Chapter Thirty Nine.

Chapter Thirty Nine.After a Lapse.“Why, my dear child, it is one of the commonest of things. I’ve known plenty of cases of this kind, and I daresay your father has.”Dinah looked at the Doctor wistfully, with her face growing old and careworn; but she said nothing, only turned to her father, as he took and held her hand.“Come, come, this will not do,” continued the Doctor. “I don’t want to have you upon my hands as a patient. Now, look here; I promise you that all will come right, and it is not the physic-monger speaking now, but your father’s friend.”The Major darted a grateful look at the speaker, while Dinah did not stir, but sat hardly hearing him, alone with her despair.“They do not know all,” she said to herself; “they do not know all.”“You see, my dear,” continued the Doctor, “he is rapidly mending, and he knows us all, and speaks sensibly; but he is not quitecompos mentisyet his brain had a nasty shock, from which it is recovering, but it must have time. You feel it bitterly, of course, but it is a natural, though only temporary, outcome of this ailment. Over and over again we doctors find that the one the invalid loves best—wife, mother, betrothed—is the one against whom he takes an unaccountable dislike, and in endless cases this is the one who has devoted herself to constant nursing. Ah, they re an ungrateful lot, patients, when they are a bit off their heads. I had one to whom I was administering nothing but beef tea, and water just flavoured with syrup of aurantia—orange and sugar, you know. Well, that ruffian swore that I was slowly poisoning him.”“But Reed has quite recovered his senses,” said the Major uneasily; “it is six weeks to-day since he turned like this.”“He has not quite recovered his senses, or he would be upon his knees, asking pardon of an angel, sir. No, my dear, I’m not flattering you, for if ever woman displayed devotion and love for sinful man, you have done so for my boy Clive. Come, promise me that you will try and hold up, for your father’s sake. Yes, and Clive’s. He is rapidly growing stronger, but he wants your help to console him for his losses. That is what we want to get off his brain. Once he can bear that philosophically all will be well.”The Doctor’s long speeches were cut short by a visitor in the shape of Wrigley, who was shown in by Martha, Dinah at the same moment escaping to her room, where, on approaching the window, she became aware of the fact that Jessop had accompanied the visitor. He was waiting at the bottom of the garden down by the river, and she shrank away in horror and dread as she trembled lest Clive should see him and it might bring on a fresh attack.For a few moments she thought of going to Clive’s room and telling him. But the dread of meeting his cruel searching eyes, and experiencing another of those shrinking looks of horror and disgust, kept her away, and she sank wearily into a chair, shivering, and with the feeling of utter despair growing upon her more and more.Meanwhile a scene was taking place in the little dining-room below, where the Major had made a sign toward a chair.“Thank you,” said Wrigley. “I will not detain you long.”“What is it, sir? Sturgess worse?” said the Doctor.“Oh, no! The fellow is, thanks to you, Doctor, growing stronger and more impudent every day. The fact is, gentlemen, I have come over to see Mr Clive Reed. His brother is waiting down by the river. He would not come in, as they are not on good terms.”The Major frowned.“As I am Mr Clive Reed’s doctor, sir, I have a right to ask you what you want with him.”“Simple matter of business, sir. I want him to come over and inspect the mine.”“Not fit, sir. Too weak,” said the Doctor sternly. “Bless my soul! my dear boy, are you mad?”“I hope not, Doctor,” said Clive, as he entered the room, looking very white, but quite able to dispense with the stick he held in his hand.“Glad to see you about again, Mr Reed,” said Wrigley at once, and he held out his hand; but it was not taken. “Mr Reed, I have come on behalf of the shareholders in the ‘White Virgin’ mine.”“Including yourself, sir, and Mr Jessop Reed?” said Clive coldly.“Of course,” said Wrigley, with an assumption of frankness. “We stand to be heavy losers over the mine if the lost lode is not discovered. But perhaps you don’t know that the rich vein has ended suddenly?”“I know everything in connection with the mine, sir,” said Clive, as the Doctor watched him anxiously; but to his intense gratification saw nothing to cause him uneasiness.“That’s well, sir. Then I will be quite plain with you, and ask you to let bygones be bygones, for I am sure that you, as an English gentleman, and one of our principal shareholders, wish for nothing but what is fair and right by all concerned.”He ceased and waited for Clive to speak, but the engineer remained silent, and Wrigley went on—“I should tell you, sir, that our foreman, Sturgess, has made the most careful investigations, both before his illness and since. He is hardly fit to be about.”“Not fit,” said the Doctor.“Exactly, sir; but he has insisted upon going down the mine during the past four days, and testing in different directions. Then, too, we have had the advice of an eminent mining engineer, Mr Benson, and unfortunately both give a decidedly adverse report. Well, sir, this is bad, but for my part I have great faith in your knowledge.”“Which you showed, sir, by scheming with my brother to get me ousted from the post!”“An error in judgment, Mr Reed, due to an eager desire to make money. I made the mistake of choosing the wrong brother. I apologise, and you know that I have suffered for my blunder. But let us repair all the past for the sake of everybody concerned. Mr Clive Reed, in perfect faith that you will restore the ‘White Virgin’ to her former prosperity, I, as a very large holder of shares, ask you to resume your position as manager and engineer. Tell me that you will do this, and I will at once go back to town, call an extraordinary meeting, and get your reappointment endorsed.”A slight flush came into Clive’s pale cheeks as he sat listening to Wrigley’s words, and the latter took hope therefrom.“I see that you feel that there is hope for the mine, sir,” he said eagerly; “and that you will sink the past and join us in working heart and soul for every one’s benefit.”The Major looked curiously at Clive, whom the excitement of the interview seemed to be rousing from his despondent state, but drawing himself up, the latter said quietly—“I am sorry, of course, sir, for the innocent shareholders in the mine, but the interim dividends that they have received prevent them from being heavy losers. As to the speculators, they must thank fate that their losses are not greater.”“Yes, yes, of course, Mr Reed, but you will soon set all that right. Take a month at sea, sir, at the company’s expense, and come back strong as a lion, ready to go to work again, and make the ‘White Virgin’ richer than ever.”“No, sir,” said Clive coldly. “I lose more heavily than any one, and I am prepared to stand by my losses.”“Yes, yes, but you will soon recoup—there will be no losses. I know that you must naturally feel a jealousy of my friend, Jessop Reed.”Clive’s face darkened.“But he shall not be in your way, my dear sir. You can take it for granted that he will in future have no part in the management. You shall stand at the head, and your judgments shall be unquestioned.”“I thank you, sir, for this great display of confidence,” said Clive coldly; “but I have ceased to take any interest in the mine—I may say in anything whatever in life. No, sir, I will have no dealings whatever with you and your partner in the cowardly scheme by which I was overthrown. I can only thank you for arranging that this collapse should not occur during my management. All right, Doctor; I have done. I am not going to be excited, and this interview is at an end.”“Yes, this one,” said Wrigley, rising. “You are still weak, Mr Reed, and I will not bother you more to-day. I shall stay at the mine, and be happy to run over on receiving a message, for that you will come round to my wishes I am convinced. Good morning, gentlemen, and I should advise you both to invest heavily in the mine shares, for this second panic has sent them down almost to zero.”He smiled pleasantly and went out to join Jessop, who was waiting impatiently, but with his eyes fixed upon Dinah’s open window all the time.“A smooth, deceitful scoundrel!” said Clive contemptuously, and he held out a hand to the Doctor, who laid a finger upon his pulse. “Quite calm, Doctor,” he continued. “Yes, I’m about well now. I only want rest and peace. As soon as you will let me, I will go right away. On the Continent, I think.”“Yes; do you a great deal of good, my dear boy,” said the Major. “We must have a change too. Poor Dinah is very pale.”Clive was silent for a few moments, and then said coldly—“Yes, Miss Gurdon looks very white. I am most grateful to you, Major Gurdon, for the care and attention I have received in this house.”“Then prove it, sir,” said the Major sternly.“I will,” said Clive, with not a muscle moving. “I will do so by releasing your daughter from an engagement which has become irksome and painful to her.”“What!”“From any ties which held her to a kind of bankrupt—to a man broken in health, pocket, and his belief in human nature.”“Mr Clive Reed,” began the Major haughtily. “No: Clive, my dear boy, you are sick and look at things from a jaundiced point of view. Don’t talk nonsense. You will think differently in a week.”“Never,” said Clive firmly. “All that, sir, is at an end.”“And pray why?” cried the Major. “When that attachment sprang up we believed you to be a poor man. Do you suppose Dinah’s love for you came from the idea that you were well-to-do?”“We will not argue that, sir. Your daughter wishes the engagement to be broken off.”“Indeed! I’ll soon prove that to be false,” cried the Major, springing up.“No, sir,” cried the Doctor; “there has been enough for one day.”But he was too late, for the Major had flung open the door, called “Dinah,” loudly, and her foot was already upon the stairs.“You want me, father?” she said as she entered, looking wan and thin, but perfectly quiet and self-contained.“Yes, my child,” cried the Major, taking her hand. “Our patient is better, and wants to go away for a change.”“Yes, father dear,” she said, without glancing at Clive, who kept his eyes averted; “it would be better as soon as he can bear a journey.”“But he says that you wish the engagement to be at an end.”She bowed her head.“Yes, dear,” she said gently, “it is better so.”“For the present,” cried the Doctor quickly.“For the present that lasts till death,” said Clive sternly.And Dinah in acquiescence bowed her head without uttering sob or sigh, but to herself—“It is the end.”

