have been as a bachelor he will be a good and faithful husband. As to this new admiration, however, I have never even heard of it. Indeed, I fancy you know more of him and his doings than I do." "Well, you see poor Tom and he were always like brothers," said Mrs. Beverley quickly: it was a speech she had made so often that I almost think she had got to believe in it herself - "but old friends get put on one side for new flirtations. I don't suppose, however, that you would like this to prove anything serious, for from what I gathered the girl is of somewhat dubious extraction, daughter of the soi-disant widow of some Italian consul, a Miss Dysart and Why! why! doctor, take care! Oh! what a pity!" she knows nothing whatever about the girl, I may as well go home." The doctor went with her to the gate, his momentary discomposure over, and his face wearing its pleasantest smile again. "If you walked from the station, you must go back to it in my carriage," he said cordially. "It is ready, I see, and I am not, so it won't in the least delay me; and give our love to Gareth when you see him. I suppose this a-new love of his is a Londoner, as you know about her?" "Oh, no; didn't you hear me telling Helen she lives at Chadleigh End?" "Chadleigh - where?" "Chadleigh End, near Mickleham; you know. He is staying there." "Chadleigh End? Oh, ah! That's quite a small village, isn't it? Any gen A pity, indeed! Dr. Hamilton, who during the above conversation had been putting his notes together in the outer room, had just come forward as Mrs. Bev- try there ought to be well known to the erley was speaking to bid her good-bye. rest. And I think you said the name Whether in doing so he trod on something was She's the one that I took after your wife parted with her, you know; but she is a Chadleigh girl by birth, and knows all about these people." and stumbled, or what caused the acci- "Dysart; so my maid tells me at least. dent, those inside could not tell. All they saw, was that the violent start he gave brought his elbow in contact with a pretty Indian vase which stood on a bracket near the door, and knocked it to the ground. The pieces were scattered all about, and the doctor's face went quite white with annoyance. "I-I beg your pardon," he exclaimed, turning to his wife. "I really am very sorry - very. How could I have been so awkward! Such a handsome vase, too! I hope we shall be able to match it." "If I were Helen, I shouldn't care about breakages while I had a husband to make such pretty apologies for them," laughed Mrs. Beverley. "Why, Helen, he is nervous; his hands are shaking still, and he's as white as ashes. You ought to comfort him. Was it a unique specimen?" "On the contrary, a very ordinary one," said Mrs. Hamilton, rising quietly to ring the bell for a maid to remove the fragments. She simply looked at her husband; and Mrs. Beverley, seeing the look, rose too, and said good-bye. Helen was always an enigma to her, and at present her ungracious ignoring of the doctor's regret for the accident, and the look of more than concern on his face, seemed to her like forewarnings of a domestic storm. In which I should be sure to take his part, and make Helen furious with me," she said to herself. "What's a bit of china, more or less? But I believe she has a fearful temper; and, after all, as It "Ah, yes!" said the doctor; " and here's the carriage; let me put you in. Is this your parasol? Good-bye. Such a pleasure to have seen you." He stood with his hat off, smiling still, as the carriage rolled away, and then turned back into the garden. A great change had come over his face in that moment. wore the same look it had done when he broke the china: a pained, anxious, almost livid pallor, which gave him the appearance of being twenty years older than he was; and his fingers shook again, as drawing out his note-book, he wrote down in it the words "Chadleigh End," adding after a moment's thought, "Tuesday." "Not that I am likely to forget it," he said to himself half aloud. "What does it mean? Dead all these years, dead thank God! and now for Gareth -" A burst of baby laughter, and two small mischievous beings, his youngest children, came skipping through the laurels one in pursuit of another. There was a pause, and a shy up-glancing in surprise at the sight of papa, so seldom at home; but Dr. Hamilton held out both hands encouragingly, y, his brow cleared as if by magic, and his face bright with fatherly tenderness. "Well, you monkeys, what are you up to?" he said gaily. "Come here, Dolly, my wee woman, and give papa a kiss, the biggest you've got in that nice little from uvver peoples," said Fred with somouth." Little Dolly came forward willingly enough, pouting out her red lips in preparation; but the kiss was not given. Her mother's hand on her shoulder detained her. Mrs. Hamilton must have been close behind her husband, though he had not seen her, and her sudden appearance startled him as much as it did the children. "Dolly, Fred, how come you in the front garden?" she said with grave reproach. "Do you not know that it is forbidden? And no hats on either in this sun! Come indoors and get them." She took a child by either hand, and walked slowly towards the house with them. The doctor made no remonstrance. If he had been going to do so, the one look he encountered from her eyes must have quelled his purpose. Only there was a good deal of bitterness mingled with the wonted melancholy in his own, as he left the garden to resume his interrupted duties. Little Dolly, however, was not quite so placable. Her lips remained pouted out, though with the reverse of kissing intentions, and as they entered the house she ventured