Joan, with the merciless arrogance of youth, had said that Mrs. Amberley had struck her as being old. She would not have said so if she had seen her now for the first time. Whether it was owing to art, or to the stimulating flame of her indignation, her face showed none of the ravages of years. If that was owing to art alone, it was supreme art, for on a skin that was almost ivory in its pallor the flush stood, not crudely contrasted, but as if a rare variant of that strange whiteness. The great masses of her dull red hair even Lady Sedbergh, now violently antagonistic to her, must have acknowledged herself familiar with from before a time when art would have been brought to their production, whatever share it may have had now in preserving their arresting effect. Her figure, in a gown of clear green, had all the slim suppleness of youth; her great black hat with its heavy plumes, might have been worn by Joan herself. And yet, if she did not look old, or even middle-aged, still less did she look young. Her eager lustrous eyes had seen the weariness of life as well as its consuming pleasures, and could not hide their knowledge; the lines of her face, delicate enough, were not those of youth.
When the preliminaries had been gone through, Lady Sedbergh had to tell her story, which she did with a jumpy loquacity that seemed to indicate that whatever benefit she had obtained from her late rest-cure had by this time evaporated.
The gist of it was that she and Mrs. Amberley had been discussing jewel robberies, and Mrs. Amberley had said that no place was safe for jewels if a clever thief was determined to get hold of them. They had been sitting by the morning-room fire, and the hiding-place in which she had always kept her own more valuable jewels was just at her side. She had not been able to refrain from mentioning it, and showing, under a promise of secrecy, where it was. You pressed a spring in the panelling, and found a recess in the stone of the thick wall behind. That might well have been discovered by chance; but what no one who did not know of the secret would expect was that, by turning one of the solid-looking stones on a pivot, a further receptacle was disclosed. No one had known of this but herself and husband, until she had told Mrs. Amberley.
She was accustomed to carry her more valuable jewels with her wherever she went, especially the pearl necklace, and the diamond star, which had also been stolen. This she valued for sentimental reasons, which she did not disclose to the Court. They were both in the secret receptacle when she showed it to Mrs. Amberley, as well as a few other cases containing more or less valuable jewels, none of which had been taken.
It was on the day before her party was to break up that she had showed Mrs. Amberley her hiding-place. She had not worn any of the jewels she had put there that evening, nor visited it again until a month later, when she was about to return to London. Then she had missed the necklace and the star. She had sent a telegram to her husband, who had come down at once, and after hearing her story had gone to see Mrs. Amberley with her. Neither of them had any doubt that she was the only person who could possibly have taken the jewels, as she was the only person who knew where they were kept.
"Have you any questions to ask of the witness?"
"Yes."
Mrs. Amberley spoke in a low-pitched vibrating voice. She was completely at her ease, and the contemptuous tone in which she asked her questions, and the significant pauses which she made after each confused voluble reply, not commenting upon it, but passing on to the next question, would have been effective if she had been a skilled criminal lawyer, and was much more so considering what she was and what she had at stake.
"We have been intimate friends all our lives, you and I, haven't we?"
Lady Sedbergh admitted it, but explained that she would never have made an intimate friend of anyone who would behave in that way, if she had known what she was really like.
She was permitted to have her say out, with those scornful eyes fixed on her, until she trailed off into ineffective silence, when the next question came.
"What was the first thing that I said to you when you had shown me the cupboard, and shut it up again?"
It needed more than one intervention on the part of the magistrate before it was elicited that Mrs. Amberley had said, "Well, now, if anything happens you can't accuse me. You would know I should be the last person." Lady Sedbergh volunteered the additional information that she had remembered those words, and even repeated them to her husband, but added that she put them down to Mrs. Amberley's cunning.
"But isn't it true that if I had stolen your necklace I should have known positively that you would have suspected me at once?"
No volubility would disguise the truth of that, and it had what weight it deserved.
Mrs. Amberley asked no more questions, but her solicitor cross-examined Lady Sedbergh as to the means she had taken to preserve the knowledge of the hiding-place from her own maid, for instance, or from the other servants of the house. He made it appear rather absurd that in a great house, overrun with servants, like Brummels, she could always have carried cases of jewels to and fro without being observed, or that her own maid would have had no curiosity as to where she kept them. The poor lady explained eagerly that she seldom wore the things she kept in her hiding-place when she was in the country, and that there was a safe in her husband's room in which she was supposed to keep what valuables she did not keep upstairs; but she explained so much and so incoherently that it had small effect in view of his persistence. It did seem rather absurd to everybody when her cross-examination was over, that anyone so foolish as she should have been able for so long to keep such a secret from everybody about her, especially in view of the irresponsible and causeless way in which she was shown finally to have let it out. If the case had rested on her testimony alone, Mrs. Amberley would have been acquitted, with hardly an additional stain on her character.
Joan, standing up bravely in her fresh girlhood to tell her story, was far more damaging. Between Mrs. Amberley, completely self-possessed, and showing indignation only by the vibrations of her low voice, and Lady Sedbergh, with her flurried, rather pathetic efforts to put herself everywhere in the right, the advantage was on the side of the accused. She had no such foil in the frank bearing of the young girl, whose delicate bloom contrasted with her own exotic beauty only to show that whatever quality it may have had was not that of innocence. Joan repeated what she had told Bobby Trench, in much the same words, and the only discount that could be taken off her evidence was the admission that she had thought nothing of it at all until after she had been told of what Mrs. Amberley was suspected.
It was when she was just about to leave the witness-stand, and the Squire, who had been following the process of question and answer with spasms of nervousness at each fresh speech, was beginning to breathe freely once more, that Mrs. Amberley looked at her with a glance from which, with all her care to avoid the expression of feeling, she could not banish the malice, and asked her, "Would you have said what you did if it had been anybody but Mr. Trench who asked you?"
The insinuation was plain enough, and Joan met it with a warm blush which she would have given worlds to have been able to hold back. She felt the blood warming and reddening her cheeks and her neck, but she answered immediately in spite of it, "It was my sister who asked me what I had seen, when Mr. Trench told us both of what you were suspected"; and Mrs. Amberley let the answer pass, with an air of not finding it worth while to take further notice of such a childish person.