“Why, my dear child, it is one of the commonest of things. I’ve known plenty of cases of this kind, and I daresay your father has.”

Dinah looked at the Doctor wistfully, with her face growing old and careworn; but she said nothing, only turned to her father, as he took and held her hand.

“Come, come, this will not do,” continued the Doctor. “I don’t want to have you upon my hands as a patient. Now, look here; I promise you that all will come right, and it is not the physic-monger speaking now, but your father’s friend.”

The Major darted a grateful look at the speaker, while Dinah did not stir, but sat hardly hearing him, alone with her despair.

“They do not know all,” she said to herself; “they do not know all.”

“You see, my dear,” continued the Doctor, “he is rapidly mending, and he knows us all, and speaks sensibly; but he is not quitecompos mentisyet his brain had a nasty shock, from which it is recovering, but it must have time. You feel it bitterly, of course, but it is a natural, though only temporary, outcome of this ailment. Over and over again we doctors find that the one the invalid loves best—wife, mother, betrothed—is the one against whom he takes an unaccountable dislike, and in endless cases this is the one who has devoted herself to constant nursing. Ah, they re an ungrateful lot, patients, when they are a bit off their heads. I had one to whom I was administering nothing but beef tea, and water just flavoured with syrup of aurantia—orange and sugar, you know. Well, that ruffian swore that I was slowly poisoning him.”

“But Reed has quite recovered his senses,” said the Major uneasily; “it is six weeks to-day since he turned like this.”

“He has not quite recovered his senses, or he would be upon his knees, asking pardon of an angel, sir. No, my dear, I’m not flattering you, for if ever woman displayed devotion and love for sinful man, you have done so for my boy Clive. Come, promise me that you will try and hold up, for your father’s sake. Yes, and Clive’s. He is rapidly growing stronger, but he wants your help to console him for his losses. That is what we want to get off his brain. Once he can bear that philosophically all will be well.”

The Doctor’s long speeches were cut short by a visitor in the shape of Wrigley, who was shown in by Martha, Dinah at the same moment escaping to her room, where, on approaching the window, she became aware of the fact that Jessop had accompanied the visitor. He was waiting at the bottom of the garden down by the river, and she shrank away in horror and dread as she trembled lest Clive should see him and it might bring on a fresh attack.

For a few moments she thought of going to Clive’s room and telling him. But the dread of meeting his cruel searching eyes, and experiencing another of those shrinking looks of horror and disgust, kept her away, and she sank wearily into a chair, shivering, and with the feeling of utter despair growing upon her more and more.

Meanwhile a scene was taking place in the little dining-room below, where the Major had made a sign toward a chair.

“Thank you,” said Wrigley. “I will not detain you long.”

“What is it, sir? Sturgess worse?” said the Doctor.

“Oh, no! The fellow is, thanks to you, Doctor, growing stronger and more impudent every day. The fact is, gentlemen, I have come over to see Mr Clive Reed. His brother is waiting down by the river. He would not come in, as they are not on good terms.”

The Major frowned.

“As I am Mr Clive Reed’s doctor, sir, I have a right to ask you what you want with him.”

“Simple matter of business, sir. I want him to come over and inspect the mine.”

“Not fit, sir. Too weak,” said the Doctor sternly. “Bless my soul! my dear boy, are you mad?”

“I hope not, Doctor,” said Clive, as he entered the room, looking very white, but quite able to dispense with the stick he held in his hand.

“Glad to see you about again, Mr Reed,” said Wrigley at once, and he held out his hand; but it was not taken. “Mr Reed, I have come on behalf of the shareholders in the ‘White Virgin’ mine.”

“Including yourself, sir, and Mr Jessop Reed?” said Clive coldly.

“Of course,” said Wrigley, with an assumption of frankness. “We stand to be heavy losers over the mine if the lost lode is not discovered. But perhaps you don’t know that the rich vein has ended suddenly?”

“I know everything in connection with the mine, sir,” said Clive, as the Doctor watched him anxiously; but to his intense gratification saw nothing to cause him uneasiness.

“That’s well, sir. Then I will be quite plain with you, and ask you to let bygones be bygones, for I am sure that you, as an English gentleman, and one of our principal shareholders, wish for nothing but what is fair and right by all concerned.”

