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[ALL EIGHTS JmSKRVBP, J

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[ALL EIGHTS JmSKRVBP, J SONS OF FIRE. By MISb BRADDON, Author of "Lady Audley's Secret," The Fatal Three," "The Day Will Coma," "Lost for Love," The Doctor's Wife." Whose Was the Hand ?" Thou Art the Man," &0. CHAPTER XV. Let no Man Live as I Have Lived." Allan went back to Suffolk, and Suzette's life "sumed its placid course; a life in which she had for the most part to find her own amuse. isnents and occupation. General Vincent was ffond and proud of his daughter but he was not ft man to make a companion of his daughter, except at the social board. If Suzette were at home at 12 o'clock to superintend the meal which he called tiffin, and in her place in the drawing-room a quarter of an hour before the 8 o'clock dinner if she played him to sleep after dinner, or aliowed herself to be beaten at ches, whenever he fancied an evening game, she fulfilled the whole duty fi daughter as under, itood by General Vincent. For thereat he had supremo belief 10 her high principles and dig. iretion. Her name on the tabieau in the parlour It the S-iere Caetir had stood forth conspicuously tor all the virtues—order, obedience, propriety, truthfulness. The nuns, who expect perfection in the young human vessel, had discovered no sraok or flaw in Suzette. She has not only amiability and kindness of heart," said the Reverend Mother, at the parting interview with the pupil's father. She has plenty of common sense, and she will never give yon any trot! hIe." When the General took his daughter to India there had been some talk of a compaiiion- governoss, or governess-companion, for Suzette; but against this infliction the girl herself pro- tested strongly. If I am not c'd enough or wise enough to cake care of myself, I will go buck to the con- vent," she declared. I would rather take the ireil than submit to be governed by a Mrs Gteneral.' I had lenrnt everything the nuns could teach me before I left the Sacra Coeur. I not going to be taught by an inferior teacher —some kinaitercr, per I: apt. Nobody can teaeh like the stst.ers of the Sacre Coeur." General Vincent had been preached at by his female relatives on this subject of the goveruess- jompanion. Suzette is too young and too pretty to be alone,"said one. Suzette will get into idle habits if there is no one to direct her mind," said mother. A girl's education has only begun when shejeaves school," said a third, as gloomy in their foreshadowing of evil as it they had been ihe three fatal sisters. But tile Gelleralloved his daughter, and when withdrawing her from the convent had promised her that her life should be Sappy 30 he abandoned an idea that had never Det'1I his own. A Mrs General would have been a doosid jxpensive importation, he told his friends after- lice women to look after Suzie." Suzette had proved quite capable of looking tfter herself, unaided by the nice women in. deed, her conduct had been—or should have been —a liberal education to more than one of those nice women, who might have found their matronly exuberances of conversation and beha- viour in a manner rebuked by the girl's discretion rod self-resptct. Suzette passed unsmirched Jhrough the furnace of a season all Simla, lnd a season at Naini Tal, and came to lustic Wiltshire with all the trank gaiety of happy girl- hood, and all the savoir faire which comes of two (rears' society experience. She had been courted and wooed, and had blighted the hopes of more than one eligible admirer. When she came to Matcham, there was again a question of chaperon or companion. The odious word governess was abandoned. But it was said that Indian society was less conventional than .English society, and that what might be permitted »t Simla euuld hardly be endured in Wiltshire and, again, Suzette threatened to go back to her convent if she were not to be trusted with the conduct of her own life. If I cannot take care of myself I am only fit for a cloister," she said. I would rather b3 a lay sister, and scrub floors, than be led about by some prim personage, paid to watch and ward over me, a hired guardian of my manners and my eomplexiou." Mrs Mornington, who wa3 less conventional than the rest of the General's womankind, put in her word for her niece. Suzette wants no chaperon while I am living within five minutes' walk," she said. She can some to me in all her little domestic difficulties rod as for parties, she is not likely to be asked to kny ceremonious affair to which I shall not be isked too." Mrs Mornington had been as kind and helpful as she had promised to be and in all domestic oruxes, in all details of home life, in the arrange- ment of a dinner or the purchase of household goods Suzette had taken connsel with her aunt. The meadows appertaining to the Grove and the Marsh House kitchen garden were conterminous, and a gate had been made in the fence, so that Suzette could run to her aunt at any hour, wih. oat hat or glove". and without showing on the highroad. If ever we quarrel, that gate will have to be nailed