Joan made her way back to her seat between her father and mother, the blush slowly fading from her cheeks. She felt outraged at having had such a question put to her, and in such a tone, before all these knowing, sniggering people; and her distress was not lightened by her father saying to her in an angry whisper, "There now, you see what comes of making yourself free in that sort of company." He added, "Confound the woman's impudence!" in a tone still more angry, which took off a little of the edge of his previous speech; and Mrs. Clinton took Joan's hand in hers and pressed it. So presently she recovered her equanimity, and only blushed intermittently when she remembered what had been said to her.
A French jeweller gave evidence of Mrs. Amberley having sold pearls to him in Paris. She had been veiled and hooded, but he was sure it was the same lady. He should have recognised her by her voice alone. He gave the dates of the transactions, three in number; and other evidence was duly brought forward to show that Mrs. Amberley had been in Paris on each of those dates.
A London pawnbroker's assistant gave evidence of her having pawned a single pearl, which he produced. She had done it in her own name. He proved to be an indecisive witness under the pressure of Mrs. Amberley's lawyer, and said he was not sure now that it was the same lady, although he was nearly sure. But there was the transaction duly recorded, and Mrs. Amberley's name and London address entered in his books at the time. Asked whether he thought it likely that a lady who was pawning stolen property, obviously with no idea of redeeming it, would give her own well-known name and address, he recovered himself sufficiently to answer very properly that he had nothing to do with what was likely or unlikely; there was his book.
When all the witnesses had been examined, Mrs. Amberley's lawyer said that he should not oppose the case going for trial. He had advised his client to reserve her defence, but he might say that she had a full and convincing answer to the charge.
When Mrs. Amberley had been duly committed for trial, there was a wrangle as to her being admitted to bail. It was stated in opposition that she was known to have contemplated leaving the country; she had in no way met the convincing evidence that had been brought against her, and in view of the gravity of the offence, &c., &c. Finally, she was admitted to bail on heavy securities, which were immediately forthcoming. One of them was offered by Sir Roger Amberley, her late husband's father, an old man who looked bowed down by shame; the other by Lord Colne, an elderly roué, who, so far from showing shame, appeared proud of his position as friend and supporter of the accused lady. Mrs. Amberley left the court with her father-in-law, and some who were within hearing when she thanked her other sponsor remarked that he did not seem likely to get much change out of his liability of two thousand pounds.
The Squire, with his wife and daughter, lunched at the extremely private hotel which he had patronised all his life, and left London for Kencote by an early afternoon train. They were accompanied by Humphrey and Lady Susan Clinton, who had paid no visit to Kencote since they had committed the fault of taking Joan to Brummels; and would not have paid the visit now if they could have got out of it.
But the Squire had insisted. He had sent Mrs. Clinton and Joan on to his brother-in-law's house on their arrival in London the afternoon before, and had gone himself to his son's flat, with the object of unburdening his mind both to Humphrey and his wife. But Humphrey and Susan had been out. He had waited for an hour, getting more and more angry, and convinced that they were seeking to evade him. He had then written a peremptory note, ordering them to join him at the station on the following afternoon, ready to go down to Kencote, with instructions to wire acquiescence immediately on receipt of the order.
The wire had arrived at his brother-in-law's house before he had reached it. "Exceedingly sorry to have missed you. Both delighted come Kencote to-morrow. Humphrey."
The uncalled for expression of delight had not in the least softened his mood of anger, but he had gained a grim satisfaction from feeling that his word was law if he chose to make it so. This was added to by the determination to make the visit anything but an occasion of delight, and the anticipation of having somebody fresh on whom to wreak his anger; the satisfaction of relieving his feelings by censure of Joan having now begun to wear rather thin.
If Humphrey was bent on smoothing out the situation, as was probably the case, it was impolitic of him to bring his own man to Kencote as well as his wife's maid. The Squire himself never took a man away with him, except on the rare occasions on which he went anywhere to shoot, and Humphrey's servant was an additional offence. The Squire's temper was not improved when Humphrey, relieved of all anxieties about luggage and tickets and the rest of it, strolled up to him on the platform, dressed in the latest variety of summer country clothes, with the correct thing in spats, and the most modern shade in soft felt hats, and found him fussing over details that he might safely have left to Mrs. Clinton's capable maid.
"Oh, here you are," he said ungraciously. "If you're quite sure that your fellow has done everything for your own comfort, you might tell him to help Parker with those things. I've engaged a carriage, but if I had thought you couldn't travel without your whole establishment I'd have told 'em to put on a saloon."
"We've left the cook and the housemaid behind," said Humphrey, outwardly undisturbed. "Here, Grant, take these things into your carriage."
The Squire turned his back and went up to the compartment at which his wife was standing with her daughter-in-law and Joan. "Better get in. Better get in," he said. "We don't want to be left behind. How are you, Susan? We've just had a pleasant result from your taking Joan into the company of people like your precious Mrs. Amberley."
Lady Susan made no attempt to avert his displeasure, which had evidently worked itself up to a point at which it must have immediate vent. She shook hands with him, and got into the carriage after Mrs. Clinton. She was a tall, fashionably-dressed woman, with a young, rather foolish face, not remarkably good-looking, but making the most of such points as she possessed. The Squire rather liked her, in spite of his disapproval of many of her ways, partly because she had always treated him with deference, partly—although he would indignantly and conscientiously have denied it—because her title was a suitable ornament to the name she bore. He himself was the head of the family of which hers was a junior branch, but that branch had been ennobled at a date of quite respectable antiquity, and an Earl's daughter is an Earl's daughter wherever she may be found. The mild degree of satisfaction, however, that he felt on this head was quite sub-conscious, and did not lead him to pay any more deference to Lady Susan than he was accustomed to pay to the rest of the women of his family. The only lady in that position whom he treated with marked deference was the wife of his eldest son, who was an American, of no ancestry that he would have recognised as significant, who had once for a short period lowered even the ancestry she could claim by dancing on the stage. That story has been told elsewhere, and if the reader is inclined to cry snob, because the Squire is admitted to have been pleased that one of his daughters-in-law bore a title, let it be considered that Virginia, Dick's wife, had made a complete conquest of him, and that he valued her little finger above Lady Susan's body.
He began directly the train had started. "Now look here, I've got a word to say to you two, and I may as well say it at once and get it over."
Humphrey, knowing that it was bound to come, was quite ready, but was also aware that to get it over was really the last thing his father wanted. Whatever attitude he might take upon the subject, it would be returned to again and again as long as his visit to the paternal mansion should last. The best he could do was to get it over for the time being, and gain a respite in which to read the "Field" and the other papers with which he had provided himself. To this end he put up no opposition, but admitted with grave face that he and his wife had done wrong, and agreed that subsequent events proved that they had done very wrong indeed.
