Volume Two—Chapter One .

Volume Two—Chapter One .Eavesdropping.Rom. The hurt cannot be much.Mer. No, ’tis not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a church door; but ’tis enough.It was the day of the Winsley Hunt Ball. The Halswood Chancellors’ stay had already considerably exceeded the week originally proposed as its extent; but Gertrude had persuaded them “not to talk of going away” till after the twenty-fifth, the date of this important local event. So they had stayed on, and with them the Exytons and the Gourlays, and ever so many other people, till the Grange was filled to overflowing with fine ladies and gentlemen, and still finer ladies’ maids and gentlemen’s gentlemen.Gertrude was in her element, so in his own way was Beauchamp; he had felt much more comfortable since there had been a little more going on, and he had had less time for solitary meditation; and Roma, though he had not seen her for several days except in general society, was so agreeably gentle and subdued, that he began to think his new way of behaving to her was really going to prove a success. At any rate he would try it a little longer, it would do her no harm; and so long as the house was as lively as it had been lately, time did not hang heavy on his hands. There were two or three young ladies among the visitors in whom Adelaide Chancellor had discovered kindred spirits, so Roma was freed from the burden of entertaining the girl, and not sorry to be so; for the first few days during which they had been more thrown together had been quite enough for Miss Eyrecourt. Yet she felt very lonely sometimes; Gertrude seemed to be always surrounded by her guests, and to make her plans and arrangements without consulting Roma in the old way at all, and the understanding between her and Mrs Chancellor was evidently closer and more confidential than ever.It was a mild spring-like morning: the meet, one of the last of the season, was at some distance from the Grange, and most of the guests had set off early, riding and driving, to be in time for it. Beauchamp—who did not hunt, not being rich enough to do so in what he considered proper style, but who nevertheless rode well enough, and managed to be always sufficiently well mounted to look as if his forswearing the field was to be solely attributed to eccentricity or indolence—had preferred this morning to drive Lady Exyton’s ponies, their pretty owner at his side. Addie had borrowed the horse Roma usually rode, and under her father’s wing intended to do great things; every one had arranged to go somehow or with somebody except Roma herself, who, fancying that nobody wanted her, and that her sister-in-law would prefer her remaining in the background, had kept out of the way till it was too late for her to be included in any of the arrangements.It was rather a relief to be alone for a little while. She was, in a general way, fond of amusement and society, accustomed and not indifferent to a fair share of admiration. But lately she had not had heart or spirit to enter into things as usual; Gertrude’s coldness had already, it seemed to her, affected the tone of others; she said to herself she was getting old, “nearly five and twenty,” and “passée,” and ill-tempered, and it would not be long before Beauchamp would congratulate himself heartily on not having been taken at his word by her.“I almost wish sometimes I could have cared for him as he cares or thinks he cares for me. But it would have been dreadful to have so vexed Gertrude after all her kindness to me. It is bad enough to feel that she distrusts me without my deserving it, but that would have been worse. No; I should not like to care for him; but it is very lonely sometimes.”She was pacing slowly up and down a sheltered terrace walk that ran along one side of the house. On to this walk opened by glass doors several of the rooms most used by the family, the library, the morning-room, Mrs Eyrecourt’s little boudoir, and between these glass doors were placed here and there garden seats against the wall. Roma got tired of walking up and down; though still only February it was temptingly mild, so she sat down on one of the seats without observing that the glass door nearest it was slightly ajar. Voices from within reached her, she heard the sound of her own name; then before she had time to realise what she was doing, two or three sentences fell with cruel distinctness upon her ears.“It is very difficult for me to think it is Roma’s fault. She has assured me so earnestly that there was nothing of the kind on her part, I cannot bear to think how she must have deceived me.”The voice was Gertrude’s; the tone anxious and irresolute. Then came the answer; it was Mrs Chancellor who was speaking now.“Ah, yes; that is the worst part of it. I can feel for you, my dear Gertrude; I can indeed. As to the affair itself, had she only been frank about it, one could hardly have blamed her. A man of dear Beauchamp’s attractions, thrown so much in her society—and she, of course she is handsome in a certain style, and her singing is really good, though notquiterefined enough to suit my taste; but—what was I saying? Oh yes, of course, she, you know, is no longer very young, and has nothing, literally nothing you say, to look forward to? It is only too natural. It is most distressing altogether, and how perplexing for Beauchamp, dear fellow. A moment’s folly or weakness and a young man may be ruined, ruined in a sense of course, for life! Ah yes, I see it all, far more clearly than can be possible for one so young and unsuspicious as you, dearest Gertrude. But I do think Beauchamp has behaved beautifully, from what you tell me,beautifully. And—”But just then there came a knock at the door of the boudoir in which the two ladies were sitting, and Mrs Chancellor’s maid appeared, or rather, that is to say, the sound of her voice penetrated to Roma still motionless on the garden seat outside, and it became evident to the involuntary eavesdropper that the confidential tête-à-tête was at an end. She had not meant to listen; just when the interruption came she had been on the point of marching into the room and stating what she had heard. Now of course before the servant it was out of the question. She rose from her seat, ran along the terrace and entered the house at the other side; then hastening upstairs she waited at the door of her own room till, as she expected, in a few minutes she saw Mrs Chancellor coming along the passage, followed by the maid, who wished to consult her about some important question of millinery for the evening’s adornment.Then Roma walked deliberately downstairs again, across the hall, down the passage to the door of Gertrude’s boudoir, at which she knocked, and in obedience to her sister-in-law’s unsuspecting “come in,” entered Mrs Eyrecourt’s presence with no sign of agitation or uneasiness on her countenance.“Gertrude,” she said, quietly. Gertrude started a little; she had not expected to see Roma, and glancing up at her now she felt instinctively that something must be the matter. Roma’s face was so grave, and she looked so dreadfully tall. What could it be? Gertrude laid down her pen—she was in the middle of a letter—and waited in some alarm for what was to follow, feeling perhaps the least little bit in the world guilty, when she remembered what her thoughts had lately been of her sister-in-law. “Gertrude,” said Roma again, “I have come to tell you that I heard what you said of me just now; what you said and what you allowed Mrs Chancellor to say of me in this very room not ten minutes ago.”Mrs Eyrecourt grew crimson. There was no evading the charge; it was far too direct and circumstantial. She tried getting angry.“I needn’t remind you of the old proverb about listeners, Roma,” she said, with an attempt at haughty indignation. “There was a time when I could hardly have believed you capable of such a thing, even though confessed by yourself; but I must have been mistaken in you in more ways than this. I cannot help your having heard what was said. I am not bound never to say anything about you that you would not like to hear—and to a near relation of my own too! You cannot expect to dictate to me what I am to talk about to my cousin.”“That is nonsense, Gertrude,” answered Roma, so gently that the words did not sound disrespectful. “I have no intention of dictating to you. I have not even hinted at finding fault with what you said and allowed Mrs Chancellor to say, though I might perhaps be excused if I thought it hard that I should be so discussed by you with a person whom you have not known a fortnight; and it is nonsense for you to pretend that you think me capable of low eavesdropping. Youknowyou don’t think so, Gertrude. Of course you know that my overhearing anything was purely accidental, and in your heart, Gertrude, you are bitterly sorry, not only that I overheard what I did, but that there was anything of the kind for me to hear.”Gertrude was silent. “I don’t know if I am or not,” she said, half petulantly. “I don’t want to distrust you, Roma. If you heard all, you must have heard me say I could not bear to think you had deceived me.”“And why should you think so?” exclaimed Roma, more vehemently. “I haveneverdeceived you, dear Gertrude. You have been very good to me all these years since my mother died and I was left alone; there has never been any cloud between us, except about this unfortunate infatuation of your brother’s. I am not, in a sense, surprised at a woman like Mrs Chancellor thinking of me as she does—she has no reason to like me, and imagines me in her way—butyou, Gertrude, ah! that is very different! Why should I deceive you as to my feelings to Beauchamp; what good would it do me if what Mrs Chancellor thinks were true, to conceal it from you? Oh, Gertrude, you know it has been all on his side all along; you cannot say I have ever encouraged him in the very least?”“No-o,” said Gertrude, reluctantly. “Directly, you certainly have not done so. But I don’t know, Roma. I wish you wouldn’t ask me. As Mrs Chancellor said once, you may have been deceiving yourself.”“I have not then; I have done nothing of the kind,” replied Roma, her dark eyes flashing as no light grey ones could do. “I tell you again, Gertrude, as I have told you a hundred times, I do not care for Beauchamp a straw, not in the way you mean. It is a perfect mystery to me what other women find so irresistible in him. I know him too well I suppose. To me he is the very antipodes of the sort of man I could care for. Selfish, weak, vain. He has good, qualities too of course, I know that as well or better than you do, but his faults and foibles are thesortthat in a man I could least forget. There now, have I spoken plainly enough to convince you at last? I don’t want to offend you, Gertrude,” seeing that Mrs Eyrecourt, with true womanly inconsistency, now looked rather sulky at this unflattering depreciation of her Adonis; “you have forced it upon yourself. Good heavens! how unreasonable you are.”“You are forgetting yourself, Roma,” said Gertrude, coldly.“No, I am not. And if I were, would there not be some excuse? I am determined to come to an end of this. Either you must trust me, or if not I will go away. I will be a governess or a housemaid or anything, rather than stay with you if you doubt me. What would you have, Gertrude? You don’t want me to marry Beauchamp, yet you are angry because I am not the least atom in love with him? Would you like to be told that I am heart and soul devoted to him, but that to please you I was willing to sacrifice myself by refusing to have anything to say to him—would that be a pleasant state of things for you? I know very little about the feelings of people in love certainly—I have hardly a right to judge even of myself in such a predicament, but I don’t know but what Imighthave been capable of so sacrificing myself, Gertrude, rather than disappoint you after your many years’ goodness to me. I am grateful, whatever else I may not be. But such a state of things would have been wretched for you.”Gertrude was touched. The old habit of sisterly trust and confidence was fast returning upon her.“I do believe you, Roma,” she said, after a little silence. “I have never doubted you as much as you think. But it is altogether uncomfortable and anomalous.”“I know it is. For no one more so than for me,” replied Miss Eyrecourt. “And my conviction that Beauchamp does not really care for me does not simplify matters. I doubt his being capable of what I call really caring for any one, though I don’t know,” she added thoughtfully, the expression of his face when he had begged her “never to sing that song again” returning to her memory; “but what can I do, Gertrude? You don’t want me to let him propose formally and hear my opinion of him in the plain words I have told it to you?”“Certainly not,” said Gertrude, hastily. “It would be most disagreeable—just now especially; the Chancellors would hear of it, and—altogether—”“It would be horrid, I allow,” answered Roma, consideringly. “A good blow to Beauchamp’s vanity might not do him any harm, but he would never forgive the dealer thereof. We could never be all comfortable together again. As for the Chancellors, I don’t know that it would much matter. I don’t think there is much chance of success in that quarter, Gertrude. Of course it would be a good marriage for Beauchamp, and he is far more likely to be a good husband rich than poor, and Addie is pretty and amiable. It would be all right ifhesaw it so of course, but I don’t think he will. However, I don’t want to be in the way. I tell you what, Gertrude, I had better go away.”“Go away!” repeated Mrs Eyrecourt, in amazement. “Roma, oh no! that would never do.”“I don’t mean for always,” said Roma. “I am not so in love with independence as to want to leave you unless you drive me to it—for, of course, as Mrs Chancellor delicately observed, I have ‘literally nothing else to look to.’ You are my bread and butter you see, Gertrude—for of course the trifle I have is hardly enough to dress upon; and I assure you I don’t want to quarrel with you if I can help it.” Gertrude winced a little. “If my father’s second wife had been an heiress like his first, things would have been different. No, I didn’t mean going away for always—only for a few weeks, till Beauchamp is away again.”“He would be sure to suspect the reason, and would be angry,” objected Mrs Eyrecourt.“Not he; I could manage it so that neither he nor any one else could suspect the reason. I shall probably be telegraphed for in a few days. I had a letter from my godmother this morning, which paves the way beautifully for a sudden summons. She is a good old soul. I shall write to her at once. Beauchamp is all right for the present. He is trying a new plan with me, and before he discovers its vanity I shall be safe out of his way.”“Roma,” said Gertrude, penitently, “you are very good and unselfish.”“No, I’m not. Neither the one nor the other,” said Roma, cheerfully. Her spirits had quite returned to her now that Gertrude was herself again. “Kiss me, Gertrude, and I will forget that you ever doubted me. What’s that noise? Some one listening again? It is certainly not I this time.”She walked quickly to the window and looked out. The glass door was still ajar, but no one was to be seen. “It must have been my fancy,” she said, returning to Mrs Eyrecourt. But just then an unmistakable rustling was heard along the passage. “There is Mrs Chancellor coming back again. I must go before she comes in. You won’t tell her any of what we have been talking about, Gertrude? You will not let her know of my having overheard what she said?”“Of course not. How can you ask me, Roma? I shall never mention you to her again at all if I can help it,” answered Mrs Eyrecourt, and almost before she had finished speaking, Roma had disappeared through the glass door, only just in time to escape Adelaide’s mother, who entered in great tribulation concerning the non-appearance of the flowers from Foster’s, ordered for the completion of Miss Chancellor’s ball-dress.“What to do, I really don’t know, my dear Gertrude,” she began in a tone of sore distress. “The whole effect of the dress depends upon them. And we have felt anxious about the dress already. Pink is rather an experiment for Adelaide at a ball, for she does flush, you know, and on this account I have hitherto prohibited it. But she had so set her heart upon it I agreed to try it, and I have been trusting to these flowers—water-lilies, all white, you know—to soften the colour.”“And has she no other ball-dress ready in case they don’t come?” inquired Mrs Eyrecourt, not sorry that Mrs Chancellor’s thoughts were thus diverted from the former subject of their conversation. “I didn’t know she was thinking of pink for to-night—at a Hunt ball, you see, against the scarlet coats—”“Of course,” interrupted Mrs Chancellor. “Dear me, that makes it worse and worse! How could Adelaide and Fraser be so stupid? But there is her white tulle. I do believe there would be time to alter the trimming, and it is a lovely dress. Would you, dearest Gertrude, mind coming up with me to look at it? I should be so thankful for your opinion.”Dearest Gertrude had no objection, and as the two ladies passed along the corridor upstairs, they met Roma coming out of her own room with a book in her hand.“Can you tell me where the second volume of ‘Arrows in the Dark,’ is to be found, Gertrude?” she asked innocently, as they passed her.The slight noise near the window of the boudoir had not after all been Roma’s fancy. Eavesdropping was in fashion to-day at Winsley.When Captain Chancellor had driven Lady Exyton safely home again from the meet, and deposited her at the hall door, she begged him to go round with the ponies to the stable to explain to her groom a little matter in the harness requiring immediate adjustment. His errand accomplished, he strolled back to the house again by a roundabout route through the terrace garden. Here he suddenly came upon his niece, intently engaged in ascertaining how many new little worms she could chop up one big one into, her nursemaid, seated on a garden bench at a little distance, being safely engrossed with crochet.“What are you doing, you nasty cruel little girl?” exclaimed Beauchamp, in considerable disgust.In a general way Floss rather affected her uncle: such an address, however, roused all her latent ire.“I ain’t nasty. And you’re cwueller to shoot pwetty birds and bunnies. Worms is ugly, and they doesn’t mind cutting,” she replied, defiantly.“How do you know? You wouldn’t like to be chopped up into little bits, would you?” remonstrated Captain Chancellor, with a vague feeling that somewhere in his memory, could he but lay hold of it, there was a verse of one of Dr Watts’s hymns appropriate to quote on the occasion.“No,” returned Floss calmly, “I wouldn’t, ’cause I’m not a worm. Worms doesn’t mind. Iknowthey doesn’t. I know lots of things,” she continued, mysteriously peeping up into her uncle’s face with her green eyes; “lots and lots that nobody more knows.”“Do you?” said Beauchamp, carelessly. “Let’s hear some of your secrets, Floss.”“I’ll tell you one if you won’t tell nobody,” said the child. She was evidently burning to communicate it, or she would not so quickly have forgiven her uncle’s insulting greeting.“All right, I won’t tell nobody.”“Listen, stoop down, Uncle Beachey. Low down; now listen and I’ll whisper,” said Floss. Then to his amazement—he had expected only some childish confidence or complaint—she whispered into his ear the words, “Aunty Woma’s going away.” Beauchamp started back. “Roma is going away,” he repeated. “Nonsense, Floss. You don’t know what you’re talking about.”“I do, I do,” exclaimed the child, in her eagerness to prove herself right, throwing all reserve to the winds, “she said so to mamma. I heard her, and mamma said she was good, and I know she’s going.”“How did you hear her? Where were you?” questioned Beauchamp.“I was under the sofa—in there, in mamma’s room,” said Floss, pointing in the direction of the boudoir. “My ball went in, and I went in too, and mamma thought I came out again, but I didn’t. I hided under the sofa for nurse not to see me, and it was a long time—hours, I should think—before she finded me,” she continued triumphantly.“But how did you hear your aunt was going away—did nurse tell you?” asked Captain Chancellor, somewhat mystified.“No, in course not,” exclaimed Floss, contemptuously. “Nurse doesn’t know. Aunty Woma came into the room and spoke lots to mamma. She said she would make something for mamma, but mamma wouldn’t have it; and then she said she would go away, and mamma said she was good, but you would be angwy, and Aunty Woma said, ‘No; you wouldn’t expeck.’””‘Wouldn’t expect?’ What can the child mean? Wasn’t itsuspectshe said, Floss?” a brilliant light flashing upon him.“Yes, suchpeck,” agreed Floss. “It was suchpeck; and what could it be aunty said she’d make for mamma, Uncle Beachey?” she continued, evidently disposed now to regard her hearer as an interpreter of the jumble in her brain. “It was something likesatin flies.”Captain Chancellor stared at the child without speaking. He saw, or thought he at last saw, through it all. He turned to go, but a thought occurred to him.“Floss,” he said, very impressively, “it wasn’t good of you to listen to what your mamma and aunt were saying. They would be very angry if they knew.”“Oh, don’t tell. Uncle Beachey, you said you wouldn’t tell nobody,” said the little girl beseechingly.“I’m not going to tell. But remember, Floss, you must be sure not to tell any one else, not nurse or any one, do you hear? It doesn’t matter for me, but other people might scold you.”“Then I won’t tell,” decided Floss. “And do you think Aunty Woma will go away, Uncle Beachey? I hope she will. I like her best when she goes away, for then she can’t call me a tiresome plague, and she bwings me a pwesent when she comes back.”But Uncle Beachey did not answer her inquiries. His mind was full of curiously mingled feelings; indignation against Gertrude, triumph over Roma, whose real sentiments he now imagined he had discovered; determination to be, as he expressed it to himself, “made a fool of no longer.” And below all these he was conscious of a strange, indefinable feeling of indifference to it all, of unwillingness to move decisively in the matter, as he told himself he must. Now that the long-coveted prize seemed within his reach, half its attractiveness appeared to have deserted it.“There has been a great deal of unnecessary to-do about it all,” he said to himself. “Of course I always felt sure that in the end I should marry Roma, and I have no doubt we shall get on very well. But it takes the bloom off a thing to have all this uncertainty and delay about it.”

