Volume Two—Chapter Three.

Volume Two—Chapter Three.At Wareborough.“The certainty that struck hope dead.”—J. Ruskin.These three weeks had passed drearily enough at Wareborough. Not with everybody, of course. Frank Thurston for one was in a far from unhappy state of mind—his marriage with Sydney Laurence was to take place in a few weeks; thanks to Gerald’s generosity no difficulties had come in its way, and the prospects of the young people were bright enough to satisfy all reasonable requirements. Sydney, in her calm way, was happy too. She belonged to the class of women who to some extent identify the husband with the home, and the selecting of this home, the discussion of the rival merits of the two or three little houses which happened at the time to be vacant in that part of Wareborough where they were to live, was deeply interesting to her. Still more delightful to her was the furnishing and adorning of the tiny habitation. Her taste was good, her common sense and discrimination wonderful, and she had the happy knack of never apparently opposing her lover, even when his ideas as to the drawing-room curtains, or china dinner-service, hardly accorded with what she considered suitable, or threatened to exceed the sums respectively appropriated to these purposes. Yet in the end and without the exercise of any conscious diplomacy, Sydney generally got her own way. Eugenia on these occasions wondered at, admired, often almost lost patience with her sister.“You are really spoiling Frank, Sydney,” she would say. “I don’t believe he half appreciates you.”But “Oh, yes, he does,” Sydney would answer with a quiet smile, for nothing that Eugenia could have said in those days would have had power to draw forth any but the gentlest reply from the sister whose whole soul was filled with an intensity of unexpressed, inexpressible sympathy in the suffering which Eugenia was doing her utmost to conceal.Since the night when they had learnt the certainty of Captain Chancellor’s departure, his name had never been even indirectly alluded to by Eugenia. It was not that she was naturally reserved or too proud to confide in her sister, but just at the first shock she felt that her only strength lay in silence—once let the barriers of her reticence be broken down, she trembled for her already overtaxed powers of self-control. And besides she shrank from the not improbably adverse view which Sydney might take of Captain Chancellor’s behaviour.“She does not know him as I do; she could not understand him,” thought Eugenia. “I could not, even by her, endure to hear him blamed or judged in the common conventional way, for whatever others might think of him, I believe him to be blameless. My faith in him is unshaken.”And so she believed it to be, not discerning that in this morbid shrinking from any discussion of the subject even with Sydney, there lay concealed an unacknowledged misgiving as to the soundness of the foundations of her trust.So she kept silence, and flattered herself that no one but Sydney could possibly suspect that anything was amiss. It was not difficult for her just at present to keep a little more than usual in the background, the young fiancée being naturally the nine days’ centre of observation. And even if Miss Laurence did look hardly in her ordinary spirits, people did not much wonder at it.“It must be a trial to the two sisters, especially to Miss Laurence, poor girl, to think of being parted, even though Mrs Frank Thurston, that is to be, will only be a few streets off,” observed one kindly-hearted Wareborough matron to Mrs Dalrymple during a morning call when the Laurence family happened to come on the tapis; to which Mrs Dalrymple, who was feeling anything but happy about Eugenia’s altered looks, agreed with almost suspicious eagerness. For Mr Dalrymple, with true masculine magnanimity, had already given symptoms of having a stock of “I told you sos” in readiness for the first suitable opportunity, and had Eugenia been less preoccupied, her friend’s increasingly demonstrative affection and constant reiteration of “howverywell she was looking,” could not but have roused the girl’s own suspicions.Curiously enough, in these days Eugenia seemed to turn with satisfaction to Gerald Thurston.“How very much Gerald has improved again of late,” she remarked one day naïvely to Sydney. “For some time after he came home, I thought India had spoilt him. He seemed rough and careless, as if he had got out of the way of women’s society, and was turning into a moody old bachelor. But now he has got back his nice, gentle, understanding way. He seems to know by instinct when, when—” she stopped and hesitated—“when Frank and his chattering are almost more than I can bear,” had been in her thoughts, but she recollected herself in time to change it—“when one is tired and disinclined to talk or anything,” she said, wearily, and Sydney had hard work to force back the expression of sympathy which she felt would not at this stage be welcome.“Yes,” she answered simply, “Gerald is very good and kind.”She would not have been the least offended had Eugenia finished her sentence as had been on her tongue. How she pitied her no words could have told, and many a time Frank’s unconscious cheerfulness jarred even on Sydney herself, poor child, feeling almost as if the contrast of her own happy content was a crime against Eugenia’s shattered hopes.She pitied Gerald too. It was worse for him now, she said to herself, than if all had been as she had expected. True, he might then have realised more acutely the sharpness of his disappointment, have suffered unselfishly from his misgivings as to the worthiness of her choice; “but still,” thought Sydney, in her sensible way, “it would have been over and certain—a thing that was to be, and he would have been beginning to get accustomed to it.”But now though Eugenia in the body was still among them, the heart and soul—the very life it seemed just now, had gone out of her. All the freshness and brightness had been sacrificed—whatever possibilities the far-off future might yet conceal, the Eugenia of Gerald’s first love, the Eugenia of his absent dreams, was gone for ever, could never be his. Shehadnever been his, it was true, but Sydney’s womanish faith in the “what would have been,” was indefensibly great. Correspondingly deep was her unspoken disappointment, her vehement, almost fierce indignation against the cause of all this trouble, the wanton destroyer of her sister’s youth and happiness. Had she come upon the subject with Frank, he would, she knew, have either refused to believe in Eugenia’s suffering, or have blamed her as herself the originator of it.“But he doesn’t understand her, and that man threw dust in his eyes. Supposing even that Eugeniawaseasily deceived, allowing her to be, as Frank says, impressionable and extreme, does that excusehim; cold-hearted, unprincipled, selfish man of the world that he must be, to have robbed my darling of her happiness.”But all these feelings, little suspected under her quiet exterior, Sydney kept to herself.Late one afternoon, about six weeks after Captain Chancellor had left Wareborough, the sisters on their way home from a long and rather fatiguing shopping expedition, happened to pass Barnwood Terrace.“Don’t you think we might go in and see Mrs Dalrymple for a few minutes?” suggested Sydney. “She has been twice to see us since we have called on her, and she is always so kind.”“Very well; if you like I don’t care,” replied Eugenia, and Sydney hastened to ring the bell before she could change her mind. The girl was jealous for her sister that no occasion should be given for either kindly or spiteful gossip, and it was well for Eugenia that she had so discriminating a friend at hand; for in the preoccupation of her perplexity and trouble, it would never have occurred to her that any regard should be paid to the possible comments of the little outside Wareborough world.Mrs Dalrymple was at home, and as cordially delighted as usual to see her two friends, yet Sydney was at once conscious of a slight underlying constraint in her manner, perceptible chiefly perhaps in the kind-hearted woman’s extra effusiveness and palpable endeavour to be quite as easy and cheerful as her wont.“She has something on her mind,” thought Sydney, “something she is uncertain about telling us,” for the girl had no great opinion of Mrs Dalrymple’s power of reserve, and every time that their hostess introduced a new subject of conversation Sydney trembled, she hardly knew why, and glanced furtively in her sister’s direction. Eugenia sat quietly, unconscious of anything unusual in Mrs Dalrymple’s demeanour, now and then putting in a remark on one or other of the various topics touched upon. She was at that stage of very youthful suffering at which a sort of calm often falls upon the inexperienced subject of it; in reality a simple physical reaction, but which she told herself, with a childish yet morbid satisfaction, must be “the apathy of despair.” Her life, she told herself, was over; she had sounded the very depths of suffering, she had experienced the worst, the very worst; only one possible aggravation of what she had endured was conceivable to her; yet not so either, for her heart refused to listen to the faintest suggestion of so monstrous an idea as that of her having been deceived in her hero. Could it be possible that he had never been “in earnest,” that he did not really care for her, that the softly hinting words and looks more eloquent than words had meant nothing? Oh no, no, it could not be; though all the world should swear it to her, she would refuse to believe it.“For if I ever came to think so, I should die,” she said to herself, with the innocent arrogance of youth which cannot believe that ever a human being’s sufferings equalled its own, or that the worst anguish is not that which kills, but that which is lived through. For in those natures which have the deepest capacity for suffering there is usually an appalling reserve of strength and endurance, and to such, dying is not so easy of achievement, as, fresh from their baptism of woe, they are apt to imagine. And Eugenia did not yet know either that there is a “living,” compared to which this ignorantly invoked “dying,”—a girl’s hazy, sentimental notion of it, that is to say—were but child’s play.So Eugenia sat quietly beside Sydney in Mrs Dalrymple’s luxurious drawing-room—a room full of associations to her—calm in the belief that she had known the worst; that her unapproachable, unsurpassable sorrow had, as it were, set her apart from the rest of the world; that for the future the only life remaining for her was that of unselfish, self-devoting interest in the lives and interests of others. For this was the rôle that Eugenia, ever extreme, imaginative, and incapable of the sometimes so salutary resting on one’s oars, the taking one’s life and its lessons day by day soberly and trustingly, instead of insisting on unravelling the tangled thread oneself—had now already marked out for herself, and, true to her new ideal, she tried to listen with interest to Mrs Dalrymple’s commonplacisms, to answer brightly and smile cheerfully at the proper times. She imagined the shock to be over, the doomed limb already severed, and that she had known the acutest agony; when, alas, she woke from this dream to find that the worst was yet to come, that what she had endured was but the first shrinking of the tender flesh from the cold steel of the surgeon’s knife.Her attention, in spite of her efforts, had flagged a little; she was recalling in fancy the many times Beauchamp Chancellor and she had been together in this room, from that first evening that now seemed so long ago, when he had found her standing alone at the door in the fog, and had asked her to dance without knowing her name. Suddenly something that Mrs Dalrymple was saying recalled her to the present. Their hostess had been asking Sydney, as her intimacy with the girls excused her in doing, some questions as to the proposed arrangements for her marriage.“I do hope it will be fine weather at the time,” she had been saying. “Not merely on the day itself, of course, though one naturally likes some sunshine for a bride, but for the honeymoon. You will enjoy your tour so much more if it is fine.”“Yes,” agreed Sydney. “But of that we must take our chance. April is never to be counted on.”“No, and yet it is such a favourite month for marriages,” replied Mrs Dalrymple. “I hear of—let me see—three among my near friends, which are fixed for this April,—a niece of Henry’s, one of the Conroys. I forget if you have ever met them here? She is marrying a Mr Mildmay Jones, in the Civil Service, and going out to India. Then there is your marriage, Sydney, and another I only heard of yesterday. You remember my cousin Roma, Roma Eyrecourt,” (here it was that Eugenia’s attention was attracted), “of course you do—she was here last December, you know.”She stopped, as if waiting for Sydney’s reply, for to her the question had been addressed. In reality, poor woman, she felt unable to screw up her courage to make the announcement which she yet knew it would be cruel and impossible to withhold.Little shivers of cold began to creep over Sydney. She felt inclined to shake Mrs Dalrymple—why could she not either have held her tongue or said it out quickly without this unnecessary torture of suspense? For Eugenia was listening: there she sat, Sydney seemed to see without looking at her, in an unnatural tension of expectation, her eyes, which had somehow grown to look larger of late, fixed on the speaker.“No,” said Sydney, in a weak, faint, almost querulous voice, quite unlike her own.“No, Idon’tknow her. I didn’t see her when she was here.”“Ah, no, by-the-bye you didn’t,” said Mrs Dalrymple, and something kept her from turning to Eugenia, the one who did know her cousin, as would have been natural, “I remember. But though you don’t know her, you know Captain Chancellor very well. I can’t tell you how surprised I was to hear of those two being really engaged. Of course it has often been spoken of, but I long ago made up my mind it would never be. I could get no satisfaction out of Roma when she was here, but I certainly didn’t think it looked like it. Beauchamp Chancellor never gave me the slightest reason to expect it—rather the other way indeed. Really I don’t think I ever was so surprised.”“And the marriage is to take place very soon, I think you said,” inquired Sydney, with the same strange sensation she had had once before of being a mere machine asking questions at her sister’s bidding.