The Squire would perhaps have preferred to have his annoyance warmed up by a difference of opinion, and was obliged to express it with all the more force, so that it might spontaneously acquire the requisite amount of heat.
The end of it was rather surprising. He was getting along swimmingly, on a high note of displeasure, when he was brought to a sudden stop by Lady Susan bursting into tears.
Now tears from a woman were what the Squire never could stand. He was essentially kind, and even tender-hearted, in spite of his usual attitude of irritable authority, and, since he had never lived with women who cried easily, he took tears from them very seriously. They meant, of course, for one thing, complete capitulation; for of tears of mere temper he had had no experience whatever; and they appealed to his chivalry as emphasising the weakness of the vessels from which they came.
"Oh, come now!" he said soothingly, and with an expression of discomfort. "No need to cry over it. It's over and done with for the present, and now I've pointed out quietly what a wrong thing it was, I'm quite sure it won't be repeated."
But Susan still continued to sob freely, and Humphrey said with some indignation, "She's very much upset at what's happened. She's taken it much more to heart than you think. It doesn't want rubbing in any more."
"Well, perhaps I've said enough," admitted the Squire, "but you've got to consider that we haven't done with this business yet. We shall have it hanging over us for months, until the trial comes on; and then we shall have to go through it all again. Still, you know, Susan,youwon't be called as a witness.You'venothing to cry about. Now, do leave off, my dear girl. Let's put it out of our minds now, and think no more about it till we're obliged to. My dear child, what is the matter?"
For Susan's sobs had increased in volume, and now showed some signs of becoming hysterical. Mrs. Clinton essayed to soothe her in her calm sensible way, and Humphrey said kindly, "All right, Susan, we're not going to talk about it any more. We're both sorry we made the mistake we did, and you are not so much to blame for it as I am."
But perhaps it was Joan, who was not greatly moved by a woman's tears, who brought Susan's to an end by remarking, "We are getting near Lemborough. I think this train stops there."
When Susan had dried her eyes, and was able to speak with no more than an occasional hiccough, she said, "I am sorry for Mrs. Amberley. I don't know her very well, and I don't like her, but it's a horrible position to be put in."
"Well, I don't think you need waste much sympathy on her," said the Squire. "If that's all you are crying about you might have saved your tears, my dear. She won't get more than she deserves."
"It isn't what I was crying about," said Susan. "You spoke as if all of us who were at Brummels were just the same as she is."
The Squire did privately think that most of them, except Humphrey and Susan themselves, and Lord Sedbergh, and of course Joan, would have been capable of acting in the same way as Mrs. Amberley, if necessity and opportunity had prompted them, but he said, "Oh no, Susan. I didn't mean to go nearly so far as that. Still, there's a proverb about evil communications, you know, and I do hope you will take a lesson from this nasty business and steer clear of the sort of people who go in for that kind of thing."
He spoke as if the people received into fashionable society who "went in" for stealing pearl necklaces were easily distinguishable from the rest. This was probably not precisely what he meant, and as Susan plucked up a smile and said, "Well, you've said some very unkind things to me, but I'm going to be a good girl now, and I hope you won't say any more," he allowed the subject to drop altogether, and the rest of the journey passed in peace.
Frank and Nancy were on the platform at Kencote. The Squire, longing for his home whenever he was away from it, like any schoolboy detached from the dear familiar, was pleased to see their smiling faces. They were agreeably surprised by the warmth of his greeting, having expected him to reach home in even a worse state of mind than that in which he had left it, and not having realised that a dreaded ordeal has lost most of its sting when it has been gone through, even if its terrors have been worse than fancy had painted them.
"Well, young people," was his hearty greeting, "I hope you haven't been up to any pranks while we've been away."
Not a word about the police court proceedings; no black looks! They responded suitably to his geniality, and passed on to greet the other members of the family, looking on to the time when one of them could be detached to tell the story of what had happened.
There was no stint of carriages in the Squire's stables, nor of horses to draw or men to drive them. He himself invariably drove his phaeton from the station, enjoying, whatever the weather, the sense of being in the open air, doing one of the things that was a part of his natural life, after being cooped up for a couple of hours in a train. On this occasion there was also an open carriage, and the station omnibus for the servants and the luggage. This involved six horses, and five men, in the sober Clinton livery of black cloth with dark green facings, and a general turn out in the way of fine upstanding satin-coated horseflesh, gloss of silver-plated harness, mirror-like carriage varnish, and spick and span retainerhood that would not have disgraced royalty itself. It was indeed with a sense almost akin to that of royalty that the Squire took the salutes of his servants, and threw his eye over such of his vehicular possessions as met it. He was undisputed lord of this little corner of the world, and it was good to find himself back in his kingdom, after having been an undistinguished unit amongst London's millions, and especially to breathe its serene air after having had his nostrils filled with the sordid atmosphere of the police court. He took the reins of his pair of greys from his head coachman with a deep sense of satisfaction, and swung himself actively up on to his seat, but not before he had settled exactly who was to ride in which carriage.
Mrs. Clinton always sat by the side of her husband, and did so now. But all the rest had wished to walk. The landau, however, was there, and could not be sent back empty. At least, the Squire asked what was the good of having it sent down if nobody used it. So Humphrey and Susan sacrificed their desire for exercise to his sense of fitness, and Joan, Nancy, and Frank set out to walk the short mile that lay between the station and the house, well pleased to find themselves alone together.
The Squire had completely recovered his equanimity for the time being, and his satisfaction at finding himself at home again translated itself into an impulse of good will towards his wife, sitting by his side.