up," said Mrs Mornington. It makes a quarrel much more awful when there is a com- munication of that kind. The walling up of a gate is a public manifesto. If ever we bar cacli other out, Suzette, all Matcham will know it within twenty-four hours." Suzette was not afraid that the gate would have to be nailed up. She was fond of her aunt, and fnlly appreciated that lady's hard-headed quali- ties but although she went to her aunt Morn- inigton for advice about the gardener and the cook, the etiquette of invitations and the law of selection with reference to a dinner-party, it was to Mrs Wornock she went for sympathy in the higher needs of life it was to Mrs Wornock she revealed the mysteries of he heart and her imaginations. I seem to have known you all my life," she told that lady; and I am never afraid of being troublesome." You never can be troublesome," Mrs Wornock answered, lookmg at her with admiring affection. I don't know what I should do with- out you, Suzette. Yon aDd Allan have given my poor wornouflife a new brightness." Allan How fond you are of Allan," Bnzette said, musingly. It seems so strange that you should have taken him to your heart so qtiickly—only because he is like your son." Not only on that account, Suzette. That was the beginning. I am fond of Allan for his own eake. His fine character has endeared him tome." "You think he has a fine character ?" Think I know he has. Surely you know him too, Suzie. You ought to have learnt his value by this time." Yes; I know he is good, generous, honest, and tiue. His love for his fucher is very beautiful —and yet he found time to come all this way to tpend an hour or two with unworthy, frivolous me." He did not tlunk that a Merifice, S»»e, for he adores you." You really think sq—that he cares as much as that ?" I am very sure that he loves with his whole heart and mind, as his father—may have done before him," Oh, his father would have been in earnest, I haYf no doubt, in any affection but I doubt if he was ever tremendously in love with Lady Emily. She is all that is sweet and dear in her frank, homely way, but not a person to inspire a grande passion. Allan's father must have loved and lost in his early youth. There is a shade of melan- eholy in his voice and manner—nothing gloomy or dismal—but just) that touch of seriousness which tells of deep thoughts. He is a most interesting man. I wish you could have seen him while he was at Beeohurst. I fear he will never leave Fendyke again." Mrs Wornock sighed and sat silent, while fiuzette went to the piano and played a short fugue by their favourite Sebastian Bach—played with tender touch, lengthening out every slow passage in her pensive reverie. There had been no more concertante duets. Geoffrey had entreated her to go on with their mutual study of De Beriot and the old composers, CorelJi, Tartini, and the resit, but she had obstinately refused. "The music was difficult and tiring," she said. This was her first excuse. Wo will play simpler music—the lightest we Ban find. There are plenty of easy duets." Please don't think we capricious if I confess that I don't care about playing with the violin. It tnkflo too much out of one. I am too anxious." Why should you be anxious? I am not going to be angry or disagreeable at your brioches— thould you make any." She still refused, lightly but persistently and be saw that she had made up her mind. [ begin to understand," he said, with an offended air and there was never any further talk pf Suzette as an accompanist. Geoffrey was seldom at home in the daytime after this refusal, and life at the Manor dropped back into the old groove. Mrs Wornock and Suzette spent some hours of every day together and, now that the weather often marie the garden impossible, the organ and piano afforded their hief occupation and amusement. Suzette was enthusiastic, and pleased with her own improve- ment under her friend's guidance. It was not 30 much tuition as sympathy which the elder woman gave to the younger. Suzette'* musical talent, since she left her convent, had been withering in an atmosphere of chilling indifference. Her father liked to be played to sleep after dinner! but he hardly knew one air from another, and he Balled everything his daughter played Rubinstein. Wonderful fellow that Rubinstein he used to say. "There poems no end to his compositions and, to my notion, they've only one fault, they're all alike." Suzette heard of Gregory, though she rarely law him. His mother talked of him daily; but there was a regretful tone in all her talk, (fothing at Discombe seemed quite satisfactory to the son and heir. His horses were failures. The huuting was bad—" rotten," Geoffrey called tt, but could give no justification for his charge of rottenness. The sport might be good enough for the neighbours in general but it was not good enough for a man who had run the whole gamut of sport in Bengal, under the best possible Conditions. Geoffrey doubted if there was any hunting worth talking about, except in the shires or in Ireland. He thought of going to Ireland iJirecrly after Chn,.