Volume Three—Chapter One.

Volume Three—Chapter One.After Twelve Years—Back from a Voyage.“Why, my dear Sir Gordon, I am glad to see you back again. You look brown and hearty, and not a day older.”“Don’t—don’t shake quite so hard, my dear Bayle. I like it, but it hurts. Little gouty in that hand, you see.”“Well, I’ll be careful. I am glad you came.”“That’s right, that’s right. Come down to my club and dine, and we’ll have a long talk; and—er—don’t take any notice of the jokes if you hear any.”“Jokes?”“Ye-es. The men have a way there—the old fellows—of calling me ‘Laurel,’ and ‘Yew,’ and the ‘Evergreen.’ You see, I look well and robust for my age.”“Not a bit, Sir Gordon. You certainly seem younger, though, than ever.”“So do you, Bayle; so do you. Why, you must be—”“Forty-two, Sir Gordon. Getting an old man, you see.”“Forty! Pooh! what’s that, Mr Bayle? Why, sir, I’m—Never mind. I’m not so young as I used to be. And so you think I look well, eh, Bayle?”“Indeed you do, Sir Gordon; remarkably well.”“Hah! That confounded Scott! Colonel Scott at the club set it about that I’d been away for two years so as to get myself cut down and have time to sprout up again, I looked so young. Bah, what does it matter? It’s the sea life, Bayle, keeps a man healthy and strong. I wish I could persuade you to come with me on one of my trips.”“No, no! Keep away with your temptations. Too busy.”“Nonsense, man! Fellow with your income grinding day after day as you do. But how young you do look! How is Mrs Hallam?”“Remarkably well. I saw her yesterday.”“And little Julie?”“Little!” said Christie Bayle laughing frankly, and justifying Sir Gordon’s remarks about his youthful looks. “Really, I should like to be there when you call. You will be astonished.”“What, has the child grown?”“Child? Grown? Why, my dear sir, you will have to be presented to a beautiful young lady of eighteen, wonderfully like her mother in the old days.”“Indeed! Hah! yes. Old days, Bayle. Yes, old days, indeed. The thought of them makes me feel how time has gone. Look young, eh? Bah! I’m an old fool, Bayle. Deal better if I had been born poor. You should see me when Tom Porter takes me to pieces, and puts me to bed of a night. Why, Bayle, I don’t mind telling you. Always were a good lad, and I liked you. I’m one of the most frightful impositions of my time. Wig, sir; confound it! sham teeth, sir, and they are horribly uncomfortable. Whiskers dyed, sir. The rest all tailor’s work. Feel ashamed of myself sometimes. At others I say to myself that it’s showing a bold front to the enemy. No, sir, not a bit of truth in me anywhere.”“Except your heart,” said Bayle, smiling.“Tchut! man, hold your tongue. Now about yourself. Why don’t you get a comfortable rectory somewhere, instead of plodding on in this hole?”“Because I am more useful here.”“Nonsense! Get a good West-end lectureship.”“I prefer the North here.”“My dear Christie Bayle, you are throwing yourself away. There, I can’t keep it back. Old Doctor Thomson is dead, and if you will come I have sufficient interest with the bishop, providing I bring forward a good man, to get him the living at King’s Castor.”Christie Bayle shook his head sadly.“No, Sir Gordon,” he said, with a curious, wistful look coming into his eyes. “That would be too painful—too full of sad memories.”“Pooh! nonsense, man! You can’t be a curate all your life.”“Why not? I do not want the payment of a better post in the Church.”“Of course not; but come, say ‘Yes.’ As to memories, fudge! man, you have your memories everywhere. If you were out in Australia you’d have them, same as I dare say a friend of ours has. Let the past go.”Bayle shook his head.“I’m thinking of settling down yonder myself. Getting too old for sea-trips. If you’d come down, that would decide me.”“No, no. It would never do. I could not leave town.”“Ah, so you pretend, sir. I’ll be bound that, if you had a good motive, you’d be off anywhere, in spite of what you say.”“Perhaps. Your motive is not strong enough.”“What, not your own interest, man?”“My dear Sir Gordon, no. What interest have I in myself? Why, I have been blessed by Providence with a good income and few wants, and for the past eighteen years I’ve been so busy thinking about other people, that I should feel guilty of a crime if I began to be selfish now.”“You’re a queer fellow, Bayle, but you may alter your mind. I’ve made up mine that you shall have the old living at King’s Castor. I shan’t marry now, so I don’t want you for that; but, please God I don’t go down in some squall, I should like you to say ‘Ashes to ashes, dust to dust’ over the remains of a very selfish old man, for I sometimes think that it can’t be long first now.”“My dear old friend,” said Bayle, shaking his hand warmly, “I pray that the day may be very far distant. When it does come, as it comes to us all, I shall be able to think that the selfishness of which you speak was mere outside show. Gordon Bourne, I seem to be a simple kind of man, but I think I have learned to read men’s hearts.”The old man’s lip quivered a little, and he tried vainly to speak. Then, giving his stout ebony cane a stamp on the floor, he raised it, and shook it threateningly.“Confound you, Bayle! I wish you were as poor as Job.”“Why?”“So that I might leave you all I’ve got. Perhaps I shall.”“No, no, don’t do that,” said Bayle seriously, and his frank, handsome face looked troubled; “I have more than I want. But, come, tell me; you have been down to Castor, then?”“Yes, I was there a week.”“And how are they all?”“Older, of course, but things seem about the same. Place like that does not change much.”“But the people do.”“Not they. By George! sir, one of the first men I saw as I limped down the street in a pair of confoundedly tight Hessians Hoby made for me—punish my poor corns horribly. What with them and the stiff cravats a gentleman is forced to wear, life is unendurable. Ah! you don’t study appearances at sea. Wish I could wear boots like those, Bayle.”“You were saying that you saw somebody.”“Ah, yes; to be sure, I trailed off about my boots. Why, I am getting into—lose leeway, sir. But I remember now. First man I saw was old Gemp, sitting like a figure-head outside his cottage. Regular old mummy; but he seemed to come to life as soon as he heard a step, and turned his eyes towards me, looking as inquisitive as a monkey. Poor old boy—almost paralysed, and has to be lifted in and out. I often wonder what was the use of such men as he.”Christie Bayle’s broad shoulders gave a twitch, and he looked up in an amused manner.“Ah, well, what was the use of me, if you like? Doctor looked well; so does the old lady. Said they were up here three months ago, and enjoyed their visit I say, Bayle, you’d better have the living. Mrs Hallam might be disposed to go down to the old home again, eh?”A quiet, stern look, that made Christie Bayle appear ten years older, and changed him in aspect from one of thirty-five to nearer fifty, came over his face.“No,” he said, “I am sure Mrs Hallam would never go back to Castor to live.”“Humph! Well, you know best. I say, Bayle, does she want help? It is such a delicate matter to offer it to her, especially in our relative positions.”“No, I am sure she does not,” said Bayle quickly; “you would hurt her feelings by the offer.”Sir Gordon nodded, and sat gazing at one particular flower in the carpet of his host’s simply-furnished room, which he poked and scraped with his stick.“How was Thickens?”“Just the same; not altered a bit, unless it is to look more drab. Mrs Thickens—that woman’s an impostor, sir. She has grown younger since she married.”“Yes, she astonished me,” said Bayle, smiling with satisfaction that his visitor had gone off dangerously painful ground, “plump, pleasant little body.”“With fat filling up her creases and covering up her holes and corners!” cried Sir Gordon, interrupting. “Confound it all, sir, I could never get the fat to come and fill up my creases and furrows. I saw her standing there, feeding Thickens’s fish, smiling at them, and as happy as the day was long. Deal happier than when she was Miss Heathery. Everybody seems to be happy but me. I never am.”“See the Trampleasures?” said Bayle.“Oh, yes, saw them, and heard them, too. Regular ornament to the bank, Trampleasure. People believe in him, though. Talks to them, and asks the farmers in to lunch. If he were not there, they’d think Dixons’ was going. Poor old Dixon, how cut up he was over that Hallam business! It killed him, Bayle.”“Think so?” said Bayle, with his brow wrinkling.“Sure of it, sir. It was not the money he cared for; it was the principle of the thing. Dixons’ name had stood so high in the town and neighbourhood. There was a mystery, too, about the matter that was never cleared up.”“Hadn’t we better change the subject, Sir Gordon?”“No, sir,” said Bayle’s visitor curtly. “Garrulity is one of the privileges of old age. We old men don’t get many privileges; let me enjoy that. I like to gossip about old times to some one who understands them as you do. If you don’t like to hear me, say so, and I will go.”“No, no, pray stay, and I’ll go down with you to the club.”“Hah! That’s right. Well, as I was saying, there was a bit of mystery about that which worried poor old Dixon terribly. We never could make out what the scoundrel had done with the money. He and that other fellow, Crellock, could easily get rid of a good deal; but there was a large sum unaccounted for, I’m sure.”There was a pause here, and Sir Gordon seemed to be hesitating about saying something that was on his mind.“You wanted to tell me something,” said Bayle at last.“Well, yes, I was going to say you see a deal of the widow, don’t you?”“Widow? What widow? Oh, Mrs Richardson. Poor thing, yes; but how did you know I took an interest in her? Hah! there: you may give me ten pounds for her.”“Mrs Richardson! Pooh! I mean Mrs Hallam.”“Widow?”“Well, yes; what else is she? Husband transported for life. The man is socially dead.”“You do not know Mrs Hallam,” said Bayle gravely.“Do you think she believes in him still?”“With her whole heart. He is to her the injured man, a victim to a legal error, and she lives in the belief which she has taught her child, that some day her martyr’s reputation will be cleared, and that he will take his place among his fellow-men once more.”“I wish I could think so too, for her sake,” said Sir Gordon, after a pause.“Amen!”“But, Bayle, you—you don’t ever think there was any mistake?”“It is always painful to me to speak of a man whom I never could esteem.”“But to me, man—to me.”“For twelve years, Sir Gordon, I have had the face of that loving, trusting woman before me, steadfast in her faith in the husband she loves.”“Loves?”“As truly as on the day she took him first to her heart.”“But do you think that she really still believes him innocent?”“In her heart of hearts; and so does her child. And I say that this is the one painful part of our intimacy. It has been the cause of coldness and even distant treatment at times.”“But she seemed to have exonerated you from all credit in his arrest.”“Oh, yes, long ago. She attributes it to the accident of chance and the treachery of the scoundrel Crellock.”“Who was only Hallam’s tool.”“Exactly. But she forgives me, believing me her truest friend.”“And rightly. The man who fought for her at the time of the—er—well, accident, Bayle, eh?”“Shall we change the subject?” said Bayle coldly.“No; I like to talk about poor Mrs Hallam, and I will call and see her soon.”“But you will be careful,” said Bayle earnestly. “Of course your presence will bring back sad memories. Do not pain her by any allusion to Hallam.”“I will take care. But look here, Bayle; you did come up here to be near them?”“Certainly I did. Why, Sir Gordon, that child seemed to be part of my life, and when Mrs Hallam had that long illness the little thing came to me as if I were her father. She had always liked me, and that liking has grown.”“You educated her?”“Oh, I don’t know; I suppose so,” said Bayle, looking up with a frank, ingenuous smile. “We have always read together, and painted, and then there was the music of an evening. You must hear her sing!”“Hah! I should like to, Bayle. Perhaps I shall. Don’t think me impertinent, but you see I am so much away in my yacht. Selfish old fellow, you know; want to live as long as I can, and I think I shall live longer if I go to sea than if I stroll idling about Castor or in London at my club. I’ve asked you a lot of questions. I suppose you have done all the teaching?”“Oh, dear, no; her mother has had a large share in the child’s education.”“Humph! when I called her child, I was snubbed.” Bayle laughed. “Well, I’ve grown to think of her as my child, and she looks upon me almost as she might upon her father.”“Humph!” said Sir Gordon rather gruffly. “I half expected, every time I came back, to find you married, Bayle.”“Find me married?” said Bayle, laughing. “My dear sir, I am less likely to marry than you. Confirmed old bachelor, and I am very happy—happier than I deserve to be.”“Don’t cant, Bayle,” cried Sir Gordon peevishly. “I’ve always liked you because you never threw sentiments of that kind at me. Don’t begin now. Well, there, I must trot. You are going to dine with me?”“Yes; I’ve promised.”“Ah,” said Sir Gordon, looking at Bayle almost enviously, “you always were quite a boy. What a physique you have! Why, man, you don’t look thirty-five.”“I’m very sorry.”“Sorry, man?”“Well, then, I’m very glad.”“Bah! There, put on your hat, and come down at once. I hate this part of London.”“And I have grown to love it. ‘The mind is its own place.’ You know the rest.”“Oh, yes, I know the rest,” said Sir Gordon gruffly. “Come along. Where can we get a coach?”“I’ll show you,” said Bayle, taking his arm and leading him through two or three streets, to stop at last in a quiet, new-looking square close by St. John’s Street.“Well, what’s the matter?” said Sir Gordon testily. “Nothing, I hope; only I must make a call here before I go down with you.”“For goodness’ sake, make haste, then, man! My boots are torturing me!”“Come in, then, and sit down,” said Bayle, smiling, as a stern-looking woman opened the door, and curtsied familiarly.“I must either do that or sit upon the step,” said the old gentleman peevishly; and he followed Bayle into the passage, and then into the parlour, for he seemed quite at home.Then a change came over Sir Gordon’s face, for Bayle said quietly:“My dear Mrs Hallam, I have brought an old friend.”

