PART THE THIRD.

“Good night to you, Mrs. Pain,” came the next words, haughtily and abruptly, and Mr. Crosse turned to continue his way.

Leaving Charlotte standing there. No other passengers came down from the station: there were none to come: and she turned to retrace her steps to the town. She walked slowly and moved her head from side to side, as if she would take in all the familiar features of the landscape by way of farewell in anticipation of the morrow; the day that was to close her residence at Prior’s Ash for ever.

Time elapsed. Autumn weather had come; and things were going on in their progression at Prior’s Ash as things always must go on. Be it slow or fast, marked or unmarked, the stream of life must glide forward; onwards, onwards; never turning from its appointed course that bears us straight towards eternity.

In the events that concern us nothing had been very marked. At least, not outwardly. There were no startling changes to be recorded—unless, indeed, it was that noted change in the heart of the town. The Bank of which you have heard so much was no more; but in its stead flourished an extensive ironmongery establishment—which, it was to be hoped, would not come to the same ignoble end. The house had been divided into two dwellings: the one, accessible by the former private entrance, was let to a quiet widow lady and her son, a young man reading for the Church; the other had been opened in all the grandeur and glory of highly-polished steel and iron. Not one of the Godolphins could pass it without a keen heart-pang, but the general public were content to congregate and admire as long as the novelty lasted.

The great crash, which had so upset the equanimity of Prior’s Ash, was beginning to be forgotten as a thing of the past. The bankruptcy was at an end—excepting some remaining formal proceedings which did not at all concern the general public, and not much the creditors. Compassion for those who had been injured by the calamity was dying out: many a home had been rendered needy—many desolate; but outside people do not make these uncomfortable facts any lasting concern of theirs. There were only two who did make them so, in regard to Prior’s Ash; and they would make them so as long as their lives should last.

George Godolphin’s wife was lying in her poor lodgings, and Thomas was dying at Ashlydyat. Dying so slowly and imperceptibly that the passage to the grave was smoothed, and the town began to say that he might yet recover. The wrong inflicted upon others, however unwillingly on his own part, the distress rife in many a house around, was ever present to him. It was ever present to Maria. Some of those who had lost were able to bear it; but there were others upon whom it had brought privation, poverty, utter ruin. It was for these last that the sting was felt.

A little boy had been born to Maria, and had died at the end of a few days. He was baptized Thomas. “Name him Thomas: it will be a remembrance of my brother,” George Godolphin had said. But the young Thomas died before the elder one. The same disorder which had taken off two of Maria’s other infants took him off—convulsions. “Best that it should be so,” said Maria, with closed eyes and folded hands.

Somehow she could not grow strong again. Lying in bed, sick and weak, she had time to ruminate upon the misfortunes which had befallen them: the bitter, hopeless reminiscence of the past, the trouble and care of the present, the uncertainty of the future. To dwell upon such themes is not good for the strongest frame; but for the weak it is worse than can be described. Whether it was that, or whether it was a tendency to keep ill, which might have arisen without any mental trouble at all, Maria did not grow strong. Mr. Snow sent her no end of tonics; he ordered her all kinds of dainties; he sat and chatted and joked with her by the half-hour together: and it availed not. She was about again, as the saying runs, but she remained lamentably weak. “You don’t make an effort to rouse yourself,” Mr. Snow would say, rapping his stick in displeasure upon the floor as he spoke. Well, perhaps she did not: the simple fact was, that there was neither health nor spirit within her to make the effort.

Circumstances were cruelly against her. She might have battled with the bankruptcy—with the shock and the disgrace; she might have battled with the discomforts of their fallen position, with the painful consciousness of the distress cast upon many a home, with the humiliation dealt out to herself as her own special portion by the pious pharisees around; she might have battled with the vague prospects of the future, hopeless though they looked: women equally sensitive, good, refined as Maria, have had to contend with all this, and have survived it. But what Maria could not battle with; what had told upon her heart and her spirit more than all the rest, was that dreadful shock touching her husband. She had loved him passionately, she had trusted him wholly; in her blind faith she had never cast as much as a thought to thepossibilitythat he could be untrue to his allegiance: and she had been obliged to learn that—infidelity forms part of a man’s frail nature. It had dashed to the ground the faith and love of years; it had outraged every feeling of her heart; it seemed to have destroyed her trust in all mankind. Implicit faith! pure love! trust that she had deemed stronger than death!—all had been rent in one moment, and the shock had been greater than was her strength to endure. It was just as when one cuts a cord asunder. Anything, anything but this! She could have borne with George in his crime and disgrace, and clung to him when the world shunned him; had he been sent out to Van Diemen’s Land, the felon that he might have been, she could have crept by his side and loved him still. But this was different. To a woman of refined feeling, as was Maria, loving trustingly, it was as the very sharpest point of human agony. It must be so. She had reposed calmly in the belief that she was all in all to him: and she awoke to find that she was no more to him than were others. They had lived, as she fondly thought, in a world of their own, a world oftenderness, of love, of unity; she and he alone; and now she learnt that his world at least had not been so exclusive. Apart from more sacred feelings that were outraged, it brought to her the most bitter humiliation. She seemed to have sunk down to a level she scarcely knew with what. It was not the broad and bare infidelity: at that a gentlewoman scarcely likes to glance; but it was the fading away of all the purity and romance which had enshrined them round, as with a halo, they alone, apart from the world. In one unexpected moment, as a flash of lightning will blast a forest tree and strip it of its foliage, leaving it bare—withered—helpless—so had that blow rent the heart’s life of Maria Godolphin. And she did not grow strong.

Yes. Thomas Godolphin was dying at Ashlydyat, Maria was breaking her heart in her lonely lodgings, Prior’s Ash was suffering in its homes; but where was the cause of it all—Mr. George? Mr. George was in London. Looking after something to do, he told Maria. Probably he was. He knew that he had his wife and child upon his hands, and that something must be done, and speedily, or the wolf would come to the door. Lord Averil, good and forgiving as was Thomas Godolphin, had promised George to try and get him some post abroad—for George had confessed to him that he did not care to remain in England. But the prospect was a remote one at best: and it was necessary that George should exert himself while it came. So he was in town looking after the something, and meanwhile not by any means breakinghisheart in regrets, or living as an anchorite up in a garret. Maria heard from him, and of him. Once a week, at least, he wrote to her, sometimes oftener; affectionate and gay letters. Loving words to herself, kisses and stories for Meta, teasings and jokes for Margery. He was friendly with the Verralls—which Prior’s Ash wondered at; and would now and then be seen riding in the Park with Mrs. Charlotte Pain—the gossip of which was duly chronicled to Maria by her gossiping acquaintance. Maria was silent on the one subject, but she did write a word of remonstrance to him about his friendship with Mr. Verrall. It was scarcely seemly, she intimated, after what people had said. George wrote her word back that she knew nothing about it; that people had taken up a false notion altogether. Verrall was a good fellow at heart; what had happened was not his fault, but the fault of certain men with whom he, Verrall, had been connected; and Verrall was showing himself a good friend now, and he did not know what he should do without him.

