"That was George Ryle!" she exclaimed, as she came up. "What brings him back already?"
"He found his brother away when he reached Oxford," was Maude's reply.
"I think he was very rude not to stop and speak to you, Octave," observed Emily Chattaway. "He saw you coming."
Octave made no reply. She mounted the stile and gazed after the horseman, apparently to see what direction he would take on reaching the end of the lane. Patiently watching, she saw him turn into another lane, which branched off to the left. Octave Chattaway jumped over the stile, and went swiftly across the field.
"She's gone to meet him," was Emily's comment.
It was precisely what Miss Chattawayhadgone to do. Passing through a copse after quitting the field, she emerged from it just as George was riding quietly past. He halted and stopped to shake hands, as he had done with Maude.
"You are out of breath, Octave. Have you been hastening to catch me?"
"I need not have done so but for your gallantry in riding off the moment you saw me," she answered, resentfully.
"I beg your pardon. I did not know you wanted me. And I am in a hurry."
"It seems so—stopping to speak so long to the children and Maude," she returned, with irony. And George Ryle's laugh was a conscious one.
Latent antagonism was seated in the minds of both, and a latent consciousness of it running through their hearts. When George Ryle saw Octave hastening across the common, he knew she was speeding to reach him ere he should be gone; when Octave saw him ride away, a voice whispered that he did so to avoid meeting her; and each felt that their secret thoughts and motives were known to the other. Yes, there was constant antagonism between them; if the word may be applied to Octave Chattaway, who had learnt to value the society of George Ryle more highly than was good for her. Did he so value hers? Octave wore out her heart, hoping for it. But in the midst of her unwise love for him, her never-ceasing efforts to be in his presence, near to him, there constantly arose the bitter conviction that he did not care for her.
"I wished to ask you about the book you promised to get me," she said. "Have you procured it?"
"No; and I am sorry to say that I cannot meet with it," replied George. "I thought of it at Oxford, and went into nearly every bookseller's shop in the place, unsuccessfully. I told you it was difficult to find. I must get them to write to London for it from Barmester."
"Will you come to the Hold this evening?" she asked, as he was riding away.
"Thank you. I am not sure that I can. My day or two's absence has made me busy."
Octave Chattaway drew back under cover of the trees and halted: never retreating until every trace of that fine young horseman had passed out of sight.
It is singular to observe how lightly the marks of Time occasionally pass over the human form and face. An instance of this might be seen in Mrs. Chattaway. It was strange that it should be so in her case. Her health was not good, and she certainly was not a happy woman. Illness was frequently her portion; care ever seemed to follow her; and it is upon these sufferers in mind and body that Time is fond of leaving his traces. He had not left them on Mrs. Chattaway; her face was fair and fresh as it had been eight years ago; her hair fell in its mass of curls; her eyes were still blue, and clear, and bright.
And yet anxiety was her constant companion. It may be said that remorse never left her. She would sit at the window of her room upstairs—Madam's room—for hours, apparently contemplating the outer world; in reality seeing nothing.
As she was sitting now. The glories of the bright day had faded into twilight; the sun no longer lit up the many hues of the autumn foliage; all the familiar points in the landscape had faded to indistinctness; old Canham's lodge chimneys were becoming obscure, and the red light from the mines and works was beginning to show out on the right in the extreme distance. Mrs. Chattaway leaned her elbow on the old-fashioned armchair, and rested her cheek upon her hand. Had you looked at her eyes, gazing out so upon the fading landscape, you might have seen that they were deep in the world of thought.
That constitutional timidity of hers had been nothing but a blight to her throughout life. Reticence in a woman is good; but not that timid, shrinking reticence which is the result of fear; which dare not speak up for itself, even to oppose a wrong. Every wrong inflicted upon Rupert Trevlyn—every unkindness shown him—every pang, whether of mind or body, which happier circumstances might have spared him, was avenged over and over again in the person of Mrs. Chattaway. It may be said that she lived only in pain; her life was one never-ending sorrow—sorrow for Rupert.
In the old days, when her husband had chosen to deceive Squire Trevlyn as to the existence of Rupert, she had not dared to avow the truth, and say to her father, "There is an heir born." She dared not fly in the face of her husband, and say it; and, it may be, that she was too willingly silent for her husband's sake. It would seem strange, but that we know what fantastic tricks our passions play us, that pretty, gentle Edith Trevlyn should havelovedthat essentially disagreeable man, James Chattaway. But so it was. And, while deploring the fact of the wrong dealt out to Rupert—it may almost be saidexpiatingit—Mrs. Chattaway never visited that wrong upon her husband, even in thought, as it ought to have been visited. None could realise more intensely its consequences than she realised them in her secret heart. Expiate it? Ay, she expiated it again and again, if her sufferings could only have been reckoned as atonement.
But they could not.Theywere enjoying Trevlyn Hold and its advantages, and Rupert was little better than an outcast on the face of the earth. Every dinner put upon their table, every article of attire bought for their children, every honour or comfort their position brought them, seemed to rise up reproachfully before the face of Mrs. Chattaway, and say, "The money to procure all this is not yours and your husband's; it is stolen from Rupert." And she could do nothing to remedy it; could only wage ever-constant battle with the knowledge, and the sting it brought. No remedy existed. They had not come into the inheritance by legal fraud; had succeeded to it fairly and openly, according to the will of Squire Trevlyn. If the whole world ranged itself on Rupert's side, pressing that the property should be resigned to him, Mr. Chattaway had only to point to the will, and say, "You cannot act against that."
It may be that this very fact brought remorse home with greater force to Mrs. Chattaway. It may be that incessantly dwelling upon it caused a morbid state of feeling, which increased the malady. Certain it is, that night and day the wrongs of Rupert pressed on her mind. She loved him with that strange intensity which brings an aching to the heart. When the baby orphan was brought home to her from its foreign birthplace, with its rosy cheeks and its golden curls—when it put out its little arms to her, and gazed at her with its large blue eyes, her heart went out to it there and then, and she caught it to her with a love more passionate than any ever given to her own children. The irredeemable wrong inflicted on the unconscious child, fixed itself on her conscience in that hour, never to be lifted from it.