“Why, my dear Sir Gordon, I am glad to see you back again. You look brown and hearty, and not a day older.”

“Don’t—don’t shake quite so hard, my dear Bayle. I like it, but it hurts. Little gouty in that hand, you see.”

“Well, I’ll be careful. I am glad you came.”

“That’s right, that’s right. Come down to my club and dine, and we’ll have a long talk; and—er—don’t take any notice of the jokes if you hear any.”

“Jokes?”

“Ye-es. The men have a way there—the old fellows—of calling me ‘Laurel,’ and ‘Yew,’ and the ‘Evergreen.’ You see, I look well and robust for my age.”

“Not a bit, Sir Gordon. You certainly seem younger, though, than ever.”

“So do you, Bayle; so do you. Why, you must be—”

“Forty-two, Sir Gordon. Getting an old man, you see.”

“Forty! Pooh! what’s that, Mr Bayle? Why, sir, I’m—Never mind. I’m not so young as I used to be. And so you think I look well, eh, Bayle?”

“Indeed you do, Sir Gordon; remarkably well.”

“Hah! That confounded Scott! Colonel Scott at the club set it about that I’d been away for two years so as to get myself cut down and have time to sprout up again, I looked so young. Bah, what does it matter? It’s the sea life, Bayle, keeps a man healthy and strong. I wish I could persuade you to come with me on one of my trips.”

“No, no! Keep away with your temptations. Too busy.”

“Nonsense, man! Fellow with your income grinding day after day as you do. But how young you do look! How is Mrs Hallam?”

“Remarkably well. I saw her yesterday.”

“And little Julie?”

“Little!” said Christie Bayle laughing frankly, and justifying Sir Gordon’s remarks about his youthful looks. “Really, I should like to be there when you call. You will be astonished.”

“What, has the child grown?”

“Child? Grown? Why, my dear sir, you will have to be presented to a beautiful young lady of eighteen, wonderfully like her mother in the old days.”

“Indeed! Hah! yes. Old days, Bayle. Yes, old days, indeed. The thought of them makes me feel how time has gone. Look young, eh? Bah! I’m an old fool, Bayle. Deal better if I had been born poor. You should see me when Tom Porter takes me to pieces, and puts me to bed of a night. Why, Bayle, I don’t mind telling you. Always were a good lad, and I liked you. I’m one of the most frightful impositions of my time. Wig, sir; confound it! sham teeth, sir, and they are horribly uncomfortable. Whiskers dyed, sir. The rest all tailor’s work. Feel ashamed of myself sometimes. At others I say to myself that it’s showing a bold front to the enemy. No, sir, not a bit of truth in me anywhere.”

“Except your heart,” said Bayle, smiling.

“Tchut! man, hold your tongue. Now about yourself. Why don’t you get a comfortable rectory somewhere, instead of plodding on in this hole?”

“Because I am more useful here.”

“Nonsense! Get a good West-end lectureship.”

“I prefer the North here.”

“My dear Christie Bayle, you are throwing yourself away. There, I can’t keep it back. Old Doctor Thomson is dead, and if you will come I have sufficient interest with the bishop, providing I bring forward a good man, to get him the living at King’s Castor.”

Christie Bayle shook his head sadly.

“No, Sir Gordon,” he said, with a curious, wistful look coming into his eyes. “That would be too painful—too full of sad memories.”

“Pooh! nonsense, man! You can’t be a curate all your life.”

“Why not? I do not want the payment of a better post in the Church.”

“Of course not; but come, say ‘Yes.’ As to memories, fudge! man, you have your memories everywhere. If you were out in Australia you’d have them, same as I dare say a friend of ours has. Let the past go.”

Bayle shook his head.

“I’m thinking of settling down yonder myself. Getting too old for sea-trips. If you’d come down, that would decide me.”

“No, no. It would never do. I could not leave town.”

“Ah, so you pretend, sir. I’ll be bound that, if you had a good motive, you’d be off anywhere, in spite of what you say.”

“Perhaps. Your motive is not strong enough.”

“What, not your own interest, man?”

“My dear Sir Gordon, no. What interest have I in myself? Why, I have been blessed by Providence with a good income and few wants, and for the past eighteen years I’ve been so busy thinking about other people, that I should feel guilty of a crime if I began to be selfish now.”

“You’re a queer fellow, Bayle, but you may alter your mind. I’ve made up mine that you shall have the old living at King’s Castor. I shan’t marry now, so I don’t want you for that; but, please God I don’t go down in some squall, I should like you to say ‘Ashes to ashes, dust to dust’ over the remains of a very selfish old man, for I sometimes think that it can’t be long first now.”

“My dear old friend,” said Bayle, shaking his hand warmly, “I pray that the day may be very far distant. When it does come, as it comes to us all, I shall be able to think that the selfishness of which you speak was mere outside show. Gordon Bourne, I seem to be a simple kind of man, but I think I have learned to read men’s hearts.”

The old man’s lip quivered a little, and he tried vainly to speak. Then, giving his stout ebony cane a stamp on the floor, he raised it, and shook it threateningly.

“Confound you, Bayle! I wish you were as poor as Job.”

“Why?”

“So that I might leave you all I’ve got. Perhaps I shall.”

