling, he would probably not have observed, subtly preparing him, nevertheless, for sharper perception of the changes he had not yet owned to himself that he dreaded. For the least material natures are yet the most vividly impressed by their sensible surroundings, and a background of outward similarity throws out in strong relief immaterial differences and variations we should otherwise have been slower to realise, or, where the interest is but superficial, never perhaps have been conscious of at all.

A curious sensation came over Gerald as he entered the old school-room. Here it was that three years before he had seen the last of the Laurence sisters; it had been almost the same hour of the evening, for nine o’clock, he remembered, had struck while they were all standing there, and Frank had hurried him off, fearing he would lose his train. They had driven to the station by a very circuitous route, that his oldest friends might have his latest good-bye. And Sydney had cried, he remembered, when he kissed her, and Eugenia had grown pale when he shook hands withher, and mademoiselle had stood by with tears in her kind black French eyes, and three years had seemed to them all a very long look-out indeed! And now they were over; the winter of banishment and separation was past. Were the flowers about to spring for Gerald? was the singing of birds henceforth to sound through his life? was the fulfilment of his brightest hopes at hand?

Somethingwas at hand. The door had been left slightly ajar, and his ear caught the approaching sounds of a slight rustle along the passage, and of a young, happy voice softly humming a tune. It came nearer and nearer. A sudden impulse caused Gerald to step back behind the doorway; the gas-light was low in the room: it was easy to remain in shadow.

She came in quickly, gave a slight exclamation of impatience at the insufficient light, then came forward into the middle of the room and stood on tiptoe, one arm stretched up as far it could reach to turn on the gas. She succeeded rather beyond her intentions, the light blazed out to the full, illuminating brilliantly her upraised face and whole figure, as she remained for a few moments in the same attitude, uncertain evidently if the flame was too high for safety. Was she changed? No, not changed, improved only, developed, young as she looked, from mere girlhood into early womanhood, of a loveliness surpassing even his high expectations. She was dressed in white, with no colour save somewhere a spot of bright rose; a knot of ribbon or a flower, he did not notice which, on the front of her dress. That was Eugenia all over; he remembered her love of brilliant contrast; however neutral in tint and unobtrusive the rest of her dress, there was always sure to be a dash of bright rich colour somewhere, in her hair, at her collar, round her wrists. Outwardly she was the same Eugenia, grown marvellously beautiful, but the same. And one look into her eyes would, he fancied, tell him all he so longed to know—that in spirit and heart she was still the same transparent, guileless, sensitive creature he had left, innocent and unsuspicious as a child, yet brightly intelligent, vividly imaginative. A rare creature, yet full of faults and inconsistencies; whose nature, however, he had studied closely, and knew well, and knowing it, asked no greater privilege than to take it into his own keeping, through life to guard it from all rude contact that might sully its purity or stunt its rich promise. He had left her, as he told Roma, free as air, bound by no shadow of a tie; yet there were times when he felt it almost impossible to believe that she had not guessed his secret, guessed it and—hope whispered—not resented it, and even, perhaps, in her vague girlish way looked forward to a day when it should no longer be a secret, when this strong deep love of his should receive its reward.

These were the dreams he had been living in, for three years; these were the hopes that had kept up his courage through much hard and toilsome work—dreams and hopes whose destruction would, indeed, be very hard to bear. But he felt no misgivings now; the mere sight of Eugenia, the delight of her near presence, seemed to have dispelled them like mists. He felt reluctant to break the sort of spell that had come over him since she entered the room; he stood in perfect silence, watching her, as if bewitched. She moved away in a minute or two, satisfied seemingly that the light might remain as it was, and crossed the room to a low cupboard at the other side from where Gerald stood. She pulled out a pile of loose music, and began searching among it for some missing piece. Mr Thurston thought it time to let her know he was there: she might be startled if she saw him suddenly when leaving the room. He came forward into the full light, giving a chair an obtrusively noisy push to attract her attention. She looked up, startled for an instant, but before she had time to realise her fear, he spoke.

“Eugenia.” That was all he said.

The colour came rushing over her face, for the momentary start had turned it somewhat pale. Whether her first sensation was pleasure or annoyance, it was impossible to say. That it was one or other Gerald felt certain, for that this crisis, to which he had looked forward so long and so anxiously, could appear to Eugenia an event of very trifling importance, it would have been impossible for him to believe. It took all his self-control to refrain from any expression of the strong emotion with which his whole being was filled; and he not unnaturally, therefore, attributed some degree of emotion, agreeable or the reverse, to the other chief actor in the little drama whose scenes he had so often rehearsed in imagination. He waited eagerly for her to speak.

