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The Tree of Knowledge: A Novel

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Title: The Tree of Knowledge: A Novel

Author: Mrs. Baillie Reynolds


        
Release date: April 4, 2012 [eBook #39366]
                Most recently updated: August 5, 2019

Language: English

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Credits: E-text prepared by Robert Cicconetti, Mary Meehan, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) from page images generously made available by Early Canadiana Online (http://www.canadiana.org)


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THE TREE OF KNOWLEDGE.

A Novel.

by

G. M. ROBINS,

Author of "Keep My Secret," "A False Position," etc.


    "What so false as truth is,
        False to thee?
    Where the serpent's tooth is,
        Shun the tree--
    Where the apple reddens,
        Never pry--
    Lest we lose our Edens,
        Eve and I!"

    _A Woman's Last Word._







Montreal:
John Lovell & Son,
23 St. Nicholas Street.

Entered according to Act of Parliament in the year 1889, by
John Lovell & Son, in the office of the Minister of Agriculture
and Statistics at Ottawa.




THE TREE OF KNOWLEDGE.




CHAPTER I.

    Where I will heal me of my grievous wound.

    _Mort d'Arthur._


Anyone who has read the _Mort d'Arthur_ can hardly fail, if he traverse
the Combe of Edge in early summer, to be struck by its resemblance to
the fairy Valley of Avilion.

A spot still by good fortune remote from rail, and therefore lying fresh
and unsullied between its protecting hills, waiting, like the pearl of
great price, to reward the eye of the diligent seeker after beauty. It
seems hard, at first glance, to believe that the rigors of an English
winter can ever sweep across its sunny uplands.

    "Where falls not rain, nor hail, nor any snow,
    Nor ever wind blows loudly; but it lies
    Deep-meadowed, happy, fair with orchard lawns
    And bowery willows, crowned with summer sea."

As regards the falling of rain and hail, and the buffeting of winds, it
is to be supposed the place does not, literally speaking, resemble the
mystic Isle; but it was a fact, as Allonby had just elicited from the
oldest inhabitant, that snow had only three times lain on the hills
within his memory.

To the young man himself, as he sat in a patch of shade just outside the
rural inn, with a tankard of cider in his hand, and his long legs
extended in an attitude of blissful rest, it seemed as if the remainder
of the description must be also true.

Up over his head, the sky was blue--how blue! An unseen lark trembled
somewhere in its depths, and its song dropped earthwards in trills of
melody.

It was that loveliest season of the English summer which comes before
the cutting of the grass. All up the sides of the valley the meadows
were ripe for the scythe; the dark-red spires of the sorrel and the
white stars of the ox-eye daisy bent softly in the warm south breeze.
Down below the level of the eye, in the very heart of the Combe, a
fringe of reeds and little willows marked the lowly course of the
brook. No one who noted its insignificant proportions would have
guessed--unless he were a true disciple of Isaak Walton--what plump
trout glided over its clear gravel bed.

In the fine pasturage of the glebe meadows, the red-brown cows were
gathered under a tree, out of the hot sparkle of the sun. The orchards
had lost their bewildering glory of bloom, except just here and there,
where a late apple-tree shoot was still decorated with coral-tinted
wreath.

And beyond the orchards was the crown of summer sea--

    "The liquid azure bloom of a crescent of sea,
    The silent sapphire-spangled marriage-ring of the land,"

thought Allonby, who was altogether in a Tennysonian frame of mind that
morning. He could not help it. The fresh loveliness of his surroundings
impressed him with a dreamy delight, and he loved nothing so well as the
luxury of yielding to his impressions. He was filled with a blending of
indescribable emotions, longings, desires; wondering how anyone managed
to live in London and yet retain any powers of mind and thought.

"I have been here two days," he sighed, "and my range of ideas is
stretching, stretching, like the handkerchief in the fairy-tale which
stretched into a gown. My horizon is widening, my standard of perfection
is rising; I shall either die, if it goes on much longer, or become a
totally different person. Farewell, my old self, with your trivial
daubs, your dingy studio, your faded London models. Let us go in for the
shearing of sheep under burning skies, for moon-rise on the waters of an
endless sea, for the white, dusty perspective of the village street, or
for Mary, the maid of the inn!"

Mr. Allonby, as will have been gathered from this fragment, was not a
strikingly coherent thinker; but to-day he was certainly more
wool-gathering than usual, and he had not even strength to be angry with
himself for the same.

"Temperament," he went on, lazily "national temperament, is entirely
the result of climatic influence. I fancy I've heard that sentiment
before--I have a dim idea that I have heard it frequently; but I have
never till this moment realised it thoroughly. I now give it the
sanction of my unqualified assent. They say of us, that no Englishman
understands how to _flaner_. How the devil could anyone _flaner_ in the
shades of a London fog? Is east wind conducive to lounging in the
centres of squares? or a ceaseless downpour the best accompaniment to a
meal taken out of doors? No, indeed! Give me only a landscape like the
present, and six weeks of days such as this, and I will undertake to
rival the veriest _flaneur_ that ever strolled in a Neapolitan market.
How sweet-tempered I should grow, too! Even now I recall, dimly as in a
dream, the herds of cross and disagreeable people who struggle into
omnibuses at Piccadilly Circus. Why, oh, why do they do it? Do they
really imagine it worth the trouble? Why don't they tear off their
mittens and mackintoshes, fling away their tall hats, their parcels,
their gamps, and make one simultaneous rush for the Island Valley of
Avilion?"

And, as he thus mused, arose straightway before his imagination--which
was keen--a vision of such a crowd as emanates, on a wet night, from a
Metropolitan railway-station--of such a crowd pouring from an imaginary
terminus, and flocking down that poetic village street, inundating the
grass-grown curve of beach in the bay, swarming in a black herd up the
warm red sides of the peaceful cliff.

"Jove!" he ejaculated, under his breath, "how they would spoil the
place!"

And he checked his philanthropic desire that all his fellow Londoners
should come to learn lounging in this ideal village. His beatific
musings were broken into by the appearance of the inn-keeper's young
daughter, "Mary, the maid of the inn," as he had named her, though her
parents had christened her Sarah.

She came walking awkwardly through the cool dark passage, and poked her
pretty, tow-colored head round the doorway, to obtain a side scrutiny of
her father's guest, who was an object of great interest to her.

"Me mother said I was t'ask yer if yer was goin' to get your dinner
aout, same as yesterday, or if yer'd get yer dinner here to-day?"

This question brought Allonby's thoughts home to a sense of forgotten
duty. The spot he had yesterday selected, whence to paint his projected
picture, was a mile along the valley, and the day was passing; so far he
had been conspicuously successful in his efforts to become a lounger.

"I wonder if your mother would tie me up some dinner in a handkerchief?"
said he. "I had none yesterday, because it was too far to come back."

Then, as the girl disappeared, he rose, stretched, and told himself that
he was a fool to have put off his tramp till the hottest hour of the
day, when it would be quite impossible to get an inch of shade, either
side of the way.

However, he had come to Edge Combe brimful of good resolutions, and he
meant at least to try to keep them, in spite of the strange fermentation
which seemed to be taking place in his brain. As he shouldered his
camp-stool and other paraphernalia, it occurred to him to bestow a
smiling pity on a poor fool who could allow all his ideas of life to be
revolutionized by a sudden plunge from London dirt and heat into the
glamor of a Devonshire summer.

"However," he reflected, "it won't last. I've been overturned in this
way before. Look what an ass I made of myself in Maremma! It doesn't
increase one's self-respect to recall these things. But after all,
either I am a singularly unappreciative person, or my insular prejudices
are very strong, or--I like best to imagine this third--there is a
something in the fickle beauty of an English summer which surpasses even
Italy. I don't think anything there ever moved me quite as the Valley of
Avilion does. There is something so pure, so wholesome, in this
sea-scented, warm air. There is no treachery, no malaria lurking under
the loveliest bits of foliage--no mosquitoes either," he suddenly
concluded, somewhat prosaically, as he lifted his soft cloth helmet, and
wiped his big forehead. "Only one drawback to an English summer," he
continued, as he started on his way, with his dinner tied up in a blue
handkerchief and began to tramp, with long strides, along the curve
road, with its low stone wall, which skirted the deep blue bay. "Only
one drawback, and that one which enhances its beauty, and makes it all
the more precious: one is never sure of keeping it for two days
together. Its uncertainty is its charm."

He paused and keenly surveyed the purple and hazy horizon. No signs, as
yet, of the weather breaking; all was fair, and all was very, very hot.
He rested his dinner on a stone, and again passed his handkerchief over
his brow. The swish, swish of the scythes in the long grass made him
glance up. The mowers were mowing the steep hill to his right, and the
long sweep of their muscular arms was fine to see, as they advanced,
step by step, in regular order, the fragrant crop falling prostrate in
their path.

"It's a grand day!" cried Allonby, in the joy of his heart.

"Ay, sir, and it'll be a grand week. We'll du all we've got to du before
the rain comes."

This was said with a cheery authority which gladdened Allonby afresh,
and seemed to put a final touch to his riotous delight. Scarcely a
moment before he had affirmed that the uncertainty of the weather was
what pleased him; but the dictum of this rural prophet was none the less
encouraging and reassuring.

Just beyond the mowers, under a clump of very fine ash-trees, stood the
forge, and in its shadow the furnace roared, and the sparks leaped out.
The young man must needs pause here again to enjoy the contrast of the
fierce dark fire on the one side, and on the other the musical trickle
of a limpid rill of water, which fell from a spout, and dropped into a
roughly hewn stone basin, shooting and sparkling in the light.

As he stood, absorbed in gazing, the shrill call of some bird came
clearly to his ear, and made him glance up. He was standing at the foot
of a very steep hill thickly grown with trees, and high up, between the
leaves, he could descry peeps of a long white house, and a sunny
terrace, blazing with geraniums. His keen eyes noticed at once a big
brass cage wherein doubtless a cockatoo was enjoying the sunshine, and
then he saw a little lady in white come slowly along, with a wide black
straw hat to shield her from the sun. He was far-sighted enough to know
that the little lady was middle-aged and wore spectacles, but she had a
sweet and pleasant countenance, and at once Allonby longed to know what
favored mortal this was who made her home in Avilion.

How lovely was that sunny terrace! How soothing the cry of that unseen
bird! What a lovely wicker-chair that was which stood so invitingly
just in the shadow of the porch! A great longing to enter these
precincts, to penetrate into the mysteries of that dusky, cool interior,
took possession of him, and he had gazed for many minutes before it
occurred to him that he must present something the appearance of a
little street urchin, flattening his nose against a confectioner's
window.

Turning sharply, he saw that the grimy smith, with his blue eyes looking
oddly from his blackened face, was standing at the door of the smithy,
regarding him with much curiosity.

"Good morning," said Allonby. "That's a pretty house up the hill there.
Who lives in it?"

"The Miss Willoughbys," was the answer. "It's the only big house in the
village, sir."

Allonby breathed freely. He had dreaded lest he should receive for
answer that Mr. Stokes the tanner, or Noakes the varnish-maker, dwelt in
that poetic house; but no! All was in keeping with the valley of
Avilion. The Misses Willoughby! He said to himself that the name might
have been made on purpose.

With a strong effort he tore himself away, and continued his tramp in
the broiling sun, and still, as he went up the valley, between the steep
banks of harts-tongue, over the musical brooks, he could hear the hot
and sleepy cries of the bird on the terrace growing ever fainter and
fainter.




CHAPTER II.

    Let no maiden think, however fair,
    She is not fairer in new clothes than old.

    TENNYSON.


Miss Fanny Willoughby, when the unseen Allonby saw her pass on the
terrace, had just come from feeding her fowls. The poultry-yard was
quite a feature at Edge, as the house was always called for brevity's
sake, though its full name was Edge Willoughby. This year had been a
very fortunate one for Miss Fanny's pigeons, and her mind was full of
happy and contented thoughts as she carried back her empty tin dishes
and deposited them carefully, along with her gardening gloves, in the
little room known as the gardening-room.

Beside her walked the very bird whose call had attracted the artist's
attention. Jacky was a Cornish chough, coal-black in plumage, with
brilliant orange-tinted beak. He strutted along sideways and with great
dignity, casting looks of exultant triumph at the imprisoned cockatoo,
who was his sworn foe. Puck, the stout and overfed terrier, solemnly
accompanied them, as was his invariable habit, walking very close to the
neat box-border, and now and then sniffing at the glowing geraniums.

"Dear me!" said Miss Fanny, "how warm it is--quite oppressive."

She would not for worlds have said that it was hot, but her dear little
face was pink with her exertions, and her small plump hands so moist
that to pull off the gloves was quite a business.

The sound of a piano was loudly audible--a jingly piano, very much out
of tune, up and down which scales were being rattled lightly and evenly.

"I really think I shall tell the child not to practise any more," said
Miss Fanny. "Charlotte is certainly a trifle exacting this warm
weather."

So saying, she opened a door to her right, and entered a room which was
evidently sacred to the purposes of education--the education of a former
day. A reclining-board and two large globes were its principal features.
The book-shelves were stocked with such works as "Mangnall's Questions,"
"Child's Guide," "Mrs. Markham's England," and the like. On the square
table in the window was a slate full of sums, and what used to be known
as a "copy slip"--bearing a statement of doubtful veracity:

    "Truth is better than flattery."

This sentence comprised exactly the system on which Elaine Brabourne's
aunts had brought her up.

They loved her very dearly, but they would have thought it a criminal
weakness to tell her so. They acted always on that strange system which
was in vogue when they were young--namely, that you always would be
naughty if you could, and that the only thing to keep you under was a
constant atmosphere of repression. If you learned your lesson, you were
given to understand that the fact was due to the excellence of the
manner in which you were taught--not to any effort of your own. If you
did not learn it, you were conscious that this deficiency on your part
was only to be expected from one who habitually made so small a use of
such exceptional advantages. You were never encouraged to form an
opinion of your own. It was an understood thing that you accepted that
of your elders. For example: "A plate basket," said Miss Charlotte,
"should always be kept in the parlor closet;" and her niece Elaine would
have regarded the woman who ventured to keep hers elsewhere as out of
the pale of civilization.

This plan of education had answered very well for the Misses Willoughby,
whose lives had been peaceful and secluded as modern lives rarely are,
and who passed their days always in the same place, and in nobody's
society but their own. Their delightful unanimity of opinion was the
great bond of peace between them; but they had never reflected that
Elaine Brabourne could not pass her life in Avilion as they had done,
nor paused to consider what would be the result when this girl, who had
never been allowed to think for herself, even in such a matter as the
color of her gowns, should be suddenly precipitated into London life as
the eldest daughter of a rich man.

Elaine did not cease her scales, nor look round as her aunt entered. The
metronome's loud ticks were in her ear, and she dared not halt; but
sweet-tempered little Miss Fanny crossed the room with light step, and
stopped the instrument of torture with a smile.

"Oh, Aunt Fanny! Aunt Char said I was to play scales for an hour!"

"My dear, it is so excessively warm," said Miss Fanny, apologetically,
"I feel sure you should lie down till the luncheon-bell rings. It is
really quite exceptional weather; I am so glad for the hay-makers."

Elaine, like a machine, had busied herself in closing the piano and
putting away her music. Now she rose, and followed her aunt to the table
by the window.

She was such a very odd mixture of what was pleasing and what was not,
that it was hard to say what was the impression she first conveyed.

She was a head taller than her aunt, and looked like an overgrown child.
She wore a hideous green and white cotton frock, and a black holland
apron. The frock had shrunk above her ankles, and was an agonising
misfit. Of the said ankles it was impossible to judge, for their
proportions were shrouded in white cotton stockings and cashmere boots
without heels.

She was quite a blonde, and her hair was abundant. It was combed back
very tightly from a rather high forehead, plaited and coiled in a lump
behind, which lump, in profile, stuck straight out from the head.

The eye seemed to take in and absorb these details before one realised
the brilliancy of the complexion, the delicate outline of the short
nose, the fine grey eyes, perhaps a shade too light in color, but
relieved by heavy dark lashes, and the almost faultless curve of the
upper lip.

Such was Miss Brabourne at nineteen. A child, with a mind utterly
unformed, and a person to match. The dull expression of the pretty face
when at rest was quite noticeable. It looked as if the girl had no
thoughts; and this was sometimes varied by a look of discontent, which
was anything but an improvement. She felt, vaguely, that she was dull;
and that her life bored her; but her mind had not been trained enough to
enable her to realise anything.

She had read astonishingly little. There was a deeply-rooted conviction
in the minds of her aunts Fanny, Charlotte and Emily that reading was a
waste of time,--except it were history, read aloud.

It was hard to see wherein the great charm of this reading aloud lay; it
had sometimes occurred to Elaine to wonder why she was made to read
"Markham's France" aloud to her aunts by the hour together, yet, if
found perusing the same book to herself in the corner, it was taken
away, and she was told to "get her mending."

She did not care conspicuously for reading. She did not care for
anything much, so far as she knew. The only thing which evoked any warm
interest was music, and the one piece of restraint which she deeply
resented was the being forbidden to play on the beautiful grand piano in
the drawing-room. It never occurred to her aunts for a moment that their
pupil could play far better than her teachers; it never dawned upon them
that she was fifty times more able to do justice to the grand piano than
they were. Elaine was the child--under their authority. It stood to
reason that she must not play on the best piano, any more than she might
loll in arm-chairs, stand on the hearthrug, or go up and down the front
staircase. And so, at an age when most girls are going out to balls,
admiring and being admired, Elaine was playing her scales, getting up at
half-past six, going to bed at half-past nine, not happy, but quite
ignorant of what she needed to make her so.

There was one aunt who did not quite agree with the plans adopted for
their niece's education, but she was far too gentle to tell her sisters
so. This was Aunt Ellen, the eldest, and Elaine's god-mother.

She was far the most intellectual of the four sisters, but had resigned
any active part in her god-daughter's education because of her
ill-health. She reserved to herself the task of amusing the child, and
this she wished to do by teaching her fancy-work, and occupations for
the fingers. But if there was one thing Elaine disliked, it was
fancy-work, or occupation of any sort for the fingers. In fact, it
puzzled them to know what she did like, though it never occurred to them
to think how narrow was their range of interests--so narrow as to make
it quite likely that the girl might have a thousand, and they not
discover them. Miss Ellen was a great reader, and would have dearly
liked Elaine to read the books she read; but out of deference
to her sisters' theories she lent her only such books as they
approved--memoirs, essays and biographies; and Elaine hated memoirs,
essays and biographies.

She did not decline to read them, any more than she declined to do
fancy-work--she was too well-trained for that. Her individuality was not
powerful enough to resist that of her aunts, three of whom were women of
strong character, accustomed to be obeyed. And so the days went on, and
she passed from child to woman, no one but Aunt Ellen being aware of the
fact; and Ellen Willoughby dreaded unspeakably the day, which she felt
certain must come soon, when the girl would awake to all the
possibilities of life, and find her present existence intolerable.

It might have been a presentiment which made her mind so full of this
thought on this hot, beautiful summer's day, when she lay on her low
couch beside the great window, gazing out at the glowing valley, and
watching the shadows change as the sun slowly advanced.

Presently there was a tap at the door, and Elaine came in. She brought
fresh roses for the invalid's glasses, and, as she crossed the room, her
godmother watched her keenly. The girl shut the door quietly and crossed
the carpet, neither stamping nor scuffling. Her manners had been well
attended to, but as she advanced it struck Miss Willoughby that her step
lacked the elasticity which one associates with youth; she thought at
that moment she would have preferred to see Elaine hurl herself into the
room, and skip and dance for joy of the beautiful weather.

The niece kissed her aunt in her usual methodical fashion, and then,
fetching the vases, began the duty of putting fresh flowers and water,
much as she would have begun to fold a hem or stitch a seam. This done,
she sat still for some few minutes, thinking apparently of nothing, and
with her dull, handsome eyes fixed on the distance.

At last she said:

"Martha's field is being cut to-day, and they say, if we get some rain
by-and-by, there ought to be a fine aftermath."

"Dear me! Martha's field being cut already! How the years fly!" said
Miss Ellen, with a sigh.

"Oh, do you think so? I think they drag," said Elaine, rather suddenly;
and then repeated, as if to herself, "They drag for me."

Miss Willoughby felt for the girl, but her sense of what was fitting
compelled her to utter a platitude.

"Time always passes more slowly for the young," she said. "When you are
my age--"

"That will be in twenty-two years," said Elaine.

She said no more, but somehow her tone implied that she did not wish to
live twenty-two years, and to the elder woman it sounded very sad.

She looked wistfully at her niece, wondering if it would be possible to
get her sisters to see that some amusement beyond the annual
school-feast and tea at one or two farmhouses was necessary for the
young.

She longed to say that youth seemed so long because of the varied
emotions and experiences crowded into it--emotions which were lifelong,
minutes of revelation which seemed like years, hours in which one lived
an age. But she knew Charlotte would feel it most unfitting to talk of
emotions to a child, and dimly she began to feel sure that Charlotte
must be wrong, or that somebody was wrong, that Elaine's was not a happy
nor a normal state of girlhood.

Just then Miss Emily Willoughby entered the room. She was the youngest
of the four, and rather handsome, though her style of hair was
unbecoming, and her dress an atrocity.

