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A Perilous Secret

by Charles Reade · English · Gutenberg #12470 · 563,813 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: A Perilous Secret

Author: Charles Reade


        
Release date: May 1, 2004 [eBook #12470]
                Most recently updated: October 28, 2024

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/12470

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A PERILOUS SECRET ***

                           A PERILOUS SECRET

                           BY CHARLES READE

AUTHOR OF "HARD CASH" "PUT YOURSELF IN HIS PLACE" "GRIFFITH GAUNT" "IT IS
NEVER TOO LATE TO MEND" ETC., ETC.

                                 1884




CONTENTS.


CHAPTER I.
THE POOR MAN'S CHILD

CHAPTER II.
THE RICH MAN'S CHILD

CHAPTER III.
THE TWO FATHERS

CHAPTER IV.
AN OLD SERVANT

CHAPTER V.
MARY'S PERIL

CHAPTER VI.
SHARP PRACTICE

CHAPTER VII.
THE COURSE OF TRUE LOVE

CHAPTER VIII.
THE COURSE OF TRUE LOVE

CHAPTER IX.
LOVERS PARTED

CHAPTER X.
THE GORDIAN KNOT

CHAPTER XI.
THE KNOT CUT.--ANOTHER TIED

CHAPTER XII.
THE CLANDESTINE MARRIAGE

CHAPTER XIII.
THE SERPENT LET LOOSE

CHAPTER XIV.
THE SERPENT

CHAPTER XV.
THE SECRET IN DANGER

CHAPTER XVI.
REMINISCENCES.--THE FALSE ACCUSER.--THE SECRET EXPLODED

CHAPTER XVII.
LOVERS' QUARRELS

CHAPTER XVIII.
APOLOGIES

CHAPTER XIX.
A WOMAN OUTWITS TWO MEN

CHAPTER XX.
CALAMITY

CHAPTER XXI.
BURIED ALIVE

CHAPTER XXII.
REMORSE

CHAPTER XXIII.
BURIED ALIVE.--THE THREE DEADLY PERILS

CHAPTER XXIV.
STRANGE COMPLICATIONS

CHAPTER XXV.
RETRIBUTION

CHAPTER XXVI.
STRANGE TURNS

CHAPTER XXVII.
CURTAIN




A PERILOUS SECRET.




CHAPTER I.

THE POOR MAN'S CHILD.


Two worn travellers, a young man and a fair girl about four years old,
sat on the towing-path by the side of the Trent.

The young man had his coat off, by which you might infer it was very hot;
but no, it was a keen October day, and an east wind sweeping down the
river. The coat was wrapped tightly round the little girl, so that only
her fair face with blue eyes and golden hair peeped out; and the young
father sat in his shirt sleeves, looking down on her with a loving but
anxious look. Her mother, his wife, had died of consumption, and he was
in mortal terror lest biting winds and scanty food should wither this
sweet flower too, his one remaining joy.

William Hope was a man full of talent; self-educated, and wonderfully
quick at learning anything: he was a linguist, a mechanic, a
mineralogist, a draughtsman, an inventor. Item, a bit of a farrier, and
half a surgeon; could play the fiddle and the guitar; could draw and
paint and drive a four-in-hand. Almost the only thing he could not do was
to make money and keep it.

Versatility seldom pays. But, to tell the truth, luck was against him;
and although in a long life every deserving man seems to get a chance,
yet Fortune does baffle some meritorious men for a limited time.
Generally, we think, good fortune and ill fortune succeed each other
rapidly, like red cards and black; but to some ill luck comes in great
long slices; and if they don't drink or despair, by-and-by good luck
comes continuously, and everything turns to gold with him who has waited
and deserved.

Well, for years Fortune was hard on William Hope. It never let him get
his head above-water. If he got a good place, the employer died or sold
his business. If he patented an invention, and exhausted his savings to
pay the fees, no capitalist would work it, or some other inventor
proved he had invented something so like it that there was no basis for
a monopoly.

At last there fell on him the heaviest blow of all. He had accumulated
£50 as a merchant's clerk, and was in negotiation for a small independent
business, when his wife, whom he loved tenderly, sickened.

For eight months he was distracted with hopes and fears. These gave way
to dismal certainty. She died, and left him broken-hearted and poor,
impoverished by the doctors, and pauperized by the undertaker. Then his
crushed heart had but one desire--to fly from the home that had lost its
sunshine, and the very country which had been calamitous to him.

He had one stanch friend, who had lately returned rich from New Zealand,
and had offered to send him out as his agent, and to lend him money in
the colony. Hope had declined, and his friend had taken the huff, and
had not written to him since. But Hope knew he was settled in Hull, and
too good-hearted at bottom to go from his word in his friend's present
sad condition. So William Hope paid every debt he owed in Liverpool, took
his child to her mother's tombstone, and prayed by it, and started to
cross the island, and then leave it for many a long day.

He had a bundle with one brush, one comb, a piece of yellow soap, and two
changes of linen, one for himself, and one for his little Grace--item,
his fiddle, and a reaping hook; for it was a late harvest in the north,
and he foresaw he should have to work his way and play his way, or else
beg, and he was too much of a man for that. His child's face won her many
a ride in a wagon, and many a cup of milk from humble women standing at
their cottage doors.

Now and then he got a day's work in the fields, and the farmer's wife
took care of little Grace, and washed her linen, and gave them both clean
straw in the barn to lie on, and a blanket to cover them. Once he fell in
with a harvest-home, and his fiddle earned him ten shillings, all in
sixpences. But on unlucky days he had to take his fiddle under his arm,
and carry his girl on his back: these unlucky days came so often that
still as he travelled his small pittance dwindled. Yet half-way on this
journey fortune smiled on him suddenly. It was in Derbyshire. He went a
little out of his way to visit his native place--he had left it at ten
years old. Here an old maid, his first cousin, received Grace with
rapture, and Hope pottered about all day, reviving his boyish
recollections of people and places. He had left the village ignorant; he
returned full of various knowledge; and so it was that in a certain
despised field, all thistles and docks and every known weed, which field
the tenant had condemned as a sour clay unfit for cultivation, William
Hope found certain strata and other signs which, thanks to his
mineralogical studies and practical knowledge, sent a sudden thrill all
through his frame. "Here's luck at last!" said he. "My child! my child!
our fortune is made."

The proprietor of this land, and indeed of the whole parish, was a
retired warrior, Colonel Clifford. Hope knew that very well, and hurried
to Clifford Hall, all on fire with his discovery.

He obtained an interview without any difficulty. Colonel Clifford, though
proud as Lucifer, was accessible and stiffly civil to humble folk. He was
gracious enough to Hope; but, when the poor fellow let him know he had
found signs of coal on his land, he froze directly; told him that two
gentlemen in that neighborhood had wasted their money groping the bowels
of the earth for coal, because of delusive indications on the surface of
the soil; and that for his part, even if he was sure of success, he would
not dirty his fingers with coal. "I believe," said he, "the northern
nobility descend to this sort of thing; but then they have not smelled
powder, and seen glory, and served her Majesty. _I have_."

Hope tried to reason with him, tried to get round him. But he was
unassailable as Gibraltar, and soon cut the whole thing short by
saying: "There, that's enough. I am much obliged to you, sir, for
bringing me information you think valuable. You are travelling--on
foot--short of funds perhaps. Please accept this trifle,
and--and--good-morning." He retreated at marching pace, and the hot
blood burned his visitor's face. An alms!

But on second thoughts he said: "Well, I have offered him a fortune, and
he gives me ten shillings. One good turn deserves another." So he
pocketed the half-sovereign, and bought his little Grace a
neck-handkerchief, blue with white spots; and so this unlucky man and his
child fought their way from west to east, till they reached that place
where we introduced them to the reader.

That was an era in their painful journey, because until then Hope's only
anxiety was to find food and some little comfort for his child. But this
morning little Grace had begun to cough, a little dry cough that struck
on the father's heart like a knell. Her mother had died of consumption:
were the seeds of that fatal malady in her child? If so, hardship,
fatigue, cold, and privation would develop them rapidly, and she would
wither away into the grave before his eyes. So he looked down on her in
an agony of foreboding, and shivered in his shirt sleeves, not at the
cold, but at the future. She, poor girl, was, like the animals, blessed
with ignorance of everything beyond the hour; and soon she woke her
father from his dire reverie with a cry of delight.

"Oh, what's they?" said she, and beamed with pleasure. Hope followed the
direction of her blue eyes, open to their full extent; and lo! there was
a little fleet of swans coming round a bend of the river. Hope told her
all about the royal birds, and that they belonged to sovereigns in one
district, to cities in another. Meantime the fair birds sailed on, and
passed stately, arching their snowy necks. Grace gloated on them, and for
a day or two her discourse was of swans.

At last, when very near the goal, misfortunes multiplied. They came into
a town on a tidal river, whence they could hope to drift down to their
destination for a shilling or two; but here Hope spent his last farthing
on Grace's supper at an eating-house, and had not wherewithal to pay for
bed or breakfast at the humble inn. Here, too, he took up the local
paper, praying Heaven there might be some employment advertised, however
mean, that so he might feed his girl, and not let the fiend Consumption
take her at a gift.

No, there was nothing in the advertising column, but in the body of the
paper he found a paragraph to the effect that Mr. Samuelson, of Hull,
had built a gigantic steam vessel in that port, and was going out to New
Zealand in her on her trial trip, to sail that morning at high tide, 6.45
A.M., and it was now nine.

How a sentence in a newspaper can blast a man! Bereavement, Despair, Lost
Love--they come like lightning in a single line. Hope turned sick at
these few words, and down went his head and his hands, and he sat all of
a heap, cold at heart. Then he began to disbelieve in everything,
especially in honesty. For why? If he had only left Liverpool in debt and
taken the rail, he would have reached Hull in ample time, and would have
gone out to New Zealand in the new ship with money in both pockets.

But it was no use fretting. Starvation and disease impended over his
child. He must work, or steal, or something. In truth he was getting
desperate. He picked himself up and went about, offering his many
accomplishments to humble shop-keepers. They all declined him, some
civilly. At last he came to a superior place of business. There were
large offices and a handsome house connected with it in the rear. At the
side of the offices were pulleys, cranes, and all the appliances for
loading vessels, and a yard with horses and vans, so that the whole
frontage of the premises was very considerable. A brass plate said, "R.
Bartley, ship-broker and commission agent"; but the man was evidently a
ship-owner and a carrier besides; so this miscellaneous shop roused hopes
in our versatile hero. He rapidly surveyed the outside, and then cast
hungry glances through the window of the man's office. It was a
bow-window of unusual size, through which the proprietor or his employees
could see a long way up and down the river. Through this window Hope
peered. Repulses had made him timid. He wanted to see the face he had to
apply to before he ventured.

But Mr. Bartley was not there. The large office was at present occupied
by his clerks; one of these was Leonard Monckton, a pale young man with
dark hair, a nose like a hawk, and thin lips. The other was quite a young
fellow, with brown hair, hazel eyes, and an open countenance. "Many a
hard rub puts a point on a man." So Hope resolved at once to say nothing
to that pale clerk so like a kite, but to interest the open countenance
in him and his hungry child.

There were two approaches to the large office. One, to Hope's right,
through a door and a lobby. This was seldom used except by the habitués
of the place. The other was to Hope's left, through a very small office,
generally occupied by an inferior clerk, who kept an eye upon the work
outside. However, this office had also a small window looking inward;
this opened like a door when the man had anything to say to Mr. Bartley
or the clerks in the large office.

William Hope entered this outer office, and found it empty. The clerk
happened to be in the yard. Then he opened the inner door and looked in
on the two clerks, pale and haggard, and apprehensive of a repulse. He
addressed himself to the one nearest him; it was the one whose face had
attracted him.

"Sir, can I see Mr. Bartley?"

The young fellow glanced over the visitor's worn garments and dusty
shoes, and said, dryly, "Hum! if it is for charity, this is the
wrong shop."

"I want no charity," said Hope, with a sigh; "I want employment. But I do
want it very badly; my poor little girl and I are starving."

"Then that is a shame," said the young fellow, warmly. "Why, you are a
gentleman, aren't you?"

"I don't know for that," said Hope. "But I am an educated man, and I
could do the whole business of this place. But you see I am down in
the world."

"You look like it," said the clerk, bluntly. "But don't you be so green
as to tell old Bartley that, or you are done for. No, no; I'll show you
how to get in here. Wait till half past one. He lunches at one, and he
isn't quite such a brute after luncheon. Then you come in like Julius
Caesar, and brag like blazes, and offer him twenty pounds' worth of
industry and ability, and above all arithmetic, and he will say he has no
opening (and that is a lie), and offer you fifteen shillings, perhaps."

"If he does, I'll jump at it," said Hope, eagerly. "But whether I succeed
with him or not, take my child's blessing and my own."

His voice faltered, and Bolton, with a young man's uneasiness under
sentiment, stopped him. "Oh, come, old fellow, bother all that! Why, we
are all stumped in turn." Then he began to chase a solitary coin into a
corner of his waistcoat pocket. "Look here, I'll lend you a
shilling--pay me next week--it will buy the kid a breakfast. I wish I
had more, but I want the other for luncheon. I haven't drawn my screw
yet. It is due at twelve."

"I'll take it for my girl," said Hope, blushing, "and because it is
offered me by a gentleman and like a gentleman."

"Granted, for the sake of argument," said this sprightly youth; and so
they parted for the time, little dreaming, either of them, what a chain
they were weaving round their two hearts, and this little business the
first link.




CHAPTER II.

THE RICH MAN'S CHILD.


The world is very big, and contains hundreds of millions who are
strangers to each other. Yet every now and then this big world seems to
turn small; so many people whose acquaintance we make turn out to be
acquaintances of our acquaintances. This concatenation of acquaintances
is really one of the marvels of social life, if one considers the
chances against it, owing to the size and population of the country. As
an example of this phenomenon, which we have all observed, William Hope
was born in Derbyshire, in a small parish which belonged, nearly all of
it, to Colonel Clifford; yet in that battle for food which is, alas! the
prosaic but true history of men and nations, he entered an office in
Yorkshire, and there made friends with Colonel Clifford's son, Walter,
who was secretly dabbling in trade and matrimony under the name of
Bolton; and this same Hope was to come back, and to apply for a place to
Mr. Bartley; Mr. Bartley was brother-in-law to that same Colonel
Clifford, though they were at daggers drawn, the pair.

Miss Clifford, aged thirty-two, had married Bartley, aged thirty-seven.
Each had got fixed habits, and they soon disagreed. In two years they
parted, with plenty of bitterness, but no scandal. Bartley stood on his
rights, and kept their one child, little Mary. He was very fond of her,
and as the mother saw her whenever she liked, his love for his child
rather tended to propitiate Mrs. Bartley, though nothing on earth would
have induced her to live with him again.

Little Mary was two months younger than Grace Hope, and, like her, had
blue eyes and golden hair. But what a difference in her condition! She
had two nurses and every luxury. Dressed like a princess, and even when
in bed smothered in lace; some woman's eye always upon her, a hand always
ready to keep her from the smallest accident.

Yet all this care could not keep out sickness. The very day that Grace
Hope began to cough and alarm her father, Mary Bartley flushed and paled,
and showed some signs of feverishness.

The older nurse, a vigilant person, told Mr. Bartley directly; and the
doctor was sent for post-haste. He felt her pulse, and said there was
some little fever, but no cause for anxiety. He administered syrup of
poppies, and little Mary passed a tranquil night.

Next day, about one in the afternoon, she became very restless, and was
repeatedly sick. The doctor was sent for, and combated the symptoms; but
did not inquire closely into the cause. Sickness proceeds immediately
from the stomach; so he soothed the stomach with alkaline mucilages, and
the sickness abated. But next day alarming symptoms accumulated, short
breathing, inability to eat, flushed face, wild eyes. Bartley telegraphed
to a first-rate London physician. He came, and immediately examined
the girl's throat, and shook his head; then he uttered a fatal
word--Diphtheria.

They had wasted four days squirting petty remedies at symptoms, instead
of finding the cause and attacking it, and now he told them plainly he
feared it was too late--the fatal membrane was forming, and, indeed, had
half closed the air-passages.

Bartley in his rage and despair would have driven the local doctor out of
the house, but this the London doctor would not allow. He even consulted
him on the situation, now it was declared, and, as often happens, they
went in for heroic remedies since it was too late.

But neither powerful stimulants nor biting draughts nor caustic
applications could hinder the deadly parchment from growing and growing.

The breath reduced to a thread, no nourishment possible except by baths
of beef tea, and similar enemas. Exhaustion inevitable. Death certain.

Such was the hopeless condition of the rich man's child, surrounded by
nurses and physicians, when the father of the poor man's child applied to
the clerk Bolton for that employment which meant bread for his child, and
perhaps life for _her_.

William Hope returned to his little Grace with a loaf of bread he
bought on the road with Bolton's shilling, and fresh milk in a
soda-water bottle.

He found her crying. She had contrived, after the manner of children, to
have an accident. The room was almost bare of furniture, but my lady had
found a wooden stool that _could_ be mounted upon and tumbled off, and
she had done both, her parent being away. She had bruised and sprained
her little wrist, and was in the depths of despair.

"Ah," said poor Hope, "I was afraid something or other would happen if I
left you."

He took her to the window, and set her on his knee, and comforted her. He
cut a narrow slip off his pocket handkerchief, wetted it, and bound it
lightly and deftly round her wrist, and poured consolation into her ear.
But soon she interrupted that, and flung sorrow to the winds; she uttered
three screams of delight, and pointed eagerly through the window.

"Here they be again, the white swans!"

Hope looked, and there were two vessels, a brig and a bark, creeping
down the river toward the sea, with white sails bellying to a gentle
breeze astern.

It is experience that teaches proportion. The eye of childhood is
wonderfully misled in that matter. Promise a little child the moon, and
show him the ladder to be used, he sees nothing inadequate in the means;
so Grace Hope was delighted with her swans.

But Hope, who made it his business to instruct her, and not deceive her
as some thoughtless parents do, out of fun, the wretches, told her,
gently, they were not swans, but ships.

She was a little disappointed at that, but inquired what they were doing.

"Darling," said he, "they are going to some other land, where honest,
hard-working people can not starve, and, mark my words, darling," said
he--she pricked her little ears at that--"you and I shall have to go
with them, for we are poor."

"Oh," said little Grace, impressed by his manner as well as his words,
and nodded her pretty head with apparent wisdom, and seemed greatly
impressed.

Then her father fed her with bread and milk, and afterward laid her on
the bed, and asked her whether she loved him.

"Dearly, dearly," said she.

"Then if you do," said he, "you will go to sleep like a good girl, and
not stir off that bed till I come back."

"No more I will," said she.

However, he waited until she was in an excellent condition for keeping
her promise, being fast as a church.

Then he looked long at her beautiful face, wax-like and even-tinted, but
full of life after her meal, and prayed to Him who loved little children,
and went with a beating heart to Mr. Bartley's office.

But in the short time, little more than an hour and a half, which elapsed
between Hope's first and second visit, some most unexpected and
remarkable events took place.

Bartley came in from his child's dying bed distracted with grief; but
business to him was the air he breathed, and he went to work as usual,
only in a hurried and bitter way unusual to him. He sent out his clerk
Bolton with some bills, and told him sharply not to return without the
money; and whilst Bolton, so-called, was making his toilette in the
lobby, his eye fell on his other clerk, Monckton.

Monckton was poring over the ledger with his head down, the very picture
of a faithful servant absorbed in his master's work.

But appearances are deceitful. He had a small book of his own nestled
between the ledger and his stomach. It was filled with hieroglyphics, and
was his own betting book. As for his brown-study, that was caused by his
owing £100 in the ring, and not knowing how to get it. To be sure, he
could rob Mr. Bartley. He had done it again and again by false accounts,
and even by abstraction of coin, for he had false keys to his employer's
safe, cash-box, drawers, and desk. But in his opinion he had played this
game often enough, and was afraid to venture it again so soon and on so
large a scale.

He was so absorbed in these thoughts that he did not hear Mr. Bartley
come to him; to be sure, he came softly, because of the other clerk, who
was washing his hands and brushing his hair in the lobby.

So Bartley's hand, fell gently, but all in a moment, on Monckton's
shoulder, and they say the shoulder is a sensitive part in conscious
rogues. Anyway, Monckton started violently, and turned from pale to
white, and instinctively clapped both hands over his betting book.

"Monckton," said his employer, gravely, "I have made a very ugly
discovery."

Monckton began to shiver.

"Periodical errors in the balances, and the errors always against me."

Monckton began to perspire. Not knowing what to say, he faltered, and at
last stammered out, "Are you sure, sir?"

"Quite sure. I have long seen reason to suspect it, so last night I went
through all the books, and now I am sure. Whoever the villain is, I will
send him to prison if I can only catch him."

Monckton winced and turned his head away, debating in his mind whether he
should affect indignation and sympathy, and pretend to court inquiry, or
should wait till lunch-time, and then empty the cash-box and bolt.

Whilst thus debating, these words fell unexpectedly on his ear:

"And you must help me."

Then Monckton's eyes turned this way and that in a manner that is common
among thieves, and a sardonic smile curled his pale thin lip.

"It is my duty," said the sly rogue, demurely. Then, after a pause,
"But how?"

Then Mr. Bartley glanced at Bolton in the lobby, and not satisfied with
speaking under his breath, drew this ill-chosen confidant to the other
end of the office.

"Why, suspect everybody, and watch them. Now there's this clerk Bolton: I
know nothing about him; I was taken by his looks. Have your eye on
_him_."