on a rebellious murmur. "Papa was doin' to pay wis Dolly. Her would lite to pay wis her papa, her would." "Papa has his work to attend to. He has no time to play with little girls," said Mrs. Hamilton gravely. "Can't my Dolly play with some one else?" The little face was lifted eagerly. "Wis oo, mammy? Will oo pay wis Fwed an' me? Oh, do, do!" But Mrs. Hamilton, instead of answering, almost tore her hand from the dimpled coaxing fingers, and pushed the child from her. "Take her away, Fred," she said hoarsely. "Go-both of you to the play-room. Nurse will amuse you. She is the proper person." Poor little Hamiltons! Dragged away from the kind smiling papa, who would have welcomed them, and driven away by the graver, cold-mannered mamma, they trotted soberly down the long corridor hand in hand, with wistful eyes and depressed corners to their mouths, and a general sense of guilt and injury on them. Dolly was still the refractory one. "Papas has time to pay wis childwen," she muttered stubbornly. "Minnie Taylor's papa pays wis her." "Our papas and mammas is different briety. He was used to the difference, and accepted it uncomplainingly; but it oppressed him all the same. The little Hamiltons were not happy children. And, meanwhile, their mother, behind the door which she had closed upon them, was fighting dumbly with another of those terrible paroxysms of pain by which we have once before seen her overcome. "But, thank God, I had strength to get rid of them first," she moaned, the big drops of torture standing on her brow. "Poor lambs! they will think me cruel; but better that than that they should be haunted by the sight of me so." BOOK II. CHAPTER I. HERALDING SHADOWS. GARETH meanwhile was amusing himself. Begun in the merest spirit of idleness, a sport, rendered pleasing by a pretty face, and piquant by a nature sweeter and more unspoilt than he was in the habit of encountering, his pursuit of Sybil had grown from a jest into a passion; and the half-laughing gibe addressed to Mrs. Jacobson about "cutting out the parson had become very real earnest. Mr. Vane himself made no secret whatever of the charm which drew him down to Mickleham and Chadleigh End. To meet Sybil at some garden party or picnic, to get her to himself for a few minutes and beguile her into expressing a desire to read some new poem or possess some rare flower, was but the prelude to his appearing at Birchwood a day or two later, bringing with him the flower or poem aforesaid, and openly avowing that the sole object of his visit was to lay these offerings at the feet of his new idol. Once or twice Mrs. Jacobson said to him, with a laugh,— "What is all this going to end in? Are you really prepared to fight a duel with young Ashleigh? It will come to that if you make her fall in love with you. Why don't you try your fascinations on some one who is free to accept them? Don't forget that I am waiting to be asked to your wedding. Matt is to give me the most expensive bonnet of the season for it, and I am getting impatient." 66 Pray don't vulgarize my passion by bringing such details as weddings and bonnets to bear on it," said Gareth gaily. "I am ready to fight young Ashleigh now or at any time if he and you both wish it. | trothed that the devotion of any one else It is crime enough on his part to have known Sybil Dysart before I did." But though Gareth joked about his "passion," it was one none the less; and, perhaps, he could not have answered Mrs. Jacobson more satisfactorily. In truth, he had never thought how it was to end. To lavish time, money, and energy on a pursuit which had no definite good or object, even in his own mind, was just one of the bits of reckless folly in which the man delighted. Endings were never things in his line. He preferred the beginning of affairs. His whole life was a series of beginnings and breakings off; and there had been at times sufficient pain and discomfort in the latter to make him shrink from contemplating them beforehand. The doubt in his mind, that which gave piquancy to his present pursuit, was whether his fascinations were as irresistible with Sybil as Mrs. Jacobson thought them likely to be. simply made no impression on her. He was one of those men who would rather that a woman hated them than that she was indifferent to them. The Jacobsons and their friends were fond of talking of the Dysart exclusiveness, the Dysart stand-offishness, the Dysart absorption in their own circle and indifference to every one outside it. It was the very thing to set Gareth on fire. To make it apparent that this exclusiveness was relaxed for him, that he had overridden the superiority and melted the indifference, was something worth trying for. Sybil must learn to care for him a little. That tranquil heart must flutter at his approach, those even pulses thrill under his touch. She might marry her parson lover afterwards if she would; but that victory at least he must have gained. It was the pleasantest little campaign for a summer month. One day he and the "parson lover " met. It was at Farmer Dyson's. Lion had some business with the yeoman, and the latter told him that he had a “Lunnon gent" lodging with him for a week. "Been 'ere afore fur a few days' shootin' in the autumn," said the farmer, "but this time 'tis fur quiet and to do some littery work. 