"Is Elaine here? Oh, yes, I see she is. Elaine, Jane is ready for your
walk, and I should like you to go along the valley to Poole, and tell
Mrs. Battishill to send up twenty pounds of strawberries for preserving,
as soon as they are ripe."

Elaine rose, with a face expressing neither displeasure nor distaste.
She merely said, "Yes, Aunt Emily;" and, taking up her tray of dead
flowers, left the room and closed the door behind her.

Miss Ellen's eyes followed her anxiously, and, as the footsteps died
away along the passage, she lay back among her cushions and a slight
flush rose in her white face.

"Emily," she said, "I should like to have a little talk with you."

"That is just what I have come up for," said her sister, seating herself
in Elaine's vacated chair, and taking out her knitting. "About this work
from Helbronner's, isn't it? Well, my dear, we have just been discussing
it among ourselves, and have come to the conclusion to send back the
design. It will not do, my dear Ellen, as I know you will agree. It
would be considered quite Popish by the villagers, and, as Mr. Hill
would not like to object to it if it were our work, it would be placing
him in a _most_ awkward position."

Miss Ellen fixed her soft, questioning eyes on her sister's face, but
soon removed them, with a sigh of resignation. Emily's mind was full of
the design for the new altar-cloth, and it would be useless at such a
moment to appeal to her on the subject of her niece's future. She could
but lie still and hear the pros and cons respecting a design of cross
intertwined with lilies, which design Miss Emily, for some inscrutable
reason, seemed to consider appropriate only to the Church of Rome.
Presently, through the open window could be heard Elaine and the maid
setting out for their walk, and again Miss Willoughby caught herself
wishing that the girl's footfall had had more of girlish buoyancy about
it.




CHAPTER III.

    The champaign, with its endless fleece
    Of feathery grasses everywhere!
    Silence and passion, joy and peace,
    An everlasting wash of air.

    BROWNING.


Elaine Brabourne's feelings, as she went up the Combe, along the path
which Allonby had trod before her, were about as different from his as
anything that could possibly be imagined. She was not thinking much of
anything in particular, but her predominant sensation was annoyance and
resentment that her aunt should send her all the way to Poole on such a
hot afternoon.

It was about a quarter-past four, and the sunbeams were beginning to
take that rich golden tinge which tells that the middle day--the "white
light" so worshipped by Constable--is past. Tea at six and light supper
at nine was the rule at Edge Willoughby, and so Elaine always went for a
walk at four o'clock in the summer-time--at which hour her aunts
affirmed "the great heat of the day to be past."

The girl had never in her life been for a walk by herself. Jane had been
her companion for the last fifteen years, and Jane's legs preferred an
equable and leisurely method of progression along a good road, with, if
possible, some such goal as Mrs. Battishill's farm, and a prospect of
new milk, or perhaps junket. Consequently, country-bred though she was,
Elaine was almost a stranger to rambles and scrambles up the cliff, to
running races, scaling precipices, bird's-nesting, or any of those
pursuits which usually come as naturally to the girl as to the boy who
is reared "far from the maddening crowd."

Had she had a companion to suggest such sports, they would have been
delightful to her; but hers was eminently an imitative and not an
original mind, so she walked along passively at Jane's side, letting the
parasol, which had been given her to protect her complexion, drag behind
her, its point making a continuous trail in the white dust.

She was walking through a scene of beauty such as might have moved a far
less emotional temperament than Allonby's. Behind her back were the
waters of the bay, one sheet of flame in the vivid light, while here and
there gleamed the sails of some proud ship steaming slowly down the
Channel. The road she was treading ran along the western side of the
valley; to her right all was deep, mysterious shadow, and beyond it the
lofty swell of the more easterly of the two hills which bounded Edge
Combe. High on the side of the Copping, as this eastern hill was called,
was the long white front of Edge Willoughby, and a full view of the
terrace glowing with its crimson and scarlet glory of climbing
geraniums.

Every gateway that they passed disclosed a wealth of luxuriant grass,
almost as tall as Elaine herself, ready and waiting for the mower's
hand. The white butterflies flew here and there, dancing with glee. The
sunshine, striking through the larch plantation on the left, flung bars
of light and shadow across the road; and under the trees the fern-fronds
were rearing their lovely heads, uncurling in crown-like grace and
beauty.

All so still; nothing but the sleepy, hushed murmur which comes from
nowhere and yet fills the air of a summer's day. In the silence the call
of the chough on the terrace could be distinctly heard right across the
combe.

"Hark at Jacky!" said Elaine, with a little laugh. She rested her arms
on the stile, and gazed away over the laughing meadow at the terrace. "I
can see Aunt Ellen's head at the window," said she, "and here comes Aunt
Char with a watering-pot. I hope she won't forget to water my
nasturtiums just around the corner. Do you know I've got one of those
new coral-colored ones, Jane?"

"If we don't push on, miss, we'll not get to Poole and back before tea,"
was Jane's remark.

"I do think it's a shame to send me all the way to Poole such a day as
this," sighed the girl, as she reluctantly rose and continued her way.

She did not care in the least for the beautiful landscape. Its monotony
was thoroughly distasteful to her. What mattered it whether beautiful or
not, so long as it never changed? Variety was the need of her young
life: something fresh--something different. Had she come upon a cargo of
bricks and mortar, and workmen hacking down the finest trees in order
to erect a villa, the sight would have afforded her the liveliest
relief.

Presently they left the high-road, and crossed a bit of furzy
common--just a small piece of waste ground, with the water lying in
picturesque pools and clumps of starry yellow blossoms brightening the
sandy soil.

As they passed along this marshy tract, Elaine raised her eyes to the
road they had just quitted, which now ran along to their left, rather
above the level on which they were walking; and she saw something which
made her stop stone still and gaze round-eyed up at the road in a
fashion which Jane could not understand till her own eyes followed the
direction of her young mistress'. Then she beheld what was sufficiently
unusual amply to justify the girl's surprise.

A broad back, covered with a light tweed coat, a soft, shapeless felt
hat, two unmistakably masculine legs appearing on the further side of a
camp stool:--a folding easel, bearing a canvas of fair dimensions, and a
palette splotched thickly with color. The painter's back was towards
them. His point of view lay inland, up the valley, and took in a corner
of Poole farmhouse, and the grove of ash-trees behind it.

It may at first sound somewhat contradictory that an artist should be
such a _rara avis_ in so beautiful a spot as Edge Combe. But it is,
nevertheless, true, and this for two good reasons. Firstly, the place is
quite out of the beat of the usual Devonshire tourist. It is nowhere
near Lynton, nor Clovelly, nor the Dart, nor Kingsbridge. No railway
comes within five miles of it, and very few people have ever heard its
name. Secondly, many landscape artists are dispirited by the cruel
difficulty of getting a foreground. It is embarrassing to paint with the
ground descending sheer away from your very feet, so as merely to
present to you the summits of several trees, and the tip of a church
spire in violent perspective. Equally inconvenient is it to take your
seat at the foot of a steep hill, with intention to paint the side
thereof. And so, as level ground there is none, the artists at Edge
Combe are limited to those who, like Allonby, fall so headlong in love
with the place that they make up their minds to paint somewhere,
regardless of difficulties. Again it may be added that there is no bold
coast-line at Edge Combe, no precipitous granite rocks, with white
breakers foaming at their base, no mysterious chasms or sea-caves,--all
is gentle and smiling. The cliffs are white chalk, riddled with gulls'
nests, or warm red-brown crumbling sand-stone. The blackberries ripen at
their sunny summits, the park-like trees curve over almost to the
water's brim; and the only danger attaching to these cliffs is their
habit of now and again quietly subsiding, breaking away and falling into
the sea without the slightest warning.

Allonby had chosen his painting-ground with rare felicity, and had, as
was his wont, gently congratulated himself on the pleasing fact. Elaine
longed, with a longing which was quite a novel emotion, to be near
enough to see what he was doing.

He was not painting, at this moment, but sitting idly, leaning his head
on his hand.

Oh, if he would but turn round and look at her! The usually dull grey
eyes gathered a strange intensity; even Jane, as she looked at the girl,
noticed her odd expression, and was rendered vaguely uneasy by it.

"Come on, miss," said she.

"Oh, but, Jane--he is painting--see! He looks like a gentleman. I wonder
who he is!"

"I heard Hutchins say there was a gentleman staying at the Fountain
Head. That might be him," said Jane.

"I daresay. Most likely. I wonder what his name is?"

"I don't see it matters to you, miss. You don't know him, nor your aunts
don't know him, and if we loiter like this we'll not get home afore the
dumpsie" (twilight).

Elaine reluctantly tore away her feet, which seemed rooted to that
charmed spot. Her thoughts were not coherent--they were hardly thoughts
at all, but there was a sudden passionate wish that she were a man, and
free. It was no good to grow up if you were only a girl. She was
nineteen, and had no more liberty than when she was nine. Oh, to be able
to travel about alone, to stay at an inn, to go from one part of England
to another, with no one to ask the why and wherefore of your actions!
She looked almost with hatred at Jane's homely, well-known features. Why
must she always have a Jane at her elbow?

The evil hour to which Miss Ellen looked forward with mournful prophecy
was hard at hand.

"Well, now, I du say that it's nice to see you, Miss Ullin," said Mrs.
Battishill, with delight. "And Jane tu! Come along in out of the
heat--come into the rhume. Is all the ladies well? How du they like this
weatherr, and how du like it yourself, Miss Ullin, my dearr?"

The Devonshire dialect was one of Allonby's keenest sources of delight,
particularly the soft liquid French sound of the _u_, contrasting with
the rough burr of the _r_. On Elaine it produced absolutely no effect
whatever; she had heard it all her life. Her idea of bliss would be to
hear something completely different. She went mechanically into Mrs.
Battishill's best parlor, neat and clean as a new pin, but with the
strange stuffiness which comes of never opening the windows.

She ate the cakes provided, and drank the milk with healthy girlish
appetite; but her thoughts were centred on the artist in the lane, and
she did not hear a word that Jane and the farmer's wife were saying.

Jane was admiring a large fine silver cup gained by Mr. Battishill at
the last agricultural show for the best cultivated farm of more than a
hundred acres. This prize was offered every year to his tenantry by Sir
Matthew Scone, who owned nearly all the surrounding country.

"Yes, it's a fine coop," said Mrs. Battishill, with pride. "I shown it
yesterrday to a young fellow who's making a picturre out there in the
lane, and coom oop to the farrm for a drink o' milk."

These words suddenly fixed Elaine's attention.

"He's painting out there now," said Jane, with interest; "we see him as
we came threw the waste."

"I dessay you will have," returned Mrs. Battishill, benevolently. "I
showed him all over the hoose, and he was that taken oop with it. He
said he never see such a queer place in his life. He didn't seem half a
bad chap, to me," she was kind enough to add.

Poole Farm had never before presented itself to Elaine in such a
pleasant light. It was most certainly a very queer house, for it was
built right against the side of a hill, so that you could walk in at the
front door, ascend two or three flights of stairs, and then walk out of
a door at the back, and find yourself unexpectedly on _terra firma_. It
had never occurred, to the girl till to-day that this eccentricity was
attractive; but now the house, the farmer's wife, the whole surrounding
landscape seemed to borrow new dignity from the potent fact of this
unknown artist having admired them.

She did not join in the conversation, but listened with feverish
interest as Jane asked if Mrs. Battishill knew his name.

No, she had not asked it. He had said he was staying at the "Fountain
Head," and, when she asked him how long he meant to stay in these parts,
he laughed and answered "as long as the fine weather lasts."

"Eh, well, we'll hope the rain'll hold off till he's done his picture,"
said Jane, as she rose to take her leave.

The farmer's wife protested against such a short visit, but Jane
reminded her that tea at Edge was at six o'clock, and that they were
bound to be home in good time; and so they started out again into the
golden evening, where a circle of rose-color was just beginning to rim
the intense blue of the pure sky.

When they had shut the wicket-gate, and crossed the brook by the
miniature bridge of three crazy planks, Elaine took her courage in both
hands and ventured a petition.

"Jane," said she, "don't go across the waste. Let us go home by the
road; it will be--a change."

As she spoke, she turned crimson, and almost despaired, for it was a
longer way to go home by the road.

Jane guessed with perfect accuracy the thoughts which were busy in her
young mistress' mind; but she herself was a true daughter of Eve, and
she wished to go home by the road as much as ever Elaine could do. She
just sent one keen look at the girl's flushed face, and then said:

"It was more than a bit boggy across the waste; you'll get home dry-shod
if we go the other way."

So these two dissemblers, neither of whom would own her secret motive,
turned into the road, and walked along until a sudden bend in it brought
them in sight of the artist's easel, and then Elaine's heart seemed to
spring up to her throat and choke her, and she cried out, regardless of
whom might hear,

"Oh, Jane! He's gone!"




CHAPTER IV.

    Give her time--on grass and sky
    Let her gaze, if she be fain:
    As they looked, ere _he_ drew nigh
    They will never look again!

    JEAN INGELOW.


"Gone!" was Jane's quick response; "but he'd never go and leave his
picture sticking out there by itself for the first shower to spoil--he
can't be far off."

For a moment Elaine recoiled, every nerve thrilled with the thought that
the stranger, concealed in some bush in the immediate vicinity, had
heard her reckless and incautious exclamation. There was no movement and
no sound, and, after a pause fraught with more suspense than she could
remember to have ever felt before, she stepped about two paces forward,
and took another timid look. Something was lying on the ground near the
easel--a confused heap of gray, which outlined itself clearly in the
long rank wayside grass; and for a moment Elaine turned white and looked
as if she were going to faint; then, no longer hesitating, but urged on
by a wild impetuosity, she ran to the spot, and stood gazing down at
Allonby's pallid and stiffened features.

All her life long she would remember that moment--every detail, every
sensation, stamped on her brain with indelible distinctness. The soft
whisper of a newly-awakened diminutive breeze in the ash-trees, the
grass all yellow as corn in the golden evening light, the hot sweet
perfume that arose from the fragrant hedgerow, and the still hard face,
bloodless under its newly-acquired bronze. It was death--she was certain
of it. Death, that mystery in whose existence she had never really
believed, though she knew, as matter of history, that both her parents
were dead.

Into the heart of this strange, awful secret she seemed suddenly hurled
with a force which bewildered her. For a few moments she stood quite
speechless, swaying to and fro, and seeing through a mist, while Jane,
with her back towards her, was staring down the lane in hopes of seeing
the artist reappear.

Allonby had evidently come to the ground with force. His fall had
crushed the camp stool under him. He had fallen forward, but slightly
sideways; one arm was flung out under his head, and, owing to this, his
face was turned upward, leaving clearly visible a livid purple mark on
the left side of the forehead. The other hand was clenched, and the
lower limbs slightly contracted, as if from a sudden shock; the eyes
were closed and the brows drawn together with an expression of pain.

To this girl, who had scarcely in her life come into contact with a
young man socially her equal, this strange experience was overwhelming.
A moment she remained, as has been said, trembling and erect; then she
dropped on her knees in the long grass, and cried out, pierceingly,

"Jane! Jane! come here! What are you doing? He is dead! He is dead!"

Jane turned as if she had been shot.

"Lawk-a-mercy, Miss Elaine," she cried, hurrying to the spot; and then,
as is the manner of her class, she began to scream, and her shrill cries
rent the air three or four times in rapid succession. "Oh, good Lord!
Oh, mercy on me! What can have happened? He's been murdered, sure
enough! Oh, Miss Elaine, come away! Come away from the corpse, my dear!
You know your aunts would never hold with your touching a corpse. Oh,
dearie, dearie, all the years I've lived I never come across such a
thing! Never!"

"_Murdered!_"

The word dropped from Elaine's trembling lips with a wailing sound. Such
a thing had never suggested itself to her mind. Probably had she had the
usual training in the way of sensational novels, had she been accustomed
to read of crimes and follow up the details of their detection with the
zest of the true lover of late nineteenth-century romance, the idea of
murder would have at once occurred to her, and she might have proceeded
forthwith to search the long grass around for footprints, fragments of
clothing, or a blood-spattered weapon. But she never once thought of the
criminal, only of the victim. Neither did it dawn upon her that the
mysterious danger which had lurked for the artist in that smiling
landscape might lurk there also for her. She thought of nothing but him:
that idea swallowed up and eclipsed all others.

Poor Allonby! Barely four hours ago he had rejoiced over the
straightforward sincerity of the English summer. He had quoted with
smiling satisfaction the words in which a French writer describes the
Maremma:

"Cette Maremme fertile et meurtriere qui en deux annees vous enrichit et
vous tue."

Nothing less murderous could well be imagined than this peaceful
Devonshire lane. Here were no ghastly exhalations, no venomous reptiles
to glide through the long flowery grass: an Eden without the snake it
seemed at first gaze, and yet some unseen malign power had exerted
itself, and felled the lusty manhood of this young Englishman with a
blow.

To Elaine, the sight was horror and agony untold; it acted physically on
her nerves, and produced a dizzy faintness from which it took her
several moments to recover. Feverishly she laid her hand on that of the
young man, then on his brow, which was cold and rigid; she recoiled,
filled with panic, from the touch, and leaped impulsively to her feet.

"Oh, help! Help! Will nobody help? Will nobody hear us if we call?"

"Oh, dear heart, he's bleeding under his coat here somewhere," cried
Jane, holding out her hand, on which was something wet and glistening.

This sight robbed the girl of whatever nerve she might have possessed,
and she recoiled with a gasp of terror.

"Stay with him," she cried, frantically, "I will run for help;" and,
without waiting for reply, she started off to run at her topmost speed,
feeling only that the one need of her soul at the moment was violent
action, that something must be done at once.

The emergency, the first emergency of her life, had utterly scared away
her wits.

She ran blindly, not in the least knowing where she was running--almost
with an instinct of flight--escape from that terrible cold, still,
bleeding form among the grass.

She could see his face in fancy as she ran, could remember how a tall
daisy bent over and touched his brown moustache, and a huge curled
dock-leaf flung its shadow over his forehead. All so still, so
stiff--ah! how dreadful it was, dreadful beyond the bounds of belief.

In her dire perplexity, she never once thought of what was the only
obvious thing to do,--namely, to run to Poole, and tell the Battishills
to send down some men with a hurdle. She simply tore along the lane like
a mad thing, never stopping to ask herself what she intended, uttering
from time to time short sobs of terror and pity.

A little way beyond Poole, the lane joined the high coach-road which
runs from Stanton to Philmouth; into this road she dashed, and along it
her flying feet bounded, whither she neither knew nor cared. For the
first time in her life she was alone--alone and free. She was beyond
reach of her aunts and Jane, out by herself, alone in the wide road; and
without her being conscious of the fact, this unwonted loneliness added
to the terribleness of the situation. She soon lost her ugly hat, with
its prim bows of drab ribbon edged with black lace; but she never even
noticed its loss. On, on she flew, till at last the sound of wheels met
her ear, and her tearful eyes caught sight of a carriage approaching.

It was an open carriage, just large enough for two, very compactly
built. The man on the box looked like a private servant; within were a
lady and a gentleman.

It did not matter to Elaine who they were--they might have been the
Queen and the Prince of Wales for all she cared. Her one idea was that
she must stop them. She ran pantingly on till the carriage was within a
few yards of her, and then flung up both her arms, crying,

"Oh, stop, stop! I want to speak to you! Stop!"

The sudden apparition in the lonely road of a tall girl without a hat,
running as if hunted, was so astonishing, that the coachman reined in
his horses before he was quite clear of what he was doing, and the lady
in the carriage leaned forward with an eager expression, hearing the
cry, but not having clearly descried the speaker.

"What now, Goodman?" she said.

"A young lady, my lady," said Goodman. "Wants to speak to you, my lady,
I fancy."

"Here, Claud," said the lady, with a laugh, "is your adventure at last!
Make the most of it."

"This is the third time you have promised me an adventure. If this
proves to be as futile as the other two, I shall turn it up, and go
home. I have had too many disappointments--they begin to tell on my
nerves. Only a girl begging, is it?"

"Hush!" cried Lady Mabel, laughingly holding up a finger to her brother;
and by this time Elaine, crimson, trembling, on the verge of tears, was
at the carriage door.

The Honorable Claud Cranmer's eyes fell on the girlish figure, and took
in everything in an instant. He thought her the most beautiful girl he
had ever beheld; and beautiful she was in her passion and her
excitement.

Her hair-pins had all been scattered freely along the road as she
ran--the huge plait of her deep gold hair hung down her back half
uncoiled. It had been all loosened by her vehement motion, so that it
framed her lovely face in picturesque disorder. The most exquisite
carnation glowed in her transparent skin, crystal tears swam in her
large eyes, her whole face was alight and quivering with feeling, her
ivory throat heaved as if it would burst.

Never in his life had he seen anything so totally unconventional, never
heard anything to equal the music of the broken voice as she gasped out
the only words that occurred to her--

"Oh, I beg your pardon--do come--I must have help at once!"

"What is it?--something wrong?--an accident?" said Lady Mabel, rapidly,
in her deep, sympathetic, penetrating voice. In a flash she saw that the
girl was a lady, and that her tribulation was no acting, but terribly
sincere. "Try to tell me," she said, laying her hand over the trembling
one with which Elaine grasped the edge of the carriage.