"I will, sir," said Monckton, eagerly. He drew a long breath of
relief. For all that, he was glad when a voice in the little office
announced a visitor.

It was a clear, peremptory voice, short, sharp, incisive, and decisive.
The clerk called Bolton heard it in the lobby, and scuttled into the
street with a rapidity that contrasted drolly enough with the composure
and slowness with which he had been brushing his hair and titivating his
nascent whiskers.

A tall, stiff military figure literally marched into the middle of the
office, and there stood like a sentinel.

Mr. Bartley could hardly believe his senses.

"Colonel Clifford!" said he, roughly.

"You are surprised to see me here?"

"Of course I am. May I ask what brings you?"

"That which composes all quarrels and squares all accounts--Death."

Colonel Clifford said this solemnly, and with less asperity. He added,
with a glance at Monckton, "This is a very private matter."

Bartley took the hint, and asked Monckton to retire into the inner
office.

As soon as he and Colonel Clifford were alone, that warrior, still
standing straight as a dart, delivered himself of certain short
sentences, each of which seemed to be propelled, or indeed jerked out of
him, by some foreign power seated in his breast.

"My sister, your injured wife, is no more."

"Dead! This is very sudden. I am very, very sorry. I--"

Colonel Clifford looked the word "Humbug," and continued to expel short
sentences.

"On her death-bed she made me promise to give you my hand. There it is."

His hand was propelled out, caught flying by Bartley, released, and drawn
back again, all by machinery it seemed.

"She leaves you £20,000 in trust for the benefit of her child and
yours--Mary Bartley."

"Poor, dear Eliza."

The Colonel looked as less high-bred people do when they say "Gammon,"
but proceeded civilly though brusquely.

"In dealing with the funds you have a large discretion. Should the girl
die before you, or unmarried, the money lapses to your nephew, my son,
Walter Clifford. He is a scapegrace, and has run away from me; but I must
protect his just interests. So as a mere matter of form I will ask you
whether Mary Bartley is alive."

Bartley bowed his head.

Colonel Clifford had not heard she was ill, so he continued: "In that
case"--and then, interrupting himself for a moment, turned away to
Bartley's private table, and there emptied his pockets of certain
documents, one of which he wanted to select.

His back was not turned more than half a minute, yet a most expressive
pantomime took place in that short interval.

The nurse opened a door of communication, and stood with a rush at the
threshold: indeed, she would have rushed in but for the stranger. She was
very pale, and threw up her hands to Bartley. Her face and her gesture
were more expressive than words.

Then Bartley, clinging by mere desperate instinct to money he could not
hope to keep, flew to her, drove her out by a frenzied movement of both
hands, though he did not touch her, and spread-eagled himself before the
door, with his face and dilating eyes turned toward Colonel Clifford.

The Colonel turned and stepped toward him with the document he had
selected at the table. Bartley went to meet him.

The Colonel gave it to him, and said it was a copy of the will.

Bartley took it, and Colonel Clifford expelled his last sentences.

"We have shaken hands. Let us forget our past quarrels, and respect the
wishes of the dead."

With that he turned sharply on both heels, and faced the door of the
little office before he moved; then marched out in about seven steps, as
he had marched in, and never looked behind him for two hundred miles.

The moment he was out of sight, Bartley, with his wife's will in his hand
and ice at his heart, went to his child's room. The nurse met him,
crying, and said, "A change"--mild but fatal words that from a nurse's
lips end hope.

He came to the bedside just in time to see the breath hovering on his
child's lips, and then move them as the summer air stirs a leaf.

Soon all was still, and the rich man's child was clay.

The unhappy father burst into a passion of grief, short but violent. Then
he ordered the nurse to watch there, and let no one enter the room; then
he staggered back to his office, and flung himself down at his table and
buried his head. To do him justice, he was all parental grief at first,
for his child was his idol.

The arms were stretched out across the table; the head rested on it; the
man was utterly crushed.

Whilst he was so, the little office door opened softly, and a pale, worn,
haggard face looked in. It was the father of the poor man's child in
mortal danger from privation and hereditary consumption. That haggard
face was come to ask the favor of employment, and bread for his girl,
from the rich man whose child was clay.




CHAPTER III.

THE TWO FATHERS.


Hope looked wistfully at that crushed figure, and hesitated; it seemed
neither kind nor politic to intrude business upon grief.

But if the child was Bartley's idol, money was his god, and soon in his
strange mind defeated avarice began to vie with nobler sorrow. His child
dead! his poor little flower withered, and her death robbed him of
£20,000, and indeed of ten times that sum, for he had now bought
experience in trade and speculation, and had learned to make money out of
money, a heap out of a handful. Stung by this vulgar torment in its turn,
he started suddenly up, and dashed his wife's will down upon the floor in
a fury, and paced the room excitedly. Hope still stood aghast, and
hesitated to risk his application.

But presently Bartley caught sight of him, and stared at him, but
said nothing.

Then the poor fellow saw it was no use waiting for a better opportunity,
so he came forward and carried out Bolton's instructions; he put on a
tolerably jaunty air, and said, cheerfully, "I beg your pardon, sir; can
I claim your attention for a moment?"

"What do you want?" asked Bartley, but like a man whose mind was
elsewhere.

"Only employment for my talent, sir. I hear you have a vacancy for
a manager."

"Nothing of the sort. _I_ am manager."

Hope drew back despondent, and his haggard countenance fell at such
prompt repulse. But he summoned courage, and, once more acting genial
confidence, returned to the attack.

"But you don't know, sir, in how many ways I can be useful to you. A
grand and complicated business like yours needs various acquirements
in those who have the honor to serve you. For instance, I saw a small
engine at work in your yard; now I am a mechanic, and I can double
the power of that engine by merely introducing an extra band and a
couple of cogs."

"It will do as it is," said Bartley, languidly, "and I can do without
a manager."

Bartley's manner was not irritated but absorbed. He seemed in all his
replies to Hope to be brushing away a fly mechanically and languidly. The
poor fly felt sick at heart, and crept away disconsolate. But at the very
door he turned, and for his child's sake made another attempt.

"Have you an opening for a clerk? I can write business letters in French,
German, and Dutch; and keep books by double entry."

"No vacancy for a clerk," was the weary reply.

"Well, then, a foreman in the yard. I have studied the economy of
industry, and will undertake to get you the greatest amount of labor out
of the smallest number of men."

"I have a foreman already," said Bartley, turning his back on him
peevishly, for the first time, and pacing the room, absorbed in his own
disappointment.

Hope was in despair, and put on his hat to go. But he turned at the
window and said: "You have vans and carts. I understand horses
thoroughly. I am a veterinary surgeon, and I can drive four-in-hand. I
offer myself as carman, or even hostler."

"I do not want a hostler, and I have a carman."

Bartley, when he had said this, sat down like a man who had finally
disposed of the application.

Hope went to the very door, and leaned against it. His jaw dropped. He
looked ten years older. Then, with a piteous attempt at cheerfulness, he
came nearer, and said: "A messenger, then. I'm young and very active,
and never waste my employer's time."

Even this humble proposal was declined, though Hope's cheeks burned
with shame as he made it. He groaned aloud, and his head dropped on
his breast.

His eye fell on the will lying on the ground; he went and picked it up,
and handed it respectfully to Bartley.

Bartley stared, took it, and bowed his head an inch or two in
acknowledgment of the civility. This gave the poor daunted father courage
again. Now that Bartley's face was turned to him by this movement, he
took advantage of it, and said, persuasively:

"Give me some kind of employment, sir. You will never repent it." Then he
began to warm with conscious power. "I've intelligence, practicability,
knowledge; and in this age of science knowledge is wealth. Example: I saw
a swell march out of this place that owns all the parish I was born in. I
knew him in a moment--Colonel Clifford. Well, that old soldier draws his
rents when he can get them, and never looks deeper than the roots of the
grass his cattle crop. But _I_ tell _you_ he never takes a walk about his
grounds but he marches upon millions--coal! sir, coal! and near the
surface. I know the signs. But I am impotent: only fools possess the gold
that wise men can coin into miracles. Try me, sir; honor me with your
sympathy. You are a father--you have a sweet little girl, I
hear."--Bartley winced at that.--"Well, so have I, and the hole my
poverty makes me pig in is not good for her, sir. She needs the sea air,
the scent of flowers, and, bless her little heart, she does enjoy them
so! Give them to her, and I will give you zeal, energy, brains, and a
million of money."

This, for the first time in the interview, arrested Mr. Bartley's
attention.

"I see you are a superior man," said he, "but I have no way to utilize
your services."

"You can give me no hope, sir?" asked the poor fellow, still lingering.

"None--and I am sorry for it."

This one gracious speech affected poor Hope so that he could not speak
for a moment. Then he fought for manly dignity, and said, with a
lamentable mixture of sham sprightliness and real anguish, "Thank you,
sir; I only trust that you will always find servants as devoted to your
interest as my gratitude would have made me. Good-morning, sir." He
clapped his hat on with a sprightly, ghastly air, and marched off
resolutely.

But ere he reached the door, Nature overpowered the father's heart;
way went Bolton's instructions; away went fictitious deportment and
feigned cheerfulness. The poor wretch uttered a cry, indeed a scream, of
anguish, that would have thrilled ten thousand hearts had they heard it;
he dashed his hat on the ground, and rushed toward Bartley, with both
hands out--"FOR GOD'S SAKE DON'T SEND ME AWAY--MY CHILD IS STARVING!"

Even Bartley was moved. "Your child!" said he, with some little feeling.
This slight encouragement was enough for a father. His love gushed forth.
"A little golden-haired, blue-eyed angel, who is all the world to me. We
have walked here from Liverpool, where I had just buried her mother. God
help me! God help us both! Many a weary mile, sir, and never sure of
supper or bed. The birds of the air have nests, the beasts of the field a
shelter, the fox a hole, but my beautiful and fragile girl, only four
years old, sir, is houseless and homeless. Her mother died of
consumption, sir, and I live in mortal fear; for now she is beginning to
cough, and I can not give her proper nourishment. Often on this fatal
journey I have felt her shiver, and then I have taken off my coat and
wrapped it round her, and her beautiful eyes have looked up in mine, and
seemed to plead for the warmth and food I'd sell my soul to give her."

"Poor fellow," said Bartley; "I suppose I ought to pity you. But how can
I? Man--man--your child is alive, and while there is life there is hope;
but mine is dead--dead!" he almost shrieked.

"Dead!" said Hope, horrified.

"Dead," cried Bartley. "Cut off at four years old, the very age of yours.
There--go and judge for yourself. You are a father. I can't look upon my
blasted hopes, and my withered flower. Go and see _my_ blue-eyed,
fair-haired darling--clay, hastening to the tomb; and you will trouble me
no more with your imaginary griefs." He flung himself down with his head
on his desk.

Hope, following the direction of his hand, opened the door of the house,
and went softly forward till he met the nurse. He told her Mr. Bartley
wished him to see the deceased. The nurse hesitated, but looked at him.
His sad face inspired confidence, and she ushered him into the chamber of
mourning. There, laid out in state, was a little figure that, seen in the
dim light, drew a cry of dismay from Hope. He had left his own girl
sleeping, and looking like tinted wax. Here lay a little face the very
image of hers, only this was pale wax.

Had he looked more closely, the chin was unlike his own girl's, and there
were other differences. But the first glance revealed a thrilling
resemblance. Hope hurried away from the room, and entered the office pale
and disturbed. "Oh, sir! the very image of my own. It fills me with
forebodings. I pity you, sir, with all my heart. That sad sight
reconciles me to my lot. God help you!" and he was going away; for now he
felt an unreasoning terror lest his own child should have turned from
colored wax to pale.

Mr. Bartley stopped him. "Are they so very like?" said he.

"Wonderfully like." And again he was going, but Bartley, who had received
him so coldly, seemed now unwilling to part with him.

"Stay," said he, "and let me think." The truth is, a daring idea had
just flashed through that brain of his; and he wanted to think it out.
He walked to and fro in silent agitation, and his face was as a book in
which you may read strange matter. At last he made up his mind, but
the matter was one he did not dare to approach too bluntly, so he went
about a little.

"Stay--you don't know all my misfortunes. I am ambitious--like you. I
believe in science and knowledge--like you. And, if my child had
lived, you should have been my adviser and my right hand: I want such
a man as you."

Hope threw up his hands. "My usual luck!" said he: "always a day too
late." Bartley resumed:

"But my child's death robs me of the money to work with, and I can't help
you nor help myself."

Hope groaned.

Bartley hesitated. But after a moment he said, timidly, "Unless--" and
then stopped.

"Unless what?" asked Hope, eagerly. "I am not likely to raise objections
my child's life is at stake."

"Well, then, unless you are really the superior man you seem to be: a man
of ability and--courage."

"Courage!" thought Hope, and began to be puzzled. However, he said,
modestly, that he thought he could find courage in a good cause.

"Then you and I are made men," said Bartley. These were stout words; but
they were not spoken firmly; on the contrary, Mr. Bartley's voice
trembled, and his brow began to perspire visibly.

His agitation communicated itself to Hope, and the latter said, in a
low, impressive voice, "This is something very grave, Mr. Bartley. Sir,
what is it?"

Mr. Bartley looked uneasily all round the room, and came close to Hope.
"The very walls must not hear what I now say to you." Then, in a
thrilling whisper, "My daughter must not die."

Hope looked puzzled.

"Your daughter must take her place."

Now just before this, two quick ears began to try and catch the
conversation. Monckton had heard all that Colonel Clifford said, that
warrior's tones were so incisive; but, as the matter only concerned Mr.
Bartley, he merely grinned at the disappointment likely to fall on his
employer, for he knew Mary Bartley was at death's door. He said as much
to himself, and went out for a sandwich, for it was his lunch-time. But
when he returned with stealthy foot, for all his movements were cat-like,
he caught sight of Bartley and Hope in earnest conversation, and felt
very curious.

There was something so mysterious in Bartley's tones that Monckton drew
up against the little window, pushed it back an inch, and listened hard.

But he could hear nothing at all until Hope's answer came to
Bartley's proposal.

Then the indignant father burst out, so that it was easy enough to hear
every word. "I part with my girl! Not for the world's wealth. What! You
call yourself a father, and would tempt me to sell my own flesh and
blood? No! Poverty, beggary, anything, sooner than that. My darling, we
will thrive together or starve together; we will live together or die
together!"

He snatched up his hat to leave. But Bartley found a word to make him
hesitate. He never moved, but folded his arms and said, "So, then, your
love for your child is selfish."

"Selfish!" cried Hope; "so selfish that I would die for her any hour of
the day." For all that, the taunt brought him down a step, and Bartley,
still standing like a rock, attacked him again. "If it is not selfish, it
is blind." Then he took two strides, and attacked him with sudden power.
"Who will suffer most if you stand in her light? Your daughter: why, she
may die." Hope groaned. "Who will profit most if you are wise, and
really love her, not like a jealous lover, but like a father? Why, your
daughter: she will be taken out of poverty and want, and carried to
sea-breezes and scented meadows; her health and her comfort will be my
care; she will fill the gap in my house and in my heart, and will be my
heiress when I die."

"But she will be lost to me," sighed poor Hope.

"Not so. You will be my right hand; you will be always about us; you can
see her, talk to her, make her love you, do anything but tell her you are
her father. Do this one thing for me, and I will do great things for you
and for her. To refuse me will be to cut your own throat and hers--as
well as mine."

Hope faltered a little. "Am I selfish?" said he.

"Of course not," was the soothing reply. "No true father is--give him
time to think."

Hope clinched his hands in agony, and pressed them against his brow. "It
is selfish to stand in her light; but part with her--I can't; I can't."

"Of course not: who asks you? She will never be out of your sight; only,
instead of seeing her sicken, linger, and die, you will see her
surrounded by every comfort, nursed and tended like a princess, and
growing every day in health, wealth, and happiness."

"Health, wealth, and happiness?"

"Health, wealth, and happiness!"

These words made a great impression on the still hesitating father; he
began to make conditions. They were all granted heartily.

"If ever you are unkind to her, the compact is broken, and I claim my
own again."

"So be it. But why suppose anything so monstrous; men do not ill-treat
children. It is only women, who adore them, that kill them and ill-use
them accordingly. She will be my little benefactress, God bless her! I
may love her more than I ought, being yours, for my home is desolate
without her; but that is the only fault you shall ever find with me.
There is my hand on it."

Hope at the last was taken off his guard, and took the proffered hand.
That is a binding action, and somehow he could no longer go back.

Then Bartley told him he should live in the house at first, to break the
parting. "And from this hour," said he, "you are no clerk nor manager,
but my associate in business, and on your own terms."

"Thank you," said Hope, with a sigh.

"Now lose no time; get her into the house at once while the clerks are
away, and meantime I must deal with the nurse, and overcome the many
difficulties. Stay, here is a five-pound note. Buy yourself a new suit,
and give the child a good meal. But pray bring her here in half an hour
if you can."

Then Bartley took him to the lobby, and let him out in the street, whilst
he went into the house to buy the nurse, and make her his confidante.

He had a good deal of difficulty with her; she was shocked at the
proposal, and, being a woman, it was the details that horrified her. She
cried a good deal. She stipulated that her darling should have Christian
burial, and cried again at the doubt. But as Bartley conceded everything,
and offered to settle a hundred pounds a year on her, so long as she
lived in his house and kept his secret, he prevailed at last, and found
her an invaluable ally.

To dispose of this character for the present we must inform the reader
that she proved a woman can keep a secret, and that in a very short time
she was as fond of Grace Hope as she had been of Mary Bartley.

We have said that Colonel Clifford's talk penetrated Monckton's ear, but
produced no great impression at the time. Not so, however, when he had
listened to Bartley's proposal, Hope's answer, and all that followed.
Then he put this and Colonel Clifford's communication together, and saw
the terrible importance of the two things combined. Thus, as a
congenital worm grew with Jonah's gourd, and was sure to destroy it,
Bartley's bold and elaborate scheme was furnished from the outset with a
most dangerous enemy.

Leonard Monckton was by nature a schemer and by habit a villain, and he
was sure to put this discovery to profit. He came out of the little
office and sat down at his desk, and fell into a brown-study.

He was not a little puzzled, and here lay his difficulty. Two attractive
villainies presented themselves to his ingenious mind, and he naturally
hesitated between them. One was to levy black-mail on Bartley; the other,
to sell the secret to the Cliffords.

But there was a special reason why he should incline toward the
Cliffords, and, whilst he is in his brown-study, we will let the reader
into his secret.

This artful person had immediately won the confidence of young Clifford,
calling himself Bolton, and had prepared a very heartless trap for him.
He introduced to him a most beautiful young woman--tall, dark, with oval
face and glorious black eyes and eyebrows, a slight foreign accent, and
ingratiating manners. He called this beauty his sister, and instructed
her to win Walter Clifford in that character, and to marry him. As she
was twenty-two, and Master Clifford nineteen, he had no chance with her,
and they were to be married this very day at the Register Office.

Manoeuvring Monckton then inclined to let Bartley's fraud go on and
ripen, but eventually expose it for the benefit of young Walter and his
wife, who adored this Monckton, because, when a beautiful woman loves an
ugly blackguard, she never does it by halves.

But he had no sooner thought out this conclusion than there came an
obstacle. Lucy Muller's heart failed her at the last moment, and she
came into the office with a rush to tell her master so. She uttered a cry
of joy at sight of him, and came at him panting and full of love. "Oh,
Leonard, I am so glad you are alone! Leonard, dear Leonard, pray do not
insist on my marrying that young man. Now it comes to the time, my heart
fails me." The tears stood in her glorious eyes, and an honest man would
have pitied her, and even respected her a little for her compunction,
though somewhat tardy.

But her master just fixed his eyes coldly on his slave, and said,
brutally, "Never mind your heart; think of your interest."

The weak woman allowed herself to be diverted into this topic. "Why, he
is no such great catch, I am sure."

"I tell you he is, more than ever: I have just discovered another £20,000
he is heir to, and not got to wait for that any longer than I choose."

Lucy stamped her foot. "I don't care for his money. Till he came with
his money you loved me."

"I love you as much as ever," said Monckton, coldly.

Lucy began to sob. "No, you don't, or you wouldn't give me up to that
young fool."

The villain made a cynical reply, that not every Newgate thief could
have matched. "You fool," said he, "can't you marry him, and go on
loving me? you won't be the first. It is done every day, to the
satisfaction of all parties."

"And to their unutterable shame," said a clear, stern voice at their
back. Walter Clifford, coming rapidly in, had heard but little, but heard
enough; and there he stood, grim and pale, a boy no longer. These two
skunks had made a man of him in one moment. They recoiled in dismay, and
the woman hid her face.

He turned upon the man first, you may be sure. "So you have palmed this
lady off on me as your sister, and trapped me, and would have destroyed
me." His lip quivered; for they had passed the iron through his heart.
But he manned himself, and carried it off like a soldier's son:

"But if I was fool enough to leave my father, I am not fool enough to
present to the world your cast-off mistress as my wife." (Lucy hid her
face in her hands.) "Here, Miss Lucy Monckton--or whatever your name may
be--here is the marriage license. Take that and my contempt, and do what
you like with them."

With these words he dashed into Bartley's private room, and there broke
down. It was a bitter cup, the first in his young life.

The baffled schemers drank wormwood too; but they bore it differently.
The woman cried, and took her punishment meekly; the man raged and
threatened vengeance.

"No, no," said Lucy; "it serves us right. I wish I had never seen the
fellow: then you would have kept your word, and married me."