Rom. The hurt cannot be much.Mer. No, ’tis not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a church door; but ’tis enough.

Rom. The hurt cannot be much.Mer. No, ’tis not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a church door; but ’tis enough.

It was the day of the Winsley Hunt Ball. The Halswood Chancellors’ stay had already considerably exceeded the week originally proposed as its extent; but Gertrude had persuaded them “not to talk of going away” till after the twenty-fifth, the date of this important local event. So they had stayed on, and with them the Exytons and the Gourlays, and ever so many other people, till the Grange was filled to overflowing with fine ladies and gentlemen, and still finer ladies’ maids and gentlemen’s gentlemen.

Gertrude was in her element, so in his own way was Beauchamp; he had felt much more comfortable since there had been a little more going on, and he had had less time for solitary meditation; and Roma, though he had not seen her for several days except in general society, was so agreeably gentle and subdued, that he began to think his new way of behaving to her was really going to prove a success. At any rate he would try it a little longer, it would do her no harm; and so long as the house was as lively as it had been lately, time did not hang heavy on his hands. There were two or three young ladies among the visitors in whom Adelaide Chancellor had discovered kindred spirits, so Roma was freed from the burden of entertaining the girl, and not sorry to be so; for the first few days during which they had been more thrown together had been quite enough for Miss Eyrecourt. Yet she felt very lonely sometimes; Gertrude seemed to be always surrounded by her guests, and to make her plans and arrangements without consulting Roma in the old way at all, and the understanding between her and Mrs Chancellor was evidently closer and more confidential than ever.