“A warm bright day like this, and I find you moping and stewing on that sofa! I’ll tell you what it is, Mrs. George Godolphin, you are trying to make yourself into a chronic invalid.”

Mr. Snow’s voice, in its serio-comic accent, might be heard at the top of the house as he spoke. It was his way.

“I am better than I was,” answered Maria. “I shall get well some time.”

“Some time! It’s to be hoped you will. But you are not doing much yourself towards it. Have the French left you a cloak and bonnet, pray?”

Maria smiled at his joke. She knew he alluded to the bankruptcy commissioners. When Mr. Snow was a boy, the English and Frenchwere at war, and he generally used the word French in a jesting way to designate enemies.

“They left me all,” she said.

“Then be so good as to put them on. I don’t terminate this visit until I have seen you out of doors.”

To contend would be more trouble than to obey. She wrapped herself up and went out with Mr. Snow. Her steps were almost too feeble to walk alone.

“See the lovely day it is! And you, an invalid, suffering from nothing but dumps, not to be out in it! It’s nearly as warm as September. Halloa, young lady! are you planting cabbages?”

They had turned an angle and come upon Miss Meta. She was digging away with a child’s spade, scattering mould over the path; her woollen shawl, put on for warmth, had turned round, and her hat had fallen back, with the ardour of her labours. David Jekyl, who was digging to more purpose close by, was grumbling at the scattered mould on his clean paths.

“I’ll sweep it up, David: I’ll sweep it up!” the young lady said.

“Fine sweeping it ’ud be!” grunted David.

“I declare it’s as warm as summer in this path!” cried Mr. Snow. “Now mind, Mrs. George, you shall stay here for half an hour; and if you grow tired there’s a bench to sit upon. Little damsel, if mamma goes indoors, you tell me the next time I come. She is to stay out.”

“I’ll not tell of mamma,” said Meta, throwing down her spade and turning her earnest eyes, her rosy cheeks, full on Mr. Snow.

He laughed as he walked away. “You are to stay out for the half-hour, mind you, Mrs. George. I insist upon it.”

Direct disobedience would not have been expedient, if only in the light of example to Meta; but Maria had rather been out on any other day, or been ordered to any other path. This was the first time she had seen David Jekyl since the Bank had failed, and his father’s loss was very present to her.

“How are you, David?” she inquired.

“I’m among the middlins,” shortly answered David.

“And your father? I heard he was ill.”

“So he is ill. He couldn’t be worser.”

“I suppose the coming winter is against him?”

“Other things are again him as well as the coming winter,” returned David. “Fretting, for one.”

Ah, how bitter it all was! But David did not mean to allude in any offensive manner to the past, or to hurt the feelings of George Godolphin’s wife. It was his way.

“Is Jonathan better?” she asked.

“He isn’t of much account, since he got that hurt,” was David’s answer. “Doing about three days’ work in a week! It’s to be hoped times ’ll mend.”

Maria walked slowly to and fro in the sunny path, saying a word or two to David now and then, but choosing safer subjects; the weather, the flowers under his charge, the vegetables already nipped with frost. She looked very ill. Her face thin and white, her soft sweet eyes larger and darker than was natural. Her hands were wrapped in thecloak for warmth, and her steps were unequal. Crusty David actually ventured on a little bit of civility.

“Youdon’t seem to get about over quick, ma’am.”

“Not very, David. But I feel better than I did.”

She sat down on the bench, and Meta came flying to her, spade in hand. Might she plant a gooseberry-tree, and have all the gooseberries off it next year for herself?

Maria stroked the child’s hair from her flushed face as she answered. Meta flew off to find the “tree;” and Maria sat on, plunged in a train of thought which the question had led to. Where should they be at the gooseberry season next year? In that same dwelling? Would George’s prospects have become more certain then?

“Now then! Is that the way you dig?”

The sharp words came from Margery, who had looked out at the kitchen window and caught sight of Miss Meta rolling in the mould. The child jumped up laughing, and ran into the house for her skipping-rope.

“Have I been out half an hour, do you think, David?” Maria asked by-and-by.

“Near upon ’t,” said David, without lifting his eyes.

She rose to pursue her way slowly indoors. She was so fatigued—and there had been, so to say, no exertion—that she felt as if she could never stir out again. Merely putting on and taking off her cloak was almost beyond her. She let it fall from her shoulders, took off her bonnet, and sank into an easy-chair.

From this she was aroused by hearing the gate hastily opened. Quick footsteps came up the path, and a manly voice said something to David Jekyl in a free, joking tone. She bounded up, her cheek flushing to hectic, her heart beating. Could it be George?

No; it was her brother, Reginald Hastings. He came in with a great deal of unnecessary noise and clatter. He had arrived from London only that morning, he proceeded to tell Maria, and was going up again by the night train.

“I say, Maria, how ill you look!”

Very ill indeed just then. The excitement of sudden expectation had faded, leaving her whiter than before. Dark circles were round her eyes, and her delicate hands, more feeble, more slender than of yore, moved restlessly on her lap.

“I have been very feverish the last few weeks,” she said. “I think I am stronger. But I have been out for a walk and am tired.”

“What did the little shaver die of?” asked Reginald.

“Of convulsions,” she answered, her bodily weariness too great to speak in anything but tones of apathy. “Why are you going up again so soon? Have you a ship?”

Reginald nodded. “We have orders to join to-morrow at twelve. TheMary, bound for China, six hundred tons. I know the mother would never forgive me if I didn’t come to say good-bye, so I thought I would have two nights of it in the train.”

“Are you going as second officer, Reginald?”

“Second officer!—no. I have not passed.”

“Regy!”

“They are a confounded lot, that board!” broke out Mr. Reginald, explosively. “I don’t believe they know their own business. And as to passing any one without once turning him, they won’t do it. I should like to know who has the money! You pay your guinea, and you don’t pass. Come up again next Monday, they say. Well, you do go up again, as you want to pass; and you pay another half-guinea. I did so; and they turned me again; said I didn’t know seamanship. The owls! not know seamanship! I! They took me, I expect, for one of those dainty middies in Green’s service who walk the deck in kid gloves all day. If there’s one thing I have at my fingers’ ends it is seamanship. I could navigate a vessel all over the world—and be hanged to the idiots! You can come again next Monday, they said to me. I wish theTimeswould show them up!”

“Did you go again?”

“Did I!—no,” fumed Reginald. “Just to add to their pockets by another half-guinea! I hadn’t it to give, Maria. I just flung the whole lot over, and went down to the first ship in the docks and engaged myself.”

“As what?” she asked.

“As A. B.”

“A. B.?” repeated Maria, puzzled. “You don’t mean—surely you don’t mean before the mast?”

“Yes I do.”

“Oh, Reginald!”

