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This etext was prepared from the 1923 Macmillan edition by Les Bowler.

TWO ON A TOWER

BY

THOMAS HARDY.

'Ah, my heart! her eyes and she

Have taught thee new astrology.

Howe'er Love's native hours were set,

Whatever starry synod met,

'Tis in the mercy of her eye,

If poor Love shall live or die.'

CRASHAW: _Love's Horoscope_.

WITH A MAP OF WESSEX.

MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED

ST. MARTIN'S STREET, LONDON

1923

COPYRIGHT

_First published by Macmillan and Co._, _Crown_ 8_vo,_ 1902

_Reprinted_ 1907, 1911, 1916, 1923

_Pocket Edition_ 1906. _Reprinted_ 1909, 1912, 1915, 1918 1919, 1920,

1922, 1923

_Wessex Edition_ (_8vo_) 1912

_Reprinted_ 1920

PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN

PREFACE.

This slightly-built romance was the outcome of a wish to set the

emotional history of two infinitesimal lives against the stupendous

background of the stellar universe, and to impart to readers the

sentiment that of these contrasting magnitudes the smaller might be the

greater to them as men.

But, on the publication of the book people seemed to be less struck with

these high aims of the author than with their own opinion, first, that

the novel was an 'improper' one in its morals, and, secondly, that it was

intended to be a satire on the Established Church of this country. I was

made to suffer in consequence from several eminent pens.

That, however, was thirteen years ago, and, in respect of the first

opinion, I venture to think that those who care to read the story now

will be quite astonished at the scrupulous propriety observed therein on

the relations of the sexes; for though there may be frivolous, and even

grotesque touches on occasion, there is hardly a single caress in the

book outside legal matrimony, or what was intended so to be.

As for the second opinion, it is sufficient to draw attention, as I did

at the time, to the fact that the Bishop is every inch a gentleman, and

that the parish priest who figures in the narrative is one of its most

estimable characters.

However, the pages must speak for themselves. Some few readers, I

trust--to take a serious view--will be reminded by this imperfect story,

in a manner not unprofitable to the growth of the social sympathies, of

the pathos, misery, long-suffering, and divine tenderness which in real

life frequently accompany the passion of such a woman as Viviette for a

lover several years her junior.

The scene of the action was suggested by two real spots in the part of

the country specified, each of which has a column standing upon it.

Certain surrounding peculiarities have been imported into the narrative

from both sites.

T. H.

_July_ 1895.

TWO ON A TOWER.

I

On an early winter afternoon, clear but not cold, when the vegetable

world was a weird multitude of skeletons through whose ribs the sun shone

freely, a gleaming landau came to a pause on the crest of a hill in

Wessex. The spot was where the old Melchester Road, which the carriage

had hitherto followed, was joined by a drive that led round into a park

at no great distance off.

The footman alighted, and went to the occupant of the carriage, a lady

about eight- or nine-and-twenty. She was looking through the opening

afforded by a field-gate at the undulating stretch of country beyond. In

pursuance of some remark from her the servant looked in the same

direction.

The central feature of the middle distance, as they beheld it, was a

circular isolated hill, of no great elevation, which placed itself in

strong chromatic contrast with a wide acreage of surrounding arable by

being covered with fir-trees. The trees were all of one size and age, so

that their tips assumed the precise curve of the hill they grew upon.

This pine-clad protuberance was yet further marked out from the general

landscape by having on its summit a tower in the form of a classical

column, which, though partly immersed in the plantation, rose above the

tree-tops to a considerable height. Upon this object the eyes of lady

and servant were bent.

'Then there is no road leading near it?' she asked.

'Nothing nearer than where we are now, my lady.'

'Then drive home,' she said after a moment. And the carriage rolled on

its way.

A few days later, the same lady, in the same carriage, passed that spot

again. Her eyes, as before, turned to the distant tower.

'Nobbs,' she said to the coachman, 'could you find your way home through

that field, so as to get near the outskirts of the plantation where the

column is?'

The coachman regarded the field. 'Well, my lady,' he observed, 'in dry

weather we might drive in there by inching and pinching, and so get

across by Five-and-Twenty Acres, all being well. But the ground is so

heavy after these rains that perhaps it would hardly be safe to try it

now.'

'Perhaps not,' she assented indifferently. 'Remember it, will you, at a

drier time?'

And again the carriage sped along the road, the lady's eyes resting on

the segmental hill, the blue trees that muffled it, and the column that

formed its apex, till they were out of sight.

A long time elapsed before that lady drove over the hill again. It was

February; the soil was now unquestionably dry, the weather and scene

being in other respects much as they had been before. The familiar shape

of the column seemed to remind her that at last an opportunity for a

close inspection had arrived. Giving her directions she saw the gate

opened, and after a little manoeuvring the carriage swayed slowly into

the uneven field.

Although the pillar stood upon the hereditary estate of her husband the

lady had never visited it, owing to its insulation by this well-nigh

impracticable ground. The drive to the base of the hill was tedious and

jerky, and on reaching it she alighted, directing that the carriage

should be driven back empty over the clods, to wait for her on the

nearest edge of the field. She then ascended beneath the trees on foot.

The column now showed itself as a much more important erection than it

had appeared from the road, or the park, or the windows of Welland House,

her residence hard by, whence she had surveyed it hundreds of times

without ever feeling a sufficient interest in its details to investigate

them. The column had been erected in the last century, as a substantial

memorial of her husband's great-grandfather, a respectable officer who

had fallen in the American war, and the reason of her lack of interest

was partly owing to her relations with this husband, of which more anon.

It was little beyond the sheer desire for something to do--the chronic

desire of her curiously lonely life--that had brought her here now. She

was in a mood to welcome anything that would in some measure disperse an

almost killing _ennui_. She would have welcomed even a misfortune. She

had heard that from the summit of the pillar four counties could be seen.

Whatever pleasurable effect was to be derived from looking into four

counties she resolved to enjoy to-day.

The fir-shrouded hill-top was (according to some antiquaries) an old

Roman camp,--if it were not (as others insisted) an old British castle,

or (as the rest swore) an old Saxon field of Witenagemote,--with remains

of an outer and an inner vallum, a winding path leading up between their

overlapping ends by an easy ascent. The spikelets from the trees formed

a soft carpet over the route, and occasionally a brake of brambles barred

the interspaces of the trunks. Soon she stood immediately at the foot of

the column.

It had been built in the Tuscan order of classic architecture, and was

really a tower, being hollow with steps inside. The gloom and solitude

which prevailed round the base were remarkable. The sob of the

environing trees was here expressively manifest; and moved by the light

breeze their thin straight stems rocked in seconds, like inverted

pendulums; while some boughs and twigs rubbed the pillar's sides, or

occasionally clicked in catching each other. Below the level of their

summits the masonry was lichen-stained and mildewed, for the sun never

pierced that moaning cloud of blue-black vegetation. Pads of moss grew

in the joints of the stone-work, and here and there shade-loving insects

had engraved on the mortar patterns of no human style or meaning; but

curious and suggestive. Above the trees the case was different: the

pillar rose into the sky a bright and cheerful thing, unimpeded, clean,

and flushed with the sunlight.

The spot was seldom visited by a pedestrian, except perhaps in the

shooting season. The rarity of human intrusion was evidenced by the

mazes of rabbit-runs, the feathers of shy birds, the exuviae of reptiles;

as also by the well-worn paths of squirrels down the sides of trunks, and

thence horizontally away. The fact of the plantation being an island in

the midst of an arable plain sufficiently accounted for this lack of

visitors. Few unaccustomed to such places can be aware of the insulating

effect of ploughed ground, when no necessity compels people to traverse

it. This rotund hill of trees and brambles, standing in the centre of a

ploughed field of some ninety or a hundred acres, was probably visited

less frequently than a rock would have been visited in a lake of equal

extent.

She walked round the column to the other side, where she found the door

through which the interior was reached. The paint, if it had ever had

any, was all washed from the wood, and down the decaying surface of the

boards liquid rust from the nails and hinges had run in red stains. Over

the door was a stone tablet, bearing, apparently, letters or words; but

the inscription, whatever it was, had been smoothed over with a plaster

of lichen.

Here stood this aspiring piece of masonry, erected as the most

conspicuous and ineffaceable reminder of a man that could be thought of;

and yet the whole aspect of the memorial betokened forgetfulness.

Probably not a dozen people within the district knew the name of the

person commemorated, while perhaps not a soul remembered whether the

column were hollow or solid, whether with or without a tablet explaining

its date and purpose. She herself had lived within a mile of it for the

last five years, and had never come near it till now.

She hesitated to ascend alone, but finding that the door was not fastened

she pushed it open with her foot, and entered. A scrap of writing-paper

lay within, and arrested her attention by its freshness. Some human

being, then, knew the spot, despite her surmises. But as the paper had

nothing on it no clue was afforded; yet feeling herself the proprietor of

the column and of all around it her self-assertiveness was sufficient to

lead her on. The staircase was lighted by slits in the wall, and there

was no difficulty in reaching the top, the steps being quite unworn. The

trap-door leading on to the roof was open, and on looking through it an

interesting spectacle met her eye.

A youth was sitting on a stool in the centre of the lead flat which

formed the summit of the column, his eye being applied to the end of a

large telescope that stood before him on a tripod. This sort of presence

was unexpected, and the lady started back into the shade of the opening.

The only effect produced upon him by her footfall was an impatient wave

of the hand, which he did without removing his eye from the instrument,

as if to forbid her to interrupt him.

Pausing where she stood the lady examined the aspect of the individual

who thus made himself so completely at home on a building which she

deemed her unquestioned property. He was a youth who might properly have

been characterized by a word the judicious chronicler would not readily

use in such a connexion, preferring to reserve it for raising images of

the opposite sex. Whether because no deep felicity is likely to arise

from the condition, or from any other reason, to say in these days that a

youth is beautiful is not to award him that amount of credit which the

expression would have carried with it if he had lived in the times of the

Classical Dictionary. So much, indeed, is the reverse the case that the

assertion creates an awkwardness in saying anything more about him. The

beautiful youth usually verges so perilously on the incipient coxcomb,

who is about to become the Lothario or Juan among the neighbouring

maidens, that, for the due understanding of our present young man, his

sublime innocence of any thought concerning his own material aspect, or

that of others, is most fervently asserted, and must be as fervently

believed.

Such as he was, there the lad sat. The sun shone full in his face, and

on his head he wore a black velvet skull-cap, leaving to view below it a

curly margin of very light shining hair, which accorded well with the

flush upon his cheek.

He had such a complexion as that with which Raffaelle enriches the

countenance of the youthful son of Zacharias,--a complexion which, though

clear, is far enough removed from virgin delicacy, and suggests plenty of

sun and wind as its accompaniment. His features were sufficiently

straight in the contours to correct the beholder's first impression that

the head was the head of a girl. Beside him stood a little oak table,

and in front was the telescope.

His visitor had ample time to make these observations; and she may have

done so all the more keenly through being herself of a totally opposite

type. Her hair was black as midnight, her eyes had no less deep a shade,

and her complexion showed the richness demanded as a support to these

decided features. As she continued to look at the pretty fellow before

her, apparently so far abstracted into some speculative world as scarcely

to know a real one, a warmer wave of her warm temperament glowed visibly

through her, and a qualified observer might from this have hazarded a

guess that there was Romance blood in her veins.

But even the interest attaching to the youth could not arrest her

attention for ever, and as he made no further signs of moving his eye

from the instrument she broke the silence with--

'What do you see?--something happening somewhere?'

'Yes, quite a catastrophe!' he automatically murmured, without moving

round.

'What?'

'A cyclone in the sun.'

The lady paused, as if to consider the weight of that event in the scale

of terrene life.

'Will it make any difference to us here?' she asked.

The young man by this time seemed to be awakened to the consciousness

that somebody unusual was talking to him; he turned, and started.

'I beg your pardon,' he said. 'I thought it was my relative come to look

after me! She often comes about this time.'

He continued to look at her and forget the sun, just such a reciprocity

of influence as might have been expected between a dark lady and a flaxen-

haired youth making itself apparent in the faces of each.

'Don't let me interrupt your observations,' said she.

'Ah, no,' said he, again applying his eye; whereupon his face lost the

animation which her presence had lent it, and became immutable as that of

a bust, though superadding to the serenity of repose the sensitiveness of

life. The expression that settled on him was one of awe. Not unaptly

might it have been said that he was worshipping the sun. Among the

various intensities of that worship which have prevailed since the first

intelligent being saw the luminary decline westward, as the young man now

beheld it doing, his was not the weakest. He was engaged in what may be

called a very chastened or schooled form of that first and most natural

of adorations.

'But would you like to see it?' he recommenced. 'It is an event that is

witnessed only about once in two or three years, though it may occur

often enough.'

She assented, and looked through the shaded eyepiece, and saw a whirling

mass, in the centre of which the blazing globe seemed to be laid bare to

its core. It was a peep into a maelstrom of fire, taking place where

nobody had ever been or ever would be.

'It is the strangest thing I ever beheld,' she said. Then he looked

again; till wondering who her companion could be she asked, 'Are you

often here?'

'Every night when it is not cloudy, and often in the day.'

'Ah, night, of course. The heavens must be beautiful from this point.'

'They are rather more than that.'

'Indeed! Have you entirely taken possession of this column?'

'Entirely.'

'But it is my column,' she said, with smiling asperity.

'Then are you Lady Constantine, wife of the absent Sir Blount

Constantine?'

'I am Lady Constantine.'

'Ah, then I agree that it is your ladyship's. But will you allow me to

rent it of you for a time, Lady Constantine?'

'You have taken it, whether I allow it or not. However, in the interests

of science it is advisable that you continue your tenancy. Nobody knows

you are here, I suppose?'

'Hardly anybody.'

He then took her down a few steps into the interior, and showed her some

ingenious contrivances for stowing articles away.

'Nobody ever comes near the column,--or, as it's called here, Rings-Hill

Speer,' he continued; 'and when I first came up it nobody had been here

for thirty or forty years. The staircase was choked with daws' nests and

feathers, but I cleared them out.'

'I understood the column was always kept locked?'

'Yes, it has been so. When it was built, in 1782, the key was given to

my great-grandfather, to keep by him in case visitors should happen to

want it. He lived just down there where I live now.'

He denoted by a nod a little dell lying immediately beyond the ploughed

land which environed them.

'He kept it in his bureau, and as the bureau descended to my grandfather,

my mother, and myself, the key descended with it. After the first thirty

or forty years, nobody ever asked for it. One day I saw it, lying rusty

in its niche, and, finding that it belonged to this column, I took it and

came up. I stayed here till it was dark, and the stars came out, and

that night I resolved to be an astronomer. I came back here from school

several months ago, and I mean to be an astronomer still.'

He lowered his voice, and added:

'I aim at nothing less than the dignity and office of Astronomer Royal,

if I live. Perhaps I shall not live.'

'I don't see why you should suppose that,' said she. 'How long are you

going to make this your observatory?'

'About a year longer--till I have obtained a practical familiarity with

the heavens. Ah, if I only had a good equatorial!'

'What is that?'

'A proper instrument for my pursuit. But time is short, and science is

infinite,--how infinite only those who study astronomy fully realize,--and

perhaps I shall be worn out before I make my mark.'

She seemed to be greatly struck by the odd mixture in him of scientific

earnestness and melancholy mistrust of all things human. Perhaps it was

owing to the nature of his studies.

'You are often on this tower alone at night?' she said.

'Yes; at this time of the year particularly, and while there is no moon.

I observe from seven or eight till about two in the morning, with a view

to my great work on variable stars. But with such a telescope as

this--well, I must put up with it!'

'Can you see Saturn's ring and Jupiter's moons?'

He said drily that he could manage to do that, not without some contempt

for the state of her knowledge.

'I have never seen any planet or star through a telescope.'

'If you will come the first clear night, Lady Constantine, I will show

you any number. I mean, at your express wish; not otherwise.'

'I should like to come, and possibly may at some time. These stars that

vary so much--sometimes evening stars, sometimes morning stars, sometimes

in the east, and sometimes in the west--have always interested me.'

'Ah--now there is a reason for your not coming. Your ignorance of the

realities of astronomy is so satisfactory that I will not disturb it

except at your serious request.'

'But I wish to be enlightened.'

'Let me caution you against it.'

'Is enlightenment on the subject, then, so terrible?'

'Yes, indeed.'

She laughingly declared that nothing could have so piqued her curiosity

as his statement, and turned to descend. He helped her down the stairs

and through the briers. He would have gone further and crossed the open

corn-land with her, but she preferred to go alone. He then retraced his

way to the top of the column, but, instead of looking longer at the sun,

watched her diminishing towards the distant fence, behind which waited

the carriage. When in the midst of the field, a dark spot on an area of

brown, there crossed her path a moving figure, whom it was as difficult

to distinguish from the earth he trod as the caterpillar from its leaf,

by reason of the excellent match between his clothes and the clods. He

was one of a dying-out generation who retained the principle, nearly

unlearnt now, that a man's habiliments should be in harmony with his

environment. Lady Constantine and this figure halted beside each other

for some minutes; then they went on their several ways.

The brown person was a labouring man known to the world of Welland as

Haymoss (the encrusted form of the word Amos, to adopt the phrase of

philologists). The reason of the halt had been some inquiries addressed

to him by Lady Constantine.

'Who is that--Amos Fry, I think?' she had asked.

'Yes my lady,' said Haymoss; 'a homely barley driller, born under the

eaves of your ladyship's outbuildings, in a manner of speaking,--though

your ladyship was neither born nor 'tempted at that time.'

'Who lives in the old house behind the plantation?'

'Old Gammer Martin, my lady, and her grandson.'

'He has neither father nor mother, then?'

'Not a single one, my lady.'

'Where was he educated?'

'At Warborne,--a place where they draw up young gam'sters' brains like

rhubarb under a ninepenny pan, my lady, excusing my common way. They hit

so much larning into en that 'a could talk like the day of Pentecost;

which is a wonderful thing for a simple boy, and his mother only the

plainest ciphering woman in the world. Warborne Grammar School--that's

where 'twas 'a went to. His father, the reverent Pa'son St. Cleeve, made

a terrible bruckle hit in 's marrying, in the sight of the high. He were

the curate here, my lady, for a length o' time.'

'Oh, curate,' said Lady Constantine. 'It was before I knew the village.'

'Ay, long and merry ago! And he married Farmer Martin's daughter--Giles

Martin, a limberish man, who used to go rather bad upon his lags, if you

can mind. I knowed the man well enough; who should know en better! The

maid was a poor windling thing, and, though a playward piece o' flesh

when he married her, 'a socked and sighed, and went out like a snoff!

Yes, my lady. Well, when Pa'son St. Cleeve married this homespun woman

the toppermost folk wouldn't speak to his wife. Then he dropped a cuss

or two, and said he'd no longer get his living by curing their twopenny

souls o' such d--- nonsense as that (excusing my common way), and he took

to farming straightway, and then 'a dropped down dead in a nor'-west

thunderstorm; it being said--hee-hee!--that Master God was in tantrums

wi'en for leaving his service,--hee-hee! I give the story as I heard it,

my lady, but be dazed if I believe in such trumpery about folks in the

sky, nor anything else that's said on 'em, good or bad. Well, Swithin,

the boy, was sent to the grammar school, as I say for; but what with

having two stations of life in his blood he's good for nothing, my lady.

He mopes about--sometimes here, and sometimes there; nobody troubles

about en.'

Lady Constantine thanked her informant, and proceeded onward. To her, as

a woman, the most curious feature in the afternoon's incident was that

this lad, of striking beauty, scientific attainments, and cultivated

bearing, should be linked, on the maternal side, with a local

agricultural family through his father's matrimonial eccentricity. A

more attractive feature in the case was that the same youth, so capable

of being ruined by flattery, blandishment, pleasure, even gross

prosperity, should be at present living on in a primitive Eden of

unconsciousness, with aims towards whose accomplishment a Caliban shape

would have been as effective as his own.

II

Swithin St. Cleeve lingered on at his post, until the more sanguine birds

of the plantation, already recovering from their midwinter anxieties,

piped a short evening hymn to the vanishing sun.

The landscape was gently concave; with the exception of tower and hill

there were no points on which late rays might linger; and hence the dish-

shaped ninety acres of tilled land assumed a uniform hue of shade quite

suddenly. The one or two stars that appeared were quickly clouded over,

and it was soon obvious that there would be no sweeping the heavens that

night. After tying a piece of tarpaulin, which had once seen service on

his maternal grandfather's farm, over all the apparatus around him, he

went down the stairs in the dark, and locked the door.

With the key in his pocket he descended through the underwood on the side

of the slope opposite to that trodden by Lady Constantine, and crossed

the field in a line mathematically straight, and in a manner that left no

traces, by keeping in the same furrow all the way on tiptoe. In a few

minutes he reached a little dell, which occurred quite unexpectedly on

the other side of the field-fence, and descended to a venerable thatched

house, whose enormous roof, broken up by dormers as big as haycocks,

could be seen even in the twilight. Over the white walls, built of chalk

in the lump, outlines of creepers formed dark patterns, as if drawn in

charcoal.

Inside the house his maternal grandmother was sitting by a wood fire.

Before it stood a pipkin, in which something was evidently kept warm. An

eight-legged oak table in the middle of the room was laid for a meal.

This woman of eighty, in a large mob cap, under which she wore a little

cap to keep the other clean, retained faculties but little blunted. She

was gazing into the flames, with her hands upon her knees, quietly re-

enacting in her brain certain of the long chain of episodes, pathetic,

tragical, and humorous, which had constituted the parish history for the

last sixty years. On Swithin's entry she looked up at him in a sideway

direction.

'You should not have waited for me, granny,' he said.

''Tis of no account, my child. I've had a nap while sitting here. Yes,

I've had a nap, and went straight up into my old country again, as usual.

The place was as natural as when I left it,--e'en just threescore years

ago! All the folks and my old aunt were there, as when I was a

child,--yet I suppose if I were really to set out and go there, hardly a

soul would be left alive to say to me, dog how art! But tell Hannah to

stir her stumps and serve supper--though I'd fain do it myself, the poor

old soul is getting so unhandy!'

Hannah revealed herself to be much nimbler and several years younger than

granny, though of this the latter seemed to be oblivious. When the meal

was nearly over Mrs. Martin produced the contents of the mysterious

vessel by the fire, saying that she had caused it to be brought in from

the back kitchen, because Hannah was hardly to be trusted with such

things, she was becoming so childish.

'What is it, then?' said Swithin. 'Oh, one of your special puddings.' At

sight of it, however, he added reproachfully, 'Now, granny!'

Instead of being round, it was in shape an irregular boulder that had

been exposed to the weather for centuries--a little scrap pared off here,

and a little piece broken away there; the general aim being,

nevertheless, to avoid destroying the symmetry of the pudding while

taking as much as possible of its substance.

'The fact is,' added Swithin, 'the pudding is half gone!'

'I've only sliced off the merest paring once or twice, to taste if it was

well done!' pleaded granny Martin, with wounded feelings. 'I said to

Hannah when she took it up, "Put it here to keep it warm, as there's a

better fire than in the back kitchen."'

'Well, I am not going to eat any of it!' said Swithin decisively, as he

rose from the table, pushed away his chair, and went up-stairs; the

'other station of life that was in his blood,' and which had been brought

out by the grammar school, probably stimulating him.

'Ah, the world is an ungrateful place! 'Twas a pity I didn't take my

poor name off this earthly calendar and creep under ground sixty long

years ago, instead of leaving my own county to come here!' mourned old

Mrs. Martin. 'But I told his mother how 'twould be--marrying so many

notches above her. The child was sure to chaw high, like his father!'

When Swithin had been up-stairs a minute or two however, he altered his

mind, and coming down again ate all the pudding, with the aspect of a

person undertaking a deed of great magnanimity. The relish with which he

did so restored the unison that knew no more serious interruptions than

such as this.

'Mr. Torkingham has been here this afternoon,' said his grandmother; 'and

he wants me to let him meet some of the choir here to-night for practice.

They who live at this end of the parish won't go to his house to try over

the tunes, because 'tis so far, they say, and so 'tis, poor men. So he's

going to see what coming to them will do. He asks if you would like to

join.'

'I would if I had not so much to do.'

'But it is cloudy to-night.'

'Yes; but I have calculations without end, granny. Now, don't you tell

him I'm in the house, will you? and then he'll not ask for me.'

'But if he should, must I then tell a lie, Lord forgive me?'

'No, you can say I'm up-stairs; he must think what he likes. Not a word

about the astronomy to any of them, whatever you do. I should be called

a visionary, and all sorts.'

'So thou beest, child. Why can't ye do something that's of use?'

At the sound of footsteps Swithin beat a hasty retreat up-stairs, where

he struck a light, and revealed a table covered with books and papers,

while round the walls hung star-maps, and other diagrams illustrative of

celestial phenomena. In a corner stood a huge pasteboard tube, which a

close inspection would have shown to be intended for a telescope. Swithin

hung a thick cloth over the window, in addition to the curtains, and sat

down to his papers. On the ceiling was a black stain of smoke, and under

this he placed his lamp, evidencing that the midnight oil was consumed on

that precise spot very often.

Meanwhile there had entered to the room below a personage who, to judge

from her voice and the quick pit-pat of her feet, was a maiden young and

blithe. Mrs. Martin welcomed her by the title of Miss Tabitha Lark, and

inquired what wind had brought her that way; to which the visitor replied

that she had come for the singing.

'Sit ye down, then,' said granny. 'And do you still go to the House to

read to my lady?'

'Yes, I go and read, Mrs. Martin; but as to getting my lady to hearken,

that's more than a team of six horses could force her to do.'

The girl had a remarkably smart and fluent utterance, which was probably

a cause, or a consequence, of her vocation.

''Tis the same story, then?' said grandmother Martin.

'Yes. Eaten out with listlessness. She's neither sick nor sorry, but

how dull and dreary she is, only herself can tell. When I get there in

the morning, there she is sitting up in bed, for my lady don't care to

get up; and then she makes me bring this book and that book, till the bed

is heaped up with immense volumes that half bury her, making her look, as

she leans upon her elbow, like the stoning of Stephen. She yawns; then

she looks towards the tall glass; then she looks out at the weather,

mooning her great black eyes, and fixing them on the sky as if they stuck

there, while my tongue goes flick-flack along, a hundred and fifty words

a minute; then she looks at the clock; then she asks me what I've been

reading.'

'Ah, poor soul!' said granny. 'No doubt she says in the morning, "Would

God it were evening," and in the evening, "Would God it were morning,"

like the disobedient woman in Deuteronomy.'

Swithin, in the room overhead, had suspended his calculations, for the

duologue interested him. There now crunched heavier steps outside the

door, and his grandmother could be heard greeting sundry local

representatives of the bass and tenor voice, who lent a cheerful and well-

known personality to the names Sammy Blore, Nat Chapman, Hezekiah Biles,

and Haymoss Fry (the latter being one with whom the reader has already a

distant acquaintance); besides these came small producers of treble, who

had not yet developed into such distinctive units of society as to

require particularizing.

'Is the good man come?' asked Nat Chapman. 'No,--I see we be here afore

him. And how is it with aged women to-night, Mrs. Martin?'

'Tedious traipsing enough with this one, Nat. Sit ye down. Well, little

Freddy, you don't wish in the morning that 'twere evening, and at evening

that 'twere morning again, do you, Freddy, trust ye for it?'

'Now, who might wish such a thing as that, Mrs Martin?--nobody in this

parish?' asked Sammy Blore curiously.

'My lady is always wishing it,' spoke up Miss Tabitha Lark.

'Oh, she! Nobody can be answerable for the wishes of that onnatural

tribe of mankind. Not but that the woman's heart-strings is tried in

many aggravating ways.'

'Ah, poor woman!' said granny. 'The state she finds herself in--neither

maid, wife, nor widow, as you may say--is not the primest form of life

for keeping in good spirits. How long is it since she has heard from Sir

Blount, Tabitha?'

'Two years and more,' said the young woman. 'He went into one side of

Africa, as it might be, three St. Martin's days back. I can mind it,

because 'twas my birthday. And he meant to come out the other side. But

he didn't. He has never come out at all.'

'For all the world like losing a rat in a barley-mow,' said Hezekiah.

'He's lost, though you know where he is.'

His comrades nodded.

'Ay, my lady is a walking weariness. I seed her yawn just at the very

moment when the fox was halloaed away by Lornton Copse, and the hounds

runned en all but past her carriage wheels. If I were she I'd see a

little life; though there's no fair, club-walking, nor feast to speak of,

till Easter week,--that's true.'

'She dares not. She's under solemn oath to do no such thing.'

'Be cust if I would keep any such oath! But here's the pa'son, if my

ears don't deceive me.'

There was a noise of horse's hoofs without, a stumbling against the door-

scraper, a tethering to the window-shutter, a creaking of the door on its

hinges, and a voice which Swithin recognized as Mr. Torkingham's. He

greeted each of the previous arrivals by name, and stated that he was

glad to see them all so punctually assembled.

'Ay, sir,' said Haymoss Fry. ''Tis only my jints that have kept me from

assembling myself long ago. I'd assemble upon the top of Welland

Steeple, if 'tweren't for my jints. I assure ye, Pa'son Tarkenham, that

in the clitch o' my knees, where the rain used to come through when I was

cutting clots for the new lawn, in old my lady's time, 'tis as if rats

wez gnawing, every now and then. When a feller's young he's too small in

the brain to see how soon a constitution can be squandered, worse luck!'

'True,' said Biles, to fill the time while the parson was engaged in

finding the Psalms. 'A man's a fool till he's forty. Often have I

thought, when hay-pitching, and the small of my back seeming no stouter

than a harnet's, "The devil send that I had but the making of labouring

men for a twelvemonth!" I'd gie every man jack two good backbones, even

if the alteration was as wrong as forgery.'

'Four,--four backbones,' said Haymoss, decisively.

'Yes, four,' threw in Sammy Blore, with additional weight of experience.

'For you want one in front for breast-ploughing and such like, one at the

right side for ground-dressing, and one at the left side for turning

mixens.'

'Well; then next I'd move every man's wyndpipe a good span away from his

glutchpipe, so that at harvest time he could fetch breath in 's drinking,

without being choked and strangled as he is now. Thinks I, when I feel

the victuals going--'

'Now, we'll begin,' interrupted Mr. Torkingham, his mind returning to

this world again on concluding his search for a hymn.

Thereupon the racket of chair-legs on the floor signified that they were

settling into their seats,--a disturbance which Swithin took advantage of

by going on tiptoe across the floor above, and putting sheets of paper

over knot-holes in the boarding at points where carpet was lacking, that

his lamp-light might not shine down. The absence of a ceiling beneath

rendered his position virtually that of one suspended in the same

apartment.

The parson announced the tune, and his voice burst forth with 'Onward,

Christian soldiers!' in notes of rigid cheerfulness.

In this start, however, he was joined only by the girls and boys, the men

furnishing but an accompaniment of ahas and hems. Mr. Torkingham

stopped, and Sammy Blore spoke,--

'Beg your pardon, sir,--if you'll deal mild with us a moment. What with

the wind and walking, my throat's as rough as a grater; and not knowing

you were going to hit up that minute, I hadn't hawked, and I don't think

Hezzy and Nat had, either,--had ye, souls?'

'I hadn't got thorough ready, that's true,' said Hezekiah.

'Quite right of you, then, to speak,' said Mr. Torkingham. 'Don't mind

explaining; we are here for practice. Now clear your throats, then, and

at it again.'

There was a noise as of atmospheric hoes and scrapers, and the bass

contingent at last got under way with a time of its own:

'Honwerd, Christen sojers!'

'Ah, that's where we are so defective--the pronunciation,' interrupted

the parson. 'Now repeat after me: "On-ward, Christ-ian, sol-diers."'

The choir repeated like an exaggerative echo: 'On-wed, Chris-ting, sol-

jaws!'

'Better!' said the parson, in the strenuously sanguine tones of a man who

got his living by discovering a bright side in things where it was not

very perceptible to other people. 'But it should not be given with quite

so extreme an accent; or we may be called affected by other parishes.

And, Nathaniel Chapman, there's a jauntiness in your manner of singing

which is not quite becoming. Why don't you sing more earnestly?'

'My conscience won't let me, sir. They say every man for himself: but,

thank God, I'm not so mean as to lessen old fokes' chances by being

earnest at my time o' life, and they so much nearer the need o't.'

'It's bad reasoning, Nat, I fear. Now, perhaps we had better sol-fa the

tune. Eyes on your books, please. Sol-sol! fa-fa! mi--'

'I can't sing like that, not I!' said Sammy Blore, with condemnatory

astonishment. 'I can sing genuine music, like F and G; but not anything

so much out of the order of nater as that.'

'Perhaps you've brought the wrong book, sir?' chimed in Haymoss, kindly.

'I've knowed music early in life and late,--in short, ever since Luke

Sneap broke his new fiddle-bow in the wedding psalm, when Pa'son Wilton

brought home his bride (you can mind the time, Sammy?--when we sung "His

wife, like a fair fertile vine, her lovely fruit shall bring," when the

young woman turned as red as a rose, not knowing 'twas coming). I've

knowed music ever since then, I say, sir, and never heard the like o'

that. Every martel note had his name of A, B, C, at that time.'

'Yes, yes, men; but this is a more recent system!'

'Still, you can't alter a old-established note that's A or B by nater,'

rejoined Haymoss, with yet deeper conviction that Mr. Torkingham was

getting off his head. 'Now sound A, neighbour Sammy, and let's have a

slap at Christen sojers again, and show the Pa'son the true way!'

Sammy produced a private tuning-fork, black and grimy, which, being about

seventy years of age, and wrought before pianoforte builders had sent up

the pitch to make their instruments brilliant, was nearly a note flatter

than the parson's. While an argument as to the true pitch was in

progress, there came a knocking without.

'Somebody's at the door!' said a little treble girl.

'Thought I heard a knock before!' said the relieved choir.

The latch was lifted, and a man asked from the darkness, 'Is Mr.

Torkingham here?'

'Yes, Mills. What do you want?'

It was the parson's man.

'Oh, if you please,' said Mills, showing an advanced margin of himself

round the door, 'Lady Constantine wants to see you very particular, sir,

and could you call on her after dinner, if you ben't engaged with poor

fokes? She's just had a letter,--so they say,--and it's about that, I

believe.'

Finding, on looking at his watch, that it was necessary to start at once

if he meant to see her that night, the parson cut short the practising,

and, naming another night for meeting, he withdrew. All the singers

assisted him on to his cob, and watched him till he disappeared over the

edge of the Bottom.

III

Mr. Torkingham trotted briskly onward to his house, a distance of about a

mile, each cottage, as it revealed its half-buried position by its single

light, appearing like a one-eyed night creature watching him from an

ambush. Leaving his horse at the parsonage he performed the remainder of

the journey on foot, crossing the park towards Welland House by a stile

and path, till he struck into the drive near the north door of the

mansion.

This drive, it may be remarked, was also the common highway to the lower

village, and hence Lady Constantine's residence and park, as is

occasionally the case with old-fashioned manors, possessed none of the

exclusiveness found in some aristocratic settlements. The parishioners

looked upon the park avenue as their natural thoroughfare, particularly

for christenings, weddings, and funerals, which passed the squire's

mansion with due considerations as to the scenic effect of the same from

the manor windows. Hence the house of Constantine, when going out from

its breakfast, had been continually crossed on the doorstep for the last

two hundred years by the houses of Hodge and Giles in full cry to dinner.

At present these collisions were but too infrequent, for though the

villagers passed the north front door as regularly as ever, they seldom

met a Constantine. Only one was there to be met, and she had no zest for

outings before noon.

The long, low front of the Great House, as it was called by the parish,

stretching from end to end of the terrace, was in darkness as the vicar

slackened his pace before it, and only the distant fall of water

disturbed the stillness of the manorial precincts.

On gaining admittance he found Lady Constantine waiting to receive him.

She wore a heavy dress of velvet and lace, and being the only person in

the spacious apartment she looked small and isolated. In her left hand

she held a letter and a couple of at-home cards. The soft dark eyes

which she raised to him as he entered--large, and melancholy by

circumstance far more than by quality--were the natural indices of a warm

and affectionate, perhaps slightly voluptuous temperament, languishing

for want of something to do, cherish, or suffer for.

Mr. Torkingham seated himself. His boots, which had seemed elegant in

the farm-house, appeared rather clumsy here, and his coat, that was a

model of tailoring when he stood amid the choir, now exhibited decidedly

strained relations with his limbs. Three years had passed since his

induction to the living of Welland, but he had never as yet found means

to establish that reciprocity with Lady Constantine which usually grows

up, in the course of time, between parsonage and manor-house,--unless,

indeed, either side should surprise the other by showing respectively a

weakness for awkward modern ideas on landownership, or on church

formulas, which had not been the case here. The present meeting,

however, seemed likely to initiate such a reciprocity.

There was an appearance of confidence on Lady Constantine's face; she

said she was so very glad that he had come, and looking down at the

letter in her hand was on the point of pulling it from its envelope; but

she did not. After a moment she went on more quickly: 'I wanted your

advice, or rather your opinion, on a serious matter,--on a point of

conscience.' Saying which she laid down the letter and looked at the

cards.

It might have been apparent to a more penetrating eye than the vicar's

that Lady Constantine, either from timidity, misgiving, or reconviction,

had swerved from her intended communication, or perhaps decided to begin

at the other end.

The parson, who had been expecting a question on some local business or

intelligence, at the tenor of her words altered his face to the higher

branch of his profession.

'I hope I may find myself of service, on that or any other question,' he

said gently.

'I hope so. You may possibly be aware, Mr. Torkingham, that my husband,

Sir Blount Constantine, was, not to mince matters, a mistaken--somewhat

jealous man. Yet you may hardly have discerned it in the short time you

knew him.'

'I had some little knowledge of Sir Blount's character in that respect.'

'Well, on this account my married life with him was not of the most

comfortable kind.' (Lady Constantine's voice dropped to a more pathetic

note.) 'I am sure I gave him no cause for suspicion; though had I known

his disposition sooner I should hardly have dared to marry him. But his

jealousy and doubt of me were not so strong as to divert him from a

purpose of his,--a mania for African lion-hunting, which he dignified by

calling it a scheme of geographical discovery; for he was inordinately

anxious to make a name for himself in that field. It was the one passion

that was stronger than his mistrust of me. Before going away he sat down

with me in this room, and read me a lecture, which resulted in a very

rash offer on my part. When I tell it to you, you will find that it

provides a key to all that is unusual in my life here. He bade me

consider what my position would be when he was gone; hoped that I should

remember what was due to him,--that I would not so behave towards other

men as to bring the name of Constantine into suspicion; and charged me to

avoid levity of conduct in attending any ball, rout, or dinner to which I

might be invited. I, in some contempt for his low opinion of me,

volunteered, there and then, to live like a cloistered nun during his

absence; to go into no society whatever,--scarce even to a neighbour's

dinner-party; and demanded bitterly if that would satisfy him. He said

yes, held me to my word, and gave me no loophole for retracting it. The

inevitable fruits of precipitancy have resulted to me: my life has become

a burden. I get such invitations as these' (holding up the cards), 'but

I so invariably refuse them that they are getting very rare. . . . I ask

you, can I honestly break that promise to my husband?'

Mr. Torkingham seemed embarrassed. 'If you promised Sir Blount

Constantine to live in solitude till he comes back, you are, it seems to

me, bound by that promise. I fear that the wish to be released from your

engagement is to some extent a reason why it should be kept. But your

own conscience would surely be the best guide, Lady Constantine?'

'My conscience is quite bewildered with its responsibilities,' she

continued, with a sigh. 'Yet it certainly does sometimes say to me

that--that I ought to keep my word. Very well; I must go on as I am

going, I suppose.'

'If you respect a vow, I think you must respect your own,' said the

parson, acquiring some further firmness. 'Had it been wrung from you by

compulsion, moral or physical, it would have been open to you to break

it. But as you proposed a vow when your husband only required a good

intention, I think you ought to adhere to it; or what is the pride worth

that led you to offer it?'

'Very well,' she said, with resignation. 'But it was quite a work of

supererogation on my part.'

'That you proposed it in a supererogatory spirit does not lessen your

obligation, having once put yourself under that obligation. St. Paul, in

his Epistle to the Hebrews, says, "An oath for confirmation is an end of

all strife." And you will readily recall the words of Ecclesiastes, "Pay

that which thou hast vowed. Better is it that thou shouldest not vow

than that thou shouldest vow and not pay." Why not write to Sir Blount,

tell him the inconvenience of such a bond, and ask him to release you?'

'No; never will I. The expression of such a desire would, in his mind,

be a sufficient reason for disallowing it. I'll keep my word.'

Mr. Torkingham rose to leave. After she had held out her hand to him,

when he had crossed the room, and was within two steps of the door, she

said, 'Mr. Torkingham.' He stopped. 'What I have told you is only the

least part of what I sent for you to tell you.'

Mr. Torkingham walked back to her side. 'What is the rest of it, then?'

he asked, with grave surprise.

'It is a true revelation, as far as it goes; but there is something more.

I have received this letter, and I wanted to say--something.'

'Then say it now, my dear lady.'

'No,' she answered, with a look of utter inability. 'I cannot speak of

it now! Some other time. Don't stay. Please consider this conversation

as private. Good-night.'

IV

It was a bright starlight night, a week or ten days later. There had

been several such nights since the occasion of Lady Constantine's promise

to Swithin St. Cleeve to come and study astronomical phenomena on the

Rings-Hill column; but she had not gone there. This evening she sat at a

window, the blind of which had not been drawn down. Her elbow rested on

a little table, and her cheek on her hand. Her eyes were attracted by

the brightness of the planet Jupiter, as he rode in the ecliptic

opposite, beaming down upon her as if desirous of notice.

Beneath the planet could be still discerned the dark edges of the park

landscape against the sky. As one of its features, though nearly

screened by the trees which had been planted to shut out the fallow

tracts of the estate, rose the upper part of the column. It was hardly

visible now, even if visible at all; yet Lady Constantine knew from

daytime experience its exact bearing from the window at which she leaned.

The knowledge that there it still was, despite its rapid envelopment by

the shades, led her lonely mind to her late meeting on its summit with

the young astronomer, and to her promise to honour him with a visit for

learning some secrets about the scintillating bodies overhead. The

curious juxtaposition of youthful ardour and old despair that she had

found in the lad would have made him interesting to a woman of

perception, apart from his fair hair and early-Christian face. But such

is the heightening touch of memory that his beauty was probably richer in

her imagination than in the real. It was a moot point to consider

whether the temptations that would be brought to bear upon him in his

course would exceed the staying power of his nature. Had he been a

wealthy youth he would have seemed one to tremble for. In spite of his

attractive ambitions and gentlemanly bearing, she thought it would

possibly be better for him if he never became known outside his lonely

tower,--forgetting that he had received such intellectual enlargement as

would probably make his continuance in Welland seem, in his own eye, a

slight upon his father's branch of his family, whose social standing had

been, only a few years earlier, but little removed from her own.

Suddenly she flung a cloak about her and went out on the terrace. She

passed down the steps to the lower lawn, through the door to the open

park, and there stood still. The tower was now discernible. As the

words in which a thought is expressed develop a further thought, so did

the fact of her having got so far influence her to go further. A person

who had casually observed her gait would have thought it irregular; and

the lessenings and increasings of speed with which she proceeded in the

direction of the pillar could be accounted for only by a motive much more

disturbing than an intention to look through a telescope. Thus she went

on, till, leaving the park, she crossed the turnpike-road, and entered

the large field, in the middle of which the fir-clad hill stood like Mont

St. Michel in its bay.

The stars were so bright as distinctly to show her the place, and now she

could see a faint light at the top of the column, which rose like a

shadowy finger pointing to the upper constellations. There was no wind,

in a human sense; but a steady stertorous breathing from the fir-trees

showed that, now as always, there was movement in apparent stagnation.

Nothing but an absolute vacuum could paralyze their utterance.

The door of the tower was shut. It was something more than the

freakishness which is engendered by a sickening monotony that had led

Lady Constantine thus far, and hence she made no ado about admitting

herself. Three years ago, when her every action was a thing of

propriety, she had known of no possible purpose which could have led her

abroad in a manner such as this.

She ascended the tower noiselessly. On raising her head above the

hatchway she beheld Swithin bending over a scroll of paper which lay on

the little table beside him. The small lantern that illuminated it

showed also that he was warmly wrapped up in a coat and thick cap, behind

him standing the telescope on its frame.

What was he doing? She looked over his shoulder upon the paper, and saw

figures and signs. When he had jotted down something he went to the

telescope again.

'What are you doing to-night?' she said in a low voice.

Swithin started, and turned. The faint lamp-light was sufficient to

reveal her face to him.

'Tedious work, Lady Constantine,' he answered, without betraying much

surprise. 'Doing my best to watch phenomenal stars, as I may call them.'

'You said you would show me the heavens if I could come on a starlight

night. I have come.'

Swithin, as a preliminary, swept round the telescope to Jupiter, and

exhibited to her the glory of that orb. Then he directed the instrument

to the less bright shape of Saturn.

'Here,' he said, warming up to the subject, 'we see a world which is to

my mind by far the most wonderful in the solar system. Think of streams

of satellites or meteors racing round and round the planet like a fly-

wheel, so close together as to seem solid matter!' He entered further

and further into the subject, his ideas gathering momentum as he went on,

like his pet heavenly bodies.

When he paused for breath she said, in tones very different from his own,

'I ought now to tell you that, though I am interested in the stars, they

were not what I came to see you about. . . . I first thought of

disclosing the matter to Mr. Torkingham; but I altered my mind, and

decided on you.'

She spoke in so low a voice that he might not have heard her. At all

events, abstracted by his grand theme, he did not heed her. He

continued,--

'Well, we will get outside the solar system altogether,--leave the whole

group of sun, primary and secondary planets quite behind us in our

flight, as a bird might leave its bush and sweep into the whole forest.

Now what do you see, Lady Constantine?' He levelled the achromatic at

Sirius.

She said that she saw a bright star, though it only seemed a point of

light now as before.

'That's because it is so distant that no magnifying will bring its size

up to zero. Though called a fixed star, it is, like all fixed stars,

moving with inconceivable velocity; but no magnifying will show that

velocity as anything but rest.'

And thus they talked on about Sirius, and then about other stars

. . . in the scrowl

Of all those beasts, and fish, and fowl,

With which, like Indian plantations,

The learned stock the constellations,

till he asked her how many stars she thought were visible to them at that

moment.

She looked around over the magnificent stretch of sky that their high

position unfolded. 'Oh, thousands, hundreds of thousands,' she said

absently.

'No. There are only about three thousand. Now, how many do you think

are brought within sight by the help of a powerful telescope?'

'I won't guess.'

'Twenty millions. So that, whatever the stars were made for, they were

not made to please our eyes. It is just the same in everything; nothing

is made for man.'

'Is it that notion which makes you so sad for your age?' she asked, with

almost maternal solicitude. 'I think astronomy is a bad study for you.

It makes you feel human insignificance too plainly.'

'Perhaps it does. However,' he added more cheerfully, 'though I feel the

study to be one almost tragic in its quality, I hope to be the new

Copernicus. What he was to the solar system I aim to be to the systems

beyond.'

Then, by means of the instrument at hand, they travelled together from

the earth to Uranus and the mysterious outskirts of the solar system;

from the solar system to a star in the Swan, the nearest fixed star in

the northern sky; from the star in the Swan to remoter stars; thence to

the remotest visible; till the ghastly chasm which they had bridged by a

fragile line of sight was realized by Lady Constantine.

'We are now traversing distances beside which the immense line stretching

from the earth to the sun is but an invisible point,' said the youth.

'When, just now, we had reached a planet whose remoteness is a hundred

times the remoteness of the sun from the earth, we were only a two

thousandth part of the journey to the spot at which we have optically

arrived now.'

'Oh, pray don't; it overpowers me!' she replied, not without seriousness.

'It makes me feel that it is not worth while to live; it quite

annihilates me.'

'If it annihilates your ladyship to roam over these yawning spaces just

once, think how it must annihilate me to be, as it were, in constant

suspension amid them night after night.'

'Yes. . . . It was not really this subject that I came to see you upon,

Mr. St. Cleeve,' she began a second time. 'It was a personal matter.'

'I am listening, Lady Constantine.'

'I will tell it you. Yet no,--not this moment. Let us finish this grand

subject first; it dwarfs mine.'

It would have been difficult to judge from her accents whether she were

afraid to broach her own matter, or really interested in his. Or a

certain youthful pride that he evidenced at being the elucidator of such

a large theme, and at having drawn her there to hear and observe it, may

have inclined her to indulge him for kindness' sake.

Thereupon he took exception to her use of the word 'grand' as descriptive

of the actual universe:

'The imaginary picture of the sky as the concavity of a dome whose base

extends from horizon to horizon of our earth is grand, simply grand, and

I wish I had never got beyond looking at it in that way. But the actual

sky is a horror.'

'A new view of our old friends, the stars,' she said, smiling up at them.

'But such an obviously true one!' said the young man. 'You would hardly

think, at first, that horrid monsters lie up there waiting to be

discovered by any moderately penetrating mind--monsters to which those of

the oceans bear no sort of comparison.'

'What monsters may they be?'

'Impersonal monsters, namely, Immensities. Until a person has thought

out the stars and their inter-spaces, he has hardly learnt that there are

things much more terrible than monsters of shape, namely, monsters of

magnitude without known shape. Such monsters are the voids and waste

places of the sky. Look, for instance, at those pieces of darkness in

the Milky Way,' he went on, pointing with his finger to where the galaxy

stretched across over their heads with the luminousness of a frosted web.

'You see that dark opening in it near the Swan? There is a still more

remarkable one south of the equator, called the Coal Sack, as a sort of

nickname that has a farcical force from its very inadequacy. In these

our sight plunges quite beyond any twinkler we have yet visited. Those

are deep wells for the human mind to let itself down into, leave alone

the human body! and think of the side caverns and secondary abysses to

right and left as you pass on!'

Lady Constantine was heedful and silent.

He tried to give her yet another idea of the size of the universe; never

was there a more ardent endeavour to bring down the immeasurable to human

comprehension! By figures of speech and apt comparisons he took her mind

into leading-strings, compelling her to follow him into wildernesses of

which she had never in her life even realized the existence.

'There is a size at which dignity begins,' he exclaimed; 'further on

there is a size at which grandeur begins; further on there is a size at

which solemnity begins; further on, a size at which awfulness begins;

further on, a size at which ghastliness begins. That size faintly

approaches the size of the stellar universe. So am I not right in saying

that those minds who exert their imaginative powers to bury themselves in

the depths of that universe merely strain their faculties to gain a new

horror?'

Standing, as she stood, in the presence of the stellar universe, under

the very eyes of the constellations, Lady Constantine apprehended

something of the earnest youth's argument.