'Tis a gent as writes fur the s'ciety papers. Oh, 'ere he be!" They ought to have been. She was so soft and sweet, so unspoilt; so trusting in the good faith of all about her, so easily impressed by flattery or kindness, that the warmth and pertinacity of his devotion should have been sufficient to touch and win her; yet even to his own heart he could not say that they had done so. Her very simplicity baffled him. Her tranquil serenity became at times a tor- Gareth happened to be coming out at ture. It was these which made her so the moment, and he and Lion met and difficult to read. Other women with far were introduced, and I rather think at deeper and more complex characters were that first meeting that Lion took to him. infinitely easier to decipher. He had The handsome face, the frank manner, only to bestow a tender glance, or a sym- and occasional incisiveness of his converpathetic word in an undertone on Miss sation, then, were not without their pleasSaunders, and next time he touched the ant effect on men as well as women, and poor thing's hand it went cold and damp Gareth himself was rather curious to with agitation, and he could not go in or out know what the man was like whom Sybil without finding her in his way with mourn- did love. He told Lion, therefore, that he ful, feverish eyes fixed on him in a wistful had run down to the country to get up way which was almost irritating; but the some articles for a certain weekly paper delicate rose-color which had once or bearing on local agricultural questions, twice flattered him by rising to Sybil's and the young curate fired into interest cheeks at his approach mantled there as on the instant. They walked a good way readily at any other little surprise, or even together, and before they parted Lion had at the mention of her lover's name. The asked him to come and see him at the little hand which rested in his ardent vicarage. Nay, he did more; for, being pressure with a soft reliance, very sweet interested in his companion, and finding and touching, might, for aught he knew, lie as trustingly in any other palm. That liquid, childlike glance in the blue eyes which seemed to appeal to him alone, might have the same language for any other gaze. How could he know? And he wanted to do so. He wanted to make sure at least if she had any feelings at all, or if they were so absorbed by her be that they had several mutual acquaint ances, he asked him to dinner; and Gareth went, wondering amusedly whether his rival would next offer to take him to Hillbrow; and if so, what he should do. He was not troubled with ultra-conscientious scruples, and was of opinion that the proverb, "All's fair in love and war," permitted of a very broad translation; but to allow this young fellow, his junior in all senses of the word, to take him to the house of his betrothed for the sole reason that he might get up a flirtation with the young lady seemed even to him a somewhat shabby proceeding, and he decided against it. He need not have done so, as his selfdenial was not to be tried. Young Ashleigh's reverence for the little household, which served as a shrine for his own precious pearl Sybil, was far too great to allow him to introduce into it any or every stranger who happened to be amusing or agreeable to himself; and on the other side Gareth was not enough of a hypocrite to make it seem in any way desirable to make an exception in his favor. Even to Sybil he said,· "Please don't fancy I am a saint, Miss Dysart, or even a good, orthodox Christian; for I'm nothing of the sort. I've been a graceless ne'er-do-weel all my life; and I shall be so to the end. If you were one of the Mrs. Grundys of the world you wouldn't speak to me. You'd go on the other side, and look the other way when you saw me coming; and perhaps, as you're so young and innocent, I ought to tell you to do so, anyhow; but I'm not sufficiently heroic. When a poor, lonely wretch like myself has had one glimpse of heaven, and only one, in all his life, he must be more than self-denying if he can shut his eyes to it, and not want to see it again." And Sybil, who saw plenty of good, orthodox, unexciting Christians in the persons of the Ashleighs and her own family, thought him all the more interesting for his candor; and even began to wonder if she might not be reclaiming this fascinating reprobate from his erring ways, by showing him a little kindness and encouragement. It isn't easy to condemn a person severely, who not only condemns himself in advance, but exalts you in a way altogether novel and flattering; and though Sybil was well used to being petted and cared for, even Lion, with all his fondness for her, had never admitted that her presence was his only heaven. To the curate, however, Gareth simply showed himself as he was, a bright, cleverish, languidly cynical man about town, suficiently gentlemanly and amusing, but not troubled with over-strictness of morals, nor careful to assume them because his companion wore a white cravat, and had charge of a rural parish; and Lion, who could go his own way without being a prig, listened and laughed and made him welcome; but had as little notion of introducing him to Sybil or Jenny as of flying. He never even mentioned the family by name, and Gareth followed his example. It happened, however, that on the very next day, as Sybil was on her way to visit a poor woman on the other side of Chadleigh Heath, she encountered Mr. Vane strolling along with so careless an air, that he might have been an old resident in the place instead of a casual visitor, only that no old resident could have brought such a vivid crimson to her cheeks, such startled pleasure and surprise to her eyes. It had been rather dull at home of late. Ever since mamma had made Mrs. Jacobson's acquaintance, an event which was sure to happen in time, Sybil's nascent intimacy at Birchwood had been silently vetoed; and now that Adelaide also was gone (she had been married to Captain Lonsdale in the spring), Dilworth had lost its chief attraction for her. True, Jenny had