“No, no, don’t do that,” said Bayle seriously, and his frank, handsome face looked troubled; “I have more than I want. But, come, tell me; you have been down to Castor, then?”

“Yes, I was there a week.”

“And how are they all?”

“Older, of course, but things seem about the same. Place like that does not change much.”

“But the people do.”

“Not they. By George! sir, one of the first men I saw as I limped down the street in a pair of confoundedly tight Hessians Hoby made for me—punish my poor corns horribly. What with them and the stiff cravats a gentleman is forced to wear, life is unendurable. Ah! you don’t study appearances at sea. Wish I could wear boots like those, Bayle.”

“You were saying that you saw somebody.”

“Ah, yes; to be sure, I trailed off about my boots. Why, I am getting into—lose leeway, sir. But I remember now. First man I saw was old Gemp, sitting like a figure-head outside his cottage. Regular old mummy; but he seemed to come to life as soon as he heard a step, and turned his eyes towards me, looking as inquisitive as a monkey. Poor old boy—almost paralysed, and has to be lifted in and out. I often wonder what was the use of such men as he.”

Christie Bayle’s broad shoulders gave a twitch, and he looked up in an amused manner.

“Ah, well, what was the use of me, if you like? Doctor looked well; so does the old lady. Said they were up here three months ago, and enjoyed their visit I say, Bayle, you’d better have the living. Mrs Hallam might be disposed to go down to the old home again, eh?”

A quiet, stern look, that made Christie Bayle appear ten years older, and changed him in aspect from one of thirty-five to nearer fifty, came over his face.

“No,” he said, “I am sure Mrs Hallam would never go back to Castor to live.”

“Humph! Well, you know best. I say, Bayle, does she want help? It is such a delicate matter to offer it to her, especially in our relative positions.”

“No, I am sure she does not,” said Bayle quickly; “you would hurt her feelings by the offer.”

Sir Gordon nodded, and sat gazing at one particular flower in the carpet of his host’s simply-furnished room, which he poked and scraped with his stick.

“How was Thickens?”

“Just the same; not altered a bit, unless it is to look more drab. Mrs Thickens—that woman’s an impostor, sir. She has grown younger since she married.”

“Yes, she astonished me,” said Bayle, smiling with satisfaction that his visitor had gone off dangerously painful ground, “plump, pleasant little body.”

“With fat filling up her creases and covering up her holes and corners!” cried Sir Gordon, interrupting. “Confound it all, sir, I could never get the fat to come and fill up my creases and furrows. I saw her standing there, feeding Thickens’s fish, smiling at them, and as happy as the day was long. Deal happier than when she was Miss Heathery. Everybody seems to be happy but me. I never am.”

“See the Trampleasures?” said Bayle.

“Oh, yes, saw them, and heard them, too. Regular ornament to the bank, Trampleasure. People believe in him, though. Talks to them, and asks the farmers in to lunch. If he were not there, they’d think Dixons’ was going. Poor old Dixon, how cut up he was over that Hallam business! It killed him, Bayle.”

“Think so?” said Bayle, with his brow wrinkling.

“Sure of it, sir. It was not the money he cared for; it was the principle of the thing. Dixons’ name had stood so high in the town and neighbourhood. There was a mystery, too, about the matter that was never cleared up.”

“Hadn’t we better change the subject, Sir Gordon?”

“No, sir,” said Bayle’s visitor curtly. “Garrulity is one of the privileges of old age. We old men don’t get many privileges; let me enjoy that. I like to gossip about old times to some one who understands them as you do. If you don’t like to hear me, say so, and I will go.”

“No, no, pray stay, and I’ll go down with you to the club.”

“Hah! That’s right. Well, as I was saying, there was a bit of mystery about that which worried poor old Dixon terribly. We never could make out what the scoundrel had done with the money. He and that other fellow, Crellock, could easily get rid of a good deal; but there was a large sum unaccounted for, I’m sure.”

There was a pause here, and Sir Gordon seemed to be hesitating about saying something that was on his mind.

“You wanted to tell me something,” said Bayle at last.

“Well, yes, I was going to say you see a deal of the widow, don’t you?”

“Widow? What widow? Oh, Mrs Richardson. Poor thing, yes; but how did you know I took an interest in her? Hah! there: you may give me ten pounds for her.”

“Mrs Richardson! Pooh! I mean Mrs Hallam.”

“Widow?”

“Well, yes; what else is she? Husband transported for life. The man is socially dead.”

“You do not know Mrs Hallam,” said Bayle gravely.

“Do you think she believes in him still?”

“With her whole heart. He is to her the injured man, a victim to a legal error, and she lives in the belief which she has taught her child, that some day her martyr’s reputation will be cleared, and that he will take his place among his fellow-men once more.”

“I wish I could think so too, for her sake,” said Sir Gordon, after a pause.

“Amen!”

“But, Bayle, you—you don’t ever think there was any mistake?”

“It is always painful to me to speak of a man whom I never could esteem.”

“But to me, man—to me.”

“For twelve years, Sir Gordon, I have had the face of that loving, trusting woman before me, steadfast in her faith in the husband she loves.”

“Loves?”

“As truly as on the day she took him first to her heart.”

“But do you think that she really still believes him innocent?”

“In her heart of hearts; and so does her child. And I say that this is the one painful part of our intimacy. It has been the cause of coldness and even distant treatment at times.”

“But she seemed to have exonerated you from all credit in his arrest.”

“Oh, yes, long ago. She attributes it to the accident of chance and the treachery of the scoundrel Crellock.”

“Who was only Hallam’s tool.”

“Exactly. But she forgives me, believing me her truest friend.”

“And rightly. The man who fought for her at the time of the—er—well, accident, Bayle, eh?”

“Shall we change the subject?” said Bayle coldly.

“No; I like to talk about poor Mrs Hallam, and I will call and see her soon.”

“But you will be careful,” said Bayle earnestly. “Of course your presence will bring back sad memories. Do not pain her by any allusion to Hallam.”

“I will take care. But look here, Bayle; you did come up here to be near them?”

“Certainly I did. Why, Sir Gordon, that child seemed to be part of my life, and when Mrs Hallam had that long illness the little thing came to me as if I were her father. She had always liked me, and that liking has grown.”

“You educated her?”

“Oh, I don’t know; I suppose so,” said Bayle, looking up with a frank, ingenuous smile. “We have always read together, and painted, and then there was the music of an evening. You must hear her sing!”

“Hah! I should like to, Bayle. Perhaps I shall. Don’t think me impertinent, but you see I am so much away in my yacht. Selfish old fellow, you know; want to live as long as I can, and I think I shall live longer if I go to sea than if I stroll idling about Castor or in London at my club. I’ve asked you a lot of questions. I suppose you have done all the teaching?”

“Oh, dear, no; her mother has had a large share in the child’s education.”

“Humph! when I called her child, I was snubbed.” Bayle laughed. “Well, I’ve grown to think of her as my child, and she looks upon me almost as she might upon her father.”

“Humph!” said Sir Gordon rather gruffly. “I half expected, every time I came back, to find you married, Bayle.”

“Find me married?” said Bayle, laughing. “My dear sir, I am less likely to marry than you. Confirmed old bachelor, and I am very happy—happier than I deserve to be.”

“Don’t cant, Bayle,” cried Sir Gordon peevishly. “I’ve always liked you because you never threw sentiments of that kind at me. Don’t begin now. Well, there, I must trot. You are going to dine with me?”

“Yes; I’ve promised.”

“Ah,” said Sir Gordon, looking at Bayle almost enviously, “you always were quite a boy. What a physique you have! Why, man, you don’t look thirty-five.”

“I’m very sorry.”

“Sorry, man?”

“Well, then, I’m very glad.”

“Bah! There, put on your hat, and come down at once. I hate this part of London.”

“And I have grown to love it. ‘The mind is its own place.’ You know the rest.”

“Oh, yes, I know the rest,” said Sir Gordon gruffly. “Come along. Where can we get a coach?”

“I’ll show you,” said Bayle, taking his arm and leading him through two or three streets, to stop at last in a quiet, new-looking square close by St. John’s Street.

“Well, what’s the matter?” said Sir Gordon testily. “Nothing, I hope; only I must make a call here before I go down with you.”

“For goodness’ sake, make haste, then, man! My boots are torturing me!”

“Come in, then, and sit down,” said Bayle, smiling, as a stern-looking woman opened the door, and curtsied familiarly.

“I must either do that or sit upon the step,” said the old gentleman peevishly; and he followed Bayle into the passage, and then into the parlour, for he seemed quite at home.

Then a change came over Sir Gordon’s face, for Bayle said quietly:

“My dear Mrs Hallam, I have brought an old friend.”