'And to add a new weirdness to what the sky possesses in its size and

formlessness, there is involved the quality of decay. For all the wonder

of these everlasting stars, eternal spheres, and what not, they are not

everlasting, they are not eternal; they burn out like candles. You see

that dying one in the body of the Greater Bear? Two centuries ago it was

as bright as the others. The senses may become terrified by plunging

among them as they are, but there is a pitifulness even in their glory.

Imagine them all extinguished, and your mind feeling its way through a

heaven of total darkness, occasionally striking against the black,

invisible cinders of those stars. . . . If you are cheerful, and wish to

remain so, leave the study of astronomy alone. Of all the sciences, it

alone deserves the character of the terrible.'

'I am not altogether cheerful.'

'Then if, on the other hand, you are restless and anxious about the

future, study astronomy at once. Your troubles will be reduced

amazingly. But your study will reduce them in a singular way, by

reducing the importance of everything. So that the science is still

terrible, even as a panacea. It is quite impossible to think at all

adequately of the sky--of what the sky substantially is, without feeling

it as a juxtaposed nightmare. It is better--far better--for men to

forget the universe than to bear it clearly in mind! . . . But you say

the universe was not really what you came to see me about. What was it,

may I ask, Lady Constantine?'

She mused, and sighed, and turned to him with something pathetic in her.

'The immensity of the subject you have engaged me on has completely

crushed my subject out of me! Yours is celestial; mine lamentably human!

And the less must give way to the greater.'

'But is it, in a human sense, and apart from macrocosmic magnitudes,

important?' he inquired, at last attracted by her manner; for he began to

perceive, in spite of his prepossession, that she had really something on

her mind.

'It is as important as personal troubles usually are.'

Notwithstanding her preconceived notion of coming to Swithin as employer

to dependant, as _chatelaine_ to page, she was falling into confidential

intercourse with him. His vast and romantic endeavours lent him a

personal force and charm which she could not but apprehend. In the

presence of the immensities that his young mind had, as it were, brought

down from above to hers, they became unconsciously equal. There was,

moreover, an inborn liking in Lady Constantine to dwell less on her

permanent position as a county lady than on her passing emotions as a

woman.

'I will postpone the matter I came to charge you with,' she resumed,

smiling. 'I must reconsider it. Now I will return.'

'Allow me to show you out through the trees and across the fields?'

She said neither a distinct yes nor no; and, descending the tower, they

threaded the firs and crossed the ploughed field. By an odd coincidence

he remarked, when they drew near the Great House--

'You may possibly be interested in knowing, Lady Constantine, that that

medium-sized star you see over there, low down in the south, is precisely

over Sir Blount Constantine's head in the middle of Africa.'

'How very strange that you should have said so!' she answered. 'You have

broached for me the very subject I had come to speak of.'

'On a domestic matter?' he said, with surprise.

'Yes. What a small matter it seems now, after our astronomical

stupendousness! and yet on my way to you it so far transcended the

ordinary matters of my life as the subject you have led me up to

transcends this. But,' with a little laugh, 'I will endeavour to sink

down to such ephemeral trivialities as human tragedy, and explain, since

I have come. The point is, I want a helper: no woman ever wanted one

more. For days I have wanted a trusty friend who could go on a secret

errand for me. It is necessary that my messenger should be educated,

should be intelligent, should be silent as the grave. Do you give me

your solemn promise as to the last point, if I confide in you?'

'Most emphatically, Lady Constantine.'

'Your right hand upon the compact.'

He gave his hand, and raised hers to his lips. In addition to his

respect for her as the lady of the manor, there was the admiration of

twenty years for twenty-eight or nine in such relations.

'I trust you,' she said. 'Now, beyond the above conditions, it was

specially necessary that my agent should have known Sir Blount

Constantine well by sight when he was at home. For the errand is

concerning my husband; I am much disturbed at what I have heard about

him.'

'I am indeed sorry to know it.'

'There are only two people in the parish who fulfil all the

conditions,--Mr. Torkingham, and yourself. I sent for Mr. Torkingham,

and he came. I could not tell him. I felt at the last moment that he

wouldn't do. I have come to you because I think you will do. This is

it: my husband has led me and all the world to believe that he is in

Africa, hunting lions. I have had a mysterious letter informing me that

he has been seen in London, in very peculiar circumstances. The truth of

this I want ascertained. Will you go on the journey?'

'Personally, I would go to the end of the world for you, Lady

Constantine; but--'

'No buts!'

'How can I leave?'

'Why not?'

'I am preparing a work on variable stars. There is one of these which I

have exceptionally observed for several months, and on this my great

theory is mainly based. It has been hitherto called irregular; but I

have detected a periodicity in its so-called irregularities which, if

proved, would add some very valuable facts to those known on this

subject, one of the most interesting, perplexing, and suggestive in the

whole field of astronomy. Now, to clinch my theory, there should be a

sudden variation this week,--or at latest next week,--and I have to watch

every night not to let it pass. You see my reason for declining, Lady

Constantine.'

'Young men are always so selfish!' she said.

'It might ruin the whole of my year's labour if I leave now!' returned

the youth, greatly hurt. 'Could you not wait a fortnight longer?'

'No,--no. Don't think that I have asked you, pray. I have no wish to

inconvenience you.'

'Lady Constantine, don't be angry with me! Will you do this,--watch the

star for me while I am gone? If you are prepared to do it effectually, I

will go.'

'Will it be much trouble?'

'It will be some trouble. You would have to come here every clear

evening about nine. If the sky were not clear, then you would have to

come at four in the morning, should the clouds have dispersed.'

'Could not the telescope be brought to my house?'

Swithin shook his head.

'Perhaps you did not observe its real size,--that it was fixed to a frame-

work? I could not afford to buy an equatorial, and I have been obliged

to rig up an apparatus of my own devising, so as to make it in some

measure answer the purpose of an equatorial. It _could_ be moved, but I

would rather not touch it.'

'Well, I'll go to the telescope,' she went on, with an emphasis that was

not wholly playful. 'You are the most ungallant youth I ever met with;

but I suppose I must set that down to science. Yes, I'll go to the tower

at nine every night.'

'And alone? I should prefer to keep my pursuits there unknown.'

'And alone,' she answered, quite overborne by his inflexibility.

'You will not miss the morning observation, if it should be necessary?'

'I have given my word.'

'And I give mine. I suppose I ought not to have been so exacting!' He

spoke with that sudden emotional sense of his own insignificance which

made these alternations of mood possible. 'I will go anywhere--do

anything for you--this moment--to-morrow or at any time. But you must

return with me to the tower, and let me show you the observing process.'

They retraced their steps, the tender hoar-frost taking the imprint of

their feet, while two stars in the Twins looked down upon their two

persons through the trees, as if those two persons could bear some sort

of comparison with them. On the tower the instructions were given. When

all was over, and he was again conducting her to the Great House she

said--

'When can you start?'

'Now,' said Swithin.

'So much the better. You shall go up by the night mail.'

V

On the third morning after the young man's departure Lady Constantine

opened the post-bag anxiously. Though she had risen before four o'clock,

and crossed to the tower through the gray half-light when every blade and

twig were furred with rime, she felt no languor. Expectation could

banish at cock-crow the eye-heaviness which apathy had been unable to

disperse all the day long.

There was, as she had hoped, a letter from Swithin St. Cleeve.

'DEAR LADY CONSTANTINE,--I have quite succeeded in my mission, and

shall return to-morrow at 10 p.m. I hope you have not failed in the

observations. Watching the star through an opera-glass Sunday night,

I fancied some change had taken place, but I could not make myself

sure. Your memoranda for that night I await with impatience. Please

don't neglect to write down _at the moment_, all remarkable

appearances both as to colour and intensity; and be very exact as to

time, which correct in the way I showed you.--I am, dear Lady

Constantine, yours most faithfully,

SWITHIN ST. CLEEVE.'

Not another word in the letter about his errand; his mind ran on nothing

but this astronomical subject. He had succeeded in his mission, and yet

he did not even say yes or no to the great question,--whether or not her

husband was masquerading in London at the address she had given.

'Was ever anything so provoking!' she cried.

However, the time was not long to wait. His way homeward would lie

within a stone's-throw of the manor-house, and though for certain reasons

she had forbidden him to call at the late hour of his arrival, she could

easily intercept him in the avenue. At twenty minutes past ten she went

out into the drive, and stood in the dark. Seven minutes later she heard

his footstep, and saw his outline in the slit of light between the avenue-

trees. He had a valise in one hand, a great-coat on his arm, and under

his arm a parcel which seemed to be very precious, from the manner in

which he held it.

'Lady Constantine?' he asked softly.

'Yes,' she said, in her excitement holding out both her hands, though he

had plainly not expected her to offer one.

'Did you watch the star?'

'I'll tell you everything in detail; but, pray, your errand first!'

'Yes, it's all right. Did you watch every night, not missing one?'

'I forgot to go--twice,' she murmured contritely.

'Oh, Lady Constantine!' he cried in dismay. 'How could you serve me so!

what shall I do?'

'Please forgive me! Indeed, I could not help it. I had watched and

watched, and nothing happened; and somehow my vigilance relaxed when I

found nothing was likely to take place in the star.'

'But the very circumstance of it not having happened, made it all the

more likely every day.'

'Have you--seen--' she began imploringly.

Swithin sighed, lowered his thoughts to sublunary things, and told

briefly the story of his journey. Sir Blount Constantine was not in

London at the address which had been anonymously sent her. It was a

mistake of identity. The person who had been seen there Swithin had

sought out. He resembled Sir Blount strongly; but he was a stranger.

'How can I reward you!' she exclaimed, when he had done.

'In no way but by giving me your good wishes in what I am going to tell

you on my own account.' He spoke in tones of mysterious exultation.

'This parcel is going to make my fame!'

'What is it?'

'A huge object-glass for the great telescope I am so busy about! Such a

magnificent aid to science has never entered this county before, you may

depend.'

He produced from under his arm the carefully cuddled-up package, which

was in shape a round flat disk, like a dinner-plate, tied in paper.

Proceeding to explain his plans to her more fully, he walked with her

towards the door by which she had emerged. It was a little side wicket

through a wall dividing the open park from the garden terraces. Here for

a moment he placed his valise and parcel on the coping of the stone

balustrade, till he had bidden her farewell. Then he turned, and in

laying hold of his bag by the dim light pushed the parcel over the

parapet. It fell smash upon the paved walk ten or a dozen feet beneath.

'Oh, good heavens!' he cried in anguish.

'What?'

'My object-glass broken!'

'Is it of much value?'

'It cost all I possess!'

He ran round by the steps to the lower lawn, Lady Constantine following,

as he continued, 'It is a magnificent eight-inch first quality object

lens! I took advantage of my journey to London to get it! I have been

six weeks making the tube of milled board; and as I had not enough money

by twelve pounds for the lens, I borrowed it of my grandmother out of her

last annuity payment. What can be, can be done!'

'Perhaps it is not broken.'

He felt on the ground, found the parcel, and shook it. A clicking noise

issued from inside. Swithin smote his forehead with his hand, and walked

up and down like a mad fellow.

'My telescope! I have waited nine months for this lens. Now the

possibility of setting up a really powerful instrument is over! It is

too cruel--how could it happen! . . . Lady Constantine, I am ashamed of

myself,--before you. Oh, but, Lady Constantine, if you only knew what it

is to a person engaged in science to have the means of clinching a theory

snatched away at the last moment! It is I against the world; and when

the world has accidents on its side in addition to its natural strength,

what chance for me!'

The young astronomer leant against the wall, and was silent. His misery

was of an intensity and kind with that of Palissy, in these struggles

with an adverse fate.

'Don't mind it,--pray don't!' said Lady Constantine. 'It is dreadfully

unfortunate! You have my whole sympathy. Can it be mended?'

'Mended,--no, no!'

'Cannot you do with your present one a little longer?'

'It is altogether inferior, cheap, and bad!'

'I'll get you another,--yes, indeed, I will! Allow me to get you another

as soon as possible. I'll do anything to assist you out of your trouble;

for I am most anxious to see you famous. I know you will be a great

astronomer, in spite of this mishap! Come, say I may get a new one.'

Swithin took her hand. He could not trust himself to speak.

* * * * *

Some days later a little box of peculiar kind came to the Great House. It

was addressed to Lady Constantine, 'with great care.' She had it partly

opened and taken to her own little writing-room; and after lunch, when

she had dressed for walking, she took from the box a paper parcel like

the one which had met with the accident. This she hid under her mantle,

as if she had stolen it; and, going out slowly across the lawn, passed

through the little door before spoken of, and was soon hastening in the

direction of the Rings-Hill column.

There was a bright sun overhead on that afternoon of early spring, and

its rays shed an unusual warmth on south-west aspects, though shady

places still retained the look and feel of winter. Rooks were already

beginning to build new nests or to mend up old ones, and clamorously

called in neighbours to give opinions on difficulties in their

architecture. Lady Constantine swerved once from her path, as if she had

decided to go to the homestead where Swithin lived; but on second

thoughts she bent her steps to the column.

Drawing near it she looked up; but by reason of the height of the parapet

nobody could be seen thereon who did not stand on tiptoe. She thought,

however, that her young friend might possibly see her, if he were there,

and come down; and that he was there she soon ascertained by finding the

door unlocked, and the key inside. No movement, however, reached her

ears from above, and she began to ascend.

Meanwhile affairs at the top of the column had progressed as follows. The

afternoon being exceptionally fine, Swithin had ascended about two

o'clock, and, seating himself at the little table which he had

constructed on the spot, he began reading over his notes and examining

some astronomical journals that had reached him in the morning. The sun

blazed into the hollow roof-space as into a tub, and the sides kept out

every breeze. Though the month was February below it was May in the

abacus of the column. This state of the atmosphere, and the fact that on

the previous night he had pursued his observations till past two o'clock,

produced in him at the end of half an hour an overpowering inclination to

sleep. Spreading on the lead-work a thick rug which he kept up there, he

flung himself down against the parapet, and was soon in a state of

unconsciousness.

It was about ten minutes afterwards that a soft rustle of silken clothes

came up the spiral staircase, and, hesitating onwards, reached the

orifice, where appeared the form of Lady Constantine. She did not at

first perceive that he was present, and stood still to reconnoitre. Her

eye glanced over his telescope, now wrapped up, his table and papers, his

observing-chair, and his contrivances for making the best of a deficiency

of instruments. All was warm, sunny, and silent, except that a solitary

bee, which had somehow got within the hollow of the abacus, was singing

round inquiringly, unable to discern that ascent was the only mode of

escape. In another moment she beheld the astronomer, lying in the sun

like a sailor in the main-top.

Lady Constantine coughed slightly; he did not awake. She then entered,

and, drawing the parcel from beneath her cloak, placed it on the table.

After this she waited, looking for a long time at his sleeping face,

which had a very interesting appearance. She seemed reluctant to leave,

yet wanted resolution to wake him; and, pencilling his name on the

parcel, she withdrew to the staircase, where the brushing of her dress

decreased to silence as she receded round and round on her way to the

base.

Swithin still slept on, and presently the rustle began again in the far-

down interior of the column. The door could be heard closing, and the

rustle came nearer, showing that she had shut herself in,--no doubt to

lessen the risk of an accidental surprise by any roaming villager. When

Lady Constantine reappeared at the top, and saw the parcel still

untouched and Swithin asleep as before, she exhibited some

disappointment; but she did not retreat.

Looking again at him, her eyes became so sentimentally fixed on his face

that it seemed as if she could not withdraw them. There lay, in the

shape of an Antinous, no _amoroso_, no gallant, but a guileless

philosopher. His parted lips were lips which spoke, not of love, but of

millions of miles; those were eyes which habitually gazed, not into the

depths of other eyes, but into other worlds. Within his temples dwelt

thoughts, not of woman's looks, but of stellar aspects and the

configuration of constellations.

Thus, to his physical attractiveness was added the attractiveness of

mental inaccessibility. The ennobling influence of scientific pursuits

was demonstrated by the speculative purity which expressed itself in his

eyes whenever he looked at her in speaking, and in the childlike faults

of manner which arose from his obtuseness to their difference of sex. He

had never, since becoming a man, looked even so low as to the level of a

Lady Constantine. His heaven at present was truly in the skies, and not

in that only other place where they say it can be found, in the eyes of

some daughter of Eve. Would any Circe or Calypso--and if so, what

one?--ever check this pale-haired scientist's nocturnal sailings into the

interminable spaces overhead, and hurl all his mighty calculations on

cosmic force and stellar fire into Limbo? Oh, the pity of it, if such

should be the case!

She became much absorbed in these very womanly reflections; and at last

Lady Constantine sighed, perhaps she herself did not exactly know why.

Then a very soft expression lighted on her lips and eyes, and she looked

at one jump ten years more youthful than before--quite a girl in aspect,

younger than he. On the table lay his implements; among them a pair of

scissors, which, to judge from the shreds around, had been used in

cutting curves in thick paper for some calculating process.

What whim, agitation, or attraction prompted the impulse, nobody knows;

but she took the scissors, and, bending over the sleeping youth, cut off

one of the curls, or rather crooks,--for they hardly reached a curl,--into

which each lock of his hair chose to twist itself in the last inch of its

length. The hair fell upon the rug. She picked it up quickly, returned

the scissors to the table, and, as if her dignity had suddenly become

ashamed of her fantasies, hastened through the door, and descended the

staircase.

VI

When his nap had naturally exhausted itself Swithin awoke. He awoke

without any surprise, for he not unfrequently gave to sleep in the day-

time what he had stolen from it in the night watches. The first object

that met his eyes was the parcel on the table, and, seeing his name

inscribed thereon, he made no scruple to open it.

The sun flashed upon a lens of surprising magnitude, polished to such a

smoothness that the eye could scarcely meet its reflections. Here was a

crystal in whose depths were to be seen more wonders than had been

revealed by the crystals of all the Cagliostros.

Swithin, hot with joyousness, took this treasure to his telescope

manufactory at the homestead; then he started off for the Great House.

On gaining its precincts he felt shy of calling, never having received

any hint or permission to do so; while Lady Constantine's mysterious

manner of leaving the parcel seemed to demand a like mysteriousness in

his approaches to her. All the afternoon he lingered about uncertainly,

in the hope of intercepting her on her return from a drive, occasionally

walking with an indifferent lounge across glades commanded by the

windows, that if she were in-doors she might know he was near. But she

did not show herself during the daylight. Still impressed by her playful

secrecy he carried on the same idea after dark, by returning to the house

and passing through the garden door on to the lawn front, where he sat on

the parapet that breasted the terrace.

Now she frequently came out here for a melancholy saunter after dinner,

and to-night was such an occasion. Swithin went forward, and met her at

nearly the spot where he had dropped the lens some nights earlier.

'I have come to see you, Lady Constantine. How did the glass get on my

table?'

She laughed as lightly as a girl; that he had come to her in this way was

plainly no offence thus far.

'Perhaps it was dropped from the clouds by a bird,' she said.

'Why should you be so good to me?' he cried.

'One good turn deserves another,' answered she.

'Dear Lady Constantine! Whatever discoveries result from this shall be

ascribed to you as much as to me. Where should I have been without your

gift?'

'You would possibly have accomplished your purpose just the same, and

have been so much the nobler for your struggle against ill-luck. I hope

that now you will be able to proceed with your large telescope as if

nothing had happened.'

'O yes, I will, certainly. I am afraid I showed too much feeling, the

reverse of stoical, when the accident occurred. That was not very noble

of me.'

'There is nothing unnatural in such feeling at your age. When you are

older you will smile at such moods, and at the mishaps that gave rise to

them.'

'Ah, I perceive you think me weak in the extreme,' he said, with just a

shade of pique. 'But you will never realize that an incident which

filled but a degree in the circle of your thoughts covered the whole

circumference of mine. No person can see exactly what and where

another's horizon is.'

They soon parted, and she re-entered the house, where she sat reflecting

for some time, till she seemed to fear that she had wounded his feelings.

She awoke in the night, and thought and thought on the same thing, till

she had worked herself into a feverish fret about it. When it was

morning she looked across at the tower, and sitting down, impulsively

wrote the following note:--

'DEAR MR. ST. CLEEVE,--I cannot allow you to remain under the

impression that I despised your scientific endeavours in speaking as I

did last night. I think you were too sensitive to my remark. But

perhaps you were agitated with the labours of the day, and I fear that

watching so late at night must make you very weary. If I can help you

again, please let me know. I never realized the grandeur of astronomy

till you showed me how to do so. Also let me know about the new

telescope. Come and see me at any time. After your great kindness in

being my messenger I can never do enough for you. I wish you had a

mother or sister, and pity your loneliness! I am lonely too.--Yours

truly,

VIVIETTE CONSTANTINE.'

She was so anxious that he should get this letter the same day that she

ran across to the column with it during the morning, preferring to be her

own emissary in so curious a case. The door, as she had expected, was

locked; and, slipping the letter under it, she went home again. During

lunch her ardour in the cause of Swithin's hurt feelings cooled down,

till she exclaimed to herself, as she sat at her lonely table, 'What

could have possessed me to write in that way!'

After lunch she went faster to the tower than she had gone in the early

morning, and peeped eagerly into the chink under the door. She could

discern no letter, and, on trying the latch, found that the door would

open. The letter was gone, Swithin having obviously arrived in the

interval.

She blushed a blush which seemed to say, 'I am getting foolishly

interested in this young man.' She had, in short, in her own opinion,

somewhat overstepped the bounds of dignity. Her instincts did not square

well with the formalities of her existence, and she walked home

despondently.

Had a concert, bazaar, lecture, or Dorcas meeting required the patronage

and support of Lady Constantine at this juncture, the circumstance would

probably have been sufficient to divert her mind from Swithin St. Cleeve

and astronomy for some little time. But as none of these incidents were

within the range of expectation--Welland House and parish lying far from

large towns and watering-places--the void in her outer life continued,

and with it the void in her life within.

The youth had not answered her letter; neither had he called upon her in

response to the invitation she had regretted, with the rest of the

epistle, as being somewhat too warmly informal for black and white. To

speak tenderly to him was one thing, to write another--that was her

feeling immediately after the event; but his counter-move of silence and

avoidance, though probably the result of pure unconsciousness on his

part, completely dispersed such self-considerations now. Her eyes never

fell upon the Rings-Hill column without a solicitous wonder arising as to

what he was doing. A true woman, she would assume the remotest

possibility to be the most likely contingency, if the possibility had the

recommendation of being tragical; and she now feared that something was

wrong with Swithin St. Cleeve. Yet there was not the least doubt that he

had become so immersed in the business of the new telescope as to forget

everything else.

On Sunday, between the services, she walked to Little Welland, chiefly

for the sake of giving a run to a house-dog, a large St. Bernard, of whom

she was fond. The distance was but short; and she returned along a

narrow lane, divided from the river by a hedge, through whose leafless

twigs the ripples flashed silver lights into her eyes. Here she

discovered Swithin, leaning over a gate, his eyes bent upon the stream.

The dog first attracted his attention; then he heard her, and turned

round. She had never seen him looking so despondent.

'You have never called, though I invited you,' said Lady Constantine.

'My great telescope won't work!' he replied lugubriously.

'I am sorry for that. So it has made you quite forget me?'

'Ah, yes; you wrote me a very kind letter, which I ought to have

answered. Well, I _did_ forget, Lady Constantine. My new telescope

won't work, and I don't know what to do about it at all!'

'Can I assist you any further?'

'No, I fear not. Besides, you have assisted me already.'

'What would really help you out of all your difficulties? Something

would, surely?'

He shook his head.

'There must be some solution to them?'

'O yes,' he replied, with a hypothetical gaze into the stream; '_some_

solution of course--an equatorial, for instance.'

'What's that?'

'Briefly, an impossibility. It is a splendid instrument, with an object

lens of, say, eight or nine inches aperture, mounted with its axis

parallel to the earth's axis, and fitted up with graduated circles for

denoting right ascensions and declinations; besides having special eye-

pieces, a finder, and all sorts of appliances--clock-work to make the

telescope follow the motion in right ascension--I cannot tell you half

the conveniences. Ah, an equatorial is a thing indeed!'

'An equatorial is the one instrument required to make you quite happy?'

'Well, yes.'

'I'll see what I can do.'

'But, Lady Constantine,' cried the amazed astronomer, 'an equatorial such

as I describe costs as much as two grand pianos!'

She was rather staggered at this news; but she rallied gallantly, and

said, 'Never mind. I'll make inquiries.'

'But it could not be put on the tower without people seeing it! It would

have to be fixed to the masonry. And there must be a dome of some kind

to keep off the rain. A tarpaulin might do.'

Lady Constantine reflected. 'It would be a great business, I see,' she

said. 'Though as far as the fixing and roofing go, I would of course

consent to your doing what you liked with the old column. My workmen

could fix it, could they not?'

'O yes. But what would Sir Blount say, if he came home and saw the

goings on?'

Lady Constantine turned aside to hide a sudden displacement of blood from

her cheek. 'Ah--my husband!' she whispered. . . . 'I am just now going

to church,' she added in a repressed and hurried tone. 'I will think of

this matter.'

In church it was with Lady Constantine as with the Lord Angelo of Vienna

in a similar situation--Heaven had her empty words only, and her

invention heard not her tongue. She soon recovered from the momentary

consternation into which she had fallen at Swithin's abrupt query. The

possibility of that young astronomer becoming a renowned scientist by her

aid was a thought which gave her secret pleasure. The course of

rendering him instant material help began to have a great fascination for

her; it was a new and unexpected channel for her cribbed and confined

emotions. With experiences so much wider than his, Lady Constantine saw

that the chances were perhaps a million to one against Swithin St. Cleeve

ever being Astronomer Royal, or Astronomer Extraordinary of any sort; yet

the remaining chance in his favour was one of those possibilities which,

to a woman of bounding intellect and venturesome fancy, are pleasanter to

dwell on than likely issues that have no savour of high speculation in

them. The equatorial question was a great one; and she had caught such a

large spark from his enthusiasm that she could think of nothing so

piquant as how to obtain the important instrument.

When Tabitha Lark arrived at the Great House next day, instead of finding

Lady Constantine in bed, as formerly, she discovered her in the library,

poring over what astronomical works she had been able to unearth from the

worm-eaten shelves. As these publications were, for a science of such

rapid development, somewhat venerable, there was not much help of a

practical kind to be gained from them. Nevertheless, the equatorial

retained a hold upon her fancy, till she became as eager to see one on

the Rings-Hill column as Swithin himself.

The upshot of it was that Lady Constantine sent a messenger that evening

to Welland Bottom, where the homestead of Swithin's grandmother was

situated, requesting the young man's presence at the house at twelve

o'clock next day.

He hurriedly returned an obedient reply, and the promise was enough to

lend great freshness to her manner next morning, instead of the leaden

air which was too frequent with her before the sun reached the meridian,

and sometimes after. Swithin had, in fact, arisen as an attractive

little intervention between herself and despair.

VII

A fog defaced all the trees of the park that morning, the white

atmosphere adhered to the ground like a fungoid growth from it, and made

the turfed undulations look slimy and raw. But Lady Constantine settled

down in her chair to await the coming of the late curate's son with a

serenity which the vast blanks outside could neither baffle nor destroy.

At two minutes to twelve the door-bell rang, and a look overspread the

lady's face that was neither maternal, sisterly, nor amorous; but partook

in an indescribable manner of all three kinds. The door was flung open

and the young man was ushered in, the fog still clinging to his hair, in

which she could discern a little notch where she had nipped off the curl.

A speechlessness that socially was a defect in him was to her view a

piquant attribute just now. He looked somewhat alarmed.

'Lady Constantine, have I done anything, that you have sent--?' he began

breathlessly, as he gazed in her face, with parted lips.

'O no, of course not! I have decided to do something,--nothing more,'

she smilingly said, holding out her hand, which he rather gingerly

touched. 'Don't look so concerned. Who makes equatorials?'

This remark was like the drawing of a weir-hatch and she was speedily

inundated with all she wished to know concerning astronomical opticians.

When he had imparted the particulars he waited, manifestly burning to

know whither these inquiries tended.

'I am not going to buy you one,' she said gently.

He looked as if he would faint.

'Certainly not. I do not wish it. I--could not have accepted it,'

faltered the young man.

'But I am going to buy one for _myself_. I lack a hobby, and I shall

choose astronomy. I shall fix my equatorial on the column.'

Swithin brightened up.

'And I shall let you have the use of it whenever you choose. In brief,

Swithin St. Cleeve shall be Lady Constantine's Astronomer Royal; and

she--and she--'

'Shall be his Queen.' The words came not much the worse for being

uttered only in the tone of one anxious to complete a tardy sentence.

'Well, that's what I have decided to do,' resumed Lady Constantine. 'I

will write to these opticians at once.'

There seemed to be no more for him to do than to thank her for the

privilege, whenever it should be available, which he promptly did, and

then made as if to go. But Lady Constantine detained him with, 'Have you

ever seen my library?'

'No; never.'

'You don't say you would like to see it.'

'But I should.'

'It is the third door on the right. You can find your way in, and you

can stay there as long as you like.'

Swithin then left the morning-room for the apartment designated, and

amused himself in that 'soul of the house,' as Cicero defined it, till he

heard the lunch bell sounding from the turret, when he came down from the

library steps, and thought it time to go home. But at that moment a

servant entered to inquire whether he would or would not prefer to have

his lunch brought in to him there; upon his replying in the affirmative a

large tray arrived on the stomach of a footman, and Swithin was greatly

surprised to see a whole pheasant placed at his disposal.

Having breakfasted at eight that morning, and having been much in the

open air afterwards, the Adonis-astronomer's appetite assumed grand

proportions. How much of that pheasant he might consistently eat without

hurting his dear patroness Lady Constantine's feelings, when he could

readily eat it all, was a problem in which the reasonableness of a larger

and larger quantity argued itself inversely as a smaller and smaller

quantity remained. When, at length, he had finally decided on a terminal

point in the body of the bird, the door was gently opened.

'Oh, you have not finished?' came to him over his shoulder, in a

considerate voice.

'O yes, thank you, Lady Constantine,' he said, jumping up.

'Why did you prefer to lunch in this awkward, dusty place?'

'I thought--it would be better,' said Swithin simply.

'There is fruit in the other room, if you like to come. But perhaps you

would rather not?'

'O yes, I should much like to,' said Swithin, walking over his napkin,

and following her as she led the way to the adjoining apartment.

Here, while she asked him what he had been reading, he modestly ventured

on an apple, in whose flavour he recognized the familiar taste of old

friends robbed from her husband's orchards in his childhood, long before

Lady Constantine's advent on the scene. She supposed he had confined his

search to his own sublime subject, astronomy?

Swithin suddenly became older to the eye, as his thoughts reverted to the

topic thus reintroduced. 'Yes,' he informed her. 'I seldom read any

other subject. In these days the secret of productive study is to avoid

well.'

'Did you find any good treatises?'

'None. The theories in your books are almost as obsolete as the

Ptolemaic System. Only fancy, that magnificent Cyclopaedia,

leather-bound, and stamped, and gilt, and wide margined, and bearing the

blazon of your house in magnificent colours, says that the twinkling of

the stars is probably caused by heavenly bodies passing in front of them

in their revolutions.'

'And is it not so? That was what I learned when I was a girl.'

The modern Eudoxus now rose above the embarrassing horizon of Lady

Constantine's great house, magnificent furniture, and awe-inspiring

footman. He became quite natural, all his self-consciousness fled, and

his eye spoke into hers no less than his lips to her ears, as he said,

'How such a theory can have lingered on to this day beats conjecture!

Francois Arago, as long as forty or fifty years ago, conclusively

established the fact that scintillation is the simplest thing in the

world,--merely a matter of atmosphere. But I won't speak of this to you

now. The comparative absence of scintillation in warm countries was

noticed by Humboldt. Then, again, the scintillations vary. No star

flaps his wings like Sirius when he lies low! He flashes out emeralds

and rubies, amethystine flames and sapphirine colours, in a manner quite

marvellous to behold, and this is only _one_ star! So, too, do Arcturus,

and Capella, and lesser luminaries. . . . But I tire you with this

subject?'

'On the contrary, you speak so beautifully that I could listen all day.'

The astronomer threw a searching glance upon her for a moment; but there

was no satire in the warm soft eyes which met his own with a luxurious

contemplative interest. 'Say some more of it to me,' she continued, in a

voice not far removed from coaxing.

After some hesitation the subject returned again to his lips, and he said

some more--indeed, much more; Lady Constantine often throwing in an

appreciative remark or question, often meditatively regarding him, in

pursuance of ideas not exactly based on his words, and letting him go on

as he would.

Before he left the house the new astronomical project was set in train.

The top of the column was to be roofed in, to form a proper observatory;

and on the ground that he knew better than any one else how this was to

be carried out, she requested him to give precise directions on the

point, and to superintend the whole. A wooden cabin was to be erected at

the foot of the tower, to provide better accommodation for casual

visitors to the observatory than the spiral staircase and lead-flat

afforded. As this cabin would be completely buried in the dense fir

foliage which enveloped the lower part of the column and its pedestal, it

would be no disfigurement to the general appearance. Finally, a path was

to be made across the surrounding fallow, by which she might easily

approach the scene of her new study.

When he was gone she wrote to the firm of opticians concerning the

equatorial for whose reception all this was designed.

The undertaking was soon in full progress; and by degrees it became the

talk of the hamlets round that Lady Constantine had given up melancholy

for astronomy, to the great advantage of all who came in contact with

her. One morning, when Tabitha Lark had come as usual to read, Lady

Constantine chanced to be in a quarter of the house to which she seldom

wandered; and while here she heard her maid talking confidentially to

Tabitha in the adjoining room on the curious and sudden interest which

Lady Constantine had acquired in the moon and stars.

'They do say all sorts of trumpery,' observed the handmaid. 'They

say--though 'tis little better than mischief, to be sure--that it isn't

the moon, and it isn't the stars, and it isn't the plannards, that my

lady cares for, but for the pretty lad who draws 'em down from the sky to

please her; and being a married example, and what with sin and shame

knocking at every poor maid's door afore you can say, "Hands off, my

dear," to the civilest young man, she ought to set a better pattern.'

Lady Constantine's face flamed up vividly.

'If Sir Blount were to come back all of a sudden--oh, my!'

Lady Constantine grew cold as ice.

'There's nothing in it,' said Tabitha scornfully. 'I could prove it any

day.'

'Well, I wish I had half her chance!' sighed the lady's maid. And no

more was said on the subject then.

Tabitha's remark showed that the suspicion was quite in embryo as yet.

Nevertheless, saying nothing to reveal what she had overheard,

immediately after the reading Lady Constantine flew like a bird to where

she knew that Swithin might be found.

He was in the plantation, setting up little sticks to mark where the

wooden cabin was to stand. She called him to a remote place under the

funereal trees.

'I have altered my mind,' she said. 'I can have nothing to do with this

matter.'

'Indeed?' said Swithin, surprised.

'Astronomy is not my hobby any longer. And you are not my Astronomer

Royal.'

'O Lady Constantine!' cried the youth, aghast. 'Why, the work is begun!

I thought the equatorial was ordered.'

She dropped her voice, though a Jericho shout would not have been

overheard: 'Of course astronomy is my hobby privately, and you are to be

my Astronomer Royal, and I still furnish the observatory; but not to the

outer world. There is a reason against my indulgence in such scientific

fancies openly; and the project must be arranged in this wise. The whole

enterprise is yours: you rent the tower of me: you build the cabin: you

get the equatorial. I simply give permission, since you desire it. The

path that was to be made from the hill to the park is not to be thought

of. There is to be no communication between the house and the column.

The equatorial will arrive addressed to you, and its cost I will pay

through you. My name must not appear, and I vanish entirely from the

undertaking. . . . This blind is necessary,' she added, sighing. 'Good-

bye!'

'But you _do_ take as much interest as before, and it _will_ be yours

just the same?' he said, walking after her. He scarcely comprehended the

subterfuge, and was absolutely blind as to its reason.

'Can you doubt it? But I dare not do it openly.'

With this she went away; and in due time there circulated through the

parish an assertion that it was a mistake to suppose Lady Constantine had

anything to do with Swithin St. Cleeve or his star-gazing schemes. She

had merely allowed him to rent the tower of her for use as his

observatory, and to put some temporary fixtures on it for that purpose.

After this Lady Constantine lapsed into her former life of loneliness;

and by these prompt measures the ghost of a rumour which had barely

started into existence was speedily laid to rest. It had probably

originated in her own dwelling, and had gone but little further. Yet,

despite her self-control, a certain north window of the Great House, that

commanded an uninterrupted view of the upper ten feet of the column,

revealed her to be somewhat frequently gazing from it at a rotundity

which had begun to appear on the summit. To those with whom she came in

contact she sometimes addressed such remarks as, 'Is young Mr. St. Cleeve

getting on with his observatory? I hope he will fix his instruments

without damaging the column, which is so interesting to us as being in

memory of my dear husband's great-grandfather--a truly brave man.'

On one occasion her building-steward ventured to suggest to her that, Sir

Blount having deputed to her the power to grant short leases in his

absence, she should have a distinctive agreement with Swithin, as between

landlord and tenant, with a stringent clause against his driving nails

into the stonework of such an historical memorial. She replied that she

did not wish to be severe on the last representative of such old and

respected parishioners as St. Cleeve's mother's family had been, and of

such a well-descended family as his father's; so that it would only be

necessary for the steward to keep an eye on Mr. St. Cleeve's doings.

Further, when a letter arrived at the Great House from Hilton and Pimm's,

the opticians, with information that the equatorial was ready and packed,

and that a man would be sent with it to fix it, she replied to that firm

to the effect that their letter should have been addressed to Mr. St.

Cleeve, the local astronomer, on whose behalf she had made the inquiries;

that she had nothing more to do with the matter; that he would receive

the instrument and pay the bill,--her guarantee being given for the

latter performance.

VIII

Lady Constantine then had the pleasure of beholding a waggon, laden with

packing-cases, moving across the field towards the pillar; and not many

days later Swithin, who had never come to the Great House since the

luncheon, met her in a path which he knew to be one of her promenades.

'The equatorial is fixed, and the man gone,' he said, half in doubt as to

his speech, for her commands to him not to recognize her agency or

patronage still puzzled him. 'I respectfully wish--you could come and

see it, Lady Constantine.'

'I would rather not; I cannot.'

'Saturn is lovely; Jupiter is simply sublime; I can see double stars in

the Lion and in the Virgin, where I had seen only a single one before. It

is all I required to set me going!'

'I'll come. But--you need say nothing about my visit. I cannot come to-

night, but I will some time this week. Yet only this once, to try the

instrument. Afterwards you must be content to pursue your studies

alone.'

Swithin seemed but little affected at this announcement. 'Hilton and

Pimm's man handed me the bill,' he continued.

'How much is it?'

He told her. 'And the man who has built the hut and dome, and done the

other fixing, has sent in his.' He named this amount also.

'Very well. They shall be settled with. My debts must be paid with my

money, which you shall have at once,--in cash, since a cheque would

hardly do. Come to the house for it this evening. But no, no--you must

not come openly; such is the world. Come to the window--the window that

is exactly in a line with the long snowdrop bed, in the south front--at

eight to-night, and I will give you what is necessary.'

'Certainly, Lady Constantine,' said the young man.

At eight that evening accordingly, Swithin entered like a spectre upon

the terrace to seek out the spot she had designated. The equatorial had

so entirely absorbed his thoughts that he did not trouble himself

seriously to conjecture the why and wherefore of her secrecy. If he

casually thought of it, he set it down in a general way to an intensely

generous wish on her part not to lessen his influence among the poorer

inhabitants by making him appear the object of patronage.

While he stood by the long snowdrop bed, which looked up at him like a

nether Milky Way, the French casement of the window opposite softly

opened, and a hand bordered by a glimmer of lace was stretched forth,

from which he received a crisp little parcel,--bank-notes, apparently. He

knew the hand, and held it long enough to press it to his lips, the only

form which had ever occurred to him of expressing his gratitude to her

without the incumbrance of clumsy words, a vehicle at the best of times

but rudely suited to such delicate merchandise. The hand was hastily

withdrawn, as if the treatment had been unexpected. Then seemingly moved

by second thoughts she bent forward and said, 'Is the night good for

observations?'

'Perfect.'

She paused. 'Then I'll come to-night,' she at last said. 'It makes no

difference to me, after all. Wait just one moment.'

He waited, and she presently emerged, muffled up like a nun; whereupon

they left the terrace and struck across the park together.

Very little was said by either till they were crossing the fallow, when

he asked if his arm would help her. She did not take the offered support

just then; but when they were ascending the prehistoric earthwork, under

the heavy gloom of the fir-trees, she seized it, as if rather influenced

by the oppressive solitude than by fatigue.

Thus they reached the foot of the column, ten thousand spirits in prison

seeming to gasp their griefs from the funereal boughs overhead, and a few

twigs scratching the pillar with the drag of impish claws as tenacious as

those figuring in St. Anthony's temptation.

'How intensely dark it is just here!' she whispered. 'I wonder you can

keep in the path. Many ancient Britons lie buried there doubtless.'

He led her round to the other side, where, feeling his way with his

hands, he suddenly left her, appearing a moment after with a light.

'What place is this?' she exclaimed.

'This is the new wood cabin,' said he.

She could just discern the outline of a little house, not unlike a

bathing-machine without wheels.

'I have kept lights ready here,' he went on, 'as I thought you might come

any evening, and possibly bring company.'

'Don't criticize me for coming alone,' she exclaimed with sensitive

promptness. 'There are social reasons for what I do of which you know

nothing.'

'Perhaps it is much to my discredit that I don't know.'

'Not at all. You are all the better for it. Heaven forbid that I should

enlighten you. Well, I see this is the hut. But I am more curious to go

to the top of the tower, and make discoveries.'

He brought a little lantern from the cabin, and lighted her up the

winding staircase to the temple of that sublime mystery on whose

threshold he stood as priest.

The top of the column was quite changed. The tub-shaped space within the

parapet, formerly open to the air and sun, was now arched over by a light

dome of lath-work covered with felt. But this dome was not fixed. At

the line where its base descended to the parapet there were half a dozen

iron balls, precisely like cannon-shot, standing loosely in a groove, and

on these the dome rested its whole weight. In the side of the dome was a

slit, through which the wind blew and the North Star beamed, and towards

it the end of the great telescope was directed. This latter magnificent

object, with its circles, axes, and handles complete, was securely fixed

in the middle of the floor.

'But you can only see one part of the sky through that slit,' said she.

The astronomer stretched out his arm, and the whole dome turned

horizontally round, running on the balls with a rumble like thunder.

Instead of the star Polaris, which had first been peeping in through the

slit, there now appeared the countenances of Castor and Pollux. Swithin

then manipulated the equatorial, and put it through its capabilities in

like manner.

She was enchanted; being rather excitable she even clapped her hands just

once. She turned to him: 'Now are you happy?'

'But it is all _yours_, Lady Constantine.'

'At this moment. But that's a defect which can soon be remedied. When

is your birthday?'

'Next month,--the seventh.'

'Then it shall all be yours,--a birthday present.'

The young man protested; it was too much.

'No, you must accept it all,--equatorial, dome stand, hut, and everything

that has been put here for this astronomical purpose. The possession of

these apparatus would only compromise me. Already they are reputed to be

yours, and they must be made yours. There is no help for it. If ever'

(here her voice lost some firmness),--'if ever you go away from me,--from

this place, I mean,--and marry, and settle in a new home elsewhere for

good, and forget me, you must take these things, equatorial and all, and

never tell your wife or anybody how they came to be yours.'

'I wish I could do something more for you!' exclaimed the much-moved

astronomer. 'If you could but share my fame,--supposing I get any, which

I may die before doing,--it would be a little compensation. As to my

going away and marrying, I certainly shall not. I may go away, but I

shall never marry.'

'Why not?'

'A beloved science is enough wife for me,--combined, perhaps, with a

little warm friendship with one of kindred pursuits.'

'Who is the friend of kindred pursuits?'

'Yourself I should like it to be.'

'You would have to become a woman before I could be that, publicly; or I

a man,' she replied, with dry melancholy.

'Why I a woman, or you a man, dear Lady Constantine?'

'I cannot explain. No; you must keep your fame and your science all to

yourself, and I must keep my--troubles.'

Swithin, to divert her from melancholy--not knowing that in the

expression of her melancholy thus and now she found much

pleasure,--changed the subject by asking if they should take some

observations.

'Yes; the scenery is well hung to-night,' she said looking out upon the

heavens.

Then they proceeded to scan the sky, roving from planet to star, from

single stars to double stars, from double to coloured stars, in the

cursory manner of the merely curious. They plunged down to that at other

times invisible multitude in the back rows of the celestial theatre:

remote layers of constellations whose shapes were new and singular;

pretty twinklers which for infinite ages had spent their beams without

calling forth from a single earthly poet a single line, or being able to

bestow a ray of comfort on a single benighted traveller.

'And to think,' said Lady Constantine, 'that the whole race of shepherds,

since the beginning of the world,--even those immortal shepherds who

watched near Bethlehem,--should have gone into their graves without

knowing that for one star that lighted them in their labours, there were

a hundred as good behind trying to do so! . . . I have a feeling for

this instrument not unlike the awe I should feel in the presence of a

great magician in whom I really believed. Its powers are so enormous,

and weird, and fantastical, that I should have a personal fear in being

with it alone. Music drew an angel down, said the poet: but what is that

to drawing down worlds!'

'I often experience a kind of fear of the sky after sitting in the

observing-chair a long time,' he answered. 'And when I walk home

afterwards I also fear it, for what I know is there, but cannot see, as

one naturally fears the presence of a vast formless something that only

reveals a very little of itself. That's partly what I meant by saying

that magnitude, which up to a certain point has grandeur, has beyond it

ghastliness.'

Thus the interest of their sidereal observations led them on, till the

knowledge that scarce any other human vision was travelling within a

hundred million miles of their own gave them such a sense of the

isolation of that faculty as almost to be a sense of isolation in respect

of their whole personality, causing a shudder at its absoluteness. At

night, when human discords and harmonies are hushed, in a general sense,

for the greater part of twelve hours, there is nothing to moderate the

blow with which the infinitely great, the stellar universe, strikes down

upon the infinitely little, the mind of the beholder; and this was the

case now. Having got closer to immensity than their fellow-creatures,

they saw at once its beauty and its frightfulness. They more and more

felt the contrast between their own tiny magnitudes and those among which

they had recklessly plunged, till they were oppressed with the presence

of a vastness they could not cope with even as an idea, and which hung

about them like a nightmare.

He stood by her while she observed; she by him when they changed places.

Once that Swithin's emancipation from a trammelling body had been

effected by the telescope, and he was well away in space, she felt her

influence over him diminishing to nothing. He was quite unconscious of

his terrestrial neighbourings, and of herself as one of them. It still

further reduced her towards unvarnished simplicity in her manner to him.

The silence was broken only by the ticking of the clock-work which gave

diurnal motion to the instrument. The stars moved on, the end of the

telescope followed, but their tongues stood still. To expect that he was

ever voluntarily going to end the pause by speech was apparently futile.

She laid her hand upon his arm.

He started, withdrew his eye from the telescope, and brought himself back

to the earth by a visible--almost painful--effort.

'Do come out of it,' she coaxed, with a softness in her voice which any

man but unpractised Swithin would have felt to be exquisite. 'I feel

that I have been so foolish as to put in your hands an instrument to

effect my own annihilation. Not a word have you spoken for the last ten

minutes.'

'I have been mentally getting on with my great theory. I hope soon to be

able to publish it to the world. What, are you going? I will walk with

you, Lady Constantine. When will you come again?'

'When your great theory is published to the world.'

IX

Lady Constantine, if narrowly observed at this time, would have seemed to

be deeply troubled in conscience, and particularly after the interview

above described. Ash Wednesday occurred in the calendar a few days

later, and she went to morning service with a look of genuine contrition

on her emotional and yearning countenance.

Besides herself the congregation consisted only of the parson, clerk,

school-children, and three old people living on alms, who sat under the

reading-desk; and thus, when Mr. Torkingham blazed forth the denunciatory

sentences of the Commination, nearly the whole force of them seemed to

descend upon her own shoulders. Looking across the empty pews she saw

through the one or two clear panes of the window opposite a youthful

figure in the churchyard, and the very feeling against which she had

tried to pray returned again irresistibly.

When she came out and had crossed into the private walk, Swithin came

forward to speak to her. This was a most unusual circumstance, and

argued a matter of importance.

'I have made an amazing discovery in connexion with the variable stars,'

he exclaimed. 'It will excite the whole astronomical world, and the

world outside but little less. I had long suspected the true secret of

their variability; but it was by the merest chance on earth that I hit

upon a proof of my guess. Your equatorial has done it, my good, kind

Lady Constantine, and our fame is established for ever!'

He sprang into the air, and waved his hat in his triumph.

'Oh, I am so glad--so rejoiced!' she cried. 'What is it? But don't stop

to tell me. Publish it at once in some paper; nail your name to it, or

somebody will seize the idea and appropriate it,--forestall you in some

way. It will be Adams and Leverrier over again.'

'If I may walk with you I will explain the nature of the discovery. It

accounts for the occasional green tint of Castor, and every difficulty. I

said I would be the Copernicus of the stellar system, and I have begun to

be. Yet who knows?'

'Now don't be so up and down! I shall not understand your explanation,

and I would rather not know it. I shall reveal it if it is very grand.

Women, you know, are not safe depositaries of such valuable secrets. You

may walk with me a little way, with great pleasure. Then go and write

your account, so as to insure your ownership of the discovery. . . . But

how you have watched!' she cried, in a sudden accession of anxiety, as

she turned to look more closely at him. 'The orbits of your eyes are

leaden, and your eyelids are red and heavy. Don't do it--pray don't. You

will be ill, and break down.'

'I have, it is true, been up a little late this last week,' he said

cheerfully. 'In fact, I couldn't tear myself away from the equatorial;

it is such a wonderful possession that it keeps me there till daylight.

But what does that matter, now I have made the discovery?'

'Ah, it _does_ matter! Now, promise me--I insist--that you will not

commit such imprudences again; for what should I do if my Astronomer

Royal were to die?'

She laughed, but far too apprehensively to be effective as a display of

levity.

They parted, and he went home to write out his paper. He promised to

call as soon as his discovery was in print. Then they waited for the

result.

It is impossible to describe the tremulous state of Lady Constantine

during the interval. The warm interest she took in Swithin St.

Cleeve--many would have said dangerously warm interest--made his hopes

her hopes; and though she sometimes admitted to herself that great

allowance was requisite for the overweening confidence of youth in the

future, she permitted herself to be blinded to probabilities for the

pleasure of sharing his dreams. It seemed not unreasonable to suppose

the present hour to be the beginning of realization to her darling wish

that this young man should become famous. He had worked hard, and why

should he not be famous early? His very simplicity in mundane affairs

afforded a strong presumption that in things celestial he might be wise.

To obtain support for this hypothesis she had only to think over the

lives of many eminent astronomers.