“Yes, very soon, I believe,” Mrs Dalrymple went on again in the same nervous, hurried manner. “Next month—about the same time as yours. I have not heard the whole particulars yet. My letter was not from Roma herself, but from Mrs Winter, a friend of mine who is staying near there just now. I must write and congratulate them both, I suppose, though—I hope they won’t ask us to the marriage, however; I certainly don’t want to go.”There was silence for a few moments. Then both Mrs Dalrymple and Sydney were startled by the sound of Eugenia’s voice. She spoke in a quiet, rather dreamy tone, as if the sense of her words was hardly realised by her—but of the peculiarity of her manner only Sydney was aware.“Will you kindly give our congratulations too, when you write, Mrs Dalrymple, please—mine especially. I saw Miss Eyrecourt several times, and we all know Captain Chancellor very well, you know.”“Certainly I will, my dear Eugenia, with the greatest pleasure,” replied Mrs Dalrymple, with rather injudicious empressement. A very little encouragement would have drawn out the whole of her smouldering indignation against Beauchamp and womanly fellow-feeling with Eugenia’s wrongs, but without some hint from the sisters that the expression of her opinion would not be considered indelicate or intrusive, even Mrs Dalrymple felt that in this case, as in most others, the less said the better, and held her peace accordingly.A minute or two passed, but no more allusion was made to the news which had so disturbed their hostess’s equilibrium. And before there was opportunity for the discussion of any other subject, the sisters, moved by a common instinct, discovered that it was getting late, and that they had already outstayed their time. Mrs Dalrymple could not resist kissing them both affectionately as they said good-bye, but this was the only expression of sympathy on which she ventured.It was already twilight out of doors. Still not so dusk but that Sydney stole timid glances at her sister’s face in wistful anxiety as to what there might be there to read. But it seemed all blank: she might have stared at her with open inquiry, Eugenia would have been unconscious of it. She walked along quite quietly, replying mechanically to the little commonplace observations Sydney hazarded from time to time; but for the curious expression, or rather curious absence of expression in her usually changeful, speaking face, her sister would have suspected nothing but that Eugenia was in a more than usually silent mood this evening. As it was, Sydney felt bewildered and uncertain, vaguely apprehensive, yet not satisfied that there was new cause for any increase of her anxiety.“Possibly,” thought Sydney, “this definite news may do her good. It may show her what a poor creature he is after all, and may rouse her to shake herself free of the remembrance of him altogether.”She hardly understood that to Eugenia such a reaction, healthy and “sensible” though it might be, was impossible. Through all her despair and misery Eugenia clung with instinctive self-regard to her delusion; over and over again she repeated to herself in almost the same words, the poor little formula of faith in her lover which she told herself and really imagined she believed. It was her safeguard at this time, and well for her that she could hold to it; for what to some girls would have been merely a passing though sharp mortification, would to her have been a loss of self-respect extensive enough to have shaken the whole foundations of her character.Very near their own house the sisters were overtaken by Frank Thurston. He walked beside them to the door, but seemed to hesitate about entering.“Aren’t you coming in, Frank?” asked Sydney.“It is hardly worth while,” he replied, eyeing regretfully his but half consumed cigar. “I have only five minutes to spare. Suppose you walk up and down with me, Sydney, instead of my coming in. It’s going to be a beautiful evening.”Sydney glanced at Eugenia.“Yes, do, Sydney,” said Eugenia.Sydney fancied she could discern in this a longing on her sister’s part to be alone, if but for a quarter of an hour.“Very well, then, I will stay out with you for a little, Frank,” she agreed, and Eugenia entered the house by herself.When she got into the hall, for the first time she became conscious of feeling different from usual, strangely weak and giddy and very cold. Afraid of the servant’s observing anything amiss, she abandoned her intention of rushing upstairs at once to her own room, and went instead to the drawing-room, where she knew she would find no one. There was no light in the room but that of a large, brightly burning fire. Eugenia drew a low seat close to it, and in a minute or two when the warmth had penetrated a little through her thick dress, she seemed to feel better. Still, however, she was only half restored; she felt that going upstairs would be quite beyond her powers, so she sat still, vaguely relieved that Sydney did not appear with kindly but unendurable expressions of anxiety as to what was wrong.How long she had sat there she did not know, when the door opened quietly and some one came in. Eugenia looked up. It was not Sydney. It was Gerald Thurston!“Oh,” thought poor Eugenia, “oh, if only I were up in my own room! Oh, how can I sit and talk to Gerald!”Then, however, there came a slight sensation of relief that it was Gerald and not Frank! She stood up to shake hands as usual when he crossed the room to where she was, but the giddy feeling returned, and she sat down again rather abruptly.“I have been with your father in his study for the last hour,” explained Gerald. “He has asked me to stay to dinner and go with him to his lecture at Marny Mills to-night, so you must excuse my clothes.”“Oh, certainly,” said Eugenia, smiling. “It wants more than half-an-hour to dinner-time still,” Gerald went on, speaking faster than usual—the truth being that this tête-à-tête with Eugenia, the first since the memorable evening of his return, was by no means to his taste—“don’t let me be in your way. I should not have come into the drawing-room, but your father had some letters to write, and I thought I was inhisway. I met Sydney flying upstairs as I came across the hall, and she told me I should find a book and a fire in here.”“There are some library books and new magazines over there on that side-table,” replied Eugenia, moving her head in the direction she meant. “But you are not in my way,” she went on indifferently. “I wasn’t doing anything.”She shivered perceptibly as she spoke. Then she stooped to reach the poker, and began nervously stirring the fire.Mr Thurston stopped on his way to the side-table. He came back to the fire-place and took the poker out of Eugenia’s hands. Even in the instant’s contact he felt their icy coldness.“Let me do that for you,” he said gently. In her nervousness Eugenia had already done the very thing she would have wished not to do. She had stirred the glowing red into a vivid blaze, which fell full on her face. Something in it must have looked different from usual, for before she could turn away, Gerald spoke.“Eugenia, what is the matter?” he exclaimed impulsively. “You are as cold as ice—you must be ill.”She felt his eyes fixed upon her: extreme annoyance gave her momentary strength.“Don’t, Gerald, please, don’t,” she said, half beseechingly, half petulantly. “There is nothing the matter. I may have got a chill, that is all. But please don’t look at me. I do so dislike it.”She rose, resolved to put an end to his scrutiny. “Iwillget across the room,” she thought. She made two or three steps feebly but determinedly, wondering vaguely what had come to her feet, they felt so powerless and heavy; then, it seemed to her, she stepped suddenly down, down into unfathomable depths, into darkness compared to which midnight was as noon-day. “I am dying,” she thought to herself before her senses quite deserted her. “What willhethink, how will he feel when he hears it?” And it seemed to her she called aloud with her last breath. “Beauchamp! oh, Beauchamp!”In reality the words were a barely audible whisper, which would certainly have been unintelligible to ears less jealously sharp than those of her one hearer.“My darling,” muttered Gerald, “so it is his doing, is it?”The first two words made their way to Eugenia’s not yet quite unconscious brain. Afterwards she thought she must have dreamt that Beauchamp had answered her cry.She had never fainted before. She could not at all understand the painful coming back to life; to finding herself after all—instead of awaking in the mysterious country across the river of which we know so little, so terribly little—in the old way again, lying on the drawing-room sofa, with a keen cold current of air blowing in her face.“Where am I?” she said, as people always do say in such circumstances, glancing round her, apprehensively. But before Gerald had time to reply, her wits had sufficiently recovered themselves to take in the position.It had not been much of a faint after all; her young life had not required much doctoring to regain its balance for the time. Mr Thurston had merely carried her to the window, and opened it to allow the fresh air to try what it could do. Then, laying her on the sofa, he was glad to see she was coming round again without his requiring to summon the assistance which he felt certain she would shrink from.The room was bright with fire-light, and the cold air still blew in freshly. Eugenia lay still for a minute or two, gazing before her. Then she tried to rouse herself, and after a moment’s hesitation, seeing she could hardly manage it, Gerald put his arm round her, and helped her to sit up. He need not have been afraid of annoying her. She took his help with the most perfect simplicity, as if he had been her brother.“Thank you, Gerald,” she said, softly, “you are so kind. You have always been kind to me, ever since I was quite little,” and half unconsciously she allowed her still throbbing head to lean for a moment on his shoulder. It was rather hard upon him—the perfect sisterliness of the little action made it all the more so. A sudden fear came over him that she would feel how fast his heart was beating, and would be startled into consciousness. So, very gently, under pretence of arranging the sofa cushion, he removed the arm that was round her. She did not seem to observe it.“Are you better now, Eugenia?” he said, kindly. “I don’t know if I did right in opening the window, for I believe it must have been a chill that made you faint. But I am no doctor, and a good blow of fresh air was the only thing that occurred to me.”“I am sure it was the best thing to do,” she answered; “I am not cold now. I don’t think it was real cold. It must have been the feeling of fainting coming on. I never fainted before, and I have always thought itsosilly,” she added with a little smile. “I am all right now, I shall go upstairs in a minute, Gerald.” Appealingly, “You won’t tell anybody?”“Not if you promise me to tell Sydney, and see the doctor if you have any return of it, or don’t feel quite well in any way.”“Very well, I will promise that,” she replied, meekly enough. “It was very good of you not to call any one and make a fuss.” Then, after a moment’s hesitation, the hot colour rushing over her pale face, she added in a lower voice, “Gerald, didn’t I say something?”There was no use parrying her inquiry. Sorely against his will, Gerald found himself obliged to accept the position of her confidant.“Yes,” he said, simply; Eugenia did not perceive that it was sternly as well.“Ah, I thought so,” she murmured. “I know I can trust you, though sometimes one prefers to trust no one. Don’t misunderstand me,” she added quickly, becoming alive to the grave expression of his face; “inonesense, I should not care if everybody knew what you suspect. No one need be ashamed of I can’t explain. I mean, I don’t want pity. I am not to be pitied, andno oneis to be blamed. Only, people who only know half cannot understand, so I feel that my strength just now lies in silence.”Mr Thurston looked at her very anxiously, the hard look melting out of his face.“Take care you do not overrate your strength,” he said gently.Eugenia smiled, but said nothing. Then she stood up, and was about to try if she could walk, when Gerald stopped her.“Wait one instant,” he exclaimed, and before she had the least idea what he meant, he was back again with a glass of wine.“Drink that, or at least half of it,” he said. “I found it on the sideboard. It must be getting near dinner-time.”Eugenia did as he told her, and then he let her go.“Good night; I don’t think I shall come down to dinner, and thank you again very, very much, and—and pleaseremember,” were her last words.Ten minutes later Sydney appeared, dressed for dinner, with a rather troubled face. She was anxious about Eugenia, she told Gerald; it looked as if she had caught a chill somehow—she had persuaded her not to come down again, but to go straight to bed.“But talking of chills,” she went on, hastily, “this room is enough to freeze one. What can it be? Why, actually, the window is open. My dear Gerald, what can you be made of to have sat here without finding it out?”Mr Dalrymple was dining with a bachelor friend that evening. It was pretty late when he got home to his wife, but he found her wide awake, and evidently in better spirits than she had been for the last day or two.“Well, my dear Henry,” she began, “I am happy to tell you that for once your fears have been exaggerated. The Laurence girls were here to-day, and I told them—quite naturally, just in the course of conversation, you know—the piece of news I had heard. And I assure you, Eugenia took it beautifully; was not the least surprised or upset; begged me to send her congratulations, and so on. She cannot have been impressed by Beauchamp Chancellor as you thought, for she is a girl that shows all her feelings. It is quite a relief to me. I feel quite happy about her now.”“Do you?” said Henry, with cruel satire. “I’m glad to hear it. Only I suspect your feelings are not at this moment shared by her family. Mr Le Neve was dining at Hill’s to-night, and a couple of hours ago he was sent for in a hurry to the Laurences. He said he would look in again, and so he did, and told us the patient was Miss Laurence—Eugenia, I mean. And I can tell youheis far from easy about her. My own idea is she’s in for brain fever. Be sure you send round first thing in the morning to inquire.”Poor Mrs Dalrymple was crushed at once.“Don’t you think Mr Le Neve is rather an alarmist?” she ventured, timidly.But Henry was very unfeeling. “I can’t say I do,” he replied, leaving his wife to her own reflections, which considerably interfered with her night’s rest.