With her soft white hair and comely face, Mrs. Clinton looked a fitting helpmate for a country gentleman getting on in years, but still full of manly vigour. There was rather a splendid air about the Squire, with his massive frame and his look of health and vigour, as he sat up driving his handsome horses; and his wife did not share it. He had married her for love when he had been a young man who might be called splendid without any qualification whatever, the owner of a fine estate at the pitch of its fruitfulness, and an admitted match for all but the very highest. He had chosen her, the daughter of an Indian officer who lived in a small way on the outskirts of the neighbouring town, and had been considered by many to have made a misalliance. But he had never thought so himself. He had made of her a slave to his own preferences, kept her shut up from the time of her marriage, away from the pursuits and the friendships for which her understanding fitted her, and unconsciously belittled that understanding by demanding that in all things she should bring her intelligence down on a level with his. But he had trusted her more than he knew, and on the rare occasions on which she had quietly asserted herself to influence him he had followed her, and, without acknowledging or even feeling himself to have been in the wrong, had afterwards been glad of it. By giving way to him on an infinity of small matters, but not so small to her as to have avoided a sacrifice of many strong inclinations, she had kept her power to guide him in greater matters. Whatever it may have been to her, his marriage had brought him all that he could ever have desired. She had brought him, perhaps, more submission than had been good for him. His native capacity for domineering had thriven on it; because he had never had to meet any big troubles in his married life, he had always made much of little ones; because she had so seldom opposed him, he took opposition from any quarter like a thwarted child. But she had made him always beneath the surface contented with her; never once in the forty years of their marriage, when he had gone about angrily chewing a grievance, had she been the cause of it. Nothing that she might have struggled for and won in her own life would have outweighed that.
Now, with her own thoughts about what had happened strong in her, she had to sit and listen to his views, which were fortunately more cheerfully coloured than they had been for some days past.
"Well, that's over for the present," was the burden of his speech, but when he had so expressed himself with sundry variations, he found something else to comment upon.
Susan's tears! They had moved him. "I think she's all right at heart," he said. "She's had a shock."
"Yes," said Mrs. Clinton. "I am glad that she is to be with us for a day or two."
The Squire considered this. Without any remarkable powers of discernment, he was yet not entirely incapable of interpreting his wife's sober judgments.
"It will be a rest for her," he said. "She will want to forget it. Yes. That's all very well—if she's learnt her lesson."
Mrs. Clinton left him to make his own decision. "I shall certainly have a talk with Humphrey," he said, rather grudgingly.
"Yes, Edward. If you have a quiet talk with him, I feel sure that he will respond. He is in the mood for it."
A quiet talk was not exactly what the Squire had promised himself when he had summoned Humphrey and Susan to Kencote. But perhaps his wife was right. She often was in these matters. And he had worked off a good deal of his irritation already in the train. Yes, a quiet talk would be the thing; and Susan should be left out of it. She had been reduced to tears once, and it would be disturbing if that should happen again. She might be considered to have learnt her lesson, as far as a woman could learn any lesson. The wholesome influence of Kencote might be left to work in her repentant soul. He would deny himself the satisfaction of rubbing it in.
The quiet talk took place as father and son walked out together after tea to see the young birds. Frank had to be prevented from making a third in the expedition, and there was interruption from keepers, from dogs, and from the young birds themselves, whose place in the scheme of things it was to be discussed, in the month of June. But it was a satisfactory talk all the same, and the Squire was pleased, and a little surprised, at his own kindly reasonableness.
"I was sorry to make Susan cry in the train. At least I wasn't altogether sorry—it showed she took to heart what I had said to her."
"Oh yes. She took it to heart all right. The whole business has given her a bit of a shock."
"Exactly what I said to your mother. She's had a shock. Well, it isn't a bad thing to have a shock sometimes. It brings you to your senses if you've been going wrong. I don't want to be hard on you, my boy; but I shan't regret all the worry and unpleasantness I've been put to if it has the effect of making you think a bit about the way you have been going on, and changing your way of life—you and Susan both."
"Yes." Humphrey had not yet realised that the talk was to be a quiet one. It was not unusual for openings of this sort to develop into something that, however it might be viewed, could not be described as quiet. He was ready to be quiet himself; but he would give no handles if he could help it.
The Squire, however, could not altogether dispense with some sort of a handle, although he was prepared to grasp it softly.
"You feel that yourself, eh?" he said. "You do recognise that you've been going wrong, what?"
"Oh yes," said Humphrey readily. "We've been spending too much money, and I'm sick of it. It isn't good enough."
This was not quite what the Squire wanted. If Humphrey had been spending too much money, he must be in debt; and if he was sick of it, he would obviously want to get out of debt. He did not want the quiet talk to follow the path of suggestions as to how that might be done.
"Well, if you've been spending too much money," he said, not without adroitness, "you can easily spend less. You have a very handsome income between you, and could have anything anybody could reasonably want if you only spent half of it. The fact is, you know, my boy, that you can't live the life you and Susan have been living with any lasting satisfaction. Your Uncle Tom preached a capital sermon about that last Sunday. It was something to the effect of doing your duty in the world instead of looking out for pleasure, and it would be all the better for you, both here and hereafter. I don't pose as a saint—never have—but, after all, your religion's a real thing, or it isn't. I can only say that mine has been a comfort to me, many's the time. I have had my fair share of annoyances, and it has enabled me to get through them, hoping for a better time to come. And it has done more than that; it's made me see that a life of pleasure is a dangerous thing, by Jove, and the man's a fool who goes in for it."
"Well, it depends on what you mean by pleasure."
"That's not very difficult to see, is it? Dancing about after amusement all day and half the night; rushing here, rushing there; never doing anything for the good of your fellow-creatures; getting more and more bored with yourself and everybody else; never——"
"Is that what you would call pleasure?"
"WhatIshould call pleasure? No, thank God, it isn't. I'd sooner break stones on the road than live a life like that."
"Well, there you are, you see. What you would really call pleasure is something quite different. I suppose it would be to live quietly at home in the country, just as youaredoing. There's nothing dangerous in that."
"Of course there isn't. It's the best life for any man, if the Almighty has put him into the position of enjoying it. It's a life of pleasure in a way—yes, that's perfectly true; but it's a life of duty too, and stern duty, by Jove, very often. You can't be always thinking about yourself. You've got responsibilities, in a position like mine, and you've got to remember that some day you'll have to give an account of them. We'll just go in here and see Gotch; I want a word with him about his bill for meal."
Gotch's bill for meal, and the welfare of the young birds under his charge having been duly discussed, the walk and the quiet talk were resumed.
"Well, as I was saying—what was it I was saying?"
"You were pointing out that a big landowner had a jolly good time, but that he would have to give an account of all the fun he'd had by and by."
"Eh? Well, that wasn't quite how I meant to put it. But you say yourself you are sick of the life you've been leading—and I don't wonder at it—and I wanted to show you that you can gain much more satisfaction by living quietly in the country, and amusing yourself in a healthy way, and doing your duty towards those dependent on you, than by living that unhealthy rackety London life. Look at Dick. There's no fellow who lived more in the thick of things than he did; but he kept his head through it all, and now the time has come for him to settle down here he's ready to do it, and I should think enjoys his life as much as any man could. It was just the same with me, only I gave it up sooner than he did. I had my two years in the Blues, and then I married and settled down here; and I've never regretted it."