"I will marry you now, if you can obey me."

"Obey you, Leonard? You have been my ruin; but only marry me, and I will
be your slave in everything--your willing, devoted, happy slave."

"That is a bargain," said Monckton, coolly. "I'll be even with him; I
will marry you in his name and in his place."

This puzzled Lucy.

"Why in his name?" said she.

He did not answer.

"Well, never mind the name," said she, "so that it is the right man--and
that is you."

Then Monckton's fertile brain, teeming with villainies, fell to hatching
a new plot more felonious than the last. He would rob the safe, and get
Clifford convicted for the theft; convicted as Bolton, Clifford would
never tell his real name, and Lucy should enter the Cliffords' house with
a certificate of his death and a certificate of his marriage, both
obtained by substitution, and so collar his share of the £20,000, and
off with the real husband to fresh pastures.

Lucy looked puzzled. Hers was not a brain to disentangle such a
monstrous web.

Monckton reflected a moment. "What is the first thing? Let me see. Humph!
I think the first thing is to get married."

"Yes," said Lucy, with an eagerness that contrasted strangely with his
cynical composure, "that is the first thing, and the most
understandable." And she went dancing off with him as gay as a lark, and
leaning on him at an angle of forty-five; whilst he went erect and cold,
like a stone figure marching.

Walter Clifford came out in time to see them pass the great window. He
watched them down the street, and cursed them--not loud but deep.

"Mooning, as usual," said a hostile voice behind him. He turned round,
and there was Mr. Bartley seated at his own table. Young Clifford walked
smartly to the other side of the table, determined this should be his
last day in that shop.

"There are the payments," said he.

Bartley inspected them.

"About one in five," said he, dryly.

"Thereabouts," was the reply. (Consummate indifference.)

"You can't have pressed them much."

"Well, I am not good at dunning."

"What _are_ you good at?"

"Should be puzzled to say."

"You are not fit for trade."

"That is the highest compliment was ever paid me."

"Oh, you are impertinent as well as incompetent, are you? Then take a
week's warning, Mr. Bolton."

"Five minutes would suit me better, Mr. Bartley."

"Oh! indeed! Say one hour."

"All right, sir; just time for a city clerk's luncheon--glass of bitter,
sandwich, peep at _Punch_, cigarette, and a chat with the bar-maid."

Mr. Walter Clifford was a gentleman, but we must do him the justice to
say that in this interview with his employer he was a very impertinent
one, not only in words, but in the delivery thereof. Bartley, however,
thought this impertinence was put on, and that he had grave reasons for
being in a hurry. He took down the numbers of the notes Clifford had
given him, and looked very grave and suspicious all the time.

Then he locked up the notes in the safe, and just then Hope opened the
door of the little office and looked in.

"At last," said Bartley.

"Well, sir," said Hope, "I have only been half an hour, and I have
changed my clothes and stood witness to a marriage. She begged me so
hard: I was at the door. Such a beautiful girl! I could not take my
eyes off her."

"The child?" said Bartley, with natural impatience.

"I have hidden her in the yard."

"Bring her this moment, while the clerks are out."

Hope hurried out, and soon returned with his child, wrapped up in a nice
warm shawl he had bought her with Bartley's money.

Bartley took the child from him, looked at her face, and said, "Little
darling, I shall love her as my own;" then he begged Hope to sit down in
the lobby till he should call him and introduce him to his clerks. "One
of them is a thief, I'm afraid."

He took the child inside, and gave her to his confederate, the nurse.

"Dear me," thought Hope, "only two clerks, and one of them dishonest. I
hope it is not that good-natured boy. Oh no! impossible."

And now Bartley returned, and at the same time Monckton came briskly in
through the little office.

At sight of him Bartley said, "Oh, Monckton, I gave that fellow Bolton a
week's notice. But he insists on going directly," Monckton replied,
slyly, that he was sorry to hear that.

"Suspicious? Eh?" said Bartley.

"So suspicious that if I were you--Indeed, Mr. Bartley, I think, in
justice to _me_, the matter ought to be cleared to the bottom."

"You are right," said Bartley: "I'll have him searched before he goes.
Fetch me a detective at once."

Bartley then wrote a line upon his card, and handed it to Monckton,
directing him to lose no time. He then rushed out of the house with an
air of virtuous indignation, and went to make some delicate arrangements
to carry out a fraud, which, begging his pardon, was as felonious, though
not so prosaic, as the one he suspected his young clerk of. Monckton was
at first a little taken aback by the suddenness of all this; but he was
too clear-headed to be long at fault. The matter was brought to a point.
Well, he must shoot flying.

In a moment he was at the safe, whipped out a bunch of false keys, opened
the safe, took out the cash-box, and swept all the gold it contained into
his own pockets, and took possession of the notes. Then he locked up the
cash-box again, restored it to the safe, locked that, and sat down at
Bartley's table. He ran over the notes with feverish fingers, and then
took the precaution to examine Bartley's day-book. His caution was
rewarded--he found that the notes Bolton had brought in were _numbered_.
He instantly made two parcels--clapped the unnumbered notes into his
pocket. The numbered ones he took in his hand into the lobby. Now this
lobby must be shortly described. First there was a door with a glass
window, but the window had dark blue gauze fixed to it, so that nobody
could see into the lobby from the office; but a person in the lobby, by
putting his eye close to the gauze, could see into the office in a filmy
sort of way. This door opened on a lavatory, and there were also pegs on
which the clerks hung their overcoats. Then there was a swing-door
leading direct to the street, and sideways into a small room
indispensable to every office.

Monckton entered this lobby, and inserted the numbered notes into young
Clifford's coat, and the false keys into his bag. Then he whipped back
hastily into the office, with his craven face full of fiendish triumph.

He started for the detective. But it was bitter cold, and he returned to
the lobby for his own overcoat. As he opened the lobby door the
swing-door moved, or he thought so; he darted to it and opened it, but
saw nobody, Hope having whipped behind the open door of the little room.
Monckton then put on his overcoat, and went for the detective.

He met Clifford at the door, and wore an insolent grin of defiance, for
which, if they had not passed each other rapidly, he would very likely
have been knocked down. As it was, Walter Clifford entered the office
flushed with wrath, and eager to leave behind him the mortifications and
humiliations he had endured.

He went to his own little desk and tore up Lucy Mailer's letters, and his
heart turned toward home. He went into the lobby, and, feeling hot, which
was no wonder, bundled his office overcoat and his brush and comb into
his bag. He returned to the office for his penknife, and was going out
all in a hurry, when Mr. Bartley met him.

Bartley looked rather stern, and said, "A word with you, sir."

"Certainly, sir," said the young man, stiffly.

Mr. Bartley sat down at his table and fixed his eyes upon the young man
with a very peculiar look.

"You seem in a very great hurry to go."

"Well, I _am_."

"You have not even demanded your salary up to date."

"Excuse the oversight; I was not made for business, you know."

"There is something more to settle besides your salary."

"Premium for good conduct?"

"No, sir. Mr. Bolton, you will find this no jesting matter. There are
defalcations in the accounts, sir."

The young man turned serious at once. "I am sorry to hear that, sir,"
said he, with proper feeling.

Bartley eyed him still more severely. "And even cash abstracted."

"Good heavens!" said the young man, answering his eyes rather than his
words. "Why, surely you can't suspect me?"

Bartley answered, sternly, "I know I have been robbed, and so I suspect
everybody whose conduct is suspicious."

This was too much for a Clifford to bear. He turned on him like a lion.
"Your suspicions disgrace the trader who entertains them, not the
gentleman they wrong. You are too old for me to give you a thrashing, so
I won't stay here any longer to be insulted."

He snatched up his bag and was marching off, when the door opened, and
Monckton with a detective confronted him.

"No," roared Bartley, furious in turn; "but you will stay to be
examined."

"Examined!"

"Searched, then, if you like it better."

"No, don't do that," said the young fellow. "Spare me such a
humiliation."

Bartley, who was avaricious, but not cruel, hesitated.

"Well," said he, "I will examine the safe before I go further."

Mr. Bartley opened the safe and took out the cash-box. It was empty. He
uttered a loud exclamation. "Why, it's a clean sweep! A wholesale
robbery! Notes and gold all gone! No wonder you were in such a hurry to
leave! Luckily some of the notes were numbered. Search him."

"No, no. Don't treat me like a thief!" cried the poor boy, almost
sobbing.

"If you are innocent, why object?" said Monckton, satirically.

"You villain," cried Clifford, "this is your doing! I am sure of it!"

Monckton only grinned triumphantly; but Bartley fired up. "If there is a
villain here, it is you. _He_ is a faithful servant, who warned his
employer." He then pointed sternly at young Bolton, and the detective
stepped up to him and said, curtly, "Now, sir, if I _must_."

He then proceeded to search his waistcoat pockets. The young man hung his
head, and looked guilty. He had heard of money being put into an innocent
man's pockets, and he feared that game had been played with him.

The detective examined his waistcoat pockets and found--nothing. His
other pockets--nothing.

The detective patted his breast and examined his stockings--nothing.

"Try the bag," said Monckton.

Then the poor fellow trembled again.

The detective searched the bag--nothing.

He took the overcoat and turned the pockets out--nothing.

Bartley looked surprised. Monckton still more so. Meantime Hope had gone
round from the lobby, and now entered by the small office, and stood
watching a part of this business, viz., the search of the bag and the
overcoat, with a bitter look of irony.

"But my safe must have been opened with false keys," cried Bartley.
"Where are they?"

"And the numbered notes," said Monckton, "where are they?"

"Gentlemen," said Hope, "may I offer my advice?"

"Who the devil are you?" said Monckton.

"He is my new partner, my associate in business," said the politic
Bartley. Then deferentially to Hope, "What do you advise?"

"You have two clerks. I would examine them both."

"Examine me?" cried Monckton. "Mr. Bartley, will you allow such an
affront to be put on your old and faithful servant?"

"If you are innocent, why object?" said young Clifford, spitefully,
before Bartley could answer.

The remark struck Bartley, and he acted on it.

"Well, it is only fair to Mr. Bolton," said he. "Come, come, Monckton, it
is only a form."

Then he gave the detective a signal, and he stepped up to Monckton, and
emptied his waistcoat pockets of eighty-five sovereigns.

"There!" cried Walter Clifford, "There! there!"

"My own money, won at the Derby," said Monckton, coolly; "and only a part
of it, I am happy to say. You will find the remainder in banknotes."

The detective found several notes.

Bartley examined the book and the notes. The Derby! He was beginning to
doubt this clerk, who attended that meeting on the sly. However, he was
just, though no longer confiding.

"I am bound to say that not one of the numbered notes is here."

The detective was now examining Monckton's overcoat. He produced a small
bunch of keys.

"How did they come there?" cried Monckton, in amazement.

It was an incautious remark. Bartley took it up directly, and pounced on
the keys. He tried them on the safe. One opened the safe, another opened
the cash-box.

Meantime the detective found some notes in the pocket of the overcoat,
and produced them.

"Great heavens!" cried Monckton, "how did they come there?"

"Oh, I dare say you know," said the detective.

Bartley examined them eagerly. They were the numbered notes.

"You scoundrel," he roared, "these show me where your gold and your
other notes came from. The whole contents of my safe--in that
villain's pockets!"

"No, no," cried Monckton, in agony. "It's all a delusion. Some rogue has
planted them there to ruin me."

"Keep that for the beak," said the policeman; "he is sure to believe it.
Come, my bloke. I knew who was my bird the moment I clapped eyes on the
two. 'Tain't his first job, gents, you take my word. We shall find his
photo in some jail or other in time for the assizes."

"Away with him!" cried Bartley, furiously.

As the policeman took him off, the baffled villain's eye fell on Hope,
who stood with folded arms, and looked down on him with lowering brow and
the deep indignation of the just, and yet with haughty triumph.

That eloquent look was a revelation to Monckton.

"Ah," he cried, "it was _you_."

Hope's only reply was this: "You double felon, false accuser and thief,
you are caught in your own trap."

And this he thundered at him with such sudden power that the thief went
cringing out, and even those who remained were awed. But Hope never told
anybody except Walter Clifford that he had undone Monckton's work in the
lobby; and then the poor boy fell upon his neck, and kissed his hand.

To run forward a little: Monckton was tried, and made no defense. He
dared not call Hope as his witness, for it was clear Hope must have seen
him commit the theft and attempt the other villainy. But the false
accusation leaked out as well as the theft. A previous conviction was
proved, and the indignant judge gave him fourteen years.

Thus was Bartley's fatal secret in mortal peril on the day it first
existed; yet on that very day it was saved from exposure, and buried deep
in a jail.

Bartley set Hope over his business, and was never heard of for months.
Then he turned up in Sussex with a little girl, who had been saved from
diphtheria by tracheotomy, and some unknown quack.

There was a scar to prove it. The tender parent pointed it out
triumphantly, and railed at the regular practitioners of medicine.




CHAPTER IV.

AN OLD SERVANT.


Walter Clifford returned home pretty well weaned from trade, and anxious
to propitiate his father, but well aware that on his way to
reconciliation he must pass through jobation.

He slipped into Clifford Hall at night, and commenced his approaches by
going to the butler's pantry. Here he was safe, and knew it; a faithful
old butler of the antique and provincial breed is apt to be more
unreasonably paternal than Pater himself.

To this worthy, then, Walter owed a good bed, a good supper, and good
advice: "Better not tackle him till I have had a word with him first."

Next morning this worthy butler, who for seven years had been a very good
servant, and for the next seven years rather a bad one, and would now
have been a hard master if the Colonel had not been too great a Tartar to
stand it, appeared before his superior with an air slightly respectful,
slightly aggressive, and very dogged.

"There is a young gentleman would be glad to speak to you, if you
will let him."

"Who is he?" asked the Colonel, though by old John's manner he divined.

"Can't ye guess?"

"Don't know why I should. It is your business to announce my visitors."

"Oh, I'll announce him, when I am made safe that he will be welcome."

"What! isn't he sure of a welcome--good, dutiful son like him?"

"Well, sir, he deserves a welcome. Why, he is the returning prodigal."

"We are not told that _he_ deserved a welcome."

"What signifies?--he got one, and Scripture is the rule of life for men
of our age, _now we are out of the army_."

"I think you had better let him plead his own cause, John; and if he
takes the tone you do, he will get turned out of the house pretty quick;
as you will some of these days, Mr. Baker."

"We sha'n't go, neither of us," said Mr. Baker, but with a sudden tone of
affectionate respect, which disarmed the words of their true meaning. He
added, hanging his head for the first time, "Poor young gentleman! afraid
to face his own father!"

"What's he afraid of?" asked the Colonel, roughly.

"Of you cursing and swearing at him," said John.

"Cursing and swearing!" cried the Colonel--"a thing I never do now.
Cursing and swearing, indeed! You be ----!"

"There you go," said old John. "Come, Colonel, be a father. What has the
poor boy done?"

"He has deserted--a thing I have seen a fellow shot for, and he has left
me a prey to parental anxieties."

"And so he has me, for that matter. But I forgive him. Anyway, I should
like to hear his story before I condemn him. Why, he's only nineteen and
four months, come Martinmas. Besides, how do we know?--he may have had
some very good reason for going."

"His age makes that probable, doesn't it?"

"I dare say it was after some girl, sir."

"Call that a good reason?"

"I call it a strong one. Haven't you never found it?" (the Colonel was
betrayed into winking). "From sixteen to sixty a woman will draw a man
where a horse can't."

"Since that is _so_," said the Colonel, dryly, "you can tell him to come
to breakfast."

"Am I to say that from you?"

"No; you can take that much upon yourself. I have known you presume a
good deal more than that, John."

"Well, sir," said John, hanging his head for a moment, "old servants are
like old friends--they do presume a bit; but then" (raising his head
proudly) "they care for their masters, young and old. New servants,
sir--why, this lot that we've got now, they would not shed a tear for you
if you was to be hanged."

"Why should they?" said the Colonel. "A man is not hanged for building
churches. Come, beat a retreat. I've had enough of you. See there's a
good breakfast."

"Oh," said John, "I've took care of that."

When the Colonel came down he found his son leaning against the
mantel-piece; but he left it directly and stood erect, for the Colonel
had drilled him with his own hands.

"Ugh!" said the Colonel, giving a snort peculiar to himself, but he
thought, "How handsome the dog is!" and was proud of him secretly, only
he would not show it. "Good-morning, sir," said the young man, with
civil respect.

"Your most obedient, sir," said the old man, stiffly.

After that neither spoke for some time, and the old butler glided about
like a cat, helping both of them, especially the young one, to various
delicacies from the side table. When he had stuffed them pretty well, he
retired softly and listened at the door. Neither of the gentlemen was in
a hurry to break the ice; each waited for the other.

Walter made the first remark--"What delicious tea!"

"As good as where you come from?" inquired Colonel Clifford, insidiously.

"A deal better," said Walter.

"By-the-bye," said the Colonel, "where _do_ you come from?"

Walter mentioned the town.

"You astonish me," said the Colonel. "I made sure you had been enjoying
the pleasures of the capital."

"My purse wouldn't have stood that, sir."

"Very few purses can," said Colonel Clifford. Then, in an off-hand way,
"Have you brought her along with you?"

"Certainly not," said Walter, off his guard. "Her? Who?"

"Why, the girl that decoyed you from your father's roof."

"No girl decoyed me from here, sir, upon my honor."

"Whom are we talking about, then? Who is _her_?"

"Her? Why, Lucy Monckton."

"And who is Lucy Monckton?"

"Why, the girl I fell in love with, and she deceived me nicely; but I
found her out in time."

"And so you came home to snivel?"

"No, sir, I didn't; I'm not such a muff. I'm too much your son to love
any woman long when I have learned to despise her. I came home to
apologize, and to place myself under your orders, if you will forgive me,
and find something useful for me to do."

"So I will, my boy; there's my hand. Now out with it. What did you go
away for, since it wasn't a petticoat?"

"Well, sir, I am afraid I shall offend you."

"Not a bit of it, after I've given you my hand. Come, now, what was it?"

Walter pondered and hesitated, but at last hit upon a way to explain.

"Sir," said he, "until I was six years old they used to give me peaches
from Oddington House; but one fine day the supply stopped, and I uttered
a small howl to my nurse. Old John heard me, and told me Oddington was
sold, house, garden, estate, and all."

Colonel Clifford snorted.

Walter resumed, modestly but firmly:

"I was thirteen; I used to fish in a brook that ran near Drayton Park.
One day I was fishing there, when a brown velveteen chap stopped me, and
told me I was trespassing. 'Trespassing?' said I. 'I have fished here all
my life; I am Walter Clifford, and this belongs to my father.' 'Well,'
said the man, 'I've heerd it did belong to Colonel Clifford onst, but now
it belongs to Muster Mills; so you must fish in your own water, young
gentleman, and leave ourn to us as owns it.' Till I was eighteen I used
to shoot snipes in a rushy bottom near Calverley Church. One day a fellow
in black velveteen, and gaiters up to his middle, warned me out of that
in the name of Muster Cannon."

Colonel Clifford, who had been drumming on the table all this time,
looked uneasy, and muttered, with some little air of compunction: "They
have plucked my feathers deucedly, that's a fact. Hang that fellow
Stevens, persuading me to keep race-horses; it's all his fault. Well,
sir, proceed with your observations."

"Well, I inquired who could afford to buy what we were too poor to keep,
and I found these wealthy purchasers were all in _trade_, not one of them
a gentleman."

"You might have guessed that," said Colonel Clifford: "it is as much as a
gentleman can do to live out of jail nowadays."

"Yes, sir," said Walter. "Cotton had bought one of these estates, tallow
another, and lucifer-matches the other."

"Plague take them all three!" roared the Colonel.

"Well, then, sir," said Walter, "I could not help thinking there must be
some magic in trade, and I had better go into it. I didn't think you
would consent to that. I wasn't game to defy you; so I did a meanish
thing, and slipped away into a merchant's office."

"And made your fortune in three months?" inquired the Colonel.

"No, I didn't; and don't think trade is the thing for _me_. I saw a deal
of avarice and meanness, and a thief of a clerk got his master to suspect
me of dishonesty; so I snapped my fingers at them all, and here I am.
But," said the poor young fellow, "I do wish, father, you would put me
into something where I can make a little money, so that when _this_
estate comes to be sold, I may be the purchaser."

Colonel Clifford started up in great emotion.

"Sell Clifford Hall, where I was born, and you were born, and everybody
was born! Those estates I sold were only outlying properties."

"They were beautiful ones," said Walter. "I never see such peaches now."

"As you did when you were six years old," suggested the Colonel. "No, nor
you never will. I've been six myself. Lord knows when it was, though!"

"But, sir, I don't see any such trout, and no such haunts for snipe."

"Do you mean to insult me?" cried the Colonel, rather suddenly. "This is
what we are come to now. Here's a brat of six begins taking notes against
his own father; and he improves on the Scotch poet--he doesn't print 'em.
No, he accumulates them cannily until he is twenty, but never says a
word. He loads his gun up to the muzzle, and waits, as the years roll on,
with his linstock in his hand, and one fine day _at breakfast_ he fires
his treble charge of grape-shot at his own father."

This was delivered so loudly that John feared a quarrel, and to interrupt
it, put in his head, and said, mighty innocently:

"Did you call, sir? Can I do anything for you, sir?"

"Yes: go to the devil!"

John went, but not down-stairs, as suggested--a mere lateral movement
that ended at the keyhole.

"Well, but, sir," said Walter, half-reproachfully, "it was you elicited
my views."