“The certainty that struck hope dead.”—J. Ruskin.

These three weeks had passed drearily enough at Wareborough. Not with everybody, of course. Frank Thurston for one was in a far from unhappy state of mind—his marriage with Sydney Laurence was to take place in a few weeks; thanks to Gerald’s generosity no difficulties had come in its way, and the prospects of the young people were bright enough to satisfy all reasonable requirements. Sydney, in her calm way, was happy too. She belonged to the class of women who to some extent identify the husband with the home, and the selecting of this home, the discussion of the rival merits of the two or three little houses which happened at the time to be vacant in that part of Wareborough where they were to live, was deeply interesting to her. Still more delightful to her was the furnishing and adorning of the tiny habitation. Her taste was good, her common sense and discrimination wonderful, and she had the happy knack of never apparently opposing her lover, even when his ideas as to the drawing-room curtains, or china dinner-service, hardly accorded with what she considered suitable, or threatened to exceed the sums respectively appropriated to these purposes. Yet in the end and without the exercise of any conscious diplomacy, Sydney generally got her own way. Eugenia on these occasions wondered at, admired, often almost lost patience with her sister.

“You are really spoiling Frank, Sydney,” she would say. “I don’t believe he half appreciates you.”

But “Oh, yes, he does,” Sydney would answer with a quiet smile, for nothing that Eugenia could have said in those days would have had power to draw forth any but the gentlest reply from the sister whose whole soul was filled with an intensity of unexpressed, inexpressible sympathy in the suffering which Eugenia was doing her utmost to conceal.

Since the night when they had learnt the certainty of Captain Chancellor’s departure, his name had never been even indirectly alluded to by Eugenia. It was not that she was naturally reserved or too proud to confide in her sister, but just at the first shock she felt that her only strength lay in silence—once let the barriers of her reticence be broken down, she trembled for her already overtaxed powers of self-control. And besides she shrank from the not improbably adverse view which Sydney might take of Captain Chancellor’s behaviour.

“She does not know him as I do; she could not understand him,” thought Eugenia. “I could not, even by her, endure to hear him blamed or judged in the common conventional way, for whatever others might think of him, I believe him to be blameless. My faith in him is unshaken.”

And so she believed it to be, not discerning that in this morbid shrinking from any discussion of the subject even with Sydney, there lay concealed an unacknowledged misgiving as to the soundness of the foundations of her trust.

So she kept silence, and flattered herself that no one but Sydney could possibly suspect that anything was amiss. It was not difficult for her just at present to keep a little more than usual in the background, the young fiancée being naturally the nine days’ centre of observation. And even if Miss Laurence did look hardly in her ordinary spirits, people did not much wonder at it.

“It must be a trial to the two sisters, especially to Miss Laurence, poor girl, to think of being parted, even though Mrs Frank Thurston, that is to be, will only be a few streets off,” observed one kindly-hearted Wareborough matron to Mrs Dalrymple during a morning call when the Laurence family happened to come on the tapis; to which Mrs Dalrymple, who was feeling anything but happy about Eugenia’s altered looks, agreed with almost suspicious eagerness. For Mr Dalrymple, with true masculine magnanimity, had already given symptoms of having a stock of “I told you sos” in readiness for the first suitable opportunity, and had Eugenia been less preoccupied, her friend’s increasingly demonstrative affection and constant reiteration of “howverywell she was looking,” could not but have roused the girl’s own suspicions.

Curiously enough, in these days Eugenia seemed to turn with satisfaction to Gerald Thurston.

“How very much Gerald has improved again of late,” she remarked one day naïvely to Sydney. “For some time after he came home, I thought India had spoilt him. He seemed rough and careless, as if he had got out of the way of women’s society, and was turning into a moody old bachelor. But now he has got back his nice, gentle, understanding way. He seems to know by instinct when, when—” she stopped and hesitated—“when Frank and his chattering are almost more than I can bear,” had been in her thoughts, but she recollected herself in time to change it—“when one is tired and disinclined to talk or anything,” she said, wearily, and Sydney had hard work to force back the expression of sympathy which she felt would not at this stage be welcome.

“Yes,” she answered simply, “Gerald is very good and kind.”

She would not have been the least offended had Eugenia finished her sentence as had been on her tongue. How she pitied her no words could have told, and many a time Frank’s unconscious cheerfulness jarred even on Sydney herself, poor child, feeling almost as if the contrast of her own happy content was a crime against Eugenia’s shattered hopes.

She pitied Gerald too. It was worse for him now, she said to herself, than if all had been as she had expected. True, he might then have realised more acutely the sharpness of his disappointment, have suffered unselfishly from his misgivings as to the worthiness of her choice; “but still,” thought Sydney, in her sensible way, “it would have been over and certain—a thing that was to be, and he would have been beginning to get accustomed to it.”

But now though Eugenia in the body was still among them, the heart and soul—the very life it seemed just now, had gone out of her. All the freshness and brightness had been sacrificed—whatever possibilities the far-off future might yet conceal, the Eugenia of Gerald’s first love, the Eugenia of his absent dreams, was gone for ever, could never be his. Shehadnever been his, it was true, but Sydney’s womanish faith in the “what would have been,” was indefensibly great. Correspondingly deep was her unspoken disappointment, her vehement, almost fierce indignation against the cause of all this trouble, the wanton destroyer of her sister’s youth and happiness. Had she come upon the subject with Frank, he would, she knew, have either refused to believe in Eugenia’s suffering, or have blamed her as herself the originator of it.

“But he doesn’t understand her, and that man threw dust in his eyes. Supposing even that Eugeniawaseasily deceived, allowing her to be, as Frank says, impressionable and extreme, does that excusehim; cold-hearted, unprincipled, selfish man of the world that he must be, to have robbed my darling of her happiness.”

But all these feelings, little suspected under her quiet exterior, Sydney kept to herself.

Late one afternoon, about six weeks after Captain Chancellor had left Wareborough, the sisters on their way home from a long and rather fatiguing shopping expedition, happened to pass Barnwood Terrace.

“Don’t you think we might go in and see Mrs Dalrymple for a few minutes?” suggested Sydney. “She has been twice to see us since we have called on her, and she is always so kind.”

“Very well; if you like I don’t care,” replied Eugenia, and Sydney hastened to ring the bell before she could change her mind. The girl was jealous for her sister that no occasion should be given for either kindly or spiteful gossip, and it was well for Eugenia that she had so discriminating a friend at hand; for in the preoccupation of her perplexity and trouble, it would never have occurred to her that any regard should be paid to the possible comments of the little outside Wareborough world.

Mrs Dalrymple was at home, and as cordially delighted as usual to see her two friends, yet Sydney was at once conscious of a slight underlying constraint in her manner, perceptible chiefly perhaps in the kind-hearted woman’s extra effusiveness and palpable endeavour to be quite as easy and cheerful as her wont.

“She has something on her mind,” thought Sydney, “something she is uncertain about telling us,” for the girl had no great opinion of Mrs Dalrymple’s power of reserve, and every time that their hostess introduced a new subject of conversation Sydney trembled, she hardly knew why, and glanced furtively in her sister’s direction. Eugenia sat quietly, unconscious of anything unusual in Mrs Dalrymple’s demeanour, now and then putting in a remark on one or other of the various topics touched upon. She was at that stage of very youthful suffering at which a sort of calm often falls upon the inexperienced subject of it; in reality a simple physical reaction, but which she told herself, with a childish yet morbid satisfaction, must be “the apathy of despair.” Her life, she told herself, was over; she had sounded the very depths of suffering, she had experienced the worst, the very worst; only one possible aggravation of what she had endured was conceivable to her; yet not so either, for her heart refused to listen to the faintest suggestion of so monstrous an idea as that of her having been deceived in her hero. Could it be possible that he had never been “in earnest,” that he did not really care for her, that the softly hinting words and looks more eloquent than words had meant nothing? Oh no, no, it could not be; though all the world should swear it to her, she would refuse to believe it.

“For if I ever came to think so, I should die,” she said to herself, with the innocent arrogance of youth which cannot believe that ever a human being’s sufferings equalled its own, or that the worst anguish is not that which kills, but that which is lived through. For in those natures which have the deepest capacity for suffering there is usually an appalling reserve of strength and endurance, and to such, dying is not so easy of achievement, as, fresh from their baptism of woe, they are apt to imagine. And Eugenia did not yet know either that there is a “living,” compared to which this ignorantly invoked “dying,”—a girl’s hazy, sentimental notion of it, that is to say—were but child’s play.

So Eugenia sat quietly beside Sydney in Mrs Dalrymple’s luxurious drawing-room—a room full of associations to her—calm in the belief that she had known the worst; that her unapproachable, unsurpassable sorrow had, as it were, set her apart from the rest of the world; that for the future the only life remaining for her was that of unselfish, self-devoting interest in the lives and interests of others. For this was the rôle that Eugenia, ever extreme, imaginative, and incapable of the sometimes so salutary resting on one’s oars, the taking one’s life and its lessons day by day soberly and trustingly, instead of insisting on unravelling the tangled thread oneself—had now already marked out for herself, and, true to her new ideal, she tried to listen with interest to Mrs Dalrymple’s commonplacisms, to answer brightly and smile cheerfully at the proper times. She imagined the shock to be over, the doomed limb already severed, and that she had known the acutest agony; when, alas, she woke from this dream to find that the worst was yet to come, that what she had endured was but the first shrinking of the tender flesh from the cold steel of the surgeon’s knife.

Her attention, in spite of her efforts, had flagged a little; she was recalling in fancy the many times Beauchamp Chancellor and she had been together in this room, from that first evening that now seemed so long ago, when he had found her standing alone at the door in the fog, and had asked her to dance without knowing her name. Suddenly something that Mrs Dalrymple was saying recalled her to the present. Their hostess had been asking Sydney, as her intimacy with the girls excused her in doing, some questions as to the proposed arrangements for her marriage.

“I do hope it will be fine weather at the time,” she had been saying. “Not merely on the day itself, of course, though one naturally likes some sunshine for a bride, but for the honeymoon. You will enjoy your tour so much more if it is fine.”

“Yes,” agreed Sydney. “But of that we must take our chance. April is never to be counted on.”