“It doesn’t make much difference,” cried Reginald in slighting tones. “The second mates in some of those ships are not much better off than the seamen. You must work, and the food’s pretty much the same, except at the skipper’s table. Let a fellow rise to be first mate, and he is in tolerably smooth water; but until then he must rough it. After this voyage I’ll go up again.”

“But you might have shipped as third mate.”

“I might—if I had taken my time to find a berth. But who was to keep me the while? It takes fifteen shillings a week at the Sailors’ Home, besides odds and ends for yourself that you can’t do without—smoke and things. I couldn’t bear to ask them for more at home. Only think how long I’ve been on shore this time, Maria. I was knocking about London for weeks over my navigation, preparing to pass.—And for the mummies to turn me at last!”

Maria sighed. Poor Reginald’s gloomy prospects were bringing her pain.

“There’s another thing, Maria,” he resumed. “If I had passed for second mate, I don’t see how I could go out as such. Where was my outfit to come from? An officer—if he is on anything of a ship—must look spruce, and have proper toggery. I am quite certain that to go out as second mate on a good ship would have cost me twenty pounds, for additional things that I couldn’t do without. You can’t get a sextant under three pounds, second-hand, if it’s worth having. You know I never could have come upon them for twenty pounds at home, under their altered circumstances.”

Maria made no reply. Every word was going to her heart.

“Whereas, in shipping as a common seaman, I don’t want to takemuch more than you might tie up in a handkerchief. A fo’castle fellow can shift any way aboard. And there’s one advantage,” ingenuously added Reginald; “if I take no traps out with me, I can’t lose them.”

“But the discomfort?” breathed Maria.

“There’s enough of that in any way, at sea. A little more or less is not of much account in the long-run. It’s all in the voyage. I wish I had never been such a fool as to choose the sea. But I did choose it; so it’s of no use kicking against it now.”

“I wish you were not going as you are!” said Maria earnestly. “I wish you had shipped as third mate!”

“When a sailor can’t afford the time to ship as he would, he must ship as he can. Many a hundred has done the same before me. To one third mate wanted in the port of London, there are scores and scores of able seamen.”

“What does mamma say to it?”

“Well, you know she can’t afford to be fastidious now. She cried a bit, but I told her I should be all right. Hard work and fo’castle living won’t break bones. The parson told me——”

“Don’t, Reginald!”

“Papa, then. He told me it was a move in the right direction, and if I would only go on so, I might make up for past shortcomings. I say, Isaac told me to give you his love.”

“Did you see much of him?”

“No. On a Sunday now and then. He doesn’t much like his new post. They are dreadfully over-worked, he says. It’s quite a different thing from what the Bank was down here.”

“Will he stop in it?”

“Oh, he’ll stop in it. Glad, too. It won’t answer for him to be doing nothing, when they can hardly keep themselves at home with the little money screwed out from what’s put aside for the Chisholms.”

Reginald never meant to hurt her. He only spoke so in his thoughtlessness. He rattled on.

“I saw George Godolphin last week. It was on the Monday, the day that swindling board first turned me back. I flung the books anywhere, and went out miles, to walk my passion off. I got into the Park, to Rotten Row. It’s precious empty at this season, not more than a dozen horses in it; but who should be coming along but George Godolphin and Mrs. Pain with a groom behind them. She was riding that beautiful horse of hers that she used to cut a dash with here in the summer; the one that folks said George gave——” Incautious Reginald coughed down the conclusion of his sentence, whistled a bar or two of a sea-song, and then resumed:

“George was well mounted, too.”

“Did you speak to them?” asked Maria.

“Of course I did,” replied Reginald, with some surprise. “And Mrs. Pain began scolding me for not having been to see her and the Verralls. She made me promise to go the next evening. They live at a pretty place on the banks of the Thames. You take the rail at Waterloo Station.”

“Did you go?”

“Well, I did, as I had promised. But I didn’t care much about it. I had been at my books all day again, and in the evening, quite late, I started. When I got there I found it was a tea-fight.”

“A tea-fight!” echoed Maria, rather uncertain what the expression might mean.

“A regular tea-fight,” repeated Reginald. “A dozen folks, mostly ladies, dressed up to the nines: and there was I in my worn-out sailor’s jacket. Charlotte began blowing me up for not coming to dinner, and she made me go into the dining-room and had it brought up for me. Lots of good things! I haven’t tasted such a dinner since I’ve been on shore. Verrall gave me some champagne.”

“Was George there?” inquired Maria, putting the question with apparent indifference.

“No, George wasn’t there. Charlotte said if she had thought of it she’d have invited Isaac to meet me: but Isaac was shy of them, she added, and had never been down once, though she asked him several times. She’s a good-natured one, Maria, is that Charlotte Pain.”

“Yes,” quietly responded Maria.

“She told me she knew how young sailors get out of money in London, and she shouldn’t think of my standing the cost of responding to her invitation; and she gave me a sovereign.”

Maria’s cheeks burnt. “You did not take it, Reginald?”

“Didn’t I! it was quite a godsend. You don’t know how scarce money has been with me. Things have altered, you know, Maria. And Mrs. Pain knows it too, and she has no stuck-up nonsense about her. She made me promise to go and see them when I had passed.—But I have not passed,” added Reginald, by way of parenthesis. “And she said if I was at fault for a home the next time I was looking out for a ship, she’d give me one, and be happy to see me. And I thought it was very kind of her; for I am sure she meant it. Oh—by the way—she said she thought you’d let her have Meta up for a few weeks.”

Maria involuntarily stretched out her hand—as if Meta were there, and she would clasp her and withhold her from some threatened danger. Reginald rose.

“You are not going yet, Regy?”

“I must. I only ran in for a few minutes. There’s Grace to see and fifty more folks, and they’ll expect me home to dinner. I’ll say good-bye to Meta as I go through the garden. I saw she was there; but she did not see me.”

He bent to kiss her. Maria held his hand in hers. “I shall be thinking of you always, Reginald. If you were only going under happier circumstances!”

“Never mind me, Maria. It will be uphill work with most of us, I suppose, for a time. I thought it the best thing I could do. I couldn’t bear to come upon them for more money at home.”

“Yours will be a hard life.”

“A sailor’s is that, at best. Don’t worry about me. I shall make it out somehow. You make haste, Maria, and get strong. I’m sure you look ill enough to frighten people.”

She pressed his hands between hers, and the tears were filling her eyes as she raised them—their expression one wild yearning. “Reginald, try and do your duty,” she whispered in an imploring tone. “Think always of heaven, and try and work for it. It may be very near. I have learned to think of it a great deal now.”

“It’s all right, Maria,” was the careless and characteristic answer. “It’s a religious ship I’m going in this time. We have had to sign articles for divine service on board at half-past ten every Sunday morning.”

He kissed her several times, and the door closed upon him. As Maria lay back in her chair, she heard his voice outside for some time afterwards laughing and talking with Meta, largely promising her a ship-load of monkeys, parrots, and various other live wonders.