"Confound your views, sir, and--your impudence! You're in the right,
and I am in the wrong" (this admission with a more ill-used tone than
ever). "It's the race-horses. Ring the bell. What sawneys you young
fellows are! it used not to take six minutes to ring a bell when I was
your age."

Walter, thus stimulated, sprang to the bell-rope, and pulled it all down
to the ground with a single gesture.

The Colonel burst out laughing, and that did him good; and Mr. Baker
answered the bell like lightning; he quite forgot that the bell must have
rung fifty yards from the spot where he was enjoying the dialogue.

"Send me the steward, John; I saw him pass the window."

Meantime the Colonel marched up and down with considerable agitation.
Walter, who had a filial heart, felt very uneasy, and said, timidly, "I
am truly sorry, father, that I answered your questions so bluntly."

"I'm not, then," said the Colonel. "I hold him to be less than a man who
flies from the truth, whether it comes from young lips or old. I have
faced cavalry, sir, and I can face the truth."

At this moment the steward entered. "Jackson," said the Colonel, in the
very same tone he was speaking in, "put up my race-horses to auction by
public advertisement."

"But, sir, Jenny has got to run at Derby, and the brown colt at
Nottingham, and the six-year-old gelding at a handicap at Chester, and
the chestnut is entered for the Syllinger next year."

"Sell them with their engagements."

"And the trainer, sir?"

"Give him his warning."

"And the jockey?"

"Discharge him on the spot, and take him by the ear out of the premises
before he poisons the lot. Keep one of the stable-boys, and let my groom
do the rest."

"But who is to take them to the place of auction, sir?"

"Nobody. I'll have the auction here, and sell them where they stand.
Submit all your books of account to this young gentleman."

The steward looked a little blue, and Walter remonstrated gently. "To
me, father?"

"Why, you can cipher, can't ye?"

"Rather; it is the best thing I do."

"And you have been in trade, haven't ye?"

"Why, yes."

"Then you will detect plenty of swindles, if you find out one in ten.
Above all, cut down my expenditure to my income. A gentleman of the
nineteenth century, sharpened by trade, can easily do that. Sell Clifford
Hall? I'd rather live on the rabbits and the pigeons and the blackbirds,
and the carp in the pond, and drive to church in the wheelbarrow."

So for a time Walter administered his father's estate, and it was very
instructive. Oh! the petty frauds--the swindles of agency--a term which,
to be sure, is derived from the Latin word "agere," _to do_--the cobweb
of petty commissions--the flat bribes--the smooth hush-money!

Walter soon cut the expenses down to the income, which was ample, and
even paid off the one mortgage that encumbered this noble estate at five
per cent., only four per cent. of which was really fingered by the
mortgagee; the balance went to a go-between, though no go-between was
ever wanted, for any solicitor in the country would have found the money
in a week at four per cent.

The old gentleman was delighted, and engaged his own son as steward at a
liberal salary; and so Walter Clifford found employment and a fair income
without going away from home again.




CHAPTER V.

MARY'S PERIL.


Whilst Mr. Bartley's business was improving under Hope's management, Hope
himself was groaning under his entire separation from his daughter.
Bartley had promised him this should not be; but among Hope's good
qualities was a singular fidelity to his employers, and he was also a man
who never broke his word. So when Bartley showed him that the true
parentage of Grace Hope--now called Mary Bartley--could never be
disguised unless her memory of him was interrupted and puzzled before she
grew older, and that she as well as the world must be made to believe
Bartley was her father, he assented, and it was two years before he
ventured to come near his own daughter.

But he demanded to see her at a distance, himself unseen, and this was
arranged. He provided himself with a powerful binocular of the kind that
is now used at sea, instead of the unwieldy old telescope, and the little
girl was paraded by the nurse, who was in the secret. She played about in
the sight of this strange spy. She was plump, she was rosy, she was full
of life and spirit. Joy filled the father's heart; but then came a bitter
pang to think that he had faded out of her joyous life; by-and-by he
could see her no longer, for a mist came from his heart to his eyes; he
bowed his head and went back to his business, his prosperity, and his
solitude. These experiments were repeated at times. Moreover, Bartley had
the tact never to write to him on business without telling him something
about his girl, her clever sayings, her pretty ways, her quickness at
learning from all her teachers, and so on. When she was eight years old a
foreign agent was required in Bartley's business, and Hope agreed to
start this agency and keep it going till some more ordinary person could
be intrusted to work it.

But he refused to leave England without seeing his daughter with his
own eyes and hearing her voice. However, still faithful to his pledge,
he prepared a disguise; he actually grew a mustache and beard for this
tender motive only, and changed his whole style of dress; he wore a
crimson neck-tie and dark green gloves with a plaid suit, which
combination he abhorred as a painter, and our respected readers
abominate, for surely it was some such perverse combination that made a
French dressmaker lift her hands to heaven and say, "_Quelle
immoralité_!" So then Bartley himself took his little girl for a walk,
and met Mr. Hope in an appointed spot not far from his own house. Poor
Hope saw them coming, and his heart beat high. "Ah!" said Bartley,
feigning surprise; "why, it's Mr. Hope. How do you do, Hope? This is my
little girl. Mary, my dear, this is an old friend of mine. Give him
your hand."

The girl looked in Hope's face, and gave him her hand, and did not
recognize him.

"Fine girl for her years, isn't she?" said Bartley. "Healthy and strong,
and quick at her lessons; and, what's better still, she is a good girl, a
very good girl."

"Papa!" said the child, blushing, and hid her face behind Bartley's
elbow, all but one eye, with which she watched the effect of these
eulogies upon the strange gentleman.

"She is all a father could wish," said Hope, tenderly.

Instantly the girl started from her position, and stood wrapt in thought;
her beautiful eyes wore a strange look of dreamy intelligence, and both
men could see she was searching the past for that voice.

Bartley drew back, that the girl might not see him, and held up his
finger. Hope gave a slight nod of acquiescence, and spoke no more.
Bartley invited him to take an early dinner, and talk business. Before he
left he saw his child more than once; indeed, Bartley paraded her
accomplishments. She played the piano to Hope; she rode her little
Shetland pony for Hope; she danced a minuet with singular grace for so
young a girl; she conversed with her governess in French, or something
very like it, and she worked a little sewing-machine, all to please the
strange gentleman; and whatever she was asked to do she did with a
winning smile, and without a particle of false modesty, or the real
egotism which is at the bottom of false modesty.

Anybody who knew William Hope intimately might almost recognize his
daughter in this versatile little mind with its faculty of learning so
many dissimilar things.

Hope left for the Continent with a proud heart, a joyful heart, and a
sore heart. She was lovely, she was healthy, she was happy, she was
accomplished, but she was his no longer, not even in name; her love was
being gained by a stranger, and there was a barrier of iron, as well as
the English Channel, between William Hope and his own Mary Bartley.

It would weary the reader were we to detail the small events bearing on
the part of the story which took place during the next five years. They
might be summed up thus: That William Hope got a peep at his daughter now
and then; and, making a series of subtle experiments by varying his voice
as much as possible, confused and nullified her memory of that voice to
all appearance. In due course, however, father and daughter were brought
into natural contact by the last thing that seemed likely to do it, viz.,
by Bartley's avarice. Bartley's legitimate business at home and abroad
could now run alone. So he invited Hope to England to guide him in what
he loved better than steady business, viz., speculation. The truth is,
Bartley could execute, but had few original ideas. Hope had plenty, and
sound ones, though not common ones. Hope directed the purchase of
convertible securities on this principle: Select good ones; avoid time
bargains, which introduce a distinct element of risk; and buy largely at
every panic not founded on a permanent reason or out of proportion.
Example: A great district bank broke. The shares of a great district
railway went down thirty per cent. Hope bade his employer and pupil
observe that this was rank delusion, the dividends of the railway were
not lowered one per cent. by the failure of that bank, nor could they be:
the shareholders of the bank had shares in the railway, and were
compelled to force them on the market; hence the fall in the shares.
"But," said Hope, "those depreciated shares are now in the hands of men
who can hold them, and will, too, until they return from this ridiculous
85 to their normal value, which is from 105 to 115. Invest every shilling
you have got; I shall." Bartley invested £30,000, and cleared twenty per
cent. in three months.

Example 2: There was a terrible accident on another railway, and part of
the line broken up. Vast repairs needed. Shares fell twenty per cent.

"Out of proportion," said Hope. "The sum for repairs will not deduct
from the dividends one-tenth of the annual sum represented by the fall,
and, in three months, fear of another such disaster will not keep a
single man, woman, child, bullock, pig, or coal truck off that line. Put
the pot on."

Bartley put the pot on, and made fifteen per cent.

Hope said to Bartley:

"When an English speculator sends his money abroad at all, he goes wild
altogether. He rushes at obscure transactions, and lends to Peru, or
Guatemala, or Tierra del Fuego, or some shaky place he knows nothing
about. The insular maniac overlooks the continent of Europe, instead of
studying it, and seeking what countries there are safe and others risky.
Now, why overlook Prussia? It is a country much better governed than
England, especially as regards great public enterprises and monopolies.
For instance, the directors of a Prussian railway can not swindle the
shareholders by false accounts, and passing off loans for dividends.
Against the frauds of directors, the English shareholder has only a sham
security. He is invited to leave his home, and come two hundred miles to
the directors' home, and vote in person. He doesn't do it. Why should he?
In Prussia the Government protects the shareholder, and inspects the
accounts severely. So much for the superior system of that country. Now,
take a map. Here is Hamburg, the great port of the Continent, and Berlin,
the great Continental centre; and there is one railway only between the
two. What English railway can compare with this? The shares are at 150.
But they must go to 300 in time unless the Prussian Government allows
another railway, and that is not likely, and, if so, you will have two
years to back out. This is the best permanent investment of its class
that offers on the face of the globe."

Bartley invested timidly, but held for years, and the shares went up over
300 before he sold.

"Do not let your mind live in an island if your body does," was a
favorite saying of William Hope; and we recommend it impartially to
Britons and Bornese.

On one of Hope's visits Bartley complained he had nothing to do. "I can
sit here and speculate. I want to be in something myself; I think I will
take a farm just to occupy me and amuse me."

"It will not amuse you unless you make money by it," suggested Hope.

"And nobody can do that nowadays. Farms don't pay."

"Ploughing and sowing don't pay, but brains and money pay wherever found
together."

"What, on a farm?"

"Why not, sir? You have only to go with the times. Observe the condition
of produce: grain too cheap for a farmer because continents can export
grain with little loss; fruit dear; meat dear, because cattle can not be
driven and sailed without risk of life and loss of weight; agricultural
labor rising, and in winter unproductive, because to farm means to plough
and sow, and reap and mow, and lose money. But meet those conditions.
Breed cattle, sheep, and horses, and make the farm their feeding-ground.
Give fifty acres to fruit; have a little factory on the land for winter
use, and so utilize all your farm hands and the village women, who are
cheaper laborers than town brats, and I think you will make a little
money in the form of money, besides what you make in gratuitous eggs,
poultry, fruit, horses to ride, and cart things for the house--items
which seldom figure in a farmer's books as money, but we stricter
accountants know they are."

"I'll do it," said Bartley, "if you'll be my neighbor, and work it with
me, and watch the share market at home and abroad."

Hope acquiesced joyfully to be near his daughter; and they found a farm
in Sussex, with hills for the sheep, short grass for colts, plenty of
water, enough arable land and artificial grasses for their purpose, and a
grand sunny slope for their fruit trees, fruit bushes, and strawberries,
with which last alone they paid the rent.

"Then," said Hope, "farm laborers drink an ocean of beer. Now look at the
retail price of beer: eighty per cent. over its cost, and yet
deleterious, which tells against your labor. As an employer of labor, the
main expense of a farm, you want beer to be slightly nourishing, and very
inspiriting, not somniferous."

So they set up a malt-house and a brew-house, and supplied all their own
hands with genuine liquor on the truck system at a moderate but
remunerative price, and the grains helped to feed their pigs. Hope's
principle was this: Sell no produce in its primitive form; if you change
its form you make two profits. Do you grow barley? Malt it, and infuse
it, and sell the liquor for two small profits, one on the grain, and one
on the infusion. Do you grow grass? Turn it into flesh, and sell for two
small profits, one on the herb, and one on the animal.

And really, when backed by money, the results seemed to justify his
principle.

Hope lived by himself, but not far from his child, and often, when she
went abroad, his loving eyes watched her every movement through his
binocular, which might be described as an opera-glass ten inches long,
with a small field, but telescopic power.

Grace Hope, whom we will now call Mary Bartley, since everybody but her
father, who generally avoided _her name_, called her so, was a well-grown
girl of thirteen, healthy, happy, beautiful, and accomplished. She was
the germ of a woman, and could detect who loved her. She saw in Hope an
affection she thought extraordinary, but instinct told her it was not
like a young man's love, and she accepted it with complacency, and
returned it quietly, with now and then a gush, for she could gush, and
why not? "Far from us and from our friends be the frigid philosophy"--of
a girl who can't gush.

Hope himself was loyal and guarded, and kept his affection within bounds;
and a sore struggle it was. He never allowed himself to kiss her, though
he was sore tempted one day, when he bought her a cream-colored pony, and
she flung her arms round his neck before Mr. Bartley and kissed him
eagerly; but he was so bashful that the girl laughed at him, and said,
half pertly, "Excuse the liberty, but if you will be such a duck, why,
you must take the consequences."

Said Bartley, pompously, "You must not expect middle-aged men to be as
demonstrative as very young ladies; but he has as much real affection
for you as you have for him."

"Then he has a good deal, papa," said she, sweetly. Both the men
were silent, and Mary looked to one and the other, and seemed a
little puzzled.

The great analysts that have dealt microscopically with commonplace
situations would revel in this one, and give you a curious volume of
small incidents like the above, and vivisect the father's heart with
patient skill. But we poor dramatists, taught by impatient audiences to
move on, and taught by those great professors of verbosity, our female
novelists and nine-tenths of our male, that it is just possible for
"masterly inactivity," _alias_ sluggish narrative, creeping through sorry
flags and rushes with one lily in ten pages, to become a bore, are driven
on to salient facts, and must trust a little to our reader's intelligence
to ponder on the singular situation of Mary Bartley and her two fathers.

One morning Mary Bartley and her governess walked to a neighboring town
and enjoyed the sacred delight of shopping. They came back by a
short-cut, which made it necessary to cross a certain brook, or rivulet,
called the Lyn. This was a rapid stream, and in places pretty deep; but
in one particular part it was shallow, and crossed by large
stepping-stones, two-thirds of which were generally above-water. The
village girls, including Mary Bartley, used all to trip over these
stones, and think nothing of it, though the brook went past at a fine
rate, and gradually widened and deepened as it flowed, till it reached a
downright fall; after that, running no longer down a decline, it became
rather a languid stream.

Mary and her governess came to this ford and found it swollen by recent
rains, and foaming and curling round the stepping-stones, and their tops
only were out of the water now.

The governess objected to pass this current.

"Well, but," said Mary, "the other way is a mile round, and papa expects
us to be punctual at meals, and I am, oh, so hungry! Dear Miss Everett, I
have crossed it a hundred times."

"But the water is so deep."

"It is deeper than usual; but see, it is only up to my knee. I could
cross it without the stones. You go round, dear, and I'll explain against
you come home."

"Not until I've seen you safe over."

"That you will soon see," said the girl, and, fearing a more
authoritative interference, she gathered up her skirts and planted one
dainty foot on the first stepping-stone, another on the next, and so on
to the fourth; and if she had been a boy she would have cleared them all.
But holding her skirts instead of keeping her arms to balance herself,
and wearing idiotic shoes, her heels slipped on the fifth stone, which
was rather slimy, and she fell into the middle of the current with a
little scream.

To her amazement she found that the stream, though shallow, carried her
off her feet, and though she recovered them, she could not keep them, but
was alternately up and down, and driven along, all the time floundering.
Oh, then she screamed with terror, and the poor governess ran screaming
too, and making idle clutches from the bank, but powerless to aid.

Then, as the current deepened, the poor girl lost her feet altogether,
and was carried on toward the deep water, flinging her arms high and
screaming, but powerless. At first she was buoyed up by her clothes, and
particularly by a petticoat of some material that did not drink water.
But as her other clothes became soaked and heavy, she sank to her chin,
and death stared her in the face.

She lost hope, and being no common spirit, she gained resignation; she
left screaming, and said to Everett, "Pray for me."

But the next moment hope revived, and fear with it--this is a law of
nature--for a man, bare-headed and his hair flying, came galloping on a
bare-backed pony, shouting and screaming with terror louder than both the
women. He urged the pony furiously to the stream; then the beast planted
his feet together, and with the impulse thus given Hope threw himself
over the pony's head into the water, and had his arm round his child in a
moment. He lashed out with the other hand across the stream. But it was
so powerful now as it neared the lasher that they made far more way
onward to destruction than they did across the stream; still they did
near the bank a little. But the lasher roared nearer and nearer, and the
stream pulled them to it with iron force. They were close to it now. Then
a willow bough gave them one chance. Hope grasped it, and pulled with
iron strength. From the bough he got to a branch, and finally clutched
the stem of the tree, just as his feet were lifted up by the rushing
water, and both lives hung upon that willow-tree. The girl was on his
left arm, and his right arm round the willow.

"Grace," said he, feigning calmness. "Put your arm around my neck, Mary."

"Yes, dear," said she, firmly.

"Now don't hurry yourself--_there's no danger_; move slowly across me,
and hold my right arm very tight."

She did so.

"Now take hold of the bank with your left hand; but don't let go of me."

"Yes, dear," said the little heroine, whose fear was gone now she had
Hope to take care of her.

Then Hope clutched the tree with his left hand, pushed Mary on shore with
his right, and very soon had her in his arms on _terra firma_.

But now came a change that confounded Mary Bartley, to whom a man was a
very superior being; only not always intelligible.

The brave man fell to shaking like an aspen leaf; the strong man
to sobbing and gasping, and kissing the girl wildly. "Oh, my child!
my child!"

Then Mary, of course, must gulp and cry a little for sympathy; but her
quick-changing spirit soon shook it off, and she patted his cheek and
kissed him, and then began to comfort him, if you please. "Good, dear,
kind Mr. Hope," said she. "La! don't go on like that. You were so brave
in the water, and now the danger is over. I've had a ducking, that is
all. Ha! ha! ha!" and the little wretch began to laugh.

Hope looked amazed; neither his heart nor his sex would let him change
his mood so swiftly.

"Oh, my child," said he, "how can you laugh? You have been near eternity,
and if you had been lost, what should I--O God!"

Mary turned very grave. "Yes," said she, "I have been near eternity. It
would not have mattered to you--you are such a good man--but I should
have caught it for disobedience. But, dear Mr. Hope, let me tell you that
the moment you put your arm round me I felt just as safe in the water as
on dry land; so you see I have had longer to get over it than you have;
that accounts for my laughing. No, it doesn't; I am a giddy, giggling
girl, with _no depth of character_, and not worthy of all this affection.
Why does everybody love _me_? They ought to be ashamed of themselves."

Hope told her she was a little angel, and everybody was right to love
her; indeed, they deserved to be hanged if they did not.

Mary fixed on the word angel. "If I was an angel," she said, "I shouldn't
be hungry, and I am, awfully. Oh, please come home; papa is so punctual.
Mr. Hope, are you going to tell papa? Because if you _are_, just you take
me and throw me in again. I'd rather be drowned than scolded." (This with
a defiant attitude and flashing eyes.)

"No, no," said Hope. "I will not tell him, to vex him, and get
you scolded."

"Then let us run home."

She took his hand, and he ran with her like a playmate, and oh! the
father's heart leaped and glowed at this sweet companionship after danger
and terror.

When they got near the house Mary Bartley began to walk and think. She
had a very thinking countenance at times, and Hope watched her, and
wondered what were her thoughts. She was very grave, so probably she was
thinking how very near she had been to the other world.

Standing on the door-step, whilst he stood on the gravel, she let him
know her thoughts. All her life, and even at this tender age, she had
very searching eyes; they were gray now, though they had been blue.
She put her hands to her waist, and bent those searching eyes on
William Hope.

"Mr. Hope," said she, in a resolute sort of way.

"My dear," said he, eagerly.

"YOU LOVE ME BETTER THAN PAPA DOES, THAT'S ALL."

And having administered this information as a dry fact that might be
worth looking into at leisure, she passed thoughtfully into the house.




CHAPTER VI.

SHARP PRACTICE.


Hope paid a visit to his native place in Derbyshire, and his poor
relations shared his prosperity, and blessed him, and Mr. Bartley upon
his report; for Hope was one of those choice spirits who praise the
bridge that carries them safe over the stream of adversity.

He returned to Sussex with all the news, and, amongst the rest, that
Colonel Clifford had a farm coming vacant. Walter Clifford had
insisted on a higher rent at the conclusion of the term, but the
tenant had demurred.

Bartley paid little attention at the time; but by-and-by he said, "Did
you not see signs of coal on Colonel Clifford's property?"

"That I did, and on this very farm, and told him so. But he is behind the
age. I have no patience with him. Take one of those old iron ramrods that
used to load the old musket, and cover that ramrod with prejudices a foot
and a half deep, and there you have Colonel Clifford."

"Well, but a tenant would not be bound by his prejudices."

"A tenant! A tenant takes no right to mine, under a farm lease; he would
have to propose a special contract, or to ask leave, and Colonel Clifford
would never grant it."

There the conversation dropped. But the matter rankled in Bartley's mind.
Without saying any more to Hope, he consulted a sharp attorney.