“No, and yet it is such a favourite month for marriages,” replied Mrs Dalrymple. “I hear of—let me see—three among my near friends, which are fixed for this April,—a niece of Henry’s, one of the Conroys. I forget if you have ever met them here? She is marrying a Mr Mildmay Jones, in the Civil Service, and going out to India. Then there is your marriage, Sydney, and another I only heard of yesterday. You remember my cousin Roma, Roma Eyrecourt,” (here it was that Eugenia’s attention was attracted), “of course you do—she was here last December, you know.”

She stopped, as if waiting for Sydney’s reply, for to her the question had been addressed. In reality, poor woman, she felt unable to screw up her courage to make the announcement which she yet knew it would be cruel and impossible to withhold.

Little shivers of cold began to creep over Sydney. She felt inclined to shake Mrs Dalrymple—why could she not either have held her tongue or said it out quickly without this unnecessary torture of suspense? For Eugenia was listening: there she sat, Sydney seemed to see without looking at her, in an unnatural tension of expectation, her eyes, which had somehow grown to look larger of late, fixed on the speaker.

“No,” said Sydney, in a weak, faint, almost querulous voice, quite unlike her own.

“No, Idon’tknow her. I didn’t see her when she was here.”

“Ah, no, by-the-bye you didn’t,” said Mrs Dalrymple, and something kept her from turning to Eugenia, the one who did know her cousin, as would have been natural, “I remember. But though you don’t know her, you know Captain Chancellor very well. I can’t tell you how surprised I was to hear of those two being really engaged. Of course it has often been spoken of, but I long ago made up my mind it would never be. I could get no satisfaction out of Roma when she was here, but I certainly didn’t think it looked like it. Beauchamp Chancellor never gave me the slightest reason to expect it—rather the other way indeed. Really I don’t think I ever was so surprised.”

“And the marriage is to take place very soon, I think you said,” inquired Sydney, with the same strange sensation she had had once before of being a mere machine asking questions at her sister’s bidding.

“Yes, very soon, I believe,” Mrs Dalrymple went on again in the same nervous, hurried manner. “Next month—about the same time as yours. I have not heard the whole particulars yet. My letter was not from Roma herself, but from Mrs Winter, a friend of mine who is staying near there just now. I must write and congratulate them both, I suppose, though—I hope they won’t ask us to the marriage, however; I certainly don’t want to go.”

There was silence for a few moments. Then both Mrs Dalrymple and Sydney were startled by the sound of Eugenia’s voice. She spoke in a quiet, rather dreamy tone, as if the sense of her words was hardly realised by her—but of the peculiarity of her manner only Sydney was aware.

“Will you kindly give our congratulations too, when you write, Mrs Dalrymple, please—mine especially. I saw Miss Eyrecourt several times, and we all know Captain Chancellor very well, you know.”

“Certainly I will, my dear Eugenia, with the greatest pleasure,” replied Mrs Dalrymple, with rather injudicious empressement. A very little encouragement would have drawn out the whole of her smouldering indignation against Beauchamp and womanly fellow-feeling with Eugenia’s wrongs, but without some hint from the sisters that the expression of her opinion would not be considered indelicate or intrusive, even Mrs Dalrymple felt that in this case, as in most others, the less said the better, and held her peace accordingly.

A minute or two passed, but no more allusion was made to the news which had so disturbed their hostess’s equilibrium. And before there was opportunity for the discussion of any other subject, the sisters, moved by a common instinct, discovered that it was getting late, and that they had already outstayed their time. Mrs Dalrymple could not resist kissing them both affectionately as they said good-bye, but this was the only expression of sympathy on which she ventured.

It was already twilight out of doors. Still not so dusk but that Sydney stole timid glances at her sister’s face in wistful anxiety as to what there might be there to read. But it seemed all blank: she might have stared at her with open inquiry, Eugenia would have been unconscious of it. She walked along quite quietly, replying mechanically to the little commonplace observations Sydney hazarded from time to time; but for the curious expression, or rather curious absence of expression in her usually changeful, speaking face, her sister would have suspected nothing but that Eugenia was in a more than usually silent mood this evening. As it was, Sydney felt bewildered and uncertain, vaguely apprehensive, yet not satisfied that there was new cause for any increase of her anxiety.

“Possibly,” thought Sydney, “this definite news may do her good. It may show her what a poor creature he is after all, and may rouse her to shake herself free of the remembrance of him altogether.”

She hardly understood that to Eugenia such a reaction, healthy and “sensible” though it might be, was impossible. Through all her despair and misery Eugenia clung with instinctive self-regard to her delusion; over and over again she repeated to herself in almost the same words, the poor little formula of faith in her lover which she told herself and really imagined she believed. It was her safeguard at this time, and well for her that she could hold to it; for what to some girls would have been merely a passing though sharp mortification, would to her have been a loss of self-respect extensive enough to have shaken the whole foundations of her character.

Very near their own house the sisters were overtaken by Frank Thurston. He walked beside them to the door, but seemed to hesitate about entering.

“Aren’t you coming in, Frank?” asked Sydney.

“It is hardly worth while,” he replied, eyeing regretfully his but half consumed cigar. “I have only five minutes to spare. Suppose you walk up and down with me, Sydney, instead of my coming in. It’s going to be a beautiful evening.”

Sydney glanced at Eugenia.

“Yes, do, Sydney,” said Eugenia.

Sydney fancied she could discern in this a longing on her sister’s part to be alone, if but for a quarter of an hour.

“Very well, then, I will stay out with you for a little, Frank,” she agreed, and Eugenia entered the house by herself.

When she got into the hall, for the first time she became conscious of feeling different from usual, strangely weak and giddy and very cold. Afraid of the servant’s observing anything amiss, she abandoned her intention of rushing upstairs at once to her own room, and went instead to the drawing-room, where she knew she would find no one. There was no light in the room but that of a large, brightly burning fire. Eugenia drew a low seat close to it, and in a minute or two when the warmth had penetrated a little through her thick dress, she seemed to feel better. Still, however, she was only half restored; she felt that going upstairs would be quite beyond her powers, so she sat still, vaguely relieved that Sydney did not appear with kindly but unendurable expressions of anxiety as to what was wrong.

How long she had sat there she did not know, when the door opened quietly and some one came in. Eugenia looked up. It was not Sydney. It was Gerald Thurston!

“Oh,” thought poor Eugenia, “oh, if only I were up in my own room! Oh, how can I sit and talk to Gerald!”

Then, however, there came a slight sensation of relief that it was Gerald and not Frank! She stood up to shake hands as usual when he crossed the room to where she was, but the giddy feeling returned, and she sat down again rather abruptly.

“I have been with your father in his study for the last hour,” explained Gerald. “He has asked me to stay to dinner and go with him to his lecture at Marny Mills to-night, so you must excuse my clothes.”

“Oh, certainly,” said Eugenia, smiling. “It wants more than half-an-hour to dinner-time still,” Gerald went on, speaking faster than usual—the truth being that this tête-à-tête with Eugenia, the first since the memorable evening of his return, was by no means to his taste—“don’t let me be in your way. I should not have come into the drawing-room, but your father had some letters to write, and I thought I was inhisway. I met Sydney flying upstairs as I came across the hall, and she told me I should find a book and a fire in here.”

“There are some library books and new magazines over there on that side-table,” replied Eugenia, moving her head in the direction she meant. “But you are not in my way,” she went on indifferently. “I wasn’t doing anything.”

She shivered perceptibly as she spoke. Then she stooped to reach the poker, and began nervously stirring the fire.

Mr Thurston stopped on his way to the side-table. He came back to the fire-place and took the poker out of Eugenia’s hands. Even in the instant’s contact he felt their icy coldness.

“Let me do that for you,” he said gently. In her nervousness Eugenia had already done the very thing she would have wished not to do. She had stirred the glowing red into a vivid blaze, which fell full on her face. Something in it must have looked different from usual, for before she could turn away, Gerald spoke.

“Eugenia, what is the matter?” he exclaimed impulsively. “You are as cold as ice—you must be ill.”

She felt his eyes fixed upon her: extreme annoyance gave her momentary strength.

“Don’t, Gerald, please, don’t,” she said, half beseechingly, half petulantly. “There is nothing the matter. I may have got a chill, that is all. But please don’t look at me. I do so dislike it.”

She rose, resolved to put an end to his scrutiny. “Iwillget across the room,” she thought. She made two or three steps feebly but determinedly, wondering vaguely what had come to her feet, they felt so powerless and heavy; then, it seemed to her, she stepped suddenly down, down into unfathomable depths, into darkness compared to which midnight was as noon-day. “I am dying,” she thought to herself before her senses quite deserted her. “What willhethink, how will he feel when he hears it?” And it seemed to her she called aloud with her last breath. “Beauchamp! oh, Beauchamp!”

In reality the words were a barely audible whisper, which would certainly have been unintelligible to ears less jealously sharp than those of her one hearer.

“My darling,” muttered Gerald, “so it is his doing, is it?”

The first two words made their way to Eugenia’s not yet quite unconscious brain. Afterwards she thought she must have dreamt that Beauchamp had answered her cry.

She had never fainted before. She could not at all understand the painful coming back to life; to finding herself after all—instead of awaking in the mysterious country across the river of which we know so little, so terribly little—in the old way again, lying on the drawing-room sofa, with a keen cold current of air blowing in her face.

“Where am I?” she said, as people always do say in such circumstances, glancing round her, apprehensively. But before Gerald had time to reply, her wits had sufficiently recovered themselves to take in the position.

It had not been much of a faint after all; her young life had not required much doctoring to regain its balance for the time. Mr Thurston had merely carried her to the window, and opened it to allow the fresh air to try what it could do. Then, laying her on the sofa, he was glad to see she was coming round again without his requiring to summon the assistance which he felt certain she would shrink from.

The room was bright with fire-light, and the cold air still blew in freshly. Eugenia lay still for a minute or two, gazing before her. Then she tried to rouse herself, and after a moment’s hesitation, seeing she could hardly manage it, Gerald put his arm round her, and helped her to sit up. He need not have been afraid of annoying her. She took his help with the most perfect simplicity, as if he had been her brother.

“Thank you, Gerald,” she said, softly, “you are so kind. You have always been kind to me, ever since I was quite little,” and half unconsciously she allowed her still throbbing head to lean for a moment on his shoulder. It was rather hard upon him—the perfect sisterliness of the little action made it all the more so. A sudden fear came over him that she would feel how fast his heart was beating, and would be startled into consciousness. So, very gently, under pretence of arranging the sofa cushion, he removed the arm that was round her. She did not seem to observe it.

“Are you better now, Eugenia?” he said, kindly. “I don’t know if I did right in opening the window, for I believe it must have been a chill that made you faint. But I am no doctor, and a good blow of fresh air was the only thing that occurred to me.”

“I am sure it was the best thing to do,” she answered; “I am not cold now. I don’t think it was real cold. It must have been the feeling of fainting coming on. I never fainted before, and I have always thought itsosilly,” she added with a little smile. “I am all right now, I shall go upstairs in a minute, Gerald.” Appealingly, “You won’t tell anybody?”

“Not if you promise me to tell Sydney, and see the doctor if you have any return of it, or don’t feel quite well in any way.”

“Very well, I will promise that,” she replied, meekly enough. “It was very good of you not to call any one and make a fuss.” Then, after a moment’s hesitation, the hot colour rushing over her pale face, she added in a lower voice, “Gerald, didn’t I say something?”

There was no use parrying her inquiry. Sorely against his will, Gerald found himself obliged to accept the position of her confidant.