Volume Three—Chapter Two.A Peep behind the Clouds.The meeting was painful, for Millicent Hallam and Sir Gordon had never stood face to face since that day when he had himself opened the door for her on the occasion of her appeal to him on her husband’s behalf.“Bless my soul!” exclaimed Sir Gordon. “I did not know this.”“It is a surprise, too, for me,” said Mrs Hallam, as she coloured slightly, and then turned pale; but in a moment or two she was calm and composed—a handsome, grave-looking lady, with unlined face, but with silvery streaks running through her abundant hair.“You—you should have told me, Bayle,” said Sir Gordon testily.“And spoilt my surprise,” said Bayle.“I am very, very glad to see you, Sir Gordon,” said Mrs Hallam in a grave, sweet way, once more thoroughly mistress of her emotions. “Julie, my dear, you hardly recollect our visitor?”“Yes, oh yes!” said a tall, graceful girl, coming forward to place her hand in Sir Gordon’s. “I seem to see you back as if through a mist; but—oh, yes, I remember!” She hesitated, and blushed, and laughed. “You one day—you brought me a great doll.”Sir Gordon had taken both her hands, letting fall hat and stick. He tried to speak, but the words would not come. His lip quivered, his face twitched, and Julia felt his hands tremble, as she looked at him with naïve wonder, unable to comprehend his emotion.He raised her hand as if to press it to his lips, but let it fall, and, drawing her towards him, kissed her tenderly on the brow, ending by retaining her hand in both of his.“An old man’s kiss, my child,” he said, gazing at her wistfully. “You remind me so of one I loved—twenty years ago, my dear, and before you were born.” He looked round from one to the other, as if apologising for his emotion. “My dear Bayle,” he said at last, recovering himself, and speaking with chivalrous courtesy, “I am in your debt for introducing me to our young friend. Mrs Hallam, you will let me come and see you?”Millicent hesitated, and there was a curious, haughty, defiant look in her eyes as she gazed at her visitor, as if at bay.“I am sure Mrs Hallam will be glad to see a very dear old friend of mine,” said Bayle quietly; and as he spoke Mrs Hallam glanced at him. Her eyes softened, and she held out her hand to her visitor.“Always glad to see you,” she said.Sir Gordon smiled and looked pleased, as he glanced round the pretty, simply-furnished room, with tokens of the busy hands that adorned it on every side. Here was Julia’s drawing, there her embroidery; they were her flowers in the window; the bird that twittered so sweetly from its cage hung on the shutter, and the piano, were hers too. There was only one jarring note in the whole interior, and that was the portrait in oils of the handsome man, in the most prominent place in the room—a picture that at one corner was a little blistered, as if by fire, and whose eyes seemed to be watching the visitor wherever he turned.There were many painful memories revived during that visit, but on the whole it was pleasant, and with the agony of the past softened by time, Millicent Hallam found herself speaking half reproachfully to Sir Gordon for not visiting her during all these years.“Don’t blame me,” he said in reply; “I have always felt that there was a wish implied on your part that our acquaintance should cease, as being too painful for both.”“Perhaps it was,” she said, with a sigh; “and I am to blame.”“Let us share it, if there be any blame,” said Sir Gordon, smiling, “and amend our ways. You must remember, though, that I have always kept up my friendship with the doctor whenever I have been at home, and I have always heard of your well-beings or—”“Oh, yes!” said Mrs Hallam hastily, as if to check any allusion to assistance. “When I recovered from my serious illness I was anxious to leave Castor. I thought perhaps that my child’s education—in London—and Mr Bayle was very kind in helping me.”“He is a good friend,” said Sir Gordon gravely.“Friend!” cried Mrs Hallam, with her face full of animation, “he has been to me a brother. When I was in utter distress at that terrible time, he extricated my poor husband’s money affairs from the miserable tangle in which they were left, and by a wise management of the little remainder so invested it that there was a sufficiency for Julia and me to live on in this simple manner.”“He did all this for you,” said Sir Gordon dryly.“Yes, and would have placed his purse at my disposal, but that he saw how painful such an offer would have been.”“Of course,” said Sir Gordon, “most painful.”“I often fear that I did wrong in allowing him to leave Castor; but he has done so much good here that I tell myself all was for the best.”And so the conversation rippled on, Julia sometimes being drawn in, and now and then Bayle throwing in a word; but on the whole simply looking on, an interested spectator, who was appealed to now and then as if he had been the brother of one, the uncle of the other.At last Sir Gordon rose to go, taking quite a lingering farewell of Julia, at whom he gazed again in the same wistful manner.“Good-bye,” he said, smiling tenderly at her, while holding her little hand in his. “I shall come again—soon—yes, soon; but not to bring you a doll.”There was a jingle of a tiny bell as they closed the door, and the hard-faced woman had to squeeze by the visitors to get to the door, the passage was so small.Sir Gordon stared hard, and then placed his large square glass to his eye.“To be sure—yes. It’s you,” he said. “The old maid, Thisbe—”“Some people can’t help being old maids,” said that lady tartly, “and some wants to be, sir.”“I beg your pardon,” said Sir Gordon with grave politeness. “You mistake me. I meant the maid who used to be with Doctor and Mrs Luttrell in the old times. To be sure, yes, and with Mrs Hallam afterwards.”“Yes, Sir Gordon.”“So you’ve kept to your mistress all through—I mean you have stayed.”“Yes, sir, of course I have.”“And been one of the truest and best of friends,” said Bayle, smiling.Thisbe gave herself a jerk and glanced over her shoulder, as though to see if the way was clear for her escape—should she have to run and avoid this praise.“Ah, yes,” said Sir Gordon, looking at her still very thoughtfully. “To be sure,” he continued, in quite dreamy tones, “I had almost forgotten. Tom Porter wants to marry you.”“Then Tom Porter must—”“Tchut! tchut! tchut! woman; don’t talk like that. Make your hay while the sun shines. Good fellow, Tom. Obstinate, but solid, and careful. Come, Bayle.”“Ah,” he sighed, as they walked slowly down the street.“Gather your rosebuds while you may,Old Time is still a-flying.“You and I have never been rosebud gatherers, Christie Bayle. It will give us the better opportunity for watching those who are. Bayle, old friend, we must look out: there must be no handsome, plausible scoundrel to come and cull that fragrant little bloom—we must not have another sweet young life wrecked—like hers.” He made a backward motion with his head towards the house they had left.“Heaven forbid!” cried Bayle anxiously; and his countenance was full of wonder and dismay.“You must look out, sir, look out,” said Sir Gordon, thumping his cane.“But she is a mere girl yet.”“Pish! man; tush! man. It is your mere girls who form these fancies. What have you been about?”“About?” said Bayle. “About? I don’t know. I have thought of such a thing as my little pupil forming an attachment, but it seemed to be a thing of the far-distant future.”Sir Gordon shook his head.“There is nothing then now?”“Oh, absurd! Why, she is only eighteen!”“Eighteen!” said Gordon sharply; “and at eighteen girls are only cutting their teeth and wearing pinafores, eh? Go to: blind mole of a parson! Why, millions of them lose their hearts long before that. Come, come, man, wake up! A pretty watchman of that fair sweet tower you are, to have never so much as thought of the enemy, when already he may be making his approach.” Bayle turned to him, looking half-bewildered, but the look passed off.“No,” he said firmly; “the enemy is not in sight yet, and you shall not have cause to speak to me again like, that.”“That’s right, Bayle; that’s right. Dear, dear,” he sighed as they walked slowly towards the city, “how time does gallop on! It seems just one step from Millicent Luttrell’s girlhood to that of her child. Yes, yes, yes: these young people increase, and grow so rapidly that they fill up the world and shoulder us old folk over the edge.”“Unless they have yachts,” said Bayle, smiling. “Plenty of room at sea.”“Ah, to be sure; that reminds me. I have been at sea. Man, man, what an impostor you are.”“I!” exclaimed Bayle, looking round at his companion in a startled manner.“To be sure. Poor lady! She has been confiding to me while you were chatting with little Julia about the piano.”Bayle gave an angry stamp.“And your careful management of the remains of her husband’s property.”Bayle knit his brow and increased his pace.“No, no,” cried Sir Gordon, snatching at and taking his arm. “No running away from unpleasant truths, Christie Bayle. You paid the counsel for Hallam’s defence, did you not?”Bayle nodded shortly, and uttered an angry ejaculation.“And there was not a shilling left when Hallam was gone?”No answer.“Come, come, speak. I am going to have the truth, my friend: priesthood and deception must not go hand in hand. Now then, did Hallam have any money?”“If he had it would have been handed over to Dixons’ Bank,” said Bayle sharply. “I should have seen it done.”“Hah! I thought so. Then look here, sir, you have been investing your money for the benefit of that poor woman and her child.”No answer.“Christie Bayle: do you love that woman still?”“Sir Gordon! No; I will not be angry. Yes; as a man might love a dear sister smitten by affliction; and her child as if she were my own.”“Hah! and you have had invested so much money—your own, for their benefit. Why have you done this?”“I thought it was my duty towards the widow and fatherless in their affliction,” said Bayle simply; and Sir Gordon turned and peered round in the brave, honest face at his side to find it slightly flushed, but ready to meet his gaze with fearless frankness.“Ah,” sighed Sir Gordon at last, “it was not fair.”“Not fair?” said Bayle wonderingly.“No, sir. You might have let me do half.”

The meeting was painful, for Millicent Hallam and Sir Gordon had never stood face to face since that day when he had himself opened the door for her on the occasion of her appeal to him on her husband’s behalf.

“Bless my soul!” exclaimed Sir Gordon. “I did not know this.”

“It is a surprise, too, for me,” said Mrs Hallam, as she coloured slightly, and then turned pale; but in a moment or two she was calm and composed—a handsome, grave-looking lady, with unlined face, but with silvery streaks running through her abundant hair.

“You—you should have told me, Bayle,” said Sir Gordon testily.

“And spoilt my surprise,” said Bayle.

“I am very, very glad to see you, Sir Gordon,” said Mrs Hallam in a grave, sweet way, once more thoroughly mistress of her emotions. “Julie, my dear, you hardly recollect our visitor?”