She waited feverishly for the flourish of trumpets from afar, by which

she expected the announcement of his discovery to be greeted. Knowing

that immediate intelligence of the outburst would be brought to her by

himself, she watched from the windows of the Great House each morning for

a sight of his figure hastening down the glade.

But he did not come.

A long array of wet days passed their dreary shapes before her, and made

the waiting still more tedious. On one of these occasions she ran across

to the tower, at the risk of a severe cold. The door was locked.

Two days after she went again. The door was locked still. But this was

only to be expected in such weather. Yet she would have gone on to his

house, had there not been one reason too many against such precipitancy.

As astronomer and astronomer there was no harm in their meetings; but as

woman and man she feared them.

Ten days passed without a sight of him; ten blurred and dreary days,

during which the whole landscape dripped like a mop; the park trees

swabbed the gravel from the drive, while the sky was a zinc-coloured

archi-vault of immovable cloud. It seemed as if the whole science of

astronomy had never been real, and that the heavenly bodies, with their

motions, were as theoretical as the lines and circles of a bygone

mathematical problem.

She could content herself no longer with fruitless visits to the column,

and when the rain had a little abated she walked to the nearest hamlet,

and in a conversation with the first old woman she met contrived to lead

up to the subject of Swithin St. Cleeve by talking about his grandmother.

'Ah, poor old heart; 'tis a bad time for her, my lady!' exclaimed the

dame.

'What?'

'Her grandson is dying; and such a gentleman through and through!'

'What! . . . Oh, it has something to do with that dreadful discovery!'

'Discovery, my lady?'

She left the old woman with an evasive answer, and with a breaking heart

crept along the road. Tears brimmed into her eyes as she walked, and by

the time that she was out of sight sobs burst forth tumultuously.

'I am too fond of him!' she moaned; 'but I can't help it; and I don't

care if it's wrong,--I don't care!'

Without further considerations as to who beheld her doings she

instinctively went straight towards Mrs. Martin's. Seeing a man coming

she calmed herself sufficiently to ask him through her dropped veil how

poor Mr. St. Cleeve was that day. But she only got the same reply: 'They

say he is dying, my lady.'

When Swithin had parted from Lady Constantine, on the previous

Ash-Wednesday, he had gone straight to the homestead and prepared his

account of 'A New Astronomical Discovery.' It was written perhaps in too

glowing a rhetoric for the true scientific tone of mind; but there was no

doubt that his assertion met with a most startling aptness all the

difficulties which had accompanied the received theories on the phenomena

attending those changeable suns of marvellous systems so far away. It

accounted for the nebulous mist that surrounds some of them at their

weakest time; in short, took up a position of probability which has never

yet been successfully assailed.

The papers were written in triplicate, and carefully sealed up with blue

wax. One copy was directed to Greenwich, another to the Royal Society,

another to a prominent astronomer. A brief statement of the essence of

the discovery was also prepared for the leading daily paper.

He considered these documents, embodying as they did two years of his

constant thought, reading, and observation, too important to be entrusted

for posting to the hands of a messenger; too important to be sent to the

sub-post-office at hand. Though the day was wet, dripping wet, he went

on foot with them to a chief office, five miles off, and registered them.

Quite exhausted by the walk, after his long night-work, wet through, yet

sustained by the sense of a great achievement, he called at a

bookseller's for the astronomical periodicals to which he subscribed;

then, resting for a short time at an inn, he plodded his way homewards,

reading his papers as he went, and planning how to enjoy a repose on his

laurels of a week or more.

On he strolled through the rain, holding the umbrella vertically over the

exposed page to keep it dry while he read. Suddenly his eye was struck

by an article. It was the review of a pamphlet by an American

astronomer, in which the author announced a conclusive discovery with

regard to variable stars.

The discovery was precisely the discovery of Swithin St. Cleeve. Another

man had forestalled his fame by a period of about six weeks.

Then the youth found that the goddess Philosophy, to whom he had vowed to

dedicate his whole life, would not in return support him through a single

hour of despair. In truth, the impishness of circumstance was newer to

him than it would have been to a philosopher of threescore-and-ten. In a

wild wish for annihilation he flung himself down on a patch of heather

that lay a little removed from the road, and in this humid bed remained

motionless, while time passed by unheeded.

At last, from sheer misery and weariness, he fell asleep.

The March rain pelted him mercilessly, the beaded moisture from the

heavily charged locks of heath penetrated him through back and sides, and

clotted his hair to unsightly tags and tufts. When he awoke it was dark.

He thought of his grandmother, and of her possible alarm at missing him.

On attempting to rise, he found that he could hardly bend his joints, and

that his clothes were as heavy as lead from saturation. His teeth

chattering and his knees trembling he pursued his way home, where his

appearance excited great concern. He was obliged at once to retire to

bed, and the next day he was delirious from the chill.

It was about ten days after this unhappy occurrence that Lady Constantine

learnt the news, as above described, and hastened along to the homestead

in that state of anguish in which the heart is no longer under the

control of the judgment, and self-abandonment even to error, verges on

heroism.

On reaching the house in Welland Bottom the door was opened to her by old

Hannah, who wore an assiduously sorrowful look; and Lady Constantine was

shown into the large room,--so wide that the beams bent in the

middle,--where she took her seat in one of a methodic range of chairs,

beneath a portrait of the Reverend Mr. St. Cleeve, her astronomer's

erratic father.

The eight unwatered dying plants, in the row of eight flower-pots,

denoted that there was something wrong in the house. Mrs. Martin came

downstairs fretting, her wonder at beholding Lady Constantine not

altogether displacing the previous mood of grief.

'Here's a pretty kettle of fish, my lady!' she exclaimed.

Lady Constantine said, 'Hush!' and pointed inquiringly upward.

'He is not overhead, my lady,' replied Swithin's grandmother. 'His

bedroom is at the back of the house.'

'How is he now?'

'He is better, just at this moment; and we are more hopeful. But he

changes so.'

'May I go up? I know he would like to see me.'

Her presence having been made known to the sufferer, she was conducted

upstairs to Swithin's room. The way thither was through the large

chamber he had used as a study and for the manufacture of optical

instruments. There lay the large pasteboard telescope, that had been

just such a failure as Crusoe's large boat; there were his diagrams,

maps, globes, and celestial apparatus of various sorts. The absence of

the worker, through illness or death is sufficient to touch the prosiest

workshop and tools with the hues of pathos, and it was with a swelling

bosom that Lady Constantine passed through this arena of his youthful

activities to the little chamber where he lay.

Old Mrs. Martin sat down by the window, and Lady Constantine bent over

Swithin.

'Don't speak to me!' she whispered. 'It will weaken you; it will excite

you. If you do speak, it must be very softly.'

She took his hand, and one irrepressible tear fell upon it.

'Nothing will excite me now, Lady Constantine,' he said; 'not even your

goodness in coming. My last excitement was when I lost the battle. . . .

Do you know that my discovery has been forestalled? It is that that's

killing me.'

'But you are going to recover; you are better, they say. Is it so?'

'I think I am, to-day. But who can be sure?'

'The poor boy was so upset at finding that his labour had been thrown

away,' said his grandmother, 'that he lay down in the rain, and chilled

his life out.'

'How could you do it?' Lady Constantine whispered. 'O, how could you

think so much of renown, and so little of me? Why, for every discovery

made there are ten behind that await making. To commit suicide like

this, as if there were nobody in the world to care for you!'

'It was done in my haste, and I am very, very sorry for it! I beg both

you and all my few friends never, never to forgive me! It would kill me

with self-reproach if you were to pardon my rashness!'

At this moment the doctor was announced, and Mrs. Martin went downstairs

to receive him. Lady Constantine thought she would remain to hear his

report, and for this purpose withdrew, and sat down in a nook of the

adjoining work-room of Swithin, the doctor meeting her as he passed

through it into the sick chamber.

He was there a torturingly long time; but at length he came out to the

room she waited in, and crossed it on his way downstairs. She rose and

followed him to the stairhead.

'How is he?' she anxiously asked. 'Will he get over it?'

The doctor, not knowing the depth of her interest in the patient, spoke

with the blunt candour natural towards a comparatively indifferent

inquirer.

'No, Lady Constantine,' he replied; 'there's a change for the worse.'

And he retired down the stairs.

Scarcely knowing what she did Lady Constantine ran back to Swithin's

side, flung herself upon the bed and in a paroxysm of sorrow kissed him.

X

The placid inhabitants of the parish of Welland, including warbling

waggoners, lone shepherds, ploughmen, the blacksmith, the carpenter, the

gardener at the Great House, the steward and agent, the parson, clerk,

and so on, were hourly expecting the announcement of St. Cleeve's death.

The sexton had been going to see his brother-in-law, nine miles distant,

but promptly postponed the visit for a few days, that there might be the

regular professional hand present to toll the bell in a note of due

fulness and solemnity; an attempt by a deputy, on a previous occasion of

his absence, having degenerated into a miserable stammering clang that

was a disgrace to the parish.

But Swithin St. Cleeve did not decease, a fact of which, indeed, the

habituated reader will have been well aware ever since the rain came down

upon the young man in the ninth chapter, and led to his alarming illness.

Though, for that matter, so many maimed histories are hourly enacting

themselves in this dun-coloured world as to lend almost a priority of

interest to narratives concerning those

'Who lay great bases for eternity

Which prove more short than waste or ruining.'

How it arose that he did not die was in this wise; and his example

affords another instance of that reflex rule of the vassal soul over the

sovereign body, which, operating so wonderfully in elastic natures, and

more or less in all, originally gave rise to the legend that supremacy

lay on the other side.

The evening of the day after the tender, despairing, farewell kiss of

Lady Constantine, when he was a little less weak than during her visit,

he lay with his face to the window. He lay alone, quiet and resigned. He

had been thinking, sometimes of her and other friends, but chiefly of his

lost discovery. Although nearly unconscious at the time, he had yet been

aware of that kiss, as the delicate flush which followed it upon his

cheek would have told; but he had attached little importance to it as

between woman and man. Had he been dying of love instead of wet weather,

perhaps the impulsive act of that handsome lady would have been seized on

as a proof that his love was returned. As it was her kiss seemed but the

evidence of a naturally demonstrative kindliness, felt towards him

chiefly because he was believed to be leaving her for ever.

The reds of sunset passed, and dusk drew on. Old Hannah came upstairs to

pull down the blinds and as she advanced to the window he said to her, in

a faint voice, 'Well, Hannah, what news to-day?'

'Oh, nothing, sir,' Hannah replied, looking out of the window with sad

apathy, 'only that there's a comet, they say.'

'A WHAT?' said the dying astronomer, starting up on his elbow.

'A comet--that's all, Master Swithin,' repeated Hannah, in a lower voice,

fearing she had done harm in some way.

'Well, tell me, tell me!' cried Swithin. 'Is it Gambart's? Is it

Charles the Fifth's, or Halley's, or Faye's, or whose?'

'Hush!' said she, thinking St. Cleeve slightly delirious again. ''Tis

God A'mighty's, of course. I haven't seed en myself, but they say he's

getting bigger every night, and that he'll be the biggest one known for

fifty years when he's full growed. There, you must not talk any more

now, or I'll go away.'

Here was an amazing event, little noise as it had made in the happening.

Of all phenomena that he had longed to witness during his short

astronomical career, those appertaining to comets had excited him most.

That the magnificent comet of 1811 would not return again for thirty

centuries had been quite a permanent regret with him. And now, when the

bottomless abyss of death seemed yawning beneath his feet, one of these

much-desired apparitions, as large, apparently, as any of its tribe, had

chosen to show itself.

'O, if I could but live to see that comet through my equatorial!' he

cried.

Compared with comets, variable stars, which he had hitherto made his

study, were, from their remoteness, uninteresting. They were to the

former as the celebrities of Ujiji or Unyamwesi to the celebrities of his

own country. Members of the solar system, these dazzling and perplexing

rangers, the fascination of all astronomers, rendered themselves still

more fascinating by the sinister suspicion attaching to them of being

possibly the ultimate destroyers of the human race. In his physical

prostration St. Cleeve wept bitterly at not being hale and strong enough

to welcome with proper honour the present specimen of these desirable

visitors.

The strenuous wish to live and behold the new phenomenon, supplanting the

utter weariness of existence that he had heretofore experienced, gave him

a new vitality. The crisis passed; there was a turn for the better; and

after that he rapidly mended. The comet had in all probability saved his

life. The limitless and complex wonders of the sky resumed their old

power over his imagination; the possibilities of that unfathomable blue

ocean were endless. Finer feats than ever he would perform were to be

achieved in its investigation. What Lady Constantine had said, that for

one discovery made ten awaited making, was strikingly verified by the

sudden appearance of this splendid marvel.

The windows of St. Cleeve's bedroom faced the west, and nothing would

satisfy him but that his bed should be so pulled round as to give him a

view of the low sky, in which the as yet minute tadpole of fire was

recognizable. The mere sight of it seemed to lend him sufficient

resolution to complete his own cure forthwith. His only fear now was

lest, from some unexpected cause or other, the comet would vanish before

he could get to the observatory on Rings-Hill Speer.

In his fervour to begin observing he directed that an old telescope,

which he had used in his first celestial attempts, should be tied at one

end to the bed-post, and at the other fixed near his eye as he reclined.

Equipped only with this rough improvisation he began to take notes. Lady

Constantine was forgotten, till one day, suddenly, wondering if she knew

of the important phenomenon, he revolved in his mind whether as a fellow-

student and sincere friend of his she ought not to be sent for, and

instructed in the use of the equatorial.

But though the image of Lady Constantine, in spite of her kindness and

unmistakably warm heart, had been obscured in his mind by the heavenly

body, she had not so readily forgotten him. Too shy to repeat her visit

after so nearly betraying her secret, she yet, every day, by the most

ingenious and subtle means that could be devised by a woman who feared

for herself, but could not refrain from tampering with danger,

ascertained the state of her young friend's health. On hearing of the

turn in his condition she rejoiced on his account, and became yet more

despondent on her own. If he had died she might have mused on him as her

dear departed saint without much sin: but his return to life was a

delight that bewildered and dismayed.

One evening a little later on he was sitting at his bedroom window as

usual, waiting for a sufficient decline of light to reveal the comet's

form, when he beheld, crossing the field contiguous to the house, a

figure which he knew to be hers. He thought she must be coming to see

him on the great comet question, to discuss which with so delightful and

kind a comrade was an expectation full of pleasure. Hence he keenly

observed her approach, till something happened that surprised him.

When, at the descent of the hill, she had reached the stile that admitted

to Mrs. Martin's garden, Lady Constantine stood quite still for a minute

or more, her gaze bent on the ground. Instead of coming on to the house

she went heavily and slowly back, almost as if in pain; and then at

length, quickening her pace, she was soon out of sight. She appeared in

the path no more that day.

XI

Why had Lady Constantine stopped and turned?

A misgiving had taken sudden possession of her. Her true sentiment

towards St. Cleeve was too recognizable by herself to be tolerated.

That she had a legitimate interest in him as a young astronomer was true;

that her sympathy on account of his severe illness had been natural and

commendable was also true. But the superfluous feeling was what filled

her with trepidation.

Superfluities have been defined as things you cannot do without, and this

particular emotion, that came not within her rightful measure, was in

danger of becoming just such a superfluity with her. In short, she felt

there and then that to see St. Cleeve again would be an impropriety; and

by a violent effort she retreated from his precincts, as he had observed.

She resolved to ennoble her conduct from that moment of her life onwards.

She would exercise kind patronage towards Swithin without once indulging

herself with his company. Inexpressibly dear to her deserted heart he

was becoming, but for the future he should at least be hidden from her

eyes. To speak plainly, it was growing a serious question whether, if he

were not hidden from her eyes, she would not soon be plunging across the

ragged boundary which divides the permissible from the forbidden.

By the time that she had drawn near home the sun was going down. The

heavy, many-chevroned church, now subdued by violet shadow except where

its upper courses caught the western stroke of flame-colour, stood close

to her grounds, as in many other parishes, though the village of which it

formerly was the nucleus had become quite depopulated: its cottages had

been demolished to enlarge the park, leaving the old building to stand

there alone, like a standard without an army.

It was Friday night, and she heard the organist practising voluntaries

within. The hour, the notes, the even-song of the birds, and her own

previous emotions, combined to influence her devotionally. She entered,

turning to the right and passing under the chancel arch, where she sat

down and viewed the whole empty length, east and west. The semi-Norman

arches of the nave, with their multitudinous notchings, were still

visible by the light from the tower window, but the lower portion of the

building was in obscurity, except where the feeble glimmer from the

candle of the organist spread a glow-worm radiance around. The player,

who was Miss Tabitha Lark, continued without intermission to produce her

wandering sounds, unconscious of any one's presence except that of the

youthful blower at her side.

The rays from the organist's candle illuminated but one small fragment of

the chancel outside the precincts of the instrument, and that was the

portion of the eastern wall whereon the ten commandments were inscribed.

The gilt letters shone sternly into Lady Constantine's eyes; and she,

being as impressionable as a turtle-dove, watched a certain one of those

commandments on the second table, till its thunder broke her spirit with

blank contrition.

She knelt down, and did her utmost to eradicate those impulses towards

St. Cleeve which were inconsistent with her position as the wife of an

absent man, though not unnatural in her as his victim.

She knelt till she seemed scarcely to belong to the time she lived in,

which lost the magnitude that the nearness of its perspective lent it on

ordinary occasions, and took its actual rank in the long line of other

centuries. Having once got out of herself, seen herself from afar off,

she was calmer, and went on to register a magnanimous vow. She would

look about for some maiden fit and likely to make St. Cleeve happy; and

this girl she would endow with what money she could afford, that the

natural result of their apposition should do him no worldly harm. The

interest of her, Lady Constantine's, life should be in watching the

development of love between Swithin and the ideal maiden. The very

painfulness of the scheme to her susceptible heart made it pleasing to

her conscience; and she wondered that she had not before this time

thought of a stratagem which united the possibility of benefiting the

astronomer with the advantage of guarding against peril to both Swithin

and herself. By providing for him a suitable helpmate she would preclude

the dangerous awakening in him of sentiments reciprocating her own.

Arrived at a point of exquisite misery through this heroic intention,

Lady Constantine's tears moistened the books upon which her forehead was

bowed. And as she heard her feverish heart throb against the desk, she

firmly believed the wearing impulses of that heart would put an end to

her sad life, and momentarily recalled the banished image of St. Cleeve

to apostrophise him in thoughts that paraphrased the quaint lines of

Heine's _Lieb' Liebchen_:--

'Dear my love, press thy hand to my breast, and tell

If thou tracest the knocks in that narrow cell;

A carpenter dwells there; cunning is he,

And slyly he's shaping a coffin for me!'

Lady Constantine was disturbed by a break in the organist's meandering

practice, and raising her head she saw a person standing by the player.

It was Mr. Torkingham, and what he said was distinctly audible. He was

inquiring for herself.

'I thought I saw Lady Constantine walk this way,' he rejoined to

Tabitha's negative. 'I am very anxious indeed to meet with her.'

She went forward. 'I am here,' she said. 'Don't stop playing, Miss

Lark. What is it, Mr. Torkingham?'

Tabitha thereupon resumed her playing, and Mr. Torkingham joined Lady

Constantine.

'I have some very serious intelligence to break to your ladyship,' he

said. 'But--I will not interrupt you here.' (He had seen her rise from

her knees to come to him.) 'I will call at the House the first moment

you can receive me after reaching home.'

'No, tell me here,' she said, seating herself.

He came close, and placed his hand on the poppy-head of the seat.

'I have received a communication,' he resumed haltingly, 'in which I am

requested to prepare you for the contents of a letter that you will

receive to-morrow morning.'

'I am quite ready.'

'The subject is briefly this, Lady Constantine: that you have been a

widow for more than eighteen months.'

'Dead!'

'Yes. Sir Blount was attacked by dysentery and malarious fever, on the

banks of the Zouga in South Africa, so long ago as last October

twelvemonths, and it carried him off. Of the three men who were with

him, two succumbed to the same illness, a hundred miles further on; while

the third, retracing his steps into a healthier district, remained there

with a native tribe, and took no pains to make the circumstances known.

It seems to be only by the mere accident of his having told some third

party that we know of the matter now. This is all I can tell you at

present.'

She was greatly agitated for a few moments; and the Table of the Law

opposite, which now seemed to appertain to another dispensation,

glistened indistinctly upon a vision still obscured by the old tears.

'Shall I conduct you home?' asked the parson.

'No thank you,' said Lady Constantine. 'I would rather go alone.'

XII

On the afternoon of the next day Mr. Torkingham, who occasionally dropped

in to see St. Cleeve, called again as usual; after duly remarking on the

state of the weather, congratulating him on his sure though slow

improvement, and answering his inquiries about the comet, he said, 'You

have heard, I suppose, of what has happened to Lady Constantine?'

'No! Nothing serious?'

'Yes, it is serious.' The parson informed him of the death of Sir

Blount, and of the accidents which had hindered all knowledge of the

same,--accidents favoured by the estrangement of the pair and the

cessation of correspondence between them for some time.

His listener received the news with the concern of a friend, Lady

Constantine's aspect in his eyes depending but little on her condition

matrimonially.

'There was no attempt to bring him home when he died?'

'O no. The climate necessitates instant burial. We shall have more

particulars in a day or two, doubtless.'

'Poor Lady Constantine,--so good and so sensitive as she is! I suppose

she is quite prostrated by the bad news.'

'Well, she is rather serious,--not prostrated. The household is going

into mourning.'

'Ah, no, she would not be quite prostrated,' murmured Swithin,

recollecting himself. 'He was unkind to her in many ways. Do you think

she will go away from Welland?'

That the vicar could not tell. But he feared that Sir Blount's affairs

had been in a seriously involved condition, which might necessitate many

and unexpected changes.

Time showed that Mr. Torkingham's surmises were correct.

During the long weeks of early summer, through which the young man still

lay imprisoned, if not within his own chamber, within the limits of the

house and garden, news reached him that Sir Blount's mismanagement and

eccentric behaviour were resulting in serious consequences to Lady

Constantine; nothing less, indeed, than her almost complete

impoverishment. His personalty was swallowed up in paying his debts, and

the Welland estate was so heavily charged with annuities to his distant

relatives that only a mere pittance was left for her. She was reducing

the establishment to the narrowest compass compatible with decent

gentility. The horses were sold one by one; the carriages also; the

greater part of the house was shut up, and she resided in the smallest

rooms. All that was allowed to remain of her former contingent of male

servants were an odd man and a boy. Instead of using a carriage she now

drove about in a donkey-chair, the said boy walking in front to clear the

way and keep the animal in motion; while she wore, so his informants

reported, not an ordinary widow's cap or bonnet, but something even

plainer, the black material being drawn tightly round her face, giving

her features a small, demure, devout cast, very pleasing to the eye.

'Now, what's the most curious thing in this, Mr. San Cleeve,' said Sammy

Blore, who, in calling to inquire after Swithin's health, had imparted

some of the above particulars, 'is that my lady seems not to mind being a

pore woman half so much as we do at seeing her so. 'Tis a wonderful

gift, Mr. San Cleeve, wonderful, to be able to guide yerself, and not let

loose yer soul in blasting at such a misfortune. I should go and drink

neat regular, as soon as I had swallered my breakfast, till my innerds

was burnt out like a' old copper, if it had happened to me; but my lady's

plan is best. Though I only guess how one feels in such losses, to be

sure, for I never had nothing to lose.'

Meanwhile the observatory was not forgotten; nor that visitant of

singular shape and habits which had appeared in the sky from no one knew

whence, trailing its luminous streamer, and proceeding on its way in the

face of a wondering world, till it should choose to vanish as suddenly as

it had come.

When, about a month after the above dialogue took place, Swithin was

allowed to go about as usual, his first pilgrimage was to the Rings-Hill

Speer. Here he studied at leisure what he had come to see.

On his return to the homestead, just after sunset, he found his

grandmother and Hannah in a state of great concern. The former was

looking out for him against the evening light, her face showing itself

worn and rutted, like an old highway, by the passing of many days. Her

information was that in his absence Lady Constantine had called in her

driving-chair, to inquire for him. Her ladyship had wished to observe

the comet through the great telescope, but had found the door locked when

she applied at the tower. Would he kindly leave the door unfastened to-

morrow, she had asked, that she might be able to go to the column on the

following evening for the same purpose? She did not require him to

attend.

During the next day he sent Hannah with the key to Welland House, not

caring to leave the tower open. As evening advanced and the comet grew

distinct, he doubted if Lady Constantine could handle the telescope alone

with any pleasure or profit to herself. Unable, as a devotee to science,

to rest under this misgiving, he crossed the field in the furrow that he

had used ever since the corn was sown, and entered the plantation. His

unpractised mind never once guessed that her stipulations against his

coming might have existed along with a perverse hope that he would come.

On ascending he found her already there. She sat in the observing-chair:

the warm light from the west, which flowed in through the opening of the

dome, brightened her face, and her face only, her robes of sable lawn

rendering the remainder of her figure almost invisible.

'You have come!' she said with shy pleasure. 'I did not require you. But

never mind.' She extended her hand cordially to him.

Before speaking he looked at her with a great new interest in his eye. It

was the first time that he had seen her thus, and she was altered in more

than dress. A soberly-sweet expression sat on her face. It was of a

rare and peculiar shade--something that he had never seen before in

woman.

'Have you nothing to say?' she continued. 'Your footsteps were audible

to me from the very bottom, and I knew they were yours. You look almost

restored.'

'I am almost restored,' he replied, respectfully pressing her hand. 'A

reason for living arose, and I lived.'

'What reason?' she inquired, with a rapid blush.

He pointed to the rocket-like object in the western sky.

'Oh, you mean the comet. Well, you will never make a courtier! You

know, of course, what has happened to me; that I have no longer a

husband--have had none for a year and a half. Have you also heard that I

am now quite a poor woman? Tell me what you think of it.'

'I have thought very little of it since I heard that you seemed to mind

poverty but little. There is even this good in it, that I may now be

able to show you some little kindness for all those you have done me, my

dear lady.'

'Unless for economy's sake, I go and live abroad, at Dinan, Versailles,

or Boulogne.'

Swithin, who had never thought of such a contingency, was earnest in his

regrets; without, however, showing more than a sincere friend's

disappointment.

'I did not say it was absolutely necessary,' she continued. 'I have, in

fact, grown so homely and home-loving, I am so interested in the place

and the people here, that, in spite of advice, I have almost determined

not to let the house; but to continue the less business-like but

pleasanter alternative of living humbly in a part of it, and shutting up

the rest.'

'Your love of astronomy is getting as strong as mine!' he said ardently.

'You could not tear yourself away from the observatory!'

'You might have supposed me capable of a little human feeling as well as

scientific, in connection with the observatory.'

'Dear Lady Constantine, by admitting that your astronomer has also a part

of your interest--'

'Ah, you did not find it out without my telling!' she said, with a

playfulness which was scarcely playful, a new accession of pinkness being

visible in her face. 'I diminish myself in your esteem by reminding

you.'

'You might do anything in this world without diminishing yourself in my

esteem, after the goodness you have shown. And more than that, no

misrepresentation, no rumour, no damning appearance whatever would ever

shake my loyalty to you.'

'But you put a very matter-of-fact construction on my motives sometimes.

You see me in such a hard light that I have to drop hints in quite a

manoeuvring manner to let you know I am as sympathetic as other people. I

sometimes think you would rather have me die than have your equatorial

stolen. Confess that your admiration for me was based on my house and

position in the county! Now I am shorn of all that glory, such as it

was, and am a widow, and am poorer than my tenants, and can no longer buy

telescopes, and am unable, from the narrowness of my circumstances, to

mix in circles that people formerly said I adorned, I fear I have lost

the little hold I once had over you.'

'You are as unjust now as you have been generous hitherto,' said St.

Cleeve, with tears in his eyes at the gentle banter of the lady, which

he, poor innocent, read as her real opinions. Seizing her hand he

continued, in tones between reproach and anger, 'I swear to you that I

have but two devotions, two thoughts, two hopes, and two blessings in

this world, and that one of them is yourself!'

'And the other?'

'The pursuit of astronomy.'

'And astronomy stands first.'

'I have never ordinated two such dissimilar ideas. And why should you

deplore your altered circumstances, my dear lady? Your widowhood, if I

may take the liberty to speak on such a subject, is, though I suppose a

sadness, not perhaps an unmixed evil. For though your pecuniary troubles

have been discovered to the world and yourself by it, your happiness in

marriage was, as you have confided to me, not great; and you are now left

free as a bird to follow your own hobbies.'

'I wonder you recognize that.'

'But perhaps,' he added, with a sigh of regret, 'you will again fall a

prey to some man, some uninteresting country squire or other, and be lost

to the scientific world after all.'

'If I fall a prey to any man, it will not be to a country squire. But

don't go on with this, for heaven's sake! You may think what you like in

silence.'

'We are forgetting the comet,' said St. Cleeve. He turned, and set the

instrument in order for observation, and wheeled round the dome.

While she was looking at the nucleus of the fiery plume, that now filled

so large a space of the sky as completely to dominate it, Swithin dropped

his gaze upon the field, and beheld in the dying light a number of

labourers crossing directly towards the column.

'What do you see?' Lady Constantine asked, without ceasing to observe the

comet.

'Some of the work-folk are coming this way. I know what they are coming

for,--I promised to let them look at the comet through the glass.'

'They must not come up here,' she said decisively.

'They shall await your time.'

'I have a special reason for wishing them not to see me here. If you ask

why, I can tell you. They mistakenly suspect my interest to be less in

astronomy than in the astronomer, and they must have no showing for such

a wild notion. What can you do to keep them out?'

'I'll lock the door,' said Swithin. 'They will then think I am away.' He

ran down the staircase, and she could hear him hastily turning the key.

Lady Constantine sighed.

'What weakness, what weakness!' she said to herself. 'That envied power

of self-control, where is it? That power of concealment which a woman

should have--where? To run such risks, to come here alone,--oh, if it

were known! But I was always so,--always!'

She jumped up, and followed him downstairs.

XIII

He was standing immediately inside the door at the bottom, though it was

so dark she could hardly see him. The villagers were audibly talking

just without.

'He's sure to come, rathe or late,' resounded up the spiral in the vocal

note of Hezzy Biles. 'He wouldn't let such a fine show as the comet

makes to-night go by without peeping at it,--not Master Cleeve! Did ye

bring along the flagon, Haymoss? Then we'll sit down inside his little

board-house here, and wait. He'll come afore bed-time. Why, his spy-

glass will stretch out that there comet as long as Welland Lane!'

'I'd as soon miss the great peep-show that comes every year to Greenhill

Fair as a sight of such a immortal spectacle as this!' said Amos Fry.

'"Immortal spectacle,"--where did ye get that choice mossel, Haymoss?'

inquired Sammy Blore. 'Well, well, the Lord save good scholars--and take

just a bit o' care of them that bain't! As 'tis so dark in the hut,

suppose we draw out the bench into the front here, souls?'

The bench was accordingly brought forth, and in order to have a back to

lean against, they placed it exactly across the door into the spiral

staircase.

'Now, have ye got any backy? If ye haven't, I have,' continued Sammy

Blore. A striking of matches followed, and the speaker concluded

comfortably, 'Now we shall do very well.'

'And what do this comet mean?' asked Haymoss. 'That some great tumult is

going to happen, or that we shall die of a famine?'

'Famine--no!' said Nat Chapman. 'That only touches such as we, and the

Lord only consarns himself with born gentlemen. It isn't to be supposed

that a strange fiery lantern like that would be lighted up for folks with

ten or a dozen shillings a week and their gristing, and a load o' thorn

faggots when we can get 'em. If 'tis a token that he's getting hot about

the ways of anybody in this parish, 'tis about my Lady Constantine's,

since she is the only one of a figure worth such a hint.'

'As for her income,--that she's now lost.'

'Ah, well; I don't take in all I hear.'

Lady Constantine drew close to St. Cleeve's side, and whispered,

trembling, 'Do you think they will wait long? Or can we get out?'

Swithin felt the awkwardness of the situation. The men had placed the

bench close to the door, which, owing to the stairs within, opened

outwards; so that at the first push by the pair inside to release

themselves the bench must have gone over, and sent the smokers sprawling

on their faces. He whispered to her to ascend the column and wait till

he came.

'And have the dead man left her nothing? Hey? And have he carried his

inheritance into's grave? And will his skeleton lie warm on account o't?

Hee-hee!' said Haymoss.

''Tis all swallered up,' observed Hezzy Biles. 'His goings-on made her

miserable till 'a died, and if I were the woman I'd have my randys now.

He ought to have bequeathed to her our young gent, Mr. St. Cleeve, as

some sort of amends. I'd up and marry en, if I were she; since her

downfall has brought 'em quite near together, and made him as good as she

in rank, as he was afore in bone and breeding.'

'D'ye think she will?' asked Sammy Blore. 'Or is she meaning to enter

upon a virgin life for the rest of her days?'

'I don't want to be unreverent to her ladyship; but I really don't think

she is meaning any such waste of a Christian carcase. I say she's rather

meaning to commit flat matrimony wi' somebody or other, and one young

gentleman in particular.'

'But the young man himself?'

'Planned, cut out, and finished for the delight of 'ooman!'

'Yet he must be willing.'

'That would soon come. If they get up this tower ruling plannards

together much longer, their plannards will soon rule them together, in my

way o' thinking. If she've a disposition towards the knot, she can soon

teach him.'

'True, true, and lawfully. What before mid ha' been a wrong desire is

now a holy wish!'

The scales fell from Swithin St. Cleeve's eyes as he heard the words of

his neighbours. How suddenly the truth dawned upon him; how it

bewildered him, till he scarcely knew where he was; how he recalled the

full force of what he had only half apprehended at earlier times,

particularly of that sweet kiss she had impressed on his lips when she

supposed him dying,--these vivid realizations are difficult to tell in

slow verbiage. He could remain there no longer, and with an electrified

heart he retreated up the spiral.

He found Lady Constantine half way to the top, standing by a loop-hole;

and when she spoke he discovered that she was almost in tears. 'Are they

gone?' she asked.

'I fear they will not go yet,' he replied, with a nervous fluctuation of

manner that had never before appeared in his bearing towards her.

'What shall I do?' she asked. 'I ought not to be here; nobody knows that

I am out of the house. Oh, this is a mistake! I must go home somehow.'

'Did you hear what they were saying?'

'No,' said she. 'What is the matter? Surely you are disturbed? What

did they say?'

'It would be the exaggeration of frankness in me to tell you.'

'Is it what a woman ought not to be made acquainted with?'

'It is, in this case. It is so new and so indescribable an idea to

me--that'--he leant against the concave wall, quite tremulous with

strange incipient sentiments.

'What sort of an idea?' she asked gently.

'It is--an awakening. In thinking of the heaven above, I did not

perceive--the--'

'Earth beneath?'

'The better heaven beneath. Pray, dear Lady Constantine, give me your

hand for a moment.'

She seemed startled, and the hand was not given.

'I am so anxious to get home,' she repeated. 'I did not mean to stay

here more than five minutes!'

'I fear I am much to blame for this accident,' he said. 'I ought not to

have intruded here. But don't grieve! I will arrange for your escape,

somehow. Be good enough to follow me down.'

They redescended, and, whispering to Lady Constantine to remain a few

stairs behind, he began to rattle and unlock the door.

The men precipitately removed their bench, and Swithin stepped out, the

light of the summer night being still enough to enable them to

distinguish him.

'Well, Hezekiah, and Samuel, and Nat, how are you?' he said boldly.

'Well, sir, 'tis much as before wi' me,' replied Nat. 'One hour a week

wi' God A'mighty and the rest with the devil, as a chap may say. And

really, now yer poor father's gone, I'd as lief that that Sunday hour

should pass like the rest; for Pa'son Tarkenham do tease a feller's

conscience that much, that church is no hollerday at all to the limbs, as

it was in yer reverent father's time! But we've been waiting here, Mr.

San Cleeve, supposing ye had not come.'

'I have been staying at the top, and fastened the door not to be

disturbed. Now I am sorry to disappoint you, but I have another

engagement this evening, so that it would be inconvenient to admit you.

To-morrow evening, or any evening but this, I will show you the comet and

any stars you like.'

They readily agreed to come the next night, and prepared to depart. But

what with the flagon, and the pipes, and the final observations, getting

away was a matter of time. Meanwhile a cloud, which nobody had noticed,

arose from the north overhead, and large drops of rain began to fall so

rapidly that the conclave entered the hut till it should be over. St.

Cleeve strolled off under the firs.

The next moment there was a rustling through the trees at another point,

and a man and woman appeared. The woman took shelter under a tree, and

the man, bearing wraps and umbrellas, came forward.

'My lady's man and maid,' said Sammy.

'Is her ladyship here?' asked the man.

'No. I reckon her ladyship keeps more kissable company,' replied Nat

Chapman.

'Pack o' stuff!' said Blore.

'Not here? Well, to be sure! We can't find her anywhere in the wide

house! I've been sent to look for her with these overclothes and

umbrella. I've suffered horse-flesh traipsing up and down, and can't

find her nowhere. Lord, Lord, where can she be, and two months' wages

owing to me!'

'Why so anxious, Anthony Green, as I think yer name is shaped? You be

not a married man?' said Hezzy.

''Tis what they call me, neighbours, whether or no.'

'But surely you was a bachelor chap by late, afore her ladyship got rid

of the regular servants and took ye?'

'I were; but that's past!'

'And how came ye to bow yer head to 't, Anthony? 'Tis what you never was

inclined to. You was by no means a doting man in my time.'

'Well, had I been left to my own free choice, 'tis as like as not I

should ha' shunned forming such kindred, being at that time a poor day

man, or weekly, at my highest luck in hiring. But 'tis wearing work to

hold out against the custom of the country, and the woman wanting ye to

stand by her and save her from unborn shame; so, since common usage would

have it, I let myself be carried away by opinion, and took her. Though

she's never once thanked me for covering her confusion, that's true! But,

'tis the way of the lost when safe, and I don't complain. Here she is,

just behind, under the tree, if you'd like to see her?--a very nice

homespun woman to look at, too, for all her few weather-stains. . . .

Well, well, where can my lady be? And I the trusty jineral man--'tis

more than my place is worth to lose her! Come forward, Christiana, and

talk nicely to the work-folk.'

While the woman was talking the rain increased so much that they all

retreated further into the hut. St. Cleeve, who had impatiently stood a

little way off, now saw his opportunity, and, putting in his head, said,

'The rain beats in; you had better shut the door. I must ascend and

close up the dome.'

Slamming the door upon them without ceremony he quickly went to Lady

Constantine in the column, and telling her they could now pass the

villagers unseen he gave her his arm. Thus he conducted her across the

front of the hut into the shadows of the firs.

'I will run to the house and harness your little carriage myself,' he

said tenderly. 'I will then take you home in it.'

'No; please don't leave me alone under these dismal trees!' Neither

would she hear of his getting her any wraps; and, opening her little

sunshade to keep the rain out of her face, she walked with him across the

insulating field, after which the trees of the park afforded her a

sufficient shelter to reach home without much damage.

Swithin was too greatly affected by what he had overheard to speak much

to her on the way, and protected her as if she had been a shorn lamb.

After a farewell which had more meaning than sound in it, he hastened

back to Rings-Hill Speer. The work-folk were still in the hut, and, by

dint of friendly converse and a sip at the flagon, had so cheered Mr. and

Mrs. Anthony Green that they neither thought nor cared what had become of

Lady Constantine.

St. Cleeve's sudden sense of new relations with that sweet patroness had

taken away in one half-hour his natural ingenuousness. Henceforth he

could act a part.

'I have made all secure at the top,' he said, putting his head into the

hut. 'I am now going home. When the rain stops, lock this door and

bring the key to my house.'

XIV

The laboured resistance which Lady Constantine's judgment had offered to

her rebellious affection ere she learnt that she was a widow, now passed

into a bashfulness that rendered her almost as unstable of mood as

before. But she was one of that mettle--fervid, cordial, and

spontaneous--who had not the heart to spoil a passion; and her affairs

having gone to rack and ruin by no fault of her own she was left to a

painfully narrowed existence which lent even something of rationality to

her attachment. Thus it was that her tender and unambitious soul found

comfort in her reverses.

As for St. Cleeve, the tardiness of his awakening was the natural result

of inexperience combined with devotion to a hobby. But, like a spring

bud hard in bursting, the delay was compensated by after speed. At once

breathlessly recognizing in this fellow-watcher of the skies a woman who

loved him, in addition to the patroness and friend, he truly translated

the nearly forgotten kiss she had given him in her moment of despair.

Lady Constantine, in being eight or nine years his senior, was an object

even better calculated to nourish a youth's first passion than a girl of

his own age, superiority of experience and ripeness of emotion exercising

the same peculiar fascination over him as over other young men in their

first ventures in this kind.

The alchemy which thus transmuted an abstracted astronomer into an eager

lover--and, must it be said, spoilt a promising young physicist to

produce a common-place inamorato--may be almost described as working its

change in one short night. Next morning he was so fascinated with the

novel sensation that he wanted to rush off at once to Lady Constantine,

and say, 'I love you true!' in the intensest tones of his mental

condition, to register his assertion in her heart before any of those

accidents which 'creep in 'twixt vows, and change decrees of kings,'

should occur to hinder him. But his embarrassment at standing in a new

position towards her would not allow him to present himself at her door

in any such hurry. He waited on, as helplessly as a girl, for a chance

of encountering her.

But though she had tacitly agreed to see him on any reasonable occasion,

Lady Constantine did not put herself in his way. She even kept herself

out of his way. Now that for the first time he had learnt to feel a

strong impatience for their meeting, her shyness for the first time led

her to delay it. But given two people living in one parish, who long

from the depths of their hearts to be in each other's company, what

resolves of modesty, policy, pride, or apprehension will keep them for

any length of time apart?

One afternoon he was watching the sun from his tower, half echoing the

Greek astronomer's wish that he might be set close to that luminary for

the wonder of beholding it in all its glory, under the slight penalty of

being consumed the next instant. He glanced over the high-road between

the field and the park (which sublunary features now too often distracted

his attention from his telescope), and saw her passing along that way.

She was seated in the donkey-carriage that had now taken the place of her

landau, the white animal looking no larger than a cat at that distance.

The buttoned boy, who represented both coachman and footman, walked

alongside the animal's head at a solemn pace; the dog stalked at the

distance of a yard behind the vehicle, without indulging in a single

gambol; and the whole turn-out resembled in dignity a dwarfed state

procession.

Here was an opportunity but for two obstructions: the boy, who might be

curious; and the dog, who might bark and attract the attention of any

labourers or servants near. Yet the risk was to be run, and, knowing

that she would soon turn up a certain shady lane at right angles to the

road she had followed, he ran hastily down the staircase, crossed the

barley (which now covered the field) by the path not more than a foot

wide that he had trodden for himself, and got into the lane at the other

end. By slowly walking along in the direction of the turnpike-road he

soon had the satisfaction of seeing her coming. To his surprise he also

had the satisfaction of perceiving that neither boy nor dog was in her

company.

They both blushed as they approached, she from sex, he from inexperience.

One thing she seemed to see in a moment, that in the interval of her

absence St. Cleeve had become a man; and as he greeted her with this new

and maturer light in his eyes she could not hide her embarrassment, or

meet their fire.

'I have just sent my page across to the column with your book on Cometary

Nuclei,' she said softly; 'that you might not have to come to the house

for it. I did not know I should meet you here.'

'Didn't you wish me to come to the house for it?'

'I did not, frankly. You know why, do you not?'

'Yes, I know. Well, my longing is at rest. I have met you again. But

are you unwell, that you drive out in this chair?'

'No; I walked out this morning, and am a little tired.'

'I have been looking for you night and day. Why do you turn your face

aside? You used not to be so.' Her hand rested on the side of the

chair, and he took it. 'Do you know that since we last met, I have been

thinking of you--daring to think of you--as I never thought of you

before?'

'Yes, I know it.'

'How did you know?'

'I saw it in your face when you came up.'

'Well, I suppose I ought not to think of you so. And yet, had I not

learned to, I should never fully have felt how gentle and sweet you are.

Only think of my loss if I had lived and died without seeing more in you

than in astronomy! But I shall never leave off doing so now. When you

talk I shall love your understanding; when you are silent I shall love

your face. But how shall I know that you care to be so much to me?'

Her manner was disturbed as she recognized the impending self-surrender,

which she knew not how to resist, and was not altogether at ease in

welcoming.

'O, Lady Constantine,' he continued, bending over her, 'give me some

proof more than mere seeming and inference, which are all I have at

present, that you don't think this I tell you of presumption in me! I

have been unable to do anything since I last saw you for pondering

uncertainly on this. Some proof, or little sign, that we are one in

heart!'

A blush settled again on her face; and half in effort, half in

spontaneity, she put her finger on her cheek. He almost devotionally

kissed the spot.

'Does that suffice?' she asked, scarcely giving her words voice.

'Yes; I am convinced.'

'Then that must be the end. Let me drive on; the boy will be back again

soon.' She spoke hastily, and looked askance to hide the heat of her

cheek.

'No; the tower door is open, and he will go to the top, and waste his

time in looking through the telescope.'

'Then you should rush back, for he will do some damage.'

'No; he may do what he likes, tinker and spoil the instrument, destroy my

papers,--anything, so that he will stay there and leave us alone.'

She glanced up with a species of pained pleasure.

'You never used to feel like that!' she said, and there was keen self-

reproach in her voice. 'You were once so devoted to your science that

the thought of an intruder into your temple would have driven you wild.

Now you don't care; and who is to blame? Ah, not you, not you!'

The animal ambled on with her, and he, leaning on the side of the little

vehicle, kept her company.

'Well, don't let us think of that,' he said. 'I offer myself and all my

energies, frankly and entirely, to you, my dear, dear lady, whose I shall

be always! But my words in telling you this will only injure my meaning

instead of emphasize it. In expressing, even to myself, my thoughts of

you, I find that I fall into phrases which, as a critic, I should

hitherto have heartily despised for their commonness. What's the use of

saying, for instance, as I have just said, that I give myself entirely to

you, and shall be yours always,--that you have my devotion, my highest

homage? Those words have been used so frequently in a flippant manner

that honest use of them is not distinguishable from the unreal.' He

turned to her, and added, smiling, 'Your eyes are to be my stars for the

future.'

'Yes, I know it,--I know it, and all you would say! I dreaded even while

I hoped for this, my dear young friend,' she replied, her eyes being full

of tears. 'I am injuring you; who knows that I am not ruining your

future,--I who ought to know better? Nothing can come of this, nothing

must,--and I am only wasting your time. Why have I drawn you off from a

grand celestial study to study poor lonely me? Say you will never

despise me, when you get older, for this episode in our lives. But you

will,--I know you will! All men do, when they have been attracted in

their unsuspecting youth, as I have attracted you. I ought to have kept

my resolve.'

'What was that?'

'To bear anything rather than draw you from your high purpose; to be like

the noble citizen of old Greece, who, attending a sacrifice, let himself

be burnt to the bone by a coal that jumped into his sleeve rather than

disturb the sacred ceremony.'

'But can I not study and love both?'

'I hope so,--I earnestly hope so. But you'll be the first if you do, and

I am the responsible one if you do not.'

'You speak as if I were quite a child, and you immensely older. Why, how

old do you think I am? I am twenty.'

'You seem younger. Well, that's so much the better. Twenty sounds

strong and firm. How old do you think I am?'

'I have never thought of considering.' He innocently turned to

scrutinize her face. She winced a little. But the instinct was

premature. Time had taken no liberties with her features as yet; nor had

trouble very roughly handled her.

'I will tell you,' she replied, speaking almost with physical pain, yet

as if determination should carry her through. 'I am

eight-and-twenty--nearly--I mean a little more, a few months more. Am I

not a fearful deal older than you?'

'At first it seems a great deal,' he answered, musing. 'But it doesn't

seem much when one gets used to it.'

'Nonsense!' she exclaimed. 'It _is_ a good deal.'

'Very well, then, sweetest Lady Constantine, let it be,' he said gently.

'You should not let it be! A polite man would have flatly contradicted

me. . . . O I am ashamed of this!' she added a moment after, with a

subdued, sad look upon the ground. 'I am speaking by the card of the

outer world, which I have left behind utterly; no such lip service is

known in your sphere. I care nothing for those things, really; but that

which is called the Eve in us will out sometimes. Well, we will forget

that now, as we must, at no very distant date, forget all the rest of

this.'

He walked beside her thoughtfully awhile, with his eyes also bent on the

road. 'Why must we forget it all?' he inquired.

'It is only an interlude.'

'An interlude! It is no interlude to me. O how can you talk so lightly

of this, Lady Constantine? And yet, if I were to go away from here, I

might, perhaps, soon reduce it to an interlude! Yes,' he resumed

impulsively, 'I will go away. Love dies, and it is just as well to

strangle it in its birth; it can only die once! I'll go.'

'No, no!' she said, looking up apprehensively. 'I misled you. It is no

interlude to me,--it is tragical. I only meant that from a worldly point

of view it is an interlude, which we should try to forget. But the world

is not all. You will not go away?'

But he continued drearily, 'Yes, yes, I see it all; you have enlightened

me. It will be hurting your prospects even more than mine, if I stay.

Now Sir Blount is dead, you are free again,--may marry where you will,

but for this fancy of ours. I'll leave Welland before harm comes of my

staying.'

'Don't decide to do a thing so rash!' she begged, seizing his hand, and

looking miserable at the effect of her words. 'I shall have nobody left

in the world to care for! And now I have given you the great telescope,

and lent you the column, it would be ungrateful to go away! I was wrong;

believe me that I did not mean that it was a mere interlude to _me_. O

if you only knew how very, very far it is from that! It is my doubt of

the result to you that makes me speak so slightingly.'

They were now approaching cross-roads, and casually looking up they

beheld, thirty or forty yards beyond the crossing, Mr. Torkingham, who

was leaning over a gate, his back being towards them. As yet he had not

recognized their approach.

The master-passion had already supplanted St. Cleeve's natural

ingenuousness by subtlety.

'Would it be well for us to meet Mr. Torkingham just now?' he began.

'Certainly not,' she said hastily, and pulling the rein she instantly

drove down the right-hand road. 'I cannot meet anybody!' she murmured.

'Would it not be better that you leave me now?--not for my pleasure, but

that there may arise no distressing tales about us before we know--how to

act in this--this'--(she smiled faintly at him) 'heartaching extremity!'

They were passing under a huge oak-tree, whose limbs, irregular with

shoulders, knuckles, and elbows, stretched horizontally over the lane in

a manner recalling Absalom's death. A slight rustling was perceptible

amid the leafage as they drew out from beneath it, and turning up his

eyes Swithin saw that very buttoned page whose advent they had dreaded,

looking down with interest at them from a perch not much higher than a

yard above their heads. He had a bunch of oak-apples in one hand,

plainly the object of his climb, and was furtively watching Lady

Constantine with the hope that she might not see him. But that she had

already done, though she did not reveal it, and, fearing that the latter

words of their conversation had been overheard, they spoke not till they

had passed the next turning.