“Yes,” he said, simply; Eugenia did not perceive that it was sternly as well.

“Ah, I thought so,” she murmured. “I know I can trust you, though sometimes one prefers to trust no one. Don’t misunderstand me,” she added quickly, becoming alive to the grave expression of his face; “inonesense, I should not care if everybody knew what you suspect. No one need be ashamed of I can’t explain. I mean, I don’t want pity. I am not to be pitied, andno oneis to be blamed. Only, people who only know half cannot understand, so I feel that my strength just now lies in silence.”

Mr Thurston looked at her very anxiously, the hard look melting out of his face.

“Take care you do not overrate your strength,” he said gently.

Eugenia smiled, but said nothing. Then she stood up, and was about to try if she could walk, when Gerald stopped her.

“Wait one instant,” he exclaimed, and before she had the least idea what he meant, he was back again with a glass of wine.

“Drink that, or at least half of it,” he said. “I found it on the sideboard. It must be getting near dinner-time.”

Eugenia did as he told her, and then he let her go.

“Good night; I don’t think I shall come down to dinner, and thank you again very, very much, and—and pleaseremember,” were her last words.

Ten minutes later Sydney appeared, dressed for dinner, with a rather troubled face. She was anxious about Eugenia, she told Gerald; it looked as if she had caught a chill somehow—she had persuaded her not to come down again, but to go straight to bed.

“But talking of chills,” she went on, hastily, “this room is enough to freeze one. What can it be? Why, actually, the window is open. My dear Gerald, what can you be made of to have sat here without finding it out?”

Mr Dalrymple was dining with a bachelor friend that evening. It was pretty late when he got home to his wife, but he found her wide awake, and evidently in better spirits than she had been for the last day or two.

“Well, my dear Henry,” she began, “I am happy to tell you that for once your fears have been exaggerated. The Laurence girls were here to-day, and I told them—quite naturally, just in the course of conversation, you know—the piece of news I had heard. And I assure you, Eugenia took it beautifully; was not the least surprised or upset; begged me to send her congratulations, and so on. She cannot have been impressed by Beauchamp Chancellor as you thought, for she is a girl that shows all her feelings. It is quite a relief to me. I feel quite happy about her now.”

“Do you?” said Henry, with cruel satire. “I’m glad to hear it. Only I suspect your feelings are not at this moment shared by her family. Mr Le Neve was dining at Hill’s to-night, and a couple of hours ago he was sent for in a hurry to the Laurences. He said he would look in again, and so he did, and told us the patient was Miss Laurence—Eugenia, I mean. And I can tell youheis far from easy about her. My own idea is she’s in for brain fever. Be sure you send round first thing in the morning to inquire.”

Poor Mrs Dalrymple was crushed at once.

“Don’t you think Mr Le Neve is rather an alarmist?” she ventured, timidly.

But Henry was very unfeeling. “I can’t say I do,” he replied, leaving his wife to her own reflections, which considerably interfered with her night’s rest.