It was a mild spring-like morning: the meet, one of the last of the season, was at some distance from the Grange, and most of the guests had set off early, riding and driving, to be in time for it. Beauchamp—who did not hunt, not being rich enough to do so in what he considered proper style, but who nevertheless rode well enough, and managed to be always sufficiently well mounted to look as if his forswearing the field was to be solely attributed to eccentricity or indolence—had preferred this morning to drive Lady Exyton’s ponies, their pretty owner at his side. Addie had borrowed the horse Roma usually rode, and under her father’s wing intended to do great things; every one had arranged to go somehow or with somebody except Roma herself, who, fancying that nobody wanted her, and that her sister-in-law would prefer her remaining in the background, had kept out of the way till it was too late for her to be included in any of the arrangements.

It was rather a relief to be alone for a little while. She was, in a general way, fond of amusement and society, accustomed and not indifferent to a fair share of admiration. But lately she had not had heart or spirit to enter into things as usual; Gertrude’s coldness had already, it seemed to her, affected the tone of others; she said to herself she was getting old, “nearly five and twenty,” and “passée,” and ill-tempered, and it would not be long before Beauchamp would congratulate himself heartily on not having been taken at his word by her.

“I almost wish sometimes I could have cared for him as he cares or thinks he cares for me. But it would have been dreadful to have so vexed Gertrude after all her kindness to me. It is bad enough to feel that she distrusts me without my deserving it, but that would have been worse. No; I should not like to care for him; but it is very lonely sometimes.”

She was pacing slowly up and down a sheltered terrace walk that ran along one side of the house. On to this walk opened by glass doors several of the rooms most used by the family, the library, the morning-room, Mrs Eyrecourt’s little boudoir, and between these glass doors were placed here and there garden seats against the wall. Roma got tired of walking up and down; though still only February it was temptingly mild, so she sat down on one of the seats without observing that the glass door nearest it was slightly ajar. Voices from within reached her, she heard the sound of her own name; then before she had time to realise what she was doing, two or three sentences fell with cruel distinctness upon her ears.

“It is very difficult for me to think it is Roma’s fault. She has assured me so earnestly that there was nothing of the kind on her part, I cannot bear to think how she must have deceived me.”

The voice was Gertrude’s; the tone anxious and irresolute. Then came the answer; it was Mrs Chancellor who was speaking now.

“Ah, yes; that is the worst part of it. I can feel for you, my dear Gertrude; I can indeed. As to the affair itself, had she only been frank about it, one could hardly have blamed her. A man of dear Beauchamp’s attractions, thrown so much in her society—and she, of course she is handsome in a certain style, and her singing is really good, though notquiterefined enough to suit my taste; but—what was I saying? Oh yes, of course, she, you know, is no longer very young, and has nothing, literally nothing you say, to look forward to? It is only too natural. It is most distressing altogether, and how perplexing for Beauchamp, dear fellow. A moment’s folly or weakness and a young man may be ruined, ruined in a sense of course, for life! Ah yes, I see it all, far more clearly than can be possible for one so young and unsuspicious as you, dearest Gertrude. But I do think Beauchamp has behaved beautifully, from what you tell me,beautifully. And—”

But just then there came a knock at the door of the boudoir in which the two ladies were sitting, and Mrs Chancellor’s maid appeared, or rather, that is to say, the sound of her voice penetrated to Roma still motionless on the garden seat outside, and it became evident to the involuntary eavesdropper that the confidential tête-à-tête was at an end. She had not meant to listen; just when the interruption came she had been on the point of marching into the room and stating what she had heard. Now of course before the servant it was out of the question. She rose from her seat, ran along the terrace and entered the house at the other side; then hastening upstairs she waited at the door of her own room till, as she expected, in a few minutes she saw Mrs Chancellor coming along the passage, followed by the maid, who wished to consult her about some important question of millinery for the evening’s adornment.

Then Roma walked deliberately downstairs again, across the hall, down the passage to the door of Gertrude’s boudoir, at which she knocked, and in obedience to her sister-in-law’s unsuspecting “come in,” entered Mrs Eyrecourt’s presence with no sign of agitation or uneasiness on her countenance.

“Gertrude,” she said, quietly. Gertrude started a little; she had not expected to see Roma, and glancing up at her now she felt instinctively that something must be the matter. Roma’s face was so grave, and she looked so dreadfully tall. What could it be? Gertrude laid down her pen—she was in the middle of a letter—and waited in some alarm for what was to follow, feeling perhaps the least little bit in the world guilty, when she remembered what her thoughts had lately been of her sister-in-law. “Gertrude,” said Roma again, “I have come to tell you that I heard what you said of me just now; what you said and what you allowed Mrs Chancellor to say of me in this very room not ten minutes ago.”

Mrs Eyrecourt grew crimson. There was no evading the charge; it was far too direct and circumstantial. She tried getting angry.

“I needn’t remind you of the old proverb about listeners, Roma,” she said, with an attempt at haughty indignation. “There was a time when I could hardly have believed you capable of such a thing, even though confessed by yourself; but I must have been mistaken in you in more ways than this. I cannot help your having heard what was said. I am not bound never to say anything about you that you would not like to hear—and to a near relation of my own too! You cannot expect to dictate to me what I am to talk about to my cousin.”

“That is nonsense, Gertrude,” answered Roma, so gently that the words did not sound disrespectful. “I have no intention of dictating to you. I have not even hinted at finding fault with what you said and allowed Mrs Chancellor to say, though I might perhaps be excused if I thought it hard that I should be so discussed by you with a person whom you have not known a fortnight; and it is nonsense for you to pretend that you think me capable of low eavesdropping. Youknowyou don’t think so, Gertrude. Of course you know that my overhearing anything was purely accidental, and in your heart, Gertrude, you are bitterly sorry, not only that I overheard what I did, but that there was anything of the kind for me to hear.”

Gertrude was silent. “I don’t know if I am or not,” she said, half petulantly. “I don’t want to distrust you, Roma. If you heard all, you must have heard me say I could not bear to think you had deceived me.”

“And why should you think so?” exclaimed Roma, more vehemently. “I haveneverdeceived you, dear Gertrude. You have been very good to me all these years since my mother died and I was left alone; there has never been any cloud between us, except about this unfortunate infatuation of your brother’s. I am not, in a sense, surprised at a woman like Mrs Chancellor thinking of me as she does—she has no reason to like me, and imagines me in her way—butyou, Gertrude, ah! that is very different! Why should I deceive you as to my feelings to Beauchamp; what good would it do me if what Mrs Chancellor thinks were true, to conceal it from you? Oh, Gertrude, you know it has been all on his side all along; you cannot say I have ever encouraged him in the very least?”

“No-o,” said Gertrude, reluctantly. “Directly, you certainly have not done so. But I don’t know, Roma. I wish you wouldn’t ask me. As Mrs Chancellor said once, you may have been deceiving yourself.”

“I have not then; I have done nothing of the kind,” replied Roma, her dark eyes flashing as no light grey ones could do. “I tell you again, Gertrude, as I have told you a hundred times, I do not care for Beauchamp a straw, not in the way you mean. It is a perfect mystery to me what other women find so irresistible in him. I know him too well I suppose. To me he is the very antipodes of the sort of man I could care for. Selfish, weak, vain. He has good, qualities too of course, I know that as well or better than you do, but his faults and foibles are thesortthat in a man I could least forget. There now, have I spoken plainly enough to convince you at last? I don’t want to offend you, Gertrude,” seeing that Mrs Eyrecourt, with true womanly inconsistency, now looked rather sulky at this unflattering depreciation of her Adonis; “you have forced it upon yourself. Good heavens! how unreasonable you are.”

“You are forgetting yourself, Roma,” said Gertrude, coldly.

“No, I am not. And if I were, would there not be some excuse? I am determined to come to an end of this. Either you must trust me, or if not I will go away. I will be a governess or a housemaid or anything, rather than stay with you if you doubt me. What would you have, Gertrude? You don’t want me to marry Beauchamp, yet you are angry because I am not the least atom in love with him? Would you like to be told that I am heart and soul devoted to him, but that to please you I was willing to sacrifice myself by refusing to have anything to say to him—would that be a pleasant state of things for you? I know very little about the feelings of people in love certainly—I have hardly a right to judge even of myself in such a predicament, but I don’t know but what Imighthave been capable of so sacrificing myself, Gertrude, rather than disappoint you after your many years’ goodness to me. I am grateful, whatever else I may not be. But such a state of things would have been wretched for you.”

Gertrude was touched. The old habit of sisterly trust and confidence was fast returning upon her.

“I do believe you, Roma,” she said, after a little silence. “I have never doubted you as much as you think. But it is altogether uncomfortable and anomalous.”

“I know it is. For no one more so than for me,” replied Miss Eyrecourt. “And my conviction that Beauchamp does not really care for me does not simplify matters. I doubt his being capable of what I call really caring for any one, though I don’t know,” she added thoughtfully, the expression of his face when he had begged her “never to sing that song again” returning to her memory; “but what can I do, Gertrude? You don’t want me to let him propose formally and hear my opinion of him in the plain words I have told it to you?”

“Certainly not,” said Gertrude, hastily. “It would be most disagreeable—just now especially; the Chancellors would hear of it, and—altogether—”

“It would be horrid, I allow,” answered Roma, consideringly. “A good blow to Beauchamp’s vanity might not do him any harm, but he would never forgive the dealer thereof. We could never be all comfortable together again. As for the Chancellors, I don’t know that it would much matter. I don’t think there is much chance of success in that quarter, Gertrude. Of course it would be a good marriage for Beauchamp, and he is far more likely to be a good husband rich than poor, and Addie is pretty and amiable. It would be all right ifhesaw it so of course, but I don’t think he will. However, I don’t want to be in the way. I tell you what, Gertrude, I had better go away.”

“Go away!” repeated Mrs Eyrecourt, in amazement. “Roma, oh no! that would never do.”

“I don’t mean for always,” said Roma. “I am not so in love with independence as to want to leave you unless you drive me to it—for, of course, as Mrs Chancellor delicately observed, I have ‘literally nothing else to look to.’ You are my bread and butter you see, Gertrude—for of course the trifle I have is hardly enough to dress upon; and I assure you I don’t want to quarrel with you if I can help it.” Gertrude winced a little. “If my father’s second wife had been an heiress like his first, things would have been different. No, I didn’t mean going away for always—only for a few weeks, till Beauchamp is away again.”

“He would be sure to suspect the reason, and would be angry,” objected Mrs Eyrecourt.

“Not he; I could manage it so that neither he nor any one else could suspect the reason. I shall probably be telegraphed for in a few days. I had a letter from my godmother this morning, which paves the way beautifully for a sudden summons. She is a good old soul. I shall write to her at once. Beauchamp is all right for the present. He is trying a new plan with me, and before he discovers its vanity I shall be safe out of his way.”

“Roma,” said Gertrude, penitently, “you are very good and unselfish.”