He ceased and waited for Clive to speak, but the engineer remained silent, and Wrigley went on—

“I should tell you, sir, that our foreman, Sturgess, has made the most careful investigations, both before his illness and since. He is hardly fit to be about.”

“Not fit,” said the Doctor.

“Exactly, sir; but he has insisted upon going down the mine during the past four days, and testing in different directions. Then, too, we have had the advice of an eminent mining engineer, Mr Benson, and unfortunately both give a decidedly adverse report. Well, sir, this is bad, but for my part I have great faith in your knowledge.”

“Which you showed, sir, by scheming with my brother to get me ousted from the post!”

“An error in judgment, Mr Reed, due to an eager desire to make money. I made the mistake of choosing the wrong brother. I apologise, and you know that I have suffered for my blunder. But let us repair all the past for the sake of everybody concerned. Mr Clive Reed, in perfect faith that you will restore the ‘White Virgin’ to her former prosperity, I, as a very large holder of shares, ask you to resume your position as manager and engineer. Tell me that you will do this, and I will at once go back to town, call an extraordinary meeting, and get your reappointment endorsed.”

A slight flush came into Clive’s pale cheeks as he sat listening to Wrigley’s words, and the latter took hope therefrom.

“I see that you feel that there is hope for the mine, sir,” he said eagerly; “and that you will sink the past and join us in working heart and soul for every one’s benefit.”

The Major looked curiously at Clive, whom the excitement of the interview seemed to be rousing from his despondent state, but drawing himself up, the latter said quietly—

“I am sorry, of course, sir, for the innocent shareholders in the mine, but the interim dividends that they have received prevent them from being heavy losers. As to the speculators, they must thank fate that their losses are not greater.”

“Yes, yes, of course, Mr Reed, but you will soon set all that right. Take a month at sea, sir, at the company’s expense, and come back strong as a lion, ready to go to work again, and make the ‘White Virgin’ richer than ever.”

“No, sir,” said Clive coldly. “I lose more heavily than any one, and I am prepared to stand by my losses.”

“Yes, yes, but you will soon recoup—there will be no losses. I know that you must naturally feel a jealousy of my friend, Jessop Reed.”

Clive’s face darkened.

“But he shall not be in your way, my dear sir. You can take it for granted that he will in future have no part in the management. You shall stand at the head, and your judgments shall be unquestioned.”

“I thank you, sir, for this great display of confidence,” said Clive coldly; “but I have ceased to take any interest in the mine—I may say in anything whatever in life. No, sir, I will have no dealings whatever with you and your partner in the cowardly scheme by which I was overthrown. I can only thank you for arranging that this collapse should not occur during my management. All right, Doctor; I have done. I am not going to be excited, and this interview is at an end.”

“Yes, this one,” said Wrigley, rising. “You are still weak, Mr Reed, and I will not bother you more to-day. I shall stay at the mine, and be happy to run over on receiving a message, for that you will come round to my wishes I am convinced. Good morning, gentlemen, and I should advise you both to invest heavily in the mine shares, for this second panic has sent them down almost to zero.”

He smiled pleasantly and went out to join Jessop, who was waiting impatiently, but with his eyes fixed upon Dinah’s open window all the time.

“A smooth, deceitful scoundrel!” said Clive contemptuously, and he held out a hand to the Doctor, who laid a finger upon his pulse. “Quite calm, Doctor,” he continued. “Yes, I’m about well now. I only want rest and peace. As soon as you will let me, I will go right away. On the Continent, I think.”

“Yes; do you a great deal of good, my dear boy,” said the Major. “We must have a change too. Poor Dinah is very pale.”

Clive was silent for a few moments, and then said coldly—

“Yes, Miss Gurdon looks very white. I am most grateful to you, Major Gurdon, for the care and attention I have received in this house.”

“Then prove it, sir,” said the Major sternly.

“I will,” said Clive, with not a muscle moving. “I will do so by releasing your daughter from an engagement which has become irksome and painful to her.”

“What!”

“From any ties which held her to a kind of bankrupt—to a man broken in health, pocket, and his belief in human nature.”

“Mr Clive Reed,” began the Major haughtily. “No: Clive, my dear boy, you are sick and look at things from a jaundiced point of view. Don’t talk nonsense. You will think differently in a week.”

“Never,” said Clive firmly. “All that, sir, is at an end.”

“And pray why?” cried the Major. “When that attachment sprang up we believed you to be a poor man. Do you suppose Dinah’s love for you came from the idea that you were well-to-do?”

“We will not argue that, sir. Your daughter wishes the engagement to be broken off.”

“Indeed! I’ll soon prove that to be false,” cried the Major, springing up.

“No, sir,” cried the Doctor; “there has been enough for one day.”

But he was too late, for the Major had flung open the door, called “Dinah,” loudly, and her foot was already upon the stairs.

“You want me, father?” she said as she entered, looking wan and thin, but perfectly quiet and self-contained.

“Yes, my child,” cried the Major, taking her hand. “Our patient is better, and wants to go away for a change.”

“Yes, father dear,” she said, without glancing at Clive, who kept his eyes averted; “it would be better as soon as he can bear a journey.”

“But he says that you wish the engagement to be at an end.”

She bowed her head.

“Yes, dear,” she said gently, “it is better so.”

“For the present,” cried the Doctor quickly.

“For the present that lasts till death,” said Clive sternly.

And Dinah in acquiescence bowed her head without uttering sob or sigh, but to herself—

“It is the end.”