In this way or that, she was continually being reminded of the unhappy past and their share in it; she was perpetually having brought before her its disastrous effects upon others. Poor Reginald! entering upon his hard life! This need not have been, had means not grown scarce at home. Maria loved him best of all her brothers, and her very soul seemed to ache with its remorse. And by some means or other, she was, as you see, frequently learning that Mr. George was not breakinghisheart with remorse. The suffering in all ways fell upon her.

And the time went on, and Maria Godolphin grew no stronger. It went on, and instead of growing stronger she grew weaker. Mr. Snow could do nothing more than he had done; he sent her tonic medicines still, and called upon her now and then, as a friend more than as a doctor. The strain was on the mind, he concluded, and time alone would heal it.

But Maria was worse than Mr. Snow or any one else thought. She had been always so delicate-looking, so gentle, that her wan face, her sunken spirits, attracted less attention than they would have done in one of a more robust nature. No one glanced at the possibility of danger. Margery’s expressed opinion, “My mistress only wants rousing,” was the one universally adopted: and there may have been truth in it.

All question of Maria’s going out of doors was over now. She was really not equal to it. She would lie for hours together on her sofa, the little child Meta gathered in her arms. Meta appeared to have changed her very nature. Instead of dancing about incessantly, running into every mischief, she was content to nestle to her mother’s bosom and listen to her whispered words, as if some foreshadowing were on her spirit that she might not long have a mother to nestle to.

You must not think that Maria conformed to the usages of an invalid. She was up before breakfast in the morning, she did not go to bed until the usual hour at night, and she sat down to the customary meals with Meta. She has risen from the breakfast-table now, on this fine morning, not at all cold for late autumn, and Margery has carried away the breakfast-things, and has told Miss Meta that if she will come out as soon as her mamma has read to her, and have her things put on, she may go and play in the garden.

But when the little Bible story was over, her mamma lay down onthe sofa, and Meta appeared inclined to do the same. She nestled on to it, and lay down too, and kissed her mamma’s face, so pretty still, and began to chatter. It was a charming day, the sun shining on the few late flowers, the sky blue and bright.

“Did you hear Margery say you might go out and play, darling? See how fine it is.”

“There’s nothing to play with,” said Meta.

“There are many things, dear. Your skipping-rope and hoop, and——”

“I’m tired of them,” interposed Meta. “Mamma, I wish you’d come out and play at something with me.”

“I couldn’t run, dear. I am not strong enough.”

“When shall you be strong enough? How long will it be before you get well?”

Maria did not answer. She lay with her eyes fixed upon the far-off sky, her arm clasped round the child. “Meta, darling, I—I—am not sure that I shall get well. I begin to think that I shall never go out with you again.”

Meta did not answer. She was looking out also, her eyes staring straight at the blue sky.

“Meta, darling,” resumed Maria in low tones, “you had two little sisters once, and I cried when they died, but I am glad now that they went. They are in heaven.”

Meta looked up more fixedly, and pointed with her finger. “Up in the blue sky?”

“Yes, up in heaven. Meta, I think I am going to them. It is a better world than this.”

“And me too,” quickly cried Meta.

Maria laid her hand upon her bosom to press down the rising emotion. “Meta, Meta, if I might only take you with me!” she breathed, straining the child to her in an agony. The prospect of parting, which Maria had begun to look at, was indeed hard to bear.

“You can’t go and leave me,” cried Meta in alarm. “Who’d take care of me, mamma? Mamma, do you mean that you are going to die?”

Meta burst into tears. Maria cried with her. Oh reader, reader! do you know what it is, this parting between mother and child? To lay a child in the grave is bitter grief; but to leave it to the mercy of the world!—there is nothing like unto it in human anguish.

Maria’s arms were entwined around the little girl, clasping her nervously, as if that might prevent the future parting; the soft rounded cheek was pressed to hers, the golden curls lay around.

“Only for a little while, Meta. If I go first, it will be only for a little while. You——” Maria stopped; her emotion had to be choked down.

“It is a happier world than this, Meta,” she resumed, mastering it. “There will be no pain there; no sickness, no sorrow. This world seems made up of sorrow, Meta. Oh, child! but for God’s love in holding out to our view that other one, we could never bear this, when trouble comes. God took your little sisters and brothers from it: and—I think—He is taking me.”

Meta turned her face downwards, and held her mother with a frightened movement, her little fingers clasping the thin arms to pain.

“The winter is coming on here, my child, and the trees will soon be bare; the snow will cover the earth, and we must wrap ourselves up from it. But in that other world there will be no winter; no cold to chill us; no summer heat to exhaust us. It will be a pleasant world, Meta; and God will love us.”

Meta was crying silently. “Let me go too, mamma.”

“In a little while, darling. If God calls me first, it is His will,” she continued, the sobs breaking from her aching heart. “I shall ask Him to take care of you after I am gone, and to bring you to me in time; I am asking Him always.”

“Who’ll be my mamma then?” cried Meta, lifting her head in a bustle, as the thought occurred to her.

More pain. Maria choked it down, and stroked the golden curls.

“You will have no mamma, then, in this world. Only papa.”

Meta paused. “Will he take me to London, to Mrs. Pain?”

The startled shock that these simple words brought to Maria cannot well be pictured: her breath stood still, her heart beat wildly. “Why do you ask that?” she said, her tears suddenly dried.

Meta had to collect her childish thoughts to tell why. “When you were in bed ill, and Mrs. Pain wrote me that pretty letter, she said if papa would take me up to London she’d be my mamma for a little while, in place of you.”

The spell was broken. The happy visions of heaven, of love, had been displaced for Maria. She lay quite silent, and in the stillness the bells of All Souls’ Church were heard ringing out a joyous peal on the morning air. Meta clapped her hands and lifted her face, radiant now with glee. Moods require not time to change in childhood: now sunshine, now rain. Margery opened the door.

“Do you hear them, ma’am? The bells for Miss Cecil. They’re as joyous as the day. I said she’d have it fine, last night, when I found the wind had changed. I can’t bear to hear wedding-bells ring out on a wet day: the two don’t agree. Eh me! Why, here’s Miss Rose coming in!”

Rose Hastings was walking up the path with a quick step, nodding at Meta as she came along. That young lady slipped off the sofa, and ran out to meet her, and Maria rose up from her sick position, and strove to look her best.

“I have come for Meta,” said Rose, as she entered. “Mamma thinks she would like to see the wedding.—Will you let her come, Maria?”

Maria hesitated. “To the church, do you mean? Suppose she should not be good?”

“I will be good,” said Meta, in a high state of delight at the prospect. “Mamma, I’ll be very good.”

She went with Margery to be dressed. Rose turned to her sister. “Are you pretty well this morning, Maria?”

“Pretty well, Rose. I cannot boast of much strength yet.”

“I wish you would return with me and Meta. Mamma told me to try and bring you. To spend the day with us will be a change, and you need not go near the church.”

“I don’t feel equal to it, Rose. I should not have strength to walk. Tell mamma so, with my dear love.”