“No, I’m not. Neither the one nor the other,” said Roma, cheerfully. Her spirits had quite returned to her now that Gertrude was herself again. “Kiss me, Gertrude, and I will forget that you ever doubted me. What’s that noise? Some one listening again? It is certainly not I this time.”

She walked quickly to the window and looked out. The glass door was still ajar, but no one was to be seen. “It must have been my fancy,” she said, returning to Mrs Eyrecourt. But just then an unmistakable rustling was heard along the passage. “There is Mrs Chancellor coming back again. I must go before she comes in. You won’t tell her any of what we have been talking about, Gertrude? You will not let her know of my having overheard what she said?”

“Of course not. How can you ask me, Roma? I shall never mention you to her again at all if I can help it,” answered Mrs Eyrecourt, and almost before she had finished speaking, Roma had disappeared through the glass door, only just in time to escape Adelaide’s mother, who entered in great tribulation concerning the non-appearance of the flowers from Foster’s, ordered for the completion of Miss Chancellor’s ball-dress.

“What to do, I really don’t know, my dear Gertrude,” she began in a tone of sore distress. “The whole effect of the dress depends upon them. And we have felt anxious about the dress already. Pink is rather an experiment for Adelaide at a ball, for she does flush, you know, and on this account I have hitherto prohibited it. But she had so set her heart upon it I agreed to try it, and I have been trusting to these flowers—water-lilies, all white, you know—to soften the colour.”

“And has she no other ball-dress ready in case they don’t come?” inquired Mrs Eyrecourt, not sorry that Mrs Chancellor’s thoughts were thus diverted from the former subject of their conversation. “I didn’t know she was thinking of pink for to-night—at a Hunt ball, you see, against the scarlet coats—”

“Of course,” interrupted Mrs Chancellor. “Dear me, that makes it worse and worse! How could Adelaide and Fraser be so stupid? But there is her white tulle. I do believe there would be time to alter the trimming, and it is a lovely dress. Would you, dearest Gertrude, mind coming up with me to look at it? I should be so thankful for your opinion.”

Dearest Gertrude had no objection, and as the two ladies passed along the corridor upstairs, they met Roma coming out of her own room with a book in her hand.

“Can you tell me where the second volume of ‘Arrows in the Dark,’ is to be found, Gertrude?” she asked innocently, as they passed her.

The slight noise near the window of the boudoir had not after all been Roma’s fancy. Eavesdropping was in fashion to-day at Winsley.

When Captain Chancellor had driven Lady Exyton safely home again from the meet, and deposited her at the hall door, she begged him to go round with the ponies to the stable to explain to her groom a little matter in the harness requiring immediate adjustment. His errand accomplished, he strolled back to the house again by a roundabout route through the terrace garden. Here he suddenly came upon his niece, intently engaged in ascertaining how many new little worms she could chop up one big one into, her nursemaid, seated on a garden bench at a little distance, being safely engrossed with crochet.

“What are you doing, you nasty cruel little girl?” exclaimed Beauchamp, in considerable disgust.

In a general way Floss rather affected her uncle: such an address, however, roused all her latent ire.

“I ain’t nasty. And you’re cwueller to shoot pwetty birds and bunnies. Worms is ugly, and they doesn’t mind cutting,” she replied, defiantly.

“How do you know? You wouldn’t like to be chopped up into little bits, would you?” remonstrated Captain Chancellor, with a vague feeling that somewhere in his memory, could he but lay hold of it, there was a verse of one of Dr Watts’s hymns appropriate to quote on the occasion.

“No,” returned Floss calmly, “I wouldn’t, ’cause I’m not a worm. Worms doesn’t mind. Iknowthey doesn’t. I know lots of things,” she continued, mysteriously peeping up into her uncle’s face with her green eyes; “lots and lots that nobody more knows.”

“Do you?” said Beauchamp, carelessly. “Let’s hear some of your secrets, Floss.”

“I’ll tell you one if you won’t tell nobody,” said the child. She was evidently burning to communicate it, or she would not so quickly have forgiven her uncle’s insulting greeting.

“All right, I won’t tell nobody.”

“Listen, stoop down, Uncle Beachey. Low down; now listen and I’ll whisper,” said Floss. Then to his amazement—he had expected only some childish confidence or complaint—she whispered into his ear the words, “Aunty Woma’s going away.” Beauchamp started back. “Roma is going away,” he repeated. “Nonsense, Floss. You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I do, I do,” exclaimed the child, in her eagerness to prove herself right, throwing all reserve to the winds, “she said so to mamma. I heard her, and mamma said she was good, and I know she’s going.”

“How did you hear her? Where were you?” questioned Beauchamp.

“I was under the sofa—in there, in mamma’s room,” said Floss, pointing in the direction of the boudoir. “My ball went in, and I went in too, and mamma thought I came out again, but I didn’t. I hided under the sofa for nurse not to see me, and it was a long time—hours, I should think—before she finded me,” she continued triumphantly.

“But how did you hear your aunt was going away—did nurse tell you?” asked Captain Chancellor, somewhat mystified.

“No, in course not,” exclaimed Floss, contemptuously. “Nurse doesn’t know. Aunty Woma came into the room and spoke lots to mamma. She said she would make something for mamma, but mamma wouldn’t have it; and then she said she would go away, and mamma said she was good, but you would be angwy, and Aunty Woma said, ‘No; you wouldn’t expeck.’”

”‘Wouldn’t expect?’ What can the child mean? Wasn’t itsuspectshe said, Floss?” a brilliant light flashing upon him.

“Yes, suchpeck,” agreed Floss. “It was suchpeck; and what could it be aunty said she’d make for mamma, Uncle Beachey?” she continued, evidently disposed now to regard her hearer as an interpreter of the jumble in her brain. “It was something likesatin flies.”

Captain Chancellor stared at the child without speaking. He saw, or thought he at last saw, through it all. He turned to go, but a thought occurred to him.

“Floss,” he said, very impressively, “it wasn’t good of you to listen to what your mamma and aunt were saying. They would be very angry if they knew.”

“Oh, don’t tell. Uncle Beachey, you said you wouldn’t tell nobody,” said the little girl beseechingly.

“I’m not going to tell. But remember, Floss, you must be sure not to tell any one else, not nurse or any one, do you hear? It doesn’t matter for me, but other people might scold you.”

“Then I won’t tell,” decided Floss. “And do you think Aunty Woma will go away, Uncle Beachey? I hope she will. I like her best when she goes away, for then she can’t call me a tiresome plague, and she bwings me a pwesent when she comes back.”

But Uncle Beachey did not answer her inquiries. His mind was full of curiously mingled feelings; indignation against Gertrude, triumph over Roma, whose real sentiments he now imagined he had discovered; determination to be, as he expressed it to himself, “made a fool of no longer.” And below all these he was conscious of a strange, indefinable feeling of indifference to it all, of unwillingness to move decisively in the matter, as he told himself he must. Now that the long-coveted prize seemed within his reach, half its attractiveness appeared to have deserted it.

“There has been a great deal of unnecessary to-do about it all,” he said to himself. “Of course I always felt sure that in the end I should marry Roma, and I have no doubt we shall get on very well. But it takes the bloom off a thing to have all this uncertainty and delay about it.”