Chapter Forty.The Telegram.“Go on, Doctor, say what you like. I cannot defend myself.”“I will go on, sir; I will say what I like, and I will risk its hurting you, for I feel towards you as a father, and it maddens me to see my old friend Grantham’s son behaving like a scoundrel towards as sweet and lovable a girl as ever lived.”Clive drew a deep breath as they walked slowly along the shelf path towards the mine.“Yes, sir, you may well shrink. I brought you out here for a walk to make you wince. I can talk to you, and say what I like out here without expecting the poor girl and her father to come back and interrupt. Look here, Clive; I’m a cleverish sort of old fellow in my way, and experience has put me up to a good many wrinkles in the treatment of disease, but I tell you frankly it was not I, but Dinah Gurdon, who saved your life by her nursing.”“I suppose so,” said Clive, with a sigh.“Then why the deuce, sir, do you go on like this and break the poor girl’s heart?”“I cannot explain matters,” said Clive sadly. “You saw for yourself that Miss Gurdon accepted the position.”“Of course she did, sir; so would any girl of spirit if she found a man playing fast and loose with her. Now look here, Clive, my boy, surely you are not throwing her over because you have lost all this money? Hang it, man! she would be just as happy if you hadn’t a penny. Now, then, out with it; was it because of the money?”“The money! Absurd!” cried Clive, with an angry gesture.“Then it must be due to some silly love quarrel. Look here, Clive, my boy, for your honour and your father’s honour, I’m going to take you back to the cottage, and when they return this evening, you will have to show them by your apology that if there is a scoundrel in the Reed family his name is not Clive. What do you say to that?”“Impossible, sir. Doctor, you do not know, and I cannot tell you, the reasons why I act as I do.”“You’re mad; that’s what’s the matter with you.”“I wish your words were true, sir,” said Clive despondently, and stretching out his hand, he rested against the rock, and then let himself down to sit upon a rough stone. “I’m very weak, I find,” he continued apologetically; and then he shuddered as he noted that they were in the spot where Dinah had turned upon him and handed him the paper which he struck from her hand.“Yes, my boy, you are weak, and I oughtn’t to press you; but I cannot stand it. Come, be frank to me. What have you done to make that poor girl throw you over?”“I? nothing,” said Clive sternly.“What! then you accuse her? Hang it, I won’t believe a word of it, sir. That girl could no more do anything to justify your conduct than an angel could out of heaven. Look here, sir, I constitute myself her champion.—What’s that noise?”“I don’t know. I heard it twice before. Some shepherd calling his sheep, I suppose.”The Doctor looked up at the bold precipitous bulwark of rock above their heads, and then downward toward the far-stretching vale below the shelf-like path, where a flock of sheep dotting the bottom by the river, endorsed the suggestion that the sound might be a call.“Never mind that,” said the Doctor. “Come, I say that Dinah has given you no reason for behaving as you have.”“Doctor, I resent all this,” cried Clive angrily. “I make no charge against Miss Gurdon, and I tell you that you have no right to attack me as you do. A man is helpless in such a case. Hush! No more.—Major Gurdon.”For the old officer came round an angle of the steeply-scarped rock above them, walking fast, and descended agilely to where they stood.“You here, gentlemen?” he said; “have you seen my daughter?”“No, but we have been no farther than this,” said the Doctor.“I’m growing uneasy about her,” said the Major; and a curious sensation of mingled dread and jealousy attacked Clive.“Did she go out—come this way?” said the Doctor.“Yes. Martha told me she struck off over the mountain in this direction.”He looked sharply about him, but the path curved suddenly before toward the mine, and backward in the direction of the river, forming out there a natural terrace in the huge rampart of limestone.“Perhaps you have missed her,” said the Doctor. “She may have returned home another way, without she has gone on toward the mine.”A spasm shot through Clive, who stood up firmly now, nerved by the bitter thoughts which suggested to his jealous mind Dinah seeking his brother once more.“She would not go there,” cried the Major angrily. “Ah, what’s that?”For at that moment the cry they had before heard came faintly to their ears.The Major stepped quickly to the edge of the path, protected only by a rough parapet of loose stones, looked over, and then, leaping back, threw off his coat, leaped over the rough protection, and began to lower himself down the steep precipice.For a moment or two Clive could not stir; then, weak, trembling, and with his mouth hot and dry, he walked to the edge, and looked down to see, quite two hundred feet below, a portion of a woman’s dress, and directly after, as she clung there desperately, Dinah Gurdons white upturned face; and he knew now whence came the wailing sound.“Clive! what are you going to do?”“Get down to help,” he said hoarsely.“Madness! You have no strength. You could not hold on for a minute.”Clive groaned, for even as he stood there a sensation of faintness came over him, to teach him that he was helpless as an infant.“Good heavens! what a place!” cried the Doctor. “I cannot—I dare not go down. It would be madness at my age.”Then he stood speechless as his companion; and they craned over, and watched the Major, active still as a young man from his mountain life, descending quickly from block to block, making use of the rough growth of heather for hand hold, and now quite fifty feet below where they knelt, while the look of agony in Dinah’s eyes as she clung there, apparently unnerved and helpless, was as plain through the clear air as if she were close at hand.“Your work, Clive,” cried the Doctor furiously, but in a low whisper. “The poor girl in her misery and despair has thrown herself over, and lodged where she is. Thank God, I am down here. I can be of use when we get her home. If we get her home alive,” he added to himself.Clive made no reply, but knelt down panting and enraged against the weakness which kept him there supine, when, in spite of all, he would have given a dozen years of his life to have been able to descend and bear the poor girl up to a place of safety.But he could only gaze down giddily with heart beating as he watched the Major slowly and carefully descending, now making good progress, now slipping or sending down a loose stone. Once they saw him hanging only by his hands, again losing his footing and seeming to be gone. The next minute, though, he was still descending, and in the silence of the mountain side, they could hear his words, short, sharp, and decisive, as he called to his child, bidding her be of good heart, for he would be with her directly; and that she would be safe.Then, to Clive’s horror and despair, he saw the starting eyes which had looked up so wildly, gradually close, and the sun gleamed on them no more. He knew only too well what it meant; that Dinah was turning faint and weak; and once more unable to bear the agony, he made a rapid movement to descend.“Madman!” cried the Doctor, and he flung himself upon Clive, mastering him directly, for the sudden strength flickered away at once. “Don’t you see,” he panted, “you cannot do it, and your fall would be destruction to them both. Keep still and silent. The Major will reach her directly. Yes: look: he is as active as a goat. Ah! great God! No: saved—he has her!”The Doctor shrank away unable to bear it, for as they stared below with dilated eyes they saw Dinah begin to glide downward just as her father was steadying himself, holding on by one hand to a tough root. Then he seemed to make a dart with the other, and his child suddenly became stationary while he shifted his position, got his feet against a piece of rock, and they saw him draw her up to his side and hold her there.The rest of that scene was dreamlike to Clive, as he lay with his breast over the edge looking down, till nerved and urged on by her father’s strong will, Dinah seemed to recover, and began to climb up under his directions and with his help, step by step, and inch by inch, till at last she was so close that Clive stretched out his hands to help her, while the Major supported her from below. But their eyes met, and she did not touch those hands, but gave her wet and bleeding fingers to the Doctor, who drew her into safety on the path, where she rose now to stand shivering while the Major sprang to her side.“I did not think I could have done it,” he panted. “Oh, Dinah, my child, don’t say you threw yourself down there.”“No,” she said, giving him a piteous look, and then turning slowly to face Clive. “I went down to fetch this—to give to Clive Reed before he left us for ever. I thought it must be there.”She took from her breast, where it had evidently been thrust, a stained scrap of reddish paper, made more ruddy where she held it, for her fingers bled freely.“A telegram,” cried the Doctor.“Yes. Take it, Clive,” said Dinah slowly, but evidently rapidly recovering her strength. “It is the message I received from you that day.”“I sent no message,” he cried, as he hastily read the stained slip, and caught the words “come”—“meet me”—some figures “P.M.,” and his name in full—“Clive Reed.”“A forgery!” he cried wildly, as the truth flashed upon him. “There is no postal mark upon it. I did not send this lie.”“No?” said Dinah faintly, as the look of despair grew more marked in her eyes. “I have thought since that I had been deceived, but I felt that I would sooner die than you should not know the truth.” Then she turned pale and shrank to her father’s side, as a spasm of rage shot through Clive Reed.“Jessop again!” he whispered hoarsely to the Doctor; and his fingers crooked, and he held out his hands as if about to spring at another’s throat. Then he reeled, but recovered himself with an exultant cry, for a voice came loudly to their ears from round the buttress toward the mine.