The result was that he took Mary Bartley with him into Derbyshire.

He put up at a little inn, and called at Clifford Hall.

He found Colonel Clifford at home, and was received stiffly, but
graciously. He gave Colonel Clifford to understand that he had
left business.

"All the better," said Colonel Clifford, sharply.

"And taken to farming."

"Ugh!" said the other, with his favorite snort.

At this moment, who should walk into the room but Walter Clifford.

Bartley started and stared. Walter started and stared.

"Mr. Bolton," said Bartley, scarcely above a whisper.

But Colonel Clifford heard it, and said, brusquely: "Bolton! No. Why,
this is Walter Clifford, my son, and my man of business.--Walter, this is
Mr. Bartley."

"Proud to make your acquaintance, sir," said the astute Bartley,
ignoring the past.

Walter was glad he took this line before Colonel Clifford: not that he
forgave Mr. Bartley that old affront the reader knows of.

The judicious Bartley read his face, and, as a first step toward
propitiation, introduced him to his daughter. Walter was amazed at her
beauty and grace, coming from such a stock. He welcomed her courteously,
but shyly. She replied with rare affability, and that entire absence of
mock-modesty which was already a feature in her character. To be sure,
she was little more than fifteen, though she was full grown, and looked
nearer twenty.

Bartley began to feel his way with Colonel Clifford about the farm. He
told him he was pretty successful in agriculture, thanks to the
assistance of an experienced friend, and then he said, half carelessly,
"By-the-bye, they tell me you have one to let. Is that so?"

"Walter," said Colonel Clifford, "have you a farm to let?"

"Not at present, sir; but one will be vacant in a month, unless the
present tenant consents to pay thirty per cent. more than he has done."

"Might I see that farm, Mr. Walter?" asked Bartley.

"Certainly," said Walter; "I shall be happy to show you over it." Then he
turned to Mary. "I am afraid it would be no compliment to you. Ladies are
not interested in farms."

"Oh, but _I_ am, since papa is, and Mr. Hope: and then on _our_ farm
there are so many dear little young things: little calves, little lambs,
and little pigs. Little pigs are ducks--_very_ little ones, I mean; and
there is nearly always a young colt about, that eats out of my hand. Not
like a farm? The idea!"

"Then I will show you all over ours, you and your papa," said Walter,
warmly. He then asked Mr. Bartley where he was to be found; and when
Bartley told him at the "Dun Cow," he looked at Mary and said, "Oh!"

Mary understood in a moment, and laughed and said: "We are very
comfortable, I assure you. We have the parlor all to ourselves, and
there are samplers hung up, and oh! such funny pictures, and the landlady
is beginning to spoil me already."

"Nobody can spoil you, Mary," said Mr. Bartley.

"You ought to know, papa, for you have been trying a good many years."

"Not very many, Miss Bartley," said Colonel Clifford, graciously. Then he
gave half a start and said: "Here am I calling her miss when she is my
own niece, and, now I think of it, she can't be half as old as she looks.
I remember the very day she was born. My dear, you are an impostor."

Bartley changed color at this chance shaft. But Colonel Clifford
explained:

"You pass for twenty, and you can't be more than--Let me see."

"I am fifteen and four months," said Mary, "and I do take people
in--_cruelly_."

"Well," said Colonel Clifford, "you see you can't take me in. I know your
date. So come and give your old ruffian of an uncle a kiss."

"That I will," cried Mary, and flew at Colonel Clifford, and flung both
arms round his neck and kissed him. "Oh, papa," said she, "I have got an
uncle now. A hero, too; and me that is so fond of heroes! Only this is my
first--out of books."

"Mary, my dear," said Bartley, "you are too impetuous. Please excuse her,
Colonel Clifford. Now, my dear, shake hands with your cousin, for we must
be going."

Mary complied; but not at all impetuously. She lowered her long lashes,
and put out her hand timidly, and said, "Good-by, Cousin Walter."

He held her hand a moment, and that made her color directly. "You will
come over the farm. Can you ride? Have you your habit?"

"No, cousin; but never mind that. I can put on a long skirt."

"A skirt! But, after all, it does not matter a straw what _you_ wear."

Mary was such a novice that she did not catch the meaning of this on the
spot, but half-way to the inn, and in the middle of a conversation, her
cheeks were suddenly suffused with blushes. A young man had admired her
and _said_ so. Very likely that was the way with young men. _No_ doubt
they were bolder than young women; but somehow it was not so very
objectionable _in them_.

That short interview was a little era in Mary's young life. Walter had
fixed his eyes on her with delight, had held her hand some seconds, and
admired her to her face. She began to wonder a little, and flutter a
little, and to put off childhood.

Next day, punctual to the minute, Walter drove up to the door in an open
carriage drawn by two fast steppers. He found Mr. Bartley alone, and why?
because, at sight of Walter, Mary, for the first time in her life, had
flown upstairs to look at herself in the glass before facing the visitor,
and to smooth her hair, and retouch a bow, etc., underrating, as usual,
the power of beauty, and overrating nullities. Bartley took this
opportunity, and said to young Clifford:

"I owe you an apology, and a most earnest one. Can you ever forgive me?"

Walter changed color. Even this humble allusion to so great an insult was
wormwood to him. He bit his lip, and said:

"No man can do more than say he is sorry. I will try to forget it, sir."

"That is as much as I can expect," said Bartley, humbly. "But if you only
knew the art, the cunning, the apparent evidence, with which that villain
Monckton deluded me--"

"That I can believe."

"And permit me one observation before we drop this unhappy subject
forever. If you had done me the honor to come to me as Walter Clifford,
why, then, strong and misleading as the evidence was, I should have said,
'Appearances are deceitful, but no Clifford was ever disloyal.'"

This artful speech conquered Walter Clifford. He blushed, and bowed a
little haughtily at the compliment to the Cliffords. But his sense of
justice was aroused.

"You are right," said he. "I must try and see both sides. If a man
sails under false colors, he mustn't howl if he is mistaken for a
pirate. Let us dismiss the subject forever. I am Walter Clifford
now--at your service."

At that moment Mary Bartley came in, beaming with youth and beauty, and
illumined the room. The cousins shook hands, and Walter's eyes glowed
with admiration.

After a few words of greeting he handed Mary into the drag. Her father
followed, and he was about to drive off, when Mary cried out, "Oh, I
forgot my skirt, if I am to ride."

The skirt was brought down, and the horses, that were beginning to fret,
dashed off. A smart little groom rode behind, and on reaching the farm
they found another with two saddle-horses, one of them, a small, gentle
Arab gelding, had a side-saddle. They rode all over the farm, and
inspected the buildings, which were in excellent repair, thanks to
Walter's supervision. Bartley inquired the number of acres and the rent
demanded. Walter told him. Bartley said it seemed to him a fair rent;
still, he should like to know why the present tenant declined.

"Perhaps you had better ask him," said Walter. "I should wish you to hear
both sides."

"That is like you," said Bartley; "but where does the shoe pinch, in
your opinion?"

"Well, he tells me, in sober earnest, that he loses money by it as it is;
but when he is drunk he tells his boon companions he has made seven
thousand pounds here. He has one or two grass fields that want draining,
but I offer him the pipes; he has only got to lay them and cut the
drains. My opinion is that he is the slave of habit; he is so used to
make an unfair profit out of these acres that he can not break himself of
it and be content with a fair one."

"I dare say you have hit it," said Bartley. "Well, I am fond of farming;
but I don't live by it, and a moderate profit would content me."

Walter said nothing. The truth is, he did not want to let the farm
to Bartley.

Bartley saw this, and drew Mary aside.

"Should not you like to come here, my child?"

"Yes, papa, if you wish it; and you know it's dear Mr. Hope's
birth-place."

"Well, then, tell this young fellow so. I will give you an opportunity."

That was easily managed, and then Mary said, timidly, "Cousin Walter, we
should all three be so glad if we might have the farm."

"Three?" said he. "Who is the third?"

"Oh, somebody that everybody likes and I love. It is Mr. Hope. Such a
duck! I am sure you would like him."

"Hope! Is his name William?"

"Yes, it is. Do you know him?" asked Mary, eagerly.

"I have reason to know him: he did me a good turn once, and I shall never
forget it."

"Just like him!" cried Mary. "He is always doing people good turns. He
is the best, the truest, the cleverest, the dearest darling dear that
ever stepped, and a second father to me; and, cousin, this village is his
birth-place, and he didn't say much, but it was he who told us of this
farm, and he would be so pleased if I could write and say, 'We are to
have the farm--Cousin Walter says so.'"

She turned her lovely eyes, brimming with tenderness, toward her cousin
Walter, and he was done for.

"Of course you shall have it," he said, warmly. "Only you will not be
angry with me if I insist on the increased rent. You know, cousin, I
have a father, too, and I must be just to him."

"To be sure, you must, dear," said Mary, incautiously; and the word
penetrated Walter's heart as if a woman of twenty-five had said it all of
a sudden and for the first time.

When they got home, Mary told Mr. Bartley he was to have the farm if he
would pay the increased rent.

"That is all right," said Bartley. "Then to-morrow we can go home."

"So soon!" said Mary, sorrowfully.

"Yes," said Bartley, firmly; "the rest had better be done in writing.
Why, Mary, what is the use of staying on now? We are going to live here
in a month or two."

"I forgot that," said Mary, with a little sigh. It seemed so ungracious
to get what they wanted, and then turn their backs directly. She hinted
as much, very timidly.

But Bartley was inexorable, and they reached home next day.

Mary would have liked to write to Walter, and announce their safe
arrival, but nature withheld her. She was a child no longer.

Bartley went to the sharp solicitor, and had a long interview with him.
The result was that in about ten days he sent Walter Clifford a letter
and the draft of a lease, very favorable to the landlord on the whole,
but cannily inserting one unusual clause that looked inoffensive.

It came by post, and Walter read the letter, and told his father whom
it was from.

"What does the fellow say?" grunted Colonel Clifford.

"He says: 'We are doing very well here, but Hope says a bailiff can now
carry out our system; and he is evidently sweet on his native place, and
thinks the proposed rent is fair, and even moderate. As for me, my life
used to be so bustling that I require a change now and then; so I will be
your tenant. Hope says I am to pay the expense of the lease, so I have
requested Arrowsmith & Cox to draw it. I have no experience in leases.
They have drawn hundreds. I told them to make it fair. If they have not,
send it back with objections.'"

"Oh! oh!" said Colonel Clifford. "He draws the lease, does he? Then look
at it with a microscope."

Walter laughed.

"I should not like to encounter him on his own ground. But here he is a
fish out of water; he must be. However, I will pass my eye over it.
Where the farmer generally over-reaches us, if he draws the lease, is in
the clauses that protect him on leaving. He gets part possession for
months without paying rent, and he hampers and fleeces the incoming
tenant, so that you lose a year's rent or have to buy him out. Now, let
me see, that will be at the end of the document--No; it is exceedingly
fair, this one."

"Show it to our man of business, and let him study every line. Set an
attorney to catch an attorney."

"Of course I shall submit it to our solicitor," said Walter.

This was done, and the experienced practitioner read it very carefully.
He pronounced it unusually equitable for a farmer's lease.

"However," said he, "we might suggest that he does _all_ the repairs and
draining, and that you find the materials; and also that he insures all
the farm buildings. But you can hardly stand out for the insurance if he
objects. There's no harm trying. Stay! here is one clause that is
unusual: the tenant is to have the right to bore for water, or to
penetrate the surface of the soil, and take out gravel or chalk or
minerals, if any. I don't like that clause. He might quarry, and cut the
farm in pieces. Ah, there's a proviso, that any damage to the surface or
the agricultural value shall be fully compensated, the amount of such
injury to be settled by the landlord's valuer or surveyor. Oh, come, if
you can charge your own price, that can't kill you."

In short, the draft was approved, subject to certain corrections. These
were accepted. The lease was engrossed in duplicate, and in due course
signed and delivered. The old tenant left, abusing the Cliffords, and
saying it was unfair to bring in a stranger, for _he_ would have given
all the money.

Bartley took possession.

Walter welcomed Hope very warmly, and often came to see him. He took a
great interest in Hope's theories of farming, and often came to the farm
for lessons. But that interest was very much increased by the
opportunities it gave him of seeing and talking to sweet Mary Bartley.
Not that he was forward or indiscreet. She was not yet sixteen, and he
tried to remember she was a child.

Unfortunately for that theory she looked a ripe woman, and this very
Walter made her more and more womanly. Whenever Walter was near she had
new timidity, new blushes, fewer gushes, less impetuosity, more reserve.
Sweet innocent! She was set by Nature to catch the man by the surest way,
though she had no such design.

Oh, it was a pretty, subtle piece of nature, and each sex played its
part. Bold advances of the man, with internal fear to offend, mock
retreats of the girl, with internal throbs of complacency, and life
invested with a new and growing charm to both. Leaving this pretty little
pastime to glide along the flowery path that beautifies young lives to
its inevitable climax, we go to a matter more prosaic, yet one that
proved a source of strange and stormy events.

Hope had hardly started the farm when Bartley sent him off to Belgium--TO
STUDY COAL MINES.




CHAPTER VII.

THE COURSE OF TRUE LOVE.


Mr. Hope left his powerful opera-glass with Mary Bartley. One day that
Walter called she was looking through it at the landscape, and handed it
to him. He admired its power. Mary told him it had saved her life once.

"Oh," said he, "how could that be?"

Then she told him how Hope had seen her drowning, a mile off, with it,
and ridden a bare-backed steed to her rescue.

"God bless him!" cried Walter. "He is our best friend. Might I borrow
this famous glass?"

"Oh," said Mary, "I am not going into any more streams; I am not so brave
now as I used to be."

"Please lend it me, for all that."

"Of course I will, if you wish it."

Strange to say, after this, whether Mary walked out or rode out, she very
often met Mr. Walter Clifford. He was always delighted and surprised. She
was surprised three times, and said so, and after that she came to lower
her lashes and blush, but not to start. Each meeting was a pure accident,
no doubt, only she foresaw the inevitable occurrence.

They talked about everything in the world except what was most on their
minds. Their soft tones and expressive eyes supplied that little
deficiency.

One day he caught her riding on her little Arab. The groom fell
behind directly. After they had ridden some distance in silence,
Walter broke out:

"How beautifully you ride!"

"Me!" cried Mary. "Why, I never had a lesson in my life."

"That accounts for it. Let a lady alone, and she does everything more
gracefully than a man; but let some cad undertake to teach her, she
distrusts herself and imitates the snob. If you could only see the women
in Hyde Park who have been taught to ride, and compare them with
yourself!"

"I should learn humility."

"No; it would make you vain, if anything could."

"You seem inclined to do me that good turn. Come, pray, what do these
poor ladies do to offend you so?"

"I'll tell you. They square their shoulders vulgarly; they hold the reins
in their hands as if they were driving, and they draw the reins to their
waists in a coarse, absurd way. They tighten both these reins equally,
and saw the poor devil's mouth with the curb and the snaffle at one time.
Now you know, Mary, the snaffle is a mild bit, and the curb is a sharp
one; so where is the sense of pulling away at the snaffle when you are
tugging at the curb? Why, it is like the fellow that made two holes at
the bottom of the door--a big one for the cat to come through and a
little one for the kitten. But the worst of all is they show the caddess
so plainly."

"Caddess! What is that; goddess you mean, I suppose?"

"No; I mean a cad of the feminine gender. They seem bursting with
affectation and elated consciousness that they are on horseback. That
shows they have only just made the acquaintance of that animal, and in a
London riding-school. Now you hold both reins lightly in the left hand,
the curb loose, since it is seldom wanted, the snaffle just feeling the
animal's mouth, and you look right and left at the people you are talking
to, and don't seem to invite one to observe that you are on a horse: that
is because you are a lady, and a horse is a matter of course to you, just
as the ground is when you walk upon it."

The sensible girl blushed at his praise, but she said, dryly, "How
meritorious! Cousin Walter, I have heard that flattery is poison. I won't
stay here to be poisoned--so." She finished the sentence in action; and
with a movement of her body she started her Arab steed, and turned her
challenging eye back on Walter, and gave him a hand-gallop of a mile on
the turf by the road-side. And when she drew bridle her cheeks glowed so
and her eyes glistened, that Walter was dazzled by her bright beauty,
and could do nothing but gaze at her for ever so long.

If Hope had been at home, Mary would have been looked after more
sharply. But if she was punctual at meals, that went a long way with
Robert Bartley.

However, the accidental and frequent meetings of Walter and Mary, and
their delightful rides and walks, were interfered with just as they began
to grow into a habit. There arrived at Clifford Hall a formidable
person--in female eyes, especially--a beautiful heiress. Julia Clifford,
great-niece and ward of Colonel Clifford; very tall, graceful, with dark
gray eyes, and black eyebrows the size of a leech, that narrowed to a
point and met in finer lines upon the bridge of a nose that was gently
aquiline, but not too large, as such noses are apt to be. A large,
expressive mouth, with wonderful rows of ivory, and the prettiest little
black down, fine as a hair, on her upper lip, and a skin rather dark but
clear, and glowing with the warm blood beneath it, completed this noble
girl. She was nineteen years of age.

Colonel Clifford received her with warm affection and old-fashioned
courtesy; but as he was disabled by a violent fit of gout, he deputed
Walter to attend to her on foot and horseback.

Miss Clifford, accustomed to homage, laid Walter under contribution every
day. She was very active, and he had to take her a walk in the morning,
and a ride in the afternoon. He winced a little under this at first; it
kept him so much from Mary. But there was some compensation. Julia
Clifford was a lady-like rider, and also a bold and skillful one.

The first time he rode with her he asked her beforehand what sort of a
horse she would like.

"Oh, anything," said she, "that is not vicious nor slow."

"A hack or a hunter?"

"Oh, a hunter, if I _may_."

"Perhaps you will do me the honor to look at them and select."

"You are very kind, and I will."

He took her to the stables, and she selected a beautiful black mare, with
a coat like satin.

"There," said Walter, despondingly. "I was afraid you would fix on _her_.
She is impossible, I can't ride her myself."

"Vicious?"

"Not in the least."

"Well, then--"

Here an old groom touched his hat, and said, curtly, "Too hot and
fidgety, miss. I'd as lieve ride of a boiling kettle."

Walter explained: "The poor thing is the victim of nervousness."

"Which I call them as rides her the victims," suggested the
ancient groom.

"Be quiet, George. She would go sweetly in a steeple-chase, if she didn't
break her heart with impatience before the start. But on the road she is
impossible. If you make her walk, she is all over lather in five minutes,
and she'd spoil that sweet habit with flecks of foam. My lady has a way
of tossing her head, and covering you all over with white streaks."

"She wants soothing," suggested Miss Clifford.

"Nay, miss. She wants bleeding o' Sundays, and sweating over the fallows
till she drops o' week-days. But if she was mine I'd put her to work a
coal-cart for six months; that would larn her."

"I will ride her," said Miss Clifford, calmly; "her or none."

"Saddle her, George," said Walter, resignedly. "I'll ride Goliah. Black
Bess sha'n't plead a bad example. Goliah is as meek as Moses, Miss
Clifford. He is a gigantic mouse."

"I'd as lieve ride of a dead man," said the old groom.

"Mr. George," said the young lady, "you seem hard to please. May I ask
what sort of animal you do like to ride?"

"Well, miss, summat between them two. When I rides I likes to be at
peace. If I wants work, there's plenty in the yard. If I wants fretting
and fuming, I can go home: I'm a married man, ye know. But when I crosses
a horse I looks for a smart trot and a short stepper, or an easy canter
on a bit of turf, and not to be set to hard labor a-sticking my heels
into Goliah, nor getting a bloody nose every now and then from Black Bess
a-throwing back her uneasy head when I do but lean forward in the saddle.
I be an old man, miss, and I looks for peace on horseback if I can't get
it nowhere else."

All this was delivered whilst saddling Black Bess. When she was ready,
Miss Clifford asked leave to hold the bridle, and walk her out of the
premises. As she walked her she patted and caressed her, and talked to
her all the time--told her they all misunderstood her because she was
a female; but now she was not to be tormented and teased, but to have
her own way.

Then she asked George to hold the mare's head as gently as he could, and
Walter to put her up. She was in the saddle in a moment. The mare
fidgeted and pranced, but did not rear. Julia slackened the reins, and
patted and praised her, and let her go. She made a run, but was checked
by degrees with the snaffle. She had a beautiful mouth, and it was in
good hands at last.

When they had ridden a few miles they came to a very open country, and
Julia asked, demurely, if she might be allowed to try her off the road.
"All right," said Walter; and Miss Julia, with a smart decision that
contrasted greatly with the meekness of her proposal, put her straight at
the bank, and cleared it like a bird. They had a famous gallop, but this
judicious rider neither urged the mare nor greatly checked her. She
moderated her. Black Bess came home that day sweating properly, but with
a marked diminution of lather and foam. Miss Clifford asked leave to ride
her into the stable-yard, and after dismounting talked to her, and patted
her, and praised her. An hour later the pertinacious beauty asked for a
carrot from the garden, and fed Black Bess with it in the stable.

By these arts, a very light hand, and tact in riding, she soothed Black
Bess's nerves, so that at last the very touch of her habit skirt, or her
hand, or the sound of her voice, seemed to soothe the poor nervous
creature; and at last one day in the stable Bess protruded her great lips
and kissed her fair rider on the shoulder after her manner.

All this interested and amused Walter Clifford, but still he was
beginning to chafe at being kept from Miss Bartley, when one morning her
servant rode over with a note.