“Yes, oh yes!” said a tall, graceful girl, coming forward to place her hand in Sir Gordon’s. “I seem to see you back as if through a mist; but—oh, yes, I remember!” She hesitated, and blushed, and laughed. “You one day—you brought me a great doll.”

Sir Gordon had taken both her hands, letting fall hat and stick. He tried to speak, but the words would not come. His lip quivered, his face twitched, and Julia felt his hands tremble, as she looked at him with naïve wonder, unable to comprehend his emotion.

He raised her hand as if to press it to his lips, but let it fall, and, drawing her towards him, kissed her tenderly on the brow, ending by retaining her hand in both of his.

“An old man’s kiss, my child,” he said, gazing at her wistfully. “You remind me so of one I loved—twenty years ago, my dear, and before you were born.” He looked round from one to the other, as if apologising for his emotion. “My dear Bayle,” he said at last, recovering himself, and speaking with chivalrous courtesy, “I am in your debt for introducing me to our young friend. Mrs Hallam, you will let me come and see you?”

Millicent hesitated, and there was a curious, haughty, defiant look in her eyes as she gazed at her visitor, as if at bay.

“I am sure Mrs Hallam will be glad to see a very dear old friend of mine,” said Bayle quietly; and as he spoke Mrs Hallam glanced at him. Her eyes softened, and she held out her hand to her visitor.

“Always glad to see you,” she said.

Sir Gordon smiled and looked pleased, as he glanced round the pretty, simply-furnished room, with tokens of the busy hands that adorned it on every side. Here was Julia’s drawing, there her embroidery; they were her flowers in the window; the bird that twittered so sweetly from its cage hung on the shutter, and the piano, were hers too. There was only one jarring note in the whole interior, and that was the portrait in oils of the handsome man, in the most prominent place in the room—a picture that at one corner was a little blistered, as if by fire, and whose eyes seemed to be watching the visitor wherever he turned.

There were many painful memories revived during that visit, but on the whole it was pleasant, and with the agony of the past softened by time, Millicent Hallam found herself speaking half reproachfully to Sir Gordon for not visiting her during all these years.

“Don’t blame me,” he said in reply; “I have always felt that there was a wish implied on your part that our acquaintance should cease, as being too painful for both.”

“Perhaps it was,” she said, with a sigh; “and I am to blame.”

“Let us share it, if there be any blame,” said Sir Gordon, smiling, “and amend our ways. You must remember, though, that I have always kept up my friendship with the doctor whenever I have been at home, and I have always heard of your well-beings or—”

“Oh, yes!” said Mrs Hallam hastily, as if to check any allusion to assistance. “When I recovered from my serious illness I was anxious to leave Castor. I thought perhaps that my child’s education—in London—and Mr Bayle was very kind in helping me.”

“He is a good friend,” said Sir Gordon gravely.

“Friend!” cried Mrs Hallam, with her face full of animation, “he has been to me a brother. When I was in utter distress at that terrible time, he extricated my poor husband’s money affairs from the miserable tangle in which they were left, and by a wise management of the little remainder so invested it that there was a sufficiency for Julia and me to live on in this simple manner.”

“He did all this for you,” said Sir Gordon dryly.

“Yes, and would have placed his purse at my disposal, but that he saw how painful such an offer would have been.”

“Of course,” said Sir Gordon, “most painful.”

“I often fear that I did wrong in allowing him to leave Castor; but he has done so much good here that I tell myself all was for the best.”

And so the conversation rippled on, Julia sometimes being drawn in, and now and then Bayle throwing in a word; but on the whole simply looking on, an interested spectator, who was appealed to now and then as if he had been the brother of one, the uncle of the other.

At last Sir Gordon rose to go, taking quite a lingering farewell of Julia, at whom he gazed again in the same wistful manner.

“Good-bye,” he said, smiling tenderly at her, while holding her little hand in his. “I shall come again—soon—yes, soon; but not to bring you a doll.”

There was a jingle of a tiny bell as they closed the door, and the hard-faced woman had to squeeze by the visitors to get to the door, the passage was so small.

Sir Gordon stared hard, and then placed his large square glass to his eye.

“To be sure—yes. It’s you,” he said. “The old maid, Thisbe—”

“Some people can’t help being old maids,” said that lady tartly, “and some wants to be, sir.”

“I beg your pardon,” said Sir Gordon with grave politeness. “You mistake me. I meant the maid who used to be with Doctor and Mrs Luttrell in the old times. To be sure, yes, and with Mrs Hallam afterwards.”

“Yes, Sir Gordon.”

“So you’ve kept to your mistress all through—I mean you have stayed.”

“Yes, sir, of course I have.”

“And been one of the truest and best of friends,” said Bayle, smiling.

Thisbe gave herself a jerk and glanced over her shoulder, as though to see if the way was clear for her escape—should she have to run and avoid this praise.

“Ah, yes,” said Sir Gordon, looking at her still very thoughtfully. “To be sure,” he continued, in quite dreamy tones, “I had almost forgotten. Tom Porter wants to marry you.”

“Then Tom Porter must—”

“Tchut! tchut! tchut! woman; don’t talk like that. Make your hay while the sun shines. Good fellow, Tom. Obstinate, but solid, and careful. Come, Bayle.”

“Ah,” he sighed, as they walked slowly down the street.

“Gather your rosebuds while you may,Old Time is still a-flying.

“Gather your rosebuds while you may,Old Time is still a-flying.

“You and I have never been rosebud gatherers, Christie Bayle. It will give us the better opportunity for watching those who are. Bayle, old friend, we must look out: there must be no handsome, plausible scoundrel to come and cull that fragrant little bloom—we must not have another sweet young life wrecked—like hers.” He made a backward motion with his head towards the house they had left.

“Heaven forbid!” cried Bayle anxiously; and his countenance was full of wonder and dismay.

“You must look out, sir, look out,” said Sir Gordon, thumping his cane.

“But she is a mere girl yet.”

“Pish! man; tush! man. It is your mere girls who form these fancies. What have you been about?”

“About?” said Bayle. “About? I don’t know. I have thought of such a thing as my little pupil forming an attachment, but it seemed to be a thing of the far-distant future.”

Sir Gordon shook his head.

“There is nothing then now?”

“Oh, absurd! Why, she is only eighteen!”

“Eighteen!” said Gordon sharply; “and at eighteen girls are only cutting their teeth and wearing pinafores, eh? Go to: blind mole of a parson! Why, millions of them lose their hearts long before that. Come, come, man, wake up! A pretty watchman of that fair sweet tower you are, to have never so much as thought of the enemy, when already he may be making his approach.” Bayle turned to him, looking half-bewildered, but the look passed off.

“No,” he said firmly; “the enemy is not in sight yet, and you shall not have cause to speak to me again like, that.”

“That’s right, Bayle; that’s right. Dear, dear,” he sighed as they walked slowly towards the city, “how time does gallop on! It seems just one step from Millicent Luttrell’s girlhood to that of her child. Yes, yes, yes: these young people increase, and grow so rapidly that they fill up the world and shoulder us old folk over the edge.”

“Unless they have yachts,” said Bayle, smiling. “Plenty of room at sea.”

“Ah, to be sure; that reminds me. I have been at sea. Man, man, what an impostor you are.”

“I!” exclaimed Bayle, looking round at his companion in a startled manner.

“To be sure. Poor lady! She has been confiding to me while you were chatting with little Julia about the piano.”

Bayle gave an angry stamp.

“And your careful management of the remains of her husband’s property.”

Bayle knit his brow and increased his pace.

“No, no,” cried Sir Gordon, snatching at and taking his arm. “No running away from unpleasant truths, Christie Bayle. You paid the counsel for Hallam’s defence, did you not?”

Bayle nodded shortly, and uttered an angry ejaculation.

“And there was not a shilling left when Hallam was gone?”

No answer.

“Come, come, speak. I am going to have the truth, my friend: priesthood and deception must not go hand in hand. Now then, did Hallam have any money?”

“If he had it would have been handed over to Dixons’ Bank,” said Bayle sharply. “I should have seen it done.”

“Hah! I thought so. Then look here, sir, you have been investing your money for the benefit of that poor woman and her child.”

No answer.

“Christie Bayle: do you love that woman still?”

“Sir Gordon! No; I will not be angry. Yes; as a man might love a dear sister smitten by affliction; and her child as if she were my own.”

“Hah! and you have had invested so much money—your own, for their benefit. Why have you done this?”

“I thought it was my duty towards the widow and fatherless in their affliction,” said Bayle simply; and Sir Gordon turned and peered round in the brave, honest face at his side to find it slightly flushed, but ready to meet his gaze with fearless frankness.

“Ah,” sighed Sir Gordon at last, “it was not fair.”

“Not fair?” said Bayle wonderingly.

“No, sir. You might have let me do half.”