“Curse you! I will. The police shall stop that.”“No; you don’t get away,” cried another voice; and Dinah turned of a sickly white. “Stop, you! and let’s have it out, or I’ll heave you down below. Blast you! I tell you she was my lass—before you and your cursed brother came in the way. Mine, I tell you.—Ah! just in time!”Sturgess uttered a savage laugh, and he stopped short facing the little group upon the shelf, and holding on by Jessop’s collar, in spite of the latter’s struggles to get free.“Look here, all of you. This man, my servant—you are witnesses—he has threatened my life. I go in fear of him. I’ll have him in charge. I go in fear, I tell you.”“Yes, so much,” cried Sturgess, with a mocking laugh, “that he was off down again to the cottage to see pretty little Miss Gurdon here, only I stopped him, for I’ve had enough of it. Master or no, he don’t go poaching on my estate. I’d sooner break his cursed neck.”“Silence, sir!” roared the Major.“Silence yourself!” cried Sturgess savagely. “Who are you?”“The father of the lady you insulted, and but for her sake you would have been sent to gaol.”“For courting a pretty girl,” cried Sturgess, with a mocking laugh. “But I’ll have no more of it. Do you hear, both of you—you too, Clive Reed? You call yourselves my masters. I’m yours. Keep off, both of you, if you value your necks. I tell you she’s my girl—my lass—my very own to marry or leave as I please.”Dinah uttered a piteous moan, and turned her agonised face to Clive, who stood there with jaw dropped and the paper trembling in his hand.“Yes. You see. She don’t deny it.”“Dinah!” cried Clive wildly, and there was so agonising an appeal in his voice, that his cry thrilled her, and sent the blood flushing into her pale cheeks, as she now stood up unsupported.“Yes, all of you; it’s all right. I used to meet her on the hill side, and we used to go courting among the heather before these white-faced hounds came down. She don’t deny it. She daren’t. Dinah, my lass, come here.”Clive made a movement to fling himself upon the ruffian, but the Doctor passed a hand across his chest.“Too weak, boy,” he whispered. “Give the scoundrel rope.”“I do deny it,” said Dinah at last, as she drew herself up, a true woman now, her honour at stake, and all listening for her refutation of her pursuer’s words.“There, what’s the good of lying, little one,” cried Sturgess, with a mocking laugh. “It’s all nature, and there’s nothing to be ashamed of in a strong man’s love.”“I do deny it,” said Dinah again, more firmly now. “Father, dear—Clive Reed—this man lies. It is not true.”“What!” cried Sturgess. “There, what’s the good of hiding it all, pussy? I’m an honest man, and I love you. I’ll marry you to-morrow if you like.”“Must I speak again?” said Dinah proudly, as she looked round, letting her eyes rest last on Clive’s deadly white face; and then she uttered a gasp, for she saw his cheeks flush, and his eyes brighten, as they met hers, for she knew that she was believed. “It is an insult, father, and a lie.”“What!” cried Sturgess, as the Major caught her to his breast; “didn’t you meet me that afternoon yonder, and go with me down the mine gap? Before there was any one there but me, gentlemen all.”“Yes—wretch!” cried Dinah fiercely, “coward! You did pursue me down there; I, a poor defenceless girl—you, a strong, savage man. I must speak now, father, Clive; God, who is my judge, hear me too. Faint and exhausted, he seized me at last, and I was at his mercy, till my poor old faithful Rollo came and set me free.”“Yah, nonsense!” cried Sturgess triumphantly. “Perhaps you will say I did not come to your window night after night. What about that time when your father had gone up to town?”“The wound upon your shoulder is my answer, my witness to the truth. Father, my only protector lay helpless in a drugged sleep. Poor Rollo was poisoned by this miscreant’s hand. I was alone, and at his mercy, till I fired!”“What, this?” cried Sturgess mockingly; “this was a fall.”“Yes,” said the Doctor, “when the shot had entered in. Major, it was a gun-shot wound, and the marks of the dog’s teeth are in his leg. I’ll swear to that.”“Liar and hound,” cried the Major, dashing at him, but he was too late, for, nerving himself for one blow, Clive Reed threw himself upon the ruffian, and the next moment he lay quivering on the ground, with the young man’s foot upon his chest.“Dinah, my child,” cried the Major reproachfully, “why was I not told all this?”“Because I was a woman, and shame closed my lips,” she said softly. “Take me home, father. Silence has been my only sin.”“One word before you rise, my good fellow,” said Doctor Praed, as he drew his patient from where Sturgess lay; “whether the law deals with you or no is not my affair; but I, as a doctor, tell you this: mad or only enraged there’s sometimes a deadly poison in the tooth of a dog. You have had a long taste of delirium from that gun-shot wound. Mind what you’re about, or I wouldn’t give sixpence for your life; and if you’re bad again you may die before I’ll run a step to save you. Here, Jessop. Those of a feather flock together; take this bird of prey back to his cage. You’re not wanted here.”He stood watching as Sturgess rose and staggered away like a drunken man, while Jessop, after a vain effort to speak, walked rapidly off in turn.Then the Doctor turned to where the Major stood with Dinah in his arms, her face buried in his breast.“You will not fear to be alone, Major?” he said quietly.“Afraid, sir,” said the Major, with an angry look. “No.”“Then I will leave you now, and take my patient back to town. Good day, my dear sir, and God bless you. I must come and see you again. Dinah, an old man wants to say good-bye.”She turned her wild eyes to his, and his look was sufficient. She left her father and the next moment rested in his arms.“Good-bye, and I need not say God bless you, my darling,” said the Doctor, with his voice quivering a little. “There,au revoir. Clive will ask your pardon another time. Not now.”The next morning Clive Reed had to be helped up the steps into Doctor Praed’s house in Russell Square, a relapse having prostrated him; and by the time he was about again the ‘White Virgin’ mine was a solitude once more. It was waiting for orders to go forth about the sale of the valuable engines and other machinery, Robson now having the property in charge, and going over four or five times a week to see that the place was uninjured, though the weather had already begun to make its mark.One day he met the Major, and was ready enough to become communicative, and tell how Sturgess had been taken bad the day he returned to the mine, and how he had been fetched at last by friends who came all the way from Cornwall.“Death’s mark was on him, safe enough, sir. I shouldn’t be at all surprised to hear that he had gone.”“And those gentlemen?” said the Major, clearing his throat, and speaking still huskily, for he did not like his task.“Mr Jessop Reed and Mr Wrigley, sir? Oh, they haven’t been down again. Don’t suppose they will come, for the poor mine’s played out.”Two months more had passed away before Clive Reed visited those parts again. He was thin and worn, but there was a bright look in his eyes, as he breasted the hills from Blinkdale and plunged down into the deep, chasm-like vales. For he knew that the past, with its cruel doubting, was forgiven, and that the woman he loved more than life was ready to take him to her breast.It was down the deep valley by the side of the rushing river that Dinah did take him to her throbbing heart, and hold him as tightly as his arms grasped her; for in that solitary place, where the glancing sunbeams shot from the silver river, there were only the trout to tell tales, and the tales they told never reached the air.She had gone to meet him, and when they had sauntered on another half mile there was the Major whipping a dark pool under the shadow of the rocks.“Ah, Clive, my boy,” he cried, winding in his line and speaking as if they had only parted the previous day, after a glance at Dinah’s eyes where the love-light burned brightly. “Glad to see you down again. Why didn’t you bring the Doctor?”“He is rather in trouble about his daughter?”“Ill?”“Well, mentally more than bodily, sir. She is back home, and he will hardly leave her for a moment.”“Home, eh? And her husband?”“He is in New Zealand, and not likely to return.”“So much the better for old England, my boy. Come along, you must be like me, hungry.”They walked through the old wild garden, which looked more beautiful than ever; and Martha was ready to smile a welcome; while to Clive, as he let himself sink back in his old seat, it was as if he had at last found rest.It was during a walk next morning with the Major, who took Clive round by the ‘White Virgin’ mine, that the old officer suddenly turned to him and said—“Clive, my lad, the machinery here is to be sold next week.”“I know it,” said the young man, frowning slightly.“You must buy it, and start afresh. I can’t have you turn rusty for want of work.”“No, sir, it is useless. The chances are too great against the old lode being found again.”“Not at all, boy; it is found close to the surface.”“What!” cried Clive excitedly. “Where?”“On the patch of old waste of limestone that I bought all those years ago, when, for a fault I never committed, I had to exile myself and come to live down here—to rot in despair, as I thought, but to find a lasting peace.”“Oh, impossible!” cried Clive. “Are you sure?”“As sure as a man can be who has dabbled over minerals for twenty years. There it is—a foot beneath the surface, and as rich as it was in the ‘White Virgin’ mine. The White Virgin—my dearest child—gives it to you as her dowry, the day you call her wife.”The Major held out his hands; and as they were taken a white dress was seen fluttering on the hill side a few hundred yards away, and the Major said softly—“She does not know it. I have left the news for you to tell. One moment: I have a stipulation to make.”“That you never leave us, sir.”“No; but you may throw that in, boy, and not rob me of all. Let the new vein still be called the ‘White Virgin’ mine.”