If ever a woman lived a dual life, that woman was Mrs. Chattaway. Her true aspect—that in which she saw herself as she really was—was as different from the one presented to the world as light from darkness. Do not blame her. It was difficult to help it. The world and her own family saw in Mrs. Chattaway a weak, gentle, apathetic woman, who did not take upon herself even the ordinary authority of the head of a household. They little imagined that that weak woman, remarkable for nothing but indifference, passed her days in sadness, in care, in thought. The hopeless timidity (inherited from her mother) which had been her bane in former days, was her bane still. She had not dared to rise up against her husband when the wrong was inflicted upon Rupert Trevlyn; she did not dare openly rise up now against the petty tyrannies daily dealt out to him. There may have been a latent consciousness in her mind that if she did interfere it would not change things for the better, and might make them worse for Rupert. Probably it would have done so.
There were many things she could have wished for Rupert, and went so far as to hint some of them to Mr. Chattaway. She wished he could be altogether relieved from Blackstone; she wished greater indulgences for him at home; she wished he might be transported to a warmer climate. A bare suggestion she dropped, once in a way, to Mr. Chattaway, but they fell unheeded on his ear. He replied to the hint of the warmer climate with a prolonged stare and a demand as to what romantic absurdity she could be thinking of. Mrs. Chattaway had never mentioned it again. In these cases of constitutional timidity, a rebuff, be it ever so slight, is sufficient to close the lips for ever. Poor lady! she would have sacrificed her own comfort to give peace and comfort to the unhappy Rupert. He was miserably put upon; treated with less consideration than the servants; made to feel his dependent state daily and hourly by petty annoyances; and yet she could not openly interfere!
Even now, as she sat watching the deepening shades, she was dwelling on this; resenting it in her heart, for his sake. It was the evening of the day when the girls had met George Ryle in the lane. She could hear sounds of merriment downstairs from her children and their visitors, and felt sure Rupert did not make one of them. It had long been the pleasure of Cris and Octave to exclude Rupert from the evening gatherings of the family, as far as they could do so; and if, through the presence of herself or Miss Diana, they could not absolutely deny his entrance, they treated him with studied indifference. She sat on, revolving these bitter thoughts in the gloom, until roused by the entrance of an intruder.
It was Rupert himself. He approached Mrs. Chattaway, and she fondly threw her arm round him, and drew him down to a chair by her side. Only when they were alone could she show him these marks of affection, or prove to him that he did not stand in the world entirely isolated from all love.
"Do you feel better to-night, Rupert?"
"Oh, I am a great deal better. I feel quite well. Why are you sitting in the dark, Aunt Edith?"
"It is not quite dark yet. What are they doing below, Rupert? I hear plenty of laughter."
"They are playing at some game, I think."
"At what?"
"I don't know. I was joining them, when Octave, as usual, said they were enough without me; so I came away."
Mrs. Chattaway made no reply. She never spoke a reproachful word of her children to Rupert, whatever she might feel; she never, by so much as a breathing, cast a reproach on her husband to living mortal. Rupert leaned his head on her shoulder, as though weary. Sufficient light was left to show how delicate his features, how attractive his face. The lovely countenance of his boyhood characterised him still—the suspiciously bright cheeks and silken hair. Of middle height, slender and fragile, he scarcely looked his twenty years. There was a resemblance in his face to Mrs. Chattaway: and it was not surprising, for Joe Trevlyn and his sister Edith had been remarkably alike when they were young.
"Is Cris come in?" asked Mrs. Chattaway.
"Not yet."
Rupert rose as he spoke, and stretched himself. The verbs'ennuyerwas one he often felt obliged to conjugate, in his evenings at the Hold.
"I think I shall go down for an hour to the farm."
Mrs. Chattaway started: shrank from the words, as it seemed. "Not to-night, Rupert!"
"It is so dull at home, Aunt Edith."
"They are merry enough downstairs."
"Yes. But Octave takes care that I shall not be merry with them."
What could she answer?
"Then, Rupert, you willbe sureto be home," she said, after a while. And the pained emphasis with which she spoke no pen could express. The words evidently conveyed some meaning, understood by Rupert.
"Yes," was all he answered, the tones of his voice betraying his resentment.
Mrs. Chattaway caught him to her, and hid her face upon his shoulder. "For my sake, Rupert, darling, for my sake!"
"Yes, yes, dear Aunt Edith: I'll be sure to be in time," he reiterated. "I won't forget it, as I did the other night."
She stood at the window, and watched him away from the house and down the avenue, praying that he mightnotforget. It had pleased Mr. Chattaway lately to forbid Rupert the house, unless he returned to it by half-past ten. That this motive was entirely that of ill-naturedly crossing Rupert, there could be little doubt about. Driven by unkindness from the Hold, Rupert had taken to spending his evenings with George Ryle; sometimes at the houses of other friends; now and then he would invade old Canham's. Rupert's hour for coming in from these visits was about eleven; he had generally managed to be in by the time the clock struck; but the master of Trevlyn Hold suddenly issued a mandate that he must be in by half-past ten; failing strict obedience as to time, he was not to be let in at all. Rupert resented it, and one or two unpleasant scenes had ensued. A similar rule was not applied to Cris, who might come in at any hour he pleased.
Mrs. Chattaway went down to the drawing-room. Two girls, the daughters of neighbours, were spending the evening there, and they were playing at proverbs with great animation: Maude Trevlyn, the guests, and the Miss Chattaways. Octave alone joined in it listlessly, as if her thoughts were far away. Her restless glances towards the door seemed to say she was watching for the entrance of one who did not come.
By-and-by Mr. Chattaway came home, and they sat down to supper. Afterwards, the guests departed, and the younger children went to bed. Ten o'clock struck, and the time went on again.
"Where's Rupert?" Mr. Chattaway suddenly asked his wife.
"He went down to Trevlyn Farm," she said, unable, had it been to save her life, to speak without deprecation.
He made no reply, but rang the bell, and ordered the household to bed. Miss Diana Trevlyn was out upon a visit.
"Cris and Rupert are not in," observed Octave, as she lighted her mother's candle and her own.
Mr. Chattaway took out his watch. "Twenty-five minutes past ten," he said, in his hard, impassive manner—a manner which imparted the idea that he was utterly destitute of sympathy for the whole human race. "Mr. Rupert must be quick if he intends to be admitted to-night; Give your mother her bed-candle."
It may appear almost incredible that Mrs. Chattaway should meekly take her candle and follow her daughter upstairs without remonstrance, when she would have given the world to sit up longer. She was becoming quite feverish on Rupert's account, and would have wished to wait in that room until his ring was heard. But to oppose her own will to her husband's was a thing she had never yet done; in small things, as in great, she had bowed to his wishes without making the faintest shadow of resistance.
Octave wished her mother good-night, went into her room, and closed the door. Mrs. Chattaway was turning into hers when she saw Maude creeping down the upper stairs. She came noiselessly along the corridor, her face pale with agitation, and her heart beating.