"DEAR COUSIN WALTER,--Will you kindly send me back my opera glass?
I want to see what is going on at Clifford Hall.

"Yours affectionately,

"MARY BARTLEY."

Walter wrote back directly that he would bring it himself, and tell her
what was going on at Clifford Hall.

So he rode over and told her of Julia Clifford's arrival, and how his
father had deputed him to attend on her, and she took up all his time. It
was beginning to be a bore.

"On the contrary," said Mary, "I dare say she is very handsome."

"That she is," said Walter.

"Please describe her."

"A very tall, dark girl, with wonderful eyebrows; and she has broken in
Black Bess, that some of us men could not ride in comfort."

Mary changed color. She murmured, "No wonder the Hall is more attractive
than the farm!" and the tears shone in her eyes.

"Oh, Mary," said Walter, reproachfully, "how can you say that? What is
Julia Clifford to me?"

"I can't tell," said Mary, dryly. "I never saw you together _through my
glasses, you know_."

Walter laughed at this innuendo.

"You shall see us together to-morrow, if you will bless one of us with
your company."

"I might be in the way."

"That is not very likely. Will you ride to Hammond Church to-morrow at
about ten, and finish your sketch of the tower? I will bring Miss
Clifford there, and introduce you to each other."

This was settled, and Mary was apparently quite intent on her sketch when
Walter and Julia rode up, and Walter said:

"That is my cousin, Mary Bartley. May I introduce her to you?"

"Of course. What a sweet face!"

So the ladies were introduced, and Julia praised Mary's sketch, and Mary
asked leave to add her to it, hanging, with pensive figure, over a
tombstone. Julia took an admirable pose, and Mary, with her quick and
facile fingers, had her on the paper in no time. Walter asked her, in a
whisper, what she thought of her model.

"I like her," said Mary. "She is rather pretty."

"Rather pretty! Why, she is an acknowledged beauty."

"A beauty? The idea! Long black thing!"

Then they rode all together to the farm. There Mary was all innocent
hospitality, and the obnoxious Julia kissed her at parting, and begged
her to come and see her at the Hall.

Mary did call, and found her with a young gentleman of short stature, who
was devouring her with his eyes, but did not overflow in discourse,
having a slight impediment in his speech. This was Mr. Percy Fitzroy.
Julia introduced him.

"And where are you staying, Percy?" inquired she.

"At the D--D--Dun Cow."

"What is that?"

Walter explained that it was a small hostelry, but one that was
occasionally honored by distinguished visitors. Miss Bartley staid there
three days.

"I h--hope to st--ay more than that," said little Percy, with an amorous
glance at Julia.

Miss Clifford took Mary to her room, and soon asked her what she thought
of him; then, anticipating criticism, she said there was not much of him,
but he was such a duck.

"He dresses beautifully," was Mary's guarded remark.

However, when Walter rode home with her, being now relieved of his
attendance on Julia, she was more communicative. Said she: "I never knew
before that a man could look like fresh cambric. Dear me! his head and
his face and his little whiskers, his white scarf, his white waistcoat,
and all his clothes, and himself, seem just washed and ironed and
starched. _I looked round for the bandbox_."

"Never mind," said Walter. "He is a great addition. My duties devolve on
him. And I shall be free to--How her eyes shone and her voice mellowed
when she spoke to him! Confess, now, love is a beautiful thing."

"I can not say. Not experienced in beautiful things." And Mary looked
mighty demure.

"Of course not. What am I thinking of? You are only a child."

"A little more than that, _please_."

"At all events, love beautified _her_."

"I saw no difference. She was always a lovely girl."

"Why, you said she was 'a long black thing.'"

"Oh, that was before--she looked engaged."

After this young Fitzroy was generally Miss Clifford's companion in her
many walks, and Walter Clifford had a delightful time with Mary Bartley.

Her nurse discovered how matters were going. But she said nothing. From
something Bartley let fall years ago she divined that Bartley was robbing
Walter Clifford by substituting Hope's child for his own, and she thought
the mischief could be repaired and the sin atoned for if he and Mary
became man and wife. So she held her tongue and watched.

The servants at the Hall watched the whole game, and saw how the young
people were pairing, and talked them over very freely.

The only person in the dark was Colonel Clifford. He was nearly always
confined to his room. However, one day he came down, and found Julia and
Percy together. She introduced Percy to him. The Colonel was curt, but
grumpy, and Percy soon beat a retreat.

The Colonel sent for Walter to his room. He did not come for some time,
because he was wooing Mary Bartley.

Colonel Clifford's first word was, "Who was that little stuttering dandy
I caught spooning _your_ Julia?"

"Only Percy Fitzroy."

"Only Percy Fitzroy! Never despise your rivals, sir. Always remember that
young women are full of vanity, and expect to be courted all day long. I
will thank you not to leave the field open a single day till you have
secured the prize."

"What prize, sir?"

"What prize, you ninny? Why, the beautiful girl that can buy back
Oddington and Drayton, peaches and fruit and all. They are both to be
sold at this moment. What prize? Why, the wife I have secured for you, if
you don't go and play the fool and neglect her."

Walter Clifford looked aghast.

"Julia Clifford!" said he. "Pray don't ask me to marry _her_."

"Not ask you?--but I do ask you; and what is more, I command you. Would
you revolt again against your father, who has forgiven you, and break my
heart, now I am enfeebled by disease? Julia Clifford is your wife, or you
are my son no more."




CHAPTER VIII.

THE COURSE OF TRUE LOVE.


The next time Walter Clifford met Mary Bartley he was gloomy at
intervals. The observant girl saw he had something on his mind. She taxed
him with it, and asked him tenderly what it was.

"Oh, nothing," said he.

"Don't tell me!" said she. "Mind, nothing escapes my eye. Come, tell me,
or we are not friends."

"Oh, come, Mary. That is hard."

"Not in the least. I take an interest in you."

"Bless you for saying so!"

"And so, if you keep your troubles from me, we are not friends,
nor cousins."

"Mary!"

"Nor anything else."

"Well, dear Mary, sooner than not be anything else to you I will tell
you, and yet I don't like. Well, then, if I must, it is that dear old
wrong-headed father of mine. He wants me to marry Julia Clifford."

Mary turned pale directly. "I guessed as much," said she. "Well, she is
young and beautiful and rich, and it is your duty to obey your father."

"But I can't."

"Oh yes, you can, if you try."

"But I can't try."

"Why not?"

"Can't you guess?"

"No."

"Well, then, I love another girl. As opposite to her as light is to
darkness."

Mary blushed and looked down. "Complimentary to Julia," she said. "I pity
her opposite, for Julia is a fine, high-minded girl."

"Ah, Mary, you are too clever for me; of course I mean the opposite in
appearance."

"As ugly as she is pretty?"

"No; but she is a dark girl, and I don't like dark girls. It was a dark
girl that deceived me so heartlessly years ago."

"Ah!"

"And made me hate the whole sex."

"Or only the brunettes?"

"The whole lot."

"Cousin Walter, I thank you in the name of that small company."

"Until I saw you, and you converted me in one day."

"Only to the blondes?"

"Only to one of them. My sweet Mary, the situation is serious. You, whose
eye nothing escapes--you must have seen long ago how I love you."

"Never mind what I have seen, Walter," said Mary, whose bosom was
beginning to heave.

"Very well," said Walter; "then I will tell you as if you didn't know it.
I admired you at first sight; every time I was with you I admired you,
and loved you more and more. It is my heaven to see you and to hear you
speak. Whether you are grave or gay, saucy or tender, it is all one
charm, one witchcraft. I want you for my wife, and my child, and my
friend. Mary, my love, my darling, how could I marry any woman but you?
and you, could you marry any man but me, to break the heart that beats
only for you?"

This and the voice of love, now ardent, now broken with emotion, were
more than sweet, saucy Mary could trifle with; her head drooped slowly
upon his shoulder, and her arm went round his neck, and the tremor of her
yielding frame and the tears of tenderness that flowed slowly from her
fair eyes told Walter Clifford without a word that she was won.

He had the sense not to ask her for words. What words could be so
eloquent as this? He just held her to his manly bosom, and trembled with
love and joy and triumph.

She knew, too, that she had replied, and treated her own attitude like a
sentence in rather a droll way. "But _for all that_," said she, "I don't
mean to be a wicked girl if I can help. This is an age of wicked young
ladies. I soon found that out in the newspapers; that and science are the
two features. And I have made a solemn vow not to be one of
them"--(query, a science or a naughty girl)--"making mischief between
father and son."

"No more you shall, dear," said Walter. "Leave it to me. We must be
patient, and all will come right."

"Oh, I'll be true to you, dear, if that is all," said Mary.

"And if you would not mind just temporizing a little, for my sake, who
love you?"

"Temporize!" said Mary, eagerly. "With all my heart. I'll temporize till
we are all dead and buried."

"Oh, that will be too long for me," said Walter.

"Oh, never do things by halves," said the ready girl.

If his tongue had been as prompt as hers, he might have said that
"temporizing" was doing things by halves; but he let her have the
last word. And perhaps he lost nothing, for she would have had that
whether or no.

So this day was another era in their love. Girls after a time are not
content to see they are beloved; they must hear it too; and now Walter
had spoken out like a man, and Mary had replied like a woman. They were
happy, and walked hand in hand purring to one another, instead of
sparring any more.

On his return home Walter found Julia marching swiftly and haughtily up
and down upon the terrace of Clifford Hall, and he could not help
admiring the haughty magnificence of her walk. The reason soon appeared.
She was in a passion. She was always tall, but now she seemed lofty, and
to combine the supple panther with the erect peacock in her ireful march.
Such a fine woman as Julia really awes a man with her carriage at such a
time. The poor soul thinks he sees before him the indignation of the
just; when very likely it is only what in a man would be called
Petulance.

"Anything the matter, Miss Clifford?" said he, obsequiously.

"No, sir" (very stiffly).

"Can I be of any service?"

"No, you can not." And then, swifter than any weather-cock ever turned:
"You are a good creature: why should I be rude to you? I ought to be
ashamed of myself. It is that little wretch."

"Not our friend Fitzroy?"

"Why, what other little wretch is there about? We are all Grenadiers and
May-poles in this house except him. Well, let him go. I dare say somebody
else--hum--and Uncle Clifford has told me more than once I ought to look
higher. I couldn't well look lower than five feet nothing. Ha! ha! ha! I
told him so."

"That was cruel."

"Don't scold _me_. I won't be lectured by any of you. Of course it was,
_dear_. Poor little Percy. Oh! oh! oh!"

And after all this thunder there was a little rain, by a law that governs
Atmosphere and Woman impartially.

Seeing her softened, and having his own reasons for wishing to keep
Fitzroy to his duty, Walter begged leave to mediate, if possible, and
asked if she would do him the honor to confide the grievance to him.

"Of course I will," said Julia. "He is angry with Colonel Clifford for
not wishing him to stay here, and he is angry with me for not making
Uncle Clifford invite him. As if I _could_! I should be ashamed to
propose such a thing. The truth is, he is a luxurious little fellow, and
my society out-of-doors does not compensate him for the cookery at the
Dun Cow. There! let him go."

"But I want him to stay."

"Then that is very kind of you."

"Isn't it?" said Walter, slyly. "And I must make him stay somehow. Now
tell me, isn't he a little jealous?"

"A little jealous! Why, he is eaten up with it; he is _pétrie de
jalousie_."

"Then," said Walter, timidly, and hesitating at every word, "you can't be
angry if I work on him a little. Would there be any great harm if I were
to say that nobody can see you without admiring you; that I have always
respected his rights, but that if he abandons them--"

Julia caught it in a moment. She blushed, and laughed heartily. "Oh, you
good, sly Thing!" said she; "and it is the truth, for I am as proud as he
is vain; and if he leaves me I will turn round that moment and make you
in love with me."

Walter looked queer. This was a turn he had not counted on.

"Do you think I couldn't, sir?" said she, sharply.

"It is not for me to limit the power of beauty," said Walter, meekly.

"Say the power of flattery. I could cajole any man in the world--if
I chose."

"Then you are a dangerous creature, and I will make Fitzroy my shield.
I'm off to the Dun Cow."

"You are a duck," said this impetuous beauty. "So there!" She took him
round the neck with both hands, and gave him a most delicious kiss.

"Why, he must be mad," replied the recipient, bluntly. She laughed at
that, and he went straight to the Dun Cow. He found young Fitzroy sitting
rather disconsolate, and opened his errand at once by asking him if it
was true that they were to lose him.

Percy replied stiffly that it was true.

"What a pity!" said Walter.

"I d--don't think I shall be m--much m--missed," said Percy,
rather sullenly.

"I know two people who will miss you."

"I d--don't know one."

"Two, I assure you--Miss Clifford and myself. Come, Mr. Fitzroy, I will
not beat about the bush. I am afraid you are mortified, and I must say,
justly mortified, at the coolness my father has shown to you. But I
assure you that it is not from any disrespect to you personally."

"Oh, indeed!" said Percy, ironically.

"No; quite the reverse--he is afraid of you."

"That is a g--g--good joke."

"No; let me explain. Fathers are curious people. If they are ever so
disinterested in their general conduct, they are sure to be a little
mercenary for their children. Now you know Miss Clifford is a beauty who
would adorn Clifford Hall, and an heiress whose money would purchase
certain properties that join ours. You understand?"

"Yes," said the little man, starting up in great wrath. "I understand,
and it's a--bom--inable. I th--thought you were my friend, and a m--man
of h--honor."

"So I am, and that is why I warn you in time. If you quarrel with Miss
Clifford, and leave this place in a pet, just see what risks we both run,
you and I. My father will be always at me, and I shall not be able to
insist on your prior claim; he will say you have abandoned it. Julia will
take the huff, and you know beautiful women will do strange things--mad
things--when once pique enters their hearts. She might turn round and
marry me."

"You forget, sir, you are a man of honor."

"But not a man of stone. Now, my dear Fitzroy, be reasonable. Suppose
that peerless creature went in for female revenge; why, the first thing
she would do would be to _make_ me love her, whether I chose or no. She
wouldn't give _me_ a voice in the matter. She would flatter me; she would
cajole me; she would transfix my too susceptible heart with glances of
fire and bewitching languor from those glorious eyes."

"D--d----! Ahem!" cried Percy, turning green.

Walter had no mercy. "I heard her say once she could make any man love
her if she chose."

"So she could," said Percy, ruefully. "She made me. I had an awful
p--p--prejudice against her, but there was no resisting."

"Then don't subject _me_ to such a trial. Stick to her like a man."

"So I will; b--but it is a m--m--mortifying position. I'm a man of
family. We came in with the C--Conquest, and are respected in our
c--county; and here I have to meet her on the sly, and live at the
D--Dun Cow."

"Where the _cuisine_ is wretched."

"A--b--b--bominable!"

Having thus impregnated his mind with that soothing sentiment, jealousy,
Walter told him he had a house to let on the estate--quite a gentleman's
house, only a little dilapidated, with a fine lawn and garden, only
neglected into a wilderness. "But all the better for you," said he. "You
have plenty of money, and no occupation. Perhaps that is what leads to
these little quarrels. It will amuse you to repair the crib and restore
the lawn. Why, there is a brook runs through it--it isn't every lawn has
that--and there used to be water-lilies floating, and peonies nodding
down at them from the bank: a paradise. She adores flowers, you know. Why
not rent that house from me? You will have constant occupation and
amusement. You will become a rival potentate to my governor. You will
take the shine out of him directly; you have only to give a ball, and
then all the girls will worship you, Julia Clifford especially, for she
could dance the devil to a stand-still."

Percy's eyes flashed. "When can I have the place?" said he, eagerly.

"In half an hour. I'll draw you a three months' agreement. Got any
paper? Of course not. Julia is so near. What are those? Playing-cards.
What do you play? 'Patience,' all by yourself. No wonder you are
quarrelsome! Nothing else to bestow your energy on."

Percy denied this imputation. The cards were for pistol practice. He shot
daily at the pips in the yard.

"It is the fiend _Ennui_ that loads your pistols, and your temper too.
Didn't I tell you so?"

Walter then demanded the ace of diamonds, and on its face let him the
house and premises on a repairing lease for three years, rent £5 a year:
which was a good bargain for both parties, since Percy was sure to lay
out a thousand pounds or two on the property, and to bind Julia more
closely to him, who was worth her weight in gold ten times over.

Walter had brought the keys with him, so he drove Percy over at once and
gave him possession, and, to do the little fellow justice, the moisture
of gratitude stood in his eyes when they parted.

Walter told Julia about it the same night, and her eyes were
eloquent too.

The next day he had a walk with Mary Bartley, and told her all about it.
She hung upon him, and gazed admiringly into his eyes all the time, and
they parted happy lovers.

Mr. Bartley met her at the gate, "Mary," said he, gravely, "who was that
I saw with you just now?"

"Cousin Walter."

"I feared so. You are too much with him."

Mary turned red and white by turns, but said nothing.

Bartley went on: "You are a good child, and I have always trusted you. I
am sure you mean no harm. But you must be more discreet. I have just
heard that you and that young man are looked upon as engaged lovers. They
say it is all over the village. Of course a father is the last to hear
these things. Does Mrs. Easton know of this?"

"Oh yes, papa, and approves it."

"Stupid old woman! She ought to be ashamed of herself."

"Oh, papa!" said Mary, in deep distress; "why, what objection can there
be to Cousin Walter?"

"None whatever as a cousin, but every objection to intimacy. Does he
court you?"

"I don't know, papa. I suppose he does."

"Does he seek your love?"

"He does not say so exactly."

"Come, Mary, you have never deceived me. Does he love you?"

"I am afraid he does; and if you reject him he will be very unhappy. And
so shall I."

"I am truly sorry to hear it, Mary, for there are reasons why I can not
consent to an engagement between him and you."

"What reasons, papa?"

"It would not be proper to disclose my reasons; but I hope, Mary, that it
will be enough to say that Colonel Clifford has other views for his son,
and I have other views for my daughter. Do you think a blessing will
attend you or him if you defy both fathers?"

"No, no," said poor Mary. "We have been hasty and very foolish. But, oh,
papa, have you not seen from the first? Oh, why did you not warn me in
time? Then I could have obeyed you easily. Now it will cost me the
happiness of my life. We are very unfortunate. Poor Walter! He left me so
full of hope. What shall I do? what shall I do?"

It was Mary Bartley's first grief. She thought all chance of happiness
was gone forever, and she wept bitterly for Walter and herself.

Bartley was not unmoved, but he could not change his nature. The sum he
had obtained by a crime was dearer to him than all his more honest gains.
He was kind on the surface, but hard as marble.

"Go to your room, my child," said he, "and try and compose yourself. I
am not angry with you. I ought to have watched you. But you are so young,
and I trusted to that woman."

Mary retired, sobbing, and he sent for Mrs. Easton.

"Mrs. Easton," said he, "for the first time in all these years I have a
fault to find with you."

"What is that, sir, if you please?"

"Young Clifford has been courting that child, and you have
encouraged it."

"Nay, sir," said the woman, "I have not done that. She never spoke to me,
nor I to her."

"Well, then, you never interfered."

"No, sir; no more than you did."

"Because I never observed it till to-day."

"How could I know that, sir? Everybody else observed it. Mr. Hope would
have been the first to see it, if he had been in your place." This sudden
thrust made Bartley wince, and showed him he had a tougher customer to
deal with than poor Mary.

"You can't bear to be found fault with, Easton," said he, craftily, "and
I don't wonder at it, after fourteen years' fidelity to me."

"I take no credit for that," said the woman, doggedly. "I have been
paid for it."

"No doubt. But I don't always get the thing I pay for. Then let by-gones
be by-gones; but just assist me now to cure the girl of this folly."

"Sir," said the woman, firmly, "it is not folly; it is wisest and best
for all; and I can't make up my mind to lift a finger against it."

"Do you mean to defy me, then?"

"No, sir. I don't want to go against you, nor yet against my own
conscience, what's left on't. I have seen a pretty while it must come to
this, and I have written to my sister Sally. She keeps a small hotel at
the lakes. She is ready to have me, and I'm not too old to be useful to
her. I'm worth my board. I'll go there this very day, if you please. I'm
as true to you as I can be, sir. For I see by Miss Mary crying so you
have spoken to her, and so now she is safe to come to me for comfort; and
if she does, I shall take her part, you may be sure, for I love her like
my own child." Here the dogged voice began to tremble; but she recovered
herself, and told him she would go at once to her sister Gilbert, that
lived only ten miles off, and next day she would go to the little hotel
at the lakes, and leave him to part two true lovers if he could and break
both their hearts; she should wash her hands of it.

Bartley asked a moment to consider.

"Shall we be friends still if you leave me like that? Surely, after all
these years, you will not tell your sister? You will not betray me?"

"Never, sir," said she. "What for? To bring those two together? Why, it
would part them forever. I wonder at you, a gentleman, and in business
all your life, yet you don't seem to see through the muddy water as I do
that is only a plain woman."

She then told him her clothes were nearly all packed, and she could start
in an hour.

"You shall have the break and the horses," said he, with great alacrity.

Everything transpires quickly in a small house, and just as she had
finished packing, in came Mary in violent distress. "What, is it true?
Are you going to leave me, now my heart is broken? Oh, nurse! nurse!"

This was too much even for stout-hearted Nancy Easton.

"Oh, my child! my child!" she cried, and sat down on her box sobbing
violently, Mary infolded in her arms, and then they sat crying and
rocking together.