“Go on, Doctor, say what you like. I cannot defend myself.”

“I will go on, sir; I will say what I like, and I will risk its hurting you, for I feel towards you as a father, and it maddens me to see my old friend Grantham’s son behaving like a scoundrel towards as sweet and lovable a girl as ever lived.”

Clive drew a deep breath as they walked slowly along the shelf path towards the mine.

“Yes, sir, you may well shrink. I brought you out here for a walk to make you wince. I can talk to you, and say what I like out here without expecting the poor girl and her father to come back and interrupt. Look here, Clive; I’m a cleverish sort of old fellow in my way, and experience has put me up to a good many wrinkles in the treatment of disease, but I tell you frankly it was not I, but Dinah Gurdon, who saved your life by her nursing.”

“I suppose so,” said Clive, with a sigh.

“Then why the deuce, sir, do you go on like this and break the poor girl’s heart?”

“I cannot explain matters,” said Clive sadly. “You saw for yourself that Miss Gurdon accepted the position.”

“Of course she did, sir; so would any girl of spirit if she found a man playing fast and loose with her. Now look here, Clive, my boy, surely you are not throwing her over because you have lost all this money? Hang it, man! she would be just as happy if you hadn’t a penny. Now, then, out with it; was it because of the money?”

“The money! Absurd!” cried Clive, with an angry gesture.

“Then it must be due to some silly love quarrel. Look here, Clive, my boy, for your honour and your father’s honour, I’m going to take you back to the cottage, and when they return this evening, you will have to show them by your apology that if there is a scoundrel in the Reed family his name is not Clive. What do you say to that?”

“Impossible, sir. Doctor, you do not know, and I cannot tell you, the reasons why I act as I do.”

“You’re mad; that’s what’s the matter with you.”

“I wish your words were true, sir,” said Clive despondently, and stretching out his hand, he rested against the rock, and then let himself down to sit upon a rough stone. “I’m very weak, I find,” he continued apologetically; and then he shuddered as he noted that they were in the spot where Dinah had turned upon him and handed him the paper which he struck from her hand.

“Yes, my boy, you are weak, and I oughtn’t to press you; but I cannot stand it. Come, be frank to me. What have you done to make that poor girl throw you over?”

“I? nothing,” said Clive sternly.

“What! then you accuse her? Hang it, I won’t believe a word of it, sir. That girl could no more do anything to justify your conduct than an angel could out of heaven. Look here, sir, I constitute myself her champion.—What’s that noise?”

“I don’t know. I heard it twice before. Some shepherd calling his sheep, I suppose.”

The Doctor looked up at the bold precipitous bulwark of rock above their heads, and then downward toward the far-stretching vale below the shelf-like path, where a flock of sheep dotting the bottom by the river, endorsed the suggestion that the sound might be a call.

“Never mind that,” said the Doctor. “Come, I say that Dinah has given you no reason for behaving as you have.”

“Doctor, I resent all this,” cried Clive angrily. “I make no charge against Miss Gurdon, and I tell you that you have no right to attack me as you do. A man is helpless in such a case. Hush! No more.—Major Gurdon.”

For the old officer came round an angle of the steeply-scarped rock above them, walking fast, and descended agilely to where they stood.

“You here, gentlemen?” he said; “have you seen my daughter?”

“No, but we have been no farther than this,” said the Doctor.

“I’m growing uneasy about her,” said the Major; and a curious sensation of mingled dread and jealousy attacked Clive.

“Did she go out—come this way?” said the Doctor.

“Yes. Martha told me she struck off over the mountain in this direction.”

He looked sharply about him, but the path curved suddenly before toward the mine, and backward in the direction of the river, forming out there a natural terrace in the huge rampart of limestone.

“Perhaps you have missed her,” said the Doctor. “She may have returned home another way, without she has gone on toward the mine.”

A spasm shot through Clive, who stood up firmly now, nerved by the bitter thoughts which suggested to his jealous mind Dinah seeking his brother once more.

“She would not go there,” cried the Major angrily. “Ah, what’s that?”

For at that moment the cry they had before heard came faintly to their ears.

The Major stepped quickly to the edge of the path, protected only by a rough parapet of loose stones, looked over, and then, leaping back, threw off his coat, leaped over the rough protection, and began to lower himself down the steep precipice.