She stretched out her hand to his. 'This must not go on,' she said

imploringly. 'My anxiety as to what may be said of such methods of

meeting makes me too unhappy. See what has happened!' She could not

help smiling. 'Out of the frying-pan into the fire! After meanly

turning to avoid the parson we have rushed into a worse publicity. It is

too humiliating to have to avoid people, and lowers both you and me. The

only remedy is not to meet.'

'Very well,' said Swithin, with a sigh. 'So it shall be.'

And with smiles that might more truly have been tears they parted there

and then.

XV

The summer passed away, and autumn, with its infinite suite of tints,

came creeping on. Darker grew the evenings, tearfuller the moonlights,

and heavier the dews. Meanwhile the comet had waxed to its largest

dimensions,--so large that not only the nucleus but a portion of the tail

had been visible in broad day. It was now on the wane, though every

night the equatorial still afforded an opportunity of observing the

singular object which would soon disappear altogether from the heavens

for perhaps thousands of years.

But the astronomer of the Rings-Hill Speer was no longer a match for his

celestial materials. Scientifically he had become but a dim vapour of

himself; the lover had come into him like an armed man, and cast out the

student, and his intellectual situation was growing a life-and-death

matter.

The resolve of the pair had been so far kept: they had not seen each

other in private for three months. But on one day in October he ventured

to write a note to her:--

'I can do nothing! I have ceased to study, ceased to observe. The

equatorial is useless to me. This affection I have for you absorbs my

life, and outweighs my intentions. The power to labour in this

grandest of fields has left me. I struggle against the weakness till

I think of the cause, and then I bless her. But the very desperation

of my circumstances has suggested a remedy; and this I would inform

you of at once.

'Can you come to me, since I must not come to you? I will wait to-

morrow night at the edge of the plantation by which you would enter to

the column. I will not detain you; my plan can be told in ten words.'

The night after posting this missive to her he waited at the spot

mentioned.

It was a melancholy evening for coming abroad. A blusterous wind had

risen during the day, and still continued to increase. Yet he stood

watchful in the darkness, and was ultimately rewarded by discerning a

shady muffled shape that embodied itself from the field, accompanied by

the scratching of silk over stubble. There was no longer any disguise as

to the nature of their meeting. It was a lover's assignation, pure and

simple; and boldly realizing it as such he clasped her in his arms.

'I cannot bear this any longer!' he exclaimed. 'Three months since I saw

you alone! Only a glimpse of you in church, or a bow from the distance,

in all that time! What a fearful struggle this keeping apart has been!'

'Yet I would have had strength to persist, since it seemed best,' she

murmured when she could speak, 'had not your words on your condition so

alarmed and saddened me. This inability of yours to work, or study, or

observe,--it is terrible! So terrible a sting is it to my conscience

that your hint about a remedy has brought me instantly.'

'Yet I don't altogether mind it, since it is you, my dear, who have

displaced the work; and yet the loss of time nearly distracts me, when I

have neither the power to work nor the delight of your company.'

'But your remedy! O, I cannot help guessing it! Yes; you are going

away!'

'Let us ascend the column; we can speak more at ease there. Then I will

explain all. I would not ask you to climb so high but the hut is not yet

furnished.'

He entered the cabin at the foot, and having lighted a small lantern,

conducted her up the hollow staircase to the top, where he closed the

slides of the dome to keep out the wind, and placed the observing-chair

for her.

'I can stay only five minutes,' she said, without sitting down. 'You

said it was important that you should see me, and I have come. I assure

you it is at a great risk. If I am seen here at this time I am ruined

for ever. But what would I not do for you? O Swithin, your remedy--is

it to go away? There is no other; and yet I dread that like death!'

'I can tell you in a moment, but I must begin at the beginning. All this

ruinous idleness and distraction is caused by the misery of our not being

able to meet with freedom. The fear that something may snatch you from

me keeps me in a state of perpetual apprehension.'

'It is too true also of me! I dread that some accident may happen, and

waste my days in meeting the trouble half-way.'

'So our lives go on, and our labours stand still. Now for the remedy.

Dear Lady Constantine, allow me to marry you.'

She started, and the wind without shook the building, sending up a yet

intenser moan from the firs.

'I mean, marry you quite privately. Let it make no difference whatever

to our outward lives for years, for I know that in my present position

you could not possibly acknowledge me as husband publicly. But by

marrying at once we secure the certainty that we cannot be divided by

accident, coaxing, or artifice; and, at ease on that point, I shall

embrace my studies with the old vigour, and you yours.'

Lady Constantine was so agitated at the unexpected boldness of such a

proposal from one hitherto so boyish and deferential that she sank into

the observing-chair, her intention to remain for only a few minutes being

quite forgotten.

She covered her face with her hands. 'No, no, I dare not!' she

whispered.

'But is there a single thing else left to do?' he pleaded, kneeling down

beside her, less in supplication than in abandonment. 'What else can we

do?'

'Wait till you are famous.'

'But I cannot be famous unless I strive, and this distracting condition

prevents all striving!'

'Could you not strive on if I--gave you a promise, a solemn promise, to

be yours when your name is fairly well known?'

St. Cleeve breathed heavily. 'It will be a long, weary time,' he said.

'And even with your promise I shall work but half-heartedly. Every hour

of study will be interrupted with "Suppose this or this happens;"

"Suppose somebody persuades her to break her promise;" worse still,

"Suppose some rival maligns me, and so seduces her away." No, Lady

Constantine, dearest, best as you are, that element of distraction would

still remain, and where that is, no sustained energy is possible. Many

erroneous things have been written and said by the sages, but never did

they float a greater fallacy than that love serves as a stimulus to win

the loved one by patient toil.'

'I cannot argue with you,' she said weakly.

'My only possible other chance would lie in going away,' he resumed after

a moment's reflection, with his eyes on the lantern flame, which waved

and smoked in the currents of air that leaked into the dome from the

fierce wind-stream without. 'If I might take away the equatorial,

supposing it possible that I could find some suitable place for observing

in the southern hemisphere,--say, at the Cape,--I _might_ be able to

apply myself to serious work again, after the lapse of a little time. The

southern constellations offer a less exhausted field for investigation. I

wonder if I might!'

'You mean,' she answered uneasily, 'that you might apply yourself to work

when your recollection of me began to fade, and my life to become a

matter of indifference to you? . . Yes, go! No,--I cannot bear it! The

remedy is worse than the disease. I cannot let you go away!'

'Then how can you refuse the only condition on which I can stay, without

ruin to my purpose and scandal to your name? Dearest, agree to my

proposal, as you love both me and yourself!'

He waited, while the fir-trees rubbed and prodded the base of the tower,

and the wind roared around and shook it; but she could not find words to

reply.

'Would to God,' he burst out, 'that I might perish here, like Winstanley

in his lighthouse! Then the difficulty would be solved for you.'

'You are so wrong, so very wrong, in saying so!' she exclaimed

passionately. 'You may doubt my wisdom, pity my short-sightedness; but

there is one thing you do know,--that I love you dearly!'

'You do,--I know it!' he said, softened in a moment. 'But it seems such

a simple remedy for the difficulty that I cannot see how you can mind

adopting it, if you care so much for me as I do for you.'

'Should we live . . . just as we are, exactly, . . . supposing I agreed?'

she faintly inquired.

'Yes, that is my idea.'

'Quite privately, you say. How could--the marriage be quite private?'

'I would go away to London and get a license. Then you could come to me,

and return again immediately after the ceremony. I could return at

leisure and not a soul in the world would know what had taken place.

Think, dearest, with what a free conscience you could then assist me in

my efforts to plumb these deeps above us! Any feeling that you may now

have against clandestine meetings as such would then be removed, and our

hearts would be at rest.'

There was a certain scientific practicability even in his love-making,

and it here came out excellently. But she sat on with suspended breath,

her heart wildly beating, while he waited in open-mouthed expectation.

Each was swayed by the emotion within them, much as the candle-flame was

swayed by the tempest without. It was the most critical evening of their

lives.

The pale rays of the little lantern fell upon her beautiful face, snugly

and neatly bound in by her black bonnet; but not a beam of the lantern

leaked out into the night to suggest to any watchful eye that human life

at its highest excitement was beating within the dark and isolated tower;

for the dome had no windows, and every shutter that afforded an opening

for the telescope was hermetically closed. Predilections and misgivings

so equally strove within her still youthful breast that she could not

utter a word; her intention wheeled this way and that like the balance of

a watch. His unexpected proposition had brought about the smartest

encounter of inclination with prudence, of impulse with reserve, that she

had ever known.

Of all the reasons that she had expected him to give for his urgent

request to see her this evening, an offer of marriage was probably the

last. Whether or not she had ever amused herself with hypothetical

fancies on such a subject,--and it was only natural that she should

vaguely have done so,--the courage in her _protege_ coolly to advance it,

without a hint from herself that such a proposal would be tolerated,

showed her that there was more in his character than she had reckoned on:

and the discovery almost frightened her. The humour, attitude, and tenor

of her attachment had been of quite an unpremeditated quality,

unsuggestive of any such audacious solution to their distresses as this.

'I repeat my question, dearest,' he said, after her long pause. 'Shall

it be done? Or shall I exile myself, and study as best I can, in some

distant country, out of sight and sound?'

'Are those the only alternatives? Yes, yes; I suppose they are!' She

waited yet another moment, bent over his kneeling figure, and kissed his

forehead. 'Yes; it shall be done,' she whispered. 'I will marry you.'

'My angel, I am content!'

He drew her yielding form to his heart, and her head sank upon his

shoulder, as he pressed his two lips continuously upon hers. To such had

the study of celestial physics brought them in the space of eight months,

one week, and a few odd days.

'I am weaker than you,--far the weaker,' she went on, her tears falling.

'Rather than lose you out of my sight I will marry without stipulation or

condition. But--I put it to your kindness--grant me one little request.'

He instantly assented.

'It is that, in consideration of my peculiar position in this county,--O,

you can't understand it!--you will not put an end to the absolute secrecy

of our relationship without my full assent. Also, that you will never

come to Welland House without first discussing with me the advisability

of the visit, accepting my opinion on the point. There, see how a timid

woman tries to fence herself in!'

'My dear lady-love, neither of those two high-handed courses should I

have taken, even had you not stipulated against them. The very essence

of our marriage plan is that those two conditions are kept. I see as

well as you do, even more than you do, how important it is that for the

present,--ay, for a long time hence--I should still be but the curate's

lonely son, unattached to anybody or anything, with no object of interest

but his science; and you the recluse lady of the manor, to whom he is

only an acquaintance.'

'See what deceits love sows in honest minds!'

'It would be a humiliation to you at present that I could not bear if a

marriage between us were made public; an inconvenience without any

compensating advantage.'

'I am so glad you assume it without my setting it before you! Now I know

you are not only good and true, but politic and trustworthy.'

'Well, then, here is our covenant. My lady swears to marry me; I, in

return for such great courtesy, swear never to compromise her by

intruding at Welland House, and to keep the marriage concealed till I

have won a position worthy of her.'

'Or till I request it to be made known,' she added, possibly foreseeing a

contingency which had not occurred to him.

'Or till you request it,' he repeated.

'It is agreed,' murmured Lady Constantine,

XVI

After this there only remained to be settled between them the practical

details of the project.

These were that he should leave home in a couple of days, and take

lodgings either in the distant city of Bath or in a convenient suburb of

London, till a sufficient time should have elapsed to satisfy legal

requirements; that on a fine morning at the end of this time she should

hie away to the same place, and be met at the station by St. Cleeve,

armed with the marriage license; whence they should at once proceed to

the church fixed upon for the ceremony; returning home independently in

the course of the next two or three days.

While these tactics were under discussion the two-and-thirty winds of

heaven continued, as before, to beat about the tower, though their onsets

appeared to be somewhat lessening in force. Himself now calmed and

satisfied, Swithin, as is the wont of humanity, took serener views of

Nature's crushing mechanics without, and said, 'The wind doesn't seem

disposed to put the tragic period to our hopes and fears that I spoke of

in my momentary despair.'

'The disposition of the wind is as vicious as ever,' she answered,

looking into his face with pausing thoughts on, perhaps, other subjects

than that discussed. 'It is your mood of viewing it that has changed.

"There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so."'

And, as if flatly to stultify Swithin's assumption, a circular hurricane,

exceeding in violence any that had preceded it, seized hold upon Rings-

Hill Speer at that moment with the determination of a conscious agent.

The first sensation of a resulting catastrophe was conveyed to their

intelligence by the flapping of the candle-flame against the

lantern-glass; then the wind, which hitherto they had heard rather than

felt, rubbed past them like a fugitive. Swithin beheld around and above

him, in place of the concavity of the dome, the open heaven, with its

racing clouds, remote horizon, and intermittent gleam of stars. The dome

that had covered the tower had been whirled off bodily; and they heard it

descend crashing upon the trees.

Finding himself untouched Swithin stretched out his arms towards Lady

Constantine, whose apparel had been seized by the spinning air, nearly

lifting her off her legs. She, too, was as yet unharmed. Each held the

other for a moment, when, fearing that something further would happen,

they took shelter in the staircase.

'Dearest, what an escape!' he said, still holding her.

'What is the accident?' she asked. 'Has the whole top really gone?'

'The dome has been blown off the roof.'

As soon as it was practicable he relit the extinguished lantern, and they

emerged again upon the leads, where the extent of the disaster became at

once apparent. Saving the absence of the enclosing hemisphere all

remained the same. The dome, being constructed of wood, was light by

comparison with the rest of the structure, and the wheels which allowed

it horizontal, or, as Swithin expressed it, azimuth motion, denied it a

firm hold upon the walls; so that it had been lifted off them like a

cover from a pot. The equatorial stood in the midst as it had stood

before.

Having executed its grotesque purpose the wind sank to comparative

mildness. Swithin took advantage of this lull by covering up the

instruments with cloths, after which the betrothed couple prepared to go

downstairs.

But the events of the night had not yet fully disclosed themselves. At

this moment there was a sound of footsteps and a knocking at the door

below.

'It can't be for me!' said Lady Constantine. 'I retired to my room

before leaving the house, and told them on no account to disturb me.'

She remained at the top while Swithin went down the spiral. In the gloom

he beheld Hannah.

'O Master Swithin, can ye come home! The wind have blowed down the

chimley that don't smoke, and the pinning-end with it; and the old

ancient house, that have been in your family so long as the memory of

man, is naked to the world! It is a mercy that your grammer were not

killed, sitting by the hearth, poor old soul, and soon to walk wi'

God,--for 'a 's getting wambling on her pins, Mr. Swithin, as aged folks

do. As I say, 'a was all but murdered by the elements, and doing no more

harm than the babes in the wood, nor speaking one harmful word. And the

fire and smoke were blowed all across house like a chapter in Revelation;

and your poor reverent father's features scorched to flakes, looking like

the vilest ruffian, and the gilt frame spoiled! Every flitch, every eye-

piece, and every chine is buried under the walling; and I fed them pigs

with my own hands, Master Swithin, little thinking they would come to

this end. Do ye collect yourself, Mr. Swithin, and come at once!'

'I will,--I will. I'll follow you in a moment. Do you hasten back again

and assist.'

When Hannah had departed the young man ran up to Lady Constantine, to

whom he explained the accident. After sympathizing with old Mrs. Martin

Lady Constantine added, 'I thought something would occur to mar our

scheme!'

'I am not quite sure of that yet.'

On a short consideration with him, she agreed to wait at the top of the

tower till he could come back and inform her if the accident were really

so serious as to interfere with his plan for departure. He then left

her, and there she sat in the dark, alone, looking over the parapet, and

straining her eyes in the direction of the homestead.

At first all was obscurity; but when he had been gone about ten minutes

lights began to move to and fro in the hollow where the house stood, and

shouts occasionally mingled with the wind, which retained some violence

yet, playing over the trees beneath her as on the strings of a lyre. But

not a bough of them was visible, a cloak of blackness covering everything

netherward; while overhead the windy sky looked down with a strange and

disguised face, the three or four stars that alone were visible being so

dissociated by clouds that she knew not which they were. Under any other

circumstances Lady Constantine might have felt a nameless fear in thus

sitting aloft on a lonely column, with a forest groaning under her feet,

and palaeolithic dead men feeding its roots; but the recent passionate

decision stirred her pulses to an intensity beside which the ordinary

tremors of feminine existence asserted themselves in vain. The

apocalyptic effect of the scene surrounding her was, indeed, not

inharmonious, and afforded an appropriate background to her intentions.

After what seemed to her an interminable space of time, quick steps in

the staircase became audible above the roar of the firs, and in a few

instants St. Cleeve again stood beside her.

The case of the homestead was serious. Hannah's account had not been

exaggerated in substance: the gable end of the house was open to the

garden; the joists, left without support, had dropped, and with them the

upper floor. By the help of some labourers, who lived near, and Lady

Constantine's man Anthony, who was passing at the time, the homestead had

been propped up, and protected for the night by some rickcloths; but

Swithin felt that it would be selfish in the highest degree to leave two

lonely old women to themselves at this juncture. 'In short,' he

concluded despondently, 'I cannot go to stay in Bath or London just now;

perhaps not for another fortnight!'

'Never mind,' she said. 'A fortnight hence will do as well.'

'And I have these for you,' he continued. 'Your man Green was passing my

grandmother's on his way back from Warborne, where he had been, he says,

for any letters that had come for you by the evening post. As he stayed

to assist the other men I told him I would go on to your house with the

letters he had brought. Of course I did not tell him I should see you

here.'

'Thank you. Of course not. Now I'll return at once.'

In descending the column her eye fell upon the superscription of one of

the letters, and she opened and glanced over it by the lantern light. She

seemed startled, and, musing, said, 'The postponement of our--intention

must be, I fear, for a long time. I find that after the end of this

month I cannot leave home safely, even for a day.' Perceiving that he

was about to ask why, she added, 'I will not trouble you with the reason

now; it would only harass you. It is only a family business, and cannot

be helped.'

'Then we cannot be married till--God knows when!' said Swithin blankly.

'I cannot leave home till after the next week or two; you cannot leave

home unless within that time. So what are we to do?'

'I do not know.'

'My dear, dear one, don't let us be beaten like this! Don't let a well-

considered plan be overthrown by a mere accident! Here's a remedy. Do

_you_ go and stay the requisite time in the parish we are to be married

in, instead of me. When my grandmother is again well housed I can come

to you, instead of you to me, as we first said. Then it can be done

within the time.'

Reluctantly, shyly, and yet with a certain gladness of heart, she gave

way to his proposal that they should change places in the programme.

There was much that she did not like in it, she said. It seemed to her

as if she were taking the initiative by going and attending to the

preliminaries. It was the man's part to do that, in her opinion, and was

usually undertaken by him.

'But,' argued Swithin, 'there are cases in which the woman does give the

notices, and so on; that is to say, when the man is absolutely hindered

from doing so; and ours is such a case. The seeming is nothing; I know

the truth, and what does it matter? You do not refuse--retract your word

to be my wife, because, to avoid a sickening delay, the formalities

require you to attend to them in place of me?'

She did not refuse, she said. In short she agreed to his entreaty. They

had, in truth, gone so far in their dream of union that there was no

drawing back now. Whichever of them was forced by circumstances to be

the protagonist in the enterprise, the thing must be done. Their

intention to become husband and wife, at first halting and timorous, had

accumulated momentum with the lapse of hours, till it now bore down every

obstacle in its course.

'Since you beg me to,--since there is no alternative between my going and

a long postponement,' she said, as they stood in the dark porch of

Welland House before parting,--'since I am to go first, and seem to be

the pioneer in this adventure, promise me, Swithin, promise your

Viviette, that in years to come, when perhaps you may not love me so

warmly as you do now--'

'That will never be.'

'Well, hoping it will not, but supposing it should, promise me that you

will never reproach me as the one who took the initiative when it should

have been yourself, forgetting that it was at your request; promise that

you will never say I showed immodest readiness to do so, or anything

which may imply your obliviousness of the fact that I act in obedience to

necessity and your earnest prayer.'

Need it be said that he promised never to reproach her with that or any

other thing as long as they should live? The few details of the reversed

arrangement were soon settled, Bath being the place finally decided on.

Then, with a warm audacity which events had encouraged, he pressed her to

his breast, and she silently entered the house. He returned to the

homestead, there to attend to the unexpected duties of repairing the

havoc wrought by the gale.

* * * * *

That night, in the solitude of her chamber, Lady Constantine reopened and

read the subjoined letter--one of those handed to her by St. Cleeve:--

"--- STREET, PICCADILLY,

October 15, 18--.

'DEAR VIVIETTE,--You will be surprised to learn that I am in England,

and that I am again out of harness--unless you should have seen the

latter in the papers. Rio Janeiro may do for monkeys, but it won't do

for me. Having resigned the appointment I have returned here, as a

preliminary step to finding another vent for my energies; in other

words, another milch cow for my sustenance. I knew nothing whatever

of your husband's death till two days ago; so that any letter from you

on the subject, at the time it became known, must have miscarried.

Hypocrisy at such a moment is worse than useless, and I therefore do

not condole with you, particularly as the event, though new to a

banished man like me, occurred so long since. You are better without

him, Viviette, and are now just the limb for doing something for

yourself, notwithstanding the threadbare state in which you seem to

have been cast upon the world. You are still young, and, as I imagine

(unless you have vastly altered since I beheld you), good-looking:

therefore make up your mind to retrieve your position by a match with

one of the local celebrities; and you would do well to begin drawing

neighbouring covers at once. A genial squire, with more weight than

wit, more realty than weight, and more personalty than realty

(considering the circumstances), would be best for you. You might

make a position for us both by some such alliance; for, to tell the

truth, I have had but in-and-out luck so far. I shall be with you in

little more than a fortnight, when we will talk over the matter

seriously, if you don't object.--Your affectionate brother,

LOUIS.'

It was this allusion to her brother's coming visit which had caught her

eye in the tower staircase, and led to a modification in the wedding

arrangement.

Having read the letter through once Lady Constantine flung it aside with

an impatient little stamp that shook the decaying old floor and casement.

Its contents produced perturbation, misgiving, but not retreat. The deep

glow of enchantment shed by the idea of a private union with her

beautiful young lover killed the pale light of cold reasoning from an

indifferently good relative.

'Oh, no,' she murmured, as she sat, covering her face with her hand. 'Not

for wealth untold could I give him up now!'

No argument, short of Apollo in person from the clouds, would have

influenced her. She made her preparations for departure as if nothing

had intervened.

XVII

In her days of prosperity Lady Constantine had often gone to the city of

Bath, either frivolously, for shopping purposes, or musico-religiously,

to attend choir festivals in the abbey; so there was nothing surprising

in her reverting to an old practice. That the journey might appear to be

of a somewhat similar nature she took with her the servant who had been

accustomed to accompany her on former occasions, though the woman, having

now left her service, and settled in the village as the wife of Anthony

Green, with a young child on her hands, could with some difficulty leave

home. Lady Constantine overcame the anxious mother's scruples by

providing that young Green should be well cared for; and knowing that she

could count upon this woman's fidelity, if upon anybody's, in case of an

accident (for it was chiefly Lady Constantine's exertions that had made

an honest wife of Mrs. Green), she departed for a fortnight's absence.

The next day found mistress and maid settled in lodgings in an old plum-

coloured brick street, which a hundred years ago could boast of rank and

fashion among its residents, though now the broad fan-light over each

broad door admitted the sun to the halls of a lodging-house keeper only.

The lamp-posts were still those that had done duty with oil lights; and

rheumatic old coachmen and postilions, that once had driven and ridden

gloriously from London to Land's End, ornamented with their bent persons

and bow legs the pavement in front of the chief inn, in the sorry hope of

earning sixpence to keep body and soul together.

'We are kept well informed on the time o' day, my lady,' said Mrs. Green,

as she pulled down the blinds in Lady Constantine's room on the evening

of their arrival. 'There's a church exactly at the back of us, and I

hear every hour strike.'

Lady Constantine said she had noticed that there was a church quite near.

'Well, it is better to have that at the back than other folks' winders.

And if your ladyship wants to go there it won't be far to walk.'

'That's what occurred to me,' said Lady Constantine, '_if_ I should want

to go.'

During the ensuing days she felt to the utmost the tediousness of waiting

merely that time might pass. Not a soul knew her there, and she knew not

a soul, a circumstance which, while it added to her sense of secrecy,

intensified her solitude. Occasionally she went to a shop, with Green as

her companion. Though there were purchases to be made, they were by no

means of a pressing nature, and but poorly filled up the vacancies of

those strange, speculative days,--days surrounded by a shade of fear, yet

poetized by sweet expectation.

On the thirteenth day she told Green that she was going to take a walk,

and leaving the house she passed by the obscurest streets to the Abbey.

After wandering about beneath the aisles till her courage was screwed to

its highest, she went out at the other side, and, looking timidly round

to see if anybody followed, walked on till she came to a certain door,

which she reached just at the moment when her heart began to sink to its

very lowest, rendering all the screwing up in vain.

Whether it was because the month was October, or from any other reason,

the deserted aspect of the quarter in general sat especially on this

building. Moreover the pavement was up, and heaps of stone and gravel

obstructed the footway. Nobody was coming, nobody was going, in that

thoroughfare; she appeared to be the single one of the human race bent

upon marriage business, which seemed to have been unanimously abandoned

by all the rest of the world as proven folly. But she thought of

Swithin, his blonde hair, ardent eyes, and eloquent lips, and was carried

onward by the very reflection.

Entering the surrogate's room Lady Constantine managed, at the last

juncture, to state her errand in tones so collected as to startle even

herself to which her listener replied also as if the whole thing were the

most natural in the world. When it came to the affirmation that she had

lived fifteen days in the parish, she said with dismay--

'O no! I thought the fifteen days meant the interval of residence before

the marriage takes place. I have lived here only thirteen days and a

half. Now I must come again!'

'Ah--well--I think you need not be so particular,' said the surrogate.

'As a matter of fact, though the letter of the law requires fifteen days'

residence, many people make five sufficient. The provision is inserted,

as you doubtless are aware, to hinder runaway marriages as much as

possible, and secret unions, and other such objectionable practices. You

need not come again.'

That evening Lady Constantine wrote to Swithin St. Cleeve the last letter

of the fortnight:--

'MY DEAREST,--Do come to me as soon as you can. By a sort of

favouring blunder I have been able to shorten the time of waiting by a

day. Come at once, for I am almost broken down with apprehension. It

seems rather rash at moments, all this, and I wish you were here to

reassure me. I did not know I should feel so alarmed. I am

frightened at every footstep, and dread lest anybody who knows me

should accost me, and find out why I am here. I sometimes wonder how

I could have agreed to come and enact your part, but I did not realize

how trying it would be. You ought not to have asked me, Swithin; upon

my word, it was too cruel of you, and I will punish you for it when

you come! But I won't upbraid. I hope the homestead is repaired that

has cost me all this sacrifice of modesty. If it were anybody in the

world but _you_ in question I would rush home, without waiting here

for the end of it,--I really think I would! But, dearest, no. I must

show my strength now, or let it be for ever hid. The barriers of

ceremony are broken down between us, and it is for the best that I am

here.'

And yet, at no point of this trying prelude need Lady Constantine have

feared for her strength. Deeds in this connexion demand the particular

kind of courage that such perfervid women are endowed with, the courage

of their emotions, in which young men are often lamentably deficient. Her

fear was, in truth, the fear of being discovered in an unwonted position;

not of the act itself. And though her letter was in its way a true

exposition of her feeling, had it been necessary to go through the whole

legal process over again she would have been found equal to the

emergency.

It had been for some days a point of anxiety with her what to do with

Green during the morning of the wedding. Chance unexpectedly helped her

in this difficulty. The day before the purchase of the license Green

came to Lady Constantine with a letter in her hand from her husband

Anthony, her face as long as a fiddle.

'I hope there's nothing the matter?' said Lady Constantine.

'The child's took bad, my lady!' said Mrs. Green, with suspended floods

of water in her eyes. 'I love the child better than I shall love all

them that's coming put together; for he's been a good boy to his mother

ever since twelve weeks afore he was born! 'Twas he, a tender deary,

that made Anthony marry me, and thereby turned hisself from a little

calamity to a little blessing! For, as you know, the man were a backward

man in the church part o' matrimony, my lady; though he'll do anything

when he's forced a bit by his manly feelings. And now to lose the

child--hoo-hoo-hoo! What shall I doo!'

'Well, you want to go home at once, I suppose?'

Mrs. Green explained, between her sobs, that such was her desire; and

though this was a day or two sooner than her mistress had wished to be

left alone she consented to Green's departure. So during the afternoon

her woman went off, with directions to prepare for Lady Constantine's

return in two or three days. But as the exact day of her return was

uncertain no carriage was to be sent to the station to meet her, her

intention being to hire one from the hotel.

Lady Constantine was now left in utter solitude to await her lover's

arrival.

XVIII

A more beautiful October morning than that of the next day never beamed

into the Welland valleys. The yearly dissolution of leafage was setting

in apace. The foliage of the park trees rapidly resolved itself into the

multitude of complexions which mark the subtle grades of decay,

reflecting wet lights of such innumerable hues that it was a wonder to

think their beauties only a repetition of scenes that had been exhibited

there on scores of previous Octobers, and had been allowed to pass away

without a single dirge from the imperturbable beings who walked among

them. Far in the shadows semi-opaque screens of blue haze made mysteries

of the commonest gravel-pit, dingle, or recess.

The wooden cabin at the foot of Rings-Hill Speer had been furnished by

Swithin as a sitting and sleeping apartment, some little while before

this time; for he had found it highly convenient, during night

observations at the top of the column, to remain on the spot all night,

not to disturb his grandmother by passing in and out of the house, and to

save himself the labour of incessantly crossing the field.

He would much have liked to tell her the secret, and, had it been his own

to tell, would probably have done so; but sharing it with an objector who

knew not his grandmother's affection so well as he did himself, there was

no alternative to holding his tongue. The more effectually to guard it

he decided to sleep at the cabin during the two or three nights previous

to his departure, leaving word at the homestead that in a day or two he

was going on an excursion.

It was very necessary to start early. Long before the great eye of the

sun was lifted high enough to glance into the Welland valley, St. Cleeve

arose from his bed in the cabin and prepared to depart, cooking his

breakfast upon a little stove in the corner. The young rabbits, littered

during the foregoing summer, watched his preparations through the open

door from the grey dawn without, as he bustled, half dressed, in and out

under the boughs, and among the blackberries and brambles that grew

around.

It was a strange place for a bridegroom to perform his toilet in, but,

considering the unconventional nature of the marriage, a not

inappropriate one. What events had been enacted in that earthen camp

since it was first thrown up, nobody could say; but the primitive

simplicity of the young man's preparations accorded well with the

prehistoric spot on which they were made. Embedded under his feet were

possibly even now rude trinkets that had been worn at bridal ceremonies

of the early inhabitants. Little signified those ceremonies to-day, or

the happiness or otherwise of the contracting parties. That his own

rite, nevertheless, signified much, was the inconsequent reasoning of

Swithin, as it is of many another bridegroom besides; and he, like the

rest, went on with his preparations in that mood which sees in his stale

repetition the wondrous possibilities of an untried move.

Then through the wet cobwebs, that hung like movable diaphragms on each

blade and bough, he pushed his way down to the furrow which led from the

secluded fir-tree island to the wide world beyond the field.

He was not a stranger to enterprise, and still less to the contemplation

of enterprise; but an enterprise such as this he had never even outlined.

That his dear lady was troubled at the situation he had placed her in by

not going himself on that errand, he could see from her letter; but,

believing an immediate marriage with her to be the true way of restoring

to both that equanimity necessary to serene philosophy, he held it of

little account how the marriage was brought about, and happily began his

journey towards her place of sojourn.

He passed through a little copse before leaving the parish, the smoke

from newly lit fires rising like the stems of blue trees out of the few

cottage chimneys. Here he heard a quick, familiar footstep in the path

ahead of him, and, turning the corner of the bushes, confronted the foot-

post on his way to Welland. In answer to St. Cleeve's inquiry if there

was anything for himself the postman handed out one letter, and proceeded

on his route.

Swithin opened and read the letter as he walked, till it brought him to a

standstill by the importance of its contents.

They were enough to agitate a more phlegmatic youth than he. He leant

over the wicket which came in his path, and endeavoured to comprehend the

sense of the whole.

The large long envelope contained, first, a letter from a solicitor in a

northern town, informing him that his paternal great-uncle, who had

recently returned from the Cape (whither he had gone in an attempt to

repair a broken constitution), was now dead and buried. This

great-uncle's name was like a new creation to Swithin. He had held no

communication with the young man's branch of the family for innumerable

years,--never, in fact, since the marriage of Swithin's father with the

simple daughter of Welland Farm. He had been a bachelor to the end of

his life, and had amassed a fairly good professional fortune by a long

and extensive medical practice in the smoky, dreary, manufacturing town

in which he had lived and died. Swithin had always been taught to think

of him as the embodiment of all that was unpleasant in man. He was

narrow, sarcastic, and shrewd to unseemliness. That very shrewdness had

enabled him, without much professional profundity, to establish his large

and lucrative connexion, which lay almost entirely among a class who

neither looked nor cared for drawing-room courtesies.

However, what Dr. St. Cleeve had been as a practitioner matters little.

He was now dead, and the bulk of his property had been left to persons

with whom this story has nothing to do. But Swithin was informed that

out of it there was a bequest of 600 pounds a year to himself,--payment

of which was to begin with his twenty-first year, and continue for his

life, unless he should marry before reaching the age of twenty-five. In

the latter precocious and objectionable event his annuity would be

forfeited. The accompanying letter, said the solicitor, would explain

all.

This, the second letter, was from his uncle to himself, written about a

month before the former's death, and deposited with his will, to be

forwarded to his nephew when that event should have taken place. Swithin

read, with the solemnity that such posthumous epistles inspire, the

following words from one who, during life, had never once addressed him:--

'DEAR NEPHEW,--You will doubtless experience some astonishment at

receiving a communication from one whom you have never personally

known, and who, when this comes into your hands, will be beyond the

reach of your knowledge. Perhaps I am the loser by this life-long

mutual ignorance. Perhaps I am much to blame for it; perhaps not. But

such reflections are profitless at this date: I have written with

quite other views than to work up a sentimental regret on such an

amazingly remote hypothesis as that the fact of a particular pair of

people not meeting, among the millions of other pairs of people who

have never met, is a great calamity either to the world in general or

to themselves.

'The occasion of my addressing you is briefly this: Nine months ago a

report casually reached me that your scientific studies were pursued

by you with great ability, and that you were a young man of some

promise as an astronomer. My own scientific proclivities rendered the

report more interesting than it might otherwise have been to me; and

it came upon me quite as a surprise that any issue of your father's

marriage should have so much in him, or you might have seen more of me

in former years than you are ever likely to do now. My health had

then begun to fail, and I was starting for the Cape, or I should have

come myself to inquire into your condition and prospects. I did not

return till six months later, and as my health had not improved I sent

a trusty friend to examine into your life, pursuits, and

circumstances, without your own knowledge, and to report his

observations to me. This he did. Through him I learnt, of favourable

news:--

'(1) That you worked assiduously at the science of astronomy.

'(2) That everything was auspicious in the career you had chosen.

'Of unfavourable news:--

'(1) That the small income at your command, even when eked out by the

sum to which you would be entitled on your grandmother's death and the

freehold of the homestead, would be inadequate to support you

becomingly as a scientific man, whose lines of work were of a nature

not calculated to produce emoluments for many years, if ever.

'(2) That there was something in your path worse than narrow means,

and that that something was a _woman_.

'To save you, if possible, from ruin on these heads, I take the

preventive measures detailed below.

'The chief step is, as my solicitor will have informed you, that, at

the age of twenty-five, the sum of 600 pounds a year be settled on you

for life, provided you have not married before reaching that age;--a

yearly gift of an equal sum to be also provisionally made to you in

the interim--and, vice versa, that if you do marry before reaching the

age of twenty-five you will receive nothing from the date of the

marriage.

'One object of my bequest is that you may have resources sufficient to

enable you to travel and study the Southern constellations. When at

the Cape, after hearing of your pursuits, I was much struck with the

importance of those constellations to an astronomer just pushing into

notice. There is more to be made of the Southern hemisphere than ever

has been made of it yet; the mine is not so thoroughly worked as the

Northern, and thither your studies should tend.

'The only other preventive step in my power is that of exhortation, at

which I am not an adept. Nevertheless, I say to you, Swithin St.

Cleeve, don't make a fool of yourself, as your father did. If your

studies are to be worth anything, believe me, they must be carried on

without the help of a woman. Avoid her, and every one of the sex, if

you mean to achieve any worthy thing. Eschew all of that sort for

many a year yet. Moreover, I say, the lady of your acquaintance avoid

in particular. I have heard nothing against her moral character

hitherto; I have no doubt it has been excellent. She may have many

good qualities, both of heart and of mind. But she has, in addition

to her original disqualification as a companion for you (that is, that

of sex), these two serious drawbacks: she is much older than

yourself--'

'_Much_ older!' said Swithin resentfully.

'--and she is so impoverished that the title she derives from her late

husband is a positive objection. Beyond this, frankly, I don't think

well of her. I don't think well of any woman who dotes upon a man

younger than herself. To care to be the first fancy of a young fellow

like you shows no great common sense in her. If she were worth her

salt she would have too much pride to be intimate with a youth in your

unassured position, to say no worse. She is old enough to know that a

_liaison_ with her may, and almost certainly would, be your ruin; and,

on the other hand, that a marriage would be preposterous,--unless she

is a complete goose, and in that case there is even more reason for

avoiding her than if she were in her few senses.

'A woman of honourable feeling, nephew, would be careful to do nothing

to hinder you in your career, as this putting of herself in your way

most certainly will. Yet I hear that she professes a great anxiety on

this same future of yours as a physicist. The best way in which she

can show the reality of her anxiety is by leaving you to yourself.

Perhaps she persuades herself that she is doing you no harm. Well,

let her have the benefit of the possible belief; but depend upon it

that in truth she gives the lie to her conscience by maintaining such

a transparent fallacy. Women's brains are not formed for assisting at

any profound science: they lack the power to see things except in the

concrete. She'll blab your most secret plans and theories to every

one of her acquaintance--'

'She's got none!' said Swithin, beginning to get warm.

'--and make them appear ridiculous by announcing them before they are

matured. If you attempt to study with a woman, you'll be ruled by her

to entertain fancies instead of theories, air-castles instead of

intentions, qualms instead of opinions, sickly prepossessions instead

of reasoned conclusions. Your wide heaven of study, young man, will

soon reduce itself to the miserable narrow expanse of her face, and

your myriad of stars to her two trumpery eyes.

'A woman waking a young man's passions just at a moment when he is

endeavouring to shine intellectually, is doing little less than

committing a crime.

'Like a certain philosopher I would, upon my soul, have all young men

from eighteen to twenty-five kept under barrels; seeing how often, in

the lack of some such sequestering process, the woman sits down before

each as his destiny, and too frequently enervates his purpose, till he

abandons the most promising course ever conceived!

'But no more. I now leave your fate in your own hands. Your well-

wishing relative,

'JOCELYN ST. CLEEVE,

_Doctor in Medicine_.'

As coming from a bachelor and hardened misogynist of seventy-two, the

opinions herein contained were nothing remarkable: but their practical

result in restricting the sudden endowment of Swithin's researches by

conditions which turned the favour into a harassment was, at this unique

moment, discomfiting and distracting in the highest degree.

Sensational, however, as the letter was, the passionate intention of the

day was not hazarded for more than a few minutes thereby. The truth was,

the caution and bribe came too late, too unexpectedly, to be of

influence. They were the sort of thing which required fermentation to

render them effective. Had St. Cleeve received the exhortation a month

earlier; had he been able to run over in his mind, at every wakeful hour

of thirty consecutive nights, a private catechism on the possibilities

opened up by this annuity, there is no telling what might have been the

stress of such a web of perplexity upon him, a young man whose love for

celestial physics was second to none. But to have held before him, at

the last moment, the picture of a future advantage that he had never once

thought of, or discounted for present staying power, it affected him

about as much as the view of horizons shown by sheet-lightning. He saw

an immense prospect; it went, and the world was as before.

He caught the train at Warborne, and moved rapidly towards Bath; not

precisely in the same key as when he had dressed in the hut at dawn, but,

as regarded the mechanical part of the journey, as unhesitatingly as

before.

And with the change of scene even his gloom left him; his bosom's lord

sat lightly in his throne. St. Cleeve was not sufficiently in mind of

poetical literature to remember that wise poets are accustomed to read

that lightness of bosom inversely. Swithin thought it an omen of good

fortune; and as thinking is causing in not a few such cases, he was

perhaps, in spite of poets, right.

XIX

At the station Lady Constantine appeared, standing expectant; he saw her

face from the window of the carriage long before she saw him. He no

sooner saw her than he was satisfied to his heart's content with his

prize. If his great-uncle had offered him from the grave a kingdom

instead of her, he would not have accepted it.

Swithin jumped out, and nature never painted in a woman's face more

devotion than appeared in my lady's at that moment. To both the

situation seemed like a beautiful allegory, not to be examined too

closely, lest its defects of correspondence with real life should be

apparent.

They almost feared to shake hands in public, so much depended upon their

passing that morning without molestation. A fly was called and they

drove away.

'Take this,' she said, handing him a folded paper. 'It belongs to you

rather than to me.'

At crossings, and other occasional pauses, pedestrians turned their faces

and looked at the pair (for no reason but that, among so many, there were

naturally a few of the sort who have eyes to note what incidents come in

their way as they plod on); but the two in the vehicle could not but fear

that these innocent beholders had special detective designs on them.

'You look so dreadfully young!' she said with humorous fretfulness, as

they drove along (Swithin's cheeks being amazingly fresh from the morning

air). 'Do try to appear a little haggard, that the parson mayn't ask us

awkward questions!'

Nothing further happened, and they were set down opposite a shop about

fifty yards from the church door, at five minutes to eleven.

'We will dismiss the fly,' she said. 'It will only attract idlers.'

On turning the corner and reaching the church they found the door ajar;

but the building contained only two persons, a man and a woman,--the

clerk and his wife, as they learnt. Swithin asked when the clergyman

would arrive.

The clerk looked at his watch, and said, 'At just on eleven o'clock.'

'He ought to be here,' said Swithin.

'Yes,' replied the clerk, as the hour struck. 'The fact is, sir, he is a

deppity, and apt to be rather wandering in his wits as regards time and

such like, which hev stood in the way of the man's getting a benefit. But

no doubt he'll come.'

'The regular incumbent is away, then?'

'He's gone for his bare pa'son's fortnight,--that's all; and we was

forced to put up with a weak-talented man or none. The best men goes

into the brewing, or into the shipping now-a-days, you see, sir;

doctrines being rather shaddery at present, and your money's worth not

sure in our line. So we church officers be left poorly provided with men

for odd jobs. I'll tell ye what, sir; I think I'd better run round to

the gentleman's lodgings, and try to find him?'

'Pray do,' said Lady Constantine.

The clerk left the church; his wife busied herself with dusting at the

further end, and Swithin and Viviette were left to themselves. The

imagination travels so rapidly, and a woman's forethought is so

assumptive, that the clerk's departure had no sooner doomed them to

inaction than it was borne in upon Lady Constantine's mind that she would

not become the wife of Swithin St. Cleeve, either to-day or on any other

day. Her divinations were continually misleading her, she knew: but a

hitch at the moment of marriage surely had a meaning in it.

'Ah,--the marriage is not to be!' she said to herself. 'This is a

fatality.'

It was twenty minutes past, and no parson had arrived. Swithin took her

hand.

'If it cannot be to-day, it can be to-morrow,' he whispered.

'I cannot say,' she answered. 'Something tells me _no_.'

It was almost impossible that she could know anything of the deterrent

force exercised on Swithin by his dead uncle that morning. Yet her

manner tallied so curiously well with such knowledge that he was struck

by it, and remained silent.

'You have a black tie,' she continued, looking at him.

'Yes,' replied Swithin. 'I bought it on my way here.'

'Why could it not have been less sombre in colour?'

'My great-uncle is dead.'

'You had a great-uncle? You never told me.'

'I never saw him in my life. I have only heard about him since his

death.'

He spoke in as quiet and measured a way as he could, but his heart was

sinking. She would go on questioning; he could not tell her an untruth.

She would discover particulars of that great-uncle's provision for him,

which he, Swithin, was throwing away for her sake, and she would refuse

to be his for his own sake. His conclusion at this moment was precisely

what hers had been five minutes sooner: they were never to be husband and

wife.

But she did not continue her questions, for the simplest of all reasons:

hasty footsteps were audible in the entrance, and the parson was seen

coming up the aisle, the clerk behind him wiping the beads of

perspiration from his face. The somewhat sorry clerical specimen shook

hands with them, and entered the vestry; and the clerk came up and opened

the book.

'The poor gentleman's memory is a bit topsy-turvy,' whispered the latter.

'He had got it in his mind that 'twere a funeral, and I found him

wandering about the cemetery a-looking for us. However, all's well as

ends well.' And the clerk wiped his forehead again.

'How ill-omened!' murmured Viviette.

But the parson came out robed at this moment, and the clerk put on his

ecclesiastical countenance and looked in his book. Lady Constantine's

momentary languor passed; her blood resumed its courses with a new

spring. The grave utterances of the church then rolled out upon the

palpitating pair, and no couple ever joined their whispers thereto with

more fervency than they.

Lady Constantine (as she continued to be called by the outside world,

though she liked to think herself the Mrs. St. Cleeve that she legally

was) had told Green that she might be expected at Welland in a day, or

two, or three, as circumstances should dictate. Though the time of

return was thus left open it was deemed advisable, by both Swithin and

herself, that her journey back should not be deferred after the next day,

in case any suspicions might be aroused. As for St. Cleeve, his comings

and goings were of no consequence. It was seldom known whether he was at

home or abroad, by reason of his frequent seclusion at the column.

Late in the afternoon of the next day he accompanied her to the Bath

station, intending himself to remain in that city till the following

morning. But when a man or youth has such a tender article on his hands

as a thirty-hour bride it is hardly in the power of his strongest reason

to set her down at a railway, and send her off like a superfluous

portmanteau. Hence the experiment of parting so soon after their union

proved excruciatingly severe to these. The evening was dull; the breeze

of autumn crept fitfully through every slit and aperture in the town; not

a soul in the world seemed to notice or care about anything they did.

Lady Constantine sighed; and there was no resisting it,--he could not

leave her thus. He decided to get into the train with her, and keep her

company for at least a few stations on her way.

It drew on to be a dark night, and, seeing that there was no serious risk

after all, he prolonged his journey with her so far as to the junction at

which the branch line to Warborne forked off. Here it was necessary to

wait a few minutes, before either he could go back or she could go on.

They wandered outside the station doorway into the gloom of the road, and

there agreed to part.

While she yet stood holding his arm a phaeton sped towards the station-

entrance, where, in ascending the slope to the door, the horse suddenly

jibbed. The gentleman who was driving, being either impatient, or

possessed with a theory that all jibbers may be started by severe

whipping, applied the lash; as a result of it, the horse thrust round the

carriage to where they stood, and the end of the driver's sweeping whip

cut across Lady Constantine's face with such severity as to cause her an

involuntary cry. Swithin turned her round to the lamplight, and

discerned a streak of blood on her cheek.

By this time the gentleman who had done the mischief, with many words of

regret, had given the reins to his man and dismounted.

'I will go to the waiting-room for a moment,' whispered Viviette

hurriedly; and, loosing her hand from his arm, she pulled down her veil

and vanished inside the building.

The stranger came forward and raised his hat. He was a slightly built

and apparently town-bred man of twenty-eight or thirty; his manner of

address was at once careless and conciliatory.

'I am greatly concerned at what I have done,' he said. 'I sincerely

trust that your wife'--but observing the youthfulness of Swithin, he

withdrew the word suggested by the manner of Swithin towards Lady

Constantine--'I trust the young lady was not seriously cut?'

'I trust not,' said Swithin, with some vexation.

'Where did the lash touch her?'

'Straight down her cheek.'

'Do let me go to her, and learn how she is, and humbly apologize.'

'I'll inquire.'

He went to the ladies' room, in which Viviette had taken refuge. She met

him at the door, her handkerchief to her cheek, and Swithin explained

that the driver of the phaeton had sent to make inquiries.

'I cannot see him!' she whispered. 'He is my brother Louis! He is, no

doubt, going on by the train to my house. Don't let him recognize me! We

must wait till he is gone.'

Swithin thereupon went out again, and told the young man that the cut on

her face was not serious, but that she could not see him; after which

they parted. St. Cleeve then heard him ask for a ticket for Warborne,

which confirmed Lady Constantine's view that he was going on to her

house. When the branch train had moved off Swithin returned to his

bride, who waited in a trembling state within.

On being informed that he had departed she showed herself much relieved.

'Where does your brother come from?' said Swithin.

'From London, immediately. Rio before that. He has a friend or two in

this neighbourhood, and visits here occasionally. I have seldom or never

spoken to you of him, because of his long absence.'

'Is he going to settle near you?'

'No, nor anywhere, I fear. He is, or rather was, in the diplomatic

service. He was first a clerk in the Foreign Office, and was afterwards

appointed attache at Rio Janeiro. But he has resigned the appointment. I

wish he had not.'

Swithin asked why he resigned.

'He complained of the banishment, and the climate, and everything that

people complain of who are determined to be dissatisfied,--though, poor

fellow, there is some ground for his complaints. Perhaps some people

would say that he is idle. But he is scarcely that; he is rather

restless than idle, so that he never persists in anything. Yet if a

subject takes his fancy he will follow it up with exemplary patience till

something diverts him.'

'He is not kind to you, is he, dearest?'

'Why do you think that?'

'Your manner seems to say so.'

'Well, he may not always be kind. But look at my face; does the mark

show?'

A streak, straight as a meridian, was visible down her cheek. The blood

had been brought almost to the surface, but was not quite through, that

which had originally appeared thereon having possibly come from the

horse. It signified that to-morrow the red line would be a black one.

Swithin informed her that her brother had taken a ticket for Warborne,

and she at once perceived that he was going on to visit her at Welland,

though from his letter she had not expected him so soon by a few days.

'Meanwhile,' continued Swithin, 'you can now get home only by the late

train, having missed that one.'

'But, Swithin, don't you see my new trouble? If I go to Welland House to-

night, and find my brother just arrived there, and he sees this cut on my

face, which I suppose you described to him--'

'I did.'

'He will know I was the lady with you!'

'Whom he called my wife. I wonder why we look husband and wife already!'

'Then what am I to do? For the ensuing three or four days I bear in my

face a clue to his discovery of our secret.'

'Then you must not be seen. We must stay at an inn here.'

'O no!' she said timidly. 'It is too near home to be quite safe. We

might not be known; but _if_ we were!'

'We can't go back to Bath now. I'll tell you, dear Viviette, what we

must do. We'll go on to Warborne in separate carriages; we'll meet

outside the station; thence we'll walk to the column in the dark, and

I'll keep you a captive in the cabin till the scar has disappeared.'