"Oh, Aunt Edith, what will be done?" she murmured. "It is half-past ten, and he is not home."
"Maude, my poor child, you can do nothing," was the whispered answer, the tone as full of pain as Maude's. "Go back to your room, dear; your uncle may come up."
The great clock in the hall struck the half-hour, its sound falling as a knell. Hot tears were falling from the eyes of Maude.
"What will become of him, Aunt Edith? Where will he sleep?"
"Hush, Maude! Run back."
It was time to run; and Mrs. Chattaway spoke the words in startled tones. The master's heavy footstep was heard crossing the hall. Maude stole back, and Mrs. Chattaway passed into her dressing-room.
She sat down on a chair, and pressed her hands upon her bosom to still its beating. Her suspense and agitation were terrible. A sensitive nature, such as Mrs. Chattaway's, feels emotion in a most painful degree. Every sense was strung to its utmost tension. She listened for Rupert's footfall outside; waited with a sort of horror for the ringing of the house-bell announcing his arrival, her whole frame sick and faint.
At last one came running up the avenue at a fleet pace, and the echoes of the bell were heard resounding through the house.
Not daring to defy her husband by going down to let him in she knocked at his door and entered.
"Shall I go down and open the door, James?"
"No."
"It is only five minutes past the half-hour."
"Five minutes are the same in effect as five hours," answered Mr. Chattaway. "Unless he can be in before the half-hour,he does not come in at all."
"It may be Cris," she resumed.
"Nonsense! You know it is not Cris. Cris has his latch-key."
Another alarming peal.
"He can see the light in my dressing-room," she urged, with parched lips. "Oh, James, let me go down."
"I tell you—No."
There was no appeal against it. She knew there might be none. But she clasped her hands in agony, and gave utterance to the distress at her heart.
"Where will he sleep? Where can he go, if we deny him entrance?"
"Where he chooses. He does not enter here."
And Mrs. Chattaway went back to her dressing-room, and listened in despair to further appeals from the bell. Appeals which she might not answer.
The nights were chilly in the early autumn, and a blazing fire lighted up the drawing-room at Trevlyn Farm. On a comfortable sofa, drawn close to it, sat Mrs. Ryle, a warm shawl thrown over her black silk gown—soft cushions heaped around her. A violent cold had made an invalid of her for some days past, but she was recovering. Her face was softened by a white cap of delicate lace; but its lines had grown haughtier and firmer with her years. She wore well, and was handsome still.
Trevlyn Farm had prospered. It was a lucky day for Mrs. Ryle when she decided upon her step-son's remaining on it. He had brought energy and goodwill to bear on his work; a clear head and calm intelligence; and time had contributed judgment and experience. Mrs. Ryle knew that she could not have been more faithfully served, and gradually grew to feel his value. Had they been really mother and son, they could not have been better friends. In the beginning she was inclined to discountenance sundry ways and habits George favoured. He did not turn himself into aworkingfarmer, as his father had done, and as Mrs. Ryle thought he ought to do. George objected. A man who worked on his own farm must give it a less general supervision, he urged: and after all, it was only the cost of an additional day-labourer. His argument carried reason with it; and keen and active Farmer Apperley, who deemed idleness the greatest sin (next, perhaps, to hunting) a young farmer could commit, nodded approval. George did not put aside his books; his classics, and his studies in general literature; quite the contrary. In short, George Ryle appeared to be going in for a gentleman—as Cris Chattaway chose to term it—a great deal more than Mrs. Ryle considered would be profitable for him or for her. But George had held on his course, in a quiet, undemonstrative way; and Mrs. Ryle had at length fallen in with it. Perhaps she now saw its wisdom. That he was essentially a gentleman, in person and manners, in mind and conduct, she could only acknowledge, and she felt a pride in him she had never dreamed she should feel for any one but Treve.
Could she feel pride in Treve? Not much, with all her partiality. Trevlyn Ryle was not turning out quite satisfactorily. There was nothing very objectionable to be urged against him; but Mrs. Ryle was accustomed to measure by a high standard of excellence; and of that Treve fell exceedingly short. She had not deemed it well that George Ryle should be too much of a gentleman, but she had determined Trevlyn should be one. Upon the completion of his school life, he was sent to Oxford. The cost might have been imprudently heavy for Mrs. Ryle, had she borne it unassisted; but Trevlyn had gained a scholarship at Barmester Grammar School, and the additional cost was light. Treve, once at Oxford, did not get on quite so fast as he might have done. Treve spent; Treve seemed to have plenty of wild-oats to sow; Treve thought he should like a life of idleness better than farming. His mother had foolishly whispered the fond hope that he might some time be owner of Trevlyn Hold, and Treve reckoned upon its fulfilment more confidently than was good for him. Meanwhile, until the lucky chance arrived which should give him the inheritance (though by what miracle the chance was to fall was at present hidden in the womb of mystery), Treve, upon leaving college, was to assume the mastership of Trevlyn Farm, in accordance with the plan originally decided upon by Mrs. Ryle. He would not be altogether unqualified for this: having been about the farm since he was a child, and seen how it should be worked. Whether he would give sufficient personal attention to it was another matter.
Mrs. Ryle expressed herself as not being too confident of him—whether of his industry or qualifications she did not state. George had given one or two hints that when Treve came home for good, he must look out for something else; but Mrs. Ryle had waived away the hints as if they were unpleasant to her. Treve must prove what metal he was made of, before assuming the management, she briefly said. And George suffered the subject to drop.
Treve had now but one more term to keep at the university. At the conclusion of the previous term he had not returned home: remaining on a visit to a friend, who had an appointment in one of the colleges. But Treve's demand for money had become somewhat inconvenient to Mrs. Ryle, and she had begged George to pay Oxford a few days' visit, that he might see how Treve was really going on. George complied, and proceeded to Oxford, where he found Treve absent—as in the last chapter you heard him say to Maude Trevlyn.
Mrs. Trevlyn sat by the drawing-room fire, enveloped in her shawl, and supported by her pillows. The thought of these things was bringing a severe look to her proud face. She had scarcely seen George since his return; had not exchanged more than ten words with him. But those ten words had not been of a cheering nature; and she feared things were not going on satisfactorily with Treve. With that hard look on her features, how wonderfully her face resembled that of her dead father!
Presently George came in. Mrs. Ryle looked up eagerly at his entrance.
"Are you better?" he asked, advancing, and bending with a kindly smile. "It is long since you had such a cold as this."