For a moment or two Clive could not stir; then, weak, trembling, and with his mouth hot and dry, he walked to the edge, and looked down to see, quite two hundred feet below, a portion of a woman’s dress, and directly after, as she clung there desperately, Dinah Gurdons white upturned face; and he knew now whence came the wailing sound.

“Clive! what are you going to do?”

“Get down to help,” he said hoarsely.

“Madness! You have no strength. You could not hold on for a minute.”

Clive groaned, for even as he stood there a sensation of faintness came over him, to teach him that he was helpless as an infant.

“Good heavens! what a place!” cried the Doctor. “I cannot—I dare not go down. It would be madness at my age.”

Then he stood speechless as his companion; and they craned over, and watched the Major, active still as a young man from his mountain life, descending quickly from block to block, making use of the rough growth of heather for hand hold, and now quite fifty feet below where they knelt, while the look of agony in Dinah’s eyes as she clung there, apparently unnerved and helpless, was as plain through the clear air as if she were close at hand.

“Your work, Clive,” cried the Doctor furiously, but in a low whisper. “The poor girl in her misery and despair has thrown herself over, and lodged where she is. Thank God, I am down here. I can be of use when we get her home. If we get her home alive,” he added to himself.

Clive made no reply, but knelt down panting and enraged against the weakness which kept him there supine, when, in spite of all, he would have given a dozen years of his life to have been able to descend and bear the poor girl up to a place of safety.

But he could only gaze down giddily with heart beating as he watched the Major slowly and carefully descending, now making good progress, now slipping or sending down a loose stone. Once they saw him hanging only by his hands, again losing his footing and seeming to be gone. The next minute, though, he was still descending, and in the silence of the mountain side, they could hear his words, short, sharp, and decisive, as he called to his child, bidding her be of good heart, for he would be with her directly; and that she would be safe.

Then, to Clive’s horror and despair, he saw the starting eyes which had looked up so wildly, gradually close, and the sun gleamed on them no more. He knew only too well what it meant; that Dinah was turning faint and weak; and once more unable to bear the agony, he made a rapid movement to descend.

“Madman!” cried the Doctor, and he flung himself upon Clive, mastering him directly, for the sudden strength flickered away at once. “Don’t you see,” he panted, “you cannot do it, and your fall would be destruction to them both. Keep still and silent. The Major will reach her directly. Yes: look: he is as active as a goat. Ah! great God! No: saved—he has her!”

The Doctor shrank away unable to bear it, for as they stared below with dilated eyes they saw Dinah begin to glide downward just as her father was steadying himself, holding on by one hand to a tough root. Then he seemed to make a dart with the other, and his child suddenly became stationary while he shifted his position, got his feet against a piece of rock, and they saw him draw her up to his side and hold her there.

The rest of that scene was dreamlike to Clive, as he lay with his breast over the edge looking down, till nerved and urged on by her father’s strong will, Dinah seemed to recover, and began to climb up under his directions and with his help, step by step, and inch by inch, till at last she was so close that Clive stretched out his hands to help her, while the Major supported her from below. But their eyes met, and she did not touch those hands, but gave her wet and bleeding fingers to the Doctor, who drew her into safety on the path, where she rose now to stand shivering while the Major sprang to her side.

“I did not think I could have done it,” he panted. “Oh, Dinah, my child, don’t say you threw yourself down there.”

“No,” she said, giving him a piteous look, and then turning slowly to face Clive. “I went down to fetch this—to give to Clive Reed before he left us for ever. I thought it must be there.”

She took from her breast, where it had evidently been thrust, a stained scrap of reddish paper, made more ruddy where she held it, for her fingers bled freely.

“A telegram,” cried the Doctor.

“Yes. Take it, Clive,” said Dinah slowly, but evidently rapidly recovering her strength. “It is the message I received from you that day.”

“I sent no message,” he cried, as he hastily read the stained slip, and caught the words “come”—“meet me”—some figures “P.M.,” and his name in full—“Clive Reed.”

“A forgery!” he cried wildly, as the truth flashed upon him. “There is no postal mark upon it. I did not send this lie.”

“No?” said Dinah faintly, as the look of despair grew more marked in her eyes. “I have thought since that I had been deceived, but I felt that I would sooner die than you should not know the truth.” Then she turned pale and shrank to her father’s side, as a spasm of rage shot through Clive Reed.

“Jessop again!” he whispered hoarsely to the Doctor; and his fingers crooked, and he held out his hands as if about to spring at another’s throat. Then he reeled, but recovered himself with an exultant cry, for a voice came loudly to their ears from round the buttress toward the mine.

“Curse you! I will. The police shall stop that.”

“No; you don’t get away,” cried another voice; and Dinah turned of a sickly white. “Stop, you! and let’s have it out, or I’ll heave you down below. Blast you! I tell you she was my lass—before you and your cursed brother came in the way. Mine, I tell you.—Ah! just in time!”

Sturgess uttered a savage laugh, and he stopped short facing the little group upon the shelf, and holding on by Jessop’s collar, in spite of the latter’s struggles to get free.

“Look here, all of you. This man, my servant—you are witnesses—he has threatened my life. I go in fear of him. I’ll have him in charge. I go in fear, I tell you.”

“Yes, so much,” cried Sturgess, with a mocking laugh, “that he was off down again to the cottage to see pretty little Miss Gurdon here, only I stopped him, for I’ve had enough of it. Master or no, he don’t go poaching on my estate. I’d sooner break his cursed neck.”

“Silence, sir!” roared the Major.

“Silence yourself!” cried Sturgess savagely. “Who are you?”

“The father of the lady you insulted, and but for her sake you would have been sent to gaol.”

“For courting a pretty girl,” cried Sturgess, with a mocking laugh. “But I’ll have no more of it. Do you hear, both of you—you too, Clive Reed? You call yourselves my masters. I’m yours. Keep off, both of you, if you value your necks. I tell you she’s my girl—my lass—my very own to marry or leave as I please.”

Dinah uttered a piteous moan, and turned her agonised face to Clive, who stood there with jaw dropped and the paper trembling in his hand.

“Yes. You see. She don’t deny it.”

“Dinah!” cried Clive wildly, and there was so agonising an appeal in his voice, that his cry thrilled her, and sent the blood flushing into her pale cheeks, as she now stood up unsupported.

“Yes, all of you; it’s all right. I used to meet her on the hill side, and we used to go courting among the heather before these white-faced hounds came down. She don’t deny it. She daren’t. Dinah, my lass, come here.”

Clive made a movement to fling himself upon the ruffian, but the Doctor passed a hand across his chest.

“Too weak, boy,” he whispered. “Give the scoundrel rope.”

“I do deny it,” said Dinah at last, as she drew herself up, a true woman now, her honour at stake, and all listening for her refutation of her pursuer’s words.

“There, what’s the good of lying, little one,” cried Sturgess, with a mocking laugh. “It’s all nature, and there’s nothing to be ashamed of in a strong man’s love.”