“Gerald!” she exclaimed. “How you startled me! What in the world did you come in; in this queer way, for? We quite gave you up when you were not in time for dinner. Come into the drawing-room, or stay, I’ll send for Frank, if you would rather see him alone first. He will be so delighted.”

She was running away, but he called her back. Her last words were cordial enough, though her first had been undoubtedly cross. Few people like being startled; it sets them at a disadvantage, and in a more or less ludicrous position. Eugenia had a peculiar dislike to it; she could not bear to be thought nervous or wanting in self-control, and she felt conscious that her cheeks had betrayed her momentary panic, and this added to her annoyance. She had been very desirous of meeting Gerald Thurston heartily when he came, she wanted to please Sydney and Frank; she had felt so happy the last few days that she wanted to please everybody. It was just a little awkward Gerald’s arriving in this unexpected way when she was preoccupied and perhaps a little excited about other things, but after all it wouldn’t matter. Sydney and Frank would soon make him feel himself at home. So, her momentary annoyance past, she turned back, and willingly enough, when he called to her to stop.

“Won’t you even shake hands with me, Eugenia?” he said.

There was a strange change in his voice from the bright, eager tone in which he had first called her by her name, but she was too self-absorbed to perceive it.

“Of course I will,” she replied, heartily, holding out her hand. “I beg your pardon for forgetting it. But you really did startle me a good deal, Gerald,” she added, looking up with a pretty little air of mingled apology and reproach.

“Did I?” he said, gently. “I am very sorry.”

He had taken her hand and held it, and, anxious now to welcome him kindly, Eugenia did not at once withdraw it.

“Yes, indeed,” she said. “How was I to know you were not a housebreaker, standing there, you huge person. Fancy meeting you again for the first time in such a queer way.”

She was now fall of brightness and merriment. So like, so very like, the Eugenia he had left, that he began to recover from the first thrill of disappointment, to think that perhaps there had been no real cause for it. This gay, laughing manner was not exactly what he had imagined hers would be when they first met again; but still it was natural and unaffected, and she had always had rather a horror of “scenes.” And, after all, if he found her as he had left her, should he not feel satisfied? He had had no grounds for suspecting that she in the least returned his feelings, or was even aware of their existence. He was quite patient enough to begin at the beginning: to teach her by gentle degrees to love him; to serve, if need be, the old world seven years’, service for her sake, content with slow progress and small signs of her growing favour. There was but one dread which paralysed him altogether. What if he were too late?

He let go her hand. He was anxious in no way to ruffle the extreme sensitiveness he knew so well.

“You don’t know how I have looked forward to coming home again all these long years, Eugenia.”

Her sympathy was touched. “Poor Gerald,” she said, and for the first time she looked straight into his face, and their eyes met. He had thought he could read so much in those eyes; they were less easily fathomed than he had imagined.

“Eugenia,” he said, very gravely—she could not imagine what he was going to say—“you have grown very beautiful.”

To his surprise, she neither blushed nor looked down. She smiled up in his face, a bright, happy smile that seemed to flood over as with sunshine her lovely face, to add brilliance even to the rich wavy chestnut hair. “I am so glad you think so,” she said, softly. “It makes it more possible to understandhisthinking so,” was the unuttered reflection that explained her curious speech.

Gerald had no key to her thoughts, therefore the strangeness of her reply struck him sharply, for he knew her to be incapable of small vanity or self-conceit. He looked at her again; she was still smiling; long ago her smile had seemed to him one of her greatest charms; it was so sweet and tender as well as bright, so wonderfully fresh and youthful, and with a certain dauntlessness about it—a defiance of failure and trouble, a fearless, childlike trustfulness. All this Gerald used to fancy he could read in Eugenia’s smile; could he do so still? He could not tell, he turned away. He would not own to himself that his instinct had discovered a change; a dreaminess, a strange wistfulness had come over the dear face as it smiled up at him—a subtle indescribable shadow of alteration.

“Perhaps it would be as well to tell Frank I am here,” said Mr Thurston, after a moment’s silence. “I should just like to shake hands with him in here, and then, if you will excuse my clothes,” he glanced down at his grey tweed travelling-suit rather doubtfully—the contrast between it and Eugenia’s delicate white evening dress striking him disagreeably, “I might go into the drawing-room for a few minutes to see your father and Sydney. You have some friends with you, though, have you not?”