"I shall be all right in a day or two," she answered. "Yesterday I thought I was going to have a long illness, my chest was so painful. Sit down, George. What about Treve?"
"Treve was not at Oxford. He had gone to London."
"You told me so. What had he gone there for?"
"A little change, Ferrars said. He had been gone a week."
"A little change? In plain English, a little pleasure, I suppose. Call it what you will, it costs money."
George had seated himself opposite to her, his arm resting on the centre table, and the red blaze lighting up his frank, pleasant face. In figure he was tall and slight; his father, at his age, had been so before him.
"Why did you not follow him to London?" resumed Mrs. Ryle. "It would have been less than a two hours' journey from Oxford."
George turned his large dark eyes upon her, some surprise in them. "How was I to know where to look for him, if I had gone?"
"Could Mr. Ferrars not give you his address?"
"No. I asked him. Treve had not told him where he should put up. In fact, Ferrars did not think Treve knew himself. Under these circumstances, my going to town would have been only waste of time and money."
"It is of no use your keeping things from me," resumed Mrs. Ryle, after a pause. "Has Treve contracted fresh debts at Oxford?"
"I fancy he has. A few."
"A 'few'—and you 'fancy!' George, tell me the truth. That you know he has, and that they are not a few."
"That he has, I believe to be true: I gathered as much from Ferrars. But I do not think they are serious; I do not indeed."
"Why did you not inquire? I would have gone to every shop in the town, in order to ascertain. If he is contracting more debts, who is to pay them?"
George was silent.
"When shall we be clear of Chattaway?" she abruptly resumed. "When will the last payment be due?"
"In a month or two's time. Principal and interest will all be paid off then."
"It will take all your efforts to make up the sum."
"It will be ready, mother. It shall be."
"I don't doubt it. But it will not be ready, George, if a portion is to be taken from it for Treve."
George knit his brow. He was falling into thought.
"Imustget rid of Chattaway," she resumed. "He has been weighing us down all these years like an incubus; and now that emancipation has nearly come, were anything to delay it, I should—I think I should go mad."
"I hope and trust nothing will delay it," answered George. "I am more anxious to get rid of Chattaway than, I think, even you can be. As to Treve, his debts must wait."
"But it would be more desirable that he should not contract them."
"Of course. But how are we to prevent his contracting them?"
"He ought to prevent it himself.Youdid not contract debts."
"I!" he rejoined, in surprise. "I had no opportunity of doing so. Work and responsibility were thrown upon me before I was old enough to think of pleasure: and they kept me steady."
"You were not naturally inclined to spend, George."
"There's no knowing what I might have acquired, had I been sent out into the world, as Treve has," he rejoined.
"It was necessary that Treve should go to college," said Mrs. Ryle, quite sharply.
"I am not saying anything to the contrary," George quietly answered. "It was right that he should go—as you wished it."
"I shall live—I hope I shall live—I pray that I may live—to see Trevlyn lawful possessor of the Hold. A gentleman's education was essential to him: hence I sent him to Oxford."
George made no reply. Mrs. Ryle felt vexed. She knew George disapproved her policy in regard to Trevlyn, and charged him with it now. George would not deny it.
"What I think unwise is your having led Treve to build hopes upon succeeding to Trevlyn Hold," he said.
"Why?" she haughtily asked. "He will come into it."
"I do not see how."
"He has far more right to it than he who is looked upon as its successor—Cris Chattaway," she said, with flashing eyes. "You know that."
George could have answered that neither of them had a just right to it, whilst Rupert Trevlyn lived; but Rupert and his claims had been so completely ignored by Mrs. Ryle, as by others, that his advancing them would have been waived away as idle talk. Mrs. Ryle resumed, her voice unsteady. It was most rare that she suffered herself to speak of these past grievances; but when she did, her vehemence mounted to agitation.
"When my boy was born, the news that Joe Trevlyn's health was failing had come home to us. I knew the Squire would never leave the property to Maude, and I expected that my son would inherit. Was it not natural that I should do so?—was it not his right?—I was the Squire's eldest daughter. I had him named Trevlyn; I wrote a note to my father, saying he would not now be at fault for a male heir, in the event of poor Joe's not leaving one——"
"He did leave one," interrupted George, speaking impulsively.
"Rupert was not born then, and his succession was afterwards barred by my father's will. Through deceit, I grant you: but I had no hand in that deceit. I named my boy Trevlyn; I regarded him as the heir; and when the Squire died and his will was opened, it was found he had bequeathed all to Chattaway. If you think I have ever once faltered in my hope—my resolve—to see Trevlyn some time displace the Chattaways, you do not know much of human nature."
"I grant what you say," replied George; "that, of the two, Trevlyn has more right to it than Cris Chattaway. But has it ever occurred to you to ask,howCris is to be displaced?"
Mrs. Ryle did not answer. She sat beating her foot upon the ottoman, as one whose mind is not at ease. George continued:
"It appears to me the wildest possible fallacy, the bare idea of Trevlyn's being able to displace Cris Chattaway in the succession. If we lived in the barbarous ages, when inheritances were wrested by force of arms, when the turn of a battle decided the ownership of a castle, then there might be a chance that Cris might lose Trevlyn Hold. As it is, there is none. There is not the faintest shadow of a chance that it can go to any one beside Cris. Failing his death—and he is strong and healthy—hemustsucceed. Why, even were Rupert—forgive my alluding to him again—to urgehisclaims, there would be no hope for him. Mr. Chattaway legally holds the estate; he has willed it to his son; and that son cannot be displaced by others."
Her foot beat more impatiently; a heavier line settled on her brow. Often and often had the arguments now stated by her step-son occurred to her aching brain. George spoke again.
"And therefore, the improbability—I may say the impossibility—of Treve's ever succeeding renders it unwise that he should have been taught to build upon it. Far better, mother, the thought had never been so much as whispered to him."
"Why do you look at it in this unfavourable light?" she cried angrily.
"Because it is the correct light. The property is Mr. Chattaway's—legally his, and it cannot be taken from him. It will be Cris's after him. It is simply madness to think otherwise."
"Cris may die," said Mrs. Ryle sharply.
"If Cris died to-morrow, Treve would be no nearer succession. Chattaway has daughters, and would will it to each in turn rather than to Treve. He can will it away as he pleases. It was left to him absolutely."
"My father was mad when he made such a will in favour of Chattaway! He could have been nothing less. I have thought so many times."
"But it was made, and cannot now be altered. Will you pardon me for saying that it would have been better had you accepted the state of affairs, and endeavoured to reconcile yourself to them?"
"Better?"