"No, I don't suppose you have. The life suits you down to the ground, and Dick too. It would suit me if I were in your place, or Dick's."
"Well, you could easily live the life that Dick lives, and you would find your money went a good deal further, if you made up your mind to do it. I wish you would. You would be a happier man in every way, and Susan would be a happier woman."
"I'm not sure of that. We might for a time, but we should miss a lot of things. You can amuse yourself in the country well enough half the year, but not all the year round; and we couldn't afford both."
"My dear boy, I've been trying to tell you. You are going on the wrong tack altogether if you are always thinking about amusing yourself. It isn't the way to look at life. Every man has duties to perform."
"What duties should I have to perform? I'm not a landowner, and never likely to be one. If I lived in the country I should hunt a bit and shoot a bit; and for the rest of the time I don't know what I should do."
"Well, if you lived near here, you could be put on the bench. There's a lot of useful work that a man living on the income you have can do in keeping things going. In these times the more gentry there are living in a place, the better it is for the country all round. What do you do as it is? It can't be satisfactory to anybody to live year after year in a whirl. There's not a single thing you do in London that's good for you that you couldn't do better in the country."
"I don't know about that. There's music for one thing, and pictures and plays. I'm not altogether the brainless voluptuary, you know. There's a lot goes on in London that keeps your mind alive, and you drop that if you bury yourself in the country."
"Stuff and nonsense!" exclaimed the Squire, but with persistent good humour. "Don't I keep my mind alive? You'd have the 'Times' and the 'Spectator'; and there are lots of clever people in the country. Look at Tom! He hardly ever goes near London. Hates the place. But I'll guarantee that he reads as much as any Bishop, and knows what's going on in the world as well as anybody. No, my dear boy, it won't do. I don't say there aren't people it suits to be in London. Herbert Birkett, for instance!" (This was Mrs. Clinton's brother, the Judge.) "But he's been brought up to it. He hasn't got the tastes of a country gentleman, wouldn't be happy away from the Athenæum Club, and all that sort of thing. And George Senhouse, with his Parliament and his committees and so on. That's a different thing. They've got their work to do. But don't tell me you are like that. Yours is a different life altogether. They spend theirs amongst sober, God-fearing people—at least George Senhouse does. Of course, Herbert Birkett was a Radical, and I shouldn't like to answer for the morals of allhisfriends, even now. But, anyhow, they're not the sort that would make a bosom friend of a woman like that Mrs. Amberley."
"Well, I don't know that I should make a bosom friend of her myself. But she's no worse than a lot of others. She's been found out—that's all—and, of course, the whole pack are in full cry after her now."
"My dear boy, you are surely not going to stand up for a woman convicted of a vulgar theft!"
"She hasn't been convicted yet. But even if she is guilty, as I suppose she is, one can't help feeling a bit sorry for her. You don't know what may have driven her to it. Amberley left her badly off, and it's a desperate thing for a woman to be worried night and day by debt. That's what Susan feels. She's known it in a sort of way herself. You know the dust-up we had a couple of years ago, when you kindly came to the rescue. Well, I suppose that brings it home to her. She doesn't care for Rachel Amberley any more than I do, but she can't take the line about this business that most people take; and I'm inclined to think she's right. After all—you were talking about religion just now—it seems to me that religion ought to prevent you judging harshly of people who have got into trouble."
The Squire's upper lip went down. "Flagrant dishonesty is not a thing that you can judge leniently, and no religion in the world would tell you to do so," he said. "You've got to keep to certain lines, or everything goes by the board. I don't like to hear you upholding such views."
"It is all a question of how you are situated. It would be impossible to think of you, for instance, stealing anything. You wouldn't have the smallest temptation to. But you might do something else that would be just as bad."
"Imight do something just as bad—something dishonourable!"
"You never know. You might have a sudden temptation. Of course, it wouldn't come in any way you expected! You might act on the spur of the moment."
The Squire stopped and faced his son. "That's a very foolish thing to say," he said with a frown. "A man of principle doesn't act dishonourably on the spur of the moment. Doesn't honour count for anything with you?"
Humphrey walked on, and the Squire walked with him.
"I say you don't know what you'd do if an unexpected temptation came. You don't know how strong your principles are till they are tried."
"They are tried. They are always being tried, in little ways. A man leads an upright life, as far as in him lies, and if a big question comes up, he's ready for it."
"It depends on how much he is tried," said Humphrey. "I say you never know."
"It's a horrid thing for a young girl to have to go through."
John Spence fitted two walnuts together in the palms of his big hands and cracked them with a sudden tightening of the muscles. His good-humoured ruddy face was solicitous. "I think they ought to have kept her out of it," he said.
The dark-panelled dining-room of the Dower House framed a warm picture of two men and two women sitting at the round table, bright with lights and flowers, old silver and sparkling glass. A fire of applewood twinkled on the hearth; for September had come round, and one section at least of the young birds, now adolescent, were about to discover for themselves what their elders had possibly warned them of: that those great brown creatures, whom they had hitherto known only as protective census-takers, became as dangerous as stoats and weasels when the dew began to lie thick on the grass.
John Spence had come down for the first day among the Kencote partridges, leaving his own stubbles, which were more copiously populated, until later. Dick Clinton had generally started the season with him. The Kencote partridges ranked second to the Kencote pheasants, and could very well bide the convenience of those who were to kill them. But they had done very well this year, and it was becoming less easy to draw Dick away from his home.
"It's good of old John to put off his own shoot and come down here," he had said to his wife, when he had received the somewhat unexpected acceptance of his invitation.
Virginia had looked at him out of her great dark eyes, and there had been amusement in them, as well as the half-protective affection which they always showed towards her handsome husband; but she had said nothing to explain the amusement, and he had not noticed it.
The party at the dinner-table was discussing Mrs. Amberley's trial, which was to come on in the following month.
"Joan has got her wits about her," said Dick. "She answered up very well in the police court, and I don't suppose it will be any more terrible next month."
"Still, I think it's beastly for her," persisted his friend. "That woman—putting it to her publicly about Trench! I read it in the evidence."
"It was a piece of bluff," said Dick. "Still, she ought to have her neck wrung for it."