“Only fancy!—she is to be married in a bonnet!” exclaimed Rose with indignation. “A bonnet and a grey dress. I wonder Lord Averil consented to it! I should hardly call it a wedding. A bonnet!—and no breakfast!—and Bessy Godolphin and Lord Averil’s sister, who is older if anything than Bessy, for bridesmaids!”

“And only one clergyman,” added Maria, her lips parting with a smile. “Do you think the marriage will stand good, Rose?”

Rose felt inclined to resent the joke, for Maria was laughing at her. But Meta came in, full of bustling excitement, eager to be gone. She kissed her mamma in careless haste, and was impatient because Rose lingered to say a word. Maria watched her down the path; her face and eyes sparkling, her feet dancing with eagerness, her laughter ringing on the air.

“She has forgotten already her tears for the parting that must come,” murmured Maria. “How soon, I wonder, after I shall be gone, will she forget me?”

She laid her temples lightly against the window-frame, as she looked dreamily at the blue sky; as she listened dreamily to the sweet bells that rang out so merrily in the ears of Prior’s Ash.

Prior’s Ash lingered at its doors and windows, curious to witness the outer signs of Cecilia Godolphin’s wedding. The arrangements for it were to them more a matter of speculation than of certainty, since various rumours had gone afloat, and were eagerly caught up, although of the most contradictory character. All that appeared certain as yet was—that the day was charming and the bells were ringing.

How the beadle kept the gates that day, he alone knew. That staff of his was brought a great deal more into requisition than was liked by the sea of heads collected there. And when the first carriage came, the excitement in the street was great.

Thefirstcarriage! There were only two; that and another. Prior’s Ash turned up its disappointed nose, and wondered, with Rose Hastings, what the world was coming to.

It was a chariot drawn by four horses. The livery of the postillions and the coronet on the panels proclaimed it to be Lord Averil’s. He sat within it with Thomas Godolphin. The carriage following it was Lady Godolphin’s; it appeared to contain only ladies, all wearing bonnets and coloured gowns. The exasperated gazers, who had bargained for something very different, set up a half-groan.

They set up a whole one, those round the gates, when Lord Averil and his friend alighted. But the groan was not one of exasperation, or of anger. It was a low murmur of sorrow and sympathy, and it wascalled forth by the appearance of Thomas Godolphin. It was some little time now since Thomas Godolphin had been seen in public, and the change in him was startling. He walked forward, leaning on the arm of Lord Averil, lifting his hat to the greeting that was breathed around; a greeting of sorrow meant, as he knew, not for the peer, but for him and his fading life. The few scanty hairs stood out to their view as he uncovered his head, and the ravages of the disease that was killing him were all too conspicuous on his wasted features.

“God bless him! He’s very nigh the grave.”

Who said it, of the crowd, Thomas Godolphin could not tell, but the words and their accent, full of rude sympathy, came distinctly upon his ear. He quitted the viscount’s arm, turned to them, and raised his hands with a solemn meaning.

“God bless you all, my friends. I am indeed near the grave. Should there be any here who have suffered injury through me, let them forgive me for it. It was not intentionally done, and I may almost say that I am expiating it with my life. May God bless you all, here and hereafter!”

Something like a sob burst from the astonished crowd. But that he had hastened on with Lord Averil, they might have fallen on their knees and clung to him in their flood-tide of respect and love.

The Reverend Mr. Hastings stood in his surplice at the altar. He, too, was changed. The keen, vigorous, healthy man had now a grey, worn look. He could not forgive the blow; minister though he was, he could not forgive George Godolphin. He was not quite sure that he forgave Thomas for not having looked more closely after his brother and the Bank generally: had he done so, the calamity might never have occurred. Every hour of the day reminded Mr. Hastings of his loss, in the discomforts which had necessarily fallen upon his home, in the position of his daughter Maria. George Godolphin had never been a favourite of his: he had tried to like him in vain. The Rector of All Souls’ was a man of severe judgment, and rumour had made free with gay George’s name.

Lord Averil was the first to enter. Cecilia Godolphin came next with Thomas. She wore a light-grey silk robe, and a plain white bonnet, trimmed with orange-blossoms. The Honourable Miss Averil and Bessy Godolphin followed; their silk gowns of a darker shade of grey, and their white bonnets without orange-blossoms. Lady Godolphin came next, more resplendent than any, in a lemon brocaded silk, that stood on end with richness.

Did the recollection of the last wedding service he had performed for a Godolphin cause the Rector of All Souls’ voice to be subdued now, as he read? Seven years ago he had stood there as he was standing to-day, George and Maria before him. How had that promising union ended? And for the keeping of his sworn vows?—George best knew what he had kept and what he had broken. The Rector was thinking of that past ceremony now.

This one was soon over. The promises were made, the register signed, and Lord Averil was leading Cecilia from the church, when the Rector stepped before them and took her hand.

“I pray God that your union may be more happy than some otherunions have been,” he said. “That, in a great degree, rests with you, Lord Averil. Take care of her.”

Her eyes filled with tears, but the viscount grasped his hand warmly. “I will; I will.”

The beadle was rapping his stick on sundry heads with great effect, and the excited crowd pushed and danced round that travelling carriage, but they made their way to it. To hand in Cecil and take his place beside her seemed to be but the work of a moment, so quickly did it pass, and Lord Averil, a pleasant smile upon his face, bowed to the shouts on either side as the carriage threaded its way through the throng. The three ladies next stepped into their carriage, and Thomas Godolphin turned into the Rectory. Mrs. Hastings, grey, worn, old—ten years older than she had been six months before—came forward to greet him, commiseration in every line of her countenance.

“I thought I would say good-bye to you,” he said, as he held her hands in his. “It will be my only opportunity. I expect this is my last quitting of Ashlydyat.”

“Say good-bye?” she faltered. “Are you—are you—so near——”

“Look at me,” quietly said Thomas, answering her unfinished sentence.

But there was an interruption. Bustling little feet and a busy little tongue came upon them. Miss Meta had broken from Rose and run in alone, throwing her straw hat aside as she entered.

“Uncle Thomas! Uncle Thomas! I saw you at the wedding, Uncle Thomas.”

He sat down and took the child upon his knee. “And I saw Meta,” he answered. “How is mamma? I am going to see her presently.”

“Mamma’s not well,” said Meta, shaking her head. “Mamma cries often. She was crying this morning. Uncle Thomas”—lowering her voice and speaking slowly—“mamma says she’s going to heaven.”

There was a startled pause. Thomas broke it by laying his hand upon the golden-haired head.

“I trust we are all going there, Meta. A little earlier or a little later, as God shall will. It will not much matter which.”

A few minutes’ conversation, and Thomas Godolphin went out to the fly which had been brought for him. Bexley, who was with it, helped him in.

“To Mrs. George Godolphin’s.”