"A gentleman has been murdered," cried the girl--"he has been murdered,
there!" waving dramatically with one arm. "He is lying in the grass,
dying, or dead. Perhaps it is only a faint--Jane is with him--won't you
come?"

Lady Mabel cast a sweeping glance at her travelling companion, as if to
ask if here was not his adventure with a vengeance.

"But oh, my dear child, I think and hope you are mistaken," said she.
"People are not murdered out in the road in broad daylight here in
England."

"Oh, won't you come?--won't you come? I tell you he is bleeding--I saw
the blood on Jane's hand!" cried Elaine, with a shudder of irrepressible
repugnance.

"Let us drive on at once and see to this," said Claud, with sudden
energy, rising and letting himself out into the road. "I will go on the
box with Goodman, if this young lady will take my seat--she looks
fearfully exhausted."

"I have run so fast," said Elaine, with a smile of apology, as, nothing
loth, she sank into the vacant seat. "Tell him to drive quickly, won't
you? He must take the first turning to the right."

Mr. Cranmer mounted to the box, and the horses started briskly, Goodman
being by no means less excited than his master and mistress at this
novel experience.

The girl leaned back in the carriage and hid her face. The whole of her
frame was shaking with feeling she could not repress.

Her companion looked at her with eager sympathy, and presently it seemed
as if the magnetism of her wonderful eyes drew Elaine to look up at her,
which she did in a timid, appealing way, as if imploring some solution
of the mysteries of life which were bursting upon her so suddenly.

It was a very remarkable face which bent down to hers--a face not so
much beautiful as expressive. The features were so strong that they
would have been masculine but for the eyes--such eyes! Of the darkest
iron-grey, darkened still more by the blackness of brows and
lashes--eyes which could flash, and melt, shine with laughter, brim with
tears--eyes which were never the same two moments together. Their effect
was heightened by the fact that, though Lady Mabel Wynch-Frere was
certainly not yet forty, her hair was ashen grey, as could be seen under
her travelling-hat.

She was very small, slender, thin, and active--a person impossible to
describe--genial, impetuous, yet one with whom no one dared take a
liberty; a creature of moods and fancies, delighting in the unusual and
the Quixotic.

To-day's adventure suited her exactly; her eyes were full of such
unutterable sympathy as she bent them on the frightened girl beside her,
that whatever secret Elaine might have possessed must infallibly have
been told to her; but Elaine's life, as we know, possessed no secrets.

"Don't you trouble," said that wonderful vibrating voice, "we shall find
it not so bad as you think. You have been sadly frightened, but it will
all come right. Do you live near here?"

"About three miles."

"Will you tell me your name?"

"Elaine Brabourne."

"Mine is Mabel Wynch-Frere, and that is my brother, Claud Cranmer."

"Taking my name in vain, Mab?" asked the Honorable Claud, half turning
round.

"Claud, this young lady's name is Brabourne," said Lady Mabel, in her
gracious way.

Claud lifted his hat and bowed, as if it were a formal introduction.

"Any relation of poor Val's, I wonder?" he said.

"Who was Val?"

"Colonel of the 102nd before Edward got it."

"Oh, I remember. Are you by chance related to the late Colonel
Brabourne?"

"He was my father," said Elaine, timidly.

"Oh, ho!--then this is one of the wards in chancery," said Claud, with
amusement in his eyes. "I beg your pardon, Miss Brabourne, but is it not
your unenviable lot to be a ward in Chancery?"

But Elaine heeded him not. The carriage had turned swiftly down the
lane, and she had caught sight of Jane's sunbonnet crouching over that
motionless figure in the grass. The sound of wheels made Jane look up;
and it would be beyond the power of any pen to describe the dismay
depicted in her countenance as the carriage stopped, and she caught
sight of her young mistress--flushed, dishevelled, her hat gone, and the
light of a tremendous excitement burning in her eyes.

Mr. Cranmer had opened the door in a moment, and Lady Mabel, in her neat
little travelling-dress, sprang to the ground as lightly as a girl of
eighteen, Elaine scrambling awkwardly after her.

"My word!" said Lady Mabel, impetuously, "what can be the meaning of
this?"

"I don't know who you are, mum," said Jane, bluntly, "but I can tell you
I'm right glad to see a fellow-creature's face. It's give me such a turn
as I never had in all my born days, sitting here alone, not knowing any
minute whether the hand that struck this poor young man mightn't strike
me next. There's been foul play here, sir, as sure as my name's Jane
Gollop; and not an hour back he was sitting here a-painting quite quiet
and happy, for Miss Elaine and me seen him as we went by to the farm."




CHAPTER V.

    The past was a sleep, and her life began.

    BROWNING.


"Oh, indeed I think you must be mistaken," said Mr. Cranmer. "It can't
be murder--it must be a sunstroke, or a fit."

"Queer sunstroke, to wait till five o'clock in the evening to strike,
and queer fit to break a man's arm," said Jane, with some warmth. "I've
seen apoplexy, sir, and I've seen epilepsy, and I've seen many and many
a sunstroke; I know 'em when I see 'em. This here isn't nothing of that
sort."

Claud approached, hastily cramming an eyeglass in one eye, and, stooping
over the wounded man, without further ado pulled open his flannel shirt
and laid a hand over his heart. His face grew grave.

"We must have help for him quickly," he said, in an alert, decided tone,
which did not seem to match his dilletante exterior. "Where is the
nearest place to run to?"

"Poole is quite close--the farmhouse yonder--I thought Miss Elaine had
gone there," said Jane.

He just touched the arm which lay powerless, the coat-sleeve soaked in
blood, and shook his head.

"You're right enough--it's no fit; it's a brutal assault," he said. "A
robbery, I suppose. I'll run to the farm--who'll show me the way?"

"I--I can run fast!" cried Elaine, who seemed to have pinned her faith
on Mr. Cranmer.

They scrambled down through the gap in the hedge, and ran breathlessly
across the Waste. It was hard to believe that the animated, emotional
creature whose feet seemed to fly over the uneven ground was the same as
the dull, spiritless girl who had trailed the tip of her parasol along
unwillingly in the dust such a short time back.

"Do you know the people--at--the--farm?" panted Claud, who was not in
training.

"Oh, yes. Mind the bog--don't get over the stile, it's broken--come
through the gap. There's Clara come back from the milking. Clara! Clara!
call your father, call the men, quick! Something most dreadful has
happened!"

These ominous words, pronounced at the top of the shrill young voice,
filled the farmyard as if by magic. The men and girls, the boys, the
farmer and his wife, all rushed out of doors, and great indeed was their
astonishment to see Miss Brabourne arrive on the scene with a perfectly
strange gentleman as her escort. It was well that some one was at hand
who could tell the story more coherently than poor Elaine, who by this
time was quite at the end of her powers.

No sooner did Mr. Battishill comprehend what was wanted than his fastest
horse was saddled and his son was galloping for a doctor, while the
farm-laborers pulled down a hurdle, and, spreading a blanket over it,
proceeded briskly to the scene of the disaster, accompanied by the
farmer himself.

Mrs. Battishill urged Elaine to stay with her, but, though white and
almost speechless, the girl vehemently refused--she must go back and see
what had happened.

Claud Cranmer took her hand as if she had been a little girl, and she
clasped his vehemently with both hers.

"Oh, do you think he will die?" she whispered hoarsely.

"I hope not; he looks a big strong fellow. It will depend, I should
think, on whether or not his skull is broken. He is not a friend of
yours, is he?"

"Oh, no, I never saw him in my life before. They say he is staying in
the village."

"You will be dreadfully tired after this," he said, sympathetically.

"Oh, it, does not matter in the least. I am never tired; I never have
anything to tire me. You don't really think his skull is broken, do
you?"

"If the man that struck him could break the bone of his arm in two, I'm
afraid it looks bad for the poor chap. It's a most ghastly thing, 'pon
my word. I never heard of such an outrage! Broad daylight in a little
country place like this! It's horrible to think of."

But he was not thinking wholly of Allonby and his mysterious fate; he
was marvelling at the utter unconsciousness of the girl who walked
beside him, her hand confidingly clasped in his. He had never met a girl
so vilely dressed--never seen even a housemaid who wore such astounding
boots; but this Miss Brabourne was evidently not in the least aware of
how far her toilette came short of the requirements of an exacting
society. In spite of the urgency of the moment, by the time they arrived
back at the scene of action, he was lost in a speculation as to how long
it would take this anomaly in the way of girlhood, if suddenly
transported into the midst of fashionable London, to discover her own
latent capabilities.

Lady Mabel had not been idle in their absence. She had slit Allonby's
coat-sleeve, pulled his jointed mahl-stick to pieces, and contrived an
impromptu splint for the broken arm therewith. She was supporting his
head in her lap, and bathing it with the contents of her vinaigrette.

The wounded man's eyes were open, and he was moving his head uneasily
and slowly, groaning deeply every now and then. It was plain that he was
quite unconscious of his surroundings, and that he suffered much.

Elaine crept up with a fixed stare of wonder, and crouched down on the
grass near. His eyes fell on her a moment,--they were big, honest, hazel
eyes,--and the girl shivered and shrank, turning crimson as she met his
gaze, though it was vacant and wild, and wandered off elsewhere in
another second.

"Oh, if he would not groan so! Oh, how he suffers; he is going to die,"
she cried, mournfully.

Jane came up and drew her away, as the men assembled round the prostrate
figure, and lifted it on to the hurdle, Mr. Cranmer carefully supporting
the head, which was laid on a soft shawl of Lady Mabel's.

All the sky was scarlet and rose, and all the fields tinged with the
same hue, as the small procession started to carry the sufferer with as
little jolting as possible. The sun caught the windows of Poole and made
them flare like torches.

Among the crushed grass where Allonby had lain was a dark wet stain. How
sad the easel looked, with its picture just begun! The palette had
fallen face downwards, the brushes were scattered hither and thither.

Lady Mabel began to collect them, and to pack them into the open
color-box.

"Come, Miss Elaine, dear, we must run home. Your aunts will be sending
out to see after us," said Jane, nervously re-tying her bonnet strings.

"I cannot walk a step," said the girl, who was seated on the grass, as
white as marble. "You must go and tell them so--go and leave me."

"Miss Elaine, my dear!" cried Jane, totally at a loss. Elaine was
usually perfectly obedient.

"I will drive Miss Brabourne home," said Lady Mabel, coming forward.
"She is quite over-wrought. I should like to see her aunts, for I am
nearly sure my husband knew Colonel Brabourne. Claud, what are you going
to do?"

Her brother jerked his glass suddenly out of his eye and turned towards
them; he had been apparently contemplating the distance with an
abstracted air.

"Is there an inn in your village?" he asked of Jane.

"Yes, sir."

"Could we stay the night there?"

"Dear heart, sir, no, this lady couldn't. It's very rough, clean, and
they're decent folks, but just a village public, sir. This poor young
man was staying there, they say. I make no doubt but Mrs. Clapp'll be
wondering after him."

"What do you want to do, Claud?" said his sister.

"I want to investigate this highway robbery a little," he answered. "It
is interesting to me--very. I should have liked to have Goodman with me;
so I thought, if there was any accommodation at the village, you might
drive on, put up, and send Goodman back to rejoin me here."

"And let him find you also lying by the wayside with a broken head?"
said Lady Mabel.

He smiled.

"Not likely to attempt two such outrages in the same spot, on the same
evening," he said. "No. I'll tell you what I will do: I must go up to
the farm and see to this poor fellow. He may have friends who should be
telegraphed to. I'll get a bed here for the night, if you will give me
my bag out of the carriage; you must drive through the village, stop at
the inn to let the good folks know what has become of their lodger, and
then on to the Stanton hotel as we planned. The farmer shall lend me a
trap to-morrow, and I'll join you."

"You think of everything," said his sister, admiringly, "but, Claud, I
wonder if these people know anything of nursing--I am so uneasy till the
doctor has delivered his verdict--is there a nurse in the village that I
could send up, I wonder?"

"There's a very good nurse in the village," said Jane Gollop, "the
Misses Willoughby let her have a cottage rent free, and all her milk,
and eggs, and butter from their own farm. We pass her cottage, if you
please, 'm."

"Very good. Tell Mrs. Battishill I shall send her up," said Lady Mabel,
getting into the carriage. "It is so light now, we shall get to Stanton
before dark, don't you think so, Goodman?"

"Yes, my lady. It's not dark at nine o'clock now."

"No, no. Take care of yourself, Claud."

Her brother nodded, then turned to lift Elaine from the grass, where she
sat motionless, staring at the road where the lifeless form of Allonby
had been carried.

"Come," said Mr. Cranmer, gently.

"It's all over now," sighed Elaine.

"What is over?" he asked.

"What happened. Nothing ever happens in Edge Combe. This is the first
thing that ever happened to me in my life, now it is over."

"Miss Elaine, my dear, don't stay talking," cried Jane, in a fright. She
thought her charge was light-headed with the excitement she had gone
through. The girl said no more, but submitted to be put into the
carriage with Lady Mabel, and sank down with a sigh into the corner,
turning her face away from that fateful patch of roadside grass. Goodman
helped Jane gallantly to a seat beside him. Claud lingered, with his
hands resting on the top of the carriage door, his eyes on Elaine's
face.

"You do look pale," he said, "a lily maid indeed."

The rich color flew to her face as he had hoped it would, but he could
see by the look in her eyes that she had not understood his allusion in
the least.

"Breathes there a girl within the four seas who has not read the Idylls
of the King?" he pondered, wondering. Then, just as the carriage was
starting, he cried out,

"Hi! Goodman! One thing more--as you go through the village, send me up
the constable."




CHAPTER VI.

    Too often, clad in radiant vest,
    Deceitfully goes forth the morn;
    Too often evening in the west
    Sinks, smilingly forsworn.

    WORDSWORTH.


Claud Cranmer stood still in the road, watching the carriage till it
disappeared round a bend in the winding way.

Then he turned, and gravely surveyed the scene of action. The hedge on
one side of the lane--the side on which they had found Allonby--was
broken and full of gaps. The lane on this side was skirted, first by a
hay-field, and further on by the piece of ground known as the "Waste,"
through which, as has been before stated, an oblique footpath led to the
wicket-gate in Mrs. Battishill's flower-garden.

Persons crossing this Waste were in full view of the windows of Poole.
The field which adjoined the Waste was to be cut to-morrow. It was full
of tall rich grass, through which no mortal could have passed without
leaving most evident traces of his passage behind him.

On the further side of the lane was a very tall, quick-set hedge, thick
and compact, without a hole or a rent anywhere. Below it was a deep
ditch, along the brink of which Mr. Cranmer walked, eyeing the long
grasses and weeds keenly for the smallest trace of trampling or
disorder.

There was none.

Crossing the road again, he sat down on the stile leading to the Waste,
and reflected.

Jane and Miss Brabourne had come up the lane from the direction of Edge
Combe. They had crossed this piece of ground, noticed the artist at
work, and proceeded to the farm beyond. In about half-an-hour they had
returned by the road, to find the outrage committed and no traces of the
robber to be seen.

It appeared unlikely, then, to say the least of it, that this robber
should have come from the direction of Poole Farm.

Any loitering man would have been noticed by them as they passed; there
was not a single clump of bush on the Waste large enough to conceal a
man from the view of anyone crossing by the footpath. It seemed also to
Mr. Cranmer to be exceedingly improbable that the villain should have
approached along the road by which the carriage had come--that is to
say, that he had been walking _towards_ Edge Combe, because the artist
had been sitting directly facing anyone who came from that direction,
and must have seen and noticed a passer-by on that lonely road.

Probability then suggested it as most likely that the tramp, or whoever
it was, who had struck to such purpose, had approached his victim from
the direction of the village of Edge Combe--had simply walked along the
lane, come up behind the unsuspecting artist, and without warning
administered the blow on the head, which was quite enough to leave the
strongest man helpless in his hands. Of course, it was all mere
speculation, still, it might afford a clue; for, if a stranger, a tramp,
or a suspicious-looking person had passed through the village that
afternoon, he was certain to have been noticed, and probably there were
several who could identify such a one.

Then, if he had approached along the lane, how had he escaped?

Most probably by simply walking on along the solitary lane till he came
to the high-road. Here was another negative piece of evidence. If this
had been his course, he must, when he reached the high-road, have turned
to the right, towards Stanton, because Lady Mabel and her brother,
driving from Philmouth, must have met him if he had turned to the left;
and Mr. Cranmer clearly recollected that they had met no such person.

All this, of course, was very elementary reasoning; because there were a
thousand places in which a tramp might have concealed himself, out of
the main road. Yet it appeared to the young man likely that one who
presumed sufficiently on the isolation of the neighborhood to commit
such an assault in broad daylight, almost within view of the windows of
a large farmhouse, would be hardy enough to adopt the course of simply
walking off down the road after securing his booty,--a far safer plan
and less likely to attract suspicion than skulking in fields or
outhouses.

But, altogether, the more he thought of it, the more incredible, the
more outrageous the whole thing appeared to be.

Surely the artist would not be likely to have enough of value on him
during a sketching-tour, to make the robbing of him worth such an
enormous hazard! His costume, as Claud remembered, had been simplicity
itself--white flannel shirt and trousers, with rough, short grey coat
and cloth helmet.

He would carry a watch and chain--most likely; a signet ring--very
probably. About a pound's worth of loose silver; aggregate value of
entire spoils, perhaps ten pounds, for the watch would be very likely
silver, or the chain worthless. Could there be more--far more in the
affair than met the eye? Could this artist be a man who had enemies? Was
there some wildly sensational tale of hatred and vengeance underlying
the mysterious circumstances?

Claud pondered, as he raised his neat brown felt hat and wiped his
forehead. He was overcome with a desire to see and question the victim.
From him something might be ascertained, at least, of the plan of
attack.

He set out to walk to Poole Farm, remarking casually to himself, in a
depressed way, that nature never intended him for a detective.

"But I wonder what a detective would have done under the circumstances?"
he mused. "I could not observe mysterious footprints in the grass near,
for Miss Brabourne's well-meaning but clumsy handmaiden had trodden it
all flat by the time I arrived on the scene. I have examined the road
and banks for shreds of evidence. I have picked up a hairpin, which I
have reason to believe is Miss Brabourne's. Ought I to put it in my
pocket-book to show to the real _bona-fide_ detective when he arrives on
the scene? It would hardly be of service, I suppose, to preserve any of
the blood? Ought I to have left the paints and messes in the exact order
in which they fell, I wonder? It's too late to reflect on that now,
however," he added, with a glance at the paint-box, which he carried
strapped up in one hand, the easel being over his shoulder. The
beautiful calmness of the evening seemed to him horribly at variance
with the tragedy just enacted. "It's like that funny hymn which little
Peggy sings,

    'Every prospect pleases, and only man is vile.'

Certainly man in his worst aspect is a contemptible reptile," he sighed,
as he walked up the little pebble walk, where the wall-flowers drowned
the air with sweetness.

Inside, in the kitchen, a lively scene presented itself. Mrs.
Battishill, having deposited the sick man in bed, had just come down for
towels and hot water, and was flying from linen-press to boiler-tap with
a volley of words and some agitation. Her daughter Clara, a slight,
delicate girl who would have been pretty had she not attempted to be
fashionable, wearing steels in her dress, and a large imitation gold
watch chain, was trying somewhat feebly to help her mother, and holding
the kettle so unsteadily that the water splashed on the clean flags. A
group of men and boys stood round awestruck, anxious to glean every bit
of information that could be given.

There was a murmur as Claud appeared, and everyone made room for him to
enter.

"Missis--here be the London gentleman," said a great benevolent-looking
laborer who stood near the door.

"Eh? Oh, come in, sir. Declare I near forgot you in the hurry of it.
Saul, my boy, take the things from the gentleman, there's a dearr lamb."

A tall boy about sixteen came forward, and held out his hands for the
easel with a lovely smile.

Mr. Cranmer resigned his burden with a momentary admiration of the
beauty of the West of England peasantry, and came forward to where Mrs.
Battishill was standing.

"As I was saying, sir, I grudges nothing; the time, nor the food, nor
the bed, nor anything; but if he could have managed to fall ill at any
other time than right on top o' my hay harvest! Lord knows how I'm going
to du! There'll be thirty men to feed to-morrow, sir, count heads all
round, and it's one woman's work to get ready the victuals, I can tell
you, and Clara and the gal doing everything wrong if I so much as turns
my head away! And if I'm to be up all night----"

He was able to calm her considerably with the hope of the village
nurse's speedy arrival, and was on the point of asking to go up and see
the patient, when a clatter of hoofs was heard, and the doctor appeared
on the scene.

He was a rough, surly, middle-aged man, totally without any modern ideas
of comfort or consideration, but with broken limbs and broken heads he
was in his element, for he had a sharp practice amongst the quarrymen.

Mrs. Battishill went upstairs with him, and Claud sat on the
kitchen-table, swinging his legs.

"Clara," said he, "I am most fearfully hungry."

A giggle went round the assembly, as Clara, blushing rosy red, ran to
get him some bread and cream, and a draught of cider.

"This is food for the gods," said the hungry Claud, as he covered his
bread thickly with scalded cream. "This is indeed a land flowing with
milk and honey."

"I can get yer some hooney tu, if yer wants it," murmured Clara, very
low, with drooping eyes.