As there was nothing which better recommended itself this course was

decided on; and after taking from her trunk the articles that might be

required for an incarceration of two or three days they left the said

trunk at the cloak-room, and went on by the last train, which reached

Warborne about ten o'clock.

It was only necessary for Lady Constantine to cover her face with the

thick veil that she had provided for this escapade, to walk out of the

station without fear of recognition. St. Cleeve came forth from another

compartment, and they did not rejoin each other till they had reached a

shadowy bend in the old turnpike road, beyond the irradiation of the

Warborne lamplight.

The walk to Welland was long. It was the walk which Swithin had taken in

the rain when he had learnt the fatal forestalment of his stellar

discovery; but now he was moved by a less desperate mood, and blamed

neither God nor man. They were not pressed for time, and passed along

the silent, lonely way with that sense rather of predestination than of

choice in their proceedings which the presence of night sometimes

imparts. Reaching the park gate, they found it open, and from this they

inferred that her brother Louis had arrived.

Leaving the house and park on their right they traced the highway yet a

little further, and, plunging through the stubble of the opposite field,

drew near the isolated earthwork bearing the plantation and tower, which

together rose like a flattened dome and lantern from the lighter-hued

plain of stubble. It was far too dark to distinguish firs from other

trees by the eye alone, but the peculiar dialect of sylvan language which

the piny multitude used would have been enough to proclaim their class at

any time. In the lovers' stealthy progress up the slopes a dry stick

here and there snapped beneath their feet, seeming like a shot of alarm.

On being unlocked the hut was found precisely as Swithin had left it two

days before. Lady Constantine was thoroughly wearied, and sat down,

while he gathered a handful of twigs and spikelets from the masses strewn

without and lit a small fire, first taking the precaution to blind the

little window and relock the door.

Lady Constantine looked curiously around by the light of the blaze. The

hut was small as the prophet's chamber provided by the Shunammite: in one

corner stood the stove, with a little table and chair, a small cupboard

hard by, a pitcher of water, a rack overhead, with various articles,

including a kettle and a gridiron; while the remaining three or four feet

at the other end of the room was fitted out as a dormitory, for Swithin's

use during late observations in the tower overhead.

'It is not much of a palace to offer you,' he remarked, smiling. 'But at

any rate, it is a refuge.'

The cheerful firelight dispersed in some measure Lady Constantine's

anxieties. 'If we only had something to eat!' she said.

'Dear me,' cried St. Cleeve, blankly. 'That's a thing I never thought

of.'

'Nor I, till now,' she replied.

He reflected with misgiving.

'Beyond a small loaf of bread in the cupboard I have nothing. However,

just outside the door there are lots of those little rabbits, about the

size of rats, that the keepers call runners. And they are as tame as

possible. But I fear I could not catch one now. Yet, dear Viviette,

wait a minute; I'll try. You must not be starved.'

He softly let himself out, and was gone some time. When he reappeared,

he produced, not a rabbit, but four sparrows and a thrush.

'I could do nothing in the way of a rabbit without setting a wire,' he

said. 'But I have managed to get these by knowing where they roost.'

He showed her how to prepare the birds, and, having set her to roast them

by the fire, departed with the pitcher, to replenish it at the brook

which flowed near the homestead in the neighbouring Bottom.

'They are all asleep at my grandmother's,' he informed her when he re-

entered, panting, with the dripping pitcher. 'They imagine me to be a

hundred miles off.'

The birds were now ready, and the table was spread. With this fare, eked

out by dry toast from the loaf, and moistened with cups of water from the

pitcher, to which Swithin added a little wine from the flask he had

carried on his journey, they were forced to be content for their supper.

XX

When Lady Constantine awoke the next morning Swithin was nowhere to be

seen. Before she was quite ready for breakfast she heard the key turn in

the door, and felt startled, till she remembered that the comer could

hardly be anybody but he. He brought a basket with provisions, an extra

cup-and-saucer, and so on. In a short space of time the kettle began

singing on the stove, and the morning meal was ready.

The sweet resinous air from the firs blew in upon them as they sat at

breakfast; the birds hopped round the door (which, somewhat riskily, they

ventured to keep open); and at their elbow rose the lank column into an

upper realm of sunlight, which only reached the cabin in fitful darts and

flashes through the trees.

'I could be happy here for ever,' said she, clasping his hand. 'I wish I

could never see my great gloomy house again, since I am not rich enough

to throw it open, and live there as I ought to do. Poverty of this sort

is not unpleasant at any rate. What are you thinking of?'

'I am thinking about my outing this morning. On reaching my

grandmother's she was only a little surprised to see me. I was obliged

to breakfast there, or appear to do so, to divert suspicion; and this

food is supposed to be wanted for my dinner and supper. There will of

course be no difficulty in my obtaining an ample supply for any length of

time, as I can take what I like from the buttery without observation. But

as I looked in my grandmother's face this morning, and saw her looking

affectionately in mine, and thought how she had never concealed anything

from me, and had always had my welfare at heart, I felt--that I should

like to tell her what we have done.'

'O no,--please not, Swithin!' she exclaimed piteously.

'Very well,' he answered. 'On no consideration will I do so without your

consent.' And no more was said on the matter.

The morning was passed in applying wet rag and other remedies to the

purple line on Viviette's cheek; and in the afternoon they set up the

equatorial under the replaced dome, to have it in order for night

observations.

The evening was clear, dry, and remarkably cold by comparison with the

daytime weather. After a frugal supper they replenished the stove with

charcoal from the homestead, which they also burnt during the day,--an

idea of Viviette's, that the smoke from a wood fire might not be seen

more frequently than was consistent with the occasional occupation of the

cabin by Swithin, as heretofore.

At eight o'clock she insisted upon his ascending the tower for

observations, in strict pursuance of the idea on which their marriage had

been based, namely, that of restoring regularity to his studies.

The sky had a new and startling beauty that night. A broad, fluctuating,

semicircular arch of vivid white light spanned the northern quarter of

the heavens, reaching from the horizon to the star Eta in the Greater

Bear. It was the Aurora Borealis, just risen up for the winter season

out of the freezing seas of the north, where every autumn vapour was now

undergoing rapid congelation.

'O, let us sit and look at it!' she said; and they turned their backs

upon the equatorial and the southern glories of the heavens to this new

beauty in a quarter which they seldom contemplated.

The lustre of the fixed stars was diminished to a sort of blueness.

Little by little the arch grew higher against the dark void, like the

form of the Spirit-maiden in the shades of Glenfinlas, till its crown

drew near the zenith, and threw a tissue over the whole waggon and horses

of the great northern constellation. Brilliant shafts radiated from the

convexity of the arch, coming and going silently. The temperature fell,

and Lady Constantine drew her wrap more closely around her.

'We'll go down,' said Swithin. 'The cabin is beautifully warm. Why

should we try to observe to-night? Indeed, we cannot; the Aurora light

overpowers everything.'

'Very well. To-morrow night there will be no interruption. I shall be

gone.'

'You leave me to-morrow, Viviette?'

'Yes; to-morrow morning.'

The truth was that, with the progress of the hours and days, the

conviction had been borne in upon Viviette more and more forcibly that

not for kingdoms and principalities could she afford to risk the

discovery of her presence here by any living soul.

'But let me see your face, dearest,' he said. 'I don't think it will be

safe for you to meet your brother yet.'

As it was too dark to see her face on the summit where they sat they

descended the winding staircase, and in the cabin Swithin examined the

damaged cheek. The line, though so far attenuated as not to be

observable by any one but a close observer, had not quite disappeared.

But in consequence of her reiterated and almost tearful anxiety to go,

and as there was a strong probability that her brother had left the

house, Swithin decided to call at Welland next morning, and reconnoitre

with a view to her return.

Locking her in he crossed the dewy stubble into the park. The house was

silent and deserted; and only one tall stalk of smoke ascended from the

chimneys. Notwithstanding that the hour was nearly nine he knocked at

the door.

'Is Lady Constantine at home?' asked Swithin, with a disingenuousness now

habitual, yet unknown to him six months before.

'No, Mr. St. Cleeve; my lady has not returned from Bath. We expect her

every day.'

'Nobody staying in the house?'

'My lady's brother has been here; but he is gone on to Budmouth. He will

come again in two or three weeks, I understand.'

This was enough. Swithin said he would call again, and returned to the

cabin, where, waking Viviette, who was not by nature an early riser, he

waited on the column till she was ready to breakfast. When this had been

shared they prepared to start.

A long walk was before them. Warborne station lay five miles distant,

and the next station above that nine miles. They were bound for the

latter; their plan being that she should there take the train to the

junction where the whip accident had occurred, claim her luggage, and

return with it to Warborne, as if from Bath.

The morning was cool and the walk not wearisome. When once they had left

behind the stubble-field of their environment and the parish of Welland,

they sauntered on comfortably, Lady Constantine's spirits rising as she

withdrew further from danger.

They parted by a little brook, about half a mile from the station;

Swithin to return to Welland by the way he had come.

Lady Constantine telegraphed from the junction to Warborne for a carriage

to be in readiness to meet her on her arrival; and then, waiting for the

down train, she travelled smoothly home, reaching Welland House about

five minutes sooner than Swithin reached the column hard by, after

footing it all the way from where they had parted.

XXI

From that day forward their life resumed its old channel in general

outward aspect.

Perhaps the most remarkable feature in their exploit was its comparative

effectiveness as an expedient for the end designed,--that of restoring

calm assiduity to the study of astronomy. Swithin took up his old

position as the lonely philosopher at the column, and Lady Constantine

lapsed back to immured existence at the house, with apparently not a

friend in the parish. The enforced narrowness of life which her limited

resources necessitated was now an additional safeguard against the

discovery of her relations with St. Cleeve. Her neighbours seldom

troubled her; as much, it must be owned, from a tacit understanding that

she was not in a position to return invitations as from any selfish

coldness engendered by her want of wealth.

At the first meeting of the secretly united pair after their short

honeymoon they were compelled to behave as strangers to each other. It

occurred in the only part of Welland which deserved the name of a village

street, and all the labourers were returning to their midday meal, with

those of their wives who assisted at outdoor work. Before the eyes of

this innocent though quite untrustworthy group, Swithin and his Viviette

could only shake hands in passing, though she contrived to say to him in

an undertone, 'My brother does not return yet for some time. He has gone

to Paris. I will be on the lawn this evening, if you can come.' It was

a fluttered smile that she bestowed on him, and there was no doubt that

every fibre of her heart vibrated afresh at meeting, with such reserve,

one who stood in his close relation to her.

The shades of night fell early now, and Swithin was at the spot of

appointment about the time that he knew her dinner would be over. It was

just where they had met at the beginning of the year, but many changes

had resulted since then. The flower-beds that had used to be so neatly

edged were now jagged and leafy; black stars appeared on the pale surface

of the gravel walks, denoting tufts of grass that grew unmolested there.

Lady Constantine's external affairs wore just that aspect which suggests

that new blood may be advantageously introduced into the line; and new

blood had been introduced, in good sooth,--with what social result

remained to be seen.

She silently entered on the scene from the same window which had given

her passage in months gone by. They met with a concerted embrace, and

St. Cleeve spoke his greeting in whispers.

'We are quite safe, dearest,' said she.

'But the servants?'

'My meagre staff consists of only two women and the boy; and they are

away in the other wing. I thought you would like to see the inside of my

house, after showing me the inside of yours. So we will walk through it

instead of staying out here.'

She let him in through the casement, and they strolled forward softly,

Swithin with some curiosity, never before having gone beyond the library

and adjoining room. The whole western side of the house was at this time

shut up, her life being confined to two or three small rooms in the south-

east corner. The great apartments through which they now whisperingly

walked wore already that funereal aspect that comes from disuse and

inattention. Triangular cobwebs already formed little hammocks for the

dust in corners of the wainscot, and a close smell of wood and leather,

seasoned with mouse-droppings, pervaded the atmosphere. So seldom was

the solitude of these chambers intruded on by human feet that more than

once a mouse stood and looked the twain in the face from the arm of a

sofa, or the top of a cabinet, without any great fear.

Swithin had no residential ambition whatever, but he was interested in

the place. 'Will the house ever be thrown open to gaiety, as it was in

old times?' said he.

'Not unless you make a fortune,' she replied laughingly. 'It is mine for

my life, as you know; but the estate is so terribly saddled with

annuities to Sir Blount's distant relatives, one of whom will succeed me

here, that I have practically no more than my own little private income

to exist on.'

'And are you bound to occupy the house?'

'Not bound to. But I must not let it on lease.'

'And was there any stipulation in the event of your re-marriage?'

'It was not mentioned.'

'It is satisfactory to find that you lose nothing by marrying me, at all

events, dear Viviette.'

'I hope you lose nothing either--at least, of consequence.'

'What have I to lose?'

'I meant your liberty. Suppose you become a popular physicist

(popularity seems cooling towards art and coquetting with science now-a-

days), and a better chance offers, and one who would make you a newer and

brighter wife than I am comes in your way. Will you never regret this?

Will you never despise me?'

Swithin answered by a kiss, and they again went on; proceeding like a

couple of burglars, lest they should draw the attention of the cook or

Green.

In one of the upper rooms his eyes were attracted by an old chamber

organ, which had once been lent for use in the church. He mentioned his

recollection of the same, which led her to say, 'That reminds me of

something. There is to be a confirmation in our parish in the spring,

and you once told me that you had never been confirmed. What shocking

neglect! Why was it?'

'I hardly know. The confusion resulting from my father's death caused it

to be forgotten, I suppose.'

'Now, dear Swithin, you will do this to please me,--be confirmed on the

present occasion?'

'Since I have done without the virtue of it so long, might I not do

without it altogether?'

'No, no!' she said earnestly. 'I do wish it, indeed. I am made unhappy

when I think you don't care about such serious matters. Without the

Church to cling to, what have we?'

'Each other. But seriously, I should be inverting the established order

of spiritual things; people ought to be confirmed before they are

married.'

'That's really of minor consequence. Now, don't think slightingly of

what so many good men have laid down as necessary to be done. And, dear

Swithin, I somehow feel that a certain levity which has perhaps shown

itself in our treatment of the sacrament of marriage--by making a

clandestine adventure of what is, after all, a solemn rite--would be well

atoned for by a due seriousness in other points of religious observance.

This opportunity should therefore not be passed over. I thought of it

all last night; and you are a parson's son, remember, and he would have

insisted on it if he had been alive. In short, Swithin, do be a good

boy, and observe the Church's ordinances.'

Lady Constantine, by virtue of her temperament, was necessarily either

lover or _devote_, and she vibrated so gracefully between these two

conditions that nobody who had known the circumstances could have

condemned her inconsistencies. To be led into difficulties by those

mastering emotions of hers, to aim at escape by turning round and seizing

the apparatus of religion--which could only rightly be worked by the very

emotions already bestowed elsewhere--it was, after all, but Nature's well-

meaning attempt to preserve the honour of her daughter's conscience in

the trying quandary to which the conditions of sex had given rise. As

Viviette could not be confirmed herself, and as Communion Sunday was a

long way off, she urged Swithin thus.

'And the new bishop is such a good man,' she continued. 'I used to have

a slight acquaintance with him when he was a parish priest.'

'Very well, dearest. To please you I'll be confirmed. My grandmother,

too, will be delighted, no doubt.'

They continued their ramble: Lady Constantine first advancing into rooms

with the candle, to assure herself that all was empty, and then calling

him forward in a whisper. The stillness was broken only by these

whispers, or by the occasional crack of a floor-board beneath their

tread. At last they sat down, and, shading the candle with a screen, she

showed him the faded contents of this and that drawer or cabinet, or the

wardrobe of some member of the family who had died young early in the

century, when muslin reigned supreme, when waists were close to arm-pits,

and muffs as large as smugglers' tubs. These researches among

habilimental hulls and husks, whose human kernels had long ago perished,

went on for about half an hour; when the companions were startled by a

loud ringing at the front-door bell.

XXII

Lady Constantine flung down the old-fashioned lacework, whose beauties

she had been pointing out to Swithin, and exclaimed, 'Who can it be? Not

Louis, surely?'

They listened. An arrival was such a phenomenon at this unfrequented

mansion, and particularly a late arrival, that no servant was on the

alert to respond to the call; and the visitor rang again, more loudly

than before. Sounds of the tardy opening and shutting of a passage-door

from the kitchen quarter then reached their ears, and Viviette went into

the corridor to hearken more attentively. In a few minutes she returned

to the wardrobe-room in which she had left Swithin.

'Yes; it is my brother!' she said with difficult composure. 'I just

caught his voice. He has no doubt come back from Paris to stay. This is

a rather vexatious, indolent way he has, never to write to prepare me!'

'I can easily go away,' said Swithin.

By this time, however, her brother had been shown into the house, and the

footsteps of the page were audible, coming in search of Lady Constantine.

'If you will wait there a moment,' she said, directing St. Cleeve into a

bedchamber which adjoined; 'you will be quite safe from interruption, and

I will quickly come back.' Taking the light she left him.

Swithin waited in darkness. Not more than ten minutes had passed when a

whisper in her voice came through the keyhole. He opened the door.

'Yes; he is come to stay!' she said. 'He is at supper now.'

'Very well; don't be flurried, dearest. Shall I stay too, as we

planned?'

'O, Swithin, I fear not!' she replied anxiously. 'You see how it is. To-

night we have broken the arrangement that you should never come here; and

this is the result. Will it offend you if--I ask you to leave?'

'Not in the least. Upon the whole, I prefer the comfort of my little

cabin and homestead to the gauntness and alarms of this place.'

'There, now, I fear you are offended!' she said, a tear collecting in her

eye. 'I wish I was going back with you to the cabin! How happy we were,

those three days of our stay there! But it is better, perhaps, just now,

that you should leave me. Yes, these rooms are oppressive. They require

a large household to make them cheerful. . . . Yet, Swithin,' she added,

after reflection, 'I will not request you to go. Do as you think best. I

will light a night-light, and leave you here to consider. For myself, I

must go downstairs to my brother at once, or he'll wonder what I am

doing.'

She kindled the little light, and again retreated, closing the door upon

him.

Swithin stood and waited some time; till he considered that upon the

whole it would be preferable to leave. With this intention he emerged

and went softly along the dark passage towards the extreme end, where

there was a little crooked staircase that would conduct him down to a

disused side door. Descending this stair he duly arrived at the other

side of the house, facing the quarter whence the wind blew, and here he

was surprised to catch the noise of rain beating against the windows. It

was a state of weather which fully accounted for the visitor's impatient

ringing.

St. Cleeve was in a minor kind of dilemma. The rain reminded him that

his hat and great-coat had been left downstairs, in the front part of the

house; and though he might have gone home without either in ordinary

weather it was not a pleasant feat in the pelting winter rain. Retracing

his steps to Viviette's room he took the light, and opened a closet-door

that he had seen ajar on his way down. Within the closet hung various

articles of apparel, upholstery lumber of all kinds filling the back

part. Swithin thought he might find here a cloak of hers to throw round

him, but finally took down from a peg a more suitable garment, the only

one of the sort that was there. It was an old moth-eaten great-coat,

heavily trimmed with fur; and in removing it a companion cap of sealskin

was disclosed.

'Whose can they be?' he thought, and a gloomy answer suggested itself.

'Pooh,' he then said (summoning the scientific side of his nature),

'matter is matter, and mental association only a delusion.' Putting on

the garments he returned the light to Lady Constantine's bedroom, and

again prepared to depart as before.

Scarcely, however, had he regained the corridor a second time, when he

heard a light footstep--seemingly Viviette's--again on the front landing.

Wondering what she wanted with him further he waited, taking the

precaution to step into the closet till sure it was she.

The figure came onward, bent to the keyhole of the bedroom door, and

whispered (supposing him still inside), 'Swithin, on second thoughts I

think you may stay with safety.'

Having no further doubt of her personality he came out with thoughtless

abruptness from the closet behind her, and looking round suddenly she

beheld his shadowy fur-clad outline. At once she raised her hands in

horror, as if to protect herself from him; she uttered a shriek, and

turned shudderingly to the wall, covering her face.

Swithin would have picked her up in a moment, but by this time he could

hear footsteps rushing upstairs, in response to her cry. In

consternation, and with a view of not compromising her, he effected his

retreat as fast as possible, reaching the bend of the corridor just as

her brother Louis appeared with a light at the other extremity.

'What's the matter, for heaven's sake, Viviette?' said Louis.

'My husband!' she involuntarily exclaimed.

'What nonsense!'

'O yes, it is nonsense,' she added, with an effort. 'It was nothing.'

'But what was the cause of your cry?'

She had by this time recovered her reason and judgment. 'O, it was a

trick of the imagination,' she said, with a faint laugh. 'I live so much

alone that I get superstitious--and--I thought for the moment I saw an

apparition.'

'Of your late husband?'

'Yes. But it was nothing; it was the outline of the--tall clock and the

chair behind. Would you mind going down, and leaving me to go into my

room for a moment?'

She entered the bedroom, and her brother went downstairs. Swithin

thought it best to leave well alone, and going noiselessly out of the

house plodded through the rain homeward. It was plain that agitations of

one sort and another had so weakened Viviette's nerves as to lay her open

to every impression. That the clothes he had borrowed were some cast-off

garments of the late Sir Blount had occurred to St. Cleeve in taking

them; but in the moment of returning to her side he had forgotten this,

and the shape they gave to his figure had obviously been a reminder of

too sudden a sort for her. Musing thus he walked along as if he were

still, as before, the lonely student, dissociated from all mankind, and

with no shadow of right or interest in Welland House or its mistress.

The great-coat and cap were unpleasant companions; but Swithin having

been reared, or having reared himself, in the scientific school of

thought, would not give way to his sense of their weirdness. To do so

would have been treason to his own beliefs and aims.

When nearly home, at a point where his track converged on another path,

there approached him from the latter a group of indistinct forms. The

tones of their speech revealed them to be Hezzy Biles, Nat Chapman, Fry,

and other labourers. Swithin was about to say a word to them, till

recollecting his disguise he deemed it advisable to hold his tongue, lest

his attire should tell a too dangerous tale as to where he had come from.

By degrees they drew closer, their walk being in the same direction.

'Good-night, strainger,' said Nat.

The stranger did not reply.

All of them paced on abreast of him, and he could perceive in the gloom

that their faces were turned inquiringly upon his form. Then a whisper

passed from one to another of them; then Chapman, who was the boldest,

dropped immediately behind his heels, and followed there for some

distance, taking close observations of his outline, after which the men

grouped again and whispered. Thinking it best to let them pass on

Swithin slackened his pace, and they went ahead of him, apparently

without much reluctance.

There was no doubt that they had been impressed by the clothes he wore;

and having no wish to provoke similar comments from his grandmother and

Hannah, Swithin took the precaution, on arriving at Welland Bottom, to

enter the homestead by the outhouse. Here he deposited the cap and coat

in secure hiding, afterwards going round to the front and opening the

door in the usual way.

In the entry he met Hannah, who said--

'Only to hear what have been seed to-night, Mr. Swithin! The work-folk

have dropped in to tell us!'

In the kitchen were the men who had outstripped him on the road. Their

countenances, instead of wearing the usual knotty irregularities, had a

smoothed-out expression of blank concern. Swithin's entrance was

unobtrusive and quiet, as if he had merely come down from his study

upstairs, and they only noticed him by enlarging their gaze, so as to

include him in the audience.

'We was in a deep talk at the moment,' continued Blore, 'and Natty had

just brought up that story about old Jeremiah Paddock's crossing the park

one night at one o'clock in the morning, and seeing Sir Blount a-shutting

my lady out-o'-doors; and we was saying that it seemed a true return that

he should perish in a foreign land; when we happened to look up, and

there was Sir Blount a-walking along.'

'Did it overtake you, or did you overtake it?' whispered Hannah

sepulchrally.

'I don't say 'twas _it_,' returned Sammy. 'God forbid that I should drag

in a resurrection word about what perhaps was still solid manhood, and

has to die! But he, or it, closed in upon us, as 'twere.'

'Yes, closed in upon us!' said Haymoss.

'And I said "Good-night, strainger,"' added Chapman.

'Yes, "Good-night, strainger,"--that wez yer words, Natty. I support ye

in it.'

'And then he closed in upon us still more.'

'We closed in upon he, rather,' said Chapman.

'Well, well; 'tis the same thing in such matters! And the form was Sir

Blount's. My nostrils told me, for--there, 'a smelled. Yes, I could

smell'n, being to leeward.'

'Lord, lord, what unwholesome scandal's this about the ghost of a

respectable gentleman?' said Mrs. Martin, who had entered from the

sitting-room.

'Now, wait, ma'am. I don't say 'twere a low smell, mind ye. 'Twere a

high smell, a sort of gamey flaviour, calling to mind venison and hare,

just as you'd expect of a great squire,--not like a poor man's 'natomy,

at all; and that was what strengthened my faith that 'twas Sir Blount.'

('The skins that old coat was made of,' ruminated Swithin.)

'Well, well; I've not held out against the figure o' starvation these

five-and-twenty year, on nine shillings a week, to be afeard of a walking

vapour, sweet or savoury,' said Hezzy. 'So here's home-along.'

'Bide a bit longer, and I'm going too,' continued Fry. 'Well, when I

found 'twas Sir Blount my spet dried up within my mouth; for neither

hedge nor bush were there for refuge against any foul spring 'a might

have made at us.'

''Twas very curious; but we had likewise a-mentioned his name just afore,

in talking of the confirmation that's shortly coming on,' said Hezzy.

'Is there soon to be a confirmation?'

'Yes. In this parish--the first time in Welland church for twenty years.

As I say, I had told 'em that he was confirmed the same year that I went

up to have it done, as I have very good cause to mind. When we went to

be examined, the pa'son said to me, "Rehearse the articles of thy

belief." Mr. Blount (as he was then) was nighest me, and he whispered,

"Women and wine." "Women and wine," says I to the pa'son: and for that I

was sent back till next confirmation, Sir Blount never owning that he was

the rascal.'

'Confirmation was a sight different at that time,' mused Biles. 'The

Bishops didn't lay it on so strong then as they do now. Now-a-days, yer

Bishop gies both hands to every Jack-rag and Tom-straw that drops the

knee afore him; but 'twas six chaps to one blessing when we was boys. The

Bishop o' that time would stretch out his palms and run his fingers over

our row of crowns as off-hand as a bank gentleman telling money. The

great lords of the Church in them days wasn't particular to a soul or two

more or less; and, for my part, I think living was easier for 't.'

'The new Bishop, I hear, is a bachelor-man; or a widow gentleman is it?'

asked Mrs. Martin.

'Bachelor, I believe, ma'am. Mr. San Cleeve, making so bold, you've

never faced him yet, I think?'

Mrs. Martin shook her head.

'No; it was a piece of neglect. I hardly know how it happened,' she

said.

'I am going to, this time,' said Swithin, and turned the chat to other

matters.

XXIII

Swithin could not sleep that night for thinking of his Viviette. Nothing

told so significantly of the conduct of her first husband towards the

poor lady as the abiding dread of him which was revealed in her by any

sudden revival of his image or memory. But for that consideration her

almost childlike terror at Swithin's inadvertent disguise would have been

ludicrous.

He waited anxiously through several following days for an opportunity of

seeing her, but none was afforded. Her brother's presence in the house

sufficiently accounted for this. At length he ventured to write a note,

requesting her to signal to him in a way she had done once or twice

before,--by pulling down a blind in a particular window of the house, one

of the few visible from the top of the Rings-Hill column; this to be done

on any evening when she could see him after dinner on the terrace.

When he had levelled the glass at that window for five successive nights

he beheld the blind in the position suggested. Three hours later, quite

in the dusk, he repaired to the place of appointment.

'My brother is away this evening,' she explained, 'and that's why I can

come out. He is only gone for a few hours, nor is he likely to go for

longer just yet. He keeps himself a good deal in my company, which has

made it unsafe for me to venture near you.'

'Has he any suspicion?'

'None, apparently. But he rather depresses me.'

'How, Viviette?' Swithin feared, from her manner, that this was

something serious.

'I would rather not tell.'

'But--Well, never mind.'

'Yes, Swithin, I will tell you. There should be no secrets between us.

He urges upon me the necessity of marrying, day after day.'

'For money and position, of course.'

'Yes. But I take no notice. I let him go on.'

'Really, this is sad!' said the young man. 'I must work harder than

ever, or you will never be able to own me.'

'O yes, in good time!' she cheeringly replied.

'I shall be very glad to have you always near me. I felt the gloom of

our position keenly when I was obliged to disappear that night, without

assuring you it was only I who stood there. Why were you so frightened

at those old clothes I borrowed?'

'Don't ask,--don't ask!' she said, burying her face on his shoulder. 'I

don't want to speak of that. There was something so ghastly and so

uncanny in your putting on such garments that I wish you had been more

thoughtful, and had left them alone.'

He assured her that he did not stop to consider whose they were. 'By the

way, they must be sent back,' he said.

'No; I never wish to see them again! I cannot help feeling that your

putting them on was ominous.'

'Nothing is ominous in serene philosophy,' he said, kissing her. 'Things

are either causes, or they are not causes. When can you see me again?'

In such wise the hour passed away. The evening was typical of others

which followed it at irregular intervals through the winter. And during

the intenser months of the season frequent falls of snow lengthened, even

more than other difficulties had done, the periods of isolation between

the pair. Swithin adhered with all the more strictness to the letter of

his promise not to intrude into the house, from his sense of her

powerlessness to compel him to keep out should he choose to rebel. A

student of the greatest forces in nature, he had, like many others of his

sort, no personal force to speak of in a social point of view, mainly

because he took no interest in human ranks and formulas; and hence he was

as docile as a child in her hands wherever matters of that kind were

concerned.

Her brother wintered at Welland; but whether because his experience of

tropic climes had unfitted him for the brumal rigours of Britain, or for

some other reason, he seldom showed himself out of doors, and Swithin

caught but passing glimpses of him. Now and then Viviette's impulsive

affection would overcome her sense of risk, and she would press Swithin

to call on her at all costs. This he would by no means do. It was

obvious to his more logical mind that the secrecy to which they had bound

themselves must be kept in its fulness, or might as well be abandoned

altogether.

He was now sadly exercised on the subject of his uncle's will. There had

as yet been no pressing reasons for a full and candid reply to the

solicitor who had communicated with him, owing to the fact that the

payments were not to begin till Swithin was one-and-twenty; but time was

going on, and something definite would have to be done soon. To own to

his marriage and consequent disqualification for the bequest was easy in

itself; but it involved telling at least one man what both Viviette and

himself had great reluctance in telling anybody. Moreover he wished

Viviette to know nothing of his loss in making her his wife. All he

could think of doing for the present was to write a postponing letter to

his uncle's lawyer, and wait events.

The one comfort of this dreary winter-time was his perception of a

returning ability to work with the regularity and much of the spirit of

earlier days.

* * * * *

One bright night in April there was an eclipse of the moon, and Mr.

Torkingham, by arrangement, brought to the observatory several labouring

men and boys, to whom he had promised a sight of the phenomenon through

the telescope. The coming confirmation, fixed for May, was again talked

of; and St. Cleeve learnt from the parson that the Bishop had arranged to

stay the night at the vicarage, and was to be invited to a grand luncheon

at Welland House immediately after the ordinance.

This seemed like a going back into life again as regarded the mistress of

that house; and St. Cleeve was a little surprised that, in his

communications with Viviette, she had mentioned no such probability. The

next day he walked round the mansion, wondering how in its present state

any entertainment could be given therein.

He found that the shutters had been opened, which had restored an

unexpected liveliness to the aspect of the windows. Two men were putting

a chimney-pot on one of the chimney-stacks, and two more were scraping

green mould from the front wall. He made no inquiries on that occasion.

Three days later he strolled thitherward again. Now a great cleaning of

window-panes was going on, Hezzy Biles and Sammy Blore being the

operators, for which purpose their services must have been borrowed from

the neighbouring farmer. Hezzy dashed water at the glass with a force

that threatened to break it in, the broad face of Sammy being discernible

inside, smiling at the onset. In addition to these, Anthony Green and

another were weeding the gravel walks, and putting fresh plants into the

flower-beds. Neither of these reasonable operations was a great

undertaking, singly looked at; but the life Viviette had latterly led and

the mood in which she had hitherto regarded the premises, rendered it

somewhat significant. Swithin, however, was rather curious than

concerned at the proceedings, and returned to his tower with feelings of

interest not entirely confined to the worlds overhead.

Lady Constantine may or may not have seen him from the house; but the

same evening, which was fine and dry, while he was occupying himself in

the observatory with cleaning the eye-pieces of the equatorial, skull-cap

on head, observing-jacket on, and in other ways primed for sweeping, the

customary stealthy step on the winding staircase brought her form in due

course into the rays of the bull's-eye lantern. The meeting was all the

more pleasant to him from being unexpected, and he at once lit up a

larger lamp in honour of the occasion.

'It is but a hasty visit,' she said when, after putting up her mouth to

be kissed, she had seated herself in the low chair used for observations,

panting a little with the labour of ascent. 'But I hope to be able to

come more freely soon. My brother is still living on with me. Yes, he

is going to stay until the confirmation is over. After the confirmation

he will certainly leave. So good it is of you, dear, to please me by

agreeing to the ceremony. The Bishop, you know, is going to lunch with

us. It is a wonder he has promised to come, for he is a man averse to

society, and mostly keeps entirely with the clergy on these confirmation

tours, or circuits, or whatever they call them. But Mr. Torkingham's

house is so very small, and mine is so close at hand, that this

arrangement to relieve him of the fuss of one meal, at least, naturally

suggested itself; and the Bishop has fallen in with it very readily. How

are you getting on with your observations? Have you not wanted me

dreadfully, to write down notes?'

'Well, I have been obliged to do without you, whether or no. See

here,--how much I have done.' And he showed her a book ruled in columns,

headed 'Object,' 'Right Ascension,' 'Declination,' 'Features,' 'Remarks,'

and so on.

She looked over this and other things, but her mind speedily winged its

way back to the confirmation. 'It is so new to me,' she said, 'to have

persons coming to the house, that I feel rather anxious. I hope the

luncheon will be a success.'

'You know the Bishop?' said Swithin.

'I have not seen him for many years. I knew him when I was quite a girl,

and he held the little living of Puddle-sub-Mixen, near us; but after

that time, and ever since I have lived here, I have seen nothing of him.

There has been no confirmation in this village, they say, for twenty

years. The other bishop used to make the young men and women go to

Warborne; he wouldn't take the trouble to come to such an out-of-the-way

parish as ours.'

'This cleaning and preparation that I observe going on must be rather a

tax upon you?'

'My brother Louis sees to it, and, what is more, bears the expense.'

'Your brother?' said Swithin, with surprise.

'Well, he insisted on doing so,' she replied, in a hesitating, despondent

tone. 'He has been active in the whole matter, and was the first to

suggest the invitation. I should not have thought of it.'

'Well, I will hold aloof till it is all over.'

'Thanks, dearest, for your considerateness. I wish it was not still

advisable! But I shall see you on the day, and watch my own philosopher

all through the service from the corner of my pew! . . . I hope you are

well prepared for the rite, Swithin?' she added, turning tenderly to him.

'It would perhaps be advisable for you to give up this astronomy till the

confirmation is over, in order to devote your attention exclusively to

that more serious matter.'

'More serious! Well, I will do the best I can. I am sorry to see that

you are less interested in astronomy than you used to be, Viviette.'

'No; it is only that these preparations for the Bishop unsettle my mind

from study. Now put on your other coat and hat, and come with me a

little way.'

XXIV

The morning of the confirmation was come. It was mid-May time, bringing

with it weather not, perhaps, quite so blooming as that assumed to be

natural to the month by the joyous poets of three hundred years ago; but

a very tolerable, well-wearing May, that the average rustic would

willingly have compounded for in lieu of Mays occasionally fairer, but

usually more foul.

Among the larger shrubs and flowers which composed the outworks of the

Welland gardens, the lilac, the laburnum, and the guelder-rose hung out

their respective colours of purple, yellow, and white; whilst within

these, belted round from every disturbing gale, rose the columbine, the

peony, the larkspur, and the Solomon's seal. The animate things that

moved amid this scene of colour were plodding bees, gadding butterflies,

and numerous sauntering young feminine candidates for the impending

confirmation, who, having gaily bedecked themselves for the ceremony,

were enjoying their own appearance by walking about in twos and threes

till it was time to start.

Swithin St. Cleeve, whose preparations were somewhat simpler than those

of the village belles, waited till his grandmother and Hannah had set

out, and then, locking the door, followed towards the distant church. On

reaching the churchyard gate he met Mr. Torkingham, who shook hands with

him in the manner of a man with several irons in the fire, and telling

Swithin where to sit, disappeared to hunt up some candidates who had not

yet made themselves visible.

Casting his eyes round for Viviette, and seeing nothing of her, Swithin

went on to the church porch, and looked in. From the north side of the

nave smiled a host of girls, gaily uniform in dress, age, and a temporary

repression of their natural tendency to 'skip like a hare over the meshes

of good counsel.' Their white muslin dresses, their round white caps,

from beneath whose borders hair-knots and curls of various shades of

brown escaped upon their low shoulders, as if against their will, lighted

up the dark pews and grey stone-work to an unwonted warmth and life. On

the south side were the young men and boys,--heavy, angular, and massive,

as indeed was rather necessary, considering what they would have to bear

at the hands of wind and weather before they returned to that mouldy nave

for the last time.

Over the heads of all these he could see into the chancel to the square

pew on the north side, which was attached to Welland House. There he

discerned Lady Constantine already arrived, her brother Louis sitting by

her side.

Swithin entered and seated himself at the end of a bench, and she, who

had been on the watch, at once showed by subtle signs her consciousness

of the presence of the young man who had reversed the ordained sequence

of the Church services on her account. She appeared in black attire,

though not strictly in mourning, a touch of red in her bonnet setting off

the richness of her complexion without making her gay. Handsomest woman

in the church she decidedly was; and yet a disinterested spectator who

had known all the circumstances would probably have felt that, the future

considered, Swithin's more natural mate would have been one of the muslin-

clad maidens who were to be presented to the Bishop with him that day.

When the Bishop had arrived and gone into the chancel, and blown his

nose, the congregation were sufficiently impressed by his presence to

leave off looking at one another.

The Right Reverend Cuthbert Helmsdale, D.D., ninety-fourth occupant of

the episcopal throne of the diocese, revealed himself to be a personage

of dark complexion, whose darkness was thrown still further into

prominence by the lawn protuberances that now rose upon his two shoulders

like the Eastern and Western hemispheres. In stature he seemed to be

tall and imposing, but something of this aspect may have been derived

from his robes.

The service was, as usual, of a length which severely tried the tarrying

powers of the young people assembled; and it was not till the youth of

all the other parishes had gone up that the turn came for the Welland

bevy. Swithin and some older ones were nearly the last. When, at the

heels of Mr. Torkingham, he passed Lady Constantine's pew, he lifted his

eyes from the red lining of that gentleman's hood sufficiently high to

catch hers. She was abstracted, tearful, regarding him with all the rapt

mingling of religion, love, fervour, and hope which such women can feel

at such times, and which men know nothing of. How fervidly she watched

the Bishop place his hand on her beloved youth's head; how she saw the

great episcopal ring glistening in the sun among Swithin's brown curls;

how she waited to hear if Dr. Helmsdale uttered the form 'this thy child'

which he used for the younger ones, or 'this thy servant' which he used

for those older; and how, when he said, 'this thy _child_,' she felt a

prick of conscience, like a person who had entrapped an innocent youth

into marriage for her own gratification, till she remembered that she had

raised his social position thereby,--all this could only have been told

in its entirety by herself.

As for Swithin, he felt ashamed of his own utter lack of the high

enthusiasm which beamed so eloquently from her eyes. When he passed her

again, on the return journey from the Bishop to his seat, her face was

warm with a blush which her brother might have observed had he regarded

her.

Whether he had observed it or not, as soon as St. Cleeve had sat himself

down again Louis Glanville turned and looked hard at the young

astronomer. This was the first time that St. Cleeve and Viviette's

brother had been face to face in a distinct light, their first meeting

having occurred in the dusk of a railway-station. Swithin was not in the

habit of noticing people's features; he scarcely ever observed any detail

of physiognomy in his friends, a generalization from their whole aspect

forming his idea of them; and he now only noted a young man of perhaps

thirty, who lolled a good deal, and in whose small dark eyes seemed to be

concentrated the activity that the rest of his frame decidedly lacked.

This gentleman's eyes were henceforward, to the end of the service,

continually fixed upon Swithin; but as this was their natural direction,

from the position of his seat, there was no great strangeness in the

circumstance.

Swithin wanted to say to Viviette, 'Now I hope you are pleased; I have

conformed to your ideas of my duty, leaving my fitness out of

consideration;' but as he could only see her bonnet and forehead it was

not possible even to look the intelligence. He turned to his left hand,

where the organ stood, with Miss Tabitha Lark seated behind it.

It being now sermon-time the youthful blower had fallen asleep over the

handle of his bellows, and Tabitha pulled out her handkerchief intending

to flap him awake with it. With the handkerchief tumbled out a whole

family of unexpected articles: a silver thimble; a photograph; a little

purse; a scent-bottle; some loose halfpence; nine green gooseberries; a

key. They rolled to Swithin's feet, and, passively obeying his first

instinct, he picked up as many of the articles as he could find, and

handed them to her amid the smiles of the neighbours.

Tabitha was half-dead with humiliation at such an event, happening under

the very eyes of the Bishop on this glorious occasion; she turned pale as

a sheet, and could hardly keep her seat. Fearing she might faint,

Swithin, who had genuinely sympathized, bent over and whispered

encouragingly, 'Don't mind it, Tabitha. Shall I take you out into the

air?' She declined his offer, and presently the sermon came to an end.

Swithin lingered behind the rest of the congregation sufficiently long to

see Lady Constantine, accompanied by her brother, the Bishop, the

Bishop's chaplain, Mr. Torkingham, and several other clergy and ladies,

enter to the grand luncheon by the door which admitted from the

churchyard to the lawn of Welland House; the whole group talking with a

vivacity all the more intense, as it seemed, from the recent two hours'

enforced repression of their social qualities within the adjoining

building.

The young man stood till he was left quite alone in the churchyard, and

then went slowly homeward over the hill, perhaps a trifle depressed at

the impossibility of being near Viviette in this her one day of gaiety,

and joining in the conversation of those who surrounded her.

Not that he felt much jealousy of her situation, as his wife, in

comparison with his own. He had so clearly understood from the beginning

that, in the event of marriage, their outward lives were to run on as

before, that to rebel now would have been unmanly in himself and cruel to

her, by adding to embarrassments that were great enough already. His

momentary doubt was of his own strength to achieve sufficiently high

things to render him, in relation to her, other than a patronized young

favourite, whom she had married at an immense sacrifice of position. Now,

at twenty, he was doomed to isolation even from a wife; could it be that

at, say thirty, he would be welcomed everywhere?

But with motion through the sun and air his mood assumed a lighter

complexion, and on reaching home he remembered with interest that Venus

was in a favourable aspect for observation that afternoon.

XXV

Meanwhile the interior of Welland House was rattling with the progress of

the ecclesiastical luncheon.

The Bishop, who sat at Lady Constantine's side, seemed enchanted with her

company, and from the beginning she engrossed his attention almost

entirely. The truth was that the circumstance of her not having her

whole soul centred on the success of the repast and the pleasure of

Bishop Helmsdale, imparted to her, in a great measure, the mood to ensure

both. Her brother Louis it was who had laid out the plan of entertaining

the Bishop, to which she had assented but indifferently. She was

secretly bound to another, on whose career she had staked all her

happiness. Having thus other interests she evinced to-day the ease of

one who hazards nothing, and there was no sign of that preoccupation with

housewifely contingencies which so often makes the hostess hardly

recognizable as the charming woman who graced a friend's home the day

before. In marrying Swithin Lady Constantine had played her

card,--recklessly, impulsively, ruinously, perhaps; but she had played

it; it could not be withdrawn; and she took this morning's luncheon as an

episode that could result in nothing to her beyond the day's

entertainment.

Hence, by that power of indirectness to accomplish in an hour what

strenuous aiming will not effect in a life-time, she fascinated the

Bishop to an unprecedented degree. A bachelor, he rejoiced in the

commanding period of life that stretches between the time of waning

impulse and the time of incipient dotage, when a woman can reach the male

heart neither by awakening a young man's passion nor an old man's

infatuation. He must be made to admire, or he can be made to do nothing.

Unintentionally that is how Viviette operated on her guest.

Lady Constantine, to external view, was in a position to desire many

things, and of a sort to desire them. She was obviously, by nature,

impulsive to indiscretion. But instead of exhibiting activities to

correspond, recently gratified affection lent to her manner just now a

sweet serenity, a truly Christian contentment, which it puzzled the

learned Bishop exceedingly to find in a warm young widow, and increased

his interest in her every moment. Thus matters stood when the

conversation veered round to the morning's confirmation.

'That was a singularly engaging young man who came up among Mr.

Torkingham's candidates,' said the Bishop to her somewhat abruptly.

But abruptness does not catch a woman without her wit. 'Which one?' she

said innocently.

'That youth with the "corn-coloured" hair, as a poet of the new school

would call it, who sat just at the side of the organ. Do you know who he

is?'

In answering Viviette showed a little nervousness, for the first time

that day.

'O yes. He is the son of an unfortunate gentleman who was formerly

curate here,--a Mr. St. Cleeve.'

'I never saw a handsomer young man in my life,' said the Bishop. Lady

Constantine blushed. 'There was a lack of self-consciousness, too, in

his manner of presenting himself, which very much won me. A Mr. St.

Cleeve, do you say? A curate's son? His father must have been St.

Cleeve of All Angels, whom I knew. How comes he to be staying on here?

What is he doing?'

Mr. Torkingham, who kept one ear on the Bishop all the lunch-time,

finding that Lady Constantine was not ready with an answer, hastened to

reply: 'Your lordship is right. His father was an All Angels' man. The

youth is rather to be pitied.'

'He was a man of talent,' affirmed the Bishop. 'But I quite lost sight

of him.'

'He was curate to the late vicar,' resumed the parson, 'and was much

liked by the parish: but, being erratic in his tastes and tendencies, he

rashly contracted a marriage with the daughter of a farmer, and then

quarrelled with the local gentry for not taking up his wife. This lad

was an only child. There was enough money to educate him, and he is

sufficiently well provided for to be independent of the world so long as

he is content to live here with great economy. But of course this gives

him few opportunities of bettering himself.'

'Yes, naturally,' replied the Bishop of Melchester. 'Better have been

left entirely dependent on himself. These half-incomes do men little

good, unless they happen to be either weaklings or geniuses.'

Lady Constantine would have given the world to say, 'He is a genius, and

the hope of my life;' but it would have been decidedly risky, and in

another moment was unnecessary, for Mr. Torkingham said, 'There is a

certain genius in this young man, I sometimes think.'

'Well, he really looks quite out of the common,' said the Bishop.

'Youthful genius is sometimes disappointing,' observed Viviette, not

believing it in the least.

'Yes,' said the Bishop. 'Though it depends, Lady Constantine, on what

you understand by disappointing. It may produce nothing visible to the

world's eye, and yet may complete its development within to a very

perfect degree. Objective achievements, though the only ones which are

counted, are not the only ones that exist and have value; and I for one

should be sorry to assert that, because a man of genius dies as unknown

to the world as when he was born, he therefore was an instance of wasted

material.'

Objective achievements were, however, those that Lady Constantine had a

weakness for in the present case, and she asked her more experienced

guest if he thought early development of a special talent a good sign in

youth.

The Bishop thought it well that a particular bent should not show itself

too early, lest disgust should result.

'Still,' argued Lady Constantine rather firmly (for she felt this opinion

of the Bishop's to be one throwing doubt on Swithin), 'sustained fruition

is compatible with early bias. Tycho Brahe showed quite a passion for

the solar system when he was but a youth, and so did Kepler; and James

Ferguson had a surprising knowledge of the stars by the time he was

eleven or twelve.'

'Yes; sustained fruition,' conceded the Bishop (rather liking the words),

'is certainly compatible with early bias. Fenelon preached at fourteen.'

'He--Mr. St. Cleeve--is not in the church,' said Lady Constantine.

'He is a scientific young man, my lord,' explained Mr. Torkingham.

'An astronomer,' she added, with suppressed pride.

'An astronomer! Really, that makes him still more interesting than being

handsome and the son of a man I knew. How and where does he study

astronomy?'

'He has a beautiful observatory. He has made use of an old column that

was erected on this manor to the memory of one of the Constantines. It

has been very ingeniously adapted for his purpose, and he does very good

work there. I believe he occasionally sends up a paper to the Royal

Society, or Greenwich, or somewhere, and to astronomical periodicals.'

'I should have had no idea, from his boyish look, that he had advanced so

far,' the Bishop answered. 'And yet I saw on his face that within there

was a book worth studying. His is a career I should very much like to

watch.'

A thrill of pleasure chased through Lady Constantine's heart at this

praise of her chosen one. It was an unwitting compliment to her taste

and discernment in singling him out for her own, despite its temporary

inexpediency.

Her brother Louis now spoke. 'I fancy he is as interested in one of his

fellow-creatures as in the science of astronomy,' observed the cynic

dryly.

'In whom?' said Lady Constantine quickly.

'In the fair maiden who sat at the organ,--a pretty girl, rather. I

noticed a sort of by-play going on between them occasionally, during the

sermon, which meant mating, if I am not mistaken.'

'She!' said Lady Constantine. 'She is only a village girl, a dairyman's

daughter,--Tabitha Lark, who used to come to read to me.'

'She may be a savage, for all that I know: but there is something between

those two young people, nevertheless.'

The Bishop looked as if he had allowed his interest in a stranger to

carry him too far, and Mr. Torkingham was horrified at the irreverent and

easy familiarity of Louis Glanville's talk in the presence of a

consecrated bishop. As for Viviette, her tongue lost all its volubility.

She felt quite faint at heart, and hardly knew how to control herself.

'I have never noticed anything of the sort,' said Mr. Torkingham.

'It would be a matter for regret,' said the Bishop, 'if he should follow

his father in forming an attachment that would be a hindrance to him in

any honourable career; though perhaps an early marriage, intrinsically

considered, would not be bad for him. A youth who looks as if he had

come straight from old Greece may be exposed to many temptations, should

he go out into the world without a friend or counsellor to guide him.'

Despite her sudden jealousy Viviette's eyes grew moist at the picture of

her innocent Swithin going into the world without a friend or counsellor.

But she was sick in soul and disquieted still by Louis's dreadful

remarks, who, unbeliever as he was in human virtue, could have no reason

whatever for representing Swithin as engaged in a private love affair if

such were not his honest impression.

She was so absorbed during the remainder of the luncheon that she did not

even observe the kindly light that her presence was shedding on the right

reverend ecclesiastic by her side. He reflected it back in tones duly

mellowed by his position; the minor clergy caught up the rays thereof,

and so the gentle influence played down the table.