Volume Two—Chapter Two.Plain Speaking.“The fiery maiden-nature flashing forth.”City Poems.Roma’s spirits rose considerably after her conversation with her sister-in-law. She did not look forward with much anticipation of enjoyment to the evening’s amusement—balls at four-and-twenty are very different from what they are at eighteen—still she felt more like her usual cheerful sensible self than she had done for some time.“Howverypretty your dress is, Miss Eyrecourt,” said Adelaide, cordially, perhaps a little enviously, when the two young ladies happened to find themselves side by side shaking out their plumage after the four miles’ drive, in the temporary cloak-room, at the Winsley “Unicorn.”“I do so admire black, and those foxgloves are really lovely. So very natural! I never, saw them worn before. I am not at all pleased with my dress,” she went on discontentedly. “I have worn it once before, and I think one never feels comfortable in an old dress. I wish I had had my new pink after all. I don’t believe there will be many scarlet coats. Only two of our party have them.”“There are sure to be a good many; and really your dress is exceedingly pretty,” replied Roma, consolingly. “It looks perfectly fresh.”“Does it?” said Miss Chancellor, turning herself round, the better to observe the effect of her long sweep of drapery. “I’m glad you think it looks nice. I am engaged for the first dance to Captain Chancellor. I almost wish I wasn’t! Do you know, Miss Eyrecourt, though I think he is charming to look at, I cannot get on with him. I never can think of anything to say to him, and yet just see how Miss Fretville goes on with him, and mamma thinks him delightful too.”Roma smiled. “Miss Fretville and you are two very different people,” she replied kindly, for the girl’s unaffectedness pleased her. “You will find that he dances beautifully, any way, which is the principal consideration to-night. Here he comes,” for by this time the whole party were in the ball-room, and the first dance was on the eve of commencing.Captain Chancellor made his way quickly to where the two girls were standing.“Our dance, I believe, Miss Chancellor?” he said to his cousin, then, somewhat to Roma’s surprise—his late conduct had not prepared her to be thus honoured—he turned towards her.“Will you keep number ten for me, Roma,” he said; “I shall count upon it, remember!” and before, in the moment’s hurry, she had time to make any excuse, or even to decide that it would be well to do so, he had left her, and in another minute was whirling round the room, with the substantial Adelaide in his arms.Miss Eyrecourt felt a little uneasy. Something in Beauchamp’s manner had struck her as peculiar: then, too, number ten was—as she knew by the arrangement of the card—the last dance before supper; evidently he had chosen it on purpose. There was no help for it, however; she must trust to her tact to steer clear of anything undesirable, but she almost wished she had pleaded illness or some excuse, and remained at home.What a pity it all was! Long ago in the old comfortable days, how she had enjoyed dancing with Beauchamp, especially at these Winsley balls, where they knew everybody, and it was sociable and friendly, and people were not too fine to enjoy themselves. How nice it would be, thought Roma, if there was no such thing in the world as falling in love, real or imaginary.Could it be true, as Beauchamp had so often told her, when he was vexed, that she was different from the rest of young ladyhood, cold, and self-contained and unwomanly? If so, was it not a pity she had not taken the best that came in her way, with out waiting in a vague belief that something better might possibly be yet to come? Portionless though she was, she had refused two or three very fair proposals before now, refused them for no reason except the little-sympathised-in one that she “did not care for” the men who had made them to her. But now, at four-and-twenty, there were times when she questioned the wisdom of her decisions, when she doubted if, after all, it was in her to care for any real flesh-and-blood lover, as long ago in the romantic girlish days it had seemed to her she could. She might have been fairly happy with Sir Philip Bartlemore for instance, buried in politics over head and ears though he was. Lady Bartlemore seemed comfortable and content, and every one spoke of her as fortunate in her married life; or with that undoubtedly disinterested and truly uninteresting Mr Fawcett, the Rector of Ferrivale, towards whom for some time Roma had vainly tried to coax into existence a warmer sentiment than respect—she would have gone on respecting him till now, she felt quite sure, and she would have had a home and ties of her own, whereas now she was of no particular use to any one, and the cause of disunion and trouble among her nearest friends. Had she made a mistake in not acting up to the practical, worldly-wise philosophy she always professed to believe in? There was no saying, and little use now in trying to decide; so Roma turned her attention to the present, danced as much as she felt inclined, laughed and talked with such of her partners as were worth the trouble, and made fun to herself of the others, till nine dances had come to an end, and she was startled by Beauchamp’s voice beside her claiming her for the tenth.“I am glad it is a waltz,” she said cordially, judging that a return to the old easy terms would be her best temporary policy. “It is ages since we have had one together, and we understood each other’s paces so well. I have not been very lucky to-night; so far as dancing goes, that is to say. My partners have belonged more to the order of ‘those that talk.’ How have you been getting on?”“I! oh, I don’t know. Well enough,” replied Captain Chancellor somewhat absently. “Lady Exyton dances well to look at, but she’s rathertoolight and too small for me. Blanche Fretville again is a thought too big, and she bounces rather.”“You are as difficult to please as ever, I see,” remarked Roma, rashly.Beauchamp looked at her: his eyes and the consciousness of the mistake she had made, caused her colour to deepen. Her vexation with herself increased.“Yes,” he replied, quietly, but with meaning in his tone, “I am. No one should know that better than you, Roma.”Just then, to her relief, the music began. “Are you ready?” he asked, and in a moment they were off.It is something for poor creatures such as most of us are, to be able to do anything perfectly, even so altogether small a thing as dancing! There is a real satisfaction while it lasts, in feeling that the thing we are doing could not be done better. And this agreeable consciousness was always Roma’s when waltzing with Beauchamp. They were a perfectly well-matched pair; their movements as harmonious as the blending of two voices in a duet. Once, long ago, Roma had said to Beauchamp that whatever he had done to offend her, it would be beyond her power to refuse to forgive him after dancing with him. It had been a passing laughing remark, and he had forgotten its ever having been made. Still, some instinctive desire to gain for himself every possible advantage in what was before him, had probably had to do with the details of his conduct this evening.The waltz came to an end—all too soon, for more reasons than one, for Roma. She had not been able to make any plan of defence; she could only trust to her tact and quick-wittedness. Captain Chancellor seemed in no hurry to get rid of her. She was afraid of appearing anxious to leave him; symptoms of such a feeling on her part might only precipitate what she hoped to evade. So they promenaded up and down the room among all the other couples, saying little to each other, Roma all alert for the first chance of escape. Suddenly a door hitherto closed was thrown open; a general movement in the new direction ensued. Beauchamp started.“Supper!” he exclaimed. “By-the-bye, I forgot. Will you excuse me, Roma, for a moment?”She was only too ready; her hand was withdrawn from his arm almost before the words were out of his mouth.“Never mind about me,” she said quickly. “I see Gertrude over there. I can make my way to her quite well alone.”She did not know if he heard what she had said or not, in a moment he had disappeared. And, alas! for the vanity of human expectations, Gertrude was no longer to be seen “over there.” Nearly every one had by this time left the ball-room; the few who were still in process of filing out were not of Roma’s acquaintances. She began to feel rather uncomfortable and deserted, and a little indignant with Beauchamp. One or two couples glanced at her as they passed, with some surprise.“What can Miss Eyrecourt be standing there alone for?” said a girl who knew her by name only, to the gentleman she was with.“Better ask Captain Chancellor,” replied the young man. He was the son of one of the managers, formerly head clerk, of the Winsley Bank, and his acquaintance with the “county” was decidedly limited. As might have been expected therefore, his knowledge of its private arrangements was minute in the extreme, now and then indeed suggesting suspicions of clairvoyance.“Who is he?” asked the girl, a stranger to the neighbourhood, to whom five minutes before Mr Thompson had pointed out Miss Eyrecourt, condescendingly, as “one of our belles—has been, that is to say.”“He is a sort of a connection of hers,” he replied, “that is to say, a brother of Mrs Eyrecourt’s. He and she—Captain Chancellor and Miss Eyrecourt, are engaged to be married, though it is notgenerallyknown. There he is,” he added, lowering his voice, for at that moment, as if in confirmation of his statement, Beauchamp, conspicuous by running against the supper-seeking stream, passed them, on his way back to the ball-room.“Oh, indeed!” replied Miss Smith, with the sex’s usual keen interest in such matters. “I am glad you told me. It is such fun to watch engaged people.”She communicated the fact in all good faith to her next partner, who happened to be one of the officers in the cavalry regiment stationed in the neighbouring town. This gentleman, not personally acquainted with either of the two people it chiefly concerned, mentioned it again casually as an undoubtedly well-authenticated piece of local news to a brother officer, whose wife, an old school-friend of Mrs Dalrymple’s, happened to be writing to that lady the next day. The object of her letter being to ask for an introduction to the family at Winsley Grange, the major’s wife naturally alluded to the engagement as a “just announced” occurrence, not forgetting, on the principle of “the three black crows,” to add, what she probably really thought she had been told, that “she understood the marriage was to take place almost immediately.”Roma was sitting quite alone in the empty ball-room, when, to her great surprise, Beauchamp rejoined her. She had not liked his deserting her so unceremoniously, but this unexpected reappearance alarmed her: still she determined to seem to suspect nothing out of the common.“So you haven’t forgotten me after all, Beauchamp?” she said good-humouredly. “You needn’t have come back for me though, I don’t care about any supper.”“Don’t you really? Come now, that’s quite a fortunate coincidence,” said Captain Chancellor, seating himself deliberately beside her, “for as it happens I don’t want any either. We can spend the interval that less ethereal beings than you and I, Roma, devote to vulgar eating and drinking in a little congenial conversation.”“But your partner?” objected Roma; “that is to say, the lady you took in to supper. What will she be thinking of you?”“I didn’t take any one in to supper,” replied Captain Chancellor, composedly. “The reason I deserted you so unceremoniously was only that I had promised Lady Exyton to tell Vandeleur where she was to be found, and I had forgotten.”Roma, who was really rather hungry, began to long for the comparative safety of the crowded supper-room. How she wished now she had not told that useless little fib about not wanting anything to eat.“What is the matter?” asked Beauchamp, presently. “What are you looking so unhappy about?”“I am tired,” she answered hastily. “I have got a little headache. I wish I could get a cup of tea, but I suppose there would be no chance of such a thing so late in the evening.”“Every chance,” replied he; and for one happy moment Miss Eyrecourt thought he was going to volunteer an expedition in search of it. “If you will wait till the supper is over I will guarantee your getting it. I am so sorry you are tired, Roma, but I have not thought you looking well for some time. You may have fancied I did not notice your looks or think about you, but if so you have been mistaken.”There was the unmistakable tone of a prelude in this little speech. Roma grew desperate, as a last hope she tried to offend him.“I am not obliged to you for noticing my looks,” she said haughtily—“still less for commenting upon them. There are few things I dislike more than remarks of the kind. I am tired, as I told you, Beauchamp, and I want to sit here quietly by myself. It will oblige me very much if you will go away and leave me alone.”Captain Chancellor had risen from his seat and stood before her, looking down on her flushed face, waiting quietly till she had come to the end of her not very civil speech. He was perfectly cool. Roma hardly understood the expression of his face, but she felt that, so far at least in the interview, he had the advantage of her.“You needn’t think you will make me angry, and get rid of me in that way, Roma,” he said coolly. “You have tried that plan successfully several times, but I understand you better now, I am glad to say. Yes, I understand you thoroughly now at last, and I will have no more mystifications and shillyshallying.”It was a peculiar sort of love-making. There was a tone of triumph in his way of speaking that irritated Miss Eyrecourt even while it bewildered her.“What do you mean, Beauchamp?” she asked, really at a loss to understand what he was driving at.“You know what I mean,” he answered; and Roma could see that he put some force on himself to keep down his rising irritation. “You know perfectly what I mean. Not many hours ago you told Gertrude you were willing to make a sacrifice of yourself for her,” (this was what after much cogitation Captain Chancellor had made out of Floss’s “satin flies,” and the look of utter astonishment on Roma’s face told him that his shot had hit the mark); “have you forgotten that you were sacrificing some one else as well as yourself? All these years, Roma, I have waited, if not always patiently, at least, more so than many men would have done,” (“yes,” thought Roma, “and amused yourself very agreeably between times,”) “and now I think I deserve my reward. I have always suspected what I now know, that Gertrude was the real difficulty; but for this suspicion your conduct would certainly have been most incomprehensible to me, still till to-day I hardly realised that she could carry her unjustifiable tyranny so far, or that you could so tamely yield to it.”Here and there during this speech Roma had softened a little to her would-be lover, had even pitied him a little when it dawned upon her that the truth she had no option now but to tell him in unmistakable words might after all cause him some real pain: but the confident belief in the irresistible nature of his own charms, calmly inferred in his closing words, provoked her out of such weakness. She felt no difficulty now in hardening her heart.“How you have got your knowledge, Beauchamp, of what passed between Gertrude and me to-day certainly baffles my comprehension; but, however you have done so, you must allow me to tell you that it is a very garbled version of the real conversation that has come to you,” began Roma.“I don’t believe it,” interrupted the young man, hotly. “You are trying to mystify me again. Can you deny that Gertrude’s interference has gone the length of driving you from Winsley while I am there?”“Certainly I deny it,” she replied. “It is perfectly true that Gertrude and I agreed together that it would not be unadvisable for me to leave Winsley for a time.”“For the time of my being there?” he interrupted again.“Well, yes, if you force me to say so, that was the time we proposed for my absence. ButGertrudewas not the originator of the plan. It was my own wish.”“Indeed!” he said, incredulously. “And if not to propitiate Gertrude, what on earth was your motive?”“The foolish one,” she returned, getting very angry, “of wishing to spare myself the pain of saying, and you the pain—or rather, perhaps, I should say, the mortification, of hearing what I would much rather never have been driven to put into words.”“And what may that be?” he asked, growing paler than was his wont, but with a sneer on his face that made Roma, in her exaggerated indignation, marvel that ever she could have thought him handsome.“The truth,” she replied, vehemently, “the plain state of the case—namely, that there is one woman who doesnotthink you irresistible; who would not marry you, hardly, I think, to save her life; who pities the woman that does marry you—vain, selfish, shallow as you are!” She stopped, breathless with excitement.“Thank you,” said Beauchamp. He was still standing before her, to all outward appearance composedly enough, but still with the same disfiguring sneer over his handsome features. “Thank you,” he repeated, slowly. “One is never too old to learn, I suppose. I thought I knew something of women; till to-night I thought I knew something ofyou—I imagined you refined, gentle, and womanly, but you have undeceived me. Still, of course, pray understand how sincerely I thank you for your plain speaking; the only pity is that you have so long deferred it, out of regard, no doubt, for the pain—oh no, by-the-bye, I am too shallow to be capable of feeling pain, mortification I think you kindly called it—it might cause me.”He turned to go. The intensity of wounded feeling from which he was suffering, the utter unexpectedness of the blow, had given him for the time a sort of dignity, a power of retort new to him. Never before, perhaps, had Roma been so near admiring him as now, when the mixture of truth in his sarcastic words stung her so deeply. A sort of remorse seized upon her—she felt that she had gone too far. Poor Beauchamp! he might be all she had taunted him with being, but had he deserved such treatment at her hands?“Beauchamp,” she exclaimed, appealingly, “Beauchamp, don’t go like that. Forgive me. I have said more than I meant. You have been mistaken all along. You don’t really care for me inthatway. Some day you will see you have never done so. Oh, do let us be friends in the old way; you don’t know how I wish it!”At the first sound of her voice he had stopped short and half turned round. A foolish, wild idea flashed through his mind that possibly he had been premature in believing her, that now at the last moment, when she judged him all but lost to her, he was yet to see this proud woman at his feet. But in a moment her words undeceived him.“Thank you again,” he said, coming nearer her, and speaking in a low voice, for just then some of the younger people—those who cared more for dancing than supper—began to straggle back into the ball-room, “but you must excuse me for saying—as plain speaking is the order of the day—that I can’t echo your wish. Even ‘vain, selfish, shallow’ people have feelings, you know, sometimes, of a kind.” Then, with a complete and sudden change of voice, he added aloud, “Shall we go to the supper-room now, and see what we can get? It must be getting less crowded.” And with the habitual instinct of not leaving the woman in an awkward or unprotected position, he offered Roma his arm, which she, wounded beyond expression, yet not without a certain feeling of gratitude for his consideration, was fain to accept.Surely a more uncomfortable pair never walked arm-in-arm across a ball-room! They made their way in silence, meeting of course face to face the returning stream, feeling themselves agreeably exposed to the critical remarks of the many to whom, at least by sight, they were well known. Entering the supper-room, to her relief, Roma descried Gertrude and some of her party still seated in a corner, and she lost no time in joining them with some plausible excuse for her tardy appearance. But it is to be feared she never got the cup of tea on which she had so set her heart.The rest of the evening passed like a dreary farce. It was all Roma could do to smile and talk sufficiently as usual to prevent Mrs Eyrecourt’s suspicions being aroused; for as yet she could not decide how much or how little of what had passed it would be well for her to confide to her sister-in-law. She felt unspeakably thankful when at last she found herself at home again, safe in the solitude of her own room, free to think over quietly the painful occurrences of the evening, and to decide what now was best for her to do. But when she tried to think it all over she found herself too tired and dispirited to do so reasonably or sensibly; worse still, when she gave up the attempt and went to bed, she could not sleep, and when, after tossing about for two or three hours, she at last fell into an uneasy doze, it was only to awake with a start and the indescribably wretched feeling familiar to us all that something was the matter, and that she must at once arouse her faculties to recall its details.Light was beginning to break, however; she found she must have slept longer than she had imagined. Yes; it was nearly eight o’clock. She got up and dressed without ringing for her maid, who had sat up late for her the night before, and thinking that the fresh morning air might refresh her, she spent the next hour in a brisk walk round the park.When she came in again, and was hastening to take off her hat and cloak, she passed Captain Chancellor’s room. The door was open, and just inside she caught sight of his man-servant engaged in strapping a portmanteau. Roma stopped short; the servant happening to look up, perceived her standing in the doorway.“What time is your master leaving, Barlow?” she asked, coolly, as if she knew all about it.“Half-past ten, ma’am,” was the reply. “At least, the dog-cart is ordered for then.”Roma passed on to her own room, feeling very unhappy. She had no anticipation of Beauchamp’s acting so precipitately, and she could not bear to be, even unwillingly, the cause of annoyance and vexation to her sister-in-law. What could she do? There was no use trying to see Gertrude, she would certainly not be awake enough to take it all in, and persuade her brother to reconsider his plans. Much as she shrank from seeing Captain Chancellor again, Roma now wished she could do so; there was just a possibility that she might be able to stop his leaving so hastily, especially if she reminded him of her own determination to go away from Winsley for a time. She went down to the dining-room with a half-formed determination to try what she could do. None of the guests had as yet made their appearance, but at one end of the long table stood a cup of coffee already poured out, and other signs that some one intended breakfasting at once. It did not look promising. Miss Eyrecourt hung about uncertain what to do, but just as she was deciding that it would be better for her not to interfere, Captain Chancellor walked in.For the first moment he did not see her, but sat down hastily to his breakfast. Then happening to look up, he caught sight of her, and started visibly. Roma felt very uncomfortable; till she was actually in it she had not realised the awkwardness of the position. Now, however, her good sense came to her aid.“Beauchamp,” she said, trying to speak as much as possible as usual, though her voice trembled a little, “I want to ask you something.”“Be so kind as to tell me what it is as quickly as possible,” he said, stiffly. “I am leaving immediately.”“There are two things I want to ask you,” she went on hurriedly. “The first is, will you forgive me for having hurt you more than I need have done last night. I don’t suppose I could have avoided hurting you to some extent, but what I had to say I might have said differently. In short, Beauchamp, I am afraid now that I lost my temper, and I am very sorry for it.”“The provocation was certainly very great,” returned Captain Chancellor, bitterly. “Still you must excuse me for saying that I do not see any need for the subject’s ever being reverted to again. We are not likely, you will be glad to hear, to see much more of each other for the future: it is not much to ask you to drop the subject now and for ever.”Roma’s face flushed. “I only wish I could forget it at once and for ever,” she answered with much hurt feeling in her tone. “It is far from generous for you to answer me so.” Beauchamp remained perfectly silent. “However,” she continued, “I cannot believe that you will continue to feel so bitter as you do now. What I most wanted to see you for was to beg you not to leave so hastily. There is no need for it.Iam going away in a day or two. It will be very hard upon me if you go away in this sudden way, for of course, Gertrude will be frightfully annoyed, and altogether it will be most disagreeable.”She purposely exaggerated her personal feeling in the matter, as, under the circumstances, the strongest appeal she could make to him.Captain Chancellor looked up quickly. “I am not surprised you should think so of me,” he said; “but you are mistaken. I explained everything to Gertrude last night; she knows of my leaving. She is most anxious you should not think of going away at present, as she will tell you herself. But my time is up. I must go.”He rose from his seat.“Are you going back to Wareborough?” asked Roma, feeling remorseful and yet indignant.“Certainly not,” he answered sharply, evidently suspecting some meaning in her question. “Wareborough is about the last place I am likely to go to—wretched hole that it is. I am only too thankful to have seen the last of it.”He spoke, it seemed to Roma, with unnecessary vehemence. But there was no time for anything more to be said. He shook hands formally and was off, and Roma walked slowly upstairs again to her own room, vexed with herself, vexed with Beauchamp, yet sorry for both.Half-an-hour later Gertrude sent for her. Mrs Eyrecourt was wonderfully gracious. “It is very unlucky, dear—dreadfully unlucky, just what we have all along dreaded so, but most certainly not your fault. And I don’t think there will be any fuss about it. Beauchamp said something ‘confidentially’ to Mrs Chancellor last night about the probability of his being called away suddenly by letters this morning. A friend of his—that Major Thanet, you know, Roma, really is ill—at Torquay or somewhere, and Beauchamp will most likely join him. And he has promised to visit the Chancellors at Wylingham very soon. So after all it may all turn out for the best. They leave to-morrow. And I have been thinking, Roma, considering all—you will be the better of a change, and of course you won’t go to Deepthorne now—I don’t see why we should not go to town sooner than we intended. We can have that house in a fortnight for either two or three months.”“Very well,” said Roma. “I am quite willing to do as you like.” Then, after a moment’s silence she added, “I am glad Beauchamp is not going back to Wareborough. I was a little afraid of that at first.”“Of what?” asked Gertrude, lifting her eyebrows. Then as a remembrance of Roma’s former fears returned to her mind, “On account of that girl, do you mean? Oh dear no, I have no fears in that quarter now. You must have exaggerated what you noticed when you were there.”“Perhaps so,” said Roma, quietly.