"No, no, I was only speaking metaphorically," said he, laughing. "How
old are you, Clara?"

"A'm seventeen, sirr."

"Ah! That's a fine age. And how old's your brother?"

"A've tu broothers, sirr."

"Oh, two--which be they?" said Claud, wiping his lips, and surveying his
admiring audience.

The two Battishills stepped forward, grinning.

"Oh! isn't that tall fellow with the light hair your brother?" he said,
indicating the boy whom Mrs. Battishill had called Saul.

She shook her head, and there was a general titter, while the words
"sorft," "innocent," could be heard, by which means he gradually
gathered that Saul was the village idiot, at home everywhere and beloved
everywhere. Finding himself the object of general attention, the boy
crept behind Clara, who was a head shorter than he, and hid his face in
her neck till only his beautiful golden curls were visible.

She leaned back, her arms on his hips, blushing and laughing.

"He's turrible shy with strangers," she said, "he can't bear 'em. Stan'
up straight, thee girt fule, Saul!"

Claud thought it as picturesque an interior as Teniers ever painted. The
great hearth, with its seats each side of the chimney, the glowing
fire, the white washed walls, the shining tins on the dresser, the
amused, absorbed faces of the peasantry, and through the open door a
waft of pure air with a glimpse of trees and evening sky.

He turned next to Joe Battishill, a comely young man of one and twenty.

"What do you think of this affair?" he asked. "You know these parts--I
don't. Has such a thing ever happened before?"

There was a chorus of "No!" and at least half a dozen started forward to
vindicate their country side of such a charge. All were convinced that
it was the work of some tramp, and then Claud proceeded to give them his
ideas on the subject. It was agreed that the stranger spoke sound sense,
and several volunteered to organize search parties. This was just what
he wanted them to do, and he despatched some towards Edge Combe, some
along the highroad to Stanton, and with these last he sent a scribbled
note, enclosing his card, to the Stanton constabulary.

He begged them to watch every tramp, every suspicious character that
passed through the town. Just as he was in the act of writing, and
waxing quite excited in his converse with the men, the doctor was heard
lumbering downstairs.

A dozen eager faces darted forward to hear the news, but the doctor
marched in solemn silence through the group, and took up his position in
front of the great fire, facing the assembly.

"A won't speak a worrd till he's had his ciderr," whispered Mrs.
Battishill to Claud, and Clara went flying past him into the cellar.

Meanwhile Dr. Forbes' sharp eyes had travelled round the room till they
rested on Claud, and the two stood staring at one another in a manner
irresistibly comic to the latter.

Certainly Mr. Cranmer introduced a foreign element into the society, an
element the doctor would scarcely be prepared to find in Mrs.
Battishill's kitchen. He was not above middle height, and slightly
built. In complexion he was somewhat fair, with closely cropped, smooth
dust-colored hair and moustache, and a pale face. His eyes were grey and
usually half shut, and he might have been any age you please, from five
and twenty to forty. He had no pretence to good looks of any kind, but
he possessed an elegance not very easy to describe--a grace of bearing,
a gentleness of manner, a readiness of speech, which no doubt he owed to
his Irish origin. He was a conspicuously neat person, never rumpled,
never disarrayed, and now, after his very unusual exertions, his collar
and tie were in perfect order, his fresh, quiet, light suit was
spotless, and his neat brown felt "bowler" lay on the table at his side
without even a flack of dust.

His glass was in his eye, and he held a piece of bread and cream in his
hand. Feeling the doctor's eyes upon him, he deliberately ate a
mouthful; then, rising his mug of cider:

"I drink your good health, sir," he said. "How do you find your
patient?"

"My patient, sir," said Dr. Forbes, in a loud, resonant voice, "has had
as foul usage as ever I saw in my life. He'll pull through, he has a
splendid constitution. I never saw a finer physique; but he'll have a
fight for it."

At this point Clara brought up the cider, which the doctor drained at
one long steady pull, after which he wiped his large expressive mouth.

"If the blow on his head had been as hard as those that followed it,
he'd have been a dead man by now," he said presently. "But luckily it
was not. It was only strong enough to stun him. But there's a broken arm
and a couple of broken ribs, and wounds and contusions all over him.
Sir, if the weapon employed had equalled the goodwill of him who
employed it, there would have been a fine funeral here at Edge Combe
to-morrow."

"Then," said Claud, eagerly, "what do you think the blows were inflicted
with?"

"A stick--a cudgel of some sort," said the doctor, "but I'll swear they
were given by a novice--by a man that didn't know where to hit, but just
slashed at the prostrate carcase promiscuously. Why, if that first blow
on the head had been followed by another to match--there would have been
the business done at once! But I can't conceive the motive--that's what
baffles me, sir."

"But--don't you think the motive was robbery?" cried Claud, excitedly.

"What did he rob him of?" said the doctor; and opening his enormous
hand, he showed a handsome gold watch and chain, a ring with a sunk
diamond in it, a sovereign or two, and some loose silver.




CHAPTER VII.

    Where the quiet-colored end of evening smiles,
                    Miles on miles
    On the solitary pastures, where our sheep,
                    Half asleep,
    Tinkle homeward in the twilight--stay or stop
                    As they crop.

    BROWNING.


There was a general hush, during which the doctor surveyed Mr. Cranmer
keenly.

"What _can_ be the meaning of it?" cried Claud, thoroughly disconcerted
and at fault.

"That's past my telling, or the telling of anybody else, I think," said
Dr. Forbes, slowly. "It's the most mysterious thing in the whole course
of my professional experience." He eyed Claud again. "Will you be a
friend of his?" he asked.

"No, no--I know nothing of him at all," said the young man, proceeding
briefly to relate how strangely he had been summoned to the scene of the
tragedy. The Scotchman listened attentively, and then asked abruptly:

"Since ye take so kindly an interest in the poor lad, will ye come up
and see him?"

"I should like to," said Claud at once.

"Should we go after all, sir?" asked Joe Battishill, diffidently.

"What--on the search expeditions? Yes, it would be as well to rouse the
neighborhood," said Cranmer, after a moment's consideration; "but tell
the Stanton constables this extraordinary fact about the property not
being taken. If only I could get a word with the poor fellow
himself,--if only he were conscious!"

"He'll not be conscious yet awhile," said the doctor.

They ascended the old stairs with their weighty bannisters, the loud
tread with which the doctor crossed the kitchen having vanished
entirely. His step was noiseless as he opened the bed-room door. It was
a big room, airy and clean, and the bed was a large and cumbersome
four-poster, with pink hangings. Among a forest of pillows lay Allonby,
his fine proportions shrouded in one of Farmer Battishill's
night-shirts. His eyes were wide open, and with the arm which was not
strapped up he was beating wearily on the counterpane.

The farmer's wife, having no ice, was laying bandages of vinegar and
water on his head to cool him. The doctor had set the casement window
wide open, and the low clucking of the fowls in the farmyard was softly
audible. Mr. Cranmer approached the bedside and looked down at the
sufferer.

Allonby was a fine-looking young man--perhaps thirty years old, with
strongly defined features and a pale complexion. He had a rather long,
hooked nose, his eyes were set in deep under hollow brows, and his chin
was prominent, giving a marked individuality to the face, which was,
however, too thin for beauty. It was the face of a man who was always
rather anxious, to whom the realities of life were irksome, but who had
nevertheless always to consider the question of L s. d.--a worn face,
which just now, in its suffering and pallid aspect, looked very sad. The
soft dark brown hair lay in a loose wave over a fine and thoughtful
forehead. It was with an instinct of warm friendliness that the gazer
turned from the bedside.

"Oh, what a shame it is!" he said, indignantly. "I think I never heard
of such a butchery. But now, the thing is to find his friends. Had he a
pocket-book with him? If not, I must walk down to the inn and
inquire--he must have left letters or papers somewhere."

"Here's a pocket-book," said the doctor, holding out a leathern pouch of
untidy and well-worn appearance.

Claud carried it to the window, and opened it. It contained several
receipted bills, six postage-stamps, two five-pound notes, a couple of
photographs of a racing crew in striped jerseys, with the name "Byrne,
Richmond," on the back of them, an exhibitor's admission to the Royal
Academy exhibition, and several cards of invitation and private view
tickets. These served to elucidate the fact that the artist's name was
Osmond Allonby, but no more.

He lifted the grey coat which hung over a chair, and felt in all its
pockets. At last, from the outer one, he unearthed a pocket handkerchief
and a letter addressed to

    _O. Allonby, Esq.,
    At "The Fountain Head,"
    Edge Combe,
    South Devon._

"I hope he'll forgive my opening it, poor chap," said Claud, and he
pulled the paper from its envelope.

The address, as is customary in letters between people who know each
other intimately, was insufficient. It was merely "7, Mansfield Road."
He glanced over the beginning--it was quaint enough.

"How are you getting on, old man? We are being fried alive here, and the
weather has put old C---- into such an unbearable rage that Jac says he
has brought out the old threat once more, all the girls are to be turned
out of the R. A. schools!"

The reader was sorely tempted to continue this effusion, but nobly
skipped all the rest of the closely-written sheet, and merely looked at
the signature.

    "Always your loving sister,

    "WYN."

"How much trouble young ladies would save, if only they would sign their
names properly!" said Claud, somewhat exasperated. "However, if she is
his sister I suppose it is fair to conclude her name to be Allonby. Wyn
Allonby!"

He turned to the envelope, and in a moment of inspiration bethought him
of the postmark. It bore the legend, London, S. W.

"That's enough!" he said, "now I can telegraph. That's all I wanted to
know. Mrs. Battishill, will you kindly take all these things and lock
them up in a drawer, please, for Mr. Allonby's people to have when they
come."

He proceeded to wrap the watch, chain, pocket-book, etc., all together
in a paper, and deposited them in a drawer which Mrs. Battishill locked
and took the key.

Claud could hardly restrain a smile as he busied himself thus. The idea
would occur to him of how ridiculous it was that he, Claud Cranmer,
should be so occupied!--of what Mab would say if she could only see this
preternatural, this business-like seriousness!--of what all the men at
the "Eaton" would say!--of how they would shout with laughter at the
idea of his posing as the hero of such a predicament!--of what a tale
it would be for everyone down in the shires that autumn!

A voice from Allonby suddenly recalled him to the present. He approached
the bed-side full of pity, trying to catch the fragments of speech which
the sick man uttered with difficulty from time to time.

"And now farewell!--I am going a long way," said Allonby, and after a
pause again repeated, "I am going a long way ... if indeed I go,--for
all my mind is clouded with a doubt,--to the island valley of----"

A pause, then again.

"To the island valley of--what is it? where is it? I forget--I cannot
say it,--to the island valley of----"

"Avilion?" suggested Claud.

There was a sigh of relief.

"Yes--that's it! that's it! The Island Valley of Avilion, where I will
heal me of my--grievous wound."

"Now I wonder what has put that into his head?" said Claud.

"Following up some previous train of thought most probably," said the
doctor. "The subject for a picture I should say very likely. Let him be,
poor lad."

Clara here tapped softly at the door, to say that the nurse had arrived;
and Claud was despatched downstairs to send her up, the doctor remaining
to give her directions.

Joe Battishill and another young laborer were waiting at the door for
"the gentleman's orders," and when he had sent up the nurse--a nice
motherly, clean-looking woman,--he sat down to write out his telegram.

"Beg pardon, sir," said a big man, pushing past the others to the table,
"but I should like half-a-dozen words wi' ye. I'm Willum Clapp as keeps
the 'Fountain Head,' and my missus be in a fine takin' about this poor
young chap, an' I wants to hear all that's took place."

"Oh, you're the landlord of the 'Fountain Head,' are you?" said Claud,
"you're just the man I wanted to see. Can you account in any way for
this that has happened? What sort of man was your lodger,
quiet?--peaceable?"

William Clapp broke out into a warm eulogium on the virtues of "Muster
Allonba!"

He was quiet, gentle, good-humored, and had his word and his joke for
everyone. He had only received two letters since he came to Edge, one of
which he put in the fire after reading it. This Mr. Clapp specially
remembered, because his lodger had to come into the kitchen to
accomplish the said feat, there being, naturally, no fire in the
sitting-room. He had started from the inn that morning a little before
mid-day, with his dinner done up in a blue handkerchief--

"And that minds me, sirr, to ask if Missus Battishill could let my
missus have back the handkercher and the pudding-dish, as there'll be
sooch a-many dinners to send out to the hayfields to-morrow."

"Oh--certainly, I suppose Mrs. Clapp can have her things; just ask after
them, some of you fellows. And now tell me," said Claud, "did Mr.
Allonby know anybody down in these parts?"

"No, sirr, I don't think he did."

"Are you sure?"

"Sure as can be, sirr. At least, if a did, a said nowt abaout it to me
or the missus."

"Nobody ever came to see him?"

"No, sirr, that I'm certain on!"

"Did he seem as if he had anything on his mind?"

"No, that a didn't, for my missus said as haow she neverr see such a
light-hearted chap in herr life!"

Claud pondered deeply, nursing one knee and staring at the kitchen
floor.

"You see, this is what bothers me, Mr. Clapp," he said. "It was an
assault apparently without any motive whatever, for Mr. Allonby was not
robbed."

"Eh, it's as queer a thing as ever I heard on, and as awful," said
William Clapp. "In the meedst of life we are in death, as I've often
heared in church, sirr! Why, the mowers in Miss Willoughby's grass, and
Loud at the smithy, they see him go by a-laughing and a-giving everyone
good-morning as perlite and well-mannered as could be; and the next one
hears of him----!"

The farmer made an eloquent gesture with his hand.

"Well, I'm just writing a message to his people, Mr. Clapp," said Claud.
"I found a letter from his sister in London, and I thought the best
thing to do was to telegraph for her to come straight."

"If _you_ please, sirr," said the landlord, "anything me or my missus
can do----"

"I am sure of it, and thank you kindly. I may want a bed at your house
to-morrow night, but I'll let you know."

He rapidly pencilled a message to--

    _Miss Wyn Allonby,
    7 Mansfield Road,
    London, S. W._

Then paused a minute.

"I don't even know whether she's married or not," he reflected.
"However, I should think this would find her any way; people usually
open telegrams."

He wrote:

     "_Accident to Mr. Allonby. Serious. Has been taken to Poole Farm.
     11.30 train Waterloo to Stanton shall be met to-morrow._"

He glanced up at the landlord.

"I will add your name," he said, "and address,--it will be better."

So he added, "Clapp, Fountain Head Inn," and passed the paper over to
Joe Battishill, who gravely began to count the syllables.

"One and twopence, please, sir," said Joe.

Claud tossed him half-a-crown.

"You'll want something when you get to Stanton," he said; "you can keep
the change."

Clara came creeping down the stair, looking white and nervous.

"Please, sir, mother say she never saw no blue handkercher nor
pudding-basin neither."

"Eh?" said Claud. "Well, now I come to think of it, no more did I; I
suppose it was left by the wayside."

"I'll be bold to say it wasn't," said William Clapp, "for I walked oop
right past the place, and I should a known my missus's dish-clout, bless
yer."

"I suppose it's hidden among the grass," said Mr. Cranmer, after a
moment's thought. "Let us go and look. Is your mother sure it was not
brought here, Clara?"

"Certain sure, sir. Nobody carried away anything but mother, who took
the peecture, an' you as carried the box and easel."

"Could Miss Brabourne's servant have taken it?" suggested Claud.

"Nay, sir, a think not," said Clapp, "for a stopped to speak to my
missus, and she would ha' gi'en her the things if she had 'em."

"Let's go and look!" cried Claud, seizing his hat again.

The sun had set at last--what a long lime it seemed to have taken
to-night! The rosy afterglow dyed all the heavens, and the trees were
outlined black against it. As they hurried through the Waste, it seemed
to the young man as if he had known the neighborhood for years; ages
appeared to have elapsed since the afternoon, when he had been soberly
driving with Mab along the coach-road, accomplishing the last stage in
their pleasant, uneventful ten days' driving-tour. How little he had
thought, when he planned that driving-tour for Mab, who had been
thoroughly wearied out with an epidemic of whooping-cough in her
nursery, that it would lead to consequences such as these. He was
profoundly interested in the mysterious circumstances of this affair in
which, somehow, he had been made to play such a prominent part. Come
what might, he must stay and see it out. Mab might go home if she
liked--in fact, he thought she had better telegraph to Edward to come
and fetch her. The children were all at Eastbourne with the nurses, and
she would have a chance of quiet if she went for a few days to the
"mater's" inconvenient dark little house in Provost Street, Park Lane;
and----

"Here you are, sirr," said William Clapp, in his broad Devon. "Where's
the missus's dishclout?"

In fact, it was not to be seen. They searched for it high and low, in
vain. Mr. Cranmer felt as if he were in the toils of that mixture of the
ghastly and the absurd which we call nightmare. This last detail was too
ridiculous! That a gentleman should be waylaid and murdered on the
king's highway, and all for the sake of a blue handkerchief and a
pudding-basin! In his mingled feelings of amusement and annoyance, he
did not know whether to laugh or be angry--the whole thing was too
incredible, too monstrous.




CHAPTER VIII.

    "Thy steps are dancing towards the bound
      Between the child and woman,
    And thoughts and feelings more profound
      And other years are coming;
    And thou shalt be more deeply fair,
      More precious to the heart,
    But never canst thou be again
      The lovely thing thou art."

    SIDNEY WALKER.


"My dear, I cannot understand it!" said Miss Charlotte Willoughby.

"It is most strange--you don't think Mrs. Battishill can have kept them
to tea?" hazarded Miss Fanny, in her gentle way.

Miss Charlotte crushed her, as usual.

"Jane stay out to tea without leave? She has never done such thing a
before."

"It's very warm. They may be lingering on account of the heat," put in
Miss Ellen's quiet voice.

"The heat is not too great for any healthy girl," said Miss Emily, with
decision. "I have noticed lately in Elaine a very languid and dawdling
way of doing things. I shall speak to her on the subject. I don't know
what she has to occupy her thoughts, but she evidently is never thinking
of what she is doing."

"She is a dear good child, on the whole," said Miss Fanny, comfortably.

"I cannot help thinking that she sometimes finds her life dull," said
Ellen.

"Dull!" cried the three ladies in chorus; and Charlotte added, in high
and amazed tones:

"Why, she is occupied from morning till night!"

"It was only to-day I let her off a quarter-of-an-hour practising on
account of the heat," continued Fanny.

"If you think she might devote more time to her calisthenics----" began
Emily.

"It was not that I meant at all," said Ellen, when she could get a
hearing. "I do not complain of want of occupation for hers, but want of
amusement."

"I was always taught to consider," said Charlotte, in a tone of some
displeasure, "that those who were fully employed need never complain of
_ennui_. Occupation is amusement."

"Then, to follow on your argument," said Ellen, half playfully, "the
convicts who are sentenced to hard labor must have a most amusing time
of it."

This remark, savoring dangerously of irony, was received by the three
sisters with utter silence, and Charlotte thought, as she often did,
what a pity it was that Ellen read so many books; really it quite warped
her judgment.

"Of course everything should be in moderation," she said frigidly, after
a pause; "too severe labor would be as bad for the body as too little is
for the mind."

This speech sounded rather well, and Charlotte's temper was somewhat
soothed by the feeling that she had made a hit.

Miss Ellen sighed. She felt that nothing could be done on Elaine's
behalf, if she began by setting up the backs of the entire council of
education. Yet so narrow had the minds of these excellent women grown,
by living so perpetually in one groove, that it seemed impossible even
to hint that they were mistaken without putting them out of temper.

"Of course I know that occupation is most necessary," said she, "and I
agree with you that every woman should be well employed; but I only
wanted to suggest that perhaps a little more variety than we find
necessary might be good for the young. We are glad to live our quiet,
untroubled days through; but for Elaine,--don't you think that some
diversion now and then would be beneficial? Remember, as girls, we went
to London for a month each spring, our dear father always gave us that
treat; and I know that I, at least, used to get through my work here
with all the greater zest because of looking forward to that month's
enjoyment."

"And what is the result?" burst out Miss Charlotte, with quite unusual
energy. "What is the result of all this going to London, pray? I am sure
I heartily wish, and Fanny for one agrees with me, that we had never
gone near the place! If we had not gadded about to London our poor
pretty Alice would never have met that vile Valentine Brabourne with his
deceitful face, and the family tragedy would never have taken place----"

"And we should never have had Elaine to brighten our home and give us
something to care for," said Ellen, speaking bravely, though the
remembrance of her favorite sister brought the color to her wan face,
and dimmed her eyes.

"You know the reason we never took Elaine to London was to keep her as
much as possible dissociated from her step-mother and step-brother,"
went on Miss Charlotte, combatively.

"Yes, I know," answered her sister, quietly, "and that is where I think
we have been so wrong. Because, much as we may have disliked Mrs.
Brabourne, she was Valentine Brabourne's wife, and we had no right to
allow Elaine to grow up quite estranged from her brother."

This took Charlotte's breath quite away. It was rare to hear Ellen
assert herself at all, but to hear her deliberately say that Charlotte
was wrong----!

"I am much more to blame than any of you," went on Ellen, "because I
will admit that, at the time Elaine came to us, I was very, very sore at
the conduct of Mrs. Brabourne and her relations, and I was only eager to
get possession of the child and keep her from them all; but I was quite
wrong, Charlotte. Think what an interest her little brother would have
been to her."