¡tlJ}. "He is bored and unhapgy here, Suzette." Mrs Wornock said one morning, wbA" Suzette found, her partIcularly low spirited. The fifo that suits Allan, Mid other young men in the neighbourhood Is not good enough for Geoffrey. He has been spoilt by Fortune, perhaps—or it is his sad in- heritance. I was an unhappy woman when he was born, and a portion of my sorrow has descended on my son." This was the first time ahe had ever spoken to tmmto*. tor pub U* Borrow* You must not think that, dear Mrs Wornock. Your son is tired of this humdrum country life, and he'll be all the better and brighter for a change. Let him go to Ireland aud hunt. He will he so much the fonder of you when he comes back." Mrs Wornock sighed, and began to walk about the room in a restless way. Oh, Suzette, Suzette," she said, I am very unhappy about him. I don't know what will become of us, my son and me. We have all the elements of happi- ness, and yet we are not happy." It was a month after the little dinner at Marsh House, and Suzatte and bar sweetheart had not met since that evening. There had been no change for the better in Mr Qarew's condition and Allan had felt it impossible to leave the father over whose dwindling hours the shadow of the end was stealing gently, gradually, inevitably. There were days when all was hushed and still as at the approach of doom—when the head of the household lay silent and exhausted within closed doors, and all Allan could do was to comfort his mother in her aching anxiety. This he did with tenderestj thoughtfulness, cheering her, sustaining her, tempting her out into the gardens and meadows, beguiling her into temporary forgetful- nec.s of the sorrow that was so near. There were happier—or seemingly happier—days, when the invalid was well enough GO sit in his library, among the books which had been his life com- panions. In these waning hours he could only handle his books, fondle them, as it were, slowly turning the leave?, reading a paragraph here and there, or pausing to contemplate the outside of a volume, in love with a tasteful binding, the creamy vellum, or gold diapered back, the painted edges, the devices to which he had given such careful thought in the uneventful years, when collecting and rebinding these books had been the most serious business of his life. He laid down one volume and took up another, capriciously— sometimes with an impatient, sometimes with a regretful, sigh. He could not read more than a page without fatigue. His eyes clouded and his head ached at any sustained exertion. His son kept him company through the grey winter day, in the warm glow of the luxurious room, sheltered by tapestry portieres and tall Indian screens. His son fetched and carried for him, between the book-table by the hearth and the shelves that lined the room from floor to ceiling, and filled an ante-room beyond, and overflowed into the corri- dor. My day is done," George Carew said with a sigh. These books have been my life, Allan, and now I have outlived them. The zest is gone out of them all and now in these last days I know what a mistake my life has been. Lbt no man live as I have done, and think that he is wise. A life without variety or action is some- thing less than life. Never envy the student his peaceful, meditative days. Be sure that when the end is near he will look back, as I do, and feel that he has wasted his life-yos, even though he leave some monumental work which the world will treasure when he is in the dust—monument more lasting than brass, grander than marble. The man himself, when tha shadows darken round him, will know how much ho has lost. Life means action, Allan, and variety, and the know- ledge of this glorious world into which we are born. The student is a worm and no man. Let no sorrow or disappointment ever blight your life as mine has been blighted." Dear father, I have always known there was a cloud upon your life-but at least you have made others happy—as hu&band, father, master, »» I have not been a domestic tyrant. That is about the best I can say for myself. I have been tolerably indulgent to the kindest of wives. I have loved my only son. Small merits these in a man whose home life has been cloudless. But I might have done better, Allan. I might have risen superior to that youthful sorrow. I might have taken my dear Emily closer to my heart, travelled over this varied world with her, shown her all that is strangest and fairest under far-off skies instead of letting her vegetate here. I might have gone into Parliament, put my shoulder to the wheel of progress—help as other irtfen help, with unselfish toil, struggling on hopefully through the great dismal swamp of mistake and muddle-headedness. Better, far better, any life of laborious endeavour, even if futile in .result, than the cultured idlers' paradise—better far for me, since in such a life I have forgotten the past, and might have been a cheerful companion in the present. I chose to feed my morbid fancies to live the life of retrospection and introspection and now that the end has come, I begin to understand what a contemptible creature I have been." "Contemptible! My dear