"Yes; much better. To rebel against what cannot be remedied can only do harm. I would a great deal rather Treve succeeded to Trevlyn Hold than Cris Chattaway: but I know Treve never will succeed: and, therefore, it is a pity it was ever suggested to him. He might have settled down more steadily had he never become possessed of the idea that he might some time supersede Cris Chattaway."
"Heshallsupersede him——"
The door opened to admit a visitor, and he who entered was no other than Rupert Trevlyn. Ignore his claims as she would, Mrs. Ryle felt it would not be seemly to discuss before him Treve's chance of succession. She had in truth completely put from her all thought of the claims of Rupert. He had been deprived of his right by Squire Trevlyn's will, and there was an end to it. Mrs. Ryle rather liked Rupert; or, it may be better to say, she did notdislike him; really to like any one except Treve, was not in her nature. She liked Rupert in a negative sort of way; but would not have helped him to his inheritance by lifting a finger. In the event of her possessing no son to be jealous for, she might have taken up the wrongs of Rupert—just to thwart Chattaway.
"Why, Rupert," said George, rising, and cordially shaking hands, "I heard you were ill again. Maude told me so to-day."
"I am better to-night. Aunt Ryle, they said you were in bed."
"I am better, too, Rupert. What has been the matter with you?"
"Oh, my chest again," said Rupert, pushing the waving hair from his bright and delicate face. "I could hardly breathe this morning."
"Ought you to have come out to-night?"
"I don't think it matters," carelessly answered Rupert. "For all I see, I am as well when I go out as when I don't. There's not much to stay in for, there."
Painfully susceptible to cold, he edged himself closer to the hearth with a slight shiver. George took the poker and stirred the fire, and the blaze went flashing up, playing on the familiar objects of the room, lighting up the slender figure, the well-formed features, the large blue eyes of Rupert, and bringing out all the signs of constitutional delicacy. The transparent fairness of complexion and the bloom of the cheeks, might have whispered a warning.
"Octave thought you were going up there to-night, George."
"Did she?"
"The two Beecroft girls are there, and they turned me out of the drawing-room. Octave said 'I wasn't wanted.' Will you play chess to-night, George?"
"If you like; after supper."
"I must be home by half-past ten, you know. I was a minute over the half-hour the other night, and one of the servants opened the door for me. Chattaway pretty nearly rose the roof off, he was so angry; but he could not decently turn me out again."
"Chattaway is master of Trevlyn Hold for the time being," remarked Mrs. Ryle. "Not Squire; never Squire"—she broke off, straying abruptly from her subject, and as abruptly resuming it. "You will do well to obey him, Rupert. When I make a rule in this house, Inever permit it to be broken."
A valuable hint, if Rupert had only taken it for guidance. He meant well: he never meant, for all his light and careless speaking, to disobey Mr. Chattaway's mandate. And yet it happened that very night!
The chess-board was attractive, and the time slipped on to half-past ten. Rupert said a hasty good night, snatched up his hat, tore through the entrance-room and made the best speed his lungs allowed him to Trevlyn Hold. His heart was beating as he gained it, and he rang that peal at the bell which had sent its echoes through the house; through the trembling frame and weak heart of Mrs. Chattaway.
He rang—and rang. There came back no sign that the ring was heard. A light shone in Mrs. Chattaway's dressing-room; and Rupert took up some gravel, and gently threw it against the window. No response was accorded in answer to it; not so much as the form of a hand on the blind; the house, in its utter stillness, might have been the house of the dead. Rupert threw up some more gravel as silently as he could.
He had not to wait very long this time. Cautiously, slowly, as though the very movement feared being heard, the blind was drawn aside, and the face of Mrs. Chattaway appeared looking down at him. He could see that she had not begun to undress. She shook her head; raised her hands and clasped them with a gesture of despair; and her lips formed themselves into the words, "I may not let you in."
He could not hear the words, but read the expression of the whole all too clearly—Chattaway would not suffer him to be admitted. Mrs. Chattaway, dreading possibly that her husband might cast his eyes within her dressing-room, quietly let the blind fall again, and removed her shadow from the window.
What was Rupert to do? Lie on the grass that skirted the avenue, and take his night's rest under the trees in the freezing air and night dews? A strong frame, revelling in superfluous health, might possibly risk that; but not Rupert Trevlyn.
A momentary thought come over him that he would go back to Trevlyn Farm, and ask for a night's shelter there. He would have done so, but for the recollection of Mrs. Ryle's stern voice and sterner face when she remarked that, as he knew the rule made for his going in, he must not break it. Rupert had never got on too cordially with Mrs. Ryle. He remembered shrinking from her haughty face when he was a child; and somehow he shrank from it still. No; he would not knock them up at Trevlyn Farm.
What must he do? Should he walk about until morning? Suddenly a thought came to him—were the Canhams in bed? If not, he could go there, and lie on their settle. The Canhams never went to bed very early. Ann Canham sat up to lock the great gate—it was Chattaway's pleasure that it should not be done until after ten o'clock; and old Canham liked to sit up, smoking his pipe.
With a brisk step, now that he had decided on his course, Rupert walked down the avenue. At the first turning he ran against Cris Chattaway, who was coming leisurely up it.
"Oh, Cris! I am so glad! You'll let me in. They have shut me out to-night."
"Let you in!" repeated Cris. "I can't."
Rupert's blue eyes opened in the starlight. "Have you not your latch-key?"
"What should hinder me?" responded Cris. "I'mgoing in; but I can't let you in."
"Why not?" hotly asked Rupert.
"I don't choose to fly in the Squire's face. He has ordered you to be in before half-past ten, or not to come in at all. It has gone half-past ten long ago: is hard upon eleven."
"If you can go in after half-past ten, why can't I?" cried Rupert.
"It's not my affair," said Cris, with a yawn. "Don't bother. Now look here. It's of no use following me, for I shall not let you in."
"Yes you will, Cris."
"I will not," responded Cris, emphatically. Rupert's temper was getting up.
"Cris, I wouldn't show myself such a hangdog sneak as you to be made king of England. If every one had their rights, Trevlyn Hold would be mine, to shut you out of it if I pleased. But I wouldn't please. If only a dog were turned out of his kennel at night, I would let him into the Hold for shelter."
Cris put his latch-key into the lock. "Idon't turn you out. You must settle that question with the Squire. Keep off. If he says you may be let in at eleven, well and good; but I'm not going to encourage you in disobeying orders."