"Well, I do think, Ellen, you cannot quite reflect on what you are
saying," said Charlotte, her tongue loosed at last in a perfect torrent
of words. "I have always said you read too many books, and I suppose you
have some romantic notion of reconciliation in your head now. I have
every respect for you, Ellen, as the head of this family, but you must
allow me to say that, invalid as you are, and always confined to the
house, you are apt to be taken hold of by crotchets and fancies. Let us
look for a moment at the facts of the case: do you consider that Mrs.
Brabourne was a fit person to have the bringing-up of Elaine?"

"No, I frankly say I do not. I am not suggesting that Mrs. Brabourne
should have brought her up."

"Do you consider that the Ortons would be a nice house for Elaine to be
constantly visiting at?"

"No, Charlotte, I cannot say I do."

"Do you imagine it at all likely that we could have been on terms of any
intimacy with Mrs. Brabourne and her brother _without_ allowing Elaine
to visit there?"

"It might have been difficult," Miss Ellen, with rising color was
constrained to admit; "but I was not advocating intimacy exactly; only
that Elaine should be on friendly terms with little Godfrey."

"Is she _not_ on friendly terms? I am sure then it is not my fault. She
sends him a card every Christmas and a present every birthday, and
always writes to her step-mother once a year. I really do not see how
one could go much further without the intimacy which you admit is
undesirable," cried Charlotte, in triumph.

"I do not admit that it is undesirable for Elaine to be intimate with
her brother," said Ellen, with firmness.

"And pray how is the brother to be separated from the Orton crew, with
their Sunday tennis-parties, their actors and actresses, their racing
and their betting?"

"By asking him down here to stay with his sister," said Ellen, quietly.

A pause followed, an awful pause, which to good little Miss Fanny boded
so darkly, that she hurled herself into the breach with energetic
good-will.

"Dear me!" she cried, "what a good idea! What a treat for dear Elaine! I
wonder nobody ever thought of it before!"

"Do you? _I_ do not," said Charlotte, with withering contempt. "I wish,
Fanny, I really wish you would reflect a little before you speak--you
are as unpractical as Ellen is!"

Miss Fanny rejoiced in having at least partially diverted the storm to
her own head--she was well used to it, and would emerge from Charlotte's
ponderous admonitions as fresh and smiling as a daisy from under a
roller.

"Do you know the atmosphere in which that boy has been brought up?" went
on the irate speaker. "Do you know the society to which he is
accustomed--the language he usually hears--and, very probably, speaks?
He smokes and drinks, I should say--plays billiards and bets, very
probably--a charming companion for our Elaine."

"My dear Charlotte, he is not fourteen yet, and he is being educated at
the most costly private school--he can scarcely drink and gamble yet, I
really think," remonstrated Ellen.

"Oh, of course, if you choose to invite him, there is no need to say
more--no need to consult me--the house is not mine, as no doubt you wish
to remind me," said Charlotte, with virulent injustice.

"Char!" cried Ellen, in much tribulation, "you know, my dear, so well
that I would not for worlds annoy you--I would do nothing contrary to
your judgment. You know how I lean upon you in everything. But think,
dear, if this poor little boy is brought up, as you say, in a house-hold
of Sabbath breaking, careless people, is it not only right, only
charitable on our part to ask him here and see if we cannot show him the
force of a good example? Are we so uncertain of the results of our
teaching on Elaine that we feel sure he will corrupt her? May we not
hope that the contrary will be the case--that the care we have lavished
on our girl may help her to serve her brother?"

"My dear Ellen, I never yet put a rotten apple into a basket of good
ones with the idea that the sound apples would cure the rotten one,"
said Miss Charlotte, grimly.

"Oh, surely the case is not the same," cried Miss Ellen, too flurried to
search for the fallacy in her sister's analogy.

"Put it in this way: In two years--only two years, mind--Elaine will be
her own mistress, whether or not she inherits the fortune which we think
is hers by right, she will at least have a handsome allowance. With what
confidence will you be able to launch her out into the world if you fear
now that, in her own home, and surrounded by her home influences, she
will not be able to withstand the corrupting power of a little boy of
fourteen?"

"There again, that is all rhodomontade," cried Charlotte, "talking on,
without reflection, which is very surprising in a woman of your sound
sense. 'Launch her out into the world,' indeed! As if we were going to
turn Elaine out of the house on her twenty first birthday, and wash our
hands of her. What is to prevent her staying here always, if she
pleases?"

"What is to keep her here a moment, if she chooses to go?" asked Ellen.

Charlotte hesitated a little.

"She is not likely to choose to go," she said.

"I am not so sure. There is a great deal--oh, a great deal in Elaine
which none of us have ever seen," replied her sister. "It sometimes
frightens me to think how little I know about her."

"I cannot imagine what you mean," said Charlotte, in the blank, dry tone
she always used when she could not understand what was said.

"You will see some day," said Ellen, which Micaiah-like prophecy
exasperated her sister the more.

"I think Ellen is right," said Emily, suddenly.

She had taken very little part in the discussion, but it was always
assumed in the family that Emily would agree with Charlotte. The open
desertion of this unfailing ally bereft the already much irritated lady
of the power of speech.

"I mean about having the boy Brabourne to stay here," said Emily, "I
have thought of the same thing myself more than once--that Elaine ought
to get acquainted with him, and that the only way to do it would be to
have him here, as we dislike the Ortons so much. I don't want people to
think that we grudge him his share of the inheritance, and I think it
looks like that, if we ignore him so persistently."

This was putting the matter on a ground less high than Ellen's, and one,
therefore, more easily grasped by the others.

"I quite agree with you," murmured Fanny, and Charlotte raised an
aroused face from her work.

"I daresay," said Emily, "that the Ortons all laugh at us for nasty
covetous old maids, and that they think we dislike the boy simply
because we are jealous, I don't exactly like to have people imagine
that."

"Naturally not," Charlotte was beginning, in muffled tones, when Fanny
exclaimed, in consternation,

"Bless us all! Look at the clock! Where can that child be?"

All looked up. The urn had long ceased to sing, the hot cake was cold,
the fried ham had turned to white lumps of fat, and the finger of the
clock pointed to seven.

They had been so absorbed in discussing Elaine's future that her present
whereabouts had entirely been forgotten. Now at last they were
thoroughly anxious.

Fanny rang the bell to have the tea re-made and the food heated, Emily
hurried out to see if there were any signs of the wanderers on the road
across the valley. Charlotte went to Acland, the coachman, to tell him
to go and look for them.

"You had better harness Charlie, and take the carriage," she said, "I am
afraid something is wrong--Miss Elaine has sprained her ankle, or
something; anyway, it is getting so late, they had better drive home. It
is very strange; I can't understand it at all."

"No, miss, not more can't I, for Jane's mostly a woonderful poonctual
body for her tea," said Acland, chuckling.

"Never known her late before; something _must_ have happened."

She walked nervously across the stable-yard, and looked down the drive.

Lo! and behold a trim little carriage was just entering, and perched on
the box beside a strange coachman was Jane herself.

"Jane!" screamed Charlotte, "where's Miss Elaine?"

The carriage came to a standstill, and Elaine, white, and, somehow,
altered-looking, stood up in it.

"Here I am, Aunt Char," she said; "I am quite safe."

"But what--what--what has happened?" gasped Miss Charlotte, staring at
Elaine's travelling-companion. "Jane, what has happened?"

For all answer, Jane went off into a perfect volley of hysterics. It was
scarcely to be wondered at, for her day's experience had far exceeded
anything which had previously happened to her in all her fifty years of
life.

Miss Charlotte was greatly alarmed, however, as Jane's usual demeanor
was staid and unemotional to a degree. She ran for sal volatile, salts,
for she hardly knew what, and soon her agitated and broken utterances
drew Fanny and Emily out into the stable-yard.

Elaine did not go into hysterics. She stood up, very white, with shining
eyes, which seemed bluer and larger than usual, as Lady Mabel introduced
herself to the ladies, and began a clear and graphic description of what
had taken place. It seemed too incredible, too horrifying to be true,
that their little Edge Combe had been the scene of such violence and
bloodshed.

So overcome were they that they quite forgot even to thank Lady Mabel
for her kindness in bringing Elaine home, until she said, with a
charmingly graceful bow, "And now I will not keep you, as I know you
are longing to be rid of me;" and extended a hand in leave taking.

Then Miss Charlotte suddenly rallied, and said,

"Oh, but we could not on any account allow you to go on without taking
some refreshment."




CHAPTER IX.

    So it would once have been--'tis so no more,
      I have submitted to a new control;
    A power is gone which nothing can restore,
      A deep distress hath humanized my soul.

    WORDSWORTH.


Lady Mabel did not require much pressing to induce her to accept the
eagerly-offered tea and rest. She was tired and wet, hungry and thirsty,
and in her graceful, Irish way, she made her acceptance seem like the
conferring of a favor.

It was with some amused and speculative interest that she entered the
house which had produced such an anachronism of Miss Elaine Brabourne.

The sisters greeted her with some nervousness, but as much cordiality as
they knew how to show. Hospitality was a virtue they all possessed,
though their opportunities of displaying it were few and far between. A
grateful coolness was the first sensation which her ladyship experienced
on entering the low-ceiled dining-room. A real Devonshire "high tea" was
spread on the table in tempting profusion. There were chudleighs and
cream, cakes and honey, eggs from the poultry-yard, and such ham as
could only be cured in perfection at Edge Willoughby.

Miss Ellen lay on her couch near the window, and, as she stretched her
thin hand in kindly greeting, her guest was much impressed by the
refined and intellectual type of her features, and their lovable
expression. In the blue, shadowy eyes, with their long lashes,
underlined as they were with the purple marks of suffering, and
wrinkling in the corners with advancing years, could be clearly traced
the wreck of the same beauty which was budding in Elaine. Miss Emily too
was handsome, though a hard expression robbed her face of the charm of
her sister's. Little Miss Fanny, in her plump and plaintive amiability,
was also prepossessing in her way, Charlotte only, with massive jaw,
large features, high forehead, and stony gaze, conveyed a feeling of
awe.

This forehead was not only high but _polished_. It shone and twinkled in
the light, as though the skin were too tightly stretched on the bony
knobs of the skull beneath. The sparse hair was tightly strained away
from it above--the frowning sandy eyebrows failed to soften it below.
Lady Mabel guessed at once who was the ruling spirit of this
unconventual sisterhood.

The furniture of the room was the furniture of a by-gone day, when art
had not been promulgated, and nobody thought of considering beauty as in
any sense an important factor of one's happiness. In that sad period the
fated Misses Willoughbys' youth had been cast. Alas! for the waste of
good material which must then have been the rule! Girls intended by
nature to be beautiful and charming, yet who, by dint of never
comprehending their mission, managed only to be ugly and clumsy. The
parents of these girls had forgotten the sweet and harmonious names of
their Anglo-Saxon ancestry. There were no more Ediths, or Ethels, or
Cicelys, or Dorothys. Even the age of Lady Betty had passed and gone.
Amelia, Caroline and Charlotte, Maria and Augusta were the order of the
day.

It agonizes one only to think of the way those unlucky girls violated
the laws of taste. Their fathers surrounded them with bulky mahogany
furniture, and green and blue woollen damask. No wonder they dressed
themselves in harrowing mixture of magenta and pink and mauve. Why
should they trouble to arrange their hair with any view to preserving
the _contour_ of their head, when every tea-cup they used was a
monstrosity, every jug or bowl the violation of a law?

The delicate fancy of Wedgewood and his school was banished and ignored
with the Chippendale furniture and all the other graces of their
grandfathers. Everything must be as large as possible, and as unwieldy.
The questions of beauty and of usefulness were as nothing if only the
table or chair were sufficiently cumbersome.

Mercifully for us that terrible time of degradation was short. A
violent reaction soon set in. But the period left its marks behind
it--left a generation which it had infected and lowered, out of whom it
had knocked all the romance, from whom it had extracted, in some fatal
way, the faculty to appreciate the beautiful, and the Misses Willoughby,
house and all, were a living monument of its hideous influence.

The furniture remained as it had been in the life-time of their father.
The sisters never wore anything out, so what would have been the object
of renewing it? Everything looked as it used to look, and was arranged
as it had been arranged in the days of their wasted girlhood, what could
Elaine desire further? She would fare as they had done. It seldom
occurred to them that their mode of life left anything to be desired.

Let it not for a moment be thought that the study of art is here
advocated as a remedy for all the ills that flesh is heir to, or that
the laws of beauty are in any way suggested as a substitute for those
higher laws without which life must be incomplete. It is of course more
than possible for a woman with no eye at all for color, and an absolute
disregard for symmetry, to lead the life of a heroine or a saint. And
yet an innate instinct seems to suggest a close connection between the
beauty of holiness and all the other million forms in which beauty is
hourly submitted to our eye; and it seems just within the limits of
possibility that a link should exist between the decadence of taste and
the undoubted and unparalleled stagnation of religious life which
certainly was to be found side by side with it.

If we believe, as it is to be supposed Christians must, that a purpose
exists in all the loveliness which is scattered about so lavishly
through the natural world, then surely it follows that we can hardly
afford to do quite without the help so afforded us, lest, in forgetting
the loveliness of nature, we lose our aspiration towards the perfection
of nature's God.

Certainly, in the Willoughby family, the sister who evidently had the
strongest feeling for beauty was the sister who most strongly suggested
the Christian ideal of the spiritual life.

The world in which Lady Mabel Wynch-Frere now found herself was a world
so altogether new to her as to be exceedingly interesting to her
restless mind.

She did not find the particular grade of society in which her own lot
was cast conspicuously fascinating. She had ability enough to despise
the superficial life of a large portion of the fashionable world; and
her delight was to seek out "fresh fields and pastures new."

Elaine had inspired her with a peculiar interest. She was confident that
the girl was a unique specimen in our essentially modern world. To watch
the gradual unfolding of a mind behind the magnificent blankness of
those enormous eyes, would be a study in emotions entirely after her
ladyship's own heart. She knew that she already exerted a certain
influence over this uncouth result of the Misses Willoughbys' attempts
at education.

As the girl sat at table, not eating a mouthful, her gaze was steadily
rivetted on the new comer. To every word she uttered, a breathless
attention was accorded. In vain the aunts remonstrated, and urged their
usually meek charge to eat. She seemed dazed--in a dream--and sat on as
if she did not hear them.

"My youngest brother and I are the best of friends," said Lady Mabel to
Miss Ellen. "We are the most alike of any of the family, and it is
always a pleasure to us to be together. My little ones have had the
whooping-cough--I adore my children, and I quite wore out myself with
nursing them. When they were quite recovered, Claud thought I should
take a little rest. My husband is just now in command of his regiment,
and could not come with us, so we planned this little tour. To-day's
tragic incident has been most unexpected. Stanton is our goal--we
propose returning to London from thence, as we hear there is not much to
see beyond. We have come along from Land's End--all the way! It seems
perhaps a little heartless to say so, but in one way this tragedy will
be of great interest to my brother. He has so desired to get a glimpse
of the inner lives of these people. We have felt such complete
outsiders, he and I--we have seen the country, but we cannot know the
natives. At each inn, everybody puts on their company manners at once.
We feel that they are endeavoring to suit their conversation to our
rank. They will not appear before us naturally and simply; but you see,
in a calamity like this, they have no time to pick their words. Like the
doctor, one sees right into their hearts in such a moment; my brother
will be deeply interested, I feel sure."

"I am sure I hope the Battishills will remember to treat Mr. Cranmer
with all due respect," said Miss Charlotte, with her manner of blank
incomprehension of a word that had been said.

It was such a conspicuously inapposite remark, that even Lady Mabel had
no answer ready, and felt her flow of conversation unaccountably
impeded.

"They are very respectable people, as a rule," went on Miss Charlotte,
"but Mrs. Battishill is apt to be short in her temper if flurried. I
hope she was not rude to you, Lady Mabel?"

"I scarcely saw her," answered her ladyship, perusing the speaker
earnestly from her intense eyes.

"I can understand that desire to win the hearts of the people," said
Miss Ellen, quietly; "and I think perhaps our Cornish and Devonshire
folk are particularly hard for strangers to read; they are very
reserved, and their feelings are deep, and not easily stirred."

"I am sure they are very ordinary kind of people, _I_ never find any
difficulty in getting on with them; I don't approve of all this rubbish
about feeling," said Miss Charlotte, shortly.

Before the visitor had been half-an-hour at table, she knew that "I am
sure" of Miss Charlotte's by heart, and a deep feeling of pity for those
who had always to listen to it sprang up within her. There seemed to be
no point on which the excellent lady was not sure, yet the mere
statement of an opinion by anyone else appeared to rouse in her breast a
feeling of covert ire.

"Elaine, my child, come here," said Miss Ellen, softly.

Elaine started, rose, and came round the table. Her aunt took her hands.

"You are eating nothing," she said, "and your hands are very hot. Don't
you feel well? Are you tired?"

"I am sure," remarked Miss Charlotte, "she has had nothing to tire
her--she drove all the way home from Poole."

"Yes, but she has been agitated--she has had a shock," said Miss Ellen,
anxiously; with a strange feeling, as she looked into the girl's dilated
eyes, that Elaine was gone, and that she was perusing the face of a
stranger. "Do you feel shaken, dear child?"

"Yes," said Elaine at last, in her unready way.

"She had better have a little wine and water, and lie down," said her
aunt, sympathetically. "Go and lie on the sofa, Elaine dear, and rest. I
am so vexed--so grieved for her to see such a terrible thing," she said
to Lady Mabel. "One would always keep young girls in ignorance even to
existence of crime."

"Oh, would you?" said her ladyship, in accents of such real surprise
that each sister looked up electrified at the bare idea of questioning
such orthodox teaching. "I mean," she explained, with a smile, "that I
think women ought to be very useful members of society, and I should not
at all like to feel that the sight of a wounded wayfarer by the roadside
only inspired one with the desire to faint. I shall wish all my girls to
attend ambulance classes, so that a broken limb may always find them a
help, not a hindrance. One cannot shut up girls in bandboxes nowadays,
and I would not, if I could. Let them be of some use in their
generation--able to stop a bleeding artery till the doctor comes, as
well as able to bake a cake or make their clothes. Do you agree with me,
Miss Willoughby?"

Ellen hardly knew. The doctrine was to her so utterly novel. Charlotte's
breath was so taken away that she had not a word to offer.

"Every woman is sure to have emergencies in her life, is she not?" asked
her ladyship, in her earnest winning way. "If not of one kind, then of
another. If she marries, her children are certain to call forth her
resources, if she does not marry, her nephews and nieces very probably
will do so instead. How can a girl take a serious view of life if she
does not know its realities? Of course there are limits--there are
things which had better not be discussed before girls, because it would
do them no good to know them, and there is no need to intrude the
ghastly and the wicked unnecessarily into their lives; but I certainly
would train a girl's nerves so that a shock should not utterly prostrate
her. I would teach her courage and presence of mind."

There was no answer whatever to this speech. Miss Charlotte, having
never reflected on the subject in her life, had no opinion to offer. She
had always taken it for granted that a lady should do nothing beyond
needlework, and perhaps a little gardening. "Accomplishments" were the
order of her day, in which list were bracketed together, with grim
unconscious irony, watercolor painting and the manufacture of wax
flowers!

Her ladyship rose, and crossed the room with her light energetic step to
where Elaine had seated herself on the sofa. The girl had not lain down,
but remained with her eyes fixed on the visitor, drinking in every word
she uttered. A cool hand was laid on her forehead, and a pair of
wonderful eyes gazed down into hers!

"Oh, yes--her forehead is very hot. I would not give her wine; give her
some iced milk and soda water and let her go to bed, she is quite
exhausted," she said. "And now I must bid you good-night, if I do not
wish to be benighted," she added, rising.

"Oh, but indeed we cannot let you go on to-night," said Miss Ellen
eagerly. "You must be good enough to stay with us here. We have many
more rooms than we can occupy, and we shall be glad to be of use----"

There was some polite demur, but it was overruled; all the sisters
seconded Ellen's invitation, and finally Lady Mabel gratefully accepted
it, and sent her coachman up to Poole, to apprise her brother of her
whereabouts, and to bring back the latest news of the invalid.

Meanwhile the night had come. With all its stars it hung quietly over
the fairy valley in solemn and moonless splendor. Elaine, sent to bed,
had crept out from between the sheets, and knelt, crouched down by her
window, awaiting the return of the messenger from Poole.

So irregular a proceeding was a complete novelty in her career; but oh!
the strange, new, trembling charm of having such a day's experiences to
look back upon!

It had all happened so rapidly, in such a few hours. That afternoon had
begun, dull and eventless; now, how different was everything. In an
undefined, vague way she felt that things could never more be quite as
they had been. A boundary line had been passed. The world was different,
and for the first time in her nineteen years she was engaged in the
perilous delight of contemplating her own identity.

Up to the dark purple vault of heaven were sighed that night vague
aspirations from a heart which had never aspired before; a prayer went
with them, which, brief and shapeless as it was, was nevertheless the
first real prayer of Elaine Brabourne's heart:

"Oh, if only he may not die!"