been allowed to "come out" since then; but there had been no particular gaieties of late to come out for; and only the promise of a dance at Squire Chawler's to look forward to. It was all very stupid together; and Sybil could not help thinking of those lively lunches at the Jacobsons", with Gareth Vane waiting on her, and of the flattering speeches which had made the time pass so pleasantly. She wondered whether she should ever see him again, whether mamma would not let her call on Mrs. Jacobson and return that book of his; and whether, if she did, she should hear anything about him. Altogether he was a good deal in her mind just then; and now, when she saw him so suddenly before her, surprise and pleasure almost took away her powers of speech; and for the moment, at any rate, Gareth had the triumph of thinking that the object of his pursuit was gained. Would a woman who was really indifferent to him color so richly and stop short, with such a lovely, wondering brightness in her eyes? His own heart beat faster than usual at the sight; but the man of the world had greater mastery over himself than the inexperienced girl; and he met her eyes with smiling self-possesion. "Miss Dysart, this is delightful. I was just thinking of you; and you come to meet me as if in answer to my thoughts. Did some good spirit lead you?" He had taken her hand in speaking, and he was almost sure now that it trembled a little as she answered him. "No, indeed. I am only going to visit some of my poor people; but what brought you here, Mr. Vane? I thought you were in London." "No; I have taken lodgings in this neighborhood for a while to do some literary work. Are you vexed at it?" "Vexed? No, Mr. Vane. Why?" And she blushed deeper than ever at the idea. "Because you looked so astonished at the mere sight of me." "That was because I fancied you were ever so far away. I did not even know whether I should ever see you again. Indeed, I had just been wondering But oh, no; of course I was not vexed," said Sybil, breaking off in her answer rather confusedly. What had she been going to confess? Gareth did not ask her. "I am glad you are not," he said gently, "for it was a great pleasure for me to meet you; and, perhaps, as I see we are going in the same direction, you will not mind my walking a little way with you, will you?" Sybil was rather startled; but she had not the courage to say no. It might not be quite right; but what was she to do? She had no right to order him to take another path because he happened to be going her way; and then it was so pleasant to see him at her side again. He took his place there without further permission; and by-and-by he said, "Where do you think I was dining last night?" "With the Jacobsons?" "No, with some one much nearer to you; with perhaps the most fortunate man in the world - to my thinking at any rate Mr. Ashleigh." He said the name, looking full at her, in order to judge of its effect, and to his annoyance she certainly colored. There was even a little eagerness, restrained by natural modesty, in her manner as she answered. "With Mr. Ashleigh? Were you? I am glad. I-I did not think you knew him." "Nor did I until I met him at my worthy landlord's, the previous day. I had often heard of him, however." Sybil was silent. She was wondering how the two men had got on together, and what Gareth thought of her fiancé. She was aware that he knew that she was engaged. After a second, he added, "I was glad to go: glad and vexed, both. I am interested in young Mr. Ashleigh." Sybil glanced up at him with a kind of shy questioning. "Why were you vexed? Didn't you - like him? I am sorry. Of course, I know that living always in the country, and-and being a clergyman, and all that, makes him not quite - not like you and some London men; and he has queer ideas about things. I don't understand them, but some people think they are right; and he is very good to the poor people. I had wished that he knew you." "She is apologizing for him!" said Gareth to himself. "No woman really in love ever did that for him to another man. Understand him? No, I don't suppose she does in the least; nor he her." Aloud he said, "Thank you very much. But why should you think I don't like him? I assure you that I thought him a most estimable young fellow. I was jealous of him, of course; envious, if you like. He certainly seems to me the most enviable man in the world, and I only hope he doesn't take his blessings too coolly. In his place I'm afraid I should even find it difficult to appear to do so." "Ah! Mr. Ashleigh is not such an enthusiastic person as you; besides, he may have troubles like other people as well," said Sybil, smiling; but she could not help understanding what was the particular blessing alluded to, and wondering whether Lion did value it as he ought. Gareth had seemed to doubt his doing so. Of course it was not many days before Lion found out that his late guest and his betrothed were known to one another. Gareth had no intention of concealing the fact; and as they all met in the churchyard on the following Sunday it became at once apparent. Too much so, in fact, for Lion was both astonished and annoyed, and took an early opportunity of asking Sybil where on earth she had made acquaintance with "that Bohemian fellow, Gareth Vane? He seems wonderfully at home with you!" and though Sybil's explanation was of course all that could be wished, the annoyance did not die out. She had blushed deeply while answering, and her tone had something of offence in its accent. Perhaps Lion's, on the other hand, had been too sultan-like; but he had been startled by the palpable air of intimacy in Gareth's whole manner and bear |