"A cat!" said Miss Dexter, Virginia's friend, square-faced and square-figured. "A spiteful, pilfering cat!"
"Poor darling little Joan!" said Virginia. "She hates the very name of Bobby Trench now, and she used to make all sorts of fun of him and his love-making before."
"Oh, he made love to her, did he?" asked Spence.
"Don't talk such nonsense, Virginia," said Dick maritally. "He knew the twins when they were children; looks on them as children now. So they are. He's years older than Joan."
"Still, she's a very pretty girl," said John Spence. "And so is Nancy."
Virginia laughed. "It's the same thing," she said.
"Well, I don't know," said John Spence judicially. "In appearance, yes—perhaps so. But there is a difference. You see it more now they are grown up. I think Nancy is cleverer. Of course, they're both clever, but I should say Nancy read more books and things. And what I like about Nancy is that with all her brains she's a real good country girl. I must say I don't care about these knowing young women you meet about London, and in other people's houses."
Virginia laughed again. "Tell Mr. Clinton that," she said. "He will think you one of the most sensible of men."
"Well, I don't profess to be a clever fellow myself," said John Spence modestly; "but I like a girl to have brains and know how to use 'em, and I like her to like the country. It's what I like myself; and if Mr. Clinton thinks the same I'm with him all the time."
"Mr. Clinton might not insist upon the brains," said Miss Dexter.
Virginia held up her finger. "Toby!" she said warningly, "we don't criticise our relations-in-law."
Dick grinned indulgently at his neighbour. "How you'll let us have it when you go away from here!" he said.
"I always do let you have it," she replied uncompromisingly. "You think such a deal of yourselves that it does you all the good in the world. But I don't wait till I go away."
"I was rather sorry that Joan got let into that gang of people at all," said John Spence. "They're no good to anybody. It hasn't altered her at all, has it? She and Nancy were the jolliest pair. Lord, how they made me laugh when they were kids, and I first came down here!"
He laughed now at the remembrance, a jolly, robust laugh which wrinkled his firm, weathered skin, and showed his white teeth. "I shouldn't like to see either of them spoiled by going about to houses like Brummels," he said, with a return to seriousness. "I don't believe Nancy would have cared about it."
"She would have gone just the same as Joan," said Miss Dexter, "if she had happened to be in the way of it, and she would have behaved just the same; that is, just as she ought to have behaved. You seem to think that Joan is smirched because she has been let in, through no fault of hers, for this horrid thing. You're as bad as Mrs. Amberley."
John Spence received this charge with an "Oh, I say!" But he added, "All the same, I wish it hadn't happened."
The guns met the next morning at the corner by the Dower House. The Squire brought with him Sir Herbert Birkett, the judge, and Sir George Senhouse, who had married the judge's daughter. Neither of them would be expected to do much execution amongst the young birds, but the Squire was strong on family ties, and liked to have his relatives to shoot with him, more especially when he was going to shoot partridges.
The twins and Lady Senhouse were of the party, and Virginia and Miss Dexter. It was a family occasion, and John Spence, knowing that it was to be so, had felt glad, when he had looked out of his window in the morning, that he had put off the inauguration of his campaign amongst his own young birds in order to take part in it.
Joan and Nancy, in workmanlike tweeds, gave him smiling welcome. Previously, when he had shot at Kencote, and they had gone out with the guns, they had disputed amicably as to which of them should walk and stand with him, and the one who had won the dispute had taken bold possession of him. Neither did so this morning, and it was left to him to give an invitation.
"Well, Joan," he said, when they were ready to move off, "are you going to keep me company?"
"Yes," said Nancy instantly. "I am going with Uncle Herbert."
"But you will come with me after lunch," said John Spence, with a trifle of anxiety.
"All right," she threw over her shoulder.
They walked over a field of roots. A single bird got up some little distance away and flew parallel to the line. Spence snapped it off neatly. "I'm going to shoot well to-day," he said with satisfaction. "I like a gallery, you know, Joan. I say, Nancy's not annoyed about anything, is she?"
"Not that I know of. Why?"
"Oh, I don't know. I thought she seemed as if she didn't much want to come with me."
"You see we're grown up now," said Joan. "We can't seize you by the arm, as we used to do, and see which can pull hardest. We have to wait till you ask us."
They had come to a high, rather blind fence, and the line had spread out, and was waiting. Joan and John Spence were practically alone, except for Spence's wise and calm retriever.
He looked down at her with the kind elder brotherly smile which, with his frank and simple appreciation of their humours, had so endeared him to the twins. "I say, that's awful rot, you know," he said.
Joan was conscious of pleasure and some relief as she met his eyes. She wanted nothing more than that things should be between the three of them as they had always been. She had come to think that perhaps, after all, Nancy wanted nothing more, either; but she did not know, because they had not talked about John Spence together lately. If this visit should show him to be what he had always been, they would talk about him together again, and perhaps that was what she wanted at the moment more than anything; for it was a source of discomfort to her that there was a subject taboo between Nancy and herself.
"It may be sad," she said. "But it isn't rot. We are grown up, and there is no getting over it."
A shadow came over his face. "They've been teaching you things," he said. "When I came down here last, and you were away in London—and at Brummels—Nancy was just the same as she had always been. I don't see any reason why you should alter."
"Dear old Jonathan! We'll never alter—to you," said Joan affectionately. But she was conscious of a little pang.
The birds began to come over. John Spence accounted for his due share of them. "I wish I'd got another gun," he said. "You've done well with them this year."
When they all came together for lunch, Nancy said to Joan, "Uncle Herbert is in splendid form—I don't mean over shooting, for he has hardly hit anything. Has Jonathan been amusing?"
"No, not at all," said Joan. "He has been lecturing me. He is getting old; he is just like father. I will gladly change with you."
Nancy stared, but said nothing. She and Joan were accustomed to criticise everybody. But they had never yet criticised John Spence.
"Well, my dear Joan," said the Judge, as she took her place by his side after lunch, "I heaped disgrace upon myself this morning, and I very much doubt if I shall wipe any of it off this afternoon. The Kencote partridges are too many for me—too many and too fast. Why do I still pursue them, at my age and with my reputation? Is it a genuine love of sport, or mere vanity?"
"Vanity, I think," said Joan. "You don't really care about it, you know. You are not like Mr. Spence, and father, and the boys, who think about nothing else."
"It is true that I do think of other things occasionally. But where does the vanity come in? Enlighten me for my good."