After all, the Misses Willoughby were but human, and had all the
feelings of the English provincial middle-classes.

Their reverence for the aristocracy had something well-nigh touching in
its simple faith. Determined as they were against anything
unconventional, they yet almost dared to think that Lady Mabel
Wynch-Frere had a right to hold opinions--a right conferred on her by
that mystic handle to her name, which sanctioned an eccentricity that
would have been unpardonable in any woman less strongly backed up--any
woman supported by a social position less unquestionable.

Moreover, they could not but be sensible that the sojourn of this star
of fashion at Edge Willoughby would set all the neighborhood talking,
and that to them would be assigned, for a time at least, all the local
importance they could possibly desire. Her ladyship's heresies were more
than condoned, in consideration of her ladyship's consequence.




CHAPTER X.

                                ... For me,
    Perhaps I am not worthy, as you say,
    Of work like this; perhaps a woman's soul
    Aspires, and not creates; yet we aspire...

                                        ... I,
    Who love my art, would never wish it lower
    To suit my stature. I may love my art,
    You'll grant that even a woman may love art,
    Seeing that to waste true love on anything
    Is womanly, past question.

    E. B. BROWNING.


The heat of the blazing day was just beginning to be tempered with light
puffs of sea-scented air as the sun declined, when the Honorable Claud
Cranmer stepped upon the platform at Stanton, and asked the
station-master if the London train were due.

"Yes, it was--just signalled from Coryton;" and Claud, after the manner
of his race, put his hands behind him, wrinkled up his eyelids on
account of the sun, and gazed away along the flat marshy valley of the
Ashe river, to catch the first glimpse of the approaching train.

On the other side of the sandy river mouth lay the little old village of
Ashemouth, picturesquely nestling at the foot of the tall cliff. It was
a pretty view, but not to be compared at all with the beauty of Edge
Combe.

"I do hope the young lady will arrive," soliloquised the young man. "The
poor fellow ought to have some one with him who knows him. I only wish I
could hit upon some clue to the mystery; it's the most baffling thing!"

He sighed, and then he yawned vigorously, for he had been up the greater
part of the night, and he was a person whom it did not suit to have his
rest disturbed. The village nurse had been quite inadequate to the task
of holding poor Allonby in his bed, and so had aroused "the gentleman"
at about two, since when he had only had an hour's nap. The day had been
most distressing. Lady Mabel had sent Joseph, the coachman, into Stanton
for ice, which he had obtained with difficulty, but it seemed as if
nothing would abate the fierce heat in that sick-chamber, they longed
for cool wind and cloudy skies to obscure the brilliant weather in which
the haymakers were so rejoicing. As the fever grew higher, Dr. Forbes'
face grew graver, and it was with a sickening dislike to being the
bearer of such tidings that Claud set out for the station to meet the
patient's sister, and drive her up to the farm.

The train appeared at last, curving its dark bulk along the gleaming
metals with the intense deliberation which marks the pace of all trains
on branch lines of the South-Western.

"No need to hurry oneself this hot weather," the engine appeared to be
saying, comfortably, while Claud was feverishly thinking how much hung
on every moment. He had formed no pre-conceived idea as to what Miss
Allonby's exterior would be like. His eyes dwelt anxiously on the
somewhat numerous female figures which emerged from the carriage doors.
Most of them were mammas and nurses, with two or three small children in
striped cotton petticoats, whose cheeks looked sadly in want of the
fresh salt air of Stanton.

At last he became aware of a girl, who he guessed might be the one he
sought for, merely because he could not see anyone else who could
possibly answer to that description.

This girl must have alighted from the train with great celerity, for her
portmanteau had already been produced from the van and laid beside her.
She was rather tall and particularly slight--somewhat thin, in fact. She
wore a dust-colored tweed suit very plainly made, and a helmet-shaped
cap of the same cloth. Her face was pale, with an emphasis in the
outline of the chin which faintly recalled her handsomer brother. Her
eyes were keen, and her expression what Americans call intense.

She was walking towards Mr. Cranmer, but her gaze was fixed on a porter
who stood just behind him.

"Is there a cart or anything in waiting to take me to Poole Farm?" she
asked, with the thin clearness of voice and purity of accent belonging
to London girls. Claud stepped forward, raising his cap.

"I'm afraid I can't lay claim to being a _cart_," he said, modestly,
"but perhaps you would kindly include me in your definition of a
_thing_. I am in waiting to take you to Poole Farm."

An amused look broke over the girl's face, a look not of surprise but of
arrested interest; in a moment it changed, a shadow fell on the eyes as
if a cloud swept by, she made a step forward and spoke breathlessly.

"You come from Poole Farm? What news do you bring me of my brother?"

Claud felt a sudden movement of most unnecessary emotion; there was such
a feverish, pathetic force in the question, and in the expression of the
mouth which asked it, that he was conscious of an audible falter in his
voice, as he replied, as hopefully as he could:

"Mr. Allonby has had a very bad accident, it is folly not to tell you
that at once. He is very ill, but the doctor says he has a fine
constitution, and hopes that everything--that all--in short, that he'll
pull through all right. You will want to reach him as quickly as
possible. Will you come this way, please?"

He hurriedly took her travelling-bag from her, not looking at her face,
lest he should see tears; and hastened out of the station to where
Joseph stood with the trap.

By the servant's side stood an unclassified looking man of quiet
appearance, and plain, unostentatious dress. As Mr. Cranmer approached
he stepped forward and touched his hat.

"Mr. Dickens, sir, from Scotland Yard," he said, in a low voice.

"Oh, ah! Yes, of course. You came down by this train. Just get on the
box, will you, and we will take you straight to the scene of the
tragedy, as I suppose all the newspapers will have it to-morrow," and
Claud motioned Joseph to his seat with a hurried injunction "to look
sharp." When he turned again to Miss Allonby, she was quite quiet and
composed. Nobody could have guessed that she had received any news that
might shock her. "Wasting my pity, after all, it seems," thought Claud,
as he helped her into the carriage. "I hope you will excuse my driving
up with you," he said, as he took his place beside her. "It's a good
long walk, and I'm anxious to be back as fast as possible."

"I can only thank you most sincerely for taking so much trouble on our
account," she answered, at once, "and I should be so grateful if you
would tell me something of what has happened. I am quite in the dark,
and--the suspense is oppressive."

"I shall be only too glad to help you in any way," he said, with one of
his deft little bows, which always conveyed an impression of finished
courtesy. "You are Miss Allonby, I presume?"

"Yes--and you?"

"My name's Cranmer, and I am a total stranger to your brother, whom I
have never seen but in a state of perfect unconsciousness."

He proceeded to relate to her all the incidents of the eventful
yesterday.

She listened with an interest which was visible but controlled, and with
perfect self-possession. Her eyes rested on his face all the while he
was speaking--not with any disagreeable persistency, but with a simple
frank desire to comprehend everything--not the mere words alone, but any
such shade of meaning as looks and expression can give.

With his habit of close observation, Claud studied her as he spoke, and
by the end of his narration had catalogued her features and attributes
with the accuracy which was an essential part of him. There are men to
whom girls are in some sense a mystery, who take in dreamy and
comprehensive ideas of them, surrounded by a little idealization or
fancy of their own, these could never tell you what a woman wore, how
her dress was cut, not even the arrangement of her front hair--that all
important detail!--nor the color of her eyes or size of her hands. It is
to be conjectured that a certain loss of illusion might result to these
men when, on being married, they find themselves unavoidably in close
proximity to one of these heretofore mistily contemplated divinities,
and by slow degrees make the inevitable discovery that their "phantom of
delight" eats, drinks, sleeps, brushes her hair, and dresses and
undresses in as mundane a fashion as their own.

Claud Cranmer, though doubtless he lost much delight by never
surrounding womanhood with a halo of unreality, yet would certainly be
spared any such lowering of a preconceived ideal, since he took stock in
a detailed and matter-of-fact way of every woman he met, and by the time
Miss Allonby and he reached Poole Farm could have handed in a report as
cool and unpoetically worded as Olivia's description of herself--"_Item_
two lips, indifferent red--_item_ two grey eyes with lids to them."

But his companion's eyes were not grey, they were hazel and were the
only feature of her face meriting to be called handsome. As before
stated, she was pale, and had the air of being overworked--though this
might be partially the result of a long and hurried journey. Her skin
was fair and pure, with an appearance of delicacy, by which term is here
meant refinement, not ill health. Her impassive critic observed that her
ears were small and well-set, that the shape of her head was good, her
teeth white and even, and her eyelashes long, she had no claims at all
to be considered beautiful, or even what is called a pretty girl--which
being stated, the reader will doubtless rush at once to the conclusion
that she was plain, which was far from the case. It was just such a face
as scarcely two people would be agreed upon. One might find it
interesting, another complain that it was hatchetty, the former would
admire the clean-cut way of the features, the latter gloomily prophecy
nut-crackers for old age, and lament over angular shoulders and sharp
elbows.

It was not a face which attracted Claud. He was an admirer of beauty,
and preferred it with a certain admixture of consciousness, he liked a
woman's eyes to meet his with a full knowledge of the fact that they
were of opposite sexes. He had a weakness for pretty figures, cased in
dresses which were a miracle of cut; though of course the wearer must be
more than an ornamental clothes-peg: he was too intelligent to admire a
nonentity.

Miss Allonby's dress was not badly cut, neither was it put on without
some idea of the way clothes should be worn; but it was shabby, and had
evidently never been costly. Her gloves, too, fitted her, and were the
right sort of glove, but they were old and much soiled. Her shoes gave
evidence that her foot was not too large for her height, and her hands,
as Claud mentally noted, _were size six and a quarter_. Her face wore an
expression which can only be described as preoccupied. Of course it was
natural that on this particular day she should be thinking only of her
brother; but her new acquaintance had penetration enough to know that
there was more than a temporary anxiety in her eyes. Had he met her on
any other day, under any other circumstances, it would have been the
same; he was merely a passing event--something which was in no sense
part of the life she was leading. She seemed to convey in some
indescribable fashion the fact that he was not of the slightest
importance to her, and the idea inspired a wholly unreasonable sensation
of irritation.

An unmarried doctor once somewhat coarsely engaged to point out all the
portraits of unmarried women in a photographic album, on the theory that
the countenance of all those who are single wears an expression of
unsatisfied longing. Wyn Allonby's face would hardly have come under
this heading. Hers was not a happy nor a perfectly contented look, but
neither could it be said in any sense to express longing. It was the
look of one who has much serious work to do, the doing of which involves
anxiety, but also brings interest and pleasure--a brave, thoughtful,
preoccupied look, more suggestive of a middle-aged man of science than a
young girl.

Claud found something indirectly unflattering in such an expression; he
liked to have the female mind entirely at his disposal, _pro tem_. Her
age, too, puzzled him; it was necessarily provoking to such an adept to
find himself unable to decide this point within five years. She might be
twenty-one, and looking older, or she might be twenty-five, and looking
younger, or she might claim any one of the three intermediate dates.

When he had told her all that there was to tell, he relapsed into silent
speculation on these important points, now inclining to think that a
life of hardship had made her prematurely self-possessed, now that her
peculiarly unconscious temperament gave an air of fictitious youth. He
would have liked to ask her some questions, or, rather, deftly to
extract from her a few details as to who she was and what were her
circumstances. But Miss Allonby gave him no opening. She was silent
without being shy, which is certainly undue presumption in a woman.

Her first words seemed to be extorted from her almost by force.

They had left Stanton far behind. The distance from thence to Edge Combe
was said to be about five miles; but these miles were not horizontal,
but perpendicular, which somehow tended to increase their length
considerably. They had climbed gradually but continuously for some time
between tall hedges, up a lane remarkable only for its monotony; thence
they had emerged, not without gratitude, into the Philmouth Road. This
was a wide highway, somewhat indefinite as to its edges, which were
fringed irregularly with hart's-tongue and other ferns, or clumped with
low brambles bearing abundant promise of a future blackberry harvest. On
either side a row of ragged and onesided pine-trees, stooping as if
perpetually cringing before the stinging blows of the wild sou'-westers,
which had so tortured them from their youth up that they habitually
leaned one way, like children whose minds are warped from their natural
bent by undue influence in one direction.

Behind these trees the sky was beginning to flame with sunset, making
their uncouth forms stand out weirdly dark in the still air.

For a short way they drove quietly along this road, then turned down a
precipitous lane to the left, and wound along till a white gate was
reached. Mr. Dickens from Scotland Yard jumped down and opened the gate;
and as the carriage went slowly through, and turned a corner, the effect
was like a transformation scene, and a cry of wondering admiration broke
from the silent girl.

They stood on the very edge and summit of a descent so steep as to be
almost a precipice. Below them lay the fairy valley, half-hidden in a
pearly mist, with a vivid stretch of deep-blue sea as its horizon. Well
in evidence lay Poole Farm, directly beneath them, a sluggish wreath of
smoke curling lazily up from its great chimney. The road curved to and
fro down the abrupt hillside like a white folded ribbon, here visible,
there lost behind a belt of ash trees.

"How beautiful," said Wynifred,--"how beautiful it is!"

The rest of evening was over it all--over the tiny, ancient grey church
far, far away towards the valley's mouth; over the peaceable red cows
which lay meditatively here and there among the grass; over the
sun-burnt group of laborers, who, their day's mowing done, were slowly
making their way down to their hidden cottages, with fearless eyes of
Devon blue turned on the strangers and their carriage.

"What splendid terra-cotta-colored people!" said Miss Allonby, following
them with her appreciative gaze. Mr. Cranmer was unable to help
laughing. "They are a delicate shade of the red-brown of the cliffs,"
said the girl, dreamily. "How full of color everything is!"

Her companion mentally echoed the remark: it was the concise expression
of a thought which in him had been only vague. She was right,--it was
the color, the strange glow of grass, and cliffs, and sea, which so
impressed eyes accustomed only to the "pale, unripened beauties of the
north."

"That is Poole Farm, right beneath us," he said. "It is not so near as
it looks."

"Oh, if I were only there!" she burst out; and then was suddenly still,
as if ashamed of her involuntary cry.

"Get on as fast you can, Joseph," said Mr. Cranmer, and felt himself
unaccountably obliged to sit so as not to see the pale face beside him,
nor to pity the evident force which she found it necessary to employ to
avoid a complete break-down.

When at last they stopped at the farm-yard gate, and he had helped her
out, and seen her tall, slight figure disappear swiftly within the
house, he experienced a relaxation of mental tension which was, he told
himself, greatly out of proportion to the occasion; and, strolling into
the big kitchen, was sensible of a quite absurd throb of relief when he
heard that Dr. Forbes hoped his patient was just a little better.

"It is strange how people vary," he reflected. "I have met two girls,
one to-day, one yesterday, neither of whom is in the smallest degree
like any girl I ever saw before."

By which it will be inferred that his acquaintance with modern
developments of girlhood had been limited pretty much to one particular
class of society. The girl art-student he had never met in any of her
varieties; and this opportunity of contemplating a new class, of
perusing a fresh chapter in his favorite branch of study, was by no
means without its charm.




CHAPTER XI.

    The clouds that gather round the setting sun
    Do take a sober coloring from an eye
    That hath kept watch o'er man's mortality;
    Another race hath been, and other palms are won.
    Thanks to the human heart by which we live,
    Thanks to its tenderness, its joys and fears,
    To me the meanest flower that blows can give
    Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.

    WORDSWORTH.


The mellow coloring of the third evening which Claud Cranmer had spent
at Poole Farm was inundating the valley with its warm floods of light.

He was leaning meditatively against the stile which led from the farm
garden to the Waste, and his eyes were fixed on the stretch of summer
sea which, like a crystal gate, barred the entrance to the Combe. His
thoughts were busy with a two-fold anxiety--partly for the man who lay
fighting for life in the farmhouse behind him, partly concerning the
mystery which attended his fate.

Mr. Dickens of Scotland Yard had so far succeeded in discovering merely
what everybody knew before, and was in a state of complete bewilderment
which, he begged them to believe, was a most unusual circumstance in his
professional career. The mystery of the pudding-basin and the blue
dishcloth was as amazing and as incomprehensible to him as it was to
William Clapp himself and his scared "missus."

The good people of the district were sensible of a speedy dwindling of
courage and hope, when it became evident that the London detective could
see no farther through a brick wall than they could.

They did long to have the stigma lifted from their district by the
discovery that the murderer had been a stranger, an outlander, anybody
but a native of Edge Combe; but, if Mr. Dickens had an opinion at all in
the matter, it was that he was inclined to believe the crime perpetrated
by some one who knew where to find his victim, and had probably walked
out of the village purposely to give him his quietus. But why? What
possible animus could any dweller in the valley have against the
inoffensive young artist? The detective was privately certain that the
entire motive for this affair must be looked for under the surface.

"It's probable," said he to Mr. Cranmer, "that the victim himself is the
only person likely to tell us anything about it. If he has enemies, it
is to be supposed that he knew it. Mrs. Clapp has told us that he burnt
a letter he received. That letter may have contained a warning which he
thought fit to disregard. I have tried to make Mrs. Clapp recall any
particulars she may have noticed as to its appearance, handwriting, or
post-mark. But she seems to have noticed nothing; these rustics are very
unobservant. I should like to ask Miss Allonby a few questions. She
might be able to give us a clue."

But Miss Allonby, being summoned, could not help them in the least.

She came down from her brother's sick-room, with a tranquil composed
manner, which encouraged Mr. Dickens to hope great things of her. She
seated herself in one of the big kitchen chairs, and looked straight at
him.

"You want to ask me something?" said she.

Claud spoke to her.

"Yes," he said, "we want to ask you certain personal questions which
would be very rude if we had not a strong warrant for them. I am sure
you are as anxious as we are that the mystery of your brother's accident
should be cleared up?"

"Oh, yes," said Wyn.

"Well, Mr. Dickens thinks that the motive we have to search for was a
good deal deeper than mere robbery; he wants to know if Mr. Allonby had
enemies. Do you know of anyone who wished him ill?"

"No, certainly I don't," she replied at once. "Osmond is a most
good-natured fellow, he never quarrels with a creature--he is too lazy
to quarrel, I think. I don't know of a single enemy we have."

"Will you tell me your brother's motive in coming down here to Edge
Combe?"

"Certainly. He came here to sketch. He had sold his landscapes at the
Institute very well, and a friend of the gentleman who bought them
wanted two in the same style. Osmond thought a change to the country
would do him good. An artist friend of ours recommended Edge Combe, and
so he came here."

"Do you know the friend who recommended Edge Combe?"

A slight hint of extra color rose in the girl's cheeks.

"Yes, I know him; he is a Mr. Haldane, a student in the Academy
Schools."

"On good terms with your brother?"

"Yes, of course; but he knows my sister Jacqueline better than he knows
Osmond."

"Would he be likely to write to Mr. Allonby?"

"No, I hardly think so. He never has, that I know of. He sent the
address of the inn on a postcard. Mrs. Clapp would know him--he stayed
here several weeks last year."

The detective pondered.

"You are sure there was no quarrel--no jealousy--nothing that
could----"

"What, between my brother and Mr. Haldane? The idea is quite absurd.
They are only very slightly acquainted, and Osmond is at least six years
older than he is!"

"Will you tell me, on your honor, whether you yourself can account in
any way at all for what has occurred? Had you any reason whatever to
think it likely such a thing might happen? Or were you absolutely and
utterly horrified and surprised by such news?"

"I was horrified and surprised beyond measure; so were my sisters. We
are as much in the dark about the matter as you can possibly be. I can
offer no guess or conjecture on the subject; it is quite inexplicable to
me."

"And you would think it quite folly to connect it in any way with Mr.
Haldane?"

She laughed rather contemptuously.

"I'm afraid, even if he did cherish a secret grudge, Mr. Haldane is not
rich enough to employ paid agents to do his murders for him; and, as he
was at work in the R.A. schools when the crime was committed, it does
seem to me unlikely, to say the least of it, that he had anything to do
with the matter. What can make you think he had?"

"Merely," answered the detective, somewhat confused, "that in these
cases sometimes everything hangs on what seems such a trifling bit of
evidence; and as you said this gentleman recommended your brother to
come to this particular place----"

"You thought he had an _arriere pensee_. I am afraid you are quite
wrong. I cannot see how Mr. Haldane could possibly serve any ends of his
own by compassing my brother's destruction," she said, evidently with
ironical gravity. "Besides, I hardly think that either he or his agent
would have troubled to carry away an empty basin as a momento of the
deed."

"The people all declare that no stranger passed through the village on
that day," put in Claud.

"No; and none of the inhabitants walked out towards the farm in the
afternoon except Miss Brabourne and her maid. I have ascertained that
past a doubt. I don't see any daylight nowhere," said poor Mr. Dickens,
becoming ungrammatical in his despair.

Claud could not but echo the remark. He walked over to Edge Willoughby
in the afternoon with the same dreary bulletin. His sister was still
there; she was anxious not to leave till the crisis was over, and her
hostesses were proud to keep her. Elaine he scarcely saw; she was
practising. He declined to stay to tea, as the good ladies urgently
invited him. With a mind less absorbed he might have found them and
their niece most excellent entertainment for a few idle hours; but, as
it was, he was only anxious to get back to the farm, while every hour
might bring the final change and crisis in the young artist's condition.