“I do deny it,” said Dinah again, more firmly now. “Father, dear—Clive Reed—this man lies. It is not true.”

“What!” cried Sturgess. “There, what’s the good of hiding it all, pussy? I’m an honest man, and I love you. I’ll marry you to-morrow if you like.”

“Must I speak again?” said Dinah proudly, as she looked round, letting her eyes rest last on Clive’s deadly white face; and then she uttered a gasp, for she saw his cheeks flush, and his eyes brighten, as they met hers, for she knew that she was believed. “It is an insult, father, and a lie.”

“What!” cried Sturgess, as the Major caught her to his breast; “didn’t you meet me that afternoon yonder, and go with me down the mine gap? Before there was any one there but me, gentlemen all.”

“Yes—wretch!” cried Dinah fiercely, “coward! You did pursue me down there; I, a poor defenceless girl—you, a strong, savage man. I must speak now, father, Clive; God, who is my judge, hear me too. Faint and exhausted, he seized me at last, and I was at his mercy, till my poor old faithful Rollo came and set me free.”

“Yah, nonsense!” cried Sturgess triumphantly. “Perhaps you will say I did not come to your window night after night. What about that time when your father had gone up to town?”

“The wound upon your shoulder is my answer, my witness to the truth. Father, my only protector lay helpless in a drugged sleep. Poor Rollo was poisoned by this miscreant’s hand. I was alone, and at his mercy, till I fired!”

“What, this?” cried Sturgess mockingly; “this was a fall.”

“Yes,” said the Doctor, “when the shot had entered in. Major, it was a gun-shot wound, and the marks of the dog’s teeth are in his leg. I’ll swear to that.”

“Liar and hound,” cried the Major, dashing at him, but he was too late, for, nerving himself for one blow, Clive Reed threw himself upon the ruffian, and the next moment he lay quivering on the ground, with the young man’s foot upon his chest.

“Dinah, my child,” cried the Major reproachfully, “why was I not told all this?”

“Because I was a woman, and shame closed my lips,” she said softly. “Take me home, father. Silence has been my only sin.”

“One word before you rise, my good fellow,” said Doctor Praed, as he drew his patient from where Sturgess lay; “whether the law deals with you or no is not my affair; but I, as a doctor, tell you this: mad or only enraged there’s sometimes a deadly poison in the tooth of a dog. You have had a long taste of delirium from that gun-shot wound. Mind what you’re about, or I wouldn’t give sixpence for your life; and if you’re bad again you may die before I’ll run a step to save you. Here, Jessop. Those of a feather flock together; take this bird of prey back to his cage. You’re not wanted here.”

He stood watching as Sturgess rose and staggered away like a drunken man, while Jessop, after a vain effort to speak, walked rapidly off in turn.

Then the Doctor turned to where the Major stood with Dinah in his arms, her face buried in his breast.

“You will not fear to be alone, Major?” he said quietly.

“Afraid, sir,” said the Major, with an angry look. “No.”

“Then I will leave you now, and take my patient back to town. Good day, my dear sir, and God bless you. I must come and see you again. Dinah, an old man wants to say good-bye.”

She turned her wild eyes to his, and his look was sufficient. She left her father and the next moment rested in his arms.

“Good-bye, and I need not say God bless you, my darling,” said the Doctor, with his voice quivering a little. “There,au revoir. Clive will ask your pardon another time. Not now.”

The next morning Clive Reed had to be helped up the steps into Doctor Praed’s house in Russell Square, a relapse having prostrated him; and by the time he was about again the ‘White Virgin’ mine was a solitude once more. It was waiting for orders to go forth about the sale of the valuable engines and other machinery, Robson now having the property in charge, and going over four or five times a week to see that the place was uninjured, though the weather had already begun to make its mark.

One day he met the Major, and was ready enough to become communicative, and tell how Sturgess had been taken bad the day he returned to the mine, and how he had been fetched at last by friends who came all the way from Cornwall.

“Death’s mark was on him, safe enough, sir. I shouldn’t be at all surprised to hear that he had gone.”

“And those gentlemen?” said the Major, clearing his throat, and speaking still huskily, for he did not like his task.

“Mr Jessop Reed and Mr Wrigley, sir? Oh, they haven’t been down again. Don’t suppose they will come, for the poor mine’s played out.”

Two months more had passed away before Clive Reed visited those parts again. He was thin and worn, but there was a bright look in his eyes, as he breasted the hills from Blinkdale and plunged down into the deep, chasm-like vales. For he knew that the past, with its cruel doubting, was forgiven, and that the woman he loved more than life was ready to take him to her breast.

It was down the deep valley by the side of the rushing river that Dinah did take him to her throbbing heart, and hold him as tightly as his arms grasped her; for in that solitary place, where the glancing sunbeams shot from the silver river, there were only the trout to tell tales, and the tales they told never reached the air.

She had gone to meet him, and when they had sauntered on another half mile there was the Major whipping a dark pool under the shadow of the rocks.

“Ah, Clive, my boy,” he cried, winding in his line and speaking as if they had only parted the previous day, after a glance at Dinah’s eyes where the love-light burned brightly. “Glad to see you down again. Why didn’t you bring the Doctor?”

“He is rather in trouble about his daughter?”

“Ill?”

“Well, mentally more than bodily, sir. She is back home, and he will hardly leave her for a moment.”

“Home, eh? And her husband?”

“He is in New Zealand, and not likely to return.”

“So much the better for old England, my boy. Come along, you must be like me, hungry.”

They walked through the old wild garden, which looked more beautiful than ever; and Martha was ready to smile a welcome; while to Clive, as he let himself sink back in his old seat, it was as if he had at last found rest.

It was during a walk next morning with the Major, who took Clive round by the ‘White Virgin’ mine, that the old officer suddenly turned to him and said—

“Clive, my lad, the machinery here is to be sold next week.”

“I know it,” said the young man, frowning slightly.

“You must buy it, and start afresh. I can’t have you turn rusty for want of work.”

“No, sir, it is useless. The chances are too great against the old lode being found again.”

“Not at all, boy; it is found close to the surface.”

“What!” cried Clive excitedly. “Where?”

“On the patch of old waste of limestone that I bought all those years ago, when, for a fault I never committed, I had to exile myself and come to live down here—to rot in despair, as I thought, but to find a lasting peace.”

“Oh, impossible!” cried Clive. “Are you sure?”

“As sure as a man can be who has dabbled over minerals for twenty years. There it is—a foot beneath the surface, and as rich as it was in the ‘White Virgin’ mine. The White Virgin—my dearest child—gives it to you as her dowry, the day you call her wife.”

The Major held out his hands; and as they were taken a white dress was seen fluttering on the hill side a few hundred yards away, and the Major said softly—

“She does not know it. I have left the news for you to tell. One moment: I have a stipulation to make.”

“That you never leave us, sir.”

“No; but you may throw that in, boy, and not rob me of all. Let the new vein still be called the ‘White Virgin’ mine.”

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