"Men are like that. Mr. Spence wouldn't be in the least ashamed at being ignorant of all the things that you know about, but you would be quite ashamed of not knowing something about sport."
"A searching indictment, my dear Joan. It comes home to me. I am a foolish and contemptible old man. And yet I do rather like it, you know. The colours of the trees and the fields, this delicious Autumn air—the expectation—ah!"
The advance guard of a covey had whizzed over his head unharmed; the rest came on, swerving in their rapid flight as if to dodge the charges from his barrels, which all except one of them succeeded in doing.
"More coming. I shall be ready for them next time," he said, hastily ramming cartridges into his breach.
More came—and most of them went. He had been in the best place, and had only killed three birds.
"I must be content with that," he said with a sigh. "It is not bad for me. Your John Spence would have shot three times as many, but he would not have got more fun out of it than I have. Joan, it is not all vanity."
Joan spent a pleasant afternoon, but she did not feel as happy over it as she would have done a year ago. When she and Nancy summed up the experiences of the day she said, "I don't mind whether Uncle Herbert can shoot or not. It is much more amusing to be with him than with any of the others."
"Jonathan said you weren't half as keen on sport as you used to be," said Nancy. "He thinks you are becoming fashionable."
"Idiot!" said Joan. Then she suddenly felt as if she wanted to cry, but terror at the idea of doing anything so unaccountable—before Nancy—dried up the desire almost as soon as it was felt. "I am afraid I am getting too old for Jonathan," she said. "He is beginning to bore me."
The Squire rang his bell violently, with a loud exclamation of impatience. It was a handbell, on a table by the side of his easy chair, in front of which was a baize-covered rest, with his foot, voluminously swathed, upon it.
A servant answered the bell with but little loss of time. "Hasn't the groom come back yet?" asked the Squire, in a tone of acute annoyance. "I told him to waste no time. He must have been dawdling."
"He was just a-coming into the yard when your bell rang, sir," replied the man.
"Well, then, why——? Ah, here they are at last. Give them to me, Porter."
The butler had come in with a big roll of newspapers, which the Squire seized from him and opened hurriedly, choosing the most voluminous of them, and throwing the others on to the floor by his side.
THE SOCIETY TRIAL. FULL REPORT.VERDICT.
It filled a whole page, and a column besides.
The Squire read steadily; his face, set to a frowning censure, showed gleams of surprise, and every now and then his lips forced an expression of disgust. He was not a rapid reader, and it was half an hour before he put down the paper, and after looking into the fire for a minute, took up another from the floor. At that moment the door opened, and a large elderly man with a mild and pleasant face came into the room. He was dressed in a dark pepper-and-salt suit, with a white tie, and shut the door carefully behind him.
"Ah, my dear Tom!" said the Squire. "You had Nina's telegram, I suppose. I sent it down to you directly it came."
"Yes," said the Rector. "I was surprised that it should all have been over so quickly. How is your foot this morning, Edward?"
"Oh, all right. At least, it isn't all right. I had a horrible night—never slept a wink. I've got the papers here. The woman ought to have got penal servitude. Yes, it was over quickly. It was all as plain as possible, and I'm glad she did herself no good by her monstrous lies. The gross impudence of it! Evidently she'll stick at nothing. But I forgot. You haven't seen the evidence. Here, read this! Would it be believed that she could have put up such a defence? That bit there!"
The Rector deliberately fixed a pair of gold-rimmed glasses on to his nose, and took the paper, looking up occasionally from his reading as his brother interjected remarks, which interrupted but did not seem to irritate him.
"I don't quite understand, Edward," he said, when he had finished the passage to which his attention had been drawn. "She says the pearls she sold were given to her by somebody, but the name is not mentioned. Apparently there was a wrangle about it."
"Oh, my dear Tom," said the Squire, "can't you see what it all means? It is as plain as the nose on your face. A wicked, baseless scandal."
The Rector returned to the newspaper, but his air of bewilderment remained.
"Oh well," said the Squire with an impatient glance at him. "You don't live in the world where these things are talked about. I don't either, thank God. But one hears things. This infamous woman has posed as the—the friend—the mistress—yes, actually wanted it to be thought that she was the mistress, of—— No, I'm not going to say it; I won't sully my lips, or put ideas into your head. It's untrue, absolutely untrue, and people in that position are defenceless. She ought not to bring in their names even in idle talk. I'm very glad indeed that there was a strong stand made in the court."
The Rector had re-read the passage, and looked up with a slight flush on his cheeks—almost the look that an innocent girl might have shown if some shameful suggestion had come home to her. "It is not——" he hazarded.
"Oh, not here," the Squire took him up. "Paris. But it is all the more abominable. I don't believe a word of it. And even if it were true—— But is it a likely story?"
"I hope not," said the Rector gravely.
"Oh, these things do happen; I don't deny that. One can't judge these people quite the same as ourselves. But what a preposterous idea! Pearls worth thousands! And at the very time when this necklace of Lady Sedbergh's was missing, and she was practically seen taking it! Joan saw her. I'm glad they didn't worry Joan too much over her evidence. I'm glad it's over for the child. It's annoyed me most infernally to be tied by the leg here, and not knowing what might be going on, where I couldn't direct or advise. However, she did very well—gave her answers simply and stuck to them, and there was no more of that impudent suggestion about young Trench, I'm glad to say, except that they tried to make out he had put it all into her head. He's quite a decent fellow, that woman's counsel. Herbert Birkett knows him. It's pretty plain that he was only making the best of a bad job—couldn't expect to get the woman off, especially after she had put herself out of court in the way she did."
"I see," said the Rector, who had been reading steadily while this speech was being delivered, "that there was evidence from several people that she had worn a pearl necklace, before the time Lady Sedbergh's was stolen."
"Yes, and if you'll read further, you'll see that her maid declares that it was a sham one. She told her so herself. They tried to make out that she wanted to put her off the scent. But that won't wash. The maid gave her evidence very well. You'll see it towards the end. It is what clinched it. She had seen the diamond star in the woman's jewel-box. Of course she has made away with it somehow, since; but the maid described it exactly. She had had it in her hands, and there was an unusual sort of catch, which she couldn't have heard about. She told her young man, and he went to the police. Oh, it'sproved. It isn't only circumstantial evidence, it's damning proof. And she's got far less than her deserts. A year's imprisonment! She ought to have had ten years' hard labour."
"They seem to have convicted her on the theft of the diamond star alone."