Volume Two—Chapter Four.Reaction.... The sorrows of all humanityThrough my heart make a thoroughfare.G. Macdonald.Things, however, did not turn out quite so badly as several people anticipated. Eugenia’s illness did not result in brain fever, though for a week or two it was serious enough to affect considerably the spirits of her little circle of friends, and to justify Mr Le Neve in looking rather grave.“Not that there is anything to be surprised at in it,” he assured her father and Sydney; “there are a great many cases of the kind about just now,” and he went on to murmur something about “the season,” “the changeable weather,” and other scapegoats of the kind always ready at hand to bear the blame of any illness not altogether to be accounted for or easily defined.But greatly to the relief of every one concerned, before long Eugenia began to mend, and it was then decided that what she had been suffering from had been nothing worse than “a feverish cold,” and the less observant of her friends made themselves quite happy about her again. Their rejoicing, however, proved somewhat premature. When the girl came downstairs and began to go about again as usual, it became very evident, that though she had escaped an acute illness, she was far from having regained her ordinary strength. Sydney watched her anxiously, trusting at first that a few days would bring improvement, but on the contrary, at the end of a week, Eugenia seemed paler and more feeble than when she first got up. She would not own to being ill; she was only tired, she said—tired of the long winter, for spring was slow in coming that year; she would be all right when the summer came again, and Sydney must not trouble about her.“Besides, dear,” she said plaintively, “though I don’t want to be selfish, you know the idea of losing you so soonisrather overwhelming to me,” and the tears which seemed now-a-days nearer at hand than formerly, rushed to her eyes.“If you are not looking better by the end of April than you do now, I shall put off my marriage,” returned Sydney.“And what would Frank say? Think how he would hate me! As it is, I believe he thinks my being ill at all is a piece of my usual perversity,” said Eugenia, half playfully, half sadly. “I daresay it is true. I have always given you a great deal of trouble, Sydney, and by rights it should have been the other way. I should have looked after you.”“So you have. Neither of us could have got on without the other, and Frank knows that,” replied Sydney, consolingly. “But, Eugenia, I mean what I say; so you had better be quick and get well.”She was willing enough to do so—at least to become sufficiently like herself to escape observation and be left alone. She did her very utmost to seem well, fought valiantly to keep up a satisfactory show of good spirits, in which endeavour the unselfish fear of damping Sydney’s happiness by obtruding her own sorrows materially assisted her. She was docile and submissive to all, perfectly ready to take the tonics which Mr Le Neve prescribed for her, to try Frank Thurston’s masculine panacea, “more exercise and fresh air,” or her father’s old-fashioned remedy of “bark and port wine.” Her gentleness was almost too much for Gerald’s self-control; he left off coming to see them so often, on the pretext of extra business, but found he did not gain much by so doing, for at home his brother nearly drove him wild by his calm speculations as to the possibility of Eugenia’s going into a decline; “their mother was very delicate, you know, and Eugenia is more like her than Sydney,” and even more irritating remarks on how much she was improved, “so much better-tempered and equable than she used to be.”One day when Sydney had been out by herself, paying the usual bi-weekly visit to their father’s old maiden aunt, their only relation in the neighbourhood, she was told, by Eugenia on her return that Mrs Dalrymple had been to see her. This was certainly no very unusual occurrence, for during the last three weeks their friend’s visits had been by no means of the proverbially angelic character; but to-day, by Eugenia’s account, she had come on a special errand.“They are going away from home somewhere—they haven’t quite decided where—next week,” said Eugenia, “and they want, me to go with them. But I told Mrs Dalrymple that I did not think it was possible, though of course it is exceedingly kind of them. Oh, Sydney, dear,” she continued, interrupting the remonstrance which she saw in her sister’s face, “Idon’twant, to go. Our last three weeks together, for they wouldn’t be back till a few days before the 29th! And how could you get all finished by yourself without me?”“There is very little more to do,” said Sydney, sitting down beside Eugenia and looking at her anxiously, “almost nothing in fact, except the last preparations of all, which cannot be begun till a few days beforehand, and you would be back by then. It isn’t as if it was going to be a grand marriage. And to speak plainly, Eugenia—you mustn’t be offended—even if there were a great deal to do, you couldn’t, as you are just now, help me. Indeed you would be rather in my way. I cannot bear to see you doing anything when you look as if the least breath of air would knock you over.” Eugenia did not at once answer. She turned away her head. Then she said resignedly—“Very well, if my father, too, wishes me to go, I will,” but the pleasure which Sydney was about to express was destroyed by Eugenia’s next speech. “It is as I thought. I am no use to any one. My own life is over, and I am not wanted to help in any one else’s.”This was the first allusion she had made in all these weeks to the bitter sorrow she had passed through. Sydney was touched and distressed.“You must not speak so, Eugenia,” she said. “We all want you. We want you to be your own bright self again. Don’t think me unfeeling for thinking it possible you may be bright again. I know I have no right to speak, for I have been exceptionally free from trial, but you have been so brave and good lately, Eugenia. I cannot bear to see you so desponding. I am sure it will do you good to go away. It will make me feel so much happier about you.”“Very well, then, to please you, I will,” said Eugenia, more vigorously, and as Mr Laurence was only too thankful to give his consent to the proposal, Mrs Dalrymple triumphantly carried the day.Ever so many places had been thought of as likely to be pleasant at this season, and one after the other rejected as undesirable. One was too far away, another too crowded by invalids, a third disagreeably exposed to east wind. Their time was too short for them to entertain the idea of any of the usual wintering places across the Channel, and Mrs Dalrymple objected to the south of England as too distant also. So in the end they pitched upon a pretty little watering place, not more than a three hours’ journey from Wareborough, where there was a good choice of walks and drives for Mr Dalrymple, and a certainty of comfortable quarters at the best hotel.Their destination was a matter of perfect indifference to Eugenia, whose only interest in the journey was the feeling that she was pleasing her friends, and whose only strong wish was to get it over, and find herself at home again, free to yield to the lassitude and depression against which it became daily more difficult to struggle.“If theywouldbut leave me alone,” she constantly repeated inwardly; and though she hated herself for the feeling, there were times at which she realised that even Sydney’s absence would be in some ways a relief. The constant and but thinly veiled anxiety in her sister’s eyes, the incessant endeavour on her own part to lessen it by appearing as bright and energetic as of old, were at times almost more than the girl could endure or sustain; and when she found herself at last fairly started on her little journey with the Dalrymples, she became conscious that she had done wisely to consent to accompany them. Mrs Dalrymple’s kindly fussiness was infinitely less trying than Sydney’s wistful tenderness; it was far easier to keep up a cheerful, commonplace conversation with her friend’s husband than to sit through dinner at home with the feeling that her father and sister were stealthily watching to see if she ate more to-day than yesterday, or if she entered with greater vigour into the passing remarks. With her present companions she felt perfectly at ease; had she had any idea of what an accurate acquaintance with the actual state of things had been arrived at by the worthy couple, her comfortable freedom from self-consciousness would have speedily deserted her.Nunswell quickly got the credit of her improved looks.“I really think she is growing more like herself already,” said Mrs Dalrymple, with great satisfaction, to her husband. “We could not have chosen a better place for her; it is so bright and lively here, and the bracing air is so reviving.” Very probably the bracing air really had something to do with it! Eugenia was only nineteen, and this had been her first trouble. Her life hitherto had been exceptionally monotonous and uneventful; a few months ago the prospect of a visit to Nunswell would have been to her far more exciting and delightful than to most girls of her age and education would be that of a winter in Rome, or a summer in Switzerland: even now therefore, notwithstanding the blight which had fallen over her youthful capacity for enjoyment, she was not insensible to the pleasant change in her outward life from the dull routine of Wareborough; the little amusements and varieties almost daily arranged for her by her hosts; the general holiday feeling. She had not yet got the length of owning to herself that she did, or ever again could, enjoy in her old way, but the reflection which now often passed through her mind, “how happy this would have made me a year ago,” showed that she was on the high road to recovery.Nunswell was beautifully situated, and rich in “natural objects of attraction.” Eugenia had travelled so little that even the scenery of her own country was known to her only by description; it was now for the first time in her life that she woke up to a consciousness of her power of appreciation of natural beauty. Yet the waking was a sad one; her very first real perceptions of the beauty she had hitherto but dimly imagined came to her tinged with the sense of discordance between the outer and the inner world, of mistake and failure, which takes the brilliance out of the sunshine, the sweetness out of the birds’ songs.“None of it is real,” thought Eugenia. “It is only where there is no soul—no heart, that there is happiness,” for being still weakened in mind and body by her recent illness, having nothing to do but to rest and amuse herself, and no one to talk to, she was inclined to be rather plaintive and desponding, and to imagine the path she was treading to be one of altogether unprecedented experiences.Still, there was no question but what her spirits were better, her general appearance far more satisfactory than when she left home, and Mrs Dalrymple’s bulletins to Sydney became cheering in the extreme.They had been a fortnight at Nunswell, when one morning at breakfast Mr Dalrymple made an unexpected announcement. He had been reading his letters—business ones for the most part, forwarded from his office at Wareborough—over some of them he had frowned, others he had thrown aside after a hasty glance, one or two had brought a satisfied expression to his face. Mrs Dalrymple and Eugenia had no letters this morning, but in deference to Mr Dalrymple’s occupation, they had been sitting in silence for some time, excepting a few whispered remarks as to the quality of the coffee or the prospects of the weather. Eugenia was some way into a brown study when she was recalled by her host’s suddenly addressing her.“Here’s some news for you, Miss Laurence,” he exclaimed, looking up with a smile from the perusal of his last letter. “We are to have a visitor this afternoon—a great friend of yours. Quite time, too, that you should have a little variety—you must be getting tired of two old fogies like my wife and me.”Eugenia had started when he first began to speak—it did not take much to startle her just now—then as he went on, her colour changed, first to crimson, which fading as quickly as it had come, left her even paler than usual. Mrs Dalrymple darted a reproachful look across the table at her husband, and began to speak hastily, in terror of what he might not be going to say next.“Why can’t you say at once who it is, Henry?” she exclaimed with very unusual irritation. “It is quite startling and uncomfortable to be told all of a sudden ‘somebody’ is coming in that sort of way. I am sure I don’t want to see any one, and I don’t think Eugenia does either. We have been very snug together, and Eugenia is not strong enough yet to care for strangers. Really, Henry, you are very thoughtless.”The last few words should have been an aside, but Mrs Dalrymple’s vexation at the sight of the pallid hue still overspreading the girl’s face, overmastered her prudence.“It didn’t startle me, dear Mrs Dalrymple—really it didn’t,” interposed Eugenia, hastily. “That is to say, I was only startled for an instant, and it was not Mr Dalrymple’s fault. Anything does it—even the door opening—since I was ill, but I am beginning to get over it. But you are quite right in thinking I don’t want any one else—I have beenquitehappy with you and Mr Dalrymple.”“But you have misunderstood me, Mary,” said Mr Dalrymple, looking rather contrite. “I never spoke of strangers. I said particularly it was a friend of Miss Laurence’s I was expecting. It is Gerald Thurston. I have a note from him proposing to see me here this afternoon, and if we are not engaged, he speaks of staying at Nunswell till Monday. He is on his way home from Bristol, where he has been on business, and he wishes to see me, and I want to see him. I am sure you can have no objection to his joining us for two days, either of you?” he ended by inquiring of his two companions.“Objection to Gerald Thurston!” repeated Mrs Dalrymple. “Of course not. I shall be very glad to see him. I only wish you had said at first whom you meant. You don’t mind, Eugenia?”“I?” said Eugenia, looking up quickly. “Oh, dear no—I am very glad. I like Gerald Thurston very much. He is very kind and good.”“And exceedingly clever, and uncommonly good-looking,” added Mr Dalrymple, warmly. “Take him for all in all, I don’t know where there is a finer fellow than Thurston.”“So my father says,” agreed Eugenia. “Indeed I think every one that knows him thinks highly of him.”She was anxious to be cordial, and really felt so towards Gerald. Of late she had come to like him much more than formerly, and the extreme consideration and delicacy which he had shown the evening her illness began, had increased this liking by a feeling of gratitude. Nevertheless there had grown up unconsciously in her a somewhat painful association with Gerald since that evening, and she had not seen enough of him to remove it. “He knows,” she said to herself, and she shrank from meeting him again.But it was much pleasanter and easier than she had expected. Gerald, intensely alive to all she was feeling, behaved perfectly, and spared her in a thousand ways without appearing, even to her, to do so at all. The two days proved the pleasantest they had passed at Nunswell: Mr Thurston knew the neighbourhood well, and drove them to some charming nooks and points of view, somewhat out of the beaten guide-book track, which they had not hitherto discovered. Mrs Dalrymple openly expressed her gratification and surprise.“I always knew Gerald Thurston was very clever and superior and all that sort of thing, you know,” she said to Eugenia, “but I had no idea he could make himself so agreeable.”Eugenia herself was a little surprised. The truth was she had never before, since his return from India, seen Gerald to advantage: in her presence hitherto he had been always self-conscious and constrained, stern and moody, if not morose. Now it was different. A feeling of extreme pity, of almost brotherly anxiety for her happiness, had replaced the intenser feelings with which he had regarded her; he had nor longer any fears for himself or his own self-control in her presence—that was all over, past for ever like a dream in the night; he could venture now to be at ease, could devote himself unselfishly to cheer and interest her in any way that came into his power. And under this genial influence the bruised petals of the flower, not crushed so utterly as had seemed at first, began to revive and expand again, to feel conscious of the bright sunshine and gentle breezes still around it, though for a time all light and life had seemed to it to have deserted its world.“I had no idea Gerald was so wonderfully understanding and sympathising,” thought Eugenia. “If I have a feeling or a question it is difficult to put in words, he seems to know what I mean by instinct;” and encouraged by this discovery, she allowed herself to talk to him, once or twice when they were alone together, of several things which had lately been floating in her mind.Trouble and disappointment were doing their work with her; she was beginning to look for a meaning in many things that hitherto she had disregarded or accepted with youthful carelessness as matters-of-course with which she had no call to meddle. But now it was different: she had eaten of the fruit of the tree; she had ventured her all in a frail bark, and it had foundered; it had come home to her that life and love are often sad, and sometimes terrible facts, and her heart was beginning to swell with a great pity for her suffering-kind. It was all vague and misty to her as yet; it might result in nothing, as is too often the end of such crises in a growing character, but still the germ was there.“Gerald,” she said to Mr Thurston, suddenly, after she had been sitting silent for some minutes. (They were in the gardens of the hotel at the time. It was Sunday afternoon and a mild April day; Mr and Mrs Dalrymple had gone to church again, but Eugenia and Mr Thurston had been tempted by the pleasant weather to play truant.) “Gerald,” said Eugenia, “I wish there was something that women could do.”Mr Thurston turned towards her. She now looking straight before her with a puzzled yet earnest expression on her face.“Something that women can do?” he repeated, not quite sure of her drift. “I thought there were lots of things. Most women complain of want of time.”“So do I sometimes. I am never at a loss for occupation—that’s not what I mean,” she replied. “What I mean is, I wish there were bigger things—more useful things for women to do.”“You have not been infected with the Women’s Rights mania, surely?” inquired Gerald, rather unresponsively.“Of course not. Don’t laugh at me, Gerald. You can understand me—if you choose. I should like to feel I was of some use to somebody, and lately I have felt as if no one in the world would be the least bit the worse if I were out of it.” Here she blushed a little. “Now don’t you see if I were a man I could set to work hard at something—something that would be of use in some way. Put it to yourself, Gerald; suppose—suppose you had given up thoughts of—of being very happy yourself,” (here the blush deepened to hot crimson), “wouldn’t you naturally—after a while, you know—wouldn’t you set to work harder than ever at whatever you felt was your own special business—the thing you felt you were most likely to be of use in? Now a woman has no such field open to her.”Internally Gerald had winced a little, two or three times, while Eugenia was speaking. Externally, he sat there looking colder and more impassive than usual. He had loved this girl, had set her up on the pedestal of ideal womanhood that somewhere or other exists in the imagination of every man not wholly faithless or depraved; she had fallen, it is true, in a sense, from this height, she had proved herself in his judgment to be but as the rest of her sex—childishly credulous, ready to mistake the glitter for the gold, honeyed words for heart devotion—yet still he cared for her, was tenderly anxious for her welfare. But of all things Gerald hated sentimentalism!“There are plenty of Protestant sisterhoods,” he said, drily. “How would one of those suit you?”Eugenia made no reply. After waiting a moment or two, Mr Thurston turned towards her again. To his surprise he saw that her eyes were full of tears.“Eugenia,” he exclaimed, softened at once, “have I hurt you? I did not intend it. I assure you I did not, in the least.”“No, I know you didn’t,” she said, struggling to smile and to speak cheerfully. “I am very silly. I can’t help it. I have got so silly and touchy lately, the least thing seems to vex me. But you did hurt me a little, Gerald. I was in earnest in what I said, though you thought it missyish and contemptible. I have been trying to see how I could grow better and less selfish, and you don’t know how hard it is, for no one seems to understand. And, oh you don’t know, you who are so strong and wise, youdon’tknow how hard it is to be good when one is very unhappy.”“Don’t I?” muttered he, but she did not catch the words.“If I could be of use,” she went on again, after a little pause. “And why can’t I be? There must be plenty of misery in the world. Why can’t I make some of it a little less?”“You can,” he answered, gently. “I don’t think I quite understood you. I thought you were envying men’s work and despising your own sphere—a very common and often excusable mistake. I see now there was a more unselfish spirit in what you meant.”“I don’t know that,” she answered, doubtfully, but brightening up nevertheless. “I do think I should like to make some people happier, or a little less unhappy, and in some ways perhaps better too. For surely very often being happier would make people better, would it not? But I am selfish too—I want to get something to take me out of myself—something that I can get interested in by feeling it is of use.”“Don’t you help your father sometimes?” inquired Gerald. “Haven’t you a good deal to do in looking after things at home?”“No—very little indeed. The house has got into a jog-trot way of going on, and papa won’t have changes. What little there has been to do hitherto, I am afraid Sydney has done,” said Eugenia, blushing a little. “Of course I don’t intend to neglect that sort of thing, but there is very little to do. I do help my father whenever he will let me, by copying out things and hunting up references and quotations. But it isn’t often he wants help.”“And would he not let you help him more if you asked him?”“He might, but it would only be to please me,” replied Eugenia, despondingly. “No, I am afraid it is true—I am no use to anybody. Once, I remember, ever, ever so long ago,” she went on, as if ten or twenty years at least were within easy grasp of her memory, “I had visions of becoming frightfully learned, of studying all my life long, and getting to the bottom of everything. What a little goose I was! Just because I had learnt Latin and German and a few other things more thoroughly than most girls! I wonder sometimes if, after all, all the trouble papa took with us has been much good to us. Look at Sydney; what will be the use of it to her, marrying at eighteen? And as for me, if I were really clever I suppose I should go on working away, absorbed in the work without thinking of any result. But I can’t, Gerald. It doesn’t satisfy me. I want to see and feel a result.”She looked up in his face, her bright, earnest eyes full of inquiry. “Can’t you help me?” they seemed to say.Could he? A tantalising vision rose before him of how at one time he had looked forward to doing so—how well he understood her, and the special phase through which she was passing! Was it too late? Was there yet a chance that by much patience and by slow degrees he might win to himself this girl whom no one understood as he understood her, whose very faults and imperfections were dear to him? The thought seemed to dazzle and bewilder him, but a glance at Eugenia made him dismiss it. She sat there beside him, in such utter unconsciousness, such sisterly reliance on his friendship, that he felt it would be cruel to her and in every sense worse than useless to disturb the existing state of things. The far off, dimly possible future must take care of itself; and after all—she could never be quite the same Eugenia to him again.So he answered her very quietly and soberly, as she expected.“You cannot judge of things quite justly at present, I think,” he said, after a little pause. “I have had the same sort of feelings myself sometimes, though, of course, my life has been too busy to tempt me to yield to them much. But they will pass away again, you will find. You will come to feel that nothing well done is ever useless. And, in the meantime, there is no fear but what things will turn up for you to do. I could put you in the way of some,” he continued, with a smile, “though I don’t know if they would be quite to your taste. Frank sometimes takes me to task a little for some of my ideas, so we should have to be careful.”“I am quite sureIshould agree with you,” said Eugenia, eagerly. “I know you do an immense deal of good, Gerald. Papa says so, and I have often wanted to ask you about it, but I didn’t like.”“There is exceedingly little to tell,” he replied, simply. “I am no theorist, and I limit my attempts to what I think I see a chance of doing.”Then, perceiving that her interest was really aroused, he told her something of what he was trying to do, and promised some time or other to tell her more.Eugenia felt happier than she had done for long, that evening. Her respect for Gerald Thurston was rapidly increasing.“I have never before done him justice,” she said to herself; “I am most fortunate to have him for a friend.”Gerald, on his way back to Wareborough, felt very glad that he had seen her again.“It was the best thing to do to get over the uncomfortable feeling,” thought he. “She trusts me now thoroughly, and I may be of use to her.”And Sydney, who had been a little puzzled by Gerald’s visit to Nunswell, was greatly delighted by his cheerful looks and satisfactory report of her sister.“After all,” she thought, hopefully, “it may all come right in the end. Who knows?”