“The fiery maiden-nature flashing forth.”

City Poems.

Roma’s spirits rose considerably after her conversation with her sister-in-law. She did not look forward with much anticipation of enjoyment to the evening’s amusement—balls at four-and-twenty are very different from what they are at eighteen—still she felt more like her usual cheerful sensible self than she had done for some time.

“Howverypretty your dress is, Miss Eyrecourt,” said Adelaide, cordially, perhaps a little enviously, when the two young ladies happened to find themselves side by side shaking out their plumage after the four miles’ drive, in the temporary cloak-room, at the Winsley “Unicorn.”

“I do so admire black, and those foxgloves are really lovely. So very natural! I never, saw them worn before. I am not at all pleased with my dress,” she went on discontentedly. “I have worn it once before, and I think one never feels comfortable in an old dress. I wish I had had my new pink after all. I don’t believe there will be many scarlet coats. Only two of our party have them.”

“There are sure to be a good many; and really your dress is exceedingly pretty,” replied Roma, consolingly. “It looks perfectly fresh.”

“Does it?” said Miss Chancellor, turning herself round, the better to observe the effect of her long sweep of drapery. “I’m glad you think it looks nice. I am engaged for the first dance to Captain Chancellor. I almost wish I wasn’t! Do you know, Miss Eyrecourt, though I think he is charming to look at, I cannot get on with him. I never can think of anything to say to him, and yet just see how Miss Fretville goes on with him, and mamma thinks him delightful too.”

Roma smiled. “Miss Fretville and you are two very different people,” she replied kindly, for the girl’s unaffectedness pleased her. “You will find that he dances beautifully, any way, which is the principal consideration to-night. Here he comes,” for by this time the whole party were in the ball-room, and the first dance was on the eve of commencing.

Captain Chancellor made his way quickly to where the two girls were standing.