He opened the door a few inches, wound himself in, and shut it in Rupert's face. He made a great noise in putting up the bar, which was not in the least necessary. Rupert had given him his true appellation—that of sneak. He was one: a false-hearted, plausible, cowardly sneak. As he stood at a table in the hall, and struck a match to light his candle, his puny face and dull light eyes betrayed the most complaisant enjoyment.
He went upstairs smiling. He had to pass the angle of the corridor where his mother's rooms were situated. She glided silently out as he was going by. Her dress was off, and she had apparently thrown a shawl over her shoulders to come out to Cris: an old-fashioned spun-silk shawl, with a grey border and white centre: not so white, however, as the face of Mrs. Chattaway.
"Cris!" she said, laying her hand upon his arm, and speaking in the most timid whisper, "why did you not let him in?"
"I thought we had been ordered not to let him in," returned he of the deceitful nature. "Ihave been ordered, I know that."
"You might have done it just for once, Cris," his mother answered. "I know not what will become of him, out of doors this sharp night."
Cris disengaged his arm, and continued his way up to his room. He slept on the upper floor. Maude was standing at the door of her chamber when he passed—as Mrs. Chattaway had been.
"Cris—wait a minute," she said, for he was hastening by. "I want to speak a word to you. Have you seen Rupert?"
"Seen him and heard him too," boldly avowed Cris. "He wanted me to let him in."
"Which, of course, you would not do?" answered Maude, bitterly. "I wonder if you ever performed a good-natured action in your life?"
"Can't remember," mockingly retorted Cris.
"Where is Rupert? What is he going to do?"
"You know where he is as well as I do: I suppose you could hear him. As to what he is going to do, I didn't ask him. Roost in a tree with the birds, perhaps."
Maude retreated into her room and closed the door. She flung herself into a chair, and burst into a passionate flood of tears. Her heart ached for her brother with pain that amounted to agony: she could have forced down her proud spirit and knelt to Mr. Chattaway for him: almost have sacrificed her own life to bring comfort to Rupert, whom she loved so well.
He—Rupert—stamped off when the door was closed against him, feeling he would like to stamp upon Cris himself. Arrived in front of the lodge, he stood and whistled, and presently Ann Canham looked from the upper casement in her nightcap.
"Why, it's never you, Master Rupert!" she exclaimed, in intense surprise.
"They have locked me out, Ann. Can you manage to come down and open the door without disturbing your father? If you can, I'll lie on the settle for to-night."
Once inside, there ensued a contest. In her humble way, begging pardon for the presumption, Ann Canham proposed that Master Rupert should occupy her room, and she'd make herself contented with the settle. Rupert would not hear of it. He threw himself on the narrow bench they called the settle, and protested that if Ann said another word about giving up her room, he would go out and spend the night in the avenue. So she was fain to go back to it herself.
A dreary night on that hard bench; and the morning found him cold and stiff. He was stamping one foot on the floor to stamp life into it, when old Canham entered, leaning on a crutch. Ann had told him the news, and the old man was up before his time.
"But who shut you out, Master Rupert?" he asked.
"Chattaway."
"Ann says Mr. Cris went in pretty late last night. After she had locked the big gate."
"Cris came up whilst I was ringing to be let in. He went in himself, but would not let me enter."
"He's a reptile," said old Canham in his anger. "Eh me!" he added, sitting down with difficulty in his armchair, and extending the crutch before him, "what a mercy it would have been if Mr. Joe had lived! Chattaway would never have been stuck up in authority then. Better the Squire had left Trevlyn Hold to Miss Diana."
"They say he would not leave it to a woman."
"That's true, Master Rupert. And of his children there were but his daughters left. The two sons had gone. Rupert the heir first: he died on the high seas; and Mr. Joe next."
"Mark, why did Rupert the heir go to sea?"
Old Canham shook his head. "Ah, it was a bad business, Master Rupert, and it's as well not to talk of it."
"Butwhydid he go?" persisted Rupert.
"It was a bad business, I say. He, the heir, had fallen into wild ways, got to like bad company, and that. He went out one night with some poachers—just for the fun of it. It wasn't on these lands. He meant no harm, but he was young and random, and he went out and put a gauze over his face as they did,—just, I say, for the fun of it. Master Rupert, that night they killed a gamekeeper."
A shiver passed through Rupert's frame. "Hekilled him?—my uncle, Rupert Trevlyn?"
"No, it wasn't he that killed him—as was proved a long while afterwards. But you see at the time it wasn't known exactly who had done it: they were all in league together, all in a mess, as may be said. Any way, the young heir, whether in fear or shame, went off in secret, and before many months had gone over, the bells were tolling for him. He had died far away."
"But people never could have believed that a Trevlyn killed a man?" said Rupert, indignantly.
Old Canham paused. "You have heard of the Trevlyn temper, Master Rupert?"
"Who hasn't?" returned Rupert. "They say I have a touch of it."
"Well, those that believed it laid it to that temper, you see. They thought the heir had been overtook by a fit of passion, and might have done the mischief in it. In those fits of passion a man is mad."
"Is he?" abstractedly remarked Rupert, falling into a reverie. He had never before heard this episode in the history of the uncle whose name he bore—Rupert Trevlyn.
Old Canham stood at the door of his lodge, gazing after one who was winding through the avenue, in the direction of Trevlyn Hold, one whom old Canham delighted to patronise and make much of in his humble way; whom he encouraged in all sorts of vain and delusive notions—Rupert Trevlyn. Could Mr. Chattaway have divined the treason talked against him nearly every time Rupert dropped into the lodge, he might have tried hard to turn old Canham out of it. Harmless treason, however; consisting of rebellious words only. There was neither plotting nor hatching; old Canham and Rupert never glanced at that; both were perfectly aware that Chattaway held his place by a tenure which could not be disturbed.
Many years ago, before Squire Trevlyn died, Mark Canham had grown ill in his service. In his service he had caught the cold which ended in an incurable rheumatic affection. The Squire settled him in the lodge, then just vacant, and allowed him five shillings a week. When the Squire died, Chattaway would have undone this. He wished to turn the old man out again (but it must be observed in a parenthesis that, though universally styled old Canham, the man was less old in years than in appearance), and place some one else in the lodge. I think, when there is no love lost between people, as the saying runs, each side is conscious of it. Chattaway disliked Mark Canham, and had a shrewd suspicion that Mark returned the feeling with interest. But he found he could not dismiss him from the lodge, for Miss Trevlyn put her veto upon it. She openly declared that Squire Trevlyn's act in placing his old servant there should be observed; she promised Mark he should not be turned out of it as long as he lived. Chattaway had no resource but to bow to it; he might not cross Diana Trevlyn; but he did succeed in reducing the weekly allowance. Half-a-crown a week was all the regular money enjoyed by the lodge since the time of Squire Trevlyn. Miss Diana sometimes gave him a trifle from her private purse; and the gardener was allowed to make an occasional present of vegetables in danger of spoiling: at the beginning of winter, too, a load of wood would be stacked in the shed behind the lodge, through the forethought of Miss Diana. But it was not much altogether to keep two people upon; and Ann Canham was glad to accept a day's hard work offered her at any of the neighbouring houses, or do a little plain sewing at home. Very fine sewing she could not do, for she suffered from weak eyes.