"Papa does not love me as I do him," sobbed Mary, turning bitter for the
first time. "He breaks my heart, and sends you away the same day, for
fear you should comfort me."

"No, my dear," said Mrs. Easton; "you are wrong. He does not send me
away; I go by my own wish."

"Oh, nurse, you desert me! then you don't know what has happened."

"Oh yes, I do; I know all about it; and I'm leaving because I can't do
what he wishes. You see it is this way, Miss Mary--your father has been
very good to me, and I am his debtor. I must not stay here and help you
to thwart him--that would be ungrateful--and yet I can't take his side
against you. Master has got reasons why you should not marry Walter
Clifford, and--"

"He told me so himself," said Mary.

"Ah, but he didn't tell you his reasons."

"No."

"No more must I. But, Miss Mary, I'll tell you this. I know his reasons
well; his reasons why you should not marry Walter Clifford are my reasons
why you should marry no other man."

"Oh, nurse! oh, you dear, good angel!"

"So when friends differ like black and white, 'tis best to part. I'm
going to my sister Gilbert this afternoon, and to-morrow to my sister
Sally, at her hotel."

"Oh, nurse, must you? must you? I shall have not a friend to advise or
console me till Mr. Hope comes back. Oh, I hope that won't be long now."

Mrs. Easton dropped her hands upon her knees and looked at Mary Bartley.

"What, Miss Mary, would you go to Mr. Hope in such a matter as this?
Surely you would not have the face?"

"Not take my breaking heart to Mr. Hope!" cried Mary, with a sudden
flood of tears. "You might as well tell me not to lay my trouble before
my God. Dear, dear Mr. Hope, who saved my life in those deep waters, and
then cried over me, darling dear! I think more of that than of his
courage. Do you think I am blind? He loves me better than my own father
does; and it is not a young man's love; it is an angel's. Not cry to
_him_ when I am in the deep waters of affliction? I could not write of
such a thing to him for blushing, but the moment he returns I shall
find some way to let him know how happy I have been, how broken-hearted
I am, and that papa has reasons against _him_, and they are your reasons
for him, and that you are both afraid to let _me_ know these _curious_
reasons--me, the poor girl whose heart is being made a foot-ball of in
this house. Oh! oh! oh!"

"Don't cry, Miss Mary," said Nurse Easton, tenderly; "and pray don't
excite yourself so. Why, I never saw you like this before."

"Had I ever the same reason? You have only known the happy, thoughtless
child. They have made a woman of me now, and my peace is gone. I _must_
not defy my father, and I _will_ not break poor Walter's heart--the
truest heart that ever beat. Not tell dear Mr. Hope? I'll tell him
everything, if I'm cut in pieces for it." And her beautiful eyes flashed
lightning through her tears.

"Hum!" said Mrs. Easton, under her breath, and looking down at her own
feet.

"And pray what does 'hum' mean?" asked Mary, fixing her eyes with
prodigious keenness on the woman's face.

"Well, I don't suppose 'hum' means anything," said Mrs. Easton, still
looking down.

"Doesn't it?" said Mary. "With such a face as _that_ it means a volume.
And I'll make it my business to read that volume."

"Hum!"

"And Mr. Hope shall help me."




CHAPTER IX.

LOVERS PARTED.


Walter, little dreaming the blow his own love had received, made Percy
write Julia an apology, and an invitation to visit his new house if he
was forgiven. Julia said she could not forgive him, and would not go.
Walter said, "Put on your bonnet, and take a little drive with me."

"Oh, with pleasure," said Julia, slyly.

So then Walter drove her to the new house, without a word of remonstrance
on her part, and Fitzroy met her radiant, and Walter slipped away round a
corner, and when he came back the quarrel had dissolved. He had brought a
hamper with all the necessaries of life--table-cloth, napkins, knives,
forks, spoons, cold pie, salad, and champagne. They lunched beside the
brook on the lawn. The lovers drank his health, and Julia appointed him
solemnly to the post of "peace-maker," "for," said she, "you have shown
great talent that way, and I foresee we shall want one, for we shall be
always quarrelling; sha'n't we, Percy?"

"N--o; n--never again."

"Then you mustn't be jealous."

"I'm not. I d--despise j--jealousy. I'm above it."

"Oh, indeed," said Julia, dryly.

"Come, don't begin again, you two," said Walter, "or--no champagne."

"Now what a horrid threat!" said Julia. "I'll be good, for one."

In short they had a merry time, and Walter drove Julia home. Both were in
high spirits.

In the hall Walter found a short note from Mary Bartley:

"DEAR, DEAR WALTER,--I write with a bleeding heart to tell you that papa
has only just discovered our attachment, and I am grieved to say he
disapproves of it, and has forbidden me to encourage your love, that is
dearer to me than all the world. It is very hard. It seems so cruel. But
I must obey. Do not make obedience too difficult, dear Walter. And pray,
pray do not be as unhappy as I am. He says he has reasons, but he has not
told me what they are, except that your father has other views for you;
but, indeed, with both parents against us what can we do? Forgive me the
pain this will give you. Ask yourself whether it gives me any less. You
were all the world to me. Now everything is dull and distasteful. What a
change in one little day! We are very unfortunate. But it can not be
forever. And if you will be constant to me, you know I shall to you. I
_could not_ change. Ah, Walter, I little thought when I said I would
temporize, how soon I should be called on to do it. I can't write any
more for crying. I do nothing but cry ever since papa was so cruel; but I
must obey. Your loving, sorrowful

"MARY."

This letter was a chilling blow to poor Walter. He took it into his own
room and read it again and again. It brought the tears into his own eyes,
and discouraged him deeply for a time. But, of course, he was not so
disposed to succumb to authority as the weaker vessel was. He wrote back:

"My own Love,--Don't grieve for me. I don't care for anything so long as
you love me. I shall resist, of course. As for my father, I am going to
marry Julia to Percy Fitzroy, and so end my governor's nonsense. As for
your father, I do not despair of softening him. It is only a check; it is
not a defeat. Who on earth can part us if we are true to each other? God
bless you, dearest! I did not think you loved me so much. Your letter
gives me comfort forever, and only disappointment for a time. Don't fret,
sweet love. It will be all right in the end.

"Your grateful, hopeful love, till death, WALTER."

Mary opened this letter with a beating heart. She read it with tears and
smiles and utter amazement. She knew so little about the male character
that this way of receiving a knockdown blow astonished and charmed her.
She thought to herself, no wonder women look up to men. They _will_ have
their own way; they resist, _of course_. How sensible! We give in, right
or wrong. What a comfort I have got a man to back me, and not a poor
sorrowing, despairing, obeying thing like myself!

So she was comforted for the minute, and settled in her own mind that she
would be good and obedient, and Walter should do all the fighting. But
letters soon cease to satisfy the yearning hearts of lovers unnaturally
separated. Walter and Mary lived so near each other, yet now they never
met. Bartley took care of that. He told Mary she must not walk out
without a maid or ride without a servant; and he gave them both special
orders. He even obliged her with his own company, though that rather
bored him.

Under this severe restraint Mary's health and spirits suffered, and she
lost some of her beautiful color.

Walter's spirits were kept up only by anger. Julia Clifford saw he was in
trouble, and asked him what was the matter.

"Oh, nothing that would interest you," said he, rather sullenly.

"Excuse me," said she. "I am always interested in the troubles of my
friends, and you have been a good friend to me."

"It is very good of you to think so. Well, then, yes, I am unhappy. I am
crossed in love."

"Is it that fair girl you introduced me to when out riding?"

"Yes."

"She is lovely."

"Miss Clifford, she is an angel."

"Ha! ha! We are all angels till we are found out. Who is the man?"

"What man?"

"That she prefers to my good Walter. She deserves a good whipping,
your angel."

"Much obliged to you, Miss Clifford; but she prefers no man to your good
Walter, though I am not worthy to tie her shoes. Why, we are devoted to
each other."

"Well, you needn't fly out at _me_. I am your friend, as you will see.
Make me your confidante. Explain, please. How can you be crossed in love
if there's no other man?"

"It's her father. He has discovered our love, and forbids her to
speak to me."

"Her father!" said Julia, contemptuously. "Is that all? _That_ for her
father! You shall have her in spite of fifty fathers. If it had been a
lover, now."

"I should have talked to him, not to you," said Walter, with his
eyes flashing.

"Be quiet, Walter; as it is not a lover, nor even a mother, you shall
have the girl; and a very sweet girl she is. Will you accept me for
your ally? Women are wiser than men in these things, and understand
one another."

"Oh, Miss Clifford," said Walter, "this is good of you! Of course it will
be a great blessing to us both to have your sympathy and assistance."

"Well, then," said Julia, "begin by telling me--have you spoken to
her father?"

"No."

"Then that is the very first thing to be done. Come, order our horses. We
will ride over directly. I will call on _Miss_ Bartley, and you on
_Mister_. Now mind, you must ignore all that has passed, and just ask his
permission to court his daughter. Whilst you are closeted with him, the
young lady and I will learn each other's minds with a celerity you poor
slow things have no idea of."

"I see one thing," said Walter, "that I am a child in such matters
compared with you. What decision! what promptitude!"

"Then imitate it, young man. Order the horses directly;" and she stamped
her foot impatiently.

Walter turned to the stables without another word, and Julia flew
upstairs to put on her riding-habit.

       *       *       *       *      *

Bartley was in his study with a map of the farm before him, and two
respectable but rather rough men in close conference over it. These were
practical men from the county of Durham, whom he had ferreted out by
means of an agent, men who knew a great deal about coal. They had already
surveyed the farm, and confirmed Hope's opinion that coal lay below the
surface of certain barren fields, and the question now was as to the
exact spot where it would be advisable to sink the first shaft.

Bartley was heart and soul in this, and elevated by love of gain far
above such puny considerations as the happiness of Mary Bartley and her
lover. She, poor girl, sat forlorn in her little drawing-room, and tried
to draw a bit, and tried to read a bit, and tried to reconcile a new
German symphony to her ear as well as to her judgment, which told her it
was too learned not to be harmonious, though it sounded very discordant.
But all these efforts ended in a sigh of despondency, and in brooding on
innocent delights forbidden, and a prospect which, to her youth and
inexperience, seemed a wilderness robbed of the sun.

Whilst she sat thus pensive and sad there came a sudden rush and clatter
of hoofs, and Miss Clifford and Walter Clifford reined up their horses
under the very window.

Mary started up delighted at the bare sight of Walter, but amazed and
puzzled. The next moment her quick intelligence told her this was some
daring manoeuvre or other, and her heart beat high.

Walter opened the door and stood beside it, affecting a cold ceremony.

"Miss Bartley, I have brought Miss Clifford to call on you at her
request. My own visit is to your father. Where shall I find him?"

"In his study," murmured Miss Bartley.

Walter returned, and the two ladies looked at each other steadily for one
moment, and took stock of one another's dress, looks, character, and
souls with supernatural rapidity. Then Mary smiled, and motioned her
visitor to a seat, and waited.

Miss Clifford made her approaches obliquely at first.

"I ought to apologize to you for not returning your call before this. At
any rate, here I am at last."

"You are most welcome, Miss Clifford," said Mary, warmly.

"Now the ice is broken, I want you to call me Julia."

"May I?"

"You may, and you must, if I call you Mary. Why, you know we are cousins;
at least I suppose so. We are both cousins of Walter Clifford, so we must
be cousins to each other."

And she fixed her eyes on her fair hostess in a very peculiar way.

Mary returned this fixed look with such keen intelligence that her gray
eyes actually scintillated.

"Mary, I seldom waste much time before I come to the point. Walter
Clifford is a good fellow; he has behaved well to me. I had a quarrel
with mine, and Walter played the peace-maker, and brought us together
again without wounding my pride. By-and-by I found out Walter himself was
in grief about you. It was my turn, wasn't it? I made him tell me all. He
wasn't very willing, but I would know. I see his love is making him
miserable, and so is yours, dear."

"Oh yes."

"So I took it on me to advise him. I have made him call on your father.
Fathers sometimes pooh-pooh their daughters' affections; but when the son
of Colonel Clifford comes with a formal proposal of marriage, Mr. Bartley
can not pooh-pooh _him_."

Mary clasped her hands, but said nothing.

Julia flowed on:

"And the next thing is to comfort you. You seem to want a good
cry, dear."

"Yes, I d--do."

"Then come here and take it."

No sooner said than done. Mary's head on Julia's shoulder, and Julia's
arm round Mary's waist.

"Are you better, dear?"

"Oh, so much."

"It is a comfort, isn't it? Well, now, listen to me. Fathers sometimes
delay a girl's happiness; but they don't often destroy it; they don't go
and break her heart as some mothers do. A mother that is resolved to have
her own way brings another man forward; fathers are too simple to see
that is the only way. And then a designing mother cajoles the poor girl
and deceives her, and does a number of things a man would call
villainies. Don't you fret your heart out for so small a thing as a
father's opposition. You are sure to tire him out if he loves you, and if
he doesn't love you, or loves money better, why, then, he is not a worthy
rival to my cousin Walter, for that man really loves you, and would marry
you if you had not a penny. So would Percy Fitzroy marry me. And that is
why I prefer him to the grenadiers and plungers with silky mustaches, and
half an eye on me and an eye and a half on my money."

Many other things passed between these two, but what we have endeavored
to repeat was the cream of Julia's discourse, and both her advice and
her sympathy were for the time a wonderful comfort to the love-sick,
solitary girl.

But our business is with Walter Clifford. As soon as he was announced,
Mr. Bartley dismissed his rugged visitors, and received Walter affably,
though a little stiffly.

Walter opened his business at once, and told him he had come to ask his
permission to court his daughter. He said he had admired her from the
first moment, and now his happiness depended on her, and he felt sure he
could make her happy; not, of course, by his money, but by his devotion.
Then as to making a proper provision for her--

Here Bartley stopped him.

"My young friend," said he, "there can be no objection either to your
person or your position. But there are difficulties, and at present they
are serious ones. Your father has other views."

"But, Mr. Bartley," said Walter, eagerly, "he must abandon them. The lady
is engaged."

"Well, then," said Bartley, "it will be time to come to me when he has
abandoned those views, and also overcome his prejudices against me and
mine. But there is another difficulty. My daughter is not old enough to
marry, and I object to long engagements. Everything, therefore, points to
delay, and on this I must insist."

Bartley having taken this moderate ground, remained immovable. He
promised to encourage no other suitor; but in return he said he had a
right to demand that Walter would not disturb his daughter's peace of
mind until the prospect was clearer. In short, instead of being taken by
surprise, the result showed Bartley quite prepared for this interview,
and he baffled the young man without offending him. He was cautious not
to do that, because he was going to mine for coal, and feared
remonstrances, and wanted Walter to take his part, or at least to be
neutral, knowing his love for Mary. So they parted good friends; but when
he retailed the result to Julia Clifford she shook her head, and said the
old fox had outwitted him. Soon after, knitting her brows in thought for
some time, she said, "She is very young, much younger than she looks. I
am afraid you will have to wait a little, and watch."

"But," said Walter, in dismay, "am I not to see her or speak to her all
the time I am waiting?"

"I'd see both fathers hanged first, if I was a man," said Julia.

In short, under the courageous advice of Julia Clifford, Walter began to
throw himself in Mary's way, and look disconsolate; that set Mary pining
directly, and Julia found her pale, and grieving for Walter, and
persuaded her to write him two or three lines of comfort; she did, and
that drew pages from him. Unfortunately he did not restrain himself, but
flung his whole heart upon paper, and raised a tumult in the innocent
heart of her who read his passionate longings.

She was so worked upon that at last one day she confided to Julia that
her old nurse was going to visit her sister, Mrs. Gilbert, who lived only
ten miles off, and she thought she should ride and see her.

"When?" asked Julia, carelessly.

"Oh, any day next week," said Mary, carelessly. "Wednesday, if it is
fine. She will not be there till Monday."

"Does she know?" asked Julia.

"Oh yes; and left because she could not agree with papa about it; and,
dear, she said a strange thing--a very strange thing: she knew papa's
reasons against him, and they were her reasons for him."

"Fancy that!" said Julia. "Your father told you what the reasons were?"

"No; he wouldn't. They both treat me like a child."

"You mean they pretend to," she added.

"I see one thing; there is some mystery behind this. I wonder what it
is?"

"Ten to one, it is money. I am only twenty, but already I have found out
that money governs the world. Let me see--your mother was a Clifford. She
must have had money. Did she settle any on you?"

"I am sure I don't know."

"Ten to one she did, and your father is your trustee; and when you
marry, he must show his accounts and cash up. There, that is where the
shoe pinches."

Mary was distressed.

"Oh, don't say so, dear. I can't bear to think that of papa. You make me
very unhappy."

"Forgive me, dear," said Julia. "I am too bitter and suspicious. Some
day I will tell you things in my own life that have soured me. Money--I
hate the very word," she said, clinching her teeth.

She urged her view no more, but in her own heart she felt sure that she
had read Mr. Bartley aright. Why, he was a trader, into the bargain.

As for Mary, when she came to think over this conversation, her own
subtle instinct told her that stronger pressure than ever would now be
brought on her. Her timidity, her maiden modesty, and her desire to do
right set her on her defense. She determined to have loving but impartial
advice, and so she overcame her shyness, and wrote to Mr. Hope. Even then
she was in no hurry to enter on such a subject by letter, so she must
commence by telling him that her father had set a great many people, most
of them strangers, to dig for coal. That cross old thing, Colonel
Clifford, had been heard to sneer at her dear father, and say unkind and
disrespectful things--that the love of money led to loss of money, and
that papa might just as well dig a well and throw his money into that.
She herself was sorry he had not waited for Mr. Hope's return before
undertaking so serious a speculation. Warmed by this preliminary, she
ventured into the delicate subject, and told him the substance of what we
have told the reader, only in a far more timid and suggestive way, and
implored him to advise her by return of post if possible--or why not
come home? Papa had said only yesterday, "I wish Hope was here." She got
an answer by return of post. It disappointed her, on the whole. Mr. Hope
realized the whole situation, though she had sketched it faintly instead
of painting it boldly. He was all sympathy, and he saw at once that he
could not himself imagine a better match for her than Walter Clifford.
But then he observed that Mr. Bartley himself offered no personal
objection, but wished the matter to be in abeyance until she was older,
and Colonel Clifford's objection to the connection should be removed or
softened. That might really be hoped for should Miss Clifford marry Mr.
Fitzroy; and really in the mean time he (Hope) could hardly take on him
to encourage her in impatience and disobedience. He should prefer to talk
to Bartley first. With him he should take a less hesitating line, and set
her happiness above everything. In short, he wrote cautiously. He
inwardly resolved to be on the spot very soon, whether Bartley wanted him
or not; but he did not tell Mary this.

Mary was disappointed. "How kind and wise he is!" she said to
Julia--"too wise."

Next Wednesday morning Mary Bartley rode to Mrs. Gilbert, and was
received by her with courtesy, but with a warm embrace by Mrs.
Easton. After a while the latter invited her into the parlor, saying
there is somebody there; but no one knows. This, however, though
hardly unexpected, set Mary's heart beating, and when the parlor
door was opened, Mrs. Easton stepped back, and Mary was alone with
Walter Clifford.

Then might those who oppose an honest and tender affection have learned a
lesson. It was no longer affection only. It was passion. Walter was pale,
agitated, eager; he kissed her hands impetuously, and drew her to his
bosom. She sobbed there; he poured inarticulate words over her, and still
held her, panting, to his beating heart. Even when the first gush of love
subsided a little he could not be so reasonable as he used to be. He was
wild against his own father, hers, and every obstacle, and implored her
to marry him at once by special license, and leave the old people to
untie the knot if they could.

Then Mary was astonished and hurt.

"A clandestine marriage, Mr. Clifford!" said she. "I thought you had
more respect for me than to mention such a thing."

Then he had to beg her pardon, and say the separation had driven him mad.

Then she forgave him.

Then he took advantage of her clemency, and proceeded calmly to show her
it was their only chance.

Then Mary forgot how severely she had checked him, and merely said that
was the last thing she would consent to, and bound him on his honor never
to mention to Julia Clifford that he had proposed such a thing. Walter
promised that readily enough, but stuck to his point; and as Mary's pride
was wounded, and she was a girl of great spirit though love-sick, she
froze to him, and soon after said she was very sorry, but she must not
stay too long or papa would be angry. She then begged him not to come out
of the parlor, or the servant would see him.

"That is a trifle," said Walter. "I am going to obey you in greater
things than that. Ah! Mary, Mary, you don't love me as I love you!"

"No, Walter," said Mary, "I do not love you as you love me, for I respect
you." Then her lip trembled, and her eyes filled with tears.

Walter fell on his knees, and kissed her skirt several times; then ended
with her hand. "Oh, don't harbor such a thought as that!" said he.

She sobbed, but made no reply.

They parted good friends, but chilled.

That made them both unhappy to think of.

It was only two, or at the most three, days after this that, as Mary was
walking in the garden, a nosegay fell at her feet. She picked it up, and
immediately found a note half secreted in it. The next moment it was
entirely secreted in her bosom. She sauntered in-doors, and scudded
upstairs to her room to read it.

The writer told her in a few agitated words that their fathers had met,
and he must speak to her directly. Would she meet him for a moment at the
garden gate at nine o'clock that evening?

"No, no, no!" cried Mary, as if he was there. She was frightened. Suppose
they should be caught. The shame--the disgrace. But oh, the temptation!
Well, then, how wrong of him to tempt her! She must not go. There was no
time to write and refuse; but she must not go. She would not go. And in
this resolution she persisted. Nine o'clock struck, and she never moved.
Then she began to picture Walter's face of disappointment and his
unhappiness. At ten minutes past nine she tied a handkerchief round her
head and went.