“Our dance, I believe, Miss Chancellor?” he said to his cousin, then, somewhat to Roma’s surprise—his late conduct had not prepared her to be thus honoured—he turned towards her.

“Will you keep number ten for me, Roma,” he said; “I shall count upon it, remember!” and before, in the moment’s hurry, she had time to make any excuse, or even to decide that it would be well to do so, he had left her, and in another minute was whirling round the room, with the substantial Adelaide in his arms.

Miss Eyrecourt felt a little uneasy. Something in Beauchamp’s manner had struck her as peculiar: then, too, number ten was—as she knew by the arrangement of the card—the last dance before supper; evidently he had chosen it on purpose. There was no help for it, however; she must trust to her tact to steer clear of anything undesirable, but she almost wished she had pleaded illness or some excuse, and remained at home.

What a pity it all was! Long ago in the old comfortable days, how she had enjoyed dancing with Beauchamp, especially at these Winsley balls, where they knew everybody, and it was sociable and friendly, and people were not too fine to enjoy themselves. How nice it would be, thought Roma, if there was no such thing in the world as falling in love, real or imaginary.

Could it be true, as Beauchamp had so often told her, when he was vexed, that she was different from the rest of young ladyhood, cold, and self-contained and unwomanly? If so, was it not a pity she had not taken the best that came in her way, with out waiting in a vague belief that something better might possibly be yet to come? Portionless though she was, she had refused two or three very fair proposals before now, refused them for no reason except the little-sympathised-in one that she “did not care for” the men who had made them to her. But now, at four-and-twenty, there were times when she questioned the wisdom of her decisions, when she doubted if, after all, it was in her to care for any real flesh-and-blood lover, as long ago in the romantic girlish days it had seemed to her she could. She might have been fairly happy with Sir Philip Bartlemore for instance, buried in politics over head and ears though he was. Lady Bartlemore seemed comfortable and content, and every one spoke of her as fortunate in her married life; or with that undoubtedly disinterested and truly uninteresting Mr Fawcett, the Rector of Ferrivale, towards whom for some time Roma had vainly tried to coax into existence a warmer sentiment than respect—she would have gone on respecting him till now, she felt quite sure, and she would have had a home and ties of her own, whereas now she was of no particular use to any one, and the cause of disunion and trouble among her nearest friends. Had she made a mistake in not acting up to the practical, worldly-wise philosophy she always professed to believe in? There was no saying, and little use now in trying to decide; so Roma turned her attention to the present, danced as much as she felt inclined, laughed and talked with such of her partners as were worth the trouble, and made fun to herself of the others, till nine dances had come to an end, and she was startled by Beauchamp’s voice beside her claiming her for the tenth.

“I am glad it is a waltz,” she said cordially, judging that a return to the old easy terms would be her best temporary policy. “It is ages since we have had one together, and we understood each other’s paces so well. I have not been very lucky to-night; so far as dancing goes, that is to say. My partners have belonged more to the order of ‘those that talk.’ How have you been getting on?”

“I! oh, I don’t know. Well enough,” replied Captain Chancellor somewhat absently. “Lady Exyton dances well to look at, but she’s rathertoolight and too small for me. Blanche Fretville again is a thought too big, and she bounces rather.”

“You are as difficult to please as ever, I see,” remarked Roma, rashly.

Beauchamp looked at her: his eyes and the consciousness of the mistake she had made, caused her colour to deepen. Her vexation with herself increased.

“Yes,” he replied, quietly, but with meaning in his tone, “I am. No one should know that better than you, Roma.”

Just then, to her relief, the music began. “Are you ready?” he asked, and in a moment they were off.

It is something for poor creatures such as most of us are, to be able to do anything perfectly, even so altogether small a thing as dancing! There is a real satisfaction while it lasts, in feeling that the thing we are doing could not be done better. And this agreeable consciousness was always Roma’s when waltzing with Beauchamp. They were a perfectly well-matched pair; their movements as harmonious as the blending of two voices in a duet. Once, long ago, Roma had said to Beauchamp that whatever he had done to offend her, it would be beyond her power to refuse to forgive him after dancing with him. It had been a passing laughing remark, and he had forgotten its ever having been made. Still, some instinctive desire to gain for himself every possible advantage in what was before him, had probably had to do with the details of his conduct this evening.

The waltz came to an end—all too soon, for more reasons than one, for Roma. She had not been able to make any plan of defence; she could only trust to her tact and quick-wittedness. Captain Chancellor seemed in no hurry to get rid of her. She was afraid of appearing anxious to leave him; symptoms of such a feeling on her part might only precipitate what she hoped to evade. So they promenaded up and down the room among all the other couples, saying little to each other, Roma all alert for the first chance of escape. Suddenly a door hitherto closed was thrown open; a general movement in the new direction ensued. Beauchamp started.

“Supper!” he exclaimed. “By-the-bye, I forgot. Will you excuse me, Roma, for a moment?”

She was only too ready; her hand was withdrawn from his arm almost before the words were out of his mouth.

“Never mind about me,” she said quickly. “I see Gertrude over there. I can make my way to her quite well alone.”

She did not know if he heard what she had said or not, in a moment he had disappeared. And, alas! for the vanity of human expectations, Gertrude was no longer to be seen “over there.” Nearly every one had by this time left the ball-room; the few who were still in process of filing out were not of Roma’s acquaintances. She began to feel rather uncomfortable and deserted, and a little indignant with Beauchamp. One or two couples glanced at her as they passed, with some surprise.

“What can Miss Eyrecourt be standing there alone for?” said a girl who knew her by name only, to the gentleman she was with.

“Better ask Captain Chancellor,” replied the young man. He was the son of one of the managers, formerly head clerk, of the Winsley Bank, and his acquaintance with the “county” was decidedly limited. As might have been expected therefore, his knowledge of its private arrangements was minute in the extreme, now and then indeed suggesting suspicions of clairvoyance.

“Who is he?” asked the girl, a stranger to the neighbourhood, to whom five minutes before Mr Thompson had pointed out Miss Eyrecourt, condescendingly, as “one of our belles—has been, that is to say.”

“He is a sort of a connection of hers,” he replied, “that is to say, a brother of Mrs Eyrecourt’s. He and she—Captain Chancellor and Miss Eyrecourt, are engaged to be married, though it is notgenerallyknown. There he is,” he added, lowering his voice, for at that moment, as if in confirmation of his statement, Beauchamp, conspicuous by running against the supper-seeking stream, passed them, on his way back to the ball-room.

“Oh, indeed!” replied Miss Smith, with the sex’s usual keen interest in such matters. “I am glad you told me. It is such fun to watch engaged people.”

She communicated the fact in all good faith to her next partner, who happened to be one of the officers in the cavalry regiment stationed in the neighbouring town. This gentleman, not personally acquainted with either of the two people it chiefly concerned, mentioned it again casually as an undoubtedly well-authenticated piece of local news to a brother officer, whose wife, an old school-friend of Mrs Dalrymple’s, happened to be writing to that lady the next day. The object of her letter being to ask for an introduction to the family at Winsley Grange, the major’s wife naturally alluded to the engagement as a “just announced” occurrence, not forgetting, on the principle of “the three black crows,” to add, what she probably really thought she had been told, that “she understood the marriage was to take place almost immediately.”

Roma was sitting quite alone in the empty ball-room, when, to her great surprise, Beauchamp rejoined her. She had not liked his deserting her so unceremoniously, but this unexpected reappearance alarmed her: still she determined to seem to suspect nothing out of the common.

“So you haven’t forgotten me after all, Beauchamp?” she said good-humouredly. “You needn’t have come back for me though, I don’t care about any supper.”

“Don’t you really? Come now, that’s quite a fortunate coincidence,” said Captain Chancellor, seating himself deliberately beside her, “for as it happens I don’t want any either. We can spend the interval that less ethereal beings than you and I, Roma, devote to vulgar eating and drinking in a little congenial conversation.”

“But your partner?” objected Roma; “that is to say, the lady you took in to supper. What will she be thinking of you?”

“I didn’t take any one in to supper,” replied Captain Chancellor, composedly. “The reason I deserted you so unceremoniously was only that I had promised Lady Exyton to tell Vandeleur where she was to be found, and I had forgotten.”

Roma, who was really rather hungry, began to long for the comparative safety of the crowded supper-room. How she wished now she had not told that useless little fib about not wanting anything to eat.

“What is the matter?” asked Beauchamp, presently. “What are you looking so unhappy about?”

“I am tired,” she answered hastily. “I have got a little headache. I wish I could get a cup of tea, but I suppose there would be no chance of such a thing so late in the evening.”

“Every chance,” replied he; and for one happy moment Miss Eyrecourt thought he was going to volunteer an expedition in search of it. “If you will wait till the supper is over I will guarantee your getting it. I am so sorry you are tired, Roma, but I have not thought you looking well for some time. You may have fancied I did not notice your looks or think about you, but if so you have been mistaken.”

There was the unmistakable tone of a prelude in this little speech. Roma grew desperate, as a last hope she tried to offend him.

“I am not obliged to you for noticing my looks,” she said haughtily—“still less for commenting upon them. There are few things I dislike more than remarks of the kind. I am tired, as I told you, Beauchamp, and I want to sit here quietly by myself. It will oblige me very much if you will go away and leave me alone.”

Captain Chancellor had risen from his seat and stood before her, looking down on her flushed face, waiting quietly till she had come to the end of her not very civil speech. He was perfectly cool. Roma hardly understood the expression of his face, but she felt that, so far at least in the interview, he had the advantage of her.

“You needn’t think you will make me angry, and get rid of me in that way, Roma,” he said coolly. “You have tried that plan successfully several times, but I understand you better now, I am glad to say. Yes, I understand you thoroughly now at last, and I will have no more mystifications and shillyshallying.”

It was a peculiar sort of love-making. There was a tone of triumph in his way of speaking that irritated Miss Eyrecourt even while it bewildered her.

“What do you mean, Beauchamp?” she asked, really at a loss to understand what he was driving at.

“You know what I mean,” he answered; and Roma could see that he put some force on himself to keep down his rising irritation. “You know perfectly what I mean. Not many hours ago you told Gertrude you were willing to make a sacrifice of yourself for her,” (this was what after much cogitation Captain Chancellor had made out of Floss’s “satin flies,” and the look of utter astonishment on Roma’s face told him that his shot had hit the mark); “have you forgotten that you were sacrificing some one else as well as yourself? All these years, Roma, I have waited, if not always patiently, at least, more so than many men would have done,” (“yes,” thought Roma, “and amused yourself very agreeably between times,”) “and now I think I deserve my reward. I have always suspected what I now know, that Gertrude was the real difficulty; but for this suspicion your conduct would certainly have been most incomprehensible to me, still till to-day I hardly realised that she could carry her unjustifiable tyranny so far, or that you could so tamely yield to it.”