"Yes, I don't quite understand why, except that there is no conceivable doubt as to that. I suppose her impudent lie about the necklace saved her, as far as that goes. It led them to drop the charge, as they had got her on the other. I must read the evidence again."
The Rector put the paper aside, and took off his glasses. "Poor woman!" he said, with a sigh. "Her life ruined! But it is well for her that she has been found out. Her punishment will balance the account against her; she will get another start."
"Not in this country," said the Squire vindictively. "She is done for. Nobody will look at her again. I think one can say that much, at any rate. Society is disgracefully loose now-a-days; but there are some things it can't stomach. I'm glad to think that this woman is one of them. We shall hear no more of Mrs. Amberley."
"Ah, well," said the Rector, after a pause. "The world is not made up of what is called Society. Thank God there are men and women who will not turn away from a repentant sinner. Who knows but what this poor woman may win her soul out of the disgrace that has befallen her?"
"Oh, my dear Tom!" said the Squire. "You live in the clouds. A woman like that hasn't got a soul."
Mrs. Clinton and Joan, with Dick and Virginia, returned to Kencote that evening. The Squire received his wife and daughter as if they had been playing truant, and intimated that now they had come home they had better put everything that had been happening out of their heads. They had seen for themselves what came of mixing with those sort of people, and he hoped that the lesson had not been wasted. The whole affair had given him an infinity of worry, and had no doubt brought on the attack from which he was suffering. It was all over now, and he didn't want to hear another word about it. In fact, it was not to be mentioned in the house. Did Joan understand that? He would not have her and Nancy talking about it. They had plenty of other things to talk about. Did she understand that?
Joan said that she quite understood it, and went off to give Nancy a full account of her experiences.
"My dear, she looked awful," she said. "She was wonderfully dressed, and had got herself up so that only a woman could have known that she was got up at all. But she looked as old as the hills. Honestly, I felt sorry for her, although I hated her for what she said to me before. But she was fighting for her life, and she made a brave show."
"But she couldn't say anything, could she? I thought the counsel did it all."
"Yes, that was the worst of it—for her. She had to stand there while they fought over her, and look all the time as if she didn't care. Awful! Poor thing, she's in prison now, and I should think she's glad of it."
"I don't know in the least what happened, except that she was sent to prison for a year. Father kept all the papers in his room."
"I don't know much either. Directly I had given my evidence mother took me away."
"We'll get hold of a paper."
"No, we mustn't. Mother asked me not to."
"What a bore! What was it like, giving your evidence? Were you alarmed?"
"No, not much. It wasn't worse than the other place. It wasn't so bad. Sir Edward Logan, the Sedberghs' counsel, was awfully sweet. He made me say exactly what I had seen, and when Sir Herbert Jessop—that washerman—tried to worry me into saying that Bobby Trench had put it all into my head, he got up and objected."
"Did he try to——"
"No. He was quite nice about it, really. I suppose he had to try and make it out different, somehow. He left off directly our counsel objected, and the old Judge said I had given my evidence very well and clearly. I don't think he really believed that I was making it all up."
"You didn't hear what anybody else said?"
"Not a word. Except when I was in the witness-box myself, I might just as well have been at home."
"I wonder what the papers said about you. I wish we could see them."
What those of the papers had said which gave their readers a description as well as a report of what had occurred, was that Miss Joan Clinton had appeared in the witness-box in a simple but becoming costume, which some of them described, and given her evidence clearly and modestly. Some of them said that she was pretty, and one, with a special appeal to the nonconformist conscience, said that it was a pity to see a young lady who from her appearance could not long since have left the schoolroom, and who looked and spoke as if she had been well brought up, involved in the sordid life of what was known as the higher circles, brought to light by these proceedings. The Squire had read this comment with a snort of indignation. But for the quarter from which it came he would have recognised it as coinciding with his own frequently expressed opinion. As it was, he considered it an impertinent reflection upon himself and his order.
When Dick came up to see him that evening he did not insist that the subject should not be mentioned again. He asked him why he had not come in on his way from the station. "There has been nobody to tell me a thing," he said with some irritation. "I only know what I have read in the papers. Upon my word, the woman's brazen insolence! Was that why they dropped the charge of stealing the necklace, Dick?"
"The other was dead certain," said Dick.
"Ah, that's what I thought. But people don't think—er——"
"Hedidgive her pearls," said Dick, with a matter-of-course air of inner knowledge. "And plenty of people have seen her wearing them, though she never seems to have worn them in London."
"Then it's true about——"
"About him? Of course it is."
"Oh! I thought she had made it up, shamelessly, because she knew it couldn't be contradicted."
"It could have been contradicted easily enough if it hadn't been true. Everybody has known about it for years."
"But she told the maid the pearls were sham ones."
"I dare say she did. But they weren't."
"Then there is really a doubt whether she did steal the necklace?"
"Oh, I don't think so. It makes it all the more likely. She would think, if it was found out she had got rid of single pearls, she could explain it by her own necklace. The mistake she made was in not being satisfied with taking the pearls. If she had left that rotten little star alone, which can't have been worth more than a hundred pounds or so, I doubt if they would have brought it home to her."
"But she may have taken the star, and not have had time to find the necklace, when Joan came in."
"Oh no. If she had been in the middle of it Joan would have caught her at it. There was the stone to push back, as well as the panel to shut. Besides, the necklace went. Who did take it, if she didn't? Nobody else knew."
"Oh, it's plain enough, of course. I haven't a doubt about it. But I thought you meant that there was some doubt."
"No. I only meant there might have been, if she hadn't taken the star. Of course, what she did was to get rid of those pearls as well as her own. She hasn't known which way to turn for money for ever so long. She went out of favour inthatquarter a couple of years ago, or more."
"Did she make any attempt to get her story backed up?"
"Moved heaven and earth, but found the doors shut. She found herself up against the police over there. They told her that if she dared to whisper such a story she would get into more serious trouble than she was in already. She's got pluck, you know. She must have seen it was no good, but she was in a royal rage, and made her people bring it up, out of spite. They say there were hints given; but I doubt that—in a court of law. Anyhow, they wouldn't have it, and it didn't do her any good."
"Well, it's a most unsavoury story altogether," said the Squire. "The woman's in prison now, and she richly deserves it."
He and Dick discussed the matter for another hour, and when the Squire was helped up to bed he repeated his injunctions to Mrs. Clinton that it was not to be mentioned in the house again.