There he was at the gate, pale and agitated. He did not give her time to
scold him.

"Pray forgive me," he said; "but I saw no other way. It is all over,
Mary, unless you love me as I love you."

"Don't begin by doubting me," she said. "Tell me, dear."

"It is soon told. Our fathers have met at that wretched pit, and the
foreman has told me what passed between them. My father complained that
mining for coal was not husbandry, and it was very unfair to do it, and
to smoke him out of house and home. (Unfortunately the wind was west, and
blew the smoke of the steam-engine over his lawn.) Your father said he
took the farm under that express stipulation. Colonel Clifford said, 'No;
the condition was smuggled in.' 'Then smuggle it out,' said Mr. Bartley."

"Oh!"

"If it had only ended there, Mary. But they were both in a passion, and
must empty their hearts. Colonel Clifford said he had every respect for
you, but had other views for his son. Mr. Bartley said he was thankful to
hear it, for he looked higher for his daughter. 'Higher in trade, I
suppose,' said my father; 'the Lord Mayor's nephew.' 'Well,' said Mr.
Bartley, 'I would rather marry her to money than to mortgages.' And the
end of it was they parted enemies for life."

"No, no; not for life!"

"For life, Mary. It is an old grudge revived. Indeed, the first quarrel
was only skinned over. Don't deceive yourself. We have nothing to do but
disobey them or part."

"And you can say that, Walter? Oh, have a little patience!"

"So I would," said Walter, "if there was any hope. But there is none.
There is nothing to wait for but the death of our parents, and by that
time I shall be an elderly man, and you will have lost your bloom and
wasted your youth--for what? No; I feel sometimes this will drive me mad,
or make me a villain. I am beginning to hate my own father, and everybody
else that thwarts my love. How can they earn my hate more surely? No,
Mary; I see the future as plainly as I see your dear face, so pale and
shocked. I can't help it. If you will marry me, and so make sure, I will
keep it secret as long as you like; I shall have got you, whatever they
may say or do; but if you won't, I'll leave the country at once, and get
peace if I can't get love."

"Leave the country?" said Mary, faintly. "What good would that do?"

"I don't know. Perhaps bring my father to his senses for one thing;
and--who knows?--perhaps you will listen to reason when you see I can't
wait for the consent of two egotists--for that is what they both
are--that have no real love or pity for you or me."

"Ah," said Mary, with a deep sigh, "I see even men have their faults, and
I admired them so. They are impatient, selfish."

"Yes, if it is selfish to defend one's self against brutal selfishness, I
am selfish; and that is better than to be a slave to egotists, and lie
down to be trodden on as you would do. Come, Mary, for pity's sake,
decide which you love best--your father, who does not care much for you,
or me, who adore you, and will give you a life of gratitude as well as
love, if you will only see things as they are and always will be, and
trust yourself to me as my dear, dear, blessed, adored wife!"

"I love you best," said Mary, "and I hope it is not wicked. But I love
him too, though he does say 'wait.' And I respect _myself_, and I dare
not defy my parent, and I will not marry secretly; that is degrading.
And, oh, Walter, think how young I am and inexperienced, and you that are
so much older, and I hoped would be my guide and make me better; is it
you who tempt me to clandestine meetings that I blush for, and a
clandestine marriage for which I should despise myself?"

Walter turned suddenly calm, for these words pricked his conscience.

"You are right," said he. "I am a blackguard, and you are an angel of
purity and goodness. Forgive me, I will never tempt nor torment you
again. For pity's sake forgive me. You don't know what men's passions
are. Forgive me!"

"With all my heart, dear," said Mary, crying gently.

He put both arms suddenly round her neck and kissed her wet eyes with a
sigh of despair. Then he seemed to tear himself away by a great effort,
and she leaned limp and powerless on the gate, and heard his footsteps
die away into the night. They struck chill upon her foreboding heart, for
she felt that they were parted.




CHAPTER X.

THE GORDIAN KNOT.


Walter, however, would not despair until he had laid the alternative
before his father. He did so, firmly but coolly.

His father, irritated by the scene with Bartley, treated Walter's
proposal with indignant scorn.

Walter continued to keep his temper, and with some reluctance asked him
whether he owed nothing, not even a sacrifice of his prejudices, to a son
who had never disobeyed him, and had improved his circumstances.

"Come, sir," said he; "when the happiness of my life is at stake I
venture to lay aside delicacy, and ask you whether I have not been a good
son, and a serviceable one to you?"

"Yes, Walter," said the Colonel, "with this exception."

"Then now or never give me my reward."

"I'll try," said the grim Colonel; "but I see it will be hard work.
However, I'll try and save you from a _mésalliance_."

"A _mésalliance_, sir? Why, she is a Clifford."

"The deuce she is!"

"As much a Clifford as I am."

"That is news to me."

"Why, one of her parents was a Clifford, and your own sister. And one of
mine was an Irish woman."

"Yes; an O'Ryan; not a trader; not a small-coal man."

"Like the Marquis of Londonderry, sir, and the Earl of Durham. Come,
father, don't sacrifice your son, and his happiness and his love for
you, to notions the world has outlived. Commerce does not lower a
gentleman, nor speculation either, in these days. The nobility and the
leading gentry of these islands are most of them in business. They are
all shareholders, and often directors of railways, and just as much
traders as the old coach proprietors were. They let their land, and so do
you, to the highest bidder, not for honor or any romantic sentiment, but
for money, and that is trade. Mr. Bartley is his own farmer; well, so was
Mr. Coke, of Norfolk, and the Queen made him a peer for it--what a
sensible sovereign! Are Rothschild and Montefiore shunned for their
speculations by the nobility? Whom do their daughters marry? Trade rules
the world, and keeps it from stagnation. Genius writes, or paints, or
plays Hamlet--for money; and is respected in exact proportion to the
amount of money it gets. Charity holds bazars, and sells at one hundred
per cent. profit, and nearly every new church is a trade speculation. Is
my happiness and hers to be sacrificed to the chimeras and crotchets that
everybody in England but you has outlived?"

"All this," replied the unflinching sire, "I have read in the papers, and
my son shall not marry the daughter of a trader and cad who has insulted
me grossly; but that, I presume, you don't object to."

This stung Walter so that he feared to continue the discussion.

"I will not reply," said he. "You drive me to despair. I leave you to
reflect. Perhaps you will prize me when you see me no more."

With this he left the room, packed up his clothes, went to the nearest
railway, off to London, collected his funds, crossed the water, and did
not write one word to Clifford Hall, except a line to Julia. "Left
England heart-broken, the victim of two egotists and my sweet Mary's weak
conscientiousness. God forgive me, I am angry even with her, but I don't
doubt her love."

This missive and the general consternation at Clifford Hall brought Julia
full gallop to Mary Bartley.

They read the letter together, and Julia was furious against Colonel
Clifford. But Mary interposed.

"I am afraid," said she, "that I am the person who was most to blame."

"Why, what have you done?"

"He said our case was desperate, and waiting would not alter it; and he
should leave the country unless--"

"Unless what? How can I advise you if you have any concealments from me?"

"Well, then, it was unless I would consent to a clandestine marriage."

"And you refused--very properly."

"And I refused--very properly one would think--and what is the
consequence? I have driven the man I love away from his friends, as well
as from me, and now I begin to be very sorry for my properness."

"But you don't blush for it as you would for the other. The idea! To be
married on the sly and to have to hide it from everybody, and to be found
out at last, or else be suspected of worse things."

"What worse things?"

"Never you mind, child; your womanly instinct is better than knowledge or
experience, and it has guided you straight. If you had consented, I
should have lost my respect for you."

And then, as the small view of a thing is apt to enter the female head
along with the big view, she went on, with great animation:

"And then for a young lady to sneak into a church without her friends,
with no carriages, no favors, no wedding cake, no bishop, no proper
dress, not even a bridal veil fit to be seen! Why, it ought to be the
great show of a girl's life, and she ought to be a public queen, at all
events for that one day, for ten to one she will be a slave all the rest
of her life if she loves the fellow."

She paused for breath one moment.

"And it isn't as if you were low people. Why, it reminds me of a thing I
read in some novel: a city clerk, or some such person, took a walk with
his sweetheart into the country, and all of a sudden he said, 'Why, there
is something hard in my pocket. What is it, I wonder? A plain gold ring.
Does it fit you? Try it on, Polly. Why, it fits you, I declare; then keep
it till further orders.' Then they walked a little further. 'Why, what is
this? Two pairs of white gloves. Try the little pair on, and I will try
the big ones. Stop! I declare here's a church, and the bells beginning
to ring. Why, who told them that I've got a special license in my pocket?
Hallo! there are two fellows hanging about; best men, witnesses, or some
such persons, I should not wonder. I think I know one of them; and here
is a parson coming over a stile! What an opportunity for us now just to
run in and get married! Come on, old girl, lend me that wedding ring a
minute, I'll give it you back again in the church.' No, thank you, Mr.
Walter; we love you very dearly, but we are ladies, and we respect
ourselves."

In short, Julia confirmed Mary Bartley in her resolution, but she could
not console her under the consequences. Walter did not write a line
even to her; she couldn't but fear that he was really in despair, and
would cure himself of his affection if he could. She began to pine; the
roses faded gradually out of her cheeks, and Mr. Bartley himself began
at last to pity her, for though he did not love her, he liked her, and
was proud of her affection. Another thing, Hope might come home now any
day, and if he found the girl sick and pining, he might say this is a
breach of contract.

He asked Mary one day whether she wouldn't like a change. "I could take
you to the sea-side," said he, but not very cordially.

"No, papa," said Mary; "why should you leave your mine when everything is
going so prosperously? I think I should like to go to the lakes, and pay
my old nurse a visit."

"And she would talk to you of Walter Clifford?"

"Yes, papa," said Mary, firmly, "she would; and that's the only thing
that can do me any good."

"Well, Mary," said Bartley, "if she could be content with praising him,
and regretting the insuperable obstacles, and if she would encourage you
to be patient--There, let me think of it."

Things went hard with Colonel Clifford. He felt his son's desertion very
bitterly, though he was too proud to show it; he now found out that
universally as he was _respected_, it was Walter who was the most beloved
both in the house and in the neighborhood.

One day he heard a multitude shouting, and soon learned the reason.
Bartley had struck a rich vein of coal, and tons were coming up to the
surface. Colonel Clifford would not go near the place, but he sent old
Baker to inquire, and Baker from that day used to bring him back a number
of details, some of them especially galling to him. By degrees, and rapid
ones, Bartley was becoming a rival magnate; the poor came to him for the
slack, or very small coal, and took it away gratis; they flattered him,
and to please him, spoke slightingly of Colonel Clifford, which they had
never ventured to do before. But soon a circumstance occurred which
mortified the old soldier more than all. He was sole proprietor of the
village, and every house in it, with the exception of a certain
beer-house, flanked by an acre and a half of ground. This beer-house was
a great eye-sore to him; he tried to buy this small freeholder out; but
the man saw his advantage, and demanded £1500--nearly treble the real
value. Walter, however, by negotiating in a more friendly spirit, had
obtained a reduction, and was about to complete the purchase for £1150.
But when Walter left the country the proprietor never dreamed of going
again to the haughty Colonel. He went to Bartley, and Bartley bought the
property in five minutes for £1200, and paid a deposit to clinch the
contract. He completed the purchase with unheard-of rapidity, and set an
army of workmen to raise a pit village, or street of eighty houses. They
were ten times better built than the Colonel's cottages; not one of them
could ever be vacant, they were too great a boon to the miners; nor could
the rent be in arrears, with so sharp a hand as the mine-owner; the
beer-house was to be perpetuated, and a nucleus of custom secured from
the miners, partly by the truck system, and partly by the superiority of
the liquor, for Bartley announced at once that he should brew the beer.

All these things were too much for a man with gout in his system; Colonel
Clifford had a worse attack of that complaint than ever; it rose from his
feet to other parts of his frame, and he took to his bed.

In that condition a physician and surgeon visited him daily, and his
lawyer also was sent for, and was closeted with him for a long time on
more than one occasion.

All this caused a deal of speculation in the village, and as a system
of fetch and carry was now established by which the rival magnates also
received plenty of information, though not always accurate, about each
other, Mr. Bartley heard what was going on, and put his own
construction upon it.

       *       *       *       *       *

Just when Mr. Hope was expected to return came a letter to Mary to say
that he should be detained a day or two longer, as he had a sore throat
and fever, but nothing alarming. Three or four days later came a letter
only signed by him, to say he had a slight attack of typhoid fever, and
was under medical care.

Mary implored Mr. Bartley to let her go to him. He refused, and gave his
reasons, which were really sufficient, and now he became more unwilling
than ever to let her visit Mrs. Easton.

This was the condition of affairs when one day an old man with white
hair, dressed in black, and looking almost a gentleman, was driven up to
the farm by Colonel Clifford's groom, and asked, in an agitated voice, if
he might see Miss Mary Bartley.

Her visitors were so few that she was never refused on speculation, so
John Baker was shown at once into her drawing-room. He was too much
agitated to waste time.

"Oh, Miss Bartley," said he, "we are in great distress at the Hall. Mr.
Walter has gone, and not left his address, and my poor master is dying!"

Mary uttered an unfeigned exclamation of horror.

"Ah, miss," said the old man, "God bless you; you feel for us, I'm not on
the old man's side, miss; I'm on Mr. Walter's side in this as I was in
the other business, but now I see my poor old master lying pale and
still, not long for this world, I do begin to blame myself. I never
thought that he would have taken it all to heart like this. But, there,
the only thing now is to bring them together before he goes. We don't
know his address, miss; we don't know what country he is in. He sent a
line to Miss Clifford a month ago from Dover, but that is all; but, in
course, he writes to you--_that_ stands to reason; you'll give me his
address, miss, won't you? and we shall all bless you."

Mary turned pale, and the tears streamed down her eyes. "Oh, sir," said
she, "I'd give the world if I could tell you. I know who you are; my poor
Walter has often spoken of you to me, Mr. Baker. One word from you would
have been enough; I would have done anything for you that I could. But he
has never written to me at all. I am as much deserted as any of you, and
I have felt it as deeply as any father can, but never have I felt it as
now. What! The father to die, and his son's hand not in his; no looks of
love and forgiveness to pass between them as the poor old man leaves this
world, its ambitions and its quarrels, and perhaps sees for the first
time how small they all are compared with the love of those that love us,
and the peace of God!" Then this ardent girl stretched out both her
hands. "O God, if my frivolous life has been innocent, don't let me be
the cause of this horrible thing; don't let the father die without
comfort, nor the son without forgiveness, for a miserable girl who has
come between them and meant no harm!"

This eloquent burst quite overpowered poor old John Baker. He dropped
into a chair, his white head sunk upon his bosom, he sobbed and trembled,
and for the first time showed his age.

"What on earth is the matter?" said Mr. Bartley's voice, as cold as an
icicle, at the door. Mary sprang toward him impetuously. "Oh, papa!" she
cried, "Colonel Clifford is dying, and we don't know where Walter is; we
can't know."

"Wait a little," said Bartley, in some agitation. "My letters have just
come in, and I thought I saw a foreign postmark." He slipped back into
the hall, brought in several letters, selected one, and gave it to Mary,
"This is for you, from Marseilles."

He then retired to his study, and without the least agitation or the
least loss of time returned with a book of telegraph forms.

Meanwhile Mary tore the letter open, and read it eagerly to John Baker.

"GRAND HÔTEL, NOAILLES, MARSEILLES, _May_ 16.

"MY OWN DEAR LOVE,--I have vowed that I will not write again to tempt you
to anything you think wrong; but it looks like quarrelling to hide my
address from you. Only I do beg of you, as the only kindness you can do
me now, never to let it be known by any living creature at Clifford Hall.

"Yours till death, WALTER."

Mr. Bartley entered with the telegraph forms, and said to Mary, sharply,
"Where is he?" Mary told him. "Well, write him a telegram. It shall be at
the railway in half an hour, at Marseilles theoretically in one hour,
practically in four."

Mary sat down and wrote her telegram: "Pray come to Clifford Hall. Your
father is dangerously ill."

"Show it to me," said Bartley. And on perusing it: "A woman's telegram.
Don't frighten him too much; leave him the option to come or stay."

He tore it up, and said, "Now write a business telegram, and make sure of
the thing you want."

"Come home directly--your father is dying."

Old Baker started up. "God bless you, sir," says he, "and God bless you,
miss, and make you happy one day. I'll take it myself, as my trap is at
the door." He bustled out, and his carriage drove away at a great rate.

Mr. Bartley went quietly to his study to business without another word,
and Mary leaned back a little exhausted by the scene, but a smile almost
of happiness came and tarried on her sweet face for the first time these
many days; as for old John Baker, he told his tale triumphantly at the
Hall, and not without vanity, for he was proud of his good judgment in
going to Mary Bartley.

To the old housekeeper, a most superior woman of his own age, and almost
a lady, he said something rather remarkable which he was careful not to
bestow on the young wags in the servants' hall: "Mrs. Milton," says he,
"I am an old man, and have knocked about at home and abroad, and seen a
deal of life, but I've seen something to-day that I never saw before."

"Ay, John, surely; and what ever was that?"

"I've seen an angel pray to God, and I have seen God answer her."

From that day Mary had two stout partisans in Clifford Hall.

       *       *       *       *       *

Mr. Bartley's views about Mary now began to waver. It occurred to him
that should Colonel Clifford die and Walter inherit his estates, he could
easily come to terms with the young man so passionately devoted to his
daughter. He had only to say: "I can make no allowance at present, but
I'll settle my whole fortune upon Mary and her children after my death,
if you'll make a moderate settlement at present," and Walter would
certainly fall into this, and not demand accounts from Mary's trustee. So
now he would have positively encouraged Mary in her attachment, but one
thing held him back a little: he had learned by accident that the last
entail of Clifford Hall and the dependent estates dated two generations
back, so that the entail expired with Colonel Clifford, and this had
enabled the Colonel to sell some of the estates, and clearly gave him
power now to leave Clifford Hall away from his son. Now the people who
had begun to fetch and carry tales between the two magnates told him of
the lawyer's recent visits to Clifford Hall, and he had some misgivings
that the Colonel had sent for the lawyer to alter his will and
disinherit, in whole or in part, his absent and rebellious son. All this
taken together made Mr. Bartley resolve to be kinder to Mary in her love
affair than he ever had been, but still to be guarded and cautious.

"Mary, my dear," said he, "I am sure you'll be on thorns till this young
man comes home; perhaps now would be a good time to pay your visit to
Mrs. Easton."

"Oh, papa, how good of you! but it's twenty miles, I believe, to where
she is staying at the lakes."

"No, no," said Mr. Bartley; "she's staying with her sister Gilbert; quite
within a drive."

"Are you sure, papa?"

"Quite sure, my dear; she wrote to me yesterday about her little pension;
the quarter is just due."

"What! do you allow her a pension?"

"Certainly, my dear, or rather I pay her little stipend as before: how
surprised you look, Mary! Why, I'm not like that old Colonel, intolerant
of other people's views, when they advance them civilly. That woman
helped me to save your life in a very great danger, and for many years
she has been as careful as a mother, and we are not, so to say, at
daggers drawn about Walter Clifford. Why, I only demand a little
prudence and patience both from you and from her. Now tell me. Is there
proper accommodation for you in Mrs. Gilbert's house?"

"Oh yes, papa; it is a farm-house now, but it was a grand place. There's
a beautiful spare room with an oriel-window."

"Well, then, you secure that, and write to-day to have a blazing fire,
and the bed properly aired as well as the sheets, and you shall go
to-morrow in the four-wheel; and you can take her her little stipend in
a letter."

This sudden kindness and provision for her health and happiness filled
Mary's heart to overflowing, and her gratitude gushed forth upon Mr.
Bartley's neck. The old fox blandly absorbed it, and took the opportunity
to say, "Of course it is understood that matters are to go no further
between you and Walter Clifford. Oh, I don't mean that you're to make him
unhappy, or drive him to despair; only insist upon his being patient like
yourself. Everything comes sooner or later to those that can wait."

"Oh, papa," cried Mary, "you've said more to comfort me than Mrs. Easton
or anybody can; but I feel the change will do me good. I am, oh, so
grateful!"

So Mary wrote her letter, and went to Mrs. Easton next day. After the
usual embraces, she gave Mrs. Easton the letter, and was duly installed
in the state bedroom. She wrote to Julia Clifford to say where she was,
and that was her way of letting Walter Clifford know.

Walter himself arrived at Clifford Hall next day, worn, anxious, and
remorseful, and was shown at once to his father's bedside. The Colonel
gave him a wasted hand, and said:

"Dear boy, I thought you'd come. We've had our last quarrel, Walter."

Walter burst into tears over his father's hand, and nothing was said
between them about their temporary estrangement.

The first thing Walter did was to get two professional nurses from
Derby, and secure his father constant attention night and day, and, above
all, nourishment at all hours of the night when the patient would take
it. On the afternoon after his arrival the Colonel fell into a sound
sleep. Then Walter ordered his horse, and in less than an hour was at
Mrs. Gilbert's place.




CHAPTER XI.

THE KNOT CUT.--ANOTHER TIED.


The farm-house the Gilberts occupied had been a family mansion of great
antiquity with a moat around it. It was held during the civil war by a
stout royalist, who armed and garrisoned it after a fashion with his own
servants. This had a different effect

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