father, if every student were so to upbraid himself after a life of plain living and high thinking, such as you have led "Plain living and high thinking of very little good, Allan, if they result in no useful work. Plain living and high thinking may be only a polite synonym for selfish sloth." Father, I will not hear you depreciate your- self." I it was Geoffrey. "My dear son It is soreething to have won your love." And my mother. Is it not something to have made her happy?" For that I must thank her own sweet dis- position. My reproach is that I might have made her happier. I have wronged her by brooding over an old sorrow." "She has not been jealous of the love that came before you belonged to her. She loves and honours you." Far beyond my merits. Providence baa been very good to me, Allan." There was a silence. More books were asked for and brought, languidly opened, languidly closed, and laid aside. Yes, the zest had gone out of them. The languor of excessive weakness can find no beauty even in things most beautiful. CHAPTER XVI. ''Chance Cannot Change my Leve. nor Time Impair," Suzette endured her lover's absence with a philosophical cheerfulness which somewhat sur- prised her aunt. Upon my word, Suzie, I am half inclined to think that you don't care a straw for Allan," Mrs Mornington exclaimed one day, when her niecc came singing across the wintry lawn, crisp under her footsteps after the morning frost. Suzette looked angribr than her aunt had ever seen her look till this moment. Auntie, how can you say anything so horrid Not care fer Allan 1 When he is in sad trouble, too This morning's letter gives a most melan- choly account of his father. I fear the end must be very near. It was very wrong of me to come running and singing over the grass but these frosty mornings are so delicious. Look at that glorious blue up there "And when all is over Allan will come back to you, I suppose 1 I must say you have endured the separation in the calmest way." "Why should I make myself unhappy about it? I know that it is Allan's duty to be at Fen- dyke. The only thing I regret is that I can't be there too, to cheer him a little in his sorrow." "And you do no mind being parted from him. Yon can live without him ?" Suzette smiled at the sentimental question from the lips of her practical aunt, whose ideas seemed rarely to soar above the daily cares of housekeep- ing and the consideration of twopence as against twopence halfpenny. I have had to live without him for over twenty years, auntie." t. YíJg, but I thought that the moment a girl was engaged she found life impossible in the absence of her sweetheart." I think that kind of girl must be very empty headed." And your little brains are well furnished- nnd then you have Mrs Wornock and her son to fiil up your days," said Mrs Mornington. with a searching look. "I have Mrs Wornock, and I am very fond of her. I spe very little of Mrs Wornock's son." Where is he, then? I thought he was at the her. I spe very little of Mrs Wornock's son." Where is he, then? I thought he was at the Manor." I I-Iki is seldom at horre in the day bime, and I am never there in the evening:" I And so you never meet. You ar& like Box and Cox. So much the more satisfactory for Allan, I should say:' "Really, aunt, yon are in a, most provoking mood this morning. I'm afraid the butcher's book must be heavier than it ought to be." I, It was 'fuesday-l'iIrs !Y!')rnington's terrible day —the day on which the tradesmen's books came up for judgment: a day on which the cook trembled, and even the housemaids felt the electricity in the atmosphere. Seven and twenty shillings higher than it ought to be," said the lady but that isn't what set me thinking about you and Allan. I have been thinking about you for ever 80 long. I'm afraid you are not so fond of him as you ought to be." Auntie, you have no right to say that." Why not, pray, miss ?" Because, perhaps, if you had not urged me to accept him, I might not have said Yes' when he asked me the second time. Oil, pray don't look so frightened. I am very fond of him—very fond of him. I know that ho is good and true and kind, and that he loves me better than I deserve to be loved, and thinks me better than I am-cleverer, prettier, altogether superior to my work-a-day self. And it is very sweet to have a lover who thinks of one in that exalted way. But I am not romantically in love, auntie. I don't bolieve that it is 1Q my nature to be romantic. I see the bright and happy sIde of life. I see things to laugh at. I am nob senti- mental." Well, I daresay Allan con get oq withcMfa •< ti —»>, so long as he knows you HkehfR better than anybody else in the world and now, as there is no reason whatever for delay, the sooner you marry him the better." "I am afraid he will lose his father before long, auntie and then he can't marry for at least a year." Nonsense, child. He won't be a widow. I dare say Lady Emily will be marrying by that time. Three months will be quite long enough for Allan to wait. You can make the wedding as quiet as you like." Suzette did not prolong the argument. The subject was too