The attentive old retainer—older by twenty years than Thomas, but younger in health and vigour—carefully assisted his master up the path. Maria saw the approach from the window. Why it was she knew not, but she was feeling unusually ill that day: scarcely able to rise to a sitting position on the sofa. Thomas was shocked at the alteration in her, and involuntarily thought of the child’s words, “Mamma says she’s going to heaven.”

“I thought I should like to say farewell to you, Maria,” he said, as he drew a chair near her. “I did not expect to find you looking so ill.”

She had burst into tears. Whether it was the unusual depression of her own spirits, or his wan face, emotion overcame her.

“It has been too much for both of us,” he murmured, holding herhands. “We must forgive him, Maria. It was done in carelessness, perhaps, but not wilfulness. Why do you not come to Ashlydyat sometimes? You know we should be glad to see you.”

She shook her head. “I cannot go out, Thomas. Indeed, I am not strong enough for it now.”

“But Maria, you should not give way to this grief; this weakness. You are young; you have no incurable complaint, as I have.”

“I don’t know,” she sighed. “At times I feel as though I should never be well again. I—I—have been so reproached, Thomas; so much blame has been cast on me by all people; it has been as ifIhad made away with their money; and you know that I was as innocent as they were. And there have been other things. If—if——”

“If what?” asked Thomas, leaning over her.

She was sitting back upon the sofa, her fair young face wan and colourless, her delicate hands clasped together, as in apathy. “If it were not for leaving Meta, I should be glad to die!”

“Hush, Maria! Rather say you are glad to live for her sake. George may by some means or other become prosperous again, and you may once more have a happy home. You are young, I say; you must bear up against this weakness.”

“If I could only pay all we owe; our personal debts!” she whispered, unconsciously giving utterance to the vain longing that was ever working in her heart. “Papa’s nine thousand pounds—and Mrs. Bond’s ten pounds—and the Jekyls—and the tradespeople!”

“IfIcould only have paid!” he rejoined in a voice broken by emotion. “If I could—if I could—I should have gone easier to the grave. Maria, we have a God, remember, who sees all our pangs, all our bitter sorrow: but for Him, and my trust in Him, I should have died long ago of the pain.”

Maria covered her face with her hand. Thomas rose.

“You are not going?” she exclaimed.

“Yes, for I must hasten home. This has been a morning of exertion, and I find there’s no strength left in me. God bless you, Maria!”

“Are we never to meet again?” she asked, as he held her thin hands in his, and she looked up at him through her blinding tears.

“I hope we shall meet again, Maria, and be together for ever and for ever. The threshold of the next world is opening to me: this is closing. Fare you well, child; fare you well.”

Bexley came to him as he opened the parlour door. Thomas asked for Margery: he would have said a kind word to her. But Margery had gone out.

Maria stood at the window, and watched him through her tears as he walked down the path to the fly, supported by Bexley. The old man closed the door on his master and took his seat by the driver. Thomas looked forth as they drove away, and smiled a last farewell.

A farewell in the deepest sense of the word. It was the last look, the last smile, that Maria would receive in this life, from Thomas Godolphin.

In the old porch at Ashlydyat, of which you have heard so much, sat Thomas Godolphin. An invalid chair had been placed there, and he lay back on its pillows in the sun of the late autumn afternoon. A warm, sunny autumn had it been; a real “Eté de St. Martin.” He was feeling wondrously well; almost, but for his ever-present sensation of weakness, quite well. His fatigue of the previous day—that of Cecil’s wedding—had left no permanent effects upon him, and had he not known thoroughly his own hopeless state, he might have fancied this afternoon that he was about to get well all one way.

Not in looks. Pale, wan, ghastly were they; the shadow of the grim, implacable visitor that was so soon to come was already on them; but the face in its stillness told of ineffable peace: the brunt of the storm had passed.

The white walls of Lady Godolphin’s Folly glittered brightly in the distance; the dark-blue sky was seen through the branches of the trees, growing bare and more bare against the coming winter; the warm sun rays fell on Thomas Godolphin. Margery came up, and he held out his hand.

“My mistress told me you’d have said good-bye to me yesterday, Mr. Thomas, and it was just my ill-luck to be out. I had gone to take the child’s shoes to be mended—she wears them out fast. But you are not going to leave us yet, sir?”

“I know not how soon it may be, Margery: very long it cannot be. Sit down.”

She stood yet, however, looking at him, disregarding the bench to which he had pointed; stood with a saddened expression and compressed lips. Margery’s was an experienced eye, and it may be that she saw the shadow which had taken up its abode on his face.

“You are going to see my old master and mistress, sir,” she burst forth, dashing some rebellious moisture from her eyes. “Mr. Thomas, do you recollect it?—my poor mistress sat here in this porch the very day she died.”

“I remember it well, Margery. I am dying quietly, thank God, as my mother died.”

“And what a blessing it is when folks can die quietly, with their conscience and all about ’em at peace!” ejaculated Margery. “I wonder how Mr. George would have took it, ifhe’dbeen called instead of you, sir?”

There was considerable acidity, not to say sarcasm, in the remark; perhaps not altogether suited to the scene and interview. Good Thomas Godolphin would not see it or appear to notice it. He took Margery’s hands in his.

“I never thought once that I should die leaving you in debt, Margery,” he said, his earnest tone bearing its own emotion. “Itwas always my intention to bequeath you an annuity that would have kept you from want in your old age. But it has been decreed otherwise; and it is of no use to speak of what might have been. Miss Janet will refund to you by degrees what you have lost in the Bank; and so long as you live you will be welcome to a home with her. She has not much, but——”

“Now never fash yourself about me, Mr. Thomas,” interrupted Margery. “I shall do well, I dare say; I’m young enough yet for work, I hope; I shan’t starve. Ah, this world’s nothing but a pack o’ troubles,” she added, with a loud sigh. “It has brought its share to you, sir.”

“I am on the threshold of a better, Margery,” was his quiet answer; “one where troubles cannot enter.”

Margery sat for some time on the bench, talking to him. At length she rose to depart, declining the invitation to enter the house or to see the ladies, and Thomas said to her his last farewell.

“My late missis, I remember, looked once or twice during her illness as grey as he does,” she cogitated within herself as she went along. “But it strikes me that with him it’s death. I’ve a great mind to ask old Snow what he thinks. If it is so, Mr. George ought to be telegraphed for; theyarebrothers, after all.”

Margery’s way led her past the turning to the railway station. A train was just in. She cast an eye on the passengers coming from it, and in one of them she saw her master, Mr. George Godolphin.

Margery halted and rubbed her eyes, and almost wondered whether it was a vision. Her mind had been busy with the question, ought he, or ought he not to be telegraphed for? and there he was, before her. Gay, handsome George! with his ever-distinguishedentourage—I don’t know a better word for it in English: his bearing, his attire, his person so essentially the gentleman; his pleasant face and his winning smile.