Here and there during this speech Roma had softened a little to her would-be lover, had even pitied him a little when it dawned upon her that the truth she had no option now but to tell him in unmistakable words might after all cause him some real pain: but the confident belief in the irresistible nature of his own charms, calmly inferred in his closing words, provoked her out of such weakness. She felt no difficulty now in hardening her heart.

“How you have got your knowledge, Beauchamp, of what passed between Gertrude and me to-day certainly baffles my comprehension; but, however you have done so, you must allow me to tell you that it is a very garbled version of the real conversation that has come to you,” began Roma.

“I don’t believe it,” interrupted the young man, hotly. “You are trying to mystify me again. Can you deny that Gertrude’s interference has gone the length of driving you from Winsley while I am there?”

“Certainly I deny it,” she replied. “It is perfectly true that Gertrude and I agreed together that it would not be unadvisable for me to leave Winsley for a time.”

“For the time of my being there?” he interrupted again.

“Well, yes, if you force me to say so, that was the time we proposed for my absence. ButGertrudewas not the originator of the plan. It was my own wish.”

“Indeed!” he said, incredulously. “And if not to propitiate Gertrude, what on earth was your motive?”

“The foolish one,” she returned, getting very angry, “of wishing to spare myself the pain of saying, and you the pain—or rather, perhaps, I should say, the mortification, of hearing what I would much rather never have been driven to put into words.”

“And what may that be?” he asked, growing paler than was his wont, but with a sneer on his face that made Roma, in her exaggerated indignation, marvel that ever she could have thought him handsome.

“The truth,” she replied, vehemently, “the plain state of the case—namely, that there is one woman who doesnotthink you irresistible; who would not marry you, hardly, I think, to save her life; who pities the woman that does marry you—vain, selfish, shallow as you are!” She stopped, breathless with excitement.

“Thank you,” said Beauchamp. He was still standing before her, to all outward appearance composedly enough, but still with the same disfiguring sneer over his handsome features. “Thank you,” he repeated, slowly. “One is never too old to learn, I suppose. I thought I knew something of women; till to-night I thought I knew something ofyou—I imagined you refined, gentle, and womanly, but you have undeceived me. Still, of course, pray understand how sincerely I thank you for your plain speaking; the only pity is that you have so long deferred it, out of regard, no doubt, for the pain—oh no, by-the-bye, I am too shallow to be capable of feeling pain, mortification I think you kindly called it—it might cause me.”

He turned to go. The intensity of wounded feeling from which he was suffering, the utter unexpectedness of the blow, had given him for the time a sort of dignity, a power of retort new to him. Never before, perhaps, had Roma been so near admiring him as now, when the mixture of truth in his sarcastic words stung her so deeply. A sort of remorse seized upon her—she felt that she had gone too far. Poor Beauchamp! he might be all she had taunted him with being, but had he deserved such treatment at her hands?

“Beauchamp,” she exclaimed, appealingly, “Beauchamp, don’t go like that. Forgive me. I have said more than I meant. You have been mistaken all along. You don’t really care for me inthatway. Some day you will see you have never done so. Oh, do let us be friends in the old way; you don’t know how I wish it!”

At the first sound of her voice he had stopped short and half turned round. A foolish, wild idea flashed through his mind that possibly he had been premature in believing her, that now at the last moment, when she judged him all but lost to her, he was yet to see this proud woman at his feet. But in a moment her words undeceived him.

“Thank you again,” he said, coming nearer her, and speaking in a low voice, for just then some of the younger people—those who cared more for dancing than supper—began to straggle back into the ball-room, “but you must excuse me for saying—as plain speaking is the order of the day—that I can’t echo your wish. Even ‘vain, selfish, shallow’ people have feelings, you know, sometimes, of a kind.” Then, with a complete and sudden change of voice, he added aloud, “Shall we go to the supper-room now, and see what we can get? It must be getting less crowded.” And with the habitual instinct of not leaving the woman in an awkward or unprotected position, he offered Roma his arm, which she, wounded beyond expression, yet not without a certain feeling of gratitude for his consideration, was fain to accept.

Surely a more uncomfortable pair never walked arm-in-arm across a ball-room! They made their way in silence, meeting of course face to face the returning stream, feeling themselves agreeably exposed to the critical remarks of the many to whom, at least by sight, they were well known. Entering the supper-room, to her relief, Roma descried Gertrude and some of her party still seated in a corner, and she lost no time in joining them with some plausible excuse for her tardy appearance. But it is to be feared she never got the cup of tea on which she had so set her heart.

The rest of the evening passed like a dreary farce. It was all Roma could do to smile and talk sufficiently as usual to prevent Mrs Eyrecourt’s suspicions being aroused; for as yet she could not decide how much or how little of what had passed it would be well for her to confide to her sister-in-law. She felt unspeakably thankful when at last she found herself at home again, safe in the solitude of her own room, free to think over quietly the painful occurrences of the evening, and to decide what now was best for her to do. But when she tried to think it all over she found herself too tired and dispirited to do so reasonably or sensibly; worse still, when she gave up the attempt and went to bed, she could not sleep, and when, after tossing about for two or three hours, she at last fell into an uneasy doze, it was only to awake with a start and the indescribably wretched feeling familiar to us all that something was the matter, and that she must at once arouse her faculties to recall its details.

Light was beginning to break, however; she found she must have slept longer than she had imagined. Yes; it was nearly eight o’clock. She got up and dressed without ringing for her maid, who had sat up late for her the night before, and thinking that the fresh morning air might refresh her, she spent the next hour in a brisk walk round the park.

When she came in again, and was hastening to take off her hat and cloak, she passed Captain Chancellor’s room. The door was open, and just inside she caught sight of his man-servant engaged in strapping a portmanteau. Roma stopped short; the servant happening to look up, perceived her standing in the doorway.

“What time is your master leaving, Barlow?” she asked, coolly, as if she knew all about it.

“Half-past ten, ma’am,” was the reply. “At least, the dog-cart is ordered for then.”

Roma passed on to her own room, feeling very unhappy. She had no anticipation of Beauchamp’s acting so precipitately, and she could not bear to be, even unwillingly, the cause of annoyance and vexation to her sister-in-law. What could she do? There was no use trying to see Gertrude, she would certainly not be awake enough to take it all in, and persuade her brother to reconsider his plans. Much as she shrank from seeing Captain Chancellor again, Roma now wished she could do so; there was just a possibility that she might be able to stop his leaving so hastily, especially if she reminded him of her own determination to go away from Winsley for a time. She went down to the dining-room with a half-formed determination to try what she could do. None of the guests had as yet made their appearance, but at one end of the long table stood a cup of coffee already poured out, and other signs that some one intended breakfasting at once. It did not look promising. Miss Eyrecourt hung about uncertain what to do, but just as she was deciding that it would be better for her not to interfere, Captain Chancellor walked in.

For the first moment he did not see her, but sat down hastily to his breakfast. Then happening to look up, he caught sight of her, and started visibly. Roma felt very uncomfortable; till she was actually in it she had not realised the awkwardness of the position. Now, however, her good sense came to her aid.

“Beauchamp,” she said, trying to speak as much as possible as usual, though her voice trembled a little, “I want to ask you something.”

“Be so kind as to tell me what it is as quickly as possible,” he said, stiffly. “I am leaving immediately.”

“There are two things I want to ask you,” she went on hurriedly. “The first is, will you forgive me for having hurt you more than I need have done last night. I don’t suppose I could have avoided hurting you to some extent, but what I had to say I might have said differently. In short, Beauchamp, I am afraid now that I lost my temper, and I am very sorry for it.”

“The provocation was certainly very great,” returned Captain Chancellor, bitterly. “Still you must excuse me for saying that I do not see any need for the subject’s ever being reverted to again. We are not likely, you will be glad to hear, to see much more of each other for the future: it is not much to ask you to drop the subject now and for ever.”

Roma’s face flushed. “I only wish I could forget it at once and for ever,” she answered with much hurt feeling in her tone. “It is far from generous for you to answer me so.” Beauchamp remained perfectly silent. “However,” she continued, “I cannot believe that you will continue to feel so bitter as you do now. What I most wanted to see you for was to beg you not to leave so hastily. There is no need for it.Iam going away in a day or two. It will be very hard upon me if you go away in this sudden way, for of course, Gertrude will be frightfully annoyed, and altogether it will be most disagreeable.”

She purposely exaggerated her personal feeling in the matter, as, under the circumstances, the strongest appeal she could make to him.

Captain Chancellor looked up quickly. “I am not surprised you should think so of me,” he said; “but you are mistaken. I explained everything to Gertrude last night; she knows of my leaving. She is most anxious you should not think of going away at present, as she will tell you herself. But my time is up. I must go.”

He rose from his seat.

“Are you going back to Wareborough?” asked Roma, feeling remorseful and yet indignant.

“Certainly not,” he answered sharply, evidently suspecting some meaning in her question. “Wareborough is about the last place I am likely to go to—wretched hole that it is. I am only too thankful to have seen the last of it.”

He spoke, it seemed to Roma, with unnecessary vehemence. But there was no time for anything more to be said. He shook hands formally and was off, and Roma walked slowly upstairs again to her own room, vexed with herself, vexed with Beauchamp, yet sorry for both.

Half-an-hour later Gertrude sent for her. Mrs Eyrecourt was wonderfully gracious. “It is very unlucky, dear—dreadfully unlucky, just what we have all along dreaded so, but most certainly not your fault. And I don’t think there will be any fuss about it. Beauchamp said something ‘confidentially’ to Mrs Chancellor last night about the probability of his being called away suddenly by letters this morning. A friend of his—that Major Thanet, you know, Roma, really is ill—at Torquay or somewhere, and Beauchamp will most likely join him. And he has promised to visit the Chancellors at Wylingham very soon. So after all it may all turn out for the best. They leave to-morrow. And I have been thinking, Roma, considering all—you will be the better of a change, and of course you won’t go to Deepthorne now—I don’t see why we should not go to town sooner than we intended. We can have that house in a fortnight for either two or three months.”

“Very well,” said Roma. “I am quite willing to do as you like.” Then, after a moment’s silence she added, “I am glad Beauchamp is not going back to Wareborough. I was a little afraid of that at first.”

“Of what?” asked Gertrude, lifting her eyebrows. Then as a remembrance of Roma’s former fears returned to her mind, “On account of that girl, do you mean? Oh dear no, I have no fears in that quarter now. You must have exaggerated what you noticed when you were there.”

“Perhaps so,” said Roma, quietly.

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