remote to need discussion. Mrs Mornington went back to her tradesmen's books, and Suzette left her absorbed in the calculation of legs and sirloins, and the deeper mystery of soup meat and gravy beef. Christmas had come and gone, a very tranquil season at Matchain, marked only by the decora- tion of the church and the new bonnets in the tradespeople's pews. It was a dull, grey day at the end of the year, the last day but one, and Suzetto was walking home in the early dusk after what she called a long morning with Mrs Wornock, a long morning which generally lasted till late in the afternoon. But these mid-winter days were too short to allow of Suzette walking home alone after tea so unless her own or her aunt's pony- carriage was coming for her, she left Mrs Wornock before dusk. To-day Mrs Wornock had been sadder even than her wont, as if saddened by the last news from Fendyke, and sorrowing for Allan's loss so Suzette had stayed longer than usual, and as she walked homeward the shadows of evening began to fall darkly, and the leafless woods looked black against the faint pale saffron of the western sky. The sun had shown himself only an hour before his setting, a pale and wintry sun. Presently in the stillness she heard horses' hoofs walking slowly on the moist road, and the next turn in the path showed her Geoffrey Wornock, in his red coat, leading his horse. It was the first time they had met since her refusal to play any more duets with him, and, without knowing why, she felt considerable embarrassment at the meeting, and was sorry when he stopped to shake hands with her— I stopped as if he meant to enter into conversation. Going home alone in the dark, Miss Vin- cent?" I Yes, the darkness comes upon one unawares in these short winter days. I stayed with Mrs Wornock because she seemed out ot spirits. I am glad you are home early to cheer her." "That is tantamount to saying you are glad I 'I have lamed my horse. I should be on the other side of Andover, in one of the best runs of the season, if it were not for that fact. When one is I thrown out, the run is always quite the best—or so ones' dear friends tell one afterwards." "I am sorry for your horse. I hope he isn't much hurt ?" I "I don't know. Lameness in a horse is generally an impenetrable mystery. One only knows that he is lame. The stable will find half a dozen theories to account for it, and the vet will find a seventh, and very likely they may all be wrong. I'll walk with you to the high road at least, And give the poor horse extra work. Not for the world." "Then I'll take him on till I am within halloo of the stables, and then come back to you, if you'll walk on very slowly." Pray don't I an: not at all afraid of the dusk." "Please walk slowly," lie answered, looking back at her and hurrying on with his horse. Suzette was vexed at his persistence; but she did not want to be rude to him, were it only for his mother's sake. How much better it would have been had he gone straight home to cheer that fond mother by his company, instead of wasting his time by walking to Matcham, as he would perhaps insist upon doing. He looked white and haggard, Suzette thought but that might only be the effect of the dim, grey light, or it might be that he was tired after a laborious day. She had not much time to think about him. His footsteps sounded on the road behind her. He was running to overtake her. It occurred to her that she might turn this per- sistence oi: his to good account. She might talk to him about his mother, and urge him to spend a little more of his time at home, and do a little more to cheers that lonely life. I met one of the lads," he said, and got rid of that poor brute." I am so sorry you should think it necessary to come with me." You mean that you are sorry that I should snatch a brief and perilous joy—half an hour in your company—after having having abstained from pleasure and peril so long." If you are going to talk nonsense I shall go back to the house and ask your mother to send me home in her bronghnm." Then I won't talk nonsense. I don't want to offend you you are so easily uffended. Some- thing offended you in our duets. What was it, I I wonder ? Some ignorant sin ot mine ? some pas- sage played troppo appassionato ? some long- lingering chord that sounded like a sigh from an over-laden heart ? Did the music speak too plainly, Suzette ? This is too bad of you exclaimed Suzette, pale with anger you rake a mean advantage of finding me alone here. I won't walk another step with you." She turned and walked quickly in the opposite direction as she spoke, but she was some distance from the house, at least ten minutes' walk, and her heart sank at the thought of how much Geoffrey Wornock could say to her in ten minutes. Her heart was beating violently, louder and faster thau she had ever felt it beat. Did it matter so much what nonsense ho might talk to her—mere idle froth from idle lips ? Yes, it seemed to her to matter very much. She would be guilty of unpardonable treason to Allan if she let this man talk. It seemed to her as if these wild words of his—mere rodoinontade-n-iade