That smile was directed to Margery as he came up. He bore in his hand a small wicker-work basket, covered with delicate tissue paper. But for the bent of Margery’s thoughts at the time, she would not have been particularly surprised at the sight, for Mr. George’s visits to Prior’s Ash were generally impromptu ones, paid without warning. She met him rather eagerly: speaking of the impulse that had been in her mind—to send a message for him, on account of the state of his brother.

“Is he worse?” asked George eagerly.

“If ever I saw death written in a face, it’s written in his, sir,” returned Margery.

George considered a moment. “I think I will go up to Ashlydyat without loss of time, then,” he said, turning back. But he stopped to give the basket into Margery’s hands.

“It is for your mistress, Margery. How is she?”

“She’snothing to boast of,” replied Margery, in tones and with a stress that might have awakened George’s suspicions, had any fears with reference to his wife’s state yet penetrated his mind. But they had not. “I wish she could get a little of life into her, and then health might be the next thing to come,” concluded Margery.

“Tell her I shall soon be home.” And George Godolphin proceeded to Ashlydyat.

It may be that he had not the faculty for distinguishing the different indications that a countenance gives forth, or it may be that to find his brother sitting in the porch disarmed his doubts, but certainly George saw no reason to endorse the fears expressed by Margery. She had entered into no details, and George had pictured Thomas as in bed. To see him therefore sitting out of doors, quietly reading, certainly lulled all George’s present fears.

Not that the ravages in the worn form, the grey look in the pale face, did not strike him as that face was lifted to his; struck him almost with awe. For a few minutes their hands were locked together in silence. Generous Thomas Godolphin! Never since the proceedings had terminated, the daily details were over, had he breathed a word of the bankruptcy and its unhappiness to George.

“George, I am glad to see you. I have been wishing for you all day. I think you must have been sent here purposely.”

“Margery sent me. I met her as I was coming from the train.”

It was not toMargerythat Thomas Godolphin had alluded—but he let it pass. “Sent purposely,” he repeated aloud. “George, I think the end is very near.”

“But you are surely better?” returned George, speaking in impulse. “Unless you were better, would you be sitting here?”

“Do you remember, George, my mother sat here in the afternoon of the day she died? A feeling came over me to-day that I should enjoy a breath of the open air; but it was not until after they had brought my chair out and I was installed in it, that I thought of my mother. It struck me as being a curious coincidence; almost an omen. Margery recollected the circumstance, and spoke of it.”

The words imparted a strange sensation to George, a shivering dread. “Are you in much pain, Thomas?” he asked.

“Not much; a little, at times; but the great agony that used to come upon me has quite passed. As it did with my mother, you know.”

Could George Godolphin help the feeling of bitter contrition that came over him? He had been less than man, lower than human, had he helped it. Perhaps the full self-reproach of his conduct never came home to him as it came now. With all his faults, his lightness, he loved his brother: and it seemed that it was he—he—who had made the face wan, the hair grey, who had broken the already sufficiently stricken heart, and had sent him to his grave before his time.

“It is my fault,” he spoke in his emotion. “But for me, Thomas, you might have been with us, at any rate, another year or two. The trouble has told upon you.”

“Yes, it has told upon me,” Thomas quietly answered. There was nothing else that he could answer.

“Don’t think of it, Thomas,” was the imploring prayer. “It cannot be helped now.”

“No, it cannot be helped,” Thomas rejoined. But he did not add that, even now, it was disturbing his death-bed. “George,” he said, pressing his brother’s hands, “but that it seems so great an improbability, I would ask you to repay to our poor neighbours and friendswhat they have lost, should it ever be in your power. Who knows but you may be rich some time? You are young and capable, and the world is before you. If so, think of them; it is my last request to you.”

“It would be my own wish to do it,” gravely answered George. “But do not think of it now, Thomas; do not let it trouble you.”

“It does not trouble me much now. The thought of the wrong inflicted on them is ever present with me, but I am content to leave that, and all else, in the care of the all-powerful, ever-merciful God. He can recompense better than I could, even had I my energies and life left to me.”

There was a pause. George loosed his brother’s hands and took the seat on the bench where Margery had sat; the very seat where he had once sat with his two sticks, in his weakness, years before, when the stranger, Mr. Appleby, came up and inquired for Mr. Verrall. Why or wherefore it should have come, George could not tell, but that day flashed over his memory now. Oh, the bitter remembrance! He had been a lightsome man then, without care, free from that depressing incubus that must, or that ought to, weigh down the soul—cruel wrong inflicted on his fellow-toilers in the great journey of life. And now? He had brought the evil of poverty upon himself, the taint of disgrace upon his name; he had driven his sisters from their home; had sent that fair and proud inheritance of the Godolphins, Ashlydyat, into the market; and had hastened the passage of his brother to the grave. Ay! dash your bright hair from your brow as you will, George Godolphin!—pass your cambric handkerchief over your heated face!—you cannot dash away remembrance. You have done all this, and the consciousness is very present with you.

Thomas Godolphin interrupted his reflections, bending towards George his wasted features. “George, what are your prospects?”

“I have tried to get into something or other in London, but my trying has been useless. All places that are worth having are so soon snapped up. I have been offered a post in Calcutta, and I think I shall accept it. If I find that Maria has no objection to go out, I shall: I came down to-day to talk it over with her.”

“Is it through Lord Averil?”

“Yes. He wrote to me yesterday morning before he went to church with Cecil. I received the letter by the evening mail, and came off this morning.”

“And what is the appointment? Is it in the civil service?”

“Nothing so grand—in sound, at any rate. It’s only mercantile. The situation is at an indigo merchant’s, or planter’s; I am not sure which. But it’s a good appointment; one that a gentleman may accept; and the pay is liberal. Lord Averil urges it upon me. These merchants—they are brothers—are friends of his. If I decline it, he will try for a civil appointment for me; but to obtain one might take a considerable time: and there might be other difficulties in the way.”

“Yes,” said Thomas shortly. “By the little I can judge, this appears to me to be just what will suit you.”

“I think so. If I accept it, I shall have to start with the new year.I saw the agents of the house in town this morning, and they tell me it is quite a first-class appointment for a mercantile one. I hope Maria will not dislike to go.”

They sat there conversing until the sun had set. George pointed out to his brother’s notice that the air was growing cold, but Thomas only smiled in answer: it was not the night air, hot or cold, that could any longer affect Thomas Godolphin. But he said that he might as well go in, and took George’s arm to support his feeble steps.

“Is no one at home?” inquired George, finding the usual sitting-room empty.

“They are at Lady Godolphin’s,” replied Thomas, alluding to his sisters. “Bessy goes there for good next week, and certain arrangements have to be made, so they walked over this afternoon just before you came up.”

George sat down. To find his sisters absent was a relief. Since the unhappy explosion, George had always felt as a guilty schoolboy in the presence of Janet. He remained a short time, and then rose to depart. “I’ll come up and see you in the morning, Thomas.”

Was there any prevision of what the night would bring forth in the mind of Thomas Godolphin? It might be. He entwined in his the hands held out to him.