... The sorrows of all humanityThrough my heart make a thoroughfare.G. Macdonald.

... The sorrows of all humanityThrough my heart make a thoroughfare.G. Macdonald.

Things, however, did not turn out quite so badly as several people anticipated. Eugenia’s illness did not result in brain fever, though for a week or two it was serious enough to affect considerably the spirits of her little circle of friends, and to justify Mr Le Neve in looking rather grave.

“Not that there is anything to be surprised at in it,” he assured her father and Sydney; “there are a great many cases of the kind about just now,” and he went on to murmur something about “the season,” “the changeable weather,” and other scapegoats of the kind always ready at hand to bear the blame of any illness not altogether to be accounted for or easily defined.

But greatly to the relief of every one concerned, before long Eugenia began to mend, and it was then decided that what she had been suffering from had been nothing worse than “a feverish cold,” and the less observant of her friends made themselves quite happy about her again. Their rejoicing, however, proved somewhat premature. When the girl came downstairs and began to go about again as usual, it became very evident, that though she had escaped an acute illness, she was far from having regained her ordinary strength. Sydney watched her anxiously, trusting at first that a few days would bring improvement, but on the contrary, at the end of a week, Eugenia seemed paler and more feeble than when she first got up. She would not own to being ill; she was only tired, she said—tired of the long winter, for spring was slow in coming that year; she would be all right when the summer came again, and Sydney must not trouble about her.

“Besides, dear,” she said plaintively, “though I don’t want to be selfish, you know the idea of losing you so soonisrather overwhelming to me,” and the tears which seemed now-a-days nearer at hand than formerly, rushed to her eyes.

“If you are not looking better by the end of April than you do now, I shall put off my marriage,” returned Sydney.

“And what would Frank say? Think how he would hate me! As it is, I believe he thinks my being ill at all is a piece of my usual perversity,” said Eugenia, half playfully, half sadly. “I daresay it is true. I have always given you a great deal of trouble, Sydney, and by rights it should have been the other way. I should have looked after you.”

“So you have. Neither of us could have got on without the other, and Frank knows that,” replied Sydney, consolingly. “But, Eugenia, I mean what I say; so you had better be quick and get well.”

She was willing enough to do so—at least to become sufficiently like herself to escape observation and be left alone. She did her very utmost to seem well, fought valiantly to keep up a satisfactory show of good spirits, in which endeavour the unselfish fear of damping Sydney’s happiness by obtruding her own sorrows materially assisted her. She was docile and submissive to all, perfectly ready to take the tonics which Mr Le Neve prescribed for her, to try Frank Thurston’s masculine panacea, “more exercise and fresh air,” or her father’s old-fashioned remedy of “bark and port wine.” Her gentleness was almost too much for Gerald’s self-control; he left off coming to see them so often, on the pretext of extra business, but found he did not gain much by so doing, for at home his brother nearly drove him wild by his calm speculations as to the possibility of Eugenia’s going into a decline; “their mother was very delicate, you know, and Eugenia is more like her than Sydney,” and even more irritating remarks on how much she was improved, “so much better-tempered and equable than she used to be.”

One day when Sydney had been out by herself, paying the usual bi-weekly visit to their father’s old maiden aunt, their only relation in the neighbourhood, she was told, by Eugenia on her return that Mrs Dalrymple had been to see her. This was certainly no very unusual occurrence, for during the last three weeks their friend’s visits had been by no means of the proverbially angelic character; but to-day, by Eugenia’s account, she had come on a special errand.

“They are going away from home somewhere—they haven’t quite decided where—next week,” said Eugenia, “and they want, me to go with them. But I told Mrs Dalrymple that I did not think it was possible, though of course it is exceedingly kind of them. Oh, Sydney, dear,” she continued, interrupting the remonstrance which she saw in her sister’s face, “Idon’twant, to go. Our last three weeks together, for they wouldn’t be back till a few days before the 29th! And how could you get all finished by yourself without me?”

“There is very little more to do,” said Sydney, sitting down beside Eugenia and looking at her anxiously, “almost nothing in fact, except the last preparations of all, which cannot be begun till a few days beforehand, and you would be back by then. It isn’t as if it was going to be a grand marriage. And to speak plainly, Eugenia—you mustn’t be offended—even if there were a great deal to do, you couldn’t, as you are just now, help me. Indeed you would be rather in my way. I cannot bear to see you doing anything when you look as if the least breath of air would knock you over.” Eugenia did not at once answer. She turned away her head. Then she said resignedly—

“Very well, if my father, too, wishes me to go, I will,” but the pleasure which Sydney was about to express was destroyed by Eugenia’s next speech. “It is as I thought. I am no use to any one. My own life is over, and I am not wanted to help in any one else’s.”

This was the first allusion she had made in all these weeks to the bitter sorrow she had passed through. Sydney was touched and distressed.

“You must not speak so, Eugenia,” she said. “We all want you. We want you to be your own bright self again. Don’t think me unfeeling for thinking it possible you may be bright again. I know I have no right to speak, for I have been exceptionally free from trial, but you have been so brave and good lately, Eugenia. I cannot bear to see you so desponding. I am sure it will do you good to go away. It will make me feel so much happier about you.”

“Very well, then, to please you, I will,” said Eugenia, more vigorously, and as Mr Laurence was only too thankful to give his consent to the proposal, Mrs Dalrymple triumphantly carried the day.

Ever so many places had been thought of as likely to be pleasant at this season, and one after the other rejected as undesirable. One was too far away, another too crowded by invalids, a third disagreeably exposed to east wind. Their time was too short for them to entertain the idea of any of the usual wintering places across the Channel, and Mrs Dalrymple objected to the south of England as too distant also. So in the end they pitched upon a pretty little watering place, not more than a three hours’ journey from Wareborough, where there was a good choice of walks and drives for Mr Dalrymple, and a certainty of comfortable quarters at the best hotel.

Their destination was a matter of perfect indifference to Eugenia, whose only interest in the journey was the feeling that she was pleasing her friends, and whose only strong wish was to get it over, and find herself at home again, free to yield to the lassitude and depression against which it became daily more difficult to struggle.

“If theywouldbut leave me alone,” she constantly repeated inwardly; and though she hated herself for the feeling, there were times at which she realised that even Sydney’s absence would be in some ways a relief. The constant and but thinly veiled anxiety in her sister’s eyes, the incessant endeavour on her own part to lessen it by appearing as bright and energetic as of old, were at times almost more than the girl could endure or sustain; and when she found herself at last fairly started on her little journey with the Dalrymples, she became conscious that she had done wisely to consent to accompany them. Mrs Dalrymple’s kindly fussiness was infinitely less trying than Sydney’s wistful tenderness; it was far easier to keep up a cheerful, commonplace conversation with her friend’s husband than to sit through dinner at home with the feeling that her father and sister were stealthily watching to see if she ate more to-day than yesterday, or if she entered with greater vigour into the passing remarks. With her present companions she felt perfectly at ease; had she had any idea of what an accurate acquaintance with the actual state of things had been arrived at by the worthy couple, her comfortable freedom from self-consciousness would have speedily deserted her.

Nunswell quickly got the credit of her improved looks.

“I really think she is growing more like herself already,” said Mrs Dalrymple, with great satisfaction, to her husband. “We could not have chosen a better place for her; it is so bright and lively here, and the bracing air is so reviving.” Very probably the bracing air really had something to do with it! Eugenia was only nineteen, and this had been her first trouble. Her life hitherto had been exceptionally monotonous and uneventful; a few months ago the prospect of a visit to Nunswell would have been to her far more exciting and delightful than to most girls of her age and education would be that of a winter in Rome, or a summer in Switzerland: even now therefore, notwithstanding the blight which had fallen over her youthful capacity for enjoyment, she was not insensible to the pleasant change in her outward life from the dull routine of Wareborough; the little amusements and varieties almost daily arranged for her by her hosts; the general holiday feeling. She had not yet got the length of owning to herself that she did, or ever again could, enjoy in her old way, but the reflection which now often passed through her mind, “how happy this would have made me a year ago,” showed that she was on the high road to recovery.

Nunswell was beautifully situated, and rich in “natural objects of attraction.” Eugenia had travelled so little that even the scenery of her own country was known to her only by description; it was now for the first time in her life that she woke up to a consciousness of her power of appreciation of natural beauty. Yet the waking was a sad one; her very first real perceptions of the beauty she had hitherto but dimly imagined came to her tinged with the sense of discordance between the outer and the inner world, of mistake and failure, which takes the brilliance out of the sunshine, the sweetness out of the birds’ songs.

“None of it is real,” thought Eugenia. “It is only where there is no soul—no heart, that there is happiness,” for being still weakened in mind and body by her recent illness, having nothing to do but to rest and amuse herself, and no one to talk to, she was inclined to be rather plaintive and desponding, and to imagine the path she was treading to be one of altogether unprecedented experiences.

Still, there was no question but what her spirits were better, her general appearance far more satisfactory than when she left home, and Mrs Dalrymple’s bulletins to Sydney became cheering in the extreme.

They had been a fortnight at Nunswell, when one morning at breakfast Mr Dalrymple made an unexpected announcement. He had been reading his letters—business ones for the most part, forwarded from his office at Wareborough—over some of them he had frowned, others he had thrown aside after a hasty glance, one or two had brought a satisfied expression to his face. Mrs Dalrymple and Eugenia had no letters this morning, but in deference to Mr Dalrymple’s occupation, they had been sitting in silence for some time, excepting a few whispered remarks as to the quality of the coffee or the prospects of the weather. Eugenia was some way into a brown study when she was recalled by her host’s suddenly addressing her.

“Here’s some news for you, Miss Laurence,” he exclaimed, looking up with a smile from the perusal of his last letter. “We are to have a visitor this afternoon—a great friend of yours. Quite time, too, that you should have a little variety—you must be getting tired of two old fogies like my wife and me.”

Eugenia had started when he first began to speak—it did not take much to startle her just now—then as he went on, her colour changed, first to crimson, which fading as quickly as it had come, left her even paler than usual. Mrs Dalrymple darted a reproachful look across the table at her husband, and began to speak hastily, in terror of what he might not be going to say next.