“Only two or three gentlemen; never mind your clothes,” said Eugenia, lightly; and then she went to send a message to Frank, still in the dining-room, deep in a discussion with her father and Mr Foulkes. It was rather unlucky, she said to herself again, as she walked slowly along the passage, this unexpected appearance of Gerald’s. Of course it didn’t really matter about his clothes, but he did look rather rough, and papa would be sure to introduce him to Captain Chancellor as one of their most intimate friends; indeed, any one might see he considered himself such from his addressing her by her Christian name. Eugenia did not feel quite sure that she liked it; three years made a difference in that sort of thing; still, it might seem unkind, and might vex the others, if she were to give him a hint by calling him “Mr Thurston.” With Sydney, of course, it was different—at this point in her meditations she ran against Sydney, just coming to inquire what had detained her so long; could she not find the song she wanted? Captain Chancellor had come in and Mr Payne, and Sydney didn’t like the task of entertaining two gentlemen all alone. Eugenia’s news threw her into a state of great excitement; she readily undertook the pleasant task of telling Frank, and Miss Laurence returned to the drawing-room.

Gerald was not left long alone. In two minutes he heard his brother’s voice, and felt Frank’s hand shaking his with boyish vehemence. Sydney was there too—Sydney, just what he had expected to find her, fair and calm and sweet, the same as a woman that she had been as a girl.

“Frankwouldmake me come with him,” she said apologetically, as she shook hands; “dear Gerald, we are so pleased to have you back again.”

Mr Thurston stooped and kissed her, and Sydney accepted it quite simply as his brotherly right. There was no doubt about the cordiality of the welcome of these two young people, nor of that of Mr Laurence, who soon joined them, and Gerald’s spirits began to rise.

“Had we not better go back to the drawing-room?” said Sydney, when some minutes had been spent in the eager cross-questioning that always succeeds a long-looked-for arrival. “Eugenia is alone there with those three gentlemen, and she may not like it.”

It hardly appeared on entering the drawing-room that their absence had been regretted. Mr Foulkes and Mr Payne, two middle-aged men who rode the same hobbies with agreeably adverse opinions as to the direction and management thereof, were seated comfortably by the fire in animated conversation, but it was not on them that Mr Thurston’s eyes rested when they took in the little scene before him. At the other end of the room, before the piano, her fingers idly touching a note now and then, sat Eugenia. Leaning over her with an air of the most complete absorption, stood a gentleman whom Gerald had never seen before. Tall, or appearing so from his somewhat slight build, with clear regular features, fair hair and almond-shaped deep blue eyes, his possession of unusual good looks was undeniable at even the first glance, though what perhaps struck Mr Thurston more strongly, was the extreme, almost exaggerated, refinement of his whole bearing and appearance. Instinctively—so curiously even in moments of intense feeling do such trifles force themselves upon our attention—Gerald glanced down at his own somewhat travel-stained figure and rough attire. “Fop,” was the word that rose to his lips with a sudden boyish impulse of resentment, but when he looked again he felt he could not apply it. The refinement might be outward only, but it was genuine and unaffected. While he was still silently observing them, it happened that Eugenia looked up for an instant into her companion’s face. It was only a moment’s quick passing glance, but it was enough: it told him all. Gerald felt faint and giddy, strong man that he was, and instinctively seemed to clutch at something to steady himself by. It had all passed so quickly, only one person had had time to notice him. Mr Laurence had not entered the room with the others, and Frank had joined the gentlemen by the fire. But one pair of eyes had followed Gerald’s with anxious sympathy. Some one pulled his sleeve gently. It was Sydney.

“Will you come and sit down by me for a few minutes, Gerald,” she said. “I have such a lot of things to say to you.”

He followed her mechanically to the sofa she pointed out, but did not speak. When they were seated, she chattered away for a few minutes about various trifles, that did not call for a reply, till she thought he had recovered the first physical effects of the shock. Then she remained silent for a minute or two. Suddenly Gerald spoke. “Who is he, Sydney?” he asked, not seeming to care what Sydney might think.

She did not affect to misunderstand him.

“His name is Chancellor—Captain Chancellor. I think he is in the 203rd. He is stationed here just now. You know there is generally a company—isn’t it called so? I think he spoke of his company at dinner—a small detachment, any way, at Wareborough, belonging to the regiment at Bridgenorth,” she replied.

“I know,” said Gerald, and relapsed into silence. But he quickly roused up again.