an epoch in her life. He seized her by the arm with passionate vehemence, but not roughly. Suzette Suzette you must—you shall hear me he said. "Go which way you will, I go with you. I did not mean to speak. I have tried- honestly-to avoid you. Short of leaving this place altogether, I have done my uttermost. But Fate meant us to meet, you see. Fate lamed my horse-the soundest hunter of them all. Fate sent you by this lonely path at the nick of time. You shall hear me Say what you like tome when you have heard. Be as hard, as cruel, as constant to your affianced lover as you please but you shall know that you have another lover-a. lover who has been silent until to-night, but who loves you with a love which is his doom. Who says that about love and doom ? Shakespeare or Tennyson, I suppose. Those two fellows have said every- thing. Mr Wornock, you are very cruel," she faltered. You know how dearly I love your mother, and that I wouldn't for the world do anything to wound her feelings, but you are making it impossible for me ever to enter her house again." Why impossible ? Yon are trembling, Suzette. Oil, my love my dear, dear love, you tremble at my touch. My words go homo to your heart. Suzette, that other man has not all your heart. If he had yoa would not have been afraid to go on with our music. If your heart was his, Orpheus himself could not have moved you." I was not ahaid, You are talking nonsense. I left off playing because AUan did not like to see me absorbed in an occupation which he could not share. It was myjduty to defer to his opinion." Ye, he heard, he understood. He knew that my heart was going out to yon—my longing pas- sionate heart. He could read my mystery, though you could not. Suzette, is it hopeless for me? Is he verily and indeed the chosen? Or do you care for him only because he came to you first-when you knew not what love means ? You gave your- self lightly because he is what people call a good fellow. He cannot love you as I love you,Suzette. Love is something less than all the world for him. No duty beside a father's sick-bed would keep me from my dearest, If she were mine. I would be your slave. I could live upan one kind word a month, if only I might be near you to behold and adore." He had released her arm, but he was walking close by her side, still in the direction of the Manor House, she hurrying impetuously, trying to conquer her agitation, trying to make light of his foolishness, and yet deeply moved. You are very unkind," Rha said at last, with a piteousjiess that was like the complaint of a child. Unkind I am a miserable wretch pleading for life, and you call me unkind. Suzette have pity on me I have not succnmbed without a struggle. I loved you from the hour we met- from that first hour when my heart warmed in the sunlight of your eyes. On looking back, it seems to me now that I must have so loved you from the beginning. I can recali no hour in which I did not love you. But I have fought the good fight, Suzette. Self-banished from the presence I love, I have lived between earth and sky, until, though I have something of the sportsman's instinct, 1 have come almost to hate the musio of the hounds and the call of the huntsman's horn, because in every mile my horse galloped he was carrying me further from you, and every hour I spent far afield was an hour I might have spent with you." It is cruel of you to persecute me like this." No, no, Suzette you must not talk of per- secution. If I am rough and vehement to-night, it is because I am resolute to ask the question that has been burning on my lips ever since I knew you. I will not be put off from that. But once the question asked and answered I have done, and, if it must be so, you have done with me. There shall be no such thing as persecution. 11 am here at your side, yonr Afvoted lover—nr better man than Allan Oarew, bat I tbir»v good a. man, with as fair a record, of an old and honourable race, richer in this world's gear but that's not much to such a woman as Suzette, It is for you to choose between us and it is not because you said yes to him before you had ever seen my face that you are to say no to me, if there is the faintest whisper in your heart that pleads for me against him." She stood silent, her eyelids drooping over her eyes that were not tearless. His words thrilled her, as his violin had thrilled her sometimes in some lingering, plaintive strain of old-world melody. His face was near hers, and his hand was on her shoulder, retaining her. The intellectuality, the refinement of the delicately chiselled features, the pallor of the clear complexion was intensified by the dim light. She could not but feel the charm of his manner. He was like Allan-yet how unlike There was a fascination in this face, a music in this voice, which were wanting in Allan. frank, and bright, and honest, and true though he was. There was in this man just the element of poetry and unreasoning impulse which influence a woman in her first youth more than all the manly virtues that ever went to the making of the Christian Hero. Suzette had time to feel the