“Why can’t you say at once who it is, Henry?” she exclaimed with very unusual irritation. “It is quite startling and uncomfortable to be told all of a sudden ‘somebody’ is coming in that sort of way. I am sure I don’t want to see any one, and I don’t think Eugenia does either. We have been very snug together, and Eugenia is not strong enough yet to care for strangers. Really, Henry, you are very thoughtless.”

The last few words should have been an aside, but Mrs Dalrymple’s vexation at the sight of the pallid hue still overspreading the girl’s face, overmastered her prudence.

“It didn’t startle me, dear Mrs Dalrymple—really it didn’t,” interposed Eugenia, hastily. “That is to say, I was only startled for an instant, and it was not Mr Dalrymple’s fault. Anything does it—even the door opening—since I was ill, but I am beginning to get over it. But you are quite right in thinking I don’t want any one else—I have beenquitehappy with you and Mr Dalrymple.”

“But you have misunderstood me, Mary,” said Mr Dalrymple, looking rather contrite. “I never spoke of strangers. I said particularly it was a friend of Miss Laurence’s I was expecting. It is Gerald Thurston. I have a note from him proposing to see me here this afternoon, and if we are not engaged, he speaks of staying at Nunswell till Monday. He is on his way home from Bristol, where he has been on business, and he wishes to see me, and I want to see him. I am sure you can have no objection to his joining us for two days, either of you?” he ended by inquiring of his two companions.

“Objection to Gerald Thurston!” repeated Mrs Dalrymple. “Of course not. I shall be very glad to see him. I only wish you had said at first whom you meant. You don’t mind, Eugenia?”

“I?” said Eugenia, looking up quickly. “Oh, dear no—I am very glad. I like Gerald Thurston very much. He is very kind and good.”

“And exceedingly clever, and uncommonly good-looking,” added Mr Dalrymple, warmly. “Take him for all in all, I don’t know where there is a finer fellow than Thurston.”

“So my father says,” agreed Eugenia. “Indeed I think every one that knows him thinks highly of him.”

She was anxious to be cordial, and really felt so towards Gerald. Of late she had come to like him much more than formerly, and the extreme consideration and delicacy which he had shown the evening her illness began, had increased this liking by a feeling of gratitude. Nevertheless there had grown up unconsciously in her a somewhat painful association with Gerald since that evening, and she had not seen enough of him to remove it. “He knows,” she said to herself, and she shrank from meeting him again.

But it was much pleasanter and easier than she had expected. Gerald, intensely alive to all she was feeling, behaved perfectly, and spared her in a thousand ways without appearing, even to her, to do so at all. The two days proved the pleasantest they had passed at Nunswell: Mr Thurston knew the neighbourhood well, and drove them to some charming nooks and points of view, somewhat out of the beaten guide-book track, which they had not hitherto discovered. Mrs Dalrymple openly expressed her gratification and surprise.

“I always knew Gerald Thurston was very clever and superior and all that sort of thing, you know,” she said to Eugenia, “but I had no idea he could make himself so agreeable.”

Eugenia herself was a little surprised. The truth was she had never before, since his return from India, seen Gerald to advantage: in her presence hitherto he had been always self-conscious and constrained, stern and moody, if not morose. Now it was different. A feeling of extreme pity, of almost brotherly anxiety for her happiness, had replaced the intenser feelings with which he had regarded her; he had nor longer any fears for himself or his own self-control in her presence—that was all over, past for ever like a dream in the night; he could venture now to be at ease, could devote himself unselfishly to cheer and interest her in any way that came into his power. And under this genial influence the bruised petals of the flower, not crushed so utterly as had seemed at first, began to revive and expand again, to feel conscious of the bright sunshine and gentle breezes still around it, though for a time all light and life had seemed to it to have deserted its world.

“I had no idea Gerald was so wonderfully understanding and sympathising,” thought Eugenia. “If I have a feeling or a question it is difficult to put in words, he seems to know what I mean by instinct;” and encouraged by this discovery, she allowed herself to talk to him, once or twice when they were alone together, of several things which had lately been floating in her mind.

Trouble and disappointment were doing their work with her; she was beginning to look for a meaning in many things that hitherto she had disregarded or accepted with youthful carelessness as matters-of-course with which she had no call to meddle. But now it was different: she had eaten of the fruit of the tree; she had ventured her all in a frail bark, and it had foundered; it had come home to her that life and love are often sad, and sometimes terrible facts, and her heart was beginning to swell with a great pity for her suffering-kind. It was all vague and misty to her as yet; it might result in nothing, as is too often the end of such crises in a growing character, but still the germ was there.

“Gerald,” she said to Mr Thurston, suddenly, after she had been sitting silent for some minutes. (They were in the gardens of the hotel at the time. It was Sunday afternoon and a mild April day; Mr and Mrs Dalrymple had gone to church again, but Eugenia and Mr Thurston had been tempted by the pleasant weather to play truant.) “Gerald,” said Eugenia, “I wish there was something that women could do.”

Mr Thurston turned towards her. She now looking straight before her with a puzzled yet earnest expression on her face.

“Something that women can do?” he repeated, not quite sure of her drift. “I thought there were lots of things. Most women complain of want of time.”

“So do I sometimes. I am never at a loss for occupation—that’s not what I mean,” she replied. “What I mean is, I wish there were bigger things—more useful things for women to do.”

“You have not been infected with the Women’s Rights mania, surely?” inquired Gerald, rather unresponsively.

“Of course not. Don’t laugh at me, Gerald. You can understand me—if you choose. I should like to feel I was of some use to somebody, and lately I have felt as if no one in the world would be the least bit the worse if I were out of it.” Here she blushed a little. “Now don’t you see if I were a man I could set to work hard at something—something that would be of use in some way. Put it to yourself, Gerald; suppose—suppose you had given up thoughts of—of being very happy yourself,” (here the blush deepened to hot crimson), “wouldn’t you naturally—after a while, you know—wouldn’t you set to work harder than ever at whatever you felt was your own special business—the thing you felt you were most likely to be of use in? Now a woman has no such field open to her.”

Internally Gerald had winced a little, two or three times, while Eugenia was speaking. Externally, he sat there looking colder and more impassive than usual. He had loved this girl, had set her up on the pedestal of ideal womanhood that somewhere or other exists in the imagination of every man not wholly faithless or depraved; she had fallen, it is true, in a sense, from this height, she had proved herself in his judgment to be but as the rest of her sex—childishly credulous, ready to mistake the glitter for the gold, honeyed words for heart devotion—yet still he cared for her, was tenderly anxious for her welfare. But of all things Gerald hated sentimentalism!

“There are plenty of Protestant sisterhoods,” he said, drily. “How would one of those suit you?”

Eugenia made no reply. After waiting a moment or two, Mr Thurston turned towards her again. To his surprise he saw that her eyes were full of tears.

“Eugenia,” he exclaimed, softened at once, “have I hurt you? I did not intend it. I assure you I did not, in the least.”

“No, I know you didn’t,” she said, struggling to smile and to speak cheerfully. “I am very silly. I can’t help it. I have got so silly and touchy lately, the least thing seems to vex me. But you did hurt me a little, Gerald. I was in earnest in what I said, though you thought it missyish and contemptible. I have been trying to see how I could grow better and less selfish, and you don’t know how hard it is, for no one seems to understand. And, oh you don’t know, you who are so strong and wise, youdon’tknow how hard it is to be good when one is very unhappy.”

“Don’t I?” muttered he, but she did not catch the words.

“If I could be of use,” she went on again, after a little pause. “And why can’t I be? There must be plenty of misery in the world. Why can’t I make some of it a little less?”

“You can,” he answered, gently. “I don’t think I quite understood you. I thought you were envying men’s work and despising your own sphere—a very common and often excusable mistake. I see now there was a more unselfish spirit in what you meant.”

“I don’t know that,” she answered, doubtfully, but brightening up nevertheless. “I do think I should like to make some people happier, or a little less unhappy, and in some ways perhaps better too. For surely very often being happier would make people better, would it not? But I am selfish too—I want to get something to take me out of myself—something that I can get interested in by feeling it is of use.”

“Don’t you help your father sometimes?” inquired Gerald. “Haven’t you a good deal to do in looking after things at home?”

“No—very little indeed. The house has got into a jog-trot way of going on, and papa won’t have changes. What little there has been to do hitherto, I am afraid Sydney has done,” said Eugenia, blushing a little. “Of course I don’t intend to neglect that sort of thing, but there is very little to do. I do help my father whenever he will let me, by copying out things and hunting up references and quotations. But it isn’t often he wants help.”

“And would he not let you help him more if you asked him?”

“He might, but it would only be to please me,” replied Eugenia, despondingly. “No, I am afraid it is true—I am no use to anybody. Once, I remember, ever, ever so long ago,” she went on, as if ten or twenty years at least were within easy grasp of her memory, “I had visions of becoming frightfully learned, of studying all my life long, and getting to the bottom of everything. What a little goose I was! Just because I had learnt Latin and German and a few other things more thoroughly than most girls! I wonder sometimes if, after all, all the trouble papa took with us has been much good to us. Look at Sydney; what will be the use of it to her, marrying at eighteen? And as for me, if I were really clever I suppose I should go on working away, absorbed in the work without thinking of any result. But I can’t, Gerald. It doesn’t satisfy me. I want to see and feel a result.”

She looked up in his face, her bright, earnest eyes full of inquiry. “Can’t you help me?” they seemed to say.

Could he? A tantalising vision rose before him of how at one time he had looked forward to doing so—how well he understood her, and the special phase through which she was passing! Was it too late? Was there yet a chance that by much patience and by slow degrees he might win to himself this girl whom no one understood as he understood her, whose very faults and imperfections were dear to him? The thought seemed to dazzle and bewilder him, but a glance at Eugenia made him dismiss it. She sat there beside him, in such utter unconsciousness, such sisterly reliance on his friendship, that he felt it would be cruel to her and in every sense worse than useless to disturb the existing state of things. The far off, dimly possible future must take care of itself; and after all—she could never be quite the same Eugenia to him again.

So he answered her very quietly and soberly, as she expected.

“You cannot judge of things quite justly at present, I think,” he said, after a little pause. “I have had the same sort of feelings myself sometimes, though, of course, my life has been too busy to tempt me to yield to them much. But they will pass away again, you will find. You will come to feel that nothing well done is ever useless. And, in the meantime, there is no fear but what things will turn up for you to do. I could put you in the way of some,” he continued, with a smile, “though I don’t know if they would be quite to your taste. Frank sometimes takes me to task a little for some of my ideas, so we should have to be careful.”

“I am quite sureIshould agree with you,” said Eugenia, eagerly. “I know you do an immense deal of good, Gerald. Papa says so, and I have often wanted to ask you about it, but I didn’t like.”

“There is exceedingly little to tell,” he replied, simply. “I am no theorist, and I limit my attempts to what I think I see a chance of doing.”

Then, perceiving that her interest was really aroused, he told her something of what he was trying to do, and promised some time or other to tell her more.

Eugenia felt happier than she had done for long, that evening. Her respect for Gerald Thurston was rapidly increasing.

“I have never before done him justice,” she said to herself; “I am most fortunate to have him for a friend.”

Gerald, on his way back to Wareborough, felt very glad that he had seen her again.

“It was the best thing to do to get over the uncomfortable feeling,” thought he. “She trusts me now thoroughly, and I may be of use to her.”

And Sydney, who had been a little puzzled by Gerald’s visit to Nunswell, was greatly delighted by his cheerful looks and satisfactory report of her sister.

“After all,” she thought, hopefully, “it may all come right in the end. Who knows?”

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