Volume Three—Chapter Three.By the Fire’s Glow.“Won’t you have the lamp lit, Miss Millicent?”“No, Thisbe, not yet,” said Mrs Hallam, in a low, dreamy voice, and without a word the faithful follower of her mistress in trouble went softly out, closing the door, and leaving mother and daughter alone.“She’s got one of her fits on,” mused Thisbe. “Ah, how it does come over me sometimes like a temptation—just about once a month ever since—to have one good go at her and tell her I told her so; that it was all what might be expected of wedding a handsome man. ‘Didn’t I warn you?’ I could say. ‘Didn’t I tell you how it would be?’ But no: I couldn’t say a word to the poor dear, and her going on believing in the bad scamp as she does all these years. She’s different to me. It’s just for all the world like a temptation that comes over me, driving me like to speak, but I’ve kept my mouth shut all these years and I’m going to do it still.”Thisbe had reached her little brightly-kept kitchen, where she stood thoughtfully gazing at the fire, with one hand upon her hip, for some minutes.Then a peculiar change came upon Thisbe’s hard face. It seemed as if it had been washed over with something sweet, which softened it; then it suggested the idea that she was about to sneeze, and ended by a violent spasmodic twitch, quite a convulsion. Thisbe’s body remained motionless, though her face was altered, and by degrees her eyes, after brightening and sparkling, grew suffused and dreamy, as she gazed straight before her and seemed to be thinking very deeply. Her countenance was free from the spasm now, and as the candle shone upon it, it brought prominently into notice the fact that in her love of cleanliness Thisbe was not so particular as she might have been in the process of rinsing; for the fact was patent that she rubbed herself profusely with soap, and left enough upon her face after her ablutions to produce the effect of an elastic varnish or glaze.Everything was very still, the only sounds being the dull wooden tick of the Dutch clock, and the drowsy chirp of an asthmatic cricket, which seemed to have wedded itself somewhere in a crack behind the grate, and to be bemoaning its inability to get out; while the clock ticked hoarsely, as if its life were a burden, and it were heartily sick of having that existence renewed by a nightly pulling up of the two black iron sausages that hung some distance below its sallow face.Suddenly Thisbe walked sharply to the fire, seized the poker, and cleared the bottom bar. This done she replaced the poker, and planted one foot upon the fender to warm, and one hand upon the mantel-piece with so much inadvertence that she knocked down the tinder-box, and had to pick the flint and steel from out of the ashes with the brightly polished tongs.“I don’t know what’s come to me,” she said sharply, as soon as the tinder-box was replaced. “Think of her holding fast to him all these years, and training up my bairn to believe in him as if he was a noble martyr! My word, it’s a curious thing for a woman to be taken like that with a man, and no matter what he does, to be always believing him!”Thisbe pursed up her lips, and twitched her toes up and down as they rested upon the fender, while she directed her conversation at the golden caverns of the fire.“They say Gorringe the tailor used to beat his wife, but that woman always looked happy, and I’ve seen her smile on him as if there wasn’t such another man in the world.”Just then the clock gave such a wheeze that Thisbe started and stared at it.“Quite makes me nervous,” she said, turning back to the fire. “What with the thinking and worry, and her keeping always in the same mind—oh, my!”She took her hand from the mantel-piece to clap it upon its fellow as a sudden thought struck her, which made her look aghast.“If he did!” she said after a pause. “And yet she expects it some day. Oh, dear me! oh, dear me! what weak, foolish, trusting things women are! They take a fancy to a man, and then because you don’t believe in him, too, it’s hoity-toity and never forgive me. Well, poor soul! perhaps it’s all for the best. It may comfort her in her troubles. I wonder what Tom Porter looks like now,” she said suddenly, and then looked sharply and guiltily round to see if her words had been heard. “I declare I ought to be ashamed of myself,” she said, and rushing at some work, she plumped herself down and began to stitch with all her might.In the little parlour all was very quiet, save the occasional footstep in the street. The blind was not drawn down, and the faint light from outside mingled with the glow from the fire, which threw up the face of Julia Hallam, where she sat dreamily gazing at the embers, against the dark transparency, giving her the look of a painting by one of the Italian masters of the past.At the old-fashioned square piano her mother was seated with her hands resting upon the keys which were silent. Farther distant from the fire her figure, graceful still, seemed melting into a darker transparency, one which grew deeper and deeper, till in the corner of the room and right and left of the fireplace the shadows seemed to be almost solid. Then the accustomed eye detected the various objects that furnished the room, melting, as it were, away.Only on one spot did there seem a discordant note in the general harmony of the softly glowing scene, and that was where the rays from a newly-lighted street lamp shone straight upon the wall and across the picture of Robert Hallam, cutting it strangely asunder, and giving to the upper portion of the face a weird and almost ghastly look.Thisbe’s steps had died out and her kitchen door had closed, but the musings of the two women had been interrupted and did not go back to their former current.All at once, soft as a memory of the bygone, the notes of the piano began to sound, and Julia changed her position, resting one arm upon the chair by her side and listening intently to a dreamy old melody that brought back to her the drawing-room in the old house at Castor—a handsomely-furnished, low-ceiled room with deep window-seat, on whose cushion she had often knelt to watch the passing vehicles while her mother played that very tune in the half light.So dreamy, so softened, as if mingled there with a strange sadness. Now just as it was then, one of the vivid memories of childhood, Weber’s “Last Waltz,” an air so sweet, so full of melancholy, that it seems wondrous that our parents could have danced to its strains, till we recall the doleful minor music of minuet, coranto, and saraband. Dancing must have been a serious matter in those days.Soft and sweet, chord after chord, each laden with its memory to Julia Hallam.Her mother was playing that when her father came in hastily one night, and was so angry because there were no lights; that night when she stole away to Thisbe.She was playing it too that afternoon when Grandmamma Luttrell came and was in such low spirits, and would not tell the reason why. Again, that night when she shrank away from her father, and he flung her hands from him, and said that angry word.Memory after memory came back from the past as Millicent Hallam played softly on, making her child’s face lustrous, eyes grow more dreamy, the curved neck bend lower, and the tears begin to gather, till, with quite a start, the young girl raised her head and saw the rays from the gas-lamp shining across the picture beyond her mother’s dimly-seen profile.Julia rose to cross to her mother’s side, and knelt down to pass her arms round the shapely waist and there rest.“Go on playing,” she said softly. “Now tell me about poor papa.”The notes of the old melody seemed to have an additional strain of melancholy as they floated softly through the room, sometimes almost dying away, while after waiting a few minutes they formed the accompaniment to the sad story of Millicent Hallam’s love and faith, told for the hundredth time to her daughter.For Millicent talked on without a tremor in her voice, every word distinct and firm, and yet softly sweet and full of tenderness, as it seemed to her that she was telling the story of a martyr’s sufferings to his child.“And all these years, and we have heard so little,” sighed Julia. “Poor papa! Poor father!”The music ceased as she spoke, but went on again as she paused.“Waiting, my child; waiting as I wait, and as my child waits, for the time when he will be declared free, and will take his place again among honourable men.”“But, mother,” said Julia, “could not Mr Bayle or Sir Gordon have done more; petitioned the king, and pointed out this grievous wrong?”“I could not ask Sir Gordon, my child. There were reasons why he could not act; but I did all that was possible year after year till, in my despair, I found that I must wait.”“How glad he must be of your letters!” said Julia suddenly.Millicent Hallam sighed.“I suppose he cannot write to us. Perhaps he feels that it would pain us. Mother, darling, was I an ill-conditioned, perverse child?”“My Julia,” said Mrs Hallam, turning to her and drawing her closely to her breast, “what a question! No. Why do you ask?”“Because I seem just to recollect myself shrinking away from papa as if I were sulky or obstinate. It was as if I was afraid of him.”“Oh, no, no!” cried Mrs Hallam anxiously, “you were very young then, and your poor father was constrained, and troubled with many anxieties, which made him seem cold and distant. It was his great love for us, my child.”“Yes, dear mother, his great love for us—his misfortune.”“His misfortune,” sighed Mrs Hallam.“But some day—when he returns—oh, mother! how we will love him, and make him happy! How we will force him to forget the troubles of the past!”“My darling!” whispered Mrs Hallam, pressing her fondly to her heart.“Do you think papa had many enemies, then?”“I used to think so, my child, but that feeling has passed away. I seem to see more clearly now that those who caused his condemnation were but the creatures of circumstances. It was the villain who seemed to be your father’s evil genius caused all our woe. He made me shiver on the morning of our wedding, coming suddenly upon us as he did, as if he were angry with your father for being so happy.”“But could we not do something?” said Julia earnestly. “It seems to be so sad—year after year goes by, and we sit idle.”“Yes,” said Mrs Hallam with a sob; “but that is all we can do, my child—sit and wait, sit and wait, but keeping the home ready for our darling when he comes—the home here—and in our hearts.”“He is always there, mother,” said Julia in a low, sweet voice, “always. How I remember him, with his soft dark hair, and his dark eyes! I think I used to be a little afraid of him.”“Because he seemed stern, my child, that was all. You loved him very dearly.”“He shall see how I will love him when he returns, mother,” she added after a pause. “Do you think he gives much thought to us?”“Think, my darling? I know he prays day by day for the time when he may return. Ah!” she sighed to herself, “he reproached me once with teaching his child not to love him. He could not say so now.”“I wonder how long it will be?” said Julia thoughtfully. “Do you think he will be much changed?”She glanced up at the picture.“Changed, Julia?” said her mother, taking the sweet, earnest face between her hands, to shower down kisses upon it, kisses mingled with tears, “no, not in the least. It is twelve long years since, now; heaven only knows how long to me! Years when, but for you, my darling, I should have sunk beneath my burden. I think I should have gone mad. In all those years you have been the link to bind me to life—to make me hope and strive and wait, and now I feel sometimes as if the reward were coming, as if this long penance were at an end. My love! my husband! come to me! oh, come!”She uttered these last words with so wild and hysterical a cry that Julia was alarmed.“Mother,” she whispered, “you are ill!”“No, no, my child; it is only sometimes that I feel so deeply stirred. Your words about his being changed seemed to move me to the quick. He will not be changed; his hair will be grey, his face lined with the furrows of increasing age and care; but he himself—my dear husband, your loving father—will be at heart the same, and we shall welcome him back to a life of rest and peace.”“Yes, yes!” cried Julia, catching the infection of her mother’s enthusiasm; “and it will be soon, will it not, mother—it will be soon?”“Let us pray that it may, my child.”“But, mother, why do we not go to him?” Mrs Hallam shivered slightly. “We should have been near him all these years, and we might have seen him. Oh, mother! if it had been only once! Why did you not go?” She rose from her knees, as if moved by her excitement. “Why, I would have gone a hundred times as far!” she said excitedly. “No distance should have kept me from the husband that I loved.”“Julie! Julie! are you reproaching me?”“Mother!” cried the girl, flinging herself upon her neck, “as if I could reproach you!”“It would not be just, my child,” said Mrs Hallam, caressing the soft dark head, “for I have tried so hard.”“Yes, yes, I know, dear; and I have known ever since I have been old enough to think.”“In every letter I have sent I have prayed for his leave to come out and join him—that I might be near him, for I dared not take the responsibility upon myself with you.”“Mother!”“If I had been alone in the world, Julia, I should have gone years upon years ago; but I felt that I should be committing a breach of trust to take his young, tender child all those thousands of miles across the sea, to a land whose society is wild, and often lawless.”“And so you asked papa to give his consent?”“Every time I wrote to him, Julia—letters full of trust in the future, letters filled with the hope I did not feel. I begged him to give me his consent that I might come.”“And he has not replied, mother?”“Not yet, my child. Innocent and guilty alike have a long probation to pass through.”“But he might have written, dear.”“How do we know that, Julia?” said Mrs Hallam, with a shade of sternness in her voice. “I have studied the matter deeply from the reports and dispatches, and often the poor prisoners are sent far up the country as servants—almost slaves—to the settlers. In places sometimes where there are no fellow-creatures save the blacks for miles upon miles. No roads, Julia; no post; no means of communication.”“My poor father!” sighed Julia, sinking upon the carpet, half sitting, half kneeling, with her hands clasped upon her knees, and her gaze directed up at the dimly-seen picture on the wall.“Yes, my child, I know all,” said Mrs Hallam. “I know him and his pride. Think of a man like him, innocent, and yet condemned; dragged from his home like a common felon, and forced to herd with criminals of the lowest class. Is it not natural that his heart should rebel against society, and that he should proudly make his stand upon his innocency, and wait in silent suffering for the day when the law shall say: ‘Innocent and injured man, come back from the desert. You have been deeply wronged!’”“Yes, dear mother. Poor father! But not one letter in all these years!”“Julia, my child, you pain me,” cried Mrs Hallam excitedly. “When you speak like that, your words seem to imply that he has had the power to send letter or message. He is your father—my husband. Child, you must learn to think of him with the same faith as I.”“Indeed I will, dear,” cried Julia passionately; and then she started to her feet, for there was a quick, decided knock at the front door.Mrs Hallam hurriedly tried to compose her features; and as Thisbe’s step was heard in the passage she drew in her breath, gazed wildly at the picture, just as Julia drew down the blind and blotted it from her sight. Then the door was opened, and their visitor came in the centre of the glow shed by the passage light.“Aha! In the dark!” cried Bayle in his cheery voice, as Thisbe opened the door. “How I wish I had been born a lady! I always envy you that pleasant hour you spend in the half light, gazing into the fire.”Julia echoed his laugh in a pleasant silvery trill, as she hastily lit the lamp, Bayle watching her as the argand wick gradually burned round, and she put on the glass chimney, the light throwing up her handsome young face against the gloom till she lifted the great dome-shaped globe, which emitted a musical sound before being placed over the lamp, and throwing Julia’s countenance once more into the shade.“What are you laughing at?” said Bayle.“At the idea of our Mr Bayle being idle for an hour, sitting and thinking over the fire,” said Julia playfully, to draw his attention from her mother’s disturbed countenance.The attempt was a failure, for Bayle saw clearly that something was wrong; that pain and suffering had been there before him; and he sighed as he asked himself what he could do more, in his unselfish way, to chase earthly cares from that quiet home.