“Chancellor,” he repeated—“Captain Chancellor. I have heard that name lately. I know something of him, Sydney, I am certain I do.” Sydney looked eager to hear. “What can it be? No, it is no use, I cannot remember. It may come into my head afterwards. Have you—has—has your sister seen much of him?”

“No, oh no. I never saw him till to-night, and Eugenia has only seen him once before; but—” Sydney stopped.

“But that sort of thing isn’t always reckoned by many or few times, eh, Sydney?

“Whoever loved, that loved not at first sight?

“Whoever loved, that loved not at first sight?

“You think there’s something in that old saying, do you? I can’t say, I’m sure. My experience is limited in these matters,” said Gerald.

His tone was bitterly sarcastic, almost jeeringly so. It was so thoroughly unlike him that Sydney looked up in surprise and alarm. “Was this the Gerald she remembered so gentle, so delicate, so chivalrous? Ah, no. It must be as she feared. Poor Gerald!”

The distress in her face softened him—still more her words when she spoke again.

“I don’t know, Gerald. I can’t answer you. I only know that I amveryanxious about her.”

“Don’t you like him, then? Do you know any ill of him?” inquired Mr Thurston, with a sort of fierce eagerness.

“Oh, no,” said Sydney, quickly. “Not that at all. I like him very well. Of course any one can see he is a gentleman and all that. And papa likes him. He has set himself to please papa, I can see already. It is just that we know so little of him, and Eugenia issopretty, and so—I don’t know what to call it. You know how clever she is, Gerald, but even that makes me more anxious about her. She sees everything by her own ideas, as it were. And some day I feel as if she might be terribly, dreadfully disappointed. I believe it would kill her, Gerald,” in a lower voice.

“Ah,” he said, “I see. She would venture all.” His tone was perfectly gentle now. A great throb of manly pity seemed to drown for the moment his bitter, bitter disappointment. Only for the time, there was many a hard struggle before him yet, for this love of his had entwined itself round every fibre of his being, and now—sometimes it seemed to him that the beautiful thing he had so nursed and cherished had turned to a viper in his bosom; that its insidious breath would change to poison every spring of love, and trust, and hope in his whole nature.

No more was said for a few minutes. Then Sydney spoke—she had to call him twice by name before she caught his attention.

“Gerald,” she said, “I see papa speaking to Captain Chancellor. Now he is coming this way. I am sure he is going to introduce you and him to each other.”

“Very well,” replied Mr Thurston. “I have no objection.”

He rose as he spoke, and went forward a few steps to meet Mr Laurence, whose intention Sydney had guessed correctly. The two young men bowed and shook hands civilly enough. Then Captain Chancellor, who was always thoroughly equal to these little social occasions, said something pleasant in his soft, low voice, about the new arrival’s return home, as if he had known all about it, and had been anticipating Mr Thurston’s return with nearly as much eagerness as Frank himself. There was no denying it—there was a great charm about this man; even Gerald felt it as he replied to Beauchamp’s well-chosen words. And his face was far from a bad face, Mr Thurston was forced to admit, when he saw it more closely; the want in it he could not readily define.

Beauchamp, too, was making up his mind about this new-comer, and taking his measure in his own way, though from his manner no one would have suspected it. He hadn’t felt altogether easy about the absence of male cousin or old friend, in Miss Laurence’s case. Hitherto the only thing in the shape of a tame cat he had discovered about the establishment was most charmingly and felicitously engaged to the little sister. So far nothing could be better. But there might be other discoveries to make, and he didn’t want to get into anybody’s way, or cause any unpleasantness—he hated unpleasantnesses, and the only way out of unpleasantnesses ofthiskind, rivals, and all that, was sometimes a way in which Beauchamp’s training had by no means prepared him to go in a hurry—and he quite meant to be very careful, for Roma’s warning had impressed him a little after all. He only wanted to get over the next few weeks comfortably in this dreadful place, and had no objection to Roma’s hearing indirectly of the manner in which he was doing so. It would be too bad if this great hulking “cousin from India,” was going to come in the way of his harmless little amusement. And whether or not there was any fear of this, Captain Chancellor could not all at once make up his mind, though from Miss Laurence’s side, so far, it hardly looked like it.

When Gerald Thurston came to say good-night to Eugenia, she noticed that he called her “Miss Laurence.” Captain Chancellor was within hearing, and Eugenia felt pleased by Gerald’s tact and good taste, and her own good-night was on this account all the more cordial.

Beauchamp observed it all too, and drew his own conclusions.

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