power of that personal charm before she collected herself suffi. ciently to answer him with becoming firmness. r, (-u some moments she was silent, under the influence of a spell which she knew must be fatal to her paace and Allan's happiness, should she weakly yield. No, she would not be so poor, so fickle a creature. She would be staunch and true, worthy of Allan's Jove and of her father's confidence. Why, if I were to palter with the situation," she thought-" if I were to play fast and loose with Allan, my father might think he had been mistaken in trusting me without a chaperon. Ho would never respect me or believe me again. And Allan? What could Allan think of me were I capable of betraying him ?" Her heart turned cold at the idea of his in- dignation, grief, disgust at woman's perfidy. She knew not whether ang-er or sorrow would prevail. She conquered her agitation with an effort, and answered this troublesome lover as lightly as she could. She did not want Geoffrey to know how he had shaken her nerves by this unexpected appeal. He commenced to read the manuscript. She knew now, standing by his side, with that eloquent face so near her own, that musical voice pleading to lier-she knew how often his image had been present to her thoughts at Discombe Manor, while he himself was far away. It is very foolish of you to waste such big words upon another man's sweetheart," she said, Pray believe that when I accepted Allan Carew as my future husband I accepted him once and for ever. There was no question of seeing some- one else a little later, and liking someone else a little better. There may be girls who do that sort of thing, but I should be sorry that anybody could think me capable of such inconstancy. Allan Carew and I belong to each other for the rest of our lives." Is that a final answer, Miss Vincent Ii Absolutely finaJ." Then I can say no more, except to ask you., forgiveness for having said so much already. If you will go on to tho house, and talk to my mother for a few minutes, I'll go to the stables a.nd order the brougham to take you home. It is too dark for yon to walk home alone." There was no occasion for the brougham. A pair of lamps in the drive announced the arrival of Miss Vincent's pony cart, which had been sent to fetch her, CHAPTER XVIL At Evensong. The windows were darkened at Fendyke. The passing bell had tolled the years of the life that was done, sounding solemnly and slowly across the level fields, the deep narrow river, the mill- streams and pine-woods, the scattered hamlets lying far apart on the great flat, where the sun- sets linger late and long. All was over, and Allan had to put aside his own sorrow in order to comfort his mother, who was heart-broken at the loss of a husband she had idolized, with a love so quiet and unobstrusive, so little given to senti- mental utterances, that it might have been mis- taken for indifference, She wandered about the darkened house like some lost soul in the dim under-world, unable to think of anything, or to speak of anything but her loss. She looked to Allan for everything, asserted her authority in no detail. "Let all be as he wished," she said to her son. Let us only think of pleasing him. You know what he would like, Allan. You were with him so much towards the last. He talked to you so freely. Think only of him and of his wishes." She could not divest herself of the idea that her husband was looking on at aIr that happened, that this or that arrangement might be displeasing to him. Shewassure that he would wish the stern- est simplicity as to the funeral. His own farm labourers were to carry him to his grave, and the huiial was to be at dusk. He had himself pre- scribed those two conditions. He wished to be laid in his grave at set of sun, when the hireling's daily toil was over, and the humblest of his neighbours could have leirure to follow him to his last bed. And then he had quoted Parson Hawker's touching lines Sunset should be the time, they said, To close their brother's narrow bed. 'Tis at that pleasant hour of day The labourer treads his homeward way. His work is o'er, his toil is done, And therefore at the set of sun, To wait the wages of the dead, We lay our hireling in his bed." Those lines were written for the tillers of the earth but George Carew's thoughts of himself were as humble as if he had been the lowest of day labourers. Indeed, in those closing hours of life, when the record of a man's existence is suddenly spread out before him like the scroll which the prophet laid before the king, there is much in that comprehensive survey to humilitate the proudest of God's servants, much which makes him who has laboured strenuously despair at the insufficiency of the result, the unprofitable- ness of his labour. How, then, could such a man as George Carew fail to perceive his ^unworthi- ness t-a man who had let life go by him, who done nothing, save by a careless automatic beni- ficience, to help or better his feilow-men, to whom duty had been an empty word, and the Christian religion a lifeless formula. The Squire of Fendyke was laid to rest in the pale