“God bless you, George! God bless you, and keep you always!” And a lump, not at all familiar to George Godolphin’s throat, rose in it as he went out from the presence of his brother.

It was one of those charmingly clear evenings that bring a sensation of tranquillity to the senses. Daylight could not be said to have quite faded, but the moon was up, its rays shining brighter and brighter with every departing moment of day. As George passed Lady Godolphin’s Folly, Janet was coming from it.

He could not avoid her. I do not say that he wished to do so, but he could not if he had wished it. They stood talking together for some time; of Thomas’s state; of this Calcutta prospect of George’s, for Janet had heard something of it from Lord Averil; and she questioned him closely on other subjects. It was growing quite night when Janet made a movement homewards, and George could do no less than attend her.

“I thought Bessy was with you,” he remarked, as they walked along.

“She is remaining an hour or two longer with Lady Godolphin; but it was time I came home to Thomas. When do you say you must sail, George?”

“The beginning of the year. My salary will commence with the first of January, and I ought to be off that day. I don’t know whether that will give Maria sufficient time for preparation.”

“Sufficient time!” repeated Miss Godolphin. “Will she want to take out a ship’s cargo? I should think she might be ready in a tithe of it. Shall you take the child?”

“Oh yes,” he hastily answered; “I could not go without Meta. And I am sure Maria would not consent to be separated from her. I hope Maria will not object to going on her own score.”

“Nonsense!” returned Janet. “She will have the sense to see that it is a remarkable piece of good fortune, far better than you had anyright to expect. Let me recommend you to put by half your salary, George. It is a very handsome one, and you may do it if you will. Take a lesson from the past.”

“Yes,” replied George, with a twitch of conscience. “I wonder if the climate will try Maria?”

“I trust that the change will be good for her in all ways,” said Janet emphatically. “Depend upon it she will be only too thankful to turn her back on Prior’s Ash. She will not get strong as long as she stops in it, or so long as your prospects are uncertain, doing nothing, as you are now.Ican’t make out, for my part, how you live.”

“You might easily guess that I have been helped a little, Janet.”

“By one thatIwould not be helped by if I were starving,” severely rejoined Janet. “You allude, I presume, to Mr. Verrall?”

George did allude to Mr. Verrall; but he avoided a direct answer. “All that I borrow I shall return,” he said, “as soon as it is in my power to do so. It is not much: and it is given and received as a loan only. What do you think of Thomas?” he asked, willing to change the subject.

“I think——” Janet stopped. Her voice died away to a whisper, and finally ceased. They had taken the path home round by the ash-trees. The Dark Plain lay stretched before them in the moonlight. In the brightest night the gorse-bushes gave the place a shadowy, weird-like appearance, but never had the moonlight on the plain been clearer, whiter, brighter than it was now. And the Shadow?

The ominous Shadow of Ashlydyat lay there: the Shadow which had clung to the fortunes of the Godolphins, as tradition said, in past ages; which had certainly followed the present race. But the blackness that had characterized it was absent from it now: the Shadow was undoubtedly there, but had eyes been looking on it less accustomed to its form than were Miss Godolphin’s, they might have failed to make out distinctly its outlines. It was of a light, faint hue; more as the reflection of the Shadow, if it may be so expressed.

“George! do you notice?” she breathed.

“I see it,” he answered.

“But do you notice its peculiarity—its faint appearance? I should say—I should say that it is indeed going from us; that it must be about the last time it will follow the Godolphins. With the wresting from them of Ashlydyat the curse was to die out.”

She sat down on the bench under the ash-trees, and was speaking in low, dreamy tones: but George heard every word, and the topic was not particularly palatable to him. He could only remember that it was he and no other who had caused them to lose Ashlydyat.

“Your brother will not be here long,” murmured Janet. “That warning is for the last chief of the Godolphins.”

“Oh, Janet! I wish you were not so superstitious! Of course we know—it is patent to us all—that Thomas cannot last long: a few days, a few hours even, may close his life. Why should you connect with him that wretched Shadow?”

“I know what I know, and I have seen what I have seen,” was the reply of Janet, spoken slowly; nay, solemnly. “It is no wonder thatyouwish to ignore it, to affect to disbelieve in it; but you can do neither the one nor the other, George Godolphin.”

George gave no answering argument. It may be that he had felt he had forfeited the right to argue with Janet. She again broke the silence.

“I have watched and watched; but never once, since the day that those horrible misfortunes fell, has that Shadow appeared. I thought it had gone for good; I thought that our ruin, the passing of Ashlydyat into the possession of strangers, was the working out of the curse. But it seems it has come again; for the last time, as I believe. And it is only in accordance with the past, that the type of the curse should come to shadow forth the death of the last Godolphin.”

“You are complimentary to me, Janet,” cried George good-humouredly. “When poor Thomas shall have gone, I shall be here still, the last of the Godolphins.”

“You!” returned Janet, and her tone of scornful contempt, unconscious as she might herself be of it, brought a sting to George’s mind, a flush to his brow. “You might be worthy of the name of Godolphin once, laddie, but that’s over. The last true Godolphin dies out with Thomas.”

“How long are you going to sit here?” asked George, after a time, as she gave no signs of moving.

“You need not wait,” returned Janet. “I am at home now, as may be said. Don’t stay, George: I would rather you did not: your wife must be expecting you.”

Glad enough to be released, George went his way, and Janet sat on, alone. With that Shadow before her—though no longer a dark one—it was impossible but that her reflections should turn to the unhappy past: and she lost herself in perplexity.

A great deal of this story, The Shadow of Ashlydyat, is a perfectly true one; it is but the recital of a drama in real life. And the superstition that encompasses it? ten thousand inquisitive tongues will ask. Yes, and the superstition. There are things, as I have just said, which can neither be explained nor accounted for: they are marvels, mysteries, and so they must remain. Many a family has its supernatural skeleton, religiously believed in; many a house has its one dread corner which has never been fully unclosed to the light of day. Say what men will to the contrary, there is a tendency in the human mind to tread upon the confines of superstition. We cannot shut our eyes to things that occur within our view, although we may be, and always shall be, utterly unable to explain them; what they are, what they spring from, why they come. If I were to tell you that I believed there are such things as omens, warnings, which come to us—though seldom are they sufficiently marked at the time to be attended to—I should be called a visionary day-dreamer. I am nothing of the sort. I have my share of plain common sense. I pass my time in working, not in dreaming. I never had the gratification of seeing a ghost yet, and I wish I was as sure of the fruition of my dearest hopes, as I am that I never shall see one. I have not been taken into favour by the spirits, have never been promoted to so much as half a message from them—and never expect to be. But some curious incidents have forced themselves on my life’sexperience, causing me to echo as a question the assertion of the Prince of Denmark—Are there not more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in our philosophy?

Janet Godolphin rose with a deep sigh and her weight of care. She kept her head turned to the Shadow until she had passed from its view, and then continued her way to the house, murmuring: “It’s but a small misfortune; the Shadow is scarcely darker than the moonlight itself.”

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