Old Canham watched Rupert until the turnings of the avenue hid him from view, and then drew back into the room. Ann was busy with the breakfast. A loaf of oaten bread and a basin of skim milk, she had just heated, was placed before her father. A smaller cup served for her own share: and that constituted their breakfast. Three mornings a week Ann Canham had the privilege of fetching a quart of skim milk from the dairy at the Hold. Chattaway growled at the extravagance of the gift, but he did no more, for it was Miss Diana's pleasure that it should be supplied.
"Chattaway'll go a bit too far, if he don't mind," observed old Canham to his daughter, in relation to Rupert. "He must be a bad nature, to lock him out of his own house. For the matter of that, however, he's a very bad one; and it's known he is."
"It is not his own, father," Ann Canham ventured to retort. "Poor Master Rupert haven't no right to it now."
"It's a shame but he had. Why, Chattaway has no more moral right to that fine estate than I have!" added the old man, holding up his left hand in the heat of argument. "If Master Rupert and Miss Maude were dead,—if Joe Trevlyn had never left a child at all,—others would have a right to it before Chattaway."
"But Chattaway has it, father, and nobody can't alter it, or hinder it," sensibly returned Ann. "You'll have your milk cold."
The breakfast hour at Trevlyn Hold was early, and when Rupert entered, he found most of the family downstairs. Rupert ran up to his bedroom, where he washed and refreshed himself as much as was possible after his weary night. He was one upon whom only a night out of bed would tell seriously. When he went down to the breakfast-room, they were all assembled except Cris and Mrs. Chattaway. Cris was given to lying in bed in a morning, and the self-indulgence was permitted. Mrs. Chattaway also was apt to be late, coming down generally when breakfast was nearly over.
Rupert took his place at the breakfast-table. Mr. Chattaway, who was at that moment raising his coffee-cup to his lips, put it down and stared at him. As he might have stared at some stranger who had intruded and sat down amongst them.
"What do you want?" asked Mr. Chattaway.
"Want?" repeated Rupert, not understanding. "My breakfast."
"Which you will not get here," calmly and coldly returned Mr. Chattaway. "If you cannot come home to sleep at night, you shall not have your breakfast here in the morning."
"I did come home," said Rupert; "but I was not let in."
"Of course you were not. The household had retired."
"Cris came home after I did, and was allowed to enter," objected Rupert again.
"That is no business of yours," said Mr. Chattaway. "All you have to do is to obey the rules I lay down. And I will have them obeyed," he added, more sternly.
Rupert sat on. Octave, who was presiding at the table, did not give him any coffee; no one attempted to hand him anything. Maude was seated opposite to him, and he could see that the unpleasantness was agitating her painfully; her colour went and came; she toyed with her breakfast, but could not swallow it: least of all, daredsheinterfere to give even so much as bread to her ill-fated brother.
"Where did you sleep last night, pray?" inquired Mr. Chattaway, pausing in the midst of helping himself to some pigeon-pie, as he looked at Rupert.
"Not in this house," curtly replied Rupert. The unkindness seemed to be changing his very nature. It had continued long and long; had been shown in many and various forms.
The master of Trevlyn Hold finished helping himself to the pie, and began eating it with apparent relish. He was about half-way through the plateful when he again stopped to address Rupert, who was sitting in silence, nothing but the table-cloth before him.
"You need not wait. If you stop there until mid-day you'll get no breakfast. Gentlemen who sleep outside do not break their fasts in my house."
Rupert pushed back his chair, and rose. Happening to glance across at Maude, he saw that her tears were dropping silently. It was a most unhappy home for both! He crossed the hall to the door: and thought he might as well depart at once for Blackstone. Fine as the morning was, the air, as he passed out, struck coldly upon him, and he turned back for an overcoat.
It was in his bedroom. As he came down with it on his arm, Mrs. Chattaway was crossing the corridor, and she drew him inside her sitting-room.
"I could not sleep," she murmured. "I was awake nearly all night, grieving and thinking of you. Just before daylight I dropped into a sleep, and then dreamt you were running up to the door from the waves of the sea, which were rushing onwards to overtake you. I thought you were knocking at the door, and we could not get down to it in time, and the waters came on and on. Rupert, darling, all this is telling upon me. Why did you not come in?"
"I meant to be in, Aunt Edith; indeed I did; but I was playing chess with George Ryle, and did not notice the time. It was only just turned half-past when I got here; Mr. Chattaway might have let me in without any great stretch of indulgence," he added, bitterly. "So might Cris."
"What did you do?" she asked.
"I got in at old Canham's, and lay on the settle. Don't repeat this, or it may get the Canhams into trouble."
"Have you breakfasted?"
"I am not to have any."
The words startled her. "Rupert!"
"Mr. Chattaway ordered me from the table. The next thing, I expect, he will order me from the house. If I knew where to go I wouldn't stop in it another hour. I would not, Aunt Edith."
"Have you had nothing—nothing?"
"Nothing. I would go round to the dairy and get some milk, but I should be reported. I'm off to Blackstone now. Good-bye."
Tears were filling her eyes as she lifted them in their sad yearning. He stooped and kissed her.
"Don't grieve, Aunt Edith. You can't make it better for me. I have got the cramp like anything," he carelessly observed as he went off. "It is through lying on the cold, hard settle."
"Rupert! Rupert!"
He turned back, half in alarm. The tone was one of wild, painful entreaty.
"You will come home to-night, Rupert?"
"Yes. Depend upon me."
She remained a few minutes longer watching him down the avenue. He had put on his coat, and went along with slow and hesitating steps; very different from the firm, careless steps of a strong frame, springing from a happy heart. Mrs. Chattaway pressed her hands to her brow, lost in a painful vision. If his father, her once dearly-loved brother Joe, could look on at the injustice done on earth, what would he think of the portion meted out to Rupert?