twilight of early March, the winter birds sounding their melancholy evensong as the coffin was lowered into the grave. The widow and her son stood side by side, with those humbler neigh. hours and dependents clustering round them. No one had been biclden to the funeral, no hour had been named, and the gentry of the district, whose houses laid somewhat wide apart, knew nothing of the arrangements till afterwards. There were no empty carriages to testify to the decent grief, which stays at home, while liveried servants offer "the tribute of solemn faces and black gloves. Side by side Lady Emily and her son walked through the grounds of Fendyke to the churchyard adjoining. The wintry darkness had fallen gently on those humble graves when the last Amen had been spoken, and mother and son turned slbwly and sadly towards the desolate home. Allan stayed In his mother's eittiug-room till after midnight, talking of their dead. Lady Emily found a sad pleasure in talking of the husband she had lost, in dwelling fondly upon his virtues, his calm and studious life, bis non- interference with her household arrangements, his perfect contentment with the things that satisfied her. ^There never was a better husband, Allan," she said, with a tearful sigb, "and yet I know I was not his first love." "Not his first love. Alas! no, poor soul," mused Allan, when he had bidden his mother good night, and was seated alone in front of his father's bureau, alone in the dead middle of the night, steeped in the vivid light of the large reading-lamp, under its spreading silken shade, while all the rest of the room was in shadow. Not his first love Poor mother. It is happy for you that you know not how near that first love was to being the last and only lova of your husband's life. Thanlc God you did not know." Often in those quiet days in the old Suffolk manor house, while his father was gradually fading out of life, Allan had argued with himself as to whether it was or not his duty to reveal Mrs Wornock's identity with the woman to whom George Carew bad dedicated a lifetime of regret, and to give his father the option of summoning that sad ghost out of the past, of clasping once again the vanished hand, and hearing the voice that had so long b6en unheard. There would have been rapture, perhaps, to the dying man in one brief hour of reunion but that hour could not give back youth, or youthful dreams. There would have been the irony of fate in a meeting on the brink of the grave, and whatever touch of feverish gladness there might have been for the dying in that brief hour, its after consequences would have been full of evil for the mourning wife. Better, infinitely better, that she should never know the romance of her husband'n youth, never be able to identify the woman he loved, or to inflict upon her own tender heart the self- torture of comparison with such a woman as Mrs Wornock. For Lady Emily, in her happy ignorance of all details, that early love was but a vngue memory of a remote past, a mf'mory too shadowy to be the cause of retrospective jealousy. She knew that her husband had loved and sorrowed and she knew no more. It must needs be painful to her to identify bis lost love in the person of a lady whom her son valued as a friend, and to whom her son's fntnre wife was warmly attached. Allan had felt therefore that he was fuHy justified in leaving Mrs Wornock's story unrevealed, even though by that silence he deprived the man who had loved her of the last tearful farewell, the final touch of hands that had long been parted. He was full of sadness to-night as he turned the key in the lock, and lifted the heavy lid of the bureau at which he had so often seen his father seated arranging letters and papers with neat, leasurely hands, and that pensive placidity which characterised all the details of his life. That bureau was the one repository for all papers of a private nature, the one spot peculiarly associated with him whom they had laid in the grave at svensong. No one else had ever written on that desk, or possessed the keys of those quaintly inlaid drawers. And now the secrets of the dead were at the mercy of the survivors, so far as he had left any trace of them among those neatly rtocketted papers, those packets of letters folded and tied with red tape, or packed in large envelopes, I sealed, and labelled. Allan touched those packets with reverent hands, glanced at their endorsement, and replaced them in the drawers or pigeon-holes as he had found them. He was looking for the manuscript of which his father had told him the story of a love which never found its earthly close." Yes, it was here, under his hand athm octavo, bound in limp morocco, a manuscript of something less than a hundred pages, in the hand he knew so well, the small, neat. hand that, to Allan's fancy, told of the leisurely life, the mind free from fever and fret, the heart that beat in slow time, and had long outlived the quick alter- nations of passionate feeling. Allan drew his chair nearer the lamp, and began to read. (To bee-ontinttcd. J

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