The company soon departed when luncheon was over, and the remainder of

the day passed in quietness, the Bishop being occupied in his room at the

vicarage with writing letters or a sermon. Having a long journey before

him the next day he had expressed a wish to be housed for the night

without ceremony, and would have dined alone with Mr. Torkingham but

that, by a happy thought, Lady Constantine and her brother were asked to

join them.

However, when Louis crossed the churchyard and entered the vicarage

drawing-room at seven o'clock, his sister was not in his company. She

was, he said, suffering from a slight headache, and much regretted that

she was on that account unable to come. At this intelligence the social

sparkle disappeared from the Bishop's eye, and he sat down to table,

endeavouring to mould into the form of episcopal serenity an expression

which was really one of common human disappointment.

In his simple statement Louis Glanville had by no means expressed all the

circumstances which accompanied his sister's refusal, at the last moment,

to dine at her neighbour's house. Louis had strongly urged her to bear

up against her slight indisposition--if it were that, and not

disinclination--and come along with him on just this one occasion,

perhaps a more important episode in her life than she was aware of.

Viviette thereupon knew quite well that he alluded to the favourable

impression she was producing on the Bishop, notwithstanding that neither

of them mentioned the Bishop's name. But she did not give way, though

the argument waxed strong between them; and Louis left her in no very

amiable mood, saying, 'I don't believe you have any more headache than I

have, Viviette. It is some provoking whim of yours--nothing more.'

In this there was a substratum of truth. When her brother had left her,

and she had seen him from the window entering the vicarage gate, Viviette

seemed to be much relieved, and sat down in her bedroom till the evening

grew dark, and only the lights shining through the trees from the

parsonage dining-room revealed to the eye where that dwelling stood. Then

she arose, and putting on the cloak she had used so many times before for

the same purpose, she locked her bedroom door (to be supposed within, in

case of the accidental approach of a servant), and let herself privately

out of the house.

Lady Constantine paused for a moment under the vicarage windows, till she

could sufficiently well hear the voices of the diners to be sure that

they were actually within, and then went on her way, which was towards

the Rings-Hill column. She appeared a mere spot, hardly distinguishable

from the grass, as she crossed the open ground, and soon became absorbed

in the black mass of the fir plantation.

Meanwhile the conversation at Mr. Torkingham's dinner-table was not of a

highly exhilarating quality. The parson, in long self-communing during

the afternoon, had decided that the Diocesan Synod, whose annual session

at Melchester had occurred in the month previous, would afford a solid

and unimpeachable subject to launch during the meal, whenever

conversation flagged; and that it would be one likely to win the respect

of his spiritual chieftain for himself as the introducer. Accordingly,

in the further belief that you could not have too much of a good thing,

Mr. Torkingham not only acted upon his idea, but at every pause rallied

to the synod point with unbroken firmness. Everything which had been

discussed at that last session--such as the introduction of the lay

element into the councils of the church, the reconstitution of the

ecclesiastical courts, church patronage, the tithe question--was revived

by Mr. Torkingham, and the excellent remarks which the Bishop had made in

his addresses on those subjects were quoted back to him.

As for Bishop Helmsdale himself, his instincts seemed to be to allude in

a debonair spirit to the incidents of the past day--to the flowers in

Lady Constantine's beds, the date of her house--perhaps with a view of

hearing a little more about their owner from Louis, who would very

readily have followed the Bishop's lead had the parson allowed him room.

But this Mr. Torkingham seldom did, and about half-past nine they

prepared to separate.

Louis Glanville had risen from the table, and was standing by the window,

looking out upon the sky, and privately yawning, the topics discussed

having been hardly in his line.

'A fine night,' he said at last.

'I suppose our young astronomer is hard at work now,' said the Bishop,

following the direction of Louis's glance towards the clear sky.

'Yes,' said the parson; 'he is very assiduous whenever the nights are

good for observation. I have occasionally joined him in his tower, and

looked through his telescope with great benefit to my ideas of celestial

phenomena. I have not seen what he has been doing lately.'

'Suppose we stroll that way?' said Louis. 'Would you be interested in

seeing the observatory, Bishop?'

'I am quite willing to go,' said the Bishop, 'if the distance is not too

great. I should not be at all averse to making the acquaintance of so

exceptional a young man as this Mr. St. Cleeve seems to be; and I have

never seen the inside of an observatory in my life.'

The intention was no sooner formed than it was carried out, Mr.

Torkingham leading the way.

XXVI

Half an hour before this time Swithin St. Cleeve had been sitting in his

cabin at the base of the column, working out some figures from

observations taken on preceding nights, with a view to a theory that he

had in his head on the motions of certain so-called fixed stars.

The evening being a little chilly a small fire was burning in the stove,

and this and the shaded lamp before him lent a remarkably cosy air to the

chamber. He was awakened from his reveries by a scratching at the window-

pane like that of the point of an ivy leaf, which he knew to be really

caused by the tip of his sweetheart-wife's forefinger. He rose and

opened the door to admit her, not without astonishment as to how she had

been able to get away from her friends.

'Dearest Viv, why, what's the matter?' he said, perceiving that her face,

as the lamplight fell on it, was sad, and even stormy.

'I thought I would run across to see you. I have heard something

so--so--to your discredit, and I know it can't be true! I know you are

constancy itself; but your constancy produces strange effects in people's

eyes!'

'Good heavens! Nobody has found us out--'

'No, no--it is not that. You know, Swithin, that I am always sincere,

and willing to own if I am to blame in anything. Now will you prove to

me that you are the same by owning some fault to me?'

'Yes, dear, indeed; directly I can think of one worth owning.'

'I wonder one does not rush upon your tongue in a moment!'

'I confess that I am sufficiently a Pharisee not to experience that

spontaneity.'

'Swithin, don't speak so affectedly, when you know so well what I mean!

Is it nothing to you that, after all our vows for life, you have thought

it right to--flirt with a village girl?'

'O Viviette!' interrupted Swithin, taking her hand, which was hot and

trembling. 'You who are full of noble and generous feelings, and regard

me with devoted tenderness that has never been surpassed by woman,--how

can you be so greatly at fault? _I_ flirt, Viviette? By thinking that

you injure yourself in my eyes. Why, I am so far from doing so that I

continually pull myself up for watching you too jealously, as to-day,

when I have been dreading the effect upon you of other company in my

absence, and thinking that you rather shut the gates against me when you

have big-wigs to entertain.'

'Do you, Swithin?' she cried. It was evident that the honest tone of his

words was having a great effect in clearing away the clouds. She added

with an uncertain smile, 'But how can I believe that, after what was seen

to-day? My brother, not knowing in the least that I had an iota of

interest in you, told me that he witnessed the signs of an attachment

between you and Tabitha Lark in church, this morning.'

'Ah!' cried Swithin, with a burst of laughter. 'Now I know what you

mean, and what has caused this misunderstanding! How good of you,

Viviette, to come at once and have it out with me, instead of brooding

over it with dark imaginings, and thinking bitter things of me, as many

women would have done!' He succinctly told the whole story of his little

adventure with Tabitha that morning; and the sky was clear on both sides.

'When shall I be able to claim you,' he added, 'and put an end to all

such painful accidents as these?'

She partially sighed. Her perception of what the outside world was made

of, latterly somewhat obscured by solitude and her lover's company, had

been revived to-day by her entertainment of the Bishop, clergymen, and,

more particularly, clergymen's wives; and it did not diminish her sense

of the difficulties in Swithin's path to see anew how little was thought

of the greatest gifts, mental and spiritual, if they were not backed up

by substantial temporalities. However, the pair made the best of their

future that circumstances permitted, and the interview was at length

drawing to a close when there came, without the slightest forewarning, a

smart rat-tat-tat upon the little door.

'O I am lost!' said Viviette, seizing his arm. 'Why was I so

incautious?'

'It is nobody of consequence,' whispered Swithin assuringly. 'Somebody

from my grandmother, probably, to know when I am coming home.'

They were unperceived so far, for the only window which gave light to the

hut was screened by a curtain. At that moment they heard the sound of

their visitors' voices, and, with a consternation as great as her own,

Swithin discerned the tones of Mr. Torkingham and the Bishop of

Melchester.

'Where shall I get? What shall I do?' said the poor lady, clasping her

hands.

Swithin looked around the cabin, and a very little look was required to

take in all its resources. At one end, as previously explained, were a

table, stove, chair, cupboard, and so on; while the other was completely

occupied by a diminutive Arabian bedstead, hung with curtains of pink-and-

white chintz. On the inside of the bed there was a narrow channel, about

a foot wide, between it and the wall of the hut. Into this cramped

retreat Viviette slid herself, and stood trembling behind the curtains.

By this time the knock had been repeated more loudly, the light through

the window-blind unhappily revealing the presence of some inmate. Swithin

threw open the door, and Mr. Torkingham introduced his visitors.

The Bishop shook hands with the young man, told him he had known his

father, and at Swithin's invitation, weak as it was, entered the cabin,

the vicar and Louis Glanville remaining on the threshold, not to

inconveniently crowd the limited space within.

Bishop Helmsdale looked benignantly around the apartment, and said,

'Quite a settlement in the backwoods--quite: far enough from the world to

afford the votary of science the seclusion he needs, and not so far as to

limit his resources. A hermit might apparently live here in as much

solitude as in a primeval forest.'

'His lordship has been good enough to express an interest in your

studies,' said Mr. Torkingham to St. Cleeve. 'And we have come to ask

you to let us see the observatory.'

'With great pleasure,' stammered Swithin.

'Where is the observatory?' inquired the Bishop, peering round again.

'The staircase is just outside this door,' Swithin answered. 'I am at

your lordship's service, and will show you up at once.'

'And this is your little bed, for use when you work late,' said the

Bishop.

'Yes; I am afraid it is rather untidy,' Swithin apologized.

'And here are your books,' the Bishop continued, turning to the table and

the shaded lamp. 'You take an observation at the top, I presume, and

come down here to record your observations.'

The young man explained his precise processes as well as his state of

mind would let him, and while he was doing so Mr. Torkingham and Louis

waited patiently without, looking sometimes into the night, and sometimes

through the door at the interlocutors, and listening to their scientific

converse. When all had been exhibited here below, Swithin lit his

lantern, and, inviting his visitors to follow, led the way up the column,

experiencing no small sense of relief as soon as he heard the footsteps

of all three tramping on the stairs behind him. He knew very well that,

once they were inside the spiral, Viviette was out of danger, her

knowledge of the locality enabling her to find her way with perfect

safety through the plantation, and into the park home.

At the top he uncovered his equatorial, and, for the first time at ease,

explained to them its beauties, and revealed by its help the glories of

those stars that were eligible for inspection. The Bishop spoke as

intelligently as could be expected on a topic not peculiarly his own;

but, somehow, he seemed rather more abstracted in manner now than when he

had arrived. Swithin thought that perhaps the long clamber up the

stairs, coming after a hard day's work, had taken his spontaneity out of

him, and Mr. Torkingham was afraid that his lordship was getting bored.

But this did not appear to be the case; for though he said little he

stayed on some time longer, examining the construction of the dome after

relinquishing the telescope; while occasionally Swithin caught the eyes

of the Bishop fixed hard on him.

'Perhaps he sees some likeness of my father in me,' the young man

thought; and the party making ready to leave at this time he conducted

them to the bottom of the tower.

Swithin was not prepared for what followed their descent. All were

standing at the foot of the staircase. The astronomer, lantern in hand,

offered to show them the way out of the plantation, to which Mr.

Torkingham replied that he knew the way very well, and would not trouble

his young friend. He strode forward with the words, and Louis followed

him, after waiting a moment and finding that the Bishop would not take

the precedence. The latter and Swithin were thus left together for one

moment, whereupon the Bishop turned.

'Mr. St. Cleeve,' he said in a strange voice, 'I should like to speak to

you privately, before I leave, to-morrow morning. Can you meet me--let

me see--in the churchyard, at half-past ten o'clock?'

'O yes, my lord, certainly,' said Swithin. And before he had recovered

from his surprise the Bishop had joined the others in the shades of the

plantation.

Swithin immediately opened the door of the hut, and scanned the nook

behind the bed. As he had expected his bird had flown.

XXVII

All night the astronomer's mind was on the stretch with curiosity as to

what the Bishop could wish to say to him. A dozen conjectures entered

his brain, to be abandoned in turn as unlikely. That which finally

seemed the most plausible was that the Bishop, having become interested

in his pursuits, and entertaining friendly recollections of his father,

was going to ask if he could do anything to help him on in the profession

he had chosen. Should this be the case, thought the suddenly sanguine

youth, it would seem like an encouragement to that spirit of firmness

which had led him to reject his late uncle's offer because it involved

the renunciation of Lady Constantine.

At last he fell asleep; and when he awoke it was so late that the hour

was ready to solve what conjecture could not. After a hurried breakfast

he paced across the fields, entering the churchyard by the south gate

precisely at the appointed minute.

The inclosure was well adapted for a private interview, being bounded by

bushes of laurel and alder nearly on all sides. He looked round; the

Bishop was not there, nor any living creature save himself. Swithin sat

down upon a tombstone to await Bishop Helmsdale's arrival.

While he sat he fancied he could hear voices in conversation not far off,

and further attention convinced him that they came from Lady

Constantine's lawn, which was divided from the churchyard by a high wall

and shrubbery only. As the Bishop still delayed his coming, though the

time was nearly eleven, and as the lady whose sweet voice mingled with

those heard from the lawn was his personal property, Swithin became

exceedingly curious to learn what was going on within that screened

promenade. A way of doing so occurred to him. The key was in the church

door; he opened it, entered, and ascended to the ringers' loft in the

west tower. At the back of this was a window commanding a full view of

Viviette's garden front.

The flowers were all in gayest bloom, and the creepers on the walls of

the house were bursting into tufts of young green. A broad gravel-walk

ran from end to end of the facade, terminating in a large conservatory.

In the walk were three people pacing up and down. Lady Constantine's was

the central figure, her brother being on one side of her, and on the

other a stately form in a corded shovel-hat of glossy beaver and black

breeches. This was the Bishop. Viviette carried over her shoulder a

sunshade lined with red, which she twirled idly. They were laughing and

chatting gaily, and when the group approached the churchyard many of

their remarks entered the silence of the church tower through the

ventilator of the window.

The conversation was general, yet interesting enough to Swithin. At

length Louis stepped upon the grass and picked up something that had lain

there, which turned out to be a bowl: throwing it forward he took a

second, and bowled it towards the first, or jack. The Bishop, who seemed

to be in a sprightly mood, followed suit, and bowled one in a curve

towards the jack, turning and speaking to Lady Constantine as he

concluded the feat. As she had not left the gravelled terrace he raised

his voice, so that the words reached Swithin distinctly.

'Do you follow us?' he asked gaily.

'I am not skilful,' she said. 'I always bowl narrow.'

The Bishop meditatively paused.

'This moment reminds one of the scene in _Richard the Second_,' he said.

'I mean the Duke of York's garden, where the queen and her two ladies

play, and the queen says--

"What sport shall we devise here in this garden,

To drive away the heavy thought of care?"

To which her lady answers, "Madam, we'll play at bowls."'

'That's an unfortunate quotation for you,' said Lady Constantine; 'for if

I don't forget, the queen declines, saying, "Twill make me think the

world is full of rubs, and that my fortune runs against the bias."'

'Then I cite _mal a propos_. But it is an interesting old game, and

might have been played at that very date on this very green.'

The Bishop lazily bowled another, and while he was doing it Viviette's

glance rose by accident to the church tower window, where she recognized

Swithin's face. Her surprise was only momentary; and waiting till both

her companions' backs were turned she smiled and blew him a kiss. In

another minute she had another opportunity, and blew him another;

afterwards blowing him one a third time.

Her blowings were put a stop to by the Bishop and Louis throwing down the

bowls and rejoining her in the path, the house clock at the moment

striking half-past eleven.

'This is a fine way of keeping an engagement,' said Swithin to himself.

'I have waited an hour while you indulge in those trifles!'

He fumed, turned, and behold somebody was at his elbow: Tabitha Lark.

Swithin started, and said, 'How did you come here, Tabitha?'

'In the course of my calling, Mr. St. Cleeve,' said the smiling girl. 'I

come to practise on the organ. When I entered I saw you up here through

the tower arch, and I crept up to see what you were looking at. The

Bishop is a striking man, is he not?'

'Yes, rather,' said Swithin.

'I think he is much devoted to Lady Constantine, and I am glad of it.

Aren't you?'

'O yes--very,' said Swithin, wondering if Tabitha had seen the tender

little salutes between Lady Constantine and himself.

'I don't think she cares much for him,' added Tabitha judicially. 'Or,

even if she does, she could be got away from him in no time by a younger

man.'

'Pooh, that's nothing,' said Swithin impatiently.

Tabitha then remarked that her blower had not come to time, and that she

must go to look for him; upon which she descended the stairs, and left

Swithin again alone.

A few minutes later the Bishop suddenly looked at his watch, Lady

Constantine having withdrawn towards the house. Apparently apologizing

to Louis the Bishop came down the terrace, and through the door into the

churchyard. Swithin hastened downstairs and joined him in the path under

the sunny wall of the aisle.

Their glances met, and it was with some consternation that Swithin beheld

the change that a few short minutes had wrought in that episcopal

countenance. On the lawn with Lady Constantine the rays of an almost

perpetual smile had brightened his dark aspect like flowers in a shady

place: now the smile was gone as completely as yesterday; the lines of

his face were firm; his dark eyes and whiskers were overspread with

gravity; and, as he gazed upon Swithin from the repose of his stable

figure it was like an evangelized King of Spades come to have it out with

the Knave of Hearts.

* * * * *

To return for a moment to Louis Glanville. He had been somewhat struck

with the abruptness of the Bishop's departure, and more particularly by

the circumstance that he had gone away by the private door into the

churchyard instead of by the regular exit on the other side. True, great

men were known to suffer from absence of mind, and Bishop Helmsdale,

having a dim sense that he had entered by that door yesterday, might have

unconsciously turned thitherward now. Louis, upon the whole, thought

little of the matter, and being now left quite alone on the lawn, he

seated himself in an arbour and began smoking.

The arbour was situated against the churchyard wall. The atmosphere was

as still as the air of a hot-house; only fourteen inches of brickwork

divided Louis from the scene of the Bishop's interview with St. Cleeve,

and as voices on the lawn had been audible to Swithin in the churchyard,

voices in the churchyard could be heard without difficulty from that

close corner of the lawn. No sooner had Louis lit a cigar than the

dialogue began.

'Ah, you are here, St. Cleeve,' said the Bishop, hardly replying to

Swithin's good morning. 'I fear I am a little late. Well, my request to

you to meet me may have seemed somewhat unusual, seeing that we were

strangers till a few hours ago.'

'I don't mind that, if your lordship wishes to see me.'

'I thought it best to see you regarding your confirmation yesterday; and

my reason for taking a more active step with you than I should otherwise

have done is that I have some interest in you through having known your

father when we were undergraduates. His rooms were on the same staircase

with mine at All Angels, and we were friendly till time and affairs

separated us even more completely than usually happens. However, about

your presenting yourself for confirmation.' (The Bishop's voice grew

stern.) 'If I had known yesterday morning what I knew twelve hours

later, I wouldn't have confirmed you at all.'

'Indeed, my lord!'

'Yes, I say it, and I mean it. I visited your observatory last night.'

'You did, my lord.'

'In inspecting it I noticed something which I may truly describe as

extraordinary. I have had young men present themselves to me who turned

out to be notoriously unfit, either from giddiness, from being profane or

intemperate, or from some bad quality or other. But I never remember a

case which equalled the cool culpability of this. While infringing the

first principles of social decorum you might at least have respected the

ordinance sufficiently to have stayed away from it altogether. Now I

have sent for you here to see if a last entreaty and a direct appeal to

your sense of manly uprightness will have any effect in inducing you to

change your course of life.'

The voice of Swithin in his next remark showed how tremendously this

attack of the Bishop had told upon his feelings. Louis, of course, did

not know the reason why the words should have affected him precisely as

they did; to any one in the secret the double embarrassment arising from

misapprehended ethics and inability to set matters right, because his

word of secrecy to another was inviolable, would have accounted for the

young man's emotion sufficiently well.

'I am very sorry your lordship should have seen anything objectionable,'

said Swithin. 'May I ask what it was?'

'You know what it was. Something in your chamber, which forced me to the

above conclusions. I disguised my feelings of sorrow at the time for

obvious reasons, but I never in my whole life was so shocked!'

'At what, my lord?'

'At what I saw.'

'Pardon me, Bishop Helmsdale, but you said just now that we are

strangers; so what you saw in my cabin concerns me only.'

'There I contradict you. Twenty-four hours ago that remark would have

been plausible enough; but by presenting yourself for confirmation at my

hands you have invited my investigation into your principles.'

Swithin sighed. 'I admit it,' he said.

'And what do I find them?'

'You say reprehensible. But you might at least let me hear the proof!'

'I can do more, sir. I can let you see it!'

There was a pause. Louis Glanville was so highly interested that he

stood upon the seat of the arbour, and looked through the leafage over

the wall. The Bishop had produced an article from his pocket.

'What is it?' said Swithin, laboriously scrutinizing the thing.

'Why, don't you see?' said the Bishop, holding it out between his finger

and thumb in Swithin's face. 'A bracelet,--a coral bracelet. I found

the wanton object on the bed in your cabin! And of the sex of the owner

there can be no doubt. More than that, she was concealed behind the

curtains, for I saw them move.' In the decision of his opinion the

Bishop threw the coral bracelet down on a tombstone.

'Nobody was in my room, my lord, who had not a perfect right to be

there,' said the younger man.

'Well, well, that's a matter of assertion. Now don't get into a passion,

and say to me in your haste what you'll repent of saying afterwards.'

'I am not in a passion, I assure your lordship. I am too sad for

passion.'

'Very well; that's a hopeful sign. Now I would ask you, as one man of

another, do you think that to come to me, the Bishop of this large and

important diocese, as you came yesterday, and pretend to be something

that you are not, is quite upright conduct, leave alone religious? Think

it over. We may never meet again. But bear in mind what your Bishop and

spiritual head says to you, and see if you cannot mend before it is too

late.'

Swithin was meek as Moses, but he tried to appear sturdy. 'My lord, I am

in a difficult position,' he said mournfully; 'how difficult, nobody but

myself can tell. I cannot explain; there are insuperable reasons against

it. But will you take my word of assurance that I am not so bad as I

seem? Some day I will prove it. Till then I only ask you to suspend

your judgment on me.'

The Bishop shook his head incredulously and went towards the vicarage, as

if he had lost his hearing. Swithin followed him with his eyes, and

Louis followed the direction of Swithin's. Before the Bishop had reached

the vicarage entrance Lady Constantine crossed in front of him. She had

a basket on her arm, and was, in fact, going to visit some of the poorer

cottages. Who could believe the Bishop now to be the same man that he

had been a moment before? The darkness left his face as if he had come

out of a cave; his look was all sweetness, and shine, and gaiety, as he

again greeted Viviette.

XXVIII

The conversation which arose between the Bishop and Lady Constantine was

of that lively and reproductive kind which cannot be ended during any

reasonable halt of two people going in opposite directions. He turned,

and walked with her along the laurel-screened lane that bordered the

churchyard, till their voices died away in the distance. Swithin then

aroused himself from his thoughtful regard of them, and went out of the

churchyard by another gate.

Seeing himself now to be left alone on the scene, Louis Glanville

descended from his post of observation in the arbour. He came through

the private doorway, and on to that spot among the graves where the

Bishop and St. Cleeve had conversed. On the tombstone still lay the

coral bracelet which Dr. Helmsdale had flung down there in his

indignation; for the agitated, introspective mood into which Swithin had

been thrown had banished from his mind all thought of securing the

trinket and putting it in his pocket.

Louis picked up the little red scandal-breeding thing, and while walking

on with it in his hand he observed Tabitha Lark approaching the church,

in company with the young blower whom she had gone in search of to

inspire her organ-practising within. Louis immediately put together,

with that rare diplomatic keenness of which he was proud, the little

scene he had witnessed between Tabitha and Swithin during the

confirmation, and the Bishop's stern statement as to where he had found

the bracelet. He had no longer any doubt that it belonged to her.

'Poor girl!' he said to himself, and sang in an undertone--

'Tra deri, dera,

L'histoire n'est pas nouvelle!'

When she drew nearer Louis called her by name. She sent the boy into the

church, and came forward, blushing at having been called by so fine a

gentleman. Louis held out the bracelet.

'Here is something I have found, or somebody else has found,' he said to

her. 'I won't state where. Put it away, and say no more about it. I

will not mention it either. Now go on into the church where you are

going, and may Heaven have mercy on your soul, my dear.'

'Thank you, sir,' said Tabitha, with some perplexity, yet inclined to be

pleased, and only recognizing in the situation the fact that Lady

Constantine's humorous brother was making her a present.

'You are much obliged to me?'

'O yes!'

'Well, Miss Lark, I've discovered a secret, you see.'

'What may that be, Mr. Glanville?'

'That you are in love.'

'I don't admit it, sir. Who told you so?'

'Nobody. Only I put two and two together. Now take my advice. Beware

of lovers! They are a bad lot, and bring young women to tears.'

'Some do, I dare say. But some don't.'

'And you think that in your particular case the latter alternative will

hold good? We generally think we shall be lucky ourselves, though all

the world before us, in the same situation, have been otherwise.'

'O yes, or we should die outright of despair.'

'Well, I don't think you will be lucky in your case.'

'Please how do you know so much, since my case has not yet arrived?'

asked Tabitha, tossing her head a little disdainfully, but less than she

might have done if he had not obtained a charter for his discourse by

giving her the bracelet.

'Fie, Tabitha!'

'I tell you it has not arrived!' she said, with some anger. 'I have not

got a lover, and everybody knows I haven't, and it's an insinuating thing

for you to say so!'

Louis laughed, thinking how natural it was that a girl should so

emphatically deny circumstances that would not bear curious inquiry.

'Why, of course I meant myself,' he said soothingly. 'So, then, you will

not accept me?'

'I didn't know you meant yourself,' she replied. 'But I won't accept

you. And I think you ought not to jest on such subjects.'

'Well, perhaps not. However, don't let the Bishop see your bracelet, and

all will be well. But mind, lovers are deceivers.'

Tabitha laughed, and they parted, the girl entering the church. She had

been feeling almost certain that, having accidentally found the bracelet

somewhere, he had presented it in a whim to her as the first girl he met.

Yet now she began to have momentary doubts whether he had not been

labouring under a mistake, and had imagined her to be the owner. The

bracelet was not valuable; it was, in fact, a mere toy,--the pair of

which this was one being a little present made to Lady Constantine by

Swithin on the day of their marriage; and she had not worn them with

sufficient frequency out of doors for Tabitha to recognize either as

positively her ladyship's. But when, out of sight of the blower, the

girl momentarily tried it on, in a corner by the organ, it seemed to her

that the ornament was possibly Lady Constantine's. Now that the pink

beads shone before her eyes on her own arm she remembered having seen a

bracelet with just such an effect gracing the wrist of Lady Constantine

upon one occasion. A temporary self-surrender to the sophism that if Mr.

Louis Glanville chose to give away anything belonging to his sister, she,

Tabitha, had a right to take it without question, was soon checked by a

resolve to carry the tempting strings of coral to her ladyship that

evening, and inquire the truth about them. This decided on she slipped

the bracelet into her pocket, and played her voluntaries with a light

heart.

* * * * *

Bishop Helmsdale did not tear himself away from Welland till about two

o'clock that afternoon, which was three hours later than he had intended

to leave. It was with a feeling of relief that Swithin, looking from the

top of the tower, saw the carriage drive out from the vicarage into the

turnpike road, and whirl the right reverend gentleman again towards

Warborne. The coast being now clear of him Swithin meditated how to see

Viviette, and explain what had happened. With this in view he waited

where he was till evening came on.

Meanwhile Lady Constantine and her brother dined by themselves at Welland

House. They had not met since the morning, and as soon as they were left

alone Louis said, 'You have done very well so far; but you might have

been a little warmer.'

'Done well?' she asked, with surprise.

'Yes, with the Bishop. The difficult question is how to follow up our

advantage. How are you to keep yourself in sight of him?'

'Heavens, Louis! You don't seriously mean that the Bishop of Melchester

has any feelings for me other than friendly?'

'Viviette, this is affectation. You know he has as well as I do.'

She sighed. 'Yes,' she said. 'I own I had a suspicion of the same

thing. What a misfortune!'

'A misfortune? Surely the world is turned upside down! You will drive

me to despair about our future if you see things so awry. Exert yourself

to do something, so as to make of this accident a stepping-stone to

higher things. The gentleman will give us the slip if we don't pursue

the friendship at once.'

'I cannot have you talk like this,' she cried impatiently. 'I have no

more thought of the Bishop than I have of the Pope. I would much rather

not have had him here to lunch at all. You said it would be necessary to

do it, and an opportunity, and I thought it my duty to show some

hospitality when he was coming so near, Mr. Torkingham's house being so

small. But of course I understood that the opportunity would be one for

you in getting to know him, your prospects being so indefinite at

present; not one for me.'

'If you don't follow up this chance of being spiritual queen of

Melchester, you will never have another of being anything. Mind this,

Viviette: you are not so young as you were. You are getting on to be a

middle-aged woman, and your black hair is precisely of the sort which

time quickly turns grey. You must make up your mind to grizzled

bachelors or widowers. Young marriageable men won't look at you; or if

they do just now, in a year or two more they'll despise you as an

antiquated party.'

Lady Constantine perceptibly paled. 'Young men what?' she asked. 'Say

that again.'

'I said it was no use to think of young men; they won't look at you much

longer; or if they do, it will be to look away again very quickly.'

'You imply that if I were to marry a man younger than myself he would

speedily acquire a contempt for me? How much younger must a man be than

his wife--to get that feeling for her?' She was resting her elbow on the

chair as she faintly spoke the words, and covered her eyes with her hand.

'An exceedingly small number of years,' said Louis drily. 'Now the

Bishop is at least fifteen years older than you, and on that account, no

less than on others, is an excellent match. You would be head of the

church in this diocese: what more can you require after these years of

miserable obscurity? In addition, you would escape that minor thorn in

the flesh of bishops' wives, of being only "Mrs." while their husbands

are peers.'

She was not listening; his previous observation still detained her

thoughts.

'Louis,' she said, 'in the case of a woman marrying a man much younger

than herself, does he get to dislike her, even if there has been a social

advantage to him in the union?'

'Yes,--not a whit less. Ask any person of experience. But what of that?

Let's talk of our own affairs. You say you have no thought of the

Bishop. And yet if he had stayed here another day or two he would have

proposed to you straight off.'

'Seriously, Louis, I could not accept him.'

'Why not?'

'I don't love him.'

'Oh, oh, I like those words!' cried Louis, throwing himself back in his

chair and looking at the ceiling in satirical enjoyment. 'A woman who at

two-and-twenty married for convenience, at thirty talks of not marrying

without love; the rule of inverse, that is, in which more requires less,

and less requires more. As your only brother, older than yourself, and

more experienced, I insist that you encourage the Bishop.'

'Don't quarrel with me, Louis!' she said piteously. 'We don't know that

he thinks anything of me,--we only guess.'

'I know it,--and you shall hear how I know. I am of a curious and

conjectural nature, as you are aware. Last night, when everybody had

gone to bed, I stepped out for a five minutes' smoke on the lawn, and

walked down to where you get near the vicarage windows. While I was

there in the dark one of them opened, and Bishop Helmsdale leant out. The

illuminated oblong of your window shone him full in the face between the

trees, and presently your shadow crossed it. He waved his hand, and

murmured some tender words, though what they were exactly I could not

hear.'

'What a vague, imaginary story,--as if he could know my shadow! Besides,

a man of the Bishop's dignity wouldn't have done such a thing. When I

knew him as a younger man he was not at all romantic, and he's not likely

to have grown so now.'

'That's just what he is likely to have done. No lover is so extreme a

specimen of the species as an old lover. Come, Viviette, no more of this

fencing. I have entered into the project heart and soul--so much that I

have postponed my departure till the matter is well under way.'

'Louis--my dear Louis--you will bring me into some disagreeable

position!' said she, clasping her hands. 'I do entreat you not to

interfere or do anything rash about me. The step is impossible. I have

something to tell you some day. I must live on, and endure--'

'Everything except this penury,' replied Louis, unmoved. 'Come, I have

begun the campaign by inviting Bishop Helmsdale, and I'll take the

responsibility of carrying it on. All I ask of you is not to make a

ninny of yourself. Come, give me your promise!'

'No, I cannot,--I don't know how to! I only know one thing,--that I am

in no hurry--'

'"No hurry" be hanged! Agree, like a good sister, to charm the Bishop.'

'I must consider!' she replied, with perturbed evasiveness.

It being a fine evening Louis went out of the house to enjoy his cigar in

the shrubbery. On reaching his favourite seat he found he had left his

cigar-case behind him; he immediately returned for it. When he

approached the window by which he had emerged he saw Swithin St. Cleeve

standing there in the dusk, talking to Viviette inside.

St. Cleeve's back was towards Louis, but, whether at a signal from her or

by accident, he quickly turned and recognized Glanville; whereupon

raising his hat to Lady Constantine the young man passed along the

terrace-walk and out by the churchyard door.

Louis rejoined his sister. 'I didn't know you allowed your lawn to be a

public thoroughfare for the parish,' he said.

'I am not exclusive, especially since I have been so poor,' replied she.

'Then do you let everybody pass this way, or only that illustrious youth

because he is so good-looking?'

'I have no strict rule in the case. Mr. St. Cleeve is an acquaintance of

mine, and he can certainly come here if he chooses.' Her colour rose

somewhat, and she spoke warmly.

Louis was too cautious a bird to reveal to her what had suddenly dawned

upon his mind--that his sister, in common with the (to his thinking)

unhappy Tabitha Lark, had been foolish enough to get interested in this

phenomenon of the parish, this scientific Adonis. But he resolved to

cure at once her tender feeling, if it existed, by letting out a secret

which would inflame her dignity against the weakness.

'A good-looking young man,' he said, with his eyes where Swithin had

vanished. 'But not so good as he looks. In fact a regular young

sinner.'

'What do you mean?'

'Oh, only a little feature I discovered in St. Cleeve's history. But I

suppose he has a right to sow his wild oats as well as other young men.'

'Tell me what you allude to,--do, Louis.'

'It is hardly fit that I should. However, the case is amusing enough. I

was sitting in the arbour to-day, and was an unwilling listener to the

oddest interview I ever heard of. Our friend the Bishop discovered, when

we visited the observatory last night, that our astronomer was not alone

in his seclusion. A lady shared his romantic cabin with him; and finding

this, the Bishop naturally enough felt that the ordinance of confirmation

had been profaned. So his lordship sent for Master Swithin this morning,

and meeting him in the churchyard read him such an excommunicating

lecture as I warrant he won't forget in his lifetime. Ha-ha-ha! 'Twas

very good,--very.'

He watched her face narrowly while he spoke with such seeming

carelessness. Instead of the agitation of jealousy that he had expected

to be aroused by this hint of another woman in the case, there was a

curious expression, more like embarrassment than anything else which

might have been fairly attributed to the subject. 'Can it be that I am

mistaken?' he asked himself.

The possibility that he might be mistaken restored Louis to good-humour,

and lights having been brought he sat with his sister for some time,

talking with purpose of Swithin's low rank on one side, and the sordid

struggles that might be in store for him. St. Cleeve being in the

unhappy case of deriving his existence through two channels of society,

it resulted that he seemed to belong to either this or that according to

the altitude of the beholder. Louis threw the light entirely on

Swithin's agricultural side, bringing out old Mrs. Martin and her

connexions and her ways of life with luminous distinctness, till Lady

Constantine became greatly depressed. She, in her hopefulness, had

almost forgotten, latterly, that the bucolic element, so incisively

represented by Messrs. Hezzy Biles, Haymoss Fry, Sammy Blore, and the

rest entered into his condition at all; to her he had been the son of his

academic father alone.

But she would not reveal the depression to which she had been subjected

by this resuscitation of the homely half of poor Swithin, presently

putting an end to the subject by walking hither and thither about the

room.

'What have you lost?' said Louis, observing her movements.

'Nothing of consequence,--a bracelet.'

'Coral?' he inquired calmly.

'Yes. How did you know it was coral? You have never seen it, have you?'

He was about to make answer; but the amazed enlightenment which her

announcement had produced in him through knowing where the Bishop had

found such an article, led him to reconsider himself. Then, like an

astute man, by no means sure of the dimensions of the intrigue he might

be uncovering, he said carelessly, 'I found such a one in the churchyard

to-day. But I thought it appeared to be of no great rarity, and I gave

it to one of the village girls who was passing by.'

'Did she take it? Who was she?' said the unsuspecting Viviette.

'Really, I don't remember. I suppose it is of no consequence?'

'O no; its value is nothing, comparatively. It was only one of a pair

such as young girls wear.' Lady Constantine could not add that, in spite

of this, she herself valued it as being Swithin's present, and the best

he could afford.

Panic-struck by his ruminations, although revealing nothing by his

manner, Louis soon after went up to his room, professedly to write

letters. He gave vent to a low whistle when he was out of hearing. He

of course remembered perfectly well to whom he had given the corals, and

resolved to seek out Tabitha the next morning to ascertain whether she

could possibly have owned such a trinket as well as his sister,--which at

present he very greatly doubted, though fervently hoping that she might.

XXIX

The effect upon Swithin of the interview with the Bishop had been a very

marked one. He felt that he had good ground for resenting that

dignitary's tone in haughtily assuming that all must be sinful which at

the first blush appeared to be so, and in narrowly refusing a young man

the benefit of a single doubt. Swithin's assurance that he would be able

to explain all some day had been taken in contemptuous incredulity.

'He may be as virtuous as his prototype Timothy; but he's an opinionated

old fogey all the same,' said St. Cleeve petulantly.

Yet, on the other hand, Swithin's nature was so fresh and ingenuous,

notwithstanding that recent affairs had somewhat denaturalized him, that

for a man in the Bishop's position to think him immoral was almost as

overwhelming as if he had actually been so, and at moments he could

scarcely bear existence under so gross a suspicion. What was his union

with Lady Constantine worth to him when, by reason of it, he was thought

a reprobate by almost the only man who had professed to take an interest

in him?

Certainly, by contrast with his air-built image of himself as a worthy

astronomer, received by all the world, and the envied husband of

Viviette, the present imputation was humiliating. The glorious light of

this tender and refined passion seemed to have become debased to

burlesque hues by pure accident, and his aesthetic no less than his ethic

taste was offended by such an anti-climax. He who had soared amid the

remotest grandeurs of nature had been taken to task on a rudimentary

question of morals, which had never been a question with him at all. This

was what the exigencies of an awkward attachment had brought him to; but

he blamed the circumstances, and not for one moment Lady Constantine.

Having now set his heart against a longer concealment he was disposed to

think that an excellent way of beginning a revelation of their marriage

would be by writing a confidential letter to the Bishop, detailing the

whole case. But it was impossible to do this on his own responsibility.

He still recognized the understanding entered into with Viviette, before

the marriage, to be as binding as ever,--that the initiative in

disclosing their union should come from her. Yet he hardly doubted that

she would take that initiative when he told her of his extraordinary

reprimand in the churchyard.

This was what he had come to do when Louis saw him standing at the

window. But before he had said half-a-dozen words to Viviette she

motioned him to go on, which he mechanically did, ere he could

sufficiently collect his thoughts on its advisability or otherwise. He

did not, however, go far. While Louis and his sister were discussing him

in the drawing-room he lingered musing in the churchyard, hoping that she

might be able to escape and join him in the consultation he so earnestly

desired.

She at last found opportunity to do this. As soon as Louis had left the

room and shut himself in upstairs she ran out by the window in the

direction Swithin had taken. When her footsteps began crunching on the

gravel he came forward from the churchyard door.

They embraced each other in haste, and then, in a few short panting

words, she explained to him that her brother had heard and witnessed the

interview on that spot between himself and the Bishop, and had told her

the substance of the Bishop's accusation, not knowing she was the woman

in the cabin.

'And what I cannot understand is this,' she added; 'how did the Bishop

discover that the person behind the bed-curtains was a woman and not a

man?'

Swithin explained that the Bishop had found the bracelet on the bed, and

had brought it to him in the churchyard.

'O Swithin, what do you say? Found the coral bracelet? What did you do

with it?'

Swithin clapped his hand to his pocket.

'Dear me! I recollect--I left it where it lay on Reuben Heath's

tombstone.'

'Oh, my dear, dear Swithin!' she cried miserably. 'You have compromised

me by your forgetfulness. I have claimed the article as mine. My

brother did not tell me that the Bishop brought it from the cabin. What

can I, can I do, that neither the Bishop nor my brother may conclude _I_

was the woman there?'

'But if we announce our marriage--'

'Even as your wife, the position was too undignified--too I don't know

what--for me ever to admit that I was there! Right or wrong, I must

declare the bracelet was not mine. Such an escapade--why, it would make

me ridiculous in the county; and anything rather than that!'

'I was in hope that you would agree to let our marriage be known,' said

Swithin, with some disappointment. 'I thought that these circumstances

would make the reason for doing so doubly strong.'

'Yes. But there are, alas, reasons against it still stronger! Let me

have my way.'

'Certainly, dearest. I promised that before you agreed to be mine. My

reputation--what is it! Perhaps I shall be dead and forgotten before the

next transit of Venus!'

She soothed him tenderly, but could not tell him why she felt the reasons

against any announcement as yet to be stronger than those in favour of

it. How could she, when her feeling had been cautiously fed and

developed by her brother Louis's unvarnished exhibition of Swithin's

material position in the eyes of the world?--that of a young man, the

scion of a family of farmers recently her tenants, living at the

homestead with his grandmother, Mrs. Martin.

To soften her refusal she said in declaring it, 'One concession, Swithin,

I certainly will make. I will see you oftener. I will come to the cabin

and tower frequently; and will contrive, too, that you come to the house

occasionally. During the last winter we passed whole weeks without

meeting; don't let us allow that to happen again.'

'Very well, dearest,' said Swithin good-humouredly. 'I don't care so

terribly much for the old man's opinion of me, after all. For the

present, then, let things be as they are.'

Nevertheless, the youth felt her refusal more than he owned; but the

unequal temperament of Swithin's age, so soon depressed on his own

account, was also soon to recover on hers, and it was with almost a

child's forgetfulness of the past that he took her view of the case.

When he was gone she hastily re-entered the house. Her brother had not

reappeared from upstairs; but she was informed that Tabitha Lark was

waiting to see her, if her ladyship would pardon the said Tabitha for

coming so late. Lady Constantine made no objection, and saw the young

girl at once.

When Lady Constantine entered the waiting-room behold, in Tabitha's

outstretched hand lay the coral ornament which had been causing Viviette

so much anxiety.

'I guessed, on second thoughts, that it was yours, my lady,' said

Tabitha, with rather a frightened face; 'and so I have brought it back.'

'But how did you come by it, Tabitha?'

'Mr. Glanville gave it to me; he must have thought it was mine. I took

it, fancying at the moment that he handed it to me because I happened to

come by first after he had found it.'

Lady Constantine saw how the situation might be improved so as to effect

her deliverance from this troublesome little web of evidence.

'Oh, you can keep it,' she said brightly. 'It was very good of you to

bring it back. But keep it for your very own. Take Mr. Glanville at his

word, and don't explain. And, Tabitha, divide the strands into two

bracelets; there are enough of them to make a pair.'

The next morning, in pursuance of his resolution, Louis wandered round

the grounds till he saw the girl for whom he was waiting enter the

church. He accosted her over the wall. But, puzzling to view, a coral

bracelet blushed on each of her young arms, for she had promptly carried

out the suggestion of Lady Constantine.

'You are wearing it, I see, Tabitha, with the other,' he murmured. 'Then

you mean to keep it?'

'Yes, I mean to keep it.'

'You are sure it is not Lady Constantine's? I find she has one like it.'

'Quite sure. But you had better take it to her, sir, and ask her,' said

the saucy girl.

'Oh, no; that's not necessary,' replied Louis, considerably shaken in his

convictions.

When Louis met his sister, a short time after, he did not catch her, as

he had intended to do, by saying suddenly, 'I have found your bracelet. I

know who has got it.'

'You cannot have found it,' she replied quietly, 'for I have discovered

that it was never lost,' and stretching out both her hands she revealed

one on each, Viviette having performed the same operation with her

remaining bracelet that she had advised Tabitha to do with the other.

Louis was mystified, but by no means convinced. In spite of this attempt

to hoodwink him his mind returned to the subject every hour of the day.

There was no doubt that either Tabitha or Viviette had been with Swithin

in the cabin. He recapitulated every case that had occurred during his

visit to Welland in which his sister's manner had been of a colour to

justify the suspicion that it was she. There was that strange incident

in the corridor, when she had screamed at what she described to be a

shadowy resemblance to her late husband; how very improbable that this

fancy should have been the only cause of her agitation! Then he had

noticed, during Swithin's confirmation, a blush upon her cheek when he

passed her on his way to the Bishop, and the fervour in her glance during

the few moments of the imposition of hands. Then he suddenly recalled

the night at the railway station, when the accident with the whip took

place, and how, when he reached Welland House an hour later, he had found

no Viviette there. Running thus from incident to incident he increased

his suspicions without being able to cull from the circumstances anything

amounting to evidence; but evidence he now determined to acquire without

saying a word to any one.

His plan was of a cruel kind: to set a trap into which the pair would

blindly walk if any secret understanding existed between them of the

nature he suspected.

XXX

Louis began his stratagem by calling at the tower one afternoon, as if on

the impulse of the moment.

After a friendly chat with Swithin, whom he found there (having watched

him enter), Louis invited the young man to dine the same evening at the

House, that he might have an opportunity of showing him some interesting

old scientific works in folio, which, according to Louis's account, he

had stumbled on in the library. Louis set no great bait for St. Cleeve

in this statement, for old science was not old art which, having

perfected itself, has died and left its secret hidden in its remains. But

Swithin was a responsive fellow, and readily agreed to come; being,

moreover, always glad of a chance of meeting Viviette _en famille_. He

hoped to tell her of a scheme that had lately suggested itself to him as

likely to benefit them both: that he should go away for a while, and

endeavour to raise sufficient funds to visit the great observatories of

Europe, with an eye to a post in one of them. Hitherto the only bar to

the plan had been the exceeding narrowness of his income, which, though

sufficient for his present life, was absolutely inadequate to the

requirements of a travelling astronomer.

Meanwhile Louis Glanville had returned to the House and told his sister

in the most innocent manner that he had been in the company of St. Cleeve

that afternoon, getting a few wrinkles on astronomy; that they had grown

so friendly over the fascinating subject as to leave him no alternative

but to invite St. Cleeve to dine at Welland the same evening, with a view

to certain researches in the library afterwards.

'I could quite make allowances for any youthful errors into which he may

have been betrayed,' Louis continued sententiously, 'since, for a

scientist, he is really admirable. No doubt the Bishop's caution will

not be lost upon him; and as for his birth and connexions,--those he

can't help.'

Lady Constantine showed such alacrity in adopting the idea of having

Swithin to dinner, and she ignored his 'youthful errors' so completely,

as almost to betray herself. In fulfilment of her promise to see him

oftener she had been intending to run across to Swithin on that identical

evening. Now the trouble would be saved in a very delightful way, by the

exercise of a little hospitality which Viviette herself would not have

dared to suggest.

Dinner-time came and with it Swithin, exhibiting rather a blushing and

nervous manner that was, unfortunately, more likely to betray their cause

than was Viviette's own more practised bearing. Throughout the meal

Louis sat like a spider in the corner of his web, observing them

narrowly, and at moments flinging out an artful thread here and there,

with a view to their entanglement. But they underwent the ordeal

marvellously well. Perhaps the actual tie between them, through being so

much closer and of so much more practical a nature than even their critic

supposed it, was in itself a protection against their exhibiting that

ultra-reciprocity of manner which, if they had been merely lovers, might

have betrayed them.

After dinner the trio duly adjourned to the library as had been planned,

and the volumes were brought forth by Louis with the zest of a

bibliophilist. Swithin had seen most of them before, and thought but

little of them; but the pleasure of staying in the house made him welcome

any reason for doing so, and he willingly looked at whatever was put

before him, from Bertius's Ptolemy to Rees's Cyclopaedia.

The evening thus passed away, and it began to grow late. Swithin who,

among other things, had planned to go to Greenwich next day to view the

Royal Observatory, would every now and then start up and prepare to leave

for home, when Glanville would unearth some other volume and so detain

him yet another half-hour.

'By George!' he said, looking at the clock when Swithin was at last

really about to depart. 'I didn't know it was so late. Why not stay

here to-night, St. Cleeve? It is very dark, and the way to your place is

an awkward cross-cut over the fields.'

'It would not inconvenience us at all, Mr. St. Cleeve, if you would care

to stay,' said Lady Constantine.

'I am afraid--the fact is, I wanted to take an observation at twenty

minutes past two,' began Swithin.

'Oh, now, never mind your observation,' said Louis. 'That's only an

excuse. Do that to-morrow night. Now you will stay. It is settled.

Viviette, say he must stay, and we'll have another hour of these charming

intellectual researches.'

Viviette obeyed with delightful ease. 'Do stay, Mr St. Cleeve!' she said

sweetly.

'Well, in truth I can do without the observation,' replied the young man,

as he gave way. 'It is not of the greatest consequence.'

Thus it was arranged; but the researches among the tomes were not

prolonged to the extent that Louis had suggested. In three-quarters of

an hour from that time they had all retired to their respective rooms;

Lady Constantine's being on one side of the west corridor, Swithin's

opposite, and Louis's at the further end.

Had a person followed Louis when he withdrew, that watcher would have

discovered, on peeping through the key-hole of his door, that he was

engaged in one of the oddest of occupations for such a man,--sweeping

down from the ceiling, by means of a walking-cane, a long cobweb which

lingered on high in the corner. Keeping it stretched upon the cane he

gently opened the door, and set the candle in such a position on the mat

that the light shone down the corridor. Thus guided by its rays he

passed out slipperless, till he reached the door of St. Cleeve's room,

where he applied the dangling spider's thread in such a manner that it

stretched across like a tight-rope from jamb to jamb, barring, in its

fragile way, entrance and egress. The operation completed he retired

again, and, extinguishing his light, went through his bedroom window out

upon the flat roof of the portico to which it gave access.

Here Louis made himself comfortable in his chair and smoking-cap,

enjoying the fragrance of a cigar for something like half-an-hour. His

position commanded a view of the two windows of Lady Constantine's room,

and from these a dim light shone continuously. Having the window partly

open at his back, and the door of his room also scarcely closed, his ear

retained a fair command of any noises that might be made.