Was everything to remain so shrouded in mystery? he wondered. Was there
to be no further light shed on the details of so mysterious a case?
Would Allonby die and go down in silence to the grave, unable to name
his murderer, or to give any hint as to the motive of so vile an
assault? Over all these things did he ponder as he leaned against the
stile, and saw with unseeing eyes the loveliness of the dying day change
and deepen over the misty hollow of the valley.

He looked at his watch. It was past eight o'clock, and the quiet of dusk
was settling over everything. He wondered what was passing in the
sick-room--he longed to be there, but did not like to go, lest he might
disturb the privacy of a brother and sister's last moments. But he did
wish he could persuade the pale Wynifred to take some rest--she had
never closed her eyes during the twenty-four hours she had been at
Poole.

As these thoughts travelled through his mind, he heard a slight sound,
and, raising his eyes, saw the subject of his meditations emerge from
the open farmhouse door. She did not see him, and moved slowly forward,
with her eyes fixed on the western sky. Down the little path she passed,
and then stepped upon the grass of the little lawn, and, with a long
sigh almost like a sob, sat down upon the turf, and buried her face in
her hands.

"Was it all over?" Claud wondered, as he stood hesitatingly by the
stile. "Should he go to her, or should he leave her to the privacy of
her grief?"

Unable to decide, he waited a few moments, and presently saw her raise
her head again, and look around her like one who took in for the first
time the fact of her surroundings.

Stretching her hand, she gathered some white pinks from the garden
border and inhaled their spicy fragrance; and Claud, slowly approaching,
diffidently crossed the grass to where she sat.

"Good evening," he said, raising his hat politely.

"Good evening," she said, "and good news at last. I know you will be
glad to hear. He is sleeping beautifully. Nurse and Dr. Forbes sent me
away to get some rest, and I came out here into this air--this reviving
air."

"You don't know how glad I am," said Claud, from the bottom of his
heart. "I was so anxious; it seemed as if that terrible fever must wear
him out. But he'll do well now. Let me wish you joy."

"Thank you," she said, with a smile, and her eyes fixed far away on the
distance. "I feel like thanking everyone to-night--my whole heart is
made up of thanksgiving. You don't know what Osmond is to us girls. We
are orphans."

"Ah! indeed!" said Claud, giving a sympathetic intonation to the
commonplace words.

"Yes; the loss of him would have been----"

She stopped short, and, after a pause, began to talk fast, as though the
relaxed strain of her feelings made it imperative that she should pour
out her heart to somebody.

"I had been sitting all the afternoon with my heart full of such
ingratitude," she said. "I felt as if all the beauty was gone out of the
world, and all the heart out of life. You know

    'The clouds that gather round the setting sun
    Do take a sober coloring from an eye
    That hath kept watch o'er man's mortality.'

I could not help thinking of that, and of how true it was, as I watched
the little red bits of cloud swimming in the blue, and it kept ringing
in my head till I thought I must say it out loud--

    'Another race has been, and other palms are won.'

I do not want him, my brother, to win his palm yet; I wanted to look at
sunsets with him again, and hear him enjoy this beauty as he can enjoy
it--so thoroughly. Oh, we are very selfish in wanting to keep people we
love on earth, when they might win their palms! But it is only human
nature after all, you know; and I do think Osmond's life is a happy one,
though it is so full of care."

"I am sure it must be," said Claud, quietly, as he sat down on the grass
beside her. "Life is a pleasant thing to every man who is young and has
good health, more especially if he has love to brighten his lot. I think
your brother a fortunate man."

"You would think him a very brave one, if you knew him better."

"Fortitude runs in the family, apparently."

She looked at him a moment, but made no reply to his compliment; her manner seemed to convey the idea that she was rather annoyed.

"I am afraid I have offended you," he said.

"Oh, no," she answered, laughing a little; "only what you said gave me
a queer feeling of helplessness. It was not true; I have no fortitude;
but, just because you said it of me, it seemed to make it impossible
for me to set you right, because you would have thought my denial an
empty protestation, designed to make you say it again, with more
decision; so I thought it better to let it drop."

"Do you think we are the best judges of our own courage, or, in short,
of our own capabilities any way?" asked Mr. Cranmer, following her
example by gathering a few pinks and putting them in his button-hole.

"I don't know; I think we ought to be--what do you think about it?"
asked she, evidently with a genuine interest in the subject itself, and
none to spare for Claud Cranmer.

It was strange how this manner of hers non-plussed him. He was
accustomed enough to hear girls discuss abstract topics, inward
feelings, and the reciprocity of emotion--who in these days is not? But
in his experience the process was always intended to serve as a delicate
vehicle for flirtation, and however much the two people so occupied
might generalise verbally, they always mentally referred to the secret
feelings of their own two selves, and nobody else.

He felt that Miss Allonby expected him to give a well thought out and
adequate answer to her question, while he had been merely trifling with
the subject, and had absolutely no intention of entering upon a serious
discussion.

He hesitated, therefore, in his reply, and at last calmly remarked that
he believed he knew his faults, intimately--he saw so much of them; but
that his acquaintance with his virtues was so slight that he scarcely
knew them by sight much less by heart.

She laughed, a clear fresh laugh of appreciation; but objected that this
was not a fair answer.

"But, perhaps," said she, "you are one of those who don't think it right
to analyse their own emotions?"

He shrugged his shoulders.

"I don't know about thinking it right," he said. "Of course I have to do
it, or pretend to do it, if I don't wish to be voted a fool by everyone
I meet. And that reminds me, I have discovered, here in these wilds, a
young lady who never even heard of the current topics of the day--who,
far from dissecting the sentiments of her inmost being, does not even
know herself the possessor of such a morbid luxury as an inmost being.
You ought to see her; she is the most curious sample of modern young
lady-hood it was ever my lot to meet. She has the mind and manners of
an intelligent girl of ten; my sister tells me she is nineteen, but I
really can scarcely believe it. She lives with some maiden aunts who
have brought her to this pass between them. My sister is enthusiastic
about her, and most anxious to have the pleasing task of teaching this
backward young idea how to shoot. If she is as free from the follies as
she is from the graces of girlhood, she is certainly unique."

"You make me very anxious to see her. She must be like one of Walter
Besant's heroines--Phyllis, in the "Golden Butterfly," or one of those.
I have often wondered if such a girl existed. Is she charming?"

"N--no. I don't think I could truthfully say I thought so; and yet she
has all the makings of a beauty in her; but you can't attempt
conversation--she wouldn't understand a word you said. She has seen
nothing, heard nothing, read nothing. That last remark is absolutely,
not relatively true; she really has read nothing. It gives, one an
oppressive sense of responsibility; one has to pick one's words, for
fear of being the first to suggest evil to such a primeval mind."

Wyn laughed softly, and took a deliberate look at him as he lay on the
turf. He had put up his arms over his head, and looked very contented
and a good deal amused. He enjoyed chattering to a girl who had some
sense, and was for the moment almost prepared to pardon the paleness and
thinness, and even the unconsciousness of his companion, which latter
characteristic affected him far the most seriously of the three.

"Most undeveloped heroines turn out very charming when some one takes
them in hand, and sophisticates them," said the girl. "I wonder if your
discovery would do the same?"

"I can't say. She has a very fine complexion," said Claud,
inconsequently. "Her skin is rather the color of that pinky reach of sky
yonder. What a night it is! It feels like Gray's elegy to me. I wonder
if you know what I mean?"

"Yes, I know. What an amount of quotations come swarming to one's mind
on such a night! It is a consolation, I think, in the midst of one's own
utter inadequacy to express one's feelings, to feel that some one else
has done it for you so beautifully as Gray."

A step behind them on the gravel, and, turning quickly, Wyn beheld Dr.
Forbes.

"Get up, young woman, get up this minute. I sent you to rest, not to
come and amuse this young sprig of nobility with your conversation. Very
nice for him, I've no manner of doubt; but, nice or not, you've got to
bid him good-night and go to bed."

Wyn rose at once, but attempted to plead.

"I have been resting, doctor, indeed--drinking in this lovely air. I had
to go out of doors--one must always go out of doors when one is feeling
strongly, I think--roofs are so in the way. I wanted to look right up as
far as that one star, and to send my heart up as far as my eyes could
reach!"

The doctor looked down at the face raised to him--pale with watching,
but alive with happiness.

"I'm of the opinion, Miss Allonby," said he, with a mouth sterner than
his eyes, "that if the Honorable Claud Cranmer finds you so interesting
when you're worn out with waking and fasting, you'll be simply
irresistible after a good night's rest."

The girl had vanished almost before this dreadful remark was concluded.
The doctor chuckled as he watched her flight.

"There's girls and girls," he remarked, sententiously; "some take to
their heels when you joke them about the men. Some don't. I thought
she'd go."

"I had rather," said Claud, nettled, "that you indulged your humor at
anyone's expense but mine."

"Oh, that'll never hurt you," said the doctor, placidly, rubbing his
eye-glasses with his red silk handkerchief, "nor her either. Young
people get so fine-drawn and finikin now-a-days."

Claud smiled.

"I perceive, doctor, that you do not hold with the modern ideas
concerning introspection. You are a refreshing exception. I regret that
I was born a generation too late to adopt your habits of thought."

"Habits of thought! Why, t'would trouble you mighty little to adopt all
I've got," was the genial reply. "I've avoided all habits of thought all
my life, and that's what makes me so useful a man. I just think what I
think without referring to any book to tell me which way to begin.
Hoot! I'd never think on tram-lines, as you do: I go clean across
country, that's my way, and I'm bound to get to the end long before you,
in your coach-and-four.

"Yes," conceded Claud, "I expect you would; that is, if you didn't come
a cropper on the way."




CHAPTER XII.

    A low cottage in a sunny bay
    Where the salt sea innocuously breaks,
    And the sea-breeze as innocently breathes
    On Devon's leafy shores.

    WORDSWORTH.


"May I come in, Miss Willoughby? My brother is here, and has brought
good news from Poole."

"Come in, pray, Lady Mabel; and Mr. Cranmer too," said Ellen, raising
herself eagerly on her couch. "Tell me all about this good news. Mr.
Allonby will live?"

"He will live, and is doing finely," said Claud, shaking hands with the
invalid. "He has recognised his sister this morning, and spoken several
coherent sentences. Dr. Forbes is much elated, and I must say I am
greatly relieved; it would have been very tragic had he not recovered."

"I am deeply thankful," said Miss Ellen, with a sympathetic moisture in
her eyes. "How delighted his sister must be!"

"She is. I fancy, from what I can gather, that she and her sisters are
quite dependent on their brother; she told me they were orphans."

"Poor children!" said Lady Mabel, in her impulsive way. "It would have
been terrible had it ended fatally. I feel quite a weight lifted from my
mind. Miss Willoughby, I must express to you my hearty thanks for having
been so long troubled with me. I have sent Joseph into Stanton with a
telegram telling Edward to come and fetch me, as Claud does not seem
inclined to come back to London just yet awhile."

"I want to try to get a clue to this affair before I go," said Claud,
"for it has piqued my curiosity most amazingly. The fellow from Scotland
Yard has quite made up his mind that we shall get the whole truth from
Mr. Allonby's own lips; I'm inclined to think he must be right; but, of
course, one can't torment the poor fellow about it while he is so weak."

"How very reserved Englishmen are!" burst out Lady Mabel. "All of them
are alike! Claud tells me that this Miss Allonby knows absolutely
nothing of her brother's affairs, though, from what she said, they seem
to be on the most confidential terms. She had never heard that he had an
enemy. Claud, my dear boy, draw a moral from this sad story. Write the
names and addresses of your secret foes upon a slip of paper, seal it in
an envelope, and give it to me, not to be opened till you are discovered
mysteriously murdered in an unfrequented spot."

"A good idea, that, Mab," responded Claud, cheerfully, "and one that I
shall certainly act upon. How would it be if I were to add a few
memoranda to every name, hinting at the means of murder most likely to
be employed by each? So that if I were knocked down with a cudgel, you
might lay it to Smith; if prussic acid were employed, it would most
likely be Jones; while a pistol-shot could be confidently ascribed as
Robinson. Save the detectives a lot of trouble that way."

"Oh, how can you jest on such a subject!" said Miss Ellen,
reproachfully.

The brother and sister were abashed, and Claud at once apoligised in his
neat way.

"We're Irish, you know, we must laugh or die," he said. "Only an Irish
mind could have evolved the idea of a wake; they feast at their funerals
because the sources of their laughter and their tears lie so close
together, if they didn't do the one they must do the other. I am so
relieved this morning--such a load's off my mind. Faith! if I didn't
talk nonsense, I'd explode, as sure as a gun."

"Bottle up your nonsense a bit, my boy, for the ears of one who's more
used to it than Miss Willoughby," said Lady Mabel, patting him on the
head admonishingly. "It's been something quite out of his line," she
went on, explanatorily, "these last few days of anxiety and gravity. It
has told upon him, poor fellow, and he must let off some steam. I am
going to walk up to Poole with him, if you'll allow it, to call upon
Miss Allonby. May we take Elsa with us?"

Lady Mabel had shortened Elaine's name into Elsa, because she declared
her to be like the Elsa of the old German myth.

"She has just the expression," she said, "which I should imagine to have
been worn by Elsa of Brabant, before the appearance of the champion on
the scene. She has an unprotected appealing look, as if she were
imploring some one to take her part. If I could get her to London she
would not long appeal in vain."

Elsa worshipped Lady Mabel, as it was natural she should; and the idea
of a visit to London being held out to her had caused such excitement as
prevented her sleeping and almost bereft her of appetite. Every turn of
their visitor's head, every sweep of her tasteful draperies, every puff
of the faint delicate perfume she used, every tone of her deep vibrating
voice was as the wave of an enchanter's wand to the bewildered girl. She
looked now with aching misery on her own ill-cut, misfitting garments;
she pondered with sharp misgivings over her face in the glass, as she
remembered the thick artistic sweep of Lady Mabel's loose grey hair, as
it made dark soft shadows over those mysterious, never-silent eyes. A
passion of discontent, of longing, of unnamed desire was sweeping like a
summer storm over the girl's waking heart and mind. The feminine
impulses in her were all arousing. Slowly and imperfectly she was
learning that she was a woman.

With the strange reticence which she had imbibed from her bringing up,
she mentioned none of this. Lady Mabel had very little idea of the
seething waves of feeling which every look and smile of hers was
agitating afresh. She talked to the girl on various subjects, to be
surprised anew at every venture by the intense and childish ignorance
displayed; but on the subjects which were just then paramount in
Elaine--dress, personal appearance, love--of these she never touched,
and so never succeeded in striking a spark from the smouldering
intelligence. It was Miss Charlotte who most noted a difference in her
pupil.

In the old days, when the girl first came Edge, she had been the
possessor of a temper which was furious in its paroxysms. This temper
the combined aunts had set themselves soberly to subdue and to
eradicate. They had succeeded admirably as far as the subduing went; no
ebullition was ever seen; rebellion was as much a thing of the past as
the Star Chamber or the Inquisition; but as regards eradication they had
not succeeded at all.

In some dumb indescribable way, Miss Charlotte was now made by her pupil
to feel this daily. In her looks and words, but chiefly in her manner,
was an unspoken defiance. She still came when she was called, but she
came slowly; she still answered when spoken to, but her manner was
impertinent, if not her words. She was altered, and the fact of not
being able to define the change made Miss Charlotte irritable.

Poor lady! she sat stewing in the hot school-room, hearing Elaine read
French with praiseworthy patience and fortitude, little thinking how
entirely a work of supererogation such patience was, nor how much more
salutary it would have been for both if, instead of goading her own and
her niece's endurance to its last ebb over the priggish observations of
a lady named Madame Melville--who gave her impossible daughter bad
advice in worse French with a persistency which would certainly have
moved said daughter to suicide had she not been, as has been said,
impossible--if instead of this Miss Charlotte had taken Elsa to see the
world around her, the pleasant, wholesome world of rural England, with
its innocuous society, its innocent delights, its tennis-parties and
archery meetings, its picnics and pretty cool dresses, and light-hearted
expeditions. Above all, its youthfulness.

To be young with the young--that was what this poor Elsa needed. That
was what her aunts could not understand, and they could not see,
moreover, what consequences might spring from this well-intentioned
ignorance of theirs.

Says Mrs. Ewing, who perhaps best of all Englishwomen understood English
girlhood:

"Girls' heads are not like jam-pots, which, if you do not fill them,
will remain empty."

Every girl's head will be full of something. It is for her parents and
guardians--spite of Mr. Herbert Spencer--to decide what the filling
shall be.

Nothing of this recked Elaine's instructress, as she sat with frowning
brow and compressed mouth, listening while the intolerable Madame
Melville accosted her daughter thus:

"You are happy in your comparisons this morning, and express them pretty
well."

In dreary monotone and excruciatingly English accent the girl read on,
as the obsequious dancing master wished to know.

"Vous ne voulez point que je la fasse valser?"

"Non," replied his prophetic patroness, "je suis persuadee que cette
mode n'est pas faite pour durer!"

And this volume bore date 1851.

To waltz! The very word had a secret charm for Elaine. What was this
waltzing? she ignorantly wondered. Something pleasant it must have been,
as Madame Melville declined to allow poor Lucy to learn it, and her
meditations grew so interesting that she lost her place on the dreary
page, and was only recalled to the present by Miss Charlotte's irritable
tones:

"I am sure I cannot think what has come over you, Elaine! You seem quite
unable to fix your attention on anything."

Meanwhile, upstairs in Miss Ellen's room, Elaine was the subject of
conversation.

"May we take your Elsa with us on our walk to Poole? She will like to
see Miss Allonby?" Lady Mabel suggested, instigated thereto by a hint
from Claud that he should like to renew the acquaintance of the Sleeping
Beauty in the Wood.

"If you could wait half an hour--Charlotte does not like her hours
interfered with," said Miss Ellen, deprecatingly. "She will be free at
four o'clock."

"Does Miss Brabourne never take a holiday?" asked Claud, tracing
patterns with his stick on the carpet.

"Well--not exactly. She is not hard worked, I think," said Miss Ellen,
feeling bound to support the family theory of education, in spite of her
own decided mistrust of it. "It is very bad for a young girl to have
nothing to occupy her time with--my sister considers some regularity so
essential."

"I should have thought," Lady Mabel was unable to resist saying, "that a
young woman of nineteen could have arranged her time for herself, if she
had been properly taught the responsibilities of life."

The wavering pink flush stole over the invalid's kind face.

"I am afraid we middle-aged women forget the flight of years," she said,
with gentle apology. "To us, Elaine is still the child she was when she
came to us twelve years ago."

"It's most natural," said Claud. "Will Miss Brabourne always live with
you? I remember, when Colonel Brabourne died, hearing that the terms of
the will were confused, or that there was some mess about it. Was not
the estate thrown into Chancery? I hope it is not rude of me to ask?"

"Not at all," answered Ellen, "I should be really glad to talk over the
child's future with some one not so totally ignorant of the world as I
am. The whole story is a painful one to me, I own, but it has to be
faced," she added, with an effort, after a short pause; "it has to be
faced."

"Don't you say a word if you would rather not," said Lady Mabel,
earnestly. "But if you would really like my brother's opinion, he will
be most interested to hear what you have to say. He is a barrister, and
might be of some use to you."

The Honorable Claud grew rather red, and laughed at his sister.

"Don't let Mab mislead you, Miss Willoughby," he said. "I was called to
the Bar in the remote past, but I have never practised. Still, I learnt
some law once, and any scraps of legal knowledge I may have retained are
most entirely at your service."

"You are very kind, and I will most willingly tell you as well as I can
how matters stand," said Miss Ellen. "We had formerly another
sister--Alice--she was the youngest except Emily, and she was very
pretty."

"I can well believe it," said Lady Mabel, purely for the pleasure of
seeing Miss Willoughby's modest blush.

"In those days," she went on, "we went every year to London for the
months of May and June; my father was alive, you understand, and he
always took us. There we met Colonel Brabourne, and he fell in love with
our pretty Alice. My father saw no reason against the match, except that
he was twenty years older than she; but she did not seem to mind that,
and was desperately in love with him. When they had been engaged only a
few weeks, my father died very suddenly, and, as soon as the mourning
would allow, Colonel Brabourne insisted on being married. It was a very
quiet wedding, of course, and there were no settlements of any
kind--nothing that there should have been. Everything was very hurried;
his regiment was just ordered to India, he wished her to accompany him;
we knew nothing of business, and we had no relations at hand to do
things for us. They were just married as soon as the banns could be
called, and away they went to Bengal. My father left his fortune to be
divided equally among his daughters, and secured it to their
descendants, so that Elaine will have, in any case, more than L200 a
year of her own; but now comes the puzzling part of the story. The
climate of India proved fatal to my sister. She was never well after her
marriage; and, when Elaine was born, her husband got leave to bring his
wife and child to England, to see if it were possible to save her. It
was not. She flagged, and drooped, and pined, and gradually we got to
know that she was in a deep decline. It was just at this time, when her
husband and all of us were almost crazy with anxiety, that Alice's
godmother, a rich widow lady named Cheston, living in London, died. In
consequence of Alice being named after her, she left her all her
fortune--about fifty thousand pounds. This was left quite
unconditionally.