“Won’t you have the lamp lit, Miss Millicent?”

“No, Thisbe, not yet,” said Mrs Hallam, in a low, dreamy voice, and without a word the faithful follower of her mistress in trouble went softly out, closing the door, and leaving mother and daughter alone.

“She’s got one of her fits on,” mused Thisbe. “Ah, how it does come over me sometimes like a temptation—just about once a month ever since—to have one good go at her and tell her I told her so; that it was all what might be expected of wedding a handsome man. ‘Didn’t I warn you?’ I could say. ‘Didn’t I tell you how it would be?’ But no: I couldn’t say a word to the poor dear, and her going on believing in the bad scamp as she does all these years. She’s different to me. It’s just for all the world like a temptation that comes over me, driving me like to speak, but I’ve kept my mouth shut all these years and I’m going to do it still.”

Thisbe had reached her little brightly-kept kitchen, where she stood thoughtfully gazing at the fire, with one hand upon her hip, for some minutes.

Then a peculiar change came upon Thisbe’s hard face. It seemed as if it had been washed over with something sweet, which softened it; then it suggested the idea that she was about to sneeze, and ended by a violent spasmodic twitch, quite a convulsion. Thisbe’s body remained motionless, though her face was altered, and by degrees her eyes, after brightening and sparkling, grew suffused and dreamy, as she gazed straight before her and seemed to be thinking very deeply. Her countenance was free from the spasm now, and as the candle shone upon it, it brought prominently into notice the fact that in her love of cleanliness Thisbe was not so particular as she might have been in the process of rinsing; for the fact was patent that she rubbed herself profusely with soap, and left enough upon her face after her ablutions to produce the effect of an elastic varnish or glaze.

Everything was very still, the only sounds being the dull wooden tick of the Dutch clock, and the drowsy chirp of an asthmatic cricket, which seemed to have wedded itself somewhere in a crack behind the grate, and to be bemoaning its inability to get out; while the clock ticked hoarsely, as if its life were a burden, and it were heartily sick of having that existence renewed by a nightly pulling up of the two black iron sausages that hung some distance below its sallow face.

Suddenly Thisbe walked sharply to the fire, seized the poker, and cleared the bottom bar. This done she replaced the poker, and planted one foot upon the fender to warm, and one hand upon the mantel-piece with so much inadvertence that she knocked down the tinder-box, and had to pick the flint and steel from out of the ashes with the brightly polished tongs.

“I don’t know what’s come to me,” she said sharply, as soon as the tinder-box was replaced. “Think of her holding fast to him all these years, and training up my bairn to believe in him as if he was a noble martyr! My word, it’s a curious thing for a woman to be taken like that with a man, and no matter what he does, to be always believing him!”

Thisbe pursed up her lips, and twitched her toes up and down as they rested upon the fender, while she directed her conversation at the golden caverns of the fire.

“They say Gorringe the tailor used to beat his wife, but that woman always looked happy, and I’ve seen her smile on him as if there wasn’t such another man in the world.”

Just then the clock gave such a wheeze that Thisbe started and stared at it.

“Quite makes me nervous,” she said, turning back to the fire. “What with the thinking and worry, and her keeping always in the same mind—oh, my!”

She took her hand from the mantel-piece to clap it upon its fellow as a sudden thought struck her, which made her look aghast.

“If he did!” she said after a pause. “And yet she expects it some day. Oh, dear me! oh, dear me! what weak, foolish, trusting things women are! They take a fancy to a man, and then because you don’t believe in him, too, it’s hoity-toity and never forgive me. Well, poor soul! perhaps it’s all for the best. It may comfort her in her troubles. I wonder what Tom Porter looks like now,” she said suddenly, and then looked sharply and guiltily round to see if her words had been heard. “I declare I ought to be ashamed of myself,” she said, and rushing at some work, she plumped herself down and began to stitch with all her might.

In the little parlour all was very quiet, save the occasional footstep in the street. The blind was not drawn down, and the faint light from outside mingled with the glow from the fire, which threw up the face of Julia Hallam, where she sat dreamily gazing at the embers, against the dark transparency, giving her the look of a painting by one of the Italian masters of the past.

At the old-fashioned square piano her mother was seated with her hands resting upon the keys which were silent. Farther distant from the fire her figure, graceful still, seemed melting into a darker transparency, one which grew deeper and deeper, till in the corner of the room and right and left of the fireplace the shadows seemed to be almost solid. Then the accustomed eye detected the various objects that furnished the room, melting, as it were, away.

Only on one spot did there seem a discordant note in the general harmony of the softly glowing scene, and that was where the rays from a newly-lighted street lamp shone straight upon the wall and across the picture of Robert Hallam, cutting it strangely asunder, and giving to the upper portion of the face a weird and almost ghastly look.

Thisbe’s steps had died out and her kitchen door had closed, but the musings of the two women had been interrupted and did not go back to their former current.

All at once, soft as a memory of the bygone, the notes of the piano began to sound, and Julia changed her position, resting one arm upon the chair by her side and listening intently to a dreamy old melody that brought back to her the drawing-room in the old house at Castor—a handsomely-furnished, low-ceiled room with deep window-seat, on whose cushion she had often knelt to watch the passing vehicles while her mother played that very tune in the half light.