In due time faint movements became audible; whereupon, returning to his

room, he re-entered the corridor and listened intently. All was silent

again, and darkness reigned from end to end. Glanville, however, groped

his way along the passage till he again reached Swithin's door, where he

examined, by the light of a wax-match he had brought, the condition of

the spider's thread. It was gone; somebody had carried it off bodily, as

Samson carried off the pin and the web. In other words, a person had

passed through the door.

Still holding the faint wax-light in his hand Louis turned to the door of

Lady Constantine's chamber, where he observed first that, though it was

pushed together so as to appear fastened to cursory view, the door was

not really closed by about a quarter of an inch. He dropped his light

and extinguished it with his foot. Listening, he heard a voice

within,--Viviette's voice, in a subdued murmur, though speaking

earnestly.

Without any hesitation Louis then returned to Swithin's door, opened it,

and walked in. The starlight from without was sufficient, now that his

eyes had become accustomed to the darkness, to reveal that the room was

unoccupied, and that nothing therein had been disturbed.

With a heavy tread Louis came forth, walked loudly across the corridor,

knocked at Lady Constantine's door, and called 'Viviette!'

She heard him instantly, replying 'Yes' in startled tones. Immediately

afterwards she opened her door, and confronted him in her dressing-gown,

with a light in her hand. 'What is the matter, Louis?' she said.

'I am greatly alarmed. Our visitor is missing.'

'Missing? What, Mr. St. Cleeve?'

'Yes. I was sitting up to finish a cigar, when I thought I heard a noise

in this direction. On coming to his room I find he is not there.'

'Good Heaven! I wonder what has happened!' she exclaimed, in apparently

intense alarm.

'I wonder,' said Glanville grimly.

'Suppose he is a somnambulist! If so, he may have gone out and broken

his neck. I have never heard that he is one, but they say that sleeping

in strange places disturbs the minds of people who are given to that sort

of thing, and provokes them to it.'

'Unfortunately for your theory his bed has not been touched.'

'Oh, what then can it be?'

Her brother looked her full in the face. 'Viviette!' he said sternly.

She seemed puzzled. 'Well?' she replied, in simple tones.

'I heard voices in your room,' he continued.

'Voices?'

'A voice,--yours.'

'Yes, you may have done so. It was mine.'

'A listener is required for a speaker.'

'True, Louis.'

'Well, to whom were you speaking?'

'God.'

'Viviette! I am ashamed of you.'

'I was saying my prayers.'

'Prayers--to God! To St. Swithin, rather!'

'What do you mean, Louis?' she asked, flushing up warm, and drawing back

from him. 'It was a form of prayer I use, particularly when I am in

trouble. It was recommended to me by the Bishop, and Mr. Torkingham

commends it very highly.'

'On your honour, if you have any,' he said bitterly, 'whom have you there

in your room?'

'No human being.'

'Flatly, I don't believe you.'

She gave a dignified little bow, and, waving her hand into the apartment,

said, 'Very well; then search and see.'

Louis entered, and glanced round the room, behind the curtains, under the

bed, out of the window--a view from which showed that escape thence would

have been impossible,--everywhere, in short, capable or incapable of

affording a retreat to humanity; but discovered nobody. All he observed

was that a light stood on the low table by her bedside; that on the bed

lay an open Prayer-Book, the counterpane being unpressed, except into a

little pit beside the Prayer Book, apparently where her head had rested

in kneeling.

'But where is St. Cleeve?' he said, turning in bewilderment from these

evidences of innocent devotion.

'Where can he be?' she chimed in, with real distress. 'I should so much

like to know. Look about for him. I am quite uneasy!'

'I will, on one condition: that you own that you love him.'

'Why should you force me to that?' she murmured. 'It would be no such

wonder if I did.'

'Come, you do.'

'Well, I do.'

'Now I'll look for him.'

Louis took a light, and turned away, astonished that she had not

indignantly resented his intrusion and the nature of his questioning.

At this moment a slight noise was heard on the staircase, and they could

see a figure rising step by step, and coming forward against the long

lights of the staircase window. It was Swithin, in his ordinary dress,

and carrying his boots in his hand. When he beheld them standing there

so motionless, he looked rather disconcerted, but came on towards his

room.

Lady Constantine was too agitated to speak, but Louis said, 'I am glad to

see you again. Hearing a noise, a few minutes ago, I came out to learn

what it could be. I found you absent, and we have been very much

alarmed.'

'I am very sorry,' said Swithin, with contrition. 'I owe you a hundred

apologies: but the truth is that on entering my bedroom I found the sky

remarkably clear, and though I told you that the observation I was to

make was of no great consequence, on thinking it over alone I felt it

ought not to be allowed to pass; so I was tempted to run across to the

observatory, and make it, as I had hoped, without disturbing anybody. If

I had known that I should alarm you I would not have done it for the

world.'

Swithin spoke very earnestly to Louis, and did not observe the tender

reproach in Viviette's eyes when he showed by his tale his decided notion

that the prime use of dark nights lay in their furtherance of practical

astronomy.

Everything being now satisfactorily explained the three retired to their

several chambers, and Louis heard no more noises that night, or rather

morning; his attempts to solve the mystery of Viviette's life here and

her relations with St. Cleeve having thus far resulted chiefly in

perplexity. True, an admission had been wrung from her; and even without

such an admission it was clear that she had a tender feeling for Swithin.

How to extinguish that romantic folly it now became his object to

consider.

XXXI

Swithin's midnight excursion to the tower in the cause of science led him

to oversleep himself, and when the brother and sister met at breakfast in

the morning he did not appear.

'Don't disturb him,--don't disturb him,' said Louis laconically. 'Hullo,

Viviette, what are you reading there that makes you flame up so?'

She was glancing over a letter that she had just opened, and at his words

looked up with misgiving.

The incident of the previous night left her in great doubt as to what her

bearing towards him ought to be. She had made no show of resenting his

conduct at the time, from a momentary supposition that he must know all

her secret; and afterwards, finding that he did not know it, it seemed

too late to affect indignation at his suspicions. So she preserved a

quiet neutrality. Even had she resolved on an artificial part she might

have forgotten to play it at this instant, the letter being of a kind to

banish previous considerations.

'It is a letter from Bishop Helmsdale,' she faltered.

'Well done! I hope for your sake it is an offer.'

'That's just what it is.'

'No,--surely?' said Louis, beginning a laugh of surprise.

'Yes,' she returned indifferently. 'You can read it, if you like.'

'I don't wish to pry into a communication of that sort.'

'Oh, you may read it,' she said, tossing the letter across to him.

Louis thereupon read as under:--

'THE PALACE, MELCHESTER,

_June_ 28, 18--.

'MY DEAR LADY CONSTANTINE,--During the two or three weeks that have

elapsed since I experienced the great pleasure of renewing my

acquaintance with you, the varied agitation of my feelings has clearly

proved that my only course is to address you by letter, and at once.

Whether the subject of my communication be acceptable to you or not, I

can at least assure you that to suppress it would be far less natural,

and upon the whole less advisable, than to speak out frankly, even if

afterwards I hold my peace for ever.

'The great change in my experience during the past year or two--the

change, that is, which has resulted from my advancement to a

bishopric--has frequently suggested to me, of late, that a

discontinuance in my domestic life of the solitude of past years was a

question which ought to be seriously contemplated. But whether I

should ever have contemplated it without the great good fortune of my

meeting with you is doubtful. However, the thing has been considered

at last, and without more ado I candidly ask if you would be willing

to give up your life at Welland, and relieve my household loneliness

here by becoming my wife.

'I am far from desiring to force a hurried decision on your part, and

will wait your good pleasure patiently, should you feel any

uncertainty at the moment as to the step. I am quite disqualified, by

habits and experience, for the delightful procedure of urging my suit

in the ardent terms which would be so appropriate towards such a lady,

and so expressive of my inmost feeling. In truth, a prosy cleric of

five-and-forty wants encouragement to make him eloquent. Of this,

however, I can assure you: that if admiration, esteem, and devotion

can compensate in any way for the lack of those qualities which might

be found to burn with more outward brightness in a younger man, those

it is in my power to bestow for the term of my earthly life. Your

steady adherence to church principles and your interest in

ecclesiastical polity (as was shown by your bright questioning on

those subjects during our morning walk round your grounds) have

indicated strongly to me the grace and appropriateness with which you

would fill the position of a bishop's wife, and how greatly you would

add to his reputation, should you be disposed to honour him with your

hand. Formerly there have been times when I was of opinion--and you

will rightly appreciate my candour in owning it--that a wife was an

impediment to a bishop's due activities; but constant observation has

convinced me that, far from this being the truth, a meet consort

infuses life into episcopal influence and teaching.

'Should you reply in the affirmative I will at once come to see you,

and with your permission will, among other things, show you a few

plain, practical rules which I have interested myself in drawing up

for our future guidance. Should you refuse to change your condition

on my account, your decision will, as I need hardly say, be a great

blow to me. In any event, I could not do less than I have done, after

giving the subject my full consideration. Even if there be a slight

deficiency of warmth on your part, my earnest hope is that a mind

comprehensive as yours will perceive the immense power for good that

you might exercise in the position in which a union with me would

place you, and allow that perception to weigh in determining your

answer.

'I remain, my dear Lady Constantine, with the highest respect and

affection,--Yours always,

'C. MELCHESTER.'

'Well, you will not have the foolhardiness to decline, now that the

question has actually been popped, I should hope,' said Louis, when he

had done reading.

'Certainly I shall,' she replied.

'You will really be such a flat, Viviette?'

'You speak without much compliment. I have not the least idea of

accepting him.'

'Surely you will not let your infatuation for that young fellow carry you

so far, after my acquainting you with the shady side of his character?

You call yourself a religious woman, say your prayers out loud, follow up

the revived methods in church practice, and what not; and yet you can

think with partiality of a person who, far from having any religion in

him, breaks the most elementary commandments in the decalogue.'

'I cannot agree with you,' she said, turning her face askance, for she

knew not how much of her brother's language was sincere, and how much

assumed, the extent of his discoveries with regard to her secret ties

being a mystery. At moments she was disposed to declare the whole truth,

and have done with it. But she hesitated, and left the words unsaid; and

Louis continued his breakfast in silence.

When he had finished, and she had eaten little or nothing, he asked once

more, 'How do you intend to answer that letter? Here you are, the

poorest woman in the county, abandoned by people who used to be glad to

know you, and leading a life as dismal and dreary as a nun's, when an

opportunity is offered you of leaping at once into a leading position in

this part of England. Bishops are given to hospitality; you would be

welcomed everywhere. In short, your answer must be yes.'

'And yet it will be no,' she said, in a low voice. She had at length

learnt, from the tone of her brother's latter remarks, that at any rate

he had no knowledge of her actual marriage, whatever indirect ties he

might suspect her guilty of.

Louis could restrain himself no longer at her answer. 'Then conduct your

affairs your own way. I know you to be leading a life that won't bear

investigation, and I'm hanged if I'll stay here any longer!'

Saying which, Glanville jerked back his chair, and strode out of the

room. In less than a quarter of an hour, and before she had moved a step

from the table, she heard him leaving the house.

XXXII

What to do she could not tell. The step which Swithin had entreated her

to take, objectionable and premature as it had seemed in a county aspect,

would at all events have saved her from this dilemma. Had she allowed

him to tell the Bishop his simple story in its fulness, who could say but

that that divine might have generously bridled his own impulses, entered

into the case with sympathy, and forwarded with zest their designs for

the future, owing to his interest of old in Swithin's father, and in the

naturally attractive features of the young man's career.

A puff of wind from the open window, wafting the Bishop's letter to the

floor, aroused her from her reverie. With a sigh she stooped and picked

it up, glanced at it again; then arose, and with the deliberateness of

inevitable action wrote her reply:--

'WELLAND HOUSE, _June_ 29, 18--.

'MY DEAR BISHOP OF MELCHESTER,--I confess to you that your letter, so

gracious and flattering as it is, has taken your friend somewhat

unawares. The least I can do in return for its contents is to reply

as quickly as possible.

'There is no one in the world who esteems your high qualities more

than myself, or who has greater faith in your ability to adorn the

episcopal seat that you have been called on to fill. But to your

question I can give only one reply, and that is an unqualified

negative. To state this unavoidable decision distresses me, without

affectation; and I trust you will believe that, though I decline the

distinction of becoming your wife, I shall never cease to interest

myself in all that pertains to you and your office; and shall feel the

keenest regret if this refusal should operate to prevent a lifelong

friendship between us.--I am, my dear Bishop of Melchester, ever

sincerely yours,

'VIVIETTE CONSTANTINE.'

A sudden revulsion from the subterfuge of writing as if she were still a

widow, wrought in her mind a feeling of dissatisfaction with the whole

scheme of concealment; and pushing aside the letter she allowed it to

remain unfolded and unaddressed. In a few minutes she heard Swithin

approaching, when she put the letter out of the way and turned to receive

him.

Swithin entered quietly, and looked round the room. Seeing with

unexpected pleasure that she was there alone, he came over and kissed

her. Her discomposure at some foregone event was soon obvious.

'Has my staying caused you any trouble?' he asked in a whisper. 'Where

is your brother this morning?'

She smiled through her perplexity as she took his hand. 'The oddest

things happen to me, dear Swithin,' she said. 'Do you wish particularly

to know what has happened now?'

'Yes, if you don't mind telling me.'

'I do mind telling you. But I must. Among other things I am resolving

to give way to your representations,--in part, at least. It will be best

to tell the Bishop everything, and my brother, if not other people.'

'I am truly glad to hear it, Viviette,' said he cheerfully. 'I have felt

for a long time that honesty is the best policy.'

'I at any rate feel it now. But it is a policy that requires a great

deal of courage!'

'It certainly requires some courage,--I should not say a great deal; and

indeed, as far as I am concerned, it demands less courage to speak out

than to hold my tongue.'

'But, you silly boy, you don't know what has happened. The Bishop has

made me an offer of marriage.'

'Good gracious, what an impertinent old man! What have you done about

it, dearest?'

'Well, I have hardly accepted him,' she replied, laughing. 'It is this

event which has suggested to me that I should make my refusal a reason

for confiding our situation to him.'

'What would you have done if you had not been already appropriated?'

'That's an inscrutable mystery. He is a worthy man; but he has very

pronounced views about his own position, and some other undesirable

qualities. Still, who knows? You must bless your stars that you have

secured me. Now let us consider how to draw up our confession to him. I

wish I had listened to you at first, and allowed you to take him into our

confidence before his declaration arrived. He may possibly resent the

concealment now. However, this cannot be helped.'

'I tell you what, Viviette,' said Swithin, after a thoughtful pause, 'if

the Bishop is such an earthly sort of man as this, a man who goes falling

in love, and wanting to marry you, and so on, I am not disposed to

confess anything to him at all. I fancied him altogether different from

that.'

'But he's none the worse for it, dear.'

'I think he is--to lecture me and love you, all in one breath!'

'Still, that's only a passing phase; and you first proposed making a

confidant of him.'

'I did. . . . Very well. Then we are to tell nobody but the Bishop?'

'And my brother Louis. I must tell him; it is unavoidable. He suspects

me in a way I could never have credited of him!'

Swithin, as was before stated, had arranged to start for Greenwich that

morning, permission having been accorded him by the Astronomer-Royal to

view the Observatory; and their final decision was that, as he could not

afford time to sit down with her, and write to the Bishop in

collaboration, each should, during the day, compose a well-considered

letter, disclosing their position from his and her own point of view;

Lady Constantine leading up to her confession by her refusal of the

Bishop's hand. It was necessary that she should know what Swithin

contemplated saying, that her statements might precisely harmonize. He

ultimately agreed to send her his letter by the next morning's post,

when, having read it, she would in due course despatch it with her own.

As soon as he had breakfasted Swithin went his way, promising to return

from Greenwich by the end of the week.

Viviette passed the remainder of that long summer day, during which her

young husband was receding towards the capital, in an almost motionless

state. At some instants she felt exultant at the idea of announcing her

marriage and defying general opinion. At another her heart misgave her,

and she was tormented by a fear lest Swithin should some day accuse her

of having hampered his deliberately-shaped plan of life by her intrusive

romanticism. That was often the trick of men who had sealed by marriage,

in their inexperienced youth, a love for those whom their maturer

judgment would have rejected as too obviously disproportionate in years.

However, it was now too late for these lugubrious thoughts; and, bracing

herself, she began to frame the new reply to Bishop Helmsdale--the plain,

unvarnished tale that was to supplant the undivulging answer first

written. She was engaged on this difficult problem till daylight faded

in the west, and the broad-faced moon edged upwards, like a plate of old

gold, over the elms towards the village. By that time Swithin had

reached Greenwich; her brother had gone she knew not whither; and she and

loneliness dwelt solely, as before, within the walls of Welland House.

At this hour of sunset and moonrise the new parlourmaid entered, to

inform her that Mr. Cecil's head clerk, from Warborne, particularly

wished to see her.

Mr. Cecil was her solicitor, and she knew of nothing whatever that

required his intervention just at present. But he would not have sent at

this time of day without excellent reasons, and she directed that the

young man might be shown in where she was. On his entry the first thing

she noticed was that in his hand he carried a newspaper.

'In case you should not have seen this evening's paper, Lady Constantine,

Mr. Cecil has directed me to bring it to you at once, on account of what

appears there in relation to your ladyship. He has only just seen it

himself.'

'What is it? How does it concern me?'

'I will point it out.'

'Read it yourself to me. Though I am afraid there's not enough light.'

'I can see very well here,' said the lawyer's clerk stepping to the

window. Folding back the paper he read:--

'"NEWS FROM SOUTH AFRICA.

'"CAPE TOWN, _May_ 17 (_via_ Plymouth).--A correspondent of the _Cape

Chronicle_ states that he has interviewed an Englishman just arrived

from the interior, and learns from him that a considerable

misapprehension exists in England concerning the death of the

traveller and hunter, Sir Blount Constantine--"'

'O, he's living! My husband is alive,' she cried, sinking down in nearly

a fainting condition.

'No, my lady. Sir Blount is dead enough, I am sorry to say.'

'Dead, did you say?'

'Certainly, Lady Constantine; there is no doubt of it.'

She sat up, and her intense relief almost made itself perceptible like a

fresh atmosphere in the room. 'Yes. Then what did you come for?' she

asked calmly.

'That Sir Blount has died is unquestionable,' replied the lawyer's clerk

gently. 'But there has been some mistake about the date of his death.'

'He died of malarious fever on the banks of the Zouga, October 24, 18--.'

'No; he only lay ill there a long time it seems. It was a companion who

died at that date. But I'll read the account to your ladyship, with your

permission:--

'"The decease of this somewhat eccentric wanderer did not occur at the

time hitherto supposed, but only in last December. The following is

the account of the Englishman alluded to, given as nearly as possible

in his own words: During the illness of Sir Blount and his friend by

the Zouga, three of the servants went away, taking with them a portion

of his clothing and effects; and it must be they who spread the report

of his death at this time. After his companion's death he mended, and

when he was strong enough he and I travelled on to a healthier

district. I urged him not to delay his return to England; but he was

much against going back there again, and became so rough in his manner

towards me that we parted company at the first opportunity I could

find. I joined a party of white traders returning to the West Coast.

I stayed here among the Portuguese for many months. I then found that

an English travelling party were going to explore a district adjoining

that which I had formerly traversed with Sir Blount. They said they

would be glad of my services, and I joined them. When we had crossed

the territory to the South of Ulunda, and drew near to Marzambo, I

heard tidings of a man living there whom I suspected to be Sir Blount,

although he was not known by that name. Being so near I was induced

to seek him out, and found that he was indeed the same. He had

dropped his old name altogether, and had married a native princess--"'

'Married a native princess!' said Lady Constantine.

'That's what it says, my lady,--"married a native princess according to

the rites of the tribe, and was living very happily with her. He told me

he should never return to England again. He also told me that having

seen this princess just after I had left him, he had been attracted by

her, and had thereupon decided to reside with her in that country, as

being a land which afforded him greater happiness than he could hope to

attain elsewhere. He asked me to stay with him, instead of going on with

my party, and not reveal his real title to any of them. After some

hesitation I did stay, and was not uncomfortable at first. But I soon

found that Sir Blount drank much harder now than when I had known him,

and that he was at times very greatly depressed in mind at his position.

One morning in the middle of December last I heard a shot from his

dwelling. His wife rushed frantically past me as I hastened to the spot,

and when I entered I found that he had put an end to himself with his

revolver. His princess was broken-hearted all that day. When we had

buried him I discovered in his house a little box directed to his

solicitors at Warborne, in England, and a note for myself, saying that I

had better get the first chance of returning that offered, and requesting

me to take the box with me. It is supposed to contain papers and

articles for friends in England who have deemed him dead for some time."'

The clerk stopped his reading, and there was a silence. 'The middle of

last December,' she at length said, in a whisper. 'Has the box arrived

yet?'

'Not yet, my lady. We have no further proof of anything. As soon as the

package comes to hand you shall know of it immediately.'

Such was the clerk's mission; and, leaving the paper with her, he

withdrew. The intelligence amounted to thus much: that, Sir Blount

having been alive till at least six weeks after her marriage with Swithin

St. Cleeve, Swithin St. Cleeve was not her husband in the eye of the law;

that she would have to consider how her marriage with the latter might be

instantly repeated, to establish herself legally as that young man's

wife.

XXXIII

Next morning Viviette received a visit from Mr. Cecil himself. He

informed her that the box spoken of by the servant had arrived quite

unexpectedly just after the departure of his clerk on the previous

evening. There had not been sufficient time for him to thoroughly

examine it as yet, but he had seen enough to enable him to state that it

contained letters, dated memoranda in Sir Blount's handwriting, notes

referring to events which had happened later than his supposed death, and

other irrefragable proofs that the account in the newspapers was correct

as to the main fact--the comparatively recent date of Sir Blount's

decease.

She looked up, and spoke with the irresponsible helplessness of a child.

'On reviewing the circumstances, I cannot think how I could have allowed

myself to believe the first tidings!' she said.

'Everybody else believed them, and why should you not have done so?' said

the lawyer.

'How came the will to be permitted to be proved, as there could, after

all, have been no complete evidence?' she asked. 'If I had been the

executrix I would not have attempted it! As I was not, I know very

little about how the business was pushed through. In a very unseemly

way, I think.'

'Well, no,' said Mr. Cecil, feeling himself morally called upon to defend

legal procedure from such imputations. 'It was done in the usual way in

all cases where the proof of death is only presumptive. The evidence,

such as it was, was laid before the court by the applicants, your

husband's cousins; and the servants who had been with him deposed to his

death with a particularity that was deemed sufficient. Their error was,

not that somebody died--for somebody did die at the time affirmed--but

that they mistook one person for another; the person who died being not

Sir Blount Constantine. The court was of opinion that the evidence led

up to a reasonable inference that the deceased was actually Sir Blount,

and probate was granted on the strength of it. As there was a doubt

about the exact day of the month, the applicants were allowed to swear

that he died on or after the date last given of his existence--which, in

spite of their error then, has really come true, now, of course.'

'They little think what they have done to me by being so ready to swear!'

she murmured.

Mr. Cecil, supposing her to allude only to the pecuniary straits in which

she had been prematurely placed by the will taking effect a year before

its due time, said, 'True. It has been to your ladyship's loss, and to

their gain. But they will make ample restitution, no doubt: and all will

be wound up satisfactorily.'

Lady Constantine was far from explaining that this was not her meaning;

and, after some further conversation of a purely technical nature, Mr.

Cecil left her presence.

When she was again unencumbered with the necessity of exhibiting a proper

bearing, the sense that she had greatly suffered in pocket by the undue

haste of the executors weighed upon her mind with a pressure quite

inappreciable beside the greater gravity of her personal position. What

was her position as legatee to her situation as a woman? Her face

crimsoned with a flush which she was almost ashamed to show to the

daylight, as she hastily penned the following note to Swithin at

Greenwich--certainly one of the most informal documents she had ever

written.

'WELLAND, _Thursday_.

'O Swithin, my dear Swithin, what I have to tell you is so sad and so

humiliating that I can hardly write it--and yet I must. Though we are

dearer to each other than all the world besides, and as firmly united

as if we were one, I am not legally your wife! Sir Blount did not die

till some time after we in England supposed. The service must be

repeated instantly. I have not been able to sleep all night. I feel

so frightened and ashamed that I can scarcely arrange my thoughts. The

newspapers sent with this will explain, if you have not seen

particulars. Do come to me as soon as you can, that we may consult on

what to do. Burn this at once.

'Your VIVIETTE.'

When the note was despatched she remembered that there was another hardly

less important question to be answered--the proposal of the Bishop for

her hand. His communication had sunk into nothingness beside the

momentous news that had so greatly distressed her. The two replies lay

before her--the one she had first written, simply declining to become Dr.

Helmsdale's wife, without giving reasons; the second, which she had

elaborated with so much care on the previous day, relating in

confidential detail the history of her love for Swithin, their secret

marriage, and their hopes for the future; asking his advice on what their

procedure should be to escape the strictures of a censorious world. It

was the letter she had barely finished writing when Mr. Cecil's clerk

announced news tantamount to a declaration that she was no wife at all.

This epistle she now destroyed--and with the less reluctance in knowing

that Swithin had been somewhat averse to the confession as soon as he

found that Bishop Helmsdale was also a victim to tender sentiment

concerning her. The first, in which, at the time of writing, the

_suppressio veri_ was too strong for her conscience, had now become an

honest letter, and sadly folding it she sent the missive on its way.

The sense of her undefinable position kept her from much repose on the

second night also; but the following morning brought an unexpected letter

from Swithin, written about the same hour as hers to him, and it

comforted her much.

He had seen the account in the papers almost as soon as it had come to

her knowledge, and sent this line to reassure her in the perturbation she

must naturally feel. She was not to be alarmed at all. They two were

husband and wife in moral intent and antecedent belief, and the legal

flaw which accident had so curiously uncovered could be mended in half-an-

hour. He would return on Saturday night at latest, but as the hour would

probably be far advanced, he would ask her to meet him by slipping out of

the house to the tower any time during service on Sunday morning, when

there would be few persons about likely to observe them. Meanwhile he

might provisionally state that their best course in the emergency would

be, instead of confessing to anybody that there had already been a

solemnization of marriage between them, to arrange their re-marriage in

as open a manner as possible--as if it were the just-reached climax of a

sudden affection, instead of a harking back to an old departure--prefacing

it by a public announcement in the usual way.

This plan of approaching their second union with all the show and

circumstance of a new thing, recommended itself to her strongly, but for

one objection--that by such a course the wedding could not, without

appearing like an act of unseemly haste, take place so quickly as she

desired for her own moral satisfaction. It might take place somewhat

early, say in the course of a month or two, without bringing down upon

her the charge of levity; for Sir Blount, a notoriously unkind husband,

had been out of her sight four years, and in his grave nearly one. But

what she naturally desired was that there should be no more delay than

was positively necessary for obtaining a new license--two or three days

at longest; and in view of this celerity it was next to impossible to

make due preparation for a wedding of ordinary publicity, performed in

her own church, from her own house, with a feast and amusements for the

villagers, a tea for the school children, a bonfire, and other of those

proclamatory accessories which, by meeting wonder half-way, deprive it of

much of its intensity. It must be admitted, too, that she even now

shrank from the shock of surprise that would inevitably be caused by her

openly taking for husband such a mere youth of no position as Swithin

still appeared, notwithstanding that in years he was by this time within

a trifle of one-and-twenty.

The straightforward course had, nevertheless, so much to recommend it, so

well avoided the disadvantage of future revelation which a private

repetition of the ceremony would entail, that assuming she could depend

upon Swithin, as she knew she could do, good sense counselled its serious

consideration.

She became more composed at her queer situation: hour after hour passed,

and the first spasmodic impulse of womanly decorum--not to let the sun go

down upon her present improper state--was quite controllable. She could

regard the strange contingency that had arisen with something like

philosophy. The day slipped by: she thought of the awkwardness of the

accident rather than of its humiliation; and, loving Swithin now in a far

calmer spirit than at that past date when they had rushed into each

other's arms and vowed to be one for the first time, she ever and anon

caught herself reflecting, 'Were it not that for my honour's sake I must

re-marry him, I should perhaps be a nobler woman in not allowing him to

encumber his bright future by a union with me at all.'

This thought, at first artificially raised, as little more than a mental

exercise, became by stages a genuine conviction; and while her heart

enforced, her reason regretted the necessity of abstaining from

self-sacrifice--the being obliged, despite his curious escape from the

first attempt, to lime Swithin's young wings again solely for her

credit's sake.

However, the deed had to be done; Swithin was to be made legally hers.

Selfishness in a conjuncture of this sort was excusable, and even

obligatory. Taking brighter views, she hoped that upon the whole this

yoking of the young fellow with her, a portionless woman and his senior,

would not greatly endanger his career. In such a mood night overtook

her, and she went to bed conjecturing that Swithin had by this time

arrived in the parish, was perhaps even at that moment passing homeward

beneath her walls, and that in less than twelve hours she would have met

him, have ventilated the secret which oppressed her, and have

satisfactorily arranged with him the details of their reunion.

XXXIV

Sunday morning came, and complicated her previous emotions by bringing a

new and unexpected shock to mingle with them. The postman had delivered

among other things an illustrated newspaper, sent by a hand she did not

recognize; and on opening the cover the sheet that met her eyes filled

her with a horror which she could not express. The print was one which

drew largely on its imagination for its engravings, and it already

contained an illustration of the death of Sir Blount Constantine. In

this work of art he was represented as standing with his pistol to his

mouth, his brains being in process of flying up to the roof of his

chamber, and his native princess rushing terror-stricken away to a remote

position in the thicket of palms which neighboured the dwelling.

The crude realism of the picture, possibly harmless enough in its effect

upon others, overpowered and sickened her. By a curious fascination she

would look at it again and again, till every line of the engraver's

performance seemed really a transcript from what had happened before his

eyes. With such details fresh in her thoughts she was going out of the

door to make arrangements for confirming, by repetition, her marriage

with another. No interval was available for serious reflection on the

tragedy, or for allowing the softening effects of time to operate in her

mind. It was as though her first husband had died that moment, and she

was keeping an appointment with another in the presence of his corpse.

So revived was the actuality of Sir Blount's recent life and death by

this incident, that the distress of her personal relations with Swithin

was the single force in the world which could have coerced her into

abandoning to him the interval she would fain have set apart for getting

over these new and painful impressions. Self-pity for ill-usage afforded

her good reasons for ceasing to love Sir Blount; but he was yet too

closely intertwined with her past life to be destructible on the instant

as a memory.

But there was no choice of occasions for her now, and she steadily waited

for the church bells to cease chiming. At last all was silent; the

surrounding cottagers had gathered themselves within the walls of the

adjacent building. Tabitha Lark's first voluntary then droned from the

tower window, and Lady Constantine left the garden in which she had been

loitering, and went towards Rings-Hill Speer.

The sense of her situation obscured the morning prospect. The country

was unusually silent under the intensifying sun, the songless season of

birds having just set in. Choosing her path amid the efts that were

basking upon the outer slopes of the plantation she wound her way up the

tree-shrouded camp to the wooden cabin in the centre.

The door was ajar, but on entering she found the place empty. The tower

door was also partly open; and listening at the foot of the stairs she

heard Swithin above, shifting the telescope and wheeling round the

rumbling dome, apparently in preparation for the next nocturnal

reconnoitre. There was no doubt that he would descend in a minute or two

to look for her, and not wishing to interrupt him till he was ready she

re-entered the cabin, where she patiently seated herself among the books

and papers that lay scattered about.

She did as she had often done before when waiting there for him; that is,

she occupied her moments in turning over the papers and examining the

progress of his labours. The notes were mostly astronomical, of course,

and she had managed to keep sufficiently abreast of him to catch the

meaning of a good many of these. The litter on the table, however, was

somewhat more marked this morning than usual, as if it had been hurriedly

overhauled. Among the rest of the sheets lay an open note, and, in the

entire confidence that existed between them, she glanced over and read it

as a matter of course.

It was a most business-like communication, and beyond the address and

date contained only the following words:--

'DEAR SIR,--We beg leave to draw your attention to a letter we

addressed to you on the 26th ult., to which we have not yet been

favoured with a reply. As the time for payment of the first moiety of

the six hundred pounds per annum settled on you by your late uncle is

now at hand, we should be obliged by your giving directions as to

where and in what manner the money is to be handed over to you, and

shall also be glad to receive any other definite instructions from you

with regard to the future.--We are, dear Sir, yours faithfully,

HANNER AND RAWLES.'

'SWITHIN ST. CLEEVE, Esq.'

An income of six hundred a year for Swithin, whom she had hitherto

understood to be possessed of an annuity of eighty pounds at the outside,

with no prospect of increasing the sum but by hard work! What could this

communication mean? He whose custom and delight it was to tell her all

his heart, had breathed not a syllable of this matter to her, though it

met the very difficulty towards which their discussions invariably

tended--how to secure for him a competency that should enable him to

establish his pursuits on a wider basis, and throw himself into more

direct communion with the scientific world. Quite bewildered by the lack

of any explanation she rose from her seat, and with the note in her hand

ascended the winding tower-steps.

Reaching the upper aperture she perceived him under the dome, moving

musingly about as if he had never been absent an hour, his light hair

frilling out from under the edge of his velvet skull-cap as it was always

wont to do. No question of marriage seemed to be disturbing the mind of

this juvenile husband of hers. The _primum mobile_ of his gravitation

was apparently the equatorial telescope which she had given him, and

which he was carefully adjusting by means of screws and clamps. Hearing

her movements he turned his head.

'O here you are, my dear Viviette! I was just beginning to expect you,'

he exclaimed, coming forward. 'I ought to have been looking out for you,

but I have found a little defect here in the instrument, and I wanted to

set it right before evening comes on. As a rule it is not a good thing

to tinker your glasses; but I have found that the diffraction-rings are

not perfect circles. I learnt at Greenwich how to correct them--so kind

they have been to me there!--and so I have been loosening the screws and

gently shifting the glass, till I think that I have at last made the

illumination equal all round. I have so much to tell you about my visit;

one thing is, that the astronomical world is getting quite excited about

the coming Transit of Venus. There is to be a regular expedition fitted

out. How I should like to join it!'

He spoke enthusiastically, and with eyes sparkling at the mental image of

the said expedition; and as it was rather gloomy in the dome he rolled it

round on its axis, till the shuttered slit for the telescope directly

faced the morning sun, which thereupon flooded the concave interior,

touching the bright metal-work of the equatorial, and lighting up her

pale, troubled face.

'But Swithin!' she faltered; 'my letter to you--our marriage!'

'O yes, this marriage question,' he added. 'I had not forgotten it, dear

Viviette--or at least only for a few minutes.'

'Can you forget it, Swithin, for a moment? O how can you!' she said

reproachfully. 'It is such a distressing thing. It drives away all my

rest!'

'Forgotten is not the word I should have used,' he apologized.

'Temporarily dismissed it from my mind, is all I meant. The simple fact

is, that the vastness of the field of astronomy reduces every terrestrial

thing to atomic dimensions. Do not trouble, dearest. The remedy is

quite easy, as I stated in my letter. We can now be married in a prosy

public way. Yes, early or late--next week, next month, six months

hence--just as you choose. Say the word when, and I will obey.'

The absence of all anxiety or consternation from his face contrasted

strangely with hers, which at last he saw, and, looking at the writing

she held, inquired--

'But what paper have you in your hand?'

'A letter which to me is actually inexplicable,' said she, her curiosity

returning to the letter, and overriding for the instant her immediate

concerns. 'What does this income of six hundred a year mean? Why have

you never told me about it, dear Swithin? or does it not refer to you?'

He looked at the note, flushed slightly, and was absolutely unable to

begin his reply at once.

'I did not mean you to see that, Viviette,' he murmured.

'Why not?'

'I thought you had better not, as it does not concern me further now. The

solicitors are labouring under a mistake in supposing that it does. I

have to write at once and inform them that the annuity is not mine to

receive.'

'What a strange mystery in your life!' she said, forcing a perplexed

smile. 'Something to balance the tragedy in mine. I am absolutely in

the dark as to your past history, it seems. And yet I had thought you

told me everything.'

'I could not tell you that, Viviette, because it would have endangered

our relations--though not in the way you may suppose. You would have

reproved me. You, who are so generous and noble, would have forbidden me

to do what I did; and I was determined not to be forbidden.'

'To do what?'

'To marry you.'

'Why should I have forbidden?'

'Must I tell--what I would not?' he said, placing his hands upon her

arms, and looking somewhat sadly at her. 'Well, perhaps as it has come

to this you ought to know all, since it can make no possible difference

to my intentions now. We are one for ever--legal blunders

notwithstanding; for happily they are quickly reparable--and this

question of a devise from my uncle Jocelyn only concerned me when I was a

single man.'

Thereupon, with obviously no consideration of the possibilities that were

reopened of the nullity of their marriage contract, he related in detail,

and not without misgiving for having concealed them so long, the events

that had occurred on the morning of their wedding-day; how he had met the

postman on his way to Warborne after dressing in the cabin, and how he

had received from him the letter his dead uncle had confided to his

family lawyers, informing him of the annuity, and of the important

request attached--that he should remain unmarried until his

five-and-twentieth year; how in comparison with the possession of her

dear self he had reckoned the income as nought, abandoned all idea of it

there and then, and had come on to the wedding as if nothing had happened

to interrupt for a moment the working out of their plan; how he had

scarcely thought with any closeness of the circumstances of the case

since, until reminded of them by this note she had seen, and a previous

one of a like sort received from the same solicitors.

'O Swithin! Swithin!' she cried, bursting into tears as she realized it

all, and sinking on the observing-chair; 'I have ruined you! yes, I have

ruined you!'

The young man was dismayed by her unexpected grief, and endeavoured to

soothe her; but she seemed touched by a poignant remorse which would not

be comforted.

'And now,' she continued, as soon as she could speak, 'when you are once

more free, and in a position--actually in a position to claim the annuity

that would be the making of you, I am compelled to come to you, and

beseech you to undo yourself again, merely to save me!'

'Not to save you, Viviette, but to bless me. You do not ask me to re-

marry; it is not a question of alternatives at all; it is my straight

course. I do not dream of doing otherwise. I should be wretched if you

thought for one moment I could entertain the idea of doing otherwise.'

But the more he said the worse he made the matter. It was a state of

affairs that would not bear discussion at all, and the unsophisticated

view he took of his course seemed to increase her responsibility.

'Why did your uncle attach such a cruel condition to his bounty?' she

cried bitterly. 'O, he little thinks how hard he hits me from the

grave--me, who have never done him wrong; and you, too! Swithin, are you

sure that he makes that condition indispensable? Perhaps he meant that

you should not marry beneath you; perhaps he did not mean to object in

such a case as your marrying (forgive me for saying it) a little above

you.'

'There is no doubt that he did not contemplate a case which has led to

such happiness as this has done,' the youth murmured with hesitation; for

though he scarcely remembered a word of his uncle's letter of advice, he

had a dim apprehension that it was couched in terms alluding specifically

to Lady Constantine.

'Are you sure you cannot retain the money, and be my lawful husband too?'

she asked piteously. 'O, what a wrong I am doing you! I did not dream

that it could be as bad as this. I knew I was wasting your time by

letting you love me, and hampering your projects; but I thought there

were compensating advantages. This wrecking of your future at my hands I

did not contemplate. You are sure there is no escape? Have you his

letter with the conditions, or the will? Let me see the letter in which

he expresses his wishes.'

'I assure you it is all as I say,' he pensively returned. 'Even if I

were not legally bound by the conditions I should be morally.'

'But how does he put it? How does he justify himself in making such a

harsh restriction? Do let me see the letter, Swithin. I shall think it

a want of confidence if you do not. I may discover some way out of the

difficulty if you let me look at the papers. Eccentric wills can be

evaded in all sorts of ways.'

Still he hesitated. 'I would rather you did not see the papers,' he

said.

But she persisted as only a fond woman can. Her conviction was that she

who, as a woman many years his senior, should have shown her love for him

by guiding him straight into the paths he aimed at, had blocked his

attempted career for her own happiness. This made her more intent than

ever to find out a device by which, while she still retained him, he

might also retain the life-interest under his uncle's will.

Her entreaties were at length too potent for his resistance. Accompanying

her downstairs to the cabin, he opened the desk from which the other

papers had been taken, and against his better judgment handed her the

ominous communication of Jocelyn St. Cleeve which lay in the envelope

just as it had been received three-quarters of a year earlier.

'Don't read it now,' he said. 'Don't spoil our meeting by entering into

a subject which is virtually past and done with. Take it with you, and

look it over at your leisure--merely as an old curiosity, remember, and

not as a still operative document. I have almost forgotten what the

contents are, beyond the general advice and stipulation that I was to

remain a bachelor.'

'At any rate,' she rejoined, 'do not reply to the note I have seen from

the solicitors till I have read this also.'

He promised. 'But now about our public wedding,' he said. 'Like certain

royal personages, we shall have had the religious rite and the civil

contract performed on independent occasions. Will you fix the day? When

is it to be? and shall it take place at a registrar's office, since there

is no necessity for having the sacred part over again?'

'I'll think,' replied she. 'I'll think it over.'

'And let me know as soon as you can how you decide to proceed.'

'I will write to-morrow, or come. I do not know what to say now. I

cannot forget how I am wronging you. This is almost more than I can

bear!'

To divert her mind he began talking about Greenwich Observatory, and the

great instruments therein, and how he had been received by the

astronomers, and the details of the expedition to observe the Transit of

Venus, together with many other subjects of the sort, to which she had

not power to lend her attention.

'I must reach home before the people are out of church,' she at length

said wearily. 'I wish nobody to know I have been out this morning.' And

forbidding Swithin to cross into the open in her company she left him on

the edge of the isolated plantation, which had latterly known her tread

so well.

XXXV

Lady Constantine crossed the field and the park beyond, and found on

passing the church that the congregation was still within. There was no

hurry for getting indoors, the open windows enabling her to hear that Mr.

Torkingham had only just given out his text. So instead of entering the

house she went through the garden-door to the old bowling-green, and sat

down in the arbour that Louis had occupied when he overheard the

interview between Swithin and the Bishop. Not until then did she find

courage to draw out the letter and papers relating to the bequest, which

Swithin in a critical moment had handed to her.

Had he been ever so little older he would not have placed that

unconsidered confidence in Viviette which had led him to give way to her

curiosity. But the influence over him which eight or nine outnumbering

years lent her was immensely increased by her higher position and wider

experiences, and he had yielded the point, as he yielded all social

points; while the same conditions exempted him from any deep

consciousness that it was his duty to protect her even from herself.

The preamble of Dr. St. Cleeve's letter, in which he referred to his

pleasure at hearing of the young man's promise as an astronomer,

disturbed her not at all--indeed, somewhat prepossessed her in favour of

the old gentleman who had written it. The first item of what he called

'unfavourable news,' namely, the allusion to the inadequacy of Swithin's

income to the wants of a scientific man, whose lines of work were not

calculated to produce pecuniary emolument for many years, deepened the

cast of her face to concern. She reached the second item of the

so-called unfavourable news; and her face flushed as she read how the

doctor had learnt 'that there was something in your path worse than

narrow means, and that something is a woman.'

'To save you, if possible, from ruin on these heads,' she read on, 'I

take the preventive measures entailed below.'

And then followed the announcement of the 600 pounds a year settled on

the youth for life, on the single condition that he remained unmarried

till the age of twenty-five--just as Swithin had explained to her. She

next learnt that the bequest was for a definite object--that he might

have resources sufficient to enable him to travel in an inexpensive way,

and begin a study of the southern constellations, which, according to the

shrewd old man's judgment, were a mine not so thoroughly worked as the

northern, and therefore to be recommended. This was followed by some

sentences which hit her in the face like a switch:--

'The only other preventive step in my power is that of exhortation. . . .

Swithin St. Cleeve, don't make a fool of yourself, as your father did. If

your studies are to be worth anything, believe me they must be carried on

without the help of a woman. Avoid her, and every one of the sex, if you

mean to achieve any worthy thing. Eschew all of that sort for many a

year yet. Moreover, I say, the lady of your acquaintance avoid in

particular. . . . She has, in addition to her original disqualification

as a companion for you (that is, that of sex), these two special

drawbacks: she is much older than yourself--'

Lady Constantine's indignant flush forsook her, and pale despair

succeeded in its stead. Alas, it was true. Handsome, and in her prime,

she might be; but she was too old for Swithin!

'And she is so impoverished. . . . Beyond this, frankly, I don't think

well of her. I don't think well of any woman who dotes upon a man

younger than herself. . . . To care to be the first fancy of a young

fellow like you shows no great common sense in her. If she were worth

her salt she would have too much pride to be intimate with a youth in

your unassured position, to say no more.' (Viviette's face by this time

tingled hot again.) 'She is old enough to know that a liaison with her

may, and almost certainly would, be your ruin; and, on the other hand,

that a marriage would be preposterous--unless she is a complete fool; and

in that case there is even more reason for avoiding her than if she were

in her few senses.

'A woman of honourable feeling, nephew, would be careful to do nothing to

hinder you in your career, as this putting of herself in your way most

certainly will. Yet I hear that she professes a great anxiety on this

same future of yours as a physicist. The best way in which she can show

the reality of her anxiety is by leaving you to yourself.'

Leaving him to himself! She paled again, as if chilled by a conviction

that in this the old man was right.

'She'll blab your most secret plans and theories to every one of her

acquaintance, and make you appear ridiculous by announcing them before

they are matured. If you attempt to study with a woman, you'll be ruled

by her to entertain fancies instead of theories, air-castles instead of

intentions, qualms instead of opinions, sickly prepossessions instead of

reasoned conclusions. . . .

'An experienced woman waking a young man's passions just at a moment when

he is endeavouring to shine intellectually, is doing little less than

committing a crime.'

* * * * *

Thus much the letter; and it was enough for her, indeed. The flushes of

indignation which had passed over her, as she gathered this man's opinion

of herself, combined with flushes of grief and shame when she considered

that Swithin--her dear Swithin--was perfectly acquainted with this

cynical view of her nature; that, reject it as he might, and as he

unquestionably did, such thoughts of her had been implanted in him, and

lay in him. Stifled as they were, they lay in him like seeds too deep

for germination, which accident might some day bring near the surface and

aerate into life.

The humiliation of such a possibility was almost too much to endure; the

mortification--she had known nothing like it till now. But this was not

all. There succeeded a feeling in comparison with which resentment and

mortification were happy moods--a miserable conviction that this old man

who spoke from the grave was not altogether wrong in his speaking; that

he was only half wrong; that he was, perhaps, virtually right. Only

those persons who are by nature affected with that ready esteem for

others' positions which induces an undervaluing of their own, fully

experience the deep smart of such convictions against self--the wish for

annihilation that is engendered in the moment of despair, at feeling that

at length we, our best and firmest friend, cease to believe in our cause.

Viviette could hear the people coming out of church on the other side of

the garden wall. Their footsteps and their cheerful voices died away;

the bell rang for lunch; and she went in. But her life during that

morning and afternoon was wholly introspective. Knowing the full

circumstances of his situation as she knew them now--as she had never

before known them--ought she to make herself the legal wife of Swithin

St. Cleeve, and so secure her own honour at any price to him? such was

the formidable question which Lady Constantine propounded to her startled

understanding. As a subjectively honest woman alone, beginning her

charity at home, there was no doubt that she ought. Save Thyself was

sound Old Testament doctrine, and not altogether discountenanced in the

New. But was there a line of conduct which transcended mere

self-preservation? and would it not be an excellent thing to put it in

practice now?

That she had wronged St. Cleeve by marrying him--that she would wrong him

infinitely more by completing the marriage--there was, in her opinion, no

doubt. She in her experience had sought out him in his inexperience, and

had led him like a child. She remembered--as if it had been her fault,

though it was in fact only her misfortune--that she had been the one to

go for the license and take up residence in the parish in which they were

wedded. He was now just one-and-twenty. Without her, he had all the

world before him, six hundred a year, and leave to cut as straight a road

to fame as he should choose: with her, this story was negatived.

No money from his uncle; no power of advancement; but a bondage with a

woman whose disparity of years, though immaterial just now, would operate

in the future as a wet blanket upon his social ambitions; and that

content with life as it was which she had noticed more than once in him

latterly, a content imperilling his scientific spirit by abstracting his

zeal for progress.

It was impossible, in short, to blind herself to the inference that

marriage with her had not benefited him. Matters might improve in the

future; but to take upon herself the whole liability of Swithin's life,

as she would do by depriving him of the help his uncle had offered, was a

fearful responsibility. How could she, an unendowed woman, replace such

assistance? His recent visit to Greenwich, which had momentarily revived

that zest for his pursuit that was now less constant than heretofore,

should by rights be supplemented by other such expeditions. It would be

true benevolence not to deprive him of means to continue them, so as to

keep his ardour alive, regardless of the cost to herself.

It could be done. By the extraordinary favour of a unique accident she

had now an opportunity of redeeming Swithin's seriously compromised

future, and restoring him to a state no worse than his first. His

annuity could be enjoyed by him, his travels undertaken, his studies

pursued, his high vocation initiated, by one little sacrifice--that of

herself. She only had to refuse to legalize their marriage, to part from

him for ever, and all would be well with him thenceforward. The pain to

him would after all be but slight, whatever it might be to his wretched

Viviette.

The ineptness of retaining him at her side lay not only in the fact

itself of injury to him, but in the likelihood of his living to see it as

such, and reproaching her for selfishness in not letting him go in this

unprecedented opportunity for correcting a move proved to be false. He

wished to examine the southern heavens--perhaps his uncle's letter was

the father of the wish--and there was no telling what good might not

result to mankind at large from his exploits there. Why should she, to

save her narrow honour, waste the wide promise of his ability?

That in immolating herself by refusing him, and leaving him free to work

wonders for the good of his fellow-creatures, she would in all

probability add to the sum of human felicity, consoled her by its breadth

as an idea even while it tortured her by making herself the scapegoat or

single unit on whom the evil would fall. Ought a possibly large number,

Swithin included, to remain unbenefited because the one individual to

whom his release would be an injury chanced to be herself? Love between

man and woman, which in Homer, Moses, and other early exhibitors of life,

is mere desire, had for centuries past so far broadened as to include

sympathy and friendship; surely it should in this advanced stage of the

world include benevolence also. If so, it was her duty to set her young

man free.

Thus she laboured, with a generosity more worthy even than its object, to

sink her love for her own decorum in devotion to the world in general,

and to Swithin in particular. To counsel her activities by her

understanding, rather than by her emotions as usual, was hard work for a

tender woman; but she strove hard, and made advance. The self-centred

attitude natural to one in her situation was becoming displaced by the

sympathetic attitude, which, though it had to be artificially fostered at

first, gave her, by degrees, a certain sweet sense that she was rising

above self-love. That maternal element which had from time to time

evinced itself in her affection for the youth, and was imparted by her

superior ripeness in experience and years, appeared now again, as she

drew nearer the resolve not to secure propriety in her own social

condition at the expense of this youth's earthly utility.