"We were all so anxious about our sister, I think we scarcely noticed
the bequest. She died about a fortnight afterwards, leaving a little
will, dated before she knew of this legacy, bestowing everything she
could upon her husband, with whom, poor darling, she was madly in love,
then and always. She was, of course, sure of his doing all he could for
little Elaine. My experience of the world is very limited," said Miss
Willoughby, wiping her eyes, "but I must say I think men are the most
incomprehensible beings in creation. You would have thought that
Valentine Brabourne was absolutely inconsolable for the loss of his
wife. He threw up his commission, and went to live in seclusion, taking
his baby daughter with him. We saw nothing of him."

"Did he live on his wife's money?" asked Claud.

"He lived on the income of it chiefly. He had very little of his own,
besides his pay. I did not see how we could interfere. His wife's will
left the money to him, by implication, and of course I thought it would
be Elaine's. But when she was three years old he married again--a
person who--who----" Miss Willoughby faltered for an expression. "Well,
a person of whom my sisters and I could not approve. She was a Miss
Orton, and lived with her brother, who was what they call a book-maker,
I believe. It did seem so strange that, after mourning such a wife as
Alice, he should suddenly write from the midst of his retirement to
announce himself married to such a person. We did not wish to be selfish
or unpleasant--we invited him and his wife down here, but we really
could not repeat the experiment."

Tears of pleading were in the poor lady's eyes.

"I hope you will not think me narrow," she said, "I know we lead too
isolated a life; but I could not like Mrs. Brabourne. She smoked
cigarettes, and drank brandy and soda water. She was always reading a
pink newspaper called the _Sporting Times_, and I think she betted on
every horse-race that is run," said poor Miss Willoughby, vaguely. "She
talked about Sandown and Chantilly, and other places I had never heard
of. She never went to church, and appeared, from her conversation, to do
more visiting and gambling on the Sunday than on any other day. She was
a handsome young woman, with her gowns cut like a gentleman's coat. She
drove very well, and used to wear a hard felt hat and dogskin gloves. I
cannot say I liked her. My sisters could none of them approve. She was
unwomanly, I cannot but think it, and I am sure she influenced her
husband for evil. Soon after her stay here, she had a baby, but it died
within twenty-four hours of its birth; so the next year, and the next. I
am sure she took no proper care of herself, but when she had been four
years married, she had a son, who did live, and was called Godfrey. Six
months after his birth, his father was thrown in the hunting-field and
killed. He left a will bequeathing the whole of his property--this fifty
thousand which had been poor Alice's,--to his son Godfrey. Mrs.
Brabourne was to have three hundred a year till her death, and a certain
sum was set aside for the maintenance and education of both children
till they were of age. And all this of Alice's money--our Alice! Do you
call that a just will, Mr. Cranmer?"

"I call it simple theft," said Claud, shortly; "but, if the will your
sister left be legally valid, I don't see what you are to do in the
matter."

"So our solicitor said," sighed Miss Willoughby. "He thought we had no
grounds at all for litigation; but I think that everyone must confess
that it is a hard case. I wish it had been possible to throw it into
Chancery, but it was not."

"I can just remember there being some talk about it," said Lady Mabel.
"I call it a very hard case."

"If it had been half!" said Miss Willoughby. "I would not have grudged
the boy half my sister's fortune; but that he should leave it all to
him!"

The clock struck four as she spoke, and the sound of a closing door was
heard.

"Here comes Elaine," she said. "Please mention nothing of all this to
her. She does not know."

"Does she not? Why not tell her?" asked Lady Mabel.

"I thought it might set her against her brother," answered Miss Ellen,
"or make her disrespect the memory of her father. But I cannot feel as I
should towards the Ortons I must confess. There was something very
underhand; something must have been done, some undue influence exerted
to induce him to leave such a will, for I know he loved Alice as he
never loved his second wife."

"Is she alive still, the second Mrs. Brabourne?" asked Claud.

"No; she died two years ago. The boy is more than twelve years old. The
money will be worth having by the time he attains his majority; when
Elaine is twenty-one, I shall make another effort on her behalf."

"I am sure I wish you success, but I am afraid you have no case," said
Claud, regretfully.

As he spoke the door was opened, and Elaine walked in.




CHAPTER XIII.

    Ankle-deep in English grass I leaped,
    And clapped my hands, and called all very fair.

           *       *       *       *       *

    In the beginning, when God called all good,
    Even then was evil near us, it is writ;
    But we indeed, who call things good and fair,
    The evil is upon us while we speak;
    Deliver us from evil, let us pray.

    AURORA LEIGH.


As the young girl entered the room Claud Cranmer rose, with a quick
gesture of courtesy.

Elaine, not prepared to see strangers, paused, and the ingenuous morning
flush of youth passed over her face in a wave of exquisite carmine.
Claud thought he had never beheld anything more lovely than that
spontaneous recognition of his presence. She had not blushed when he met
her first--her anxiety for Allonby had been paramount. And the pale girl
up at Poole, with the sculptured chin, never blushed at all, but looked
at him with frank and limpid eyes as if he were entirely a matter of
course.

But for Elsa, dawn had begun; the sun was rising, and naturally the
light was red. Oddly enough, an old country rhyme floated in Claud's
mind--

    "A red morning's a shepherd's warning."

He did not know quite why he should think of such a thing, but a good
many varying emotions were stirred in him as he scrutinised this girl
who had so nearly escaped the inheritance of a considerable fortune.

What a complexion she had! Her inexorable critic mentally compared her
with the slim Wynifred. A throat like a slender pillar of creamy marble,
lips to which still clung that delicate moist rose-red which usually
evaporates with childhood, a cheek touched with a peach-like down,
eyelashes long enough to shadow and intensify the light eyes in a manner
most individual, but hard to describe. What a pity, what a thousand
pities, that all this effect should be marred and lost by the cruel
straining back of the abundant locks, and the shrouding of the
finely-developed form in a garment which absolutely made Mr. Cranmer's
eyes ache.

The girl smiled at him--a slow smile which dawned by degrees over her
lovely, inanimate face. The look in her eyes was enough to shake a man's
calmness; and when she asked, "How is Mr. Allonby?" he felt that she had
some interest to spare for Mr. Allonby's messenger.

Here was a type of girlhood he could understand, for whose looks and
smiles he could supply a motive.

He watched her every moment keenly, and soon found out that her
awkwardness was the result of diffidence and restraint, not of native
ungainliness. He determined that Mabel must have her to stay with her,
and civilize her. She would more than repay the trouble, he was
confident.

He saw the sudden ardent glow of pleasure succeed the restless chafing
of suspense when at last permission was accorded for her to walk to
Poole with Lady Mabel.

"Run and put on your hat," said Miss Ellen, indulgently, and away darted
the girl with radiant face.

"Jane," she cried, bursting into the _ci-devant_ nursery where Miss
Gollop reigned supreme, "where's my best hat--quick! I am going out with
Lady Mabel and Mr. Cranmer!"

"Your best hat's in its box, where it'll stop till Sunday," answered
Jane, placidly. "You ain't going trapesing along the lanes in it, I can
tell you, Lady Mabel or no Lady Mabel."

"Oh, Jane, you are unkind! Do let me wear it."

"You shan't wear it, Miss Elaine, and that's flat. Once take it out in
this sun, you'll have the straw burnt as yaller as them sunflowers."

"Where's my second best?" grumbled the girl, turning to the press.

"On the Philmouth Road, for all I knows; at least, that's where you last
left it, ain't it?"

"And am I to go out in my garden-hat--with Lady Mabel Wynch-Frere?"
cried Elaine, aghast.

"I don't see no other way for it," said Jane, calmly, drawing her
thimble down a seam to flatten it, with a rasping noise which set her
charge's teeth on edge.

"Well, Jane, I never heard of such a thing!" she burst forth after a
pause of speechless indignation.

"I can't help it, miss; I must teach you to take care of your clothes.
You're not going flaunting over to Mrs. Battishill's in that ostrich
feather o' yours. Maybe, next time you drop your hat in the road, you'll
remember to pick it up again."

Surely Elaine's fairy godmother spoke through the untutored lips of Jane
Gollop!

Instead of presenting herself to Claud in a headgear covered with yellow
satin ribbon and a bright blue feather, Elsa appeared downstairs in her
wide-brimmed garden-hat, simply trimmed with muslin; and narrowly
escaped looking picturesque.

How different was the road to Poole, now that she trod it with such
companions! Her heart was light as air, her young spirits were all
stretched eagerly, almost yearningly forward into the unknown country
whose border she had crossed so lately.

Her fancy played sweetly around the image of the artist-hero, her pulses
beat a glad chime because he was living, and not dead. She waxed less
shy, and chatted to her companions,--even daring to ask questions, a
thing her aunts never permitted. She gave them reminiscences of her
childish days, when she lived in London, and of a dream she had
constantly of streets full of houses, one after another, in endless
succession, with very few trees among them.

"That is all I know of London," she said, "and I hardly remember
anything that happened, except hearing the baby cry in the night. It was
Godfrey. I used to wake up in my little bed, and see nurse sitting with
the baby near the lamp, rocking him in her arms. I remember being taken
in to kiss papa when he was dead; but that was not in London--it was
somewhere in the country--at Fallowmead, where Godfrey's uncle has his
racing-stud. I remember mamma; she was not my real mamma. I could not
bear her. She used to whip me, and once I bit her in the arm."

"My dear Elsa!" said Lady Mabel.

"I did. I was a very naughty little girl--at least, Jane always says
so. I remember being shut up alone for a punishment."

As she spoke, they turned a bend in the road, and came in sight of the
spot where the crime had been perpetrated.

Two men stood there talking together. One was Mr. Dickens of Scotland
Yard, the other Elsa greeted with a glad wave of the hand in greeting.

"Oh," cried she, springing forward, "it's Mr. Fowler, it's my godfather!
I did not know he had come back!"

At the sound of her voice, Mr. Fowler turned round, and his face lighted
up as she came towards him.

"Why, Elsie!" he said, "there you are, my child! And I'm hearing such
doings of yours, it makes me quite proud of you. And you, sir," he went
on, addressing Claud, "are Mr. Cranmer, I suppose, and entitled to my
very hearty goodwill for your behavior in this matter."

Claud had heard of Mr. Fowler before, as a local justice of the place,
and he gladly shook hands with him, scrutinizing, of course, as he did
so, the general mien and bearing of his new acquaintance.

Mr. Fowler was short, square, sturdy, and plain. His hair and thick
short beard had once been jet black, but were now iron grey. His skin
was exceedingly dark, almost swarthy, and his eyes, big, soft, and
luminous, were his one redeeming feature. His manner was a curious
mixture of gentleness and strength; he never raised his voice, but his
first order was always instantly obeyed. Something there was about him
which invited confidence; he was not exactly polished, yet his manner to
women was perfect. Gentle as was his eye, it yet had a curiously
penetrating expression, and Lady Mabel, used as she was to what should
be the best school of breeding in England, was yet struck with the
simplicity and repose of his address.

"I only came back to Edge Combe yesterday," he said, and, though he had
lived all his life in South Devon, Claud noticed at once that the rough
burr of the "r" was absent from his quiet voice. "I am often absent for
some months, on and off, managing some tin mines in Cornwall; and it was
through the medium of the newspapers I learned what had been going
forward in our little valley. And now, Mr. Cranmer, what do you think
about it?"

"I'm afraid I must postpone my opinion till Mr. Allonby himself has been
questioned," said Claud.

"Exactly what I've been telling Mr. Fowler," observed Mr. Dickens, who
wore a baffled and humbled look. "Nothing can be done till Mr. Allonby
speaks. It's a case of _vendetta_, I'll go bail; and it's done by one
that's accustomed to the work, too; accustomed to cut the stick and
leave no traces."

"Cut the stick--the stick they knocked him down with?" asked Elsa in
low, horrified tones.

Claud smiled.

"Your theory hardly holds with Dr. Forbes, Mr. Dickens," he said rather
shortly. "He declares the blows were given by a novice--by a hand that
didn't know where to plant his blows."

"Well, I don't know what to say," snapped the detective. "Here's a man
beat almost to death on the high-road in broad daylight; some one must
have done it. Where is he? There ain't a trace of him. Nobody has met a
single soul that could be taken up on suspicion--nobody has seen anybody
as so much as looked suspicious. Miss Brabourne and her servant met
nobody as they came along not half-an-hour afterwards. It ought to be
some one uncommon deep, and not a tramp nor a fishy-looking party of any
kind."

All this was true. Claud was inclined to think that the detective had
done his best, and his ill-success was owing to the very strange nature
of the case, and not to his inability.

They left him sadly ruminating by the wayside, and crossed the Waste to
the farm, Elaine with her hand clasped tightly in the square, short,
hard palm of her godfather.

"This has been an adventure for you, little woman," he said. "What do
the aunts say?"

"They are surprised," answered she, with her usual paucity of
vocabulary.

"I should think they were! And horrified too--eh?"

"Yes, very. Aunt Fan nearly had hysterics."

"Poor Aunt Fan! I don't wonder. I have a great respect for the Misses
Willoughby," he said, turning to Lady Mabel. "I have known them all my
life."

His voice seemed to soften involuntarily as he said it, and, as his eyes
rested lingeringly on Elaine's face, Lady Mabel could not help framing
a romance of twenty years ago, in which he and pretty Alice Willoughby
were the leading characters; and a swift bitter thought of the
complications of life crossed her mind. Had Alice mated with the deep
patient love that waited for her, and chosen a home by "Devon's leafy
shores" instead of the hot swamps of the Ganges, she had probably been a
happy blooming wife and mother now, with the enjoyment of her
godmother's fortune duly secured to her children.

And now here stood Elsa, comparatively poor, fatherless, motherless;
while Henry Fowler, like Philip Ray, had gone ever since "bearing a
life-long hunger in his heart." All this, of course, was pure surmise,
yet it seemed to invest the homely features and square figure of the
Devonian with a halo of tender feeling in her eyes; for Lady Mabel had a
romance of her own.

"Did you have hysterics, Elsie?" asked Mr. Fowler.

"No; I lost my hat," answered she, in a matter-of-fact way which made
them all three laugh.

"It was a wiser thing to do," he answered, in his quiet voice. "But the
whole affair must have been a great shock to you, lassie."

"Yes," said the girl--an inadequate, halting answer.

Dimly she was feeling that that day had been not all darkness--that it
was the beginning of life. She did not know the inviolable law of
humanity, that no new life is born without a pang; but imperfectly she
felt that her pain had been followed by a feeling of gladness for which
she could not account, and that the days now were not as the days that
had been.

"What a solitude," says somebody in some book, "is every human soul." At
that moment the solitude of Elaine Brabourne's soul was very great. She
was standing where the brook and river met; vaguely she heard the sound
of coming waters foaming down into the quiet valley. It awed her, but
did not terrify. There was excitement, but no fear. And of all this
those who walked beside her knew nothing.

Henry Fowler was one of those who surround womanhood with a halo, and
his feminine divinity had taken form and shape. It had borne a name, the
name of Alice Willoughby--for Lady Mabel's surmise had been correct.

Had he known how near the torrent stood near the untried feet of
Alice's daughter, he would have flung out his strong right arm, caught
her in a firm hold, and cried, "Beware!"

But he did not know. He saw only with his waking eyes, and those told
him that Elaine had grown prettier--nothing more. She was safe and
sound--she was walking at his side. The vital warmth of her young hand
lay in his. No care for her future troubled him just then.

He chatted to Claud about the details of the mysterious assault. There
seemed but one subject on which it was natural to converse, in the
Combe, in those days.

When they came to the bridge, he made the girl pass over its crazy
planks before him, and jumped her from the top of the stile.

As they neared the farm-house, a sound of loud crying, or rather
roaring, greeted them; and when Mr. Fowler, with the privilege of old
custom, walked into the house, and through to the kitchen, there lay
Saul the idiot, his whole length stretched on the floor, his face purple
with weeping, and kicking strenuously.

Clara Battishill stood against the table, the color in her pretty little
cheeks, her chest heaving as with recent encounter, her mien triumphant.

"Saul Parker, hold your noise at once--get up off the flags--stand up, I
say! What's all this about, eh?" said Mr. Fowler, in his even, unruffled
tones.

Saul left off howling directly, and, after taking a furtive look at the
company, hid his tear-strained visage with a wriggle of anguish.

Clara burst out in her shrill treble.

"I've give him a taste of the stick, I have," said she, brandishing a
stout ash twig, "for killing o' my turkey. He's a cruel boy, he is, and
I'm very angry wi' him. He took an' threw great rocks over into the
poultry-yard, and Miss Allonby, she was there wi' me, and he might ha'
killed both of us; but 'stead o' that, he goes an' kills my best turkey
I set such store by. I'll l'arn him to throw stones, I will! I's take
an' tell me mother I won't have un abaout the place if he's going to
take to throwing stones."

"It won't do," said Mr. Fowler, lightly touching the recumbent Saul with
his foot. "I always said it wouldn't do when the poor lad grew up. He's
getting mischievous. Up, Saul!--up, my lad, now at once. You've had a
beating, which you richly deserved. What made you so naughty, eh?"

For answer the big lad raised himself on his hands and knees, crawled
towards Clara, and flung his arms humbly about her knees, saying, in his
imperfect way,

"Poor! poor!"

His castigator was melted at once. She took his beautiful head of golden
curls between her hands, and patted it energetically.

"There, you see, he don't mean anything; he's as good as gold all the
time," she said. "But mind, you leave my birds a-be, Saul. If I ketch
you in my poultry-yard, I'll give you such a licking! I will! So mind!"

He began to whimper penitently. Lady Mabel looked sorrowfully at him.

"Poor boy!" said she, "what an affliction! He ought to be put into an
asylum."

"Please, your ladyship, his mother won't part with him," said Clara;
"and he never does no harm, not if you're kind to him. There, there,
boy, don't cry. I've got some butter-milk for you in t' dairy."

He began to smile through his tears, which he wiped away on her apron.
Claud thought it the oddest group he had ever seen. The sight of the
great fellow prone on the ground, meekly taking a beating from a girl
half his size, was a mixture of the pathetic and the absurd. It half
touched, half disgusted him. Suddenly a light step on the wooden stair
made him turn.

Wynifred stood in the doorway.

"Oh,--Mr. Cranmer," she said, faltering somewhat at the presence of
three strangers. "I beg your pardon, I thought you were alone. My
brother would like to see you."

"I'll come at once, but first of all you must let me introduce you to my
sister."




CHAPTER XIV.

    "Till the lost sense of life returned again,
    Not as delight, but as relief from pain."

    _The Falcon of Sir Federigo._


Allonby's return to full consciousness had been a very gradual affair.
Each lucid interval had been eagerly watched by Dr. Forbes, who feared
the loss of memory, partial or entire, which often results from such
brain attacks. Were the young man to forget--as it was entirely probable
that he would--the circumstances immediately preceding his illness, the
difficulty of Mr. Dickens' mission would be increased tenfold.

When it became evident that the sick man recognised his sister, the
excitement began to culminate. But hours went by, he slept, ate, awoke,
and dozed again, quite tranquil, and apparently not at all solicitous as
to how Wynifred came to be at his side, or where he was, or what was the
reason of his illness.

But at last, one afternoon, the "light of common day" broke in upon the
calmness of his musings, and sent his mind tossing restlessly to and fro
in all the tumult of newly aroused consciousness.

He awoke from a delicious sleep with a sense of returning vigor in all
his big limbs, and, essaying to throw out his left arm, behold! It was
immovable.

He held his breath, while he surveyed the bandaged limb, and all the
glittering visions which had been the companion of his delirium came
showering to earth in a torrent of shining fragments.

Throughout his illness, the idea of the Island Valley of Avilion had
never left him. No doubt the fact that his dominant idea had been a
beautiful and a peaceful one had greatly served to help him through. His
talk, when he rambled, had been all of "bowery willows crowned with
summer sea," and of the rest of the exquisite imagery with which he had
mentally surrounded Edge Combe in his holiday dreams. Now, the mirage of
imaginary loveliness had fled. Like a flash it was gone, and only the
commonplace daylight of every day remained.

This sudden departure of the baseless fabric of his vision was by no
means a novelty to Osmond. Often and often before he had had violently
to recall his winged thoughts to earth: to set aside the sparkling
beauties of the life he lived in fancy, in order to cope with the
butcher's bills, the rates and taxes of the life he lived in reality.

But this last dream had been passing sweet, and he thought it had lasted
longer than was common with the airy things. It had rivetted itself in
his mind, till he felt that he could close his eyes and commit it to
canvas from memory alone. He could see the soft dim outline of the
mythic barge, he could "hear the water lapping on the crags, and the
long ripple washing in the reeds," and he could see, feature for
feature, the face of the sorrowing queen. A young, lovely face, with the
light of morning on it, but with anguish in the eyes, and sympathy of
tears upon the cheeks.

For a moment he closed his eyes to recall it all. Then he boldly opened
them, to confront a world with which he felt too weak to cope.

Not much of the said world was visible just then, and what there was
seemed calculated to soothe and cheer. It was bounded by the four walls
of a not very large room, the whitewash of whose ceiling was spotlessly
white, the roses of whose wall paper were aggressively round and pink.
To his right, a casement window hung wide open; and through it came the
sighing of a summer wind rustling through elm-trees.

Near this window stood the w

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