So dreamy, so softened, as if mingled there with a strange sadness. Now just as it was then, one of the vivid memories of childhood, Weber’s “Last Waltz,” an air so sweet, so full of melancholy, that it seems wondrous that our parents could have danced to its strains, till we recall the doleful minor music of minuet, coranto, and saraband. Dancing must have been a serious matter in those days.

Soft and sweet, chord after chord, each laden with its memory to Julia Hallam.

Her mother was playing that when her father came in hastily one night, and was so angry because there were no lights; that night when she stole away to Thisbe.

She was playing it too that afternoon when Grandmamma Luttrell came and was in such low spirits, and would not tell the reason why. Again, that night when she shrank away from her father, and he flung her hands from him, and said that angry word.

Memory after memory came back from the past as Millicent Hallam played softly on, making her child’s face lustrous, eyes grow more dreamy, the curved neck bend lower, and the tears begin to gather, till, with quite a start, the young girl raised her head and saw the rays from the gas-lamp shining across the picture beyond her mother’s dimly-seen profile.

Julia rose to cross to her mother’s side, and knelt down to pass her arms round the shapely waist and there rest.

“Go on playing,” she said softly. “Now tell me about poor papa.”

The notes of the old melody seemed to have an additional strain of melancholy as they floated softly through the room, sometimes almost dying away, while after waiting a few minutes they formed the accompaniment to the sad story of Millicent Hallam’s love and faith, told for the hundredth time to her daughter.

For Millicent talked on without a tremor in her voice, every word distinct and firm, and yet softly sweet and full of tenderness, as it seemed to her that she was telling the story of a martyr’s sufferings to his child.

“And all these years, and we have heard so little,” sighed Julia. “Poor papa! Poor father!”

The music ceased as she spoke, but went on again as she paused.

“Waiting, my child; waiting as I wait, and as my child waits, for the time when he will be declared free, and will take his place again among honourable men.”

“But, mother,” said Julia, “could not Mr Bayle or Sir Gordon have done more; petitioned the king, and pointed out this grievous wrong?”

“I could not ask Sir Gordon, my child. There were reasons why he could not act; but I did all that was possible year after year till, in my despair, I found that I must wait.”

“How glad he must be of your letters!” said Julia suddenly.

Millicent Hallam sighed.

“I suppose he cannot write to us. Perhaps he feels that it would pain us. Mother, darling, was I an ill-conditioned, perverse child?”

“My Julia,” said Mrs Hallam, turning to her and drawing her closely to her breast, “what a question! No. Why do you ask?”

“Because I seem just to recollect myself shrinking away from papa as if I were sulky or obstinate. It was as if I was afraid of him.”

“Oh, no, no!” cried Mrs Hallam anxiously, “you were very young then, and your poor father was constrained, and troubled with many anxieties, which made him seem cold and distant. It was his great love for us, my child.”

“Yes, dear mother, his great love for us—his misfortune.”

“His misfortune,” sighed Mrs Hallam.

“But some day—when he returns—oh, mother! how we will love him, and make him happy! How we will force him to forget the troubles of the past!”

“My darling!” whispered Mrs Hallam, pressing her fondly to her heart.

“Do you think papa had many enemies, then?”

“I used to think so, my child, but that feeling has passed away. I seem to see more clearly now that those who caused his condemnation were but the creatures of circumstances. It was the villain who seemed to be your father’s evil genius caused all our woe. He made me shiver on the morning of our wedding, coming suddenly upon us as he did, as if he were angry with your father for being so happy.”

“But could we not do something?” said Julia earnestly. “It seems to be so sad—year after year goes by, and we sit idle.”

“Yes,” said Mrs Hallam with a sob; “but that is all we can do, my child—sit and wait, sit and wait, but keeping the home ready for our darling when he comes—the home here—and in our hearts.”

“He is always there, mother,” said Julia in a low, sweet voice, “always. How I remember him, with his soft dark hair, and his dark eyes! I think I used to be a little afraid of him.”

“Because he seemed stern, my child, that was all. You loved him very dearly.”

“He shall see how I will love him when he returns, mother,” she added after a pause. “Do you think he gives much thought to us?”

“Think, my darling? I know he prays day by day for the time when he may return. Ah!” she sighed to herself, “he reproached me once with teaching his child not to love him. He could not say so now.”

“I wonder how long it will be?” said Julia thoughtfully. “Do you think he will be much changed?”

She glanced up at the picture.

“Changed, Julia?” said her mother, taking the sweet, earnest face between her hands, to shower down kisses upon it, kisses mingled with tears, “no, not in the least. It is twelve long years since, now; heaven only knows how long to me! Years when, but for you, my darling, I should have sunk beneath my burden. I think I should have gone mad. In all those years you have been the link to bind me to life—to make me hope and strive and wait, and now I feel sometimes as if the reward were coming, as if this long penance were at an end. My love! my husband! come to me! oh, come!”

She uttered these last words with so wild and hysterical a cry that Julia was alarmed.

“Mother,” she whispered, “you are ill!”

“No, no, my child; it is only sometimes that I feel so deeply stirred. Your words about his being changed seemed to move me to the quick. He will not be changed; his hair will be grey, his face lined with the furrows of increasing age and care; but he himself—my dear husband, your loving father—will be at heart the same, and we shall welcome him back to a life of rest and peace.”

“Yes, yes!” cried Julia, catching the infection of her mother’s enthusiasm; “and it will be soon, will it not, mother—it will be soon?”

“Let us pray that it may, my child.”

“But, mother, why do we not go to him?” Mrs Hallam shivered slightly. “We should have been near him all these years, and we might have seen him. Oh, mother! if it had been only once! Why did you not go?” She rose from her knees, as if moved by her excitement. “Why, I would have gone a hundred times as far!” she said excitedly. “No distance should have kept me from the husband that I loved.”

“Julie! Julie! are you reproaching me?”

“Mother!” cried the girl, flinging herself upon her neck, “as if I could reproach you!”

“It would not be just, my child,” said Mrs Hallam, caressing the soft dark head, “for I have tried so hard.”

“Yes, yes, I know, dear; and I have known ever since I have been old enough to think.”

“In every letter I have sent I have prayed for his leave to come out and join him—that I might be near him, for I dared not take the responsibility upon myself with you.”

“Mother!”

“If I had been alone in the world, Julia, I should have gone years upon years ago; but I felt that I should be committing a breach of trust to take his young, tender child all those thousands of miles across the sea, to a land whose society is wild, and often lawless.”

“And so you asked papa to give his consent?”

“Every time I wrote to him, Julia—letters full of trust in the future, letters filled with the hope I did not feel. I begged him to give me his consent that I might come.”

“And he has not replied, mother?”

“Not yet, my child. Innocent and guilty alike have a long probation to pass through.”

“But he might have written, dear.”

“How do we know that, Julia?” said Mrs Hallam, with a shade of sternness in her voice. “I have studied the matter deeply from the reports and dispatches, and often the poor prisoners are sent far up the country as servants—almost slaves—to the settlers. In places sometimes where there are no fellow-creatures save the blacks for miles upon miles. No roads, Julia; no post; no means of communication.”

“My poor father!” sighed Julia, sinking upon the carpet, half sitting, half kneeling, with her hands clasped upon her knees, and her gaze directed up at the dimly-seen picture on the wall.

“Yes, my child, I know all,” said Mrs Hallam. “I know him and his pride. Think of a man like him, innocent, and yet condemned; dragged from his home like a common felon, and forced to herd with criminals of the lowest class. Is it not natural that his heart should rebel against society, and that he should proudly make his stand upon his innocency, and wait in silent suffering for the day when the law shall say: ‘Innocent and injured man, come back from the desert. You have been deeply wronged!’”

“Yes, dear mother. Poor father! But not one letter in all these years!”

“Julia, my child, you pain me,” cried Mrs Hallam excitedly. “When you speak like that, your words seem to imply that he has had the power to send letter or message. He is your father—my husband. Child, you must learn to think of him with the same faith as I.”

“Indeed I will, dear,” cried Julia passionately; and then she started to her feet, for there was a quick, decided knock at the front door.

Mrs Hallam hurriedly tried to compose her features; and as Thisbe’s step was heard in the passage she drew in her breath, gazed wildly at the picture, just as Julia drew down the blind and blotted it from her sight. Then the door was opened, and their visitor came in the centre of the glow shed by the passage light.

“Aha! In the dark!” cried Bayle in his cheery voice, as Thisbe opened the door. “How I wish I had been born a lady! I always envy you that pleasant hour you spend in the half light, gazing into the fire.”

Julia echoed his laugh in a pleasant silvery trill, as she hastily lit the lamp, Bayle watching her as the argand wick gradually burned round, and she put on the glass chimney, the light throwing up her handsome young face against the gloom till she lifted the great dome-shaped globe, which emitted a musical sound before being placed over the lamp, and throwing Julia’s countenance once more into the shade.

“What are you laughing at?” said Bayle.

“At the idea of our Mr Bayle being idle for an hour, sitting and thinking over the fire,” said Julia playfully, to draw his attention from her mother’s disturbed countenance.

The attempt was a failure, for Bayle saw clearly that something was wrong; that pain and suffering had been there before him; and he sighed as he asked himself what he could do more, in his unselfish way, to chase earthly cares from that quiet home.

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