She descended to the breakfast-room. Mr. Chattaway had finished his breakfast and was rising. She kissed her children one by one; sat down patiently and silently, smiling without cheerfulness. Octave passed her a cup of coffee, which was cold; and then asked her what she would take to eat. But she said she was not hungry that morning, and would eat nothing.
"Rupert's gone away without his breakfast, mamma," cried Emily. "Papa would not let him have it. Serve him right! He stayed out all night."
Mrs. Chattaway stole a glance at Maude. She was sitting pale and quiet; her air that of one who has to bear some long, wearing pain.
"If you have finished your breakfast, Maude, you can be getting ready to take the children for their walk," said Octave, speaking with her usual assumption of authority—an assumption Maude at least might not dispute.
Mr. Chattaway left the room, and ordered his horse to be got ready. He was going to ride over his land for an hour before proceeding to Blackstone. Whilst the animal was being saddled, he rejoiced his eyes with his rich stores; the corn in his barns, the hay-ricks in his yard. All very satisfactory, very consoling to the covetous master of the Hold.
He went out, riding hither and thither. Half-an-hour afterwards, in the lane skirting Mrs. Ryle's lands on the one side and his on the other, he saw another horseman before him. It was George Ryle. Mr. Chattaway touched his horse with the spur, and rode up to him. George turned his head and continued his way. Chattaway had been better pleased had George stopped.
"Are you hastening on to avoid me, Mr. Ryle?" he called out, sullenly. "You might have seen that I wished to speak to you, by the pace at which I urged my horse."
George reined in, and turned to face Mr. Chattaway. "I saw nothing of the sort," he answered. "Had I known you wanted me, I should have stopped; but it is no unusual circumstance to see you riding fast about your land."
"Well, what I have to say is this: that I'd recommend you not to get Rupert Trevlyn to your house at night, and keep him there to unreasonable hours."
George paused. "I don't understand you, Mr. Chattaway."
"Don't you?" retorted that gentleman. "I'm not talking Dutch. Rupert Trevlyn has taken to frequenting your house of late; it's not altogether good for him."
"Do you fear he will get any harm in it?" quietly asked George.
"I think it would be better that he should stay away. Is the Hold not sufficient for him to spend his evenings in, but he must seek amusement elsewhere? I shall be obliged to you not to encourage his visits."
"Mr. Chattaway," said George, his face full of earnestness, "it appears to me that you are labouring under some mistake, or you would certainly not speak to me as you are now doing. I do not encourage Rupert to my mother's house, in one sense of the word; I never press for his visits. When he does come, I show myself happy to see him and make him welcome—as I should do by any other visitor. Common courtesy demands this of me."
"You do press for his visits," said Mr. Chattaway.
"I do not," firmly repeated George. "Shall I tell you why I do not? I have no wish but to be open in the matter. An impression has seated itself in my mind that his visits to our house displease you, and therefore I have not encouraged them."
Perhaps Mr. Chattaway was rather taken back by this answer. At any rate, he made no reply to it.
"But to receive him courteously when he does come, I cannot help doing," continued George. "I shall do it still. If Trevlyn Farm is to be a forbidden house to Rupert, it is not from our side the veto shall come. As long as Rupert pays us these visits of friendship—and what harm you can think they do him, or why he should not pay them, I am unable to conceive—so long he will be met with a welcome."
"Do you say this to oppose me?"
"Far from it. If you look at the case in an unprejudiced light, you may see that I speak in accordance with the commonest usages of civility. To close the doors of our house to Rupert when there exists no reason why they should be closed—and most certainly he has given us none—would be an act we might blush to be guilty of."
"You have been opposing me all the later years of your life. From that time when I wished to place you with Wall and Barnes, you have done nothing but act in opposition to me."
"I have forgiven that," said George, pointedly, a glow rising to his face at the recollection. "As to any other opposition, I am unconscious of it. You have given me advice occasionally respecting the farm; but the advice has not in general tallied with my own opinion, and therefore I have not taken it. If you call that opposing you, Mr. Chattaway, I cannot help it."
"I see you have been mending that fence in the three-cornered paddock," remarked Mr. Chattaway, passing to another subject, and speaking in a different tone. Possibly he had had enough of the last.
"Yes," said George. "You would not mend it, and therefore I have had it done. I cannot let my cattle get into the pound. I shall deduct the expense from the rent."
"You'll not," said Mr. Chattaway. "I won't be at the cost of a penny-piece of it."
"Oh yes, you will," returned George, equably. "The damage was done by your team, through your waggoner's carelessness, and the cost of making it good lies with you. Have you anything more to say to me?" he asked, after a pause. "I am very busy this morning."
"Only this," replied Mr. Chattaway significantly. "That the more you encourage Rupert Trevlyn, by making a companion of him, the worse it will be for him."
George lifted his hat in salutation. The master of Trevlyn Hold replied by an ungracious nod, and turned his horse back down the lane. As George rode on, he met Edith and Emily Chattaway—the children, as Octave had styled them—running towards him. They had seen their father, and were hastening after him. Maude came up more leisurely. George stopped to shake hands with her.
"You look pale and ill, Maude," he said, his low voice full of sympathy, his hand retaining hers. "Is it about Rupert?"
"Yes," she replied, striving to keep back her tears. "He was not allowed to come in last night, and has been sent away without breakfast this morning."
"I know all about it," said George. "I met Rupert just now, and he told me. I asked him if he would go to Nora for some breakfast—I could not do less, you know," he added musingly, as if debating the question with himself. "But he declined. I am almost glad he did."
Maude was surprised. "Why?" she asked.
"Because I have had an idea—have felt it for some time—that any attention shown to Rupert, no matter by whom, only makes his position worse with Chattaway. And Chattaway has now confirmed it by telling me so."
Maude's eyelids drooped. "How sad it is!" she exclaimed with emotion—"and for one in his weak state! If he were only strong as the rest of us are, it would matter less. I fear—I do fear he must have slept under the trees in the avenue," she continued. "Mr. Chattaway inquired where he had passed the night, and Rupert answered——"
"I can so far relieve your fears, Maude," interrupted George, glancing round, as if to make sure no ears were near. "He was at old Canham's."
Maude gave a deep sigh in her relief. "You are certain, George?"
"Yes, yes. Rupert told me so just now. He said how hard he found the settle. Here come your charges, Maude; so I will say good-bye."
She suffered her hand to linger in his, but her heart was too full to speak. George bent lower.
"Do not make the grief weightier than you can bear, Maude. It is real grief; but happier times may be in store for Rupert—and for you."
He released her hand, and cantered down the lane; and the two girls came up, telling Maude they should go home now, for they had walked long enough.