Unexpectedly grand fruits are sometimes forced forth by harsh pruning.

The illiberal letter of Swithin's uncle was suggesting to Lady

Constantine an altruism whose thoroughness would probably have amazed

that queer old gentleman into a withdrawal of the conditions that had

induced it. To love St. Cleeve so far better than herself as this was to

surpass the love of women as conventionally understood, and as mostly

existing.

Before, however, clinching her decision by any definite step she worried

her little brain by devising every kind of ingenious scheme, in the hope

of lighting on one that might show her how that decision could be avoided

with the same good result. But to secure for him the advantages offered,

and to retain him likewise; reflection only showed it to be impossible.

Yet to let him go _for ever_ was more than she could endure, and at

length she jumped at an idea which promised some sort of improvement on

that design. She would propose that reunion should not be entirely

abandoned, but simply postponed--namely, till after his twenty-fifth

birthday--when he might be her husband without, at any rate, the loss to

him of the income. By this time he would approximate to a man's full

judgment, and that painful aspect of her as one who had deluded his raw

immaturity would have passed for ever.

The plan somewhat appeased her disquieted honour. To let a marriage sink

into abeyance for four or five years was not to nullify it; and though

she would leave it to him to move its substantiation at the end of that

time, without present stipulations, she had not much doubt upon the

issue.

The clock struck five. This silent mental debate had occupied her whole

afternoon. Perhaps it would not have ended now but for an unexpected

incident--the entry of her brother Louis. He came into the room where

she was sitting, or rather writhing, and after a few words to explain how

he had got there and about the mistake in the date of Sir Blount's death,

he walked up close to her. His next remarks were apologetic in form, but

in essence they were bitterness itself.

'Viviette,' he said, 'I am sorry for my hasty words to you when I last

left this house. I readily withdraw them. My suspicions took a wrong

direction. I think now that I know the truth. You have been even madder

than I supposed!'

'In what way?' she asked distantly.

'I lately thought that unhappy young man was only your too-favoured

lover.'

'You thought wrong: he is not.'

'He is not--I believe you--for he is more. I now am persuaded that he is

your lawful husband. Can you deny it!'

'I can.'

'On your sacred word!'

'On my sacred word he is not that either.'

'Thank heaven for that assurance!' said Louis, exhaling a breath of

relief. 'I was not so positive as I pretended to be--but I wanted to

know the truth of this mystery. Since you are not fettered to him in

that way I care nothing.'

Louis turned away; and that afforded her an opportunity for leaving the

room. Those few words were the last grains that had turned the balance,

and settled her doom.

She would let Swithin go. All the voices in her world seemed to clamour

for that consummation. The morning's mortification, the afternoon's

benevolence, and the evening's instincts of evasion had joined to carry

the point.

Accordingly she sat down, and wrote to Swithin a summary of the thoughts

above detailed.

'We shall separate,' she concluded. 'You to obey your uncle's orders and

explore the southern skies; I to wait as one who can implicitly trust

you. Do not see me again till the years have expired. You will find me

still the same. I am your wife through all time; the letter of the law

is not needed to reassert it at present; while the absence of the letter

secures your fortune.'

Nothing can express what it cost Lady Constantine to marshal her

arguments; but she did it, and vanquished self-comfort by a sense of the

general expediency. It may unhesitatingly be affirmed that the only

ignoble reason which might have dictated such a step was non-existent;

that is to say, a serious decline in her affection. Tenderly she had

loved the youth at first, and tenderly she loved him now, as time and her

after-conduct proved.

Women the most delicate get used to strange moral situations. Eve

probably regained her normal sweet composure about a week after the Fall.

On first learning of her anomalous position Lady Constantine had blushed

hot, and her pure instincts had prompted her to legalize her marriage

without a moment's delay. Heaven and earth were to be moved at once to

effect it. Day after day had passed; her union had remained unsecured,

and the idea of its nullity had gradually ceased to be strange to her;

till it became of little account beside her bold resolve for the young

man's sake.

XXXVI

The immediate effect upon St. Cleeve of the receipt of her well-reasoned

argument for retrocession was, naturally, a bitter attack upon himself

for having been guilty of such cruel carelessness as to leave in her way

the lawyer's letter that had first made her aware of his uncle's

provision for him. Immature as he was, he could realize Viviette's

position sufficiently well to perceive what the poor lady must suffer at

having suddenly thrust upon her the responsibility of repairing her own

situation as a wife by ruining his as a legatee. True, it was by the

purest inadvertence that his pending sacrifice of means had been

discovered; but he should have taken special pains to render such a

mishap impossible. If on the first occasion, when a revelation might

have been made with impunity, he would not put it in the power of her

good nature to relieve his position by refusing him, he should have shown

double care not to do so now, when she could not exercise that

benevolence without the loss of honour.

With a young man's inattention to issues he had not considered how sharp

her feelings as a woman must be in this contingency. It had seemed the

easiest thing in the world to remedy the defect in their marriage, and

therefore nothing to be anxious about. And in his innocence of any

thought of appropriating the bequest by taking advantage of the loophole

in his matrimonial bond, he undervalued the importance of concealing the

existence of that bequest.

The looming fear of unhappiness between them revived in Swithin the warm

emotions of their earlier acquaintance. Almost before the sun had set he

hastened to Welland House in search of her. The air was disturbed by

stiff summer blasts, productive of windfalls and premature descents of

leafage. It was an hour when unripe apples shower down in orchards, and

unbrowned chestnuts descend in their husks upon the park glades. There

was no help for it this afternoon but to call upon her in a direct

manner, regardless of suspicions. He was thunderstruck when, while

waiting in the full expectation of being admitted to her presence, the

answer brought back to him was that she was unable to see him.

This had never happened before in the whole course of their acquaintance.

But he knew what it meant, and turned away with a vague disquietude. He

did not know that Lady Constantine was just above his head, listening to

his movements with the liveliest emotions, and, while praying for him to

go, longing for him to insist on seeing her and spoil all. But the

faintest symptom being always sufficient to convince him of having

blundered, he unwittingly took her at her word, and went rapidly away.

However, he called again the next day, and she, having gained strength by

one victory over herself, was enabled to repeat her refusal with greater

ease. Knowing this to be the only course by which her point could be

maintained, she clung to it with strenuous and religious pertinacity.

Thus immured and self-controlling she passed a week. Her brother, though

he did not live in the house (preferring the nearest watering-place at

this time of the year), was continually coming there; and one day he

happened to be present when she denied herself to Swithin for the third

time. Louis, who did not observe the tears in her eyes, was astonished

and delighted: she was coming to her senses at last. Believing now that

there had been nothing more between them than a too-plainly shown

partiality on her part, he expressed his commendation of her conduct to

her face. At this, instead of owning to its advantage also, her tears

burst forth outright.

Not knowing what to make of this, Louis said--

'Well, I am simply upholding you in your course.'

'Yes, yes; I know it!' she cried. 'And it is my deliberately chosen

course. I wish he--Swithin St. Cleeve--would go on his travels at once,

and leave the place! Six hundred a year has been left him for travel and

study of the southern constellations; and I wish he would use it. You

might represent the advantage to him of the course if you cared to.'

Louis thought he could do no better than let Swithin know this as soon as

possible. Accordingly when St. Cleeve was writing in the hut the next

day he heard the crackle of footsteps over the fir-needles outside, and

jumped up, supposing them to be hers; but, to his disappointment, it was

her brother who appeared at the door.

'Excuse my invading the hermitage, St. Cleeve,' he said in his careless

way, 'but I have heard from my sister of your good fortune.'

'My good fortune?'

'Yes, in having an opportunity for roving; and with a traveller's conceit

I couldn't help coming to give you the benefit of my experience. When do

you start?'

'I have not formed any plan as yet. Indeed, I had not quite been

thinking of going.'

Louis stared.

'Not going? Then I may have been misinformed. What I have heard is that

a good uncle has kindly bequeathed you a sufficient income to make a

second Isaac Newton of you, if you only use it as he directs.'

Swithin breathed quickly, but said nothing.

'If you have not decided so to make use of it, let me implore you, as

your friend, and one nearly old enough to be your father, to decide at

once. Such a chance does not happen to a scientific youth once in a

century.'

'Thank you for your good advice--for it is good in itself, I know,' said

Swithin, in a low voice. 'But has Lady Constantine spoken of it at all?'

'She thinks as I do.'

'She has spoken to you on the subject?'

'Certainly. More than that; it is at her request--though I did not

intend to say so--that I come to speak to you about it now.'

'Frankly and plainly,' said Swithin, his voice trembling with a compound

of scientific and amatory emotion that defies definition, 'does she say

seriously that she wishes me to go?'

'She does.'

'Then go I will,' replied Swithin firmly. 'I have been fortunate enough

to interest some leading astronomers, including the Astronomer Royal; and

in a letter received this morning I learn that the use of the Cape

Observatory has been offered me for any southern observations I may wish

to make. This offer I will accept. Will you kindly let Lady Constantine

know this, since she is interested in my welfare?'

Louis promised, and when he was gone Swithin looked blankly at his own

situation, as if he could scarcely believe in its reality. Her letter to

him, then, had been deliberately written; she meant him to go.

But he was determined that none of those misunderstandings which ruin the

happiness of lovers should be allowed to operate in the present case. He

would see her, if he slept under her walls all night to do it, and would

hear the order to depart from her own lips. This unexpected stand she

was making for his interests was winning his admiration to such a degree

as to be in danger of defeating the very cause it was meant to subserve.

A woman like this was not to be forsaken in a hurry. He wrote two lines,

and left the note at the house with his own hand.

'THE CABIN, RINGS-HILL,

_July_ 7_th_.

'DEAREST VIVIETTE,--If you insist, I will go. But letter-writing will

not do. I must have the command from your own two lips, otherwise I

shall not stir. I am here every evening at seven. Can you come?--S.'

This note, as fate would have it, reached her hands in the single hour of

that week when she was in a mood to comply with his request, just when

moved by a reactionary emotion after dismissing Swithin. She went

upstairs to the window that had so long served purposes of this kind, and

signalled 'Yes.'

St. Cleeve soon saw the answer she had given and watched her approach

from the tower as the sunset drew on. The vivid circumstances of his

life at this date led him ever to remember the external scenes in which

they were set. It was an evening of exceptional irradiations, and the

west heaven gleamed like a foundry of all metals common and rare. The

clouds were broken into a thousand fragments, and the margin of every

fragment shone. Foreseeing the disadvantage and pain to her of

maintaining a resolve under the pressure of a meeting, he vowed not to

urge her by word or sign; to put the question plainly and calmly, and to

discuss it on a reasonable basis only, like the philosophers they assumed

themselves to be.

But this intention was scarcely adhered to in all its integrity. She

duly appeared on the edge of the field, flooded with the metallic

radiance that marked the close of this day; whereupon he quickly

descended the steps, and met her at the cabin door. They entered it

together.

As the evening grew darker and darker he listened to her reasoning, which

was precisely a repetition of that already sent him by letter, and by

degrees accepted her decision, since she would not revoke it. Time came

for them to say good-bye, and then--

'He turn'd and saw the terror in her eyes,

That yearn'd upon him, shining in such wise

As a star midway in the midnight fix'd.'

It was the misery of her own condition that showed forth, hitherto

obscured by her ardour for ameliorating his. They closed together, and

kissed each other as though the emotion of their whole year-and-half's

acquaintance had settled down upon that moment.

'I won't go away from you!' said Swithin huskily. 'Why did you propose

it for an instant?'

Thus the nearly ended interview was again prolonged, and Viviette yielded

to all the passion of her first union with him. Time, however, was

merciless, and the hour approached midnight, and she was compelled to

depart. Swithin walked with her towards the house, as he had walked many

times before, believing that all was now smooth again between them, and

caring, it must be owned, very little for his fame as an expositor of the

southern constellations just then.

When they reached the silent house he said what he had not ventured to

say before, 'Fix the day--you have decided that it is to be soon, and

that I am not to go?'

But youthful Swithin was far, very far, from being up to the fond

subtlety of Viviette this evening. 'I cannot decide here,' she said

gently, releasing herself from his arm; 'I will speak to you from the

window. Wait for me.'

She vanished; and he waited. It was a long time before the window

opened, and he was not aware that, with her customary complication of

feeling, she had knelt for some time inside the room before looking out.

'Well?' said he.

'It cannot be,' she answered. 'I cannot ruin you. But the day after you

are five-and-twenty our marriage shall be confirmed, if you choose.'

'O, my Viviette, how is this!' he cried.

'Swithin, I have not altered. But I feared for my powers, and could not

tell you whilst I stood by your side. I ought not to have given way as I

did to-night. Take the bequest, and go. You are too young--to be

fettered--I should have thought of it! Do not communicate with me for at

least a year: it is imperative. Do not tell me your plans. If we part,

we do part. I have vowed a vow not to further obstruct the course you

had decided on before you knew me and my puling ways; and by Heaven's

help I'll keep that vow. . . . Now go. These are the parting words of

your own Viviette!'

Swithin, who was stable as a giant in all that appertained to nature and

life outside humanity, was a mere pupil in domestic matters. He was

quite awed by her firmness, and looked vacantly at her for a time, till

she closed the window. Then he mechanically turned, and went, as she had

commanded.

XXXVII

A week had passed away. It had been a time of cloudy mental weather to

Swithin and Viviette, but the only noteworthy fact about it was that what

had been planned to happen therein had actually taken place. Swithin had

gone from Welland, and would shortly go from England.

She became aware of it by a note that he posted to her on his way through

Warborne. There was much evidence of haste in the note, and something of

reserve. The latter she could not understand, but it might have been

obvious enough if she had considered.

On the morning of his departure he had sat on the edge of his bed, the

sunlight streaming through the early mist, the house-martens scratching

the back of the ceiling over his head as they scrambled out from the roof

for their day's gnat-chasing, the thrushes cracking snails on the garden

stones outside with the noisiness of little smiths at work on little

anvils. The sun, in sending its rods of yellow fire into his room, sent,

as he suddenly thought, mental illumination with it. For the first time,

as he sat there, it had crossed his mind that Viviette might have reasons

for this separation which he knew not of. There might be family

reasons--mysterious blood necessities which are said to rule members of

old musty-mansioned families, and are unknown to other classes of

society--and they may have been just now brought before her by her

brother Louis on the condition that they were religiously concealed.

The idea that some family skeleton, like those he had read of in memoirs,

had been unearthed by Louis, and held before her terrified understanding

as a matter which rendered Swithin's departure, and the neutralization of

the marriage, no less indispensable to them than it was an advantage to

himself, seemed a very plausible one to Swithin just now. Viviette might

have taken Louis into her confidence at last, for the sake of his

brotherly advice. Swithin knew that of her own heart she would never

wish to get rid of him; but coerced by Louis, might she not have grown to

entertain views of its expediency? Events made such a supposition on St.

Cleeve's part as natural as it was inaccurate, and, conjoined with his

own excitement at the thought of seeing a new heaven overhead, influenced

him to write but the briefest and most hurried final note to her, in

which he fully obeyed her sensitive request that he would omit all

reference to his plans. These at the last moment had been modified to

fall in with the winter expedition formerly mentioned, to observe the

Transit of Venus at a remote southern station.

The business being done, and himself fairly plunged into the

preliminaries of an important scientific pilgrimage, Swithin acquired

that lightness of heart which most young men feel in forsaking old love

for new adventure, no matter how charming may be the girl they leave

behind them. Moreover, in the present case, the man was endowed with

that schoolboy temperament which does not see, or at least consider with

much curiosity, the effect of a given scheme upon others than himself.

The bearing upon Lady Constantine of what was an undoubted predicament

for any woman, was forgotten in his feeling that she had done a very

handsome and noble thing for him, and that he was therefore bound in

honour to make the most of it.

His going had resulted in anything but lightness of heart for her. Her

sad fancy could, indeed, indulge in dreams of her yellow-haired laddie

without that formerly besetting fear that those dreams would prompt her

to actions likely to distract and weight him. She was wretched on her

own account, relieved on his. She no longer stood in the way of his

advancement, and that was enough. For herself she could live in

retirement, visit the wood, the old camp, the column, and, like OEnone,

think of the life they had led there--

'Mournful OEnone, wandering forlorn

Of Paris, once her playmate on the hills,'

leaving it entirely to his goodness whether he would come and claim her

in the future, or desert her for ever.

She was diverted for a time from these sad performances by a letter which

reached her from Bishop Helmsdale. To see his handwriting again on an

envelope, after thinking so anxiously of making a father-confessor of

him, started her out of her equanimity. She speedily regained it,

however, when she read his note.

'THE PALACE, MELCHESTER,

_July_ 30, 18--.

'MY DEAR LADY CONSTANTINE,--I am shocked and grieved that, in the

strange dispensation of things here below, my offer of marriage should

have reached you almost simultaneously with the intelligence that your

widowhood had been of several months less duration than you and I, and

the world, had supposed. I can quite understand that, viewed from any

side, the news must have shaken and disturbed you; and your

unequivocal refusal to entertain any thought of a new alliance at such

a moment was, of course, intelligible, natural, and praiseworthy. At

present I will say no more beyond expressing a hope that you will

accept my assurances that I was quite ignorant of the news at the hour

of writing, and a sincere desire that in due time, and as soon as you

have recovered your equanimity, I may be allowed to renew my

proposal.--I am, my dear Lady Constantine, yours ever sincerely,

C. MELCHESTER.'

She laid the letter aside, and thought no more about it, beyond a

momentary meditation on the errors into which people fall in reasoning

from actions to motives. Louis, who was now again with her, became in

due course acquainted with the contents of the letter, and was satisfied

with the promising position in which matters seemingly stood all round.

Lady Constantine went her mournful ways as she had planned to do, her

chief resort being the familiar column, where she experienced the

unutterable melancholy of seeing two carpenters dismantle the dome of its

felt covering, detach its ribs, and clear away the enclosure at the top

till everything stood as it had stood before Swithin had been known to

the place. The equatorial had already been packed in a box, to be in

readiness if he should send for it from abroad. The cabin, too, was in

course of demolition, such having been his directions, acquiesced in by

her, before he started. Yet she could not bear the idea that these

structures, so germane to the events of their romance, should be removed

as if removed for ever. Going to the men she bade them store up the

materials intact, that they might be re-erected if desired. She had the

junctions of the timbers marked with figures, the boards numbered, and

the different sets of screws tied up in independent papers for

identification. She did not hear the remarks of the workmen when she had

gone, to the effect that the young man would as soon think of buying a

halter for himself as come back and spy at the moon from Rings-Hill

Speer, after seeing the glories of other nations and the gold and jewels

that were found there, or she might have been more unhappy than she was.

On returning from one of these walks to the column a curious circumstance

occurred. It was evening, and she was coming as usual down through the

sighing plantation, choosing her way between the ramparts of the camp

towards the outlet giving upon the field, when suddenly in a dusky vista

among the fir-trunks she saw, or thought she saw, a golden-haired,

toddling child. The child moved a step or two, and vanished behind a

tree. Lady Constantine, fearing it had lost its way, went quickly to the

spot, searched, and called aloud. But no child could she perceive or

hear anywhere around. She returned to where she had stood when first

beholding it, and looked in the same direction, but nothing reappeared.

The only object at all resembling a little boy or girl was the upper tuft

of a bunch of fern, which had prematurely yellowed to about the colour of

a fair child's hair, and waved occasionally in the breeze. This,

however, did not sufficiently explain the phenomenon, and she returned to

make inquiries of the man whom she had left at work, removing the last

traces of Swithin's cabin. But he had gone with her departure and the

approach of night. Feeling an indescribable dread she retraced her

steps, and hastened homeward doubting, yet half believing, what she had

seemed to see, and wondering if her imagination had played her some

trick.

The tranquil mournfulness of her night of solitude terminated in a most

unexpected manner.

The morning after the above-mentioned incident Lady Constantine, after

meditating a while, arose with a strange personal conviction that bore

curiously on the aforesaid hallucination. She realized a condition of

things that she had never anticipated, and for a moment the discovery of

her state so overwhelmed her that she thought she must die outright. In

her terror she said she had sown the wind to reap the whirlwind. Then

the instinct of self-preservation flamed up in her like a fire. Her

altruism in subjecting her self-love to benevolence, and letting Swithin

go away from her, was demolished by the new necessity, as if it had been

a gossamer web.

There was no resisting or evading the spontaneous plan of action which

matured in her mind in five minutes. Where was Swithin? how could he be

got at instantly?--that was her ruling thought. She searched about the

room for his last short note, hoping, yet doubting, that its contents

were more explicit on his intended movements than the few meagre

syllables which alone she could call to mind. She could not find the

letter in her room, and came downstairs to Louis as pale as a ghost.

He looked up at her, and with some concern said, 'What's the matter?'

'I am searching everywhere for a letter--a note from Mr. St. Cleeve--just

a few words telling me when the _Occidental_ sails, that I think he goes

in.'

'Why do you want that unimportant document?'

'It is of the utmost importance that I should know whether he has

actually sailed or not!' said she in agonized tones. 'Where _can_ that

letter be?'

Louis knew where that letter was, for having seen it on her desk he had,

without reading it, torn it up and thrown it into the waste-paper basket,

thinking the less that remained to remind her of the young philosopher

the better.

'I destroyed it,' he said.

'O Louis! why did you?' she cried. 'I am going to follow him; I think it

best to do so; and I want to know if he is gone--and now the date is

lost!'

'Going to run after St. Cleeve? Absurd!'

'Yes, I am!' she said with vehement firmness. 'I must see him; I want to

speak to him as soon as possible.'

'Good Lord, Viviette! Are you mad?'

'O what was the date of that ship! But it cannot be helped. I start at

once for Southampton. I have made up my mind to do it. He was going to

his uncle's solicitors in the North first; then he was coming back to

Southampton. He cannot have sailed yet.'

'I believe he has sailed,' muttered Louis sullenly.

She did not wait to argue with him, but returned upstairs, where she rang

to tell Green to be ready with the pony to drive her to Warborne station

in a quarter of an hour.

XXXVIII

Viviette's determination to hamper Swithin no longer had led her, as has

been shown, to balk any weak impulse to entreat his return, by forbidding

him to furnish her with his foreign address. His ready disposition, his

fear that there might be other reasons behind, made him obey her only too

literally. Thus, to her terror and dismay, she had placed a gratuitous

difficulty in the way of her present endeavour.

She was ready before Green, and urged on that factotum so wildly as to

leave him no time to change his corduroys and 'skitty-boots' in which he

had been gardening; he therefore turned himself into a coachman as far

down as his waist merely--clapping on his proper coat, hat, and

waistcoat, and wrapping a rug over his horticultural half below. In this

compromise he appeared at the door, mounted, and reins in hand.

Seeing how sad and determined Viviette was, Louis pitied her so far as to

put nothing in the way of her starting, though he forbore to help her. He

thought her conduct sentimental foolery, the outcome of mistaken pity and

'such a kind of gain-giving as would trouble a woman;' and he decided

that it would be better to let this mood burn itself out than to keep it

smouldering by obstruction.

'Do you remember the date of his sailing?' she said finally, as the pony-

carriage turned to drive off.

'He sails on the 25th, that is, to-day. But it may not be till late in

the evening.'

With this she started, and reached Warborne in time for the up-train. How

much longer than it really is a long journey can seem to be, was fully

learnt by the unhappy Viviette that day. The changeful procession of

country seats past which she was dragged, the names and memories of their

owners, had no points of interest for her now. She reached Southampton

about midday, and drove straight to the docks.

On approaching the gates she was met by a crowd of people and vehicles

coming out--men, women, children, porters, police, cabs, and carts. The

Occidental had just sailed.

The adverse intelligence came upon her with such odds after her morning's

tension that she could scarcely crawl back to the cab which had brought

her. But this was not a time to succumb. As she had no luggage she

dismissed the man, and, without any real consciousness of what she was

doing, crept away and sat down on a pile of merchandise.

After long thinking her case assumed a more hopeful complexion. Much

might probably be done towards communicating with him in the time at her

command. The obvious step to this end, which she should have thought of

sooner, would be to go to his grandmother in Welland Bottom, and there

obtain his itinerary in detail--no doubt well known to Mrs. Martin. There

was no leisure for her to consider longer if she would be home again that

night; and returning to the railway she waited on a seat without eating

or drinking till a train was ready to take her back.

By the time she again stood in Warborne the sun rested his chin upon the

meadows, and enveloped the distant outline of the Rings-Hill column in

his humid rays. Hiring an empty fly that chanced to be at the station

she was driven through the little town onward to Welland, which she

approached about eight o'clock. At her request the man set her down at

the entrance to the park, and when he was out of sight, instead of

pursuing her way to the House, she went along the high road in the

direction of Mrs. Martin's.

Dusk was drawing on, and the bats were wheeling over the green basin

called Welland Bottom by the time she arrived; and had any other errand

instigated her call she would have postponed it till the morrow. Nobody

responded to her knock, but she could hear footsteps going hither and

thither upstairs, and dull noises as of articles moved from their places.

She knocked again and again, and ultimately the door was opened by Hannah

as usual.

'I could make nobody hear,' said Lady Constantine, who was so weary she

could scarcely stand.

'I am very sorry, my lady,' said Hannah, slightly awed on beholding her

visitor. 'But we was a putting poor Mr. Swithin's room to rights, now

that he is, as a woman may say, dead and buried to us; so we didn't hear

your ladyship. I'll call Mrs. Martin at once. She is up in the room

that used to be his work-room.'

Here Hannah's voice implied moist eyes, and Lady Constantine's instantly

overflowed.

'No, I'll go up to her,' said Viviette; and almost in advance of Hannah

she passed up the shrunken ash stairs.

The ebbing light was not enough to reveal to Mrs. Martin's aged gaze the

personality of her visitor, till Hannah explained.

'I'll get a light, my lady,' said she.

'No, I would rather not. What are you doing, Mrs. Martin?'

'Well, the poor misguided boy is gone--and he's gone for good to me! I

am a woman of over four-score years, my Lady Constantine; my junketting

days are over, and whether 'tis feasting or whether 'tis sorrowing in the

land will soon be nothing to me. But his life may be long and active,

and for the sake of him I care for what I shall never see, and wish to

make pleasant what I shall never enjoy. I am setting his room in order,

as the place will be his own freehold when I am gone, so that when he

comes back he may find all his poor jim-cracks and trangleys as he left

'em, and not feel that I have betrayed his trust.'

Mrs. Martin's voice revealed that she had burst into such few tears as

were left her, and then Hannah began crying likewise; whereupon Lady

Constantine, whose heart had been bursting all day (and who, indeed,

considering her coming trouble, had reason enough for tears), broke into

bitterer sobs than either--sobs of absolute pain, that could no longer be

concealed.

Hannah was the first to discover that Lady Constantine was weeping with

them; and her feelings being probably the least intense among the three

she instantly controlled herself.

'Refrain yourself, my dear woman, refrain!' she said hastily to Mrs.

Martin; 'don't ye see how it do raft my lady?' And turning to Viviette

she whispered, 'Her years be so great, your ladyship, that perhaps ye'll

excuse her for busting out afore ye? We know when the mind is dim, my

lady, there's not the manners there should be; but decayed people can't

help it, poor old soul!'

'Hannah, that will do now. Perhaps Lady Constantine would like to speak

to me alone,' said Mrs. Martin. And when Hannah had retreated Mrs.

Martin continued: 'Such a charge as she is, my lady, on account of her

great age! You'll pardon her biding here as if she were one of the

family. I put up with such things because of her long service, and we

know that years lead to childishness.'

'What are you doing? Can I help you?' Viviette asked, as Mrs. Martin,

after speaking, turned to lift some large article.

'Oh, 'tis only the skeleton of a telescope that's got no works in his

inside,' said Swithin's grandmother, seizing the huge pasteboard tube

that Swithin had made, and abandoned because he could get no lenses to

suit it. 'I am going to hang it up to these hooks, and there it will

bide till he comes again.'

Lady Constantine took one end, and the tube was hung up against the

whitewashed wall by strings that the old woman had tied round it.

'Here's all his equinoctial lines, and his topics of Capricorn, and I

don't know what besides,' Mrs. Martin continued, pointing to some

charcoal scratches on the wall. 'I shall never rub 'em out; no, though

'tis such untidiness as I was never brought up to, I shall never rub 'em

out.'

'Where has Swithin gone to first?' asked Viviette anxiously. 'Where does

he say you are to write to him?'

'Nowhere yet, my lady. He's gone traipsing all over Europe and America,

and then to the South Pacific Ocean about this Transit of Venus that's

going to be done there. He is to write to us first--God knows when!--for

he said that if we didn't hear from him for six months we were not to be

gallied at all.'

At this intelligence, so much worse than she had expected, Lady

Constantine stood mute, sank down, and would have fallen to the floor if

there had not been a chair behind her. Controlling herself by a

strenuous effort, she disguised her despair and asked vacantly: 'From

America to the South Pacific--Transit of Venus?' (Swithin's arrangement

to accompany the expedition had been made at the last moment, and

therefore she had not as yet been informed.)

'Yes, to a lone island, I believe.'

'Yes, a lone islant, my lady!' echoed Hannah, who had crept in and made

herself one of the family again, in spite of Mrs. Martin.

'He is going to meet the English and American astronomers there at the

end of the year. After that he will most likely go on to the Cape.'

'But before the end of the year--what places did he tell you of

visiting?'

'Let me collect myself; he is going to the observatory of Cambridge,

United States, to meet some gentlemen there, and spy through the great

refractor. Then there's the observatory of Chicago; and I think he has a

letter to make him beknown to a gentleman in the observatory at

Marseilles--and he wants to go to Vienna--and Poulkowa, too, he means to

take in his way--there being great instruments and a lot of astronomers

at each place.'

'Does he take Europe or America first?' she asked faintly, for the

account seemed hopeless.

Mrs. Martin could not tell till she had heard from Swithin. It depended

upon what he had decided to do on the day of his leaving England.

Lady Constantine bade the old people good-bye, and dragged her weary

limbs homeward. The fatuousness of forethought had seldom been evinced

more ironically. Had she done nothing to hinder him, he would have kept

up an unreserved communication with her, and all might have been well.

For that night she could undertake nothing further, and she waited for

the next day. Then at once she wrote two letters to Swithin, directing

one to Marseilles observatory, one to the observatory of Cambridge, U.S.,

as being the only two spots on the face of the globe at which they were

likely to intercept him. Each letter stated to him the urgent reasons

which existed for his return, and contained a passionately regretful

intimation that the annuity on which his hopes depended must of necessity

be sacrificed by the completion of their original contract without delay.

But letter conveyance was too slow a process to satisfy her. To send an

epitome of her epistles by telegraph was, after all, indispensable. Such

an imploring sentence as she desired to address to him it would be

hazardous to despatch from Warborne, and she took a dreary journey to a

strange town on purpose to send it from an office at which she was

unknown.

There she handed in her message, addressing it to the port of arrival of

the Occidental, and again returned home.

She waited; and there being no return telegram, the inference was that he

had somehow missed hers. For an answer to either of her letters she

would have to wait long enough to allow him time to reach one of the

observatories--a tedious while.

Then she considered the weakness, the stultifying nature of her attempt

at recall.

Events mocked her on all sides. By the favour of an accident, and by her

own immense exertions against her instincts, Swithin had been restored to

the rightful heritage that he had nearly forfeited on her account. He

had just started off to utilize it; when she, without a moment's warning,

was asking him again to cast it away. She had set a certain machinery in

motion--to stop it before it had revolved once.

A horrid apprehension possessed her. It had been easy for Swithin to

give up what he had never known the advantages of keeping; but having

once begun to enjoy his possession would he give it up now? Could he be

depended on for such self-sacrifice? Before leaving, he would have done

anything at her request; but the _mollia tempora fandi_ had now passed.

Suppose there arrived no reply from him for the next three months; and

that when his answer came he were to inform her that, having now fully

acquiesced in her original decision, he found the life he was leading so

profitable as to be unable to abandon it, even to please her; that he was

very sorry, but having embarked on this course by her advice he meant to

adhere to it by his own.

There was, indeed, every probability that, moving about as he was doing,

and cautioned as he had been by her very self against listening to her

too readily, she would receive no reply of any sort from him for three or

perhaps four months. This would be on the eve of the Transit; and what

likelihood was there that a young man, full of ardour for that spectacle,

would forego it at the last moment to return to a humdrum domesticity

with a woman who was no longer a novelty?

If she could only leave him to his career, and save her own situation

also! But at that moment the proposition seemed as impossible as to

construct a triangle of two straight lines.

In her walk home, pervaded by these hopeless views, she passed near the

dark and deserted tower. Night in that solitary place, which would have

caused her some uneasiness in her years of blitheness, had no terrors for

her now. She went up the winding path, and, the door being unlocked,

felt her way to the top. The open sky greeted her as in times previous

to the dome-and-equatorial period; but there was not a star to suggest to

her in which direction Swithin had gone. The absence of the dome

suggested a way out of her difficulties. A leap in the dark, and all

would be over. But she had not reached that stage of action as yet, and

the thought was dismissed as quickly as it had come.

The new consideration which at present occupied her mind was whether she

could have the courage to leave Swithin to himself, as in the original

plan, and singly meet her impending trial, despising the shame, till he

should return at five-and-twenty and claim her? Yet was this assumption

of his return so very safe? How altered things would be at that time! At

twenty-five he would still be young and handsome; she would be three-and-

thirty, fading to middle-age and homeliness, from a junior's point of

view. A fear sharp as a frost settled down upon her, that in any such

scheme as this she would be building upon the sand.

She hardly knew how she reached home that night. Entering by the lawn

door she saw a red coal in the direction of the arbour. Louis was

smoking there, and he came forward.

He had not seen her since the morning and was naturally anxious about

her. She blessed the chance which enveloped her in night and lessened

the weight of the encounter one half by depriving him of vision.

'Did you accomplish your object?' he asked.

'No,' said she.

'How was that?'

'He has sailed.'

'A very good thing for both, I say. I believe you would have married

him, if you could have overtaken him.'

'That would I!' she said.

'Good God!'

'I would marry a tinker for that matter; I have reasons for being any

man's wife,' she said recklessly, 'only I should prefer to drown myself.'

Louis held his breath, and stood rigid at the meaning her words conveyed.

'But Louis, you don't know all!' cried Viviette. 'I am not so bad as you

think; mine has been folly--not vice. I thought I had married him--and

then I found I had not; the marriage was invalid--Sir Blount was alive!

And now Swithin has gone away, and will not come back for my calling! How

can he? His fortune is left him on condition that he forms no legal tie.

O will he--will he, come again?'

'Never, if that's the position of affairs,' said Louis firmly, after a

pause.

'What then shall I do?' said Viviette.

Louis escaped the formidable difficulty of replying by pretending to

continue his Havannah; and she, bowed down to dust by what she had

revealed, crept from him into the house. Louis's cigar went out in his

hand as he stood looking intently at the ground.

XXXIX

Louis got up the next morning with an idea in his head. He had dressed

for a journey, and breakfasted hastily.

Before he had started Viviette came downstairs. Louis, who was now

greatly disturbed about her, went up to his sister and took her hand.

'_Aux grands maux les grands remedes_,' he said, gravely. 'I have a plan.'

'I have a dozen!' said she.

'You have?'

'Yes. But what are they worth? And yet there must--there _must_ be a

way!'

'Viviette,' said Louis, 'promise that you will wait till I come home to-

night, before you do anything.'

Her distracted eyes showed slight comprehension of his request as she

said 'Yes.'

An hour after that time Louis entered the train at Warborne, and was

speedily crossing a country of ragged woodland, which, though intruded on

by the plough at places, remained largely intact from prehistoric times,

and still abounded with yews of gigantic growth and oaks tufted with

mistletoe. It was the route to Melchester.

On setting foot in that city he took the cathedral spire as his guide,

the place being strange to him; and went on till he reached the archway

dividing Melchester sacred from Melchester secular. Thence he threaded

his course into the precincts of the damp and venerable Close, level as a

bowling-green, and beloved of rooks, who from their elm perches on high

threatened any unwary gazer with the mishap of Tobit. At the corner of

this reposeful spot stood the episcopal palace.

Louis entered the gates, rang the bell, and looked around. Here the

trees and rooks seemed older, if possible, than those in the Close behind

him. Everything was dignified, and he felt himself like Punchinello in

the king's chambers. Verily in the present case Glanville was not a man

to stick at trifles any more than his illustrious prototype; and on the

servant bringing a message that his lordship would see him at once, Louis

marched boldly in.

Through an old dark corridor, roofed with old dark beams, the servant led

the way to the heavily-moulded door of the Bishop's room. Dr. Helmsdale

was there, and welcomed Louis with considerable stateliness. But his

condescension was tempered with a curious anxiety, and even with

nervousness.

He asked in pointed tones after the health of Lady Constantine; if Louis

had brought an answer to the letter he had addressed to her a day or two

earlier; and if the contents of the letter, or of the previous one, were

known to him.

'I have brought no answer from her,' said Louis. 'But the contents of

your letter have been made known to me.'

Since entering the building Louis had more than once felt some

hesitation, and it might now, with a favouring manner from his

entertainer, have operated to deter him from going further with his

intention. But the Bishop had personal weaknesses that were fatal to

sympathy for more than a moment.

'Then I may speak in confidence to you as her nearest relative,' said the

prelate, 'and explain that I am now in a position with regard to Lady

Constantine which, in view of the important office I hold, I should not

have cared to place myself in unless I had felt quite sure of not being

refused by her. And hence it is a great grief, and some mortification to

me, that I was refused--owing, of course, to the fact that I unwittingly

risked making my proposal at the very moment when she was under the

influence of those strange tidings, and therefore not herself, and

scarcely able to judge what was best for her.'

The Bishop's words disclosed a mind whose sensitive fear of danger to its

own dignity hindered it from criticism elsewhere. Things might have been

worse for Louis's Puck-like idea of mis-mating his Hermia with this

Demetrius.

Throwing a strong colour of earnestness into his mien he replied:

'Bishop, Viviette is my only sister; I am her only brother and friend. I

am alarmed for her health and state of mind. Hence I have come to

consult you on this very matter that you have broached. I come

absolutely without her knowledge, and I hope unconventionality may be

excused in me on the score of my anxiety for her.'

'Certainly. I trust that the prospect opened up by my proposal, combined

with this other news, has not proved too much for her?'

'My sister is distracted and distressed, Bishop Helmsdale. She wants

comfort.'

'Not distressed by my letter?' said the Bishop, turning red. 'Has it

lowered me in her estimation?'

'On the contrary; while your disinterested offer was uppermost in her

mind she was a different woman. It is this other matter that oppresses

her. The result upon her of the recent discovery with regard to the late

Sir Blount Constantine is peculiar. To say that he ill-used her in his

lifetime is to understate a truth. He has been dead now a considerable

period; but this revival of his memory operates as a sort of terror upon

her. Images of the manner of Sir Blount's death are with her night and

day, intensified by a hideous picture of the supposed scene, which was

cruelly sent her. She dreads being alone. Nothing will restore my poor

Viviette to her former cheerfulness but a distraction--a hope--a new

prospect.'

'That is precisely what acceptance of my offer would afford.'

'Precisely,' said Louis, with great respect. 'But how to get her to

avail herself of it, after once refusing you, is the difficulty, and my

earnest problem.'

'Then we are quite at one.'

'We are. And it is to promote our wishes that I am come; since she will

do nothing of herself.'

'Then you can give me no hope of a reply to my second communication?'

'None whatever--by letter,' said Louis. 'Her impression plainly is that

she cannot encourage your lordship. Yet, in the face of all this

reticence, the secret is that she loves you warmly.'

'Can you indeed assure me of that? Indeed, indeed!' said the good Bishop

musingly. 'Then I must try to see her. I begin to feel--to feel

strongly--that a course which would seem premature and unbecoming in

other cases would be true and proper conduct in this. Her unhappy

dilemmas--her unwonted position--yes, yes--I see it all! I can afford to

have some little misconstruction put upon my motives. I will go and see

her immediately. Her past has been a cruel one; she wants sympathy; and

with Heaven's help I'll give it.'

'I think the remedy lies that way,' said Louis gently. 'Some words came

from her one night which seemed to show it. I was standing on the

terrace: I heard somebody sigh in the dark, and found that it was she. I

asked her what was the matter, and gently pressed her on this subject of

boldly and promptly contracting a new marriage as a means of dispersing

the horrors of the old. Her answer implied that she would have no

objection to do it, and to do it at once, provided she could remain

externally passive in the matter, that she would tacitly yield, in fact,

to pressure, but would not meet solicitation half-way. Now, Bishop

Helmsdale, you see what has prompted me. On the one hand is a dignitary

of high position and integrity, to say no more, who is anxious to save

her from the gloom of her situation; on the other is this sister, who

will not make known to you her willingness to be saved--partly from

apathy, partly from a fear that she may be thought forward in responding

favourably at so early a moment, partly also, perhaps, from a modest

sense that there would be some sacrifice on your part in allying yourself

with a woman of her secluded and sad experience.'

'O, there is no sacrifice! Quite otherwise. I care greatly for this

alliance, Mr. Glanville. Your sister is very dear to me. Moreover, the

advantages her mind would derive from the enlarged field of activity that

the position of a bishop's wife would afford, are palpable. I am induced

to think that an early settlement of the question--an immediate coming to

the point--which might be called too early in the majority of cases,

would be a right and considerate tenderness here. My only dread is that

she should think an immediate following up of the subject premature. And

the risk of a rebuff a second time is one which, as you must perceive, it

would be highly unbecoming in me to run.'

'I think the risk would be small, if your lordship would approach her

frankly. Write she will not, I am assured; and knowing that, and having

her interest at heart, I was induced to come to you and make this candid

statement in reply to your communication. Her late husband having been

virtually dead these four or five years, believed dead two years, and

actually dead nearly one, no reproach could attach to her if she were to

contract another union to-morrow.'

'I agree with you, Mr. Glanville,' said the Bishop warmly. 'I will think

this over. Her motive in not replying I can quite understand: your

motive in coming I can also understand and appreciate in a brother. If I

feel convinced that it would be a seemly and expedient thing I will come

to Welland to-morrow.'

The point to which Louis had brought the Bishop being so satisfactory, he

feared to endanger it by another word. He went away almost hurriedly,

and at once left the precincts of the cathedral, lest another encounter

with Dr. Helmsdale should lead the latter to take a new and slower view

of his duties as Viviette's suitor.

He reached Welland by dinner-time, and came upon Viviette in the same

pensive mood in which he had left her. It seemed she had hardly moved

since.

'Have you discovered Swithin St. Cleeve's address?' she said, without

looking up at him.

'No,' said Louis.

Then she broke out with indescribable anguish: 'But you asked me to wait

till this evening; and I have waited through the long day, in the belief

that your words meant something, and that you would bring good tidings!

And now I find your words meant nothing, and you have _not_ brought good

tidings!'

Louis could not decide for a moment what to say to this. Should he

venture to give her thoughts a new course by a revelation of his design?

No: it would be better to prolong her despair yet another night, and

spring relief upon her suddenly, that she might jump at it and commit

herself without an interval for reflection on certain aspects of the

proceeding.

Nothing, accordingly, did he say; and conjecturing that she would be

hardly likely to take any desperate step that night, he left her to

herself.

His anxiety at this crisis continued to be great. Everything depended on

the result of the Bishop's self-communion. Would he or would he not come

the next day? Perhaps instead of his important presence there would

appear a letter postponing the visit indefinitely. If so, all would be

lost.

Louis's suspense kept him awake, and he was not alone in his

sleeplessness. Through the night he heard his sister walking up and

down, in a state which betokened that for every pang of grief she had

disclosed, twice as many had remained unspoken. He almost feared that

she might seek to end her existence by violence, so unreasonably sudden

were her moods; and he lay and longed for the day.

It was morning. She came down the same as usual, and asked if there had

arrived any telegram or letter; but there was neither. Louis avoided

her, knowing that nothing he could say just then would do her any good.

No communication had reached him from the Bishop, and that looked well.

By one ruse and another, as the day went on, he led her away from

contemplating the remote possibility of hearing from Swithin, and induced

her to look at the worst contingency as her probable fate. It seemed as

if she really made up her mind to this, for by the afternoon she was

apathetic, like a woman who neither hoped nor feared.

And then a fly drove up to the door.

Louis, who had been standing in the hall the greater part of that day,

glanced out through a private window, and went to Viviette. 'The Bishop

has called,' he said. 'Be ready to see him.'

'The Bishop of Melchester?' said Viviette, bewildered.

'Yes. I asked him to come. He comes for an answer to his letters.'

'An answer--to--his--letters?' she murmured.

'An immediate reply of yes or no.'

Her face showed the workings of her mind. How entirely an answer of

assent, at once acted on for better or for worse, would clear the spectre

from her path, there needed no tongue to tell. It would, moreover,

accomplish that end without involving the impoverishment of Swithin--the

inevitable result if she had adopted the legitimate road out of her

trouble. Hitherto there had seemed to her dismayed mind, unenlightened

as to any course save one of honesty, no possible achievement of _both_

her desires--the saving of Swithin and the saving of herself. But

behold, here was a way! A tempter had shown it to her. It involved a

great wrong, which to her had quite obscured its feasibility. But she

perceived now that it was indeed a way. Nature was forcing her hand at

this game; and to what will not nature compel her weaker victims, in

extremes?

Louis left her to think it out. When he reached the drawing-room Dr.

Helmsdale was standing there with the air of a man too good for his

destiny--which, to be just to him, was not far from the truth this time.

'Have you broken my message to her?' asked the Bishop sonorously.

'Not your message; your visit,' said Louis. 'I leave the rest in your

Lordship's hands. I have done all I can for her.'

She was in her own small room to-day; and, feeling that it must be a bold

stroke or none, he led the Bishop across the hall till he reached her

apartment and opened the door; but instead of following he shut it behind

his visitor.

Then Glanville passed an anxious time. He walked from the foot of the

staircase to the star of old swords and pikes on the wall; from these to

the stags' horns; thence down the corridor as far as the door, where he

could hear murmuring inside, but not its import. The longer they

remained closeted the more excited did he become. That she had not

peremptorily negatived the proposal at the outset was a strong sign of

its success. It showed that she had admitted argument; and the worthy

Bishop had a pleader on his side whom he knew little of. The very

weather seemed to favour Dr. Helmsdale in his suit. A blusterous wind

had blown up from the west, howling in the smokeless chimneys, and

suggesting to the feminine mind storms at sea, a tossing ocean, and the

hopeless inaccessibility of all astronomers and men on the other side of

the same.

The Bishop had entered Viviette's room at ten minutes past three. The

long hand of the hall clock lay level at forty-five minutes past when the

knob of the door moved, and he came out. Louis met him where the passage

joined the hall.

Dr. Helmsdale was decidedly in an emotional state, his face being

slightly flushed. Louis looked his anxious inquiry without speaking it.

'She accepts me,' said the Bishop in a low voice. 'And the wedding is to

be soon. Her long solitude and sufferings justify haste. What you said

was true. Sheer weariness and distraction have driven her to me. She

was quite passive at last, and agreed to anything I proposed--such is the

persuasive force of trained logical reasoning! A good and wise woman,

she perceived what a true shelter from sadness was offered in me, and was

not the one to despise Heaven's gift.'

XL

The silence of Swithin was to be accounted for by the circumstance that

neither to the Mediterranean nor to America had he in the first place

directed his steps. Feeling himself absolutely free he had, on arriving

at Southampton, decided to make straight for the Cape, and hence had not

gone aboard the Occidental at all. His object was to leave his heavier

luggage there, examine the capabilities of the spot for his purpose, find

out the necessity or otherwise of shipping over his own equatorial, and

then cross to America as soon as there was a good opportunity. Here he

might inquire the movements of the Transit expedition to the South

Pacific, and join it at such a point as might be convenient.

Thus, though wrong in her premisses, Viviette had intuitively decided

with sad precision. There was, as a matter of fact, a great possibility

of her not being able to communicate with him for several months,

notwithstanding that he might possibly communicate with her.

This excursive time was an awakening for Swithin. To altered

circumstances inevitably followed altered views. That such changes

should have a marked effect upon a young man who had made neither grand

tour nor petty one--who had, in short, scarcely been away from home in

his life--was nothing more than natural. New ideas struggled to disclose

themselves and with the addition of strange twinklers to his southern

horizon came an absorbed attention that way, and a corresponding

forgetfulness of what lay to the north behind his back, whether human or

celestial. Whoever may deplore it few will wonder that Viviette, who

till then had stood high in his heaven, if she had not dominated it,

sank, like the North Star, lower and lower with his retreat southward.

Master of a large advance of his first year's income in circular notes,

he perhaps too readily forgot that the mere act of honour, but for her

self-suppression, would have rendered him penniless.

Meanwhile, to come back and claim her at the specified time, four years

thence, if she should not object to be claimed, was as much a part of his

programme as were the exploits abroad and elsewhere that were to prelude

it. The very thoroughness of his intention for that advanced date

inclined him all the more readily to shelve the subject now. Her unhappy

caution to him not to write too soon was a comfortable license in his

present state of tension about sublime scientific things, which knew not

woman, nor her sacrifices, nor her fears. In truth he was not only too

young in years, but too literal, direct, and uncompromising in nature to

understand such a woman as Lady Constantine; and she suffered for that

limitation in him as it had been antecedently probable that she would do.

He stayed but a little time at Cape Town on this his first reconnoitring

journey; and on that account wrote to no one from the place. On leaving

he found there remained some weeks on his hands before he wished to cross

to America; and feeling an irrepressible desire for further studies in

navigation on shipboard, and under clear skies, he took the steamer for

Melbourne; returning thence in due time, and pursuing his journey to

America, where he landed at Boston.

Having at last had enough of great circles and other nautical reckonings,

and taking no interest in men or cities, this indefatigable scrutineer of

the universe went immediately on to Cambridge; and there, by the help of

an introduction he had brought from England, he revelled for a time in

the glories of the gigantic refractor (which he was permitted to use on

occasion), and in the pleasures of intercourse with the scientific group

around. This brought him on to the time of starting with the Transit

expedition, when he and his kind became lost to the eye of civilization

behind the horizon of the Pacific Ocean.

To speak of their doings on this pilgrimage, of ingress and egress, of

tangent and parallax, of external and internal contact, would avail

nothing. Is it not all written in the chronicles of the Astronomical

Society? More to the point will it be to mention that Viviette's letter

to Cambridge had been returned long before he reached that place, while

her missive to Marseilles was, of course, misdirected altogether. On

arriving in America, uncertain of an address in that country at which he

would stay long, Swithin wrote his first letter to his grandmother; and

in this he ordered that all communications should be sent to await him at

Cape Town, as the only safe spot for finding him, sooner or later. The

equatorial he also directed to be forwarded to the same place. At this

time, too, he ventured to break Viviette's commands, and address a letter

to her, not knowing of the strange results that had followed his absence

from home.

It was February. The Transit was over, the scientific company had broken

up, and Swithin had steamed towards the Cape to take up his permanent